Miracle Workers (SCE Books 5-8) - Keith R. A. DeCandido_. [et al.] [39]
I just hope this plan works.
Of course it’ll work. Shar and I ran the numbers a hundred times. Both Colonel Kira and Commander Vaughn approved it. It will work.
So why don’t I feel confident?
“Computer,” he finally said after swallowing the last of his tube grubs, “play some music.”
“Please specify.”
Nog thought for a moment. Since I am alone, may as well take advantage. “Play the third movement from Blee Luu’s Endless Dream.”
The drad music cascaded over Nog’s ears, and he immediately felt more relaxed. Nog could never understand why so many people reacted so badly to this lovely sound, but everyone from Jake Sisko and Uncle Quark to his roommates at the Academy had practically run screaming from the room every time he tried to play it. One of these days, I need to get my hands on a copy of her new recording.
Naturally, the da Vinci showed up just as he was getting into it.
With two quick stabs at the console, Nog opened a channel and cut off the music. “ Rio Grande to da Vinci, this is Lieutenant Nog. It’s good to see you.”
The face of an older human with wispy white hair on his head and four pips on his collar appeared on the viewscreen. “This is Captain Gold of the da Vinci at your service, Lieutenant. We’re ready to head to Empok Nor whenever you are.”
“Thank you, sir. Please set course 187 mark 9 and proceed at full impulse. We’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
“Good. Lieutenant Commander Duffy has a full away team ready to go.”
“I’m transmitting beam-over coordinates now,” Nog said, and he suited action to words on his console. “That’ll put us right at the access to the core.”
“Good,” the captain repeated. Then he smiled a friendly smile. “Let’s get moving.”
Nog nodded and cut the connection. He took an instant liking to Captain Gold, and it gave him a good feeling about the mission in general. He had a plan, it would save the station, and the da Vinci crew would help him to implement it.
In ten minutes, Empok Nor was close enough for visual range. He called it up on the main screen.
His left leg started to itch. He didn’t bother to scratch his prosthetic—besides, he knew it was just a psychosomatic reaction to this place. After all, he’d been here twice before, and each time he’d almost been killed—once by a drug-crazed Garak, once by a squadron of Jem’Hadar during a prisoner exchange. Let’s hope that I keep the not-dying streak going.
The first time he came here, he thought it looked exactly the same as the Bajoran station. And on the face of it, it was: the classic Cardassian design of a circle with pointed protrusions that looked like limbs trying to claw themselves out of dirt. One of Nog’s classmates at the Academy theorized that it was an architectural metaphor for how Cardassian culture managed to claw its way up from being a resource-poor planet to a major player in Alpha Quadrant politics.
Now he looked at it with a more professional eye, and he could see all the differences. Empok Nor had been abandoned for four years, after all, and hadn’t had the benefit of the Starfleet upgrades that had been going on on Deep Space 9 for the last seven-plus years. Empok Nor had none of the weapons or sensor upgrades, the improved structural supports, or any of the other dozens of improvements—some of which Nog had been involved in himself.
Of course, Empok Nor right now had one very critical thing that DS9 didn’t, and it presently sat enticingly in the lower portion of the station.
A working fusion core.
The core was still active, too, and the quick scan Nog did showed that life support and artificial gravity were still functioning, as they were last year when the Defiant rescued Colonel Kira from