the ships were, like Boris did, he never would have dreamed of doing that.

Balto won his game, and only had to cheat twice! He was very proud of himself. However, the Iditarod would soon have their hands full.

Boris tried contacting Balto on his comm badge, but for some reason he couldn't reach him. Boris had realized that the starships must me hiding on the other side of the moon, and were waiting for the Iditarod's shields to go down. Boris was trying to warn Balto not to beam the teams up, because that would mean they would have to lower their shields. At that precise moment, the Jem'Hadar would fire. 

Nikki and his team finished beaming aboard. But as soon as they got on, the ship shuddered. Bad. Nikki ran up to the bridge and asked what was going on. Balto said “The Jem'Hadar had three starships on the other side of the moon! As soon as we lowered shields to beam you aboard they fired! They destroyed our shield generator in a single shot, and our phaser bays with another! We're practically defenseless! Star! Swing us around and give us a shot at them. Quantum torpedoes!”

“Uh, we don't have have quantum torpedoes.”

“That's right. I'm getting too used to the Defiant. Nikki, arm photon torpedoes!”

“We're within firing range.”

“Well? What are you waiting for?”

Three photon torpedoes went off, hitting the shields of one of the ships.

“Did that do any damage?” asked Balto.

“Um. No.” said Nikki.

“Dang. I'm open to any suggestions!”

Boris finally got through. “Captain? How's it going?”

“Terrible! We've got no shields, no phasers, and only a few photon torpedoes! Any ideas?”

“No. I was just calling to say not to beam anyone up or down. I guess I'm a little late, huh?”

“Yeah. A little. Look, Nikki was thinking that you might find some important information we could use against these ships. He says check in the top of the control tower.” The Iditarod got another hit from the Jem'Hadar ships. “Boris! Where are you now?”

“Just entering the control tower.”

“Hurry it up! Decks we have twenty-four decks with severe damage, shields are gone, hull breaches all over the place, phaser bays are gone, and we only have three photon torpedoes left! So unless you can give us a way to destroy each ship with one shot, we're doomed! So hurry it up!” The Iditarod shook again. Explosions went off all over the bridge. The view screen in front exploded and a gaping hole into space opened on the bridge. The crew scrambled to grab hold of something before they were sucked into the vacuum of space. Fortunately, the emergency force field activated in time before anyone was pulled out. “Boris! Give us something now or I'll make sure that you never become a captain!” Balto was almost screaming at Boris in his urgency to find a solution.

“Don't worry captain! I've found something!” Boris cried in delight. “Their shield frequency is 740.767.007! Aim for their warp core and fire!”

The Iditarod fired off with precision, three torpedoes fired for the warp cores of each ship. But, oddly enough, the ships didn't explode. Boris told them “All you did was kill their energy. Their ship is now lifeless. They can't do anything, they can't even launch shuttle craft! Now all we need to do is alert Starfleet and they can handle the rest!”

Boris was finally back on board, and he was thrilled to be back. “I most certainly did not enjoy beaming down on that planet and being away from the ship!” Boris complained to Balto. Balto said “Well, I'm very glad you were. I can't think of anyone else who would make a better ground crew.” This cheered Boris up a bit. Then Balto said “I'm also glad because I wasn't the one down there.”