Call To Arms Read online

  “This isn’t turning out quite the way I had planned,” the Vorta tightly said, his threat not very well veiled.

  Dukat gritted his teeth. “A minor setback, Weyoun. … Once we take the station, we’ll be able to dismantle the minefield without interference.”

  And take as long as I feel like taking.

  Weyoun’s voice became silky again, but the threat remained. “Let’s both hope your confidence is justified.”

  Dukat started to turn, a permanent insult readying on his tongue, but once again he cuffed it aside and moved away from the Vorta, going instead to Damar’s other side. “Damar, signal the reserves to prepare for final assault. Regroup the fleet.”

  “Another wave of our ships is entering Bajoran space,” one of the Jem Hadar reported from over Dukat’s shoulder.

  “Look!” Damar pointed at the large screen which was focused upon the superstructure of the station. “They’re evacuating!”

  On the screen, taking advantage of the lull as the Dominion and Cardassian fleets stopped firing and regrouped, several ships of various configuration detached from the docking ring and streamed away from the station. Even the Defiant was now docked up, probably loading whatever it could carry and whomever was to serve aboard the Federation fighting ship.

  “Evacuation. …”

  Dukat watched for several moments. His station, his Cardassian jewel, would soon be his again. His. And this Vorta’s. And the Dominion’s.

  “When I first took command of this post, all I wanted was to be somewhere else. Anywhere but here. But now, five years later, this station has become my home. And you’ve become my family. Leaving this place, leaving you, is one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do.”

  Captain Ben Sisko stood rather stiffly before a random collection of personnel and citizens, at least those who were left, on the deep space station numbered “9” by the United Federation of Planets. The Starfleet people in the crowd were few and disturbed. They shifted and clasped their hands. Their eyes were downcast, at the deck. They were soon leaving the platform and the people they had protected for five years. The Bajoran citizens and other visitors and residents in the crowd stood still as clay, gazing upward at Sisko, remembering things much earlier than five years ago. They were being left behind, unprotected. Major Kira, Constable Odo, the barkeep Quark, his brother Rom, their not so silent but constant customer Morn, various shopkeepers, Dabo girls, other Ferengi …

  And still others, Starfleet and not, were watching him on screens all over the station. Probably his image, his words, were being broadcast all over Bajor as well. A planet in disappointment.

  The last mine was set. The field was activated. Dominion reserves were moving in. The ugly announcement of evacuation had been made. All Starfleet personnel off the station. His command crew was dispersed to a variety of assignments—Dax would be on the Defiant, with him. Worf, now Dax’s fiancé and the only Klingon in Sisko’s command, had been assigned to General Martok and the Klingon bird-of-prey that had so boldly saved the Defiant and bought the extra time needed to set the mine field across the wormhole’s mouth. Major Kira and Constable Odo would stay here, consigned once again to the oppression of the Cardassians, as they had been long before. Quark would stay to mind his business, and his brother Rom would stay with him, to run the business and be a spy for Starfleet, whatever good that would do here now. Nog, Rom’s son, now a cadet in Starfleet, would go with Sisko and the Defiant as a member of the crew. There would be no cushion of training for him. He would be, like everyone else, plunged into real action.

  All over the station, tender or desperate good-byes were being made, bargains of survivals, promises to live, to keep up hope, to struggle on. … Sisko’s stomach suddenly knotted and he almost choked on a lump of rage. He squared his big shoulders, dealt with the sudden tension in this thick arms, and hoped the crowd would not notice the blush of fury rising in his cheeks, for that would give too much away.

  “But this war isn’t over yet. I want you to know while we were keeping the Dominion occupied, a combined Starfleet/Klingon task force crossed the border into Cardassia and destroyed the Dominion shipyards on Torros Three.”

  A few sparks of hope lit in the eyes of the crowd. Dax and Nog even seemed surprised and let it show. Sisko was gratified—by saving the news, he could give them one little gift before vacating the place he had sworn never to abandon.

  Should he give them the details? Names, ships, images to which they might cling in the coming hard times? Should he describe how the Starfleet patrollers Centaur and Majestic had skirted all the sentry ships at Torros Three and stormed the shipyards without backup, trying to cover each other like two seed pods spinning in a light breeze?

  No—these people needed their own victory stories. He had to give them time to make some before praising the actions of others when all these before him felt so helpless.

  “Our sacrifice made that victory possible,” he went on. “But no victory could make this moment any easier for me. And I promise … I will not rest until I stand with you again, here, in this place … where I belong.”

  Enough, enough—if he said more, something inside would snap. He buried raw frustration in a gesture, by tapping his combadge.

  “Sisko to Defiant. One to beam aboard.”

  Blessedly, they were ready on the ship to beam him off the station right away. No ugly buffer of silent seconds. Controlling his expression, he watched the faces of the crowd distill into the lights and sparkles of the transporter beam. For a silly instant he wished it were they and not he being beamed away, but despite the illusion, his wish was only a wish.

  He materialized in the transporter bay of the battleship Defiant, now his only home. Chief Engineer O’Brien and their personal Cardassian, Garak, were there to meet him, but neither said anything or dared to break his moment of misery.

  He did that himself.

  “Are we ready?” he asked.

  “As soon as you give the word,” O’Brien told him passively.

  All an illusion—there was nothing passive about this moment and things would have to happen damned fast, but O’Brien was giving him time even though they didn’t have any. In fact, O’Brien didn’t even wait around for an answer. He rushed past Sisko and Garak, pausing only briefly at one of the engine stabilization controls before moving on to something else. Having not been on board in the past few hours, Sisko had little idea of what O’Brien was doing and this was no time to interrupt him.

  “Mr. Garak,” Sisko began, turning, and the rest of the question went unasked.

  “I’d like to come along,” Garak said instantly, “if you don’t mind. You never know when you might need a good tailor … and the simple fact is, I have nowhere else to go.”

  A good tailor. Tinker, tailor, soldier—spy. Garak’s past was as simple as any crazy quilt. Sisko was somehow warmed. “Welcome aboard,” he said.

  “Dax to Sisko,” the comm interrupted. “The Dominion fleet is coming around for another attack.”

  Well, here it was. O’Brien had given him a buffer, and Dax was giving him the rude awakening. All right.

  “Release docking clamps,” he ordered. “Prepare for departure.”

  Accepting a nod of encouragement from Garak, Sisko shook off depression’s web and started acting like a soldier. He rushed to the ship’s bridge and, to the apparent relief of his bridge crew, took the command deck. Did they think he wasn’t going to show up? Maybe he’d need counseling for a couple of hours to get over this?

  Not likely. But now wasn’t the time to fight, either. The Defiant and Martok’s bird-of-prey alone couldn’t take on a hundred Dominion ships. Instead, Defiant and the Klingons dodged through the station’s pylons, racking off enough shots at the attacking fleet to keep from being obliterated right away themselves. All they had to do was clear the station—

  “Go to full impulse as soon as you can,” he ordered. “We’ll be back, but we have to get away first. Prepare to cloak!
”

  Major Kira Nerys and Security Chief Odo entered the Operations area of Deep Space Nine. The station, the whole massive structure, shook violently under enemy fire, wrecking the facade of elegance that Kira knew she wanted and suspected Odo wanted, too.

  Odo left her side briefly and checked a readout. “The Defiant’s away,” he said tersely.

  “Signal the Dominion fleet,” Kira responded. Oh, this tasted bad, bad, bad. “Tell them the Bajoran government welcomes them to Deep Space Nine.”

  Oh, sick! How many times over the past day had she rehearsed those words? Somehow she had forced herself to pretend they were just random sounds, like a combination to a door—except that this combination locked the door instead of unlocking it.

  Odo stiffly said, “Message acknowledged.”

  “Good. That’s the last message this station will be putting out for a while. Computer, initiate program Sisko one-nine-seven.”

  The computer dutifully said, “Program initiated.”

  A high-pitched electronic howl built up and screamed through the panels and trunks. Blue crackles of overload and discharge racked each station, frying the computer, monitors, and blowing out every system. A moment later, the plasma conduits stopped their usual pulsing and all the monitors snapped and went black. She and Odo stood together, watching everything they’d fought to protect blow up around them. Funny how your priorities could change.

  Kira glanced around. “Dukat wanted the station back … he can have it.”

  Odo said nothing. He knew as well as she what this might mean—a slide backward to the days of labor camps and martial law under the Cardassians. But there were differences.

  In those days long ago, Kira had been a scruffy, scrawny freedom fighter with a dirty face and a one-track mind. Odo had been a displaced alien using his shapeshifting abilities to change into silly things for the entertainment of others as a crippled effort to fit in. He hadn’t even known in those days why he could do these tricks.

  Now things were different. Kira was a major in the Bajoran military and had been adjutant to Starfleet’s occupation of Deep Space Nine, a constant representative of the planet who had been privileged to command a Starfleet station and a Starfleet ship. It said something about Starfleet that they had so readily accepted her as an authority and treated her as if she had come through their own academy. The singleminded little girl who spent her life in the ditches of Bajor, defending only Bajorans, devoted only to Bajor, had over the past few years found herself accepted into and defending a much larger family.

  Now the impossible was being asked of her. For the sake of long-sought quality of life on Bajor, she must shelve her revulsion at the return of the Cardassians and widen still more her envelope of toleration. No longer just a street urchin fighting behind smashed walls, she must help run the station even under Cardassian control. She must be the one to officially welcome them back. If only her intestines would cooperate.

  As she and Odo walked the long Promenade together, not looking at each other, not speaking, Kira built herself up to doing what she must do. She hoped the station had wrecked itself enough that the Cardassians would have weeks of work ahead of them. As she and Odo approached the row of airlocks, Kira’s eyes tightened, watching several Jem Hadar soldiers physically force open one of the hatches. Many more Jem Hadar, with their ugly pale faces like broken rocks, surged through and formed up ranks. A moment later she saw Dukat, his attendant Damar, and that nauseating Vorta step out onto the Promenade.

  “This is a great victory for Cardassia,” Damar’s voice filtered down the long platform.

  “And the Dominion,” Dukat mentioned. His magnanimity was entirely fake, Kira knew, as was confirmed instantly by his glance toward Weyoun.

  “Over fifty ships lost,” the Vorta complained. “Our spacedocks on Torros Three destroyed—a victory perhaps, but a costly one.”

  “We’ll discuss the repercussions later,” Dukat said. “Right now, I intend to enjoy this moment.”

  Would you enjoy a pointy little fist in your nostril? Kira pressed her hands to her thighs as she and Odo—and Quark had joined them as they passed the bar—stopped before the Cardassians and that Vorta floater. This was it.

  Uch.

  “Gentlemen,” she began, obviously forcing herself, “on behalf of the Bajoran government—”

  Quark stuck his head between her and Odo, saying, “And the Promenade Merchants’ Association—”

  “I officially welcome you to Deep Space Nine,” Kira finished, annoyed that Quark had interrupted her slide down that slope.

  Dukat tipped his head. “You mean Terok Nor. Don’t you?”

  Kira pressed her lips tight and pushed her tongue against her teeth. Did he want an honest answer? Did he want to hear what she really meant?

  But Weyoun saved her from having to speak as he drifted forward to Odo, spread his hands, and gazed in obsequious adoration at the shapeshifter. “Founder … we are honored by your decision to remain with us.”

  Odo blistered and stiffened. “I’m not here as a Founder,” his gravelly voice returned. “I’m the station’s security chief.”

  Kira bit back a grin. She knew what that meant to Odo, and also how much of a lesser thing it must seem to Weyoun.

  “Whatever you say,” Weyoun allowed. “Nevertheless, having a … a god … walk among us is most gratifying.”

  “I agree,” Dukat snapped, butchering the silliness. He all but slapped Odo on the shoulder—but luckily kept from doing that. “You, me, the major, together again … it should be most interesting. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be in the commander’s office.”

  Dukat strode off, flanked by Damar and Weyoun, swarmed from behind by their Jem Hadar stooges. Quark bugged his eyes meaningfully, shook his knobby head, and veered off toward his bar.

  A moment later, Kira and Odo were standing alone on the Promenade, and the irritating part was over. The hard part … that was still to come.

  Kira opened and closed her hands, then opened them again and tried to leave them that way. Might as well pry open clamshells.

  “I don’t know how he avoided rubbing it in,” she muttered.

  Odo watched the last Jem Hadar disappear down the curved corridor through the mist of smoke leftover from the ruptured vent main. “Rubbing what in?”

  “He didn’t say, ‘my’ office. I’d have expected that from Dukat. His sarcasm was always poorly veiled.”

  “Maybe he’s changed,” Odo huffed.

  “Oh, yes,” Kira said with a bitter twitch. “He’s mellowed into a real sweetheart. Anybody can see that.”

  “Where do you think they’re going now? To the captain’s office?”

  “Probably. They’ll have to go through Ops. I wish I could be there when Dukat and that smarmy Weyoun see what they have to rebuild in order to use this station.”

  “Don’t enjoy the dream too much, Major,” Odo warned. “Dukat is a soldier. He’ll be expecting the burnouts. He knows Captain Sisko would leave him with as crippled a station as possible.”

  “If not for that damned treaty Bajor signed, we could’ve crippled it a lot more,” Kira said through her teeth. “But I guess we have to be able to breathe if we’re going to keep living here.”

  “Yes, we do. And we must bide time. Weyoun’s first priority will be to dismantle the mine field so reinforcements can come through from the Gamma Quadrant. He’ll have to let Dukat handle that. The Vorta are politicians, intermediaries … not soldiers.”

  Kira looked at him. “Are you suggesting that Dukat’s priorities and the Vorta’s may not be in line?”

  “Would yours be, if you were Dukat? The Cardassians were once supreme here. Now they have formed a devil’s deal with the Dominion. I’m sure no Cardassian is fool enough to think the Dominion will allow anyone to be its equal partner. I suspect Dukat views the arrangement as temporary, until his own ends can be met.”

  “What do you think Dukat wants?” Kira asked. “In the long
run?”

  “I don’t know.” Once again Odo gazed down the now-empty corridor. “But if I were you, Kira … I’d be watching him for clues.”

  “Our shipyards … destroyed!”

  The Vorta’s controlled features took on a ghoulish twist which gave Dukat definite satisfaction.

  “Torros Three,” he uttered, placidly looking over the report Damar had just handed him—even worse than the early reports. “The entire Dominion shipyard, decimated.”

  They stood now on the shattered remains of the Operations center, strangely resembling the condition of the station when Dukat had left it behind years ago. He too had destroyed everything he could before leaving.

  He handed the padd back to Damar. “Acknowledge the information, Damar, but make no reports yet about the condition of the station. I’ll handle that myself. Later.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  As Damar left, Weyoun watched Dukat. “Is this what you consider normal? To gain a station and lose a shipyard? Is this what Cardassians consider effective warfare?”

  “We gained the station because we lost the shipyard,” Dukat told him. “Or the other way around, depending upon your perspective.”

  “Do you mean to suggest that this was all some kind of Starfleet plan?”

  “Oh, not exactly. I’m sure they have no pleasure in losing the station, but when that became inevitable I’m also sure they determined not to suffer a loss without a gain. The distraction allowed Starfleet ships to broach the lines and destroy Torros Three, yet they also managed to put up and activate that mine field. Though they lost the station and control of this sector, they did make us pay for the exchange. That is the nature of war, Weyoun … at least, it is on this side of the wormhole.”

  Weyoun leered at him, but regained control over his expression. “About that minefield … if they’re self-replicating mines, what can we do to bring the network down?”

  “They’re not actually self-replicating,” Dukat enjoyed pointing out. “When one is destroyed, its neighbors fill the gap. That’s not ‘self’ replication—”

  “I don’t care what it is as long as you bring down the network.”