Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Station Rage by Diane Carey

Author:Diane Carey
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Science Fiction, Star Trek, Fiction
ISBN: 9780671885618
Publisher: Pocket Books
Published: 1995-01-02T08:00:00+00:00

Using only her eyes, Kira looked around. She listened.

She waited for her skin to start tingling. Like a sunburn—that's how it would begin. Then her tongue would swell.

"Fail-safe plus five … six … seven …"

No swelling. No sunburn.

"Fail-safe plus ten seconds."

No tingle. How long would it take?

She put her hand on the phaser at her hip. She closed her eyes. If she could save her eyes for a few seconds longer as her skin began to peel and her blood to boil, she would be able to aim, to shoot.

"Fail-safe plus twenty seconds."

"Captain?" a voice popped through the same hole Sisko had come in through. "Captain Sisko? Are you still here? Hello?"

Kira opened her eyes and looked.

Bashir's benign gaze preceded him as he crawled in and strode toward them, looking from one to the other, brows up like a child's.

"What's going on?" he asked. "Why wasn't I beamed out? My infirmary alarms went off. The computer said the whole place was awash with radiation, but the transporter never came on. I asked Chief O'Brien on my way here, but he didn't understand either. So what is it? Am I needed on the planet or not?"

"Julian!" Kira uttered, her throat raw with relief. Her pulse hammered in her throat, echoing in her ears. He wasn't lying on the infirmary deck with his skin flaking off!

He looked at her, then grinned in a completely confused and self-conscious way. "Have I done something?"

"Captain! Captain Sisko! Captain Sisko!" Another voice. This one not nearly so lyrical.

A gremlin appeared in the hatch, popped out, and screeched to them, eyes ringed with white as he clutched two large twine-tied bundles, one under each arm. "Where's the radiation? What's going on? What happened? The alarms started ringing and there was this terrible voice drumming about fail-safes and contaminations and I kept waiting to get beamed off! I thought you had things in hand up here! I wrapped up as much latinum as I could carry and I've been waiting to get off. And while I'm on the subject, do you know that two-thirds of my patrons evacuated without even paying their bills? They ran right out the door! I mean, they didn't even pay! Do you know what kind of sight that is? It's like watching money grow legs and walk right out! I have their names and I want them run down!"

"Calm down, Quark," Sisko said. "Dax?"

Tilting her reedy body just enough to peek at the panel as if watching an errant child, Dax allowed the computer systems time to read themselves out and put the diagnostic conclusions up.

"Atmospheric sensors read stable," she said. "The computer is blocking off the main accessways, but there's no actual contamination happening." She turned to look at Sisko without taking her hands from her panel. "Nothing at all."

"Fail-safe … code red, code red … all personnel in contaminated areas are now overwhelmed … fail-safe … do not enter contaminated areas without protective gear … fail-safe."

"See?" Quark pointed at the speakers. "That's what I mean!"

Bashir blinked at the booming computer voice.

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