Worlds of Star Trek Deep Space Nine® Volume Three

by Keith R. A. DeCandido

  “What does the Link intend to do?” Odo wanted to know.

  “We have contemplated that question for some time now,” Indurane said. “At the first appearance of the nova, some of us—and soon many of us—believed that the Progenitor had returned. We anticipated it making the final leg of Its journey back to us, but as time passed and that did not happen, some of us proposed that we consider another action besides waiting.”

  Odo turned from Indurane and looked up into the twilight. The bright star stood out like an omen, and Odo wondered how much truth he faced here, and how much myth. Did the Progenitor exist in reality—had it ever?—or only as a figment in the history of the Founders? Odo didn’t know, but the feelings of Indurane and the rest of the Great Link could not have been more plain. Their weeks of restlessness, building to the crescendo of excitement and activity he’d just witnessed moments ago, revealed genuine belief not only in a Creator, but in Its impending return to them.

  To one side, Odo saw movement, and he looked in that direction to see another Founder reaching out of the Link and onto land. Quickly, it morphed into the Varalan form of Laas. He stood partway around the islet, between Odo and Indurane.

  Odo waited for Laas to look his way, and then said, “They already know,” explaining what Indurane had just told him.

  Laas peered at Indurane. “What is the Great Link going to do?” he asked of the old Founder.

  “We will travel to the region of the nova,” Indurane said. “We will find the Progenitor.”

  Taran’atar disregarded the Founder’s seemingly aberrant behavior, including most especially her claims that her people were not gods. If necessary, he would revisit all of that later. But for right now, he had no choice but to push all of that aside and execute the duty for which he—for which all Jem’Hadar—had been created.

  As he exited the cell, Taran’atar concentrated deeply. He visualized the Founder reverting to her natural state behind him, her humanoid figure liquefying into a nebulous pool of biomimetic ichor. Vaguely aware of the inner door of the antechamber closing after him, he focused his thoughts intensely. In the facility’s main control room, he presumed, at least one of the prison personnel would be surveying the monitors that allowed the cell to be kept under continuous surveillance. A picture of the Vulcan commander rose in his mind, and he quickly shifted his viewpoint in that mental scene to the image T’Kren saw on the security screen, namely that of the amorphous Founder.

  Through the transparent outer door of the antechamber, Taran’atar saw Lieutenant Commander Matheson approaching. Lieutenant Jenek, the Orion, maintained a position behind her, fifteen meters away. Taran’atar noted the presence of the two Starfleet officers in a cursory way, at the periphery of his perceptions, but worked to ignore what his eyes witnessed, what his ears heard, what his skin felt, instead paying strict attention to the perfectly defined representation in his thoughts of the Founder’s shapeless mass spread out on the floor of the cell. Even as the outer door wound open and Matheson invited him to follow her, and even as he did so, he continued to keep the Founder’s gleaming form at the forefront of his consciousness.

  Taran’atar took only passing notice as Matheson led him left at the T-shaped intersection, back down the corridor they’d taken when they’d walked here. As Jenek’s footsteps began to fall behind him, the lieutenant obviously following just as he had earlier, Taran’atar listened reflexively to the rhythmic pace of his own boots marching along the deck. He let his legs carry him forward mechanically, tracking along after Matheson. He followed her back through Ananke Alpha’s maze of corridors, his movements unthinking as he continued to envision the unformed changeling. He tramped back through two of the prison’s defensive emplacements—the one armed with phasers, and the one with heat—until they neared the third line of defense.

  As Taran’atar stopped at Matheson’s order, he felt his mental grip on the image of the Founder begin to slip. Dimly aware of the door up ahead blocking the way, and of the lieutenant commander pushing a key into a slot in the bulkhead, he struggled to preserve his clear visualization of the Founder. He did not know how much longer he could sustain his efforts. Shrouding normally required a significant exertion of will, but far less, it turned out, than the task at hand. Taran’atar had never attempted what he did now, had not even known it possible until a few moments ago, having heard only unconfirmed rumors of Jem’Hadar who had utilized their shrouding capabilities for remote generation of images.

  Activity up ahead penetrated his awareness. He plainly heard Matheson identify herself and request access to the defensive emplacement, distinctly felt vibrations through the decking as the door began to slide slowly into the bulkhead. Too far, he thought, intuitively understanding that his capacity to project a realistic image relied not only on his ability to concentrate, but also on his distance from the location to which he projected that image.

  “Let’s continue,” Matheson called back to him, and she strode through the now-open doorway.

  Taran’atar had almost reached the same point himself when a knot of pain tightened behind his forehead. Given the level of focus needed at his ever-increasing remove from the cell, the sensation became impossible to ignore. At the same time, he realized that he had moved beyond his range. Elsewhere in the prison, he knew, one or more security officers would see the glistering form of the Founder vanish from her cell. The instant before the red alert sliced through the corridor—and doubtless through the entire complex—Taran’atar knew that it would. It provided him just enough time to act.

  He sprang forward, toward the doorway and, beyond it, Matheson. Then, as the klaxon sounded, he redirected his thoughts and shrouded, rendering himself invisible. He lunged to his right, to the side of the corridor, just in time to avoid the phaser blast that seared the air where he had just stood. He whirled around and sprinted along the bulkhead toward Jenek, while the security officer continued discharging his weapon, sweeping it left and right. Taran’atar had closed to within a couple of meters of his objective when the yellow-red beam swung toward him, chest high.

  Desperate not only to break the Founder from captivity, but to protect her from harm in doing so—she currently blanketed the front his coverall, matching its texture and hue—he dove onto the deck. The powerful shaft of light streaked centimeters above him, its whine audible even over the sound of the red alert. Knowing that his shroud had dropped, he drove his boots against the decking and hurled himself forward. He struck Jenek below the knees, and the security officer toppled forward, his phaser shooting wildly for a second before his finger lost contact with its firing pad.

  Taran’atar spun around and reached for the lieutenant’s hand, pulling the phaser from his grasp. Then he sent an arm around the security officer’s throat and quickly stood, dragging him upward. “Move,” Taran’atar growled into Jenek’s ear, “and I’ll snap your neck.” Towering over the stocky Orion, Taran’atar pulled him up off his feet, providing himself cover for his own upper body and head, and more importantly, for the Founder.

  Almost at once, two phaser strikes surged past from behind him. Both narrowly missed Taran’atar, but Jenek cried out in obvious pain as one of them grazed his shoulder. Taran’atar looked back and immediately spotted some of the many weapons ports he’d seen on his way to the Founder’s cell. He held Jenek up as a shield before those ports situated ahead of him, and fired at those situated behind him. In swift succession, one emitter after another erupted in a hail of sparks. Taran’atar then turned his phaser on all the rest, quickly disabling the weapons, as well as the surveillance and sensor ports.

  When he’d finished, he glanced around Jenek, and saw Matheson racing back into the corridor from within the defensive emplacement. He’d hoped that she might have been caught in the lieutenant’s phaser fire, but they had surely trained for events such as this, and that hadn’t happened. Matheson fired her weapon twice, both shots high and to the left of Taran’atar and his captive. As he had so many times s
ince coming to the Alpha Quadrant, he felt contempt for the weakness he continually observed here; Matheson had clearly targeted away from her colleague, unwilling to chance hitting Jenek, but at the risk of failing to fulfill her duties.

  After firing, she turned to the control panel in the bulkhead beside the door. At the same time, Jenek launched an attack, kicking backward with both boots at Taran’atar’s shins, sending an elbow into his gut, and biting down hard on the arm tightly circling his neck. Taran’atar felt the air rush from his lungs as the lieutenant reached backward and tried to wrestle the phaser from his hand. Gasping for air, Taran’atar let the weapon drop to the deck, then reached around Jenek’s face with his empty hand, took hold of his ear, and pulled sharply. Even with the blare of the alarm klaxon, he could hear the Orion’s neck break, the sound like wood crackling in a fire.

  Taran’atar threw the inert body of the lieutenant to the side, where it struck the bulkhead. Unencumbered, he shrouded, took a deep breath, retrieved the phaser, then sped toward Matheson, who still worked at the panel. When the door beside her began to close, Taran’atar raised his weapon and fired, his shroud dropping in the process. The phaser shot struck Matheson squarely in the rib cage, and she crumpled.

  Hurrying ahead, Taran’atar stepped over the body of the dead security officer, wisps of smoke rising from her blackened uniform. He examined the control panel. The indicator light there glowed amber, and the key that Matheson had used still sat in its slot. He reached for the key and turned it, producing a click, but the indicator light remained amber, and the door continued to glide closed. Taran’atar could still pass through this door, but he would never make it to the far side of the line of defense before the door there closed.

  Quickly, he reached down, took hold of Matheson’s arm, and pulled it toward the plate next to the control panel. He felt her shoulder give way beneath his efforts, her humerus ripping free of her scapula. As he thrust her hand down on the plate, her arm articulated in an unnatural way, her muscles and flesh seeming to hold her arm barely connected to her body.

  The light flashed from amber to green. Beside Taran’atar, the door stopped moving, then reversed direction and began to open again. He let go of Matheson’s arm, which flopped to the deck with a thud. Then he darted sidelong through the doorway.

  Taran’atar looked to the other side of the defensive emplacement, his gaze following the blue forcefield lines on either side of the walkway that led there. Seeing the far door sliding open, he started forward, and felt again the slight give in the nonmetallic surface of the decking here. He ran with his head down, intent on reaching the next corridor. The alert klaxon echoed loudly here, though with a slightly tinny effect in the large space.

  A third of the way across the span, Taran’atar saw the parallel lines of blue lighting darken, the forcefields obviously deactivated. A mechanical hum rose, a vibration more felt than heard. Ahead of him, a fissure seemed to carve through the walkway, and it split in two, the halves beginning to retract toward each of the doorways.

  Taran’atar did not break stride. By the time he reached the gap, the sections of the walkway had moved apart more than twelve meters. Timing his gait, he brought one foot down just short of the open space, then leaped. He knew immediately that he would not come down on the other section of walkway. Spreading his arms wide, he dropped the phaser and braced himself. His chest struck the edge of the other section, and he clamped his hands down onto its sides.

  As he swung his legs up and around onto the bridge, he heard the phaser clattering somewhere below him. He gave brief thought to the Founder’s safety—she still adhered to the fabric covering his torso—but knew that such a physical impact would have no effect on her. He clambered back up onto the walkway. The far door had begun to close, he saw, but he knew that he could cover the distance between here and there in time to make it through and into the corridor.

  That was when the radiation emitters powered up.

  The area brightened, and a heavy drone filled the air. Taran’atar crossed his arms over his chest, which slowed his pace, but he had to do whatever he could to protect the Founder. While a physical blow would not harm her, radiation certainly would.

  Fifteen meters from the door, his body began to tingle, as though he had been enveloped by insects. Ten meters away, the sensation intensified, rapidly becoming painful, as though the insects had begun to devour his flesh. He soldiered forward, attempting to ignore the agony. At five meters, feeling as though he’d been set ablaze, he stopped, needing a moment to collect himself for the final part of his flight, even as he knew that his cells had begun to deteriorate, attacked without mercy by the radiation. But he’d lost Jenek’s phaser, and he had to conclude that the Founder had not shapeshifted because she could not; Taran’atar had heard of fields that could prevent a changeling from altering form, and he reasoned that such a field had been activated within the prison once the Founder’s escape had become known.

  Pushing away the pain and refocusing his thoughts, Taran’atar shrouded once more, although not in invisibility. He took one more moment to assure himself of his concentration, then dashed forward. He flung himself through the almost-closed doorway and landed on the rigid decking of the corridor.

  He waited for phaser blasts to slam into him. None came.

  Slowly, he got to his feet, veiled in the likeness of Lieutenant Commander Matheson. He’d imagined her badly injured: one arm hanging limply at her side, a hand gripping the damaged shoulder, a wounded leg unable to carry her along without a limp, a charred, bloody hole in her side from an energy weapon. He mimicked the movements attendant with such injuries, leaning heavily against a bulkhead as he staggered along. His own pain simplified his efforts, making it easier for him to keep up the charade.

  Lurching ahead, he let the clamor of the red-alert signal carry his concentration. At the end of the corridor, he stumbled around the corner and turned right. Just a few meters away, two doors stood closed in the left-hand bulkhead. The first led to the room where he’d donned the bright-red coverall, and the second, he felt certain, to the control room.

  Aware that he’d likely been under observation since exiting the radiation emplacement, he continued to limp along. He passed the first door, and stopped at the second. A panel, similar to those that Matheson had operated on the way to and from the Founder’s cell, sat in the bulkhead next to the door. Taran’atar reached for it, brushed his hand against one corner, then let his legs buckle. He tumbled heavily to the deck, and lay there, unmoving, his back against the bulkhead.

  Only seconds passed before the door to the control room retracted. “Jackie,” said the female Tellarite he’d seen earlier. She crouched down beside him, a phaser in one hand, and reached with two fingers of her empty hand toward what she clearly saw as Matheson’s neck, evidently wanting to measure the security officer’s pulse. When she’d come close enough, Taran’atar sent his arm flying upward, his shroud falling as his fingers wrapped around the Tellarite’s thick, soft neck. He squeezed, and felt the cartilage of her larynx give way beneath his grip. She coughed once, feebly, spitting out mucus tinged with the lavender color of her blood. The phaser dropped from her hand.

  In the control room, barely audible beneath the alarm, Taran’atar heard commotion—voices and movements—and isolated the sounds to determine the presence of at least two other officers. His hand still around the neck of the sputtering Tellarite, Taran’atar swiped the phaser from the deck and jumped to his feet.

  As soon as he stepped into the doorway, a phaser blast screamed in his direction, but struck the back of the dying security officer he held up before him. The scent of burning flesh filled the air. Taran’atar leveled his own weapon past the now-motionless Tellarite and returned fire. Across the room, the beam landed on a console, which exploded. The red-alert klaxon abruptly ceased here, though he could still here it in the distance. A flame reached almost to the overhead as smoke billowed upward.

  Another shot rang o
ut, seemingly louder now that the alarm had silenced within the room. A streak of phased energy scorched the air beside Taran’atar, then moved toward him. The beam caught him in the side before he could block it with the body of the Tellarite, and it felt as though a hole had been cut open along his rib cage. He ignored the pain, concerned only for the protection of the Founder and making good her flight from imprisonment. He fired his phaser again, and another console blew up beneath the assault. Thick smoke filled the room.

  Taran’atar waited for the next phaser blast, then flung the body of the Tellarite hard in that direction. He threw himself to the side and onto the deck, his eyes and ears seeking a target through the murky, pungent smoke. He tried to shroud but could not; coupled with the damage done to his body by the radiation, the throbbing ache in his side would not allow him to concentrate enough to project his veil of invisibility.

  Another phaser fired. The beam passed well above Taran’atar, but he tracked the yellow-red ray back to its source and discharged his own weapon. He heard the dull sound of a body as it thumped onto the deck.

  A sudden calm seemed to overtake the scene, the only sounds that of his labored breathing and the occasional spark from one of the destroyed consoles, underscored by the far-off cry of the alarm. Although it was possible that his shots had incapacitated both of the officers here, he believed that one still opposed him. He waited, alert for any noise, any movement, and when none came, he tried again to shroud. As he did so, a blur flashed toward him from the side, and he felt something collide with his hand. The phaser he’d taken from the Tellarite flew from his grasp before he could act. He watched it land several meters away, then turned toward his enemy, who had already stepped back away from him.

  “Where is the Founder?” the Vulcan woman, T’Kren, asked. She spoke with a level voice, even amid the chaos that had erupted in the control room. She carried her phaser in her left hand, its emitter trained on him.