Bowers shook his head. “I’ve never seen him like this. Ever since he found out about the transponder signal, he’s acted as if nothing else matters.”

“And why would the drone’s medical records be in Prynn’s file?” Nog asked.

Arriving at the alcove once again, Bashir looked into the still, pale face of the drone with a new understanding of what was driving Vaughn’s decisions. The knowledge made Julian feel as if he’s just beamed directly into the middle of a mine field. All he could do now was hope that when one of them finally went off, as he felt certain it must, the damage could be kept to a minimum.

“Because, apparently,” he said in answer to Nog’s question, “this poor woman is Commander Ruriko Tenmei. Prynn’s mother.”

8

Ro flexed her fingers on the grip of her phaser as she surveyed the room. Seven duty personnel at stations, plus Akaar and Lenaris in the pit. This would go a lot easier if I’d been able to lock those two in the station commander’s office when I implemented the security override. Nothing’s ever easy….

Ro tapped her combadge. “Taran’atar.”

“Here.”

“I’m in ops. Raise shields.”

“Acknowledged.”

“Lieutenant,” Lenaris began. “You’d better have a damn good explanation for this.”

Ro ignored him and scanned the ceiling with her eyes. Four dual-support pylons radiated from a central hub suspended over the situation table, obscuring her view of the ceiling above. I don’t spend enough time up here,she thought. I never really noticed the ceiling before. This is gonna be tricky….

“Have the room cleared, General,” Ro said.

“I don’t take orders from you, Lieutenant,” Lenaris said dangerously. “Relinquish control of the station and restore power to ops immediately.”

“I can’t do that.”

“Why?”

“Because you might try to stop me.”

“Stop you from what?” Lenaris asked. “What are you doing?”

“Trying to capture Minister Shakaar’s assassin,” Ro said, marching past the station commander’s officer as she sought a better view of the ceiling. “He’s right above your heads.”

Everyone’s eyes went up. The ceiling, of course, seemed peaceful.

“For your own safety, clear the room,” Ro warned again. “Now. This is going to get very messy very quickly.”

“Lieutenant Costello!” Akaar’s voice boomed. “Place Lieutenant Ro under arrest.”

You predictable son of a—

“Belay that,” Lenaris said suddenly. “Stand down, Lieutenant Costello. All personnel, evacuate the operations center.”

“General, what are you doing?” Akaar said.

Ro looked at Lenaris. The general was facing Akaar squarely, refusing to be intimidated by the admiral’s superior height. “I’m giving the station’s chief of security a little latitude, Admiral,” he said evenly. “Unless you intend to challenge my authority as acting commander of Deep Space 9?”

Akaar said nothing, but Ro could imagine his teeth clenching. He might really believe she was untrustworthy, insubordinate, and criminally reckless, but he was still wise enough not to make the situation worse with a power grab over her.

Finally Akaar turned to the ops crew, who stood frozen at their stations. “Well? You heard the general. Clear the room.”

As the officers and crew exited in the turbolifts, Akaar turned back to Lenaris, who clearly intended to remain behind. “I am staying as well,” the admiral said, his tone making it clear that nothing, not even if Bajor announced it was joining the Dominion, would change that.

“Suit yourselves,” Ro muttered. She finally found a clear line of sight that afforded her a decent degree of cover: the column next to the operations station. She slapped her combadge again. “Taran’atar, I’m in position. Can you verify the target?”

A moment of silence, then, “Negative. Security sensors still do not register the presence of a life-form beneath the array.”

“I’m running the risk of blowing a hole in ops big enough to send the station spinning out of the system! I need verification!”

“I have none to give. You will have to trust your instincts,”Taran’atar said. “Or make a leap of faith.”

Ro shook her head, muttering, “You and I are gonna have to have a long talk when all this is over.” She quickly adjusted the setting on her phaser. “Gentlemen, if I were you,” she said to Lenaris and Akaar, who were still in the pit, “I’d find some place else to stand.”

As the admiral and the general took positions roughly equidistant from Ro along the uppermost level of ops, Ro raised her arm, pointed her phaser directly at the central ceiling plates and fired. Something flared—maybe a circuit bank or a power conduit—and Ro held her breath, waiting for the pull of escaping air that signaled a hull breach. But nothing was blown out into space. Instead, metal plating and subspace tranceiver components showered ops. Crashes and sparking equipment resounded through the chamber, some of the debris bouncing off the ceiling pylons and spinning in new directions. Akaar, the biggest humanoid in the room, had to dive and roll to one side to avoid being hit by shrapnel.

Silence fell. Smoke wafted from the opening Ro had made, and she strained to see through it. Gradually it thinned. Blackened machinery and the intact outer hull of the station was all she saw.

No…

She searched the transceiver compartment and the overhanging pylons with her eyes. There was nothing, no sign that a humanoid had ever been up there. “Do you see anything?” she called to Lenaris, standing by the transporter stage. The general shook his head.

“Lieutenant,”Taran’atar said through her combadge. “What happened?”

Ro couldn’t speak. She stood openmouthed, staring at the ceiling, unable to believe how completely wrong she’d been. Again…

“Akaar to security,” the admiral growled, picking himself up off the deck. “Send a team to ops immediately.”

Still staring at the damage she’d done, Ro let her phaser drop to the deck. There was a crash—

Something smashed into the situation table, shattering the surface and leaving a large depression. The impact made Ro flinch, and for a moment she thought one of the pylons had given way. But there was nothing there. It was as if the table had simply caved in on itself.

Or something invisible had struck it…

Ro retrieved her phaser and advanced toward the pit, stopping short when she was halfway down the steps, unwilling to believe her eyes.

Something flickered atop the shattered situation table. Then whatever mechanism had been in operation finally gave out, and Ro found herself staring at the unmoving form of a humanoid, covered completely in a loose-fitting red environmental suit.

Ro trained her phaser on the figure as she looked up at Akaar. “Well, this just got a little more complicated, didn’t it, Admiral?” she asked.

Lenaris looked at Akaar, who was staring intently at the figure splayed over the situation table as he made his way toward the pit.

“What is it?” Lenaris asked. “Is it Gard?”

“Oh, it’s him,” Ro confirmed, looking at the unconscious face through the suit’s visor. “But what’s really interesting is his choice in attire.” She gestured with her weapon at the red garment. “This, General, is an isolation suit. It provides the wearer limited life support and generates a very localized cloaking field, small enough to hide a man. The problem here is that Gard could only obtain such a suit from the manufacturer.”