Free The Mist by Dean Wesley Smith, Kristine Kathryn Rusch

answers.
    "Old man," I said to Dax. "Move us back to the coordinates where we came out of Mist space."
    Dax nodded.
    "We are going back over?" Worf said.
    "Do you have any other ideas, Commander?"
    "No, sir," Worf said. He scowled at his panel, then said, "But it is a trap."
    "People," I said, glancing around at my bridge crew, "that band of Mist have just declared war on the Federation, whether they intended to or not. And we need the other band of Mist to help us get our station back."
    "I don't believe we can trust them, sir," O'Brien said. "They want us to go back."
    "The chief is right, sir," Bashir said. "If they truly wanted to prevent the capture of the station, they would have approached us sooner."
    "Captain Victor is not to be trusted," Dax said.
    "This is not a debate," I said, and my crew fell silent. But right at that moment I agreed with everything they were saying. I knew it was some sort of trap, I knew Victor couldn't be trusted, yet at that moment I had no choice if we were ever going to see Deep Space Nine in real space again.
    "We're in position," Dax said.
    As she finished her statement, a rift in space opened up. For the second time in one day, the Mist swallowed us.

Eight
    THE FIVE IMPOSSIBLE planetary systems had returned, and with them, the beautiful but deadly-looking Mist ship, with its arching wings and small main section. The shift was as disorienting as coming out of hyperspace for the first time. The mind cannot accept the difference: it knows where it was, and believes it should still be there.
    I stood as we crossed through, wondering why we did not feel any real physical effects. Apparently Dr. Bashir wondered the same thing, for he frowned and took an empty console, quickly going to work.
    Dax was watching the screen and the helm. The chief was monitoring the shift so that he might repeat it, working to figure out exactly what was happening.
    I spread my legs slightly, bracing myself. I was tired of the games the Mist were playing. For the second time we had crossed into their space, and for the second time, I felt as if we were lured, even though this time it was my decision to come. The first time had been a rescue signal. The second time was Deep Space Nine.
    Bait.
    They had my station and I had gone for the bait. Yet they did not know what they had done. By taking the station they had left ships abandoned in space. They left the wormhole vulnerable, Bajor vulnerable. An entire section of space normally policed by the Federation was now open to attack from any and all sides.
    We had to resolve this quickly, or there would be great loss of life losses of a type that I couldn't even predict except that they would happen.
    I wondered about the station: what was going on inside her. Kira and Odo could handle themselves. But what of Quark's and the other businesses on the Promenade? What was happening in the Bajoran temple and Garak's tailor shop? Had the Mist placed its troops all over the station or just in Ops?
    I longed to know. I wanted to be both there and here, in order to fight properly.
    "Captain," Dax said. "The station is now visible to us."
    "And the Klingons are screaming at us, sir," Nog said. He sounded breathless.
    At the moment, I did not care about the Klingons.

    "We cared about you," Sotugh said. "You had vanished again. We thought that perhaps you were planning some sort of military maneuver."
    The Quilli growled.
    Sotugh ignored it, and leaned back, shouting, "Where is my heart of targ?"
    "Coming, sir," Arthur said.
    Sisko proceeded as if the interruption hadn't happened.

    I did not look at the cadet. I had a rudimentary plan, and its key was timing. "Hail Captain Victor," I said.
    "Yes, sir," Nog said.
    "Chief, what have you learned?" I asked while I waited for Victor to respond.
    "There's a lot of information here," O'Brien said, "but I'm not sure it's what I need."
    "Figure it out," I said.
    "Yes, sir," he said.
    Then Nog said, "I'm putting Captain Victor on screen,