"Exactly," Nog said. He held his hands together as he took over the explanation
for Jake. "You see, Jake, we're actually trying to arrive within a very narrow
window of time. We can't arrive any later than twenty-five thousand years,
because someone might see us. But we can't arrive any earlier than twenty-six
thousand years, because before that there were a series of powerful crustal
upheavals that would probably destroy the deep-time charges. That means we're
attempting to achieve an error factor of plus or minus two percent on
our first try. To even have a chance at that level of accuracy, we have no
choice but to slingshot around Bajor's sun—and no other."
"You people are just crazy," Vash muttered.
"Excuse me, but we are attempting to save the universe," Nog said.
"Yeah, in the most bureaucratic, bungling Starfleet way you can." Vash threw her
arms hi the air. "What's wrong with you people?! Don't any of you get it? Do you
know how many things have to go right for this ridiculous scheme to work?"
"It is not ridiculous!" Nog said.
Vash stared at him long and hard. "You know what, Captain? I don't believe you.
Your heart—or your lobes or whatever it is you Ferengi invest with meaning—just
isn't in it."
Nog was terrified. Was Vash a mind reader, too? Or could everyone tell what he
was thinking? "I suppose Q gave you the power to read my mind," he said
sarcastically.
"No one can read what passes for a Ferengi mind," Vash said with a rude smirk.
"And I don't have to be a mind reader to know that you're not on the level. Oh,
I've negotiated my share of deals with Ferengi. I know how you operate."
Thoroughly rattled though he was, Nog knew he had to act quickly. He couldn't
risk any of the others following Vash's line of reasoning, even if there didn't
seem to be much reason to it for now.
"Vash. Please. I understand what's really upsetting you and I guarantee you'll
be able to leave the ship."
Then Nog was aware of Jake stepping to his side. "Nog," his friend said in a low
voice. "We have to talk."
"Frinx," Nog sputtered. "What's wrong with you people?!"
"That's what I said!" Vash chimed in.
"STOP IT!"
Everyone stopped talking and stared at Nog.
Nog felt the sweet rush of power. He had given an order and had it obeyed.
Instantly. Just like Worf.
"Much better," he said. "Now, to continue our tour, I'd like everyone to take a
chair." He directed Worf to tactical, Jadzia to main sensors, Bashir to
life-support, his chest swelling with pride as all three complied without
protest. He then quickly polled the Starfleet personnel on their specialties and
assigned them also to appropriate chairs.
Soon only Vash, Jake, and the three civilians were left without places.
"Can we go home now?" Vash asked without much conviction.
Nog pointed to the back of the bridge, where a series of padded half-cylinders
were inset into the bulkhead.
"There's an awful lot of crash-padding on this ship," Vash said darkly as she
backed into one cylinder, then jerked as autorestraints snaked around her. "What
the hell's going on, Captain?"
"Our trajectory around Bajor's sun will be very rough. I want everyone to get a
chance to try out the restraint devices."
Vash glared at him, but she was firmly secured against the bulkhead.
Nog looked around the bridge. Now he was the only one standing. It was going to
work.
"Don't worry. We'll have plenty of time to talk later," he said to Jake as Jake
adjusted his cylinder's re-
straint harness. Then he said "Very good" to everyone else as he walked around
to the front of the bridge, where they'd be able to see him. "Now we're going to
try out the holographic displays. You'll be able to see the status of any
station on the bridge without leaving your—"
With a rush of static and a sudden glare of light, the main viewer came on
behind Nog.
Nog felt his lobes shrivel. It could only be one person.
"Captain Nog, what are you doing on the Phoenix?"
As Nog expected, T'len's face filled the viewer. Judging from the equipment
behind her, she was in the main flight-control center deep below the
on the bridge of the Augustus soon enough.
"I'm conducting a familiarization tour for the crew."
"They'll have two days for that en route to Bajor. Why have you pulled the work
crews from engineering bay four?"
"Their work was done," Nog said, with what he hoped was the proper amount of
surprise.
"Not according to the computer records," T'len said.
"It's not unusual for the records to lag," Nog pointed out.
"Report to me at ground control at once."
He held up his hand. "May I finish the tour first?"
"At once," T'len repeated. She reached for something out of sight, and the
viewer went dark.
Nog turned back to face his crew. "Well, I think that brings this part of the
tour to a close."
He braced himself for the first complaints.
"Captain Nog!" Worf said indignantly. "The restraints will not release."
"That's odd," Nog said in what he hoped was an offhand manner. "Let me check
with the master control."
Nog walked quickly to the side of the bridge, straight to the transporter
control station. The small clusters of transporter pads to either side of the
bridge had been bis contribution to the design of the Phoenix. He'd remembered
how convenient it was to have similar facilities in Ops at Deep Space Nine. So
much time had been saved. Like now.
Nog put his hand on the control station's security plate. "Computer, run Nog
Five and Nog Alpha. Command authority Alpha Alpha One."
The starboard pads came to life first, and the five Bajorans from the past
suddenly appeared. Civilians and militia alike, they were all in believers'
robes. Two were kneeling in prayer. Everyone looked confused by what had
happened.
"Quickly!" Nog commanded. "Go back to the crash cylinders!"
The other temporal refugees, who by now could have no doubt that Nog was acting
on his own, started calling out to the Bajorans to release them.
But Nog slapped a red panel on a tactical station, and instantly a siren sounded
and red lights flashed as the ship went to General Quarters.
"Hurry!" Nog shouted at the Bajorans. "We're under attack!"
Then the port pad flashed into life, and Nog was running for it, even before
the frail form of Admiral Picard had fully materialized.
"My word," the Old Man said, as he half-stumbled from the pad. He was in his
uniform, but it was wrinkled, as if he'd been asleep in a chair. "Is everything
all right, Will?"
"Perfect," Nog said. He looked up at the graceful sweep of the illumination
ceiling. "Computer activate all shields. Rotating pattern Nog One." Gently he
guided Picard to the captain's chair and helped him settle in. Nog also took
the precaution of disabling the control console.
Now everyone was secure, and the Phoenix was impenetrabl
e to attack. Nog knew
that there was no turning back.
He was stealing a Starship.
The only Starship that might save the universe.
He ran back across the bridge, ignoring the clamor of the sirens and the shouted
protests of those trapped inside their crash chairs. According to a time
readout on the navigation substation, he had three minutes left to clear the
spacedock and go to transwarp. In three minutes and one second, every
simulation he had run for this operation had ended with the arrival of a
Starfleet task force that could keep the Phoenix pinned hi position until
commandos came aboard.
Nog swiftly checked to see that the shields were still flashing off and on in
the preset pattern, then began overriding the security codes on the transwarp
station. He gave fervent thanks that given his position as Integrated Systems
Manager it was not a difficult procedure—merely a time-consuming one.
Then the navigation displays came up, free of security blocks. Nog checked the
time. Ninety seconds. He was going to make it All he had to do now was wait for—
Nog squealed, as a large hand gripped his shoulder and yanked him away from the
bridge station. He tumbled head-over-heels and came to a stop, sprawled on
his stomach, watching as Worf's huge boots clomped toward him.
"No!" Nog gasped. "You don't understand!" He looked over at the chair Worf had
been confined to and saw smoke rising from its cracked protective covering.
Obviously a redesign would be in order.
But Nog's protests did no good, because Worf's powerful hand was already
crushing his right ear, dragging him back to his feet as he squealed again.
"For your betrayal, you have brought dishonor not only to your house, but to
your species," Worf thundered at him.
"I haven't betrayed anyone!" Nog squeaked. "You really don't understand!"
"Do you deny that you have joined the Ascendancy?"
"No-o!" Nog's hands scrabbled ineffectually at Worf's, vainly trying to dislodge
the Klingon's brutally painful grip on his sensitive lobe. His entire head
throbbed with agony. The intense pain robbed him of all reason.
"Then why are you attempting to steal this Starship?"
"I can explain later! I will explain later!"
Without even seeming to expend any physical effort, Worf lifted him high in the
air until their faces were a centimeter apart. "You will explain now."
Even to his own ear, Nog's voice was reduced to the high-pitched yowl of a cat
"Commander, please, you have to put me down before—" Nog started gagging, the
pain was becoming unbearable.
"Before what?" Worf bellowed deafeningly.
And before Nog could answer, before Nog could warn Worf about what was about to
happen—
It happened.
Nog saw three flashes of light flicker hi the Kling-
on's dark, enraged eyes. He saw Worf look up, past the Ferengi in hand, and
react in shock.
Then three more flashes reflected from Worf's sweat-covered skin. The odd rhythm
of the light's appearance, Nog knew, was matched with the pattern of the
rotating shields, timed to create transporter windows every few seconds.
Worf looked at Nog with unbridled disgust, then threw him to the deck.
Nog shivered with relief as he rubbed bis crushed ear. He saw Worf slowly raise
his hands as if in response to an unspoken order.
"I'm sorry," Nog croaked, but his throat was too raw for his voice to be heard
over the GQ sirens that continued to blare.
And then Worf pivoted suddenly and launched himself to the side and—
—was hit on three sides by disruptor beams.
The Klingon fell heavily to the deck, his massive body motionless, smoke curling
from each beam's impact on his uniform.
Nog shuddered. Everything was all wrong. It wasn't supposed to have happened
like this.
Another hand took hold of his arm, pulled him to his feet.
Nog looked up. He was getting tired of this. Everyone tugging him one way, then
another.
Then he recognized the person who stood before him.
Centurion Karon.
Three more Romulans beamed in behind her. They quickly ran to join the five
others scattered around the bridge.
"How much time?" Nog gasped.
'Twenty seconds to spare," Karon said. "Congratulations, Captain. By turning
over this vessel to the New Romulan Star Empire, you have guaranteed there will
be a future."
Nog nodded, dazed. Then he felt a sudden drop in the deck as the inertial
dampeners came on.
'Transwarp is enabled," a Romulan called out over the sirens.
"Activate," Karon ordered. 'Transfactor twelve."
A deep rumbling came through the deck and reverberated through the bridge.
"Screen on," Karon said, as if she had flown this ship for years.
The main viewer came back to life, and on it stars flew past in stuttering
flashes of color, too fast for the ship's computers to render in smooth lines.
"We have decided to call this vessel the Alth'Indor" The Romulan centurion
smiled at Nog again. "It means 'phoenix.' We have the same story in our
mythology."
Nog no longer cared—and he was sure his expression showed it.
"Don't worry," Karon said briskly, as if she also had no trouble reading his
mood, if not his mind. "You have done the right thing."
That sentiment Nog could agree with, even though he knew his reasons were not
the same as hers.
The stars sped by even faster.
The ship sped toward its journey through time.
Some of those on board the Phoenix would survive, Nog knew. That much was
inarguable.
But not even Nog knew who those few would be.
CHAPTER 20
garak savored the satisfying crunch his boots made as they crushed the ancient
stones of B'hala. They had something of the same consistency as sun-bleached
bones. At least so he had heard, and now, happily, he could confirm it for
himself.
In this future, he thought, Bajoran boots had very likely walked through the
rubble of Cardassia Prime, as the Bajorans had reveled hi the destruction of his
world. Somehow, that made his sense of anticipation for the coming destruction
of everything else more reasonable. Especially this holy city, which had
unleashed on the universe the ultimate means to the ultimate end.
"Garak? Are you all right?'
Garak turned and held up his hand to shield his eyes from the excruciating glare
of the space mirror, which was low on the horizon and hi his line of sight. At
any given time, he recalled being told, there were two of
those mirrors illuminating B'hala, making the city always appear as if it were
high noon on a world with binary suns, even in the dead of night. The double
shadows were disconcerting, giving as they did to everything the unreal look of
artificiality. There was, however, another apparition that was even more
unusual.
- Garak smiled at the sight of Odo in penitent's robes. 'Tell me, Odo. Are those
robes part of you? Or did our charming hosts make you put them on like the rest
of us?"
Odo adjusted his robes with impatience. "
The ones I formed weren't proper, I was
told. I am actually wearing these. I don't know how you solids stand it"
"Ah, if I had known you were amenable to wearing clothes, I would have offered
you a discount at my shop. Believe me, there is nothing like the kiss of
Argelian silk to soothe the troubles of the day."
Odo folded his arms—an oddly bulky gesture, Garak observed, given what the
changeling was wearing. "Don't think I haven't noticed that you've changed the
subject," Odo said gruffly.
Garak bowed his head in a sign of respect. And he did respect Odo. In a way, as
an adversary, more often than not. Though sometimes as an ally. The apparent
contradiction did not trouble Garak. He was quite comfortable with the fact
that his relationships with others were often as fluid as the politics of
Cardassia. What was life, after all, but change?
"I am fine, Constable. And I do appreciate your concern in asking."
Garak could see that Odo was unlikely to accept his statement as the final word
in the matter. While he
waited patiently for whatever it was that Odo would decide to do next, Garak
turned his attention to the surrounding restored buildings of heavily-eroded
stone blocks, noting that no structure appeared to be more than two or three
stories high, and that most were still supported by crude wooden scaffolding
lashed together by vegetable-fiber rope. Intriguingly, it was as if he and Odo
were thousands of years in the past. Except for the weapons carried by their
Grigari guards, who had taken up positions far in the distance, Garak could
detect no sign of technology or any other indication that this city was the
wellspring of an interstellar movement that had brought the Federation to its
figurative knees.
Odo coughed. Prom experience, Garak knew the awkward gesture was the
changeling's way of changing the subject. Odo wasn't much of a conversationalist
"Garak, I really don't know any way of saying this that doesn't sound completely
inadequate, but I am sorry for your loss."
Garak felt quite sure that Odo's statement was false. The Cardassians had never
been a friend to Odo. But social discourse did require the lubrication of lies.
"Thank you, Odo. I appreciate your good wishes, as well."
Odo cleared his throat. "If I had heard my world had been destroyed, I don't
think I'd be taking it like you."
"What would you have me do, Odo? We're all terminal cases. Even our cultures.