Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: The Soul Key

by Olivia Woods

  Iliana produced an isolinear data rod from inside one of the sleeves of her gleaming black bodysuit, and held the translucent object up before the supreme legate and regent. “The real traitor’s confession is recorded here, my lords—testimony from the same man who rather conveniently arrested the woman, Lupaza; the man who coerced the statements from her that led to the arrest of Ataan Rhukal; the man who, in turn, tortured Rhukal into confessing to a crime he had nothing whatsoever to do with.”

  Iliana stepped forward and held the rod out to Martok. “The same man who raised suspicions about my loyalties after I submitted my very open inquiry about Rhukal to the Central Office of Records on Cardassia, and who personally came to relay your summons to me aboard the Negh’Var: Senior Operative Corbin Entek of the Obsidian Order.”

  “This is absurd!” Lang spat. “My lords, do not let this farce continue! This woman is—”

  “Silence!” Martok shouted, cutting off Lang and whatever Dukat might have added to her rant. He took the rod from Kira’s hand and inserted it into the dataport on the arm on his chair. “I will know what this contains.”

  At Iliana’s feet, the Klingon-style screen that was tilted toward the thrones came to life. She didn’t bother to watch the recording herself, already being thoroughly familiar with its contents; she much preferred to watch the expressions of Martok and the two Cardassians as Entek’s face filled the screen and he began speaking. His expression remained stoic throughout the recording; Iliana had cautioned him against trying to slip out code-phrases, tonal clues, or facial movements intended to signal that his statements were being made under duress.

  Naturally, Entek had resisted at first. But Iliana had made good on her vow to bring her wrath down upon him in ways that even the state-of-the-art pain-suppression technology the Order had wired into his brain would do little to ease. She had not even needed Taran’atar for that part; her own interrogation skills, though rusty, had been more than effective, requiring only that L’Haan be on hand to provide medical assistance sufficient to prolong Entek’s suffering without killing him. After that, he had offered his “confession” with almost pitiful eagerness.

  “My name is Corbin Entek,” he began. “I’m making this recording of my own free will in order to reveal the truth about what I’ve done. I was the real assassin of Tekeny Ghemor. Ataan Rhukal is innocent. I forced him to confess to a crime he did not commit. I did these things at the command of my supervisor, Natima Lang, who coveted Ghemor’s position as head of the Obsidian—”

  Lang’s outrage drowned out the rest of Entek’s statement. There was an almost comical quality to the widening of her eyes. “You traitorous, deceitful witch! Where is he? What have you done with my operative?”

  Iliana gave the answer to Lang’s question to Martok. “Corbin Entek committed suicide several hours after this recording was made, a fact that General Kurn and his men will corroborate. I believe his remorse finally became too much for him to bear. He simply couldn’t live with the guilt of carrying out Director Lang’s orders and betraying the Alliance.”

  “I’ll kill you!” Lang screamed as she advanced on Iliana. “I’ll kill y—”

  There was a sharp thunk and Lang stumbled back a half step, her eyes falling to the Klingon dagger that was suddenly buried to the hilt in the center of her chest.

  She looked up at her killer is disbelief. Martok was standing now before his throne, his regent’s cloak flung back, the short scabbard on his belt now conspicuously empty.

  “You fool,” Lang said to Martok just before she tumbled to the floor, lifeless.

  Martok turned toward one of the Klingon guards. “Retrieve my d’k tahg,” he ordered with a grunt. “And clean up that mess.”

  For his part, Dukat appeared stunned. “Regent,” he began. “Surely you must realize that Entek’s confession had to have been coerced. You can’t possibly believe—”

  “What I cannot believe, Legate, is that you are suggesting that a senior operative of the Obsidian Order can be coerced into doing anything,” Martok said, peering at Dukat through slitted eyes. “And yet, given the plague of disloyalty and utter incompetence within the organization of late—defections by prominent agents, conspiracies and assassinations—it’s hard to know what to believe at the moment. Except that better care will need to be taken in choosing the Order’s next director.”

  The regent recovered the isolinear rod from the armrest of his throne and tucked it into his gauntlet. “I’m quite satisfied that we have found the source of the treachery in this sordid affair…as I’m quite sure the Alliance Council will be.”

  “But there’s still the matter of the Bajoran dissident movement!”

  “What dissident movement?” Martok asked. “The only evidence of that is the word of a dead Bajoran who was interrogated by a confessed traitor.”

  Still seated, Dukat was clearly fighting to hang on to his composure. “It was you who said that even laughable ideas can be dangerous.”

  “So I did,” the regent said, turning to Iliana. “And in view of what we’ve just learned, I can think of no one better qualified to get to the truth of this matter than Bajor’s Intendant, who has already vowed to root out whatever traitors to the Alliance may exist on her planet.”

  Dukat was now speechless, and the regent pressed on, nodding toward the chess set on the table between them. “This game has been most diverting, my Cardassian brother, but I grow weary of it. It is time we all returned to our respective domains, don’t you think?” With a sweep of his cloak, Martok turned away before Dukat could reply, leaving the audience chamber through a guarded private door in the corner nearest to his throne. Dukat stood before his throne, fists clenched in frustration.

  With Martok’s leave granted implicitly, Iliana likewise gave Dukat her back as she started back down the room’s main aisle.

  “This is far from over, Intendant,” he called after her.

  Iliana turned and offered him a mocking bow. “On that we can certainly agree, Legate. I’ll look forward to meeting your next appointment to head the Obsidian Order.”

  She turned and left the audience chamber, enjoying the sound of Dukat kicking over the chess table before the great double doors closed behind her.

  Iliana found it difficult to keep the spring out of her step as she made her way back through the station, and was surprised to find Martok waiting for her when she finally reached the airlock port that led back to the Negh’Var. The regent was alone, unaccompanied by guards or retainers.

  “My lord,” she began. “I trust you’re pleased with how—”

  With unexpected speed, Martok grabbed her by the throat and shoved her back against a wall, his chipped and filthy fingernails digging into her neck.

  “Don’t imagine for a moment that I don’t know what you just did in there, Intendant,” he said. “You and the Cardassians may share a taste for these little maneuvers and manipulations, but I have no stomach for them. Your interest in Ataan Rhukal, whatever it truly is, created an embarrassment for me that could have allowed Dukat to eclipse my influence over the Alliance Council.”

  She tried to reply, but a single hard squeeze of his powerful hand convinced her not to try to speak again until she was certain he had finished.

  “As it is,” the regent continued, “the only reason you are still alive is because your scheme had the appearance of vindicating my patronage of you—and because it gave me a convenient excuse to rid myself of that Cardassian cow’s shrill braying. I therefore congratulate you on slithering your way out of yet another calamitous indiscretion. But you would do well not to test my capacity for forgiveness further. Do we understand each other, Intendant?”

  Iliana nodded as best she could in the Klingon’s viselike hold, and Martok released her with an attitude of disgust. “Now tell me of this creature General Kurn has advised me about—this monstrous pet you acquired during your unscheduled visit to Harkoum. Is he the new ally you promised me? The Jem’Hadar?”

/>   Iliana rubbed her neck. “He is.”

  “And the rest of his kind? Where are they?”

  “They aren’t yet within my reach, Lord Regent. But they soon will be.”

  Martok growled deep within his throat. “I allowed you the use of my Ninth Fleet because you promised to deliver unto me an army to rival the forces of Qo’noS and Cardassian combined.”

  “And so I will,” Iliana said, her voice regaining some of its strength. “Taran’atar is a soldier like none you’ve ever seen before, Regent, separated from his people by a cruel fate. But with him at my side, I’ll find the rest of his kind and provide you with soldiers who will make the Alliance invincible.”

  “You make weighty boasts, Intendant,” the regent said. “See that you live up to them…or you will assuredly die under them.”

  “Once I’ve finished crushing the rebels on Terok Nor, I vow to open the way to the rest of the Jem’Hadar.”

  “Indeed you will,” Martok said. “But you will attain both objectives without your armada.”

  “What?” Iliana exclaimed. “Terok Nor holds Bajor hostage from orbit and you wish me to—”

  “A dozen ships,” Martok said. “The Negh’Var and your choice of support vessels. If you cannot retake Terok Nor while protecting Bajor with a force of that size—and in the process uproot whatever obscene cult is flourishing on your planet—then perhaps my trust in you has been misplaced after all.”

  Iliana fumed, the subtext of the regent’s words crystal clear to her. The truth was, Martok really didn’t trust her at all. Whatever the truth might be about a religious resurgence on Bajor, Lang and Entek had blundered onto a sizable portion of Iliana’s true agenda, suspecting that she might be positioning herself to lead a Bajoran revolution. And on that suspicion alone, Martok was setting her up either to fail, or to betray herself.

  Either way, achieving her real objectives was going to be far more difficult now.

  Or would it? If she destroyed the station outright, it would be at most a temporary setback for the Alliance. Martok, Dukat, and the Alliance Council would be furious at the loss of such an important strategic asset, to be sure, but probably not enough to eclipse the glory of her decisive victory over the rebels who’d been using Terok Nor to stalemate the Alliance for the past four years. She would regain the Alliance’s trust, whatever the station’s fate, and by the time Martok and Dukat realized that their first instinct about her had been the right one, it would be too late for them to do anything about it.

  But no, Iliana thought, shedding her newly germinated plans like springtime nerak petals. There’s the balance to consider—the symmetry that needs to be maintained as I go to claim my destiny. That means first becoming Terok Nor’s master, not its destroyer. And maybe…maybe there’s a way to achieve that and still pacify this grotesque fool, even with a smaller strike force….

  “Very well,” Iliana said. “I’ll take what you offer…and I’ll return to you victorious.”

  “See to it that you do, Intendant,” Martok warned. “For if you fail, it will better for you if you do not return at all.”

  9

  TWO DAYS AGO

  Taran’atar dreamed.

  He floated naked and weaponless beneath the surface of a golden ocean and knew that he was adrift in the divine substance of the Founders. It surrounded him and moved through him, buoyed him and pushed him outward until his eyes broke the surface of the Great Link and saw the black sky into which he’d been born to obey, and fight, and die.

  But the Founders had not released him. Coated in their slick residue, they clung to him with viscous tendrils that stretched up from the surface of the Link. They entangled his body and his brain, infiltrating every muscle and every thought, restricting his movements, impeding his ascent.

  Taran’atar looked out across the endless sea of his creators and remembered how the Founders he had known had denied their divinity, how they had led him to question what it meant to be a Jem’Hadar without gods. As the memories stirred, he felt the Link’s hold on him ebbing, and he knew that he was close to understanding something important.

  As quickly as the tendrils began to recede, they suddenly ceased their withdrawal, holding fast to his body; they darkened and transformed, as did the entire ocean below. No longer golden and fluid, the tendrils became dry ropes of streaming copper, fine strands that constricted his arms and legs, choked his windpipe, dragged him down into the flowing chaotic mass that had somehow usurped the Great Link, tainted it, smothered the answers he seemed so close to grasping. Their hold on him was indissoluble; he was paralyzed, an impotent shell of flesh and bone, powerless to act—powerless even to conceive of acting.

  My mind to your mind…

  It was only a whisper, but he heard it as if it came from very far away.

  …Your thoughts to my thoughts…

  Closer now. A presence that seemed to be approaching from everywhere and nowhere, even as more strands of copper lashed out from the hideous mass below and pulled him down.

  Fight what you see. Fight what you feel. Follow my voice. Listen to me….

  The voice was feminine, familiar. Who are you?

  I am L’Haan, came the answer, as if she were there beside him. I believe that I can help you. But I need you to help me in return.

  You can help me how?

  Close your eyes.

  He strove to remember how to do that, but the knowledge eluded him. I cannot, he told her somehow, speaking without speaking.

  You can, L’Haan insisted. You fail because your altered mind will not permit you to follow the commands of anyone but her. But I do not seek to command you, Taran’atar. I merely offer an idea, and I invite you to make the choice to close your eyes.

  Not a command. An idea. A choice.

  Somehow, Taran’atar closed his eyes.

  Well done, said L’Haan. When you’re ready to open them again, things will seem different.

  Taran’atar opened his eyes. He was no longer ensnared. The black sky and endless red ocean were gone. He was simply standing in the midst of nothingness.

  Facing him was the stoic figure of L’Haan.

  “Where are we?” he asked.

  “You are still asleep in the Intendant’s quarters aboard the Negh’Var. I’ve risked reaching out to you with a mind-meld, helped you from your dreamstate into one closer to wakefulness, in order to make a proposal.”

  “You betrayed your last master. Now you wish to betray your new one.”

  “I have no master,” L’Haan claimed. “My servitude is pretense. I am in reality a member of a secret movement that seeks a fundamental reordering of this part of the galaxy.”

  Images invaded Taran’atar’s mind, memories: He saw a corrupt and decadent stellar empire, stagnating and doomed to inevitable ruin; he saw the rise of a bearded Vulcan, his vision of a better world, and the complex plan of historical inevitability—ebb and flow, action and reaction, choice and consequence—that he had set in motion in order to achieve it. Taran’atar saw it all, spooled through his consciousness at lightning speed, delivered in a single blinding instant of revelation.

  “And you hope to recruit me into your cause?” Taran’atar asked.

  “No,” L’Haan said. “I wish only to ask your help in correcting the mistake I made by helping to bring you and the false Intendant into my universe.”

  Taran’atar watched as the Vulcan’s impassive face became uncharacteristically creased with regret as she paused before continuing. “I thought that by bringing her here I would be accelerating the political and social change toward which my group works. My plan was to replace my Intendant with one who would be sympathetic to our cause.”

  “You misjudged her,” Taran’atar said.

  L’Haan nodded. “This new Kira is as malign, if not more so, than the one she murdered. I understand now that her agenda against the Alliance is a self-serving one. In my arrogance and impatience, I fear that rather than advancing my people’s plan, I
may have put it at risk.” She paused again, her dark eyes both probing and pleading. “Now, to repair the damage I have done, I look to you.”

  “What exactly do you wish me to do?” Taran’atar said.

  “What I cannot do without risking the exposure of my movement: kill her.”

  “She is my god.”

  “Is she? Are you sure of that?” L’Haan asked. “Is her claim to your obedience truly any greater that that of your previous gods, these ‘Founders’ I saw in your mind, the creatures who denied their own divinity to you? The beings who banished you into the unknown so that you might learn to redefine your entire state of being?”

  Banishment, Taran’atar thought. Was that truly what his gods had done to him? And how could anything other than continued obedience to his gods bring him succor?

  Speaking in patient tones, L’Haan pressed on. “I perceive the conflict within you, Taran’atar…the thing that was done to make you forsake your true gods for another…to abandon your purpose in order to serve her will.”

  “My life is hers,” Taran’atar said. “That is the new order of things.”

  “If the old order can change, then so, too, can the new,” L’Haan said insistently as she closed the already narrow distance between them. “That is an axiom we have in common, I think. And I believe that I can offer you an alternative to the order of things.”

  “What alternative?”

  “Consider how I empowered you to escape your dream. I believe my telepathic skills can help you to do much more than that. I can break the hold she has on you. Your choices will forever afterward be your own. No one will have a claim on your loyalty, your obedience, or your enmity ever again, unless you choose to give it to them. Do you understand what I’m telling you, Taran’atar? You’ll be free.”

  Free.

  Every time he heard the word, it sounded more profane than it had before. Within the Dominion, freedom was synonymous with chaos. It was anathema. Yet he also knew that many, particularly among the humans of the Alpha Quadrant, prized their freedom more highly than they did life itself. Odo had told Taran’atar that he wished him to understand that perspective, to somehow apply that insight to himself so that he might provide a template for the future of the Jem’Hadar species as the Dominion learned to live in peace with its galactic neighbors.