Chapter Text
“There is no indication that they have detected us,” Eddington broke the long silence on the Defiant’s bridge. “Yet.”
“Or maybe we just don’t worry them?” Sisko muttered in reply. If he were on a ship that size, would he be concerned about the Defiant? They did destroy the two Jem’Hadar vessels. Or did they? Although, that said, the Jem’Hadar were chasing the small ship and firing on it. It was probably best not to act in a hostile manner until they knew more about these strangers.
“I am not detecting any weapons systems at all,” Eddington continued. Of course, that didn’t mean they didn’t have any, Sisko reminded himself, just that the Defiant couldn’t detect any. A worrying possibility.
“It is possible that they are friendly,” Dax lilted. “Harmless, even. I think maybe they’re using the asteroid field in order to hide from the Dominion forces.”
“That is a possibility,” Sisko drawled and gave a slight nod, stroking his chin with the fingers of one hand. He’d certainly like to believe it were true, given the other possibilities.
“There are… three, no, four maybe five life signs aboard,” Dax supplied. Sisko swivelled in his chair and shot her a questioning frown. She smiled disarmingly and shrugged. “It’s difficult. The ship itself is registering as a lifeform.”
“The ship!?” Sisko could tell his surprise was showing on his face. It didn’t do to look surprised when you were in charge, so he swiftly cleared his expression.
“Should I open a hailing frequency?”
“No, we can’t risk being overheard by the Cardassians and…. whoever. But we can’t just sit here waiting for enlightenment. We’ll beam aboard and talk to them face to face.”
‘~’
“Pilot!” Chiana yelped as she frantically dashed from console to console aboard Moya’s command. “That’s two explosions!” Chiana had been pleased when Pilot had told her that John and Aeryn were heading back from their reconnaissance mission. She’d been considerably less happy when Pilot had added that two unknown craft were chasing the Prowler and firing on them.
“Moya and I are well aware of how many explosions there have been!” Pilot’s projected image snarked back at her from the clamshell. Obviously he wasn’t taking it well either. “As yet we have been unable to determine what caused them…”
“Well, have ya tried, y’know ASKING John and Aeryn?” Chiana chirped.
“Need I remind you, Chiana, that both Commander Crichton and Officer Sun were explicit in their instructions to maintain communications silence!”
“Yeah, but that was before….”
“If they felt that the situation was sufficiently critical to merit breaking that silence, then I am confident that they would have called us!”
“Unless they couldn’t…” Chiana whispered. Pilot blinked slowly, twice and lowered his eyes.
“I… Moya and I have…. Every confidence….. in Officer Sun’s skills as a pilot,” he replied, his voice now quiet, soft and full of doubt. Chiana couldn’t help but notice that he had reverted to using Aeryn’s old, impersonal Peacekeeper name and rank, probably in order to protect his fragile composure.
Chiana nodded in acquiescence. Aeryn was a fine pilot. The best. It was a faith they both had to share, right up until the point, if it came to it, that they might be proven wrong, and then maybe a little longer even after that. Anything else was inconceivable to both of them. Chiana glanced down at John and Aeryn’s eighteen-monen-old narl playing at her feet: his raven hair and blue eyes a constant reminder to her of his parentage. Chiana was too young to adopt a narl. Aeryn and Crichton had better not have frelled things up this time. She needed them back.
“Chiana!” Pilot hissed. She glanced at the console – Pilot’s eyes were wide, shocked, concerned. Oh frell! Chiana thought. Brace yourself for the bad news! “One of my DRDs has just reported two strangers on your level, heading towards command! Moya and I have no idea how they got aboard!”
Well, that was unexpected, Chiana conceded as she drew her small pistol and strode over towards Deke, her mind already weighing up which was the best hidden route off of Command. Within 5 microts, Deke cradled on her slim hip, she was already half way towards her choice of access duct. Just as she reached it a sound behind her caused her to turn her head. Frell! She was too late! Two figures stood in the doorway. A Sebacean-looking male and female. She aimed her pistol their way and fired a warning shot over their heads.
The man winced and visibly ducked his head. The woman seemed almost unconcerned, unflappable, like Aeryn would be if someone had shot at her and missed.
“On the ground and……. D. d. drop your weapons!” she screamed, trying to sound as commanding as Aeryn would, if only her friend had been there. Chiana knew, though, that the high tone of her voice, not to say her nervous inflection and expression gave her away. Outnumbered two to one. Aeryn’d murder her if she got Deke and herself killed.
Then, instead of drawing weapons and shooting back, to Chiana’s surprise the newcomers raised their hands, their open, empty palms forwards, just like John sometimes did.
The intruders exchanged glances, the meanings of which Chiana could not determine, then one of them began to speak.
“We don’t want to hurt you,” said the male Sebacean, his voice slow, deep and rich. It suited his deep brown skin tone. Chiana felt a tiny flutter of lustful curiosity, which she quickly pushed away. Now was not the time for such things.
“We only want to talk,” added the female, who was tall, slim and dark haired, a bit like Aeryn. However, Chiana now realised, the woman had some sort of markings or tattoos down her neck. Also, instead of Aeryn’s semi-permanent scowl, this woman wore a semi-permanent amused grin, like she knew something really funny which no-one else was privy to. The tattooed woman had been staring, fascinated, at the holo-image of Pilot on the clamshell. Pilot had kept his own counsel and stared silently back, but now, Chiana noticed, he arched a questioning eyebrow ridge. ‘Tattoos’ laughed lightly and then turned her eyes to Chiana.
“Talk talk talk…. Must be humans!” Chiana mocked. “So…. Start talking!”
“Please, we didn’t mean to startle you,” the woman tried to placate.
“Well maybe you shoulda frelling called ahead!” Chiana snapped back.
“We didn’t call ahead because we didn’t want to risk alert anyone who might have been listening,” the male explained, labouring over the point as though to ensure she understood. Hostile people were seldom so keen to explain things. Chiana imagined something in her body language or expression must have betrayed what she was thinking because the male beamed a broad smile. Like a male version of Aeryn it lit up his whole face, the room even. Chiana pushed down another lustful thought. He licked his lips and continued. “And I don’t reckon you’d have wanted us to alert certain people to your presence either, am I right?”
This time Chiana gave a shoulder shrug to signify that maybe he was right, but she couldn’t possibly comment. She had noticed that he had made quite a generalisation in his question, like a confidence trickster asking if anyone present had recently lost a relative or something similar. Chiana considered herself sufficiently street-wise not to be so easily duped.
“Captain Sisko?” A disembodied voice chirped from what Chiana immediately took to be a comms badge.
“Secure frequency,” the male explained to Chiana with an apologetic shrug as he nodded towards then tapped the comms badge on his tunic. “Speaking?”
“Thought you’d want to know, the small craft we were following just docked with the vessel you’re aboard.”
“Acknowledged. Sisko out.” He tapped his badge. “So, the small black and red ship…. Friends? Or foes?” Sisko arched his eyebrow, addressing his question to Chiana.
“Friends…. Of mine, anyhow.”
‘~’
Sisko decided the moment that they first walked into the room that the two newcomers looked a whole lot more business-like than the grey girl and the human looking toddler. Both were dressed in seriously aggressive black, mostly leather outfits the likes of which he had not seen outside of old fashioned science fiction movies. The man had a big, black pistol drawn and was waving it around imperiously, unlike the woman, whose empty hands brushed her sides. Not that the fact that the woman held no weapon made her look any less threatening: her clothes and long thick black hair were matched by an expression like stone and a big, black pistol holstered on her thigh within easy reach of one of those deceptively empty hands. Sisko had wondered ever since they’d entered this room how much of the crew were humanoid, what with the little yellow robot-like things and the silent, lobster-like creature that had been watching them from some sort of three dimensional view screen. It seemed they were not only mostly humanoid, but human, which was at least encouraging: No Cardassians, Vorta, Jem’Hadar…..
Time to play the diplomat, make these two more at ease. And find out more about them.
“I’m Captain Benjamin Sisko and this is Lieutenant Jadzia Dax of the United Federation of planets. Please accept our apologies for boarding you unannounced, but we were concerned to keep our presence here as discreet as possible.”
“Yeah, whatever,” the man dismissed his introduction with unexpected brusque casualness. “I’m Butch, this is Sundance. We’re kinda busy. Wadda you want?” The man’s accent was Earth, an old Southern-US drawl. The language was English. So thankfully, unlike for the grey girl, Sisko wouldn’t have to suffer the buzz of the universal translator in his ear, making sense of everything. Interesting, though, that this crew used multiple languages.
“Butch and Sundance?” Sisko couldn’t help himself from voicing his consternation and surprise. The raven-haired woman arched an eyebrow and almost seemed to give a knowing smile. Almost.
“You will have to excuse my husband his dramatic tendencies,” the woman remarked, her voice low and husky and far from apologetic. “But regardless. What are you doing aboard Moya?” She sounded English, perhaps cultured Australian, but something was just a little off in her pronunciation. Maybe English wasn’t her first language? Maybe she was from some long-sequestered colony? Maybe they were all Maquis sympathisers?
“Moya?” Sisko frowned, unfamiliar with the word.
“Our ship. Moya.” The man, the self-styled Butch, explained, plonking himself on a seat and throwing his heavily-booted feet up on a nearby table with a flourish designed to communicate who was in charge here. His fingers drummed on the ostentatiously large black pistol, now resting on the table beside him. At least he wasn’t waving the gun around anymore, so that counted as an improvement. These two certainly came over as the sort of dangerous outlaws that befitted their chosen aliases – if aliases they were. Sisko could scarcely credit that they were really called what the man had claimed.
“And… are you Maquis?” Sisko asked outright. The man frowned in confusion, inadvertently providing Sisko with a non-verbal answer to his question.
“Are you PKs? Coz I’m so unamused to find you playing with wormholes again…” The man made his statement sound like some sort of threat. “It’s a breach of the treaty….”
“PKs?” Dax frowned. “What…?” Sisko hushed her with a raised hand.
“Not PKs.I’m not even sure…. We were investigating….” Sisko paused, considering what to reveal and how to reveal it. After all, he knew nothing of these people or their sympathies. These two looked human, but they weren’t Federation and they kept fairly exotic company in their ship, the grey woman and the lobster on the holoscreen. None of it was exactly Maquis, but who were they, then? “Reports of a hostile presence in this area. Then we saw….. what I presume was you? The small red and black craft?” The woman, Sundance, nodded almost imperceptibly in confirmation. “Being pursued by two Jem’Hadar ships…”
“Jem Hadar?” The man interrupted. “Who’re they when they’re at home?” Interesting, thought Sisko, so he really isn’t from round here. Or maybe he’s leading me on to say something I shouldn’t?
“Shh, John,” the woman admonished him. “Let the man finish.” Interestingly, he did so. Also interestingly it seemed he had a nice, normal human name: John.
“They are…. Some of the people we are concerned about,” Sisko decided to venture in the hope of gaining something more himself – either trust or information, or perhaps just another informative reaction. “At the planet.”
“You got your troubles, I got mine,” the man called John crooned.
“We were more concerned with who these… Gem Hatars were meeting,” Sundance supplied. English definitely didn’t seem to be her first language.
“The funny, squid like ship?” Jadzia asked. “Who are they?” John and Sundance exchanged a dark look. Sundance straightened her shoulders, and looked Jadzia straight in the eye. Sisko’s breath hitched as he realised Sundance’s fingers had come to rest on the stock of her pistol. John seemed casually tense, ready to react in a second, fingers settling around the stock of his pistol like a gunfighter in an old movie.
“They are not friendly,” Sundance supplied after a tense few seconds, her tone and gaze a challenge. “They are called Scarrans.”
“Never heard of them,” Jadzia shrugged it off with her usual easy-going grin. Sisko could easily forgive her the small strategic lie – they needed as much information as these newcomers were willing to share.
“Unsurprising.” That was John speaking, his voice edged with a seriousness they had not yet heard him use. “You see, I’m guessing you’re locals, of sorts, right?” Sisko nodded. “Well, they came here through a wormhole.”
“Ah!” Sisko exclaimed. Now it was he and Jadzia’s turn to exchange glances. “And presumably you did too?” Butch, or John, gave a non-committal shrug, but Sisko could see the truth in his eyes.
“The question we were wondering,” John continued, fixing his eyes on Sisko. “Was ‘why?’”
“I think it is fair to say,” Sisko replied in long, measured tones. “That we were wondering much the same. Perhaps we should share intelligence?”
“Well, we ought to do so quickly,” Sundance stated. “Or do something quickly, anyway. Those people back at the planet are going to start wondering what has happened to their two ships very soon.”
“Damn!” Sisko hissed, instantly seeing the truth of her words. They may even have taken too long already, chatting. The Dominion must be wondering what had happened to their ships by now.
“Based on their normal procedures, they’ll probably send in more ships to investigate within the next ten minutes,” Dax confirmed, a frown for once displacing her near ever-present smile. “I can’t see them waiting any longer…”
“Actually,” Sundance interjected with considerable smug confidence. “I have a plan that might buy us some time. Then we can reconvene at a safe distance and have a long talk.”
“You’ve got a plan?” The man, John, asked in a disbelieving manner, the bite of his words completely softened by the broad grin he directed at her.
“It’s my turn,” she pouted and laughed back. Obviously there was some sort of private joke the couple were sharing, but they didn’t seem inclined to share the details with anyone else.
“Just tell me it doesn’t involve anything painful or dangerous,” he chuckled with a trace of mock-horror.
“No!” She snorted back, somewhat ambiguously, with a wiggle of one of her bushy eyebrows.
“Whatever!” John laughed harder and waved her off.
“Pilot, you’ve been listening, right?” Sundance addressed the lobster-creature on the clam shell monitor.
“Indeed, Aeryn. How can Moya and I be of service?” The buzz in Sisko’s ear from the universal translator was unbearable: that was some freaky language the lobster was speaking in.
“Can you trim Moya’s sensor modulator to mimic the signature of one of these Gem Hatar ships?”
“I believe that should be possible…. One moment please.” Aeryn nodded and turned to address Sisko.
“Captain, can your ship mimic a transmission from a Gem Hatar ship?”
“Dax?” Sisko shrugged, deflecting the question.
“I believe that should be possible,” Dax replied to Sisko.
“Fine.” Aeryn gave a curt nod.
Dax turned slightly to address Aeryn. “What exactly is it you have in mind to do?”
Aeryn cast her eyes around the assembly, locking their attention on her. “What we do is….”
‘~’
“There goes the….” Miles O’Brien paused for a moment. “What did you call it?”
“A Prowler,” Sisko informed him from the Captain’s chair.
“Going at one quarter warp and accelerating.”
“And there goes Moya,” Sisko added watching the huge yet graceful craft with evident pleasure and appreciation. “Old man, take us out of the asteroid field, keeping to within 200 metres of our new friend.” He stood, strode across to Dax’s console, made the briefest of checks over her shoulder, then on to Kira’s where he did similar. “And she’s doing a damn fine imitation of a Jem’Hadar ship on sensors!” Sisko rumbled appreciatively. He turned towards Dax once again. “Right, send the transmission. Kira,” he added, turning his head again. “Fire a few shots after the Prowler. And make sure you miss!”
Jadzia smiled and pressed the touch-screen display before her, sending the message back towards the planetoid while simultaneously relaying the terse tones, synthesised to sound like a Jem’Hadar warrior, across the Defiant’s bridge. Phaser blasts, their frequency and power attenuated to resemble those of a Jem’Hadar weapon, streaked away from them into the void, towards the Prowler.
“One ship lost in collision with asteroid,” the synthesised message was heard to recount, relayed across the Defiant’s bridge. “Unknown craft fleeing system. Heading off in pursuit. Out.”
‘~’
To be continued….