Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Young Adult Books #3: Prisoners of Peace

  FREEDOM FIGHTERS

  Life suddenly gets interesting on Deep Space Nine when a new student turns up in Jake and Nog’s class—Riv Jakar, a Bajoran boy whose parents were killed by Cardassians. Riv thinks school and hanging out on the Promenade are a waste of time. Instead he is determined to join the Bajoran freedom fighters in their battle against the Cardassians.

  When Jake, Nog, and their friends Ashley and T’Ara are investigating some mysterious incidents on the station they discover a stowaway—a Cardassian stowaway named Kam. She is the daughter of a high-placed Cardassian official…who has just shown up at DS9 with eight warships, demanding the return of his daughter.

  But Riv has other plans for Kam, and it’s up to Jake and Nog to save her before Riv starts a new war!

  Cover art by Alan Gutierrez

  Interior Illustrations by Todd Cameron Hamilton

  “Red Alert! We’re under attack!”

  The energy field absorbed the blow, but for a second the power blinked and the inertial dampers failed. The deck beneath Jake’s feet shook.

  On the beam, Riv gave a strangled cry of surprise and lost his footing.

  Jake saw Riv stumble and then fall.

  Then Kam flung herself forward. Her left hand wrapped around Riv’s wrist, and her other encircled the beam. With a cry of pain, she fell forward across the beam.

  Riv swung below her, high above the Promenade. Kam’s face twisted in agony, and Jake saw that she was losing her grip on the beam. He jumped through the ceiling and out onto the beam. Behind him Nog gasped.

  The thin beam sagged under Jake’s additional weight….

  Star Trek: The Next Generation

  STARFLEET ACADEMY

  #1 Worf’s First Adventure

  #2 Line of Fire

  #3 Survival

  #4 Capture the Flag

  #5 Atlantis Station

  Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

  #1 The Star Ghost

  #2 Stowaways

  #3 Prisoners of Peace

  Available from MINSTREL Books

  The sale of this book without its cover is unauthorized. If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that it was reported to the publisher as “unsold and destroyed.” Neither the author nor the publisher has received payment for the sale of this “stripped book.”

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  A MINSTREL PAPERBACK Original

  A Minstrel Book published by

  POCKET BOOKS, a division of Simon & Schuster Inc.

  1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

  www.SimonandSchuster.com

  Copyright © 1994 by Paramount Pictures. All rights reserved.

  STAR TREK is a Registered Trademark of Paramount Pictures.

  This book is published by Pocket Books, a division of Simon & Schuster Inc., under exclusive license from Paramount Pictures.

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

  For information address Pocket Books, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

  ISBN: 0-671-88288-0

  First Minstrel Books printing October 1994

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2

  A MINSTREL BOOK and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster Inc.

  Cover art by Alan Gutierrez

  Printed in the U.S.A.

  For Donna Chisholm

  STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE NINE

  Cast of Characters

  JAKE SISKO—Jake is a young teenager and the only human boy permanently on board Deep Space Nine. Jake’s mother died when he was very young. He came to the space station with his father but found very few kids his own age. He doesn’t remember life on Earth, but he loves baseball and candy bars, and he hates homework. His father doesn’t approve of his friendship with Nog.

  NOG—He is a Ferengi boy whose primary goal in life—like all Ferengi—is to make money. His father, Rom, is frequently away on business, which is fine with Nog. His uncle, Quark, keeps an eye on him. Nog thinks humans are odd with their notions of trust and favors and friendship. He doesn’t always understand Jake, but since his father forbids him to hang out with the human boy, Nog and Jake are best friends. Nog loves to play tricks on people, but he tries to avoid Odo whenever possible.

  COMMANDER BENJAMIN SISKO—Jake’s father has been appointed by Starfleet Command to oversee the operations of the space station and act as a liaison between the Federation and Bajor. His wife was killed in a Borg attack, and he is raising Jake by himself. He is a very busy man who always tries to make time for his son.

  ODO—The security officer was found by Bajoran scientists years ago, but Odo has no idea where he originally came from. He is a shape-shifter, and thus can assume any shape for a period of time. He normally maintains a vaguely human appearance but every sixteen hours he must revert to his natural liquid state. He has no patience for lawbreakers and less for Ferengi.

  MAJOR KIRA NERYS—Kira was a freedom fighter in the Bajoran underground during the Cardassian occupation of Bajor. She now represents Bajoran interests aboard the station and is Sisko’s first officer. Her temper is legendary.

  LIEUTENANT JADZIA DAX—An old friend of Commander Sisko’s, the science officer Dax is actually two joined entities known as the Trill. There is a separate consciousness—a symbiont—in the young female host’s body. Sisko knew the symbiont Dax in a previous host, which was a “he.”

  DR. JULIAN BASHIR—Eager for adventure, Doctor Bashir graduated at the top of his class and requested a deep-space posting. His enthusiasm sometimes gets him into trouble.

  MILES O’BRIEN—Formerly the Transporter Chief aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise, O’Brien is now Chief of Operations on Deep Space Nine.

  KEIKO O’BRIEN—Keiko was a botanist on the Enterprise, but she moved to the station with her husband and her young daughter, Molly. Since there is little use for her botany skills on the station, she is the teacher for all of the permanent and traveling students.

  QUARK—Nog’s uncle and a Ferengi businessman by trade, Quark runs his own combination restaurant/casino/holosuite venue on the Promenade, the central meeting place for much of the activity on the station. Quark has his hand in every deal on board and usually manages to stay just one step ahead of the law—usually in the shape of Odo.

  CHAPTER 1

  Isn’t that the most awesome thing you’ve ever seen?” asked Jake Sisko. He was standing at one of the large windows on the Upper Level of the Promenade, staring out into space. There was an endless fascination for him in looking at the stars. Other people and alien beings found the view just as attractive. Scattered along the Upper Level were a dozen or so individuals either staring or just glancing out at the view.

  At that moment, though, there was much more than simply stars to be seen. Deep Space Nine—the space station Jake and hundreds of other humans, Bajorans, and other species lived on—was situated on the edge of the Denorios asteroid belt in the Bajoran solar system. The station was here because of the wormhole.

  It was kind of hard to grasp exactly what the wormhole was. It was some kind of tunnel punched through subspace, joining this spot in the Bajoran system with one almost half a galaxy away. Passing through the wormhole in a matter of minutes, a spaceship could cross from Bajor to the Gamma Quadrant—a voyage that would normally take even a powerful starship like
the U.S.S. Enterprise more than seventy years to make at top warp speed. Most of the time the wormhole was invisible to the eye, but when a ship passed through, it became suddenly and spectacularly visible. It was as if a huge, sparkling whirlpool was spinning in space, glowing and pulsing with all the colors ever imagined—and then some. The tunnel itself would spring into being, and then the ship traveling through the wormhole would fly toward the station. In a flurry of color the wormhole would fold in on itself and vanish.

  Jake had just seen this happen as a freighter came through the glowing web of colors. It was spectacular, and he felt a thrill just watching it. “Isn’t that the most awesome thing you’ve ever seen?” he repeated when his best friend didn’t answer.

  “Huh?” Nog dragged his eyes up and glanced out the window. His face broke into a fang-filled grin. “It sure is,” he agreed. “A Bajoran trade ship! Loaded with goods, too, by the look of the way it’s moving.” He rubbed his hands together. “This means a chance to make some money.”

  Jake sighed. Trust Nog to think he’d been talking about money and not beauty! He liked Nog a lot, but there were times when he wondered why. Nog was a Ferengi boy, the same age as Jake, but apart from that they couldn’t have been less alike. Jake was tall, slim, and dark-skinned. He generally wore a jumpsuit. Nog was short, by human standards, and definitely took some getting used to if you hadn’t seen a Ferengi before. Huge, ridged ears jutted out from his hairless head. Bony lumps and thick brow ridges made his head look over-large. His clothing was rich and form-fitting.

  “I meant the wormhole,” Jake explained. “It’s really spectacular, isn’t it?”

  Nog shrugged. “Yeah, I guess,” he agreed, bored. “But we can’t make a profit off it.”

  “Don’t you ever think of anything but money?” asked Jake.

  “Of course I do!” said Nog. “More money.”

  It wasn’t really his fault, Jake knew. The Ferengi were a race of beings who lived to make money. They were merchants, traders, and businessbeings anywhere there was a profit to be made. Nog’s uncle, Quark, owned the bar that dominated the Promenade of the station. He was also presumed to have a hand in any business—legal or illegal—that took place on Deep Space Nine.

  “Well, we’re not going to be making any profits right now,” Jake told him. “We’ve got to get to school.”

  Nog scowled. “Let’s play hockey,” he suggested, staring at the approaching freighter.

  “I think you mean hookey,” Jake told him, grinning.

  “Don’t you remember that Ms. O’Brien said she’d tell your uncle if you didn’t turn up? And you know what he’ll do to you.” Keiko O’Brien was their teacher. Jake liked her, and she seemed to enjoy tutoring the small class. Nog, however, was a bit of a problem student. For one thing, Ferengi didn’t like women telling them what to do. For another, they were easily distracted from their lessons by the thought of money.

  Nog winced. “Yeah,” he said reluctantly. “And I’d look pretty stupid if he did rip off one of my ears and made me eat it, wouldn’t I?” As they started off for the schoolroom, he added: “Do you think he really means it?”

  “I don’t know,” Jake answered. “But we could always find out by not showing up. You want to risk an ear on that?”

  Nog clutched at his ear protectively. Ferengi were very vain about their huge ears, which were very sensitive. “No way!”

  “I didn’t think so.” Jake privately didn’t believe Quark meant his threat, but if it kept Nog attending school, he was willing to play along with it. Actually, Jake knew from what his father had said that Quark didn’t exactly like Nog being educated at all, let alone by humans. But Quark—like all Ferengi—was a businessman, and he could see the advantages to having someone around who understood human ways of thinking. Especially if that someone was a person in his family. It would make it so much easier to take advantage of his human customers!

  Jake actually enjoyed school for the most part. Ms. O’Brien hadn’t always been a teacher—she’d been a botanist specializing in alien plant life when she and her husband had served on the U.S.S. Enterprise. This meant that she could tell some really great, true stories, and often explain the lessons by telling them of her own adventures. It made the lessons more interesting.

  He and Nog were the last to arrive. There were only a dozen students in the class, and Jake was the oldest. The youngest was six years old. Apart from Nog, there were only two of the other students that Jake felt were okay—a human girl named Ashley Fontana and a Vulcan girl named T’Ara. The rest were just too young.

  Ashley was a tall, ten-year-old with long blond hair that hung halfway down her back. Her mother was a Technician who worked with Ms. O’Brien’s husband. Ashley idolized her mother and was determined to be a Tech when she grew up. As a result, she loved taking things apart and trying to repair them. There were plenty of machines on Deep Space Nine that broke down often. It had been built by the Cardassians after they had conquered the planet Bajor, but it hadn’t been built very well. Ashley was actually pretty good at fixing things, even if she wasn’t as brilliant as she sometimes thought she was.

  T’Ara was very different. She was only seven years old, but because she was a Vulcan she acted much older. Jake knew that Vulcans matured mentally much faster than humans did, so T’Ara was pretty much on a level with him, Nog, and Ashley. On the other hand, she took a bit of getting used to sometimes. The Vulcans believed that showing emotions was wrong, and that it interfered with things too much. Instead, they used mental exercises to bury their emotions and tried to live their lives on the system of logic. T’Ara was still young enough to forget her training sometimes, and she would let her emotions out. Then she’d be all embarrassed and ashamed of herself. Most of the time, though, she was okay. Like many Vulcans, she had dark hair, cut straight across her forehead, shaped around her pointed ears, and then cut short at the neck. Her eyebrows were slanted upward from the top of her nose.

  Jake and Nog slipped quietly into their seats in front of the two girls. Ms. O’Brien looked at them but said nothing as they both activated the keypads to their computers. The teacher stood at the front of the class, with a newcomer beside her. Jake studied him with interest.

  He was obviously a Bajoran boy—the ridges across the bridge of his nose made that quite clear, and the large earring in his right ear was the final proof. All the Bajorans seemed to love earrings. They wore them like badges or trophies. This boy looked to be about their age, and he had a sullen, bored expression on his thin face. He looked very skinny, as if he didn’t eat very well. There was a faint white scar down the right side of his neck that vanished into the top of his clothing. His dark, curly hair looked as if it had been freshly cut. He looked as if he didn’t want to be here.

  “Now that everyone is here,” Ms. O’Brien said carefully, “I’d like to introduce you all to Riv Jakar. He’s just come aboard the station, and he’s living with his uncle.” She gave the boy one of her warm smiles. “Perhaps you’d like to tell us a bit about yourself, Riv?” she suggested.

  Riv looked up, and then deliberately yawned. “No,” he replied. “I don’t want to be here, and I don’t aim to stay.” He glared around at the rest of the class. “And I sure don’t want to get to know any of these wimps. “ He sniffed. “What a bunch of losers.”

  Jake felt his face burning at this deliberate insult, but he kept quiet. One of the Bajoran girls, Marn Laren, wasn’t so restrained. Jumping to her feet, she glared at Riv, her face red and angry. “You’d better take that back,” she snapped.

  Riv just laughed. “Want to try and make me?” he taunted her.

  “That’s quite enough!” Ms. O’Brien stepped in front of Riv, then turned to glare at Marn. “Sit down,” she ordered. For a moment it looked as if Marn wasn’t going to, but then she scowled and slumped into her chair again. The teacher then turned to Riv. “That was deliberately rude,” she said icily. “I won’t tolerate that sort of thing in my class.”<
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  Not at all bothered by this, Riv shrugged. “So send me home,” he suggested. “You don’t want me here; I don’t want to be here. So why don’t I just go?”

  “Because you’re here to learn,” Ms. O’Brien answered. “And the first thing you need to learn, I think, are some manners. You can’t go around insulting your fellow students like that.”

  “They aren’t anything like me,” Riv said darkly. “Just look at them! Soft, fat, and lazy, that’s what they are! I’ll bet none of them ever had to hide from a Cardassian patrol or steal food just to stay alive.”

  “That’s true,” agreed Nog unexpectedly. “I steal food just because it’s fun.” He broke out laughing.

  Riv scowled at this interruption. What seemed to annoy him most was that Jake and Ashley were trying not to giggle. Jake realized that the Bajoran boy didn’t like the idea that they were trying to make fun of him.

  Fighting back the laugh building up inside, Jake managed to ask: “Did you have to hide out, then?”

  “Yes, I did,” Riv said, his intense eyes daring them to laugh again—and earn a face full of fist. “My parents were both in the Bajoran underground. I was brought up fighting the Cardassians. None of you wimps ever did anything like that. While you were learning your ABCs, I was out there with a phaser fighting for my life!”

  Jake was starting to see why Riv was so angry now. He’d lived the life of a fugitive and never had a stable home. “So what happened to your parents?” he asked.

  “My mother was killed in a raid,” Riv replied. There was a lot of pain in his voice. “And the Cardassians caught my father. He died in a Cardassian jail. It took them three months to kill him.” He fingered the thin chain hanging from his ear. “This was his once. It’s all I have left to remember him by. He gave it to me just before he left on his last mission, to show that I was considered a man.”