“Even without personnel, they could have prepared a trap for us,” Blackmer pointed out.
“I understand your concerns, Commander, but what else would you have us do?” Cenn asked. “You don’t want us entering through the breach, but they refuse to leave unless we go get them. Are we supposed to wait here until they change their minds?”
“We could bring down reinforcements, shuttle in equipment to illuminate the area inside so that we can properly assess the risks,” Blackmer suggested.
Cenn knew that the security chief was right, even despite the dangers of bringing more of the crew down into the unstable chasm. He also knew that he could not delay the apprehension of the Ohalavaru any longer. He disagreed with their beliefs, but of greater import, he did not condone their actions. He could not allow them to walk free and continue their attempts to undermine and attack the Bajoran people and their faith.
“I’m going in,” Cenn decided. “Wait here. If I’m killed or taken captive, proceed with your plan to summon assistance.”
“Colonel,” Blackmer said, and the tone of that one word signaled his intention to oppose the first officer’s plan. But then the security chief paused, and when he spoke again, his tenor had changed. “Colonel, if you’re going in, I’m going with you.”
“Very well,” Cenn said. “But this time, I go first.”
“Yes, sir,” Blackmer said. “Draco, stay here and monitor our communications. You know all of our code words.”
“Yes, sir.”
“If something should happen,” Blackmer told her, “do as I’ve recommended.”
“Yes, sir.”
The first officer once more reset his comm system. “This is Colonel Cenn to Travil Asand,” he said. “My crewmate and I will come to take you into custody.”
“We have set down our arms and will be waiting for you,” Travil said. “There is a drop of nearly two meters immediately inside the hole. Once you have negotiated that, you will find the footing stable.”
Cenn did not respond, but he closed the channel with the Ohalavaru. He then moved to the breach and peered inside. The lights on his helmet illuminated a featureless, flat surface that, as Travil had cautioned, appeared a couple of meters down. Cenn secured his phaser to the belt on his environmental suit, then turned and dropped to his knees so that he could enter the breach feetfirst. Blackmer bent to hold on to his arms, and the first officer scrambled inside.
Grabbing hold of the edge of the broken bulkhead—or whatever it was—Cenn lowered himself down. He waited for a disruptor bolt to slice through him, for the duplicity of the Ohalavaru to be the last thing his brain registered, but that didn’t happen. He felt for the surface below him, but it remained out of reach. He imagined letting himself fall to find nothing beneath his feet, his body plummeting endlessly into the darkness.
May the Prophets protect me, he thought, and let go. He dropped only a short distance, but when his feet struck something solid, he breathed a heavy sigh of relief. “I’m down safely,” he told the rest of the away team. He looked down, and in his helmet’s light, he saw the same flat surface as when he’d peered through the breach. He gazed in every direction, and saw only the same thing. When he looked around, he saw distant shadows far ahead, far to each side, and far above. Directly in front of him, he spotted the lights of the two environmental-suited figures.
“I’m coming in,” Blackmer said, and Cenn turned to help him. Once the security chief made it down, both men turned toward the two Ohalavaru.
“Let’s go,” Cenn said.
“I recommend drawing our weapons,” Blackmer said.
“Agreed.” Cenn pulled his phaser from where he had tucked it at his waist. Once the two men had rearmed themselves, the first officer said, “Let’s go.”
They started forward, the darkness all around them barely penetrated by the lights of their environmental suits. The floor beneath them—and Cenn could see and feel that it was a floor, not the ground—stretched smoothly away from them as far he could see. The space felt open to him, as though they moved through a vast hollow.
Up ahead, by degrees, the two Ohalavaru grew closer. Not completely stationary, they made no threatening moves, nor did they stray from where they stood. Once more, Cenn anticipated something happening—an attack by the Ohalavaru, or their sudden retreat—but nothing did. He and Blackmer covered half the distance to the Ohalavaru, and then half of what remained.
Suddenly, a blaze of light exploded in the darkness. Momentarily blinded, Cenn slammed his eyes shut, reflexively raising his hands up before the faceplate of his helmet. He waited for the concussion of the blast to knock him from his feet, or to tear through his environmental suit, or to vaporize his flesh in a burst of flames.
None of that happened.
“Colonel, Commander, are you all right?” Draco asked frantically. She must have seen the dramatic change in illumination through the breach.
“We’re fine,” Blackmer said. “Stand by.”
Cenn opened his eyes slowly, allowing them to acclimate to the sudden brightness. He saw that the faceplate of his helmet had polarized against the glare, but it could not fully compensate for the brilliance of the light that suddenly glowed in the open space. All around them, scores of high-lumen lighting panels had been activated.
The two Ohalavaru—Travil and Nelish—started toward them, their arms held to their sides and their hands empty. Again, Cenn braced himself. The Ohalavaru continued toward them, and eventually they reached the collection of lighting panels. They walked directly up to Cenn and Blackmer. “We surrender,” Travil said.
Before the first officer could react, Blackmer produced two sets of restraints, which he affixed to the wrists of each man. Once he had, he reached up and adjusted his comm system. “What is this place?” he asked.
With the prisoners secured, Cenn gazed around. They were in a vast, cavernous chamber, its dimensions so enormous that, in some directions, the first officer could not make out its farthest reaches. A massive metal framework supported the walls and ceiling that Cenn could see. Within that space, a set of huge, complex structures twisted in various forms, all tangling together in an incredibly complicated series of joints and assemblies. It all looked and felt like a marvel of engineering, and like nothing Cenn had ever seen. In some cases, the shapes not only defied description, they challenged the limits of his ability to make sense of them—maybe even his ability to perceive them. They seemed more real, more defined in his peripheral vision than in his direct line of sight, and when he stared at them for too long, it felt as though something inside his mind distorted.
“It’s a falsework,” Travil said. He spoke with a self-satisfied confidence that Cenn found repugnant.
“Let’s go,” Cenn said, and he threw a hand behind Travil and pushed him forward, toward the breach. Although he did not feel physically endangered, the first officer wanted desperately to leave the chamber. Blackmer took hold of Nelish and urged him forward as well.
“A falsework,” Travil continued, “is a temporary construction onto which a main work is partially or completely built. A falsework supports the main work during construction until the main structure can stand on its own.”
“What are you saying?” Blackmer asked as he and Cenn guided the Ohalavaru toward the breach. “That Endalla was built around this . . . this falsework? That this moon is a construct and not naturally occurring?”
“All of that is true,” Travil said. “But it is not the only truth.”
“Shut up,” Cenn said. He suddenly knew what Travil would say—what he and all of his Ohalavaru comrades wanted to say, what they had for so long yearned to say—and he did not want to hear it.
“Endalla was constructed around this falsework to hide it,” Travil said. “The falsework itself was an anchor upon which the Bajoran wormhole was first constructed.”
“Shut
up,” Cenn said again, and that time, Travil did.
Blackmer notified Draco that they would be bringing out the Ohalavaru. They walked the rest of the way to the breach in silence. Cenn helped the first officer and Draco send Nelish Stoat out through the breach. As Cenn turned to their other prisoner, Travil stared at him from within his helmet. “What need would gods have for a falsework?” he said.
Cenn responded by grabbing Travil and slamming him helmet-first into the wall. The first officer felt a hand on his arm, and he realized that Blackmer had moved to stop him from doing anything more to their prisoner. Cenn took a breath and attempted to calm himself, then helped get Travil through the breach.
Outside, the darkness of the chasm seemed deeper than it had before. Broken only here and there by the lights of the environmental suits and the two vessels, the gloom surrounded the away team and their prisoners. Despite that, emerging from the subterranean chamber made Cenn feel as though he had crawled out from beneath a terrible, oppressive force.
By the time the group reached the shuttlecraft, that feeling had abandoned Cenn Desca.
22
From where Ro sat behind her desk, she regarded Cenn. He stood at the far end of her office, his back to her as he gazed out through the port into the perpetual night of space. The colonel had just returned from Endalla aboard Defiant, and he had come to make his report. The six Ohalavaru he’d taken into custody and brought back to the starbase had been transferred to the stockade. The Bajoran Ministry of Justice had already preferred various charges against them, including criminal trespass, illegal possession and transport of explosives, reckless endangerment, and willful destruction of property. Ro imagined that the list of crimes would grow during the extradition process. After all the difficulty she’d recently had in coaxing anybody from the Bajoran government to respond meaningfully to any of her various communications, both the Ministry of State and the Ministry of Justice had been in almost constant contact with her since she’d first informed them of the attack on Endalla. Ro had also spoken directly with First Minister Asarem, briefing her on the potentially controversial discovery and claims of the Ohalavaru.
“The . . . uh . . . security . . .” Cenn said haltingly, and then he stopped and started again. “Commander Blackmer has replaced the officers assigned to the outpost. He wanted to spell them after the incident, but he also wanted them back on Deep Space Nine so that he could interview them in person about the events. We’ve also sent the Holana to replace the Yolja, which needs minor repairs.”
“I see that in the preliminary report,” Ro said, holding up the padd that Cenn had brought with him. She set it down on her desktop. “What I don’t see are any recommendations about deploying additional forces to Endalla.”
“That won’t be necessary.” Cenn spoke definitively. “There won’t be any more attacks.”
“You sound certain,” Ro said. The strong words pleased the captain, not just for their content, but because they reflected the inner strength she knew Cenn to have. The episode on Endalla had clearly impacted him on a spiritual level. She had served with Cenn for nearly a decade, and in that time, she had seen him face down many challenges—and, of course, he had come through the Occupation. Though fundamentally even-tempered, he occasionally loosed stronger reactions, depending on the situation, but never before had Ro witnessed him engaged in such an emotional struggle. He maintained an equable demeanor, but she could see raw turmoil just below his professional veneer.
I should never have let him command the mission, she thought, but she also knew that she hadn’t made a mistake. Cenn had convinced her of the importance to him of going to Endalla, and she understood the need to participate professionally in something that also carried personal significance. He had rewarded her trust by accomplishing the mission, despite the toll it had apparently cost him.
Cenn turned from the port and paced over to the captain’s desk. “I am certain,” he said. “The Ohalavaru won’t attack Endalla again because they don’t need to: they have succeeded in their endeavor by uncovering the . . . the falsework.” Cenn spat the word out like a mouthful of poison.
Ro recognized the titanic, unexpected construct beneath the surface of Endalla as the wellspring of her first officer’s misery, but she did not entirely understand why that should be the case. “Desca,” she said, looking up at him as he stood by the front corner of her desk, “I can see that this discovery is troubling you, but just because the Ohalavaru have made a claim about the nature of the subterranean structure doesn’t mean that they’re right. They obviously knew, or at least suspected, that something might be there, but they only found it a short time before you arrived. They had no opportunity to study it. Before you grow too concerned about what they’ve said, why don’t you wait for whatever conclusions Bajoran scientists draw after they’ve had a chance to examine and analyze it?”
Cenn chuckled without humor and shook his head. “I doubt that the Bajoran government will make public what we discovered today, much less allow anybody to investigate it.”
The contentions surprised Ro. “I’m not sure that either First Minister Asarem or Kai Pralon will want to keep the information quiet, or even if they do, I don’t know that they’ll be able to.”
“We’ll see,” Cenn said. “You told me that you’ve spoken only with the first minister about what the Ohalavaru found down there, and about what they assert. I’m not convinced that information will spread very far within the Bajoran government, and I wouldn’t be shocked if it never even makes it to Kai Pralon.”
“I don’t see how that’s possible,” Ro said. “At this moment, First Minister Asarem might be the only Bajoran official who knows about this, but I know, you know, quite a few of our security officers know. And even if the Federation and Bajor classified the information and succeeded in limiting knowledge of the incident, there are the Ohalavaru to consider. As I understand it, their entire goal on Endalla has been to locate the underground structure and then trumpet both its existence and their interpretation of what it means. That tells me that even criminalizing the release of the information would not prevent them from speaking publicly.”
Cenn’s head bobbed slowly up and down, but his attention appeared to drift away from the captain. He gazed off to the side, his countenance brooding. “Maybe that will be the case,” he said, more to himself than to Ro. “Maybe this can’t be contained. If it is, if there is only silence about what has transpired, that in itself will speak volumes and demonstrate that the Bajoran establishment is too scared to admit what the Ohalavaru have found. And if it does come out and the first minister and the kai deny it . . .” His words faded as he spoke, but Ro thought that the monologue continued in his head.
The captain waited, but Cenn remained pensive and added nothing more. Finally, Ro said, “Desca . . . are you all right?”
Cenn’s eyes came back into focus and he looked at her. “No, I’m not all right,” he said. “My world . . . everything I thought I knew . . .” He didn’t finish.
“This may not mean anything,” Ro said, trying to console him in some way.
In a flash of motion, Cenn raised his fist and thrust it down hard on the corner of the captain’s desktop. “It means everything!” he said, his voice rising to a shout on the final word. He struck her desk not with the fleshy side of his fist, but knuckles first. Ro heard an awful crunching noise that could only be one or more of the bones in his hand breaking.
Her shock must have shown on her face, because Cenn backtracked from his anger at once. “I’m sorry, Captain, I’m sorry.”
Ro leaped up from her chair and hurried over to Cenn. He held his wounded hand tightly against his body, and she gently tugged at his arm until she could visually inspect his injuries. Cenn had bruised his knuckles badly, bloodying one of them. Two of his fingers bent at unnatural angles. “You’re hurt,” she said. She did not speak just about his hand. “Ro to Sector
General.”
“Sector General. Doctor Boudreaux here.” The easy, rounded shape of his words made the starbase’s chief medical officer sound languid, but Ro had seen him move at speed when the situation warranted.
“Captain,” Cenn said. “You don’t need to call the doctor up here. I can go to the hospital on my own.” His anguish had wilted—or perhaps it had settled in for a long stay.
Ro wondered whether her first officer would actually report to Sector General if she allowed him to walk out of her office on his own, but she saw no reason that he wouldn’t. “Pascal, Colonel Cenn has suffered an injury to his hand,” she said. “He’ll be down shortly for treatment.”
“Understood,” Boudreaux said. “Have him bring his hand with him.”
“I’ll do that, Doctor,” Ro said, unable to keep herself from smiling at Boudreaux’s consistently amusing manner. It pleased her to see that Cenn smiled as well. “Ro out.”
Cenn tucked his damaged hand beneath his other arm. “I’m sorry,” he said again.
“Do you want me to walk down to the hospital with you?” Ro asked.
“No, thank you, Captain,” the first officer said. “It’ll be embarrassing enough with just Doctor Boudreaux there.”
“All right,” Ro said. “If you need to talk, Desca . . . I’m here as your commanding officer, but I can also be here as your friend, if you just need somebody to listen. And maybe you should consult with Commander Matthias and have her assign you to a counselor.”
“I will,” Cenn said. Though declarative, the words seemed to the captain like less than a commitment. She opted to let it go—at least for the moment.
“All right,” Ro said. “We’ll talk later.”
“Yes, Captain. Thank you.” With his damaged hand still tucked under his arm, Cenn exited her office to the corridor.
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