“Do you see any Cardassian life signs?” Damar asked.
“No, only Bajoran. See for yourself.” He pointed out the sensor results. A cluster of readings at the resort, undoubtedly groundskeepers and staff.
“We need better scanning equipment,” Damar muttered.
“We might have more luck with handheld scanners,” the garresh offered. “More precise, though we have to be in close range.”
“Fine. Get me a tricorder, and bring one for yourself.”
“Yes, sir.”
The two men exited their shuttle and surveyed the land around them. The air was thick with humidity, and cool, but the sun was bright and warming. The vineyards were hilly, a wide expanse of land, green like Bajor’s seas, with tessipates and tessipates of leafy vines, creeping up dark wooden stakes that had been driven into the dark ground. The soil beneath his feet was rich and black, the long, spiky leaves that sprouted thickly from the vines rustling in the breeze, their deep green cutting sharply against the charged blue of the cloudless sky. Damar could see why the first Cardassians to Bajor had claimed this spot and why it remained a popular destination, even after the repeated terrorist attacks here in the early years of the annexation.
Veja, he thought, and felt his stomach knot.
Damar examined his tricorder readouts. Still no Cardassian biosigns anywhere nearby. Where were the soldiers? There was a base not a few hours away by skimmer.
He contacted the base, spoke to the glinn in charge-his name was Ratav, and he had a short temper and was not afraid to use it. It seemed that a full half of their surface transports had suffered fuel-line sabotage by resistance hands, only the night before. Ratav’s soldiers were pulling double shifts, and patrols had been rendered effectively useless for however long it took to repair the damage.
“But the situation here-” Damar started, aware that he was risking himself, arguing with a superior, but aware also that his position at Dukat’s side meant that some allowances would be made.
Glinn Ratav obviously didn’t think so. “I’ll be sure, once my working ships come back-after having run patrols for twenty-six hours straight-to send a squadron of my finest, to help you find your female.”
He said it with no trace of sarcasm, but the message couldn’t have been clearer. Damar gave it up, promising revenge another day. It seemed they were on their own, at least for a while.
“We’ll separate,” he told the garresh. He called up a topo map on the tiny screen, traced out two paths that should allow them to cover the most ground. “Contact me at fifteen-minute intervals, unless you come across anything that could help us-anything at all, no matter how trivial.”
“Yes, sir.” Trach extended his scanner and headed off into the seemingly endless stretch of curly vines and wafting leaves.
Damar headed off at an angle, sweeping the scanning device, watching for signs that people had walked through recently. The smell of the air, of warm plant decay, the sounds of insects and small wildlife moving through the brush, all worked to distract him, but he could think only of Veja, of their last words together. He walked over a number of gullies and ditches, with muddy, standing water at the bottoms, swarms of insects hatching from the decaying muck. He came to wider trenches with steep sides, wide enough for a tall man to walk through, lined with flat, interlocking stones and outfitted with metal runners built along the vertical sides. Inserted into the runners were sheets of old metal, twisted and corroded with age. Damar stopped to examine one of them, and understood that it had once been used to dam the drainage ditch, probably during the dry months of summer. The ditch led to the base of a large hillside, where it disappeared into the ground. This irrigation system was extensive, to be sure, but it had run dry for some reason. Perhaps this leg of it had been cut off from the main water source.
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He walked for a significant distance before he got anything-a weak biosign that appeared to be Cardassian. He moved the scanner about, watching the flickering numbers, followed its strength on a path that branched from his own. A second biosign had joined the first-they were definitely Cardassian, and there was a Bajoran with them.
“A Bajoran has taken us hostage…” Why had Natima called him, and not Veja? Damar moved faster, tearing through the virulent undergrowth.
He grew closer to the biosigns, drew his phaser-and watched, puzzled, as they started to fade. He reset the scanner and began again, but the readouts were the same, as though he were picking up signals through something, the density of that substance changing as he walked…
Underground. Those drainage ditches.
“Garresh Trach,” he barked into his comcuff. “Lock on to my signal and report to me immediately.”
Astraea was frustrated. She had been so sure that she would find something here in Lakarian City. She had been certain that she would find the original location of the ancient black stone cottage, either by landmark or…
Admit it. You thought you’d feel it, sense something that would give you direction. After a long day of searching, she was embarrassed by her previous certainty. She had scoured the area, the ruins, even the meager museums that displayed what was left of the Hebitian artifacts-anything that hadn’t been sold off to help fund the military was exhibited here. But of what there was-broken urns, carvings, simple tools-there was nothing that spoke to her in any meaningful way.
She left the last preserved ruin, some sort of stable, to the few wandering sightseers and scientists that had shared her flight out, and started walking, lost in thought. The hot, dry day was soothing, though the dust was relentless… and she had gone back to struggling with truth and reality, afraid once more that she’d made a terrible mistake.
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Her dreams were real-she had been so sure of that. The simple act of reviewing those images now, those fragments, affirmed their substance in her mind’s eye. They had to be real. If they weren’t real, she had jeopardized her future without just cause, had decided to leave her home, her career, her family-she could scarcely even acknowledge the profundity of what she’d given up.
She had not been gone long enough for anyone to really worry about her, she supposed. Perhaps she should go back home, confess what she had done, and accept the punishment? Certainly, she was guilty of no less than deliberate sabotage-a crime that was usually punished by execution-but the Orb had affected her somehow. Perhaps she would not be held fully responsible.
No. The effect it would have on her family, the disgrace of having a traitor for a daughter-it might be better if they never knew what had happened to her. It was already too late to go back.
She wandered toward the outskirts of the ruined city, checking her timepiece as she walked. She had booked transport on a shuttle to Cardassia II, scheduled to leave in the early evening. Her plan had been to find the book that the Hebitian had told her of-hidden in plain sight-and go into hiding for a while herself, plan her next move… dream whatever needed to be dreamed, to complete this insane quest.
She looked out at the flat horizon just to be absolutely sure that there was nothing here-no remnants of the last Oralians. Although, she corrected herself, they were not the last Oralians, they were probably the first. The last Oralians must have lived in Cardassia City, since they still existed when she was a baby.
Astraea stopped walking, the truth opening before her like a flower. Cardassia City! The last Oralians existed just decades ago, not centuries. If there were any remnants of the Oralian Way, it would be outside the last known enclave of planetside followers, which was in Cardassia City! In fact… Something so obvious occurred to her then, she was stunned that she had not considered it before. Like something in plain sight, but hidden. In her dream, the first of those significant dreams she had experienced, she had been walking toward the stone cottage from the city, from her home. It had been under her nose this entire time.
I am looking in the wrong place.
Natima and her would-be captor had begun systematically moving rocks and heaps of dirt away from the dark branch of the tunnel they’d been trapped in. The Bajoran had climbed to the top of the pile to ensure that it was relatively stable, and now he worked at clearing the debris, lifting the heaviest rocks. Natima scooped dirt back into the tunnel with her hands and feet, ignoring the resultant scratches. As they worked, the palm beacon began to flicker.
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“Will we be able to continue doing this in the dark?” Natima asked. Her voice sounded hollow against the cold, wet ground all around them.
“Let’s just worry about what we’re doing, all right?”
“But we should think about it before it happens, so we can formulate a plan.”
“It’s pointless to consider things that might happen. I think we’ll come to the end of this before the palm beacon gives out.”
“You think, but you don’t know.”
The Bajoran stopped working for a moment. “You certainly are preoccupied with foresight, for a Cardassian.”
“What are you trying to imply?”
He went back to work. “Do I need to imply anything? Your people came here to steal our resources, and you burn the ground after you. I hate Cardassians, isn’t that obvious?”
“Sure,” Natima said. “And look where it’s gotten you. Stuck in a tunnel with two civilian reporters. We’ll probably suffocate in here.”
“We won’t suffocate,” he said. “These tunnels are old, the rock has shifted. There’s a wide rift not a minute’s walk from where we are, on the other side of this heap.”
Natima had nothing to say, she just continued to lift handfuls of rubble away from the blocked opening, and the Bajoran went back to work as well.
After a time, he spoke again. “This is where I hid when my parents were killed,” he said. His voice was flat. “The soldiers came to force them off their land, and I ran away. I probably would be dead, too, if I had stayed behind.”
“Ah,” Natima said. “Your hatred of me has a point of origin.”
“Of course it does!” he spat. “Every Bajoran you’ll ever meet has a story like mine. Those who aren’t orphans are widows, or they have lost children or siblings or friends. My story is so typical, there’s hardly any reason to tell it.”
Natima was quiet, struggling with an unexpected surge of guilt. She knew she had done nothing wrong. And the Bajorans had willingly accepted the annexation; they should have expected to have to make some adjustments… But she also knew how she might have felt if someone had come to her home and told her she had to leave. Forced her to leave, if she refused.
If they had just cooperated…
She wanted to maintain as friendly an atmosphere as possible. If she could show herself to be open-minded, compassionate, perhaps he would listen to her when Damar came, turn himself in without a struggle.
“Did you grow up in an orphanage?”
He shook his head. “No. We aren’t like Cardassians, leaving their children behind. Bajorans keep their children out of those foul places, if it can be helped. I was taken in by relatives.”
Natima bristled at what he had said, mostly because she knew it was true. She sat back from the pile of rock, clasped her scraped fingers tightly. “I’ll have you know, I don’t agree with the practice of leaving Cardassian children behind in orphanages. The trouble with people like you, you view Cardassians as if we were one person, with one opinion. We don’t all agree on every aspect of our culture.”
The Bajoran frowned, but said nothing. He continued working.
“I’ve seen plenty of Bajoran children in the orphanages,” she added, “so don’t try to pretend that the Bajorans are above leaving their children to fend for themselves. Usually, they are children of those who cooperate with the government-children who have done nothing wrong, and are left to pay the debt of their parents by people like you.”
“People like me!” he exclaimed, but before he could finish, a stream of fine gravel spilled from the top of the heap. He leapt forward and grabbed Natima, shielding her body with his own. “Watch out!” he shouted.
A few of the larger rocks shifted, but nothing came down. She and the Bajoran pulled back from each other, both of them catching their breath from the scare. Natima stared at the man, confused. He had acted to protect her, after taking her hostage. What a complicated people these Bajorans were!
“Did I hurt you?”
“No,” Natima told him, flustered. “I’m fine.”
They heard a faint groan, echoing from the other end of the tunnel.
“Veja’s awake,” she said. The Bajoran nodded, stood, lighting the way with his flickering light.
Natima tried to hurry, but the light was failing fast. The muddy, rocky ground beneath their feet had to be navigated by feel, the dark a palpable thing around them, closing in, and she was afraid. She spoke again as they walked, working to keep herself focused. “The children in the orphanages-it’s one of the few things that I have refused to censor about the annexation.”
“Annexation?” He laughed, a bitter sound. “You Cardassians are so skilled in the art of the euphemism.”
“What would you know about it?” Natima snapped.
“I have accessed your comnet before-I’ve read the reports you deliver back to your homeworld. Reports of happy Bajoran subjects, much-revered Cardassian leaders, Dukat’s favorable reputation among the Bajorans. No mention of the resistance, except perhaps to report exaggerated victories against them-victories which have been few and far between, I might add.”
Natima did not have time to answer, as they had reached Veja. She knelt beside her friend, the weak light showing them her mud-streaked face, tight with pain and fear.
Natima reached for her. “It’s all right, Veja. We’re trying to find a way out. I’m so sorry to have left you alone in the dark, but we have only one light.”
Veja struggled to speak.
“Don’t waste your energy. You need to rest.” It was the Bajoran.
“Get… leave… I’m… okay. Go…”
“No, Veja. He’s right-don’t try to speak.”
Veja shook her head and gasped weakly, gesturing back down the tunnel, the way Natima and Seefa had come.
“I think she’s trying to tell us to get back to work,” the Bajoran said, and Veja nodded before closing her eyes again, the tension in her face lessening as she drifted back into unconsciousness.
Natima looked up at the Bajoran, who would not return her gaze. “I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “I never meant for anything like this to happen.”
Natima stood up and tried to brush dirt off her dress before realizing how utterly futile it was-she was covered in grime and muck from head to toe, and she would be getting a lot dirtier before this day was done. She could not accept his apology, not with Veja so badly hurt, but she felt a need to at least acknowledge its sincerity.
“A lot of things happen that have unintended consequences,” she said stiffly, and started back to the blocked entrance. The Bajoran followed, carefully lighting their way.
Lenaris and Taryl landed their respective ships less than a kellipate from the prison camp. It was as close as they could get, considering the complicated web of defense arrays surrounding the camp. The atmosphere was breathable, but thin, and Lenaris’s head started to throb almost as soon as he left his raider. The air smelled strange-not bad, exactly, just a smell that Lenaris had never known. The very unfamiliarity of it made his stomach clench.
Lenaris and Delle met up with Taryl, who had ridden with Tiven, as the third raider thudded down. Sten and his cousin Crea leaped out first, followed by two brothers by the name of Legan, recent additions to the Ornathia cell. They were standing just beyond a patch of the strangest-looking vegetation Lenaris had ever seen-low trees with rounded leaves that appeared almost black in color, likely to compensate for the excessive distance of their sun. They provided good cover. If Pullock V had been a desert world, the operation would already be over.
“I read life signs,” Taryl whispered, looking at her handheld scanner. “But I can’t tell if they’re Bajoran. It’s the shield-blocks out most of the signal.”
Lenaris nodded. “Can you tell how many people are here?”
Taryl shook her head.
“Well, let’s do it,” Tiven said, and unslung his phaser rifle. Lenaris nodded, unslinging his own. The Legans both carried handheld phasers, while Taryl and her cousins were carrying pouches full of improvised explosive devices: slap packs and shrapnel grenades-unsophisticated, but they did the job.
Lenaris could see that the others were nervous, never having faced Cardassians in combat before. But he was too anxious and excited for his own sake to worry much about his companions’ lack of experience. He felt that he was better at ground combat than just about anything else; he’d had a lot of practice when he had been in the Halpas cell with Darin. The two of them were so confident, they could have taken out an entire outfit of Cardassian soldiers from the ground. Once, they’d destroyed a massive bunker-just the two of them-and had done such a thorough job, the spoonheads hadn’t even bothered to rebuild it. It was memories like this that Lenaris drew upon, scaffolding his courage, as the eight of them crept to the place where they expected the camp to be. They were always undermanned and outgunned-it was a fact of the occupation-but it was still possible to prevail.
As they edged closer to the Cardassian facility, a large, modern-looking operation surrounded by a low wall, they could see no guards, and they could hear no sounds of movement. It appeared completely deserted. Lenaris’s tension went up a few notches.
“Are those life signs any clearer?” Tiven asked.
Taryl shook her head. “No,” she said slowly. “There’s no way to know what kind of opposition we’re facing.”
“Does it matter?” Sten asked.
Taryl shook her head. “No,” she whispered. She edged a little closer, hesitant, looking at her scanner again.
“Maybe-” Tiven didn’t have time to finish his thought, for a tight line of gray-armored soldiers had abruptly sprung up behind the wall, less than thirty paces from where they now stood, and each soldier carried a massive rifle. The volley of simultaneous fire erupted in a single, terrible, impenetrable barrier.
Lenaris’s rifle was in his hands and he was spraying fire before he even had time to register what had just happened. His ears roared with his own heartbeat. He was only partially aware of the shots that originated somewhere at his side; presumably Tiven, but Lenaris only saw the ugly, reptilian faces in front of him, watched as they staggered and fell, one by one. He fired, fired again, and retreated, crouching back into the alien bushes.
The soldiers who had not fallen returned fire, though they did not advance beyond the low walls of the facility, only continuing to shoot like a single unwavering, mechanical entity, the same formation that Lenaris recalled they had often taken when on Bajor; if they were not advancing, it meant there were probably more of them, to replace those who fell. The shrieks from their phasers tore up the ground in blasts of cloudy, choking black dust, the blasts of fire erupting in perfectly timed staccato. It did not take long to confirm to Lenaris that there were indeed more soldiers coming; he heard their phasers before he saw them, marching forward from somewhere beyond the gates of the facility to fill in for their fallen comrades.
Lenaris took the briefest second to survey their own casualties. Delle was nowhere in sight. Sten’s foot was visible a short distance away, poking out from beneath the brush ahead of him, but Lenaris could not gauge if he was alive or dead. Crea was dead, crumpled in the dirt. The Legan brothers were firing wildly in tandem. Tiven also continued to fire, and Taryl, ducking behind insufficient cover, clutched her bag anxiously, her expression wide-eyed with the fear of first combat.
“Go, do it!” Lenaris shouted to her, and she quickly snapped into action. She chucked the palm-sized slap packs with all her might, one after another as he continued to fire, covering her. More soldiers fell, but it was not enough.
“Tiven!” he shouted, risking a look in the old engineer’s direction-and he saw that Tiven was on the ground, the upper part of his body a blackened mass, still smoking from the impact of Cardassian disruptor fire. Lenaris changed his position, continuing to fire. He still could not see Delle, and Sten appeared to be frozen behind the patch of bushes where he hid. One of the Legans had used up his power cell and was retreating, his brother continuing to fire methodically.
Lenaris made his way to Sten. “Go go go!” he screamed, firing over the other man’s shoulder, and Sten jerked into action, dashing forward just far enough to pluck the phaser rifle from Tiven’s corpse. With a cry, Sten discharged Tiven’s phaser at the line of spoonheads, until there were no more standing. At least, none that they could see.
“Delle!” Lenaris cried out, but Taryl stopped him, her expression tortured as she shook her head. Sten had fallen to his knees next to his cousin’s unmoving body. It had all happened too fast, was still happening. There was only a beat of ringing silence before they were made aware of more fire heading their way. Another line of identically dressed soldiers had just emerged from somewhere unseen, and there was no way of knowing how many more were waiting to replace these.
“Sten, your pack!” Lenaris shouted. The other man looked down at the satchel still slung around his shoulder as if he had forgotten it was there, and without wasting another second he pitched the explosive devices back at the camp-larger than those Taryl had used, meant to finish off the camp once they were done here-and it seemed to Lenaris that they were indeed done here.
The Legans had already retreated, both their phasers having run dry. “Let’s get the kosst out of here,” Lenaris ordered, and Taryl and Sten followed his lead, stumbling back through the squat trees, gasping, running for the shuttles. Lenaris sidestepped, firing back at the camp, hoping to the Prophets that they hadn’t been flanked.
Powdery dirt and alien vegetation flew up beneath their boots. Taryl tripped and Lenaris snatched at her arm, yanked her after him, his head pounding as the first of the explosions tore through the thin air. Behind them, soldiers shouted, but they hadn’t broken formation to give chase until it was too late. Sten and the Legans reached their raider first, and Lenaris pushed Taryl to hers before scrambling toward his own, blood thundering in his ears, expecting to feel the fatal blast to his back as he climbed into his vessel, his skin and muscles trembling in anticipation of it.
There were more explosions from the camp, one so big that it could only be the power station, a lucky hit. He fired up the raider, talking to himself, his voice a thready whisper as he frantically studied the sensors.
“Go, go, move…”
The instant he saw that Taryl was off the ground, he tapped himself into the air, imagining he could feel blasts of heat from the burning camp, pushing him toward the stars as he slammed on his comm.
“Halpas! We’re running! Get ready to go to warp!”
If the Cardassians had flyers, they were too preoccupied with their camp to come after the Bajorans. The brief fly time seemed like an eternity, Lenaris trying to catch his breath, sure that each second would be his last. A bright-hot blast of light, a single pulse from a patrol ship’s disruptors, and he’d be so much debris, blowing silently through icy space…
The carrier was waiting. Lenaris came in right behind Taryl, with Sten and the Legan brothers bringing up the rear. The bay’s hatch clamped shut behind them, and Lenaris felt a quick jerk just before the inertial dampers kicked in and the old Bajoran ship went to warp. He clambered out of his raider, huddling against the cold, stumbling toward Taryl’s craft. Taryl was still sitting in her cockpit, crammed in beside the Legans, who both looked to be in a state of shock. Taryl’s head was down on the instrument panel.
Lenaris lifted the hatch, the fear finally hitting him.
“Taryl, are you all right? Are you hit?”
Taryl gasped once, twice-and started to cry, deep, rending cries of heartbreak that echoed through the dim, cavernous bay.
“Lac,” she wailed, and Lenaris tried to hold her, but it was as though he wasn’t even there.
Chapter 11
Dukat was fuming as he tapped off the comm. The facility in the Pullock system had been badly damaged, and a good many Union troops were dead. He’d thought he’d been sufficiently cautious, sending soldiers to the work camp on Pullock V to oversee the execution of the prisoners there, which included the terrorist who had been apprehended at Derna-the man had given up plenty in the interrogation, confirmed that he’d tried to send word back to his friends. But even with that lead, Dukat had underestimated the Bajorans once again.
He sat back in his chair, his mood black. The average Bajoran’s quality of life had improved dramatically since his rise to the office. He had promoted better health care, encouraged work-training programs, allowed them religious freedoms that they had no right to expect, and this is what they gave in return.
He started to call for Damar, but then remembered that the gil had gone to the surface; his betrothed had gotten herself into trouble, another hostile incident with a Bajoran terrorist.
Dukat templed his fingers, considering his next move. He did not particularly care to admit when he had made a mistake, but he knew that on very rare occasions, it was the best course to take. A change in tactics was required. He summoned Basso Tromac to operations, deciding how best to tighten the reins as he waited for the Bajoran to appear.
“You called for me, sir?” Basso stepped into his office not five minutes after being called. One thing to be said for Basso, he was punctual.
“I need you to deliver a message to Kubus Oak,” Dukat said.
“Right away, sir.” Basso slid a padd from his belt, fingers poised to record. “What message?”
“Inform Kubus that I am instituting new policies on Bajor, effective immediately. It will be up to him to be sure that the word is spread across his world. My men will be on hand to enforce these directives.”
“Yes, sir,” Basso said, suddenly sounding a little uneasy.
“Chief among them: no more religious counsel allowed in the work camps. In fact, we need to even the playing field for religious officials in general. I’ve allowed your priests a certain amount of leniency up to now, but I feel it is time for them to earn their keep, just like everyone else. All religious officials will receive work code numbers. And I believe we will be dismantling some of the monasteries. It is common knowledge that resistance members hide in them.”
Basso was tapping away at his padd, his expression revealing nothing, but Dukat could see him swallow, hard. He was as superstitious as the rest of them, of course.
“Additionally, I am lowering per-month food allowances. And I am tightening restriction boundaries in Relliketh and Dahkur. I will post the specifics on the comnet.”
“Yes, sir,” Basso said. “Will that be all?”
Dukat nodded. “For now,” he said.
Basso left him, and Dukat looked over transmission reports, trying to find the record from the patrol ship that had reported the balon shuttles in the Pullock system. He was having trouble locating it and became frustrated, considering that this was the type of thing for which he usually relied on Damar. Dukat muttered a curse at Damar’s fiancee. Women could be so troublesome.
Dukat gave up on the transmissions and spent a few moments drafting his new directives, then uploading them to the Bajoran and Cardassian comnets. He then sent copies to the appropriate parties of interest-Legate Kell’s office, the guls who oversaw surface operations. Dukat didn’t bother himself overmuch with the details; what mattered were the bold, broad strokes. This would stir the rebels, make them reckless. His soldiers on the ground would make quick work of them, some small justice for the tragedy of Pullock V.
Hours later, he began to feel the intense solitude of command taking its toll. There was one other person who was adept at listening to his troubles, who might be able to ease his mind.
As he entered her quarters, he was immediately aware of Meru’s posture. She sat on the bed with her back to the door, her head bent as she gazed down at her hands, her fingers twisting in her lap.
“Meru,” Dukat said, wondering if she had already heard about the new directives. He looked to her companel. The screen was dark, but she had probably been at it, where she pored over the comnet reports on those days when she wasn’t painting pictures or reading what passed for literature among Bajorans. The holosuites had never interested her, though Dukat had done his best to try and encourage her to use them.