Part 13 (2/2)
Looking to ops, where Ensign Svetlana Gredenko was filling in for the critically wounded Lieutenant Mirren, Dax asked, ”Ops, do we still have a solid lock on the Borg scout vessel?”
”Aye, Captain,” Gredenko said.
”Helm,” Dax said, ”is the slipstream drive online yet?”
”Affirmative, Captain,” said Hernandez. ”Main deflector is fully charged, and chroniton integrator is online. Ready to engage on your order.”
A signal chirruped on Bowers's armrest display. He silenced it with a tap of his index finger and said to Dax, ”The last of the strike-team members are aboard, sir.” Something on his screen made him do a double-take. ”And you have a visitor.”
”A what?”
Bowers relayed the message to her command display, at the end of her chair's right armrest. He lowered his voice. ”It's Commander Worf from the Enterprise, sir. He beamed aboard with the last squad of reinforcements, and he's waiting for you in transporter room one. Says he won't leave till he sees you.”
Dax stood from her chair. ”Tell him I'll be there in a minute. Until then, hold the attack.”
”Understood,” Bowers said.
”You have the bridge, Commander,” Dax said.
She strode to the turbolift as quickly as she could without looking as if she was in a hurry. The ride to Deck Three took only a matter of seconds, and then she walk-jogged to transporter room one. The door slid open ahead of her, and she entered to see Worf standing alone in front of the transporter platform. In one hand he held his bat'leth, in the other his mek'leth. He regarded her with quiet resolve. ”I request permission to join your attack on the Borg, Captain.”
Dax looked at the transporter operator, an imposing male Selay whose cobralike cranial hood was marked by a colorful pattern that reminded Dax of hourgla.s.ses. ”Dismissed,” she said.
”Aye, Captain,” the Selay replied. He put the transporter console into standby mode and made a quick exit. The door closed with a m.u.f.fled hiss behind him.
Dax walked slowly toward Worf as she asked, ”Does Captain Picard know you're here?”
”Yes,” Worf replied. ”He granted my request to volunteer for this mission.”
”I find that hard to believe,” Dax said. ”Captain Picard doesn't think we should even attempt this mission. So why would he loan me his first officer?”
Bristling at the naked suspicion in her tone, Worf broke eye contact and lifted his chin in a display of defiant pride. ”When it comes to fighting the Borg, I am one of the most experienced tacticians in Starfleet. Even if the captain does not approve of your plan, he wants you to have the best possible chance of success.”
”Can I let you in on a little secret, Worf?” Dax smirked as he looked back at her. ”The way you lifted your chin and looked away just then? That's one of your tells. Every time you do that, I know you're hiding something.” The abashed look on Worf's face-and the speed with which he averted his fuming stare-told Dax she had scored a verbal direct hit. ”Why don't you try telling me what you're really doing here?”
Worf sighed and set his weapons on the transporter platform behind him. ”Captain Picard did ask me to try to change your mind about the attack. He considers it a foolhardy effort.”
”And what do you think of it, Worf?” She tried to look into his eyes, but he turned his head to show her his stern profile.
”What I think is not important,” he said.
”In other words, you agree with me, but you don't want to dishonor your captain by second-guessing his orders.” His silence told her more than anything he might have said in response. ”Let me ask you a question,” she continued. ”If we don't take the offensive in this battle, what are we supposed to do? If Captain Picard objects to my plan, what's his?”
The Klingon's prodigious eyebrows knitted together above the bridge of his nose as he frowned in irritation. ”The captain has not yet presented his plan,” he said.
Dax reached out and placed her hand on his arm. ”Let me save us both a lot of talking, Worf. I'm sure that if you tried, you could give me a dozen good reasons not to go forward with the attack, and I could give you a dozen good reasons why I should. But in the end, it'll all come down to one simple fact: This is my command; I call the shots here. Starfleet protocol demands that I show Captain Picard deference because of his seniority, but if push comes to shove, he doesn't outrank me, Worf. I'm a captain, the same rank as him. This is my s.h.i.+p, and I am taking her, and her crew, into battle. And that's final.”
He looked at her with both respect and pride. ”That is exactly as it should be,” he said. ”And I will be proud to serve under your command.”
”That's kind of you to say, but you're not coming with us,” Dax said. ”The Enterprise needs you more.”
Worf became bellicose. ”Do not be foolish, Ezri. You will need every advantage you can get against the Borg.”
”I already have an advantage,” she said with a broad smile. ”I'm a Dax, remember?”
A proud gleaming broke through his wall of gloom. ”It is at times like this that I see Jadzia in you,” he said. ”Are you certain you will not reconsider my pet.i.tion?”
”Positive,” Dax said.
He stood. ”Then I wish you success and glory in the battle to come. Qapla', Ezri, daughter of Yanas, House of Martok.”
She got up and stood in front of him. ”Qapla', Worf, son of Mogh.” Then she wrapped her arms around his barrel-thick torso and hugged him with all the strength she could muster. He returned her embrace for several seconds, and then they parted.
He picked up his weapons from the platform, climbed the stairs, and stepped onto a transport pad. Turning back, he said, ”Victory against these odds will be almost impossible.”
Dax narrowed her eyes. ”I wouldn't say impossible.”
Worf replied with a smirk, ”I meant for the Borg.”
There were a thousand potential distractions on the bridge of the Enterprise, but every time Captain Picard looked up from the padd in his hands, his eyes found the blackened cavity of his ready room. Engineers and mechanics carried out scorched bulkhead panels and the charred remains of his chair and a crate's worth of his personal effects, all incinerated.
He fixed his eyes once more on the padd, which felt cold in his palm. Updates from the Aventine confirmed that Captain Dax and her crew would be ready to launch their bold-and possibly suicidal-attack on the Borg within a matter of minutes.
It's an audacious plan, he admitted to himself. I only wish it didn't seem so...futile. Perusing its details, he feared all the ways that it could fail. If the Borg adapt to the transphasic torpedo, the Aventine will be an exposed target, he brooded. Even if the strike teams board the probe, there's no guarantee they'll prevail. And those crude weapons are bound to produce friendly-fire casualties. He frowned as he scrolled through a summary of the plan's later phases. Worst of all, it could backfire beyond our worst nightmares. If the Borg a.s.similate Captain Hernandez, there's no telling what kind of evil we might unleash on the galaxy.
A female voice with a vaguely British accent interrupted his pessimistic musings. ”Excuse me, Captain.”
He looked up to see Miranda Kadohata, the s.h.i.+p's second officer, standing in front of him. ”Yes, Commander?”
”The final roster of personnel who've transferred to the Aventine is ready, sir,” she said. ”I routed the report to your command screen.”
He nodded and started calling up the file. ”Thank you.” After a few moments, he realized Kadohata was still there, as if she was waiting for something. He looked up at her. ”Something else, Commander?”
She raised her eyebrows as she glanced away. The gesture accentuated the normally subtle epicanthic folding around her eyes, emphasizing her mixed European-Asian human ancestry. ”Starfleet Command pa.s.sed along a suggestion from Seven of Nine, but I'm not sure you'd approve of it, sir.”
Her apprehensiveness piqued his curiosity. ”Go on.”
”There is one weapon we haven't considered using on the Borg,” she said, ”and maybe we should.”
”And that would be...?”
”A thalaron projector,” Kadohata said. ”Like the one s.h.i.+nzon had aboard the Scimitar.”
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