by Various
A volley of three quantum torpedoes streaked ahead of the Defiant and slammed through the Cardassian ship’s hull, which blistered and burst with gouts of flame, gas, and dusty debris. “Again,” Leeta commanded, and three more luminous flashes sped forward, this time devastating the forward hull, where its command center would be located. As the Cardassian vessel lurched out of warp, Sito matched its deceleration almost perfectly, bringing the Defiant out of warp at full impulse and maneuvering back into firing position within seconds. “Stand by, phasers and torpedoes,” Leeta said to Ezri, who answered, “Target locked.”
On the command panel to the left of O’Brien’s chair, a flashing icon alerted him to an incoming subspace message from the crippled Cardassian vessel. In the moment between his seeing the message and realizing what it said, Leeta said simply, “Fire.”
Furious pulses of phaser energy surged from the Defiant and pierced the other ship’s hull. A flare of light filled the main viewer for a few seconds, then it faded. Tiny bits of debris tumbled away, scattered into the eternal void. The Defiant cruised at full impulse through the dust cloud, dispersing it.
All around O’Brien, the members of his crew congratulated one another on a job well done, a clean kill, another notch on the corner of the tactical console. Leeta gave the order to raise the cloak, and the bridge dimmed once more as the ship vanished into its protective veil of invisibility.
Beaming with pride, Leeta looked at the sullen-faced O’Brien. “Orders, Captain?”
“Back to Terok Nor,” O’Brien said. “Warp eight.”
Sito plotted the course and jumped the ship back to warp speed. A hush again fell over the bridge, and the mundane tasks of running a starship kept everyone occupied—everyone except O’Brien. His attention remained focused on the subspace message still logged on his command console as unacknowledged. It had been the Cardassian ship’s declaration of surrender.
We might as well have shot a bunch of unarmed men in the street, he brooded. When he’d taken a chance on helping a pair of strangers escape from Terok Nor years earlier, he had hoped that he might be charting a path to a better life. A safer life. To freedom. He certainly hadn’t set out to become a murderer, but, to his disgust, that’s what he’d just become.
The worst part, he realized, was that by the rebellion’s standards this had been one of the good days.
2
A circular pressure door rolled open, and O’Brien stepped through it to a hero’s welcome. Cheers and applause, no doubt for his most recent victory, washed over him. It wouldn’t be good for morale to tell them I don’t deserve it, he decided. Waving half-heartedly at the well-wishers who thronged around him and those who looked down from the upper level, he pushed through the wall of bodies, eager to reach a turbolift to ops.
It took some effort to reach an open stretch where he could quicken his pace. No sooner had he broken free of the crowd than he found himself walking toward the one person he was in no mood to see tonight. Smiling sardonically at O’Brien was General Julian Bashir, an irritable, impetuous man who had wrangled his way into the top echelon of the rebellion with a potent combination of charisma and cruelty; to O’Brien’s dismay, many among the rebellion’s rank and file mistook such qualities for leadership.
“Well, well—if it isn’t General Miles Edward O’Brien, the architect of the rebellion,” Bashir said with his usual snideness. O’Brien continued past him without bothering even to think of a reply. Not so easily brushed aside, Bashir turned and fell into step on O’Brien’s left, matching his slightly hurried pace toward the turbolift. “As usual, news of your latest triumph precedes you,” he continued. “Though I hear you nearly had a change of heart. Second thoughts, as it were. I certainly hope you’re not reconsidering your allegiance.” O’Brien confined his reply to a single scathing glower delivered sidelong.
They arrived at the nearest turbolift. AN OUT OF SERVICE notice had been posted on its sealed portal. “What a shame,” Bashir said, clearly enjoying O’Brien’s mounting irritation. Bloody hell, O’Brien fumed as he turned and moved on.
Bashir continued to follow him, talking nonstop. “I suppose it’s possible that you’ve been a double agent the entire time,” he said. “It would certainly explain why you let the cloaking device from the other universe slip through your fingers.”
“It didn’t slip through my fingers, Julian. I gave it back to the Ferengi so they wouldn’t be shot for treason when they went home.” They split up and weaved around a cluster of people walking in the opposite direction. Once clear of the group, O’Brien continued, “Besides, we’ve got a new cloaking device.”
“Thanks to Zek,” Bashir said. “And no thanks to you.”
The pair reached a working turbolift. O’Brien jabbed at the call button with his thumb. “Just because the Romulans were willing to sell us a cloaking device doesn’t mean we should trust them.” He tried to peek through the portal to see if the lift was coming anytime soon. There was no sign of it. Damn. So much for a quick getaway.
“What bothers you more, Smiley? That you were wrong about the Romulans? Or that Zek was right?” Bashir seemed to enjoy gloating more than just about anything else in the world. There was no point arguing with him, though. The Romulan-made cloaking device had given the Defiant a decisive tactical advantage over the Alliance ships it encountered, and now that O’Brien and the other top engineers in the rebellion had reverse-engineered its internal workings, they were well on their way to building more.
And it all had been thanks to Zek, a doddering old Ferengi whom O’Brien had harshly dismissed after their first meeting last year as a “worthless whining prune.” Zek was a general now, and he had never forgiven O’Brien’s hasty insult; he also had formed a solid alliance with Bashir. Together, the pair had begun to sway opinions within the rebellion. They had been cagey about voicing their true intentions, of course, but O’Brien knew well enough what their agenda was: they wanted him out of the way so they could run the war against the Alliance.
A falling whine announced the arrival of the turbolift, which shuddered to a stop. The doors scraped open and O’Brien stepped inside. Bashir smirked, a sure sign that one more verbal grenade was coming O’Brien’s way. “Maybe the real reason you hesitated to fire yesterday is that love’s made you soft.”
As the doors closed with a dry grinding sound, O’Brien got the last word for a change. “Bugger off.”
Intendant Ro Laren stood with her back to the panoramic viewport in her stateroom aboard the I.K.S. Negh’Var. The massive Klingon dreadnought had just returned to warp speed after a deep-space rendezvous with a transport from Qo’noS. They had taken aboard a notorious passenger—Ro’s predecessor, Intendant Kira Nerys. This was a moment to which Ro had long looked forward. She intended to savor it.
The door signal sounded. “Enter,” Ro said.
First through the door was the ship’s commanding officer, General Duras. Following him at a respectful distance of a few steps, with her chin appropriately lowered, was Kira. The red-haired woman looked broken, exhausted. Her hair was slightly tousled, and the shine was gone from her trademark black body suit, which now was deeply creased and scuffed. Minor rends in its synthetic fabric appeared to have been crudely patched.
Ro regarded Kira’s disheveled state with icy disdain. “Qo’noS doesn’t seem to have agreed with you, Nerys,” she said, choosing to deny Kira the dignity of any degree of formal address. “Fortunately for you, the only services of yours that I require are professional in nature.”
Kira marshaled a feeble attempt at an ingratiating smile. “I’m just happy to be of service, Intendant,” she said, and sounded almost sincere. “Anything I can do for the good of Bajor—”
“Spare me,” Ro said. “The only reason you’re still alive is that Martok strong-armed the Chamber of Ministers into making you one of my adjutants. And before you send him a thank-you note scented with your perfume, you ought to know he didn’t do it as a favor to you. He di
d it to undermine me.”
Rather than cowing Kira, the verbal assault emboldened her. She straightened her posture and regained some small measure of her former bearing. “I see you’ve remained true to yourself, Intendant,” Kira said. “You never did care for games.”
“And you never tire of them,” Ro said. “Did you expect to flatter your way into my graces?”
This time Kira looked taken aback. Ro wondered if it was because she was unaccustomed to having her bluffs called so promptly—or at all. The former Intendant recovered her wits quickly. “You think Martok is still looking to take revenge for the Bynaus censure.”
“Of course he is,” Ro said. “It nearly cost him the command of the Ninth Fleet. And if I’d had my way, it would have.”
The accusation forced Kira back into a defensive posture. Ro’s confrontation with Martok was fresh in her memory; he had responded to a limited civilian uprising on Bynaus by slaughtering most of the planet’s subjugated population. Rather than control his fury and limit himself to a proportional response, he had impetuously all but destroyed one of the Alliance’s greatest computer-science resources.
As a senior member of the Bajoran Chamber of Ministers, Ro had authored Bajor’s official censure of Martok. The measure passed the Chamber with overwhelming support, and she had expected it to signal an end to Martok’s military career and political fortunes. It was a duty and a privilege that she had treated with the utmost seriousness.
Though technically Bajor was a member world of the Alliance, its unique status as a power broker between empires had enabled it for centuries to stand apart and serve as a neutral, impartial mediator. It had forged pacts of nonaggression between such long-standing rivals as the Breen Confederacy and the Tholian Assembly, and the now-defunct Terran Empire and the Talarian Republic. Furthermore, Bajor’s success in defusing tensions between the Cardassian Union and the Tzenkethi Coalition had been a major factor in why Cardassia had asked Bajor to help it unite with the Klingon Empire to destroy the Terran Empire—a goal that Bajor had been more than willing to facilitate.
Aware that her actions would be weighed against her people’s long and distinguished history of leadership, Ro had taken pride in wielding Bajor’s power to eliminate such a brutal and irrational political actor as Martok. To her lasting shock and outrage, however, her resolution for censure had been arbitrarily suppressed by Intendant Kira Nerys before it reached the Alliance Council for ratification and enforcement.
In many respects a coequal of the First Minister, the office of Intendant of Bajor served as the intermediary between the Chamber of Ministers and the Alliance Council; though intendants were appointed—and could be removed—by majority votes of the Alliance Council, once in place they often acted with de facto autonomy and impunity. While the intendants of other Alliance worlds also enjoyed a measure of mastery over their assigned domains, none had the status or influence of their Bajoran counterpart, which historically had presided over Terok Nor with autocratic authority and enjoyed a broad range of plenary executive privileges.
In Kira’s case, that power had been used consistently to punish her political opponents, such as Ro, and to reward her allies, such as the Klingons.
Quietly, Kira said, “I wanted to keep Bajor insulated from that aspect of Alliance politics.”
“No,” Ro said, “you wanted to keep the Klingons happy because they were your chief political sponsors.”
Speaking now with more resolve, Kira said, “If the Klingons and the Cardassians dissolve the Alliance and go to war, I don’t want Bajor to get caught in the middle.”
“A war?” Ro rolled her eyes. “Between the Klingons and the Cardassians? That’s ridiculous.” She stopped talking as she realized that Kira had lured her into debating politics as if they were equals. That would not do—not at all. She changed the topic. “Have you been made aware of the nature of your duties, Nerys?”
“I was briefed by General Duras,” Kira said. “Though there seems to have been some mistake.”
This was the part that Ro expected to enjoy. “Why do you say that?”
“My responsibilities seem…unequal to my abilities, Intendant. Certainly, someone with my experience could serve you in a more—”
“Your responsibilities are exactly as I desire them, Nerys.” She savored the stunned, stupid look on Kira’s face. “I might have been coerced into placing you on my staff, but now that you’re here, you’ll serve as I dictate, and at my pleasure. Is that clear? Or do I need to transfer you to Klingon authority?”
The moment of revenge was even better than Ro had hoped it would be. Kira appeared both mortified and indignant. She seemed at once on the verge of apoplectic rage and hysterical crying. Through a trembling jaw, Kira choked out the words, “I understand, Intendant.”
“Good,” Ro said. “I’m glad that we understand each other, Nerys.” Ro raised one hand and beckoned Duras to approach. “General, take Nerys to her new workstation and get her started on today’s assignments.” As the hulking Klingon led Kira toward the door, Ro added one final, caustic touch. “And General? Find her some attire of a more appropriate nature. Her new life is going to be horribly mundane; I want her to look the part.”
Keiko Ishikawa’s hands were warm on Miles O’Brien’s tired shoulders, and her voice was sweet to his ears. “…and that was how Spock deposed Hoshi Sato the Third to become the first Vulcan Emperor of the Terran Empire,” she said, kneading and rolling his aching muscles in her slender but powerful fingers.
“He just looked at her and she vanished?” The story she had told him sounded absurd. “You’re kidding, right?”
She laughed, and the sound of her mirth was brighter than anything O’Brien had ever heard. “No,” she insisted. “I’ve seen holovids of it. It really happened.”
O’Brien half-turned to look over the back of the sofa at her. “Holovids? How?” Then he guessed, “The Vulcan woman?”
“Yes, T’Lara showed them to me,” Keiko confirmed as she forced O’Brien once more to face forward and sit still. “She had a lot of memory cards from that era.” Her hands continued to work at the tight coils of tension between his neck and arms. “Anyway, that was when the Terran Empire started changing for the better.”
“Too bad it didn’t last,” O’Brien said, his cynicism too powerful to be easily overcome. “Nothing good ever does.”
“Not true,” Keiko said. Her hands let go of his shoulders and clasped around his chest as she leaned down and kissed the side of his neck. Her lips were soft and gentle on his skin, which responded to even her slightest touch as though she were a creature of pure electricity. He twisted and reached back, grabbed her around the waist, and pulled her over the back of the sofa onto his lap. Years of darkness fled from his weathered face in that moment, and he felt a smile take hold of his features. Keiko laughed again, and this time he was able to laugh with her. He pulled her to him and kissed her as he had never kissed any other woman in his life. Kissing her was about more than satisfying a physical need or succumbing to an animal passion. Until he had met Keiko, no one had ever kissed him like this, either. Silently rejoicing in the warmth of her body against his, the pliant softness of her lips, the vital warmth of her breath, he knew without a doubt that he was kissing her because he loved her.
Terok Nor during the rebellion was, of course, the worst possible time and place that O’Brien could think of for two people to fall in love. The rebellion was maintaining control over the station only by holding Bajor itself hostage. If the Alliance attempted to retake the station, the rebellion had vowed that it would unleash the station’s arsenal on the planet’s surface, inflicting billions of casualties and ruining its environment for centuries to come. Bajor had responded by declaring itself neutral; it was a difficult bit of political triangulation. On the one hand, the Bajoran Parliament could not endorse the rebellion whose stronghold orbited their planet, but on the other they were obliged not to antagonize the rebellion. The reverse, of c
ourse, was also true. The rebellion dared not attack the Bajorans, because the moment it did so there would be nothing to stop the Alliance from obliterating the station. Consequently, Bajor and the rebellion forces on Terok Nor lived in a state of mutual distrust and détente.
And yet here he and Keiko were, passionately and profoundly in love while huddled in the orbital equivalent of a walled city under perpetual threat of siege and calamity.
She nestled her head against his chest and smiled as she pressed her ear flat. He chuckled softly at her. “Is it still beating?”
“Mm-hm,” she replied. “Still there.”
“Well, thank God for that,” he said. “Something’s finally gone right today.”
Looking up at him, she inquired, “Bashir again?”
“Who else?” He stroked his fingers through her soft, raven hair. “He frightens me, y’know? It’s all just one big revenge fantasy to him. He talks like the only thing that matters is how many kills we make, how many of their ships we destroy. I don’t think he cares what we’re fighting for, as long he gets to fight.”
“The more things change…” Keiko said, letting him fill in the other half of the ancient axiom: the more they stay the same. She had been regaling him with stories of the old Terran Empire since her first day aboard the station. To his dismay, the most horrifying tales of Terran cruelty and genocide that had been repeated to him by Cardassians, Klingons, and Bajorans throughout his lifetime had turned out, for the most part, to be true. In a few cases, the truth was sometimes even more disturbing than the rumors had been. Terran history was a rich legacy of savagery and barbarism easily on a par with the worst atrocities of the Klingons and the Cardassians combined. Its only recent era of redeeming value was the one that had been initiated by the reforms of Emperor Spock—and brought to a premature end by the brutality of the Alliance.