Jenk handed Bashir the requested instrument, then began donning a surgical gown taken from a sealed package that lay on one of the wall trays.

Bashir moved over to the policewoman and crouched beside her. “This won’t hurt nearly as much as it already does,” he said with a grim smile. Activating the instrument, he moved it over the woman’s lacerated scalp and watched as the skin quickly sealed itself. Unfortunately, he lacked the time to do more than a cursory job. She can get the scar removed later. Right now, I’m going to need her help.

“What’s your name?” he asked.

“Rame Sagado,” she said, wincing slightly as she rubbed her newly repaired scalp.

Bashir set the dermal regenerator down on one of the trays. Pointing to a nearby washbasin, he said, “Well, Officer Sagado, I need you to wash up, put on a sterile gown, and get some gloves on. You’re going to help us here.”

“But I need to go back to my post,” she protested.

Bashir steered her toward the basin. “Not to be pessimistic, but you’re in no condition to face rioters, or to drag more injured people out of the crowds. For now, let’s concentrate on saving one life at a time.”

Bashir once again checked the monitor, and then began to carry Dr. Rarn from the biobed. Before Jenk could react, he said, “His condition is fully stabilized. He may even be conscious within the hour. He doesn’t need this bed as badly as the boy does. And we need this space to work.” He gently deposited the unconscious doctor on the wide chair that Sagado had vacated, then moved to get himself gowned, gloved, and prepped for surgery.

Minutes later, the trio began operating on the young Trill. Bashir made an incision through the pouch below the boy’s stomach, the place where the symbionts nested in the joined. Sagado was helping keep the pouch flap open with retractors, while Jenk administered drugs as needed, handled the surgical instruments, and watched the vitals on the monitor.

It would be easier to go in directly through the stomach, but with this much chaos going on, I can’t risk an infection from a nonsterile environment,Bashir thought, focusing past the screams he heard coming from the triage room outside the alcove. He was so deep in concentration that he almost drowned out the cacophony from the rest of the hospital, not to mention the occasional phaser bursts and explosions that were still audible from the street.

But even as he worked delicately to finesse the broken bone from the boy’s spinal column, Bashir’s mind was awhirl with questions. “Officer Sagado, do they have any clue what happened out there? I know it was some kind of radiation-producing bomb, but I haven’t seen many of the concussive injuries one would expect from a weapon of that type.”

“The comm channels are still pretty scrambled,” the policewoman said. “But we think that the blasts were some kind of neurogenic radiation, along with an electromagnetic pulse. Leran Manev wasn’t the only city hit. There were reports from Gheryzan, New Scirapo, and Bana the last I heard, and there are fears that some of the symbiont spawning grounds have been attacked as well.”

Bashir felt his blood chill. Ezri was at the Caves of Mak’ala right now. If a bomb had been detonated there, she could be dead. And there is so much left unresolved between us.

“Did you hear anything about Mak’ala?” he asked, his voice barely above a whisper.

“No,” Sagado said simply.

“Do they know which of the radical groups is responsible for this?” Jenk asked the officer.

Sagado seemed relieved to continue discussing something other than the emergency surgery she was assisting with. “Given their choice of targets, I’d bet on one of the anti-joined groups. Probably the neo-Purists.”

From what he already knew about the chaotic political situation on Trill, Bashir thought that was a safe bet indeed.

“Widen that spreader,” he said to Sagado, then spared another quick glance at the monitor. He was forced to move millimeter by millimeter now; the smallest twitch of his hand could cause fatal neurological trauma.

Bashir heard feet scuffling at the entrance of the alcove, but didn’t divert his attention from the delicate task at hand. He heard a harsh male voice. “We need this alcove.”

“It’s in use,” Bashir said, his voice stern and clear. “I’m trying to save the life of this child.”

The voice grew closer, became more demanding. “From the looks of the scans, this child is beyond saving. We have a very important doctor from the Symbiosis Commission that needs to undergo surgery right now.”

Bashir kept at his exacting work, sparing another glance at the monitor. In the glass he could see ghostly reflections of a pair of medics, a security guard, and a body on a hover-gurney. The guard was apparently the one who had been speaking.

“This child willsurvive, sir, because we will keep working until we save him,” Bashir said in his most commanding voice, though he remained bent over his small patient. “And if youwant to save your commissioner, I suggest you find another alcove before it’s too late.” Uncertain how the guard would react, he tried to keep his breathing steady.

Bashir knew that if the man were to try to physically remove him, his patient would almost certainly die.

Stardate 53757.6 (approximately one week earlier…)

Every time he stepped into the expansive chamber, Leonard James Akaar felt an almost primal apprehension. With the immense metal doors to either side and the rear, and the illuminated risers placed along the walls, the Federation Council assembly hall had the feel of a gladiatorial arena. Capellan tribesmen had once fought each other to the death in such places—though the combat venues had been much larger, and did not feature polished black opalite floors—and Akaar imagined that some of his countrymen probably still conducted such blood rites in Capella IV’s backwater provinces.

Akaar knew that the main Federation Council chamber was built for both function and grandeur. The acoustics of the central space not only allowed speakers to be heard clearly from any section of the room, they also imparted a stentorian resonance that befitted those who assembled before that august body to represent their respective homeworlds. But even though he had been born to a line of hereditary monarchs and was now an influential fleet admiral in Starfleet, Akaar was more comfortable in humbler surroundings; simple tents were far better suited to the martial tastes of a Capellan teer,even one in exile.

Akaar’s high birth notwithstanding, the political coup that had forced him and his mother, Capella IV’s Regent Eleen, to flee their homeworld during his childhood meant that he currently held no Capellan titles or lands. Because of this, he tended to look with disfavor upon councillors and dignitaries and political functionaries. They had their place—and he was in one of those places now—but he felt little kinship with them. It was an aspect of his personality that he tried to conceal from all but those closest to him.

He stood to one side as the councillors filed in to take their seats. Today’s briefing was not meant to be a full quorum session of the Federation Council, but instead was comprised of the representatives of the Federation Security Council.

The Tellarite Councillor Bera chim Gleer was Akaar’s least favorite of those in attendance. Like most of the Tellarites Akaar had dealt with over the years, Gleer tended toward rash emotionalism. Though the passionate warrior aspect of Akaar’s personality could empathize with that trait, he still found Gleer frustrating at the best of times. On the other side of the spectrum was Councillor T’Latrek, a Vulcan who was in charge of her world’s external affairs. After eighty years on the Council, she had seen many members come and go, and had witnessed the eruption and resolution of numerous wars and crises. But, true to the culture in which she’d been raised, she seemed completely unencumbered by emotion, expressing her thoughts in the rational and occasionally didactic manner of her people.