New Moon Over Bajor
A Deep Space Nine – Space: 1999 Crossover
Original Author by Ariana
-COPYRIGHT/DISCLAIMER NOTICE-
This is a work of fan fiction and the characters and concepts of Star Trek belong to Paramount Pictures and the Gerry & Silva Anderson respectively. This story must not be sold or distributed for financial gain of any sort.
The moon traveled through a wormhole but it wasn't just any wormhole. It was the Bajoran wormhole of the Prophets. How will Starfleet react to the sudden appearance of Earth's moon in their universe and how will the Alphans get back to theirs. See what happens when emotions run rampant and are exposed.
Prologue:
A lonely comet, trapped in the gravitational pull of the Bajoran sun, slowly wound its way back into deep space, shedding small fragments of stone and ice as it passed Deep Space Nine. Captain Sisko watched it trace its short streak of light against the starry backdrop of space. There was a time when the view from his office might have brought him peace, but nowadays, the ancient light from those distant stars only reminded him of the harm that had come from space. His eyes drifted off the comet and fell on familiar constellations - Lissepia, the twin suns of the Xepolite system, the complex pattern of stars in the Cardassian empire. These days, interstellar space was anything but peaceful.
The Federation had been at war for over a year now, and Deep Space Nine was a in a strategic position. The station guarded the mouth of a wormhole which led to the other side of the galaxy, and it was there, in the Gamma Quadrant, that the Federation had encountered the Dominion.
As Sisko saw it, the Dominion was as antithetical to the Federation as fire was to water. Where the Federation was a democratic association of planets, the Dominion was a totalitarian empire ruled by the shape shifting Founders. The Founders had not taken kindly to what they perceived as the Federation's encroachment on their Gamma Quadrant territory: within two years of the first contact, the Dominion established a stronghold in the Alpha Quadrant by taking over the Cardassian Empire. War had been inevitable.
It was all so pointless, thought Sisko bitterly. He remembered what his father had once said: "You're always telling me that space is big, that it's an endless frontier, filled with infinite wonders ... You would think it would be more than enough room for people to leave each other alone." Sisko slowly shook his head as he remembered his own response - "It just doesn't work that way."
Sisko sighed and turned away from the window, going to sit in his chair and letting it recline. He looked down at the reflection of his ornamental baseball in the shiny black surface of the desk and tried to think of better things. Kasidy had sent a message to say she would be back on DS9 for a couple of days in a month's time. That was something to look forward to. His son Jake had had a short story published in the Federation fiction databanks. That boy was going to be a great author some day.
Aside from that, life was continuing as usual on the station. The war with the Dominion had even taken on a routine aspect. Every day, there would be reports of the occasional skirmish, but for the moment, both sides seemed to be camping out on their positions. Things had been relatively quiet for the past couple of weeks: even the Rotarran was off on maneuvers, leaving the station temporarily deprived of its usual contingent of rowdy Klingons.
But Sisko was worried. He had a feeling something momentous was about to happen, and after all these years of being the Emissary to the Bajoran Prophets, he had learned not to dismiss his feelings, however vague or trivial they might seem. To Starfleet, the Prophets were merely a race of non-corporeal aliens who lived in the wormhole. The aliens seemed to consider themselves the protectors of the nearby Bajoran system, and the Bajorans worshipped them as the Prophets. For some reason, these aliens had chosen Sisko, a human being, as their Emissary to the outside universe, and he couldn't help wondering if this strange feeling he had might be a sign from the Prophets.
He shook himself out of his unproductive reverie with a start as his comm chime rang. He ran his hand over his shaven scalp and sighed. "Go ahead."
"Captain," called Jadzia Dax, the science officer. "I'm getting some strange readings from the wormhole... it looks as if it's about to open!"
Sisko could hear the amazement in her voice and felt his own heart respond with an increased beat. Maybe the mysterious event he had sensed was about to happen. He rushed out of his office as fast as he could and stood at the top of the steps down to the Ops pit. So far, there was nothing to see on the viewscreen, but he knew DS9's sensors were fine tuned to detect the slightest fluctuation in the wormhole. They could predict its opening up to ten minutes beforehand.
But the wormhole hadn't opened for months, ever since Captain Sisko himself had asked the Prophets to protect the Alpha Quadrant from the Dominion troops still in the Gamma Quadrant. Nothing had come through the wormhole since.
"There's definitely something coming through," said Chief O'Brien as he consulted the readouts in front of him. "According to our sensors, the wormhole will be opening within a couple of minutes."
"Red alert," ordered Sisko. "All hands to battle stations."
Whatever was coming out now could be dangerous; perhaps the Gamma Quadrant Dominion had found a way to join its counterpart on this side after all.
The wormhole opened in a bright swirl of oranges and blues, illuminating the sky beyond Deep Space Nine. But it wasn't a mere ship, or even a fleet that came out of the opening this time. It was an extremely large, grey asteroid.
Sisko could tell his subordinates in Ops were as surprised as he was.
"How the hell did that get there?" exclaimed Kira, just before their world literally turned upside down.
The sheer mass of the asteroid pulled Deep Space Nine out of its position near the wormhole, dragging the station with it as it headed towards the Bajoran system. Deep Space Nine's stabilizers were unable to compensate, and the station soon began to tumble over on itself. The gravity generators kept the contents of Ops more or less on the floor, but everything was shaken from side to side with the fluctuating G-forces. Unprepared for the shock, Sisko was thrown against the nearest console. His cheek hit the hard edge of the table.
Bracing himself as every loose object crashed on the right hand bulkhead before sliding back to the left, Sisko watched Dax pull herself up to her console. "I'm trying to compensate," she shouted over the roar of the alert klaxons.
O'Brien had also managed to drag himself to his feet. "Initiating thrusters... we're beginning to break away."
Sisko relaxed a little as the thrusters countered the gravitational pull of the asteroid. The sight on the viewscreen showed that the station was still rotating erratically, but the boost from the thrusters had just been enough to push it back in the direction of the wormhole.
"Reinitializing stabilizers," announced O'Brien. "Just one more spins and we'll be right way up again." Sisko heard him heave a sigh of relief as the spinning stopped.
"That was close," said Kira. "That damn asteroid nearly hit us!"
Sisko tugged on his uniform jacket and watched the asteroid slowly moving away on the viewscreen. For some reason, it looked vaguely familiar; Sisko could have sworn he had seen some of the craters on the asteroid's grey surface before. On the other hand, the galaxy was full of pockmarked asteroids - maybe he was simply experiencing déjà-vu. The bruise on his cheek was throbbing painfully and as his body recovered from its dizziness, he found it difficult to think clearly.
He had already dismissed the idea, and turned his mind to the problem of assessing damage to the station, when O'Brien spoke. "It looks like the Moon," he said.
"Which moon?" asked Kira, who was cleaning up her broken mug of raktajino.
"Our moon," replied Sisko, now realizing where he had seen those craters before. "Terra's moon. Luna."
As he observed the asteroid more closely, he realized that he was currently looking at a pattern of craters very similar to the one on the far side of the Moon. He had often flown over that area during practice flights at the Academy. The only difference was that this asteroid had one extra crater, as if a large bomb had detonated on the surface.
"It can't be," said the Bajoran. "We were on Earth just a couple of weeks ago..."
"...And the Moon was still there," completed Sisko with a nod.
Kira was right: it couldn't possibly be the Moon, not out here in Bajoran space. On the other hand, it had just come out of the wormhole - could it be a Dominion plot, or some message from the Prophets? But if that were the case, why recreate the Terran moon? Sisko dismissed his musings; the idea that this asteroid could be a replica of the Moon was ludicrous.
"Dax, scan the asteroid and see what you can find out," he ordered.
There was a pause while the Trill consulted the external scanners and then a close-up picture of some kind of installation appeared on screen. The station, or whatever it was, was a set of low, white buildings situated in a crater on the underside of the asteroid.
"Our computer has just completed its scan of the asteroid," Dax informed him. "It could definitely be the Terran moon. It has the right mass and consistency, and it seems this one is inhabited, too... This construction appears to be some sort of base, but the computer can't identify it as any known configuration. There's also a large nuclear storage unit on the near side..."
"Captain, we're being hailed," interrupted Kira.
"Hailed?"
"By someone on the asteroid."