The Promenade thronged with celebrants and gaiety, and so did Quark’s bar. He cheerfully buzzed among the tables, making sure all the customers were being served with what they wanted, when they wanted it, and incidentally, did they need a renewal pen to celebrate the festival or to commemorate their visit to Bajor at such a propitious time? And if so, might they be interested in a very special renewal pen with an extraordinary history?

“Hello, Quark.”

The Ferengi jumped at the laconic greeting. It was Emyn, still in uniform, still looking as stiffly out of place in the relaxed crowd as a Lakaran poison thornbush in the midst of one of the tubegrub swamp farms back home. And almost that unwelcome, at the moment.

“Why, Constable! I didn’t expect to see you in here again today....” He quickly reached for her arm to steer her away from the table. Amazingly — he later knew he should have realized that was a danger sign — she let him. “What can I do for you?”

“I’ve been ... reconsidering, about the Peldor festival.”

“You have?”

“Yes,” she replied introspectively. “I’ve been thinking, that it wouldn’t do me any harm to burn a renewal scroll or two. It’s just a simple ritual. And it is part of my Bajoran heritage. The war is over, my people are taking their place among the worlds, being proud again. So why not? Why shouldn’t I express my culture?”

“Indeed, indeed....” His mental alarm was going off. Something was wrong with the constable’s change of heart.

“And I was thinking, I’ll need an appropriate renewal pen.”

The profit alert siren drowned out the inner warning — at heart, whatever else she might be, Emyn Lise was still a Bajoran, he told himself. “Constable, I have just the thing....”

He led her to the bar, where several small vases were set up; out of each projected a number of renewal pens with varying amounts of ornamentation, including plumes of feather and sheaves of grain, colorful painting, and even beading and fringe.

She tilted her head to study the assorted pens, brows furrowed, looking a bit uncertain. “Um, I hate to admit it, but I’ve never bought one of these before....”

“Well, let me give you some information,” Quark replied helpfully, already estimating how much extra he could charge the constable — and wondering just where in Ralinte the woman had grown up, to know so little about something so deeply Bajoran. “A person has to have a certain ... bond with his or her renewal pen, to feel comfortable committing one’s deepest personal feelings through the pen, onto the scroll, and then into the fires of renewal....”

Bilecki stayed on duty, unable to bear leaving Ops when there could be another signal or news of the Xhosa’s fate.

Her own festival joy turned to ashes in the uncertainty, and without her husband there to share her fears, Pryen headed back to the Promenade, to the shrine.

“Maki!” someone called gaily.

She barely turned at the greeting.

“I’m joining some of the bay crew at the Celestial Café — join us!” the woman continued, linking her arm with the engineer’s. “The proprietor is giving free beets with every order, in honor of the Emissary, and we want to get there before the line gets too long!”

Pryen’s dark eyes filled with anxious tears, and she swallowed hard.

“Prophets, you look like something terrible happened! What is it?”

“The Xhosa ... the Emissary’s wife....” Pryen told her what had happened.

By the time she was done, a small crowd had gathered around them.

Emyn studied the pen she was holding — bright gold, with two phaisone feathers curling over the end, colorfully dyed in variegated hues of red and blue. “So let me make sure I understand this correctly,” she said thoughtfully, stroking one of the feathers. “Your renewal pens were actually used by the Emissary himself, over the course of the years when he was in command of this station? And he left them all to you so you could use them for the good of Bajor?”

“That’s right,” Quark affirmed, grinning from ear to ear, every sharp tooth showing brightly.

“So you’re selling them for a strip of gold latinum each, and contributing a portion of the proceeds to the Bajoran Restoration Fund?”

“Absolutely,” he nodded piously.

“A strip of latinum.... Wasn’t it just a slip this morning?”

He was taken aback. “Uh....”

Emyn gazed at the pen again; her attitude changed in a half-second from tentative interest to something professionally cold. “You really expect me to believe that a Federation officer — a Starfleet captain! — used something that looked like this, on a daily basis?” She all but shoved the pen up his nostril.

He backpedaled, stifling a sneeze. “Well, they may have been ... ornamented a bit, to fit in better with the intent of the festival, but I assure you, for festival purposes—“

“I would think someone as ... intimately familiar with the Emissary as I understand you claim to be, would know better than to be taken in by claims that he had personally used a hundred pens to write renewal scrolls, when, according to everyone with whom I’ve spoken, he never wrote so much as a single scroll, in his seven years here.”

Quark cursed to himself, wondering which of the many people he’d spoken with this afternoon had reported him to the constable — or had been working for her all along. “When you put it that way, I guess not. Actually, it was my brother Rom that gave these to me, and told me they’d been used by Captain Sisko, before he left. He worked with the Captain, you know. But I should have been suspicious — my brother was always willing to believe anything — the most gullible person you ever saw, especially for a Ferengi. I should have known better than to listen to him without double checking for myself — I should have found out where he really got them....” As he babbled, he grabbed one of the vases, holding it to his chest. Before he could step away, however, he discovered that his light grasp of Emyn’s arm had been transformed into her tight grip on his.

“Ah, so it’s your brother’s fault that the pens are fake.”

“Yes ... yes!”

“Very interesting. And I suppose he’s the one who suggested the Bajoran Restoration Fund for a share of the proceeds, when he gave them to you?”

“Well, his wife is Bajoran, you know — I suspect it was her suggestion, she gives him a great many suggestions and makes decisions that no female—“

Her eyebrows raised disdainfully.

“That ... that no Ferengi female would want to make...,” he quickly amended.

“Right...,” she drawled. “Would it make a difference if I told you I’d checked out this Bajoran Restoration Fund — and there is no such thing?”

“Wh-what?” he yelped, taking another step back. “Why, I can’t see Leeta doing anything like that—“

“And last, but not least,” Emyn said conversationally, “I checked your replicator records — you ordered several hundred renewal pens just two weeks ago.” A beat. “You wouldn’t try to defraud the citizens of this station by passing off items as something they were not, and compound it under the guise of claiming to support a non-existent charity, would you, Quark?”

“Now, Constable...,” he gushed nervously, arms outstretched to either side. There was no hope, and he knew it; he could see it in those satisfied gray eyes. She’d let him dig himself into a hole and trapped him there while the swamp mud poured in.

Something was going on at the door. Hushed voices were talking excitedly, and whispers were spreading through the bar. Quark wondered fatalistically what else could go wrong with his day — and if it was too serious, maybe getting arrested wasn’t a bad idea.

“You’re the security officer!” somebody interrupted urgently, at top volume. The man pushed through the murmuring crowd to reach her. “Tell us, is it true?”

Emyn barely glanced at the man, keeping her stern gaze on Quark. “Excuse me, I’m busy at the moment.”

“No!” The new arrival grabbed her arm. “You’ve got to tell us! We have to know! Is the Emissary’s wife in danger? Did pirates really attack her ship?”

“What?” she nearly shouted back, distracted.

The crowd of Peldor festival revelers began to cluster around them.

“What happened to the Emissary’s wife?” someone asked.

“I heard she was kidnaped by Breen!” said one excited woman.

“More likely Cardassian renegades who know what she means to us,” a man interjected darkly.

“No, I bet it was Ferengi — they probably want to trade her for Rom!” another insisted.

“You’ve got to tell us—“ The man kept tugging at the constable’s arm until she wretched herself free.

“I don’t know — I don’t have any information, at this point,” she announced firmly, obviously trying to take charge of the crowd before things got out of hand. “Listen, all of you—“

Quark took advantage of the distraction to slip free of the constable’s grip, then scoop up the other containers of pens and stash them behind the bar. No evidence meant no case against him — and he hoped whoever had talked to her about the pens hadn’t given her one.

The crowd was growing, trading increasingly dramatic rumors; the constable was surrounded and backed against the bar. There was no way through the people — and no way to come after him, Quark thought as he locked the small safe that now held the stash of renewal pens. No way of selling them now....

After a quick glance around at the pressing crowd, Emyn put her hands behind her on the bar and jumped up and backward. One of the bartenders squawked as an ale went flying backward off the bar and nearly upended on him, but he managed to catch the mug before too much spilled, and ducked out of sight. Now standing above the crowd, out of its reach but clearly visible to all, the constable held out her arms in a command for silence.

“Listen to me — listen to me!”

The excitement and worry gradually subsided in volume, and all eyes turned to her.

“I don’t know what you’ve heard, and I don’t know what’s happening to Captain Yates and her ship....” The crowd almost bubbled over into noise again, but she held her arms out warningly again, her expression and very presence silencing them once more. “But I assure you, I will find out what has happened. In the meantime, if Colonel Kira or the Federation staff of this station need anything from us, or need to tell us anything, they will do so. If there is a problem, we can do nothing to help by panicking or creating a riot....”

The crowd burst at once into frantic questions, despite her disavowal of having anything to tell them.

Emyn sighed before announcing, “For now, I think it of the utmost importance that you all remain calm and go on with your daily lives as we wait for information. As I intend to do.”

The murmurs were more subdued at that, but the tension and underlying sense of panic remained.

“Please listen to the constable. I believe that is what the Emissary would wish of us as well, to continue with our lives and not to give in to fear,” broke in another voice, that of Ranjen Shayl. “As he expressed to us many times, while he was among us.”

Silent stares were gradually accompanied by reluctant nods, and the crowd began to disperse through the bar and out into the Promenade.

Emyn traded glances with the station ranjen. Shayl was much respected by the citizens; his voice carried religious authority with most of the population as hers carried civil authority. At the moment, she was grateful for his help in calming the people. She nodded her thanks. He nodded back, and turned away. From her point of view, she could see him marching solemnly toward the shrine. A number of the bar patrons followed him.

Faren woke up slowly, his whole right side throbbing with pain. It was dim in the cargo pod, with only a faint red glow from the emergency illuminators running along overhead. He tried to push himself off the floor — and collapsed again, howling at the competing agonies in his right shoulder, ankle, and knee. Half-rolling to his left side, he curled around himself, whimpering as the pain subsided back to the bearable throbbing.

After a few moments, he was able to think again. The pain told him he’d injured himself badly. What was happening? Where was everybody? How come nobody had come to check on him? Had he been forgotten?

He listened closely, hoping to hear voices or approaching feet. Instead, all he heard were the distant thrumming sounds of the engines, with some kind of whining underlining it. The vibrations through his body felt wrong, too strong.

The ship was under some kind of stress, or had taken damage.

“Captain Yates?” he whispered into the dimness.

Somehow that thought brought strength. His captain was the Emissary’s wife. Her ship was in trouble. What was he doing laying here waiting to be rescued, like some child in a cradle, when he should be reaching her side and doing whatever she needed him to do to help her? She and her baby, the Emissary’s baby, might need him.

“Prophets ... give me strength.” Gritting his teeth in determination, he began to drag himself along the deck with his left arm, bracing himself with his good leg. He was going to reach the hatch, whatever it took....

Yet again, Torm pulled viciously at the manual override handle. Frustration flooded him with strength.

Too much. This time the handle broke off in his pale blue hands. He stared at the broken piece for a second, then flung it across the dim cargo pod with another oath. It clattered against a wall, then ricocheted between several crates before sliding under something he couldn’t see in the pallid light.

The building vibrations through the ship were starting to irritate him; his antennae were twitching and the sound was working its way down into his jaw. He set his teeth against it.

He kicked as hard as he could.

No difference. Only a moment’s echo somewhere, and a much longer lasting pain in his foot that at least provided a few seconds’ distraction.

As the pain and his own growling subsided, Torm listened intently. He couldn’t hear anybody moving through the corridor on the other side of the hatch. He suspected that meant either the rest of the crew was too busy handling whatever was going on, or they were in bigger trouble than he was. He knew he wasn’t going to get through the door unless he got into its internal systems.

Muttering under his breath, the Andorian began searching for a toolkit.

Only a dim red light illuminated the small galley of the Xhosa. It was enough to reveal two motionless figures lying on the deck.

The man was huddled awkwardly against one of the metal cabinets. If he was breathing, a watcher wouldn’t have been able to tell.

The woman was splayed out across the floor. Every so often, one hand twitched. There was no other sign of life.

She wanted to scream. Helplessness had never come easily to Kasidy Yates. Not when her team was losing twelve to one in the bottom of the fifth and it was starting to rain and she had a sprained ankle. Not when she couldn’t get more than twenty meters from a bathroom and was throwing up every five minutes. Not when her ship had been challenged by Klingons and it had taken Benjamin Sisko’s intervention to get her home again. Not when her marriage had depended on that same Benjamin Sisko’s bucking the will of alien entities and his own Bajoran first officer to go ahead with it.

What made it worse was the apparent expectation from her Bajoran crew that she was somehow going to make everything all right. Not by anything she could do, because at the moment she wasn’t being allowed to do anything, but by virtue of who she was. And that boiled down to “the Emissary’s wife.”

She clenched her jaw to keep from grinding her teeth.

“Would you like something, Captain Yates?” Pokel asked in her earnest, hovering way. Her fair complexion was even paler than usual, and she looked like a faint was only a breath away.

Kasidy shook her head mutely, but she wanted to shout at the girl.

“Pokel,” Vinj ordered quietly, “help Sindelar with the scanners. We’ve got to be able to see what’s out there.”

“But the Emissary’s wife—“ she objected, gesturing at Kasidy.

“None of us will leave her,” Vinj replied. “Nothing will happen to her.”

From the look Pokel cast her way before she joined Sindalar at his panel, Kasidy suspected the teenager felt safer at her side. Safer with the Emissary’s wife. Even though the Emissary’s wife can’t do a damn thing about the situation.

“Lou, any luck?” she asked, needing to get her mind off those thoughts.

“No yet,” a testy, sepulchral voice echoed from out of the wall. Only his legs stuck out from the open cavity. “Can’t really tell what happened — can’t see any reason why the door isn’t working....”

Pokel handed Sindelar a spanner, than stared at the door. “There hasn’t been any pounding on the door for a long time. Do you think they gave up trying to get to us?”

“I hope the door’s not sealed against vacuum,” the scan officer muttered. “If they’ve lost air out there, there’s nobody left to get to us.”

Pokel’s eyes widened even more, and she swallowed hard as her complexion took on a greenish cast. “But that would mean—“

“Temma-demoiselle,” admonished a firm voice from the wall, “that’s not the case. The ship is still running — that means Rosha is still fine in engineering, and as long as she keeps the engines running, we will be fine. Chin up, girl.”

Her expression suddenly puzzled, Pokel touched her chin. “What...?”

“It means keep your courage, Temma,” Kasidy interjected. “We’ll get out of this.” She smiled encouragingly.

After a second, Pokel smiled too, looking sincerely reassured.

Kasidy wished she felt as convinced.

There, it was done. She took a satisfied breath. She’d fixed the anti-matter flow. It had been a simple repair, but uncontrolled, it could have destroyed the ship. Still, it had taken her twice as long as it should have.

Slowly, Zimbaret resealed the panel, then shook her head, blinking. She wasn’t feeling very well. There was a throbbing in her upper nasal cavities, and her stomach was unsettled. She had a peculiar ache that didn’t seem to want to centralize anywhere in particular in her body, but kept moving through her belly and chest like a phantom she couldn’t catch.

She ran a hand across her forehead, trying to clear her vision. It came away sweaty.

The engineer leaned against the wall for a moment with her eyes closed.

The whining was getting very irritating. To someone with her sensitive ear for tune and wide hearing range, it was harsh and grating.

She pushed away from the wall. She had to do something about that whining.

A wave of dizziness swept over her, and the engine room went black.

There had been nothing for what felt like forever. Whatever was out there, it didn’t seem to be shooting at them anymore. Or maybe they’d lost it in the asteroids.

“Nothing appears wrong with the internal comm system,” Vinj told her from his position flat on the deck, staring up into the innards of the console. “At least, nothing we can detect or fix from here.”

Maybe she should tear her hair out. At least it would be doing something. But at the moment, it sounded like there was precious little any of them could do.

A strange, hollow sound seemed to echo through the bridge, and something felt off with the internal gravity, for just a second.

“What was that?” Pokel squeaked. “Did they hit us again?”

“No,” Kasidy said quickly. “That didn’t feel like weapons-fire.”

“It wasn’t,” Vinj quickly confirmed, scrambling back to his feet. “More like debris, pebbles or sand — small particle hits on the hull. Our shielding will absorb it. It’s no threat.”

“But why did it feel—“

“The ship was compensating. That’s all.”

Kasidy could read something worried behind her XO’s stoic facade, but the teenager nodded acceptance.

Sindelar frowned in concentration. Then his eyes opened wide and he swallowed hard; he half-turned to look anxiously at Kasidy.

“What’s wrong?” she asked. After Vinj’s comment, Sindelar’s look had her feeling sick in the pit of her stomach.

He sucked in a deep breath. “I think we were hulled. Somewhere on this ship, we were losing pressurization.”

“Did the protective shields come up?”

“Yes,” he replied ominously. “But I don’t know if it was in time, if anyone was inside whatever chamber—”