“Do you have anything to base that suspicion on other than this harmless document?” Weyoun asked, his voice arch.
“Not yet.”
Ziyal didn’t like her father’s tone at all. “What do you mean, Father?”
“It means,” he said, his voice hard as a rock, “that it’s nothing for you to worry about. You should get back to sleep.”
Dukat stood and put one hand on her shoulder, his grip tight. She felt him urging her back toward her quarters. Something was wrong, of that much she was sure, but Ziyal did as she was told, walking back into her room and crawling under the covers.
Going back to bed was easy. Sleep, however, was another story. No sooner had the lock clicked into place than she threw off the covers and made her way back to the door. Kneeling, she managed to hear her father cursing at something.
“Dukat, it’s a harmless publication. You’re seeing things that aren’t there.”
Ziyal raised an eyebrow at Weyoun’s tone. It was the same mollifying tone Dukat often used on her.
“That’s the idea, Weyoun. I tell you, it’s not harmless. Maybe I’ll have a little talk with Major Kira. If there’s a resistance cell on this station, she’ll know. Damar, find her.”
“Yes, sir.” The distant sound of a door opening and closing followed him.
Ziyal reluctantly agreed with her father. It felt like ages since she’d last spoken with Kira, but if Ziyal were looking for some sort of underground on the station, Nerys’s connection to the old resistance movement would be a good place to start.
What she could disagree with, however, was the salacious edge to his voice when Dukat mentioned speaking to Kira.
“No, Dukat. The Dominion intends to maintain good relations with the Bajorans. Interrogating Major Kira would put that at risk. If you intend to prove the existence of an organized resistance here, it will be without the unprovoked interrogation of Bajorans. Do I make myself clear?”
Ziyal didn’t like the kind of things her father was saying, or that he felt comfortable with the idea of interrogating Nerys like that. As far as Ziyal knew, the worst thing Kira had done to Dukat was spurn his advances. The anger she felt from her father reminded her a little too much of the hard, oppressive edge her anonymous attacker had shown in that Cardassian alley. Was her father capable of the same brutality?
“Yes,” Dukat snarled in reply.
Ziyal’s knees were beginning to ache from the kneeling. Shifting her position, she stopped cold when her foot brushed against a small stand. It felt like the stand that she used to hold the beautiful blue clay pot from her sculpture class. She frantically prayed to as many deities as she could think of—both Bajoran and Cardassian—that she hadn’t brushed it too hard.
Before she could get very far in her oaths, she heard the pot begin to roll.
She scurried around in the dark room, cursing the fact that she had thought herself too old for something so simple as a nightlight. She could hear the blasted pot moving, but her fingers were fumbling to catch the thing before it fell.
She was too late.
The pot fell to the solid surface of the floor, breaking with a spectacular sound.
“What was that?” Weyoun asked.
“That came from Ziyal’s quarters.”
Ziyal rushed back to her bed, throwing the covers over her just as the lock beeped open. As the door slid aside, she propped herself up on one elbow, rubbing her eyes as if she’d just been awakened. “What was that, father?” she blearily asked. “I heard something break.”
Dukat looked down at the foot of the door.
Following his eyes, she could see the shattered pieces of the pot. “I guess that was too close to the air vent after all,” she said, feigning dejection.
Her father’s face softened. “Perhaps it was. We’ll clean it up later.”
Ziyal nodded. “All right, father.”
“Sleep well, my dear.”
No sooner had the door closed behind him than Ziyal fell back onto the bed, her mind whirling over the possibilities that a resistance cell on the station might hold.
UNKNOWN SENDER.
Two simple words had never given Jake so much glee. The first issue of his newsfeed had tumbled into his inbox, as well as the in-boxes of every resident of the station, promptly at 0600 that morning, full of sound and fury, and signifying absolutely nothing.
It was perfect.
He’d used the previous day’s springball results as the lead story, something he thought no self-respecting journalist would ever have attempted. He’d been surprised at how easy composing vapid, useless news articles had been. He’d even adjusted his own writing style to something more staunch and formal just for the occasion. Dukat might recognize it, but after Kira told him about Weyoun’s lack of aesthetic perception, Jake wasn’t sure that the Vorta would be able to figure it out. So far, it looked like it was working just as planned.
He wasn’t sure exactly how Rom’s gadget worked, and with Rom in a holding cell after a disastrous sabotage attempt Jake couldn’t ask him, but he was grateful that it did. The first newsfeed looked as if it had gone through every comm station from the old ore processing facilities to a tiny comm unit in the Assayer’s Office as it was distributed. Several inboxes had even received multiple copies of the file, just to make it look more suspicious. Jake chuckled as he noted the name of one such recipient—Corat Damar.
That had to have been Kira’s idea.
Jake made a mental note to see if Ziyal mentioned anything about her father during dinner. It was their eighth meeting—he hesitated to call them ‘dates’—in two weeks.
Slipping on his shoes, he checked his appearance one last time before heading to the Promenade. After spending the entire night working on Ziyal’s article, he was anxious to see what she thought of his work.
He didn’t think Bajoran noses could wrinkle like Ziyal’s did when she finished reading the first draft of his article. “Jake, I don’t know. You’ve made my father sound like some kind of tyrant, like I’m some sort of legna fathered by a Pah-wraith, He’s not that bad.”
“What’s a legna?”
“It’s an old Cardassian word. It means something that’s divine, but not a god.”
Jake’s eyes sank to the plate of hasperat on the table in front of him. He’d spent the last several days fixing up the article about her in-between work on the newsfeed, and now the subject of the piece hated his work. Jake had tried so hard to portray every side of the story, but somehow he couldn’t help but feel as though he’d ended up hurting her. “I’m sorry, Ziyal. I only used the information the Bajorans gave me about the Occupation.”
She nodded. “I know. That’s the problem. He wants to repent, Jake. He wants the Bajorans to understand that he was doing what he was forced to do. He’s not a bad man.”
Jake almost laughed.” If he wants to repent, Ziyal, why did he let them get rid of freedom of the press? If he went up against Weyoun and let me tell the Federation News Service what really goes on here, your father might be judged more fairly.”
“They’re already telling themselves,” she said. “Whoever is doing that newsfeed is only trying to get into more trouble. Nobody’s patience is infinite, Jake, not even my father’s. He’ll find whoever is doing it, and I’m worried about what it’ll force him to do when that happens.”
He took a bit of pride in the notion that if Ziyal didn’t know who was behind the newsfeed, then there was a good chance that Dukat didn’t, either.
They sat in companionable silence for a bit longer, until Ziyal said, “Is it you?”
“Huh?”
“Doing the newsfeed. Is it you?”
Jake took a deep breath as he worked up an answer. “Why do you say that?”
“I’ve gotten to know you, Jake Sisko. Besides, it’s a newspaper, and you’re the only real journalist on the station.”
Mustering his courage, he forced a blank expression onto his face and said, “No. I’ve been too
busy working on the article about you.”
She didn’t look convinced.
“I’m serious, Ziyal.”
Ziyal placed her napkin beside the plate as she stood. “I know. Good night, Jake.”
His stomach churned at the tone in her voice. She knew he was lying.
He grabbed her arm before she could get too far. “He’s going to execute Rom, Ziyal. Is that repenting? How do you think the Bajorans are going to see it?”
She jerked her arm out of his grasp. “Good night,” she said, this time with more force.
Jake watched her leave, not sure if it was right for him to follow. She looked as if she wanted to be alone, but something told him that might not have been the case. Should he tell her the whole truth? What would she do if he did? He didn’t know. He was so deep in thought that he didn’t even notice the approach of one of Quark’s dabo girls, a slender, raven-haired Bajoran named Maiki.
“Jake,” she whispered.” Jake!”
Shaking himself out of his reverie, he replied, “What?”
She leaned down, her lips a few scant inches from his ear. “Morn just brought back word. The Federation is coming. They’ll be here in a few days.”
Jake wanted to cheer, but restrained himself. Dad was coming back!
His hopes were quickly doused by one realization. “Ziyal.”
He stood, making sure his gaze remained on Maiki’s face. From the waist up, her costume was one of the skimpiest that Quark made his dabo girls wear, with bits of flesh-tone mesh holding together the few strategically placed scraps of emerald green fabric covering her chest and pelvis. The costume was handy in getting Cardassian soldiers to cozy up to her for “favors,” which made Maiki one of his best informants. Still, he’d long since learned the lesson about looking her in the eye if he wanted to be kept in the loop. “Meeting tomorrow?”
She nodded.
Jake wandered out of Quark’s and down the Promenade toward his quarters. His father was coming back, but if Dukat were forced out, would Ziyal go with him, or stay? He hoped for the latter, but feared the former. If she wanted to stay, she’d stay. But she had just enough blind devotion to her father to make Jake worry.
As he walked, his eyes wandered up to the Promenade’s second level. He could still remember sitting along the railing with Nog, their feet hanging over the edge into the open air as they watched the people go by, the innocence of youth personified.
The sight that greeted him from the upper level scarred that mental image. Odo and the female Founder were looking down like a king and queen surveying their domain.
So that’s where Odo’s been. Explains Kira’s bad mood for the last few days.
Jake continued on toward his quarters, receiving the occasional pat on the back from Bajorans as he went. “The Emissary will deliver us from the Dominion, Jake,” the owner of the jumja kiosk whispered. He overheard one Bajoran saying that the Emissary had found a way to ensure the minefield’s safety, that there was no way the Dominion would be able to take it down and get reinforcements from the Gamma Quadrant once the Emissary arrived.
If they were going to get through the next few days, Jake knew that he and the rest of the resistance cell could not show any weakness. If his father really had found a way to keep Dukat from bringing down the minefield, he was going with the boldest plan Jake could ever remember him concocting. “Fortune favors the bold,” one of his teachers had once said, “but abandons the timid.”
Timid was something Jake Sisko had no intention of being.
He hoped.
No matter what happened, he promised himself that he’d do whatever it took to help free the station.
Ziyal looked around Quark’s for Jake, but found no sign of her dinner date. She walked over to the crowded, understaffed bar and managed to catch sight of the proprietor. “Quark? Sir?”
It was the “Sir” that got Quark’s attention. The Ferengi raised a hand. “Be right with you, Ziyal.”
She scanned the bar once again. There was no sign of Jake, Kira, or even Leeta.
“What can I do for you?” Quark asked.
“Have you seen Jake? We were supposed to meet for dinner.”
Ziyal didn’t like the apprehensive look that flashed across Quark’s face at that. “What happened?” she asked.
He put a hand on her shoulder, ignoring customers as he led her to a quiet area of the bar. That alone was enough to tell her that something serious had happened. “They’ve been arrested. Damar’s accusing them of treason.”
“No.” She felt like she’d been kicked in the stomach. “Arrested?”
If Damar got them arrested, he had to have Father’s permission. Kira was right. My father really has been lying to me.
Quark nodded and whispered, “Resistance.”
Ziyal’s ears perked at that. “There really is a cell on the station?”
“There was.”
Her heart sank. Something told her that Quark had known all along. Mustering her courage, she said, “There still is. Where do I sign up?”
The Ferengi’s eyes bulged. “You?”
“Yes.”
Quark stared at her for a long moment before shaking his head. “No. Dukat won, Ziyal. It’s over. Do yourself a favor and find someplace to hide until the smoke clears.”
She couldn’t decide whether to be angry at the barkeep, or do as he suggested. Her mind instead chose that moment to realize something. “If Rom’s going to be executed for treason, that means—”
“Kira will be right after him,” Quark said. “And Leeta, and—”
“Jake,” she whispered.
The Ferengi nodded. “It might not be so easy for Dukat to get away with killing them, but he’ll do it.”
A part of her couldn’t believe what she was hearing, but in her heart she was beginning to accept that it was true. The fact that Leeta and Kira were Bajorans would only slow her father down, but Jake didn’t have that luxury. She had no idea what was going to happen to him.
Working her way out of the crowded bar and back onto the Promenade, she frantically tried to think of some way to get Jake and the others out of jail. I’m not strong enough to do it myself. I need help, but who?
It wasn’t as if she could go back to her father. She still couldn’t stomach his reaction when she’d appealed to him to free Rom. It was so perfectly Cardassian that it sickened her. How could he even consider that she might want to become that kind of person? How could he be so callous? What would he do if she went to him for someone like Jake or Leeta? How could they possibly be enemies of the state?
How can he let them execute Nerys? The way he watches her, it’s obvious that he cares for her. What purpose would be served by her death?
As she stepped into the turbolift, she came to the crushing realization that her father probably would let Kira die as an example to others. Kira’s death would drive a wedge between the Bajorans and the Cardassians that Ziyal doubted she could ever overcome on her own.
There had to be a way to stop the executions.
Maybe if I just went to Weyoun. Maybe he’d listen. He let Jake’s newsfeed go, even though Father wanted to get rid of it. Maybe he’ll let them go when he finds out about this.
The lift stopped at ops just in time for her to see her father, Damar, and Weyoun gathered around the situation table in the pit.
“... The Defiant’s no match for this station,” she heard Dukat say. “If Sisko wants to commit suicide, I say we let him.”
Ziyal felt herself beginning to tremble. Before they could realize she was there, the lift took her out of ops.
She was still shaking when the lift stopped at her level of the habitat ring. The Federation was coming. Whatever was about to happen would change the station forever, she was sure of that. If she couldn’t find a way to keep everyone safe, there were still things she needed to protect as best she could.
When the door to her father’s quarters opened, she immediately went to his desk. Where wo
uld he keep it? She searched every object on the desk for it, until a glint of silver caught her eye. She reached around the small chronometer, and lifted it into the light. Mother’s earring.
She used to think he kept it to remind him of happier times. But as his true nature became clear to her, she began to understand why it was that he took comfort from the earring and not her mother’s pledge bracelet. The earring was his trophy. He clung to it precisely because it wasn’t a reminder of any intimacy he and Naprem had shared, but was instead a symbol of one of his victories. He didn’t remember her mother as a woman he loved. To him, she was merely a Bajoran. Something he had conquered.
She needed it more than Dukat did. Ziyal knew that if she could only keep a few things safe in the coming chaos, it had to be what little of her mother remained. Now, what do I put this in?
She went into her room and grabbed a small scrap of blue fabric from her dressing area. It was frayed at the edges, faded and worn from years of being wadded up in whatever pocket she had, but it was all that she’d been able to keep after the crash. The Breen had taken everything else or buried it with the bodies of the Ravinok dead, but Ziyal had somehow managed to keep the small scrap of her mother’s favorite dress.
The half-used canvases and papers that were littered through the room stared at her, almost mocking her that she would put a long-dead woman ahead of the future. Ziyal loved her art, there was no questioning that, but the chain of tarnished silver that she held in her palm was even more irreplaceable than her creations. And despite the fact that her holovid and portfolio had already been shipped to the institute on Cardassia, she knew now that the dream it represented was dead.
Wrapping the earring in the soft scrap of fabric, she shoved it deep into her pocket when an alarm went off somewhere in the distance.
She walked out into the corridor, trying to figure out how close the problem might be. Finally deciding that it was far enough away to not be an immediate threat, she went back into her quarters. That was when the hand came down over her mouth.
“Don’t scream. I’m not going to hurt you. I just have one question.”
STAR TREK: DS9 - Prophecy and Change Page 20