Hovath’s heart surged with hope.
“How timely. Both of you report to the bridge,” she told her men. “I’ll be there shortly…after I secure our new friend.”
Iniri vanished from the screen. The two underlings left. His captor gathered up the padd and the Paghvaram,secured them in an inner pocket of her jacket, then drew out a hand weapon of some kind and pressed it to the side of his head. The rising hum of its charge pierced his ear. Grabbing his arm with her free hand, she pulled him to his feet as the ship shook again.
Hovath didn’t resist. He believed that, one way or another, his nightmare was about to end.
Then he saw the smile on his captor’s face, and his hope died. “Now comes the fun part,” she said.
Kira
“Stay with them, helm,” Kira ordered. “Tactical, I want those shields down!”
“Pulse phasers firing,” Bowers said behind her. “Direct hit.”
Five hours after departing DS9, moving at warp eight and against all odds, the Defianthad located her quarry, the Besinian ship, just a few light-years shy of the Badlands. Kira was determined not to let their good fortune be wasted. Nearly three hundred innocent people were dead because of this ship, and justice was going to be exacted for that crime, one way or another.
Once the freighter had showed up on long-range sensors, Kira ordered battle stations and commenced an attack plan she’d used successfully against Cardassian slave transports more than once during the Occupation—tactics designed to disable, not destroy. Doing it from the Defiant’s command chair wasn’t all that different from her experiences on the bridge of a Bajoran assault ship, she reflected: she still needed to remind herself to pull her punches when the circumstances required it. This was one of those times.
Or so she thought.
“Their shields are still holding,” Bowers reported, the disbelief in his voice echoing Kira’s own.
“I believe I know why,” Shar said from sciences. “Their shield harmonics are Dominion.”
“Dominion?” Bowers said.
Kira shook her head as she stared at the evading ship on the viewscreen. “They salvaged a Dominion shield generator from somewhere. But why didn’t anyone detect that when they came to Bajor?”
“They may have a dual generator system in place,” Shar postulated. “A more conventional one in order to appear inconspicuous, and another…”
“Another to deal with us,” Kira finished.
“Sir,” Bowers announced, “they’re charging weapons—”
“Evasive!”
At the helm, Tenmei’s nimble fingers danced across her console. Defiantpitched to starboard and climbed, a yellow beam from the alien vessel tracking after her. No sooner did she escape one enemy cone of fire, however, than she moved into another and rocked against the impact of a second beam. The Besinian ship increased speed and pulled away.
“Direct hit to our starboard nacelle casing,” Bowers reported. “Torpedo launchers are off line. They’re using spiral-wave disruptors.”
Dominion shields and Cardassian weapons,Kira noted. Are they really just opportunists, or are they sending a message?
“They’re making a run for plasma storms,” Shar warned.
“I’ve had enough of this,” Kira said. “Close the distance, Tenmei. Shar, triangulate on the probable location of their shield generator and feed the coordinates to tactical.” She spoke over her shoulder. “Make this one count, Sam.”
“Aye, sir,” Bowers said. Minutes ticked by as the Defiantreacquired its target and surged after it. “Coordinates received,” Sam announced at last. “Pulse phasers locked.”
“Fire,” Kira said.
On the viewscreen, phaser bolts bridged the void between the Defiantand the Besinian ship. An elliptical bubble of force surrounding the freighter became visible against the bombardment—and held.
“Again,” Kira ordered. “Fire.”
Once more, the Defiant’s phasers hit their mark. Their target’s shield envelope flared momentarily…then gave way as the pulse bolts ripped across the upper hull of the freighter.
“Their shields are down,” Shar reported. “Minor damage to their hull…. I believe we also took out their second generator.”
“Target their port nacelle wing,” Kira said. “Go easy this time, Mr. Bowers. I just want to knock them out of warp.”
“Aye, sir, phasers firing….” Another flash of orange exploded across one side of the alien ship, and the vessel abruptly vanished from the viewscreen.
“They’ve dropped out of warp,” Tenmei confirmed. “We’ve overshot them.”
Kira let out a long breath and leaned back in her seat. “Bring us about and switch to impulse,” she said. “Shar, what’s their condition?”
“Dead in space,” Shar said, translating the numerical data scrolling up his console display. “They’re on emergency power. Their weapons systems appear to be offline.”
“Life signs?”
“Twelve. Five of them are concentrated in the bridge, the others are in or around engineering. There seems to be—” Shar stopped, his antennae angling forward. He began tapping his console.
“Ensign?”
“I’m sorry, sir. For a moment I thought there was a slight power spike underneath the ship. It’s gone now.”
“Sam?”
Bowers shook his head. “I can’t confirm it. They’ve got plasma venting from at least eight different sources all over the ship. The spike could easily have been a ruptured EPS conduit.”
“Keep the shields up,” she told him, “and Lieutenant, if they so much as twitch…be sure to remind them why they shouldn’t.”
“Understood, sir.”
Kira stood up and faced the main viewer, on which the disabled freighter could now be seen again, becoming larger as the Defiantapproached. “Open a channel.”
“Channel open.”
“This is Captain Kira Nerys of the U.S.S. Defiant,representing the United Federation of Planets. You’re ordered to surrender and prepare to be boarded.”
She was answered with a burst of static, but there seemed to be a voice behind it. “Can you clean that up?” she asked Bowers.
“No,” he answered after a moment. “I’m showing that their comm system is mostly slag.”
“I thought we didn’t hit them that hard.”
“Dominion shield generator or no, it’s still a nonmilitary courier, Captain. Overloading the shields and then knocking out the warp drive could have easily had an effect on some of their other systems.”
“Are they receiving us?”
“They seem to be.”
“All right, send this: By order of the Federation, all occupants of your ship are to be detained for questioning in the matter of more than two hundred and seventy deaths on the planet Bajor. You’re to offer no resistance. We have your vessel targeted. Stand by.” Kira made a cutting motion across her throat with her thumb, and Bowers closed the channel.
“We’ll do this in two teams,” she told him. “Have Gordimer take three security people to secure the bridge. DeJesus and Nog will go with me to secure engineering and assess the warp engines. I’ll take Doctor Tarses, too, in case there are injuries. Have them all meet me in the transporter bay in two minutes. You have the bridge, Lieutenant.” Kira started for the exit.