“I just received… a vision from the wormhole aliens.” Sisko said tentatively.

  “I take it they didn't show you our plan working just as intended then?” Dax said, trying to lighten Benjamin’s heavy mood.

  “No, they did not.” He paused for a moment as he looked at the center control station at Ops. “They showed me an attack by the Borg on this station as well as our new guests.”

  “The Borg?” O’Brien said a bit louder than he intended. “But we’re lightyears away from Borg space, no, tens of thousands of lightyears, what do they want with us?”

  “I don’t think it's us they want.” Sisko said as he turned to look out the window and saw the Spear of Adun sitting, still in view of the station.

  “You think they are here for them?” Dax said both skeptical and worried.

  “From what little we know of the Borg they covet technology and just at a glance the Protoss have technology we have never seen before, if they were to somehow get wind of that…” Sisko said before Kira cuts them off.

  “Yes, but how would they learn of it, it's not like there are any Borg spies or anything, let alone some kind of scout.”

  “I don’t know, but we have to find out before the worst comes.” Sisko said back to her quickly.

  “Are you going to tell StarFleet command? They might be willing to send some ships to defend the station.” Dax said, trying to think of a way out.

  “I’m not sure yet, you know how they feel about the orbs and the visions they grant. They might simply tell me I’m paranoid.”

  “Or they might heed your advice and something good might come of it.” Dax said, remaining hopeful. There is a pause as Sisko thinks.

  “Alright I’ll inform them of what I know.” He said, resigned to simply get told off by some admiral in his armchair who thinks that he is crazy for trusting in some mystical objects that they themselves had never interacted with.

  “The question now is, what do we tell our new friends.” Kira said, bringing the conversation back around to the newcomers.

  “I think they deserve to know this as much as anyone.” Sisko said as he looked over to Worf. “Worf, I want you to spearhead the information sharing between us and the other three ships on all we know about the Borg. If you can, help them to tune their weapons to be the most effective. In addition to that I want you to have battle drills be run on the Defiant once every 9 hours, if they come we will damn sure be ready for them.”

  “Understood captain.” Worf said back.

  “However that is not all that worries me.” Sisko said, looking at Bashir now. “In the vision Artanis said that “If not for the affliction they would have stood a better chance. There's a possibility of some kind of plague hitting the Protoss before the Borg arrives so I want you to keep an eye on that.”

  “Of course sir. But we know next to nothing about Protoss physiology, I would need not only current scans of their Biology but unaffected ones as well. If they have already been infected it may be too late for me to do anything about it.” Bashir said, laying out to Sisko the task ahead of them.

  “Do what you can doctor, at the bare minimum at least tell their ship’s doctors about the possibility of a plague.”

  “Understood sir.”

  “Kira, I want you to continue to organize the repairs and outfits with O’Brien. Dax, I want you to start to come up with counter measures to the Borg. Enhanced shields, rotating bands of phasers, whatever you gotta do to make us stand a chance.” Sisko said to the others.

  “Benjamin, as little as we know about the Borg some modifications will take months to complete, we don't have time to be doing this and trying to get the deflector dish ready to use.” There is a pause as the moment hangs in the air.

  “No, I suppose there is not.” Sisko admits. “Prioritize getting the three ships home, perhaps if we can get them out of our universe fast enough the Borg will lose interest in coming here and turn around to go home.” Sisko knew he was aiming for a long shot with this one, but there seemed to be little choice. If he could not figure out how the Borg learn of the Protoss’ arrival then he would have no other option but to face the threat head on.

  “Odo, from now on I want you to inform me every time someone suspicious leaves or docks with the station. Keep me up to date at all times.”

  “I can do that, captain.”

  “Alright then, we all know what we are doing, let's get to work people.”

  -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  “Ah, there we go!” Swann said as he managed to get the 6th Fission Fragment engine back online.

  “I told ya, we just needed an L-63 micro coil to connect the engine to the generator system and the power situation should be handled.” O’Brien said, wiping some sweat off his face.

  “I get it, I get it, you were right.” Swann said, climbing back down from his ladder. “It's not everyday I have to upgrade the engines to fix them. I haven’t seen these puppies this juiced since the day I… well actually I’ve never seen them with this much power. It's like the storm that brought us here overloaded the engine’s output.

  “Yeah, that might be a good way of puttin’ it. You gave me a rundown on how these engines fly but every time I ran my tricorder over the system it gave off energy reading much higher than the specs. So I just figured if we were to upgrade the maximum load on it, it should be able to handle the power output.”

  “Well I ain't gonna complain about a finished job. But I should be able to handle the rest from here, the other engines are having the same problem so as long as you get me that coil I probably can handle the engine repairs myself. After that we just need to figure out the Warp coil situation and I can officially say that the ship is fixed.” Swann said as he grabbed a towel to wipe his hands. “Hey, any chance I could get me one of those Tricorder thingies? It seems awfully handy to just point at the thing I want to check and I get a readout without even hookin’ anything up.”

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  “Ah, sorry I can’t, StarFleet…” O’Brien began before he was cut off by Swann speaking.

  “StarFleet doesn’t condone the sharing of technologies with other races outside the Federation.” Swann said, finishing O’Brien’s sentence before he could. He had already heard this speech more than once. First it was the Replicators, then it was the Transporters, and now it was the Tricorders.

  “For such friendly people StarFleet sure doesn’t want to lose its tech advantage.” Swann said with a laugh.

  “It's just a measure to prevent the technology from falling into the wrong hands, who knows what someone could do with our replicator technology.” O’Brien said apologetically.

  “Nah, I get it. If someone asked me to share the technology of our Yamato Cannon, I’d look at them like they were crazy.” Swann said laughing. After a moment of being jovial Swann looked back at O’Brien. “Oh yeah I was wondering, you drink?” O’Brien seems to perk up at the question.

  “Depends, what you’re offering.” O’Brien said with a smirk.

  “Well I’ll tell you what, it's better than that swill you call alcohol on your station.”

  “Oh yeah, synthehol can be an acquired taste for sure. It's just hard to come by the good stuff out here.” O’Brien said, admitting even his moderate dislike for the synthetic replica that he drinks often.

  “Well I happen to have a bottle of the “good stuff” stashed away for a special occasion. If you want when we finish our repair work I’d love to share a glass with you.”

  “Ah I’d love to. But it can’t be much more than one glass, my wife isn’t fond of me coming home drunk.”

  “And that right there friend is why the only lady I will ever love is machines.”

  -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  “Dabo!” The Hostess cries as she hands over a pile of latinum to a lucky Marine.

  “Gah” Quark exclaims seeing yet another of these “Terrans” win at Dabo. He turned to Ron who was fixing the replicator behind him. “I can’t believe these guys, it's like they can’t stop winning. At this rate I’ll be out of business in a week.”

  “Dabo!” The Hostess yells again, heaping more money into the marine’s hands.

  As Quark looked over to the Dabo table in disgust Raynor walked in and took a seat at the bar.

  “Malt Whiskey on ice.” Raynor said to Quark as he sat down. Quark eyes him up and down for a moment as he tries to decide something.

  “You a Hu-mon or a Terran?” He asked, still unsure. Raynor just laughs to himself.

  “I’m a Terran, no worries.” He said back trying to assuage his fear if that was the problem, unsure which was worse to the bartender at the moment.

  “Ah more of your kind.” Quark said as he headed to the replicator for the order.

  “Oh and none of that replicated nonsense I want the real stuff.” Raynor said with a big smile. Quark just eyes him.

  “You think I just have that on tap simply because you asked for it?” Quark said back pausing as Raynor does not respond but instead stares him down. After a moment of staring Quark backs down with a scoff as he reaches below the bar to grab the drink. He walks over to Raynor, grabs a glass and starts pouring.

  “I’m charging extra for this, you know.” Quark said mildly dissatisfied he got out played.

  “Much obliged.” Raynor said, downing it in one gulp. Quark watched him for a moment as he drank and just returned to watching the Dabo table where the winning does not stop.

  “I don’t get it, no matter how much I think about it I can’t understand how that man is so lucky.” Quark said, disgusted at the amount of money that will leave his establishment at the end of the night. Raynor turned around to see the Marine raking in the wins.

  “Oh that's just Paul, yeah he’s a real lucky sort.” Raynor said with a chuckle. He knew full well what was going on, at the moment Paul and a ghost from his crew were conspiring together to rig the game, the ghost was on the second floor subtly changing the outcome of the Dabo wheel to suit Paul. How he managed to get the ghost to play along is another story but if he were to guess it probably had something to do with a bet the ghost lost. Well it was none of his business anyhow so he paid it little mind.

  Raynor turned back around to face Quark again with a smile.

  “I’ve heard some rumors about you, Quark.” He said, looking straight at him.

  “Me? What kind of rumors?” Quark said with faux innocence written all over his face. “Only good rumors I hope.”

  “Let’s just say they are the kind of rumors that mean you're exactly the man I need.” Raynor said, pointing to his glass for Quark to fill up.

  It took no time for Quark to realize this was no longer a normal discussion, this was a business opportunity. His lobes were tingling and when his lobes tingled it meant latinum, and in that he has never been wrong.

  “Well…” Quark began leaning in a bit closer to Raynor as soon as his glass was full. “Assuming those rumors were true uh… what kind of thing would you need me for?” He said pushing the glass closer to Raynor to entice him further.

  “I’m looking for the sort that might have a special interest in letting others know that we have arrived in your part of space. The kind that might see it as an opportunity to profit.” He said, grabbing the drink and this time taking it slowly.

  “And um… how do you know I’m not the sort who would sell that kind of information?” Quark said pushing Raynor further in the hope he might be able to bribe a bit of latinum off of him. Raynor’s smile drops and he leans in to Quark with a menacing look on his face.

  “Because if you did, you know the kind of firepower me and my boys have access to.” Raynor said leaning far over the counter due to the fact that Quark was leaning back.

  “You wouldn’t.” Quark said quietly and terrified, trying to regain control of the situation.

  “Try me.” Raynor said as he leaned back and slammed down the rest of his drink. Quark just readjusted his shirt and calmed himself down, making a mental note that the Terrans, unlike the Humans, are not to be shortchanged.

  “Alright, let’s say that I do know some that might be interested, what is it worth to you?” Quark said changing the subject. Both men knew that the last conversation was just threats and since it came out with Raynor’s win, the point was moot for Quark.

  “We don’t have any of that latinum you guys use, nothing more than the bits we managed to gather so far anyway. But we certainly have some things that you might be interested in. Tarsonian gemstones, crystalized Vespine, and some alcohol that just simply don’t exist in your universe.” Raynor said his demeanor relaxed once more.

  Quark, admittedly, did not know what the first two were but he knew gemstones never go out of style and premium “out of universe’ alcohol could be a big expensive pull into his bar if he played his cards right. Quark looked around the bar for anyone one suspicious, or more specifically, “anything” suspicious. Odo could be anywhere and he has learned it was better to be paranoid than to let Odo get one over him.

  “Alright, we can hash out the details later but I’ll tell you what I know now.” Quark would normally never act so generously but he could already tell that this was a deal that would continue until the Terran’s stay in DS9 was over, that meant even if he used a few cards now it would only hook Raynor for the long term.

  “Recently there has been a certain Vulcan who goes by the name of Talila who came as part of a Vulcan science expedition.” Quark leans in a bit to whisper the next part to Raynor. “Between you and me word has it she’s a Romulan agent in deep cover on Vulcan, there's no doubt that if it were true the Romulans would definitely know of your arrival by now.” Quark finished and leaned back, he was done whispering but not done talking.

  “Of course there’s Garak, he is rumored to be an agent working for the Obsidian Order, but Garak’s too smart for anyone to know for certain. Which if you ask me makes him an even more likely suspect.” Quark paused as he thought over recent notables that passed through Deep Space Nine since the ships had arrived. “The only other one I can think of is that a crew of Nausicans left the station around the same time as your arrival, they were probably still in the sector when you arrived so they should have been aware of it. But honestly Nausicans aren’t known for their brains so they probably just ignored it.” Quark said, finishing up his current list of notables for Raynor.

  “Well Quark, that was some mighty fine help you’ve given me.” Raynor said as he stood up, leaving a few strips of latinum on the table. “Be sure to let me know if you find out anything else.”

  “Will do.” Quark said as he began to clean and polish Raynor’s glass, satisfied with himself for having made a great deal today. The next time Raynor comes in he can squeeze him for his valuables, but for now he just has to sit back, wait, and keep his ears to the ground.