Twist of Faith
Page 95
“No,” the Iconian confirmed. “But we respect the beings who watch your worlds. And we long ago promised never to interfere with them.”
“Worlds…?” Kira asked.
“Farewell, Colonel.”
A million questions on her lips, it took a conscious effort to turn toward the gateway. Taking a deep breath, Kira walked around the console.
Before stepping into the gateway, she took one last look at the immense galaxy above her.
She once again found the spot where the custodian had indicated that Bajor was. From there she traced an imaginary line to the region she knew was the Delta Quadrant, and wondered whether or not Taran’atar had survived his battle with the Hirogen. Then her eyes drifted to the Gamma Quadrant, to the expanse that contained the Dominion, and the Founders’ world.
You don’t look so far away from here, Odo.
The custodian waited patiently while she took it all in, and eventually she turned away from the sprawling mass of stars.
Enough self-indulgence. It’s past time I went back to work.
But as she approached the gateway, it seemed the custodian had one more thing to tell her. “One of the things that doomed the Iconian Empire, Colonel, was that the gateway technology meant that we could no longer travel. We lost sight of the journey in our desire to achieve our destination. Don’t make that mistake.”
Kira smiled at the cloaked figure. “I won’t. And thank you.”
Then she stepped through the gateway, knowing full well what lay beyond.
Chapter Eleven
Ezri Dax had, Kira knew, centuries of life experience thanks to the Dax symbiont, and she also knew that, among her nine lifetimes, she had probably seen everything.
So seeing her jump up, scream, and drop the padd she was holding when Kira walked into ops made for a fairly amusing sight.
As usual with the gateways, there was no feeling of transition from one point to the other. It was as if ops had been the next room over from the extragalactic outpost. The only change was that the Iconian outpost’s gravity was a bit lighter than that of DS9, so Kira stumbled a bit upon her arrival.
Dax blinked several times. “Colonel?”
“Yes, Lieutenant, it’s me.”
Gan said, somewhat redundantly, “You’re alive.”
Kira resisted the obvious rejoinders. “Report.”
“Europa Nova has been completely evacuated. Most of the refugees are on Bajor. The station’s also filled almost to capacity. Lieutenant Ro, Sergeant Ychell, and Quark have returned, and Ro says she’s got some good news regarding the Orion Syndicate. And Taran’atar’s in the infirmary.”
Kira’s eyes widened. “He’s all right?”
Dax winced. “I wouldn’t go that far, but he’ll recover. Whatever he fought gave him quite a beating.” Then she smiled. “Apparently enough to cause delusions, since he reported that you were dead.”
Probably didn’t read my life signs on the planet and made assumptions, Kira thought. Given the radiation levels, I can’t really blame him. “Let’s just say I was able to make the gateway technology work for me. Go on.”
Dax continued with her report, including the fact that the Defiant had gone off to rendezvous with the Marco Polo to help implement a plan to deal with the gateways; that the Trager was attached to upper pylon 1, Gul Macet having been invited to stay for a bit by Vaughn; the continued presence of Councillor Charivretha zh’Thane on board the station; and the fact that Lieutenant Bowers had taken the Rio Grande back to Europa Nova to keep an eye on the gateway there.
“It’s been taken care of,” Kira said. “There won’t be any more antimatter waste in orbit of Europa Nova at all. Send a message to Bowers; tell him to do a full sensor sweep to determine how much contamination is still there. If we’re lucky, it’s little enough that we can work on repopulating sooner rather than later.” She smiled. “And tell Bowers when he’s finished to tow the Euphrates back. It should be in orbit.” With, she recalled, remembering the shield enhancer she had salvaged from the tanker, a nice piece of new technology.
“Yes, sir,” Dax said, moving toward a console. Then she stopped, and smiled. “It’s good to have you back, Nerys. I don’t think this place could’ve taken losing another commanding officer.”
“Good to be back, Ezri. Don’t worry, I’m not going anywhere. I’ve still got too much work to do.”
Chapter Twelve
Kira sat in her office, looking over the historical records she had been able to scare up from the Perikian region. There was distressingly little from as long as thirty thousand years ago. She had found no record whatsoever of the Lerrit, aside from some archaeological indications of some kind of empire from that time period that looked Lerrit-like to Kira.
Kira had taken care of a variety of administrative duties—not to mention assuring everyone from station personnel to First Minister Shakaar that she was, in fact, alive, contrary to reports—and also been sure to visit Taran’atar in the infirmary. He was fairly weak, but recovering quickly, though Julian had made noises about even laboratory-bred supersoldiers needing their rest when they have the stuffing beaten out of them. For his part, Taran’atar had only one thing to say: “It is good that we have both reclaimed our lives.”
“You don’t know the half of it,” Kira had said.
Afterward, she returned to her office and tried to find out what she could about the Perikian region thirty thousand years ago.
The name of Torrna Antosso did come up in several texts, as did that of others with that family name. Historians had debated just who Antosso was and what form his apparently tremendous influence had been in the peninsula, but given the number of landmarks and streets and such that had been named for him or other members of the Torrna family, it was obvious to Kira that he had taken her advice.
Assuming I was ever really there, she thought, as she rubbed her left arm, which still had the scar. Julian had offered to remove it, but she had refused.
Shutting down the computer terminal, Kira stared straight ahead for a moment, then picked up the baseball.
Benjamin Sisko had always kept that baseball on his desk. The central element of a human game that he’d been inordinately fond of, the white spheroid with red stitching was a symbol of Sisko’s presence. When the station had been taken by the Dominion during the war, Sisko had deliberately left the baseball behind as a message to the occupying forces that he planned to come back—a promise he had fulfilled.
Even though the station was now hers to command, Kira had not been able to bring herself to remove the baseball. She wasn’t sure why she had left it there.
No, I know why. I kept thinking in the back of my head that the Emissary was going to return—hoping that he’d return and take the burden off of me, that he’d take the station back just like he did two years ago, and everything would be back to normal.
But that’s not going to happen. This station is mine, now. I may have lost the Emissary, Odo, Jast, and the kai, I may be Attainted—but I’ve got responsibilities, just like Torrna did.
And dammit, I’m going to live up to them.
She opened a drawer in the desk and placed the baseball in it.
I’ll hold it for you, Benjamin, for when you come back.
But I need this to be my office now.
She got up and went back into ops, knowing her journey was far from over.
Two gates for ghostly dreams there are: One gateway of honest horn, and one of ivory. Issuing by the ivory gate are dreams of glimmering illusion, fantasies, but those that come through solid polished horn may be borne out, if mortals only know them.
—Homer, The Odyssey
About the Authors
S. D. PERRY has worked in a number of multimedia universes, novelizing videogames, graphic novels, and movies, as well as creating original fiction with characters established for television. She lives in Oregon with her family, and is currently working on a first novel entirely of her own creation, a thriller.
DAVID WEDDLE was a writer and executive story editor for Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. He is currently a writer-producer for Battlestar Galactica. He has written for such television series as The Twilight Zone and The Fearing Mind. His other books include: “If They Move…Kill ‘Em!”: The Life and Times of Sam Peckinpah, and Among the Mansions of Eden: Tales of Love, Lust, and Land in Beverly Hills. He has written articles for such publications as: Rolling Stone, the Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, The San Francisco Chronicle, San Jose Mercury News, Sight & Sound, Film Comment, Variety, and L.A. Weekly.
JEFFREY LANG is the author of Star Trek: The Next Generation—Immortal Coil and Star Trek: Voyager—String Theory, Book One: Cohesion. He is also the coauthor, with J.G. Hertzler, of the Left Hand of Destiny duology for Deep Space Nine. He has also written short stories for a number of Trek anthologies, including, most recently, Constellations for the original series. Lang lives in Bala Cynwyd, PA with his partner Helen, his son Andrew, and their two parasitic blobs, uh, cats, Kirby and Puff.
KEITH R. A. DECANDIDO is the author of a dozen other Star Trek novels besides Demons of Air and Darkness and ten other Trek novellas besides Horn and Ivory. However, he’s still extraordinarily proud of these two works, and is grateful that they’re reaching a new audience six years later. His other work being published in 2007 includes the Star Trek: The Next Generation 20th anniversary novel Q&A; The Mirror-Scaled Serpent, the Star Trek: Voyager portion of Mirror Universe, Book 2: Obsidian Alliances; the Buffy the Vampire Slayer novel The Deathless; short stories in the anthologies Doctor Who: Short Trips: Destination Prague, Age of War: A Classic BattleTech Anthology, and Pandora’s Closet; the novelization of Resident Evil: Extinction; and the Command and Conquer novel Tiberium Wars. When he isn’t writing, Keith is the editor of the monthly Star Trek eBook line, the percussionist for the parody band the Boogie Knights, and a student of kenshikai karate. Find out less about him at his official website at www.DeCandido.net, read his inane ramblings at kradical.livejournal.com, or send him snotty e-mails at keith@decandido.net.