Chapter 1

"Here comes the second front, here it comes!" yelped a Bajoran lieutenant. The woman was new and was at the science station. Captain Kira Nerys didn't remember her name and now wished she could because the woman looked good and scared. Her blond hair was matted to her forehead, and her skin had an oily sheen of perspiration that slicked her cheeks and the underside of her jaw. She was sweating so much she looked basted. "Captain, it's—it's bigger, this one's much—!"

Deep Space 9 jerked, quick and sharp and with a violence that reminded Kira of the way a very large, very strong Talmuna swordfish fought a line, yanking and snapping back and forth, trying to shake itself free. Something shorted in a shower of sparks, and Kira caught the odor of ozone and seared metal. There was a loud metallic groan as the station bucked, and in the next instant, the ululating shrill of an alarm klaxon spiked its way into Kira's brain.

"Someone shut that thing off! You'd have to be brain-dead not to know we're in trouble!" Another jolt threw her off balance, and she stumbled, flailed, searched for a handhold, her nails scrabbling against smooth transparent aluminum. She missed, her right temple smacked solid plasticine, and she went down, hard, right on the point of her chin, snapping her head back, driving her teeth into her tongue. Pain exploded in her mouth and jagged into the space behind her right eye, scorching a path through her brain. Hot bile crowded into the back of her throat, mixed with the blood filling her mouth with a taste like wet rust, and Kira gagged, coughed out a crimson spray, fought back the urge to vomit.

She felt a hand on her right shoulder and then someone was hauling her up, bracing her as she swayed, tried to pass out but, mercifully, failed.

"You still with us?" Commander Elias Vaughn: voice pinching with anxiety, hazel eyes searching her face. When he gently pressed the edge of his left thumb to the corner of her mouth, it came away smeared with black blood. "My God. Nerys?"

"I'm fine," Kira lied. She was woozy and hurt, but she thought the fact that her tongue still worked was a good thing. Something thick and sticky dribbled over her eyebrow. She put a shaky hand to her forehead, felt the wet. Smelled the copper edge of her blood.

Got to hang on…. Impatient now, she pulled herself up, squared her shoulders and shrugged her way out of Vaughn's grip. He looked hesitant but then nodded and moved back to rerouting traffic away from the station. Kira turned to Ezri Dax, monitoring internal systems. "How's everyone else? What about the station?"

Dax said something about Ro's security people confining folks to their quarters, and the infirmary getting swamped and Bashir sure picking a hell of a time to be off-station. Someone else rattled off a series of damage reports (all of them bad) and while Kira registered this and digested the information, her mind snagged on a staccato, slightly nasal chant. The chant was more pure sound than song: a spiked line that, nevertheless, flowed straight and true like the principal root of a complicated fugue.

The sound came from the Bynar, Soloman, communing with DS9's main computer. Kira had heard someone say that he'd found the sound soothing, but it set Kira's teeth on edge.

Kira snapped her head around to Vaughn—too fast, as it happened, because she was rewarded with another wave of vertigo. She blinked back from the edge of unconsciousness. Come on, don't lose it now, Nerys. "Vaughn, is the da Vinci away?"

"Just in time." Vaughn spared a glance from his systems' boards. "I've locked down all the docking pylons and issued a general warning to reroute out of the system. There are a few freighters—empty, thank God—willing to help evacuate the station."

"If we have to. Give them our thanks, then tell them to stand by—or to bow out if they have to. It's no crime to stay alive." She looked over at the Bajoran lieutenant. "Time to next distortion wave."

"Impossible to predict, Captain." The lieutenant input data, squinted at her screen, then shook her head. "It's just… random. The only thing I can tell for certain is that the shock waves are getting stronger."

"Uh-hunh," said Kira. She glanced back at Vaughn. "What about Bajor?"

"Not good." Green-yellow light emanating from Vaughn's console played over the high planes of his bearded cheekbones and made black hollows of his eyes. His lips were so thin his mouth was a dark gash. "Ground-based stations report increased tectonic activity along the Tilar and Musilla plates. They're trying to evacuate the coastal areas, but with so little warning…" Vaughn didn't finish but then again, he didn't have to.

With so little warning, they'll be lucky if only a third of the coastal population drowns. And that doesn't count the mudslides, earthquakes, and Kendra Valley's lousy with fault lines…. Benjamin and Kassidy, Jake and Korena, the baby, they'll be right in the middle. Running out of time…

Her thoughts were cut by a hail and then a leisurely baritone fuzzed at the edges with static. "Captain Kira, this is Gold. What's your status?"

She had to smile. "I was just going to ask you the same question, Captain."

The channel fizzed, and then Kira caught the babble of background noise, a buzz of conversation and the blats of a computer spitting out information. Gold said something—Koomel? Toomel?—and then came back. "Not one of Wong's more graceful uncouplings. A couple bumps and bruises, but this old bucket's seen a lot worse. I'll hold together—oh, wait, you were asking about the ship ." Despite herself, Kira appreciated the levity. "Well, the da Vinci's fine. We're stringing baling wire right now. What about my people?"

"Still in one piece, Captain." This from Sonya Gomez, who staffed a long-range sensor with Nog. An impromptu powwow: When the da Vinci had docked at the station following its sojourn in the Gamma Quadrant, Dr. Lense received word that she was one of five finalists for the prestigious Bentman Prize. What Lense clearly hadn't planned on was heading off in a runabout with Bashir at the helm because—surprise, surprise—Bashir was a finalist, too. (Personally, Kira thought Lense looked like she was being knifed when she got that little bit of news.)

Copyright © 2005 by Paramount Pictures