For My Parmach'Kai, part three

Worf's chin touched his chest for what must have been at least the fourth time in an hour. He jerked his head up, forcing himself not to doze off. Maybe putting the runabout on autopilot for the whole trip wasn't such a good idea. If he didn't watch the controls studiously, he might miss a crucial readout or scan result. The Klingon sat up straight and took control of the helm.  Turning to the side, he conducted a long-range scan of the area. No Dominion ships in sight. Next he said loudly, "Computer, ETA."
"Twenty-eight minutes."

Since he had some time to spare, Worf decided that this would be a good time to test the cloaking device. Tapping the appropriate buttons on the tactical section of the console, he engaged the cloak and saw a slight shimmer over the front viewscreen. Before he could congratulate himself, the computer emitted a shrill beep that drew his attention to the scan results. A Breen scout ship was approaching on is port side. Perfect. It could assist him with his trial run without
posing too much of a threat if the cloak didn't work.

As the ship drew closer, the klaxon screeched more frantically. Annoyed with it, Worf punched the controls as if the noise might alert the Breen vessel to his presence. When it fell silent, he returned his gaze to the viewscreen.
The ship caught up to and crossed in front of his runabout uneventfully. The Klingon grinned to himself, disengaged the cloak, and adjusted the runabout's speed to warp three. Sooner than he had expected, the familiar but yet eerily haunting shape of Empok Nor, so like Deep Space Nine, appeared first on the sensors and then on the viewscreen.

He docked and went aboard with a small tool kit, going first to the deserted Ops command center of the station. Tensing as the turbolift surfaced onto the level, he immediately reprimanded himself for being foolish. Somehow he had expected to find a crew of decomposing corpses waiting for him, whether it be a Cardassian crew or his stationmates with whom he spent each day on DS9. At the Main Operations Table, he programmed the computer to broadcast a stationwide message alerting him to the presence of Dominion ships if any came into the area. If their
ships happened to be passing by, they would no doubt scan the station for any signs of life. Upon finding a single Klingon and a runabout with a Starfleet signature, they would want to pay a visit to see what he was up to in their space.

Worf wanted to be ready for them. That done, he went to the Jeffries tube in the habitat ring that led to the central
computer core. His large, muscular frame did not slide through the narrow conduit easily, causing him to almost get stuck many times until he finally reached the heart of the station. The access door slid open easily, the many alarms and sensors that were in place on Deep Space Nine silent and inactive. Worf was not intimidated by the mindless
jumble of wires and components that lay inside. Even though he now was a command officer, he had worked as an engineer on the Enterprise and knew exactly what he was doing. He pulled a flux decoupler out of his tool kit and reached into the core.

Times like this made him feel like a surgeon. Every tiny move had to be made with the utmost caution and
precision, or else something inside the patient would rupture. The Klingon's meaty hand crept past the various inoperative alarms, isolinear chips, and relays until he was able to touch the master differential relay that controlled the weapons system of this once mighty, hulking station. He turned on the flux decoupler and touched it to the end of the relay that merged with the main computer.

The flow of energy was instantly severed, accompanied by a humming noise that Worf hadn't even been able to differentiate from the others earlier that became louder and then ceased. The opposite end of the relay interfaced
with the targeting relay, which in turn joined the main computer. When it again came in contact with the glowing end of the engineering tool, it gave an irritated buzz and fell silent. Now Worf could safely remove it without fear of injury. The master differential relay just fit in his palm when he extricated it from the rest of the components. He contemplated it with a sense of almost pride. Chief O'Brien had given him a small padded case before he left DS9. Extracting that case, he carefully placed the relay into it and snapped it shut with a satisfied smile.

One might have thought that, as a Klingon, he wouldn't have hands nearly gentle enough for such meticulous work. But Worf could be as gentle as anyone with his hands, as Jadzia had discovered on many occasions. His moment of victory was shattered like a dropped champagne goblet when the distinct feminine voice of Empok Nor's computer informed him, "Dominion ships approaching."

Worf bolted upright from his kneeling position in front of the open access panel and slammed the cover back
on.

"How many?" he barked as he stuffed his tools and the relay in its protective case into their box, sparsely decorated with a shiny stripe and comm badge emblem.
"Two Jem'Hadar, one Cardassian."

Cramming himself into the impossibly small conduit once more, he wiggled back the direction he had come.
"ETA?"
"Ten minutes."

Worf cursed the unemphatic voice of the computer for not giving him more notice, then himself for forgetting to tell it to. When he was out of his claustrophobic maze-like prison, he hurriedly replaced the door and ran at a full-out sprint. He was almost to the turbolift when he caught sight of something he had not seen before. A large painted canvas adhered to the wall, featuring a life-size representation of the person- if he really was a man and not a demon- who he was out here to destroy. Dukat, wearing a red armband, standing with open arms outstretched to a congregation of Bajoran men, women and children. They were embracing him, faces upturned to him with adoring smiles, reaching
for the spiritual guidance that he had convinced these poor people he could give to them as the intermediary between them and their false gods, the Pagh'Wraiths.

The Cardassian's welcoming, seemingly benevolent smile made Worf's lip curl in disgust. Dukat didn't give a damn what happened to his gullible followers; he just wanted to be worshipped and looked up to as a superior. With a shout of anger, Worf clutched the canvas in both hands, tore it from the wall, and ripped it in half, wishing fervently that it was really Dukat's miserable body he was splicing in two instead of a mere painting. He remained motionless for a
moment, holding the ruined mural, looking at the face of his enemy.

Where are you, you greedy, self-centered bastard? I'll find you, I swear I will. And then I'll kill you. I'll make you pay. You'll never regret anything more than the moment you even came near my Jadzia.

The Klingon dropped the two pieces of the painting and ran to the turbolift, announcing,
"Upper pylon two," without giving his handiwork a second glance. The lift whisked him to the base of the gargantuan arm protruding upwards from the docking ring. Then it began to ascend, occasionally passing a
tiny window allowing him a view of the starry expanse and the charcoal-black void of the unforgiving vacuum outside.

Worf's heart was pounding like a sledgehammer now.
"Computer, ETA of Dominion ships?"
"Four minutes."

When the lift finally halted and opened its doors, he shot out and up the small flight of steps into the Shenandoah. Dropping his bag of tools on the floor in the back of the runabout, he flung himself into the pilot's seat and disengaged the docking clamps. The runabout withdrew from the tip of the pylon and pivoted agilely in the direction of Deep Space Nine, leaving Empok Nor behind as it shimmered out of sight, concealed by the cloak. If only Worf had been just a few
seconds faster. The Dominion ships came into range, and their sensors picked up the Shenandoah as it faded from existence. Laying in what they hoped was his course, they gave pursuit.

Sisko felt extremely guilty as he stood outside Worf's quarters, taking a last glance around to make sure no one was watching. When he had confirmed that no one was nearby, he said under his breath, "Computer, override lock, authorization Sisko-theta-six-gamma."

The door obediently slid aside with a whoosh, and the captain slipped inside. Sisko immediately wanted to leave, not liking the feeling of being a trespasser. He respected the privacy of his crew, more than anyone Worf.
It seemed especially disrespectful for some reason, knowing he had been married as well. And add to that Jadzia's death…

At the moment Sisko considered himself scum. Don't touch anything, he told himself. Just
read his comm logs and get out. Knowing the Klingon wasn't going to come in and see him here didn't make it any easier. He couldn't help glancing around as he crossed the room to the small communications console.

Remnants of Jadzia were everywhere. Their two gleaming silver bat'leths, mounted on the wall, one over the other. Jadzia's was on the top set of hooks. He remembered how they had used to joke about that. Whoever had
won the last combat in the holosuite got the privilege of hanging their weapon the highest, exhibiting superiority. It somehow seemed right, respectful, that the Trill's be on top.

A picture of the two of them on Risa, before they had married, sat on the tabletop. Jadzia and Worf were standing on a sandy beach, backdropped by a gorgeous purple and orange sunset. Jadzia had her arms wrapped around her husband-to-be's neck and was leaning into him, laughing. The Klingon had his arms encircling her waist and was gazing down at her with a smile on his face and such an expression of adoration in his eyes that Sisko was choked up with emotion and sorrow, both for Worf's loss and his own. Curzon had been his best friend. He had never recovered from the death of the wisest, wittiest person he had ever known.

Then there had been Jadzia, different from her predecessor but in many ways identical. They shared a love of
all things Klingon and an unquenchable thirst for adventure. She had been her own person, too, and he loved her for it.

Now she was gone as well, and Ezri had the Dax symbiont. She was completely contradictory to the two wonderful souls who had come before her. Quiet, shy, inexperienced, he felt more of a fatherly, protective instinct towards
her than anything else. If something happened to her he didn't know what he would do. He could only take so many losses of people named Dax.

Sisko accessed his tactical officer's communication records without much difficulty. Nothing showed up at first except a few transmissions to others on DS9 and some messages from acquaintances on Qo'Nos. He almost
missed the blinking light at the bottom of the screen that indicated an unread message. Under the "sender" display column, the screen said only "unknown source." That must be the telltale transmission. As an
afterthought, he glanced at the time the message had been received. 0700
that morning. One hour after Worf had departed.

The master differential relay checked out perfectly. Amazing, really. Worf would have suspected that that would have been one of the first things the Cardassians had sabotaged before they pulled out. It had probably been  booby-trapped as well, but Garak had disarmed any surprises on an earlier mission. The Klingon put the component back in its case and snapped it shut, replacing it in the case and the case on the console. His task wasn't yet complete, though. He obviously would not be going back to the station, but he had to deliver the relay to them before venturing deeper into Dominion territory to seek out Dukat.

Worf scanned his mental accumulation of experiences for anything that might help him solve this problem. Surprisingly this answer came to him not from his service on the Enterprise, but from a more recent event during his posting on DS9. It had probably been about a year and a half ago that the Defiant had been transporting the Orb of Time to Bajor and had taken on another passenger who had turned out to be a Klingon in disguise, his intent being to go back in time and kill Captain James T. Kirk of the first Enterprise.

When the Orb took him back into the past, the Defiant and everyone aboard went too. To stop the Klingon
would-be-murderer, who had planted a bomb inside an adorable, fuzzy, innocent-looking tribble, the crew had had to beam onto the Enterprise and the nearby space station, K-7, without being detected. They had succeeded by finding gaps in the scan cycles of both the ship and the station, decloaking, and beaming over in teams of two, all within the
allowance of two seconds. Worf intended to use that tactic now. He would come within range of DS9, drop his cloak, and beam the relay into Ops, then go to warp and get the hell out of there before they had a chance to detect the theta radiation from the Shenandoah's nacelles.

Unexpectedly, a warning light began to flash on the tactical console, along with another klaxon. The Dominion ships were tracking him!

He knew the cloak was in place, so they couldn't see him. They must have detected the runabout just as he left Empok Nor, probably relying on pure estimation now to keep their headings in accordance with his. The long-range sensors proclaimed that he was about eight minutes from Deep Space Nine. Those eight minutes seemed like an eternity until the station finally came into view.

In Ops, Ensign Nog looked up, alarmed, from his sensor readings and called to Kira,
"Colonel, I'm picking up three Dominion ships headed our way: one Cardassian and two Jem'Hadar."
"Just what we need. Inform the captain," Kira groaned. The ensign hit his comm badge, but the Bajoran didn't hear his words.
" Red alert. Shields up. Power to-." She almost said "weapons", then stopped, horrified, as the klaxons around them began to flash and howl. What a time for a visit from the Dominion. They had no master differential relay to route the station's power to phasers and torpedoes. Deep Space Nine was defenseless! Somehow they had gotten word
of DS9's disadvantage and decided to make their move.
"Battlestations," she finished. Then, trying to appear calm for the sake of the crew, she noticed Ezri, who was at the Main Operations Table on the verge of tears. She went to the Trill and squeezed her shoulder gently, asking,
"Are you all right?"
Embarrassed at being caught, Ezri looked up.
"I'm fine. I just have this feeling."
"What kind of feeling?"
"About Worf. I think something's happened to him. Or is going to happen, anyway." Kira frowned.
"How can you know that?"
A wistful edge slipped into Ezri's voice. "I was his wife, Nerys. I know. Worf's in trouble."

 "Ops to Captain Sisko."
Sisko jumped at Nog's voice, thinking at first that the Ferengi was standing right behind him. The silence in Jadzia
and Worf's- no, just Worf's now- quarters was unnerving, as was the knowledge that what he was doing was wrong.
"Sisko here," he responded, trying to sound nonchalant.
"Three Dominion ships are approaching, sir."

He should have been grateful for the diversion, a reason to get out of there and avoid this unpleasant task, but suddenly the captain felt committed and wanted desperately to finish what he'd started.
"Thank you, Ensign. I'll be there shortly."
"Very well, sir. Ops out." Sisko turned back to the monitor and accessed
the unread message.

Deep Space Nine loomed up ahead now, a megalithic sentinel guarding Bajor and the wormhole. Worf was sweating, fat droplets of moisture that dampened the back of his neck and dripped, stinging, into his eyes. The master differential relay in its Starfleet case was already waiting on the transporter pad, at the touch of Worf's fingers to dematerialize and be beamed over to Ops. The only problem, the Klingon discovered when he scanned the station, was that their shields were up and they weren't running any scan cycles! The console told him that the Dominion ships
were gaining rapidly. Now it was time to think fast.

Their shields might be able to be brought down for a split second if he fired a photon torpedo at the underside of the station, directly beneath Ops, where the shields were weakest. Worf wasn't worried about them fighting back, for
he had the one key element that they needed to do so: the relay. He had qualms, though, about firing on an unarmed Federation station- his own post, for that matter- and possibly leaving them helpless and at the mercy of the Dominion. But if he didn't, there would be no way to transport the relay on board, and everyone would be in even more
trouble. Setting himself to the task, Worf positioned himself at the transporter console in the middle of the runabout, rerouting all other controls there also. His stomach lurched along with the ship as the Shenandoah dived underneath Deep Space Nine, dropped its cloak, and simultaneously fired a torpedo at the most vulnerable part of the
station.

The relay left the transporter pad in a golden column of energy and molecules. An explosion illuminated the blackness, and for an instant, Worf thought about Ezri.

DS9 rocked with the unexpected force of the photon torpedo. Colonel Kira stumbled and grabbed the Main Operations Table for balance.

"Shields down!" someone yelled.
"What the hell? Nog, who's firing?" The Ferengi's eyes were almost as wide as his ears.
"A ship just decloaked beneath us, sir! A Federation ship, a runabout! The sensors only picked it up for a moment, but I think it was the Shenandoah!" Ezri drew in a choking breath.
Kira gasped, "What?"

Just then the transporter began to whine, and something shimmered into existence. The colonel whipped her phaser out of its holster, but it wasn't a person that appeared on the pad when the beam had solidified. It was a small box with a Starfleet emblem.

***
The station shuddered around Captain Sisko as he scanned the first line of the message. It was from Gul Dukat.
***

Worf reactivated the cloak as soon as the relay was completely gone from the transporter pad. Seeing the brief fluctuation of color over the front viewscreen made him feel more at ease. But his problems weren't yet over. The Klingon maneuvered the runabout in a twisting dance around the lower docking pylons and back the way he had come, going to warp four and darting underneath his pursuers. The persistent Dominion vessels turned after him, still following close behind like hunting dogs, nostrils flooded with the scent of their prey's blood.

Chief O'Brien bounded up to the box that had mysteriously materialized just seconds before. He examined it and then announced to Kira, who had leapt up to stand beside him, "I gave this case to Worf for the relay." Ezri broke in,
"Well, that was obviously Worf! Why did he fire on us? What's he doing?"
"I don't know." Nog proclaimed, with more than a touch of relief in his voice, "The Dominion ships are turning around! They're going back the other way!" O'Brien popped the case open with his thumb. It contained a
weapons master differential relay.

Sisko closed his disbelieving eyes for a moment, then opened them and reread the message, which consisted of only two sentences: No sacrifice is in vain. You'll understand soon.

So far, so good, the exuberant Klingon thought with a bit of bloodlust as he grinned victoriously, sure that this success was a sign of future predominance. The Cardassian ship had begun to fire random shots into space around him, hoping to find a target. So far they'd had no success, since he'd been evading the crippling bursts. His celebratory mood was ruined with a single phaser blast from the lead Jem'Hadar vessel. They'd located the runabout! Damn it!

Jadzia always was a better pilot than I was!

A second hit, then a third, shook the tiny craft, throwing Worf to the floor. The Klingon struggled to his feet as smoke poured out of a vent in the cabin towards the rear of the ship. Upon touching his face, his fingers came away smeared with hot, crimson blood. Everything seemed to happen at once after that. The cloak shimmered and failed, damaged by the last direct hit. Klaxons screamed defeat, clouds of smoke and tongues of flame shot out of ruined consoles. Worf pounded the control panel in front of him in frustration, then whirled around as a transporter beam announced the arrival of three Jem'Hadar soldiers, all armed to the teeth with raised phaser rifles.

The Klingon reached for his own weapon, clipped into the holster at his hip. Before he could get off a shot, the leftmost Jem'Hadar fired directly into his chest. Worf's lungs were on fire, his whole body plunged into an insane chasm of flame and stabbing agony and cacophonous noise. I'm sorry, Jadzia, was his last thought before the chaos faded away to oblivion. I failed you, parmach'kai. I'm sorry….

~The End~