by S. D. Perry
The Kohn-Ma members looked at one another with skepticism and bewilderment.
“If what you say is true,” Biran finally spoke up, “then this is really going to be the end of it.”
“I know,” Kira said evenly, and suddenly, Tahna knew it, too. It was really going to be over.
LIBERATED BAJOR, YEAR ONE
2369 (Terran Calendar)
25
“Finally, I feel like the Prophets are listening,” Shakaar said, taking a sip from his mug of copal cider. “I’ve been writing the same thing on my renewal scrolls since I learned how to write, and this time—”
“You aren’t supposed to tell anyone what you write on your scroll,” Kira reminded him, as she leaned up against the bare trunk of a dead nyawood tree. The sky above them was striped with a deep-cast orange, the moons beginning to rise over the farthest mountain ranges. The air was thick with smoke from burning Cardassian wreckage—and from the traditional fires of the Gratitude Festival, currently being celebrated all over the planet. It could not have come at a more opportune time in the calendar.
Shakaar laughed and took another pull at his cider. “Could there be any question what I wrote on my scroll? What we all wrote?”
“It’s not my place to speculate what anyone else wrote,” Kira said primly, and took the mug from Shakaar’s hands to take a draught of her own.
Shakaar smiled at her, amusement shining in his eyes.
Both turned their heads to the sky as five more Cardassian troop carriers went up, bringing the day’s total up to somewhere in the low hundreds. All day long, the Shakaar cell had been watching the ships leave atmosphere. All were backlit by an eerie halo in the lower portion of the sky, a clinging, stinking haze of acrid chemical smoke—not from the bonfires and braziers that had begun to smolder just after the sun dipped in the horizon, but from the remains of Cardassian factories, mining camps, and military bases. Some of the larger facilities had been burning for weeks. The Cardassians had stopped trying to put them out more than a month past, retaliating instead with fires of their own—scorching and poisoning the fields of thousands of farmers, setting the forests ablaze, ensuring that although they were finally leaving, their presence would not soon be forgotten.
The resistance had pushed as hard as they could, just as Jaro Essa had advised, following the massacre in the Kendra Valley. At first, it had not seemed that would be enough—the soldiers just kept coming, and Bajoran casualties were heavy. The targets seemed too numerous and too distant to effectively remove by people on foot. But the tide had turned two weeks ago—no small thanks to the massive distribution of contraband weapons that had found its way to Bajor from the Valo system.
Kira squinted up into the darkening sky as the winking ship lights became too distant to see, and her face split into a wide smile. Her head felt light. Though she continually warned herself not to get her hopes up, she truly believed the occupation was coming to a close.
Shakaar shook his head, as if to illustrate his own wary disbelief, and then he smiled back at her.
“This seems as good a way to celebrate the Gratitude Festival as any,” Kira said.
“It’s a new year,” Shakaar murmured, taking the nearly empty mug away from her.
“A new era,” Kira said.
“Peldor joi, Nerys,” Shakaar said.
“Peldor joi.” She repeated the traditional salutation of the Gratitude Festival. It seemed funny to her now, the old Bajoran words having become nearly meaningless in these past years. Her family had still celebrated the festival when she was a child, lighting a small metal brazier and burning the renewal scrolls along with an uncharacteristically large dinner. Many friends and neighbors would come to the Kira residence to take part in the feast, and there would even be some kind of small treat afterward, for the children. But in the years since she had joined the resistance, the festival had been almost forgotten—a nod to the Prophets, but the modest indulgences of Kira’s childhood seemed so far in the past as to have been imagined.
“I think they might really be leaving for good,” Shakaar observed, putting voice to the thing that all Bajorans had come to believe, but had mostly been afraid to say out loud.
“Time will tell,” Kira said carefully. “We need more cider.”
“And I need to write my scroll,” Shakaar said. “Shall we go back to camp?”
“I’ll be along,” Kira said, continuing to stare out at the sky, creeping over with dark. She turned for a moment to watch Shakaar amble back to the place where the cell had lit a bonfire of their own, swigging cider and gorging themselves on some makeshift approximation of hasperat. She admired him as he moved—she had always liked something about the way he moved—though of course there was nothing romantic about it; he was just a good-looking man, that was all. She turned away from him as the very notion of her old cell leader in amorous terms seized her, and she was overcome by a short burst of self-conscious laughter. Another carrier went up.
“Peldor joi,” she told it, gazing after the transport until she couldn’t see it anymore, and then turned to go back to camp; the hasperat was calling.
“The civilian leaders’ decision was nearly unanimous,” Kell said. His face, almost filling the holoframe, was devoid of any expression.
Dukat cut him off with a barely suppressed snort.
“Have I amused you?”
Dukat shook his head, aware of the smile that refused to budge from his lips. There was nothing remotely amusing here, but if he stopped smiling, he was unsure of what would ultimately happen. His frustration rode so close to the surface of his bearings, he kept the reins tight as he carefully chose his words.
“I did all I could do.”
“Of course you did.”
“We took a few losses, naturally. Anything worth having can be expected to run into a few setbacks here and there.” He extended his hand, palm up, and then, not quite knowing what else to do with it, he clenched it into a fist. “Central Command must have agreed with the civilian government to consent to this decision.”
Kell opened his mouth as if to reply, but Dukat spoke over him; he did not care to hear the legate’s excuses for the weakening of Central Command. The military was hemorrhaging power, and it was partly the fault of officials like Kell who were foolish enough to submit in the first place. This turn of events had been set in motion a long time ago. “It is…disappointing that some of my colleagues cannot envision the long-term results of their actions.” His fist tightened. Someday, he would set things right—with the traitors in the civilian government, and with those in Central Command, as well. He knew exactly who was to blame for this, the loss of his legacy.
“The Cardassian people…have no faith in me,” he went on. “They never did. Central Command had none, either. And yet, if they would only review the records of my term here, they would see that the very few times I was able to make use of my own policies, the Union enjoyed measurable success here. But when I followed the dictates of Central Command”—his voice was rising—“I failed. I failed, because I allowed others to coerce me into ignoring my own instincts.”
Kell suddenly looked very tired. “There is little sense in speaking of it now,” he said, his tone flat. “This is not about you, Dukat. I am contacting you merely as a formality. I anticipate the Federation will send its Starfleet soon. I assume you already know what must be done.”
“This is about me!” Dukat shouted. “Bajor is about me, don’t you understand that? If you weren’t so busy pandering to the fools in the Detapa Council—Central Command is but a shadow of its former self, can’t you see that, Kell? Because of weak men like you!”
Kell scoffed and shook his head at the outburst. “I understand how difficult it must be for you to confront your own failure,” he said with a barely suppressed sneer. “But there is still much for you to do, and little time to do it.”
“Yes…sir,” Dukat said, carefully dialing back his hostility. He could not afford to make a fool of
himself any more than he had already done, and Kell still had the power to ruin him completely—if the loss of Bajor hadn’t already done it.
Dukat stood alone in his office for a few moments after the transmission ended. His arm had fallen to his side, but his hand was still closed into a hard fist. Slowly, he uncurled his fingers, examining his palm as if seeing it for the first time. He felt slightly dazed, but he knew he could not afford to succumb to his emotions; there was much to be done, as Kell had said, and he was the one expected to do it. There were no more Cardassians on the surface; at least, none who were authorized to be there. Now he must remove the rest of his men from Terok Nor.
He put in a call to Dalin Trakad, speaking as soon as the dull-faced officer stepped into his office. “Get all the Bajorans out of ore processing and get them to the surface immediately,” he commanded.
“Sir…how am I to arrange for the transport of so many people?”
“I don’t care,” Dukat snapped. “Put them in the cargo hold of a freighter for all I care, just get them out of here. Drop them at the closest transport hub on the surface and call it done. Get them out of here before they start rioting.”
“Some of them…already have, sir.”
“All the more reason to be swift in carrying out my instructions, Trakad.”
The dalin nodded. “Yes, sir. But…I don’t know if you’re aware that some of the soldiers…they have also started to destroy station property…”
“Have they,” Dukat mused. “Well, I advise you to keep out of their way, then. But I want you to personally ensure that all systems are permanently offline before we go. Leave nothing for the scavengers that will come after us. Purge all databases. Every system—replicators, weapons, ore-processing equipment, turbolifts—do your best to see that they are no longer functional by the time we leave. If all else fails, old-fashioned sabotage will suffice. Keep life support up, of course. For the time being.”
The dalin was surprised. “There is very little time, sir. It may not be possible to completely—”
Dukat ignored him. “Start arranging for the transfer of first-tier military officials; all higher-echelon officers will be transported back to Cardassia Prime immediately. The rest are to follow until evacuation is complete, but I want all our people gone within three days. Understood?”
“What about…what about the tailor, sir?”
“He can fend for himself,” Dukat snapped. Kell had made it clear enough that the disgraced operative was to be left alone; this might actually be the first time Dukat was happy to comply with the legate’s order. “Carry out my intructions,” he told Trakad.
“Yes, sir.”
Dukat turned to go, but his thoughts quickly turned to the shape-shifter. “Contact Odo for me, Trakad.”
Where Trakad had previously looked bewildered, now he looked fearful. “The…shape-shifter is…Nobody can find him. He seems to be…gone.”
“Gone?”
“He…hasn’t been seen since yesterday, and rumors have already sprouted that he fled…back to Bajor.”
Dukat felt a momentary weakness in his limbs. Odo might not have gone back to Bajor; he could very well still be here, but if he was not answering station calls…After everything else—the treachery of the Detapa Council, the long-term flagrant disregard for his authority by the ingrates on this horrid world—the notion of Odo’s disloyalty was very nearly the thing to send Dukat into a state of complete anomie.
He swept his gaze across the surfaces of his office—the eye-shaped window, framing starry blackness; the walls, his desk, the floor and ceiling. Every last fraction of it had been designed and created specifically for him, as the prefect of this world. But now—the thought of leaving Terok Nor whole and intact for Bajorans to infest like voles was repugnant to him. He doubted they would destroy it outright; without orbital facilities of their own, they might have need of such a place. Better to obliterate it himself than leave his seat of power for lo these many years to such as them.
But no, Dukat decided. Terok Nor would remain here, under the authority of whoever came along to claim the Bajoran prize for themselves, and it was looking more and more as though the Federation was going to be the unlikely victor in this comic tragedy.
Would the shape-shifter ally himself with the Bajorans? Dukat thought not; the man was a complete enigma in many ways, but the thing that defined him most was his status as an outsider. He could continue to search for his own kind…which meant that he would likely remain on the station, to fraternize with the democratic hypocrites of the Federation.
Dukat turned off the lights in his office. The Union had just made an enormous mistake, and Dukat had no intention of ever forgetting it. He was leaving, but this would not be the last he had seen of Bajor. His business here was far from finished. No, if he thought for an instant that he would never see Terok Nor again, he would have it destroyed with the Bajorans still aboard. But this was not over. Not nearly.
The people in the Valo system had been chattering about a possible withdrawal for a long time. Ever since the Federation ship that carried Ro Laren had come and gone, a great deal of gossip had circled around the colony world. When Jas Holza had finally agreed to purchase and deliver weapons to the people of Bajor, the residents of the Valo system had begun to speak of the coming withdrawal as fact, though Keeve had been afraid to really believe it. But as more reports poured in, and people arranged for transport back to Bajor, Keeve finally had to acknowledge to himself that it was not just a rumor, not a Cardassian trick—the occupation was over.
Those in Valo II’s overcrowded settlements were speculating about what the ultimate cause of the withdrawal had been, picking up pieces of gossip as they heard them, often second-hand, or even third-hand, from Valo III. Most wanted to believe that the death of the kai’s son had been the catalyst; that the massacre in the Kendra Valley was the final outrage to thrust the resistance—and the rest of Bajor—into the frame of mind they needed to be able to summon the strength for the final push. Jas Holza was already held in high regard on this planet for keeping the citizens of Valo II alive with very little motivation. Now he was a genuine hero, for coming through with the weapons that gave the resistance the edge in the end. Keeve knew, of course, that there was more to it than that. The Federation had played a role, and Keeve imagined there was some machination of Cardassian politics that must have facilitated this unlikely outcome. Still, he was not such a pragmatist that he would not let the people have their martyr and their hero; it did much to bolster them in the uncertainty of this time. For despite the intense joy of knowing that they could return home once again, there was also unease over the consideration of what they would find when they got there.
Jas Holza had arranged for several of his transport ships to begin ferrying people to the surface of Bajor. He had already come to warn Keeve and the others that Bajor was not the same world they remembered. Jas’s own ancestral home had been nearly destroyed in a recent attack, a great deal of the surrounding farmland and forest burned or permanently altered by either military strikes or the varied interests of the Cardassians over the years of the occupation. But most ignored his caution with eagerness—despite what Bajor might have become, nobody could believe that it would not be better than Valo II. A very few chose to stay behind, but most of the settlers preferred to take their chances on what was left of Bajor.
Keeve was one of the last to leave. He bundled up what few belongings he still cared to take with him, said good-bye to the handful of people who were staying, and prepared to board one of Jas Holza’s outdated carriers. He waited in a slow-moving line, following a mix of people who trudged up the drop ramp and were shown into individual passenger compartments.
One of the pilot’s crewmen took Keeve to a compartment with an open seat, pressing a panel so that the door would slide open, and Keeve was, for a moment, taken aback to see that the compartment appeared to already be full. But as he ducked inside, he quickly saw that he could take
his place next to two silent children, close in age, though Keeve had no idea how old they might be. Twelve? Eight? Keeve had always been a poor judge of these things.
Keeve took his seat, and the man who sat opposite him spoke with enthusiasm. “We’re to travel with Minister Keeve Falor?” he asked rhetorically, apparently speaking to his wife, who was seated next to him.
It took Keeve a moment to place him. “Bajin,” Keeve finally said to the middle-aged man. This was the son of Darrah Mace. It was somewhat disconcerting for Keeve to acknowledge how old the man looked to him—if his friends’ children were aging so much, how old must he then be? He wondered how Kalem Apren would look to him now, for he was to meet Apren and Jaro Essa at Bajor’s capital as soon as he arrived.
“Hello, Keeve.” Darrah Bajin greeted him with affection and respect, excitement showing through in his tone. “Have you met my wife and sons?”
“I have,” Keeve said, nodding to the two politely silent boys in the seat adjacent to his. Bajin’s wife, Cheren, gave him a wide smile, and then turned to her boys.
“This man was a great governor on our world when Papa and I were just small children!” she explained to them.
The children smiled shyly, and then quickly looked away, whispering to each other and looking deferentially to their mother. Keeve smiled at them. “Shy,” he remarked.
Cheren’s smile tightened. “Their lives have been difficult,” she said.
“As have all of our lives,” Bajin quickly added. “But that will come to an end, now.”
“Indeed,” Keeve murmured. He thought he remembered that Bajin and Cheren had lost a child, some years ago, but it was possible he had them confused with another couple. A great many babies born on Valo II had never made it to adulthood. He arranged his knees so they would not bump against Bajin’s. The flyer had just jolted into takeoff mode.
The compartment began to vibrate as the thrusters took the ship quickly beyond the atmosphere. The turbulence was slight, even in the outdated ship. Jas had maintained his fleet as well as he could afford. This ship was once one of the best flyers that could be had, and she was still in fine form. She sailed out into the openness of space, and as the ship went to warp, Keeve drew back the cover on the tiny, oval porthole in the compartment, watching the stars as they streaked past.