CHAPTER 6

“WHAT'S WRONG WITH HIM?” Centurion Karon demanded.

Nog awoke with a start. He instantly moved his hand to the side of his head in response to a dull pain in his temple. Then he reacted to the shock of realization that the little finger of his right hand was broken. And then to the fact that he could move at all. Until he remembered where he was and how he had come here.

The Romulan centurion's voice was insistent. “Admiral Picard. Has he been injured?”

Nog pushed himself up on the medical bed. He rubbed at his head again, this time careful to keep all pressure off his broken finger. “Irumodic Syndrome,” he said. His throat was painfully dry. He started to cough.

But Karon wasn't interested in his discomfort. “Tash!” she snarled.

Nog didn't know what that word meant, but from the way the sharp-featured Romulan had said it, he could guess. And he could also guess that it meant she knew very well what Irumodic Syndrome was.

“Does that mean Starfleet's not serious about Project Phoenix?” Karon asked.

“I am not answering any questions until I see Admiral Picard.”

Karon's dark eyes considered him. Their highlights seemed to shine out at him from the shadows of her deep brow and precisely cut black bangs. “Who are you?” she asked.

Nog hesitated. Considering his present circumstances, he could be a prisoner of war, which meant he should say nothing, even though he knew his eventual fate would be to become a bion. Then again, it was possible that Karon had been truthful when she said the crew of this ship no longer supported the Ascendancy. Romulans had been the Federation's allies in the war against the Dominion. Was it possible they could be allies again? More to the point, Nog wondered, this close to the end, was there really anything to lose?

“I'm the Integrated Systems Manager for Project Phoenix,” he said. “Captain Nog.”

Karon looked gratifyingly impressed. “So you're in charge,” she said with a slight incline of her head.

“I manage the project,” Nog replied. “The Admiral is in charge.”

Karon pursed her lips and nodded. “I understand personal loyalty. Odd to see it in a Ferengi, though. Perhaps our mission hasn't been wasted after all.”

“What mission?” Nog said, deliberately ignoring her insult. It was the fate of the Ferengi to be misunderstood by all but their own kind.

Karon's cool gaze swept over him. “Perhaps you'd prefer getting dressed.”

Nog looked down and felt his ears flush. He was still in his sleep shorts. His pressure suit had apparently been removed as he slept. “Yes, I would,” he said stiffly. “But more than that, I would appreciate having someone look at this.” He held up his little finger, trying not to grimace as he saw the strange angle it took from his hand.

It required an agonizing twenty minutes to get his finger straightened and set in a magnetic splint, and Karon apologized for the Altanex carrying no tissue stimulators suitable for Ferengi biology. Her explanation for his injuries seemed quite reasonable—that he'd broken his finger and bruised his temple when he fell to the deck after being paralyzed.

Once he'd been treated, Karon offered him a change of clothing, and Nog quickly pulled on a Romulan utility uniform—gray trousers, a tunic unfortunately intended for a taller person, and black boots that were, surprisingly, the perfect size. Then the Romulan centurion escorted him to Admiral Picard's guest quarters.

To Nog's relief, the Old Man was asleep, not in a coma or dead. And in response to his pointed questioning, Karon assured him that Picard's interrogators had not used any force or psychological pressure, especially—here Karon paused and fixed Nog with a measuring look—when it had become so quickly apparent that the admiral was not in full command of his legendary faculties.

With the Old Man's condition confirmed, Nog allowed Karon to lead him to a situation room three decks up. As he followed the Romulan, Nog studied what few details the short passage revealed about the vessel he was in. He wasn't certain what class of ship the Altanex was, but it was obviously cramped and confined, and the paltry number of crew members they passed suggested that it was also extremely small.

Lacking any other ready source of information, Nog had no reservations about directly asking his escort about her ship.

“We're a listening post,” she explained, as she adjusted the replicator in the small situation room to display its menu in Ferengi tallyscript. “Our current position is within this system's main asteroid belt.”

“Ah, a spy vessel.” Nog glanced around the spartan room, trying to identify any obvious recording sensors. But all he saw was a blank tactical screen, a conference table with nine chairs, and on the table a small packing crate with reinforced locking clamps.

Karon didn't confirm or deny his definition of her term. “High-speed multiple transmorphic cloaks. But limited shields and weapons.”

Nog was impressed. “With transmorphic cloaks you don't need shields. I had not realized you had perfected them.”

A grim expression flashed across Karon's stern features. “Our engineers found they could solve their impasse with certain . . . biogenic components.”

Nog understood and shared her distaste. The Romulans had again employed Grigari technology. Which meant the ship's state-of-the-art cloaking device was controlled in part by engineered tissues taken from captives.

Then, without preamble Karon said, “The Star Empire is collapsing.”

Startled, Nog attempted to hide his shock the only way he could. He looked away from her, to the replicator.

“Are you surprised?” Karon asked.

“By the news? Or by the fact that you are telling me?” Nog concentrated on the replicator's talleyscript. There were no Ferengi selections available. The only non-Romulan food and drink he recognized were Vulcan, and he wasn't enamored of Vulcan cuisine. There were never enough beetles.

“You don't believe me.” Karon folded her arms and drew herself up, making her posture even more erect than it had been. She was a few centimeters taller than Nog but very slight, even in chainmail. Nog had grown to his maximum height as a teenager on DS9, but he knew a decade of desk work had added more than a few kilograms of bulk to his small frame, giving him a much more substantial presence than Karon.

Nog saw little risk in answering her truthfully. “I haven't decided,” he said. “For a collapsing power, you did not seem to have much trouble overwhelming Utopia's defenses.”

“It was a Tal Shiar operation. They are the last to feel the deprivations of the Empire's eroding capabilities.”

Nog allowed his face to reveal a slight degree of interest at her mention of the feared Romulan intelligence service. But the revelation was a calculated one, to make her think that he appreciated her candor. The centurion might believe she was engaged in a frank conversation with a fellow warrior, but to Nog, he and she were engaged in negotiations—everything was always a negotiation. And sometimes—most times—it was best not to let the other party know it.

“Why did the Tal Shiar want to kidnap Admiral Picard?”

“They didn't,” Karon said. “The Utopia Yards are your last major shipbuilding center. The Tal Shiar wanted to cripple them. My . . . group saw a chance to make contact with Admiral Picard during the confusion.”

Nog made a note of her hesitation at mentioning whom she was working with. That could mean she hadn't yet determined if she could trust him. It could also mean that there was no group, and that she and the handful of crew on this ship made up the whole of the Romulan resistance.

“Two questions,” he said. “First, if the Tal Shiar accepts the Ascendancy's teachings, why bother attacking the yards this late?”

Just for a moment, it seemed to Nog that Karon sensed he was hiding something from her, but if so, it did not stop her from answering him. “This was one of fifteen attacks scheduled to . . . to keep the Federation off-balance. We know about Project Phoenix and Project Guardian. Even Project Looking Glass. But we can't be sure you don't have other last-moment operations planned.”

Now Nog really was impressed. For obvious reasons, Project Phoenix had been impossible to completely hide. But Guardian was one of the most highly classified operations in Starfleet's history. Even he had been told only a few details about it, and those only because of how they might relate to the timing of the Phoenix's mission. As for Looking Glass, that was a code name even he had never heard before.

Karon seemed to understand that Nog wasn't going to order anything from the replicator, so she reached past him to punch in some selections of her own. “As to what the Tal Shiar does or does not believe, I don't know anymore. I think at first our politicians considered the Bajoran Ascendants to be fanatics. The reason the Star Empire supported them was because the Ascendants' goal was to destabilize the Federation—always a worthy endeavor in Romulan eyes.”

“But now?” Nog asked, trying not to let his voice sound too eager for details.

A tray with two tall glasses of brown liquid appeared in the replicator slot. Each glass was topped by a froth of foam.

“I don't know how much access Starfleet Intelligence has to events on Romulus, but as the Federation and the Klingon Empire suffered outright acts of terrorism and overt military strikes, we ourselves suffered from key politicians succumbing to mysterious diseases and accidents.”

The centurion handed him a glass. “You were being attacked from without. We, from within.”

Nog sniffed at the drink in surprise. Root beer. It smelled delicious. “By the Ascendants?”

“You said you had a second question.” Karon held up her glass in an age-old gesture of salute, drank deeply from it, then wiped the foam from her upper lip.

Nog took a tentative sip from his glass. The subtle interplay of sarsaparilla and vanilla was missing, of course. In years of study, he had yet to find a replicator version of the drink that could match that made on Cestus III. In fact, he had been surprised to learn that root beer had not been invented there, considering that the versions from everywhere else were but a pale imitation.

But he wasn't here to discuss brewing methods. He set his glass down on the tray. “Why did you want to speak to the admiral?”

Karon sighed. “We know about the Phoenix.”

Nog made his shrug noncommittal. Such knowledge was not surprising. Almost everyone knew something about the ship. “You said that.”

“We know its mission.”

Perhaps in general, Nog thought, still unconcerned. It was unlikely even the Tal Shiar had managed to uncover all the details of the audacious plan the Old Man had put in motion almost five years ago.

“And we know that mission will fail.”

Nog picked up his glass again to cover his shock and took another quick sip of its aromatic liquid. Swiftly, he considered all the possible reasons Karon might have for telling him this. His first thought was that she was also part of the Tal Shiar and it was an attempt to sow disinformation. But then, he reasoned, why hadn't she just killed him and Picard? Surely their deaths would have a greater chance of disrupting Project Phoenix than would their being swayed by her influence.

“For whatever it might be worth to you,” he said carefully, “there are those in Starfleet who believe the same.”

Karon shook her head. “You misunderstand. I did not say we believe your mission will fail. I said, we know your mission will fail.”

Nog drank the last of his root beer and regretfully placed the empty glass on the tray. “How is it possible to know the fate of something which has yet to happen?”

He meant his question to be a challenge, and expected the Romulan centurion to respond in kind. But instead—surprisingly—Karon pulled out one of the chairs and sat down at the conference table. Her whole being seemed to Nog to be enveloped in an air of inexpressible sadness.

“Captain Nog, twenty-five thousand years ago, three Bajoran mystics set down their visions: Shabren, Eilin, and Naradim. All except the tenth of Shabren's prophecies have proved true, and that one can be read as a warning and not a firm prediction. The Books of Eilin unequivocally describe the rediscovery of the Orbs of Jalbador, just as it occurred twenty-five years ago. And Naradim's Eight Visions—”

“Are ancient poetry,” Nog interrupted, as he took a chair facing her. “All the writings of the mystics are. Written with allusions and veiled references that every generation has reinterpreted and applied to their own unique circumstances.”

Karon's gaze settled on Nog so intently he had the unsettling feeling that she had some alien power to read his mind. “You really don't believe that any of what's happened this past quarter-century has been foretold?”

Nog emphatically shook his head. “Of course not,” he said firmly. “What has happened is the result of secular fanatics who have appropriated obscure religious writings in an attempt to justify brutal oppression and bloody conquest. The so-called War of the Prophets is a war of politics—not religion.”

Karon's hands betrayed her inner tension as she twisted them together tightly, and she leaned forward, urgent. “But you work for Admiral Picard. He understands what's happening.”

Nog spoke with pride. “Admiral Picard is a scientist. An explorer. A historian. Of course he understands.”

“Perhaps not, it seems, in the same way you do. Captain Nog, are you aware that Naradim's Third Vision has been fulfilled?”

Nog groaned with impatience. He'd thought his presence here might give him a chance to launch a new attack against the Ascendancy. But instead, it appeared even the Romulan resistance was as caught up in religious nonsense as the fanatics who had enslaved Bajor and now threatened the universe.

“To be honest,” he said, “I can't keep that drivel straight. What is Naradim's Third Vision?”

“It's the reason why the Tal Shiar launched fifteen attacks against the Federation and Starfleet in the last five hours.”

Nog frowned. “To keep us off-balance, you said.”

Karon drew back, studying him, puzzled, as if amazed that he still didn't understand her. “Captain, Admiral Picard understands even if you don't. He told us that he told you what had happened.”

“What?” Nog rubbed at his aching temple. The centurion wasn't making any sense at all.

“The Defiant, Captain. It reappeared in deep space near the border-of—”

“What!” Nog suddenly had trouble breathing.

“—the Bajoran Central Protectorates.”

It was as if she'd shot him with a polywave all over again. “Is . . . is anyone on board?”

Karon's hands were still now. They lay flat on the table between them. “You know there's only one person who counts. And yes, he is on board. Benjamin Lafayette Sisko. Emissary to the False Prophets.”

Nog felt the sharp heat of anger in his cheeks and ears, compounding the shock he felt. “Captain Sisko was one of the greatest beings I have ever known.”

“For the False Prophets to have chosen him—indeed, if the new findings from B'hala are true, for them to have arranged his birth—how could he be anything else?”

Nog gripped his splinted finger in an effort to use the distraction of pain to regain his focus. “Who else?” he asked. “Who else is on the Defiant?”

“We haven't been able to intercept a complete list. Apparently, there's at least one Cardassian—”

“Garak?”

“I wasn't given names. Also a changeling—”

“Odo!”

“Eighteen in all.”

“Eighteen . . . ?” Nog took a deep breath. The number was appallingly small. More than two hundred people had been reported missing when Deep Space 9 was destroyed. “Are there . . . are there any Ferengi on the ship?”

“I don't have that information.”

“What about Captain Sisko's son?”

“Captain Nog, how do you know these people?”

Nog told her.

“That explains a great deal,” Karon said when he had finished. “You served under Sisko. You traveled many times through the false wormhole. You even have experienced a temporal exchange on your trip to Earth's past.”

Her tone made Nog uncomfortable. “What does that explain?”

“I apologize in advance, Captain. But by your own admission, you have had several encounters with the forces of the False Prophets. I believe that could explain why you remain so resistant to the truth.”

Nog clenched his fists, despite his splinted finger. “My mind is open!”

“Captain Nog, given the power of the Prophets, true or false, how would you know if it were not?”

Nog jumped to his feet, knocking his chair back. “This discussion is over. I want you to return Admiral Picard and me to the closest Starfleet facility.”

“You haven't heard my proposition,” Karon said, looking up at him.

“I am not interested.”

“Are you interested in stopping the Ascendancy? Saving the universe? Preserving the memory of the great Jean-Luc Picard?”

That last question stopped Nog. Twenty-four years ago, just after the destruction of Cardassia Prime, he had been assigned to the U.S.S. Enterprise under then Captain Picard. That was when the Old Man had become his mentor, and had given him the new direction he had so badly needed after the loss of so many people who had been close to him. In truth, Nog admitted to himself, his career today was as much dedicated to Picard as it was to Starfleet.

“How can you do all that?” he asked the centurion.

“By myself,” Karon said, as she pushed back her chair and got to her feet, “I cannot. But together, we can accomplish all that and more.”

Nog held her gaze. “My question stands. How?”

The centurion spoke slowly and deliberately, as if the words she were about to say were the most important she had ever spoken. “Give us the Phoenix.”

Nog stepped back in shock. “Never.”

He saw Karon's lips tremble, as if she were restraining some great emotion. Then she turned sharply away from him and tapped her finger on the keypad of the small packing crate. With a hiss of mechanical movement, the thick locking clamps released and the crate opened to reveal a battered, discolored sheet of coppery-colored metal, a hand's breadth high and slightly wider.

Nog leaned closer. The metal sheet was supported in a nest of semitransparent packing gel. Two of its edges were smooth, and a jagged break showed where it had been shattered, so that it seemed that at least half of it was missing.

Karon reached into the crate, lifted out the metal, and gave it to Nog. Even as she did so, he realized he was looking at a starship's dedication plaque.

“Read it,” she said quietly.

Nog turned the metal over, and felt as if the gravity web had failed again.

He had seen this plaque a thousand times before. The last time—three days ago—was when it had been pristinely mounted on the bulkhead beside the primary turbolift on the bridge of Jean-Luc Picard's greatest achievement. U.S.S. PHOEN . . . the remaining letters read.

Beneath that, in smaller type: FIRST OF ITS CLASS. Beneath that, a list of the engineers and designers Nog had worked with every day.

And then, at the bottom, the ship's simple motto, chosen by the Old Man himself: “. . . Sokath, his eyes uncovered. . . .”

Nog spoke without thinking. “It's . . . a bad forgery.”

But Karon's next words seemed to come to him from a terrible distance. “Captain Nog, that plaque is twenty-five thousand years old.”

The plaque shook in Nog's hands. How could anyone know the target date? “Where . . . where did you . . . .”

The Romulan centurion completed his question. “Find it? At the bottom of a methane sea on Syladdo.”

Nog shook his head. The name was unfamiliar.

“Fourth moon of Ba'Syladon.”

Nog's pulse quickened. “The Class-J gas giant. . . .”

“The largest planet in the Bajoran system. Correct.” Karon's eyes remained fixed on him. She was making no attempt to take back the plaque. “And twenty-five thousand years ago, the Phoenix died there, before her mission could be completed.”

“You can't know that. Not . . . absolutely.”

“We can know that. We do know that. We can show you sensor records of all the wreckage recovered to date. Wreckage that includes enough of the deep-time components to know they were never deployed as planned.”

Nog looked down at the evidence in his hands. The metal plaque burned his fingers, froze them, the confusion of sensations occurring all at once.

“Don't let the Phoenix die uselessly, Captain. Don't throw away Jean-Luc Picard's greatest dream on a mission that cannot succeed.”

And then he finally understood. “You want the ship for another mission.”

“When the ship is completed. Yes. We do.”

Nog looked up to meet her gaze. Realizing that what he held in his hands was the proof that everything he had struggled for in these past five years on Mars, everything he had sacrificed, had been for nothing. Nothing.

He could barely speak the words. “You are asking me to betray Starfleet, the Federation—everything I believe in.”

“No, Captain, I am offering you a chance to save those very things. The only chance you have. We came here to put this question to Admiral Picard, but his time has passed. So I put it to you, Captain Nog. In all the universe, you are the only one who can save it now. Will you join us?”

It took Nog a long time to make his decision.

And time was the one thing he no longer had.