Chapter Text
Chapter Five:
“If you wanted to conduct a search I think we’d be quite within our rights,” Kira Nerys informed Sisko. “And there are effectively only three crew aboard: it couldn’t be that hard to take them into custody.” He remembered the way Sun and Crichton had looked when he had first met them and again when they had been denied the virus, and he remembered how Sun had despatched the two Jem’Hadar attack ships chasing her. He wasn’t so confident in Kira’s assessment of the ease with which they could be taken into custody. He shifted slightly: he’d never really found the chair in his tiny ready room that comfortable. His physical discomfort was being exacerbated by the difficult, but necessary conversation with Major Nerys regarding what to do about the missing vials of virus.
“Maybe, but if we do anything like that, we can kiss goodbye to future good relations with them.”
“I agree,” Kira nodded in agreement. Of course she would have considered that. She was simply doing her job – letting the captain know the options open to him and acting as a sounding board.
“Anyway, it’s a big ship, a really big ship. If those vials are aboard, it’d be like trying to find a needle in a haystack.”
“Which would bring us back to square one.” Nerys voiced his own thoughts. “Except now we wouldn’t be on friendly terms with them.”
“Exactly!”
“So, what do you want to do?”
“Talk…” As he opened the screen in front of him he flashed her one of his more playful grins. “Apparently, it’s all that humans are good at.” Sisko was relieved to hear Nerys laugh at his self-deferential jibe: After the events of the last thirty minutes or so, it helped him let off some much needed steam, too. She nodded in agreement. “Computer, put me through to Moya, please, secure channel.”
The grey face of Moya’s gigantic, symbiotic pilot appeared on the screen.
“Yes? How may I be of assistance, Captain Sisko?” the creature simply called Pilot asked. Sisko was used to dealing with aliens, but there was something about Pilot that was just off-putting. Sisko suspected that it was the creature’s slight, barely hidden air of superiority, as though he regarded almost everyone else as merely troublesome children. Well, almost everyone else – Sisko had witnessed him interact with Captain Sun on far more even terms. The impression that Pilot projected, that he was so much smarter than everyone else, was heightened by the fact that he insisted that his real name would be too complicated for any of them to use, hence his designation simply as Pilot.
“Ah, thank you…. Something important has come up over here and we were wondering if we could talk to Captain Sun?”
“One moment please, I will see if she is available…” After a few seconds the view on the screen shifted to what appeared, from the background ephemera, to be personal quarters. Otherwise, Sun’s head and shoulders filled the screen. She was dressed in what looked like a washed out grey T-shirt, while a mop of unruly hair and tired eyes spoke of a difficult night.
“My apologies, Captain, I didn’t realise you’d be asleep.” Sisko soothed.
“I’ve been up for a while,” Sun sighed and pulled her long hair back, securing it in a loose tail behind her head. “My son is…. Teething.” She seemed to have been searching for the right word to use. Sisko could make out the distant cries of an infant, adding authenticity to her declaration.
“My sympathies, from one parent to another,” he smiled. She nodded ever so slightly in acknowledgement. Pleasantries out of the way he took a deep breath and launched into the purpose of his call: “Umm, there’ve been some rather disturbing developments overnight. I wonder if you and Commander Crichton could beam over….?”
“What sort of developments?” Sun enquired, now seemingly fully alert and engaged. She was military through and through.
“Probably best if we save the details till you get over here…” Sisko obfuscated. Sun arched an eyebrow.
“Fine. Can you give us… thirty….” She paused: whether she was considering how much time she needed or what words to use, Sisko was unsure. “Hmmm. Minutes to get ready?”
Sisko nodded. “Call us when you’re ready to beam over.”
‘~’
“Are you accusing us of stealing your precious virus!?” John seemed on the point of exploding with righteous anger. That would have been unfortunate, especially considering how they were deep inside the Defiant, ensconced in the conference room with Sisko and a handful of his crew.
“John,” Aeryn soothed, laying what she hoped was a calming hand on his forearm. For all of the calmness she projected, Aeryn was half-grateful for his barely controlled emotional outburst. His anger served as a safety-valve to release some of her own fury, enabling her to better control herself.
“No one is accusing you of anything,” Sisko held up his hands in the gesture that Aeryn recognised as being one which humans used when they wanted to calm a tense situation.
“Well, that’s what it sounds like…” John rumbled on.
“But the fact remains that two vials have gone missing, and you have clearly expressed the opinion that this weapon should be used against the Scarrans.” Sisko stated.
“And I still hold to that view.”Aeryn replied as calmly as she could manage. “But the fact is that it would be pointless for us to take these vials from your ship and then not take them to the planet to use them, wouldn't it?”
“We’ve all been over there, on our ship, ever since Dr Bashir told us about the virus thing,” John added. “You’re the only people to have been to the planet since…”
“You might have gone when we were away dropping off the landing party…” suggested some junior Starfleet officer whose name Aeryn did not remember.
“What, you think we sneaked over there in our big-ass, not-at-all-invisible ship, with neither you nor the Cardawhotsit Imperium spotting us?” John verbally slapped the young man down. “Gimme a break!”
“And besides, how were we supposed to have gained access to your sick bay without you noticing?” Aeryn followed up.
“Nah. Must have been one of your people. Occam’s razor.” John insisted, nodding heartily. “But if you find out who it is, I’ll buy ‘em a beer.”
“How can you be so blasé about using a biological weapon? It’s tantamount to genocide, and we’re not even at war?” Jadzia Dax seemed somewhat upset. “You’re not even at war!” she added for good measure.
“Jadzia,” Aeryn responded with equal, barely controlled rage. “The Scarrans kidnapped me and tortured me. They wanted to rip my child out of my belly and experiment on it. They tried to enslave my whole galaxy, and they would do so again if they thought they might succeed. They would do it to your people without a microt’s hesitation. As a trade-off to keep my people safe… to keep your people safe… I’m not only happy to poison these plants. It is my duty to do so.”
“We’re never going to see eye to eye, are we?” Sisko enquired wearily.
“Nope.” John Crichton confirmed. “But for what it’s worth, we didn’t steal no damn virus.”
‘~’
It had been an interesting second day for the Defiant’s landing party: Ensign Fox had returned from his stint observing the aliens’ camp to report that the Kalish, the Scarrans’ sidekicks, had been acting in a most agitated manner, rushing around, arguing and so forth. There were two Scarrans known to be on the surface, from previous observations, and neither had been seen by Fox until just before noon, when an almighty commotion had broken out in the aliens’ camp. Eddington had decided to go and observe personally: Fox had been right, although no one had been able to ascertain what the reason for the disturbances might be.
Eddington was relieved by Lieutenant De Veres at around 4 pm and returned to learn that the Kalish had gathered another crop of flowers from the plantation just after 3 pm. At 6 pm Ensign Ro reported back that the commotion at the aliens’ camp had resumed with renewed vigour. By nightfall, angry shouts were heard even at the Starfleet base of operations.
Matters degenerated further overnight, with sporadic screams and sounds of weapons being discharged. Their base of operations was too close if things were getting so heated. Eddington withdrew the landing party to a safe distance of nearly two kilometres and doubled their watches: the last thing he wanted was for his people to be caught up in whatever was happening.
When morning came, Eddington undertook a solo reconnaissance to see what he could learn of the events of the previous night. Several bodies, representing all the alien species in the camp, could be seen scattered around. The Cardassians and Jem’Hadar seemed to have re-established peaceful control over the camp, but at quite some cost.
Violence, chaos and disorder. Eddington smiled to himself. His work here was done. Time to get everyone away before they were spotted, before they could give the Cardassians, Dominion and Scarrans someone to blame events on. Far better they continued to blame each other. He dropped the vial which had contained Bashir’s bioweapon on the ground, set his phaser to the lowest setting which would have the desired effect and vapourised it. Then he pulled out his communicator and activated the encoded, secure signal which would tell the Defiant to come and retrieve the reconnaissance parties.
‘~’
Sisko rubbed his eyes and wearily pinched the bridge of his nose. The meeting with Sun and Crichton hadn’t exactly gone to plan: tempers had frayed, relationships had been strained and yet they were no further forward towards learning who had taken the two vials from the sickbay nor what the thief or thieves had done with them. Neither were they any further forward in learning what the Dominion, Cardassians and Scarrans were up to and what, if anything, they should do to stop them.
“Captain Sisko!” Major Kira’s voice spilled from his communicator badge. He tapped the patch on his shoulder instinctively to respond.
“Yes, what is it?”
“I think you should come to the bridge, sir!” It must be urgent for her to talk like that.
“I’ll be right there!” Sisko stood and made for the door of his ready room. Seconds later, he was on the bridge, relieving Major Kira from her place in the Big Seat.
“We’re detecting sporadic, large energy signatures coming from the direction of the planet,” she informed him as she headed for the tactical station.
“Could be weapons fire?” the lieutenant at tactical suggested before making way for Major Nerys. Sisko quickly checked the readouts on the arm of his chair, caught the young, now standing officer’s eye and nodded his agreement.
“If there’s fighting breaking out, we need to get our people out of harm’s way. And learn what’s going on down there.” Sisko floated his train of thought out across the bridge like fishing bait, to see how his team responded, to gather their opinions and input.
“If the Scarrans and Dominion are firing on each other, we ought to get closer and observe,” Major Nerys added, supporting the plan of action he was already formulating.
“Agreed. Get Sun and Crichton over here: their insights might be useful. Then take us in, but carefully, with the cloak engaged.”
The next couple of minutes were tense aboard the bridge as the Defiant swiftly closed in on the planet.
“I’m detecting a transmission sir.” Dax announced. “I believe it’s in…. Scarran.” At that moment the door opened and Captain Sun and Commander Crichton, accompanied by a detail from security, strode onto the bridge, having made their way up from the transporter bay.
“It is,” Sun confirmed. “But that is a Kalish speaking, not a Scarran. They’re reporting that the Chrystherium were poisoned and that the Dominion turned hostile when confronted with the evidence. They are recommending no further diplomatic excursions through the wormhole.”
“Way to go!” Crichton crowed. Everyone ignored him, including, seemingly, Captain Sun.
“Prepare to beam up the landing parties.” Sisko ordered as they approached what he estimated to be transporter range. There was no sense in keeping them on the surface, especially not now that people were shooting at each other. Far better to return later and see what they could learn, when tensions had died down a little. When there was less chance of being discovered or shot at.
No sooner had the words left Sisko’s mouth than an angry, orange, white and black explosion flared in low orbit in front of them, the flames dying almost as soon as they formed as the material feeding them dispersed in the vacuum of space.
“Report!” Sisko barked.
“That was a Jem’Hadar ship,“ Nerys reported, not looking up from her console. “Sensors reading two more Dominion craft, two Cardassian and one Scarran vessel. All with weapons damage.” Sisko didn’t need a report from Nerys to know that there was weapons fire, too: They could all see that with their own eyes simply by looking at the big screen at the front of the bridge.
“Transporter room reports our landing party is on board, sir – no casualties,” Dax reported. Sisko spared her a swift, grateful nod of acknowledgement.
By now they had approached close enough that they could see the other craft in some detail through the main viewscreen: The Scarran ship, resembling nothing if not a dead spider, seemed to have taken the heaviest damage, but was still manoeuvring, speeding up, even: To Sisko’s eyes, it seemed to be accelerating towards the larger of the remaining Dominion vessels. Were the Scarrans planning on ramming their former ally? If so things must be desperate indeed for them. The Scarrans were getting really close to the larger Dominion ship now. Suddenly, the sole remaining small, Dominion attack ship darted forwards, towards the Scarrans.
“They’re going to….” Nerys began, but the words died on her lips: Everyone could see what had happened, too quickly to commentate on. Although the Scarrans seemed to change course slightly to avoid the collision with the smaller Dominion craft, it was too little, too late. The Jem’Hadar attack ship rammed them, almost dead centre. The explosion was devastating for both vessels, as engines and remaining munitions on both ships soon fed into the conflagration.
The door to the bridge opened and Lieutenant Commander Eddington entered, just as the shock wave from the explosion gently rocked the Defiant. He made straight to stand beside the helm, leaving his usual console in the capable hands of the junior lieutenant. Sisko approved – now was not the time to be swapping people around unnecessarily.
“Was that…?” Sisko overheard Eddington ask Dax as he stood beside her, causing her to nod in reply. He, in turn responded with a nod of his own and what looked, from this angle, like a slight smile. But Sisko had no time to sit and stare at his officers, not in the middle of a battlefield, not if they wanted to ensure that no accidental, freak happening, such as colliding with some stray debris, revealed their presence.
“Helm, take us out to fifty thousand clicks!” Sisko ordered, hoping that would be enough to ensure their safety and secrecy whilst still allowing them to observe anything that might happen next.
“Looks like the Scarrans and the Dominion are at each others’ throats,” Eddington observed turning to address Sisko. If there had been the hint of a smile on Eddington’s features, it was controlled now. The captain nodded. Although it was a positive result for the Federation, that it seemed unlikely now that there would be an alliance between those powers, it could still prove an undesirable outcome if a war were to break out close to their borders.
“Will the Scarrans come through to attack the Dominion, do you think?” Sisko spun to face Aeryn. If you had a Scarran expert aboard, it seemed foolish not to ask their opinion.
“I don’t believe so,” Aeryn shook her head, immediately processing the question like the military officer Sisko knew her to be. “Not with any significant forces. Not if they aren’t going to get anything in return. Their forces are too finely balanced with the Peacekeepers to commit to hostile action against someone else.”
“Well, at least that is something to be grateful for,” Sisko let out a long held breath, willing the tensions of the last few days to leave his body.
“Fifty thousand kilometres achieved,” Dax announced from the helm. “Establishing a geostationary orbit.”
‘~’
“Captain, Commander, Moya and I are pleased to have you back aboard,” Pilot announced a few microts after John and Aeryn materialised aboard Moya’s command.
“Thank you, Pilot,” Aeryn replied, casting looks and limbs around her to re-orientate herself.
“It’s a genuine pleasure to be back,” John added, steadying himself by leaning against a console.
“Can I take it that events did not go entirely as you might have wished?”
“Oh, I dunno, Pilot? What’s the best we could have wished for?” John replied, straightening up once he got over his momentary disorientation.
“Moya’s sensors detected a great deal of heavy weapons fire from the direction of the planet. And at least two large explosions, of a size commensurate with the destruction of a ship….”
“Yep, Pilot it was situation normal, all frelled up.”
“Moya and I were worried for your safety…” Pilot seemed to be admonishing John for his flippant attitude.
“Thank you, Pilot,” Aeryn soothed.” Can you let Moya know that we are not expecting any further dangerous occurrences? We shall be heading back to the wormhole in about half an arn, once the Defiant is ready to depart.”
“Thought we’d throw ‘em a bone and show ‘em where it is.” John explained.
“So, is your business here concluded satisfactorily?”
“Concluded? Yeah? Satisfactorily? Well… so-so to that.”
“We were wondering if you had any intention of remaining in this region of space? Perhaps you would like to spend some time…?”
“Nope. Once we’ve shown the Defiant where the wormhole is located then that’s us done.”
“Oh,” Pilot sounded almost disappointed, as though he wanted to stay around for a while and learn more of this strange new part of the Universe. “Very well. Moya and I will prepare a course…”
“So, babe,” John turned his attention to Aeryn. “If we leave for the wormhole now, I reckon we could be home in the UTs by tonight.“
“Tonight?” She knotted her thick brows. “Why, what are we going to do tonight?”
“The same thing we do every night…” John replied in a sing-song tone.
“You wish…” Aeryn responded with a crooked grin.
“Captain….” Pilot’s voice intruded on their banter once again. “When you have time, Aeryn, Chiana has informed me that she wants to talk to you. She says she has something for you…”
“Huh?” John enquired on Aeryn’s behalf.
“I believe it may be something she obtained from the Defiant,” Pilot expounded. “Something of some importance, if I am any judge.”
“Oh frell!” Aeryn snarled. Her mind was already weighing up what that something could possibly be and coming to worrisome conclusions.
John blew out a breath and turned to face her. “Are you pondering what I’m pondering, Aeryn?”
Aeryn ground her teeth and rolled her eyes. She shook her head. “Don’t…. just…. Don’t.” She warned in clipped tones. And for once Commander John Crichton was wise enough to hold his tongue. “Where is Chiana now?” Aeryn called out to Pilot as she began marching off the command deck in search of her young friend and crewmate.
The end