The tremors had subsided, and the station stabilized when Ezri Dax reached Ops. Crew scuttled about, checking systems and assessing damage. Ezri looked around. She could hear Nog from behind the engineering station, and Lt. Kaoron was reviewing data handed to him by a non-comm at his terminal, a frustrated look on his face.
“What happened?” Ezri asked Kaoron. She didn’t want to bother Nog, he was probably too busy.
“We had an accident,” Kaoron stated matter-of-factly.
“No kidding, but what happened?”
“We are not too sure. The aft-firing unit on defense sail 2 overloaded. The cooling system didn’t respond. The heat burned out the EPS circuits. Next thing we knew we had phaser fire everywhere. It was uncontrollable, and it knocked out Upper Pylon 3, nearly took it off.”
Suddenly Ezri’s ears perked up to the sound of arguing voices. She looked around, and then up to Kira’s office.
“They have been at it the past 3 minutes,” Kaoron said quietly, noticing Ezri’s concern.
Ezri looked down at the data Kaoron was studying. “Try rerouting power from the defense grid to the sensor arrays on the pylon. That should jump-start them. Then recalibrate the system,” she offered.
Kaoron looked at the data, eyebrow raised, and then at Ezri. “Yes, that would be logical. Thank you...counselor.”
“No problem.” Following the sounds of the two angry voices, Ezri made her way to Kira’s office and rang the chime. There was a silence on the other side of the door, and then a hoarse “Come in” from Kira. Ezri entered the room.
Kira stood on the other side of her desk, hands folded against her chest. Across from her, seated on the couch, was Alden, head in his hands.
Ezri looked at the hostile scene and fidgeted. “What’s going on?” she inquired awkwardly.
Kira sighed. “Counselor, can we talk later? This isn’t a good time.”
Ezri looked at Alden, and then to Kira, and then back to Endar. “What are the two of you arguing about?”
Kira glared at her moment, but Ezri stood persistent. Kira threw her hands in the air. “Obviously you didn’t feel the station quaking. Commander Alden overloaded the aft-firing unit on defense sail 2, which caused the phaser emitters to fire off randomly. If Nog hadn’t gotten it off in time...”
“Nothing would have happened. The system isn’t set up to hit parts of the station.” Alden interjected. He looked up at Kira, a sarcastic tone in his voice. “That’s why the defense sails are situated in between the pylons, Colonel.”
“But one of the pylons was still hit, Commander,” Kira hissed.
“The blast overloaded the sensor array circuits,” Ezri added, recalling her briefing with lt. Kaoron.
Kira sighed and plopped back into her seat. “Oh, it’s worse than that. The EPS couplings overloaded when the circuits burned out. Those couplings were interfaced with the original Cardassian computer systems...and I have no idea how we’ll get those replaced. We’ll have to replace the entire emitter and computer system now. And when the sensor array overloaded on Upper Pylon 3 it took out the turbolift and environmental controls. We have a ship up there in repair, the repair crews have sustained casualties, and it’ll take days to fix all this damage. As if Nog didn’t have enough to do.” She glared at Alden. “And he doesn’t seem to think he did anything wrong!”
“You told me to familiarize myself with the tactical controls. How was I supposed to know these damn Cardie panels were so sensitive,” he retorted.
“Oh, but wait,” Kira continued, voice raised, not paying attention to Alden’s excuse, “there’s more. When I went up to him and asked what he was thinking, I could see it in his eyes. He was drunk, counselor. He went off duty and came back drunk!”
Ezri shot a disappointed glance at Alden, who did not raise his head to meet her gaze. She wanted to say “So your synthethol theory didn’t work, I guess, huh?” but it wasn’t a good time.
“Colonel, I’m not sure what to say. Except --” Dax chose her next words carefully. Looking at Alden, she changed the subject. “Can we discuss this in private?”
“Please, I hate having people talk about me like I’m not even here,” Alden sulked.
Kira was silent for a moment. Ezri understood. She wasn’t certain what to do with him at that moment. Finally Kira spoke. “Commander, you’re confined to your quarters until further notice. Get out of my sight. And if you pull off another stunt like this, by the time I get through with you --”
Endar shot up, hands on his hips, voice raised. “By the time you get through with me, Nerys --”
“That’s enough!” Ezri yelled out, turning to Alden. “Commander -- go to your quarters!” she stammered, finger pointing to the door.
Alden rolled his eyes. “Oh give me a break, Counselor,” Alden started.
“Shut up, I don’t want to hear another word, we’ll talk later. Go, Commander.”
Alden rolled his eyes again and stomped out of Kira’s office, stopping as the gate shut for emphasis.
When Alden had finally left Ezri turned to Kira. The colonel’s hands covered her face, she looked exhausted. “What am I going to do with him?”
“You need to tread carefully, Nerys. You can’t treat him like he were Nog or Julian. He won’t take it the same way, regardless of whether or not he was at fault. And you need to give me time to work with him.”
Kira shook her head, incredulous. “This is not grade school, counselor. You can’t molly-coddle him. He’s a grown man, and what’s more he’s a Starfleet officer. He needs to do what’s expected of him. And I will not --”
“You will not what, Colonel?” Ezri responded coldly.
Kira glared back at Ezri. “I will not tolerate his little temper tantrums. You know what this stems from? I delegated some work to him before he went off-duty. He was angry about it. That’s no excuse for his actions, Ezri. How can I allow this person to continue on the station like this? All he is going to do is make everyone’s life miserable, especially mine. And what about Nog? He’s the one who has to clean up this mess.”
“But arguing with him won’t solve the problem, either. Endar has some serious problems, and if you don’t heed my advice we are going to have worse problems on our hands than --”
“Endar’s behavioral problems are the last thing on my mind, counselor. The safety of everyone aboard the station comes first. If he continues this way, he’s gone. Do you understand?”
Ezri quieted down, and nodded. “Please, you have to give me a chance. I can help him.”
Kira turned away from Ezri. “You’re dismissed, counselor.”
Ezri turned to leave, but just before the door opened Kira asked, “Why, Ezri?”
Ezri turned to Kira. “What do you mean?”
The chair turned, and Kira stood up. “Why are you so dead-set on helping him? He doesn’t seem to want your counsel.”
Dax simply sighed and shook her head. “You can’t tell that, Colonel,” she said quietly. “Someone has to care.”
Tension lines on Kira’s face disappeared, and she looked down, rapping her fingertips on the desk. “Yeah, well...”
She looked down, then to the door. “I have to tend to Alden before he does something that will make me look foolish...again.” Dax made for the door, then stopped. “Meet you for dinner tonight?”
Kira, still looking down, said quietly, “2100?”
“Replimat?”
“Sounds good.” The door opened, and Dax left, with Kira watching her intently.
“Computer, locate Lt. Commander Alden,” Dax commanded. She had been standing outside Alden’s quarters the past couple of minutes, ringing his door chime and knocking, trying to get him to open the door. Considering the recent incident in Kira’s office and Endar’s frail, schizophrenic demeanor, Dax’s concern grew with each chime ring.
“Commander Alden is in habitat ring level 3, section 4,” the computer finally responded. All of the recent problems had bogged down the station computer substantially.
“Well, that’s here,” Ezri wondered out loud. “I’m here, where is he? Commander Alden?” she tried again, ringing the door chime a fifth time. “Endar, it’s Counselor Dax. Are you okay? Please open the door.”
After a few moments with no progress, Ezri finally keyed her security clearance code into the door pad, the door swished open. Ezri stepped inside and instantly discovered the computer’s error.
Commander Alden’s badge had been flung into a nearby mirror, and glass shards covered the deck.
Ezri searched frantically through the quarters, but came up empty. “Dax to Security, I need you in habitat ring level 3, section 4 immediately. We have a problem.”
A few minutes later Constable Emyn and a small security team arrived. Emyn entered the room first, saw the glass on the floor. She raised an eyebrow in suspicion. “What happened?” she asked.
“I don’t know. I came in to find Commander Alden, the computer said he was here.” Ezri handed his badge to Emyn. “I found this by what’s left of the mirror.”
Emyn inspected the badge carefully, noticing the tiny scratch marks left by the broken glass. “What caused him to do this? Any ideas?”
Ezri looked down at the floor, clasping her hands in front of her. “I know why he might, but that’s not important now. We need to find him. He may try to go AWOL...or worse,” she informed Emyn.
Emyn nodded curtly. “Right,” she agreed, turning to her deputies. “Begin scanning every level of the habitat ring and find out if any ships have departed in the past...” Emyn turned to Ezri. “How long would you say he’s been gone?”
Ezri shook her head. “Maybe10-15 minutes.”
“More than likely no ships have left the station in that time, but just in case. Also check all docked ships and transports, checking crew manifests and search the cargo bays if you...”
Ezri’s ears suddenly perked at the sound of metal clanging. Turning away from the security team for a moment, Ezri looked about the room, trying to determine where the noise was coming from. Wandering into the bedroom, Ezri noticed that the dresser was not pushed against the wall.
“Constable?” Ezri called.
Emyn stopped for a moment and walked up behind Ezri. She instructed some of her deputies to help move the dresser, revealing a hatch to the access tunnels. The banging noise was heard again. Emyn looked down at Ezri, and Ezri looked up at Emyn.
“Clever. But why couldn’t he just go through the unguarded door?” Emyn inquired sarcastically.
Ezri shrugged, giggling lightly in her mind. Security guards removed the hatch, and Ezri ducked down. The tunnel opening was empty, but if Alden had a 10 minute head start, he could have made incredible headway.
Emyn must have been thinking the same, because she quickly began barking orders to her deputies and calling for others to begin searching the access tunnels. While Emyn got her search team together, Ezri dropped down and crawled through the opening.
“Counselor, I don’t think --” Emyn began.
“Look, even if you find him, it’s going to be a struggle getting him out of the tunnel. And it’ll only lead to more problems for Alden. I can get to him, he’ll listen to me.”
Emyn’s brow creased with concern and skepticism. “I don’t know --”
“I know what I’m doing, Constable,” Ezri replied. “Have your team continue to search, I’m going to see if I can catch up to him. Call me if you find him, and I’ll do the same.”
After a moment, Emyn sighed and nodded. Ezri smiled back at her and quickly inched her way up the tunnel.
Help me...
As Endar crawled through the access tunnel, his paranoia grew. He had been crawling through the endless tunnels, and making numerous turns to the left or the right. In the process he was certain he’d managed to elude whatever authorities had figured out what he was doing by now.
He’d also managed to get himself hopelessly lost.
As he approached another intersection, he looked both ways and sighed. “I knew I should have taken that left turn at Albuquerque,” he said with a light laugh before choosing the right corridor. Laughter was the best medicine, and he’d need a lot of it if he was going to escape the station.
He had it all planned out. Crawl through the access tunnels until he made it close enough to a Bajoran transport vessel headed planetside. Sneak aboard, keep a low profile, get to Bajor, then take the first cargo vessel out of the sector. He’d have to stowaway until he was at a safe distance, but then it wouldn’t take long to get way out of Federation space. He wasn’t sure where he’d go then, but he was certain he could start over. He was obviously too “unruly” to cut it in the Federation. He had successfully alienated himself from everyone on the station, not to mention the other ships he’d been on.
So, like every other time he’d caused enough trouble, he would move on to the next system.
Now if only he could move on to the next step in his plan and get out of these damn access tunnels.
Help me...
Endar turned right again, and then left. He felt sorry for Counselor Dax and Doc. And Vic. They were really nice people, and he hoped he hadn’t caused them too much trouble. They could have been close. He would miss them.
Endar turned the corner and gasped. The tunnel stopped. No tunnel hatch, no door to another section or anything.
“What the Hell kind of piece of Cardassian crap is this? Who has ever heard of a tunnel --” Angered by this twist, Endar flipped around and kicked the wall, which only proved futile at accomplishing anything except causing a sharp pain in his foot. He brought it up to him and felt around, discovering that he had sprained his ankle.
Pushing up against the tunnel until he was in a sitting position, he grabbed his foot, pulling his legs in. Rocking back and forth, he closed his eyes and tried to push the pain out of his mind. Nothing helped though, and it only served to increase his paranoia and make the situation worse.
It was hopeless. Security would find him. Counselor Dax, disappointed, would not come to his aid. Kira would have him court-martialed, then hang him from a yardarm, if they still did that in Starfleet. Then she would take whatever pieces were left and lock them in a penal colony for a long, long time until he simply faded away. He was certain of it.
Help me...
Suddenly he heard voices and footsteps. “He could have gone that way, check there.” One voice called.
“Yes, Healer,” said another.
He recognized the first voice, but couldn’t figure out who it was. Fearing detection, he pushed himself further into the tunnel until his back hit the wall he’d kicked earlier. He curled into a ball and tried to make himself as small and undetectable as possible.
“Young man, there is nothing to be afraid of,” the first voice called. “We’re trying to help you. Trust us, you’ll feel so much better afterward.”
Endar looked up and saw a youngish man with blond hair and a small frame sitting curled up in another dead end corridor across from him. Tears trickled down the young man’s face, and his whimper sent shivers down Endar’s spine. Slowly the young man put a finger to his lips. “Shh,” he whispered. “We don’t want them to find us.”
Endar squinted. “Who?” he asked.
“Them,” he replied matter-of-factly. “They want to do terrible things to us. You mustn’t let them do this to us. Please.”
“But --” Endar started. He was about to ask who these people were, but it was too late. They arrived, and grabbed the young man.
“Come along, sir. Don’t worry, you’ll feel so much better when we get through with you,” the creature with the first voice cajoled.
“No, no please. We don’t want to go with you. Leave us alone, please,” the young man sobbed. “We want to go home. Please let us go home.” The young man’s eyes turned to Endar. “Help us,” he whispered.
But Endar could neither move nor speak, only watch in horror as the two aliens dragged the young man away, kicking and screaming and cursing Endar’s name. Endar closed his eyes and took his head in his hands.
Help me...
Endar tried so hard to wipe the memory from his mind, but nothing could help. He kept hearing the whispered “help me” over and over. Finally the phrase escaped his frozen lips. “Help me,” he whispered. His voice sounded dry, a pasty, chalky taste in his mouth. “Somebody help me, please,” he whispered.
But the footsteps and voices, the plea for help, did not stop. Endar could not push it out of his mind. He tried to drown it out with louder pleas for help. Nothing seemed to work.
He began shaking wildly. “Please, help me!” he screamed. “Somebody help me, please I beg you help me!”
When no one came his quivers gave way to wild convulsions. His good foot stomped about wildly, and he pounded his fists into the bulkhead and onto the deck. “Help me!” he screamed repeatedly, and tears streamed down his face.
He hadn’t managed to drown out the voices of the young man and the two aliens, but he managed to drown out the answer to his plea for help, in the form of Ezri Dax.
“Commander! Endar, I’m here. What’s wrong? Commander?” she said softly.
Endar suddenly saw Ezri there, her hands clasped tightly around his arms. He stared at her for a moment, not really believing she was there. “Counselor?” he whispered.
Ezri loosened her hold on him and nodded. Endar gasped for air and looked about for someone else. Seeing that they were alone, he finally dropped his head onto her shoulder, wrapping his arms around her. He sobbed heavily, his body shaking. Ezri clutched his arms and tried to console him. Finally Endar pulled away and looked at Ezri. “I’m sorry I’m such a pest,” he said before finally passing out.
“Colonel!”
Kira looked up from the PADD, exasperated. All around her, crew were bustling with repairs and maintenance; she didn’t have time for this. “What do you want, Quark?” she demanded impatiently. Only the Ferengi would have the nerve to barge into Ops at a time like this.
“Colonel, I need an engineer, and I need one now–”
“No,” she said simply, and turned away to hand the PADD back to Kaoron. “Nog and his crew are busy repairing the damage from this...situation. Now if they can just clear the mooring so that Klingon freighter can leave–”
“Colonel,” Quark interrupted. “My holosuites are down. And that includes the baseball programs. Now, with two very important vedeks coming to the station, I would think–”
“No, they aren’t.” She had to smile at Quark’s gaping mouth and ludicrous expression. For once it appeared she’d actually learned something before he had.
“What do you mean, no, they aren’t?” he repeated.
“They’re not coming. The visits have been canceled.” She leaned nearly into his face. “And frankly, recalibrating the sensor arrays and jerry-rigging the pylon controls have a much higher priority than worrying about your bottom line.”
Quark sputtered for a second, appalled. “Kira, you have no sense of priorities.”
“That’s Colonel Kira to you. Now unless you know how to handle a spanner and a magnetic coupler, I suggest you get out of here before I get mad.”
The Ferengi slowly retreated into the turbolift, continuing to mutter under his breath. She thought she heard a reference to Morn, but she wasn’t going to ask him to repeat it.
She touched her commbadge. “Nog?”
“Here, Colonel,” a weary voice responded with a lisp.
“How’s it going with those EPS couplings?”
“I think we can cannibalize some of the secondary systems long enough to
keep the pylon operational while we replicate and install replacement parts. But as I suspected, there are some interfaces we won’t be able to repair without new parts – new Cardassian parts.”
She thought fast. The Cardassians weren’t likely to have parts to spare. “Any chance of getting parts from Empok Nor?”
“Actually, I thought there might still be some stored on Bajor. Chief O’Brien had a contact at the Commerce Ministry; we could contact him.”
Kira glanced at the science officer, who nodded efficiently. “Mr. Kaoron will take care of that for you. Give him the name. And keep up the good work.”
“Thanks, Colonel.”
Kira gestured at Kaoron, confirmation to follow up. If the parts were available, stored in a warehouse on Bajor somewhere, forgotten in the liberation, it would save a great deal of time and trouble. She wondered briefly if Kasidy could be convinced to make an emergency run.
“Security to Colonel Kira.”
She hit her commbadge again. “Yes, Constable?”
“Counselor Dax has located Commander Alden. We’re taking him to the infirmary.”
“Thank you.” Kira paused. The infirmary? Her first suggestion would have been a security holding cell. What had he managed to do now...? Well, when she had time, she’d find out.