The fusion core pulsed with power. Though noticeably cold, the entire space hummed with energy, as if charged, like the air before a planetside electrical storm. In the center of the vertical conduit—one of six that attached above to the midcore power-transfer hub of Deep Space 9—an immense, brilliant column of harnessed force flowed upward, carrying the output of one of the four fully functioning reactors to the rest of the space station.
Security Chief Jefferson Blackmer paced around the metallic mesh walkway that circled the coruscating pillar of energy, headed for the ladder that would take him down to the reactor itself. He looked everywhere about him, not allowing his gaze to dart, but trying to take in every surface. In the bulkheads along the round walkway, as with the bulkheads enclosing all twenty-five levels above the reactor, few control panels or access plates interrupted the many rows of sensors that kept a meticulous watch on the flood of magnetically contained power. The security officer thought—and hoped—that he would be able to distinguish anything out of place.
Blackmer rarely visited the lower core, although circumstances had brought him down there just two days before. He still felt relatively new to DS9, having transferred from the Perseverance less than a year earlier. He had replaced Lieutenant Commander Evik Nath, a middle-aged Bajoran whose death from natural causes clearly shocked and saddened the crew and residents of the station. Perhaps because Evik had been so well liked and so highly regarded—Blackmer still heard the man’s name fondly mentioned around DS9—the reception of the new security chief had trended toward the cool side. In particular, while Captain Ro treated him professionally, she also plainly resisted establishing the sort of easy familiarity she demonstrated with Colonel Cenn and Lieutenant Tenmei and other crew members. After ten months’ active duty on the station, Blackmer had essentially given up attempting to gain the friendship of his commanding officer, settling instead for her respect and a utilitarian working relationship.
When he’d finished inspecting the grid on which he stood, Blackmer swung onto the ladder and climbed down to the reactor chamber. As he understood it, Deep Space 9’s original lower core had been jettisoned and destroyed some years earlier, then replaced with the core of an abandoned Cardassian station. The half-dozen energized-plasma generators had been manufactured more than three decades earlier. Over the course of the seven or so years since the second core had been installed, Starfleet engineers maintained and upgraded the reactors, but only four of the complex mechanisms continued in regular use. The other two reactors remained off line, though the engineering staff sporadically coaxed them into service to ensure that they could serve as functional backups during repair cycles or in the case of an emergency. Since DS9 did not operate as an ore-processing facility—one of the major uses for which the Cardassians had originally constructed the station—the four reactors provided more than sufficient power.
Blackmer moved slowly about the huge compartment at the base of the lower core. The generators towered above him as he visually scanned the area. His flesh prickled, a sensation like a colony of insects swarming over his body. He wanted to leave, but since he hadn’t finished what he’d gone there to do, he didn’t think that he should.
The security chief didn’t know for precisely what he searched, but he understood how to categorize it: something left behind. A tool, a tricorder, a phaser … something. He acted out of concern and even fear, because he’d learned long ago to trust his instincts. In his position, he could rely on little else.
As Blackmer studied one of the massive reactors, he wondered about the methods employed to secure the lower core. Deflector shields and a specially designed hull protected the station against unauthorized transport from beyond its confines, but had measures been taken to ensure that nobody could beam in to the reactor compartment from within DS9? He didn’t know with certainty—though he recognized that he should—but he also doubted it, as such a scheme would compromise the safety of Starfleet personnel. The engineering team did not continuously crew the lower core during the normal operation of the generators, but emergency transport protocols would still need to be available in the event of a mishap.
Except that the power flow probably inhibits beaming in or out anyway, the security chief realized. Again, he didn’t know, but he should.
A plate on the nearest reactor identified it as reactor three. Around its circumference, numbers and symbols paraded across a host of display screens. Blackmer studied them for a moment, not really searching for anything out of the ordinary, as he likely wouldn’t have discerned an abnormality even if he saw one. He also knew that any problems with the reactors, or any alterations to their performance, would trigger warnings in the operations center.
Taking a few steps back, Blackmer peered beneath the inward curve of the generator’s base. He moved slowly around it until he returned to where he’d started. Finding nothing that caught his attention, he moved on.
In the same way, Blackmer examined each of the reactors, including four and six, despite their nonoperational status. Doing so, he circumnavigated the compartment. Choosing caution over expedience, the security chief then made a second circuit, examining not the generators, but the workstations that lined the bulkheads. Sometimes, when he spotted access panels, he pulled them off and peered inside. He felt like a blind man searching for color.
Once he returned to reactor three a second time, Blackmer stopped. His eyelids had grown heavy, notwithstanding the great vibratory drone that enveloped him. He doubted himself, wondering just how observant he’d been on his last circuit around the compartment. More than that, he had yet to scale the power-transfer conduits for four of the reactors so that he could subject those spaces to his scrutiny.
With fatigue fast washing over him, he moved to the nearest companel. He raised a hand and jabbed at it, bringing it to life. “Computer, what time is it?”
“The time is zero-one-twenty-seven hours,” said the familiar, feminine voice of the station’s primary processor.
Great, Blackmer thought. Not just after midnight, but well after. He’d spent more than two and a half hours roaming through the lower core. He’d intended only to make a cursory pass through the reactor deck, had even planned on a quick stop by Quark’s afterward. Obviously, he’d gotten caught up in a search that had quickly become painstaking, and he’d lost track of the hour.
No time to visit Quark’s now, he thought. He’d hoped to visit the bar before turning in because he would have little opportunity to do so after tonight, at least in the near term. With preparations continuing in earnest for the arrival of the Typhon Pact vessels later in the week, Blackmer would need to rise early and work long hours in the coming days.
Maybe just a quick stroll on the Promenade, he thought, if only to catch a fleeting glimpse of Treir’s smile. Then, alone in the lower core, Blackmer shook his head and chuckled at himself. He grasped the scope of his foolishness, given what he’d come to Deep Space 9 to accomplish. Additionally, he had to admit that Treir had shown no interest in his advances. Or rather, she responded to his flirtations in the same way that she did with everyone else who wooed her, men and women alike: with a flip of the red hair she’d grown long, with a smile, a laugh, a stroke of one hand along the curve of her hip. Whatever game anybody played with her, she played it right back, and she always appeared to emerge victorious—usually netting nothing more than an increased tip, as best the security chief could tell, but she had a gift for rebuffing admirers without turning them into disgruntled customers. But even though Treir seemed to enjoy taking on the role of coquette, Blackmer saw past that, perceiving a strong personality and fierce intellect behind her dancing eyes and radiant green skin. When he spoke with her, she often—
Blackmer didn’t know if he heard some foreign sound amid the constant rumble of the lower core, or if maybe he saw the flicker of a reflection on the companel screen. Regardless, he all at once knew that somebody else had entered the reactor compartment and stood behind him. He knew it even before he turned and saw a phaser leveled in his direction.
Ro Laren woke with a start. Pushing herself up in bed, she heard a voice, but it sounded unintelligible, as though muffled or far away. Fully asleep just a moment before, her foggy mind could not make sense of the words. As she worked to rouse herself, she waited, expecting that the message would be repeated. It was.
After the light tones that signaled the opening of a communications channel, a voice said, “Ops to Captain Ro.”
She recognized the speaker as Lieutenant Aleco Vel, the officer on duty in ops during the delta shift. “Ro here,” she said. Her voice sounded gravelly, and she quietly cleared her throat. “Go ahead.”
“Captain, this is Lieutenant Aleco,” he said. “We’ve got an unscheduled entry into the reactor core.”
Unscheduled, Ro thought. Not unauthorized. Which likely meant that one of the engineering crew had decided to conduct maintenance after hours. “Is there a problem?” she asked. “I’ve stressed to the crew that, whenever possible, they should take the initiative, rather than just being reactive. That’s especially the case, considering who we’ll be seeing by the end of the week.”
“Captain,” said Aleco slowly, as though reluctant to divulge something that he knew he must. “It’s Chief Blackmer.”
Blackmer! Ro threw aside the bedclothes and bounded from atop her mattress. She’d slept in her underwear, and so she reached at once for the uniform she’d worn the previous day, which lay draped across the back of a comfortable chair in the corner. “Did he just enter the reactor core now?”
“No, we only found out about it now,” Aleco said. “But it appears that he’s been there for at least an hour, maybe longer. The reactor compartment was empty, and we think he overrode the security seal. We wouldn’t have even known except that Lieutenant Merimark was running diagnostics on the reactors and happened to notice a slight increase in the power usage to cool the compartment. That only happens when there are personnel there, and since there was nothing on the schedule, the lieutenant mentioned it. The computer confirmed the chief’s identity. We thought you’d want to know.”
Because you’re aware that I don’t completely trust our new chief of security, Ro thought. Although she’d never said anything of the kind to her crew, she also knew that sometimes she projected her apprehensions about Blackmer.
After stepping into her uniform pants, she pulled her red, command-division undershirt over her head. “Have two armed security officers meet me outside the main entrance to the lower core,” she said. “Make sure nobody contacts Mister Blackmer before we get there.” She declined to refer to him as lieutenant commander or chief, rejecting the esteem inherent in the use of his Starfleet rank or DS9 position.
“Yes, Captain,” Aleco said.
“Ro out.” She grabbed the gray-shouldered overshirt of her uniform and raced from her bedroom, across the living area of her quarters, and out into the corridor. Only when she’d entered a lift and specified her destination did she finish donning her official captain’s attire.
As the cab accelerated through the habitat ring on its way to the lower core, Ro worried about the newest addition to her senior staff, and about what he might be doing in the reactor compartment. Ever since he’d first arrived at Deep Space 9, she’d felt uncertain about him. She understood that, at least initially, her misgivings probably resulted from the sudden and not entirely explicable death of Evik Nath. But even as the crew dealt with the upsetting loss of their colleague and friend, Ro continued to feel unsettled about Blackmer. She couldn’t isolate the source of her concern, and so she allowed for the possibility that Evik’s abrupt death persisted in coloring her estimation of his replacement.
Ro had said nothing about her unease to anyone—least of all to Blackmer himself. Instead, she waited to get to know him better, and for her qualms about him to pass. When that didn’t happen, she set about researching his service record. He’d had a middle-of-the-pack ranking at Starfleet Academy, choosing early on in his training to pursue the path of command, but before too long getting shunted over to security. Upon his graduation, Starfleet assigned him to Starbase 189, where he served for five years before being sent to Helaspont Station along the Tzenkethi border for another five-year stretch. During those periods, Blackmer received generally positive performance reviews, and he made steady, if unspectacular, progress up through the security ranks. He also received an occasional demerit along the way, mostly attributed by his senior officers to his being in the wrong place at the wrong time, but that—if Ro understood the subtext of some of the reports—seemed to point to something else going on, though she could not tell what.
Well, it seems like he’s in the wrong place at the wrong time right now, she thought. The lift eased to a stop, then began to descend.
After Blackmer’s postings on Starbase 189 and Helaspont Station, Starfleet detailed him to a series of starships—Trieste, Nova, Sarek, Bellerophon, Perseverance—on each of which he generally stayed for a year or two. Aboard Perseverance, he achieved the rank of lieutenant commander and the position of security chief, but soon after, when the same responsibility opened up on Deep Space 9, he immediately requested a transfer to the station.
Why? Ro wanted to know. Why would Blackmer finally reach one of the highest levels of his profession in one place, then almost at once leave there for another assignment? Maybe there’s an understandable reason, a perfectly innocent explanation, she told herself. But that still wouldn’t explain why his presence on DS9 vexed her.
“Helaspont Station,” Ro said aloud in the empty cab. She kept going back to Blackmer’s lengthy duty along the edge of Tzenkethi space. Two ideas occurred to her. Both seemed absurd, but particularly the first: the notion of a Starfleet officer allying—or even sympathizing—with a difficult, belligerent adversary of the Federation enough for him to take direct action against the UFP. She found it only marginally more believable that somebody in Starfleet could develop such a hatred of a Federation enemy that he would take independent action against that enemy. With the first wave of civilian vessels due to arrive at the station in just a few days, though, Ro could not afford to ignore her intuition.
The lift glided to a halt, and a pair of doors parted to reveal security officers Cardok and Hava, both of whom had served directly under Ro when she’d been the station’s chief of security. They stood in a small antechamber outside the lower core, a large blast door closed behind them. Both carried phasers in their raised hands, and Cardok consulted a tricorder.
Ro exited the lift. “He’s still in there?” she asked.
“Yes, sir,” Cardok said. “We’ve verified that he overrode the security seal at twenty-five-forty-six hours.” His tone sounded tentative.
“Do you have an issue, Lieutenant?” Ro asked sharply. She peered over at Hava, who also seemed to carry an air of reluctance about him, and then back at Cardok.
“No, Captain,” said the Benzite officer. “But this—” He waved his tricorder toward the blast door. “—is Chief Blackmer. What’s he done?”
Ro’s grip on the certainty with which she had rushed from her cabin down to the lower core loosened. “Maybe nothing more than forgetting to properly schedule a security check down here,” she said. Then, softening her stance even more, she added, “Probably nothing more than that. But we’re going to have Romulans and Gorn and Breen on this station in just a few days, and possibly even Tzenkethi and Tholians, so we can’t take any chances when even the slightest deviation from procedure occurs. Understood?”
“Yes, sir,” Cardok said, with no hesitancy.
Ro looked to the other guard. “Lieutenant Hava?”
“Understood, sir.” Hava held out his other hand and offered the captain a phaser of her own.
Ro took the weapon, confirmed its stun setting, and switched off its safety. Then she turned and moved over to where a smaller hatch stood closed within the larger blast door. “Is it locked?”
Cardok studied his tricorder. “Yes, sir, but the security panel doesn’t appear to have been reprogrammed. Any one of us should be able to override the seal.”
Ro nodded. “Is he armed?” she asked.
“Chief Blackmer has a standard-issue phaser,” the lieutenant said, without having to consult his tricorder. Then he did peer at the device’s display, motioned to the hatch, and made a circling motion with his arm until he indicated a point back behind the turbolift.
Ro knew that the shaft for the lift led down through the center of the station’s core, and that the reactor compartment spread out around it. “Let’s go, then,” she said. She reached up to the keypad set into the smaller hatch and tapped in her individual security code. A tone signaled acceptance. She inserted her fingers into the sunken latch and slowly pulled open the hatch.
A current of nondescript noise immediately pushed its way out of the lower core. Ro hoped it covered the noise of their entrance, as well as their footsteps on the deck. As Cardok moved to take the lead, she stopped him with a touch to his upper arm. He stepped back as ordered, allowing the captain to enter first.
Inside, a pair of reactors stood directly ahead, to either side of the blast door. Bright, shimmering light emanated from them at several points, and the displays ranged around their midsections seemed almost alive as constant streams of glyphs marched across them. Looking back at the two security officers, Ro pointed to Hava, then directly down at the deck, indicating that he should stand guard at the door. Hava nodded once. Ro then gestured to Cardok that he should circle around the lower core to the left, while she would go right. He nodded as well.
As Cardok started in one direction, the captain started in the other. As she moved past the first reactor she came to, she saw Blackmer at once. He stood before a companel in the outer bulkhead, his back to her. She padded over to him, but before she could say anything, she saw him stiffen, as though he had heard her approaching. As he began to turn, she lifted her phaser and aimed, prepared for him to spring at her.
He didn’t.
“Chief,” she said, forcing herself to use his title. “What are you doing here?”
“I think probably the same thing as you,” he said.
“I don’t think you are,” Ro said, “since I’m looking for you.”
The captain saw Blackmer’s eyes glance past her. She did not follow his gaze, but after a few seconds, Lieutenant Cardok arrived at her side. Like her, he kept his phaser at the ready.
“Why are you looking for me?” Blackmer asked.
“I’ll ask you once more,” Ro said, her attitude stern, “what are you doing at this time of night in the lower core?”
Blackmer peered over at Cardok again, and then back at Ro. “Captain,” he said, “I think you and I need to speak privately.”
Ro studied Blackmer’s face, tried to measure the serious expression he wore. She could not judge his motives, and she did not trust her own. “You’re right,” she said to him. “We do need to talk.” She reached up and tapped her combadge. “Ro to security.”
“Security,” came the immediate response. “This is Si Naran.”
“Lieutenant,” Ro said, “are any holding cells occupied at this time?”
“No, sir,” Si Naran said.
“Good,” Ro said. “Prepare cell number one to receive a prisoner. Notify ops when you’re ready.”
“Yes, sir. Right away.”
Ro activated her combadge a second time to contact the operations center.
“Ops. Aleco here.”
“Lieutenant,” Ro said. “Site-to-site transport. I want you to beam Mister Blackmer from the lower core into holding cell number one once Lieutenant Si Naran notifies you that he’s ready.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Ro out.” For the first time, she looked away from Blackmer, who appeared to accept his impending incarceration with composure. She peered up and around the reactor compartment, at the vast space so important to the continuing operation of Deep Space 9—so important, and so vulnerable. Looking back at Blackmer, she said, “What have you done here?”
“Done?” he said. “Nothing but conduct a security sweep.”
Ro nodded. “We’ll see.”
Blackmer opened his mouth to respond, but then the whine of the transporter rose in the compartment, the distinctive sound audible even through the blur of reactor noise. The security chief disappeared in eddies of shimmering light. Ro waited for the beaming process to complete, then turned to Cardok.
“I want all available security officers and engineers down here right now,” she ordered. “I want a complete sweep of the entire lower core, up through the power-transfer conduits.”
“What are we looking for, Captain?”
“I don’t know,” Ro said, a sinking feeling in her gut. She gazed around again at the huge space in which energized-plasma reactors generated all of Deep Space 9’s power, and at the complex equipment needed to accomplish that. Locating, or even identifying, an act of sophisticated sabotage could take a long time—perhaps too long. “I don’t know what we’re looking for,” she told Cardok, “but I intend to find out.”
Ro turned on her heel, headed for the security office on the Promenade—and holding cell number one.
After dismissing Jang Si Naran, Ro stood alone in the central holding area, peering into the first of the three cells that surrounded the large room. Jefferson Blackmer faced her from his three-walled space, on the other side of the force field that kept him confined. “All right, Chief,” she said, working to keep her voice level. She knew that antagonizing the lieutenant commander would not net her any answers. “Now we can have the private conversation you wanted.”
“Thank you, Captain,” Blackmer said.
The polite reply momentarily disarmed Ro, considering that she had just trained a phaser on a member of her own crew and then taken him into custody, based only on vague suspicions. “I’d like to ask you again,” she said, “what were you doing in the lower core in the middle of the night?”
“I was conducting a security sweep.”
“By yourself?” Ro asked, unable to completely mask the doubt she felt, which crept into her voice.
“Yes, by myself,” Blackmer said. “I didn’t have much choice, since I’m not sure who on this station I can trust.”
“What?” Ro said. Is he trying to place blame on us? she thought, thinking of her crew. She knew that she hadn’t been the only one aboard who’d had a difficult time accepting the death of Evik Nath and then the arrival of his replacement. But her emotions had given way to a genuine, though not fully formed, suspicion of Blackmer—and he probably knew that. So is he blaming me? she asked herself. And for what?
But Ro expressed none of those questions. Based on her training and experience as DS9’s chief of security for two years, she cautioned herself not to permit her own preconceptions and expectations to color what Blackmer revealed to her. She needed to allow him to explain his thoughts and actions, after which she could reach her own conclusions.
“Why can’t you trust people on Deep Space Nine?” she asked.
“Because I had a member of the crew come to me a few days ago,” Blackmer said. “They told me that they harbored suspicions about another member of the crew based on a conversation they overheard.”
Ro wanted to ask the identities of the mysterious crew members, simply so that she could corroborate Blackmer’s claim. She refrained from doing so, though, since she felt committed to letting the security chief tell his story. “Go on,” she said.
“I looked into what I was told,” said the security chief. “But I uncovered conflicting information. I couldn’t be sure if the initial report from the first crew member was truthful, or if they’d come forward as a means of covering their own transgression. Regardless, it seemed to me that one or more of the crew might be lying to me, so I thought it wisest not to confide in anybody. That’s why I continued investigating on my own.”
“But investigating what?” Ro asked.
Blackmer raised his arms and then brought his hands together, a gesture that exposed his own frustrations. “Honestly, Captain, I’m not sure,” he said. “But my greatest fear is that somebody intends to sabotage Deep Space Nine.”
The revelation didn’t surprise Ro—after all, she had suspected Blackmer of attempting to perpetrate such an act—but it did distress her. “Why didn’t you come to me with this?” Ro asked, but the answer seemed immediately obvious. “Or am I one of the people you suspect?”
Blackmer sighed heavily. He turned in the small cell and stepped over to its built-in bunk, where he sat down heavily. He wore his fatigue and frustration like a great weight. “I don’t suspect you, Captain,” he said. “But it’s challenging for me to trust you when you clearly don’t trust me.”
Ro felt an urge to reject the charge, but circumstances made such a denial irrational. Following Blackmer’s lead, she moved to sit on the low, backless bench in the center of the room. “At this point,” she said, “I think you need to trust somebody, whether it’s me or maybe somebody farther up the chain of command at Starfleet.”
“Believe me, Captain, I know.”
“Then, since you don’t suspect me,” she said, “why don’t you give me the details of your investigation.”
Blackmer shook his head. “Because I’m not interested in making unfounded accusations.”
“How do you know they’re unfounded?”
“I don’t,” Blackmer said. “Which is why I’ve been trying to find out.”
“Sometimes,” Ro tried to prompt him, “there are good reasons to make accusations. Full investigations can follow, and the truth can be uncovered.”
“And sometimes accusations are groundless,” Blackmer shot back, his voice rising. He rose to his feet and paced forward to the front of the cell, just shy of the force field, which issued a short, low hum at his approach. “I’m sorry about the death of your friend,” he said. “I’m sorry about Evik Nath. But taking over his position is not a crime.”
“No,” Ro agreed quietly, suddenly feeling a sense of shame.
“What have I done in my time here to warrant your distrust?” Blackmer said, almost pleading for an answer. “What actions have I taken to make you so wary of me?”
Ro said the only thing that occurred to her. “Why did you transfer here?”
“What?” he asked, apparently confused by the question.
Ro stood up and crossed the room until she stood facing Blackmer from only centimeters away, the force field frizzing between them. “Why did you transfer to DS-Nine?” she repeated. “You’d only just been promoted to security chief aboard the Perseverance, but when the position opened up here, you immediately requested a transfer. Why?”
Unexpectedly, Blackmer smiled. “That’s it?” he asked. “That’s why you don’t trust me? That’s why you haven’t accepted me into your crew?”
“Let’s just say that it’s a question that’s been bothering me.”
Blackmer threw up his hands, one of which made contact with the force field. It flashed and crackled in response, sending him backward a step, but it appeared to faze him for only a moment. “I don’t want to tell you, Captain,” he said heatedly. “If you’d asked me over a cup of raktajino sometime, or even if you’d sat me down as a new member of your crew and demanded it of me, I’d have been happy to tell you. But instead, you allowed this unanswered question and maybe some others to create this … this … amorphous mistrust.”
Is that what I did? Ro thought. She wanted to mention her wayward concerns involving the Tzenkethi, but how could she put into words something that she had yet to fully work out for herself? And even if she could, would that invalidate what Blackmer had just said?
Ro looked away. What had she done? How could her instincts have been so wrong?
Nath, she thought. Had she let the loss of yet another close friend influence her so much as to distrust his professional replacement without just cause? The idea seemed unlikely to her; she had lost so many people throughout her life—in the refugee camps, on Garon II, in the Maquis—how could one more make such a difference?
But then she realized. They all made a difference.
Into the silence that followed, Blackmer said, “I like space stations.”
At first, the words struck Ro as a non sequitur. She looked back up at him, and he went on.
“I spent the first decade of my Starfleet career on two space stations, and the next seven years on five different starships,” he said. “On a space station, you stay in one place, in one star system. You’re usually on or near a habitable world, so you don’t have to experience nature exclusively in artificial environments like holodecks. It feels more stable, with fewer dangers.” Blackmer shrugged. “I just like space stations better than I do starships.”
Ro smiled. “That’s it?”
“It’s not complicated.”
“No, I guess it isn’t,” Ro agreed. Making a calculation, she walked over to the control panel set into the bulkhead beside the cell. She keyed in her security code, then lowered the force field, which deactivated with a flash and a buzz. “For whatever it’s worth to you, I’m sorry.” Blackmer’s explanations—about his presence in the reactor core, about his lack of trust in the crew and in the captain herself, about his transfer to DS9—all rang true to Ro, but they did not fully convince her of his trustworthiness. She recognized the risk in freeing him, but that risk threatened only Ro, not the station or its crew. The captain had left Cardok and Hava as sentries outside the holding area, with orders to take Blackmer back into custody if he exited alone.
Instead of standing aside to allow the security chief to leave the cell, Ro walked past him and sat down inside. When he turned to gaze down at her, she said, “You need to tell me specifically what drove you down to the lower core tonight.”
Blackmer appeared to give the matter some thought, then sat down beside Ro. “Three days ago,” he said, “Lieutenant Douglas reported to me that she’d overheard a heated exchange.”
After embarking on a mission for Starfleet Intelligence with Doctor Bashir, Sarina Douglas had transferred to Deep Space 9 and joined the security staff. She and Bashir shared quarters in the habitat ring, and Ro knew that Quark had taken hundreds of wagers throughout the station on both the date they would announce their intention to marry, and the date of the wedding itself. Ro had already missed out on the former, but still hoped to recoup her losses by winning the latter.
“Douglas was on duty at the airlock where the Vren-thai was docked,” Blackmer continued. “While she was there, she claimed that Ensign th’Shant arrived to say good-bye to Ensign zh’Vesk.” Of the thirty-nine Andorian Starfleet officers on DS9 at the time of their world’s secession from the Federation, seventeen had immediately resigned their commissions. In the intervening eight months, another eleven had followed suit, including two who departed the station three days earlier: Ensign zh’Vesk and an enlisted crew member, ch’Rellen. “Douglas claimed that in a whispered conversation, both th’Shant and zh’Vesk became agitated, and she heard one of them make reference to avenging themselves on the Federation.”
“That sounds like angry hyperbole,” Ro said.
“Maybe,” Blackmer said. “But Lieutenant Douglas considered the words menacing enough to report the incident to me. She interpreted it as a threat to Deep Space Nine, and she believed that it was Ensign th’Shant who made that threat.”
An engineer on the station for more than two years, Rahendervakell th’Shant had reacted to Andor’s secession much the way many Andorians in Starfleet had: with a mixture of confusion, depression, and anger. Many became conflicted about whether to remain in the service or return to their homeworld. Not only had some stayed and some gone, but some had left and then come back, while others had at first stayed and then gone later.
“Did you speak with th’Shant?” Ro asked.
“I did,” Blackmer said. “He denied that either he or zh’Vesk ever said such a thing. Another security officer there at the time, Jacob Smith, also said that he didn’t hear anything resembling that conversation.”
“Do you feel that either Douglas or th’Shant was lying to you?” Ro asked.
“I don’t know,” Blackmer said. “It could be just a misunderstanding: misheard words or a misinterpretation. But it seemed too serious a situation to ignore, so I’ve been monitoring Douglas’s and th’Shant’s movements on the station. Yesterday, both of them ended up in the lower core, Douglas as part of a security exercise, and th’Shant on an engineering maintenance team.”
“Which is why you ended up there tonight,” Ro deduced.
“Yes,” Blackmer said. “Particularly with civilian ships from the Typhon Pact set to arrive here in a few days, I just felt that I had to.”
“You’re concerned that Douglas or th’Shant sympathizes with the Typhon Pact and is looking to help them take action against the Federation?”
“Or that they could pass vital information to the Pact,” Blackmer said. “Or that they could commit violence against citizens of the Pact in a way that implicates the Federation.” The security chief stood up and strode forward, out of the holding cell, before turning back to face Ro. “I know it was foolhardy for me to visit the lower core; anybody who would commit an act of sabotage on the station wouldn’t leave it visible for the naked eye. I didn’t even intend to stay there for long, but then I found myself searching the entire compartment, even up into the power-transfer conduits.”
“You were doing your job,” Ro said gently. She waited, not rising, providing Blackmer the opportunity to quickly raise the force field and imprison her in the holding cell. While she found the security chief’s recounting of events believable, she didn’t assume that they were true. Blackmer could have visited the lower core because he feared that he or a confederate had left behind a tricorder or a tool or something else when they had sabotaged the station.
“It’s obviously not a job for one person,” Blackmer said, making no move toward the control panel.
“No,” Ro said, finally getting up. “But now we can launch a full-scale investigation.”
“That might just drive any potential saboteurs to exercise more caution,” Blackmer said.
“Yes, but it will also make their task more difficult to accomplish,” Ro said. “The crew will be alert to anything out of the ordinary, and it will give us more resources to determine if there even is a threat to the station from among the crew.”
“You’re right, of course,” Blackmer said.
Ro moved forward and out of the holding cell, and together she and Blackmer started toward the exit. “I’ll convene a meeting of the senior staff,” she said. “After that, we can talk to the security team. We’re already on high alert for the arrival of the Typhon Pact ships, so we’ll just have to tighten our procedures to include restrictions for our own crew.”
As the captain and the security chief walked out of the holding area, Ro understood the seriousness of the situation. A threat might have been made against the station and lies might have been told. Worst of all, after her encounter with Blackmer, she came away suspecting not just one of her crew in plotting to sabotage Deep Space 9, but three.
Tenmei walked out of the infirmary and stopped in the middle of the Promenade. Somebody jostled past her, but she paid them no attention. She stared down at the deck, pressure mounting behind her eyes. She felt like crying—she wanted to cry, wanted a release—but she had wept so often since her father’s torpid body had been brought to Deep Space 9’s infirmary that she wondered if any tears remained.
What am I doing? Tenmei asked herself as the people on the Promenade maneuvered around her. For so long, she’d sat by her father’s bedside, missing him and irrationally hoping that the terrible injuries his body had suffered would eventually heal. Reading aloud beside his dormant form, she pretended to connect with him, told herself that in some fashion he could hear her, but really she connected only with her memories of him. She recalled the merry, carefree times of her childhood, and then much later, at DS9, all the joys she’d shared with her father after their reconciliation. She remembered so vividly the world of the Prentara in the Gamma Quadrant, where she at last began to really know herself, and to grow, and to understand her father and all the reasons for their ruptured relationship. When her mother had died—
No! Standing outside the infirmary, where her father’s fractured body still lay swaddled in a veneer of life, she could not allow herself to think about her mother too. That Tenmei had effectively become an orphan pained her in a way that seemed almost impossible to endure.
Maybe that’s why I can’t let go, she thought.
It had taken eighteen months from the time of her father’s injuries at Alonis, but Tenmei had eventually summoned the courage to have Doctor Bashir remove him from the respirator that breathed for him. But his body hadn’t died then, and nearly a full year later, it continued to survive. Tenmei still hadn’t been able to bring herself to order the elimination of her father’s feeding and hydration tubes, the last steps in allowing him to slip into his final rest.
Do it, she told herself. Give the order and let him go.
But how could she? He was her father. He was all she had left.
Tenmei raised her head, wanting more than anything to stop thinking, to stop feeling. She looked left and right down the Promenade, saw the late-night activity as people bustled about, mostly to and from Quark’s. Without consciously deciding to do so, she started toward the bar.
Inside, the place brimmed with activity. Voices competed with the clink of glassware and the chirp of the dabo wheel. A cornucopia of colors splashed across the scene from the bottles on the shelves, the attire of the customers, and the three-story red, orange, and yellow lighted mural that dominated the main room. At the bar itself, she spotted Morn, a small group massed around him, no doubt listening to one of his interminable stories.
Tenmei made her way into Quark’s and peered toward its far periphery, where shadows muted the vibrancy of the place. She looked for an empty table, but didn’t see one. She almost abandoned her impulse to visit the bar, but then she saw Cenn Desca, Jeannette Chao, and John Candlewood sitting together at a table for four. Not giving herself a chance to change her mind, she headed toward them.
When she arrived at the table, her friends did not see her as they talked spiritedly with each other. But then Candlewood, the station’s lead science officer, glanced up and noticed her standing there mutely. “Prynn,” he said loudly, though his raised voice barely competed with the din of the bar. “Come join us.”
“Yes, come have a drink,” said Chao. Turning to Cenn, the chief engineer made a shooing motion with her hands. “Move, move.” Cenn shifted over to the one empty chair at the table, right beside the bulkhead. Then Chao moved over as well, freeing up the seat in front of Tenmei.
She sat down. Across from her, Cenn leaned forward, presumably so that she could hear him. “How are you, Prynn?” he asked. “It’s good to see you on the Promenade.”
And not heading into or out of the infirmary, Tenmei thought, completing what she thought must have been the first officer’s full sentiment. Forcing a smile, she said, “I’m fine. It’s good to be out.”
Chao started to say something, but then a voice at Tenmei’s shoulder asked, “And what can I get for you?” She looked up to see Quark, who carried a tray filled with empty glasses in a wide array of sizes, shapes, and colors. He quickly reached in over the table and collected two more empty glasses, one from in front of Cenn and one from Chao. When he tried to grab Candlewood’s, though, the lieutenant commander pulled it back, a finger or so of liquid still swilling around inside it.
“Not done yet,” Candlewood protested.
“When you’ve only got that much kiriliona left,” Quark insisted, “you’ve lost all the infused vapor.” He lunged for Candlewood’s glass, this time seizing it and placing it on his tray with the others. “So then, another round?” After nods from Cenn, Chao, and Candlewood, the barkeep turned to Tenmei. “And for you, Lieutenant?”
“Double vodka on the rocks,” she said. “The real thing,” she added, not wanting synthehol and its easily dismissed intoxicating effects.
“I love a discerning palate,” Quark said. “Like father, like daughter.” Then he dashed away as quickly as he’d come, headed back toward the bar. He left behind an uncomfortable lull.
Tenmei quickly peered at each of her friends to include them, then said, “I didn’t mean to interrupt your conversation.”
“You didn’t,” Candlewood said. Silver strands had begun to weave their way through the dark-brown ringlets on his head, Tenmei saw, and she wondered when that had happened. “We were just talking about our visitors,” Candlewood said. “What do you think?” He nodded past her, indicating the main room of Quark’s, through which she had just passed.
Tenmei turned in her chair and gazed around. At first, she saw nothing more than an unusual preponderance of Vulcans in the bar. But then, over in an alcove, she spotted large, golden orbs peering out from the green, leathery scales of a saurian face. The Gorn’s presence on a Federation space station seemed so incongruous that, despite knowing that civilian Typhon Pact vessels had begun arriving at Deep Space 9 earlier that day, Tenmei did not immediately make the connection. But then she looked back around the room and realized: Not Vulcans. Romulans.
Tenmei had earlier spent her duty shift aboard Defiant, helping to keep the ship at full readiness should trouble arise. She also knew that U.S.S. Canterbury, a Galaxy-class starship, orbited Bajor, its temporary presence in the system designed to discreetly discourage any deviation from the procedures that the Federation had negotiated for Pact vessels traveling to and from the wormhole through UFP space. In addition to being prohibited from encroaching on Dominion space—a quiet peace had held sway for seven and a half years, since the Dominion had withdrawn from the Alpha Quadrant and closed its borders—the civilian craft could carry only minimal armaments and defenses, and no cloaking devices. Further, their cargo could include no martial wares.
Looking back through the crowd at the Gorn, Tenmei saw another seated at the same table, and beside them, a fully armored Breen. At once, a rash of memories crowded in on her, bringing her back to her days of piloting Sentinel during the war. She remembered well the crew’s encounters with the Breen, hard-fought battles that not all her shipmates had survived.
There were tears then too, she thought, realizing just how much of her life had been spent in mourning.
“It feels strange to have them around,” Chao said, “but then I guess it probably once felt strange to have Klingons around.” She turned to Cenn. “The way it once did for Bajorans to have humans around.”
“Depending on the particular human,” Cenn offered with a smirk, “it still feels strange.”
At that moment, Quark swooped back to the table, the tray he carried balanced atop one hand packed not with empty drinks, but full ones. He placed a small, stemmed glass in front of Chao, its tall bowl filled with a dark-green liquid. “A syntheholic Finagle’s Folly for the chief,” he proclaimed, as though bestowing an award. Before Candlewood, he set down a tall, straight glass from which a curl of light gas emanated, dissipating just above the rim. “A kiriliona for the scientist.” When Quark gave Cenn a tall glass of a pink beverage, he pronounced it a “Trixian bubble juice,” then set down Tenmei’s tumbler of vodka and ice, saying, “And the good stuff for the lieutenant.”
“Thank you, Quark,” Cenn said.
“Happy to be of service,” said the Ferengi with a wave of his empty hand, though he’d already started away from the table, obviously rushing to deliver the next set of drinks.
Tenmei looked down at her glass and then past it, past the edge of the table to her lap, to where she saw herself twisting her hands together. None of her friends said anything for a moment. She wanted to fill the conversational void, or if not fill it, then at least pour something of herself into it, but she felt wholly incapable. Suddenly, she felt the urge to bolt, to run from the bar and isolate herself in her quarters.
“How’s your father, Prynn?” Candlewood asked. “Has there been any change, any improvement?”
Tenmei raised her head in time to see Chao throw Candlewood a withering glare. “That’s all right,” Chao told her, reaching forward and giving her shoulder a squeeze. “You don’t need to talk about it.”
“I like talking about my father,” Tenmei said sharply. She plucked her drink from the table, the movement dislodging Chao’s grasp on her shoulder. Tenmei brought the tumbler quickly to her mouth and upended it. The cold alcohol paradoxically warmed her gullet as she drank it down in three quick gulps.
“Prynn,” Chao said, looking visibly rebuked, “I didn’t mean—”
“He’s a good man,” Tenmei said. She put her tumbler back on the table, careful not to give in to her emotions and slam it down. “And it seems like everybody wants to forget about him.”
“Nobody wants to forget Elias Vaughn,” said Cenn. “And nobody has forgotten him. He was an excellent commanding officer and a fine man.”
“He is a fine man,” Tenmei said, firing her words across the table at Cenn. “He’s not dead.”
“Oh, Prynn,” Chao said softly, impossible to hear over the clamor of other voices, though Prynn saw the words forming on the chief’s lips. Chao reached forward again, this time placing her hand on Tenmei’s uniformed forearm.
Tenmei jerked her arm away. Chao’s jaw fell open in a look of surprise. Tenmei’s thoughts began to swirl. “Don’t tell me,” she said, sure that her friends meant to declare her father dead.
“Prynn,” Cenn said from across the table. “You need to calm yourself.”
“Don’t tell me what I need!” she yelled back at him. Around her, she could hear voices quieting. Anxious about people turning their attention to her, she stood up, but too quickly, and her chair toppled over backward, landing on the deck with a loud clang. She straightened her uniform, then addressed Cenn in a calmer tone. “Don’t tell me what I need, sir.”
She turned as she heard Chao and Candlewood call after her. Tenmei pushed past other customers in the bar. She intended to leave, to go to her quarters. Or maybe to go read to my father, she thought. But as she stumbled past the crowd at the dabo wheel, she saw the two Gorn and the Breen peering across the room at her.
“Murderers,” she said, more to herself than to them. She lifted her arm to point and offer up her appraisal of them in a louder voice, but then she felt an arm around her shoulder and a hand on her right biceps. Tenmei felt her body spun halfway around, but her mind seemed to continue swirling. A jumble of images crossed her field of vision, and then she saw the entrance to the bar. She started to walk that way, but then realized that somebody was leading her in that direction.
Outside, on the main walkway of the Promenade, Tenmei reached up and pushed at the hand gripping her biceps. “No,” she said, and twisted away from the arm around her shoulders. She backed down the Promenade, and saw that it had been Jeannette Chao who had conducted her out of Quark’s.
“Prynn,” Chao said gently, “it’s all right.”
Tenmei heard herself yelp, a short, quick sound she’d intended as a laugh, but that even to her own ears contained no trace of humor. “Nothing’s all right,” she said. “Nothing.” She continued to back down the Promenade, and Chao followed after her. Tenmei saw people coming around her on either side, obviously making way for her as she walked backward. Many stopped and watched her retreat.
“Maybe things aren’t all right,” Chao said. “But they will be.”
“How?” Tenmei yelled. Then, in a high-pitched but small voice, she said, “My father …” She closed her eyes and let go of whatever small amount of control she still had over her own body. Her knees buckled, and the artificial gravity of DS9 began to pull her down to the deck. But then she felt Chao take hold of her once more, this time wrapping her arms around her and holding her up.
“I’ve got you, Prynn,” Chao whispered to her. “I’ve got you.”
Tenmei buried her face in her friend’s shoulder and began to cry. Great sobs racked her body. She couldn’t stop.
She didn’t know for how long she stood there with Chao, but it seemed like a long time. Her weeping slowed eventually, and then stopped. It had given her the release she’d needed, but she also understood that it solved nothing.
When Tenmei finally pulled away, Chao took her by the arm and led her to the nearest door. The two panels that blocked the octagonal opening parted, and Chao guided her inside to a chair. Once seated, Tenmei looked around to see Chief Blackmer at his desk in the security office. As she wiped at the drying trails of tears on her face, he looked back at her, and she saw his expression of surprise transform into one of sympathy.
“May we borrow your office for just a few minutes, Chief?” Chao asked.
“Of course,” Blackmer said, rising out of his seat immediately. “I was just going to check on my deputies over in Quark’s anyway.”
“It threatened to get bumpy a couple of minutes ago,” Chao said, “but otherwise it’s been quiet.”
“That’s good to hear,” Blackmer said. He walked toward the door, but turned back just as it opened before him. “Take as much time as you need,” he said, and then he left.
Chao took the second chair in front of the security chief’s desk and faced Tenmei. “Can I help?” she asked.
Tenmei didn’t know what to say. Finally, she simply said, “No. There’s nothing anybody can do.”
Chao sighed, a sound not of frustration, but of compassion. She leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees. “Prynn, I don’t want to pry, but I’m your friend, and I hate seeing you like this,” she said. “Have you talked with Counselor Matthias?”
“Yeah,” Tenmei said. “Just not in a while.”
“Well, maybe you should think about seeing her again,” Chao suggested. “Or at least talking with somebody.”
“Yeah, I’m sure you’re right,” she said. Chao did not respond to the clearly noncommittal answer.
They sat that way for a time, no words passing between them. Tenmei felt grateful for both the silence and the company, which at least approximated a moment of peace. But she knew it couldn’t last, and it didn’t.
“Prynn, I’ve known you for more than a decade,” Chao said, “since you graduated from the Academy. I’m not telling you anything you don’t know when I say that you’ve always carried a bit of darkness around inside of you. When you eventually told me about the loss of your mother, and about your estrangement from your father, I understood. But even before you reunited with your father, you somehow managed your pain.” She paused, as though trying to conjure the right words. “You didn’t manage your pain. You let your happiness—your genuine love of life—be the dominant force within you.”
Tenmei listened, and recognized the truth of what her friend said.
Chao smiled. “Do you remember when Captain Hoku taught us to surf on the holodeck?” she said, referring to their days as shipmates aboard Mjolnir. “Well, when she taught you. I could never get the hang of it.”
Unexpectedly, Tenmei felt herself smiling too. She remembered well Kalena Hoku’s lessons. “He‘e nalu, the captain called it,” Tenmei said, remembering the words from Hoku’s native Hawaiian tongue. “Wave sliding.”
“That’s what she called it for you,” Chao said. “For me, it was hā‘ule nalu: wave falling.”
Tenmei laughed, picturing all the times poor Jeannette had tried to hop up on her board, only to lose her balance almost immediately. “It’s amazing you made it through Starfleet Academy’s fitness courses,” she joked.
“Hey, the Academy doesn’t require the ability to walk on water,” Chao said with mock indignation. “But if you want to grab some environmental suits and match up our EVA skills …”
“No, no,” Tenmei said. “I believe you.”
Chao looked at her, still smiling, but then Tenmei saw something in her eyes, some quality that seemed to pair hope with mercy. “You see,” she said. “It’s not that difficult.” She reached up and touched a finger to the side of Tenmei’s lips. “This,” she said, obviously referring to her smile, “is who you are.”
Tenmei looked down. She saw her hands twisting together again in her lap, and she willed herself to stop. “That’s who I was,” she said.
“No,” Chao said firmly. “That’s who you are. You’re just a little lost.” She paused again, and as the silence drew out, Tenmei looked back up. “I don’t want to tell you what to do, Prynn. And I don’t want to ask you what you think your father would want you to do, because that doesn’t seem fair or right, but also because it doesn’t matter. I’m sorry, but your father’s not here right now, and he’s never going to be.” Chao reached forward and took Tenmei’s hands in her own. “But you are here. As your friend, I don’t want you to waste the time you have.”
“I—” Tenmei started, but she didn’t know what to say.
“I miss you,” Chao said. “Everybody on board misses you.”
“I know,” Tenmei said, her voice a mere whisper. She squeezed her friend’s hands. “Thank you.” She knew Chao was right. Tenmei didn’t know how that made her feel, or how it should make her feel, but she thought that maybe the time had finally come for her to do something.
Because she missed herself too.
Tomalak pushed open the tall doors to the praetor’s audience chamber. He expected no trouble, no resistance whatsoever, to the announcement that he would deliver to her, though he had prepared for such a possibility anyway. He had not survived for so long in the Imperial Fleet, and then within the corridors of power, without planning for contingencies.
The proconsul entered the chamber, wincing at the bright illumination that threw the normally beautiful embellishments into harsh contrast. Before him, sprawled across the center of the space, stood a conference table, its prosaic, functional design yet another feature introduced by Gell Kamemor that detracted from the room’s splendor. As the doors closed behind him, he glanced across the chamber to where a throne rose on a high platform, allowing the praetor to look regally down on whomever she granted an audience.
It surprised Tomalak not at all that the throne sat empty. He had served as one of this praetor’s advisors for nearly five hundred days, and so he had become accustomed to her willful gestures, meant to humble not just her office, but the entire government. She fancied herself a populist, he knew, a notion that struck him as absurd in an empire where virtually nobody believed him- or herself to be an ordinary citizen—where most found the very idea of an “average Romulan” odious.
Tomalak peered to his right, to where a smaller table sat along the circumference of the room, and where he expected to see the praetor. She sat there, a ceramic tea set laid out before her. When Tomalak made eye contact, she put her cup down and addressed him.
“Proconsul,” she said. “Please join me.” Tomalak walked over to the praetor, who gestured to a chair at the table. “You are as prompt as ever. Would you care for some tea? This is a Vulcan blend called relen.”
“Thank you, no,” Tomalak said as he sat down. He kept his expression neutral, despite his disapproval of the leader of the Romulan Star Empire indulging not just in an offworld beverage, but in one of Federation origin. If only that were her greatest offense against her own people, he thought.
From the very beginnings of her reign, Kamemor had promoted multiculturalism in a subversive, insidious manner. Though her predecessor, Tal’Aura, had tied the Empire to the Typhon Pact, she had done so with the idea that Romulus would lead that alliance as its most powerful member. Kamemor, though, collaborated with the Pact allies as equals, working to persuade them of her positions rather than demanding that they follow her leads. Worse, she had convinced enough of the Typhon powers—namely, the Breen Confederacy and the Gorn Hegemony—to seek a rapprochement with the Khitomer Accords worlds.
Fortunately, Sela and I were able to move quickly enough to turn that to our advantage, Tomalak thought. His visit to the praetor would allow him to promote that advantage. Soon—and, he hoped, soon enough—the Federation would no longer enjoy the military advantage provided by its exclusive possession of quantum slipstream drive.
“My scheduler did not specify the nature of the meeting you requested,” Kamemor said. “With the opening of the Typhon Expanse to Khitomer Accords vessels, and of the Bajoran wormhole to the Typhon Pact, I naturally assume it has something to do with those initiatives.”
“No, Praetor,” Tomalak said. “I am here, really, on a matter of a personal nature.”
“Oh,” Kamemor said, clearly surprised. “I hope that all is well with your clan.”
“It is, thank you,” Tomalak said. “I come not to request assistance, but to ask if I may take my leave of the government.”
Kamemor raised an eyebrow. “You wish to resign as proconsul?”
“As one of two proconsuls,” Tomalak noted.
“I see.” The praetor rose from her chair and paced away from the table and toward her throne. She wore a tailored, deep-green shirtwaist that flattered her. Tomalak noticed that she wore soft-soled shoes, as they padded along the polished stone floor with almost no sound. Several steps away, Kamemor turned to face him. “May I ask the reason for your decision?”
That the praetor would, even as a formality, request information from him, rather than require it, appalled him. Tomalak hid his disgust, just as he had each day he’d functioned as proconsul to Kamemor. “When Tal’Aura took over the praetorship,” he said, reciting the words he had rehearsed, “I agreed at her behest to leave the Imperial Fleet. I did so because my praetor called upon me to serve at her side, in the cause of leading the Romulan people. I did so for more than seven hundred days, until the time of Tal’Aura’s death.”
“And you served ably,” Kamemor said. She walked back to the table, where she rested her hands on the back of her chair. “At a particularly low point for the Empire, and in a time when we needed strong leadership, you successfully argued to the Hundred that they must reconstitute the Imperial Senate. For that alone, Proconsul, the people of Romulus and beyond owe you a debt.”
“You are generous to say so, Praetor,” Tomalak said. “As you know, when you accepted the responsibility of succeeding Tal’Aura, I offered you my resignation. I did so because it was expected of me, and for good reason: so that you could form the government around you that would best allow you to lead the Empire. I must say—” Tomalak bowed his head to Kamemor, intending her to take it as a sign of both gratitude and deference. “—I was humbled when you asked me to stay on as proconsul, and to stand beside Proconsul Ventel as we both offered counsel and assistance.”
“As you have come to know, I value opposing viewpoints,” Kamemor said. “Yours was an important one, although you and I concurred far more often than I surmised we would at the start. But when we did not, you brought me to a greater understanding of many issues. And on occasion, you even changed my mind.”
“Again, I am humbled by your kind words,” Tomalak said. “I have come to feel, however, that there is a redundancy in having both Proconsul Ventel and myself in the same position. Although he and I certainly do not agree on all matters, I would argue that we are both capable of supplying you with the many opposing sides of an issue.” Tomalak paused, and behaved as though he struggled to decide whether or not to say what would come next. “In truth, I welcome the redundancy, because I feel it allows me to resign my position as proconsul in good conscience.”
“What will you do?” Kamemor asked.
“I will petition you to return me to my previous life,” Tomalak said.
“The Imperial Fleet.”
“Yes. Until called upon by Praetor Tal’Aura,” he said, “I spent essentially all of my adult life in the Fleet. I would welcome a return to its ranks.”
Kamemor nodded. “Of course,” she said. “Do you have your statement of separation as proconsul?”
“I do.” Tomalak stood up, reached to his hip, and retrieved a small data tablet from where it hung. He examined its display, then touched a control surface. “I have transmitted it to your files.”
“Very well,” Kamemor said. “I will speak to Fleet Admiral Devix at once.” She stepped forward and looked directly into Tomalak’s eyes. “I genuinely thank you for your service to this government, and to me.”
“I was honored to have the privilege,” Tomalak said. He offered a stiff bow, then turned and headed for the main doors.
Outside the audience chamber, Tomalak walked for what he hoped would be the last time through the Hall of State. He had accomplished many things there—important, necessary things—but he had never belonged. He did not shun power, but he sought it in a different form, in a different forum.
It pleased him that his conversation with Kamemor had gone precisely as he’d planned. He knew that the praetor believed all that he had told her. Of course, it helped that not everything he’d said had been a lie: he truly did look forward with great anticipation to rejoining the Romulan Imperial Fleet.
When he did, though, he would do so as an agent of the Tal Shiar.
The Breen privateer Ren Fejin swept along the arc of the established shipping lanes. Light-years behind the vessel floated the Idran system, a convenient marker for the Gamma Quadrant terminus of the Bajoran wormhole, but the worlds of which had been designated by the Khitomer Accords powers as off-limits to Typhon Pact ships. Ahead lay civilizations as yet unvisited by the Breen and their allies, though familiar to the Federation and theirs: Parada, Argrathi, Stakoron, Rakhari, Wadi, and others. And unknown to any denizens of the Alpha and Beta Quadrants, still many more planets and societies awaited beyond those.
Trok sat off to the side on the cluttered bridge of the small vessel, attempting to calm his nerves. Across from him, the Romulan specialist Joralis Kinn also appeared ill at ease. Unlike the smooth, hushed operation of the great Breen Militia starships, Ren Fejin ran almost as though it might blow apart at any instant. Vibrations from the faster-than-light drive sent tremors coursing through the deck plates and set equipment to rattling, and deep, continuous undertones saturated the ship’s interior. Already, Trok had adjusted several settings in his environmental suit—gravitational compensators, visual stabilizers, auditory inputs—but he still felt uncomfortable.
How can they stand it? he wondered of the three Breen who crewed various consoles on the bridge, and of the three down in engineering. And how can the others possibly rest? Six other crew members supposedly slept belowdecks so that they could later take their shifts to run the ship.
They’re probably all Amoniri, Trok thought, although he knew he shouldn’t. The standardized exteriors of all Breen uniforms ensured the equal treatment of every individual within the Confederacy, eliminating biases based on their species or other physical attributes. The wholly democratic culture inhibited prejudice, forcing judgments based solely on actions and performance. Still, certain species excelled in particular roles within Breen society, and along with the Paclu, the Amoniri dominated both military and civilian starship operations. Trok knew that Amoniri uniforms contained internal refrigeration units to prevent their mostly liquid bodies from evaporating, so it occurred to him that their fluidic nature might allow them to better tolerate the rough travel aboard Ren Fejin.
And being a Vironat doesn’t help me in this situation, he thought. While the many extremely responsive and exactingly accurate sensory organs along his two sets of cleft limbs provided a natural benefit in his vocation as an engineer, they also disadvantaged him with a sensitivity to vigorous motion. Once more, Trok modified the gravity fields within his environmental suit, and to his relief, the second alteration in the settings steadied his vestibular system. He took several moments to allow the relative tranquillity to soothe his distress.
Freed from the misery of motion sickness, Trok turned his attention to the holographic display projected in a sphere above the navigational console in the center of the bridge. At the heart of the hologram, a large, not-to-scale representation of Ren Fejin held steady: two mismatched curves of hull two decks through at their tallest points, and linked off-center by a one-deck connecting dorsal. The bridge, Trok knew, sat in a superstructure atop the connector.
A splay of bright, blue light emanated from the endpoint of the Bajoran wormhole near the edge of the navigational projection and reached across the middle of the display. Beld, the master of the vessel, had explained the blue zone as the region of space that the Accords powers deemed permissible for Pact ships to travel after emerging into the Gamma Quadrant. The specified area expanded as it moved away from the Idran system, ultimately ending and allowing Pact vessels unlimited movement far from the gateway back to the Alpha Quadrant. As he studied the display, Trok realized that nowhere in it did he see the serpentine mass of interstellar gas and dust that formed the Omarion Nebula. He asked Master Beld about it.
Beld approached the hologram near the representation of the entrance to the Bajoran wormhole, then lifted a gloved hand to indicate an area away from it, in a direction opposite that of the blue light. “It is here,” Beld said, his words delivered in the electronic scratch emitted by his helmet.
“There?” Trok asked. “But the Omarion Nebula is located within Dominion space. We’re traveling away from our objective.”
“We are traveling along the path best suited to successfully achieving our objective,” said Joralis Kinn, stepping over to stand beside Beld. The usual green cast of the Romulan’s skin seemed deeper, almost bilious. “We will wait to reach the far end of the prescribed shipping lanes—” He pointed to the wide mouth of the blue cone in the navigational projection. “—and then circle back around to the Dominion.” He drew his finger through the air, around the spherical display, until he reached the relative point where Beld had placed the Omarion Nebula.
“Do you know how much time that will add to our journey?” Trok objected. “If we wish to ensure the safety of the Breen Confederacy and the Romulan Star Empire and the rest of the Typhon Pact, we need to develop the slipstream drive now, not in five hundred or a thousand days from now.”
“Yes, we seek to develop the advanced drive in the shortest possible time,” Kinn agreed. “But we must also be mindful of not allowing the Federation to impede our efforts to facilitate that development.” He pointed toward the blue light in the display, then looked to Beld. “Show him,” Kinn said.
Beld reached to the console below the projection and worked some controls. As Trok watched, a series of red dots blinked on in the display. They all bordered the blue swath identifying the Federation-mandated shipping lanes.
“These,” Kinn said, “represent Starfleet sensor buoys seeded along the mandated routes of Typhon Pact vessels after entering the Gamma Quadrant. I do not know if this has been explicitly stated, but it is reasonable to assume that if Federation sensors detect a ship deviating from this region—” He spread his hands along the blue expanse. “—then Starfleet will send a starship to investigate, and probably attempt to apprehend the offending vessel and crew.”
“If they can find us,” Trok said.
“Irrelevant,” Kinn said. “Even if this ship cannot be located—and perhaps especially if this ship cannot be located—the Federation and their Khitomer allies would accurately claim a violation of their agreement with the Typhon Pact. In such a case, they would probably abrogate the arrangement. They would also fortify their defenses at the wormhole, and they would not allow this ship to travel back to the Alpha Quadrant and then on to Breen space.”
“We do have contingency plans to fight our way through the wormhole, but only if absolutely necessary,” Beld said.
“Those plans rely on normal operations on and around Deep Space Nine,” Kinn said. “If the Federation expects a battle, they will be far better equipped for it, which would necessarily diminish our chances of success.”
Trok studied the navigational display, hoping to find a means of invalidating what Kinn had said. “If we destroy one of the buoys,” he finally suggested, “make it look like a system failure …” He did not bother to finish his statement, knowing that he had made his point, but also recognizing its simple flaw.
“Even if we could disable one of the buoys and mask our complicity,” Kinn said, “we would disappear entirely from the coverage of the numerous remaining sensor platforms, which would alert Starfleet of our actions. Additionally, the coverages of the Federation’s sensors overlap, making the disruption of a single buoy inadequate to the task of eluding their efforts to track Pact vessels.”
Trok uttered an expletive, which his helmet translated into an electronic squawk.
“It is no matter, Engineer Trok,” Kinn said. “It will take us longer than we wished to reach the Dominion, but we will reach it.”
Trok nodded. The Romulan made the task ahead of them sound effortless, but the engineer suspected it would not be that easy. Which is probably why I’m so anxious to get started, he realized. The sooner they reached the Dominion and acquired what they needed—without, Trok hoped, the intervention of either the Founders or the Jem’Hadar—the sooner they could be on their way back to the Confederacy.
And the sooner I can nullify the Federation’s technological advantage over the Typhon Pact, he thought. And if I can bring the slipstream drive to the entire Breen fleet and to the starships of the other Pact powers, utter defeat will be at hand for the Khitomer Accords powers.