The Long Night (6 page)

"Good," Jake said. He handed Nog the flashlight. "If you change your mind, just tell me."

Then Jake used both hands to reach up, grab onto the edge, and pull himself up the metal chute into the dark area above. Once there, he turned around and looked back down into the beam of the light Nog was shining upward into his face.

"Hand me the light before you blind me," Jake said, and Nog did as he was told.

"You're not going to leave me here in the dark, are you?" Nog asked. He wouldn't be able to lever himself up as easily as Jake did.

But Jake didn't want to dwell on that problem at the moment. He shined the light at the area around him. It felt like a hall of some sort. By stretching out his arms in both directions he could almost touch the walls. The ceiling was an arm's length above his head. The passage went off into the distance before it turned.

"It's huge!" Jake said, and his voice played back to him.

Huge... huge... huge... huge...

"Is there any treasure?" Nog asked, but this time his voice had a smile in it, as if he knew that the question was dumb.

"Piles of it. Gold press latinum as far as the eye can see!"

"Really?" Nog asked.

Jake got down on his hands and knees, set the flashlight to one side, and peered over the edge. Nog was looking up at him with a mixture of greed and disbelief on his face.

"Really," Jake said. "And a big fat dragon to guard it all."

"You're making fun of me," Nog said.

Jake nodded. "There isn't any treasure, but there's a lot more passage than the station schematics have room for. Want to go on an adventure?"

"Sure beats working in my uncle's bar," Nog said and raised his hands like a child wanting to be picked up.

It took less than two hours at warp five for the Defiant to reach the red-star system in which the Caxtonian said he had found the wreck. Sisko spent most of that time in the commander's chair, issuing terse orders, and staring through the viewscreen at the vastness of space.

He had taken a small maintenance crew with some of his best people, most trusted people. If there was any hint that this crashed ship was the Nibix-and Sisko believed in a small corner of his heart that it was-then only those he trusted could know. The six ensigns he picked were all known for their attention to duty and their closed-mouthedness. They had few close friends and were not known as gossips. He rounded out the rest of the Defiant's crew with Dax because she knew more about the Nibix than he did, O'Brien because he was a whiz with not only Federation technology, but any other technology Sisko had seen, and Dr. Bashir because... well, Sisko didn't want to examine that because.

The red-star system they were heading to was nothing but a number on the star charts. The system had been lightly surveyed eighty years earlier and was noted only for its large concentration of asteroids in four wide belts around the star. There were no known habitable planets. The system was near the Cardassian border but still clearly in Federation space, a fact for which Sisko was greatly relieved. If this ship really was the Nibix, he would have more than enough on his hands with the Jibetians and the Federation. He didn't need to be dealing with the Cardassians at the same time.

Throughout the voyage, Sisko kept his right hand clenched. It was the only physical sign of his tension. Occasionally Dax would glance at him. Her normal unshakable calm had a giddy edge beneath it. For most of the ensigns, this was their first official mission on the Defiant. They concentrated on their stations, pretending that Sisko's presence didn't make them nervous.

Only O'Brien and Dr. Bashir were acting normal. They were standing to one side on the bridge, watching the viewscreen and arguing over a game of darts they had played earlier in the afternoon. They had no idea what they were about to walk into.

Sisko did. And he was having trouble thinking about it. Every commander he had ever met and certainly every starship captain knew the space legends about lost ships. Most captains also knew the legends about lost seagoing vessels on various worlds, from the disappointing treasure vaults on Earth's Titanic to the immense wealth discovered on Seleda Five's G. Menst. Sisko's favorite seagoing legend showed his Earth roots. The Marie Celeste haunted his dreams and his nightmares in more ways than he imagined: a ship that was found with its stoves still on, a meal half eaten, and a missing crew in the middle of the ocean.

He half imagined he would find that here.

But his favorite spacefaring legend, his favorite what-if, had always been the Nibix. From the moment he had heard about the ship at the Academy, he had studied every book about it, every article ever written, listened to every theory. He still had a capture file in his personal computer on DS9, so that any time a new theory was discussed on the Nibix, his file would download it, translate it if necessary, and notify him it had arrived. He had several other capture files for several other interests, including baseball, and he had been so busy with the station in recent months that he let material accumulate.

Now he wished he hadn't.

As they neared the system, Sisko stood. He couldn't contain his excitement or his nervousness any longer.

"Dropping out of warp," said Ensign Dodds. She was a soft-spoken human woman whose small stature belied her physical strength. Sisko had sent her on two other missions, one to Bajor, and her competence had impressed him.

"Chief, I need you in position now," Sisko said.

O'Brien nodded and moved to one of the empty stations. Dax sat before the science station, her long fingers playing on the panel. Sisko resisted the urge to do the same. He would not give in to his romantic fantasies. He would command this mission like any other.

"I want full scans of the entire system," he said. "Ensigns Kathé and Coleman, you will help Lieutenant Dax and Chief O'Brien in their search."

"Aye-aye, Commander," the ensigns said in unison. Ensign Kathé bent her head over the board. She was a long, slender Yominan whose most arresting feature was her long mane of rainbow hair.

Ensign Coleman, who had been on DS9 less than six months along with his wife and two children, glanced at Kathé before beginning his own scan. Sisko both liked and disliked the boy's caution. In a situation that required quick thinking, it would get him killed. In a situation like this, his thoroughness might help them all.

"Start with the bigger asteroids first," Sisko said. He had spoken to the Caxtonian before the Defiant left, asking for more details than Odo had received. The Caxtonian said the ship was on a large asteroid in the outer band. He said he had discovered it while doing repairs on a broken warp drive. He had only gone into the ship a short distance, grabbed two items that looked like they had value, and then got out. He had no idea the name of the ship. He just said it frightened him because of the bodies.

The Caxtonian's cargo bay showed that he lied about how many items he took. But the fifteen tiny pieces that Sisko found there did show that the pilot had been spooked. If he had found the Nibix, fifteen pieces were less than a handful.

Bodies.

Sisko had seen a lot of bodies in his day, but space death was never pretty. He knew, deep down, that the bodies alone would probably remove the last traces of romance about the Nibix from his memory forever.

But for the moment, he would hang on to the excitement. Trapped in his clenched fist was the feeling he was trying to reign in, the feeling he wouldn't admit to anyone but Dax, and then he would do so only after several drinks many months from now.

He felt like a kid. A kid on an adventure. A kid about to discover all the secrets of the universe.

Nothing like the commander of a space station on the Cardassian border or the commander of a ship on a mission, however short, that might change the future of the Federation.

"Commander," Dax said, startling him.

He focused on her, ignoring the jump of excitement in his stomach.

"I have a reading. It appears to be the hull of a ship on the largest asteroid this side of the red star." She paused and met his gaze. "There are no life signs."

Something inside him relaxed. He had been afraid, very afraid, that the tales of the Jibetian religion were true, that their religious leader was indestructible.

"The coordinates?" Sisko reminded her.

"Seventy-eight mark two," she said.

"Take us there," Sisko said to Ensign T'plak, the quiet Vulcan in the navigator's chair. T'plak nodded and plotted their course. Ensigns Kathé and Coleman were still scanning, as was O'Brien. Sisko was relieved he didn't have to tell them the drill. In an asteroid field this big, several ships could have crashed. Dax might not have found the correct spot right away.

"I'm finding nothing else, sir," O'Brien said.

"Keep scanning," Sisko said.

"Benjamin." Dax's voice was soft, showing the depth of her shock. She always followed protocol in a professional situation-except when she was rattled. "My preliminary scan shows the ship matches the reported size and configuration of the Nibix."

Sisko's heartbeat increased. He tightened his fist, holding his excitement back as best he could. "Let's get a closer look, Ensign."

"One moment, Commander," T'Plak said. Then, in what seemed like seconds, the Defiant was in a stationary orbit over the asteroid.

Sisko took a deep breath. Protocol demanded that he remain on the Defiant.

Protocol be damned. He didn't want the ensigns down there, playing in the dark. He would take Dax for her knowledge and O'Brien for his trustworthiness.

"Doctor," Sisko said, "you have the comm. Dax, Chief, let's see what we've got down there."

Dax stood before Sisko finished speaking. Dr. Bashir looked flustered, and O'Brien frowned. The ensigns huddled over the stations, trying not to be noticed.

Sisko was standing, too, although he didn't remember getting out of his chair. His stomach felt like it had tied itself into a knot. He'd been on other destroyed ships before. This was just another.

But he couldn't convince himself of that. The ship on that asteroid held the body of the religious leader for an entire culture. Not to mention the priceless artwork from generations of Jibetian culture.

Or the future relationship between the Jibetian Confederacy and the Federation.

The Nibix was a myth. People didn't just beam into a myth. Yet he was about to.

THE AIR WAS STICKY and filled with dust. Jake's hands were filthy, and he didn't want to look at his clothes. But he couldn't contain his excitement. He felt like one of those explorers in the stories his father used to read to him. Even though Jake was still in the station, he felt as if he were touching a forbidden world, one forgotten a long, long time ago. He felt as if he were conquering new territory.

He felt like he was on the verge of something big.

"I wonder if my father finished cleaning up the bar yet," Nog said, his voice echoing.

Jake whirled, raising dust. "That's all you can think about? Cleaning the bar?"

"There isn't much more to think about," Nog said. "This place is as exciting as a Vulcan wrestling match."

"I don't know," Jake said. "I think it's kinda cool."

And he did. They'd moved through twenty small linked rooms in the last ten minutes. The floors were covered with a fine gray dust, and the dust had caked in ventilation patterns on the walls. Jake had no idea where they were at the moment, but he had no worry about finding their way out. The rooms just lead one into another. All he and Nog had to do was follow their own footprints in the dust.

Nog sneezed. It sounded like an explosion in the enclosed area. "Sure was a good idea," he said. "Crawling around in the dust to find nothing."

They stopped in the middle of a room the size of a holosuite. Jake flashed his light around the walls and ceilings. Only gray metal. No sign of old furniture or equipment. Nothing had disturbed the dust in here in years.

The entrance to the next room was about a meter above the floor and looked more like a maintenance tunnel. They'd have to crawl on their hands and knees to get through it if it lead anywhere.

"We really should be mapping this out," Jake said.

"You should be mapping this out," Nog said, pointing his flashlight at his clothes and trying to pat off some of the dust. All he managed to do was fill the air around them, making the lights look like they were being shown through a thick fog. "I only came along because you asked."

Jake frowned at him. "Why are you being so difficult about this?"

Nog stopped patting. "I'm tired of people making me do things I don't want to do."

"You didn't have to come."

"You wanted me to."

"But I told you that you could leave if you wanted."

"You said that, but you meant I should stay."

Jake looked away. He had made it clear that he wanted Nog to stay. "You don't always have to do everything everyone else wants you to do."

"I'm not like you!" Nog had raised his voice. The room shook with the force of his words. "I'm not the commander's son. No one on the station gives me special permission to map stupid maintenance tunnels. No one tells me that I can spend all day watching the chief engineer. No one gets me three days away from the station so I can fly in some special ship with my father. I have to stay here and work for my uncle. And when I get back tonight, I'll get yelled at for not helping clean up and for being so dirty."

"Is that what's bugging you?" Jake asked.

"Isn't that enough?"

"I thought you didn't care that I was the commander's son."

Nog sighed in his impatient way. "It's just things are easy for you, and they're never easy for me. It's like these tunnels. You think it's cool to walk through them and map them, and Chief O'Brien will pat you on the head and tell you how good you were, and no one will thank me."

"Sure they will," Jake said.

"No, they won't," Nog said.

"They will if I tell them you did all the work."

"You'd do that?" Nog asked, his mood clearly brightening. Jake was always amazed at how surprised Nog was whenever anyone offered to do something nice for him.