Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Ascendance

by David R. George III

  “That’s the shape-shifter?” the security chief asked.

  “That’s Odo, yes,” Gellish said.

  “I saw a recording of the creature attacking him,” Selten said. “It looked as though his body . . . his form . . . spattered against a bulkhead.”

  “I watched the recording, too,” Gellish said. “Very disturbing.”

  “Is he dead?”

  “Possibly,” the doctor said, and then he shook his head. “Probably, I think, but there’s just no way to tell at the moment. Odo’s body did spatter, and the morphogenic particles it’s composed of became noncontiguous, striking the bulkhead and the deck at different points. But as the particles on the bulkhead slid down, they pooled together with those on the deck, which could suggest some sort of autonomic reflex. We collected all of it and brought it here, but since then, it’s lost its lustrous color, which could be a marker of injury, sickness, or death.” Gellish shook his head again. “I’m afraid we just don’t know enough about the physiology of shape-shifters to reach a definite conclusion.”

  “All right, Doctor,” Selten said. “Keep me informed.”

  “Of course.”

  The security chief made his way back through the infirmary and headed for the turbolift. He would return to the upper level of the installation so that he could check the external sensors. He wanted to know where in the Larrisint system the creature had gone, and whether or not it still posed a danger to Newton Outpost.

  * * *

  Ro sat down on the small sofa in Altek’s quarters while he went to the replicator. “What can I get you, Captain?” he asked.

  Ro thought about having a glass of springwine, or perhaps even something harder, but she still had work to do that night. She had spent the latter part of the morning and most of the afternoon taking Kai Pralon on a tour of the starbase. After she and her officers hosted the kai and her party to a dinner—an affair ably catered by Quark—she decided to accept Pralon’s offer to attend evening services at the Bajoran temple. She did so mostly to curry goodwill with the kai regarding Altek’s situation, but she had other reasons as well. Ro had not been to services in some time, and she discovered that she had a desire to go. She also thought that it would please Altek.

  “Nothing for me, thank you,” Ro said. “I have to head to my office soon. I still have a report to prepare tonight and two late meetings.” The tasks all involved the Ohalavaru extremists who had attacked Endalla with explosives in order to expose a large subterranean structure. They claimed the complex construction to be a falsework the Prophets utilized to initially anchor the wormhole in the Alpha Quadrant, and around which they built the moon in order to conceal it. Ro would meet with her security chief, Lieutenant Commander Jefferson Blackmer, so that he could update her on any additional information he and his staff had uncovered on their Ohalavaru prisoners, who would shortly be extradited to Bajor. She would then consult with First Minister Asarem Wadeen regarding the official actions her government would take on the matter, and the timing of them. After that, she had to ready a status report for Starfleet Command.

  And I should check on Desca, the captain thought. The previous night, Ro’s first officer, Colonel Cenn Desca, had publicly—and drunkenly—assailed Kai Pralon, calling her a liar and the Bajoran religion a hoax. The kai had taken the incident in stride, and despite the awkwardness of having one of the starbase’s senior officers involved in such an embarrassing episode, Ro thought that any negative effects would prove short-lived. She had a much greater concern for Cenn on a personal level. His faith, which played a significant role in his life, had been shaken by the Ohalavaru contentions. For that reason, she had relieved him of duty for a few days, so that he could concentrate on coping with his emotions.

  From over by the replicator, Altek said, “You are tireless, Captain.”

  Ro laughed. “Hardly,” she said. “I’m actually exhausted, but we all have our duties to perform.”

  “Your crew is fortunate to have such a dedicated leader.” Altek ordered an Altair water from the replicator, which appeared in a tall glass.

  As he walked over toward the sitting area in his guest quarters, Ro said, “For somebody born before Bajor ever made contact with aliens, you’ve developed cosmopolitan tastes pretty quickly.”

  Altek held up his glass as though in a toast. “It’s a whole new universe for me,” he said. “I might as well experience it.”

  “I also notice that you’ve taken well to the replicator.”

  Altek set his glass down on the low circular table, then sat down, not across from Ro, but beside her on the small sofa. “It’s a remarkable device,” he said, pointing over at the replicator. “Astonishing, really. It seems like such an incredibly useful tool, not just technologically, but socially. When you can take any raw material—and the universe certainly contains a lot of otherwise-useless matter—and you can fashion it into the necessities of life, what need is there for want? And once you can provide everybody with food and clothing and a place to live, it frees society to pursue loftier goals: art, science, exploration. It should obviate the justifications for war.”

  “You’d be surprised,” Ro said, unable to prevent herself from thinking about what had happened to President Bacco and what that had nearly wrought: another war with the Tzenkethi, and maybe even with the whole of the Typhon Pact. “But you’re right. The advent of the replicator helped the Federation eliminate poverty and homelessness, and to advance medicine considerably.” She thought back to the UFP survey courses she’d taken at the Academy, one of which had focused on the impact of technology on modern life. “In many ways, the development of the replicator gave societies the chance for their cultural morality to progress.”

  Altek smiled at her. “Thank you, Professor Ro.”

  The captain laughed again. “I had a hard enough time making it to class as a student,” she said. “If I was the teacher, I’d probably never go.”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Altek said. “You strike me as somebody who’d make a fine educator.”

  “I think you need to get to know me better before saying something like that.”

  Altek’s lips curled up slightly on one side, a small, lopsided smile that had the effect of stripping away ten or more of his forty-plus years. “I hope to.”

  The romantic implication startled Ro. She had spent a great deal of time with Altek during his months on the starbase—more and more as time had worn on—but she’d attributed that to her responsibility to help him acclimate to his new surroundings, meaning not just to DS9, but to the twenty-fourth-century Milky Way. They were contemporaries in terms of age, and she could not deny that she found him attractive, but she spent most of her days, and even many of her nights, working to fulfill her responsibilities as the commanding officer of an enormous starbase. What little time she put aside for romance, she shared with Quark.

  Except he and I have hardly seen each other since the new Deep Space Nine became fully operational, she realized.

  When Ro didn’t say anything, the moment threatened to become awkward, but Altek quickly moved past his comment. “Listen,” he said, “I want to thank you for all you’ve done for me.”

  “It’s my duty,” Ro said, but she heard the curtness in her voice, which ignored the very real affection she had come to feel for Altek. “It’s also been my pleasure,” she added. “I know what it’s like to feel like an outsider, so I’m happy that I could help.”

  “I’m also grateful for your advice to enlist the aid of the clergy,” Altek said. “I really believe that Kai Pralon will help me get back to Bajor, whether it’s tomorrow or sometime further in the future.”

  “I think so, too,” Ro said. “I’ve always found her to be an honest person, dedicated to doing the right thing, no matter how difficult it might be. I’m confident that she’ll make sure you’re permitted to return to Bajor.”

  “Apart from all of that, I also enjoyed meeting her.”

  “She’s very charismat
ic, and a strong leader for the faithful, I think.” Ro had not cared much for her predecessor, Winn Adami, nor for the previous kai, Opaka Sulan. Winn had always seemed too political and too self-interested, and Opaka too ungainly as a public figure. Pralon Onala carried herself with assurance but not ego, a shrewd leader aware of all the machinations of those around her, who always acted for the benefit of those she served.

  “I also want to thank you for attending services this evening,” Altek said. “I know you don’t believe, so I’m assuming you did it to avoid offending the kai while she was here to consider my request.”

  “You’re welcome,” Ro said, “but the truth is that I didn’t do it for you. Not entirely for you, anyway. I didn’t decline the kai’s invitation in the first place because I didn’t want to insult her, but when I thought about it, I realized that I did want to go—not just for the kai or for you, but for myself.”

  “I’m glad, but why?” Altek asked. “If you’re a non­­believer, why would you want to go to the temple?”

  “I’ve never been comfortable with labeling myself,” Ro said. “I used to call myself a nonbeliever, and I wore an earring on my left ear to let every Bajoran I met know that. I stopped doing that a few years ago when I realized that it didn’t matter what words I used to describe myself, or that others used to describe me.”

  “It only matters what’s in here,” Altek said, pressing the flat of his hand to his chest.

  “Exactly,” Ro said, gratified that Altek understood her. “My views are also in flux. Some things have happened lately that have caused me to question my disbelief.” Where Cenn Desca had taken to heart the declarations of the Ohalavaru that the Endalla falsework demonstrated the mortal nature of the Prophets, Ro’s opinions had moved in the opposite direction. Nothing about the discovery of the falsework or the claims of the Ohalu extremists had come out yet, though, and so the captain could not discuss it with Altek.

  “I have to say, it pleases me to hear that,” Altek said. “I felt comforted this evening in the temple. I’d like to think that you could feel that, too.”

  “It’s not as though I haven’t attended religious services in my life,” Ro said. “My father was devout, and he taught me. Later, my uncle sent me to assist the local vedek at the temple, but . . . I became very rebellious around that time, so it didn’t last long.” Ro thought back to her childhood and her teen years, to a mother too depressed by the death of her husband to raise their only daughter. The captain recalled her uncle Vanka with more fondness than she’d felt for him when he’d selflessly taken her in. She always believed that she’d been forced to grow up too quickly—as so many children of the Occupation had.

  “Anyway,” Ro went on, “I remembered the sense of community I often experienced when I went to the temple. I just decided that I wanted to feel that again.”

  “I’d think you’d get that from being the leader of such a large crew,” Altek said.

  “Oh, I do,” Ro quickly agreed. “But there’s so much diversity in Starfleet—in all the Federation—not to mention in the itinerant guest population we have on the starbase. All of which is a good thing, but sometimes it’s nice to be among people who share your heritage.”

  “I can understand that,” Altek said. “Especially now that there’s nobody I have a common history with.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “No, it’s all right,” Altek told her. “I wasn’t complaining . . . well, not much, anyway. But I am becoming accustomed to life in the future.” As though to prove his assertion, he reached for his glass of Altair water and took a long pull.

  “I think I might finally be getting used to it, too,” Ro said. She chuckled, and Altek joined her.

  “You know, believe it or not, if the kai is able to clear a path for me to Bajor, it’s going to be hard for me to leave the station. I’ve really grown to like it here.” He reached over to the table to set down his glass, and when he reset himself on the sofa, he had gotten much closer to Ro. Before she knew it, he leaned in and pressed his lips to hers.

  Ro pulled back, surprised. She gazed into Altek’s eyes, unsure how to react. She felt his desire—passionate, sexual, but more than that . . . romantic. And had similar feelings been sparking in her? She thought that—

  Altek leaned in and kissed her again. That time, she kissed him back.

  * * *

  Benjamin Sisko walked through the corridor, sensing the vitality of his ship around him. He had woken early that morning after a night of interrupted sleep, his excitement making it impossible for him to doze for very long. Despite that, he did not feel at all tired, although he suspected that the adrenaline pumping within him would leave him exhausted that night.

  Ro Laren walked beside Sisko. When he had contacted her aboard Deep Space 9 to inform her that his crew had completed their preparations, she had routinely notified the on-duty dockmaster, Ensign deGrom, to release the clamps binding Robinson to the starbase’s x-ring, and to confirm a clear path to the wormhole. Ro had then asked to come aboard to meet with him. Despite Sisko’s eagerness to finally begin the mission his crew had for so long been denied by circumstance, he did not want to refuse the captain the ­tradition—practiced unevenly throughout Starfleet—of personally seeing a commanding officer off at the start of a long journey. It also helped that the Robinson crew, as enthusiastic as its captain for the voyage to come, had their schedule running thirty minutes ahead.

  Ro had transported over from DS9 and met Sisko in his ready room. Their meeting had been professional and cordial. Although the two officers had not grown close, they had worked together a great deal over the previous two years, with Robinson assigned to patrol the Bajoran system for most of that time. Ro had wanted to offer Sisko her best wishes for a safe and successful mission.

  As he escorted her through the ship, back to the transporter room, they ended up talking mostly about Elias Vaughn. His name arose when Ro revealed that it had been Vaughn, when he’d been about to take command of James T. Kirk, who had shared the ritual of one officer seeing off another in such circumstances. Sisko then spoke of how the late captain’s love of exploration had helped nurture a similar passion in him.

  They reached the ship’s active transporter room on Deck 6 and walked inside. Crewwoman Jentzen Spingeld, a petite human, stood at the compartment’s freestanding console. “Captain Ro will be beaming back to Deep Space Nine,” Sisko told the transporter operator. “Contact the Hub to let them know.”

  “Aye, sir,” Spingeld said, and she immediately worked her controls.

  Sisko walked with Ro over to the transporter platform, but she turned to face him before mounting the step up. “Captain Vaughn also told me about another custom,” she said. “When one officer bids farewell to another who is about to take his crew out on what is expected to be a particularly long expedition, the officer remaining behind bestows a small token on the one departing.” If Ro carried anything with her, Sisko had not seen it during the time she’d been aboard Robinson. “In my case, when I saw Captain Vaughn off, he realized that I had probably never heard of such a ritual, and so he actually presented me with a gift. He and I were close . . . in many ways, he was like a father to me.”

  Ro glanced down for a moment and took a breath before continuing. Sisko could see her holding back her emotions. “I know that you and I have only a professional relationship, Captain, but I have a great deal of respect for you. In the spirit of Elias Vaughn, I wanted to give you something . . . something that would have some meaning. I thought about trying to find an old map from Earth, or a book about the first interstellar flight by humans, but I decided that I wanted something more personal, at least on my part, as a way to express my appreciation for you as a fellow officer, and also to commemorate all you’ve done for Bajor.”

  “I’m touched, Captain,” Sisko said.

  Ro said nothing more, and for a moment, Sisko wondered if he’d missed something. But then she held one hand out between them and uncurled
her fingers. In her palm lay a Bajoran earring. “It’s not fancy or made from valuable materials,” Ro said, “but my father gave it to me. After he died, I didn’t wear it for a long time, but I kept it. When I finally did put it on again, I wore it on the left side as a symbol of protest.”

  Sisko felt his eyebrows lift, surprised by the personal nature of what Ro revealed.

  “I stopped wearing any earring when I became exec on Deep Space Nine,” she went on. “I’m no longer sure how I feel about the Prophets or my people’s religion, but I’m more open to it today than I have been since I was a girl.”

  “The Bajorans have a lot to offer,” Sisko said. “I don’t know if I’ll ever live among them again, but I still count myself as one of them.”

  “I understand,” Ro said. Sisko worried that she would bring up his role as the Emissary of the Prophets—a role he didn’t believe he’d occupied since his return from the Celestial Temple—but she didn’t. “I wanted you to have this. I thought you might someday want to give it to that beautiful little girl of yours.” Ro held her palm out to Sisko, and he allowed her to pour the earring from her hand to his.

  “Thank you, Captain,” he said. “This means a great deal to me. I’m moved by your generosity and your thoughtfulness.”

  “It’s my privilege, Captain.” Ro climbed up on the transporter platform, and Sisko glanced over at Spingeld.

  “Deep Space Nine reports ready to receive Captain Ro,” the crewwoman said.

  “Good sailing to you, Captain,” Ro said. “I’ll see you in two years.”