"Nah, we were usually running away from them. Not just monsters, either," he informed her, one finger raised in mock seriousness. "We've had encounters with talking clouds, belligerent plants, insane computers, even sentient rocks... and every last one of them wanted to take something from us. You wouldn't believe it, but Alpha and its population are very sought after in our universe. Everyone we meet wants to have a piece of us." (2)

They had reached the Cafeteria; Tony stood aside at the door to let Kira through first and then followed her in. Sandra and Alibe were at a table in a corner, surrounded by some of the Black-and-Greys who were helping in the evacuation. Tony wasn't particularly surprised to find that all the Starfleets at their table were men: Alibe had been complaining about the shortage of presentable, available males on the Moonbase these days.

Tony waved a greeting to his colleagues, and then indicated a table at the other end of the room. Kira sat down at his invitation.

"What would you like, Major?" he asked. "Basically, you have a choice between synthetic coffee, recycled water, or my own brew of, ah, beer."

"You make beer?" she said, looking up at him with interest.

"Yup. There's a pitcher of my last brew over there. We save it for when we've run out of everything else," he told her with a grin.

That wasn't entirely true: by now, everyone on the Moonbase, except possibly Maya, was wont to drink his beer any evening regardless of its taste. All he had to do was make sure it was fit for human consumption and had plenty of alcohol in it. It still wasn't real beer, though.

"Well, I'll give it a try," replied Kira, flashing a smile at him. "Only a little bit, of course; we do have some more work to do afterwards."

Tony was about to warn her that she might be in for a disappointment, but then decided that some aliens had been known to enjoy his strange brew before. He was nonetheless a bit nervous when he gave her the glass. He himself had opted for the safer option of the synthetic coffee.

"I have to warn you, Major," he said as he sat down, "most people don't really like my beer."

He watched with interest as Kira sipped the drink. He was expecting her to make a face or be falsely polite about it, but instead she took a larger sip.

"Wow! This is great!" she exclaimed, her eyes wide with excitement. "You made this all by yourself?"

"Um, yeah." He was too astonished by her reaction to formulate any coherent sentences.

"You should sell this. You'd make a fortune on Bajor!" She drank some more. "It's like Bitter Wine -- that's a liqueur they make in Recantha. Only more..." She bit her lip as she searched for an appropriate word and then apparently gave up. "Better! You have a real winner here, Mister Verdeschi."

"Well, ah, I'm flattered," he said with a pleased grin. He hadn't been planning on bringing any of the beer with him when he left Alpha, but the idea of a potential market on Bajor made him change his mind. "You should call me Tony, by the way. I'm not used to anyone calling me 'Mister Verdeschi' anymore."

"Then you can call me Nerys."

"That's a very pretty name."

They smiled at each other in silence for a moment. Dragging his eyes away from hers, Tony remembered with acute embarrassment that Alibe and Sandra were most probably watching them. Having been out with both women in the past, he suspected they would be more than willing to get the wrong idea about him and Major Kira. Even though there was absolutely no wrong idea to have.

"You grow the ingredients here, don't you?" Nerys was asking. "One of the reports said you had a Hydroponics section to evacuate."

"Yeah, I'm not sure what we're going to do with that on DS9," said Tony, bringing his mind back onto the present conversation. "But I suppose it'll come in handy if we ever go back to our own universe. Lots of seeds and things like that."

"You're hoping to find a planet to settle on?"

"That's the idea. We gave up on Earth a long time ago, so we've been hoping to find somewhere else to live. It's pretty neat when you think about it: I'd get to be a Founding Father for a whole colony. Gives me something to strive for. A few generations from now, people would still be talking about my grand exploits and there would be streets and schools named after me." He was conscious that he was beginning to let his imagination run riot, and didn't go any further. "Well, anyway..."

"There are no other humans in your universe, no one who could come and help you?"

Tony thought about their last contact with Earth and shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know. The last time we talked to anyone over on Earth, they were in the 22d century and lived in big domed cities... having lived six years on Alpha, I can tell you that when I leave here, I'm looking forward to living somewhere I can actually walk about under the open sky. Preferably somewhere with no bug-eyed monsters either. Somewhere I can relax a little." (3)

He realised he had uttered that last sentence a little more wistfully than he had intended. Nerys gave him a sympathetic smile.

"You must have had a hard time," she said gently. "I'm surprised you've kept such good spirits after all these years."

Tony shrugged his shoulders. "I guess you can put up with anything as long as you keep a sense of humour. In fact, I believe it has been scientifically proven that laughter is an essential technique for survival. It's also an Alphan speciality. Even Maya practices it piously. In fact, she's the worst of us all."

"Really? What does she do?"

"Um, pick on me, mostly," he laughed. "I once came back to my quarters to find my bedroom had been turned into a jungle. And it was all Maya."

"A jungle... in your bedroom?" said Nerys. "Was there... any particular reason she did that?"

Tony looked down in embarrassment and twiddled his mug nervously. "Well, ah, someone told her it was Valentine's day... That was a sort of lover's day on Earth in my time," he explained. "And, well, Helena suggested Maya should give me a plant or something..."

Nerys was silent for a moment, evidently amazed at this information. Maybe she was putting two and two together as far as he and Maya were concerned. In fact, Tony couldn't help feeling rather flattered when he noticed how disappointed she looked.

"Oh. I see," she said slowly. "So you and Maya..."

"Yeah..." He grimaced and scratched his head awkwardly. "Sort of... it's complicated."

Tony wasn't particularly keen to discuss his relationship with Maya with anyone, least of all Nerys, whom he barely knew.

"Anyway," said Nerys to change the subject. "Yes, I suppose a sense of humour can be useful in stressful situations. Some of my friends used to joke about how many Cardassians they killed and about the life we led in the Resistance. I could never understand how they could laugh at things like that. Our lives were too tragic."

"Your friends had the right idea," said Tony seriously. "When it all comes down to it, everything is funny. Laughing about life certainly beats crying about it. I know you probably think I'm a callous bastard, but I'd go stir-crazy if I couldn't laugh, and I'm not the only one. It's not callousness, you know. I don't really find it funny watching my friends die or go mad, all of us stuck on this bloody rock. Do you know there were 311 people when we left Earth?" Nerys shook her head. "We've lost 89 people so far. Not bad losses in military terms, I guess. Less than 15 a year on average; at that rate we could probably survive for another couple of decades. But you know, when I think about that, if I thought about that seriously, it would just drive me crazy. I've lost so many friends, plus all the people that mattered to me on Earth. You know, even the one child who was born on Alpha died. Just some disease and then the poor little mite was dead. You'd go mad if you let things like that get to you..." (4)

"I'm sorry," said Nerys. "I didn't mean to imply you didn't care. I just meant that's something I never learned to do: laugh at things."

She did look sincerely sorry, and Tony felt guilty for raving at her as if she was accusing him of something. He was evidently letting the stress of the evacuation get to him.

"Sorry for the rant," he said. "I think I seriously need a holiday!"

"Well, DS9 has no open skies," she started, "...and I think some of our residents might qualify as 'monsters' in your eyes... but we do have some good entertainment facilities there. I'm sure you'd enjoy a trip to a holosuite," she suggested, before apparently realising he wouldn't know what that was. "That's a sort of device which can recreate any environment you like. You can choose where and when you want to go, and the holosuite will simulate the appropriate place, complete with characters. It's all fake, of course, but it can be very realistic. You can download a book, for instance, and then play one of the characters."

"So it would be like being in a movie or something?" That sounded interesting.

"A movie?"

"Never mind," he said, shaking his head. "Probably something you don't have anymore." He thought about what book he'd download to the device. "Hmm. I wouldn't mind trying my hand at Rhett Butler... um, someone else you wouldn't know," he said rapidly, before she got a chance to ask.

Nerys laughed. "I'm sure you'd have a great time, regardless of who you played. You could take your Alphan colleagues with you and just go back to Earth as you remembered it."

All we need, thought Tony wryly. He somehow felt that being in a simulation of the 20th century Earth they had lost would do nothing to improve his colleagues' morale. But as for going with someone else to the holosuite... He wondered what Maya would look like in a crinoline.

"The Rio Grande must be back by now," said Nerys. "Maybe we should go and see about clearing the stuff in your..." She consulted the padd she had with her. "...'Cinema'?"

*Working...*

Dax observed the science lab computer screen, aware that both the Alphans were watching her and no doubt expecting miracles from DS9's modern technology. After a few seconds of thought, the computer came to the conclusion it would take it half an hour to calculate the modulations in shield harmonics necessary to shift a one-million-metric-ton Starfleet vessel into an alternate universe.

Determining an efficient, discreet and safe way back for the Alphans was proving a lot harder than Dax had originally thought. In the first place, they didn't actually have a warp ship to go back in. The initial simulations Dax had run with Koenig the previous day had shown that sending the Eagles through on their own was out of the question. Aside from the fact that they were too small and too few to carry the Alphans and all their equipment, there was no way to initiate a quantum shift with them.

The task wouldn't be that much easier even if they did have a warp-capable ship. The only tried and true method of moving into another quantum reality was to use a modified transporter. Dax was sure that her theory concerning the warp bubble and shield harmonics would work, but there was no data to prove this, and she would need some hard facts before she could tell Sisko anything.

"Well, while the computer is thinking about it, I have something here that you might like to read," she said, turning away from her console.

Maya and Koenig both looked at her expectantly as she handed the commander a padd. Following a chance remark by Nerys at Deep Space Nine's staff meeting that morning, Dax had decided to do some research which she thought might interest Koenig. The commander perused the padd briefly and looked suitably interested.

"Koenig, John Robert," he read out. "Born in Brooklyn, U.S.A., March 17, 1957... What is this?"

Dax smiled with satisfaction. "One of your colleagues suggested we should see if any of you had existed in this universe, so I set our computer to work on the evacuation manifest you gave us."

"Did you find Tony, too?" asked Maya, her large eyes bright with curiosity.

"The computer found 222 perfect matches based on name and date of birth," explained Dax. "It seems as though you all had counterparts in this universe's 20th century. Well, all the humans did. I'm afraid the Federation has never had any contact with your people, Maya."

Maya seemed neither surprised nor bothered by this information. Dax reflected that she was probably used to being left out after living for several years in an entirely human population.

"There he is," said Koenig, pointing at the padd. "Verdeschi, Antonio Dean... he doesn't call himself Antonio in our universe."

Maya took the padd from her commander. "...Born in Firenze, Italy, November 9, 1966." She read the rest in silence, a smile on her lips. "What is an 'engineer at Ferrari', anyway?"

"I don't know," answered Dax. The two women turned to look at Koenig.

"Ferrari was a car manufacturer in our time. They made Grand Prix racing cars and luxury sports cars..." He seemed to notice the blank look both women gave him and stopped. "Um, I'll explain later. Let's just say I think Tony will be impressed when he knows what his counterpart was doing here. It was probably a well-paid job."

"Oh." Maya handed the padd back to Koenig. "Married, two children, steady job on Earth. I was hoping for something a little more exciting." Dax smiled at her, amused by her obvious disappointment.

Koenig finished reading his section of the padd. "This John Koenig certainly lived a different life... Born the same day to the same parents, and then studied astrophysics, but after that everything changes. Joined NASA... left NASA. Worked for various private contractors. Lived in the US, France, Switzerland. Married twice, divorced both times. Died of heart failure in 2016. Well," he said gravely. "I think I'd rather be me than him."

"I just thought you'd be interested," said Dax. She quickly checked the computer -- it was still working -- and then added, "Alternates can sometimes be a surprise. My alternate in the Mirror Universe is apparently a resistance fighter. Kira's used to be a powerful despot."

"The Alphans obviously didn't get a chance to do anything so grand in this universe," remarked Maya with a grin.

"No," agreed Koenig. "But it's quite amazing how similar some things are. The women I married, the people I worked with... Jean and Helena, Victor Bergman..." He paused and then looked at Dax. "You'd have liked Victor -- he was... very inquisitive."

"I often wish I'd had an opportunity to meet him," said Maya more seriously. "I'm sure we could have done some fantastic work together."

Koenig nodded gravely. "We lost a lot of good people." No doubt noticing Dax' questioning look, he explained. "The Moon went through a large asteroid field nearly five years ago. Our operation centre at the time, Main Mission, was destroyed, killing all the people who were in there. Most of our senior staff died that day. I can honestly say it was the worst time of my life, worse still than Breakaway."

Dax remembered seeing the Main Mission tower on Alpha's schematics; despite being exposed to vacuum from a large breach, the structure still housed the top part of Alpha's computer. The Moonbase's current Command Centre had evidently been designed originally to serve as some kind of emergency control room underneath the main tower.

"I think your computer is ready," remarked Maya after a brief pause.

The results of the calculations had indeed appeared on screen. Dax shook her head with a sigh. "Well, we're not there yet. Modulating the shield harmonics within their usual parameters would just shift the ship into an alternate universe at random. We'll have to modify the shield generators and possibly recalibrate the warp drive to get an accurate shift."

"Recalibrate the warp drive?" repeated Maya dubiously. "If you do that and modify the shields, wouldn't we end up with a ship we can't use? I can see it might help to push the ship into our universe, but we wouldn't have the knowledge to set it back to the way it needs to be to actually go anywhere. I've been reading up on your technology and although I can understand the theory of how it works, I don't think any of us would be able to actually repair or modify it."

"That's true," admitted Dax. "But once we've run all the simulations, it will be relatively easy to rig a subroutine into the ship's computer which would allow you to switch the settings back."

"So all we need is the right kind of ship," said Koenig.

Dax nodded thoughtfully; that was going to be the difficult part.

Tony poured himself a glass of beer from the brewing machine and held it up to the light. The colour was golden-brown, speckled with fine lines of bubbles. It looked good, but he wasn't too hopeful as he brought it to his lips. A sip confirmed his suspicions: it was far more sour than it should have been. Not completely undrinkable, but still not beer all the same. All those years of work, and he still hadn't cracked the code.

Taking another sip of the drink, he decided it wasn't totally unpleasant, and its alcoholic content was pretty acceptable. Just a nice little pick-me-up for the job at hand. He could see how Nerys, who probably had no particular fondness for beer, might appreciate the concoction on its own merits. Maybe he could sell this barrel to the Bajorans for pocket money.

Glancing at the packing boxes strewn around his quarters, Tony let out a sigh. He had literally spent hours in front of this machine, trying to produce something drinkable. In a couple of days, all this would be gone, blown up with the rest of Alpha, with the quarters he had lived in, the canteen he had eaten in, the Command Centre he had worked in. Every corridor and room that he had so ardently defended as chief of security would be pulverised, simply because the Moon happened to stumble into the wrong universe at the wrong time. He had never thought it would end like this.

His door bell rang; not even taking the time to look at his commlock, he pointed it at the door to disengage the lock. Turning to see who it was, Tony was surprised, and then amused by what was coming towards him.

Major Kira was approaching, swinging her hips in her skin tight scarlet uniform, a mischievous expression on her sweet little face. Knowing that the Bajoran Major had actually left Alpha an hour earlier, Tony wasn't fooled for one minute.

"Oh, Tony, are you making more of that great beer?" she cooed.

Tony shook his head and went to sit on the sofa. "That's not funny, Maya."

Maya/Kira draped herself sensually on the sofa beside him and batted her eyelashes. "Oh, please, call me Nerys. It's such a pretty name."

As far as Tony could remember, Maya hadn't met Nerys yet. She had the voice completely wrong, but the Psychon did get the false eyelashes and the smile right. She had obviously been talking to Alibe and Sandra. Tony tried to keep a straight face, but somehow Maya's approximate imitation of Kira defeated him.

"You are impossible," he laughed, lifting Kira's simulated face by a finger under the chin.

The face in front of him disappeared into a haze for a moment, only to refocus as Maya's familiar features.

"That's better," he said sincerely.

Tony leaned forward, about to kiss her, when he suddenly found she wasn't there anymore. Unprepared for her sudden absence, he lost his balance and collapsed on the sofa. Maya, in the meantime, had changed into something that looked very much like motor oil. She was dripping onto the floor.

"Uh, Maya?"

The oil started to coalesce into some sort of solid shape, but then disappeared in a haze. Maya became herself again, sitting on the floor.

"Phew, Odo is a very strange creature!" she exclaimed. "No smell, no taste, no eyes, or mouth, or ears. I knew changing into him would offer me some fascinating insights on his people. I've been waiting to do this since yesterday!"

"I see. And you thought you'd wait until I was going to kiss you before trying it," said Tony petulantly, straightening up.

Maya just chuckled. "Here, I brought you something that might interest you." She handed him a strip of golden metal.

Although it looked like gold, the strip was very light. Tony observed it thoughtfully. "What is it? Gold?" he asked, although he knew it was at best made of gold-plated something.

"It's the currency they use around here: gold-pressed latinum."

Tony burst out laughing. "And what do they use as small change: silver-pressed lutonium, perhaps?"

"It is a strange name for a substance, isn't it?" laughed Maya. "But you know what? I analysed it when I got back from DS9, and you'll never guess what we call it in our universe."

"Shoot."

"Tiranium."

"So it has a silly name in both universes." In spite of his joking tone, Tony tossed the strip thoughtfully in his hand. "How much is this worth?"

"We don't really have any frame of reference to compare it with, but Dax said that much would buy you a night in a room on DS9. That's 0.5 mg of latinum encased in gold."

"Hmm. Half a milligram for one night... We'd better tell the others about this, and strip Alpha's life-support systems and medical facilities before we leave. We might need some hard cash if we stay in this universe... You are a clever bunny, finding this out!" he added with an admiring grin.

"I'm not a 'bunny'," she said, putting on a puzzled frown, though Tony knew she understood perfectly well what he meant.

"If you say so, pussycat." Tony winked at her and handed back the latinum. "So we're sitting on the Starfleet equivalent of a gold mine."

"Starfleet don't actually use hard currency," Maya informed him, "but everyone else uses latinum for interstellar commercial exchanges."

"Cool. Capitalism in space. My grandfather would have had a fit! Talking about gold mines: I gather those two busybodies told you what Major Kira said today about my 'beer'."

"Uh-huh?" prompted Maya with a nod.

"Kira reckoned I could sell it on Bajor."

Maya laughed, just as he knew she would. "Come on," he said, "I know it's a big joke around here, but there's no accounting for people's tastes. You should see some of the rubbish humans will drink... well, my beer, for a start! It doesn't qualify as beer, but it's still drinkable alcohol. If the Bajorans like it, I reckon we should try and sell it to them. You never know when we might need some cash."

"Hmm." Maya looked at the brewing machine. "I think you should speak to Quark, the bartender on DS9. If it's worth anything, he'll buy it off you. But I shouldn't get my hopes up too high if I were you," she teased, looking up at him.

"That's what I love about you, Maya. You're so supportive," he said sarcastically, though he was grinning. "But don't worry, my brewing days will be well and truly over once we've left."

Tony thought he saw a shadow of regret cross Maya's beautiful features. But it was gone almost as soon as he saw it.

"Well, I think it's about time," she declared. "Let's face it, Tony, you're not cut out for brewing. You should find yourself another hobby. Besides, all that tasting beer is bad for you. It made you put on weight."

"What?"

"Anyway," she continued, getting up off the floor. "I should be off to pack my things now. Not that I have much to pack, just my Psychon dress, and that's falling to pieces anyway," she added thoughtfully. "In any case, I need to work with Helena to see how much tiranium we have in the life support systems."

"Hey, wait a minute. You're not going anywhere." Tony stood up and put his hand on Maya's arm. "Are you saying I'm fat?"

Maya shrugged his hand off and headed for the door. "Well, I wouldn't say 'fat', but I do notice you're taking up more of that uniform than you used to."

A particularly lewd retort made its way to the tip of Tony's tongue, but he wisely kept it to himself. "You take that back," he said instead, trying to sound menacing. He only succeeded in sounding childish.

She paused at the door and looked thoughtful, tapping her finger on her chin as if pondering some complex mathematical equation. "Hmm," she said. "...No, I don't think I will." Maya turned towards the door. "Anyway, Tony, you know I'm only saying this because I'm your -- ah!"

Before she had time to open the door, Tony seized Maya around the waist. She squealed with delight as he hefted her up, and she kicked her legs in a futile effort to get him to drop her. He was about to make her take back what she had said about his weight when Maya suddenly transformed into a cockatoo. Tony was left with an armful of nothing as the bird flew away.

"Will you come back here!" he exclaimed, taking a swipe at her as she flew by.

Maya swerved out of his reach and alighted on the table, changing into a cat as soon as she touched the surface. Undaunted by the impossibility of catching a cat, Tony lunged after her and only succeeded in bruising his knee on the table leg. The cat turned into a panther; now that he had a larger target, Tony was able to wrap his arms around her sleek form. The panther resisted Tony' attempt to wrest it to the ground; although Maya did not use her claws, she did snap her powerful jaws at him.

Tony fell back instinctively, but leapt to his feet as Maya changed into one of the biped monsters she favoured in combat situations. The creature was truly hideous -- And everyone wants me to go out with this girl? he thought -- but there was no way Tony was going to give up after such an invigorating chase.

"Don't think you can impress me with your ugly mug," he warned, throwing himself at her.

Seizing the monster by her shoulders, he struggled to angle his heel behind her leg, hoping to trip her up. The monster tried to push him away, but he was faster. Or maybe Maya was letting him win. Either way, the creature fell to the ground, pulling him down with her. Landing heavily on the monster's slimy belly, Tony caught her wrists in his hands, pinning her to the floor.

"Now, take back what you said about me!"

He felt a tingle in his hands as the wrists he was holding transformed back into Maya's. His face was only a few centimetres away from hers. He could feel her chest heaving against his. The subtle scent her Psychon body gave out after a strenuous effort hung in the air between them. Her intense blue gaze locked with his. He was so close to her lips...

"Okay, you're not fat. But you are heavy," she hissed with a mischievous grin.

Tony let go of her arms and sat up rapidly. "And you are incorrigible!"

"Oooh, did I hurt your feelings?" she cooed, sitting up beside him.

He turned to look at her, a reluctant smile on his lips. She always got the better of him, and although he would have punched out any other person who treated him the way she did, he never resented her teasing. He sometimes felt that their banter was the only thing that kept him sane.

Tony loved her, but Alpha was no place for romance. With 200 people living on the station, the perpetual scrutiny of the small community meant that Tony absolutely needed to have time on his own. Being involved with Maya would have complicated his already stress-filled existence. Or maybe that was just his excuse. Maybe he was just afraid of commitment. Maybe he was just an idiot.

With these thoughts in his mind, Tony looked into Maya's lovely face. He placed his arm around her shoulder, cupping her head with his hand. It was so easy to lean forward and place his lips on hers. This was the only physical contact they shared; just enough to express their love without getting too involved.

But, as usual, he soon felt her hand pushing him away. Maybe he had kissed her a little too passionately this time. He watched her slim, elegant form as she rose and walked to the sofa; she sat down and picked up the plastic mug Tony had been drinking from earlier. She sipped from it, made a face and put it back on the coffee table.

This was the part of their relationship that Tony didn't understand. He knew his own reasons for not taking things further too rapidly, but he felt Maya's reluctance was due to some other, as yet undetermined, something that made her push him away.

"What's wrong?" he asked, aware of the slight petulance that had crept into his voice. He rarely dared to draw attention to her reaction, for fear of sounding like some insensitive cad, or finding out that she didn't like him kissing her in the first place.

"Your beer is truly abominable," she said cheerfully. "Bajorans obviously have no taste!"

"No, I was talking about us," he said, although he cringed inwardly at the wording he had chosen. Soap opera City. "One minute you're sitting here beside me, and the next, you're over there!"

"I'm a fast mover," she said with a shrug.

Tony's irritation disappeared as quickly as it had flared up. It was impossible to remain angry with Maya for any length of time. A kiss is just a kiss, he thought, before wishing he hadn't phrased it exactly that way in his mind. He now had the song from a corny old movie trotting around his head.

"I admit it," he said, throwing his arms up helplessly. He went to sit down beside her. "You're too fast for me."

Maya pointed at him delightedly. "That's because you need to lose weight!"

Tony put his arms around her and leaned forward until his face was only a few centimetres away from hers. He was pleased to find Maya didn't pull back. "I am not overweight," he growled.

She playfully trailed a finger down his nose. "No, you're perfect," she said, her voice hushed and serious.

"I'm glad to hear you say that," he said with a grin.

He was about to kiss her again, but was interrupted by the communications panel. Koenig's face appeared in black and white on the monitors beside them.

"Attention all Alphans," he said. "Red Alert. Defence teams into position. The Dominion is attacking Deep Space Nine."

Koenig watched the three Dominion ships on the big screen; a trio of metallic horseshoe crabs intent on destruction. Deep Space Nine had warned Alpha of the ships' arrival just five minutes before the vessels came out of warp within range of the Moonbase's sensors. But even with that meagre advance warning, John knew that Alpha stood no chance against the ships. He could only hope that their target was DS9. There was no reason to believe the Dominion would want to attack Alpha.

"Shields raised. Main lasers ready," announced Tony, turning towards him. "Should we launch Eagles to intercept?"

It was unusual for Tony to ask for advice on tactical matters, but John knew what was on his first officer's mind. He turned and looked at Alan Carter.

"I know it looks like an unfair match," said the pilot, recognising the unspoken question in his commander's expression, "but if they do attack, we'd be better off shooting at them from two places rather than one."

John glanced back at Tony, who nodded, though he didn't look very convinced. "Very well," said the commander. "Alan, you and Bill take two Eagles out. Stay out of sight for the time being."

As Alan left, John heard Tony's console beeping. "We're getting tactical information from DS9," said Tony, before letting out a low whistle. "We're in deep trouble if one of these things decides to take a pot shot at us."

"Let's just hope they won't, then," said John curtly. "There's no reason why they should."

"Aside from an aversion to humans?" suggested Tony.

"Eagles are launched," announced Sandra. "They are taking position on the Bajoran side of the Moon. Dominion ships still heading for DS9."

"One of them is breaking off," reported Maya suddenly. "It's heading straight for us!"

John looked up at the screen; one of the Jem'Hadar ships was racing towards the Moon while its two companions continued on to DS9, no doubt to keep the Starfleet forces busy while the first ship attacked Alpha.

"Oh, bloody hell," muttered Tony, looking up at the screen. He switched on communications to the Weapons Section. "Kate, Alexei, I hope you're ready for this," he told the laser operatives. "'Cause we don't stand a chance..."

"Eight hundred sixty-six thousand and closing," said Sandra. "They're shooting at us!"

The Command Centre shook as a Dominion missile hit the Moonbase. On the screen, John could see the bright light of some kind of laser emanating from the underbelly of the ship.

"Return fire!" he ordered.

The green beam from Alpha's lasers appeared on screen. Before it reached the vessel, it seemed to hit an energy barrier, like a transparent cocoon enveloping the Dominion ship. The laser beam dispersed ineffectually as another blast from the alien vessel hit Alpha.

Tony slammed his fist onto his console and let out an angry expletive. "They've taken out our shield generators and both of the laser turrets. We're sitting ducks!" The vessel shot once more at Alpha, and then Tony exclaimed, "Wait a minute, they're lowering their shields. What the--"

He was interrupted by a scream from Sandra. Spinning around, John saw that Maya was dematerialising before their very eyes. The dematerialisation didn't seem to be working; instead of disappearing smoothly, Maya's form was fluctuating. John guessed that she was using her metamorphic abilities to fight the transporter -- but he doubted she could resist very long.

"Alan, Bill, attack the vessel! Now!" he ordered.

The two Eagles suddenly swept into view on screen and fired on the Dominion ship. Evidently caught unawares, the vessel was hit several times and Maya rematerialised completely in her Command Centre chair. She slumped onto her console, breathless and exhausted by the effort.

There was no time to tend to her, however. It didn't take long for the Dominion vessel to retaliate; two shots were all it needed to disable both the Eagles. Alan's Eagle was close enough to be caught by the Moon's gravitational force, and crashed a few thousand miles away from Alpha. Bill was not so fortunate; the shot sent his Eagle spinning into space.

"We might as well be fighting them with spears and arrows," muttered John.

"Commander! There is another ship approaching!" announced Sandra, the relief she felt clearly audible in her voice. "It is coming from DS9."

On screen, the Dominion ship seemed to be under heavy attack. The screen view widened to reveal a flat grey vessel; as it swerved past the Dominion ship, John was able to read its name on the hull. 'U.S.S. Defiant'.

"The cavalry, I presume," commented Tony.

The Dominion ship left its position above Alpha and seemed to be heading back where it had come from. The Defiant gave it chase, both ships disappearing off the Alphan sensors as they went into warp.

"Sahn, when the Defiant returns, contact them and send our thanks," said John, though his tone was less than enthusiastic. He didn't like the fact that Alpha's last battle was a defeat.

Sandra did as she was ordered and then reported that the Defiant had rescued Alan and was going after Bill's Eagle. The Command Centre staff was still watching the Federation ship disappear into the distance when five figures suddenly burst in from the door beside the big screen.

There was no doubt that these creatures were related to the Hadar the Alphans had encountered in their own universe. They had presumably beamed onto Alpha while their ship was still hovering over the Moon. Sandra was nearest to them since her desk was at the front of Command Centre; she screamed and instinctively pushed her chair back against Tony's desk.

"Sahn! Activate that sound we used on the Hadar!" ordered John, hoping that the weapon they had used in their own universe would work on the Jem'Hadar as well. There seemed no point waiting to hear what the soldiers wanted.

Sandra activated the sound and put it on loud speaker. John covered his ears as the shrill tone resonated through the room. The Jem'Hadar were visibly disoriented by the sound as they deployed into the Command Centre. One of them attempted to seize Maya but stumbled into the recycling bin beside the computer. Tony immediately seized this opportunity to shoot the Jem'Hadar. The laser was set to maximum and the soldier burst into flames, igniting the scattered papers at the foot of the computer. Maya seized a fire-extinguisher and doused the flames, although she was unable to put it out completely before retreating to Tony's desk beside hers.

John shot at another Jem'Hadar, shearing the creature's shoulder before one of its brethren retaliated with a blast that only narrowly missed the commander. The Jem'Hadar's target was clearly Maya; one managed to catch hold of her and was about to activate a device on his wrist when she transformed into a hawk and flew out of his grasp. The Jem'Hadar evidently had orders not to harm her, because none of them attempted to fire at the hawk as she fluttered in their faces, her talons tearing at their scaly eyes.

They did shoot at the other Alphans, however, and it was only by virtue of the sound which was disorienting the Jem'Hadar that any of the humans survived. As smoke from the fire by the computer began to fill the room, Sandra was injured by the crossfire and took shelter under her desk, crying in pain as she clutched her stomach. John could tell one of the remaining Jem'Hadar, perhaps irritated by her crying, was about to finish her off -- in a desperate attempt to stop him, the commander seized the Jem'Hadar's arm. The soldier spun around and picked John up, throwing him across the room like a rag doll. He felt several bones in his body crack as he hit the bulkhead and lost consciousness. The last thing he saw was Maya changing into one of her favourite monsters.