“Firing again,” snapped the deck officer, ignoring a cut that streamed blood into his eyes. “Colonel, we’re about to lose shielding fore and aft.”

“Then put all power to the guns,” came the command.

“He’s fixated on that scout. We’ll give him something else to think about.”

Lonnic heard the words but didn’t really take them in. She was terrified, seeing the battle only as fragments, as pieces of the whole. She thought about the men on the Pajul,and in her panic she couldn’t recall the names of any of them. This is wrong. It’s wrong it’s wrong it’s wrong—

“The scout’s lost motion control!” She heard the shout clearly. “Kosst,they’re going to hit it!”

In a last-ditch attempt to extend out of the engagement and put some distance between his ship and the Tzenkethi guns, the captain of the prospector scoutship Pajulchanneled everything he could spare into his failing impulse motors; but with the death of his engineering officer only seconds earlier, there was no one to tell him that the power relays were about to collapse. Something critical fractured inside the Pajul,and it spun out of control toward the marauder instead of away from it.

The Tzenkethi ship wrenched over in a punishing kick-turn, but it was too late. The scout impacted the port quarter of the marauder and skipped off the hull, shredding itself. A power surge threaded through the alien ship, and the sallow glow of the vessel’s intercoolers flickered toward shutdown.

“Pajuldestroyed…Target’s shields are down!”

“What?” Lonnic opened her eyes, expecting the next thing she heard to be the rush of vacuum as the Clarionwas obliterated.

Li was out of his chair, leaning over a sparking console. “What’s the status of the Glyhrond?”he barked.

“Damaged, but stable. They’re operable, but they’re out of the fight.”

Lonnic forced her way forward, stepping over fallen stanchions and waving away clots of acrid smoke. “Colonel, what happened?”

He stabbed a finger at the screen. “The Prophets have decided to hand down some justice, Ms. Lonnic. The Pajul’s sacrifice has tipped the balance.” He blew out a breath and glared at the alien ship. “Damn them, but they’re tough bastards.” He nodded to the deck officer. “Missiles?”

“Tubes two and three jammed. One and four loaded and ready to fire.”

She blinked. “You…you’re going to execute them?”

“They opened fire first, woman. You saw it.”

“They’re territorial!” she snapped, her voice breaking. “Of course they attacked us!” Lonnic blinked. “Why…What am I saying?” She shook her head, the stink of burning plastic and blood filling her nostrils. “Why am I defending them…If you’re right…”

Li’s face darkened. “If,”he repeated. “If I am right.” He glared at his deck officer. “Communications. Tell the Tzenkethi to surrender. They won’t be harmed. They’ll be taken back to Bajor under arrest for the attack on the freighter Lhemor.”

But the crewman wasn’t listening. He called out across the smoke-blackened bridge. “New contacts, bearing two-one-seven mark seven!”

Lonnic’s heart hammered in her chest. “More Tzenkethi?”

“No.” Li bent over his console. “Cardassian. A pair of light cruisers. They’re closing…” Fear bloomed inside her at the uncertainty on the colonel’s face.

“Confirmed,” said another crewman. “Identity confirmed, Cardassian Union warships Daikonand Kashai.”The operator hesitated. “Sir, those two were among the ships orbiting the homeworld when we left.”

“They followed us?” Lonnic shook her head. “I don’t understand.”

The deck officer came forward. “Colonel, I think they were here all along. Their impulse trail leads back to one of the outer moons of this planet. They must have been concealed in its magnetosphere, hidden from us and the Tzenkethi.”

Li’s expression turned stony. “What is this?” he spat. “Hail them, right now! I want some answers!”

The crewman shook his head. “No reply, Colonel. They’re reading us, but they’re not responding.”

“Then get me Bajor!” he shouted. “Subspace comms, this very second!”

“Impossible, sir,” said the officer. “The Daikon’s broadcasting a scattering field. They’re jamming all transmissions.”

Lonnic moved to the damaged, flickering view of the two amber-colored ships on the main screen. “Why are they here?” she said aloud. “The Chamber of Ministers ordered the fleet as a Bajoran response…Have they come to claim the Tzenkethi for themselves?” She thought of Kubus Oak once more. How was he involved in this?

“Sir!” The deck officer called out again. “Reading energy patterns from the Cardassian ships. Transporter signatures.”

Lonnic whirled as Li punched up the reading on a console. The colonel’s smoke-dirtied face creased in a frown. “They’re beaming something over to the marauder…Metallic masses. Some kind of container units.”

Lonnic craned her neck to see the display. On one of the smaller inset screens there was a graphic of the alien ship overlaid with patterns of moving dots. As she watched, the dots began to blink out one by one. “What is that?”

The blood drained from the deck officer’s face. “Life signs. Tzenkethi life signs. Something’s killing them.”

Without deflector shields to protect the marauder, there was nothing to prevent the dispersal modules materializing on every deck of the Tzenkethi starship. The octagonal drums were faceted with oval nozzles that snapped open automatically. Under pressure, a fine mist of vapor issued into the thick air of the vessel, the dilution spreading out in a wave. Autonomous hazard protocols in the marauder’s atmospheric systems, programmed to detect and isolate compartments in the event of just such an occurrence, worked sporadically thanks to the battle damage the ship had suffered in the skirmish with the Bajorans. For the most part, the countermeasures were unable to stop the advance of the contagion through the decks of the ship. In its wake, the biogenic toxin left nothing but death.

In the engine compartment of the Glyhrond,the ship’s captain turned from the stuttering control interface of the vessel’s warp core as a high-pitched whine sliced through the air. He turned and saw the glitter of a matter stream forming and a wash of relief coursed through him. Rescue is coming,he thought. Li was sending over men to help them get his ship back on an even keel. “Thank the Prophets—”

The words died in his throat as the object in the transporter beam solidified and took on definition. A drum, just under the height of a man, decorated with what looked like Cardassian military sigils. He reached out to touch it as the whine died away, just as latches on the upper surface retracted to present him with a series of oval vents.

Less than a heartbeat later the captain was on the deck, his lungs leaking from his mouth and nostrils in a stream of black slurry. All across his ship, his crew began dying in the same swift and pitiless manner.

“Get the shields back up now!”bellowed Li. There was genuine terror in the colonel’s voice.

“Bioweapons…” husked the crewman. “They’re beaming them in all over the ship!”

Lonnic was shoved away as the deck officer grabbed at the console next to her. He stabbed at the controls, getting nothing but negative responses. “Deflector shields are inoperative!”

She stumbled away, half-falling, half-running toward the far side of the bridge; but there was nowhere for her to go, no escape route open to her. “Why are they doing this?” she cried out. Lonnic’s stomach churned as she fought down the urge to vomit on the decking. On the sensor plots the dead hulls of the Tzenkethi marauder and the Glyhrondwere like specters, and she imagined them as charnel houses filled with the poisoned dead. The adjutant grabbed at the communications panel and pressed the transmitter key. “Stop this! I am Lonnic Tomo of the Korto District…Cease your attack, please!”