by Olivia Woods
Vaughn deflected the worst of the blows, but he found himself savoring the pain of the ones that connected. Perhaps they would shake loose the tears that refused to come.
“Take her,” he said quietly to the Bajorans. “Keep her safe.”
Vaughn drew a bedsheet over Elias’s still form. Prynn’s screams continued to echo, even after the two Bajorans had dragged her out of the infirmary.
15
“Winn, look out!” Kira shouted, pulling the other woman down and just barely out of the path of a slashing bat’leth. She raised her phaser and fired three quick bursts, striking down the entire trio of Klingons who had spotted them emerging from the refectory’s back door.
Vaughn was overdue, and with the sounds of fighting drawing ever closer to the refectory, Kira knew she could wait no longer to get the enclave’s leaders to safety. They had protested, of course, believing they should be leading their followers in defense of the camp. Kira had kept her arguments brief: they simply didn’t have the right to throw their lives away, or to waste the sacrifices of their followers. Not when they could keep their cause alive and escape with the Shards.
From her position at the refectory’s open back door, Kira swept her eyes around the alley for any sign of more Klingons. She raised her phaser again when a door about twenty meters away in the adjacent building burst open, and a screaming Prynn was dragged out by two of Vekobet’s fighters.
“Hold your fire,” Winn told Kira as Jaro went to learn what was going on. Kira couldn’t make out what they were saying, though she gathered that a tragedy of some sort had just occurred, for Prynn seemed inconsolable, and Jaro himself seemed ready to fall apart after hearing whatever the soldiers had to tell him.
Opaka…?
Another Klingon suddenly stepped into the alley, no doubt drawn by the sounds of Prynn’s screaming. Kira and Winn raised their weapons in tandem, and both their beams struck the Alliance soldier squarely in the chest, dropping him instantly.
“Go,” Kira told Winn. “Get them out of here, before more of them come!”
Winn looked at her gravely. “Walk with the Prophets, Kira Nerys.”
“You too,” Kira said. “Now go!”
Kira kept her weapon ready as the group hurried down the alley to another door near the far end. She held her breath, watching as Winn herded her charges inside before slamming the door shut behind her. Only then did Kira permit herself to exhale.
Vaughn stepped into the alley about a heartbeat later, passing through the same door from which Prynn had emerged. He saw Kira standing on the threshold of the refectory and started running toward her.
About five paces into his sprint, perhaps six more Klingons turned into the alley behind him.
She froze for a split second as she saw that a Jem’Hadar was leading their advance.
“Down!” Kira shouted, and sprayed the alley with phaser fire. Vaughn responded automatically by throwing himself the rest of the way forward, twisting as he fell and firing his own phaser back in the direction from which he had come.
Three of the Klingons went down immediately, while the remainder went for cover.
The Jem’Hadar had already vanished.
Kira pulled Vaughn inside the refectory and slammed the door behind him. She quickly led him to a hastily fashioned barricade behind the serving stations, a stopgap reinforced with propped-up tables and benches for additional shielding. She wasn’t sure what she hoped to accomplish with it when Jaro and Winn had assisted her in its construction, other than to keep the Klingons occupied for a few precious extra seconds before they inevitably killed her. But she also knew that those seconds might make all the difference for the enclave’s leaders.
Now she wondered if she would die today instead by Taran’atar’s hand.
“Thanks for the assist,” Vaughn panted, rubbing the shoulder on which he’d landed when he’d completed his desperate lunge down the alley.
“Did you see him?” Kira asked, her weapon raised as she peered past the tables at the back door.
“See who?”
“He’s here,” Kira said. “Taran’atar.”
Vaughn cursed. “Did he shroud?”
“I think so.”
Kira’s eyes panned across the windows. She could still hear the sounds of fighting in the distance, but it was strangely quiet near the refectory. Where did they go?
After a moment she said, “We’re going to have to kill him, Elias.”
Vaughn nodded slowly. “I understand.”
“Do you?” Kira asked. “Because I want you to know I’m not talking about taking revenge against him, or exacting justice. Or even self-defense.”
“What are you talking about, then?”
“If we can’t cure him of his programming, then we should at least try to set him free. Snap his chains.”
Vaughn seemed almost to wince at that. “You mean…put him out of his misery.”
Kira hesitated. “I think he’d want that. Wouldn’t you? If you had no control over your life?”
Vaughn didn’t answer right away. “Maybe,” he said finally, in a surprisingly quiet voice.
“I didn’t see Opaka out there,” Kira said. “Is she—?”
“I made sure she got to safety.”
“Good.” Comforted to hear that, Kira took a deep breath. She felt a deep surge of gratitude toward him. Perhaps she’d have enough time to let him know how much she appreciated everything he’d done, before…
“Look,” she said. “About my relieving you of duty…”
He shook his head. “Captain, you don’t have to—”
The ceiling creaked. Kira and Vaughn both shifted their positions, taking aim at the sagging rafters.
“I don’t think we have a lot of time left, Elias,” she said. “So please shut up and listen to me. I think maybe I was feeling a lot like Taran’atar—as if nothing was within my control anymore. It made me feel weak. Ineffectual. I felt like everything was going to hell, and that it was all my fault because I wasn’t a strong enough captain. I was wrong to take my frustrations out on you.”
“For whatever it’s worth, Nerys…you may just be the strongest captain I’ve ever known.”
“That’s worth a great deal to me,” Kira said. “I wish to hell we weren’t in this mess, but I’m glad you’ve got my back.”
Silence settled between them, broken only by the sounds of combat beyond the dense nyawood walls and the small creaks and groans of the refectory’s damaged ceiling. The approaching sounds of small arms fire and explosions mingled with shouting and screaming, and it was all Kira could do not to abandon their position and join the fight outside. It went against every instinct she had to sit around waiting for a strike force to storm the doors while the people outside were laying down their lives just to slow the Klingons down.
Stick to the plan, she told herself. Jaro and the others need time to get away….
“Captain, I need to ask you something,” Vaughn said suddenly. “It’s about Ben Sisko.”
“What is it?”
Vaughn turned to face her. “Have you ever known him to lie?”
Kira’s eyebrows shot up in bemusement. “Why are you asking me that?”
“Has he changed much over the years you’ve known him?”
“Of course,” Kira said. “Everybody changes. You know th—”
Vaughn shook his head. “What I guess I mean is, since he returned from living among the Prophets…is he still the same man you used to know?”
Kira considered the question for a moment before answering. “I guess the honest answer is ‘yes and no.’ In some ways he’s exactly the same. But in others, well…I suppose being among Them changes you.”
“Have you?”
“Have I what?”
“Have you been among the Prophets?”
Kira hesitated again before saying, “I don’t really feel comfortable talking about this, Elias.”
“I’m sorry,” Vaughn said. “I realize th
at was an inappropriate question. I’m just trying to wrap my head around something, and the more I try, the more I—” He stopped, distracted by a heavy thud overhead, and a renewed groaning from the nyawood timbers overhead.
Uh-oh.
The roof exploded.
Kira and Vaughn took cover as broken beams and splintered wood rained down, crashing everywhere. Dark figures descended through the rising dust cloud on lines, at least a dozen of them. Vaughn and Kira shot through the haze, felling the closest of the Klingons while drawing fire from others. Disruptor blasts shattered portions of the barricade, sending shards of wood flying in every direction.
Kira looked at Vaughn, who was bleeding profusely from a gash in his forehead. She saw the question in his face, and she nodded. Neither of them was willing to remain pinned down. If this was to be their end, they were going to give the Klingons a moment to remember.
They ran out from behind the barricade together, heading in separate directions, their phasers singing as they set the dust cloud aglow in orange light. Disruptor fire answered them from two of the Klingons, but it went wild as both warriors were suddenly felled by a fast-moving shadow that vanished as quickly as it had appeared.
Kira spotted another Klingon setting his sights on Vaughn and she swept her phaser around, her shot knocking the warrior off his feet.
Vaughn broke into a run toward his next nearest attacker, but something unseen knocked her XO’s legs out from under him, forcing him to the floor before it slashed open the Klingon’s chest.
Kira searched in vain for their invisible opponent. She saw instead that one more Klingon was moving in her direction, his bat’leth sweeping inexorably toward her—
The Klingon rose suddenly into the air, tumbling over Kira’s head and crashing insensate against the barricade’s broken remains.
An excruciating silence descended over the half-demolished refectory.
She stared into the dissipating dust cloud, desperately searching it for some sign of movement not consistent with the settling haze.
There.
He was directly in front of her, less than a meter away, a partial outline of his distinctive silhouette suddenly discernible in the grit-laden air. She brought up her phaser…and he slapped it out of her hand.
Invisible fingers clamped around her neck, and Taran’atar unshrouded, staring coolly into her eyes.
His expression, as usual, was unreadable.
“You saved us from the Klingons,” she croaked.
“They would have killed you,” he said in a voice utterly devoid of emotion. “We were ordered to capture you alive. Obedience brings victory.”
“No,” Kira gasped. She knew he was cutting off her oxygen. The world was rapidly becoming edged in black. Not much time left.
“It doesn’t have to be that way,” she said, each word a mortal struggle. “You’re stronger than that. You’re stronger than her. You can break the cycle. You can choose…. Finish your battle, once and for all, Taran’atar…. Reclaim your life.”
He pulled her toward him until his cobbled face completely filled the narrow, dimly illuminated tunnel that was all that remained of her dying vision.
“I already have,” he said.
Then the gathering darkness enclosed her entirely.
PART FIVE
THE ALTERNATE UNIVERSE
16
“What have you done?” Iliana hissed.
She scowled at Taran’atar in the privacy of her chosen quarters aboard Terok Nor, a relatively spacious cabin that had once been shared by O’Brien and his lover. Too many artifacts of their life together were still here—a few framed photographs, a chipped porcelain cup, a blanket that still reeked of sex—and Iliana’s failure to have gotten rid of them by now only served to darken her mood even further.
Taran’atar answered her anger impassively, standing at ease in the middle of the main room, his uneven gray skin and black coverall stained with dirt and dust.
“I did exactly as you commanded,” he told her. “Five designated targets were identified and captured.”
“But you personally killed nine of Kurn’s men!” Iliana was pacing back and forth between the Jem’Hadar and the cabin’s viewport. “The general is furious!”
“The fatalities were justified,” Taran’atar said. “The first five were about to use lethal force against Kira and Vaughn. This was in direct violation of your orders.”
“What about the rest?”
“Fatalities six and seven occurred after the three Bajorans were captured. One of the enclave’s leaders—Winn—provoked her guards. It was necessary for me to intervene to prevent her death.”
“How did she provoke them?”
“She spat on them.”
Iliana rolled her eyes. “And the two Klingons you killed aboard the ship during the return flight?”
“They attacked me in retaliation for the deaths of the first seven. I merely defended myself.”
Naturally.
“Was I at fault?” Taran’atar asked.
Iliana sighed and rubbed her temples. “No,” she said at length. “No, you weren’t at fault. You did well, Taran’atar. Now go get cleaned up and wait for my next summons. When you’re not in your quarters, it’ll be best if you stay shrouded. At least until I can smooth things over with Kurn.”
“Understood,” Taran’atar said, and he immediately took his leave of her, shimmering into invisibility as he marched out into the corridor.
As the door closed behind him, Iliana reflected that Kurn’s newest call for Taran’atar’s head was actually a minor inconvenience in the larger scheme of things, one she would gladly endure as her endgame approached. But first she needed to deal with her new guests.
The first one would be the hardest.
It was a brief ride by turbolift to the appropriate level of the Habitat Ring, followed by a short walk to the correct cabin, but the journey furnished her with an eternity in which to reflect upon and curse herself, yet again, for her weakness and overemotionality. She never should have allowed herself the pointless indulgence of looking for the Ataan of this universe—and when that excess had nearly brought disaster upon her, she should have simply left him to rot on Letau. And now, after he had revealed the thing that had driven her to such distraction over the last half-day, she knew she should not be going to visit the focus of her latest crime of sentiment: this continuum’s Dakahna Vaas.
Ataan’s wife.
“I was hoping we could talk,” was how Iliana began a moment after entering Vaas’s cabin. To the dismay of the Klingons, she was keeping Vaas under minimum security: two guards outside a single-occupant stateroom, just like Ataan.
At least the Klingons could take some comfort in the fact that the station’s other rebel prisoners were faring far less well than these two.
“I won’t betray my people, Intendant,” Vaas said immediately. “So whatever you think you’re going to accomplish here, the Pah-wraiths can take you and anyone who follows you.”
Iliana was suddenly overcome with the desire to embrace the other woman, which she barely suppressed. Vaas’s defiance was genuine and fearless. Just like my Vaas. She was older and more careworn, of course, and she had undoubtedly lived a life that had been far different from that of the beloved friend Iliana recalled from Kira’s years in the resistance. But the fire is the same.
“I’m not here to ask you to betray your people, Vaas,” Iliana said. “I strongly suspect you would willingly die before you ever did such a thing.”
That seemed to catch Vaas off guard, but the belligerence remained. “That’s right. I would.”
“So it’s just as well that I’ve come to see you for another reason,” Iliana said, settling into a chair while Vaas remained standing. “I’m here because of your husband.”
The other woman began to offer her the obligatory denial. “I don’t have a—”
“Ataan is here, Vaas. He’s on Terok Nor.”
That silenced her, if
only for a moment. Iliana took the time to admire the long black hair that had always been her friend’s single most distinguishing physical feature.
The Bajoran’s body had not vanished with the rest of the simulation. Nor had the knife that protruded from the back of her adversary’s neck. Blood was pooling beneath the black hair.
“What have you done to him?” Vaas demanded.
Iliana shook off the memory. “Nothing he won’t recover from, I promise you. Especially now that I’ve kept my end of our bargain.”
Vaas looked at her suspiciously. “What bargain?”
“Later,” Iliana said, waving away Vaas’s question. “First I want to ask you something. If you answer truthfully, then I promise to return him to you unharmed.”
“I already told you, I won’t betray my people.”
“My question has nothing to do with the dissidents.”
“I don’t trust you, Intendant.”
Iliana nodded. “Fair enough. But you can trust this: If you don’t cooperate, you’ll never see Ataan again.”
One of Vaas’s hands curled into a fist, then slowly relaxed. She took a chair opposite Kira, spun it around, and straddled it.
“Ask.”
“How did you and Ataan fall in love?”
Vaas scoffed. “Is this a joke?”
“No,” Iliana said. “It isn’t.”
“You want to know how my husband and I fell in love? That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
“What meaning could that possibly have for you?”
Iliana shrugged. “Think of it as a test of your honesty.”
Vaas hesitated, shaking her head at what undoubtedly seemed like the greatest absurdity she’d ever heard. Then, with a small shrug, she began her tale.
“Twenty years ago Ataan was assigned to Bajor as part of an exchange program between the Obsidian Order and Bajoran Intelligence.”
“You were with BI?” Iliana asked.
“Back then, yes. I was an analyst, and I was curious about our young visitor from the Order. The exchange program was ostensibly to foster trust between our two organizations, but in practice it was all for show. Both BI and the Order isolated their visitors from anything they considered truly relevant. My superiors seemed content to allow me to baby-sit Ataan—that’s how they saw it—and they tasked us with minor and irrelevant assignments, which were very obviously chosen to waste Ataan’s time for the duration of his stay on Bajor. We didn’t care. He grew to love Bajor over the next five years. And he grew to love me.