Текст книги "Lesser Evil"

Автор книги: Robert Simpson

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Текущая страница: 5 (всего у книги 14 страниц)

6

Ro stormed into her quarters and threw her padd across the cabin. She knocked over a chair and paced the room, trying to rein in her seething emotions. Akaar, Asarem—all of them were wrong. She felt it in her bones. Whatever Captain Mello had detected, it wasn’t a ship making off with Gard. He was still on the station. Every instinct she had screamed it. He would wait for an opportunity, when he was sure everyone’s attention was elsewhere, and then he’d escape for real. She would need to post guards at every transporter and airlock….

No, don’t be an idiot,she told herself. You were wrong. Get over it. Clinging to your interpretation when all the evidence points the other way is just foolish. It’s better this way. Now you can resign without any doubt that this job was a mistake. Let theFederation come. Once this case is closed, you’re out of here—

“Ro,” a voice said in her ear. She spun around at once, launching a punch at the intruder—

Taran’atar caught her fist in his own hand smoothly, without even flinching. Ro shook her hand free of his grip and stepped back. “Who the hell do you think you are? These are my quarters!”

“I know,” Taran’atar said. “I followed you from the Promenade. I needed to speak with you privately.”

“I don’t give a damn what you think you needed,” Ro snapped. “I’m getting a little sick of your unshrouding right next to me whenever you feel like it. And I don’t appreciate you violating my private space uninvited.”

Taran’atar tilted his head slightly as he studied her. “You’re angry, but not at me.”

That’s it.“Get out,” Ro said.

“No,” Taran’atar said. “I was monitoring communications from the Gryphon—”

“You were spying—?”

“Call it what you will,” Taran’atar interrupted. “I do what I deem necessary to carry out my assignments. But I’m growing weary of the way in which everyone in this quadrant questions my actions. Do you want to know what I’ve learned, or are your moral sensibilities too offended by my tactics to listen?”

Ro narrowed her eyes. “Report,” she said through her teeth.

“During my search for the assassin, I stopped to monitor all incoming and outgoing station communications from a backup subspace tranceiver in upper pylon one.”

“You shouldn’t even have been able to gain access to the tranceiver assemblies,” Ro noted.

“Be that as it may, I did,” Taran’atar said. “And since a stationwide communications blackout had been implemented for all but authorized transmissions, it was a simple matter to sift through the existing comm traffic. I learned nothing new from this…until Captain Mello contacted Admiral Akaar from the Gryphon.It was then that I detected a brief anomaly in the transmission: an echo.”

“Meaning what?” Ro said.

“Meaning I was not the only unauthorized listener aboard the station.”

“Quark,” Ro whispered. Please, no, don’t let it be Quark.She knew he sometimes hacked into the comm system….

“No, not Quark,” Taran’atar said. “I checked, and the Ferengi was fully occupied in the affairs of his establishment at the time. But someone else aboard the station was listening when Captain Mello was in contact.”

“Then it’s Gard,” Ro said. “It has to be. I was right after all. He’s still aboard the station.” If so, she’d have to act quickly, before he escaped or did something worse. And there was a personal consideration as well: she now had the chance to make things right before she resigned. Before she turned in her combadge, she was going to bring Shakaar’s assassin to justice.

“That’s my conclusion as well. It wasn’t possible for me to know where he was listening from, but there are a finite number of places aboard the station from which such a thing would be possible.”

Ro went immediately to her computer interface and called up a station schematic displaying the locations of all subspace tranceiver assemblies—the twenty-four Cardassian versions that were part of the station’s original equipment, and the six Federation models Starfleet had added after the withdrawal. Thirty sites to check, scattered throughout the station. And it doesn’t preclude the possibility that he’s kept moving. But maybe there’s a way to narrow the possibilities.

“If you could tell someone else was listening in,” Ro asked, “does that mean he could have been aware of you as well?”

“It’s possible,” Taran’atar said. “That may be why the echo ceased so quickly, and why my subsequent attempts to detect him in the same manner have yielded nothing. He may have gone off-line to avoid detection.”

So he wasn’t expecting someone else to be eavesdropping on station communications. He got scared. In his position, Gard would conclude he was better off remaining still than taking a chance moving from his hiding place. So how to pinpoint him?She studied the rotating schematic. Red dots glowed where the transceivers were located: the “antennae farm” right over ops, the lower core, around the docking ring, up and down the docking pylons, along the habitat ring…

Where would I go?she asked herself. I just killed someone and beamed out to escape. But I can’t leave the station, so I hide on board—someplace from where I can keep tabs on my pursuers, but where they’re least likely to look for me….

Wait a second.

“Computer,” Ro said. “Display detail on section 001–020.”

Taran’atar leaned in behind her as the computer zoomed in on the coordinates.

“Enhance,” Ro said.

The computer enlarged the area.

“Again,” Ro said.

The image zoomed in closer.

“Again.”

On the fourth attempt Ro saw what she was looking for. A small space, but big enough for a humanoid.

“Got you,” she whispered.

Akaar scowled and cursed his luck as he studied the tactical display on the situation table in ops. Eight Federation starships were operating out of Starbase 51, the command base nearest the Trill system. He had planned to mobilize most of them to detect and intercept Gryphon’s quarry. Unfortunately, four of the vessels were on battle maneuvers in the Murasaki sector, too far away to do any good. A fifth, the Appalachia,was undergoing refit at the starbase.

That left only the U.S.S. T’Kumbra,the U.S.S. Sagittarius,and the U.S.S. Polarisavailable to assist Gryphon.Akaar knew that four starships should be more than enough for this operation, but he wanted nothing left to chance. He contacted the Starfleet personnel on Trill and coordinated increased runabout patrols on the edge of the system, just in case.

I have done all that I can from here,Akaar thought. The rest is up to them.

He glanced around ops. Everyone, Bajoran Militia and Starfleet, remained on high alert. Intelligence reports continued to pour in on ship movements and strategic operations throughout the Bajoran sector, as well as the situation on Bajor itself. But so far nothing suspicious had emerged that might shed new light on the assassination. There had been no claims of responsibility as might come from terrorists, and no strange activity within the Bajoran circles of power. Cardassia was being watched carefully as well, although its current representatives here on the station, Gul Macet and the elderly Cleric Ekosha, had been extremely cooperative in the security investigation. Nor had they, unlike the members of the Alonis delegation and several other visiting dignitaries, opted to leave the station once departure clearances had resumed.

Lenaris emerged from the station commander’s office and walked down the steps into the pit. “The news is officially out,” the general said. “First Minister Asarem has addressed the Bajoran people, informing them of Shakaar’s death.”

Akaar looked up. “What word on the public reaction?”

“Grief, confusion, uncertainty—and a lot of angry voices talking over each other,” Lenaris said. “Militia HQ is receiving reports of demonstrations being organized by the isolationist groups, supposedly to commence in the next few hours. On the other side, the Vedek Assembly has come out in support of the First Minister’s call for calm and her request that people refrain from rushing to judgment until all the facts are known. Councillor zh’Thane’s appearance before the Chamber of Ministers and her interviews on the planetary newsfeeds have also gone over well. Advocates of unity with the Federation are planning a march on the Chamber of Ministers in Ashalla as a show of their support.”

Akaar shook his great head. “After all my years serving the Federation, I still marvel that democratic systems work at all.”

Lenaris looked faintly amused. “That’s not something I ever though I’d hear a Starfleet officer say, much less a fleet admiral.”

“Most Starfleet officers did not start life on Capella IV, General,” Akaar said. “There, clashes between conflicting ideologies are resolved on the edge of a sword, or a kligat.”

“General Lenaris,” Ensign Ling called from communications. “I have Vedek Yevir standing by. He wishes to speak with you about returning to Bajor.”

Lenaris sighed, but wasn’t surprised. After instructing Ling to put the call on screen, the general looked up to face the hollow oval frame suspended from the ops ceiling. An instant later Yevir’s face filled the frame. The Cardassian woman, Ekosha, was visible behind him. “Hello, General. Thank you for agreeing to speak with me. I know you must be very busy.”

“My communications officer tells me you want to return to Bajor, Vedek.”

“That’s correct, yes. In the face of the tragic events we have just experienced, it is more imperative than ever that we work together to give the people hope. Cleric Ekosha and I will bring the recovered Orbs to Bajor together, and begin moving forward with our plans for the Vedek Assembly and the Oralian Way to exchange permanent religious embassies.”

Ironic,Lenaris thought. Yevir is willing to create a foundation for peace with another planet through its religious leaders, yet he’s afraid of new ideas on matters of faith from his own people.Lenaris looked at the acting chief of operations, Lieutenant Nguyen. “Next available transport to Bajor, Lieutenant?”

“Departing from docking port three at 0830, sir.”

“Please arrange for Vedek Yevir and Cleric Ekosha’s passage on that ship, along with their cargo.”

“Aye, sir.”

“Thank you, General,” Yevir said.

“You’re welcome, Vedek. As you say, this is a time when we must all come together.” He allowed the real meaning of his words to sink in before adding, “Walk with the Prophets.”

“Walk with the Prophets,” Yevir echoed, and signed off. But Lenaris knew from the look on his face as he spoke the words that the general had scored a hit.

Lenaris had never cared much for Yevir Linjarin and his rigid orthodox pontifications on the Bajoran faith. That he had once been an officer in the Militia until a chance encounter with Captain Sisko changed his life somehow made it worse. Lenaris knew Yevir to be intelligent and sincere in his dedication to the spiritual welfare of Bajor, but it sometimes seemed as if the vedek had come to believe the touch of the Emissary had made his judgment infallible.

Yevir’s spearheading the Attainder of Kira Nerys had been the final straw for a growing number of the faithful. Increasingly alienated by a religious leadership that had become mired in politics and conformity since the halcyon days of Kai Opaka, many of these Bajorans, including Lenaris, had recently broken away from the mainstream religion. Now they walked their own path, choosing to exercise the free will that Kira Nerys had sacrificed her place in the faith to empower them with.

Bajor was evolving, Lenaris believed. Not just in body and mind, but in spirit. And it was this fundamental idea that Yevir and his fellow conservatives seemed incapable of accepting—that there might be more than one true way to experience the Prophets, more than one true way for Bajorans to explore their pagh.

The thought spurred him to look at Akaar. “Admiral, there’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you.”

“What is it, General?” said Akaar, who had been watching Lenaris’s conversation with Yevir without any obvious reaction.

“Bajor’s religion,” Lenaris began. “It can’t have escaped your notice, or Councillor zh’Thane’s, that a schism has developed among our faithful these past few months. Doesn’t such growing internal disharmony work against our eligibility for Federation membership?”

Akaar tilted his head to one side. “Are you attempting to convince me the Federation should reevaluate its acceptance of Bajor, General?”

“No,” Lenaris said. “But I confess to being a little confused. I had always understood that a planet had to be united before it could become a part of the Federation.”

“Politically united, yes,” Akaar said. “But no world—no union of worlds—is a monolithic entity in all things…most especially metaphysics,” he added with a wry smile. “Besides—and this is something that frustrates many of my fellow admirals, but amuses me no end—Federation science has yet to discover anything—and I do mean anything,General—about the Orbs, the wormhole, or the beings within it that is in any way inconsistent with the Bajoran religious interpretation. Many of these things still defy the understanding of our finest minds. Who, then, are we to judge your internal debates on the question of Bajor’s relationship to the Prophets? It may be that Bajor has much to teach us about that, and about many other things as well. That is our hope with every new world we embrace.”

Lenaris considered that before asking, “And where do you stand on the question?”

Akaar looked at him and smirked. “I am a soldier, General. I stand with the people I took an oath to protect. Always.”

The irony of having his own earlier words to Akaar bounced back to him didn’t escape Lenaris, but before he could fire off a retort, the illumination level in ops abruptly fell. The situation table and several interface screens went completely dark. Emergency lights came on, but the room was only a third as bright as it had been.

“We’ve lost primary power in ops,” Nguyen said. “Auxiliaries have kicked in, but most of our systems are down.”

“Can you get the primaries back up?” Lenaris asked.

“Trying,” Nguyen said. “It looks like an override from somewhere….” He tapped different sequences into his control interface, then slammed his hands on the console in frustration. “I’m locked out. We no longer have control of the station.”

“Then who does?” Akaar demanded.

An electronic hum from the transporter stage gave him his answer. A figure materialized and took a single step forward, phaser in hand, surveying the operations center with a glare that, Lenaris thought, could melt neutronium.

Ro Laren.

7

Bowers couldn’t believe what he was seeing. A Borg ship, here in the Gamma Quadrant—a region of space the collective wasn’t known to have penetrated before. And if the evidence could be believed, it had clashed with a Dominion ship, to the destruction of both vessels.

Bowers had faced the Borg only once before in his career: during their last attempt to assimilate Earth three years ago, he had been the tactical officer on the U.S.S. Budapest,part of a hastily assembled fleet whose mission was to defend Earth from an invading Borg cube. In the midst of the battle Budapesthad apparently been targeted by the cube for assimilation, because drones began beaming into key points throughout the ship. Bowers had killed two on the bridge before the drones began to adapt to the crew’s modified hand phaser frequencies. The Borg were very quickly overrunning the ship, and Bowers had been too late to stop one of them from assimilating Captain sh’Rzaan.

Fortunately, the crew had gone into the battle with a contingency plan. At that time Budapesthad been one of five test-bed starships for a new offensive hand weapon, one radically different from phasers and designed to be used specifically in situations when particle-beam weapons were useless: the TR-116. Essentially a rifle that fired chemically propelled metal projectiles, the TR-116 was immune to the adaptive beam shields that made Borg drones able to withstand phaser attacks. With Bowers leading an assault team armed with the prototype weapons through the ship, bullets from the TR-116s tore through drone bodies like paper. The Borg never knew what hit them.

How many of his friends had he been forced to kill that day because of the nanoprobes consuming them from the inside out, turning them into creatures of the collective? He tried not to remember, but the faces still haunted his nightmares. Jalarin, Hughes, Selok, Perez…Bowers had even looked into the pale, transformed face of sh’Rzaan as his former captain attacked Ensign Demarest, knowing he had no choice except to fire if Demarest was to be spared the same fate.

Budapesthad won the day, but the cost had been horrific.

Now as he stood in the furrow created by the crash of the Borg ship, staring up at the broken hull that lay almost completely buried in the cliff, Bowers recalled that terrible day three years ago and found himself wishing Starfleet had never taken the TR-116 out of service.

Nog was walking up to the wreckage. Something had caught his attention. “Woah…Sir, this isn’t a Borg ship. Or at least, it wasn’t always.”

Vaughn didn’t respond. He seemed to be somewhere else. “What do you mean, Nog?” Bowers asked.

“The hull plating under the Borg technology…I’d know it anywhere. It’s Starfleet.”

Stunned, Bowers looked at Vaughn for a reaction. He hadn’t moved. But then, speaking quietly, he said, “U.S.S. Valkyrie,Paladin-class, NCC-68816. Crew complement: 30. Lost with all hands stardate 46935 during a Borg engagement at the planet Uridi’si. Presumed destroyed.”

Seven years ago,Bowers thought. Then the realization hit him and he stared at Vaughn. My God, he was there.

As if rousing himself from a dream, Vaughn opened his tricorder and pointed toward a narrow breech in the hull. “Let’s go. What we’re looking for is in there.”

The transponder signal!Bowers had almost forgotten about it. Nog glanced at him, looking worried. Sam knew that entering the wrecks of two deadly Federation enemies in one day had to be fraying the engineer’s nerves. But he also knew Nog had proven time and again that he was made of sterner stuff than he himself realized. Nervous he might be, but Nog would never fail to come through when the situation required it. Sam watched him steel himself and follow Vaughn through the breech, with Bowers bringing up the rear.

Once again relying on wrist lights to navigate the dark, dead interior, the away team half-climbed through the bowels of what had once been a Federation starship. Familiar corridor configurations had been transformed by Borg technology that seemed to have invaded every square meter of the ship. Unlike the wreckage of the Dominion craft, animals and plant life had not encroached on the interior of the Borg ship. Maybe the conditions inside wouldn’t sustain anything long enough to allow life to thrive; it was cold in here, and there was an almost antiseptic taste to the air. Or maybe the animals just knew instinctively that they should stay away.

Nog narrowly sidestepped the inert body of a drone—a Vulcan, Bowers guessed, judging from the distinctive size of the skull—collapsed over a Borg interface panel near engineering. Bowers paused to see if there was any indication of what had been displayed on the panel when it ceased to function, but the surface was dark. Vaughn stopped for nothing, not even when Nog reported that there was a faint energy reading inside the engine room. They pressed on, past more Borg corpses and ruptured conduits, following the commander’s tricorder.

Vaughn stopped outside a door. It still bore a label that read SHUTTLEBAY, but without it, it might have been impossible to tell what the room’s original purpose had been. A labyrinth of corridors and catwalks lined with Borg regeneration alcoves greeted them as they pried the doors open. Most of the alcoves were empty, but a few were occupied, the drones still plugged into the ship’s systems, their organic remains long since decayed within their inert cybernetic shells.

Vaughn ignored them all, his pace picking up as the signal on his tricorder grew stronger. Nog showed Bowers the reading on his own tricorder: another energy signature, very faint, but matching the one he’d picked up in engineering. The conclusion was obvious. Something back there was still trickling power to something in here.

Vaughn disappeared around a corner. Cursing, Bowers and Nog rushed to catch up. While they marched, Sam made some quick adjustments to his phaser, setting it to cycle randomly through different frequencies with each shot. He gave it to Nog and then made the same modifications to the engineer’s phaser. If one or more of these drones suddenly came to life, he wanted to be as ready as possible. Every shot would count.

Vaughn had stopped in front of an occupied regeneration alcove down a long catwalk overlooking the gutted remains of the shuttle maintenance bays one level down. Wondering idly if the Borg had jettisoned the shuttles or cannibalized them for raw materials in their assimilation of the rest of the Valkyrie,Bowers heard his heavy footfalls rattling the framework of the catwalk as they reached the commander. Vaughn was passing his tricorder over and over the drone in the alcove, which Bowers saw wasn’t decayed like the others. It looked dead, but showed no evidence of decomposition. A hairless chalk-white face obscured by invasive prosthetic enhancements was mottled with charcoal-gray rivulets, the telltale sign of a circulatory system saturated with Borg nanoprobes. Like its dead companions in the room, the drone was plugged into the the ship’s power grid through its regeneration alcove, but a telltale light winking dimly by the interface port showed that power was still being fed into it. A thick layer of dust covered the drone and every surface of the alcove. My God,Bowers thought, has it been here like this for two years?

“This is it. This is the source of the transponder signal,” Vaughn said quietly, his eyes never leaving the tricorder, as if he feared missing some vital detail.

No, it’s more than that,Bowers realized. He’s trying not to look directly at the drone.

“You mean…this was once a Starfleet officer?” Nog asked.

“Most of these drones were,” Vaughn said absently. “Though only DNA scans will tell us for sure. This one, however, I can confirm without a scan.” Vaughn snapped his tricorder closed and tapped his combadge. “Vaughn to Defiant.”

“Defiant. Dax here,”came the reply. “Commander, where are you? Your signal is weak.”

“We’ve found what we were looking for, Lieutenant. But we need Dr. Bashir. Have Chief Chao home in on my signal and beam him to these coordinates immediately.”

“Acknowledged,”Dax said. “Anything else?”

“Stand by. Vaughn out.” Turning to Nog, he said, “Lieutenant, begin a tricorder sweep of the ship. I want to know if there’s any indication of active subspace links to the collective. Then start scanning this alcove—its construction, its operation, its power source, everything. I need you to become an expert on Borg technology as quickly as possible.”

Nog’s mouth dropped open, but all he could get out were the words “Aye, sir” as he reset his tricorder and went to work.

When the call came from the bridge, Bashir allowed himself a private sigh of relief at the knowledge that the big mystery of the last few days was about to end. And none too soon. Separating his desire to know what was going on from his personal relationship to the ship’s fully informed first officer had been difficult enough. On the one hand, he knew better than to ask Ezri about any ship’s business that Vaughn didn’t see fit to loop him into. That was Vaughn’s prerogative as ship’s captain, and Bashir wasn’t about to make Ezri’s role as X.O. harder by attempting to draw the information out of her. He wouldn’t have succeeded anyway; Ezri took her transfer to command too seriously to let anyone undermine it, least of all Julian.

On the other hand, as Defiant’s chief medical officer, being asked to operate in an information vacuum was a sure way to put lives at risk. He couldn’t prepare for something if he didn’t know what he was likely to face. The fact that knowledge capable of minimizing the risk to the crew was being withheld from him was troubling enough, but it didn’t take a genetically enhanced mind to know that the continuing secrecy was itself contributing to a notable rise in anxiety among his shipmates. And that, Bashir knew, was dangerous. Anxious people made mistakes.

And although Bashir had only a rough idea about conditions on the surface, just knowing that answers awaited him on the other side of the transporter beam gave him a burst of energy that had him nearly running into the bay. He ignored the raised eyebrow Chief Chao shot at him as he bounded onto the platform and gave her the order to energize—ready, he believed, for whatever lay ahead.

Of all the settings he had imagined beaming into, the heart of a Borg ship wasn’t one of them.

Though his mind intuited immediately that the danger must be minimal or the commander wouldn’t have ordered him to beam down, nevertheless he experienced an instant of cold fear when his eyes focused on the distinctive technology surrounding him. Lit only by the away team’s wrist lights, the ship took on an extra dimension of terror. Bashir had never encountered the Borg before, but he’d read enough reports, and attended enough briefings and medical conferences about them, to hope he would never have to.

Still, Julian’s irrepressible curiosity had been piqued the instant Vaughn had started explaining the detection of the transponder signal, the away team’s mission, and what they had learned so far. Bashir hung on every word, the whole time running calculations in his mind about the effect this knowledge would have back home. Even after several small-scale attempts to invade the Federation had failed, the Borg remained a cause for serious concern. If they ever got it into their collective mind to attack en masse, it was all over. Fighting off a single Borg cube had consistently proven costly; fighting off a full scale assault might not even be possible, especially if it happened now, with so much of the Alpha Quadrant still rebuilding its forces in the aftermath of the Dominion war.

Why the Borg had thus far attacked with only one ship at a time remained a mystery, one that had many of Starfleet’s top strategists baffled and worried, Bashir knew. Some speculated that the advance ships were simply collecting data on the Alpha Quadrant’s ability to respond to, withstand, and recover from their incursions, adding new twists such as time travel to each assault as a way of gauging the Federation’s inventiveness. Add to that the Borg intelligence that Starfleet was amassing courtesy of Project Pathfinder, and an increasingly complex picture of the Borg was slowly emerging, one that differed considerably from Starfleet’s initial assumptions about the collective, and that necessitated constant reevaluation. And that was precisely what had Starfleet worried: an unpredictable enemy was dangerous, but one they still couldn’t comprehend was terrifying.

But a Borg encroachment of the Gamma Quadrant…that’s a new twist.Bashir thought he was beginning to understand Vaughn’s decision to keep the information contained among as few people as possible until all the facts were in. What puzzled Bashir now, however, was the revelation that he’d been summoned specifically to assess the condition of a drone.

Thirty minutes later, together with Bowers and Nog, Bashir found Vaughn a short distance away, sitting on the catwalk, knees up, hands resting on top of them. The commander’s eyes were closed, but Bashir could tell he wasn’t asleep; his forehead was creased in concentration, as if his mind were searching for something that was eluding him. Fatigue,Bashir suspected. He was about to pass his scanner over Vaughn when the commander spoke. “Report, Doctor,” he said without opening his eyes.

“I’ve completed my medical scan,” Bashir said. “The drone is a human female, age indeterminate. Approximately sixty-eight percent of its body has been replaced by Borg technology, including most of the left hemisphere of the brain. Its condition is critical, but stable. The alcove is acting like a life support system, trickling just enough power to keep the drone alive. But that’s it. In its current condition, the drone can’t function, and it can’t survive outside the alcove.”

“Sir,” Nog said to Vaughn, “I’ve finished my scans as well. There’s no evidence of any subspace transmissions beyond the Starfleet signal coming from the drone. Any connection to the Borg collective was probably severed when the ship crashed.”

Vaughn listened to the reports silently, then opened his eyes. He looked, Bashir thought, as if he was struggling with a decision. Finally he said, “Doctor…Lieutenant Nog…you’re both to begin work immediately on extracting the drone from her alcove without killing her. Then you’re going to beam her up to the Defiant,where you, Julian, are going to reverse the assimilation and restore the drone’s humanity.”

Bashir looked at Nog, who stared back at him, stunned. Wanting to restore a Borg drone to its original state was a laudible goal, but under these circumstances…

“Respectfully, sir,” Bowers said, uncharacteristically agitated, “do you think it’s wise to expose the ship to the presence of functional Borg technology? What if—?”

“I’ve made my decision, Sam,” Vaughn said, rising to his feet.

Bowers frowned. “Yes, sir. But the safety of the ship—”

“Is my responsibility,” Vaughn said quietly. “And you’ll do damn well to remember that, Lieutenant.”

Bashir held his breath. What in the world is going on here?

Vaughn met the gazes of all three officers and said, “Until further notice, restoring the drone is the Defiant’s top priority. All other mission directives are suspended. Security is to be maintained, both for the protection of the ship and in order to keep this from as many of the crew as possible. Am I understood?”