To: ascl@yahoogroups.com
Organization: Alt.StarTrek.Creative Virtual Staff Office
Message-ID: 
From: ASC-VSO 
MIME-Version: 1.0
Mailing-List: list ASCL@yahoogroups.com; contact ASCL-owner@yahoogroups.com
Precedence: bulk
Date: Sun, 01 Feb 2004 01:10:27 -0500
Subject: [ASC] NEW DS9 "Third Way Out" JB [PG] Part 5
Reply-To: ASCL-owner@yahoogroups.com
Content-Type: text/html; charset=US-ASCII
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit







ASCL is a stories-only list, no discussion.  Comments and feedback should be directed to alt.startrek
.creative or directly to the author.








&parti
  ADVERTISEMENT 





My Groups |
ASCL Main Page












Forwarded by the ASC-VSO 
Posted: 01 Feb 2004 00:43:02 GMT  
In: alt.startrek.creative 
From: sisko2374@aol.com (Sisko2374) 
 

Klaxons sounded "red alert" on the Defiant as Ezri ordered the ship to battle
stations.

 "Where's the shuttle at?"

"Shuttle is away and heading for rendevous Captain."  Jackson replied.

"Can you give me magnification on the intruder yet?"

The star fields  in the view screen seemed to lurch forward.  A rainbow colored
point of light in the center flickered briefly.   "Sorry Sir.  Intruder is
still at warp and beyond visual range."  

"Location, bearing, and speed of the intruder?"

"Intruder passing Neptune's orbit.  Still bearing 97 mark 210. Speed is warp
4.3.  ETA to Earth is 3 minutes.'

Ezri stood up.  "They're worried about pushing warp in a solar system.  That
gives us a little time. If they stay on their present bearing they'll be in the
Southern hemisphere when they go to orbit.  Mr. Jackson, raise cloak and take
us over the North pole, one quarter impulse.  Notify the Chaffe II that we'll
rendevous on the day side of the planet at the following co-ordinates."   

Outside, in space, the Defiant seemed to shimmer out of existence, replaced by
a hazy bubble that shifted orbit toward the polar terminus.


"Where's the Defiant?" Cynthia Jordan pressed her face closer toward the view
screen of the Chaffe II.  Two hundred miles below, a typhoon churned towards a
collision course with the Indian subcontinent. 

Alvarez switched off the engines as the shuttle achieved orbit and checked the
sensors.  "No indication yet, probably still on the other side of the
terminus... Wait, there she is!  Coming up from the South?  And I'm picking up
... a distress call. Switching to speaker."

"SOS. This is TRFS Defiant calling USS Defiant.  We have been attacked by a
Dominion battle cruiser.  Shields are minimal. Weapons and transporters are off
line.  Warp core is destabilizing.  Unable to eject.  Please respond."

Julian leaned forward toward the control panel.  "That's Ezri's voice!  What
the devil is the rebel's Defiant doing here?"

"Confirm on that warp core, sir," Alvarez called out. "It's on a slow build up
to detonation."

Julian leaned forward and hit the comm button.  "This is the shuttle USS Chaffe
II.  Shift to our orbit Defiant.  When we rendevous with our Defiant we can
beam you off.  What are you doing here anyway?"   

There was a pause at the other end.   Then the Mirror Ezri replied.  "Message
received and understood Chaffe II.  Making course correction now.  We're here
because Miles O'Brien ordered us to follow you in case you got into trouble. 
But it looks like you'll have to save us now.  Is this Doctor Bashir?  I've
always wanted to meet you.  Miles thinks really highly of you."

Julian grinned sheepishly.  "Really?  Well, I like him quite a bit myself.  I
look forward to meeting you as well.  Chaffe II out."

Cynthia looked apprehensively out the screen towards the rapidly approaching
point of light that would soon become the Mirror Defiant.  "Do you really think
that's wise Doctor? Having them shift to our orbit?  If they blow up in our
proximity..."

Bashir nodded.  "Sensors indicate they've got a good twenty minutes before they
go critical, plenty of time for the Defiant to arrive, beam them off and get us
all the hell out of here.  Relax, everything will be all right."

The archaeologist shifted back in her chair, folding her arms.  "Unless that
Alliance battle cruiser shows up first." 



On the bridge of the USS Defiant, Ezri Dax heard the exchange between Julian
and her Mirror counterpart. 

"ETA to rendevous, Ensign Jackson?"

"Two minutes, sir."

"Where's the intruder?"

Jackson scanned the conn.  "They're out of sensor range as long as we're on
this side of the planet, sir."

"Status of the rebel Defiant?"

"Shields down, phaser damage to their ablative armor, warp core destabilizing,
ejectors jammed."

Ezri sighed, placing her hands behind her back. "All right Mister Jackson, take
us to rendevous with the Chaffe II.  Transporters, prepare to receive
survivors."


As Julian exited the Chaffe II in the launch bay, yellow alert sounded on the
Defiant.    "Bashir to bridge, what's our status?"

"Not good, Julian," Ezri replied.  "We have a level 3 transporter malfunction,
source unknown.  Unless we fix it now we won't be able to beam the Terrans off
their ship.  That Alliance battle cruiser may already be in orbit.  And the
Terran Defiant warp core will go critical in ten minutes."

"We're on it, Captain.  Alvarez and I are heading for Engineering."

"You've got five minutes, Julian.  After that we have to either fight or run."



In Engineering Julian was shocked to see that Walter's security team was
missing. 

"Bashir to bridge.  We're in engineering but there's no security team around
the cloaking device.  What's going on?"

Ezri's voice responded immediately.  "They're not there?  Dax to Walters.  Who
ordered you to leave Engineering?"

There was a pause.  "You did, sir.  About ten minutes ago over the comm
system."

"Not me Mister.  Get back down there on the double!"

Julian drew his phaser, checking the setting.  "Looks like we've got a saboteur
on board, Captain."


"Ezri to Walters, dispatch two men to look for O'Brien.  When you find him,
hold him in his quarters."

Alvarez ran a quick diagnostic that merely confirmed what Ezri had reported:
that the computer was unable to locate the source of the malfunction.  His mind
raced, desperately seeking a way into this mystery.  There was one possibility.
 Something he remembered Chief O'Brien mentioning about the early history of
transporter problems. 

"Doctor, could you check the transporter logs for the past two days?  See if
there's anything out of correspondence, if we transported any radioactive
isotopes aboard."    

Julian's hands flashed over the secondary control panel.  "That should be easy,
we only transported the trunk and that was made of ...."  

"What is it?  Did you find something?"

Julian's eyes narrowed at the screen.  "Not sure.  The trunk checks out as lead
composition.  But the log of the trunk transport has been altered somehow." 
Julian's hands roamed over the panel.  "Yes, this log shows a record of an
erased second internal ship transport an hour later, just after the shuttle
returned from New York.  An equal mass exchange of 1 kilogram between the trunk
and..."

The engineering doors whooshed aside for Smiley.  "I heard there was a
transporter problem, we've got to get my people off that ship before the warp
core goes critical!"

Julian turned toward the Terran.  "Yes, Miles we're working on it.  But maybe
you should order your people to go to escape pods just in case."

"Escape pods!  They wouldn't be able to make if far enough away in time.  And
you wouldn't have time to pick them up either."

Julian rose from the console.  "Perhaps.  What do you know about an internal
ship transport from yesterday, Miles.  After we came back from New York?"

The Terran shrugged.  "Nothing.  What has that got to do with anything?"

"It was from Sick Bay to your quarters and back again.  An equal exchange of
mass, small, one kilogram.  About the size of an old paper book.  Someone
beamed a book out of the trunk to your cabin and beamed something back in. 
Then tried to erase the record.  Now our transporters are scrambled.  Why did
you do it Miles?"  Julian drew his phaser. 

O'Brien's face grew red.  "No!  I beamed the book out.  But I didn't sabotage
the transporters!  Why would I do that?  Sabotage the transporters in the
middle of Alliance territory?"

Bashir shook his head.  "I don't know."

Jordan came in from the corridor, phaser drawn.  "Give me the book O'Brien."

Smiley reached under his tunic and tossed a replicated book to Bashir.  "Don't
give it to her, she sabotaged the transporters, she's Section 31!"

A phaser beam set to stun lept from Jordan's phaser, hitting O'Brien.  The
Terran went down face first.

Bashir froze.  Then glanced down at the cover of the book in his left hand, The
Grand Chessboard.  Now he was facing off phaser to phaser with Jordan. 
END Part 6

--
Stephen Ratliff
ASC Stories Only Forwarding

In the Pattern Buffer at:
http//trekiverse.crosswinds.net/feed/




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 the Yahoo! Terms of Service.







From ???@??? Sun Feb 01 01:13:24 2004
Status:  U
Return-Path: 
Received: from n35.grp.scd.yahoo.com ([66.218.66.103])
	by emu (EarthLink SMTP Server) with SMTP id 1aNaQY3RZ3NZFnx0
	for ; Sat, 31 Jan 2004 22:13:08 -0800 (PST)
X-eGroups-Return: sentto-1977044-13120-1075615972-stephenbratliff=earthlink.net@returns.groups.yahoo.