O’Brien entered the science lab carrying a set of transport pattern enhancers. He set the case down and slid each of the three rods one at a time. He then arranged the rods in a triangular formation around the marble chest containing the jewel, making sure to activate each rod by turning the knobs on the top. “Pattern enhancers are in place,” he said, tapping his combadge to signal Ops. “Are you ready up there, Lieutenant?”
“We’re locked on,” Dax replied from the Ops engineering station.
“Energizing.”
Blue lasers appeared around the enhancer rods. The chest slowly dematerialized, but then quickly reappeared. At the same time, the enhancer rods burned out, as did consoles in the lab and Ops.
“What happened?” Sisko demanded as the emergency lights in Ops flickered out.
“I’m not sure,” Dax replied with befuddlement while tapping various controls on the engineering console, “but somehow the energizer overloaded.”
Konnert Ros skulked through a corridor in the central core trying to avoid drawing too much attention from passers-by. He did hear chatter from several people down an adjoining corridor. Konnert backed up towards a door and waited for those people to pass. Three male human engineers sauntered by while discussing how to prioritize repairs to the reactor core. It was just his luck, he thought, that he wound up somewhere in the central core, which would be heavily populated with repair people. Then again, that was to be expected since the transporter beam shorted out mid-transport. His main priority now was to get to the science lab and get ahold of the device that was responsible for his escape.
It seemed fairly simple considering he had gotten away with several murders other than the one of which he was convicted. Even the best law enforcement officer in the sector had not proven him guilty of those four other murders. Not that it mattered since the state could only execute him once. He bolted down the corridor once the engineering crewmen had disappeared from view, but was quickly stopped in his tracks when a forcefield appeared in front of him. He did a full turn and saw another forcefield appear behind him.
A Bajoran security deputy approached him from both directions. The deputy standing in front of Konnert entered a command on the wall panel to disengage the forcefield. Immediately after the forcefield went down, Konnert grabbed the deputy by the collar and hurled him thirty feet down the corridor.
The second deputy then deactivated the other forcefield and lunged towards Konnert. Konnert reacted quickly, grabbing the deputy’s arm and removing the phaser from his hand with the same superhuman strength that incapacitated his other would-be captor. The fugitive then used his free arm to put a chokehold on his hostage’s neck and coaxed him down the corridor.
Konnert was immediately intercepted by a reinforcement of four Bajoran and Starfleet security officers. “Back off or he dies,” he quickly demanded, jamming the butt of the phaser against his hostage’s right temple.
The ranking Starfleet security officer holstered his phaser while putting up his free hand, signaling the other officers to stand down. All four of them stood aside and allowed the fugitive and his hostage to pass.
Chief O’Brien stepped out of the pit with a laser torch in hand, having at least gotten the emergency lights in Ops working again. “That should keep some of the station’s basic functions up and running for awhile,” he informed the senior officers while making a beeline to the Ops table.
“What have you been able to make of these malfunctions?” Sisko asked. “Any kind of pattern?”
O’Brien scoffed, uncertain how to respond, but knowing the commander was expecting some kind of an answer to his query. “There doesn’t seem to be any pattern at all,” he reluctantly answered. “First, it played havoc with the life support system in the science lab. Then it interfered with the transporters on two different occasions.”
“It’s possible this entity has no malevolent intentions,” Dax offered. “It’s trying in its own way to master the station’s systems.”
“But eventually it will affect a complete takeover of station systems,” Kira rebutted. “That sounds pretty malevolent to me.”
“I’d hardly call it a coincidence,” O’Brien dismissively chimed in, “that the transporters crashed when we beaming a convicted killer out of the holding cell.”
“You may have a point,” Dax conceded. “But Chief, you were aboard the
Enterprise at the time it was ferrying Selay and Antican delegates?”
“That’s right,” O’Brien said with a slight cringe at being reminded of the goriness of that particular mission. “Working security and trying to keep one group of delegates from making a meal out of the other.”
“The creature that had infested the ship’s systems was simply trying to escape imprisonment,” Dax elaborated. “It just happened to be causing a set of random malfunctions. And it killed the deputy chief engineer, most likely by accident.”
Not wanting this meeting to be nothing but theorizing about the offending entity’s intentions, Sisko put his hands up to quiet everyone. “Right now, it’s all just speculation. We have to consider this entity a threat to the station, so…”
Sisko was quickly interrupted by the sound of the comm chirping. His eyes widened with anticipation that station security had apprehended Konnert Ros. Instead, Konnert himself was on the other end.
“Hello? Commander Sisko?”
“This is Sisko. Where are you?”
“Now you don’t think I’d just tell you where I am without some assurances that you won’t seal off that section of the station?” Konnert taunted. “Though I am in the science lab and your archeologist and one of your security men are my hostages. They’re both dead unless you get me off this station and onto a ship bound for the Gamma Quadrant.”
“You don’t think I’d easily accept those terms…” Again, he was interrupted when he heard a scream over the comm-line.
“That was your security deputy I just killed,” Konnert coldly informed the group in Ops.
“If you don’t do as I ask…”
Sisko quickly looked at Kira and gave gesture for her to close the channel, which she immediately did. “Major, you’re with me,” he added. “Have a security team meet us there. Sisko to Bashir: report to the science lab. We may have wounded there.”
“I’m on my way,” the doctor briskly replied over the comm.
Odo was outside the science lab, flanked by a security team that included two Starfleet officers and two Bajoran deputies. He had instructed the other guards to stay clear of the door while he attempted to open the door. The constable grunted in frustration after each failed attempt to unlock the door, but still kept his calm knowing that he would eventually recapture the escaped prisoner. That would an even more satisfying victory than finally proving Konnert guilty of murder.
Sisko arrived alongside Kira and Bashir and immediately asked Odo’s status. “Any luck getting inside?”
“None,” Odo grumbled. “He’s placed a three-layered encryption on the locking mechanism which resets itself every ten seconds.”
Sisko pushed a control on the door panel to activate audio communications to the lab. “Konnert, this is Sisko. I’m right outside the lab. The station’s on lockdown. There’s nowhere to run.”
The doors quickly opened, revealing Konnert holding a Bajoran Militia phaser to Retan Halnok’s head. “I beg to differ,” Konnert wryly contended. “I still have one hostage. Now tell the shapeshifter and his security men to back off or I blow his head off.”
Sisko nodded to Odo, who then nodded to the members of his security team instructing them keep a considerable distance from the entryway.
“Don’t listen to him, Commander,” Halnok insisted. Despite how adamant he was that Sisko not give in to his captor’s demands, his lips were quivering in fear. Konnert immediately recognized that, and he tightened his forearm’s grip around the scientist’s neck.
“You say that now, Zakdorn,” Konnert hissed in Halnok’s ear. “But the fear in your voice suggests you want me to escape so I can spare your life.” He then looked in Sisko’s direction. “I may have a hand on the trigger, but his blood will be on your hands, Sisko. Aren’t you Starfleet officers sworn to keep civilians out of danger at any cost?”
“Yes,” Sisko affirmed, “but under no circumstances are you getting off this station.”
“You don’t have any choice,” Konnert snarled. “Get me off this station, or he dies. It’s as simple as that!” He took slow steps back towards the marble chest while maintaining his hold on his hostage. “This is what assured my escape,” he said, removing the jewel from the chest. “This will let me start a new life in the Gamma Quadrant.”
Moments later, though, the jewel started glowing, and Konnert winced in pain. During that brief instant of weakness, he had managed to loosen his grip on Halnok, who then scurried towards Sisko and his group. Konnert’s eyes were suddenly glowing red, which caught Kira’s attention. She looked at Sisko, her lips agape, and then back at Konnert.
“Who are you?” she demanded.
Konnert spoke in a much lower-pitched register. “I am known in your mythos as
Kosst Amojan. On other worlds I’ve traveled to, I am known as
Kesla,
Beratis…
Redjac.”
Sisko’s eyes widened in reaction to hearing the last name Konnert had uttered. But before anyone else could speak, the light emanating from the jewel grew in intensity soon encompassing the fugitive’s whole body. Both the entity in the jewel and the one who had taken Konnert as a host merged and quickly breezed through the bulkhead out into open space.
Konnert then collapsed to the deck, prompting Bashir to check on the man’s condition. “He’s dead,” he told the rest of the group.
Everyone else remained speechless in reaction to what had just transpired. Still, the revelation that Konnert Ros was the host to an infamously known malevolent entity provided some explanation about the cold-blooded killer he had become.
Following the bizarre affair, Sisko convened a staff meeting in Ops. Kira, Dax, and O’Brien were seated at the commander’s left while Odo and Bashir were seated to the right. Sisko gave a succinct explanation of Starfleet’s first encounter with the entity known as Redjac. The crew of the USS
Enterprise under the command of Captain James Kirk had learned of the existence of a malevolent entity that fed on the fear of its victims. “Captain Kirk and his staff had pieced together a pattern to unsolved murders committed on Earth and the first Earth colonies over the centuries,” he informed his senior officers. “Three women on Argelius had been stabbed to death in similar fashion. Once he was discovered, Redjac had abandoned his humanoid host and took over the ship’s computers. Kirk eventually maneuvered the entity to return to that host body and had the transporter set on maximum dispersal.”
“Kirk had to have known the entity might be able to reconstitute itself eventually,” Dax chimed in.
“Perhaps it was still in the process of reconstituting itself when it entered a new host,” Bashir speculated. “That would explain why the host wasn’t showing superhuman strength until his escape from incarceration. If it could take over the station’s computer system, it probably would have.”
The rest of the senior staff shot quick glances at Bashir to indicate their agreement. O’Brien chuckled lightly as he considered the irony that the entity that exorcised the demon was the cause the recent round of malfunctions.
“Bajoran ancient texts,” Kira informed the group, “mention ‘false prophets’ being cast out of the Celestial Temple and incarcerated in the Underworld. One of them is said to have escaped and will one day bring about the next great battle between good and evil. We call it the
Kosst Amjoan--the Evil One.”
“So perhaps our mysterious jewel must have been used for performing exorcisms,” Dax half-jokingly suggested.
Sisko slowly nodded in agreement when no one else expressed amusement. “Well, let us be thankful that Jack the Ripper won’t be bothering us again anytime soon.”
