by Various
As Eddington pressed on, dissecting Sito’s every word choice, the young blonde shrank into her seat and became steadily more sullen and withdrawn.
“‘Big ideas about the future,’” he quoted again. “Let me guess: you wanted to warn them about Zek’s plan to attack Cardassia Prime.” He scrolled ahead, then tapped the screen. “I have to admit, the gardening references took me a minute. But you were talking about the new shipyard at Empok Nor, weren’t you? And that bit about jossa flowers being the only thing you were ever good at growing—you were trying to tell the Alliance that all our new ships were Defiant-class vessels, right?”
Now O’Brien leaned forward. “But the part about the pregnancy, the two men competing for your affection—that was my favorite part,” he said with a devilish grin. “Eddington and I debated that one for all of five minutes. You were telling your handler about Bashir and Zek seizing control of the rebellion and putting me on the sideline.” Sito averted her gaze, stared at the wall rather than look at O’Brien. “I’m the nice guy, right? And Bashir’s the handsome one?”
“The pregnancy was the really interesting choice of words,” Eddington said. “Your comment about not knowing who the father was made me think it was about seeing who’d end up in control of the rebellion. But then I saw your last line: ‘I wish I was anywhere but here.’ You were asking for extraction; you were ready to come out. ‘Pregnant’ was just a way of saying you’d obtained whatever information you’d been sent to acquire.”
Heavy silence filled the room. O’Brien added with a sarcastic lilt, “Tell us if we missed anything.”
Sito’s hateful glare traveled from O’Brien to Eddington to Keiko and back again. “What’re you going to do with me?”
“Way I see it,” O’Brien said, “we have three options.”
“We could send you back to Bajor,” Eddington said.
“But with the access you’ve had,” O’Brien said, “and the information you’ve acquired, that’s probably not a good idea. Of course, we could just keep you locked up here on the station—”
“—or pack you off to one of our posts in the Badlands,” Eddington interrupted.
“But sooner or later you’d get free, wouldn’t you?” O’Brien said. Nodding, he continued, “Yeah, I can see it in your eyes. It might take you weeks or months, but you’d get out. Probably kill a few people in the process and hurt a lot more. Doesn’t really make sense in the long run, does it?”
Eddington cut in, “And that brings us to our third—”
Sito pushed her chair back from the table and drew her sidearm. O’Brien and Eddington were still ducking for cover and reaching for their own weapons when a blinding yellow beam of energy struck Sito in the chest and vaporized her.
Keiko stood at the back of the room, her arm steady and her disruptor still aimed at the spot where Sito had been a moment before. O’Brien added “fast on the draw” to the long list of things he had grown to love about her. In a simple, fluid motion she holstered her weapon and walked back to the table. “Are you both all right?”
“Yeah,” O’Brien said as he stood up. “Thanks.”
Eddington stood and nodded to Keiko. “Nice shot.”
“Thank you,” she said.
O’Brien stared at the empty space where Sito had vanished. “This was my bloody fault,” he said. “Zek and Bashir were right. I got sloppy, thought I was such a good leader that I could tell good people from bad with a handshake and a how-do-you-do.” He shook his head. “I nearly got us all killed.”
“The important thing,” Eddington said, “is that we’ve learned from our mistake—and we’re taking steps to fix it.”
It sounded reassuring, but O’Brien still felt damned stupid for having put his people in this position. “I guess,” he said.
Keiko faced O’Brien. “It’s time to go talk to the troops,” she said. “And whatever you tell them, it’d better be good. They’re getting restless…and they’re scared.”
His face drawn from exhaustion and despair as he walked toward the door, O’Brien replied, “They aren’t the only ones.”
With the exception of a few essential personnel in ops, every member of the rebellion on Terok Nor had gathered on the Promenade to hear O’Brien speak. Recording devices were set to capture the moment both for posterity and for clandestine hand-delivery to other rebellion cells scattered across the quadrant.
O’Brien stepped out of a turbolift onto the upper level of the Promenade and slowly worked his way through the crowd toward one of the overpasses, which had been cleared of people and set with a podium to make him easier to see. As he pushed through the dense cluster of bodies, hands patted his back and slapped his shoulder in fraternal reinforcement. The clamor of voices was bright, echoing and re-echoing inside the torus-shaped space that ringed the primary core of the station. Waves of heat from the massed bodies rose from the lower level, imbuing the banner-draped thoroughfare with the scent of something vital, the breath of life.
Expectant eyes gazed up at O’Brien as he emerged from the crowd onto the overpass, followed closely by Eddington and Keiko. Nervous silence spread through the crowd as he stepped onto the podium. He looked around and then down to the lower level. The faces that looked back were masks of cynicism and apprehension. They would be on their guard for evasions. Jingoistic lies had outlived their usefulness for these people; O’Brien could feel it. They needed to know the truth.
“You all listen to the comm nets,” he said, lifting his rasping voice so that it would carry and convey the tenor of command. “So you all know what’s happened. I won’t tell you it’s not a disaster, because it is. We lost a major base of operations. We lost a lot of good people. And there’s a good chance the Alliance has one of our cloaking devices.”
Whispers of panic traveled quickly through the crowd, like a fire racing through dry grass. O’Brien needed to extinguish that blaze of fear. “But this war is not over! The rebellion is more than one station. It’s more than a handful of ships. Our movement is spreading. We’re on dozens of worlds, and new cells are forming on dozens more. This isn’t a battle to be won with conventional tactics—at least, not yet. This is a war of ideas.”
He pivoted slowly as he continued, working the crowd, connecting with as many people as he could, second after second. “We still hold this station,” he said. “And as long as we hold Bajor as our hostage, the Alliance won’t move against us. This station, and every one of us who defends it—we’re the thing that gives other freed slaves hope. They look to us to show them the way. To teach them how to fight back. How to resist. And as long as I draw breath, I plan to go on fighting, until we’re all free!”
Cautious applause filtered up, emboldening him. “And that’s what we’re really fighting for,” he cried. “Freedom. Not for payback. Not for power. But for what’s right. We’re fighting for a higher purpose. For a future when all beings live as equals under the law. For a society in which vengeance isn’t the golden rule. For a galaxy where justice and mercy are united, not opposed…. Yes, we fight to destroy the Alliance. We fight against tyranny. But it’s not enough just to stand against something—we also have to stand for something better. And that’s what we’re going to do, all of us, brothers and sisters in arms. We’re going to build that better future, starting with ourselves. General Eddington and I have a plan, and when it’s ready, the next phase of this war begins. A rebellion’s not enough anymore. Starting today, this…is a revolution!”
Spontaneous applause surged like a tsunami. He stepped off the podium. I don’t deserve this, he chided himself, even as he turned slowly to feel the tide of acclaim wash over him from every direction. But they need this. He followed Eddington and Keiko off the overpass and let them clear a path through the crowd to a portal that led inside the empty bar’s upper tier.
The door closed behind him, muting the continuing roar of applause and cheering from the crowd outside. He passed Keiko and Eddington and proceeded downstairs, to th
e first floor. Moving quickly, he stepped behind the bar and chose a bottle of something blue and potent. As he filled a skinny shot glass, Keiko and Eddington stepped up to the counter and watched him. In a single tilt, O’Brien emptied the shot down his throat.
“Good speech,” Eddington said. “It’s just what they needed to hear.” O’Brien nodded and poured another shot as Eddington continued, “So, I guess we ought to start hammering out the final details of that master plan for the revolution.”
“Guess so,” O’Brien said, then he downed another shot.
Keiko looked back and forth between the two men. It wasn’t hard to guess the truth. “You don’t really have a plan, do you?”
“Nope,” Eddington said.
“No bloody idea,” O’Brien confirmed. Exhausted and demoralized, all he could do was hang his head and wait for the booze to numb his misery by some small measure.
Eddington reached across and under the bar for a shot glass, took the bottle from O’Brien, and poured himself a drink. “I think I know where we ought to start,” he said. “By not repeating the mistakes that Zek and Bashir made.” He paused to pour the shot down his throat, then he exhaled sharply and gave his head a quick shake. He poured himself another shot, then gave the bottle back to O’Brien.
“They let it get personal,” Eddington went on. “The fleet, the rebellion—for them it was all about being heroes. A cult of personality.”
Keiko pointed at the bottle. O’Brien poured her a shot in his glass while Eddington continued. “Whatever we have to do to keep this going, we have to remember from now on that it’s not about us—any of us. It never was. Like you said, O’Brien, it has to be about something bigger. Something better.”
“Here’s to that,” O’Brien said, lifting the bottle in a toast and clinking it against their glasses. “To something better…. May we all live to see it.”
The nightmare of pummeling blows ceased abruptly.
A door opened, admitting a slice of light.
The paingivers left, and the door closed after them.
Julian Bashir dangled naked from his bound wrists, which were secured to a hook along the overhead of his sweltering, oppressively humid cell aboard the I.K.S. Ya’Vang.
His interrogators had shown little interest in actually asking him any questions, being content simply to beat him for hours on end. They’re pulling their punches, he realized. Softening me up for someone else. It was the only way he could explain why he wasn’t dead yet.
Every part of his body hurt. He tried to assess his own injuries. His right eye was swollen shut; the view through his left eye was veiled in a reddish haze. Welts and bruises mushroomed across both sides of his torso, and his face felt puffy and half numb. Blood, salty and metallic, oozed from between his loosened teeth and dribbled over his split lower lip, which registered every drop as a fiery sting of pain. He was certain that several of his ribs had been cracked. His grip on consciousness felt tenuous at best.
Respiration was difficult; his nostrils were thick with dried blood, and mucus was pooling in his sinuses. He was content to breathe through his mouth, because the sickening, charnel odors that permeated this cramped, shadowy space were ones that he had no desire to smell again. Death. Blood, urine, and feces. Decaying flesh, broiled skin, scorched hair. This entire deck of the Ya’Vang bore the stench of a slaughterhouse.
A shrieking of metal as the door opened again. Light, dim and red, slashed into the cell and threw Bashir’s long, twisted shadow across the floor. From another cell farther down the corridor came the sounds of a woman screaming in terror, and male Klingons laughing with malicious abandon.
Barely audible under the screaming and the low pulse of the ship’s engines, the voices of Kira and Kurn were close by, right outside Bashir’s cell door.
“Remember your promise,” Kurn said. “Don’t kill him.”
A girlish chuckle. “I guarantee, you, Kurn. He won’t die. At least, not today.”
Footsteps, then shadows obscured the light from the door. Captain Kurn and Intendant Kira entered the cell and stood directly behind Bashir, who was too heavily restrained and too stiff to turn his head. “Look at him,” Kira said with mocking sweetness. “So sad. He used to be so handsome. It seems like such a waste.”
“What do you think he can tell you?” Kurn asked.
“Everything,” Kira said. “He’s going to tell me everything. Where the rebel bases are located. How they’re defended. The number of people in each one…. He’s going to tell me who sold the rebels their cloaking device. What the rebels’ strategic objectives are. And so much more. Before I’m done I’ll know everything about O’Brien and whoever else is helping him run that little rebellion. I’ll have their life stories.”
Kurn grunted his acknowledgment, then inquired, “What about the other prisoners from the Capital Gain?”
“Worthless,” Kira said. “Execute them.” The dry scrapes of shuffling feet matched the swaying of Kurn and Kira’s shadows on the far wall of the cell. Kira asked, “How long until we rendezvous with the Negh’Var?”
“Sixteen hours,” Kurn said. “They’re holding station in the Almatha system until we arrive.”
A purr of satisfaction from Kira. “And have we heard back from Martok?”
“The regent has agreed to designate the Negh’Var as your flagship as soon as you step aboard,” Kurn said.
“Excellent,” she said, in a tone that Bashir knew must have been accompanied by a lethal-looking smile. “My first official order will be to promote you to general, and name you as Duras’s replacement on the Negh’Var. Any thoughts on what fate should befall him after that?”
“I’m sure there must be a garbage scow somewhere in need of a captain,” Kurn said, provoking himself and Kira into gales of sadistic laughter.
When they finally regained their composure, Kira said, “Find one. I’ll make sure it has his name on it.”
“I will be in your debt, Intendant,” Kurn said.
“It’s my pleasure, Kurn,” she said, then adopted a more seductive tone. “You and I are going to be close, my dear general. Very close, indeed…. Now, if you’ll excuse me.”
The shadows parted, then the door closed and darkness descended once more. The only illumination, harsh and white, came from directly above Bashir and spilled in a tight circle around his feet.
Sharp clacks on the deck. Footfalls in spike-heeled boots. Intendant Kira circled him in languid strides, looking him over like a butcher studying a cut of meat. She no longer wore the Klingon uniform in which he had seen her outfitted on the bridge of the Capital Gain. The Intendant was attired in her trademark black body suit, its surface form-fitting and almost mirror-perfect in its glossy sheen. Around her brow was a silver headpiece. From her perfectly styled hair to her expertly manicured fingernails, she was a living portrait of glorious vanity.
“Hello, Julian,” she said. “It’s been quite a while since we’ve been alone together, hasn’t it?” With the knuckle of her index finger, she propped his head up. “I can’t tell you how much I’ve been looking forward to this.”
Kira withdrew her hand, and his head drooped back toward his chest. She reached out into the darkness and pulled over a rolling metal cart, whose top tray was covered with various quasi-surgical-looking instruments.
“I seem to recall you favored a brute-force approach to our encounters,” she said. “Electrical shock, wasn’t it?” She tsk-tsked and shook her head. “So crude. No style at all.” Her hand hovered above the implements on the tray, vacillating between one with curving razor edges and another with saw-tooth blades. Then she selected one that had both, one at each end.
In slow, swaying motions, she waggled the tool in front of Bashir’s one unswollen eye. “Tell me, Julian—do you remember what I used to say about violence being a precision instrument?” A sick glee contorted her face as she pressed the flat of her blade against his face and whispered in his ear.
“So is revenge.”
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About the Authors
Keith R.A. DeCandido grew up reading Star Trek novels and admiring the authors of same, never imagining that he’d grow up to be one of them. He still is half convinced that it’s some kind of delusion he’s been suffering. Still, they keep sending him checks, so maybe not. His previous Trek work includes writing eleven novels, one novella, ten eBooks, five short stories, and a comic book miniseries, and editing three anthologies, several novels, and the entire Star Trek eBook line. Some of the above include A Time for War, A Time for Peace, the USA Today bestselling lead-in to Star Trek Nemesis; several contributions to the popular post-finale Deep Space Nine saga; numerous entries in the Starfleet Corps of Engineers eBook series, which he also edits; the critically acclaimed Articles of the Federation; The Art of the Impossible, part of the New York Times bestselling Lost Era miniseries; two previous pieces of Voyager fiction, the first half of The Brave and the Bold Book 2 and the story “Letting Go” in Distant Shores, neither of which took place in the Delta Quadrant; editing the Tales of the Dominion War and Tales from the Captain’s Table anthologies; co-editing New Frontier: No Limits with Peter David; editing the anniversary eBook miniseries Mere Anarchy; and much more. Coming in 2007 is Q&A, one of the post-Nemesis novels celebrating the twentieth anniversary of Star T rek: The Next Generation. When he isn’t Trek kin’, Keith is writing in the media universes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, World of Warcraft, StarCraft, Doctor Who, Marvel Comics, Serenity, Resident Evil, Farscape, Gene Roddenberry’s Andromeda, and much more. He lives in New York City with his girlfriend and two insane-yet-terminally-cute cats. Find out more at Keith’s Web site at www.DeCandido.net.