Chapter Sixteen: A Book by Its Cover

As Kira, Julian, Ezri, and Chris make their way to cargo bay 12 to investigate suspicious cargo, the group keeps an eye out for security personnel and dubious characters. They have no idea if the other traitor Chris can identify knows they have the Andorian in custody, or if he'll remain in a security officer's uniform. They also can't assume that the two men from Chris' vision are the only ones involved.

Julian is the first to break the quartet's silence. "You know… I don't believe 'act natural' is truly a cliché."

As Kira scoffs, Ezri tips a glance at Julian. "It most definitely is."

"I'd say it's more accurately an oxymoron. How can one 'act natural' if they're acting?"

"That's beside the point," Ezri rolls her eyes.

"Pardon me," Julian says, "but I was trying to reassure the colonel that she is not as Williams described."

"I appreciate the sentiment doctor," Kira says, "but his opinion wasn't a concern."

"Confidence of character," Julian declares with a smile. "I admire that about you, colonel—as I did of Sisko."

As Kira considers the statement and nods in appreciation, Ezri pauses her stride. She steps quickly to pace Julian again.

"Hey," Ezri says and taps Julian's shoulder. "What about me?"

"My dear Dax, with nine personalities to your name you have many strengths, but a singular and unwavering character is simply not one of them."

"Oh… well thank you," Ezri forms a smile that's quickly overcome with doubt. "Wait…"

Chris shakes his head and scoffs.

"Something on your mind, Chris?" Kira asks over her shoulder.

"I… I know how things appeared on 'show' but… it's just… there are people willing to kill over whatever we're checking out, and the three of you seem so casual about it. It's comforting to a degree, but…"

"But you don't think we're taking it seriously," Kira guesses at the completion of Chris' thought.

"Maybe. I dunno," Chris shrugs. "I guess life-threatening situations are just… typical for you. I may have died in the wormhole, but I'm not too excited about…"

"Died?" A shocked Ezri grabs Chris' arm, pulling them to a halt. Julian displays marked surprise and stops as well.

Chris speaks to Kira who's still walking ahead. "I figured you'd told them by now."

"I didn't," Kira turns around when she realizes she's lost her entourage. "I got the impression you wanted it kept private."

"Right," Chris says as he scrunches his forehead. Given the tension between them, he felt more comfortable looking at Kira's back. He can't resist the impulse to break eye contact, but after her harsh words about immature behavior in the security office, he forces himself to look her in the eyes. "I guess I did. Thanks."

Chris can tell Kira picked up on his struggle. Her sigh of annoyance hurts. Until he can accept the way things are and move on, things are going to be difficult.

"Now that we know," Julian prods, "tell us the whole story. What happened in the wormhole?"

"Well…" Chris begins as he glances between the others. He doesn't want to keep looking at Kira's vexed expression, so he settles on Ezri's eager inquisitiveness. "I don't remember my time there very well, but Jake told me that I… died. I'm pretty sure it was a heart attack; I've been remembering the pain. Anyway… I was 'stuck' there from when the Prophets plucked me from home… until Sisko found me. I think I told you the rest last night."

"Were you really… dead for three centuries?" Ezri's words overflow with sympathy.

The brief summary of his ordeal was relatively painless to provide, but Chris momentarily relives his panic from the sea of white after seeing Ezri's horrified reaction. He shrugs and quickly turns to Julian, hoping to find a face that doesn't stir so many emotions.

Julian interprets Chris' stare as a plea to help answer Ezri's question. He shrugs as well. "I can't even begin to guess how long you were in the wormhole—given the non-linear nature of its inhabitants. And… the tests I ran showed no scar tissue, no sign of a heart attack whatsoever. Granted, the Prophets changed you, so there's likely nothing to find. I could still run more tests if you wish."

"I've been meaning to talk to you," Ezri says, regaining Chris' attention. "I know you've been through a lot, being brought here and all—but experiencing death? Now we really need to talk—and soon."

"Mm-hmm." Kira quietly agrees with both officers' requests for Chris' time as she peeks around the corner they'd stopped near. "That'll have to wait," she says as she beckons with her fingers. "Chris, I need to you take a look at the officer by the turbolift. He's one of the newer recruits; I don't know him very well."

Kira steps back from the corner and Chris peeks around. "It's not him," he says as he shakes his head.

"OK," Kira says, "but we need to be ready just in case. We don't know who else may be involved. Is everyone ready to move on?"

After a round of nods, the four walk around the corner and head to the turbolift. Julian stays in the rear with his phaser drawn for an extra measure of preparedness. As they approach the officer, he speaks calmly.

"Afternoon, sir. Sorry to hear what happened in Ops. Glad everyone's OK. Any orders?"

"Thank you; no," Kira responds flatly. "Just maintain your post and report any suspicious activity. We still haven't found who's responsible."

"Yes, sir."

Other than polite nods to the rest of the group, the officer pays them little mind as they board the turbolift.

"Docking bay six," Kira commands.

"But, colonel," Julian is confused, "that's not…"

"I know, doctor," Kira says sternly under her breath.

As the turbolift leaves the Promenade, Kira turns to Julian. "I know docking bay six isn't the closest station to cargo bay 12, but I don't want to broadcast our destination to someone I don't explicitly trust—just like I didn't want to mention having Williams in a cell. The less they think we know, the better. I thought your spy programs would've taught you that."

"Yes, sir. Understood," Julian sighs at the embarrassing demonstration of brilliant versus clever.

"Computer, override destination," Kira orders. "Docking bay four."

Soft chirps acknowledge the course change along the station's turbolift network.

"And before you say anything, Julian, I know that's not the closest station either."

"Right. If they have any notion where we're going, they'll know the best places to wait for us. I'm with you now, colonel."

"Good," Kira smiles and nods at Julian.

Unconsciously, Chris smiles in reaction to Kira's improving mood. Making eye contact, both faces darken and they glance away. Ezri softly sighs.

Kira, Julian, Ezri, and Chris travel the rest of the way to cargo bay 12 without encountering any more security officers or suspicious individuals. They enter the cargo bay unhindered and perform a quick tricorder check to make sure they have the expansive room to themselves.

"Before we start looking," Kira glances at everyone, "keep in mind that we don't know what we'll find. The log says it's a shipment of textbooks, but that's most definitely a cover."

Chris snickers.

Kira blinks. "Did I say something funny?"

Chris sheepishly bites his tongue as Julian responds. "Cover. Books. I'm sure it was an unintentional pun."

Kira rolls her eyes and scoffs. "As I was saying… be careful. We may find weapons; we may find a bomb."

Chris covers a forced cough to remove the last of his grin. "Wouldn't the station's sensors pick up something like that?"

"Normally, but I'm not making any assumptions today. Just… don't touch anything until we find out what we're dealing with."

Chris and Kira share an uncomfortable nod.

"OK, Dax," Kira turns to the Lieutenant. "Where's that shipment?"

"Hmm…" Ezri looks up from her tricorder. "I'm not quite sure."

"Was Julian right? Did they tamper with transceivers?"

Ezri raises her eyebrows and blinks. "Well, they either tampered with enough of them to make this room a proverbial haystack, as Sisko would say, or every container in this room belongs to the same shipment. Not only do the transceivers imply it but, as far as I can tell, every crate in this room contains similar materials."

"You mean... all of it?"

Ezri nods. "All of it."

"Then there's definitely a lot of something in here," Kira says as she reaches for the latches on the nearest crate. "Stand back."

The others take a couple steps backwards as Kira carefully unlatches the crate. After lifting the lid slowly and peeking inside, she callously tosses the lid to the floor. The others jump in surprise.

Kira leans over the crate and shakes her head in disbelief. "Books. They really are books."

Julian steps forward and looks inside. "Approximately one point four million—if the rest of the crates hold a similar number as this one."

"I'll take your word for it," Kira says in a daze. "I… don't understand."

"What kind of book is this?" Chris says as he picks one up and thumbs through it. "I don't recognize the language."

"This is… 'A Study of Bajoran Poetry'," Kira says as she looks over Chris' shoulder.

As Chris continues to thumb the pages, Kira stops him by touching his arm.

"Chris," Kira speaks nervously.

"What?" Chris freezes, not knowing what's behind her sudden concern.

"Julian?" Kira's quick glance in Julian's direction is almost panicked. "Prophets help me if a damned book…"

"What?" Chris asks again after Kira doesn't finish her thought.

"What've you got?" Julian steps over to see the cause of the fuss.

Kira grabs Chris' wrist and rotates his hand palm-up. Three of his fingertips are smudged with ink.

"Uh…" Chris stares at his hand with wide eyes. "Ink shouldn't do this—not from a bound book." He looks to Kira with panic of his own. "What have I touched?"

"What is it, Julian?" Kira relays the question. She watches anxiously as Julian opens his tricorder and scans Chris' hand.

"It doesn't appear to be poisonous—if that was your concern. But Chris is right; this isn't ink."

Kira and Chris share a sigh of relief.

"As long as you're sure it's not dangerous…" Kira says as she pats Chris' shoulder. "But if someone's willing to kill over this, it's got to be something much worse."

Chris relives the panic and drama of the explosive attempt on Kira's life. He shudders at how close she'd come to being hurt. He does his best to shake the thought by remembering other tense and dangerous situations these 'characters' have overcome in his implanted memories.

"OK," Kira looks around the cargo hold, scratching her head. "Before we focus too closely on this, let's see if any of these hold more than just books."

Chris hesitates and stares at the stains on his hand as the others spread out to open more crates. Regaining his composure, he walks to a container Ezri opened. He plucks a book from inside and cautiously rubs a clean finger across a page.

"They're different," Chris announces. "The 'inks' they used… they're different."

Kira nods to Julian as everyone converges on Chris. Even without the aid of a tricorder, the different colors on Chris' fingers confirm the claim.

"This stuff is so concentrated that it looks dark, essentially black," Chris says as he displays his smudged fingers, "but smear it and you can see the difference."

Julian scans Chris' hand with his tricorder. "The compounds are different, but I'll need to take them to the lab to know more."

"Maybe on their own they're not poisonous," Ezri guesses, "but perhaps they're separate components of a biological weapon."

"Shit…" Chris' eyes widen and he feverishly rubs his stained fingers on his pants.

"Doctor?" Kira's eye snap to Julian.

"Calm down, Chris," Julian takes Chris' hand. "Allow me."

Julian pulls an object Chris doesn't recognize from his medical pouch and starts removing the 'ink' from his fingertips.

"What's that?" Chris asks in amazement as the substances are washed away.

"A simple cleanser, nothing more," Julian makes no effort to hide a wry smile. "I use this to clean my hands before treating anyone in the field."

Chris lets out another sigh of relief when all foreign color is removed from his fingertips.

"And in regard to the sharp observation of my favorite Lieutenant," Julian says with a smile, "her theory is quite plausible. We'll need to find out how many substances we're dealing with so I can take a sample of each to the lab. And if it helps…" he directs at Chris, "if this truly is a biological weapon designed to harm the Founders, odds are we're not at risk."

"What kind of odds?" Chris asks nervously.

"Miniscule, my friend," Julian taps his temple, "given the very unique physiology it's been engineered to affect."

"Julian," Kira says, dumbfounded by his dismissiveness, "if we even suspect this is a biological weapon designed to harm the Founders, I want it destroyed as soon as possible."

"Of course," Julian responds, "but we need to study these substances to confirm their purpose and prepare ourselves in the event anyone tries the same approach again. For all we know, there's more than what's in this room. Without study, I can't create a countermeasure."

"Alright," Kira nods. "But once we find out what we're dealing with, I want all of it incinerated."

The group opens several more crates until Julian is statistically confident that there are only three unique compounds among them.

"Well, it seems poetry plus history plus math equals trouble," Julian remarks with a grin.

Ezri makes a face at Julian for the bad attempt at humor.

"Julian," Kira says after rolling her eyes, "take Ezri and your samples to the lab and start running tests. I'll hand-pick some people to secure the cargo, but we don't want to tip anyone off that we've found this in the meantime. Chris and I will close what we've opened and catch up with you."

Julian nods. He and Ezri take their trio of books and head to the medical lab.

With Julian and Ezri gone, Chris finds himself alone with Kira Nerys and his jumbled mess of feelings for her. She's yelled at him and shot at him, but he still feels a flutter every time he looks at her.

Is she right? Is it just a childish crush?

Chris remembers his own words about the possibility that the Prophets are influencing his feelings.

If they're doing this, they're doing a damn good job of selling it.

Chris has subconsciously distanced himself from Kira as they work to close crates. He looks up to find her several aisles away—close enough to see, but far enough to avoid a conversation. After the way she snapped at him in the security office, Chris decides it's for the best. He maintains the distance purposefully. Being alone with her, he's too anxious and self-conscious to consider talking.

Kira is acutely aware of silence as she and Chris work to close book-filled crates. He's obviously keeping a distance on purpose: every time she moves to close a crate, he moves to one at least four rows away. She knows what he's going through—she's seen it before—but there's nothing she can say that can help. What's bothering him is the truth: he has feelings for her while she's still deeply in love with someone else. She sympathizes with his situation, if only because she knows Odo was in the exact same place more than once.

Do I feel bad for Chris, or am I just now fully appreciating what Odo went through?

Kira remembers her conversation with Ezri in the turbolift after the explosion. She sighs.

She's right; I haven't been very kind.

Kira looks over to see Chris fighting a stubborn latch. Watching his frustration grow, she decides to close the distance between them.

"Chris…" she starts to speak.

Without turning from the crate, Chris puts a hand up. "Can we just get this done and get back to the others? My head's a mess and I don't want to talk about it. The last thing I want is to argue with you."

Kira sighs at Chris' refusal to look at her. "I was just going to say… thank you for the warning today. And… I'm sorry I yelled at you. I shouldn't've said what I did."

Head down, Chris halfheartedly fidgets with the latch as Kira speaks. When she stops, he reluctantly turns to face her.

Kira must've blinked. Chris suddenly grabs her shoulders and pulls her close.

"What the…?!" She says in alarm.

Is he seriously trying to kiss me?

Kira tries to back away, but Chris' grip is surprisingly firm. It takes too long for Kira to notice the panic in his eyes—and that his focus is over her shoulder. She immediately knows who he's seen. "Oh… shit."

Chris' eyes widen further as the traitor draws a weapon. He spins Nerys and himself abruptly and pushes as hard as he can. Unprepared, Kira falls backward out of the aisle as Chris stumbles in the opposite direction. A phaser blast nearly misses him before he crouches behind cover.

"Sorry!" Chris yells, cringing at the unexpected effectiveness of his shove. He's not the overweight man that can't manage a single push-up anymore. "That's the guy!"

"I gathered that!" Kira yells as she scrambles to a crouch behind a crate and draw her phaser. "Why the hell'd you push me?!"

Chris shrugs, then flinches as a phaser blast hits a crate beside him. "It was the only way I thought I could move you in time!"

"And you were gonna just stand there?!"

Chris shrugs. Two more phaser blasts hit crates near him in quick succession.

Kira huffs. As annoying as Chris' behavior has been, she's seen it as harmless.

He's going to get himself killed if he pulls another stunt like that.

Kira surveys the situation and grunts in frustration.

But right now, I need him.

"I need to get over there," Kira tips her head to a nearby bulkhead. "Cover me!"

"Wait!" Chris yells. "What does that even mean?"

"Point that," Kira points to the phaser in Chris' hand, "over there," she points towards the traitor, "and pull the trigger a few times—but keep your head down!"

After a phaser blast hits too close for comfort, Kira watches Chris nervously point his weapon around the corner and shoot wildly. Satisfied that he's relatively safe, she makes a break for the bulkhead.

In reaction to Kira's movement, the traitor fires in her direction. A shower of sparks and cloud of smoke erupt from a support beam as she runs past it.

Reaching cover against the bulkhead, Kira catches her breath. She needs a chance to either flank the traitor further or take aim on his position. Two more phaser blasts nearby make it apparent that she is his primary focus.

Kira hears more phaser fire, but no subsequent impacts. She peeks out to see Chris firing more blind shots at the traitor, forcing him to return fire at Chris' position instead.

Kira grunts and spins around the bulkhead to draw a bead on their attacker. As she begins to take aim, the traitor is no longer aiming a phaser, but pressing buttons on a device.

Before Kira can fire, a red alert sounds and the crates begin to de-materialize. She turns her head just in time to see Chris dematerialize along with the crate he was using for cover.

"Chris!"

Kira turns back to see the traitor moving to aim his phaser in her direction. She hadn't changed her firing position so she easily beats him to the trigger. After the man crumples to the ground, she smacks her combadge hard.

"Kira to Ops! Lock the station down! Tractor any vessel attempting to leave!"

"Sorry, colonel, but we've got widespread system failures. We'll do what we can."

Kira smacks her combadge again. "Kira to Defiant!"

"Uh, Defiant here?"

"Depart immediately! Disable any ship trying to leave!"

"I'm… just a security detail, sir. The standby crew hasn't returned from maintenance leave."

"Dammit!" Kira slams her combadge again, "Kira to Chris!"

Kira hears the telltale tone that the connection to Chris' combadge failed. Long-range communications must be down on the station and he must already be out of combadge range. For that to happen so quickly, whatever ship beamed the cargo away has gone to warp—or worse yet, entered the wormhole.

The piercing alarm subsides, but red lights continue to flash around Kira as she stands alone, stunned, in the empty cargo bay. She taps her combadge slowly. Her voice shakes.

"Kira to Dax… Chris is gone."

Julian and Dax hear the red alert sound. Less than sixty seconds later, they hear Kira's heart-wrenching report.

"What do you mean, 'gone'?" Ezri asks, distraught. "What happened?!"

"The traitor showed up. We exchanged fire. He… he managed to trigger some device—must've signaled a ship to beam the cargo away. Chris was taking cover among the crates. They… they have him."

Julian and Ezri can tell that Kira is shaken. "Dammit!" they hear her exclaim, closely followed by a loud noise as something clangs across the cargo bay floor.

"He saved me again, you know," Kira's tone swings between rage and remorse. "That bastard would've shot me in the back, but Chris spotted him first—almost got himself killed."

"It's not your fault, Kira," Ezri says, "There's nothing you could've done."

"Yes there is, I could've shot this son-of-a-bitch sooner."

Julian and Ezri hear a muffled thud, presumably caused by a firm kick to the stunned traitor.

"I know you, Kira," Ezri says. "If you could have, you would have."

"I should have," Kira ignores Ezri's reassurances. "I let this happen."

"Kira, Julian's been talking to Ops. Long-range communications are down. If Chris is on a ship…"

"I've already tried my combadge and got nothing. Any good news?"

"Only more bad news. It seems someone sabotaged defensive and weapons systems in addition to communications. As soon as the red alert sounded, a Keldon class cruiser decloaked right on top of the station. It recloaked, but they're pretty sure it headed for the wormhole."

"Keldon class? Cardassian? Cloaked?" Kira says each with an increasing amount of disbelief. "The only time we've seen something like that is…"

"When the Cardassians and the Romulans tried to bombard the Founder homeworld," Ezri finishes Kira's sentence.

"Right, and as far as I know, none of those ships made it back."

"I'm just relaying reports, sir," Ezri says. "Julian says Nog's on board the Defiant. He's prepping her now."

"Good. I need a crew on board immediately. I believe we'll have a speed advantage, but not much. We'll have to leave soon to make it count. Dax, meet me on board. Tell Julian to keep working on those samples. We need to find out what we're dealing with and how to neutralize it since I let it slip away. Hopefully Ops can get long-range communications back up in time for that to matter." Kira lets out a frustrated growl. "Dammit! I knew that Andorian had been poking around Ops. I should've followed up on it."

"There's nothing we can do about that now, Kira. Quit blaming yourself. My diagnostic yesterday didn't turn up anything. He was good at hiding his work. No amount of 'following up' would've mattered. We need to focus on getting Chris back."

"Of course," Kira sighs. "I'll see you on the Defiant."