Текст книги "Days of the Vipers"

Автор книги: James Swallow

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 17 (всего у книги 30 страниц)

“You have a theory?” Ico said blandly. “Oh, please do enlighten us.”

Dukat’s hand balled into a fist, and he resisted the urge to backhand the insouciant smile off the woman’s face. “How many agents of the Obsidian Order have you inserted into Bajor since the first contact delegation, I wonder? Five, ten? Twenty? A hundred?” Dukat stabbed a finger at Kell. “More than he knows of, I would imagine.”

Ico’s insipid smile never faltered, not for one moment. “I’m afraid I don’t follow you, Dal. I have no knowledge of espionage. I’m only a scientist, a cultural ethnologist and observer.”

“Of course you are,” Dukat retorted. “A very well-informed, very well-connected scientist. And yet there seems to be precious little of your work in the public record, Professor Ico. When did you last publish? There was nothing current in Cardassia’s libraries that I could find before I left for Bajor.”

Her smile widened. “You wanted to learn more about me? Oh, I’m flattered.”

The woman wasn’t going to give him anything that easily, he could see it in her manner. He looked at Kell, seeking a softer target. “She told you what happened, didn’t she? That’s why she’s here.”

The jagul eyed him. “Contrary to what you might believe, Dukat, there are decisions made above your rank that you are not and will never be privy to.”

Dukat glared at Ico. “The Obsidian Order destroyed the Lhemor.It wasn’t the Tzenkethi. Even with the holes in the Bajoran security perimeter, the Tzenkethi would never have been allowed to do something like this. Wewould have stopped them first.”

Ico inclined her head and mused, as if Dukat were positing some mildly diverting conundrum for her to untangle. “An interesting supposition. Let’s consider that possibility, then, shall we? Purely as a hypothetical thought experiment, you understand?” She straightened in her chair. “Imagine that the Obsidian Order did indeed initiate the destruction of the freighter Lhemorand the resultant loss of life, both Oralian and Bajoran—”

“There were Union soldiers on that station as well,” Dukat grated.

The woman continued. “What motive might the Order have for such a deed?”

“Chaos and mayhem are your stock-in-trade,” he spat.

“You thrive on it. Keep others off balance while you plot and scheme.”

Ico chuckled. “I would imagine that chaos is far from the goal of the Obsidian Order. Such organizations seek stability, Dukat. Harmony for all Cardassia.” She shook her head. “No, I submit to you that, given the scenario you imagined, the net result of the Lhemor’s destruction will bring a staged change in Bajoran extraplanetary policy that will bring them closer to the Cardassian aegis—”

“You spineless fools.” He snarled the words, heavy with venom, and with such vehemence that for the first time Ico’s featureless mask of indifference slipped.

“Watch your tone!” Kell snorted. “I’ll have you cashiered.”

Dukat ignored the threat. “Thatis the endgame for your great plan? You’ve been here for five years and that is the best you can do?” He snorted derisively. “You don’t know anything about these people! Both of you, you sit cosseted inside your compound and your enclave, playing off against one another, living well while Cardassia continues to starve!” He was shouting now, anger roiling in the air like smoke, and he glared at the woman. “Obsidian is opaque, but you are transparent. Do you think that your desires are hidden from the rest of us?” He leaned forward. “I know what you want. I know all about the legends of the Orbs.”

When Ico spoke again, her voice was icy and he knew he had struck a nerve. “A metered progression is the best approach to any cultural intervention when direct military force is not an option.”

Dukat sneered. “I understand why I was sent here now. You’ve become comfortable and hidebound, like the Bajorans. What’s needed here is boldness.” He shot Kell a hard look. “Temerity,Jagul.”

Kell came to his feet. “You insubordinate whelp! How dare you stand before me and judge my orders! You will respect my rank and do as I command you!”

“No.” Ico stopped Kell dead with a single word. She wasn’t looking at them anymore. Instead, the woman’s eyes were unfocused, seeing inward. “He’s correct.”

“What?” Kell’s bluster faltered.

“He’s right. It has been five years, and still Bajor remains in a state of grace, outside the rule of Cardassia. We have been remiss. Too much effort spent on infrastructure and not enough on operational concerns…” She turned to face Dukat, and it was as if he were looking at a different person. The studied mien of Rhan Ico faded like mist and in its place there was a dissimilar woman. She looked at Dukat in the way that he would sight down the barrel of a weapon toward a target, nodding to herself. “Let me cut to the heart of your frustration, Dukat,” she told him.

“What angers you about the Lhemoris not that the ship was obliterated, that Bajorans and Oralians, even loyal Cardassian soldiers, died in honorable service to the needs of their nation…” Ico shook her head gently. “No, the root of your fury is that the military was kept in the dark. Youwere kept in the dark.”

Dukat’s jaw set hard, his skin stiffening with annoyance. If there had been any doubt still remaining in his mind that Ico was in the Obsidian Order’s service, it fled now in the face of her cool insight.

The edges of a cruel smile tugged at the corners of her lips. “But the time for that is over. Perhaps we can use your passion to a better end.” She studied him, looking him up and down. “What do you have to offer your Union, Dukat? Are you just an ordinary officer with pretensions above his station…or could you rise above your rank to become something more?”

“I will do what Cardassia requires of me.” He bit out the words. “Even if that means I must serve alongside you.”

Ico looked at Kell. “The dal has brought me some fresh perspective, Jagul. It’s time to move things along. We must work harder to isolate the Oralians and reinforce Cardassia’s influence over this planet.”

“And how do you propose we accomplish that?” Kell demanded.

“I can tell you how,” Dukat replied. “I understand these aliens. I’ve seen how they think, how they feel, and what they want.” Unbidden, memories surfaced in his thoughts. On the battlements of the Naghai Keep on the eve of the great feast. Dukat and the lawman, Darrah, talking as two men, nothing more; then again, in the corridors of the castle, as hate filled him and the need to take Hadlo’s life burned in his skin.The Bajoran’s words came back to in him a flash of insight. We’re a passionate people. We get so angry about things we lose focus on everything else.“The Bajorans hold grudges forever,” he told them.

“They nurture them like their children. All we need to do to blindside these people is to bring them to rage. You only made them afraid. We need to make them furious.”

“I refer you to my earlier statement.” Kell was sour.

Dukat leaned forward and picked up a padd from the jagul’s desk. On it was a report of two Bajoran warships that had recently departed the star system. The raw anger he had felt when he entered the room waned, replaced by a colder, more controlled resentment. They were forming a pact here, he realized. Without open words or accords, Dukat, Ico, and Kell were opening the way to the fall of an entire civilization. For the good of Cardassia. For Athra and my family.

“I know exactly how to do it,” he told them.

Lonnic entered the Clarion’s triangular bridge at the apex, the hatch doors retracting into the deck at her approach. On the upper tier of the command deck men and women in gray uniforms sat working consoles, and on the lower level in the engineering pits she saw enlisted crew busy at banks of power controls. Colonel Li’s station was offset to the starboard side, ringed with elliptical panels that relayed all the data the ship’s commander required from the heavy assault ship’s systems.

The Clarionwas unlike the scouts of the Jas clan’s fleet or the civilian liners Lonnic was familiar with. The military ship was all steel walls and sparse construction; the compartment they had provided her with was barely the width of her closet back home on Bajor, with a netting hammock-bed instead of the sleeping pallet she was used to.

Li beckoned her across the bridge, speaking to one of the other crew members. “Does it match the profile we have in our database?”

The officer nodded. “Confirmed, Colonel. It’s not a target we’ve designated before, but the energy silhouette and warp trail decay curve are right on the line.”

“Good. Start a sensor file on this one, designate it as required, and then have the navigator plot me a speed course for intercept.”

“Acknowledged.” The officer stepped away, and Li turned his attention to the adjutant.

“Ms. Lonnic. I wanted to let you know. The crew of one of your scoutships, the Kylen,has reported in. They’ve confirmed a report we received of a possible Tzenkethi contact a few light-years from our current position. Those sensors of theirs are quite impressive.”

She nodded. “We’re going to approach it, then?”

“Just as soon as I have my ship in order. I want to get this done quickly and cleanly, then get home to my wife and son.” His words were clipped. Lonnic could see he didn’t want to tarry out here in the depths of the sector any longer than he needed to. Like the rest of the Clarioncrew, he wanted decisive action rather than a long, drawn-out operation.

Something concerned her. “Colonel, you said you received a report? From one of the other vessels?”

He shook his head. “A subspace signal from Bajor, relayed from the crew of a freighter.”

“Who sent the signal?”

He glanced at a console. “It was a ministerial mandate, from the office of Kubus Oak. The freighter is one of his.”

“Kubus?” Lonnic felt herself tense. “With all due respect, Colonel, can you be sure the data is, ah—”

“Trustworthy?” Li broke in. “That’s why I had the Kylenmake a close approach to the location. They confirmed it. A single Tzenkethi marauder at anchor in the Ajir system.”

Lonnic’s mistrust was acid in her throat. “All the same, perhaps we should proceed with caution.”

“My intentions exactly,” he snapped back, prickling at her manner. “And when we’re done with caution, if I detect one atom of explosives on board that ship, we’ll space them.” The colonel shot her another look. “There were friends of mine aboard a Guard cutter tethered to Cemba Station, Ms. Lonnic. Not a one of them got out alive. I intend to offer the Tzenkethi the very same.”

She fell silent. Did Kubus know that Li has a personal stake in this reprisal?The answer was obvious. Of course he does. Doubtless Li Tarka was selected over Jaro Essa to lead the mission for just that reason.

The bridge officer called out to his commander. “Ajir course plotted and laid in, Colonel. Action stations at standby.”

Li settled back into his chair. “Sound alert condition and make for maximum warp cruise. We have some unfinished business to conclude.”

Lonnic glanced up at the tripartite viewscreen just as the Clarionleapt beyond light speed, streaking the darkness with bands of white.

Gar glanced out of the flyer’s sloped window, watching the lowlands flash past in a blur of greenery. In the distance he could see the hazy peaks of the Kendran Range; below the mountains were the floodplains of the River Yolja, but it was impossible to see them through a thick bank of ashen-colored clouds sweeping eastward toward them. In the distance the priest could make out tiny bright glitters where lightning was flashing to the ground. The storm would be upon the lowlands by nightfall, and the summer tempests were always harsh, despite the work of the weather modification satellites.

The sight of the storm deepened Gar’s sense of discomfort, and he turned back to face Pasir in the pilot’s chair. “How much farther?”

“Not far now,” the Cardassian said briskly.

Gar sighed. “Pasir, please, you cannot simply expect me to remain silent while we fly about the planet. You speak of secrets, of something you call the Obsidian Order, and then take this ship without filing a flight plan…”

“I did file a flight plan,” Pasir corrected. “Just not the one we’re actually using.” The flyer hit a thermal, and the alien deftly navigated through it.

“I wasn’t aware you were such an accomplished pilot.”

Pasir shrugged. “I’d imagine there’s much about me you’re unaware of.” He said the words with cold dismissal.

Gar’s resolve hardened. “I think we should turn around,” he said firmly. “Go back to Korto, find Darrah. Whatever your problem is, he will be able to help.”

“That’s not going to happen.”

Gar moved forward, reaching for the communications panel. “I’ll contact him—”

The Cardassian’s hand shot out of his robes with a compact pistol in his grip, and he cracked Gar’s fingers with it, smashing them against the plastic. The Bajoran howled in shock and pain, clutching his broken knuckles to him.

“What do you want?” Gar demanded.

“Silence,” Pasir said, in a voice that was knife-sharp.

He’s going to kill me.The thought pressed into Gar’s mind, sudden and hard. If I don’t get away from him, I will die.

The Cardassian glanced at him. “Don’t do anything else,” he began.

Gar threw himself out of his chair and into the alien, crying out again as he tried to grip Pasir’s gun hand with his ruined fingers. An impact slammed him forward, and he felt the aircraft’s throttle bar shift beneath him. There was a surge of engine noise, and the flyer’s blunt nose slipped off the line of the stormy horizon and down toward the ground.

14

The Tzenkethi ship drifted in the shallows of the gas giant’s outermost atmospheric layer, tracing faint eddies of hydrocarbon-rich mist around it. When in flight mode, the elongated fuselage resembled a smooth, seamless teardrop; the hulls of marauders of this class were inspired by ocean predators from the abyssal deeps of Ab-Tzenketh, but at this moment the clean lines of the vessel were marred by the vent hatches that lay open along its flanks. Absorption grids trawled the planet’s clouds for consumable chemicals and raw matter for the fuel stores, while mile-long antennae no more than the thickness of a hair trailed out behind. The patterns of radiation flux shifting between the gas giant and the numerous moons that crowded its orbit stroked the aerials, and the vessel drew the energy in to bolster its stores.

The ship’s mission was almost at an end. The sortie had been a disappointing one, with little in the way of prey craft to pursue and nothing but dead space and distant sightings in between. In another half-rotation, once the matter banks were fat and sated, they would furl the antennae and close the grids before making a high-speed warp sprint back into Coalition space. Home base would be under their keel soon after.

Inside the ionosphere, the play of the planet’s radiation belts ensured that the Tzenkethi marauder’s sensors were fouled by great drifting clouds of electronic fog; only a small pilot pod in a higher orbit, attached by a diamond-filament tether, floated high enough to be clear of the effects. It was the single crew member aboard the pod who detected the arrival of four starships as they emerged from the sunward side of the gas giant, their shields raised and their weapons running hot.

“Compensating for atmospheric interference…” The Clarion’s deck officer worked his console. “Set. I read a metallic mass in the upper atmosphere, four thousand kellipates distant, quadrant blue.”

“Weapons,” said Colonel Li. “I want synchronous fire. Program for salvo barrage, phasers and missile tubes one through four.”

Lonnic’s fingers gripped the cushioned back of the colonel’s command chair. Standing behind him appeared to be the only place on the assault ship’s bridge where she wasn’t in someone’s way. She saw the formation of the reprisal fleet on one of Li’s consoles. The two scoutships in Minister Jas’s employ were keeping abeam of the bigger military ships. Their forward-mounted phase-cannon turrets lacked the power of the weapons on the battle vessels, but in concert they could still be deadly.

“Merculite warheads loaded in all tubes,” reported the deck officer. “The marauder is reacting. They’re reeling in their observation pod. I’m reading an aspect change.”

“Might be contemplating a dive into the troposphere,” Li said, half to himself. “Can’t have that.” He looked up.

“Sensors! Go to full power, active sweep. Rattle their decks a little.”

“Colonel,” said Lonnic, “are you going to fire on them without any formal declaration?”

He didn’t bother to look at her. “I don’t recall the people on Cemba being given any warning, do you?”

“No…but if the crew of that ship are not responsible, would you want it said that Bajorans showed the same callous disregard for life that the bombers did?”

Li grunted. “Ms. Lonnic, I don’t give a damn what is thought about me. Our space was invaded and an atrocity was committed. If I had my way, it would be classified for what it is. An act of war.”

“Colonel!” Her voice rose. She saw whatever shreds of authority her position as a ministerial adjutant gave her eroding by the second in the face of Li’s grim intent. “We have nothing but circumstantial evidence that the Tzenkethi were even involved!”

“Sensor sweep complete,” said the deck officer. “I can confirm the presence of volatile stocks aboard the alien vessel, sir. Refined triceron, military grade.”

Li looked up at her. “There’s your smoking gun. Do you want me to wait for a signed confession?”

“Many warships carry triceron explosives,” she insisted.

“Colonel, at least offer them a chance to surrender. Otherwise, we’ll never know the truth about what happened.” Lonnic saw the hesitation in his manner and she pushed on. “There could be more devices on Bajor, a network of terror cells, other marauders…There might be valuable intelligence.”

At last the commander nodded. “I’ll admit, the thought had occurred to me.” He gestured to the deck officer. “Suspend firing countdown. Get me communications. Tell the Tzenkethi, stand to and prepare to be boarded.”

“Transmitting,” came the reply.

Lonnic felt cold sweat prickling the back of her neck as she watched the tactical plot on the portside viewscreen. The alien ship did not reply; instead it turned, rising up through the exosphere of the gas giant, gathering itself in.

“Aspect change!” shouted the deck officer. “Marauder entering attack configuration!”

“It seems we have an answer,” Li told her. “Weapons, track and fire—”

On the screen a plume of brilliant white plasma lanced up from the rising shape of the alien ship and flashed past the wing of the Clarion.

A warning shot?The question echoed through her thoughts, even as the realization struck Lonnic that the blast had been anything but that. On the tactical plot, the glyph symbolizing the Kylenblinked twice and vanished. Lonnic’s heart leapt into her throat. There were eight men on that ship, and she knew every one of them.

The scoutship’s fate was sealed when her captain, inexperienced in confrontations with hostiles, moved too far out of the Clarion’s formation. The territory of the Tzenkethi—which the aliens classed as their ship and a generous measure of space around it—was being invaded and their automatic reaction was to take up a belligerent posture. The voices of the invaders they heard over their translator matrix heaped insult upon insult, daring to demand access to the marauder itself. The Tzenkethi crew’s reaction was instant and lethal.

With a near full-energy bank behind it, the plasma projector released a murderous warshot that tore through the Kylen’s shields. Gaseous matter with the temperature of a solar core bored through duranium hull plating and opened the small scoutship to the void. The Kylendisintegrated, speared on a rod of sunfire.

The second scout, the Pajul,peeled off and showed the alien her impulse grids, gaining distance as the Tzenkethi pivoted and charged for a second strike. The alien moved swiftly, turning to avoid a barrage of missile fire from the assault vessels as they detonated in a chain of proximity-fused explosions. The blast wall tore open the pilot pod trailing on its tether, killing the occupant, and slammed a kinetic shock through the marauder’s hull.

Another plasma spear probed out after the Pajul,missing its mark.

Lonnic clung to a stanchion as the Clarion’s gravity compensators struggled to keep up with the ship’s swift maneuvers. She pressed herself against the cold metal, willing herself to diminish. What am I doing here?She cried silently. I can’t stop this! I thought I could, but there’s nothing I can do!A childhood fear surged through her as the assault ship rocked under impacts from the Tzenkethi weapons. Lonnic remembered the ghost stories of her grandfather, of the tales of the dead lost in space who became angry borhyasthat drew on the souls of those about to perish. She felt fear crowding in on her, her blood turning to ice water. In that moment she understood that all the power her esteemed rank could muster on Bajor was utterly worthless to her here; and in her mind’s eye she saw Kubus Oak’s self-indulgent smile, as if he were watching her life tick away and taking amusement from it.

A panel across the bridge flashed with electric discharge and a body fell away from it, skin crisped black-red and wreathed in sweet-smelling smoke. Lonnic fought back a retch from deep in her stomach.

“The Pajul’s taken a glancing hit,” said a voice. She couldn’t be sure who had spoken. “Venting plasma. They’ve dumped their warp core, but they still have mobility.”

“We can’t help them,” Li retorted. “Bring us about, order all ships to put power to weapons. Sweep in and rake the target!”

“Yes, sir!”

The pit of Lonnic’s gut dropped out as the Clarionturned sharply again.

The inner walls of the Tzenkethi ship’s hull were studded with powerful field nodes that reinforced structural integrity and internal gravity envelopes. It was this design aspect that lent a deadly agility to the marauder, allowing the starship to perform actions that craft several times smaller would struggle with. The marauder pivoted, shedding the energy of velocity in a wash of radiation, snapping about to face the two Bajoran assault ships bearing down upon it. Phaser fire ripped across its shields, turning the transparent ovoid barrier orange where each shot landed. Backwash from emitter overloads ran down the length of the marauder even as the ship powered forward. At the last moment, the Bajoran ships broke away in climbing turns—but too slow to avoid the scintillating nimbus of the main plasma cannon. The Glyhrond, Clarion’s sister ship, lost meters of ventral hull plating as the blast blew out her deflectors and scorched an ugly wound along her belly.

Still in a turning fight, Clarioncame on as the Tzenkethi warship crossed over the pole of a rocky moon in close orbit around the gas giant. The marauder angled after the Pajul,snapping after the wounded craft for an easy kill.

“Firing again,” snapped the deck officer, ignoring a cut that streamed blood into his eyes. “Colonel, we’re about to lose shielding fore and aft.”

“Then put all power to the guns,” came the command.

“He’s fixated on that scout. We’ll give him something else to think about.”

Lonnic heard the words but didn’t really take them in. She was terrified, seeing the battle only as fragments, as pieces of the whole. She thought about the men on the Pajul,and in her panic she couldn’t recall the names of any of them. This is wrong. It’s wrong it’s wrong it’s wrong—

“The scout’s lost motion control!” She heard the shout clearly. “Kosst,they’re going to hit it!”

In a last-ditch attempt to extend out of the engagement and put some distance between his ship and the Tzenkethi guns, the captain of the prospector scoutship Pajulchanneled everything he could spare into his failing impulse motors; but with the death of his engineering officer only seconds earlier, there was no one to tell him that the power relays were about to collapse. Something critical fractured inside the Pajul,and it spun out of control toward the marauder instead of away from it.

The Tzenkethi ship wrenched over in a punishing kick-turn, but it was too late. The scout impacted the port quarter of the marauder and skipped off the hull, shredding itself. A power surge threaded through the alien ship, and the sallow glow of the vessel’s intercoolers flickered toward shutdown.

“Pajuldestroyed…Target’s shields are down!”

“What?” Lonnic opened her eyes, expecting the next thing she heard to be the rush of vacuum as the Clarionwas obliterated.

Li was out of his chair, leaning over a sparking console. “What’s the status of the Glyhrond?”he barked.

“Damaged, but stable. They’re operable, but they’re out of the fight.”

Lonnic forced her way forward, stepping over fallen stanchions and waving away clots of acrid smoke. “Colonel, what happened?”

He stabbed a finger at the screen. “The Prophets have decided to hand down some justice, Ms. Lonnic. The Pajul’s sacrifice has tipped the balance.” He blew out a breath and glared at the alien ship. “Damn them, but they’re tough bastards.” He nodded to the deck officer. “Missiles?”

“Tubes two and three jammed. One and four loaded and ready to fire.”

She blinked. “You…you’re going to execute them?”

“They opened fire first, woman. You saw it.”

“They’re territorial!” she snapped, her voice breaking. “Of course they attacked us!” Lonnic blinked. “Why…What am I saying?” She shook her head, the stink of burning plastic and blood filling her nostrils. “Why am I defending them…If you’re right…”

Li’s face darkened. “If,”he repeated. “If I am right.” He glared at his deck officer. “Communications. Tell the Tzenkethi to surrender. They won’t be harmed. They’ll be taken back to Bajor under arrest for the attack on the freighter Lhemor.”

But the crewman wasn’t listening. He called out across the smoke-blackened bridge. “New contacts, bearing two-one-seven mark seven!”

Lonnic’s heart hammered in her chest. “More Tzenkethi?”

“No.” Li bent over his console. “Cardassian. A pair of light cruisers. They’re closing…” Fear bloomed inside her at the uncertainty on the colonel’s face.

“Confirmed,” said another crewman. “Identity confirmed, Cardassian Union warships Daikonand Kashai.”The operator hesitated. “Sir, those two were among the ships orbiting the homeworld when we left.”

“They followed us?” Lonnic shook her head. “I don’t understand.”

The deck officer came forward. “Colonel, I think they were here all along. Their impulse trail leads back to one of the outer moons of this planet. They must have been concealed in its magnetosphere, hidden from us and the Tzenkethi.”

Li’s expression turned stony. “What is this?” he spat. “Hail them, right now! I want some answers!”

The crewman shook his head. “No reply, Colonel. They’re reading us, but they’re not responding.”

“Then get me Bajor!” he shouted. “Subspace comms, this very second!”

“Impossible, sir,” said the officer. “The Daikon’s broadcasting a scattering field. They’re jamming all transmissions.”

Lonnic moved to the damaged, flickering view of the two amber-colored ships on the main screen. “Why are they here?” she said aloud. “The Chamber of Ministers ordered the fleet as a Bajoran response…Have they come to claim the Tzenkethi for themselves?” She thought of Kubus Oak once more. How was he involved in this?

“Sir!” The deck officer called out again. “Reading energy patterns from the Cardassian ships. Transporter signatures.”

Lonnic whirled as Li punched up the reading on a console. The colonel’s smoke-dirtied face creased in a frown. “They’re beaming something over to the marauder…Metallic masses. Some kind of container units.”

Lonnic craned her neck to see the display. On one of the smaller inset screens there was a graphic of the alien ship overlaid with patterns of moving dots. As she watched, the dots began to blink out one by one. “What is that?”

The blood drained from the deck officer’s face. “Life signs. Tzenkethi life signs. Something’s killing them.”

Without deflector shields to protect the marauder, there was nothing to prevent the dispersal modules materializing on every deck of the Tzenkethi starship. The octagonal drums were faceted with oval nozzles that snapped open automatically. Under pressure, a fine mist of vapor issued into the thick air of the vessel, the dilution spreading out in a wave. Autonomous hazard protocols in the marauder’s atmospheric systems, programmed to detect and isolate compartments in the event of just such an occurrence, worked sporadically thanks to the battle damage the ship had suffered in the skirmish with the Bajorans. For the most part, the countermeasures were unable to stop the advance of the contagion through the decks of the ship. In its wake, the biogenic toxin left nothing but death.

In the engine compartment of the Glyhrond,the ship’s captain turned from the stuttering control interface of the vessel’s warp core as a high-pitched whine sliced through the air. He turned and saw the glitter of a matter stream forming and a wash of relief coursed through him. Rescue is coming,he thought. Li was sending over men to help them get his ship back on an even keel. “Thank the Prophets—”

The words died in his throat as the object in the transporter beam solidified and took on definition. A drum, just under the height of a man, decorated with what looked like Cardassian military sigils. He reached out to touch it as the whine died away, just as latches on the upper surface retracted to present him with a series of oval vents.

Less than a heartbeat later the captain was on the deck, his lungs leaking from his mouth and nostrils in a stream of black slurry. All across his ship, his crew began dying in the same swift and pitiless manner.

“Get the shields back up now!”bellowed Li. There was genuine terror in the colonel’s voice.

“Bioweapons…” husked the crewman. “They’re beaming them in all over the ship!”