The Mist by Dean Wesley Smith, Kristine Kathryn Rusch

Empire in the hands of the Mist. I did not as yet know that would not be possible."
    Sisko shrugged. "It's my story. And, at the time, I thought what I thought."
    "It seems logical," the middle-aged man at the bar said.
    Sisko nodded slightly in his direction. But Sotugh frowned. He did not seem to like the fact that someone else agreed with Sisko.
    "What would you have done in my position if our roles had been reversed?" Sotugh asked.
    Sisko raised his bottle of ale with a slight smile. "I would have considered destroying the colony ship that had shifted the station."
    "We are more alike than you like to acknowledge," Sotugh said.
    "I thought you were the one saying we were different."
    "Only at the beginning of the battle, Sisko," Sotugh said. "Only at the beginning."

    This new wrinkle had me very disturbed. Suddenly, we had no margin for error. "Captain Victor," I said, "how can we tell which two colony ships are the ones with the ability to shift?"
    Again Victor glanced at the councillor. The councillor's mouth continued to open and close. One of his eyes shifted slightly as if it were looking at Victor, and then shifted back, all unblinking.
    That seemed to mean something to Victor. He said, "There is no way to tell, but the ships with the shift modules won't have weapons. Most likely they will back away from any fight."
    "That is not good enough," Sotugh said.
    I agreed, but did not say so. I wanted as much information as I could gather. I did not want any more surprises.
    "What kind of weapons are we facing with the colony ships?" I asked.
    "Actually, Captain," Victor said, "our intelligence tells us that only two, maybe three of the colony ships have been outfitted with any sort of weapons. But neither of them would be a match for one of your ships. It was the firepower of the station the colonists were gambling on getting."
    "Then let us hope Major Kira managed to disarm the station's weapons," I said. "Is there anything more you need, Sotugh?"
    "We are ready to fight," Sotugh said.
    I nodded. "We take Ops first. From there we can control the rest of the station."
    "Understood," Sotugh said, and cut his communication.
    I had Nog cut the communication, then I said, "Set course for Deep Space Nine, warp factor five."
    "Yes, sir," Dax said. "We'll be there in exactly twelve minutes."
    As we turned and jumped to warp, O'Brien said, "I don't like this."
    "Neither do I," Nog said.
    "What is there to like?" Worf asked.
    I sat down. Sometimes I could learn a lot by listening to the digressions of my crew.
    "There's just something odd going on with Captain Victor," O'Brien said. "Something he's not telling us."
    "He hasn't told us a lot of things," Dax said. "And I would guess that much of what he has said is lies."
    "And we will deal with that," Worf said. "But first we must recapture the station. That is our first priority."
    Dr. Bashir had been quiet through all of this, studying the screen and the console before him. Finally he looked up. "Doesn't it strike anyone else odd that five systems full of people, plus another three systems full of colonists, have existed in this region for centuries and none of them have ever turned up outside of legend?"
    "You have a good point, Julian," Dax said. "I have early memories of the legends about the planets of the Mist disappearing. But I don't remember hearing anything about someone meeting their race. Nothing but legends."
    Bashir was tapping his console. "I don't like the way these things are adding up," he said. "I have a few facts from my console, and I know the chief does as well. Combine that with this lack of information, and I think there may be more to this shifting than we're initially seeing."
    I didn't entirely follow Dr. Bashir's logic, but then he often left out crucial details when he was thinking aloud. It led, in the early days, to people underestimating him around the station. I had not underestimated him in years. His hypotheses usually had some basis in