“They won’t have to,” Montenegro said. “Using the right codes, Mello can voice-authorize the main computer to fire phasers, empty the torpedo tubes, even eject the warp core toward the planet. She could kill millions of people.”

The doctor looked trapped. “So what do you propose? A mutiny? How can you even think—”

“She’s not your captain!” Kira hissed. “Not anymore! Didn’t you listen to the admiral, or read Captain Picard’s report? These parasites subsume the identities of their hosts and use them to achieve their ends.”

“But I can’t—”

Kira came around the table, grabbed Xiang’s chair, and turned it roughly so that Kira was speaking directly into Xiang’s face. “Look, Doctor. No one is suggesting we kill her. If she submits to arrest quietly so Commander Montenegro can assume command of Gryphonand return us to Deep Space 9, all this could end without bloodshed. But we need to be prepared to fight for control of the ship if we have to. One way or the other, though, I promise you, I’m not going to allow this ship to reach Trill.”

Xiang stared into Kira’s eyes for a long moment, then seemed to sag within herself. “What do you need from me?”

Montenegro breathed a sigh of relief. “We’ll need you to try to save her, to separate the captain from the creature. It’s not clear how long a parasite needs to be joined before separation becomes fatal to the host, but if there’s a chance to cure Captain Mello, you’re the one to do it. There’s a physical symptom of the creature’s presence in the host: a pale blue gill like a barb protruding from the back of the neck, just below the base of the skull. Once we confirm the presence of the creature, you’ll need to keep her sedated. That file we gave you contains all the medical information Starfleet has on these creatures and their effect on humanoid bodies. While you’re attempting to separate them, we’ll inform the crew of what’s happened.”

Xiang took the chip out of the companel next to her and stared at it, shaking her head before she looked back at the ship’s first officer. “I hope to God you’re right about this, Alex.”

“Then here,” Kira said, tossing Xiang one of three phasers on the table. The doctor fumbled to catch it. Kira handed another to Montenegro and kept one for herself. “Let’s get this over with.”

“What should we expect?” Xiang whispered as they marched down to the captain’s quarters. A quietly issued order from Montenegro had managed to clear the corridors nearest Mello’s cabin, at least temporarily.

“Like it said in Dr. Crusher’s report,” Kira said. “Enhanced physical strength, along with extreme resistance to pain and injury. Phasers on stun won’t work. If you have to fire, you need to set your weapon to kill.”

Xiang halted. “You said we wouldn’t need to—”

“I said we had to be prepared to fight for control of the ship,” Kira said hotly. “That’s what we’re going to do.”

“Colonel, please,” Montenegro said gently. “Doctor, the evidence we have is that a phaser at that high intensity will only incapacitate a parasite host, not kill her.”

“But you can’t be certain.”

“No,” Montenegro conceded. “But we do know that a lower setting won’t even slow it down.”

Xiang gritted her teeth and upped the setting on her weapon.

They reached Mello’s quarters. By consensus, Kira took point. She hit the door chime.

“Come,” came the reply.

The doors parted. Mello was seated on her couch, reading. “Colonel, this is unexp—”

Kira stepped inside and raised her phaser. “Get up,” she ordered. “Slowly.”

Mello’s mouth dropped fractionally. Then she frowned. “If this is a joke, it’s in the poorest possible taste.”

“I said get up!” Kira snapped. “We know what you are, and what you’re trying to do. But it’s over. We can do this the easy way or the hard way, but I’m warning you, after what your kind did to Shakaar, I’m looking for an excuse to end your miserable existence.”

Mello set down her book and rose slowly. “You’re making a mistake.”

“Hands over your head,” said Kira. “Step to the middle of the room.”

Mello complied.

“Xiang,” Kira said. “Do it.”

The doctor cautiously approached the captain, phaser ready. She stepped around Mello and lifted the captain’s long brown curls, searching. Finally she said, “It’s not here.”

Kira went cold. “Look again.”

Xiang did, and shook her head. “I’m telling you, she’s clean. I… Alex, what are you—?”

Kira spun around, seeing Montenegro smiling at her from the corridor an instant before the doors snapped closed.

Prophets, no!

She ran to the door. A force field knocked her back. It was him all along—!

There was the sound of someone hitting the deck behind her—

Kira spun around again, phaser up, and froze. Xiang was unconscious on the floor, and Mello was holding the doctor’s phaser. She and Kira stood there at arm’s length from each other, each one holding her weapon inches from the other’s eye.

Montenegro smiled as he ran down the corridor, tapping his combadge. “Computer: initiate program Montenegro One, thirty-second delay.”

There was a chime of acknowledgment. “Program will initiate in thirty seconds,” the computer said as Montenegro entered a turbolift.

“Bridge,” he said. He was still smiling as the lift ascended.

18

With a profound feeling of déjà vu, Nog followed Bowers through the forest to the mock campsite they had set up before. They had beamed down at the site of the Borg wreckage with Gordimer, Shar, and T’rb. It was the task of the latter three to enter the ship and retrieve one of the Borg corpses. Commander Tenmei’s neuroprocessor—the device every drone possessed that contained its specific instructions from the collective—had been destroyed when she was damaged. Shar and his team would need to beam up a dead drone and extract another neuroprocessor in order to find out the exact circumstances surrounding the Valkyrie’s mission to the Gamma Quadrant.

Bowers and Nog, meanwhile, had a decidedly different job: convincing the changeling to return with them.

“So, what do you think our chance of success is?” Nog asked Bowers. “Two percent? One?”

“I’m not worried about not succeeding,” Bowers said, adjusting his tricorder. “I’m worried about what happens if we do. A Founder on the Defiant,that’s something to keep the security staff up at night. I heard about the one who almost took control of the old Defiantbefore the war.”

“It did take control,” Nog corrected absently as he double-checked his own equipment. He hadn’t been with Starfleet then, but he’d heard the story enough times from Chief O’Brien. “Captain Sisko almost had to destroy the ship.”

“Great,” said Bowers.

“But most of what it accomplished, it could do because people didn’t know at first that it was there. Ezri says we’re just going to return this one to the Dominion, since we’re not at war anymore. I don’t think it’ll have any reason to try and harm us.”

“Does it need a reason?”

Nog shrugged. “They don’t think they’re a lot like us, but I don’t know. They do think about their actions. Not like the Borg.” He and Bowers exchanged another look. Nog was pretty sure having a Borg drone on board would keep security up at night, too. It might keep himup.