Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: The Soul Key Page 2

  O’Brien made some quick introductions, and Sisko did the same as more people gathered next to him: Tigan’s counterpart, the Intendant’s, even Iliana Ghemor’s.

  “Smiley, it’s me,” Ghemor said.

  O’Brien frowned. “Excuse me?”

  Ghemor sighed. “The morning I left the station to go to Bajor, you were on very little sleep—voles in the bulkheads kept you up half the night, you told me.” Before O’Brien could respond, the Cardassian turned to Tigan. “By the way, Ezri, how did Leeta like that little ‘surprise’ you planned on giving her for her birthday?”

  “Hey!” Tigan complained.

  “Iliana,” O’Brien said, needing no further convincing, “what the hell are you doing over there?”

  Luther Sloan tried not to show it, but he was enjoying himself immensely. Everything he knew about the alternate universe he had learned from O’Brien and Tigan, the only people left on Terok Nor who’d had any direct experience with that parallel continuum. And while he found it difficult to believe that any version of Julian Bashir wasn’t a complete jerk, he felt an irrepressible thrill at seeing the people who had inspired O’Brien and Ben Sisko into starting the Terran Rebellion.

  But the wonder of the moment threatened to dissipate as Iliana Ghemor began to tell them what was, in Sloan’s estimation, a preposterous tale.

  If pressed, Sloan would be forced to admit that Ghemor had worried him from the start. She wasn’t the first Cardassian to have sided with them against the Alliance, but she seemed an unlikely traitor. She was the daughter of its former director and had been an agent of the Obsidian Order before fleeing her people under extremely suspicious circumstances some months ago. Of course, similar doubts had once been cast upon Ishikawa, especially after she’d started sleeping with General O’Brien, but in both circumstances, the rebellion’s leader had stood by his decision to accept the women who had joined their cause. And to her credit, the information Ghemor shared with them on Alliance security had been directly responsible for the success of a number of strikes the rebels had launched against military targets in Klingon-Cardassian territory.

  Then, just two weeks ago, Ghemor had disappeared without explanation.

  One of the rebellion’s most carefully concealed successes was the relationship it had cultivated with a growing underground dissident movement on Bajor. This movement, led by a cabal of mystics who wanted to kick the Alliance out so that Bajor could reclaim its lost spiritual heritage, could claim secret supporters at all levels of Bajoran society. Whether or not one bought into all the mumbo-jumbo they espoused, a partnership with a network of Terran sympathizers operating on one of the Alliance’s most valued planets simply wasn’t a resource O’Brien could refuse after their representatives had come secretly to Terok Nor to make their proposal, not so very long after the rebels had first taken over the station.

  The two groups immediately began hatching plans to coordinate their goals and efforts and their tactics and strategies, though contact between the station and the religious enclaves was by necessity limited in order to minimize the risk of exposure to either group. No comm signals passed between the two groups, ever. Information was sent back and forth by messenger, and only when it was determined that travel to and from the surface could be accomplished without detection.

  Iliana Ghemor had seemed perfect for the job. Maybe too perfect, Sloan had thought when O’Brien decided to bring her into the loop. She knew how to bypass the security systems that Bajor employed, she was an expert at covert ops, and she was Cardassian—one of only two species besides the Bajorans who could walk the planet unchallenged. When rumors began to spread that Intendant Kira was returning to Bajor to meet with its ruling political body, O’Brien chose Ghemor to see if the rumors were true—and if they were, to amass the intelligence she needed to make sure Kira never left Bajor alive.

  Ghemor had embarked on her mission to Bajor, but had never returned.

  She had been expected back in five days’ time. By the second week, it was clear that something must have gone wrong. Of course, it was always possible that the delay had been unavoidable; Ghemor might still be looking for a window of opportunity get back to Terok Nor without being noticed by the Alliance’s ever-vigilant forces. But Sloan had never trusted her entirely, and he suspected that O’Brien’s mood these last several days might have stemmed, at least in part, from his own growing doubts about the Cardassian. But with no way to contact the enclaves without jeopardizing their safety, all the rebels could do was bide their time and wait.

  And now here they were, listening to Ghemor as she spoke to them from the alternate universe, warning them about a threat she seemed to think surpassed anything the rebellion had yet confronted. Sloan couldn’t help but notice her conspicuous avoidance of the exact circumstances that had led up to her decision. And she seemed entirely less than clear about what she thought was at stake.

  “Emissary of who now?” O’Brien asked.

  “Emissary of the Prophets,” Ghemor repeated. “Look, it’s complicated, but what you need to know is this: the same wormhole, the same aliens, that exist in this universe also exist in ours. They just haven’t been discovered yet. But the act of finding them is something that the Bajoran people will recognize on a primal level, whether they still keep their old faith or not. The person who succeeds in opening that door and making contact with the beings on the other side—that individual will be known to the Bajoran people as a religious icon with tremendous influence, much the way it happened here. And what I’m telling you, O’Brien, is that the person who is actively seeking to fulfill that role right now is the deranged Iliana Ghemor of this universe, in the guise of Kira Nerys. If she succeeds in finding that wormhole, she’ll be like a demigod to Bajor, and you don’t want to know what she’s capable of if she gets the chance to wield that kind of power.”

  Ghemor paused before continuing. “I know I should have come to you before I crossed over. I let myself become emotionally involved because of who she is, and I thought I could stop her on my own. I was wrong.”

  “Iliana, I’m not sure how much of this I can believe,” O’Brien said, scratching the back of his head. “You’re telling me that the Intendant may already be dead, but not really because your own counterpart may have taken her place in order to fulfill some Bajoran religious prediction?”

  “I realize it’s a lot to take in,” Ghemor said, “and I’m sorry that it’s taken me this long to report back. But you have to understand that I was trying to combat an outside threat not just to the rebellion, but to the entire balance of power in our universe. If this woman succeeds in doing what she intends, Bajor will follow her like some kind of messiah. She could even start a damn holy war within the Alliance.”

  “You make that sound like a bad thing,” Tigan said laconically.

  “It would be,” Ishikawa said. “A war like that would devastate the region. People like us would be its first victims.”

  “The faithful versus the infidels,” Eddington agreed. “With a madwoman calling the shots.”

  “You see now why we felt the need to warn you,” the Intendant’s counterpart said. “General O’Brien, I also have a stake in seeing this woman stopped. She’s proved herself a threat on our side as well as yours. My people and I stand ready to assist you.”

  “I appreciate the offer, Captain,” O’Brien said. “And I accept. You can start by explaining exactly where…What the bloody hell—?”

  Sloan was running back to his station before O’Brien could finish cursing. The loud, dull tones that had interrupted his conversation sent everyone present into action; something had tripped Terok Nor’s long-range proximity sensors.

  “We’ve got multiple warp signatures on approach vectors,” Ishikawa reported. “Looks like Klingons. ETA, two minutes.”

  “Raise shields,” O’Brien ordered. “Charge all weapons and prepare for planetary bombardment. I want a torpedo lock on Ashalla in the next thirty seconds.”

&n
bsp; Sloan’s hands danced rapidly over his tactical console, executing the well-practiced moves that gave O’Brien the results he demanded.

  “General, what are you doing?” The question had come from the alternate Kira.

  “What I warned them I’d do, Captain.”

  “You can’t attack Bajor,” Kira said. “Millions of innocent lives—”

  “Captain, exactly how do you think we’ve managed to hold Terok Nor all this time?” O’Brien asked. “It’s by convincing the Alliance that if they pushed me too far, Bajor would suffer the consequences of their actions.”

  A new curtain of static was falling across the holoscreen. “Nog…aking up!” Kira was shouting. “Do someth…!”

  “…rying…terfering with…ignal lock, overri—”

  The comlink to the other universe went dead.

  “We’ve lost their signal,” Eddington reported, reading data off his side of the situation table. “Something cut into it.”

  “From the Klingons?” O’Brien asked.

  “Maybe,” Eddington said, beads of sweat forming below his receding hairline. “You think they picked up the transmission?”

  “I think I don’t give a damn. Luther, where’s that torpedo lock?”

  “Target acquired,” Sloan announced, an almost surreal calm settling over his soul as battle, and perhaps death, approached. “Weapons charged and ready.”

  “Enemy ships entering firing range in…one minute,” Ishikawa said.

  Eddington shook his head. “If only Defiant were here….”

  “How many ships are you reading?” O’Brien asked Ishikawa.

  “Twelve,” she answered. “Including the Negh’Var.”

  O’Brien offered her a mirthless grin. “Pretty good odds, then, even without Defiant.”

  “That’s not funny, Miles…. What if they do force you to attack Bajor?”

  “It won’t come to that.”

  “But—”

  “Keiko, trust me,” Smiley said, his gaze reassuring. “It won’t come to that.”

  Standing on the uppermost platform of the observation tower, Opaka Sulan looked out over her labor camp, noting the regimented discipline of the workforce and its taskmasters, and was satisfied to see the ordered, mechanical efficiency she had cultivated here since taking operational command of the mine three years ago. On the northern side of the camp, huge excavated rectangles descended into Bajor like steps leading into some mythic underworld.

  True, the recently discovered new veins of raw uridium now required them to delve far deeper into her planet’s already-ravaged crust than ever before, but Bajor had come to know unprecedented economic prosperity since becoming the Alliance’s primary supplier of the vital metal. Bajor’s political capital had likewise risen exponentially since the dark days of Imperial Terra, before Bajorans had learned how to influence the quadrant’s great and mighty, and Bajor’s value as a power broker had elevated its status from that of a mere subject world to that of a respected ally.

  Now Terrans and their former associates served Bajorans, performing the backbreaking menial work that kept Bajor—and, by extension, the Alliance—prosperous. One day, perhaps sooner than those in power were willing to acknowledge, the highly coveted resources of Opaka’s world would be gone, exhausted. She hoped she would not live to see it. But then, sadly, there was much she had hoped never to see that had already come to pass.

  How the times do change.

  “What are you thinking about?” her companion asked.

  Opaka continued to survey her domain from the ramparts. “I was thinking about the past,” she admitted, and a chuckle escaped her lips in spite of herself “And the present…and the future.”

  “Really?” the other woman asked. “You know, there are times when I suspect you’re actually proud of this place.”

  Opaka scowled and looked at her friend, but if Winn Adami had intended her comment as a rebuke, no trace of it was apparent in her smile. “You’re teasing me now.”

  Winn shrugged, a motion that was almost lost under the padded armor that covered her upper body. “Maybe a little.”

  Opaka shook her head and returned to her overview of the camp. East of the mine, several cargo skimmers were being filled with raw uridium ore in preparation for its transport to the processing center in Ilvia. “Don’t you have anything better to do than rattle my cage?”

  “You need rattling from time to time,” Winn opined. “If only to keep you on your toes.”

  “I’ve managed this long.”

  “True. But when you first came here, you weren’t nearly so sure of yourself.”

  “Things were different then,” Opaka said. “I was different.”

  “My point exactly,” said Winn. “You were caught unawares by the unexpected, and it changed everything. You need to tread carefully, lest the next change be less to your liking.”

  Opaka was growing impatient. “If you have bad news to deliver, Adami, then out with it! I’m becoming too old to put up with your little tactic of ‘preparing’ me for the latest unpleasantness. Let’s have it.”

  “Terok Nor is under attack.”

  Opaka nodded, somehow not surprised. “I take it you wouldn’t be telling me this if it hadn’t been confirmed.”

  “Your daughter has been monitoring the comnet—”

  “I wish you’d stop calling her that! She isn’t my daughter.”

  “She may as well be,” Winn said. “She certainly looks to you as—”

  “Finish that sentence, Adami, and I swear I’ll push you off this tower.”

  Winn shrugged again. “Fine, have it your way. The fact remains that the battle for Terok Nor is finally upon us, and we need to be ready for the outcome of—” She interrupted herself, apparently distracted by something happening out at the camp’s perimeter. “What’s going on down there?”

  Opaka heard shouts coming from somewhere below. The two women followed the voices to the south rail of the observation platform, from which they could see a flurry of activity around the main guard tower. Outside the fenced perimeter of the camp, a pair of figures were emerging from the wilderness, walking toward the main gate.

  “Who the kosst are they?” Opaka wondered.

  “I have no idea,” Winn said, squinting at the unexpected visitors. “But we won’t find out by remaining up here.”

  Opaka cursed again and went to the lift. Winn followed her, and both women checked their sidearms as they made their rapid descent from the top of the watchtower. Once on the ground, Winn discreetly snapped off orders to her overseers as she and Opaka hurried to the gate, which to her shock and anger her own security people were already pulling open to admit the travelers.

  The chief of the guards ran toward her, looking pale.

  “What’s the meaning of this?” Opaka demanded. “Why did you open the gate without my authorization?”

  “Mistress, it’s…it’s the Intendant,” the chief said.

  Opaka’s eyes narrowed as the visitors strode toward her. The shorter of the two was clearly Kira Nerys, but she wore none of the trappings of her office. Instead she was dressed in drab, baggy clothing of the type that Opaka had seen on the peasants who lived in the valley’s agricultural townships. Her taller companion was similarly dressed, except that he also wore a hood. Although he stood behind Kira and kept his head down, Opaka could see that he was an old human with a close-cropped gray beard.

  This unannounced visit and the attack on Terok Nor cannot be a coincidence, she thought, and her anxiety grew both steadily and insistently.

  “You know who I am, I take it?” Kira asked without preamble, her smile dripping with smugness.

  “Of course, Intendant,” Opaka said, bowing deeply. “Welcome to Vekobet. I am this facility’s administrator, Opaka Sulan. And this is my chief overseer, Winn Adami. Your presence honors us. I regret that I wasn’t informed that you were planning to pay us a visit today. I would have prepared a proper reception, had I known.”


  “Naturally,” Kira said. “But you weren’t meant to know of my coming. My servant and I have been traveling in secret.”

  “May I inquire as to what brings you here?”

  Still smiling, the other woman leaned in and whispered conspiratorially. “My purpose isn’t for the ears of the rabble serving under you. Is there some place where we can speak privately?”

  “Of course. Please follow me.” Opaka nodded to Winn, who dropped back, and then Opaka led her two visitors toward the cluster of sturdy old buildings along the camp’s eastern fence—it was all that remained of the thriving rural community that had occupied this site since long before the Council of Ministers had seized the land for mining operations on the Alliance’s behalf.

  As they crossed the empty intersection at the center of the camp, Opaka offered up a brief history of Vekobet, pointing out its key features, expounding upon the great successes of her administration…and doing her best to keep her visitors’ attention diverted from the Klingon disruptor she was very slowly sliding out of the holster on her hip.

  When she felt the muzzle of an unfamiliar weapon at her neck, she knew her efforts at discretion had been in vain. “Drop the pistol,” Kira whispered in her ear.

  Opaka merely smiled.

  “I said, drop the pistol,” Kira hissed, pressing the weapon against her skin.

  “I think not,” Opaka whispered back. “Take a good look around you.”

  She felt the younger woman’s head turning, first left and then right, and slowly the weapon at Opaka’s neck eased off. The entire camp had fallen silent. Following Winn’s silent orders, both the “workers” and the “overseers”—nearly three hundred strong—had drawn disruptors of their own, each and every weapon targeted at the visitors.

  “All right, look,” Captain Kira Nerys said as the alternate Winn Adami moved in to confiscate their phasers. “We’re not who you think we are.”