“Sir?”
“Shut it down,Nog,” Kira snapped. “That’s an order.”
“Aye, sir…. Initiating core shutdown…. Uh-oh.”
“What is it?”
“The antimatter injector isn’t responding. It’s continuing to cycle up to release, and the rate is accelerating. Sir, this thing is going to rupture any second.”
Kira turned back to Gordimer. “Now, Ensign.”
“Energize, Defiant.Seven to beam out.”
The alien bridge dissolved around Kira, replaced by the cramped confines of Defiant’s transporter bay. Chao had successfully snatched all seven members of the boarding party.
Kira tapped her combadge as she bolted off the stage and started running. “Kira to bridge. Shields up. Get us out of here, Sam. Best speed.”
The ship pitched beneath her, knocking her against a corridor wall as she ran: the blast front from the exploding warp core. The artificial gravity winked as the Defianttook the hit, throwing her to the deck. Then the ship seemed to right itself; she felt the vibrating hum of Defiant’s acceleration to warp through the deckplates, and she knew they were clear.
Bowers turned toward her as she entered the bridge. “Are you all right, Captain?”
Kira nodded. “Status?”
“Still in one piece,” he assured her. “No serious damage. But it was close. What happened?”
She filled Sam in on the evidence found, the conclusions drawn. His face became a mask of barely contained anger as he understood the extent to which he, along with everyone else, had been fooled by their adversaries.
“We were played,” he said.
Kira nodded, suddenly recalling a human expression of Captain Sisko’s that seemed to fit their circumstances perfectly. “Someone is throwing down a gauntlet. And we need to figure who, damn fast.” She turned to sciences. “Shar, I want you to work on compiling and analyzing the tricorder data collected by the boarding party. Cross-check those scans against the Defiant’s sensor logs and prepare a report for our return to the station. If there’s anything useful in those readings that will help us figure out what’s really going on, I want to know about it.”
“I can begin at once, sir,” Shar replied. “But the work may best be conducted in science lab one. Permission to leave the bridge?”
“Granted,” Kira said, crossing to the command chair and settling into it as Shar exited.
“Sir,” Bowers said. “I want to apologize for before. My intent wasn’t to challenge your authority to lead as you see fit, only to remind you you had others you could depend on who were ready to walk into danger on your behalf.”
Kira shook her head. “No apology necessary, Sam. And I know I can depend on you. That’s why I left you in command. But you need to remember that even though this uniform is still new, I’ve sat in Defiant’s center seat before, as well as that of her predecessor.” She smiled at him. “Not to mention the fact that I’ve had the destruct codes for both ships since Day One. I’m no stranger here.”
Bowers nodded. “Understood, sir. I suppose some of us, the veteran Starfleet people, I mean, still need a shot of cold reality to remind us of those things. At least, I did. And that surprised me. I thought I understood, intellectually at least, that for a good many Militia officers this transition would be an easy one. But part of me still reacted to you like you were new to the game. I just want you to know it won’t happen again, Captain.”
She gave him a nod, accepting his honesty without judgment. “Return to station, Lieutenant.”
“Aye, sir,” Bowers said, withdrawing to his standing console in the aft section of the bridge.
“Captain,” Tenmei said from conn. “I’m picking up a temperature fluctuation in the ablative armor, grid sector Z-47.”
Kira turned to the engineering station. “Mr. Senkowski?”
“I see it. It’s a second-decimal-place differential. I don’t believe it’s cause for concern, Captain.”
Kira noted that Tenmei seemed displeased with Senkowski’s response, but had refocused her attention on conn. “Keep an eye on it anyway,” Kira told the engineer. “We don’t want it turning into a bigger problem.”
“Medical bay to bridge,”came Tarses’s voice over the comm.
“Kira here. How’s our guest, Doctor?”
“I regret to report she expired five minutes ago, Captain. She’d suffered multiple internal and external injuries, including cranial trauma. The injuries were inflicted methodically and with great precision. She was definitely tortured, sir.”
Kira’s left hand curled into a fist. “Have you had any luck identifying her?”
“Nurse Richter transmitted her DNA scan and her earring design to Militia headquarters on Bajor a short while ago. They’ve verified her identity as Ke Iniri, 24, a resident of Sidau village. More than that, they weren’t able to say. I’m sorry, sir. I wish there was more I could have done.”
“Don’t beat yourself up, Simon,” Kira said. “I know you did everything possible. Please see to her remains according to Bajoran custom until we can determine her next of kin. Bridge out.” Kira turned to face the forward viewer, trying to keep her voice even, silently vowing to find whoever was responsible for Ke Iniri’s death and make sure they were never in a position to harm anyone else. “Helm, set course for Deep Space 9, warp eight.”
“Warp eight,” Tenmei echoed. “Aye, Captain.”
Hours later, moving through the airlock linking the Defiantto the station, Kira found Vaughn waiting to greet her on the other side. He was leaning back against the corridor wall, his arms folded.
“Welcome back,” he said. “Heard you had some trouble.” He fell into step alongside her as she entered the docking ring, and together the two of them moved down the gently curving passageway.
“I assume Dax filled you in?” Kira asked. She’d been in communication with ops during the journey back, and had informed Ezri of all that had transpired.
Vaughn nodded grimly. “I’m getting the sense that this whole thing is much more than an act of terrorism.”
“It was a trap,” Kira confirmed. “I barely saw it in time. Someone’s toying with us, and I don’t think they’re finished. What makes it worse is that I didn’t learn a damn thing about why this is happening.”
“Ro thinks she’s making some progress on that front,” Vaughn told her. “She hopes to have something solid to report soon.”
“I hope so,” Kira said, sounding weary in her own ears. “I could use some good news.”
“Maybe you’ll feel better once we’re on Bajor.”
Kira stopped and stared at him. “That’s tonight, isn’t it? I completely forgot. What time are we supposed to be there?”
“Twenty-one hundred,” said Vaughn. “I already have a runabout standing by.”
“Good,” Kira said as they resumed walking. “That’ll give me some time to shower and clear my head.”
“Anything you need me to do in the meantime?”
“Yes,” said Kira, handing Vaughn a padd containing Shar’s sensor log report. “That’s an analysis of every reading we took during the encounter with the Besinian freighter. See if you can reach Gul Macet. Make him aware of what’s happened and send him a copy of that report. The fact that the ship was equipped with Cardassian weapons and Dominion shields should be of particular interest to him. Do the same with the Allied commanders of the protectorates. If anyone inside the Cardssian Union has run across that ship, they may be able to tell us something that’ll help us to find whoever’s behind this.”
“I’ll get right on it.”
Her brow furrowed. “What are you doing here, anyway? I thought you were still on Bajor.”