Star Trek: Tales of the Dominion War
Keith R. A. DeCandido, ed.



from Night of the Vulture by Greg Cox

p.34 It isn't fair! his mind protested to the universe. How is this happening?

from Blood Sacrifice by Josepha Sherman and Susan Shwartz

p.80-81 As he, together with Amarik and several others from the Underground, reached one of the ablution pools outside the tombs. Spock looked up--and had to stop short, staring.
     Magnificent. Truly magnificent.
     No surprise at all that the first Romulan to see the firefalls had thought them sacred. Form the lip of Gal Gath'thong, the one flawed peak in a vast range of snow-capped mountains, poured a constant torrent of flame and lava. The firefalls hissed, roared, and crackled as they fell. From time to time, lightning lashed out high above. Sparks and ash flew, burdening the gaunt petrified trees. From time to time, pyroclasts exploded, their fragments shattering still further on immense sulfur crystals.
     Here, in a narrow strip of barren land between rock and flame clustered the basalt domes and temples that guarded the Empire's most revered dead. Here was the Romulan heart; here was the Romulan soul.

p.84 "One more word is all I ask," said Spock. "The truth. An old man, a sick man, but an honorable one. Is it right to hasten him to Final Honor that the land may live? That is, live in all places but here, where there is no live but only honor?"
     "That is right. It is for the old, the feeble, the useless to take themselves out of the way. Or be taken thus, lest the Empire be weakened." N'Gathan spoke with absolute conviction.

p.87 After a moment, he raised his head and looked down at his empty hand. "I guess my Honor Blade's gone home. It really wasn't much use on Vulcan. Still, I had wanted it for my eldest." He sighed and met Spock's eyes. "Now, I'll have to do what you do: wear my honor from within. At least it's whole again."

from Mirror Eyes by Heather Jarman and Jeffrey Lang

p.105 "Whoever designed this organism is a genius." Crusher held one of the padds up for met o see. I recognized the diagram as a simplified representation of a Vulcan ribosome. The diagram became animated and I watched as the tiny chemical factory functioned in normal mode. Then, after a few seconds, tiny foreign bodies attached themselves and the action of the ribosome began accelerating. Studying the structure descriptions in the margin, I concluded, "Proteins inimical to iron-based life-forms."
     Bashir nodded. "Give the girl a cookie."
     It was an indication of how badly my blood sugar was depleted that I very badly wanted the cookie Bashir felt I deserved.

from Twilight's Wrath by David Mack

p.159 "I am dead!" Mogano'gar bellowed to his troops. "As of this moment, we are all dead. We go into battle to reclaim our lives."

p.161 As the Remans had scanned each corridor and room, they had found no life signs. Not even bacteria had survived the thalaron radiation Shinzon had unleashed; the weapon had annihilated all organic material in the lab at the subatomic level.

from Eleven Hours Out by Dave Galanter

p.187 "Both civilian populations as well as well as centers of infrastructure are being bombarded by plasma weapons from this unseen and unknown enemy. Casual counts are... there's no way to know at this early date. The National Guard has been mobilized to shore up any possible defenses and bring all available mobile medical units to this city. FEMA has already beamed onto the scene, as has the Interstellar Red Cross/IDIC Kula'na, the joint Terran/Vulcan civilian support organization."

p.196 "I just was listening so closely---"
     The captain smiled. "So closely that you didn't hear everything that was said. That's why you're an ensign, and not a captain."
     "Yes, sir." He didn't mean to, but by her expression one might have thought Picard had stepped on her kitten.

from Safe Harbors by Howard Weinstein

p.211 "What--? Scotty?! Where are we?"
     "You're on the Hudson." There was something about that brogue that made me start feeling better, safer. Maybe it's knowing that Scotty can fix pretty much anything. After all these years, I know this: if I had to be stuck in a leaky rowboat in the middle of the ocean, there's nobody I'd rather be stuck with than Scotty.

p.238-239 Then we rounded the south tip of Manhattan, and I saw what I was afraid I wouldn't see. There she was, standing on her island in the harbor, her back straight, torch held high and burning bright.
     Scotty glanced at me, smiled, and flew a lazy circle around her. When they first built her, five hundred years ago, she became a symbol of hope for the hopeless, no matter where they came from. Back then, there weren't a lot of free places on Earth. America stood for something better, and, like the poem says, generations of "huddled masses yearning to breathe free" were drawn by the light in the harbor.
     The history books tell us how it was touch and go there in the twenty-first century, when cultures clashed and terror seemed to be hiding in every shadow. For a while, it looked like the good guys might lose the very things that made them good. I hear there was a time when good needed to be very, very careful, that was it.
     Somehow, we survived. And, eventually, the people of Earth came together. When every land became the land of the free, it looked like that lady in the harbor might've outlived her purpose. Instead, she became a symbol for the whole planet. Then, when the Vulcans came down out of the sky to let us know we weren't alone in the universe, and Earth eventually became the capital of the Federation, that torch needed to burn evn brighter. The ideas she stood for needed to reach a whole galaxy.
     That's the world I was born into. And I'll never forget the first time my parents took me to New York. We made the same pilgrimage to the statue that millions of families have made or hundreds of years. Of course, we've lived with so many technological wonders for so long now, you might think a simple, mute copper statue on a little green island would seem a quaint relic so ancient that it couldn't possibly convey anything important centuries after they put her up on that pedestal.
     But that statue's done a miraculous thing--she's evolved. She started out as the "Mother of Exiles," welcoming her world's "wretched refuse" to a place where they could build a good, new life they'd only dreamed of beore. And when there were no more "homeless, tempest-tossed" to bring in, she started beaming her message out.

from Field Experience by Dayton Ward and Kevin Dilmore

p.257 "I'm no engineer, but I'm smart enough to listen to one. We'll find you the time you need."
     "Wow." Despite everything that had happened, Duffy still managed a small grin at that. "Any chance you could talk to our security chief when we get back?"

p.260-261 It took only seconds to confirm that the tricorder was inoperative, though there was a chance its memory core could still be salvaged. Tucking it into his satchel, the engineer opened his toolkit and selected a pair of sonic emitters.
     Setting to work, Stevens began to integrate the emitters with Rondon's tricorder, repurposing them from their more exacting and intended handheld uses to something more appropriate for their current situation. The process took several minutes, after which he tied the hastily improvised device together with a few loose monofilaments, using his teeth to pull the knots tight.
     "Here we go," he said, admiring his handiwork. "One motion sensor." Seeing Rondon's puzzled expression, he added, "All I did was boost the sonic emissions and set the tricorder to detect any movement. It's highly directional and probably not any good past a hundred meters or so, but if you point this toward the way you expect the Breen to be coming, we should get a decent head-up."
     Rondon reached over and grasped Stevens's contraption. Eyeing it before setting it on the berm, h e said, "I'm starting to see the benefits of having an engineer along for covert operations. Have you ever given thought to joining the Intelligence branch?"
     Stevens could not resist the playful chuckle as he set to work on his own tricorder. "I'm an engineer. I'm too smart for Intelligence."

from Stone Cold Truths by Peter David

p.311 "Mr. Kebron... kindly inform Starfleet of our return."
     I went ahead and did so without even acknowledging that he had spoken. I think I grunted slightly. That was about the most I did to let someone know their request had been heard. I was not remotely the erudite father you've come to know and... well, know."

p.319 "You wish to know the truth? The truth is that our one brush with the Dominion War involved responding to a distress signal from a Romulan warbird and arriving too late. The Romulan ship was gone. The Corinth--which, indeed, had been stolen by Cardassians--was also gone. Although 'gone' may be too broad a word. Wreckage hung everywhere. We moved through it, and it was like a graveyard in space. Romulan bodies, pieces of them, arms, legs, heads, mixing with similar death and dismemberment from the Cardassians. We didn't even fully understand what had happened until we spoke to Starfleet.
     "Heads in EVA suits bounced off our viewscreen. You haven't experienced the glories of war, Mentor, until heads have bounced off your viewscreen."

from Requital by Michael A. Martin and Andy Mangels

p.329 Reese glanced down at his own disheveled body, which was clad in tattered Starfleet-issue pants and undershirt. He had wondered why the new arrivals had resolutely refused to sustain eye contact with him, until he considered the necklace of ketracel-white tubes that still hung around his neck like evil talismans.
     Only then did he notice that he was turning his captured Jem'Hadar knife over and over in his sweaty, grime-caked hands. Dried blood flaked off the blade, sprinkling onto his hands like cinnamon-sugar on toast.
     Willing his hands to be still, Reese turned his attention back to the impossibly well-turned-out young reinforcements. "Children," he said.
     "Not for long," Sisko said, sounding older than God.

NAMES: Stoakes, Amarante, Lawson, Royse, Bouse, Chin'toka, Afya, Jamilia, Plenda, Za'dag, N'Val, Tal'Aura, Zdonek, Shinzon, Lykara, T'Reth, Virek, Vkruk, Valnor, Strevon, Vreenak, Varyet, Azeraik, Stavenek, M'Ret, Cretak, N'Lellan, Shiarkek, Damira, Kerit, Avelik, Virak'iklan, Sark, Cort, Hunyadi, Vraath, Methras, Enkidu, Karle, ch'Evram, Ekoor, Etana, Allicar, Kelner, Kebron, Zak, Haresh, B'Ursana, Ganok, Melik, Melota, Rondon, Dorrek, Aktuh, Zaldan, Songmin, Wong, Lamenda, Hrevet, M'Raq, Saladin, Shinoda, Rivera, Bakrii, Vuko, Mezta, Julia

 

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