Star Trek Aegis: The Valley of PeacePart I

by DarKush

New Fan Fic! Four months after the Dominion War, the Starship Aegis is charged with transporting the Founder who led Dominion forces to a war crimes trial. However, vengeful Cardassian militants have their own brand of justice planned for the changeling.

"The tragedy of life is that every man has his reasons"-Jean Reinor (The Rules of the Game)

PROLOGUE

Lakarian City (The Former Cardassian Union)

March 2376

The caliginous sky above mirrored Nebel Keshet's sullen mood. She only wished that she could wrap its gloomy darkness around her fluttering heart and banish her doubts to the fog enveloping the restive crowd before her. She bit down hard on her thin lower lip, tearing its gray flesh, but quickly wiping away the brackish blood with the tip of her tongue. She must maintain the illusion of calm, the deception of normalcy.

If she wavered now, the wary cohort of guards, both Romulan and Cardassian, protecting her target, would surely haul her away to a detention center if not execute her on the spot immediately.

Nebel pulled her fears deep inside her, and contorted her slightly scaly features into the mask of cool, reptilian confidence that she had used so effectively in her position as public conservator of Lakarian City, a title that had lost all meaning for her when the Dominion had leveled the metropolis in the closing hours of the lost war in a horrific pogrom to erase the Cardassian race from existence.

The fates had saved her, she realized for this moment alone, when her commitment to justice had driven her to the city's detainment center wring one more confession from a guilty soul. Cocooned deep within the bowels of the detainment center, the prison had become her salvation when the Jem'Hadar flattened the city and its two million inhabitants through a ruthless, though admittedly efficient orbital bombing campaign.

Only she, several guards and prisoners had survived, picking their way through the rumble for days until they reached the blighted surface. Everyone else, her parents, siblings, and her son Thrain had been vaporized. She smiled with a twisted irony that her husband Aldur, fighting along the Klingon border, had been more safe than she had been nestled in the "secure" bosom of the homeworld.

Her smile morphed into a frown at the thought of her husband. She had not discussed this course of action with him, but she knew he would understand. How could he not? Even now he continued the fight for Cardassia somewhere beyond the stars, staging thrilling hit and run attacks, disrupting the shipping lanes of the scavengers picking over the remains of her fallen people.

Sub-Admiral Danclus, one of the triad of civil administrators overseeing the dissolution of the Cardassian Union, was one such vole. The tall, austere Romulan, as perpetually gray as the stark, scalded sky hanging overhead, slowly made his way down the welcome line, flanked by burly guards, tight, nervous grips on the triggers of their disruptors belying their fearsome countenances. They were scared, and they should be, Nebel smiled again. She straightened her posture, and ran a calming hand through the shock of her charcoal-colored hair, as if nervous and preparing herself for the honor of meeting this overseer. The words he had spoken only minutes before slid through her mind like a serpent. Standing before a podium, the dour man had actually smiled when he had said, "The upcoming elections for leadership of the new republican Diet are one more sign that Cardassia and its noble people are one step closer to reclaiming their place among the intergalactic community." But his scorpion nature revealed itself when he added, "But it is necessary that the Cardassian people chose wisely. This is not the time for recrimination and anger; this is a time for hard choices and even harder work." The closing statement was a not so subtle reference to the two candidates seeking to head the newly formed legislature of the provisional republic: civilian Professor Natima Lang and former Central Command Legate Pinute Tarkon.

Lang, once a darling of the subterranean Cardassian dissident movement, was the obvious preference of the Federation, Klingon, and Romulan triumvirate thwarting Cardassian destiny. Lang's calls for admission of Cardassian complicity in their own near destruction, along with reconciliation with the powers that had waged war against them, and now dictated their fate, churned her insides. Her selection to premiership of the Diet would only rubberstamp the continuing dominance of the Federation alliance, as the triumvirate sought to symbolically hand off the reigns of power while maintaining tight control from the shadows.

Tarkon had originally stood in the imperialists' way, his bold call for restoring Cardassian dignity and resurrecting the old Union sent ripples through the polity, seizing the Cardassia imagination and spirit almost as firmly as Legate Damar's rebellion against the Dominion had. Both she and her husband had heard his call, and both had joined his True Way party, determined that Cardassian soil be ruled by Cardassians and not aliens or their puppets.

Of course the Federation alliance hadn't seen it that way, they had branded the True Way party a terrorist front, and moved to stifle its growing influence. The stage had been set to finally finish the mission of Gul Dukat and Legate Damar, to carve a place of respect for a revived Cardassian Union among the constellation of the great powers. But at his moment of destiny, Tarkon wavered, renouncing the more "fanatical" branches of his own organization, joining the True Way in a coalition with more tepid rightist factions, and pledging to promote peace and support the Diet even if he weren't selected as its head.

Nebel wouldn't have believed it if she hadn't heard the blasphemous words slither from Tarkon's own lips. In a cloistered meeting with Lakarian City party functionaries, he had sent a hologram via courier encouraging the party chiefs to urge calm when Sub-Admiral Danclus arrived several days later to promote the elections. She wasn't the only one among her compatriots who had wished that the coward had delivered the message of retreat himself, so that they could stain their hands with his blood.

It was in that moment of vacillation that her destiny had manifested, seizing her with such fervor that she had trembled with near erotic delight. Leaning on some of the convicts she had once sent to prison, Nebel had quickly acquired the materials she needed to transform her body into a biological weapon.

Admiral Danclus was almost upon her. With imperceptible grace, she used the tip of her tongue to press against her false tooth, hollow save for a detonator. The tiny click as the tooth slid out of alignment ignited a series of chemical reactions that would soon reach the bio-mimetic gel capsules cradled in her womb and give birth to a new era of Cardassian liberty. It would be a quick end, mostly painless, but very necessary.

"Are you okay milady," courtly Pradesh Ottur, chief archon of the Lakarian court, asked, placing a gentle, fatherly hand on her quivering shoulder. Nebel glanced briefly at him, sad that the kind old man would die along with her and most of the crowd today, but she smiled anyway. She imagined Admiral Danclus's frigid shadow falling across her turned cheek, as the pounding of booted feet drew near.

"Never better," she whispered as the pain of childbirth knifed through her belly and her vision filled with the light of heaven.

I DEMONS

CHAPTER ONE

The Bajoran System

April 2376

Jasmine Glover's nightmare saved her husband from his. Pulled from the bridge of his burning ship, Captain Terrence Glover quickly snapped awake, wrapping powerful arms around his trembling, whimpering wife. "Its okay honey," he whispered into her ear. "It's okay. I'm here."

Still enthralled in remembrance of the destruction that had shattered her body and shredded her spirit, Jasmine pulled away from him. Despite the numerous skin grafts and the new prosthetic limbs that had replaced her missing arm and leg, his wife still was self-conscious about her body.

Though she had agreed to serve under his new command as Operations Officer, and had finally acceded to sharing quarters with him, she still maintained the separate cabin reserved for the Ops Officer. After several counseling sessions, Jasmine had been coaxed into spending the night with him, and Terrence had needed the warmth of her presence nearer to him as the mission the Aegis now streaked toward conjured up enough demons for them both.

"Where?" Her voice groggy, her gaze glassy, it took Jasmine a few seconds to gain her bearings. Blinking her almond shaped eyes several times, the haze slowly dissipated in them, and a small, relieved smile crept over her lips as the reality sank in. She allowed herself to fold into her husband's embrace, until the damnable, and now customary, reserve returned.

Feeling her body stiffen, as the heat between them increased, Glover didn't want to let her go, but sensed her pulling away from him again. He relaxed his iron grip, and she slid out of his grasp, creating a gap between them that was mere inches, but felt like an unconquerable chasm.

"I must've been dreaming," she said, trying to sound sheepish and silly, but her voice was tinged with sadness instead of embarrassment.

"Was it about the Mandela?" Terrence gently probed, softening his deep baritone as much as he could. "The Tyra system?" Though the Dominion War had ended a little over four months ago in "victory" for the Federation, it had been a long, quadrant-spanning struggle whose outcome was in doubt up until the minute that the Dominion surrendered at the Battle of Cardassia Prime. Before that unexpected, miraculous event, the Federation had been pushed to the brink of defeat, outmatched by the shape shifting Founders, their scheming Vorta lieges, and genetically bred Jem'Hadar super soldiers.

The Dominion had been given entrée into the Alpha Quadrant by forming an alliance first with the desperate Cardassian Union and then the mysterious Breen once the Cardassians had began to see through the Dominion's deceptive promises of galactic mastery.

The Cardassian revolt had finally helped turn the tide in the favor of the unprecedented alliance of the Federation, Klingons, and Romulans, but the self proclaimed rulers of the Alpha Quadrant had borne a terrible price for their reversal. In the closing hours of the war, the Founder in control of all Alpha Quadrant Dominion forces had ordered that the Cardassians be wiped from existence. Over 800 million were slaughtered before the Founder Leader surrendered her forces.

Glover blinked back the memories of the charred, cooked flesh, of too many sightless eyes and faces frozen in eternal horror. He had fought at the climatic battle over Cardassia, and he had walked on the scorched earth left behind by the spiteful Changeling.

His only consolation walking through all that carnage was that his wife had not been with him to see it. She had still been recuperating from her own brush with hell. Almost a year earlier, the Federation had suffered perhaps it greatest defeat ever in the Tyra System, when the 7th Fleet was virtually wiped out by Dominion forces. Out of a total of 112 starships, only 14 made it back to Federation space. Her ship, the Mandela, had blessedly been one of the few that survived.

The defeat had really hammered home to him and many other Starfleet officers that the Federation was on the verge of actually losing the war, and it had filled him and his compatriots with a fiery resolve that allowed them to retake the initiative, driving the Dominion and Cardassians from strategic Federation starbase Deep Space Nine that resided at the cusp of the wormhole leading to the Gamma Quadrant, the home of the Dominion.

His Academy roommate and dear friend Captain Benjamin Sisko, then the deposed commander of Deep Space Nine, had led the long shot mission to recapture the station, before the Cardassians and Dominion could deactivate a minefield that would've allowed thousands of Jem'Hadar warships to pour into the Alpha Quadrant and ensure certain victory for the Dominion. Commanding Destroyer Unit 5during that watershed battle, Glover had been able to help his old friend punch through Dominion lines to retake the station and save the quadrant.

He had always been more braggadocios and flippant than either Ben, now ascended to a higher plane of existence to live with the wormhole aliens the Bajorans worshipped as gods, or his other Academy friend, the late Calvin Hudson, a man whose conviction ran so deep that he had abandoned Starfleet to fight and die with the rebel Maquis along the Federation-Cardassian border. It was a move he and Ben both had condemned as foolhardy at the time, but Terrence had grown to wonder if it wasn't now prescient in light of all that had come to pass. The very thought of losing his wife, a pain that both Ben and Cal had endured before meeting their own fates, had encased Glover in a grim, rage-hardened prism that he had only found release from by killing as many Jem'Hadar and Cardassians as he could.

He joined Benjamin in the pantheon of recipients awarded Christopher Pike Medals of Valor for his actions at the Battle of Cardassia Prime, but it had been a hollow honor. He had lost several crewmen during along the way, including Pedro Rojas, his chief engineer during the retaking of Deep Space Nine. Other deaths had followed: Dr. Caldecott at Betazed, Science Officer Singh and Security Chief Barnes at Cuellar, and his first Executive Officer Simus at Chin'toka.

Even the Cuffe, his first command, had been destroyed at Cardassia Prime. Hundreds more intrepid, good people had lost their lives over Cardassia when he had plowed his ship into a battery of orbital weapons platforms to protect the escape pods of two disabled starships.

Though he had both written and spoken to each of the bereaved families with consoling words that had become rote to him, Glover had only truly felt the loss of those lives in the intervening months since the conflict had ended.

And the more he thought about them, the more he felt responsible for their deaths. His desire, his need to inflict punishment, to win at almost any cost had done as much harm as it had been credited for doing good. He knew that many of his crew might protest his assessment of his actions, that many thought his leadership had saved them on countless occasions. Glover couldn't argue with that, but he couldn't evade, nor did he want to, the ghosts at the peripheries of his consciousness, haunting him with the lost possibilities, the lives never allowed the fullness of completion.

"Are you alright?" Jasmine's warm breath was soft on his face. He shook his head, shaking away the spectral webs of his own grief. She gave a knowing smile. They might not share each other's bed as frequently, but they constantly carried an almost shared pain, he realized. Terrence cupped her face in his hands, caressing her rich, walnut brown cheeks, tugging gently on her sharp chin.

"I love you." He said, ignoring her question. In response, Jasmine's hazel eyes grew moist.

"I know." She whispered, carefully kissing one of his hands. Unable to control his need to be nearer to her, he sidled closer to her, and kissed her lips. She tore away from the kiss.

"Not yet. I'm not ready."

"It's been over a year Jazz." Glover said, knowing that he shouldn't, that he should be gentle, but not wanting to. Despite his doubts, he was still a man who had a tendency to force the issue. "I just want to be there for you."

"I know," she replied. "But I can't. Not now."

"Why?" He pleaded. "I'm your husband, and I love you. I still want us to do the things, have the family that we dreamed about having before this damned war."

"I know you do, but you know how I feel about that." Jasmine replied, her bright eyes breaking contact for a few seconds, as she unconsciously ran organic fingers over her artificial arm. The cerulean pajamas she wore covered up her scars and the prosthetics that only a practiced eye could actually recognize as non-organic. But of course, his wife knew what they were, and she knew that he knew.

"Damnit Jazz," The angry words, born of frustration, slipped through his lips before he could stop them. "When are you going to see that you are not damaged goods? I don't care about some scars and a couple of missing limbs. When I thought the Mandela was one of the ship's that hadn't returned from the Tyra system, I almost lost it."

"Yes, yes," annoyance crept into her voice. "I've heard the story before. Took on a Jem'Hadar armada single handedly while saving countless escape pods, lived to tell the tale; got the Pike Medal. I'm not in the mood for a history lesson." The spell between them broken, Jasmine turned away from him, and sat up in the bed, swinging her legs over the side. "I'm going back to my own quarters. It's almost time for alpha shift."

Propping himself up on one elbow, Glover reached out to her with his other hand, fingers barely touching the sheer fabric of her pajamas as she slid off of the bed. "Don't go. Please." He begged. "We can work this out."

Her back to him, Jasmine turned around to look down at him, and he saw the struggle raging within her. She looked at him for several more seconds until the chronometer beeped; alerting them both that alpha shift had begun. Without saying anything else, she turned on her heel and left the room. Glover pounded his pillow, and cursed at himself.

Sucking up his grief and disappointment, he rolled out of bed and made his way to the sonic shower. This day can't get any worse, he joked to himself as the soothing, sonic rays enveloped him, cleansing his body of any scrape of dirt, grime, or musk. At least I hope not.

Striding down the long, gray and copper-colored main starboard corridor to the bridge, Capt. Glover walked with a purposefulness he didn't feel, nodding and smiling on autopilot at various passing crewmen, his mind on Jasmine, his thoughts mired to what had and had not just happened between them. Despite his sterling record and his heroic status, marriage was proving his most difficult task, the most enduring mystery to unravel. What frightened him most was that he felt his wife slipping away from him, and he didn't know what to do.

He had tried his best to help Ben and Cal both cope with the untimely deaths of their wives. And it had taken his father years to recover, if he ever really had, when his mother Denise was lost along with all hands on the Tombaugh. Tragedy had even gored him once before when the first love of his life, Captain Tryla Scott of the Renegade, had been possessed as part of an alien conspiracy to take over the Federation.

He felt even more helpless now trying to break through to Jasmine than he did during the dark aftermath of the failed invasion, as Tryla had similarly pushed him away as she struggled to cleanse herself from the taint of violation and rebuild her reputation. Jettisoning an illicit affair with her Second Officer was just an unfortunate by-product of the healing process.

He was a starship captain, a man who was supposed to have all the answers to the big questions of space and time, who had been rewarded for his judgment, whether he felt it fully deserved, in both peace and war, but he couldn't even figure out the right words to say to the woman he loved to get her to open up to him, to reveal her heart to him, to let him back in her life. He had hoped that closeness and time would dissolve the armor his wife had enclosed herself in, that was why he had suggested that Jasmine serve with him on the Aegis, and he had even enlisted his father's help, something he wasn't wont to do, to help make the case for him.

Admiral Samuel Esau Glover, former commanding officer at Deep Space Five, had first become entranced with the captivating young engineer upon her posting to his starbase, and had hounded Terrence for months to meet her. Glover, always eager to prove he didn't need or want his father's influence or help, had refused. The tenacious, hectoring admiral had eventually resorted to using his office, as he was wont to do, to arrange for the Cuffe to be retrofitted at the station, giving the old man all the time he needed to push the equally wary Jasmine on him. It hadn't been the first time he had seen the wisdom in his father's doggedness. He couldn't help but speculate if his father's hand was behind the Aegis's current assignment; the admiral always eager to promote his war hero son. Ordered by Vice Admiral Salk not to discuss the mission, he would have to wait until its conclusion to find out.

Stepping onto the bridge, what little cheer he had tried to muster within himself had dissipated behind the somber mask melded over once convivial features. He tugged at the front of his stately black uniform as he took in the Aegis's command center.

"Captain on the Bridge!" Ensign Culhane shouted, a little too eagerly for the morning shift. The rest of the crew stiffened as they stood at attention.

Glover grunted. "At ease." The officers and enlisted crewmen quickly returned to their posts. Culhane flittered by the Science II terminal, several padds stuffed in a crooked elbow. The captain was pleased that the attentive officer had quickly learned never to approach the CO with the gamma shift status reports until he had sat down in his chair. As was his ritual, Glover liked to take in his surroundings before assuming the conn. It was a practice he had started as Second Officer on the Renegade and had continued through his XO/CO stints aboard the Cuffe and his turn at the helm of the Aegis.

One for two's not good a track record, he winced as he sadly remembered the Cuffe. The smaller Cuffe, of the Nebula-class, with its distinctively circular, compact frame, would always hold a special place in his heart. Glover didn't know if he would ever be able to feel the same about the Aegis as he looked around the streamlined bridge of the Prometheus-class starship. A vessel belonging to Starfleet's most advanced line of ships; his elevation to the small club of Prometheus-class CO's should've filled him with pride. He was that much closer to the admiral pips that he, Ben, and Cal had all dreamed about during their Academy days and beyond. And he had to admit that Aegis had handled herself well during interdiction efforts in her first assignment in the Lamenda system.

Bullet shaped, an array of consoles ringed the command deck; some manned and others left idle until needed. He nodded at the massive; olive skinned Tai Donar, almost inhumanly rigid at the Tactical station, his muscles straining against the confines of his suit. Despite the frenzied ministrations of Mr. Boaz, ship's tailor, the Angosian security chief had yet to meet a uniform that comfortably fit his sculpted form. Lt. Donar curtly nodded back.

At the Science I console, Lt. Sial Keta of the Cardassian Security Forces, on temporary assignment to the Aegis at the behest of Starfleet Command, twittered, smiling nervously at him, the reptilian cast of her gray, Cardassian features making the gesture look like a grimace. And maybe it was. Glover certainly hadn't gone out of his way to make the liaison feel welcome. Unable to fully hide his distaste for her or the dark brown Cardassian cuirass she wore, he rumbled with little enthusiasm.

"Lieutenant," he acknowledged her, pointedly refusing to use the Cardassian military equivalent of "Glinn-sed", before quickly turning to appraise his bridge crew. They were a motley band, culled from his two previous commands and from various remnants of shattered fleets. All, to his knowledge, had seen some combat in the war. All were coping with the war's aftershocks in some fashion or other.

Even Keta he surmised, mentally reviewing the lieutenant's dossier that had accompanied the mission profile he had received after Admiral Salk's briefing at Starbase 375. An expatriate who had spent the later years of the war serving as an expert on Cardassian politics and culture for Starfleet Command, Keta had returned recently to her homeworld as part of the Federation's efforts to build linkages between the conquerors and the conquered.

Still ignoring his seat, Glover tried to shake the stiffness out of his body by sauntering over to the front of the bridge, where both the Ops and Flight Control stations faced the main viewscreen. Looking down over the helm officer's shoulder, the smell of hair spray wafting up from her reddish black hair, the captain asked. "ETA to Deep Space Nine lieutenant?"

Craning her neck to look up at him, Lt. Juanita Rojas smiled before answering. "Under four hours sir." Rojas was one of the few officers that had served with him under both commands. Both she and her late older brother had helped him tame the Cuffe and made it worthy of its namesake. And she had stuck with him through the dark days after Pedro had been laid to rest, her loyalty and commitment to duty unwavering. He gave her a sadly sweet half-smile in response, memories of Pedro flitting almost telepathically between them.

"Thank you Juanita," he whispered, but his gaze had already turned to his wife at the adjacent console. How she got to the bridge before him he would never know because he was afraid to ask. Her eyes glued to the readouts running down her interface, Jasmine didn't acknowledge him. Memories of their recent fight and the bright flares of pain it had caused him crawled at the corners of his consciousness, seeking entry, but Terrence wouldn't allow it. It was all part of the misgivings he had accepted as part of having his wife under his command. There was a time for personal matters, but not on the bridge.

Nervously quaffing a gulp of air, he turned away from her, glancing once over at the bridge before claiming his chair. Culhane was on him before his posterior had fully contacted with the black leather seat. Unctuous, eager to please, he almost dumped the padds in the captain's lap as he stumbled over the small rise that elevated the captain's chair above the two seats flanking his. Lt. Commander Pell Ojana, Diplomatic/First Contact Officer, to Glover's left, chuckled before ostentatiously swinging her head down to check the small display connected to her chair, the Bajoran's nose ridges crinkling with mischievous merriment. Glover glanced to his right. His Executive Officer, Ivan Cherenkov, ignored the gaffe, his clear blue eyes focused on the screen, or so he would have everyone think, the captain surmised.

"Thank you ensign," Glover tried not to sound grouchy, though he felt he was a little too swift in shooing the young man away. "I'll see to these later." Disappointment shadowing his features, Culhane slinked back to the Science II station.

Reaching over to hand the padds to Commander Cherenkov, Glover played around with two of the status displays inset on the armrests of his chair, still not used to the plush throne-like command seat. It was still all too new for him, but at least he found the monochrome, gray, silver, and copper cast of the bridge more in keeping with his mood and the altered, morose state of affairs currently gripping the Federation. No more colorful uniforms or wooden guardrails on bridges. No more children, schools, or innocent, playful banter throughout the corridors. The Dominion War had taken all that way, ripped the illusion of innocence from the Federation.

And shredding my illusions as well, Glover sighed as he looked at the pensive, knotted back of his wife. For that, the captain could never forgive them. Turning his eyes to the starscape streaking past on the panoramic main viewer, his insides mirrored the vast, empty coldness of the vacuum.

"You have reservations?" Gul Aldur Keshet, master of the Central Command Vessel Rakal probed his first officer, his hooded, obsidian eyes looking for any hint of hesitation or weakness.

Her cabled, neck muscles tensing as she made her ramrod posture even straighter and more unyielding, Glinn Levara Sulle replied, her raspy voice void of treacherous emotion, "Of course not milord." The rapid eye blinking that she had never learned to control broke the illusion of unswerving veracity. It was a nervous tic that he sought to train out of her when she had first become his executive officer almost two years ago. Unsuccessful, he now accepted it as an endearing trait. He could now say with certainty that there was at least one Cardassian he could always tell was being less than forthcoming with him.

"Is it the Impai?" He questioned, turning the small monitor on his empty desk toward her to view. "At ease," he added, granting Levara the permission to bend slightly over the desk to peer at the taupe cargo vessel innocuously trudging on the viewscreen. After she remained silent for several more minutes, Keshet, strands of impatience in his voice, prodded. "Speak freely."

"There are Cardassians on that freighter Gul Keshet." She replied, glancing at him when she spoke, her large, azure eyes filled with concern.

"Cardassians that work for Lissepians," Keshet reminded her. "Cardassians that work for Lissepians who transport Tammeron grain and Regrean wheat husks from Golana to feed the starving, wretched populations of our homeworld. What is wrong with that picture?"

Without inflection, Sulle gave him the expected answer: "We were once masters of both the Lissepians and the Bajorans, and now we toil for one and accept charity from the other."

"Inexcusable," Keshet spat. "Unpardonable."

"But there has been so much death," Levara interjected. "There aren't too many of our people left."

"It is unfortunate," the gul offered, "that more of our blood must be shed, but we can't turn away from our cause. Cardassia freed itself from the Dominion, only to be set upon by parasites from the Federation, the Romulans, and the Klingons." He couldn't help but relish special venom when he spoke of the 'foreheads'. Keshet had spent the majority of the lost war fighting in the Klingon theatre of battle, achieving his greatest victory when he helped liberate the Cardassian colony world of Pentath III from Klingon clutches.

"By sacrificing their noble blood to labor in the bowels of a Lissepian freighter, pitied by the Bajorans, these so-called Cardassians have proven themselves true enemies of the state. And what is the punishment for treason?"

"Death," Sulle whispered. Keshet nodded and rewarded her with a curt smile.

"Excellent. Now, carry out my orders." Before the glinn could return to the Rakal's bridge to execute Keshet's command, the lighting in the room dimmed and the deck plates beneath the gul's feet trembled.

"What was that?" He snarled, even though he knew the answer.

"Another power fluctuation from the cloaking device," Sulle replied. Before Keshet could respond, a harried voice barked through the intercom hidden in the upper bulkhead of the gul's stateroom.

"The cloak is down," Lajal, the war craft's engineering officer barked. "We are vulnerable to detection by the Lissepian vessel's sensors." Seconds later, the intercom squawked again.

"We've been sighted," Intelligence Observer Darcis rumbled. "Impai is taking evasive maneuvers." Even through the metal grid, Sulle could hear the customary smugness in Darcis's voice.

Cursing, Keshet bounded out of his seat, beating Sulle to the door of his office. As the doors slid open to the bridge of the Rakal, the gul bellowed. "Battle alert!"

CHAPTER TWO

He looks so deflated. The dour thought ran through Colonel Kira Nerys's mind as the large, airlock hatch rolled opened and the Starfleet captain stepped into the corridor. Closing her eyes, she shook her head to clear her mind. Commander Ousanas Dar, the station's newest Executive Officer, came to attention beside her. The Romulan exile's surprising spike of anxiousness was almost palpable as Colonel Kira struggled to find her voice. Nitala'Rax, the Dominion charge d'affairs for the entire Alpha Quadrant, also tensed, his pebbled, reptilian face twisting into a wary scowl.

"Welcome back to Deep Space Nine Captain Glover," she finally managed to say, bowing slightly. The dark skinned human smiled broadly at her, bowing curtly in return, his eyes flicking next to Commander Dar, who nodded in greeting before finally settling on the solemn Nitala'Rax. The similarly hued female officer on the captain's right, openly gaped at the reptilian. Glover said nothing for several seconds, his dark eyes spewing suspicion at the Jem'Hadar.

Since Nitala'Rax had arrived on the station a month ago as part of the Jem'Hadar security contingent for the intended Dominion envoy, a Vorta named Boran, he had elicited similar reactions, some even more pronounced, from a shattered and still fearful, war weary quadrant. Even Nitala' Rax's heroic actions in thwarting the Alpha Quadrant Jem'Hadar in his cohort from murdering the imprisoned female Changeling incarcerated at Kran-Tobal after surrendering on Cardassia Prime, first murdering Boran and then attacking the prison, still hadn't earned him much trust. In fact, Kira's support of Odo's suggestion that Nitala'Rax fill the diplomatic post had led to calls for her resignation from the Bajoran government, and even some Starfleet circles.

The colonel felt a little sorry for the Gamma Quadrant warrior, a product of the Founder's genetic manipulations who personally hadn't seen action in the Alpha Quadrant. Her faith had taught her not only resilience but compassion and sympathy. But on the other hand, the hardened terrorist seething just beneath her more polished, professional veneer thought that a few hard stares and aspersions was the least the Jem'Hadar could endure for the pain his people inflicted on billions.

"Nitala'Rax I presume," Glover almost spat. The Jem'Hadar grunted, mimicking Kira's bow. Glover didn't return the gesture. He merely continued to glare at the Dominion soldier, a glassy sadness filming over the suspicion. Unsure of how to segue out of the awkward pall of silence that had fallen over the group, Kira said nothing, uncharacteristically allowing the moment to play itself out without intervention. If the Federation was going to build the bridges of peace with the Dominion, it would have to start at junctures like these, small interactions, where fear and hatred had to be faced and overcome on a personal, and gut level. Instead of interceding, the colonel quickly studied the man whom the captain had become to see if such understanding would even be possible in him. Her inspection didn't leave her with much room for hope.

Deep lines of worry were etched across Glover's forehead and at the corners of his eyes and mouth. Dark, puffy patches of skin pooled beneath his hard brown eyes, a sign Kira knew all too well, of a serious lack of sleep. The dim glaze over his eyes revealed a person haunted by what waited for him beyond the veil of wakefulness.

It was a drastic, shocking reversal from the last time she had met him. The then more ebullient human had visited the station to celebrate Sisko's promotion to captain almost five years ago. His good-natured chiding about the captain's late promotion and his boasting about his own deserved elevation a year before Sisko almost rivaled the Klingons for bombast. In the halcyon days before the war, he had struck the colonel as a bit obnoxious for a Terran, but strangely compelling. Seeking first to avoid him during the small get together in the captain's quarters, as the night wore on she had found herself drawn to him and his stories about life on the "final frontier" as he called it, exploring planets and spatial phenomena, making contact with alien species.

Station records indicated that Glover had returned once again as part of the taskforce that retook Deep Space Nine from the Dominion. In the euphoric sea of bodies that had poured onto the station after the evacuation of the Dominion and their Cardassian pawns, Kira hadn't seen him.

"Captain Glover it's been a long time. How is your father?" Dar finally punctured the awkward silence. Kira had yet to seen the usually composed Romulan get flustered, but the emphasis he placed on the word "father" suggested that perhaps the aged Starfleet officer had had less than pleasant dealings with Glover's father, whom she had read was the recently appointed head of Starfleet Security. "I believe I…we… haven't had the pleasure of meeting your staff."

Glover shook his head, as if loosing himself from a dream. "Oh, of course," the grin, a bit sheepish, returned. "Where are my manners?" He mumbled, before gesturing to his right at the striking mocha-skinned female. The two pins attached to the golden collar beneath her gray and black uniform denoted her rank as that of lieutenant. "Colonel Kira, Commander Dar this is Lieutenant Jasmine Glover, my wife and Operations Officer."

Kira smiled warmly and the Operations Officer replied kindly in return. Glover shifted next to introduce the other member of his party, but she beat him to the punch.

"Nerys it's good to see you again!" Pell Ojana stepped down from the docking ring and wrapped the startled colonel in a hug.

Barely catching her breath, the colonel gasped. "Good to see you too Ojana." Both shocked and pleased that another Bajoran would be so publicly friendly with her after the controversy swarming around her support for Nitala'Rax, Kira stiffened in the woman's embrace. Even First Minister Shakaar Edon, her former resistance cell leader and more recently her ex-lover, supported her from the shadows, not wanting to be seen with her in public. The rogue Jem'Hadar had razed the Rena settlement surrounding Kran-Tobal in their brutal attempt to incinerate the prison. Thousands of Bajorans had been killed.

"In order to keep the Federation admission process and the Cardassian relief efforts going, Sarish Rez, the First Minister's top aide had informed her, "its best that Minister Shakaar disassociates himself with you." Rez had always been blunter than Edon, Kira remembered darkly.

Squirming out of the older woman's grasp, the colonel smoothed her tunic before turning to her immediate right. She introduced her XO.

"I haven't been here in quite a while," Glover remarked, his voice filled with forced cheer. He looked past Kira to gaze down the bustling corridor. "Care if we took the scenic route while you brought me up to speed."

Kira shook her head. "Of course not, right this way." She gestured with her hand for them to follow her. The contingent took the nearest lift to the habitat ring. The group walked in silence as they made their way from the upper docking pylon down to the Promenade, Nitala'Rax sullenly hanging back from them. The station's main thoroughfare was brimming with life and activity as countless species shopped, drank, kibitzed, haggled, sang, and plied their wares.

Underneath the appearance of normality, Glover's practiced eye noticed the discreet placement of Bajoran and Starfleet guards along the concourse, disruptors hanging from their hips. There was also an unusual amount, or at least he thought so, of Klingon and Romulan soldiers milling about the upper ring of the Promenade, much less discreet and much more fully armed.

He also felt the tension rippling through the civilians as they shuffled along, the fierce clinging to the illusion of normalcy all the more telling of its fiction. Especially here, the war had changed everything. Life would never be the same, but he hoped that after today, the denizens of Deep Space Nine could finally reclaim some semblance of their former lives.

Glover slowed as the group passed the station's infirmary. He knew that his friend Capt. Banti Awokou, one of the few survivors from a Cardassian insurgent attack on his starship, was fighting for his life behind the medical facilities' ladarium walls. Glover thought about breaking away from Col. Kira's tour to visit him first before going to the mission briefing. But he knew that his old mentor would frown on Glover placing personal desire above his duty. So he walked on, despondent thoughts taking root in his mind.

This time the colonel decided to break the silence after she noticed Captain Glover's wife looking agape at a the scantily dressed Ktarian female dancing on top of a table of cheering, leering spectators. "First time on the station?" She asked.

"Yes." Lt. Glover replied, her eyes still locked on the salacious sight. "At Deep Space Five we didn't have those kinds of establishments." Something about how the lieutenant said "establishment" made Kira frown, but she decided to let the matter pass.

"Quark's?" the captain almost laughed as a memory flashed through his eyes. "We'll have to visit."

"I don't think so."

"Maybe next time then." The captain quickly switched subjects. "So how are things?" He asked carefully, avoiding mentioning his absent friend.

"Repairs are coming along," Kira began. "Bajor has reapplied for Federation membership; the station is operating as well as can be expected, thanks to the influx of the new officers sent from Starfleet." She nodded at Dar who gave a tight-lipped smile in return.

"Where is Jake? Kasidy? Or Dax?" As he listed each name, he looked around as if they would appear from the ether. The happiness in his voice was now genuine with interest and concern.

"Oh," Kira replied with after a pause, "they are well. Jake and Kasidy are both on Bajor, overseeing the final construction of the Emissary's…" She caught herself, as a familiar pain flashed behind her eyes… "Kasidy's house in the Kendra Mountains."

"Dax?" The captain asked again.

"Lt. Dax is currently off the station." Kira replied, adding, but not quite knowing why she did so, "on Risa."

A mischievous gleam sparked in Glover's eyes. "Change the host, but the symbiont stays the same." The momentary respite of mirth quickly receded." I wish we had more time," Glover remarked more to himself than the group. "I haven't seen Jake in ages, and I've only met Kasidy once. But she seems like a good person."

"She is," Kira affirmed, smiling with genuine fondness as a thought of her very pregnant friend flashed suddenly through her mind.

"Ben always did have good taste." Not knowing how to respond to that, Kira said nothing and continued leading them on a winding path to the station's Ward Room.

Without having to be told, Nitala'Rax took up a position outside the door to the conference room. Despite his title of charge d'affairs, the Jem'Hadar's diplomatic status was tenuous. The Klingons and Romulans both refused to recognize him, and the Federation only tacitly acknowledged his presence to defuse any residual hostility from the Founders. Nitala'Rax didn't seem to mind the freeze out, being designed for the physical and not verbal battlefield. Kira nodded her assent as the other officers plied past the hissing doors.

Inside the humid room, its dimness punctured by the starlight pouring in through ocular shaped view ports sat three pensive individuals. Fleet Vice Admiral Thuosana Shanthi, streaks of gray frosting her black hair, rose guardedly from her seat, as if she expected to be accosted by the new arrivals. Her dark brown eyes scoured the contingent, lighting on Jasmine with annoyance. "Colonel Kira, Captain Glover, Commander Dar, Lt. Commander Pell…" She listed each name curtly in clipped tones, nodding at each in turn. "And you are?"

"Lt. Jasmine Glover. Aegis's Operations Officer." Glover said before his wife spoke. The captain appeared oblivious to the similarly peeved glare his wife gave him.

"Oh." Admiral Shanthi replied, turning away from them to introduce the meeting's other participants. A slender, hawkish Romulan was standing at rigid attention, dark eyes boring into Commander Dar. The man returned her stare in full measure. Shanthi gestured at her. "Commander T'San of the Romulan Imperial Fleet."

"Jolan true," she offered, shifting her gaze now to the others, her voice cold and words precise. Glover nodded in acknowledgement.

"And this is Captain Molok," Shanthi replied, unable to remove the distaste from her voice. The burly Klingon slouched in his seat, not deigning to get up. He merely grinned at them with sharp, bloodwine-splotched teeth.

"Let's get down to business shall we?" the admiral said, retaking her seat. Colonel Kira sat at the seat at the other end of the long table. The other officers sat at the remaining empty seats, Jasmine shyly sliding into the seat next to her husband. "The Inter-Quadrant War Crimes Tribunal has arrived at Nimbus III, and all the special security arrangements have been made," Shanthi began. "The Founder Leader is ready to be transported from Bajor."

Even though Glover knew the Aegis had been called to perform this duty, the actual realization that it was about to occur twisted his insides. The fate of the Founder Leader, the mastermind who had led Dominion forces during the war, the butcher who had unleashed genocide on the Cardassians, had been fiercely debated among the great powers of the Federation Alliance. Each had wanted to try the Changeling for her crimes, but also to show the Dominion through the conduct of the tribunal the sentience or superiority of their respective civilizations.

The Federation wanted to show that 'solids', as the Founders termed humanoids or non-morphogenic life forms, were merciful, fair, and that the Changeling would receive a thorough hearing based on law and not vengeance.

The Klingons, on the other hand, felt the Founder needed to be punished, as swiftly and harshly as possible to underline the resolve of the Alpha Quadrant powers. The Romulans drew a middle of the road position. They wanted to glean as much strategic information about the Dominion as possible from the Changeling before publicly executing her.

The wrangling had nearly frayed the fragile post-war coalition, and had forced the Federation Council to accept the death penalty as an option for the tribunes to choose from in order to appease their fractious allies.

Though Glover had become far too casual about dealing death to the Federation's enemies during the war, the idea of the state putting a person to death, even one whose actions were as heinous as the Founder Leader's, made him uneasy. He placed his elbows on the table and cupped his hands as a shiver ran through him.

"After much discussion," Shanthi remarked. "It has been decided that both Commander T'San and Captain Molok will board the Aegis on its journey to Nimbus III. A show of unity and strength if you will."

Glover glanced at his wife, Pell, and then the colonel before he nodded his head slowly. "I think we can handle transporting the Changeling on our own Admiral. Commander Cherenkov along with Security Chief Donar is running systems checks on brig modifications even as we speak. I don't need babysitters."

"Though that toy," Molok spat, referring to the Aegis, "you call a warship is pretty to look at, I doubt it can match one of our attack cruisers."

"I can assure you that a Prometheus-class vessel is not a plaything." Glover replied, his voice tight.

"Of that there is no doubt," T'San replied, her dry voice finely coated with arrogance. "Commander Rekar proved that." Two years ago, a Romulan boarding party had captured the Prometheus prototype and utilized its multi-vector assault mode, splitting the prototype into three separate craft to assault a Federation starship before eventually being captured by a Starfleet taskforce, with the help of two onboard Emergency Medical Holograms. Since then, security modifications to the original design and countermeasures had been put in place to prevent a similar incident from occurring.

"And so did the two holographic doctors that defeated him," Terrence quipped. T'San smiled coldly, nodding.

"Touché."

"Chancellor Martok bowed to the beseeching of his Federation envoy, and wouldn't allow us to claim the Changeling. At least you and your crew can benefit from a real warrior's tactical experience when the Dominion comes to rescue their shape shifter." Molok brayed, muscling into the conversation. "Just like Starfleet did in the Crolsa system."

A nerve pinched in Glover's jaw at the mention of Crolsa. Cardassian militants calling themselves the Crimson Shadow had employed several advanced weapons systems that destroyed two starships, the Sojourner and Phoenix, and ran a third one, the Gibraltar out of the system. The Federation Council had ceded oversight of Crolsa to the Klingons as a result.

Many of the captain's fellow officers, himself included, felt that the Federation had been wrong to abandon the mission in Crolsa. It made the Federation look weak, and the expectant Klingon iron boot had only sparked an insurrectionist impulse throughout all the occupied territories. What galled Glover even more about the debacle, and Molok's boastful evoking of it was that he had a couple of personal ties to the captains of the Phoenix and Gibraltar. Banti Awokou, the Phoenix captain had been a long time mentor. The biogenic attack on his ship had left him in a vegetative state.

He had been brought to DS9 after the Klingons took over in Crolsa in the hopes that the space station's noted Dr. Bashir could find a cure to the neuro-pathogen infecting him and dozens of his crew. After Glover was finished he hoped to see his old friend before he shipped out.

Donald Sandhurst, Gibraltar's commander, had served with Glover on the Cuffe before he had been appointed its captain six years ago. When Glover had learned Sandhurst was in command of the retreating Gibraltar he hadn't been surprised. The man still hadn't developed a spine, Glover pursed his lips in consternation.

"About the rescue attempt--I am forced to concur with Molok," T'San admitted, the brows running just above her eyes, crinkling with resignation. "I too failed to convince the Senate that additional warships were needed to dissuade the Dominion from attempting a rescue. Multi-vector capability or not, a flotilla of warships to escort the Founder to Nimbus III is a more prudent course of action."

Pell's upraised hand shot through the air as if she were in a classroom, and had a burning question to ask or point to make. Shanthi ignored her for almost a minute, before sighing a response. "Would you like to ask a question Commander Pell?"

"Yes," Pell replied, "I can see both Molok's and T'San's points," she added, shrugging her shoulders at Captain Glover and Kira in silent apology. "With vengeful Breen and Son'a forces still on the loose and Cardassian insurgents itching for notoriety, not to mention rogue, or not so rogue Jem'Hadar, out to restore their lost honor, the quadrant is filled with people that would like to tear the Changeling apart. I think a convoy might disabuse them from that notion."

The Fleet Admiral nodded, before slicing into Pell's proposal. "A convoy might very well draw the very attention that you have just described. That is why, in addition to the Aegis, two decoy ships, one Klingon and one Romulan, will also be making their way to Nimbus III via circuitous, prearranged routes. Anyone seeking to capture or rescue the Founder will have three choices to choose from."

Shifting in her seat to peer at the triad of Aegis officers, Shanthi's voice softened as a faint sheen of praise glossed over her mournful features. "And that's why I proposed that Aegis, and you personally Captain Glover, handle this assignment," Shanthi remarked. "One of the Federation's most powerful ships helmed by a Medal of Valor recipient, I think it will send the proper message that will deter any insurgents."

Kira frowned at how stiff and uncomfortable the admiral's unexpected appraisal had made Captain Glover, a man for whom she had once thought self-aggrandizement was as necessary as breathing. 'War makes shadows of us all'. The colonel shook her head clear of the memories that accompanied her recalling the ancient truism repeated often by her father Taban during their imprisonment at the Singha refugee center.

"I would still feel more comfortable if the Defiant were accompanying the Aegis," Commander Dar, the compact warship's commander said, his quiet voice tinged with pride. "Its cloak might be of use."

"Noted Commander," Shanthi nodded. "However, the same could be said of our allies' ships as well, each similarly equipped with cloaking technology. The Defiant will remain here, at Deep Space Nine, to defend the station in the event that the Dominion attempts to intervene in the extradition. The station is still recovering from the last Jem'Hadar strike. To leave it undefended in this climate would be unwise."

"Odo has sent word via Nitala'Rax that the Founders won't mount a rescue attempt," Kira cut in. The colonel noticed that even the Starfleeters found it hard pressed not to roll their eyes in disbelief at her seemingly naïve declaration.

"I don't think any Founder's or Jem'Hadar's proclamations carry much water with Cardassian militants," T'San remarked, the specter of the recent assassination of the Romulan civil administrator Danclus on Cardassia Prime, haunting her statement. "In fact, Cardassian militants have only grown bolder in their plans to disrupt the reconstruction process on Cardassia Prime. The transport of the Founder Leader could prove too tempting a target."

"Well, they'll have potentially six targets," Admiral Shanthi gravely replied, alluding to Aegis's ability to tri-separate, the Prometheus-class's well-known secret.

"You trust your pet changeling?" Molok goaded, shifting in his seat to peer at Colonel Kira. "Just because 'Odo sent word' means we are to disarm ourselves and lay bare before the Jem'Hadar."

Knowing she shouldn't, realizing it was unbecoming of the station's commanding officer, Kira nonetheless bounded out of her seat. "Odo is a man of honor. I would my stake my life on his word!"

"Take your seat colonel!" Admiral Shanthi admonished.

"You have kajanpak't Bajoran," Molok sneered. "I can see why the changeling chose you."

"That's it," Kira said, rounding the table. Glover quickly jumped out of his seat, and placed a firm grasp on her shoulder to slow her down. The colonel resisted the urge to yank away from the human, knowing he was only trying to help.

"All right, all right," Glover said, nudging the colonel back to her seat. She reluctantly complied, never taking her eyes off the chuckling Klingon. "Admiral, I have no choice but to accede to Starfleet Command's orders. However, and let me make it clear, both Captain Molok and Commander T'San will have restricted movement aboard the Aegis, and I will consult them only if I feel it is necessary to do so. Aegis is my ship."

"I agree captain," Shanthi said, emphasizing Glover's rank to remind him of her superior status.

"As do I," T'San said.

"Some ship," Molok mumbled. More loudly he said, "I have no interests in your starship's secrets."

"It is settled then." The admiral smiled at the assemblage, but there was no warmth behind the gesture. "The Aegis will depart Deep Space Nine at 2300 hours. The prearranged flight plan is being downloaded into your ship's memory banks even as we speak. Meeting adjourned." Shanthi got out of her seat, and headed for the exit without waiting on the others.

"I have affairs to attend to on my ship before it embarks on its journey," T'San said as a way of farewell.

"The Ferengi's holosuites are the only affairs I plan to attend to." Molok guffawed before exiting, giving the colonel a goading once over before leaving. "My crew knows what it's supposed to do."

Unable to restrain herself, the fuming Bajoran pounded the table, and uttered an almost forgotten curse. "I can't believe the arrogance of that Molok! How dare he question Odo's honesty!"

"Captain Molok…or any of us really don't know Odo like you do," Dar offered. "The Founders have cut a bloody swath through much of the Quadrant. Asking for the trust of one, even as noble and honest as Odo, might be a tall order for some."

Wanting to disagree with her XO, and looking for encouragement and confirmation from the others present, Kira's fires dimmed somewhat when she saw that the captain was nodding his head in silent agreement and his wife had a glassy, pained expression in her eyes, as if trapped in a terrible memory.

She knew it was a continued failing of hers to allow her personal feelings to sway her judgment at times, but Kira had rarely seen the lopsidedness of her views versus reality as she did at that moment. "By the Prophets…" she whispered. "You are right. How could I have been so blind?"

"I wish a lot more of us suffered that type of blindness," Glover remarked. He smiled and glanced at his own wife. Kira noticed that Jasmine Glover did not respond in kind.

Flashbacks of his mother's funeral plagued Glover as he looked down at the too serene face of Captain Banti Awokou, the man's body encased in a stasis pod that reminded him of a shiny casket. Even Dr. Bashir's brilliance had its limits, and Awokou and the other victims of the Cardassian biogenic pathogen were in repose, awaiting transport to Starfleet Medical in the hopes that a solution might be found for them there. The captain was doubtful.

Ben had always spoken highly of Julian Bashir, in rapt amazement of the man's medical knowledge and talents. The revelation of his augmented heritage had done little to dampen Sisko's enthusiasm for the doctor. Of course, Terrence being his usual competitive self had claimed that first Dr. Caldecott and then Dr. Amoros were better physicians, but he knew the truth.

Bashir had devised the cure to the morphogenic virus killing the Founders, the selfless gesture a key bargaining tool in convincing the Founder Leader to surrender her forces.

Glover wished Bashir were here now so he could ask the doctor personally about Awokou's prospects. Though the junior medic, a weathered Bajoran named Girani had reported the man's grim prognosis, Terrence would feel better if he heard it directly from Dr. Bashir. He was glad though that the medic was busying herself at the infirmary's large curving interface, allowing him a modicum of privacy. That was one thing the DS9 docs had over the omnipresent Amoros too.

He touched the cold transparisteel covering, running his hands just above Awokou's lined, brown face. So much like his own fathers, yet so different. For one, Banti still had his hair. Glover smiled at his dig, imaging the steamed look or quick rejoinder his father would lodge at him. In many ways, Banti had been a second father to him on the Kitty Hawk, exemplifying a dignity of command that Terrence couldn't muster on his best day. He had never been a man given to complimenting others, but he had to give due were it was warranted.

Banti's reassuring voice glided and large presence glided through the captain's memories. He would never forget their last conversation.

"I really wish I had you with me on this one Terrence," Awokou had said, after informing Glover that the Phoenix had pulled an assignment in the Crolsa system, protecting relief convoys for its solitary habitable planet Lakesh from predacious pirates and militants.

"It can't be worse than the Lamenda system," Glover had said, unwilling to be out topped in anything. Before their current assignment, Aegis had gotten its space legs along the long running Cardassian-Xarantine border, stopping the profitable maraji crystal trade fueling parts of the insurgency flaming across all Alliance-occupied Cardassian territories.

"Sending the Phoenix of all ships into Cardassian space during this time of heightened Cardassian sensibilities wasn't the brightest move," Awokou had intimated, referring to the ship's previous captain, Benjamin Maxwell. In 2367, Maxwell had killed almost seven hundred Cardassians when he destroyed an outpost in the Cuellar system in a pre-emptive strike against what he thought was an imminent Cardassian invasion. Maxwell's name was doubtlessly more reviled than Glover's own. His actions during the war, especially at the Cardassian planet Loval, weren't exactly angelic.

"I'm sure you can handle anything those spoon head bastards throw at you," Glover had said sincerely. He had fought at Awokou's side against the Cardassians during the first Federation-Cardassian war and he had witnessed the ferocity hidden behind the man's placid veneer.

"It's not me or the Phoenix crew I'm worried about, it's my backup. Sojourner is commanded by an Exec and Gibraltar has a first time captain."

"Really?" Glover, interest piqued, had asked. He hadn't been up on the latest round of promotions. A deluge of captainships had come in the wake of the depleted ranks left by the last Borg incursion and then the Dominion War.

"Someone I think you're familiar with," the older man had smiled wickedly. "Donald Sandhurst."

Glover had unconsciously touched the scar from a resistor tine, courtesy of one of then Chief Engineer Sandhurst's crewmen who had rushed to Donald's aid when the two men had gotten in a fight aboard the Cuffe. The fracas had happened right before Glover had been promoted the ship's captain and Sandhurst had sought a friendlier port of call.

"I now see why you're antsy." Glover had remarked. "Captain Awokou." Even after knowing the man for almost twenty years, the thought of addressing the Awokou by anything less than his title seemed disrespectful. "Sandhurst wasn't a bad guy when I served with him on the Cuffe. You know the story, but I didn't feel he had the guts to make the tough decisions. Maybe that's changed, somebody believes in him."

"I did some checking. Rear Admiral Covey signed off on his promotion." Awokou had intoned darkly.

"Oh." Glover had succeeded Monica Covey as XO on the Cuffe after the woman had been awarded a command of her own. He had heard more than a few rumors that an amorous relationship had existed between Sandhurst and Covey. Glover had never really discovered if those rumors were true. But he did know that Sandhurst had left Cuffe for the Chevalier, Covey's vessel at that time. There seemed to be a lot of smoke around that fire where the two of them were concerned.

"Well, what about the Sojourner commander?"

"Commander Taun'Ma? Don't know much about her," Awokou had admitted. "Which doesn't speak much for her record does it?"

"No, I guess it doesn't." Glover had to admit. With Starfleet throwing out captain's pips, for none to fall Taun'Ma's way wasn't a good sign. "Perhaps Command paired you with those two so they could learn from your experience?" Glover had tried to put a good spin on the despairing situation.

Awokou had smiled tightly. "You can't con me Terrence. Remember who won all those games of Rolandan Wild Draw?"

"I haven't forgotten," Glover had grumbled.

"As a matter of fact you still owe me several strips of latinum."

"Put it on my tab."

"Will do," Awokou's smile had been pierced with a yawn. "It's late here. I shouldn't be carking on and on about my problems. I know you have your own." His smile took on a sly cast. "How's Jasmine by the way? After forty years Rozi continues to confound me."

"Same as Rozi it appears." Glover had answered deadpan. Awokou's laughter had been deep and fulfilling.

"Pray that it always remains so," he had said. "Good night Terrence. Be safe out there."

"You too."

If Glover had known it would be the last time he would get to talk to his friend, to share a memory or laugh with him he would've never allowed the man to terminate the connection. But humans weren't normally blessed, or cursed with such foreknowledge. And despite knowing they weren't, they still took the truly important people in their lives for granted far too often. Glover knew he was guilty of such transgressions more than he cared to fully admit.

Tracing a finger along the frosty covering of the stasis pod, Glover's face grew hard. Even near death and you're still teaching me things, he thought, his eyes misting. I won't forget this lesson…I promise.

CHAPTER THREE

Commander Ivan Cherenkov, Aegis's First Officer, blinked as the beings coalesced in a glittering cascade on the pad in the ship's Main Transporter room. Lt. Tai Donar, shock probably being one of the emotions trained out of him as a product of Angosian military experiments, quickly raised his phaser at the pad. "Don't move," he warned, the weapon's emitter cone trained on the Founder Leader's unformed face. The three other security guards also leveled their weapons at the platform.

The Founder regarded the muscular Angosian and his weapon without interest. "It takes a lot more firepower than that to kill a changeling, Angosian." She remarked, her voice neutral.

"A lot of things have changed since the war ended," Donar replied with quiet menace.

"Not the solids' propensity for suspicion and violence it appears," the Founder surmised.

"That's enough Lt. Donar," Cherenkov interjected. Without addressing the Founder, he rounded on the slender, dark haired, reddish skinned human standing quietly beside her. "Lt. Daneeka, why isn't the prisoner secured?" As a lateral entry addition to Starfleet after serving in the Starfleet Marine Corps for almost 20 years, Daneeka's odious role in Admiral Leyton's abortive Starfleet coup four years ago still filled Cherenkov with disgust. But what had rankled him most about the obstreperous Daneeka was that she had actually used the skills he had taught her in Advanced Tactical Training to use in Leyton's attempt to subvert Federation President Jaresh-Inyo. Ivan glared at the almost languid lieutenant, expecting the light of recognition to ignite in her eyes at any second. It didn't.

Despite her checkered past, the late Captain Benjamin Sisko had given Daneeka another chance at redemption, the woman playing on her time as Security Chief of the Okinawa under Sisko. Why the Starfleet would allow the quisling to assume the position of Deep Space Nine's security chief was beyond his capacity to understand.

"What am I supposed to secure her with?" Daneeka asked, a sarcastic smirk inching up one side of her mouth. "She is a shape shifter you know."

"The portable inhibitor field," Cherenkov said, raising the gleaming metallic collar in his hand up for both Lt. Daneeka and the Founder to see. Based on a quantum stasis prototype created by the defunct Cardassian Obsidian Order, the inhibitor field denied a changeling the ability to revert back to their natural gelatinous state. First, discomfort, extreme pain, and then death would result if the reversion didn't take place. Shackles that emanated the field had also been constructed specially for ship-to-ship transport. In addition, a more complex inhibitor field had been installed in Aegis's brig.

Lt. Donar and Chief Engineer Uhnari had put their heads together and developed a method to alter the levels of the inhibitor field's polarity, thereby keeping the Founder weakened without threatening her life.

"I offer no resistance," the Changeling offered. "I promised Odo that I would willfully submit to your laws." Cherenkov forced himself not to groan.

"The Founder has kept her word," Daneeka added, actually vouching for a Changeling. It was all the Executive Officer could do not to retch. "She has given the Bajoran authorities no problems during her incarceration and I saw no need to shackle her for transport. If she had wanted to escape, she would've attempted to do so by now, especially since Bajor is so close to the wormhole." Deep Space Nine's security chief wrinkled her ridged nose as if having to state the obvious was a waste of good oxygen.

Lt. Commander Aquiel Uhnari, standing in for Ensign Huber, at the transporter controls, remarked. "I don't see any cause for alarm," she offered, smiling at the human woman. Daneeka smiled back.

One malcontent to another, Cherenkov thought, flipping back through recollections of the chief engineer's own less than stellar career in Starfleet. However, Aquiel had remained in the service, overcoming disappointing turns on Deriben V and then Relay Station 47 as a communications tech to find her true calling in warp engineering. Ro had quit when the going got tough, and he hated quitters.

"'No harm no fowl'," Daneeka said, adding. "That's an old saying I picked it up from a helmsmen I served with on the Victory." The security chief smiled wistfully. "Funny that I would think about that at this moment."

Uhnari gasped, her brown eyes growing large with interest. "An old friend of mine used to serve on the Victory. His name's LaForge. Do you know him?"

"Geordi?" Daneeka asked, her smile growing bigger. "Of course. We spent some very close times together."

Uhnari's excitement dimmed somewhat at the revelation. The perceptive Daneeka added. "Not that kind of close." Instantly the engineer's mood turned radiant again.

Cherenkov cleared his throat. Commander Uhnari dipped her head in embarrassment. "Sorry sir," she muttered.

"Back to the matter at hand," the First Officer drew himself up to his full height, a stern, solemn expression on his face. "Mr. Donar, take your security team and escort the prisoner to the brig. I don't think an intra-ship transport is necessary."

Without being asked, the Changeling glided from the platform onto the deck. Ro followed suit.

Tai scowled at the change in the plan, but said nothing as he nodded for his guards to form a cautious circle around the Founder. The Angosian warily snapped the inhibitor collar around the changeling's neck. Daneeka joined the contingent, also without waiting for Cherenkov's permission.

He squelched the growl in his throat. Instead, he said, "Mr. Donar, proceed."

After the team had left, Cherenkov turned to Aquiel. "So, what's with this Geordi business?" He smiled as he swept the mahogany skinned Haliian in his arms, stroking the twin ridges running just above her eyebrows.

"Old news," she replied, her eyes twinkling with merriment.

"It better be," he said, kissing her softly. "We Russians are quite possessive."

"So I've been told," she whispered, as she tangled her fingers in his blond hair and pushed his mouth against hers. Almost a minute went by before the now russet-faced Commander pulled away from her, smiling at her matching hunger.

Pulling in a lungful of air, Cherenkov remarked glumly. "I guess we better get back to work. Ensign Huber should be returning to his post any moment now."

"Is that an order?" Uhnari pouted. Before Cherenkov answered, the Haliian reached down and lightly stroked his crotch. Tensing at the pleasurable contact, the Executive Officer grabbed her wrist with surprising roughness, causing the engineer to gasp in delight. "I like it when you get all Orion corsair on me," she teased.

It was at that damnable moment that Ensign Huber chose to resume his duties. With almost Scalosian speed, Cherenkov released his hold on Aquiel, but not quick enough to avoid being spotted by the Transporter specialist. "Sorry sirs," he replied, his eyes downcast.

"Sorry about what?" Cherenkov replied, his manner steely serious. He didn't even crack when he heard a small giggle escape from his lover.

"Ah…nothing sir." Huber answered, his eyes still scanning the deck plates.

"Nothing indeed." The First Officer snapped. "Carry on with your duties Mr. Huber."

"Yes sir," the young officer hopped to attention, quickly taking over his station, and almost mowing over the Chief Engineer in the process. "Sorry sir!"

"It's okay," Commander Uhnari placed a calming hand on the anxious man's shoulder. He smiled nervously in response, his eyes now glued to the transporter console.

Cherenkov cleared his throat. "Lt. Commander Uhnari, I believe your report about upgrades to the ship's impulse flow regulator is late."

"Hmm…is that so?" The Haliian could barely maintain a straight face. "I'm sure I submitted the report on time. Would you care to join me…in Engineering? Perhaps we can get to the bottom of this."

Gesturing at the door, Cherenkov nodded. "Lead the way." Nodding at the still flustered Ensign Huber, the engineer walked through the sliding door, the First Officer quickly on her heels.

"The prisoner is in perfect health…I think," Dr. Amoros declared, his rich basso voice drowning out the incessant beeping of the electron resonance scanner. The scan complete, the biobed containing the Changeling slid out of the resonance chamber. With blunt, though nimble digits, the Aegis's Grisellan Chief Medical Officer performed another scan with a medical tricorder. "The tricorder confirms my initial findings. Her morphogenic matrix appears stable. Of course, Starfleet Medical's research into Changeling physiology is in its embryonic stages." The doctor concluded, squeezing the tricorder in his large, hirsute silvery black hands with consternation.

"I think that's good enough for me doctor," Glover quickly offered. In her short time aboard the Aegis, the observant Keta had come to realize how perturbed incomplete medical files made the imposing ursine.

During her mandatory physical upon boarding Aegis, the furry medic bored her with a voluminous tirade at how the Federation's lack of knowledge about Rudellian plague, a disease fatal for Cardassians such as herself, had severely impeded their efforts at administering effective medical care to many needy Cardassians on the shattered homeworld.

"Lieutenant…did you hear me?" Keta blinked, her mind returning to the present and the task at hand. She looked nervously at the scowling captain. "Are your readings in agreement with the Doctor's?"

The young Cardassian held up her own tricorder and ran it over the prone form of the Founder. Anticipating the dearth of knowledge the Federation, and its allies for that matter, had about the mysterious changelings, Glover had requested that Keta also scan the prisoner to detect any anomalies that might prove threatening, sure that if the Founder was trying to alter her body chemistry or structure for any purpose, dual scans from two different machines, as well as two different sets of eyes would detect it.

Of course, Keta was sure she had caught a sigh in the captain's voice when he had called her to the Main Sickbay. Now, that the Founder was onboard, she would perhaps be the second most unwelcome person on the Aegis.

Knowing that her midnight assignment was only a symbolic salve to Cardassians who demanded a part in the trial of the Founder, if they couldn't punish her themselves, Keta knew that her presence was unwanted. Her efforts or counsel weren't of much value on Cardassia Prime either. Even among the new generation of Cardassians committed to reconciliation, the taint of her work against her own peoples' ambitions during the war left a taste too bitter for many of her compatriots to swallow.

She was sure that after the Changeling was safely on Nimbus III, that she would be shuttled to another less glamorous assignment. Hopefully it would at least be somewhere her race or her past were not impediments. Unfortunately, she couldn't think of anywhere that place might be at the moment.

"Lieutenant?" Glover asked again, his tone ripe with annoyance. Flustered, the now bulky gunmetal device almost slipped from her gray fingers.

"My apologies sir. My readings indicate that the Founder is well." Glover nodded tersely.

"May I sit up now?" The Changeling asked, her voice dripping tedium. The hulking Lt. Donar and his small group of equally intimidating guards moved to form a cordon between the biobed and the captain.

"Of course," Glover replied. The Changeling turned into vicuous orange goo, reforming seconds later sitting upright on the biobed. Donar was just pulling his phaser out of the holster, when the Founder looked at him, her lipless mouth curled into a mocking smile.

"No more theatrics," the captain warned.

"I meant no harm," the Changeling responded innocently. "I just find the solid need to rely on musculature for movement very time consuming."

"Is that right?"

"It is." The Founder nodded, shaking her head with feigned understanding. "I am glad to see that there is one solid at least who understands my dilemma. I am ready to return to the holding facility."

"You don't give orders on this…" Glover began, but the retort died on his lips when he noticed that the Founder's eyes were looking past him. Turning his head to follow her gaze, with the doctor and the security team following suit, Keta found everyone starting at her.

Wanting to look away, to hide from the invasive scrutiny, but unable to give any of them the satisfaction of seeing her fear, the Cardassian met all of their gazes, eventually staring into the soulless eyes of the Founder.

"What is that doing here?" The Changeling spat, the first spike of emotion the monster had evidenced. "I thought I had had all of them killed. A pity."

Dr. Amoros leaped over to the Science Officer, blocking her view from the sadistic Changeling.

"Mr. Donar, get her out of here, right now!" Glover barked, his face a caricature of righteous indignation. The security team coiled around the Founder, shuffling her out of the infirmary.

After the shape shifter had been removed, the Grisellan stepped away from her. Captain Glover walked over, and clamped two firm hands on her shoulders. She tried not to wince as he incidentally pinched sensitive muscles along her neck ridges. Looking down into her eyes, he said, as gently as he could. "I'm sorry you were subjected to that."

It was the first time that this particular human had lied to her. Though she was sure Captain Glover was sorry for her as an individual, Keta knew he wasn't sorry about the slaughter of the Cardassians, or at least sorry enough. She knew that somewhere deep inside his core, hidden from his enlightened Terran sensibilities, was the belief that the Cardassians had deserved the holocaust the Dominion unleashed on them.

She nodded acceptance for his sympathy, and smiled wanly in return. "It's all right." A lie for a lie. In the oblique corners of her own heart, Lt. Keta knew it wouldn't be the last time such an exchange would be made.

"Sir, picking up a distress beacon." His wife informed him. "Code One Alpha Zero."

"Location Lieutenant?"

"About a parsec from Golana. It's a Lissepian freighter."

Glover's mood darkened as his interest piqued. "By who?"

"They believe Cardassians sir," Jasmine looked up from her station, a confused expression on her face.

"They 'believe'?" Glover prodded. In response, his wife shrugged her shoulders.

"That's when the message cuts off. However, it is on a rotating frequency, repeating every three minutes."

Glover looked first at a skeptical Cherenkov. "What do you think?"

"I'm not sure," the First Officer admitted. "There has been an upswing in violence by renegade Cardassian factions, unwilling to acknowledge the fact they lost the war." He winced when Lt. Keta glanced at him in response. Terrence merely rubbed his smooth chin, ignoring Cherenkov's perceived impolitic gaffe.

"Mr. Donar, anything on long range scanners?"

"Nothing sir." The taciturn Angosian rumbled, seemingly angry that the violating ship was not waiting at the scene of the crime.

"Let's go check it out then," Glover concluded.

"But sir, what about the tribunal?" Cherenkov asked.

"I don't think we'll be all that late, and besides, we have standing orders to investigate and offer assistance to any ship in distress." Standing up, he went over to the Tactical console, the possessive Lt. Donar moving over only slightly to allow his commanding officer access to his board. Peering down at the tactical readouts of the cargo vessel for several more seconds, Terrence grunted. "Lt. Glover, please inform Starfleet Command and the tribunes that we are altering course to render aid to a distressed ship."

"Aye sir." Jasmine quickly relayed the information.

"All right, Lt. Rojas," Glover strolled down the curved deck of the bridge to stand behind the ship's alpha-shift Flight Control Officer. Juanita Rojas smiled up at him, reddish brown curls ringing her cherubic face.

"Yes captain?"

"Lay in a course to the source of the beacon, warp 8."

"You got it sir," the junior grade officer replied with relish, happy anytime she got to fly beyond warp factor 5.

"Do it." The Aegis shuddered, as the Prometheus-class vessel's powerful warp engines thrust to life.

"Should we inform our 'guests' about the change in plans?" Jasmine asked, turning around in her seat to look at him, worry lines furrowing her forehead. Glover responded with a peeved expression, more annoyed at the prospect than the question itself.

"I'll do it," he mumbled. "Mr. Cherenkov, you have the conn."

CHAPTER FOUR

"You can't do that!" Molok thundered, springing out of his seat in Glover's ready room. He slammed gauntleted fists on the captain's polished ebonite desk.

"I just did!" Terrence roared, pushing back his chair as he hopped out of his seat. He got in the Klingon's face, prepared to trade barbs or blows if necessary. "This is my ship! Don't forget that!" Before his assignment to the Cuffe, he had served on the Klingon warship Dorna, as part of Starfleet's Officer Exchange Program with the Empire's Defense Force. Glover knew that the best way to handle Klingons was to match their bellicosity.

"With decisions like that, I don't see how you got it!" Molok snarled.

"Captains please!" T'San, now on her feet, placed placating hands between the two. Uneasy at playing peacemaker, she used surprising strength to push both men back from the brink of violence. Glover flopped back into his seat, and the startled Molok hit the deck with a loud thud. Within seconds he was back on his feet, fists balled, but he didn't advance.

T'San looked from Glover to Molok. "This is his ship, and he had every right to make the decision, even if it is ill-advised. Neither you or I would tolerate challenges to our authority on our own vessels."

The Klingon loudly huffed before grumbling. "You are correct." Turning away from him, the Romulan commander looked down at the still seated Glover.

"How much of a delay will this 'rescue' take?"

"That depends," the captain offered. "But hopefully we shouldn't be delayed by no more than a day. Other ships might've already responded to the distress beacon before we get there."

"One day," Molok huffed again.

"How old is the distress beacon?" T'San asked, ignoring the Klingon. Glover wished he could turn such an oblivious eye to the surly Molok.

"It is less than 12 hours old. This increases the chance that there are survivors." The news didn't brighten either of the other officer's moods.

"And the message said that they believe Cardassians are behind it?" Molok asked, adding before the captain could answer. "It doesn't surprise me. Those people never knew when they were beaten."

"But why would Cardassians attack a Lissepian ship?" T'San asked, her eyes glinting as her mind struggled for clarity. "The Lissepians were vassals of the Cardassian Union for decades."

"True." Glover agreed, absently stroking his chin. "It doesn't make sense, but there isn't much about the growing insurgency on Cardassia Prime that does." Each day the Federation News Service reported new attacks by Cardassian insurgents opposed to the interim governing council set up by the three great powers to rebuild Cardassia.

"Have the spoon heads ever made sense?" Molok roared with laughter. Both T'San and Glover merely glared at him.

"In the interest of comity," the Romulan began, as if Molok weren't even present, "I request that my…colleague…and I are allowed to remain on the bridge, to assess and lend assistance if necessary."

The captain rubbed his chin more forcefully as he pondered the Romulan's offer. Knowing he would regret his decision even as he uttered it, he finally said, "Sure. I see no problem with that."

T'San actually smiled, and Terrence believed it to be genuine. "Thank you." She bowed before asking to be excused. After granting her request, the Romulan moved quickly to the exit. Without asking for anything, Molok followed behind her. Almost out the door, Glover called out.

"Captain Molok!" The Klingon warrior froze in mid-step. He turned slowly to stare at the captain. Rising slowly out of his seat, a vicious look on his face, Glover spoke again, his voice filled with quiet venom. "If you question or countermand my orders on my bridge again, you will find out that today is a good day to die."

Molok's dusky face turned even darker with tempestuous rage, broken a full minute later with a mighty laugh. "I might wind up liking you yet human!" He roared, stomping out of the ready room.

I hope not, Terrence thought as he slumped back into his seat.

"That's a nasty hull breach," Lieutenant Rojas's delicate cinnamon brown face twisted in disgust at the large gash in the listing freighter displayed on the main viewer.

"Looks like the bridge of the ship was taken out," Cherenkov remarked.

"Magnify." Glover replied. His wife complied. Within seconds, the Aegis's forward sensor array had zeroed in on the breach and the tangle of debris and bodies floating outside of the wounded ship. "Life signs?"

"Sensors not detecting any." Jasmine replied, her horror hidden behind a veil of professional detachment.

"What about on the inside of the vessel?" The captain asked hopefully.

"There are at least a dozen life signs on the inside of the vessel," Lt. Glover's voice brightened at relaying the news.

"What species?" Terrence asked.

"Can't get a reading on that," Jasmine frowned. "There's some kind of interference muffling our sensors. Could be the ship's hull composites."

"Captain," Lieutenant Commander Uhnari broke in, sitting on the edge of her seat at the bridge's engineering station. Normally, the Haliian preferred residing near the comfortable thrum of the ship's warp reactor in Main Engineering. However, Glover asked her to come up to the bridge for instant consultation as soon as the Aegis came within visual range of the Lissepian freighter. "Sensors have confirmed a forcefield currently protecting the inhabitants inside the cargo vessel. The ship's engines, weapons, shields, life support etc, are all tied into its parabolic generator core. The attack appeared to damage the generator beyond repair. They are holding on by a thread, and if the generator blows…." The engineer didn't have to finish her assessment to make her point.

"How long?" The captain asked instead.

"Two…three hours at the most." Uhnari answered, her voice leeched of its usual mirth.

"Hail them Lt. Glover."

"Sorry sir, but their comm. system appears to be down."

"All right. Have Mr. Huber go to Cargo Bay Three. Two cargo transporters should be able to get all the survivors in one fell swoop."

Seconds later, Jasmine sucked on her bottom lip in response to the data flowing across her console. "Sir, that freighter's hull is lined with magnesite."

"Damn," Glover muttered. Magnesite interfered with a starship's transporter targeting components, making both targeting locks and re-materialization inside the freighter a hazardous enterprise. Looking to his left, he ordered. "Mr. Cherenkov, I want you and Dr. Amoros to coordinate two away teams. We're going to have to shuttle those people over from the Aegis. Take the York and the Henson." The Russian commander nodded curtly and rose to his feet ready to carry out his captain's orders.
"Hold on!" Molok, sharing the aft environmental control station with the eerily observant T'San, protested. "The ship that attacked this vessel could still be in this region. It could even be cloaked for that matter. I held my tongue when you suggested beaming those people out. That would only be mere seconds when you had to drop shields. But using shuttles will take too long. It will leave this ship too vulnerable to any predators lurking out there!"

"How soon you've forgotten our previous conversation," Glover remarked, swiveling around in his seat to stare at the blustering Klingon. A tense Cherenkov maintained his place at the captain's side, also turning to face Molok. "Get to it Commander Cherenkov," the captain instructed his first officer, but his gaze remained fixed on Molok.

"Yes sir," Cherenkov replied, pointing at Lieutenants Donar and Glover. "You two with me." The two quickly piled behind the commander. Terrence stopped himself from ordering his wife to remain onboard Aegis. He didn't want her being subjected to any unnecessary risk, but he also didn't want to look as hesitant and doubtful as he felt in front of either Molok or T'San.

"I think I might be of some use too." Keta volunteered before the trio had made it to the port turbolift. "I'm pretty fluent in Lissepian." The commander's jaw tightened with frustration at the intrusion. Before he denied her request, Glover remarked.

"I agree. Hop to it Lt. Keta."

The Cardassian scrambled out of her seat to join the landing party. The captain caught Cherenkov's look of distaste as the liaison nestled beside him. Glover was ashamed to admit that he understood the sentiment. He had partly acceded to Keta's request to get her off his bridge.

Jasmine hated EVA suits. They always felt so bulky and unwieldy, too confining, and frigid to boot. "All right people, my tricorder is indicating we've got survivors behind this blast door." Her voice sounded metallic to her own ears inside the helmet. She could only imagine how tinny it sounded to the other members of the away team.

Without waiting for further instructions, Lt. Keta led the bulky Dr. Amoros and the hulking Lt. Donar to the sooty walls beside the nearly impenetrable door, searching with her hands for a companel. A frequent addition to more successful transport vessels, blast doors sealed off important cargo holds, providing their own separate life support and replicator systems, each powered by multiple parabolic generators dependent on a functioning parabolic core. The corridors connecting the cargo rooms were not afforded that luxury; hence the crew's reliance on environmental suits.

Within seconds, Donar grumbled. "Found it." He pressed a heavy, gloved hand down on a small imperfection in the stained wall, and a panel slid up revealing a darkened set of controls.

"Looks like the release lever is fried." Keta remarked. "Please step away from it Lieutenant Donar and let me take a look at it." For a few seconds, the intense Angosian held his ground, unwilling to allow the Cardassian to take the lead.

"Is there a problem with your audio transceiver?" Lt. Glover asked him.

"No…no ma'am there isn't," He replied, his voice brimming with restrained fire.

"Then step aside and allow the lieutenant to get to work. Every second wasted could mean someone's life," added Dr. Amoros, the ranking officer on the Away Team, carefully shifting his sizable girth in a non-discreet manner. The usually boisterous Grisellan was not above using his physical mass to get his point across when he had to, Jasmine had noticed. The equally fearsome Tactical Officer relented, moving a few inches, allowing the slender Cardassian liaison to slide past him.

Jasmine made a mental note to report the obstinate Angosian as soon as she got back to the Aegis. Though he maintained a steely, laconic veneer, Jasmine had dipped into her husband's crew personnel files and discovered how Donar had been crafted by chemicals and conditioning to be a killing machine every bit as ruthless and efficient as a Jem'Hadar. She had known that the Angosian had come highly recommended by Commander Cherenkov. Even though Terrence trusted the Russian's judgment, the placement of such a dangerous, unpredictable element aboard the Aegis filled her with dread, most of all for her husband and his career. She was afraid that the monster the Angosian government had made Donar into would reemerge from the depths of his soul at the wrong time and with disastrous consequences.

Watching the deft form of Lt. Keta work on the door, while the ursine rechecked the items in his medkit and Donar inspected his phaser settings, Glover pushed away her perpetual feelings of doom.

"Got it." Keta's happy proclamation punctured her dark thoughts. The blast door slid up into an aperture as the bay's standard doors retracted. Donar brushed past Keta to enter the room first. The insensitive gesture saved her life. Twin golden beams seared through the taciturn Angosian, spinning him around. He crashed to the deck at Jasmine's boots. A loud curse emanated from the shadows of the cargo bay, followed by a volley of lanced energy striking both Keta and Amoros. The Cardassian and Grisellan both crumpled to the floor, deadly sparks coursing over their suits. Donar rose again, his metallic scream squawking through her ear receiver as he lunged into the fusillade.

In near paralytic shock, terrified, Jasmine reached for the combadge attached to the left outer breast of her suit. A crippling beam reached the communicator first, filling her world with a thousand knives of agony before she fell into the void.

"Asphyxiation didn't cause his death," Lt. Satel, the Aegis's Junior Medical Officer, calmly stated as he turned the corpse onto its back. Sightless violet orbs glared at Cherenkov from the Lissepian's pallid grayish face.

"I sort of figured that out Dr. Satel." The Executive Officer remarked, raking the light attached to the wrist of his environmental suit over the gaping, blood encrusted hole in the center of the Lissepian's sternum. "And I doubt running out of air did in the rest of the bridge crew either." He added, sweeping his light over the rest of the small, cramped bridge. The six Lissepian crew were splayed over consoles or the deck. "It appears whoever attacked these guys were good. The Lissepians didn't have a chance to defend themselves it seems. Their attackers must've beamed in and out…a quick strike. The only question is why?" Cherenkov hoped that Amoros' team was making better headway.

"The burn markings on the wounds are consistent with phase-disruptor weapons. Cardassian manufacture." Satel added, as nonchalantly as if he were ordering food from a replicator. The revelation made the First Officer queasy. The bridge's darkness grew more ominous, smothering.

Turning away from the carnage and clamping down his growing anxiety, he walked over to the two elfin Bynars working at the large pool table-shaped master control display at the center of the bridge. "Uno, Dos, have you've got the main computer up yet? I would like to get a look at the captain's log." One of the Bynars hovered over the computer's slick surface, while his compatriot had removed a side panel and had stuck himself in the console's guts.

Tagged "Uno" and "Dos" by Conn Officer Rojas, the Bynars' real "names" were a string of numbers. The computer specialists didn't protest the monikers. If anything, the nicknames seemed to make them more relatable to the rest of the crew.

The lavender-skinned waif peering at the surface with seeming agitation stopped its inspection to look at him, computations spinning behind its dark eyes as it registered his request. Cherenkov gave the Bynar time to run the information through his microprocessor of a brain, no doubt relaying it through his partner, and then cycling back to give the proper response. "No sir. We haven't. We are having difficulty accessing the mainframe. It is a momentary hindrance that will be corrected shortly."

Without waiting for the First Officer's response, the Bynar returned to its inspection. "Carry on." Cherenkov said anyway, just to have something to say, to maintain the appearance of control even as he sensed that that illusion was slipping away from him.

When the table sparked to life seconds later, it did little to mollify the reeta-hawk of apprehension nesting in his insides. "The mainframe is now functioning," replied the Bynar that had emerged from the console, black streaks marring his white EVA suit. Cherenkov waved over Satel, who was still checking for vital signs among the dead crew. The Vulcan followed the commander over to the lighted board.

"Can you find the captain's logs?" Without answering him, the spotless Bynar, pressed a large red button over an inlaid screen. The screen blinked on. The bleeding, torn face of a Lissepian stared back at them.

"Cardassians…." Violet blood erupted from the Lissepian's sallow lips. "Everywhere…." The screen went white with static.

"That's all that we could recover." The Bynar replied.

"Keep trying," Cherenkov ordered. "But let's send this tidbit to the captain." He tapped the communicator on his chest to open a channel to the Aegis. He frowned when his audio transceiver didn't pick up the familiar chirp alerting him that contact had been established with the starship. He tapped it again, with a bit more force. Nothing happened. "My combadge is malfunctioning. Dr. Satel, try raising the Aegis."

The Vulcan complied, his studious expression becoming even more serious when his communicator failed too. "I apparently am having the same problem." He concurred.

"Uno, Dos," Cherenkov looked at the Bynars. In lieu of combadges, the Bynars could use their cybernetic brains to directly interface with Aegis's systems. Both cocking their heads oddly to opposite sides while they sought to commune with the ship's computer, they too came up short. "We are unable to establish a communications link with the Aegis." Both said in unison.

"What's going on here?" The First Officer asked no one in particular as he pulled his phaser from his holster and swept it in a defensive circle around the room.

"Commander, I hardly think communication interference, perhaps caused by a confluence of metals and chemicals carried within this ship, warrants brandishing a phaser."

"You rely on logic, I rely on this," Cherenkov waved the energy pistol.

"The human is right." A spectral voice slithered from the aft entrance to the bridge. The away team's attention quickly shifted to the speaker. Even in the cumbersome suit, the First Officer turned around with almost whiplash speed, his weapon aimed squarely at the beefy Cardassian now filling the open doorway. Through the transparent helmet atop his burnt orange space suit, the oily haired Cardassian smiled. "I wouldn't do that," he warned. With surprising deftness for a man with his bulk, the Cardassian moved behind a wall and out of the line of fire, allowing others behind him to shove a furry, ungainly form into the doorway. The massive creature slammed the deck plate, unconscious.

"Your doctor." The Cardassian had returned to filling the entrance. "We also have the other members of your boarding party. Any heroics…." He aimed the phase-disruptor pistol now in his hand at the limp Grisellan.

"What do you want?" Cherenkov growled.

"I've always liked your people," the Cardassian grinned again. "So direct."

"What is it?" The commander asked through clenched teeth. Still smiling, the stout Cardassian sauntered into the room, several other lithe and predatory Cardassians followed each pulling or dragging a prisoner. Cherenkov's heart sank further when he saw two muscular spoon heads carrying an unconscious Lt. Donar. If these Cardassians could immobilize both a fierce Grisellan and the eternally vigilant Angosian, they were a very dangerous band indeed.

Disruptor now holstered, the Cardassian clapped his hands in delight at Cherenkov's predicament. The First Officer couldn't wait until he had the chance to wrap his fingers around the Cardie's fat, scaly gray neck. "My name is Shau Darcis," his voice was conversational, but the Russian was close enough to peer into the Cardassian's eyes, and he saw nothing but the abyss in them. "Formerly of the Cardassian Intelligence Bureau and the Obsidian Order. But still a patriot of Cardassia." The disruptor was again in his hand. "As such, I will not take orders from an inferior, and to prove my resolve." With a casually brutal flick of his wrist, he turned the phase-disruptor toward the Bynars, who had huddled together fearfully by the console. Before Cherenkov could move, both crewmen were enveloped in a dissolving, golden beam.

"No!" The Russian roared, aiming his phaser at the Cardassian. But Darcis was too close for him to get off a shot. The hulking Cardassian grabbed Cherenkov's wrist, and with a force that bit through the metal and plastic of the EVA suit, Darcis crushed his wrist. The phaser clang dully as it hit the metal floor.

Cherenkov sank to his knees, biting back an agonizing cry, hating his weakness. Darcis stood over him, maintaining his iron grip on his broken wrist. The Cardassian chuckled as he raised his own disruptor and brought it crashing down into the commander's faceplate.

The Russian closed his eyes to avoid being blinded as the plastiglass faceplate cracked as easily as his bones had. Small slivers of sharp plastiglass embedded themselves in his skin. Oxygen gushed out of his open suit from the spider web of fractured glass as toxic air seeped in; clogging his lungs. He fell over on his side, his hands futilely clutching his burning throat. Before blacking out, he heard the arrogant Darcis boast. "If all the humans had been as weak as this one, we would've won the war within days." His body writhing in pain and overcome by shame, Cherenkov felt the same way as oblivion took him.

CHAPTER FIVE

"Mr. Zene, try hailing them again." Captain Glover absently tapped the armrests of his command chair, trying to stave off his escalating anxiety.

"Nothing sir," The dark-skinned Elloran manning the Ops station replied seconds later. "I've lost contact with both away teams."

"That's damn peculiar," Glover replied, rubbing his chin as worst-case scenarios began running through his head. Pushing them to the edges of his mind, he turned in his seat to look at Ensign Lomar, ship's Science Officer now at the Science I station. The Kelvan was wearing his bland, though more tolerable, humanoid guise. Kelvans were shape shifters, of a sort, able to alter their appearance to look human. Underneath the placid persona Lomar was a terrifying dark mass of mouths and tentacles. "Mr. Lomar, is it possible that the magnesite-laced hull or other chemical compounds or metallic alloys carried by the vessel might be interfering with communications?" Lomar looked through the captain with large, unblinking argent eyes. When he spoke, his voice sounded eerily detached as if his vocal cords and lips were not quite in sync.

"It is possible sir," He said with measured, slow precision. "But it is not likely."

A little over a century ago, a Kelvan vanguard had arrived from the Andromeda galaxy in the hopes of finding new territory to annex for their withering empire. Fortunately, the Enterprise and its legendary captain, Kirk, had encountered the scouts. The Kelvans gave up their invasion plans after the Enterprise helped them settle a new planet at the edge of the Great Barrier. Since that time, a miniscule, but steady flow of Kelvans had made the dangerous crossing to the new world. Though still not a member of the Federation, Lomar was the first Kelvan to join Starfleet in the hopes that it could lead to a possible future membership for the Kelvan colony.

Terrence couldn't help but notice with irony his own hypocrisy at welcoming the standoffish, by all accounts hideously looking and truly alien Kelvan onboard, heralding his entry as a step forward, while at the same time being disgusted with the amiable Lt. Keta for essentially attempting the same progressive strides.

"Something is not right about this captain," Molok intruded upon his thoughts. Terrence huffed at the intrusion, but his heart echoed the same sentiments. His eyes raked the bristling Klingon and the too patient Romulan commander, sitting side by side, at vacant aft Environmental and Science stations, without weapons at hand, a most unusual sight due to the long simmering enmity between their peoples.

"I'm heading over there," he decided, his gaze never leaving his counterparts.

"Captain, I don't think that is the best idea." Commander Uhnari interjected, uncomfortable in her role as caution-advising Second Officer. "I should lead the next away team."

"Protest noted and logged." Glover said as he made his way to the turbolift, his fear for his wife and his crew roiling his stomach. "But denied. Commander Uhnari, you have the conn."

"I know you don't intend to have us just sit here while you transport over to that vessel?" The Klingon was already out of his seat.

Stopping just before the lift doors, Glover turned to Molok. "That's exactly what I was going to do."

"Captain!" Zene broke in, his voice tight with excitement. "I'm getting an incoming message from the away team. It's Commander Cherenkov's signal."

Stifling a huge sigh of relief, Glover turned back toward the main viewscreen. "Put it on the screen." He ordered the ensign.

"Aye sir."

The captain grunted as the image of a Cardassian filled the screen. Glover noted that the Cardassian was wearing a space suit, sans helmet. The ship mustn't have been as damaged as they thought. So, it was a trap, he realized, grinding a fist into his palm. Broad, fleshy features twisted into a predatory grin of triumph, he spoke. "Captain Glover of the Federation Starship Aegis, I am Darcis." He said his name as if Terrence was supposed to know it, and maybe he should have, since this Cardassian knew his.

"Where's Commander Cherenkov? What's happened to my crew?" Shoulders bunching with tension, Glover stalked back down the curved deck to stand in front of his seat.

"So direct." Darcis remarked, his eyes becoming slits. "We'll do it that way since you prefer. We want the Founder. If it is not given to us we will kill all of the remaining members of your boarding party." He paused, as he looked down and yanked the ruined, scarred face of Ivan Cherenkov up, by the hair, for the captain and the others to witness. Uhnari's intake of breath sounded louder than the report of a phaser rifle. Terrence's face became an impenetrable wall of granite. Pleased with the reaction, his expression brightening, Darcis said conversationally. "This one," he shook Cherenkov's head roughly, eliciting a groan, "will be the first of many to die. You have twenty minutes to decide."

Holding back his fear, but afraid that his wife might not be in the aforementioned "remaining" left to kill by the brutal Darcis, Glover decided to play hardball as was expected of a starship captain, particularly one who had won a Medal of Valor. He itched to give the order to clear the sky of the offending Cardassians so he could get on with carrying out his mission to Nimbus. "Though I am sure that freighter is not as damaged as we were led to believe, it is still no match for a Prometheus-class vessel."

In response, Darcis looked off screen, glancing briefly back at Glover, his dark eyes filled with murderous intensity. But it didn't seem to be directed at the captain or the hostages. The camera shifted away from the brute to focus on another Cardassian. This one was female, slender, her dark bundle of hair graying prematurely. She fixed large, unblinking blue eyes on the captain. "Captain Glover, I am Glinn Sulle of the Twelfth Order."

"Butchers!" Molok bellowed, on his feet in an instant. As a matter of Klingon pride, the Empire had shorn most Federation offers for assistance in their theater of war, preferring to fight the Dominion with the only soldiers they trusted to turn the tide of battle-themselves. Despite the lack of knowledge about the Klingon war experience, almost every Starfleet officer had heard or knew something about the ves'Lan massacre.

In response to the destruction of a Dominion base on Torros III by a joint Klingon and Starfleet armada, ves'Lan, a Klingon world was razed to ruins by atmospheric bombardment from Jem'Hadar and Cardassian forces, from the notorious Twelfth Order, in retaliation. Hundreds of thousands died in the hecatomb. "I will dine on your entrails!"

Sulle's features hardened. "I would expect such a comment from a savage."

"PetaQ!" Molok spat.

"Hold it!" Terrence yelled, silencing the fuming Klingon with a subzero stare before swinging around to glare at the glinn. "Glinn Sulle," he began slowly, seeking to buy time and gauge his adversary. "Of the Twelfth Order," his tone was almost conversational. "I don't believe we've had the pleasure to meet in battle."

"We have not…until now," she replied, the warmth in her voice evaporating with each word leaving her thin, gray lips. "But you were present at the battle to recapture Terok Nor," she stated. Glover nodded, remembering that "Terok Nor" was the Cardassian name for Starbase Deep Space Nine. "My mate, Gil Coris Sulle died at that battle…possibly at your very hands." A shadow of sadness flitted briefly across her face.

Glover, not sure what to say, allowed a few seconds of silence to pass before returning to his line of argument. "That is unfortunate," he began, the pinch of consolation in his voice real. "But it doesn't justify what you are doing now. What are your intentions toward the Founder?"

"That is no concern of yours human!" Darcis pushed his face back into the visual, before Sulle pushed him back out of camera shot.

"We are going to try the Changeling according to Cardassian law," Sulle revealed. "For the genocide she perpetrated on the Cardassian people. This is a Cardassian tragedy, and we have a right to resolve it in our own way."

"A lot of people died, on all sides, in the war." The captain pointed out, contingency plans battling with nightmarish images of a lifeless Jasmine competing for supremacy in his mind. "The Inter-Quadrant War Crimes Tribunal represents all victims of the Dominion."

"I wish that were so captain." The sapient glaze in her azure eyes told Terrence that she really did yearn for that to be the case.

Understanding that talking wasn't going to solve this crisis, Glover went back to playing hardball. "I can't allow you take the Founder. Starfleet officers have sworn an oath to give their lives if necessary. Turn yourselves in for whatever crimes you've already committed. I promise you'll get a fair hearing, but if one more of my people are harmed…." He looked away from the screen to Lt. Karla Weathers, standing by at the Tactical Console.

The brawny woman fired a glancing blow off of the Lissepian ship's bow. Sulle grabbed onto something off screen as the walls around her jarred from the blast. "There's a lot more where that came from. Surrender now."

"We can't do that captain. Too much is at stake."

"The next one will be a quantum torpedo. Magnesite hull or not, it will shred through that ship like a knife through zabo meat."

Sulle smiled at the mention of a famed Cardassian delicacy. "It is a shame that we never met during the war," her smile genuine. "But I don't think I can allow you to carry out that threat."

"Is that so, Mr. Weathers…" Before the Tactical Officer could respond, Ensign Zene at the Ops station, cried.

"Ship is de-cloaking aft!" Without waiting for instructions, the Elloran split the main viewer screen so that the captain could see both the bow and stern of the vessel.

"Raise shields!" A manta ray shaped Cardassian vessel, which Terrence instantly realized belonged to the large, formidable Keldon-class glimmered into existence behind the Aegis. With the Lissepian freighter facing them, the captain realized he was caught in a crossfire, and he didn't like it one bit.

"Damn," He muttered.

"Veruuls," T'San cursed softly, a cold rage seeping through her impenetrable façade. Glover wasn't sure if the curse was directed at Cardassians or at him.

"Cardassian warship is hailing!" Zene informed him.

"Open a channel," the captain groused. The viewscreen blinked from the expectant glinn to a charcoal-haired, crater-faced Cardassian. Pitch, abysmal eyes scoured over Glover from deep-set eye sockets, made even more sunken by the thick ridges encircling the man's brows.

"I am Gul Keshet. Twelfth Order," he said, his voice measured, calm, and weary.

"I take it you're commanding this…'mission'?" Terrence asked, still stalling for time as ideas ran through his head.

Keshet nodded. "I am, and time is wasting Captain. You now have ten minutes." Before Glover could reply, the gul cut communications.

"Status of that warship?" Terrence asked the stand-in Tactical Officer.

"The destroyer's plasma banks appear to be fully operational." Weathers answered, her voice glum.

"What about the freighter?"

"The aft weapon systems appear to be destroyed, but they do have forward weapons and shielding."

"Just great," Glover replied. Looking over his shoulder, he said. "Commander Uhnari, I need to see you in my ready room right now." Walking toward the small room off to portside of the bridge, he looked back over his shoulder. "Ojana, you too."

"Aye." She said with a start, her eyes still glued to the screen. She smoothed her uniform tunic as she sprang out of her seat.

"What about us?" Molok bellowed. "Do you expect us just to sit here?" One foot already in his private study, Glover looked back at the Klingon and actually smiled.

"Of course not. Lt. Weathers, please escort our guests to their quarters. If either one," he paused, his eyes glued on the bristling Molok, "resists you in any way, stun them into next week."

"With pleasure sir." Weathers remarked, pulling out her phaser and waving it at the miffed Klingon and Romulan to accompany her into the turbolift.

At least that part was easy, Terrence thought as he plopped behind his desk and put his head in his hands, macabre thoughts of an injured or dead Jasmine swirling in his head.

Terrence looked at the two officers sitting across from him in his ready room, and struggled not to laugh bitterly at them, and ultimately at himself. Before the war, and especially during it, he had taken very little counsel from his staff, or even his superiors, he had been so confident and sure about what needed to be done, and how to do it. Now he hesitated, his mind torn with doubt and fear. He was afraid to make a mistake, terrified of doing anything that might cause his wife any more harm.

And if such a terrible fate came to pass, at least he could tell himself that it was a group decision and that they all shared in the blame. The "great" war hero was nothing more than a coward afraid to make the big decisions.

"Captain, I don't see that we have much choice," Uhnari suggested, her petite frame trembling with anxiety. Glover knew that similar, wicked thoughts were probably tormenting her. Though both she and his XO had been fairly discreet about their affair, a good captain, even tarnished good captains knew their officers. The marionette Cherenkov, almost machine-like when he had been assigned to the Cuffe after the incursion into the Chin'toka System, had loosened up considerably in the past several months. And Aquiel had become more focused in her duties. They were good for each other, in a way that he and Jasmine had once been, and he hoped would be again someday, and there was no way he was going to interfere with that. "We have to give the Cardassians want they want."

"I disagree sir." Argued Pell Ojana, her tender, nurturing features turned to marble. "Cardassians can't be trusted." And she would know, being one of the lucky survivors from the notorious Gallitep labor camp. "The rest of the crew is dead." She surmised, her voice cracking. "I'm sorry."

"How can you make such a sweeping assessment?" Uhnari asked, her voice brimming with barely restrained anger. "There would be no reason for the Cardassians to not keep their word."

"Keep their word?" The Bajoran diplomatic officer looked incredulous. "Cardassians?"

"Ladies," Terrence held up placating hands. Looking firmly into the eyes of each, he replied. "Thank you for your counsel. Ojana, I share your feelings about the veracity of Cardassians, but I don't, I can't, sacrifice my crew. Not for a Founder."

"Don't you mean you're unwilling to sacrifice your wife?" The Bajoran retorted, wincing even as the last word shot out of her mouth. "Sorry sir," she quickly added.

Fingers digging into the armrests of his chair, his face flush with anger, a denial of the charge ready to fly out of his mouth, Glover ground his teeth together, refusing to lie to his friend. Instead he looked at the portrait of his wife on his desk, her arm wrapped around him, her smile dazzling with the spectacular Cliffs of Bole as a backdrop. It was a picture taken during their first anniversary, mere months before the war, when he had allowed insignificant things like his career or his own glory to truncate spending time with his wife. Even spending that too brief period each night in her embrace, his mind had always been on making admiral before he reached the half-century mark, besting his father. He had been such a fool then. Mustering the courage to look the Bajoran in the eye, he said, quietly, "Yes, you're right. I almost lost her once, and I won't allow that to happen again. You may not agree, but I think you understand." He winced slightly at dredging up Ojana's memories of her own family, lost decades ago at infamous Gallitep.

Her green eyes moistening with tears, the Bajoran nevertheless held firm. "But captain," Pell pleaded. "If we give in to Cardassian terrorists, not only will it encourage more Cardassian insurgency against the allied reconstruction effort, but I'm sure the Dominion will not look too kindly upon it either."

"I know, but right now, I don't see any other way out."

"But sir…" Pell began.

"We've got four minutes," Terrence cut her off. "I'm sorry," he said. Tapping a button on his desk's companel, he spoke into its inset speaker. "Security, this is Captain Glover, prepare the Changeling for immediate transport. Take her to the Main Shuttlebay. ASAP."

"Sir?" The shocked young voice asked.

"You heard me," he snapped, cutting off the channel. Standing up, exhaling, but still feeling both the weight of love and command crushing him, the captain said. "Thank you."

Glover then jabbed another button on the console. "Sir?" Zene's expectant voice squeaked through the intercom.

"Get me the Rakal."

"Aye."

Seconds later, Glover removed the fear from his gaze when he peered down into the monitor on his desk. Gul Keshet peered back at him, his gaze still vivisecting.

He moved around his desk and headed for the exit. "Here's what I'm proposing…" He laid out the plan with his best poker face, trying to maintain the illusion of control as much as possible. The Cardassian played along; nodding his head in approval after the captain had finished.

"Acceptable," was all the gul said before disconnecting the comchannel. The captain moved around his desk and headed for the exit.

"Where are you going?" Both Pell and Uhnari asked in unison.

"Somebody's got to pilot that shuttle, and I'm not sending anyone else into harm's way." He nodded curtly, brooking no debate, and then left them alone to ponder the inexplicable human need for self-immolation.

The stinging slap brought Keta out of a dark, dreamless sleep. She awoke with a start, instantly realizing that in order to be struck her helmet must be off. On reflex, she gasped for air, dumbfounded when it rushed through her open lips. Caressing her cheek, she quickly sought to get her bearings.

The young, leering Cardassian standing in front of her made her task all the more difficult. "You are a Cardassian." He remarked, his voice a mixture of fascination and revulsion. "What are you doing with them?" Without having to describe "them", Keta knew the Cardassian meant the away team. She wondered how many had survived, because she had been sure that she wouldn't when her suit had malfunctioned as a result of a disruptor beam, setting electric fire to her skin.

Knowing the truth would probably get her killed, Keta said anyway. "I am a Security Forces officer." She had meant to say it with strength, but the words squeaked out of her parched throat.

"I told you Mesec," another Cardassian, this one a lanky female, replied. She had been standing at attention by the door in the dim room away from the younger male…Mesec, but within easy distance to fire the phase-disruptor rifle clutched in her hands or to alert others in the event of an escape attempt. Keta felt almost proud that fellow Cardassians would regard her with such caution. "She is the worst kind of vole." The young woman added. "Even worse than these."

Keta craned her sore neck to follow the sweep of the rifle to see the still unconscious forms of Lt. Glover and Doctors Amoros and Satel, all piled together in a far corner of the room. For some reason, no doubt associated with her Cardassian ethnicity, she was separated from the pile. Commander Cherenkov and Lt. Donar, or the Bynars were not present. She could only assume that they were dead, or maybe being tortured for information before being put to death. "They fight for their homeworlds, but she-it-betrays its own race for them." The young woman concluded, her slender frame radiating hostility.

Keta opened her mouth to protest the unfair condemnation, but realized that she at times felt the same way. Instead she croaked. "It's…not that simple."

"Really?" The young woman asked, her anger overtaking her judgment. Stepping over to the still slumping liaison, the woman got on one knee, to look at Keta squarely eye to eye. It was an unfair stand off, due to the fact that the woman's left eye socket was missing its orb. A spider web of vicious, pale scars marred the woman's face. Keta wanted to turn away from the hideous sight, but knew that her life might depend on her toughness. Cardassians had pack mentalities, any hint or smell of fear, and they would be all over you like wild gettle.

"One of your Klingon allies did this to me, before…" Her voice broke and she shoved the emitter cone of the rifle harshly into Keta's chin. Though the cold metal bit into her face, she fought not to break eye contact with the woman, not even to blink. "He carved my face as if it were tojal meat. My mother and my youngest brother tried to stop them…" A tear welled up in the woman's remaining eye. Standing up suddenly, she took her rifle and swung it into Keta's face as if her head was a baseball, a game she had learned about when her family had once vacationed on Earth, years before the war had "confined" them to the comfortable refuge of Vulcan's Forge.

Her head hit the floor, pain exploding on both sides, cracking her jaw and swelling her head. Waves of darkness and tears blurred her vision as she tried to sit up and then find a way to defend herself. She heard the fatal whistle of the rifle cut through the air again, before Mesec shouted, "Beroz, no! Her fate is not in our hands." He shoved the fierce woman away from Keta, yanking the rifle from her hands.

Through sheets of pain, Keta made out the wraith rounding on the young man, a keening squeal erupting from her throat. Unfortunately, darkness reclaimed her before she saw how the show ended.

Tai Donar thanked the gods for the pain. "I've never seen anything like it," remarked the wizened Cardassian bending over him, as he ran an autosuture over the Angosian's exposed chest. Sometime between being shot and awakening in a paroxysm of merciful torment, the bastard spoon heads had removed his EVA suit, and cut open the front of his black uniform, all in an effort to save him. Save him? It didn't make sense. After stealing a glance at the medic, he decided to "play possum", as he had once heard Captain Glover call it a little longer until he could find out. Of course, the aged, leathery skinned Cardassian attending his wound was making that difficult. "His injuries have almost healed." The medic marveled.

"How is that possible?" Eyes closed, Donar nonetheless felt a chill, shadow fall across him as he heard heavy boots come to a stop beside the still kneeling doctor. The voice was deep, imperious and belonged to one accustomed to being answered immediately and with fearful respect.

"I don't know," the older Cardassian admitted. "His physiology is amazing. He would make an excellent specimen for the Central University."

"Will he live?" Another voice, raspy, but definitely female asked. There were tinges of both hope and disappointment in her question.

"Yes." The old man answered.

"Thank you Gil Rumal. At least someone here knows how to perform their job." The female added.

"What is that supposed to mean?" Donar both heard and felt the movement of the heavy boots away from him as the medic-Rumal-stood up with a groan. There was an ugly, threatening tone in the imperious one's voice.

"That Gul Keshet told us not to kill any of the Starfleeters. This one's unusual biology is the only thing that kept you from disobeying his orders." Her words were almost wistful, as if she had wished that Donar had not survived. The Angosian didn't think her regret was aimed at him however, but more so at the more imperious Cardassian. Cracking his eyes open, he made out the large Cardie now facing the smaller, redoubtable female.

"Gul Keshet has no power over me," the stout man rumbled. "The Obsidian Order was autonomous from the Central Command."

"And neither one of those now exist." The woman shot back. "Out here, those things have no meaning. Keshet is the commander of the Rakal, and his word is law."

"Is that so?" The large man grabbed the handle of the disruptor pistol holstered on his side. The woman held her ground. Rumal stepped back into his line of sight.

"We don't have time for this!" He barked, as if he were talking to squabbling siblings, which he very well might have been. The larger Cardassian craned his neck to look down at the old man, nudging him with force.

"Attend to the other one!" He commanded. Rumal said nothing else as he turned back toward Donar. The Angosian quickly shut his eyes. Seconds later, he chanced another peek. The medic was now kneeling beside him, gingerly touching the face of Commander Cherenkov. It was the first time that Tai had noticed the Executive Officer there, and he cursed himself for being so inobservant. Taking stock of his surroundings and of the locations of any fellow comrades should've been his first priority, but he had been sucked into the melodrama playing out before him, so reminiscent of the Angosian war dramas he had enjoyed as a child before the Tarsian Wars had unalterably changed his view of war and sacrifice, that he hadn't even realized any other captive in the room.

"There are severe lacerations on this human's face," Rumal noted.

"Of course there are. I put them there." The huge Cardie replied. "He will live."

"No thanks to you," Rumal grumbled. With swift speed, the larger Cardassian moved toward the still crouching medic. Before the old man could respond, the bigger man kicked him in the ribs. Tai involuntarily winced at the wet sound of snapping ribs. The old man keeled over, a mewling sound emitting from his lips.

"Darcis you fool!" The woman shouted. "One more move and it will be your last." Darcis laughed, but he didn't take another step toward the writhing medic. Instead, he bowed with mock gentility.

"Of course Levara." Tai's attention was drawn to an insistent beeping in the far corner of the room, out of eyesight without him moving his head and revealing that he was now conscious. Darcis's heavy boots pounded across the room. Seconds later, the woman spoke again.

"Keshet wants us to split the prisoners into groups. Have Glinn-sed Beroz and Oko Mesec take the other prisoners and board one of their shuttles. As a good faith gesture, they will pilot it to the Federation starship. We will take these prisoners," she paused, Donar only assuming she was pointing or making some kind of gesture toward him and the still unconscious Cherenkov, "with us." His heart swelled with a surprising rapidity at the prospect that the rest of the away team wasn't dead.

"I don't like dividing our forces," Darcis replied.

"What you 'like' is not my concern. We have our orders."

"But what about Beroz and the others?" Darcis asked, though Tai sensed that the Cardassian cared less about the welfare of the other Cardassians than finding another avenue to express his dissent.

"Take the prisoners," Levara ordered, ignoring him. "I will see to Rumal." Tai closed his eyes again, and forced his body not to stiffen as another shadow fell over him, and he was swept up in Darcis's powerful arms. Thrown like a sack of kalla tubules over the Cardie's shoulder, he was both thrilled and unnerved when Darcis also reached down and scooped up Cherenkov, slinging him over his other shoulder.

As the Cardassian stomped out of the room, each step causing a jolt of agony, all Donar could think of was how looking forward he was to fighting and killing this beast. Soon, he savored, biting back screams, blinking away tears, soon…

CHAPTER SIX

"Solids never cease to amaze…or disappoint." The Founder stated calmly as she sidled into the seat beside Captain Glover. She placed shackled hands in her lap while cocking her head slightly to the side, her usually fluid movements hampered by the inhibitor collar, to appraise him with a quizzical gaze. The captain ignored her, turning in his seat to address a nervous, skeptical security guard, his phaser clutched in a white-knuckled death grip at the Changeling.

"That will be all Ensign."

"Are you sure sir?" The voice was equal parts concern and relief.

"Yes."

"Aye sir." The guard bowed his head and moved slowly out of the shuttle Estevanico, never taking his eyes or his weapon off of the placid shape shifter. Once gone, Terrence pressed a button to close the hatch. It sealed with a hissing sound.

"Where are we going Captain?" The Founder asked, looking at him with eyes that didn't see him. He wasn't sure if that was intentional or if the changeling even needed eyes to see or sense him.

"I'm exchanging you for some of my officers. They have been taken hostage by a renegade Cardassian. Gul Keshet."

"Oh." She replied, nodding her head almost imperceptibly. She turned away from him to gaze out of the view port. Glover returned to finishing his preflight checks. Unable to allow the silence to escalate, he finally asked.

"You have nothing else to say, nothing more to ask?"

"No, you have proved that solids can't be trusted. You will do the thing I failed to do. Even Odo will not be able to convince the Great Link that your kind is not mendacious by nature. If you deliver me to the Cardassians, if you flout your own law, there will be war." Still calm, her quiet voice and patient manner took on an ominously prescient cast.

The captain swallowed a retort as he tapped commands into the shuttle's companel. The Estevanico rocked gently as it rose slowly from the Main Shuttlebay deck. Glover eased the ship around until the view port filled with twinkling stars and the scored Keldon-class destroyer waiting on the other side of the permeable atmospheric force field.

Per their agreement, Glover had allowed Keshet to move his ship into station keeping beside the Lissepian vessel. The captain thought it might be better for Lt. Commander Uhnari to have both ship's facing her rather than sandwiching the Aegis. It would also give her an escape route if she had to run, and he hoped the impulsive Haliian would have enough sense to cut out if the situation required it.

Glancing perhaps for the last time at the cargo bay as the small vessel moved toward the field, Glover picked out the young security officer among the gaggle of guards staring up at the departing ship, exaggeratedly wiping sweat off of his forehead. The captain wished he could do the same.

Passing through the shimmering field, his heart fluttered as he saw the York gingerly crossing the field from the opposite direction. Keshet had apparently kept his word. Terrence could only hope that Jasmine was alive and well among the shuttle's occupants. He would find out the answers for both assumptions soon enough.

Lt. Commander Aquiel Uhnari leaned over Ensign Zene's shoulder as she peered into the small monitor inlaid in the Ops console. "How is everyone doing Dr. Pham?" Victoria Pham, the gamma shift doctor, rubbed the sleep from her puffy eyes, and stifled a yawn before answering.

"Outside of some minor cuts and burns, everyone will be fine." She stated.

"That's a relief." Uhnari smiled, though she didn't feel relieved. Her mind was both on Ivan, still in the clutches of the Cardassians, and Captain Glover, stubbornly heading into the maw. Behind her, the scene was playing out on the main viewer, the slow moving shuttle Estevanico gliding toward the expectant warship Rakal. She didn't want to see the ship being swallowed, both figuratively and literally in the belly of the destroyer's shuttlebay. But she wouldn't dare switch off the viewer. The Haliian wanted the bridge crew to be ready to respond at the slightest moment to any deviation from the prearranged plan devised by the captain, or any unexpected, or perhaps expected, treachery from the Cardassians. "Inform me if there are any changes in the conditions of the patients Doctor."

"Of course Commander." Pham smiled back at her before deactivating the link.

Steeling herself, and clenching her fluttering stomach, Uhnari turned back around to observe the Estevanico as it disappeared into the Rakal. "At least that part went according to plan." She said aloud, though she was speaking to herself more so than to any of the other bridge officers. Sensing the knowing looks and agreeing nods of her compatriots, she added, to cover the fact that she had been talking to herself, "If only we can be so lucky about everything else." She walked slowly down the curved ring of the bridge, checking stations, looking every few seconds at the screen. Now it was filled only with the battered, but dangerous stingray shaped ship, its ventral disruptor array gleaming bright crimson. They are primed for battle, she thought. I hope we are too.

Aquiel looked across the bridge to the Tactical console, prepared to ask Lt. Weathers for a status report. "Where's the Lieutenant?" The Haliian asked the cadet currently manning the station.

"I don't know sir." The jade translator latched at the base of the similarly colored Jarada's neck deciphered the series of clacks made by her long mandibles. Uhnari's brow furrowed.

"She should've been back by now." She replied, again to herself as she tapped the communicator on her left breast. "Uhnari to Weathers. Come in please." Waiting for several seconds, she repeated the procedure. Still receiving no response, the engineer cocked her head to the side and said aloud. "Computer, please locate Lt. Weathers."

"Lt. Weathers is on Deck Five." The computer answered, with a measured female lilt.

"What is she doing there?" Uhnari asked, her stomach tightening with worry. She didn't know much about Karla Weathers, but from what little she had seen of the woman, she wasn't one to dally around. She would've completed her assignment and returned to the bridge as quickly as possible. Unless something had happened to her, and maybe to T'San and Molok as well?

"Unable to ascertain." The computer replied. "Lt. Weathers is currently on Deck Five." It repeated, almost as if it were trying to mollify its own suspicions.

"Life signs?" The perceptive, but impertinent Ensign Lomar asked the computer. Uhnari shot him a nasty look for ignoring the chain of command, but was nonetheless grateful for the question because she had been afraid to voice it.

"The lieutenant's life signs are minimal."

"Send a security…" Uhnari's command was cut short by the hissing of the bridge's turbolift doors.

A battered T'San, green blood pouring down her face from a large gash on her forehead, stumbled out of the lift. Aquiel beat the several other officers who ran over to catch the Romulan as she crumpled to the ground. The others formed an awkward ring around her and the commander. Gently cupping the injured woman's chin after propping her upper body in her lap, the engineer's partially telepathic sensitivity was bombarded by the terror rolling off the injured commander in thundering psychic waves.

"Molok," she spat through blood washed teeth. "Molok," she repeated before passing out.

Uhnari tapped her combadge twice-in quick succession, "Medical team to the Bridge!" and "Computer locate Captain Molok!" The Haliian didn't need psionic abilities to guess the computer's answer before it replied.

"Captain Molok is not aboard the Aegis."

"Damn." The engineer whispered, looking past the anxious throng to stare at the predacious Rakal. I hope the captain can handle treacherous Cardassians, a terrifying Changeling, and a crazy Klingon, she prayed, while bringing Ivan back to her. With Glover before Cuellar, she was sure that the captain was the only man that could. Thinking quickly, she tapped her communicator again. Sgt. Slade, head of the Military Assault Command Operations detachment watching over the three Cardassians that had piloted the York back to the Aegis, responded.

"Yes?"

"Sergeant, hold those Cardassians."

"But sir," he protested. "The captain left orders for us to allow the Cardassians to return to the Rakal after they had delivered our crewmen."

"Who's in command right now Sergeant?"

Seconds of hesitation followed before he groused. "You are sir."

"Follow my orders then."

Uhnari could just imagine the bearish man working his large jaw as he grated. "Aye." Tapping the link off, Aquiel finally decided to sit down in the captain's chair, the tension draining her. She hoped the risky move would give the captain more options instead of less. The next few minutes would prove her sage or fool.

Though the interior of the shuttlebay was stifling, Captain Glover shivered with cold anger. "What did you do to my officers?" He glared at the three, armed Cardassians standing before him, before looking back down at Commander Cherenkov and Lt. Donar; both slumped at the feet of the largest Cardassian. Gul Keshet was sandwiched between the behemoth and Glinn Sulle.

Terrence hid his surprise at Keshet's bantam stature. Three empty ketracel white tubes hung from a makeshift necklace around his wide, beige neck, clinking against the clamshell cuirass protecting his torso.

Sulle wore similar dark armor, a rusted Klingon dk'tahg tied to her right thigh. Muscles and girth bulged out of Darcis's fit forming black one-piece outfit, sans the standard Cardassian armor. A large phase-disruptor pistol rested in a holster on his hip.

The shuttle Henson, which the Cardassians had pilfered, to bring both captive officers aboard the Rakal, rested idly behind them, its thruster engines making a clicking noise as they cooled.

"They are none the worst for wear captain, except for the Bynars," Darcis spoke, his voice dripping with bored condescension. "But I had hoped for more of a challenge." Glover moved toward the gloating Cardassian, thoughts of the murdered Bynars filling him with loathing.

"If it's a challenge you want…" The Cardassian stepped over the prone Donar, a rapacious smile plastering his gray face. He slid his disruptor pistol into a side holster and flexed his cable-cord arms.

"Finally, a human with some fighting spirit," he chuckled.

"Stay your hand Darcis." Glinn Sulle warned. "Remember the mission."

"The mission is to inflict as much pain on our enemies as they have on us," he roared, forgetting Glover as he swung his large head followed by his equally hulking body at the slender, but resolute Sulle. "Don't ever forget that!"

"The Federation is not your enemy." Terrence interrupted. "We're trying to help the Cardassian people."

"Good intentions pave the road to ruin, or something like that you humans say," Gul Keshet sliced into the conversation, his rigid bearing and dignified manner shaming both the fuming Darcis and the flaring Sulle. "You 'help' us by trying to turn us into bastardized, supplicant versions of yourselves. You want to rip our culture, our history, our faith, our contributions away from us, and give us what in return? Democracy? Human rights? Bajoran pity? Never." The gul spoke with a quiet, bristling intensity, as gouts of contempt spewed from his black gaze.

"That's not true!" Glover protested, growing hot at the unfair charges being hurled at the Federation. "All we've offered is aid, assistance."

"You've taken away our right to defend ourselves," Sulle replied. "You've disbanded the Central Command."

"And you've left Cardassia vulnerable to its enemies from without and within by sublimating our intelligence apparatus underneath your own." Darcis added.

"But worst of all, your Federation has allowed Klingons to establish imperial control over Cardassian territory. Klingons roost in the Imperial Plaza, making judgments over Cardassian destiny!" Keshet spat on the deck plating, his tightly bound intensity slipping into a paroxysm of quivering rage as his voice boomed throughout the shuttlebay. Instinctively, Terrence reached for the phaser clipped to the belt of his uniform.

"How could I have not seen what seems so lucid now," the mocking voice of the Founder wafted over the maelstrom of emotions, just behind Glover's left ear. "The Cardassians were always more content with complaining about petty concerns than resolving them. You were not fit to rule."

Before anyone could react, Darcis had ripped out his phase-disruptor and shot the Founder in the face, the deadly beam sizzling just past the captain's ear. Almost a second too late, Terrence jumped away from the blast, hitting the ground and rolling to a crouch, his own weapon pointed at the three Cardassians. Instead of firing, he pulled a small, silver device from the pouch clipped to his belt. With his thumb, he pressed the large red button in the center of the device. The collar and shackles fell from the thrashing Founder, flying across the cargo hold, propelled by her frenzied, and flailing spasms. He wasn't going to allow the Changeling to be murdered without giving her a fighting chance. The move didn't dampen Darcis's resolve; he pressed on with his attack, stepping closer to the Changeling, now a black pool on the deck plating.

"Drop your weapon Darcis!" He bellowed. "Now!" He aimed the phaser. Darcis, enveloped by rage, was oblivious to his threat. He poured the energy cartridge of his pistol into the Changeling. The Founder writhed, transforming into an orangish black, sludge as she absorbed the discharge with an eerie silence. Glover still held his fire as Keshet wrapped his arm around Darcis's gun hand. The large Cardassian wouldn't budge. The gul slapped the Cardassian, and then clobbered him against a ridged temple with the butt of his own weapon. Darcis continued pumping disruptor bolts into the tormented shape shifter. Stepping back from the relentless giant, Keshet looked at Sulle. She nodded, adjusted the setting on her own weapon, and shot Darcis in the thigh.

The leviathan screamed as the beam lanced through his leg. He turned again toward Sulle, cutting off his weapon, as he aimed it at the glinn. She smiled as she pierced his other thigh with another shot. Darcis fell with a thunderous crash to the deck, his pistol flying from his grasp to slide underneath the Henson. He flopped around the deck for several minutes, until shock enveloped him, and he passed out.

Glover slowly returned to his feet, clipping his phaser back on his belt only after both Keshet and Sulle had sheathed their weapons. The captain couldn't stop himself from flinching when a hand, burning through the cloth of his uniform, clamped onto his shoulder. He craned his neck to look into the pained eyes of the Founder, wisps of smoke curling off her still congealing form. Terrence looked from her to the Cardassians. Both watched the scene with rapt, almost lascivious interest.

"We will take the Changeling now." Keshet stepped toward him. Glover instinctively stepped backwards.

"Not until I get my crewmen." Looking away from him, the gul nodded to his right and then to his left. Out of the shadows, several hefty Cardassians appeared, grabbing both Donar and Cherenkov. As they lumbered toward the open hatch of the Estevanico, the smoldering air was rent by the whine of a transporter beam.

Glover pulled his phaser, grabbing Keshet around his scaly neck. Pressing the weapon's emitter cone against the gul's temple, the captain hissed. "What's going on?"

"That's not one of our transporter beams!" Keshet growled, as he struggled against the captain's firm grip, "It's one of yours!" Glover's concentration slipped as the realization dawned on him that the Cardassian was telling the truth as the blue transporter beam materialized into the bulky form of Molok.

"Today is a good day to die!" The rampaging Klingon roared as he thumbed the activation button on the phaser he carried, striking Glinn Sulle, and then the two soldiers that had just placed Cherenkov in the shuttle.

"Levara," Keshet breathed, taking advantage of the distraction caused by Molok's appearance to wrest free of the captain. He stomped down on the captain's foot, while going down on one knee as Terrence fell back, his injured foot throbbing, his phaser momentarily forgotten. With lightning speed, the wiry gul grabbed the captain's arm before he had completely removed it from around the Cardassian's neck, and with surprising strength, flipped the captain over his back.

Glover flew through the air, wind gushing out of his lungs, pain lacing his back as he smacked into the shuttlebay's hard deck plating. Before the captain could rise up, the barrel of a phase-disruptor rifle was pressed hard into his left nostril. He looked defiantly up at the amber-eyed Cardassian holding the weapon. The woman merely nodded her head, daring him to make a move. Terrence maintained his position, but saw out of the corner of his eye that at least a dozen Cardassians had flooded into the hold to join the melee. A throng of the soldiers had surrounded both the Klingon and the Founder. Molok, now using his hands, was dispatching Cardassians with merciful glee. Unable to get a shot at him in such close quarters, but perhaps also anxious to get their hands on a real, live Klingon, the Cardassians were throwing themselves into the brawl. The captain could barely make out the Changeling. Apparently still weakened by Darcis's attack, the Founder was hemmed in by a circle of armed soldiers.

The woman guarding Glover took her eyes off of him for a few seconds to take stock of the fight as more Cardassians poured into the bay. The captain hoped she enjoyed the last thing she ever saw. Large, swarthy hands clamped around the Cardassian's neck and snapped it with ease. She fell in a heap on top of Glover.

He threw the lifeless body off of him, mindful to grab her disruptor rifle. Lt. Tai Donar, his scarred, sculpted chest heaving through the tear in his uniform, helped Glover to his feet. "I should be helping you," the captain couldn't resist the quip as he glanced at the wheezing, perspiring Angosian. He had never seen the man in such bad shape.

"Earth humor," he gasped. "I never cease to grow tired of it."

"A joke Mr. Donar?" The Angosian merely shook his head.

"An observation." He replied dryly, before adding. "Captain, we've got to get out of here."

"I know," Glover answered. "Head to the shuttle. Get it prepped. Can you do that?"

"Yes sir," Donar replied, hesitating. "But what about you?"

"I'm going after the Founder…and Molok too." He added with a sprinkle of reluctance.

"But captain…"

"Don't have time for it!" Terrence snapped. "Get moving before the Cardassians realize we're still here." Without saying another word, the Angosian turned from him and dashed into the Estevanico's hatch.

At the edge of the pulsating mass of elbows, knees, and bludgeons, Glover dipped his head as he waded into the throng. He grunted, and bit back several curses as the struggling Cardassians inadvertently struck him as they sought either to fight the Klingon or run away from him. Even Glover found himself impressed with Molok's prowess. Even the Klingons he had fought during the brief conflict that had flared between the Klingon Empire and the Federation as a precursor the Dominion War had not fought with such ferociousness or displayed such strength. He was glad that they didn't, or he probably wouldn't be here now, being pummeled by a Cardassian mob to save two former enemies.

Swinging the rifle like a baseball bat, Glover plowed his way through the mass. The captain almost got his head cleaved off as a result. The vicious, curving blade of the mek'leth sliced the air just in front of him, its tip nicking his quickly turned cheek. Somehow, Molok had snuck two of the weapons past the Aegis's security protocols. Lt. Donar would not be pleased to hear that. The Klingon was wielding both blades with deadly accuracy, cutting off anything that got in his way. The ailing Founder had surprisingly curled herself at his feet, barely shielding her face from the kicking and stomping of the Cardassians. Pushing himself past the group, Glover grabbed hold of Molok from behind. He nearly loss his grip as his head exploded in pain when the fierce Klingon head butted him. The captain next felt the cold, blood soaked tip of a mek'leth cutting into his throat.

"Glover!" Molok laughed. "This is a glorious battle, heh? Worthy of song!"

"We've got to get out of here!" Terrence shouted over the din. "Help me get the Founder!" Without taking his eyes off of the Cardassians, Molok hollered back.

"You take the Changeling. I will continue to fight, to cover our escape." The captain nodded his assent, a bit surprised that the Klingon agreed so quickly to his plan. Klingons were not one's usually ready to leave the site of a battle, or any fight really, especially one that could actually be worthy of a Klingon opera. If Terrence had known any Klingon playwrights, he would surely have had Molok's amazing performance immortalized.

The captain reached down, and placed the Founder in a fireman's carry over his shoulders. He was again surprised at how light; almost weightless the Changeling was. She snuggled around him, allowing him to more effectively use the disruptor rifle to cut a swath through the Cardassians. Molok was right on his heels, blocking, parrying, thrusting, and slicing with his twin blades.

The yawning hatch, with a feverish Lt. Donar hunched over the controls, beckoned just beyond Terrence's reach. The hum of the Estevanico's engines filled the air as his mind zeroed in on solely completing his objective, the noises, and violence around him fading into the background of his conscious thought. The captain forced himself not to smile as he placed a foot on the welcoming floor of the shuttle. Even the stern Donar broke into a grin as he turned around, and saw the captain. He twirled the disruptor around his trigger finger. "Thought you were someone else."

"Sometimes I wish I was someone else." Glover grinned. A force buffeted his back. Turning around to upbraid Molok, for once good naturedly, the captain's grin evaporated as a sphere of flame rushed towards him.

110