Star Trek Deep Space 9 13 Station Rage

CHAPTER 1

"CHIEF—LOOK OUT!"

Too late. Out of the shadows, a matte black club swung down and cracked against a human skull

patterned with curly buff hair.

Miles O'Brien shook his ringing head and cursed himself for not reacting quicker to the warning from

behind. "Oh, damn … damn that …"

He blinked up at the heavy lintel. It hadn't really moved, but sure seemed as if it had. This whole tunnel

was on the hunt for the two of them. His bleeding hands, torn uniform, and now his swelling forehead told

the tale.

Pressing a scored palm to his skull, he lay to one side and rested against the curved wall of the access

cave. "I shouldn't have let you talk me into this, Odo. This is what I get. Look at me. I'm chipped as

cordwood."

Security Chief Odo moved forward from the harsh slashes of shadow and blades of light cast by the

illuminators they'd been dropping like bread crumbs behind him. "You all right?"

Wincing, O'Brien tried to nod, but it hurt. He fingered his head. "Swelling up like a soap bubble. Times

like this could drive me back to the sod."

With a grunt Odo shifted his lanky body, leaned a knee on a broken piece of metal, and touched the

lintel that had reached down from heaven and struck O'Brien. "Mmm … it's painted dull black, with

some slashes of gloss black that go against the shape. Keeps it from being seen until someone gets struck

on the head."

"Call the Cardassian Central Command and tell the bastards it still works."

This tunnel was more like a coal mine than an access corridor through one of the docking pylons that

vaulted into space like a spider's legs. Its collapsed areas and false turnoffs had confounded their

tricorder and turned what should've been an hour's glance into a daylong exploration. The widest place

they'd come through had been back about an eighth of a kilometer, and it had only been four feet wide

and six tall. Odo couldn't even stand up all the way.

Of course, Odo could be shorter if he wanted to.

The skinniest place had been all of twenty inches wide. Odo hadn't found it a problem, but O'Brien had

done some fancy squirming to get his shoulders through, and taken a scrape or two or three on the odd

edge.

Some of these edges were razor sharp—like the lintel, deliberately made that way. This was a danger

maze, built to bump, bruise, or slice anyone who didn't know the way through. A misstep meant a fall,

and a fall could mean losing a hand or leg.

"Inexcusable," Odo simmered, gazing now into his tricorder, squinting at the tiny screen. His blank face

had more expression than he seemed ever to realize. "When Starfleet took over, I told them they'd better

explore these pylons thoroughly. They didn't listen."

"There wasn't time," O'Brien defended. "It's a big station. Besides, you could've come down here

anytime on your own, mate, instead of waiting until it was Captain Sisko's idea, so don't be so lofty. This

pylon was collapsed during the fighting. There was no reason to come down here. I mean, how many

back alleys do you bother looking down?"

"I look down them all."

One hand on a cobweb thick as cotton, O'Brien peered through the shadows. Odo seemed at home

here as he gazed into his tricorder and the soft lights from the screen, normally invisible, brushed the

lineless mask of his face. Somehow he was mystical in the darkness and dust, an echo of legends that

called to O'Brien from long back and were hard to ignore even through the clutter of an engineer's logic.

"So nobody's ever been down this far since before the war?" O'Brien asked.

Odo looked up, his rough voice laden with a sudden meaning, his eyes like two thumb marks in clay.

"Nobody."

"Right," O'Brien sighed, and pushed himself forward again. "Come this far, might's well keep on."

"Agreed. Would you like me to take the lead?"

"No, I'm fine. Here, watch your footing on that … here's another one of those black things topside …

welcome to Hell'n Highwater … can I show you to your room, cell, or coffin?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"Nothin'. Let's roll."

This place had a life of its own. Not just the tunnel, but the whole ofDeep Space Nine. Even evacuated,

it would still pulse. He'd felt that since his first runabout approach, since he first saw the great

unlubricated wheel cranking in space, cast in methyl violet and frosted with the cold light of the Bajoran

sun, grizzled with patina not of age, but of overuse. This giant spool of incorrigibles was bazaar, dime

store, rialto, community center, infirmary, refuge, precinct house, or hideout to the hundreds who came

and went from it, and it could stir the neck hairs of any species that had them. Only a person's own odds

could say whether the jaundiced silver sculpture in this dry veldt of space would turn out to be a safety

net or a bottle dungeon, and the station ignored all hopes, turning coldly and whispering,No promises, no

promises.

To Miles O'Brien, this crossgrained, cantankerous duty station was the back stair of space, and it still

looked a little too Cardassian for comfort.

He coughed harshly, and it cracked him out of his haunts.

From behind, Odo asked, "Chief?"

"Fine … air's a bit stale."

Hanging with both hands from a steel rod overhead as he swung over piled trash on the deck, Odo

huffed at him. "Only if you breathe it."

O'Brien paused. "Looks like we're up against a dead end here."

"Are you sure?"

"No passage right or left … I'm flush up against a bulkhead. Cold, too. Let's have a light."

From a suffering rucksack that had bumped along on one hip all day, Odo tugged another of the small

illuminators and clicked it on.

Gassy white light gulped at the darkness and finally swallowed most of it, enough to show a

dust-shrouded wall made of several pieces of dented metal panels, bolted and welded to each other in a

crude manner.

"Oh, the captain's not gonna like this," O'Brien muttered. "Not a bit."

Odo squeezed in to put a hand on the shabby wall. "Why not?"

"Look at the seams. Anybody with a can opener could break in through this mess in five minutes. You

know the captain … sees every little disturbance as killing somebody's family."

With a twist of his flat lips, Odo tilted his head. "That's not a nice thing to say."

"I don't mean it poorly. We've had a streak of peace on the station lately. I just don't like to be the one

to bring him trouble. Wish I didn't have to tell him about this."

"I'll tell him," Odo said. "I'm in charge of security. It's my job to bring him trouble."

"You sure there's no schematic of what's down these ruddy throats?"

"None. This pylon and the one directly above are the two oldest parts of the station. ThoughDeep Space

Nine is only about 21 years old, some of the parts were cannibalized from existing stations. No telling

how old they are."

"Crazy-quilt space station," O'Brien grunted. "Hear something new every day, don't we?"

"Yes, we do." Odo craned his long neck to look at the edges of the patchwork wall. "There's a sensor

source behind here."

"It's not open space?"

"No. There's a six-point-four-meter pocket between us and open space."

"Air in it? Maybe there's a hull breach."

Odo keyed the tricorder and waited until it did its search. "Very little air. But no breach. It's

vacuum-sealed."

"Let's put some air in it."

"Now? Without protective equipment?"

"Why not? We've had a hellacious time getting this far and I want to know what the Cardassians were

trying to keep anyone from seeing."

Rather than waste time on a pointless agreement, Odo handed O'Brien the tricorder and toed around the

clutter, then reached down and came up with a four-foot metal rod. Looked heavy. Maybe a forged

rhodinium blend. Even Odo had a little trouble hoisting it.

He fixed one end of the heavy rod flush into the palm of his hand, supported the middle with his other

hand, and aimed for a seamless patch on the bulkhead. His narrow shoulders flexed, rotated, then set.

"Take cover," he rasped, and braced his legs.

BANG!

Wheeeeeesssskkhhhuuuuuu

O'Brien clutched at the collapsia of ragged structural stuff around him as the sudden rush of air from here

to there pulled him nearly off his feet. He came down on one knee, the other foot skidding out of control.

A tornado of metal shards and bits of insulation material struck him in a sudden tidal wave. As he

crammed his eyes shut, his last glimpse was of the rhodinium rod being ripped out of Odo's hand and the

constable's thin body bowing forward.

O'Brien reached out and caught Odo's wrist, yanked back hard, and managed to keep the other man

from crashing forward into the rattling bulkhead.

Ssscheeeeeeee

The sound was deafening, mind-filling. O'Brien felt his cheeks twist out of shape and grimaced to keep

control and hold himself in place, waiting to be sliced in half by some soaring booby trap. His hand

cramped, his fingers clawing into Odo's uniform sleeve. Strange how much it felt like real fabric—but

there was a slight oiliness where his fingertips pressed hard. Was he imagining it because of what he

knew? Confused by the noise, the rushing air?

He held on hard, teeth grinding. If there was a hull breach in there in spite of what the tricorder read out,

even one that hadn't quite broken through, this would certainly break it and they were both dead men. All

he could do was hold on and wait out the wind.

Hundreds of pounds of flotsam thrashed past them, all rushing for the four-inch hole Odo had punched in

that makeshift bulkhead. They huddled for cover and only half succeeded in avoiding a hammering.

O'Brien tried to pull Odo down, but the constable levered against him and maneuvered around behind to

take the brunt of the pounding. For an instant O'Brien thought to shout at him, to tell him not to be

protective, but then he realized that Odo could probably take the pounding better than he himself. Still—

Shaaaaahhhhh…

The whistle began to fall off. Took damned long enough.

He forced one eye open, just a squint.

The bulkhead was still there, though now dent-pocked and skirted with a talus of junk. But no structural

collapse.

As he got shakily to his feet, O'Brien found his legs and back throbbing with pain, and glanced down to

see if he was cut anywhere.

No blood. "All in one piece," he faltered. "You?"

"So far." Odo ran his fingers along the dented wall, then glanced into the tricorder. "The pocket is

equalized. Not the best quality of breathable air, but it'll do. Still cool in there, but warming up."

O'Brien brushed crumbs of shaved hull material off his arms. "What now?"

"There's no time like the present." Odo handed him the tricorder.

"You be careful, now."

"I think we're beyond that point, Chief. Stand clear, please."

O'Brien stumbled as his heel came down on a solid block, but he skidded back a step and found a place

to stand. When he looked up again, Odo had already stopped looking like Odo. In the constable's place

was a mottled liquid pillar, arms and legs now melting out of form, shoulders falling and flattening.

Another moment and there were no more knees, no chin, no hair.

With an involuntary shiver, O'Brien managed to hunker back another inch or two. The pillar mutated into

a tower of silver jelly, lengthened, curved forward, and poured through the four-inch hole in the

bulkhead. Stretching, it went through that hole like a snake into the ground, its last inch whipping like a

tail.

He pressed close to the hole, but it was too dark to see through. He thought he heard another sucking

sound, or squishing sound—or was it in his imagination?

"Odo?" His skin crawled. Shapeshifting …

Was the tricorder working all right? Was there really good enough air in there to breathe? Was it too

cold—and would the cold be bad for a shapeshifter?

"See anything?" he tried again. "Odo?"

Just as he was about to take a blunt instrument to the hole—why hadn't they brought phasers?—there

was movement behind the wall.

"Hand … a … through."

"What?" O'Brien went up on his toes to clear the skirt of junk at his feet.

There was another shuffle. "Hand me an illuminator through the hole."

"Oh—sure. Here you go."

The illuminator was barely small enough to go through, with a little encouragement from the heel of

O'Brien's hand. In another second, frosty haze erupted inside the hole.

"Do you see anything?" O'Brien nosed up to the opening again. "What's in there?"

Bearing his weight as he leaned forward, his fingers started to cramp. He pressed his palms against the

bulkhead, but the metal was too cold for him to do that for very long.

Aggravation growled in his stomach and crawled into his bowels. Damn this place … just when he

thought he knew his way around, just when he had control, just when he'd gotten it safe to live here,

gotten it in order, this giant set jaw in space decided to flex itself and show him what for.

He put one foot up on the mess of junk. "Odo! Can you hear me all right?"

"Yes, Chief." The constable's voice was faint.

"What's in there?"

"Call Captain Sisko. Tell him to get Dr. Bashir and the major and come down here right away."

"Why?" O'Brien put his eye to the hole, but saw only bits of dust floating in a band of ghostly light.

"Because," Odo rumbled from deep in the shadows, "we're in a lot of trouble."

CHAPTER 10

"ODO, STAND STILL! Don't move!"

The shapeshifter bumped into Ben Sisko's thick arm as it was thrust out before him, and he stumbled

back a step. The cool, dim passageway was like a coffin around the two of them, its long tubular shape

stretching out before them into the undefined darkness. They might as well be in a cave.

"What?" Odo asked.

Sisko tipped his head forward just enough. "Look."

Odo peered deep into the shadows of the narrow corridor.

Two … three black-cloaked figures stood in the farthest shadow. Tall creatures, shoulders as wide as

Sisko's, faces undefined in the darkness.

"It's them," Sisko said.

Odo puzzled, "How can you know that?"

"I just know."

There was no turning back—they'd come through four tubes no wider than wine drums in order to get to

this passageway. They couldn't crawl away fast enough. It was time to stand and fight.

"Do you think the translators are back on-line yet?" he asked Sisko, keeping his voice down.

"I'll take the chance," Sisko said.

He stepped forward, his wide shoulders squared, knees locked, and his deep voice boomed under the

low ceiling.

"You there! I am Captain Benjamin Sisko, commander ofDeep Space Nine. Identify yourselves!"

Odo could see in the set of Sisko's jaw that he knew it might be useless, but that there was justice in

announcing identity before demanding the same of others. That was the Federation way. No stabbing

behind unidentified backs.

The beings in the shadows remained still, almost as if they themselves were shadows. For a moment it

seemed as if there was no one really there and Odo thought the dimness might be playing tricks, but then

the invaders moved.

They knew they had been seen. They were speaking to each other. Every few seconds a head would

turn, a shoulder would dip, just enough to show that they were deciding what to do now that they had

somehow cornered Sisko.

Odo realized with bitter self-recrimination that this was a deliberate trap. He'd imagined they were being

followed, that someone had been watching them all morning, and now he knew his imagination had been

more than the fantasy of a suspicious mind. He'd warned Sisko, but there was no stopping Sisko from

going out on his own, pounding his way through the station, trying to get to engineering and help put back

on-line the systems that were the station's heartbeat and blood.

And here, in the middle of some obscure corridor barely two men wide, they had been headed off—and

there, only meters before them, was a cluster of cloaked infiltrators, right here, just like that!

Odo fumed that the station's security had been breached. The concept was poison to him, his only

nightmare, because security was his responsibility and he had failed it. The station was his whole life, his

pond and planet, and any adulterant his poison.

Beside him, Ben Sisko fully shuddered with fury like a leaf under the breath of a predator. His was an

even deeper insult at the station's invasion. Odo watched and thought he understood, and was humbled

by Sisko's restraint. He was letting the invaders make the first move, even giving them a chance to

surrender.

"I should have suggested you bring your phaser," Odo uttered. "It's my fault."

"It's mine," Sisko grumbled out of the corner of his mouth. "I gave my phaser to Kira for Ops security.

There are a dozen phasers in the lower core—I thought we'd get to the lockers before this happened.

We're on our own. Just look armed."

"Lookarmed?" Odo whispered in horror. "How should Ilook armed?"

"Do what I do."

Sisko put his right hand into a fist and raised it to his hip, then hid it a little behind his back, as if going for

a weapon. He bent his knees like a gunfighter Odo had seen in a holodeck plot.

"Insane!" Odo breathed.

Sisko held his left hand out in an accusatory gesture at the clutch of robed beings down there. "You!

Surrender immediately!"

With a wonderful tin-box echo, the demand bumped on the low ceiling and set the thin plates to

vibrating.

Suddenly provoked, two of the cloaked figures broke out of the shadow and charged.

Sisko shoved Odo back to get kicking room for himself. "Here they come!"

It was a kick that would knock a head off. A fabulous; unforgettable, heel-first kick, delivered to

Malicu's shoulder, luckily, rather than his skull.

The High Gul stood in his face-shading cloak in a shadow of the narrow corridor. He had wanted to see

for himself these people who had kicked out the Cardassian occupation of this place. Not even

occupation—ownership. He had wanted to watch this fight between his Loyal Elite Guard and one of the

occupying force.

When Malicu had come to him with an opportunity to kidnap the commander of the complex, the High

Gul had hurried to agree. He wanted to talk to his opponent, understand his enemy. These moments of

conversation were as fascinating to him as any battle. In many ways, theywere battle.

So before him down the narrow corridor, the commander of the space outpost threw his kick at Malicu

while Ranan held him from behind. Ordinarily, this positioning of one before and one behind would work

well, but today the two strong young guards were helpless to possess this man. Malicu couldn't get

anywhere near him.

It was something to see.

Strange how enjoyable, watching his own men be throttled so. Yet, the power of the beating was a thrill,

and the High Gul knew his guards couldn't ultimately be beaten two-to-one. Only a matter of time.

Thus he enjoyed himself, kick by kick.

So this was a "human" … Elto had found the word in the computer banks and managed to translate it

with the old Cardassian program.

As big as Malicu, shoulders wide as Elto's, thighs as thick and hard as Ren's, skin dark brown as

toastberries in his home valley, eyes even darker—

Human.A race unheard-of in his time. How in twenty years had they become so powerful, enough to

throw the Cardassian possession off a station in space? They must have come from outside, perhaps

from another quadrant. Perhaps they were an army of settlers, unable to turn back. Yes, that would

foster the fury he saw kicking and flexing before him like a rutting animal. As much as he wanted to

destroy this man and possess what he possessed, the High Gul wished to talk to him for a few minutes

before the destruction.

He pitied himself and mourned the time he did not have, to listen and learn.

But the man had said words the High Gul recognized now, even without a translator.Deep Space Nine

… identify … Sisko.

Sisko.

The man in the muted uniform threw his weight back in a single great heave that threw Ranan back into a

bulkhead strut and cracked that iron grip. Instantly the brown man was free, spinning like wind to land a

blow upon Malicu's available face. Malicu jolted, but remained in place, feet braced, knees flexed, and

leaned into yet another blow, which this time he managed to block with one meaty forearm. Even down

the corridor, the High Gul heard thethunk.

Malicu raged forward and released terrible punishment upon the man, but his enemy soaked up the

pummeling and would not falter. Blow after blow they rung off each other as, behind the man, Ranan

struggled to find his senses. For a tantalizing moment the dark commander bent fully in half and

committed the unthinkably bold move of grasping Malicu right around the middle as if to spin him up on

his head. The weight was too great, though, and the heave put Malicu on the deck on one knee, and

suddenly he and the commander were rolling in a bitter embrace toward the High Gul.

They never reached him. Ranan's instincts roused him from his daze and he threw himself forward so

violently that he tripped on his targets, flew over them, and landed on the deck to become a solid brake.

There was vast invigoration in watching three such giants fight! The High Gul parted his lips as if tasting

fine wine.

A fleeting thought interrupted the High Gul's enjoyment as he noted to congratulate his men for having

singled out the leader of the complex, and for trapping him in this confined space alone. The High Gul had

no idea how they did it, unable as they all were to understand the language here, and thus it was good

work. Perhaps they had seen him giving orders.

Perhaps he wasn't the overall commander at all—perhaps he was only a brigade leader or a team

captain or a corridor guard. Malicu had seemed so sure when they began following this one … mistakes

were too easy in such a situation.

Down the dim corridor the embrace abruptly came apart and again there were three giants circling in a

dangerous dance, with the human in the middle and the two Elites blocking his lines of escape. He was

facing this way, facing Ranan now, and glancing expertly over his shoulder to measure Malicu's position

and make sure he wouldn't be jumped on without knowing it, pacing himself to stay in the exact middle.

He was catching his breath, the High Gul noticed. Smart.

The dark man suddenly paused, stopped stock-still with both fists raised and his shoulders set, and

stared down the corridor to its end.

And he saw.

The High Gul felt the flinch of his muscles as he realized without even thinking that he had been seen here

in his shadowed nook. The commander spied him and now wouldn't look at anything else, though he

erupted out of his pause and countered the punches that flew at him and hammered relentlessly on Malicu

and Ranan.

Suddenly everything was different. Now the human refused to look away. He stared and stared, drilling

down the corridor at the High Gul, and somehow, through the dimness and within the shadows of the

hooded cloak, he found the High Gul's eyes and bored into them. Somehow they understood each other.

Yes, no doubt now. Sisko.

So they had entrapped the right man. Sisko himself, not just someone invoking the name of his leader.

This was the commander of the complex, the ruler of everyone here, the person responsible for all lives,

all success, all failure. This was communicated perfectly in that ferocious glare, unbreakable by the blows

of the two Elites. No one else could have such an eye.

And the fight was different now, too—each chance he got to grab Malicu or Ranan and spin the action

along the corridor, he took it. He volleyed punches and received them, poured forward into his task like

a blade swinging, bright white teeth visible in a gritted square within his peeled-back lips and streaks of

blood showing upon them. Now each blow, each kick, each shoulder up or down, each knee flung

upward brought the brown man one more step toward the shadows. He was fighting his way to the High

Gul.

Such ferocity! This man—what was he doing here? To administer an outpost, that was why the bottom

of the barrel needed scraping. Such a creature as this, behind a desk? Why?

What if this were the most timid of these humans, if this were the kind considered most expendable by

them? Imagine!

The commander still locked his glare upon the eyes of the High Gul, even as he punched his fists and

drove his shoulders into the hard bodies of Malicu and Ranan, and centimeter by centimeter made

headway down this narrow shaft toward the High Gul. There was instant communication between

them—the commander knew this was the creature who had botched up his complex, scattered his

peace, endangered his crew.

The High Gul raised his chin, only a touch, but enough to acknowledge the glory of the anger spinning in

his opponent's eyes. And in that instant they understood each other perfectly. In a few moments they

would be together.

The High Gul's attention shifted to the other human—

No, not human—the face was wrong. There was no expression, no lines or creases, no signs of wear,

but only piercing blue eyes filled with excitement. A tan uniform—what did that signify? The Gul made a

mental note to find out what the colors meant.

The other person was formidable, despite his thin body. Weight seemed to have no meaning to him as he

Star Trek Deep Space 9 13 Station Rage

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