CHAPTER THIRTY
March 30, 2401
The two days that had followed Quark’s unexpected arrival had been days of scavenging for the Engineering Task Force. They had swarmed inside the Dreadnought like a flight of locusts, searching for any clue about the Dominion’s new weapon systems, which had killed so many of their fellow engineers, cadets, etc.
It hadn’t taken long for them to find out what they were hoping for: the dreaded Reman disruptor array, incorporated to the already lethal warship, and which seemed capable to eat through any shields like a hot knife in butter. And so they had started cannibalizing the monster brought to them by their friendly neighbors, the Ferengis.
Quark had from then on been treated like a VIP, even if any attempt to hail Ferenginar had been a failure. He had been escorted to the Samurai and greeted by Wilkins in person.
“Hmm! I guess I should come more often, don’t you think so, Admiral?”
“Anytime you have a Dominion ship in your backyard and you don’t know what to do with it, Ambassador, you’re welcome to dump it here.”
“Oh, we had a couple ideas, but we thought you might use this one faster than we will be able to.”
“This one? Are there others?”
“My, my, you don’t seem to be very up to date about what’s happening in the Alpha Quadrant anymore, do you, Admiral? Maybe I should update you and your Command, shouldn’t I?”
***
Annie had taken Sabrina by the hand and brought her to the shuttle she had used to transport from the Chameleon to the Samurai. They had gone to the station and taken one of the guest rooms OK1 provided to visitors.
Sabrina had taken a chair, Annie had remained standing, and looked at her friend with a surprised expression.
“Tired?”
“Not exactly.”
“Hungry?”
“Not really.”
Annie knew something was wrong, and she would find out what.
“What’s wrong then?”
Sabrina looked at her friend. Of course something was wrong. But how would she explain that to her friend, her lover, the one who had convinced her that life was worth living?
“Congratulations on your promotion. So you are Varel’s First Officer?”
“When she assumed command, she asked me to do the best I could. For a while, I didn’t know what I was doing, but she was very patient with me. Once she felt I deserved it, she accepted my request for transfer to Command. Eventually she promoted me.”
“I am sure it was amply deserved. How long did it take you to come home?”
“Six months.”
“Just like me.”
Annie looked at her friend, almost shocked.
“You have been on Bajor for the last three months?”
“Yes. Meditating on everything I had lived through, assembling the pieces of the puzzle if you wish. It was … overwhelming, to say the least.”
“What happened to you, Sabrina?” Annie asked, kneeling in front of her friend, her hand on her thigh.
Sabrina put her hand in Annie’s hair. She had almost yelped when her friend had put her hand in hers to take her there, then again when she had put her hand on her thigh. It felt so good, after all that time. But now, playing in her hair, feeling the tickle in her palm …
“I hope you are comfortable on the floor.”
“I’m comfortable with you.”
Sabrina sighed. Of course she was. She had just found her friend again, and she was obviously hoping that, besides the fact that she was now a Bajoran, nothing else had changed. But that was just the problem. Everything had changed.
And Sabrina didn’t feel as comfortable as before with Annie …
***
Quark had taken a seat, accepted the glass of Bordeaux Wilkins had served him, tasted it, spit it back in the glass, exchanged it for a glass of water. Now he was ready to talk.
“Ever heard of the Lytasians, Admiral?”
“Your sworn enemies since the dawn of time?”
“Yes. These last few decades, they had left us pretty well alone, but these last two years, they multiplied the incursions in our colonies. We had to fight them again and again, but we didn’t have what it took to carry the battle in their space. Until four months ago, when everything changed.”
Quark stopped to gauge the effect on his captive audience. Wilkins answered with the poker face which had earned him Tomalak’s respect. Seeing that, after a long smile, Quark continued:
“There was a battle close to our space. It opposed this ship and two others. Now the interesting detail is that those two other ships — they too were Dominion Dreadnoughts. And they fired and fired on each other, damaging each other to the point that the three ships were completely immobilized in space and without power.”
“Is that when you boarded them?”
“Wouldn’t you have?”
“Of course”, Wilkins smiled.
“So did we. Most of the people on board were dead. But — and this is the most disconcerting part — while the lonely one was manned by Jem’Hadars and the usual Vorta, the other two were manned by much smaller non-Dominion crews. Now would you like to take a guess at the identity of those non-Dominion fighters?”
Wilkins remembered the conversation Sabrina had had with him and his Command a long time ago about the ships which had attacked the original Chameleon.
“We all know that as a general rule, the Jem'Hadars will attack in waves of three, one wave firing, then the next, until the enemy is either destroyed or boarded. They almost never depart from that tactic, unless they are engaged in a big battle, in which case they act more or less individually. This was not a big battle, Sir. There was no reason for them to depart from their usual tactics.”
“They had no reason to adhere to it either. They knew that they couldn't lose.”
“But the point is they did, Sir. Once they found out that the Chameleon would be harder to destroy than they thought, they would have returned to their winning tactics. They never did.”
“So?”
“I don't believe those ships were operated by Jem'Hadars, Sir.”
“Who then?”
“They used tactics strikingly similar to those used by the Borg, Sir.”
Wilkins faced Quark and, with the most innocent face he could muster, replied:
“Borg?”
The Ferengi almost choked on the glass of water he was sipping from.
***
Sabrina had decided to be honest with her friend. It was the least she could do.
“So your feelings are back.”
“Yes, Annie.”
“When did it happen?”
“Probably at the beginning of my abduction. I figure that it is also then that I evolved to the Bajoran form.”
“Evolved? You mean transformed?”
Sabrina bit her lips. She so wanted to have used another word. But it was done now, and the night would be long, very, very long …
March 30, 2401
The two days that had followed Quark’s unexpected arrival had been days of scavenging for the Engineering Task Force. They had swarmed inside the Dreadnought like a flight of locusts, searching for any clue about the Dominion’s new weapon systems, which had killed so many of their fellow engineers, cadets, etc.
It hadn’t taken long for them to find out what they were hoping for: the dreaded Reman disruptor array, incorporated to the already lethal warship, and which seemed capable to eat through any shields like a hot knife in butter. And so they had started cannibalizing the monster brought to them by their friendly neighbors, the Ferengis.
Quark had from then on been treated like a VIP, even if any attempt to hail Ferenginar had been a failure. He had been escorted to the Samurai and greeted by Wilkins in person.
“Hmm! I guess I should come more often, don’t you think so, Admiral?”
“Anytime you have a Dominion ship in your backyard and you don’t know what to do with it, Ambassador, you’re welcome to dump it here.”
“Oh, we had a couple ideas, but we thought you might use this one faster than we will be able to.”
“This one? Are there others?”
“My, my, you don’t seem to be very up to date about what’s happening in the Alpha Quadrant anymore, do you, Admiral? Maybe I should update you and your Command, shouldn’t I?”
***
Annie had taken Sabrina by the hand and brought her to the shuttle she had used to transport from the Chameleon to the Samurai. They had gone to the station and taken one of the guest rooms OK1 provided to visitors.
Sabrina had taken a chair, Annie had remained standing, and looked at her friend with a surprised expression.
“Tired?”
“Not exactly.”
“Hungry?”
“Not really.”
Annie knew something was wrong, and she would find out what.
“What’s wrong then?”
Sabrina looked at her friend. Of course something was wrong. But how would she explain that to her friend, her lover, the one who had convinced her that life was worth living?
“Congratulations on your promotion. So you are Varel’s First Officer?”
“When she assumed command, she asked me to do the best I could. For a while, I didn’t know what I was doing, but she was very patient with me. Once she felt I deserved it, she accepted my request for transfer to Command. Eventually she promoted me.”
“I am sure it was amply deserved. How long did it take you to come home?”
“Six months.”
“Just like me.”
Annie looked at her friend, almost shocked.
“You have been on Bajor for the last three months?”
“Yes. Meditating on everything I had lived through, assembling the pieces of the puzzle if you wish. It was … overwhelming, to say the least.”
“What happened to you, Sabrina?” Annie asked, kneeling in front of her friend, her hand on her thigh.
Sabrina put her hand in Annie’s hair. She had almost yelped when her friend had put her hand in hers to take her there, then again when she had put her hand on her thigh. It felt so good, after all that time. But now, playing in her hair, feeling the tickle in her palm …
“I hope you are comfortable on the floor.”
“I’m comfortable with you.”
Sabrina sighed. Of course she was. She had just found her friend again, and she was obviously hoping that, besides the fact that she was now a Bajoran, nothing else had changed. But that was just the problem. Everything had changed.
And Sabrina didn’t feel as comfortable as before with Annie …
***
Quark had taken a seat, accepted the glass of Bordeaux Wilkins had served him, tasted it, spit it back in the glass, exchanged it for a glass of water. Now he was ready to talk.
“Ever heard of the Lytasians, Admiral?”
“Your sworn enemies since the dawn of time?”
“Yes. These last few decades, they had left us pretty well alone, but these last two years, they multiplied the incursions in our colonies. We had to fight them again and again, but we didn’t have what it took to carry the battle in their space. Until four months ago, when everything changed.”
Quark stopped to gauge the effect on his captive audience. Wilkins answered with the poker face which had earned him Tomalak’s respect. Seeing that, after a long smile, Quark continued:
“There was a battle close to our space. It opposed this ship and two others. Now the interesting detail is that those two other ships — they too were Dominion Dreadnoughts. And they fired and fired on each other, damaging each other to the point that the three ships were completely immobilized in space and without power.”
“Is that when you boarded them?”
“Wouldn’t you have?”
“Of course”, Wilkins smiled.
“So did we. Most of the people on board were dead. But — and this is the most disconcerting part — while the lonely one was manned by Jem’Hadars and the usual Vorta, the other two were manned by much smaller non-Dominion crews. Now would you like to take a guess at the identity of those non-Dominion fighters?”
Wilkins remembered the conversation Sabrina had had with him and his Command a long time ago about the ships which had attacked the original Chameleon.
“We all know that as a general rule, the Jem'Hadars will attack in waves of three, one wave firing, then the next, until the enemy is either destroyed or boarded. They almost never depart from that tactic, unless they are engaged in a big battle, in which case they act more or less individually. This was not a big battle, Sir. There was no reason for them to depart from their usual tactics.”
“They had no reason to adhere to it either. They knew that they couldn't lose.”
“But the point is they did, Sir. Once they found out that the Chameleon would be harder to destroy than they thought, they would have returned to their winning tactics. They never did.”
“So?”
“I don't believe those ships were operated by Jem'Hadars, Sir.”
“Who then?”
“They used tactics strikingly similar to those used by the Borg, Sir.”
Wilkins faced Quark and, with the most innocent face he could muster, replied:
“Borg?”
The Ferengi almost choked on the glass of water he was sipping from.
***
Sabrina had decided to be honest with her friend. It was the least she could do.
“So your feelings are back.”
“Yes, Annie.”
“When did it happen?”
“Probably at the beginning of my abduction. I figure that it is also then that I evolved to the Bajoran form.”
“Evolved? You mean transformed?”
Sabrina bit her lips. She so wanted to have used another word. But it was done now, and the night would be long, very, very long …
