“Let’s find out,” Vaughn said. He looked down at Prynn. “Ensign Tenmei, break geosynchronous orbit and take us down. Keep us—” He turned to ch’Thane. “Five kilometers, Ensign?” he asked. With the possibility that the probe had been damaged by its passage through the clouds, Vaughn would not want to risk a similar fate for Defiant.

“That should be a safe distance,” ch’Thane said.

“Keep us five kilometers above the clouds,” Vaughn told Prynn.

“Aye, sir,” she said. Vaughn watched as her hands danced expertly across her console. “Viewer ahead,” he ordered, and one of the crew—probably Bowers—made the adjustment. Vaughn saw the image change to a flickering starfield, the flickering the result of the rubble in the system moving between the ship and the backdrop of distant stars. On the left stretched the gray arc of the planet. As Vaughn watched, the planet began to fill more of the screen, Prynn guiding Defiantdownward. The image imparted a sense of movement, though the inertial dampers prevented an accompanying sensation. The dark horizon loomed as the ship grew closer to the planet.

Prynn counted out the distance to the top of the cloud cover. The beeps and tones of the conn were joined by those of the tactical and sciences consoles as Lieutenant Bowers and Ensign ch’Thane operated the ship’s sensors. Prynn reached five kilometers, and the ship leveled off, the arc of the planet stabilizing on the viewscreen.

“I’m not reading past the clouds,” ch’Thane reported, “but scans indicate that they do vary in density and depth.”

“Very good,” Vaughn said. “Let’s find the—”

The ship was rocked. Vaughn felt himself pitch forward, and he instinctively reached for the flight-control console. His hand found it as his body twisted around, leaving him facing aft. He managed to keep from losing his footing. The ship shuddered, a roar filling the bridge, as though Defianthad been pounded by weapons fire. “Prynn,” he yelled over the noise. He saw her hands moving across her panel even before he issued the command. “Take us up.” He wondered how she could even see her controls, let alone work them, with the ship shaking as much as it was. But then Defiant’s flight smoothed out, the sound returning to its earlier level. No,Vaughn realized. The sound’s not the same.

“Something hit us from below,” Bowers reported without having to be asked. “Shields are down to seventy-one percent.”

“Thrusters are offline,” Nog said. “The impulse engines…” A note of confusion laced the engineer’s voice.

“I brought them online when the thrusters went down,” Prynn explained. That accounted for the change in the sound of the ship, Vaughn knew. He dropped his hand from the side of the conn and made his way back to the command chair, where he sat down heavily.

“Any other damage to the ship?” Vaughn asked. “Casualties?”

“Reports are coming in,” Bowers said. “Nothing more major than the thrusters. And only a few bumps and bruises for the crew.”

“We were hit by a discharge of energy from the clouds,” ch’Thane said.

“Were we attacked?” Vaughn wanted to know.

“I don’t think so,” ch’Thane said, working his console. “It was more like lightning striking a lightning rod.” That, at least, was reassuring.

“Sir,” Nog said, “I need to get below to help Ensign Permenter with the thrusters.”

“Go,” Vaughn said. “Ensign Tenmei, will you be able to maintain a standard orbit using the impulse engines?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Ensign ch’Thane,” Vaughn said, hearing the starboard door open and close behind him as Nog left the bridge, “determine the safest minimum distance for the ship above the clouds. We still need to find out what’s down there.”

“Yes, sir,” the science officer said.

As the crew set about their tasks, Vaughn thought back to when he had stood on the Vahni world, looked up to the sky, and seen the awful sight of their splintered moon. He peered at the viewscreen, at the forbidding environment below, and thought, And somewhere down there is the cause.

Vaughn looked at the desktop computer interface in his ready room and studied the records provided by the Vahni Vahltupali. A translation in Federation Standard marched across the bottom half of the display below the ideogrammic Vahni text. The written language of the unique alien species reflected their physical characteristics; their complex symbols echoed the shapes and colors Vaughn had seen dashing across their flesh.

Vaughn squeezed his eyes shut and rubbed a thumb and forefinger over his closed lids. He was tired and frustrated, having found nothing in the Vahni data to assist the crew in penetrating the sea of clouds surrounding the planet below. For the last fifteen minutes, Vaughn realized, his attention had wandered from his research to the content of the message he would soon have to transmit to Starfleet Command. He would need to detail the plight of the Vahni, and impart a sense of urgency to—

“Bridge to Captain,”came Lieutenant Dax’s voice over the comm system. She had taken some shifts off after the accident aboard Saganand the loss of Ensign Roness, but she had then insisted on returning to duty. So far, she seemed to be recovering well from her ordeal.

“Vaughn,” he responded, still rubbing his eyes. “Go ahead.”

“Sir,”Dax said, “we’ve found something.”

Vaughn dropped his hand from his face and opened his eyes. The twisting, multihued Vahni text greeted him, but in his mind, he saw the crew on the bridge. “I’m on my way,” he said. He pushed a control and blanked the display, then rose and left the ready room. He crossed the main port corridor into one of the side halls behind the bridge, and a moment later he entered Defiant’s command center.

“Report,” he said.

Dax looked over her shoulder at the sound of his voice, then stood from the command chair. “We’ve been scanning the cloud cover for places the sensors can see through,” she said, “and we found a complete break.”

Vaughn stopped beside Dax and peered at the viewscreen. In several places, the atmosphere had shifted, allowing a small but unobstructed view through the clouds. Vaughn spied a nondescript patch of brown that he took to be land. “What do you make of it, Ensign ch’Thane?”

“I believe it’s simply a result of the constant movement of the clouds,” he said. “We’re on the side of the planet almost diametrically opposite the source of the pulse, so if that’s what’s causing the atmospheric effects, they may be less pronounced here.”

“There’s no guarantee how long the break will remain open,” Dax told him. “Sensors and transporters and communications still can’t scan past the clouds because of the energy surges, but we may be able to get a probe through.”

Vaughn looked at Dax and nodded. “Do it,” he said.

Five minutes later, another probe was launched. As it flew toward the break in the clouds and then started down, Vaughn ordered it to be tracked on the viewscreen. He and the rest of the crew watched the probe descend, the magnification on the viewer increasing as it did. Several times, the shifting clouds obscured the view, but they were able to follow the probe until, finally, it leveled off and began its trip around the planet. With luck, it would be back on the ship by morning, providing data about whatever was down there.

As Vaughn peered at the viewscreen, though, he had a sudden intuition that he would not like what the probe would find.

28

The heavy doors to the security office opened with a whir. Kira strode inside and up to the desk, a padd clutched at her side. Even half a year after his departure, she felt a moment of loss whenever she entered here and did not see Odo at the post he had held for so long. Behind her, the doors closed with a solid click.