“Yes, sir,” Hallström said. The ensign set to reconfiguring his console.
“As soon as we’re in range, I want that ship under tow,” Stinson said. “Keep the beam away from the engines. I don’t want any additional stresses on the baffle plates.”
“Understood.”
In just seconds, Tecyr reached the troubled vessel. The faltering ship visibly struggled to maintain a steady flight path. Stinson slowed the runabout and modified course, bringing Tecyr in above the vessel, providing a clear track for the stern-mounted tractor beam. As the distressed ship passed out of sight through the forward viewport, Stinson watched it on the display.
“Initiating tractor beam,” said Hallström. On the monitor, blue rays streaked out and took hold of the troubled vessel. Stinson noticed that the tractor beam connected with the ship across its spine, from bow to stern, but did not touch the nacelles. “We have him under tow, Commander.”
“Taking us down,” Stinson said. He pointed Tecyr’s bow toward the surface of Endalla, pushing the runabout to as great a velocity as he dared with the tractor beam engaged. He continually checked the altitude, until finally he leveled off at twenty-five meters. He then maneuvered both vessels down until he saw dust puff up as he settled the unknown ship onto the ground. “Release the tractor beam.”
“Yes, sir,” Hallström said. As the ensign worked his controls, the blue rays holding the troubled vessel disappeared. “Tractor beam disengaged—Commander, the delta radiation is spiking. Another baffle plate is sure to rupture soon.”
“Retrieve two environmental suits,” Stinson said. If necessary, he intended to make his way to the other ship and physically rescue its endangered pilot. While Hallström headed aft to the runabout’s storage compartments, Stinson said, “Tecyr to unidentified vessel. You must abandon ship immediately. Do you have an environmental suit aboard?”
Again, static spewed from the comm system. “ . . . don . . . land . . . plate . . . critic—” The transmission cut out, throwing the cabin into silence. Stinson attempted several times to reopen the channel. He did not succeed.
Hallström reappeared carrying a pair of environmental suits. Stinson raced over and took one, with the intent of putting it on, but then, on the viewscreen, he saw a door in the bow of the troubled vessel swing inward. A moment later, a figure clad in a faded, brown environmental suit appeared.
Stinson dropped his own suit to the deck. “Prepare to lift off,” he told Hallström. “When I give the order, put as much distance as you can between us and that vessel, as fast as possible.” He didn’t wait for the ensign to acknowledge the order, but darted through the door at the rear of the cockpit. He headed amidships, to the runabout’s airlock. Working its control panel, he depressurized the chamber, then opened the outer hatch. He peered through the port in the inner door, waiting.
Seconds seemed to pass like minutes, and Stinson found himself bracing for the impact on Tecyr when the troubled vessel’s next baffle plate ruptured and turned the ship into shrapnel. Finally, the pilot of the doomed vessel appeared and rushed to climb into the airlock. Once he had, Stinson brought the side of his fist down hard on the control panel. The outer hatch slid closed, and the airlock began to repressurize.
Stinson slapped at his combadge. “Hallström, the pilot is aboard. Get us out of here!”
“Yes, sir.” Stinson felt the runabout begin to move at once.
When the airlock finished its cycle, the second officer activated the door release, and the panel glided into the bulkhead. When the man inside saw that, he reached up, unlatched his helmet, and pulled it off. “Thank you,” he said between deep inhalations of breath.
“You’re welcome. I’m Lieutenant Commander Wheeler Stinson, second officer aboard Deep Space Nine.” He moved aside so that the man could step out of the airlock.
“Nelish Stoat,” he said as he did so. A Bajoran, he had dark eyes, and long, dark hair that hung down past his shoulders. Stinson didn’t think he could’ve been much past twenty years of age. “I’m just a civilian.”
“What happened out there?”
“I was just leaving Bajor when something happened to the engines,” Nelish said. “I think one of the baffle plates might have buckled.”
“It did,” Stinson confirmed.
“I lost navigational control,” Nelish said. “I tried to signal for help, but I think the radiation was interfering with my communications.”
“It was,” Stinson said.
“I shut down the engines before I left,” Nelish said, “but I think it might’ve been too late.”
“Let’s see if we can do something to save your ship.” He started forward, waving Nelish to follow. As they walked toward the bow, he asked, “Where were you headed?”
“To Pillagra,” Nelish said. The Bajoran colony world had been settled more than a century earlier. Located close enough to make civilian travel there a reasonable undertaking, it was also far enough that it had, during the Occupation, provided one of the few refuges for Bajorans fortunate enough to reach it. “I have a friend who moved there last year.”
When the two men reached the cockpit, Hallström looked up from the main console. “Commander,” he said, and then he read off Tecyr’s distance from the troubled vessel. Past him, through the forward viewport, stars shined against the sea of night. To the left, on the display, the troubled vessel sat on the surface of Endalla.
As he crossed to the front of the cabin, Stinson introduced Hallström and Stoat. “What’s the status of his ship?”
Before Hallström could respond, and almost as though the second officer’s question had invited it, a fireball bloomed on the display. Both Stinson and Nelish snapped their heads in that direction.
“What happened?” the second officer asked. “The baffle plates?”
Hallström was already consulting the sensors. “Yes, sir,” he said. “The second baffle plate ruptured, and that started a cascade reaction.”
Stinson turned to Nelish, who still carried his helmet in one hand. “I’m sorry,” he told the young man.
Nelish staggered over to one of the lateral stations and sat down hard. “I hate to lose my ship, but I guess . . . I guess I was lucky.”
“Endalla is a restricted area, so there will have to be an investigation into this incident,” Stinson said. “But we can take you back to Bajor.” The second officer motioned to Hallström. “Set course for the outpost. Contact Ensign Ansarg and inform her of what’s happened. Tell her we’ll be there shortly to complete the handover.” He would contact Deep Space 9 himself and report the event directly to Captain Ro.
“Yes, sir,” Hallström said. “Right away, Commander.”
To Nelish, Stinson said, “You’d probably like to remove your environmental suit. Why don’t I get you settled in the back of the runabout.” With a wave, he indicated the aft door through which they had just entered the cockpit. Nelish rose and headed in that direction. Stinson wanted to speak with him to get more details about his journey and how it had gone so disastrously wrong. He didn’t disbelieve the young man, but he also wanted to confirm the veracity of his account.
Nelish answered every question. The young man appeared appropriately distraught at the loss of his vessel, as well as alternately relieved and somewhat traumatized at how close he had come to dying aboard it. Nelish’s responses, both verbal and emotional, satisfied the second officer.
Only later would Stinson realize that he had been duped.
12
At last, all of the Ascendants had assembled, Questers and Archquesters alike. Iliana Ghemor stood in the middle of the barren plain, at the base of a small rise that nevertheless rose to the highest point in any direction. She looked upward, to the low summit, where the leader of the Ascendants, Grand Archquester Votiq, turned slowly in place. He gazed down upon the silvery throngs of his people, at the myriad ship
s that had brought them all—all but Ghemor—to the otherwise empty world that they believed marked the true beginning of the Path to the Final Ascension. Votiq completed a full rotation, then a second, and finally a third, before he spread his arms wide and began speaking in high, rich tones.
Ghemor didn’t listen. She didn’t need to, nor did she want to. The words and ideas of a people steeped in superstition meant less than nothing to her: they offended her. It amazed and disgusted Ghemor that a species so physically capable could surrender the totality of their lives to the pursuit of something utterly fantastical—to the search for something that, even had it not been so obviously illusory, would have delineated a goal unachievable for most of their kind.
It didn’t matter. The faith and rituals of the Ascendants redounded to Ghemor’s advantage. They looked upon her as the Fire, as the guiding light in their Quest, and she had not just accepted that mantle, but seized it. She would lead them—not where they wanted to go, but where she needed them to go. They had delivered themselves to her as her army, and she would wield them with dramatic force.
Although Ghemor didn’t listen to Votiq’s speech, she feigned doing so. As far as she knew, no Ascendant had questioned her appearance or her place among them, but she had been born a Cardassian, raised and taught as a Cardassian, and that meant she nurtured her suspicions, never taking for granted the trust of others—and particularly not that of offworlders. Had she seen uncertainty in the eyes of some Ascendants, doubts about her role as the Fire? Possibly, and so she would provide them no fodder: she pretended to listen to Votiq, playing her part. She locked her gaze upon his form as he orated, her attention seemingly unwavering. When finally he finished speaking, he looked to her, as he’d told her he would, and she climbed the rise to stand by his side. He towered over her, and his powerful body gleamed, but when she faced his people, even with her diminutive form and wearing her dark armor, she knew that she commanded them.
Ghemor did not spin in place, as Votiq had, but walked unhurriedly along the edge of the rise, taking in the sight of her troops. According to the Grand Archquester, the Ascendants had long ago numbered in the billions. Before her massed the last of those remaining, counted only in mere thousands. Still, by virtue of their unceasing zeal and Ghemor’s own leadership, she knew that they would prove formidable for her purposes.
On her second circuit around the top of the rise, the Cardassian concentrated on the numerous vessels that had carried the Ascendants there, and that would soon enough deliver them to the wormhole and through it, to Deep Space 9. Many of the ships had been constructed by generations of Questers past, and most of those could accommodate just one or two passengers, though some had room for considerably more. Ghemor also saw other vessels, clearly of alien design and manufacture, their original crews doubtless long since dead, dispatched without remorse by single-minded Ascendants.
As she circled for the third time, Ghemor eyed all the weaponry that the Questers and Archquesters had collected. She spied missiles, mines, and torpedoes; directed-energy generators and emitters; disruptor concentrators and plasma cannon. She had inspected them all as they’d arrived, but to her, one continued to stand out.
In the days since Aniq had appeared, Ghemor had taken pains to thoroughly study the tool that the young Ascendant had brought as tribute, the tribute she had brought as tool. It had initially struck the Cardassian as perfect for her purposes, and her examination of it and all the other weaponry had only solidified her opinion. It had also led her to change her plans. She would not only see her vengeance done, but she would accomplish it in the most satisfying way.
Atop the rise, Ghemor completed her third trip around, then moved to stand side-by-side with the Grand Archquester. She surveyed the eyes raised toward her and Votiq, and saw mostly anticipation and fervor. Ghemor also spotted expressions mixed in among the crowd that bespoke conflicting emotions, including fear and hesitancy. She needed to nourish the former of the pair, and quash the latter.
Ghemor threw her hands into the air. “I am the Fire,” she proclaimed loudly. A rush of coordinated movement suffused the multitude of Ascendants as they all dropped to their knees. Votiq did the same beside her. The Grand Archquester had spoken to her of his people’s rituals, and especially those that involved the Fire. To start out on the Path to the Final Ascension, she had only to identify herself to the silver horde, select a vessel in which to travel, and then lead them on their way.
“I travel with Votiq, the Grand Archquester,” she announced next, her arms still raised, and the Ascendant army rose back to its feet. According to Votiq, the Cardassian could have rightly chosen any ship at all, and it had occurred to her to pick Aniq’s older, blade-like vessel, for it hauled the weapon with which she would exact her first great salvo of retribution. Because Ghemor’s appearance had been portended by scripture, promising the Ascendants that she would lead them to the Fortress of the True, nobody would have questioned such a choice.
At least, they would not have questioned it publicly, she thought. But Ghemor wanted to minimize any skepticism of her role, whether held openly or privately. To that end, she chose to join the Grand Archquester aboard his vessel, because most of the Ascendants, if not all, would have expected that of the Fire.
Traveling with the Grand Archquester will make no difference to me, she knew. Votiq had informed her that he intended to distribute the Ascendants’ weaponry evenly throughout their advancing legion, protecting Aniq’s powerful and extraordinary explosive device by placing it at the center of their force. Ghemor had suggested several other schemes, including clustering all the weapons together at the head of their armada. In the end, she had maneuvered him into revisiting his own first plan, but with Aniq and her lethal apparatus prominently arrayed immediately behind the Fire and the Grand Archquester as an important component in the point of their spear. Proximity to Aniq’s metaweapon was all Ghemor needed.
“We take our first steps on the Path to the Final Ascension,” the Cardassian intoned, her voice carrying loudly over her newfound followers.
En masse, the Questers and Archquesters thrust their fists into the air and bellowed out their excitement, a long, melodic chant that sounded to Ghemor more like a chorus of singers than a battle cry. When the last musical strains of the cheer faded, she called out, “We will not stop until we reach the Fortress of the True—until we enter the Fortress and burn in the eyes of the Unnameable.” Again, the Ascendants roared out their tuneful endorsement.
“Now,” Ghemor cried, “we go!”
One final harmony of approval rose up from the ranks, and then they all moved, boarding their many ships in preparation for the journey to come. Ghemor started down the hill beside Votiq. Together, they approached his knife-shaped vessel, which differed from those of many other Ascendants only in its deep, reddish purple color. Votiq worked a control to open his ship, then stepped aside to allow the Cardassian to climb aboard first. She did so, forgoing entry to the larger compartments belowdecks, and instead taking the rear seat in the narrow cockpit. Votiq followed her inside and sat at the pilot’s console. He worked the access mechanism, and the ship’s canopy swirled down into place.
The Grand Archquester’s vessel hummed to life around Ghemor. She watched as he operated a series of controls. When the canopy became transparent, the glittering array of stars above seemed to reassure her that she would finally find closure and at least some degree of justice among them.
When she had first arrived among the Ascendants, she had imagined returning to the Alpha Quadrant and making only a swift, decisive thrust in order to sate her need for a just reprisal. With Aniq’s metaweapon at her disposal, though, she modified her plans for revenge. Rather than attacking Deep Space 9 and quickly ending the miserable, undeserved life of Kira Nerys, Ghemor decided that she would instead launch an offensive on Bajor, exacting her retribution on the people who had set her entire adult life careering wildly
out of control—the people whose resistance to Cardassian aid had led to her betrothed’s death, which had made her covert mission for the Obsidian Order necessary, and in turn had led directly to her abduction and long, brutal captivity. She knew that laying waste to Bajor would devastate Kira, and would thus provide Ghemor with an appropriate measure of vengeance. Once she had inflicted that incalculable pain, she would make Kira Nerys beg for the release of death—and then, at last, she would deliver a final, killing blow.
As Votiq’s ship lifted off, Ghemor felt the thrill of expectation.
13
“I need your help,” Ro said. The words twisted a knot in her stomach, a reflex decades in the making. As a girl, and later as a young woman, Ro had loathed asking anybody for any kind of assistance, no matter how insignificant. More than that, it had always troubled her whenever she’d actually needed help, whether or not she asked for it. Over time, as she grew into adulthood and eventually—Finally!—began to mature, she came to understand and cope with the source of all those feelings.
Ro had been just seven when she’d been lured with a simple piece of sugar candy into the worst hours of her life—either before or since. One of the Cardassian occupiers of Bajor forced her to watch as he brutalized her father, ostensibly questioning him, but more often torturing him in unspeakable ways. It traumatized the young Laren, but the horrific nature of the cruel violence she witnessed shaped only one component of her anguish. Her father supplicated his tormentor, pleaded with him for mercy, and his beseeching tore not only at his daughter’s heart, but at the respect she held for him. She felt shamed by his frailty, by the ease with which he allowed a miscreant Cardassian to lay him low. His pathetic cries for help disgraced her, so much so that his death, when it came later that day, brought her not only sadness, but relief.
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