USS Athena

The End Game (Part Two)

Previously in part one...
The Athena, assigned to travel to the remote dilithium mines at Delta Vega, intercepted a
Jem'Hadar ship attacking a civilian starship deep in Federation space. After destroying the
attackers, the crew of the Athena rescued two survivors, including a Changeling named Unid.
The individual, who had lived on El Nanth, came on board with a plan to convince the
Dominion forces to retreat from Betazed without the invasion many feared would be
necessary. After some discussion, Captain Thorpe agreed to the plan and took the Athena to
Betazed. At the planet, after slipping through the Federation blockade, Thorpe and some of
his officers, along with Unid, met with the Founder in charge of Betazed, only to find him
suffering an advanced case of the Changeling disease that was affecting the shape-shifters
throughout the quadrant. Because of his state and the state of Dominion forces overall, the
Founder on Betazed, with barely any negotiations, agreed to leave the planet peacefully and
return to the Gamma Quadrant. Thorpe then exposed his ship and informed the blockade
leader about what he had done and what he needed to do now. The blockade leader was
skeptical, which Thorpe did not find surprising. Afterall, he already knew that an element in
Starfleet Command, fronted by Captain Nathan Totten, did not want any information about
the Changeling disease to get out, or for Betazed to be liberated so easily.
And now the conclusion...
Captain Thorpe beamed down to the Betazoid capital again, to the same area where they had
beamed down earlier. He was accompanied just by Doctor Psakolaps, who was carrying a
medical kit, and Lieutenant Hakamura, who was the only one armed with a phaser rifle. Unid
was also with them, since he was always the insurance that the Jem'Hadar would not simply
fire on them. However, when they rematerialized, the Jem'Hadar were waiting for them,
weapons down, along with a Vorta. It was the bureaucrat who stepped forward, saying, "Do
come with me."
The group marched through the huge anteroom leading to the royal chambers, but this
time, there was no waiting, just a simple trek across the marble floor to the other side. The
doors were opened for them, and at the end of the second corridor, the other doors were also
open and waiting for them. The room looked different now. The Dominion equipment was all
gone, and apparently the Betazoid artwork-gaudy was too gentle a term for it, Thorpe felt-
was restored to the wall. The Founder, however, continued to sit behind the desk, his
appearance seemingly wasting away with each fleck of dried-up protoplasm that peeled off of
his body.
Speaking in weakening tones, the Founder said, "We have upheld our end of the bargain.
Our forces, except for the tiny contingent guarding me here, have returned to the ships. We
have left the planet untouched, and once again, the Betazoids are taking charge of their own
affairs. I do not believe they could rule this planet as competently as we do."
"A view I'm sure the Betazoids don't share," Thorpe pointed out.
"So again, we'll let the Federation rule them. Afterall, what is the difference really?"
"Betazed voluntarily joined the Federation."
"Other worlds have joined the Dominion willingly," the Founder remarked. Thorpe
quickly wondered why a planet would, but then the Founder gave the example. "Cardassia is
one." Then the captain wondered why a world that was not demoralized or militarily weak or
which lacked confidence would willingly join the Dominion. Then he recalled the Breen.
"That may be true, but the simple fact is, if Betazed wanted to become independent and
leave the Federation for whatever reason, they could do so without Starfleet surrounding the
planet and threatening it. Could the same be said for the Dominion?"
The Founder wanted to say something, but then changed his mind. His condition was
worsening, and Thorpe had to feel a bit of empathy for the being. Afterall, he could see this
particular Founder as an individual, and not as a part of a collective mass of unrelenting evil.
As an individual, there was always the chance that he could see the error of his ways, and
attempt to rectify the problem, and maybe there was some of that here. Being on Betazed for
over a year might have been enough to suggest to him that the fear of the Federation was
overrated, or at least the more basic kind of fear that the Dominion operated on was
overrated.
Struggling to stand up, the Founder said, "We believe it is time to depart. I trust you were
able to convince the ships in the blockade to let us pass."
"I'm working on that. I doubt that they will attack as your ships move out."
"I have my doubts about that."
"I'm sure you do," Thorpe remarked.
Doctor Psakolaps stepped forward, and said, "Founder, I do have one request to make."
The shapeshifter stopped and turned to look, up slightly, at the Kentyan medical officer. "I
want to take a sample of your protoplasm."
"For whatever reason?"
"With Unid, I have a Changeling who is unaffected by this disease. By comparing a
sample of his protoplasm with yours, I hope that I can attempt to isolate the disease. If it was
in fact a biological weapon, I want to know how it was done and who was behind it."
"It was not you?"
"No," Thorpe admitted. "This is something that was not done by Starfleet and which
would not be condoned by the Federation. Defending the Alpha Quadrant and maintaining
our freedom does not require the genocide of an entire race, and I believe that it was wrong.
Who is behind this surely is not following the beliefs and philosophy of the Federation. It is
important to find out what is going on here."
"You would do that... for your enemy?"
"We have to think of the period after the war."
"I guess we do. Very well." The Founder recognized the protoplasm sample gathering
device that Psakolaps removed from the medikit, and he held out his arm as the doctor placed
the tip against his flesh. Within several seconds, Psakolaps had withdrawn about five cubic
centimetres of the fluidic protoplasm of the Changeling. He looked at it. Instead of the
sparkling gold colour he was expecting, he found the sample streaked with a pale bluish-
green.
"We must get back to the ship."

As soon as Thorpe and the away team returned to the Athena, Johnson informed him that
Lieutenant Commander Gaunther wanted to speak to him. "At last," he finally said, stepping
down to the command level of the bridge. "Does he wish a private communication?"
"No, general broadcast," Vorwoorts replied.
"Contact him and signal that I'm ready to hear what he has to say." As Thorpe waited, he
realized that this conversation could go either way. Unid was not on the bridge, as he was in
sickbay working with Psakolaps on the Changeling disease, but T'Kor was present. She
moved down to sit in the lefthand chair, and waited as well. He really had no idea what
Starfleet Command would be thinking, or even who in Starfleet would be contacting
Gaunther. The contents of this message were completely unpredictable, Thorpe realized, and
that was a rarity from Starfleet Command.
"He's answering," the tactical officer remarked.
"On screen."
Gaunther appeared on the viewscreen again, speaking from the bridge of his Miranda-
class starship. "Captain Thorpe," he said, sounding formal. That might have been a bad sign.
"I have been in contact with Starfleet Command. Although they are surprised that you
managed to negotiate the Dominion withdrawal from Betazed, they will let it proceed.
However, they want to make certain that the Dominion forces do not escape and return to the
front, to assist the other Dominion forces. Although they would prefer that we escort these
individuals to a prisoner-of-war facility, they agree to let us escort them back to the
wormhole."
"Us?" Thorpe asked.
"To make sure that the Dominion forces do in fact go back to the wormhole and the
Gamma Quadrant, the blockade ships will be providing escort. Not all the ships will be
involved, but I will be leading the escort ships, excluding yours. Our mission is to ensure that
the Dominion ships will return to the wormhole."
"I see," the captain replied.
Gaunther asked, "What is the status of the Dominion withdrawal?"
"I've received word that they are for the most part on board their ships, and are awaiting
our signal to depart."
"Captain," the blockade leader continued, "I've taken the liberty to assign ships to the
escort mission, including Andorian ships and our faster ships, so that nothing would be
holding us back on the trip to the wormhole. Given the ships at our disposal and what we
know of the Jem'Hadar warships and attack ships, I believe we can make the run to the
wormhole in twelve and a half days. Inform the Dominion ships to exit along the co-ordinates
I am transmitting to you." Gaunther looked down and spent several seconds making sure that
the information was transmitted on a side band. "The remaining ships will stay here at
Betazed, to ensure that there are no stragglers, and no unpleasant surprises left behind."
"I have the Founder's word that this is a clean withdrawal."
Gaunther was not impressed. "The word of a Founder is not something I would consider
the basis of trust, captain. Based on what I have seen here, I am highly suspicious of your
actions and your allegiance, but until you show otherwise, I have to assume your loyalty.
Nevertheless, Starfleet has given us orders, and we will carry them out. Let me know when
the Dominion ships are beginning to move. Gaunther out." Once again, the viewscreen
changed from showing the young-looking blockade leader to the fringe of Betazed, brilliantly
lit green and blue by the sun high overhead.
"Something bothers me about this," Johnson remarked.
Thorpe was sensing something too, but still asked, "What?"
"Why didn't Starfleet Command contact us with those orders? I mean, we're the ones
making the request and carrying out this mission. They could have contacted us."
"Perhaps they have their reasons," the captain answered.
T'Kor spoke up, saying, "It is possible that Starfleet did not personally contact us with
these orders since they are not the orders from Starfleet Command."
"What are you suggesting?" Thorpe asked.
"Again, those behind Captain Totten might have no idea what we have learned on
Betazed, especially about the Changeling disease. They might wish that the Dominion forces
be destroyed, but they're going to take advantage of the fact that we have negotiated their
withdrawal from Betazed. They will allow us to escort them away from the planet before the
attack, so that the risk to Betazed becomes minimal or non-existent."
"And Gaunther's ships are going to do this?"
 "That I do not know."
"But we've got no choice but to take the orders at face value," Thorpe remarked. "The
course that we've been given will take us more or less directly to the wormhole, and the travel
time appears to be about right. Once we're at warp, we'll be that much more difficult to
attack."
"Nevertheless, it does put us into an uncomfortable position," Johnson admitted, and
Thorpe understood why. They had said to the Dominion forces that they would provide safe
passage back to the wormhole and the Gamma Quadrant, but if the Dominion ships were
attacked by Federation ships, what would Thorpe do? He hated the mere thought of having to
put his ship at risk to defend enemy vessels, but if he did not back up his words and his
promises, then what were they worth? Maybe, just maybe, he would never find out. If the
ships were going to be attacked, it was most likely going to occur at the wormhole, and so not
for twelve and a half days. Considering the advance of the Alliance against Dominion
positions, with everybody agreeing not to let the Dominion withdraw into a shell and then
strengthen, it was certainly possible that the war might be over in twelve and a half days. He
could only hope.
"Commander Vorwoorts," Thorpe ordered, "transmit the exit co-ordinates to the Dominion
ships."
"Aye sir," the officer replied, and then several seconds later, she added, "The blockade
ships are shifting positions. Some are moving out and some in, taking up clear escort
positions?"
"Shield and weapons status?"
"Shields raised, but weapons powered down, standard precautions."
"We shall do likewise."
Even before Vorwoorts could make the adjustments, the console chirped again. "Sir, we're
being hailed, one of the Jem'Hadar warships."
"On screen," Thorpe said, as he turned to look at the viewscreen. Once again, he was
looking into the interior of the Jem'Hadar ship, with its bridge that consisted of clusters of
circular instruments and consoles, manned by Jem'Hadar warriors who never got to sit down.
The Vorta could not sit down either, which surprised Thorpe somewhat. They were, afterall,
bureaucrats and bureaucrats were soft. This Vorta, the same one they had met moments earlier
in the Betazoid Royal Palace, was now equipped with this eyepiece that gave him a view
outside of the ship.
The Vorta, his voice relatively unemotional, explained, "We have received your
instructions and course."
"Are there problems?" Thorpe asked.
"Not with that information. The course is acceptable. Our ships can handle the time frame
of twelve and a half days. We have noticed a change in the positioning of the blockade ships,
and they are gathering at the exit co-ordinates. We will have to-I believe there's an Earth
expression here-run the gauntlet to leave Betazed."
"In fact, they'll be the escort ships."
"I see that the trust is lacking. What proof do I have that they will not attack us?"
"They have orders not to. Their orders from Starfleet Command are to do exactly what I
offered, to provide safe passage back to the Gamma Quadrant. They have no reason not to
follow those orders."
"But their shields are raised."
"And weapons powered down," Thorpe quickly added. "That's the same posture we're
showing on the Athena. I'd recommend that your ships do likewise, shields up and weapons
off-line. That way, there will be no surprises."
"We understand, and we're ready."
 "Then, lets get going."
The communications ended, and once more, perhaps for the last time, Thorpe took a look
at Betazed. Already, he knew that Matsubara was monitoring broadcasts from the planet, and
the Betazoids were taking their sudden freedom very seriously. The Head Minister of the
Governing Council had already gone on the commnets and spoke about the "unknown and
anonymous" Starfleet officer who convinced the Dominion to leave the planet. Thorpe felt it
appropriate that he remain unknown and anonymous. Matsubara did say that street
celebrations and parades were breaking out all over the planet. "Lets hope they stay happy,"
Thorpe remarked. "The war is not over yet, not by a long shot."
The Athena was the first to leave Betazed orbit and head out along the exit co-ordinates.
The viewscreen showed a magnified view of the escort ships, Andorian and Earth ships
aligned in two well-spaced rows along their route. The secondary screen showed a rear view,
and an increasing number of small Jem'Hadar attack ships, a smaller number of warships and
a similar number of support vessels, adjusting their orbits and pulling out in a line that formed
behind the Federation starship. It was almost unnerving to be in the ship leading a progression
of Dominion vessels, but Thorpe tried not to dwell too much on this. The most tense moment
was coming up soon, as his ship and then the first of the Dominion ships entered the
"gauntlet," as the Vorta had termed it. "Ahead at full impulse," Thorpe ordered. Indesakar
acknowledged the order with a nod, and adjusted the speed until the impulse engines were
running at full output, accelerating the ship forward. "Matsubara, watch for the other ships
and make sure that nobody is lagging. Vorwoorts, any sign of activity on the escort ships?"
"Negative. They're starting to spread out and accelerate as well. No signs of any weapons
activity in any of them."
"Maybe, just maybe we'll make it."
"We've got to get to warp first," Johnson remarked.
"At twenty-two psol and accelerating," Indesakar announced.
"All ships maintaining pace."
In the next few moments, the two fleets of ships, the line of Dominion warships, and
Andorian ships and smaller Starfleet vessels surrounding them, and the Athena out in front,
continued to accelerate and spread out as their speed increased. The escort ships spread out
until all of the Dominion line was covered. At the right speed, the Athena made the jump to
warp speed, and one by one, the ships down the lines made the jump as well. Out of the
planetary system of Betazed, they made their turn into the course that would take them to the
Bajoran wormhole, and then formed into roughly the same structure they had before jumping
to warp, the Athena in front, the Federation ships on the outside and the Dominion ships on
the inside, a long column of starships with a single course in mind.
Only once the ships were at warp and accelerating to warp seven and beyond did Thorpe
relax, because at the speeds they were at now, attack was virtually impossible, either form
within the column of ships or from the outside. Nothing much could happen for the next
twelve and a half days, or at least he could hope so. All he could do was worry about Captain
Totten and violating Starfleet orders and what else was happening that he did not know about.
***
Rodall Dewuchun stood at the side of the pool, with Vorwoorts beside him. "You know I'm
going to win," he said, looking at the woman beside him.
"And you know I'm going to keep on trying until I win. My times are getting better."
"And so are mine," the Odonan said, as he focused on the water in front of him. "On my
mark... three... two... one... now." The two officers, wearing regulation Starfleet-issue bathing
suits and regulation Starfleet-issue bathing caps to keep long hair under control, jumped into
the water, trying to jump as far as possible in order to get the best possible lead. The two hit
the water with pronounced splashes, and then they began to swim as quickly as their bodies
could propel them to the opposite side of the pool. Dewuchun had the early lead, but then
Vorwoorts was starting to close in. One advantage that the woman had was that she was better
on the turn, as she was able to almost do a somersault under water, plant her feet on the wall
at the far side of the pool and then push off briskly. Dewuchun never could master the turn
quite so quickly, and had to do an awkward side-to-side twist. Once the two were underway
on the return leg, swimming almost neck-to-neck, Vorwoorts started to pull ahead. However,
Dewuchun, using his strong leg muscles to maximum advantage, managed to get alongside
the woman and then he pulled ahead. He focused at the task ahead, to get to the sensor and
touch it before Vorwoorts touched hers. He focused on that, despite the splashing and the
vigorous motions that kept him from easily focusing on the target. At the last instant, he
lunged forward, and hit the sensor button. His light came on. He won.
"Damn," Vorwoorts muttered. "You got me, by what, a tenth of a second?" she said, still
breathing hard, still recovering the oxygen the momentary exertion had caused her muscles to
expend.
"Something like that," Dewuchun said. He was a lot less exhausted by the exertion, and
had no problems hauling himself out of the pool. The two sat on the edge, their legs still in the
water. "You're getting close, you know."
"Yeah, you're pushing me so hard. Before this tour of duty ends, I'm going to beat you."
She looked at the man, as she continued to use wet hands to clear water off of her equally wet
face. "Did you know that before I joined the Academy, I was a good enough swimmer to
compete in meets?"
"As you've told me."
"I told you?"
"You've pretty well told me everything," Dewuchun remarked.
"Is that bad... or good?"
"I don't really know. So much information, so many experiences, sometimes it is hard to
keep track of them all."
"Is that way you spend time in the engineering office, talking to your holographic wife?"
Dewuchun always felt nervous that Vorwoorts knew about the holographic representation
of Inizi, but so far she had not discussed this potential breach of protocol with the captain,
perhaps because in her mind there was no breach of protocol. He always felt nervous about
saying the wrong thing or giving her the wrong impression. "I do relate things to her," the man
explained. "It's almost like a way to record my impressions."
"An interactive log recorder."
"I've never thought of it that way. Maybe that's the way I'm thinking. I don't know. It's just
that I get more comfortable talking to her, not only because she is like my wife and all of that,
but because she is Odonan."
"And you have trouble talking to non-Odonans?"
"No, not really," Dewuchun replied, although at times, he did feel that way. "It's just that
on the Athena, I am the only Odonan, the only one of my kind. How many Odonans have you
met before?" Vorwoorts did not give an immediate answer, since it is unlikely that before she
boarded the Athena, she had ever spoken with an Odonan. "That's the same with many people
on this ship. Undoubtedly, their impressions on what Odonans are like comes from me."
"In other words, you not only have to represent yourself with your dealings with the crew,
but you are also representing your race?"
"Yeah, I do. But when I get to talk to Inizi, I get to be more like myself, more informal,
and more comfortable speaking my own language. My thoughts become more natural, more
easily expressed."
"You do speak English well," Vorwoorts pointed out.
"Yes, but when I think, when I really have to think, I do so in Odonien. Then I have to
translate everything. Talking to Inizi is more... natural."
Vorwoorts continued to show a curiosity towards the hologram that had Dewuchun feeling
nervous. He really hated to discuss this, but felt that he had no choice. "So you've been telling
her what has been going on lately, all about the liberation of Betazed, the Changeling disease,
the works?"
"Yeah, I have. You know what's really strange, though? The captain gave me permission to
transmit the messages to my wife directly back to the Odonan Empire, bypassing the Starfleet
communications system and its censors. Do you think that he knows about the hologram too?"

"I don't know about that, but I do think there's a reason he's letting you get your story
out..."
***
The Starstone and the rest of the Odonan armada was just five days out of Breen. Chokh Taan
had his engineers and scientists go over the warp torpedoes and the Corer to make sure that
when they were needed, they would work flawlessly. Afterall, the intelligence ship in the
Breen system had transmitted detailed instructions on ship placement and orbital installations
around the Breen homeworld, and was constantly updating the information. Another
intelligence ship, near the front lines, was reporting that the Breen apparently were taking no
additional precautions to defend their homeworld, as if the message the ship that survived the
destruction of Fraktor IV undoubtedly sent was being ignored.
Taan was in the engineering bay when his wife approached. He asked a simple question,
"Any news?"
"No," Chokh Neire reported. "The latest intelligence reports indicate that the Breen are not
withdrawing ships from the front lines."
"Which is unfortunate. If we can get enough ships away, the Alliance ships could burst
through the lines and approach Cardassia and end this war."
"And if the Breen do not pull ships away, their homeworld will be destroyed." The two
began walking along the bay, where twenty of the warp torpedoes sat as shiny black disks,
still hooked up to ship systems. Looking at her husband, Neire remarked, "Do you feel...
anything knowing that a race might be wiped out?"
"Not really," the man admitted. "Afterall, the Breen brought this upon themselves by
joining the Dominion alliance. Losing in a war presents the opportunity of total destruction.
They still have a choice, however."
"And they're making the wrong one." As the two left the engineering bay and entered a
service corridor, Chokh Neire added, "By the way, that human officer wants to speak with
you, about something. He would not tell me."
Laughing just a bit, Taan retorted, "I get the feeling he wants to back away from this."
"No, I think something has come up..."

"Captain's log, stardate 52976.6. The Athena is now four days into its journey of escorting the
Dominion ships, formerly at Betazed, to the Bajoran wormhole and back to Gamma Quadrant. As is
normal in situations like this, when we're travelling over many days to a particular destination, very
little has happened. We have had no need to stress the ship's systems, so everything is running well,
and the crew might be getting a little bored. Somehow, we have been filling in the time, but the tension
is always there. We monitor long-range sensors, and we worry about the critical moment when we
drop out of warp at the wormhole. I just hope that we can accomplish this. Another thing I have heard
is that the combined Alliance fleet is assembling in three locations, one of which is at Deep Space
Nine, for the final push on Dominion positions. Never before have I been more confident that the war
will soon be over and that there would be no longer any objections to the escort mission I have
undertaken."
Captain Thorpe was making the rounds, and his current stop was sickbay. The patient area
was empty, since nobody had managed to hurt themselves in the past twenty-four hours,
although one patient, the older Betazoid man, Rendo Maloir, remained in the recovery ward.
However, Thorpe was not there to see a patient. Psakolaps, seeing the captain enter sickbay,
came out of his office, and said simply, "Nothing to report, sir." He looked tired, as if he had
been spending much more of his time than he should on this project.
"Nothing at all?"
"Nothing, sir. Unid tries, but he really does not understand his physiology all that well. It
would be like one of us growing up by ourselves, amongst aliens who never studied you,
never thought about you too much. How much of your anatomy would you know?"
"Very little."
"Even Commander Bayanhong was helping."
"Julia?"
"Yeah," Psakolaps replied, suppressing yet another yawn. He knew that he really needed
to get some sleep. Perhaps if he did, he could function better and think clearer when he woke
up again. "When she was on the Bellerephon, she and the chief medical officer and some
others helped crack the mystery of the Siridia Disease, and thought that some of those insights
might prove useful here."
"And nothing at all?"
"Oh, I've got some ideas," the doctor finally said, as he began to walk, almost absently,
through the empty active-treatment ward. "The disease was designed to lay dormant for some
time in the Changeling, to reproduce and spread but not make any physical symptoms
apparent. It does so almost by mimicking the Changeling's ability to hide. The disease-I
suspect a virus-hides within the nucleus of the Changeling cells, and spreads by hitching a
ride on the RNA molecules that the cell nuclei send out to various structures that cause the
cell to function, and to change its shape. The more these molecules move, the more of the
contaminated RNA is given to the secondary structures, and the more they malfunction. The
Changeling gradually breaks down, and his body is unable to compensate."
"That sounds like progress," Thorpe remarked.
"Actually, I suspected as much. It's just that it is impossible to tell by looking at the
contaminated sample alone what is bad and what is good RNA. If I knew, I could devise a
treatment that would block the bad RNA and allow the cells to regain their functionality, as
long as the damage is not too extreme."
"With Unid's sample, couldn't you compare?"
"I need more than just the two samples. I need several samples, the more the better. Then I
could build up a profile of Changeling DNA and RNA interactions, and figure out what is
controlled by the virus and what is controlled by the genes."
"Whoever created this disease didn't have many samples to work with either."
"That's possible," Psakolaps explained. "I tried thinking about this from the other point of
view, about someone trying to design a disease. It just leads to a dead end. Whoever did this
was very clever, very ingenious, and probably took into account the ability of Starfleet doctors
to find a solution to the disease."
"Who could have done this?"
"I don't know," the doctor admitted. "I really don't know. This is not something that
Starfleet Medical would do, or would even agree to help someone else with. I know that this
is wartime, and that the Changelings are the true enemy, but not even wartime justifies the
creation and use of a disease quite like this one. The people behind this, in my mind, are no
better than the enemy that they are attempting to destroy." Seeing the way the captain was
looking at him, Psakolaps added, "I tend to think in strong terms like this, to justify my
actions. The Changelings are the enemy, afterall. They brought this on themselves by leading
this war into the Alpha Quadrant. It would have never happened otherwise."
"That depends," Thorpe said.
"What do you mean?"
"If this disease spreads by linking, and if the Changeling on Betazed and the female
Changeling leading the Dominion here both have it, how many other Changelings have it?
The ones that were killed on the Athena, for example. Did they?"
"That gives me an idea," Psakolaps finally said. "We kept samples of both the
Changelings, the one killed in the fuel cells and the one killed by the inhibitor. Now that I
think about it, the inhibitor works by totally disrupting the interactions of the secondary
structures in the cell and the messaging between the DNA in the cell and those secondary
structures. However, the contamination might not be affected by the inhibitor fields. There
could be traces of it left, and if those traces match something in the sample from the Betazoid
Founder but not in Unid, I could have more to work with. I wonder why I never thought of
that before."
"Maybe because you're pushing yourself too much, and you're getting too tired."
"Yeah, perhaps..."

Captain Thorpe decided to turn in early, and try to get a good night's sleep. Ever since the
twelve-day countdown-as he termed it-began, he had not been sleeping well, as he worried
about Captain Totten and Admiral Nechayev and orders he had been violating and the fact that
he could not trust Lieutenant Commander Gaunther, and so much more. He was worried that
he would be regarded as a hero on Betazed, something he did not want, and that he might be
thrown out of Starfleet after this was over. He felt saddened by that, since Starfleet was all
that he had known for most of his life. It was his parents' lives, and for as long as he could
remember, it was his life too. Sometimes, he felt that things would come to him at night. He
believed he would gain a greater understanding, or at least a greater ability to accept what had
happened, by mulling it over at night, but that came at the cost of a lack of sleep. However,
the past night had been better, almost as if he was accepting that the choices he had made
were done and could not be reversed. He would do the best he could with what had been
given to him, something he had done all of his life.
***
On the other hand, Lieutenant Commander Bayanhong was not sleeping, although she thought
she should. With the Athena doing another of its uneventful runs from one location to another
over a twelve-day period, crew boredom meant that the holodecks were booked solid again,
and she would have to take her hour when it became available. Now was that time. With the
corridor lights dimmed to simulate night on board the ship, Bayanhong did not feel as
conspicuous dressed in light desert clothing, along with the hood and the cape. Once more,
she started the tenth chapter of the "Two Suns Over Tatooine Campaign." The first part went
as it had in the first attempt, with her ship landing outside some rundown spaceport town, and
then she was wandering through that town and its clutch of bizarre aliens, looking for clues
that would guide her on her search.
She knew now that Darth Heltor would appear to her in this chapter, and she knew his
appearance as well. However, she knew that the computer would not insert him into the
program at the same location as in the first run. That would be too easy. Just his appearance
and the fact he appeared were all the clues she had now. She passed the point where she had
met Darth Heltor the first time, and made her way to the centre of the town. She found a large,
covered area, and inside was the market, where a variety of merchandise, legitimate and
otherwise, was offered for sale. Bayanhong entered the market, and was jostled by the crowd
of aliens. All the while she had to make sure that nobody lifted her light sabre from its holster.
 At the end of the line of market stalls was a small table piled high with what looked like
jewellery, made of precious metals and studded with precious stones, producing symbols that
Bayanhong did not understand-except for one. She saw something that looked like three
intersecting circles, surrounded by a triangle that contained a gap on one side, positioned as if
it was swallowing the circles. She held up the heavy object by one end to get a closer look at
it. The colours, she knew, were a clue, as was the shape and the very polish of the metal-
Bayanhong felt herself forcefully shoved aside. She turned, and saw the gruff humanoid
alien, perhaps a head taller than she was and a lot broader at the shoulders, who had stiff-
armed her out of the way. In a very deep voice, he said, "Do... not... touch... the merchandise."

"You are the proprietor of this stall?"

"I am, offworlder."
"How much for that piece?"
"I... do... not... sell... to offworlders." The hairy alien screamed as he seemed to be bent
over backwards. A bright red beam-a light sabre-emerged from the man's chest, and the
person behind hit sliced him almost in half to get the beam out. As the destroyed alien fell to
the feet, other customers retreating and screaming, Bayanhong came face to face with the
same scaly, green-coloured, foul-looking alien she had seen during her first trip through these
parts, Darth Heltor
"He's right," the evil presence said. "He does not sell to offworlders. Thus, he died. Such a
mistake. As for you, Jedi, I thank you for leading me to the Sacred Amulet of Joskaar. As for
you..." Heltor simply waved his light sabre in the direction of Bayanhong's neck, but she
anticipated that and jumped back in time. In the same motion, she had her light sabre out and
activated, so as Heltor came after her, she was able to block his initial blows and push him
back.
***
The chirping sound of the communications panel woke Thorpe from what he thought was a
sound sleep. Without doing anything more than lying on his back, the man said, "Captain
Thorpe here."
"Sorry to disturb you, sir," remarked Lucia Quintollez, the ship's counselor and protocol
officer-and duty officer on the third shift on this day. "However, we're receiving a high-level
communications, for your eyes only."
"Can you direct it down to my quarters, and give me a minute?"
"The person at the other end is very anxious."
By this time, Thorpe was out of his bed and trying to stand up. "Computer, lights." Unlike
most captains, he had never mastered the art of getting out of bed and being instantly awake,
and that effect was never more noticeable then when the lights came on. His pupils took their
own sweet time to adjust, and in the meantime, Thorpe had to find his uniform and put it back
on, hoping he did so correctly. He did forget certain details, like fastening up the jacket and
straightening up the hair. For the first time, he noticed that it was getting long-too many
months spent on a starship with no barber, he thought.
Thorpe sat down behind the terminal in the sitting area of his quarters, and found that the
message graphics were already on the small screen. Hoping that he was as presentable as
possible, in case the brass was calling, Thorpe tapped the "receive" icon. The image changed,
to show a man that was not a Starfleet officer. His hand still on the control panel, he moved it
over subtly to the right and tapped the "record" icon. The man was a human male, about
fourty-five, with thin, patchy brown hair and a rather broad and unsmiling face. He wore a
simple uniform, made mostly of black and not cut like typical civilian clothing. If it was a
uniform, there was no rank, no insignia nor any other identifiable marks. He appeared to be
speaking from some kind of office on a starbase or perhaps even a starship. It was hard to tell
since the background was not in focus. "This is Captain Thorpe," the man finally said. "Who
am I speaking to?"
"Who is not important," the stranger said, his voice sounding rough-perhaps even
dangerous, and certainly angry. "I am relaying orders to you, captain, and if you know what's
good for you, you'll follow them. First of all, you are not to allow the Dominion ships to
escape through the wormhole. When you arrive, you'll turn the ships over to forces at Deep
Space Nine. You will also turn over the Changeling you have on board your ship. You'll also
order your chief medical officer and staff to end all research into this alleged Changeling
disease. Do you understand?"
Thorpe sat there, quite shocked at what he was hearing and who was giving the orders to
him. "On whose authority are you speaking?" he finally asked.
The man in black virtually glared at him, saying, "I speak for the highest authority in the
Federation. No more need be said. Good day, captain." With those words, the transmission
ended and the standard parameter coding graphics came up onto the terminal, at least until
Thorpe cleared them.
***
In the holodeck, light sabres clashed, sparks flying, as Bayanhong and Darth Heltor continued
their battle. They had moved into the centre of the marketplace, with each one alternately
taking the lead and causing the other to retreat. On the other hand, Bayanhong was pretty sure
that Heltor was toying with her. When the local authority sent in two militia droids to deal
with this unlawful light sabre duel, Heltor ignored their orders to stop. When they opened fire,
Heltor used his light sabre to deflect the directed-energy blows back on their sources,
destroying them. It was an effective trick, Bayanhong thought, but one she knew was
impossible in the real world.
Then he came back for her. He waved his light sabre over his head and tried to strike her
down, but Bayanhong deflected his blows just in time. Nevertheless, he came out in a position
where he could quickly strike back, with a slash to the left and a slash to the right, and his
blows came so hard that Bayanhong felt she was going to lose her own weapon. She had to
step back and regroup, and then react to what Heltor was doing. She could not even begin to
press forward. "Damn," she muttered to herself. "The computer is making him faster and
stronger with each second." Again he came at her, and again she barely had enough time and
strength to deflect the blows. At the right moment, she stepped forward with some blows of
her own, but Heltor was so quick that it seemed like she was showing no offense at all. Heltor
swung high and low, and as Bayanhong deflected each blow, her arms began to ache and she
felt increasingly flustered and tired. "I'm getting too old for this," she said. The green-skinned
alien was composed and calm. The computer would not put a sense of fatigue in a holodeck
character.
Again, Heltor came at her, slashing and spinning and trying to drive his light sabre
through her body. Again, Bayanhong had to reach quickly to deflect the blows and parry them
away, but he was coming closer. On more than one occasion, she felt the heat of the sabre
come close to her face. Slowly, though, she formed a strategy, one that relied more on cunning
than on raw strength. She slipped back into a defensive mode, watching for just the right
moment, for the time when Heltor had his side exposed. She studied his motions, trying to
predict how he would react to her offenses and her typical moves. When the dark lord came at
her one more time, Bayanhong was ready. He swung high, going for her head, and then tried
to slam the light sabre on her. The woman sprang to her left, and then drove the light sabre
forward. It almost worked. Somehow, Heltor just managed to dodge the fast-moving beam
blade, but the action overextended Bayanhong just enough that when Heltor pulled the beam
back, it slammed into her side. She felt the heat and the force that knocked her to the floor.
Again, a sort of horn sounded as the holodeck reverted back to its yellow and red grid lines.
"Damn," Bayanhong muttered. "This program is harder than I thought it would be..."
***
The ship time was early morning, before the start of the first shift. Captain Thorpe had
gathered his senior officers in the observation lounge and he replayed the message he had
received from the mysterious man in black the night before. T'Kor in particular watched the
recording with interest. As the message ended, the captain said, "That's what we're up against.
Any ideas on who that person is? T'Kor?"
"I do not recognize him, captain."
"Any ideas on what organization he represents?"
"I strongly believe that it is Section Thirty-One?"
"The counterintelligence unit?" Indesakar asked. He did not seem impressed.
"In theory," T'Kor replied, "Section Thirty-One functions as the counterintelligence unit,
but the organization was actually created to act against all internal and external threats to the
Federation, and to act in a manner that appears independent of the government, or Starfleet
Command or the Federation Council, so that nobody can be held accountable for its actions."
"The Federation has such a body?" asked the pilot.
"In fact, it's in the Federation charter," Thorpe pointed out. "Hence the name, Section
Thirty-One, giving the Federation Council the authority to create a body to act against those
threats. They did create it, but it has, over time, functioned as a civilian-run
counterintelligence agency, although there have been rumours of unethical activities outside
of the Federation conducted by this agency."
"Like the omega particle research at Penthe Prime," Johnson pointed out.
"That's one."
"And the Changeling disease could be another," Psakolaps remarked, as he leaned forward
in his chair, taking another drink from his cup of coffee. "Just think of it. If this disease
actually works in destroying the Changelings, then the Dominion would collapse and we
would win the war."
"I can see it," Johnson continued. "Merely winning the war in the Alpha Quadrant is not
enough, because the Dominion would remain in the Gamma Quadrant. But if the Changelings
die out there too, then the Dominion will likely collapse and a large volume of space becomes
disorganized."
"And naturally," Matsubara added, "the Federation will move in with assistance, perhaps
even picking up some new members in another quadrant. But if the disease was not present,
or is stopped, then the Dominion remains there, as strong as ever. This war could be repeated
someday. The Dominion is unlikely to forget its defeat here."
"I can see the reasoning, as repugnant as it might be considering what the Federation
stands for," Thorpe remarked. "This disease, removing the Changelings from the picture, is
the means to ensure that another war does not come later."
Johnson quickly said, "But still it does not make this biological weapon right."
"I never said that it did. That's why Section Thirty-One could be going to lengths to make
sure that any idea that this might be an artificially-created disease never gets out. By finding
Unid and following what he has suggested for us, we know more than Section Thirty-One
might want us to know. That puts us at risk."
Tentatively, Matsubara said, "If... Section Thirty-One wants to stop us, why order us to
turn over the Dominion ships at the wormhole? Deep Space Nine is right there, and they'd
know if something... unexpected happens to us."
Shaking his head slightly, Thorpe replied, "I don't know."
Through the discussion, Vorwoorts was listening, but was mostly silent. Instead, she
looked at Dewuchun, who seemed to be paying unnatural amounts of attention to the image
that was still on the viewscreen. That image was the mysterious man's last words before he
terminated the link. With the others pondering what the captain had said and the implications,
Vorwoorts finally spoke up, "Rodall?" The Odonan engineer looked towards the tactical
officer. "You seem... preoccupied."
"It's that message. Not the man, but where he is speaking from."
"What?"
Dewuchun finally gave in to his feelings. He said nothing. He simply activated computer
controls on the small panel in front of him. The others turned to the viewscreen, as Dewuchun
generated a rectangle over a section of the background. The whole background was rather
dark and indistinct, as the imaging sensor kept the background out of focus. However, there
was something that looked like a monitor in the background and it was that which Dewuchun
expanded. He used several different computer processing routines to clean up and enhance the
background image, and finally, after the sixth attempt, he cleaned up the graphics and got
something readable. Everybody in the room recognized what the graphics represented, but it
was Dewuchun that spoke, "That man is transmitting from an Odonan ship."
"Any clue on which one?" Thorpe asked.
Dewuchun did notice part of a ship identification number. The prefix part, identifying the
class, was obscured, but the number portion was not. "Six, the sixth ship of the class. What
class would have numbers that low?" The answer occurred to Dewuchun almost immediately,
"Epic-class." Looking just a little upward, Dewuchun called out, "Computer, what is the name
of the starship with Odonan registry AKL-six?"
"That ship is the Imperial Odonan Starship Starstone," replied the machine.
Thorpe asked, "Who commands it?"
"The last recorded commander was Fleet Commander Chokh Taan."
T'Kor remarked, "He's the one in charge of Odonan starship operations in the Dominion
War theatre." More firmly, she added, "What is its last known location?"
"Unknown."
"But still," the captain said, "A Section Thirty-One operative on board an Odonan
starship? What the hell is going on here?" Dewuchun simply sat there and listened to the
exchange, wondering how much of the messages he had transmitted to his wife-directly, with
the captain's permission so that the information would get out one way or the other-had in fact
been intercepted by the Odonans who were perhaps working with Section Thirty-One.
"What got into them?" Dewuchun said. "Who's behind working with this Federation
agency? If word got out..."
"There are a lot of words nobody wants to let get out," Thorpe explained.
Tentatively, Vorwoorts asked, "So what do we do now?"
"The best we can do is to carry on as we had. We continue to the wormhole and let the
Dominion ships go through. After that... I don't know. I would truly hate to be a part of a
Federation that would regard another ship as an 'internal threat.' That's operating by somebody
else's rules, something that we simply should not allow."
Johnson added, "Lets hope that their drive to remain secret is greater than their desire to
somehow counteract what we had done."
"But," Psakolaps remarked, "we haven't done anything. We haven't solved this disease. I
still cannot figure out how it works or how to counteract it. As of now, their ultimate aim of
wiping out the Changelings hasn't changed."
"Except for the one we have on board."
"Maybe that's the one they want."
"What a situation," the first officer commented, as she looked around the room. "We find a
cure for this disease and ensure that the Dominion will in fact survive, at least in the Gamma
Quadrant, and that could lead to a future war, and at the same time, this ultra-secretive agency,
in league with some Odonan group, would be on our backsides. How'd we ever get into this
mess?"
Thorpe simply replied, "By taking part in this particular end game to the war..."
***
Eleven and a half days had passed since the departure from Betazed, and just one day
remained before the Athena and the rest of the ships, Dominion and Federation alike, would
arrive at the Bajoran wormhole. In the time since Captain Thorpe had received the
communication from the man presumed to be an operative for Section Thirty-One, there had
been no further specific communications for the Athena from anybody. The two groups of
ships travelled onward, not quite sure of what to expect once they dropped out of warp at the
wormhole, but still heading in that direction. Johnson was on the bridge, feeling the rising
tension within herself and the other officers as their journey was coming slowly to an end. If
they could hold out just one more day...
The door to the ready room opened, and Captain Thorpe emerged. Johnson watched him
come, and asked, "What was the message about?"
"It was an encrypted general broadcast, to ships not in the active theatre of war," Thorpe
remarked, as he took the centre seat again. "It was an update on what had happened in the
recent battle."
"Well?" Johnson asked. "Did we win?"
"We won," Thorpe replied. There was just a little restrained cheering from the other
officers on the bridge. That particular battle might have been won, and it might have been a
battle that the history books will likely remember, but there was still one particular
confrontation to come.
"So what's next?"
"The main Alliance fleets struck at the Dominion positions at the five light year line. The
battle was brief, and casualties were high-thirty percent of ships lost on a fleetwide average,
another thirty percent damaged-but the Dominion positions were overrun. The remainder of
their ships fled, some back to Cardassia, some... elsewhere."
"Elsewhere?"
"They were being tracked. They were simply overrun. A big surprise was that the battle
swung in our favour when the Cardassians turned on the Dominion ships."
"What?" remarked Rocha.
"Apparently the Cardassians were viewing themselves as an occupied world," Thorpe
explained. "A resistance movement appeared, and did significant damage. The military
resistance was suppressed, but now there's a civilian uprising in progress, and the Dominion
hold on Cardassia is very tenuous."
"I'd hate to be Cardassian, though," Rocha pointed out. "The revenge from the Dominion
could be quite brutal."
"And," Vorwoorts added, "even if the Cardassians have switched sides, I think the
presence of the Cardassians as a force in the quadrant are gone."
"Quite likely," Thorpe agreed.
"What now?" Johnson asked. "I was surprised when the Alliance went after the five-light
year line. I thought they would be content to bottle them in. Now they went through there,
despite the casualties they did suffer, I guess I would not be surprised if the rest of the
Alliance fleet went right to Cardassia, especially with the Cardassians joining them and the
resistance on the planet."
"But how does it affect us?" Matsubara asked.
"The best possible outcome is that Cardassia either falls or else the Dominion surrenders
before we reach the wormhole."
"Which would be very close," Rocha pointed out. "At five light years out, it would take
the ships the better part of a day to travel that distance to Cardassia, assuming only the ships
able to make the trip actually go. By that time, we'll almost be at the wormhole."
The discussion about the war and the big battle at the five-light year line went on,
although they could just speculate on what had actually happened and the tactics employed,
and they could only wait in fear for the casualty lists to come out, with more familiar names
of ships and former crewmates and people known casually at the Academy to be mourned
over. The final campaigns were always the hardest ones to take when it came to the casualties,
since they were so close to having survived the war.
Eventually, the officers settled into routine ship tasks, and spent most of the time counting
off the light years as the Athena and the other ships moved ever closer to the wormhole. It was
near the end of the shift when things suddenly changed. "Sir," Matsubara remarked, "Long-
range sensors have just picked up several ships, moving towards us on an intercept course."
The bridge seemed to momentarily stop. Thorpe asked, "Can you identify them?"
"Ours, sir. I'm reading Akira-class, Steamrunner-class and perhaps Defiant-class as well,
and one Sovereign-class."
"Any Odonan?"
"No," the sensor officer replied. "Only Federation."
Johnson remarked, "How much are you willing to wager that the Sovereign is the
Challenger?"
Thorpe decided to pass on the wager, and asked instead, "How long until they intercept?"
"About six hours."
Thorpe thought about it, about how they would be just ten or twelve hours from the
Bajoran wormhole at that point, so close to their goal, and now this fleet was appearing, more
than likely in a bid to stop them far enough away from Deep Space Nine and the Bajoran
system that nobody there would ever know what happened. Of course, Thorpe knew, battles in
space were almost impossible at warp, as it was so easy to avoid attacking ships and their
weapons. He also realized that Captain Totten-if the Sovereign-class ship was really the
Challenger-would also realize that he would have to stop the ships led by the Athena away
from the wormhole. Did he have a means to accomplish that?
"What do we do?" asked Vorwoorts.
"Maintain course and heading. Inform all the other ships to do likewise. If those
intercepting ships threaten, go to evasive manoeuvres."

Three hours passed. The approaching ships were now close enough that the Athena knew the
numbers and classes of the ships, but they were still too far away to detect their identification
beacons, although Thorpe would not have been too surprised to learn that the beacons had
been shut off. While the other first-shift officers had been replaced by the second shift, Thorpe
stayed on the bridge. From this point, he knew, he was going to be here for the remainder of
the journey, and was going to try to stay awake through the whole period. It would not be
easy, but he felt that right now, he had no choice. A decision had been made, and he had to see
it through.
The sound of an alert tone from the tactical console almost caused Thorpe to jump out of
his seat. He had not been aware that he was that much on the edge. Lieutenant Hathson
reported, "Captain, I'm receiving an incoming transmission, for you, encrypted, from the...
Challenger."
Thorpe wondered about the Section Thirty-One operative on the Odonan ship and Captain
Totten and how they were connected. He hated to think that there were two groups coming
after him. Standing up, he said, "I'll take it in my ready room."
Thorpe headed into the ready room, stopping by the replicator for a cup of coffee, strong
and black, before sitting down behind the terminal and tapping in the access code that would
allow the computer to unscramble the incoming communications and scramble the outgoing
ones. As soon as the link was established and the incoming data unscrambled, Thorpe was
looking upon the unsmiling face of Captain Nathan Totten. Sounding as polite as possible,
Thorpe said, "What can I do for you, captain?"
"Lets cut the pleasantries, will we, captain?" Totten said, sounding firm-or trying to. "I've
been told to inform you that you are to order the escort ships and the Dominion ships to stop
at your current position and be prepared to be taken into custody at that point."
"Curious," the man started, trying to sound calm and appear calm, although everything in
his body seemed to be churning. The coffee was not working. "I have received a different set
of orders, to turn over the Dominion ships once I reach the wormhole. Whose orders should I
be following?"
"A fine distinction, captain," Totten said, leaning a bit forward towards his video pickup.
"At the wormhole, ten hours from the wormhole, it matters little."
"It matters a lot."
"I assure you that I have been authorized to use whatever means, whatever amount of
force, as necessary to get you to comply with these orders."
Leaning back in his chair, Thorpe continued, "Let me see. So far, I've had some guy who
appears to be a civilian giving me orders without the decency to even identify himself, and
now you, a mere captain, is giving me orders too. Whose orders are these really?"
Without hesitation, Totten replied, "Admiral Nechayev."
"Well, I'd like to hear her personally give those orders."
"She's busy."
"Really?" Thorpe questioned. Of course, if Totten wanted to be rather underhanded, he
could get a holographic recording of Nechayev to give him the orders, but officers of her rank
basically did not allow holoimages of themselves to be made just for that reason. Even then,
each captain had a password that they could use to confirm that the orders were really coming
from a senior officer. If Totten had this password, that would imply that Nechayev was in on
this scheme, and Thorpe knew his position was very precarious. On the other hand, Nechayev
was ambitious and did not get to the position she had by taking a direct part in operations such
as Section Thirty-One. She would certainly keep her distance.
"Captain, I have no time for this."
"And neither do I. I do not recognize your authority to be giving me orders. If Admiral
Nechayev has a problem with that, she can contact me personally."
"You are making a grave decision, captain."
"I don't believe so," Thorpe remarked. "If what I have learned is in fact true, then it is you
and people like you that have made the mistake, turning your backs to the ideals of the
Federation, turning against what we stand for and what we uphold."
Almost glaring at the Athena captain, Totten remarked, "Captain, I swear to you that you
will regret the day you ever met me."
"I already am."
Once the message ended, Thorpe sat back in his chair, and thought about what had
happened, and what could happen. The Challenger and the ships associated with it were going
to intercept the Athena and the other ships in the convoy. As the Dominion war was about to
end, a new confrontation was going to pit Federation ship against Federation ship, and one of
those ships was going to be defending the enemy. As he sat there, he realized that it would be
so easy to give in, to order the ships to stop and then standing aside as the Challenger moved
in, but if Thorpe did that, knowing that his crew was likely going to survive, he would always
wonder if he did the right thing. Did he betray his word? Did he betray what he believe in? He
made a deal-he made a promise-to get the Dominion ships back to their quadrant, and it was a
deal that he did not want to break. He could never live with himself if he did. He also had to
wonder if there was another way out of this predicament. Was there some trick, some clever
ploy, he could come up with that would allow the ships to make it to the wormhole? As he sat
there, nothing came to mind, except to keep on travelling and hope that the Challenger and
the other ships had no way of forcing the Athena and the ships following it out of warp.
Tapping at his commbadge, the captain said, "Thorpe to Hathson."
"Hathson here," came the response.
"Contact the lead Dominion ship. I want to speak to the Founder if possible."
"Right away, sir."
True to his word, Hathson had a link to the lead Dominion ship in less than a minute.
When the image appeared on the screen, it was the Founder, speaking from a small, dim and
basically unfurnished room beyond a simple desk and chair. The Founder looked really bad,
almost shrunken, his apparent "skin" flaking and leaving large sections of the body and the
face missing. When he spoke, his voice was weak enough that Thorpe had to amplify the
signal. "You wish to talk to me?"
"As the sensors on your ships have undoubtedly already told you, there are a number of
Federation ships approaching. They have given me orders to stop the convoy and turn over
your ships to them."
"But you promised us safe passage. Can you not talk to the commanders on those ships?"
"I just did. For reasons known only to them, they are refusing to even consider it. I suspect
that they do not want the true nature of the Changeling disease to get out. Now, I remember
what I agreed to on Betazed, and I will do my part."
"You will fire on another Federation ship?"
"If I must, but I also recognize that most of the crew on those ships are not involved in this
conspiracy that we feel is at work here. I will simply attempt to disable the ships and not
destroy them. However, I cannot guarantee that the other escort ships will side with me. You
may have to defend yourselves from the attack."
"Which we will do," the Founder replied, his voice sounding weak. "You should know
that the Dominion would never act this way. I cannot imagine any situation in which a
Dominion ship would attack another one."
"Unfortunately, in a free society, sometimes it happens. I regret it, and I think in the long
run the Federation will regret it too. This war has made us act in ways we never thought
possible, and eventually, I think that the Federation and those in charge will regret the
decisions they have made. Ultimately, of course, the war should never have happened."
"But your people invaded our quadrant."
"We were merely explorers. The space around the wormhole was never Dominion space,
but was free, unorganized space. We never were a threat."
"You were a threat." The Founder seemed wracked with pain, as his body stiffened up and
he leaned back in his seat. Thorpe watched, with a certain bit of morbid fascination, as more
of the protoplasmic skin darkened and flaked off. "I continue... to grow weak... and cannot
continue this conversation. I must conserve strength."
"I understand. I just wanted to let you know."
Thorpe also contacted Lieutenant Commander Gaunther and briefly explained the
situation. However, he did not trust the one-time blockade leader, and knew that he could not
count on his allegiance. "If you cannot do your part in fulfilling the promise that was made to
the Dominion forces in exchange for leaving Betazed, I will understand. I simply ask that if
you cannot with a conscience defend that promise, you should simply leave the area. Do not
join in with the attacking ships."
"I will keep that in mind, captain," Gaunther said. "Technically, you do outrank me, and I
am bound by your orders should you give them."
"Orders like this I can never give. Only you can give them to yourself."
 "I see."
The next person that Thorpe contacted was Captain Atrox, the flag commander of the
Andorian ships. The Andorian did have a presence on the viewscreen, since the man was tall
and broad-shouldered, with the lightly-scaly bluish skin and the patchy white hair that was
thick over the top of his head and which came down over his forehead. Only in places were
there gaps, and in two of those the trademark Andorian antennae appeared. "Captain Atrox,"
Thorpe started. "Your sensors should have picked up some ships approaching."
"I notice that. What is up with them?"
Thorpe repeated the same story, about the Changeling disease likely induced by Section
Thirty-One and their desire to destroy all the Changelings and their culture while hushing it
up. He informed Atrox that the approaching ships could take whatever means are necessary to
stop the convoy of ships. Thorpe could sense a rising sense of anger in the Andorian, as
Atrox's face seemed to become darker, and his antennae stood up straight, whereas normally
they had a slight forward tilt.
"That would explain several things," Atrox explained.
"What?"
"One of my junior officers was caught making an unauthorized transmission from the
secondary communications system. He refused to tell me who the message was for, and what
it contained and why it was sent. I had no choice but to throw him into the brig. Now I get a
tingling in my antennae that this officer was working somehow for this counterintelligence
agency. You have no idea how angry I feel, captain, at this betrayal, not only here, but in
general. The Federation is nothing if we cannot uphold our principles. It is more than a
political entity, and our standards should be higher than basic old real-politick, and I feel
deeply offended that some agency-apparently run by humans and assisted by Odonans-is
doing this."
"And in no way are they representative of either group."
"Perhaps not, but the fact it even exists says something about those groups."
"Perhaps you are right," Thorpe finally added.
"Although it does offend my sense of dignity that we have to protect the enemy ships and
personnel from our fellow officers and ships, I feel that whatever sense of worth I have, the
value of the promises I make and my own sense of honour, would suffer even more.
Sometimes, we have to stand up to principles more than we have to give in to some who
profess to be our fellow citizens."
"I understand," Thorpe replied, but he could not simply come right out and ask the
Andorian captain whether or not he and his ship and his crew would do what he felt was the
right thing.
If the Athena captain had any doubt, Atrox did ease them. "Captain, I believe that we
should stand together."
"Your offer is appreciated. However, perhaps the battle will never come. As long as we
stay at warp, we can avoid it. I'm sure that you are familiar with all the techniques with
evasive manoeuvres at warp." The Andorian captain simply nodded, his antennae following
the motion with a slight lag. "Nobody has been able to counteract such evasive manoeuvres.
Perhaps they will not attack, but will use attempt to make us oblige them through
intimidation."
"Captain, it cannot be completely discounted that the Challenger and its captain might
have a means to force us out of warp. You should keep that in mind, and be prepared
accordingly."
"I understand."
"I've got work to do."
"So do I."
***
Thorpe returned to the bridge. Johnson had remained in the first officer's seat, knowing that
the captain would return and that it was possible to command the ship from the seat on the
right. The first officer followed Thorpe with her eyes from the ready room back to the
command area and his seat. She was expecting him to say something, but he never did.
Finally, she asked, "What have you decided? Do we surrender? Do we fight?"
"At best, neither," Thorpe remarked. "We continue on to the wormhole, evading the
Challenger and its accompanying ships. I spoke to several individuals, including the Founder,
the Andorian commander and Gaunther. I informed them what could happen and what we
should do about it. The absolute last thing I want to do is to fire on other Federation ships, and
yet... it's hard to express what I'm feeling." For some strange reason, Thorpe had the feeling
that the bridge was suddenly very quiet. Everybody on it wanted to listen to what he had to
say. "We sometimes have this feeling, instinctive or intrinsic if you will, on what is right and
wrong. We want to fight for what we believe, what we know, is right. For so much of the
Dominion war, the right side has been the Alliance and the wrong side the Dominion. Now we
find a little reversal. It's as if Section Thirty-One and its allies are a worse enemy than the
Dominion. If the ideas and thoughts represented by that group become the norm, I can almost
feel that the war was not worth fight, that avoiding Dominion subjugation was not worth such
a price. This is not what we had fought for."
Johnson simply said, "I understand. Although using evasive techniques might be suitable,
we should be prepared, just in case."
"Yes, we should."
Johnson took the task of setting up the ship for combat, by making sure repair teams were
ready, that sickbay was fully prepared and that the first shift was prepared to come to the
bridge and the second shift head to auxilliary control, that the engineering staff was ready, that
all weapon and shield systems were ready, that all the reserve fuel cells filled up, all power
units charged and security teams assigned to secure key areas against boarding attempts.
While the first officer did that, Thorpe studied the tactical display. He was going to give the
order for all ships in the convoy to greatly expand outwards to give them more room to
manoeuvre. At the same time, he was going over mentally ways one ship could force another
to drop out of warp. Essentially, that was accomplished in one of two ways. The first was to
overwhelm the warpfield with positive energy. Weapons could be fired, but weapons could be
easily avoided. It was possible to lock a tractor beam onto a ship and pour energy through that
link, disrupting the warpfield, but that too required two ships to remain in close proximity for
more than a few seconds. The deflectors were a prime means for emitting energy, especially
subetheromagnetic energy. Again, to have any effect, the contact with the beams would have
to be prolonged, which was difficult with ships moving a warp, and the high energies required
could damage or even destroy a deflector, rendering the attacking ship effectively dead in
space. The second method for disrupting a warpfield was to interfere with or disrupt subspace
around the ship. Without that "anchor," the warpfield would become wildly unstable, and the
ship would be ejected from warp speed rather abruptly and harshly. Of course, the Athena
could travel in pure motonic simulation mode, without a subspace component, but none of the
other ships in the group had that ability. For the Athena to do it required that the ship drop out
of warp, accelerate to a very high sublight speed and generate a warpfield without the
subspace component. It was not the strategy to use right now. Thorpe also thought about ways
to disrupt subspace. The most effective way was to use subspace weapons, but those were
banned by treaty-but a treaty never would stop Section Thirty-One. The biggest problem with
subspace weapons was that the ship firing or launching them was also vulnerable to the
subspace interference. As he thought of this, Thorpe also thought of one possible way to
disrupt subspace without destroying it or causing effects to ripple outwards spherically and
chaotically. What was worse, the one race capable of producing such a device-a race that had
already demonstrated that they could build the device-was allied with this Section Thirty-One
operative.
The time continued to count down towards zero and the intercept by the Challenger and
the other ships. Johnson reported back to the bridge, saying, "Captain, all procedures in place.
We're as ready as this ship can be."
"Very well," the captain replied. "Recall the first shift bridge crew. Go to yellow alert, and
assemble the second-shift crew in auxilliary control. Hathson, how much time?"
"Five minutes."
In that five minutes, the first-shift bridge officers returned to duty, taking over the
consoles from the second-shift officers and familiarizing themselves with the situation. The
second shift officers assembled near the front of the bridge, and then, when everybody was
ready, they got onto the forward turbolift cars, which would take them directly to auxilliary
control on deck eight. They would monitor the flow of battle-if there was one-and be prepared
to take over should the bridge somehow lose the ability to direct the ship.
That last minute passed, with the tension continuing to rise until it became almost too taut.
"Sir," Vorwoorts said, her voice seemingly loud against Thorpe's degree of concentration.
"We're being hailed. It's the Challenger."
Thorpe said, "On screen." He thought that the odds were good that Captain Totten would
appear on the screen, but he could not say that with absolute certainty. Nevertheless, as the
streaking stars were replaced with the view of the bridge of the Sovereign-class Challenger,
the captain saw the man he least wanted to see sitting in the captain's chair.
"This is your final warning, captain. Stop your fleet and prepare to surrender."
"Whose orders are those?" Thorpe asked, calmly.
"They are issued by Admiral Nechayev."
"Then why isn't she personally giving them?"
"She is occupied with other matters," Totten remarked, speaking in a way that to Thorpe
suggested he anticipated the comment and prepared a response.
"Personally, I would think given the seriousness of what is being proposed here that she
would find the time to speak to me personally. Otherwise, I am left with the impression that I
should take orders from a fellow captain who is operating in a way I think is contrary to the
principles of the Federation and Starfleet."
"You're suggesting that I am giving you orders, without merely relaying them from my
own superiors?"
Thorpe ignored the question, and simply said, "Unless Admiral Nechayev can find the
time to personally speak to me and confirm these orders, I choose to ignore them. Good day,
captain." With those final words, Thorpe gave Vorwoorts a hand signal to terminate the link,
but he did see on the other man's face the words beginning to form, words that looked like
"you will regret what you're doing."
Once again, the image of the stars was placed on the viewscreen. One of those stars,
perhaps not easily visible yet, was Bajor's sun, and it marked the location of the wormhole.
Thorpe wished that it could come a whole lot quicker than it was. He studied the tactical
display, and saw that the intercepting ships were turning to take up a parallel course to
Thorpe's fleet of ships, and then they began to spread out along the perimeter. Thorpe counted
the ships that were taking up the positions, with the Challenger in the lead. In addition to
Totten's ship, the ships under his authority included four Akira-class ships, two of the heavy
destroyers called the Steamrunner-class and six of the Defiant-class, the new workhorse of the
militarized Starfleet, and three Intrepid-class ships, upgraded to the firepower of the Defiant-
class, but with its other attributes left intact.
Matsubara, looking over the same display as Thorpe, said, "All of Starfleet's newest ships,
their warships, probably all with some combat experience, all with the latest in shielding and
weaponry."
Vorwoorts remarked, "But how many would be willing to attack other Federation ships?"
"That's a good question," the captain agreed.
Indesakar had his own opinion, "They might be reluctant to attack the Federation ships,
but I doubt that they have any reluctance in attacking the Dominion ships."
"Just remember the rules of engagement," the captain started. "Try not to destroy any of
'our' ships. I doubt their crews are as misguided as the commanding officer. Fire to disable
only. For now, simply try to evade them. Do not let them get too close." Several minutes
passed, and during that time, Totten's ships made no attempt to approach any of the other
ships. They seemed almost content to shadow them from a distance, but Thorpe still found it
hard to believe that they were simply going to follow them towards the wormhole and attack
once they dropped out of warp. On the other hand, their actions now were highly suspicious.
"Captain," Vorwoorts suddenly said, "the shuttlebay doors on the Challenger have
opened." The image on the screen shifted to a closeup view of that ship, as seen from the rear.
The shuttlebay at the very rear of the engineering hull on that ship was opening, and as
Thorpe watched, small vessels were launched. They were equipped with warp drives since
they kept up with the ship once they left the warpfield of the Challenger, but they were too
small to be vessels. Instead, they fanned out and streaked forward, ahead of both the Athena
and the Challenger.
Matsubara, without prompting, was already scanning the probes, and as the information
scrolled across her monitors, a panicked, fearful look overcame her. She could barely get the
words out, "Captain, those probes are... identical to what the Odonans used to disrupt
subspace around Torkor!"
And just then, Captain Thorpe knew exactly what was going to happen next.
***
Before Thorpe could give any kind of order to drop out of warp and to notify all the other
ships to do likewise, it happened. Ahead of them, the probes detonated simultaneously,
producing a flash of white that obscured their view. Indesakar had no chance to steer the ship
or slow down or drop out of warp before the Athena hit the line where the link to subspace
had been severed and the warpfield became notoriously unstable. The speed shifted, and the
inertial dampers could not fully compensate. Thorpe felt the ship seemingly jolt and tilt under
him, and he had difficulty staying in his seat or being heard above the sudden din that
assaulted the ship.
In engineering, it was much worse. Dewuchun was down there in main engineering to
personally oversee everything that could be happening should the battle erupt, and a full
complement of engineers were manning all the stations. It was Kap who noticed and
identified what had suddenly appeared in front of the ship. "Subspace disruption ahead!"
Dewuchun looked at the monitor, and instantly interpreted the graphics. He yelled out,
"Shut it down!"
But he was too late. The ship hit the region of disrupted subspace with a lurch and a
scream from the very spaceframe that held the vessel together. The whole deck seemed to tilt
to starboard, and Dewuchun found himself flying across the main control table. Others went
flying as well, with tools and instruments suddenly becoming projectiles. Lieutenant Don Pak
managed to hold his position, and used the opportunity to access the main controls. He wanted
to shut down the warpfield by flooding it with positive energy from the nacelles, but he saw
that the warpfield, without its support in subspace, had become massively unstable. Energy
flows became chaotic, and could not sustain the interaction between the warpfield and the
universe it "enclosed" and the universe at large. Power flows surged uncontrollably through
the system. "The warp drive is overloading."
 Dewuchun looked up, and understood what was happening. He managed to take one step,
with the aim of getting into the containment area and pulling the manual rods to shut down the
system, but it was already too late. Too much energy was flowing back through the positive-
energy plasma transfer system, and he knew that the safety overrides used to protect the
crystal itself would kick in. Sure enough, both transfer systems overloaded and blew out in a
brilliant display of vented plasma. Fortunately, the system had been designed so that if it
overloaded, the explosive force would be mostly upward, sparing anybody in the containment
area from instant incineration.
As alarms and klaxons started to blare and flash, Pak reported, "Both cores have blown
out. The warpfield has collapsed."
"Plasma venting into the containment area," Dewuchun remarked. Automatically, the
isolation doors were beginning to lower, but the chief engineer got to the main door and
pressed in the interrupt button and held onto it. "Everybody out!" he yelled, gesturing for the
engineers in the containment area to get out. They helped those who were injured, and
struggled against the choking fumes that were rapidly filling the room and searing their lungs.
Those fumes were starting to fill the operations area as Dewuchun held the door open, so he
turned towards the others and said, "Clear out!" They left without hesitation. Dewuchun knew
his forcefield belt would give him a little protection, so he could stay long enough to try to get
the others out. He yelled at them to hurry, as the air inside the containment area continued to
deteriorate. Finally, as the last of them struggled out, Dewuchun let go of the interrupt button
and watched as the door slammed down.
***
Outside was as chaotic as inside. Nobody could avoid hitting the disrupted area, so as warp
systems failed catastrophically in some cases, starships spun out of control and emerged back
in normal space at widely-differing speeds. One older Miranda-class ship could not take the
sudden strains and it came apart and started to tumble as it disintegrated. One Dominion ship,
its warpfield unbalanced, started to caterwaul almost perpendicular to its original course. The
Dominion ships had been travelling at an intrinsic speed less than the Andorian ships, so in
one case, an Andorian ship rapidly approached a Dominion vessel. Its helmsman could not
completely evade the onrushing ship, and struck a glancing blow. The Jem'Hadar attack ship
was rammed by the curved upper nacelle of the Andorian ship, ripping it off with a blast of
explosive fury even as the Jem'Hadar vessel disintegrated into millions of fiery pieces.

"Warp engines are down," Indesakar remarked. "I barely have control." He somehow
managed to get back into his seat and regain control of the ship. "It's impossible to change our
speed much." About the only thing preventing more collisions, Indesakar realized, was that
the ships had been well spread out to begin with. The Athena had more intrinsic speed than
most of the other convoy ships, and was moving ahead of them.
"How long until we leave the disrupted region?" Thorpe asked.
"Two minutes."
"Shields and weapons?"
"Shields up and weapons on standby, although without warp power, the pulse phaser
cannons have limited functionality," Vorwoorts reported.
"What is the status of the warp engines?"
Lieutenant Connie Lee was at the security console, which was now configured to handle
damage control. "Warp engines are off-line," she reported. "Power backflows have taken out
both of the cores, but the crystal itself is intact."
"How long for repairs?"
"I can't say," Lee said. "The converter area has been sealed off due to plasma leaks."
"Damn," muttered Thorpe.
 For the remainder of the two minutes, the Athena simply moved forward on the inertia of
its real speed. The Challenger, knowing how space would be disrupted, was approaching
from above and in front, just waiting to finish off the Athena-although Thorpe was not giving
up that easily. Even before the ship left the disrupted zone, the other vessel opened fire. The
bright red beams streaked off of the ventral array and struck the upper forward shield, rattling
the ship.
"Return fire!" Thorpe ordered. He could see on the viewscreen as the Athena lashed out
with its own upper-array phasers, and in response, shield bubble on the Challenger glowed
brightly. However, the other ship had full manoeuvrability, and was able to move around. It
fired a rear volley with its quantum torpedoes, and those detonated on the upper forward
shield with effect. The ship rocked violently under the assault, and the officers had to hold
themselves down. One of the side-mounted monitors gave out in a shower of sparks, causing
Lee to momentarily duck. "We need warp power," Thorpe said.
"We need to get out of this disrupted zone," Indesakar said. He did what he could to adjust
the position of the ship, but when the Challenger fired again, it still targeted the upper
forward shield, with effect.
"That shield is down to thirty percent," Vorwoorts reported.
"Fire again!" the captain ordered. The tactical officer complied without acknowledgement,
sending a spread of quantum torpedoes towards the Challenger, visibly jerking the ship as the
explosions rippled over the shield bubble.
"How much longer?"
"Thirty seconds," Indesakar added. "Impulse engines standing by." The pilot tried to shift
positions, but without subspace, the Athena simply had too much mass and too much inertia to
move easily. The tactical officer on the Challenger had too much to target at, and launched
another spread of torpedoes at the weakening shield. Vorwoorts anticipated that, and had the
short-range phasers ready. She fired on the torpedoes, and picked off the first two, but the next
four slammed into the shields, with some of the explosive energy leaking through the shield
and raining down on the hull. The ship shook badly, and the port mission operations console
exploded in a display of light and sparks that had Matsubara and Vorwoorts ducking to the
floor. The klaxons sounded again.
"That shield is all but gone," Lee remarked. "One more hit, and we're..."
She let the word linger. Thorpe could not actually believe that Totten had ordered his crew
to fire on the Athena as if it was an enemy ship, as if it had to be destroyed. He wondered
what he had said to his crew to make them follow such an order. What lies had he told his
officers? Worse, Thorpe had this sudden feeling he would never know.
"We're clear!" Indesakar suddenly said. The hum of the impulse engines filled the bridge.
Thorpe quickly said, "Take us up, turn us sideways and protect that shield!" He looked at
the tactical display, and noticed that none of the other ships under Totten's command was
around them. Indesakar followed the order instantly, perhaps instinctively, causing the Athena
to climb rapidly upward and turn to take the damaged shield out of the line of fire. The
Challenger fired through the spot the Athena had been at seconds earlier. At the same time,
Vorwoorts fired a round from the phasers on the underside of the saucer and the ventral array,
scoring direct hits on the Challenger, but not seriously denting its shields. "Get a repair team
on that shield!"
Then the complexion of the battle changed.
"Sir," Matsubara reported, "I'm reading decloaking ships around us."
"Ours, or-"
She interrupted, "Dominion!"
Two Jem'Hadar attack cruisers dropped their cloaks as they streaked towards the
Challenger, and they opened fire at close range, the two ships splitting ways to go around
both sides of the Federation ship. The big Sovereign-class ship reeled under the impact, and
again when the attack ships fired with their rear weapons on the shield weakened by the
Athena. One of the beams arcked through the shielding and struck the hull, blowing off some
of the plating.
"What are other Dominion ships doing out here?" Vorwoorts asked.
One Jem'Hadar ship came for the Athena, firing a round but striking a more solid shield. It
arched around the Nebula-class ship, just as Vorwoorts fired on it-she did not know if she
should, but did-and staggered it. The second ship flew backwards, and attacked one of the
Dominion ships that the Athena had been escorting.
"What the hell?" muttered Thorpe.
Lee had the perspective. "Maybe the Dominion believes those ships from Betazed are
traitors of some kind, for giving up like they did. Maybe they had orders to the contrary, to not
leave under any circumstances, or to leave the planet scorched."
A third Jem'Hadar ship fired on the Challenger, and the big ship returned fire. Then it
opened up on the Athena, its phasers and torpedoes rattling off the rear and rear-lower shields.
"Damn him!" Thorpe cursed, as he barely could hold on to his own seat. "Doesn't he
understand?"
The Jem'Hadar ship came around for another pass, only to be set upon by two of Totten's
Defiant-class ships. The Jem'Hadar fired at the closer pursuer, causing its shielding to glow
and the ship to stagger, while the second closed in mercilessly and fired with its pulse
cannons. The energy overwhelmed the shielding and disrupted the ship, but the pilot, at the
last moment, turned his ship towards the Challenger. There was little that the big ship could
do but attempt to avoid the collision. The Jem'Hadar vessel exploded against the shields near
where the starboard nacelle was mounted to the engineering hull. The explosive fury carried
through, shattering the hull in that region and tearing off the nacelle. It shifted forward, the
Bussard ramscoops in the front slamming forcefully into the saucer section.
"Oh no," Thorpe said, simply to himself.
***
Bayanhong led the repair team to the location of the damaged shield generator, riding a self-
propelled antigravity cart with the rest of the repair team and their equipment and spare parts.
The shield generator for the upper forward shield was located on deck three at the end of a
crescent-shaped corridor right at the front end of the ship, with the wider area directly in front
of the shield generator mechanism. Control panels were mounted on each side of the access
hatches, which sloped somewhat to match that of the hull. The hatches did not appear to be
damaged, nor were there gases or smoke somehow coming out of the mechanism, which was
a good sign.
"Tucker," Bayanhong shouted. "Take the control panel and trip the disconnects."The
young officer complied immediately, walking over to the left panel and tapping at the
controls. He called out each system as it was severed, "Power, liquid helium, coolant, control
links, overflow, heat dump. All check. Internal power good."
At her panel, Bayanhong tapped the icons that opened the hatches. A little smoke did wisp
out as the hatch panels parted and retreated into the ceiling and floor. Composition gauges
inside the housing indicated an elevated level of helium. "Cooke!" the executive officer called
out.
The ensign head a tricorder out and was scanning. "Rupture in the helium coolant vent,
also the overflow regulators have been compromised. Coils are good. Field generators are
good but the suppressors are blown."
As Cooke read off the parts that needed to be replaced, others in the damage control team
were already grabbing them off of the racks. Because of the important nature of shield
systems, the components were extremely modular and allowed for quick, easy swapping in
and swapping out. Every second that the shield was down was one more second in which the
Athena was vulnerable to being hit in that open, exposed section. Although the bridge was
doing its best to make sure that the hole in the shields was turned away from the battle, there
was always the chance of a stray shot finding its way through. The tension was there.
Bayanhong tapped the icon that caused the whole shield mechanism to slide out of its
housing. It moved about a third of the way before a loud, grinding sound ruptured the tense
silence. Immediately, Bayanhong stopped the progress of the mechanism, and asked simply,
"Cooke?"
"One of the damaged helium lines is jamming against the frame."
Bayanhong knew what had to be done. From the tool rack, she took a fixed-length cutting
laser and set it to a narrow, one-centimetre beam with a ten-centimetre length, and squeezed
herself in between the housing and the shield mechanism. Seeing the offending length of pipe,
which was hanging at an angle as the metal had overheated and deformed, the executive
officer turned on the cutting laser. Unlike other cutting tools, this one generated phaser energy
along a projected forcefield, creating a powerful beam that cut through just about anything.
The fixed-length cutter was used primarily to cut through things without risk of damaging
what was behind it. Bayanhong now used it to slice through the pipe, and the beam went
through the pipe in less than a second, with hardly any resistance. The pipe clattered loudly to
the floor. Squeezing back out and absently securing the cutting laser to her own tool belt,
Bayanhong asked simply, "Now?"
"Clear."
Bayanhong hit the icon on the panel that moved the shield mechanism all the way out.
***
"The Challenger has been compromised," Matsubara remarked. "Its warp core has become
unstable."
"Is it launching escape pods?"
"Affirmative," the science officer answered.
"Jem'Hadar ships in the area?"
"Negative," Vorwoorts remarked.
Thorpe knew two things. One was that those escape pods could not survive very long if
they were attacked, and the second was that although Totten was on board one of those pods,
his crew should not be sacrificed for him. "Vorwoorts, lower the shields on the lander, and
start co-ordinating beaming in those survivors. Keep an eye out for the Jem'Hadar."
"Aye, sir."
***
Further back, the battle raged in all of its confusion. Totten's ships fired on the other
Federation ships, still aiming to disable them or drive them away. One Andorian ship had its
engines taken out, and then when the Jem'Hadar attack ships came its way, it could not
adequately defend itself, and was torn apart. The Defiant-class ships darted in and out,
seemingly targeting anything in their paths, while dodging weapons fire that came for them
between going at the other ships. The Jem'Hadar ships ran at the ships from Betazed, with the
majority of those ships guarding the one the Founder was on. That ship was not targeted, but
the others were fired on, and they returned fire. As those ships swept around the inside, they
had to take fire from the Miranda-class escorts and the Akira-class and Steamrunner-class
ships further out. Space was torn by bright red and blue beams going in all directions, and
striking all manner of other ships. However, the newly-arrived Jem'Hadar ships were mindful
of the ships up front. Seeing that the original ships assigned to that end were somehow lost,
two broke off the attack on the protectors of the Founder's ship and streaked forward. The
Athena fell into their sights, and they opened fire, going after the rear of the saucer and the
superstructure that connected the three parts of the ship at the rear. The pilots dodged the
pulse cannons fired from the rear of the lander, and went after what their sensors showed was
a weakness in the shielding. The powerful blue beams cut into the shields and slammed into
the hull just behind deck two. The other Jem'Hadar ship was going after the Challenger,
which was badly damaged and shedding debris and atmosphere, with fires visible through the
engineering-hull windows. The ship also fired at the escape pods, not all of which were
empty.
"Jem'Hadar incoming!" Vorwoorts shouted out.
"Raise the shields!" Thorpe ordered. He was very much aware that they had not retrieved
all of the personnel on the escape pods. "Return fire." Vorwoorts did just that, firing the pulse
cannons with visual targeting, but it was not enough. The polaron beams found their way
through the weakened shields. The ship rocked with such an impact that Thorpe was thrown
to the floor. The back wall of the bridge seemed to dissolve in a series of flashes of plasma
and heat and sparks, causing the lights to flicker and the consoles to show more gibberish than
meaningful information. Thorpe heard Lee scream, and looked up and saw some of the debris
land on the security console. She looked up, plasma burns on the left side of her face, but she
not that badly hurt-relatively speaking.
"Warning," sounded the computer. "Hull breech on deck one." Thorpe thought he could
hear a whistling sound.
"Why doesn't the breech seal?" he asked.
Vorwoorts called up the information, "Problems with power, structural integrity,
forcefields, major damage. This deck won't hold."
Thorpe knew what this moment meant. They would have to abandon the bridge, even with
the Jem'Hadar ships coming around again. He looked at the display beside him. Some
distance back, the battle continued. The Challenger suddenly became target practice for the
Dominion ships, and Indesakar was taking the Athena away to avoid taking too much of the
shock wave and debris damage. Thorpe watched as the polaron beams from the Dominion
ships tore into the elongated forward saucer section of the big ship, blowing off large sections
of the upper hull. The "U.S.S. Challenger" name seemed to come apart bit by bit, and that was
followed by the ship itself.
"Brace yourselves," Indesakar said, and seconds later, the shock wave hit the smaller
Nebula-class ship, but the shaking was not as bad as Thorpe anticipated.
"Warning," repeated the computer. "Hull breech on deck one. Unable to compensate."
Thorpe called out, "Computer, transfer all operating command codes to auxilliary control,
authorization Thorpe vector delta one one zero." He tapped at the commbadge and hurriedly
issued the simple command, "Johnson, you're live!" Shutting off the badge, he ordered loudly,
"Everybody off of the bridge!"
Indesakar helped Lee, who had burns on her left side from her face down her left arm.
Vorwoorts monitored one last reading, and said, "Sir, structural integrity might be
compromised. We might have to eject the bridge module or else the Jem'Hadar might fire
straight down and into the ship, and we couldn't stop that."
"I figured as much," Thorpe said, as he headed to the emergency escape hatch at the front
of the bridge, directly across from the ready room. He opened the door, exposing a dimly-lit
climbing tube that led down one deck. He waited there, making sure that Matsubara and
Vorwoorts got through, while watching and seeing that Indesakar and Lee were getting
through. He took one quick look around the bridge, which was filling with smoke as
electronics burned, and that smoke was trailing through the doors that led into the observation
lounge. "I'm going to miss that ready room," he said, almost forlornly.
Thorpe was the last one into the tunnel. Aware of the urgency and fearful of every second
he was out of the know, the captain climbed down quickly. One step above the landing, he
tapped at some mechanical buttons, closing the double-layered hatch and securing it. Beside
those controls was another, guarded by a flip-up cover. He twisted a knob on that and flipped
up the cover. Underneath were two buttons, spaced a hand-width apart. They were large and
red and between them, a light was flashing red. Above them was the simple label,
"Emergency Bridge Module Eject." He put his forefinger on one and his thumb on the other,
and pressed. The deck reverberated with the impact of the explosive bolts firing and the
linkages physically separating.
***
"Situation?" Johnson demanded, as she sat in the command chair in auxilliary control. She
was surrounded by the second-shift officers, who were arranged in roughly the same position
as on the main bridge. Sandra Ochi sat at the flight control centre in front, with the viewscreen
in front of her, and behind her, in a curving console, were Torin at the sensors and Hathson at
tactical. Against the starboard wall and between the exits was the security console, now
manned by Lieutenant Zining Li. On the opposite wall was the engineering console, and
unlike the bridge, this one was manned, by Lieutenant Mahingoda Dukkottar.
"Warp engines are down," Dukkottar reported. "No repair estimate. Upper shields are
compromised, damage to the upper section of the ship. Casualty reports coming in."
"The Jem'Hadar?" asked the first officer.
Even while the bridge was in control, the officers in auxilliary control were monitoring the
operations and acting as if they were in control, anticipating actually controlling the ship.
When the word came out that they were in control, they were ready. Hathson reported,
"They're coming around now, with the wreckage of the Challenger between them and us."
"Ochi," Johnson continued. "Move upwards. Keep the damaged sections out of the line of
fire."
"The Jem'Hadar are moving too," Torin reported, "not moving, parallel course... what are
they doing?"
Hathson had the instant answer. "Transport activity! They're beaming in Jem'Hadar!"
Johnson quickly ordered, "Activate auxilliary control security measures, including the
forcefields and transporter scramblers. Seal off the exits." Hathson quickly complied. The
electronic measures went into effect, and the doors were covered by thicker blast doors made
of the same dense hull material used in the isolation doors. "Locate where the Jem'Hadar are
beaming in and seal off those sections, and get us out of transporter range."
Hathson had another idea, however. He loaded trackable photon torpedoes into the
launchers and fired them. The two torpedoes streaked outwards, not immediately towards the
two Dominion ships. At the last second, the two torpedoes turned abruptly and streaked
towards the small purple-hulled ships, and on board, the crews could not stop the transport
procedure fast enough and raise the shields fast enough. Both ships exploded into countless
tiny fragments.
"Lieutenant Hathson!" Johnson spoke out loudly.
"I had no choice, ma'am. I had to catch them in mid-transport cycle, so there was no time
to explain."
For now, the first officer let the moment pass. She asked, "How many Jem'Hadar got on
board?"
***
In main engineering, Dewuchun, with DeWillis beside him, peered through the transparent
aluminum viewports that were embedded in the containment door. They could see the
damaged warp core, and they had a pretty good idea what they needed to do to repair the
damage and get the warp engines back on-line. However, although they had vented the plasma
and the atmosphere inside the containment area, the radiation levels were still too high and
not falling fast enough.
"Normally, we could wait for the radiation to die down," Dewuchun said, "but we can't
right now. Perhaps environmental suits aided by forcefield belts would allow us to enter the
containment area and begin repairs."
"There's another way," DeWillis suggested, looking at the chief engineer. "We can use the
emergency engineering hologram. Radiation would not affect her." The assistant noticed a
change in the expression in Dewuchun's face, an expression almost like shock-if he could read
Odonans right. "A problem with the E.E.H., sir?"
"No," was all that Dewuchun said. He watched, momentarily unable to react, as DeWillis
walked back to the main control table, and called up some controls. The chief engineer simply
could not say that the emergency engineering hologram could not be used, because he would
be forced to explain why. The changes he had made were now going to be exposed, and he
had this fear that it would be much worse than he had thought.
"Computer," DeWillis called out. "Activate the E.E.H., in the containment area."
The computer made no response but simply carried out the order. Inizi Dewuchun
appeared in the middle of the containment area, and she looked around, puzzled by her
surroundings. She could see the damage to the warp core, and was aware of the radiation and
the debris around the floor. Dewuchun could tell that the holographic representation of his
wife was acting just like his wife would if she found himself in that situation. She was lost
and confused-and she could not communicate her fear since the containment area was a
vacuum.
DeWillis rejoined Dewuchun at the containment door, and looked through. Now he was
surprised. "What happened to the E.E.H.?"
"It's a long story."
"But since when was the E.E.H. represented by an Odonan woman, in civilian clothes?"
DeWillis looked back at the hologram, which was walking around, looking for a way out of a
room that she did not recognize. "Sir?"
Dewuchun retreated to the main control console, and started to make adjustments. He had
used the program so much that the Inizi Dewuchun algorithms and the memories and abilities
generated by them had taken up too much computer space, and had compromised the
emergency engineering hologram routine. It was possible to re-initialize the hologram,
although he could not alter the physical shape of the hologram right away. On the other hand,
by hurriedly reinitializing the system, he was simply dumping the Inizi Dewuchun hologram,
and all of the memories and information that it had gathered. Everything he had told her,
everything about the interactions, was simply being lost, erased with no chance of recovery.
The thoughts were chilling for Dewuchun. It was like he was simply erasing his wife and her
memories, tossing her aside when it was expedient to do so. He had to tell himself over and
over again that what was here was only a hologram. The real Inizi was safe at home, unaware
of what was happening. More than once, he had to tell himself that since what he was doing
seemed so real, and so wrong.
DeWillis caught up to the chief, and said, simply, "Sir?"
Dwuchun looked up, and said softly, "It should work now." He tapped one final icon. The
representation of Inizi Dewuchun shimmered momentarily before it took on the solid
appearance again. As they watched, the emergency engineering hologram started to do the
task that it had been given.
***
"We have to get to auxilliary control," Thorpe said, as he started to lead the others down the
corridor. Facing Lee, he added, "Are you sure you should not be going to sickbay?"
"I'll manage. The burns are minor, and the pain's not really there yet. I'd imagine that
sickbay is swamped right now, and Doctor Psakolaps doesn't need another patient. It can't get
any worse, you know."
Thorpe could have ordered her to sickbay, but he did not, simply because she was right.
He had no idea of the injury and casualty situation on his ship, but he just knew it was not
good. Through all of what the Athena had been through, the ship had never been damaged
quite like this, enough that he was already thinking the unthinkable. "Lets get moving." The
group started down the corridor, for the nearest turbolift station, which would take them down
to deck eight and auxilliary control. Unfortunately, as soon as they approached the turbolift,
they found another group moving towards them. Thorpe recognized Totten right away, and he
assumed that the other officers were his command staff.
The first thing that Thorpe noticed was that Totten was taller and more muscular than he
expected, and he surmised that this man came through Starfleet more on a military track than
a science and exploration track. Even the other officers looked larger than a typical human,
including the dark-skinned woman who had the rank pins of lieutenant commander and wore
the yellow of ship services. Something told him she was not the chief engineer of the
Challenger. Several of the other officers did have burns, and burn marks on their uniform, and
they were bloodied, bruised and cut as well. They were also angry.
But none were angrier than Totten. He spotted Thorpe, and charged towards him, yelling,
"You cost me my ship, you bastard! You have disobeyed your last direct order!" Totten
showed every inclination of wanting to either get his hands around Thorpe's neck or at least
get in a few good swings. Two of his officers, including the Amazon woman, had to restrain
him, while Indesakar and the female officers moved to form a protective ring around their
captain. If this got physical, Thorpe knew, he would bear the worst end of it. None of his
bridge officers had much in the way of hand-to-hand combat training. It was not expected on
a science ship.
The captain tried to remain calm. "You have nobody to blame but yourself for what
happened here."
"You idiot!"
"You had no business using illegal subspace weapons like that, no business to disrupt this
ship."
"You had no business violating my orders!" Totten yelled out, his voice almost distorted.
"I lost a lot of good officers on my ship, and it's all your fault."
"As if I fired on your ship."
"Of course you did!"
"And you fired on mine. What was I to do, let you destroy me?"
"You could've followed orders!"
"Those were no orders to follow!"
Finally, Totten broke free of the restraint from his officers and rushed Thorpe. He grabbed
the smaller man and together, they slammed into the corridor wall. Totten tried to land a
punch, but at least Thorpe was agile enough to avoid it. He did drive an elbow into Totten's
midsection, but felt that hurt him more than it hurt the Challenger captain. Indesakar tried to
grab Totten and pull him off, only to have one of the Challenger officers slug him enough to
leave his lower lip bloodied. Vorwoorts found herself knocked to the ground and trampled
upon as the scrum tripped over her. The corridor for a few seconds was a mass of swinging
arms and legs, hands that clutched and punched and arms used as clubs and battering rams.
"What the hell is going on here?" came the loud voice.
Thorpe looked up and saw Rocha and three other security officers, all armed with phaser
rifles, suddenly appear, and they quickly waded into the confrontation, pulling people apart
and using the pointed end of the phaser rifle to convince one Challenger officer to stand back.
Lieutenant Henrique Estelle had to fire his weapon-and then Matsubara had to roll out of the
way as the dark-skinned Amazon fell to the floor like a sack of wet cement.
Also in the corridor was Unid, who looked over the wild scrum with mildly-concealed
contempt. "Unbelievable," he said simply, watching as Rocha and the other security officers
stepped between the two groups of officers. "The lot of you, envisioning yourselves as highly-
disciplined Starfleet officers, representatives of the Federation and all that it represents in
terms of peace and tolerance and repression of petty hates and jealousies."
"What the hell is that?" Totten demanded. "Is that the Changeling who has led you down
the path of a traitor, Thorpe?"
"My point has been clearly made."
"You watch yourself," the Challenger captain retorted. "Your people are on their way out.
You messed with someone stronger than yourself, more determined than yourself and with a
lot more guts than your kind could ever show. You might've corrupted a captain or two, or a
ship or two, but you'll never get the whole Federation, and the men and women that protect it
so well."
"I don't consider myself a Founder," Unid continued. "I'm not part of the Dominion. I've
heard of them, and I fail to agree with their aims, methods and goals. However, my own faith
in the Federation and in the races of the Alpha Quadrant has been shaken by what I see here,
pointless egos, hidden agendas and a sense of violence that does not seem to want to end."
Thorpe spoke up, saying, "He is right, of course. The war is virtually over. This small
group of Dominion ships and personnel was no threat anymore. They left Betazed peacefully,
and were heading home. You interrupted that."
"You had no business even starting it," Totten reported.
Rocha thought he heard something, and the others noticed his attention suddenly
elsewhere. "What is it?"
"Transporters."

Bayanhong hit the icon on the panel that caused the shield generator to retract into the wall.
She checked to make sure that the automated reconnection system was engaged, and then with
Cooke's help, she made sure that all shield functions were coming back on-line and were fully
functional. Tapping her commbadge, she said, "Bayanhong to bridge. Upper forward shield is
restorted."
Johnson replied, "This is Johnson. The bridge is out of commission."
"Damn."
"Commander!" one of the damage control team members, Chief Petty Officer Halek,
shouted. "Jem'Hadar!"
"What!"
Two of the spike-headed Dominion warriors came from each direction of the crescent-
shaped corridor, and they came out firing. Cooke was standing near the second control panel
when the polaron beam speared him and continued into the wall. "Damn!" muttered
Bayanhong, as she hard two more come from behind her. She hit the floor as the first of the
two opened fire, shooting above her head. Another of the team members was already on the
self-propelled cart, and he slammed it into reverse. The cart plowed into the wall with a
decided thud, crushing the two Jem'Hadar into the wall, while the impact dislodged a lot of
the parts and equipment, which crashed noisily to the deck. As he was being pinned, one of
the Jem'Hadar dropped his polaron weapon. Bayanhong scrambled for it, and grabbed it even
as a shot just missed her head. Using a partly-dumped field generating coil as cover,
Bayanhong turned around and opened fire on the Jem'Hadar, who, assuming unarmed
members of the crew, were not worrying about return fire. They were exposed. Bayanhong
staggered one of the Dominion warriors, blowing off a portion of his chest and part of his
head. The second one retreated. Halek grabbed the dropped weapon and charged the turn in
the corridor. After a brief exchange of fire, the young enlisted man was thrown back, his front
end a mass of polaron burns and the weapon ruined. Now Bayanhong moved forward, against
the edge of the turn. She held the weapon high, and just aimed it around the cornor and fired
blindly. Within seconds, the return bolts sizzled into the wall near the shield hatch, but the
beams did blow out the control panel.
Now Bayanhong sunk to her knees and rolled out into the corridor. Jem'Hadar were slow,
a fact she was exploiting now. His instincts were to fire at a standing target, so he could not
adjust his aim before firing. The bolts went over her head. When Bayanhong fired, the bolts
tore through the head of the Jem'Hadar. Looking back at the others, some cowering, some too
scared to move, the executive officer asked, "How is it?"
"Cooke, Ottenbrite, Halek, didn't have a chance," Liu said, softly.
***
"Jem'Hadar, coming from both ends," Lieutenant Hann suddenly said.
Rocha yelled, "Everybody down!"
Unid did not move, and said, "I would not be surprised if they were after me."
The first Jem'Hadar came from the same direction the Challenger officers had come.
There were four of them, and they came around firing. One of Totten's officers was shot in the
back, vapourizing a significant chunk of his back and spinal cord. A second shot hit Hann, but
his protective forcefield merely glowed, although the momentum knocked him back.
When the Jem'Hadar came around the other side, their targets were not the Athena
officers, but Unid. The Changeling was hit by a polaron beam, but managed to shapeshift into
a more resistant form. However, the impact did weaken him, and he could not fully return to
his humanoid form. For Thorpe, seeing the Jem'Hadar firing like this on a Changeling was
completely unexpected. They were bred to regard the Founders as gods, and make sure no
harm ever came to one. Then again, as Unid often pointed out, he was a Changeling, but not a
Founder. The Jem'Hadar, he recalled, had already tried to capture or destroy him.
"Unid!" Rocha shouted. "Get down." While everybody else was ducking, or in the case of
Totten's group, running away, Rocha was crouching and the other security officers were firing
on the Jem'Hadar, driving them back. However, one came boldly out from cover against the
wall and approached Unid at close range. Rocha reacted by instinct. He lurched upwards and
attempted to pull Unid to safety. In an instant, he felt a searing pain as the polaron beam
struck him in the chest, just below where the windpipe branched out into the lungs. The
impact knocked him over and pulled Unid down as well. Thorpe, seeing Rocha's rifle land
nearby, rolled out and grabbed it. Just before the Jem'Hadar soldier could fire on either Unid
or his chief of security, Thorpe targeted his head and fired. The bright red phaser beam went
right through it.
The corridor was momentarily in silence. Thorpe looked around, and saw Totten penned
down by Hann, and only the bottom half of the formerly-unconscious Amazon security officer
remained. However, his attention was quickly diverted to Rocha, who rolled off of Unid, the
upper part of his chest a mass of burns. He writhed in barely-concealed pain. "Aleksandr!"
Thorpe called out.
***
The battle seemed a long way away. The Athena was moving on inertia only, with the other
ships firing at each other in a confused, almost random way, and leaving the Nebula-class ship
alone. Auxilliary control was momentarily silent, as Johnson examined the internal and
external sensor information. There were Jem'Hadar on board the Athena, and some had been
killed, and some of the crew of the ship had died too, she knew. Most of the Jem'Hadar were
contained, and Johnson thought that it might be a painstaking process to regain control of the
ship.
Hathson interrupted the silence, except for the seemingly-loud blinking of the red alert
klaxons, by saying, "Commander, I'm receiving a prompt for a general-broadcast message."
"From where?"
"Originating on Cardassia."
 Johnson lifted her eyebrows just a little. "If you can, display the message."
"There's no attempt to hide it. Getting a visual signal now."
"Main screen."
The image of distant stars was replaced by the scene of the main Dominion operations
room on Cardassia. For several seconds, the image was static, giving Johnson a chance to
study it. In the foreground was the Female Changeling known to be the overall Dominion
leader in the Alpha Quadrant, and she appeared to be remarkably free of the Changeling
disease. Either she never had it, or had been cured. In the background, Johnson noticed two
other individuals, a Cardassian in civilian clothing-perhaps part of the civilian resistance that
the crew had heard so much about lately-and a Bajoran woman in a Starfleet uniform,
suggesting that Starfleet had managed to penetrate that far. Johnson could feel her heart soar
with anticipation.
Suddenly, the Founder spoke. "Attention all Dominion forces, on ships, in space and on
planetary surfaces. Effective immediately, I am ordering an unconditional ceasefire. All
Dominion and allied forces are to lay down their weapons. If engaged in battle, they are to
retreat. They are to fire only in self-defense in the face of extreme provocation. I am taking
this measure now because we can no longer continue the war. We fought bravely and
gallantly, and we attempted to bring a true and lasting peace and sense of order to the Alpha
Quadrant, but our time here has not yet arrived. The ceasefire is immediate and unconditional.
All ships are to return immediately to base. All ground units are to return to their staging
areas. I repeat, the ceasefire is immediate and unconditional."
For a few seconds, Johnson just sat there, in silence, thinking just one thought.
Ochi voiced it. "The war is over!"
Torin added to it," And we won."
But Hathson was the voice of caution. "Ma'am, we've got Jem'Hadar on board who might
not have heard that message." He did not add that the Jem'Hadar likely would have preferred
to have heard it from the Vorta in charge of the ship, but those Vortas were no longer there
after his impulsive act to destroy the ships. It was doubtful that they would believe Johnson
telling them that a ceasefire has been ordered.
"Rebroadcast it through the ship, nevertheless," Johnson ordered.
Seconds later, the tactical officer remarked, "Ma'am, we've just gotten a transmission from
Starfleet Command, and it confirms what the Changeling has said. All Starfleet vessels are to
disengage from the enemy and return fire defensively only."
"What's the status of the battle?"
Torin was monitoring that, and reported, "The firing of weapons has stopped. The ships
are beginning to separate. Maybe we should call over one of those Dominion ships to come
over and remove the Jem'Hadar."
Johnson sat there, and was very reluctant to follow that idea, since it involved trusting the
Jem'Hadar not to fire on the Athena while it was partly shielded and with Jem'Hadar on board.
As long as they were contained between security forcefields and isolation doors, then they
were not that serious a problem. None had made it to auxilliary control to attempt to break in
yet.
The tactical console beeped one more time, and again Hathson was drawn to the
communications functions. A text-based message was coming in, and as he read it, his face
seemed to lose a little bit of colour. Shock was clear on his eyes. Johnson was watching this as
she looked over the back of her chair, waiting to learn what had caused the tone. "Yes?" she
finally asked-or perhaps ordered.
Slowly, Hathson spoke, "Commander... we've received a high-speed transmission from the
Odonan starship Starstone. Moments ago, it launched high speed warp torpedoes at the
Athena and... other traitorous ships. The torpedoes are... cloaked and cannot be recalled once
launched, nor can their targeting program be altered. One of those torpedoes is coming for us,
ma'am."
"How long?"
"Nine minutes, approximately."
Johnson faced the viewscreen again, and saw only the stars. The torpedo was out there,
cloaked and undetectable, and not even the Odonans knew when it was going to arrive. The
war was over, Johnson thought. This should not be happening. All of these people on the
ship... this should not be happening. However, it was. If the torpedo could not be detected and
stopped, and if the latest reports from engineering suggested that the warp engines would be
down for some time, she knew there was only one realistic way to save as many lives as
possible. "Computer," she called out, hearing the beeps from the machine. "Put me on ship-
wide communications." After some more beeps, she said, "Attention all crew. The Athena is
about to come under an attack that we cannot resist nor run away from. All personnel,
abandon ship." The computer, understanding what Johnson was saying, activated the red alert
klaxons in the distinctive long-short pattern that signalled exactly what the first officer had
said. "We have nine minutes."
***
Sickbay was chaotic. All the medical personnel were there, and the place was filled with the
injured, including some who likely would not survive the plasma burns or the polaron bursts-
and some who had not survived already. Psakolaps was working on one of the engineers with
Wildeman at the next bed when Johnson made her announcement.
"Surely she's joking," the assistant chief medical officer replied. They had just heard the
Changeling announce the ceasefire and the surrender of Dominion forces.
"She's not joking," Psakolaps replied.
"How do we evacuate sickbay like this?"
"Specialized escape pods equipped for medical use. C'mon, we've got only a few
minutes."
"This man's not going to make it if we move," Wildeman remarked.
"Nobody will make it if we don't move." Already, Psakolaps was directing the walking
wounded and assorted assistants and other personnel to get out the cots, and to pull the cases
of emergency equipment where they had been stored just for this eventuality. If sickbay had
been chaotic before, it was beyond chaos now.
***
On deck two, still standing off with Totten and his officers while his people were getting
ready to move Rocha, Thorpe heard the announcement and heard the klaxons come on. He
immediately tapped his commbadge, and said, "Thorpe to Johnson. What's going on?"
She explained briefly about the warp torpedo and how it was tracking the Athena and how
the damaged ship could not run or hide from it. Abandoning the ship was the only hope,
something that Thorpe reluctantly knew was true. He had already seen the loss of the bridge,
so how much more could it be to lose the whole ship? "Establish a link with a Memory Alpha
relay station and dump the computer, and then get out."
"Link already established. We're securing auxilliary control against possible Jem'Hadar
incursion, and then we're on our way.
Indesakar was looking at the captain, waiting for his moment. "Sir... the escape pod on this
deck?"
Thorpe had thought about that, but with nine minutes at their disposal, there was another
idea. "No, we'll take the runabout."
"Sir?" asked Matsubara.
"Better chance to treat Rocha there. The Styx has medical equipment on board."
"But no officer with medical training."
 A man by the name of Cornelius Ytterb, perhaps the slightest of the officers on the
Challenger bridge and its tactical officer, stepped forward, "I have field medical training."
"Then you're drafted," Thorpe said hurriedly.
Totten stepped forward, saying, "There are likely Jem'Hadar between here and the
shuttlebay. We'll never reach it in time."
Gesturing at the fallen Jem'Hadar weapons, the captain said, "Pick those up, and cover our
rears, and... please... don't shoot us in the back." Even as he said those words, Thorpe realized
there was more. Ever since Totten had been beamed onto the Athena, he had seemed to be
much more on the edge, but this had been obscured by his normal personality, until now. "You
knew about this warp torpedo, didn't you?"
"Yes," Totten said, with surprising meekness.
"Why? Why weapons like this?"
"By refusing to follow orders, your ship and those that followed you, not to mention the
Dominion ships, were considered to be traitors."
Matsubara spoke up, saying, "It's my feeling that the Odonans launched those weapons
hours ago, long before your ships completed their approach, long before you used the
subspace weapons, long before you had even asked for our surrender one last time. What does
that say?" Totten had no response to that, but looked very grim. Matsubara moved forward, to
tell the captain something.
***
"We'd better get to the escape pods," Bayanhong said to the surviving members of the damage
control team. "We don't have much time." She was the one who hesitated, since she knew that
for one simple reason, she could not leave just yet. She had one thing to get, one thing she
could not leave behind. Handing the Jem'Hadar rifle to Liu, and said, "Take the others to the
escape pods. There are some close to this location."
"What about you, ma'am?" the man asked.
"Don't worry about me. I'll be alright, but there's no way I can leave this ship without
something. Now... go." When there was a slight delay in the response of the others, she
quickly added, "Now that's an order, ensign."
"Yes ma'am," came the smart reply. Liu led his group down one corridor, to where the
escape pods were, while Bayanhong headed in another, to where the turbolift was located. She
estimated that she had seven and a half minutes to get off the ship, and if there were no
obstructions in her way, she could easily achieve that. It was the obstructions-Jem'Hadar-that
unnerved her. However, no matter what came in her way, Bayanhong knew that she could not
leave the Athena without Dusty. The animal was a comsfosaurus, from Cretaceia, the last of
his kind. It should not end here, she knew.
***
Captain Thorpe led the way along the corridors, carrying Rocha's phaser rifle. The other
security officers had surrendered their rifles to Matsubara and Vorwoorts-the former not very
comfortable with it-so that they could carry the badly-injured security chief. The Challenger
officers brought up the rear, and Hann, along with Unid, were between the two groups.
Matsubara had told the captain about the fears she had that Totten and his group, armed with
the Jem'Hadar weapons, might turn on the Athena officers and seize the runabout. Thorpe
could not understand why, since if not the runabout, then surely they could leave on another
shuttlecraft.
All the way to the shuttlebay entrance on deck five, they had met with no resistance, no
Jem'Hadar warriors nor any signs that they had been there. As they approached the large
double doors leading to the deck, Thorpe and Vorwoorts moved up against the door, while the
captain signalled for Hann to keep a careful eye on the Challenger officers.
Totten spoke up, "I just realized that the Athena has a warp-capable lander. Why don't we
just take it?"
Hann explained, "It takes ten minutes to fuel up and get to operational status."
"You don't keep it fueled up?"
"No. We run transporters through there, leaving it but not the rest of the ship unshielded. If
the lander is hit but is fueled, the explosion could be a lot worse."
"Poor thinking," Totten said.
"Hardly," Hann remarked. He had thought about another approach as well. The Athena
should have simply headed back into the volume of space where subspace had been disrupted,
thinking that once the warp torpedo entered that, it would be disrupted as well, and become
detectable. However, the Challenger captain dismissed that with a simple phrase, "pure
motonic simulation." The device did not need subspace to remain at faster-than-light speeds.
Thorpe hit the controls that opened the door, and as the panels slid apart, he and
Vorwoorts were the first ones through. They visually swept the large, open area with all the
possible hiding places, but they detected no presence, and no motion. Thorpe gestured for the
others to follow them into the deck, although they continued to visually sweep the area and
kept a watch out for all possible hiding places. "Sir," the tactical officer pointed out, and she
gestured upwards. The shuttlebay hatch was open.
"Anybody close to the shuttlebay might have taken a shuttle as an escape vehicle," Thorpe
explained, and that was perfectly understandable. "However, the runabout is still there."
Unlike other shuttles, even when the order to abandon ship was given, the controls of the
runabout would not be released by the computer. Only the correct codes would release control
of the Styx. "Computer," the captain called out, loudly and firmly enough that he could be
heard by the computer. "Release operating controls of the Styx to me, authorization code
Thorpe alpha bravo one zero green alpha one."
"Authorization accepted. Controls of the U.S.S. Styx now released."
Totten added, "Lets hope that this vessel is fueled and ready for flight."
Thorpe opened the hatch, but gestured for the officers carrying Rocha to go on first,
saying, "Take him into the rear section." Ytterb and Lee followed them into the back room of
the small ship, while Indesakar made his way to the pilot's seat. Nobody was telling him that
he would not be flying. Once the Athena officers were on board, Hann stood near the
doorway, and held out his phaser rifle to block the way for the Challenger officers.
"What are you doing?" Totten demanded.
Hann would have liked to have left them behind, considering what they were responsible
for, but knew he could never get away with that. "Your weapons."
"Are you serious?"
"There are no Jem'Hadar on board the Styx. You won't need the weapons."
"This is insane."
"This is the Athena. We're making the rules right here."
Not wanting at all to be trapped on board the doomed ship, Totten finally agreed. He
handed over his polaron rifle and gestured for the others to do likewise, with Hann collecting
the weapons as the others entered. Once everybody was on board, Hann sealed the hatch, and
said, "We're ready here."
Indesakar was behind the pilot's controls, already bringing up the Styx to operating status,
while Matsubara was in the co-pilot's seat, assisting him. "We're ready," the pilot finally said.
"How much time?"
"I'd estimate five and a half minutes, if we're lucky."
"No time to wait." Indesakar lifted the runabout off of the deck and guided it out of the
parking area and onto the main open area of the shuttlebay. After adjusting his position to line
up with the main hatch, Indesakar changed the shield modulation to match that of the exit
barrier and then used the controls to lift the ship out of the bay. As he cleared the hull, he spun
the runabout through a quarter turn so that they were not facing the lander pylon, and then hit
the thrusters. The Styx streaked away from the Athena, and it was briefly joined by other
escape pods that were launching from all over the saucer and the engineering hull of the ship.
Matsubara noticed that Thorpe was standing in the alcove leading to the rear compartment,
and he was there only fleetingly, taking one final look at his ship.

Bayanhong made it to deck six without problems, and was now just seconds away from the
zoology lab. Assuming that she had no problem getting Dusty, she felt she could be inside an
escape pod in two minutes, three on the outside. She was pretty sure that a pod would be
available. Afterall, regulations required that there be twice as many escape-pod places as there
were normal numbers of crew. The Athena was designed for eleven hundred crewmembers,
and had only six hundred and twenty. Even with the Challenger survivors that had beamed
over, she was confident that a lot of the escape pods would end up going unused. That was not
her worry.
What became her worry was that as she rounded the cornor that led to the science labs, the
zoology lab in particular, she saw two Jem'Hadar walking away from her. Unfortunately, the
noise she made attracted their attention. She saw them turn to look back as she stopped, and
then retreated. "Damn," she muttered to herself. She was hoping this would not happen. She
stopped, and held herself rigid and silent, listening to hear what the Jem'Hadar were doing.
She heard footsteps-nothing was subtle about the Jem'Hadar, even the way they moved-and
they were getting closer. She looked behind her, and knew that at the end of this corridor was
nothing but the turbolift station. If she retreated to that, and tried another route... she realized
that she had no time. Leaning against the wall, she wished that she had some kind of weapon
on her, something that she could use. Bracing herself against the wall with her hands, her left
thumb bumped against something on the tool belt that she was still carrying. Looking down,
she saw the fixed-length cutting laser still hanging there. For a brief second, she thought she
was back in the holodeck, on Tatooine, in the holonovel-but this was not the holodeck. There
were no safeties here. The program would not end with a shrill siren if she made a wrong
move.
She took off the tool, and adjusted the beam width to one centimetre and the beam length
to eighty. However, she did not switch it on yet. Instead, she held herself completely
motionless, waiting for the Jem'Hadar to be at the right position on the other side. In all
likelihood, one would approach, and carefully look around, leading with his weapon, to make
sure that a threat did not lurk around the cornor. Bayanhong waited for that moment,
anticipating it, almost seeing it with her mind's eye, while cursing herself for the amount of
time it was taking. Suddenly, she thought that this was the moment. She flicked the beam on-
hearing it hum-and swung around the cornor, the cutting edge at approximately head height.
She saw a flash of bony Jem'Hadar skull, and the complete surprise on his face momentarily
before the beam sliced clean through his head, at about eye level, with hardly any resistance.
In fact, Bayanhong swung so hard that the beam slammed into the wall, showering her and the
doomed Dominion warrior in sparks. The executive officer quickly retreated.
Bayanhong pulled back. There was the second Jem'Hadar, and now he would be aware
that the human was armed and dangerous. But he was still going to have to come, and he was
going to have to step over the body of the fallen Jem'Hadar. Bayanhong waited for that
moment, and she did not have to wait long. She saw the very tip of the Jem'Hadar boot appear
in front of the body and just in view. That was when she swung the "light sabre" around at
mid-height, and she could hear the screams of the officer and felt the heat and shower of
sparks that came when the polaron rifle was severed right in the arms of the Dominion
warrior. The Jem'Hadar grunted out some kind of curse, as he stepped back. Bayanhong
finally emerged, the fixed-length cutting laser in both hands, the blue beam bright and
humming. The Jem'Hadar went to his backup weapon, a simple dagger, and knew that it was
no match for what Bayanhong had in her hands.
"The war is over," Bayanhong said. "The Changeling said it herself."
"We have no way of knowing the message was not faked," the Jem'Hadar replied. "We
heard no confirmation from our Vorta."
Bayanhong hated this. She had the Jem'Hadar at her mercy, but the weapon in her hand
had no stun setting. She was not the type to kill in cold blood, but she did think that the
Jem'Hadar would, if roles were reversed. The longer this stand-off continued, the less time she
had to get off of the ship-and get far enough away when it blew up. She said simply, "The war
is over, and I'm sorry about this!" She reached out and swiped with the cutting laser. The
Jem'Hadar offered only token resistance with the dagger, since the beam cut that in half
without even hesitating. Bayanhong, angry and agitated, thinking of those who had died in her
damage control team in particular, and thinking about Dusty dying, had no choice. She
reached out again... and neatly decapitated the unprotesting Dominion warrior.
She switched off the cutting laser and made her way to the zoology lab.
***
"Take us to one of the other ships," Thorpe said, leaning out from the rear component.
"Which one?" Indesakar asked. "The Andorian ships and Gaunther's ships are also under
this threat of attack. Can we trust Totten's ships?" As he said this, the pilot looked at the other
commander, but the expression on his face was blank.
"Pick one. Hail them. Find out."
Thorpe returned to the rear compartment of the runabout. Rocha was on the table, with
Ytterb already attempting to work on the man. The medical equipment had been removed
from its storage locations and already, he was shouting out instructions. Lee and some others
were there too, but it was Lee who had been giving the man extra attention, while ignoring her
own injuries. Thorpe knew that the historian and the security chief had been seen having
discussions in the Acropolis, but now, it seemed like the relationship might have been
something more. "No," she said softly. "This cannot be happening."
Ytterb spoke more firmly, "This doesn't look good." He read off from the medical
tricorder. "The esophagus has been severed, the windpipe damaged. One lung is badly
damaged, the other less so, both filling with blood and fluid, and the heart's been damaged
too."
"Can you help him?" Lee asked.
"All I can do is keep him stable until we get to a sickbay with proper facilities and staff.
I'm basically just a field medic." He looked at the monitor. His pulse was dropping. "Internal
bleeding... I think I'm losing him." Lee just looked at him with panicky eyes. Thorpe stood
back. "Moving him like we did resulted in more damage." Ytterb plumbed the depths of his
medical knowledge. He had already given him hyposprays to block the pain and render him
unconscious, but he could not think of what else he could do. In this environment, operating
was not really an option.
"Indesakar!" Thorpe shouted.
Matsubara worked the comm unit on the co-pilot's console. Ahead was an Intrepid-class
ship, and its beacon identified it as the Justina, and all Matsubara knew was that there had
been no Intrepid-class ships in the blockade at Betazed. "Hailing the Justina. This is
Lieutenant Commander Matsubara on the Styx. We have a medical emergency on board..."
***
Bayanhong got to the zoology lab. She shut off the forcefield that blocked Dusty's enclosure
from the rest of the room. The comsfosaurus, like he often did, was laying on one of the tree
branches, hugging it closely and not daring to look out. He was often like that when he sensed
something was wrong. The creature already knew that the flashing red lights on top of the
door signalled that something was wrong. "C'mon, Dusty," Bayanhong said, as she stood near
the creature. "We've got to go. No time to stay here." She picked up Dusty, and surprisingly,
the comsfosaurus did not resist. On the other hand, Dusty was getting heavy. He put his arms
around her shoulders and laid his head against hers. Bayanhong could just hold on. "Lets go."
More firmly, she said, "Computer, how much longer before the warp torpedo is scheduled to
hit?"
"Four and a half minutes."
"Damn, that's cutting it close." Bayanhong left the lab and headed towards the turbolift,
which would take her up a deck to the escape pods on deck five. However, as she approached
a cornor, she heard more footsteps. Again, she realized, there was nothing subtle about the
Jem'Hadar. As soon as she took a glimpse around the cornor, she had to retreat. Then she
heard them coming from the opposite direction too. In all likelihood, they were tracking her
on a tricorder. Most, if not all, the remainder of the crew had left the ship, and the Jem'Hadar
on board were coming after her, especially after what she had done to the Jem'Hadar with her
cutting laser.
There was one choice left. She retreated down the straight corridor that led to the centre of
the ship. If she could not use the turbolifts, she could use the stairwell. She got onto that, but
as soon as she took one step up, she could hear the heavy footsteps of someone coming down
from above. Bayanhong did not have to wonder who those footsteps belonged to. Knowing
that the Jem'Hadar had beamed into the top part of the ship, she headed down, wondering if
she could get down to deck twelve in time. As soon as she reached deck eight, she heard
someone below her, coming up with heavy, plodding footsteps. In all likelihood, the woman
surmised, the Jem'Hadar were tracking her and knowing her aim was to reach an escape pod.
They were moving to block her. Bayanhong bailed out of the stairwell on deck eight. How
much time, she wondered. Two minutes, maybe less? She moved down the corridor, not
hearing anything, not sensing that Jem'Hadar were around. She knew that at this point, she
could never find an escape pod and get far enough away before the Athena was blown to bits.
She did, however, come up with another plan. It was wild; it was improbable, but if he was
going to die anyway, then she might as well try it.
She was going to attempt to save the ship.
***
"No response," Matsubara remarked. "Why don't they respond?"
Totten, sitting in one of the seats at the rear of the forward compartment, replied, "They
don't talk to traitors."
Matsubara wanted to give an angry retort to the man, but she resisted.
In the rear section, Ytterb said, "We're losing him."
"You can't stop now," Lee replied, sounding angry, almost desperate.
"His brain is simply not getting enough oxygen to keep going."
"Can't you do something to oxygenate the blood?"
"His heart is not functioning well either," the Challenger officer remarked. He looked at
the equipment in the storage bin. "I don't know how to operate this." He looked back at the
portable monitor that had been set up beside Rocha. "Brain activity becoming random."
"What does that mean?"
"It means he's dying. I can't do anything for him."
In the front compartment, Matsubara suggested, "Try another ship."
"Time's running out. In one minute," Indesakar started.
"I know." Ahead was a Defiant-class ship, and the pilot set course for it, but flying here
was not easy, with all of the escape pods around, along with the debris from the ruined or
destroyed ships.
The monitor recorded one missed heartbeat, and then one last, laboured breath. The brain
monitor flatlined, and in response, the monitor sounded out a distinctive tone. Ytterb had
simply been trained to stabilize the wounded and get them beamed back to the ship, but there
was no ship to beam them back to. He had done all he could. Looking at Lee in her eyes, he
said softly, "I'm sorry." The historian looked like she wanted to cry, to let go of her emotions,
but it took a lot of her willpower and inner strength to keep those emotions bottled up inside-
for now. This was too public a place.
Thorpe felt likewise. He had this empty feeling in him, the same kind of feeling he had
when Captain Berricks died. It was like he had not done enough, that he made a mistake, that
he could have done something to prevent this. He wondered why Rocha did not have the
forcefield belt on. He wondered why he tried to save Unid, when the shapeshifter simply
could shift into something else and avoid the beam. He acted on instinct. He did his job as
best he could, just as Thorpe had done during the battle with the Borg. Nevertheless, to lose a
member of the crew like Rocha, to know that the death was senseless, that it came after the
war was for all intents and purposes over, made the emotions much more difficult to control.
Eventually, Thorpe walked back to the front section of the Styx, and briefly overheard
Matsubara talking with somebody on the Marathon. He finally said, "There's no need,
Damiko." She and Indesakar looked over at the captain, who said softly, "He didn't make it."
***
Bayanhong reached auxilliary control without incident. She saw no bodies in the corridor, and
no evidence that there had been weapons fire outside the control room. The door had not been
tampered with either, strongly suggesting to her that Johnson and the others had made it safely
off of the ship. As soon as se stepped inside, she said, "Computer, seal this room, and secure
the blast doors." The security fields around auxilliary control came on, and the heavy blast
doors closed over the regular doors, making it that much more difficult for the Jem'Hadar to
cut through, as she knew that they would soon be here.
The executive officer put Dusty onto the floor, relieved of that load off of her arms and
body. The comsfosaurus scampered around the room, chirping and yelping and trying to find a
hiding spot. Bayanhong moved over to the tactical console, and found that the consoles had
been locked out. That was quickly corrected by entering some codes. Sitting down behind the
console, the woman brought up controls for the quantum torpedoes. She loaded twelve into
each launcher, and set them to fire at the maximum rate of three per second, and at a dispersal
pattern to cover all of space in front of the ship. Her next step was to raise the shields on the
ship, such as they were, and to change the orientation of the ship. She changed the orientation
thirty-four degrees to port and the attitude up by sixteen degrees, matching the incoming
trajectory of the warp torpedo. She checked the sensors, but there was absolutely nothing
there. If only she had an accurate time, but the figure of one minute was only an
approximation. She was going to have guess right within a three-second window, or else she
would never get the time to launch another spread of torpedoes.
The skittering sound startled Bayanhong. She found Dusty sliding on the floor, trying to
run, but her claws were merely sliding on the duraplast covering on the floor at the rear of
auxilliary control. The creature saw her, and stopped his antics. He climbed onto one of the
rear consoles, and leaned out over it, perhaps trying to remain hidden behind it.
***
Thorpe stood behind Matsubara's chair. Ahead of them was the Defiant-class Marathon, now
moving away from the Andorian ship, whose only significant damage was the fried warp
drive that prevented its escape. The Styx was moving away as well. The Marathon had been
beaming out survivors from the escape pods, but Thorpe decided to stay on the runabout. On
this vessel, they could easily reach Deep Space Nine.
"Alex," Matsubara said, softly, knowing only Thorpe had to hear her, "it doesn't seem
right, doesn't seem possible."
 "I know."
"This morning at the table, during breakfast, he was joking, laughing... he enjoyed it on
the Athena. I know he did."
"I can understand that."
"Now he's gone. First the ship, now Alex-and maybe others we don't know about. It's like
the ship is broken now. Do you think that Starfleet will keep us together on another ship?"
"I really don't know," Thorpe remarked. "I can't presume to speak for Starfleet."
Totten was close enough to hear-afterall, the cockpit area of a runabout was not that large.
"I wouldn't worry about that. Instead, I'd be worrying about what you're going to do in civilian
life."
"Really?"
"Yes, really, captain. How much death were you responsible for? Look out of that window.
Look at those ships, those that followed you and those that followed me. Think about my own
ship and my own senior officers, and all the others. All of that blood is on your hands."
"I didn't start it," Thorpe said, calmly.
"You started it by not following orders."
"Your orders," the Athena captain pointed out.
Totten retorted, "That's irrelevant. Do you honestly believe, captain, that I would have the
pull with the Odonans to have them launch weapons like that? Do you honestly believe that I
was not following orders myself?"
"I'm not sure what to believe. All I know is that one of us is going to get a medal, and one
of us is going to get thrown into the stockade. It'll be interesting to see who gets what, won't
it?" Totten simply turned away, and Thorpe did likewise. He could say one thing to the
Challenger captain, but he really did not know what to believe. He hated to think that
somebody high up in Starfleet command would get an Odonan captain to fire warp torpedoes
at Federation ships. That was not the organization that he really wanted to be part of. Then
again, he wondered if he could. Once the Athena was destroyed-less than a minute now, he
felt-he would no longer have a ship. With the war now over, Starfleet likely had more ships
than they needed. Some would be decommissioned or shifted into a reserve fleet, but Starfleet
Command was not likely to ask someone who had a ship to give up command so that a person
like Thorpe, who might have had more experience and seniority, could take over. Right now,
he had three of his senior officers with him, and one had died. He did not know the status of
the others. He could have contacted the escape pods, but nobody had thought of that yet, since
they were so concerned about Rocha.
Thorpe, looking out of the front window, said more calmly, "Somehow, we'll see things
through."
Indesakar looked over, "Sir, do you want to set a course for Deep Space Nine, or do you
want to see... this." On one of the monitors was a short-range sensor image of the Athena,
hanging motionless in space. The damage on deck two, just behind the bridge, was not really
apparent, but the hole at the top was. Thorpe really had no idea if he could bear to watch. For
a moment, he said nothing.
***
The computer counter dropped to thirty seconds. Bayanhong had her fingertips poised just
millimetres above the trigger icons on the tactical console. As soon as she tapped the icons
simultaneously, the quantum torpedoes would launch. The question was when to launch them.
She looked at the viewscreen, and saw only stars. She looked at the sensor displays, showing
several different things at once but nothing like a cloaked object travelling at warp towards
them. In all probability, Bayanhong knew, she would never be able to detect anything about
the warp torpedo. She was going to have to take her best guess at when the torpedo was just
seconds away. She was going to have to rely on intuition, a sensation that the time was right.
The counter dropped below fifteen seconds. Bayanhong felt that she was sweating,
unbelievably nervous, her body almost locked in the fear that the explosion would happen
now, when she was not ready. She had three seconds to launch. She looked back at Dusty,
who was motionless while spread out on one of the consoles. All around her was the near
silence of the abandoned ship. The crew was gone, well away from the ship, she hoped, if she
guessed wrong and the Athena was destroyed. With likely no antimatter on board and a good
deal of the plasma drained from the warp engines, there was not likely to be a large
explosion...
Ten seconds remained. Bayanhong strained to look at the viewscreen, but if something
was there, it was likely in her imagination. She saw nothing. The counter now said eight
seconds. She knew it was an inexact countdown, and the explosion could happen at any time.
The sensors were still clear. Five seconds now. Bayanhong wanted to hit the icons, in one
desperate attempt to survive, but something told her this was not the time. At three seconds,
she wanted to drop her fingertips on the icons, but something-she could not explain what
intuition was like, except it was like a pulse in her brain telling her it was not the right time.
At two seconds... no, she thought. At one... she found her eyes were closed, as if she was
imagining seeing the torpedo coming in, so fast that one instant it was not there, and the
next... it was. She tapped the trigger icons.
With a start, she looked up, in time to hear the deep whooshing sound of the torpedoes
being launched. Within three seconds, twenty-four tiny points of light were moving outwards,
sweeping across the view in an attempt to capture all the volume, not to miss anything. A
second passed-although it seemed much longer-and those dots were receding into the
blackness of space. Her right hand had moved just a centimetre towards the controls to reload
the torpedoes before a blinding light erupted on the viewscreen. "Oh my god," Bayanhong
muttered, as she saw the shock wave bear down on her. Behind her, Dusty shrieked loudly.
"Hold on." She did exactly as she suggested, gripping the console tightly as the shock wave
overwhelmed the ship. Everything seemed to tilt and turn, as she felt herself move forward,
slamming into the console as the ship spun and pitched. Yet, everything held together. She
realized that the brunt of the shock wave and explosion had been borne by the upper forward
shield-the freshly repaired upper forward shield.
Dusty started to shriek and yell and run all around auxilliary control, sliding into things
where there was no carpet. "Calm down!" the woman remarked, but the comsfosaurus did not
listen. Nevertheless, Bayanhong did hear something, the sound of activity on the other side of
one of the entrances, the sound of a phaser or other weapon trying to carve through a door.
"Not this close, you don't," she muttered. "Computer, anesthezine, all decks, authorization,
Bayanhong..."

"Captain's log, stardate 52996.3 We are on final approach to the Bajoran wormhole, escorting
the remainder of the Dominion ships and personnel to the wormhole, where they will continue to the
Gamma Quadrant and their home. Somehow, the Athena survived all that it had endured, although I
find it hard to believe that Lieutenant Commander Bayanhong was able to determine when to fire on
an unseen, undetectable warp torpedo by intuition alone. Maybe it was blind luck. Maybe we finally
needed some of that. Nevertheless, the engineers-and our E.E.H., who had taken on a shocking
similarity in appearance to Inizi Dewuchun-managed to repair the warp drive, with the E.E.H.
working diligently through the ship's apparent last moments. Captain Totten and his senior officers
remain in the brig, mostly because of the fourty-three members of the crew-Aleksandr Rocha among
them-who are in cryochambers because of him."

Thorpe looked around him. Auxilliary control seemed an odd location, with the layout just
different enough from the bridge that it made it hard to believe he was still on the Athena. The
ship, of course, could be controlled as well from here as from the main bridge. The familiar
officers-most of the familiar officers-were at their regular positions. Indesakar reported, "Sir,
we're coming up to the wormhole, preparing to drop out of warp."
"Very well," the captain replied. "However, do not enter the wormhole. Slow down and
move off to the side."
"Captain," Vorwoorts started. "An incoming message from the lead Dominion ship. It's
Unid. He wants to thank us for the assistance that we gave him, that we were able to do the
right thing in the liberation of Betazed, and that we kept our word about safe passage. The
Founders won't forget that."
"Send a response, telling him that we wish him luck in his endeavors, and that we hope he
finds success in his new objective, to help the other Changelings understand that us 'solids'
aren't so bad afterall."
"Message transmitted, receipt acknowledged."
The Athena dropped out of warp and slowed down. As before, the Federation ships
escorting the Dominion ships were on the outside of the cylindrical arrangement and the other
ships on the inside. The Federation ships slowed and peeled away, while the Dominion vessels
headed for a point in space. The wormhole opened up with its spiraling, nebulous bands of
light that seemed to glow within. The wormhole, the tunnel in space, was like a beacon of
light beckoning the ships to enter it. All the Jem'Hadar attack ships and warships followed in
on that lure. Seconds later, the wormhole collapsed upon itself and fell back into its dormant
state.
"What's the status of Deep Space Nine?" Thorpe asked.
Matsubara had the response, "Lots of ships."
***
The signing ceremony was underway in the ward room on board Deep Space Nine. Captains
who were around were definitely invited to attend, so Captain Thorpe found himself in the
presence of a number of other captains, along with the senior officers from the station. Along
a table, covered in white cloth, were a number of individuals. Thorpe recognized Martok, now
the Chancellor of the Klingon Empire, and he recognized Admiral Ross and Captain Sisko,
who together ran operations for the Alliance on the front lines. The Romulan leader-his name
escaped Thorpe-was seated beside Martok, and beside him was another familiar face, Major-
Colonel Chan Chi, undoubtedly signing the document for the Odonans. In the middle of the
table was the female Changeling, with two security guards positioned behind her. Others were
lined up against the window, keeping an eye, undoubtedly, on the Vorta as well. The identity
of the Cardassian official completely escaped Thorpe.
The ceremony was rather simple. A paper document-an anachronism, Thorpe knew but the
tradition nevertheless-was moved among the various representatives, and they signed it in the
script of their native languages. The last one to sign was the Changeling, which made Thorpe
wonder how one of her kind had ever learned how to write or why they even would. "With the
signing of this document," Admiral Ross remarked, "The Dominion War is over. The ceasefire
is now official. A negotiation towards permanent peace will now follow. The Founder who led
the Dominion war will now stand trial for crimes against humanity." Mostly, Thorpe knew,
those charges came about because she personally ordered the massacre of eight hundred
million Cardassians and left Cardassia in ruins when the rebellion became too much, but the
charges could just as likely have been developed over the two thousand years of oppressive
Dominion rule. Unid certainly would have his work cut out for him if he wanted to change
that mindset.
The cheering erupted, naturally, and the captains and other officers started to exchange
words and congratulations, and even condolences. There was hardly a captain in this room
that had not lost a friend, a family member and most likely, a valued member of his crew in
this war. Nevertheless, Thorpe managed to extricate himself from the gathering because there
was one other individual he wanted to talk to. He caught up with Chan just outside of the
ward room. She was dressed in an Odonan dress uniform-too much reflective material in one
of those for Thorpe's liking-and carrying a data padd, which she clutched to her chest.
"Captain," she said. "I heard what happened to your ship. My condolences on the officers you
lost, especially Aleksandr Rocha. I remember him very well from our final assault on Torkor.
He was a brave man."
"Yes, he was," Thorpe admitted, as the two began walking down the corridor, to no place
in particular. "But there's one question on my mind. Who was it that fired those warp
torpedoes on my ship and the others?"
"Chokh Taan," Chan replied.
"Why?"
"That's a question I can't answer, not because I don't want to, but I don't know."
Angrily, Thorpe retorted, "Yeah, and no doubt he'll get a medal and a commendation for
what he did."
"Hardly," Chan said, a touch of anger in her own voice. She held out the padd. "In fact, his
letter of resignation is here. He was a brilliant man, a brilliant tactician, and he was going to
go far... but his whole career is all in ruins now."
"Why?"
"For Odonans, he committed a serious mistake. He listened to a human. He let a human
direct him. He let the wrong kind of person direct him. He listened to advice, if not orders,
that he knew in his heart were not right. He made a mistake, and he's paying for it. Why do
you think it was me, called in at the last moment, to sign that document, and not him?"
"In which case, he got exactly what he deserved."
Chan had expected a reaction from the captain, but not one that strong.
***
Captain Thorpe and Lieutenant Commander Matsubara remained on Deep Space Nine, and
they were just passing time while the engineers completed the necessary repairs to allow the
Athena to return to Earth under its own power. The two were standing along the railing in the
upper level of the Promenade, looking down at the lower level and its crowded confines, with
Starfleet officers and Bajoran citizens moving along the gently-curving way. The upper level
was a lot less crowded.
"We've been recalled?" Matsubara remarked, speaking softly.
"Yeah. The orders just came in," Thorpe replied, not looking at the woman, but staring
straight ahead and down. "We're to bring the ship back to Utopia Planitia."
"For repairs, I hope."
"Perhaps. I really don't know yet. I don't know what's to come. The war is over."
"We've suffered a loss."
"The galaxy is not quite the same as when the voyages of the Athena began."
"I know," the woman said, after a slight pause. Two Bajoran security officers walked by,
but they ignored the two Athena officers. People looking over the railings like this were likely
a common sight on the station. "I heard they're having a kind of victory celebration in one of
the holosuites."
"I heard."
"Attending?"
"I don't think so. I heard that they have a holoprogram that recreates a mid-twentieth
century lounge singer. That's not exactly something that would interest me."
"Yeah, I heard the music's pretty lame."
"Besides, it'll be hard to celebrate. Sure, we won the war, but the cost of that war has come
close to us. We lost a member of the crew, a friend, somebody we'll always remember. It won't
be easy replacing Aleksandr."
 "We always know that it could happen," Matsubara pointed out. "We always knew that we
could not keep the crew together forever. People move on, and, unfortunately, people die.
They might not even want to keep the Athena in service. There are lots of ships out there,
newer ones, with more advanced technology."
"Yeah," Thorpe sighed. "Anything is possible. We could all be moved around to different
ships, with new officers to deal with. It has been a wonderful three years."
"Lets just hope that whatever Starfleet Command has in store, they'll keep us together. Do
you think they will?"
"I hope so," Captain Thorpe remarked, as he moved just a little bit closer, putting his arm
around the woman's slender shoulders, and together, they watched a group of Klingons move
along the Promenade, holding up high mugs of blood wine and singing boisterous songs of
victory and conquest and honour. No matter how hard he could try, Thorpe never would feel
such a mood, and would never experience such emotions. The war was over. Things would be
different now. Would they be better? Only time would tell.