Odo watched the viewscreen and realised that Starfleet vessels, with the possible exception of the Defiant, were certainly not built for wartime duty. The Thunderchild and the Sarekar had arrived while Sisko and his crew were in the other reality, and the station had been relatively quiet, so the changeling had devoted his time to visually analysing the long curves of the two Akira-class ships. They were medium-grade warships with a respectable arsenal onboard (or so the Starfleet files had told him). But they still embodied the usual Starfleet preoccupation with structural aesthetics and grace, and that left a lot of weak points. One solid, unshielded phaser hit would tear the saucer section clear of the drive nacelles. Despite his dislike for the corrupt Cardassian navy, he had admired the utilitarian and compact warships. He had submitted numerous requests to the Federation's tactical designers for an overhaul of ship layout guidelines, and he was only now seeing the newer ships being built with an emphasis on low profile and manoeuvrability, rather than size and capacity. But the vessels he saw on the holographic screen right now…Odo couldn't decide what to think. The Defiant was nosed up to the docking ring, and Sisko had requested a staff meeting soon, meaning that Odo needed to write a tactical assessment on DS-Nine's defensive capabilities against any threat forces. At least, that was what he assumed the Starfleet man wanted to discuss in the meeting.

Sisko's dark-skinned features had looked haunted on the comm display. Odo couldn't recall seeing that kind of horror on the captain's face before, not even when the war with the Dominion had been announced. That meant that the Defiant had found something terrifying on the other side of the passage, and Odo wasn't sure he wanted to know what that was. He walked across to an auxiliary terminal on the other side of Ops, sat down, and activated the station computer interface.

"Ready," the computer said politely. Odo marvelled that it was co-operating for once.

"Computer, how much does the station LCARS have on the Borg Collective?"

The system paused as it did quick scan of its archives. "The station computer contains four hundred kiloquads on the Borg Collective."

Odo wasn't terribly familiar with standard Federation units of data measurements, but he knew that four hundred kiloquads wasn't a great deal of information. At least, it probably wasn't anything of substance. "What does this consist of?"

"History of Federation interactions with the Borg; records of Borg incursions into the Alpha Quadrant; analyses of alternate universe data concerning Borg technology…"

"Stop," the changeling said. It would take too long. He needed more information, and he needed it quickly. "Uplink to fleet-wide Federation files. Cross-reference with tactical concerns: I want battle records, weaponry, shields, effective countermeasures, anything pertinent to a hypothetical conflict between Deep Space Nine and the Borg."

"Uplink initiated. This request has been lodged with the Federation archive computers. Estimated time to retrieval and download of requested data: two hours, seventeen minutes. Please wait."

"Send the files to my office and put a level two firewall on them. Notify me when the download and lockdown is complete." Odo pushed away from the console, feeling as though he had accomplished nothing. DS-Nine was obviously not on the front lines with the Borg, but he felt that if the Federation feared the Borg as much as it seemed, every outpost should have sufficient data to prepare the crew for a combat. He sighed, a human nuance he had picked up, seeing as he did not require breath, and went back to watching the two Starfleet ships on the viewscreen.

Starfleet was certainly not built for wartime duty.

Then, Sisko's office doors opened.

"Benjamin, how did it go?"

"Sir? Are we getting reinforcements?"

"Captain, there has been a six-percent growth in the passageway…"

"Hold it!"

Ben Sisko held up a hand as he was assaulted from all fronts. The frantic questions and reports died away after a moment. "I just finished speaking with Admiral Roleman, of Starfleet Command," he boomed into Ops. The silence was almost deafening. "She finally agrees with our request for more ships, but apparently, there's a problem." The burble of voices started again until Sisko opened his mouth. "She's promised us a total complement of fifteen starships, plus the three here at the station. Those fifteen are now en route. However, it seems that Starfleet isn't prepared to defend Deep Space Nine to the last man. Eighteen ships is all we'll have until the rest of the Eighth Fleet comes out of repairs."

The statement rang in the quiet for a second, then Kira pounced at the news. "Eighteen?"

"Yes."

"How long until the Eighth is ready to disembark?" Dax asked nervously.

Sisko sighed. "The admiral believes they'll be ready in two weeks."

"Two weeks?" Kira exclaimed. "In two weeks, the rift will have reached critical mass! We can't afford to just sit on our hands and wait!"

"I know," the captain said, trying to soothe the Bajoran's temper. "Which is why I'm going to get us the Sixth Fleet instead. They're on patrol duties, and shouldn't be missed. They can be here before the end of tomorrow. Colonel, I also want you to open negotiations with the Bajoran armed forces. See if you can secure any more ships. We've got a war to fight here, and I'll be damned if we lose it."

Kira bobbed her head. "Aye, sir."

"Odo! Have you got a tactical analysis ready?" Sisko asked. The changeling shook his head demurely as a response. "Not yet, captain. I'm still gathering my data. I'll submit it to you as soon as I'm finished."

Dax popped her head out from behind a support column and drilled Sisko with an enquiring stare. "Ben, I know you've probably thought of this, but how are we going to get a hold of the Sixth Fleet without disobeying Roleman?"

"Easy. Do you remember anyone named Sara Riverstone?"

"Of course. You and her have been friends since the Academy."

"I've done my homework, and I found out that she was appointed commander of the Sixth just after the war ended. It's unlikely that she'll be happy on patrol, so if I can convince her to make enough noise, we can get them here."

"But inside of today?"

"That's the easy part," he said with a wave. "Sara can be a very loud person."

His comm badge chirruped, and he tapped it with a slight frown. "Sisko here."

"Incoming priority transmission for Captain Benjamin Sisko, originating from Admiral Riverstone of the Sixth Fleet," the computer announced for him. Sisko smiled knowingly at Dax before tapping a control in front of him. "Route transmission to the Ops viewscreen."

The two Akira-class ships winked out, to be replaced with the face of Sara Riverstone. She was about fifty years old, her black hair now tinged with streaks of silver that made her look more distinguished than aged. Her countenance still held a lot of youth, but it was marred by lines; not the lines of laughter, but of loss. Riverstone had previously been in command of a starbase that had been destroyed by a Dominion offensive. Thanks to her tactical thinking, hundreds of lives and fourteen ships had been saved, but the casualties had not been light. Like most everyone else in the admiralty, she had then pushed for her own ship, then her own fleet, and had gotten it through her mastery of persuasion.

"Captain Sisko…what a surprise!" she said, although her voice held an undercurrent of faux deviousness. She smiled broadly. "You've shaved your head."

"A long time ago," he confessed with a grin. "How are you doing?"

"Not bad, not bad," Sara nodded. "I've decided that patrol duty in this part of space is the Starfleet equivalent of Purgatory. Perhaps I was a Dominion soldier in a former life, and now my past crimes are coming back to haunt me. I heard you got your station back."

Sisko's beam started to falter. "Yes. But it sounds like we may lose it again if I don't get your help, Admiral. Things have suddenly taken a turn for the worse." He watched as the mirth vanished from Sara's eyes — they had been on a first-name basis for a long time, and she knew that if he called her 'admiral', even in front of his senior staff, then something had gone very, very wrong. "I'm listening, Ben. What do you need."

"As incredible as it sounds, we've confirmed that a passage has been opened from here to another reality. Our sensors detected that the Borg from this alternate reality are the likely culprits. I've contacted Admiral Roleman, but she can't give us reinforcements for another two weeks…and by then, our science officer expects that some kind of temporal convergence effect will combine our two universes into one."

Sara stared at him for a second, then shook her head. "Damn. Have you got any hard evidence of this?"

"An hour or so in the alternate universe. We recorded as much as we could. It looks like the Borg have built a platform to maintain the passageway's integrity. And…DS-Nine is being assimilated as we speak."

"Send me everything you've got. I'll speak with Admiral Ross: I have a few favours I can pull in with him. How long until this…convergence takes place?"

"Nine days or so."

"I'll be there before then, you can guarantee it." She smiled reassuringly. "Keep the home fires burning until we get there."

"I will, Sara. Just try to be punctual."

"Oh, we'll be there on time, alright. Ready to kick the Borg all the way back to their own reality. I'll contact you as soon as I've got permission to move out. Riverstone out."

The holographic image vanished, then the eye-shaped frame filled with a wide view of the Thunderchild on docking pylon two. Sisko nodded slowly. "Now that we have our reinforcements, we need to get a few things going. Constable, get that tactical report on my desk within the next six hours. Kira, get me the replicants and tell them we'll convene in the science lab. We've got a rescue operation to plan."

*                      *                      *