Star Trek: Terok Nor 03: Dawn of the Eagles (34 page)

“Dukat,” the legate said shortly.
“I’ve given it much thought, and I believe my plan to reorganize the Bajoran government is best for all concerned.”

Dukat gritted his teeth. Why did Kell continue to concern himself with details of the annexation? Dukat felt smothered.

“We need to discuss the particulars of the transition, as I would like to see the alteration occur as soon as possible,”
Kell went on.
“But first, I feel it would be best to appoint a committee among some of your more trusted advisers, in order—”

A red light flashed on the console to Dukat’s right, accompanied by an audible alarm. Kell broke off speaking, his expression parodying surprise.
“What is that?”

Dukat was already reacting, having swiveled to regard the console at his right-hand side. There had been a failure of the program managing the sensor towers on the surface, guiding the sweeps and returning the data to Terok Nor.

“I must go, Legate,” he said, ending the transmission without another word. He immediately alerted engineering, then called for his communications officer to start contacting surface bases for reports.

He spent a moment trying to call up more information on the nature of the failure, but the computer was giving him nothing. Frustrated, he stepped out into Ops, looking over his shivering skeleton crew as they went to task, working diagnostics and gathering information. The initial reports were bad—there was nothing coming up from the grid, no data being recorded at all, on any continent. Dukat sent them to double-check, his best hope right now was that the Bajorans on the surface would not learn of the failure.

He thought of the Ferengi, that ridiculous idiom repeating itself:
When it rains, it rains extremely hard…

“Get me a diagnostic of the most vulnerable sites on the surface,” he barked. “I need troops in place anywhere that is susceptible to insurgent attacks.”

The dalin at communications spoke up. “There are literally hundreds of them, sir—could you be more specific?”

The female glinn working the sciences station spoke up, confirming the desolate news. “Sir. The entire detection grid has gone dark, sir.”

Dukat took a breath, reminding himself that this was not yet cause for panic. If the Bajorans were not aware that the grid was off line, then unrest on the surface was unlikely—at least, for now. He made a quick mental list of the precautions that must be taken, before the same female glinn spoke with urgency in her voice.

“A report, sir, forwarded from a manufacturing facility in Dahkur—it suggests that insurgents have attacked, but the signal was only partial, they can’t confirm…”

“Gul Dukat, there is a red alert coming in from the military base on the outskirts of Musilla Province!”

“A facility in Gerhami Province has gone offline!”

“Another report, sir, from Ilvia—”

More shouts, console lights winking and pulsing, simultaneous reports of scattered disasters, and Dukat felt his internal temperature plummeting, becoming as cold as his space station. This was not accidental, nor, likely, was the distraction of the environmental malfunction. This was sabotage, a carefully planned attack, and it had occurred on the prefect’s watch—on his own station.

T
he man who now stood at the podium was proving himself to be a poor speaker. Though it had been arranged far in advance of this date that he would preside over the meeting, Natima suspected that he felt uneasy with the location she had chosen—an empty classroom at the University of Prekiv, Natima’s alma mater and current place of employment.

Natima had worked very hard to get to her current position; in just under five years, she had earned a postgraduate position as an assistant professor in the political sciences department. She continued to take classes in her spare time, and expected to be a full-fledged professor within the next two years; Natima was nothing if not driven. But she was also nothing if not cautious about her own political status as a dissident, and she would not have agreed to host the meeting if she were not confident that the meeting would be private.

She knew that most of the staff here at the university were sympathetic to her causes, particularly those professors who worked in her department. Natima was confident that any members of the university staff who felt otherwise could not touch her. She had flourished within the precise hierarchy of the university system, and she knew her place in it. This classroom was by far the safest public location the group could have chosen to meet in—safer than in a private residence, for large gatherings at people’s homes were often secretly monitored by the government. Universities were generally better protected from that sort of intrusion, enjoying a certain measure of lenience in the name of education. Cardassians still valued education and knowledge very highly in the great scheme of their society, for it was the Cardassians’ superior knowledge that had allowed their scientific community to be one of the most advanced in the galaxy.

The soundproof room was large, with chairs arranged in semicircular rows before a podium in the center. The design of the classroom, with graduated tiers rising up to the back of the room, made amplification devices unnecessary, helping to ensure that conversation was not likely to be monitored. Natima had personally checked for listening devices, and as she had expected, there were none. But Dr. Tuken, a professor from the settlement in the Cuellar system who had been chosen to chair the meeting this afternoon, still appeared too ill at ease to speak freely. His statements were vague, his intentions unclear. Natima felt a little annoyed, for she took the man’s unease as a sign of his mistrust in her. She found his overly cautious, halting manner to be distracting, as well.

She glanced across the room to Gaten Russol, now a gul in the military, and saw from his expression that he was thinking the same thing that she was. After so many years of friendship, she could read him like a book. He met her eye, and then he stood.

“Thank you, Doctor Tuken,” Russol said smoothly, “for that introduction. I have a few items that I wish to address.”

“Of course, Gul Russol,” Tuken said, and stepped down from the podium. If he resented the interruption, he didn’t show it; nearly everyone knew to defer to Gul Russol. If their unnamed movement had a leader, it was Gaten Russol, and while the membership remained only somewhere in the hundreds, the squabbling and lack of direction of days past was gone now. The small, committed groups around the Union had mostly narrowed their focus toward common goals.

“Regarding my communication with the Federation,” Russol began, which brought up a faint murmur from a few people seated around the room. Talk of Federation correspondence was probably the riskiest topic anyone could have chosen to address out loud, even taking the new treaty into consideration. It was certainly an attention getter. Natima thought he may have deliberately chosen it to offset Tuken’s cautious approach, and watched with mounting interest. Her friend seemed especially intense this day, his shoulders tight, his expression grim.

“The talks have been mostly fruitless,” he went on. “The Federation adheres to a very strict set of rules regarding involvement in other worlds’ affairs. They are reluctant to help us, especially now that they have a treaty with our government. The treaty has, unfortunately, weakened our position with our own people, for there were many who felt that the struggles over the border territories were drawing strength from the Union. Now, many of those Cardassian subjects who were beginning to lose faith in the military government have been placated by the treaty.”

Natima nodded, along with many of the others. The movement had lost a few of its followers as a result of the treaty, although most of the people involved with the dissidents felt that Cardassia’s social, political, and economic woes could not be solved with one insincere treaty. Natima was sure the treaty was simply a means for Central Command to buy some time while it plotted its next move. But even if it had been genuine, the treaty was no better than a sticky plaster over a terminal hemorrhage.

“We all know that Cardassia has problems that extend far beyond the border colonies,” Russol said, echoing Natima’s thoughts. “The violence on Bajor is worse than ever. Even more perplexing, it is said that the resources there will not last another generation—but Central Command will not admit that it is time to withdraw our presence on that annexed world. And yet—” Russol paused dramatically to look around the room at his friends and cohorts. “What if we did pull out of Bajor? What would happen then?”

More murmuring as people in the audience muttered the answers to themselves and to the people seated near them. Russol spoke again, his eyes shining passionately. “Some say our government would simply look for another world to exploit, instead of drawing on the strengths of our own world, our own people—we would look for other worlds to conquer, instead of forming alliances that could help Cardassia become self-sufficient. But I do not see that as a foregone conclusion.

“We know that the Detapa Council has relatively little power in our governmental structure. In leaner times, our world was forced to defer to the military, stripping the power away from our civilian leaders. However, a majority vote coming from that body can still make certain decisions for Cardassia Prime. The issue, as we all know, is that the varied interests of the council members has made it all but impossible to achieve a majority vote on anything. We know it, and Central Command knows it. But what if this were to change?”

Russol leaned forward on the podium, as if to draw his audience physically closer for what he was about to say. “We can’t rely on the Federation, or anyone else, to help us anymore,” he said. “It’s time for more drastic measures. We have talked long enough, and now we have to act.”

A hush had fallen over the room, until someone finally spoke. “What are you proposing, Gul Russol?” It was Dr. Tuken, his voice trembling slightly.

“We cannot expect any change to come about from the military—we need the Detapa Council to be on our side,” he said. “In recent years, with no small thanks to the efforts of the people here, many of the civilian leaders on the council have begun to favor a position very much like our own. In fact,” he added, “there is more than one member of the Detapa Council taking an active involvement in our movement.”

A number of people looked surprised, others seemed to know exactly of whom he was speaking. He did not say it, but Natima assumed he meant Kotan Pa’Dar—Russol would never confirm that the man was a dissenter, but Natima had long believed it was true.

“The division of power in the Detapa Council still swings in the general direction of Central Command, however. But if one seat on the council were to go vacant—were to be filled by a sympathizer—the balance would tip in our direction. Yoriv Skyl, who is an exarch at one of the Bajoran settlements, is poised to take the next open seat. I believe that Skyl would vote in favor of withdrawal, if the issue were to come to the council. Legate Ghemor and a few other important people with influence over Central Command mean to bring the item up for decision in less than one year.”

A few of the people in attendance looked poised to applaud, optimism quickly spreading from one person to the next. But Russol was quick to interrupt them.

“Our problem, of course, is how to make that position…vacant. How can we guarantee the dismissal of tyrannical and corrupt civilian prefects and exarchs when their terms have no limit? What can we do?”

The room fell absolutely silent, and Natima’s heart sank as she recognized the rhetorical questions for what they were, what Russol was suggesting. It seemed impossible, a stretch of character she would not have imagined of him, but the gravity in his voice was unmistakable. He was so desperate to pull his world’s involvement out of Bajor that he would condone assassination.

“It is for the good of Cardassia,” he said calmly.

“Is there no other way?” Natima asked, before he could put voice to the details.

“There is one other alternative,” he said, his tone belying no emotion at all. “But I believe that a few selected eliminations would be preferable to a coup, which may not produce the desired effect, and will almost certainly result in more deaths.”

Still, no one spoke, and Russol continued to sweep his gaze across the room, making steady eye contact with each person in attendance, one at a time. “I would not propose such a thing if I did not believe that it was necessary, and that now is the optimum time to act. The only time to act.”

Someone cleared his throat, and a quiet chatter began to rise once more. “But, Gul Russol,” someone called out, “how can we advocate for peace and murder at the same time?”

“We can’t,” Russol told him. “We simply must accept that we are forced to compromise our values in order to achieve the desired result—for the greater good. But it is as I say—there is no other way.”

Many questions followed, which resulted in a few short arguments, but most were quelled by Russol’s blunt responses. He had examined the issue from every angle, he informed the room, and he firmly believed that the time to strike was now.

After a good hour of moderately heated discussion, a vote was taken, and though Natima was hesitant to do so, she lent her support to Russol’s proposal. In the end, Natima was not the only one who chose to agree to Russol’s controversial tactics. When Dr. Tuken tallied the votes, Natima was surprised to learn that a strong majority had voted for it as well.

So this is what we’ve come to,
she thought, looking around the room at downcast eyes, faces that seemed to reflect less patriotic zeal than usual. The vote had been secret, but the looks on the faces of those present were clear enough to reveal who had voted for the advocacy of murders—the deliberate killing of Union members—and who had not. Natima knew her own expression was far from innocent.
Are we any better than that which we seek to overthrow?

“Don’t patronize me, Kubus,” Dukat snapped. “I am fully aware that I look like a complete fool right now. To the Bajorans—and to my superiors in Central Command.”

Kubus Oak coughed, quickly losing hope that this conversation would be brief, his placating manner seen for what it was. He disliked the prefect’s office, preferring to keep his conversations with Dukat confined to the infinitely more comfortable comm system; but ever since Basso Tromac had vanished, Dukat had begun to treat Kubus more like an assistant than a political cohort. It wasn’t as though their relationship had ever been on much of an even keel, but Kubus had never felt so much like a subordinate as in recent years, and it seemed to be getting worse as time went by. “As I was saying, it
was
an unfortunate incident,” he said, “but there is no need to—”

“Incident?” Dukat laughed. “You speak as though this is some past event! My men have been unable to repair the detection grid on a global scale, Kubus, and we have only been able to maintain secondary systems in a few locales. Someone is going to pay for this.”

Kubus was ready for him. “I have heard a great many rumors from my contacts,” he offered. “They believe this is primarily the work of terrorists in Dahkur. They hide somewhere in the hills, though there has been no physical evidence of their exact location. It might be preferable to simply…” Kubus hesitated as he noticed that Dukat was shaking his head, but he uncertainly went on, “…destroy the entire region…”

“No,” Dukat told him. “There are valuable commodities in that part of Dahkur. Minerals, timber…Give me someone else, Secretary.”

“Someone else?” Kubus felt uncomfortably pressed, his mind going blank. He had been sure that the cell in Dahkur would be enough to satisfy Dukat, and he didn’t know what to say now that his suggestion had been rejected.

There was a long pause while Kubus tried to come up with something useful. “Well, there is believed to be an especially large cell in Kendra Province. I have no hard evidence that they had any involvement, but—”

“Did I ask for hard evidence?” Dukat said coldly. “Can this cell be pinpointed?”

“I…believe…their hiding place is somewhat more definitive than some of the others, but—”

“Then why have they not been brought to my attention before now?”

Kubus suddenly realized what a terrible mistake he was making. “Well…sir…that cell…It’s rumored that one of their members…is the son of our religious leader—”

“The kai’s son?” Dukat said, his expression suddenly changing to reflect his apparent interest. Kubus felt his heart sink like a stone.

“Yes, sir, that’s correct. No Bajoran is willing to reveal their exact location, but there is a general idea of where they might be found, near the forest just outside of the Kendra provincial seat…”