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No-Winn - 1
No-Winn - 2
No-Winn - 3

A No-Winn Situation - Part Two

By Sharon

Three days.

Kira looked across the room at the pulse communicator but it remained silent. The communicator was designed to send out powerful but widely dispersed signals that made it impossible to trace the origin of a transmission. Another pulse communicator could pick up the signals, but it still wouldn’t be able to trace where the message was coming from.

Kira hadn’t heard any word from Denna since they arrived.

The depot was large but most of the area had been used for weapons storage. The living accommodations were located at the southernmost end, small by comparison to the rest of the depot, but still large enough to be comfortable. There were fifteen sleeping rooms, five washrooms, a large common space, an eating area, a tactical room, a communications center and two cargo bays. The skipjet was housed in one of them.

Kira had done an inventory of the provisions as soon as they had arrived and discovered to her dismay that much of them consisted of actual food. There were no replicators in the depot. Instead, they used the one in the skipjet but that quickly ran out of matter to replicate. Surprisingly, Vedek Winn offered to make dinner, and she turned out to be a decent cook. Kira, however, couldn’t bring herself to eat it — she didn’t want to owe Winn any favors — and made her own meals after that.

Kira spend the first day exploring the depot and discovered a rather large weapons cache still there. As for whether the phaser rifles were functional, she fired one into a wall and promptly created a new doorway.

She kept that rifle at her bedside.

By the second day, life (such as it was) began to fall into a routine. For the most part, Vedek Winn kept to herself, joining the others only at mealtimes. Kira spent time reading a book of Trill poetry that Dax had lent her, talking with Bareil (it turned out he knew a lot of obscure legends — many of them of questionable veracity), and even playing springball in the cargo bay (he won once). She also spent a few minutes watching the pulse communicator, willing it to hail her.

On the third day relations started to decline. Bareil caught a cold (from where, Kira wondered), Winn was just plain cold (had Kira snubbed her cooking one time too many?), and Kira was beginning to go stir crazy.

She left the communications center and went to get the medkit. Bareil’s cold was most unusual. When he first took ill, she gave him the standard injection of analsine, an antiviral. It worked for a few hours, then the symptoms returned. The second shot had no effect until she increased the dosage. That lasted another few hours before the symptoms came back. Over the past day she had been steadily increasing the dosage until she was now at 2 cc’s — double dosage. If there were any side effects to the drug, he didn’t show it.

For the first time ever, Kira wished Bashir was nearby.

She found Bareil in sleeping quarters that had been turned into a makeshift temple. The bed had been pushed against one wall. A utilitarian table stood against another with two small lit candles on top. Bareil was kneeling before the "altar."

Kira stood at the entrance awkwardly, not wanting to break the silence. She was just about to leave when Bareil turned around to face her.

"Is it time already?"

"I’m sorry," Kira said quickly. "I didn’t mean to interrupt—"

"Actually, there’s nothing to interrupt," he assured her, rubbing his temples. "I can’t concentrate anyway."

Kira flipped open a tricorder and knelt beside the vedek. "No change. It still looks like the common cold." She loaded the hypospray. "There’s a subspace transceiver in the communications room. I’m thinking about calling Commander Sisko. I doubt any of the Starfleet people are involved in the murders," she added quickly. The hypo hissed as Kira injected the analsine. She loaded a second dose. "I’d like Dr. Bashir to come here. This cold, or whatever it is, might not be in the tricorder’s databanks and I can’t interpret what these other readings mean."

"If you think that’s best."

"Yes." The hypo hissed again. "I think that’s best." Kira closed the medkit and stood.

"Nerys?" Bareil followed her to the door.

"Yes?"

"Thank you for coming, to Bajor I mean."

"The provisional government asked me. It’s my duty."

He nodded. "Of course."

They stared at each other for a long time.

Kira finally broke the impasse; she leaned over and kissed Bareil. "And," she whispered, "I missed you." She kissed him again. This time it was returned in kind.

"Aren’t you afraid of catching my cold?" he whispered.

Kira smiled. "Aren’t you afraid Vedek Winn will walk in?"

"Let her." He hugged Kira tightly. "I was afraid you hated me."

Kira pulled away. "Hate? Why would I hate you?"

"Because of what happened on the station. After I returned to Bajor, I realized my actions might have appeared like a... proposition."

Kira laughed.

"It’s actually a bit embarrassing," he continued. "Remember I told you once that you were in a vision I had with the orb?"

"Yes. You said it wasn’t important."

"Well," he swallowed. "I saw us. Together. I– I didn’t know what the Prophets meant so I sought you out. And when Li Nallas took over your post on the station, I invited you to visit the monastery. I showed you the orb, hoping you might have a similar vision, so that mine would make more sense."

"Wait a minute," Kira interrupted, her throat suddenly dry. She shook her head, not believing what she was hearing. "You mean it was never me. All this time you were just fulfilling some prophecy?"

"The Prophets—"

"You planned the whole affair?"

"Nerys—"

Kira stepped back. "And what about now? Is any of this—" She threw the medkit across the room. "—real? Do you actually feel anything for me, or is this all part of some prophecy?"

"It was the prophecy—"

Kira slapped him. Then a horrified expression crossed her face as she realized what she had done. She rushed out the room, past Vedek Winn, who was standing outside in the hall.

"Nerys!" Bareil ran after her, then stopped as he heard the doors to her quarters slide shut and the lock engage. "Damn!"

Vedek Winn shook her head sadly. "Bareil, such language is not worthy of a man in your position."

"Julian." Jadzia Dax’s voice came over Bashir’s communicator. "We’ve just received the autopsy reports from Bajor. I’m uploading it to the medlab computer."

"Right." Bashir made his way to the medical laboratory adjoining the infirmary. "What made them change their minds?"

"They weren’t able to find anything. I think they’re getting desperate. A prylar died in his sleep last night."

Bashir sat down at the lab’s terminal. "Computer, display file Bajor Alpha One."

The screen lit up and text began to scroll down it. Death by natural causes, the coroner concluded in each case. Bashir backed up to the first case and began to read the particulars silently.

Dax entered the medlab a few minutes later. "Have you found anything?" She stood behind the doctor.

"I don’t know. The only odd thing is that all of the victims appear to have been suffering from a rhinovirus — the common cold — when they died."

"Isn’t there a cure for that?"

"Yes there is. In fact, cases two and three had traces of the drug in their systems though it didn’t seem to have any effect on their symptoms." Bashir pointed to a chart on the screen. "But no one has ever died from the common cold."

"Until now."

Bashir glanced up at her. "Maybe." He tapped his communicator. "Commander Sisko?"

"Sisko here," came the baritone reply.

"Sir, I’d like permission to go to Bajor."

"Have you found something, Doctor?"

"I’m not sure. I want to inspect the corpses directly, run some tests that the coroner overlooked."

"Permission granted, pending the provisional government’s approval. I’ll have Odo meet you in Docking Bay Three at fifteen-hundred hours."

"Nerys!"

The voice seemed to be calling from far away. Kira buried her face deeper into the pillow trying to ignore it.

"Nerys!" A clatter sounded in the hall outside her quarters.

She couldn’t ignore that. Kira sat up quickly. "Lights," she ordered.

The sudden illumination blinded her for a moment. When her vision cleared she saw Vedek Bareil in the doorway, his hands and face smeared with blood.

Kira rushed to him. "What happened?"

He opened his mouth to answer but instead coughed up blood.

Vedek Winn came into the hall. "Would you two please be quiet! Some of us are trying to sleep."

"Get a medkit!" Kira hollered. Bareil groaned, clutched his side and sank to the floor.

For once Winn did not argue. She rushed off to the common area.

Kira knelt beside Bareil, placing her hand on his forehead. Fever.

Winn came running back. Kira snatched the medkit from her. "Now go contact Sisko on Deep Space Nine. Tell him to send Bashir right away."

"I can’t do that, child." Winn looked astonished at the idea. "Breaking the communication silence will put us all in danger."

"We are already in danger!" Kira exclaimed but Winn wasn’t moving. She loaded the hypo with an analgesic and shoved it into Winn’s hand. "Give him this for the pain." She dashed off before Winn could object.

"But what if he’s contagious..." she heard Winn’s plaintive cry in the distance.

In the coroner’s laboratory, Bashir placed a specimen slide into the portable analyzer he had brought from the station. Almost immediately the screen at the side of the device lit up with columns of chemical symbols.

"Hmmm," he murmured while scrolling through the list of data.

"What is it?" said Odo, who was standing behind the doctor with his arms crossed.

Bashir highlighted one of the chemicals and entered something into the keypad. A sphere appeared on the screen and began to rotate. Different parts of it flashed in different colors. "Very interesting."

"What?" Odo repeated, peering at the graphic but not making any sense out of it.

"Aha!" Bashir tapped the keypad again and the sphere froze.

"Doctor!"

Bashir jumped as if noticing Odo for the first time. He pointed to the sphere and said, "It’s silicon," as if that would explain everything.

"So?" Odo grumbled.

"All of the blood samples show minute traces of silicon."

"Meaning..." the shapechanger prodded.

Bashir replaced the specimen slide with another. New data began to scroll up the analyzer’s screen. "Well, for one thing, Bajoran blood doesn’t contain silicon."

"Then how did it get there?"

"Good question. I don’t think it’s naturally occurring."

"You don’t say." Odo looked ready to strangle the doctor.

"But no injection marks are on the bodies," Bashir continued. "And the silicon seems evenly dispersed throughout the circulatory system. If it was injected there should be a higher concentration where it entered, gradually getting lower farther away from the point of injection."

"Could it have entered some other way?" Odo asked.

"Perhaps by inhalation or ingestion," Bashir paused thoughtfully. "I doubt it was inhaled, however."

"So it was something they ate?"

"Probably, except that by itself silicon is not poisonous." He gestured to the analyzer. "These traces of silicon are unusual, yes, but it isn’t what killed them."

"Dr. Bashir!" Lan Voren, the coroner, suddenly rushed into the lab. "We are receiving an urgent transmission from Deep Space Nine."

Bashir and Odo scrambled to follow Lan to the communication room four doors down from the lab.

Sisko’s face was waiting on the viewscreen there. "Constable, we received a distress call from Major Kira. It’s some kind of medical emergency. Dax is transmitting the coordinates on a coded frequency to the Rio Grande’s computer now."

"I’m on my way." Odo marched to the landing pad on top of the building while Bashir ran to gather his medical supplies from the lab.

Kira stood looking out of Cargo Bay Two, phaser rifle in hand. The bay doors were wide open to the Barilan Wastes. She couldn’t see anything moving in the darkness. She couldn’t hear anything either. Even the wind was silent tonight.

Dead.

Kira pushed the morbid thought from her mind. It was agreed that the Rio Grande would be under silent running on its journey to the depot. She would receive no warning before it arrived. Instead, she had to leave the cargo bay doors open. Once arriving at the coordinates she transmitted, the light emitting from the bay would show them where to land.

And if, by some minute chance, another ship discovered the light from the bay... Kira gripped the rifle tighter. This phaser was capable of taking out small ships.

Finally, she noticed one of the stars seemed to be moving. Then it grew larger and dropped lower. Kira hefted the rifle and trained its sights on the point of light. She held her breath, following the light until she could make out the silhouette of a Federation runabout. When she could read the words Rio Grande on its side, Kira lowered the rifle and exhaled.

The runabout had barely touched down when its door began to open and Bashir and Odo jumped out.

"This way." Kira hustled them through the depot.

To her credit, Winn hadn’t moved from where Kira had left her. She was kneeling on the ground beside Bareil, mumbling something to him. She looked up as Kira arrived.

"I tired to keep him talking," Winn explained.

Bahsir knelt beside her and flipped open his tricorder. He took the hand sensor from the front end of the tricorder and passed it over Bareil. He frowned. "It looks like a bad cold. However..." He adjusted the settings on the tricorder and made another pass with the hand sensor.

"Silicon!" Bashir exclaimed, glancing knowingly at Odo.

"I thought you said it was harmless," Odo remarked.

"It is." The doctor tapped some keys on the tricorder. "But this... this is incredible!"

"What?!" Odo and Kira cried in unison.

"These aren’t just silicon traces. They seem to be some kind of nanite made of silicon — microscopic robots programmed to attack the body a certain way — in this case, programmed to cause the symptoms of a common cold while slowly destroying the respiratory system."

"Can you do anything to stop them?" Odo asked.

"Well, a blast of gamma radiation would definitely destroy them. However, it would also kill the patient. I’m going to try using a cardiostimulator to deliver a mild shock—"

"Shock!" Kira exclaimed.

"It shouldn’t cause any permanent damage," Bashir assured her. "Unfortunately, it might not destroy the nanites but at least it will temporarily disrupt their programming. That should buy us some time until we can get to a fully equipped medlab."

He took out the stimulator, a flat, square device about the size of a playing card, and placed it on Bareil’s chest. A red light on top flashed and he convulsed. Bashir made another pass with the hand sensor and consulted the tricorder.

"It looks like the nanites are dormant for now." He took out his hypospray and loaded a vial of cordrazine.

Bareil began to stir almost immediately after the hypospray’s hiss.

"How do you feel?" Bashir asked.

"I can breathe," he answered hoarsely. "Who are you?"

Bashir grinned. "Starfleet to the rescue."

Odo scoffed. "If you are finished congratulating yourself, Doctor, can we leave?"

Bashir’s smile vanished. "Yes, of course." He looked at Bareil. "Are you able to stand?"

"I think so." He grabbed the doctor’s hand and pulled himself up.

"Good." Bashir nodded to Kira. "Pack up whatever you need. I’m going to reconfigure a scanner on board the Rio Grande to monitor the nanites’ activity continuously. I’ll meet you there in a few minutes." Odo and Bashir went off to Cargo Bay Two.

A short while later, Kira and Bareil were making their way to the cargo bay when an explosion rocked the depot. They fell against the wall. Alarms began to wail. Further back, Winn rushed into the hall.

"What’s happening?" she cried.

A low hiss answered her as heavy metallic doors began to lower from the ceiling.

"Blast doors!" Kira exclaimed. They were programmed to automatically lower to contain intruders in one area when it seemed the depot was compromised.

Winn began to run towards them. In the distance behind her, phaser-wielding figures dressed in black appeared. They immediately began to fire.

The blast door lowered into place just before Winn could reach Kira. The vedek pounded on the door.

Kira turned away. "Let’s go!" She tugged Bareil’s arm but he was frozen in place, staring at the blast door.

"We have to help her!"

"It’s too late. The doors can only be released from tactical." She dragged Bareil down the hall towards the cargo bay. Another explosion sounded behind them. Kira glanced back fearfully but the blast door was still in place.

They rounded the corner leading to Cargo Bay Two and ran into another blast door.

"Damn!" Kira exclaimed.

"It looks like we will have to release the doors from tactical," Bareil said.

They retraced their steps back into the main hallway. Another explosion shook the depot. This time Kira could see smoking issuing from the blast door that had trapped Winn.

"There’s no time." Kira turned around again and headed for the cargo bay area. She tapped her communicator. "Odo, we’re trapped. You’ll have to leave without us. I’m going to the skipjet."

At the entrance to Cargo Bay One another blast door was lowering. Kira and Bareil broke into a run, dropping to the ground and scrambling under the blast door just before it clamped into place, sealing off the cargo bay from the rest of the depot.

"Get inside," Kira ordered. She ran to a console set into one wall of the bay and slapped the control to open the bay doors.

Bareil was waiting for her in the cockpit. She powered up the skipjet’s engines. The bay doors seemed to take forever to slide open and Kira couldn’t wait. As soon as she guessed they were wide enough to accommodate the skipjet, she took off into the night.

They had barely risen above the depot when the skipjet became awash with phaser fire. Kira glanced at the scanners. Six fighters were chasing them.

She disengaged the cargo attachment and felt a burst of speed as the skipjet was relieved of its burden. She pushed the engines to their highest velocity but it still wasn’t enough. The skipjet was a civilian vehicle; it wasn’t built to outrun attack craft.

The fighters were gaining. The next phaser blast tossed the skipjet sideways.

"We’ve lost attitude control. Switching to manual." Kira looked at Bareil. "Take the controls."

"What?!"

"We’re not going to outrun them." Kira climbed out of her seat and grabbed the phaser rifle. "I’m going to see if I can pick them off."

"But I can’t fly!"

"Just keep it steady." She gave him an encouraging nod then left the cockpit.

Kira found a rope in a storage receptacle midship. She tied one end to a chair attached to the floor of the lounge area and the other around her waist then lowered the skipjet’s ramp. She dropped to her stomach then slid halfway down the ramp until she could get a clear view of their pursuers. She trained the rifle’s sights on one of the moving points of light.

"Take this, you bastard." Kira fired and the night lit up with an explosion. She hid her face as a wave of heat from the blast rolled passed her. When she looked up again, the other fighters had dropped back a bit, probably wondering how an unarmed cargo freighter could be firing at them.

Kira took advantage of their momentary indecision and targeted another fighter. She was rewarded with another eruption of flames.

This time, however, the fighters didn’t slow down. Instead, they picked up speed and came after them, phasers firing continuously. Kira managed to pick off one more before a phaser hit its target. The skipjet shook then dived.

"Nerys!" Bareil shouted.

Kira shimmied up the ramp and untied the rope around her waist. She ran back to the cockpit. The controls were fried.

"We’re going to crash, aren’t we?" he said.

Kira climbed into the pilot’s seat. "Get in back and strap in."

"What about you?"

"I’m going to try and land us in one piece."

"I want to stay with you."

"It’s safer in back. Now, go!" She shoved him. Reluctantly, Bareil left the cockpit.

Kira called up the map. She wanted to stay away from the settlements — for all she knew, they could be the assassins’ hideout. She scanned for rocky terrain — it would leave less obvious tracks than the sand — and spied an outcropping of rock.

Kira cut the engines, depriving the fighters of a light to follow and relying on the skipjet’s aerodynamics to guide the ship down.

It plunged faster than she expected. Kira hit the console, trying to use the thrusters to level out. According to the altimeter readout, the ground was coming up way too fast.

Three hundred meters.

Two hundred.

One hundred...

Kira braced herself. The last thing she heard was the crunching of metal then the night swallowed her up.

"They’re turning back," Bashir said. "I guess the fighters are atmospheric only."

"Shields holding at seventy-five percent," Odo confirmed.

"What do we do now?"

"We wait until they’re out of scanner range then we go back. Unless I’m mistaken, the skipjet has no defenses."

"Should we inform the Bajoran authorities of what happened?"

"No," Odo said decisively. "How do you think the killers found the depot in the first place? They must have intercepted and decoded the station’s transmission somehow. I don’t want us broadcasting our location."

The Rio Grande turned around and slowly dropped back to Bajor.

Vedek Bareil was numb and something sticky was dripping down his face. He licked his lips. Metallic. Blood.

On impact the skipjet had plunged into darkness as even the emergency lighting failed. He loosened the safety strap and slid out of the seat onto the floor. Everywhere hurt, especially where the safety strap had dug into him. He forced himself to stand and stumbled into the cockpit.

There were still a few lights blinking on the console to provide a bit of illumination. The plastisteel canopy was shattered. Kira lay slumped over the console, one hand still gripping the phaser rifle. There were several bloodstained gashes in her uniform where the plastisteel had grazed her.

"Nerys," he whispered, rushing to her side.

She groaned and lifted her head. "Is this the Celestial Temple?"

"What?" Bareil tried to lift her out of the seat but the crash had pushed the console downward, jamming her legs under it.

"Blast it," Kira mumbled.

"I don’t understand."

In response Kira slowly lifted the phaser rifle and pointed it at the console.

"No! Wait!"

She fired, sending forth a shower of sparks from the console. Bareil turned away. When he looked back a huge chunk of the console was blown away.

"You could have taken your legs off!"

"I would have had to if the console couldn’t be moved." Kira pushed herself up and immediately dropped to the floor. She cried out in pain. "My right leg. I think it’s broken."

Bareil picked her up and backed out of the cockpit and down the ramp. Once outside, he laid her down then dropped to the ground beside her.

"What do we do now?" he asked.

No answer.

"Nerys?" He shook her.

"Hmmm," Kira murmured. "We have to destroy the ship. If we’re lucky, they’ll think we died in the crash." She raised the phaser weakly then dropped it again. "You have to fire at the ship."

Bareil stared at the rifle in horror. "I can’t."

"You must." She pushed the phaser towards him. "Take it," she ordered.

Bareil picked up the rifle gingerly, as if he had never held one before. Kira realized that he probably hadn’t. He aimed it awkwardly at the skipjet.

"Wait," Kira interrupted. "We have to get behind a rock or something to shield us."

Bareil carried her behind a nearby boulder. He then aimed the phaser again, closed his eyes, said a silent prayer to all the Prophets, and pulled the trigger. The skipjet exploded. Bareil dropped the phaser as if it had burned him.

"Are you all right?" Kira asked.

"I don’t think my supper is where it used to be."

"We have to get out of here before they come to investigate."

Bareil scanned the horizon and noticed some lights off in the distance. He pointed. "There’s a settlement over there."

"No," Kira said. "We have no way of knowing if they’re friendly."

"Yes, we do." He shut his eyes in prayer.

"Are you crazy?"

He stared at her. "We’ll find shelter at that settlement." He picked her up.

"Bareil, don’t do this." Kira winced in pain.

He kissed her forehead. "Have faith, Nerys. Have faith."

[ Part Three ] [ Back to top ]

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