Текст книги "Dawn of the Eagles "

Автор книги: Stephani Danelle Perry

Соавторы: Gene Rodenberry,Britta Dennison
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Текущая страница: 13 (всего у книги 26 страниц)

Dukat frowned. “So, someone tried to break in and failed…?”

“Yes, but the alarm was shut down before the ground team arrived,” The glinn said. “Not disabled, but turned off. They would have had to have a code to override it.”

“But the system is still working?”

“That’s right.”

Dukat shook his head. “Contact the Bajoran Institute of Science at once. We will need to alert the engineer who designed the program to see if it is malfunctioning.”

Trakad nodded.

“Anything else?”

“Several flyers—three, I believe—were detected leaving atmosphere late this afternoon, but air traffic says there were no ships scheduled for departure, no flight plans filed.”

“Are there any ships currently unaccounted for?”

“You think the resistance stole them?”

“Well, without knowing all of the facts, I can’t say, can I?” Dukat said. He smiled thinly at Trakad, printed the padd to show that he’d seen the day’s reports. “Check airfield inventory. I want all of our crafts accounted for. And see to it that the security unit from that tower is brought here.”

He handed the padd back to Trakad, who nodded quickly, a slight bow before leaving. Dukat waved him on, idly wondering if the few remaining insurgents were up to something. But no. The Bajorans were a cowed people, pacified once more by their religious amenities, submissive to the will of the Union. In truth, he couldn’t afford it to be otherwise, with the pressure to produce more always weighing on his shoulders. In any case, he would take no chances, looking into any reports of potential resistance activity himself.

It was much like being a father, he often thought, overseeing a planet of children, some willing, some willful. It was a balance, knowing when to encourage, when to provide strict correction, but one he felt he excelled at finding. As the Bajorans grew, culturally, intellectually, they would come to appreciate him more, to understand the choices he’d made.

I’ll be remembered here long after I’m gone, he thought, and smiled, leaning back in his chair once more.

12

Thrax, finished with his station business for the evening, closed out the reports on his office computer, relieved to have finished the tedious chore after an especially trying day. But he didn’t shut down his system after the mainframe link was disconnected; instead, he put a personal call through to Cardassia Prime.

It was some time before the call was answered, and he began to wonder, with disappointment, if the party he was trying to reach might have left her new “office” already, but she finally responded to the call, her face filling the tiny screen and causing Thrax to break out into a foolish grin.

“Hello,” he said to her, feeling the welcome tremble that always attended their correspondence.

“Hello,”she replied, her voice musical and soft, projected from his faraway homeworld. How he missed it. How he missed her! “To what do I owe this occasion?”

“I know it has been a long time,” he apologized. “My business here keeps me from contacting you as often as I would like.”

“Just your business?”she asked. “Not…threats?”

“No,” he said firmly. “There are no threats, I have told you. I am safe. I only wanted to let you know…I located a dissident on the station, someone who is to return to Cardassia Prime tomorrow. A woman—a correspondent for the Information Service.”

“What is her name?”

“Natima Lang. Do you know of her?”

“No, but I’ll see what I can find.”

“It could be helpful to do so. She is affiliated with Gaten Russol. But more interesting to you and me—she contacted a member of the Detapa Council here on Bajor. An exarch at one of the old settlements.”

The woman’s eyes shone with interest. “Do you think he is a dissident as well?”

“Time will tell,” Thrax told her. “But I believe he may be.”

“And you believe this is good news for us?”

He nodded. “If the Detapa Council continues to oppose the government to gain power, it could eventually wrest the Union out of the military government’s hands. It seems that the handful of dissidents I have been tracking have begun to add more followers to their ranks—followers in the civilian government.”

The woman nodded. “This could be favorable for us. But the Detapa Council may be no more in support of us than Central Command has been.”

Thrax frowned before his face twisted into a rueful smile. “Have you always been such a pessimist, Astraea?”

She smiled back, embarrassed. “No, Glinn Sa’kat,”she admitted, “only realistic.”

He laughed quietly. It always amused him that she continued to refer to him by his military title—even his colleagues on the station called him by his first name. But for her, it had become almost a sign of affection to maintain the formality he had shown to her upon their first meeting. “Well,” he said. “I thought it might be useful for us to find out more about these people, the dissidents. If there is any question that supporting their cause could serve to help us in the future—”

“I agree,”she said. “I don’t suppose they could detest us any more than Central Command already does.”

“One hopes not.” Thrax fell silent.

There was so much he wanted to say to her, but he would have preferred to do it in person. He had never been able to convey his feelings regarding her, not even when he was with her, on Cardassia Prime. His support of her position within the Way was much more important than their personal relationship, a relationship that had started when he had discovered her walking in a near daze along the periphery of Cardassia City, trying to put some meaning to the frightening visions she had been having. If the Fates hadn’t intervened that day, hadn’t seen to it that he would find her there—But of course, Oralius watched over Her guide. It was meant that he would find her, and he hoped it was meant that he would be reunited with her someday on his homeworld—sooner rather than later.

Two quartiles, three at most,he promised himself. No more than another year, certainly. He would be done with this place, and with Dukat.

“The Bajoran religious man we spoke of…he is still safe?”

“I can’t be certain, but I believe so,” he told her. “The one they call the kai is still safe, and I believe the man from your vision has a connection with her. That is what Prylar Bek tells me, but he will reveal no more.”

“He is mistrustful of you?”

“No,” Thrax said. “I believe he trusts me now, since I gave him the information to get his kai to safety before the detection grid went online. But he is simply not at liberty to reveal information. It is much the same way…that I feel about you, Astraea. I would guard you with my life.”

There was a moment of awkward silence while Thrax tried to think of another item of interest. “So…after the next Bajoran council, I think I will try to make a connection with Yoriv Skyl, the Tozhat exarch,” he said. “To see if I can discern his leanings.”

“A wise idea,”Astraea agreed softly, and there was another moment of silence. Their calls always seemed to be conducted this way, ending with strained pauses, loaded with unspoken emotions.

“May you walk with Oralius,” Thrax finally said, and she smiled, though she looked disappointed, too.

She signed off with a recitation from the Book. “‘To speak her words with my voice, to think her thoughts with my mind, to feel her love with my heart.’”Thrax repeated the words back to her, and she smiled, her eyes closing, as her image skittered from Thrax’s screen. He sat back in his chair and paused to reflect, to think exclusively of her for a moment, then he abruptly rose and left the security station, heading to his quarters for the night.

Natima’s eyes were dry, but she felt like weeping. The transport had already left the station, and there was no looking back now—not that she would have wanted to. Still, she was going back to Cardassia Prime entirely contrary to her appointment. Dalak would be furious with her for this insubordination, but there was simply no way she could have remained on the station, not after what had transpired earlier today.

She was the only civilian on this transport, which had little in the way of elbow room. There was a tiny commissary, small berths, two beds to a room, with a ’fresher that had to be shared—at least for the soldiers. Natima was lucky enough to have gotten a room to herself. Being a woman had a few perks, at least. She rested, as best she could, on the hard berth, and tried to shut her mind to the unhappy events that had unfolded earlier, but it was all she could think of.

Had Quark really believed he could hide from her forever in the microcosm of Terok Nor? She had cornered him leaving his quarters early this morning, and had demanded an explanation—hoping against hope that he would actually have one. But of course, through his pathetic attempts to justify what he had done, Natima saw the truth: not only had he stolen from her, he wasn’t even sorry he had done it.

She had threatened to turn him in to the authorities for his dealings with the Bajorans—or the very least, to turn him in for violating her acquisition number. She was going to have to explain it to the accounting department at the Information Service, a task she dreaded almost as much as facing Dalak regarding her sudden abandonment of her assignment. But then, she hadn’t turned him in after all—she still wasn’t entirely sure why.

How foolish she had been, to trust a man who pretended to have a romantic interest in her—a Ferengi, no less! She could only assume that he had been using her from the very beginning, and yet, she had not even turned him in to save her own reputation. She knew that it was dangerous to draw attention to herself this way. If accounting were to closely examine her acquisition codes, would they find anything that would point to her status as a dissident? Natima didn’t think so, but she couldn’t understand why she would even consider taking the risk for someone as dishonest as Quark had turned out to be. She supposed she was just a fool, in the end.

She was crying, now, which should have been a relief, but was mostly just a humiliation. She let herself cry softly for a few moments before pulling herself together. She would never go to Terok Nor again, or to Bajor, and if Dalak tried to make her—well, maybe she was done with Dalak, anyway. Maybe it was time to move away from the Information Service. She had long remained loyal to her employer in part because she’d believed that she owed her life’s success to the Service. But would it be so terrible, to attribute her success to her own actions? Maybe this was the push she needed to go in another direction, the sign that it was time to move into another phase of her life.

Good-bye, Quark, she thought, and lay down again on the hard, empty bunk, wishing she could sleep.

Vekobet had several abandoned districts that were not beyond the boundary constraints, but they had fallen into ruin in the past twelve years. The desolation was due in part to destruction from skirmishes between Union and resistance forces, and in part to a lack of functioning utilities. But the population was inching toward expansion again, and most of the occupied houses in town were bursting at the seams with extended families. The older districts had to be considered for renovation, for the active portions of the cities were becoming dangerously overcrowded. Kalem Apren was helping to dig an irrigation trench in one of the newly reclaimed areas, having already helped to patch the roofs of three old houses that had fallen into disrepair. He was waist-deep in the muddy ditch when his wife Raina suddenly appeared, out of breath, her exuberance showing.

“Apren!” she cried out. “It’s the comm! Someone is calling you—from off world!”

Kalem wasted no time in dropping the shovel he had been using and clambering out of the muddy, half-finished trench. “Excuse me,” he cried hastily to the other men, though he did not stay to hear their reply. He raced after his wife through the old streets, stopping at brief intervals so that one or the other could catch their breath, occasionally locking gazes and laughing. Someone had repaired the long-range systems, unless Raina was mistaken, and Kalem knew from her expression that she wasn’t.

Panting and gasping, he clutched at the receiver, hoping against hope that whoever had called would still be on the line—it was a good twenty minutes to and from the outlying settlement from where he and Raina had just come—but someone immediately replied to his greeting.

“Apren! It’s Jas Holza! What a relief to finally reach you again!”

“Holza!” Kalem exclaimed, hardly able to comprehend such an auspicious occurrence. “It’s been a long time!”

“Yes—as you say. And I have good news for you, and for Jaro Essa and all the others.”

“Do tell!” Kalem turned to Raina so that she could hear the exchange, both of them struggling to contain their excitement.

“I have been in contact with an arms merchant named Hagath. He is willing—even eager—to sell us some very sophisticated weapons—things that could make a genuine difference in the fight. If you and I pool our resources, and distribute these materials among the right people—”

“Is this a secure line, Holza?” Kalem interrupted.

“Don’t worry about that,”Jas reassured them. “You have said that Jaro has information regarding the whereabouts of the resistance cells on Bajor…”

“What’s left of them,” Apren replied, and then quickly attempted to redact his pessimism. “Yes.”

“Someone with a warp vessel will have to rendevous with this man somewhere outside the B’hava’el system.”

Kalem closed his eyes, trying to rein in his frustration. “That’s impossible. Warp vessels under Bajoran control are virtually nonexistent. The resistance uses sub-impulse vessels, but even those have been grounded by a Cardassian detection system that—”

“There must be someone with access to—”

“You mean, besides yourself?”

There was a pause, and Kalem wondered if the connection had been severed before Jas spoke again.

“I can’t do it, Apren. The risk is too great. You must find someone in the resistance movement who can get access to a warp vessel. I have been in sporadic contact with this man for over three years now, and I know he will be willing to negotiate whenever we are ready, but someone will have to go to him to make the exchange. He is wisely unwilling to enter Cardassian occupied space. I will appropriate whatever funds I can for this purpose, and I know you will too—but you can’t ask me to enter the B’hava’el system.”

“If you won’t do it, then it cannot be done,” Kalem said, with unusual finality. “You can’t imagine what has become of the resistance movement on this world.”

“This is unlike you, Apren,”Jas said. “I have been trying to contact you about this matter since the last time we spoke—and I never would have expected to get this reaction, once the message finally got through.”

“I wouldn’t have expected this from you, either,” Kalem said coldly. “But I suppose we’ve both changed.” He hesitated for a moment, exchanging a disappointed glance with his wife, and then he ended the call.

“We found the shape-shifter.”

Dukat smiled at the glinn on his screen. “Of course you have.”

“You were right, Prefect. It was spotted in another Bajoran village. He has already been ingratiating himself to the locals. It seems he settled a dispute between two men who were accusing one another of burning down a barn, or some such foolishness—”He stopped speaking, apparently realizing that this was more than Dukat had asked to know.

Dukat tilted his head in recognition of the acknowledgment. “And you’ve made no contact with him, is that right?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good. Now, I want you to withdraw as much as possible without losing sight of him entirely. Give him time to establish himself. A month, perhaps. Then you’ll send in some of your men, to recruit new workers for Terok Nor.”

“And we bring in the shape-shifter with them?”

Dukat regarded the glinn’s pedestrian thought processes with mild distaste. Unable to see a step past the next. “Absolutely not. You will make it clear to Odo that he is not required on the station. But you’ll also be sure he understands what happens at Terok Nor. That ships from all across the quadrant come here for trade and diplomatic purposes. And that as a…visitor, he would be welcomed here.”

“What if it doesn’t choose to accompany the new workers?”

“Oh, he’ll come here. Perhaps not right away, but he’ll come.”

The glinn’s confusion was apparent, although he was too well trained to question a superior. Dukat considered explaining it to him—that they might be able to catch and cage Odo, but that winning him, besides being infinitely more satisfying, was also their best chance to actually keephim. A glance at the office door stilled his urge to enlighten the dull man. Glinn Trakad stood there, a sweaty sheen to his forehead. The subordinate looked deeply unhappy as he tapped the door signal.

News he doesn’t wish to deliver. Dukat gestured him in, commending the ground soldier once more before signing off. Trakad held a slender box in his hands, what appeared to be computer equipment of some sort. A portable relay drive, perhaps.

“Yes, Trakad.”

“This is from that sensor tower in Dahkur.” The soldier looked ill.

“And…?” Dukat prompted.

“This was not a malfunction, sir. This was an attempt at sabotage. The surface inventory reports confirmed it. Several unaccounted-for flyers have been recorded leaving the surface, but no flyers have actually left. They were Bajoran ships, sir. There is a single capture of the saboteur’s face—a Bajoran.”

A close shot of a young redheaded woman’s soft face snapped on, her expression absolutely intent, her eyes filled with fear. The capture had been taken a second or two before she’d fled for the woods, Dukat imagined, scampering away like some small, wild creature.

Dukat turned away from the screen, away from Trakad. And smiled. She was still alive, then—and as beautiful as her mother had been, though in a different way. Strong, where Meru had been fragile. The nerve it must have taken, to climb that tower, to dare such a blatant offense. It was outrageous, of course, totally unacceptable, but while he condemned the action, he could not help but admire her spirit, the foolish bravery of the young and romantic.

Still, I had hoped she would not continue down this road…

“Why haven’t you contacted the engineer who designed the system?” he asked, turning back to Trakad. “This suggests that the detection grid is not working as it was supposed to.”

“I have tried, sir. But it seems that no one can locate her. You dismissed the director of the institute, and their record-keeping system has been in quite…a disarray since she left. You did not immediately appoint a sufficient replacement, and—”

Dukat sighed heavily. It was no wonder that the man looked as though he’d swallowed broken glass. Nobody wanted to deliver news to the prefect that indicated the prefect had made a mistake. He finally turned around. “Well, then. We will have to send someone else to repair it, won’t we?”

“I have already done it. Our chief of engineering assures me that he has overseen a complete recalibration, and everything is now functioning properly.”

Dukat raised his forehead expectantly. Why then, did the man still appear to be so uncomfortable?

The soldier cleared his throat with some difficulty. “But…but the signals in Dahkur remain as confused as before, sir. More unauthorized ships reported taking off, and the anti-aircraft system fails to lock on to them—”

“Suspend all air traffic in Dahkur,” Dukat ordered.

“Shall we shoot the raiders down manually?”

“No,” Dukat said quickly, thinking of young Nerys. “Get me Basso Tromac,” he ordered. Basso was the only one of Dukat’s adjutants that knew the full extent of his interest in Nerys and in the rest of the Kira family. Basso would have to redouble his efforts in Dahkur right away. Dukat dismissed Trakad, and thought again of Nerys, wondering what she hoped to accomplish, wondering if he could somehow lead her away from the terrorists, to teach her to be a proper citizen of a Cardassian host world, before she got herself into real trouble. He had little spare time, of course, but he felt it was the least he could do for Meru’s only daughter. Such a lovely, lovely girl deserved better than to huddle in the forest like a wild animal.