The Mist (13 page)

"Doctor, we have wounded in sickbay," I said.

"I know," he said. "I was just heading there when this happened." He gazed at the screen. "I would like to use the science station to see what caused this. If I get a chance, I'll run some tests in sickbay."

"Good," I said, doubting he would get that chance in the time we needed it.

He headed toward the turbolift. As he did so, I scanned the bridge. Dax had brought up replacement officers for my away team. They seemed as stunned as we were. The Vulcan transporter operator was here. Her name was T'Lak, and she was a competent engineer. O'Brien had hopes for her.

"Ensign T'Lak," I said, "take over the science station. See what you can determine."

My words reached her. She moved with military precision from her position near the turbolift to the science station. The security officer who stood in Worf's usual place, a young Bajoran man named Orla, met my gaze. In his eyes, I saw all the concern I felt for our own region of space. He knew as well as I did that we had to resolve this or Bajor was lost forever.

"Help her, Lieutenant Orla," I said.

He nodded, then bent over his console.

I didn't expect them to find anything I don't even know if they knew what they were looking for but I had to keep them busy while I thought this through.

I ran my hand over my scalp as if I still had hair to smooth. Dax looked at me, her eyes wide.

"None of this makes sense, old man."

"I know, Benjamin," she said. "I've been trying to think it through"

"It makes sense to me," Cadet Nog said.

Dax and I both turned to him. He shrugged and gave us both a sheepish grin. He said, "My people believe there is profit to be made from both sides of a war. Sometimes playing one side against the other brings higher profits."

He was right, of course. It was an option I hadn't thought of because it was something that went against every inch of my being. I would have come to it eventually, but it would take time. That sort of betrayal the kind that cost lives was anathema to me.

"Thank you, Cadet," I said as I stood. "Dax, you have the bridge. I have some prisoners to talk to."

"Bah," Sotugh said. "You take advice from a Ferengi, and a Starfleet cadet at that."

Sisko smiled at Sotugh. "I take good ideas where I find them. And you must admit, he was right."

"Don't! Don't!" the Quilli said. "You're spoiling the story. Don't let that Klingon get you ahead of yourself."

Sotugh gave the Quilli a horrid threatening look. The Quilli's bristles rose and seemed to grow longer.

"I will close the bar," Cap said.

"Ah, Cap, it's a good old-fashioned stare-down," the Trill said. "Let them be."

But Sotugh broke the look. He waved a hand again. "I do not waste my time with creatures one-tenth my size."

"And who have a hundred times your brainpower," the Quilli said.

Sotugh growled softly, but did not turn. Instead, he leveled his frown at Sisko.

"So tell them what you discovered from the prisoners," Sotugh said. "Just remember that while you were sitting, talking, I was fighting a pitched battle to save your station. Even though they do not want to hear of it."

"Does that matter?" Sisko asked. "You enjoyed every moment of that fight."

"True," Sotugh said, his frown suddenly changing to a laugh. "It was glorious."

The six prisoners filled the Defiant's brig. They were an odd mix of humans, Bajorans, and Jibetians. They were all dirty and one seemed injured. She was lying on the cot, a hand over her face.

I stood facing the forcefield. "Who's in charge here?"

A human stood and moved to face me. He was squarely built. His dark eyes and rounded cheeks seemed more suited to laughter than to war.

"I am in charge," he said. "My name is John David Phelps Jackson."

I motioned for the guards to drop the forcefield for a moment, then indicated that Jackson should come with me. He glanced at his compatriots, as if in apology, then followed me to a small table where I sat and indicated that he do the same.

For a moment he looked as if he would remain standing, but I again indicated the chair. "Sit. We need to talk."

He did, making certain that his friends in the brig could still see his face.

"I'm afraid," I said, "that your ships have all been destroyed. What is left of your force on the station is in a very heated and, most likely, losing battle with Klingons."

"Destroyed?" Jackson said, his face going gray. "Why did you do that? They had no weapons."

"We did not," I said. "I can assure you of that. And neither did the Klingons. Your ships exploded all at the same moment. We have no explanation, yet."

Jackson leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes for a moment. When he sat back up there was a haunted look behind his eyes, as if he'd just seen a ghost and that ghost was going to kill him.

"What do you want from me, Captain Sisko?"

"I want to know what's going on. All I've been told is one side of this fight. Captain Victor and Councillor Näna's side. I would like to hear yours."

The frown of puzzlement that crossed Jackson's face made no sense to me at that moment. Then he leaned forward. "You have talked to Captain Victor?"

"Yes," I said.

"Then you know our side as well."

Now it was my turn to be confused. "He has told me of your intentions with the station, and of your desire to be free from the homeworld rule, but"

"Free of their rule?" Jackson said. "What are you talking about?"

I glanced at the people behind the forcefield, then back at Jackson. I sighed. It seemed, once again, that Captain Victor had been less than honest with me.

I leaned toward him and said, "I think it is time that I hear your side of exactly what is going on here."

Thirteen

JACKSON LOOKED AT me as if I were crazy. Remember, we had fought him and his compatriots, and then we had captured them, easily. Suddenly I was asking for his side. I must have seemed capricious and strange.

He glanced over his shoulder at his friends in the brig. Four of them were watching intently. The woman remained on her bunk.

"First," he said, "I need medical attention for Sasha. Then I'll talk to you."

I frowned at the two security officers. They did not meet my gaze. It was their duty to report any injuries among prisoners injuries that were more serious, say, than a slight cut or bruise and these officers hadn't done so. I knew that the anger at the capture of the station was running high, but it was not an excuse for dereliction of duty. Theirs would be noted in their files, and I would take care of the situation when this crisis was over.

I hit my comm badge. "Dr. Bashir," I said. "We have a patient needing treatment in the brig."

"I'm nearly finished here, sir," he said. "I'll send a member of my team down immediately."

"Good." Then I laid my hands flat on the table. "Your friend will be taken care of. Now, talk to me. We don't have much time."

Jackson studied me, eyes narrowing. "I don't see why I should tell you anything."

I had had enough. I was tired, I was worried, and I was under a very real deadline. "We both are facing a crisis," I said. "You have just lost all your ships. My station has been yanked into a part of space where it does not belong, causing a serious crisis in my space. We did not destroy your ships, and I have a hunch I know who did. Captain Victor told me you were his enemy, which leads me to believe you and I are both being used."

"I'm the enemy?" Jackson said, again sitting back and closing his eyes as he took in the information.

I decided the best course was to push. "Captain Victor said that you and the rest of the colonists were tired of Mist rule. He said that you had a plan to take the station and use it to control the Mist homeworld. He brought us and the Klingons into this space to stop you."

Jackson sat bolt upright, his eyes bright, his gaze focused on mine. "The rumors have been rampant for years that the Federation and Klingons intended to invade the Mist and use our technology. Captain Victor's plan was to take over your station and use it as a defense against your attack."

My left hand clenched into a fist. I was angry, not just at Captain Victor, but at myself. All through this crisis, my gut had said things were not as they appeared. And although I noted the reaction, I did not act upon it.

"Until Captain Victor lured us into your space," I said, "we did not even know the Mist existed outside of the legends."

"You never intended to attack us?"

"Of course not," I said. "We usually don't attack without reason, and we never intentionally attack something we don't know exists."

Jackson stared at me for a moment, holding my gaze. There was power in those dark eyes. The man was a natural leader. "So, if you weren't going to invade us, none of this makes sense."

"Oh, it's making sense to me," I said, thinking of Nog's comment about profit. "But the only truth I know at the moment is that someone blew up your ships, and it was not us."

Then we heard the whine of a pneumatic door. Two medical technicians entered, and hurried to the brig. The barrier winked out, and they stepped inside. It immediately winked up again.

Jackson turned to me, his gaze level. I was keeping my promise; we both knew that. And I was not acting like a man bent on conquering a section of space.

He swallowed hard. "Is every one of my ships gone?"

I nodded.

He slapped a hand on the table and stood. The guards made a move toward him, but I signaled them to stay back. Thirty ships were gone; he had to have lost a lot of people. A lot of friends.

"All the ships near the station are gone," I said as gently as I could. "I assume those were yours. Including the two special ships."

"Special ships?" He turned and grabbed the back of his chair, looking down at me.

In his confusion, I knew the last of it, the last of it all. Captain Victor had lied to me about everything. I still did not understand his purpose in doing so, nor his point in bringing the Defiant over before the capture of the station, but I suspected it was all part of an elaborate ploy, a ploy that was beginning to unravel.

"Captain Victor told me that only two of your ships had the capability of bringing the station from the normal universe," I said. "He also told me that the station could only be returned by the same device."

Jackson half laughed. It was a desperate, bitter sound. "All our ships have the ability to bring something over from normal space. And any of them can return it if it hasn't been here too long."

"We did discover that problem on our own," I said. "If our calculations are correct, we may stay here a little over two hours. Right now, we have used up much of that time."

Jackson didn't seem to hear me. He appeared to be lost in his own thoughts. Slowly he sank back into his chair. "With the people thinking you destroyed all our ships, the war fever will reach an unstoppable level," he said. "Hundreds of Mist systems will declare war on your Federation, and the Klingon Empire."

"Hundreds?" The extent of the lies that I had been told and that I had not had the time to check was astounding me. Captain Victor was really an accomplished manipulator. His mixture of truth and falsehood was creative and plausible.

And worthless, now.

We were on the brink of a devastating war. Not only would we have the problems within our own space that I've already outlined the defense of the wormhole, the problems with the Cardassians and the Klingons and, ultimately, the Dominion but we would have to fight the Mist because they believed they were victims of an unprovoked attack. With their technology, they would defeat us in a matter of hours.

"I thought there were five systems," I said, my voice flat. I already knew that I was wrong.

"No," Jackson said. "There are two hundred and eight Mist systems in this quadrant."

"Ah, phooey," the Quilli said, and sat down, hard, in its chair. The Trill had to move his foot quickly before bristles stuck in his boot.

"Phooey?" Cap said, eyebrows raised.

"Yeah," the Quilli said. "Phooey. I thought this was a great story until now."

"You have an opinion, warthog?" Sotugh asked, sounding as offended as if he had been telling the story.

"Yeah," the Quilli said, "I do. I believe that there could be five Mist systems, but not two hundred and eight. First of all, where'd they get all the space? And secondly, if what Sisko said is true, they had to steal their population from our universe. Wouldn't someone have noticed?"

Sisko took a forkful of jambalaya, knowing now that the Quilli wouldn't care. The food was still hot, just as Cap predicted, and just as delicious.

"Sisko," Sotugh said. "It is your story."

Sisko swallowed, held up his hand so that he could get a moment, and then had a few gulps of ale. "I talked to Jackson about this later," he said. "The Mist learned how to shift out of normal time over two thousand years ago. There were five systems full of Mist at that time. Eventually, they expanded."

"But one new system every twenty years?" the Caxtonian said. "Come on."

Sisko wiped his mouth with his napkin and looked pointedly at the Quilli. "It was easy for them to find a system with no intelligent life and to bring it over," he said. "They needed the new systems for minerals, food, and manufacturing to supply the ever-expanding culture."

"But they had to have life-forms on those systems," the Quilli said. "You can't make me believe they had that kind of population explosion."

"I do not expect you to believe anything," Sisko said. "I'm telling you what Jackson told me."

"And he could've been lying like Captain Victor was."

Sisko smiled, thinking of John David Phelps Jackson. The man probably could lie, but would not do so unless he had to do so to save lives.

"He could have been," Sisko said, "but Jackson was not that kind of man. Remember, the Mist were constantly bringing in other races. The growth was solid and expanding. They also had no natural enemies. I later learned that there were over a million human Mist spread across twenty planets."