Star Trek Terok Nor 01: Day of the Vipers

by James Swallow

  None of the men spoke as they watched the Cardassian ship commit murder; first the biogenic weapons were transported aboard the Tzenkethi craft, then the same horrific tactic employed on the Glyhrond and the Clarion.

  Darrah’s blood rumbled in his ears, and for a moment he felt as if he was going to throw up.

  They saw the deaths unfold. “Get the shields back up now!”

  “Bioweapons…They’re beaming them in all over the ship! Deflector shields are inoperative!”

  “What did they do?” Syjin gasped. “What did they do?”

  “They killed them all,” Darrah said in a low voice, leaden with disgust and revulsion. Gar, his face a mask of static shock, reached out to stop the playback, but Darrah shook his head. “No. There’s more. We owe it to them to hear everything.” On the screen, among the dead and the dying, Lonnic threw herself over to the communications console and tried to speak.

  Darrah saw a change come over her face, a terrible acceptance that her end was only moments away. She stiffened. “This is Lonnic Tomo aboard the Bajoran Space Guard warship Clarion,” she began. “We are under attack by Cardassian vessels. They have already…killed the crew of the Glyhrond and a Tzenkethi marauder, and—”

  With that, she died and slumped to the decking. The replay went on, showing no movement, recording only silence.

  “That’s not what was broadcast,” Syjin grated. “The last message from the fleet they played on the newsfeeds, after they went missing, it was different…They changed it!”

  Darrah nodded. “To hide the Cardassian involvement. To stop us from knowing who really used that marauder to attack us five years ago.”

  Gar blinked. “What are you suggesting?”

  The lawman glared at the priest. “I’m not suggesting anything! You saw the same thing we did, Osen! There never was a Tzenkethi threat! The Cardassians engineered a lie for us to fall for, and we did….” He shook his head. “Prophets save us, but we did.”

  “Clearly, this is a most serious revelation,” Gar spoke carefully, moderating his words. “But we can’t afford to act emotionally. We must be rational.”

  “Rational?” Syjin bleated. “How can you be so cold-blooded?”

  “I am not!” Gar retorted hotly. “But what do you propose to do with this information? Where will you take it? What if it is the lie, something created by the Tzenkethi or the Federation to discredit—”

  Darrah silenced him with a gesture, ripping the cables out of the connector sockets and stuffing the memory core into the bag again. “You’re right. He’s right. We can’t do anything with this. We have to give it to someone who can use it, keep it safe.”

  “There are deep reliquaries beneath the Kendra Monastery,” Gar said quickly. “Many places where it could be concealed.”

  Syjin shook his head. “We can’t hide this! We have to use it!”

  “The Chamber of Ministers in Ashalla,” said Darrah.

  “We take it to them. Show them all what we have seen. They won’t be able to deny it, Lale and Kubus and all the other Union sympathizers.”

  “How will you get in?” demanded Gar.

  Darrah gathered up the bag. “Jas Holza is there. I can get to him.”

  Gar called after them. “Jas? He’s nothing! He won’t lift a finger to go against the majority!”

  “He will hear me out,” Darrah replied. “For Lonnic’s sake, I know he will listen.”

  24

  Syjin angled the police flyer into the sky and pushed the throttle to maximum. A thin rain was starting to fall, and it streamed off the canopy as the pilot guided them upward. “I’ll get over the clouds, get some altitude.”

  Darrah watched Korto fade away as the thin white haze enveloped them. In a way, he was willing it to happen, for the city to be covered so that he wouldn’t have to see the blemishes of fires and rolling chaos in the streets. There was a riot of garbled communications overlapping across the Militia bandwidths. Darrah skipped down the channels and found nothing conclusive; only one fractured, static-laced report stood out. “Did you hear that?” he asked.

  Syjin shook his head. “Something about Cardassians.” Sunlight flooded the cockpit as they burst out of the cloud layer.

  “Troops. I thought I heard him say ‘Cardassian troops.’” The inspector rubbed his face with his hand. “It’s starting.”

  “We’ll make it to Ashalla,” Syjin assured him. “We’ve got just enough fuel for the trip.”

  Both men fell silent. Minutes passed and neither uttered a word, the two friends looking inward, trying to take stock of the terrible things they had learned. Finally, Syjin let out a sigh. “Mace?” When Darrah didn’t answer, the other man gave him a sideways look. “Mace? Look…I have to say this, because it’s eating me up inside.”

  “Say what?”

  “Those logs…I just can’t help thinking about what Gar said.”

  The priest had decided to remain in Korto; he had promised to get to Vedek Arin and pass on the revelation from the Clarion’s data core to the senior cleric. Darrah eyed the pilot. “What are you talking about? You saw Lonnic, you saw the bioweapons! You saw it, for fire’s sake! With your own eyes.”

  “Did I?” Syjin replied. “I mean, I just can’t help thinking, what if that was a fake? Something engineered by the Circle or the Federation or the Tzenkethi, who knows? What if it was left there and I was meant to find it? Maybe…maybe Grek led me there deliberately! He could be in on it.”

  “No,” Darrah insisted. “Those log recorders are tamper-proof. A subspace signal, that can be manipulated, but that memory core is unalterable. That playback, that was what happened.”

  “Can you be sure of that?” Syjin insisted. “Do you really believe that I found that unit because the Prophets wanted me to?” He snorted. “I haven’t seen the inside of a temple since I was a boy! I’m hardly the best choice!”

  Darrah turned in his seat. “It doesn’t matter how or why! Why can’t you accept the evidence of your own eyes?”

  “Why can’t you deny it?” came the reply. “You’re the lawman, you’re the one who distrusts everything. It could be fake! How is that idea any less likely than yours, that the Cardassians have been fomenting a conspiracy with men in our own government?”

  “Because I’m certain!” Darrah roared. “More certain than I have been about anything in my life!” He glared at the pilot. “I’ve seen more lies than any man should…and I know the truth when I find it.”

  Syjin sagged against his flight restraints. “I hope you’re right. Because if you’re wrong, we’ve both thrown our lives away.”

  Darrah shook his head and rested his hand on the pack. “We get this to Jas, and he’ll make sure that Coldri and the others see the recording.”

  “Jas Holza,” said Syjin coldly. “Everyone knows he’s weak. What makes you think you can trust him not to fold and give it to Kubus or the spoonheads?”

  Darrah felt the shape of the device beneath his fingertips. “He won’t, he needs this. He needs what it represents. A chance to redeem himself.”

  An alert signal blared, lighting a proximity warning glyph on the console. Syjin jerked as if he had been struck. “We’ve got company. An orbital cutter, dropping down from the ionosphere.”

  Darrah looked out the window. He could make out a shape above, a dark dart with a thin white contrail. “Cardassian?”

  “What do you think?” the pilot said snidely.

  “How did they find us?” Darrah demanded.

  “Right now, that doesn’t matter—” Syjin’s words turned into a yelp of pain as a searing white bar of light crossed the nose of the police flyer. The aircraft bucked and groaned as a string of emergency lights flashed on. “Warning shot?”

  “No.” Darrah was grim. “His aim was off. He’s too eager. If he’d waited a second longer, we’d be atoms.”

  Syjin gripped the control yoke and wrenched it back and forth. The blue sky beyond the canopy spun lazily, gravity tugging at
them. “They cooked off the steering canards on the nose,” he reported through gritted teeth. “We’re losing height.” Another beam flashed through the portside windows, and the flyer resonated as if it had been struck by a huge hammer. Syjin’s console became a field of red warnings. “Ah,” he muttered. “My mistake. We’re not losing height. We’re crashing.” The nose of the aircraft began an inexorable drop, falling below the horizon.

  “Can you put us down safely?” Darrah called.

  The pilot released his straps, tossing them aside. “Not a chance. He’s coming back for another pass. We’ll be scrap iron before we hit the cloud layer.”

  “What are we going to do?”

  Syjin reached out and grabbed the pack from him.

  “Well, I’m going to do this.” The pilot’s hand ducked into his jacket, and Darrah heard an answering beep; then with a glitter of light he dematerialized, leaving the lawman alone in the plummeting flyer.

  He exploded with rage and shouted at the sky. “Syjin, you son of a whore, don’t leave me to die!” Darrah struggled out of his straps, ignoring the sun-flash off the Cardassian cutter as it turned to bring its guns to bear. He threw himself toward the hatch. “I’ll haunt you the rest of your living days, you cowardly little—”

  Syjin’s face split with a grin as the column of golden radiance grew dense and formed into the shape of a man. Darrah stumbled forward out of the transporter alcove, saw him, and yelled. “Bastard!”

  The punch came wild and hit the pilot in the jaw, throwing him to the deck. His head rang like a struck gong and he spat. “That’s a fine way to thank a man who just saved your life!”

  Darrah shook off his moment of disorientation, glancing around the cramped interior space. “Where are we?”

  “My ship,” said Syjin, gingerly probing the side of his jaw. “In orbit. Sorry about giving you a fright back there, but my transporter’s a basic model. It can’t manage more than one person at a time. If I’d brought us both up at once, there’s no telling what might have happened.” He sighed. “Honestly, I’m surprised the damn thing worked. Every time I use it I think I’m going to end up scattered to the solar winds.”

  Darrah grabbed the strap of the pack and Syjin caught the other end; they engaged in a brief tug-of-war. “Let go,” snapped the lawman. “Reset the coordinates for Ashalla and beam me down.”

  The pilot couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He sighed. Police officers. They gave new meaning to the word “dogged.” “Did you miss all the shooting, exploding, crashing stuff just now?” Syjin pulled at the pack. “Think, Mace, think! They knew where to find us! They must be tracking you, or me, or this thing! If they were waiting for us in the air, don’t you think they might be waiting for you in Ashalla as well? You won’t get within a hecapate of the Chamber of Ministers.” He saw the comprehension on the other man’s face, and Darrah let go of the bag.

  “If we can’t get to Jas, then we’re stymied.” Darrah crossed to the command deck and sat in the copilot’s chair.

  “I’m willing to bet there’s an alert going out for us right this minute.” He snorted. “Not that there’s anyone paying attention.”

  Syjin nodded. “In this chaos they’ll be able to disappear us, and no one will ever know.” He took his chair, commencing the ship’s warm-up sequence. “We show our faces on Bajor, we’re dead men. We have to get away.” The pilot blew out a breath. “There’s that free ride to Valo I promised you. Offer’s still valid.”

  But Darrah shook his head, drawing his tricorder from his belt. “No. I’ve got a better idea.”

  It took all of Dukat’s self-control not to throw the padd in the face of Glinn Orloc, right there on the bridge of the Vandir. His carefully directed plans to seek out and capture the Starfleet spies had disintegrated around him at the final moment, and now there was nothing. No leads, not a single direction to take that might turn him back on their trail. After beaming back from Korto empty-handed, he ignored Kell’s increasingly strident communiqués from Derna and took the Vandir out beyond Bajor’s orbit, opening up the sensors to search for the cloaked ship; but the zone around the planet was dirty with energy signatures from the large, slow troopships moving down from the lunar base, and the other cruisers that were taking up positions over the major cities, in case a punitive bombardment was needed to push along the collapse. Any ion trail or energy residue would be lost in the clutter, like one single voice subsumed inside the rattle of a hurricane.

  Bajor was falling, graceless and slow, and Skrain Dukat should have been there to see it. Instead, he was sifting through empty space searching for a ship that had already escaped.

  “Nothing,” he growled, referring to the contents of Orloc’s report. “The finest vessel the Union has to offer, and we can find nothing?” He glared at Tunol, demanding an answer when he knew there was none she could give; but the officer had a wary look on her face, as if she had something to tell him that would irritate him further.

  “Speak, Dal!” He barked. “If you have something to say, spit it out!”

  She licked her lips. “Incoming signal, sir. Source is, ah, encrypted.”

  “Ico,” he spat, his ire rising a notch. “Put the witch on.” The woman’s face shimmered into being on the viewscreen. Her ever-present, insufferable smile was in place. Dukat wondered how much it would take to dislodge that infuriating mien, and privately hoped that one day he would have the chance to find out. He spoke before she had a chance to open her mouth. “What do you want?” demanded the gul. “I’m still trying to clean up your mess.”

  Ico took the barb in good humor and dismissed it. “This is becoming a very interesting day, Dukat,” she said conversationally. “Opportunities, some taken, some missed. And now something unusual.” The woman smiled, as if in reference to some private joke. “Acts of the past return to haunt us. Like Ajir.”

  He stiffened at the mention of the star system. “Get to the point, if you can. Or is there something in the Obsidian Order’s training that makes all its lackeys pedantic and verbose?”

  Ico’s pallid lips thinned. “Such effrontery. And after I contacted you with a gift. How rude you are.”

  Dukat turned away. “This is another waste of my time. Tunol, cut the channel.”

  “That would be a grave mistake,” Ico grated, and for the first time there was annoyance in her tone.

  Dukat halted his first officer with a wave of the hand, and inclined his head, waiting.

  When Ico spoke again, all the usual artifice in her tone was gone. “It seems you were not as thorough at Ajir as you reported, Dukat. Materials from the Bajoran ships survived their destruction, including a memory core. I don’t believe I need to express the concern that will result if the data on that device is broadcast.”

  Dukat’s muscles bunched under the sleeves of his armored tunic. A dozen questions immediately assailed him, but the most important pushed through to the front of his thoughts. “Where?”

  “I believe it is aboard a Bajoran light freighter running under this transponder ident.” A code string bloomed in the corner of the screen, and Tunol set to work on it. “They’re doubtless going to make an attempt to flee the system. Perhaps, Gul, you might be able to redeem yourself by catching this one.”

  “How did you come across this information?” he demanded. “What’s your source, Ico?”

  She didn’t answer him. “It would be unwise for you to fail twice in one day, Dukat.” The viewscreen went dark.

  He grimaced and looked away. None of the junior officers would meet his gaze.

  “Sir?” Tunol beckoned him from the sensor console.

  “The transponder code checks out. A ship with that ident is registered at Korto starport. Traffic Control logs it as entering Bajoran space several hours ago.”

  “Where is it now?”

  She worked the panel, bringing up a tactical plot of the B’hava’el system. A white square flashed, moving slowly out from the orbit of Bajor along the plane of the
ecliptic.

  “Here. At full impulse, we can be on them in ten metrics.”

  “I grow tired of being at her beck and call,” Dukat said in a low voice. “She’s trying to diminish me in the eyes of my crew.”

  Tunol inclined her head. “With respect, sir, the only order valued by the crew of the Vandir is that which comes from you.”

  Dukat allowed a small smile. “Then my order is given. Obliterate that ship.”

  Darrah Mace was careful to double-and then triple-check the data as he input the code string into the communications grid. He glanced at the tricorder again, selecting the correct subspace frequency.

  “If you’re thinking about wide-banding that recording, you can forget it,” Syjin informed him. “This old bird doesn’t have that kind of capability.”

  “I’m not doing that,” he replied. “I’m…I’m calling in a debt.”

  “That’s a Federation code,” said the pilot, with alarm. “Is there something you’re not telling me, Mace?”

  “Plenty,” Darrah replied, “so just concentrate on the flying. When can we go to warp?”

  “Soon,” came the answer. “Just after we clear the belt.” The words were barely out of his mouth when an alert chimed on Syjin’s panel. He groaned. “Didn’t we just do this once already?”

  “Cardassians!” Darrah saw the sensor screen react. “A Galor-class cruiser, closing fast. We’re no match for a ship of that tonnage.”

  “No, really?” Syjin mocked. “Do you think?”

  “It’s the Vandir,” noted the lawman. “Huh. That’s Gul Dukat’s command.”

  “A friend of yours?”

  Darrah shook his head. “Not even close.”

  Syjin sneered. “Well, I make it a rule never to have more than one ship blown out from under me on a given day.” He poured more power to the impulse drive, and the ship surged forward. “Let’s play a game.”

  Out beyond the canopy, Darrah saw a wall of glittering dust racing toward them: the Denorios Belt, a ring of charged energetic plasma that existed out beyond the orbit of Bajor. “What are you doing?” he asked, in the most reasonable tone he could manage. “I know I’m not a starship pilot like you, but isn’t the belt, to put it mildly, extremely dangerous?”