CHAPTER TWELVE
February 29, 2400
"Humongous!"
That was the word Teroth had used eight days earlier, when "it" had ended the Mogai's travels through the Gamma Quadrant.
Indeed, the object was humongous. It looked like the saucer of a galaxy-Class starship (the original design, made famous by the Enterprise-D), except for the two kind of fins in its behind, on both sides, port and starboard, and the fact that it looked more like an enormous block of concrete covered with an intricate network of what looked like tubules. There were no windows of any kind. In fact, it seemed to simply move in space, blind and aimless.
The term definitely applied, as it was about four hundred kilometers long, five hundred kilometers wide, and one hundred kilometers high … if one assumed that the saucer was supposed to be seen from a relatively horizontal perspective by the observer.
While the Mogai was running away from the sixteen Dreadnoughts in pursuit, she had been lured right in front of the behemoth. As she tried to evade, she had been stopped by a red tractor beam which had immobilized her in flight. Then the monster had opened some kind of giant eye …
***
"88,567, Sir."
Teroth looked at the young female. She had no problems with Starfleet officers any longer. After all, her ship, her crew, herself were practically Starfleet now, since the Great Invasion of 2388 and the retreat of what was left of the Romulan forces into Federation space.
She had no problems with young people either. Although she was now 123 herself, which meant she was from the Old Guard, she didn't mind people almost 100 years younger than she was taking charge of a position as important as Science Officer on her ship.
But T'Shiya was a Vulcan. And Vulcans, she still had trouble with. Not of a racial nature really, since after all they were practically first cousins, but more of a cultural nature.
"Are you sure, Lieutenant?" she replied with a naughty smile.
"Yes, Sir."
That was another thing. Did she look like a man? Of course not. She knew that it was customary in Starfleet to call "Sir" a superior officer, but she simply hated it.
"I counted 88,568."
"I assure you, Sir, that I have been most thorough in my calculations …"
T'Shiya stopped. Of course. It was a joke, an attempt at defusing a very tense situation.
"Do you wish to check my calculations, Sir?"
Teroth turned around.
"That will not be necessary, Lieutenant. So this is six times the number of …"
"5.805 exactly, Sir."
Teroth sighed inside. The arrogance of that young Vulcan! But she would be patient.
"5.805, of course. I stand corrected."
"That was not my goal, Sir. I am sorry."
Of course, she was sorry. Of course she did not want to offend her Commander — hell, Captain, as far as she was concerned. But it still was irritating …
***
Molly had spent three days and nights in Deep Space Nine's Sickbay, where she had had all the time in the world to get reacquainted with Julian, who had tested her a million ways to finally find her fit for duty.
"So, Doctor, this is your final report?" Fox and Kira had asked him almost in one voice.
"Yes, Admirals, the Lieutenant is not a changeling, she is not a walking bomb or tracking or spying device of any kind. There is no alien technology in her. She is just who she appears to be: the daughter of Admiral O'Brien with a serious case of jitter when anyone touches her by surprise, and a hole big as a torpedo impact in her memory."
Molly had been quite thoroughly debriefed about her disappearance. She remembered an explosion, then the feeling that her surroundings were disappearing, then …
Yeah, she remembered the small, hot, damp, musky room where she had been tied to the chair half-naked. She remembered the injections, the occasional slaps, then those fists hurting her all around the head. She remembered the plasma whips, the painsticks, the meqleHs, all those tools to which she had not reacted, just trying to remember the best moments of her life, the vacations she spent with her mother the year before Kirayoshi's death …
"And you resisted to all that until …"
"I remember that woman being particularly angry that day, Aunt Nerys. She had been very harsh with my interrogators, then she had taken the painstick from one of them and had started beating me up with it … I lost consciousness and … I woke up in a corner of the station, cleaned and dressed. Only when I was told did I realize that six days had gone by."
Molly remembered nothing of what had happened after, but she clearly remembered everything before her final loss of consciousness. She particularly remembered the results of her investigations, on which Sonya Gomez had been told to debrief her.
"Commander, the saboteurs used bilitrium, of Ferengi origin, and tekasite, a Dominion explosive. The actuator was Romulan."
"Damn. That means …"
"I see you are familiar with the Daystrom Institute research on subspace weapons."
"But then, if that weapon came into Klingon hands, it means …"
"Yes, Commander. The Children of Grethor seem to have much more diversified connections than we ever thought possible."
"But why did they kidnap you?"
"I don't think they did."
"Lieutenant O'Brien is adamant, Sir. Her abductors were operating as a military organization. We know that the Children of Grethor operate more like some kind of cult. She believes her abductors are Soldiers of Kahless."
Charles Fox was not happy. His report to Wilkins would not be the kind the Commander in Chief wanted to hear. But at least it would clarify the situation and maybe bring some Klingons to be a little more open with him …
"Thank you, Commander. That will be all."
"I have a request, Sir."
"I'm listening."
"Lieutenant O'Brien is a brilliant engineer. As you know, I am mostly busy with enhancing the ships, and the work on the station is practically nonexistent. I wish I could delegate that part of the work to her."
Fox, Kira and Rashid had looked at each other. Of course, it seemed like a good idea, but there still were those doubts about what had happened to her. They all felt like she was some kind of security risk. And yet …
"Ensign Dax promised to check on her daily."
"Yes, that is good, but Ensign Dax can't read thoughts. I'd rather have a Betazoid."
"There is one on the Valiant, but she's not a counselor. She's security."
"Perfect! She'll be Miss O'Brien's bodyguard."
"You mean watcher?"
"Well, we don't want to lose the Lieutenant again, do we?"
***
The Romulan Attack Fighter Deletham was receiving a special, long-term visit today. But one of the visitors knew her way all around the ship.
Lieutenant Commander Yirina Sorel, recently promoted by O'Brien, Starfleet Engineer extraordinaire, was heading the team.
Lieutenant Junior Grade Miral Paris, promoted to serve as Yirina's assistant, was still wondering what the hell had just happened. Of course her first suspicion had been …
"Mother, I have been promoted."
"Congratulations."
"Is it your decision, Mother?"
"Of course! My lesbian daughter deserved, needed a promotion. I was happy to make it happen for you!" B'Elanna had answered in a quite acerbic tone.
"Damn, Mother! How many times do I have to tell you? We had fought together, we went to my quarters to take a sonic shower …"
"Together?"
"NO! I kissed her to defy you, because you have no right to come in my quarters without asking first! We're both Starfleet officers, Mother, and without a valid reason …"
"I see. And I'm supposed to believe you?"
"YES, Mother! Because I may sometimes be defiant, but I never lie — at least not without telling you the truth later!"
"The promotion was not my idea, Miral. It came from that little Romulan girl."
"Yirina?"
"Yes. She chose you as her assistant, because she knows you and she trusts you. A promotion was required, you were already on the list anyway, Starfleet Command, not me, with your new Captain's authorization, made it a little quicker than usual, that's it."
"And I'm supposed to believe you?" Miral said with a smile.
"You must."
And so Miral had believed her mother, with reason.
There were in all eighteen members in the team. Among them, a total of eight were between the ages of 20 and 24: five humans, one half-Human half-Ktarian, one half-Human half-Bajoran, all girls, who would be affected to Miral.
Of those eight, the most brilliant was undoubtedly Catherine DeSoto. At 22, she was already a prominent member of the Analytic Team of the Daystrom Institute, and Wilkins had pushed her name on the list when others believed that she needed more experience. She had opened the door for the others.
The other Lieutenant Junior Grade of the group was older and a little bit taller than the 1.40-meter DeSoto, and her name had caused no controversy. Naomi Wildman had made her mark at Starfleet Academy, incorporating some basic Borg designs to the enhanced warp drive which would someday supplant the Mark XXI, currently the most advanced warp drive used by the Federation and their allies.
Other representatives of the wave initiated by DeSoto were Laurel Colt and Ginger Stanley, who had been through all of Starfleet Academy sharing the same quarters, and would keep doing so on the Deletham, and Alice Lennox and Jian Xu, who had met at their arrival and were already teasing each other with stupid jokes and becoming bosom buddies.
Now the last duo didn't look like it would have such luck.
Ensign Kelly Ripa was the half-Human half-Bajoran. Only her nose was much more human than Bajoran, so everyone called her "Ensign Ripa". But Ripa had set her heart on following her Bajoran heritage, and therefore was more suitably addressed as "Ensign Kelly", or "Ripa" for her friends. Of which her roommate, Segura Boran, seemed to have no chance of ever becoming.
After all, she was a Cardassian, the very first Cardassian in Starfleet …
***
"People, I'll be brief. We are eighteen, soon we will be more, as the Romulans are assembling a team of analysts. Let's not wait for them. Our mission is simple, Admiral Torres summarized it in one sentence: Find what makes that damn ship of hell tick! Well, that we will do. Lieutenant Paris will lead the Beta Team, I'll take charge of the Alpha Team. Beta Team, you look at propulsion. We'll try to find out the power source. The Gamma Team, which we'll compose when everyone is there, will work on primary systems: navigation, weapons, life support, etc. Lieutenant DeSoto, you'll lead the Gamma Team, but for now, you work with Miral."
"Yes, Sir!"
"I'm a female, Lieutenant. Questions? No? Dismissed. First shift at 0600 tomorrow."
After they all dispersed, Yirina turned to her new mentor.
"Well?"
B'Elanna smiled.
"You have command in your blood, Rommie. You'll do fine. Just remember that now YOU are in charge. I was here only to make that point clear to everyone. Why did you assign the Bajoran and the Cardassian to the same quarters?"
"Because I like a clear situation. They will either like or hate each other, but at least they'll learn to communicate together, and I expect all members of this team to communicate with each other."
"Interesting choice."
"I also expect your daughter to beat the crap out of them if they don't, Admiral."
"That she'll most certainly do, Yirina. Well, duty calls. Try to report once in a while!"
***
Sabrina had thought about it for a very long time.
Annie had encouraged her by any means necessary, spending hours with her, playing the Devil's Advocate time and time again. The night before they had not slept at all, reviewing once again the evidence.
But now there she was, all alone in front of Admirals Wilkins, Karov and Tomalak. That literally had scared the shit out of her, but now, thanks to the prompt intervention of McCoy, she was feeling much better.
"So, Lieutenant", Wilkins started, "two weeks in Advanced Tactical give you the impression that you can teach us something?"
"Huh …"
"Well, you never know. Go on, teach us."
Her first experience with Wilkins, fourteen days earlier, had taught Sabrina that the Admiral liked to joke. But even if that was the case, the other two were looking damn serious.
"Sirs, this is a tactical summary of the attacks the Chameleon endured from the Jem'Hadar ships during her mission. Please pay attention to their relative displacements as they arrive on the site of the battle and on their way of positioning themselves."
It took a few minutes, until Karov roared:
"They do not attack in threes!"
Sabrina turned around.
"Exactly, Admiral. 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."
"So?" Tomalak asked.
"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?" Wilkins asked, in a very serious yet encouraging tone.
Sabrina looked at him, then at the other two. They seemed to wait her answer quite earnestly.
"From what we learn in Advanced Tactical, Sir, their tactics strongly resemble …"
She hesitated.
"Yes?" Wilkins encouraged her.
"They used tactics strikingly similar to those used by the Borg, Sir."
***
"Lieutenant Junior Grade Savia Rem reporting for duty, Sir!"
Molly looked at the petite woman.
"Did I ask for you?"
"No, Sir. I've been assigned to serve as your bodyguard, Sir."
"Do I need a bodyguard on this station?"
"Admiral Fox thinks you do, Sir."
"Well then, I guess it answers my other question. I hope you like walking, Savia, because you are going to do that all over the station several times a day."
"Where you go I follow, Sir!"
Yeah! Of course you do. And every night you report to Fox or to Tahn about my whereabouts, my actions and my most intimate thoughts. Don't think for a minute that I don't recognize a Betazoid when I see one.
Well, Molly, it's official: you're viewed as a security risk, and your commanding officers distrust you. So, I guess the best way to get their trust back is to go on with this charade and make the station invulnerable!
***
Sabrina had left. She had no idea if she had had an impact or not.
But she had.
"Damn! That would confirm O'Brien's hypothesis."
"That the Borg would have assimilated Dominion technology?" Tomalak asked. "Somehow I find hard to believe that they would have renounced their cubical shape for Dominion models".
"Until a few minutes ago, we had the luxury of thinking that the Dominion had found and adapted Borg technology, but since their tactics were not Jem'Hadar-like, we can't believe that any longer."
"But the Commodore said that the weapons were Borg-like, not specifically Borg, nor Dominion."
"Maybe that new design couldn't accommodate Borg weapons."
"Why change then?"
***
The two men were obviously very satisfied by what they had been reading.
"Aaaah, that's better. I do not wish to see them sink into oblivion painlessly. I do not wish to destroy them, my friend. At least not now. I wish to hurt them, hurt them again, and keep hurting them. THEN … I wish them to die slowly, inexorably."
"And of course, we wish to play a part in their utter obliteration. As they tried to get rid of us, we will. But contrary to them …"
"We will succeed completely."
"We will accomplish what the Klingons, the Romulans, even the Borg failed to accomplish: get the heavens rid of the precious United Federation of Planets once and for all, purging the galaxy of those self-proclaimed do-gooders, those hypocritical holier-than-thou self-made protectors of the widows and the orphans! Well, we will solve that problem once and for all by getting rid of their precious Starfleet, their widows and their orphans!"
"And at last I will have avenged myself upon him!"
February 29, 2400
"Humongous!"
That was the word Teroth had used eight days earlier, when "it" had ended the Mogai's travels through the Gamma Quadrant.
Indeed, the object was humongous. It looked like the saucer of a galaxy-Class starship (the original design, made famous by the Enterprise-D), except for the two kind of fins in its behind, on both sides, port and starboard, and the fact that it looked more like an enormous block of concrete covered with an intricate network of what looked like tubules. There were no windows of any kind. In fact, it seemed to simply move in space, blind and aimless.
The term definitely applied, as it was about four hundred kilometers long, five hundred kilometers wide, and one hundred kilometers high … if one assumed that the saucer was supposed to be seen from a relatively horizontal perspective by the observer.
While the Mogai was running away from the sixteen Dreadnoughts in pursuit, she had been lured right in front of the behemoth. As she tried to evade, she had been stopped by a red tractor beam which had immobilized her in flight. Then the monster had opened some kind of giant eye …
***
"88,567, Sir."
Teroth looked at the young female. She had no problems with Starfleet officers any longer. After all, her ship, her crew, herself were practically Starfleet now, since the Great Invasion of 2388 and the retreat of what was left of the Romulan forces into Federation space.
She had no problems with young people either. Although she was now 123 herself, which meant she was from the Old Guard, she didn't mind people almost 100 years younger than she was taking charge of a position as important as Science Officer on her ship.
But T'Shiya was a Vulcan. And Vulcans, she still had trouble with. Not of a racial nature really, since after all they were practically first cousins, but more of a cultural nature.
"Are you sure, Lieutenant?" she replied with a naughty smile.
"Yes, Sir."
That was another thing. Did she look like a man? Of course not. She knew that it was customary in Starfleet to call "Sir" a superior officer, but she simply hated it.
"I counted 88,568."
"I assure you, Sir, that I have been most thorough in my calculations …"
T'Shiya stopped. Of course. It was a joke, an attempt at defusing a very tense situation.
"Do you wish to check my calculations, Sir?"
Teroth turned around.
"That will not be necessary, Lieutenant. So this is six times the number of …"
"5.805 exactly, Sir."
Teroth sighed inside. The arrogance of that young Vulcan! But she would be patient.
"5.805, of course. I stand corrected."
"That was not my goal, Sir. I am sorry."
Of course, she was sorry. Of course she did not want to offend her Commander — hell, Captain, as far as she was concerned. But it still was irritating …
***
Molly had spent three days and nights in Deep Space Nine's Sickbay, where she had had all the time in the world to get reacquainted with Julian, who had tested her a million ways to finally find her fit for duty.
"So, Doctor, this is your final report?" Fox and Kira had asked him almost in one voice.
"Yes, Admirals, the Lieutenant is not a changeling, she is not a walking bomb or tracking or spying device of any kind. There is no alien technology in her. She is just who she appears to be: the daughter of Admiral O'Brien with a serious case of jitter when anyone touches her by surprise, and a hole big as a torpedo impact in her memory."
Molly had been quite thoroughly debriefed about her disappearance. She remembered an explosion, then the feeling that her surroundings were disappearing, then …
Yeah, she remembered the small, hot, damp, musky room where she had been tied to the chair half-naked. She remembered the injections, the occasional slaps, then those fists hurting her all around the head. She remembered the plasma whips, the painsticks, the meqleHs, all those tools to which she had not reacted, just trying to remember the best moments of her life, the vacations she spent with her mother the year before Kirayoshi's death …
"And you resisted to all that until …"
"I remember that woman being particularly angry that day, Aunt Nerys. She had been very harsh with my interrogators, then she had taken the painstick from one of them and had started beating me up with it … I lost consciousness and … I woke up in a corner of the station, cleaned and dressed. Only when I was told did I realize that six days had gone by."
Molly remembered nothing of what had happened after, but she clearly remembered everything before her final loss of consciousness. She particularly remembered the results of her investigations, on which Sonya Gomez had been told to debrief her.
"Commander, the saboteurs used bilitrium, of Ferengi origin, and tekasite, a Dominion explosive. The actuator was Romulan."
"Damn. That means …"
"I see you are familiar with the Daystrom Institute research on subspace weapons."
"But then, if that weapon came into Klingon hands, it means …"
"Yes, Commander. The Children of Grethor seem to have much more diversified connections than we ever thought possible."
"But why did they kidnap you?"
"I don't think they did."
"Lieutenant O'Brien is adamant, Sir. Her abductors were operating as a military organization. We know that the Children of Grethor operate more like some kind of cult. She believes her abductors are Soldiers of Kahless."
Charles Fox was not happy. His report to Wilkins would not be the kind the Commander in Chief wanted to hear. But at least it would clarify the situation and maybe bring some Klingons to be a little more open with him …
"Thank you, Commander. That will be all."
"I have a request, Sir."
"I'm listening."
"Lieutenant O'Brien is a brilliant engineer. As you know, I am mostly busy with enhancing the ships, and the work on the station is practically nonexistent. I wish I could delegate that part of the work to her."
Fox, Kira and Rashid had looked at each other. Of course, it seemed like a good idea, but there still were those doubts about what had happened to her. They all felt like she was some kind of security risk. And yet …
"Ensign Dax promised to check on her daily."
"Yes, that is good, but Ensign Dax can't read thoughts. I'd rather have a Betazoid."
"There is one on the Valiant, but she's not a counselor. She's security."
"Perfect! She'll be Miss O'Brien's bodyguard."
"You mean watcher?"
"Well, we don't want to lose the Lieutenant again, do we?"
***
The Romulan Attack Fighter Deletham was receiving a special, long-term visit today. But one of the visitors knew her way all around the ship.
Lieutenant Commander Yirina Sorel, recently promoted by O'Brien, Starfleet Engineer extraordinaire, was heading the team.
Lieutenant Junior Grade Miral Paris, promoted to serve as Yirina's assistant, was still wondering what the hell had just happened. Of course her first suspicion had been …
"Mother, I have been promoted."
"Congratulations."
"Is it your decision, Mother?"
"Of course! My lesbian daughter deserved, needed a promotion. I was happy to make it happen for you!" B'Elanna had answered in a quite acerbic tone.
"Damn, Mother! How many times do I have to tell you? We had fought together, we went to my quarters to take a sonic shower …"
"Together?"
"NO! I kissed her to defy you, because you have no right to come in my quarters without asking first! We're both Starfleet officers, Mother, and without a valid reason …"
"I see. And I'm supposed to believe you?"
"YES, Mother! Because I may sometimes be defiant, but I never lie — at least not without telling you the truth later!"
"The promotion was not my idea, Miral. It came from that little Romulan girl."
"Yirina?"
"Yes. She chose you as her assistant, because she knows you and she trusts you. A promotion was required, you were already on the list anyway, Starfleet Command, not me, with your new Captain's authorization, made it a little quicker than usual, that's it."
"And I'm supposed to believe you?" Miral said with a smile.
"You must."
And so Miral had believed her mother, with reason.
There were in all eighteen members in the team. Among them, a total of eight were between the ages of 20 and 24: five humans, one half-Human half-Ktarian, one half-Human half-Bajoran, all girls, who would be affected to Miral.
Of those eight, the most brilliant was undoubtedly Catherine DeSoto. At 22, she was already a prominent member of the Analytic Team of the Daystrom Institute, and Wilkins had pushed her name on the list when others believed that she needed more experience. She had opened the door for the others.
The other Lieutenant Junior Grade of the group was older and a little bit taller than the 1.40-meter DeSoto, and her name had caused no controversy. Naomi Wildman had made her mark at Starfleet Academy, incorporating some basic Borg designs to the enhanced warp drive which would someday supplant the Mark XXI, currently the most advanced warp drive used by the Federation and their allies.
Other representatives of the wave initiated by DeSoto were Laurel Colt and Ginger Stanley, who had been through all of Starfleet Academy sharing the same quarters, and would keep doing so on the Deletham, and Alice Lennox and Jian Xu, who had met at their arrival and were already teasing each other with stupid jokes and becoming bosom buddies.
Now the last duo didn't look like it would have such luck.
Ensign Kelly Ripa was the half-Human half-Bajoran. Only her nose was much more human than Bajoran, so everyone called her "Ensign Ripa". But Ripa had set her heart on following her Bajoran heritage, and therefore was more suitably addressed as "Ensign Kelly", or "Ripa" for her friends. Of which her roommate, Segura Boran, seemed to have no chance of ever becoming.
After all, she was a Cardassian, the very first Cardassian in Starfleet …
***
"People, I'll be brief. We are eighteen, soon we will be more, as the Romulans are assembling a team of analysts. Let's not wait for them. Our mission is simple, Admiral Torres summarized it in one sentence: Find what makes that damn ship of hell tick! Well, that we will do. Lieutenant Paris will lead the Beta Team, I'll take charge of the Alpha Team. Beta Team, you look at propulsion. We'll try to find out the power source. The Gamma Team, which we'll compose when everyone is there, will work on primary systems: navigation, weapons, life support, etc. Lieutenant DeSoto, you'll lead the Gamma Team, but for now, you work with Miral."
"Yes, Sir!"
"I'm a female, Lieutenant. Questions? No? Dismissed. First shift at 0600 tomorrow."
After they all dispersed, Yirina turned to her new mentor.
"Well?"
B'Elanna smiled.
"You have command in your blood, Rommie. You'll do fine. Just remember that now YOU are in charge. I was here only to make that point clear to everyone. Why did you assign the Bajoran and the Cardassian to the same quarters?"
"Because I like a clear situation. They will either like or hate each other, but at least they'll learn to communicate together, and I expect all members of this team to communicate with each other."
"Interesting choice."
"I also expect your daughter to beat the crap out of them if they don't, Admiral."
"That she'll most certainly do, Yirina. Well, duty calls. Try to report once in a while!"
***
Sabrina had thought about it for a very long time.
Annie had encouraged her by any means necessary, spending hours with her, playing the Devil's Advocate time and time again. The night before they had not slept at all, reviewing once again the evidence.
But now there she was, all alone in front of Admirals Wilkins, Karov and Tomalak. That literally had scared the shit out of her, but now, thanks to the prompt intervention of McCoy, she was feeling much better.
"So, Lieutenant", Wilkins started, "two weeks in Advanced Tactical give you the impression that you can teach us something?"
"Huh …"
"Well, you never know. Go on, teach us."
Her first experience with Wilkins, fourteen days earlier, had taught Sabrina that the Admiral liked to joke. But even if that was the case, the other two were looking damn serious.
"Sirs, this is a tactical summary of the attacks the Chameleon endured from the Jem'Hadar ships during her mission. Please pay attention to their relative displacements as they arrive on the site of the battle and on their way of positioning themselves."
It took a few minutes, until Karov roared:
"They do not attack in threes!"
Sabrina turned around.
"Exactly, Admiral. 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."
"So?" Tomalak asked.
"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?" Wilkins asked, in a very serious yet encouraging tone.
Sabrina looked at him, then at the other two. They seemed to wait her answer quite earnestly.
"From what we learn in Advanced Tactical, Sir, their tactics strongly resemble …"
She hesitated.
"Yes?" Wilkins encouraged her.
"They used tactics strikingly similar to those used by the Borg, Sir."
***
"Lieutenant Junior Grade Savia Rem reporting for duty, Sir!"
Molly looked at the petite woman.
"Did I ask for you?"
"No, Sir. I've been assigned to serve as your bodyguard, Sir."
"Do I need a bodyguard on this station?"
"Admiral Fox thinks you do, Sir."
"Well then, I guess it answers my other question. I hope you like walking, Savia, because you are going to do that all over the station several times a day."
"Where you go I follow, Sir!"
Yeah! Of course you do. And every night you report to Fox or to Tahn about my whereabouts, my actions and my most intimate thoughts. Don't think for a minute that I don't recognize a Betazoid when I see one.
Well, Molly, it's official: you're viewed as a security risk, and your commanding officers distrust you. So, I guess the best way to get their trust back is to go on with this charade and make the station invulnerable!
***
Sabrina had left. She had no idea if she had had an impact or not.
But she had.
"Damn! That would confirm O'Brien's hypothesis."
"That the Borg would have assimilated Dominion technology?" Tomalak asked. "Somehow I find hard to believe that they would have renounced their cubical shape for Dominion models".
"Until a few minutes ago, we had the luxury of thinking that the Dominion had found and adapted Borg technology, but since their tactics were not Jem'Hadar-like, we can't believe that any longer."
"But the Commodore said that the weapons were Borg-like, not specifically Borg, nor Dominion."
"Maybe that new design couldn't accommodate Borg weapons."
"Why change then?"
***
The two men were obviously very satisfied by what they had been reading.
"Aaaah, that's better. I do not wish to see them sink into oblivion painlessly. I do not wish to destroy them, my friend. At least not now. I wish to hurt them, hurt them again, and keep hurting them. THEN … I wish them to die slowly, inexorably."
"And of course, we wish to play a part in their utter obliteration. As they tried to get rid of us, we will. But contrary to them …"
"We will succeed completely."
"We will accomplish what the Klingons, the Romulans, even the Borg failed to accomplish: get the heavens rid of the precious United Federation of Planets once and for all, purging the galaxy of those self-proclaimed do-gooders, those hypocritical holier-than-thou self-made protectors of the widows and the orphans! Well, we will solve that problem once and for all by getting rid of their precious Starfleet, their widows and their orphans!"
"And at last I will have avenged myself upon him!"
