by S. D. Perry
A call came in on the desk com. Ro cleared her throat. “Yes?”
“Lieutenant, Admiral Akaar has just requested permission to beam aboard from the Trager,” Merimark said.
Ro nodded to herself. So much for the unscathed theory. She was ready . . . but before she could open her mouth to say as much, she had a sudden inspiration, one that would ruffle every last one of Akaar’s feathers.
Kira did say to stall him.
“Tell him to come up to the office,” Ro said. “Tell him that she’ll meet him there.” It wasn’t a lie, technically. When she got back, she probably would meet him in her office.
Ro stepped out into ops, moved to stand near the new situation table—recently set up to replace the one destroyed when Ro had sent Gard crashing into it. She smiled inwardly at Merimark’s expression. How long would he wait? Five minutes? Ten? When he was about to fray a cable, Ro would step forward, explain that she was temporarily managing ops, that Kira had pressing duties elsewhere but should be back soon. He’d stew, but he wouldn’t be able to accuse her of anything, and she was under no obligation to tell him anything in regard to Kira’s whereabouts. Of course, once he figured out what had happened . . .
If I were in Starfleet, he’d see me court-martialed. Again. If she were in Starfleet. Realistically, the worst he’d be able to do was lodge a complaint with the Bajoran Militia, and by the time it reached anyone’s desk, she’d be long gone. What was it that Nog was always quoting, one of Vic Fontaine’s colloquialisms . . . in for the penny, in for the pound?
Ro crossed her arms and leaned against the situation table, watching the turbolift with bright eyes.
21
ODO WATCHED THE SHOCK SPREAD ACROSS HIS LOVER’S FACE. IN SPITE of the circumstances, he was unable to keep himself from searching for a thread of joy, of pleasure at his sudden appearance. He saw it, along with a dozen other familiar expressions, all of them much loved and missed. Even her anger, which was no small thing.
“You . . . I . . .” she stammered, and before he could start to explain himself, she had stepped into the circle of his arms. She embraced him tightly, so tight, and he allowed a second to close his eyes, to rejoice in the feeling of her body against his, of her love for him. Then he moved, understanding that everything else was going to have to wait. She understood it, too, nodding as he cocked his head toward the shadows at the end of the corridor, out of the light and away from the fallen Bajoran carriers.
They slipped into the darkness, Odo expanding his senses, listening for movement as she leaned in to speak.
“You know why we’re here?” she whispered, and though her voice was cool, her manner collected, he felt the tremble of her arm against his, and was glad of it.
“Yes,” he said. “The hostages. The queen.”
Nerys nodded. “You take the hostages.”
“We should stay together,” Odo said, hearing the urgency in his own voice. He didn’t want to separate, not here.
“We have to hurry,” she said. “And you’ve got a better shot at protecting them.”
Odo nodded reluctantly. Arguing would only waste more time, and at least he’d been able to help her clear the way to the monastery’s lower level. Perhaps she wouldn’t encounter any more resistance. “All right.”
They had to leave, had to do what needed to be done, but for a second, neither moved, their gazes locked. There was so much to say, to explain; he saw the questions on her face and tried to think of some brief statement, something he could tell her that would answer everything, that would explain. The circumstances leading to his presence weren’t complicated, but would certainly take too long to lay out now. Nevertheless, he knew he would owe her a long conversation about why he’d returned when he had, and in the guise of Wex.
All of it flashed through his mind, the story replaying itself yet again; he’d rehearsed it many times in the weeks it had taken for him to get back to the Alpha Quadrant. In the long hours since that he’d stood on the Promenade with Taran’atar, watching for trouble, uselessly wishing that Nerys might walk by. He never meant to stay, or to reveal himself to her—he’d disrupted her life enough, he knew—but had practiced the story anyway, half hoping that he’d have a chance to tell her.
Even on his isolated homeworld, word had come to the Link about a holy woman who was traveling through the Gamma Quadrant, a woman who spoke of Prophets and healing, who was spreading a message of self-awareness to those communities she touched . . . and there were stories that she’d had contact with an extinct race, one that the Link knew little about, the Ascendants.
Remembering the lost kai of Bajor, Odo had disguised himself as a Trelian woman to investigate the rumors, Weyoun never far behind . . . and found Jake Sisko, as well as Opaka Sulan.
The information she’d shared about the continued existence of the Ascendants was important, perhaps vital to the future of the Gamma Quadrant, but he couldn’t return to the Link without first seeing Jake and Opaka safely home. He’d chosen also to continue the pretense of Wex, even after his arrival at the station. The plan had been to come and go as quickly as possible, but the parasite infiltration and subsequent lockdown had made that impossible . . . as had his own need to help, to lend whatever he could to the resolution. Taran’atar had known, of course, and Odo thought that Opaka Sulan might have sensed something, but he’d felt sure that no one else suspected that Wex wasn’t as she seemed. Quark, of course, didn’t count.
When the parasite hosts on DS9 had begun collapsing, Odo had hurried to Nerys’s side . . . and hidden there, hearing her conversation with Lieutenant Ro. He’d concealed himself in her phaser holster, knowing too well that she would put herself in the thick of danger . . . because she was strong, and brave, and because the Nerys he knew was incapable of standing down just because someone told her to.
You’d put yourself in danger because he told you to stand down, he thought fondly, smiling at her. He was better at smiling than he used to be; she’d taught him how.
“You could have said something,” she said.
“You were busy,” he replied, and though he hadn’t meant it to be humorous, she returned his smile, with a depth of feeling behind it that made his entire form ache—
—and there was someone coming, he could hear footsteps. They were out of time. Once the bodies were discovered . . .
“We have to go,” he whispered, and she nodded, reaching up to touch his face, her warm palm cupping one cheek. Odo turned his head and brushed her fingertips with his mouth, wondering how he’d ever managed to leave her, how he would dare to do it again . . . and she turned and moved away, crouching her way silently to the lower level’s entrance, not looking back. He waited until she made it through the door before shifting, dropping into the small, lithe body of a po werm, a form he’d learned from the Link. It was an ideal creature for the situation: The animal’s senses were acute, highly attuned to heat and scent; it was barely a handspan across, fast-moving, and could change its skin color to match its surroundings.
Within a second, the werm knew where the hostages were, from the faint scent of humanoid blood trailing through the air. It dashed away on multiple legs, skittering madly through the cool dark, Odo hoping that the blood smell wasn’t nearly so strong as the werm understood it to be.
* * *
They made it to the first set of stairs before Eli realized that something was different. He stopped outside the door, looking around, Benny stopping with him.
It took him a few seconds to place, it was such a small, odd thing, and he wasn’t fully awake yet—his head was muzzy, his limbs heavy with fatigue—but once he noticed, it was impossible not to see it. Or to wonder.
“The walls,” he muttered, half to himself. The color. The mild, industrial green had faded considerably, from dull lime to a color like sea foam. Had they repainted? They must have, but when? There was no smell of paint in the air . . . and as Eli breathed deeply, he realized that there was no smell at all. No disinfecta
nt, no cheap, utilitarian food, no sweat or urine, none of the odors that were such a part of the institution that he’d long since ceased to notice them. The air was . . . flat.
Maybe the storm, he thought vaguely, as thunder rolled somewhere outside, but that didn’t make sense . . . nor did the way the floor suddenly seemed to warp beneath his feet, making him stumble from his standing position.
Benny grabbed his arm, steadying him, pushing the door to the stair well open with his free hand. “We have to hurry,” he said.
“Why?” Eli asked, but Benny was already pulling him to the steps, still holding his arm. A good thing, as Eli stumbled again. The floor was warped, he was sure of it, and he was more tired than he’d thought; even standing seemed to take a tremendous effort, and he surely would have fallen down the stairs if Benny hadn’t been at his side.
They descended quickly, two, three flights of steps, Eli leaning on Benny when he needed to. What was wrong with him, with everything? He was dizzy, the air was strange, and the thunder was louder now, a continuous sound, almost a roaring by the time they reached the ground floor and Benny led them back into another corridor.
That’s not thunder, Eli thought, letting himself be led. He didn’t know what it was, but it wasn’t thunder.
Eli cried out as a chunk of linoleum tore up from the floor in front of them, as though something beneath had exploded upward. He staggered back, half expecting to see some fantastic creature rising from the underground, but what he saw instead was somehow much worse.
That’s impossible. Instead of cement or dirt, instead of a basement, the jagged hole opened into nothing. As he watched, loose pieces of linoleum around the hole fell into it, whirling away into the dark as though falling a great distance.
Benny pulled him around the hole, holding his arm firmly.
“Benny, what is it?” Eli asked. He trusted his friend, but this was madness, this was a waking nightmare.
“Dissolution,” Benny said, raising his voice to be heard over the not-thunder. “Hurry, Eli!”
Dissolution. Eli hurried, his mouth dry, his body shaking, everything different and wrong. All around them, things were falling apart.
* * *
Kas was in labor, the contractions coming hard, only a minute apart and getting closer and longer. Jake sat at her side, trying to think of reassuring things to say, occasionally shooting helpless looks at his aunt and grandfather. They seemed to feel just as helpless, moving anxiously to hold her hand when they could, to get Opaka the few things she asked for, to tell Kas to breathe, breathe. Except for the former kai, Kas seemed to be handling things better than any of them, her breathing measured and steady, her concentration intense. She took short sips of air, then longer ones, then short again as Jake smoothed her hair back from her sweating brow, gripping her hand tightly. When she started to pant, she’d clutch his hand hard enough that he could hear his bones creak, but he’d grit his teeth and hold on, as afraid as he could remember being in a very long time.
At least Opaka’s here, Jake thought, thanking whatever gods might be around as another contraction started to take hold. Opaka was almost as focused as Kas, stroking her legs, speaking gently, reaching under the small throw blanket across Kas’s belly to check her progress every few minutes. Neither woman seemed to notice the three terrorists at the front of the room, their weapons still trained on the small group . . . and didn’t notice when outside in the corridor, someone began to shout.
“Intruders! Intruders!”
Everything happened fast.
One of the terrorists opened fire, the woman, a bolt of purple-white energy erupting from her weapon—and a golden streak of light leapt across the room, intercepting the killing discharge before it could slam into Kasidy’s heaving belly. There was a loud crack, and a sharp cry of angry surprise from the woman who’d fired.
Jake didn’t know what had happened, didn’t try to understand. He threw himself over Kas, covering her body with his own. An instant later, Joseph and Judith were with him, their arms wrapped over him, their heads down as they tried to protect both him and Kasidy. Jake could hear another weapon fire, and another, two more crack s of unknown origin as something stopped the beams from hitting them.
Kas groaned, a deep, guttural sound, her body tensing as she started panting again. Someone was pounding at the door, and Jake risked a glance up, saw what looked like a shimmering liquid rising up from the floor, leaning against the heavy wood as more pounding shook the door in its frame.
Changeling? Odo? Jake didn’t know, but as the trio of terrorists fired again, and again, he could see that whatever was protecting them wouldn’t be able to do it for much longer, its form already stretched into impossibly thin lines of glowing protoplasm, leaping out to intercept the bursts of fire, struggling to bar the shaking door at the same time.
Kas was still panting, moaning, and Jake lowered his head again, holding her tightly, not knowing what else to do as the weapons crackled on, as the door began to splinter.
* * *
It was all Kira could do to keep Odo out of her thoughts as she descended the worn stone steps into the underground chamber, moving as quickly and quietly as she could. It seemed that only the door had been guarded; from the first minister’s intelligence report, the majority of the parasite carriers were guarding the monastery’s perimeter.
Which will change, once they find the doorkeepers out cold in the corridor. Images of Odo tried to creep back into her mind, but Kira forced them away, concentrating on her footing. It was dark, and she’d never been here before, though she recognized the place from an account Captain Sisko had once given her. This was the secret chamber in which the Orb of Prophecy had been sequestered during the Occupation. Now they were all here, the nine Tears. The thought that a malevolent alien queen had chosen the sacred room to hide in was infuriating, and Kira held the anger close, let it keep her fears at bay.
The stone steps curved ahead, opening into the chamber. Holding her phaser tightly, Kira moved into position, preparing herself to attack, wishing she had some idea of what she’d be attacking. Something bigger than one of the parasites, Julian had suggested; not much to go on.
As she tensed herself to move, she heard a sound like water, a wet, slurping noise, and a half-dozen repellent images leapt to mind. It was about then that the smell hit her, a smell like rotten vegetables and salt, adding color to the unpleasant pictures in her head. What did it look like? What was it doing?
She heard a muffled shout from above, and stopped wondering; the guards had been discovered. Odo would do what he could, but once the carriers holding Kas and Jake and the others found out that the monastery had been infiltrated, they’d call for help. And the hostages . . .
Kira stepped around the corner, her weapon raised—
—and though the mental pictures had been bad, the reality was worse. There, surrounded by the sacred arks, was a massive, fleshy body, rippled and soft and pale. It was perhaps four meters from tip to tail, its form vaguely rootlike, tapering at both ends. It was thick enough through the middle to tower over Kira, and through its semi transparent flesh she could see what appeared to be hundreds, thousands of squirming shadows, tiny egg sacs filled with liquid and claws. As she watched in horror, a handful of sacs glurted out from a corpulent, sagging wet opening near the tail, landing on the cold stone floor in a liquid heap.
The head of the creature turned toward Kira, blind but hideously aware, her black maw of a mouth mewling at the invader in a high-pitched whine. Above the mouth, long, useless pincers opened and closed, opened and closed, the queen too swollen, too suited to function to attack, let alone defend itself. It was an abomination, and Kira instinctively stepped back, her finger tightening on the phaser’s trigger—
—Wait!
The blast would tear a hole in the queen’s body, perhaps killing her . . . but the eggs, they were ready to hatch. The few dozen on the floor beneath the queen’s birth canal were already opening, the tin
y creatures inside worming out of their soft shells, clicking aimlessly in the muck of afterbirth. There was no way she’d be able to get them all, not with one phaser.
Not before they get me. Already, two or three of the parasites were edging toward her, as though sensing a warm-bodied host nearby. And while it had been borne out that the death of the lesser queens also meant the demise of their brood, she wasn’t prepared to take the chance that the same would hold true here. One mistake could unleash an army on Bajor.
Kira backed up a step. She’d have to retreat, come back with more firepower, with fire, something that would wipe all of them out. She’d have to get the Orbs safely away, too, she couldn’t let them burn, but—
There was more shouting from above, and Kira heard the door to the chamber slam open, heard cries of rage and alarm in Bajoran voices, voices that shouted from parasitic souls.
Help me, Kira prayed, frozen with indecision, with impotent anger—at herself, at the aliens that had taken Shakaar, taken her people, taken her friends—
—and she didn’t hear anything, didn’t think it, but felt the answer, knew what to do as surely as she knew her own name, as she trusted in her own faith. Dropping her phaser, Kira stepped to the closest ark and opened the doors. Brilliant light blossomed into the room, casting the ghastly queen in shades of magnificent silver-white. The Orb of Time, she thought, and stepped to the next, the Orb of Contemplation, pulling its doors wide. And then the next, Destiny, and the next, Souls, the combined brilliance of the sacred artifacts spilling into the chill air, searingly bright, as powerful as a thundering wave. Kira felt it wash over and through her as she opened the rest, Memory, Wisdom, Prophecy, Truth . . . moving to the final ark, one of Yevir’s finds, the Orb of Unity.
You want Bajor, she thought, overwhelmed by the light as she threw open the doors to the last Tear, here it is.