Senkowski shrugged as he sat down, one table over from the group. “Never been disproven, either. I know Iskel is the popular favorite, but I’d say the evidence that Krem was the original author is compelling. Regardless of who actually wrote it, though, I’ll take Vulcan Love Slaveover Burning Hearts of Qo’noSany day.” Senkowski turned his attention back to Defiant’s first officer. “And for the record, Lieutenant Dax, I happen to likeStarfleet’s engineering manuals. I find them pithy, concise, and thorough.”

“I appreciate your candor, Ensign,” Dax intoned solemnly, trying not to smile. Senkowski had made no secret of his ambition to earn a second pip by the mission’s end.

“Still miffed Mikaela got the shift chief promotion, eh, Senkowski,” Permenter noted.

“I take my engineering duties seriously,” he said, raising a forkful of salad.

“As well you should,” Dax said, elbowing Nog.

Taking the hint, Nog added, “You’re an invaluable member of the team, Ensign.” Pulling the padd close to his chest, he sneaked another look.

Ezri laughed.

“What!” Nog protested. “I’m at the good part!”

The mess hall doors opened, admitting Lieutenant Sam Bowers. “Lieutenant Dax,” he called when he saw her, waving a padd.

Whew. Dax can bug someone else for a few minutes.Nog returned to his novel. I just need to see what happens when Lughor’s brother…

“Results of the tactical systems diagnostic?” Dax asked, weaving around several empty tables to meet Bowers halfway.

Reluctantly, Nog tore his attention away from Ngara and Lughor’s heated encounter. Though he was off duty, the weapons systems problems could spill into the next shift; an advance notice of what he was facing could be helpful.

Holding up the padd triumphantly, Sam told Dax, “Turns out we had a redundant programming problem. Nothing serious after all.”

Dax took the padd and scrolled through the data. “That’s a relief. Last thing we need in a firefight is a malfunctioning torpedo bay,” Ezri said.

Sam nodded in agreement. “Tell me about it. I like to think I’m good at improvising, but I prefer having a full arsenal at my disposal.”

Satisfied that the Defiant’s most pressing problem had been resolved, Nog settled in to find out whether Lughor had yet managed to break Ngara’s clavicle. Permenter leaned over to see what part he was reading, “oo-ing” and “ah-ing” appropriately.

Unexpectedly, the lights dimmed. Every crewman in the mess hall froze in anticipation.

Nog’s sensitive ears heard EPS conduits changing amplitude before plummeting into unhealthy silence. With Burning Hearts of Qo’noStucked under his arm, Nog was on his way to main engineering before the call from the bridge rang out over the comm system: “Red alert! All hands to battle stations! We’re under attack!”

Acrid smoke filled the corridor, stinging her eyes. Half blind, Dax and Bowers rushed onto a bridge in chaos. Along every wall, stations flickered and sparked as crewmen worked to contain fires and route control of key systems to other consoles, only to contend with new malfunctions at those stations. “What the hell happened?” she muttered, unable to hear her own words over the cacophony.

Through the smoke, she made out Vaughn standing in front of the command chair, issuing orders to engineering over his combadge. She stumbled over burned panels thrown aside to facilitate repairs, crunching pieces of shattered control interfaces and carbonized isolinear circuitry. The dim lighting wasn’t making it any easier. She heard Sam curse when he saw the condition of tactical.

“Captain,” Ezri said, raising her voice to be heard over the Klaxon.

Vaughn pointed toward one of the pulsing red alert lights as he struggled to hear the report coming in. Ezri got the message and found a working panel from which she could mute the Klaxon.

Nog’s voice was suddenly audible to her, but he sounded frantic. “—targeted our energy systems with millions of nanobots. They’re eating through our EPS system like acid, bleeding our power. Warp core’s down and we’re running completely on the auxiliaries. But at the speed the nanobots are working, it won’t last long.”

“Understood,” Vaughn said. “Do what you can, and keep me posted on your progress. Vaughn out.”

“What do we know so far?” Dax asked.

“We tripped some kind of sensor web. The instant we penetrated the field, the nanobots just shifted out of subspace and converged on Defiant,entering through the plasma vents. We didn’t know what hit us until it was too late. I want a shipwide status report immediately.” Turning to Bowers, Vaughn said, “Sam, make sure that whatever we’ve stumbled into is the end of something and not the beginning.”

Seeing that sciences was vacant but at least partially functional, Ezri took a seat and attempted to assess the scope of the damage. Nearby, Prynn Tenmei knelt beside an unconscious Ensign Leishman, the bridge engineer on duty when the attack came. Judging from her injuries and the condition of her station, Ezri concluded at a glance that Leishman’s console must have blown right in front of her.

Ezri moved to initiate a site-to-site transport to sickbay, but discovered transporters were down. She relaxed when Ensign Richter entered the bridge, carrying a medkit. Tenmei moved aside to give the nurse room to work. Satisfied that Leishman was being taken care of, Dax returned her attention to coaxing information from the uncooperative ODN.

“Lieutenant Dax,” Richter said, removing hyposprays from the kit. “Dr. Bashir wanted me to let you know that high-level radiation is flooding every deck. The whole crew will need hyronalyn inoculations. But we don’t have the medical staff to cover.”

“I’m not sure who’s available,” Ezri said.

“I can help,” Tenmei offered.

Richter gingerly eased Leishman up off the floor, attaching a neuromonitor to the back of her head. “I don’t think she’ll need surgery, but Dr. Bashir will have to make that call.”

Dax called to two crewmen working by the aft wall of the bridge. “Rahim, M’Nok—get Leishman to the medical bay.” Dax looked at Tenmei. Her face and hands were smudged black, and she looked as though she had a nasty burn on her jawline. “You sure you’re up to volunteering, Prynn?”

“I’m fine. Honest,” Tenmei said.

Richter shrugged at Dax. “It’s her call.”

Ezri nodded to Tenmei as the two crewmen saw to Leishman. With Rahim on one side and M’Nok on the other, they lifted the unconscious engineer between them and draped her arms around their shoulders. Richter followed right behind them after handing a hypospray to Tenmei, who stayed just long enough to administer hyronalin to Vaughn, Dax, Bowers, and the remaining bridge officer, Ensign Cassini.

Ezri finally succeeded in calling up the engineering stats. Preliminary readings indicated that the nanobots had become inert. So they were designed to cripple us, not necessarily to kill us,Dax mused. The question is, how much damage have the little monsters done?The diagnostic results, illustrated by green bars, one block stacked upon another, flashed onto her screen, but the data stream stalled with only two or three bars lit. “Come on, you can do it,” she urged the damaged Defiant.She watched, waited, and after a few moments that felt like eternity, her heart sank. “Captain,” she shouted, trying to keep the panic out of her voice. “We’ve got a situation.”

Vaughn, working with Bowers on tactical, crossed over to the science station.

“Report,” he said, resting a hand on the back of Ezri’s chair.

“What you’re looking at on this screen is the sum total of our power resources, including all backup and auxiliary systems,” she said soberly.

Vaughn frowned at the readings. “Three or four hours tops?”