Ro watched her first officer go. She recognized Cenn’s distress, but she did not entirely fathom it. But then, I’m not religious. She understood that the Ohalavaru claims somehow threatened his faith. She guessed that evidence of the Prophets physically constructing something implied that they possessed corporeality. Or maybe just the idea of their utilizing tools or building materials or familiar techniques detracted from their godhood in Cenn’s eyes.
Except that the wormhole is something physical that the Prophets supposedly built, Ro thought. There seemed a distinction to be drawn there, though. The wormhole physically existed, but it possessed a mystical quality to it, something far beyond the capability of the Federation to create. The descriptions Ro had so far read and heard about the construct beneath the surface of Endalla sounded far more prosaic.
Can it be as simple as that? Ro wondered. Could the Ohalavaru, if their claims panned out, have taken away the poetry of Cenn’s beliefs? In her empty office, the captain shook her head. For her, the notion that the Prophets had toiled in the orbit of Bajor to connect their realm with that of Ro’s people seemed far more befitting a god than merely looking down from on high. And frankly, it seems far more believable.
Ro circled around her desk and sat back down. She reactivated the computer interface on her desktop—she’d been using it when Cenn had arrived—and accessed the preliminary security status that Blackmer had filed, as well as a draft after-action report that Stinson had sent her. Since the second officer had neither commanded Defiant nor led the mission to Endalla, he needn’t have produced any report at all, but once she read through it, she saw why he had: he expressed concern for Cenn Desca. According to Stinson, the colonel had behaved in uncharacteristic and questionable ways during the mission.
Lieutenant Commander Stinson did not hide his ambition to one day command a starship—to hold the position and rank of captain—but Ro didn’t see his personal aims driving his report. She read genuine concern in his words. She also found similar sentiments in Blackmer’s security status, which detailed Cenn’s unwillingness to wait for reinforcements, his recklessness in essentially charging into a potentially lethal situation, and slamming somebody in his custody into a wall. Neither man sought or recommended any sort of reprimand or reprisal, but both worried about the emotional health of their crewmate.
The reports concerned the captain, as did the behavior she had seen Cenn exhibit in their meeting. In the end, he had finally regained control of his emotions, but while Ro did not equate her first officer’s actions with those of the Ohalavaru, she did view his conduct as a form of zealotry. She would have to keep a watchful eye on him.
23
For the first time in months, Jefferson Blackmer woke up after having slept straight through the night. He rolled over in his bed and glanced at the chronometer he kept on a nearby shelf. When he read the time as 06:27, he thought the device must have malfunctioned, but a quick query to the computer confirmed the hour. That meant that Blackmer had not only had an uninterrupted night, but that he had slept for nearly nine hours—something he couldn’t remember doing in a very long time.
In the days since the assassination of the Federation president, the security chief had been plagued by guilt and feelings of professional inadequacy, which had resulted in high levels of anxiety. He often awoke in the middle of the night to thoughts of his failures, ranging from his earliest days in Starfleet on Starbase 189, all the way up to the escape from custody of Doctor Bashir. No matter the memories that visited him upon waking, though, his mind always eventually turned to the murder of Nanietta Bacco. Blackmer had failed not only the president, not only himself and his crewmates, not even just Starfleet, but the entire Federation. That burden never left him.
Sometimes, especially in the small hours of the morning, dreams would interrupt his sleep—terrible dreams. He would often relive his mistakes, recalling them in painfully elaborate detail. Worse, his slumbering but wounded psyche frequently combined events or embellished the specifics. In the end, it always came down to one of two events: the brutal killing of President Bacco, or the fiery destruction of the original Deep Space 9.
But not last night, Blackmer thought as he rose from his bed, amazed at how rested he felt. He activated the lights, and as he made his way to the refresher, it stunned him to realize that he actually recollected another dream—a dream that had nothing to do with the Federation president or DS9 or Starfleet security. In it, he strolled across the Ponte di Rialto in Venezia, a young man walking hand in hand with the first woman he had ever really loved. He and Sharon stood at the apex of the ancient stone bridge, in the central portico, gazing out at the silvery white light of Luna gamboling on the waters of the Canal Grande. He saw the view clearly in his mind, and alone in his quarters on DS9, he felt his hand close around imaginary fingers as he envisioned Sharon standing at his side.
There was more to the dream than that, he thought, but already it slipped away from him. It hadn’t been born of a memory, not exactly, because he and Sharon had never visited Italia, but during the two years they had been together before it had all gone south, they had spoken of Venezia often. For all of the negative connotations the reminiscence could have held for him—a youth now past, lost opportunities, failed romance—it nevertheless made him smile. He had not thought of Sharon in a very long time, and in the three years since he’d become chief of security on the original DS9, he’d had little opportunity for a love life. It cheered him to discover the desire for romance still firing within him.
As Blackmer showered and prepared for his shift, he thought about what lay ahead for him that day. He would continue to interrogate the Ohalavaru, and also interview the members of his staff who’d been on Endalla when the three explosives-laden vessels had descended upon it. He looked forward to all of it, feeling a renewed sense of purpose.
Nine hours of sleep will do that, he thought. He initially attributed his long, unbroken sleep to the busy day he’d had previously, but as he reflected on it further, he considered a different cause: his conversation with the captain. He not only appreciated the confidence she showed in him, he believed it. Ro hadn’t simply heaped platitudes on him, or discounted his lost self-assurance as unwarranted. Rather, she commiserated with him, referencing her own tenure in the same position. She also revealed Starfleet Command’s concerns about his job performance, and talked about her review of the work he’d done since transferring to the old station from Perseverance. In particular, two points she made truly helped him: that he had recommended protective screens to the president and the other dignitaries for their speeches at the dedication ceremony, and that they all rejected his advice at least in part because they expected to need protection from their enemies, not from their friends.
As Blackmer put on his uniform, a connection formed in his mind. One of the things that had recently troubled him had been Doctor Bashir’s escape from detention. Blackmer recognized all the good that had come from that event: the doctor had helped solve the reproductive crisis on Andor, and like dominoes falling, that had led to new leadership for the Andorians, their return to the Federation, and then the election of President zh’Tarash. While Blackmer would not have wanted to stand in the way of any of those occurrences, he hadn’t known how events would turn out, and so he had followed orders and taken Bashir into custody.
I just didn’t keep him in custody.
Fully prepared for the day, Blackmer checked the chronometer and saw that he still had nearly an hour before the start of alpha shift. He thought about heading to one of the many eateries on the Plaza, but he didn’t typically partake of a meal at breakfast, usually just having a piece of fruit. He went out into the living area of his quarters and selected a pooncheen from the bowl he kept in the center of his dining table. Before peeling the rind from the orange-red fruit, he thought of something else he could do with his spare hour. He tossed the pooncheen into the air and caught it, then exi
ted his quarters and headed for the nearest turbolift.
When the order had come in to arrest Bashir, the doctor had been hosting a planetside medical conference on Bajor. Captain Ro took Blackmer and a security team to apprehend him, which they proceeded to do. On the way to the runabout that would carry Bashir back to DS9, the doctor incapacitated a security officer—suspiciously, his inamorata, Lieutenant Commander Sarina Douglas—and sabotaged both a runabout and Defiant, all of which ultimately contributed to his successful escape to Andor.
I didn’t want Douglas guarding Bashir, Blackmer thought as he entered the turbolift and stated his destination. At the time, he had intimated as much to the captain, but she had overridden his concern. And she was right to do so. How could we have a cohesive, functioning crew if we don’t trust each other?
Except that Bashir had gotten away from Douglas, which had made the security chief question, if only in his own mind, not just the loyalty of his subordinate, but also that of his commanding officer. Bashir had knocked Douglas unconscious with a ferocious blow to her face, which could simply have been his way of covering for her. Or maybe the importance of the doctor’s mission of deliverance to Andor superseded the value of his relationship with Douglas.
Afterward, Blackmer and his staff had examined Defiant. Bashir’s disabling of a runabout occurred during his flight from custody on Bajor, but it remained a question as to when he could have sabotaged Defiant. Blackmer searched for such an opportunity, including any times when the doctor had surreptitiously boarded the starship. When the investigation turned up nothing, he personally checked for any evidence of tampering by Lieutenant Commander Douglas . . . or by Captain Ro. He’d never been happier to uncover nothing.
But that means that we still don’t know how Bashir managed to sabotage Defiant. Blackmer’s suspicions continued to fall on Douglas, who had subsequently left the starbase. After so much time, and considering all that had happened, it might no longer matter who had actually incapacitated Defiant, but it could prove important to learn how they had done so.
The turbolift doors opened on the x-ring, at Docking Bay One. Blackmer passed through the security checkpoint without issue and boarded the starship. He rode a turbolift up to Deck One, then walked to the bridge, entering it through the starboard aft doors. “Good morning, Ensign,” he said.
The long-maned, light-haired Caitian stood up from the command chair in the center of the bridge and turned to face Blackmer. “Good morning, sir.”
The security chief made it his business to know the people who worked and lived on Deep Space 9—a tall order, given the starbase’s total permanent population of thirteen thousand individuals. Blackmer actually recognized the ensign, a young man named Grenner P’Tross, but probably less because of the security chief’s ability to recognize faces and more because only two Caitians served in the crew. “What’s your status?”
“Standing the delta-shift watch, sir,” P’Tross said, the purring quality of his speech a match for his feline-like appearance. “I have nothing to report.”
“Which is just the way I like it,” Blackmer said with a smile. “I’m here because I’m conducting an investigation and need access to the Defiant’s computer records. I’ll work at one of the peripheral stations.”
“Yes, sir,” P’Tross said. “Can I assist in any way?”
“No, I don’t think so, thank you, Ensign,” Blackmer said. “As you were.”
As P’Tross returned to the command chair, the security chief sat down at the nearest station along the starboard arc of the bridge. He started his efforts by bringing up the ship’s boarding logs for the month leading up to and including the day of Doctor Bashir’s escape. Those logs should have included a record of every individual who had been on the ship during that time period.
Once he had done that, Blackmer sent a signal back to Deep Space 9, requesting an upload of mirror files from the same set of days. While docked at the starbase, Defiant’s computer routinely transmitted a real-time backup to a secure data vault on DS9. Blackmer thought that if somebody had gained access to the ship, they might have been smart enough to hide their tracks by altering the logs kept on Defiant, but they would have found it almost impossible to do the same with the mirror files on the starbase.
Blackmer waited for the upload to complete, then worked to compare the two sets of boarding logs. He felt reasonably confident that he would turn up a discrepancy, but the records all matched precisely. He shook his head and leaned back in his chair, trying to think of what else he could try.
If nobody had altered the boarding logs, he reasoned, that meant that the records contained an entry for whoever had sabotaged Defiant. We expect to need protection from our enemies, not from our friends, the captain had said. Perhaps the culprit had authority to board the starship, but perhaps they had conducted their sabotage at a time when they hadn’t been scheduled to be on Defiant.
Blackmer again linked to Deep Space 9’s main computer. He accessed the starbase’s duty rosters for the month prior to Bashir’s flight from custody. He searched through it hoping to find a time when somebody had boarded Defiant when they were either scheduled to be elsewhere or off duty.
By the time alpha shift started that morning and he reported to the Hub, Blackmer had the name for which he’d been searching.
24
Ribbons of color spread in various widths across the great globe, each hued band punctuated by circles and swirls that betrayed the turbulent motion of the atmosphere. The fourth of seven worlds in the Larrisint system, the gas giant came dressed in earth tones—umbers and ochers, grays and whites—though it lacked anything resembling a terrestrial surface. Above the pigmented patterns, a wide, dense set of rings girded its equator.
Benjamin Sisko eyed the view with appreciation. He thought that when artists painted images of planets to convey their beautiful but alien nature, they often produced pictures that resembled Larrisint IV. Seeing the scene through the forward viewport of the shuttlecraft, he also heard the siren song of his crew’s upcoming mission to the Gamma Quadrant.
“Are you sure you know where you’re going?” Odo asked. The Changeling sat beside Sisko at the primary console of Comet, one of Robinson’s type-6 shuttlecraft.
“It’s a secure facility, maintained in secrecy,” Sisko said. “I’m gathering that its unusual location might be a part of that.” Up ahead of the shuttlecraft, the rings of Larrisint IV loomed.
Once Robinson had arrived at the outer edge of the planetary system, Sisko had established communications with Newton Outpost, following protocols provided him by Starfleet Operations. He spoke with Lieutenant Commander Selten, the facility’s chief of security. Selten, a Vulcan of distinguished appearance who looked to be in his middle years, directed Sisko to maintain Robinson’s position outside the system, and to bring Odo to the outpost in a shuttlecraft. Subspace scramblers prevented the comm signal from being traced to the facility, and the security chief declined to identify even its general location. Instead, Selten instructed the captain to travel to the fifth planet in the system. Once there, the Vulcan directed him to a point just beyond the rings of the fourth planet.
“Selten to Comet.”
Sisko opened communications in the shuttlecraft. “Comet here, this is Sisko.”
“Captain, I am deploying a navigational beacon,” Selten said. “Please follow it at your present velocity. When a tractor beam takes hold of your shuttlecraft, please shut down your engines. Your vessel will be pulled into our landing bay.”
“Acknowledged,” Sisko said. He studied the sensor panel. “We have detected the beacon and are adjusting course to follow it.”
“Confirming your course change,” Selten said. “Stand by.” The communications panel emitted a chirp, indicating the channel had been closed on the transmitting end.
“I couldn’t just beam over?” Odo asked, his tone even more exasperated
than usual.
“As I understand it, the outpost has been permanently shielded in materials that prohibit transport,” Sisko said.
“I’m sure that will come in handy if there’s ever a fire.” Odo’s normally gruff manner had graduated to full-throated scorn. After another minute, he said, “Captain, we appear to be headed directly into the planet’s rings.”
“I see that,” Sisko said. “That’s where the beacon is emanating from. I don’t know if that’s another feint to disguise the outpost’s true location, or if that’s where the outpost actually is.”
Odo grunted, whether in appreciation or derision, Sisko could not tell. “I suppose that placing an outpost inside planetary rings as densely packed as those might make it difficult for unwanted visitors to even find it, let alone safely reach it.”
As the shuttlecraft neared the rings, Larrisint IV grew to fill the entire port. Sisko activated a display on the bulkhead beside him, then set it to show a magnified view of the rings. Amid the dust, a considerable number of small, rocky objects became visible.
Odo’s right, Sisko thought. That’s a hell of a place to put an outpost.
Five minutes later, as the shuttlecraft closed on the rings, an expanding cone of gray-white rays reached out from their midst. Comet shuddered as the tractor beam took hold of it, and the captain powered down the shuttlecraft’s drive systems. The low hum that provided an undercurrent of sound throughout the journey vanished, leaving the cabin in eerie silence.
Let’s hope it stays that way, Sisko thought. The last thing he wanted to hear was the explosive noise of an errant boulder slamming into the hull.
Sisko watched through the port in fascination as the shuttlecraft drew ever nearer the rings. Eventually, a larger object became visible in a narrow gap within them. “There,” he said, pointing. “I think that must be a shepherd moon.”
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