CLAN SILVER DRAGON MEETS THE FEDERATION

by Crudack Darkbane

This is a crossover with DS9/Trek Universe and the "Clans" universe of my creation. The "Clans" are a series of books I have been writing and am in the process of getting published. These cross-overs are for entertainment purposes only, and please be aware that all "Clan" Technology is based on real and theoretical physics. Disclaimers inside.

CLANS / DS9 XOVER

OFFICIAL DISCLAIMER

This story was written for my own entertainment. Star Trek, its characters, its technology (as horribly flawed and scientifically unsound as it is), and the universe in which it exists are all the property of the individuals or corporate entities who hold the rights, licenses, trademarks, and copyrights associated with them. This work is not intended for sale or distribution in any electronic or written format.

The Clans, their technology, and their universe are the intellectual property of the author, and are copyrighted. Their use without specific written or verified electronic permission from the author are strictly prohibited.

NOTE TO TREKKIES

Any errors in this work are my fault. I know the "science" of the Trek universe, but I only watch Trek for entertainment. It is science fiction, with very heavy emphasis on the fiction, and much more attention to political correctness and promoting the rose colored liberal agenda than to science. I don't care about being totally accurate on the nuts and bolts of the Dominion war, and certainly not enough to dig through volumes of books, seasons of DS9 episodes, and ungodly numbers of poorly organized web pages to get the few bits of actual hard data that are available, relevant to this story, and don't conflict with each other. So if the number, size, and classes of the Federation, Romulan, Klingon, Dominion, Cardassian, and Breen ships don't match what you think they should be, blame the fact that nobody has an official site that has the officially decreed numbers, classes, or capabilities. I just gave the Federation side about as many ships as I thought they had, outnumbered them greatly with the closest approximation that I could come up with for enemy forces, and made sure that there were enough enemy forces to totally overwhelm them.

As for the story, I was generous with Trek tech, erring greatly in their favor over what their actual physics indicates that they are capable of. If you don't understand real physics, both applied and theoretical, you won't understand and probably won't like Clan tech. Believe me, if you actually think that the tech in Star Wars or Star Trek works and makes sense, you probably won't like the physics here. If you want to understand it, the solution is simple. Learn the basics for both applied and theoretical physics, and learn to think outside of the box. I tend to go into enough detail when I am creating various parts of Clan tech that I don't overlook anything that can't be avoided, and those who have checked the tech who are into physics (as in qualified by education, advanced degrees, and employment) who know the answers to their questions on how particular things in Clan tech could work seem to think that the answers do make sense, and that the physics works. Clan tech is solidly based in both real and applied theoretical physics, with as few errors as I could manage. While I was trained in science, I'm much better in my own area of specialization than I am at physics. If you don't like the physics, stick to "science fiction" (i.e. "fantasy") instead of old fashioned science fiction that relies on a combination of hard science and applied theoretical science to form the basis of a realistic universe. The fiction part is the characters and the story line, not the science.

If you don't like the warfare, tactics, or violence in this story, too bad. I didn't get graphic or explicit on the warfare or the violence, and I save the details of Clan warfare and tactics for my own totally original works. The tactics are designed to fully complement the technical and physical abilities of the Clan. As for how they could be used in real life... Let's just say that while some of the tech is beyond our current abilities, much of the tech and tactics could be used with our current technology. We could fight wars right now with our existing technology, with a few very minor modifications, and do better than anyone stuck thinking inside the box will EVER admit is possible. And we could do it far cheaper in terms of both money and equipment, not to mention fewer casualties and deaths among our troops. One of these days, I'm going to have to find that freaking box.

CLAN SILVER DRAGON MEETS THE FEDERATION

(THE DOMINION COALITION VS THE FEDERATION ALLIANCE)

by Bruce Pickelheimer

Virginia looked at her orders and shook her head. She didn't know if she should feel disgust or dismay, but someone had to pull the shitty end of the stick for this exploration, and this time it was her. 'Laura, can you get me Gary and Margaret on the line?' Both of their faces showed up on her screen in thirty seconds, and both had the same expression on their faces as she had on hers. 'I take it that you've already seen our orders.'

Margaret nodded. 'I'm already in the process of evacuating all nonessential personnel and all of the offensive troops over forty percent of full loadout. Assault frigates and scout fire cruisers are small enough to be exempt, so at least we'll have them at full capacity.'

Gary scowled. 'If they think that doing this survey might be that dangerous, why take the risk at all?'

'Obviously they think that it could be important. There are a hell of a lot of hyper connections in this region, especially in the system that we're supposed to be exploring. Some of them should be large multistreams. This could be an important system, especially if it allows us to get to a LOT of other systems quickly.'

'There are also a hell of a lot of gravitic anomalies. They DO go hand in hand with hyper points. Normally, no problem, but the interactions caused by so many of them being in such a small volume of space is causing a lot of instability and fluctuation according to the initial scouting surveys. That makes navigation more hazardous, in addition to creating a lot of chaos in the region. Preliminary surveys DID indicate that there were some spontaneous appearances of various navigational hazards, often with little or no warning.'

'They're just wormholes, Gary. About as safe as hyper. Just harder to find. So some of them are cyclic or a bit unstable.'

'And LESS predictable, Margie. At least we know that hyper streams lead SOMEWHERE, and you can come back. You can always force open a collapsed hyper portal. With wormholes, who knows? Some are cyclic, and only open spontaneously. Some are stable, and open whenever anything gets close enough to trigger an opening. And some of them are unstable and collapse after they release their potential energy and relieve the stresses that created them in the first place.'

'Damn, Gary, you sure worry a lot. Even if we get caught in a wormhole and get stranded somewhere, all we have to do is map our way out until we find the first comsat and navigate from there until we rejoin the Clan.'

'Ginny.' Gary sounded exasperated.

'IF we can map this region and predict when the various types of cyclic anomalies will occur, then it will be relatively safe to bring the whole Clan through once we've explored the various hyper points and have some kind of destination mapped out. We'll go slowly, map everything, and send our reports back to the Clan as our recon probes bring back detailed information about the systems that the hyper points lead to. If it gets too dangerous, we haul ass.'

Twenty minutes later, Virginia had the estimate for the evac time. It would have been a lot faster just to fly the personnel off of her ship, but their own small craft were to remain aboard the ships. She gave the order to prepare to move out in twelve hours, then went off duty to get some rest. She'd need to be on the bridge for any last minute details that had to be handled. Then she'd have three days before they entered the system labeled Vortex. She just hoped that she didn't actually have one of her smaller vessels sucked into one of those damned random anomalies that had been logged and documented by the scouts with their preliminary surveys.

Virginia shook her head as she looked over the latest reports from the recon patrols. There were more gravitic anomalies in this system than had been indicated, and some of them were much stronger than they had thought. Several hundred in the 10 to 50 G range, several dozen in the 50 to 500 G range, and at least half a dozen that were in the 500 to 1000 G range. Not to mention the thousands that were under 10 G in relative strength. There were fifty seven stable hyper points, and some of them were very strong. So far, they'd found eight inhabited systems that were connected to this one by hyper, and two multiple streams. They would probably find more when they had time to explore each stream more thoroughly and map it, especially the multiple streams. They just didn't have the time to explore very far right now. But the one thing that was puzzling was that they still hadn't found any signs of anything remotely resembling the Consortium in any of the systems that they'd found.

There were also seven stable wormholes in the system, but as soon as they had been identified as wormholes by their energy signatures, she had logged them and stopped all further investigation for the time being. When they had more time, they'd send recon drones through, evaluate the situation, and determine if it was worth the risk of sending a manned vessel through. Eighty three spontaneous wormhole openings had been detected in the last four months. Fifty one of them were in six locations, so they probably represented six cyclic wormholes. Which left thirty two anomalies. Twenty seven of them were, more or less, centered between five large gravitic anomalies and a handful of gravitic anomalies that were near them. Probably five less stable cyclic wormholes, with the nearby anomalies affecting the position of the opening, causing near misses when it cycled open. Which left five unexplained anomalies to be accounted for later.

Virginia shrugged. Theoretical physics was neither her job nor her forte, and she wasn't all that interested in the solutions right now. Though she did find one current debate somewhat intriguing. One group argued that black holes had to correspond to white holes in order to obey the known laws of physics. The other group argued that the two phenomena were completely independent of each other. That a white hole was the emissions from a slowly decaying star, kind of like a controlled or drawn out supernova, and that a black hole was simply a precursor to the next big bang. That black holes were what would cause the eventual collapse of the universe, slowly expanding as their mass grew, consuming all matter and, finally, each other until the stress and energy was so great that the vibrational energy of the trapped atoms reached a critical point and the next big bang occurred to start the universe and all of the galaxies expanding all over again.

'Laura, prepare everyone for our move. Recall all of our small craft. It's time to thread the eye of the needle and see what we can find on the other side of this system.'

'Are you sure that you actually want to do this, Ginny? That means that we would have to go between the three strongest gravitic anomalies in order to miss all of the wormholes that we know about and the irregular ones that we can't predict yet. That's going to cause some resonance on our shielding and tax the compensators.'

'We've boosted the power to the compensators, and we have backups online and spares ready to go in case we lose any at a critical juncture. We're as prepared as we're going to get. It's not safe to send small craft through to explore the other side, and we already know that the majority of the hyper points are on the other side of this system. The big ships can probably make it without any problems. The freaking assault frigates are the most heavily armored and totally overpowered vessels in the fleet, especially for their size. Double the inertial compensators of a SAC, two SAC main power generators, and the engines from a SAC to boot. Since a SAC is over five times the size and displacement of an assault frigate, they really are overpowered and designed to pack a punch.'

Laura grinned. 'They WERE designed to let the assault forces get up close and personal without risking the rest of the fleet in a point blank shootout.' She sighed. 'Let's just hope that we don't get hit by one of those damned wormholes while we're doing this.'

Virginia laughed. 'Now who's being paranoid? What are the odds of something like THAT happening?'

'Given the amount of time that we've been here, the number of anomalies that we've observed, the volume of space that we're talking about, and the time that this maneuver is actually going to take? About a million to one. I hope.'

'Jeez, Laura. Lighten up and mellow out. You're starting to sound like Gary. He's ALWAYS got his panties in a bunch whenever we have to deal with something new and exciting.'

'By something "new and exciting" you mean something that we weren't trained for, have no idea about exactly what the situation is, and we have to fly by the seat of our pants and improvise the whole time?' Laura's response was delivered VERY drily.

'Yep. That's the plan. Improvise.'

'No offense, Ginny, but did you SCREW Lehr when we met Clan Phoenix, or just suck up WAY too many of his pheromones while they were training us?'

Virginia sighed, feigning sadness. 'You know very well that I was already married.' She grinned. 'Besides, the hubby made me swear never to tell ANYONE, especially him, if I managed to figure out a way to get Lehr to screw me.'

'Slut.' Laura giggled.

'I'm not the one who contracted for an Alpha baby and specified Llyriana.'

'Hey, he may not have been huge or hung like a horse, but he WAS good in bed.' Laura looked at the comm officer and saw her smiling. 'In formation and ready to move. All ships accounted for.'

Virginia nodded, and the claw began to move slowly across the system. They were bunched closer together than she liked, but there were some tight spots that they had to maneuver through and some tricky course changes that had to be made if they hoped to avoid the worst of the gravitic stresses.

The tiny fleet had been under way for most of a day, and they were finally approaching the small region that they had to pass through in order for their small craft to explore the rest of the hyper points in this system. Virginia was watching the monitors very carefully.

'Stress is increasing. They're fluctuating enough to cause some oscillations.'

Virginia was watching the fluctuations in gravitic stresses closely. Just going near them with their ships was enough mass to cause distortions in the balance that the anomalies normally maintained. 'I see it. Integrity?'

'We're in the green, and we shouldn't hit yellow if we don't make any close passes. Fluctuations aren't that wild yet. SACs are pulling low yellow. SFCs are approaching red. Several failed compensators are being replaced. Nothing critical. Assault frigates are clean and green.'

Virginia laughed. 'If any ship in the fleet could ram a battleship, open up, and unload, it would be one of those bad little boys.' She relaxed as her joke lightened the mood on the bridge. Too much tension was counterproductive.

'We have a problem. Field intensity is fluctuating, almost as if it's responding to some frequency, but we can't get a pattern. Compensators are holding, but the fluctuation is getting worse. Much worse.'

'Shields?'

'They're holding, but it's not shield harmonics. No resonance is detected.'

'Where the hell is it?'

'It's all around us!' The sensor tech was visibly agitated. 'The entire claw is inside the field. Oh, KRAGH! There's a light show going off all around us. Neutrino emissions are off the scale. We're in a freaking wormhole.'

Everything had gone black for a moment, but now everything seemed normal. Except for the kraghlar alarms that were blaring from almost every station on the bridge. 'Shut the freaking alarms off. Get me a damage report. Sitrep. What the bloody hell is wrong with my sensors? And where in the hell are all of the gravitic anomalies?'

'I have no idea where we ARE, but it sure ain't where we WERE, sir.'

Virginia nodded. That explained the missing gravitic anomalies. They had accidentally gone through the damned wormhole that had activated without any warning. 'Are we all still together?'

'Aye, sir. I'm reading all of the ships in the claw, and all of them are intact. Preliminary damage assessments are coming in right now. Compensator failures reported on all of the ships in the claw, but the backups kicked in, so there wasn't any major structural damage. Some injuries have been reported, but none of them are severe. Damage repair and maintenance crews estimate ten hours for our repairs. About a day before the SACs are fully operational and back to specs. Two days for the cruisers. We CAN move before then if we really have to, but I certainly wouldn't recommend it. The assault frigates are fully operational, though.'

'Tell all ships to maintain their current positions. Put out a full fighter and PT boat cover, and make sure that they're monitoring around us to extend our sensor range. Three of the frigates are to take up defensive positions near both cruisers and the SACs. Maintain constant defense and scans of the area for any potential threats. Map the star fields so that the geeks in astro can figure out where in the hell we are.'

'Aye, sir. Orders going out.'

'Tell Nancy to pick a direction and start exploring. No hyper other than microjumps. Find the nearest system and explore. Use her scouts for long range recon.'

'Aye, sir.'

Nancy looked at her orders and nodded. She'd still be relatively near their entry point and the rest of the claw, but they would be doing SOMETHING while the repairs were being made to the rest of the ships in the claw. And they'd be helping to figure out where they were and how to get back to where they had been. There sure as hell weren't any of the readings in the area that were normally associated with wormholes, so the damned thing had to be cyclic. She hoped. If it wasn't, it could take them a really long time to figure out how to get back to where they had been and rejoin the rest of their Clan.

'Get some recon talons ready to launch, Connie. We're going hunting.'

Connie grinned. 'You got it. LRRP alert on the boards.'

'Drop a comsat here to mark our position. How are the scouts doing so far?'

'They are effectively out of comm range. Two days of microjumps for us to catch up to them. It's faster to send a ship out than it is to send a message.'

Virginia nodded. 'They should be holding position or just traveling in real space by now, then. Waiting for the rest of the claw to close the gap so we remain in range to provide support and communicate without so much of a time lag. How far out would that put them now?'

'Four or five days at light speed, since they're taking their time and being cautious. About one hundred and thirty billion kliks, give or take.'

'Jeez. I HATE being between systems in real space. It takes forever to get anywhere. The only up side is that you do get to travel in a straight line, so you know what's going to be around you before you actually get there.'

'What about the opportunity to see all of the lovely, unspoiled, isolated systems that don't have a hyper point?'

'Jeez, Laura, don't talk like that. That's almost as bad as being stuck living on a freaking rock.' Virginia sighed. 'Well, at least the cruisers are finally operational again. Let's go rein Nancy in and see what she's been able to find so far.'

'Have you heard anything from astro yet?'

'Zip. They have no idea where we are. They've been able to detect some similarities to the star maps of where we were, but even those show significant shifts in relative orientation.'

Nancy had slowed her ship down to await the rest of the claw, just as her orders had stated. Most of the small craft that she had out were maintaining stations relative to the ship. 'Launch the LRRP mission. Tell them to limit it to seven, and not to do anything that will really piss me off.'

'Affirmative. Launching now.'

'Jason to all chicks. Starburst formation by claws. Let's extend our sensor range and sensitivity. If there actually IS anything out her to find, I don't want to miss it.'

'Copy leader.'

Virginia was definitely not a happy camper at the moment. 'Let's try this one more time.'

'This is not our galaxy. It LOOKS like it, only kind of skewed around, but it's not.'

'How can you be sure?'

'We've detected indications that lots of traffic has gone through this region. It may be a major interstellar route.'

'And how can you tell that?'

A sensor display appeared on her monitor. Virginia studied them closely, then her eyes widened in shock and she barely concealed a gasp of surprise. 'These tracks are...' She blanched, then swallowed nervously. 'Kragh me! Please, tell me that I'm not looking at scans of subspace.'

'It's subspace.'

'Do you mean to tell me that we're stuck in a region where a bunch of bloody barbs are running around at high warp speeds, destroying the very fabric of subspace?'

'I'm afraid so. There are a few weak spots nearby, but we haven't detected anything critical yet. And it won't affect the hyper streams in this region unless a rift appears directly on top of a hyper point. That is extremely unlikely.'

'Could that have anything to do with how we got here?'

'It is theoretically possible that the wormhole hit a weak spot in subspace, and locked onto the gravitic anomaly where we were instead of the other terminus that would normally be used. But if that is what happened, we'll be stuck here until we can determine the period for the cycle of that particular wormhole or that particular connection. It it turns out that such a connection is either unstable or irregular...'

Virginia nodded in understanding. 'It could take us a very long time to get home, or we could even be stuck here, unable to return the way we came. In that case, it could be a VERY long time before we can figure out another route that leads to where we want to be.'

'Base, this is Recon One. We have sighted a small fleet of ships. We don't know what the hell they are, but they're sure as hell not from the Consortium. Please advise. Over.' Jason's talon maintained their position relative to the fleet while they waited for a response.

'Copy that, Recon One. Claw is now one hour behind us, moving at five to overtake. What is the relative speed of the bogeys, their current course, and relevant details? Over.'

'Course zero four five, relative. Current speed is about three. Sending burst datadump and ghosting. Maybe they can lead us to an inhabited system so that we can find out where we are. Over.' Jason began spreading out his talon to shadow the fleet that they were following and get better sensor data on the individual ships.

Virginia examined the data on the alien ships closely. Ten small ships that were almost the size of an obsolete Clan carrier. They were heavily armed and armored compared to most of the larger ships in the fleet. Thirty larger ships, each with about the displacement of a heavy scout carrier or a Consortium battlecruiser. And twenty larger ships that were also heavily armed and armored. They were larger than any of the other ships, with about the displacement of a Clan assault frigate.

'Energy shielding, but it's kind of weak, even for ships that size. They are definitely set up for warp travel. The hull armor is very thin, even on the dedicated warships. There are some kind of openings for firing SOMETHING, but if that's a railgun...'

'The only visible weapons are all energy based, sir. No sign of any kinetics or other types of weaponry on any of our scans.'

Virginia shrugged, accepting the analysis. 'Going by the power output, they're not very strong, and they definitely lack range.'

'Their overall mass is VERY low, sir.'

'Yeah. It looks like this is nothing more than light stuff that's intended to screen small convoys out in the boonies. Which is where we obviously are.' She sighed. 'So we follow them and see where they lead us. Somebody had to build those ships, so they're obviously going somewhere.'

'Hello. Did anyone else just see that?' Jason sat up in his seat, alert and watchful.

'Stealth. Very primitive, but it's definitely stealth. Equivalent to early first gen Clan stealth, but they need to redesign the ship, put in more emitters, or increase the power to the emitters that they have. I'm detecting a lot of energy leakage, and their frequency modulation really sucks rocks.' Megan looked over at him. 'Do you think that they detected us and are trying to hide?'

'No way. They're still maintaining the exact same course and speed. We haven't detected any comm traffic, and they all went to stealth mode at the same time. And if they COULD possibly detect us, they wouldn't bother tipping us off by using their pathetic excuse for stealth. But they ARE obviously trying to hide from SOMEONE. Alert the others, and notify the claw.'

Jason watched the alien fleet closely, wondering why there were out in the middle of nowhere, obviously skulking around. Their ships were capable of faster than light travel, even if it was by the method that the aliens used, and that is how starships like that usually traveled between systems. That much was obvious. If you had the capability to make drives that allowed your ships to travel between systems rapidly, and you went to the time and effort of putting those drives into your ships, you used that capability. Unless they had some reason to WANT to be in the middle of nowhere.

Jason sighed. All of the reasoning was sound, but it still didn't make any sense. Stealth was something that was used on warships, or by pirates who wanted to remain undetected by both their victims and enemy warships while they were raiding. This fleet had too many ships for it to be pirates. The ships in this fleet were woefully underpowered, and there were way too few of them for this to be some type of war fleet. It was possible that it was a small convoy with a light military escort, or a small raiding fleet. Only there was nothing nearby for them TO raid, and they had been traveling openly until they had suddenly gone to stealth without any warning.

'What the hell are they trying to hide FROM?'

'I don't know, Megan, but that's the only thing that makes any kind of sense of... Kragh!' Jason didn't need his instruments to know what was going on. The emissions and the light show said it all. The alien fleet was going into a wormhole. 'Close the gap now! Rita, hold position. All other claws form up on me. We're following them in.'

'We're too far out to make the transit with them, Jase. They'll see our entrance.'

'That can't be helped. All I care about is that we don't lose them, and they don't see US.'

Kem'tar was nervous as his fleet went through the wormhole. They had spent a lot of time and effort making sure that the cloaking device would work properly. Even going through the wormhole, their ships could not be seen or detected by anyone inside the system that they were preparing to enter. But that didn't mean that their passage would go unnoticed. Quite the contrary. Everyone at their destination would see the spectacular lightshow that occurred inside their system every single time that the wormhole opened, and they would know that SOMETHING had come through the wormhole.

'Don't look so dour, admiral.'

'That's easy for you to say, General Mok'tel. Even if they can't see or detect us when we come through the wormhole, the enemy will be aware of our passage. Tensions in the area are rising on all sides, and tense, nervous people make mistakes.'

'I am aware of the situation, as well as the risks. The potential benefits outweigh the risks. Everything has been done just as the Founders have ordered. We will carry out our mission, and the Alpha quadrant will fall. The barbarians who live in this quadrant are soft and weak. They are divided, squabbling over territories for expansion when they don't use a fraction of the systems that they already have. They mistrust each other, and have no concept of what war truly is. They cannot possibly stand against the Jem'Haddar. The Founders created us as their perfect warriors, so nothing can ever stand against us.'

Kem'tar wasn't about to argue the finer points of logic against statements like that from a general. Nothing in this quadrant justified that kind of caution or concern. They entered the wormhole, and upon their exit, they were within visual range of DS9. Admiral Kem'tar smiled as he saw their ultimate target. Once DS9 and the rest of the Bajoran system were under their control, the Dominion could quickly move their vast military might into the Alpha quadrant and crush all resistance. But that was for the future. Right now General Mok'tel and his troops were needed to stabilize the systems that were currently under the control of their Cardassian allies. Just because some Cardassians had bowed to the might of the Dominion, it hadn't stopped the other equally paranoid and power hungry factions of the Cardassian military from starting a bloody little civil war.

Sisko was on duty, going over some reports in his office, when the alarms went off. He quickly entered the ops center. 'Report.'

'Wormhole opening detected, sir, but we can't detect anything.'

Sisko nodded to himself. It wasn't unheard of for the wormhole to open without anything detectable coming through it, but it was unusual. Generally you could detect whatever had initiated the wormhole event if you scanned closely enough, and with the improved sensitivity and signal boost that had been part of the recent upgrades to the station, they should be able to detect something. 'Very well. Log the incident, and see if anyone on any of the nearby ships was able to detect anything. Perhaps it's another small message container, but it's more likely to be a small asteroid.'

'Aye, sir.'

Sisko was relaxing, watching the duty crew perform their jobs as things gradually settled back down toward normal in the ops center. They were well trained, and responded well to the unexpected break from their normal routine. It had only been a few minutes since the alarms had gone off, and already things were settling back down toward normal. Suddenly the alarms went off again as he saw the spectacular light show caused by the wormhole opening.

'Sir, there is absolutely nothing on our scans other than the normal wormhole emissions. I don't understand it.' The sensor officer sounded worried.

Sisko checked the readings himself, then nodded to the sensor officer. 'I want all of the data from the sensor logs for both of these events sent to security for a full detailed analysis immediately.'

'Yes, sir.' The tech began working frantically to carry out the orders that had just been issued.

Sisko felt uneasy in his gut. This was NOT a good thing. He didn't know exactly what was going on, and he did not like that one bit. Tensions in the entire region were really starting to show the strain of recent events, and everyone knew that the entire sector was heading for a war. The only questions were when it would start, what incident would finally trigger it, and what side of the hostilities some of the species would choose to support. The very last thing that the Federation needed was for something to come through the wormhole from the Delta quadrant and destabilize the already fragile situation.

Admiral Kem'tar almost jumped out of his command chair as alarms began blaring all across his bridge. 'Report! Has the enemy discovered us?' If the Federation discovered his fleet right now, it could lead to open warfare between the Federation and the Dominion. That was NOT part of the plan. The great and illustrious Founders, in their infinite wisdom, had decreed that the Cardassian problem had to be addressed first. This was not the time to take over this system.

'I don't know if they've discovered us or not, sir. I don't think so. We have no indications that they have detected us.' The tech was nervous and frightened.

Kem'tar lowered his voice to a more normal tone. 'Why are the alarms going off?'

'The wormhole just opened again, sir.'

Kem'tar swore under his breath. This was very bad. One unexplained wormhole activation was something that the enemy would overlook and forget about. Twice in a few minutes? The enemy would investigate thoroughly, intensify their scans, and do everything that they could to find SOME explanation for what had just happened inside their system. 'What do OUR scans show?'

'Nothing, sir. There is absolutely nothing on ANY of our scans.'

'What about cloaked ships?'

'No, sir.'

Kem'tar nodded, then relaxed a bit with relief. Dominion cloaking technology was the very best in the galaxy. They could detect and target cloaked ships of both Romulan and Klingon design, though neither the Romulans nor the Klingons were aware of that military secret. Yet. They could even detect the Defiant when it was cloaked and operating inside the Delta quadrant, but the craft was so small, agile, fast, well cloaked, and well shielded that they still couldn't target it with any degree of accuracy.

Kem'tar sighed. 'Get us out of here. Move away from here as quickly as you possibly can without risking detection.' The faster their ships went, the harder it was to hide their power signatures, even when they were using cloaking.

'Yes, sir.'

'When we have definitely passed the limits of their scanning capabilities, we will go to warp.'

Mok'tel nodded as he heard the orders. Prudence. Their mission was to avoid detection for now. They had the forces to take this system, but doing so would cause problems with the overall plan that the Founders had for subjugating this quadrant. They didn't have the supplies and support in place to hold this system once they took it. Taking the system would bring the Federation and their allies into the conflict while the Dominion's forces were still needed to help their allies eliminate the forces who were resisting their alliance with the Dominion. If they tipped their hand too soon and allowed their enemy to learn of the Dominion's plans, the war could drag out for a very long time. That could possibly require so many troops and so much of the Dominion's available resources that some of their assets in the Delta quadrant could be jeopardized. That could NEVER be allowed to happen. Nothing must be allowed to jeopardize the safety of the Founders.

Jason assessed the situation rapidly. The fleet that they had followed here was heading off toward another system, and they were picking up speed. They were definitely hiding, or at the very least attempting to avoid detection, but that left him wondering why they were hiding and what they were hiding from. 'Kenny, trail those suckers and see what they're up to. Lulu, hold position here, just in case. Jane, take your claw and check out that planet thoroughly. When you finish, you can join half of my claw and chart the system.'

'You got it, Jase. Gonna go check out the new neighbors before Ginny has to figure out whether or not we're even going to contact them?'

'We gotta contact someone eventually. They did say that the point was to find someone so that we could find out more about the local systems from the locals. Sure beats the hell out of just waiting around and watching to see if that wormhole is cyclic. Or even stable.'

Megan nodded. 'Uh, huh. You just want to check out the local tech and find out what kind of weapons that puny station has that scares a fleet that size.'

'Maybe. Remember that avoiding detection doesn't necessarily imply that the station itself is the threat. Reporting their position could cause problems from other nearby forces. Of course, I could just want to find out what they're hiding from before I decide why someone who has the balls to fly through space in tin cans would think that they even need to hide.'

Megan laughed. 'Too crazy to know better, or their balls are too big, eh? What about the possibility that they're just too stupid to know better?'

Jason shook his head after just a moment's consideration. 'Nah. If they were THAT stupid, they'd be too stupid to hide.'

Conversation stopped as they approached the small, strange looking space station.

'That is a very weird damned design. They have AG, but the design is almost like something that used centrifugal force to generate artificial grav.'

'Structural support for docking, Meg. The materials for this thing are amazing.'

Meg snorted derisively. 'Amazing ain't the word, Jase. They can't possibly be so bloody strapped for resources that they can't use more materials to increase structural integrity. Assuming, of course, that they don't have the tech to create better materials and they're just to cheap or lazy to use them.'

Jason shrugged. 'We can't even do passive comp taps without knowing more about them, their systems, and their tech. At least we know what the Consortium uses, and we can get constant information on their upgrades and changes by simply raiding and capturing their ships or hacking their systems.'

They spent hours going through the area and scanning before returning to the area near the wormhole. Jason spent his time going though the data that they had collected, analyzing the data on the space station and the planet that was in this system. There wasn't much else for him to do while he waited for his other claws to return.

'Uh, leader, this is Kenny. We lost the suckers when they went to warp. We're heading back to rejoin you now. Is it OK to skip, or do we stick it out at seven in real time?'

'They probably waited until they were safely out of range of whatever sensors they know about in this system before they went to warp, Kenny. Do one long skip from there, and then do seven in real time. ETA should be about four hours that way.'

'Roger that, leader.'

'Lulu, send one ship back through the wormhole to report and deliver the data that we've collected so far. Have them explain the situation and wait for orders. We'll wait here and assess the situation, and return in two days if we don't receive orders to the contrary. I'm just guessing, but they probably pay attention to the wormhole when it opens, and even more attention when they can't figure out why it opened.'

Virginia had the fleet ready and waiting when the recon shuttle came out of the wormhole. She received the data dump, and the eleven recon shuttles from Jason's talon waited near the entrance to the wormhole for further orders. It took several hours to go over all of the data that had been collected, and then Virginia held a meeting by comm.

'Margaret, Gary, Nancy. Anyone want to start?'

'The station looks civvie, but it does have SOME defenses. It looks like they're gearing up and trying to arm it. If they're gearing up for war, or if there are some type of tensions between different groups in the area, that would explain why the fleet that we followed was trying to avoid being detected by them. If the wormhole sometimes cycles for no reason, their primitive stealth wouldn't totally negate detection, and wouldn't necessarily alarm those in the system on the other end. Seeing a fleet that size move through their system when all they have in system is small craft and scouts certainly could, though.'

'How so, Margie?'

'Strategic movement by stealth. They certainly COULD have taken out the station, but it's less of a threat if you don't advertise your presence openly and confirm the potential threat. Especially if there are tensions between the two groups. Of course, another reason for stealth would be that they DO intend to take out the station or the system, just not YET. Doing so could tip their hand, overextend their available resources, or just leave them in either a tactical or strategic position that wasn't good enough for them to be able to hold the system yet.'

'Tech assessment?'

'They're not a real threat, Ginny. Barring suicide attacks or some type of unknown weapons that far exceed the tech levels that we've observed...'

'OK. The fleet that we followed here took off, and they are obviously a war fleet from all indications. The space station in the system seems much more civvie in nature, and the planet has minimal defenses at best. The station shows obvious signs of interaction with, and possibly even trading with, multiple cultures from outside this system. Some of the ships near the station are obviously civilian, with few or no weapons, while others are armed, even if they are small and lightly armed. Does anyone see a real down side to making contact with them?'

Nancy sighed. 'We could be getting ourselves stuck in the middle of a war that we know nothing about between two, possibly more, cultures that we also know nothing about. And our presence could cause problems or even trigger an outbreak of hostilities if tensions are building to the flashpoint. Compared to what we've actually seen, our forces could represent a major shift in the balance of power in this region. I'd recommend trying a diplomatic approach, rather than the standard military approach.'

Virginia nodded. 'Good call. We ARE cut off from the Clan, and we currently have no prospects of being able to find our own way back any time soon. So, who can we tap for this assignment?'

Laura quickly pulled up a list of names from the database. 'What criteria do you want to use for selection? Age, occupation, rank, or training?'

'Command track and warriors. How many are there?'

'One hundred and twenty nine are available.'

'Rank them by command track first and experience second.'

'Jason.'

Virginia and the others laughed. Jason was not going for anything higher than a wing commander position, and he intended to live as much of his life as possible flying missions. 'Is there anyone on the list who HASN'T already turned down promotions that would make them MY senior?'

'Not in the top twenty.'

'Is Kahmmhi on the list, Laura?'

'No, Margie. I eliminated all nonessential personnel from the larger ships from the search. They were all transferred off before the mission began.'

'Kahmmhi and her four Shadows are still on board my ship. So is Max's Raider platoon.'

Virginia looked at the others, then nodded. 'Send her over for a full briefing, Margie. Max may get pissed if we try to separate him from his precious ride, but a strike assault shuttle WOULD be less intimidating than a bloody HAT.'

'You can tell him that when he gets there.'

'Chickenshit.' Virginia laughed. 'Set up overwatch. Our five best Raider platoons in strike assault shuttles, with one talon of HATs in ready reserve. One talon of Assault Marines on standby, ready for boarding.'

'Isn't that a bit excessive for rapid response?'

'Not really, Gary. I know that her father would understand if something happened, but do you really want to find out how her grandfather is going to react if he finds out that we didn't take sufficient precautions to allow her Shadows a chance to do their job properly?'

'Kragh no!'

Laura smiled at Gary's response, then nodded to Virginia. 'Got it. It'll be ready to go before the Tahr Kahhni is.'

Sisko looked around the meeting room. Everyone there was tense, and nobody knew what to say. 'Can anyone tell me ANYTHING about the recent very unusual activity involving the wormhole?'

Jadzia sighed. 'We haven't been able to detect much in the scans that we took, and the little bit that we have been able to isolate is all confined to the first transit. Mass readings confirm that a large transit occurred. A number of very large ships using some type of unknown cloaking device. We're currently doing everything that we can to clean up and filter the video. We think that we may be able to get enough enhancement to ID the ships well enough to at least let us know WHO it was, even if we can't make out enough details to ID the ships or their types exactly.'

Worf nodded, looking stern. 'It will probably require several more days, sir.'

'Any trouble on the civilian side?'

Odo shook his head. 'None, sir. A lot of the visitors have enjoyed the unexpected light show, but they don't seem to be overly concerned. Garak has shown some interest and curiosity, as well as more than the usual amount of surprise.'

Kyra smiled. 'He wasn't expecting something like this, and he's just as confused as we are.'

'That's not necessarily a good thing, major. He can't warn us about things that he has no information about.'

'You're assuming that he WOULD know something, commander. If it's not the Cardassians, he probably wouldn't know anything. And with the civil war inside the Cardassian Empire killing informants, shifting alliances, disrupting every type of communications network...'

Jadzia nodded. 'The major has a point, Benjamin.'

'We have to do something. Do whatever it takes to enhance our data and identify those ships. We need to find out who has been...'

The station's emergency alarms went off, interrupting everything. Worf pulled up a monitor, and everyone saw that the wormhole was active. Jadzia was working frantically until the light show abruptly ended, then looked disgusted. 'Damn! Nothing. Absolutely nothing.'

Sisko sighed. 'Find me SOMETHING, people.'

Jason smiled as he heard the new orders. 'You heard the boss, people. Land and get some rest. The long, deep, boring patrols are going to other talons.'

As Jason was speaking, each assault frigate was gearing up for full combat strikes. Both scout assault carriers were launching half of their available recon shuttles, which meant that ten talons of them were moving out to take up their assigned positions as an early warning net. If any ships approached the system, either in real space or by warp, the Clan would know about it long before they arrived in the system.

Virginia looked at Kahmmhi. 'Are you ready, Tahr Kahhni?'

Kahmmhi sighed, almost as if she were resigned to her fate. 'Yes, Ginny. Are you SURE that there isn't anyone older who's more qualified? I'm only two hundred and fifty, and with all of the time that I've spent going through fleet training and other specialized training that my mother insisted on, I haven't even completed assault forces training.'

'You're aggressive enough. Your mother trained you, and her father trained her. Not to mention some training you've received from your Shadows.'

'Just because I'm one fourth Dark Elf...'

'And your grandmother is Chohrnahra Khyrr-mehngkren, and your grandfather is Kohl-garh. I've heard it all before. Duty calls, cousin. Or would you prefer that Jason handle DIPLOMATIC negotiations with these people? THIS is our entire fleet until we figure out where we are and how to get home.'

'Kragh. Make the call. I'll play nice.' Kahmmhi tried very hard not to sound like a petulant child.

Virginia pointed to Laura and nodded as Kahmmhi prepared herself mentally.

'Sir, we have an incoming message from an unknown source. We can't locate the source of the signal, and there is nothing that we can detect to identify the sender as any known race.'

Sisko nodded. 'Put it on the screen.'

A slender, beautiful, very exotic female wearing some kind of spacesuit or armor appeared on the screen. When she spoke, her voice was soft, melodic, and everyone was surprised to hear her using strangely accented English. 'Hello. I am Kahmmhi, daughter of the Tahr Kahhn of Clan Silver Dragon. We are peaceful, and wish to establish some type of interaction with your people.'

'I am Benjamin Sisko, commander of this station. We are representatives of the Federation. Welcome to DS-9. We welcome peaceful travelers, and can offer you the opportunity to trade. We can relay your offer of establishing relations between your society and the Federation to our superiors, but we aren't really set up for diplomatic negotiations. Can you tell us more about your people and your culture? Did you come here through the wormhole?'

Kahmmhi nodded. 'We did come through your wormhole after our scouts reported back to us that the fleet of ships that they followed to this system through the wormhole lost them when they went to warp.'

Sisko thought about that statement. A fleet of ships entering the system through the wormhole. Their scouts following them into the system. Their scouts returning through the wormhole to report. And their ship or ships entering this system. That explained all four of the anomalous wormhole activations that had occurred over the past two days. 'So you are from the Delta quadrant?'

'We came here from there, but we don't think that is where our Clan is from. One of the reasons that we contacted you is that we became separated from the rest of our Clan and are lost. We were hoping that you might be able to provide us with more complete star maps and any information that you can about some of the local stellar anomalies.'

'I would be very happy to meet with you and initiate peaceful discussions to determine exactly what we can do to help you, as well as what we might be able to offer each other in trade. How soon would you be able to arrive at these docking coordinates?'

'Would one hour be convenient?'

Sisko nodded. 'That will be fine.'

As soon as the connection terminated, there was a lot of activity on the station. A meeting room was set up. Security preparations were made. The command staff was notified. And a preliminary report was sent off to StarFleet headquarters. Then Sisko put on his dress uniform and hurried to join Mr. Worf and the security personnel at the docking ring to greet their guest properly.

Sisko wasn't sure what he HAD been expecting, but the sight that greeted him when their shuttle docked was definitely NOT it. The shuttle looked similar to a very large shuttlecraft. When it docked, the first thing out of the hatch was a group of four large figures in black combat armor of a type that he'd never seen before. The armor appeared to double as a spacesuit, and each of the figures was carrying some type of rifle. The security alarms detected the weapons immediately, and began sounding as soon as the four of them appeared inside the station. Worf quickly shut the alarms off. 'Some type of projectile weapon, sir. No real power signature detected from either the weapons or the armor.

'You can't come into the station armed like that.'

'Clear.' The armed, armored figure ignored him completely, not responding to either the alarms or the presence of any of the Federation personnel.

Two smaller figures in similar armor came out, and the others moved out of the way. Kahmmhi walked out behind them, trailed by two other small figures in armor. The back pair of smaller figures were definitely female, but that was only evident because of the contours of their armor. Kahmmhi smiled a bit sheepishly. 'Please forgive our security precautions. Our Clan is at war, and we always follow certain security precautions because of that threat.'

'I understand. But we can't allow rifles and other combat weapons on board the station.'

'Only my bodyguards will enter the station with me. The troops will remain with the shuttle. They can leave their rifles and other weapons, but Clan law requires their presence. And that they be armed at all times. Will this be a problem?'

Sisko looked at Worf. 'They are a diplomatic delegation. What do you think, Worf?'

'May I see one of their sidearms?'

'Krohn.' Kahmmhi said the word softly.

Krohn handed Worf his sidearm after removing the magazine and ejecting the round in the chamber. Worf looked at the weapon, surprised by its weight as well as intrigued by its design, manufacture, and composition. He scanned it very thoroughly with his tricorder. 'Projectile weapon. Similar in type to those used on Earth several centuries ago. I am unable to determine its composition. The alloys, and even some of the elements are completely unknown. All of our records show that weapons of this type are limited in their destructive potential. It should be acceptable, sir.'

Worf returned the weapon and watched as it was quickly and efficiently returned to its previous fully functional condition. Kahmmhi spoke softly again. 'Krohn. Kwyll.'

The bodyguard drew a large sword that Sisko hadn't really paid attention to and presented it to Worf. Worf scanned it thoroughly as well. 'Some type of sword. It is made of some unknown material or unknown element. I can't tell which because I can only scan the surface of the blade, sir. It seems to reflect energy.'

Sisko nodded, and the four bodyguards gave their rifles to the other guards. As Sisko escorted Kahmmhi to the meeting room that had been set up for their initial meeting, he couldn't help but notice that the very colorful, flowing silks that she was wearing seemed to flow while still sculpting to her body to reveal her figure. And that when it moved in certain ways, the dress actually seemed to expose more of her body than it covered. The view was definitely worth it, but the woman barely looked old enough to attend StarFleet Academy.

They had been making polite small talk as they walked, with Sisko pointing out things that he thought she might find of interest and answering questions about things that she'd never seen before. As they entered the meeting room, Sisko asked softly, 'Forgive me for asking, but aren't you kind of young to be handling negotiations like this?'

Kahmmhi nodded, not offended in the least. 'Oh, yes. If the Clan were here, my father, one of my mothers, or one of my older siblings would conduct the negotiations. Since we're lost, I'm the senior member of my family who isn't already a dedicated warrior, so I have to do the negotiations. Please don't take offense if I make some mistakes. We don't get many chances to negotiate with unknown races in our war, and my primary training and skills lie in other areas, so my mothers have only been giving me some instruction on diplomatic skills for the past... How long HAS it been, Brynhe?'

'Forty seven years, Tahr Kahhni.'

All of the Federation members in the room went completely silent and stared at them in shock. Kyra swallowed. 'Um, how old ARE you?'

'My mother just turned four hundred, so I'm about two hundred and fifty years old.'

Sisko blinked in shock. 'You are two hundred and fifty years old?'

'Yes. My grandfather saved my father's Clan from an enemy attack just over two hundred and fifty years ago. One of his daughters married my father, who was the Kohl-kahhn of our Clan, becoming the Blood Bond between our Clans. I was born less than a year later.'

Jadzia started asking questions, and several hours later they had heard all about what had happened to the scout claw to strand them in the Delta quadrant, how they had followed the unknown fleet of ships to the wormhole, and how the fleet had left after they came to this system. Kahmmhi handed Jadzia a small object.

'What's this?'

'A small, basic comp. It contains the video of the fleet that we followed here, sensor data, and things like that. It also has all of the data that we have on where and when we arrived in the Delta quadrant. We hoped that you might be able to provide us with some information about the wormhole that brought us here. If not, we may have to return to the Delta quadrant and see what we can find out about it there. We really need to figure out a way to return home. We only have nine ships in our scout claw, and the mission was so dangerous that all of the nonessential personnel were removed from half of the ships. Our five largest ships only have about forty percent of their normal personnel.'

Sisko smiled. 'We will need some time to discuss this and analyze the data that you have given us. And it may take some time for us to find out what we can about this wormhole. Perhaps you would be willing to enjoy our hospitality for at least a few days while we continue our discussions? We can provide you and your bodyguards with quarters, and I'm sure that Kyra would be more than willing to show you around the station. We have a large number of shops near the promenade that sell goods to station personnel and visitors alike, as well as some shops that cater to various types of recreational activities.'

Kahmmhi nodded. 'One room with two beds should suffice, if that's not too much trouble. My Shadows won't sleep except near me, and two of them must stand guard at all times.'

'That seems a bit excessive, even for security personnel. They never bend the rules?'

Kahmmhi smiled. 'There are times when I can't help wishing. But we are cut off from the Clan, lost, surrounded by potential enemies, and we don't know when our enemy might show up. So we follow Clan law and our training.'

Kyra smiled. 'And what do you expect that to do in an unknown and totally unforeseen situation such as this?'

'If we don't screw up, it should keep us alive. It's worked for Kohl-garh for more than six thousand years of continuous warfare against the Consortium.'

The meeting had broken up, and Kyra had shown Kahmmhi to her quarters while the rest of the Federation personnel recovered from what they had just learned. While Odo attended to his duties and Kyra gave their guest a guided tour of the public areas of the station, Sisko met with Worf, Jadzia, Chief O'Brien, and Dr. Bashir.

'What do you have for me, old man?'

'The fleet that they followed here is definitely Dominion. Their cloaking is excellent. Better than anything in the Alpha quadrant, but the Clan ships could detect them easily. The Clan obviously has much better cloaking than the Dominion, because the Dominion ships couldn't detect the Clan ships that were following them. And the Clan's scouts are very fast, even if they aren't warp capable.'

'Is it possible that the Clan isn't warp capable at all?'

'I don't know. They certainly knew what warp was. And there was something. I don't know exactly what it was. They seemed to jump almost instantaneously across at least several light seconds of space. It wasn't warp, but it was at least as fast as very high warp speeds. Only they did it inside the system, Benjamin.'

'Analysis of the Dominion fleet, Worf?'

'Fifteen large transports that are normally used for hauling munitions and supplies. Fifteen very large troop transports, each capable of carrying at least one million Jem'Haddar shock troops. Ten armed escorts in the cruiser range. Twenty Dominion battleships.'

'That is an invasion fleet. Any idea where they went?'

'When they left the system and entered warp, their general heading was in the direction of Cardassia Prime.'

'So the Dominion may be behind the Cardassian civil war, and at least some Cardassians support them.'

'That would seem to be the case, sir.'

'Chief, what can you tell me about their tech?'

'Very little, sir. Most of it defies analysis. What I can analyze is way beyond our capabilities. Their comp, their cloaking capabilities, the ability of their ships to travel instantaneously across large distances like that.'

Sisko nodded. So far he was coming up with many more questions and very few answers. Dr. Bashir?'

'I couldn't scan the ones in armor. She is definitely NOT human. There are some genes that are close, but most of her genes are unknown and alien. Over half of them. As for her true age, I honestly can't tell you. There is no sign of ANY degradation at the cellular level. I couldn't begin to tell you her bone density. All of her bones are fully armored with some unknown material that I can't even BEGIN to analyze with my scans.'

'Anything else?'

'Her bone structure and muscle density suggest extreme strength. I can't do more without an actual exam. She was aware that I was scanning her, sir.'

Sisko nodded. 'OK. Her story is that their ships represent a very small portion of her Clan's fleet, and that they have been at war for more than six thousand years. I think that we need to learn more about them, their war, their enemy, and their technology. We can probably assume that they are the equivalent of refugees, cut off from their civilization. But we need to find out as much as we can about them before we can even decide what we CAN do to help them. If they aren't warp capable, the Prime Directive...'

Bashir interrupted Sisko. 'That may not apply, sir. Even if they aren't warp capable, they are obviously capable of interstellar travel on their own.'

Jadzia shook her head. 'That doesn't rule out the possibility of generational ships, Julian. Especially if you consider how long they may actually be capable of living.'

Worf nodded in agreement. 'There is also the possibility that they could have captured at least some of their technology from their enemy. They could easily use captured technology while it lasted without understanding how to repair major problems or manufacture their own replacements.'

Sisko nodded. 'We'll see what we can learn from Kahmmhi during the meeting tomorrow. Just try not to offend them by thinking of them as backward in some areas.'

Worf smiled. 'I was pleased when I first saw that they carried blades, thinking that we might have discovered a warrior race that still reveres blades as much as Klingons do. But the blade that I examined was much too heavy to use in real combat, and showed no signs of wear or use. I think that their blades are mainly ornamental or symbolic, and that their primary weapons are the primitive firearms that they carry. And the ship that they came here in wasn't cloaked during its final approach and docking. It appears to be a heavily armored, unarmed shuttle of some type. They appear to rely heavily upon stealth and their defensive capabilities, sir.'

'Well, let's keep investigating and find out more about them, Worf.'

'Yes, sir.'

Kyra was finding Kahmmhi to be very pleasant company. She was interested in everything, and was quite willing to discuss how the things that she saw differed from how things were in her culture. They sampled various foods, and Kyra quickly realized that even tiny Kahmmhi ate a lot of food. After a while, Kyra took her to Quark's, intent on showing her the holodecks. When she asked about the holodecks, Quark came over to talk to them himself.

'Hello, major. Who's your exotic looking little friend?'

'She's a DIPLOMAT, Quark. So behave yourself or I might let her bodyguards do their job.' She smiled. 'Ferengi have very sensitive ears, so just grab one and yank on it if he gives you any trouble.'

Quark looked horrified. 'Don't tell her to do something like that, major. She might actually think that you're serious and really do it.'

Kyra smiled slyly, winking at Kahmmhi where Quark wouldn't see it. 'Who says that I'm NOT serious?'

Quark immediately changed the subject, hoping to get to something that was safer. 'Um, holodeck. Sorry, major, but one of my holodecks is down for service right now, and demand IS fairly high with all of the extra visitors that we've been having lately. I can have one for you tomorrow, but there is a one hour limit on it.'

'What time?'

'Eighteen hundred. The cost is one hundred credits or ten strips of gold plated latinum.'

Kahmmhi looked curious. Kyra glared indignantly. 'A hundred credits! For an hour! Quark, that's robbery.'

'Supply and demand, major. Believe me, I'd love to have my other holodeck working, but a bunch of Nosikans destroyed it with disruptors and real weapons during a combat program. Odo has them in custody, waiting for their funds transfer to be confirmed. But it will still take at least two or three weeks to get the parts in and replace the six emitters that they destroyed.'

'What is gold plated latinum?'

Quark was choking as Kyra looked at Kahmmhi, amazed by her innocent, curious tone. 'It's a precious metal that's used as a form of currency.'

'I understood that part. I was curious about the composition and the elements. I know what gold is, but I've never heard of latinum. The Clans don't actually use money, but we do understand the concept. And we do use precious metals as barter items when we trade with various species that we encounter.'

'You don't use MONEY? At ALL? How do people get things?' Quark looked distressed, but that was understandable. Money and the potential for profit were the very basis of both the Ferengi social structure and what passed for a religion for them.

'All of your basic needs are provided for by the Clan. If more resources are available than are actually required for the survival of the Clan and its individual members, then the excess is stored back for future needs. Part of the excess is given to each person as an individual resource allotment, which they are able to use however they wish. You can make things for yourself, or you can barter or trade with other individuals if you wish.'

Quark thought about that for a moment. Trade and barter were good. He could always sell his "trade goods" to others for real currency. In fact, rare items could potentially be very profitable if you found the right buyer. Ferengi were very good at turning a profit by trade because they had all of the right connections to find the highest bidder for any commodity. Rare or scarce items were exceptionally valuable as a rule. And if they were legal, the risks that were associated with trading or selling them were very low. The risk of losing money bothered Quark, but the risk of being killed was even more abhorrent to him. Perhaps, if he primed the pump and established some good will, he might be able to work out something with Kahmmhi so that he was an exclusive distributor, or at least had some kind of edge on the competition.

Quark smiled broadly. 'How would you ladies like a drink? I'll even give you the first round on the house, in the interest of budding diplomatic relations and potential future trade agreements.'

Kyra looked shocked. 'Quick, Kahmmhi, take him up on the offer before he changes his mind. Quark giving out a drink of your choice on the house is so rare that you should never turn it down.'

'Do you have anything really sweet with lots of fruit in it?'

'We have a lot of drinks like that. Do you have any preferences on alcohol?' He quickly glanced at Kyra. 'She IS old enough to drink, isn't she?'

Kahmmhi laughed. 'Of course I am. I'm still young, but I'm not a child. It's just that almost nobody in the Clan drinks alcohol. Well, some do drink alcohol because they like the flavor, but...'

'I have a full selection of synthehols as well. Synthehol doesn't give you a hangover if you drink too much of it, and there is no real alcohol content in it to violate any of your religious or social taboos.'

'Actually, most of the people in the Clan, including the children, drink a little bit of wine on every sabbath or rest day. It's just that most of us don't bother drinking alcohol because it has no effect on us.'

'None at all?' Kyra was amazed.

'Well, we do get the sugar content from it, so it does give us energy. But as far as side effects, there are none. Our bodies naturally eliminate alcohol, as well as a variety of drugs and other toxins, before they can be absorbed and cause any injury to our cells and tissues.'

Quark nodded and quickly programmed something into the replicator. A glass filled with a blended mixture of fruits, juices, syrups, and ice materialized. 'Try this and tell me what you think.'

Kahmmhi did, then smiled. 'This is delicious. Thank you.'

Kyra ordered an expensive drink that she treated herself with occasionally, amazed that Quark didn't even start to complain once about the cost or her choice of drinks. When she received the drink, she took Kahmmhi over to a table so that they could relax and talk while they enjoyed their drinks. Kahmmhi was intrigued by the forms of entertainment that the various individuals around her were enjoying.

'So many different cultures. So many different species.'

'How many different species have you met or seen in your life?'

'Everyone in our fleet is Clan, though we do have a number of different species that are part of the Clan. Humans, Llyriana, Xylchans, Targhelians, Ghaals, and a number of others who perform other support functions on the ships. I was old enough to remember the Krohr-jing who followed Kohl-garh, but all of the Krohr-jing are in Clan Phoenix. I've seen vid of the enemy, but none of them have ever successfully boarded any of the ships that I've been on during my lifetime. Most of our ships are about as old as I am. When Kohl-garh rescued our Clan from the Consortium ambush that was threatening to destroy us, they rebuilt some of the ships in our fleet to improve them. But most of our current fleet is either new construction or ships that Kohl-garh gave to our Clan.'

Kahmmhi sighed. 'In our area of operations, we've faced a number of enemy species. The most common ones that we've faced are Graks, Garns, Kryl'ghai, Krel, Korb, and occasionally a Charkal fleet. Whenever we capture enemy ships, we free the slaves that crew their ships. Some of them join us and become Clan, and we put the others down on some planet to live out the rest of their lives as best they can. Xylchans, Targhelians, and Ghaals are the most common slave species that are used to crew Consortium ships. There are between half a dozen and two dozen other species on board any given enemy ship, but the species vary depending on what Consortium species is running the ship and what area they are operating in.'

'Really? Would you mind telling Sisko about the Consortium, their races, and stuff like that?'

Kahmmhi shrugged. 'I could, but Krohn could give you much more detailed information about things like that. He's been in combat much longer than I've even been alive. He was in Clan Phoenix, and joined our Clan when Kohl-garh saved us.'

'Which one is Krohn?'

Krohn nodded at her. 'That would be me, major.'

'And how long have you been fighting in the war?'

'Since before Pehnt Drohvi.'

'I don't understand. What is "Pehnt Drohvi"?'

Kahmmhi sighed. 'One of the largest and most important battles in the entire history of ALL of the Clans. It was fought just over three thousand years ago.'

Kyra shook her head in dismay. 'I still can't wrap my mind around the concept of anyone even LIVING for three thousand years, much less fighting in combat for all of that time.'

Brynhe shook her head. 'Kohl-garh has lived twice that long, and is still fighting this war. The first Tryx War lasted for almost fifteen millennia. This war will last much longer. The Consortium grew and expanded a lot in the more than seventy thousand years between the end of the Tryx War and the start of the Clans. It will take the Clans a very long time to hunt down and then exterminate the members of all seventy five of the Consortium's member races when they are spread across five entire galaxies.'

Kyra looked at the Clan members in shock. Genocide? They intended to wipe out entire races?

'Brynhe, you know very well that Kohl-garh intends to try to save as many Charkal as he can.'

'So the Charkal live and the Garns die in their place. And possibly the Vor-chyl and Kryl'ghai as well. The rest of the universe will not mourn their passing. The Lights Upon the Path certainly won't.'

'Your Clan practices genocide against your enemies?' Kyra tried to keep her voice modulated and normal sounding.

'Only the member races of the Consortium. But we haven't managed to eradicate a single race completely. At least, not yet.'

'Genocide is unconscionable.' Kyra couldn't contain her shock and outrage any longer.

Kahmmhi smiled sadly, looking at her almost as if Kyra were an innocent child who didn't know the ways of the cold, harsh universe. 'Tomorrow, I will explain our war to you and the others. If you still feel the same way about our goals by tomorrow night, we will leave and return to the Delta quadrant to find out what we can from any society that we can find there. With or without your help, we WILL find our way back to our Clan.'

'The Delta quadrant isn't safe. That fleet that you followed here could be Dominion. If you run into the Dominion or their forces, they would attack you and try to destroy or enslave you. You can't stop or kill their rulers. The Founders are shapeshifters. They can mimic anyone or anything.'

Krohn smiled. 'She means that they are like Odo.'

'Yes, they are. Your blades would pass right through them, and so would your projectiles. You can't kill them.'

Krohn chuckled softly. 'Everything dies eventually. You just have to know how to kill them.'

'Kahmmhi, make him see sense. It is dangerous in the Delta quadrant. We can offer you sanctuary while we figure out how to get your people back home. We can even find a planet for you to settle on while you're waiting.'

Kahmmhi gasped. 'A ROCK! We live in our fleets in space. Rocks are death traps. We don't need or want sanctuary. We are simply looking for some information that will help us get home, and we are willing to trade peacefully.' Kahmmhi looked at her Shadows, then faced Kyra again. 'We must leave so that I can talk to the commander of our claw. I seem to have made a terrible mistake in communicating with you. Everything is completely messed up. I TOLD them that I didn't have enough training or experience to handle a mission like this properly.'

'Tahr Kahhni, you are still our best hope. We didn't plan for this, but we still have to make the best of the situation. Or would you prefer that I remind you that Kohl-garh says that the only way to handle the unexpected events that can't possibly be planned for in advance is to improvise?'

'Lyhssyha, they'd be better off dealing with Jason, and so would our claw.'

'That is not what Virginia thinks.'

'Virginia is clutching at straws. None of us are diplomats. Our race doesn't need them.'

'Perhaps. So why does Kohl-garh allow some of his wives to try diplomacy when a military response isn't required?'

'Because my bloody grandfather is so unpredictable that even his own wives never know what he is actually going to do before he does it.'

Brynhe sighed. 'So, who should have to clean up your mess, Tahr Kahhni?'

Kahmmhi sighed, clearly resigned to her fate. 'I hate bloody kraghlar giri.' She looked at Kyra. 'I'll do my best to straighten out this mess tomorrow. If your people don't wish to help us, we WILL leave your space. Probably through the wormhole that brought us here from the Delta quadrant. We arrived here from the Delta quadrant, and returning there is probably still our best chance of getting back home.'

'And what happens if the Dominion DOES find and attack your ships?'

Kahmmhi laughed. 'THAT is something that we DO know how to handle. We simply eliminate the threat.'

Kyra was thinking things over very carefully as she walked them back to their guest quarters. Every time that she thought she understood the Clan, she found out something else about them that destroyed her assumptions completely. Perhaps tomorrow Kahmmhi COULD explain things so that they made sense, but Kyra believed that possibility was highly unlikely. The Clan might THINK that they were great warriors who could defend themselves from any foe that attacked them, but the reality was that a Dominion battle fleet was almost certain to crush a small force of less than a dozen scout ships. The Clan just didn't know what the Dominion forces were truly capable of doing, and had no idea what modern technology could do to someone who relied on blades and ancient projectile weapons to fight a war.

Once they were alone in their quarters, Kahmmhi sent a brief synopsis of their activities to the shuttle. They would relay the message back to Virginia, as well as any response that they received. Not that Kahmmhi expected a response from Virginia. Tomorrow's meeting would be critical to maintaining peaceful relations with the Federation, and that COULD help them find their way back to their Clan more quickly. She just hoped that she could pull it off.

Kahmmhi was nervous when she arrived for the meeting in the morning. Brynhe and Jehryl took up positions outside the meeting room, standing across from four StarFleet security officers. Krohn and Lyhssyha went into the room with her, ignoring the four armed Federation guards who were also in there.

'Kahmmhi, some of the things that we've learned about your people and your culture are seriously disturbing to us. They seem to be very contradictory to the very principles that serve as the foundations for our society. I was hoping that you could explain them to us so that there were no misunderstandings.'

Kahmmhi nodded. 'I will do my best, Commander Sisko. Before I do anything else, please allow me to say that I seem to have given you the wrong impression about a number of things. I assure you that this was not intentional, other than certain omissions that were necessary for security reasons. So I will start at the beginning and do my best to clear everything up. First of all, we came to the Delta quadrant and ended up coming through the wormhole to this system and this station exactly as I said previously. But we did NOT contact you because we are refugees who require your aid and assistance. We do NOT require your protection, either from our enemies or from any other forces that are indigenous to the Delta quadrant or the Alpha quadrant. Our intention was to establish contact, trade with you peacefully, and to find out what we could about the anomaly that brought us here. Our scout claw may only contain nine ships, but we are trained Clan warriors, and we are quite capable of defending ourselves if we are attacked by the Dominion or their forces.'

Some of the Federation members looked at her dubiously, and were somewhat confused by her statements, but none of them interrupted her. 'Second, you seem to have some problems accepting our methods of warfare against our enemies. Your species seems to have some type of aversion or psychological problem dealing with the very concept of genocide. You seem to believe that there is no possible reason that could ever justify committing genocide during warfare.'

Jadzia nodded. 'It's not just the Federation. We have had contact with a large number of cultures, including some that have been or are still hostile. The one thing that all of them have in common is that they consider genocide totally abhorrent. In our cultures, nothing could EVER justify genocide. We have seen the terrible price that comes with that type of thinking.'

Kahmmhi smiled sadly. 'So have we. The Consortium has eradicated almost two hundred sentient species, and they have currently enslaved thousands of other species. Several of the species that are now extinct, and a number of the races that are currently enslaved by the Consortium, were once allies of the Tryx, our distant ancestors. After their war against the Tryx finally ended more than seventy thousand years ago, the Consortium thought that they had killed all of the Tryx, but they were mistaken.'

'Who, or what, are the Tryx?'

'One of the races that fought against the Consortium in the Tryx wars. The Consortium believed that they had killed all of the Tryx, and it still took them another five millennia to finish the war and destroy or enslave the races that were under the protection of the Tryx. A small group of Tryx survivors made it to an isolated planet on the fringe of our galaxy, and bred with the local population in an attempt to save the best of their genes and their race before they lost all of their technology forever. My father and my grandfather are descendants of the Tryx. Over seventy thousand years after the Tryx wars ended, the entire Consortium was STILL killing every species that they found that they thought might even be RELATED to the Tryx. Kohl-garh discovered that the humans who had been captured by the Consortium and taken from his home planet were the descendants of the Tryx. His options were to take the ship that they were on, or to watch as all of the humans on board that ship AND their entire race was killed. So he led a slave revolt and started our war with the entire Consortium.'

'There was no way to negotiate? Have you even TRIED?'

'Many of the Consortium's member races are extremely xenophobic. To them, all non-member species must either be enslaved or killed. They made the rules for this war, and they carried them out to the best of their ability on the Tryx and their allies. My grandfather had no choice but to accept their rules if he wanted our race and others to continue to survive.'

Jadzia smiled. 'Can you tell us where the Consortium is located? Perhaps that would help us find a way home for you.'

'The Consortium still controls well over half of our galaxy, four entire galaxies that are adjacent to it, and we think that they are still trying to expand into two or three other nearby galaxies.'

'And your grandfather started a WAR with them? How many troops did he have?'

'I'm not sure. Six thousand years ago, the entire population of the first three Clans was about six thousand.'

All of the Federation members nodded knowingly, relaxing as they realized that the Clans weren't huge or powerful enough to commit genocide. They were all thinking that the Maquis had managed to survive and perfect the art of hit and run warfare, and had used it very effectively against vastly superior odds for a very long time, so why not the Clan? It was a very effective tactic when you were so badly outnumbered that you couldn't afford to fight against the enemy in open confrontations.

Sisko nodded. 'That leaves us with the problem of figuring out where you came from. Wormholes don't really have the energy to form a stable connection BETWEEN galaxies, and we don't really have anything like what you just described in THIS galaxy.'

'We are aware of that. Our best guess is that the extreme gravitic distortions caused by so many strong gravitic anomalies located in such a confined area allowed an unstable wormhole to lock onto the system that we were in. We detected a lot of very severe weakening of the boundary of subspace in the area where we arrived in the Delta quadrant, but it wasn't enough to form a tear in the fabric of the subspace boundary. That may have allowed the wormhole to form a connection with the anomalies through the weakened area of subspace.'

Jadzia looked interested. 'It's possible. Theoretically. If you have copies of your scans, we could check your data and compare the region to our own maps of that region. Combined with information from our database, we could probably have an answer for you in a matter of weeks. If it is due to some type of instability in the region, we could probably give you some idea about the nature of the wormhole. If it's cyclic, and it's in our records, we could give you some idea about when you might be able to use the wormhole to return to your point of origin so that you could return to your Clan.'

Sisko nodded. 'If we can manage to come to some type of terms for diplomatic or other agreements, we could probably find a suitable planet for your people to wait on if this is going to take some time to figure out.'

Kahmmhi shook her head, her eyes wide. 'Thank you for your offer, but no Clan lives on rocks. EVER.'

Kyra looked dismayed. 'Where else would you live?'

'On our fleet. In space. Where the enemy can't just find us and destroy an entire system in order to kill us like they killed the Tryx.' Kahmmhi shuddered. 'It is always a risk to raid a planet or to stop on one to take a vacation on a rock. You never know when an enemy fleet could suddenly drop into real space inside a system, come out of nowhere without any warning at all, and destroy the entire system.'

Sisko nodded, thinking that the obviously overly graphic imagery certainly managed to get her point across, and illustrated very well how scared of their enemy the Clans must be after facing such overwhelming odds for so long. Though now none of them thought that the Clan was actually capable of committing genocide. They might WANT to do something like that to their enemy, but the harsh reality was that they simply lacked the numbers and the technological capabilities to do so.'

'Can you tell me anything about how large your Clan's fleet is?'

'Clan Silver Dragon has one hundred and sixty five ships that are used for offense, but forty eight of them are only assault frigates, our smallest ships. The twenty four that are just larger than them are scout fire cruisers. They have a few main railguns, but they are used mainly for scouting support missions. They don't have any small craft to speak of compared to any of our other ships, and they don't carry any landing craft or assault troops. One hundred and thirty eight ships are assigned to protect our Home Fleet, where all of our civilians and most of our resources are. Almost fifty of them are scout fire cruisers, and almost fifty more are assault frigates, our smallest ships. At least the assault frigates carry a mix of various types of small attack craft. I think that you call them fighters. And we have six Home Ships that carry all of our civilians, and fourteen support ships.'

Sisko nodded, and Worf cleared his throat. 'So, of the three hundred and twenty three ships that are in your Clan's fleet, you have nine of them here?' Just under three percent of their fleet, but that would still be a good sized scouting force, and enough of a loss for their Clan to notice it.

Kahmmhi nodded. 'Yes. Four are assault frigates, our smallest ships, and two are the slightly larger scout fire cruisers. Both types of ships have very weak railguns. A scout claw is supposed to scout, not engage the enemy in fleet combat. We can defend ourselves from a Consortium fleet if one manages to detect us, but our three larger ships are designed primarily to handle offensive operations.'

Sisko smiled. 'That was very helpful to our understanding of your situation. If you are interested in engaging in peaceful trade, I see no problem with that. And if, after discussing things with your military commander, you wish to enter into diplomatic discussions to establish more formal agreements between your Clan and the Federation, we would be happy to handle the preliminary negotiations until representatives can arrive from StarFleet Command or the Federation Council. In the meantime, I'm sure that our merchants would be very happy to show your people what they have available for trade or sale. And we could allow at least some of your people a chance to enjoy some shore leave so that they can experience what our culture has to offer.'

Sisko was pleased with this offer. It would allow them to learn more about the Clan, and would give more Clan members at least some exposure to the Federation and what they had to offer while they were getting off of their ships and stretching their legs during shore leave. Kahmmhi was pleased because it showed that Sisko trusted the Clan, at least to some extent, and was willing to interact peacefully. She was sure that many Clan members would relish the rare opportunity to get to meet a friendly alien race and possibly trade for things that they could never have acquired from the Consortium.

Kahmmhi nodded politely. 'Thank you for your generous offer. I will inform Virginia, and let you know what her answer is.'

After listening to Kahmmhi's report, Virginia nodded. 'Two shuttles per day. Six hours of shore leave. No more than a hundred others there at any given time. No weapons except for some basic blades as far as trading goes. No kwyll or vihlnihk.'

'That is probably wise. They use some type of precious metals for money. And credits, but we have no way of making those, and no way to acquire them until we start dealing with them. Trade is much simpler. Any suggestions on what I might try to offer in trade?'

'Food is usually good. I doubt that any information we have would be of value, other than things that we don't want to get into until we know them much better than we currently do. Unique foods, such as spices. Common things that we have that they don't.'

'I'll talk to some of them and see what they may be interested in, then let you know. Sisko already made a docking port available, so you can send the first group over any time that you'd like.'

Kyra and Jadzia picked Kahmmhi up at her quarters and spent some time shopping before they went to Quark's for their holodeck appointment. They spent several minutes going over the various selections before finally entering the room. When they entered, there were palm trees and a sandy beach, with the ocean waves breaking against a rock outcropping in the background.

'Would you like to go for a swim? We can program in bathing suits.'

Kahmmhi shook her head. 'No, thanks. When we visit rocks, we often play in shallow water, but very few Clan members actually swim.'

'Sorry.' Kyra looked embarrassed. 'I didn't even think to ask if you knew how to swim.'

'I do. All Clan members are taught how to swim as part of survival training in Basic. But armor sinks, so you walk out of the water more often than anything else.'

'What if you aren't in armor?'

Kahmmhi's expression was not what they expected. She looked shocked, and slightly embarrassed. 'Only very strong swimmers actually swim. It takes a LOT of energy to swim, and most Clan members can't do it for very long or go very far.'

Kyra looked confused. 'Can't you just float? This is salt water.'

Kahmmhi laughed softly. 'Sorry. We can't float. Clan members sink, even in salt water. Our muscles are too dense and our bones are too heavy for us to float. We LOOK human, but we're not.' She sighed. 'This is very beautiful. I've never seen a hologram like this before.'

'The really nice thing is that you can program it to display anyone or anything. Personality subroutines can even make the projections seem real, and there are built in safeguards to make sure that nobody can be seriously injured or killed by the holographic projections.'

Jadzia nodded. 'Worf and I use our time in the holodeck to work out and enjoy practicing combat. With the built in safeties, you can make it realistic without risking serious injury or death.'

'Something like that might be really popular among the Assault Marines.'

Brynhe laughed. 'Kragh them. Who would like the chance to actually spar against Kohl-garh?'

Krohn shook his head. 'His Shadows, maybe. They don't get so rough when they spar, and they're not strong enough to throw you clear across a room.' He grinned. 'Just make sure that the program is designed for sparring, and not combat.'

Kahmmhi shuddered. 'Krohn! Don't SAY things like that. You know that I can't handle some of the more violent home movies that mama uses to see who's going to become a good little ground pounder.'

'So, how realistic is the sensory input, and how do you tell when you've been hit?'

Kyra picked up a handful of sand and dropped it into Lhyssyha's hand. 'Kragh! It's real sand.'

Jadzia smiled. 'You can see and hear, and now you know you can touch it and feel the warmth of it. You can smell, taste, and even eat and drink things in here. None of it is real, but it's all very realistic. How would you guys like to join Worf and me for our holodeck workout next week? Worf uses real blades for combat, so he could show you what that's like on the holodeck.' She giggled. 'Klingons are just like little boys with their toys when it comes to fighting and using "traditional" weapons in combat.'

Kahmmhi smiled and nodded. 'We would be honored. Thank you very much for the invitation.'

They spent the rest of the hour enjoying a variety of programs on the holodeck as Jadzia and Kyra explained how it worked and demonstrated how diverse the possible uses were. Kahmmhi and the others were extremely impressed, though their general focus was on how much more realistic a system like this could make Clan training sims and certain types of combat training exercises. After their time was up, they decided to eat something, and spent the time talking while they ate.

'I've noticed that you guys tend to eat a lot.'

Kahmmhi nodded. 'And often. If we're going to be stuck here for very long, we'll need to build an agro ship or two just to have some fresh food for a change.' She grinned. 'We have a very high metabolism.'

'So, if we manage to work out some trade agreements, what kind of things do you think that your people would be interested in getting?'

'I'm not really sure, Jadzia. The holodecks have some interesting uses. We're almost always looking for new foods, different types of spices and seasonings, plants for our agro ships. Sometimes we collect animals that can be raised for food while contributing to our recycling and waste reclamation systems. But we're obviously not set up for plants and animals right now, so any specimens that we did get would have to be tubed until we returned to the Clan.'

'What does "tubed" mean?'

'Put into a stasis tube.'

'Oh. OK.' Kyra smiled in understanding. 'You have stasis tubes?' She'd heard of a stasis field, but wasn't sure how the Clan handled that, or why they would call it a tube.

'Yes. We have tubes that generate a stasis field. We use them to transport severely injured troops from combat zones, and to stabilize accident victims until the doctors can work on them.'

'What about drugs, diagnostic equipment, and other medical necessities?' Jadzia was very curious about their medical capabilities, and knew that Julian would want to learn as much as possible.

Kahmmhi looked at Jadzia blankly. 'I'm not a doctor. I have no idea what you even have available, and even less idea of how it could be used by our doctors.'

'Well, what diseases do you have? Not their names, necessarily, but like what types of genetic diseases, bacterial infections, viral infections, or even any autoimmune syndromes.'

'None. We don't have any naturally occurring diseases, but even the occasional disease that we are exposed to is usually eliminated rapidly once it's been encountered for the first time. Our immune systems handle pathogens quickly and extremely efficiently. Our doctors treat combat injuries and injuries from accidents, but that's usually not as necessary as it seems because most nonlethal injuries will heal rapidly on their own. It's just a bit quicker and less painful if the doctors do what they can to help speed up the process initially.'

'Your people have no diseases at all?' Kyra looked stunned by the very idea.

'The only sickness that I've ever heard of is morning sickness.' There was the Change, but that wasn't really a sickness or disease, so Kahmmhi didn't bother mentioning it. Nobody went through the Change any more. Not since Troy had converted all of the other Clans that were willing to become Alphas.

Kyra nodded as Jadzia smiled. 'What about weapons?'

'Your weapons systems are totally different from anything that the Clan has ever used. All of the weapons that I've heard about are energy based, and that is similar to what the Consortium uses, so we generally don't like to use the same type of weapons that they do. It makes it too easy for them to modify and improve their own weapons systems once they learn of any improvements that we've made in our own weapons. I don't think that the Clan would want to abandon a style of warfare that has worked for us for more than six millennia. But we are always looking for new technology, so if the R and D guys can figure out a way to make it work...'

'That's very commendable. What about something like engines for your ships?'

Kahmmhi gasped, shaking her head forcefully. 'The Clan would NEVER use warp technology. That type of tech is STRICTLY forbidden by Clan law.'

'Can you tell us why it is forbidden?' Both Jadzia and Kyra were confused. Usually the Federation had all kinds of problems trying to keep less advanced cultures from doing anything that they could to get access to warp technology. It was unheard of for a newly discovered society that wasn't warp capable to refuse to even THINK about using warp technology.

'Under Clan law, certain types of tech CAN be used under some circumstances, or if there is no other option. There are other types of tech that are forbidden because they are too risky, too unstable to use safely, or they have very bad side effects. Warp drives are on the forbidden list. The Clans have NEVER used warp drive technology.'

Jadzia and Kyra stared at each other in shock. Both of them were beginning to have serious doubts about their original assessment of the Clan. Even the meticulous, cautious, logical, careful Vulcans had been using warp technology for centuries before they had discovered the dangerous side effects of warp travel. To sit there and be told by someone that they classified as a member of a "warlike, aggressive species that wasn't even warp capable" that the Federation's supposedly superior technology was dangerous was like having ice water thrown in their faces.

'Um, do you know WHY the Clan refuses to use that technology?' Perhaps the Clan hadn't been able to figure out how to control warp drives or use them safely, and had just outlawed the technology because it was beyond their understanding.

Now Kahmmhi looked shocked. 'You mean that you don't know? Warp travel is extremely dangerous. Creating a warp field drags tiny amounts of matter into subspace, causing destabilization of the barrier between subspace and normal space. The effect is cumulative, and is directly proportional to the amount of traffic through a given region at a given speed. It is also exponentially proportional to the speed of the traffic. The lower the speed, the longer it takes to manifest the effects and form a subspace tear that allows dimensional overlap between subspace and normal space. At high warp speeds, the amount of matter that is drawn into subspace increases exponentially. Subspace has no natural mechanism for getting rid of the matter that is drawn into it because the boundary normally prevents that from happening, so the only way to stop a reality tear is to use antimatter to eliminate the matter and let the energy barrier between subspace and normal space reseal and establish a new equilibrium.'

Jadzia was speechless. The best minds in the entire Federation had taken almost a decade to come up with a solution, and yet the one that she had just heard would have worked just as efficiently and taken less time, energy, resources, and effort to implement.

'That's right, isn't it, Jehryl? I could do the math, but the theoretical physics that covered things like that was always harder for me to keep straight. Especially all of the esoteric stuff that nobody actually used.'

'Close enough, Tahr Kahhni. I'm sure that they got the idea well enough to fill in the details.'

'The card game over there looks interesting.' Kahmmhi was tired of talking about stuff that didn't really make sense. Why would anyone in their right mind want to use something that dangerous in the first place when there were so many other, better alternatives available?

Kyra looked at the scantily clad dealer that Kahmmhi was watching and nodded. 'Dabo. A form of gambling.'

'What is the object of the game?'

'To get a better hand than the dealer. If you lose, you lose your bet. If you win, the house pays.'

'It's a rigged game, Tahr Kahhni. The odds favor the dealer. They throw away their money in the hopes of winning a lot of money with very little work. Though some do it to relieve boredom, or because they consider it a form of recreation or entertainment. Those are the ones who risk little of their money and enjoy watching the others play as well. I'm sure that for some of them it serves as a form of socialization.'

'You certainly seem to know a lot about gambling, Krohn.'

'Troops gamble in the Clan, though rarely for money or anything of real value. It passes the time, relieves boredom, and provides some incentive for friendly competition. We just don't gamble for money or anything like that.' Krohn grinned. 'Kohl-garh did a very good job of setting down basic laws that are still used by ALL of the Clans.'

'About how many Clans are there?'

'About four dozen Clans still exist right now. Many of them are operating in small groups right now instead of operating independently. When Kohl-garh brought new technology, tactics, and upgrades for our weapons, armor, and ships to the rest of the Clans just before I was born, most of the Clans were too small to use them and still operate independently.' Kahmmhi sighed. 'Our Clan is about average size, and even we are still increasing our population in order to utilize our new ships effectively before we will be able to increase the size of our fleet once again or try to build some larger or more powerful ships to replace the ships that we currently have.'

Sisko came by and joined them just then, asking about how Kahmmhi was enjoying herself and how she was finding things aboard the station.

'Very interesting. There are so many different new species and so many things that are new and interesting. Most of the people that we've met are very polite and friendly, though there are some species or individuals who act very differently toward us.' Kahmmhi smiled. 'I'm afraid that I don't have enough experience with either the individuals or the species to determine whether or not that is an individual response.'

Kyra laughed softly. 'I think that I know which individuals she's referring to, sir. If I'm correct, it is a species thing, but a few of the individuals are even more untrusting and antisocial than normal, even for their species.'

Sisko nodded. 'The reason that I stopped was to inform you of some recent events so that you and your fleet commander could determine what you wish to do. A situation that has been developing in the region is becoming increasingly unstable. A full scale civil war is currently being fought in the nearby Cardassian Empire, and it appears that the factions who wish to claim this station and declare war on the Federation seem to be in the process of consolidating their position right now. Most of the civilians and traders will start leaving the area, and especially this station. If the Cardassians attack this station, it will become very dangerous for anyone to be in the region. To prepare for this possibility, Federation warships will begin arriving as soon as possible to make preparations for an impending attack.'

'I appreciate your concern, but if the Clan is attacked, we will fight.'

'We can't guarantee your safety.' Sisko had enough diplomacy training to know not to confront the Clan members outright about their fighting abilities. All of the warlike societies with limited technology responded negatively to something like that.

'We didn't ask you to. If they are still coming to meet with us, we will wait and speak with your diplomats. If not, then we will continue to trade with you while we try to find more information that will help us with our problem. Either your people or ours will discover something that will eventually help us return to our Clan. It has only been a few days since our arrival in this system. We do have long range scouts out to warn us of impending danger if any potentially hostile ships approach this system.'

Sisko shrugged. 'Have it your way, Tahr Kahhni. But you and your people will have to leave this station once the situation becomes too dangerous.'

'Please, call me Kahmmhi. As for the rest, perhaps you should wait and see how things have progressed before making any statements such as that.' She smiled very sweetly, then said softly and playfully, 'After all, who knows how close we might become in just a few short months? All of that tension, working together so closely, never knowing if or when we'll be attacked. Will we even survive?'

Sisko coughed a few times, looked like he was almost choking as his face became flushed, and then excused himself. Kyra shook her head, trying not to laugh. Jadzia rolled her eyes as she chuckled softly.

'Oh, my. I hope that I didn't embarrass him. I meant our peoples, not us, personally.'

Lyhssyha shook her head. 'Bad Tahr Kahhni. It's not nice to do practice courting on unsuspecting males who don't even understand our culture and rules.'

'I couldn't help myself. I just wanted to get him to loosen up a bit. He's always so formal and proper, and the way that he says "Tahr Kahhni" embarrasses me. Most people aren't that deferential to my MOTHER. Now I really am beginning to understand why grandpa Troy makes his wives handle all of the diplomatic stuff. And why Mama was afraid of becoming some trophy princess until she met Daddy and volunteered to be the Blood Bond between our Clans.'

'If you don't want to risk becoming a Blood Bond, start courting. It's not like anyone will actually force you to marry another Clan's Kohl-kahhn just to seal a Blood Bond.'

Kyra looked at Brynhe. 'We don't understand what you're talking about.'

'OK. Kahmmhi is the daughter of the Kohl-kahhn, the leader of our Clan. Clans help each other out when they can, but they operate independently and move randomly through enemy systems. Sometimes when they meet, Clans form alliances and strengthen the ties between their ruling households by intermarriage. The new wife is the Blood Bond, literally linking the two households by blood. Since Kahmmhi is the oldest daughter of Kohl-garh's own daughter and the granddaughter of one of Kohl-garh's Llyriana wives, she would link her new Clan to our own Clan, Clan Phoenix, and Clan Kwyll Kohltahng. Even if that wasn't a consideration, she is still a Dark Elf. Very exotic looking, and rare even among the Llyriana. Dark Elves can only be found in a small handful of the Clans.'

Kahmmhi looked very uncomfortable, and glared at Brynhe. Jadzia didn't miss the response. 'So, among your own people, you're actually some kind of a princess, and your people follow a given leader for life?'

'Um, not exactly. We don't really have anything like royalty. My father leads the Clan, so he is our Clan's Kohl-kahhn. One of my brothers or one of the best warriors who serve him will take his place when he is killed.'

'Doesn't that cause problems in your culture when one family is displaced and another takes over as the rulers of your Clan?'

Kahmmhi looked confused, not making the connection between the question and some of her lessons on ancient Earth history. 'Why would that cause any problems? We are all related in our Clan. Larger Clans may have more households, but there are no more than around two hundred actual families in ANY Clan.' That didn't count the occasional Xylchan who mated with humans, and it certainly didn't count the Krohr-jing who had joined Clan Phoenix. But the Krohr-jing were a distinct race, and they couldn't interbreed with any of the other Clan races if they had wanted to. Of course, all of the Krohr-jing were still with Clan Phoenix anyway.

Kyra and Jadzia looked at each other, but said nothing. Two hundred families. That would be enough, with extended families through intermarriage, to allow them to man three hundred ships. With a small gene pool like that, they would have a lot of incentive to intermarry whenever they met another Clan. There were still families in the Federation that ran small freighters as a family business, with no more than a handful of families or other unrelated individuals in the entire crew.

Kahmmhi excused herself and the others, returning to her room so that they could all eat and rest. She still had to compose her report and pass on Sisko's warning to Virginia.

'OK, people. That's what we know right now. Comments?'

'Replace the scouts that we have out every two weeks so that they don't get bored or complacent. Two assault frigates could put out four talons of recon shuttles and forty talons of PT boats. They can rotate out with the other two assault frigates.'

Laura nodded at Virginia. 'Nancy makes a good point. The assault frigates would still have their strike assault shuttles, assault fighters, and HATs. We'd have more scouts out, better coverage, and the ability to use PT boat talons to slow down any targets that may show up near the system.'

'Do it. Set up the rotations, Nancy, and give Laura the schedule. Anything else?'

'Kahmmhi seems to be struggling to communicate effectively.'

Virginia snorted as laughter from various sources flooded the room. 'Right, Gary. She grew up watching and listening to her grandfather as he dealt with distrustful Clan leaders when he was converting the Clans and giving them the new upgrades. Would you prefer that she slam them in the face with everything all at once and then rub their noses in it?' She altered her voice to sound more like Kahmmhi. 'Hi there. We were exploring a system that you wouldn't even believe to map out routes that use a method of travel that you don't understand, and we accidentally got caught up in some type of space-time anomaly that you couldn't even BEGIN to understand because of your limited understanding of physics. We're Clan, and a few million of us just found ourselves stranded in Outer Barbaria, so I guess that we're going to be your new neighbors for a while. So, what do folks who are stranded in the asshole of the universe USUALLY do for entertainment around here?'

'I didn't mean it that way, Ginny, and you know it. You don't need to be facetious.'

'And I don't intend to tip our hand before we figure out exactly what the situation that we're in IS.'

'Yeah. We don't know what this is all about. We don't even know who or what the other races are, who we followed here, or if there is even any war actually going on. The fleet that we followed here isn't exactly prepared for anything resembling a war.'

'For all we know, that's a huge fleet of powerful ships by their standards. We haven't exactly seen ANYTHING here to make them look inferior, and most races don't put stealth on small commercial or cargo ships.'

Virginia nodded. 'Keep thinking positive, Savanah.'

'What are we going to do if there is an unexpected attack?'

'Right now, we haul Kahmmhi and the rest of our people off of that rinky dink station and then determine a course of action. If she works out any agreements with them, we'll have to do whatever our commitments require. If not, we're free to act as we see fit.'

'So, any changes in our currently planned graded response?'

'No. Immediate launch of all PT boats, assault fighters, and HATs from the assault frigates. Strike assault shuttles in reserve, but ready to launch. Secondary launch involves the SACs. PUFF is ready to roar on command.'

'What about our chain of command if we're stuck here long term?'

'Nobody else wants the job of doing the political side of things, and she IS on command track for her training, so the kid is stuck being Tahr Kahhni until we manage to get home.'

Laura grinned. 'She's not going to be thrilled when she finds out.'

Virginia shrugged. 'I'm not going to tell her until I absolutely have to. That way she'll be too busy dealing with the situation and all of the aliens to bother going Dark Elf all over MY ass. I didn't get to the rank of commanding a PUFF by being stupid and taking unnecessary risks.'

Odo shook his head in amazement as he watched StarFleet security personnel scan the group of visitors from the Clan. Most of the males were wearing something that almost looked like armor. All of them were armed with blades, and some of them wore sidearms as well. The women were dressed in a wide variety of loose, flowing silks of various colors. All of them had blades as well, and all of them had colored silks tied to their left bicep, their left wrist, or their right bicep. Odo had no idea of the significance of that, but it seemed to be universal, because many of the men wore similar silks on their left bicep.

'Even dressed like that, some of the women still carry swords.'

The security officer nodded. 'They weren't kidding when they said that their people never go anywhere unarmed. But they are very organized, polite, and they don't object to our security precautions at all.'

'How many have arrived for shore leave?'

'Fifty at this docking port, and fifty at another. They seem to be very curious and eager to learn about us.'

Odo nodded. 'Wouldn't you be, in their place? They are very different from anyone or anything that we have ever encountered, and we're curious to learn as much as we can about them. I'm sure that they have just as much to learn from us now that they've found themselves stranded and surrounded by a culture and technology that is so totally different from their own.'

The security troops informed their visitors of the station's rules, explained which areas had restricted access, and left them to enjoy their shore leave.

Sisko looked at Jadzia and Worf. 'What news do you have regarding our visitors?'

'Kahmmhi sends a short, encrypted message to her shuttle daily. Progress report and check-in. We haven't tried to break their code, but just from looking at it, I don't think that would be possible even if we did try. They are very security conscious. Kahmmhi seems to be genuinely interested in finding out about our culture, and she asks many questions. Her bodyguards are extremely efficient.'

Jadzia sighed, rolling her eyes in exasperation. 'Worf, you can't just judge EVERYTHING from a purely military point of view.'

'So far, even their civilians and off-duty personnel behave more like troops or military units than many military units that I have seen.'

'I'm sure that it's just because they're trying to adjust to their unusual situation and figure out how we do things, Mr. Worf. All of our technology must seem very strange, unknown, and almost incomprehensible to them.'

'Uh, Benjamin, about that...'

'Yes, old man?'

'You might want to do more extensive studies on their technological capabilities before you make any definitive reports or recommendations to StarFleet. I know that they're technically not warp capable, but I believe that they are extremely capable technologically. They just choose not to use warp technology.'

It didn't take long for Jadzia to relate Kahmmhi's reaction to warp drive and her explanation as to why the Clan had forbidden the use of warp technology. And to point out that they still had no idea what type of engines the Clan DID use. 'We can't detect any power source for their propulsion systems, Benjamin. And there is no trace of ANYTHING that could be residue from a propulsion system. The video that they gave us of the unknown fleet that they followed here indicates that they normally measure their speed in light seconds per hour. They didn't lose the fleet until it went to warp.' Jadzia sighed. 'And we still have no way to explain the almost instantaneous jump that their small craft made when they were moving back across the system to rejoin the rest of their fleet.'

'OK. We'll do our normal duties. Spend some time with Kahmmhi learning what you can about that, old man. Perhaps we could find a way to use a capability such as that defensively if we're attacked.'

Kahmmhi was amazed at some of the clothing that was available in the shop that they were in. Kyra was showing her around, encouraging her to try on some of the more unique and colorful outfits that she was admiring.

'Come on. At least try something on.'

'I like the materials and the patterns, but the styles...'

Garak came up just then, smiling and ignoring the Shadows completely. 'May I interest you ladies in some of my merchandise?'

'I'm just looking. I doubt that I have anything of value to trade. We don't use money, and we certainly haven't earned any Federation credits through trade yet.'

Garak looked unconcerned. 'I'm sure that we could work out some kind of mutually beneficial trade, Tahr Kahhni. Any friend of the major's could always be extended at least some credit.'

Kyra looked at Garak closely, knowing that he was ALWAYS up to something. Kahmmhi laughed, the sound soft and melodic. 'With your charm, you must do very well at courting the ladies.'

Garak smiled, holding up his hands amiably. 'OK. OK. Let's make a deal. You try on a few of the outfits that you like, and then we'll bargain for a fair trade based on their value.'

With Kyra and Garak both so insistent that she at least try on some of the clothing, Kahmmhi relented and tried on a few of the outfits that she liked the looks of. Kyra was surprised when she and Brynhe were the only ones allowed into the dressing room with Kahmmhi, and even more surprised to learn that Kahmmhi wore absolutely nothing under her flowing silk outfit.

'I hope that you don't mind, but I'm not sure how to put some of these outfits on properly.'

'Uh, a couple of them are beyond me as well, Kahmmhi.'

Kahmmhi shrugged, pulled aside the curtains, and stood naked in full view of Garak. 'We seem to need some assistance figuring out how to get in and out of the clothing properly. Could you please give us some instructions, Mr. Garak?'

Garak blushed nervously, then looked warily at the Shadows. 'Are you sure that your bodyguards won't object? I'm not familiar with your customs.'

'As long as they can see that I'm not in any physical danger, they have no problems.'

Garak nodded and helped her get into the first gown. It looked lovely on her, contrasting with her ebony skin and white blonde hair. While she was admiring the dress and how it looked on her, Garak got another dress in her size and brought it over. He held it up in front of Kahmmhi, causing her to gasp audibly. 'This would look even lovelier on you, Tahr Kahhni. Perhaps with a black scarf in your hair?'

Kahmmhi's eyes widened as she and her Shadows gasped. 'NO! Please, whatever you do, don't EVER offer that color combination to ANY Clan woman who doesn't wear silks of those colors on her arm.'

'I don't understand. I meant no offense.'

'I know that. I'm sorry. My response was automatic. The silks that I wear on my arm are worn by every woman in every Clan. Young girls wear them on their right wrist. Unmarried females who are adults wear them on their right bicep. Women who have joined a household wear them on their left wrist, and wives wear them on their left bicep. The colors indicate the household that they are in. The household of their father for unmarried women and girls, and the household of their fiance or husband for women who are married or engaged. Women choose their wardrobes to accent their household colors, and women from ANY household may wear either red or black outfits. But nobody outside of Clan Phoenix ever wears red AND black.'

'Why only in Clan Phoenix?'

'Clan Phoenix has always been the strongest, most successful, and most aggressive Clan. When my grandfather founded the Clans, his household colors were red and black. Out of respect, no one in any other Clan allowed ANY household to wear those colors. Not even their Kohl-kahhn, for nobody could EVER take Kohl-garh's place. When Clan Phoenix disappeared and was believed to have been destroyed by the enemy, the Clans all met and passed a law that no other household would ever wear those colors, upon penalty of death. At formal events and meetings with other Clans, my mother is required to wear her old silks on her right bicep.'

Garak looked confused. 'Why would they make her do that?' It seemed to contradict the law against anyone who wasn't in that household wearing those colors, so it made no sense by any logic that Garak could think of.

'The Phoenix rose from the ashes. Clan Phoenix saved Clan Thunderbird, rebuilt and upgraded their fleet, and gave them improved technology to take to the other Clans. Then they saved the Llyriana systems from their common enemy and helped found Clan Kwyll Kohltahng, the first fully Llyriana Clan. My grandmother and her Dark Elf sister were the Blood Bond between Clan Phoenix and Clan Kwyll Kohltahng. Kohl-garh is my mother's father. When they came looking for Clan Thunderbird to help even more Clans improve their fleets, they found Clan Silver Dragon first. My mother was the Blood Bond to my father, linking Clan Silver Dragon directly with Clan Phoenix.'

Kyra's brain was working overtime, and the parts were just starting to fall into place. A Clan large enough to save entire systems wasn't doing small hit and run raids. Especially not if they had the capability to build hundreds of starships and who knew how many small craft for each fleet that was involved. But she couldn't just come out and ask for the kind of military information that she REALLY wanted to know about. Kahmmhi finally settled on a dress that was red with silver trim while Kyra was lost in thought.

Garak smiled. The dress looked lovely on her, and fit her perfectly. 'I can let you have the dress for five hundred credits.'

Kyra nodded at Kahmmhi. 'That is a very good price.'

'I'm not sure what we would have to offer in trade that is of equal value. Most of the weapons that we could trade would be considered novelties in your culture. Most of our tech isn't really compatible with yours, so it's useless to you. We could offer foods and spices, different fabrics, things of that nature. We do have some metals and alloys that we could trade. We know what gold, silver, and platinum are, but we're still kind of unsure about exactly what "latinum" is.'

Garak smiled. 'I see that you've met Quark. Ferengi are fixated on the accumulation of wealth.' He thought for a moment, then smiled. 'Spices are generally a good trade item, especially if they have a unique taste, unique properties, or are available in limited quantities. Is there any way that you could provide me with samples of some of these spices so that we can see if they are unique, palatable, and safe for various species?'

Kahmmhi nodded. 'That is reasonable. How much would you require for analysis?'

'At least a few grams of each spice. That would give us enough to analyze them chemically and taste test the ones that are safe and appear to be unique and potentially valuable as trade items.'

'I will provide you with samples of a variety of spices free of charge in exchange for a copy of all of your test results. That way we will have our own copy of the results to show anyone else who might be interested in trading with us.'

Garak nodded. 'Agreed.'

Jehryl pulled a small machine out of Brynhe's pack and set it on the counter. He began programming it for about a minute, then smiled. 'How many spices, Tahr Kahhni?'

'Start with a hundred, but skip compounds like salt, sugar, and vinegar. Add in about fifty kinds of teas or drink mixes. Say five grams per sample in small, marked containers.'

'Khorb bars first, Jehryl. Dark chocolate. Snack to keep us going until lunch.'

Kyra and Garak stared in awe at the small device as they realized what it was. As soon as the food appeared, their suspicions were confirmed. It was a portable personal replicator. But that was impossible. It wasn't hooked to a power source, and the energy required to run ANY type of replicator was more than you could possibly put into any portable power source. A working replicator that size that ran off of its own internal power source was so far beyond their own level of technology that...

Kyra stared at the chocolate bar in her hand, not even realizing how it had gotten there. 'You might want to try this, major. It's actually quite good.'

Kyra nodded at Garak, then took a bite. Her expression changed and she became more animated as she tasted the chocolate bar. 'This is fantastic. The chocolate is so dark and rich. I'm really going to have to work out now just to make sure that I don't get fat from eating it.'

Kahmmhi laughed. 'The chocolate has half the calories of any other chocolate that the Clan has. But the khorb nuts and the khorb syrup do have a lot of sugar in them. My mother addicted me to them as a child. Her aunt and mother addicted her to them when she was a child.'

'How many of these things do you eat in a day?'

'Ten to twenty on most days. More when I'm cycling.'

'You could definitely sell these. Especially to females.'

'Um, can you tell me a bit about your replicator?'

Krohn nodded at Garak, assuming that he was referring to the synthesizer. The two words were close enough in their meaning to be interchangeable most of the time, and using their standard terminology would avoid a lot of confusion. 'Standard issue Clan personal survival synthesizer. Capacity depends on usage and overall draw on the available power sources. If its use is limited to individual basic needs, it can provide food and water sufficient to allow one person to survive for fifty years from the main power source. If solar chargers or other energy sources are used to power auxiliary batteries, it has an operational life of several centuries under constant use.'

'May I ask what your main power source that's powering it right now is?' Garak couldn't think of anything that could possibly generate that much energy for fifty years and still fit in that small, contained space.

'Standard antimatter containment cell.'

Kyra and Garak froze. Antimatter containment. In something THAT small. Portable. Capable of making enough food and water to keep an individual alive for fifty years. Garak smiled nervously, unable to imagine how antimatter could be stored, used, or converted safely in something that small. Of course, if any of those safeties failed, the explosion from that much antimatter would... Garak didn't want to continue that line of thinking. He'd sleep much better at night if he concentrated on the fact that the Clan seemed to be very technologically capable, so it must be safe or they would have either fixed the problem or stopped using the things by now. 'That must be much easier than lugging around bulky rations.'

'We generally don't carry them in combat unless we're on a rock. Hot food gives away your position, and combat rations pack more energy for their volume than real food does.'

Garak nodded, realizing why he was nervous now. These guys were worse than Klingons. At least Klingons got emotional and ENJOYED combat. These guys talked of combat as if it were just one more part of their everyday life. He wondered if Sisko actually knew what he had on board his station. Garak decided that talking to Sisko as soon as possible might be a very good idea.

Kyra smiled. 'So why do your Shadows carry replicators here?'

Krohn smiled. 'There is always the chance that we may need something that we don't have in order to survive an emergency. It won't be a good fit because of her small size, but the Tahr Kahhni CAN wear one of our sets of armor if it's necessary. Especially in case of decompression.'

'But that means that one of you won't have a spacesuit. You could die.'

Krohn stared directly into Kyra's eyes, causing her to flinch as she saw no emotion in his eyes at all. He simply shrugged. As he talked, she saw the fire of conviction in his eyes. 'That is the duty of the Soorhni. The Tahr Kahhni survives, no matter what.'

'And what if it's too much for the four of you to handle?'

Krohn's smile made Kyra flinch, then she felt sick to her stomach. 'We only have to survive until the first Raider platoon arrives. If they can't rescue her, more Raiders and Assault Marines will come until the Tahr Kahhni has been removed from danger.'

'That's quite a threat to make, isn't it? Not very diplomatic.'

'I was under the impression that the Federation assured the safety of visiting dignitaries during diplomatic negotiations. If you either can't or won't insure the Tahr Kahhni's safety, then it is up to us to do so. If your people object to that, then we would have to reassess your status and your intentions. It is possible that you are not peaceful, and that your intentions are not to establish peaceful relations with us. You may not even be interested in the possibilities of trade, diplomatic negotiations, or any other types of treaties.'

'Krohn!' Kahmmhi was clearly embarrassed by what had just been said.

Kyra shook her head. 'He's right. We have enemies, and so do you. Don't be angry at him for explaining the obvious, because his point is valid. I wasn't even considering his point of view, and it should have been obvious to me from the start. I'm just not very well trained at diplomacy, since most of my own training and qualifications came from being a warrior during our war to obtain our freedom from the Cardassians. If we can't protect you, then we shouldn't try to stop them from doing their job. And if we are a threat, then whether or not we take offense at the actions that your people take to keep you safe is totally irrelevant.'

Garak smiled weakly as Kyra led the others from his shop. As soon as they were gone, he closed his shop for the day. He had a lot of samples to test and analyze, and he was sure that Dr. Bashir would jump at the chance to help him, just out of scientific curiosity. But first, he really needed to talk to Sisko about their guests as soon as possible. If the Clan suffered from bloodlust or berserker rages like the Klingons did when they went into combat, anything that set them off while they were still inside this station could cause a disaster.

Kyra had managed to get to Quark's bar. She needed a drink. Kahmmhi and her Shadows were sitting at a table while she ordered the drinks. A few minutes later, a waitress showed up with her drink and the five fruit drinks that were almost frozen. As they were talking and chatting, a large Nosikan came across the bar, his two friends still loud and boisterous at their table. They were disturbing others, but were still not out of hand, so nobody wanted to enrage them or draw their attention. He smiled as he reached out and tapped Kahmmhi on the shoulder.

'Come over and drink with us, Vulcan.'

Kyra sighed inwardly. He thought that Kahmmhi was a Vulcan, so he assumed that it was safe to bait her for his own amusement. Vulcans were quick and strong, but only reacted physically to violence when they were defending themselves and were given no other choice.

'I'm not a Vulcan, and I'm drinking here.'

The Nosikan touched her ear, but Kahmmhi didn't move or flinch. 'Your ears say that you are a Vulcan. Or are you a Romulan slut?'

Kyra stood up, wanting to end this before things got out of hand. The last thing that she wanted was a diplomatic incident because some Nosikan injured Kahmmhi before her bodyguards could intervene. 'Leave her alone or I'll call security.'

Before she could say anything else, the Nosikan hit her, sending Kyra flying through the air. She landed on the floor several yards away, then shook her head to clear it as she sat up weakly. She tapped her comm badge. 'Security needed at Quark's.'

Kyra watched numbly, still trying to clear her head and catch her breath as she saw Kahmmhi stand and face the Nosikan, who towered over her. She made a small motion with her hand, and her four Shadows stood there and watched, not interfering.

'You should learn better manners, and show courtesy to others.'

The Nosikan laughed, then punched Kahmmhi in the face. The entire bar went dead silent as Kahmmhi didn't even seem to feel the blow. She calmly lifted the Nosikan off of the ground with one hand, holding him effortlessly off of the floor. 'And you should learn not to hit people. They might hit you back.' Kahmmhi threw the Nosikan so that he flew twenty feet through the air. As he landed on the table between his two buddies, the table was crushed, leaving all three Nosikans lying in a pile of splinters.

Before anyone could do anything, there was a bellow of rage as the three huge Nosikans surged to their feet and charged the five small Clan members. Kyra paled. Nosikan blood lust. A form of berserker rage. This was going to get ugly long before security got here.

Lyhssyha blocked the Nosikan on the right so that he couldn't reach Kahmmhi. He hit her, and she hit him once, dropping him to the floor with a shattered jaw. She reacted immediately. 'They're fragile! Don't hit them hard.'

It was already too late. Jehryl had already blocked the one on the other side, fracturing his forearm with the block and the upper arm with the follow through. The one in the center had pulled a knife and tried to stab Kahmmhi. Kyra flinched as she watched the blade penetrate Kahmmhi's forearm and come out the other side. Kahmmhi moved faster than Kyra could see, and had dislodged the Nosikan's hand and pulled the knife out of her left forearm with her right hand. Even the Nosikan was stunned as she calmly broke the blade of his knife off cleanly by slowly exerting pressure with her thumb.

'Untrained children who lack the very basics of discipline and self control should not play with blades.' The Nosikan started to draw another weapon, so Kahmmhi punched him once in the chest. Kyra heard bones shattering even before the Nosikan destroyed another table and laid there, unconscious or dead amidst the scattered debris on the floor. She saw more movement near the door and screamed a warning, but it was already too late.

As soon as the point man in the Federation security team came through the doorway, he leveled his phaser and fired. Krohn had already placed himself between the security officer and the Tahr Kahhni, and the beam dissipated harmlessly off of his molecular armor. By the time the beam hit him, he had already drawn and fired his sidearm.

Kyra screamed as a huge explosion literally vaporized a four foot section of the bulkhead near the doorway, the force of the blast throwing all four of the Federation security personnel through the air and bouncing them off of the floor and the nearby furniture like a bunch of billiard balls. By the time they came out of their daze, it was all over except for the paperwork.

Odo came in slowly with his hands raised, his eyebrows lifting at the sight before him. There was a huge hole in the bulkhead next to the door. Impressive. Four StarFleet security officers were lying or sitting dazed on the floor, guarded by the two male Shadows as they wielded four of those heavy "ceremonial" swords as if they were weightless. One of the female Shadows had two pistols out, one of them pointed toward the door while the other one drifted between three of the sorriest looking broken Nosikans that Odo had ever seen. The fourth Shadow was bandaging Kahmmhi's arm.

'Please, stay where you are, Constable. You, too, Kyra. We'll have this cleaned up and it will be safe in just a minute.'

'May I at least call for medics?'

'Yes. They can move two of the Nosikans, and they can treat your security personnel. Jehryl and Brynhe will have to carry the other Nosikan to your doctor. He may be infectious.'

'Infectious?'

'I'll explain when I inform your doctor so that he can treat them properly.'

'Done, Tahr Kahhni.'

Medics came in and checked the security team. They tried to check on Kahmmhi, but the Shadows would not let them near her. The three Nosikans all required immediate transport to sick bay. Kyra and Odo went with the Clan members. When they arrived at sick bay, Dr. Bashir and his staff quickly began their work, dressing and treating the injured.

'Leila, handle this one. Surgical reset before you can fuse and heal the bones. Fractured radius and ulna, shattered humerus, dislocated shoulder, broken collarbone, cracked clavicle. What the hell hit him?'

Jehryl raised his hand. 'That would be me. Sorry. They attacked us, and we weren't aware of how fragile their bones were.'

Bashir blinked, shaking his head in disbelief. Fragile? A Nosikan's bones? 'What did you hit him with?'

'My hand or fist. One strike.'

Bashir shook his head, then looked at the next Nosikan. 'Shattered mandible, maxilla cracked in several places, teeth and fangs broken off, severe concussion. Maxine, handle this one.'

Bashir tried to start working on the third Nosikan, but Kahmmhi stopped him. 'Before you treat him, you need to take a few precautions.'

'What do you mean?'

'He cut me with his knife, and I was bleeding before I hit him the last time. You need to make sure that he's not infected with nanobots. Our nanobots are deadly to many other species.'

Everyone in the room suddenly froze. 'Nanobots? You're Borg?'

'I don't know what "Borg" is.'

'The Borg are a group of species that use nanobots and cybernetic enhancements to make them stronger, better, more like their image of machine perfection. They capture individuals, give them cortical implants to let the Borg hive queens control their bodies and their thoughts, and force them to become Borg. Their nanobots do a lot of the work in the newly captured prisoners.'

Kahmmhi shook her head. 'We are not Borg. Clan law would require us to kill any Borg that we found. They would be considered a threat to humanity.'

Bashir finished scanning the third Nosikan. 'No sign of cuts or abrasions, and the only nanobots that I can detect are in the blood that is on his clothing. Al'kor, incinerate his clothing. Make sure that they are completely destroyed. Flen, take Renna and go check Quark's. Destroy any traces of blood, especially if you detect ANY nanobots.'

Bashir turned back to his patient and began his exam. 'Bruised and sprained all over. Severe concussion. Cracked skull. Sternum and ribs caved in. I don't think that they will forget this fight any time soon.' Bashir looked at Kahmmhi and became much more serious. 'They may seek revenge. Nosikans are very well known for holding a grudge, and for being very bad losers when it comes to fighting.'

Krohn chuckled. 'Their choice. Their death. They didn't strike me as particularly intelligent or very socially inclined.' He sighed softly. 'Nature deals very harshly with little grahls that don't know better than to attack something that is better than they are at fighting.'

Bashir saw the blood on Kahmmhi's clothes and remembered that she had been cut in the fight. 'Would you like for me to treat your injury?'

'It's a scratch.'

Kyra gasped. 'A scratch? Don't be absurd, Kahmmhi. His blade went completely THROUGH your forearm, and it was a BIG blade.'

Bashir insisted, so Kahmmhi unwrapped the dressing on her arm. Bashir examined her closely, but was VERY careful not to touch her wounds. 'It's already sealed shut. There are no signs of bleeding. Your body temperature is elevated.'

'Waste heat from extensive bot activity. I'll have to eat again before I go to bed, and probably once during the night. They suck a lot of energy when they're healing injuries.'

Brynhe handed Kahmmhi a chocolate bar, and Kahmmhi began eating immediately.

'The rate of cellular mitosis, repairs, and regeneration is phenomenal. I'd LOVE to study these...'

Kahmmhi shrugged. 'Your choice. Anyone who is infected will either become like us or die. It takes about a week for the bots to disassemble a person and leave nothing but a pile of sludge. You're alive and feeling the pain throughout most of the process. Once you're infected, there's no way to stop the progression or turn the bots off. If you don't have enough of the right Tryx genes...'

Bashir turned and quickly put the bloody bandage into the incinerator and atomized it. 'These are definitely too dangerous to study safely. Most of the genes that your Shadows have are very different from ours. Many of your genes are different from those of your Shadows as well, but over half of the genes that you have that they don't are not a match to any of our genes either. I have to assume that THOSE are the Tryx genes.'

Odo cleared his throat. 'Um, Tahr Kahhni, would it be possible for your bodyguards to refrain from using their sidearms in the future?'

'As long as there is no need for them.' Krohn didn't sound happy at the idea at all.

'Perhaps, Krohn, something a bit less destructive?'

Kahmmhi looked at Krohn. 'What type of ammo are you using?'

'They said that the hull armor was light, but they have energy shields. We're using LPAMs with three gram loads. Barely heavy enough to take out standard Consortium body armor. We don't even have any AP with us. All that Max said was to use light loads and no AP, so we did.'

'Can you drop to something about half a gram? Or how about solids?'

'We'd have to use something lighter than tohlvyhn or krymchyll to keep from going AP. Those bulkheads aren't that dense, and a lot of them are thinner than the one that we hit.'

Kyra kept looking back and forth like a deer caught in the headlights as she realized that the Clan was so far ahead of EVERYONE that she'd ever heard of when it came to this area of warfare that she was having trouble following the conversation. It was embarrassing because it was the very area of combat expertise that she had excelled in during the Bajoran war against the Cardassians. Though this evidence of their strength and combat capabilities could help explain how the Clans had managed to survive for such a long time during their war with their enemy.

Kahmmhi and her Shadows left to return to their room. They needed to eat and rest, and the Shadows wanted to make sure that Kahmmhi had time to heal and recover completely. After tonight's incident, they could definitely expect to have to answer some questions tomorrow at the very least. They would just have to wait and see how the Federation reacted.

Virginia looked at Kahmmhi's latest report and sighed. It was a lot longer and more detailed than normal, which was saying a lot, and the details were not very reassuring. Virginia wasn't worried about the attack that had occurred. An isolated incident involving some malcontents who had more testosterone than brains. The equivalent of Assault Marines blowing off steam. Though the fact that it was a diplomatic party that had been attacked by the troublemakers seemed to be of some concern to the Federation. It did illustrate that the security here was pathetic. Even with the physical limitations of the security troops themselves, their response time and preparedness weren't good enough. She watched the vid of the encounter, recorded from the body armor of one of the Shadows, and couldn't see how things could have gone much better. At least it was a clear cut case of self defense, witnessed by not only all of the people in the bar, but by the liaison who had been assigned to accompany Kahmmhi and her Shadows. The one shot had been pure reflex on Krohn's part, but he was Soorhni, so there was nothing surprising about either the response or the speed of his reflexes. Only the best. Then there was the aftermath, and that was where things became more problematic.

Kahmmhi had done some quick searches and included the material with her report. There was enough that Virginia was certain that Kahmmhi and her Shadows hadn't had enough time to go over it and learn the relevant material themselves. The Federation had been involved with disputes with the Borg in the past, and there was reference to a major battle with severe losses that had occurred when a Borg incursion had been met with force at some location that was referred to as Wolf 359. Borg and nanobots were feared throughout the entire quadrant, not just the Federation. The physical feats that had been done by the Clan members were beyond the capabilities of any species that the Federation had ever encountered, and the closest equivalents were either androids or Borg drones with cybernetic enhancements. The Federation representatives were sure to be rattled by the discoveries. And while Kahmmhi seemed not to notice it, the Federation treated the Clan as if they were backward barbarians who didn't understand their tech. Their responses and fear were more than enough to let Virginia know that they had just been forcefully disabused of that notion, at least in some areas. Their hosts would be worried, and their response to this incident and their investigation afterwards would depend, in large part, on Kahmmhi's skills at reassuring them and explaining things to their satisfaction. Virginia had faith in Kahmmhi's skills, but she didn't know the Federation or any of the representatives well enough to gauge their responses and predict what they would decide to do. Her first duty was to protect Kahmmhi and the other Clan members if anything went wrong.

'Laura, halt all shore leaves. Until we have a better handle on this situation, I don't want our people wandering around their station. There's no sense in risking any further escalation of this situation. If anything goes wrong, we have five to retrieve.'

'You got it, Gin. Should we worry?'

'Not yet. But tell Max that if he goes active, it's a full stealth recon to do a snatch and grab unless I say otherwise. No contact with station personnel that can't be absolutely avoided, and no conflict at all is preferable. Casualties cause hard feelings at treaty talks, and corpses are even worse, so remind Max that they are really fragile. Even if we get nothing else out of this, I don't want to make any new enemies if I can help it. They are human.'

'Aye, sir. Message sent.'

Sisko looked at the security video for the third time. 'This ISN'T good, Worf. They are diplomats, and they are supposed to be under OUR protection. Not only did the Nosikans openly attack them, but our own forces actually fired on the Tahr Kahhni.'

'Yes, sir. I have already arranged for the security team that responded to be properly disciplined, but I won't put anything negative in their permanent files unless the Clan wishes to file a formal protest. They haven't said anything about the incident yet, so I doubt that it will become a diplomatic incident. The Clan seems to view this as minor. They are quite aggressive, and have stated repeatedly that they have been in a constant state of warfare for the past six thousand years.'

Sisko nodded absently as he considered the ramifications of the incident. 'The Nosikans will protest, of course.'

Worf smiled. Nosikans had no honor, and cared only about fighting and winning. Whenever they lost, they made all sorts of claims in order to save face and avoid taking responsibility for the incident. 'Perhaps broadcasting the video of the incident would humiliate them, sir?'

Sisko smiled. 'Excellent idea, Worf. I don't want to do that, of course, because that would mean that StarFleet and the Federation Council would learn of the incident, and we want to avoid that unless the Clan actually considers this a problem. But the Nosikans don't know that. I'll have Odo inform them that if they wish to file any type of formal protest, I'll be forced to release the video of the entire incident so that everyone in the Federation knows what they are requiring the Federation Council to adjudicate. Though attacking a peaceful diplomat from a non-member system would leave them open to countersuit, extradition, and trial under the laws of the Clan.' He looked over at Worf, smiling viciously. 'Do we have any idea what their penalties are for committing a crime like that?'

'According to what Jadzia has discovered, an armed attack like that generally results in death. If the offender isn't killed outright during the attack, he is decapitated publicly with one of their swords immediately after the hearing shows that he attacked the Clan without provocation. Though there was also something that she mentioned about the offender, in certain situations, being put out of an airlock naked.'

Sisko's smile had vanished, and he was staring at Worf in shock, unable to believe what he had just heard. But Worf was totally serious, and was simply relaying the information that he had obtained. 'OK. What about our safety?'

Worf looked embarrassed. 'Their weapons are much more capable than I had originally believed possible. I have since learned that it is the projectile that determines the amount and type of damage that their weapons can produce, and they obviously have made projectiles that are much more destructive than we could have ever imagined. Their armor seems to be impervious to energy attacks, and that wasn't apparent in our initial scans, either. And the Clan members themselves are much stronger and faster than even Dr. Bashir had believed was possible. But they have threatened no one, and they have only reacted violently in self defense after they were openly attacked.'

Sisko nodded. The Clan had shown great restraint. After an open attack like that, especially after being fired on by the security personnel of the people that they were supposed to be involved in diplomatic negotiations with, most species or cultures would have had a much more active response. Instead, the Clan had simply made sure that none of the confirmed threats could do anything further to threaten them and had waited patiently while someone showed up to handle the entire situation. Considering the fact that the Tahr Kahhni had been injured in the attack, their response had been EXTREMELY restrained and passive for a warlike species that had been at war for the past six millennia.

Sisko sighed. 'That won't help us much if they decide to take out another bulkhead, Mr. Worf.'

'It was an accident, sir. They didn't think that their weapon would do that much damage. Apparently, after having been warned not to use certain types of more destructive rounds in their weapons, the Shadows determined to use the ammunition that they have which is barely capable of taking out one of their enemy in body armor. Kahmmhi has already ordered them to replace their ammunition with another type that is much less destructive. They seem to have overestimated the strength of our building materials.'

'And we seem to have underestimated them even more severely in many areas. We saw what we wanted to see, instead of examining them closely and then determining exactly what we were dealing with. I intend to correct that particular oversight right now. Call a meeting of our command staff. Include Constable Odo so that we can go over everything at the same time. And request Garak's presence as well. He seems to think that it's very urgent that we talk about our visitors, and his request was forwarded to me just prior to this incident. I'm curious to learn exactly what he learned that made him so worried.'

Worf nodded and made the necessary calls.

Garak looked around the room nervously. Sisko had agreed to meet with him, which was no surprise after what had happened at Quark's last night, but this wasn't exactly what he had in mind. He had requested a private meeting with Sisko. Instead, the entire command staff for the station was here, as well as Constable Odo.

'You wanted to speak to me regarding a matter of great importance?'

'This wasn't exactly what I had in mind, commander. I had envisioned something a bit more PRIVATE.'

'We had a command meeting scheduled to go over some routine matters, as well as some current events which might affect normal station functions. So speak now, or I'll see if I can work you into my very busy schedule. I'm sure that if I really try to move a few less important things around, I could arrange to meet with you in about two or three days.'

Garak looked around the room carefully, then nodded. 'Very well. Though by now you probably know, or at the very least surmise, most of what I had intended to discuss with you. Your guests are VERY dangerous, commander. You should not take them or their technology lightly. Both are very much more than what they seem to be at first glance.'

'Please, elaborate, Garak.' Sisko was open and listening intently.

'They are warriors. They speak of combat as if it is a normal part of their daily life. You saw what they did to the Nosikans. They reacted to the attack coldly, efficiently, and totally emotionlessly. Their weapons look antiquated, quaint, and harmless, yet you have seen for yourself that they are more powerful and effective than our best weapons. And their tech? They have a tiny, portable personal replicator that fits into their backpacks. Their tech is far superior to ours, and they may be more technologically advanced overall than anyone that we've ever found in the Alpha quadrant.'

Sisko nodded, once again amazed at the resources and skills of the tailor. 'As you surmised, I am already aware of much that you just said. But I really do appreciate your warning and your viewpoint. It's good to have corroboration from an outside, independent source.'

Garak smiled, feeling a bit nervous. 'Very well. I know a dismissal when I hear one, and I know that I'm not going to hear anything about the rest of this meeting because of security concerns. I will tell you that I'm not letting ANYONE on Cardassia or in the Obsidian Order know ANYTHING about these people. Not even the fact that they exist.'

Sisko looked surprised. 'The civil war is going that badly?'

'This is one situation that I wouldn't inform anyone about, even if there was no civil war. There are just too many risks involved and too many unknowns. But, to answer your question, I must assume so. Getting any news from home has always been somewhat difficult, given the tensions between Cardassia and Bajor, but it's become much worse since the civil war started. I tried my one method of last resort recently, but even that failed.'

Sisko nodded. Garak had tried to warn his contacts about the Dominion fleet that had been headed toward Cardassia. Probably after overhearing someone mentioning it. Considering the amount of talk that had to be rampant after so many unexplained wormhole activations around that time, it wasn't difficult to imagine him finding out about the Dominion fleet. Nobody on the station would blame him for that, and even Bajor and the Federation had no problem with it, because the Dominion was their enemy and a distinct threat. The Founders had been conducting espionage and sabotage throughout the Federation for some time now, and the Federation Council, StarFleet, and StarFleet Security were quite aware of their activities and their eventual intentions. If the Federation had warned Cardassia, the Dominion would have known that the Federation was aware of the fleet that had come through the Bajoran system, and would assume that the Federation could detect their cloaked ships. Coming from Garak, even if the message had been intercepted by the Dominion or some of their spies in the Cardassian Empire, the rationale would be that a Cardassian spy had learned of the fleet's existence or mission, and had leaked the information.

Garak left, and Sisko looked at the others. 'OK. Clearly our first impressions were colored by our perceptions and what we expected to see, and we need to go back to square one. Exactly what do we KNOW about the Clan? Jadzia?'

'We don't know if ANY of their story about how they originally came to the Delta quadrant is true, but the data that they gave us does support what we were told, and we don't have any real reason to disbelieve them. We know that they did come through the wormhole from the Delta quadrant. I've finished the analysis of our scans. The video that they gave us of the fleet that they followed here from the Delta quadrant matches the brief, partial identification of the Dominion ships that were almost impossible to detect at all during the initial wormhole activation.'

Jadzia spent several minutes comparing the blurry and partial images that they had recorded during the first wormhole event with images that the Clan had given them. 'Their ships are able to achieve greater sublight speeds than the Dominion fleet that they were following. The video refers to six, and their speed was six light seconds per hour. They are able to detect cloaked ships clearly, and their own cloaking is so good that the Dominion fleet couldn't detect them.'

Jadzia sighed. 'They know what warp is, though they did seem surprised when the Dominion fleet went to warp. I'd say that their response is cultural after hearing what Kyra said that they told her about warp travel. And I don't know what method they used, but their small craft crossed several light seconds in an instant. They did NOT enter warp, and we've been unable to get enough data for analysis. The only thing that we could detect was an extremely small neutrino flux that barely broke background fluctuation levels. It was very different from the energy pattern that is generated by a wormhole activation, but it did have SOME similarities.'

Sisko nodded. 'Worf, what do you have to add?'

'Their weapons are much more powerful and sophisticated than we originally believed, sir. They are definitely highly trained, skilled warriors, and their swords are very functional simply because they have the strength and speed required to use them properly. One bullet did immense damage. It took some time to go through our archives of ancient projectile weapons, but they seem to have much more powerful ammunition available.'

Worf sighed. 'If we disregard our initial assumptions completely, we also have to acknowledge their other technological accomplishments. Their armor seems to be completely impervious to energy weapons, though the phaser was set on stun and not on a more powerful setting. Still, the energy was totally reflected and neutralized. And their ships have a form of stealth that surpasses that of the Dominion ships that we couldn't detect at all.'

'Dr. Bashir?'

Julian cleared his throat nervously. 'They are definitely not Borg. They have no implants of any kind. Their bodies are enhanced by the nanobots, but only to increase the normal functions that are encoded by their own DNA. Their bones are armored with an unknown substance that I can't scan or analyze properly. Their injuries don't bleed much, and they have extremely accelerated healing. I can't tell you how strong they are. They are definitely much stronger than any species that we've ever encountered. Even a cybernetically enhanced Borg drone isn't strong enough to have caused that type of damage to Nosikans.'

Sisko nodded. 'Kyra, you've spent more time with them than anyone. What is your opinion?'

'They are friendly and curious, and they seem to understand much more about our tech, technology in general, and physics, than we would have assumed. They are aggressive only when they are attacked or when they meet their enemies. And I know that their technology, at least in some areas, is far more advanced than ours. As Garak said, they have small, relatively light personal replicators that have their own built-in antimatter power supply. It is standard issue for their troops during certain types of operations so that they don't have to worry about supply lines.'

'How long does their power supply last?'

'They said that the primary power source could provide all of the food and water necessary to keep an individual alive for fifty years, and that the batteries and solar collectors would do the same for at least several centuries.'

Sisko nodded. 'Do you have anything to add, Chief?'

O'Brien shook his head. 'No, sir. I haven't been able to figure out anything with the limited data we have available. We have no readings that would even indicate powered down weapons on their one ship that we can detect, and the shuttles that bring their people over for shore leave are the same type as the one at the dock. We can't detect anything to indicate what type of power source they use, what type of propulsion systems they have, or anything that would give us some idea as to the capabilities of their ships.'

Sisko nodded. 'OK. To all outward appearances, the Clan is a small group of refugees who lack some of our own technological capabilities. At least, that is what we have assumed. All that they really said when they first contacted us was that they were lost, and that they were looking for information about local stellar anomalies. I think that we need to clarify things a little bit more than they currently are.'

The others nodded in agreement as Sisko tapped his comm badge. 'Tahr Kahhni, this is Commander Sisko. I was wondering if you would be able to join us for a meeting later today, if your injury permits?'

They all heard lilting, melodic laughter. 'I am perfectly well, commander. Thank you for your concern for my health. We can join you at any time that is convenient for you. I assumed that you would have some concerns regarding yesterday's little incident, and was waiting for you to contact me. If you can give us directions to your location, or send a guide to lead us there, we can meet with you right now.'

Sisko nodded to Worf. 'One of the security detail outside of your quarters will lead you to our current location, Tahr Kahhni.'

When they got to the meeting room, Brynhe and Jehryl remained outside in the hallway with two security guards while Lyhssyha and Krohn accompanied Kahmmhi into the meeting room, followed by another four security guards.

'I offer our deepest regrets that you were accosted and injured, Tahr Kahhni.'

Kahmmhi smiled, looking at the bandage on her arm. 'My thanks for your concern, but this scratch is nothing to be worried about. We have minor injuries in training and combat all of the time. I was worried about the major. She took quite a hit, and seemed to be quite dazed by the impact, as well as the injury.'

Kyra blushed. 'I'm fine, Tahr Kahhni. I've been thrown around before, just not by a Nosikan. They are strong and aggressive, so I should have been more prepared.'

Sisko sighed. 'We seem to have a communications problem, Tahr Kahhni. And I believe that most of the problem stems from our own assumptions and bias concerning your people. Please, don't take offense if we question you in detail so that there are no future misunderstandings that could be easily avoided.'

Kahmmhi nodded. 'I will answer whatever questions I can as accurately as I can, but please feel free to ask for more detail if you are unsure of what I mean or my answer appears to be vague or incomplete. But there may be some things that I can't discuss with you without talking to the commander of my scout claw first.'

'I understand, and I have no problems with that. OK. You said that you came to this system through the wormhole that leads to the Delta quadrant, but that you don't believe that you are from the Delta quadrant originally. Can you explain that more clearly?'

Kahmmhi nodded, smiling to herself. Very good. He was being precise and thorough. She explained in detail how they had been scouting the one system to look for routes that would lead to other systems, though nobody in the room was following her well enough to get more detailed answers on their propulsion system or methods of travel. She described very thoroughly what had happened to their fleet as they passed between the gravitic anomalies, and how they had suddenly found themselves trapped in the event of a wormhole opening. Then she related how they had found themselves trapped on the other end of an unstable wormhole. One that they HOPED was cyclic.

'OK. So you were looking for someone in a nearby system, hoping that they could give you more details about the wormhole that had brought you to the Delta quadrant. Any details that you could get about any spatial anomalies in the region, especially any of them that weren't in your star maps for this region. But I still don't understand why you were lost.'

'There is no spatial correlation between the star map of where we were and the star map of where we are. So the best chance that we have of returning home would be to figure out how and when the wormhole that brought us here cycles and attempt to make a connection back to where we came from.'

Sisko and the others nodded. 'So you found the Dominion fleet and followed them here. Why couldn't they detect your ships?'

'All of our ships normally remain in stealth mode all of the time. I think that you call it "cloaked".'

'And you have nine ships here, out of the three hundred and twenty three ships in your Clan's fleet?'

'That is correct.'

'And they are the smallest ships that your Clan uses?'

'Eight of them are the normal scout claw. Four assault frigates, which are our smallest ships. Two scout fire cruisers, which are slightly larger and intended for fire support. Two scout assault carriers, which are four times their size and are designed to carry small offensive and defensive craft. The PUFF is much larger so that it can accommodate a large number of railguns. Its primary purpose is fire support, and it was added to the scout claw because of the inherent danger of the mission.'

'If you can't find your way back to your Clan, what will happen?' Kyra sounded sincerely curious.

'Clan Silver Dragon will go on without us. Our ships represent a very small percentage of our fleet, and since all nonessential personnel were removed from the three largest ships before this mission began, our ships aren't crowded. Someone will be chosen as our Kohl-kahhn, and they will lead our new Clan. We have at least some room for population growth on the PUFF and the scout assault carriers because they only have about forty percent of the personnel that the ship can carry. We would need to gather materials, build a shipyard, and build a Home Ship to properly house all of our civilians and children. Eventually our Clan would grow and get larger. We would probably explore the Delta quadrant and keep trying to find a way home.'

Sisko decided that changing the subject would be good so that Kahmmhi didn't keep thinking about the possibility that they would never be able to return to their Clan. 'We can't identify almost anything about your ships, even when they are decloaked. Our scans don't penetrate your hull armor, and we can't detect any drive signatures or any other evidence of your method of propulsion. We know from the video that you gave us that your ships can travel at six light seconds per hour in real space, and that they can cross at least several light seconds in real space instantaneously without using warp.'

Kahmmhi looked at Krohn, and he smiled. 'Jason's talon was on point. He must have skipped back across the system after the Dominion fleet went to warp so that he could save time and report sooner.'

Kahmmhi nodded. 'It doesn't do much good to use stealth if your drive signature advertises both your presence and your position. As for our drives, I think that should remain one of those fuzzy areas for now.'

'About your sidearms...'

'I've already had my Shadows replace their ammunition with lighter loads so that it will be less destructive. And Virginia has already barred anyone else from carrying sidearms here, assuming that she will even be allowed to resume shore leave for any of our people. If necessary, we can continue any further diplomatic negotiations by comm, rather than face to face. We are also willing to leave and return to the Delta quadrant if you are no longer interested in pursuing diplomatic or trade negotiations.'

Sisko looked almost stricken, and responded immediately. 'That won't be necessary, Tahr Kahhni. I would, however, be greatly relieved if you would agree not to sell or trade any of your firearms or ammunition to individuals.'

'That is no problem at all. Our troops already knew never to trade weapons on their own, and any knives or blades that they sell or trade must be made of materials that are softer than krymchyll or tohlvyhn. And all Clan members know that kwyll and vihlnyhk can't be sold or traded in ANY form without specific permission.'

'We don't even know what those are.'

Kahmmhi looked at Krohn. 'We need some samples. Small knives. Kwyll, vihlnyhk, krymchyll, tohlvyhn, zyhnchyrr.'

Krohn had Lyhssyha pull his synthesizer out of his pack and set it on the table. Everyone watched intently as he went through the menu quickly, programmed in a few commands, and then laid out a selection of eight inch long knives on the table in front of Sisko.

Worf picked up the dark black blade, amazed by its weight and heft. 'This is the material that your blades are made of. Very dense and heavy.'

'Kwyll. It's almost indestructible and almost unbreakable. The flat black one is vihlnyhk, the next hardest. Neither of them generally ever requires a blade to ever need resharpening, even if they are used extensively in combat to cut combat armor. Krymchyll is shiny dark gray, and tohlvyhn is a dull, flat gray. They are very close in hardness, but krymchyll is slightly softer. Zyhnchyrr is the hardest material that we intend to trade right now. It is silver with a reddish hue.'

Jadzia scanned the knives with her tricorder. 'None of these are made of any known materials. The hardest two don't even scan properly. The softest one appears to be harder than duranium. Their molecular structure and the bonding structure between molecules and atoms appears to be highly unusual.'

'The blades were all constructed by the same process in the synthesizer. Only the individual atoms and molecules are different.'

Kahmmhi looked at Krohn. 'Do small ingots so that they can see the natural structure, Krohn.'

Krohn nodded, and quickly laid out five small ingots made of the same materials. Jadzia scanned them, then smiled in satisfaction. Now I can detect distinct differences, but I can still only scan the surface layer of the hardest two substances.'

Sisko nodded. 'We are still very interested in participating in negotiations with your people, Tahr Kahhni. Whether those negotiations involve diplomatic relations between our peoples, trade agreements, or both, is entirely up to you. But it will take some time for an official diplomatic delegation to arrive here from the Federation Council or StarFleet. It will take at least three months, and possibly longer.'

'Three months is not that long. We don't mind waiting for a while. The possibility of working out some type of treaty between our peoples, even if it's just a mutual non-aggression pact with the possibility of free trade and information exchange, is worth the wait.' She grinned mischievously. 'But please, just call me Kahm. At least when we're not forced to interact formally.'

Sisko nodded. 'Kahm it is. You can call me Benjamin or Sisko, whichever is easier for you.'

'If there isn't anything else right now, we should discuss repairing the damage that we caused. Who handles that?'

'Quark actually owns his bar, and only his property was damaged during the altercation. The Nosikans clearly attacked you, so our law doesn't require you to make any reparations for the damages. As for the StarFleet personnel who were involved, our security forces know better than to fire upon a diplomat, even if their phasers were only set on stun. They are not allowed to accept reparations, but the one who actually fired at you is being disciplined for his mistake.'

Kahmmhi simply nodded. She had no intention of interfering in their military discipline, so the officer who made the mistake would undergo the normal punishment for his actions. The Clan understood that concept well. 'Then I should visit Quark and agree upon proper reparations.'

Kyra stood quickly. 'Sir, with your permission, Odo and I should accompany her. Just to keep Quark honest.'

Sisko smiled broadly. 'Oh, by all means, major.'

Bashir stood. 'And if you don't need me for anything else, sir, I promised Garak that I'd analyze some samples for him. Kahmmhi has offered him some trade items, so I thought that the analysis would allow us access to the data as well. That would allow us to try to negotiate for anything of interest once we begin trading with them.'

Sisko nodded, then looked at Kahmmhi. 'What about the samples that you just made?'

Kahmmhi smiled as she looked up from watching as Krohn's synthesizer was secured in his pack. 'Why don't you keep them so that you can analyze them more thoroughly and have something physical to show the diplomats when they finally arrive?'

Sisko nodded, thinking that the Federation's representatives would be extremely impressed and perplexed when they discovered that the Clan had given them samples of five different substances that were harder than duranium. The more scientifically minded of them would be shocked to discover that a small backpack replicator had manufactured all five of the sample knives in just a few minutes, and astounded to realize that all five had been replicated at the same time.

Kahmmhi and the others left the room, leaving Sisko and Worf alone with the knives and ingots. Both of them were wondering how many more surprises the diminutive Clan representative had up her sleeve.

Quark came out from behind his bar and crossed the room quickly when he saw Kahmmhi enter the bar. 'You! Look at what you've done to my bar! It's going to cost me a FORTUNE to make all of the repairs. YOU are going to have to PAY for ALL of the damages.'

Kahmmhi nodded. 'That is why I am here. I was forced to defend myself, but you should not have to pay for the damages that were a result of the actions of others. We must agree upon reasonable reparations.'

Kyra leaned close to Quark's ear and whispered, 'Remember, Quark, that under Federation law, the Nosikans are the ones that you have to go after to pay for the damages. So be REASONABLE, and don't try to take advantage of her just because she has a kind nature and wishes to help pay for the repairs to your bar. Try to gouge her, and Odo will pull your license. You may own the shop, but you still need a license to operate a business on the station.'

Quark's elated looked dropped down to merely happy. So he wouldn't make as much profit off of her. Getting enough out of her just to cover the actual cost of the repairs would keep him from actually losing any money, and dealing with her HAD to be easier than dealing with the Nosikans. He pulled out his padd and viewed the list of repairs that he had been making. 'OK, major, I get your point. Let's see. There is the hole in my bulkhead. I had to stay here and guard my business all night, and I'll have to install a force field generator and maintain it until the materials required to fix the bulkhead arrive. I still have to price out the materials, the bonding agent, and the installation costs.'

'If Commander Sisko will allow us to bring a repair unit on board the station, we can fix that small hole today.'

'What?' Quark was stunned. What they were talking about was clearly impossible. Not even the best engineers from StarFleet could repair that hole that quickly.

'Krohn, how long would it take?'

'It's an interior bulkhead, and it's fairly thin. That strange material that they use would have to be synthesized if we don't want to use the standard materials. It's easier just to use standard molecular bonding for the entire patch, even if it would make that section of the bulkhead denser and stronger than the rest of the station. It would probably only take about two hours from arrival to departure.'

'And they damaged my floor when they cleaned up the blood.' Quark looked Kyra in the eye.

Krohn looked at the floor and scowled. 'Five minutes for the surface scuff marks.'

'Anything else?' Kyra sounded somewhat irritated, and Odo wasn't looking very happy with Quark at the moment.

'Well, two of my tables were totally destroyed, and three of the chairs were damaged.'

Kahmmhi nodded. 'You can replace them and we will pay for their replacement cost. You may choose to take payment directly from us, or we will make the necessary arrangements with whoever produces the replacement furniture for you. Is that all?'

'What about the time that I had to spend guarding the store last night?'

'Quark, don't push it.' Kyra was really starting to sound irritated now. Quark had probably made his brother Nog guard the bar all night.

Kahmmhi smiled. 'We will come to an agreement with you for that. What is a reasonable price?'

Quark smiled. Now they were on his turf. Nobody bargained better than a Ferengi. 'That depends on the form of payment. Federation credits are somewhat less appealing to a merchant in an area that could soon change hands due to the fortunes of war. Gold pressed latinum, precious metals, rare gems, and things like that always retain their value. Trade goods are also always welcome, since supply lines could become unstable in the near future. A merchant has to have some reserve stock on hand in case of emergencies, after all.'

'And what sorts of trade goods would you be interested in?'

'Hmm, let me see. I heard that Garak is going to acquire some spices from you. Rare alcohols with unique flavors are popular.'

'We don't drink much alcohol in the Clan. It doesn't affect us, so there is no demand.'

Quark looked crestfallen. Alcohol was a very high profit item. But that did explain the Clan's preference for the cheaper iced fruit drinks. 'I don't really deal in things like spices. What about other types of drinks?'

'We have a lot of other drinks. Various types of chocolates, and juices from a wide variety of fruits, vegetables, nuts, and other things. All of them are available in the original edible form or in soluble powder or liquid form.'

'That sounds promising. How long will they store?'

'I don't really know. We use almost everything that we eat or drink fresh, so that we don't waste room storing it.'

'Then how am I supposed to use them before they spoil?'

'We synthesize them when we want them. Show him, Brynhe.'

Brynhe put a portable synthesizer on the bar and quickly programmed it. She removed a khorb nut bar, a cup of steaming liquid, and a small container of powder. Quark tasted the bar. It was a very rich chocolate, sweet, chewy and crunchy. Women would definitely like it, as was confirmed by the way he saw Kyra looking at the bar in his hand. The drink was the same flavor, and when he added the powder to cold milk, it tasted the same as well.

'This is good.' He analyzed the samples, put them into the menu of one of the replicators behind his bar, and reproduced them. When he tasted them, the flavor was still very good, but the flavor was slightly off, and it just didn't taste the same. 'Bleah. The flavor is off.'

Kyra tested them herself, not trusting Quark, and reluctantly had to agree with him. 'He's right.' She quickly checked the replicator to see what the problem was, then sighed. 'Our replicators just aren't good enough to get it exactly the same.'

'What if we were to trade you some of our replicators instead?'

'Just like this one?' Quark's eyes were bright just thinking about the profit potential.

'Not quite. Commander Sisko seems to be worried about the primary power source that our replicators use. It would have the same hardware, and we could put in a second power storage unit in place of the primary power core. We could modify the programming to include food, spices, and similar items that you selected once Dr. Bashir confirms that they are safe and, of course, that they are legal in the Federation.'

'How much would one of these be able to replicate without the primary power core?' Quark was somewhat disappointed, but still hopeful that he could come up with a way to make some real profit out of this deal. She wasn't as innocent or as ignorant as she looked. Intelligence made the bargaining much more interesting, and the profit that was made from the deal all the sweeter.

'Using a solar charger in an emergency situation, one unit can produce enough food and water to keep one Clan warrior alive. We eat about five or six times as much as a human.'

Quark thought about that. One unit would produce enough rare items to feed five or six people a day. Fifteen or even twenty meals, and the same number of drinks. It could be profitable in the long run.

'Of course, if you connect it to a generator or other power source, it can function properly and still make many times the amount of food and drink as it could from the energy that was collected by the solar panels in a single day.'

Quark's eyes were gleaming with untold profit potential again. Kyra began smiling as she realized that Kahmmhi was tantalizing Quark and manipulating him.

Kahmmhi sounded almost sad. 'Of course, they are very energy intensive to make, and they require resources that are not easy to come by. We must make them because they are necessary for our survival, and we can do so only because they last so long.'

Kyra was amazed at how this negotiation was going. Quark was going up and down as each detail was given to him, and they were presented in such a way as to keep constantly tantalizing him. And he was being led to the next question every time.

'How long do they last?'

'They were built and designed to function properly without maintenance for a minimum of several centuries under constant daily use.'

Quark was hooked. They would work without maintenance for longer than his projected lifetime. The power requirements were minimal, since he already had to use replicators in his business, and he would have a steady source of income for the rest of his life. 'I want a dozen.'

Kahmmhi looked slightly embarrassed, and seemed a bit sad. 'We couldn't possibly part with that many, and they really are QUITE expensive.'

Kahmmhi's tone and "QUITE expensive" brought Quark crashing back down to reality. Of course they had to be expensive. They were more efficient and worked better than ANY other type of replicator, and they lasted much longer than any other replicator as well. Quark's own replicators required almost constant servicing, either to calibrate them or to make minor adjustments and repairs so that they kept functioning properly. So the obvious trade-off for such superior technology and portability was their expense. 'Perhaps a dozen IS more than I actually NEED.' Quark smiled. 'So, perhaps we could reach some sort of equitable trade?'

'Perhaps we can. I'm sure that some of our people would enjoy using a holodeck...'

'Reduced rates. Barely enough to cover my actual operating expenses.'

'That is a quite generous initial offer, I'm sure. But it hardly seems fair to us in the long run. We're only going to be here for a few months to, at most, just over a year. But you'll have three replicators producing items that are rare, available only from you and only in limited quantities, for the next few centuries. Honestly, Quark, just because we don't use money doesn't mean that the Clan is completely ignorant of the principles of economics and the law of supply and demand. We DO have to deal with shortages and limited availability of certain resources.'

Quark looked bemused. 'Forgive me. My wild joy at the opportunity to own such reliable and wonderful technology temporarily clouded my judgment. What would you offer as a reasonable price?'

'I know that your holodecks are expensive to rent because of their limited number and the limited time available. You have six holodecks, but one isn't functioning right now. Free use of one holodeck, reserved specifically for Clan use, for the duration of our stay would make a substantial down payment on the cost of the replicators.' She hesitated. 'But we would require the use of your largest holodeck.'

Quark considered the offer. His largest holodeck was so expensive that it wasn't renting as often or making him any more money right now.

Kyra whistled. 'That holodeck can easily accommodate about a hundred people.'

Kahmmhi looked pleased. 'I don't expect more than about fifty of us to be using it at any one time.' Her Shadows smiled at that. The Federation might not know it, but that was the size of a Clan platoon.

Quark nodded. 'OK. I agree, in principle.'

Kahmmhi leaned forward and whispered something very softly into Quark's ear. He turned, gave her a very strange look, then nodded. 'Yeah, I can get the programs that will simulate those designs. I can't guarantee the accuracy of ALL of the details, though.'

'But the general layout will be accurate, especially for the most important features?'

'Oh, yeah. I KNOW that those will be located accurately.'

'As for the balance... We should probably come up with something that is more specific. Something that is fixed in value, and less vague. How about a time limit of one Clan year for holodeck time? And if we leave in six months, you still owe the remaining time, and we can collect it any time that our Clan returns here to visit.'

'Agreed. What else were you thinking of?'

'Star charts and data on all of the known systems in your databases. Nothing that is restricted. Just the locations, general information that is available to the public, their alliances, things like that.'

Quark nodded. This was too easy. Kahmmhi grinned at his expression. 'And I was thinking that a hundred thousand Federation credits, or their equivalent in gold pressed latinum, wouldn't be too excessive, and would give the Clan some solvency in your society.'

Quark looked stricken. 'She's trying to KILL me, major. That's at least fifty thousand credits apiece for the three replicators. I don't have that kind of money lying around. She'll bankrupt me.'

Kyra smiled. Personally, she thought that fifty thousand credits apiece was a steal for something of the quality of the replicators that they were talking about. And as for Quark being bankrupted, she'd bet a month's wages that the little money-grubber had at least that much money lying around, stashed for an emergency escape fund, just in case.

Kahmmhi sighed, looking a bit disappointed. 'Well, I suppose that I COULD agree to take that amount in trade with you, but only if you were willing to charge your actual cost for the items that we get, based on values that are established on the date that you take possession of the replicators. You wouldn't actually LOSE any money, and if the cost of your energy increases, you could just consider it to be interest on the balance of the debt.'

Quark sighed, thinking about that offer very carefully. They would only be here for a Clan year, however long that was. And there was a fixed value on how much they got from him at cost. He wouldn't actually lose any money, but he wouldn't make a profit until they used the balance of what he owed them. But their replicators were also much smaller and more efficient, so his actual costs would go down on everything that he sold. Meaning that he would have a higher profit margin without even raising any of his prices. And nobody would complain about the higher cost of some of the items that were only available from him once he was able to make unique Clan foods, drinks, and dishes.

'OK, but you drive a very hard bargain, Tahr Kahhni. You're trying to turn me into a pauper, but if I am very careful, I may actually begin to turn a profit on this deal. Eventually. Maybe in twenty or thirty years, if I'm lucky. But the Rules of Acquisition do say that SOME profit is better than no profit at all. I'll certainly never become the Grand Nagus of all Ferengi by dealing with you.'

Kyra smiled. The traditional Ferengi bitching about how badly the other person had taken advantage of them in their deal.

'So, we have a deal, and you are fully satisfied with the agreed upon compensation?'

'Yes, of course. I trust you to do proper repairs. Our deal is final and binding.'

Kahmmhi smiled. 'May I invite you to join us for lunch, major? And Jadzia is welcome to join us as well. I'm sure that my Shadows have enough money between them for us to pay for a celebratory meal. I wouldn't dream of putting it against our account before the replicators are delivered.'

Quark relaxed. They were paying. Today.

'By the way, Quark, you should have delivery of the three replicators by Friday, unless Dr. Bashir has difficulty evaluating the contents of each program or he can't analyze them as rapidly as we think he can with his available equipment.' Kahmmhi looked at Odo. 'You are also welcome to join us and socialize with us, constable.'

Odo smiled, but shook his head. 'Thank you very much for the offer, but I really do have some work to attend to. And I need to check on my three Nosikan prisoners. You may have settled accounts with Quark, but our laws require that the guilty pay for their crimes. They will be heavily fined for their crimes, imprisoned until they pay reasonable damages, which we assessed at about twenty thousand Federation credits, and then they'll be escorted to their ship, kicked off of the station, and banned from returning here for one full year.'

Odo left, and Kyra smiled. 'Not bad for your first time doing business with a Ferengi. Though he did make you think that the repairs would be much more expensive and difficult than they actually are.'

Kahmmhi grinned. 'You assume that the synthesizers actually cost us that much to make in terms of time, energy, and the materials that they are produced from. And that the materials are actually that rare or difficult for us to come by.'

Kyra gasped and began laughing with Kahmmhi. The two of them were still laughing when Jadzia arrived to join them for lunch. When the waitress arrived with the menus, Kahmmhi asked her to explain the various prices that were placed after each dish on the menu.

'The numbers represent the cost of the dish. The first number, in black, is the cost in Federation credits. The second number, in silver, is the cost in grams of silver. The third number, in gold, is the cost in grams of gold. The fourth number, in red, is the cost in grams of gold plated latinum. A strip is ten grams, a bar is one hundred grams, and an ingot is one thousand grams.'

Kahmmhi smiled. 'So, who has what?'

Jehryl smiled. 'Mostly silver, some gold.'

Krohn nodded. 'Same here, Tahr Kahhni.'

Brynhe smiled. 'Silver, gold, and platinum. We still don't know what latinum is.'

Lyhssyha laughed. 'Gold, platinum, and mihlkyrrhnhm.'

Jadzia looked confused. 'What is the last one?'

Lyhssyha dumped part of a small pouch into her hand, then picked out a small, greenish disk that was about one centimeter in diameter and about one tenth of a centimeter thick. She dropped it into Jadzia's hand. Jadzia gasped both at the weight of the tiny disk and the slight electric shock that she received when it touched her hand.

'Sorry. It's superconductive, and air flow across it builds up a slight residual static charge.'

'This thing must weight at least half a pound. And you say that it's superconductive?'

'Only up to about three thousand degrees Kelvin. Yeah, it's heavy, but we could make several thirty centimeter square solar panels out of that one small piece. It's heavy and durable, but it's not tough enough to use for weapons or armor. So we use it in electronics, especially for making stuff like the solar collectors for the survival synthesizers or other powered equipment.'

'Those things would be worth a LOT to the Federation. Just the replicators and solar chargers for them, even if they're like the ones that you're trading to Quark, would be enough to make a huge difference on remote outposts or colonies, where resources and energy production are at a premium. Sometimes it's hard for isolated stations or outposts to get parts or keep everything working, and that can affect their ability to support their population when things get really difficult. It would be really great if we could figure out how to manufacture them for ourselves so that we could make as many as we needed.'

Kahmmhi nodded. 'I can't guarantee anything except for our willingness to negotiate in good faith with your diplomats or other appointed representatives for your leaders. After that, we'll just have to see what we can manage to work out.' She smiled. 'So, let's eat. I'm starving.'

After lunch, they relaxed and chatted. 'Exactly what is mihlkyrrhnhm made of?'

'It's a ceramic composite. Two elements are mixed together in specific amounts, combined with specific amounts of the components of the ceramic, poured, fired with the ceramic base, and then flash cooled to absolute zero. That's for rounds like this. They use specialized equipment on factory ships that work in the vacuum of space to make the solar panels because the layer of mihlkyrrhnhm on them is only two microns thick.'

Kyra looked at Jadzia. 'Is our tech even capable of doing something like that?'

'That depends on how THEY do it, and whether or not WE can figure out how to do it another way if we can't do it their way.'

Garak and Bashir came over to see them just then. 'We just finished analyzing all of the samples that you gave me to check. Forty seven of the spices are unique and perfectly safe. Thirty one of the teas or other drinks are also unique and safe. We've tasted small samples of the spices, but we haven't tried any of the drinks yet.'

'How much would a pound of spice or tea generally cost?'

Jadzia looked at Kyra. 'A pound. What do you think?'

'About a credit or two for very common spices. Five or six for most spices. Twenty credits or more for the rare or hard to get spices. More if there are transportation problems, shortages, or something like a war, plague, or crop failure that is disrupting normal shipping or reducing the availability of the spice. Teas generally sell for five credits minimum. Chocolate or other specialty drinks are usually about ten credits each to start.'

Kahmmhi nodded. 'How about you pick out ten spices and ten drinks after you've had a chance to taste all of them, and we'll give you two pounds of each of those, divided into one ounce stasis containers. Bigger than the stasis containers that you currently have so that they will hold thirty grams each instead of the small amount that you initially received for testing. And we'll give you one pound, packaged the same way, of each of the other unique spices and teas that you found. The samples are yours to keep.'

Garak stared at her in surprise. 'That is more than generous, Tahr Kahhni. Too much, in fact. I couldn't possibly accept so much. It's worth much more than the dress that we agreed upon.'

'Consider anything over what you consider a fair price to be a gift. A small gesture of our good will.'

'Very well, if you insist. But I reserve the right to offer you a discount any time that you shop in my establishment.' Garak smiled. 'Consider it a gesture of my good will, Tahr Kahhni.'

Dr. Bashir cleared his throat softly. 'Did you actually say that those tiny containers that the samples came in are stasis containers?'

Kahmmhi nodded. 'Yes. They don't require much of a charge to generate and maintain a piezoelectric magnetic current through the crystalline matrix of the container. Normal air currents moving across the top of the container allow the thin layer of superconductive material to store an almost constant trickle charge in the battery that is located directly beneath it. They last a long time, and are fairly reliable.'

'Those would be AMAZING for collecting small specimens, especially in extreme or unusual environments. Especially in situations where we can't afford the energy required to maintain a proper containment field, or when it's too dangerous to risk even a brief loss of containment.'

Kahmmhi smiled. 'We will do what we can to make sure that your request is included as part of the negotiations, doctor. I'm sure that it would be considered a priority by your leaders, since they seem to have the best interests of your population as one of their guiding principles.'

'The politicians and diplomats may not actually agree to any type of formal relations with your people, Kahmmhi. We may be limited in our ability to assist you and your people, either by circumstances or by Federation law.'

'Julian, you know very well that the Prime Directive only applies to civilizations that aren't as technologically advanced as we are. It's designed to protect their civilization by allowing their culture and science to progress at its own natural pace. So that their development isn't contaminated, and that they aren't overwhelmed by technology that they aren't prepared for and haven't learned how to utilize safely yet.'

'I am well aware of that, Jadzia. But one of the primary measures used by the Federation to determine when a race is prepared for contact and open relations with the Federation is their ability to use warp travel. The Clan is clearly capable of interstellar travel, and they are very advanced scientifically in a number of areas. But they are not warp capable. You know as well as I do that some of our leaders in the Federation Council, and many of those who are responsible for running StarFleet itself, are very strict in their interpretation of exactly what constitutes a violation of the Prime Directive.'

Jadzia gave Kahmmhi a sad look and nodded in resignation. 'He's right. There could be problems. And if there are, it won't help your case when the leaders of the Federation Council discover that the Clans were originally slaves from a planet with a relatively primitive level of technology who revolted and took your current technology, or at least the basis for it, from your dead masters.'

Kyra sighed. 'They do have a point. And the Federation is already facing one threat to the entire Alpha quadrant, the potential threat of additional Borg incursions into Federation space, and the fragile stability of our current alliance with several other races who have had border disputes and skirmishes with the Federation in the past. They may feel that aiding you could put them at risk of coming into conflict with your enemy as well.'

Kahmmhi nodded thoughtfully. It was a very valid concern. The probability of a Consortium fleet finding their way here was VERY small, especially when she considered the fact that the only way here was through the wormhole that connected to the system that the Clan had been exploring, and she was relatively certain that the Consortium avoided that system like the plague. But if a Consortium fleet DID find their way to Federation space, nothing that the Clan had seen here would be capable of standing up to a Consortium war fleet. Even Consortium assault shuttles were capable of penetrating the shields and hulls of the largest and most heavily armed ships that they had seen since their arrival, including the Dominion fleet that they had followed here. She was fairly certain that their scout claw could stop a Consortium war fleet, but with their limited numbers, they would be stretching their resources kind of thin in order to do it. Though they did have enough assault troops to board and capture all ten battleships intact if things actually came to that point. They would not be able to do it easily or quickly, but it COULD be done with the forces that the Clan had available.

Kahmmhi smiled. 'So, your Federation believes that a more technologically advanced race should not interact with less technologically developed races so that they don't interfere with the natural evolution of the less developed race's society and technology? That is a very interesting concept. I'll have to discuss this with the commanders of the ships in our scout claw. We wouldn't want to violate any of your laws, and we certainly wouldn't want to offend you by violating one of your most important beliefs.'

Everyone at the table suddenly realized that the very same rule that the Federation routinely used to keep less technologically developed races from gaining access to the superior technology of the Federation could also be used by more technologically advanced races to keep the Federation from getting access to superior technology that they weren't yet capable of producing themselves. Despite their initial assessment of the Clan as a small bunch of lost refugees from an aggressive, warlike society that lacked the technological capabilities of the Federation, evidence to contradict that belief was gradually accumulating.

The Clan had nanobots, but they were not Borg. They were stronger and faster than any species that the Federation had ever encountered. Their "primitive" weapons were so technologically advanced that the Federation couldn't even make them. They had portable replicators that ran on antimatter. They had superconductive alloys that allowed them to build stasis containers the size of Kyra's little finger that didn't even require an external power source to function. They were capable of manufacturing and mass producing bullets that stably contained GRAMS of antimatter. Their armor seemed to be totally impervious to energy weapons. Their small ships could travel at six light seconds per hour outside of warp, and were also capable of traversing light seconds across real space instantaneously without using warp drives. They evidently lived much longer than normal humans, healed more rapidly than any known species, and had no known diseases. They used alloys and metals that the Federation had never imagined possible, and which were beyond the abilities of the scientific achievements of the Federation to even analyze. The Federation had no way to even detect the method of propulsion that was used by their fleet, and even Clan small craft had a form of cloaking technology that was far beyond anything that had been seen before by either the Federation or the Dominion. They were even able to detect cloaked Dominion ships whose cloaking technology was so far beyond even that of the Klingons and Romulans that the Federation couldn't even begin to detect their ships during intense sensor scans.

It was possible that the Clan wasn't as advanced in some areas as they were in others. But there was no real reason to doubt any of the information that the Clan had provided to them. If the Dominion had the technology that the Clan had already clearly demonstrated, they would have secured this system right after coming through the wormhole from the Delta quadrant, and they would have already begun a war to put the entire Alpha quadrant under their control.

Sisko looked at Worf. 'OK, Mr. Worf, what is your assessment of the situation?'

'They are formidable warriors. With sufficient numbers, they could probably eliminate anything that even wanted to attack them. Assuming that they could keep their ships from being discovered and destroyed so that they could use their troops effectively in ground combat, of course.'

'And their level of technology?'

'I would have to assume that their ships, while few in number, are capable of at least keeping us from locating and destroying them. We can't detect their ships, and neither can the Dominion. After seeing how effective their troops and weapons are, I have to admit that we can't compete with them militarily, sir. As for scientifically, we don't have enough information to determine their capabilities in many areas, but in the areas that we are aware of, they are much more scientifically advanced than we are, despite our initial conclusions based on appearances and their behavior. I believe that aiding them in their attempt to return to their own people would seem like the best solution. And that it would be in the best interests of the Federation if we wish to maintain the current status quo in this quadrant and the Delta quadrant.'

Sisko nodded. That is a good point. If they give us advanced technologies and some way of making more ourselves, it could cause a total breakdown of the normal situation. That could even happen if they gave us some technology that we couldn't reproduce ourselves, since it would be irreplacable and extremely valuable. There could be conflict, even among the member planets of the Federation, with disagreements over how the new technology should be used, which systems should get it first, and how it should be distributed.'

Worf nodded. 'It is very likely that, in that situation, every enemy that we have, and even some of our allies, would band together and attack the Federation before we could begin mass production of the new technology in an effort to obtain samples of the technology so that they could retain their current position in the balance of power or even improve their position.'

Sisko sighed. 'That would be bad. Of course, that assumes that they are much more technologically advanced than we are, and that they either could or would be willing to trade their technology with us. Remember, that is the sort of thing that is specifically forbidden by the Prime Directive, and it's possible that their society may have a similar restriction regarding the exchange of technology. Even if that isn't the case, they are a small group that is lost and cut off from their society, and they do have limited resources available to them.'

Worf nodded his head in agreement. 'They seem to have an intense aversion to living on planets because they are afraid of being discovered by their enemy. It isn't possible for ANY civilization to live entirely in space and still manage to maintain a high level of technology. Not while they remain completely nomadic AND are fighting a very protracted war against an enemy whose population and resource base is immensely larger. Eventually, their technology must start to decline or they have to steal or capture more technology from their enemy in order to maintain parity in their capabilities.'

Sisko nodded. Worf's analysis of the situation was sound, but every time that they thought they had the Clan figured out, they discovered something else about the Clan that totally undermined what the Federation believed, and Sisko was left trying to piece the puzzle together from the beginning. Again.

The station's command staff was in the middle of their daily report when Sisko suddenly exploded. 'She WHAT!'

Jadzia sighed, then explained that Benjamin needed to calm down and hear Kyra out before reacting to what she was saying. Kyra then explained Kahmmhi's negotiations with Quark, going over the specifics of their agreement in great detail. She especially emphasized the modifications that were being made to the Clan replicators that were being given to Quark.

Sisko nodded. 'OK. Sorry for the outburst, major. It's not as bad as it sounded originally, and nowhere near a bad as I had feared. We really need to be diligent and do what we can to make sure that we don't risk having advanced technology being released inside the Federation in an indiscriminate or uncontrolled manner. At least Kahmmhi managed to set this particular deal up so that it's not really going to become a technological influence. The replicator doesn't have one of their advanced power sources, though we should check to see exactly what type of secondary power source and storage system their equipment uses, just to be safe. It does work better than our own replicators, and it's much smaller as well, but it doesn't appear to represent any type of revolutionary breakthrough that suddenly creates new and previously unimagined possibilities for technological development and advancement of our understanding in that area of technology.'

Jadzia smiled as she shook her head. 'That's very unlikely. Right now, the things that they are trading are trinkets and novelties. Nothing technological in nature. Spices, unknown foods, teas, drink mixes, personal items. Things of that nature.'

Julian spoke up just then. 'Well, Jadzia, there is the matter of the stasis tubes. They ARE technological in nature.'

Sisko looked at Jadzia. 'Is this true?'

'Yes and no. They're tiny stasis tubes that are about the size of my little finger for the small ones, and several times larger for the large ones.' She quickly explained how the stasis tubes worked, and how they were powered, to everyone in the room. 'We can probably figure out how to duplicate the technology with our own materials and technology eventually, but we won't be able to replicate THEIR technology and make the things the way that the Clan does unless we can replicate the superconductors that they use as a power source for the stasis containers. The problem with doing that is that the material contains unknown elements and alloys.'

Sisko shrugged, knowing that if it required unknown elements, nobody in either the Alpha or Delta quadrants would be able to duplicate the technology. 'Then I guess that we have no major worries on that count. That IS the only technology that they've traded for, though, isn't it?'

Kyra nodded. 'Yes, sir.'

'OK. Keep escorting our guest around. I'll try to make some time in my schedule so that I can spend an hour or two talking to Kahmmhi, every day if possible. We'll each learn more about our respective cultures that way.'

Kyra grinned. 'If you don't have time otherwise, plan it around a meal, sir. They eat a LOT, and they eat OFTEN. They also seem to relax more and get more talkative, especially among themselves, when they are eating.'

That comment drew a few good natured laughs from around the table. Even Clan members said that they ate a lot. 'If there's nothing else, we'll adjourn. And, Dr. Bashir, do try to keep me apprised of the results of your analysis of the replicators that are being modified and given to Quark.'

'Yes, sir. Actually, I'm looking forward to doing that analysis. I've already discovered a lot of new and interesting compounds just from the analyses that I did for Garak. And I must admit that there were some new and very exotic and distinctive flavors among some of the spices that he let me taste. There was even one spice that literally set my mouth on fire. There were actually chemical burns.'

Kyra snickered. 'Was it really red, and had a distinctive smell that made your eyes itch or water and your nose start to run from clear across a room?'

'Yes. How did you know?'

'Hot peppers. Krohn uses them on almost everything that he eats. I picked them up early at their quarters once, and the smell from his stew made my eyes water clear across the room. They're very popular among Clan warriors. They use the liquid form, hot sauce, on almost all of their combat rations. They say that it improves the flavor of their rations.'

'Flavor? I couldn't taste anything because of all of the fire and burning. The pain was intense, and even after I managed to get the burn to stop, my mouth was still sensitive and very tender for hours.'

'Kahmmhi said that it was an acquired taste, and that you had to develop a certain amount of tolerance for the spice before you could start to taste the flavor.'

With that, everyone went to work. Which meant that Kyra went to find Kahmmhi so that they could spend more time together.

Virginia was pleased when she read Kahmmhi's latest report. The deal that Kahmmhi had made with the Ferengi was easy enough to fulfill from their end, and it provided them with a way for the people from their Clan who were on shore leave to safely mix, mingle, and find out more information about the local culture and current events than they were getting from the "official channels" while they were waiting for the representatives from the Federation Council to arrive and initiate "official" channels of communication and negotiation with the Clan.

'Laura, connect me with Gary and Margaret.'

Both SAC commanders appeared on her screen in under a minute. 'What's up, Gin?'

'We're going to be here for a while, so we might as well put the time to good use and keep some of our people busy while we're waiting. We wouldn't want everyone to get too bored.' She waited while the others laughed at her joke. 'Margie, I want all of your recon shuttles launched. Have them go through the wormhole and begin mapping the surrounding area for hyper points. They're not common in the middle of nowhere, but the wormhole itself may be enough of a gravitic distortion to have formed at least one hyper point nearby. If they find any hyper points nearby, I want them to get as much of a hyper map as they can in the time frame for the mission. If there isn't a hyper point there, they can leave some ships there to guard the hyper point and generate some accurate stellar maps of the area while the rest travel to the nearest system and see if they can find a way to start exploring hyper from there. Six months duration for the mission. And have them go through the wormhole as a group so that there is only one wormhole event here. No use really freaking out the locals.'

'You got it, Gin. Orders going out now. How much detail do you want them to collect if they find any systems?'

'Stellar location, preliminary surveys, hyper point mapping, and head on down the chain. Whatever they can find out about any indig or other life in the system while they move through it, but no contact with the locals. They can split into claws if necessary, but I don't want less than ten ships in any system, and the claws can operate as pairs while they are scouting.'

'Copy that.'

'Gary, you have the same orders, but starting in this system. Do a full survey first, then start exploring. It shouldn't take too long with ten talons working together here.'

'Affirmative. Orders out.'

Kahmmhi was with Kyra when a message was relayed to her from the shuttle. Krohn smiled as he heard the content of the messages. 'Messages, Tahr Kahhni. First is that the modified synthesizers have been delivered to our shuttle and are already being delivered to Dr. Bashir. Second, the repair crew is on their way to Quark's to repair his wall and floor. Third, normal shore leave has resumed. Last, both SACs have done a full recon launch. Light Brigade's recon will go through the wormhole and do recon in the Delta quadrant.'

Kahmmhi nodded. 'Kyra, you might want to let Sisko know that some of our small craft are going through the wormhole. I'm sure that you have sensors monitoring it all of the time so that you can detect whatever comes through it from the Delta quadrant.'

Kyra nodded and contacted Commander Sisko immediately. 'Sir, the Tahr Kahhni has just been informed that some of their small craft are going through the wormhole.'

'Thanks for the warning, major. Should we expect them to return any time soon?'

Kahmmhi shook her head. Recon missions could take months, and the only reason to do recon on the other side of the wormhole was to do hyper mapping or picket the wormhole so that they had some warning before the approach of any other Dominion fleets.

'Probably not any time soon, sir.' Kyra cut the connection and looked at Kahmmhi. 'Do you know why they would send some of your scout ships into the Delta quadrant?'

'I can think of several reasons offhand, and all of them are normal activities. But I wasn't informed of the reason by our commander, so the best that I could provide are educated guesses. Picket the area around the wormhole so that we know about any ships approaching the wormhole long before they get there. Go back to more thoroughly explore the area around the unstable wormhole where we first arrived so that they can spend more time analyzing it and collecting data so that we can compare it to the original data that we have for that region. And there is the possibility that it's just to do deep recon to explore and find out more details about that region of the Delta quadrant firsthand. Even though you have promised to give us star maps, most of the Delta quadrant is beyond the area where you have explored and done any detailed mapping. We may be stuck here for a very long time, so we should try to learn as much detail as we can about the systems, cultures, and races that we may have to interact with while we are here.'

'The only thing that we know for sure about the Delta quadrant is that both the Dominion and the Borg are from there. The Dominion is warlike and highly aggressive, having genetically engineered an entire race of warriors to do their fighting for them.'

'Warriors?' Brynhe sounded both interested and anxious.

Kyra nodded. 'The Jem'Haddar are a race of warriors who worship the Founders as their gods. They are addicted to tetracel white, a powerful narcotic that enrages them and gives them an adrenaline rush and an endorphin high whenever they go into combat. They're fast, strong, well trained, and very hard to injure. Their skin is very tough and leathery, almost like a lizard's skin.'

Kahmmhi managed to keep a straight face, but saw that her Shadows were smiling. The Clan had a thing for lizards.

Kyra continued talking, watching Kahmmhi so intently that she hadn't noticed the reaction that the Shadows had to her comments. 'The Borg aren't really a single race. They are constantly seeking newer and better technology so that they can make themselves into their image of machine perfection. Whenever they find any technology that they don't already have, they evaluate it and compare it to their own technology. If they discover that it is better than the technology that they already have, they attack and "assimilate" the technology. They also capture whatever race they've encountered and inject individuals with nanobots to transform their bodies and make them into more Borg drones. They install a cortical implant to allow the hive queen to communicate with and control individual drones, and implant various cybernetic devices to enhance strength and functionality in order to complete the conversion process.'

Kyra looked at Kahmmhi almost pleadingly. 'Please, don't go to the Delta quadrant. If the Dominion doesn't capture and enslave you, the Borg will kill you or turn you into drones. The Dominion wants to enslave humanity and force everyone to worship the Founders and serve them. And the Borg wish to turn all of the humans that they don't kill into something that is a mindless, emotionless machine with no identity or will of its own.' She was clearly worried for their safety.

Kahmmhi smiled, trying to sound reassuring. 'Don't worry. We're not going anywhere for months. We've already committed to meeting with the delegates and representatives of the Federation.' She was still looking calmly at Kyra as she made several small, quick motions to her Shadows. Krohn nodded in response. While they were stuck here, the Founders, Jem'Haddar, and Borg would be considered enemies of the Clan. They were a threat to humanity. Their species had been added to the list. At least for as long as the Clan was here.

It had taken three days, but the entire system had been completely mapped and explored. There were three hyper points. Not counting the wormhole. Jill tossed a mental coin, then began issuing orders. 'Brian, take Agnes and Juhl and hit door number one. Since we're exploring going out and that will slow us down, four months out and two back. Lay comsats at all hyper points and make weekly reports to base. Ellen, you have Jake and Mihl. Take door number two. Same orders. Cynthia, Marie, and Behr are with me. Remember the orders, and let's do this right, people.'

'Commander Sisko.'

'What is it, ensign?'

'I've been scanning some of the other bands and tuning our sensors to try to detect the Clan ships, and I've detected three very small gravitic anomalies that coincide with minor neutrino fluxes that are barely above background levels. I'm not sure of their significance, but...'

'Very good, ensign. Could the neutrino flux be from the wormhole?'

'No, sir. I know that there is occasionally some background neutrino emission from the wormhole without an activation event, but the energy signatures don't match the profile that we have for the wormhole. I can't pinpoint the sources exactly, but I can tell that there are three distinct sources, and none of them are even in the general direction of the wormhole, sir.'

'Let me know if you detect any more anomalies, or if you are able to get more detailed readings.'

'Yes, sir.'

Kayhlya had set up comsats on each end of the wormhole during her transit. A week's work had shown that there were no hyper points in the region around the wormhole, and stellar cartography indicated that it would take almost six weeks of skipping for the recon ships in her talon to reach the nearest system. Kayhlya scowled at the thought of wasting almost two and a half months of her mission time just in transit to the nearest system and back, but that was her only choice. 'Jonah, your talon draws rear guard. SOP for early warning.'

'Right. Just hope that nothing pops out of warp so close to the wormhole that we don't really get much warning before it's actually here already.'

'Recon's job ain't to stop them. Just do the best that you can. Report anything that you can detect, and add updates for increased threat levels.'

'Roger.' Jonah switched channels and began issuing orders to disperse his talon into claws and improve their sensor range and precision.

'OK, people, the rest of you form up on me. We get to skip across the boonies and hope that freaking system has a hyper point so that we get to do at least SOMETHING during this mission.'

Now that she was able to spend more time with Sisko outside of formal meetings and interact in less formal situations, Kahmmhi found herself actually liking him when he was off duty. He was as interested in finding out details about the normal, daily Clan life as she was in discovering more about the Federation and the rest of the Alpha quadrant.

'I was wondering... What IS your people's fascination with the holodeck? They go in there fifty at a time, spend hours or even all day in there without a break, then leave. Every day that they come to the station.'

'We are cut off from our training ships, and we have limited room available to train properly and exercise on board our ships. The holodeck provides our people with an area to work out and a change of scenery without actually having to risk going down to a rock.'

'I'm sure that the Bajorans would be willing to allow your people to enjoy shore leave on their planet. They even have secluded areas where you could have complete privacy and not have to interact with anyone, including the Bajorans.'

Kahmmhi laughed softly. 'The Clan isn't xenophobic. We deal with a lot of different alien species on a daily basis, and with even more alien species whenever we engage in combat with the Consortium.'

'How many species are we talking about?'

'The Consortium has seventy five member species, several dozen very trusted species which serve them loyally, and thousands of slave species.'

'And the Clan?'

'Humans, Llyriana, and Krohr-jing comprise the majority of the warriors, though some Xylchans also choose to become warriors. Humans aren't your species, but they look the same. Their base gene pool also contains Tryx genes, which don't seem to be in the gene pool of any of the humans that we've found here, according to what Dr. Bashir told us when he scanned our genes. Humans, Llyriana, and Xylchans also do a lot of the combat support and research and development for the Clan. Targhelians do engineering support. Ghaals do piloting, navigation, and charting, though some humans and Llyriana in the Clan do that as well.'

Kahmmhi smiled shyly. 'Of course, Clan Phoenix is the only Clan that has Krohr-jing. They are also the only Clan with more than a few Charkal. Other Clans have been capturing Charkal over the past few centuries as well, and we've been doing what we can to keep from having to wipe their race out, but we're not sure how well that's going to work in the long run.'

'So you capture Charkal. What do you do with them?'

'We isolate their planets and trap them there for at least a few centuries to keep them from aiding the rest of the Consortium with their war efforts, and to keep the rest of the Consortium from finding out that those isolated systems still have living Charkal in them. If their planet is unable to support them properly and they need resources from their system to allow their race to survive on their planet, we trap them inside their system.'

'I thought you said that some of them were in the Clan.'

'Well, technically, they are. In the case of rare females who are genetic anomalies among the Charkal, the Clan enslaves them when they capture them.'

'Slaves?' Sisko sounded very shocked, and still curious.

'Only very rare genetic anomalies among the Charkal are capable of surviving and breeding with us. All of them are female. Genetically, their race has evolved and adapted their social structure to fit their genetics. Whenever females like this are captured in warfare, they are genetically driven to submit themselves as a slave to the most powerful leader that they can find. They become his slave, and are driven by their own needs and drives to mate with him and produce offspring. The response is permanent, and can't be faked or overcome. If we don't make slaves of them, they die. Either from suicide or just from not eating or doing anything else to survive. Their children are normal, though some still have some of the same tendencies in their mating drives. We raise their children just like our other children and they become Clan warriors or do other jobs once they become adults. The females who become slaves are trapped by their genetics, and insist on remaining slaves. Their lives are very pleasant, rewarding, and fulfilling.'

'They can't ever be reunited with their own people?'

Kahmmhi shook her head. 'My grandfather had several slaves, and they loved looking after me when I was small. All of them nursed me at one time or another. He explained it to me when I was older. Genetically, what happens is that they imprint on the strongest and best master that they can find. Like some small animal that imprints on the first living thing it sees when it hatches and goes through its life thinking that the thing that it imprinted on is its mother. If they can't be with the male that they have fixated upon as their master, they become suicidal, depressed, and kill themselves. This happens normally in their own culture, and all Charkal accept this as normal. All of the rare females know from the time that they are little children what can happen to them during their lifetime, because only Charkal females with very rare pelt colors have the genetics that cause this condition. Some of the other Charkal females have a very strong fixation on the male that they choose as a mate, but it's nowhere near as strong as that of the females who are genetic anomalies. Once my grandfather realized what was happening, the Clan adapted to accommodate their cultural and genetic imperatives. Once they have been accepted as a slave, they are given our nanobots. Our nanobots are deadly to all Charkal EXCEPT the rare females with mutations that we accept as slaves.'

Sisko was certain that Kahmmhi was leaving out a lot of details that would help him understand their actions and their motivation better, but he also knew that he didn't need to know any more details than what he had already been told to understand that there was no other way for the Charkal who became Clan slaves to survive. He had seen enough species in the galaxy to know that there were some biological and genetic drives that were simply insurmountable. There had already been several misunderstandings between the Federation and the Clan, and some details had been omitted, but Kahmmhi hadn't lied to them. Most of the misunderstandings had come from the Federation representatives jumping to conclusions and acting based on what they believed instead of what they had learned.

'So, what are you doing today?'

'We have a two hour block of holodeck time so that Jadzia and Worf can show me some of the more complex training programs that they use. Jadzia has described her blade to us, and we've seen the real one, so we're looking forward to seeing how they are actually used.'

'I was under the impression that Quark was severely restricting holodeck time because of the high demand. How did you manage to get a two hour block of time?'

Kahmmhi laughed. 'He still complains about having to repair the one holodeck, but Quark didn't schedule the time. I did. Once we delivered the replicators, Quark's deal with us required him to allow the Clan full use of his largest holodeck for one Clan year. Two groups are exercising and training in the holodeck today, and we are using it between their exercises.'

Sisko nodded, remembering something about the deal, now that she had reminded him of the details. 'Does Quark complain about the replicators that he got from you?'

'Oh, no. That is one thing that Quark doesn't ever complain about. It seems that some of the new foods contained in the replicator programs are very popular among his customers, and even more profitable than most of his other merchandise, since our replicators are more efficient. I hear that he has even programmed some of his rarest and most expensive liquors into our replicators because nobody can tell the difference between the real thing and the replicated version.'

'Does Constable Odo know of this?' Sisko seemed concerned, and a bit irritated at the news he had just received.

'Oh, yes. He and Kyra are monitoring Quark very closely and making sure that he doesn't cheat his customers. Kyra says that even with lower prices for the replicated items, Quark still makes more profits from them, so there is no reason for him to risk losing a monopoly that is making him very substantial profits through legal trade just to make a few more credits by cheating his customers and making a little more money through illegal profits.'

Sisko laughed, finding the very idea of Quark worrying about losing his legitimate business profits amusing. Legitimate fair trade usually came in a very distant second to illegal profits of any sort because of the high return on the investment that risky illegal dealings normally made. Profit, and the various means to maximize it, were the cornerstone of the Ferengi Rules of Acquisition. Legality only determined what dealings generally involved higher profits for higher risks of loss if you were caught. To the Ferengi, that was a challenge to their ingenuity and ability to put one over on someone or grease the right palms to avoid being caught or prosecuted.

'I look forward to hearing about the workout, Tahr Kahhni. I'm interested in both points of view. I think that it will probably be very educational for everyone.' If the Klingons couldn't impress the Clan with their blade skills, nobody in the Federation was going to.

Worf frowned when he tried to program the holodeck to import his workout routines. It wasn't accepting any of his authorization codes, and there actually appeared to be specific lockouts programmed in to prevent any data transmission between the holodeck itself and the rest of the station, so it wouldn't allow him to retrieve his files from the station's memory banks anyway. 'All of the programs are encoded by an encryption method that I don't recognize, and they're password protected.'

Jadzia sighed, rolling her eyes at Worf's tone. 'Don't go all Klingon paranoid and security officer on us, dear. She IS a diplomat, and is renting this space.'

'I am not complaining. I am impressed that they take their security so seriously.' Krohn entered some commands, and then Worf was able to start transferring the data files that he wanted to the holodeck's buffers. He input the last of the data, then nodded in satisfaction. 'We can begin as soon as the current program finishes.'

Kahmmhi sighed. 'Krohn, call the exercise.'

'They're using a secure channel. It only works inside the holodeck. Security protocol to prevent stray transmissions from interfering with normal station operations and to maintain a secure channel for the unit doing the exercise.' Jehryl looked at Krohn and shrugged. 'No live fire, so...'

Krohn entered the override command and the hatch to the holodeck opened, but the program kept running inside the holodeck. Krohn and Jehryl entered quickly, followed by Worf, Jadzia, and Kahmmhi, with Lyhssyha and Brynhe bringing up the rear. As the door closed, Worf and Jadzia saw a number of Clan troops in armor fighting their way down the three corridors that led from the entry portal. There were piles of dead bodies lying almost waist deep in some places, with Clan troopers moving over, around, and through them effortlessly as they continued to fight against the enemy troops that they were facing. Worf was impressed, but Jadzia was grossed out.'

'The whole point of using a holodeck is so that the dead bodies disappear, so that you DON'T have to wade through all of this muck.' She paled as she watched Clan warriors shoot down enemy troops who were attempting to flee. It wasn't until after she saw them casually decapitating the corpses that she realized that ALL of the corpses in sight had been decapitated.'

Kahmmhi just stared at Jadzia wordlessly, unable to comprehend why anyone would want the bodies to disappear. How could you possibly train for real combat if you didn't train realistically? In real combat, you had to step over bodies, keep your balance, and keep from slipping in all of the blood, intestines, and other crap that was spread all over the place once the enemy troops had been dismembered by Clan weapons and blades.

Krohn keyed his mic. 'This exercise has been terminated.'

The Clan troops stopped fighting immediately as the projection disappeared, leaving them standing in an empty, pristine holodeck. 'Sorry, Tahr Kahhni. We finished our training mission early, and miscalculated station time when we set up the recreational program.'

Jadzia was stunned. "Recreational program?" This was insane. Yes, she enjoyed training with Worf and using the holodeck for combat training because it was a safe environment with all of the built-in safeties, but the slaughterhouse and carnage that she had just witnessed couldn't possibly be considered "recreation" by anyone, including the Klingons.

Kahmmhi laughed. 'No problem, Krystal. Thank you for not including olfactory input on the program. We can definitely do without the smell of dead Graks.'

The platoon quickly filed out of the holodeck. Worf pulled up his program, and three Klingons in full battle armor appeared. He began the exercise, and spent the next two minutes engaged in very intense, physical combat with three of the best and most renowned warriors in Klingon history. He was breathing heavily from the exertion, and smiling broadly, when the last of them finally disappeared in death.

'What do you think of that?'

'Good blade work. Each of them appears to be at least your match physically, and they all appear to be very skilled with your weapons.'

'Would you like to try? I can turn the difficulty down so that you can get used to their fighting style and how the holodeck operates.'

Krohn grinned. 'I'll give it a try. Is there any way to make them stronger and faster?'

Jadzia looked at Worf and shrugged, just as amazed as he was by Krohn's request. 'He is in armor, and the safeties should prevent any injuries.'

Worf nodded, adjusted the settings on the program, and said, 'Whenever you're ready.'

Krohn stepped forward and smiled. 'I'm ready. No warning. Just start it up.'

'You might want to arm yourself before the program initiates. They are at the maximum speed and strength that the holodeck can simulate.'

Krohn simply stood there, seemingly at ease and unprepared. Finally, Worf shrugged and initiated the program. The three Klingon warriors appeared so suddenly that it took everyone by surprise. They roared and charged in a split second, before Worf or Jadzia could even really react to their presence. Krohn jumped into the air, drawing both of his kwyll as he performed a somersault. Worf watched in amazement as Kahless was split from his groin to the top of his head with a single blow. The other two Klingons stopped, turned, and charged Krohn again while he was still landing. Krohn pivoted in place quickly. Before the Klingons could actually attack him with their blades, he cut an X pattern through the air in front of him. Worf and Jadzia were totally stunned by the results. The right kwyll cut through the batleth and body of the Klingon on the right, slicing him diagonally from the right shoulder to the left hip. The other kwyll simultaneously cleaved the other Klingon from the left shoulder to the right hip, shattering his batleth along the way. Krohn casually chiburied both blades and seated them in their sheaths before the bodies could even fall to the floor and disappear.

Jadzia shook her head in disbelief. 'That's just not physically possible. No human can possibly do that.'

'We aren't human.'

'I know that. It's just an expression Nothing could cut through a batleth like that.'

'The material is actually easier to cut through than tohlvyhn is. It's really soft compared to anything that our enemy uses in combat. We could probably give you better blades without getting into any real trouble. If we made them really thin, they wouldn't weigh more than twice what your current weapons do.'

Worf nodded soundlessly, his brain still struggling to process what he had just witnessed. The three greatest warriors in the entire history of the Klingon race. All of them enhanced to be at least three times stronger and faster than they had been in real life. The three of them effortlessly cut down in seconds by a single warrior.

Jadzia nudged Worf, bringing him back to awareness of his surroundings. 'Worf, don't just stand there dumbfounded. Say something.'

'That was extremely impressive. If you can provide me with blades that are capable of cutting through a batleth like that, my blade will never fail me in combat.'

Kahmmhi smiled. 'Let us examine your blades closely so that we know what their exact dimensions, shape, and balance are, and I should be able to have them duplicated within a day or two unless they run into problems making them scaled properly. But we'll have to send them to our ship to be scanned by a full size replicator to get the template to make them properly.'

Worf looked hesitant, eying his precious blades closely. 'Don't worry. The process has absolutely no chance at all of damaging your original blades. If we run into problems, we may destroy a few of the duplicates in the attempt to make them exactly right, but your originals are just being scanned.'

Worf nodded. 'If we stop by my quarters after we finish here, I can show you my whole set of weapons and give them to you for the necessary examinations.'

They spent the rest of their time in the holodeck together watching Worf show them how the batleth worked while they enjoyed killing holograms for exercise. By the end of the session, they were all relaxed and feeling good. Even Worf and Krohn were joking and telling each other war stories, describing some of the more memorable things that they had seen and done in combat. They went to their respective quarters and showered, then Jadzia picked them up and took them to the quarters that she shared with Worf. While they were examining Worf's blades, a Clan member was escorted from the shuttle to Worf's quarters. She collected all of the weapons that she was given and listened very carefully to the whispered instructions that Kahmmhi gave her, then returned to the Clan shuttle. As soon as she left, Jadzia and Worf joined them for dinner at Quark's.

When the meal was finished, Jadzia was surprised to see Brynhe paying the waitress with strips of metal. 'I thought that Quark owed you a lot of money, and that he was running a tab to feed you at cost until he had paid for the replicators in full.'

Kahmmhi smiled, shaking her head. 'He owes the Clan money. We pay for our meals so that the troops who are here exercising on the holodecks and those who are here on shore leave can eat or drink something without having to worry about trading for everything that they get or carrying money themselves.'

Quark approached the table, smiling amiably. 'I hope that everything was done to your satisfaction.'

Jadzia nodded. 'Everything was excellent. Better than usual, in fact. The fish tasted VERY fresh.'

'You can attribute that to the new replicators. I had a selection of live fish brought up from Bajor because one of the Clan members told me how to make my fish and other items taste even better by using the freshest samples possible when they were programmed into the replicator. If you take a live fish and clean and fillet it as quickly as possible, then the sample that you put into the replicator is raw, clean, and fresh. Clan replicators allow you to modify the end result from a single sample, and selecting the way that it's prepared actually changes the taste and texture of the final product. Now I can replicate that fish sample any way that I want - cooked any style, flavored or seasoned with anything, and served at any temperature that the customer desires. Did you know that there are some people who actually eat fish RAW?'

'Yes, Quark, I knew that. But only certain types of fish, and only if it's properly prepared.'

Quark made a face that looked so disgusting that Kahmmhi almost laughed. 'Disgusting if you ask me. But if that's what the customer wants...' Quark smiled. '...And it's profitable, then so much the better for me.' Quark looked at Kahmmhi and sighed wistfully. 'If only I could find a Dabo dealer who looked like you or some of the other Clan women...'

Jadzia laughed. 'You've had a number of Dabo dealers with bodies that looked very similar to theirs, Quark.'

'Yes, but they're all weak, and they get terrified whenever violence breaks out. Do you know how painful it is to hear their high pitched screams of terror? It's like they're never going to stop. But the Clan women don't react like that. If I could find women who were THAT strong, I wouldn't have to hire so many bouncers to do the work of protecting them. The customers wouldn't mess with them.' Quark paused for a moment. 'Hey, you don't think that any Clan women would be willing to work for me, do you? I mean, if it didn't break any of your laws, of course.'

'It wouldn't break any of OUR laws, but I don't think that you'd like it very much.' Brynhe smiled mischievously.

'Why is that?'

'Your customers grab and fondle the Dabo dealers regularly. Especially the ones who are drunk. If one of your customers continued doing that to a Clan female after she told him "no" and warned him the first time, things could get really messy. In the Clan, doing things like that is considered rape.'

Quark looked shocked, and so did Worf and Jadzia. 'Rape?'

'His intention IS to either coerce her or to convince her to ultimately have sex with him, even though she's already told him that she's not interested, right?'

'Well, uh, yeah, I suppose.' Quark definitely looked uneasy. He did not like where this conversation seemed to be heading.

'In the Clans, that is rape. The penalty for rape is death by decapitation. Even if she has no weapon to do it herself, any Clan member who sees her silks will react automatically.'

'What if they don't wear their silks while they're working?' Quark was desperate to find a way out of this mess.

Kahmmhi and the other Clan members laughed. 'With very few exceptions, both male and female Clan members wear silks their entire lives. Even as tiny infants, the children are marked with silks to show what household they belong to. Kohl-garh usually doesn't wear his silks or even keep a pair on him, but EVERYONE in EVERY SINGLE Clan knows who Kohl-garh is, and they all know his household colors.'

'You're exaggerating, right?' Quark was hoping to somehow get off of this topic.

Kahmmhi shook her head. 'The Shadows wear no clothing at all inside their armor, but all of them wear their silks. Infants and small children wear theirs on their right wrists. When they turn sixteen and become a legal adult, they wear their colors on their right bicep, but some of the girls who are practice courting are allowed to move their silks to their bicep to show that they are interested in finding a mate. Different Clans use different methods to indicate those girls so that guys know which ones are actually legal. Married adults wear their silks on their left bicep. Females who enter a household to show that they are intent on courting and possibly becoming a wife eventually wear their silks on their left wrist. Most females, especially if they're younger or have long hair, wear a set of silks in their hair as well. And some males wear their silks as a headband, especially during workouts.'

Jadzia looked at the Shadows, her eyes wide and her eyebrows raised in surprise. 'You're actually naked inside your armor?' Quark hurried off. To hell with diplomacy.

Brynhe nodded. 'It's a spacesuit, and has everything necessary for life support for at least a week. It's easier if you're naked. We do have special thin garments that we could wear, but none of us bothers.'

Worf nodded. 'Functional. Geared for survival. We know that your shuttle is heavily armored. How heavy are the armaments that it carries?'

'Worf!' Jadzia looked shocked and embarrassed by his question.

Kahmmhi laughed. 'It's OK. That's his job. Assessment of potential threats. He realizes that we don't build ANY craft that aren't meant to survive in combat, and that none of our small craft are defenseless.' Kahmmhi smiled at Worf. 'Originally, Clan assault shuttles were unarmed because their primary purpose was simply to deliver troops to enemy ships or planets. They were replaced with the first generation strike assault shuttles, which had small ports to deploy small railguns for defensive fire. Second generation strike assault shuttles added in retractable twin railgun turrets. Our shuttle is third generation. It has both internal and retractable railguns, as well as spinal lasers both fore and aft. It's designed to perform all of the original functions in addition to combat support operations in both planetary environments and space.'

'How strong are the lasers?'

Kahmmhi shrugged. 'I'm not sure. They are the weakest of all Clan small craft, at least where their lasers are concerned. Their lasers are intended for close combat support of ground troops during offensive operations. I know the various ranges and requirements for attacking all of the commonly encountered enemy forces, but I don't know how to convert that into terms that you would recognize.'

Worf nodded. 'I understand. I'm not an engineer, so I'd have to try to convert it even if you could express the energy output in some common unit of power.'

Worf thought for a moment, then smiled. 'OK. May I at least ask what types of small craft you use?'

Kahmmhi nodded. 'Strike assault shuttles deliver ground troops to enemy ships and planetary targets. Heavy assault transports are used to bring in support troops and provide additional combat support. They're larger and more heavily armed. Assault fighters interdict small ships and enemy fighters. Strike fighters are a larger, heavier version of the assault fighters, but our Clan doesn't use them because they require a larger crew and more hangar space. PT boats are the size and basic design of a strike assault shuttle, but their weapons are more defensive in nature. Armored transports are used to evacuate people in emergency situations and to ferry reserve troops to more secure combat landing sites. Recon shuttles are similar to a PT boat, but they are designed to carry out long range, long duration missions with a minimal crew and security force.'

Worf nodded, seeming satisfied and somewhat pleased by the response. The Clan used specialized craft for specific purposes, with some overlap in their functional capabilities. While he did find the speed of their ships, their cloaking abilities, and their ability to make really effective armor to be impressive, their reliance on railguns and ordinary lasers meant that they were very ill prepared to go into combat against modern ships with proper energy shielding and more powerful energy weapons. Even their use of antimatter wouldn't give their weapons sufficient power to do that effectively.

Jadzia and Worf left to spend some time alone and to give their guests some time to themselves. Once Kahmmhi and the others were alone, they relaxed. For now, they were the diversion, meant to distract the Federation while the Clan learned as much about the humans, the Federation, their allies, and their enemies as they could. The Federation had told them that a war was imminent, so the Clan would do what they could to make sure that they supported the right side in that war. Kahmmhi was already pretty certain that it would turn out to be the Federation, but the Clan never took anything for granted.

During the next six weeks, things on the station had changed dramatically as bits of news and information were spread among and by the traders who came through the Bajoran system. The Federation personnel had gotten used to the presence of Clan tourists to the point where they were ignored and treated like any other species that was normally supposed to be there. Nobody except for Federation security and station security even paid attention to the platoons of Clan troops in full combat armor that could be seen coming and going from the holodeck twice a day. New arrivals were quickly reassured that the Clan members were peaceful and law abiding, and Clan members who were on shore leave were very friendly and open, willing to talk openly about most subjects with anyone who was interested.

Kahmmhi talked with Sisko and the others almost daily, learning at least as much about the Federation and their technology as she told them about that of the Clans. She was getting to know them personally, and was learning how their culture and technology worked, how members of the Federation thought in general, and how the Federation reacted to a variety of things. She was already noticing that there were fewer civilians and traders at the station, and that the decrease in their numbers was more than offset by the increasing number of warships whose personnel were visiting the station for meetings and shore leaves.

A call came in from Max, aboard their shuttle, and Kahmmhi smiled when she heard the message. This was perfect. They were supposed to meet with Worf and Jadzia today so that they could work out in the holodeck. They spent at least an hour once or twice a week, when their schedule permitted, doing that with Worf and Jadzia in the holodeck that the Clan had, using it between training sessions, and did the same thing on other days with Kyra. She was thrilled to learn that the things she had ordered were finally ready. Worf would be thrilled. He had been visibly disappointed when she had first informed him that problems with the processing would delay construction of the gifts that she had promised, but today's surprise would more than make up for the long wait.

It was early afternoon when the seven of them finally entered the holodeck after the morning training platoon finished their exercise and filed out. Worf was about to start the program for their normal exercise routine when he noticed two large black cases lying on the floor on the other side of the door. 'Your troops forgot to remove some of their training gear.'

Kahmmhi frowned. 'Brynhe, check that out.'

Brynhe brought the two cases over, laid them on the deck, and unlatched them. She and Jehryl opened them both at the same time, exposing their contents.

Jadzia gasped as she saw what was in the cases. 'Kahmmhi, are those what I think they are?'

Kahmmhi nodded as Jadzia and Worf stared at the contents of the cases, awestruck and speechless at what they were seeing. On one side of the case was a full sized batleth. On the other side were a pair of half batleths for close combat, a pair of Klingon daggers, a pair of Clan combat knives, and six large throwing knives. All of them were really dark ebony black, and were clearly made of kwyll.

'I'm very sorry that it took so long to make these. We've never had to make anything out of Kwyll before that was this lightweight. Most of them aren't too heavy, but the best that we could do with the batleth is still twice as heavy as the originals that we used as templates. The larger set is Worf's, and the smaller one is Jadzia's.'

Jadzia swallowed, then smiled. 'I don't know what to say. Thank you.'

Worf picked up the batleth, impressed with the balance. It was heavy, but the balance felt perfect, as if it was just right. The weight would slow him down at first, but he had no doubts that he would get stronger and faster with practice. He whipped the kwyll batleth around expertly, then smiled as he raised it over his head. 'May I prove myself in combat to be worthy of this gift. May I never fail this blade, for I know that it will ever fail me. I am honored, and in your debt.'

Krohn shook his head. 'There is no debt owed on a gift. The Clan gives a full set of armor and weapons to each warrior as they enter Basic. Use them well.'

Kahmmhi sighed. 'Sorry, but our armor has to be custom fitted for each warrior to make sure that it fits properly. And while we do know some ways to decrease the weight and thickness of the armor, it would still probably weigh more than you do. And we can't manufacture armor with power assists without introducing technology that your leaders haven't agreed to.'

There wasn't anything to say about that, so they spent the rest of their time working out like they usually did. Worf and Jadzia used their new batleths to get used to the weight and balance, and both of them were definitely feeling the effects of the workout. When their time was up, everyone was ready for a shower.

Virginia looked at the listing of all of the ships that were near the Federation station. During the past two weeks, ships had been arriving daily. From the energy signatures, they were definitely armed, but their size and armor wasn't comparing favorably to the ships that the Clan forces had followed to this system. Some of THOSE armed ships might have lacked the mass of an assault frigate, but at least they definitely had the displacement of one. The ships that were orbiting near DS9 all had much lighter armor, and the largest among them were only about half the size of an assault frigate. Unfortunately, even those ships had nowhere near the mass of the Dominion ships that they had followed here. She couldn't help but hope that this was just the scouting force for the Federation's main fleet, or at least a rapid response force to fortify the area until the larger and more numerous ships of the main fleet could arrive. So far, the size and number of ships didn't exceed that of an old Clan from before the time when Troy had brought new ships, tactics, and technologies to the other Clans. Clan Thunderbird had more forces at Tryhn Drohvi than the Federation and their allies had brought together at this system.

'What do you think, Laura?'

'They definitely seem to be building up their forces in the area for some type of military action. Armed ships are arriving, and unarmed ships are leaving the area completely. Even fewer unarmed ships are arriving than we've seen since we got here, and they aren't staying longer than they have to. They definitely seem to emphasize the total number of ships that they have available over the size and power of the ships. With the way that their ships are coming in singly and in very small groups, I'd say that they're normally spread out all over the place to provide maximum coverage of their area and a minimum presence to handle any small problems that crop up periodically. Kind of like the small, light patrol forces that the Consortium uses in their pacified areas where there is no real chance of an enemy fleet showing up to attack them. If their ships that they consider warships are this small and so lightly armored and armed, they must not see real combat often enough for them to think that they need to build bigger and better ships.'

'If they manage to survive their first true encounter with a real enemy and a real war, they had certainly better change that attitude if they want to survive in the long run. If they actually have as many worlds, as many habitable and other useful systems, and as many technologically advanced species as they claim to have, they can't possibly be so strapped for resources that they can't afford to build bigger and better ships.'

Laura shrugged. 'They ARE stuck using warp engines, and they seem to have only just mastered how to use and handle antimatter safely, and they consider THAT to be highly technologically advanced. With the limitations that would be imposed on their travel time and distance by that level of technology, they could have some problems moving large amounts of ores or refined resources to make centralized construction easier. And we're still not sure how efficient their systems are for either energy conversion or energy utilization. Remember, the hull armor on their station is supposed to be one of the hardest things that they can produce in useful quantities.'

Virginia considered that for a moment, then shrugged. 'We don't have the time and resources to improve their tech levels and capabilities THAT dramatically. Just hope that they aren't all a bunch of pacifists, or that they're so trusting that they wait until every potential enemy proves their hostile intentions by actually attacking them BEFORE they do anything at all to gear up to handle a situation like that.'

Laura snorted, trying not to laugh. 'Jeez, Laura, they HAVE been in space for centuries at least, and have run into a lot of new, unknown cultures between their various races. They can't all still be that naive and trusting. If they are, they sure as hell aren't likely to survive their first encounter with the Consortium. The Consortium may not have stealth, but these guys won't even see them coming before the first Consortium war fleet drops out of hyper inside their systems and starts the process of taking them over.'

'Don't laugh. I don't know if they even have ANY weapons that are capable of damaging a Consortium battlecruiser, much less a freaking battleship. And who knows how prepared they are to fight a war where their enemy uses waves of small fighters and assault shuttles to land troops and take out their defenses?'

'You're right about that, Gin. None of the ships that we've seen have that many visible weapons mounts, and if their energy shields go down, even heavy large fighters could damage their ships with that thin hull armor that they use. It certainly wouldn't take that many assault shuttles full of Garns in combat armor to make life really interesting aboard one of their ships, either. Their crews can't be that large, and we already know that their energy weapons that their security personnel use aren't a threat to our armor. They might do better against Consortium armor, but I wouldn't count on it making that much of a difference. Their personnel don't wear enough armor to last long enough to get off many shots before the return fire took them out.' She paused for a moment, looking thoughtful. 'Stopping large swarms of fighters coming from all directions would be difficult to impossible, though a command fire net could increase their effectiveness dramatically by multiplying their targeting efficiency.'

Virginia sighed. 'All that we can do is sit, watch, and hope that their main fleets get here before their enemy does. At least we haven't seen any signs of Dominion scout ships doing recon in the area yet. Assuming, of course, that they are even worried enough about the possibility of additional forces to give up the advantage of total surprise by doing any scouting before they just show up with as many ships as they can and gamble everything on one roll of the dice.'

Neither of them were thrilled about that possibility, so they got back to work. It had been seven weeks since their arrival, and six weeks since they had sent out their scouts to do hyper mapping of the region and bring back as much independently gathered information as they could get. There were only twenty four more weeks to go before the six months that marked the time limit of their scouting mission expired, and it was looking more and more like either the Dominion or the Federation would start their war before the scouts returned. And it was looking more and more likely that the initial hostilities between the two sides would take place in this system so that the Dominion forces would gain complete control of the wormhole, allowing them to improve their position militarily and cut their supply lines to their main forces dramatically.

Jill wasn't sure how much longer she could count on being able to keep track of the progress that was being made by the other talons. They had already reached the point in their explorations where they were down to individual talons exploring the systems that were connected by hyper, and now they would have to go system by system, leaving the individual talon commanders to determine which connecting systems took priority and which systems were more or less ignored because of the current time restraints and limited forces available for scouting.

'Vulcan. That name was mentioned in the early reports that we got. With time off for mapping in the systems that we've been in, this one is about four weeks out from our start point.'

'Split the talon. Passive for intel, active for systems search. Let's see what this system connects to. Since it appears to be of some importance to the Federation, we'll check out all of the connecting systems to make sure that there aren't any immediate threats from anyone who IS hyper capable.'

Her copilot shook his head. 'They probably never even heard of hyper. If they had, why the hell would they jack around with warp drives? You'd have to be brain dead or suicidal to use tech that's that dangerous.'

'Well, their ships ARE flimsy beer cans, and all of the readings that we've gotten so far show that they use their warp fields to eliminate most of the stress to their ships that is caused by traveling at such high speeds. The structural integrity of their ships isn't sufficient to handle the stresses in hyper, and their compensators aren't good enough to make up the difference.'

'Hell, Jill, just using proper armor and enough materials would do a lot toward increasing their structural stability. With the added fringe benefit of protecting their ships better when they are attacked than those weak energy shields that we've seen them using possibly could.'

Jill shrugged. 'Right now, our priority is mapping. Virginia wants to know what the hell this place is connected to. So let's get to it.'

Kayhlya looked at the report, then sighed. Two hyper points. Not a lot, but it was more than she was actually expecting because of how far apart the local systems were. No use wasting time. She keyed her comm. 'OK. Mona, you've got Eric, Leslie, and Brad. Erin, Fred, Maehghiyn, and Emily are with me. Let's move. We've got to rendezvous here in seventeen weeks if we're going to make it back on time. Don't screw around, but do the job right or I'll have your asses doing remedial sim exercises for two months straight.'

'Roger, boss. Do it the first time and do it right. Got it.'

The Clan recon talons rendezvoused at their respective hyper points. There were two barely noticeable fluctuations in neutrino emissions, and then the system was empty once again.

Sisko found Kahmmhi standing on the observation deck looking out at the growing number of ships that were maintaining position around the station. 'Impressive view?'

Kahmmhi stared at the fleet. 'So many of them, but they look so tiny.' She looked up at Sisko, feeling a bit embarrassed by her comment.

Sisko nodded. 'I know the feeling. You don't realize how huge they really are until you're up close or docking on them. Transporters may be a safer way to travel, and much faster, but the crew just doesn't get the same impact as they would if they came aboard the ship on a shuttlecraft.'

Kahmmhi was confused by Sisko's statement. Even if a "transporter" had no "viewports", you could still view the image on screen and see the vid as you approached the ship. 'What is a "transporter"?'

Sisko smiled. 'Come with me. It's more impressive if I just show you in person.'

Kahmmhi and her Shadows followed Sisko into one of the operational areas of the station that they had never seen before because it was restricted to authorized personnel. When they finally entered the "transporter room", they saw Chief O'Brien, two techs, and several security personnel.

'Yes, sir? Is there something that I can do for you?' O'Brien was friendly and curious.

'Our guests don't know what a transporter is, Chief. So I brought them here so that they could see one for themselves. Any routine traffic?'

'There's lots of traffic with all of those starships in orbit, sir. Incoming and outgoing. It was just easier to leave this section unshielded, which is why we have the security personnel stationed here. I was just checking out the two senior transporter techs on the new security procedures today so that I can begin doing the installation on new systems and upgrades on the older systems, now that the fleet finally brought all of the parts that we need to upgrade our defenses.'

They were interrupted by an incoming call, and Kahmmhi and the others watched intently as several engineers and a load of construction materials seemed to materialize out of thin air. They could see the entire reintegration process as no human ever had while it was actually taking place, and they were very impressed.

Sisko smiled at Kahmmhi. 'Would you like to try it? It's perfectly safe.'

'Where would we go?'

'The chief could beam you onto the promenade, and then bring you back here. Just stand still so that he doesn't lose his lock on you.'

Kahmmhi nodded, and stepped to where Sisko pointed with Brynhe and Jehryl flanking her. Chief O'Brien began working the controls, then frowned after a few seconds. He rechecked, recalibrated, and then looked confused. 'I can't get a lock on them, sir.'

'Their armor requires us to use signal enhancement?' Sisko asked the obvious question, knowing that their armor was very dense and seemed to reflect energy.

'No, sir. That's not the problem. I can't even get a signal lock on HER, and she's not wearing any armor.' He sighed. 'It's like their bodies have some sort of natural field that prevents a signal lock, sir. It could be their nanobots, whatever substance covers their bones that we can't even BEGIN to analyze...' He sighed again, feeling somewhat frustrated. 'I just don't know, sir.'

Sisko sighed, looking at Kahmmhi helplessly. 'I'm sorry. I had hoped to let you experience a transport, but the transporter beams do have their limitations. They really don't work well through certain types of energy fields or energy shielding, they have limited range through dense obstructions such as certain types of rock formations or dense bulkheads, even with signal boosters to enhance the ability to lock on, and even the confinement beam can be subject to certain types of signal interference.'

Kahmmhi nodded. 'It seems to work well for you. It just doesn't seem to work on US. And with the technological limitations that you listed, we know that it is one system or area of technology that would be of little or no use to the Clans.'

'Just out of curiosity, what have you found that the Clan would be interested in acquiring through trade with the Federation?' Sisko asked the question very casually, throwing it in as part of the conversation as they were returning to the promenade.

Kahmmhi smiled, realizing that Sisko was interested in the answer personally, but had asked the question out of duty. 'Well, we are always looking for new foods, spices, and things like that. It's not my area of expertise, but I'm fairly certain that our doctors and medics would like to see how your medical instruments work. When they do have to operate on our injured, the wound is generally fairly serious, and we do have other species in the Clan who are much more susceptible to certain types of injuries than we are.'

'That's it?' Sisko seemed astounded.

'Well, your holodecks ARE nice, and they are very different from our own combat simulators. And there are always trade goods. Things that we don't have and have never come across before. We're quite happy with our own ships and weapons. I intend no offense, but your people are not very warlike or aggressive, and your weapons don't appear to be very promising for combat potential against our enemy.'

Sisko nodded, taking no offense from her statement. StarFleet and the Federation Council had limited her knowledge of the true capabilities of their fleet and their forces, including their weapons and other advanced technology. Not only as a security precaution or a bargaining tool, but also as a limitation on the amount of exposure that the Clan got to Federation technology. When the diplomats finally arrived to begin their negotiations, they'd quickly discover that they weren't dealing with a small group of low tech barbarians who would be forced to comply with their demands in exchange for any help at all from the Federation. This definitely wasn't the typical situation in which the Federation would have all of the cards and could simply deny a less technologically developed race any access to Federation technology. Sisko wasn't sure exactly what they WERE dealing with, but he had a growing suspicion that if the diplomats were heavy handed in their initial dealings with the Clan, hiding behind the dictates of the Prime Directive before they had even fully assessed Clan technology, there could be problems. Nothing that the Clan had or did seemed to fit into ANY of the areas that the Federation had for natural development of technology, and it seemed to utilize areas of physics and science that were either still strictly theoretical, were totally unknown, or were beyond the current technological capabilities of the Federation and their allies. Hiding behind the Prime Directive and treating the Clan as "ignorant barbarians" could be a decision that could definitely come back to bite the Federation on the ass. This was one race, or culture, that couldn't care less if the Federation ignored them or wanted nothing to do with them. He was already certain that they had gotten many of the most valuable things that the Federation could have offered to give them from Quark as part of the legitimate trading that had already been conducted. Of course, threatening them, even making veiled threats, could have potentially disastrous results. Doing anything to make an enemy of the Clan would definitely be a BIG mistake. Their nine lost ships might not pose a serious threat to the Federation, but if the rest of their Clan came looking for them...

'Sisko? Have I said something wrong? You look concerned.'

'Sorry, Kahm. I was lost in thought. Worrying about the future. To be honest, worrying about how some things might work out if some of the politicians get involved with the negotiations with your Clan.'

Kahmmhi laughed softly. 'Politicians. My grandfather never had ANYTHING good to say about any of them. Perhaps that is one reason why no Clan has ever had any? But worrying about the future is the sign of a good leader. Preparing to meet any possible problems always makes them easier to overcome when they finally arrive. My grandfather always saw deeper and farther into the Dark Path than anyone else. Almost nothing seems to surprise him, and he has often prepared for events long before the preparations are necessary. Some say that he sees the future, and others say that he makes his own future. He just says that history will eventually repeat itself, if you wait long enough. When that happens, those who have studied history and prepared for the disaster are ready to survive it, and to make sure that they don't repeat the mistakes of the past.'

Sisko smiled. 'Your grandfather sounds like a very wise man. Do you know what his name means? Our own translators have no data for comparison.'

'The name that almost everyone in every Clan calls him is "Kohl-garh". It is Llyriana, from one of the ancient legends in the Books of the Seeing. The legend was written by the greatest Llyriana Seer ever to live, and was written over eighty thousand years ago. Long before the Llyriana separated from their parent race to help the Tryx stand against the Consortium during the Tryx Wars. "Kohl-garh" means "War God" in Llyriana.'

Sisko looked concerned. 'Your grandfather actually believes that he is some kind of god?'

Kahmmhi laughed, shaking her head. 'Oh, no. Far from it. That is what the Llyriana in the Clan call him because that is the name given to him in our ancient prophecies. No one else truly contests it because NOTHING stands against Kohl-garh in battle and survives. Not at Pehnt Drohvi, where his Clan was trapped and attacked by five Consortium battle fleets, each much larger and more powerful than his entire Clan. Not at Tryhn Drohvi, where the equivalent of one small Clan assault wing destroyed three entire Consortium battle fleets, capturing thirty battleships and most of the rest of the fleet intact so that they could be used to build new Clan ships for our Clan and Clan Thunderbird, who had just been rescued.' Her voice lowered to almost a reverent whisper. 'And certainly not at Khyrr ka Sehhrrhn, where he captured six hundred Consortium battleships and eighteen hundred Consortium battlecruisers intact.' She shuddered, her eyes looking haunted. 'And he destroyed the rest of the more than thirty thousand enemy ships that were in that fleet, allowing only a few battered ships to escape to take news of their devastating loss back to their superiors. He killed billions of enemy troops in a single battle simply because it was the only way to save the Llyriana race.'

Brynhe led Kahmmhi off to settle her down while Lyhssyha talked to Sisko. 'Will she be OK? I didn't mean to upset her.' They were back at the observation deck above the promenade by now, and nobody else was around.

'She'll be fine. She just has trouble handling things when she thinks about some of the details of what Kohl-garh has done. To her, to his family, he is a kind, loving, protective man. To his enemies, he is Kohl-garh. Leader of the Death Wraiths. The unstoppable, unkillable monster who haunts the worst nightmares of entire races within the Consortium.'

'She said that he killed billions in a single battle.'

'That's right. Other than our scouts, Clan Phoenix had thirty two hundred ships in our fleet at that time, and all but about two hundred and sixty of them were smaller than an enemy battlecruiser. Most of the rest were about the size of a battlecruiser, with a few dozen as large as an enemy battleship. Two thirds of those were our Home Ships, which we don't risk in battle, so they couldn't engage in close range fleet combat. The enemy had six hundred battleships, more than four thousand battlecruisers, and at least twenty five thousand heavy and light cruisers, along with about two thousand ships of other classes. We boarded six hundred battleships and eighteen hundred battlecruisers to take them intact while our fleet took on the rest of the enemy fleet. We couldn't board any more ships than that because we simply didn't have enough troops to do that then. It was an invasion fleet that had been sent to occupy all of the Llyriana home worlds and destroy the Llyriana race.' She sighed. 'And it was a trap set by the Consortium to try to kill us. The ancient Llyriana prophecies foretold this battle, and the enemy knew that if we didn't stop them there and fulfill that prophecy, the entire Llyriana race was doomed. They had every single ship packed with as many troops as they could gather, hoping to use them to overwhelm us if we boarded, and then to overwhelm the planets in the Llyriana Confederation.'

'You keep saying "we".'

'All four of Kahmmhi's Shadows came from Clan Phoenix with her mother and the others who joined Clan Silver Dragon. We fought at Khyrr ka Sehhrrhn. Just over forty million of us boarded the enemy ships that we captured intact. We killed more than one billion enemy troops just inside those ships. Billions more died as the fleet destroyed the rest of the Consortium invasion fleet.'

Sisko nodded numbly, doing the math quickly. Clan Phoenix had thirty two hundred ships. About ten times as many as Clan Silver Dragon currently had in their fleet. So Clan Silver Dragon's entire Clan could send maybe four million troops into combat. Their lost group was about three percent of that fleet, which would mean that there could easily be one hundred and twenty thousand combat troops in their ships. By estimating the number of personnel that had been removed from their ships because Kahmmhi had said that their largest ships were not at full capacity, he still came up with the possibility that their "tiny" scout fleet could realistically be capable of sending sixty to eighty thousand troops into combat. Which meant that they could have a LOT more people and a much larger and more powerful fleet inside this system than ANYONE had ever suspected.

Lyhssyha saw the brief flash of realization in Sisko's eyes and smiled. He had finally realized that they weren't a tiny, helpless, pathetic band of refugees who were lost, scared, and helpless to stop their pitiful, pathetic excuses for ships from falling apart due to a lack of proper maintenance and support. She did give him credit for intelligence, because he had suspected before, but now he was certain. A glimmer of hope in the midst of a society that seemed to consider itself and their technology to be the pinnacle of scientific achievement in their galaxy, even though they had to have had at least SOME indications to the contrary in the past. So smug and egocentric that they judged the worth and ability of all of the other races that they met simply on the criteria of whether or not they were scientifically advanced enough to have developed warp technology on their own. As if there were no other or even better ways to travel faster than light, to get from system to system, or to travel within a system.

Sisko left, and Krohn came over. 'Freaking unbelievable.'

'Yeah. I can't believe that ANY of their species are still alive. There has to be SOMETHING in this universe that knows how to actually wage war.'

'If there isn't, then they had better REALLY hope that this isn't one of the directions that the Consortium is trying to flee. They wouldn't even survive a skirmish with the advance fleets that were scouting for the main forces.'

'They do have SOME capable warriors, Krohn. Worf and Jadzia...'

'Are cannon fodder. Against the odds that the Consortium uses, without better armor and weapons, they would have no chance in combat. Ground troops are cannon fodder. The ships that they have here are target practice at best. The Consortium wouldn't even consider them worth the time and energy to harvest for scrap materials.' Krohn shrugged. 'Maybe the Consortium would just pass through, destroying anything that got in their way without stopping or slowing down to do anything else? We don't know. But the people here KNOW about the dangers of using warp travel, and yet they STILL choose to use it. And they actually have the audacity to continue to judge others based on whether or not they are intelligent enough to develop the ability to use warp travel on their own? They can't even CONCEIVE the idea that someone ELSE could be intelligent enough to bypass a dangerous, unstable technology like warp travel completely and decide to build something that was safer, faster, and more reliable instead.'

Lyhssyha shrugged. 'Kahmmhi has to deal with them. We just have to do our jobs.'

Krohn nodded. 'Before their diplomats arrive, we need to find out more about this "Prime Directive" that they are talking about. It's not the first time that they've mentioned it. Use the comp in our quarters and see if we can access anything about that. If it is, as they imply, one of the central beliefs that seems to govern their culture, Kahmmhi needs to know all that we can find out about it in order to understand how they think.'

'She already covered at least some of this topic with Dr. Bashir, Jadzia, and Kyra a while back. Though now that I think about their reactions to some of the things that she said...'

Krohn chuckled. 'They suddenly realized that if they wanted to trade with us for technology, the very existence of their "Prime Directive" could end up biting THEM on the ass for a change. Unlike most of their interactions with new races, where they are clearly more technologically advanced, they realized that WE might not be willing to trade with them because we would be worried about contaminating their culture with our more advanced technology before they were prepared to deal with the technology safely.'

Lyhssyha nodded. 'I'll check it out on the comp. You're right. We need to know and understand why they are so adamant about this belief. Why did they make this rule? Has it been broken? If so, what are the consequences that they've had to deal with when it has been broken? I won't pry beyond the access that they have given us. If it's truly important, Virginia can assign a team from tech troop to do a thorough search. They're a lot better at hacking systems without tripping alarms or leaving any traces than any of us are.'

Kahmmhi returned with the other two Shadows. 'No plotting dire conspiracy theories, you two. We're here as guests to relax, get to know the culture, and enjoy a break from our normal routine.'

'Hah! The last time that I heard that line, some horny guy was trying to turn his wife into a mud wrestler during a planetary assault. The poor girl gave birth to twins just over nine months later.'

'But MY motives are pure, Lyhs.'

'That's what HE said, Tahr Kahhni.'

Krohn chuckled. 'So, what did you name the twins, Lyhs?'

'How the hell should I know? It was a LONG time ago. When I was still young enough that I still WANTED to pop out babies every five to ten years. Now that I'm a Shadow, every twenty to thirty years is often enough to keep the hubby and the other wives happy.'

Brynhe laughed. 'Time to feed the Tahr Kahhni.'

They were laughing and joking around in Llyriana as they returned to their quarters. None of them felt like being in public right now, and they had the evening free.

Virginia looked at the selection of sims that had been accumulated from the training sessions of various Raider platoons on the holodeck in Quark's bar. 'How are we doing, Laura? If it goes worst case?'

'The actual command bridge should be easy to reach and take out. Engineering shouldn't be difficult. IF they are where we think they are.'

'We can locate their power sources by scanning and adjust accordingly. And we can always send in a few Recon platoons to verify the information.'

Laura nodded. 'That sounds good. Do you actually intend to board their ships?'

'Yes, but how many ships we actually board depends on how many ships show up, how many troops we think they have on board each type of ship, and whether we're trying to make a statement so that they really get the message that it's not healthy to fuck with the Clan, or if we're just trying to capture some of their ships intact. I'll use Raiders on the ships that we need to capture intact, and on the larger ships where they're more likely to have a lot of troops, and the Assault Marines on the rest of the ships that we board. What do the sims show?'

'We used the upper end for individual strength on all of the enemy troops in the sims, and often took it up a notch, just to be sure. None of the species that were studied are really much stronger than a Beta, and most of them aren't quite that strong. But we do know that the Jem'Haddar are addicted to some kind of drug that makes them extremely violent and aggressive. It stimulates constant adrenal overload and enhances the combat high. Med section says that the steroid and adrenal rage might take some of the stronger Jem'Haddar up to about a Delta's normal strength range. Combat sims rank them somewhere around the equivalent of a Vor-chyl.'

'Weapons and armor?'

'Pulse lasers and blades for troop weapons. Energy based weaponry for their ships. Troops and ships use energy shields for primary defense. Their hulls are much better armored than anything else that we've seen here, and the troops also have some kind of light armor to deflect energy weapons. It can slow down blades as well.'

Virginia nodded. 'We aren't exactly running heavy on assault troops. And we probably can't risk using the PT boats offensively, since our ships are the only ones with an IFF that the mines will recognize and respond to. I'm not even sure that the light hull armor on the vessels that we've seen could take the effects of a close detonation if anything happened to weaken or take out their energy shields.'

'You're thinking about going with assault fighters and HATs?'

'Yeah. And strike assault shuttles for boarding. This is strictly space combat, so if we transfer the troops from HATs to double loaded strike assault shuttles, and use the PT boat crews to fly the additional strike assault shuttles...'

Laura quickly did the math. 'We have the ships and crews. It will be tight, but no transfers are necessary. We'd have seven hundred and fifty shuttles of Raiders and three thousand shuttles of Assault Marines. The SACs would have six hundred shuttles of Raiders and twenty four hundred shuttles of Assault Marines. The assault frigates would have eighteen hundred shuttles of Raiders and twenty two hundred shuttles of Assault Marines. Max load for the assault frigates.'

'We can run the HATs for offense and still have some of them left to defend the station.'

'What about that "transporter" thing that they use? It won't affect us, and they can't "beam" anything onto OUR ships or small craft, but if they can get into range...'

Virginia nodded. 'The station could be vulnerable. We could transfer some Raiders on board. Have them limit their tactics to blades and soft slugs in the rifles. Light damage, but it could still prevent any boarders from taking over or sabotaging the place. A hundred and fifty shuttles of Raiders. Three hundred platoons.'

'Sounds good. What about enemy ships that we board?'

'Raiders take the ones that we want to get relatively intact. Assault Marines can trash the place and show the enemy what real combat rage is, but make sure that their sims stress the hazards of blowing up their ride while they're still inside it. They DO use AM reactors.'

Laura laughed. 'Yeah. With limited containment and armoring. Don't break the egg that you're in.' She sighed. 'Do we have ANY idea how far we're going to have to stretch the troops that we have? Three thousand shuttles of Raiders and seventy six hundred shuttles of Assault Marines only go so far.'

'The ships that we followed here were about the size of an assault frigate or a battlecruiser. If they have a lot of ships, we'll do what we can and let the small craft and railguns handle the rest. Let's not go below a hundred shuttles for the frigate sized ships and fifty for the ones that are the size of a battlecruiser.'

'A hundred shuttles is only ten thousand troops.'

'Clans have done it before. Even if they pack their troops in like the Consortium does...'

Laura nodded. 'Vor-chyl aren't exactly a major threat, even with Consortium weapons and armor. And we know that the tech that we've seen since we got here definitely isn't the equivalent of that used by the Consortium.'

'So we CAN board one or two hundred ships if we have to, and the rest will have to be taken out as scrap.'

'What if they decide to surrender?'

Virginia considered that question carefully. Even if they did get into combat with someone here, they were not the Consortium, so the standard rules of Clan warfare didn't exactly apply to them. 'We'll have to see about that once we're actually to the point where we're going into battle. We have no idea how they wage war. If doing things their way doesn't endanger our troops, fine. If it does, and they are insistent that their rules of warfare are followed no matter what, we can always sit it out and see if they survive. Even Kohl-garh doesn't keep those who are suicidal, and too stupid to learn and listen to those with more experience, from eliminating themselves from the gene pool. He says that it makes their species stronger, and is a safeguard that nature uses to keep those with stupid genes from overpopulating the universe and using up valuable resources.' Virginia grinned. 'Figure on SOP, at least as far as the Jem'Haddar and the Founders are concerned. And make sure that everyone has some black rounds for their sidearms, just in case. Just make sure that they're all using light loads.'

'Right, sir. I'll write up the ROE and have it set up so that it can be easily modified if that becomes necessary. We'll keep the assault forces training in the sims. What about the pilots?'

'Sim time. We don't want to risk running too many small craft through the system, since they can't even see us. There is too much activity and movement near the station, so we don't want to have our ships approach it more than is absolutely necessary. They already know our schedule for shore leave, so let's stick to it.'

It was three more weeks before the Clan's scouts detected the first small, cloaked ships trying to scout the system without being detected. Virginia informed Kahmmhi, leaving her response up to her. Kahmmhi immediately set up a meeting with Sisko.

'How can I help you, Tahr Kahhni? You said that it was urgent that we talk.'

'Our scouts have detected a pair of small, cloaked ships approaching this system. They are approaching slowly, and appear to be attempting to gather as much information as possible about the forces that you currently have in your system.'

'I'll have the Romulans and Klingons cloak as much of their fleets as possible, but the Federation ships don't have cloaking capabilities because of our previous treaties with both the Romulans and the Klingons. Except for the Defiant.'

'If you don't want them to get inside the system, or if you wish our scouts to challenge them and make them identify themselves, I'm sure that it wouldn't be a problem.'

Sisko shook his head. 'I don't think that doing something like that would be wise. Right now, the Dominion isn't even aware of your existence, much less your presence here in this system. I know that your ships won't be detected, so allowing them to perform their scouting mission isn't going to threaten your Clan or put you in any jeopardy from the Dominion. Letting them know of your existence, and more importantly that you possess cloaking technology that is better than anything that ANYONE else has, could easily end up getting you involved in our conflict. I would really prefer to avoid that if it is humanly possible.'

Kahmmhi smiled and nodded. 'As you wish. If it would be useful, I can have subsequent reports and alerts from our scouts forwarded directly to you whenever our shuttle receives them.'

'Thank you, Kahm. We would appreciate that very much.'

'I'll inform the commander of our scout claw.'

Virginia looked at the message from Kahmmhi, reading it carefully for the third time. 'Damn, Laura, that girl definitely has her grandfather's genes. Pass selected, carefully filtered information to the shuttle by normal methods with instructions to pass them immediately to Commander Sisko. Additional details are to be encrypted and sent directly to her.'

'Yes, sir.'

'Raider Two and Raider Three are on backup for Max right now?'

'Yeah. Why?'

'The girl thinks like her grandfather, and suggested that as long as we kept it stealthy, we could use this opportunity to see how accurate the information that we paid for was. Tell Raider Four and Raider Five to report to the nearest HAT landing bay. I have a stealth mission for them. We need to gather some firsthand intelligence on some potential enemies, and I'd like their entire mission to go completely undetected.'

'What if they are detected?'

Virginia smiled. 'So long as it looks like an accident and nobody can prove anything, all that I care about is that none of the other enemy ships receives any type of warning or transmissions from their target. Kahmmhi just wants us to make sure that the Federation doesn't know that we ignored their wishes and went ahead and interfered with their enemy's ability to gather information on this system and its defenses.'

'Which ship is their target?'

'We just got word that the first line detected a larger ship hanging back for command and control. Either of the small scouts will do.'

'Roger. Orders going out.'

Vyhna looked at Craig as they approached the enemy scout vessel. The design was totally unfamiliar to both of them. Almost all of the ships that they had seen since their arrival had weird designs. 'There's no way for us to just access and hack their systems from the exterior, so we both know how this has to go down.'

'It would help if we had a real idea of the actual layout of this place. Let's just hope that our point of entry isn't going to screw us from the very start.'

Vyhna laughed. 'That IS why we probe first. And why they sent Raiders instead of Assault Marines.'

'Twenty seconds to docking. Roll back starboard hatch for soft contact.'

Several of the crew moved into position as the heavy assault transport matched speed with the Dominion ship and stopped just inches from the hull. They attached several large electromagnets to the hull, then turned on the power. The lines were pulled in and secured while other crew members spread sealant all around the edges of the hatchway. 'Ten percent cabin pressure.'

The crew checked for pressure loss, added more foam, and then signaled that they had a secure seal. The cabin pressure was increased to normal as two Raiders began making a tiny hole in the exposed hull of the Dominion ship. When it was completed, they ran a tiny probe through it into the Dominion ship.

'Pressure and gas mix are close enough. Hull is two inches thick. Composite is... Damn! I could almost punch through this shit.'

'That's nice, Jake. So, what do we have?'

'Some kind of storage bay.'

'Yes! Any activity in it?'

'Nothing that I can detect.'

'Then make me a hole so that we can get in there and check it out for ourselves. Be quiet about it, and try not to cut through anything that's critical or set off any alarms. We are trying to keep them from knowing that we were ever here.'

'I doubt that even these guys would be stupid enough to put anything that's critical or really important just inside or against hull armor that's THAT thin.'

'Yeah? What about sensors to detect hull breaches? Especially the type that we're about to make?'

'I'm still betting that all they have is passive emergency shit. They have a hull breach, air gets sucked out into space, the drop in air pressure causes all of the emergency bulkheads around the breached area to drop into place, the alarms go off, everybody wakes up, pulls their thumbs out of their asses, and freaks out because there's an emergency.'

'Make the freaking cuts. Quietly. And make sure that we keep the chameleon going to hide our new entry portal.'

'Yes, Vyhna.'

Vyhna ignored his tone and turned to Craig. 'So, how do you want to split up the detail?'

Craig looked thoughtful. 'We need to do recon first to map out the surrounding area so that we know that nobody is around to discover us while we're coming in and getting things set up. One squad will need to deliver the fail-safe. If you take that, we'll tap their comm.'

'Fair enough. What about the main objective?'

'Tyler is better than Jeanie is on unknown systems, and she's in your platoon, so...'

Vyhna nodded. 'So you take out the command center if anything goes wrong. I'll have them put in a small charge to disrupt the injectors on their AM reactor when they plant the fail-safe. If we get in and out clean, it will make sure that they never even learn that we were aboard.'

Craig grinned. 'Sounds like a plan. Let's do it.'

After the entry panel was cut, the crew set an RG up inside the transport to cover the hatch and the two Raider platoons entered the Dominion scout ship and began their mission. They were set up to move light and fast, except for the squad that was tasked with the job of transporting the fail-safe to the engine room. Six squads moved out, one after the other, while the other four squads waited for the results of the recon by the scouts. All of them were in Clan chameleon armor, and were moving along the ceiling to avoid being detected or accidentally run into by the enemy. Chameleon could keep them hidden from view, but didn't keep the enemy from physically running into them. While the Dominion forces hadn't actually done anything to any Clan forces or taken any actions that were directed against the Clan, the Clan automatically assumed that the Dominion was their enemy. The Founders, rulers of the Dominion, had enslaved the Jem'Haddar, and had invaded this part of the galaxy in order to enslave the humans and the other species who already lived there. The Dominion was obviously much more aggressive and dedicated to ruling by force than anything else that the Clan had seen here. The Jem'Haddar were addicted to the drugs that made them more aggressive and violent than they naturally were, enhancing their natural responses by increasing the strength and duration of their combat high and natural adrenaline rush that they got when they were fighting. Because of this, and because of their ability to shapeshift and keep from being killed, the Founders were worshipped as gods by the Jem'Haddar who served them.

There wasn't much activity in this section of the ship, and the initial recon was finished quickly. Within half an hour, all ten Raider squads were moving through the ship, intent on achieving their individual objectives. About an hour later, Tyler had discovered an unused comp terminal in an area that wasn't being used much, and was searching through the entire database while it was being downloaded into her comp. She had already transmitted the full schematics of the scout ship that they were on to all of the other Raiders and their transport.

Four hours later, Tyler had downloaded the entire Jem'Haddar database and the Clan had all of the data that they could hope to obtain from this mission, including the datastream that showed what the scout's sensors were being able to detect on its current mission. Now they knew exactly what the Dominion had been able to learn from this mission, which would give them a much better idea of the information that the Dominion was using to plan any attacks or movements through this region. She keyed her comm. 'Dump complete.'

'Do we have translation running to get a linguistics database?'

'They use a translator device similar to the one that the Federation uses. Software is in the package, along with the entire listing of languages that it covers.'

'Then head out and rendezvous at our ride. How are you doing, Craig?'

'No problems yet. They don't seem to have any idea that anything is going on, and most of them are fairly intent on making sure that they aren't discovered themselves and that they get all of the clean data that they can. We're preparing to withdraw right now.'

'This is Ghost One to Taxi. How's our position?'

'We're still outside the system, but just barely. Approaching our secondary picket line.'

'Barely outside the system, eh? How fast can we do a skip once we've disengaged from this ship?'

There was a pause. 'This sounds like the part where you tell me that there was a tragic accident.'

'Uh, the boss DID say not to leave any evidence or be discovered. We haven't been discovered, but if you look outside the hatch, you'll see that we did have to create a tiny little entry point of our own in order to complete the mission. And the stealth on our fail-safe WILL only last so long, you know.'

'OK, Vyhna, I got the picture. Give me thirty seconds after we disengage so that I can maneuver away safely, and then we can skip five. Far enough?'

'A million and a half kliks should do nicely.'

Ten minutes later, all of the Raiders were back aboard their transport and the crew was welding the material that had been removed to create their entry point back into place, sealing the hull breach on the Dominion scout ship. The transport was depressurized so that they could check the integrity of the welds and make sure that there were no leaks in the weld. Once they confirmed the seal, the transport broke contact with the Dominion ship and closed its hatch. Vyhna nodded in satisfaction as they finally began moving away from the Dominion scout ship.

'Trip the injectors.'

Three seconds later, they jumped. Vyhna listened to the comm traffic, smiling as the signal came in and she heard the translation.

'We have an emergency. There are indications of an imminent containment failure. We are working to eject the antimatter core or seal containment.'

Vyhna pointed to one of her troops and nodded. She pushed a button, and then they just waited, knowing that it would take five seconds for the signal to reach the device, and another five before they learned how well it had worked. The comm traffic from the Dominion ship was increasingly frantic as they notified the others that they couldn't fix the injectors, and that containment failure was now imminent. They were working to eject the entire antimatter core, but were having problems getting a stuck mechanism to release. The frantic comm traffic suddenly cut off as a huge explosion filled the vid screen where the Dominion ship had been. Within a minute, another signal reported that the scout ship had been destroyed by a freak containment breach. The other scout ship was ordered to immediately withdraw, at least for now, so that they weren't detected by the Federation. The mission was being aborted, since the whole object had been to gather intelligence without the Federation or their allies even knowing that the Dominion had been there, and that just wasn't possible now that everyone knew that a ship had suffered a containment failure right outside of their system. Every sensor in the system would be active now, and the odds of being totally undetected were dramatically decreased.

Vyhna relaxed as the pilot did several longer skips to get them across the system so that they could make their report and deliver the data. And warning Virginia to expect the explosion before she saw it wouldn't hurt. As they were landing, Vyhna contacted Virginia. 'We have the data, and accurate schematics of various types of Dominion ships, as well as some schematics of ships from other species. And you should see an accidental containment breach any time now. They called off the other scout to avoid detection, since they had already lost the element of surprise.' She chuckled. 'They probably figured that an AM blast that's powerful enough to totally vape their ship is big enough to alert the entire system to their presence.'

'I assume that taking that action was necessary.'

'Well, when we got there, our options for entry were to cut a hole in their hull or go in through a cargo bay door. It was the only way to cover our tracks completely.'

Virginia nodded. 'Deliver your package. Any other news?'

'Ugly suckers. Looks like the progeny of something trying to mate with a Grak. Ugly suckers.'

Virginia snorted, trying not to laugh. 'Yeah, I get it. Really ugly.'

'Commander Sisko! We just detected a large explosion at the edge of the system. It looks like a ship suffered a containment breach.'

Sisko looked pale and began muttering softly. 'Oh, please, tell me that they didn't find and destroy one of the Clan's scout ships.'

'Sir!'

Sisko looked over at the comm officer. 'What is it?'

'We were recording signals, but I had to wait for the translator to finish the translation, sir. We received transmissions from a Jem'Haddar scout ship. It was broadcasting an emergency message, presumably to its base or another ship that was nearby. They were reporting an injector failure and the potential for a containment breach. They were trying to correct the situation, but they were having a problem with the ejection mechanism for their antimatter core. Then the transmission just cut off abruptly in mid-word. We detected a second message from a control ship, ordering at least one other scout ship to pull back for now in order to avoid detection.'

Sisko nodded, feeling very relieved. 'Advise the admiral of the details. Recommend that we send two or three ships to investigate so that the enemy doesn't know that we have sources of information regarding their movements and transmissions other than what we can detect ourselves from this location.'

'Aye, sir.'

Sisko looked at Worf. 'We got very lucky, and this accident probably just bought us some additional time to prepare before the Dominion will attempt to take this system and gain control of the wormhole.'

Worf scowled. 'I don't believe in luck, sir.'

'Neither do I, Mr. Worf. But we know that we didn't do anything to the Dominion's scout ship, and so does the Dominion. We didn't even know that it was there until it had already suffered the containment failure and exploded. And there is no evidence that the Clan was somehow involved. The Jem'Haddar didn't detect anything, and they certainly didn't report being boarded or attacked. That explosion certainly LOOKED like a self destruct mechanism or a containment breach.'

'Looks can be deceiving, sir.'

Sisko nodded. Looks could, indeed, be VERY deceiving where the Clan was involved. He just hoped that, at least in the case of this particular incident, the Clan WASN'T involved. They certainly didn't need the Dominion as an enemy.

Kahmmhi smiled as Sisko and Worf approached the table where she was discussing things with Kyra and Jadzia. 'Hello, Commander. You seem worried.'

'We just detected an explosion at the edge of this system. Data being relayed by your scout ships indicates that a Dominion scout ship suffered an antimatter containment breach. The command ship ordered the other scout ship to withdraw in order to eliminate any possibility of detection.'

'No offense, but that sounds like something that you would be pleased about. Now they have to either skip their recon of your system, which denies them the advantage of knowing your force strength and disposition before they arrive, or they have to wait until they can safely do the recon, which gives you more time to prepare for their arrival.'

'I agree, but only to a point. I'm worried that something this unusual happening at this particular time and under these specific circumstances will make the Dominion think that this explosion wasn't an accident. They may think that we were testing out some new secret weapon that they know nothing about, and if they discover your presence, it is even more likely that they will think that the Clan had something to do with the loss of their ship. Since they know that neither we nor our allies have this type of technology, then some unknown race with unknown technology is even more suspect.'

Kahmmhi looked very thoughtful. 'What happened to their scout ship?'

'The messages that were intercepted indicated a problem. An emergency of some sort involving imminent containment failure. They were trying to fix the problem or eject their antimatter core when the ship exploded. Our own sensors confirm that there was nothing but an antimatter explosion, just as your signals indicate.'

'Then why are you so concerned? Obviously they reported a malfunction to their superiors, and even if it IS a rare occurrence for something like that to actually happen to one of their ships, it's obviously neither impossible nor unheard of. They didn't mention anything in their transmissions that even suggested that there was any type of boarding or attack upon their ship by anyone, so obviously nobody else did anything to cause the explosion. I see no reason for the Dominion to blame the Clan for anything that happened to their scout, even if they did learn of our existence. And even if they did learn of our existence and they DID suspect us of doing anything against them, they wouldn't want to confront us or do anything to affect our neutrality BEFORE they had actually determined the outcome of the impending battle with your alliance.'

Sisko nodded, having to remind himself that he wasn't talking to a Vulcan. Her logic was flawless, but he still couldn't shake the feeling that she was still concealing something from him. And he was just as convinced by the uneasy feeling in his gut that, regardless of what Kahmmhi said or even what she was aware of, her Clan had somehow contributed to the "accidental" destruction of the Dominion scout ship. The timing was too critical, too coincidental. But the ship had obviously exploded without being boarded or attacked, since there was no way that Jem'Haddar troops would not notice that their ship had been boarded under those conditions, and he couldn't think of any other way that the Clan could possibly have been involved in the incident. It would have been part of the Jem'Haddar's report to their superiors. But he still remembered Kahmmhi's offer to have the Clan's picket ships challenge the approaching Jem'Haddar scouts before they could enter the system and carry out their mission.

'Since you've convinced me that your neutrality hasn't been compromised, I'll worry a lot less about your Clan's safety. At least, for the time being. As you said, the Dominion doesn't want to go making a lot of new, unknown enemies while their forces are tied up dealing with the enemies that they already have. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have some other business that I need to attend to. It's a little bit hectic around here with all of the visiting delegations from the warships, and our fragile alliance requires a bit of assistance at times to make things run as smoothly as possible.'

Kyra accompanied Sisko as he left, leaving Jadzia and Worf talking to their guests from the Clan. Jadzia shook her head. 'He really needs to relax, but there isn't a lot of time for him to do anything like that right now.'

'We've seen a lot of new species here at the station in the past few weeks, and we've noticed that quite a few of them belong to certain species. Many of the Klingons are very loud, but they are much better than the Nosikans that we met. But other than their uniforms, we can't really tell any visible difference between the Romulans and the Vulcans.'

'They were derived from the same base race. The Romulans split off from the Vulcans several thousand years ago, going their own way to set up their own civilization. The Vulcans gave up their warlike, emotional nature and devoted themselves to discipline, science, and logic. At one time, the Vulcans were actually more warlike and aggressive than the Romulans. They were actually killing off their own race and destroying their technological capabilities with their constant civil wars. They finally accepted the need to control their own emotions, and took logic and mental discipline to the extreme. The Romulans still embrace their emotions and passions.'

Brynhe nodded. 'There is one thing that we still don't understand. The Federation's technology is obviously capable of reproducing the "cloaking" technology that both the Romulans and the Klingons use, and you are well aware of the technology and how it operates, yet none of your ships use it. Only the Defiant, and the Defiant is much different from all of your other ships in a number of ways.'

Worf nodded. 'The Klingons and the Romulans have had wars and border skirmishes with each other and the Federation for a very long time. Long before the Federation ever expanded into our region of space, we were both using cloaking devices on our warships. Since the Federation hadn't yet discovered that technology for themselves, both of our races required them to refrain from using cloaking technology as a condition of our treaties with them. In the case of the Defiant, an exception was made because it is a small ship and it was intended to be used to explore the Delta quadrant.'

Brynhe nodded. 'And the Delta quadrant is definitely a dangerous place for your ships to operate in.'

Several Romulan officers swaggered up to the table just then, and their leader pointed to Kahmmhi. 'We hear that your people use cloaking technology. Our treaty with the Federation prohibits humans from using that technology.'

Kahmmhi smiled. 'So I've been told.'

'We demand the right to board and inspect your ships, and to immediately remove all of your cloaking devices.'

Kahmmhi's smile became so sweet that almost nobody noticed how hard and cold her eyes had just become. 'Unfortunately, that is impossible for a number of reasons. First, we are not humans. We are Clan. Second, we are not part of the Federation, and we are not bound by, or subject to, any terms of any treaty that you have with them. In fact, we have no treaties with either of your races or cultures at this time. Third, we don't use anything remotely resembling your PRIMITIVE "cloaking" technology, as even YOU probably already know because YOU can't detect any of OUR ships. Fourth, our stealth capabilities are built into our ships as an integral component, and it actually requires us to intentionally override some of our normal functions just to make them visible to your BEST instruments. Fifth, until we reach some type of arrangement with the Federation, we've agreed not to share our technology with anyone.' Kahmmhi smiled as the Romulans looked really pissed at being so publicly humiliated. 'And sixth, the Clan would consider any attempt to board our ships and forcefully remove our technology as an act of war. You already have enough problems just dealing with the Dominion.'

'You only have nine small ships. You should consider that fact carefully before making statements that a representative of the Romulan Empire might construe as threats.'

Kahmmhi's voice became harsh and deadly, her anger focused and tightly controlled. 'I am a diplomat, representing my people in discussions with another recognized government. In fact, the government which controls the space and the station that you are currently standing on. The Clans do NOT make threats. I merely stated facts. I AM authorized to determine the status of those that I meet with during our negotiations. Whether they are to be considered an ally, a neutral party, or an enemy of the Clan. Is THAT function part of YOUR official duties to the Romulan Empire, captain? If not, you might want to leave THOSE decisions to your superiors who HAVE been entrusted with that authority. BEFORE you overstep your authority and start something that your entire race may well come to regret.'

'If you weren't a diplomat, I'd challenge you to a duel.'

Jadzia laughed. 'Thank your lucky stars that she IS a diplomat, then, captain. She BROKE an armed Nosikan with her bare hands after he attacked her. I seriously doubt that you would fare much better.'

The Romulans stalked off before Jadzia let out the breath that she had been holding in. 'His family is highly placed, and he is young for the rank that he has, Kahmmhi. That confrontation could end up causing problems with the Romulans later. I thought that you were a diplomat.'

'I'm in command track. I'm supposed to learn to command and lead troops. I tend to lean more toward fleet combat because I don't like some of the things that happen in ground warfare. I don't deal with them well, and I'm not exactly really aggressive, especially not compared to the average Assault Marine or Clan Raider. My mother has been giving me SOME training in diplomacy, in case I actually do become a Blood Bond for another Clan, but the Clans don't really HAVE diplomats or politicians. My grandmothers handle the negotiations with potential allies whenever that situation arises for their Clan, just as my mother and one or two other wives do for our Clan. Clans are led by a Kohl-kahhn. A war lord. His duty is to lead his Clan, to protect his Clan, and to lead and command the troops when they go into combat against our enemies. Those who attack the Clan are our enemies, and the Consortium is our enemy.'

Worf looked at Kahmmhi closely. 'So, how would a Kohl-kahhn have handled that situation?'

'I don't know about others because I don't know the Kohl-kahhns of that many Clans very well. I was just a young girl when we were dealing with most of the other Clans, and then I was in Basic and had too much to do to bother trying to find out stuff that didn't concern me. My father? He probably would have dealt with the Romulan very similarly to how I just did. He doesn't believe in being treated as an inferior, or in being dictated to by others. Especially not by potential enemies of the Clan who are openly hostile, belligerent, and condescending. Challengers are put into their place very forcefully.'

'And what about your grandfather?' Worf couldn't keep from smiling slightly. They were definitely warriors.

Krohn laughed. 'Kohl-garh would have killed him. Even if he didn't use his kwyll, Kohl-garh is so large and so strong that he could accidentally kill a Romulan while he was just picking him up to shake him a bit and scare him.'

'That could lead to problems, and possibly even to a war.'

Krohn looked straight at Worf, studying him intently. 'Kohl-garh has faced the enemy and won in thousands of systems, and has totally destroyed their forces in hundreds of additional systems. Each enemy fleet that he faces contains hundreds of warships, and many of their systems also contain planetary defense forces, orbital shields, and more than one fleet of warships. His fleet is much larger and more powerful than that of Clan Silver Dragon, and many of the ships in his fleet are much larger than our ships are as well.'

'How large is his fleet?'

'Our Clan's assault wing is currently about one hundred and fifty ships. Two hundred and fifty years ago, when they came to our rescue and helped us to rebuild and improve or replace our ships, Clan Phoenix's assault wing had over thirteen hundred ships. They've had a lot of time and opportunity to start increasing the size of their fleet so that a new Clan will eventually be able to break off from their own since then.' Krohn smiled. 'Clan Phoenix has more ships than any other Clan, and their ships are larger and more powerful than those of any other Clan as well.'

'Why are their ships so much larger and more numerous?'

Lyhssyha smiled. 'Because they are the best at combat. They are able to capture more enemy ships and resources to rebuild and make more Clan ships. And because they developed stealth almost three thousand years ago, at about the same time that they lost contact with the other Clans for twenty five hundred years.'

Jadzia leaned forward intently. 'Wait a minute. Clan Phoenix DEVELOPED your stealth technology? Your enemy doesn't have stealth capabilities?'

Lyhssyha shook her head. 'Clan Phoenix R and D developed and improved stealth. Just as they have improved our engines, armor, weapons, and other technology beyond the best that the Consortium can make. The Consortium can't even DETECT our ships, much less duplicate them. We have to scrap captured enemy ships and use them for raw materials. There's just no way for us to improve them enough without rebuilding them completely. Our own weapons and tactics are just too different for us to use unmodified ships in combat.'

Jadzia looked at Worf, thinking quickly as she tried to remember details of a previous conversation. What was it that Benjamin had told her about? A battle in which Clan Phoenix's entire fleet had to fight against a thirty thousand ship invasion fleet. Their scouts stayed out of the combat, and they only had thirty two hundred other ships in their entire fleet. But they only had thirteen hundred ships about three centuries later. If Clan Phoenix hadn't been losing large numbers of troops and ships in combat... And their ships were larger and more powerful because they had stealth capabilities and no longer needed to hide their ships or their fleets from their enemy... Their enemy couldn't detect Clans ships, so they couldn't target them accurately... Clan Phoenix's losses in both ships and personnel would plummet as their ability to destroy or capture enemy ships would increase... Their fleet would grow, and without losses from combat, so would their population because they didn't age and die of natural causes... A cycle of expansion that would eventually...

Jadzia paled as everything fell into place for her. The Clan lived in space, but their technology and society were far from failing. They were thriving, and simply fought their enemy because it did weaken him as well as provide additional resources for the Clan to put to their own uses. And they certainly weren't parasites or locusts who depended upon their ability to steal resources and technology from their enemy in order to survive.

Jadzia smiled at Kahmmhi almost nervously. 'If you would excuse me, Tahr Kahhni, I just remembered some work that needs to be attended to as soon as possible.'

'Of course.'

Jadzia left, trying not to run or act abnormally. When she reached the turbolift, she contacted Julian and Kyra. They both agreed to meet with her in sick bay.

When Jadzia finished explaining why she had called them there, both of the others took a few minutes to think carefully about what she had just told them.

'It DOES make sense. Much more sense than them being able to keep successfully stealing progressively more advanced technology from their enemies as the last successful acquisition is becoming obsolete and irreparable. And it explains why their enemy can't simply destroy small, technologically advanced Clan fleets and put an end to their problem by overwhelming the Clan fleets with sheer numbers.'

'The major is correct, but they still need resources.'

'Space is full of resources, Julian. Their technology seems to be advanced enough and efficient enough to collect and purify all of the resources that they actually require. They certainly aren't needing to increase the efficiency of the power consumption on their replicators. I doubt that they are actually dependent upon their enemy for any of their resources, though I'm sure that they take advantage of anything that they can take from their enemy every chance that they get.'

Julian looked perplexed. 'Then why use them in the first place?'

Kyra laughed. 'Why NOT? During our war with the Cardassians, the Resistance took things that we could actually make for ourselves from the Cardassians all of the time. We ended up with more resources of our own to use against them, and they had even less resources available to use against us. And if we made what we could on our own as well, the odds against us decreased that much faster.'

Jadzia nodded. 'Think of it as recycling resources.'

Julian nodded. 'OK. Just for the sake of argument, let's say that I agree with you. How does that change things?'

'I really don't know, Julian. Maybe it doesn't. But we need to make sure that whoever DOES come here to deal with the Clan realizes that any preconceived notions that they may have regarding the Clan's technology, capabilities, or culture should be discarded. If they don't negotiate with the Clan properly, we could lose our one chance to make a first contact of this type.'

'A first contact of what type?'

'Julian, don't be dense. They aren't from the Alpha quadrant, and we're pretty sure from what we've learned about them that they aren't from the Delta quadrant, either. None of their star maps correlate with ANYTHING from this galaxy. So they are either from another galaxy or they are from an alternate or even parallel universe.'

Bashir shook his head, even though he knew that parallel or alternate universes had been proven already. 'I won't get into theoretical discussions regarding the possibility of alternate or parallel universes, at least in the context of the Clan. I will concede that the scientific evidence that I have seen does support the theory that they may have come from a neighboring galaxy.' He sighed deeply. 'And I agree that they are much more technologically advanced than the Federation, the Borg, or any other species that we've ever encountered.'

Kyra shook her head. 'None of this may matter. The Dominion is preparing to attack, and we all know it. If they have enough forces available, the Federation could lose this system at the very least, and could even end up losing the war. If that happens, the Clan could be cut off from their way home. The Dominion doesn't know that they exist yet, but if they think that they should help us keep this system and their commander has some misguided sense of duty to help us, and their nine little ships decide to help us out by attacking the Dominion forces that come to take over this system...'

'Commander Sisko has been assured that the Clan will not interfere with our responses to the Dominion. They didn't challenge the two Dominion scout ships that were approaching the system.'

Jadzia nodded. 'Yeah, Kyra, but the Dominion ships never actually enter our system, either. One of them blew up after it suffered a containment failure. The other ship withdrew to avoid detection, knowing that we'd send ships out to investigate and that we'd maintain increased vigilance on our scans in that region for a while.'

Kyra sighed, realizing that Jadzia was still suspicious about the extremely fortunate coincidence that had occurred. 'So we bought some time, but they'll be back eventually, one way or the other. We have to hope that they are more interested in probing first so that they have better intelligence on our forces and their disposition than they are worried about giving us enough time to set up a blockade on the wormhole and completely cut them off from the Delta quadrant and any hopes of resupply from that quarter.'

Virginia looked at the latest updates to the hyper map. Individual talons were sending back weekly reports now, and their map of the region was steadily growing. Only one major hyper stream had been discovered, and the talons that had discovered it had already explored almost a dozen systems that were directly connected to it. There were dozens of other systems that had been charted that only had system to system connections.

'Lots of empty systems, Gin. They're certainly not overcrowded.'

'Not by hyper. But if you look at their actual physical location, they're all clustered together in little groups of habitable worlds. They use warp drives, so they only travel relative to real space. I'm not even sure that they know that hyper actually exists, Laura.'

'Have we discovered any races that they don't know about?'

Virginia laughed. 'Oh, yeah. In addition to the talons that are off exploring the Delta quadrant, Jill's group is somewhere in the Gamma quadrant, according to astro's last fix on their reported location. We're finding inhabited systems, but even in the areas that they've settled, we're still finding more uninhabited systems than systems with settlements or outposts. You can tell that simply by looking at the star maps that they gave us.'

Laura nodded. 'Should we send out more recon units?'

'No. Not yet. We're not even sure that we're going to have to be here for the entire six months that I gave them when the mission started.'

'Are we making contingency plans to bug out? Or should I be starting to think in that direction?'

Virginia laughed. 'Short of someone detonating a sunbuster and taking out the entire system? No. If we have to, we go aggressive. If we had to, we could take out a Grak battle fleet and even capture their freaking battleships intact. We're sure as hell not running from ANYTHING that we've seen since we got here.'

'They might not like us interfering with their interactions with other species, Ginny.'

Virginia grinned. 'You know that "Prime Directive" thing they have that prevents them from interfering with "less developed" races so that they don't disrupt their natural development?'

'Yeah. What about it? It won't apply once they figure out that we're not less developed than they are.'

'Krohn sent over a copy of their rules and laws that relate to it. The fine print indicates that they aren't supposed to interfere with the internal affairs of any non-Federation cultures, and that includes any conflicts between non-Federation societies, unless they are approached by at least one side of the conflict and asked to mediate an end to hostilities.'

Laura thought about that for a moment. 'If they launched an attack, the Jem'Haddar certainly couldn't ask the Federation to mediate for them when they were at war with the Federation, and the Clan certainly wouldn't have any reason to bother asking the Federation to mediate an end to their hostilities. They know that we're not involved in any hostilities yet. We'd have no reason to fight the Jem'Haddar or the Dominion.'

'Not yet. But the Clans believe in taking out our enemies whenever we get a chance. We also believe in taking out anything that is a threat to humanity. Normally, that would be the Consortium. But they don't have to worry about the Consortium here. Just the Dominion.'

Laura grinned. 'So, the prospect of battle has made the troops restless, and turning them loose on somebody would do a lot toward relieving their current stress and frustration, as well as breaking up the monotony of the training routine.'

'Pretty much. That, and we might as well do SOMETHING while we're stuck in this quadrant trying to figure out how to get back to our Clan.'

'That just leaves us with the prospect of dealing with their politicians and diplomats afterwards.'

Virginia laughed. 'THAT is the reason that we have our cute little Tahr Kahhni. So that WE don't have to handle all of that shit ourselves, Laura. I really don't even WANT to understand how people who use ships that are THAT flimsy, but who actually think that they have powerful, formidable WARSHIPS, even THINK.'

Laura nodded, knowing exactly how Virginia felt. These people seemed to be human. If THIS was the best that they could do with their resources, skills, and technology, the very thought of them meeting the Consortium terrified her. If that ever happened, there would be WAY too many Grak trophy cases. And the Consortium didn't enslave humans who had any genetic relation to the Tryx. They simply killed them.

Sisko looked embarrassed when he met Kahmmhi for lunch. 'I'm afraid that I have some bad news.' He sighed. 'The Federation delegates who were coming here to meet with you aren't going to be able to make it here. They're in a system that's about a month away from here by courier ship. The entire Federation High Council thinks that this area is too dangerous right now, and requests that your ships travel to that system to meet with the delegates. We can provide an escort for your safety from some of the ships that are here right now.'

Kahmmhi smiled. The Federation didn't want to send their high level dignitaries into an area that might become a combat zone. That made sense militarily. And they wanted her to bring her Clan to them, which would require her Clan to leave the dangerous area. 'That won't be necessary, Sisko. I wouldn't want any of your ships having to leave the area when your enemy could show up and attack you without warning at any time.'

'You don't need to worry about that. With the recent scouting probe, we're now certain that the Dominion intends to take this system and secure the wormhole. It's their only viable military option. StarFleet and our allies will be mobilizing all of our available forces to face the Dominion threat.'

At Kahmmhi's nod, Sisko smiled. 'I must say that I'm very surprised by your decision, but I am relieved because it means that the Clan will be safely out of harm's way during the impending hostilities.'

Kahmmhi looked very confused as Sisko continued talking. 'How soon can your ships be ready to leave, and how long do you think it will take for them to reach these coordinates? It would help if I could include that information in my report when I inform my superiors that you've agreed to meet with our representatives at a much safer location.'

'I'm sorry if anything that I've said gave you the impression that we are either prepared or willing to do anything of the sort. If you insist, the Clan will recall all of our scouts and leave this system. But if we do, we are returning to the Delta quadrant so that we can do a more thorough investigation of the area that we arrived in and determine our best course of action regarding eventually returning to where we came from so that we can rejoin our Clan. We have no intention of going deeper into your territory and farther from our only potential way back to our Clan.'

'I can assure you that we mean you no harm, Tahr Kahhni.'

'I am very well aware of that. If we thought that you might be hostile, or that you had intentions of trapping us and taking our ships and technology from us, we would have already left your space. If you HAD been hostile, we would already have been at war with you and all of your allies.' Kahmmhi smiled. 'I'm sure that once you're able to resolve the dispute between yourselves and the Dominion and their allies, your representatives will be able to meet with us here. This IS the logical place for them to hold negotiations with both the Dominion forces and the Cardassians after the hostilities are over, isn't it?'

'Um, yes.'

'Then they should also be able to meet with us after they've taken care of more pressing concerns. We are still content to wait. I don't really foresee anything happening that would require us to wait here for more than another six or eight months at most.' She smiled. 'Our scouts were only sent out for a six month mission to map everything that they could, so they'll start heading back soon enough. Then we'll have at least some idea of what we can expect to have to deal with in the Delta quadrant.' Kahmmhi specifically did not mention that they also had scouts exploring and mapping routes through both the Alpha and Gamma quadrants right now.

'That is a very wise precaution. Regardless of how things go here, you will have to be in the Delta quadrant and deal with the other races that are native to that region in order to find your way home. And our best efforts won't affect how the Dominion handles things within the confines of their own borders. And as far as we've been able to determine, they control a large region of space on the other end of the wormhole.'

'I don't mean to be difficult, but...'

'You're not being difficult at all. You haven't even been able to establish initial contact with our leaders, and they're unsure of how to handle the situation because of all of the special circumstances and conflicting thoughts on what the best course of action would be. They'll adapt. Personally, I feel that you are being very understanding and accommodating. I'll inform my superiors of your decision.'

Kahmmhi felt a bit sad as she watched Sisko leave to file his report, but it was for the best. Hiding things from him meant that he couldn't be held responsible for knowing about them and not informing his superiors. And there were certain things about the Clan and their capabilities that the Federation didn't need to know right now. If even they didn't know about them, then there was absolutely no chance that one of the Dominion's spies could find out about them and warn the Dominion.

Virginia looked at the screens for the vid conference. Gary, Margaret, and Max were on the screens, and the only person in the room with her was Laura, her exec.

'OK. We all agree that they are definitely building up for some kind of fight, but so far there are only screening elements of their fleets in the system.'

'WE consider them scouts and screening elements, but Kahmmhi indicates that they think that this is a large force of powerful warships.'

'I hope that she's wrong, Gin. The force that we tracked here isn't exactly huge, but it sure as hell beats the piss out of anything that they have here.'

Max sighed. 'If hostilities break out, what do we do?'

'Kahmmhi doesn't know it yet, but until we find our way back to the Clan, she is THE Tahr Kahhni. So, protect the Tahr Kahhni.'

'No, duh. Are we going to fight or not?'

'I'm not sure. Why?'

'You'd better make the final decision BEFORE the hostilities actually begin. That's the only time that you'll have a clear shot at the entire Dominion fleet. If their weapons have such severely limited range, they're going to have to go head to head, even on fleet combat. They'll be firing and maneuvering, and their formations are going to be all mixed up. It'll be more like a knife fight or a dogfight between talons of fighters than fleet combat.'

Virginia nodded. ''You've brought up a very good point, Max. Their shields and armor won't be enough to protect them from near misses, and large salvos of AM mines will only work if the friendlies are out of range, since they don't have Clan IFF to keep the mines from blowing the hell out of their ships as well.' She turned to her exec. 'Start running sims based on the ships that we know about. Work out the most effective types of responses, and see what our fleet can handle with what we have available. Then make up plans that allow the strike wing and ground pounders to make up as much of the rest as possible.'

'What about the Federation and their allies? They think that we're a bunch of lost, helpless barbs. And they probably think that our ships are tiny, weak, and unable to defend themselves, and that there aren't very many of us. Even if we only use specifically targeted attacks, once their ships enter the fray...'

Virginia nodded. 'We'll have to work out some type of attack plan in advance, or work out some way for them to detect our IFF signals so that they don't target the Dominion ships that we've boarded.'

Max snorted. 'Yeah. I'd be more than a little bit pissed off if someone blew the enemy ship that I'd boarded right out from under me. Especially if I'd already taken it over. Or if a lot of my men were killed because of it. And I'd REALLY be pissed if I died that way. Friendly fire isn't.'

'Yeah, I know, Max. I'll make sure that when the time comes, Kahmmhi sets things up so that we don't have to worry about dealing with that problem.'

Gary sighed. 'You mean IF the time comes, don't you?'

Max laughed out loud. 'You wouldn't say that if you knew the girl. There's no real danger to us from anything that we've encountered here so far. Their only possible threat is if they self-destruct their ships or eject their antimatter pods with the warp core. That's more likely to damage their own ships than it is to damage ours. Our only risk, other than a point blank hit, is to the small craft that are in close proximity to the explosion and to the troops who are on board their ships if they are too close to the blast.'

'Which is exactly why we're running sims so that the engine rooms and all self-destruct controls of that nature are cut off from all enemy access.'

'I just hope that little Ferengi didn't sell us a bunch of fairy tales instead of the real schematics.'

Virginia shook her head. 'As far as they could tell, he was being totally honest with them. He even told them that he couldn't guarantee the accuracy of all of the details, but he did know that the locations of the "most important details", which represent our targets, would be accurate. And the information that we got from the Dominion scout does seem to corroborate the stuff that we already had.'

'Even if the rest of the Dominion fleet is comparable to that of the Federation and their allies, we could still have to board thirty ships that are the size of a Consortium battlecruiser and twenty more that are the size of an assault frigate. We've only got a million troops, so that's only twenty thousand per ship.'

Laura nodded. 'Our high end estimates indicate that if the larger, more lightly armed ships are troop transports, they have the capacity to carry maybe one and a half to two million troops each. Maybe a hundred to one odds. Your biggest problem is going to be the safety restrictions on ammo. No AM-skates, very light AM loads for your sidearms only, and not a lot of penetrating rifle ammo. Certainly nothing heavier than that in their flimsy ships.'

Max grinned. 'Hand to hand and in their face. We can do that. How flimsy are they, anyway?'

'Do you remember Lehr joking about beer cans in space?'

'Oh, yeah. Really old, crappy armor. What about it?'

'The scout that we took out made beer cans look strong and very sturdy by comparison.'

Max looked over his shoulder and smiled as he called out in a falsetto voice, 'Oh, Fleur. You can bring your baby, but you definitely won't get to let it play very much. One freaking penetrator round out of your baby could probably hole the ship from hull to hull. The long way.'

'Yes, dear.' Her response was sweet and innocent, but everyone on the conference circuit clearly heard Fleur muttering and bitching under her breath about the mental state of barbs who couldn't even build a spaceship that was SAFE enough to use in planetary orbit deciding to go out and explore the entire galaxy in them and use the things in actual combat. None of the comments were in any way flattering, though they were certainly colorful and descriptive enough to make everyone smile when they heard them.

'OK, people. Work on tactics and ways to handle anything that you can think of that might happen, and try to keep the safety limitations in mind. They'll be sending more scouts soon enough, unless they're desperate enough or in such a hurry because of other considerations that they're willing to risk coming in blind and just attack the system with whatever forces they have available. We may have slowed them down, but they're not going to stop and throw away all of their plans over an "accident". No matter how convenient it is for their enemy, they do still think that it was an accident, since we covered our tracks very well. You've got the update on schematics for their scout ship, so put them to good use.'

Virginia flipped off the comm, terminating the conference, and looked at Laura. 'We can make a big difference in this one battle, but...'

Laura nodded. 'But it might not mean anything in the long run. This is just the start of their war.'

'That doesn't really mean much. Even if we could remove all of the Dominion forces that are already here from the equation, they'd still have to deal with the instability to this entire region that the civil war between the Cardassian factions has caused, and with the problems created by the Breen trying to conspire with the Dominion in order to gain more power for themselves.'

'If it's that hopeless, why bother?'

'If the Federation and their allies can keep control of at least this end of the wormhole, the Dominion forces would be effectively neutralized in this quadrant. They use warp, so even at high speeds, their supply lines would become decades in length, and even subspace communications would become months, possibly years, just to communicate one way.' Virginia grinned. 'Besides, after watching the vid of the scout ship boarding and going over what we've learned from their database so far, I just don't like the Jem'Haddar. Or the Dominion.'

'Yeah. I know the feeling. I'll keep after Tech Troop to finish digging out the data that we collected and sort it out into properly prioritized and organized groupings so that we can get what we need from it ASAP.'

Kahmmhi was not surprised to see Romulans in the meeting room a few days later when she responded to Sisko's request for a special meeting to go over an incident which involved the Clan. He had informed her that he had called the meeting in an attempt to smooth things over after her run-in with the Romulan captain. She saw that Jadzia and Worf were there, as well as Kyra and Dr. Bashir.

'Thank you for coming, Tahr Kahhni. I'm hoping that we can smooth some ruffled feathers with this private meeting. Do you object to the presence of any of these witnesses?'

Kahmmhi shook her head, so Sisko looked at the Romulan admiral who was present. 'And you, Admiral?'

'I have no problems.'

One of the Romulans who had been with the captain stirred. 'Sir, she has armed bodyguards.'

Sisko smiled. 'She is the daughter of the leader of her Clan, and the granddaughter of the leader and founder of ALL of their Clans. A princess, if you will.'

The admiral looked at the captain sternly. 'You would ask me to deprive an Imperial princess of her bodyguard among strangers while she is in another system's space and it could come under attack from hostile forces at any time?'

The captain shook his head, swallowing nervously. 'No, sir. I was not made aware of her title, its significance, her station, or her lineage, sir. I only knew that she spoke for her fleet as their diplomatic representative.'

'Admiral, if I may, it would probably save some time if I could play two short segments of the station's security logs to you. The second will explain the necessity of having you view the first.'

'That is acceptable.'

Sisko played the recording of the encounter with the Nosikans that had taken place in Quark's bar. The video didn't last long, but the devastation was clearly obvious. Then the second video came up. The admiral watched the entire encounter carefully without any visible reaction at all. When it finished, the admiral smiled viciously as he looked at the captain. His companions looked deathly afraid and didn't move or speak at all.

'So, you took it upon yourself to confront an alien ambassador instead of taking this matter up with your superiors?'

'Yes, sir.' The captain was calm, and much more confident and composed than his companions.

'I always knew that you were an ambitious little brat, but you've always tempered your ambition with reason in the past. This time you are clearly out of your depth.'

'Yes, sir.' The response was automatic, but now the captain was a bit worried.

The admiral bowed respectfully to Kahmmhi. 'I offer the full apologies of the Romulan Empire. We have no wish to antagonize your people, or to take your property from you by force. As you said, we already have enough enemies to deal with.'

His apology was sincere, but he would have said the same thing in the interests of diplomacy, and in the interests of the survival of his race, even if it was all a lie. Their armor itself reflected phaser fire without any type of force field. Their small arms were more powerful than a phaser or a disruptor. They were stronger, faster, and tougher than any creature in the known galaxy. The admiral did NOT want the Clan as enemies, and he did NOT want to find out how powerful and tough their ships were by fighting against them. Their current problem with the Dominion and its allies were more than enough to occupy the Romulan Empire.

'No apology is necessary, admiral. His responses at the time were more than enough to indicate that he was simply an overzealous young officer, and that he was NOT acting under orders from your government or his superiors.'

'You are most gracious, Tahr Kahhni.' He grinned. 'Especially for a warrior who was unexpectedly thrust into diplomatic negotiations and dealing with new and totally alien cultures. I definitely understand your current plight.'

'Thank you, admiral.'

'If it's not out of line, I would request that our diplomats be given a chance to negotiate with you after the current hostilities are concluded. We would definitely be interested in examining and learning more about your cloaking technology. At the very least.'

Kahmmhi nodded. 'I'll take that under advisement, admiral.' She smiled sweetly at Sisko. 'Is there anything else that we need to discuss, Sisko?'

The admiral cleared his throat. 'There is still the matter of disciplining the young captain.'

'What is your standard discipline for such infractions?'

'Ten lashes across the back with a whip. Demotion in rank and pay grade. Punishment details.'

Kahmmhi smiled. 'Doing something like that would deprive you of a valuable officer at a time when you will need every trained warrior that you have. Perhaps we could find an alternative punishment that would be satisfactory?'

The admiral looked curious - and very interested in hearing what her suggestion might be. 'Such as?'

Krohn said something in Llyriana, causing Lyhssyha to burst out laughing. Kahmmhi looked thoughtful, then smiled. 'Krohn suggests that I honor the captain's request for a duel.'

The captain spoke rapidly in Romulan, sneering in triumph at Kahmmhi as he finished talking. The admiral paled as he heard the demand. 'He says that his honor demands that any duel that he fights is a death match.'

'With what weapons?'

'Blades.' The captain sneered. 'Even a barbarian like you is familiar with them. Or at least you claim to be, since you carry them so openly.'

The admiral looked at Kahmmhi, clearly concerned. 'You do not have to do this. In fact, our government would officially like to register a protest against this idea. Let us cuff this cur ourselves, according to our laws.'

Kahmmhi smiled, but the smile didn't reach her eyes. She looked straight at the Romulan captain. 'I agree to a duel if you agree to my conditions.'

'Name them.'

'First, we fight nude, though you may wear a loincloth of some sort. Second, you may use your blade, but I will fight unarmed. Our blades are much too hard to make using them fair, and yours are much too light and brittle. Third, I won't intentionally kill you. You lose when you either can't or won't get up to face me again.'

'Agreed. Name the time and the place.'

'Right now. On the holodeck. These people will bear witness, along with several others. The duel will be recorded and broadcast for everyone in the system to see.'

'No holodeck. This is a real duel, not some play time entertainment with safeties.'

'You misunderstand. The holodeck emitters won't be on. It's just a place that we have rented for our own private use. We don't use the safeties.'

'Agreed.'

'Tahr Kahhni, this could be dangerous. Perhaps fatal, even for you.' Sisko sounded very concerned.

Kahmmhi ignored him. 'Jadzia, could you make sure that Garak, Odo, and Kyra are there as well? Worf, would you invite a couple of Klingon and Vulcan representatives? I believe that those who are currently in this room already are capable of representing the Federation and the Romulan Empire adequately.'

Jadzia and Worf were very busy contacting people and explaining the situation as they followed Kahmmhi to Quark's. As soon as they entered the holodeck, the training program stopped and Kahmmhi stripped, handing her clothes to Brynhe. She stood naked, ignoring the Clan platoon and everyone else as they openly stared at her firm, dark body. The Romulan stripped and gave his uniform to one of the other Romulan officers as they waited for the rest of the witnesses to arrive so that the duel could begin. Kahmmhi seemed relaxed, and didn't move hardly at all, but the Romulan began stretching and warming up, then began getting used to his knife so that he was very aware of its balance and weight.

By the time that Kyra arrived, the Clan platoon was out of the holodeck and was waiting patiently inside Quark's, aware that they would be able to resume their training as soon as Kahmmhi was done using the holodeck. When Kyra entered the holodeck, she saw the four Federation security personnel, Kahmmhi's four Shadows, Odo, Garak, Julian, Jadzia, Worf, Sisko, two high ranking Klingons, two high ranking Vulcans, a Romulan admiral, and several other Romulan officers. Then she saw Kahmmhi standing naked in front of an almost naked Romulan officer who was holding a knife, and gasped. 'What's going on?'

Kahmmhi smiled, looking as relaxed and calm as ever as she studied the Romulan in front of her. 'A duel.'

'Are you insane? He's armed. Romulans settle disputes by dueling regularly, just like Klingons do.' She didn't add that unlike MOST Klingons, Romulans were also well known by taking out their competitors by stabbing them in the back. Literally.

Kahmmhi smiled softly and shrugged. 'The Nosikans were also armed. That didn't seem to change the outcome. They forgot that a trained warrior's body and mind are his greatest weapons. All of the things that you call weapons are merely tools.'

Kyra nodded, watching in silence as Kahmmhi faced her opponent. 'I am ready.'

'Are you ready to die, barbarian bitch?'

Kahmmhi laughed. 'You have no idea what it takes to kill even one naked, unarmed Clan warrior. And when this duel is over, you still won't know.'

The Romulan moved suddenly, trying to lunge past her and slice her with his blade. Kahmmhi evaded by fluidly sidestepping just outside of the reach of his blade. Several more passes showed that he wasn't fast enough to catch her. Then she began batting his hand and knife away effortlessly on the next several passes. When she did a layout flip over him and landed behind him, the Romulan spun in place, executing a vicious slash to her face. Kahmmhi caught the blade in her open left hand, closed her fingers over the back of the blade, and mangled it into a misshapen lump by exerting pressure. When she opened her hand, the Romulan stared in a mixture of shock and horror. Her hand was cut to the bone, but was barely bleeding. His prize knife, made at great expense of the best and hardest materials available in the Romulan Empire, was a twisted, distorted, useless lump of metal with no edge left on the mangled blade. He dropped it to the deck.

Kahmmhi picked him up effortlessly with her uninjured right hand, dangling his feet several inches off of the deck. 'Do you concede defeat?'

'No. You will have to kill me. I will keep fighting until I kill you, you pathetic bitch. You call yourself a warrior? Your little tricks won't work forever. You may be strong and fast, but eventually I WILL kill you because you obviously don't have the BALLS to kill me.' He looked down at her bare crotch and laughed. 'Isn't that right, CUNT? I'm going to make you my little bitch. I'm going to rape you and show you what a REAL warrior does to the women that he captures in combat.'

Kahmmhi's eyes went dead in an instant. 'I wished to spare your life, even if you are an arrogant, conceited asshole. I wished to avoid unnecessary problems between our peoples. But I see now that my grandfather was right. Fear is the fastest way to earn respect from potential enemies. If the mere sight of you scares the piss out of them and gives them nightmares, then they don't fuck with you.'

'What the hell does that gibberish mean?'

'Under Clan law, the penalty for rape is death.'

The Romulan laughed. 'You can't kill me. Not even while I'm raping you in front of all of these witnesses. They won't stop me because if you lose, your life is mine, and I'll enjoy raping you while they and everyone else in the entire system watches. If you're responsive enough, I won't kill you today. I'll keep you around to serve me as my naked slave, and I'll use your body to pleasure myself and my friends until we finally tire of you and decide to fuck you to death.'

Kahmmhi lowered the Romulan to the floor without a sound. Before he could move or say anything at all, her hand became a blur as she drove her fist completely through the Romulan's body. She heard screams of terror, gagging, retching, and crying in the background as she pulled her hand out of his chest and crushed the still beating heart in front of the dying Romulan's eyes.

'Hearts and minds, asshole. Since you were a mindless idiot who was too stupid to learn, it's only right that you die as a heartless bastard as well.'

The Romulan slumped to the floor without a sound, and Kahmmhi released the pulverized remains of his heart, dropping it on his body. Julian ran up with a medical tricorder and quickly scanned the body. 'The heart is completely pulverized, and what's left is the consistency of hamburger. Massive internal trauma and organ damage.' He looked at the Romulan admiral and shook his head sadly. 'I'm sorry, but I'm afraid that I can't do anything to save him. Maybe if the heart was intact, but...' He looked shocked and stunned. 'I'm sorry, sir. He's dead.'

The admiral nodded. 'Dispose of his body in any way that you wish. Don't feel bad, doctor. Even if you could have saved him, he had demanded a death match. We would have killed him in any event. He has disgraced the entire Romulan Empire with his behavior and his actions. He could not even lose with dignity when he was given repeated opportunities to do so, and he refused to learn from this experience so that he wouldn't repeat his past mistakes. His arrogance has finally cost him his life.' He turned to the officer beside him. 'You are now the captain of your ship. Learn from his mistakes. Do NOT repeat them.'

'Yes, sir. Upon my life and my honor. I swear it.'

The two female Shadows had now cleaned the blood and gore off of Kahmmhi, and she was dressed.

'Naked? You had to fight naked?'

'What's wrong with naked, Kyra? Besides, I LIKE this outfit. It's my favorite, and it would have been ruined if I'd worn it during the duel.'

'I suppose. By the way, that was THE grossest thing that I've ever seen in my life. I'm not the only one who had to puke.'

Kahmmhi's voice was soft, almost distant. 'I've watched my grandfather do much worse, and unfortunately, it wasn't on video. At least making an example of him publicly like that means that his death wasn't a total waste. That has to count for something.'

Krohn grinned. 'Even if it doesn't change anything, you know that you tried.'

The Romulan admiral approached them. 'You are, indeed, warriors. He should have seen that he was totally outmatched long before it came to the point where you destroyed his blade.'

The Klingon admiral standing behind him chuckled. 'At least someone who knows how to fight will survive this war.'

Sisko shook his head. 'War is not something that I look forward to. Too much of what we have struggled so hard to build is so quickly and easily destroyed, and some things are lost to us forever. Too much potential, especially human potential, is wasted and lost forever. And in the end, is it really worth the cost?'

Kahmmhi sighed, deciding that Sisko needed to face reality. 'The two greatest threats that all of your cultures face are the Dominion and the Borg. Even the Cardassian civil war is exacerbated by Dominion influence and interference. Both the Dominion and the Borg threaten not only to destroy your cultures completely, but to annihilate your races as well. Is that an accurate assessment of your current situation?'

Sisko nodded. 'Yes.'

'Then you should do whatever it takes to insure the survival of your cultures and your races, even if that requires you to totally eradicate both of their races.'

'And how does that make us any different from them?'

'Did you attack them without provocation? Are you invading their territory and killing their people? Have you refused to listen to their requests to settle things peacefully and try to coexist?'

'No.'

'Then you have to ask yourself something. Will they feel remorse after killing your races and taking your resources? Will they even bother to remember you and your cultures other than as something that they defeated? When you are gone, will they stop their war, or will they simply continue to destroy the next species that they run into as they continue to expand their empires?'

Sisko nodded. 'I see your point. That is why the Clans are so ruthless in their war against the Consortium.'

Krohn shook his head sadly, then said softly in Llyriana, 'They have no concept of what a real war truly is, and could not hope to comprehend what it would mean to be truly ruthless. If Kohl-garh were ruthless, he would write off more slave races as casualties and decrease our own losses by using sunbusters to eliminate all of the member race home worlds. Maybe even the entire system in some cases. It would be a lot quicker and easier.'

Kahmmhi shook her head. 'If it's not necessary, we won't interfere with their beliefs or the natural development of their cultures.' She switched from speaking in Llyriana to speaking in Basic. 'I should tell you that we've learned some very disturbing things about the Dominion so far. When we return to the Delta quadrant, hostilities between the Dominion and the Clan are almost certain. We've also encountered evidence of the Borg and other hostile races during our scouting. If we run into any of them during our search for a way back to the rest of our Clan, we won't be likely to get bored while we're waiting.'

One of the Vulcans lifted his eyebrow in surprise. 'Are you truly that controlled by your need to wage war?'

'Our laws are simple. If it attacks the Clan, it is an enemy. Threats to the safety and survival of the Clan must be dealt with. Threats to humanity or other species that are under our protection must be eliminated. We only need to wage war when our enemy gives us no other option that allows for our own survival or that of those that we protect. Or do you find that the Borg respond to your logic? All of the encounters that the Federation has had with the Borg, or at least all of them that we're aware of, have ended with "assimilation" or rather violent and deadly armed conflicts.'

The other Vulcan nodded. 'Her logic is flawless, and does seem to support her position. I am very impressed, Tahr Kahhni.'

Sisko looked at Kahmmhi. 'You intend to involve yourselves in our conflict with the Dominion.' It was a statement, not a question.

'We already have. We don't have a Prime Directive. We were fairly certain that everything that we had been told about the Founders and the Dominion was true, but we had to verify it independently before open hostilities occurred. We were almost certain that we would be supporting one side or the other in this conflict when hostilities broke out, but we needed to make sure that we chose the correct side before we made a final decision about our response. Our scouts hacked into their computer systems and downloaded them while the Dominion scout was attempting to spy on this system. That's where we learned about the things which we find so disturbing about the Dominion.'

'Is that why their ship blew up? A computer error, or worse, an intentional attack?'

'We did not attack their ship, there was no computer error that we are aware of, and we did not program anything into any of their computer systems or control systems that would cause ANY problems of ANY kind aboard their ship.'

The Vulcans looked at Sisko. 'Her statement covers almost every logical contingency that we can think of. Though they may have inadvertently triggered some sort of anti-tampering fail-safe device on the ship. If so, nothing to indicate that was in the data that was sent to the control ship, and even the crew and the Jem'Haddar aboard the ship didn't seem to know of its existence.'

Sisko sighed. 'You are going to get yourselves involved in a war that you cannot possibly win. The Dominion is simply too large and powerful, and your few ships are not your entire Clan.'

Kahmmhi smiled. 'Perhaps we will surprise you as much as we intend to surprise the Dominion?'

Sisko nodded and remained silent. So far the Clan, and especially Kahmmhi, had managed to surprise him and make him rethink and reevaluate everything that he thought he had figured out about them so many times that he'd lost count. He was not used to feeling like all of his assumptions, perceptions, and initial evaluations were completely wrong.

Kem'tar shook his head. 'I don't believe in coincidence. There is a reason why that scout ship blew up without warning. We simply don't know what it is yet.'

Mok'tel nodded. 'I agree. But orders are orders. I only command the assault forces. The Founders don't want to hear about potential new threats, especially at such a critical juncture in our attack plans. You can't explain the additional wormhole activations any more than I can, so there is nothing concrete that we can use to convince them that we are not simply jumping at shadows.'

'If I am correct, then there is SOMEONE who has much better cloaking technology than we do, and they were at the one system that is of the utmost importance for our plan to expand and take over this quadrant just as this, our most secret and powerful fleet that was assigned to this offensive was first entering their space. And no matter who that unknown species is, it is not good for us or our objectives.'

'I know admiral. I agree with your assessment, but...'

Kem'tar sighed. 'I know, general. Orders are orders. How long before your troops can be back on board and ready to begin the next phase of our mission?'

'It will take two weeks to finish up all of their ongoing missions, allow the Cardassians to consolidate their positions to hold what we have gained, recall the troops, and get them onto the transports so that they can return to the fleet.'

Kem'tar nodded. 'And it will take about the same amount of time to complete our trip back to the Bajoran system. Let's just hope that the scouting elements are able to give us at least SOME intelligence concerning the preparations that the enemy is making in the Bajoran system and the defenses that we can expect to face.'

Mok'tel nodded. New alliances were forming throughout this quadrant as they gradually realized that the Dominion posed a common threat to all of them. In an ideal universe, they would continue to mistrust each other as the Dominion's forces eliminated them one at a time. But the Dominion could still handle them all at once with the available forces. The Federation, Romulans, and Klingons would easily be eliminated with the help of the Cardassians and the Breen.

Mok'tel smiled as he thought of the future. Once the Federation and their allies had been eliminated, the war was as good as won. Then the Breen would be eliminated. And finally, the Cardassians would be put under the Dominion's yoke. Their civil war had already crippled their military might, and using both them and the Breen as cannon fodder and shock troops in the upcoming war would only weaken both races even more. Though if enough of them survived and they proved to be useful to the Founders, perhaps some of the Cardassians would be allowed to survive to serve as another warrior race.

'You look very pleased, general. What combat do you envision?'

'The endgame for this offensive. After that, I'll content myself with eliminating the rest of this quadrant's potential threats.' He spat on the floor. 'Though nothing else in this quadrant has the technology or forces to pose a viable threat to us. They are all a bunch of backward barbarians, and the few species who do have the technology to make an actual fight of it are such pacifists that they lack real fleets and are afraid to fight a real war. The Cardassians have told us that there are actually still planets in this quadrant where the natives use swords and projectile weapons for warfare.' He laughed heartily. 'My men are looking forward to facing them. At least the barbarians will fight, and we will enjoy showing them how force fields, personal shields, and real armor work. And how Jem'Haddar soldiers are the ultimate achievement in ground combat. Faster, stronger, tougher, and more aggressive than ANY other species. And our tech allows us to make the best swords in the universe. They will learn that their place is at our feet, serving their masters. That nothing can possibly stand against the might of the Dominion or stop the Founders. It is our destiny to control the entire universe.'

Jadzia and Kyra watched closely as Max sparred with Constable Odo. Neither could really pin the other. Odo wasn't strong enough or quick enough to control Max, and Max couldn't keep Odo from shifting and escaping his holds. Still, both women were extremely impressed because even holding your own against a Founder physically was an unheard of feat.

Odo shook his head. 'It is a stalemate physically. I couldn't possibly envelop you long enough to suffocate you, and I dare not try to penetrate your mouth and nose to do something like that.'

Max nodded. 'That could be very risky. The nanobots do NOT stop.'

'Your bullets would simply pass through me, as would your swords. Neither would be capable of causing any real damage to me.'

Kahmmhi smiled. 'Thank you very much for your cooperation and your participation, Odo. This has been extremely helpful to us.'

Odo looked at her. 'I really don't see how this could possibly have helped much, Tahr Kahhni, but I do accept your thanks.'

Max chuckled. 'Oh, believe me, it did help. Now we know exactly how to kill the Founders, or shapeshifters, or whatever it is that you call them. Quickly, easily, and efficiently.'

'I don't understand.'

Max smiled as he pulled his sidearm. 'Remember the wall in Quark's?'

Odo nodded. 'Yes, but your bullets will still pass right through them, so they won't be injured no matter what type of bullets you use. They won't even provide enough resistance to set off the explosion.'

'They have to stand somewhere. Even if they won't trigger a detonation, the stuff that's all around them will. And once an AM round is detonated near them, they will be caught in the blast. Even if they become a cloud of vapor, they are still just reaction mass as far as the spreading antimatter particles are concerned.'

Jadzia gasped, and Kyra stared at him in a mixture of shock and horror. Odo nodded his head, his face a totally blank mask as his own shock caused his control over his solid form to slip. Founders could take almost any shape, and they could even compress or disperse their mass a great deal. But the one constant was that they were ALWAYS some form of matter. Reacting with antimatter would literally destroy parts of them. And once enough of their mass was destroyed, each individual would suffer serious injury or even die.

'Yes, that would kill them. Even if they managed to avoid enough of the damage to avoid being killed instantly, whatever was left would try to run, hide, and find a place to heal if it could. If not, it would die if it couldn't make its way back to the rest of our kind so that they could heal it. Even if it knew that it was dying, it would still try to make its way back to others of our kind to let them know of this threat to their existence.'

Kahmmhi laughed harshly. 'If we go to war against the Dominion, the Founders will quickly become an endangered species or an extinct race.'

'You can't be serious.'

'I am deadly serious, Jadzia. I don't need my father or the rest of my Clan to eliminate this threat to humanity. The majority of their race still lives on a single planet.'

'Even you can't possibly have THAT much antimatter.'

Kahmmhi smiled. 'If your race actually manages to survive and flourish long enough to learn, adapt, and evolve, you may someday understand enough about physics to realize that all of the antimatter that you currently use is nothing more than a small firecracker in the middle of a nuclear explosion when it's energy potential is compared to what is actually possible with more advanced technology.'

Kyra shook her head in disbelief. 'You can't possibly destroy an entire planet.'

Kahmmhi looked at the two of them, sighed, and her voice became stern. When she spoke, they both recognized the voice of command authority coming from the tiny female who represented the Clan. 'You should contact Sisko now. We need to have an important discussion. He should have his command staff present, as well as representatives from the Romulans and the Klingons. Whether or not the Vulcans attend is up to him. Kyra can watch out for this system's interests, and Odo and Garak can serve as independent observers.'

Jadzia nodded, surprised by Kahmmhi's sudden change in tone and demeanor. She hit her comm, informed Sisko of the situation, and turned to Kahmmhi. 'They will all be present and ready to meet with you by the time that we reach the conference room.'

As they followed Jadzia and Kahmmhi, Krohn keyed his comm. 'Raider One, go to standby. I think that she's pissed, and she's definitely improvising.'

'Raider One. Acknowledged. Locked and loaded and sitting on ready. Any idea how this is going to go down?'

'No clue, Max. I think that something that they said just caused her to blow a fuse. Too much "poor, lost little barbs need our protection so that they don't get hurt by all of the big, bad, strong people who want their tech", or something like that. Something that they said about tech and warfare, and our limited tech capabilities.'

'Kragh me. Raider Two and Raider Three. Action alert. Drop your cocks and grab your socks. Immediate rendezvous ASAP. I want you ready for immediate backup, and I want everyone prepared for a hot extraction, just in case.'

'Raider Two here. Roger. ETA is two. Ready to rumble.'

'Raider Three here. Affirm. Same ETA as two. Are we heavy or light? Over.'

'SOP. Soft extraction with full stealth if possible. If they go Tango on us or threaten the Tahr Kahhni, we make a statement.'

'Affirm, leader. Ghost in, but be ready to go Death Wraith.'

'You got all of that, Krohn?'

'Affirm, Max. Execute on command.'

When they reached the conference room, Kahmmhi walked in with two of her Shadows while the other two remained outside. Everyone else was already there, including a Vulcan. As Jadzia and Kyra took their seats, Kahmmhi remained standing. She didn't know the Romulan, the Klingon, or the Vulcan.

'Is there a problem, Tahr Kahhni?'

'That depends upon you and your people. I realize that you are all overworked, stressed, and distracted by the many pressures and uncertainties caused by the situation that you are currently dealing with. You are dealing with a number of races more closely than ever before in a situation that demands more trust and mutual interdependence than you have ever been required to show each other before. And that you face a threat that is so great that you are forced to work with and form alliances with former enemies simply to face the "common enemy".'

'You don't understand. This is a very serious threat. The largest, and possibly bloodiest war that has EVER occurred in this quadrant is about to begin. Thousands of our largest and most powerful ships will engage in a single battle that could determine the course of this entire war, and with it, the future of our civilizations. If we lose this system, the Dominion will have complete control of the wormhole, allowing them to bring even more troops, ships, and supplies here from the Delta quadrant. We realize that you don't understand the whole situation because you've had restricted access to our most advanced and powerful technologies, so you could not possibly understand the immense destructive power of our huge fleets or how rapidly they can travel from one system to the other at high warp speeds.'

Sisko cringed inwardly as Kahmmhi smiled sweetly at the Romulan representative who had just spoken. 'We have done OUR homework, admiral. We know exactly what the various classes of ships that are used by your enemy are capable of doing. Your "largest war ever" is about the equivalent of a standard battle against our enemies inside a small enemy system. The type of battle that each individual Clan fights on its own, on average, at least once a year. So please forgive me if I seem less than sympathetic to your plight, but EVERY battle that we fight is for our very survival, and could end with the death of every single individual in our entire Clan. The Clans have been constantly at war with our enemies for the past six thousand Clan YEARS, and up until the last five hundred years, it was normal for our forces to be outnumbered by those of our enemy at LEAST twenty to one in EVERY battle that we fought.'

The room was dead silent as everyone digested that information.

'Either I am leaving this station and my Clan will leave this system immediately, or we are going to address a few key issues right now. The outcome of this meeting will be critical for all of us. First, we are not part of the Federation, and we have no treaties or binding agreements with ANY of you. You claim not to interfere with other cultures, especially those that are less technologically advanced, hiding behind the Prime Directive to keep any "less advanced" cultures that you meet from being "contaminated", using the capability of warp travel as one of your major criteria for determining whether or not a culture is "advanced" enough to interact with you at all on a more or less equal footing.'

O'Brien reacted. 'We have to use SOMETHING to make that kind of decision. And, frankly, cultures that aren't capable of even developing warp technology on their own without destroying themselves in the process are generally too dangerous to other races for us to risk just giving them access to the technology and weapons that would allow them to spread throughout the entire galaxy.'

Kahmmhi laughed. 'So far as we can tell, the Consortium has NEVER used warp technology. Not ONE of their member races used it before they began consolidating the star empires of the first fifteen founding races of the Consortium, and we don't know of any of the others who ever used that technology. But they have been capable of interstellar travel for well over a hundred millennia, they have enslaved THOUSANDS of other races, they have destroyed at least TWO HUNDRED other races completely, and they are still constantly seeking to expand their empire. Though if you ever met the Consortium, your "advanced" warp technology and your thousands of powerful ships wouldn't save any of you from the first Consortium warfleet that you encountered. So, if you don't like the way that we live our lives or how we fight our war against our enemies, I don't give a kragh. So long as we don't violate your laws or attack you, your own laws say that you have no right to tell us how to live our lives. If you don't want to deal with us, we'll leave. It IS your system.'

Sisko shook his head. 'That won't be necessary, Tahr Kahhni.'

Kahmmhi nodded. 'Second, WE don't have a Prime Directive. We may not be "warp capable", but that is simply because none of my ancestors EVER chose to use a propulsion system that had so many inherent dangers. And we ARE aware that our own technology, in at least several different areas, is well beyond your own technological capabilities. Even if I WAS willing to give you our tech and ignore the consequences to your cultures that your own Prime Directive is specifically intended to avoid, it wouldn't matter. You simply lack certain key resources and certain abilities that would be required for you to fully develop certain things on your own. Frankly, I've seen Dominion technology and what it is capable of, and I am NOT impressed.'

'You're kidding me.' Chief O'Brien blushed as he realized that he'd inadvertently blurted that out.

'No offense, Chief. You're doing well with the materials and the processes that you have to work with. But your people chose a much different path than our own ancestors did. The specifications and details that we got from the Dominion database made that very clear to us.'

Sisko's eyes widened. 'Dominion database? You said that you weren't responsible for what happened when that Dominion scout ship blew up just outside this system.'

'No. I said that none of our ships attacked it, and that we didn't do anything to their computers to cause the malfunction that destroyed their ship.'

'Then exactly what DID you do?' Now Sisko was intent on getting a straight answer from Kahmmhi, no matter what.

'A HAT docked with their ship. Our troops boarded their ship without being detected. They downloaded the database from the Dominion ship, including the files that indicated what it was receiving on its scans of this system at that time. They overheard enough while they were there to confirm that the Jem'Haddar and the Dominion were definitely threats to humanity, so they intentionally blew the ship up. A small diversionary charge disabled the antimatter injectors so that they'd think that it was a malfunction and report it as such. One AM mine was placed near their AM containment. After they reported the emergency, the mine was detonated. All that the other Dominion ships in the area could detect was an AM explosion originating from the AM containment area of the destroyed ship, so they assumed that it was a normal, accidental containment failure because they had no reason to believe otherwise.'

Sisko and the others mulled that over. Perfect sabotage. Perfectly executed. Even now, with a full confession from Kahmmhi, there was no evidence and the Federation's own logs showed that the explosion happened naturally. Even if they weren't warp capable, the Clan obviously knew and understood the technology well enough to destroy it without being detected.

'You just took it upon yourselves to murder them?' Bashir sounded stunned.

'They were a warship. You are preparing to fight them as we speak, and they have invaded the Alpha quadrant with the specific intention of waging war against ALL of the species that they find here. They intend to eradicate or enslave every single race in the Alpha quadrant. If your races intend to survive, you had better learn exactly what it means to fight a real WAR. In a war, someone dies. Either you or your enemy. And if you do ever negotiate a truce or accept a surrender, you had better make sure that you know the difference between those who negotiate in good faith and those who merely plot to buy the time that is necessary to rebuild their forces and eventually defeat you.'

The Klingon admiral laughed. 'You don't sound like any diplomat or politician that I've ever had to deal with. You're even worse at this than the Klingons are.'

'We don't really HAVE diplomats, and our culture doesn't have ANY use for politicians.'

The Vulcan looked perplexed. 'You said that your troops boarded the Dominion ship without being detected. You indicated that they moved around the ship freely, also without being detected by the crew or the ship's sensors.'

Kahmmhi pointed to Krohn and he suddenly disappeared, startling them all. Several people immediately began scanning the room with their tricorders, but they were unable to find any trace of him at all. Worf, Jadzia, Kyra, Odo, and two StarFleet security personnel physically searched the entire room, making sure that nobody could possibly move around or evade them.

'He's not just invisible, sir. He's not here at all.'

'Krohn.'

Everyone gasped as Krohn suddenly reappeared. He was attached to the ceiling by his knees and palms. He dropped, almost silently, back down to the deck. The Romulan and Klingon admirals both looked stunned. Personal cloaking fields. The level of technology required to do something like that was so far beyond their own that...

'As for my third point...' Kahmmhi sighed. 'From what we understand, the Federation does not interfere in the conflicts or disagreements between other parties unless they are asked by one or both of the parties to mediate an agreement. Is that correct?'

Sisko nodded. 'In most situations.'

'The Clan generally limits hostilities to those who attack the Clans or those who pose a threat to humanity. We consider the Founders and the Jem'Haddar to be a threat to humanity, so we intend to eliminate that threat to the best of our ability.'

'And if we order you to remain neutral?'

Kahmmhi smiled. 'We will return to the Delta quadrant and await the outcome of your impending battle with the Dominion. If the Dominion wins, we will return here and attack them. If you win, we will remain in the Delta quadrant and immediately begin waging war against the Dominion. I'm fairly certain that if the home planet of the Founders, or even their entire system, were to be suddenly destroyed without any warning, it would have some type of effect on what the Dominion forces that were still in the Alpha quadrant decided to do.'

Jadzia shook her head. 'I already told you that you can't possibly have enough antimatter to destroy an entire planet, much less an entire system.'

'And I already told you that IF your race survives and flourishes long enough to adapt, evolve, and develop better technology, you may someday understand enough about physics to realize that if you detonated all of the antimatter that your culture currently uses, that single explosion would be like comparing a firecracker to a nuclear explosion. THAT is how your current capabilities compare to what CAN be done with more advanced technology.'

Kahmmhi's expression and tone made everyone in the room nervous. Even her Shadows were no longer completely relaxed. The Romulan admiral nodded. 'So, you are insisting on participating in the fighting?'

'Yes. One way or another, we intend to fight the Dominion's forces. With or without you.'

Sisko saw that the others were ready to accept her offer. 'Since we haven't yet had a chance to make any contingency plans that include Clan forces...'

Kahmmhi cut him off cleanly. 'We claim the right to board and attack the twenty largest warships and the fifteen large troop transports that we tracked here from the Delta quadrant. Our troops will board them and keep them out of the battle.'

The Klingon admiral nodded. 'Agreed.' Before Sisko could say or do anything else, the Romulan admiral agreed to her demand as well.

'If Sisko agrees to allow us to participate in this manner, I will agree to keep our ships at least two million kliks from the battle lines so that they don't interfere with your own ships' maneuvers and actions.'

Sisko saw the others looking at him, clearly waiting for a response. 'Agreed.' At least two million kliks would keep the ships in the Clan fleet well out of harm's way. It was well beyond the range of both phasers and photon torpedoes, so railguns and lasers would be wasting their time even firing. Now, if he could just keep her out of the middle of the battle so that she didn't run off and get herself killed, StarFleet couldn't really give him too much grief for allowing her forces to board the enemy ships. At least they could flee when they found out that they were in over their heads. 'Perhaps you and some of your forces would be willing to remain here aboard DS9 when the actual combat begins?'

Kahmmhi smiled sweetly. 'Why thank you. I'd love that.'

Sisko didn't know how, but he knew that he'd just been had. He'd intended to keep Kahmmhi somewhere relatively safe and out of the way, where she couldn't just charge into combat. Instead, she was too happy, accommodating, and compliant. Kahmmhi was NEVER compliant unless it suited her own plans. Now all that he had to do was figure out why she was so willing to remain on the station so that he could figure out exactly what surprises she had in store for him. THAT was a losing proposition.

After the meeting finally ended, Sisko had Kyra, Worf, and Jadzia remain so that they could go over a few more details with Kahmmhi. It didn't help his mood when she actually giggled at his chagrined expression.

'You know, for someone who comes from a culture that downplays diplomacy and has no politicians, you certainly have finely honed skills. At the first sign of the smallest opening, you struck and went for the jugular to get exactly what you wanted. You knew that I was trying to do whatever I could to keep you and your people out of combat so that you didn't get sucked into our conflict.'

'Combat is a constant in our lives. The Dominion just presents us with the opportunity to study new tactics and deal with an unknown enemy who uses ships and weapons that we don't usually face in combat.'

'Uh, huh. And I suppose that your timing was simply coincidental as well?'

'Oh, no. That was coldly calculated all the way. Habits like that keep us alive, so I've been trained to create and then exploit openings like that all of my life. Strategy and tactics for combat, competing with my sibs while I was growing up, and even strategy and tactics for Nin.'

'I understand the first two, but what is the third?'

'Nin is a board game that is played by the Clans. It is one of the most popular games of its kind among all of the Clans, especially among those who are warriors and scientists. It teaches strategy, tactics, timing, positioning, even deception and how to ambush your opponent.'

Worf nodded. 'Impressive. It sounds complex.'

Krohn nodded. 'It can be. I can get you a Nin set and the complete instructions on how to play the game, and I can try to teach you the basics of how to play the game if we get time.'

'I'd like that. Thank you.'

Sisko sighed. 'So, Kahmmhi, how many troops do you intend to bring to DS9 to help repel boarders?'

'I'm not sure. Virginia drew up the contingency plans...'

'Some of the others haven't learned as much about your people or looked beyond what they expect to see. They still want to think of your people as a small group of refugees. You don't exactly give out a lot of specific details about certain things, but as a low end estimate, I figure that you have at least sixty to eighty thousand combat troops aboard your ships. What your Clan refers to as assault forces.'

Worf and the others stared at Sisko in shock. 'Thousands? Benjamin, do you know how large their ships would have to be in order to hold that many people?'

'I know, old man. But they live their entire lives in space. Their entire culture does. When Troy's fleet was about ten times the size of their Clan's fleet, he sent just over forty million troops into combat. Even with many of the nonessential personnel removed from their ships because of the safety concerns during their last mission, they should still have at least sixty to eighty thousand combat troops on board. But I have no way to estimate the size of the crew or the number of support personnel on board each of their ships.'

Lyhssyha chuckled. 'This one certainly pays attention to the details.'

'Krohn, what does Virginia have allocated for us to use to protect the station?'

Krohn used his comp and downloaded the information from the shuttle that was docked with DS9. 'Max says that we're supposed to get one hundred strike assault shuttles filled with Raiders, and the same for Assault Marines. Double loads on all of the shuttles.'

'Two hundred platoons of Raiders and two hundred platoons of Assault Marines. Twenty thousand troops.' Kahmmhi looked at Krohn. 'And you should probably tell Max to stand down and remain at standby. It doesn't look like we'll be leaving any time soon.'

'Yes, Tahr Kahhni.' Krohn keyed in some commands and sent them.

Kyra looked at Sisko, still looking shocked by what had just transpired. 'We don't really have room to house that many troops, commander.'

'Don't worry, Kyra. They won't board the station until we know that the enemy is approaching this system in force.'

Sisko smiled, appearing very amiable. 'I don't suppose that you'd care to tell us what the rest of your battle plan is?'

Kahmmhi laughed. 'I don't think so. Where would the fun be in doing something like that? Surprises are always so much more exciting. Besides, you can't tell your superiors what you don't know, and you can't get into trouble if you don't have anything to tell them.'

Worf smiled. 'She does not trust our commanders.'

'I don't KNOW your commanders. But grandpa definitely taught us all about "military hierarchies" in societies that were set up similarly to what yours appears to be. Those who have connections and influence, or patrons, are promoted into a position where they can't do much harm to the actual troops. Those who are promoted out of field commands either retire or become bureaucrats and politicians. Neither can be trusted in combat because they've lost the ability, if they ever really had it in the first place, to make the necessary decisions quickly. To do what is right instead of covering their own ass first, and to do the job properly, regardless of the consequences.'

Kyra laughed softly. 'Well, SOMEBODY definitely knows those who are in charge of the fleet. In fact, they seem to have met most of the Federation Council and StarFleet Command.'

Sisko rolled his eyes, but said nothing. The Federation and StarFleet weren't exactly popular with all of the Bajorans, and with good reason. 'Since I don't seem to be able to acquire any more specific details at this time, perhaps we should all go to lunch?' At least at lunch Kahmmhi would talk to him, even if she didn't give him any real information.

Kahmmhi smiled. 'Quark's?'

Kyra and Jadzia nodded. 'Definitely. Ever since you gave him those new replicators, the food has been fantastic. As long as he uses the new replicators.'

Sisko shook his head. 'How can you tell?'

'When in doubt, order a Clan dish. Quark won't even program them into any of his old replicators. And his good drinks are cheaper because he uses the new replicators unless you specifically order the original nonreplicated beverage.'

'You're kidding.'

Worf shook his head. 'Nobody can tell his replicated blood wine from the original vintages. He even has several of the best, very rare vintages to choose from, and they are available at prices that most Klingons can easily afford. Even the Romulans don't complain about his Romulan ales.'

Sisko smiled. 'What are we waiting for? Let's find out if he has anything resembling jambalaya.'

Virginia shook her head in amazement. 'That girl is a LOT more like her grandfather than ANYONE in our Clan had EVER believed possible. I can't believe that she actually got them to agree to all of that.'

'I can't believe that she actually TOLD them that we're going to destroy the Founders and the entire Dominion.' Laura sighed. 'At least she didn't mention the Borg.'

'Speaking of the Borg, they appear to be quite adaptable, and they are extremely single-minded in their quest for "assimilating" new, superior technology from whoever has it whenever they discover it. I'm not really worried about them injecting us with their nanobots, but we should try to capture a few of the Borg for further study if we do run into them.'

Laura thought to herself that the Borg were more simpleminded than singleminded in their quest, but that was just a matter of opinion. 'Right. Anything else?'

'I want to start manufacturing the components to make some Q-bombs. Especially the matrix. If we run into the Borg, I don't want any survivors left to learn from our attack. We can use AM to damage their ships, but I don't want their hive queens to have enough time to learn ANYTHING about our tech that they could transmit back to the rest of the Borg collective.'

'No problem. What size?'

'Go with two fifties. That should be a small enough radius to keep our small craft safe, and large enough to take out anything that they have, even if we only get a near miss.'

'How many were you thinking about building?'

'What impact would making two hundred per ship have on our resource levels?'

Laura checked her comp, then laughed. 'With the decreased energy usage because of our limited crew, we can make about fifty a week without touching our reserves.'

Virginia grinned. 'Start immediately. Even if we don't run into any Borg, I may have some use for a few of them.'

Laura grinned. Whether Virginia was thinking about using them on the Dominion forces when they attacked, or on the Founders and their planet, it would be a good use of the resources. 'That definitely won't be a problem. What about the really big stuff?'

'We already have enough of them on hand to handle any real problems that we may come across. Or at least any of the encounters that we could realistically expect to have. But set things up so that we're ready to make more as soon as we start having to use any of them. We'll probably have to use at least one when we get to the Delta quadrant.'

'Right. No problem. I'll get right on it. Let's hope that our new enemies enjoy our surprises as much as we do.'

'Brian, I have bogeys at the edge of our sensor limits.'

'How many?'

'Two... three... five. Four of them look like the small scout ships that they used before. The fifth one is hanging back behind the rest of the pack, and it appears to be acting as control to receive and relay data from the other ships.'

'We have our orders. Send the alert to the fleet and to the station. As long as they're just looking, we don't react. Hold position. They'll have a talon of HATs shadowing them. All that we can do right now is sit back and enjoy the show.'

The call to Sisko came in while he was off duty. When he heard the message, he headed for the turbolift. He wasn't surprised to find that Worf was already at the ops center when he arrived.

'What do we have, Worf?'

'Four Dominion scout ships are entering the system, sir.'

Sisko looked at the viewscreen and gasped. 'Uncloaked? Who is following them? That image resolution is amazing.'

'They are still fully cloaked, sir. They are still beyond the range where even Romulan or Klingon ships might be able to detect them. The video feed is from a Clan small craft. Something they refer to as a HAT, whatever that is.'

'Are the Romulans and Klingons cloaked already?'

'Most of their ships are, but a few of them haven't been able to cloak yet, sir.'

After communications made a few quick calls to the Romulan and Klingon fleets regarding the ships in question, the few remaining ships in both of their fleets managed to cloak. Some of the Federation ships were now maneuvering so that they could try to use DS9 or the bulk of some of the larger ships to conceal their presence from the enemy's sensors. Sisko and the others did what they could to conceal the station's recent upgrades, then sat back to see how long the Dominion would remain inside the system for this scouting mission.

Kyra found Kahmmhi on the promenade, staring intently out into space through the viewport on the observation deck. 'There's a lot more to see on the promenade. Most of the ships in the system are cloaked now so that they aren't detected by the Dominion scouting force.'

Kahmmhi laughed softly. 'The view is much more interesting out there. The Romulan and Klingon ships have not only cloaked, but they are changing their positions. The Federation ships are trying to hide in the lee of larger ships or hide behind the station, trying to keep its bulk between them and the enemy scouts. That might work if there was only one scout, but with four of them and them spreading out to providing overlapping coverage, the station isn't really going to hide them all that well. Not a lot of planning there.'

'What do you mean?'

'If you're actually trying to conceal the extent of the forces that you've built up inside this system in preparation for this battle, I'd think that stationing a lot of your ships on the other side of the wormhole would keep the local Dominion forces from knowing that they're here.'

'Yes, and no. If they were on the other side of the wormhole, they could be attacked by other Dominion forces that are still inside the Delta quadrant.'

Kahmmhi rolled her eyes and shook her head. She looked disgusted, or perhaps disappointed was more appropriate. 'Don't you think that the mere fact that the Dominion had any additional forces near the wormhole would indicate that they were attempting to flank you and catch your forces in a pincer attack by launching a sneak attack from the Delta quadrant where you couldn't see it coming in time to make preparations to defend against it?'

Kyra blushed, realizing that she HADN'T thought of that. Being Bajoran, they didn't exactly have the need to think in terms of fleet tactics and space combat all that often. The StarFleet admiral currently commanding the Federation fleet, however, had no such excuse. A sneak attack on their flank like that wouldn't have to be perfectly timed in order to be successful. In fact, if they waited until the Coalition forces were fully engaged in combat with the Alliance forces, the sudden appearance of another enemy fleet striking their flank and rear would create chaos and confusion, resulting in even more damage to the Federation forces and those of their allies.

'We don't even have pickets posted on the other end of the wormhole. If someone attacked us like that, we'd have no warning at all.'

Kahmmhi smiled. 'Relax, Kyra. We DO have pickets on the other end of the wormhole, and we are in constant communication with them.'

'How is that even possible?'

'We have a comsat on each end of the wormhole.' Kahmmhi paused briefly. 'Let's just say that the signal moves through the wormhole just as rapidly as a ship does, so it's faster than communications in normal space or even via subspace.'

'That Romulan warbird's stealth is out of phase.'

Kyra looked where Brynhe was pointing, but saw nothing at all other than the depths of space.

'They use some type of emitters, similar to how their energy shielding works. Three, no four in that section are out of calibration with the rest. See the red shift?'

Brynhe smiled. 'It is kind of pretty. It'd probably look really great if there was some ionization bouncing off of it.'

Kyra shook her head in amazement. With their best instrumentation, the Federation could detect both cloaked Romulan and Klingon ships, but it wasn't always easy to do. Especially if the ships were conserving power usage and weren't moving at all. For the Federation to detect cloaked Dominion ships was nearly impossible. They might know that something was out there, and the general heading or area that it was in, but getting enough of a fix to allow them to fire on it accurately was extremely difficult under the best of circumstances. The Klingons had the capability to detect cloaked Dominion ships, but it wouldn't be very useful in the impending conflict. There would be too much activity, confusion, and chaos, and the energy weapons being used would make getting useful sensor data of that type even more difficult, so it would be almost impossible for anyone to accurately target cloaked ships. But Clan members could actually see cloaked ships with their naked eyes. She shuddered as she realized that Clan ships could accurately target every known ship in the galaxy, whether it was cloaked or not.

That was the moment when Kyra first realized that it wasn't just their tech that made the Clan different from every race that the Federation had ever heard of. The fact that they looked, acted, and sounded human MOST of the time just made them seem even MORE alien when they didn't. They were more alien in their culture, beliefs, and thinking than even the Borg were. More impressive than their tech was the way that they used it, and how they seemed to have totally incorporated the necessity of constant warfare into their daily lives, simply accepting it as the price of their continued survival. As if war was as necessary for the survival of their species as eating, drinking, sleeping, breathing, and having sex. But the most impressive and truly frightening thing was the Clan members themselves. It was as if they had actually been designed and created to be the perfect warriors. They didn't even seem to care about the odds.

'I wonder how long they'll take in their recon surveys.'

Kahmmhi shook her head. 'There's really no way to tell, but I'm betting that it will be slower and more cautious than their normal scouting operations are. Just losing that first recon ship like that probably made them nervous.'

Kyra nodded. 'She's probably right, Brynhe. They would still be worried about the possibility that their first ship was intentionally destroyed by some type of new secret weapon that they know nothing about.'

'I wonder how many Clan ships are shadowing the Dominion scouts?'

'I can't be certain, sir. They're being very selective in their video feeds, and they have filtered the data and images of their own ships out of the data stream. But I can tell you that there are five or six different observation angles on each of the Dominion scout ships.'

'I wouldn't have expected them to have sent that many ships. It would greatly increase the probability of at least ONE of them being detected by the enemy. They HAVE to be detectable by SOME method.'

Chief O'Brien shook his head. 'None that I'm aware of, sir. No residue or emissions of ANY kind other than the video feed that we're getting from them. And it's all slightly delayed burst transmissions of encrypted data. No ion trail. No warp signature. No sign of ANY known propulsion system, and no energy bleed or leakage on any spectrum that we can scan. We can't even scan the interior of their small craft when they DO decloak so that we can see and detect them. About the only thing that we have been able to detect is a small neutrino flux that is barely above background levels when their ships cross long distances literally instantaneously. And even that has no pattern, as if it's been intentionally randomly canceled out to mimic background neutrino levels and leave no detectable pattern.'

'Do you have any idea about why that is?'

'No, sir. As I said, it's barely detectable, and even what is above background levels of neutrino flux has no real pattern. It's almost as if they're using a randomizing dampening buffer or some type of out of phase antineutrino wave to cancel out their emissions. But all of that is just conjecture based on the only theoretical explanations that I can come up with. We literally have no idea what type of propulsion systems they actually use, and even less idea about how it actually operates.'

'Do you have any theories, Chief?'

'Not really, sir. The only thing that we know anything about that actually works, or I should say SEEMS to work in a comparable manner, is a wormhole. And we both know how easy it is to detect THAT type of activation event.'

Sisko nodded, still watching the feed intently. 'Almost everything about the Clan is an enigma.'

No one in the ops center responded to his whispered comment, but everyone who heard it definitely agreed with his assessment.

Sisko's relief when the Dominion scouting force finally left the system was short-lived. His first duty was to attend a staff meeting to go over the recent reconnaissance mission. Even with his recent promotion to captain, he would still be the junior officer present, as well as the one most likely to be put into the hot seat during this meeting.

When he arrived at the meeting room, everyone else was already present and seated. Admiral Stevens looked up at his entrance. 'Nice of you to join us, captain. It's not as if we have more important matters to attend to.'

Admiral Yamato cleared her throat, cutting off any possible response. 'By my watch, the meeting isn't scheduled to begin for another three minutes, admiral. And even if he HAD been late, he does have to deal with acting as the official liaison with the Clan, and dealing with their diplomatic delegation does require some of his time and attention as well. It is also much more likely to be something that is less predictable and more difficult to schedule.'

'The Clan. What the hell kind of name is that, anyway?'

'A fairly descriptive one, admiral. They are a grouping of interrelated families, and from what we can tell, their family groupings are somewhat large and highly extended. From what we have been able to learn thus far, there are at least fifty Clans fighting a common enemy. Technically, Kahmmhi isn't a diplomat.'

'Then why in the hell is she being treated like one and accorded all of the courtesies that we reserve for diplomatic delegations?' Stevens still wasn't calm.

Yamato smiled. 'Because the Federation Council wishes to try to establish diplomatic relations with the Clans. We're hoping to at least negotiate some type of trade agreements with them.'

Sisko nodded. 'The Clans don't really HAVE diplomats. They don't negotiate with their enemies as a rule, and when they do negotiate with a potential ally or neutral trading partner, their Clan's leader or his family handles all of the details. Now that they are cut off from their Clan, Kahmmhi has assumed command, and that duty falls to her until they can rejoin their Clan.'

'Why is that?' Yamato sounded curious.

'Because she is the daughter of the ruler of Clan Silver Dragon. She is also the granddaughter of the ruler of Clan Phoenix, the strongest, largest, and oldest Clan. Her grandfather is the one who founded the first Clan and created their way of life, and he is the one who started their war with their enemy.'

Stevens looked at Sisko. 'And what, exactly, makes such a young race so special?'

'They aren't a young race, sir. They've been in space, and at war with their enemies, for six thousand Clan years. We've done the conversions, and that is equivalent to almost seventy two hundred Earth years.'

'Don't be ridiculous, captain. Her grandfather could not possibly have founded their society more than seven thousand years ago.'

'With all due respect, admiral, our doctor has examined Clan members. They show NO signs of aging, including at the molecular level. And their technology, as far as we can tell, is highly advanced. That is especially apparent in some areas. In others, we have no data to draw any valid conclusions from.'

Admiral Korg laughed. 'Yes. The Romulans can't detect their cloaked ships any better than we can.'

Admiral Karv'Tarek nodded. 'It seems that the Dominion remains oblivious to their presence as well. They certainly didn't detect the Clan ships that were shadowing their scout ships the entire time that they were inside this system.'

'Did the Clan tell you what kind of ships were being used?'

Sisko shook his head. 'No, Admiral Yamato. They called them HATs, but we didn't get any data on them with the transmissions. The only Clan ships that we've actually seen are the strike assault shuttles that bring their troops to the station for shore leave and training sims in the holodeck, and we can only see them or detect them when they decloak. All Clan ships and small craft are normally cloaked all of the time.'

Yamato nodded. 'So, exactly what DID we get?'

'Very clear imaging of every ship in the system. We don't know exactly how much of that the scouts from the Dominion were able to detect with their sensors.'

'Surely not EVERY ship in the system, Sisko.'

'The Musashi, the Defiant, and every cloaked ship in the system, Captain Riker. Commander Worf was able to discern individual hull plates on the Dominion ships while they were still fully cloaked.'

Gowron scowled. 'If they won't trade with us... We NEED that technology to give us an advantage over the Dominion, or at least to negate their advantage over us in the area of cloaking technology. But we couldn't possibly do anything to improve our current cloaking OR our sensors before they attack.'

Korg nodded. 'That is true. But those who attack the Clan do so at their own peril. My troops and I certainly have no death wish.'

'Are you so soft that you've lost your courage, Korg?'

Korg laughed. 'I have seen the security tapes of a female who is small for a human BREAKING a Nosikan AND his knife with her bare hands. I have seen the same female crush and mangle a Romulan's knife with her bare hands, then kill the Romulan and rip his heart from his body with a single punch. We can't see or detect their ships. We can't see or detect their troops. And even their small females are more than a match for an adult male Klingon physically.'

'If their ships are as capable as their warriors, it will help in the upcoming battle. But even cloaking will only do so much to help them avoid being accurately targeted by the enemy. They do only have nine ships.'

'That's nine more than we had before, Gowron.'

Karv'Tarek nodded. 'True, Korg. But no matter how good their troops are, we still know nothing about their ships or their weaponry. We have no idea of their size, their capabilities, the number of small craft that they have available, or even what the capabilities of their small craft are.'

'I can give you some idea of their forces, though it still doesn't give us any definite data. Six of their ships are about the same size. The next two are four times larger than them, and their largest ship is much larger than all of the others combined.'

'How does that help?' Admiral Stevens sounded fairly sarcastic.

'Kahmmhi has agreed to remain on DS9 during the battle with the Dominion forces. They are sending twenty thousand troops to make sure that DS9 isn't successfully boarded while she is on the station.'

Yamato smiled. 'Congratulations, captain. You managed to keep them out of the actual combat, as requested.'

Sisko looked embarrassed. 'Um, not quite, admiral. Kahmmhi and twenty thousand troops will remain here on DS9. And she did agree to keep all of the Clan ships at least two million kilometers away from the battle lines. But she claimed the right to have the rest of her troops use their small craft to board thirty five of the Dominion ships that they followed here from the Delta quadrant.'

Yamato sighed. 'Tell me that you didn't agree to her demands, captain.'

'I had no other option, sir. If I refused, they were going to go to the Delta quadrant.'

'That would have been a much more preferable outcome, captain.' Stevens was definitely not pleased, and Yamato actually seemed to share his sentiments.

'I don't believe that you quite understand the situation and the options that she gave me, admiral. Their plan was to wait for the outcome of this battle. If we lost, they intended to come back through the wormhole and attack the Dominion fleet on their own. If we won, they'd head for the home world of the Founders. They seemed to believe that they could destroy the entire planet and almost eradicate the Founders' race with a single attack.'

High Captain Sorn'Kek nodded. 'Bold. Strategically sound. An excellent plan if it were actually possible to execute it.'

Yamato shook her head. 'Suicidal, if you ask me. Very well, captain. I concur. We'll take their little contribution into our planning and restrict fire on the designated vessels for as long as we can to give them a chance. Though they can't possibly have enough troops to take on that many Jem'Haddar troops. They'll be outnumbered. Probably hundreds to one. Facing trained Jem'Haddar combat troops who are half out of their minds with a mixture of blood lust, adrenaline, and tetracel white.'

Sisko shrugged. The Clan KNEW what they would be facing. He wondered if the Jem'Haddar had any idea that they were no longer the strongest, fastest, or most aggressive warriors in the galaxy. He had seen the video of what Krohn had done on the holodeck. Even the best Jem'Haddar troops would have about as much chance of winning against those overpowered holograms as the holograms had had of defeating Krohn. Sisko had seen what Clan small arms could do. He just wondered if ANYTHING could be salvaged from those ships after the Clan got through with them.

Yamato waited until she was back on her own ship to consider the meeting and go over all of the details in her mind. Overall, it had gone well. The largest problem that she still had to deal with was the personality clash between herself and Admiral Stevens. He thought that the command of this fleet and the overall command of the defense of this system should have been given to him. While they were equals in rank, she knew that she had been given overall command of the Federation forces for several reasons. First, she was better at military strategy and tactics than Stevens was, and it was imperative that the best officer be in command. The Federation and the entire Alpha quadrant could NOT afford to lose this system and give the Dominion a shortcut to the Delta quadrant. Second, she had more experience dealing with the Klingons and the Romulans peacefully, and that would be critical in smoothing ruffled feathers and keeping this alliance intact. Now that she'd talked to Sisko in more detail about the Clan, she realized that possibly the most important reason for her being given this command was that the Federation didn't want Admiral Stevens pissing Kahmmhi off. They didn't NEED any more enemies right now, especially since they were interested in establishing at least peaceful relations and trading with the Clan. And possibly much more.

She sat down in her ready room with a cup of green tea and began going over the reports on the Clan to get a feel for them. After reading the third update, she frowned, looking perplexed. She began reading the entire file over from the beginning, going more slowly and concentrating on the details. Lost. Cut off from the rest of their Clan. A small scouting force that had been reinforced with one larger ship. They came through the wormhole from the Delta quadrant while following a cloaked Dominion invasion fleet. They were not warp capable, but they knew what warp drives were and how they worked. Their society refused to use warp technology because of the inherent dangers. Yamato raised an eyebrow. That statement itself showed that they understood more about warp technology than any race in the Alpha quadrant who had been using it for centuries.

Yamato sighed as she read other details about the things that had been mentioned in the meeting. The encounter with the Nosikans was disturbing because it showed that their armor was like nothing that had ever been encountered, and their weapons were deceptive. They looked archaic, yet they worked better than anything that the Federation or their allies could make. The encounter with the Romulan should have been a political nightmare. Yet the Clan seemingly considered it inconsequential and over. If anything, they were somewhat embarrassed that they had killed the Romulan, but Clan law demanded the death penalty for his crimes. Yamato found the video disturbing, but understood the motivation. They were warriors, and the Romulan had pushed until Kahmmhi had responded.

Since the Clan had discovered DS9, they had been openly and peacefully talking with Sisko and his staff and trading items that weren't on the restricted list, though the fact that the restricted list of technologies that couldn't be traded with a non-warp capable culture usually was to prevent them from acquiring more advanced technology from the Federation, not the other way around. And since they had learned of the Prime Directive, the Clan had made sure not to violate the intent of that law.

So far, so good. Only things seemed to just get weird from there. The members of the Clan were stronger and faster than any known race. By at LEAST one order of magnitude. They showed no detectable signs of aging, and Kahmmhi, who looked like a girl who should just be starting her first year at the academy, was two hundred and fifty years old. They had nanobots, but they weren't Borg. Their weapons LOOKED primitive, and functioned by using almost the same principles as the weapons that they appeared to be, but it was beyond their technological capabilities to even SCAN them, much less analyze or duplicate them. Their technology had been proven to be highly advanced in several areas. Most notably, replicator technology, cloaking (for their ships, their small craft, and their individual troops), small arms, armor, and their ability to use and control antimatter.

Yamato watched the security video of the incident at Quark's again. Phasers had no effect on their armor, even if the phaser had only been set to heavy stun. She paused, sent a message to Sisko, then resumed her analysis of the Clans. One small projectile from one of their archaic sidearms had completely obliterated a huge section of the bulkhead. Amazing. Profuse, sincere apologies. The Clan had overestimated the strength of the construction materials. The round was weaker than those that they normally used in combat with their enemy aboard the enemy ships, and was considered to be barely strong enough to kill an enemy troop in combat armor.

The most disturbing thing from Yamato's point of view was the sudden shift in position that one of their ships had demonstrated, which had been inadvertently left on the data that they had given the Federation to show the Dominion fleet that they had followed here from the Delta quadrant. Instantaneously covering over a million kilometers without using some type of warp thrust was impossible, and even warp took SOME amount of time to cover that distance. But there were no detectable energy signatures to indicate the use of either warp or impulse drives. And their small craft were easily capable of maintaining cruising speeds of at least six light seconds per hour. That feat was impressive in its own right, since the ship was obviously moving through real space the entire time. It was even more impressive when you considered the fact that the ship was cloaked and completely undetectable the entire time.

So far, all that they knew about the shipboard armaments was that the Clan SAID that they relied on lasers and railguns. Yamato wasn't too concerned, since she knew for a scientific fact that neither type of weapon could be enhanced enough to make them dangerous to ships with modern weapons and energy shields. Those types of weapons simply lacked the power to punch through modern energy shielding.

Sisko looked at Admiral Yamato's request, then had Chief O'Brien report to his office. When O'Brien saw the request, he looked concerned.

'Sir, I can do the testing that the admiral has requested, but I'd really like to talk to Kahmmhi before we actually try anything like that. All of the results that I've obtained from my preliminary analyses indicate that this could be really dangerous.'

'Dangerous? In what way, Chief?' Sisko was worried. Chief O'Brien wasn't easy to rattle, and he did his job very well. If he said that it could be dangerous, Sisko wanted to know what could go wrong.

'Some of the materials that they've given us samples of seem to be almost totally impervious to energy. It's as if they actually reflect the energy without absorbing ANY of it. Detailed analysis of the effects of phaser fire on their armor seems to indicate that it was refracted and dispersed, as well as reflected.'

'Why haven't I heard anything about this before now, Chief?'

'Sorry, sir. I've been really busy overseeing the weapons installation and upgrades to the station's defenses. You didn't specifically order an analysis, so I've just been kind of doing it in my spare time to relax. Sort of satisfying my curiosity. And, to tell you the truth, I just got the results of the last set of tests a few hours ago.' O'Brien looked somewhat embarrassed, as if he had let Sisko down.

'Sorry, Chief. I'm not chewing you out. I'm just irritated, mostly with myself. I can't believe that I was so busy or otherwise occupied that I didn't even think about ordering some sort of systematic study myself, so I didn't already have the information ready when I received the admiral's request.' Sisko sighed. 'Let's find Kahmmhi and talk to her. We can see what advice she has concerning how to answer the admiral's request.'

Kahmmhi listened carefully as Sisko explained the situation to her, then looked at Krohn. 'What do you think?'

'It would be much safer if we made a kwyll shield for them. But I have no idea what kind of secondary effects they would have to deal with, or what they could be like. We could make them a few small plates to use as targets easily enough. I just don't know how safe it would be for them to conduct their tests.'

'Have Max make some armor plates. About a foot square, and maybe a quarter of an inch thick. Zyhnchyrr, krymchyll, and tohlvyhn. Three plates of each.' She smiled at Chief O'Brien. 'Is that enough for you to do testing on, Chief?'

'I think so. Thank you, ma'am. How many days will it take for your people to make them and have them ready for us to begin testing on them?'

'Krohn? What's the ETA?'

'Maybe ten minutes to synthesize them. Half an hour to get them here.'

O'Brien looked stunned. 'You can make armor THAT quickly?'

Kahmmhi shrugged. 'It's only small armor samples, and they're just making plates. That's nowhere near as complex as making body armor, and it IS only a quarter of an inch thick.'

'OK. Well, how thick is something like, say, the hull armor on your small craft, for instance?'

'Assault fighters have the thinnest armor. It's only thirty five centimeters thick. Strike assault shuttles and PT boats have fifty centimeters of armor. Long range recon shuttles and heavy assault transports have seventy five centimeters of armor.'

Even Sisko blinked in surprise. Seventy five centimeters was almost two and a half feet thick. As dense as some of the materials that the Clans used were, that would mean that their armor was...

'So which of these materials is the hull armor for your small craft made of?' Chief O'Brien was very curious.

'We don't use anything as light as these materials for armor on small craft that are designed to go into combat. They might use tohlvyhn for some kind of shuttle or transport that wasn't supposed to be in battle or near a combat zone if a Clan was really strapped for materials. Small craft are typically armored with vihlnyhk. Some of the larger ships in the fleet are armored with a composite made from alternating layers of vihlnyhk and tohlvyhn, but the tohlvyhn layers are made by a special process that makes them stronger than normal. Some small craft are armored with a layer of kwyll. Clan Phoenix actually has some shuttles with all of the armor made of kwyll that has been manufactured as molecular armor.'

Sisko swallowed nervously. The three materials that the Clan were bringing for the test were all harder than duranium. But the hardest of the three was only used in the armor of larger ships, presumably because the harder materials were more difficult to work with and it was more difficult to get enough of them to use them exclusively when they required that much armor. If the small craft that the Clan used had armor that thick, he wasn't sure that he wanted to know exactly how thick the armor on the ships in their fleet was.

Several Clan members finally arrived with the plates. O'Brien had completed setting up the testing equipment, and Krohn and Jehryl helped him position the first plate.

'OK, sir. It's got a reddish tint, and the material is silvery in color. That would be zyhnchyrr?'

Krohn nodded. 'Yep. That's the stuff.'

Everyone stood behind the protective shielding and watched as O'Brien used a phaser rifle to do a long, sustained burst against a particular point on the target. It was hot and glowing after fifteen seconds, and he finally managed to put a hole through the armor just before the phaser rifle was about to start its overload cycle. He managed to cut the power just before the overload became critical.

'That is really tough.'

They replaced the target and tried to damage it with a Romulan disruptor. By the end of ten minutes, they'd discovered that using multiple disruptors to hit the same point simultaneously had no effect at all, and it didn't matter if the disruptors that they used were Romulan or Klingon. O'Brien tried the same plate with Dominion pulse rifles that had been captured. They managed to burn through the target about as well as the phaser rifle had. The big differences were that they didn't almost overload because they fired multiple sequential pulses and there were three of them firing simultaneously.

'They work almost like a Consortium laser rifle, but it's more like short bursts of a plasma beam. It's not as powerful as Consortium laser rifles are, but it is about equivalent to the phaser rifle.' Krohn and Jehryl were very engrossed in their evaluation of the weapon.

'Um, guys, let's have less talking and more assistance. Or do you think that he's gonna hold the krymchyll plate in place AND secure it on his own?' Brynhe laughed as the guys rushed to help O'Brien.

The test with the krymchyll took longer, even without bothering to use the disruptors, since they had proven ineffective against the lighter armor materials. Three phaser rifles firing sequential bursts to keep from overloading them managed to cut through the plate in just over two minutes. It took the three Dominion pulse rifles slightly longer to do the same thing.

After he put the tohlvyhn plate in place, O'Brien tried sequential bursts until he depleted three fully charged phaser rifles, with little to no effect. He replaced them with three fresh Federation phaser rifles and tried simultaneous sustained fire, but he had to stop because the rifles were on the verge of overloading. The tohlvyhn was still barely scratched. The Dominion pulse rifles didn't fare any better.

O'Brien checked his readings, then examined the tohlvyhn plate closely. 'Some heavy duty industrial cutting phasers or really powerful drilling phasers might be able to cut through it. Probably a starship's phasers using a two or three second burst because of the wider dispersal. But this stuff is much harder than duranium, sir. Nothing is going to just cut right through it.'

Krohn laughed as he casually tossed one of the two untested pieces of tohlvyhn into the air. His sword was a blur, and was already resheathed across his back as the four pieces of tohlvyhn that his two cuts had made clattered noisily to the deck. 'It's a bit harder than Grak body armor, but THAT'S how you cut tohlvyhn quickly and easily.'

O'Brien just nodded numbly, staring at the four pieces of tohlvyhn that were lying on the deck. Vihlnyhk was much harder than tohlvyhn, and kwyll was much harder than vihlnyhk. Those swords were made of kwyll. The Clan considered kwyll to be virtually indestructible. O'Brien couldn't imagine small craft that were actually armored with fifty centimeters or more of kwyll. He didn't even WANT to imagine what could possibly be dangerous enough for ANYONE to even THINK that they needed to build a shuttle that was THAT indestructible in the first place. Even if they DIDN'T have any energy shielding at all on their small craft.

Admiral Yamato watched the results of the test again. The softest material tested was harder than duranium. The hardest material that the Clan was willing to trade openly with the Federation was totally impervious to disruptor fire, and survived phaser rifle fire or Dominion pulse rifle fire far too long for her comfort. And that plate was less than a centimeter thick. Energy weapons were not going to be extremely effective against Clan ships, but that wouldn't stop the kinetic impact of photon torpedoes from overloading their artificial gravity and inertial compensators and tearing their ships apart.

There were still some things that bothered her about the Clan. They had access to materials that were much harder than any known materials, and the capability to produce them very quickly and easily. They were totally alien in their thought patterns and reactions to many things, and that alien approach to the world around them carried over into how they did certain things. Their combat tactics were so ruthless, aggressive, and coldly efficient that they made Klingons and Nosikans look like mellow, easygoing pacifists. And, to be totally honest, she was much more than merely impressed with their abilities when it came to handling and using antimatter. Her response was actually somewhere between total amazement and awe, slightly tinged with dread.

OK. The Clan insisted on fighting in the upcoming conflict with the Dominion, and at least now she had some reassurance that they had SOME chance of survival in a conflict against an enemy with such advanced energy weapons. Small craft were fast, agile, and hard to hit, and at least those used by the Clan couldn't be detected by the Dominion any better than her own ships could detect them. And she had to admit that if the Clan committed enough small craft to the battle, it would distract the enemy long enough for her fleet to inflict some serious damages on the Dominion forces and their allies. IF they could detect the cloaked Dominion ships well enough to target them accurately. That handicap bothered Yamato more than the fact that she would be seriously outnumbered by the enemy forces.

Virginia looked at the report and shook her head in dismay. The largest and most important battle ever fought in their entire quadrant? She hoped that these kids survived long enough to actually learn something from this lesson, because they obviously had never faced a real enemy or fought a real battle before. Personally, she wasn't holding her breath. It had taken these people HUNDREDS of years of using warp technology at high speeds to even discover the dangers that were intrinsic to its use. Yet even after that discovery, they continued to use such a dangerous propulsion system, and they weren't even making any serious efforts to replace it with something that was more reliable and safer. Their efforts to remove the matter from subspace were an energy intensive way of putting a band-aid on a sucking chest wound and making everyone think that they were doing something to treat the problem.

'What's wrong, Ginny?'

Kevin just sent in a courier with our long range scans. An enemy fleet dropped out of warp and is using microjumps to approach and form up their ranks. They're already at the edge of the system.'

'And?' Laura wasn't thrilled with Ginny's current reactions, so there had to be some bad news.

'If we weren't here, it would be a complete and total slaughter. The Klingons can detect and target "cloaked" ships, but they don't have the same weapons range as the Dominion ships do. They can also "cloak", but they lack the numbers to stand up to the enemy fleet. Romulans aren't exactly sitting ducks, but they can't target or detect cloaked Dominion ships as well as the Klingons can. The Federation has no "cloaking" capability at all on more than a handful of their ships. They can detect cloaked Dominion ships fairly well, but they can't locate them well enough to target them accurately.'

'We already knew that. So what's the problem?'

'The friendlies in this system are seriously outnumbered and outmassed. About three hundred and sixty ships are here. The Dominion and their allies have just over five thousand ships moving into this system. They're moving forward in five waves of about a thousand ships each. And we already know how the ships that are here compare to the fleet that we followed here from the Delta quadrant.'

'That IS seriously outnumbered. But the Clans have fought against serious numerical AND mass disadvantages lots of times. Do they have the tech or some tactical capabilities to allow them to pull it off?'

'Not really. Both sides have tech that is about equivalent, except for their "cloaking" capabilities, and that definitely favors the Dominion.' Virginia sighed. 'As far as size goes... The Cardassians and Breen would be easily defeated. Fourteen hundred ships that are about a third of the size of an old large scout, and six hundred more that are about twice that size. They have the edge in numbers, but not in firepower. But the Dominion has about five hundred ships that are about two thirds of the size of an old large scout, about fifteen hundred that are about the size of a light cruiser, and about a thousand that are the size of a heavy fire cruiser. Then there is the Dominion fleet that we followed here from the Delta quadrant.'

'And the Federation alliance has?'

'Ninety ships that are about one third the size of an old large scout, forty ships that are about two thirds of the size of a large scout, eighty ships that are about the size of a large scout, twenty ships the size of a light cruiser, eighty ships that are just larger than a light cruiser, twenty seven ships that are the size of a heavy fire cruiser, and twenty one ships that are the size of an ancient carrier. They also have two or three small, fast, armored ships that are about the size of an old troop transport.'

'A thousand ships the size of a heavy fire cruiser offsets the larger ships that the Federation and their allies have. Just the fleet that we followed here is a serious threat to their entire fleet. Do we have any idea where THEY are in all of this mess?'

'The Dominion battleships, troop transports, and battlecruisers are in the first wave. They probably intend to board DS9 and do a planetary assault at the same time.' Virginia laughed. 'But I'm fairly certain that Kahmmhi plans to screw that plan up. She's authorized a full boarding assault and approved the entire battle plan. Including the modifications that we discussed after I received this information.'

'So, what's the plan, Ginny?'

'We're going to hammer the piss out of them. Hit them so hard and so fast that they don't even have time to BEG for quarter. How many of the Q-bombs do we have completed?'

'Eighty. We'll have twenty more done in a few more days.'

'Screw that noise, Laura. We both know that we've got about a day, and that's the absolute max. Get me a talon of recon shuttles from one of the assault frigates. We're going to give them a payload of one Q-bomb per ship. One claw will be assigned to each wave. Pick the best targets that they can, but the ships from the fleet that we followed here are off limits for those taking the first wave. We're going to show the Jem'Haddar what it takes to be a real warrior. Kahmmhi wants to make a statement.'

'Aye, sir. Anything else?'

'Get them in the air. Full launch for the approved battle plan. Put the fleet so that we can maintain a clear shot at the entire first wave. Designate off limits targets. It's high time that the kids learned how to fight a real war.'

Laura nodded. 'Hot damn. At last. I was getting bored to death with all of this waiting.'

Sisko watched the security monitor in awe as Clan troops in full armor marched into his station, appearing out of thin air at the airlock because their ships remained "stealthed", as the Clan called it. He had to admit that the word truly fit. So far, they had been unable to see or detect ANY Clan ships that were stealthed by ANY means.

'How many, sir?'

'Twenty thousand. Platoons of fifty troops.'

'They are very impressive and imposing, but they don't march well.'

Kahmmhi chuckled. 'My grandfather had no use for what he called "parade ground soldiers". If it wasn't fighting, it wasn't defending the Clan. That is the only true purpose for any true Clan warrior, whether she is in the offensive or defensive forces.'

'She?' Both Worf and Sisko were surprised at her use of the feminine pronoun.

'About seventy five to eighty percent of all Clan births are female. Overall, the same is true in all jobs of the Clan. But males do tend to be overrepresented in the offensive forces because of their naturally higher aggression and strength.' Kahmmhi smiled sheepishly. 'They're bigger. But when you're my size in the Clan, almost everyone is. Even the Llyriana.'

'You said that you had information about the Dominion fleet?'

'They're here already, as you know. Five waves of about a thousand ships each. We've already initiated a full launch of the forces that we had planned to commit to this battle.'

'Would you care to elaborate on that, Tahr Kahhni?'

Kahmmhi chuckled. 'I'm very sorry, Sisko. But, as my grandfather has often said, it's a surprise. If I just told you everything, it would spoil the surprise completely, and where would the fun be in that?'

'I think that I like his sense of humor.'

Krohn laughed. 'Only when he is around his family. Around his enemies, his humor is sharper and darker than kwyll.'

'He can't possibly be that bad.'

'In the entire history of the Consortium, there had never been a record of ANY Grak EVER committing suicide rather than facing an enemy in combat. Until they faced Kohl-garh.'

'How do you know that they committed suicide?' Worf was very interested. This Kohl-garh of theirs seemed to be a truly great warrior, worthy of great songs.

Kahmmhi sighed. 'Grandpa won't talk about it with the family. Especially not with the small kids, but I've heard his Shadow Lehr talking before. The "Grak option" is when a Grak learns that his ship has been boarded by the Clan, and he walks out of an airlock without a spacesuit or armor. Usually they go out of the airlock naked.'

Worf nodded. 'That definitely proves that it is suicide. How long does it usually take for them to lose hope and determine that their situation has become so hopeless?'

Krohn laughed loudly. 'If they haven't already taken the Grak option within the first half hour after their ship has been boarded by Clan troops, Clan Phoenix has already made that impossible.' His grin made even Worf feel slightly uncomfortable. 'After that, they know that they're trapped and their only hope of survival is to kill us. Then they actually fight harder. Which just proves that Lehr was right. Even a grahl will fight to cling to life if you corner it and give it no other options.'

Sisko didn't even want to know what a "grahl" was. Krohn's tone made it evident that a grahl was something that they considered to be lowly, disgusting, and beneath contempt. And he definitely didn't need to have the rest of the comment explained to him. The Clan openly said that their enemies had inferior weapons, inferior armor, and inferior technology. Knowing that, he had no doubt that their enemies feared the Clan. So far, he'd seen no show of emotion or remorse whatsoever when they fought. Just cold, calm, methodical efficiency and deadly skill.

'Things haven't really changed in the system since our scouts returned. There are still only about three hundred and fifty of their ships in the system. A score of battleships, two dozen ships that are equivalent to our own battle frigates, a hundred that are about the size of our warships, eighty ships that are twice the size of our scout ships or the large Cardassian ships, and ninety ships that are the size of the small Cardassian ships or the Breen ships.'

'We are aware of the situation, admiral. We have been collecting data and planning this mission for a very long time. It took them years to even become aware of the existence of our operatives in their midst. And even then, it was part of our plan. To make them distrustful of everyone and everything around them. To make them waste their valuable time and resources chasing phantoms and ghosts.'

'Yes, eminence.' Admiral Kem'tar was awed by the presence of Founders on his ship, but he was worried that he would make a mistake and lose favor in their eyes. No Jem'Haddar ever wanted to disappoint one of the Founders. Though there was no chance of being killed for failure. There was no possible way that the Federation could win this war. Their technological capabilities were comparable overall, but they were at a serious numerical disadvantage, and their cloaking technology was not good enough to keep them from being totally overwhelmed by Dominion forces. The Federation forces themselves didn't even use cloaking technology on the majority of their ships, having allowed their one-time enemies to dictate their technological development in that area.

'Are the troops ready to make the assault landings?'

General Mok'tel nodded. 'Yes, eminence. Both for the planet Bajor and the combat boardings on DS9. Once the battle is under way, we'll be able to launch the planetary assault forces. As soon as the shields on the station show any weakness at all, troops will be beamed into the station from our cloaked ships. We have at least forty thousand troops ready for the assault on DS9, and at least half of them should be able to find a way to beam aboard. Their primary objective is to take the station's shields down so that more forces can beam aboard. The secondary objective is to take out their photon torpedo launchers and phasers so that they are defenseless. The tertiary goal is to kill or imprison all enemy personnel aboard the station.'

'Once enough troops are on board, see if they can turn the station's weapons on the enemy fleet. And make sure that the troops understand that officers and ranking personnel aboard the station are to be captured and held for interrogation. We still have much that we need to learn from them.'

'Yes, eminence. The orders will be changed and confirmed immediately by all units.'

'How long until we are finally in position to demand their surrender?'

'Two hours, eminence.'

'Very well. Leave me. I have preparations to make before the battle can begin.'

After the Jem'Haddar left, she went to her private quarters and flowed into the small pool of golden liquid to commune with others of her kind who were also here to oversee the invasion and subjugation of the Alpha quadrant. Soon the Dominion would increase their power base significantly, increase the amount of resources that were available to them, and increase the number of slave races who would serve the Founders and worship them as gods. It was only right that the "solids" should learn their place in the universe. They were naturally weaker and inferior to those that they referred to as "shapeshifters".

All of the Clan troops had spread out through the space station and taken up their defensive positions by now. Worf saw that the station's security personnel were able to control access to the critical points throughout the station. There was at least one Clan platoon near every single weapons control room, the auxiliary control center, and main engineering. The rest were scattered throughout the station, at or near key points.

The door to the main control room opened, and Worf turned to see a squad of Clan troops enter. 'All troops are in position, Tahr Kahhni.'

'Thanks, Max.' Kahmmhi turned to Sisko. 'Max's platoon is the best Raider platoon that we have. They will keep this area secure for you in the event of any boarding. His squad will make sure that the ops center remains under your command, and that any boarders are dealt with.' Kahmmhi grinned. 'Swiftly and efficiently.'

Worf grinned. 'They won't know what hit them, sir.'

Sisko nodded. 'I'm actually looking forward to watching them go hand to hand with Jem'Haddar combat troops.'

Worf nodded. He would probably be too busy to watch and enjoy the combat during the battle unless Jem'Haddar troops beamed directly into the Ops Center itself. But he could enjoy watching the security video of the combat throughout the station later. If they survived this battle. Right now, things weren't exactly looking so good for the Federation and their allies.

Yamato looked at the split monitor. 'It's not looking really good for us right now. Additional forces are on the way, but it may be half a day before they get here, even at emergency warp. We need to coordinate our battle plans.'

Korg nodded. 'They can't target us accurately until we fire. Our battlecruisers and birds of prey will reinforce your line. Our warships will try to turn their flank or hit them from behind. Our battleships will operate as small strike forces to overload their shields and cripple as many ships as we can.'

Karv'Tarek agreed. 'Our birds of prey will also help target their ships and knock out their cloaking so that they can be more easily targeted by all of our ships. Our warbirds will operate in trios and try to create as much confusion and damage as they can.'

'And we'll defend DS9 and try to hold the line. Just remember that the Clan has troops boarding all of the very largest classes of ships in the first wave.'

'And how are they going to accomplish that?'

'They launched all of their boarding craft about half a day ago, Korg.'

'Do we have any idea how many small craft or how many troops we're talking about here?'

Yamato shook her head. 'No. They already have twenty thousand troops in place aboard DS9 to repel boarders.'

Korg and Karv'Tarek simply looked at their screens in shock. Twenty thousand combat troops in the armor that the Clan used. For there to be that many of their troops available to leave behind to guard DS9 from boarders...

Virginia keyed her comm. 'This is wing command, Tahr Kahhni. The fleet is in position. We have Easter eggs ready to plant once we have stationary targets or you give us the word.'

'First wave?'

'All five, Kahm. We're ready to run for the boarders.'

'Fire plan?'

'Knock them down on the front and hammer the piss out of them, then hop, skip, and jump to the follow-up while they're still trying to recover from the effects of the flash bangs. Then back to the end of the line to discourage any party poopers from leaving before the party's over.'

'Good. Sounds like a plan. Signal for initiating the fireworks is the standard call to battle. Do me a favor, Gin. Use the file of grandpa at Khyrr ka Sehhrrhn.'

Laughter came across the comm. 'You're such a bad girl. You definitely like the mind games, but you do come by it naturally. It is the perfect symbolism for our battle plan, though. I'll cue it on your signal.'

'Roger.'

Sisko looked at Kahmmhi, shaking his head. 'I heard the entire conversation and I STILL have no idea what you were talking about.'

'Our battle plan. We were going over the details and making last minute adjustments for this specific situation.'

Worf was amazed. If that was going over the details of this complex situation and making last minute adjustments, the Clan certainly had the ability to quickly transmit information and concise instructions. Sisko just nodded, looking somewhat shocked at what he had just been told. 'Um, yeah. About that. It looks like we don't have much of a chance of really winning this battle. Their tech is equivalent to ours, they have better cloaking than the Klingons, and they have the numbers and strength to overwhelm us, even if our reinforcements do show up on time. Admiral Yamato wanted me to advise you that you really might want to consider saving yourselves. Your shuttles could get you to your ships before the Dominion forces got here. They don't even know that you exist, so they can't possibly know that you are inside this system as well.'

Kahmmhi laughed, shaking her head. 'Oh, no. The troops are looking forward to finally being able to DO something. First we were on that long mission just scouting the system with all of the gravitic anomalies, then we were here in the Delta quadrant, and we followed the Dominion fleet through the wormhole to this system, and now we've been just sitting around and going over the details of the reports on the mapping that our scouts are doing. The Jem'Haddar sort of resemble Graks, and they ARE a threat to humanity.' She giggled. 'Besides, Krohn has a bet with Odo that we'll be able to find and kill some Founders.'

Sisko shook his head. The Clan was totally unpredictable, and they were totally fixated on warfare. It seemed to permeate every aspect of their very existence.

The five waves of Dominion ships finally halted in formation deep inside the Bajoran system. They were spaced so that each wave was about three million kliks behind the one ahead of it, and the first wave had stopped more than a million kliks short of DS9 because the Federation fleet was arrayed between them and DS9. Right now, there were about half a million kliks between the Dominion fleet and the Federation fleet. The Klingon battlecruisers and birds of prey were cloaked, but they were still mixed in with the Federation ships to bolster their defenses. The rest of the Klingon forces and the Romulan forces were cloaked and moving into position near the periphery of the main battle line so that they could carry out their intended mission once the battle began.

Virginia smiled, licking her lips in anticipation. Her fleet was almost directly over the first wave, two million kliks along their zenith. Once the first part of the battle was over, the ships that she left in this position would be able to defend DS9 from this position, as well as being able to target the second wave of the Dominion fleet while the Clan small craft hammered the remnants of the first wave. By then, she'd have the rest of her fleet into position and she would start the second phase of her attack plan. It would have been slightly better if the Dominion had left a bit less distance between their waves, but she wouldn't bitch about an easy kill.

Admiral Kem'tar pointed to his comm tech and the signal went out, saturating the system with its enormous power. 'I am Admiral Kem'tar of the Dominion. You can see the size and power of my fleet, and you know that you can not possibly win this battle. Our first wave is capable of overwhelming your combined forces by itself. Surrender all of your forces inside this system unconditionally, and learn your place worshipping at the feet of the Founders, or we will destroy your forces. You have twenty seconds to comply.'

Kahmmhi keyed her mic. 'Execute.'

Sisko looked at her in amazement. 'What did you just do?' He sounded very concerned, and slightly nervous.

Kahmmhi shook her head. 'I will NEVER understand this culture, Krohn. The Dominion came here from the Delta quadrant to invade their systems and start a war. They've been doing all kinds of espionage and sabotage within the Federation for years, they either started or exacerbated the civil war in Cardassia, and they have entered this system with a war fleet and demanded the unconditional surrender of all forces inside this system. They have been building up their forces here for months, gathering what they could to defend themselves from an invasion by a hostile force, which means that they KNEW that they were coming here to fight. The enemy just issued an ultimatum that boils down to "surrender or die", and they're STILL trying to figure out some way to get out of having to actually fight.'

Krohn shrugged. 'Some races and cultures are like that, Tahr Kahhni. A lot of the races that the Consortium enslaved or wiped out started out that way. They had very advanced cultures and they had very good technology. Sometimes their technology was even better than that of the Consortium. But tech don't really mean shit if you're not willing to actually USE it when you have barbs beating down the gates so they can rob, rape, and pillage.'

Kahmmhi smiled at Sisko. 'Don't worry, Sisko. We aren't going to violate our agreement with you, but we don't need to in order to attack the enemy.'

Sisko was totally surprised. 'But... you said that your ships use lasers and railguns, and that your ships won't get within two million kilometers of their fleet. Lasers are far to weak to be effective at that range. Even our phasers can't reach that far, and they're much more powerful than lasers. As for railguns, kinetic impacts don't do anything against modern energy shielding because there's no way for a ship to get a projectile moving fast enough to create enough energy to destroy their shields. And targeting is an issue at that range at well because of the relative motion of your target in the time that it takes for any type of projectile to move through that distance.'

Kahmmhi sighed. 'Yeah, I guess that we really should have a talk about that sometime. Remind me to explain the difference between what you THINK is possible and what actually IS possible in certain areas of science and technology. We may have a few things that we need to discuss in a few hours. Until then, why don't we just sit back and enjoy the show? It should be entertaining. It will certainly be highly educational.' Kahmmhi giggled. 'It should really be especially educational for the Dominion and their allies. If any of them survive to learn from the experience.'

Before anyone could respond, the comm tech screamed and ripped off his headset. A huge figure in black Clan armor appeared on the screen, drawing a kwyll sword from across his shoulder and holding it casually, as if it were weightless. His voice suddenly boomed out of every single comm device simultaneously.

'Then may the fire burn bright, may the cleansing be pure, and may none but the Phoenix rise from the ashes. May the black depths of space suck their souls to eternal damnation as the darkness of my blades sucks the life from their bodies.'

Sisko heard Kahmmhi's Shadows chanting in unison with the broadcast, unaware that thousands of Clan warriors were doing the same thing all over the station.

'May the cleansing flame inside the heart of the sword of Kohl-garh, the Phoenix, light the dark path of Kohl-garh. May the cleansing blade lead the souls of the dead to the death god, honor their essence, light their entire dark path, and thank every one for their honored sacrifice.'

Sisko and everyone else in ops was almost deafened as every Clan warrior in the room suddenly drew their sword, lifting it high over their head, and shouted, 'Kohl-garh! The Phoenix!'

Virginia hit her comm. 'Let the magic dragon roar. All lasers fire for effect. Detonate our little surprise packages.' She grinned at Laura. 'We wouldn't want the Dominion getting TOO bored while they wait for our railgun barrage to cross two million kliks. It IS almost seven light seconds, so they'll have to wait that long just for our lasers to arrive and our surprise packages to go off.'

'Right. RGs are calibrated to hit zero point one C. They'll be just over a minute for time on target.'

Admiral Yamato looked stunned. 'What the HELL was that?'

'A very strong transmission on all comm frequencies, sir. Orders of magnitude stronger than the signal that the Dominion fleet sent out. There is no way to pinpoint the source. Our sensors were completely overloaded by the signal strength.'

Her exec looked over at her. 'I can't ID the individual, but the armor and terminology are definitely Clan, sir.'

'Any reaction from the Dominion?'

'Nothing yet, sir.'

Korg looked around his command deck, and saw that every other Klingon was just as impressed and shocked as he was right now. 'THOSE are warriors.'

Every Klingon on the bridge just nodded his head in agreement. They had seen and heard about what the small Clan warriors could do. Watching those videos was one of the most popular forms of entertainment on the Klingon fleet right now. That HUGE warrior with the black on black phoenix crest on his chest dwarfed large Klingons.

Admiral Stevens shook his head in disgust. Those damned barbarians were going to get themselves killed by giving away their position to the enemy like that. They didn't even have the sense to HIDE from an enemy who had vastly superior numbers and technological superiority. Lasers and railguns? He didn't know who they had fought before, but against modern ships with modern armor, weapons, and energy shielding, they were simply committing suicide.

The lead Founder looked at Admiral Kem'tar. All thought of the deadline for capitulation in response to the ultimatum that had just been sent had disappeared as soon as that signal had begun. 'What was that? Is this some kind of trick?'

'I don't know, eminence. The Federation fleet seems to be just as confused by this signal as we are.'

Before she could respond, alarms went off all over the ship. 'Sir! Multiple hull breaches have been detected all over the ship. Over two hundred have been detected. I'm receiving reports that we have been boarded.'

More alarms suddenly went off. 'What is it now?'

'Sir! Ten explosions of immeasurable magnitude were just detected within the formation of this attack wave.' The tech sounded scared and almost panicked.

'Damage reports?' Kem'tar asked immediately out of habit.

'No idea, sir. I'm receiving reports of ships just disappearing suddenly or being ripped totally apart by the force of the explosions, but we still don't know what caused the explosions. None of the affected ships are responding at all, sir.'

Beams of light suddenly lanced into the Dominion formation, slicing through shields and ships with ease. Kem'tar screamed in fury. 'Ambush! All ships are to close with the enemy formation and attack immediately. Board DS9 and take the station.'

All of the other Q-bombs in the system detonated as soon as the signal reached them. Everything within two hundred and fifty kliks of each bomb simply ceased to exist instantaneously. Other ships that were too close were damaged or destroyed by the secondary effects of the explosions. The devastation was immense in the last wave because all of the munitions ships and most of the supply ships for the Dominion landing forces were obliterated instantly.

Sisko looked from the monitors to Kahmmhi, his face pale and drained of both expression and color by the shock of what he had just witnessed in the past minute. 'What in the world just happened? There are huge holes in their ranks. Everything within a certain radius of those blasts just vanished instantly. Those were not antimatter explosions. We can't even identify the source of the energy.'

'Q-bombs. They destroy the bonds between two specific types of quarks. Everything that is within the radius of the effect is instantly destroyed at the subatomic level. The destructive energy, which causes the more destructive secondary effects, is due to the sudden release of all of the energy contained within those subatomic bonds that were dissolved.'

'Something like that is actually possible?'

'Well, once you release the stability of those bonds, the normal vibrational frequency in the molecules themselves triggers the actual destruction of the structural stability and causes everything to blow apart violently.'

Sisko just nodded and looked even greener than before. There were some applications to elementary physics that you really just didn't want to think about.

Virginia watched the feed from the assault forces while she watched the battle. Five minutes in, and the first enemy wave was already moving to close with the Federation forces. At least, those ships that were still capable of moving were. A number of Dominion ships had already been destroyed, crippled, or had had their drives disabled. On several ships, a couple of the strike assault shuttles that were supposed to take control of the Dominion's engineering section had almost hit engineering itself before they were able to stop.

'Keep the small craft busy on the first wave. Switch our targeting to the second wave immediately. Everything that doesn't have our troops on board is either mixing it up with the Federation or blown to hell and back. The small craft can take care of the cripples without our help. Hit them hard and keep them hurt and confused, people.'

'Aye, sir. Orders out.'

'Tell the assault frigates that as soon as we have things the way that I want them, we're going to be doing a twelve million klik jump, so be ready to jump on my command.'

'Aye, sir.'

Sisko was in shock as he watched the feed of the Clan troops moving through the Dominion ships. Every combat weapon that the Dominion had was totally ineffective against Clan armor. Clan troops simply went through the ship, killing everything and everyone who wasn't Clan. No Jem'Haddar body still had a head attached, and the corridors, walls, and even ceilings were coated with the thick, sticky, purple blood that indicated a Jem'Haddar who was pumped full of tetracel white. He watched a sword pass through a body with no effect. A shapeshifter. There were two loud booms, and a small puddle of golden slime was all that was left of the shapeshifter. Another boom, and that disappeared in a flash of antimatter as well.

'I don't understand. How did you make your bullets detonate on contact with a shapeshifter? They simply phase and let solid objects pass completely through them. It's an automatic response, like a reflex.'

'None of the bullets touched the shapeshifter. The troops shot at solid objects that were NEAR it. The antimatter that was blown out on impact took out the shapeshifter as part of the secondary reactions.'

Sisko was dumbfounded. It was such a simple solution. Doing the same thing with phasers might have even worked, but nobody in StarFleet had thought to even try that.

Odo stared at his monitor, feeling a mixture of awe, shock, and abject horror. The Clan could actually KILL shapeshifters. Just as easily as they seemed to be able to kill everything else that threatened them. This was definitely NOT going to turn out well for the Founders.

Kem'tar was enraged. His entire crew was being systematically killed. Founders had been killed. He couldn't move his ship. Lasers were crossing millions of kilometers of space, effortlessly cutting their way through both Dominion shields and Dominion ships. Lasers. Impossible, yet it was happening to his entire fleet right now. The only good news was that some of his troops were being beamed aboard DS9, though he had yet to receive confirmation that any of them had completed their mission.

Sisko saw several of the Llyriana suddenly move across ops. Then he saw and heard transporter materialization and realized that they'd just been boarded. Half of the Jem'Haddar were dead when the materialization was completed. The rest were killed before they could even fire a weapon. One of the ops crew puked all over the floor when she saw the Clan troops automatically decapitate all of the bodies and build a small pyramid out of the skulls.

'That's barbaric, gross, and disgusting. Don't you feel ANYTHING for them at all?'

Max chuckled. 'I'm alive. They're dead. Our enemies fear us for a reason.'

Yamato's forces were doing well, especially considering the situation and the odds. Not only were there a lot fewer enemy ships closing with them than they had expected after seeing the enemy formations and the disposition of their units, but the enemy was totally disorganized as well. There was no cohesion to their attacks at all.

'The Clan ships seem to be concentrating their fire on the second wave of Dominion ships now, admiral. The distance is over three million kliks. There appears to be no detectable decrease in either the effectiveness or the accuracy of their weapons.'

'What about the first wave?'

'We're whittling them down. Our forces are taking some damage, but their attacks aren't as organized or as coordinated as we expected.'

'I can certainly understand that. The surprises that the Clan just sprang on them were enough to really knock anyone off of their stride. I'm surprised that they can function at all.'

'The ships that didn't manage to close with us and engage our forces in combat still seem to be taking heavy damage. Except for those ships that are designated as off limits for targeting. None of them have moved, and they're still out of our range. Should we attempt to close with them in case the boardings fail?'

Yamato couldn't suppress an involuntary shudder of fear. She had tapped into the Clan signals and seen what was happening on those ships. Even the Borg would run from something with those capabilities. 'No.' She couldn't imagine any way that the Clan boardings COULD possibly fail. The warp cores on every single ship that the Clan had boarded were cold and dead. There weren't any energy signatures from them at all. There was no way that the Dominion could get any of those ships to self-destruct, and there was no way for them to even attempt to escape. Impulse power couldn't even get them to the wormhole.

Confusion, fear, and panic reigned aboard the ships of the Dominion fleet. Ships were simply gone from their formations in less than the blink of an eye. The disconcerting thing was that the missing ships were spread out among all five attack waves. Nobody in the formations knew what to do. If they fled, the Founders would kill them all. But the Founders hadn't ordered them to start closing and engaging the enemy, either. There were transmissions coming from the flagship of the Dominion fleet, but the transmissions showed Jem'Haddar troops being slaughtered by troops wearing black armor similar to that of the giant who had been shown in the first broadcast in response to the demand that all forces inside this system surrender unconditionally. Their armor was completely impervious to all Jem'Haddar weapons. That bothered the Jem'Haddar. What terrified all of them was the video of Founders being killed almost casually by these creatures. The very thought of that happening enraged the Jem'Haddar, who worshipped the Founders as gods, but they were also terrified because these beings in black armor didn't seem to have any weaknesses. They were simply unstoppable killing machines who were capable of killing even gods with ease.

Kevin had his talon make another pass at the crippled Dominion ship. The lasers from the assault fighters blew through the enemy shielding with ease, and their armor was pathetic. Runs that would normally cut through the hull armor of a Grak battlecruiser and slice through another hundred meters of decks or interior compartments were actually penetrating the entire ship. Granted, the largest ships that they were targeting WERE only the size of a heavy fire cruiser, but even Wei-lu cruisers didn't have armor THIS bad. If it wasn't for the presence of the weak energy shielding that these ships used, they would be death traps in space. Even at a dead stop, micrometeorites could penetrate their hulls.

'This isn't even target practice.'

'No shit, Kev. For us, they pose no real threat. But Kahmmhi and twenty thousand Clan troops are on that tin can that's behind the Federation fleet, and these bastards ARE a threat to them.'

'I know. Besides, they're on the list. I'm not bitching about killing them, Jane. I'm just bored out of my gourd. They haven't even managed to hit a single ship in this talon with even a glancing blow from their energy weapons.'

'I know. The plasma beams look pretty, but the lasers on a large scout had more power and a longer range than their weapons do.'

Kev nodded as he finished a one and a half second burst with his spinal lasers by slewing his assault fighter into an automatic evasive maneuver that instantly altered their course by one hundred and sixty seven degrees and their z-axis by forty three degrees without any change in their speed or perceived change in their momentum. That WAS what the inertial compensators were for, and they hadn't even managed to get their compensators out of the bottom end of the green on this mission. The AG indicator hadn't moved from a comfortable, relaxing five Gs during the entire mission. Even Jane admitted that it was really boring.

Korg was pleased. The battle had been raging for more than an hour now. The Dominion ships in the first wave were all that he had to deal with right now. Many of them had already been destroyed or disabled. The rest were interspersed with the alliance fleet, engaging them in combat. Except for the thirty five huge Dominion ships that the Clan had boarded. They were still dead in space.

'Our improved cloaking is working very well. Our losses are very light so far. It seems that the Dominion was not prepared for the diversion that the Clan provided for us.' He grinned. 'At least, they don't seem to have been able to take advantage of it as well as our own forces have.'

'Yes, sir. The Romulans also appear to be doing well. They are using the confusion to their own advantage to make up for their less effective cloaking.'

'Unfortunately, that is not doing much to help the Federation forces. While the Dominion crews may be too rattled to target us effectively, a target that they can see doesn't seem to fare so well.'

'No, sir. Their shields are very good, but the smaller ships are still hurting from the sustained damage that they are taking.'

Their battleship suddenly rocked violently with an impact against their shields. Korg swore. 'Target that Dominion bastard. I'll teach him to track behind us and use us for cover so that our own allies hit us instead.'

'Yes, sir.'

'What hit us, anyway?'

'Photon torpedo, sir. One of the Galaxy class ships fired it.'

Korg snarled and spat in disgust. 'Stevens. That fucking hothead. Tell him to watch where he's shooting, and don't try to fire THROUGH us.' Korg was pissed. Stevens knew very well that this area wasn't supposed to be fired upon so that the Klingons could try to ambush the enemy here. If Stevens had been a Klingon, he would have been put in his place long ago. Klingons tolerated attitude and aggression, especially if the warrior had the strength, skill, and luck to back it up, but they did NOT tolerate insubordination and outright disrespect for the authority of superiors. Stevens habit of challenging the wrong people over his "personality clashes" would have killed him off long ago in Klingon society.

Virginia looked at the overview holo and nodded. 'Do it, Laura. We're skipping with the assault frigates. Order to small fry to jump and concentrate their attacks on the second wave until it's been taken care of. The rest of the fleet that's remaining here is to redirect their fire to the third wave. Execute.'

Worf looked up from his sensor display. 'Sir. They are now firing lasers at the third wave of the enemy fleet. No lasers from small craft are being detected among the remnants of the first wave. We are now detecting laser fire among the remaining ships of the second wave.'

Jadzia looked up from the science station's readouts. 'Benjamin, I just detected some of those tiny neutrino fluxes, but it was a long burst instead of a short one. A secondary, smaller burst was just detected in the general vicinity of the second enemy attack wave. A third, much tighter burst was just detected near the fifth enemy attack wave.'

Krohn smiled. 'The trap is complete. I was worried that they would try to run before the fleet could jump and put them between the hammer and the anvil.'

Sisko looked at Kahmmhi. 'What is he talking about? What just happened?'

'Your own sensors will be able to tell you everything within a few minutes, so it won't spoil the surprise to tell you. Virginia was finished with the first wave, and the second wave had been damaged heavily enough that our small craft could handle them on their own. Four of the ships in the first wave shifted their fire to the third wave, and the small craft jumped to begin attacking the ships in the second wave. The PUFF and the other fleet ships jumped across the system to attack the ships in the fifth wave and keep them from fleeing.'

Jadzia shook her head. 'I don't understand. "Jumped"? How could they cross twelve million kilometers instantaneously? That is just physically impossible.'

'That's only forty light seconds. Trying to jump that far would be kind of risky with a small craft because of the stress that it would put on the inertial compensators, but it's still well under the safety limits for a fleet ship. It's not really a huge microjump through hyper.'

'Hyper?' Jadzia was nervous, excited, and confused.

'Yes. Hyperspace. It's not THAT energy intensive to make your own entry points for microjumps, and doing hyper microjumps inside a system is safe enough as long as you don't overstress your inertial compensators. It's not like you're jumping so far that any slight error in your calculations will cause enough deviation to make it difficult to locate your exact position in real space.'

All of the color drained from Jadzia's face as she realized what Kahmmhi was talking about. 'Benjamin...'

Worf looked at Jadzia, then back at Kahmmhi. 'What type of propulsion do your normally use in real space?'

'Gravitic drives.'

'And how fast could your small ships go without "skipping" or "jumping"?'

Kahmmhi smiled at Sisko. 'Cruising speed varies between seven and eight, depending on the type of small craft. They CAN go somewhat faster, but that isn't recommended for sustained operations. No more than a day or so.'

Worf looked at his targeting sensors, making sure that no enemy ships were within range. The recent upgrades to DS9 seemed to have surprised the Dominion. 'Sir, their lasers are having the same effect on the enemy ships in the third wave as they had on their previous targets.'

Kahmmhi nodded. 'Of course. Effectiveness doesn't start to drop off until they exceed the maximum effective range.'

Sisko nodded numbly, wondering just what the maximum effective range of the Clan's lasers actually was. He didn't even want to think about how far a railgun round traveling at zero point one C could go.

'They just did WHAT?' Yamato stared at her adjutant in shock.

'Laser fire disappeared at the point of origin. Four ships are still there, firing on the third wave of enemy forces. The other five ships suddenly appeared twelve million kilometers from the initial point and immediately opened fire on the enemy. We can only detect their laser fire and the explosions on the enemy ships that are hit by their railgun rounds.'

Yamato paled as she realized what this meant about the Clans and their tech. They were definitely NOT warp capable. For them, using warp would be like exchanging Federation technology for stone age weapons. It was possible to do it, but nobody in their right mind would be willing to do it.

'Eminence, we MUST order the rest of the fleet to retreat. Save what ships we can and send some of them through the wormhole to warn the rest of the Founders about this threat.'

'I am the one who determines what MUST happen, admiral.'

'Yes, eminence. Please, forgive me for my lack of control over my emotions. My outburst was inexcusable.'

'How long can the troops on this ship hold out?'

'Until they kill us all. They even kill those who surrender. Maybe two more hours if they don't find a way around our defenses.'

Vyhna smiled. 'The bridge is right above us. I can't believe that these guys don't even think in three dimensions. Quickest entry?'

'We've got light loads, so we could use AM rounds, but that would put us on the bridge a few seconds after the blast. The ceiling should be high enough for us to cut a hole and run up the ramp.'

'That works for me, sarge.'

'Let's do it, people. Hustle. It's time to go headhunting and eliminate the brains of this chickenshit outfit.'

They quickly cut a hole in the ceiling, then placed a strip of material on the underside of the deck above them. When they were ready and everyone was in position, one of the troops ignited the strip. It burned through almost instantly as the strip exploded, dropping the cut plate to the deck below. Vyhna and the first squad were already running as the fifth squad formed a human pyramid to allow them to run up and jump into the control room.

Kem'tar snapped around in time to see Clan warriors coming out of the deck like a horde of giant black cockroaches. As they engulfed his bridge, all of the Jem'Haddar troops near them died. Within seconds, only he and the Founder were left alive to face them.

Vyhna removed her helmet and smiled. 'You would be the shapeshifter. And you would be Admiral Kem'tar.'

The Founder attacked without warning, forming her hand into a blade. She cut the Clan warrior across the face, but screamed in agony as her hand broke off when it hit the woman's skull. 'That was harder than duranium. That's impossible.'

Vyhna watched as the blood covered shattered pieces became a golden liquid, then flowed over to fuse with the Founder again. She smiled as she realized that the Founder had just infected itself with nanobots.

'You can bleed, solid. Now I will kill you.'

Vyhna shook her head and laughed, putting her helmet back on. Before anyone could move, she had already drawn her pistol and fired three times. The shapeshifter and the Jem'Haddar were both engulfed in the explosion. What little bits of golden liquid still existed flowed back together just as Vyhna fired another round and obliterated it.

Vyhna keyed her comm. 'All troops, go to total stealth. Hunt them down, and let's make sure that we got them all. Make certain that we got all of the bloody shapeshifters, people. Let's wrap this up, and then do a complete search of the ship. Take your time, look everything over very carefully, and don't miss any of the hidden shifters, people.'

Over the last several hours, the fourth and fifth waves of the Dominion force had been pounded mercilessly. Most of the Cardassian and Breen ships that hadn't already been destroyed had lowered their shields, powered down their weapons, and were drifting in space, using nothing more than minimum life support and their maneuvering thrusters to maintain their position. The Federation had accepted their surrender, so the Clan hadn't objected. They were not, however, allowing ANY Dominion ships to surrender.

'Kahmmhi, you can't just kill them all. They're already defeated militarily.'

'For now. But we ARE going to destroy the Founders, and that means that we'll be fighting the Jem'Haddar until we eventually find a way to return to our Clan. Once we're gone, you may end up having to fight the Dominion again. There are overseers who could assume power and keep the empire that the Founders built relatively intact.'

'We know that. But we used to be at war with the Klingons and the Romulans. Things CAN change if we work at it hard enough.'

Kahmmhi shrugged. 'We won't destroy crippled ships once they stop attacking, but we will consider them hostile if they power up again for any reason, and they will not be allowed to surrender a second time. The Clan only gives any enemy ONE chance to surrender if we choose to offer them that option. If you want the survivors, you can rescue them. Their ships are yours to salvage, to rebuild, or to expand your own fleets with. The ones that we boarded should be relatively intact when we finish. We will not stop our operations on the ships that we boarded until our mission objectives have been reached.'

'Thank you.'

Krohn informed Virginia of the change in orders, and then relaxed. There were two dozen of the Dominion ships still fighting near DS9. Most of them were already heavily damaged. The battle would be over within another few hours. The clean-up and assessment would probably take weeks. Dealing with the prisoners would be somebody else's problem. The Clan didn't have any prisoners.

Admiral Picard stood on the bridge of the Enterprise, stunned by the sight before him. The devastation was unbelievable. Even Wolf 359 paled in comparison to what he was seeing inside this system. There were almost a thousand ships floating lifeless in space. Some of them were severely damaged. Others were so mangled or so much debris that it was impossible to tell what size, class, or even fleet the ship had been in before the battle had begun.

'Sir, our scans indicate that there are several thousand ships in the system. I am unable to determine the nature of the damage done to most of the ships. The majority of the ships in this system are far outside the maximum effective weapons range of our forces, and I can not come up with a logical explanation for what is clearly a victory over vastly superior forces.'

'Thank you, Mr. Data. Comm, hail Admiral Yamato, please.'

The screen came on. 'Admiral Picard. It's really good to see you.'

Picard smiled wryly. 'Better late than never, eh?'

'To tell you the truth, I was hoping that you wouldn't be able to make it to this system at all before the battle began. It was looking like the Kobayashi Maru was about to happen.'

Picard nodded, lifting one eyebrow. 'It certainly looks like SOMEONE found out what a Kobayashi Maru is.'

'You can thank the Clan for that.'

'The Clan? I thought that they were a small, isolated group in nine small ships. And that they still weren't warp capable.'

'I've been thinking about that, and with some of the information that we have just learned, it's all really starting to make sense to me. They consider themselves to be a small group because they represent a very small percentage of their Clan's total population. And they consider their ships to be small because eight of their nine ships are the smallest ships that their people use, and they use them for scouting. Their tech is extremely advanced, even when it is compared to our own. But they've NEVER used warp. Not because they didn't know about it, understand it, or have the ability to use warp drives. They knew that there were inherent dangers to using warp travel, and they chose not to use it.'

'Then what DO they use?'

'According to my latest update, they use hyperspace drives to move between systems quickly, and for any emergency maneuvers within a system. They use gravitic drives inside a system when speed isn't a factor.' She sighed. 'And we still have no idea how either type of propulsion actually works, except we know from what we've seen during combat that they do work, and they are extremely effective in combat.'

Picard was lost in thought for a moment. 'How is that possible? How could they possibly develop or even maintain that level of technology if they are constantly wandering through space like nomads, as our first reports indicated?' He was speaking more to himself than to anyone in particular.

'One of OUR assumptions was that the Clan had to be small. Any advanced society can only support so much of a fleet because it is a constant drain on their system's resources. But they've been in space for millennia. Building their population as they gradually accumulated additional resources to support the population, instead of the other way around. If you assume that they use ALL of their resources on their fleet because their entire population is spaceborne...'

'That would give them the required resources, at least for a time.'

Yamato shook her head. 'They have vast amounts of antimatter at their disposal. We're pretty sure that they used more antimatter during this one battle than the entire Federation has on hand. Each Clan represents an independent group, equivalent to a star system or allied group of star systems in our own culture. There are DOZENS of Clans, varying dramatically in size and power.'

Picard nodded his head in understanding. The Clans were a completely spaceborne civilization. There were no home worlds. Their entire population was within their fleet. 'Do we have any idea how large their ships actually are?'

'Not really. Their nine ships are a scouting force. Their particular Clan has more than three hundred other ships. Eight of the nine ships that are here are the smallest types of ships that are currently used by their Clan. But they still had enough combat troops with them, even with most of their nonessential personnel being removed from their ships before this mission began, to put twenty thousand troops on DS9 and STILL have enough troops to board the thirty five largest ships that the Dominion had in this system. All of them are lifeless, drifting hulks right now.'

'Where are the Clan ships right now?'

'We're not sure. Nobody can detect them. We tried to estimate their size from the lasers that we could detect coming from them during the battle, but it seemed like they were moving around too much for our estimates to be precise.'

Picard nodded thoughtfully. 'We should get some of the leaders of the various fleets together to go over our options. We may have to set up some prison camps on Bajor while we wait for orders from StarFleet. Nobody really expected to have to deal with more than a few thousand prisoners, and that was if we managed to pull off a spectacular victory. How many of the Dominion ships escaped?'

'None. The Clan destroyed every ship that tried to leave the battle area. It took them totally destroying a group of six ships that were the size of a Galaxy class ship before the more damaged ships just gave up and surrendered to us.'

'Please, request a meeting with the Clan's representative and all of the fleet commanders as soon as it can be arranged. I suppose that DS9 would be a good neutral ground for all of us to meet on. You can inform Mr. Data of the details once everything has been arranged.'

Yamato nodded as Picard signed off, leaving her comm officer to deal with that request.

Picard's eyes widened and his nose wrinkled as the door to the transporter room opened and he entered the corridor on DS9. Data stared in amazement.

Chief O'Brien cleared his throat a bit nervously. 'Um, sorry about that, sir. This was the closest transporter room to the meeting site. We haven't had time to clean everything up yet. Clan troops tend to get a little messy during combat.'

'How many troops managed to board the station, Chief?'

'Sixty thousand, near as we can tell.'

Data nodded. 'There appears to be remarkably little damage. I would have expected much more damage during the sustained fighting that would have been required to overcome sixty thousand invading troops.'

Picard looked around, then looked surprised. 'He's right. With the enemy having such a large advantage in numbers, the fighting on board the station must have been intense.'

'Yes, sir. There were a few intense firefights. Mostly, though, it was a slaughter. If the Jem'Haddar beamed aboard too close to a Clan unit, they generally died before they could get off a shot. Some of the poor bastards were already dead before they had fully materialized.'

As they walked along the hallway, Data commented about all of the bodies and the piles of heads.

'They moved the bodies to one side of the hallway after the battle was over so that people didn't trip over them. As for the heads, Clan warriors do that to ALL of their enemies. I didn't ask for details. I don't WANT to know.'

When they arrived at the meeting room, almost everyone else was already present. Picard greeted the others and talked with them informally as they waited for Sisko and the Clan representative to arrive.

'Are there any emergencies that need to be dealt with immediately on any of our damaged ships?'

Korg shook his head. Karv'Tarek's fleet and my own have our damages under control. Your own fleet did not fare quite so well. Your lack of cloaking made your ships easier for the enemy to target, so your smaller ships took a lot of damage, comparatively.'

Yamato nodded. 'We have things organized, and with the arrival of your fleet, we can transfer injured crewmen to your sick bays and concentrate all of our efforts on damage repair.'

Picard nodded. 'Make a note of that, Mr. Data.'

The door slid open, and Sisko entered the room with a tiny woman in diaphanous silks on his arm. Two figures in black armor followed her in and stopped about two paces behind her.

'I'm very sorry to keep you waiting, admiral, but Kahmmhi needed to take a quick break. Sisko and Kahmmhi took the two empty seats across from the others.

Admiral Yamato stood. 'Before we begin, what news or new orders do you bring from the Federation Council, Admiral Picard?'

'The diplomats who were coming here to negotiate with the Clan have been halted, pending the outcome of this battle. Until we can send word that the system is safe and they can arrive, I am to take over official negotiations. I am to assume overall command of the combined Federation forces in this system. My first act is to request that you retain control over the normal daily operations of the fleet, Admiral Yamato.'

'It would be an honor, sir.'

'We do have a bit of an unexpected problem, though. Nobody expected the outcome of this battle to turn out so well for us. We can deal with the captured enemy ships well enough. But their crews are another matter entirely.'

'I may be able to solve that problem, admiral.' Sisko made a brief call, and Kyra entered the room a few minutes later.

'You wanted to see me, sir?'

'Part of this meeting concerns you and your planet, major. It IS your system.'

'Yes, sir.'

'We were discussing the problem of what to do with all of the prisoners that we captured during the battle. If we allow them to power up their ships, they pose a threat. Either by resuming hostilities or by trying to escape. Of course, the Clan's threat to target any ship that powers up for any reason and destroy it has prevented anyone from trying that option. But if we don't allow them to power up, they can only survive for so long before the power runs out on their auxiliary life support systems. Once things become critical, they are more likely to take their chances escaping the Clan than they are to simply sit there and die. Do you think that we could find an isolated place on Bajor to house them? Someplace that your government would approve?'

'I'm not sure. How many of them are there?'

Picard looked to his left. 'Any estimates, Mr. Data?'

'One thousand, nine hundred, and twenty six enemy ships were completely destroyed, sir. I have accessed the relevant records, and the manner of their destruction negates reasonable probabilities for survival of any of the crew members. Of the three thousand, one hundred, and twenty nine ships that survived the battle, most were the size of a Voyager class starship or smaller. Estimating three hundred survivors per ship, that would leave approximately eight hundred and sixty thousand survivors. The additional two hundred and twenty seven ships that are the size of a Galaxy class starship could have approximately two hundred and fifty thousand additional survivors. There is no data available to extrapolate the number of potential survivors on the largest thirty five ships.'

Kahmmhi smiled. 'Krohn, what is the total complement for those ships?'

Krohn keyed his comp. 'Each battleship had five hundred thousand troops, plus about fifty thousand crew. Twenty battleships. Each troop transport had one point five million troops on board, plus about thirty thousand crew. Fifteen transports.'

Data nodded. 'There is the potential for an additional thirty four million survivors. Approximately.'

Kahmmhi shook her head. 'There were no survivors on any ship that the Clan boarded during the battle. In fact, Clan Raiders are still operating under total stealth as they make sure that none of the shapeshifters survived and are hiding aboard any of those ships. Our current count indicates that forty one of the shapeshifters have been eliminated.'

Admiral Stevens surged to his feet. 'You backward barbarians! I don't care how good the tech that you stole from your former masters is. That does NOT give you the right to butcher and slaughter other living, sentient beings. Just look at the barbarity that you demonstrated upon the dead bodies of all of the Jem'Haddar on this very station. You should ALL be put in front of a war crimes tribunal.'

Kahmmhi looked confused. 'I don't understand. Barbarity?'

'You're not content to kill helpless soldiers who pose no threat to you. You butcher them and THEN cut off their heads after they're dead. You're nothing more than a pack of barbarians seeking trophies to prove your prowess in combat.'

The Klingons in the room suppressed their rage, wishing to make an example of Admiral Stevens. Korg was especially testy, having had his ship hit by his "allies" a total of four times during the recent battle. Three of those hits had been from photon torpedoes fired by Stevens' ship.

'The Clan doesn't actually collect trophies in battle. Except maybe the occasional Charkal slave. But all of the warriors in every single Clan ALWAYS remove the head from a slain enemy.'

Everyone in the room was shocked into a stunned silence by that statement. Kyra had seen it being done repeatedly in the holodeck "sims" that were being done by the Clan troops, but she hadn't expected them to actually DO it in real combat.

Data smiled, aware that the others were dealing with emotional shock. 'Why?'

'So that they can't be found, put into a stasis tube, and healed, of course. Even with the head removed, the nanobots in most species will still do enough to keep the body alive that they could still save SOME of their "dead" troops if they got them into a stasis tube within about five minutes. Other types of injuries allow them even longer to get the person into stasis and heal him. When you are outnumbered by your enemy BILLIONS to one, you can't win if you have to keep killing the same enemy troops over and over again. They'll never run out of troops that way.'

Stevens sneered. 'That's a lame excuse. They are not YOUR enemies. You have no legitimate interest in this war. You just wanted an excuse for your troops to KILL something.'

Kahmmhi shook her head. 'The Dominion forces ARE our enemies under Clan law. Whenever we can, we are required to protect humanity from external threats. This was NOT combat for us. We were simply exterminating vermin because they were a threat to humanity.' Kahmmhi stood. 'We were trying to protect YOU because you were obviously incapable of properly protecting YOURSELVES. I will NEVER laugh at another one of my grandfather's "beer cans in space" jokes again as long as I live. It's not funny. It's frightening. Like watching a toddler play with a live AM-skate. You just pray that it learns before it eliminates itself from the gene pool.'

Krohn stepped forward as Lyhssyha put her arm around Kahmmhi and started walking her toward the door. 'Excuse us for a moment. She needs to eat. She's skipped too many meals in the past day while she was overseeing the battle and its aftermath.'

Lyhssyha led a shaking Kahmmhi from the room, followed by Krohn. As the door closed, Picard stood. 'I WAS going to wait until this could be done privately so that I didn't embarrass anyone, but you appear to have forced the issue, Admiral Stevens.' He pulled out an official document and broke the seal. The fact that it was a paper document with official seals didn't escape anyone in the room. 'By order of the Federation Council, Admiral Stevens is hereby relieved of all duties and is ordered to report by the next available shuttle or other transport to StarFleet command. A disciplinary hearing board will be convened to review various charges that are currently pending relating to recent evaluations, reports of his conduct and actions, and other various complaints.'

Picard handed the orders to Admiral Stevens. 'Now, you will immediately turn over command of your ship to your executive officer and confine yourself to your quarters until transport is arranged.'

Stevens nodded. 'Yes, sir.' He marched stiffly from the room without another word.

The rest of them were still trying to figure out how to solve the problem of dealing with over a million prisoners, at least for the short term, when Kahmmhi entered the room with her two Shadows. She blushed as she stood before them, but her complexion was too dark for most of them to notice.

'Please, forgive me for my outburst. My comments were inexcusable.'

Korg stood. 'Discipline must sometimes be harsh if the child is to learn the lesson and survive. Thank you for giving my people this chance to survive and prepare for the next challenge. May we prove ourselves worthy of your gift.'

Picard nodded. 'We sometimes forget that we are NOT the most technologically advanced race in the universe. That our way of doing things is not the ONLY way, and in many cases, that it isn't even the BEST way.'

'Please. Don't. I feel very bad about my outburst.'

Data cocked his head. 'Tahr Kahhni, there is no need for emotional distress simply because you told us the truth. I find it inconceivable that a man of Admiral Stevens' rank, intellect, and experience could possibly fail to recognize the vast disparity in our technological capabilities after having actually seen it being demonstrated in combat.'

Kahmmhi sighed. 'We can solve your prisoner problem. At least, temporarily. We have empty cargo bays, holds, and gathering areas that could be easily converted to hold prisoners, and we have ships that could pick them up and transport them.'

'How many prisoners could your ship hold?'

'All of them.'

The room went dead silent as Kahmmhi kept talking. 'The PUFF only has about forty percent of our normal assault forces capacity and twenty five percent of the assault wing's crews on board. We have the full complement of small craft, but not enough crews to get more than half of them launched, even if we just used skeleton crews to launch them. Our Clan hasn't grown enough to have the population for a full launch yet, so we only have six hundred thousand assault troops and maybe a hundred and fifty thousand defense forces on board the PUFF. But I can have at least ten thousand heavy assault transports operating to evacuate the captured ships. Even if we put a full platoon of assault troops on board each HAT with the crew, we can still get at least a hundred prisoners on each shuttle during each trip.'

Data nodded. 'Even with only partial loads, they could get all of the survivors evacuated within two trips.'

Kahmmhi nodded. 'We can house them until you can get detention centers built. We know that you may end up working out agreements with the Cardassian and Breen governments to release their prisoners. We strongly suggest that you strand the Jem'Haddar on an interdicted world with no means of making ANY type of spacecraft if you intend to let them live. When we return to the Delta quadrant, we are going to eliminate the Founders as a race.' Kahmmhi grinned. 'As well as any Borg that we happen to run into.'

Picard nodded. 'Thank you. We should have some type of detention facility ready within a few weeks once the Bajorans agree to it.'

Kahmmhi shrugged. 'If they don't, there are some nice, uninhabited planets in the Gamma quadrant that are only a few weeks away from here by hyper. We can always dump them there.'

'What about the ships that were just captured?'

Kahmmhi looked at Admiral Karv'Tarek and smiled. 'Repair them and add them to your fleets. But I'd put some heavier armor on them if I were you. There are other dangerous races out there.'

Over the next half hour, the military representatives of the Federation, the Klingon Empire, and the Romulan Empire worked out a treaty that would bind them together and ally them against all external threats, making their mutual defense pact a more permanent thing than it had originally been intended to become. The very fact that the Clan could identify potential threats to all of their societies that could, if they ever learned to use the same travel methods that the Clan did, reach the Alpha quadrant and their systems in a matter of a few short weeks, had driven home the necessity of banding together for their survival against external threats. They even agreed to share all of their current military technology, and to completely rescind the ban on the Federation's use of cloaking technology in StarFleet ships. The only major sticking point that they had was deciding how to equitably distribute the captured Dominion ships.

Kahmmhi watched the proceedings intently, knowing that only the Klingons actually had their leadership present to make these agreements, and that both the Romulan Empire and the Federation could try to alter or refuse to uphold any agreements that were reached. But it was a first step toward all three of their societies learning to count on each other, and after seeing how close they had just come to being overwhelmed, all sides might decide that cooperating with each other was better than serving whoever showed up to conquer them next. The Dominion wasn't totally out of the picture just yet, the Borg still existed as a potential threat, and now they knew that the Gamma quadrant was teeming with hostile forces that were in the process of expanding their own empires by force.

Picard sighed. 'Kahmmhi, if you don't mind?'

Kahmmhi looked at the size, population, industrial capacity, and fleet strength of each society, as well as how their systems were spread out and located in relation to each other. She did some quick work on her comp, then carefully considered what she had to work with. 'I'd give the Federation eight battleships and five troop transports, and give the Romulans and Klingons each half of the remaining battleships and troop transports. One hundred and seven battle frigates for the Federation, and sixty for each of you. Three hundred and twenty five of the warships for the Federation, and two hundred and thirty for each of you. And I'd do an equal split on all of the remaining smaller ships that aren't returned to the Cardassians or the Breen once your negotiations with them have been completed. Actually, I'd suggest that you use all of the materials and resources from all of the ships that are smaller than battle frigates to armor the larger ships and improve them.'

Data nodded. 'I am curious as to why you suggested a division of the ships that so clearly favors the Federation.'

'You said that you want to be equal partners and form a more permanent alliance, or at least some sort of mutual defense pact, to defend yourselves from outside threats for the common good and your continued survival. The Federation is larger, more spread out, and has a larger population than either the Romulan Empire or the Klingon Empire. It has the resources to support a larger fleet, as well as the need for more ships just to provide the same level of security to all of its systems as the smaller number of ships will be able to provide to the other two empires.'

Korg nodded. 'I agree. They will be able to send at least as many ships to aid us in time of need as our combined fleets could send to aid them without leaving our own people totally unprotected.'

Picard stood. 'Thank you, Kahmmhi. You may have done more here today to protect our races than just giving us the chance to survive this threat.'

Gul Derkur couldn't believe how efficient the unknown aliens were. Anyone who resisted or gave them trouble was either quickly subdued or instantly killed. And nothing that he had heard of seemed to be effective in stopping the aliens. He had actually seen one small female crush the disruptor that was being fired at her at point blank range. The only damage was to the disruptor, which was totally destroyed, and to the Cardassian's hand, which had been crushed and then flash burned when the damaged cells exploded. The Cardassian should have been killed, but her hand had directed most of the force of the blast away from him.

The trip on their small craft was frightening because the craft was clearly superior to anything that any of the Cardassians had ever seen. Things only got worse when they finally got to the alien ship. Their first sight as they exited the shuttle was a landing bay filled with large numbers of very large, alien looking craft. They were so large, and there were so many of them that the ship had to be impossibly huge. That conclusion was confirmed when they were marched several kilometers through the ship to a large holding area. It was larger than the largest Cardassian ship that had ever been built, and that included some of the huge freighters and ore haulers. By the time that they had reached the holding area, most of the Cardassians were already numb with shock. They had all seen the endless corridors stretching off in either direction from their line of travel. Impossibly huge. It couldn't possibly be a ship. But there was no way that a facility this huge and complex could possibly have been built on Bajor. It would have been clearly visible from space.

After they were put into the holding room with other Cardassians, a female in black armor stepped forward to address them. 'Five thousand of you are in this room. There are semi-private quarters for all of you. Food is available at the synthesizers, as is water. You are living under Clan law. Murder results in death. Our method of execution is either by decapitation or by shoving you out of an airlock naked. If you try to escape, you will suffer the consequences. The first hundred yards of the corridor are now at five times your normal gravity. After that, it goes to ten. Enjoy your stay.'

The Breen and the Jem'Haddar were being housed under similar conditions, and had been given the same warnings. After the first Jem'Haddar escapee was dragged back into the room and left to slowly suffocate from the effects of krylggcha, none of the others tried to escape. All of the other holding areas were shown the same video on their monitors, and they took the hint as well. Within a day, all of the uninjured survivors were prisoners on board the Clan PUFF. Those who had been seriously injured had been given to the Federation and their allies for treatment.

It had been three days since the battle had ended, and no movement had been detected on any of the captured ships for more than a day. Vyhna was finally satisfied. 'Move out everyone except for the Raiders. They can split up into squads, and we'll do a couple of more sweeps after everyone else is gone. Just to be sure.'

Eighteen hours later, the Founder HAD to move. If he didn't revert soon, he'd... He never heard the pair of AM rounds that vaporized him completely. Across the room, the last Founder felt overwhelming fear and dread. She couldn't hold this form much longer. She could FEEL them watching her, but she couldn't see or hear them at all. They were waiting. They were toying with her, as a cat would torture a trapped mouse before finally allowing it the mercy of death. She was going to die. She didn't want to die. But these solids were merciless. Nothing survived. Soon, she would die like the rest.'

Picard was slowly learning more details about the Clan. Kahmmhi would answer some questions with great detail, others with a bare outline, and she refused to answer others at all. So far, specific details about weaponry, other than basic details about their small arms, specifics about how ANY of their advanced technology worked, and even generalities about certain types of weapons and technologies that the Federation and their allies didn't even understand very well theoretically were strictly off limits. Data had attempted to engage her in discussions about the theoretical physics that was the basis for much of Clan technology, but she would only listen to what he said without responding.

'I'd like to see one of your ships someday.'

Kahmmhi smiled. 'THAT I CAN do. Someday. Before we leave here. I promise.'

'Why do I get the feeling that I've somehow just been tricked or taken advantage of?'

Kahmmhi giggled. 'Because you just asked to SEE the ship.'

Picard groaned as he realized what she was implying. 'Remind me to double check the fine print if we EVER sign any agreements.'

Kahmmhi pouted, looking hurt. 'That makes it sound as if you don't quite TRUST me.' She burst into a fit of giggles. 'You learn fast. There's hope for you yet, Picard.'

'The real politicians and diplomats will be here to meet with you in about four weeks.'

'They won't get what they want.'

'Diplomacy is the art of trading. Give and take. Nobody gets exactly what they wanted at the start.'

'We're sort of lacking when it comes to diplomacy.'

'You underestimate your skills, Tahr Kahhni.'

'Picard! You PROMISED to stop calling me that in informal situations.'

'OK, but you'd better get used to it. Diplomats aren't exactly known far and wide for their penchant for INFORMAL situations.'

'Fine. I've seen the vids that you brought to help us understand more of your customs for formal occasions. Diplomatic functions.' Kahmmhi said the last two words as if they were something filthy in her mouth. 'They had better understand some things about Clan customs. They had better learn that a crowd getting too close sets off Shadows. And that at least one squad of Max's Raider platoon will be INSIDE the formal reception ceremony.' She didn't bother mentioning that Virginia had insisted that at least the rest of that platoon and two others be nearby, and that a talon of Raiders in HATs be ready to board the station in case of any trouble.

Picard smiled, trying not to. 'I'm looking forward to this reception. It definitely looks to be very interesting. Possibly quite surprising for a number of people.'

Kahmmhi gasped. 'Don't SAY things like that. Every time that my grandfather ever talked about "interesting surprises", he'd launch an attack, start improvising, everything quickly went to hell in a handbasket, and billions of the enemy died. Literally. Billions. Died.'

'I don't understand. Your fleet and your troops just killed at LEAST fifty or sixty MILLION enemy troops in a single battle. Some of them were killed right in front of you inside the ops center, and you had no problem with that. What's the difference?'

'My grandfather was around while I was growing up. He was traveling with our Clan while he was building up fleets and training forces for our Clan and a number of others. He was so big and so strong. Such a good leader. Such a great warrior. He was so loving, caring, and protective of the family, and I spent almost as much time with him as any of his own daughters did. He spoiled me, and I adored him. I wanted to be just like him when I grew up.'

'That's perfectly understandable. Everything that we've heard indicates that he is a great leader.'

'I've always been small, so I could get into places that only kids could. It was worse when I was younger, because I could get into places that almost none of the kids my age, kids who were allowed to run around the ship outside of their quarters unsupervised, could. One day, when I was twelve, there was an alert. I wasn't supposed to be outside of our household during alerts because it could be dangerous if they were real. They could turn the gravity up higher than kids as small as myself could take properly, or there could be boarders or an attack by the enemy. I wasn't worried, because there were always alerts, and they were never real.'

Kahmmhi swallowed, blinking a few times as she remembered. 'Only this alert was real. Chyrl-paa assassins had boarded our Home Ship. They found me, and as soon as they saw my silks, they realized that I was part of my father's household. They began hunting me. Three of their teams finally cornered me in a small space where I couldn't climb high enough to get to another way out, and they were blocking all of the others. They couldn't reach me to grab me and do other things to me, but they could see me. They tried to get me to come to them, but when I wouldn't, their leader ordered one of them to just shoot me. He was aiming a weapon at me and was about to kill me when his head just suddenly exploded.'

Kahmmhi's eyes became shiny with unshed tears, and her voice became softer and emotionally strained. 'There was a huge roaring sound, something that I had never heard or wanted to hear again. It was like some type of primal fury and rage from a wild beast. I was so scared that I peed myself. I huddled in my corner, terrified, and watched, unable to look away. They forgot all about me and charged toward that sound. I saw that it was my grandfather, and he didn't even have his combat armor on. He was so worried about me being missing that he hadn't even stopped to put on combat armor.'

Kahmmhi shuddered involuntarily. 'His Shadows stayed behind him. Lehr had his pistol out, so I knew that he had shot the Chyrl-paa that had been about to kill me. My grandfather charged into them without even drawing his swords. I watched in shocked horror as he literally ripped armed, armored assassins apart with his bare hands. They barely managed to inflict a few minor flesh wounds before they all died.'

Kahmmhi swallowed. 'He came over and scooped me up afterwards, as loving and caring as ever. I don't even know how he reached me. I was crying, and he thought that it was because I was scared, or because I was upset that I had peed all over myself, but that wasn't it. I'd seen his eyes when he was killing them. Even in the midst of all of that primal rage and fury, his eyes had been completely dead, cold, emotionless. I had seen more warmth in the black depths of space than I'd just seen in his eyes while he was killing his enemies. Now I knew the terrible price that he paid to protect all of us. I'd never make a good ground pounder. I wasn't strong enough to make that kind of sacrifice for those that I loved. I couldn't lead troops into ground combat like he did. When I finally completed Basic, I joined the fleet.'

Data cocked his head querulously. 'How hard is your enemy's combat armor?'

'I'm not sure. Their best combat armor that I've ever seen or heard of is about equivalent to ancient level three Clan armor, but they don't make much of it compared to the other armor. Only their front line combat troops, Graks, Charkal, Chyrl-paa, and other member races ever wear it. It's harder than duranium, but I'm not sure how much harder.'

'Your grandfather actually ripped their armor off of them with his bare hands?'

Kahmmhi shook her head. 'No, Data. You don't understand. My grandfather ripped their bodies AND their armor apart at the same time. Their arms were still inside their armor when he literally tore them off at the shoulder. He picked several of them up and THREW them at least thirty feet through the air, slamming their bodies into the walls so hard that the kinetic impacts killed them inside their armor. He stomped his foot down into one Chyrl-paa's throat so hard that it tore through his armor, crushed his throat, and decapitated him. He punched clear through one guy's chest armor so hard that I saw him crush the still beating heart into hamburger while his hand was sticking out of the torn backside of the armor.' Kahmmhi shuddered. 'It was exactly like watching some of the intense combat vids that my older brothers watched, except this had all of the blood, the gore, and the intense smells.'

Kahmmhi sighed. 'Grandpa took me home, cleaned me up himself to check and make sure that I hadn't been injured, and then he yelled at Daddy. Mama came over and whispered something into his ear, and the next day when I woke up, I had Shadows. I haven't ever been alone since. There are always at least two of them with me.'

'How long will your Shadows serve you, Tahr Kahhni?'

'Until I marry outside of my Clan, I die, or they are no longer needed.'

'Their armor is different from that of the others that I have seen. Is that part of their uniform to designate them as Shadows?'

'They still wear the armor that they wore while they were in Clan Phoenix. Black on black, with the Phoenix instead of the Silver Dragon. Only certain Shadows in our Clan still wear the armor with the Clan Phoenix crest. Very few of them don't wear armor with our Clan crest on it.'

'Interesting.' Data looked at Krohn. 'Is there some significance to this fact?'

Krohn smiled. 'We are still Clan Phoenix. We don't serve her father, her mother, or even Kahmmhi. We are Kahrr Soorhni. We serve Kohl-garh.'

Kahmmhi's eyes widened as she paled visibly and gasped. 'Krohn! Kahrr Soorhni?'

Picard looked perplexed. 'I'm afraid that we don't understand very much of what you are talking about, much less its obvious cultural significance to the Clans.'

Krohn smiled as he stared straight at Picard. 'Kohl-garh asked for volunteers. We took a blood oath before Kohl-garh himself, and Kohl-garh accepted us and our right to serve. She lives, no matter what. As long as ANY of us are alive, we will do whatever it takes to protect her and keep her alive. Even if the price is our own lives.'

Picard nodded. Every culture understood the significance of THAT kind of devotion. He smiled at Kahmmhi. 'Have you made any hard and firm decisions regarding trade or information exchange between our peoples?'

'Yes, I have. We will not agree to any binding alliances. We're bound to find our way out of here eventually, and we do still have other plans that will take us far from your quadrant and your space for a while.'

Picard nodded. 'You're still determined to wipe out the Founders.'

Kahmmhi smiled almost cruelly, her eyes becoming hard. 'Oh, yeah. Definitely. We will probably do what we can to destroy the Jem'Haddar, at least as a military force, and the rest of the Dominion's infrastructure as well. We will also destroy any Borg that we happen to run across while we are in the Delta quadrant. Your records do indicate that they have a presence there.'

'And the rest?'

Kahmmhi smiled innocently. 'We're still working out the details of your laws and regulations so that we can determine how your Prime Directive is supposed to be used or applied in a situation like this.'

Data immediately began calculating the probable outcome based upon available data and known variables. None of the likely conclusions that he reached were likely to make the Federation Council very pleased.

When he answered his call, Sisko was definitely surprised to see Kahmmhi standing outside the door to his quarters so late at night. 'Kahm, what can I do for you?'

'Actually, I wanted to do something for you. But I don't want anyone else to know about it.'

'I don't understand.' She was being cryptic, and he could barely figure out what she was talking about sometimes when she just came straight out and said what she meant.

Kahmmhi handed Sisko a package, then smiled. 'A full heavy duty survival synthesizer. It's been modified that same way that we modified the ones that we gave to Quark, but it has a few additions that technically shouldn't be there.' She smiled. 'Don't worry, it doesn't have an AM charge. It does have a full charger system with it, an extra internal power cell to store more power, just in case you need it, and it can be stealthed so that nobody can detect it.'

'Kahm, I really appreciate the gesture, but...'

'This one is for you, Sisko. Don't report its existence to your superiors or anyone else. We're also giving one to Worf, Jadzia, Dr. Bashir, Kyra, Garak, and Chief O'Brien. Your governments will each be given ten synthesizers exactly like the ones that Quark has.'

'But the additional technology could...'

'You lack the resources and technology to even produce the additional components. All that they would succeed in doing is depriving you of your gift. And they would probably destroy it in the process of trying to figure out how to reverse engineer it. If they didn't, we both know that they would never return your property to you.'

'How can you be sure?'

'You currently lack the tech to make the tech to figure out how to make the tech that could be used to create our tech. Your race has barely been in space longer than I've been alive.'

Sisko nodded. 'Thank you for the gift, Kahm. I will keep it to myself, and I look forward to passing it on to my progeny when the time comes.'

Kahmmhi smiled and left. The real politicians would be here soon. She was NOT looking forward to having to deal with them. Damn Virginia for forcing her to do this. In the meantime, there were a few more friends to surprise.

Virginia watched the latest small group of Federation ships that had just reached the system pull into a stationary orbit near DS9. There was a lot less debris in the area than there had been, and what was left of the fleets of the Dominion Coalition had been moved and organized into five groups of ships. There was an area where all of the captured Cardassian ships were floating lifelessly in space, and another area for all of the captured Breen ships. The other three areas contained all of the captured Dominion ships. They had already been sorted and divided exactly as Kahmmhi had suggested, and the Klingons and the Romulans were both extremely satisfied with the fairness of her decision. Now all that they had to do was get the Federation government to accept it as well.

Virginia smiled, wondering if the politicians would even have enough sense to be impressed by what their forces in this system and the Clan forces had undertaken on their behalf. Now it was all up to Kahmmhi.

'Impressive.'

Clark was impressed that the Vulcan had said THAT much. Many of the ships that they could see were clearly heavily damaged, even without the view being put at high magnification. She noted that most of the Federation ships had already been repaired. At least, as well as they could be outside of a dry dock or a major repair facility such as a starbase.

Richards sighed. 'We'll have to figure out how some of that damage was caused. The ship count must be off. Thirty one twenty seven. They said in their reports that no enemy ships escaped, but about two thousand ships are missing. Most of the missing ships are from the Dominion. Their cloaking must be better than we expected. We'll have to investigate that as well.'

T'Prang cocked an eyebrow. 'That conclusion would hardly seem to be warranted without more details than we currently have available, commodore.'

Richards ignored her and resumed scanning the captured ships, trying to estimate how much they could salvage, and how much of the vast fleet before him might be siphoned off to create a more powerful private fleet that was totally controlled by Federation Security.

When they entered the room for the official reception, everyone was surprised. The room was filled with a number of military personnel and civilians who hadn't come to this system with the official delegation from the Federation. They had expected to deal with the presence of a few Romulans and Klingons, and perhaps a few Bajorans, but had counted on the presence of their own aides and other minor functionaries who had come to the system with them to keep them out of the way so that they could evaluate the Clan representative on their own.

There were armed figures in black armor standing near the walls of the room, and they were clearly not there for decoration. This was definitely not normal, and should not be considered acceptable as a start for peaceful negotiations between the Federation and some small group of people from an unknown race and society. But nobody else seemed to even notice the figures near the walls, and they clearly had no problems with their presence, so none of the diplomats who had recently arrived raised any objections.

Admiral Picard greeted them, introducing several other officers from the various fleets in their alliance and even a few leaders from Bajor itself.

'We saw the captured fleets before we arrived. Can you tell me why they have been divided up as they currently are, instead of organizing them by how functional they still are?'

Picard smiled. 'Now is neither the time nor the proper place to address these questions, commodore.'

'You should reconsider that attitude, Picard. I represent...'

'Commodore, I represent the entire Federation Council as the appointed military commander until the resolution of this conflict with the Dominion and those who are allied with them, my recall by the Federation Council, or my replacement by another officer whose orders supersede my own. None of these things has happened. And since I DO outrank you, you will either show the respect that is due to a superior officer and maintain proper decorum or I will expel you from this system for insubordination and any other charges that Mr. Data determines are applicable. I'm fairly sure that Admiral Stevens would welcome another person to distract some of the attention from his own formal misconduct hearings.'

Richards bristled, but shut up. Picard wasn't going to budge, and he wasn't stupid enough to make any overt power plays. Too much attention had ended many promising careers in Federation Security. Their goal was to work behind the scenes as much as possible, and to avoid open confrontation. Any press was bad press, because too many people cared about things once they became common knowledge. It was easy to manipulate or steal something for your own uses when nobody else even knew that it existed.

There was a chime, and everyone in the room went totally silent. 'Tahr Kahhni Kahmmhi of Clan Silver Dragon.'

The door opened, and ten armored figures in full combat gear entered the room, forming a corridor and honor guard. As their ranks parted, a small female figure in colorful flowing silks walked between them, escorted by Sisko. Behind her came four more armored figures in totally black armor. They were armed with swords, pistols, and knives, but lacked the rifles that were slung on the shoulder of most of the other armored figures in the room. Sisko stopped in front of Admiral Picard, smiled, and nodded at the newcomers.

'Tahr Kahhni, allow me to introduce the most important members of the delegation. Zor'von and Clark are members of the Federation Council, here to observe, learn, and represent the council's wishes during the negotiations. Commodore Richards represents the Security Council. And here are ambassadors Masters and T'Prang. They are the representatives who will be meeting with you to guard the Federation's interests.'

Kahmmhi nodded. 'And are they authorized to make binding agreements on behalf of the entire Federation?'

Masters nodded. 'Ambassador T'Prang and myself have been given complete authority to make binding agreements, within certain limitations. I can assure you that we won't exceed our authority, and any agreements that we reach will be binding. The others are here merely to provide expertise or to indicate the Federation Council's feelings on any particular point.' She smiled. 'Please, allow me to formally welcome you to the system, and to the Alpha quadrant, on behalf of the entire Federation.'

Kahmmhi bowed formally. Yamato noted that it was the bow of a professional warrior who was highly trained in the martial arts. She also realized that none of the new arrivals even knew that she had bowed to them as if they were equals. 'Thank you. My Clan thanks you for your hospitality, and for the chance to study a culture that is so different from anything that we are used to.'

Masters noticed that Yamato looked embarrassed, and that Picard looked uneasy. She wondered what subtext she had just missed. 'I take it that I am missing something.'

Yamato nodded. 'The very fact that you are even capable of entering this system is due to the actions of the Clan. You've seen the enemy ships that were captured. If the Clan had not been here, our combined fleets had absolutely no chance of winning this battle, and even Admiral Picard's reinforcements would have been destroyed if they had entered the system.'

T'Prang nodded, accepting the opinion of the military expert who had been in command during the battle. 'We were not made aware of the details, so we were unaware of the extent of their contribution to the battle. But since the object of today's meeting is to allow us to meet in an informal setting, perhaps we could be briefed after the conclusion of the gathering? Then we will all be ready to begin the real negotiations tomorrow.'

Sisko shook his head. 'The Clan rests one day a week unless they are in combat or are attacked by their enemies. Tomorrow is their rest day.'

Zor'von nodded. 'That should pose no problem. They've waited months for us to arrive, so one more day won't matter. Besides, it will give everyone here more time to relax, recuperate from our journey, and go over the materials so that we are properly prepared for the first day of negotiations.'

Masters, T'Prang, and Clark agreed with Zor'von's suggestion, so Richards said nothing.

The banquet had gone fairly well, and her Shadows had given Kahmmhi enough room to allow her to eat, relax, and meet people informally. Evidently someone had informed the new arrivals from the Federation about Clan metabolism, because nobody had been surprised by how much Kahmmhi had eaten. When it was all over, Kahmmhi was just glad to get back to her quarters and sleep.

Kyra joined Kahmmhi for breakfast at Quark's. Quark took their order himself, and had several waitresses help him bring out drinks, Kyra's meal, and five heaping platters of food for Kahmmhi and her Shadows.

'I just got some additional dishes in, Kahmmhi. Including a few of your favorite desserts. If you come in this evening, I'll have the death by chocolate khorb nut pies on the menu.'

'Quark, that is so thoughtful. Thank you. I will be by to try it.'

Kyra smiled. 'So, what's the profit margin on this one, Quark?'

'I don't know, major. She gets the first order on that dish. A Raider brought the program over and input it into the system himself.'

'So, how much will you be charging for it?'

'It's a large pie. One credit a slice, or six for the whole eight piece pie. It's supposed to be VERY good.'

Bryhne laughed. 'Much better than good, Quark. We'll need four of them for us, and one or two for our guests tonight.'

'That won't be a problem. I'll bring them out to you whenever you get here. I'll have your table reserved.' Quark hurried over to another table, leaving them to their meal.

'I love these omelettes, and I'm even starting to enjoy the spice. But I feel really bad about eating with you when you pay all of the time.'

Krohn laughed. 'We don't pay. We leave tips, but since the battle, Quark won't take our money. He still charges other members of the Clan for their food at cost, but not us.'

Kyra smiled. 'Well, I'll be damned. That little profit monger actually does have a heart.'

Quark shrieked as if he'd just been injured, and immediately came running over to their table. His voice was insistent, but his volume was very low, almost conspiratorial. 'Major! Please, keep your voice down. Do you WANT to ruin me completely?'

'OK. I'm sorry. I was just surprised. I've never heard of a Ferengi giving ANYONE anything for FREE.'

Quark smiled, looking embarrassed. 'So I'm happy to be alive, happy to still have a business to run, and REALLY happy that the Cardassians, or even worse, the Dominion, aren't running everything. Cardassians are mean drunks, lousy tippers, and they don't pay for damages. They also have lots of rules, and they imprison you for even ACCIDENTALLY breaking any of them. As for the Jem'Haddar, they're as mean, noisy, aggressive, and nasty as Nosikans are BEFORE they ever start drinking. And with that combat drug that they're all addicted to, their first bar fight would be the end of my entire bar. They LIKE breaking people.'

Kyra nodded. 'Yeah, I can understand that. By the way, Quark, the food's great.'

Quark smiled. 'Thanks, major. Enjoy your meal.'

Sisko, Worf, Jadzia, Kyra, Julian, and O'Brien looked at the huge, cold pies in amazement. They were three inches thick and at least a foot in diameter. They even SMELLED rich.

Bryhne quickly served them a slice each on small plates, then started eating an entire pie as both Kahmmhi and Lyhssyha did the same. Krohn and Jehryl shared a pie. As they tasted it, everyone began eating ravenously. 'This is REALLY good.'

'Don't sound so shocked, Chief.'

'I usually don't like sweets as rich as this, Julian.'

Sisko shook his head. 'I've NEVER tasted anything as rich as this before.'

Worf laughed. 'No comment from the women?'

Jadzia spoke around a mouthful of pie. 'Shut up. I'm eating. And if you try to take my pie, I'll kill you. Happy, dear?'

O'Brien laughed. 'Well, at least now we know why they call it "death by chocolate" pie.'

Krohn laughed. 'The women are just addicts. Don't mess with their fix and they're happy.'

Worf and the others just nodded. Quark was going to die rich, and they all needed to add this program to the personal synthesizers that the Clan had given them.

Everyone was waiting for the meeting to begin. There had been some raised eyebrows at how large the group in attendance was, but nobody actually said anything about paring that number down. Everyone there actually had a valid reason to be included in the meetings, though not all of them were quite as "important" or highly placed as the rest.

Sisko escorted Kahmmhi into the room. As her Shadows took their positions to either side of the door that led into the room, some eyebrows were raised. They were wearing their armor and carrying the same weapons that they always were. When they still hadn't left the room as the meeting was being called to order and officially started, Richards stood up. 'I object to the presence of armed guards inside this room. This is supposed to be a meeting between various diplomatic delegations in order to establish peaceful relations and possibly work out other agreements between our cultures. I insist that they leave so that there is no question of coercion or intimidation during the negotiations.'

Admiral Korg laughed. 'If you expect the Klingon Empire to participate, her Shadows remain.'

'I concur.' Gowron looked over at the Romulans. 'What is the Romulan Empire's position?'

Admiral Karv'Tarek smiled. 'The same as yours. Clan troops killed over four dozen Founders during the recent battle. I feel much safer knowing that they are here to make sure that no Founder is present.'

T'Prang looked interested, her curiosity aroused by the response. 'Please, explain.'

'Clan troops can detect Founders, no matter what shape they assume. They have also proven themselves quite capable of killing Founders.'

Korg laughed. 'A situation which proved to be a VERY unpleasant surprise for both the Founders and the Jem'Haddar.'

Picard stood. 'Do you still object, commodore?'

'I do. There is no reason for any ambassador or representative to require armed guards inside this room.'

Kahmmhi stood, smiled politely, and bowed. 'Thank you for your time.'

As she turned to leave, Stevens demanded to know where she was going.

Sisko stood, touching her arm lightly. 'Please, allow me, Kahm.' He turned to face Stevens. 'Commodore Stevens, if you had bothered to read ANY of the background material that was made available to all of the representatives, you would know that Kahmmhi isn't a diplomat or a representative for her people. She is their LEADER until they return to their own Clan. By Clan law, she can NOT order her Shadows from this room.'

Krohn laughed. 'Oh, she CAN. She does so on a regular basis. The only problem is that we don't serve her. We serve Kohl-garh, leader of Clan Phoenix. His granddaughter is a bit headstrong, like her mother and her grandmother before her. That is why she was assigned permanent Shadows while she was still a small child.'

Sisko nodded, looking over at the Federation diplomatic delegation. 'Her Shadows remain, or she leaves. Those are the only options.'

Ambassador Masters looked at Councillor Clark. 'I was given very specific orders by the Federation Council when I was assigned to this mission. I was ordered to meet with the representative from the Clan and do whatever I could to establish some sort of peaceful relations with them. Since Commodore Richards seems to be the only person present who objects to doing this, and there is no real reason for his presence throughout our negotiations, the resolution would seem to be fairly straightforward to me.'

Clark nodded. 'Commodore, if you would be so good as to leave...'

'I will do no such thing. I represent...'

Masters cut him off, her voice angry. 'You represent Federation Security, which is exactly what you are threatening by your actions. You represent a threat to the successful performance of my mission. Now, either leave on your own or I WILL have you removed. If I have to remove you from these proceedings by force, it WILL be reported to your superiors AND the Federation Council.'

Richards glared at Clark and Masters, then got up and stormed from the room. Masters sighed in relief, privately glad to see him gone. 'Tahr Kahhni, please, let us start over.'

Kahmmhi nodded. 'As you wish. But before you begin, it would save a lot of difficulties if I explained a few things to you.'

'Very well.'

'First, I understand that there were some questions about the captured enemy ships and why they were organized as they currently are. Since the Clan either boarded and captured them, or forced the majority of them to surrender unconditionally, they technically belonged to us. Since we have no real use for them, we gave them to your alliance. When they asked what I would suggest as far as dividing up the spoils, I told them. They all agreed that they would divide up the Dominion ships as I had suggested, but that they would wait for the outcome of the political negotiations before dividing up any of the Breen or Cardassian ships that were not returned to their respective former owners.'

T'Prang nodded. 'Very well. Logical. You are an impartial third party, and since you have no bias, your decision is less likely to be challenged or cause hard feelings between any of the parties involved. But why not wait for negotiations to be completed before dividing up the captured Dominion fleet as well?'

'Primarily because there won't be any negotiations between the Clan and the Dominion. When we leave this system, we plan to go to the Founders' home world and destroy it. Since the vast majority of their race is generally on that planet, they will effectively be neutralized. And with the captured fleet to allow your societies to repair, rebuild, and expand your fleets significantly, the Dominion will no longer pose as great a threat as they did before this battle.'

Zor'von nodded. 'A very practical approach.'

'Second, while we do try to maintain peaceful relations with most human or humanoid species, we DO make exceptions for those that attack us. Contrary to our normal doctrines, we allowed some enemy ships to surrender and didn't kill all of the enemy combatants who surrendered simply to avoid being killed in combat. We are currently holding more than one million enemy prisoners on our fleet, awaiting your decision on how to deal with them. Do not take too long before deciding.'

Kyra smiled. 'Bajor has agreed to allow the prisoners to be housed at a remote site. Providing you can build a suitable detention camp and provide proper security.'

Clark nodded. 'Thank you. We will attend to that as soon as possible. But it may take several months to transport all of the supplies here and build the facility.'

Kahmmhi frowned. This could end up taking forever for them to work out what they were going to do and get the materials here to do it. 'Kyra, would your people's leaders object to us using some of your resources?'

'Anything that we have is yours, but we're not a rich people. Most of our more valuable resources were strip mined by the Cardassians.'

Kahmmhi shook her head. 'Oh, no. Nothing like that. We would just need rock, dirt, and similar raw materials to build with. Is there any particular region of your planet that your people would live on if they had housing that would stand up to the weather better?'

Kyra nodded. 'Oh, yes. An island chain. It has a great climate for growing things most of the year, but there are some really bad storms the rest of the year. The storms are powerful enough that they usually destroy permanent structures, even if you build them so that they are reinforced.'

Kahmmhi nodded and smiled. 'We will build a group of facilities to house the prisoners there. After the Federation or the other parties remove them, your people can move into the dwellings and use the barracks for other purposes. But we will do this only if all parties agree that the prisoners are to be housed there for no more than two years. And that the Federation is responsible for providing security, or for making arrangements with the Romulans and Klingons to share that duty.'

Masters nodded. 'We agree to those terms.'

Gowron chuckled. 'We may be willing to provide our share of security troops, but I can already promise you that we are willing to negotiate terms for a fair agreement.'

Karv'Tarek nodded. 'I have the authority to commit my government to negotiations, but the final result is still up to the politicians and diplomats.'

T'Prang nodded. 'We are all agreed.'

With that out of the way, they all got down to the business of trying to decide what each side had to offer the other. The Federation was clearly interested in discovering as much as they could about the Clan, their culture, and their tech. They were interested in peaceful trade, information exchange, and any technological upgrades that they could get. Kahmmhi didn't blame them, but she wasn't about to give them some of the things that they were interested in obtaining. That was certain to end in disaster.

After several hours, they broke for lunch. When they returned, Kahmmhi decided that it was time to solve a lot of her problems at the same time.

'Look, I know that you're only doing your job. But we have a few problems that are keeping us from even considering some of your requests.'

Clark raised her eyebrows. 'Such as?'

'Well, for one thing, you have your Prime Directive. Since your culture believes so strongly in this concept, and you have refused to disregard it even in cases where it would obviously be in the best interests of the less technologically capable cultures which were in dire need, we don't think that it would be right to ignore it just because the technological exchange would be in your favor.'

T'Prang nodded her head. 'Impressive. Very rational and logical.'

'But you said yourself that we needed to improve our technology, increase the size of our fleets, and become more aggressive when we are attacked or invaded. How can we do that if you don't help us improve our technology?' Clark appeared to be frustrated as well as confused.

Kahmmhi smiled. 'There are some things that we CAN help you with, some things that we can help you figure out how to do for yourselves, and some things that you will have to do on your own. There are a number of things that, even if we were willing to ignore your Prime Directive and all of the culture shock that it would cause to your entire society, are simply impossible for us to do.'

Zor'von nodded. 'That is understandable. Forgive my emotional colleague for her temporary lapse.'

'If you are all willing to accompany me on a short trip, I believe that we can give you all a much better understanding of the situation.'

Masters smiled. 'A short trip? To your fleet?'

Kahmmhi nodded. 'We can do it quickly enough to allow you to see the prisoners for yourselves and meet some of the military command for the Clan. Though if you want, we could show you more and go over a few other things if you wish to stay longer. If you don't want to stay long enough to get everything done in one trip, we can make repeated trips. Either works for us.'

Masters looked around the table and saw that everyone present was more than willing to visit the Clan's ships. While she knew that they would never admit it, both of the Vulcans were as eager to have this experience as anyone else in the room. 'That would be fine. When could we schedule the trip?'

'How soon could Virginia have a HAT here, Krohn?'

'Max is sitting in one right now. Virginia ordered the HATs out after the battle. She doesn't want you in a lightly armed, lightly armored ship. One claw of HATs is shadowing him, each with a full platoon of Raiders, just in case.'

Korg smiled. 'Over five hundred Clan troops can be here to protect her within just a few minutes. Good. If there is a large, unexpected attack or a serious problem, can they protect her long enough for reinforcements to arrive? The rest of your Clan is half an hour away.'

'They are actually only three and a half to four light seconds away. They can always launch, do a microjump, and be here in seconds if it is necessary. We could do the same thing in reverse to evacuate from the station and rejoin our fleet. Skipping is very safe, and even keeping it down to one G wouldn't alter that very much.'

They all nodded and followed Sisko and Kahmmhi to the docking ring. When they entered the dock, they saw a pair of Clan warriors standing guard outside of an open hatch, but they couldn't see anything beyond the hatch. It was disturbing for some of them to walk through the open hatch into nothing, only to find themselves inside a Clan shuttle of some type. When they entered the ship and were able to see what was inside it, most of them were too surprised to start checking out the interior of the ship. Sisko himself was surprised to see that Worf, Jadzia, Julian, and Chief O'Brien were already inside the shuttle. 'What are the four of you doing here?'

'We each received a request to meet you here, sir.'

Kahmmhi smiled. 'I thought that they would enjoy this chance to visit our ships and see our technology for themselves, and that you could use their expertise in their various fields if there are any questions that we are unable to explain to you properly.'

Masters nodded. 'That seems like a very good idea. Judging by what we've seen and heard so far, that might be very helpful.'

T'Prang lifted an eyebrow. 'We DO have more qualified experts among the members of the staff who accompanied us here as part of the official delegation.'

Kahmmhi nodded. 'Yes, I'm sure that you do. But we don't have any arrangements for technological exchange worked out with ANY of your groups yet. They already know the Clan and have dealt with us, and the Clan feels more comfortable around them.'

'A very good point. While emotions are not logical, the absence of extreme emotions and stress does tend to increase the likelihood of more predictable and more logical behavior among most of the species that have emotional outbursts. I concur.'

O'Brien finished looking around as they all had a seat. Even with the full platoon of Raiders and the crew of the shuttle, the ship easily swallowed their entire party. 'What kind of ship is this?'

'This is a Clan heavy assault transport. It's designed to carry two platoons of troops and extra supplies into battle, to deliver supplies into a combat zone, and to provide close air support to ground troops. It can also be used offensively or defensively in space combat, but our other types of small craft are more specifically designed for that role.'

O'Brien looked at Jehryl inquisitively. 'This is a SMALL craft? How large is it?'

'Ninety meters by twenty meters. It can be used as a fighter or a defensive platform in space, but the other, smaller ships are more efficient.'

'What are the armaments on a ship like this? We haven't seen any indications of armaments on any of your small craft, even when you've decloaked your ships while they were docked with DS9.' Worf looked extremely interested in finding out something.

Kahmmhi sighed. 'Go ahead and tell them, Jehryl.

'Four torpedo tubes that launch AM mines, two forward and two aft. Four spinal lasers, two forward and two aft. Retractable twin 100 mm upper railgun turret. Retractable twin 100 mm lower railgun turret. Eight 50 mm crew manned railgun mounts. Four are internal, and can be slid along a track to any of the gunports on the side of the ship. Four are mobile, and can be used internally at the ports, or externally with a gun crew. Retractable upper laser turret that is equivalent to those that were used by old Clan large scouts. Retractable lower laser turret of the same type. All of the weapons have armored protective ports over them when they're not extended or in use. All of the weapons except for the crew manned railguns inside this compartment can be operated in space without requiring anyone to be inside combat armor or a space suit.'

Worf nodded somberly. 'Impressive. How many of these ships does your Clan have?'

Kahmmhi smiled. 'Why don't we save questions like that for AFTER our arrival, Worf?'

'Very well.' The response was curt and gruff. Standard for Worf.

Clark smiled. 'So, what should we talk about for the next half hour, Tahr Kahhni?'

Krohn laughed. 'We land in thirty seconds. Just got word from the pilot.'

'Thirty seconds? I didn't even feel any movement.'

'We left DS9 immediately after everyone was aboard the ship, and we've skipped twice. We're on our final approach to the Rolling Thunder.'

Nobody felt any movement or course changes at all, but the door opened and the ramp went down, giving them all a whiff of air that smelled more like that of a planet than the recycled air of a starship.

'Welcome to the Rolling Thunder, the flagship of our little fleet until we find a way to return to our Clan. The Rolling Thunder is a PUFF, so it's our largest ship.'

Everyone followed Kahmmhi down the ramp, amazed at what they were seeing. There were dozens of small craft similar to the one that they had just arrived in, and more appeared out of thin air as they watched. Two women who were each about a head taller than Kahmmhi came forward and greeted her warmly.

'This is Virginia, commander of the Rolling Thunder and the scout claw, and this is Laura, her exec.'

Picard smiled. 'A pleasure to meet both of you. Are all of your high ranking leaders female?'

Virginia shook her head. 'No, but a lot of fleet and small craft pilot positions are filled by females. Of course, females do represent about seventy to seventy five percent of our Clan's population. Raiders, Assault Marines, and assault fighter pilot slots are about half male.' She grinned. 'They are aggressive little bastards, and even we have to admit that human males are bigger and stronger than human females or Llyriana. Like Max, for example.'

Masters nodded. Max was huge. She didn't even want to THINK about how strong he had to be. That still didn't stop her from idly wondering what it would be like to be with a man that strong. She shook her head to clear her thoughts. Damned hardwired genetic responses might ensure the continued survival of the species, but they could occur at some VERY inopportune moments. And they screwed the hell out of her efforts to maintain a logical thought process and use her higher brain functions the way that she had been taught to.

Kahmmhi nodded. 'Max is one of my older brothers. By my father's first wife.'

'Why isn't he the leader, then?'

Virginia chuckled. 'In the Clan, you can choose to become a leader or a warrior and lock into that choice if you wish. Those who are older, who have more experience, and who might be considered more "qualified" than Kahmmhi in other areas refused to accept the position of the leader, even temporarily. Kahmmhi is one of the few individuals here who are still training for command track instead of a dedicated position as a warrior. And she is THE most highly qualified person here for handling these type of negotiations and interactions with alien cultures. Very few of us have ANY training at all in diplomacy.'

They followed Virginia toward a lift. As they were passing across the first main intersection, Masters suddenly stopped in her tracks. 'Oh, my God. This is impossible.'

Zor'von looked down the long corridor which dwindled to nothing in the distance, then turned and looked in the opposite direction. 'We appear to be in the middle of the ship.'

Virginia nodded. 'We're almost dead amidships. It saves a lot of time getting to the bridge. We didn't want you to have to do a long walk to get near the center of the ship when an elevator was much quicker and easier.'

'What are the dimensions of this ship, and its general shape?'

'The ship is forty five kilometers long, thirty kilometers in diameter, and is roughly cylindrical. Most Clan fleet ships are built the same way, only the majority have a three to one ratio of length to diameter. The fatter profile on PUFFs allows us to have more powerful broadsides from our railguns, and the same profile on our Home Ships allows us to have thicker armor and more living room for our civilian population. This ship has two hundred and fifty meters of armor on the hull, and a displacement of thirty one thousand, eight hundred cubic kilometers.'

'You normally measure the displacement of your fleet's ships in cubic kilometers?'

'Of course, admiral. The assault frigates are about thirty five. The scout fire cruisers are about forty two. The scout assault carriers are a bit under two hundred. Nothing compared to the BIG Clan ships. Some of them even make a PUFF look kind of small.'

Zor'von nodded. 'How large are they?'

'A planetary strike carrier is about sixty three thousand. Because of the extra armor and living room, a PSC Home Ship is a hundred and forty three thousand. A planetary assault carrier is almost three hundred thousand.'

Worf looked seriously impressed. 'How many ships that large does your Clan have?'

'We only have three ships that are planetary strike carriers in our offensive forces. Our largest ships after that are our twelve PUFFs, and then our six Home Ships, which are each about two thirds the size of a PUFF.'

Krohn smiled. 'Clan Phoenix has seventy two PUFFs, twenty four PSC Home Ships, and thirty combat ships that are larger than a PUFF.'

All of the visitors looked at each other nervously. With their current technology, it would take decades and the resources of the entire Federation just to build the structural components of the single ship that they were currently aboard, and that only included the components that they WERE capable of duplicating. And even that would tie up the entire shipbuilding capacity of every shipyard in every system in the entire Federation.

When they reached the bridge, Virginia gave them a virtual tour of the ship and showed them how the prisoners were being housed.

'There are no guards anywhere near their detention cells. What keeps them from trying to escape?'

'If they leave the facility that they are in, the hallways outside go to five Gs. After a hundred yards, it goes to ten. Our only escape attempt ended when he was shot with a paralytic drug after he collapsed from the effects of the gravity. We dragged him back into the detention center with the rest of the prisoners, and left him to suffocate slowly in front of his entire group. Contrary to popular opinion, it seems that Jem'Haddar DO know how to feel fear.'

'How can you be sure that none of them escape when you've made it so dangerous for your own troops to even get near their detention areas?'

Kahmmhi looked at the Romulan and smiled. 'All Clan adults train regularly at everything from zero to ten Gs during Basic. We normally keep our ships at somewhere around five Gs for comfort. Even on Home Ships, the only areas that are normally kept below five Gs are those where young children and infants are supposed to be. Their bones aren't fully armored because they haven't reached puberty.'

Their guests looked at each other, none of them saying anything out loud. They all knew that humans could tolerate five Gs for short periods of time, and that some of the stronger Klingons, Vulcans, and Romulans might be able to tolerate five Gs for even longer times, but none of their species or any of those who were currently the prisoners of the Clan were going to survive for very long at anything over five Gs. Nobody was going to willingly endure ten Gs for extended durations, much less be capable of functioning normally and engaging in combat under those conditions.

'Do you have enough troops on board to control over a million prisoners?'

'Oh, yes. We have over a third of a million assault troops on board this ship if a problem comes up that the defensive troops can't handle. Not that it would take more than fifty thousand troops to handle all of our prisoners, even if they were armed.'

Virginia continued the virtual tour, though most of what they saw was completely alien to their guests. After she finished, she led them to a nearby briefing room so that they could relax, chat, and catch their breath.

'Sir, I feel more lost than I did on my first day at the academy. When they were showing us their systems, I could follow her explanations about what the system was well enough to tell what it was supposed to do, but for the life of me, I couldn't even begin to tell you how most of them actually worked. Most of their tech is based on physics that we only understand theoretically at best. Some of the things they do are things that we could have done ourselves, but nobody actually thought of doing it. We just kind of overlooked it because it wasn't something that our normal way of thinking suggested was an application that would be useful. But some of the things that they do seem to be beyond even our theoretical understanding of physics.'

Picard looked at O'Brien closely, intrigued by this insight. 'Such as?'

'Their drives. Both systems are entirely beyond us technologically. Their inertial compensators actually seem to obey most of the laws of physics that we know about, but we can't duplicate them or anything that works like them. Their weapons are totally beyond our capabilities to reproduce. We simply lack the resources and the skills, not to mention the fact that our understanding of physics isn't advanced enough to even understand how they work theoretically.'

Zor'von interrupted. 'They made their explanation very clear, and it is logical once you realize the vast improvements that their materials allow. Their ability to improve the performance of their lasers so dramatically over what we believed was physically possible is very impressive, but I was particularly impressed with their solution to increasing the acceleration curve of their railgun projectiles.'

'I was referring to the bombs that they used during the battle, sir. There is a sudden, instantaneous energy release, and every single bit of matter within the blast radius is almost instantaneously torn apart at the subatomic level. Nothing larger than a quark remains, but there is no detectable loss of mass, so we know that it's not another unique application of antimatter technology.'

'Q-bomb. There isn't any loss of actual matter at the subatomic level. The explosion is just a secondary effect.'

'A SECONDARY effect?'

Kahmmhi smiled. 'Yes, Chief. When the subatomic bonds that hold the quarks together are all simultaneously broken, the energy that is released has to go SOMEWHERE. The explosion would actually be much larger and more violent, but the bomb only disintegrates the bonds between two of the six quarks so that they don't have any attraction to their neighboring quarks.'

'How could that possibly work?'

'Well, if you dissolve the bond, even for a split second, and there is nothing to hold it to the other quarks that are nearby, all of the vibrational energy that is in all matter is released. Of course, the wave that breaks the bonds does increase the vibrational energy at the subatomic level as well, so...'

Even the Vulcans were openly stunned by that statement, and by the implications of what Kahmmhi had left unsaid. Masters shook her head in disbelief as she realized how simple the theory was, and how it indicated that the mind of the Clan worked. They took nothing for granted, and examined everything to see what potential it had that had been previously overlooked. 'I can't even begin to imagine what it would be like to know that you have the ability to USE that kind of destructive power.' She sighed. 'And I don't even want to THINK about having to deal with the knowledge that I had actually done something like that.'

'The Clan has much more powerful weapons that we can use, ambassador, but we limit their use. We only use them when it's necessary. The Q-bombs that we used were smaller than normal, but we didn't want to risk using larger ones. We wanted to make sure that some of the ships from the enemy fleet were left for you to salvage and put to use expanding your own fleets. You really do need to make both your ships and your fleets much larger and more powerful if you intend to actually survive. Our scouting reports in both the Gamma and the Delta quadrants indicate the presence of numerous aggressive cultures with technology equivalent to your own. Most of them have many more ships than any of your groups do, more fleets than you do, and they appear to be even more aggressive and warlike than the Nosikans or the Jem'Haddar.' She paused. 'And they are all busy expanding their empires.'

Clark smiled weakly. 'Um, just for the sake of curiosity, what DO your more powerful weapons do?'

'One of them has two uses. It can destroy an entire planet, or it can destroy an entire solar system, depending on how it is used. Another can be used to, um, implode a massive star. The secondary effects are, um, quite spectacular, or so I've been told.'

Korg shook his head, not wanting to think about things that even those who did the science couldn't understand. 'You spoke of warlike races who would threaten us. I believe that we should do as you suggested. Build larger, stronger ships. Build larger fleets. But our current technology has distinct limitations that have nothing to do with our available resources.'

'We understand that, and we truly sympathize with your situation. But your people, your cultures, and your governments are too diverse. In order to grow, develop, and become a true alliance, you either have to spend generations trying to work toward a common goal, or you develop like the Clan did. The hard way. By uniting against a common enemy for your very survival. Preparing together, relying on each other, and fighting together. Now that the Dominion isn't such an imminent threat, you'll have enough time to prepare and develop on your own.'

'You don't intend to help us at all?' Clark sounded almost terrified.

'We will help you some, but you must improve and develop your technology yourselves. Together, so that there is no mistrust, no discord. If you fight amongst yourselves, your individual groups will provide easy pickings to the threats that you do encounter.'

'We will keep that firmly in mind during our negotiations with the Clan.' Masters looked around the room pointedly. 'And during our negotiations with our allies to form stronger, closer ties between us. She smiled at Kahmmhi. 'Perhaps we can discuss our options for things to do during our present visit while we all relax and eat?'

It had been several weeks since the start of the negotiations. By now, the Federation, Romulans, and Klingons were getting used to working together regularly. They had already contacted both the Cardassians and the Breen to inform them of the fate of their fleets, and were still awaiting a response from the Breen government. The Cardassian government had responded to their message and the threat of facing a united fleet invading their territory by immediately surrendering to their opposition in the civil war. With the loss of the entire fleet and no chance of further Dominion assistance, they were destined to lose their civil war even if the Federation alliance didn't invade their systems and destroy them, and everyone knew it. Those who had assumed power on Cardassia asked Garak to represent the interests of the Cardassians. They had several concerns which they wanted him to address personally.

Garak looked around the room at the assembled representatives of the Federation, the Klingon Empire, the Romulan Empire, and the Clan. It was a large group, and an imposing one. He now had a very good idea of exactly what Kahmmhi's bodyguards were capable of, and after having seen what Kahmmhi had done to the Romulan in the duel and the Nosikans in the bar, the very fact that she wasn't considered good enough to be a dedicated warrior, much less a Shadow, was daunting. He cleared his throat nervously, and began speaking.

'The civil war in our systems is over. Those Jem'Haddar who haven't already fled are being hunted down and killed. The leaders of the Obsidian Order who weren't killed or captured in this system have already taken their most loyal followers and fled from Cardassian space in order to avoid reprisals. But the citizens of Cardassia are still worried about several things. First, there are serious concerns that the Federation and their allies will launch counterstrikes to eliminate our remaining forces or to carry out reprisals against those that they hold responsible for the attack on the Federation and this system.'

Masters held a quick, quiet discussion with Korg, Gowron, and Karv'Tarek. 'We see no need to continue hostilities so long as what remains of the Cardassian forces cease hostilities against us and remain within Cardassian space.' She smiled. 'Just make sure that they are all very aware of the fact that the Bajoran system is a Federation protectorate. We intend to maintain control of the wormhole to the Delta quadrant so that we can make sure that the Dominion doesn't have a chance to sneak forces into this quadrant to replace the ones that they lost. Any incursions into this system will be dealt with very harshly by the Federation, the Romulans, and the Klingons.'

Masters paused to talk to Kyra for a moment, then nodded at Kyra's response. 'We have been given permission to station sufficient ships inside this system to guarantee its continued safety, and to control wormhole access to this quadrant by ANY potential enemies from the Delta quadrant. Capturing so many Dominion databases intact has given us a wealth of information on various factions, races, and civilizations in the Delta quadrant that have been encountered by the Dominion forces.'

Garak nodded. 'All of our leadership has already agreed to recognize Bajor's existence as an independent system. We don't wish to contest their status or their sovereignty. But I have been asked to request specific reassurances that the Clan does not intend to attack our systems.'

Kahmmhi smiled. 'We are well aware of your situation, Garak. We know that not all of your people supported the Dominion, and that there were some who would have objected to an attack on this system in any case. We are quite satisfied that now that your people know of the existence of the Clan, they do not wish to make an enemy of the Clan.'

'Thank you, Tahr Kahhni. Our other major concern is that we aren't quite sure what to do about the prisoners that were taken in combat.'

Masters nodded. 'We have already decided to return SOME of your ships to your new government so that they can restore peace, maintain order, and provide security against outside threats to the systems in your space. But they will not be returned at once. In fact, none of them will be returned until AFTER we have sufficient forces permanently stationed inside this system to prevent anyone from rethinking their stance on these agreements.'

Garak smiled wanly. 'We have no problem with that, ambassador. Our main concern is that we don't WANT some of the prisoners to be returned to us unless we retain the right to execute them. They sold out their own race to the Dominion in their singleminded pursuit of power.'

'How many prisoners are we talking about? Certainly you don't intend to execute ALL of the captured prisoners.'

'I can't answer that question, ambassador. We know about how many prisoners you have, but we don't know who they are or what they truly believe. I can tell you that we intend to execute the leaders from the Obsidian Order, some of the higher ranking military commanders who were staunch supporters of the Obsidian Order or the Dominion, and some of the troops who committed various atrocities that have been documented during our civil war. As for the rest, we still don't know exactly what part they played and how willing they were. We're not even sure how much some of the lower ranking military personnel knew about what was actually happening.'

Kahmmhi looked at Krohn's comp. 'Four hundred and seventeen of your larger cruisers were captured intact or relatively intact, with another eighty two suffering moderate to heavy damage. Six hundred of your smaller cruisers were captured intact or relatively intact, with another one hundred and eighty three suffering moderate to heavy damage. The total number of Cardassian survivors is one hundred and sixty thousand, six hundred and thirty seven.' She smiled. 'We didn't specifically target Cardassian ships because they were smaller and posed less of a threat than the larger ships that were used by the Dominion.'

'How long will we have to work out what to do with them?'

'We are currently in the process of building detention facilities on Bajor. Once they are completed and the prisoners enter, the current agreement is that the Federation has two years to work out long term solutions to handle them and remove them from this system. At that time, the Bajorans will take over all of the facilities and use them to house some of their own population so that they can make the sites more productive and help improve the standard of living for their people.'

Garak nodded. 'We will work with the alliance to solve this problem.'

Masters nodded. 'Speaking of the facilities...'

Kahmmhi smiled. 'As I said, we have already started construction. The Bajorans seem to be satisfied with the quality of the materials that are being used.'

Kyra snorted. 'Satisfied? We're freaking AMAZED. Our experts say that the plans that they've seen, using materials with the characteristics and tolerances that are specified in the information that we were given, will produce almost totally self sufficient cities that will not only stand up to the most intense storms on our planet, but which will also last and function as intended for at LEAST a thousand years.'

Kahmmhi shrugged. The construction was simply standard for what the Clan used when they built shelters for captured crew or exiles and left them on a planet to live out their lives. 'They should be completed and ready for the prisoners in six months. I'm sorry, thirty weeks. Our year is different from yours. I've been told that the Dominion battleships and transports should also be repaired and ready for use by then. It wouldn't normally take us that long to repair such minor damage, but we don't even have a small Clan shipyard with us.' She smiled brightly, obviously pleased. 'But we are using the materials from a number of the ships that were destroyed or severely damaged to improve their armor.'

Masters nodded. 'What did you finally work out with the admirals regarding that?'

'For the Federation, eight battleships, five troop transports, one hundred and seven battle frigates, three hundred and twenty five warships, and eighty one scouts. The Romulans and Klingons each get six battleships, five troop transports, sixty battle frigates, two hundred and thirty warships, and eighty scouts.'

Data tilted his head. 'That is only a total of one thousand, two hundred, and eighty ships.'

'We aren't including the Cardassian or Breen ships that were captured intact, Data. And we're using all of the material that can be salvaged from the ships that were destroyed or severely damaged to do the repairs and make additional armor for the Dominion ships that you will be keeping. Your experts are learning how to do the repairs and make the armor as we fix the largest ships. The ones that Clan forces boarded and captured. Then they will use the replicators that we give them to produce the armor plates for the rest of the ships in your new fleets. After they armor them, they'll rework the interior systems and do whatever other upgrades you deem necessary.'

Masters looked thoughtful. 'Just for my edification, how large a fleet are we talking about here, and how large are the ships? Compared to ship types that I'd be more familiar with.'

Data smiled. 'Ambassador, the fleet that is being given to the Federation totals five hundred and twenty six ships. Including the fifty ships that arrived after the battle had ended, the Federation currently has a total of one hundred and seventy four ships in this system, and twenty four of them are heavily damaged. One Voyager class and five Excelsior class ships were destroyed in combat.'

'And the fleet that we are being given?'

'Eighty scout ships that are smaller than an Excelsior class ship. They are about the size of a Klingon battlecruiser. The three hundred and twenty five warships are just larger than a Voyager class ship. The one hundred and seven battle frigates are the size of a Galaxy class starship. The five troop transports are each five times larger than a Sovereign class starship. And the eight battleships are each eight times larger than a Sovereign class starship.'

Masters nodded. 'Thank you, Mr. Data.' She sighed. 'Can we even man that many ships?'

Picard nodded. 'It will take some time, but we can do it. We have the remaining crews from the three Voyager and twenty one Excelsior class ships that were heavily damaged. By moving some people around, we can have the eight battleships manned and operational, even if they will have minimal crews on them. The crews will be stretched thin for a while, but they will have sufficient forces to operate the ships well enough to protect this system until more personnel can arrive. By increasing our training class size at StarFleet academy and phasing out our existing Excelsior class ships in favor of those in the new fleet, we can have the entire fleet fully manned and completely operational in about a decade.'

'If we take some of the support crew off of the fifty four Excelsior class ships that are currently still operational, would that help us properly man the battleships?'

Data nodded. 'If only one third of the crew was transferred, the remaining crew could operate the ship at near peak efficiency until they picked up replacements. That is a very helpful suggestion, ambassador.'

'Tahr Kahhni, will you be available for another meeting tomorrow?'

'No. I have to visit the sites on Bajor.'

Kyra smiled. 'Anyone who wishes to accompany us on the tour of the sites and see the construction is welcome to join us.'

'I, for one, would be honored. And it would be good to get out of the station and smell the fresh, clean air of a planet for a change. I've been in space cooped up aboard a starship or on a space station for too long.'

Kahmmhi shook her head, suppressing the natural response to shudder. She'd never understand aliens and their attachment to rocks.

Construction seemed to be going well. The troops definitely knew how to set up shelters and organize small cities. They always set up captured crew members who didn't want to join the Clan. Set up a town, give them the resources to survive, arm them to protect them from dangerous beasts, and leave them. Many were never reclaimed and enslaved again by the Consortium. Those that were found by the Consortium didn't really bother resisting. There was no real point to it. In the case of many of the species, all resistance and aggression had been bred out of them millennia ago.

'Your troops definitely seem to know what they are doing.'

'We get lots of practice, ambassador. Consortium crews are composed almost entirely of slave races. We find a rock for those who don't wish to remain in space and join the Clan. We set them up so that they can survive, and leave to let them live out their lives. The Consortium finds some of them and makes them into slaves again. Some of them die off because they just don't manage to survive or there aren't enough of them to form a good, sustainable breeding pool. Some survive and establish a permanent culture.'

Zor'von looked at his tricorder carefully. 'This material is extremely dense. There are denser veins forming a pattern inside it in three dimensions.'

'That's the molecular rebar honeycomb. It significantly increases the material's strength without requiring the entire structure to be assembled as a molecular lattice. We'd normally use our own materials, but we've used things that you can manufacture on your own for the most part. The Bajorans will be able to maintain and repair these cities as needed. The solar collectors that we used aren't quite as efficient as they normally are. We did alter the molecular structure of the duranium slightly to build the large wind towers, but we didn't need to for the smaller towers that help supply power to the individual houses. We used our own recycling systems, but constructed them out of the most durable materials that you had available. They should still function properly for a very long time.'

T'Prang shook her head. 'Your use of duranium alone is prohibitive. Where did you get so much duranium, and how did you process it so quickly?'

'We just used the densest materials that were available and created the duranium with our synthesizers. It's not extremely energy intensive, and it's not as if we have to worry about running out of either matter or antimatter. The whole point to using the synthesizer is to take energy and the building blocks of matter and use them to build whatever product it is that you require. Isn't it?'

None of them had the heart to tell Kahmmhi that while Clan synthesizers might be capable of operating at the atomic and subatomic levels, the Federation's replicators had never quite reached that level. They could take atoms and rearrange them into any form or shape, allowing the natural atomic bonds to create stability. They could join elements into compounds, or even combine nucleic acids, amino acids, and other compounds to form specific foods. But they could not work at the subatomic level to change an atom from one element to another.

Kyra smiled. 'The connecting underground tunnels were a great idea. In really bad storms, you can move around normally without ever going outside. Are you sure that those tiny windmills will work in that kind of weather?'

'Clan Kwyll Kohltahng tested them on Calcutta. Storms with winds in excess of three hundred kliks hadn't been able to damage one in over a hundred years. They had several one week long storms of that magnitude every year. And there were no reported problems of wind damaging their buildings, either.'

'That's much more extreme than any storm that has ever been measured on Bajor.'

'The construction chiefs assure me that your materials will stand up to that type of abuse as well. They will resist phaser attacks, but aren't guaranteed to stop them completely.'

They moved on to inspect the enclosed greenhouses, which would be required to grow food year round in the climate that they were going to experience locally. Then they moved on to one of the barracks where the prisoners would be housed. Everything was well constructed, and no detail had been overlooked.

T'Prang looked at a strange box that was located in every cell. 'What is that box? It seems that every cell has one.'

'That is a tetracel white injector. This facility will house Jem'Haddar prisoners, and they are all addicted to the drug. They will be gradually weaned from their dependence on the drug while they are being held here.'

'How does that work?'

'The total amount of drug that is dispensed on any given day is limited, and the machine only dispenses the drug to the specific Jem'Haddar whose DNA is programmed into it. The amount of drug that they get will be reduced by gradually introducing increasing amounts of an antagonistic drug into their mixture. And we have made a specific inhibitor that can be administered either by hypospray or by a pneumatic dart to handle prisoners who get disruptive.' Kahmmhi grinned at their stunned expressions. 'You don't want us to kill them all, so we're going to do what we can to make sure that those Jem'Haddar who are left alive pose less of a threat to you. Decreasing their aggression and lowering their strength and their pain tolerance should certainly help in that respect.'

Korg smiled. 'Without the ability to maintain their chemically induced rage and adrenaline rush, they will definitely feel pain, exhaustion, and fear. They will be weaker, slower, much less aggressive, and will be easier to defeat in hand to hand combat. That will even come in handy for those who are responsible for guarding and controlling them while they remain prisoners in this facility.'

Picard and the other military leaders nodded. That would definitely change things. And it would make it much easier for the Federation to guard and control the Dominion prisoners.

By the time that the last of the recon patrols had returned to the Bajoran system, the Clan had finished repairing and armoring the Dominion ships that they had boarded and captured. The new crews from the Federation, the Klingons, and the Romulans were boarding the ships and learning how to operate them. The Clan had also started moving their prisoners down to the surface of Bajor, turning them over to the Federation guards. None of the prisoners wanted to press their luck, especially not with the Clan troops escorting them. They couldn't tell if there were even more Clan guards anywhere around them who just weren't visible, so there were no problems from ANY of the prisoners.

The Clan had also finished working out agreements with the alliance members. Bajor was to be given two large, heavy duty industrial synthesizers at each of the ten detention centers that had been built in the island chain. The Federation, the Romulans, and the Klingons were each to receive one hundred heavy duty industrial size Clan synthesizers so that they could use them to upgrade their fleets and still have a few to study so that they could use the results of their studies to improve their own technology. They had also given all three societies the plans and theoretical explanations of how Clan shipboard lasers worked, as well as some suggestions on how to improve other bits of their technology to support them and provide enough power for the Clan's version of shipboard lasers. It would take some time, but the Federation technology COULD be improved enough to create lasers that had a range of about four million kliks on the largest ships, and about two million kliks on those as large or larger than a Galaxy class starship. They would all have enough power to cut through the shields and armor of even the largest ships that had been captured from the Dominion.

Everyone accepted the fact that both hyper travel and gravitic engines were still out of the question for quite some time because their technology couldn't support them. And since Clan railguns relied on gravitics for the extreme acceleration that allowed them to provide such immense amounts of damage, everyone knew that they couldn't possibly use railguns. But the one thing that all three of the groups had been really disappointed about was that the Clan had flatly refused to share any information about their stealth technology. However, they did help the Klingons and Romulans study the Dominion cloaking technology, and had helped them combine the latest generation of Klingon cloaking technology with Dominion cloaking to produce a form of cloaking that was much better than either of them.

The military was much more pleased than the politicians. In addition to the new ships, lasers, and improved cloaking, they had learned the value of other weapons and tactics that they could create and utilize with their current technology. PT boats, antimatter mines, carriers, and new ways of thinking about military tactics and warfare. The most prominent among them for the ground troops was that there was now research and development being done to create their own versions of Clan rifles and skates.

Jadzia came up to Kahmmhi while she was eating dessert in Quark's. 'I have some news for you. While we were going through the database on a captured Dominion ship, we came across some notes in the captain's log regarding the wormhole that you came through.'

Kahmmhi sighed. 'The databases on the ships that we boarded all mentioned it as well, but they just listed it as a navigational hazard.'

'This ship did as well. But it traveled through that region of space regularly. Their records show that the hazard was discovered because they lost ships in that region every twenty seven point three years. That's Earth years, by the way. We calculated it out, and that's twenty two point seven nine Clan years. I don't know if it actually connects to where you came from, but his records certainly seem to indicate that it does. All of the debris that was ever found from the missing ships appeared to have been subjected to numerous intense gravitational fields at the same time.'

Kahmmhi smiled. 'Thanks, Jadzia. Now we know when we have to be there to try to return to the system that we came here from and our own Clan.' Her smile disappeared. 'And how long we have to complete the things that we still need to finish in the Delta quadrant.'

Jadzia frowned. 'You've already done enough for us. You don't have to get into a war with the Founders or the Dominion.'

Bryhne laughed. 'That sure beats the hell out of just sitting around and waiting twenty two years for a wormhole to open.'

'Oh, yeah. Talk about BORING. I'd rather sit and listen to Lehr describe paint drying than just sit around and do nothing for the next twenty years. Kill the Founders. Kill the Borg.'

'Krohn!'

Lyhssyha shrugged. 'We both know that he's right, Tahr Kahhni. And we DO know where the home world of the Founders is now. It will just take us some time to reach it, or to find an alternative route to it through hyper.'

Jadzia gasped. 'You do? Where? We haven't found a listing for it yet, and believe me, we HAVE looked for that system very carefully in the records of all of the Dominion ships that were captured.'

Kahmmhi chuckled. 'Don't bother. There won't be anything there to prove that the planet ever even existed by the time that we finally leave that system. And the only Founders who will still be alive are the ones who weren't inside the system during our attack.'

Jadzia nodded, sighing in resignation. 'I know, I know. Enemy of the Clan. Threat to humanity. Clan law requires that they be eliminated.'

Kahmmhi smiled, sticking her tongue out playfully at Krohn as if she were still a young girl. 'See? I told you that she'd understand.'

Krohn snorted. 'She doesn't understand, Kahm. She's just intelligent enough to know when she has no chance of winning the argument with you. She doesn't pound her head against bulkheads.'

Jadzia laughed. 'Only when I argue with Worf.'

'We'll be leaving the system in a week. Places to go, people to kill.'

Jadzia nodded. 'So, do I have to order my own pie, or can you survive without a slice of that one, Kahm?'

Kahmmhi laughed. 'Grab a fork. Eat fast. You snooze, you lose.'

'Ha! I know for a fact that you're not as tiny as you are because all of your big bad brothers ate most of your food before you could. Your grandmother is large for a Dark Elf. All five foot two of her.'

Kahmmhi just smiled and took another huge bite of the pie. Jadzia shut up and started eating quickly.

Sisko and the others were gathered on the promenade for the formal farewell ceremony. It was the first time that Kahmmhi had seen Commodore Richards since the first meeting after his arrival with the rest of the Federation's diplomatic delegation and the rest of the representatives.

'I suppose that you're really pleased with yourself at getting me removed from the negotiations.'

'Actually, I was very disappointed. I had hoped that everyone in positions of authority within the Federation was like the people that I had met before you arrived. Admiral Stevens was a good warrior, but his problem was accepting the authority of his superiors. He was a hothead, but he reacted as he had been trained to do, and the fault is not all his for his behavior. His intentions were good. Fortunately, the others who were sent had the best interests of their races and their cultures in mind. Not their own interests and schemes for expanding their own personal power base.'

'I still don't trust you. One day, you will be held accountable for your actions here. I'll personally make you pay for your interference.'

Krohn appeared out of thin air. 'Make any more threats against the Tahr Kahhni, veiled or otherwise, and you will see how fast and impartial Clan justice is.'

'You wouldn't dare harm me openly. It would mean war.'

'If your species is that stupid, then so be it.'

Masters approached, appearing concerned. 'Is anything wrong, Tahr Kahhni?'

'What is your law regarding threatening a foreign diplomat?'

'That is a very serious offense. Why?'

'The commodore was either unaware that our combat armor records everything that we see or hear, or he simply didn't care. You might want to have your security personnel control him before he sets off my Shadows with his threats. They don't care about diplomatic consequences or, as I have recently learned, my own orders to the contrary in some circumstances. Clan law requires death by decapitation for making threats to attack the Clan or its members.'

Masters made a call immediately, and several StarFleet security personnel came over and took Richards into custody. Before they could march him off to the brig, Kahmmhi told him to look out the observation port. There were gasps and screams as a huge ship that dwarfed even the largest of the ships that had been captured from the Dominion suddenly appeared. There was a huge depiction of a silver dragon all along the side of the ship, standing out starkly against the black background.

'Since all that you seem to respect is force, THAT is what a Clan PUFF looks like. You have no more chance of seeing it before it blows you to hell than you have of detecting the entire platoon of Clan Raiders in full combat armor who are in this room right now. Our enemies only see us if we WISH them to. They simply die.'

There was a wet stain on the front of Richards' uniform and his face was drained of all color as he was led off to the brig.

Virginia smiled as they came out of hyper inside the target system. It had taken a while to find a hyper route, but it was definitely worth it. 'There is a huge fleet near the planet, Tahr Kahhni. Looks like the Dominion didn't take the loss of their entire fleet well, and they're planning on doing another attempt to take over the Bajoran system.'

'How close are they to the planet?'

Virginia's smile became positively feral. 'Close enough.'

Kahmmhi's grin was ecstatic. 'Move the fleet so that we're five million kliks from the fleet that's orbiting the planet. Launch the drone. We'll target their engines when the reaction starts. We'll take out anything that survives the fireworks.'

Half an hour later, the planet suddenly exploded as the chain reaction ran out of reaction mass. The explosion destroyed everything that was in close orbit around the planet, taking out the huge fleet that was being assembled to attack the Alpha quadrant.

'That takes care of the Founders. And with that huge fleet gone, I'm sure that they won't have the forces to spare for another attack on the Alpha quadrant for quite a while.' Kahmmhi grinned at Virginia. 'We still have seventeen years to go before we need to be back at the wormhole. Let's do some hunting.'

'Yes, Tahr Kahhni. Maybe we'll get lucky and find some Borg?'