Lenaris had been right about Halpas. After rubbing Holem’s face in his unnecessary apology, the brusque old pilot was all too happy to accompany them back to Tilar to have a look at the warp ship, along with Tiven Cohr. He was also happy to use his own little raider to fly them back to where Lenaris had left the Ornathia shuttle, on the plateau of the Berain mountains—Halpas knew the traffic patterns like the back of his hand, and he had no fear of being detected. “Stick to the legitimate paths, they don’t even look up from the scanners,” he’d drawled. It was only a few hours later that they met again in Tilar.

Before they’d even left the hidden hangar in the foothills, Ornathia Delle had shown up to inform Taryl of the latest news—Seefa had gone.

“Where did he go?” Taryl asked, an edge of fear and regret in her tone.

“I don’t know,” Delle said. “He wouldn’t stop raving about how the Cardassians are going to come here, soon. He said we all need to take the shuttles and go—get as far away from the balon as possible.”

“I told him—Lac said they didn’t get his ship!”

Delle shook her head. “He wouldn’t listen,” she said. “A few others have gone as well. Tancha and Res and Vusan…”

Taryl looked lost for a moment before pulling herself together. “I can’t go looking for Seefa now,” she said. “We’ve got to get that carrier ready to go!”

Lenaris was prone to agree. Seefa could take care of himself. Lac, however—

Halpas and Tiven followed Lenaris and Taryl through the empty fields that lay between the village and the carrier’s resting place. “What’s all this about balon?” Tiven wanted to know.

“It’s how we fuel our ships,” Lenaris explained.

Halpas looked stunned, his heavy eyebrows moving back from his forehead. “You mean…like the ship you flew here? Are you joking?”

Taryl shook her head. “We distill the balon and isolate the nadion-affected components to stabilize it. We’ve been doing it for close to five years now, without a single incident.”

Halpas and Tiven appeared impressed, and when Lenaris told them that Taryl had created the technology, they were even more so.

“Where did you train?” Tiven wanted to know.

Taryl flushed. “Self-taught,” she explained. “My grandfather always said I had a knack for chemistry…”

“She’s an excellent engineer as well,” Lenaris told them.

“Not good enough to fix that carrier,” Taryl said.

“Well, you don’t have to be,” Tiven said. “That’s why I’ve come, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Taryl said, “and I’m hoping to learn a thing or two as long as we have you.”

Tiven frowned, and Lenaris wondered if he didn’t like the idea of an overzealous would-be protégée getting in his way, but the old man said nothing.

They reached the ship in very little time, Halpas and Tiven both doing a terrible job of masking their excitement as they looked it over. “She looks structurally sound,” Tiven announced. Lenaris and Lac had almost completely dug the ship out, and their diagnosis had been similar—these old carriers were built sturdy, and even some of the hardest impacts couldn’t crack them.

Tiven practically scampered up the side of the wing, climbing down into the cockpit like a man twenty years younger, with Halpas close on his heels. Lenaris and Taryl came in afterward, when Tiven had tapped on a palmlight and was already halfway down to the engine room.

Lenaris followed Taryl and Tiven down into the engine room while Halpas looked over the navigation controls. The old engineer wasted no time in hoisting himself into the maintenance conduit, shifting about and making his inspection for only a few moments before calling out his diagnosis. “Anti-grav’s completely shot, the aft piston coil array is fried, rear thrusters are in bad shape…and…it looks like the auxiliary power is…hm…”

“What?” Lenaris said.

Tiven bent his body so that his head emerged from the conduit. “Who’s been working on the auxiliary systems?”

“That was me,” Taryl said quickly. “A long time ago. I didn’t make it worse, did I?”

“No, no,” Tiven said, his head and shoulders again disappearing into the tube. “It looks like you would have almost had it, actually—you just need two self-sealing stem bolts on the transformer plate underneath the shock absorption circuit.”

“Oh—I have some, back in my house!” Taryl exclaimed. “I can go get them right now!”

“That would be helpful,” Tiven said. “And if you have a flange-type resistor wrench to torque down those bolts…”

“I do,” she said.

“Maybe I’d better go with you,” Lenaris suggested, feeling that his presence here was a bit superfluous. Taryl didn’t discourage him, and they climbed out of the ship together, into the afternoon sunlight.

They walked through the fields in silence for a while, Lenaris simply enjoying her company, as he had been doing since they left Tilar. It was nice to spend time with her without Seefa along. He felt a stab of guilt at the thought, hoping that Seefa wasn’t in any kind of danger, but he chased the thought away.

Similar thoughts must have occurred to Taryl. “I think I know where Seefa could have gone,” she said glumly. “And I’m sure he wants me to come after him. He’s testing me.”

Lenaris didn’t know what to say. He knew what he would have liked to say—that if Seefa was indeed testing her, then it was an unfair gauge of Taryl’s loyalties. How could she be expected to choose between her brother and her fiancé? “Where do you think he is?” he finally asked.

“Back near his family’s farm,” Taryl said. “The Aro farm was adjacent to my parents’ lands, when we were children.”

“So…your marriage was arranged?” Lenaris already knew as much, but he hadn’t heard it from Taryl, he’d heard it from Lac.

“Yes,” she confirmed.

“How did you feel about that?”

She looked slightly put off. “I don’t know,” she said. “It’s just how things were always done around here.”

“But not anymore,” Lenaris pointed out.

They did not speak for a few more minutes.

“Holem,” she finally said. A subtle coloration in her tone had him very uncomfortable; he was sure now that she was upset with him.

“What is it?”

“You don’t really like Seefa, do you?”

Lenaris bit his lips, cursing the notorious directness of the Ornathia family. “What makes you say that?” He wished with all his heart that something—anything—would distract her from this conversation. A house caught on fire, an underground tremor, the very voices of the Prophets calling out from above…

She looked away. “Never mind. You’ve just answered me.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“You’re chewing your lip like it was a piece of gristle. You always do that when you’re uncomfortable.”

“Well, maybe it’s you making me uncomfortable.” Lenaris instantly wished he hadn’t said it.

Taryl looked annoyed for a split second before she laughed. “Oh, Holem. Be serious. What is it about him that you don’t like?”

Lenaris was taken aback at her laughter. Why did she find it funny that he might be uncomfortable around her? In fact, sometimes he was uncomfortable around her, if only because his desire for a more meaningful relationship with her would periodically make his heart feel like it was going to break. But she probably had no idea that his affection for her was anything beyond platonic. She probably regarded him as she regarded her own brother. The consideration of that possibility brought back the unhappy sensation of heartache, and Lenaris blurted out his answer to her question without really considering what her reaction would be.

“He’s not good enough for you, Taryl. That’s all I have against him.”

Taryl looked surprised, but there wasn’t time to address the topic any further, for they had reached the village.

Lenaris followed her into the cottage, helping her to gather up the necessary items in a rough satchel. “Let me carry that,” he insisted, making to sling the satchel over his own shoulder.

“I can do it,” Taryl said, reaching for the satchel and sounding cross.

“Taryl…” Lenaris said, not wanting to finish, but knowing that he had to. He couldn’t have tension with her, not now. “Don’t be upset with me about Seefa. It isn’t that I have anything against him. It’s just…”

“What?” she asked, and the anger had gone out of her voice. Lenaris thought that she wanted to hear him say it—he hoped she did—

“I can’t help how I feel,” he said stiffly.

She put her hand on his shoulder, as if to remove the satchel, but she didn’t remove it. “And how do you feel?”

He couldn’t say anything else, and he thought she looked disappointed for a moment before he realized that she was crying softly.

“Taryl!” he said, alarmed. “I…I’m sorry! Seefa will be all right…I should never have said anything…it wasn’t my place…”

She came into his arms and he held her close, feeling as he did that it was wrong to enjoy it so much when she was so obviously hurting.

“It’s not just that,” she said, her voice muffled as she pressed her face against his chest. “I feel as though I was wrong to leave him. What if I never see him again, and the last words we had were angry? I’m…the only family he really has, since his aunt and uncle passed.”

“You’ll see him again. He loves you, and the two of you are going to be married.” The words tasted less than sweet in his mouth, but he wanted, he needed, to console her.

“I don’t want to marry him, Holem.”

His body went rigid for a beat. He wondered if he’d heard her correctly.

“I care about Seefa, but I haven’t wanted to marry him for a long time. Maybe I just got angry with you because…I felt so guilty.”

“Guilty?”

“Yes. Because…I was…glad that he wasn’t with me. With…us.” Taryl began to cry again, her face pressed against Holem’s shoulder, her body warm against his. He found that he could not resist holding her a little bit tighter. After a long beat, she turned her face closer to his, so that he could feel her breath on his skin. He brushed her forehead with his lips…and before he had quite realized what was happening, he was kissing the ridges of her nose, and then her mouth, softly at first, and then harder as she responded, and then his hands had begun to move across her back, underneath her tunic and around her waist, and her hands were finding their way across the front of his chest, and she had removed the satchel from his shoulder and it dropped to the floor.

Their clothes seemed to fall away as they tumbled to her bed in an eager meeting of mouths and limbs and fingers. They moved slowly, and then quickly, and then slowly again, becoming a single, breathing, living thing for a few stretching moments, their hearts and bodies perfectly in rhythm. Lenaris had been with a few women, had even loved two of them—but this was different, it was Taryl, and the depth of what he felt for her far surpassed any love he’d known before they had become friends.

Entangled in her arms, Lenaris felt like he could sleep for days, exhausted and happier than he had been since he was a boy. But there were things that must be done…things that he hardly felt like considering now that Taryl was here, pressed against his body. He wanted to just hold her a little longer…

But she stood up abruptly, retrieving her clothes from the rough floor where they had been discarded. She didn’t look at him as she dressed. “Come on, Holem,” she finally said. “We’d better get back.”

“Sure,” he said, quickly dressing and retrieving the fallen satchel to loop it across his chest. This time, she did not argue with him about carrying it. She seemed determined not to meet his gaze, and he sadly decided that if he hadn’t wanted things between them to remain tense, he’d just done exactly the wrong thing.

Damar sat before the companel in his quarters with an unhappy knot in the pit of his stomach. He was not looking forward to this, but it could not be helped. He hoped she would understand; after all, his responsibilities were greater than they had been before his promotion. Veja had to realize that. She had to realize that his obligation to Dukat was immense. He entered Veja’s communication code with a great deal of reluctance.

“You are looking beautiful, as always,” he said, as Veja’s face appeared on his screen. “It pains me to tell you that it will be longer than we might have hoped until I will be able to see you again in person.”

“What do you mean?” Veja did not look like she was going to take this very well.

“My darling, you have my deepest apologies, but—”

“Oh, no, Corat. Not the trip to the vineyards!”

Damar hung his head. “Please, Veja. My duties to the station come first, no matter how much I wish it might be otherwise. You know that as well as anyone.”

“But, Corat, this trip was planned months in advance! How, at this late date, can your duties suddenly have become so pressing that you cannot even take a single two-day pass—only your third since you arrived, I might add?”

“Veja, do not make this any worse. Dukat asked me if I would be willing to sacrifice this weekend for an important update to the security systems. What could I say? I owe my promotion to him.”

“You mean to say that he gave you a choice? And you chose to do a favor for Dukat, rather than to spend time with me?”

Damar sighed, his patience waning. “Veja, that isn’t how it works. Please, I need your support.”

She was quiet for a moment, and Damar hoped she was reconsidering her reaction, which he felt was tremendously unfair. If she was going to be the wife of an officer, she was going to have to learn to accept certain things. A soldier’s duty was always to his superiors.

Her voice was cool when she spoke. “Fine, Corat. It is regrettable that you cannot come along with me, but—”

“What do you mean, come along with you? We will postpone the trip to a later date.”

“Oh, no, Corat. I requested this time from my superior, and he gave it to me. I’m not going to spend that time sulking around the settlement. I’ve always wanted to see Tilar.”

“Veja! Are you mad? You can’t go away by yourself, it is far too dangerous to travel alone.”

“Of course, I’ll bring Natima. She always has her weekends free.”

“Natima!” Damar scoffed. “She is hardly fit to ensure your safety! No, Veja, you’ve made your point that you are angry. I have apologized, but there is nothing more that I can do. Please, end this foolishness.”

“I accept your apology, Corat. But I am still going to Tilar. I’ll be sure to contact you from the vineyards, to let you know what you are missing.”

Veja ended the transmission before Damar could argue further, and he smacked his palms in anger against the surface of his desk. He decided that she was probably only trying to bait him. He was not going to give her the satisfaction of contacting her again to argue about something so utterly preposterous. He turned off his companel and went to bed, anticipating a sleepless night.

Miras lasted another week before she made her decision, a week of deep consideration, of working up the nerve—a week of terrible, relentless dreams. She dreamed now, knew she’d fallen asleep because she had to watch it all again, relive the nightmare. The Hebitian woman was gone; now there was only the hidden object, the murder, the twisted, smoking ruins of her homeworld.

Someone touched her, and she woke.

It was a stranger, the man in the seat next to hers. “I’m sorry to wake you, but we’ve gone back down into the atmosphere, and we’re approaching Lakarian City. The pilot says we’ll be there in just a few moments.”

“Oh, thank you, Mister…?”

“Raaku.”

“That’s right, I remember now.” They had briefly introduced themselves shortly after boarding the shuttle. Shortly after Miras had walked away from her old life, possibly forever.

The message of the recurring dreams had continued to unfold for her, although the images remained cryptic, violent, and strange. But she’d come to believe that the discovery of one of the Bajoran Orbs by a Cardassian would mean the end of their civilization—had come to believe it with all her heart, and that belief finally allowed her to embrace her insanity. She had no husband, no children. Her parents lived well outside the city, and she didn’t see them often. Her job was interesting to her, but not especially fulfilling…

And if I’m right about this—if this is a vision, a reality that will come to pass—then I have a responsibility.

She had spent many hours reading through the texts she could find on Oralius, on the Oralian Way—and while many were simple propaganda smears, she’d seen glimmers of a strange but interesting philosophy here and there. From what she could tell, the Oralians were simply spiritual seekers, not the decadent cult she’d always believed them to be.

The brief recorded message from Natima Lang had provided the final push. It had been waiting in her transmissions only the day before, and had confirmed Miras’s information about Gar Osen and the death of the kai—not directly, but clearly enough. Natima had been uncharacteristically grim, her expression solemn as she’d cautioned Miras not to continue concerning herself with affairs on Bajor. She’d added that going public with unapproved information was a punishable offense. When Miras had tried to return the call, she’d found that Natima was unavailable.

With clear evidence that there might actually be something to it all, Miras had acted. She’d packed a bag, made a few calls—and had then managed to scramble the Orb’s access code in the ministry’s database, making it impossible for anyone to retrieve the item without manually opening every single shipping container in the warehouse. All those years studying the ministry’s filing system, preparing for her life’s work, she’d learned a trick or two. There was a chance that nobody would learn of what she had done until someone actually attempted to find the Orb—but Miras wasn’t about to take the chance that she’d be so lucky. She had stepped across a line, a step she couldn’t take back.

The man seated beside her looked out the window of the transport shuttle, at the flat, endless desert stretching all around them, beautiful in the early morning light. “Have you seen the Hebitian ruins before, Astraea?”

“Not for many years,” said Miras, remembering that she was no longer Miras. She had taken the name of the woman from her dreams, whose face had become her own. She was Astraea now, and after what she had done—traveling under a false name, deliberately misfiling the Orb—she could never go home. She hoped that she would find her confirmation, out here in the desert. She hoped she hadn’t just thrown away her career, her life, for no reason at all. “I look forward to revisiting them.”

In the fairly spacious control cabin of the Bajoran carrier, Lenaris and Halpas were having a look at some of the old ship’s navigational systems. While Halpas confirmed that he had never flown this particular model, he was still familiar with most of her instruments. He pointed to a few components, explained their significance to Lenaris, who was feeling slightly overwhelmed with all the information he was quickly absorbing. This was different from studying old schematics—the knowledge Halpas carried included a great deal of information that never would have appeared in any manual.

“Those filter systems there are notoriously touchy,” Halpas pointed out. “While these gauges over here can be sluggish at first, once you warp up they get a lot more loose.” Lenaris nodded, taking it all in.

“The thing to remember is that a lot of the Cardassian ships have blind spots in their sensor grids, like their planet-based systems,” Halpas said. He spoke this in confidential tones, almost as though he expected someone to be listening. “I can show you what I mean once we get out there—” Lenaris felt a thrill at this kind of talk, Halpas’s confidence making it clear that this was really going to happen. “—and even more important than that, Cardassian ships have a tendency to require a power surge in order to arm their forward disruptors. As soon as they transfer power, everything else gets sapped—their navigational systems, their shields—and more importantly for us, their sensors.”

Lenaris nodded vigorously. He tensed as a faint whirring sound went up on the bridge. The lights across the navigational array flickered once, and then settled into a constant glow. The auxiliary systems had already gone online half an hour before, but it was looking more and more like this mission was going to happen. He was actually going to travel at warp—he was going to leave the B’hava’el system. And he was going to rescue his friend.

Halpas walked him around some more of the ship’s controls, quizzing him, pointing out subtle nuances he could remember from the sensor arrays. A few minutes later, Lenaris looked up as Taryl joined them in the cockpit, her expression bright and slightly anxious.

“The warp reactor is online!” she said. “Tiven said it was barely damaged at all—the biggest problems were the antigrav and the thrusters, but he thinks he’s fixed those well enough for a decent takeoff.”

“A takeoff!” Lenaris exclaimed. “I had no idea we’d be there already. We need to get a better idea of how we’re going to mask this thing’s signature before we can even think about it, or else—”

“Or else we just go for it,” Halpas said.

Lenaris looked at the old man, expecting him to be either joking or ranting on one of his notoriously reckless plans—like the Valerian freighter, only this time, with him aboard instead of Darin. “If we do that, they’ll target us before we’re even out of the atmosphere,” he said.

Halpas laughed. “You’re thinking in terms of how a raider flies,” he told the younger man. “A ship like this can break through the atmosphere in the time it takes a raider to power up its thrusters. We’ll be halfway to Jeraddo before the spoonheads have even noticed us. And by then—”

“But once they have noticed us, we’re as good as dead,” Lenaris argued. “Their ships could outrun this thing even if it was operating at full capacity, brand-new. The trick is to stay beneath their notice.”

Halpas shook his head. “We’ll lose them,” he told Lenaris. “You just leave that to me.” He turned to Taryl. “So, just how many of these balon ships do you folks have?”

Taryl frowned. “Seefa took one, and then the other three who left must have taken at least two…we’ve got about twenty of them now.”

“Twenty! We won’t be needing quite that many. Let’s get back to the village and bring a few of them here…and while we’re at it, I suggest we find some more volunteers. I’m not sure the four of us are up to storming a Cardassian prison camp on our own, no matter how remote the location.”

Aro Seefa had successfully hidden the raider in one of the old drainage conduits, organized a modest food supply for himself, and made his bed. He’d slept, and woken with no idea of what to do next. The concept of leisure time was not one with which he was intimately familiar. In his experience, when there wasn’t something to be fixed or retrieved or altered or built, you slept or ate. And neither of those options was feasible when his stomach was so twisted, knotted with a growing certainty that he’d done the wrong thing, leaving the Ornathias.

Seefa had explored these drainage tunnels and ditches many times when he was young, though his aunt and uncle, who had raised him after the death of his parents, had repeatedly warned him not to. The tunnels were ancient, whole sections caving each spring, and they still flooded in the rainy season. But they ran throughout the farms and vineyards of the Tilar peninsula, holding endless fascination for most of the children that had grown up here. Seefa’s guardians had so many other children to look after—in all, they’d taken in fourteen occupation orphans who’d needed a home—Seefa had managed to explore the tunnels regularly, often using them to return to his family’s lands, where he would hide in the shadows and daydream about being grown and in the resistance, dealing out harsh justice to the Cardassians.

Seefa’s biological parents had been among the first Tilari casualties of the occupation. The Cardassians had announced that they would seize the Aro lands when Seefa was just a small boy. Like many of those farmers who couldn’t conceive of leaving their land, his parents had refused to relocate, expecting the Cardassians to eventually give up and leave them alone. But of course, it had not worked like that.

Seefa’s uncle and aunt, his mother’s brother and his wife, lived on one of the farms that the Cardassians had ignored—an unremarkable katterpod field, adjacent to the Ornathias’ portion of the vineyards, neither of which held much interest for the Cardassians. But the hilly, picturesque tessipates of the Aro family’s famous coastal vineyards—which had been in Seefa’s family for centuries—had been significantly more attractive to Bajor’s occupiers. The climate, right on the water, was well suited to their physiology—the winters mild, the summers hot—and they had promptly claimed it for themselves, turning Seefa’s childhood home into a Cardassian tourist attraction. Numerous resistance attacks over the years had made it less attractive, however, and the place was usually abandoned but for the handful of Bajoran collaborators the Cardassians had hired to keep it up.

His aunt and uncle had finally been relocated to one of the camps—for their own safety, according to the local Cardassian-kept magistrate—and the Ornathias had mostly managed to keep out of sight, moving to the far edge of their old lands. Many of the smaller farms had been allowed to continue—the Cardassians needed someone to refill their bread baskets—but they had refused to give up their stolen prize.

To be so near his family’s rightful portion of the vineyards made Seefa’s heart burn. He could smell the sea on the breezes that passed through the tunnels; a few moments’ walk would take him to the ruins of the home where he’d once lived with his family. It was painful to be here. And yet, this was his home. This was the place he hoped to return to with his own family, where he and Taryl would raise their children, where they would someday die and be buried.

Taryl. She still had not come, though he was sure that she would know to look for him here. They had both played in the tunnels as children, had used them as adults to evade capture, more than once. He was left to assume that she was too busy trying to fix that useless carrier to be concerned with his whereabouts—assuming she even made it back from the trip with Lenaris…

Seefa felt his stomach knot tighter. He didn’t like not knowing where she was, what she was doing. If anything happened to Taryl while he was just sitting here, he would never forgive himself.

It was the fear that finally drove him out of the culvert, thinking that it might be best to head back to the Ornathias, to wait for word. But as he emerged from the tunnel, he heard something that sent him toward the vineyards, instead, away from where his raider was hidden—the unmistakable sound of a ship landing close by. Not a Bajoran craft—it did not have the right kind of unhealthy growl. It was most assuredly Cardassian, a small shuttle, perhaps, or some similar flyer. They had finally come for him, and they had probably traced his balon signature, just as he’d feared. He’d led them straight to him, as easily as if he’d drawn them a map. Foolish!

He thought the ship had landed near the Cardassian “resort” in his family’s vineyard. He crept toward it, moving slowly and silently, finally cresting a low hill covered in wild jumja trees to get a look. It was a transport shuttle, settled closer to the Ornathias’ lands than his own—what he thought of as his own—and there were two Cardassians walking around. Technically, they were trespassing, walking on Ornathia ground, land still owned by Taryl’s extended family; Seefa could see that they were on the wrong side of the hedgerow divider, although he supposed they didn’t care. Why would they? Who would complain?

The Cardassians were women, dressed all in white. Not soldiers, then? The dress of these two certainly suggested that they were civilians…

Two women, alone and vulnerable at the vineyards? It had to be a trick. Perhaps he was being flanked right now, the women decoys.

Hide or attack? Run or fight? He didn’t know, but seeing them just wandering around, touching the overgrown plants, acting as though they had some right to be there—it was infuriating. On top of his uncertainty and shame, his depressing memories—it was too much to tolerate. He quickly decided that he couldn’t afford to be uncertain. He would act, for better or worse.

He pulled his battered old phaser, aimed directly at the two invaders, and sprinted down the hillside as fast as he could. The two Cardassians did not immediately notice him, but as he drew closer they heard him, and looked up. One of them screamed.

“Quiet!” Seefa snapped in a loud whisper. “How many are with you?”

“J—just us,” said one of the women, the one who’d screamed. She looked terrified.

“But more are coming,” the other said quickly. “Many more. Soldiers. If you leave now, you might get away.”

Seefa squinted at the hot blue sky above him, saw nothing but a scattering of clouds. If she was telling the truth, he could run. Or it might already be too late.

“You’d better come along with me,” he said, and gestured in the general direction of the nearest drainage tunnel with his weapon. They needed to get out of sight, fast.

One of the women started to speak to the other, in an urgent hiss. Seefa made an angry noise, and they fell silent.

They reached the culvert and entered the irrigation system, Seefa taking them in confused circles through the complicated labyrinth, wanting to be sure they couldn’t be tracked. They walked for nearly a kellipate, quiet except for the sounds of one of them sniffling, the occasional drip of water. Seefa had to use his palmlight as the tunnels angled deeper, the chill of wet clay making him shiver. He had a vague intention of taking the women back to the Ornathia camp, but it would be a long walk.

“More will be coming,” the bolder of the two women volunteered as he pointed them down another branch. Her low voice echoed. “They know that you’re here.”

“How did they track me? Was it the balon?”

“Yes,” she said. “They’ve been tracking you for a long time.”

Seefa clenched his jaw. He knew it. “How long before they get here?”

The other woman spoke in an urgent whisper. “Natima, is this wise?”

Natima seemed to think so. “Let me handle this.”

“You had better tell me all you know,” Seefa said darkly. He turned his palmlight to Natima’s face. She squinted back at him, her lips tight.

“Have they tracked only me?”

The woman hesitated, her pallid face ghostly in the wobbling light. “They have tracked several of you,” she said.

Seefa frowned. “Several? How many, exactly?”

“I don’t know how many,” she shot back. “I only know that it’s more than one.”

Seefa’s heart hammered. If they were tracking shuttles, they might have followed Taryl, too; he needed to know before he risked taking them back to the cell, but it occurred to him that he had never really spoken to a Cardassian before, and he wasn’t sure how best to manipulate them. What were they afraid of? What did they respond to? He had no idea.

“We know about all of you at the vineyards,” the other woman said.

“Veja! Let me handle this,” said Natima.

“What do you mean, all of us?”

“She’s bluffing,” Natima said. “We are only sentries. We don’t know everything, we were only sent to confirm that you were in the area.”

Seefa was confused…and finally, suspicious. “There aren’t any more of us,” he said sharply. “I’m the only one.”

“You just indicated that there were more of you,” Natima pointed out.

Seefa shined his light over the two women. Natima looked defiant, but something deep in her expression reflected fear. The other woman—Veja—appeared frightened out of her wits.

“You’re civilians, aren’t you?”

Neither woman spoke, confirming it.

Seefa sighed, kicking himself for panicking, not sure what to do. They were Cardies, but not fighters; he’d kill them if he had to, but he didn’t like the idea. On the other hand, by taking a couple of tourists hostage, he’d made himself a target; someone would be missing a sister or a wife, a patrol would be sent to find their shuttle, and they’d surely find his makeshift camp. He couldn’t take them to the Ornathias, not without endangering the entire cell…

I’ll have to kill them. He didn’t see that he had a choice.

“Just let us go,” Natima said. “We won’t tell anyone we saw you.”

“You have our word,” Veja added, her voice practically a whimper.

Seefa had to laugh at that. “The word of a Cardassian?” He gestured with the phaser, and the three began to walk again.

After a few moments, Natima spoke. “Listen, I…I need to relieve myself.”

“That must be very uncomfortable for you,” he said, without sympathy.

Natima arched an eyeridge. “You’ve no idea. I don’t suppose there’s a ’fresher available in these…facilities?”

“What do you think?”

Natima nodded. “If you wouldn’t mind, then, couldn’t I just have a little privacy for a moment? You could turn off your palmlight—no, I suppose you wouldn’t do that. Or—I could go down that corridor there—” She gestured vaguely to a branch, just ahead of them, that intersected the main conduit they were walking.

Seefa regarded the woman and was struck for a moment by how…almost Bajoran she seemed. Something in her expression, the inflection of her voice, her simple desire to relieve herself without someone watching. The effect was unsettling, and certainly not something he would have expected from a Cardassian.

He flashed his light down the tunnel she had indicated, which was badly deteriorated. He knew that this one had no outlet, ending in a heap of sharp rubble—if she had any ideas of escaping, she’d be disappointed. “Fine,” he said. “But your friend stays here with me.”

“Thank you,” Natima said to him, and turned to go down the conduit.

Veja stared at him like a batos in a slaughterhouse, her fear a palpable thing, and Seefa looked away. It wasn’t his fault that they’d come to Bajor. They were victims of their own arrogance, their own erroneous sense of privilege, and he refused to feel bad serving as the hand of justice.

I have no choice, he told himself firmly.