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Forwarded by the ASC-VSO 
Posted: 09 Feb 2004 05:11:59 GMT  
In: alt.startrek.creative 
From: sisko2374@aol.com (Sisko2374) 
 

NEW DS9 "Third Way Out" B, Ez, Mirror O'B, [PG] 1 of 3
by Sisko2374@aol.com  (J. S. Miles)

SERIES: DS9

TITLE: "Third Way Out"

CHARACTERS: Julian Bashir, Ezri Dax, "Mirror" O'Brien

AUTHOR: Sisko2374@aol.com (J. S. Miles)

SUMMARY: Sometime after the Dominion War, Starfleet dispatches a covert
Prologue:

"The world is nearly all parceled out, and what there is left of it is being
divided up, conquered and colonized . To think of these stars that you see
overhead at night, these vast worlds which we can never reach.  I would annex
the planets if I could; I often think of that. It makes me sad to see them so
clear and yet so far."  —  Cecil Rhodes, founder and colonizer of Rhodesia
(Zimbabwe)

"We have 50 per cent of the world's wealth but only 6.3 per cent of its
population.  In this situation, our real job in the coming period is to
maintain this position of disparity.  To do so, we have to dispense with all
sentimentality ... we should cease thinking about human rights, the raising of
living standards and democratization." — George Kennan, U.S. strategic
planner, 1948

"We have heard that half a million [Iraqi] children have died [as a result of 
U.N. imposed  sanctions] is the price worth it?"

"I think this is a very hard choice, but the price — we think the price is
worth it."— U.S. Secretary of State Madeline Albright, 60 Minutes interview,
CBS Television, May 12, 1996

"The three grand imperatives of imperial geostrategy are to prevent collusion
and maintain security dependence among the vassals, to keep tributaries pliant
and protected, and to keep the barbarians from coming together." — Zbigniew
Brzezinski, former U.S. National Security Advisor, 1997 

"Terror must be maintained or the Empire is doomed.  It is the logic of
history." ---- I.S.S. Enterprise First Officer Spock, 2267
                              

Two weeks out from the wormhole the Defiant continued on course toward Earth,
at high warp, under cloak. Julian Bashir eyed the slow passage of the stars
across the bridge view screen. He had decided that the stars in this universe
seemed somehow colder and more remote than their doubles back in the universe
that he called home. Yawning, he reached for the cup of raktajino on the
command chair armrest. It was the ‘night shift' and he had the conn. Ezri,
the commanding officer of the expedition, wasn't due to relieve him for another
three hours.

"Bleak, isn't it?"

Bashir immediately recognized the voice behind him. For a fraction of a second
he thought it was Miles. But Miles was a universe away, back on Earth, teaching
cadets at Star Fleet academy. Julian swivelled the chair about 180 degrees. It
was ‘Smiley', Miles O'Brien's counterpart in this ‘Mirror' universe.

"Do you make it a habit to creep up behind people unannounced?"

Smiley smirked. "I thought I was ‘announcing' myself, with a question. Which,
by the way you haven't answered."

Bashir swivelled part way back toward the front of the bridge. "Its just a 
view screen. Digitized holo- reproductions of the universe."

"Yes, my universe," Smiley emphasized, resting his right foot on the bottom
support ring of the command chair. "You don't like it here, do you?  I mean
having to be here."

Julian swivelled back to face him. "I can think of more pleasant places to be
right now."

Smiley leaned forward, resting his right arm on his bent knee. "But why do they
want you to go to Earth, of all places? There's nothing there."      
            

Julian cleared his throat. Why was Smiley ‘interrogating' him? And why now,
when they were only a few hours from mission objective? Julian decided to
assume the posture and tone of what that other Miles was probably doing right
now, back on the ‘real' Earth: patiently lecturing. 

"You heard the mission briefing the same as the rest of us, Miles.  After
Admiral Leyton's attempted coup d'etat a few years ago and our barely
triumphing over the Dominion,  Starfleet wants to conduct comparative
historical research on the parallels and divergences of our two universes in
order to gain better insight into how we can ensure the future survival of the
Federation. Given the complete defeat that the Terran Empire suffered at the
hands of the Alliance in your universe, and the widespread destruction of
historical records and documents by the victors, an archaeological expedition
to your Earth is the only way to ensure the accuracy of any purely documentary
research..."

Smiley held up a hand. "Yes, I'm aware of all that, Doctor. What I was asking
was what you think is going on. I mean we offered to loan you our Defiant for
the mission, but Starfleet turned us down."

Julian smiled wryly. "I think they believed that giving you a cloaking device
in exchange was too big of a violation of the Prime Directive."

"Oh, come on Doctor!" Smiley pulled his foot off the command chair support ring
and stood up. "The past hundred some odd years of our history, the defeat of
the Terran Empire and the occupation of Earth, are all due to your
intervention. If your Captain Kirk hadn't planted the idea of  a revolution in
Spock's mind..."

"You and I probably wouldn't even be having this conversation." Bashir replied.
"And I think it was precisely the recognition of the catastrophic results of
previous violations of the Prime Directive that caused Starfleet Command to
deny your request for a cloaking device."

Smiley pointed a finger at Bashir. "You can't hide behind rules and 
regulations forever. You owe us." Then he turned and walked toward the turbo
lift.

Julian pondered for a moment.  Just what "you" might Smiley have been referring
to?  Himself?  Starfleet Command?  The Federation?  Or perhaps Bashir's  whole
universe?


At 0700 Ezri walked through the turbo-lift doors to relieve Julian.

"Morning Julian."

Stifling a yawn, he managed a smile and whispered, "Do you think it would be a
breach of protocol if the ship's Doctor kissed the ship's commanding officer on
the bridge?"

"Not if she kissed him first." Her fingers slipping under Julian's chin, she
brushed her lips against his.

"You've got to get us on the same shift, Captain," Julian half-teased as he
rose from the chair. "This night shift is bad for my morale."

"I don't know, showing favoritism won't look good on my first command
proficiency test.  But I'll see what I can do." Ezri slid into the command
chair. "Maybe on the return trip home. Anything to report?"

Julian handed her a status padd.  "We're on schedule, an hour from mission
objective. An Alliance battle cruiser warped into the Alpha Centauri system
about half an hour ago, assuming a standard orbit around Alpha III. Probably a
routine patrol, but we're keeping a close watch on it. Other than that...well,
I did have a rather strange conversation with Smiley about three hours ago."

"Smiley?" Ezri laid the padd on the chair's arm rest. "He came to the bridge?
What did he want?"

"Apparently he was trying to find out what I thought was ‘really' going on
with the expedition. I don't think he believes that we're just on an
archaeological dig." Julian paused. "He also said ‘You owe us'."

Ezri squinted. "What did he mean by that?"

Julian folded his arms.  "I don't know. He did express some disgruntlement that
Starfleet didn't turn over the cloaking device to the Terran resistance."

Ezri nodded "He is the only rebel on the ship but I'll have Walters put an
extra security watch around the cloak anyway. Going to breakfast?"

Julian shrugged. "Just a scone or two and some tea I think. Thought I'd stay up
for the final mission briefing, maybe accompany the team down. That is, if you
don't need me up here."

Ezri shook her head. "I have no objection. Briefing will be in the ward room at
0730."

"Fine," Julian smiled. "I'll see you later."


"Damn!" Hot Tarkalean tea splashed Julian's hand as his mug slipped out of his
fingers and bounced across the floor of the ward room.  Stooping to retrieve
it, he mused at how attentive Miles used to be at fine tuning the temperature
settings on the replicator , so unlike the Defiant's current brusque engineer. 
The automated cleaner in the ward room's floor was quickly absorbing the
spilled tea.

"If you're coming on my expedition Doctor, I hope you handle artifacts better
than you do tea cups."

"Oh, good morning Doctor Jordan!" Julian rose to his feet, a sheepish grin on
his face. "As long as the artifacts aren't too hot, I'll have no problem
holding on to them, I assure you."

The expedition's chief archeologist, a blonde middle aged woman, smiled and
nodded, sliding past him to the replicator.

"Tea, Gunpowder Grey, hot."  As the archaeologist carefully withdrew her
beverage, Julian reordered and sat down, his plate of previously ordered scones
before him. 

"Care for one Doctor? You really should have some carbohydrates in the morning
you know."

"No thanks, but you can call me Cynthia."  She settled in across from him.
"Formalities make me feel like I'm in a seminar."

"Or in conference. I know exactly what you mean. Julian is fine by me."

"Well then, Julian, why do you want to join the expedition?  You've actually
had more direct experience with this universe than I or any of the expedition's
historians. What we'll be doing isn't nearly as exciting as your first
crossover. Archaeology is really just a lot of mostly fruitless, tedious work."
She cocked her head slightly to one side as she sipped her tea, holding her cup
in both hands.

He swallowed a bit of scone. "The time I spent in the Mirror Universe a few
years back was short in duration and not very pleasant.  But I found myself 
fascinated with the duplication of people and places....and the radical
divergence of personalities, philosophies and politics. Since then, I've made
it a bit of a hobby, reading up on whatever I could find. I even read your PhD.
history thesis, ‘Macro Cross Comparative Quantum History Divergence and
Re-convergence in Late 20th and early 21st Century Earths: the Historical
Record.'. Quite fascinating. In particular I liked how you narrowed down the
divergences in the two  parallel histories to their essentials, then showed how
the separate consequences of those same divergences actually wound up keeping
the broad course of history of the two universes roughly parallel, even down to
the micro level, with some of the same personalities playing the same key
pivotal roles in both universes simultaneously, even while the two Earth's
global politics and economics diverged radically."

She smiled. "I'm flattered. But we didn't have much to go on at the time I
wrote that. Over a century without contact, until you and Colonel Kira
accidentally crossed over in the Bajoran wormhole.  If it hadn't been for the
conscientiousness of Lieutenant Uhura taking a few moments to download some
6000 years of Mirror universe history texts and images from the I.S.S.
Enterprise computer during the first crossover, we would have had nothing to
work with at all.   Unfortunately, even that was splotchy. The ion storm that
made Kirk's transporter interchange possible also scrambled large chunks of the
data. So that's why we're here... partially."

Julian thought of his conversation with Smiley earlier on the bridge. 
"Partially? What are we looking for?  Beyond artifactual confirmation or
dis-confirmation of existing historical thesis that is?  Or is all this going
to be in the briefing?"

Cynthia put down her cup, folding her hands on the table.  "It's the problem of
that missing data from the first crossover a century ago.  We're looking for...
a book. One that was never written in our universe, although the author existed
there as well.  There are only scant references made to it in the first
crossover data.  But we believe it had a pivotal influence in shaping the whole
political strategy of conquest of what eventually evolved into the Terran
Empire."

Julian felt a sudden sense of intrigue, not unlike the feelings he used to have
in his conversations with Garak.  "A book? What was the title? Who was the
author? Why was it so influential?"

Cynthia assumed a conspiratorial tone similar to a hero in one of those
detective novels that Miles had got Odo hooked on. "The book was written in
1997 by someone who was a former National Security Chief in the old North
American republic in both universes. We've only seen references to the title,
date of publication and a few sparse quotations here and there."

Bashir sipped on his Tarkalean tea, his brow furrowed in contemplation. "1997? 
That was the year after  the end of the Eugenics Wars in our universe and the
exile of Khan and the other super-Napoleons aboard the Botany Bay. 1997 of
course witnessed the neo-Trotskyist led Russian revolution that  reconstituted
the old Soviet Union as a continental super-power, perhaps the key turning
point of the post Eugenics War world. But you're implying that the most
significant event in 1997 in the Mirror universe was the publication of ....
this book? That certainly wasn't in your doctoral thesis. And you still haven't
told me the title."

 "Sorry. The title is ‘The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its
Geostrategic Imperatives'.  Judging from the few known historical references,
the book was pivotal in its influence upon pre-Empire Commanders in Chiefs. The
author was able to promulgate a new strategy of world conquest because he built
upon already existing trends and tendencies in political-economy as well as
military, foreign and domestic policy. These trends were present in our history
as well but were thwarted by the  Eurasian revolutions in 1996 that ended the
Eugenics Wars."

Bashir shook his head. "The Grand Chessboard.  Sounds like some memoir my
friend Garak would write."

"The Cardassian spy?"

Bashir put down his cup. "Well, not at the moment. He's gainfully employed
elsewhere, helping to rebuild Cardassia from the ruins. Too bad he's not here.
He'd probably give us all new insights into the history of the Mirror universe
as well as humanity for that matter, just from intuitive inferences."

Jordan looked somewhat skeptical. "Maybe we can bring him along on the next
trip."  At that moment the ward room doors whooshed open, the expedition team
filing in for the briefing. Julian noted Smiley among them and nodded in his
direction. The Terran rebel returned Bashir's recognition curtly, without
smiling.

As the team settled in, Cynthia rose to begin.

"This is Starfleet's  first Comparative Quantum History archaeological
expedition to the Mirror universe Earth. We will be on the planet for three
weeks investigating sites at major cities which hosted significant historical
events in the planet's late 20th and early 21st century, events that were major
quantum historical divergence points with our universe."

Despite the caffeine stimulation provided by the tea, Julian found himself
suppressing a yawn.  Too many scones and not enough sleep. Jordan continued.

"Environmental suits will be required since this Earth is no longer a class M
planet capable of sustaining humanoid life.  This is partly due to the
environmental catastrophes that the imperial government was itself responsible
for over a period of some 300 years, but mainly to the final assault on the
planet by the Alliance forces nearly eighty years ago.  The oceans are
completely dead and the phytoplankton is extinct as are all fauna and 
vegetation.  Needless to say, this means that oxygen production has ceased
world wide.  Most of the remaining oxygen has bonded with carbon and various
toxic elements in the atmosphere."

Julian's eyelids drooped.

"This presents a special hazard for any artifacts we uncover, particularly any
paper based documents. Exposure to the atmosphere could be catastrophic.  This
means anything you find must be immediately sealed, placed in a stasis field
and relocated to the shuttle.  We will be minimizing transporter usage to the
Defiant so as to avoid possible detection by any Alliance ships that may be
nearby.

"Captain Miles O'Brien of the Terran Resistance Forces has informed us that the
Alliance patrols routinely visit Earth every three weeks.  We precisely timed
the expedition for this three week window of opportunity. Of course that
doesn't preclude any unscheduled visitations, so the Defiant will be keeping
careful watch on all Alliance ships that come within 5 light years.  In the
event one is sighted on course for Earth, the expedition will be immediately
aborted. Any questions?"

Alvarez, the Defiant's Chief Engineer and one of the shuttle pilots for the
expedition, raised his hand. "Just how many cities will we be visiting and
which ones?"

Julian's head tilted forward onto his chest. He began a low snore.  Cynthia
glanced in his direction, choosing to ignore it.

"We will be visiting all of the major cities and sites involved in the quantum
history differentiation of the 1990's; New York, Washington D.C., Kabul,
London, Baghdad, Berlin, Islamabad, New Dehli, Moscow, Peking, Paris..."

Fast asleep, Julian heard the word ‘Paris'. Paris was lovely in the spring. 
A tour of Earth beginning in the City of Light was just the romantic vacation
he and Ezri needed: coffee and croissants at a little sidewalk bistro and an
elegant hotel room overlooking the Arc de Triomphe. Perfect.  In his dream, he
and Ezri were holding hands strolling down the Champs de Elysees, the street
glistening from a recent spring shower, a smell of flowers and ozone in the
air.  Somewhere behind him he heard pursuing footsteps and someone yelling "You
owe us!"  He turned. It was Smiley. And following Smiley was a black-greenish
cloud that devoured the Parisian landscape and sky.  "Come on!" Julian urged
Ezri as they began running. But as fast as they ran, Smiley and the cloud of
death kept gaining on them. There was no escape. "You owe us!"


The Chaffe II came in low from the East approaching New York  just above the
lifeless slate grey Atlantic.  Bashir felt slightly nauseous as the shuttle
skimmed  the rising whitecaps.   

"Alvarez, why do you have to fly so low?"

The engineer shrugged and smiled.  "Sorry, sir. Force of habit from First
Contact pilot training at the academy. They tell you to stay low to avoid
primitive EM ground detection systems on alien worlds."

Julian nodded. "Well there's nothing like that here. The place has been
deserted for the past eighty years or so.  If we're detected it will be by
Alliance ships out in space and the Defiant should pick them up first. So bring
it up a little bit would you?  I'd like to keep my scones down this morning."

Jordan came forward and leaned against the top of Bashir's chair, peering out
the forward view shield.

"Look, the Statue of Liberty," she pointed ahead as if conducting a bus tour. 

Smiley appeared behind Alvarez's seat. "Have you ever been to Earth before,
Miles?" Julian asked.

"No, this is my first ‘vacation' from fighting the Alliance. Besides,  it
doesn't mean anything to me. It's just a  graveyard."

Bashir stared at the corroded statue as the shuttle slowed. The arm thrusting
skyward ended in a jagged tear. There was no hand carrying a torch.  How eerily
appropriate for this world, Julian mused. He glanced at Smiley. If the rebel
did have any feelings for the home planet of humanity, he was carefully hiding
them.

As they approached Manhattan Julian noticed something odd about the skyline. It
wasn't really the New York that he knew. Four hundred some odd years of
diverging history had forged a different skyline. Buildings were there that
shouldn't be. While others that should have been there weren't. The shuttle
came up the Hudson River past Battery Park, then turned and followed West
Street  to the landing site.                                     
                  

Emerging from the shuttle behind the others, he surveyed a scene of widespread
decay. Low grey clouds formed a ceiling pierced only by the tallest buildings. 
It was as if they were inside a vast ancient cathedral, the buildings mere
support pillars.  Rubble was strewn across the streets, punctuated by craters,
detritus of the final Alliance assault.  Cynthia's voice broke the somber
silence on the comm system.

"This is the site of one of the major quantum divergence points in the Mirror
universe; the destruction of the old World Trade Center in 2001 C.E.  After
this attack, we first see the public discussion on the merits of empire and the
legitimation of torture, which later became a standard instrument of rule. We
also see the extensive erosion of sentient rights, specifically the beginning
of the elimination of trial by jury, suspects being held incommunicado without
their families' or lawyer's knowledge, and most importantly, summary execution
without trial. The political roots of the Terran Empire began here." 

Smiley walked over to Julian.  "Lovely day isn't it?"

The archaeologist's voice turned slightly icy at the interruption. "Did you
have something to add or point out Captain O'Brien?"

Smiley turned in her direction.  "Not really. Just that nearly 300 years later
this was also the city from where the Alliance began rounding up Terran
survivors for off-world slave labor.  So I guess this place is doubly important
for me ...and all the other Terrans. Our holocaust begins here. Maybe we can
put up a memorial someday ...if we manage to acquire the technological edge to
beat the Alliance and take back Earth."

Jordan's response was worthy of a Federation diplomat. "Thank you Captain
O'Brien for pointing out the dual historical significance of this site for you
and all Terrans.  I'm sure that the Federation would be glad to render you
assistance for terra forming the planet so as to render it humanly habitable
once more....after your final victory." Without missing a beat she resumed the
orientation. "We will briefly  visit the World Trade Center memorial, then
divide up into teams of twos using tri-corders to scan for artifacts.  In
particular we want to keep an eye out for any underground facilities where
Terrans might have managed to store books, documents or art before the final
Alliance assault. While the Alliance extensively  looted and destroyed
libraries, museums and government offices, they might have overlooked personal
habitations. It's a big planet after all. Questions?"


Inside the underground memorial Julian stared past the corroded plaque of
hundreds of names and up through the hole in the ceiling. Acid rain dripped
into the room.  He could make out part of the glass and steel structure that
had replaced the slightly more ancient twin towers.  Back home the old World
Trade Center was still standing. For the past hundred years or so it had been
the headquarters of the Earth Port Authority.  It was a busy place: the
extension of "credits" allowing other planets to "purchase" Earth goods, free
assistance to impoverished and disaster stricken worlds, the screening of off
world imports, all of Earth's transactions with the rest of the Federation and
the known galaxy were processed through the historic old complex.  But here, it
didn't even exist. Except as a forgotten memorial from an ancient war his world
had never known. Despite the warmth of his environmental suit, Bashir felt a
chill creeping up his spine. 

"Hey Julian."

Bashir jumped slightly at the sound of Smiley's voice in his communicator.  The
rebel was standing right behind him and slightly to his side.

"Oh, are we on a mutual first name basis now, Miles?  Does this mean that we're
‘friends' once more?"  Julian allowed just a hint of sarcasm in his voice. 

"Maybe.  I was just thinking that you and I ought to team up together, to check
out the ruins."

"Why?"

The Terran replied with one of those hauntingly familiar grins of the "real"
Miles, jokingly insincere.

 "Well that way you can keep a close eye on me, make sure I don't get into any
trouble.  And maybe working close to a real Terran will bring you luck.  After
all, archaeology is mostly luck."

Bashir raised his eyebrows but nodded.  "Really?  I wasn't aware of that. All
right, let's talk to Professor Jordan and see what sector of the city she
assigns us after we get out of here."

O'Brien leaned forward conspiratorially, nudging Julian's arm, simultaneously
activating a private comm channel between them.  "Why stand around for another
briefing?  Let's walk down West Street, see what the old tri-corders pick up.
I've got a hunch."

"A hunch? That's not very scientific."

"I'm not a scientist, I'm a leprechaun," Miles quipped, putting on his most
charming Irish airs.  "And I have a feeling that right now we're very near the
pot o'gold, even if there is no rainbow."

Intrigued at the possibility that Smiley knew more about the expedition than he
was supposed to, Bashir followed the Terran up the staircase, out of the
memorial and into the street.

END Part 1 of 3 of "Third Way Out"

--
Stephen Ratliff
ASC Stories Only Forwarding

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Subject: [ASC] COR DS9 "Third Way Out" B, Ez, Mir O'B [PG] 2 of 3
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Forwarded by the ASC-VSO 
Posted: 09 Feb 2004 05:15:15 GMT  
In: alt.startrek.creative 
From: sisko2374@aol.com (Sisko2374) 
 

COR DS9 "Third Way Out" B, Ez, Mir O'B [PG] 2 of 3

In some respects West street wasn't too different than its namesake in Bashir's
universe.  In both New Yorks some of the smaller buildings from the 20th and
21st centuries had survived,  perhaps because of the concerted efforts of high
minded citizens who valued them as local historic "landmarks". 

They had been walking for six blocks or so, the tri-corders registering nothing
unusual when Smiley suddenly stopped.  "Well I'll be ... I'm picking up an
underground chamber, about 30 meters down.  Directly under that old brick
structure."  He pointed to the right side of the street ahead.

Bashir scanned his tricorder.  "Yes, I've got it.  Appears to be a single room
with some sort of large box.  Encased in ... lead."

O'Brien grinned.  "Worth a look don't you think?"

Bashir extended his arm graciously.  "After you my dear Captain."

The entrance on West street was collapsed, but O'Brien discovered an ancient
security "side" door on Canal street that was hanging on its hinges.  He pushed
it slightly.  The door shattered in to a thousand shards as it hit the ground. 


"Just don't make'em like that anymore."  The Terran grinned.

"And a good thing too."  Julian rejoined.  "Of course a century or more of acid
rain didn't help."  He flashed his palm beacon into the darkness of the
corridor ahead.

Miles' tricorder beeped.  "I'm reading a shaft 20 meters ahead that connects to
the level of the chamber.  Got your utility line?"

Julian checked.   One hundred meters of Tholian filament hung lightly from his
belt. "Yes I do.  Would you like to use it?" 
 
The rebel chuckled.  "I'm frightened of great heights.  I might fall.  Besides,
you deserve some glory on this expedition.  Don't worry, I'll keep a firm hold
on you."

There were no doors at the entrance to the shaft.  Julian shined his light down
the shaft then let it  play across the floor he was standing on.  Jagged shards
of rusted metal lay before him and at the botton of the hole.

He frowned.  "Looks like someone's been here before us." 

Miles  shrugged.  "You mean because of the rust on the floor?  Not necessarily.
 The doors could have just disintegrated on their own."

"But why would these doors inside fall apart quicker than the one you kicked in
outside?  There's more protection from the elements in here."

O'Brien had already removed the tethered end of the Tholian rope from Julian's
belt and was busy anchoring it to the concrete floor.  "Good point.  Maybe the
Alliance was mucking about here.  Who knows?" He stood up.  "Are you ready?"

Bashir peered over the jagged precipice.  "Just keep a good hold on that rope
Miles.  Let it out slowly."

"Nothing to fear."  The Terran sat down next to the shaft, his feet firmly
planted on the adjacent wall.

The descent seemed to take forever.  Julian had only repelled once and that was
in a holo suite.  But there was no safety program here.   Only that thin line
anchored at the top and fed by the Mirror O'Brien.

At last he reached the bottom.  Casting his light about he saw no connecting
corridor.  But there was the outline of a tall heavy rusted door. Putting his
shoulder against it he found it swung slowly inward with a loud long creak. 

Julian's palm beacon pierced the darkness. The room was small, three meters by
four, without  windows. Flaking faded paint appeared to have been peeling off
the walls for centuries. He could almost smell the must and mildew through his
bio suit filter. Slowly he surveyed the cubicle. It was sparsely furnished.
Against one wall was a broken chair next to a desk littered with the crumbled,
blackened remains of what once must have been books. His light played across
the floor to the opposite wall, illuminating a wooden bed with two human
skeletons, the bones  a dirty grey, their arms entwined in each other's rib
cages in a final embrace.

Suicide pact? Bashir speculated.  At the foot of the bed was a metal trunk.
Curiosity overwhelmed him. Kneeling, he lifted the rusty lid. Books and
photographs, yellowed but preserved, filled the trunk. Pointing his light at
the titles of the books he noticed dust particles swimming in the beam. 

Slamming the lid down he realized his mistake too late.  The damage was done.
He had exposed  this treasure trove of artifacts, sealed for centuries, to the
outside air. Oxidation and decay would accelerate rapidly now. A few seconds
could destroy centuries of history. He had to move fast. 

"Bashir to Jordan. I've found an ancient trunk with books and photographs below
ground on West street. The documents appear to be intact but..."

Jordan cut in, her voiced sounding sick, "You opened it..."

"Yes, I'm sorry..."

"Beam it to the Defiant right away. I'll have them put it in a stasis field."

Julian placed his comm badge on the trunk and hailed the Defiant. Seconds later
he watched the trunk disappear  in a swirl of sparkles.

By the time Bashir and O'Brien made their way back out of the ruins, the
archeological survey team was already reassembled at the shuttle. Jordan's
greeting was blunt. 

"Well Doctor, you managed to discover what will probably be the biggest find of
the entire expedition while nearly creating the greatest archaeological
disaster since the Answan dam flooded the Valley of the Kings. And all in one
day!"

Julian decided to ignore Cynthia's hyperbole, replying with the tone of one
doctor inquiring of another about a mutual patient whose prospects for recovery
were very poor.

"I'm sorry. How is the trunk?"

As if slightly mollified by his concern and sympathy, Cynthia sighed and
rendered her diagnosis.

"They got it into stasis, so the oxidation process has been arrested. But we
need to pump out all the air and seal it in argon as soon as possible. That way
we can begin cataloguing and our historians can get to work."

Julian nodded. "Of course. Might I offer the use of sickbay's isolation chamber
for that purpose?"

Jordan managed a pained smile. "Sounds perfect Doctor. Would you like to assist
in the opening and cataloguing? After all, it was your discovery."

Bashir smiled back. "I would be honored."  

An hour later, in the Defiant's  sick bay, Julian once again opened the trunk. 
But this time the inert argon gas environment and force field gloves of the
isolation chamber ensured there would be no further contamination of the
fragile ancient paper within. The first thing he picked up was a yellowed
photograph. Jordan recited a description of each artifact for the catalogue.

"Item number one: Photograph, approximately 380 years old, showing a man and
woman in winter clothing posing beneath a hand painted sign that reads
‘Republic, Not Empire'.  Background appears to be late 20th or early 21st
century Chicago. Picasso statue in background."

Bashir gazed thoughtfully at the two sad but determined faces staring back at
him from across four centuries and another universe. Were these the two who had
ended their lives in that dreary basement so long ago? What was their story?

Gingerly putting the photo to the side he picked up a small book with a black
cover, faded red title and a photo of the Earth from orbit. As Julian opened it
to the frontispiece, Jordan began her recital.

"Item number two: book in the English language, titled ‘The New Rulers of the
World', author is John Pilger. Copyright 2002 by Verso Press. Two hundred and
forty-six pages with index. Printed in the UK."

"Item number three: book in the English language, titled ‘The Sorrows of
Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic', author is Chalmers
Johnson.  2004 edition, three hundred and eighty nine pages indexed, Henry Holt
and Company, New York.

When Julian picked up another book, Cynthia's eyes lit up. Embossed on a cover
of desiccated leather, five faded gold letters clearly spelt out the word
‘Diary'.

Grinning, she turned to Julian. "Jackpot! Personal cross-reference material."  


Several hours later, Julian sat in sickbay, immersed in reading.  The trunk did
not contain the book so sought after by the expedition, "The Grand Chessboard",
but it had produced a fascinating bounty of political literature of the period.
The door chimed.

"Enter."

Jordan stepped in, an arm of freshly replicated books under her arm.  "You look
thoughtful Doctor. I hate to disturb a man who is thinking."

Julian smiled. "Quite all right. Actually, I wanted to talk to you about some
of these books we replicated from the transporter record of the trunk."

Jordan nodded.  "Yes, judging by the diary we found, it appears the two
skeletons were those of a pair of professional ‘political activists' of the
late 20th and early 21st century.  They died around 2020.  Probably suicide,
considering their last entry."

Julian shook his head.  "Well they certainly valued their reading."  He pointed
toward a small pile of  books on the table.  "These are all very different
authors on the surface; Pilger is a journalist,  Zinn a historian, Vidal an
essayist, Chomsky a linguistics professor turned anarchist, Mahajan an anti-war
activist, Chalmers Johnson, an East Asian scholar.  Yet they all have something
in common. They're old style muckrakers.  Quite frankly, reading their
contemporary analysis of the events of 2001 C.E. in the mirror universe has
given me a disturbing historical speculation about the North American Terrans'
‘Day of Terror'."

Jordan sat down across from him.  "And what is that?"

Bashir closed the book he had been reading.  "That one of the government
security agencies of the North American republic let it happen. They apparently
knew about the plot, yet did nothing, probably so that their citizens'
patriotic fervor would be aroused to support the wars that had already been
planned back in the 1990's to secure Eurasia, whose resources they viewed as
the key to global dominance."

Cynthia nodded. "That's one theory someone has already come up with. But it may
be even worse than that."

Julian frowned.  "How so?"

The archaeologist shoved her stack of books across the table.  "Our team of 
historians have been reading, analyzing and cross-referencing this new material
from the trunk.  They've already formulated an initial hypothesis."

"Which is?"

"That their government actually organized it." Jordan paused for effect. "Let's
consider the following in favor of both the ‘organizer' and the
‘facilitator' hypothesis. First, we know that the covert agencies of the old
North American Republic were, for their day, every bit as powerful, ruthless,
relentless and omnipresent as their contemporaries or say the Tal Shiar and the
Obsidian Order in our own era."

"Hmmmm.  More like Section 31 I would say." 

Cynthia grimaced. "Exactly. So, given all that, especially the fact that
historically, in both our universe and theirs the North American NSA-CIA had
been facilitating the organizing and training of a network of 100,000 fanatics
in Afghanistan via Pakistan for over two decades before, a case can
legitimately be made that they had considerable foreknowledge of the plot. 
They had plenty of opportunity to infiltrate these same organizations they had
financed and created with local operatives. Furthermore, from what we've been
able to glean here, after the Day of Terror there were no reprimands or
court-martials for negligence of duty in failing to follow standard policy in
the event of a hijacking, specifically, intercepting the high jacked aircraft. 
According to sources cited by Vidal, fighter aircraft weren't scrambled  until
an hour and twenty minutes after it became apparent that there were
simultaneous multiple highjackings, well after the damage was done.  Besides
which, its highly suspicious that their President wasn't in the capitol on the
day of the attacks. "

Julian shook his head. If Garak were here now he would no doubt be expressing
surprise and admiration for the crafty deceitfulness of ancient human
intelligence services.  "Blew up his own shop," Bashir mused.

"What?"

"Oh, sorry. I was just thinking of my old friend Garak again. He once did
something similar, on a much smaller scale, without loss of life.  When he
discovered that an assassin was stalking him on DS9, he blew up his own shop,
with himself inside it, so that constable Odo would interrogate the prospective
assassin before he could act. Quite a clever ploy actually."  

Cynthia nodded.  "Some techniques never change.  When we go to the Islamabad
and New Dehli sites on Wednesday I'd like to try to check out Vidal's
assertions in his book "Dreaming War" that the Pakistani Intelligence Service
wired money to the leader of the hijackers and met with the NSA in the Pentagon
a week before the attacks.  With luck we can locate the Indian and Pakistani 
newspaper records that he cites."

Bashir shook his head again.  "We've been very lucky so far.  It's a pretty
cold trail after nearly  four hundred years."  

END Part 2 of 3 "Third Way Out"

--
Stephen Ratliff
ASC Stories Only Forwarding

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Subject: [ASC] COR DS9 "Third Way Out" B, Ez, Mir O'B, [PG] 3 of 4
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Forwarded by the ASC-VSO 
Posted: 09 Feb 2004 05:18:51 GMT  
In: alt.startrek.creative 
From: sisko2374@aol.com (Sisko2374) 
 

COR DS9 "Third Way Out" B, Ez, Mir O'B, [PG] 3 of 4
      
On the bridge of the Defiant, Ensign Jackson, the helm officer, addressed Ezri.
 "Sir, that Alliance battle cruiser that was in orbit of Alpha III, its
disappeared!"

Ezri rose from the command chair and stood behind the console.  "What do you
mean ‘disappeared'?"

"When its orbit took it behind the planet, it never came out. It's been over an
hour..."  An alert beep sounded from the console.  "Now there's a ship
launching from the surface of Alpha III.  Engine signature indicates a Ferengi
merchantman."

Ezri frowned. "What's its heading?"

Jackson's hands flashed over the console.  "Its course heading will take it
within half a light year of the  Terran system."

Ezri clasped her hands behind her back.  "Dax to O'Brien."

"O'Brien here," came the reply over the comm system.

"Miles, do Ferengi merchantmen frequent the Alpha Centauri system?"

There was a pause.  "I really don't know Captain.  Ferengi's have license to
trade throughout the Alliance. Why?"

Ezri hesitated.  Eight lifetimes of  instinct told her not to tell the Terran
rebel too much.  "We're monitoring a .... situation here.  I'll keep you posted
as necessary."


The next morning found Julian accompanying Jordan and the expedition back down
to the grey dead planet.  Today they would be on the other side of the world
from New York.  Julian watched the coast line of the Eastern Mediterranean grow
larger in the view screen as the Chaffe II dropped down from orbit. They
quickly descended through heavy rolling clouds of acid rain, emerging above a
landscape that was as smooth and featureless as it was dark.  Despite the high
winds in the area, Alvarez piloted the shuttle to a perfect three point
landing.
      
Following the survey team down the ramp,  Bashir found himself standing on
smooth black glass that stretched out in every direction to the grey horizon. 
"Where are we?"

"Downtown Baghdad," the archaeologist replied routinely as she monitored her
tri-corder.

Julian was appalled.  He was familiar with the ancient city on his own Earth.
It was a beautiful historic capital. First, of the ancient caliphates of the
once mighty Arab empires, then later in the 21st and 22nd centuries, the
Eastern administrative center of the old Arab Federation. But in the Mirror
universe it was .... nothing. Despite a creeping foreboding he managed to ask,

"What...when did this happen?  Was this the Alliance or ..."

Jordan kept her gaze focused on her tri-corder readings as she answered the
Doctor.

"Sometime around 2040 we believe. Late stage of what was still nominally the
North American republic. Apparently there was some sort of revolt, centered on
Baghdad. All the country's petroleum reserves had already been exhausted, so it
was decided that an example should be made. They used nuclear weapons launched
from geo-synchronous orbit."

Julian stared at the black glass.  An obsidian tomb of an entire people and
civilization. An unexpected visceral reaction churned in his gut.  This site
struck at him personally in a way that he had never experienced before, that he
had never felt back home on Earth or in the Federation. He realized what it
was.  He hated the ancient Terrans who had created the Empire here.  Those who
had done this. Was this then the Mirror Earth's 21st century equivalent of the
destruction of Carthage? What sort of ‘Romans' had erased this lovely old
city and all its people from existence? And never rebuilt it? This was beyond
the tragic neutron nuclear exchange of 2053 in his own universe.  This was
personal.  This was genocide against a helpless opponent.

Julian watched Cynthia cut away a cone of the black glass beneath their feet
with a fine phaser beam.  "Why are we even here?"

Jordan retrieved the sample with a gloved hand, placing it in a specimen bag. 
"Confirmation on the date Baghdad was destroyed, that's all."
      
Suddenly, Alvarez's voice broke in on the shuttle comm system, "Defiant reports
there's an Alliance battle cruiser in the solar system and its heading straight
for Earth at warp speed! Captain Dax says to get everybody aboard the Chaffe II
and off the planet right now!"


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 an
Alliance 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. 

"You two were working together.  Miles wanted the cloaking device and you
wanted this book.  But something fell through."

"Brilliant deduction Doctor. But we were never going to give the cloaking
device to the Terrans.  We only want the book. Give me the book and we can
cloak and head home."  Jordan shifted the phaser to her other hand.  Punching
in a code by the door panel she locked the doors to engineering.

Julian kept his phaser trained on her.  "Miles anticipated you were going to
betray him, so he took the book as a bargaining chip.  You sabotaged the
transporters.  Why?"

"To save the cloaking device from the Terrans.  Section 31 would never let them
have it.  Now give me the book Doctor so that we can get out of here."

Julian shook his head.  "Section 31, the state within the state.  Humans spent
the first 6000 years of civilization under the domination of the state in one
form or another.  Even the most democratic states ultimately tended toward
militaristic totalitarian control or wound up under the rule of a plutocracy. 
On Earth humans have only lived without the state for the past 80 years. 
What's so ironic is that the most insidious threat to that paradise has come
not from the Borg or the Dominion or the Romulans, but from the very
institution charged with defending paradise, Starfleet, the last remnant of the
state. Whether it was the Khitomer accords conspiracy or Admiral Layton's coup
d'etat, it was from inside Starfleet that our serpents in paradise came,
including the most venomous, Section 31" 

"Oh please, Doctor! Don't throw Section 31 in the same category as those
bumbling amateur Bonapartists in Starfleet.  We recruit the best and the
brightest from there, but we run the show. Not them.  Now give me the book,
Julian." Jordan leveled the phaser at his chest.

Bashir casually thumbed the pages.  "I think I found the key passage in ‘The
Grand Chessboard' that applies to Section 31's  plans for the Federation.

‘Morever, as America becomes an increasingly multi-cultural society, it may
find it more difficult to fashion a consensus on foreign policy issues, except
in the circumstance of a truly massive and widely perceived external threat.'

You plan to start a new war with the Dominion or the Romulans or even the
Klingons, don't you? You're going to stage an attack to plunge the Federation
into a new prolonged series of wars. Just like they did on the Mirror universe
Earth four centuries ago. Why?"

Jordan adopted a pedagogical tone, as if lecturing a child.  "Because our Earth
has grown soft in a violent universe doctor.  We nearly lost the last war.
Because of the constraints of the Prime Directive, and the weakness of people
like you, we didn't finish off the shape shifters when we had the chance. The
Dominion is presently at its weakest. Now is the time to wipe them out once and
for all, finish the job and ensure the survival of the Federation, the Alpha
Quadrant and the galaxy itself. It's the best means of securing galactic
peace."

Bashir closed the book. His voice shook with quiet rage.  "Peace? Through
genocide? Through permanent war? That's what they tried here, four hundred
years ago and they wound up with a tyranny, not just on Earth but in the known
galaxy! We barely survived our own 20th and 21st centuries. In a very real
sense these Terrans here never made it out of theirs. Genocidal wars,
blockades, state sponsored terror, torture, concentration camps, the abolition
of fundamental freedoms, is that what you want to inflict on our Earth once
more, on the Federation?  If you plunge us into decades of war and terror, what
do you think the Federation will look like at the end of it?  It will be the
Terran Empire in all but name. Has that thought even occurred to you or anyone
in Section 31?  You are setting about destroying the very thing you claim to be
defending."

"Doctor, I can see now why Sloan took such an interest in you.  Your commitment
and intellect would have been a valued addition to Section 31. But despite your
genetic enhancement you remain fundamentally flawed. You lack will and resolve.
Give me the book." Still keeping the phaser trained on him with her left hand,
she extended her right.

Julian thought he detected a movement on the floor behind Jordan.  Yes. Smiley
was stirring. 

Julian clutched the book to his chest. "Why do you need it? What possible use
could a 400 year old book of Mirror Earth imperial geostrategy be to you?" He
hoped she needed the book badly enough and was arrogant enough to dialogue for
just a few moments more. 

"To train our cadres of course, so that they may guide the Federation. Why do
they still teach Clausewitz, Grant, Zhukov and even Sun Tzu at Starfleet
Academy?  Think about it.  Sun Tzu's "Art of War", a 2700 year old Chinese book
of military strategy, still taught at Starfleet Academy! Why? Because it is a
classic explanation and exploration of the essence of military doctrine that
has remained unchanged from horse mounted cavalry archers to quantum torpedo
starships.  The same applies to 6000 years of statecraft. That book you're
holding is a classic of the art of rule."

Smiley was on his knees now, shaking his head. The noisy pulsing of the warp
core drowning out all but Jordan and Bashir's exchange.

"Yes, rule over others as the art of deceit, domination and enslavement.  What
about the Terrans here? Are you going to give them the book? So that they can
rebuild their Empire? So that they can doom themselves to the whole bloody
cycle all over again?"

Jordan's derisive laughter echoed in the engine room.  "The Terrans? Do you
really think it matters to anyone what happens here? Even Starfleet doesn't
care about them.  That's why they hide behind the excuse of  the Prime
Directive, refusing to aid them, because they don't give a damn either."

"You want the book?  You can have it."  Julian tossed it on the floor. 
Jordan's eyes followed it down.  At that moment, Smiley rose to his feet and
slammed himself into Jordan from behind. The blow propelled her into Julian,
knocking him over. As she  fell, both her and Julian's phasers flew out of
their hands skidding across the floor. Her head hit a deck plate, knocking her
out.  Alvarez dove for the phasers, but Smiley beat him to it.  A moment later
Smiley stood over them, both phaser pistols in hand.  Julian could hear the
Walter's security team outside the door, trying to access the security panel to
gain entry.


"Looks like all bets are off for the Federation today.  You three just relax
while the Terran Resistance  takes care of everything."  Keeping the phaser
carefully trained on them, Smiley moved to an engineering panel and opened it. 
Producing a phase spanner from his jacket he deftly manipulated the light cable
inside.  The ship's lights dimmed briefly.  Slapping the communicator on his
chest he called out, "O'Brien to Bashir. Shields are down. Engine room secure."
                         
A moment later, the Mirror Julian Bashir and five Terran rebels materialized in
a circle around the warp core.  Phaser fire erupted outside the engineering
doors, then silence.

A gleeful grin played across the scraggly bearded face of the Mirror Julian. 
"Good work Captain O'Brien! Congratulations!"

Smiley nodded.  "Thank you Captain Bashir."

Ezri's voice suddenly sounded over the comm system, the noise of phaser fire
and a scuffle in the background.

"Ezri to Bashir, bridge is secure." 

"Well done commander!" the Mirror Bashir replied.  A sneer crossed his face as
he stared at Julian.  "Doctor Bashir I presume?"

"Dax!" Julian called out as he slapped his communicator.  "Are you all right!"

A voice that sounded like Ezri's shot back.  "Your girlfriend's just fine
Doctor.  Except for a glass jaw.  She'll be out for a little while."

The Mirror Bashir did a visual check of the engine room once more.  "Commander,
is everyone aboard?"

"Aye, sir."  

"Then by all means begin the transport procedure." 

 Julian frowned.  "Transport procedure?"

The Mirror Bashir smiled.  "Yes, my good Doctor, we're switching ships.  We get
the one with the cloaking device.  Our Defiant is missing a few of your
amenities of course, but otherwise, it's a good trade.  A Defiant for a
Defiant."

Julian nodded.  "Its what you wanted all along, the cloaking device. But what
about her?"  He looked toward the still unconscious Cynthia.

Smiley scooped up the book that Julian had dropped.  Then stood Jordan up,
holding her left arm around his neck.  "Oh, she's coming with us.  A deal is a
deal.  We get the cloaking device and your Section 31 gets their book."  

Julian shook his head.  "Miles, you heard what she said.  Section 31 doesn't
give a damn about the Terrans.  They don't give a damn about anyone.  They plan
to start a war back in my universe.  We have to get back and warn the
Federation."

Miles shrugged.  "Section 31 approached us over a year ago.  We found their
book for them.  But we told them we needed the cloaking device.  They agreed
and set everything up for us.  They use us, we might want to use them in the
future.  You Starfleet boys had your chance."

"Miles ...."  The universe became a shimmer of sparkles as Julian suddenly
found himself transported to the engine room of the Mirror Defiant.


It was as if he had never left the engine room.  Only the people that had been
around him were gone.  Even as he sprang through the opening doors toward the
bridge he continued to slap and call on his communicator badge for Ezri.

When he got to the bridge he found the crew, in various states of revival,
slumped about what would have been their stations on the Defiant.  Ezri was
stirring in her command chair, holding her bruised chin in her hands.  Julian
went to her side, pulling out his medical tri-corder, scanning her head..

"What's the diagnosis Doctor?"

Bashir returned his tri-corder to his belt.  "Two aspirins and call me in the
morning.  No fractures, nothing broken, a mild concussion.  How do you feel?"

Ezri kept rubbing her jaw.  "Like I just flunked my command test.  Where's the
Terran's Defiant at?"

Julian moved to the conn.  "Halfway to Jupiter and on course for the wormhole. 
By the way, Jordan was with Section 31.  She set us up with Smiley."

"Jordan?  Why?"

"Apparently to get a 20th century Terran book that laid the foundation for the
Empire.  They want to train their cadre in the art of rule and statecraft.  Or
so she claims.  But what puzzles me is how did the rebels get their copy of the
Defiant here undetected?"

"False warp signature," Ezri sat back down in the command chair. "They
simulated the warp emissions of an Alliance battle cruiser and later on, the
Ferengi merchantman. That was probably them that you detected around Alpha
Centauri a few days ago. Then they faked us out with an Alliance battle cruiser
signature again when they warped into the solar system.  That false signature,
and some luck, allowed them to get through a few hundred light years of
Alliance space as well."

"Well, we have to get back before she does and warn the Federation.  She
admitted that Section 31 plans to start a new war between the Dominion and the
Federation."

"A war?  We have to leave now.  Is the warp drive on line?"

 A flashing red indicator on the conn panel caught Julian's eye. "More bad news
I'm afraid. They ejected and destroyed the warp core. Without that there's no
way to get back to the wormhole and our universe."

"They don't want us following them or alerting Star Fleet that they've got the
Defiant. What about the transporters?" Ezri speculated. "Couldn't we alter them
like Smiley did when he kidnaped Captain Sisko? So that we could pass through
the quantum density field between the two universes and beam back home?"

Bashir shook his head.  "The original transporter accident that brought Kirk
into the Mirror universe was possible only because of a freak planetary ion
storm in the upper atmosphere of Halkan. Occurring simultaneously in both
universes, it temporarily weakened an already weak section of the separating
quantum density field and the transporter ionizer. Smiley was able to recreate
that original transporter malfunction only because the wormhole permanently
weakens the space-time density field between the two universes in the Bajoran
system. That's why the wormhole can serve as a conduit to the Mirror universe.
To transport back we'd have to get near the wormhole or somehow find another
ion storm occurring simultaneously on a planet  in both universes where  the
fabric of space-time and the intervening quantum density field are already
sufficiently weakened. Highly improbable to say the least."

Julian slumped in the navigator's chair. "We might as well face it. We're
marooned! It will take us centuries at relativistic velocities to reach the
wormhole without warp drive! And without a cloaking device we don't have a
Breen's chance in hell of getting there undetected by the Alliance. It would
have been more merciful if Smiley had simply phasered us out of existence or
blown us apart with our own quantum torpedoes."

Ezri glumly nodded. "Yeah, quantum torpedoes...that would have been quick." She
began to pace the bridge. "Wait a minute Julian! When Smiley downloaded the
Defiant's specs do you think he downloaded the plans for the quantum torpedoes
as well?"

Julian shrugged. "I don't know, why?"

"Because there might be a third way out of here for us. I just remembered
something that Worf told Jadzia once about traversing a quantum fissure in
space-time that launched him into a whole series of parallel quantum realities.
If Smiley loaded enough quantum torpedoes on board, maybe, just maybe, we can
create our own space-time fissure at some structural weak point in the quantum
density field and get home."

Julian's face lit up in a big smile. "Captain, I like the way you think"
Turning to the navigation console, his hands flashed over the controls. "Yes!
Weapons system shows a complement of sixteen quantum torpedoes."

Ezri nodded. "Good. We'll probably need them all. The only problem is that
we'll have to be pretty close when they detonate. The temporary fissure will
only stay open a few seconds before it implodes back in on itself."

Julian's face fell slightly. "Oh. Well, at least our stay in the Mirror
universe will be over, one way or another. Let's just hope Smiley's boys built
as good a copy of the ablative hull shielding as they did of the rest of the
Defiant's systems."

END Part 3 of 4 "Third Way Out"

--
Stephen Ratliff
ASC Stories Only Forwarding

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Subject: [ASC] COR DS9 "Third Way Out" B, Ez, Mir O'B [PG] 4 of 4 Conclusion
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Forwarded by the ASC-VSO 
Posted: 09 Feb 2004 05:22:28 GMT  
In: alt.startrek.creative 
From: sisko2374@aol.com (Sisko2374) 
 

COR DS9 "Third Way Out" B, Ez, Mir O'B, [PG] 4of 4 Conclusion

After consulting with both Julian and the computer, Ezri had decided that their
best chance was to head for Jupiter. Space-time was most stretched and weakened
in a deep gravitational well like a neutron star, black hole or wormhole. Since
none of those existed in the Terran system and the solar plasma flares and
intense radiation of the sun made it unsafe, Jupiter's gravitational well was
the logical choice.

The three hour trip to Jupiter passed slowly for everyone. As they looped about
Io, heading for the Jovian giant's upper atmosphere Julian had a disturbing
thought.

"Ezri, what if our calculations are off by even a micron either way?  Will we
pass our own universe and break into another one, one so similar to ours that
we won't even know it?"

Ezri shrugged. "As long as it doesn't have the Alliance in it, I don't care!
Seriously though, according to multi-universe theory, the parallel quantum
realities are layered on top of each other. We're right next to the Mirror
universe. So we just get off at the first stop!" She laughed.

Julian was not amused.

"You're forgetting, Julian. The computer has the quantum signature of our
universe. It will know when to stop the ship."

"If its able to stop in time."

"Then we'll just stop in at Starfleet Headquarters, or whatever that universe's
equivalent is, stock up with quantum torpedoes and try again. Maybe even pick
up a replacement warp core and head for the wormhole."

Bashir rolled his eyes. "We may not even exist in the next universe we wind up
in!"

"Relax, Julian, you worry too much."

The bridge view screen grew fuzzy as the atmosphere of the gas giant filled the
horizon.  "Our worries may soon be over.  Entering Jupiter's upper
stratosphere.  Wind speeds 800 kph plus."

The Defiant shuddered slightly as she plunged deeper into the atmospheric
maelstrom.    

"Hull pressure 400 psi and rising," Julian called out.  The view screen was
dissolving into incoherent patterns of interference.  A red light flashed on
Ezri's chair console.

"Fire quantum torpedoes!"

Six converging streaks of light leaped ahead of the Defiant.  A fraction of a
second later they met in a white blossom of quantum smashing destruction. 
"Brace for impact!"

The Defiant lurched forward, meeting the shockwave head on.  "Detecting a tear
in space time six hundred kilometers ahead!' Julian braced himself against the
science station as the inertial dampeners attempted to compensate for the
ship's violent pitch and yaw.  "Opening is spherical, 500 meters in diameter.
Starting to close!"    

Ezri stiffened.  Even through the random patterns on the view screen she could
make out the yawning black void already visibly shrinking.  "Full impulse now!"

Instantly the Defiant accelerated, then disappeared into the blackness of the
space time tear.  Bridge lights dimmed, the view screen went black..  Ezri
felt/heard the symbiont cry out inside her.  She glanced at Julian, his face a
grimace, his knuckles white as he clutched the console of the science station. 
A shudder passed through the entire ship, as if every atom of it was about to
fly apart.  Then suddenly they were through.  The view screen displayed the
interference pattern that told them they were descending into the Jovian
atmosphere. 

"Helm, take us up!"

"Aye, sir," Jackson responded.

As the Defiant broke out of the atmosphere and back into space, Ezri called for
a navigation check.

"We're in Jupiter space.  Everything is where its supposed to be," Julian
responded.  "The only question is, are we?"

"We're being hailed."  Alvarez announced from communications.

"Put it on speaker," Ezri ordered, chewing her lip.    

"Jupiter station to Defiant.  How ... where the devil did you come from?"

Julian smiled at Ezri from the science station.  "Quantum signature of this
universe confirmed.  We're home."

Ezri breathed a big sigh of relief.  "Defiant to Jupiter station.  We came in
the back door I guess.  Request permission to dock.  We're in need of repairs,
food and some hot baths.  And a secure channel to Starfleet Command."

"Permission granted Defiant.  But your transponder seems to be off line."

Ezri bit her lip.  Her luck was simultaneously incredibly good and bad. She had
lost a ship, but then she'd brought one back, an identical Mirror universe
Defiant but missing a warp core and a cloaking device.  Would Star Fleet
command accept it and over look her first command mishap? Or just dock her
frontier pay allowance?  Say for the next 300 years?  Then there was the little
 matter of Cynthia Jordan and Section 31.  Maybe Starfleet command would
consider  preventing a war a good trade for losing one little ship.

THE END        
"Third Way Out" 4 of 4

--
Stephen Ratliff
ASC Stories Only Forwarding

In the Pattern Buffer at:
http//trekiverse.crosswinds.net/feed/


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