Proud Helios Page 11

  "Ah." Sisko stood very still for an instant. "You haven't picked it up again."

  Dax shook her head. "No. And I've kept the scan running, centered on that general area of the Belt."

  "What does the computer say the chances are?"

  "A forty-five-percent chance it was a shadow, a twenty-percent chance it was asteroid debris, and ten percent that it was a ship."

  "And what do you think?" Sisko smiled.

  Dax smiled back, charmed once again by her old friend. "I think we can't ignore the possibility that it could be Helios."

  "I agree." Sisko sighed. "All right, Dax, set up a general close-monitoring program—keep it focused on the Belt, if there is a ship out there, that's the only place for it to hide—but make sure we get some long-range scans as well. In the meantime—" He smiled again, the expression wry this time. "In the meantime, I need to inform the Bajoran government."

  "Kira will be pleased," Dax murmured.

  Sisko snorted. "I'm not doing it for her. And all I'm going to tell them is that we had a tentative sighting that might be related to the attack on Gift of Flight. It's their shipping that goes closest to the Denorios Belt, after all."

  "You're not going to recommend that they avoid the Belt," Dax said, sharply. To do that would mean rerouting dozens of ships, disrupting hundreds of individuals' schedules.

  Sisko looked mischievous, and, in that instant, years younger. He sobered at once, but Dax could still see the amusement lurking in the corners of his eyes. "Not at all. It's not my place to tell Bajor what their ships should do. No, I'm just going to give them the information, tell them just how uncertain it is, and let them decide what to do with it." Even though he had been speaking softly, in a voice that would barely carry across Ops, he lowered his voice again. "At least that may keep them off my back for a while."

  Dax nodded, not in the least surprised by the devious tactics. She said, "It should work."

  "I hope so," Sisko answered. "So, get that scan into place, would you? I've got a feeling about this, Dax, and not a pleasant one."

  Dax nodded, already running her hands over her controls.

  She heard him turn away, and said, softly enough that he could choose not to answer, "So do I, Benjamin. So do I."

  * * *

  O'Brien sat at the narrow table, watching Keiko manipulate the replicator, Molly at her heels alternately grabbing her mother's knees and babbling too quickly for either parent to follow. It seemed as though it had been months since he had been able to sit down to breakfast with his family, and the sheer unexpectedness of it filled him with a deep contentment. Keiko turned away from the replimat, her hands filled with hot dishes, and her frown dissolved at the sight of his smile.

  "Miles," she said, "would you deal with Molly?"

  Recalled to his duty, O'Brien held out his hands, saying, "Come to Daddy, Molly. You're underfoot."

  "Am not," Molly said, but came trotting over.

  O'Brien hoisted her into his lap. "And what's my big girl going to do today?"

  "I don't know."

  "You do, too," Keiko said, and set the plates on the counter. "Tell Daddy where we're going. Do you remember where we're going?"

  O'Brien looked down at the tiny, heart-shaped face. "Are you going somewhere, Molly?"

  Molly frowned, put a finger in her mouth as though that would help her remember. "I'm going to school," she said, at last, and took her finger away to smile broadly. "I'm going to help!"

  O'Brien suppressed a chuckle, and saw, over his daughter's head, Keiko give him a speaking glance. "I'm sure you're going to be a big help, sweetheart."

  "I'm going to be a teacher," Molly insisted. "Just like Mommy."

  "Mommy's a botanist, honey," O'Brien said. "She's just helping out with the school."

  "I thought you wanted to be a science officer," Keiko said. She pulled a last plate out of the replicator, and set it on the table at Molly's place. "Like Dax."

  Molly shook her head. "I want to be a teacher."

  "And the day before yesterday, you wanted to be a starship captain," O'Brien said.

  Molly nodded. "And a teacher."

  "Your breakfast is ready, honey," Keiko said. "Come over here and let Daddy eat."

  O'Brien set her down, and Keiko lifted the tiny girl into her special chair. The Cardassian furniture that they had inherited with their quarters had never been designed for children—or if it had, O'Brien thought, I pity the poor brats. O'Brien had spent fifteen hours of his precious spare time cutting down and rebuilding the original furniture until it was something Molly could comfortably, and safely, use. He and Keiko had tried to do the same thing with the rest of the quarters, but there had been little they could do to hide the harsh angles of the walls. He looked around again, remembering something one of his technicians had said about his quarters.

  "D'you remember Jaan Ashe?" he said, and stood up to bring the rest of the plates to the table.

  Keiko looked up from mixing Molly's egg-and-rice. "He's your second reactor technician, isn't he?"

  O'Brien nodded, settled himself again in his place. "He said he bought some fabric when he was down on Bajor, used it to hang his walls. I think he may have painted it first, or else Chris did it, but he says it worked wonders. He sort of bunched it up around the corners, I think, softened up the angles a little."

  Keiko gave the grey-and-brown walls a critical glance. "Do you think it would help?"

  "It couldn't hurt," O'Brien answered, and Keiko smiled.

  "That's true." She looked at Molly, visibly decided that the girl had her spoon under control, and turned to her own food. "It's better than what Torrie Aimatsu did."

  "Oh?" O'Brien tried to put a face to the name, and failed.

  "Torrie Aimatsu," Keiko said. "She's one of the science staff."

  Thus prompted, O'Brien dredged up a vague impression of a raw-boned blonde—a cartographer, he thought, who usually worked on Bajor.

  "She painted every wall in her quarters matte black," Keiko went on, "and the floor and the ceiling, too, and strung the whole thing with pinlights. She said if she had to live in inhospitable, alien space, it might as well be space she recognized. She got Dax to help her work out the constellations for her home planet. It's very effective, but I'm not sure I'd want to live there."

  "I do," Molly said. "I want a room like Auntie Torrie."

  "I don't think so, sweetheart," Keiko said.

  Molly looked instinctively at her father, and O'Brien shook his head. "You don't like sleeping without a nightlight, darling. Do you really want a room that's dark all the time?"

  "No," Molly said doubtfully, and O'Brien seized the moment to distract her.

  "Don't you have to get ready for school?"

  "Are you finished with your breakfast?" Keiko asked. "All right. Then go get your datapadd—the one with the narvies I bought you yesterday—and bring Mommy's jacket, too."

  "OK, Mommy." Molly slid down out of her chair—O'Brien suppressed the urge to help, knowing he'd only get the familiar "I want to do it myself!" for an answer—and trotted off into the inner rooms.

  Keiko said, "Miles, what's all this talk about a Cardassian pirate?"

  O'Brien stared for a moment. He should know better than to be surprised by the station's grapevine, but that it had reached Keiko—and therefore the station's children—was still something of a surprise. He took a deep breath, not wanting to alarm, but knowing at the same time that Keiko needed to know the truth. "Well, it's not a Cardassian pirate," he began, and Keiko sighed.

  "Yesterday, some of the older children were talking about it—Nog in particular, I think his uncle had another run-in with Odo—and I could see that some of the little ones were nervous. We have quite a few Bajoran kids in the classes now, and they can get really frightened about the Cardassians."

  "Not without cause," O'Brien said. "But, as far as we know, it's not a Cardassian." He ran quickly through the destruction of Gift of Flight, not minimizing the bru
tality of the attack, but stressing that they had no reason to think that DS9 was in any danger. As he finished, Keiko held up her hand, and looked past him to the door.

  "Molly, honey, would you bring Mommy her datapadd, too?"

  "OK," Molly said, behind them, and O'Brien heard the door slide shut again behind her.

  Keiko looked at him, her face very serious. "Should we—should I be worried, Miles?"

  O'Brien sighed. "I don't know, Keiko. I think—Not yet, anyway."

  "You'll let me know when I should worry?" Keiko asked, but she was smiling.

  O'Brien smiled back, the expression a little crooked. "No fear, darling, if there's trouble, I want you worrying about it right along with me."

  "It's nice to be needed," Keiko said, dryly.

  O'Brien smiled again, and heard the door open behind him. Before he could say anything, either reassurance or a change of subject, the intercom sounded.

  "Sisko to O'Brien."

  Keiko's expression froze for a fleeting instant, and then, with an effort that made O'Brien's heart ache with sympathy, she smiled at her daughter. "All ready, Molly?"

  O'Brien reached for the intercom switch, aware that Keiko—and Molly, too—was listening. "O'Brien here. What's up, Commander?"

  "No emergency," Sisko said, and there was a dry note in his voice that suggested that, whatever it was, it might be worse than an emergency, "but there are some things we need to discuss. I'd like to see you in my office as soon as is practical, Chief."

  "On my way," O'Brien answered. He looked at the table, at the last few bites of breakfast congealing on his plate, and picked it up one-handed. "O'Brien out," he said, and shoved the plate into the reclamation chute with unnecessary force.

  "Let me know what's happening, Miles," Keiko said, and O'Brien swept her into a quick hug. He was not the most articulate of men, always, at least not with her, with the important things, and he hoped, as always, that the gesture would convey the words he couldn't find.

  "As soon as I know anything," he said, "I'll tell you."

  Keiko nodded, and held open the door. O'Brien touched her cheek, and went past her into the corridor.

  Sisko was waiting in his office when O'Brien tapped on the door. He looked up at O'Brien's knock, and beckoned for the younger man to enter. O'Brien did as he was told, unsuccessfully trying to quell the sense of panic that fluttered in his stomach. The station's systems were in good order—or they had been the night before, and he would have been called earlier if something were seriously wrong—so it had to be Helios. Or the Cardassians, he added silently, and I don't know which is worse.

  "Chief," Sisko said, and gestured at a chair. "Thanks for being so prompt."

  "Not at all," O'Brien said, through a mouth gone suddenly a little dry, and seated himself opposite his commander. "What's up, sir?"

  "Possibly nothing," Sisko said, "but there is a chance that Helios, or someone, is hiding in the Denorios Belt."

  O'Brien whistled softly. "Helios hiding in the Belt," he repeated. "Sir, if the tapes we've cobbled together from Gift of Flight and Ganges are at all accurate—if they're half-accurate—this station could be in serious danger."

  "I know." Sisko gave him a look, and the engineer realized suddenly that he might have overstepped himself this time.

  "Sorry, sir. It's just—" O'Brien hesitated, then went on, "I was talking to Keiko this morning already. It seems the attack is becoming the talk of the station."

  "I know that, too," Sisko said, but this time he smiled. It was a somewhat wry smile, but O'Brien allowed himself an almost imperceptible sigh of relief. "Which is part of what I wanted to talk to you about, Chief. I want you and your people to check out the station's weapons and our defensive systems. Make sure everything is in operating order, and make sure it can come on line at a moment's notice."

  O'Brien nodded, already running a mental inventory. "Yes, sir. I can tell you already that our shields are in good shape, you can have them up, nothing to one hundred percent, in five seconds. Half capacity in one-point-seven-five seconds."

  That was a little under the time needed to earn Starfleet's "excellent" rating, and O'Brien was a little hurt when Sisko merely nodded.

  "That's good, Chief." The commander smiled suddenly. "In fact, I believe that's excellent. But what about our offensive capabilities?"

  "Ah." O'Brien made a face. "Not as good, I'm afraid. I've never been able to get the phasers to more than eighty percent of the Cardassian normal rating, and I can't tell if that's because the Cardassians didn't give a damn if they blew up the station, or if there's something I haven't figured out in their sorry excuse for a manual. But I'll do what I can to get it up to the full rating."

  "Thanks, Chief," Sisko said. "But there's one thing more."

  "Sir?"

  Sisko leaned forward slightly. "I need you to do it discreetly—without alarming the station personnel any more than they already are."

  O'Brien lifted an eyebrow. What Sisko was asking was very nearly impossible, even on a starship, where everyone aboard knew the score. On DS9, where half the population wasn't even Starfleet, it was like asking Quark not to cheat a newcomer. "I can try," he said, and knew he sounded doubtful. "Uh, sir, are you expecting trouble?"

  Sisko sighed. "Frankly, I don't know, Chief. When Dax spotted—whatever it was—the computers thought it was probably a reflex shadow, an artifact of the new program you and she put in place. But there's a ten-percent chance, no more than that, but no less, either, that it was a ship recloaking, and I don't dare take the chance. Not with the lives on this station. As for the rest—" He shrugged. "The military maneuvers that we've been hearing so much about seem to be staying well within the Cardassian borders now, and for a miracle, the political situation on Bajor seems momentarily stable, so…I don't know if I'm expecting trouble, Chief. But I intend to be prepared."

  O'Brien nodded, recognizing a familiar attitude. "I'll do my best to keep things quiet. And if you'd like, I'll tell Keiko to do the same. Some of her kids have been worrying, sir, about the Cardassians and all."

  "It couldn't hurt," Sisko said. "Tell her I'd be grateful."

  "Aye, sir."

  "And give me a report as soon as you know the weapons' status."

  "I'll do that, Commander," O'Brien answered.

  "Thanks, Chief," Sisko said, and looked down at his desktop again.

  It was clear dismissal, but O'Brien lingered for an instant, wanting to say something, anything, that might help resolve the worry he saw in the commander's eyes. But there was nothing, and he knew it; he nodded again, in vague salute and acknowledgment, and left the commander's office, letting the door slide softly shut behind him.

  * * *

  The security office was as quiet as ever, with only the hiss of the ventilators and the faint, inevitable chirps and whirs from the banks of wall displays to break the silence. Kira sat opposite Odo in the constable's private office, and did her best to curb her rising anger.

  "I'm not a baby-sitter," she said. "And I'm not a policeman—or a spy, for that matter. It's not my job to look after this person, this Trehanna—"

  "Her name," Odo said, "is Diaadul. The Lady Diaadul." His expression didn't change—but then, Kira thought, resentfully, it almost never did. "And this wasn't my idea."

  "Oh, I just bet I know whose it was," Kira muttered.

  "Commander Sisko felt you would be very helpful on this job," Odo said. His thin mouth twitched, and Kira was suddenly certain that he was laughing. At me? she thought, and drew breath to protest, but the shapeshifter was already continuing. "Since the Lady Diaadul comes from a culture that does not encourage contact between members of the opposite sex, the commander felt that you might be more likely than I to gain her confidence if she were in trouble." This time, Odo did smile openly, the expression grim. "To speak frankly, Major, I doubt it—and I doubt there is a confidence to be gained. And that's the reason I want your help."

  Kira's anger evaporated as qu
ickly as it had formed. "What do you mean?"

  "I mean," Odo said, "that I don't think she is everything she pretends to be. Or at least that her intentions are something other than what she's said." He explained how he had followed Diaadul to her meeting with Quark, and her unexpected reaction to the Ferengi's habitual leer. "Which, you must admit, is not the reaction one expects from a Trehanna noblewoman," he finished.

  "No." Kira frowned, trying to match the scene Odo had just described with the veiled figure she had glimpsed on the Promenade. One of the other Bajorans had pointed Diaadul out to her: a mysterious, blue-veiled shape, very bright and almost frivolous-looking against the harsh Cardassian architecture. Gold had glittered from one wrist as she had lifted a hand to take something from a shopkeeper, and Kira had, in that moment, almost envied the deliberately fragile femininity. It was, in an odd way, almost a relief to hear Odo's suspicions. "Were you able to follow her to the inner office?"

  "No." Odo's voice was a growl. "The inner space is on a separate ventilation system, I have to backtrack to reach it. And by the time I'd done that, they were gone."

  "I see." Kira nodded. "All right, what do you want me to do?"

  "I want you to do just what Commander Sisko asked," Odo answered. "Help me keep an eye on Diaadul. If she decides to confide in you, well and good—but the main thing I want is to be sure she's not able to cause us any trouble."

  "All right," Kira said again. She had already learned, in the short time that she'd been on DS9, that Odo's suspicions were generally well founded. If Odo said someone needed watching, that person generally did—and all too often, needed restraint as well. Perhaps he'd developed that almost uncanny knack under the Cardassians; the gods knew, they would give anyone reason for suspicion. She had said as much to other Bajorans more than once—Odo was not an instantly lovable person, nor did he go out of his way to make himself agreeable—and had gotten only grudging agreement, more for her own rank, she suspected, than out of any respect for him. But they would learn, given time, as she had learned. "What kind of surveillance do you have on her now?"