14
The shimmer of the transporter haze diffused and the world all around Miles resolved itself. He blinked and shook his head, disoriented for a moment by the dissonance between the lowering skies of the capital and the sharp, stark light of Andak.
Strange how quick you get used to things….
And then he came into focus.
The base was like a ghost town, emptied of life. Only the mountains remained, patiently watching all that happened. During the days, the square was often quiet—the children were at school, the scientists were in the labs—but it never felt deserted as it did now. You could always hear, even if only faintly, the heartbeat of work and the pulse of conversation, you were always aware that life was going on in the little buildings gathered around the square. At night, people would be passing to and fro, and all the little houses to the east of the square were lit up and alive, and you could usually see a light on in one of the labs, as someone pressed on with their work in the early hours.
But this quiet was unnatural.
Beside him, Macet too was taking in their surroundings. He muttered something to his second-in-command, and then troops began to materialize in the square. Fifteen or twenty blocks of uniform and weaponry, solid black-and-gray in the bright light, shifting into action as soon as they arrived to deal with the equipment they’d brought with them. Miles eyed them cautiously. Armed Cardassians tended to make him a bit jumpy. Even looking at Macet only added to Miles’s underlying sense of unease. Macet was just like Dukat—and yet completely unlike. The face was the same (well, near enough), but the voice and the bearing were markedly different. Friends who looked like foes. Cardassia turned things upside down.
Miles turned away from his confusion to look toward the lecture hall. Someone was hurrying across the square to join them. It was one of the handful of Starfleet personnel stationed at the base—Jack Emmett, a security officer, very young, very keen. He had a padd in one hand, and his other was twitching nervously around his phaser.
“Chief O’Brien,” Emmett said, rather breathless. He was obviously very glad to see someone senior, but he was also looking at Miles with trepidation. Miles felt a stab of sympathy for him.
Poor lad. Can’t feel good to let a siege happen on your watch.
“This is Gul Macet, Emmett,” Miles told him. “He’ll be taking charge here.”
Emmett looked even more relieved at that.
Macet addressed Emmett directly, and skipped the formalities. “Can you give me a rundown of what’s been happening?”
“Well,” Emmett took a deep breath, “we were watching the vedek’s speech on the monitors, and then she stood up from the back and started walking forward—we thought it was odd, you know, while the vedek was talking—but it was her mother up on the stage after all, so we thought that maybe it had something to do with that—”
“Her mother?” Miles said. Molly? he thought for a moment, thoroughly bewildered.
Emmett shook his head. “No, no—Tela Maleren’s daughter, you know, Nyra. She’s the one with the bomb.”
“What?” Miles looked at him in disbelief. He’d been assuming it was one of the staff—one of the adults.
“Would someone explain the significance of that to me?” Macet said.
“Nyra’s just a kid, Macet,” Miles said. “She’s…what, fourteen years old?”
Emmett nodded. “Something like that.”
“Ah,” Macet said. His hand went up to his chin, and he began slowly to smooth down his facial hair. “That could certainly complicate things…. Well, let’s not worry about it for the moment. What happened next, Emmett?”
“Nyra went up onto the stage, starting talking, issuing all these demands, said there was a bomb.” He swallowed. “There were just a couple of us out here—we didn’t know what to do—the security chief’s in there, and all those reporters…I knew there was a few minutes’ delay on the broadcasts, and I figured if that started going out across Cardassia, it might mean panic, you know, wide-scale…so I pulled the transmissions.” He looked at Macet nervously.
“Good move,” Macet said. “Are you still getting anything from in there?”
“Yeah…there’s one journalist, seems to have got herself and her colleague right up near the front, right near the stage—we’re getting good pictures from them. We’ve been monitoring them from the security office—” He gestured to a building on one side of the square.
“I’ll come and take a look at that in a minute,” Macet said calmly. “What else has been happening?”
“Not much—she just keeps on making this speech…making these demands…”
“I see.” Macet stared past Emmett toward the lecture hall. “First things first,” he said at last. “Can we transport into the building?”
Emmett shook his head. “Nyra’s told us that if anyone tries to use transporters, it will trigger the bomb.”
Macet turned to Miles. “I’ve not heard that one before. Is that even possible?”
Miles nodded. “Easy enough to rig up a transmitter calibrated to work on the same frequencies. She wouldn’t even need to activate it herself—it would all be automated.”
“So we lose even the small window of opportunity we might have had between beaming in and her reacting to it….” Macettugged at his beard thoughtfully. “She could be bluffing about that, of course.”
Miles raised an eyebrow. “You want to bet on it?”
“No.”
“And even if she isn’t,” Miles pressed on, “there’s some very sensitive bits of equipment in the labs right next door to the lecture hall. If you use the transporters too close to them, chances are you’ll be destroying much of the first two months’ work done here. And I’m guessing Ghemor has asked you to resolve all this without finishing off the project.”
Macet gave him a shrewd, closed look. “Good guess,” he said. “All right, transporters—regretfully—are not an option.” He looked about him, taking in the square, the lecture hall, the land around. Sunlight hit the pure black of the mountains beyond and they shone back fiercely. Macet shaded his eyes and stood in thought for a moment. “So,” he said, turning back to Miles and lowering his hand, “that leaves us with two other options. Either we get her to stand down by means of persuasion, or we get her to stand down by means of force.”
“What—storm the building, you mean?”
“It’s not a subtle response, but it would certainly resolve matters.”
Miles sucked in a breath of air, pushed it out slowly. “What was that you said about a small window of opportunity? Bashing the doors down won’t give you the same element of surprise as beaming in. Think you’ll have enough time to stop her?”
“Well, that’s the risk, isn’t it? Of course—we’d have to vaporize that bomb completely, or…”
No need to be so damn casual about it!
“You’re in command, Macet—but I would like to remind you that my family is in there—”
“Along with about two hundred other people. None of whom I wish to get killed—including this Nyra.”
Miles stared down at the yellow dust of the ground, all at once very glad that he was just advising here. Macet would make the best decisions, he told himself—and the most objective decisions.
“All of which,” Macet concluded, “means we should try talking to this girl first, I think. It’s just possible she’s regretting finding herself in this position, and that the offer of a way out might be exactly what she wants to hear.”
It’s also just possible, Miles thought, that someone mad enough to strap a bomb to her chest is mad enough not to care whether she lives or dies—never mind whether anyone around her lives or dies—and that talking to her is a complete waste of time.
But it really was their best option at the moment.
“Well, Emmett,” said Macet, clasping his hands together, “how about you show us these transmissions you’re getting from in there? And I wouldn’t mind seeing the schematics
of the hall as well—exits and entrances in particular.”
They followed Emmett toward the security office. He was already punching up the plans of the hall on the padd he was carrying. He passed them over to Macet, who reviewed them silently as they walked along, and then Emmett took his chance to have a quiet word with Miles.
“The younger kids—they aren’t in there, sir. They were all in the crèche. And when this all started we moved them all out as far from the hall as we could.”
Miles closed his eyes for a moment. So Yoshi at least was safe. He mumbled gruff thanks to Emmett, patting the young man’s arm gratefully.
When they reached the door to the security office, Macet handed the padd over to his second-in-command. “Get people stationed at each point of egress,” he said. “I want them ready to go in.” He looked at Miles. “You know this girl, yes?”
“Well, by name—”
“That’s the closest thing I’ve got to an expert. So that’ll do fine.”
They went into the security office, Emmett close behind them. It was a small room with a few viewscreens to one side and a desk littered with the cartons and debris of a recently abandoned meal. Emmett cleared this away hastily, as well as the pack of cards dealt out across the desk. It looked to Miles that Emmett had been teaching someone how to play poker. Almost certainly, Miles thought, this had been the other young security officer in there, a Cardassian, sitting staring at the display. He glanced up anxiously, and took in straightaway the blunt authority of Macet’s insignia. “I think this has just got serious, sir,” he said.
Miles looked at the display and saw Naithe taking slow steps toward Nyra. The Bolian advanced with an indulgent, paternal smile. Nyra herself was sweating, her face becoming more flushed by the second.
“The bloody idiot, he’s going to get everyone killed!”
“Emmett,” Macet said, calm but firm, and stepping forward decisively, “can I speak to them?”
Emmett swallowed, nodded, and hit a few controls. “That should be working now,” he murmured.
Macet leaned over the display.
“Nyra,” he said.
On the screen, the girl jumped. Her hand jerked up.
“Wait, Nyra,” Macet said.
It was a good thing that the instinct for obedience ran deep in the Cardassian nature, Miles thought, watching as Nyra’s hand halted, although it was still trembling.
“Thank you, Nyra,” Macet said. “Can I talk to you for a bit?”
The girl was looking round as if she couldn’t work out how this voice was talking to her from nowhere. She’s losing it, Miles thought, and folded his arms around himself.
“I’m outside the hall, Nyra, in the security office. Do you know where that is?”
Slowly, the girl nodded.
“Good, so you can picture me, in the security office?”
She nodded again.
“Good! Can I tell you my name, Nyra?” His voice was smooth, but not condescending. Well judged, Miles thought.
Nyra licked her lips. “Okay…” she whispered.
“Thank you, Nyra. I’m Akellen Macet. I’d like to talk to you, if that’s all right with you.”
Nyra touched her throat with her fingertips. Her expression sharpened under the ridges. “Why?” she said, her voice charged with suspicion.
“I’ve just arrived here at Andak, Nyra. I haven’t heard what it is you want. Will you tell me?”
Nyra paused, her fingers playing around her throat, and then:
“All right,” she said.
As she began to speak, looking up, Macet closed off the channel, so they could hear Nyra but she could not hear them. “I think the castellan should be receiving all this,” he murmured, still focused on the display. Someone in the hall, taking advantage of the fact that Macet’s intervention had distracted Nyra, had had the presence of mind to grab Naithe and make him sit down. “Emmett—sort that out for us, will you?” The young man nodded, and set to work.
Macet glanced at Miles, wiped his hand across his mouth, and looked back at the display.
“Well,” he said, taking a deep breath, “at least she’s talking to us now.”
15
“Stalemate,” Ghemor said bitterly. He rubbed at his eyes with his fingertips, and finally brought his head to rest on his hand. Quietly, almost unnoticed, Jartek refreshed the contents of the cup on his desk. The infusion allowed little curls of steam to escape into the still air and perish.
Garak appraised Ghemor with the cool, calculating eye of the expert observer. He measured the extent of Ghemor’s fatigue against the likely duration (and outcome) of the crisis. And then he chewed hard on his lower lip. All the redleaf tea on Cardassia—however sycophantically supplied by Jartek—would not alter the fact that whoever was calling the plays on Cardassia Prime right now, it was emphatically not its democratically elected leader. Nor would it prevent a teenage girl from blowing herself up or being cut in half by disruptor fire, and the moment when that order would be forced from Ghemor was approaching all too soon.
“Stalemate?” Garak murmured. “So it seems.” He stared at the display. The castellan’s office had been receiving the transmissions from Andak for a little while now. They’d seen the recording of Naithe’s somewhat ill conceived intervention, and then Macet’s cool handling of the situation—
And he deserves a medal for that.
—although right now, all was quiet inside the lecture hall. Not tranquil—hardly—but quiet. Nyra was standing on the stage, just a little way from Keiko and Yevir. She seemed to be murmuring to herself, her body shimmering with the passion behind the muttered words. Probably just repeating what she’d said before, the thoughts she had been given—what she (or her masters, at least) wanted from this whole fiasco. The usual xenophobic routine. What troubled Garak more was just how bright her eyes were. Nyra Maleren could not stand up to this strain for much longer.
Long enough for Macet to reason with her?
Garak considered the evidence on the screen before him, weighed it carefully—and suppressed a sigh.
I doubt it.
Which meant that Ghemor really was going to have to give that order to send the troops in. Against, most unfortunately, a teenage girl.
A teenage girl about to blow a Bajoran ambassador for peace all the way back to his Prophets.
Garak hissed under his breath. Whoever was choreographing this whole farce really had done an admirable job. It was just possible that he was left with no way out….
Ways and means…It’s all about ways and means….
“Play the transmission back,” Garak said suddenly. “From about…fifteen minutes ago. Just after she stopped talking about her demands and when she started spouting all that overblown nonsense that someone has clearly been feeding her about Cardassia’s future.”
Jartek opened his mouth, instinctively ready to object, to raise a question, to delay. Garak gave him a stare—not the full version, he was saving that for another occasion, but it was enough for his immediate purposes. Jartek closed his mouth, cleared his throat, insinuated himself a little closer to the console on the desk, and jabbed at a couple of buttons. The recording went into reverse, the figures on the screen flickering backward into the past.
“There,” Garak said, pointing his finger at the display. “Play it from there.”
Jartek fiddled unwillingly with another control and the performance began over again.
The usual xenophobic routine…
“…must leave Cardassian soil,” Nyra said. “Cardassia must find its own, true way….”
Ways and means…
“That’s it!” Garak slammed his hand down flat upon the desk. A couple of padds jumped up slightly.
Ghemor grabbed out to stop a stylus before it leapt off the table. “Care to put Mev and myself in the picture, Garak?”
Garak turned to him and, as he did, he realized that his other hand was clenched into a fist. The skin was stretched taut over his
knuckles, and he could see the fine vessels pulsing triumphantly. He let it fall slack to his side, relaxed, and then smiled beatifically at Ghemor. He could, he thought, almost be described as happy. This situation was under control now; under his control—which was the only one that mattered, after all.
“ ‘Cardassia must find its true way,’ ” Garak repeated softly, pointing at the image of Nyra on the display.
“I heard her. But neither of you are making much in the way of sense—”
“The True Way? You haven’t heard of them?”
Ghemor shook his head.
“Ah…!” Again, Garak smiled at him, and clasped his hands together in anticipation of the largesse he was about to bestow.
“You’re starting to unnerve me, Garak—and I have to say I’m not much in the mood for that right now—”
“The True Way,” Garak said, “was a…curious little organization with which I had some dealings in the past.”
“You mean you spied on them?” Ghemor said bluntly.
Garak tutted and pursed his lips in distaste. Really, people had no appreciation of the delicate handling that was involved in such matters; they were always so very crass about things—
“Yes, I spied on them.”
“And?”
“It was a radical group opposed to peace with Bajor, and very firm in its belief that all the woes of Cardassia could be blamed on the Federation. A doctrine that would play well these days, as I’m sure you can imagine. They tended to prefer the direct approach—bombs, assassinations. This,” he indicated at the screen, “is just their kind of thing. As I say, only a small outfit, but quite effective—for fanatics.”
He smiled coldly. They had once even targeted the senior staff of Deep Space 9, Garak recalled, trapping them in the holosuite, inside one of Bashir’s more preposterous fantasies…. There was a nostalgic twinge in his shoulder as it remembered the occasion. Over one of their ambiguous breakfasts, Odo had revealed to him that the True Way had been responsible for that particular melodrama. It really was rather a pity that Odo had never seen fit to ask him directly about the nature of the organization, given that Garak was almost certainly the quadrant’s leading authority on the subject…. Effective, yes—but the True Way had also proven disappointingly easy to infiltrate.
Worlds of Star Trek Deep Space Nine Page 9