by Diane Carey
"That leaves the Cardassians open to making up a creed to fit the situation," Odo said. "It's not a very well written treaty."
"We were in a hurry," Kira drawled. "We wanted them out of here. It can't be that hard to keep them out."
Sisko glanced at her. "You know as well as I do that Cardassia intends to get this station back and get control over the wormhole. That's in their medium-range plans and I'd be a fool to ignore it. The treaty's only a thin veil while they bide their time. I'm sure you don't want that any more than I do, Major."
"Well … no, sir, of course I don't. But I know the Cardassians." She didn't even offer Garak a look, but spoke as if he weren't there. "They're superstitious and possessive, but they're also manipulative. They'll want to do their own ceremonies around these corpses and anoint them and parade them as past heroes and use them to shore up current morale. If they discover we kept dead Cardassian soldiers here in this condition, unburied, unburned, just stuck on slabs, drying out like so much meat—"
"The Cardassians will insist this station be reoccupied until a proper investigation can be carried out," Garak said.
Irritated now, Sisko glowered at him. "Define 'proper.'"
"You define it! As long as they want, that's the definition. Such a performance can be unending. They could claim you or I or anyone did this, and investigate forever!"
"Pity's sake," O'Brien groaned, then realized he wasn't helping much. "Do you know how much mischief they could commit on a sanctioned stationwide inspection?"
Odo came out of his shadow, stiff with composed anger. "After they evacuated, it took nearly a year to clean out all the listening devices, trip switches, booby traps—the whole station was like that tunnel out there. We'll never be able to have another secured meeting if we let them get their toes back inside our doors for sanctioned inspections!"
"And the resident Bajorans won't be happy about having a Cardassian presence on the station," Kira admitted. "We took this station at the cost of plenty of lives and we don't intend to let it slip back. Any number of my people would be pleased to slip a blade between some Cardassian ribs. We'd have to divert Security forces to protect the Cardassian inspection team."
"Then we'd be spread thin," Odo added, "and we'd have to ask for additional troops."
"Then everybody'll be here," Sisko picked up. "Cardassia, Starfleet—everybody. If I tell Starfleet, then they'll be under obligation to inform the Cardassians, who can then lever inspections on the station. That's if I knew about all this, and if my crew were efficient enough to tell me these bodies were here. Luckily I'm not very bright. Neither are any of you."
"Thank you, Captain," Garak heaved.
"Chief—"
O'Brien blinked, his mind tumbling with visions of armed, angry Cardassian inspection teams thumping through the toothbare corridors of this giant set jaw in space. DS9 would become an even hotter hell's kitchen than it already was. "Sir?"
"I want you to seal this area up again and put a 'contaminated' notice on the bulkhead. We'll lock it all up on both ends until I have a chance to do some unofficial looking around … find a path without thorns."
"That could take months, sir."
"They won't be any deader, Chief. All of you keep your mouths shut until I figure out what the next step should be. Until then, it's just going to be Halloween around here for a while."
CHAPTER 4
A SORRY, SAD little place to spend generations, with only cobwebs for banners. Not a flag, not a drum, no salutes nor any murmurs of appreciation for the grander age moved the stale air here.
What a place to hide a hero.
Damned Starfleet efficiency. When Chief O'Brien sealed something, it was bound to stay sealed. Breaking in made for a torturous hour of picking and chipping, with that bogus CONTAMINATED AREA sign glaring down. Couldn't use a phaser—it would be picked up. Couldn't do too much damage, or his tampering might be too easily discovered … too soon.
Garak's hands were cold and stiff, though he was working hard and breathing like bellows. His clothing was snagged and his thick skin scored by the long crawl through the tunnel. He knew what was hidden in there, and though those bodies had been in this room for eighty or more years, he was eaten up by the idea of leaving them in there alone for one more hour. Every minute of his trek down the tunnel, and now every minute of picking away the sealed bulkhead, chewed at him without remittance.
Suddenly he flinched and spun around to look behind him. He thought he saw that large, dangerous living shadow of a man who could stop him from his task. But there was no one there.
Still, he continued to flinch and look. Sisko hadn't seemed bothered by what they saw down here, but then, Garak knew, he hadn't understood it. Yet, in Sisko's eyes had been a flicker, a hesitation, a clue that he suspected something.
He always suspected something. This was a man who was looking through the galaxy for a crashworthy seat and was enraged when anyone disturbed it—but not so much that he didn't want to keep his foot to the fire. He wanted a safe nest in which to raise his son, but he couldn't make himself leave the frontline. He had found an anchorage, but at the eye of the wormhole. He hunted excitement, yet roared when it came.
And he suspected it everywhere, Garak knew. Before long the eerie and inconsistent details of this tomb began to congeal in Sisko's mind, and he would be here again. Why were there dead Cardassians here, and why were the bodies so old, yet not dissolved to dust? Why had they been mummified, when in fact the Cardassians did no such thing to their dead and never had?
Shy of every collision, Sisko would before long be haunted by these questions and, just as he was the ghost of those he had been forced to leave behind in the tragedies of his life, he would begin to haunt the database of Cardassian culture, looking for what happened eighty years ago. It might start as a casual question to Jadzia Dax … "By the way, while you're doing that, would you take a look at Cardassian history for me? When you get the chance."
And the chance would come soon, and Sisko would be here again. That was all the time there was.
Garak's pipeclay-gray hands began to shudder and go pale as he forced back a panel of the bulkhead. Inches from his face, his knuckles turned bony with strain, every vein and ligament cracking to the surface.
It was a chamber of blighted hopes into which he stepped. Beaming in had been a completely other experience from this one, from putting his foot forward and carrying his weight into the presence of these elegant Cardassians of the past, of an age when Cardassia was the power of this sector, when the Federation trembled at their first meetings. Mmmm, such a time.
Garak fell back until his shoulder blades touched the ragged bulkhead, closed his eyes, and drew in a long breath of the dusty, brittle air. Eighty years … a long, long dream.
Crackle—he swung around. Noise in the tunnel—
He hunkered down, out of a shaft of light provided by one of the small illuminators left behind by the others. There was nowhere to hide but a pathetic shadow, no place to slip into or behind. He was stuck, found out. Into his mind flooded a half-dozen stories about why he was here, each a little wilder than the one before. None that Sisko would buy.
Insulation drifted from the tunnel ceiling onto the cluttered deck, making a crunching noise as the larger flakes fell.
His heart thundered against his ribs. His dinner nearly made a second appearance, but he held control. And the edge of the bulkhead panel so tightly that his palm was bleeding when he let go.
He was still alone. In a way.
The thought struck him like a hand in the middle of his back, and he pivoted again to face the slabs and their dwellers as if they themselves had struck him. His legs were shaking now, too. If he were caught here, too soon, there would be fire, there would be slaughter.
The twelve bodies lay in casual mummification, each lying as if he had simply reclined to take a nap.
Garak blinked at his thought and leaned forward from where he was, squinting into the dimn
ess. Yes, all these were male.
He expected that, but one could never be sure. Eighty years, after all. Things changed. Lies were told. Stories fermented. Customs cracked.
When he gathered his nerve, he went to the far left end of the curved row of slabs, to the body two from the end.
A Cardassian indistinguishable from any other, except to a Cardassian. Garak was thankful that Sisko didn't know many Cardassians, or there would have been a focus for the big man's instinctive suspicions. He would have seen the difference. He would have noticed the uniform.
Legs quivering, Garak lowered himself to both knees. From his pocket he took a standard palm-sized heating unit and attached it to the side of the slab, and turned it on.
Within moments, the unit began to hum, and the slab to change color.
He scooted back a few centimeters and looked at the sunken, shriveled face of the Cardassian on the slab.
"I offer you all my honors, leader of my father, and I hear you whisper. This is the best time of all. Now I hand you all I have built here and turn myself over to you. I will bring you back to influence in this powerful age … and you will do the same for me."
CHAPTER 5
EVERYTHING WAS WRONG.
The ceiling was wrong first. Then the walls. Unfamiliar architecture. What planet was this?
The corner struts of this closet were unmistakably Cardassian, though. Not much of a clue, but a clue.
Yet, there was no building like this on Tal Demica.
Sight. His eyes were operating. And scent—dust. No moisture at all. Nothing musky … just raw, dry dust.
The revival palette was working beneath him. Only his face, hands, and toes were cool now, as if he were floating in a warm sea with a cool breeze dipping down.
No weapons lining the walls—stolen? But if stolen, where were their special mountings? This wall was unbreached, unmarred. No weapons had ever hung upon it.
So, even before he pulled his back muscles and forced his legs to rise and swing over the side of the revival palette, he knew it was he who had been moved and not the weapons.
Was he alone in this vault? Where were the Elite two thousand? Certainly not in this tiny room. Thus his relief as he gripped the edge of the palette, blinked his aching eyes within their throbbing bony goggles, and peered through the faint shafts of light cast by tiny fixtures upon the walls.
Along the walls on each side of him were several of his Elite Guard, most of whom were now rising. They seemed dazed, confused, sleepy, but those anchors were falling away. He had awakened first, and the other palettes had come into sequence, triggered by his. All these soldiers were younger, and awakening faster.
Six … ten … fourteen of them. Fourteen!
Where were his two thousand?
Possibly in other chambers in this facility. He gripped that thought and clung to it as he forced his fingers to flex, his neck to move.
Very stiff. Too stiff. How long had it been? Six months? Eight?
His assistants were supposed to be here to answer these questions. Where were they? Deserters, probably. So he would pick the answers out of the mountain himself. He had done it before.
He left his soldiers to shake themselves out of their daze and fixed his eyes upon the floor, working to clear his vision.
Dust. Plenty of it. They had been here a long time. Everything was layered with dust, including his own clothing and skin, but someone had been here very recently. There were fresh footprints in the dust layer. And over there, footprints that led from nowhere. Had that person jumped from the entrance all the way to the far end of the row of palettes? What kind of beings had visited here?
The prints were of ordinary boots, not particularly large.
"Anyone who can stand, please do so."
Voice was terrible. Not a commander's voice. Scratchy, false, weak. Where were the survival supplies? There were supposed to be drinks ready for them. He saw none of this. His throat would have to make do. His soldiers would forgive it.
Still blinking, he looked around. Seven standing already. Very good. Three more with one foot upon the deck, seeking the strength to push all the way up. Two still fully reclined. One of those looking quite emaciated. Probably long dead. Obviously a malfunction.
What was this? On the side of his palette was an activator modem. Small, but recognizable. No dust on it at all.
"Wake up if you can," he encouraged. "Listen while you do. I am the High Gul, you are my Elite bodyguard … we are not where we expected to be. Our weapons are missing. The situation is unassessed; however, someone has been in this chamber within hours and presumably was responsible for keying the palettes and awakening us. That means someone knows we are awake. It may also mean we have a confederate in this place. The fact that our confederate is no longer here suggests collusion exists here, which suggests a volatile situation. Does anyone have a hand weapon? No? Well enough, we shall do what we can with what we find."
He forced himself to his feet. His own weight was foreign, and he became suddenly dizzy and weak, but managed to wait it out without falling. Managing to turn, he looked down.
"These are not our original revival palettes," he said as his soldiers began to move about and gather closer. "That means we have no idea how long we were in hibernation. Our palettes were scheduled to warm us after one year, but these have no timing mechanism that I can see anywhere … do any of you see a timing mechanism?"
Several of his guards ran their hands along the tops and sides of the other palettes; then someone said, "No, High Gul. Nothing."
He turned, and found himself facing his second-in-command.
The High Gul paused and smiled. "Elto, I'm glad to see you. So many of us are missing … I'm glad you're here."
"I'm here to serve, High Gul. I willed myself to stay with you," Elto said, his voice also weak and gravelly. The younger soldier was unashamedly devoted, and that was worth appreciating.
I'm glad the conspirators who moved us here could feel your will," the High Gul responded, feeling the eyes of the others. What he said mattered down to the word right now. He would be the fulcrum on which their success would turn.
"We don't know what has happened to us," he said. "We have been moved and deliberately preserved. I see only eleven of us alive and I must assume there are only eleven of us here now, wherever 'here' is. Someone knows we are awake, but we don't know who knows that and who does not. We may have been captured by some Taldemi slime and kept here to be used as a bargaining chip. We may have been used against Cardassia instead of for it!"
His numb hands curled into balls and his elbows flexed at his sides. Control was a strain. His legs were trembling, his eye ridges pulsing.
They were all looking at him now, expecting encouragement, expecting him to know what he could not know yet, and expecting orders.
He steeled himself, turning away from the past but for the lessons it left.
"Our task," he began, keeping his voice in rein, "is to rise under the unsuspecting Taldem who hold this planet. They thought they won with their uprisings, but you and I are here and now awakened. We must find our two thousand warriors—that is our first priority, to gather our strike force. Then we will clear this planet for a landing. If we have been betrayed and there are only you and I left, those of us in this chamber, then we will do it ourselves. Afterward, we can contact the Cardassian Command, tell them to assemble their fleet, come back and retake this industrial base in such a manner that we will never lose it again. We will take this outpost first, and from now on hold this planet."
He paused, and looked at each face as the young members of his guard. Nowhere among them was a flicker of doubt, and he knew from experiences of his own youth that they were hammering back their fears. He cherished that in them.
They would do as he said. He must say well.
"I want you to recover yourselves, then divide out into this outpost. Wear your hoods and gloves so no one sees your face or hands. Look at the technology. S
ee where they store their weapons, for if we cannot find ours, we must gather from our enemies. Look at who runs the outpost. Find out what you can about them. If the first person you question will not talk, then move on. There is always someone who likes to talk. Then report back to me so we can assess the moment and plan to move it forward. If killing is necessary, it must be quiet killing. There is much we must figure out before we decide who we have to kill. If we have been used against our own kind, we will kill them all. Remember, we are the final defense in a great circle of action. That makes us the first offense here and now. We will do as we have been preserved to do. And we will slaughter anyone who comes into our path to stop us."
CHAPTER 6
"GREETINGS, GUL FRANSU. The salutations of the homeworld Central Distribution Authority are—"
"Idiot! Why hasn't my order number three-nine-four-eight-four been filled yet! The delivery is eight weeks late! I do know where your mother lives!"
"Order number three-nine-four-eight-four … one moment."
"I hate rotation! I hate it!"
"Acknowledged. One moment."
The voices were audible even when the door between the offices was closed.
Senior Red Sector Appropriations Officer Renzo nudged the door open and peered through to the miserable desk of his miserable commanding officer. All he could see beyond the pile of containers and requisition slides was the slick oyster-gray top of Fransu's head.
Every hair was tense. Amazing. But then, Fransu hated desk rotation.
Renzo maneuvered into the office, took a seat beside Fransu's desk, and began silently to regard his senior. Fransu was lavender with rage, exposed veins on the sides of his neck both corded hard and pulsing, his chin taut and teeth gritted.
Beyond that, he seemed as at home as any Cardassian behind any desk. Hence, nonoptional rotation of duties, without which the ships would all slowly fall apart.