"Goddamn Cardassian power sources..." grumbled Lt. Commander Miles O'Brien.
Captain Geordi La Forge smiled as he lay next to O'Brien under an ODN access on the bridge of the U.S.S. Crazy Horse, his blue optical implants twinkling. He had been helping with repairs on the Ambassador-class ship, since things on the Defiant Station were quiet, and O'Brien always needed an extra engineer. No matter his rank or position Geordi La Forge was a born engineer and loved getting his hands dirty. "Ah, come on Chief," Geordi still called him 'Chief', and O'Brien didn't seem to mind, since he was Chief of the repair facilities. "Starfleet compatible power sources are a bit hard to come by, if you hadn't noticed. And the Cardassian ones are the closest we can come."
"I know that! I just hate them!" O'Brien laughed a bit, his face black from a long days' work. He pulled himself out from under the access and dusted himself off and Geordi followed suit. As he wiped his face off, he looked at La Forge thoughtfully. "You know, seeing you in that color," he noted Geordi's maroon tunic, "reminds me of our first few months on the Enterprise."
"Yeah, and all those 'blind helmsman' jokes," added Geordi with a wide smile.
O'Brien rolled his eyes. "Well if I remember correctly, Captain, you started most of them!"
Geordi laughed heartily and clapped O'Brien on the back. "You up for some drinks at Quark's?"
"Sure." They walked down the gangway that led to the drydock's main control deck. The room was empty, as O'Brien and La Forge were the last couple burning the midnight oil on the Crazy Horse. As they walked to the transporter console at the rear of the control room, an alarm sounded. "What the hell..."exclaimed O'Brien.
The computer voice came on. "Warning: Antimatter leakage detected on Dock 3."
Geordi ran to the command console and began to pull up Dock 3's specs. 3 held a Galor-class Cardassian warship, the Gitarn. Through the control room's expansive window, they could see Dock 3, and the Cardassian ship inside it, and the sparkling of antimatter leakage.
"Is anyone working there?" asked Geordi.
"Barclay's team is over there..." O'Brien ran to the transporter console. "That antimatter leakage is interfering with the targeting scanners. Attempting to boost power." He punched several controls and after a few seconds he had a lock. "Help me increase the matter stream's gain." Geordi nodded and routed power to the transporter buffers. In a moment Reg Barclay and three engineers appeared on the pad.
La Forge walked over to him. "Reg, what's happening over there?"
A flustered Barclay stammered. "I…I'm not sure Captain. The, uh, the repairs were going quietly, there was no indication..."
The computer voice returned. "Leakage accelerating. Anti-matter explosion imminent. Raising shields."
Geordi returned to the command console. "We've got to get that ship out of here, or us and the other docks could be heavily damaged." Barclay and O'Brien came to his side.
"Slaving the Gitarn's guidance controls to this console," said Barclay.
"The impulse drive is at one-third efficiency, but it'll have to do," O'Brien pushed the Cardassian ship's impulse engines up to the fullest available speed., and piloted the ship away from Bajor and the docks. "Damn, there's the Denorios Belt." The verteron particles of the Belt were highly volatile, and were instrumental in the creation of the Bajoran Wormhole. "Dammit, I've lost helm control." He punched the controls furiously. "It's headed for the Wormhole."
Barclay jumped in on O'Brien's console. "Maybe we can-" He was cut off by the flash caused by the explosion of the Gitarn. As they watched in astonishment from the dock's windows, the Wormhole opened up, and fluctuated violently. Then the outward whirlpool motion of the Wormhole reversed rapidly, and it imploded with a blue-white flash, sending a shockwave outward. The dock shook, the motion throwing everyone to the floor.
Geordi was the first to get up, pulling his uniform shirt down. Looking out the windows, he saw that there was still a cloud of gas where the Gitarn and the Wormhole used to be. He exhaled loudly. "You know Chief, I think I'm going to have to take a rain check on that drink."
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"Let me see if I get this straight," Admiral Riker said to the assembled team in Ops over the viewscreen. "The wormhole suffered a subspace inversion, caused by a warp core breach. But, according to our information on the wormhole, it shouldn't have happened."
"Uh...that's right, sir." said Lieutenant Commander S'tann, the station's science officer, a Vulcan. "The wormhole was so stable that nothing short of a supernova could even disrupt it. The aliens who constructed it were extremely innovative, Captain."
"So...what are we looking at, here?" Riker hated mysteries.
Geordi rubbed his chin. "Maybe the wormhole aliens wanted it collapsed."
Riker sighed. "We have no way to find out, Captain. They haven't spoken to anyone other than Captain Sisko, and now that he's dead..."
"Maybe that has something to do with it," Geordi said. "He was their 'Emissary.' They may not have taken his death well."
"From all information available on the aliens, they don't exist in a linear time frame as we do. More than likely they knew he was going to die." S'tann was looking at Captain Sisko's initial reports on the wormhole aliens.
Colonel Kira stepped into their circle. "The Bajoran government is very concerned about these events, Admiral. The loss of the Celestial Temple, and the fact that a Cardassian ship caused it...I don't think I need to tell you what people on Bajor are feeling." The road to peace was not an easy one between the Cardassian and Bajoran peoples, and it was an ongoing process.
Riker nodded knowingly. "I hope that you are able to bring our side of these events to your government." He looked back to Geordi. "Keep me informed, Captain. We'll be entering the Sol system in 8 hours. Riker out."
Geordi rubbed his eyes and looked back up at his staff. "I need better answers than we have, people. Find them." He strode up the stairs to his office, feeling the weight of the fourth pip on his neck all too much.