"So you succeeded?"

"The Founders provided such a poor product to work with," Moset said with a disgusted shake of his head.

"The Jem'Hadar?" Picard recalled Riker's report of the thousands of Jem'Hadar that had not survived Moset's experiments.

Moset nodded. "In spite of the inferiority of these vat-grown soldiers, I made them telepathic."

Picard's blood turned cold, but he refused to reveal the horror that chilled him. Faced with a telepathic fighting force, the Federation might never win the war.

"My procedure worked," Moset crowed, then his exhilaration faded. "But the Jem'Hadar died."

"They all died?" Picard prodded in a sympathetic tone.

Moset was shaking his head at the frustrating memory. "Every d.a.m.ned one of them. Almost immediately."

"As a fellow scientist," Picard said, "I can certainly understand your frustration." The captain kept his voice even, consoling. "Perhaps you could explain to me why they died?"

And Moset told him.

Chapter Seventeen.

I N T RANSPORTER R OOM T WO of the Enterprise, Deanna struggled to keep her emotions under control. A few moments earlier, she had bidden Worf and Miles...o...b..ien good-bye, and their parting, although guardedly cheerful on the surface, had been underlaid with sadness. With war raging across the quadrant, Deanna didn't know if she would ever see either of them again. They were sorely needed back on Deep s.p.a.ce 9 and in the front lines.

In addition to the sorrow of parting with friends, the counselor struggled with apprehension over her upcoming visit to the resistance. Although she hadn't heard from Lwaxana since the invasion of Betazed, she had always a.s.sumed her mother and little brother had managed to survive. Once Deanna reached the surface of the planet, she would learn the truth of her family's fate. Tapping her forehead lightly with her fingertips in the rea.s.suring meditation technique, she concentrated on positive thoughts to ease her inner turmoil.

The transporter room doors opened, and Commander Vaughn strode in, fully recovered from his wound, followed by Will. The color had returned to the older officer's face, as had the quickness to his stride, but she still sensed an underlying ennui whose cause she'd never been able to identify. Most likely he was tired of the war. Everyone was sick to death of it.

"We're beaming down with you," Will said without preamble. "Things are getting bad on the surface. According to the Enterprise sensors, the Jem'Hadar have been busy since Sentok Nor was destroyed. They're rounding up civilians indiscriminately and having a good number of them shot, probably hoping either to break the resistance, or find it. As far as we can tell, they've done neither, but the civilian death toll is rising fast. We don't have much time."

Deanna nodded. "Then let's go."

"I'm still worried that the Jem'Hadar will detect our transporter beam," Riker said to Vaughn. "They may not notice it immediately, but they will before long, and then they could home in on the resistance stronghold."

"Can't be helped," Vaughn said. "And the way things are going down there, tactical projections are that the Jem'Hadar will find the resistance inside of forty-eight hours anyway."

Deanna took a deep breath and steeled herself. "Do you have confidence in the beam-in coordinates?"

"They were contained in the original resistance message the Nautilus received asking for Tevren. However, because the Jem'Hadar are expected to overrun that position at any time, we'll go in with phasers drawn." Vaughn stepped onto the platform and nodded to the transporter chief. "Be prepared to yank us out at a second's notice."

"Aye, sir."

"Ready when you are, Commanders."

Readying their own weapons, Deanna and Will joined him on the transporter pad, and Vaughn ordered, "Energize."

The next instant Deanna glanced around, finding herself on a rocky ledge at night, a dark wilderness spread out below her.

Vaughn, phaser ready, did a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree visual sweep of their beam-in location. "If the resistance was here, looks like they've left."

Deanna started to agree, then felt the gentle probe of a highly adept telepath brush her mind. A man stepped out of what appeared to be a solid wall of rock with his hands raised in a nonthreatening gesture.

"You're Starfleet, aren't you?" He made no effort to hide the jubilation in his voice. "We had almost given up hope."

The commander lowered his phaser. "I'm Commander Elias Vaughn. This is Commander William Riker and-"

"Deanna Troi. I'm Cort Enaren, and I've known Deanna since she was a little girl." Enaren glanced past them. "You're alone?"

"The Enterprise is in orbit." Deanna sensed Enaren's disappointment. "Were you expecting someone else?"

"My son, Sark."

"We received his message," Vaughn explained. "That's why we're here."

"And Sark?" Enaren's desperate hope was evident in his voice. "You left him on the ship?"

Vaughn shook his head. "I'm sorry."

Enaren's face momentarily crumpled with sorrow, and grief stabbed Deanna. The casualties of Betazed had taken on a familiar face. She had played with Sark Enaren as a child, and they had attended school together. Her former cla.s.smate had apparently given his life to deliver the resistance's message to Starfleet. How many more of the people she knew and loved had died?

Enaren quickly regained his composure and pointed to the rock face. "Come with me."

Vaughn motioned Deanna ahead of them, and she followed Enaren through a fissure in the cliff wall and down a rock-strewn trail. They had progressed only a few meters when approaching footsteps hammered on the path ahead of them. Another mind reached out to touch hers, and happiness flooded through her. She raced past Enaren and ran straight into Lwaxana's arms.

"Oh, Little One, I thought I'd never see you again!" After a fierce, brief hug, Lwaxana tugged Deanna through an aperture in the mountainside and down a short tunnel that opened into a large chamber filled with people. After the midnight darkness, the bright light and smoke of the torches burned Deanna's eyes, and the smell of unwashed bodies a.s.saulted her nose.

Most distressing of all, however, was her mother's appearance. Deanna couldn't remember ever seeing her mother when she wasn't elegantly dressed or didn't have her hair perfectly coiffed, but the woman in front of her was a shambles. If Lwaxana's mind had not already touched hers, Deanna wouldn't have recognized her. Her clothes were tattered, her hair windblown and knotted, and dark circles ringed her eyes. Her formerly voluptuous figure was skin and bones. Underneath her happiness at reuniting with her daughter lay desolation and grief.

"Barin?" Deanna asked, afraid to hear the answer.

Before Lwaxana could reply, a small body launched itself out of the crowd and latched onto her knees.

"D'anna! You bring me chocolate?"

Deanna knelt and gathered her brother in her arms. "Not this time, Barin, but I will the next, I promise you."

Someone detached herself from the group and picked up Barin. Deanna realized with a start that the young woman who looked more like a scarecrow was her cousin Chaxaza. She, too, had obviously suffered from the privations caused by the conquering armies.

"Chaxaza, it's good to see you." Guilt flooded through Deanna. She had fought the Dominion, losing friends and crewmates in the process, but she hadn't experienced the deprivation these people had. At the end of every battle, she had always had her shower, her clean uniforms, and her replicator.

"Will!" her mother cried, interrupting her thoughts. "And Elias, is that you?" Lwaxana ran forward and immediately apprised the officers of a terrible outbreak of Rigelian fever among the children in the resistance stronghold.

Riker turned to Enaren. "We'll need to gather all the children and any noncombatants together immediately," the first officer told him as he tapped his combadge. "Riker to Enterprise, prepare to beam up sick and injured, mostly children. Inform sickbay to expect numerous cases of Rigelian fever, malnutrition, and a.s.sorted injuries. Stand by to transport on my signal. Riker out." Riker gestured for Enaren to lead the way deeper into the tunnels of the stronghold.

"Elias," Deanna said, "if you don't mind, I'd like a few moments alone with my mother."

Vaughn nodded. "It's good to see you, Lwaxana," he said sincerely, and moved off to confer with the other resistance members about their tactical status.

Chaxaza, still holding Barin, also moved away as Deanna followed Lwaxana down another pa.s.sage and into a small alcove. Her mother drew back a drape over the opening, and Deanna stepped inside.

"Not very s.p.a.cious, but it's been home for the past four months." Lwaxana settled on a pillow-strewn ledge carved out of the rock wall. Deanna sat beside her.

First tell me, Lwaxana began. Did you bring him?

There was no misunderstanding what her mother meant. It was your idea, wasn't it, Mother? Using Tevren? Deanna found it impossible to suppress her disappointment.

The involuntary feeling seemed to provoke anger in her mother. Don't you dare presume to judge me. Not until you've spent four months living under the Jem'Hadar, waiting and waiting for Starfleet to do something while children die all around you, and then realizing the salvation you put your hope in just isn't coming. We're desperate, Little One. And I won't tolerate your condemnation of that!

The irony of hearing her own speech to Lanolan echoed by her mother didn't escape Deanna.

"Mother," she said aloud, "Tevren is dead."

Lwaxana flinched as if Deanna had struck her. "That can't be. Tell me that isn't true, Deanna."

With exacting detail, Deanna related how the away team had released Tevren from prison, how Beverly had removed his inhibitor, the horrific deaths of the Jem'Hadar patrols Tevren had wiped out, and his eventual demise. "And before he died, Mother, he emptied his mind into mine."

Deanna felt herself shaking at the memory, and Lwaxana wrapped her arms around her daughter. Deanna drew back, her jaw set, her eyes blazing. "Let me tell you how Tevren killed people. He drew all a person's bioelectrical energy to the pain receptors in the brain and literally fried the synapses there. The resulting deaths were slow and excruciatingly painful, with prolonged and indescribable suffering. I wouldn't wish such an end on anyone, Mother, anyone, not even Jem'Hadar. To say Tevren's method is s.a.d.i.s.tic and cruel doesn't begin to explain it."

Lwaxana listened without expression. "If you're going to try to convince me that I should care how the Jem'Hadar die-"

"My G.o.d, Mother, can you hear yourself?" Deanna cried. "Your entire life has been devoted to peace, to working against barbarism and needless bloodshed. You're turning into the very thing you hate!"

She could see her mother shaking, feel the raw emotions raging inside, and for the first time in her life, Deanna looked at her mother with fear.

"We have our backs to the wall, Deanna," she said. "What else can we do? How many ships came with the Enterprise? How many Starfleet officers can beam down to Betazed? Can they arm every Betazoid? Can they do enough against fifty thousand Jem'Hadar? Are you really going to withhold from us what Tevren gave you?"

"No," Deanna said. "If you tell me this is what you want me to do, then I'll do it. But before you answer, I need you to tell me something, truthfully."

Lwaxana met her daughter's gaze, waiting.

"Have you truly thought about what going down this road will mean for us, as a people? Do you really want to live in the kind of world the use of Tevren's powers may create?"

Lwaxana said nothing, and the silence stretched on, mother and daughter simply staring into each other's eyes.

Then Deanna's combadge beeped. "Picard to Troi."

"Troi here."

"Counselor, have you revealed Tevren's knowledge to the resistance yet?"

"No, sir," she answered, still looking at her mother. "But I may have to very soon."

"Belay that. You and Commander Vaughn must return to the Enterprise immediately. Commander Riker has already beamed up with his charges. I'll explain when you get here. Picard out."

Lwaxana simply stared straight ahead. Deanna stroked her cheek gently. "I'll return as quickly as I can."

"No," Lwaxana said firmly, and for the first time since Deanna had arrived on Betazed, her voice had all the energy and authority of the elder daughter of the Fifth House, Holder of the Sacred Chalice of Rixx, and the one true Heir to the Holy Rings of Betazed. "If Jean-Luc has something to say that will affect the resistance, then I'm going to be there to represent them. Tell your transporter secretary or whatever he's called it's three to boom up."

Deanna smiled at the deliberate flub. "Beam up, Mother."

"As if I care," Lwaxana said impatiently. "Come, Little-One. Let's find Elias."

"Lwaxana," Picard said. "This is a delightful surprise."

Lwaxana snorted as she, Vaughn, and Deanna took their places around the observation lounge table, where Riker, Dr. Povron, and Dr. Crusher were already seated. "I'm afraid I really have no interest in returning your advances this time, Jean-Luc. I suggest we get down to business."

Picard managed to keep a straight face, but doing so was a challenge. "Of course, Amba.s.sador. My apologies. You're quite right. Time is of the essence. This is a bit complicated, but if you'll bear with me, I believe you'll welcome what I have to say." He took his place at the head of the table. "When Commander Vaughn first came to us with this mission, Counselor Troi related to me her experiences with Tevren. In explaining how he had developed his abilities to kill with his mind, she described the first telepathic skill that he learned, the ability to project extreme emotion into the mind of another. Am I remembering correctly, Counselor?"

"Yes, sir. He said that the emotion projection had no value to him except as a parlor trick, and held little interest for him, especially since it produced a debilitating drain on the telepath who employed it."

Picard nodded. "I've spent the last several hours interrogating Crell Moset. By appealing to the man's enormous ego, I've convinced him to share results of his experiments on the Jem'Hadar."

A visible shiver of revulsion pa.s.sed over Nerissa Povron, and Picard guessed she was thinking how close she'd come to being the subject of one of Moset's experiments.

"Moset succeeded in creating telepathic Jem'Hadar," Picard said, "but they contained a fatal flaw. Because the Jem'Hadar mind processes emotions very differently from other humanoids, the ones that were made telepathic suddenly found themselves bombarded empathically, with no way to close off their new perceptions. Immediate, fatal seizures were invariably the result."

"You found a c.h.i.n.k in the Jem'Hadar armor," Vaughn said.

Picard smiled. "I think so, yes. Using Moset's information, I've developed a theory. Telepathic Jem'Hadar can't handle an empathic overload. What if normal Jem'Hadar can't handle it either?"

Riker leaned forward. "That would explain why there were no mature Jem'Hadar on the station," he realized.

"Precisely, Number One. Neither the altered soldiers nor unaltered Jem'Hadar in close proximity could tolerate the empathic fallout of Moset's procedure."

Lwaxana frowned. "Are you suggesting, Jean-Luc, that my people learn to project emotions the way Tevren did and give all our enemies brain seizures?"

"Not exactly." Picard glanced around the room. "What I'm suggesting is that normal Jem'Hadar won't die from the overload of emotions, but if hit hard enough they will become seriously disoriented, perhaps enough to make their capture relatively effortless."

For the first time since the mission began, Deanna felt a surge of hope. "If that proves true, then Betazoids would be able to defeat the Jem'Hadar without wholesale slaughter."

"If," the captain said, "is the operative word. I've had three Jem'Hadar beamed from the planet into the brig. Counselor, how quickly can you teach Tevren's emotion projection method to some of the stronger telepaths we rescued from the Carda.s.sian freighter?"

"It shouldn't take long at all," Troi said. "They're among the strongest telepaths on Betazed."

"Make it so. When the telepaths are ready, a.s.semble them in the brig. Dr. Crusher, you will monitor the responses of the Jem'Hadar."

Crusher inclined her head in agreement.

"Dr. Povron," Picard continued, "will you keep a close eye on the effects of the emotion projection technique on your people?"

The Betazoid doctor nodded. "I'll be happy to a.s.sist, Captain."