Star Trek: Terok Nor 02: Night of the Wolves

by S. D. Perry

  Taryl was examining the sensor readouts. “I think they’ve picked us up,” she said nervously.

  “Looks that way,” Halpas agreed.

  Taryl looked around the room. “We’ll have to launch another raider in their direction—give them something to stop and shoot at—then they’ll have to power down their sweep cycle, just long enough for us to turn back around and sneak by them.”

  Lenaris shook his head. “We only have four shuttles left.”

  “I don’t see that we have much choice,” she told him.

  Lenaris frowned. “If we need those ships to bail out later…”

  “This isn’t the time for cautious pragmatism, Lenaris,” Halpas said. “We’ve got to do whatever works, or there might not be a later.”

  Lenaris looked as though he might argue, but then he glanced at Taryl and quickly backed down. “Okay,” he said. He headed back to the shuttlebay to program another of the raiders for an autopilot launch.

  Halpas was annoyed with the younger man’s persistent pessimism, but he was not a man who spent too much time thinking too far beyond the most immediate step. Truthfully, he was a little surprised that they’d made it this far, but he’d always felt that way, in every mission he’d taken part in.

  There were only nine of them aboard, the bare minimum needed to pop a prisoner free from one of the camps at home—and that was assuming they had schematics, practice time, probably some small intervention bought by bribe…They had none of that, here, their offworld venture entirely carried by Ornathia Taryl’s wish to free her brother. Their plans were vague, their knowlege of the camp minimal; it would be a miracle if they managed to find Lac and get him back to Bajor.

  Once the raider had been launched, Halpas watched the sensors closely, waiting to make the call. He couldn’t afford imprecision, not now. The ship might have been damaged, but it was careful piloting that would make this kind of maneuver a success or a failure. A bad pilot couldn’t save them from a Cardassian patrol even if the ship had been whole. His eyes glued to the transponder, he waited just another second, or less, and then—now! He reversed direction.

  “I see their signature,” Taryl said, pointing to an icon blinking on the sensors. “That’s them. We’ve passed them.”

  Tiven peered over her shoulder, turned to Halpas. “Do you think they saw us?”

  “They may have, but it looked like they dropped out of warp, probably checking out the raider.”

  “We can only hope,” Lenaris said, returning to the bridge from the shuttlebay once again.

  “We’re coming up on Pullock V again,” Taryl said. “Looks like the warp signature we’re hiding in came straight from here.”

  “Are you sure that’s Pullock V?” Halpas said. “How many planets are in this system?”

  “Didn’t you look at the charts, Halpas?” Taryl’s tone was light. “I should have just committed to driving this heap myself.”

  Halpas patted the ship’s flight control panel. “Who would keep her company while the rest of you beam to the surface?”

  Taryl’s finger was on the sensor array again. “Look, Halpas. Correct me if I’m wrong, but it looks like…the settlement’s beam-shielded.”

  Halpas cursed. He hadn’t expected this. A prison camp on a planet in an uninhabited system—why the extra security?

  Taryl sounded worried. “We’ll have to take the raiders down, time ourselves against their sensors.”

  “We can’t take the raiders,” Lenaris argued. “Two of them can barely hold two people apiece. We might be able to squeeze four into the third, but there’s no telling how it’ll behave with that much weight. And it won’t leave any room for Lac.”

  “We can do it,” Taryl said, though she sounded less than certain. “We have to. If we can get inside, we can shut down the shield. Then Halpas could use the transporters to get everyone else out.”

  Halpas nodded along, more certain by the moment that they weren’t going to survive—and more exhilarated, at the very slight chance that they would. What they were attempting was unprecedented, which was why it might actually work. And they’d have help on the inside, once the prisoners realized they were being liberated.

  And it’ll make those spoonheads think twice about who they’re dealing with.

  “But—” Lenaris began, but he didn’t finish, apparently realizing that it was the only way. “All right,” he said. “Let’s go below and tell the others. Tiven, you can ride with me.”

  “I’m riding with Taryl.” Tiven grinned.

  Lenaris rolled his eyes. “Halpas,” he said, “set her in orbit, and stand by for our signal.”

  They nodded to him, and headed for the shuttlebay.

  “I’ve located the transport,” Garresh Trach announced. “Sensors show it to be docked at Tilar, just where it was reported to have landed.”

  “Well, take her down,” Damar ordered irritably. He hadn’t expected Veja’s transport to be anywhere but at the vineyards.

  Trach landed the shuttle clumsily, and Damar cursed himself for letting the younger man pilot. He had wanted to exercise his authority by being in command, but Trach lacked experience at everything.

  “Do you see any Cardassian life signs?” Damar asked.

  “No, only Bajoran. See for yourself.” He pointed out the sensor results. A cluster of readings at the resort, undoubtedly groundskeepers and staff.

  “We need better scanning equipment,” Damar muttered.

  “We might have more luck with handheld scanners,” the garresh offered. “More precise, though we have to be in close range.”

  “Fine. Get me a tricorder, and bring one for yourself.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The two men exited their shuttle and surveyed the land around them. The air was thick with humidity, and cool, but the sun was bright and warming. The vineyards were hilly, a wide expanse of land, green like Bajor’s seas, with tessipates and tessipates of leafy vines, creeping up dark wooden stakes that had been driven into the dark ground. The soil beneath his feet was rich and black, the long, spiky leaves that sprouted thickly from the vines rustling in the breeze, their deep green cutting sharply against the charged blue of the cloudless sky. Damar could see why the first Cardassians to Bajor had claimed this spot and why it remained a popular destination, even after the repeated terrorist attacks here in the early years of the annexation.

  Veja, he thought, and felt his stomach knot.

  Damar examined his tricorder readouts. Still no Cardassian biosigns anywhere nearby. Where were the soldiers? There was a base not a few hours away by skimmer.

  He contacted the base, spoke to the glinn in charge—his name was Ratav, and he had a short temper and was not afraid to use it. It seemed that a full half of their surface transports had suffered fuel-line sabotage by resistance hands, only the night before. Ratav’s soldiers were pulling double shifts, and patrols had been rendered effectively useless for however long it took to repair the damage.

  “But the situation here—” Damar started, aware that he was risking himself, arguing with a superior, but aware also that his position at Dukat’s side meant that some allowances would be made.

  Glinn Ratav obviously didn’t think so. “I’ll be sure, once my working ships come back—after having run patrols for twenty-six hours straight—to send a squadron of my finest, to help you find your female.”

  He said it with no trace of sarcasm, but the message couldn’t have been clearer. Damar gave it up, promising revenge another day. It seemed they were on their own, at least for a while.

  “We’ll separate,” he told the garresh. He called up a topo map on the tiny screen, traced out two paths that should allow them to cover the most ground. “Contact me at fifteen-minute intervals, unless you come across anything that could help us—anything at all, no matter how trivial.”

  “Yes, sir.” Trach extended his scanner and headed off into the seemingly endless stretch of curly vines and wafting leaves.

 
Damar headed off at an angle, sweeping the scanning device, watching for signs that people had walked through recently. The smell of the air, of warm plant decay, the sounds of insects and small wildlife moving through the brush, all worked to distract him, but he could think only of Veja, of their last words together. He walked over a number of gullies and ditches, with muddy, standing water at the bottoms, swarms of insects hatching from the decaying muck. He came to wider trenches with steep sides, wide enough for a tall man to walk through, lined with flat, interlocking stones and outfitted with metal runners built along the vertical sides. Inserted into the runners were sheets of old metal, twisted and corroded with age. Damar stopped to examine one of them, and understood that it had once been used to dam the drainage ditch, probably during the dry months of summer. The ditch led to the base of a large hillside, where it disappeared into the ground. This irrigation system was extensive, to be sure, but it had run dry for some reason. Perhaps this leg of it had been cut off from the main water source.

  He walked for a significant distance before he got anything—a weak biosign that appeared to be Cardassian. He moved the scanner about, watching the flickering numbers, followed its strength on a path that branched from his own. A second biosign had joined the first—they were definitely Cardassian, and there was a Bajoran with them.

  “A Bajoran has taken us hostage…” Why had Natima called him, and not Veja? Damar moved faster, tearing through the virulent undergrowth.

  He grew closer to the biosigns, drew his phaser—and watched, puzzled, as they started to fade. He reset the scanner and began again, but the readouts were the same, as though he were picking up signals through something, the density of that substance changing as he walked…

  Underground. Those drainage ditches.

  “Garresh Trach,” he barked into his comcuff. “Lock on to my signal and report to me immediately.”

  Astraea was frustrated. She had been so sure that she would find something here in Lakarian City. She had been certain that she would find the original location of the ancient black stone cottage, either by landmark or…

  Admit it. You thought you’d feel it, sense something that would give you direction. After a long day of searching, she was embarrassed by her previous certainty. She had scoured the area, the ruins, even the meager museums that displayed what was left of the Hebitian artifacts—anything that hadn’t been sold off to help fund the military was exhibited here. But of what there was—broken urns, carvings, simple tools—there was nothing that spoke to her in any meaningful way.

  She left the last preserved ruin, some sort of stable, to the few wandering sightseers and scientists that had shared her flight out, and started walking, lost in thought. The hot, dry day was soothing, though the dust was relentless…and she had gone back to struggling with truth and reality, afraid once more that she’d made a terrible mistake.

  Her dreams were real—she had been so sure of that. The simple act of reviewing those images now, those fragments, affirmed their substance in her mind’s eye. They had to be real. If they weren’t real, she had jeopardized her future without just cause, had decided to leave her home, her career, her family—she could scarcely even acknowledge the profundity of what she’d given up.

  She had not been gone long enough for anyone to really worry about her, she supposed. Perhaps she should go back home, confess what she had done, and accept the punishment? Certainly, she was guilty of no less than deliberate sabotage—a crime that was usually punished by execution—but the Orb had affected her somehow. Perhaps she would not be held fully responsible.

  No. The effect it would have on her family, the disgrace of having a traitor for a daughter—it might be better if they never knew what had happened to her. It was already too late to go back.

  She wandered toward the outskirts of the ruined city, checking her timepiece as she walked. She had booked transport on a shuttle to Cardassia II, scheduled to leave in the early evening. Her plan had been to find the book that the Hebitian had told her of—hidden in plain sight—and go into hiding for a while herself, plan her next move…dream whatever needed to be dreamed, to complete this insane quest.

  She looked out at the flat horizon just to be absolutely sure that there was nothing here—no remnants of the last Oralians. Although, she corrected herself, they were not the last Oralians, they were probably the first. The last Oralians must have lived in Cardassia City, since they still existed when she was a baby.

  Astraea stopped walking, the truth opening before her like a flower. Cardassia City! The last Oralians existed just decades ago, not centuries. If there were any remnants of the Oralian Way, it would be outside the last known enclave of planetside followers, which was in Cardassia City! In fact…Something so obvious occurred to her then, she was stunned that she had not considered it before. Like something in plain sight, but hidden. In her dream, the first of those significant dreams she had experienced, she had been walking toward the stone cottage from the city, from her home. It had been under her nose this entire time.

  I am looking in the wrong place.

  Natima and her would-be captor had begun systematically moving rocks and heaps of dirt away from the dark branch of the tunnel they’d been trapped in. The Bajoran had climbed to the top of the pile to ensure that it was relatively stable, and now he worked at clearing the debris, lifting the heaviest rocks. Natima scooped dirt back into the tunnel with her hands and feet, ignoring the resultant scratches. As they worked, the palm beacon began to flicker.

  “Will we be able to continue doing this in the dark?” Natima asked. Her voice sounded hollow against the cold, wet ground all around them.

  “Let’s just worry about what we’re doing, all right?”

  “But we should think about it before it happens, so we can formulate a plan.”

  “It’s pointless to consider things that might happen. I think we’ll come to the end of this before the palm beacon gives out.”

  “You think, but you don’t know.”

  The Bajoran stopped working for a moment. “You certainly are preoccupied with foresight, for a Cardassian.”

  “What are you trying to imply?”

  He went back to work. “Do I need to imply anything? Your people came here to steal our resources, and you burn the ground after you. I hate Cardassians, isn’t that obvious?”

  “Sure,” Natima said. “And look where it’s gotten you. Stuck in a tunnel with two civilian reporters. We’ll probably suffocate in here.”

  “We won’t suffocate,” he said. “These tunnels are old, the rock has shifted. There’s a wide rift not a minute’s walk from where we are, on the other side of this heap.”

  Natima had nothing to say, she just continued to lift handfuls of rubble away from the blocked opening, and the Bajoran went back to work as well.

  After a time, he spoke again. “This is where I hid when my parents were killed,” he said. His voice was flat. “The soldiers came to force them off their land, and I ran away. I probably would be dead, too, if I had stayed behind.”

  “Ah,” Natima said. “Your hatred of me has a point of origin.”

  “Of course it does!” he spat. “Every Bajoran you’ll ever meet has a story like mine. Those who aren’t orphans are widows, or they have lost children or siblings or friends. My story is so typical, there’s hardly any reason to tell it.”

  Natima was quiet, struggling with an unexpected surge of guilt. She knew she had done nothing wrong. And the Bajorans had willingly accepted the annexation; they should have expected to have to make some adjustments…But she also knew how she might have felt if someone had come to her home and told her she had to leave. Forced her to leave, if she refused.

  If they had just cooperated…

  She wanted to maintain as friendly an atmosphere as possible. If she could show herself to be open-minded, compassionate, perhaps he would listen to her when Damar came, turn himself in without a struggle.

  “Did you grow up in an or
phanage?”

  He shook his head. “No. We aren’t like Cardassians, leaving their children behind. Bajorans keep their children out of those foul places, if it can be helped. I was taken in by relatives.”

  Natima bristled at what he had said, mostly because she knew it was true. She sat back from the pile of rock, clasped her scraped fingers tightly. “I’ll have you know, I don’t agree with the practice of leaving Cardassian children behind in orphanages. The trouble with people like you, you view Cardassians as if we were one person, with one opinion. We don’t all agree on every aspect of our culture.”

  The Bajoran frowned, but said nothing. He continued working.

  “I’ve seen plenty of Bajoran children in the orphanages,” she added, “so don’t try to pretend that the Bajorans are above leaving their children to fend for themselves. Usually, they are children of those who cooperate with the government—children who have done nothing wrong, and are left to pay the debt of their parents by people like you.”

  “People like me!” he exclaimed, but before he could finish, a stream of fine gravel spilled from the top of the heap. He leapt forward and grabbed Natima, shielding her body with his own. “Watch out!” he shouted.

  A few of the larger rocks shifted, but nothing came down. She and the Bajoran pulled back from each other, both of them catching their breath from the scare. Natima stared at the man, confused. He had acted to protect her, after taking her hostage. What a complicated people these Bajorans were!

  “Did I hurt you?”

  “No,” Natima told him, flustered. “I’m fine.”

  They heard a faint groan, echoing from the other end of the tunnel.

  “Veja’s awake,” she said. The Bajoran nodded, stood, lighting the way with his flickering light.

  Natima tried to hurry, but the light was failing fast. The muddy, rocky ground beneath their feet had to be navigated by feel, the dark a palpable thing around them, closing in, and she was afraid. She spoke again as they walked, working to keep herself focused. “The children in the orphanages—it’s one of the few things that I have refused to censor about the annexation.”