All of us, even Mezta, followed Rivera to the Saladin’s cramped bridge. Her first officer was staring at a viewscreen showing a ragged Federation Newsnet signal that kept cutting in and out. But it was clear enough for us to hear a reporter’s hushed voice attempting to describe the indescribable—images from all over Earth of fire, smoke, rubble, and death…collapsed buildings and bridges, craters where cities used to be, and the powerless hulk that was all that was left of Starbase 1. Then a wave of static washed the signal out for good. Even Mezta was shocked by what we’d just seen. No one knew what to say.

  Somehow, I found my voice first, though it was more like a croak. “Not as well defended as we thought.”

  “The Dominion did that to your planet?” said Mezta. “Why?”

  “Because they’re bastards,” I said. But there wasn’t much point in standing around, so I turned to Rivera. “Commander, let me see this Vorta you captured.”

  Rivera led us down a deck to their cramped sickbay, where the Vorta was lying unconscious on a diagnostic bed, a portable life-support unit over his thorax. She handed me a medical tricorder, already loaded with what little we knew about Vorta physiology from the Starfleet database.

  I picked up a scanner and passed it over the Vorta’s body, starting at his feet and moving north. And I thought Vulcans had peculiar ears. Nature sure does come up with some ornate handiwork. I’d bet cash money that Vortas can hear a whisper at a hundred paces.

  “How is he?” Scotty asked.

  “There’s internal bleeding. If we’re going to save this son of a bitch, I’m going to have roll up my sleeves and do some surgery. Commander, have you got any crew with medical training?”

  “Just me, sir,” Rivera said. “I qualified as a field medic. Never had any actual experience, until yesterday. But I can assist.”

  Mezta looked confused. “Why are you trying to save him? He wanted to destroy your world. Commander, your captain was killed by this Vorta’s ships.”

  I wanted to tell her that I planned to gut him and mount his head on a pike. Instead, I said, “If he’d died in combat, when it’s us or them, we’d be cheering. But I’m a doctor, and a life is a life. Even if I’d rather slit his throat, it’s my job to keep him breathing.”

  “Would he do that for you?”

  “Only to torture us for military information,” Rivera volunteered.

  Mezta nodded slowly. “Ahh. So your Starfleet will want to do the same.”

  “He’ll be interrogated, long and hard,” I said. “But much as we might be tempted, we don’t torture prisoners.”

  “Your people have never done anything like that?”

  “Oh, on the contrary,” I said, “we’ve had a history full of barbarism and cruelty like you wouldn’t believe. We keep trying to evolve, though, even though sometimes it’s not easy to be better than you want to be. But when it’s hardest, that’s when you have to try the most.”

  A deep frown furrowed Mezta’s creased brow. “But he would torture you…and then probably kill you. Your lives would mean nothing to him.” She was damned right about that. “But you’re still going to try to save his life.”

  “Aye,” Scotty said. “Somethin’ your people might want to consider.”

  “Commander,” I said to Rivera, “you ready to see what’s inside this weasel?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Scotty and Mezta left us to go do their own kind of surgery, and we got ready to work on our patient. “I’m a mite rusty,” I said to Rivera as she organized the instruments, “and these hands aren’t quite as steady as they were, oh, say, seventy-five or eighty years back. Can you handle an exoscalpel?”

  “Good enough to carve a turkey, sir,” she said, surprising me with her quip.

  “Good enough for him, then.”

  “Did you really mean what you told Mezta? Do you really believe a life is a life?”

  “Sometimes I do,” I said. “And sometimes…I wish I didn’t.” I’ve never felt that way more than I did on that particular day. And for the umpteenth time in my life, I thanked my lucky stars that long before me, people far smarter than me decided doctors had enough to worry about just patching up their patients, without also worrying about delivering justice. That’d be up to somebody else.

  By the time we were finished stitching him up, the Vorta was out of danger. Rivera had gone to clean up, and I was alone with our patient when he woke up. I wasn’t going to say a word to him, but something Mezta had wondered about was stuck in my head: Why did the Dominion attack us? I wanted an answer. So I asked.

  “The Founders cherish order in all things,” the Vorta said, rather calmly considering his circumstances. “Disorder equals danger. You who reject the Dominion are the antithesis of order.”

  His purring voice made my blood run cold. “That may be. But we’ve never done a thing to threaten the Dominion.”

  “Your quadrant has a long history of selfish and violent disunion, punctuated by a perverse propensity for occasional interspecies unity. The periods of conflict do not concern us, since fighting among yourselves makes you weak. But when you unify, you expand your reach. If you are not stopped, it is inevitable that you will try to extend your grotesque devotion to anarchy into our quadrant.”

  “Where the hell did you people get that idea?”

  “Experience and persecution have taught the Founders a hard lesson: That which you control cannot hurt you. Thus, your very existence is a threat which cannot be tolerated. This war is a clash of civilizations, which we intend to win.”

  Not a lot of room for compromise there. The same could be said of our situation with the Bakrii. Despite top-notch work by their repair crews, there was more damage than they could fix within Vuko’s time limit. After Rivera and I got done with the Vorta, I went with Mezta and Scotty to the supervisor’s office to plead for more time. To her credit—and our surprise—Mezta really tried to change his mind.

  “Are the Starfleet ships in condition to depart?” Vuko asked.

  “Yes,” Mezta said, “but repairs won’t be complete, and neither ship will be safe enough to assure their return to Earth.”

  “That’s not our problem.”

  “The hell it isn’t!” Mezta growled. “When we come to work here, we swear an oath that no ship will leave until the job is done to the best of our ability. Are you dismissing that oath? Because if you are, that’s a disgrace to every ethic we believe in.”

  “You and your crews have fulfilled your oath. That the agreed-upon time limit prevents you from completing the work does nothing to negate that.”

  The more we listened, the madder we got. I wanted to give Vuko a piece of my mind, but Scotty shushed me with a hard look. I guess he knew I had a way of popping off and making a bad situation worse. So we both held our tongues, figuring Mezta had the best chance to sway her boss. But the more she argued, the more mule-headed he got.

  “Vuko, if any of these Starfleet people are injured or killed because their ships were substandard, your time limit will never hold up before a review board.”

  “No review board will ever hear this case. I’m following government guidelines regarding combatant vessels.”

  “No, you’re interpreting government guidelines. And the review board will question your judgment!”

  “Speaking of judgment, Mezta, remember that your promotion came about because of what happened to your predecessor when he challenged my authority. Give that some thought.”

  Well, that took the wind right out of Mezta’s sails. And Scotty must have figured a lost cause couldn’t get any more lost, so he just blew up at Vuko. Mad as a wet hen in a tote sack. I’d have done the same, but he beat me to it. “Of all the pinheaded, addlebrained, blockheaded asses I’ve ever met, you take the cake! With a little bit o’ bad luck, which you richly deserve, maybe you’ll get a chance to see just how much freedom you’ll have under the Dominion. Give that some thought.” Then he turned and we marched out of the office.

  As we walked back toward the ships, I started to say, “Not that I disagreed with what you said, Captain Scott—”

  Scotty waved his hands. “Don’t start, Admiral McCoy. I’m an engineer, not a diplomat.”

  “That’s my line. And as I believe you’ve noted once or twice in the past, now the haggis is in the fire for sure,” I said, doing my best impression of an angry Scotsman.

  That’s when we heard the whine of a small, buglike ship coming in for a landing. It swooped over us and settled down in the center of the repair complex. Scotty recognized it as a Ferengi trader.

  We waited for the Bakrii unwelcome wagon to show up. But no Vuko, no armed troops, just a service van pulling up to work on the engine pods. So when the hatch opened and the Ferengi pilot hopped down, we went over to find out why. His name was Migg, and he explained that he had a standing service contract with the Bakrii. Since Ferenginar was officially a noncombatant, he expected the contract to be honored. “What’s your destination, humans? I’m sure I have something to sell that you can use on your journey.”

  When he heard we were headed for Earth, his beady eyes widened and the color actually drained from his cheeks. “Oh, there’s no Earth to go back to,” he said, shaking his knobby head.

  “What do you know about it?” I said, not wanting to believe him. After all, the word of a Ferengi isn’t usually worth much.

  “I was in Earth sector. Rule of Acquisition Number Thirty-Four: War is good for business.”

  “Wasn’t that kind o’ risky?” Scotty said.

  “Rule Number Sixty-two: The riskier the road, the greater the profit. But I digress. When that Breen attack fleet came screaming in, it was the worst fighting I’ve ever seen. The most one-sided, too. Not that I’m a betting man, since the house always wins. But if I had been—and before I saw what I saw—I’d have put my latinum on you, Starfleet. But your defenses might as well have been paper.”

  “You obviously didn’t stick around,” I said.

  He looked up at me from beneath that bulging brow-ridge of his. “I’m greedy; I’m not an idiot. Carnage isn’t my favorite sport.”

  Scotty turned pugnacious, getting right in that Ferengi’s face. “So you don’t have any idea what finally happened.”

  “Well, no, not really. But I know what I saw, and that wasn’t pretty for your side, Starfleet. If I were you, I wouldn’t want to be seen in that uniform when the Dominion gets here. And I’d be choosing another destination. Get on with your lives. But if you’re still determined to find out all the gory details of what happened on that Earth of yours, I’ll be happy to send you a message when I get back there.”

  I stared at him. “You’re going back?! After what you just told us?”

  Migg stared right back at me, like I had two heads. “Fighting doesn’t last forever. And that’s when Rule Number One-Sixty-Two takes over: Even in the worst of times, someone turns a profit. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to bargain down the price of my service here.”

  We watched the Ferengi scuttle off to find Vuko, and Scotty and I looked at each other. What if he was actually telling the truth? What if there was no Earth to go back to? We returned to the hangars in time to see the Bakrii crews packing up their gear. Both ships had been moved outdoors in preparation for departure. Mezta came over to us, her head hanging a bit. “We got as much done as possible. I’m sorry we couldn’t do more.”

  “You did what you could,” Scotty said. What happened wasn’t her fault.

  She walked with us toward the runabout. As we came around the stern of the Saladin, we saw Rivera giving a pep talk to her twenty surviving crew members. That was the first time we’d seen them all together. Humans, a Bolian and an Andorian, both with their blue skin, and officers from three other nonhuman species. That was what Mezta noticed the most. “We meet a lot of off-worlders,” she said softly, “but not many live here. And we don’t see a lot of interspecies crews like this. Is that unusual for Starfleet?”

  “Matter of fact,” I said, “that’s what Starfleet and the Federation are all about. Living together, working together. Fighting together, when we have to.”

  “Hmmm,” was all she said. Then Scotty and I exchanged sad little nods with her, and she walked away. Rivera came over to us as her crew boarded their ship.

  “My God,” I said to her. “They’re just a bunch of kids.”

  Scotty shrugged. “That could be because at our age, everyone looks like kids.”

  Rivera managed a tired half-smile. “Even at my age, they look like kids. But they’re a good crew. They’ve been through hell and they’re still standing. So, now we go home and see what’s what.”

  “Aye,” said Scotty. “We’ll stick together, and we’ll make it.”

  It may not be Starfleet protocol, but I gave Rivera a hug, and by the way she hugged back, I knew she appreciated it. Scotty squeezed her hand. And then we each boarded our ships, not knowing what we’d find once we got back into space. And maybe it would’ve been better not to know. Unfortunately, while Scotty fired up the Hudson’s main systems, I plotted our course for Earth and ran a long-range sensor scan. Scotty could tell just by the look on my face: there was a Breen patrol out there, and they were heading this way. We both knew there was a very good chance that our little two-ship convoy wouldn’t get very far.

  We called Rivera, but she’d already seen the same thing on her sensors. “How smart is it to fly straight into a hornet’s nest?” I wondered.

  “Well, the Bakrii’ve made it clear we’re not welcome here,” Scotty said.

  “Sir, even if we were,” Rivera said, “if those Breen ships find us here, we’re dead.”

  “We’re just as dead if we run into them in open space,” I said.

  “The no-win scenario,” Rivera muttered. “How I hated that test.”

  “Maybe we need to follow the example of an old friend of ours, who didn’t believe in no-win scenarios,” I said. “We need to change the conditions of the test.”

  Scotty grimaced. “And how’re we goin’ to do that, Admiral McCoy?”

  “I haven’t figured that out yet, Captain Scott. Maybe there’s someplace we can hide. Or some detour where they won’t be able to track us. Some nebula, or asteroid. How the hell do I know?” I snapped. “I’m a doctor, not a navigator.”

  And then we took off, flying up through the low-hanging clouds. At Scotty’s suggestion, once we’d cleared the atmosphere, we started a geosynchronous orbit around the planet, just to make sure all the repaired systems were actually functioning. We were in better shape than the Saladin, mostly because we hadn’t had any battle damage. Scotty was pretty sure our warp drive wouldn’t go haywire again. But the Saladin had one computer core down, warp drive at only sixty-percent capacity, and half her weapons offline. The phrase “spit and chewing gum” came to mind.

  Just as I was wondering what the hell we might do if we ran into that Breen patrol, the computer announced that we were being hailed. To our surprise, it was Mezta.

  “Captain Scott, you probably already know this,” she said, “but our long-range scanners show a Breen squadron approaching our space.”

  “Aye. We’ve been debatin’ some alternatives—and we’re open to suggestions.”

  “Return to Bakrii,” Mezta said. The fact that Scotty and I immediately exchanged confused glances made it obvious we’d heard the same thing, and neither of us understood what the hell was going on.

  Scotty’s eyes narrowed. “You’re not tellin’ us Vuko changed his mind.”

  Mezta hesitated before answering, as if she was sitting on something she’d just as soon not share. “Um, never mind about Vuko.”

  “With all due respect,” I said, “we’re no safer if they find us on Bakrii than if we ran smack into them out in space.”

  “That’s the point, Admiral. The only way you’ll be safe is if they can’t find you.”

  “Lassie,” said Scotty, “you’ve lost me. First, Vuko won’t let us stay. Second, how can they miss us if our two ships’re sittin’ out there in the open at your spaceport, like a coupla clowns with our drawers down around our ankles?”

  “We can hide your ships.”

  Scotty started to smile. “Aye, now you’re talkin’. And whatever you said to make Vuko change his mind—”

  Mezta cut him off. “Vuko is my problem. If this is going to work, you’d better get back here immediately.”

  We called Rivera, turned around in a hurry, and made a beeline back to the repair complex. We’d no sooner landed than both ships were hauled, side by side, into two empty hangars. Mezta told us to stay aboard, and with both crews still inside, the elevator platforms under the ships started dropping underground. We passed three unoccupied work levels, and kept dropping. The shaft took us down past another thirty meters of solid rock, and we finally jolted to a stop on the floor of a cavern.

  By the dim light from utility lamps mounted along the rocky walls, we saw big metal doors rolling on tracks twenty meters above us, closing across the shaft, and sealing us into the cavern. There were catwalks, a turbolift tube, and narrow metal stairs spiraling up what looked like an emergency access shaft. Both elevators had lowered into the same cavern, which was so long that we couldn’t see either end out there in the darkness.

  “Welcome to the wine cellar,” Mezta said over the comm speaker. “When we built this complex, we had the foresight to include subterranean chambers within rock formations with natural sensor-deflecting properties. Just to be on the safe side, keep your power output to a minimum. The cavern is ventilated, but it’s not very hospitable, so you’ll probably be more comfortable waiting in your ships. Other than me, only three of my most trusted senior staff know you’re down there. Any questions?”

  “Just one,” Scotty said. “How did you convince Vuko—”

  Mezta cut Scotty off in mid-sentence. I guess that was her way of avoiding the topic. “This will be my last communication until we’re certain it’s safe for you to return to the surface. I’ll contact you as soon as possible.”

  And that was that. We checked in with Rivera on the Saladin, and we wondered some more about Vuko. Entombed a hundred meters below ground, what the hell else was there to do? But that particular topic petered out pretty fast, since we had nothing but speculation to work with. Scotty muttered about wishing he’d brought along some Scotch, then decided make good use of the time by helping Rivera’s crew with more repairs. He asked if I wanted to go with him. Not that I could have done much to help. I think he mostly felt bad about leaving me by myself. And maybe I should’ve gone. But I didn’t.