Sacraments of Fire

by David R. George III

  Taran’atar could think of no better test of his soldier’s mettle than the one that lay before him. Even if the Bajoran scoutship’s lone phaser bank had not been removed, the Jem’Hadar knew that he could not possibly have hoped to succeed in a battle against an Ascendant’s vessel. Depending on the weaponry his impending adversary carried, one-on-one combat could also prove close to impossible. Even unarmed, the Ascendants had earned a reputation among the Jem’Hadar as challenging enemies. Tall and lithe, they moved quickly, possessed lightning-fast reflexes and considerable physical strength, and their exoskeletons provided them natural protection against bodily assaults, even with energy weapons.

  Fortunately, I have no such weapons, Taran’atar thought with grim humor.

  The Ascendants also had a reputation as instinctive tacticians. Perhaps of even greater import, they fought with the single-mindedness of zealots. They would rather die along with those they considered heretics than allow them to go free.

  Taran’atar understood that mind-set. For almost all of his existence, he would gladly have laid down his life in order to defend the Founders. Those days had passed, though. He no longer had anything for which to die.

  Maybe that means I need to find a way to live, he thought. The idea made him uncomfortable.

  As the scoutship neared the two vessels, Taran’atar quickly adjusted the deflector array not to discharge the buildup of energy within it, but to detonate. He then called up a navigation panel and programmed a new course, which he tied into the ship’s sensors and the deflector. Once he completed those preparations, he targeted the transporter, gave himself a thirty-beat countdown, and set his plan in motion. He rose from the main console and strode aft, into the chamber between the cockpit and the passenger compartment. There, he stepped onto one of the pads on the two-position transporter platform.

  “I am dead,” he said aloud, beginning to recite the soldier’s oath that all of his people made before heading into combat. “I go into battle—” He stopped. The words, he realized, no longer carried any meaning for him.

  Taran’atar took hold of his substitute rens’takin and drew it from its sheath. He tensed his body and focused his concentration. For the first time in a long time, he felt . . . directed. Not by the Founders, nor by Iliana Ghemor, but by his own sense of duty and purpose. He was a soldier, and he was entering the battlefield. He declaimed the final part of his oath, which he discovered did matter to him after all: “Victory is life.”

  Moments before the Bajoran scoutship would surge forward, Taran’atar centered his thoughts. He channeled his energy outward and shrouded, rendering himself invisible through the might of his will. In the next instant, the transporter enfolded him in its beams and carried him away.

  SHROUDED, TARAN’ATAR MATERIALIZED in flickering light. His mind still focused on his practical camouflage, he unleashed his senses on the ship he expected to become his battleground. He saw several replicators lining the bulkheads, and tables and chairs standing about the spacious but otherwise empty compartment. The almost inaudible buzz of a failing light panel reached his ears, and the various scents that filled his nose identified not only some of the food that had recently been consumed in that space, but the species of at least a few of those who had taken their meals there: the musky canine smell of an Aarruri, the slightly sweet fragrance of a Wadi, and the earthy aroma of a Hissidolan, among others. His coarse flesh logged a crisp temperature—

  The ship quaked, coincident with a tremendous din. Taran’atar shifted his balance and easily kept his feet, but his concentration wavered momentarily. His shroud faltered as he visualized the Bajoran scoutship following the instructions he had programmed into its helm and engineering systems, accelerating until it slammed into the much smaller Ascendant vessel and detonating as it did so, the buildup of power in the deflector array sparking an explosion that blew both ships apart. Some piece of the resultant wreckage had obviously crashed into Even Odds. Taran’atar didn’t know for what reason the Ascendant had boarded the ship—either to extinguish heretical thought or to acquire useful technology, he suspected, or perhaps both—but whatever the case, the trespassing alien would have to make a stand there.

  Taran’atar calmed his thoughts and reestablished his shroud. Flexing his fingers to feel the haft of the knife in his grip, he padded toward the side of the compartment’s door. There, he waited and listened. He had beamed over to Even Odds’ second deck, which had read on the scoutship’s sensors like the crew’s living area. The scans also showed that the Ascendant stalked around the command-and-control center on the deck above, while the Jeflinic life-form—presumably the last surviving member of the Even Odds crew—had taken refuge in the cargo and maintenance areas below.

  The Jem’Hadar knew that he had already altered the plans of the Ascendant, whose vessel no longer existed. There could be no escape there, and no planets fell within transporter range. The Ascendant would have to commandeer and repair Even Odds, and eliminate the remaining crew member.

  And have to face me, Taran’atar thought. Victory is life.

  The Jem’Hadar heard nothing on the other side of the door. He stepped in front of it, but it remained shut—no doubt a consequence of the ship’s flagging power, as evidenced by the inconsistent lighting. Taran’atar located and opened a small panel in the bulkhead adjacent to the doorway, then threw the manual release within it. The door jumped partially open, sliding to one side, and he pushed it the rest of the way. Still shrouded, he moved out into a corridor.

  The overhead lighting continued to stutter off and on. It did so with a regular rhythm, suggesting that its intermittence had come not as the product of damage to the ship incurred during the Ascendant’s attack, but by intention. Taran’atar imagined that the crew, when faced with being boarded, might have sabotaged Even Odds, rigging its power distribution to malfunction—perhaps to make it a less attractive prize, or to thwart the Ascendant’s ability to use the vessel’s internal systems to track and trap the personnel aboard. With the Bajoran scoutship’s sensors having shown only one crew member left alive, those efforts had plainly failed. Taran’atar vowed to himself that he would protect the life of the sole survivor.

  The Jem’Hadar glided rapidly down the corridor, alert for sound and movement up ahead of him. He would assume that the Ascendant had registered the transporter beam that had deposited him aboard. As long as he remained shrouded, though, Taran’atar could be neither seen nor scanned. He would need to maintain that advantage for as long and as often as possible.

  At an intersection, Taran’atar spied a semicylindrical alcove halfway along the connecting corridor, which crossed the width of the ship. Semicircular rungs lined the recess and formed a ladder that reached up and down to the decks above and below. He quickly headed for it. When he reached the ladder, he sheathed his knife and began climbing. At a closed hatch, he stopped and listened again. When he heard nothing, he reached up, twisted the manual locking mechanism, and slid the circular hatch into the overhead.

  Once on the top deck, Taran’atar again drew his knife. He found himself in another corridor that spanned the breadth of Even Odds. The scans of the vessel that he’d taken aboard the scoutship indicated that the command-and-control center sat forward of his position. Doors in the bulkhead along that side of the corridor likely led there. Taran’atar chose one of them, again listened for any noise, and then manually released it. Beyond lay a short passage, not longer than ten or so paces. It ended at another door which stood open, pushed three-quarters of the way into the bulkhead.

  Across the threshold stretched an inert body.

  Taran’atar approached cautiously. His senses keenly tuned, he could detect no respiration and no pulse in the motionless humanoid. Though lying supine, the female body looked taller and broader than the Jem’Hadar. Muscular, bald, and colored dark green, the corpse belonged to a member of the Eline-dumayo tribe on Enskith VI. In each flash of li
ght from the overhead, he saw curls of smoke rising from a large black circle that had been burned through the woman’s clothing and into her chest, the cause clearly an energy weapon. Taran’atar smelled the fetid, distinctive odor of seared flesh.

  At the same time that Taran’atar noticed a disruptor pistol gripped in the dead woman’s fingers, he heard movement in the compartment beyond: controls being tapped and the answering feedback tones. Regardless of his ability to shroud, he likely would have only one opportunity to surprise the Ascendant—and perhaps not even that. The sounds Taran’atar heard came from the other side of the semicircular command-and-control center, out of his view to the left, though whether from the sunken interior portion of the compartment or its raised outer section, he could not tell. Either way, he would have to cross the deck in order to engage in hand-to-hand combat. Even invisible, he risked detection by the Ascendant, whose people possessed both formidable martial skills and advanced technologies.

  Taran’atar quickly made a tactical choice. He set his course in his mind, then refocused so that he could maintain his shroud. The instant he felt prepared, he raced forward and dived over the fallen Even Odds crew member. He reached for the disruptor pistol with his empty hand, adjusting it into a firing grip even as he rolled onto his shoulder and across the deck of the command-and-control center.

  The weapons fire began at once—but not by Taran’atar. He heard and felt a coherent beam of energy cut through the air just above him. He had intended to come up onto his haunches, but instead, he continued to roll, staying low until he stopped in a prone position. His gaze swept the compartment and, in the stroboscopic effect of the overhead lighting, augmented by the glow of control panels, he picked out the Ascendant: down on one knee, a weapon held in front of him with both hands, leveled roughly in Taran’atar’s direction.

  An ambush.

  The Jem’Hadar did not hesitate. Where he had come to lie, he squeezed the trigger of the disruptor he’d just taken from the fallen crewwoman. The pistol barked out a high-pitched whine, but it did not fire.

  The Ascendant’s weapon did.

  Another pulse of energy streaked across the command-and-control center, and pain erupted in Taran’atar’s shoulder. A grazing shot, the energy bolt exploded against something behind him. As he felt his shroud collapse, the Jem’Hadar pushed himself to the side. He took cover behind a freestanding console just as a blast of energy struck it, sending up a burst of sparks and clouds of thick, acrid smoke.

  Taran’atar glanced at his shoulder. His clothing there had been burned away, and his roughly textured hide exposed and singed. He flexed his arm, raised it, rotated it in its socket, testing its function and range of motion.

  He had been right to assume that the Ascendant had known he’d transported aboard, but he should have realized that the corpse of the Eline-dumayo had been staged to lure him into revealing himself. The Ascendant, anticipating Taran’atar’s shroud, had been waiting for him to take the disruptor pistol from the dead crew member. When the Jem’Hadar had done so, the Ascendant had begun firing his own weapon. The sounds of work at a control panel had clearly been a ruse.

  Taran’atar took stock of his situation. He needed to act. The Ascendant would work quickly to eliminate the threat that the Jem’Hadar posed.

  Once more, Taran’atar cleared his mind, even as another energy bolt shook the console behind which he crouched. He reinstituted his shroud. Invisible again, he adjusted his grip on the handle of this knife. Then he waited.

  When another energy blast rocked the console, Taran’atar dashed back toward the doorway. As he ran, he tracked the energy fire back to its source and brought his arm whipping downward, hurling his blade. His attack caused his shroud to dissolve, but the knife sliced across the compartment and into the Ascendant’s weapon. The beam immediately ceased as the pistol flew from the alien’s hand. Taran’atar saw it clatter along the deck, the point of his blade buried within it, just before he leaped over the dead Even Odds crewwoman and headed back down the short passage.

  As he hurried through the second door and back out into the main corridor, Taran’atar glanced behind him. He saw a blur of silvery motion. He evacuated the doorway, moving off to the side, but only a few steps. He attempted to concentrate and wrap himself in his mentally driven shroud, but he did not have enough time: the Ascendant sped through the open door.

  Taran’atar drove one leg onto the deck and thrust himself forward and down. He rammed his uninjured shoulder into the Ascendant’s midsection. It felt like running squarely into a tritanium bulkhead. The impact sent a painful jolt down through Taran’atar’s side and into his hip. Regardless, he pushed ahead, wrapping his arms around the Ascendant’s waist and knocking him from his feet. The two of them crashed heavily onto the deck.

  Taran’atar quickly scrambled to his knees astride the Ascendant. The Jem’Hadar raised his fist and propelled his knuckles into the alien’s face. A gash opened in the flesh beneath one large, golden eye, and cloudy silver blood gushed from it. The Ascendant cried out, the highly melodic nature of his voice unable to mask his surprise and pain.

  Taran’atar hammered his other hand—the disruptor still clutched in his grasp—into his adversary’s chest. The weapon’s handle struck the Ascendant’s exoskeletal sheath, sending fresh shudders of agony reverberating through Taran’atar’s arm and into his wounded shoulder. He gasped in pain, but only for a moment: the Ascendant’s hand shot up and grabbed him by the throat, cutting off his ability to breathe.

  The disruptor dropped from Taran’atar’s fingers as he instinctively clawed at the Ascendant’s hand, attempting to dislodge it from around his neck. Instead, the powerful alien reached up with his other hand and doubled his grip around the Jem’Hadar’s throat. Though he had heard about the great strength of the Ascendants, it still startled him to experience such tremendous force firsthand. Taran’atar grabbed his adversary’s wrists and tried with all of his might to pull them away. The Ascendant only tightened his hold.

  Blackness began to form at the periphery of Taran’atar’s vision. Changing tack, the Jem’Hadar jammed his legs down into the deck like pistons, trying to push himself up and away. The action had no effect. The Ascendant held him fast.

  Desperate, Taran’atar allowed his eyes to flutter closed and his hands to slacken. He willed himself to relax his muscles even as the Ascendant worked to strangle the life out of him. He expected his adversary to ease his grip, but he didn’t; he continued to choke the Jem’Hadar.

  With time running out, Taran’atar looked down and jabbed at the face of the Ascendant, plunging his fingers into one of the alien’s eyes. For the second time, the Ascendant yelled out in pain. His fingers loosened about Taran’atar’s neck, and the Jem’Hadar used the opportunity to his advantage. He pulled the Ascendant’s hands apart and jumped to his feet. Before his adversary could recover, Taran’atar raised one leg and slammed the hard heel of his boot into the alien’s chest.

  Taran’atar felt his own tibia fracture. He heard the break not only externally, but internally as well, the unmistakable sound translated to his ears not just through the air, but through the bone and blood and tissue of his own body. Agony screamed in his leg, the impact of his foot against the Ascendant’s exoskeletal sheath sending shockwaves through him. Not allowing his injury to stop him, he kicked out again, swinging his damaged leg toward his adversary’s head. Taran’atar’s foot connected, but with only a glancing blow.

  The Jem’Hadar staggered sideways as he brought his wounded leg down onto the deck. He fell against the bulkhead and gasped for breath, gulping in great lungfuls of air. Taking his weight off his broken leg, he sought to recover enough to act.

  Suddenly, the Ascendant reached for Taran’atar’s good leg and swept it out from under him, sending him crashing to the deck. The Jem’Hadar’s broken bone howled.

  The Ascendant came at him. A punch landed on Taran
’atar’s face, snapping his head back with great force. A second struck, and then a third. The cartilage in his nose crumbled. He reached up both arms to protect himself, only to have the Ascendant pummel his torso, driving the air from his lungs.

  Through the gap between his forearms, in the staccato flashes of light from the overhead panels, Taran’atar saw his adversary’s face. One eye looked as though it had deflated, like a gas-filled sac that has ruptured. A mass of viscous golden fluid filled half the socket and spilled down the Ascendant’s cheek.

  Struggling to breathe, the Jem’Hadar lashed out. The Ascendant moved to protect his face—and obviously his remaining eye. Taran’atar instead leveled his attack at his adversary’s chest, where a milky stain had spread around the crack in the exoskeletal sheath. The Jem’Hadar felt something give in his hand as he drove his fist over and over into the Ascendant’s breastplate. Taran’atar saw his own little finger extending awkwardly out from his closed hand and realized that he had dislocated it. He ignored the new injury and continued his assault. The alien emitted a music-like squawk that sounded equal parts anger and pain.

  Finally, the Ascendant fell backward onto the deck, his hands reaching toward the wound in his chest. Taran’atar started after him, but his adversary swung about wildly, connecting on the side of the Jem’Hadar’s head. Waves of dizziness and nausea buffeted him. Taran’atar quickly scuttled away. When he looked back at the Ascendant, he saw the alien starting to rise.

  Urgency filled the Jem’Hadar. He needed to regroup. Despite the damage he’d inflicted on the Ascendant, Taran’atar could not mount much more of an attack, given his own injuries. He attempted to clear his mind and shroud, but had no success.

  Taran’atar pulled himself back up on his feet, steadying himself against the bulkhead. He thought that perhaps he could find a weapon—surely some must be stored somewhere aboard Even Odds. But that meant that if he could locate a firearm, so, too, could the Ascendant.