Frostbite

"Blood on the snow of winter
Back are the eyes of coal
Glittery leaves a splinter
Spinning a flake of gold"

— "Blood on the Snow", Erasure

First Officer's Log, Stardate 87234.2. The Bajor has been on patrol in the Rolor Nebula north of Deep Space 9 for the last week. Twelve hours ago our long-range sensors detected a previously uncharted Class M world orbiting Alpha Quinque Fratres, a G2V yellow dwarf star, same as Sol or B'hava'el. Per standard protocol we're now on approach to investigate.

"Coming out of warp in five, four, three, two, one, mark." Lieutenant Park smoothly eased the Bajor from the reality-breakingly fast speed of warp down to the merely very, very fast speeds of realspace.

"Begin orbital insertion," Tess Phohl ordered.

"Yes, sir. Establishing standard orbit."

Behind her the turbolift door slid open. Tess turned, spotted a ginger-haired Bajoran in command white-on-black, and announced, "Captain on deck!"

"As you were," Captain Kanril said. "Talk to me, Tess."

Tess gestured at the plot. "Alpha Quinque Fratres II, or Orvis II by Bajoran astronomy." She reads off a PADD. "So far, nothing really interesting. Point-nine-four gravities, oxy-nitro atmosphere a little rich on the O2, orbital period 330 standard days—"

"Hang on," her captain interrupted, pointing at the world of white inflating on the forward viewscreen. "That snowball is supposed to be Class M?"

Tess smirked and gestured to Commander Riyannis. "It's in an ice age, Captain," the Trill answered.

"Oh."

"Yeah. FYI, Bajor looked something like that about five million years ago."

"Standard orbit achieved, Captain."

"Thank you, JG Park. Anything else?"

"Well, no signs of intelligent life," Biri read off the screen. "Plenty of life under the glaciers and in the oceans, though, some primitive land-based vertebrates in the tropics, and a fair amount of volcanic activity… Huh."

Tess glanced over at her and saw her brow furrowed in concentration. "What is it?"

"I'm not sure. I'm getting a weird heat signature around 47 north, 104 west. Wiggin, give me another sweep, please, hundred-klick radius."

"Sir."

Tess scanned the readouts. "What the frak is that?"

Biri shrugged. "It's putting out a big EM field, whatever it is. Definitely artificial."

"Didn't you just say there's no signs of intelligent life?" the captain asked sardonically.

"I've been wrong before," Riyannis answered innocently. "Captain, with your permission I'd like to take a team down there and see what we can find out."

"All right, take Tess with you. Park, take us geosynch over the site."

"Conn, aye. Engaging impulse drive."

Tess and Biri materialized on the glacier with half a dozen redshirts, five blueshirts, and a crate of base-camp supplies the ever-practical Andorian shen had insisted on. Biri immediately started shivering despite the insulated coveralls that make up the Starfleet cold weather gear. Tess chuckled. "Really?"

"Tess, I was born in the tropics and I've spent half my life on starships or in temperate zones. You're Andorian, you're lucky."

"For your information I grew up near the equator."

"Yeah, Andoria's equator."

"Could be worse, Riyannis. We could be in a jungle full of bugs."

Biri ignored this, pulled a scarf up over her face, flipped her tricorder open and started scanning, then pointed a little west of north. "Rock face, hundred meters that way."

The group moved carefully across the glacier, Biri repeatedly slipping on the ice. After the third time Tess told her to adjust her crampons and they made it the rest of the way without further trouble.

A sheer wall of black granite loomed ahead at the edge of the glacier, five stories tall. Tess brushed snow and dirt off the rock face, then stepped back and glanced at the Trill. "You're sure?"

"That's what the tricorder says. Definite metallic signature centimeters inside the rock, EM readings behind that."

"All right, stand back." Tess drew her Type 2 phaser and adjusted the settings, then stitched the stone with a four-shot burst, blowing a hole through it to reveal bare metal. Bronze-colored, embossed with ideograms that looked vaguely familiar to her. In fact, they were so familiar they felt like they were calling to her heart, and yet she knew she'd never seen these particular symbols before. "What the frak is that?"

Biri made another pass with the tricorder. "Well, I was right about one thing, there's no native intelligent life. This alloy signature reads as the Preservers."

"Shun muh?" Specialist Ling asked.

"Oh, come off it, Cathy," Senior Chief Athezra Darrod commented. "You know, ancient humanoid species that seeded—"

The petty officer turned redder than the icy breeze would account for and answered, "Oh, right. Them. Think we've got another archive like the one the Norgh'a'Qun found in the Lae'nas system, sir?"

"Possibly," Biri allowed. "I'll know more if I can—damn it, tricorder crashed. I ought to sue their asses!"

Tess snorted. "Biri, just because it crashed one time—"

"Not one time!" the Trill complained indignantly. "I swear by the forty hosts of Gaunt, the entire model year is allergic to me!"

Tess was about to answer back but her combadge chirped and saved her the trouble. "Kanril to away team."

The Andorian slapped the badge. "Go, Captain."

"We're going to have to break orbit. Picked up a distress signal from a Bajoran transport seven light-years out. True Way."

"All right, we'll pack up and join you."

"Belay that," Biri said. "El, we've got a Preserver installation down here."

"Ooookay. Do you want to stay on-planet overnight? It's going to take us several hours to deal with this."

"Yes, ma'am, I would. Even with the cold."

"All right, you guys can stay down there, then."

"Captain," Tess queried, "you sure you can do without—"

"Tess, I was a gunnery officer before I was a CO. I can handle your job. We'll be back in twelve hours, tops."

"Very good, ma'am. Phohl out."

"Breaking orbit now. Bajor out." High above, a barely visible dark speck suddenly stretched into the distance and vanished.

Tess shrugged, fiddled with a setting on her tricorder and panned it around the horizon. Not good. "Araaje! Better break out the tent now! We'll need it!"

Biri and her blueshirts went into a discussion of alloys and energy signatures, all of it way over the azure-skinned career soldier's head. She adjusted her phaser rifle in its sling across her back and helped Athezra and Crewman Araaje set up the tent against the incoming snowstorm. "Oh, that figures," she complained. This pole is too short. I don't get paid enough—oh, it's just the one for the storm-flap, never mind."

"Haven't done this in a while, sir?" Athezra inferred in a dry tone.

"Shut it, Senior Chief."

"Yes, sir," the sandy-haired Bajoran noncom obeyed, grinning impudently. Tess shook her head and threw him an anchor peg for his corner.

Soon the tent was up and Tess had the heater lit. She grabbed a bundle of MREs out of the supply box and set them out on the heater's grill to warm through. They were perfectly edible cold, of course, but they tasted better, for a given value of "better", at blood temperature. She slapped her combadge again. "Biri, Tess. Dinner's ready."

Biri's voice crackled back, "I'll be there in a little while. Cathy and I are going up on top of the ridge."

"What about the door?"

"Can't do much with it without more equipment or some other breakthrough. This one seems to be better-secured than the installation on Lae'nas III. But there's what looks like an EPS conduit running up the cliff. I might be able to get in that way if I can find the top of it."

"Take Zasrassi and Glav." She opened an MRE at random and stuck a spork in the main course, spooning it into her mouth. It was some kind of shredded meat, with a sour sauce on it. She glanced at the label on the package. "North Carolina-Style Barbecue & Coleslaw".

Then her combadge chirped. "Matheson here. I picked up an energy discharge over the south ridge. I'm going to go check it out."

"Be careful, Crewman, it'll start snowing soon."

"Won't be a minute. Matheson out."

Tess spooned up some more 'barbecue' and decided she'd gotten lucky with the MREs this time.

Then she heard a noise in Matheson's direction. She stopped and listened, then heard it again. Then she placed it: energy weapon discharge. She hit her badge, dropping her MRE. "Shots fired, shots fired! Converge on Matheson's position! Matheson, who's out there?"

"Breen! Repeat, Breen—ARGH!"

"Matheson! Report!" Athezra's voice came through as Tess zipped up her coveralls and bolted out the tent flap into the darkening world of white, with snowflakes already drifting down out of the sky.

"Rrrg, I'm hit but not bad! Returning fire!" Now Tess heard the distinctive staccato whine of a Starfleet phaser rifle on full auto as she bolted down the glacier.

There was an answering, lower-pitched roar, a Breen type 3 disruptor, and the phaser went silent. She hit her combadge again. "Matheson!"

The electronic warble of a suited Breen returned, "Matheson is dead. I am Dalsh Ruul. Your camp is surrounded, Starfleet. You will surrender." Tess shot back with a barrage of angry Andorii that included a rather graphic description of where the Breen could stick his surrender demand, not to mention the parentage and probable genetic makeup of his shreya and thavan.

She came over the hill and dropped prone, flicked the optics on her rifle over to infrared, and sighted below the glowing radiator of a refrigeration suit. She squeezed the trigger twice and the Breen folded in half and flew backwards. Return fire hissed into the snow and ice around her as she selected another target. Off to her right Senior Chief Athezra and Petty Officer Hank Weaver added their fire. One suited Breen was struck in the head and painted the snow with his brains. Another took three shots to the neck and chest and still he shot back one last time; off to Tess's left Specialist th'Shrellikath, firing from one knee, blew apart at the groin.

Then Tess heard a whine behind her and rolled over to see three more Breen appear, weapons leveled, the snowy air still sparking with the aftereffects of the transporter. She swore and threw her rifle aside, holding her hands up. "I surrender! Hold your fire!"

A vel'sh threw Tess onto the floor of the tent. She started to stand but a h'ren rammed the back of her knee with the buttstock of his gun and she went down again. A bulkier-suited Breen, this one a dalsh, or "shipmaster", turned to her. A stream of electronic garble issued from the h'ren; after a lag her subcutaneous translator supplied, "This one is the leader."

"Thank you, Draf," the dalsh said. "Wait outside." The h'ren nodded once and stepped back out, zipping the tent behind him. "I am Dalsh Ruul. Identify yourself," the dalsh ordered her in clear, unaccented Federation Standard. He could've passed for somebody from Ohio.

Tess forced herself upright and answered, "Siritesjha sh'Phohlhi, Commander, Mike-Hotel-2404-2294-3037-9022."

The big Breen demanded to know what Tess knew of the Preserver door. Again, Tess merely replied, "Siritesjha sh'Phohlhi, Commander, Mike-Hotel-2404-2294-3037-9022."

The Breen dalsh growled in frustration and tried, "How many other Starfleet soldiers are on this planet?"

"Siritesjha sh'Phohlhi, Commander, Mike-Hotel-2404-2294-3037-9022."

"Answer me!"

"Siritesjha sh'Phohlhi, Commander, Mike-Hotel-2404-2294-3037-9022."

The Breen backhanded her across the face. "Talk, damn you!"

She spat a small amount of blood onto the Breen's boot and again repeated, "Siritesjha sh'Phohlhi, Commander, Mike-Hotel-2404-2294-3037-9022."

The Breen's suit speaker let out a blast of electronic noise that her translator gave up on and bellowed for his compatriots to "bring in the Bajoran." H'ren Draf entered again, this time shoving Athezra ahead of him, and threw him to the ground. The dalsh grabbed him by the back of his collar, pulled him straight up, and pressed a pistol to the back of his head. "Talk, or I'll kill him."

"Don't tell him anything, sir," Athezra told her. The h'ren punched him in the kidney and he grunted in pain.

"Yes, thank you, Senior Chief, I know how this works," Tess said dryly, then looks to the dalsh. In a conversational tone, she told him, "No, you won't kill him, because A, it still won't make me talk, and B, if you do, our captain will hunt you to the ends of the galaxy, and there won't be a thing you can say or do that will stop her from personally strangling you with your own intestines."

"So, you can say something besides—"

"Besides 'Siritesjha sh'Phohlhi, Commander, Mike-Hotel-2404-2294-3037-9022'?" She paused, made an exaggerated expression of being deep in thought for about ten seconds, then went, "Nope, nothing comes to mind."

The Breen's gun hand shook, then he gave a frustrated roar and shoved Athezra away from him, and stormed out the tent flap with the h'ren and vel'sh hot on his heels. "Frak you and the zabathu you rode in on!" Tess hollered after him, then asked Athezra, "How many of us did they get?" The tent flap opened again and the Breen shoved in several other members of the away team. "Never mind." She quickly counted uniforms. Crewman Araaje and Security Officer zh'Planathalian, Specialists Moretti and Atti, and Corpsman Neeshiredei. "Did anyone say anything besides name, rank, and serial number?"

"Squat," Moretti answered.

"I called his mother a whore," Atti said. "Does that count?"

"Good. Keep it that way." Tess passed out MREs, then scooped her opened barbecue package off the floor and put it back on the heater.

"How can you think of eating at a time like this?" Araaje whined.

"Because I'm hungry!" Tess told the Bajoran, an eighteen-year-old barely out of boot camp. "And because I don't know the next time we'll get the chance."

"Don't worry," zh'Planathalian said in a soothing tone. "If the Breen were going to kill us they would've done it already. That means there's two possibilities. Either the captain comes back and does her makra la'zhavey thing"—Tess snorted at the description—"or…" The zhen trailed off and mouthed, The others rescue us.

"One other possibility, Petty Officer," Athezra added after a moment. "They pick us up and leave."

"Yes, thank you for being such a ray of sunshine, Chief." She paused and patted the small of her back, then smiled, reassured.

Atop the ridge, a hundred-some-odd meters above the camp, Biri lay prone in the snow, shivering. Almost a centimeter had fallen in the last half-hour. Oh, and now her stomach was grumbling. It would be that the Breen hit the base camp before she'd eaten.

She'd heard Tess' call for everyone to converge but her group didn't have time to get down off the ridge before it was all over. Now all she could do was watch.

"We should go in and get them."

"Zasrassi, there's thirty of them and four of us," she told the Caitian assault squad officer.

"Would that stop the captain?"

Biri dropped her tricorder into the snow and looked at the Caitian in annoyance. "No, but she wouldn't go charging straight in there either. Eleya may be crazy but she's not an idiot. Where the hell did they come from, anyway?"

"I'm reading a Plesh Brek in a two-hour orbit," Ling replied, pointing her tricorder at the sky.

"Okay, so he's left a skeleton crew up there." The Trill checked the weather again. "Damn it." The snowstorm was now threatening to turn to full-on blizzard conditions, exactly why they'd brought the tent. The Breen were far better off in these conditions than anybody but Tess and Talasethra zh'Planathalian, both of whom they'd caught.

Biri decided they'd have to wait out the storm. Okay, think, Riyannis. Survival 101. Cold weather.

… Okay, drawing a blank. Damn the cold.

"If I may, sir?" Petty Officer Glav said after a moment.

"You got any ideas? I'd love to hear them."

"Help me excavate the hollow around back of this outcrop. It'll shield us from their infrared, it'll give us shelter, and the digging will warm you up, Commander."

"I take it you've done this before?"

"I'm from Temuzad State," the jet-irised Betazoid answered. "I grew up in this. Half the reason I joined Starfleet was to get out of the snow." He grinned ruefully.

The work was numbing, both in hand and mind. And somewhere deep inside the irrevocably fused consciousness that was Birail Riyannis, Birail Izer felt Riyannis twitching slightly in the pouch below her breastbone. Even the symbiont was shivering.

That couldn't be good.

Glav seemed to notice, his eyes widening in worry as he looked over at his superior. "Chalice," he muttered, putting a hand to her brow. "You're freezing."

"You're telling me?"

"No, I mean if you don't keep moving you're going to develop hypothermia."

She tried to nod but found her coverall hood had frozen in place. "Let's keep digging."

Eventually they worked their way into the hollow, and Biri was stunned to find that the walls were smooth, seamless stone, with a metal grate of some kind at one end. Obviously they'd found the far end of the conduit, or possibly it was an exhaust vent. That took a backseat to warming up, though. "Hope you won't consider this too forward, sir," Glav joked as he wrapped his arms around the Trill. Zasrassi and Ling joined in.

"Cop a feel and I'll break your neck," Biri murmured into Glav's shoulder as the group's collective body heat started to build up.

Pain. Pain was Tess' entire world. White hot. Ice cold. Every nerve burned.

The pain suddenly stopped and she fell to all fours on the snow-covered ground. An ak'ched grabbed her by the hair and one antenna and pulled her upright. This hurt almost as bad—Andorian antennae were sensitive in more ways than one. Dalsh Ruul swam into focus in front of her. All she could make out clearly was the glowing visor. It was still dark outside, and snowflakes still whipped past her face, but it was slowing. "Not the best scream I've ever heard, but I'll give it a seven."

Tess hoarsely answered, "Sorry … to disappoint you."

The dalsh sat down in a chair across from her and rapped a rod the palm of his hand. After a moment, he said, "I think this is very pretty."

"What?"

"The design. It's functional. Finely crafted to exacting specifications. Klingon 'oy'naQ are so crude. We acquired the design from them, of course, back in the reign of their Chancellor Mow'ga, but we refined it far in advance of their pathetic efforts. It won't kill you, but the amount of pain or pleasure you feel is entirely up to me. I find it is particularly effective to give akhvet—I believe the humans term is 'humanoids', such a self-centered word—a powerful arousal, and then immediately before they peak, trigger their pain center as I did to you just now." He abruptly reached out and jammed the rod into her shoulder and the world went white with pain again. It stopped after what felt like eternity. "My men have cleared off the rest of the stone from the doorway. Tell me what you know of the installation."

Tess took a deep breath. "Siritesjha sh'Phohlhi, Commander, Mike-Hotel-2404-2294-3037-9022." I hold to that one thought. They can do nothing to me but kill me.

The Breen struck her in the head with the painstick and she fell over. Another eternity of pain, though part of her knew it was only a few seconds before the pain faded once more. The Breen looked at her for a long moment. "You know, this is your fault, Commander," he finally said.

Tess groaned. "How so?"

"If your Starfleet hadn't found a countermeasure for our cortical implants, I could have just taken what I needed. I wouldn't have to do this."

The shen swallowed to get the metallic taste out of her mouth. "Sorry I'm such an inconvenience."

"Actually," the Breen corrected himself, "it's not completely your fault, it's also Thot Trel's for leaving an intact copy where you cha'tor could get your hands on it. Frankly General Ssharki did us a favor when he killed that idiot. But it makes my life, and yours, much harder. This could have been so much easier on us both." He knelt down and gripped her chin, hard. "Here, work with me. Easy question: What ship are you assigned to?"

"Siritesjha sh'Phohlhi, Commander, Mike-Hotel-2404-2294-3037-9022."

"Stop saying that!" And the world whited out again.

Biri was awoken by Tess's screams. The Trill could hear it through the rock, and tried to ignore it. ASO2. Zasrassi wasn't as willing. "Commander, this is pierec'eay'khartoh if you'll pardon my Ferasan. They're killing her!"

"No, just torturing her. She can handle it."

The Caitian's jaw dropped as a particularly harsh wail issued from the Andorian. "How can you be so heartless?"

Biri stood up, then stormed over, grabbed Zasrassi by the front of her coveralls and slammed her into the wall. "Don't you dare call me heartless, you damn furball! It's taking everything I have not to go right down there and blow that dalsh all the way back to Breen! But I do that and we die, too!" She dropped the Caitian on the ground. "You want to do something? Help me get this grate open."

"What good is that going to do?" Ling asked.

"It'll keep us busy, for one. For another, maybe there's something down there that can help."

Biri examined the edge of the grate with her tricorder. It took a sharp whack against her thigh before the scanner would give her anything useful, but based on the readings the grate was made of a metal-ceramic hybrid material, similar to the hulls of most modern starships. Hard to boil off, held its strength when superheated, and highly wear-resistant.

But the rock around it? Just ordinary granite. "Guys, go collapse the snow around the entrance. We're going to need the sound insulation."

"Commander, it'll take us just as long to dig out as it took to dig in!" Glav objected.

"If I'm right, it won't matter. We're going down. Trust me on this."

Zasrassi and Glav went out to the entrance. "On three," Zasrassi said. "One, two, three!" They rammed the carbon fiber buttstocks of their rifles into the snow above and jumped backwards as it poured down.

Biri and Cathy aimed flicked their rifles over to semiautomatic and began carving the stone around the grating with continuous beams, starting at one corner and raggedly encircling it. The stone evaporated under the continuous streams, which met at the far corner. Biri ejected the nearly spent power cell and rammed a new one home, then flicked the manual safety and slung the rifle. "All together! Lift!" And the grate came free. "All right, where's that rope?"

Before any of them could enter the cavity, however, Biri's combadge chirped and she heard her captain's rough contralto. "Away team, do you read?"

Biri quickly answered, "Spotty to Mama Bear, blue-4, red-7." She adjusted a setting on her badge.

There was a pause, then, "Confirm, blue-4, red-7."

They were now on a coded channel, but Biri wasn't taking any chances. "Mama Bear, Mama Bear, Suits holding Stalks. Spotty positioned for surprise but outnumbered. Requesting rapid dominance, your timing."

"Confirm, one Suit Trident in sight. Will gain high ground and deploy opposite. Initiating ECM. Two minutes out, stand by."

The pain stopped abruptly and Tess saw the Breen looking skyward, holding down the communication key on his helmet. "Bor Tok, this is Dalsh Ruul. Enemies approach. Please respond. I say again, Bor Tok, do you read?"

Then, high above them in the lightening sky, visible through a break in the clouds, there was a series of silent flashes. Orange and purple beams and bolts briefly spat back and forth, but mere seconds after the battle had begun there was a single actinic flash, a warp core detonating and putting a new momentary star in the sky that just as quickly was gone.

High orbit, Tess thought. The highest ground there is.

Then a voice issued from the Breen's communicator. "Breen commander, this is Captain Kanril Eleya of the Federation Starship Bajor. Release your prisoners immediately and surrender."

"Transporter scrambler, now!" Dalsh Ruul barked.

"Delay her!" somebody yelled back.

Ruul pressed a button on the side of his helmet. "Kanril Eleya. I have heard that name before, in intelligence briefings. Since you have apparently destroyed my ship, you will provide my men and I with a shuttle—"

Eleya sounded almost bored when she interrupted, "Wrong answer."

Ruul looked at Tess, who would have sworn the Breen looked annoyed if he hadn't had a helmet on. "She hung up on me."

"Dalsh Ruul!" somebody cried from the other side of the campsite. "Transporter signatures!"

Wait.

"I told you to scramble it!"

Wait.

"Too late!" Then Tess heard the roar of a phaser assault minigun on full auto. There was an electronic squawk from the Breen's communicator as the guy on the other end was hit in the head; more phaser bolts streaked overhead and spattered the snow with molten rock from the cliff face.

Wait.

Then the ground rumbled and snow fell from high atop the cliff. A gap appeared in the calligraphy-rich metal-ceramic face of the Preserver doorway. Two h'rens whirled to face it and more phaser fire erupted, stitching them from neck to groin. Biri leaned out of the doorway and a searing orange beam erupted from her rifle; the vel'sh in the party took it in the shoulder, spun about, and went down.

Wait.

Dalsh Ruul began to turn, reaching for his sidearm as he dropped to one knee—

Now. And Tess moved. The 7.5-centimeter stiletto she always carried at the small of her back appeared in her hand and she buried it to the hilt between the Breen's spine and his right shoulder blade. Crimson blood spurted onto her gloved right hand and the coppery scent filled her nostrils as she drew Ruul's pistol and sighted on an ak'ched, barely hearing the dalsh's roar of pain. The disruptor bucked in her hand as she fired and her target's head exploded in a shower of sparks, bone, brains, and blood.

From the doorway Biri saw Tess fire as the others searched for more targets. She spotted three more Breen soldiers running from the oncoming assault unit. "This is Starfleet!" she heard the captain shout on her battle armor's loudspeaker from the other side of the tent. "Drop your weapons!"

Tess fired again and one of the Breen went down; the other two started to turn. Biri pulled her tricorder and punched one of her macro keys, and for once it didn't crash on her. An orange glow bloomed out of midair between the two h'rens and they flew apart, their suits suddenly engulfed in flames. As they rolled in the snow, frantically trying to extinguish the fire, the captain, wearing full MACO armor in a white, gray, and blue, camo pattern, came around the left side of the tent and fired at something off to Biri's right. A blast of electronic noise and suddenly it was silent.

"Clear!" she heard Lieutenant McMillan shout from the far side of the tent.

"Clear!" Eleya hollered.

"Clear!" Biri joined in.

"Clear!" Dul'krah's deep voice came from somewhere to the left.

The tent flap unzipped. "Clear," Senior Chief Athezra announced, shoving another ak'ched out of the tent in front of him. The Breen went to his knees and clapped his hands to the back of his helmet.

Eleya flicked the safety onto her rifle. "Kanril to Bajor, we are code four, all clear."

Tess collapsed and Biri ran over to her. The Andorian was shaking. "Tess, talk to me."

"I'm okay, just the… aftereffects of the painstick. Just… just give me a second." Biri shouldered her rifle and helped her up, and Eleya jogged over to grab her other arm.

"McMillan!" the captain bellowed. "How many of these ye'phekk makteru kosst amojan are still alive?"

"I got three over here, Captain!" McMillan answered, and came around the tent with a duo of Bajoran E-2s, shoving a trio of disarmed Breen ahead of her.

"This one's had it," Glav reported, "but the two Riyannis set on fire are still with us."

"The dalsh yet breathes as well, Captain," the towering bulk of Dul'krah, Clan Korekh answered. The horned Pe'khdar stepped closer, one taloned hand holding a crescent-shaped neural disruptor on the now-shipless Breen CO. He reached down and unsnapped the seal on the helmet, lifting it off.

"Huh," was all Eleya said as a heart-shaped face with a shock of close-cropped silver-blonde hair came into view.

"She's human!" McMillan exclaimed.

The woman named Ruul spat blood onto the snow. "I am Breen," she insisted in a pained soprano.

Eleya shifted Tess further onto Biri, then grabbed the front of the woman's suit; the human Breen yelped as the knife still stuck in her back shifted. "I frankly don't give a flying phekk what you call yourself. You hurt my crew. That means I hurt you." She threw Ruul back into the snow to another yelp and radioed, "Bajor, we need medical and security teams down here right away."

Zasrassi tugged on Biri's coveralls. "Yes?"

"What the sivt was that you used on those two h'rens?"

"Exothermic induction field," Biri answered. "It's a fancy way of saying my tricorder has a flamethrower."

"Why didn't you use that to warm us all up earlier?" Glav queried, suspiciously.

"'Cause it would've lit us up like a Christmas tree on their infrared."

"What's a Christmas tree?" the captain asked.

Author's Notes: That's eastern North Carolina-style barbecue, by the way. Chopped pork with a vinegar-based sauce. Delicious.

"Quinque Fratres" is Latin for "Five Brothers", a Bajoran constellation mentioned in the novel Captain's Peril.

Zasrassi's curse word "pierec'eay'khartoh" is a reference to Timothy Zahn's Cobra novels (specifically Cobra Bargain), although it's not a profanity in the original context.

As for Dalsh Ruul, I wanted to do something a little crazy with the Breen. We never see the inside of one of those helmets in the shows, but the novelverse (specifically Typhon Pact: Zero Sum Game) came up with them being a confederation of a dozen or so species. (The real purpose of the suits is to head racism off at the pass, i.e. "we are all Breen".) For some reason I thought of the Tau Empire in Warhammer 40,000, also an alliance of species, and of how they'll convert human planets to the Greater Good. The humans from those planets are called "gue'vesa" in Tau, literally "human helpers".

So maybe Ruul is a human defector, or maybe she's from a far-flung colony world that the Breen took over, or which joined voluntarily. In any case, now she is not human, she is Breen.