by S. D. Perry
“It’s been an honor and privilege to hear from you, as always, First Minister,” she said formally. “Will there be anything else?”
Shakaar could no longer hide his frustration. “Why do you always have to be so damned impossible?”
“I’m the commanding officer of Deep Space 9,” Kira said forcefully, enunciating each word so he’d know she would never go quietly. “It comes with the job.”
They held each other’s gaze for a long moment before either of them spoke again. Then Kira repeated her earlier question, “Will that be all, First Minister?”
Shakaar continued to study her face for several seconds; then he actually smiled, not politically this time, but the way she remembered, as if he was satisfied to know that she hadn’t lost any of her edge. “Yes, that’ll be all. Be well, Nerys. We’ll talk again soon.” He signed off, and the screen went to standby mode.
It took Kira several seconds to realize that Shakaar hadn’t relieved her of her command, that he never intended to. He was simply warning her, in his own very effective way, that there were rough seas ahead, and if she couldn’t weather them on her own, she’d lose everything.
In other words, business as usual. Kira pushed her chair away from her desk. Rubbing her eyes, she realized how tired she was, but couldn’t remember exactly when she had gotten up that morning. With so many of the station’s lights shut down, her internal clock was thrown off. Even the chronometer on her desktop console was wrong, the power having been interrupted so many times in the past two weeks. She could think of only one person who might know exactly what time it was. Kira reactivated her companel and said, “Kira to Quark.”
“Yes, Colonel. Lovely to hear from you. What can I do for you today?”
“What time is it, Quark?”
“Why, Colonel,” Quark said, “it’s Happy Hour.”
Kira smiled. “Of course it is,” she said, and signed off. Then, speaking to an empty office, she repeated, “Of course it is.”
Chapter Eleven
“Have I mentioned,” Ro asked, wiping water from her eyes, “how very much I hate being wet?”
“Yes,” Taran’atar grunted. “You have. Several times. Please don’t do it again.”
Ten minutes after the sun had set, clouds had rolled in off the sea and unleashed a torrential downpour. Ro remembered the predawn and post-dusk rains from her previous visit to Sindorin, but, she decided, it must have been the dry season—or the drier season, at any rate—because she hadn’t experienced anything like this. The good news was that the deluge was so intense that their trail had been rendered untraceable to anything but the most sensitive short-range sensors.
The bad news was that they were now soaked to the bone in a dark rain forest that was inhabited, Ro knew, by several creatures that could be quite deadly to most humanoids, even, she suspected, a Jem’Hadar. A fire would improve their chances (assuming, of course, that they could light one), but if Locken’s Jem’Hadar were still on the prowl, it would be as good as sending up a flare.
Good news and bad news aside, they couldn’t move now. Rain was sluicing down off the treetops, transforming game trails into narrow, rushing streams. Ro suspected that Taran’atar might be able to keep his footing, but she knew just as well that she would have her feet swept out from under her before she could take three steps. They weren’t going anywhere.
A bolt of lightning crackled across the sky and Ro tried to use the split second of light to get a look at the surroundings, but all she ended up with was a silhouette of drooping, waterlogged vegetation and streaks of gushing water. The crack of thunder crashing down on the heels of the lightning bolt made her teeth rattle and her empty stomach reverberate like a kettledrum.
“Can you see anything?” she asked Taran’atar. She suspected Jem’Hadar had better night vision than Bajorans.
“Yes.”
“What?”
“I see rain.”
“And what else?”
“Trees. Many trees. Also undergrowth. More importantly, I see no Jem’Hadar. Otherwise, if you mean ‘Can you see anything useful?’ then the answer is no.”
Ro didn’t reply.
She kept expecting the storm to reach its climax, for a pause between flash and crash, but the pause never arrived. A hundred meters to the west, a treetop exploded into flames and then was quickly quenched by the downpour. That could have been this tree, she thought, and we could be two tiny little piles of ash being washed down a hillside. Before the flames died away completely, she glanced over at Taran’atar, who scuttled closer and, through clenched teeth, asked, “When can we move?”
“Soon. As soon as the rain stops. For a half hour after it ends, nothing moves. Except, of course, for the Jem’Hadar.”
Taran’atar nodded in agreement. “If they are still out here, we will elude them. They may be Jem’Hadar by birth, but they have not received proper training. Did you see how they pursued us before the rain began?”
“No,” Ro said. “I mean, I might have seen a few strands of grass swaying back and forth when we ran through a field…”
“Pathetic,” Taran’atar said. “And their uniforms. Did you see them?”
“Maybe for a second when they unshrouded. Were they wearing red, some silver trim?”
“Vanity.”
Ro was tempted to laugh, but she sensed it would not be well received.
Then, as suddenly as it had begun, the rain stopped. Dark clouds scudded and Ro felt the hairs on the back of her head stiffen when the breeze picked up. Auroral displays from the plasma storms were already becoming evident to the south. Taran’atar stood up. “I’ll return,” he said, and shrouded. Not a single leaf stirred, nor did a drop of water fall that could not be accounted for by wind or gravity. It was as if he had never been there.
Several minutes passed. Ro shivered in her wet uniform as the breeze picked up. She stood up slowly and tried to peer through the foliage, but the auroral light did nothing to illuminate the terrain. “Taran’atar,” Ro whispered, then shivered again. “Where are you, dammit?”
And then his disembodied voice was in her ear: “Someone is out there.”
Ro’s heart jumped and she almost fired her phaser. She wanted to yell “Don’t do that!” but refrained. Instead, she opened her pack, pulled out the fractal knife and clipped it to her belt, then checked the charge on her phaser. “Who’s out there?” she whispered softly. “Jem’Hadar?”
“No,” Taran’atar said softly. “Whoever they are, they move more swiftly and make better use of the cover. They know this forest.”
Ro felt hope rise within her. “But you didn’t get a good look at them?”
“No,” Taran’atar replied, now somewhere to her right. “They are ahead of us, moving in the same direction. I came back to warn you. If you draw their attention, I’m certain I could kill them all.”
“No!” Ro said, too loudly. “Wait! I mean…they might not be enemies.”
Taran’atar unshrouded directly in front of her, and Ro suddenly found herself staring into the eyes of a very suspicious Jem’Hadar. “What do you mean?” he asked. “I thought everyone on this planet was an enemy. What has the doctor not told me?”
“Nothing,” Ro said quickly. “He told you everything he knew…. It’s difficult to explain. I was hoping this wouldn’t even come up…. Damn.” She pulled her tricorder out and checked for life signs. As she expected, Sindorin’s environment made the readings intermittent and imprecise, but not useless. Pointing to the southwest, she said, “They’re about a hundred meters that way.”
“There is a game trail leading in their direction,” Taran’atar informed her. “If you are careful, you will not make much noise.” He was obviously not pleased that she was withholding information, but was still willing to follow her lead for the present.
“Don’t get too close,” Ro said, rising and stretching cramped muscles. “And try to stay downwind. Their sense of smell is extraordinarily acute. And stay unshro
uded. This is going to be hard enough to explain without having you appear out of thin air.” She checked the directional reading one more time. “You’re sure there are no Jem’Hadar nearby?”
“Considering how loudly you talk, if there were you would be dead by now.”
“Fine, I’ll be quiet,” Ro said. “Let’s go.”
Taran’atar turned and headed down the slope, walking quickly, but silently. Ro tried to stay right behind him, but slipped before she had gone ten meters. She managed to stay on her feet, but only by grabbing an overhanging branch, which brought a cascade of rain down on their heads. “Wonderful,” she sputtered. “From now on, I’m volunteering for all the missions.”
The slope soon leveled out and they had only traveled a couple of hundred meters before they were in deep forest. It didn’t start to rain again, but Ro could hear the breeze whispering through the treetops, shaking the canopy and occasionally loosing sprinkles of fat drops. It was dark, much too dark to see where she was stepping, and Ro had to pull out her beacon, set it on low, and keep it pointed at the ground. If anyone saw the light, she was dead, but it was either use it or wait until morning. Neither was an attractive alternative and Ro worried that Taran’atar would leave without her if she tried to stop. It was wearisome, nerve-racking work, slogging through the muddy undergrowth, every second wondering when the crack of weapons fire would break the nearly silent night.
Two hours later, just as Ro was beginning to feel that the only way she would get any rest was to throw herself down on the ground and pretend she had fallen, Taran’atar stopped to examine an ancient tree. Training her lamp light on the trunk, Ro saw that someone had burned away a meter-wide strip of bark using what looked to her like some kind of energy weapon. The tree was already dead, held upright only by the web of vines and branches connecting its crown to its neighbors’.
“Who did this?” Taran’atar asked. “The ones we follow?”
Ro shook her head. “They don’t have energy weapons,” she said. “What do you think?”
Taran’atar leaned forward and examined the burns more carefully, then put his nose against the dead wood and inhaled deeply. A large burrowing insect popped out from under a dangling piece of bark and scurried up the side of the trunk. The Jem’Hadar watched it go, but did not otherwise react.
“Romulan disruptors,” he said, then looked around at the other trees in the small grove. About half of them, Ro saw, had suffered the same fate. Taran’atar pointed at specific burns. “Breen. Federation phasers. If we assume that the enemy human is pirating much of his equipment, he would arm his Jem’Hadar similarly.” There were also large holes in the soil. Someone had obviously expended a lot of energy trying to destroy root systems. “But what were they firing at?” he asked.
“About another half hour and all will be clear,” Ro said. “That is, assuming they haven’t all been killed.”
“No,” Taran’atar said. “Someone has been through this grove recently. They stopped for several minutes, too, though I cannot tell why.”
Ro looked up at the dead trees, each of them gigantic and probably ancient beyond telling, each now its own grave marker. “I know why,” she said. “To pay homage. To remember.”
Taran’atar stared at Ro, waiting for her to elaborate. When she didn’t, Ro let him walk away while she stood silently for half a minute, listening for voices she knew she’d never again hear among the treetops. Then, dry-eyed and without comment, she followed her companion deeper into the forest.
Ro didn’t have to look at her tricorder when they found the next grove of ancient trees, because she knew she was in the right place. Here the trees were unscarred, the root systems undamaged, but in every other important particular, this place was identical with the one they had left behind forty-five minutes ago.
“Come stand near me,” Ro said to Taran’atar. “And lower your weapon.”
Taran’atar regarded her skeptically, but Ro persisted.
“Look,” she said. “You know and I know that you could probably wipe out the whole lot of them with your bare hands. It’s not going to make much difference to you if you point your phaser at that ground for five seconds.”
He was staring at her again. Ro wondered how long she could continue to press her luck with him. A younger Jem’Hadar would doubtless have killed her by now. But she supposed that was part of Odo’s point in selecting this one. Having survived years longer than most of his kind, maybe Taran’atar had learned patience, and was less prone to rash action. After a moment, he did as she bade him.
Ro holstered her phaser, then cupped her hands around her mouth and bellowed a low, staccato, hooting call that echoed strangely under the canopy. There was no reply, but the forest, which had been alive with small, rustling noises, suddenly grew still. Ro turned to the east and called once more. Again, there was no reply, so she turned to the south, inhaled deeply, and lifted her hands. Before she could call again, a high-pitched voice called out, “Why are you here? Why is he here?” The voice came from directly overhead. There was no question who the voice was referring to when it said “he.”
“He’s my companion,” Ro said. “He won’t hurt you.”
The speaker, now higher up and to her left, made a noise, an ack-ack-ack sound that Ro recognized as laughter, though there was no humor in it. Ro heard another noise, a deep inhaling sound, and only recognized it for what it was when a glob of phlegm dropped from the canopy and landed at her feet. She decided to ignore it.
“Do you remember me?” she asked. “Is there anyone here who knows me?”
“Yes,” the voice said, now lower down again and behind her. She began to wish that at least one person she spoke to that night would stay in one spot for more than ten seconds. “I remember you. That is why I was told to come speak with you. You might not remember me because I was a young man when you were here last and now I am very old.”
Ro was confused. “It’s been less than three years,” she said.
“It has been a lifetime,” the voice said. The branches overhead rustled and something suddenly dropped to the ground in front of them. Taran’atar crouched, his phaser up and aimed—
Suddenly Ro was in his way. “Put it down,” she hissed.
Taran’atar’s eyes narrowed, the weapon inches from her abdomen. Ro had no doubt that it wasn’t set for stun, but she didn’t budge. Taran’atar finally lowered his phaser.
She turned around slowly to face their host, who was shaking with terror. The figure crouched in the shadows, small and unthreatening.
“I apologize for my companion, and our intrusion,” Ro said. “We’ll leave if you wish. We didn’t come here to bring you more trouble…”
“But you already have,” the figure said. “The Jem’Hadar are moving about in the forest, obviously looking for something. It’s not—they think we’re all dead. They’ve gone for a while because they don’t like the rain, but they’ll be back.”
Behind her, Taran’atar seemed to be grinding his teeth together. Obviously, he didn’t think much of Jem’Hadar who didn’t like to get wet.
“Again I ask: Why are you here?” the figure repeated. “And why did you bring him?” He raised an arm and pointed a long-fingered hand at Taran’atar. “He wishes to kill us. They all do.”
“No, he doesn’t. He isn’t like the others, I swear it. He simply doesn’t yet understand that you aren’t a threat to him. It’s a complicated story,” Ro said, dropping down on her haunches so she was as low to the ground as the other. “I’ll be glad to tell you the whole thing, but I don’t think we should do it here. Is there anyplace safe we can go?”
Again, the humorless ack-ack-ack. “Safe?” the figure asked. “This is Sindorin. No place is safe, not anymore. But perhaps we can find someplace a little more sheltered.” He casually scratched the back of his head. “And there are others who will want to hear what you say.” He stopped scratching and stood a little straighter. “Wait here until I come back.”
&nbs
p; From his crouched position, the figure leaped straight up into the air, easily clearing four meters, and grasped a low-hanging vine. Soundlessly, he pulled himself up, hand over hand, into the canopy. Ro listened carefully to see if she could tell which way he was going, but she heard nothing. Then, she turned slowly and walked to where Taran’atar was standing. “Can you tell where he went?” she asked.
Taran’atar nodded to his right. “He went south by southwest about two hundred meters. He is speaking to three others like himself. Who is he?”
“Him, personally? I don’t know his name. But he’s an Ingavi.”
The Jem’Hadar shook his head. “The name means nothing to me. I was under the impression this planet was not populated by any sentient species.”
“No indigenous sentients, no,” Ro said. “Listen, I want to thank you for your forbearance, and your trust in me. I realize it can’t be an easy thing for you.”
Taran’atar inclined his head, accepting her statement. “You live dangerously,” he noted, “but not recklessly. I will not challenge your authority. However, if you wish to avoid any further…misunderstandings, you would do well to brief me now on everything you have been withholding about this planet.” Ro was surprised to realize that she felt no sense of threat. Taran’atar was not trying to intimidate her; he was attempting to gather information, though how he might use that information was another issue entirely.
“Here’s what I know,” she said. “The creatures, the Ingavi, were native to one of the worlds that fell under Cardassian control about seventy-five years ago, just as the Cardassian Union was beginning the same wave of expansion that eventually swallowed up Bajor. The Ingavi were still a young warp culture—they’d only had it for about fifty years—and a group of about two thousand fled before the Cardassians could completely annex their planet. They were forced into the Badlands to avoid pursuit, lost their primary drive, and were lucky enough to make it here relatively unscathed. They made a controlled reentry—barely—and managed to unload a few bare necessities before the ship sank in the ocean.