“A cloaking device?”

“That’d be my guess, sir. I think whoever killed these people planned his escape.”

That power spike Shar thought he detected,Kira realized. If it was a thruster burst, a cloaked shuttlepod could have propelled itself clear of the freighter whileDefiant was still on approach, and then gone to warp without our realizing it.

Gordimer approached her. “This was all planned,” he said, voicing the same conclusions she had. “All of it. But why?”

Kira’s thoughts during the chase returned to her: Maybe most of these weremercenaries, opportunists. But someoneamong them was sending out a message to whoever would come after them for what happened on Bajor.

Then an earlier notion replayed itself in her mind: the fact that the Defianthad beaten the odds against finding the Besinian vessel after so great a head start. Now Kira knew the truth: The Defianthadn’t beaten the odds at all. It had been lured out here.

Nog reported in: “Captain, I’ve managed to get the warp drive operational, and have already initiated a restart sequence, which should take no more than fifteen minutes. A minimal crew should be able to get this thing back to the station for analysis by 0100 tomorrow morning at warp five.”

“Thank you, Lieutenant. Stand by for further instructions.”

Kira’s mind raced. The killer expected, even wanted, the freighter to be caught. The crew had probably been misled into believing there would be a very different outcome to the confrontation, and had been killed to keep them from talking. The autopilot and the decoy readings were designed to keep the Defiant’s crew distracted so the killer could escape.

But why not destroy the ship?Kira wondered. Why not just—?

Kira’s thoughts froze as she saw it. The restart sequence.

“We’ve got to get out of here. Now,” she told Gordimer. “Contact the ship. Have them lock on to both teams and be ready to beam us out on my command.” Tapping her own combadge, she cursed herself for not seeing it sooner. “Kira to Nog.”

“Nog here, Captain.”

“Shut down the restart sequence, Lieutenant.”

“Sir?”

“Shut it down,Nog,” Kira snapped. “That’s an order.”

“Aye, sir…. Initiating core shutdown…. Uh-oh.”

“What is it?”

“The antimatter injector isn’t responding. It’s continuing to cycle up to release, and the rate is accelerating. Sir, this thing is going to rupture any second.”

Kira turned back to Gordimer. “Now, Ensign.”

“Energize, Defiant.Seven to beam out.”

The alien bridge dissolved around Kira, replaced by the cramped confines of Defiant’s transporter bay. Chao had successfully snatched all seven members of the boarding party.

Kira tapped her combadge as she bolted off the stage and started running. “Kira to bridge. Shields up. Get us out of here, Sam. Best speed.”

The ship pitched beneath her, knocking her against a corridor wall as she ran: the blast front from the exploding warp core. The artificial gravity winked as the Defianttook the hit, throwing her to the deck. Then the ship seemed to right itself; she felt the vibrating hum of Defiant’s acceleration to warp through the deckplates, and she knew they were clear.

Bowers turned toward her as she entered the bridge. “Are you all right, Captain?”

Kira nodded. “Status?”

“Still in one piece,” he assured her. “No serious damage. But it was close. What happened?”

She filled Sam in on the evidence found, the conclusions drawn. His face became a mask of barely contained anger as he understood the extent to which he, along with everyone else, had been fooled by their adversaries.

“We were played,” he said.

Kira nodded, suddenly recalling a human expression of Captain Sisko’s that seemed to fit their circumstances perfectly. “Someone is throwing down a gauntlet. And we need to figure who, damn fast.” She turned to sciences. “Shar, I want you to work on compiling and analyzing the tricorder data collected by the boarding party. Cross-check those scans against the Defiant’s sensor logs and prepare a report for our return to the station. If there’s anything useful in those readings that will help us figure out what’s really going on, I want to know about it.”

“I can begin at once, sir,” Shar replied. “But the work may best be conducted in science lab one. Permission to leave the bridge?”

“Granted,” Kira said, crossing to the command chair and settling into it as Shar exited.

“Sir,” Bowers said. “I want to apologize for before. My intent wasn’t to challenge your authority to lead as you see fit, only to remind you you had others you could depend on who were ready to walk into danger on your behalf.”

Kira shook her head. “No apology necessary, Sam. And I know I can depend on you. That’s why I left you in command. But you need to remember that even though this uniform is still new, I’ve sat in Defiant’s center seat before, as well as that of her predecessor.” She smiled at him. “Not to mention the fact that I’ve had the destruct codes for both ships since Day One. I’m no stranger here.”

Bowers nodded. “Understood, sir. I suppose some of us, the veteran Starfleet people, I mean, still need a shot of cold reality to remind us of those things. At least, I did. And that surprised me. I thought I understood, intellectually at least, that for a good many Militia officers this transition would be an easy one. But part of me still reacted to you like you were new to the game. I just want you to know it won’t happen again, Captain.”

She gave him a nod, accepting his honesty without judgment. “Return to station, Lieutenant.”

“Aye, sir,” Bowers said, withdrawing to his standing console in the aft section of the bridge.

“Captain,” Tenmei said from conn. “I’m picking up a temperature fluctuation in the ablative armor, grid sector Z-47.”

Kira turned to the engineering station. “Mr. Senkowski?”

“I see it. It’s a second-decimal-place differential. I don’t believe it’s cause for concern, Captain.”

Kira noted that Tenmei seemed displeased with Senkowski’s response, but had refocused her attention on conn. “Keep an eye on it anyway,” Kira told the engineer. “We don’t want it turning into a bigger problem.”

“Medical bay to bridge,”came Tarses’s voice over the comm.

“Kira here. How’s our guest, Doctor?”

“I regret to report she expired five minutes ago, Captain. She’d suffered multiple internal and external injuries, including cranial trauma. The injuries were inflicted methodically and with great precision. She was definitely tortured, sir.”

Kira’s left hand curled into a fist. “Have you had any luck identifying her?”

“Nurse Richter transmitted her DNA scan and her earring design to Militia headquarters on Bajor a short while ago. They’ve verified her identity as Ke Iniri, 24, a resident of Sidau village. More than that, they weren’t able to say. I’m sorry, sir. I wish there was more I could have done.”

“Don’t beat yourself up, Simon,” Kira said. “I know you did everything possible. Please see to her remains according to Bajoran custom until we can determine her next of kin. Bridge out.” Kira turned to face the forward viewer, trying to keep her voice even, silently vowing to find whoever was responsible for Ke Iniri’s death and make sure they were never in a position to harm anyone else. “Helm, set course for Deep Space 9, warp eight.”

“Warp eight,” Tenmei echoed. “Aye, Captain.”

Hours later, moving through the airlock linking the Defiantto the station, Kira found Vaughn waiting to greet her on the other side. He was leaning back against the corridor wall, his arms folded.

“Welcome back,” he said. “Heard you had some trouble.” He fell into step alongside her as she entered the docking ring, and together the two of them moved down the gently curving passageway.