Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: The Soul Key (13 page)

“B
ajor directly ahead,” the helm officer announced. “Preparing for reduction to sublight speed.”

Iliana was leaning over the back of Kurn’s command chair as the general settled into it and said, “Sound battle alert throughout the fleet.”

“All ships acknowledging,” reported his first officer.

“General,” said the officer manning tactical. “We’re detecting an unusual transmission being received by Terok Nor.”

“What type of transmission?” Kurn asked.

“It appears to be a communication, but…I cannot isolate the source.”

Iliana straightened her posture. “Can you put it on speakers?”

“I believe so. One moment…”

A squeal of white noise rose and crescendoed before a feminine voice pierced it, carrying across the bridge of the
Negh’Var: “…also have a stake in seeing this woman stopped. She’s proved herself a threat on our side as well as yours. My people and I stand ready to assist you.”

Kurn had swiveled in his chair to face Iliana, a puzzled scowl twisting his snaggletoothed visage. “That sounded like
you.
”

Iliana’s mind was racing.
Kira. Somehow she’s found a way to bridge the two universes, the way Shing-kur did.

The helm officer called out, “Dropping out of warp in three…two…one…”

Iliana thrust a commanding finger toward tactical. “Jam that transmission!”

“Status of the fleet?” Kurn asked his first officer.

“All ships reporting in. The fleet is continuing toward Bajor at full impulse.”

“Status of targets?”

“Terok Nor has raised shields and is powering up weapons. No sign of
Defiant.”

“They could be cloaked,” Iliana pointed out.

“Instruct all ships to begin sensor sweeps of the B’hava’el system,” the general said, giving his orders in a clipped, martial cadence. “If that cursed vessel is anywhere nearby, I want it
found!
”

Iliana turned again to the man at tactical. “Are we blocking that signal?”

“We are, Intendant. Do you wish to deploy the scattering field?”

Iliana hesitated. “Not yet. Can you patch into the transmission?”

“Yes, Intendant.”

“Do it,” Iliana said. “Put it on the main viewer.”

“What are you doing?” Kurn asked.

Iliana smiled as she stepped around to stand alongside
his chair, facing the screen. “I’m enjoying myself, General.”

The viewscreen took a few moments to resolve the image, but the end result proved to be well worth the wait. For the first time, Iliana and Kira faced one another in real time, the Starfleet captain’s brow already knotted with worry when the
Negh’Var
cut into the transmission, her expression now turning to shock as Iliana’s smile greeted her.

“Well, hello…Captain,” Iliana purred. “What an unexpected surprise. And how clever of you to have devised a way to communicate with Terok Nor. You’ve no idea how pleased I am to see you alive.”

“I sincerely doubt that,”
Kira answered, her now-angry glare almost making Iliana laugh.

“Oh, believe me, I wasn’t at all happy to learn what Taran’atar had done to you. That was a task I’d reserved for myself. It’s actually reassuring to know that I get to come back for you…once I’m done here, of course.”

“You won’t succeed.”

“Of course I will,” Iliana said. “Haven’t you heard? I walk with the Prophets.” She held up her hand and showed Kira the
Paghvaram
wrapped around it, wiggling her fingers in a little wave before signaling the
Negh’Var’
s communications officer to cut the connection.

“Are you finished?” Kurn asked.

Iliana ignored the general. “Deploy the scattering field,” she told the weapons officer.

“Done,” he said. “It’s expanding as we speak. It has already blanketed Terok Nor and should completely envelop the planet in the next few minutes.”

“Good,” Iliana said. “Begin scanning Bajor for anomalous quantum resonance signatures, and continue until further notice.”

“What is it you expect to find?” the general asked, raising a single thick eyebrow.

“If the scattering field operates the way you claim it does, nothing. But I’ve learned not to underestimate my counterpart. And not to put too much faith in experimental technology.”

Kurn’s voice took on a suspicious tone. “You told your counterpart you weren’t happy to learn what Taran’atar had done to her. What did you mean by that?”

Kosst!
How could I have been so careless as to openly make the connection between Taran’atar and the other side,
she thought.
Especially after I led Kurn and his superiors to believe that I had found the Jem’Hadar in
this
universe!

“That’s a tale for another day, General,” Iliana said, tamping down her frustration at her own overeagerness. “But I trust you understand now why I expected interference from the other universe.”

That seemed to redirect Kurn’s line of thought. “It’s abundantly clear that the alternates are conspiring with the enemies of the Alliance,” he conceded as the blue-green crescent of Bajor slowly expanded on the viewscreen before him. “We will need to deal with that threat more directly before long.”

“And we will,” Iliana said. “But first things first.”

“Agreed,” said Kurn, who then turned to face his first officer. “Enemy status?”

“The space station’s shields are at full strength and its
weapons are now hot. The fleet reports no other hostile contact.”

“It appears the rebels’ vaunted warship is missing in action after all,” Kurn mused. “A pity. But no matter. This may yet turn out to be a battle worthy of song.”

“Sing all you want, General,” Iliana said as Terok Nor became visible off Bajor’s eastern limb. “Just don’t forget that I want that station captured, not destroyed.”

“You heard my executive,” Kurn said as he gestured toward the screen. “The rebels are prepared to fight. You may need to abandon your hopes of taking Terok Nor intact.”

Iliana leaned down so that only the general would hear what she was going to say next. Humiliating Kurn in front of his bridge crew was the surest way to get him mad enough to attack her, and while she felt confident of the outcome, she just didn’t have the time right now.

“Let me remind you that while I may get what I’m after whether Terok Nor is captured or not…you most assuredly won’t get what
you
want, my dear general. Now, please carry out my orders.”

Kurn’s eyes seethed with the desire for violence, but he held it in check. Stalking away from Iliana, he began snapping orders to the various members of his bridge crew. “Helmsman, continue to approach until we get within transporter range of Terok Nor, then hold position there. Weapons, you will withhold fire until the Intendant gives the order. First officer, relay these instructions to the rest of the fleet.”

Moments later, the first officer said, “All ships acknowledge, General.”

“Transport distance achieved,” the helmsman reported.

“All stop,” said Kurn.

“Acknowledged, all stop.”

The
Negh’Var’
s commander glared at Iliana. “It’s your move now, Intendant.”

Iliana went to the tactical console and shoved the weapons officer aside. “Raise the rebels,” she ordered as she manipulated the targeting sensors.

“Channel open,” said the comm officer.

“Attention, occupants of Terok Nor,” she began. “This is Intendant Kira Nerys of Bajor. Your unlawful seizure of this space station is now at an end. By the authority granted me by the Alliance, I hereby place you all under arrest for assorted acts of terrorism and murder. You have one minute to stand down and surrender.”

She was answered by several seconds of silence before the face of the rebel leader filled the screen, his expression defiant and hate-filled.

“I don’t need a minute to tell you and your Klingon lapdogs to go to hell, Intendant,”
O’Brien said.
“We aren’t surrendering to you or anyone else. I have a torpedo lock on Bajor’s capital.”

“Yes, that gambit has worked quite well for you up to now, hasn’t it,
Smiley?”
Iliana taunted. “Holding an entire planet hostage, threatening billions of lives—it seems so
ruthless.
But a bit
too
ruthless for the likes of you, I think.”

“Don’t make the mistake of being overconfident, Kira,”
the rebel leader shot back.
“You make one move against this station, and I promise you Bajor will pay the price. Now back off.”

“No,” Iliana said calmly.

O’Brien was seething.
“You think I’m
joking,
Intendant?”
he shouted.
“I said
back off!”

Iliana made sure to watch his face as her hand fell on the firing button. The ship’s hull answered with the vibrations of multiple torpedo launches at the same time that they registered on O’Brien’s instruments.

His eyes went wide.
“My God—what the bloody hell have you done?”

Iliana stepped around the tactical console and strode toward the viewscreen, savoring the horror she read on the human’s face. “I’ve called your bluff.”

“General,” the first officer said. “Sensors are showing…massive detonations on the surface of Bajor. In the capital city!”

“What?”
Kurn was on his feet, whirling to face Iliana as she walked past him and stopped directly in front of the screen. Tears were forming in O’Brien’s eyes. The man seemed to be on verge of total collapse.

“I’ve taken away your hostage, Smiley,” Iliana said. “And before your grief turns to rage, and you begin pouring out the station’s firepower at my fleet in some misguided need to avenge those poor people down there, let me point out that I’ve destroyed only a single city. If you don’t surrender Terok Nor to me immediately, I’ll open fire on another, and then another, and then another…”

O’Brien clenched his eyes and pounded the console before him. His breathing became ragged, erupting into uncontrollable sobs.

Iliana took that as her answer.

“General Kurn,” she said. “Have your troops prepare to board Terok Nor as soon as its shields come down.”

K
urn’s soldiers were efficient, if not entirely in control of themselves. Of the nearly seven hundred rebels aboard the station, twenty-nine had been killed by overzealous troops who’d found it too easy to forget that their orders had been to confine the Terrans and their cohorts, at least until arrangements could be made for their public executions on Bajor. After all, Iliana had made a point of assuring the surviving ministers—all those who had not been in the capital when the city’s end had come, of course—that the mad and murderous Terrans who were responsible for the atrocity of Ashalla’s destruction would be remanded to Bajoran custody in the days to come. After Iliana had gotten from them what she wanted.

O’Brien was a broken man, unable to refuse her commands for fear of what she might do if he did. Obedience kept his friends alive, kept more Bajorans from suffering the same fate as Ashalla—at least for now. But there was no need to burden Smiley with too much information, after all. She needed him to focus on the new task she
had set out for him.

Moving the station to the mouth of the wormhole.

At first, he insisted that what she was asking of him was impossible, until she presented him with the exact specifications for getting the job done, per the documents she’d had Taran’atar steal from Deep Space 9’s computers. O’Brien’s counterpart had made it work once, eight years ago, using a low-level subspace field to reduce the station’s inertial mass just enough so that six of the station’s maneuvering thrusters had been able, if only just barely, to push Deep Space 9 to the edge of the Denorios Belt in less than a day’s time.

While O’Brien and his people labored under the watchful glare of Kurn’s men, Kira made herself at home in the station commander’s office, trying to enjoy the view of Bajor outside the huge window behind her desk. The only thing spoiling it was the dark, fuzzy patch that hovered over the spot where Ashalla had been. She took heart in the fact that she wouldn’t have to look at it much longer.

“It was a bold move,” Kurn acknowledged next to her, as he reached across the desk to pour himself another celebratory bloodwine. “But a bit too lateral as strategems go. Klingons prefer more direct confrontations.” He took an appreciative sip from his metal stein and nodded. “Still, it was a bold move. Are you certain you won’t join me?”

Iliana swiveled in her chair and looked up at him, watching as the general capped off his drink. “You don’t approve of my decision,” she said.

Kurn shrugged. “It is not for me to approve or disap
prove of your choices, Intendant, as you have correctly reminded me on more than one occasion since this mission began. Noncombatants are always among the inevitable casualties in any war. Yet seldom are they the
only
casualties. And it is…unseemly to deny responsibility for such an act. It will be interesting to know the regent’s reaction to all this, once word of it reaches him.”

“The regent,” Iliana said, “made very clear to me that he believed treason was brewing on Bajor. With one stroke, I’ve snuffed out whatever spirit its agents may have had, while crushing the rebellion in this system and proving that my loyalty to him comes before anything else.”

“And you believe Martok will be less inclined to look suspiciously at your activities from now on,” Kurn said. “Freeing you to pursue the overthrow of his rule.”

“Well stated. As for the Bajorans…by the time they learn the truth, their image of me will be considerably different, believe me. This will pass.”

Kurn was silent for a moment as he paused to study her intently. “You’re not the woman I once knew, Intendant.”

Iliana blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

“You’ve changed. Ever since you acquired your Jem’Hadar pet, you’ve been…different in ways I’ve found difficult to properly quantify.”

“Perhaps you should keep those opinions to y—”

The office doors parted and admitted the station’s only Cardassian.

Kurn set his stein down forcefully on her desk. “What is
he
doing here?”

“Rhukal is here on my authority, General,” Iliana said, injecting a tone of warning to her words. “So please remind your men that he is to be extended every courtesy.” She stood up and gestured toward the double doors. “Now if you’ll excuse us, General, I’d like to talk with our guest in private.”

Kurn let out a low growl and stormed out of the office and back into ops.

“Sorry about that,” Kira said to Ataan. She was pleased to see that he was wearing the dark green suit she’d gotten him after she’d learned that the
Negh’Var’
s replicator database had a limited wardrobe selection meant to accommodate visiting Cardassian VIPs. “Kurn gets grumpy between meals. Low blood sugar.”

Ataan said nothing. He kept his eyes fixed on her desktop.

“Come and sit down,” Iliana said, gesturing toward the soft chairs in the sitting area. They were stained and frayed—clearly cosmetic maintenance had been a low priority for the ragtag rebels.

Ataan did as she bade him, but still he didn’t speak. His silence concerned her. They’d had several pleasant conversations over the last two days, and he’d been unfailingly cordial to her on each of those occasions.

“Ataan, is something wrong?” Iliana asked as she took the seat opposite him.

Now he was avoiding even making eye contact. “Of course not, Intendant.”

Iliana sighed and sat back in the chair beside Ataan’s. “This is about Ashalla, isn’t it?”

There it was, a flicker of reaction on the otherwise
hard and emotionless face. Although it disappeared as quickly as it had come, there was no mistaking the man’s grief.

“I know you spent a number of years on Bajor, but—”

“Me?” Ataan said sharply, looking at her for the first time since he’d entered the office. “Intendant, those are
your
people down there.”

“That’s where you’re mistaken, Ataan,” Iliana said. “They aren’t
my
people. Not really. Not yet. But they will be soon.”

“How can you believe that?”

“They same way that I know you’re going to help me find the dissidents now,” she said. “Faith.”

“This
again? I’ve told you I don’t—”

She interrupted him. “If you
really
don’t know anything about the Bajoran dissident movement, then why did a confessed member of that group implicate you?”

“I can think of any number of reasons a traitor to the Alliance might lie about being a traitor,” he said, seeming to take her accusation wholly in stride. “Can’t you, Intendant?”

“Perhaps that’s something both of us should remember,” Iliana said. “Why are you protecting them? What are these dissidents to you anyway?”

Ataan stared at her. “You talk about them as if they’re aliens.”

“And you talk about them as if they were not,” she said sharply. “As if you weren’t a Cardassian. As if you weren’t an agent of the Obsidian Order. As if you weren’t trained to abandon childish sentiment to better serve the state in the eternal struggle against its enemies.”

Ataan leaned forward in his chair. “You know who you remind me of right now?” he asked quietly. “You remind me of Tekeny Ghemor, just before—”

Iliana backhanded him across the face, knocking him out of his chair. She’d connected with his left orbital ridge, and the impact tore the skin of her knuckles. The pain was blinding, and as it slowly passed she saw the blood streaking the back of her hand.

Ataan was on the floor, propped up on an elbow, his legs still draped over his overturned chair. He rubbed the side of his face with his free hand.

Iliana was shaking. “What hold could they possibly have over you?”

“Kurn to Kira.”

“What?” she shouted.

“Forgive the interruption, Intendant, but my tactical officer has detected readings of the type you told him to search for.”

Not now!

“Why didn’t that fool know about it sooner?”

“He claims they were exceedingly difficult to detect, Intendant, and that only his diligence permitted their discovery at all.”

Iliana cursed and marched out of the office and into ops. Kurn and his tactical officer were standing inside the narrow triangle of the sciences station.

“So…agents from the other universe have invaded Bajor.” She looked accusingly at Kurn. “The static field was not so effective after all, it seems. Where is the source of the readings?”

The tactical officer rechecked his displays. “The northern hemisphere. Kendra Province. A mining operation known as Vekobet. I have the coordinates.”

Kurn looked at her. “Do you wish the camp targeted for destruction?”

Before Iliana could give her answer, a strangled “No!” erupted from her office. Iliana looked up toward the cry and saw Ataan standing in the office’s open doorway, fear contorting his face. “Please, Intendant, I’m begging you. I’ll tell you anything you want to know, I’ll
do
anything. Just please spare…”

“Spare who?” Iliana asked.

Ataan bowed his head. “My wife.”

In spite of herself, that revelation took her aback.
Wife? But Ataan’s file indicated he was unmarried. How could that fact be omitted from—Oh. Of course. Why didn’t I see that?

“You mean a Bajoran wife, don’t you?” Iliana said.

Ataan nodded, and into the ensuing silence Kurn started laughing.

“Shut up!” Iliana snapped. “Ataan, listen to me. What can you offer me for her life?”

“Intendant, what are you doing?” Kurn asked.

“Answer me, Ataan,” Iliana pressed, ignoring the general. “Validate my faith in you. What will you give me if I save her?”

Ataan looked down at her, his gray-complected face a portrait of pleading and devastation.

“I’ll give you dissidents,” he said.

“How?”

“Vekobet is home to one of their enclaves. Their leaders can give you the location of every other enclave on the planet, and the names of their secret supporters. All I ask in return is that you spare Vaas.”

“Vaas,” Iliana repeated quietly, the name seeming to echo inside her skull. “Dakahna Vaas.”

Ataan swallowed, obviously surprised that she knew the name. “Yes.”

For long seconds, Iliana couldn’t bring herself to move or speak, despite being acutely aware that every Klingon in ops was watching her intently.

“General Kurn,” she said at last. “Have this man escorted back to his quarters. Keep him under guard.”

Kurn gave the order, and two soldiers immediately ascended to the office level and moved in to grab Ataan’s arms in an immobilizing grip.

“Intendant, wait!” the Cardassian cried as he was hustled toward the turbolift. “I’ve kept my end of our bargain. Please tell me you intend to keep yours.”

Iliana turned her back on him. “Get him out of here,” she told Kurn.

“Intendant! Please!”

Ataan’s entreaties echoed from the turboshaft, and seemed to linger in the air long after the Klingons had dragged him away.

“That was…diverting,” Kurn ventured. “Now, if we can return to the matter of the invaders from the other universe…” The general trailed off portentously.

Iliana felt the hand she had bloodied striking Ataan begin to shake; not wishing to call attention to it, she discreetly placed it flat against the bulkhead at her back.

“Send your six
Chutok
assault craft down to the surface, General,” she said to Kurn. “Have them surround the camp. Instruct your men to move in on foot.”

Kurn sounded confused. “Why should we do that? We could simply beam down—”

“You heard our guest.”

“I heard a weakling tell you what he thought you wanted to hear.”

“That’s where we differ, General.
I
heard a man who has everything to lose make a choice about what matters most to him. We’re going to honor that choice.

“These are your orders: Your men will move in on foot, with a mission to capture the invaders from the other universe, the leaders of the enclave, and the woman Dakahna Vaas. But they’re
not
to be killed. Am I understood?”

Kurn bared his snaggly teeth. “But if they are enemies of the Alliance—”

“I want them
alive,”
Iliana said. Taking note of Kurn’s frustration, she added, “And just to make sure there are no accidents this time, Taran’atar will lead the ground assault.”

“What?”
Kurn exclaimed. “My men will
never
allow that thing to lead—”

Iliana stepped directly onto his objection. “If your men have a problem with ‘my Jem’Hadar pet,’ then by all means, let them take the matter up with
him.
” She allowed a thin smile to tug at the corners of her mouth. “The outcome of
that
should be quite amusing.”

The general’s frustration was becoming palpable, but to his credit he still seemed able to keep it in check, if only barely.

“Very well,” Kurn growled. “But I urge you to re
consider deploying the
Chutok
s. If you’re truly concerned about the invaders from the other universe, we should not give up the element of surprise. Why even bother landing ships when we could simply beam down troops!”

“Because, my dear General Kurn,” Iliana said, beaming at the general, “I want them to see it coming.”