O’BRIEN FLUNG HIMSELF at Dukat, but he was a second—a lifetime—too late.
The Cardassian wrapped his arms around the Regulan phoenix that Odo had become even as the transporter beam dissolved them both into their fundamental quantum essence.
O’Brien’s arms wrapped around nothing, and he tumbled to the deck of the Boreth’s bridge, skinning his chin on the rough Klingon carpet, the air knocked out of his lungs.
“That was not a good thing,” Garak said.
“No kidding,” Quark muttered.
“But … Dukat can’t win in a fight against Odo,” Rom said hesitantly.
“It’s not just Dukat,” O’Brien huffed as soon as he could breathe again. “It’s that Kosst Amojan thing, too.” He rolled over and awkwardly pushed himself up from the deck, straightening the annoying robes he wore. Then, limping slightly and feeling every year of his age, he returned to his science console, where Rom was checking its display.
“No sign of beam dispersion, Chief,” Rom informed O’Brien.
“So we may assume they survived transport?” Garak asked as he strolled over to O’Brien and Rom.
O’Brien thought about that for a moment, uncertain. Maybe it would be better if his coordinates had been off, or if smugglers had filled the supposedly empty room with supplies. Maybe it would be better if Dukat had been beamed into solid matter and—
Suddenly, he moaned. “Why didn’t I think of that before?”
“Think of what?” Garak asked with interest.
But O’Brien didn’t waste his time answering. He glanced over at the main viewer. Deep Space 9 was perfectly centered against a sea of shifting blue energy. The chief engineer focused his attention on the station’s navigation lights. Each one he could see blazed without interruption or blinked on and off as it was intended to.
“Chief?” Garak prompted.
“Look,” O’Brien said quickly. “Let’s say the transport went wrong—”
“Why not?” Quark groused from the other side of the bridge. “Everything else has.”
“What I mean is,” O’Brien continued, “if Odo and Dukat had materialized in a bulkhead, there would have been a hell of an explosion inside the station.”
“Of course!” Rom said excitedly. “We’d see a power fluctuation in the navigation lights! Uh, did we see a power fluctuation in the navigation lights?”
On his console, O’Brien played back the last sixty seconds of the viewer’s automatic recorded image. The lights didn’t vary. “No, but that wouldn’t have been the only effect.”
“Uh … there’d be a minor subspace distortion caused by the superposition of fermions in conflict with the Pauli exclusion principle?”
Quark had stalked over to see whatever was on O’Brien’s displays for himself. Seeing nothing that made sense to him, he shrugged, then rolled his eyes at his brother’s suggestion. “That sounds reasonable.”
But that kind of distortion wasn’t what O’Brien was looking for. “No subspace out here, Rom.” The chief engineer couldn’t resist the opportunity to be a teacher. “But you’re right—there would be a different sort of energy signature produced by a matter interference explosion.”
“Uh … another signature which we could detect …?” Then Rom suddenly shouted, “Electromagnetic pulse!”
Quark stuck a finger in his ear and shook it back and forth, as if he had been deafened by Rom’s outburst.
“That’s it, Rom!” O’Brien said. “If visible-light photons can jump out of their space-time bubble and cross the wormhole environment to reach us, then any type of electromagnetic radiation should be able to do the same. That’s how we detected the navigation time codes in the first place.”
O’Brien checked the broad-spectrum radio-scan subroutine he had set up when he had tried to communicate with the Defiant, still a blurry gray disk in a corner of the viewer. When the technique hadn’t worked, he had put the idea of radio communication to the side. But now he realized that he should have sent Odo over with a radio communicator—it would have been a far easier way to receive a message from the changeling than by having him switch docking lights off and on in code.
“No spikes,” O’Brien said. “They made it.”
“Poor Odo,” Rom sighed.
“Chief O’Brien,” Garak said, “I think our next step is obvious.”
O’Brien gave the Cardassian a curious look. “Are you volunteering?”
“Present company excluded, Chief, you have your choice of the seven Starfleet crewmen in engineering, only two of whom have experienced regular duty on Deep Space 9. I believe I am the most qualified for what needs to be done.”
O’Brien took Garak at his word. “All right, you’re next. Rom, see if you can coax a high-powered radio communicator from one of the replicators.”
“Right away, Chief!”
“Excuse me,” Quark complained as Rom hurried off to the back of the bridge. “But Garak’s next for what?”
“Beaming to the station,” O’Brien said.
“Why him? If it’s safe,” Quark protested, “why can’t we all go?”
O’Brien paused, sternly regarding the Ferengi. “Quark, all we know is that it looks safe. We won’t know it’s safe until Garak goes over there and radios back a signal to us.”
“And in the meantime,” Garak added politely, “there is the small matter of Dukat allowing Kosst Amojan to run rampant on the station.” He held out his hand to Quark. “But if you insist on going over first …”
“Never mind,” Quark said, then walked away.
O’Brien lowered his voice. “What will you do about Dukat?”
Garak shrugged noncommittally. “At the very least, he’ll have to deal with two Odos, so the odds will be in our favor. And I’m certain Captain Sisko won’t have forgotten that little trick of flooding the station with chroniton particles to … persuade the Pah-wraith to move on.”
“In case he has forgotten,” O’Brien said, “remind him.”
“Oh, I’ll do more than remind him, you can be sure.” Then Garak lost his usual expression of equanimity.
“What is it, Garak?”
“I take it that we are officially giving up on any plans we had of trying to preserve the timeline in some semblance of how we remember it.”
O’Brien nodded. “I know. That went by the boards when Odo beamed over. And Dukat cinches it.”
Garak responded with an expression of sadness O’Brien couldn’t remember seeing before. “While I’m no expert in these matters, Chief, I feel obligated to point out that with so many opportunities for changing the timeline in ….” The Cardassian looked over at the viewer and the station it displayed. “… that past, it is conceivable that at some point the Boreth will …”
“Disconnect from the Feynman curve linking it to the station,” O’Brien said.
“Exactly,” Garak agreed.
“A chance we’ll have to take.”
“No,” the Cardassian said gravely. “It is a chance you have to take. I daresay the others—” Now he looked back at Quark and Rom arguing beside the replicator slot. “—have no understanding of the ramifications of what you’re planning.”
O’Brien knew Garak was right, but that didn’t stop him from being surprised by the Cardassian’s concern for the rest of his fellow temporal refugees.
“You’re a decent man,” O’Brien said.
Garak smiled with an expression of delight, quickly repressed. “How kind of you to think so.”
“After you go, I’ll explain it to them. If we hear from you, I’ll beam everyone over.”
“And if you don’t hear from me?”
“I’ll beam the rest over anyway. At least … at least they might have a chance at turning up someplace else. They certainly won’t have one here.”
Garak nodded, then paused, looking O’Brien directly in the eyes.
“Now what?” O’Brien asked.
“Just the way you said that, about beaming the rest. You will be able to beam yourself over, won’t you?”
O’Brien chuckled, surprised once again by Garak’s concern. “You’re damn right. Now, if this had been a Starfleet ship, I wouldn’t be able to take manual control of the transporter in the absence of a subspace carrier wave. But the Klingons, they don’t see the need for the same sort of safety protocols we do.”
Garak leaned forward conspiratorially. “Personally? I find it one of those traits that makes Klingons rather endearing.”
Sometimes, when Garak shared opinions such as that, O’Brien found himself wondering if the man really saw things so differently. But this time, he realized that Garak was simply making a joke. So O’Brien just smiled, wondering how many other times he might have misinterpreted Garak’s intentions.
Garak nodded graciously. “I’ll just stand over there, shall I?”
O’Brien nodded back. “All we need is the radio,” he said. “Rom?”
Over at the replicator slot, Rom and Quark jerked guiltily at the sound of his voice. They both looked flushed. “I almost have it, Chief!” Rom cried out.
“Is there a problem?”
Rom shot a sideways look at the replicator, where a Klingon device clad in a light-brown metallic casing suddenly materialized. “Uh, not really …” Rom grabbed the device and hurried over to Garak with it.
O’Brien joined Garak to check the radio. The chief engineer glanced back at Quark, who had remained beside the replicator. “What’s he all worked up about?” O’Brien asked Rom.
“Uh, the replicator,” Rom said. “I guess in the future … uh, they’ve figured out how to replicate gold-pressed latinum.”
O’Brien groaned. Quark and latinum. But lacking the strength to yell at Rom’s brother for delaying the replication of the radio, O’Brien turned his attention to the device. Like most Klingon technology designed for field use by warriors, the Klingon radio’s controls were simple and intuitive.
“Just remember,” O’Brien began.
Garak completed the warning. “Brace myself for a drop.”
At his console, O’Brien called up the transporter controls. “Stand by …”
“I will see you all on the station,” Garak said.
But before O’Brien could energize the transporter, an unexpected voice cut in over the bridge speakers, breaking up and full of static.
“Repeating … Major Kira and I … arrived safely, but not on target day …”
O’Brien stared at the sudden radio spike on his broad spectrum scan, afraid to say the words already on his lips, scarcely believing they could be true.
But in the end, nothing could stop him.
“That’s the captain!”
Bashir wasn’t frightened. He had experienced death uncountable times in his Pah-wraith hell. What more could Weyoun do to him?
But then he realized his chest hurt. And his head hurt. And the bare metal deck was icy cold.
He opened his eyes. A single fusion lamp, almost exhausted, provided the only light.
He was still in the storeroom.
But Weyoun and Obanak and the other Bajoran were not. They had vanished, along with most of the crates.
I’ve shifted, Bashir thought.
His aches and pains forgotten, Bashir jumped to his feet. If Jadzia had interpreted Sisko’s message properly, then he should be on the station sometime after the Cardassians withdrew.
Bashir took the fusion lamp from the bulkhead and peered into the corners of the storeroom, searching for any sign of his radio or tricorder. Nothing.
But that couldn’t stop him from creating a plan. First, he had to sneak up to Ops to set up a radio link. Then he had to beg, borrow, or steal a tricorder that he could set to record during the next equalization wave event.
Everything would be fine—as long as he didn’t run into Obanak and Weyoun …
“Oh, no,” he said aloud.
Weyoun would have had days, if not weeks, by now to alter events on the station. Bashir shook his head. For all he knew, with Weyoun present to reveal the existence of the Bajoran wormhole, the Cardassians might not have withdrawn at all.
Bashir headed straight for the storeroom’s door, put his ear to it, then tapped it open.
The corridor beyond was also poorly lit, but empty. Judging from the corridor’s size and the tight curve it followed, Bashir decided he was correct in thinking he was in the shopkeepers’ storage area, one level down from the Promenade.
Entering the corridor, he turned to his right for no particular reason, then set off at an easy run until he came to a Cardassian radian indicator. The sign revealed he was beside Turboshaft 3, which told him exactly how far away his Infirmary was. Bashir decided to go there first. Homeground was always best.
During his tenure on the station, he hadn’t used the storage area beneath the Infirmary, primarily for security concerns. But Bashir knew there was a narrow stairway that led up to a supply locker off his small back office, and as he climbed it now, he was relieved to see the narrow doorway hadn’t been sealed. That meant that he hadn’t arrived on the station after he had first arrived on it, because one of the first things he had had the work crews do was to block off this doorway, which they hadn’t yet done. Despite the seriousness of his situation, Bashir couldn’t help smiling: The confusing thought actually made some sense to him, in a time-bending sort of way.
Bashir reached the top of the narrow flight of stairs. The small door before him operated by means of a manual lever, and he pushed against it, making the door squeak open.
What would eventually become his office was littered with debris, and all the lights were out. But light from the treatment areas filtered in through the half-opened main doors.
Bashir carefully picked his way over the mounds of trash on the deck and peered out through the doors, trying to catch a glimpse of who might be on the station. If he saw any Cardassians other than Garak, he’d know he’d have to stay hidden.
But all he saw was another blinding flash of light. Not red or blue, but white.
“What’re you doing back there?”
Bashir realized that he hadn’t been shifted through time again. He still had twenty minutes before that could happen. Shielding his eyes with his hand, he tried to look past the blinding light to see who was addressing him.
“Get out of there,” the annoyed voice repeated. “Hands where I can see them.”
Bashir squeezed out through the inoperative doors and felt a moment of unreality as he found himself standing in the middle of his Infirmary as he had never seen it before—looted, trashed, and not yet even marginally cleaned up as he had seen it on his first day.
“I said, who are you?”
Relief flooded through Bashir. The Cardassians had left. His questioner was a Bajoran wearing an old-style militia uniform.
“Are there any Starfleet personnel onboard?” Bashir asked, blinking in the glare of the Bajoran’s palm torch.
The Bajoran moved closer, keeping his torch centered on Bashir’s face, specifically on the bridge of his nose.
“You’re human?”
“I’m with Starfleet.” Bashir guessed that would be a safe enough admission to make.
“Dressed like that?”
Bashir looked down at his trustee’s rags. “I was … undercover.”
The Bajoran muttered something that was obviously a curse but which Bashir didn’t hear clearly enough to understand.
“Don’t you people have any sense?” the Bajoran growled. “The Provisional Government is tying itself in knots trying to decide whether or not to invite the Federation in as observers. And the biggest thing you’ve got going for yourselves is that you’ve been neutral through the whole Occupation. But if the opposition finds out there are Federation spies in the system, the next thing you know, we’ll be inviting the Romulans in to keep the peace.”
Bashir’s mouth went dry. If his presence here could lead to such a profound change in the timeline … if the Romulans discovered the wormhole … made contact with the Prophets … with the Dominion … the whole history of the galaxy and of the universe would change. And if the Romulans and the Cardassians formed an alliance and shared what they would undoubtedly learn about the wormhole and the Tears of the Prophets, it wouldn’t take six years for the Red Orbs of Jalbador to be brought into alignment. It would take months.
“I’m not a spy,” Bashir protested, but even he could hear the tension that thinned his voice. “I only just got here. On a … a factfinding mission.”
“Dressed like a Bajoran slave?” the Bajoran said suspiciously. “We all burned those clothes a week ago.”
A week, Bashir reasoned rapidly. The Enterprise hasn’t arrived yet. Starfleet is making contingency plans in case the invitation to observe the peace is actually made. His mind raced as he thought back to where he ‘was’ in the week after Withdrawal: at the medical conference on Vulcan, torn between attending a lecture to be given by Admiral McCoy himself or contacting everyone he could think of back on Earth to lobby for the position of Chief Medical Officer on the mission to Bajor, should it come to pass.
“Is there any way I can at least talk to someone from Starfleet?” Bashir asked, urgent. “I know I can straighten this out without … without harming relations between Bajor and the Federation.”
Obviously, the Bajoran was a Federation sympathizer, because he now took a moment to consider Bashir’s request.
“Well, they’ve got some huge starship standing by outside the system.”
“The Enterprise?” Bashir asked with hope in his voice. Captain Picard would be the perfect person to tell his story to. Starfleet would listen to him.
“I think so,” the Bajoran said. “It’s been sending in shuttles with humanitarian aid. I could maybe talk to one of the pilots.”
“That would be best,” Bashir agreed quickly. “And the quieter we can keep this, and the faster I can talk with someone, the less disruptive my presence here will be.”
The Bajoran lowered his palm torch. “I’ll see what I can do. But I’m still going to have to take you to Security. The constable has to—”
“Odo?”
Bashir didn’t want to give away more than he had to. “We … have friends in common.”
“Maybe that’ll help.” The Bajoran gestured with his palm torch. “Walk ahead, and don’t try anything.”
“I won’t,” Bashir promised, thinking once more that everything might still work out after all.
Until Major Kira blocked his exit, dressed in her old uniform, hands on her hips.
“What the hell is going on here?” she demanded.
“Major,” Bashir said in resignation, knowing the paradox he was about to create, “my name is—”
“I don’t care who you are,” the major interrupted. “You keep your mouth shut until I deal with him.” She pointed at the startled Bajoran militiaman. “Is this human your prisoner?”
“Uh … yes, Major.”
“I don’t see any restraints. I don’t see your weapon drawn. I don’t recall having heard anything over the security channels. Is this your idea of an arrest?”
The Bajoran’s face flushed. “I thought … he said he was with—”
“I don’t care what he told you. You’re on security patrol. You round up suspects. I do the thinking. Is that clear, Mister?”
“Y-yes, sir.”
Kira waved her hand at the door. “Then you go do your job, and let me do mine.”
The Bajoran nodded vigorously, then bolted for the doors leading out of the Infirmary, halting abruptly when Kira put a hand on his shoulder.
“We’re all new at this,” she said in a low voice. “So I’ll let this go without a formal report. If you don’t talk about it, I won’t talk about it. I don’t want anyone thinking I’m getting soft. Understood?”
“Understood, sir,” the Bajoran said as if he couldn’t believe his good fortune. A moment later, he was gone.
“How long have you been here?” Kira asked Bashir.
So many complications filled the doctor’s mind that he remained silent.
“Julian, it’s me,” Kira said. “I’m your Kira, from the Defiant. Six years from now. From the end of the universe.”
There was only one thing to do, and Bashir did it. He reached out and hugged her. Hard.
But Kira pushed him away. “Things are very complicated. We have to talk quickly. How long have you been in this time?”
“Ten minutes?”
“How much longer do you have?”
“At least ten more,” Bashir said, still marveling at the sudden turn of events. “I came in before the Withdrawal. Weyoun told Obanak that he was the Emissary.”
“I know,” Kira said with a grimace. “Weyoun is somehow anchored in this timeframe. He doesn’t shift back and forth, so he has a lot more time than we do.”
“Time to do what?”
“To get the Red Orb from Terrell’s lab. The captain and I are trying to get it, too. But … in the past, before the Day of Withdrawal, the lab is under heavy guard, completely unapproachable. And in this timeframe, it’s abandoned.”
“Then we’ll have to get in on the Day of Withdrawal!” Bashir said. “That’s the key time signal we’re getting on the Defiant. So that’s when the Orb effect must be strongest—the timeframe we’re all settling toward.”
“You’ve been talking with Dax?” Kira asked.
Bashir nodded. “Look, I need a tricorder and a radio. Jadzia needs readings from a timeshift event, and then I have to be able to radio back the results.”
Kira frowned. “I’ve only got about five minutes left before I go back.” She hit her communicator. “Major Kira to Ops. I need emergency transport for two from the Cardassian Infirmary to Cargo Bay 4. Lock on my signal.”
A Bajoran voice answered. “Did you mean emergency transport to the Infirmary?”
“I meant what I said!” Kira snapped. “There might be Cardassian saboteurs still on the station. Now, energize!” She gave Bashir a rueful smile as she took his arm. “Back then, I really was a b—”
But the transporter effect muffled whatever else she was about to say.
A moment later, Bashir and Kira materialized in Cargo Bay 4.
Merely smiling, Bashir offered no comment. Instead, he directed his attention to the gleaming shipping containers that surrounded them, containers marked with the Seal of the Federation. He found what he was looking for at once. General science kits designed to help in the construction of emergency shelters, to dig for water, to check for unexploded ordnance.
Kira helped him shift the crates and tear open the science kits. “You find a tricorder,” Kira told him. “I’ll check out the communication gear.”
Bashir located and pulled out a Mark VII tricorder, which he hoped would be a satisfactory replacement for the Mark X Jadzia had given him. At the same time, Kira cracked open a communications package and brought out a Vulcan radio wand. She passed the thin green cylinder to him. It was no more than ten centimeters long. “This is intended for ground-to-ground communications, but since you only have to broadcast for under a hundred klicks …”
“It’ll do,” Bashir said, satisfied. “Where’s the captain?”
Before Kira could reply, a familiar voice crackled from her combadge.
“This is Major Kira to Cargo Bay 4. What the hell is going on down there, and who the hell is saying she’s me?”
Kira looked at Bashir, grabbed hold of his arms to emphasize what she had to say. “Julian, this is important. We will not change the timeline. Understand? It is crucial that you do nothing that will change how events took place the first time.”
Bashir was puzzled. He didn’t understand.
“I said,” the other Major Kira demanded, “who’s down there?”
“But Weyoun must be changing things,” Bashir said.
Kira shook her head. “As far as we can tell, he’s keeping a low profile, too. All he wants is that Red Orb in Terrell’s lab.”
“That’s it,” the other Kira said over the combadge. “Whoever you are, you are now encased in forcefields and under transporter lock. If you have weapons, I’d strongly advise you to throw them away and put your hands on your head.”
“Why can’t we change the timeline?” Bashir asked his Kira. “What do you know?”
With a troubled look, the major gave Bashir’s upper arms a squeeze. “Julian, trust me. It’s the Will of—”
She looked to the side. Three columns of transporter light sparkled into being.
“Just trust me!” Kira said.
Then, once again, Bashir was blinded by light. And this time, it was red.