TITLE: Andromeda: DS9

AUTHOR: Michael J. Gallagher/MikeJaffa

SYNOPSIS: Captain Shickunt and the crew of the Androzia Defiant are facing off with their former Klingonean crew member, Tyworrf, when Dr. Bashir and Quark start acting strangely… huh?

DISCLAIMER: Star Trek: DS9 is owned by Paramount; Andromeda is owned by … Tribune? But I am making no money off this. Please don't sue me.

"When Love Battles Fate,

Worlds Shake"

- Inscription on Bajoran ruins, date uncertain

Captain Major Bekyra Norentine blinked and stared at the root beer on the table in front of her.

"What the…?" Colored dance floor lights caught the blonde highlights in her red hair and the clip on her left ear. She looked around. The night club/bar in the Eureka Deep Space Station, the Ferengi trading post in the Bajoran system, looked the same as it always had. But here on its mezzanine level, she was sitting at a table facing an empty chair; and although there was one glass of root beer, there were two place settings. Hadn't someone been sitting there a minute ago?

But she didn't remember coming in with anyone. She knew she had been drinking alone. Yet she was still uncertain. Had something happened?

"More weirdness?" she muttered. Her life had had more than its share of non-stop strangeness since the *Androzia Defiant,* which had been frozen in time on the edge of a black hole for 3,000 years - since the battle that had precipitated the fall of the Federated Commonwealth - had come into her life along with three surviving crew members - Dr. Julian Bashir, it's A. I. Jadommie Rax, and Captain Bendylan Shickunt - sometimes making her miss the days when her biggest worry had been bringing her privateer, the *Maru 9,* into port without Quark groping her. But she had been just talking to someone about weirdness, hadn't she?

"Major!?" She heard Quark's voice pushing through the crowd to her table. The big-eared Ferengi came up to the table and gawked at her. "Who the hell are you?" he demanded. "What happened to Major Kyra and Captain Valentine?"

"Who?" Bekyra demanded. "Quark, how much of your own hooch have you been drinking?"

"You…know me?"

"Uh, yeah, I do, and I'm in no mood for-" Her com bracelet buzzed. Bekyra tabbed it. "Go," she said.

"Bekyra," Bendylan's deep voice answered, "it looks like Tyrworrf is making his move. I'm opening Tesserport gates to bridge of the *Androzia*"

A square of blue light pulsed into existence in front of her.

"On my way," Bekyra said. She started to walk towards the portal. "Quark, whatever's eating you will have to wait."

"Like hell!"

Bekyra heard Quark catch up to her just as she went through the tesserporter gate. She found herself and Quark on the *Androzia's* cavernous bridge.

"Quark!?" Dr. Bashir called from an aft station. At the nearby defense console, Roar'De, their Klingonean tactical officer, frowned.

"Doctor!" Quark called. "Please tell me I'm not crazy."

"I was about to ask you the same thing," Bashir responded.

Bendylan Shickunt, the *Androzia's* bald- dark-skinned captain of Indo-Asian descent, barely turned around in his command chair. "We are all mad as hatters," he barked. He turned to Bekyra. "What are they talking about?"

"No idea," Bekyra said as she settled into the flight control couch.

"Perhaps Station Administrator Quark has been drinking the bar's wares again," Roar'De harrumphed.

"What did you call me?" Quark asked.

"Another time!" Bendylan barked. "Quark, stay out of the way. Doctor, please take your station."

"Station…?" Bashir looked around blankly.

"Doctor-"

"It's ok," said Guinance, the woman with black-and-gold striped skin as she came over to Bashir. "Over here, Julian."

Bashir frowned at her. "Guinan?"

"Guinance," she corrected. "We've been friends for years."

"We have?"

"Haven't we?"

"Cast off from the station, Bekyra," Bendylan ordered. "Rax, what's the status on our friends?"

"The Klingonean ships are still not responding to my challenges," said the android form of Jadommie Rax, the *Androzia's* A. I, narrating the tactical graphic showing a squadron of arrow-shaped Klingonean war ships. The talk, dark-haired female android had become the object of Brien O'Harper's affections when they'd met, but Bekyra's flight engineer had kept the *Androzia* in good order, and so Bendylan had tolerated the crush (which, strangely enough, had seemed to form the basis for an odd friendship).

"How did Tyworrf catch us with our pants down?" Bekyra wondered.

"No idea," O'Harper radioed from Eureka Deep Space's ops center. "But with him involved, it's not good."