Orta made what would have been a snort when his larynx worked. “As if that

mattered. It was Picard I wanted, not a ship that happens to look like his.” He

sighed, the one sound he could still make on his own. “Is everything in

readiness?”

Tova nodded.

“Then let us prepare to depart.”

He got up and headed toward the entryway to the alcove that Orta had taken over

as his “bedroom.” As he passed Tova, she put a hand on his shoulder. Orta

stopped and looked down at her battle-scarred face—and battle-weary eyes. Orta

wondered if his own eyes would ever look like that, and was not at all

disappointed to realize that they wouldn’t. Full of battle, yes, but never weary

of it.

“This is the right thing to do,” she said.

“I wouldn’t have agreed to it if I did not think so, Syed.”

“You would if you had some other plan in mind. And you always have a plan. You

have ever since we salvaged that derelict.”

“My plan is to bring about peace, Syed. That has always been the plan.”

Tova regarded Orta for several seconds before finally taking the hand off his

shoulder. “I hope so,” she finally said.

Then they went together to the beam-out sight.

It was time to leave Valo behind.

It was time to go home.

Chapter Nine

“ENTERINGBAJORAN SYSTEM .”

Declan Keogh nodded at his first officer after that report from the conn.

Shabalala returned the nod and said, “Go to impulse and set course for the

second moon.”

“Aye, sir.”

The pickup had gone well enough, Keogh mused. He had been worried that Orta and

his people would cause a scene, but—though they could hardly have been described

as docile—they came on board with a minimum of fuss. They had spent their time

in their quarters, with some of them venturing to Ten-Forward. The latter

group—which did not include Orta—took to sitting in a corner, not mixing in with

the rest of the crew. Hardly an auspicious omen for a group that’s supposed to

be involved in a cooperative effort, Keogh thought disdainfully. He knew this

mission was going to end badly.

“Commander, take a look at this,” said the second officer, Maritza Gonzalez,

from the ops position.

In reply, Shabalala went over to the ops console and peered at the readouts

therein. “What am I looking at?” he asked.

“Bajor’s moons,” Gonzalez said. “I just compared their orbital paths—in a few

days, almost all of them will be perfectly aligned for about half an hour. The

funny thing is, the only one that won’t be is the second one.”

“Put it on screen, Lieutenant.”

Keogh looked at the display—to the naked eye, the moons seemed scattered in

various orbits as usual, but when Gonzalez overlaid indications of their orbital

pathways, he saw that all but the second would indeed line up soon.

“Fascinating,” Keogh said with a nod. Then he frowned as he looked at the fifth

moon. “Lieutenant Gonzalez, the fifth moon—that is Jeraddo, isn’t it?”

“Yes, sir.”

As displayed now, Jeraddo was a fiery red, looking about as uninhabitable as a

ball of flame, when Keogh was sure that it was supposed to be Class-M. “So what

in blazes happened to it?”

Gonzalez turned, gazing upon her captain with almond eyes. “Sir, Jeraddo’s core

is being tapped as part of an energy-retrieval project begun by the Bajoran

government a year and a half ago.”

Keogh nodded. “Very well. Thank you, Lieutenant.” Silently, the captain

chastised himself. He had tried to familiarize himself with all aspects of this

mission, but that particular fact had eluded him.

“Sir,” Shabalala said, “another ship is coming into orbit of the second moon.”

“It’s a Danube -class runabout,” Gonzalez added. “Registry reads as the Rio

Grande.”

From behind him at the tactical station, Lieutenant Talltree said, “We’re being

hailed by a Major Kira Nerys on the runabout.”

Shabalala moved back to the command section and took his seat next to Keogh

while saying, “On screen, Mr. Talltree.”

The display of Bajoran moons was replaced with the image of a Bajoran woman in a

red uniform of that planet’s Militia. Next to her was a Trill in a blue

Starfleet uniform.

“This is Captain Keogh of the Odyssey,” he said. “You must be Major Kira.”

“Yes,” she said simply. “Welcome back, Captain. This is DS9’s science officer,

Lieutenant Dax.”

Keogh blinked. It had been one thing to be told that Curzon Dax was now a woman

named Jadzia, but being confronted with the rather attractive reality was still

jarring. He recovered quickly, however, and said, “A pleasure, Lieutenant. It’s

been a long time.”

Dax frowned. “Excuse me?”

“We, ah, met on the Lexington about twenty-five years ago.”

“I’m sorry, Captain, I’m afraid—oh, wait,” she added, her face brightening.

“Deco Keogh?”

Shifting uncomfortably in his chair, Keogh said in a hard voice, “It’s been

quite some time since anyone called me that, Lieutenant.”

“Of course, Captain. I just didn’t recognize you with so much less hair. My

apologies. It’s good to see you again, too.”

Damn the woman, he thought angrily, she has that same smile Curzon had whenever

he said something guaranteed to embarrass you.

To Keogh’s relief, neither Shabalala nor Gonzalez nor Talltree visibly reacted

to Dax’s comment. He did notice Ensign Doyle at conn was trying to hide a

snicker, and he was quite sure that the other junior personnel at the aft

stations were doing likewise. I’ll deal with that later, he thought angrily.

“We’re preparing the required modifications to our phasers, and we have a full

team standing by to help set the colony up on the surface, along with your

farmers from the Valo system.”

“So Orta did come,” Kira said with a nod. “I wasn’t sure he would.”

“Honestly, Major, neither was I. I still doubt his intentions. But he’s here, as

are his followers.”

“Good.” Next to her, the Trill started manipulating controls. “Lieutenant Dax is

transmitting beam-down coordinates for both Orta’s people and your team.”

“Excellent. We’ll meet you there, Major. Odyssey out.” As the screen went blank,

Keogh stood up, Shabalala doing likewise next to him. “Mr. Talltree, have Orta

and his people gather in Transporter Room 3 and have them beamed to the major’s

first set of coordinates. Have the scientific team meet Mr. Shabalala and myself

in Transporter Room 1.”

“Yes, sir,” the large security chief said from the tactical station.

“You have the conn, Lieutenant,” he said to Gonzalez, who nodded and moved to

the command chair.

Shabalala let Keogh enter the turbolift first, then followed him in and said,

“Transporter Room 1.”

Keogh nodded to his first officer. He liked Shabalala. After the string of

incompetents that Starfleet had saddled him with over the years, he was grateful

to have someone who properly served as an interface between him and his crew,

and who kept his ship operating at peak efficiency—in other words, what a first

officer was supposed to do.

As soon as the doors closed, Shabalala said, “‘Deco,’ sir?”

“Commander, let me be perfectly clear: I don’t ever expect hear that word

again.”

“Of course, Captain,” Shabalala said with an emphatic nod.

“And I want Ensign Doyle reprimanded for her behavior.”

“Naturally, sir.”

Keogh nodded, confident that this would truly be the end of it. Shabalala had

served under Captain Simon on the Fearless —a good commander whom Keogh had been

sorry to see lost, especially under such horrendous circumstances. Simon and

Shabalala both were the kind who understood the need to run a tight ship.

Within minutes, they had beamed down to the moon, along with a team of both

science and engineering personnel led by Keogh’s chief engineer, Commander

Rodzinski.

Keogh was not encouraged by what he saw. The moon was a dark, desolate place.

Long stretches of barren ground to his left were broken only by small markers.

In the distance was a single mountain—which, he recalled from his reading of

Kira’s proposal, was an inactive volcano, one of several on the moon

The moon also had an underground network of rivers. One of the teams from the

Odyssey had been assigned to set up the irrigation system that would tap those

rivers. Meantime, those markers were placeholders for the Starfleet-issue

prefabricated housing structures that would serve as the farmers’ homes.

To Keogh’s right was a large expanse of equally barren land, but without the

markers. Most of this would be the actual farmland, once the Odyssey’

'ssoon-to-be-modified phasers did their work to turn the rock into arable soil.

Worse, it was cold. Part of that was because the sun had set. For approximately

six months of the year—a period that would end in a month’s time—the sun was

“up” only four of every fourteen hours. That was why this was the optimum time

to start this project—by the time the seeds they planted were ready to sprout in

a month’s time, the moon’s rotation would take it out of the shadow of the third

moon, and the sun would be up for twelve of those fourteen hours.

The sound of a Starfleet transporter beam heralded the arrival of Kira and Dax.

Kira smiled as she looked at Keogh. “Doesn’t look like much, does it?”

Keogh actually returned the smile. “I was just thinking that, Major. But then,

that’s what you need me and my ship for. So, let’s get to work, shall we? I

looked over your proposal while we went to pick up Orta and his people, and I

put together a plan of attack, as it were. We should start—”

“Uh, Captain?” Dax said in a voice that sounded like she was talking to a child,

a tone Keogh rather resented. “We already have a plan.”

“Lieutenant, you’re using my staff, my equipment, my ship—I think, therefore,

that I’ve earned the right to implement their deployment.”

“Captain—”

“Why don’t you two talk this out,” Kira said quickly, stepping between the two

of them. “I’m willing to bet that there’s a common ground the two of you can

find.”

“Major,” Keogh said, “I see no reason—”

Kira now stood right in front of Keogh. She was shorter than Keogh by half a

head, but no less impressive for that. “Captain, this is my project. I’m the one

who conceived it, I’m the one who practically shoved it down the chamber of

ministers’ throats. The Bajoran government has also put me in charge of the

project.”

“Are you giving me an order, Major?” Keogh had to admit that he liked this

woman’s aggressiveness, but there were chain-of-command issues to be settled

here. Kira was subordinate to Deep Space 9’s commander—whom Keogh outranked. He

wanted there to be no question of who gave orders to whom on this mission.

Kira’s smile grew wider—and it was the smile of a predator swooping down on

prey. “Starfleet is a guest of Bajor, Captain. As your host, I’m asking you to

work with Lieutenant Dax. She helped me write the proposal, including developing

all the technical aspects of it. Her presentation of those aspects is a lot of

what sold this to the provisional government. You’ve only known about this

project for a day. I would think you’d want the input of someone with more

experience.”

Nodding, Keogh said, “An excellent point. Very well, Lieutenant, let’s see what

you have in mind.”

Smiling much more sweetly than Kira was, Dax said, “Happy to, Deco.”

Keogh winced.

 

As Joe Shabalala led Kira to where Orta and his people had beamed down, she

asked, “How, exactly, do you put up with him?”

Smiling, Shabalala said, “I grind my teeth a great deal.”

Kira laughed. “That’s usually how I deal with the chamber of ministers. It’s the

main reason why they sent me up to DS9. I’m far enough away that they can only

hear me shouting when I contact them on subspace, and even then, they can always

cut me off. They like…” She trailed off. Her eye was caught by something on the

horizon. Shabalala followed her gaze.

Bajor was starting to rise.

Shabalala had seen an Earthrise from Luna once—the sight of the huge blue ball

slowly coming into view over Armstrong City had left him in openmouthed

amazement for a good fifteen minutes. His wife had told him he was going to

catch flies if he wasn’t careful. He pointed out that there were no flies on the

moon, but that sort of logic never deterred Aleta.

As glorious as that sight had been, Bajor’s rise was even more spectacular.

Whether it was because the green-tinged planet took up more room in the moon’s

sky than Earth did in Luna’s, Shabalala couldn’t say—and right now, he didn’t

care that much.

“When I was younger,” Kira said, “I came up to the fifth moon with my resistance

cell. Prylar Istani used to make me stop and watch every time there was a

Bajor-rise. I used to think it was a waste of time, but she was a prylar, so I

watched, waited for it to be over, and got back to work. After a while, though,

I started to appreciate it. Once I started watching them without her, she said

she was glad. ‘That’s what we’re fighting for, Nerys,’ she used to say. ‘Don’t

ever forget that.’”

“Wise woman,” Shabalala said.

Kira nodded. “I haven’t forgotten, I can tell you that.” She smiled sheepishly.

“Sorry, Commander.”

“That’s quite all right,” Shabalala said. “This project obviously means a lot to

you.”

“Bajor means a lot to me,” Kira said with a quiet vehemence that impressed

Shabalala, and frightened him a bit. “This project will help Bajor, so yeah, you

could say it’s important. And I don’t want it messed up because a Starfleet

captain’s ego is larger than the quadrant.”

Shabalala laughed. “Don’t worry, Major. Part of my job description is to keep

Captain Keogh’s ego at least planet-sized. We’ll get this done.”

“So there’s Bajor.”

Starting in surprise, Shabalala whirled around to see a Bajoran wearing a scarf

around his head. The scarf obscured most of his face. The voice with which he

had spoken so suddenly was mechanical and cold.

Orta.

The odd voice continued. “It’s good to see you again, Nerys—though I’m surprised

to see you in that uniform.”

“I’m doing what I can to help our home, Orta. Now, so are you. And if you ask

me, it’s about damn time.”

“Are you questioning my loyalty, Nerys?” Despite his computerized voice, Orta

managed to imbue his question with a fair amount of menace. Shabalala suddenly

wished he’d thought to bring a phaser.

Kira smiled sweetly—a smile that scared Shabalala even more than her earlier

vehemence—and looked Orta right in the eye. Though Orta was not as tall as

Keogh, he was still taller than the major, but she managed to look bigger even

as she gazed up at him. “I’m not questioning anything, Orta—except for what took

you so long to come home.”

“I’m here now. And I’m eager to serve. So tell us what we are to do, and we

shall do it.” He pointed at the rising planet. “For the greater glory of Bajor.”

Kira pointed to a security detail about a quarter-kilometer away. Lieutenant

Talltree had sent most of his staff down to aid in the preparations. Shabalala

also noticed some Bajoran Militia security amongst them, no doubt lent by Deep

Space 9.

“Good,” Kira said. “You can start by helping those Starfleet people set up the

processors. The ground needs to be properly prepared before the Odyssey can

start the operation. It’ll go faster if you help them out.”

Orta stared down at Kira, then looked over at the security people. “Two years

ago, Cardassians trembled at my name. Now I’m preparing ground for farming. Some

would call that tragic.”

“Really?” Shabalala said. “I’d call it progress.”

“I’m sure you would, Commander. I’d think that you have never had to fight for

your very survival.”

Unbidden, images from the final mission of the Fearless entered Shabalala’s

head. He banished them quickly. “You’d think incorrectly. It’s true that I’ve

never had to live in caves, or wonder where my next meal was coming from. I’ve

never been physically tortured or mutilated. But don’t think I’ve never had to

fight, and don’t think I don’t know what it means to fight for something. The

question for you is, were you fighting for Bajor or against the Cardassians? If

it was the former, then now you’ve got a chance to make that fight mean

something.”

Orta stared at Shabalala for several seconds before turning and heading toward

the security detail without another word.

“Nicely put,” Kira said, giving her fellow first officer an appreciative look.

Shrugging, Shabalala said, “I simply said what I believed—as you did, Major. We

shall see soon enough if it actually meant anything. What was that?” he added,

hearing some shouting in the distance.

“What was what?” Kira asked.

Closing his eyes, Shabalala listened closer. Then he sighed. “Captain Keogh is

yelling at Lieutenant Dax. If you’ll excuse me, Major, I’ll leave you to make

sure Orta and his people prepare the ground. I need to go save my captain.”

“Good luck,” Kira said with a chuckle.

For Shabalala’s part, he winced at his own phrasing. Save my captain indeed, he

thought. You aren’t exactly overburdened with a good track record in that

regard, are you, Joe?

As he got closer, the shouting coalesced from Keogh-sounding noise to coherent

words from the captain’s mouth: “—and then we can fire away.”

“That’s ridiculous!” Dax’s voice was not quite as loud as Keogh’s, but she, too,

had raised her voice.

“No, Lieutenant, what’s ridiculous is wasting the time it will take to prepare

the ground.”

Shabalala put on his best smile and asked, “Is something wrong?”

“Nothing is ‘wrong,’ Commander—” Keogh started.

“Except,” Dax interrupted, “that your captain’s not thinking things through.”

Keogh was about to say something else, but Dax overlaid him. “With all due

respect, sir,” she said with no respect in her tone whatsoever, “there’s too

much risk in what you’re proposing.”

“It will take time to prepare the ground and modify the phasers to the right

heat and magnitude and get the irrigation system up and running before we’re

ready to begin,” Keogh said. “While that’s going on, we can have the housing

entirely constructed—it’ll shave a good twelve hours off the start time.”

“Except,” Dax said, “that the housing then comes under the risk of being hit by

a stray phaser blast. Orbital blasting isn’t exactly what you’d call an exact

science.”

“We can protect the houses with force fields.”

“Or we can protect them by not building them at all until after there’s weapons

fire nearby.”

“My ship is capable of precision firing, Lieutenant,” Keogh said tartly.

Shabalala sighed. This was typical Keogh: once he got an idea into his head, you

couldn’t get it out with a phaser rifle. Even though Dax was obviously right,

Keogh would not easily give in on this point.

“Captain,” Shabalala said before Dax could say another word, “our timetable is

such that we don’t need to rush this. Yes, we’d save twelve hours—but that would

be twelve hours we’d spend sitting on our hands. We can’t go to New Bajor for

another three days in any case, as the supplies won’t be at DS9 until then. Why

take the chance—admittedly, a small one, but still a chance—that something will

go wrong with the phasering?”

Keogh glanced at his first officer. “I suppose you’re right, Commander, but I

still feel like we’re wasting time.”

With that, he turned and walked away.

Dax looked at Shabalala and said, “Thank you. Is he always this—this—”

“Single-minded?” Shabalala asked with a smile.

Chuckling, Dax said, “I was going to say arrogant, but that works, too.” She

turned toward the small mess area that had been set up a few meters away. “Join

me for a cup of raktajino?”

“Gladly,” Shabalala said, following the intriguing lieutenant toward the

circular array of benches and tables, in the center of which sat a replicator.

About a dozen blue-and gold-shirted individuals sat at assorted benches—mostly

noncommissioned engineers and science personnel who were taking a break from

either irrigation or ground-preparation duty. Shabalala was proud to realize

that he knew the names of each of them—and after being on board this ship with

its complement of a thousand only for three months. “In any case, with the

captain it’s mostly a matter of managing him. He is a good CO.”

Dax snorted. “Never thought I’d hear that about Deco Keogh.” They arrived at the

replicator. “Two raktajinos.”

Shabalala smiled as the two Klingon coffees materialized. Dax had just given him

a handy opening. “All right, Lieutenant, I have to ask—why do you keep calling

him that?” It had, in fact, been the real reason why he agreed to join her in

the raktajino.

“Because that’s what he asked me to call him.” Dax’s smile was very small and

very mischievious looking—in fact, to Shabalala’s amusement, she looked exactly

like his eleven-year-old daughter when she did something she wasn’t supposed to

do. She handed him his mug, and they both sat down at an empty table. “He was a

brash young lieutenant when I met him—and I was a cranky old male ambassador

named Curzon who didn’t suffer brash young officers gladly.”

“That can’t be all there is to it?”

The smile widened. “No.” She took a sip of raktajino. Shabalala did likewise,

and was instantly reminded why he mostly avoided this particular drink. Gamely,

he swallowed the bitter liquid anyhow.

“So what’s the rest of it?” Shabalala asked, realizing that Dax wasn’t about to

volunteer it.

“There was this woman.”

Unable to help himself, Shabalala laughed. “Why is it that every embarrassing

story about a human male in his youth starts with the phrase, ‘There was this

woman’?”

“Not sure,” Dax said thoughtfully, “but you’re right, it is a universal

constant. In any event, I was on the Lexington for a diplomatic assignment—they

were hosting a conference with the Antedeans. Young Lieutenant Keogh was chief

of security, so he and I interacted quite a bit, since the Antedeans are

prickly.”

“I thought they hated travelling through space.”

Nodding, Dax said, “They do. But as long as we didn’t hit the warp drive, we

were fine. Anyway, remember this was two-and-a-half decades ago. So your

esteemed captain looked—well, a bit different.”

“Different how?”

“Full head of lustrous brown hair down to his middle back, which he kept tied

back in a ponytail.”

Shabalala blinked. He suddenly wished he’d ordered a Saurian brandy—a real

one—instead of raktajino. “Captain Keogh? In a ponytail?”

Dax nodded. “And you know, looking back, he wasn’t at all bad looking. Not

really my type, but I can see why several women on the ship vied for his

attention.”

Grinning, Shabalala said, “Really?”

“Oh yes. Now the opening reception was supposed to happen on the rec deck. The

night before the Antedeans were supposed to beam on board, I went down there to

make sure all the preparations and such were in order.

“Unfortunately,” and here Dax’s smile grew deeper without growing wider somehow,

“somebody was using the room, and had forgotten to engage the privacy seal.”

Shuddering, Shabalala said, “Captain Keogh?”

“Ol’Deco himself, with a female crewmate in a very compromising position.”

Now I really wish this was a Saurian brandy, Shabalala thought with a plaintive

look at his beverage. “I believe, Lieutenant, that that mental image will haunt

me until my dying day.”

“How do you think I feel? I’m stuck with that image for dozens of lifetimes.”

He raised his mug. “My sympathies.”

“You did ask, Commander.”

“Yes. Yes, I did.” He drained the bitter brew, hoping it would wash the taste of

the image in his head out. At that, it failed rather spectacularly. He shook his

head. “It’s funny, these days, he wouldn’t be out of place on a Vulcan ship. I

wonder what happened to change him.”

“He got older—it happens to all of us. Well, most of us. Some of us get to do it

all over again.”

“Lucky you.” Shabalala rose. “If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go wash my mind

out with soap. Thank you for the drink.”

Dax’s face never lost that little smile of hers. “You’re welcome.”

Chapter Ten

“W E ’ RE READY TO BEGIN on your signal, Captain.”

From the command center that they had set up ten kilometers from the farm site,

Keogh said, “Thank you, Mr. Talltree,” to the image of his security chief on the

small viewscreen. “Stand by.”

The command center included a large portable science console from which they

could monitor the phasering of the future farmland. Keogh turned to look at Dax.

“Are we ready, Lieutenant?”

The science officer frowned as she peered down at the readings she was getting.

“Give me a minute,” she said distractedly.

The past eighteen hours had been a nightmare for Keogh. The new Dax managed to

be even more irritating than the old one, and her arrogance had to be seen to be

believed. She simply had to do things her way. Pulling rank was a lost cause, as

she seemed to be much more the centuries-old Trill than the twenty-nine-year-old

Starfleet lieutenant she appeared.

Just because she knew me when I was young and foolish is no reason—

He cut the thought off as unworthy of him.

She was a talented scientist, he gave her that much at least. But how Sisko put

up with her on a daily basis was beyond him.

The operation itself was, Keogh had to admit, rather elegant. The moon was,

basically, a big rock made up of solidified lava and extinct volcanoes. Talltree

had modified the phasers to vary temperatures so that it would pulverize the

surface layer of scoria and pumice into component minerals. Phase one would have

the mineral grains heat and cool, expand and contract—the functional equivalent

of several decades of seasonal weathering without having to actually wait

several decades. The scoria and pumice would turn into fine-grained dust, which

would then be inundated with water from the irrigation system. After that, phase

two would consist of more phasering to simulate more decades of seasonal

weathering, resulting in a mixture of clay, sand, and mineral grains. After

that, phase three would be the simple mixing of organic matter—presently in an

Odyssey cargo bay, fresh from Bajor—with the transformed lava via the

transporter and, as Dax had said, “Presto-change-o- poof! We have arable land.”

Kira and Shabalala were on the runabout, monitoring the operation from there. It

was one of the few recommendations Keogh had made that Kira and Dax had actually

listened to. The likelihood of something going wrong on either the moon or on

the Odyssey was minimal, but it was worth having the Rio Grande in reserve, both

as a monitoring station, and as an armed vessel.

“Okay, we’re ready,” Dax said. “I thought there was an anomalous reading, but it

was just a higher concentration of minerals. Nothing to worry about.”

“If you say so,” Keogh muttered. Then he turned to the viewer. He was about to

instruct Talltree to prepare to fire, but the security chief’s image had been

replaced by the standby screen. “What the hell?”

Then Gonzalez’s round face appeared. “Captain, we have a bit of a problem.

There’s a civilian ship entering orbit, and her captain wants to speak to you.”

“We’re a little busy down here, Commander. Tell her—”

“I’ve already told her, sir. She insists on speaking to ‘the person in charge.’”

 

Dax smiled. “I say, sic Major Kira on her.”

“Very funny.”

“Sir, she’s threatening to fire on us and the Rio Grande. It’s crazy—she

couldn’t put a dent in our shields, and even the runabout would probably give

her a run for her money—but it would be a nuisance.”

“Firing on a lesser vessel is hardly a ‘nuisance,’ Lieutenant,” Keogh snapped.

“Of course, sir, I’m sorry, it’s just—”

“Never mind. Let’s just get this over with so we can move on. Put the captain on

the viewer down here.”

“Switching.”

Gonzalez’s face was replaced by the most amazing sight Declan Keogh had seen

since he first met his now-ex-wife twenty years ago.

“I’m Aidulac, captain of the Sun ,” the woman said with a bright smile that

seemed to light up the viewer. “I have this problem that I’m sure you could

easily solve.”

“Of course, Captain,” Keogh said happily. “Anything you want.”

“Captain—” Dax started, but Keogh ignored her.

“I’m afraid you’ll have to wait a while. We’re in the midst of an operation that

requires phasering the surface of the moon we’re on. As soon as that’s done, I

promise to do whatever I can to solve your problem.”

“Captain—” Dax started again, but Keogh waved her off.

“That’s very kind of you, Captain, I’m extremely grateful to you for your

help—but I’m afraid I’m in a bit of a rush. Do you think I could land on the

moon before you start your operation?”

“I suppose it’s possible,” Keogh said without even considering it. All he wanted

was to make sure that Aidulac was happy.

This time, Dax pulled him away from the viewer as she bellowed, “Captain!”

“Dammit, Lieutenant, I don’t see—”

Then his head cleared.

He tried to reconstruct the last minute or so, and found that he couldn’t. “What

just happened?”

“Captain Keogh, please, you must believe me, I need to come down there.” Keogh

heard Aidulac’s words, but refused to look at the viewer.

“Lieutenant, what the hell is going on?” he whispered.

“She’s a Siren, Deco, and she’s trying to trick you into letting her land.”

Keogh had heard stories about the women of Pegasus Major IV who had been

specially trained by the Peladon Affiliation to be irresistible to men, but he

had always dismissed them as tall tales told at bars by older officers to junior

officers or by junior officers to cadets.

As a Starfleet captain, Keogh had had his share of experiences with telepathy

and mind control, including one rather nasty occasion last year when he’d been

possessed by an energy creature that was trying to blow up a planet as a

practical joke. He did not take kindly to it then, and he was out-and-out

furious about it now.

“Keogh to Odyssey. Tactical specifications of the Sun, Mr. Talltree?”

“Ah, standard shields, one phaser bank, no torpedoes of any kind.”

“So in your professional opinion—”

“We could take her out with one shot, sir. Maybe two.”

“Did you copy that, Captain Aidulac? You have one minute to leave the Bajoran

system, or we test to see which of Mr. Talltree’s guesses is accurate.”

“Very well, Captain. I’ll leave.” Aidulac’s tone was petulant. “But you’ll

regret this, I promise you that.”

Keogh heard the viewer switch off. Only then did he trust himself to look at it.

The weakness he’d shown irritated him—more so for having it happen in front of

Dax, of all people.

“Gonzalez to Keogh. The Sun is leaving orbit, sir, and is now on a course for

the Federation border.”

“Good,” Keogh said. “Mr. Talltree, ready phasers.”

“Kira to Dax. Is everything okay down there, Jadzia?”

Dax was about to answer when Keogh interrupted. “A slight delay, Major. Nothing

to worry about. We’ll begin the operation momentarily.”

“If you say so, Captain. Rio Grande out.”

Smiling sweetly at Keogh, Dax said, “Don’t worry, Deco. It could’ve happened to

anyone. If your Commander Shabalala had been on the Odyssey instead of Gonzalez,

she might have talked him into it.”

“Still and all, Lieutenant, I would appreciate it if you didn’t bring up the

details of what just happened.”

Dax looked down at her console, still with that damned smile of Curzon’s. “As I

recall, Captain, those were the exact words you said to me on the Lexington

twenty-five years ago.” She then looked at him. “Besides, from what Ensign Pérez

told me a few weeks later, it wasn’t really worth mentioning.”

Keogh closed his eyes. I knew she was going to bring something up sooner or

later, either the holodeck or Curzon’s liaison with Rosita. So naturally, she

mentions both in two sentences.

Then he opened them and, pointedly not looking at Dax, said, “Mr. Talltree, you

may commence firing when ready.”

And feel free to aim a shot at Dax’s head.

*  *  *

Aidulac set a course out of the Bajoran system. Once she was safely out of range

of either the Odyssey or the Rio Grande, she pounded a console out of

frustration.

Damn, she thought, now I’ve got a bruised hand to go with my bruised ego.

She had hoped that her failure with Decker and Kirk was a fluke, that when the

next Instrument was revealed she would be able to convince whoever was in charge

to turn the Instrument over to her.

But it was time she faced facts. Her skills had atrophied.

Of course they’ve atrophied, she admonished herself. It’s been how long? She

couldn’t even remember how to keep track of the passage of time in Zalkatian

terms anymore—it had been that long—but by Federation timekeeping, it had been

ninety thousand years.

A long time to wait for someone to stumble across where those fool rebels had

hidden the Instruments.

Things would have been so different if Malkus had never come to me. If he had

never forced me to oversee the construction of the Instruments.

Of course, it wasn’t as if she had a choice. Malkus was the supreme ruler of the

entire Zalkat Union. Aidulac was a mere scientist working on a world as distant

from the Homeworld as it was possible to be and still fall within the Union’s

borders. She had spent her life working in relative obscurity, developing new

technologies, figuring out new ways to use existing technologies, and trying to

stay out of the way of other people. Aidulac had always preferred solitude. Once

something was finished, she sold the patent to someone else who would develop it

and make it available to the general public.

She had set up shop on a small planetoid in a star system that she couldn’t even

remember the name of now. In the intervening millennia the sun had gone nova,

the planetoid long since consumed by the star’s death throes, but back then it

was just another dying stellar body that nobody cared about except as a

scientific curiosity.

Which was how Aidulac liked it.

The only company she had were robot servants, who only spoke when spoken to, the

occasional supply ship that would stop by, and the agents she employed to

auction off the rights to anything she invented that might have practical

mass-market use. Even then, she limited the contact as much as she could. She

was only truly happy when she sat in her lab, trying to unlock the secrets of

the universe. Since the universe was miserly with those secrets, the challenge

had never lost its luster.

Then the strange ship arrived.

It had all the necessary authorization codes to enter orbit without being shot

out of the sky by her automated defenses, which meant that they had been able to

bribe that information out of one of her agents. At that moment, she sent out

messages informing all her agents that their contracts were terminated,

effective immediately, and she made a note to begin searching for new ones the

next day.

The ship identified itself as the flagship of Malkus the Mighty. Aidulac was

skeptical, obviously, but Malkus’s flagship was identifiable through a variety

of unique and secure identifiers—most of which were based on Aidulac’s own

designs.

“Very well,” she told the obsequious young man who contacted her. “I will grant

The Mighty One an audience.”

That left the young man nonplussed, but he signed off, and within minutes,

Malkus had shifted down to the surface—specifically, to the atrium where Aidulac

received her few visitors.

She had seen images of The Mighty One, of course—they were impossible to

avoid—and she had expected the reality to be disappointing. After all, it was

extremely easy to make oneself better looking, more charismatic, and larger than

life on a viewing surface, but, in Aidulac’s experience, few accomplished it in

real life.

Malkus, however, was one of those few. He stood half a head taller than

Aidulac—who was unusually tall herself—and had a bearing that could only be

described as regal. Even though the atrium had directed lighting that emphasized

the potted plants and sculptures that she had placed to make the room more

relaxing, it seemed that every light in the room shone on him.

She knew the rituals of her people. She bowed from the waist and said, “Mighty

One.”

When he spoke, it was in honeyed tones that practically begged to have every

word hung on to in the hopes of gaining great pearls of wisdom.

“I am told that you were granting me an audience. I rather thought it was the

other way around.” The smile that accompanied this statement took the

threatening edge off his words, though Aidulac now noted that his four

bodyguards—whose presence she hadn’t even registered—had moved their hands to

their rather large (if still holstered) sidearms.

“It is you who came to me, Mighty One.”

He laughed, then, a relaxing, pleasant sound. The bodyguards’hands went back to

their sides. “Quite correct, quite correct. You are Aidulac of the Girons, yes?”

“It has been some time since I identified myself as belonging to the Girons,

Mighty One, but yes, that is I.”

“Excellent. I am told that you are the greatest inventor of our age.”

She shrugged. “Perhaps.”

“I hope so,” he said with another smile. “I would hate to think that I was lied

to. In any event, Aidulac of the Girons, I am the greatest leader of our age. It

seems only fitting that we work together.”

With those words, Aidulac knew that her life would irrevocably change. People in

the scientific community knew of her, of course, and some did indeed revere her

to a degree she found frankly embarrassing. But she had shunned public acclaim

because it got in the way of her work.

Now, however, she had come to the attention of not just the public but the

leader of them all. Her days of solitude, she thought, were over.

She was both absolutely right and completely wrong.

“How, Mighty One?” she asked, resigned to the inevitable.

“It will take some time. Will you dine with me aboard my flagship, so I may

detail my plan?”

The question was a formality. To decline would be as good as telling one of the

bodyguards to shoot her down where she stood. She agreed.

Soon, she had shifted to the flagship. She had not changed her clothes, as all

she owned to wear were single-piece jumpsuits that were functional and easy to

put protective gear on over when she needed it. The Mighty One allowed the

breach of protocol.

They did not speak of his plan during dinner, which was a feast unparalleled

with anything in Aidulac’s experience. She had lived most of her adult life on a

steady diet of processed food, brought regularly by the supply ships and stored

until they were eaten. The Mighty One, however, dined on fresh game, vegetables,

and drinks that had obviously been prepared specifically for this meal. Aidulac

had no idea how it was transported on the ship, but considering the huge amount

of space wasted on the vessel—which was a hundred times larger than actually

necessary to serve its function—Aidulac was sure that they managed to find

somewhere to store live animals, grow plants, and harvest flavored liquids. She

herself had pioneered the technology for ship-based hydroponics gardens, though

she never imagined anything that could produce such bright yellow clamdas. They

ate at a large table made from actual tree pulp, using utensils of the finest

tin.

Much from that era had blurred in Aidulac’s mind with the passage of ninety

thousand years, including the specifics of the conversation during the meal.

Aidulac was sure that The Mighty One spoke at great length about his own

accomplishments, or perhaps about the food, or maybe his family’s history—the

only thing she knew for sure was that it was ultimately inconsequential. After

the final course was served, he said, “And now, to business. I wish you to

create four Instruments of Power. I do not know how they may be created, but I

wish them to allow me absolute control over all my subjects. I wish them to be

portable and responsive only to me.”

Aidulac waited for more details. “What are the specifications of these

Instruments, Mighty One?”

Again, he laughed. “How should I know? If I knew how to construct such items,

Aidulac of the Girons, I would not need you. The Instruments must grant me

power.”

“What kind of power?”

“Absolute power.”

“Your pardon, Mighty One, but I’m afraid I will need instructions a tad more

specific than that.”

Malkus gazed upon Aidulac from across the table. He seemed to be studying her

the way Aidulac herself would have studied a one-celled organism or a piece of

plant life in her laboratory.

“Very well,” he finally said, and Aidulac found herself letting out a breath she

hadn’t even realized she was holding. “I wish to have power over the elements.

Power over the mind. Power over life and death. And most of all, the power to

overcome my enemies.”

For quite some time, she continued to ask questions. However, Malkus never got

any more specific than that.

Finally, she said, “Mighty One, I am but a single person. I cannot possibly—”

Malkus laughed, then. “I do not expect you to achieve this by yourself. While it

is true that you have accomplished many great things, you are, as you point out,

but a single person. I have already assembled some of the finest minds in the

Union. What they require is someone to direct them, to lead them, to mold

them—and thus allow them to see my vision through to fruition. That someone,

Aidulac of the Girons, is you.”

When the meal ended, Aidulac was permitted to shift back to the planet to sleep.

By the time she woke up, all of her equipment had been packed by her own robots,

which had been instructed by Executive Order—the one way that a robot could be

overridden by its rightful owner, an override that was required to go into every

robot constructed within the Union’s borders. Aidulac had done so to secure hers

(erroneously, as it turned out) in the knowledge that it would never be used,

but not wanting to find herself subject to an inspection and failing it. As with

all of The Mighty One’s laws, those who enforced them took them very seriously,

and surprise inspections from The Robotics Authority were not unheard of.

Aidulac would never see the planetoid again.

She no longer remembered how long she and her team—which, as promised, included

most of the finest minds in the Zalkat Union, including many with whom Aidulac

had studied or corresponded, many more whom she had never heard of—spent

laboring over the Instruments. All she remembered was that it consumed her very

existence—and that Malkus spared no expense on their behalf.

Eventually, at a time when several outer worlds were fomenting rebellion and The

Mighty One’s armies were stretched thin to keep order, Aidulac presented him

with his Instruments. She had prepared a properly ostentatious speech to make

the presentation, having learned how much The Mighty One liked his spectacles.

“You asked me, Mighty One,” she said when she approached him in his Place of

Governing, “to give you power over the elements, power over the mind, power over

life and death, and power to overcome your enemies.” She indicated the simple

black boxes, which she had adorned with Malkus’s name. “Behold, the Instruments

of Malkus. With this one,” she said, pointing at the first of them, “you may

control the weather on any world with a natural atmosphere, and control the

environment of any place with an artificial atmosphere—power over the elements.

With this,” she continued, pointing to the second, “you may manipulate the

thoughts of any sentient being within its range—power over the mind.” She moved

on to the third one. “With this, you may infect up to five hundred living beings

with a virus that will kill them by making their hearts explode—power over life

and death. And finally, with this,” she pointed to the last of them, “you have a

weapon of tremendous power that can disintegrate matter in less than an

instant—power to overcome any enemy.”

Malkus did not laugh. But he did smile.

For ninety thousand years, Aidulac remembered that smile.

Aidulac had hoped that Malkus would not use the Instruments, had hoped that the

threat of their existence would be enough. But no one understood the power

behind a simple black box without a demonstration.

And Malkus the Mighty was only too happy to provide such a demonstration.

The rebellions were all put down by having their ships disintegrated, their

hideouts wiped out by hurricanes, their soldiers killed by the virus, and their

leaders confessing to their crimes and repenting while under mental

manipulation. The borders of the Union expanded by solar system after solar

system, as Malkus used his Instruments to gain more and more territory.

Aidulac had hoped that her own obligations would end, and she and her team would

be permitted to go back to their own work—work that might help the people of the

Union rather than its leader. How many inventions had fallen by the wayside, how

many more secrets of the universe might they all have pried loose had they not

wasted so much time giving The Mighty One his toys of conquest?

But Malkus was not done with them. He wanted immortality.

They developed a genetic therapy that would prevent Malkus from aging. Then The

Mighty One made sure all evidence that it ever existed was destroyed.

That evidence extended to the people who created it.

One by one, the members of Aidulac’s team were killed.

The only one to escape the executioner’s pistol was Aidulac herself. She had

half expected this kind of treachery, and had laid the groundwork for an escape.

As an added bonus, she also had the only copy of the genetic therapy for

immortality left—and so, when she made her escape from the Homeworld, she also

gave herself the therapy. After all, even The Mighty One would be overthrown

eventually. When that happened, then, perhaps, she could return to her work.

How naïve she was.

The Mighty One did fall, of course. He had thought himself invulnerable because

he was “immortal,” but all that truly meant was that he could not die naturally.

The universe’s worst-kept secret was that it was far easier to destroy a thing

than to sustain it. His body was devastated, and the Instruments confiscated.

She herself was tracked down and arrested. Aidulac was inextricably associated

with The Mighty One as the primary inventor of his Instruments—and also the only

one of that team still alive. While Malkus was in power and had a use for her,

that meant that her life would always be comfortable and she would be treated

with reverence. With Malkus overthrown and her own usefulness at an end, she

became an object of disdain at best—an accessory to genocide at worst.

Until the rebellion succeeded, Aidulac had never thought about the cost of her

inventions to living beings. For that matter, she had never thought about the

benefits of her early ones. She had always viewed it as a scientific puzzle to

be worked out, the latest in a series of dialogues with the universe to try and

trick it out of another nugget of information.

Members of the rebellion—now the Zalkatian government—took her to some of the

worlds that had been ravaged by her inventions. She saw the mass graves of

people who’d died by disease or by destructive weather. She saw the cities

ravaged by the energy weapon she had invented.

She saw death by her hand.

The rebels had tried to destroy the Instruments, but Aidulac had built them too

well. Instead, they spread them to the corners of the Union—but did not inform

Aidulac of the location of those corners. Having seen the death they caused,

Aidulac understood the rationale, but she would have preferred to take custody

of the Instruments herself—she knew that, eventually, she would find a way to

destroy them.

But nobody trusted her to do that. Instead, she was put in prison.

What they did not know was the process she had perfected just as the rebellion

started to succeed: the ability to convince anyone to do her bidding. It was an

ability that would (so she thought) improve with use as her brain took to the

genetic changes she had introduced.

It was, therefore, easy to escape her incarceration by simply convincing the

guards to free her. She stole a ship called the Sun and made her escape,

convincing everyone who followed her to give up the pursuit.

They never found her, but they also stopped looking, as they had problems of

their own. The universe hadn’t made it any easier to sustain something than

destroy it, and running the Zalkat Union proved a task far beyond the

capabilities of those who had removed Malkus from power. Different factions

fought amongst themselves, and the Union was plunged into civil war.

Aidulac began her search. The Instruments gave off a distinctive wave pattern.

They would not stay hidden forever, and Aidulac herself was immortal. She would

wait in solitude.

It was how she had always preferred it.

She set a course to continue her search.

 

The phasering went off without a hitch.

Orta had watched from a safe distance along with the others as the Federation

starship’s powerful weaponry sliced through the atmosphere like a dagger,

transforming a section of the moon’s surface from hard rock to dust. Oh, if only

I’d had such weapons at my disposal, he thought with envy. The Cardassians would

never have stood a chance.

Soon the water was added, a process that was surprisingly loud. Orta had

expected to be nearly deafened by the phasers—which were, after all, noisy

instruments even in their handheld version, and a Galaxy -class ship’s array was

several orders of magnitude more powerful, and fired at a concomitantly greater

volume—but the controlled rushing of water had been a massive cacophony as well.

Then the phasering began again. It was a very small-scale version of what humans

ethnocentrically referred to as “terraforming,” and remarkably effective. One

ship was, in essence, changing the face of the planet—or at least a part of its

face. Again, Orta marvelled at the sheer power at work here.

Admittedly, Orta saw many tactical problems with a ship the Odyssey’ 'ssize—it

presented a huge, easy-to-hit target, and was impossible to hide. But it would

have been worth it, Orta thought, to have those weapons.

Once the procedure was finished, which took most of the day, Orta and the others

were put to work constructing the dwellings they were to live in. The Federation

captain carried on for some time about how if they had followed his plan, that

would have been done already, but no one paid attention to him.

Certainly Orta didn’t. He was far too busy depressing himself by thinking about

what his life had in store for him. Seeding the fields. Living in a

Starfleet-pre-fabricated home. Waiting for crops to grow.

He mentioned this to Tova who only snorted. “And what’s the alternative? Living

in a cave, eating whatever we can scavenge, waiting for the Cardassians to find

us and bomb us into oblivion? No thank you. At least now we’re accomplishing

something.”

Orta said nothing in reply.

“Excuse me?”

Turning, Orta saw an old man holding a welding tool. “Yes?” he prompted.

“You’re Orta, aren’t you?”

It was so ridiculous a question that Orta was tempted to say no just to gauge

the old man’s response. Then Orta looked more closely and saw the awe in the

man’s face. “Yes, I’m Orta.”

“I thought so. Well, honestly, who else would you be?” The old man chuckled. “I

just wanted to meet you—and to say thank you. My daughter worked in the mines at

Amrahan. After you liberated that camp, she was free—she joined the Resistance,

and fought till the day she died.”

“How did she die?” Orta asked, out of morbid curiosity.

“The fumes from that damned mine—she’d have died anyhow, but at least she spent

her last days fighting the spoon-heads instead of working for them. And we have

you to thank.” He reached up and grabbed Orta’s malformed ear, as if the old man

were a vedek or something. It took all of Orta’s willpower not to break the

man’s neck. “May the Prophets walk with you, Orta.”

“And you also,” Orta said by rote. He stopped believing in the Prophets when the

Obsidian Order agent sliced his vocal cords in twain. He only continued to wear

an earring so they could identify his body.

The old man walked away. Orta watched him for several seconds. Many of the

farmers had been culled from Orta’s own people, but others, like the old man,

were volunteers—people who had lost their own farms, or who just wanted to do

some good for Bajor.

He remembered Amrahan. It was one of the last attacks they had made outside Valo

before the last of their warp drives had failed. The odd thing was, they had had

no idea that there was a mining operation there, nor that there were Bajorans on

the planet. Orta had wanted to hit it because the gul who ran it was the brother

of the glinn who had first tortured him. That he liberated a brutal mining camp

with a death rate of seventy-five percent had been purest coincidence—but one

Orta happily exploited for his own purposes. After all, anyone could assassinate

a gul, but liberating a mining camp was the stuff of legends.

That night, before he went to sleep, he took out the padd he’d taken from that

derelict and read the prophecy again. Then he went to the window of his new,

Starfleet-created home and stared at the sky.

He saw many moons. Most were less than a day away from perfect alignment.

All he needed now was the right weapon.

A plan started to form in Orta’s head. A plan for taking over the Odyssey.

Chapter Eleven

I T’S GOING WELL, Shabalala thought as he looked out over the land.

Three days ago, he’d stood on virtually the exact same spot and saw barren

nothingness. Now he saw a row of houses, a twenty-square-meter construction with

multiple protrusions that went underground to harvest the subterranean water

systems for irrigation purposes, and small robots that were tilling the newly

created soil under the watchful eyes of a group of Bajorans, most of whom were

former terrorists.

“Looking good, isn’t it, Commander?”

Shabalala turned to see Dax walking up next to him. “I was just thinking that

very thing, Lieutenant. Well done.”

“I’m sure Captain Keogh would disagree.” In a surprisingly good impersonation of

his commanding officer’s tone, Dax said, “‘If we’d followed my plan, Lieutenant,

we’d have been at this stage yesterday.’”

Laughing, Shabalala said, “Perhaps.” He considered. “Well, no, not ‘perhaps,’ at

all, I’m sure that is what he’d say. But that is his way. I also can’t help but

notice that you called him ‘Captain Keogh’ rather than ‘Deco.’”

Once again, Dax put on the smile that mirrored his daughter’s. “Well, he’s not

here for my use of the name to annoy, so why bother?”

“Good point.”

Just then, Keogh and Kira approached from the west. The first officer waved to

them.

“Commander,” Keogh said to Shabalala as he approached in as jovial a tone as he

ever had. Then he glanced at Dax and added, “Lieutenant,” with somewhat less

joviality.

“It’s going well,” Kira said, looking out at the workers.

Chuckling, Shabalala said, “That seems to be the general consensus, yes.”

“With good reason, Commander,” Keogh said. “Of course, if we’d followed my plan,

we’d have been at this stage yesterday.”

Shabalala and Dax exchanged a knowing look.

“ Odyssey to Keogh.” It was the voice of Maritza Gonzalez.

Keogh tapped his combadge. “Keogh. Go ahead.”

“We’ve gotten word from DS9 that the supplies for New Bajor have arrived.”

“Good to hear, Commander. Set course for the station and stand by to engage at

full impulse.”

“We’ll be ready to go as soon as you and Commander Shabalala beam on board,

sir.”

“Negative on half of that. Mr. Shabalala will be returning, but I’m staying

behind with the scientific team.”

“Yes, sir. Odyssey out.”

Keogh turned to a confused Shabalala. “You’re in charge of the Odyssey.” Next to

him, the first officer saw Dax frown and Kira’s eyes widen in surprise, both

reasonable reactions to Keogh’s surprising announcement.

“Sir, I’m sure that—”

“You’re not questioning my orders, are you, Mr. Shabalala?”

“Of course not, sir, but—”

“Good. I’ll accompany Major Kira and Lieutenant Dax back to Deep Space 9 when

they report back there in two days. I assume you’ll be done by then?”

“That is the plan, sir, yes,” Shabalala said with a sigh.

Keogh nodded. “Excellent.”

Kira smiled, but Shabalala recognized it as the polite smile one used on people

one didn’t like but didn’t wish to annoy, either. “Captain, it really isn’t

necessary for you to stay.”

“The commander here is perfectly capable of handling the Odyssey, Major. And I

want to keep an eye on things here.”

“Captain—” Kira started.

“I’m not doubting your abilities—or even yours, Lieutenant,” he added to Dax.

“It’s not the projectI’m concerned about.” He pointed to the scarved individual

presently inspecting one of the hoeing machines, which appeared to have some

kind of fault. “It’s him.”

Kira pursed her lips. “I can’t stop you from staying, Captain, but I’m perfectly

capable of keeping an eye on Orta.”

“Of that, Major, I have no doubt. Still, and all—”

“Fine,” she said, throwing up her hands. “Do what you want.” With that, she

walked off.

Keogh regarded Dax, who was giving him a disdainful look. “Is something wrong,

Lieutenant?”

“Just wondering how much this has to do with Orta and how much this has to do

with Aidulac.”

“Nothing whatsoever,” Keogh said in a tight voice. “I’ve had these concerns

about Orta since the mission started, as your Commander Sisko can attest. Since

they are my concerns, I feel it’s only appropriate that I address them.”

“If you say so.” Then she turned and followed Kira.

As the women retreated, Keogh let out a breath.

“Sir?” Shabalala prompted.

“I can understand Kira’s reaction. This is her project, and she’s never been a

hundred percent happy with the Federation’s involvement in Bajor. Hell, from all

accounts, she views Starfleet as little more than a necessary evil. She’s the

type who hates the idea of relying on someone else to keep the freedom that she

spent all her life fighting for.”

“I agree,” Shabalala said.

“Dax, though—her behavior is inexcusable. All right, she saved me from doing

something stupid with that Siren woman, but I fully intend to note her

comportment in my log.”

“Of course, sir. If there’s nothing else, I’ll be returning to the Odyssey.”

Keogh nodded. “Carry on, Commander.”

As Shabalala requested transport back to the ship, he thought back on Dax’s

words, and wondered how the life of the party became the man he now served

under.

 

After Shabalala dematerialized, Keogh turned his gaze back toward Orta, who was

still struggling with the hoeing machine. Several others were now gathered

around the device with him. Keogh tapped his combadge as he started walking

toward the tableau. “Keogh to Rodzinski.”

“Go ahead,” said his chief engineer, who was also staying behind to make sure

all the machinery worked properly.

Keogh gave the coordinates of Orta’s location. “Report there immediately—there

seems to be some trouble with the hoeing equipment.”

“Yessir.”

“Keogh out.” He tapped his combadge to close the connection just as he reached

the crowd. Orta; a woman named Tova Syed, who had been Orta’s chief lieutenant

for years; and two other Bajorans whose names Keogh did not know were now poking

at the machine, which lay inert in the soil. Tova ran a diagnostic tool over it.

“What seems to be the difficulty?” Keogh asked.

“It’s broken,” Tova snapped in an annoyed tone. To punctuate that annoyance, she

threw her tool into the dirt.

“I’ve contacted Commander Rodzinski—he’ll be here any moment.”

Pointedly picking up the diagnostic tool, Orta said, “That won’t be necessary,

Captain. We don’t need to run to Starfleet every time a machine breaks down. We

will fend for ourselves—as we always have.”

“You’re not living in a cave anymore, Orta. You’re part of a team now—and that

means that you work with other people, and you make use of the resources

available to you. Right now, you have a Starfleet engineering team at your beck

and call. A terrorist works on his own and solves his own problems. A member of

a team asks for help from other team members.”

“But, Captain,” Orta said in what may or may not have been a smug tone of

voice—it was hard to tell with his vocoder—“I am no longer a terrorist.”

“Then act like it.”

Rodzinski showed up a moment later. “What’s wrong with it?” he asked.

“It’s broken,” Tova said again. “Maybe you can tell us why. The diagnostics all

say it’s working fine, but it’s not moving forward like it’s supposed to.”

Giving Rodzinski a nod, Keogh said, “I’ll leave you to it.”

“We appreciate your help, Captain,” Orta said.

The hairs on the back of Keogh’s neck stood up. Something was very wrong here,

but he couldn’t put his finger on what. Orta being nice was just so damned out

of character. He was even more convinced that he needed to stay here to keep an

eye on him. Kira was too similar to Orta, and would probably excuse any odd

behavior out of loyalty to a fellow Resistance fighter.

As for Dax, he wouldn’t trust her with command decisions under any

circumstances. When he was younger, he had looked up to Curzon, even emulated

him in many ways. But after Altair VI…

No, he thought, it needs to be me. I’ll get to the bottom of what you’re up to,

Orta. That’s a promise.

 

Orta shook his head as he watched Keogh walk away. Idiot, he thought. Like all

Starfleet. Well, most, he amended, remembering Ro Laren and Jean-Luc Picard. But

they were the exceptions. It will be a pleasure to take command of his ship when

it returns. In fact, the captain’s idiotic insistence on remaining behind would

be a key to Orta’s plan. He would make a fine hostage…

The Starfleet engineer, Rodzinski—a diminutive human with gray-and-black

hair—stared at his tricorder. “There’s nothing wrong with the machine,” he said.

“That’s what we told you,” Tova said in a tight voice.

“But it’s not moving,” Rodzinski said. “Which can only mean one thing.”

“What’s that?” Orta asked.

Rodzinski looked up and regarded Orta with a grave expression. “If the cause

isn’t internal, it must be external.” He held the tricorder display-out toward

Orta and Tova. “What’s wrong with this picture?”

Orta peered at the display, which showed a schematic version of the hoeing

machine—based on the words over the image, it was the results of the scan of the

hoeing machine that Rodzinski had just done. “It looks normal.”

“Look again.”

Tova snarled. “Can’t I just kill him? Don’t worry, they’ll never find the body.”

“Very funny,” Rodzinski said. “Can’t you see what’s wrong here?”

Orta was coming around to Tova’s view of Rodzinski’s prospects for mortality,

but calmed himself. “Obviously, Commander, we cannot. We would like you to

enlighten us.”

He pointed to a protrusion on the bottom of the machine—which was presently

under the soil. “See that?”

Rolling her eyes, Tova said, “That’s the—” Then she frowned. “No, wait, it

isn’t. What is that?”

“An excellent question,” Rodzinski said, “to which I don’t really have an

adequate answer. We’ll need to see what’s under there. Which, given the fact

that it can’t move, is a bit of a problem. I’ll get some antigravs over here.”

As Rodzinski’s hand moved toward his combadge, Orta said, “That won’t be

necessary.” He looked at the other Bajorans, who all nodded.

The four of them positioned themselves at equidistant points around the front,

back, and left side of the machine and each grabbed a handhold. Orta himself

stood at the front of the machine and grabbed it at one of the diggers, and

crouched.

“Everyone ready?” Tova said. “And— heave!”

Orta straightened his knees, his back straining with the weight of the machine

as he lifted it upwards. The vocoder rendered his grunt as an odd kind of

metallic whining, which annoyed him.

At the back, Tova did likewise, while the three at the side not only lifted up,

but also pushed it to the right, overturning the machine.

Rodzinski’s mouth hung open. “Okay, I’m impressed.”

Tova smiled. “What, you Starfleet types don’t do heavy lifting?”

“Not if we can avoid it.”

Orta almost snorted. Typical Starfleet weakness, he thought derisively.

“Look at this,” Tova said, kneeling down by the depressed spot of soil where the

hoeing machine had been. The repeated attempts to move the machine without

success had resulted in a hoeing-machine-sized divot in the ground.

Sitting in the middle of that divot was a rather nondescript black box, which

gave off a mild green glow. Orta also noticed a marking in some kind of script.

He was no linguist, but he was fairly certain it wasn’t Bajoran.

“Okay, this is very odd,” Rodzinski said. “Don’t touch it!” he added quickly as

Tova reached for it.

“Why not?” Tova asked, sounding irritated.

“Because I really don’t like the readings I’m getting.”

Orta walked over toward Rodzinski. “And what readings are those, Commander?”

Rodzinski frowned. “I’m honestly not sure. I’m getting odd energy emissions—but

I also can’t get a solid reading on the object itself. Don’t touch it!” This

time he yelled at Tova as she reached for it again.

“I’m not one of your stupid engineers, Commander,” Tova said, standing up.

I can give you what you want.

“What?” Orta asked.

“I said I’m not one of his stupid engineers. It’s just some box. Let’s get rid

of it so we can get on with the work.”

“Not you,” Orta said, waving his arm. “Something—”

I can give you what you want.

Images suddenly flooded Orta’s mind: Strange alien beings of a type he’d never

seen before. One of them hoisting this very box over his head. A beam of pure

force emitting from the box as he did so. The other aliens being vaporized by

it.

With this device, all that you desire will be accomplished.

He did not recognize the world, the beings, none of it—but he recognized the box

for what it was.

It was the final piece to the puzzle. When he found the prophecy, he knew what

he had to do. He just needed the right weapon to implement the plan. At first,

he thought the Odyssey would be that weapon, but he no longer needed to take

over an entire Galaxy -class ship and its crew of a thousand for the sole

purpose of making use of its powerful weapons.

Because now he had the ultimate weapon. Something that he now knew—just knew

—was stronger than even the Odyssey’ 'sphasers. And he could hold it in his

hands.

I can give you what you want.

“Oh, no,” Rodzinski said.

“What?” Tova asked.

“According to the tricorder’s database, this energy emission is flagged as

belonging to a very dangerous artifact. General Order 16 specifically states

that I have to take this thing into custody right now.”

“I’m afraid that will not be possible, Commander Rodzinski.” As Orta spoke, he

knelt down and took the box—the artifact—the weapon —in his hands.

“Put that down! You have to—”

Rodzinski never finished the sentence. As soon as the weapon was firmly in

Orta’s grasp, a bolt of green energy lanced out from it and struck Rodzinski

square in the chest. He was vaporized instantly—Orta was quite sure that the

engineer never even knew what hit him. Unlike, say, a phaser, the beam made no

noise as it fired. It simply destroyed the engineer without a sound.

That silence continued for several seconds, as the others were too stunned to

say anything—except for one, who muttered a quick oath to the Prophets.

“You were right, Syed,” Orta finally said, turning to Tova. “No one will find

the body.”

Tova looked outraged. “I was kidding, Orta! You didn’t have to kill him!”

“Oh, but I did. You see, he was going to take this away from us—and we cannot

let him do that.” Cradling the box under one arm, he adjusted the volume on his

vocoder. He wanted to make sure he was heard. “Most of you know of the prophecy

we unearthed back at Valo. It is a prophecy that, in the natural course of

things, won’t be fulfilled for many hundreds of years.

“But, in the natural course of things, we would never have been conquered by

Cardassia. In the natural course of things, Cardassia would never have

withdrawn. In the natural course of things, I would have died under

interrogation by Gul Madred. Destiny is not what the Prophets write out for us,

destiny is what we make it. The prophecy will be fulfilled, my friends. And

this—” he held up the weapon “—is the means by which we will make it be done!”

Over the years, he had made many speeches just like this one. He waited for the

inevitable cheer that would go up in reply. They always cheered. It was how Orta

knew the speech had gone over well. He couldn’t remember the last time a speech

didn’t.

No cheers were forthcoming.

“You killed him,” Tova said.

Her eyes reflected shock and disgust. The same woman who had stood by his side

as he sliced open Cardassians along their neckridges, the same woman who had

gleefully detonated a series of bombs on a fleet of Galor -class warships, the

same woman who chased a Cardassian scout ship into an asteroid belt just to make

sure that the glinn who piloted it was dead—that same woman was now appalled

because he’d killed a weak human in an imbecile’s uniform.

Next to her, the other two looked frightened.

As well they should. You are a man of power now. Use it.

He gazed down upon his lieutenant, his childhood friend, the woman he’d trusted

for most of his adult life. “Do you doubt, Syed?”

Tova’s eyes smoldered. “Yes! Orta, the war is over. We can’t—”

“The war is not over until Bajor achieves true peace— true prosperity.

Sacrifices must sometimes be made if we are to forge our own destiny. Good

people have died for our cause before, and they will do so again. Commander

Rodzinski has died today. He may not be the last. But when we are finished, all

will be well, because the prophecy will be fulfilled, and Bajor will at last

have its true, ordained place!”

“No, it won’t, Orta. I can’t let you do this.”

Orta gazed into the eyes of his oldest friend. Tova Syed, who always came

through for him, who spear-headed his rescue, who never doubted, was opposing

him.

What’s more, he knew he would never convince her otherwise.

A green beam of force lanced out from the device. Tova disintegrated in an

instant.

Orta had killed many enemies over the years. This was the first time he had

killed a friend. He thought it would be harder.

Almost as an afterthought, he destroyed the other two. They would be of no use.

Besides, he didn’t need anybody. He had the device. Soon, he would have

everything he needed.

I will give you what you want.

 

“Kovac to Keogh.”

Keogh had been inspecting the houses with Dax and Kira when the call came from

Assistant Chief Engineer Kovac. Neither woman had kept her irritation at Keogh’s

presence much of a secret, but Keogh didn’t care. As far as he was concerned, he

was in charge of this project, at least from Starfleet’s perspective. If

anything went wrong, he would be held responsible. At present they were at the

back of one of the houses, making sure that the feed from the generator worked

properly.

“Go ahead.”

“Sir, Commander Rodzinski hasn’t reported back yet.”

Keogh frowned. “That’s odd. Can you locate him?”

“That’s just it, sir—the tricorder isn’t picking up his combadge.”

Dax and Kira exchanged glances. Dax took out her own tricorder.

Tapping his combadge again, the captain said, “Keogh to Rodzinski, come in.”

Silence greeted his request.

Looking up at Keogh, Dax said, “I’m not picking it up, either. Where was he

last?”

Keogh gave the precise coordinates. “It’s only about half a kilometer from here.

He was assisting Orta and some of his people with a problem with one of the

hoeing machines.”

“I’m not reading any lifesigns in that area,” she said grimly.

“Mr. Kovac, set up a search party,” Keogh said.

“Yes, sir.”

An alarm went off on Dax’s tricorder. “What the—”

Kira asked, “What is it?”

Dax tapped her combadge. “Dax to Rio Grande. Computer, this is Lieutenant Dax.

Link with my tri-corder and verify readings.”

After a moment, the familiar vocal interface that all Starfleet computers used

replied. “Energy emissions correspond to those described in Starfleet General

Order 16. Recommended protocol: locate Malkus Artifact and confiscate

immediately.”

“What’s a Malkus Artifact?” Kira asked at the exact same time that Keogh

repeated, “General Order 16?”

Dax looked up from the tricorder. “Have either of you heard of the Zalkat

Union?”

Both Kira and Keogh shook their heads. Keogh knew that General Order 16 required

any Starfleet personnel encountering an item with a particular energy

signature—presumably this Malkus Artifact the computer mentioned—to confiscate

said item, but he didn’t recall any specific details beyond that.

Dax, however, filled them in quickly, ending by saying, “The artifacts give off

a distinct energy signature when they go active.”

“You’re picking up that signature now?” Kira asked.

“Mhm.”

Frowning, Kira said, “So you know about this because of Emony, right? Two

hundred years, that’s about her time, right?”

“Actually, no,” Dax said with a small smile. “Neither Emony, Audrid, nor Curzon

knew about the Zalkat Union. I came across them in the Academy—fascinating

stuff.”

Keogh rolled his eyes. “This is no time for a stroll down memory lane,

Lieutenant. We need to find that artifact. Can you pinpoint it?”

Shaking her head, Dax said, “Not yet, but—” Again, she tapped her combadge.

“Computer, access data files on the Malkus Artifacts. How many of the artifacts

have been discovered?”

“One of the artifacts was discovered on Stardate 1699 by the Starships

Constellation and Enterprise on the planet Alpha Proxima II.”

“Which artifact was it?”

“Artifact Gamma, which transports a deadly disease into target.”

“Is there a way to recalibrate my tricorder so it can pinpoint a Malkus

Artifact?”

“Affirmative.”

“Do so, please.”

“Working.”

Keogh spoke up. “Computer, what are the characteristics of the remaining three

artifacts?”

“Artifact Alpha grants the user mental control over other sentient life forms.

Artifact Beta manipulates weather patterns. Artifact Delta can project energy

beams of great force.”

“None of those are particularly appealing,” Keogh muttered.

“Tools of tyrants never are, Captain,” Kira said.

“Tricorder calibrated.”

Dax gazed over her tricorder, then looked up and smiled. “Hopefully we can find

this while we’re looking for your chief engineer, Captain.”

Keogh blinked. That was the first time Dax had actually addressed him in a

manner consistent with a lieutenant addressing a captain since the mission

started.

Before he could revel in this, a mechanical voice said, “That will not be

necessary. I have the weapon you are looking for right here. And Commander

Rodzinski is quite dead.”

Turning, Keogh saw Orta standing holding what looked like a simple black box

with a slight greenish glow. The Bajoran had come from around the other side of

the house that the trio had been inspecting.

As Keogh reached for his phaser, Orta said, “I would advise against that,

Captain—unless, of course, you intend to hand your phaser over to me. Any other

course of action will result in you following Commander Rodzinski into

oblivion.”

“You killed him?” Kira said angrily.

Orta shrugged. “It was necessary. Just as it’s necessary now for you to drop

your weapons.”

“I’d do it if I were you,” Dax said quickly, throwing her own phaser to the

ground. Pointing at the box in Orta’s hands, she added, “That’s one of the

artifacts.”

“The Trill speaks the truth,” Orta said. “Commander Rodzinski didn’t even have

time to scream before he was annihilated.”

Keogh hesitated. Whatever these things were, they were powerful enough to

warrant a Starfleet General Order, which meant they weren’t to be sneezed at. On

the other hand, it was just a black box. It hardly seemed like a threat.

Further, Orta could have been lying about Rodzinski—or, if the engineer was

dead, it could have been by phaser. The farmers were supposed to be unarmed, but

he hardly expected those regulations to stop a terrorist like Orta from

smuggling a few weapons in.

“Very well,” Orta said, “if you refuse to believe me, a demonstration.”

Orta held up the artifact in the direction of the house they had been

inspecting. A green beam shot out from it. Eerily, the beam made no noise

whatsoever. In fact, the only noise Keogh heard was the rush of air to take up

the space that was suddenly vacated when the home was vaporized. That, and the

gasp that escaped his own mouth.

“My God,” Keogh muttered. The captain knew that there weren’t any people in the

house, but he was also quite sure that Orta didn’t know that. Worse, Orta

obviously didn’t care.

Keogh wanted nothing more than to wipe the smug look off of Orta’s

face—preferably with a phaser. Instead he threw his phaser to the ground. Next

to him, Kira did the same.

“You’re making a mistake, Orta,” Kira said.

Orta laughed—it was a most unpleasant sound, filtered as it was through the

vocoder. “You may not think so when I tell you what I am going to do with this

wondrous discovery of mine, Nerys. Are you familiar with Akwar’s Ninth

Prophecy?”

Based on the way Kira’s eyes widened, Keogh suspected that she was indeed

familiar with it—which put her one up on Keogh. He had never paid attention to

Bajoran spirituality.

“You can’t be serious,” Kira said.

“I am always serious. You should remember that about me most of all. Now then, I

need you to take me to your runabout.”

“Never,” Keogh said.

“It’s all right, Captain,” Kira said. “I think we should do as he says.”

Orta looked at Keogh and smiled—if one could call the odd shape that was all his

mutilated lips a smile. “Kira is right, Captain. Unless, of course, you wish to

end up like your Commander Rodzinski.”

Keogh took a deep breath. “I knew you couldn’t be trusted, Orta. Of course, I

never expected anything like this. But you can rest assured, whatever you have

planned, you won’t get away with it. I’ll stop you if it’s the last thing I do.”

The foul rictus masquerading as a smile grew wider. “I’m certain it will be,

Captain.”

Chapter Twelve

“ODYSSEY TOSHABALALA ! Sir, we need you back on board immediately!”

Joe Shabalala had to blink several times and shake his head before he could even

acknowledge Lieutenant Talltree’s frantic message. That it was so frantic by

itself was worrisome—Jason Talltree’s reaction to a Borg attack would be to

shrug his massive shoulders and say, “Oh, well.” When they had looked over the

specifications for how the phasers would need to be modified in order to

transform the lava layer into soil, Rodzinski had practically pitched a fit at

all that would need to be done, but Talltree had simply said, “No problem,” and

made the modifications in under an hour.

The Odyssey first officer had been exploring the monk’s retreat that had just

been completed on New Bajor. The Gamma Quadrant colony had been up and running

for a couple of months, and already felt like it had been inhabited for years.

Shabalala had been expecting something more unformed—more like the farming

colony, truth be told. But where Bajor’s second moon was functional—primarily

meant to provide a service to Bajor—New Bajor was to be these people’s homes for

a long time to come.

Centuries ago, the Bajorans had been known for their spectacular architecture,

and their influence could still be seen all across the sector. Now, thanks to

New Bajor, that influence extended to the Gamma Quadrant, as the monk’s retreat

where Shabalala was standing had been designed in the Jarrovian style from some

three centuries previous. Shabalala’s amateur eye recognized elements from three

different substyles with the Jarrovian method that combined into a elegant

whole.

So lost had he been in his observations that Talltree’s communiqué had caught

him off-guard, and it took several seconds for him to say, “Report.”

“We just heard from DS9, sir. Captain Keogh and Commander Rodzinski are

missing.”

Shabalala blinked. “What happened?”

“Not sure, sir. Commander Sisko has asked us to go through the wormhole and

report to DS9 immediately.”

Making his way to the exit—the monks did not allow transporter beams within the

sanctuary—Shabalala said, “Get all hands back on board and have Doyle set course

for the wormhole. As soon as everyone’s back, engage at warp five.”

“Yes, sir.”

It took five minutes to get everyone on board, ten minutes to arrive at the

wormhole, and another two to arrive at DS9. Shabalala didn’t even bother

docking.

Within three more minutes, Sisko and two other members of the station’s senior

staff—the Bajoran security chief, actually a shapeshifter named Odo, and the

chief of operations, Miles O’Brien—had beamed on board, and met with him and

Gonzalez in the observation lounge.

O’Brien started. “This is the communication we got from your Lieutenant Kovac.”

He pressed a control, and the image of Mislav Kovac came on the screen.

“Deep Space 9, this is Lieutenant Kovac on the farming colony. We have a

situation here—Commander Rodzinski has gone missing, and shortly after I alerted

Captain Keogh to his disappearance, he too disappeared, along with Lieutenant

Dax and Major Kira. We’re conducting a search right now. In addition, we cannot

raise the Rio Grande, though indications are that it is still in orbit.”

Sisko leaned forward. “Both of our other runabouts are off-station, so we’ll

need to take the Odyssey to the moon and investigate.”

“Bridge to observation lounge.”

“Go ahead, Mr. Talltree,” Shabalala said.

“Sir, Mr. Kovac is checking in.”

“Put it through,” he said, turning to the viewscreen.

The recording of Kovac’s previous transmission was replace by a live image of

the black-haired man. “Commander, we still haven’t turned up any of our people,

but there are conspicuous absences among the farmers. Orta and three of his

followers—Tova Syed, Pin Terim, and Hasa Jol—are also missing. The site where

Rodzinski was last known to be presently has an overturned hoeing machine and no

people anywhere nearby.”

“Any signs of a struggle?” Shabalala asked.

“No. But I can’t see any good reason why they’d leave an overturned hoeing

machine right in the middle of a farming operation in the field like this,

either. There are also energy traces that my tricorder is flagging as relating

to General Order 16.”

That got Gonzalez’s attention. “You’re kidding.”

“No, ma’am.”

Shabalala said, “Keep up the search, Mislav. Report in every twenty minutes,

please.”

“Yes, sir. Kovac out.”

O’Brien shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “I’m afraid I’m not familiar with

General Order 16.”

“Neither am I,” Odo said.

At Shabalala’s nod, Gonzalez quickly filled them in on the Zalkat Union and the

Malkus Artifacts. “Assuming that the one found on Proxima a century back is

still in the Rector Institute where it belongs,” she finished, “someone on that

moon has managed to find either a weather controller, a mind controller, or a

very big ray gun.”

Sisko fidgeted, as if his hands needed something to hold. “I think we can rule

out the weather device—if someone had it, we’d know.”

“So far, the evidence points to the mind controller,” Odo said in his gruff

voice. “It’s possible that Orta took possession of Major Kira and the others and

is using them for his own ends.”

“Assuming that it is Orta,” Shabalala said. “We don’t have any proof at all. And

I’m not eager to wait to find out.” He tapped his combadge. “Bridge, set a

course for Bajor’s second moon, full impulse.” Turning to the three from DS9, he

added, “I hope you gentlemen don’t mind taking a little trip.”

“We want our people back as much as you do, Commander,” Sisko said. Then he

turned to Odo. “Constable, you mentioned Orta’s ‘own ends’—what might those be?”

Odo, already sitting as ramrod straight as Keogh normally did, somehow managed

to sit even straighter as he gave his report. Shabalala wondered if that was an

aspect of his shapeshifting ability. “Orta is the only name he goes by. There

are records of a ten-year-old orphan named Gan Orta, who disappeared after his

foster parents, Gan Marta and Gan Treo, were arrested and executed for treason.

The boy’s description matches what Orta looked like as an adult when he became

involved in the Resistance. He primarily operated out of the resettlement camps

in the Valo system, but he made strikes all throughout Cardassian territory. He

was only captured once, and later escaped—during his capture he was mutilated.

His attacks became even more brutal after that. Following the Cardassian

withdrawal, he refused numerous entreaties to come home by the provisional

government. He finally gave in when the opportunity to work on this farming

colonycame through.” Folding his arms, Odo said, “Personally, I’ve never met

him, but he strikes me as the type who would have difficulty assimilating to a

peaceful Bajor. If he gets his hands on one of these artifacts, he might well

use it to wreak some form of havoc.”

“Why would he do that?” O’Brien asked. “He won. I’d think he’d want to keep the

peace.”

“I’m not convinced he was fighting for peace,” Odo said. “Many of the Resistance

fighters were indeed struggling for Bajor’s independence, but plenty of them

just wanted revenge against the Cardassians.”

Shabalala nodded. “Revenge can be a great motivator.”

“I suppose you’re right,” O’Brien said quietly. “I remember poor Captain

Maxwell, and—” He shook his head. “Well, never mind.”

Turning to the second officer, Shabalala asked, “Maritza, can we pinpoint the

Malkus Artifact?”

She nodded. “I can try.”

“Please do. I suspect that wherever it is, that’s where we’ll find Captain Keogh

and the others.”

He dismissed the meeting and they adjourned to the bridge. Sisko took

Shabalala’s usual seat next to the command chair, while Odo and O’Brien went to

the aft of the bridge.

As he sat in the command chair, Shabalala thought, I’ll find you, Captain. I’m

not losing another captain. That I swear.

 

Declan Keogh had to admit that Orta tied a good knot.

He, Kira, and Dax were presently sitting in the aft section of the Rio Grande,

each seated at a chair around the mess table. Using some rather coarse rope that

Orta had brought with him from the surface, the terrorist had secured each of

them to the chair with an exceptionally good knot. Orta had tied the ropes

around their arms, legs, and necks in such a way that any attempt to struggle

resulted in the rope tightening around the neck.

After they had beamed aboard the runabout, Orta immediately set about securing

his prisoners. Keogh grudgingly admired the technique—Orta never put the weapon

down, so he tied them up as best he could with one hand. Only after they were

all sufficiently encumbered was he willing to put the weapon down and do a

proper job with the knots—and even then, he made sure that the other two were in

plain view and that he was between them and the weapon.

Orta had, of course, left their combadges on the moon.

Very professional, Keogh thought. But then, I’d expect no less.

Orta then went to the fore compartment. As soon as he was gone, Keogh looked

across the mess table at Kira, who had a pensive expression on her face. “What

is this prophecy he was talking about?”

Kira looked up. “Akwar’s Ninth Prophecy states that when Bajor’s moons align,

then peace will reign. The thing is, the moons aren’t supposed to align for

another two hundred years.”

Remembering what Gonzalez had said a few days ago, Keogh said, “Most of them

will be. I think it’s today, now that I think on it.”

Dax, who looked more grim than usual, nodded. “In about half an hour, actually.

Every moon except this one will be aligned.”

“But that’s not what the prophecy says,” Kira said. “So I don’t see how—”

“The artifact,” Dax said simply.

Kira’s eyes widened. “No.”

Keogh frowned, then realized what Dax was implying. “Lieutenant, do you expect

me to believe that that weapon is powerful enough to knock the moon out of its

orbit?”

“No, Captain, I don’t expect you to believe it,” Dax said snippily. “But what

you believe doesn’t matter a whole lot. The point is, Orta believes it, and I’m

willing to bet half a dozen bars of latinum that his plan is to mount that box

onto the Rio Grande and try to bring the moon in line with the others.”

“Brava, Lieutenant,” came Orta’s mechanized voice from the hatch to the fore

section. “That is, in fact, my precise plan.”

“There’s no way that thing of yours can accomplish this,” Keogh said.

“Oh, you’re wrong, Captain,” Orta said in a surprisingly quiet voice. “In fact,

it is the least of what this wondrous device can do.”

Dax snorted. “You really think you can change the moon’s orbit just by firing a

big gun at it?”

“I know I can—especially with this runabout to plot a precise course. I have no

love for Starfleet, Lieutenant, but I will concede one thing: you build

excellent machines. I’m quite sure that this ship’s computer can aid me in

bringing all the moons into alignment. This will bring about true peace.”

“Bajor is at peace, Orta,” Keogh said. “The only one preventing that right now

is you.”

“I’d pretend to be shocked at your naïveté, Captain, but you are Starfleet,

after all. Bajor is at the very antithesis of peace. When the Cardassians left,

Bajor would have lasted less than a year before the squabbling tore it apart.

The only reason it didn’t was the fortuitous discovery of the wormhole. And even

with that, the Circle’s attempted coup almost brought Bajor down less than a

year after the withdrawal. The Federation and the Cardassians still fight with

each other and with us. Then there’s the deplorable situation with the Maquis,

and Bajor has been drawn into that, as well. The government still calls itself

‘provisional.’ Bajor is not at peace, Captain. Bajor will never be at peace,

until Akwar’s Prophecy is fulfilled.”

“The prophecies aren’t there for you to make happen, Orta,” Kira said.

“Nonsense. If the Prophets have shown us anything, Nerys, it’s that we make our

own destiny. We threw the Cardassians out, not the Prophets.” Orta then smiled

again, as revolting a sight as Keogh had ever seen. “Besides, the prophecy only

says that peace will come when the moons align—it says nothing about them

aligning naturally.”

“There’s something I don’t understand,” Keogh said.

The sound that came out of Orta’s vocoder was probably a laugh. “I daresay there

are several, Captain.”

Keogh ignored the barb. “You don’t strike me as the kind of person who gloats

over his victims. You’re telling us all of this for a reason. I’m not a very

patient man, Orta—I’d prefer you simply tell us what you want from us instead of

boring us to tears with rhetoric.”

“My intent is not to bore you, Captain,” Orta said, moving closer to Keogh. “I

wish you to understand the scope of what I’m trying to achieve. The prophecy is

very clear.”

“Prophecies are never clear,” Keogh said angrily, “and you can’t seriously

expect me to believe that a freak astonomical phenomenon is capable of bringing

about peace.”

“You doubt the prophecies, Captain?”

“Of course.”

“So you have no intention of aiding me in my quest to bring about peace on

Bajor?”

“I can’t see any good reason why I should.”

Orta nodded. “Understandable. So I’m sure I can’t count on you to provide me

with the access codes to this runabout?”

“You haven’t tried to access any of the runabout’s systems?” Kira asked.

Laughing a mechanical laugh, Orta said, “I didn’t survive as long as I did by

being a fool, Nerys. I know how well Starfleet likes to secure its secrets. If I

even attempt to touch a control panel, I have every faith that the runabout will

totally shut down. So you will provide me with the access codes.”

“And if I don’t?” Kira asked.

Orta held the box proximate to Keogh’s head. “Then the captain dies.”

“Don’t do it, Major!” Keogh shouted. “That’s an order!”

“You do have a death wish, don’t you, Captain?”

Keogh turned and looked up at Orta, who was trying to loom menacingly over the

captain. But Keogh refused to be so menaced. “Ten years ago, Orta, I was

captured by a Tzenkethi raider. While I cannot say that I endured anything on

the level of what you went through in Cardassian hands, I fully expected to die.

In my time, I’ve seen combat against Romulans, Tzenkethi, Cardassians, Tholians,

and alien races that I’m quite sure you’ve never heard of. Each time, I was

ready to die—because I swore an oath to—”

“Tell me, Captain,” Orta said, “does this speech have a point? Or an end? Or

perhaps you do have a death wish, and are hoping I’ll vaporize you rather than

listen to a pretentious Starfleet diatribe.” He leaned in close. Keogh noted

that the man had mal-odorous breath. “You know nothing about suffering or dying

for a cause, Captain—or about believing in it. Nothing. You took an oath? Words

are meaningless without action, without passion —without faith.”

Keogh snorted. “Honestly? My speech was more interesting.”

Again the awful smile. “Perhaps.” Orta stood upright and looked at Kira. “But

you understand my point, don’t you, Nerys? You know what the Prophets are

capable of—if we just seize the moment. They gave us the prophecies for a

reason. And we can make it work for us—transform Bajor into the place it was

meant to be.”

Intellectually, Keogh was impressed by Orta’s skill with oratory, especially

when handicapped with a vocoder. Philosophically, of course, he found the man

infuriating. He was exactly the kind of fanatic Keogh had feared he would be,

and the trouble he was causing now was as bad as anything he might have

predicted to Sisko days ago on the Odyssey. If he pulled off this lunatic plan

to fire his weapon at the moon, the damage it would do would be incalculable.

Tide shifts, gravitational fluxes, weather disruptions—not to mention the likely

loss of life, particularly on the farms below.

But much more infuriating was that Kira appeared to be buying his line.

“Don’t kill him,” Kira said in a small voice. “I’ll give you the codes.”

Furious, Keogh started, “Major, I gave you a direct—”

“I don’t report to you, Captain,” Kira said sharply. Then she turned to Orta and

rattled off a series of numbers and Greek letters. Keogh held out some hope that

the codes she gave were gibberish and Orta would enter them, be seen by the

computer to be a fraud, and lock down.

“You have done the greatest service you can for your home, Nerys,” Orta said.

“Believe me, you won’t regret this.”

Orta turned and headed back to the fore chamber. Within seconds, Keogh could

feel the thrum of the runabout’s impulse engines, though the ship did not yet

move, based on his glance at the viewport.

“You actually did it.” Keogh shook his head in dismay. “Major, I can’t believe

you’d be so stupid! He’s a terrorist—Starfleet doesn’t deal with terrorists.”

“I used to be a terrorist,” Kira said in a tight voice. “I know how they think,

I know how they operate—and I can assure you, Captain, that this is the only

way. You have to trust me.”

Keogh couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Trust you? Major, you just handed

over a Starfleet runabout to a lunatic! And why? Because he’s quoting some

nonsense?”

To Keogh’s surprise, it was Dax who spoke. “It isn’t nonsense, Captain. Don’t

forget, I’ve met the Prophets. I was with Benjamin when he discovered the

wormhole, and I’ve had an Orb experience.”

Eyes wide, Keogh said, “Since when, Lieutenant, do you subscribe to the Bajoran

faith?”

“I don’t,” Dax said in a tone Keogh found to be unconscionably smug, “I’m a

scientist. And I don’t let narrow-minded prejudices get in the way of empirical

evidence.”

With a snort, Keogh said, “I’m not the one who just handed a weapon of mass

destruction to a madman.”

Kira sighed. “I don’t expect you to understand, Captain. But you will. Trust in

the Prophets.”

Easily keeping his temper under control by dint of years of long

practice—besides, he could hardly get a proper mad-on while tied to a

chair—Keogh nonetheless was furious as he said, “Right now, Major, the only

thing I can trust is my own officers—Lieutenant Kovac should have discovered our

disappearance by now. I can only hope that he’s alerted DS9 and they’ve alerted

the Odyssey. And when this is over, assuming we survive, I can assure both of

you that you’ll face the full disciplinary wrath of Starfleet for what you’ve

done today.”

Chapter Thirteen

“JOE,WE ’LL BE ATBAJOR in ten minutes,” Gonzalez said. “Coming into range now.”

Shabalala hadn’t realized he was gripping the sides of the command chair until

he let go and realized how cramped his long fingers were becoming. “Full scan,”

he said.

“The Rio Grande is still in orbit. Can’t get a solid fix on it—there’s

interference,” Gonzalez said, shaking her head in annoyance. “I can tell you

that there are four humanoid life-forms on the runabout, but I’m not picking up

any combadges.”

“What’s causing the interference?”

Gonzalez turned toward the command center and half-smiled. “Well, since the

readings got clearer after I compensated for the interference generated by the

Malkus Artifact, I’d say that. It’s not perfect resolution, unfortunately, but

I’d say whoever’s on that run-about must have the artifact.”

“What about on the surface?”

The second officer gazed back down at her readings. “Plenty of lifesigns—mostly

Bajoran and human. I’m reading combadges for everyone who should be there except

for Captain Keogh, Commander Rodzinski, Lieutenant Dax, and Major Kira.”

“Odyssey to Kovac,” Shabalala said, reopening the channel to the surface.

“Anything, Mislav?”

“No, sir. We haven’t turned up a trace of them, or Orta’s people.”

Shabalala muttered a favorite curse of his mother’s.

Odo, standing next to Talltree at tactical, said, “We have to assume that

they’re dead, and the four people on the Rio Grande are Orta and his

followers—and they obviously have the artifact. We may need to destroy the

runabout.”

“General Order 16 is very specific, Constable,” Talltree said. “We have to

retrieve the artifact, not destroy it.”

“You may not have that luxury, Lieutenant,” Odo said in a belligerent tone.

Shabalala said nothing. He still was thinking about Odo’s words.

The captain may be dead.

He shook his head. We don’t know that yet. We can’t assume it’s happened again.

Even if it has, it isn’t my fault this time.

Unbidden, images came to him of the strange, mutated thing that Captain Simon

had been transformed into by the Patniran weapon, of Shabalala raising his

phaser and destroying her before she could kill him, and then being helpless

while other crew members who had been similarly mutated destroyed the Fearless.

Not again, dammit, not again…

Gonzalez interrupted his reverie. “Joe, the Rio Grande is powering up.”

Talltree said, “That means whoever’s on board has the access codes. It could

mean that either Kira or Dax gave the codes away before they were killed.”

“That is exceedingly unlikely,” Odo said. “Besides, it could have been Captain

Keogh.”

“He didn’t know them,” Sisko said. “But I agree with the constable. We need to

find out what’s going on on that runabout.” Sisko looked expectantly at

Shabalala.

I need to make a decision. He forced away the image of Captain Simon, his dear

friend, his commanding officer, dying at his hand, and focused on the situation

at hand. “Hail the runabout, Mr. Talltree.”

“Yes, sir.” After a moment: “No reply.”

“Joe, I’ve managed to refine the scan,” Gonzalez said. “At least one of the

people on that ship is giving off a bio-signature that matches that of a joined

Trill.”

Sisko broke into a grin. “Dax.”

“She may have betrayed us, sir,” Talltree said.

“We don’t know anything, Lieutenant,” Sisko snapped. “And I’d advise you to be

careful of who you accuse of betraying the uniform.”

“That’s enough!” Shabalala said. He was so busy wallowing in the past, he was

losing control of the bridge. “Mr. Talltree, lock phasers on the Rio Grande, and

open a channel.”

Talltree manipulated his console. “Phasers locked, channel open.”

Shabalala stood up, for no other reason than that he needed to stand alone—to be

in command, not to sit uselessly next to Sisko. “This is Commander Joseph

Shabalala of the U.S.S. Odyssey. If you do not respond to our hails, we will be

forced to open fire.”

Several tense seconds went by. “Nothing, sir,” Talltree said.

“Joe, I don’t like this,” Gonzalez said.

Shabalala walked over to her console and stood next to her. “Don’t like what,

Maritza?”

“I’m picking up some modifications to the weapons systems.”

“What kind of modifications?”

Grimly, she said, “Well, that’s the fun part—the interference is strongest

there. To my mind, that says that they’re hooking the artifact up to the weapons

array.”

“If they have the energy weapon,” Odo said, “then they could be attaching it to

the runabout’s systems.”

“That’s my guess, too,” Gonzalez said.

Again, Shabalala muttered his mother’s curse. “Prepare to fire, Mr. Talltree.”

From one of the aft science consoles, O’Brien said, “Excuse me, Commander, but

I’m picking up fluctuations in the Rio Grande’ 'spower signature.”

Both Sisko and Odo shot O’Brien looks, then moved as one to the back of the

bridge. “Is that what I think it is, Chief?” Sisko asked.

“Probably, sir.”

Frowning, Gonzalez said, “It’s just a minor power fluctuation.”

“That’s all it’s supposed to be,” Sisko said. “Commander, don’t fire on the Rio

Grande.”

“What?”

“Trust me—let them power up the weapon.”

Less than a year ago, a Patniran doctor he didn’t know asked Joe Shabalala to

trust her when she said that Captain Simon would suffer no ill effects. That bit

of trust led to Shabalala having to murder his captain and watch as their ship

was destroyed.

Sisko stepped down the horseshoe and stood eye to eye with Shabalala. “Give them

one minute. If Dax has done what I think she has, this will be over then.

Please, Commander.”

(“Kill me, Joe. Please kill me.”)

Shaking off the memory of Captain Simon’s last words to him, Shabalala stared at

Sisko’s intense brown eyes.

“Stand by, Mr. Talltree,” he finally said.

Talltree didn’t sound happy as he said, “Yes, sir.”

 

In Declan Keogh’s mind, the court martial was already in session.

Jadzia Dax and Kira Nerys stood before a tribunal. Keogh had chosen the three

admirals he knew to be the toughest around—Brand, Haden, and Satie. No, wait,

Satie had resigned in disgrace. Maybe Nechayev. Alynna’s always been a major

pain in the neck. Besides, she was in charge of the Maquis mess in the DMZ, so

she knew the players. Yes, she’ll be perfect.

Keogh imagined some useless JAG officer defending the major and lieutenant. He

remembered some lieutenant commander or other who’d defended Keogh’s old Academy

classmate during a court martial several years previous. He was an incompetent

boob, as Keogh recalled, so he defended. The prosecution, of course, was handled

by Keogh himself. So what if he wasn’t trained? This was his fantasy, after all.

“And so, sirs,” he said in a loud, clear voice, “it is my recommendation that

Lieutenant Dax and Major Kira receive the full penalty for disobeying a direct

order and aiding and abetting a known terrorist.”

Haden handed down the verdict: guilty. They didn’t even need to meet to discuss

it. The three admirals just glanced at each other and nodded. Keogh’s case was,

after all, airtight.

Then Keogh amended the situation. After all, they were entitled to some defense.

Kira pointed out that she wasn’t in Keogh’s chain of command, as she had done on

the runabout only minutes earlier, but Keogh blew holes in that theory quickly.

She was subordinate to a Starfleet officer, Benjamin Sisko, and Sisko was

subordinate to Keogh. Therefore, simple logic dictated that she was beholden to

his orders.

Hm. Maybe I should have Admiral T’Nira on the tribunal instead of Brand.

Dax, naturally, went on at great length about all the Dax symbiont had

accomplished, in her usual arrogant tone. Of course, Keogh was able to dash that

argument as well. After all, Jadzia Dax was a different person—that was why she

had to go through the Academy, achieve the rank of lieutenant. The

accomplishments of the other hosts of the Dax symbiont were not relevant to the

proceedings.

Keogh took special pleasure in the mental image of Dax returning forlornly to

her seat from the witness stand after that, carrying the same look on her face

that he himself had had two-and-a-half decades ago when Curzon Dax barged in on

him in the rec deck.

The verdict came down: guilty.

Then he saw it through the viewport: the Odyssey.

At last, Keogh thought. Now maybe something will get accomplished.

“So, Orta, when are you going to tell the truth?”

Keogh blinked. This was Kira talking. The captain noted that she, too, had spied

the Galaxy -class ship’s presence nearby and, as soon as she did, she smiled.

What is going on here?

“What makes you think I haven’t told the truth, Nerys?” Orta asked.

Dax spoke up before Kira could. “Because we’ve seen your type before. You think

the Federation is as bad as Cardassia, and you’re trying to get rid of us by

blowing up a Bajoran moon with a Federation runabout. You figure that’ll be

enough to get the Federation out of Bajor.”

“Is that what you think?” Orta said with a sneer.

“It won’t work,” Dax said. “With the wormhole there, the Federation won’t pull

out easily.”

Orta’s laugh was chillingly sterile. “They already did once, when the Circle

threatened your precious space station. I’m quite sure they could be convinced

to do so again, given the right circumstances. But you’re wrong. You’re

forgetting the prophecy.”

Then Kira did something that shocked Keogh: she laughed.

She laughed very long and very hard.