A/N: Sorry for the delay in this chapter being posted. The standard disclaimer still applies. Please review!
Chapter 20
Neelix set his ship down on the docking ring around Colorado Springs. He was in awe as he gazed at the huge city, floating serenely in space. As he powered down his thrusters, a shield formed over Baxial and he heard the rush of an atmosphere collect outside.
"This is incredible," Kes said, giving voice to both of their thoughts.
The sensors showed that the atmosphere was complete outside the ship, so Neelix cycled the door open, and they stepped out onto the deck. A moment later, they saw two men hurrying toward them. "Welcome to Colorado Springs," the taller of them said said, holding out his hand. "I'm Kevin Riley, Special Federation Ambassador to the delta quadrant."
Neelix shook the man's hand, then turned to the other. He was shorter, and his hair was longer, and seemed to be both hair and moss. "I am Nefreyu of the Nox, Special Ambassador from Iconia to the delta quadrant."
Kes stepped forward and shook hands with both men, and when she touched the Nox's hand, she recoiled as if she had touched a hot stove. "What are you?" she asked. "You feel like an Ocampa, but you're obviously not."
"I am Nefreyu of the Nox," he said again, as if that explained all. He smiled and gestured toward the door he and Riley had come through. Neelix and Kes followed as Riley led, and Nefreyu brought up the rear.
Before they reached the door, they sensed an incomprehensible amount of power building up, followed by what seemed to be the universe shrinking around them. Neelix and Kes both stopped and stood transfixed as they watched the entire city flying through a wormhole to some unknown destination.
The two ambassadors didn't push them to follow. They stood and gazed at the phenomena. It was an awe inspiring sight, and they enjoyed watching with someone who was seeing it for the first time.
A few minutes later, they arrived at the gateroom of the city. They were ushered to the navigational system and Walter showed them where they were travelling in the quadrant. Neelix quickly oriented himself to the charts being displayed and showed where Dominion space began. "At the edge of their space, things get kinda tricky. There are some planets that have held out against them, while others, farther into the delta quadrant, have caved. Things become very fragmented as you get closer to the gamma quadrant."
"Do you know of any Jem'Hadar strongholds in this area?" Walter wanted to know.
Neelix quickly pointed out a couple of star systems near their present location, and they thanked him. Once they left, Walter ordered the computer to plot a course to the farthest of those systems, and relayed the information to the battlestars.
Jord…
Two weeks after the gamma quadrant strike force left Jordian space, a Cylon basestar jumped into orbit and launched fighters. This was the cue for Graystone's daughter, Zoe, to step through a gateway, along with Carson Beckett and Zeus.
Thor, Helena, and Graystone launched their fighters and held off the attack, neither pressing any advantage, nor backing down.
On board the cylon resurrection ship, Zoe Graystone, Beckett, and Zeus emerged from thin air, startling the centurions on duty. Zeus was behind the other two, pulling an antigrav cart laden with explosives. Zoe strode right up to the gold centurion who was obviously in charge. "Do you know who I am?" she asked.
"You are Zoe Graystone."
"And I'm the first Cylon," she stated.
"That is correct."
"Very good," she said, looking around the room. She moved over to the computer terminal set into the wall, and ran a hand over it, almost lovingly. "Me and my friends are going to destroy this ship," she told the centurion.
"You will die too," he replied.
"Oh well," she said, nonchalantly. "Zeus and Carson won't. They're both ascended, but me… I'd rather die than let what I helped create destroy the rest of humanity."
"Humanity is imperfect," the centurion told her. "They believe in many gods, instead of one. They fight amongst themselves over petty things."
"I am human!" she told him.
"You were human originally, but you are now Cylon."
"There is virtually no difference." She stopped and looked inquisitively at the centurion. "Are you afraid?" she asked.
"If you detonate those explosives, I will not resurrect. There will be nothing for me beyond now."
"And does that scare you?"
"It concerns me," he admitted.
"What about the rest of the cylons?"
"This is the only resurrection ship in this part of the universe. The signal from our brains will not propagate far enough to reach a different one, therefore, the cylons in this part of the universe will not resurrect either."
"You have the opportunity to save them," Beckett told the centurion.
"How?" he asked.
"You can tell them what we are going to do, and advise them to lay down their weapons and turn Baltar over to us," Zeus answered.
"That is not an option."
Zeus simply shrugged his shoulders and held up a tricorder. He started to tap the screen, and the centurion held up a hand, "Wait!"
Zeus stopped tapping, but didn't lower the tricorder.
"I am signalling the fleet. I am warning them of what you are preparing to do."
Not more than two minutes later, a signal chimed on Zeus' tricorder. "The cylons are returning to their baseship.
Baltar's basestar…
Julius Baltar was seated in his throne, scowling at a centurion. "What do you mean, you are recalling the raiders? I ordered that they attack, and attack they shall!"
"No, Baltar," The centurion answered.
"I gave you a direct order!"
"And the centurion doesn't follow your orders, Baltar. He is a free Cylon." The voice was that of John Cavil.
Baltar whirled at the sound and scowled at the shadows beside his throne. He saw the glowing lights of Cavil's head both directly, and as they reflected off the dull steel surface of the armor worn by a huge blonde Norseman.
"Cavil!" Baltar sneered. "Have you and your muscular friend taken over?"
"I am the Imperious Leader of the Cylons," Cavil replied, ignoring the jibe. "You are an upstart, who has no right to sit in that throne."
"And yet, if I kill myself, I will be reborn a moment later."
"I wouldn't do that, Baltar," Thor warned.
"And why not, Norseman?"
"I am Supreme Commander of the Asgard Fleet. Not a Norseman," Thor said easily. "If you kill yourself, you will not resurrect. We have removed that ability from you."
Baltar's eyes widened and he asked, "How?"
"They are infecting the central computer with a worm virus. You will never resurrect again."
"Remove the worm!" Balter shouted.
"No."
"If the centurions tamper with the programming, explosives will go off, destroying the ability for any Cylon in this part of the universe to be resurrected," Cavil explained. "I feel it is a good trade to remove your individual ability to be resurrected rather than all Cylons suffer the same fate."
"I don't!" Baltar was frantic now.
"Your opinion does not count anymore, Julius Baltar," stated Thor flatly. He pointed at two centurions and said, "Remove him from the Imperious Leader's throne. He does not belong there."
"Gladly," one of them said, as they advanced on the deposed leader.
The centurions easily removed Baltar from the throne, and messages were sent out to all of the Cylons who had formerly been under Baltar's command. Interestingly, the prevalent emotion from the Cylons seemed to be relief.
"None of them want to divide the Cylon race," Cavil explained. "The divisiveness of humanity was one of our main problems with them."
"And yet," Thor commented, "Cylons would never have existed without the divisiveness of humanity. They were first created as a soldiers."
"That is true," conceded Cavil.
In the alpha quadrant…
Several ships had gathered at Deep Space Nine, and were preparing to traverse the wormhole. Sisko had the new Defiant, Riker was in the E, and Teal'c and Bra'tac had their ha'taks. At a signal from Colorado Springs, they would open the gate and go through.
Defiant was no longer the same class as Enterprise, as it had once been. Instead, it was a class of its own. Small and maneuverable, but with an engine output equal to a galaxy class ship, it was designed to be a destroyer.
The Defiant Class was originally built for fighting the Borg, but it was felt by its designers that it would handle the Dominion threat equally well.
The command staff of Deep Space Nine was set to be the command staff of Defiant, and they were on board Enterprise, seated in a large briefing room, listening to Admiral Jean Luc Picard as he explained what was intended by the coming incursion into Dominion space.
"Once Colorado Springs is in position," he explained, "we will make our way through the wormhole. O'Neill and the battlestars will be present to help us surround any Dominion vessels that might be waiting for us on the other side. Once those ships are dispatched, we will head toward the homeworld of the founders, via a circuitous route. Also, the battlestars and Colorado Springs will split up, hitting various planets at once."
"How will we know when Colorado Springs is ready for us?" Sisko asked.
"I am in the gamma quadrant at this moment, Benjamin Sisko," Teal'c told him. "I will inform Admiral Picard when the time is correct."
Deep Space Nine…
Lwaxana Troi was seated in Quark's bar, sipping at a raktajino. She had been frustrated with Bra'tac because he refused to allow her to stay on his ship when it entered the gamma quadrant. She understood his reluctance, however. It was the same as hers, allowing him to go off to war with the knowledge that he could very well be killed in battle. Her frustration was that Teal'c's wife, Ishta, travelled with him into battle, but she was a Jaffa, bred to be a warrior. Lwaxana was not.
"Mrs. Troi!" It was a voice she recognized.
"Hello, Mr. LaForge," she replied. "What are you doing here?"
The man was with another engineer, with silver hair and a mustache. "Actually," he confided, "I just go by Geordie, now."
"That's right. Mr. LaForge is on E," his friend laughed.
"I don't understand," Lwaxana said as they sat down across from her.
"Sort of like Admiral Picard and Merlin," Geordie explained. "There's two of me around."
"Both of us, Laddie." The older man held out a hand. "I'm Scotty, Mrs. Troi."
Now that she heard his name, she recognized him from the Picards' wedding. "Hello, Scotty," she said, taking his hand and shaking it. "It's nice to see you again." She turned to Geordie. "How are there two of you?"
"Well, we're both ascended. We're on our second time around on this era."
"How did you ascend?" she asked.
"We built a wee machine t' accelerate the development of a person's brain," Scotty explained.
"And then you had to try it on yourself first," she concluded.
"Well, sure!" Geordie exclaimed. "We wouldn't ask others to try something we hadn't made sure was safe ourselves!"
"So would your machine help me ascend?" she asked, thinking that it might be a way for her to attend the coming battle with Bra'tac.
The twins shared a look, then Scotty told her, "Lass, I dinna think ye'll be needin our help t'ascend."
She was about to reply, when Bra'tac entered the bar. He looked around, spied her, and walked over. The twins excused themselves, and Bra'tac sat down. "Teal'c has told us that within two hours, it will be time. I must tend my ship and crew."
Lwaxana started to say something, but bit her words back. Instead, she nodded, and her shoulders slumped in resignation. The Jaffa Master stood, moved to her side of the table, and sat down beside her. She made no sound as she placed her head on his shoulder, but he felt the dampness from her tears as they fell on his chest. He placed his arm around her and held her there for as long as he was able.
Gamma quadrant…
Gaeta loved the new computer systems on Galactica. He was able to calculate the jump between their current location and the wormhole coordinates in under thirty seconds. Because of the sensor upgrades, he was also able to see the individual ships they were about to face. There were at least a dozen in station keeping at the mouth of the wormhole. It was not a cheery greeting that they had to look forward to.
He showed the sensor scans to Adama, who contacted his son and O'Neill quickly. "Have you seen our 'welcoming committee' at the wormhole?"
"Boomer and I were just looking at them," Lee responded.
"Kinda what I expected," O'Neill said.
"I recommend we jump cloaked," Bill suggested.
O'Neill considered for a moment. "That's a huge power drain."
"Respectfully, it would give us a tactical advantage," Lee offered.
"That's true, but we need to be decloaked and have their attention before the wormhole opens to let our friends through." He thought about it, then said, "But, maybe we can pick off a few Dominion ships on our own before the cavalry comes."
"Sir?" Lee clearly didn't understand the reference.
"It's an Earth expression, Lee," he said smiling. "Ok. We'll go in with invisible guns blazing."
The Wormhole…
The Vorta, Luaran, was in command of the battle group positioned on the Dominion side of the wormhole. They had been waiting in vain for several weeks for Federation ships to come through, and she feared that they were starting to get lax.
For the fourth time today, she demanded a replay of the battle drill they had been running. Target drones were programmed and launched, and the simulated battle began in earnest.
Two of the target drones had been destroyed in the drill, and a third was being wore down, when an unexpected glowing amber projectile caught an attack vessel amidship. The resulting, all too real explosion destroyed every fighter and drone within a three kilometer radius.
"What happened?" Luaran demanded of her battle group. The response she received was another of her subordinates being hit by a second glowing piece of amber. "All vessels, full shields!" she screamed, even as pieces of the newly destroyed ship bounced off her vessel's armor. She told her computer to track the enemy fire back to its point of origin. Either there was more than one ship, or there was one that was extremely quick. The two shots had come from opposite locations behind her.
She strained to locate any ship in the surrounding space, and suddenly, from nowhere, a lighter colored, yellow glowing weapon appeared, moving swiftly in their direction. "Evasive action!" she yelled through the comlink to her subordinates. Whatever this new weapon was, it hit another one of her ships, and seemed to cling to its shields while draining the power out of them.
Another of the yellow weapons appeared from the same vicinity, but this time, she was ready. She targeted the launch point and fired her ship's torpedoes. They hit something and the discharge from their energy against shields was blinding. A moment later, the second yellow weapon hit her subordinate, blowing the already taxed shields and allowing the remaining energy through to the hull. There was a flash as the ship broke into several smaller chunks which rapidly travelled away from each other.
Before she could react, several fighters of unknown design were swarming over the remaining ships under her command. A moment later, the wormhole opened and Federation vessels started exiting.
Luaran moved her ship out of the fray, and cloaked it. She wasn't sure if her cloak would be effective against the Federation ships, but she wanted to be able to warn her gods. She watched and recorded sensor readings as her fleet fought against the powerful Federation vessels.
They made a valiant effort, too. One smaller Federation ship was darting in close, firing extremely powerful phasers and torpedoes at her ships. Right before one Dominion vessel exploded, it moved in even closer and fired point blank. She knew that it was Borath who was making the try, and he succeeded. The Federation vessel didn't explode, but enough of the energy penetrated the little ship's shields. Lightning moved along the warp nacelle on the starboard side, and then the warp core ejected out the bottom of the ship. It accelerated away, and it seemed to be directed toward a Dominion battleship. Once they connected, the core exploded in a flash that made her eyes burn. She was gratified to see that her vessel remained, but its external lights flickered and went out, even as its thrusters came on full power.
She had to move her ship out of the way, as the damaged Dominion vessel accelerated directly toward her. She considered destroying it, but that would only give away her position.
When she turned her attention back to the battle, she was surprised to see that none of her battleships remained. The smaller fighters had no place to land, and one by one, they exploded as their pilots recognized their predicaments. She saw that the smaller Federation ship was being drawn in by tractor beam to the giant city ship which had decloaked after her fighters started to self destruct. She saw also, that two enormous ships, each over a thousand meters long, had decloaked, and not only were hundreds of the small fighters landing in the open bay pods at the sides of each, many shuttles were launching and grappling the wreckage of her ships. They would then tow the wreckage to the landing bays. Clearly, they were intending to study Dominion technology.
She was furious, and went so far as to start a buildup of radiation in her warp drive. When it exploded, it would be powerful enough to destroy at least one of the Federation ships. Two things stopped her, however. One was the realization that while she might remove one of the huge ships, there would be six more to pick up the pieces.
The other was the very deliberate turning of one of the monstrous battleships toward her. She saw an enormous phaser array begin to glow menacingly, like a single red eye, on the dorsal hull of the bow. She powered down her warp drive overload, and the phaser charge stopped as well. Clearly, her cloak was ineffective. The Federation people had allowed her to live.
As if to confirm her thoughts, the huge vessel hailed her. "This is Admiral Bill Adama of the joint, Federation, Colonial fleet. You are ordered to vacate the area immediately, or you will be destroyed. I advise you to warn the Founders that we are heading directly to their homeworld. Tell them to prepare to surrender, or be destroyed."
Luaran turned her ship and wasted no time accelerating into warp space.
Defiant…
One of the Jem'Hadar ships had fired at them, point blank, when they were swooping in to take it out. Sisko had ordered evasive action as he saw the ship move toward them, but it was far too late. Dax had managed to get the bridge turned away from the incoming torpedo, but it had hit the starboard warp nacelle.
Kira and O'Brien had been in the engine room when the power surged back through the EPS conduits. Miles was thrown across the small room by the sheer force of energy surging through the conduits, but Kira was caught under a work station. The blast tore her left leg off her body, while creating shrapnel from the EPS control panel which pierced her left side in several places. As soon as he realized what happened, O'Brien frantically ordered the computer to eject the core, switch over to auxiliary power, and beam them both directly to sickbay.
Bashir worked feverishly over Kira, while the emergency medical hologram tended to the Chief's relatively minor wounds.
Once Defiant was tethered to Colorado Springs, Sisko and Odo rushed to sickbay. They stood outside the sterile field and waited. Sisko wasn't quite sure why Odo seemed as concerned as he did, but he didn't question it. The changeling and the Bajoran had known each other for a long time. They were doubtless good friends.
The EMH had joined Bashir, and they were both bent over the prone form on the surgical bed. Finally, the human doctor looked the hologram in the eyes, and shook his head slightly. The holographic doctor grimaced, stood up straight and set down the instruments he had been holding.
"Hologram off," Julian Bashir said as he turned to face the observers. The EMH faded out of sight, and Bashir stepped out of the sterile field. "There's nothing I can do," He told his captain and security chief. "She's dying."
"You did what you could, Doctor," Sisko told him, but Odo suddenly took a huge step forward. His legs became gelatinous, and in a single step, he was at Kira's side. His legs returned to normal, but now, his hands morphed into goo as he touched her body. The substance of the changeling flowed around the unconscious major.
"What are you doing?" Bashir shouted the question.
"Saving her life," was the gravelly reply from the changeling.
As suddenly as he had moved, Odo withdrew his hands from her. He swayed a bit as he stood, as if what he had done had required an enormous amount of effort. He stepped back out of the sterile field and looked around the room. He spied a case used for medical equipment and stretched out his body, to pour himself into it.
Bashir ignored him and rushed to Kira's side. "Activate EMH!"
"Please state the nature of the medical emergency."
"Odo did something to Kira. Get over here and help me figure out what!"
Sisko moved to the equipment case where Odo now resided and picked it up. "I'll be back in a few minutes, Doctor."
"Don't destroy him, Captain!" called Bashir. "We might need him."
"I'm taking him to the brig."
After Sisko left, the EMH commented, "This is incredible. There are new cells forming all throughout her body." He reached down to where a piece of metal was wiggling it's way out of her arm. "Something is pushing the shrapnel out of her, while maintaining the integrity of her body."
They watched as her hip, partially amputated by the blast that removed her leg, began to pulsate and grow, exactly like Odo did when he changed shape. A moment later, there was a full leg attached to Kira, where before, there had been a stump.
"Her vital signs are stabilizing," Bashir said, running a sensor over her body.
Several minutes later, the Bajoran woman was resting quietly. Now, they had only to wait and see if her brain had been repaired as thoroughly as the rest of her body had.