Forwarded by the ASC-VSO Posted: Thu, 15 Apr 2004 04:41:45 GMT In: alt.startrek.creative From: Gabrielle Lawson Title: Oswiecim Author: Gabrielle Lawson (inheildi@earthlink.net) Series: DS9 Part: REP 5/42 Rating: [PG-13] (Violence) Codes: Chapter Two -- Continued Julian Bashir slowly raised his head from the biobed. Nurse Baines lay beside him, her arms dangling off the opposite side of the bed. She began to move as well. Blowing out a deep breath, Bashir set his feet on the floor and stood up. The rest of his staff began to do the same. They'd all braced themselves against the biobeds and had fallen across them side by side when they blacked out. Bashir placed a hand to his stomach and frowned. "Well, that was fun," he said, being sarcastic. His stomach felt like it was turning somersaults. Baines tried to give him a wry smile, but her stomach was apparently bothering her as well. "Is everyone nauseous?" Bashir asked. Everyone nodded. Kira Nerys lifted her head from the console quickly, ignoring the dizziness she felt. She turned, counting the crewmembers on the bridge, watching for just a moment to see if they were beginning to move. Dax sat up and put her hand against her stomach. Her other hand immediately went to her console. Kira looked at the main viewscreen where the star had loomed so brightly before. It was still dimmed--or the sensors had been knocked out-- because she couldn't make out any stars there. "Damage report." Sisko was awake, too. "Where are we, Dax?" he asked as he pulled himself back into his chair. Dax checked her readings again. "Right where we should be. Calculating in a slight time difference, I used the Klingon ship's same trajectory. They are headed for Earth, Benjamin. Or at least they will be." "So we *are* here before them?" Kira asked. The stars had reappeared on the viewscreen as more of the crew managed to pull themselves up from the floor and return to their stations. "I'm not picking up their ion signature. But we're definitely on a heading toward Earth." Sisko nodded. "We're at the right place, but are we at the right time? Major, check the astrometric readings." Kira turned back to her console. She had to press a few controls before the station even came online. "Minor damage only, sir," O'Brien was saying from the Engineering station. "I'm reading a minor fluctuation in the warp core--stabilized. She seems to have held up pretty well, considering." Sisko didn't say anything, but nodded his acknowledgment. "Major?" "Mid-twentieth century. Right where we wanted. 1943, to be specific." "Are the weapons online, Mr. Worf?" Kira had forgotten that Worf was on the bridge. "Online and charged, Captain." "Good," Sisko said gravely, "Activate cloaking device. Dax, continue to scan for that ship. Commander Worf, prepare one quantum torpedo. Major, as soon as they're in range, we'll decloak, lock on the ship and fire that torpedo." There were acknowledgments all around the bridge as everyone set to work. Kira had turned back to the tactical station. "Bashir to Bridge," the doctor's soft accented voice came over the communications system. "Go ahead, Doctor," Sisko answered. "We've got some minor injuries," the doctor reported. "Nothing to worry about. How's everyone up there?" Sisko glanced around the room. "Not too bad." "Yes, we were all a bit nauseous at first, but it seems to fade fairly quickly." "Doctor, we're going to try to take this ship out fast, but be ready just in case we take a few hits of our own." "Yes, sir. Bashir out." "Shall I establish orbit, Benjamin?" Dax asked. Kira looked up to the viewscreen to see a blue and turquoise marble-like planet with swirling white clouds. Unlike most of the other times she'd seen it though, there were no satellites or space stations hovering around it. Only one small moon circled it slowly. "Yes, but keep us on the daylight side, Old Man," the Captain answered. "I don't want anyone seeing us in the night sky when we decloak." From Engineering, Lieutenant Whaley had access to nearly any system on the ship. She knew they were in orbit now circling Earth with no one to detect them. She also knew they were cloaked, but it wouldn't really matter in the end. The ship was practically disabled already, and no one even knew it. Without the space-time driver coil the warp drive was useless. Removing it hadn't been hard once the two engineers were taken care of. She'd sealed the doors with security force-fields so that she wouldn't be interrupted by anyone else. Of course, once the force-fields were discovered, they'd be on to her. But she expected that all would be accomplished before then. Standing in front of the main console, Whaley rerouted more power to the external communications antennae. She checked again to make sure that diagnostics on the bridge would not register the excess power. The sling-shot effect that had taken them around the sun and back through time had worked to her advantage. There were minor system problems throughout the ship. They would serve to mask some of her own work if found. No one would suspect a saboteur. At least, not yet. "I've got them on long-range sensors, Benjamin," Dax said, excitedly. "They're not cloaked." "Their cloak might have shorted out on the way here," Sisko said watching the viewscreen. "On screen. Go to red alert." The bridge was bathed in soft light and the ship was silent as they waited. "They're cloaking." This time, Dax's voice was just barely above a whisper. Sisko was eerily calm when he spoke, "Stand by," though inside his stomach wrenched--and it wasn't the trip around the sun. As much as he was sure this ship was a threat to Earth--an Earth that could not possibly defend itself--he hated to just blow a ship out of the sky without trying to reason with them first. It just wasn't his way. It wasn't Starfleet's way, either. But those ways had not worked yet with the Dominion, either. And one didn't stop to discuss a battle in the middle of a war. "On Dax's mark, drop cloak, raise shields and fire that torpedo." He looked over his crew, getting nods from everyone to show that they were ready. "Dax, bring us around." "Aye, sir." Dax spun the ship slowly to the left, and the blue planet slipped to the other side of the viewscreen. "They've slowed to impulse. They're scanning us." "Are we in range?" the captain asked. "Not yet." Dax was intent on her readings. "I'm feeding you the coordinates, Kira." Only her hands moved on the console in front of her. There was a long moment of silence. "Mark!" she called. Instantly the lights on the bridge went up as the cloak dropped. Shields were raised and Kira released the torpedo at the same moment. The white light of the torpedo streaked across the blackness of space toward nothing. And then it struck in a large fireball as seemingly empty space exploded. As the fire was extinguished by the vacuum around it, small bits of gleaming metal could be seen sparkling in the light from the nearby sun. "Engage cloak," Sisko ordered quietly. "Maximum magnification, Old Man." The lights fell again to their lower level as the cloak began to disguise the ship. The viewscreen shifted, bringing them closer to that part of space that had just erupted. A large sphere of scattered debris was slowly expanding as the chunks of metal spread out from the center. "Any organic remains?" He hoped her answer was no. There was little reason for it to be yes. If the ship had been carrying Founders, there would be nothing organic to find. "Nothing, Benjamin," was the reply. Sisko let out a long breath. "Good. Let's go home." Whaley stood in Engineering shocked by what she'd just seen. She hated them. And she hated herself. She hadn't been ready. *No,* she told herself sharply, *it was Sisko's fault. And that doctor's.* A minute more and the weapons system would have been disabled as well. A minute more. Just one minute. She felt sick when she thought of the lives lost. So many of her people. Forty-six of her people, people she knew. She'd shared their thoughts in the Great Link. She'd felt their fears and their determination. They were her family, her people. And they were gone. ". . . not responding," Dax thought aloud. She was looking down at her console, rerouting controls and power flows, but the warp drive simply refused to respond. "Why aren't we moving, Old Man?" Sisko asked behind her. "It's not responding, Benjamin," she answered, still pressing controls. "I've run a level two diagnostic. I can't find anything wrong with it, but the warp drive just isn't responding." "Maybe that maneuver knocked us around a bit more than we thought," O'Brien suggested. He walked over to Dax and looked over her shoulder. "May I?" "Go right ahead, Chief." There was a low growl from the back of the room. Dax turned toward the sound. Worf was frowning at his console as well. "The weapons system is also offline." "I don't think we need them anymore," Kira commented. Worf growled again. "I had not yet taken them offline," he nearly spat back. "Chief?" Sisko would pay. And that doctor, too. If she hadn't been forced to take on the nurse's persona, she would have been prepared. The weapons would not have fired. He'd pay for his curiosity. She would see to that. No matter what. She tried to think, to concentrate. She couldn't return home. The solids would find the two engineers and know that something was wrong. They would search the ship again and find her handiwork. They would find her eventually and kill her like they'd killed all the others. A cold hatred filled her. The solids would not leave this time. She could destroy the ship. It would not be hard to breach the containment field from here. But she rejected that idea quickly. Her logical side told her that it was so that she could take this ship back to her own time and rejoin the Great Link. Without the solids, of course. The other side of her, the side that yearned for their suffering, told her that a warp-core breach was not enough for what they had done. Whaley pulled her long arm free of the conduit and stepped back. She only had a few minutes. They would know about her soon enough. She left the force-fields intact and pulled herself up to the ceiling and into a ventilation duct. She had five minutes to get to the shuttle craft. It would take them that long to get into Engineering. By then it would be too late. Chief Miles Edward O'Brien was perplexed. All the diagnostic systems said the ship was fine. But now the shields and the cloak were offline as well. "O'Brien to Engineering," he called. There was no answer. "Now that's odd." "What is it, Chief?" Captain Sisko asked. O'Brien could tell he was starting to get annoyed by all this. "No one's answering in Engineering," the Chief answered. "Armand and Wieland should be down there." He sighed and gathered up his tool kit. "I'd better go down and check it out." O'Brien just didn't understand it. *At least the turbolifts work,* he thought, as the lift began to move. He'd checked the ship out himself before they took off. It was fine. The only reason he could think of for why they were having problems like these was sabotage. But who on the ship would be a saboteur? The last time they'd had that problem, it had turned out to be a changeling, but the crew checked out and so did the ship. The lift stopped and O'Brien stepped out. There wasn't a sound anywhere. The doors to Engineering opened for him, but as he tried to step through he was pushed back by a light electric shock. A force-field? O'Brien tested it with his hand one more time for good measure and then called the bridge. "This is Sisko. What's going on, Chief?" "There's a bloody force-field keeping me out of Engineering," the chief replied incredulously. "I'm attempting to override." "We'll see what we can do from here, Chief," Sisko told him. "I'm sending some security down there." O'Brien peered through the open door. He couldn't see Armand or Wieland anywhere. Engineering was empty. "Computer," O'Brien stated, "locate Crewman Armand." "Crewman Armand is no longer on board," the computer droned in reply. "Locate Crewman Wieland." "Crewman Wieland is no longer on board." There was really only one way they could have left. "O'Brien to Transporter Room." He waited for a response. Again, there was only silence. "Computer," O'Brien asked, "how many crewmembers are currently on board the ship?" He was afraid he wouldn't like the answer. "There are currently thirty-six crewmembers on board the *Defiant.*" That wasn't nearly enough. O'Brien was just about to call the bridge again when the ship began to shake violently. He heard several explosions, and then the lights dimmed in the corridor. *Plasma conduit,* he thought. *We've lost main power.* And then something clicked. If they'd lost main power, then they would have also lost the force-fields. O'Brien tested the open door to Engineering again, and his hand passed right through. "Sisko to O'Brien," Sisko snapped. This was turning out to be a bad day. The Klingon ship hadn't been able to get off a single shot, but now the *Defiant* was disabled. And they were disabled four hundred years before the ship was even commissioned. "O'Brien here, sir," the chief replied. Sisko was happy to hear his voice. It meant they somehow still had internal communications at least. "We've just lost main power, Chief." "Yes, sir, I know. But we've lost more than that. Last I checked, there were only thirty-six crew members aboard this vessel." Sisko wasn't sure he'd heard that right. Thirty-six members of a crew of forty-seven. Where could they all have gone? "We're losing emergency power, Captain," Dax interrupted. "Down to seventy percent and falling." "Cut power to anything that is not essential," Sisko ordered. "Could the computer be malfunctioning, Chief?" "It's possible, sir," Chief O'Brien answered. Sisko could hear the agitation in his voice. "It looks like the whole systems been shot to--" The chief broke off there. Sisko was about to ask him what had happened, but the chief was back before he had a chance. "Bloody hell!" "Dax to Bashir." Bashir had been tending to a cut on one of the medics' arms when the call came. "Bashir here," he answered. "What is going on, Jadzia?" "Sorry, no time to explain," Dax's voice answered. "We're losing power. We've got to cut everything we can. I'm going to have to shut down your stasis unit." Bashir shook his head in confusion. "I'm not using any of the stasis units." He began to walk toward the wall where the stasis units were. Small instruments and vials were scattered on the floor from the explosion, and he tried not to trip on them in the low light. "We're showing a drain from there." Julian opened the tricorder he had in his hand and scanned the units. Despite the readout on the front of the unit, the center one was drawing power. And it was occupied. "My God!" Bashir exclaimed. "Someone's in there, Jadzia." He pressed the release control but the drawer didn't open. "Julian?" Whoever was in there, he knew he hadn't authorized it. That sinking feeling he'd had at the beginning of this trip began to grow again. "Cut the power, Jadzia," he decided, half- afraid of what he would find inside. "Julian, are you alright?" Dax asked. Julian didn't answer right away, but watched his tricorder as the power to the unit fell off to nothing. Instantly there was a muffled sound from the drawer. Someone was trying to get out. "Someone's in the drawer, Jadzia." He reached his hand out toward the release. "I'm going to open--" Before his hand had touched the door, a familiar tingling grabbed his body, and he was unable to move. "Julian, I'm reading a transporter signal in your area. Julian?" The medic who had been standing behind him saw the doctor's figure fade and his tricorder fall to the ground. He brought his hand up to his chest, activating his comm badge. "Emergency!" he called. "The doctor's just been transported." Dax spun around to face the captain. But he was already standing by her side. "Hold it, Chief," he said over the comm system. He looked to Dax. "Where did it come from?" he asked quickly. Dax turned back to her console and began furiously pressing controls, trying to get the sensors to cooperate. "One of the shuttles, Benjamin." She studied her readouts a bit harder. "Security to shuttle bay." Sisko ordered. Without waiting for a confirmation he turned to Kira. "Hail that shuttle, Major." "I can't, sir. Communications are still out." "Internals aren't," Sisko countered. "Is the shuttle still on board?" "Captain," O'Brien called, still over the comm line, "it's a changeling." Everyone on the bridge froze when they heard that. But only for a second. "How do you know, Chief?" There wasn't time for the chief to answer. Another explosion rocked the ship, much stronger than the ones before. Sisko was thrown to the floor. Warning sirens and lights began to flash. The computer was finally ready to acknowledge that it was damaged. "Damage report." "We've got a hull breach!" Dax called out. "The shuttle bay. We do have emergency force-fields at least." She struggled with the controls again. "It looks like three casualties, Benjamin. I can't be sure though." "Send a medical team there," Sisko ordered, getting to his feet. "You were saying, Chief?" "It's those parasitic devices again, like they used a few years back." He hesitated for a moment. "Sir, this is a mess. I'm not quite sure where to start." That was a good question. Where to start? There had to be clues in that shuttle as to the whereabouts of the missing crewmembers. He only hoped they hadn't been blown out into space when the hull breached. But even more important at this point was regaining control of this ship. The devices the changeling had used before, when they had nearly sparked a war with the Tzenkethi, had spread from system to system. "Get rid of those devices, Chief," Sisko decided. "And then start with the most important systems. Make sure we still have life-support and then get main power back online." And then he remembered, "Take someone with you, Chief. No one goes anywhere alone." Sisko turned back to Dax. He really didn't need her at the helm anymore. The ship wasn't going anywhere. "Dax, run a scan for all lifeforms on this ship. See if we're losing any more people." Dax nodded and returned to her console. Next, he looked to Kira. "Major, you and Mr. Worf should go and check out the shuttle bay. I want to know if the changeling was on that shuttle when it blew." Kira nodded and then rose to leave her seat. Worf followed her to the turbolift without a word. Sisko sat back in his chair and thought for a moment. He worried about the time. "Anything, Dax?" Dax shook her head. "We're holding at twenty-seven lifeforms." Twenty-seven. Three known dead. Seventeen missing. Or sixteen if one of them was a changeling. Too many. There were only two places they could have gone. The cold, vacuum of space or the planet that spun below them. Sisko looked up to the viewscreen to see the Earth, but it was blank. "External sensors?" he asked. Dax shook her head again. "They're gone." Sisko slammed a fist down on the arm of his chair. "We're going to need those sensors, Dax, to find our people." She turned to look at him, but didn't say anything. He could see the worry in her eyes. And something else. Like she wanted to say something. "What is it, Old Man?" "The first night out," she began, "he. . . ." She hesitated and Sisko decided she was talking about Bashir. "He'd been going on about one of the blood samples. It was different from the others. But it was still blood, still human." "Apparently it found a way around the blood screening," Sisko thought aloud. Then another thought struck him. "Dax, what was going on with the stasis unit?" Dax looked confused, like she couldn't see what he was getting at. "He said it wasn't in use, but it was drawing power. I was going to shut it down. He said there was someone inside, but he couldn't open it. He was about to try it when he. . . ." She stopped again. "We'll find him," Sisko admonished her. "The question is, who was in the unit?" Sisko tapped his comm badge. "Sisko to sickbay." "Sickbay here. Any sign of the doctor?" It was the medic that had called earlier. "None yet. Sensors are out," Sisko answered. He thought it best not to go into all the details just yet. "Did you find out who was in the stasis unit?" "Yes, sir," the answer came back. "It's Nurse Hausmann." But how long was she in the unit before Dax noticed it on the bridge? "Is she alright?" he asked. "Yes, sir, fine. She was sedated. She's still a little groggy." "I'll need to ask her some questions. I'll be right down." The bridge was nearly deserted. But it didn't matter. Dax was waiting for his next decision. "Still twenty-seven?" he asked. She checked the readings and nodded. "Let's go have a talk with Nurse Hausmann." To Be Continued.... -- --Gabrielle I'd much rather be writing! http://www.stormpages.com/gabrielle/trek/ The Edge of the Frontier http://www.stormpages.com/gabrielle/doyle/ This Side of the Nether Blog: http://www.gabriellewrites.blogspot.com -- Stephen Ratliff ASC Awards Tech Support http://www.trekiverse.us/ASCAwards/commenting/ No Tribbles were harmed in the running of these Awards ASCL is a stories-only list, no discussion. Comments and feedback should be directed to alt.startrek .creative or directly to the author. Yahoo! Groups Links To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ASCL/ To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: ASCL-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ From ???@??? 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