Star Trek: Terok Nor 02: Night of the Wolves (30 page)

Sa’kat went on. “The last people to walk the Way disappeared many years ago. Central Command tried to round them up and exterminate them, ship them to Bajor and the surrounding colonies, where they were never heard from again. But they didn’t get everyone. There were still a few left behind. They weren’t killed, they simply…went underground. And then they stopped practicing altogether.”

“And you—you were one of those?” It surprised her, since he appeared to be so young—not much older than she was, by her estimation, though it was not always easy to tell with soldiers. Something in their hardened expressions seemed to make them ageless.

Sa’kat shook his head. “No,” he said. “I was not. But my parents were.”

Ah. “The Way is not dead, only…”

“Only sleeping,” he finished. “Waiting. Waiting for you.” He began to walk quickly again, and she scrambled to keep up.

“But why me?” she protested. “As you say, I knew nothing of Oralius when I began to have those dreams, when I saw the woman by the creek. She showed me a mask! She said her name was Astraea—”

Sa’kat stopped walking. “You
saw
her?”

“Yes. Who…who is she?”

“She is—or was—a guide, for Oralius.”

Miras shook her head, still not understanding. “Oralius, who was he? Why did people follow him?”

“Not him,” Sa’kat corrected her. “Oralius, though She has no corporeal form, is usually referred to in the feminine, at least in the sect favored by my parents.”

“No corporeal form? Like a…a ghost?”

Sa’kat laughed. “A ghost, a spirit, if you like. She follows no linear time, and She does not inhabit a body, like you or I. She is always with us, but She needs a guide, a spiritual vessel, to channel Her. We have been without a guide for nearly a century. After the death of the last guide, it was written that Her Way would collapse, until the emergence of the next guide.”

“The next guide,” Miras repeated. She was beginning to understand now. She was beginning to understand that Sa’kat believed
she
was that guide. Although she was not certain if she believed it herself.

“How can you be so sure that this is—”

“I can’t be sure,” he said, cutting her off. He resumed walking. “Nobody can be sure of anything, can they? But there are those things that we believe strongly enough, that we would be willing to take serious risk for them. That is the definition of faith, Astraea.”

“Faith,” she echoed, quite without realizing that she had spoken it aloud.

They had passed through the rusting dead zone and were beginning to come into the portion of the city that was inhabited. There were a few pedestrians milling around up ahead of them on the sidewalk, along with the occasional soldier, dressed identically to Sa’kat, patrolling the sector.

His voice dropped to a confidential tone. “I will tell you more of this when we arrive. You will be safe there. I have many contacts, in all facets of society, who will do whatever it takes to keep you from harm’s reach.”

Miras was overwhelmed. “And you will show me the book?”

“Yes,” he said. “It is almost time to begin.”

He smiled at her then, and she saw powerful feelings in his gaze: awe and fear, amusement, and a shining brightness that she could not name.

“It is time for us to be reborn,” he said, and for the first time since she’d dreamed of the Hebitian woman, since her life had effectively been hijacked by the Orb, she felt as if things might work out, after all.

N
erys was crying as she made her way to the shrine nearest to her father’s house, and she wiped her eyes with shame. She was no longer a child, she was ten years old, and there was no excuse for tears—not even after what had happened. Some people had to endure worse, much worse. And anyway, why should she cry when the Cardassians had let her go? She was safe, she could go back home to her father and her brothers—but that was just it, wasn’t it? She was safe, but Petra Chan wasn’t.

Nerys entered the shrine, looking hopefully for Prylar Istani. Her brothers and her uncle and cousins had all just dismissed her tears. They told her to stop behaving like this when really they should all just be grateful that they were together, while her father had been sympathetic but strangely distant. Nerys couldn’t forget the look on Chan’s face when the Cardassians had taken her away. How could she ever forget such a thing? It positively haunted her, and though she’d always lived with the aliens’ presence, had even encountered a few very unpleasant soldiers in her short life, the day that they had come to Dahkur and taken away a dozen teenage girls in the village was perhaps the most stark and terrifying event Nerys had ever witnessed.

Nerys did not encounter Prylar Istani right away; instead, she found Vedek Porta tending the shrine. She tried not to let disappointment show in her voice when she greeted him, for though she respected the old man, she certainly could not speak to him about what had happened—and how she felt about it.

“Nerys, I’d take it you’re looking for Istani Reyla,” Vedek Porta said knowingly.

“Oh…” Nerys began, not wishing to be unkind, but the old priest merely inclined his head and went for the vestibule at the back of the shrine, where he soon emerged with Prylar Istani, dressed in her traditional orange robes. Vedek Porta left them alone, and Istani stretched out her arms.

“Nerys!” the kind-faced woman greeted her. “You’ve been crying. Come. Sit with me and tell me what troubles you.”

Nerys sat gratefully on the bare floor facing the woman who had been a friend to the Kira family since before Nerys was born. Nerys felt as though she could confide almost anything to Istani, who always listened without judging—unlike her brothers—and with the feminine understanding that Nerys’s father seemed unable to grasp.

“It’s just…the other day, when the Cardassians came…”

Istani’s face darkened, and she squeezed Nerys’s hand. “Yes, Nerys. It was a terrible day.”

“But…why? What did they want with those girls?”

The prylar’s voice was soft with hesitation, and Nerys had the impression that she was concealing something from her. “Perhaps…they wanted younger girls, so that they can begin training them for a particular job that is easier learned in one’s youth…”

“I told them,” Nerys sniffled, “when they came to the center of town and began to select girls from the crowd, I shouted that they should choose me instead of Petra Chan…” Nerys began almost to sob now, for she missed her friend, the teenage girl who’d been like a mentor and older sister, and Nerys feared terribly for her safety. “But…but…,” she continued, “they said I was too young, and too scrawny…and Petra Chan isn’t even that much older than me…and she’s thinner than I am!”

“Nerys,” Istani said, her voice soothing, “the Prophets will look after Petra Chan now, and you must thank Them for Their blessings. You and your family have always had plenty to eat, and you are together—”

“Not my mother,” Kira pointed out, aware that she was being, as her brothers often accused her, a pessimist, only seeing the negative side of things. Of course she should be counting her blessings for having avoided whatever fate had befallen those teenage girls. She should be relieved that the Cardassians took Chan instead of her, but she didn’t feel lucky or blessed—she felt guilty and angry.

“Nerys, my child,” Istani crooned, reading the tortured agony in Nerys’s face, “you will have to come to terms with your anger. We all suffer—it is part of the cycle of life. But it pleases the Prophets when Their children can transcend a life mired in misery, even in these…conditions.”

Nerys said nothing for a moment, only finished having her cry, and then caught her breath, her head now resting on the prylar’s shoulder. She thought, but did not say aloud, that if there were some way she could fight back, even a small way, if there were some way of surpassing these feelings of complete helplessness, maybe she could finally come to terms with how unhappy she felt. Maybe she could finally begin to achieve the peace she craved, the peace she knew the Prophets wanted her to have. But what could she do, as a ten-year-old girl?

Sitting there in the shrine, the last of her sobs calming themselves in her chest, she made a silent vow. She made it for her mother, and for Petra Chan, and for everyone else she knew who had been taken away or who had died. And mostly, she made it for herself; for the child who had never experienced childhood.

Dukat scowled when he received the call from ops; he didn’t care for the way the new glinn in security delivered his messages. The manner in which the soldier bit off the ends of his words irritated Dukat, and he disliked that the man insisted on being referred to by his given name. The prefect had initially refused, but since nearly everyone else on the station had fallen into the habit, Dukat would maddeningly find himself referring to the soldier as just “Thrax.”

T
oo many eccentricities,
Dukat decided,
and he’s too remote. Still, those are hardly actionable offenses.

The comm signaled again. Dukat sighed. “What is it, Thrax?”

“You asked to be informed when Gul Darhe’el’s transport was on approach. It will dock in ten metrics.”

“Ah, yes,” Dukat said, smirking as he considered the conversation that was about to take place. “At last he graces us with his presence. Have an honor guard meet him at the airlock. See that he is escorted directly to my office.”

“Acknowledged.”

It was not long before Dukat’s office doors parted, and the dour-faced Darhe’el crossed the threshold, looking somewhat drawn. Dukat remained seated behind his great black desk, but pointedly did not invite the other man to take one of the guest chairs. “Gul Darhe’el. Welcome back.”

“Prefect,” Darhe’el said tightly. His voice was cold and hard, as always.

Dukat, by contrast, kept his tone gregarious. “And how was your stay on Cardassia?”

The other man was clearly fighting to rein in his contempt, which amused Dukat no end. Darhe’el always was too arrogant for his own good. “It was brief,” he answered with exaggerated stiffness.

The prefect chuckled. “Yes, I expect it was. Congratulations, by the way, on receiving the Proficient Service Medallion. I must confess that I had wondered if you got the news about the accident at Gallitep while they were pinning the medal on your chest, or if they waited until the reception.” Darhe’el’s only answer was his cold stare, and Dukat finally rose from his chair, abandoning the game. “But we aren’t here to discuss the honors that have recently been heaped upon you, are we?” He picked up one of several padds scattered across his desk, and slowly walked around to the other side, reading the report that was displayed on the device’s tiny screen. “Dozens dead, with the number expected to rise in the coming days; even more permanently disabled; fully one third of the Bajorans and Cardassians in the camp believed to be afflicted with a malady we don’t even have a name for yet…and all mining activity temporarily suspended.” He tossed the padd back onto the desk. It clattered loudly as it landed. “I don’t appreciate having to clean up your messes.”

Darhe’el held Dukat’s gaze. “We both understand what this amounts to, Prefect—the one issue behind which we have always stood together: insufficient resources to manage the annexation properly. Lack of adequate personnel, lack of proper equipment—”

Dukat snorted. “You’re not going to escape responsibility for this by laying the blame at the feet of Central Command, that I can assure you. The fact of the matter is that
your
men mishandled a crisis that never should have arisen.”

“I was informed that the AI failed to correctly identify a pocket of poisonous gas—a toxin of a type never before encountered…”

“This was hardly the fault of the artificial intelligence,” Dukat snapped. “This was the fault of the men who were supposed to have been trained to operate the system, to correct for inevitable failures on the part of the machine—the men who serve under
you
. This is about your facility falling apart while you were enjoying the accolades of Central Command under the Cardassian sun.”

For the first time, Darhe’el’s face lost its scowl as his mouth spread into a thin smile. “Is the prefect asking me to resign from my post?”

Dukat’s eyes narrowed. In fact, he wanted much more than to remove Darhe’el from Gallitep—he wanted him off Bajor. Darhe’el was a longtime favorite of Kell, and had been the legate’s personal choice to become prefect of the annexation, before Dukat’s secret maneuvering among the other members of Central Command had overridden Kell’s decision and secured the posting for himself. Dukat ascended, while Darhe’el remained at Gallitep. But the fact that the two guls were on opposite poles when it came to Bajoran policy wasn’t something that Kell had overlooked when he required Darhe’el to remain in charge of the mine. Of that Dukat was certain. Kell might be outwardly magnanimous, but he was unlikely ever to forgive Dukat, with whom he had long been at odds, for outmaneuvering him. Darhe’el was there to be Kell’s thorn in Dukat’s side…one the prefect was effectively powerless to remove.

“No,” he finally said in answer to Darhe’el’s question. Kell would never allow the other gul’s removal, not while Gallitep was productive, and Darhe’el knew that. Even Dukat’s political allies in Central Command would have none of it; they could hardly support the idea that the recently decorated Darhe’el bore responsibility for the mining accident. If anything, their public statements would emphasize the fact that, by taking place during Darhe’el’s absence, the accident proved how vital he was to Cardassian interests on Bajor. Nor would they be persuaded that insufficient resources and manpower were to blame for what happened. In the end, Dukat knew, the fault would land squarely where it always did: at the feet of Bajor’s prefect.

Dukat turned away from the other man and went back to his chair, speaking as he rounded his desk again. “Your file will be updated to contain an official reprimand. Gallitep is to be made fully operational again within five days. New troops will be provided to bring your personnel up to its previous level, and I’ll speak to Secretary Kubus about replenishing your workforce. The laborers who were exposed will continue to work for the time being. When they show symptoms of the disease, we can assess whether it will be feasible to treat them—or if they would be better off at Dr. Moset’s…hospital.” The good doctor was always in need of new test subjects for his Fostossa vaccines. “For the next two service quartiles, you will operate as usual, but you will be required to deliver semi-quarterly reports and submit to inspections by officials of my choosing—”

“The AI will require an upgrade.”

“You are hardly in a position to be making demands,” Dukat snapped.

“And I didn’t think I needed to remind you that Gallitep is by far Bajor’s most productive—”

“
Was
Bajor’s most productive facility. Terok Nor surpassed it some time ago, even before this…mishap.”

“I meant to say on the
surface
of Bajor, of course,” Darhe’el amended. “Though we both know that Terok Nor does not produce anything, only processes what Gallitep and facilities like it provide.”

Dukat busied himself with one of the other padds on his desk, refusing to look up. “Perhaps you should get back to what’s left of your facility now, Darhe’el.”

“Are you officially denying me the upgrade I’ve requested?”

“Qualified personnel for such delicate work are at a premium, as you know perfectly well. But I’ll see what I can do.”

“And the executions?”

Dukat scoffed. “What executions?”

“The examples we need to make to discourage further acts of sabotage.”

“This wasn’t an act of sabotage.”

“Does that matter?” Darhe’el asked. “News of the accident will spread, if it hasn’t already. The insurgents will use it in their propaganda. The facts will be distorted to fit their ends. They may even claim responsibility for bringing Gallitep to a standstill, and that in turn will embolden their countrymen to contemplate more acts of terrorism. We have to stop it before it starts.”

Dukat sighed. “I’ll take your suggestion under advisement.”

Darhe’el abruptly left the spot to which he’d rooted himself, and leaned toward Dukat with both hands on the gleaming black surface of the prefect’s desk. His voice was surprisingly quiet. “You’re throwing it away, Dukat. All of it. Bajor should have been brought under control long ago, but you insist on coddling these people. You want them to love you when you should be making them fear you. You’ve yet to learn that no one believes in benevolent despots.”

“Are you finished?” Dukat asked.

Darhe’el straightened, his expression as he looked down at Dukat one of undisguised disgust. “Permission to disembark…
sir.”