Yawning, Kruva turned away from the transmission as his ship’s sensors read another vessel in the sector—a Cardassian ship, Keldon-class. He hailed the vessel.

“This is the patrol ship Drakamair,authorization code 1-1-4-7 chavat.Please state your code and your purpose in this sector.”

“This is theKoeder, outbound from Pullock V, authorization 8-9-5-5po’tel. We are escorting Union officials back to Cardassia Prime.”

Kruva scanned the numbers and found them to be legitimate. The officials had been at the colony to witness an execution of Bajoran terrorists, political prisoners, and such; he allowed the ship to pass without further challenge, slightly bored by the repetitive nature of his work. He continued on his course, tuning the midrange sensors’ sweep cycle to maximum. This area was often thick with Tzenkethi vessels, and some of the more adventurous Ferengi pirates operated in this region as well. It was a risk to divert power from the disruptor banks—it was not patrol procedure—but Kruva felt it was worth it. He rarely needed his weapons, and watching the traffic was his only diversion.

As he neared Pullock V, his sensors again alerted him to a vessel coming out of warp. He could not get an immediate read on the ship’s type, but after a moment he discerned it to be an outdated Bajoran carrier, flying erratically as it slowed to impulse. It was obviously damaged, and posed no threat to him. Likely it was manned by Yridians or some other opportunistic people who had no qualms about using other species’ technology, but the cryptic alert from Dukat had left him cautious.

“Bajoran ship, this is the Cardassian patrol vessel Drakamair.State your business in this sector, please.”

The carrier did not respond, continuing to fly in a strange, lopsided manner. At least one of its thrusters was out. Dalin Kruva was becoming annoyed. “Bajoran ship, I repeat: state your business or I will open fire.”

Suddenly, the carrier launched two objects the size of small shuttles. They began flying toward Pullock V, keeping in a tight formation.

Kruva ran a scan on the emissions of the two objects and detected nothing…But his scanners wouldn’t pick up balon, not without recalibration. Kruva frowned. The lack of a detectable fuel signature seemed proof positive. But whether to pursue the small ships or the carrier was the larger question.

He decided to go the easier route, taking care of the tiny ships first. The carrier was practically crippled, he could finish it off anytime, but there was a slight chance that one of the other vessels could get away if he didn’t act now. He quickly transferred power to the ship’s forward disruptor banks, locking on to the nearest shuttle. He took it out easily, its blip on his transponder vanishing as the Drakamair’s weapons blasted it into twisted bits of floating scrap. Without a moment’s hesitation, he targeted the second shuttle, which had managed to get just far enough to force him to power his ship a short distance before eliminating it as well. He turned his attention back to the carrier, but to his surprise, the ship seemed to be gone. Judging by the ion trail he detected, the ship had gone to warp. Powering up his sweep cycle, he followed the ship’s warp signature, and he set a new course to give chase. He was not yawning now.

Glinn Tedar’s senses felt especially dull today. Although it was what passed for summertime on this continent, his fingers still felt stiff in the damp chill. The thin veneer of sunshine did little to stave off the bone-penetrating cold. How he hated this planet! He was counting the days until he would be sent home to his wife and family. The border fights would have been preferable to this backward, icy chunk of misery. He regarded the mud on his boots as he stepped out of the forest, wrinkled his nose in disgust. There was nothing so wretched on Cardassia Prime as this gloppy, sucking terrain that seemed to exist everywhere on Bajor, even when there hadn’t been rainfall in weeks.

He had been careless in his rounds today, ignoring many signs that people had been in the woods. He’d spent countless patrols following such signs, and they never led anywhere. His outfit hadn’t had much luck locating terrorists in this region. They either didn’t exist, or they were just too savvy to leave evidence of their presence. At this point, Tedar didn’t much care which scenario was true; he just wanted to get back to the barracks where it was warm.

He heard a rustling in the trees behind him and hesitated, hoping it would be another soldier from his squad, although they weren’t supposed to meet back together for another kellipateor so. He raised his comm, ready to call for backup, but then relaxed. He saw a couple of Bajoran children picking their way through the forest. They looked awfully small, though Tedar couldn’t begin to guess their ages. Bajoran children matured very differently from Cardassian, and they all looked like babies to him.

It disgusted him that the Bajorans allowed their children to roam so freely, running loose like animals. He would have had sympathy if he didn’t already know them to be petulant monsters most of the time, probably from lack of decent supervision and tutelage. Cardassian children would never have been unaccompanied like this—in fact, Cardassian children would have been studying, honing their bodies and minds for the collective betterment of the State. There were games, but they were practiced rather than played, teaching skills necessary to become productive citizens of the Union.

Tedar wondered if he should acknowledge the children. Of course, they posed no threat to him, and they were not traveling outside the proscribed boundaries—there was no law against what they were doing—but Tedar thought there ought to be one, for their own safety. It annoyed him that these children would no doubt grow to be just as useless and defiant as the adult Bajorans were—that sort of attitude probably originated in the kind of lenient parenting that had allowed these two to roam about the forest by themselves. The children had come close enough now that he could see they were a girl and a boy, the girl being the elder of the two. She was scolding the smaller one, a brother, perhaps. Tedar wasn’t sure—Bajorans all looked essentially the same to him: bland, fleshy features, crinkled nose. The girl child did have one distinguishing feature—her hair was a deep, fiery red.

Tedar decided to put a bit of fear into these two. “Halt!” he barked abruptly, and the children jumped. The girl dropped what she had been carrying, a rough drawstring bag, which fell and spilled its contents—several large, ripe mobafruit.

Tedar trained his disruptor on the frightened whelps, and bent over to pick up the fruit. “Where did you get these?” he asked the girl, whose expression wasn’t as fearful as he’d expected.

“My papa,” she said.

“Papa,” the little one echoed, and began to snivel.

“Quiet,” the girl whispered, but the boy began to whimper even louder. The noise grated at Tedar’s worn nerves.

“Stop that!” Tedar snapped, pointing his weapon directly at the pathetic little urchin.

“Don’t you shout at my brother!” the girl screamed, and to his great consternation, she picked up one of the fallen mobafruit and tossed it directly in his face. Before he could quite gauge what had happened, the girl had grabbed her brother by the hand and begun to sprint through the forest, dragging the little boy behind her.

Wiping the sticky nectar from his eyes, Tedar was amazed at how quickly the child was moving, but he wasn’t about to be bested by a couple of dirty-faced imps. He set off after them, catching up quickly, grabbing the little girl by her tangled, flame-colored hair.

“Ow!” she shrieked. “Let go of me!”

The boy cried out in baby-talk for his sister, and Tedar grabbed him by the arm with his free hand. The child fought to get away, but he weighed about as much as a bird, and Tedar lifted him off his feet with no trouble. The children thrashed in his hands.