Behind Quark, Aridesh arrived at the top of the stairs. He moved quickly toward Cenn—more quickly than seemed possible for a man so large. As the Filian approached, Quark stopped the bouncer with a wave. “That won’t be necessary, Aridesh,” the Ferengi said. “I think the first officer would rather walk out of here on his own. Isn’t that right, Colonel?”
Cenn’s head spun. He wanted to tell the barkeep to keep quiet and mind his own business, but he knew that, if he did, he would indeed find himself escorted out of the bar. He suddenly discovered that he wanted to leave, that he didn’t want all those people staring at him, that he just wanted to go back to his cabin.
The first officer turned around and headed not for the stairs, but for the open lift that traveled on a slope between the three levels of the bar. He felt shaky, and so he held on to the railing as he walked, and then to the side of the lift as it descended toward the first floor. Cenn kept his head up, and as he looked past the patrons in Quark’s, out to the Plaza walkway, he saw Kai Pralon still there, watching him.
“You lied to us,” he said again, probably too softly for the kai to hear. When the lift reached the first level, though, he pointed at her once more and raised his voice. “You lied,” he called out, walking toward the bar entrance. “You and all the kais before you . . . and the Vedek Assembly . . . all of you committed a fraud on the Bajoran people.” The patrons in Quark’s parted to allow Cenn a path through the bar. “You lied . . . or you’re too stupid to see the universe for what it really is.”
As Cenn reached the entrance and stepped out onto the Plaza walkway, Crewman Torvan took hold of his arm. “Sir, please,” he said quietly.
“How could you do that to us?” Cenn asked, once again pointing at Pralon.
“Colonel, please, it’s the kai,” Torvan said.
The pain and urgency in the young crewman’s voice stopped Cenn. He looked at the security officer and saw confusion on his face. Torvan was Bajoran.
“Don’t you see?” Cenn said, grabbing hold of the security officer by both arms. “She lied to us . . . they all lied to us. None of it is true.”
“Colonel, don’t—”
Cenn raised his head and yelled the truth for everyone to hear: “The Prophets are not gods!” He felt tears streaming down his face. “They’re just another alien race.” He looked again at Torvan and saw him wearing an expression of horror.
Cenn let go of the crewman and dropped to his knees. “They’re not gods,” he said again, though more to himself than to anybody else. He knew that he had to get used to the words, that he had to become inured to the anguish that the truth caused him. He had lived a devout life, but the discovery of the wormhole falsework . . . the word cruelly taunted him for what it revealed about the beings he had for so long considered deities. “They’re just aliens.” His voice had fallen to a whimper.
“Desca,” a voice said by his ear. He felt hands wrap securely around his upper arm and urge him upward. “Desca, let’s get you out of here.” It was Jefferson Blackmer.
Cenn clambered to his feet, helped up by the security chief on one side and Torvan on the other. He felt dizzy, and so he closed his eyes, but that only intensified the sensation. When he opened them, he saw the kai approaching him.
“Colonel Cenn,” she said softly as she stepped up to him, “everything is going to be all right. I haven’t lied to you, but it’s all right if you can’t see that at this difficult time. Anyone can have a crisis of faith. It’s important for you to know right now that you can also regain your convictions, and your devotion to the Prophets.”
Cenn blew out a burst of air he’d intended as a laugh. “Don’t you mean devotion to the wormhole aliens?” He shook his head, which didn’t help his vertigo. “I have nothing but disgust for the ‘Prophets’ . . . and for you, Kai Pralon, and for the Vedek Assembly . . .” He glanced at Torvan. “. . . and for my fellow misguided Bajorans.”
“May you find peace, Colonel,” Pralon said.
Suddenly, he felt himself being moved, in the direction of the security office on the Plaza. He felt sick to his stomach, and he immediately knew why. As much disgust as he harbored for the Bajoran religious establishment, it paled in comparison to what he thought of himself.
31
“Even Odds to Eav’oq,” Kira said, only then noticing the similarity between the name of the ship and that of the people she hoped to save from extinction. Strictly speaking, she sent the transmission not from Even Odds, but from its auxiliary craft. She did not want to use her own name, though, still hoping to recover the kai and save the Eav’oq while maintaining the integrity of the timeline—something her anonymity would help to achieve.
She received no response, “Even Odds to Eav’oq,” Kira said again, working the communications panel in the dropship’s cockpit to ensure that she sent her message across a broad range of frequencies. She tried a third time.
As the dropship streaked down through the atmosphere of Idran IV toward Terev’oqu, Kira checked the sensors. Even Odds raced toward the city ahead of her, and behind, the squadron of ten Ascendant ships approached the planet fast. She and Taran’atar would not have much time.
Kira adjusted the comm controls. She focused a tight-beam signal toward Even Odds and hailed the ship. As with her attempt to reach the Eav’oq, her transmission went unanswered.
Communications are being jammed. She could only surmise that the Ascendants were to blame, though it occurred to her that maybe the crew of Even Odds had somehow regained control of their vessel, or at least parts of it. In such a case, she doubted that Dez would choose to risk his life and those of his people to protect the Eav’oq against the Ascendants.
Kira turned her attention to the sensors. She scanned Terev’oqu, searching for Bajoran life signs in an attempt to locate the kai and the cultural team she had taken to visit Idran IV. Among little more than a thousand Eav’oq, it wouldn’t take her much time to isolate Pralon Onala and the others.
Except that, as Kira studied the sensor display, she saw confused readings. A handful of life signs appeared and then vanished. She understood at once that the Ascendants were jamming more than just communications.
That left Kira with little choice: she would have to search for the kai visually—and because she would not be able to establish a transporter lock, she would have to retrieve her in person.
TARAN’ATAR GLANCED UP at the main screen on the bridge as the Eav’oq city came into view. Tall, curving buildings, some of them with numerous wings, rose luminously into the sky. Stone paths lined with flowers wove between the structures. Though small, the city provided a dramatic contrast to the rocky, lifeless lands that surrounded it. Taran’atar piloted Even Odds directly toward the Eav’oq home.
The Jem’Hadar checked the sensors, and saw the dropship speeding down toward the surface behind Even Odds. The Ascendant squadron followed not far behind. He and Kira would have to act quickly.
“I am Taran’atar,” he said in the empty bridge, “and I am dead. I go into battle to reclaim my life. This, I do gladly . . .” He hesitated as unfamiliar words rose in his mind. He felt inclined to discard them immediately, but then he reconsidered. So much had changed for him since Odo had sent him on his mission as a “cultural observer” to Deep Space 9. His life had been altered in ways he had never conceived: his purpose stripped from him, new and unfamiliar goals assigned, his mind controlled and turned against him, his gods unmasked as less than divine.
And my life extended.
Somehow, that seemed the oddest turn, almost a cruel joke perpetrated at his expense. When his life as an honored elder shoulder have been close to ending, it had instead changed, his world upended, and then the expectations for his natural lifespan increased. He could make sense of it only by doing what he had always charged himself with doing: reclaiming his life. He could no longer do it for his fallen gods, though; he could only do
it for himself, and that necessarily meant finding his purpose. Though it still didn’t seem quite right to him, his three-hundred-plus days with the crew of Even Odds had allowed him to do that. He had redefined his own function, but in a way not as unrecognizable to him as being a cultural observer: he protected and defended Captain Dezavrim and his band of “retrieval specialists.”
Until now, Taran’atar thought. He still intended for no harm to come to Dez and his crew, but he had a debt to repay. He hadn’t been able to see it as he’d lived through it, but he could not have survived his time on Deep Space 9, and then in the parallel universe to which he’d essentially been abducted, without the actions and intervention of Captain Kira. When the crew of Even Odds had recovered her in the Gamma Quadrant, he had come to her aid in seeing that she be returned safely to her home. So close to accomplishing that goal, he could not simply ignore her plea for help in safeguarding the life of somebody as important to her as the kai.
“I am Taran’atar,” he said again. “I am dead. I go into battle to reclaim my life. This, I do gladly . . . for my friend, Kira Nerys. Victory is life.” The words sounded awkward, perhaps even wrong, but he said them anyway.
As Even Odds neared the city, Taran’atar attempted to scan it, but found his sensors impeded. It didn’t matter. He could see for himself that the city, with its few buildings, covered only a small area. Taran’atar’s original intention had been to interpose Even Odds between the attacking squadron and the city, and to utilize the larger size and extreme maneuverability of the ship to drive off the Ascendant vessels, but he suddenly saw another, better way.
Taran’atar brought Even Odds in low over the buildings and visually searched for an open area among them. When he saw one, he quickly took the ship down. He spotted a number of Eav’oq—slender, tall beings with tubular bodies and multiple pink limbs—gazing skyward, each with a single eye that spanned their narrow face. As Taran’atar worked to land the ship, they scattered, propelling themselves away in a manner that looked almost like levitation.
When Even Odds had set down, the Jem’Hadar operated the ship’s powerful shields. He raised them and measured their intensity, estimating their strength against what he had been told of Ascendant weaponry. He then reconfigured the shields, extending them outward in all directions, covering as much of the city as possible, while still keeping them at useful strength.
Three minutes later, the Ascendants attacked.
Their blade-like vessels streaked across the sky, leveling their energy weapons at the city. Even Odds quaked with every volley, the shields successfully defending against the assault. Taran’atar watched as blast after blast failed to reach Terev’oqu. He observed the pattern of the attacks and then anticipated them, continually adjusting power levels to different parts of the shields to increase their effectiveness, but he also knew that the effort was unsustainable. Even if the shields worked against ten Ascendant ships, they would not last against the might of the thousands that waited somewhere in space not far from Idran IV.
Taran’atar reached for a control and opened the outer hatch to Four Bay. If they wanted to, Captain Dezavrim and his crew could take cover on the planet. The Jem’Hadar thought it likely that once the shields failed, the Ascendants would destroy Even Odds before the rest of the city.
The ship’s destruction and his own death would be worth it, he decided, if his actions allowed Kira enough time to rescue her fellow Bajorans. She is my friend, he thought again. The concept still did not feel quite right to Taran’atar, but he also admitted to himself that the idea was not as foreign to him as once it had been.
ILIANA GHEMOR MONITORED the squadron’s assault on the Eav’oq. She watched as Aniq led the ten Ascendant ships to the city and launched their attack. They soared above the buildings and sent their energy weapons streaking down on the Eav’oq.
And still the city stood.
Whatever defenses the Eav’oq had, they clearly stymied the Ascendant weaponry. Ghemor considered ordering more ships to the planet, but she feared that the bloodlust of the zealots and their generational hatred for the Eav’oq would motivate them to a more extreme measure: launching the metaweapon on Idran IV.
I can’t let that happen, she thought. Ghemor had thousands of Ascendant ships to lead to Bajor and attack, but it would take time to destroy the entire planet—so much time that it could allow Starfleet vessels to reach the system before she had completely secured the full measure of retribution she sought. She needed the metaweapon to ensure the total annihilation of Bajor.
Seated behind the Grand Archquester, Ghemor quietly opened the access panel in the bulkhead to her left. She reached in and pulled out an Ascendant disruptor, then leaned forward and leveled it at Votiq’s head. She did not wait to pull the trigger.
The brilliant white beam screeched loudly in the enclosed space. The Grand Archquester slammed against the bulkhead, the lethal beam tearing him apart from within. Votiq screamed briefly, the musical tones of his voice unrecognizable in his agony. His body disintegrated from the inside out, until nothing remained but the sickly scent of death.
Ghemor climbed into Votiq’s chair and set course for the Bajoran wormhole.
RAIQ WATCHED FROM HER SHIP as the Grand Archquester’s vessel broke formation. She thought for a moment that Votiq, or perhaps the Fire, had decided to take part in the decimation of the Eav’oq, but the ship did not head for the planet. It resumed the course the Fire had set for them through the Idran system—which meant toward the Fortress of the True. It also meant that the metaweapon they intended to use to join with the Unnameable was being taken from the Ascendants.
Raiq opened a channel to the Grand Archquester’s ship. Her hail went unanswered. She did not try a second time.
Instead, Raiq contacted the entire armada and sounded the alarm.
KIRA WORKED THE CONTROLS to open the hatch of the dropship. She had seen how Taran’atar had chosen to defend Terev’oqu, and she’d followed Even Odds into the city. She found a different place to set down, then watched on a viewscreen to see how effective the Jem’Hadar’s defense would prove.
The sleek, black Ascendant ships had descended on the Eav’oq city in groups, firing their energy weapons as they passed overhead. The shields projected by Even Odds brightened in shades of blue where they were struck, but they held. Thunderous waves of sound buffeted the surface. Kira continued to observe, trying to gauge the strength and durability of the defenses.
Finally, she had been able to wait no longer. After lowering the dropship’s hatch, she raced out of the vessel and into Terev’oqu. She looked around and then raced for the nearest building, perhaps fifty meters distant.
Halfway to the building, she stopped. The great din of the attack had suddenly quieted. She looked to the sky and saw the Ascendant ships soaring upward.
Confused, Kira turned and ran back to the dropship. She activated the sensors and found them no longer jammed. She confirmed the retreat of the squadron that had attacked the city, and then she scanned nearby space.
She saw the Ascendant fleet moving en masse toward the wormhole.
Having lived through the events about to come, Kira knew what would happen next. She also realized that the kai no longer needed her help—but she knew somebody who did. Focused on fulfilling her destiny as the Hand of the Prophets, Kira opened a channel to Taran’atar.
“DROPSHIP TO EVEN ODDS.”
The Jem’Hadar operated the communications console. “This is Taran’atar.”
“Taran’atar, you’ve succeeded,” Kira said, “but the Ascendant fleet is now headed through the wormhole to Bajor. We have to stop them. They’re being led by Iliana Ghemor, and they have some kind of subspace weapon.”
“Acknowledged,” Taran’atar said. He did not know how the captain had come into possession of such information, but he did not question it.
“Beam me aboard,” Kira said.
“Taran’atar, beam me aboard.”
The Jem’Hadar lifted off, in pursuit of the Ascendants.
“Taran’atar, do you read me?”
He closed the channel.
KIRA PUSHED THE DROPSHIP to full speed. Slowly, it gained on Even Odds, but not quickly enough. She desperately wanted Taran’atar to catch up to the Ascendant fleet, as she had once watched him do, but she also wanted to reach Even Odds before he did.
In her mind, Kira relived those moments above Bajor. She recalled well how Taran’atar had so mysteriously saved her people at the cost of his own life. With the knowledge of Even Odds she had recently gained, she thought she understood how he had done so.
On sensors, she saw readings indicating that the Gamma Quadrant terminus of the wormhole had opened. She watched her readout as one Ascendant ship disappeared into the great subspace bridge. Not long after, a second followed, and the rest of the fleet. And then Even Odds.
Kira increased the velocity of the dropship, ignoring the alarms that sounded as she pushed the vessel beyond its safety limits. All at once, the purpose for which the Prophets had sent her into the past, and into the path of Even Odds, seemed absolutely clear. She would help Taran’atar protect Bajor while also saving his life and all of those who had died on Endalla—or she would die in the attempt.
Without hesitation, Kira piloted the dropship into the wormhole.
Epilogue
Final Sacrament
Deep Space 9’s first officer, Commander Elias Vaughn, leaned in over the tactical console in Ops. He waited a moment as Sam Bowers tapped at the panel. Finally, Vaughn asked, “Anything?”
Sacraments of Fire Page 41