Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Ascendance

by David R. George III

  Kira took note of Yevir’s use of the word guest in referring to Raiq. Just a month and a half earlier, it would have been unthinkable. Invaders bent on destruction are rarely invited to stay.

  Kira had brought Raiq back to Deep Space 9 and imprisoned her in the most secure cell on the station. Starfleet promptly preferred a number of charges against her, mostly minor offenses such as criminal trespass and failure to respond to officials, simply so that they could continue to detain her legally. First Minister Asarem directed the Bajoran Militia to conduct an investigation into Raiq’s actions during the invasion, with the aim of charging her with whatever crimes she had committed. Starfleet Command ordered a full and detailed report from Kira.

  Raiq initially spoke with several of the people who visited her. Members of the Ministry of Law traveled from Bajor, both to take her statement and to provide her legal counsel. An officer from Starfleet’s judge advocate general’s office on Empyrion VI also arrived with an offer of representation. Unfamiliar with such procedures, Raiq declined to have anybody speak on her behalf. She understood that she would face judgment and punishment, but such prospects did not appear to concern her. Kira got the distinct impression that Raiq believed she could battle her way out of custody if she chose to do so. The captain worked with Ro Laren to make sure that couldn’t happen.

  As time wore on, Raiq became more reticent in communicating with visitors, other than with Kira, and also with members of the Bajoran clergy, about whom she seemed very curious. She answered the captain’s questions, which primarily focused on the series of events that began with the Ascendant fleet entering the Idran system in the Gamma Quadrant. As far as Kira could tell, Raiq had actually broken few laws. She had not been part of the ten-ship squadron that had fired on the Eav’oq city of Terev’oqu. Similarly, she had not attacked any of the Bajoran vessels that had been sent to meet the Ascendant threat, or even any of the automated weapons platforms. Raiq even prevented Iliana Ghemor from launching the isolytic subspace weapon when first the Cardassian had tried to do so. By the time the Ascendants moved into attack formation and started toward Bajor, Raiq had already decamped the fleet and set course back toward the wormhole. She did fire on a pair of runabouts, Platte and Volga, destroying the former, but with no loss of life.

  The question of what the authorities in the Bajoran and Federation governments should do with Raiq, apparently the last surviving member of her species, became a thorny question. Some believed her actions merited serious punishment. Others pointed to her preventing Ghemor’s initial attempt to launch the metaweapon as a mitigating circumstance, and they suggested that she deserved probation, if not an outright pardon. Some called her a zealot, others a religious exile. Public rage at the Ascendants for their attempted genocide transmuted in some quarters into sympathy for Raiq, who many believed had exhibited great courage in acting against her own people. The fact that she had stopped Ghemor from using the isolytic subspace weapon because she’d hoped to use it for another purpose, and that she’d still wanted to destroy the Bajorans with conventional weapons, got lost during the discourse.

  After Raiq spent two weeks imprisoned on Deep Space 9, the Federation and Starfleet agreed to allow Bajoran officials to take full charge of the matter. Extradition took place at once. Raiq was remanded into Bajoran custody and taken to a maximum-security facility outside Ashalla to await trial. Several high-profile vedeks, including Yevir, visited with her. Some—again, including Yevir—concluded that Raiq was the victim of religious indoctrination, oppressed by a society that did not permit dissenting opinion or even freedom of expression.

  Just before Kira had begun her leave, Asarem Wadeen had accepted the recommendation of the Ministry of Law, reached in concordance with Raiq and Yevir, that the Ascendant be granted probation for her crimes and released into the custody of the Shikina Monastery. The captain agreed that justice would not have been served by incarceration. Kira hoped that Raiq would be able to find peace after an entire life essentially devoted to destruction.

  The captain held up her padd and activated its communications interface, then contacted Yevir. She expected to transmit a message, but then the channel opened and his face appeared on the display. “Vedek Yevir, I didn’t expect to find you available,” Kira said. “I just reviewed your message.”

  “I made myself available tonight, Captain, just in case you chose to contact me,” Yevir said. “I’m glad that you did.”

  “I’ll be happy to talk with Raiq,” Kira said, “although I’m not really sure what either she or you think I can tell her.”

  “It is also unclear to me just what Raiq is looking for,” Yevir said, “and I suspect that it may be just as unclear to her. Regardless, it does seem that you and she have developed a rapport.”

  “I’m not entirely certain why that’s the case,” Kira admitted, “but as I said, I’ll be happy to speak with her. I’m heading back to Deep Space Nine in six days, so I’ll visit the monastery before I do.”

  Yevir looked down, and Kira could see that he had more he wanted to say. She waited to see whether or not he would. When he peered back up, he said, “I’m aware that you are on leave, Captain, one that I have no doubt is well earned.” Kira heard no sarcasm or dismissal in the vedek’s tone. Though she and Yevir had opposed each other in the matter of the Ohalavaru texts, they had also had contact with each other since, and in every instance, they had both conducted themselves on a professional level. “I am therefore asking you this knowing that it is an imposition, but would it be possible for you to speak to Raiq tonight?”

  Kira looked away from her padd and over at the fire. She wondered if the dancing flames showed on her face. She did not actually want to talk with Raiq just then—not because she didn’t want to interrupt her time away from DS9, but because the Ascendant’s circumstances and her questions somehow touched too closely on some of the uncertainty that she had been feeling. The captain decided, though, that she did not want her own struggles to interfere with Raiq’s attempts to make sense of recent events and beyond.

  “Very well,” Kira said. “When you and I finish speaking, I will contact her.”

  “I wonder,” Yevir said, “would you mind if we transported you from your location to the Shikina Monastery? I believe that your communication will be more effective if it takes place in person.”

  Before she could stop herself, Kira sighed. She did not really mind the idea, but she felt too tired to have to deal with Yevir or anybody else at the monastery. Still, she agreed with the vedek about the superiority of a face-to-face conversation, rather than one conducted over a padd. “Why don’t you beam Raiq to my location?”

  “I . . . don’t know, Captain,” Yevir said. “While we are not legally responsible for Raiq, it is our tacit understanding with the first minister and the minister of law that we are to supervise her for as long as she remains on Bajor.”

  “The Shikina Monastery is hardly a stronghold,” Kira said. “Do you honestly believe that you could keep Raiq there if she chose to leave?”

  “No, of course not,” Yevir said.

  “Then if she wants to talk to me tonight, transport her here.”

  The vedek took a moment to respond, but he eventually acquiesced. Several minutes later, he contacted Kira again to say that Raiq did indeed want to visit her. Shortly after that, the Ascendant materialized in a hail of shimmering white light.

  Raiq greeted the captain cautiously. The two hadn’t seen each other in some time, and the Ascendant appeared to need to ease into renewing their acquaintance. Kira stood up and offered Raiq the pad on which she’d been sitting, then she retrieved her carryall and emptied it inside her tent. She laid out the bag on the ground for herself.

  “Vedek Yevir tells me that you’ve been studying the Bajoran holy texts,” the captain said as she sat down, bringing her knees up and wrapping her arms around them. Raiq followed suit, lowering herself onto her haunches. Her exoskeleton mirrored the red of the campfire, making he
r look as though flames engulfed her.

  “Yes.” Kira waited, but Raiq seemed disinclined to say more.

  “What have you read?”

  “The Prophecies of Trakor, When the Prophets Cried, and Shines the Celestial Temple,” Raiq said.

  “Those are some hefty tomes,” Kira said. “Have you formed any opinions?”

  “It is . . . difficult.” Kira nodded, realizing how uncomfortable it must have been for an individual of such obviously strong beliefs—ingrained beliefs—to expose herself to the teachings of another religion. “There are many . . .” Raiq began, but her musical voice quieted before she finished her thought.

  “Many differences?” Kira prompted.

  Raiq did not respond, and the captain worried that she might have somehow offended her. Kira waited a moment, then opened her mouth to apologize. Before she could, Raiq said, “No. No, not differences. There are many . . . similarities.”

  The declaration surprised Kira, just as it had apparently surprised Raiq. The captain didn’t know much about Raiq’s religion beyond the imperative to eradicate both those who venerated false gods, and those who dared to worship the Ascendants’ gods, whom they called either the True or the Unnameable. That alone made it hard to imagine that Raiq’s faith could have much in common with Kira’s. “How are they similar?” she asked.

  “In myriad small ways, but most disturbingly in some areas of major significance,” Raiq said. “What you call the Celestial Temple undoubtedly equates to the Fortress of the True. Your nine Tears of the Prophets parallel the nine Eyes of Fire. And the descriptions of your gods, the nature of them, their mysterious ways . . . it is plain to me that the Prophets are in reality the Unnameable.”

  The conclusion dismayed Kira. “Then you believe what Iliana Ghemor . . . what the Fire . . . told you,” she said. “That my people are heretics, that we falsely worship your gods.” Does that mean she believes it is her duty to wipe out the Bajoran people?

  Raiq bolted to her feet, and for just an instant, Kira thought the Ascendant might attack her. But then she turned and strode away, past the campfire and to the edge of the circle it illuminated. “It is that simple no longer,” she said. “For my entire life, and for millennia before, it was an uncomplicated equation: Continue the Quest. Search for the Fortress. Along the way, rid the universe of heretics. Come the End Time, follow the Fire on the Path to the Final Ascension. Enter the Fortress, burn beneath the gaze of the True, and for the worthy among the Knights, join with our gods.”

  Kira didn’t know what in particular troubled Raiq, and she didn’t know what to say or what to ask. Instead, she waited, and at last, Raiq walked back and faced her across the campfire. “But the Final Ascension never took place,” she said, spitting the words as though they were poison in her mouth. “If the Celestial Temple is the Fortress, then when we first entered it, why didn’t we burn beneath the gaze of the True? Why were we not judged? And if the Celestial Temple is not the Fortress, if the Prophets are not the True, then your people are not the heretics the Fire claimed them to be. You worship false gods, but you do not falsely worship the Unnameable. Your destruction would not have been worthy of a final sacrament. The Fire . . .” Raiq raised both hands to the sides of her head, as though trying to keep it from exploding.

  “The Fire lied to you,” Kira said as gently as she could. Even though all of the Ascendants but Raiq had perished, the captain still wanted to disabuse her of the notion that the Bajoran people deserved to die.

  Raiq dropped her hands to her sides. “It seems obvious to me now that the one who led us to the Fortress . . . or to the Celestial Temple . . . was not actually the Fire.”

  But she was, Kira thought. Iliana Ghemor was the Fire. The Prophets declared her so. But she did not say that to Raiq. Because if Ghemor was the Fire, and she was meant to lead the Ascendants here . . . what did that mean?

  Raiq looked up, as if to see the stars, but when Kira lifted her gaze as well, she could see no patch of sky through the forest canopy. “We followed an imposter,” Raiq said. “We allowed ourselves to be pulled from the Quest . . . and now I am the only one left.”

  “What do you intend to do?”

  Raiq peered over at Kira with a puzzled look. “I am doing it,” she said. “I am searching for the meaning in what has happened. I must discover how I have erred so that I can move forward, so that I can reinitiate the Quest.”

  The level of Raiq’s commitment to her faith impressed Kira. Despite the vast differences between Bajoran and Ascendant, and what they each believed—no matter whatever correspondence there might be between the two creeds—the captain related to the strength of Raiq’s piety. In following their faith, all but one of the Ascendants had perished, and yet the sole survivor sought to understand where she and her people had gone wrong so that she could recommit herself to her beliefs. Kira wanted to help her, wanted to guide her along her spiritual path, but—

  But how can I? she wondered. I need guidance in my own life. Kira felt exhausted from years and years of battle, but she actually thought that the bulk of her fatigue stemmed from her inadequacy in playing the role the Prophets had intended for her. She did not believe herself worthy of the designation “the hand of the Prophets.”

  I have to do something, she thought. I must earn the place the Prophets have set for me.

  Kira realized that she would need to recommit herself to her faith. It would require effort—not just praying, not just reading the canon, not just attending temple services. It would necessarily entail study and exploration, of both her religion and her own inner life. It would take time. Maybe that meant that she would have to step away from command, or perhaps from military service entirely. At that moment, Kira didn’t know just how she would change her circumstances, only that she had to do so.

  She gazed at Raiq, into her large golden eyes, which seemed even in stillness to be constantly, desperately searching for something. Kira could imagine the same look in her own eyes. “Maybe,” she told Raiq, “we can look for what we each need, together.”

  II

  Transit

  December 2385

  In the simulated morning aboard Deep Space 9, Captain Ro Laren tapped the chime control next to the door, then stepped back to stand beside Pralon Onala. A pair of Bajoran Militia officers attended them. The two, a woman and a man, functioned as security for the spiritual leader.

  The kai had arrived on DS9 the previous night, in response to an invitation from Ro to tour the new starbase, which had begun full operation only a few months earlier. Pralon had not announced her visit ahead of time, even to the captain. In part, that had been because Ro’s offer to show the kai around Deep Space 9 had been a pretext, and the kai understood that. In reality, the captain wanted to speak to Pralon about Altek Dans, the man who had emerged from the wormhole on an Orb, apparently carried out of Bajoran history. Because of recent events—the assassination of the UFP president, the initial arrest of the first minister’s chief of staff for the crime, and then the revelation that Ishan Anjar, Bajor’s representative on the Federation Council, had conspired to kill Nan Bacco and succeed her—Asarem Wadeen and her government had been reluctant to deal with Altek’s situation.

  The door panel glided open. Altek stood just inside, tall and dressed in fashionable togs—black slacks and a sleek, two-toned crimson shirt—looking more like he had just stepped out of a modern clothier’s than out of the past. His short, dark hair complemented his handsome, sculpted, clean-shaven face. Since his arrival, his tanned complexion had faded a shade or two.

  “Captain Ro,” he said with a wide, winning smile. When Altek had decided that he wanted to go home to Bajor, his request had essentially met with silence from the Bajoran government. It had been Ro’s idea to enlist the aid of the clergy, and Vedek Brandis Tarn had in turn suggested inviting the kai to the starbase. When Pralon had arrived under the guise of visiting DS9 for the first time, the captain had informed Altek that the kai would indeed me
et with him.

  “Doctor Altek,” Ro said, and she made formal introductions.

  “Won’t you please come in?” Altek asked, stepping aside and motioning into the living area of the guest quarters he had been assigned.

  “Thank you,” Pralon said, entering the tasteful but generically decorated cabin. Ro followed her inside, while the Militia officers took up positions in the corridor, on either side of the door.

  “May I offer you some refreshments?” Altek asked. He moved past Ro and the kai to a seating area, where a small sofa and two overstuffed chairs surrounded a low, circular glass table.

  “A cup of deka tea, thank you,” Pralon said.

  Altek chuckled as he headed toward the replicator on the far side of the compartment. “I’ve never heard of that,” he said, “but I’m sure that this machine has.”

  “Why don’t you sit down with the kai and I’ll get the tea,” Ro suggested. “What would you like?”

  “I suppose I’ll try some of the tea,” Altek said. “After all, if I want to return to Bajor, I should get accustomed to what we’re eating and drinking these days.” The effort to casually bring up his desire to go back to Bajor, and to count himself as one of its people, struck the captain as clumsy. It also seemed out of character for the socially adept doctor. Ro guessed that he must be nervous.

  Ro walked over to the replicator and ordered three cups of deka tea, while Pralon sat down on the sofa, and Altek took a chair across from her. “Where did you grow up on Bajor?” the kai asked, deftly mixing pleasantries with the purpose of her visit.