Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: The Soul Key (16 page)

“Anything else?”

“Use of infantry suggests that the Klingons want to keep collateral damage to a minimum, or that they’re planning to take prisoners, or both. The camp’s ‘workforce’ is already moving into defensive positions. They look pretty good, but at three-to-one odds, the most they’ll do is slow the Klingons down a bit.”

“Recommendations?”

“We should attempt to keep the Klingons’ attention on us so we can cover our hosts’ escape.”

“Agreed. Meet me back in the refectory as soon as you can. That’s where we’ll make our stand.”

“I’ll be there as soon as I can. Vaughn out.”

Vaughn hurried down the ladder and back into the infirmary, even as the first sounds of disruptor fire rang out in the distance. Opaka had retrieved a cache of weapons from somewhere and was handing them out to the half-dozen patients in the main room, all of whom were quickly getting dressed and preparing to head out the door.

“Wait,” Vaughn said to them, blocking their exit. They halted but were clearly impatient to get outside, before they even knew what awaited them. “Your camp is surrounded. You’re outnumbered and outgunned. What do you intend to do?”

“We intend to fight,” one of the Bajorans declared, and the others voiced sentiments of agreement.

“Then you’re all going to die,” Vaughn told them. “This isn’t a fight you can win.”

More disruptor fire rang out. Anger seeped into the first Bajoran’s face and he tried to push Vaughn out of his way, but he stopped short of doing so when Vaughn suddenly drew his phaser and raised it to the man’s face.

“You have to listen to me, all of you,” Vaughn said.

Opaka was looking at him in shock. The other patients raised their weapons and aimed them straight at Vaughn.

“Who the
kosst
do you think you are?” the first Bajoran asked.

“Just tell me one thing,” Vaughn said quickly. He nodded toward Opaka. “What do you owe the leaders of this enclave?”

The patients looked at Opaka, then one of them turned back to Vaughn. “Everything.”

Vaughn lowered his weapon. “Then you need to help them get out of Vekobet,” he said. Opaka tried to protest, but Vaughn pushed ahead. “This place is about to be overrun by overwhelming Alliance forces. None of you stands a chance against them. But you
can
save Opaka. You
can
save the Shards of the Prophets.”

The assembled Bajorans began grumbling loudly, prompting Vaughn to raise his voice. “The six of you can escort Opaka through the escape tunnel, take whatever artifacts you can carry, and help her to reach another enclave. But your only chance is to do it
now.
Before the Klingons discover the reliquary and overrun it.”

“Commander, my people are under attack,” Opaka said angrily. “I have no intention of—”

“Listen to me,”
Vaughn said to her. “Bajor needs you
alive.
It needs the hope that those Shards represent. You have to get away,
now,
before the Klingons get past your soldiers.”

“I will
not
abandon my followers!”

“It’s we who will not abandon
you,
Mistress,” the first Bajoran said, and Opaka stared at him as he gestured at Vaughn. “This man is right. We cannot afford to lose you, especially now, after what happened to Ashalla. Our people need the guidance of the enclaves. And
this
enclave must survive, even if Vekobet does not.”

“My captain and I will try to keep the Klingons busy while you get away,” Vaughn said. “We’ll send Winn and Jaro after you. If you have explosives, you’ll need to use them to seal up the tunnel behind you. If you can, try to force the parts of the building directly over the tunnel to collapse, so that the Klingons never find your escape route.”

“Wait,” Opaka said. “Elias and Prynn—”

“I’ll see to them as well.” Vaughn looked at the first Bajoran. “Take three of your men and Opaka out of here, now. The rest of you, follow me.” He started back toward Elias’s room.

“Commander,” Opaka called after him.

He turned to look at her.

“Thank you,” she said.

Vaughn nodded and marched on to Elias’s room, followed by the two remaining armed Bajorans. Prynn looked up expectantly and Vaughn said, “You two need
to be evacuated immediately. Opaka will be waiting for you in the reliquary.”

“My father can’t walk,” Prynn said.

“We’ll carry him,” said one of the two armed Bajorans as the pair moved to either side of Elias’s bed.

“No,” the old man said, waving off the hands that reached for him.

“Dad, please, there’s no time for this,” Prynn said.

“I said
no,”
Elias said with as much force as his feeble voice could muster. “I can’t do this, Prynn…I would only slow you down…and I wouldn’t survive the journey anyway.”

“You don’t know what you’re saying.”

“Prynn,” Elias rasped. “Don’t be foolish. You have to leave me and go with Sulan. Now.”

“No!” Prynn cried. “I’m not going to—”

“Elias…tell her,” the dying man said.

Vaughn looked down at his counterpart. The disruptor fire outside was getting louder, more insistent. He knew they didn’t have much time.

“He’s right, Prynn,” he said. “He can’t do this.”

“Shut up!” Prynn shouted. “I’m not leaving my father here to be slaughtered.”

“Prynn, look at me!” her father said. “I’m dying…and I’ve had enough. I love you with all my heart…but it’s over. You need to let me go.”

“I can’t! Dad, please,
get up!
”

“Elias,” the old man said. “She’ll never be safe while I’m alive.”

Vaughn’s eyes narrowed. There was no misunderstanding what the other Elias was asking of him.

Vaughn drew his phaser and turned to the others. “Get her out of here.”

“What? No!” Prynn screamed as the two armed Bajorans moved in quickly to pull her out of the room. “Don’t do this! Dad, please—”

Vaughn gripped Elias’s arm and leaned in close to his withered face. “I’ll make it quick,” he whispered.

“Thank you,” the dying man said. He clutched Vaughn’s forearm with unexpected force, his blind eyes jerking wildly back and forth as if he could catch one last glimpse of something, anything—

“Dad!”

Vaughn aimed the phaser and gently squeezed the firing stud. He saw the weapon’s flash through his closed eyelids.

When Vaughn opened his eyes he saw that all light and life had vanished from those of his counterpart.

Prynn broke away from the others and threw herself at Vaughn.
“Damn you!”
she screamed, pounding her fists against his face.
“Damn you, damn you, damn you!”

Vaughn deflected the worst of the blows, but he found himself savoring the pain of the ones that connected. Perhaps they would shake loose the tears that refused to come.

“Take her,” he said quietly to the Bajorans. “Keep her safe.”

Vaughn drew a bedsheet over Elias’s still form. Prynn’s screams continued to echo, even after the two Bajorans had dragged her out of the infirmary.

“
W
inn, look out!” Kira shouted, pulling the other woman down and just barely out of the path of a slashing
bat’leth.
She raised her phaser and fired three quick bursts, striking down the entire trio of Klingons who had spotted them emerging from the refectory’s back door.

Vaughn was overdue, and with the sounds of fighting drawing ever closer to the refectory, Kira knew she could wait no longer to get the enclave’s leaders to safety. They had protested, of course, believing they should be leading their followers in defense of the camp. Kira had kept her arguments brief: they simply didn’t have the right to throw their lives away, or to waste the sacrifices of their followers. Not when they could keep their cause alive and escape with the Shards.

From her position at the refectory’s open back door, Kira swept her eyes around the alley for any sign of more Klingons. She raised her phaser again when a door about twenty meters away in the adjacent building burst open, and a screaming Prynn was dragged out by two of Vekobet’s fighters.

“Hold your fire,” Winn told Kira as Jaro went to learn what was going on. Kira couldn’t make out what they were saying, though she gathered that a tragedy of some sort had just occurred, for Prynn seemed inconsolable, and Jaro himself seemed ready to fall apart after hearing whatever the soldiers had to tell him.

Opaka…?

Another Klingon suddenly stepped into the alley, no doubt drawn by the sounds of Prynn’s screaming. Kira and Winn raised their weapons in tandem, and both their beams struck the Alliance soldier squarely in the chest, dropping him instantly.

“Go,” Kira told Winn. “Get them out of here, before more of them come!”

Winn looked at her gravely. “Walk with the Prophets, Kira Nerys.”

“You too,” Kira said. “Now
go
!”

Kira kept her weapon ready as the group hurried down the alley to another door near the far end. She held her breath, watching as Winn herded her charges inside before slamming the door shut behind her. Only then did Kira permit herself to exhale.

Vaughn stepped into the alley about a heartbeat later, passing through the same door from which Prynn had emerged. He saw Kira standing on the threshold of the refectory and started running toward her.

About five paces into his sprint, perhaps six more Klingons turned into the alley behind him.

She froze for a split second as she saw that a Jem’Hadar was leading their advance.

“Down!”
Kira shouted, and sprayed the alley with
phaser fire. Vaughn responded automatically by throwing himself the rest of the way forward, twisting as he fell and firing his own phaser back in the direction from which he had come.

Three of the Klingons went down immediately, while the remainder went for cover.

The Jem’Hadar had already vanished.

Kira pulled Vaughn inside the refectory and slammed the door behind him. She quickly led him to a hastily fashioned barricade behind the serving stations, a stopgap reinforced with propped-up tables and benches for additional shielding. She wasn’t sure what she hoped to accomplish with it when Jaro and Winn had assisted her in its construction, other than to keep the Klingons occupied for a few precious extra seconds before they inevitably killed her. But she also knew that those seconds might make all the difference for the enclave’s leaders.

Now she wondered if she would die today instead by Taran’atar’s hand.

“Thanks for the assist,” Vaughn panted, rubbing the shoulder on which he’d landed when he’d completed his desperate lunge down the alley.

“Did you see him?” Kira asked, her weapon raised as she peered past the tables at the back door.

“See who?”

“He’s here,” Kira said. “Taran’atar.”

Vaughn cursed. “Did he shroud?”

“I think so.”

Kira’s eyes panned across the windows. She could still hear the sounds of fighting in the distance, but it was strangely quiet near the refectory.
Where did they go?

After a moment she said, “We’re going to have to kill him, Elias.”

Vaughn nodded slowly. “I understand.”

“Do you?” Kira asked. “Because I want you to know I’m not talking about taking revenge against him, or exacting justice. Or even self-defense.”

“What
are
you talking about, then?”

“If we can’t cure him of his programming, then we should at least try to set him free. Snap his chains.”

Vaughn seemed almost to wince at that. “You mean…put him out of his misery.”

Kira hesitated. “I think he’d want that. Wouldn’t you? If you had no control over your life?”

Vaughn didn’t answer right away. “Maybe,” he said finally, in a surprisingly quiet voice.

“I didn’t see Opaka out there,” Kira said. “Is she—?”

“I made sure she got to safety.”

“Good.” Comforted to hear that, Kira took a deep breath. She felt a deep surge of gratitude toward him. Perhaps she’d have enough time to let him know how much she appreciated everything he’d done, before…

“Look,” she said. “About my relieving you of duty…”

He shook his head. “Captain, you don’t have to—”

The ceiling creaked. Kira and Vaughn both shifted their positions, taking aim at the sagging rafters.

“I don’t think we have a lot of time left, Elias,” she said. “So please shut up and listen to me. I think maybe I was feeling a lot like Taran’atar—as if nothing was within my control anymore. It made me feel weak. Ineffectual. I felt like everything was going to hell, and that it was all
my fault because I wasn’t a strong enough captain. I was wrong to take my frustrations out on you.”

“For whatever it’s worth, Nerys…you may just be the strongest captain I’ve ever known.”

“That’s worth a great deal to me,” Kira said. “I wish to hell we weren’t in this mess, but I’m glad you’ve got my back.”

Silence settled between them, broken only by the sounds of combat beyond the dense nyawood walls and the small creaks and groans of the refectory’s damaged ceiling. The approaching sounds of small arms fire and explosions mingled with shouting and screaming, and it was all Kira could do not to abandon their position and join the fight outside. It went against every instinct she had to sit around waiting for a strike force to storm the doors while the people outside were laying down their lives just to slow the Klingons down.

Stick to the plan,
she told herself.
Jaro and the others need time to get away….

“Captain, I need to ask you something,” Vaughn said suddenly. “It’s about Ben Sisko.”

“What is it?”

Vaughn turned to face her. “Have you ever known him to lie?”

Kira’s eyebrows shot up in bemusement. “Why are you asking me that?”

“Has he changed much over the years you’ve known him?”

“Of course,” Kira said. “Everybody changes. You know th—”

Vaughn shook his head. “What I guess I mean is, since he returned from living among the Prophets…is he still the same man you used to know?”

Kira considered the question for a moment before answering. “I guess the honest answer is ‘yes and no.’ In some ways he’s exactly the same. But in others, well…I suppose being among Them changes you.”

“Have you?”

“Have I what?”

“Have you been among the Prophets?”

Kira hesitated again before saying, “I don’t really feel comfortable talking about this, Elias.”

“I’m sorry,” Vaughn said. “I realize that was an inappropriate question. I’m just trying to wrap my head around something, and the more I try, the more I—” He stopped, distracted by a heavy thud overhead, and a renewed groaning from the nyawood timbers overhead.

Uh-oh.

The roof exploded.

Kira and Vaughn took cover as broken beams and splintered wood rained down, crashing everywhere. Dark figures descended through the rising dust cloud on lines, at least a dozen of them. Vaughn and Kira shot through the haze, felling the closest of the Klingons while drawing fire from others. Disruptor blasts shattered portions of the barricade, sending shards of wood flying in every direction.

Kira looked at Vaughn, who was bleeding profusely from a gash in his forehead. She saw the question in his face, and she nodded. Neither of them was willing to remain pinned down. If this was to be their end, they
were going to give the Klingons a moment to remember.

They ran out from behind the barricade together, heading in separate directions, their phasers singing as they set the dust cloud aglow in orange light. Disruptor fire answered them from two of the Klingons, but it went wild as both warriors were suddenly felled by a fast-moving shadow that vanished as quickly as it had appeared.

Kira spotted another Klingon setting his sights on Vaughn and she swept her phaser around, her shot knocking the warrior off his feet.

Vaughn broke into a run toward his next nearest attacker, but something unseen knocked her XO’s legs out from under him, forcing him to the floor before it slashed open the Klingon’s chest.

Kira searched in vain for their invisible opponent. She saw instead that one more Klingon was moving in her direction, his
bat’leth
sweeping inexorably toward her—

The Klingon rose suddenly into the air, tumbling over Kira’s head and crashing insensate against the barricade’s broken remains.

An excruciating silence descended over the half-demolished refectory.

She stared into the dissipating dust cloud, desperately searching it for some sign of movement not consistent with the settling haze.

There.

He was directly in front of her, less than a meter away, a partial outline of his distinctive silhouette suddenly discernible in the grit-laden air. She brought up her phaser…and he slapped it out of her hand.

Invisible fingers clamped around her neck, and Taran’atar unshrouded, staring coolly into her eyes.

His expression, as usual, was unreadable.

“You saved us from the Klingons,” she croaked.

“They would have killed you,” he said in a voice utterly devoid of emotion. “We were ordered to capture you alive. Obedience brings victory.”

“No,” Kira gasped. She knew he was cutting off her oxygen. The world was rapidly becoming edged in black.
Not much time left.

“It doesn’t have to be that way,” she said, each word a mortal struggle. “You’re stronger than that. You’re stronger than
her.
You can break the cycle. You can
choose….
Finish your battle, once and for all, Taran’atar…. Reclaim your life.”

He pulled her toward him until his cobbled face completely filled the narrow, dimly illuminated tunnel that was all that remained of her dying vision.

“I already have,” he said.

Then the gathering darkness enclosed her entirely.