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Sure enough, it only took a few minutes for them to pound the hell out of the Enterprise. They hemmed the ship in, keeping them from leaving the confines of the Denorios Belt, thus limiting Perim’s options for evasive maneuvering.

And then the shields went down. With nowhere to go, they were sitting ducks. Addison kept firing away at the enemy vessels-even managing to destroy one-but there was only so much they could do. At least ten people were dead, according to Doctor Crusher, and a lot more wounded.

The ship shook with one hit that Ro had thought was a clean miss until Kadohata said, “Direct hit on the port nacelle strut-it’s broken off! And we’ve got a hull breach in deck thirty-nine!”

O’Brien called from engineering. “We’ll never get warp power now, sir. We have to-”

The chief engineer’s voice was cut off by an alarm and the computer said, “Warning-forcefield failure in two minutes.”

“All right, everyone out!”

A voice from the other side of Picard said, “Captain, there’s one thing that might work.” Until the shapechanger spoke, Ro had forgotten about Odo.

“Tell me,” Picard said urgently.

Odo hesitated. “The Jem’Hadar worship the Founders as gods. It’s possible that they will obey me without question because of who-because of what I am.”

“Why did you not mention this sooner?” Picard’s voice had a furious undertone.

“It is not something that I’m particularly comfortable with-nor am I sure it will work.”

Ro said, “You still could’ve mentioned it before we lost-”

Picard put a hand on Ro’s. “We can save recriminations for another time.”

Assuming there is another time, Ro thought angrily.

“Lieutenant, open a channel to the lead Jem’Hadar ship.”

They are tenacious, these worms, Omet’iklan thought as his second moved to put out yet another fire on the flight deck. Though it was only one ship, the Federation vessel had destroyed one of Omet’iklan’s fleet, and done considerable damage to the other two.

But they’d paid a dear price. One of the ship’s nacelles was gone, they had exhausted their supply of quantum torpedoes, and their power output was severely reduced.

Not that Omet’iklan’s ship was in much better shape. But they were plenty strong enough to finish off these foul creatures.

“We are being hailed,” the third said.

“There is nothing to be said,” Omet’iklan said dismissively.

The third then looked up with wonder and fear in his eyes. “First-it is a Founder!”

“What?” Omet’iklan had not been informed that one of the gods was on the Enterprise. Not that they had any need to inform him of anything, but if a Founder was on board, why wait until now to contact them?

Too many questions, and a relatively simple method of getting answers: “Put it through.”

Gazing into the small screen that covered his right eye, Omet’iklan saw a Founder.

At first, he was filled with reverence. “Founder,” he said.

“First, you are to break off this attack immediately,” the Founder said.

Then Omet’iklan recognized the god in question, and realized that it was one who had fallen from grace. “You are the traitor, Odo. You have been cast out of the Great Link.”

“I am still part of the Great Link, First, and have been welcomed back more than once. Now you must-”

“Do nothing! Did you think me a fool to try to win my trust with this transparent ploy? There is no Great Link for you to return to, Founder, for you have destroyed the gateway! Perhaps I will be damned for what I do now, but I will not see the Dominion defeated by the likes of you. Victory is life, and you will not achieve victory this day, Founder. Destroy them!”

The officers under him hesitated. All of a sudden, they were under orders to kill a god. A Jem’Hadar could not do such a thing and expect to live for very long.

Omet’iklan realized that he could not force his soldiers to do this. It was Omet’iklan’s decision, and his alone. There would be grave consequences for this act. But the fallen Founder had obviously betrayed them all. The destruction of the Bajoran