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  "It would take more than three to cause a sector-wide blackout," Sisko said, as if discussing a point over a game of cards, and rubbed the shoulder on which he'd landed when the gravity popped back on.

  Kira had been watching him and Dax in silence for several minutes before the gravity went wild, keeping quiet as they sifted through the problems and tried to pick out which were homebound and which were external. As for any second-in-command, once the commander came on deck she was shunted to observer status, until she came up with something to contribute. That was fine—this series of events was bizarre to her.

  She found herself asking two questions for every answer they got, while Ben Sisko was working through the situation one element at a time without getting mad at it.

  Kira knew she would've been mad by now. In fact, she was mad the moment her nose hit the lift door. Now they were all bruised too.

  It was becoming a game, to see when Sisko would get mad. How much would he take before that stoic Vulcan-imitation exterior would crack? She's seen it crack before, but she'd never had a chance to actually watch the process.

  "It's not precisely a blackout," Dax explained. "Blackout would mean hundreds of comm systems on planets, stations, and ships all shutting down simultaneously. It would be impossible to coordinate without the cooperation of every government and captain. What we're experiencing here is a whiteout—excess communications noise being flushed into the area, so much that it simply outshouts everything else, floods every frequency, and clogs the gains."

  "In other words, no cooperative effort, no accident, but a deliberate act of sector-wide intrusion. Do you concur?"

  "I concur, yes."

  "Can you identify those drones?" Sisko asked. "What's the gain on their broadcast? Any propulsion mixture we can break down?"

  "Very faint," Dax said. "Not enough for identification breakdown."

  "No beams, semaphores, or signals of any kind?"

  Dax looked up at him, and from the other side of Sisko Kira noticed a change. Dax's expression was layered with knowing. And Sisko's voice had gone indicatively mellow, his words specific.

  "No beacons," Dax said, and continued to look at him.

  Kira watched her, watched him—what did they realize that she was missing? Suddenly she understood why she had fallen so quiet and let events play out before her. Something was changing, and her instincts had told her to shut up and notice it, pay attention and learn.

  "Then it's not Starfleet," Sisko muttered to himself. "Are there any alert signals or blips that might suggest a drill or test of any kind?"

  "No blips." Still turned up to him, Dax didn't even bother with her controls anymore. She obviously already knew these answers and was taking each in lockstep. "No alert signals."

  "What are you doing?" Kira finally overflowed. "What am I missing?"

  Sisko straightened and paced away, then turned back to say, "Several years in Starfleet Academy and Command School, Major."

  For the first time in minutes, Dax looked away from him to Kira. "He's asking a series of proper questions before regulations allow him to come to a certain conclusion."

  "What conclusion?" Kira felt like a child pestering her parents for answers about grown-up things.

  Sisko was now pacing the deck as if playing out his role as the dad, sifting his experience for a simple way to deal with a complicated reality.

  "Sector whiteout can be taken as a prelude to invasion, Major," he said. "And that's how I'm taking it."

  Invasion. Not just a word, but the very sound, the embodiment of the action, the painting of horror. The settled galaxy had few corners any longer that had been isolated from the horror, and everybody knew what that meant and how high modern space science could execute such a concept with glaring, burning physical reality. Certainly Kira had never been protected from it in her life. Rather, her whole life had been one long response to such infliction.

  It wasn't supposed to happen anymore. The Federation was here, Starfleet was here now. She had almost convinced herself the dangers of the past were over.

  "Who is it?" she blurted. "Is this a move by Cardassia to get control of the sector back? Or could it somehow be the Dominion trying to extend control through the wormhole from the Gamma Quadrant?"

  "At this point, there's no way to know," Sisko said evenly, but with smoke behind his eyes. "But I know what the Dominion is. I've been willing to take extreme measures to keep them out of this quadrant, even to destroying the wormhole. I'll carry through with that if I have to."

  Feeling her body temperature drop, Kira pressed her fingertips to the buffer of Dax's console. "Without orders from Starfleet?"

  "Major, I am Starfleet. That's why I'm in command here. For times like this."

  His words were so simple, so unatoning, that Kira almost lost them in the hypnotism of his solemn eyes. He wasn't making any proclamations.

  With a little spasm of her hand Kira pushed off Dax's console and took over the pacing. "This is a fine time for things to be going haywire all over the station," she ground out.

  Even as she said those words, she realized the foolish blindness of them and felt her facial expression change. It gave her away completely as she looked up and saw Sisko looked at her knowingly.

  "It's no coincidence," Sisko said in a confirming way. "It's a good bet there are enemy operatives already on the station."

  The headache just kept getting bigger.

  And there hadn't been a single shot fired yet! Not a threat! Not a scratched line in the sand! Nobody had even spit on anybody else.

  Somebody should at least spit.

  "So," Kira shoved out, "what do we do? How do we fight an enemy we can't see, can't identify, and who may or may not already be here?"

  "Tactics will be different," Sisko said as if ready with his answer, "depending on who's about to attack us. As far as actual punitive actions, we'll have to wait for them to make a move. Until that happens, we'll tighten security on the station and see if we can't flush out the birds who are sneaking around in the weeds."

  Dax indulged in a quirkish grin. "So we start at Quark's, right?"

  Sisko didn't respond. He was already involved in tactics. "Major, I want you to start evacuation of the station."

  "Evacuation!" Kira interrupted. "Sir, the whole station?"

  "All non-Starfleet personnel, and all the children first."

  As she stared at him, he suddenly turned harsh and glared back. "I lost my wife in an enemy invasion, Major. There are lots of non-Starfleet people here and there could be lots of death coming."

  "Commander," Kira began, slower this time, her brow tight, "don't you think …"

  But she hadn't the conviction to say what she was thinking, to tell him he was being drastic, to explain to the man who knew what she would say how involved it was to evacuate a station the size of Deep Space Nine, or even that there wouldn't be any way to keep such an action confidential. He evidently didn't care whether it was kept confidential or not.

  Sisko drilled her with a haunted and daring stare, brows down, the whites of his eyes showing like two reclining crescents beneath them, his mouth in a single straight line.

  "I've been through an invasion before," he said. "I've seen it. I've paid for it. I know how much worse an attack is when the soldiers have their families with them. Heads aren't clear. Risks are entirely different. Innocent people die. Whoever will attack this station knows the station's defense—I have to assume that, because I wouldn't attack a place until I knew all I could know about it. There are saboteurs on board who are very likely equipped to overcome any resistance we initially offer. I don't have any intention of doing things in the order they expect, is that clear?"

  Over the invigoration rising in her chest, Kira said, "Yes, sir!"

  "Good. Get messages through to all docked vessels and tell them I'm issuing letters of marque that will allow them to act as de facto Starfleet ships and that their first mission is to take full loads of passengers down
to Bajor."

  "If this is an invasion," Dax said, "the planet'll be in danger, too."

  "Taking a planet is a lot harder than taking a station. And they'll still have to get past me first."

  He stared at nothing, fanning his inner flame, the flash of anger that would carry him through.

  Kira recognized that anger, that flash—she had one, too. But she had rarely possessed control over it, to bring it to the fore as Sisko was doing right before her eyes.

  His eyes grew hard and he drew a long breath. "A sector-wide communications shutdown and a series of debilitating malfunctions smells of a plan, exactly what I would to if I wanted to take an installation with minimum damage. If that's what's happening here, then we're going to be ready for it."

  Kira glanced at Dax, and in that brief glance received the solidity she was looking for.

  "Yes, sir," she said. "We'll be ready."

  Sisko's dark cheek flinched, and somewhere under the conviction and the anticipation was a buried smile, of the kind that makes spines shiver.

  "I'm betting Starfleet won't miss a sector-wide whiteout. All we have to do is hold our own until they get here. First we turn our attention to the internal sabotage, try to stay one step ahead of it and find out who's doing it. Major, as soon as the station has been evacuated of sixty percent of its non-Starfleet personnel, I want you to issue weapons to the staff. We're going hunting."

  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 of Deep 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."

  "Look armed?" Odo whispered in horror. "How should I look 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, they were 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 i
n 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 the thunk.

  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.