Free Lost Time by Ilsa J. Bick Page B

Escape pods are prepped. Shuttlecraft Templar is standing by. We are ready to proceed at your command.”
    “Good. Haznedl, raise the Li. ”
    “On audio, sir.”
    “Kira, this is Gold. You ready?”
    Her voice was steady and betrayed nothing.
    “Ready as we’re ever going to be. This is one risky plan, David.”
    “I could say something apropos like risk is our business.”
    “Please, don’t. What about my chief engineer?”
    “We’ll get him back to you.”
    “Then, as they say on Earth, bring it on.”
    “You’re going to wish you hadn’t said that.” Gold gave a short nod then tapped his combadge. “Engineering, Gomez. How are you and Duffy doing?”
    “We’re just about there, Captain. We’ve had to reroute power from the backup phaser generators through the deflector grid. I’ve tied in an emergency relay from the shields just in case.”
    “Our shields? You’re telling me that it might come down to a choice between that deflector, and shields?”
    “No choice, sir. We’re talking one big pulse. ”
    “How much time to charge the deflector?”
    “Once we’re in position, about sixty seconds.”
    “A lot can happen in sixty seconds.”
    “Best we can do, Captain. We’ve got another problem, though. Our last run-in damaged our torpedo launchers. I had to reroute the launch assist generators, but it’s jury-rigged. It won’t hold up for long.”
    “They may not have to. Do what you can. Haznedl, signal the Li. Feliciano, when Duffy’s ready, beam him back aboard the Li. ” Gold pulled in a breath. “All right, people, this is it.”

    “Almost there,” said Duffy. His hair was mussed; he was covered in grime and there were crescents of dirt under his nails; and he was sweating so much his tunic was glued to his back. They’d been working at breakneck speed and barely had time to exchange two paragraphs that didn’t contain the words containment field, magnetic oscillation, and anti-chronitonic stream.
    Duffy thought back to the moments after Kane had deactivated that…whatever it was. Hebitian, Cardassian, Bajoran, or something else altogether: He didn’t know, and wondered if now they ever would. 110 had awakened, finally; 111 had calmed, but there was a haunted look in her eyes: as if she’d been privy to a vision of a world Duffy couldn’t begin to imagine.
    Yet what he hadn’t imagined was the look on Captain Kira’s face after she and Salek and Jadzia Dax had emerged from Gold’s ready room. Why the Trill had been included, Duffy hadn’t a clue, but there was a preternatural glitter to her eyes that Duffy didn’t like. Nor did he know what had transpired, but whatever it was had clearly left Kira shaken and her lips so thinned they cut a horizontal gash above her chin. True to form, Salek was a cipher. But when Gold finally emerged, he had the thunderous look of a black, brooding storm.
    Yeah, and I can guess why: because we’re all going to get ourselves killed chasing after some Trill’s hallucinations.
    Duffy hadn’t spent much time around Dax, not enough to really understand everything about this religion she was so hot about. There had been rumors, of course; Kira’s ship was a standard Bajoran assault vessel, with a crew complement that was barely a tenth of the Gettysburg. Word traveled fast. Duffy was one of four officers on loan from Starfleet. His shipmates were Bajorans, not all religious but none with any love for the Cardassians. Duffy listened to their gripes in the mess; his roommate was an agnostic, but even he saw no utility to allying themselves to a power that would, in effect, shackle them with latinum chains. They saw the Federation as more benevolent in its way.
    So we leave them to manage their wealth and affairs as they see fit, but one hand washes the other. We get rid of the Cardassians and give them their gods, and the Federation gets resources it needs to push the Cardassians back.
    Yet for all the unknowns, it was Dax who scared him the