“That’s one way of thinking of it, yes,” Syjin replied. His fingers danced over the helm controls as disruptor blasts arced past them. “But less dangerous than a Galor-class starship.”

“You’re sure about that?”

Syjin shrugged. “Not really.”

They plunged into the belt at maximum speed, with the Vandirclose behind. The cruiser was surprisingly nimble, vectoring hard to dodge around pockets of rippling gaseous energy that Syjin avoided with ease. Darrah kept silent, watching his friend do what he did best—fly by pure instinct. Syjin’s face was oddly placid, except for the occasional smile. He was actually enjoyingthis; without the fetters of gravity and atmosphere, ship and pilot moved in perfect step, dancing rather than flying.

Behind them, Vandircame on, the deflectors of Dukat’s warship flaring as it forced its way through clusters of energized neutrinos that would have sent the smaller Bajoran ship tumbling.

“He’s still on us,” Darrah said as the shuddering, spinning turns became more forceful. His throat was dry.

“I know,” Syjin replied calmly. “Careful, now. This is going to get rough.” He smiled. “Well, rougher.”

They took a hit, and then another. A panel behind them crashed and broke apart. Over their heads, a conduit ruptured and a puff of hot gas emerged, spitting and dying away as automatic sealants activated. They were rolling and bouncing, up and down, back and forth. It was all Darrah could do to cling to the restraints of his chair. “This isn’t like before,” he managed, between gritted teeth. “This is worse.”

“Just hold on,” Syjin told him.

Gul Dukat appeared to have other ideas; the disruptor barrage was finding their range, zeroing in.

“I’m looking for something,” continued the pilot.

“What, the Celestial Temple?” As boys, Prylar Yilb had taught them that the belt, visible from Bajor with the naked eye during the solstice, was fabled in myth as the place where the Prophets made their home. Darrah had never really believed that, not in a literal manner, but suddenly he was wondering. Were his gods going to reach out and smite the Cardassian ship snapping at their heels?

Syjin read his mind. “The Prophets help those who help themselves.” He grinned as a telltale flashed on his console. The pilot turned the ship and aimed it like an arrow. “My father was a pilot, my grandfather, and his before him…And the tricks get lost sometimes, but other times they get passed on.” A rumble echoed through the ship, and a sudden acceleration took them. “Hold on,” Syjin called, straining to say the words. “I found us a boost!”

With a blink of energy discharge, the Bajoran ship skipped out of the Denorios Belt, cast like a stone thrown out over a lake. The Vandirwas still chasing them, but it fell behind, slipping off the close-range proximity scope.

Eventually the speed bled away and the velocity-distorted stars became more regular as they settled into normal warp flight. Darrah gingerly got out of his chair. “What was that, the hand of god?”

“You could call it that,” Syjin said, wiping a film of sweat from his brow. “Actually, that was a tachyon eddy. The old Republic solar sailors used to use them to propel themselves to other star systems, back before we had light-speed drives.” He mimed a sail with the blade of his hand.

“Like a coastal wind pushing a yacht.”

“I thought that was a spacer myth,” Darrah replied. “A bar-stool story for the elderly crocks who can’t see to fly anymore.”

Syjin shot him a grin. “Now you know different. In the old eras, they used to make a sacrament to the Prophets before they crossed the belt, so maybe you were right. About the ‘hand of god’ thing.”

Something caught Darrah’s eye and he bent to examine the engineering panel. “I don’t think so. Not unless they want to call us back to the Celestial Temple pretty soon.”

“What’s wrong?” Syjin vaulted out of his seat.

There, on the console, the system status display showed a rupture running the entire length of the ship’s port drive nacelle. “We’re bleeding plasma.” Darrah frowned. “Must be from one of those disruptor hits.”

Syjin grimaced. “Speed’s dropping. We’ll be bounced out of warp and stuck on impulse, light-years from anywhere,” he spat. “It’ll take years on sublight to reach the nearest planet! We’ll starve first!”

Darrah shook his head and tapped the long-range sensor display. “No, we won’t.” The Vandirwas still following them. “Dukat’s going to solve that problem for us.”

“Give me that again,” said Jameson, turning in his chair to look across the bridge at Ensign Muhle.

The Gettysburg’s Tiburonian communications officer nodded, one hand pressing a transceiver to his large ear. “Confirming, sir. Signal prefix identified as mission code for Lieutenant Alynna Nechayev.”

The captain glanced at the woman in question. “You have an explanation, Lieutenant?”

“Yes, sir,” she replied, aware that all eyes on the bridge were on her. “Before we escaped Bajor, I managed to…cultivate a new intelligence asset. The man who aided our flight, a local law enforcement officer named Darrah Mace.”

“You coerced a Bajoran into becoming a Federation operative without consulting your operational commander?” T’Vel said coldly. “A very risky action.”

“It seemed like a good idea at the time,” she replied curtly. “I thought he might have access to information that could be useful.” Nechayev sighed. “That was before we decided to abandon Bajor to the Cardassians, of course.”

Jameson frowned at the comment. “Gold,” he called, nodding to the other officer. “Passive sensors, please. What do we have at the coordinates the signal originated from?”

“Working,” said the lieutenant. “Here we go. One Bajoran ship at impulse, fluctuating power levels. Can’t get a life sign reading at this range.”

“Anything else?”

Gold widened the search area. “Oh boy. That’s a yes, Captain. Another contact, reads as a Cardassian cruiser. He’s coming at them like he’s hungry.”

“Position?”

“Close to the Federation border,” Gold replied.

T’Vel raised an eyebrow. “But not close enough for a sanctioned intervention.”

Nechayev rounded on the Vulcan. “That’s a distress call, Commander! Sent specifically to this ship!” To me,she added silently. “Are you suggesting we ignore it?”

“I am suggesting nothing,” said the woman, unruffled by the lieutenant’s words. “In this matter, any involvement is wholly at the discretion of the ship’s captain.”

Jameson sat quietly in his chair, his hands knitted before him, staring at the stars on the viewscreen.

The Vandirarrived and brought hell with it. Bright spears of glowing energy reached out to pierce the ship, and the vessel was bathed in a crackling glow.

Inside, Darrah and Syjin were thrown about as the shields fluttered. “You have any weapons on this thing?” demanded the lawman.

“A laser cluster on the nose, if it still works,” Syjin replied, clinging to his console. “That’d only irritate them, I think.”

“We have to stay out off their disruptor arc.” Darrah did his best to help at the copilot’s station. “Keep agile.”

“Easier said than done.” Another blast slammed into them, and sparking electrical shorts crawled across the deck plates. “We’re losing deflectors. He gets a direct hit on us and we’re not even going to have time to feel it.”

“Aft shields at twenty percent.” Darrah worked the console. “I’m transferring power from the forward array.”

Gravity had been the first thing to go, and the inside of the cockpit was a mess of floating dust, pieces of stale food, and sundry other bits of debris. Syjin threw himself out of his seat and pivoted to land neatly at the engineering station. “Hold it together, Mace, just for a moment.” The ship hummed as another bolt kissed the dorsal shields. “Bah. No call for surrender? This Dukat’s got no class at all.”