Devil in the Sky

Introduction (blurb)
The Hortas of Janus VI are the greatest miners in the galaxy, capable of burning through solid rock the way humanoids move through air. Recruited to help rebuild Bajor's devastated mining industry, the Hortas could provide new hope for the planet's struggling economy.

But when Cardassian raiders abduct the Mother Horta, Commander Sisko finds himself stuck with twenty Horta eggs -- and then the eggs begin to hatch...

While Major Kira leads a desperate rescue mission deep into Cardassian space, Commander Sisko faces a ravaging mass of newborn Hortas -- uncontrollable, indestructible, and eager to consume Deep Space Nine itself!

Summary

 * Station Log, Commander Benjamin Sisko, Stardate 46384.1: In the hopes of reviving the Bajoran mining industry, left devastated by the Cardassian Occupation, the Federation has arranged, in cooperation with private Bajoran investors, to transport a family of Hortas to Bajor. In theory, the Hortas will use their natural tunnelling abilities to find pockets of minerals and ore which the Cardassians either missed or deemed too difficult to extract.
 * We are currently awaiting the arrival of the Federation cruiser Puyallup, en route from Janus VI. I have dispatched a team of officers to welcome the Hortas to Deep Space Nine...

Kira Nerys walks her way through a series of airlocks to Docking Port 8 to find Dr. Julian Bashir attempting to chat up Jadzia Dax with his knowledge of Hortas, doing quite well until he compares a Horta to a slug, which Dax takes personally. Kira gets a call from Sisko, a ship is on an intercept course with the Puyallup', the three make their way to the new runabout USS Amazon (runabout) to render assistance.

On the Puyallup, Ttan the Horta tunnels through the ships concrete filled interior of the ship to the bridge to witness the final approach to DS9, as they drop out of warp Captain Dawson points out the nearby moon, The Prodigal, which will be passing close to DS9 in the coming days. Then, the Puyallup is fired upon, and Ttan beamed away.

The Amazon attempts to intervene but the attacking Cardassian vessel warpsd away before they could stop it. Later on DS9 the group debrief, the Horta eggs on the Puyallup survived and are now safe on DS9. The Amazon is sent on a rescue mission to retrieve the mother Horta who was kidnapped.

As the Amazon team departs from DS9 Ttan wakes to find herself suspended in midair aboard her captors ship. On DS9 Sisko battles with Secretary Pova of the Council on Ecological Controls to have the Horta eggs transferred to Bajor, the Bajoran is resistant, worried the Horta might disrupt Bajor’s ecology. Meanwhile Jake Sisko and Nog decide to borrow a Horta egg, deactivating the stasis field around the eggs they take their prize and go to Quark's, where, in a backroom it hatches. Meanwhile Ttan's captor, Gul Mavek welcomes her to the mining moon Davonia, and blackmailing her with the fate of her eggs, which he claims to posses, has her hunt for latinum deposits.

On DS9 Quark is reporting thefts to Odo, chairs have gone missing, but Odo is convinced it's just another of Quark's scams. In the storeroom Nog and Jake feed the baby Horta their most recently acquired chair, but the Horta's apatite is insatiable, the boy’s food supply not keeping up with the Horta’s hunger she burrows into the wall to find food herself.

In a holosuite Ensign Marc Tomson eagerly awaits the advances of his holographic Vulcan partner, feeling increasing hot he looks between his legs to see, a wriggling brown and red rock burning through the mattress. He screams, deactivates the program and runs out through Quark's naked. The baby Horta confused at the sudden loss of the tasty environment she found burrows into the floor.

In the Davon system the Amazon arrives, having successfully tracked the Cardassian vessel. Using the system's Van Luden radiation belt as cover they land on an asteroid and ride it near to the moons of a gas giant they tracked the Cardassians to and wait for their moon to orbit out of sensor range to make their move. On Davonia Ttan reports back to Mavek after successfully finding her target, he refuses to let her see her eggs because she took longer than the time he gave her.

On DS9 the rest of the Horta hatch, they quickly consume the room they were stored in and spread out into the station. In short time Horta appear in Keiko O'Brien's classroom, on the Promenade and at Quark's. The populous of DS9 run in fear, though Molly O'Brien calmly feeds the Horta in her mother’s classroom computer pads which keep it happy for a time. In ops Miles O'Brien announces power outages all over the station and the Cardassian computer insists it should beam the intruders into space, only convinced not to do so by a direct order form Sisko. On the promenade Odo takes on the delightfully comfortable form of an adult Horta and gathers the babies away from the station’s population. Meanwhile the first young females burrows down to a tempting food source below.

On Davonia a team from the Amazon beam into the Cardassian mines, whilst scouting the beam in point they find a group of Bajoran slave labourers, including an old Bajoran Resistance friend of Kira's; Anten Lapyn. Resisting the urge to jump straight into a fight Kira regroups the team to plan how they might rescue Ttan and the Bajorans.

On DS9 Miles O'Brien leads a team to try and prevent the young Horta from eating the station's weapons platforms. After repeated phaser bombardment the Hortas persist and break through. Meanwhile Odo, with most of the Hortas following, leads them into a habitat suite. His success is short lived though as one of the Hortas begins to burrow into the wall, opening the room to the vacuum of space, Odo rushes to the hole to try and spread himself over it before all the Hortas are sucked out.

On Davonia the team from the Amazon make their strike on the chamber containing the Bajoran slaves, a limited number of Cardassian guards make it a quick and successful strike and the Starfleet and Bajoran personnel begin to organise taking the rest of the base. Meanwhile on the Amazon Dax picks up subspace communications, a Cardassian convoy is en route to the moon, but she cannot warn the team on the moon, as it is out of communications range.

Back on DS9 Odo holds on, making himself as hard as possible to deflect the Horta bouncing off of him. In ops the hull breach is detected and shielded and Odo beamed back to a more comfortable environment. Their mother vanished the young Horta begin to burrow again.

On Davonia Kira and her team begin their strike, bursting into a room and taking out Cardassian prisoners, pretending to kill them to trick the remaining Cardassians into giving the team a plan of the base. But the Cardassians play their own tricks and instead of bringing up a map on their screens open a visual channel to another part of the base, alerting the rest of the Cardassians to the teams presence.

Meanwhile Bashir tries to treat some of battered Bajorans still in the chamber. One of the team alerts them an alarm is sounding and the group ready themselves to fight. Kira's team leave there position and ambush a lift full of Cardassians, she uses one of their communicators to threaten Gul Mavek, claiming she and her team had placed dilithium bombs throughout the lower levels of the complex.

In the slave chamber Bashir and his group use a set of remote mining carts to create a blockade to the Cardassians attacking them, they then advance the line, crushing the Cardassians. Elsewhere Kira is in her element setting traps for pursuing Cardassians. Below Bashir’s group finds a freight lift, he resolves to take his group and try and help Kira and her team rescue the Horta.

Back on DS9 the crew attempt to stop the Horta with a powerful shield, but it is ineffective. Then Odo tries to trick the Horta again, but this time they ignore him, his silent facade not enough to convince them a second time. Then O'Brien tries another trick, dropping the artificial gravity in the section the Horta are occupying. The plan is a momentary success as the Horta, accustomed to a solid environment, find themselves in the air, but it soon goes wrong a they panic and start spraying acid, damaging the surrounds and causing radiation leaks. Gravity is restored, and O'Brien has another idea, taking inspiration from his daughter, they should feed them. He quickly starts throwing loose bits and pieces to the Horta and orders everyone to bring anything to the Horta to quench their apatite. On Davonia the two groups meet up and make their way to rescue Ttan. Dax finally manages to warn Kira about the soon to arrive Cardassian convoy, though the Major had already become aware of this fact. In her cell Ttan, hearing phaser fire, decides to risk it and make a break for freedom, she tunnels out and re-emerges behind her guards to attack them, moments later Kira and Bashir arrive to rescue her. She greets them but her universal translator was damaged in the escape, but she can understand them, carefully she burns text into the ground to communicate, and discovers her eggs were safe all along, to her great relief and anger at Mavek.

The team’s goals are nearly complete, but Cardassians are approaching from all angels, fortunately Ttan provides and escape, tunnelling in the wall and making a passage to the bases docking bay, she even makes a column at the entrance of the tunnel to collapse once the group is through to prevent pursuit. But not all goes to plan, the Cardassians use a stun grenade and Kira is knocked unconscious, Bashir pulls her out but looses his phaser, so cannot collapse the tunnel. On DS9 the attempt to feed the Hortas fails and they continue to march onward. In ops they figure out the Horta's target, the liquid silicon tanks of DS9's reactor chambers. Then a proximity alert goes off The Prodigal is nearing the station, and then it strikes Sisko, the perfect home for the Horta is flying by. Just as he has O'Brien begin to start beaming the Horta to the moon power drops, the first lone Horta had already made it to the reactors.

On Davonia Ttan burrows out of the floor of the docking bay and heads straight for Mavek, taking revenge for her and her children by killing him, the other Cardassians flee. The Starfleet and Bajoran personnel follow close behind and take Mavek's ship, the Dagger. In the tunnel Bashir struggles to pull Kira along until he is aided by a pair of Bajorans, they soon make their way to the docking bay, but can hear Cardassians in pursuit in the tunnel.

One of the Starfleet ensigns in the team offers her hand in helping Kira and Bashir aboard, but is shot through the chest by Cardassian fire. All aboard, Bashir makes his way through to the bridge and to have the ship escape has them fire on control booth of the bay, deactivating the forcefield. The atmosphere is blown out, and continues to blow, to his horror Bashir realises the open tunnel in the floor will have opened the entire base to space, killing all the Cardassians.

The Dagger lifts off and is hailed by Dax, giving them a heading, meanwhile the Cardassian convoy arrives and realising something is wrong. Bashir watches as the Amazon fires and then warps towards Cardassian space, the convoy take pursuit. Dax then walks onto the bridge, having beamed aboard before leaving the soon to be destroyed runabout on autopilot.

On DS9 Sisko has O'Brien get the female Horta out of the reactors first, but it's a struggle to lock onto the silicon lifeform in the liquid silicon and O'Brien has to do some manual tinkering before finally being able too. The Horta is beamed to the moon, and the rest follow shortly after.

On the Dagger the crew prepare to drop out of warp, the convoy not fooled for long by the Amazon in close pursuit. Dax quickly gives Sisko the gist of the situation before the Cardassians arrive. Sisko takes a gamble and fires phasers on the Cardassians, the rest of the stations weapons offline thanks to the Horta. The lead ship hails demanding the Dagger but Sisko refuses, noting the crew of the ship are Bajorans, following a brief stand off the Cardassians depart.

The Dagger docked, Ttan is taken to see the one of her children who did not survive, sucked into the vacuum of space when it burrowed out of the station. However to everyone’s great relief it answers it’s mother’s call, having apparently only been comatosed by the experience.

Later in Quark's Jake and Nog work to repair the store room, under threat of Quark telling their fathers how the whole affair had been the boys fault. Though unknown to Nog Jake had already told his own father.

In his office Sisko talks with Vedek Sloi of the Council on Ecological Controls, the Bajoran furious Sisko beamed the Hortas to The Prodigal. However the Vedek is quickly swayed when Sisko informs him of the vast mineral wealth discovered by the Hortas on the moon and concludes maybe a comprise could be found.

Characters
Anten Lapyn • Natalia Aponte • Julian Bashir • Bati Huri • Battes Ang • Cella • Chram • Dawson • Jadzia Dax • Dyoran • Eddon • Gann • Elim Garak • Gaysd Tel • Sven Jonsson • Kabo • Kira Nerys • Mavek • Morn • Moru • Ian Muckerheide • Muluck • Naka Tormak • N'Heydor • Nog • Nogar • Keiko O'Brien • Miles O'Brien • Molly O'Brien • Odo • Dalia Parks • Pova Lerg • Quark • Rom • Sanger • Shirar • Benjamin Sisko • Jake SiskoSloi • T'Leena • Marc Tomson • Ttan • Vu Kuzas • Duane Wilkens • Yakkan • Yelsi

Bareil Antos • Buck Bokai • Skrain Dukat • Marching Godess • Leonard McCoy • Prime Mother • Pied Piper • Q • Jennifer Sisko

Starships and vehicles
USS Amazon (runabout) ( runabout) • Dagger • USS Puyallup (Federation cruiser) • Ramoth's Revenge

USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-D)

Locations

 * Bajor system - Bajor • Bajoran wormhole • The Prodigal
 * Deep Space 9 - Bajoran temple • Mineral assay office • Promenade • Quark's • Replimat • School
 * Davon system - Central • Davon III • Davonia

Cilas XII • Daffodon IX • Earth • Greece • Italy • Janus VI • Konnoria V • Malvestia IV • Setlik III • Vault of the Ages • Xoxa colony • Xoxa system

Races and cultures
Argelian • Asominian • Bajoran • Benzite • Betazoid • Caitian • Cardassian • Centaurian • Changeling • Coridan • Deltan • Eeiauoan • Ferengi • Gelloid • Horta • Human • Klingon • P'alblaakis • Tellarite • Tiburonian • Trill • Trill symbiont • Vulcan • Wollowan

Prophet • Saltah'na

States and organisations
Bajoran Liberation Front • Bajoran Provisional Government • Council on Ecological Controls • Federation Starfleet • United Federation of Planets

Bajoran Resistance • Nazi

Materials and substances
acid • aluminum • bronze • cadium • calcium • carbon • carbonite • carbon dioxide • carbon trichloride • chitin • chlorine • cobalt • concrete • copper • dilithium • duranium • ferrous oxide • glass • iron • kelinide • latinum • mercury • metal • mineral • molybdenite • nickel • nitrogen • ore • oxygen • pergium • phlaginum • plastic • platinum • polymer • quartz • rhodinium • rock • silicon • tritanium • uranium

Biology
Andorian wildflower • Arboreal slug • Avian • Blood • Cilia • Coma • Denebian horned goat • Dumesite man-lobster • Egg • Frog • Humanoid • Plankton • Pon farr • Protoplasm • Puberty • Razorcat • Sea-tiger • Silicon-based lifeform • Sleep • Slime devil • Slug • Telepathy

Technology
Artificial gravity • Bullet-probe • Clock • Dilithium bomb • Holosuite • Microtorpedo • Paralysis dart • Stasis field • Stun grenade • Transporter • Tricorder • Universal translator

Other
Archaeology • Asteroid • Bajoran religion • Baseball bat • Battle of Wolf 359 • Body oil • Cardassian wine • Chateau Picard • Class L • Class M • Dabo girl • Erotic action figure • Fairy tale • Glopsicle • Gold-pressed latinum • Kaafa milk • Kamoy syrup • Mining • Moon • Occupation of Bajor • Orbit • Orion slave girl • Playing card • Poker • Pornography • Perfume • Rape • Religion • Renewal • Rules of acquisition • Scroll of Eternal Feasting • Slavery • SOS • Stone of Memory • Tectonic plate • Thunderbird • T-shirt • Van Luden radiation belt • Vegan truffle • Zero-g billiards

Appendices

 * This novel includes a historians note stating the book takes place the second season of the TV series. However the stardate given in the book is 46384.1, a year earlier than the stated setting. The Pocket Books Timeline adjusts the stardate to 47384.1 to account for this.
 * The authors began working on the book before the first DS9 episode had aired. (Voyages of Imagination)
 * Greg Cox wrote the chapters detailing events on DS9 whilst John Gregory Betancourt wrote those featuring Ttan and her rescue from the Cardassians. (Voyages of Imagination)
 * The inside front cover of this novel features an advert for The Ferengi Rules of Acquisition whilst the inside of the back cover advertises the TNG novel Into the Nebula.

Quotes
"The altar! A devil is eating the altar!"
 * - A furious and panicked Bajoran priest proclaiming the fate of his Horta ravaged alter.

"They burn through shields faster than Quark slips through loopholes."
 * - Odo describing the futility of using shields to stop the Horta.

Related stories

 * The Devil in the Dark (TOS episode) - The Horta were established in this episode and this novel includes numerous references to events and established facts from it.
 * DS9 episode references - A number of references are made to events and outcomes of various DS9 episodes:
 * Dramatis Personae - Sisko looks to the clock he made in this episode whilst conducting a briefing in this novel.
 * Battle Lines - The loss of Kai Opaka Sulan, as depicted in this episode, is lamented several times in this novel.
 * If Wishes Were Horses - The events of this episode were amongst those listed by Jake Sisko as some of the odd things to have happened on DS9 since he arrived.
 * In the Hands of the Prophets - When one of her students describes the Bajoran faith as a fairy tale Keiko O'Brien is quick to explain the Bajoran's religion as something to be respective of, worried she might incite another attack on her school following the events of this episode.