The Mist (16 page)

"You let Bo'Tex express his," Robinson said.

"Yes," Cap said, "but I didn't warn him two days ago about antagonizing the other patrons, like I had to warn you."

"Nope," Robinson said. "You just reminded him to bathe!"

At that moment, Sisko realized they were talking about the Caxtonian. No wonder the place didn't smell completely like Caxtonian body odor. Cap kept his customers in line.

"Someday," Sisko said, "I will tell you stories about the great engineers of the post-warp era, starting with Cochrane, going through Ty'lep and Montgomery Scott, and ending with a few that I know personally, like Miles O'Brien."

"I'd like to hear it," Robinson said, obviously mollified.

"Maybe next," the Quilli said, clapping its tiny paws together.

"What, do you have a quota or something?" the Trill asked. "You've been asking for a lot of stories."

The Quilli shrugged. "Maybe I like stories better than I like" it grimaced at the bottle of Canar"liquor."

"Or maybe you see a way to make a small fortune off this place," the Trill said. "Hey, Cap. Is it legal for a Quilli to be here?"

"If it's a captain, it is," Cap said. "I don't ban patrons from this place just because they act according to their culture's precepts."

The Trill narrowed his gaze, and then grinned. "Touché," he said. "Hadn't thought of it that way. So this is a sort of 'storyteller beware' place."

"Every place is," Cap said. "Some just aren't as obvious as others."

"Does it bother you to have the Quilli listening?" the middle-aged woman asked Sisko.

Sisko smiled at the small creature. "It's a good audience," he said.

"Thank you," the Quilli said, making a small formal bow. "And I am finally getting used to these interruptions. Although I would like to know if you got the station back to its own space."

"Yes," the Trill said dryly. "I think we're all ready for a fight."

Sisko didn't know if the Trill meant inside the bar or inside the story, and he didn't really care. He pushed the nearly empty bowl of jambalaya aside and went back to the tale.

After the destruction I had been dealing with on the station, it felt good to be back on the Defiant, where things appeared to be running smoothly. Worf had returned to his security post. Dax was still at the helm. Cadet Nog looked like he belonged on communications.

Dax had the Grey Squadron on the screen. Individually, those ships had been beautiful. En masse, they looked like a fleet of ancient warships about to attack a defenseless village.

I dropped into the command chair and contacted Chief O'Brien in engineering. "Chief," I said. "Are you ready?"

"As ready as I'll ever be," the chief said. "This will work like a charm. I've got the shifter attached to the warp coil and the controls hooked up on the tractor beam. Jackson and two of his people are right here to help me."

That eased my worry a bit. Jackson, at least, should have known how this shifter worked.

"Your faith in an unknown human astounds me," Sotugh muttered.

"I've noticed that humans are an incredibly optimistic species," the Trill said.

"That's a charitable way of putting it," Prrghh said, as she crossed her arms and leaned back in the chair.

I asked the chief, "How about the shields?"

"I've made the shield modifications that the chief engineer of the Madison suggested," O'Brien said. I could almost hear him shrug. When he spoke like that, his attitude was that the idea might work, but he wasn't going to stake anything important on it. I never knew how to take that attitude. O'Brien usually didn't trust any engineer's work but his own unless, of course, he had trained that engineer from the ground up.

"Good," I said to him. "Stand by."

"Standing," he said.

I grinned. We were always at our best at moments like this.

"Dax," I said. "Are all of Jackson's personnel aboard?"

"People and equipment," Dax said.

"Cadet, open a secure channel to both the Madison and the Daqchov," I said.

"Yes, sir," Nog said.

A moment later the main screen split. Sotugh was on one, still looking battle-scarred with his four phaser burns

"Finally got it right," Sotugh said.

and Higginbotham was on the other, wearing just a bit more grease. After working to repair the station, I must have looked in the same sort of state.

"We're ready," I said. "We will shift the station first. Then we will shift your ships, Sotugh, and then the Madison."

"Get us back quickly," Higginbotham said. "The Mist fleet is going to be on you in no time."

"Oh," I said, "I have no desire to fight them alone."

"Good," Sotugh said. "No point in taking all the glory."

I indicated that Nog should cut the communication.

"Chief," I said. "Ready?"

"Ready, sir," he said from engineering.

"Okay, old man," I said to Dax. "Put the station back where it belongs."

Sixteen

DAX BENT OVER her console. Her fingers moved with great confidence, but she was biting her lower lip again.

"I'm turning on the beam," she said, "and pointing it at the station."

I gripped my chair.

Worf raised his head to watch.

Nog sat down for the first time during this mission.

Dax continued to work.

On the main screen, a line of white mist seemed to form in space, expanding like a cloud and flowing over the station, making it look slightly hazy. It seemed as if we were at sea, and the station were being covered by a great fog. The normally clear outline of the station became indistinct; then it blurred.

And then, suddenly, clarity returned.

The white mist disappeared. From our vantage, it looked like the station had passed through a very thin cloud and emerged on the other side, completely unchanged.

I could see nothing different. The station hung in its normal place. The Cardassian ships hovered near the wormhole, and a half-dozen Klingon ships were dropping out of warp.

"It didn't materialize on anyone?" Prrghh asked with great disappointment. She had a bloodthirsty look in her eyes that Sisko had suspected was there but hadn't seen until now. "I've been waiting this entire story to see what would happen when the station reappeared in the spot where someone else was."

"I thought I had been clear about that," Sisko said. He took a sip of Jibetian ale. "I had said that the station looked the same, with the ships around it, even though it was phased into Mist space."

"Yeah?" Prrghh said. "So?"

"So no one had moved into the space that the station had previously occupied," Sisko said.

"No one?" Prrghh asked.

"No one," Sisko said.

Prrghh shook her head, and leaned her chair back on two legs. She looked over her shoulder at the Quilli. "There's another impossible thing for you," she said. "I'd say the story's worthless."

"Nonsense," the Quilli said. "You just don't pay attention."

"I do," Prrghh said. "But with all those ships, one of them would have moved into the station's space."

The Quilli patted down its bristles as if it were wearing a suit and searching its vest pockets for something. The habit appeared to be a nervous one.

"Forgive me for being so bold," the Quilli said.

"As if you were not bold before," Sotugh growled.

"But what Sisko said about the station makes perfect sense to me. In fact, it seems illogical for someone to move into the station's spot," the Quilli said.

"It doesn't seem illogical to me," Prrghh said.

"It would if you were there," the Quilli said. "Imagine going to a space station you always go to. Then it disappears. Vanishes, right before your eyes. Would you fly your ship in those coordinates? Especially right after the thing vanished?"

Everyone in the bar turned to Prrghh. It was a captaining question, a leadership question. Would you take your precious ship with its valuable cargo and its even more valuable crew, and risk it on an insignificant shortcut through a bit of space occupied by something as large as a Cardassian-built space station a moment before?

Prrghh seemed to struggle with the question, not, Sisko believed, because she would make such a grievous mistake, but because she didn't want to lose face. She set her chair back down on all four legs.

"Well," she said, "when you put it that way, no. I wouldn't."

"See?" the Quilli said. "Not impossible at all."

"Well," the Trill said. "One war's been averted. Let's see if Sisko averted another one."

Sisko smiled. "After the white mist vanished, Dax said ..."

"Transfer complete."

I couldn't tell the difference. I squinted at the screen. "Are you certain?"

Dax checked her instruments. Behind me, I heard corresponding beeps as Worf checked his.

"I'm positive, Captain," she said.

"Then let's get Sotugh's ships transferred. Quickly." I hit my comm badge. "Jackson, I need you on the bridge at once."

"All right, Sisko," Jackson said. He was making a point of not calling me by my title. It was, I think, his way of regaining some personal power after being held prisoner.

"I'm turning on the beam," Dax said, "and aiming at the Klingon ships."

She rarely used so many words to describe a procedure, but we had no shorthand for this one. I turned to the screen just in time to see another white line of mist form, expand into a small cloud, and flow over the Klingon ships. They, too, became indistinct, almost ghostly forms of their selves, and then they became solid again.

The white mist disappeared.

I remember thinking, What an odd device, and also This must be how people without transporters regard our technology.

"Transfer complete," Dax said. She was shaking her head slightly as if she couldn't believe what she was seeing either.

Cadet Nog swiveled his chair toward me. "Major Kira is hailing the Cardassians," he said.

I had to take care of one problem at a time. "Dax, transfer the Madison to normal space."

"Beginning transfer," she said, finally developing a way of describing what she was doing.

The white mist formed, and engulfed the Madison. The starship seemed small and insignificant in the mist. I wondered if that was because the white mist mimicked a natural phenomenon on my home planet, Earth. No matter how far we go into the stars, the natural phenomena of our homes always seem more powerful than we are.

The Madison's clean lines became blurry. Then the mist evaporated, and the Madison looked like herself again.

"Transfer complete," Dax said for a third time.

"Captain." Nog sounded panicked. "Captain Victor is demanding that he speak with you. Captain Sotugh is talking to the Klingon ships, and the Madison has contacted the other Starfleet vessels. Major Kira is still hailing the Cardassians."

"It sounds like the Tower of Babel out there, doesn't it, Cadet?" Dax asked with a grin.

"Huh?" Nog said, clearly not understanding the reference.

"I don't either," said the Quilli.

Several other alien voices chimed in as well.

"It's an Earth reference," the Trill said. "From one of their religious documents."

"How do Trills know about it?" the wraith asked.

The Trill smiled. "Trills make a point of knowing every good reference in the quadrant," he said.

Behind me, I heard the doors to the turbolift open. I spun my chair in time to see Jackson stride across the bridge. He seemed calm and self-assured. It was a nice contrast to the cadet's burgeoning panic.

"Everything has shifted back," I said to Jackson. "Are you ready?"

"I hope this works," he said, and I heard worry in his voice. Already he had mastered one of the main elements of command. No matter how concerned you are, always seem calm. If he lived through this, he would be a fine commander someday.

"That does not work with Klingons," Sotugh said, as he stood to get more blood wine.

"All we need is a little time," I said to Jackson. Then I stood and gave Jackson my command chair. He looked at it as if sitting in it would be a violation of some unwritten rule. Instead, he stood in front of it, much as I did when I spoke to others on screen.

"Dax," I said. "Make certain that the focus is on Jackson only. Everyone else remain quiet. Nog, I want this conversation to go out on a very wide band."

"Understood," Dax said.

"Yes, sir," Nog said.

"Connect him with Captain Victor," I said.

I moved over and stood near Nog, monitoring the young cadet. So far, he had acquitted himself well, but he did not dare make a mistake now. And as we all know, monitoring such wide and varied communications, while handling important ones of your own, can make for some interesting and deadly mistakes.

As it turned out, I needn't have worried. Nog handled the situation just fine. But at the time, I monitored everything.

Captain Victor appeared on screen. He was wearing his yachting cap low over his forehead, nearly obscuring his dark eyes. He did not look happy. Councillor Näna, beside him, seemed the same as ever. Näna's round mouth opened and closed for apparently no reason. His left eye wandered, and his right one was obscured by the screen.

Jackson put his hands on his hips and grinned. It was a powerful, cocky look, one that not many men could have carried off. Jackson made it look normal.

"Captain Victor," Jackson said. "Councillor."

"Jackson!" Victor sounded panicked. "What happened?"

"We captured this ship," Jackson said, "along with the station. However, it was clear that the Federation and Klingons had nothing to do with the destruction of our ships, and have no ability to shift into our space. They were brought over against their will, so we sent them back."

"You sent them back?!" Victor took a step closer to the screen as if he wanted to come through it and strangle Jackson himself. "You were not authorized to do that!"

Jackson let his grin slip. His expression hardened. It was clear just how dangerous this man could be. "I didn't realize I had to be authorized to take appropriate action."

"Jackson, your action was not appropriate," Victor said, obviously trying to get control of himself. "You don't understand what you have done!"