Bloodletter (star trek)

by K. W. Jeter

“Sure—for anybody who wasn’t protected. The decompression alone would be sufficiently lethal.”

  “Then that’s it.” Kira squeezed her hand into a fist. “That’s what Sisko wanted us to know. It’s the perfect means of taking care of Hören.”

  “It’s still chancy. He’d have to be lured to a sector of the substation that doesn’t have any emergency life-support systems stocked in it. The only section like that is the anterior storage lockers.” Bashir drew in a long breath through his teeth. “And that’s the end of the explosives chain—that’s exactly where the charges would start going off, once the codes had been given from here.”

  “Don’t worry about it.” Kira wiped her palms on the trousers of her uniform. “That’s my job. . . .”

  He saw her. In some ways, it was easier now that he wasn’t relying on the doorway sensors and the tracking device. Hören could tell where she was, her movements through the substation’s corridors, just by sniffing the trapped air. His senses had grown sharper, the purifying anger strengthening him.

  A shadow in darkness, a footstep that rang upon metal . . . that was enough. His prey was moving toward the farther reaches of the substation, away from the command center. He had thought he would be able to trap her there, but she had bolted from that false security. Panic must have set in, a desperate hunt for some kind of hiding place. He had survived her trap, clever as it had been; perhaps she had realized at last that there would be no stopping him, that he would keep coming toward her, implacable. There would be no hiding places where he could not find her. And at the end, she would be caught in some corner, a narrow angle of bulkheads and ceiling. Then his shadow would fall upon her, a darkness broken only by the shining of justice in his upraised hand.

  He moved through the corridors that had become as familiar to him as his own body. All around, he felt the sureness of time embrace him, the fulfillment of prophecy.

  “Hören!”

  Her shout rang through the dimly lit spaces, echoing from the banks of storage lockers surrounding her.

  A silhouette, its shoulders made even more massive by the lowering of his head, appeared in the doorway. One arm dangled, twisted and useless, at the figure’s side. The knife glittered in the other hand.

  “I’ve been waiting for this, Kira.” He stepped forward, a trace of light revealing the hollows of his face. “For centuries . . . ”

  “I know you have.” She moved sideways, slowly, along the bulkhead behind her. Even in his madness, which had stripped away so much of him, there was still something of the Redemptorist leader remaining. His voice, the thundering pronouncements of blood and fire. She had counted on that. “It was ordained, wasn’t it?”

  “Now is not the time to mock me. You blaspheme in addition to all your other sins. Better that you should repent and seek forgiveness.”

  She glanced from the corner of her eye at the narrowing space to one side. “Would that change anything?” There was another doorway leading out of the area, a few meters away; almost as close to her as Hören.

  “Of course not.” His eyes glinted like sparks of the same radiance that ran along the knife blade. “There are sins that lie upon your heart, that are beyond forgiving. They can only be purged, like a sickness in your veins.” He raised the bright metal. “That is why you should welcome this release from your life of defilement.”

  She said nothing. For a moment, she braced her hands flat against the bulkhead. He had come near enough for her to smell the acrid sweat that had seeped through his skin.

  Close enough to smell her own blood staining the blade . . .

  Kira leapt shoulder-first as the knife swung toward her, ducking beneath its arc. Diving for the open doorway, she landed on her side, then reached up to hit the control panel. As Hören loomed in the shrinking gap, the thrust of her kick caught him in the abdomen, staggering him backward. The door’s edge sealed shut.

  “Bashir—” She slapped her comm badge. “Initiate explosives sequence now!”

  His voice came through an overhead speaker. “Are you sure?”

  “Goddamn it! Of course I’m sure—do it!” She scrambled to her feet and headed toward the passageway’s end.

  She heard the door sliding open behind her, and Hören’s footsteps. As she glanced over her shoulder, another sound erupted, a deep rumble. The shock wave from the explosion hit, the corridor shaking on all sides, throwing her from her feet. She grabbed hold of a doorway frame and pulled herself upright, bracing herself against the bulkhead. Behind her, she saw Hören on his knees, raising himself with the knife still in his hand.

  Another explosion; the air began to stream past her face. She pushed herself away from the door and ran, as the deck jarred and buckled beneath her.

  He heard the sounds, the low bass notes vibrating through the substation’s frame. Immediately, the alarms went off on the command center’s panels, signaling the loss of perimeter integrity. Bashir punched the controls to dump the reserve oxygen storage and bring on-line the emergency atmospheric generators. His ears popped with the fall in pressure, partly muting the alarm sirens as he opened the doorway into the central corridor.

  There was no time now to worry about Kira; he could only follow his part in what they had planned together. In a few minutes, he had reached the airlock and climbed into the augmented personnel module. The opening narrowed into a thin slit, then disappeared as the metal edges locked into each other.

  With the maneuvering jets set at low thrust, Bashir inched the APM forward. The doorway to the interior of the substation was meters too small for the APM to pass through. He activated the fusion weld torch, the tip of the articulated metal arm turning into a glowing white point of energy. With the largest of the grappling arms, he grabbed hold of the doorway frame, bending it free as the torch cut through the structural member behind.

  He could feel the heat through the segmented windows; that and the seconds ticking past brought sweat trickling down into his eyes. The walls of the airlock shook as another explosion went off, closer this time. He pulled back on the grappling arm’s control, the metal tearing like heavy paper.

  The explosions, the blasts that had surged louder and louder, the impacts throwing her against the bulkheads, had confused her. She had had her route to the airlock figured out and memorized, but it had been knocked from her skull.

  Kira stopped, her lungs straining in the thin atmosphere. The draft had grown stronger, rushing past her ears as more oxygen poured out from the substation’s ruptured seals. The wailing alarm sirens seemed to come from kilometers away.

  She looked toward the end of the corridor and saw a dead end. No, she told herself. To the left at the last branch, not right . . . you’re almost there. . . .

  Turning, she could see past the junction of the main corridor, to the airlock’s doorway. Metal glowed and screeched, as the APM beyond battered its way through the jagged opening. Bashir’s face was just visible inside the machine.

  Go. . . .

  She staggered toward the airlock. The deck rose up and twisted, slamming her shoulder against the bulkhead. She managed to keep her balance, but thought for a moment that the impact had blinded her. She couldn’t see the airlock’s opening anymore; a wave of darkness had risen above her.

  Then she saw the light cut through, the gleam of metal. And knew that he had found her.

  “Kira . . . ”

  Hören could manage no more than a ragged gasp, his own chest heaving as his arm grasped round her shoulders, drawing her to him. The knife came up under her jaw, forcing her head back.

  “I’ve waited . . . ” She could barely hear him through the roaring wind. “For so long . . . ”

  The sound of metal ripping apart, distant as another world; she looked past Hören and saw the APM burst into the passageway, the jagged tooth of the broken doorway frame scraping a line down the armored shape. The jets at the APM’s base flared brighter as it moved through the clearance between the bulkheads.

  Another e
xplosion, from what seemed only a few meters away; the air was pulled from Kira’s mouth as she fell. The blow had torn Hören’s grasp away; he toppled beside her.

  A shape loomed over her. The metal carapace of the APM split open, revealing Bashir at its controls. He reached down and grabbed the collar of her uniform, dragging her onto her feet and toward him. He shouted something, but she couldn’t hear what words came from his mouth.

  With his other hand, Bashir pushed against another control; the APM rolled a few degrees, enough to lift Kira and let her fall inside. She landed heavily against Bashir’s chest.

  “Now, we’re getting out of here—” He punched one of the switches, and the opening’s metal edges moved toward each other.

  Weariness claimed her; she felt herself collapsing, only the confines of the narrow space keeping her upright. She twisted about, watching the gap slide shut. The opening suddenly seemed to disappear, filled by darkness. And a face with maddened eyes.

  His face.

  A hand reached through and caught the front of her uniform, gathering the torn fabric into its fist, dragging her toward him. The edges closed on Hören’s wrist as she braced her hands against the metal.

  Light flared from the end of the corridor, in sync with the force that surged through the substation’s frame. A silent torrent pulled taut the muscles of Hören’s face as the last of the oxygen rushed out, the tatters of cloth around his chest and arms streaming into ragged pennants.

  A warning light blinked on the APM’s panel, as its air supply was sucked keening through the broken seal of the opening. Bashir brought up the thrust of the forward maneuvering jets, backing the APM toward the airlock.

  Hören’s fist stayed locked upon Kira, the white-knuckled fingers curving into claws, the nails sinking through and into the palm. The streaming air drew the rivulets of blood along the tendons of his forearm.

  She grabbed the inside brace of the opening, her fingers catching at a thin metal ridge. Gasping for breath, she added the last reserves of her strength to that of the machine.

  Bone cracked and splintered through flesh. The metal edges ground through the last shreds of tissue. The opening sealed shut as a wet thing loosed its grasp and slid away.

  She had only a last glimpse of Hören, his face contorted beyond rage. With his broken arm hooked around a jet nozzle, he clung to the exterior of the APM, his bloodied stump raised to batter against one of the windows.

  The last explosion hit. The corridor erupted around the machine. Bashir had already worked the APM through the torn entrance of the airlock; the impact of the explosion tumbled it through the chamber . . .

  And out.

  To silence.

  They drifted, the substation slowly turning and growing smaller against the stars.

  The curved space of the APM fit tightly around its two occupants. She couldn’t have pressed any closer to Bashir if she’d wanted to.

  “I know it will be difficult—” He didn’t turn his face toward her, but kept watching as he maneuvered the APM toward the shuttle, “But if you try not to get too excited, I think we have just enough oxygen left to get there.”

  CHAPTER 18

  A SUBSTANTIAL INCREASE in communications traffic was noted.

  The pitch and volume of Gul Tahgla’s shouted words alone would have required an expanded bandwidth. As his voice came out of the overhead speaker, Bashir wished that it would have been possible to view him, as well.

  “What is the meaning of this—”

  Kira handled the comm chores; it was obviously something she had been looking forward to. “I repeat: this is Gamma Quadrant Remote Station, advising that you have entered a sector under Federation control. Please observe all appropriate navigational procedures. I’m sure you’re familiar with them.”

  “Impossible!” The Cardassian’s voice went up another level. “You can make no claim of sovereignty here . . . your substation unit is out of commission. . . .”

  “We seem to be doing all right.” Kira leaned back in her chair. “As you can tell, the minor technical problems we were having with our communications systems have been repaired. I assure you that we have met all the requirements for establishing a claim to this sector. This end of the stable wormhole will be administered by Starfleet, for the shared benefit of all the developed worlds. You are certainly free, as are all other vessels, to make arrangements to travel through. And just to show there are no hard feelings—” She let a smile come into her voice. “We’ll drop any investigation into certain misleading statements of purpose that were made by you prior to leaving DS Nine. After all, we can’t really blame you for trying, can we?” The smile grew even more malicious.

  “This will go to the tribunal!” Gul Tahgla sounded as if he were about to explode from sheer frustrated wrath. “This is an outrage! You have no right—”

  She hit one of the comm panel switches, cutting him off.

  “What do you think their chances are?” Bashir stood at the other side of the shuttle’s pilot area, tinkering with the external sensor readouts.

  “Legally?” Kira shrugged. “They could make a case, depending upon how much they find out about what we’ve done here. But politically . . . ” She shook her head. “The Cardassians aren’t too popular, even with their allies. Any vote would go against them, just so most of the world would still have the access to the wormhole that the Federation has guaranteed.”

  “I wish we could get a look at Gul Tahgla’s vessel right now.” He knew there was no way of accomplishing that, not without revealing their ruse. They had piloted the cargo shuttle in back of the empty substation, hiding themselves from view by the approaching Cardassians. The direction of their comm signal gave the indication that the substation was on-line and inhabited. “I bet it’s really shaking—what with Gul Tahgla bouncing off the walls.”

  She turned her smile toward Bashir. “Maybe we should turn the comm link back on. So we could listen.”

  He had left the others behind, back on the DS9 station. This way, piloting the runabout with no other crew, he had a precious moment of time to himself. It was when he had been alone before that things had happened. Mysteries beyond all comprehension.

  While still on DS9, he had used the station’s subspace link to communicate to Kira and Bashir aboard the cargo shuttle. “I have some news for you,” their commander had spoken from the Ops deck. “The wormhole’s entrance has reappeared in this sector. Preliminary monitoring indicates that it has resumed its previous stability. A relief vessel will reach you shortly.”

  Kira had answered him. “That’s what we were hoping for. About the wormhole, I mean.”

  “I’ll expect a full report on my desk as soon as possible. From both you and Doctor Bashir.” He had allowed himself to make one small comment of praise before breaking the link. “Good work, Major.” He knew that was all that would be necessary.

  Inside the wormhole, he cut the buffered impulse engines to minimum forward thrust. And waited.

  A voice moved inside his head.

  It is the one called Benjamin Sisko. We recognize you.

  He spoke aloud. “I’m flattered.”

  The other one, to whom we showed ourselves . . . he exists somewhere else now?

  “Yes. He and the one who was with him; they’re both safe now.”

  That one was not of time as you are, Benjamin Sisko. Not as wise. But he tried not to harm us. For that, we have made this universe, our flesh, that which you may enter again.

  He nodded. “I suspected as much. You still have my promise about that, about the engines being buffered. You won’t be hurt again.”

  That is a thing of time. The voice spoke gently. You do not know, and we do not know. It slowly began to fade. Go to the ones of your kind, who wait for you.

  For a moment longer, he sat in silence. Then he reached out and brought the engines to full power.

  He had recognized the voice, a memory that the wormhole’s inhabitants had taken and used as thei
r mask.

  His wife’s voice . . .

  Eyes closed, he laid his head back against the seat. He wished they had shown her to him, as well.

  She had cleaned herself up and changed into a fresh uniform. Exhaustion rolled through her muscles. She’d have to do some thinking when she got back to her quarters. There would be time for that now. Time to let the blood slow within her veins, to sleep and let dreams come. Instead of memories. The sickness, the weight of guilt and the past, had been purged from that blood. The dead slept; even Hören. She would give herself that much, as well.

  As Bashir fastened a new bandage on the wound below her rolled-up sleeve, Kira watched him.

  “You know,” she said, “when we get back to DS Nine—”

  He looked up at her. “What?”

  “We can have that drink together then.”

  FB2 document info

  Document ID: 4f1e8c29-4e53-42f2-a83d-02dc0c8de4dd

  Document version: 1.3

  Document creation date: 19 December 2011

  Created using: FictionBook Editor Release 2.6 software

  Document authors :

  About

  This file was generated by Lord KiRon's FB2EPUB converter version 1.1.5.0.

  (This book might contain copyrighted material, author of the converter bears no responsibility for it's usage)

  Этот файл создан при помощи конвертера FB2EPUB версии 1.1.5.0 написанного Lord KiRon.

  (Эта книга может содержать материал который защищен авторским правом, автор конвертера не несет ответственности за его использование)

  http://www.fb2epub.net

  https://code.google.com/p/fb2epub/