"Sir, I'm receiving a distress call."
Kira looked up sharply and saw Shar's bright eyes find hers. His antennae twitched as he frowned.
"Origin?" she asked.
"I'm unable to establish that yet," he replied, shaking his head, his words quick and sure. "But it's on a Starfleet emergency channel and its encrypted."
"See if you can decode it," Kira ordered, climbing up the three stairs that separated the central portion of ops from the rest. Shar's frown deepened, his nimble fingers flying across the console.
"It's a standard Intelligence distress signal," he said and Kira raised her eyebrows quickly. "It's set on a loop, asking for assistance from Federation sources and providing a set of automatically generated coordinates. But it's–"
"What?" Kira demanded.
"I'm not sure," Shar replied. "I've never seen an emergency channel on this frequency. It's only a few hertz off what Starfleet normally uses."
"There's probably some interference on the sender's end," the captain replied. "Get to work on localizing it. Transfer your information to the Defiant and get down there." She tapped her combadge. "Kira to Nog."
"Nog here. Go ahead."
"Nog, get an engineering team and prep the Defiant for departure. You have twenty minutes. We're going after a distress signal."
"Aye, sir," the Ferengi replied.
"Kira to Bashir. Assemble a med team and be on the Defiant in fifteen minutes. We have a distress call."
"From where?" Bashir asked.
"We don't know yet."
"Somewhere near the Telois-Celan system," Shar put in.
"Telois-Celan?" Kira asked. "What's out there?"
Shar shook his head, keying an enquiry into the computer.
"Nothing," he replied. "It's near the border. The Cardassians had some plans to terraform it several years ago, but that fell through because of the war."
"Well, something's out there. You have fifteen minutes, Julian."
"Understood," the doctor replied and signed off.
Kira turned to Shar.
"Get whoever you need and get down there."
The Andorian nodded and hurried off. Tapping her combadge again, Kira headed up toward her office to make last minute preparations.
Her crew never failed to impress her. In eighteen minutes, everyone was on board and preparing to leave. Kira had let Bashir and his medical staff head straight to sickbay. Although Bashir and Dax were usually on the bridge when the Defiant left the station, it was by no means protocol to have all the senior staff there. And they were far more useful setting up for potential patients than standing around during departure. Aside from Bashir and Dax, the rest of her senior staff were here, getting the ship underway. She watched from the captain's chair, which she still felt somehow belonged to Sisko, as the station diminished.
"Shar, have you narrowed down the coordinates of that signal?" she asked.
"Yes, sir."
"Transmit them to the helm. Lieutenant Tenmei, engage at warp eight once you're received them."
"Understood," Tenmei replied. A few moments later, the ship jumped to warp, the stars blending into long, thin streaks.
"Shar, see if you can send a message back on the same frequency. Let whoever it is know that we're coming. Nog, scan the area for any ships, any debris, anything that might give us a hint as to who they are. Find out if there are any Starfleet vessels in the area."
"Aye, sir," both the science officer and the engineer replied.
"I've managed to get a signal back on the same frequency," Shar reported. "Hopefully their computer can receive it."
Kira nodded, hoping so as well. She'd been stranded before, and knew what it was like to wonder if your message had been received by anyone. And who that anyone might be.
"Sir, I'm detecting unusual energy signatures in that system," Shar said. Kira frowned.
"What do you mean? A ship?"
"It doesn't look like it. They're radiation signatures, but nothing normal. It looks like background radiation, but it's not quite what I would have expected in a system like this."
"What kind of system are we looking at?" Kira asked.
"The name is three-three-one-ex-ef," Shar replied. "It's a type F star with seven planets, all uninhabited."
"Scan for cloaked ships. If that's not the cause, keep scanning. Whatever it is might be the reason we're getting the message on a nonstandard frequency."
"I'm reading no debris and no Starfleet ships, sir," Nog reported. "We're the closest."
"Thank you, Lieutenant," Kira replied. She frowned at the display screen on the arm of her chair. Three-three-one-ex-ef was uncomfortably close to the Cardassian border. At one point, it had been in Cardassian space, but had been zoned out when the border had been redefined following the Dominion War.
"Has there been any Federation activity in that area?" Kira asked Nog, who checked the database.
"No, sir," he said.
Kira pursed her lips unhappily. It seemed like there was no indication that anyone was there, so why were they receiving a Starfleet distress signal? And from whom?
"Any signs of cloaked ships?" she asked.
"It doesn't look like it," Shar replied. "But at this range, I can't be entirely sure."
"Keep scanning," Kira repeated. This was going to be a long trip, despite the fact that it wouldn't take very long to actually arrive. The uncertainty was frustrating and she wished she had some inkling of what to expect, rather than just the emptiness of the sensor readings. "Run the readings through the database, too. See if you can come up with anything that resembles them."
"Understood," Shar replied. He set to work, frowning slightly, his Andorian features intent. Kira tapped her combadge, calling Bashir, because she needed to do something.
"Bashir here," the doctor's accented voice replied.
"How's it coming, Julian?" she asked.
"We're about as ready as we can be to accept whatever casualties we might have," Bashir answered.
"All right. Send Dax back up here if you're finished with her."
"She's on her way," Bashir said. Kira didn't really have anything for Ezri to do here, not before they arrived, but she was not going to let her best tactical officer sit around sickbay. She'd let Dax go help Bashir because she knew he'd need it. But Kira needed her, too, here.
Dax arrived and Kira assigned her to take over scanning for vessels. The Trill reported the same thing: no cloaked ships apparent, no debris, no other ships in the area. Kira accepted the report with a nod and settled against the back of the chair.
It was going to be a long trip, indeed.
"I'm getting a reply!" Kelde replied.
Milen looked over at her quickly as she scrambled over to the console. He was right behind her, crouching down off to the side to give her enough room to work. Suddenly, a voice filled the tiny pod.
"This is the USS Defiant responding to the distress signal. We are on our way to rendezvous with you. We will be there in approximately three hours. Please respond if you can."
"Do you think we should?" Milen asked.
"I'll send a quick reply, and then I don't want to use the communications anymore," she said, nodding.
"I'll get back to work on the sensors," Milen replied and returned to the console he'd been working at. Kelde wondered if he would get them fixed. She didn't doubt his abilities as a scientist, but they weren't engineers, at least, not mechanical engineers.
She was much more frustrated than she wanted to admit. She was twenty years old, Milen was twenty-two. They were trained as terraforming scientists, not soldiers or spies or survivalists. They both had survival training, of course; being terraformers, they couldn't have completed their program without taking it. But the training hadn't been geared to surviving on an unknown planet without any real gear and being pursued by unknown aliens. She had been trained to survive in a hostile environment until a rescue crew comprised of her own team members could find her.
She wish Trintar were there with her. He would know what to do. Kelde took a deep breath. Her brother wasn't there. No one who could protect her was there. This was down to the wire. She and Milen had to face this on their own or die.
Milen gave a grunt of surprise and a moment later, the power to the pod was cut.
"What happened?" Kelde demanded.
"There are aliens out there!" Milen hissed.
Kelde's heart rate picked up.
"Where?" she demanded.
"Five kilometers southwest. I'm keeping our systems off line."
"Give me a tricorder," she said, extending a hand. "I'll mask our bio signatures."
Quickly, he handed her a tricorder and a phaser. Kelde put the phaser on her knee and crouched over the tricorder, working quickly. She was almost finished when the hum of a transporter beam cut through her concentration. Looking up fast, she grabbed her phaser, the tricorder falling aside. Milen had his weapon up and aimed as well, and they both fired when the alien had materialized. He staggered backward and Milen fired again. The alien slumped against a wall of the pod, then slowly to the floor.
Both terraformers looked at each other, eyes wide, then Milen let out a deep breath.
"What is it?" he breathed.
Kelde only shook her head, her hands trembling. Slowly, she powered down her phaser and put it aside. They both stayed frozen for a moment, then, when the alien didn't move, they approached it carefully. Milen still had his phaser trained on the alien man. Kelde suddenly felt like a fool for having put hers aside. She retrieved it, powered it on again, and stood beside Milen, looking at their would-be captor.
He was a harsh looking man dressed in severe silver and black clothing. His expression, even unconscious, seemed displeased and menacing. He wore a uniform Kelde had never seen: a silver shirt with padded, triangular shoulders, black pants, and highly polished black boots.
"What do we do with him now?" she muttered, shaking her head.
"We could get to their ship," Milen suggested.
"Are you insane? They'll be more of them up there!"
"And our people, too," he pointed out.
"Are you suggesting we start an uprising against a group of well armed aliens who are holding part of our crew hostage?"
Milen frowned.
"Okay, when you say it like that, it sounds ridiculous."
Kelde nodded emphatically, then sighed and shook her head once.
"We need to do something," Milen insisted.
Kelde understood how he felt. It was unbelievably frustrating to be so powerless.
"Let's start by tying him up," she suggested.
"Maybe we should kill him?" Milen asked.
"No," the woman replied. "Trintar told me you should always keep an enemy alive if he's not posing a threat and might be of use. Maybe he can tell us something." Personally, she doubted the alien would give them any information, but he proved not to be useful, they could always shoot him. The thought made her sick, but so did the thought of her crewmates being imprisoned by unknown assailants.
"All right," Milen agreed. "Let's see what we can find to tie him with."
Doctor Shabeva Ellik was angry. It helped her ignore the pain in her skull, her neck, her shoulders. It helped diminish the throbbing of the bruises she could feel on her forehead. She was lucky, she supposed, that she was Cardassian; her physiology made her stronger and more resistant to pain than many other humanoid races. But perhaps being Cardassian had gotten her into this. Perhaps not. She had no idea why they'd been attacked, but she took the assault personally. She had been second in command of the terraforming mission, under Doctor Elies Krem. It could be that she was now in charge; she had no idea. Not that she had much to be in charge of at any rate. But the crew the aliens had captured or killed were her people, and the idea that they were being mistreated offended her.
She paced her tiny cell, unwilling to sit and let her body stiffen. The aliens – they looked like Vulcans but obviously weren't – were using some sort of mind probe she'd never seen before. It hurt like hell when it was used, and caused her body to react by bruising, especially on her forehead and face. But she was a Cardassian, and had been taught mental discipline since childhood. Ellik was certain the aliens weren't learning much from her or the other prisoners, and she knew that her own training was allowing her body to absorb the impact of the ill-treatment with less difficulty.
Since they were using these mind probes, they obviously weren't members of the Trisepat. Ellik had been to the Gamma Quadrant. She had worked there for five months, studying their terraforming techniques. She had met a great deal of people from the Trisepat's member races and she knew enough about how their legal system worked. They wouldn't need anything so primitive as these probes. They'd simply have a kbsai or a Gri'Thethi read the mind of a prisoner, even against that prisoner's will. And they certainly wouldn't have attacked a Cardassian ship in Cardassian space. The Trisepat considered their territory to be firmly in the Gamma Quadrant and, from what Ellik had learned of their history, they did not have a tendency to go about attacking their allies.
The doctor stopped pacing and stretched her arms above her head, considering her very limited options carefully. She did not know where they were, who had taken them, or how many of her crew had been captured and how many had been killed. She did know that the aliens they were dealing with her highly militaristic and arrogant. That might help. Of course, being a Cardassian, she'd been accused of arrogance before, but maybe that would also help. She wasn't certain. She was by no means militaristic, although Cardassia had had its history of being so, but that was before the Alliance, let alone before merging with the Federation.
Again, Ellik wondered if there were those who had managed to escape and were now heading home to Cardassia, raising the alarm as they went. She worried the most for the two youngest members of her team: Milen Rask and Kelde Moset. Milen was twenty-two, Kelde twenty. This kind of situation was not at all inside their experience.
Thinking hard, Ellik lay down on the bare floor, on the back, closing her eyes. The guards came in pairs to deliver food, only once so far, and to bring her for their special brand of questioning. She had noticed, however, that when they had come to feed her, only one of them was bearing a weapon. Maybe she could use that. She had been trained to defend herself physically, although she'd let her training wane in the past few years. But Ellik had studied some martial arts in the Trisepat, under the supervision of a very competent Gri'Thethi woman. If there was a chance she could just get to a weapon. Briefly, she wished for a Gri'Thethi woman's presence – they were the most skilled fighters in the Trisepat. Even a Klingon would be welcome, she realized. Then she dismissed that thought; it was useless. All she had was herself and her lapsed training. The worst that could happen is that she could die. At least she would die trying to help her crew and herself. It might be a better option than the unknown fate facing her now, anyway.