The Long Night (8 page)

"We should confirm," she said.

He knew it. And he also knew that he wanted to be the first to look on the Supreme Ruler's face. If the man still had a face. What a disaster it would be if the Supreme Ruler's coldsleep bed had broken open.

Sisko switched his tricorder onto record. He would need a record for the Federation and for the Jibetians. "Dax, O'Brien, I'm using my tricorder to record all of this. State your name and rank and the time we've already spent on this mission."

They did, and he followed suit. O'Brien shot him a concerned glance. Even though they had briefed him, no one apparently had told him all the things of import that he needed to know.

"Chief, can you open this door without harming anything?"

O'Brien frowned at Sisko's tricorder. "Judging from the way this equipment works, I can."

"Nothing appears to be blocking the door from either side," Dax said, using her own tricorder. Her hands were shaking, too. Her breath left a small bit of condensation on the wall.

"All right then," Sisko said. He watched as O'Brien reached forward and touched a small square area beside the door. With a scraping of metal that sent shivers down Sisko's back, the door slid back.

A light went on inside, startling all of them. Dax put a hand on Sisko's arm. "If this is the chamber of the Supreme Ruler," she said, "there might be protections."

"I don't read anything," O'Brien said.

"But that doesn't mean they aren't there," Dax said.

Sisko nodded. He didn't care if a green glow from the Jibetian god struck him dead. He was going to be the first person in that room in over eight hundred years.

He slipped inside the door and found himself in a chamber filled with art and more designs. The equipment on the wall glowed. The light was a single spot over a coldsleep bed on top of a raised platform.

Sisko let his tricorder scan the room so that he could show it undisturbed. Then he walked carefully toward the platform. The light was eerie, a recognition of life where there was none.

Dax followed as did O'Brien.

"I don't like this," O'Brien said.

But Sisko would wait to get O'Brien's opinion after they had looked at that coldsleep bed. Sisko climbed the stairs. Beside the bed, a long staff still glowed green. It was the symbol of the Supreme Ruler. It never left his side.

"Benjamin," Dax said softly.

"I see it, old man," he said.

He ran his gloved hand over the top of the staff, careful not to touch it. Then he peered down into the opaque lid.

The soft light made the Supreme Ruler's skin look faintly gray. The ruler was a young man, maybe in his late twenties, his features still perfectly formed. His face hadn't sunken in like the other dead man's had. The Supreme Ruler had the ridged cheekbones that marked a Jibetian, and Sisko knew that his eyes, if open, would have flecks of green in the whites.

The man's age surprised Sisko, even though he knew the history of Jibet. He figured that the Supreme Ruler would be a broken old man with a long white beard and features filled with age and wisdom. Not a man who, in real time, hadn't lived as long as Sisko had.

"We found it," Dax said, her voice barely containing the excitement. "We found him." She, too, reached down and reverently touched the green symbol.

"That we did, old man," Sisko said. "That we did."

"You may have found a little more than you were expecting." O'Brien's voice held none of the reverence that Dax's did. Sisko recognized the tone. It was O'Brien at his most cautious. He didn't know how Sisko would react to his find.

Sisko turned to him. O'Brien was kneeling beside the coldsleep chamber, his tricorder in his hand. After a moment he looked up at Dax and Sisko. "This is still working."

Sisko, for what seemed like an eternity, couldn't get his mind to wrap around O'Brien's words. He couldn't let the thought in. And then when it did Sisko broke into a cold sweat, and his stomach clamped down hard.

He hit his comm badge with so much force that it felt like he slapped himself in the chest. "Doctor Bashir! We need you on the surface immediately."

The doctor shot back a quick response that Sisko ignored. He crouched over the opaque glass and looked into the young face of Jibim Kiba Siber. The young and very much alive face of the Supreme Ruler of a peaceful empire that might soon be peaceful no longer.

And Sisko shuddered.

IT TOOK KIRA an hour after the Defiant's departure to settle the issues of docking clamps, cargo logs, and incoming freighters. Then she retreated to the commander's office to examine the files he left for her.

She sat in his chair and read as quickly as she could. The chair always felt awkward to her-Gul Dukat had sat in it so much that it had molded to his shape. Try as she might, she could never get comfortable in it. Nor, if she were completely honest, could she ever be comfortable in an officer's room of Cardassian design. It had gotten so that she could ignore most of the Cardassian designs in her normal haunts around the station, but places like this-and Odo's brig-made her extremely uncomfortable. Try as she might, she could never leave the past completely behind.

Nor, it seemed, could the Jibetians. When their Supreme Ruler left, eight hundred years before, Jibetian culture continued to follow him as spiritual leader of their world. In search of their leader they spread out over outlying planets, eighty in all, forming the Jibetian Confederacy. The same confederacy was now in the middle stations of applying for membership to the Federation.

Centuries of research and speculation discussed the whereabouts of the ship and the consequences of finding the Supreme Ruler or his descendants on some distant outpost. Even more documents dealt with the wealth of the ship itself, which had to be Quark's interest in all of this.

She had just finished reading the first three files on the Nibix and now couldn't shake the fear of impending doom. She was starting to understand why Dax and Sisko had acted so harshly. If they actually did find the lost ship, the station would be overwhelmed with curiosity seekers, treasure hunters, and a thousand Federation and Jibetian officials. At the moment the calm around the station felt like the calm before the storm.

A very powerful storm if her guess was right.

At least she could use the time to become more informed. She pulled Commander Sisko's chair up closer to his desk and punched in the request for information on the current status of Jibetian and Federation treaties and the Jibetian's request to join the Federation. After a moment the screen brought up the file, and she settled in for a long afternoon of technical reading when her comm badge chirped.

"Kira here."

"Major," said Ensign Stafa, whom she had left in charge of communications in Ops, "there's an incoming message for you from the Jibetian High Council."

Kira couldn't have heard that right. She had been reading about Jibet, so she must have inserted that word in for something else. "From whom?"

"The Jibetian High Council. Do you want me to pass this along to someone else? They're saying it's rather urgent."

And odd. She squared her shoulders and put on her best military poker face. There was no way the Jibetians would know about the discovery of the Nibix, or what could be the Nibix. She and Odo had been monitoring all outgoing communication and nothing had been leaked. Nothing. This had to be about some other matter unrelated to the Nibix and the timing was just bad.

She forced herself to take a deep breath. "I'll take it here."

The screen on Commander Sisko's desk cleared to show a middle-aged man with an almost albino complexion and thinning blond hair. His cheekbones were ridged, and his deep blue eyes had green dots in the whites.

Kira smiled as if greeting any dignitary. "I am Major Kira Nerys, first officer of Federation Station Deep Space Nine. How may I be of service?"

"Forgive the intrusion, Major. I am Jiber Kidath of the Jibetian High Council." She could see the man from the waist up. He bowed slightly as he addressed her. "I am inquiring about a mission we believe your commander has undertaken. A mission looking for our ship the Nibix."

"The lost ship?" Kira asked. She hated diplomacy. It went against every blunt bone in her body. Yet she knew that each word she said now was important. It was equally important to satisfy the official without lying to him. If possible.

"Yes," Kidath said, nodding. "The lost ship. We understand your commander has led an expedition to find it."

"I am not at liberty to discuss Commander Sisko's activities, Councilman. Perhaps if you went through regular Federation channels..." She let her voice drop off.

"I intend to, Major," Kidath said. "I had hoped that you might cut through the official red tape. I understand your people have a deep religious faith and know what it means to have other cultures interfere with your beliefs."

"The Bajoran religion accepts other cultures," Kira said, unable to let the misconception through. "I wouldn't be on this station if it didn't."

"Forgive me, Major. I had presumed much on little knowledge." Kidath bowed again. "Perhaps it would be best if I spoke with your commander."

"I think you need to go through Federation channels," Kira said, her palms flat on the desktop. A trickle of sweat ran down her spinal column. He was trying to trick her, to force her to tell him that Commander Sisko was gone.

"You are free to speak with me, but your commander is not?"

Kira smiled her most charming smile, thankful that she had had a few hours to read about the Nibix before this contact. "I had thought that your communication had something to do with Deep Space Nine business. The Federation takes a dim view of any discussion about your lost ship. They are quite protective of it. Any type of communiqué about it must be referred to them. Commander Sisko could tell you no more than I could. I'm merely trying, as you say, to cut through the official red tape and save you some time."

"Thank you, Major." Kidath smiled back at her. "I appreciate your help-and your surprisingly deep knowledge of my people's greatest tragedy and greatest hope."

His image winked off her screen. She clenched her fists and then opened them again, biting back a curse. She hadn't fooled him at all. He had made that clear from his last remark. He knew that Commander Sisko had taken the Defiant in search of the Nibix. She would have to let Odo know there was a leak somewhere.

She reached for her comm badge when the computer screen filled, letting her know that a special security-coded message was coming in from Starfleet.

She responded to the hail with the proper code, and Admiral Wolfe's face appeared.

"Major Kira," he said without preamble, "I understand that Commander Sisko has taken the Defiant on a mission to find the Nibix. Is that so?"

Kira felt like a child caught with her hands in someone else's mess. "Yes, sir," she said.

"His timing couldn't be worse," the admiral said, looking at someone beyond the screen.

"Commander Sisko believed that he had to act before anyone else did," Kira said slowly.

"I am not questioning his decision," the admiral said, "although I do wish this had waited a year or two. What are his chances of success?"

"I know little about the Nibix, sir," Kira said, "except what I learned this afternoon. However, the commander and Lieutenant Dax have a great deal of knowledge about the ship, and they are convinced-"

"That's enough, Major. You've answered me. Have Commander Sisko contact me when he returns and not before. We can't even trust secured channels on this thing."

Clearly, Kira thought. "Admiral, a moment before I received your communiqué, Jiber Kidath, a member of the Jibetian High Council, contacted me. He wanted to know if Commander Sisko was searching for the Nibix. I did not answer him, sir, but he took the fact that I had any knowledge at all about the Nibix as an affirmative."

Admiral Wolfe nodded. "He would with the information I'm sure he has."

"To be honest, sir," Kira said, "I have no idea how he or you even knew to ask the question. Commander Sisko and I thought we had this mission under wraps."

"You obviously have a security breach, Major. I suggest you find it."

"Yes, sir," Kira said.

"We are sending three starships to your area. They are to be used as you and Commander Sisko see fit. Lock down the station and be prepared for anything. Understood?"

"Yes, sir," Kira said.

"And one more thing," the admiral said. "If you have not contacted the Defiant since they arrived at their destination, do not do so now unless absolutely needed. No point in taking any undue chances."

Kira nodded. "Understood."

"Good luck," the admiral said. "There is a lot riding on the outcome of this."

The screen blinked out, and then the files on the Nibix returned. Kira took her hands off the desk. Wet palm prints marred the surface. The leading edge of the storm had just hit. She had no idea how the news got out, but it had. It was time to get prepared. If the admiral ordered her to lock down the station, then she'd lock it down tighter than it had ever been locked.

She stood and went through the door into Ops on a run, shouting orders as she went.

JULIAN BASHIR never expected to find himself in the commander's chair of a starship. Heading sickbay, yes, but the commander's chair, never. He'd had the training in the Academy-they all had-but medical officers were allowed to cut some of the niceties of command short while they concentrated on six semesters of rudimentary alien anatomy and two years of starship medicine, or, as it was called among the medical students, six ways to save a dying captain using a tricorder, a thermometer, and a comm badge.

His first forty-five minutes in the chair had been astonishingly easy. The ensigns Commander Sisko had assigned to the mission seemed to know the routine. Bashir had only to sit nervously in the chair, monitor the life signs on his scanner, and wait for his next order.

The calm was too good to last.

"Sir?" Ensign Coleman's cautious voice drawled the word. Long and low and uncertain. "I think we have a problem."