Slaine looked up from the tactical station and over at the first officer. “Colonel, the Glyrhond is already within transporter range.”
“Lieutenant, you are close enough for transport,” Cenn told ch’Larn. “Lower your shields so we can beam your prisoners into the Defiant’s brig.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Defiant out.” Once more, Stinson closed the channel. “Bridge to brig.” Stinson knew that Blackmer had already sent a security team to ready and stand guard over the ship’s holding cells.
“Brig. Crewman Bixx here.”
“Crewman, prepare to receive four prisoners via transporter.”
“Acknowledged,” Bixx said. “We’re ready, Colonel.”
Cenn signed off, then contacted the transporter room.
“This is Clark.” One amid the wave of new crew members assigned to DS9 upon its becoming fully operational, Marguerite Clark had been assigned to the starbase straight out of the Academy. A human woman born and raised on Earth, according to what Stinson had read in her personnel file, she had an excitable way of talking that often brought out certain inflections in her speech. So far, the second officer had been unable to identify Clark’s transitory accent, except to think that it couldn’t have originated anywhere in the Sol system.
“Ensign, lock on to the Glyrhond,” Cenn said. “You’ll be receiving coordinates from Dalin Slaine. Beam the four Bajorans on the runabout directly into the brig.”
“Right away, sir.” Cenn waited a few seconds, and then Clark said, “I have the coordinates. Locking on . . . and energizing.” Several more seconds passed, and then the ensign said, “Transport complete.”
“Very good. Thank you, Ensign. Cenn out.” The first officer stood up from the command chair. To Blackmer, he said, “Commander, we have some prisoners to interrogate.” The security chief nodded, and together, the two men headed for the bridge’s portside aft exit. As the doors opened before them, Cenn stopped and pointed to Stinson. “Commander, you have the bridge. When the Glyrhond arrives with the two hostile vessels, I want detailed scans of the explosives onboard and a plan for them to be safely removed and detonated. Afterward, the Defiant will tow the ships back to Deep Space Nine. And let me know at once if we learn anything about the third vessel.”
“Yes, sir.” As Cenn and Blackmer exited, the second officer rose and moved to the center of the bridge, where he sat down in the command chair. Before he began issuing orders, Stinson paused to appreciate the moment. Suddenly, the mission no longer felt rushed, or awkward, or held in less-than-experienced hands.
BLACKMER STOOD JUST outside one of the holding cells in Defiant’s brig, while Colonel Cenn and a security officer looked on behind him. On the other side of the force field, the prisoner lay on his back atop the small compartment’s only sleeping platform, which hung from the far bulkhead. In his late thirties, with a medium build and sandy hair, the man had his knees up and a forearm thrown over his eyes. He wore civilian clothing of no distinction, light-colored work pants and a red plaid, long-sleeved shirt. He gave his name as Tiros Ardell, although a search of Bajoran records identified him as Tiros Remna, a farmer from Rakantha Province with no accounts of criminal activity or violence. According to the language and onomastics databases, Remna meant “gift of the Prophets,” while Ardell appeared to be a name with no historical denotations.
As with the three other prisoners—two men and one woman—Tiros had so far refused to say much in response to Blackmer’s questions. All four Bajorans freely labeled themselves as Ohalavaru, but about their intentions, they would only repeat what had become a mantra for the sect—and a denial of responsibility for its radical fringe: “We seek only to bring the truth to Bajor.”
“I don’t understand why you expect bombing Endalla will reveal some unknown truth to your people,” Blackmer said, genuinely curious how the extremists could make the connection between what seemed like random violence and the pursuit of knowledge. To the security chief, the very belief in such an equation hinted at mental illness, or at least a form of mass hysteria.
Tiros lowered his arm from his face and swung himself up to a sitting position on the sleeping platform. “You say you don’t understand why we do what we do,” he said, “but I think that you do understand. I think you speak inexactly, and perhaps that leads you to a sloppiness of thought.”
Blackmer listened to what Tiros said, then replayed it in his mind before reacting. The man spoke pedantically, but not as though he intended to insult the security chief. Tiros clearly had a point to make, and Blackmer tried to see it. “You mention sloppy thinking,” he finally said. “That’s a phrase I’ve heard before, isn’t it?”
“Some Ohalavaru have used it as a description for what has happened to Bajoran society,” Tiros said. “We did not always believe in gods.”
“Haven’t you?” Blackmer asked. “Most of you, anyway?”
“No,” Tiros said, and he hopped from the sleeping platform onto the deck.
The quick movement of the prisoner provoked a response in Crewwoman Olivia Dellasant, who stood just behind Blackmer, to his left. Despite the force field that protected the holding cell’s entryway, the security officer took a step forward and drew her phaser. Tiros gave no indication that he even saw Dellasant—or, if he did, then he showed no sign that he cared about her or anybody else’s presence there. Blackmer eased the crewwoman back with a measured motion of his hand.
“No, we did not always have gods,” Tiros continued. “Yes, we did at first, in the same way that all societies do.” He padded forward in the small space, directly up to the force field, until he faced Blackmer at close range. After a moment, he turned and stepped back to the rear of the cell, then paced to and fro in front of the sleeping platform. He gazed down as he spoke, gesticulating. “We had a god of the rains, a god of the fields, a god of the seas . . . we invented mythic figures to stand in for our ignorance of the world. We did not know what made a star burn, or even what stars were, and so we prayed that the light that came on the previous morning would reappear on the next, that the warmth that came in one season and faded in another would return the following year so that we could sow our crops and survive. We prayed to the heavens and populated them with beings we imagined to be in some ways like ourselves, but with abilities we could not imagine.”
As Blackmer listened to the man and watched him tread back and forth in the confined space, he thought that the same description of early religion could be applied to the cultures of Earth, or of any number of other planets in the galaxy. The security chief did not see what that had to do with the Prophets, who were more or less demonstrably real. The Ohalavaru did not take exception to Bajor’s ancient, unproven gods, long ago shed by a developing society, but to the characterization of the modern-day Prophets as gods.
“Except that, as we advanced, we learned about the world around us,” Tiros continued, “and those abilities we once ascribed to gods, we came to understand as functions of the universe. The sun did not rise and set because some god carried it around Bajor from one day to the next, but because gravity bound Bajor to a star. We matured and let go of our primitive superstitions. We learned not to fear the unknown, but to embrace it and to seek understanding. What need had we of gods when we had enlightenment?” He stopped walking and looked up expectantly at Blackmer.
“Are you saying that there was a time that the Bajorans gave up their belief in the Prophets?”
“Not in the Prophets,” Tiros said. “In the gods we devised before them—the gods we invented to keep us safe in the darkness, who then faded in the light of our growing knowledge.” He sounded less like a farmer to Blackmer, and more like a philosopher. “The Prophets came later, in a time of great turmoil, before we knew of life beyond our world. Civilization faltered and darkness seeped back in until it engulfed us once more, and into that great void came an alien race who we called the Prophets, and wh
o, because we did not understand them, we dubbed gods.”
The security chief glanced over his right shoulder at Cenn, who he knew was pious. The first officer’s jaw had set, and Blackmer saw him open his mouth to say something—no doubt to object to the idea that Tiros had just expressed. The security chief managed to catch Cenn’s eye and, with a quick shake of his head, warn him off. Knowing the strength of the first officer’s beliefs, Blackmer had suggested on the way to the brig that Cenn absent himself from the interrogation. When the colonel insisted on being present, Blackmer then requested that he avoid contributing any questions or comments, for fear that his doing so could derail the security chief’s efforts to learn something from the Ohalavaru. Cenn agreed.
To Tiros, Blackmer didn’t quite know what to say in response to his jeremiad. The security chief didn’t want to hear about the supposed failures of Bajoran society and the Ohalavaru’s desire to repair their civilization, but about the specific aims of the people who had attacked Endalla that day. He would need to maneuver the conversation, but he knew that he would have to do so with care. “I must admit that my familiarity with Bajoran history is rudimentary at best. I know that your civilization goes back tens of thousand of years, and that it has ebbed and flowed in that time. How is it that the Ohalavaru have this determined view of Bajoran history that the rest of your people do not?”
“Oh, but what I’ve just told you is not in dispute by anybody,” Tiros claimed. He sat down on the edge of the sleeping platform. “Some people may use different words here and there, but that’s just quibbling.”
“Quibbling,” Blackmer asked, “or sloppy thinking?”
“The sloppy thinking I referred to was your own,” Tiros said. “You stated that you don’t know why we’ve taken the actions on Endalla that we have. But of course you do. You identified us as Ohalavaru before you even spoke to us, so you know who we are.”
“You are believers in the texts of Ohalu.”
“Which have as their central tenet the idea that the Prophets are not gods, but merely benevolent aliens,” Tiros said. “If that was all there was to it, though, then we would not be doing what we’re doing. Knowledge for the sake of knowledge is a laudable goal, but there is far more at stake than that. The principles of Ohalu make the case that Bajoran society cannot and will not advance until it has abandoned its willful ignorance, until it sees the Prophets not as gods, but as moral and spiritual equals.”
Blackmer saw an opening to provoke Tiros, which he hoped would urge him to defend the Ohalavaru, and thereby reveal something about their precise intentions. “So you’re trying to blow up Endalla in order to help the people of Bajor advance?”
“You leap from our act to our goal as though there is a direct cause and effect, as though there are no intermediate stages,” Tiros said. “There are many steps on the path we hope Bajor to follow. Our duty on Endalla is just one of those.”
“You must understand why people take exception to that,” Blackmer said. “Not so long ago, people were killed on Endalla. Even if the progress you seek were assured from the actions you’re taking—a premise I do not grant—would it be worth the murder of even one individual, let alone the murder of thousands?”
“The Ascendants . . .”
“Yes, the Ascendants were responsible,” Blackmer said. “But what you seem to be telling me right now, and what you effectively told everybody when the Ohalavaru first attacked Endalla almost six years ago, is that you welcomed the destructive actions of the Ascendants. You wanted the atmosphere ripped away from this moon. You wanted the laboratories and scientists here to be purged from the surface. I know that because you’re still trying to blow this place up.”
“There is some truth in what you say,” Tiros admitted, “but it misses other truths. Although, in the deepest interpretations of his texts, Ohalu foretold the Ascendants crisis, no Bajoran had a hand in bringing about those events. And what happened on Endalla after that . . . I wasn’t a part of that, but I understand that one member of the Ohalavaru who participated was unstable . . .”
“You have to know that many people—not just on Bajor, but across the Federation—believe that all Ohalavaru are, by definition, unstable.”
“Yes, I know that.” The fact did not seem to anger Tiros, but to sadden him.
“And you have nothing to say to defend yourself from such a charge?” Blackmer asked. “You have no detailed explanation of why what you’re doing is justified?”
“I’ve just given you my explanation.”
“You’ve given me generalities,” Blackmer said. “You’re trying to destroy Endalla in order to improve Bajoran society. Didn’t the Cardassians make the same sort of declaration when they occupied Bajor?”
Tiros launched himself from the sleeping platform and across the compact cell at Blackmer. He stopped just short of the force field, which hummed at his proximity. From just centimeters way, he glared at the security chief with fire in his eyes. “How dare you?” he said, his voice pitched low. “Most of my family were killed in the Occupation.”
“Then what would you say to the people who lost family members six years ago, when the Ohalavaru first attacked Endalla? And what would you say to the Starfleet officers stationed here during your attack today—people whose lives matter so little to you that you attempted to destroy the moon with them on it?”
“We knew that the outpost and the Starfleet personnel here would not be killed.”
“I don’t believe you.” Blackmer knew that he would get nothing more from Tiros just then. He turned and nodded to Dellasant, who stepped up to assume a sentry position beside the force field. The security chief took one last look at the Ohalavaru. “If you decide that you want to tell me what you’re really doing here, I’ll be happy to listen. Otherwise, you can keep your new-age delusions and self-important justifications to yourself.” Blackmer turned and, with Cenn by his side, he stalked out of the brig.
STINSON STOOD BEHIND SLAINE at the tactical console and peered over her shoulder at the display. Before he could respond to what she had just shown him, the portside aft doors whisked open, and Cenn and Blackmer entered the bridge. “Commander,” Stinson said at once, “we’ve found something.” Both the first officer and the security chief walked over to the tactical station. “Dalin?” Stinson said, inviting Slaine to repeat her report.
The tactical officer pointed at a column of numbers on her readout, which were immediately replaced by an image that clearly represented the interior of the new chasm on Endalla’s surface. A long, thin strip of ground jagged along between steep, ragged walls. “Deep below the surface of the moon,” she said, “something is interfering with our sensors.” Slaine touched a control, and a wash of dull blue spread through the walls and floor of the chasm. “It has a diffusing effect and seems to be a naturally occurring consequence of the mineral composition. It’s subtle. I don’t think we could have even detected the effect at all if the surface above hadn’t been excavated away.”
“Are you saying that our scans can’t detect what’s down there?” Cenn asked.
“Not within the moon itself below a certain depth,” Slaine said. “But the fissure that’s been opened in the surface provides a narrow window for our scans to penetrate. There is still residual interference from the surrounding rock, but I think I can tune the sensors to compensate. I was just about to attempt it.”
Stinson choked back the order that rose in his mind, then castigated himself for it. Because of his resentment at not being in command during the Defiant crew’s mission, he did not want to overstep his authority. Functioning as the ship’s exec, though, he would have been within the bounds of the position to order Slaine to proceed. Instead, he waited, and after a moment, Cenn did so.
Slaine deftly operated the tactical controls, and the image on the display shifted. Some elements sharpened, while others fell out of focus. After a minute or so, Sti
nson said, “This may take some time,” but then a recognizable shape appeared between the two walls of the chasm, resting on the ground.
It was a ship.
“Sensors are showing quantities of explosives still aboard,” Slaine said.
“Are there life signs?” Stinson asked. The vessel looked as though it had soft-landed, not crashed.
“I’m adjusting the sensors to find out,” Slaine said. Portions of the image on her display continued to phase in and out of clarity, and columns of numbers cycled down an adjacent readout. Twice, two red points of light appeared beside the ship, but then faded away. “The sensors are detecting something, but I’m having trouble resolving the contacts . . . unless . . .” Slaine’s hands scuttled across her panel, until the two red dots returned to the display and at last stayed there. “I read two life-forms, both Bajoran.”
Cenn straightened from where he had leaned in over the tactical console, as though snapping to attention. “Bridge to transporter room.”
“Transporter room. This is Clark.”
“Commander,” Slaine said, looking up at the first officer. “We can’t beam them aboard. It’s why I had trouble isolating their life signs: they’ve erected a transporter inhibitor at their landing site.”
Cenn held Slaine’s gaze for a long moment, then looked at Stinson and Blackmer in turn. Finally, he said, “Then we’re going down after them.”
BLACKMER PILOTED the type-10 shuttlecraft Tyson down toward the surface of Endalla. Colonel Cenn sat beside him at the main console in the cramped cockpit, while two members of the security staff—Crewwomen Fran Draco and Costa Trabor—occupied the only other seats, directly behind Blackmer and Cenn. The first officer had wanted to travel down to the moon in one of the runabouts, with its more powerful armaments and defenses, but Blackmer had dissuaded him. Considerably larger than one of Defiant’s shuttles, a runabout would have been far more difficult to maneuver down into the fissure. Should the away team need to make a rapid ascent, Blackmer wanted nothing to impede their avenue of escape.
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