The Battle of Betazed - Charlotte Douglas [0]
This novel takes place approximately two months after the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode “Tears of the Prophets,” and a few months before the events of Star Trek: Insurrection.
Prologue
S ARK E NAREN HAD VOLUNTEERED for a suicide mission.
Scanning the heavens surrounding his homeworld, the scion of the Fourth House, Heir to the Blessed Books of Katara, and Holder of the Sacred Scepter of Betazed, experienced true fear for the first time in his adult life. Not the shiver of apprehension or the cold lump of dread he’d often felt before an unpleasant or mildly dangerous task. The sight of the massive armada of Dominion and Cardassian warships massed near Betazed filled him with a paralyzing terror that squeezed air from his lungs and slicked his palms with sweat.
Ironically, the intimidating size of the contingent also provided a glimmer of hope. While the enemy had kept ships in orbit since the invasion and fall of Betazed four months earlier, never had they amassed so many. The gathered forces implied that the rumor he had heard was true: the Federation was mounting an attack to free his homeworld.
If Starfleet forces succeeded in driving the invaders from Betazed, Sark’s mission was superfluous. If their offensive was unsuccessful, however, the information he carried for the Federation became more important than ever.
Tearing his gaze from the enemy ships, he looked to the holo of his wife above his ship’s flight control console. Holding their newborn son, Cort, Damira stared back at him with impish laughter in her black eyes, a smile lifting the corners of her lips, happiness radiating like a sun’s corona. His hands hesitated above the controls. One simple command would turn the ship around, away from the Dominion forces, and send him fleeing back to the resistance stronghold in the Loneel Mountains. There he could hold Damira and his son in his arms again—
Until the Jem’Hadar came for them and all the other members of the resistance.
That chilling certainty overcame his terror, and with fresh resolve, Sark continued the shuttle on its heading and moved toward a break in the Dominion line.
Suddenly, proximity alarms screeched throughout his small craft. Sensors showed a Jem’Hadar attack ship bearing down on him. If he’d had a bank of photon torpedoes, he could have tried to blast his pursuer from space, but Sark’s shuttle was no match for a ship designed strictly for warfare. Since he couldn’t out-gun the Jem’Hadar, he would have to outfly them. Steering a bob-and-weave evasive course that placed him always between a Dominion or Cardassian vessel and the determined attacker, Sark zigzagged his way through the enemy line. If the Jem’Hadar pilot fired on the runabout, he risked hitting one of his own battle cruisers.
With skill honed over years in the service of Betazed’s homeguard, Sark burst through the armada with the Jem’Hadar attack ship still on his tail. He reached for the control to send the shuttle into warp, just as the Jem’Hadar’s phased polaron weapons strafed his ship. His small craft shuddered violently.
Sark tapped the panel and sent his shuttle into warp drive. Glancing at his sensors, he saw that the Jem’Hadar attack ship had broken off, returning to its position in the Dominion line. With a sigh of relief, Sark assessed his damage. The hull had been blistered by the polaron beam, the vessel’s pitching and yawing indicating severe damage to its stabilizers, and life support was barely functioning.
Damage to the ship paled into insignificance beside the loss of subspace communications. He had no way to transmit the contents of the datachip he carried. Turning back was no longer an option. He would have to deliver his intel personally to those who could make best use of it.
With the shuttle trailing a thin thread of plasma, he headed on an unsteady vector toward Starbase 19. The journey of only a few hours at warp speed seemed a lifetime in his badly damaged craft before he finally spotted his goal. Ahead, the graceful form of the starbase beckoned, and beyond, a bright