Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: The Soul Key

Opaka laughed. “Oh, I’m quite certain of who you are, young woman. I knew it the moment I saw
him.
” She pointed a finger at Vaughn. “What I demand to know is why you’ve come here, and why you’re posing as the Intendant.”

Kira grinned involuntarily, a nervous rictus catalyzed by the sheer absurdity of seeing Opaka Sulan as the gun-slinging master of a labor camp, and Winn Adami as her lieutenant.

Vaughn, for his part, seemed preoccupied studying the faces around him. What he expected to learn from doing so, Kira had no clue. They’d spoken little during the two hours it had taken them to walk here from Akorem’s Rock—after Nog had successfully beamed them across the dimensional gulf from Deep Space 9—pausing in their journey only to snatch some indigenous clothing from a vacant farmhouse in order to conceal their uniforms as they continued toward Vekobet.

“I came here because of Iliana Ghemor,” Kira told their captor.

The Lives of Dax
by various authors

A Stitch in Time
by Andrew J. Robinson

Avatar, Book One & Book Two
by S. D. Perry

Section 31: Abyss
by David Weddle & Jeffrey Lang

Gateways: Demons of Air and Darkness
by Keith R.A. DeCandido

“Horn and Ivory” by Keith R.A. DeCandido from

Gateways: What Lay Beyond

Mission: Gamma, Book One—Twilight
by David R. George III

Mission: Gamma, Book Two—This Gray Spirit
by Heather Jarman

Mission: Gamma, Book Three—Cathedral
by Michael A. Martin & Andy Mangels

Mission: Gamma, Book Four—Lesser Evil
by Robert Simpson

Rising Son
by S. D. Perry

The Left Hand of Destiny, Book One & Book Two
by J. G. Hertzler & Jeffrey Lang

Unity
by S. D. Perry

Worlds of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Volume One
by various authors

Worlds of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Volume Two
by various authors

Worlds of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Volume Three
by various authors

Warpath
by David Mack

Fearful Symmetry
by Olivia Woods

COLLECTIONS

Twist of Faith
by S. D. Perry; David Weddle & Jeffrey Lang;

Keith R.A. DeCandido

These Haunted Seas
by David R. George III and Heather Jarman

“Destiny is not a matter of chance; it is a matter of choice.”

—William Jennings Bryan

You can either make your own decisions…or you can let these prophecies make them for you.

—Jadzia Dax
“Destiny”
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
written by
David S. Cohen & Martin A. Winer

PROLOGUE ALTERNATE UNIVERSE TEROK NOR

PART ONE HARKOUM 2376

1

2

3

PART TWO DEEP SPACE 9

4

5

6

PART THREE THE ALTERNATE UNIVERSE

7

8

9

10

11

12

PART FOUR THE ALTERNATE UNIVERSE

13

14

15

PART FIVE THE ALTERNATE UNIVERSE

16

17

18

19

20

21

INTERLUDE

22

INTERLUDE

23

PART SIX DEEP SPACE 9

24

25

EPILOGUE

ALTERNATE UNIVERSE TEROK NOR

“T
he fact is, Miles, the situation out there isn’t good…and it’s getting worse by the day.”

Miles O’Brien scowled as he lowered himself into his chair in the station commander’s office. The last thing he needed was for his visitor to belabor the obvious. Michael Eddington was a pragmatist; he generally didn’t mince words and he had a useful knack for zeroing in on the essence of any issue, free of emotion. As such, Eddington’s role as one of O’Brien’s closest advisers—not to mention as a leader of the Terran Rebellion in his own right—was usually invaluable.

Today was a notable exception.

“I don’t need to be reminded how bad it is,” O’Brien snapped. “What I’m waiting to hear is how your meeting with the Autarch’s representatives went.”

“Well then,” Eddington said, “the first thing you need to know is that I was never allowed to meet with his representatives. I met with the
representatives
of his representatives—a bunch of Mizarians who showed up just so they could tell us to get lost. The short version
is this: we shouldn’t expect any help from the Tzenkethi.”

O’Brien scoffed. “Damn fools,” he muttered. “They’ve got a helluva lot more to lose than we do, and still they refuse to see how vulnerable they are.”

Eddington shrugged. “We knew it was a long shot. Quite honestly, I was surprised they agreed to speak to us at all, even through a third party. The Autarch has no love for the Alliance, but he won’t risk antagonizing them by giving our people safe haven—or providing us with weapons and matériel. To his way of thinking, he’s playing it safe.”

“He thinks he’s safe now, but the détente between the Tzenkethi Coalition and the Alliance isn’t going to last forever,” O’Brien said. “The Cardassians have been itching to annex their worlds for years. Eventually they’re going to find an excuse to attack, and when that happens, the Autarch is going to wish he’d partnered up with us. And by then it’ll be too damn late!” He pounded his fist on the desk, managing to strike the spot that was starting to turn into a well-formed depression in the gleaming black surface.

“Maybe Leeta will have better luck with the Talarians,” Eddington said. “Has there been any word from her?”

O’Brien shook his head. “
Defiant’
s on silent running. With the Alliance getting more determined—especially the way they came after us in the Badlands—I didn’t want to take any chances.”

Muttering curses, O’Brien turned away from his desk and sought the calm he sometimes found gazing
out the office’s great picture window. Terok Nor’s axial rotation had once again brought Bajor into view. The teal-and-white orb was nearly in half-phase, swaddled in darkness. From this vantage point, it looked peaceful, betraying nothing of the tension that had gripped it these last four years—ever since O’Brien and his followers had captured Terok Nor and issued their threat to bombard the planet from orbit should the Klingon-Cardassian Alliance ever make the slightest move against the station. For four years that gambit had kept them relatively safe; Bajor was too important to the Alliance for them to risk it over Terok Nor. But what, other than achieving mere survival, had the rebellion actually accomplished in those four years?

From O’Brien’s perspective, it amounted to two words:
Damned little.

“Do you ever wonder if we’re just kidding ourselves?” O’Brien asked aloud, watching as a storm vortex crept over Bajor’s terminator.

“No, I don’t,” Eddington said emphatically. There was an edge in his voice—a note of warning that O’Brien knew was meant to tamp down any further discouraging talk.

O’Brien didn’t care. “I do,” he admitted.

“Then I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that.”

O’Brien snorted and turned to look his friend in the eye. “That’s not like you, Michael.”

“The alternative would be to relieve you of command, and my job is complicated enough already, thank you very much,” Eddington replied with equanimity. He paused, and a look of understanding softened his hard
stare. “Look, Miles, we both knew this was never going to be easy. And yes, we’ve had a bad year.”

O’Brien barely resisted chuckling out loud at Eddington’s gift for understatement, which rivaled that of his own Irish countrymen. Characterizing the past year as “bad” was on a par with describing the Emerald Isle’s ancient history of brutal, bloody struggle—both against the British and each other—as “the Troubles.”

“Between the debacle at Empok Nor and the setbacks we’ve suffered since then,” Eddington continued, “there’s no question that the Alliance is stepping up the pressure—thanks in no small part to Kira’s return to grace as Bajor’s Intendant.”

O’Brien nodded. “She always did seem to take the rebellion personally, didn’t she?”

“A rebellion that you and Sisko started,” Eddington said, placing both hands on O’Brien’s desk as he leaned forward. The edge in his voice returned abruptly. “You are one of the fathers of the rebellion, Miles. Never forget that. It means that you don’t get to have doubts, or regrets. You can’t afford the luxury of wondering whether all of this was a colossal mistake. You just
don’t.”

O’Brien sighed and nodded, acknowledging the bitter yet inescapable truth underlying Eddington’s words, though he wished to hell he could have denied it. He knew he didn’t really have a choice in the matter—not if he wanted to be the human being he believed himself capable of becoming. Born to a race that had lived as slaves since the Klingons and Cardassians had conquered the corrupt and brutal Terran Empire during the previous century—a star-spanning imperium that once had
dominated this part of the galaxy—O’Brien had known nothing but toil, penury, misery, and indignity.

But that had changed more than six years ago, after a visitation by the natives of a parallel universe helped him and Ben Sisko imagine that humankind might be destined for something else, something better than the extremes of human history. Something nobler than the commonplace cruelties and casual atrocities that the human species had once inflicted upon others, and now endured almost as a kind of collective penance.

The rebellion against the Klingon-Cardassian Alliance had been born out of that accidental interdimensional encounter, with Sisko leading the charge, O’Brien at his side, and a motley band of ex-slaves who’d stood little chance of surviving that first day, much less changing anything for themselves or anyone else. But survive they had, and in time they had drawn others to their cause, both humans and members of other species who had been oppressed by the Klingon-Cardassian Alliance.

And when Sisko had ceased to be part of the equation, O’Brien had, in time, found the leader inside himself to keep the rebellion going, because he still clung to the belief that a better life was possible. If humanity was indeed capable of taking charge of its collective destiny, then Miles Edward O’Brien could certainly steer his own. Believing that kept him going.

At least most of the time.

“You’re right, Michael,” O’Brien said at last. “It won’t happen again.”

The other man’s hands came off the desk, his posture relaxing. “Good. Now, regardless of whether or not
Leeta makes any inroads with the Talarians, you may want to consider—” Eddington broke off as the office doors abruptly parted, and the weathered face of Luther Sloan appeared on the threshold.

“You two had better get out here. Tigan’s got something.”

O’Brien nearly leaped over his desk in his haste to get to ops. Tigan was at the situation table, shaking her head at what she was seeing displayed on its surface.

“What’s going on, Ezri?”

“Beats the hell out of me,” Tigan said, strands of her shaggy black hair partially obscuring her right eye as she studied a comm console. “According to this, there’s a subspace transmission coming in, but I can’t tell where it’s coming
from.”

O’Brien glanced over her shoulder. “That
is
odd.”

“Maybe our friends on Bajor have come up with a new way to avoid having their signals traced,” Sloan suggested from the tactical station.

“Could be,” O’Brien mused. If so, it would be a real breakthrough for the rebellion. No more clandestine shuttle flights down to the planet for meetings with the religious enclaves. They might even be able to adapt the system to the transporter.

Steady there, Miles. Best not to get ahead of yourself.

“I’d say it’s an audio-video transmission, judging from the bandwidth it’s using,” he noted aloud. “Put it on the screen.”

Tigan complied, but the only thing that appeared in the main holoframe was a snowstorm-like curtain of static.

O’Brien scowled. “Ezri, keep trying to trace the signal…and try talking to them, whoever they are. Michael, come with me. Let’s see if we can boost our gain.”

As he and Eddington moved to the communications station on the upper level, O’Brien could hear Tigan saying, “Hello? Who is this? Please identify yourself.”

Eddington tried reconfiguring the subspace antennae while O’Brien took a harder look at the transmission that was struggling to get through. The waveform was beginning to look familiar to him.

“Oh, shite. I think I know what this is.”

“Signal looks like it’s clearing up,” Eddington said.

O’Brien sighed and watched as the static on the holoframe slowly dissipated. “We may end up wishing it hadn’t.”

The images of four people gradually resolved into being. Two humans and two Ferengi.

Eddington’s mouth dropped open in shock. “Is—is that Bashir on the left?”

“It is,” O’Brien said grimly, “and it isn’t.” In point of fact, the four individuals on the screen were all people O’Brien knew to be dead—at least in
this
universe: Bashir, Sisko, Nog, and Quark. They were standing in an exact duplicate of ops, right in front of the station commander’s office.

O’Brien leaned toward Eddington and whispered, “Get Keiko up here. Now.”

“Oh, no,” Ezri said in evident dismay. “Not you.”

Nog, the younger of the two Ferengi, turned to the older one, who was smiling into the camera.
“She doesn’t look too happy to see you.”

“Shows what you know,”
Quark told him.
“She and I have a rapport…. Don’t we, my dear…?”

“Quark!”
someone snapped from off camera.

“This is a trick,” Tigan said.

“It’s not a trick,” O’Brien whispered, too softly for anyone else to hear.

“I realize this comes as a shock,”
Sisko assured Tigan.
“We’ve been on the receiving end of them from your side enough times to know the feeling. But I can assure you we’re exactly who you think we are.”

“Yeah, you’d have to be, wouldn’t you?” Tigan mumbled. She looked up at O’Brien. “You want to get in on this?”

O’Brien sighed and made his way back down the steps to rejoin Tigan at the situation table. “Hello, Captain Sisko. Doctor Bashir. It’s good to see you both…but this does raise a lot of questions.”

“It’s good to see you, too…Smiley,”
Sisko said.
“I’m glad we don’t have to waste a lot of time trying to prove to you who we are.”

“I recognized the carrier wave you’re using. Clever idea, adapting my dimensional transport module for communication between our universes,” O’Brien said, noticing that Nog seemed to stand up a little straighter after hearing that. “And I have to admit, using a bunch of people we know to be dead on this side was a nice touch.” For some reason, the comment prompted Quark’s counterpart to roll his eyes.

In the same moment, O’Brien’s first officer emerged from one of the turbolifts. Along with Eddington, Keiko Ishikawa had become one his closest confidants since
she’d led a shipload of liberated slaves from Korvat to Terok Nor almost two years ago. More than that, he and Keiko had become lovers, and at the sight of her long black hair tied back from her lovely face, O’Brien felt himself relaxing at once. She stared in fascination at the holoframe as she joined him at the situation table, followed by Eddington and Sloan.

O’Brien made some quick introductions, and Sisko did the same as more people gathered next to him: Tigan’s counterpart, the Intendant’s, even Iliana Ghemor’s.

“Smiley, it’s me,”
Ghemor said.

O’Brien frowned. “Excuse me?”

Ghemor sighed. “
The morning I left the station to go to Bajor, you were on very little sleep—voles in the bulkheads kept you up half the night, you told me.”
Before O’Brien could respond, the Cardassian turned to Tigan.
“By the way, Ezri, how did Leeta like that little ‘surprise’ you planned on giving her for her birthday?”

“Hey!” Tigan complained.

“Iliana,” O’Brien said, needing no further convincing, “what the hell are you doing over there?”

Luther Sloan tried not to show it, but he was enjoying himself immensely. Everything he knew about the alternate universe he had learned from O’Brien and Tigan, the only people left on Terok Nor who’d had any direct experience with that parallel continuum. And while he found it difficult to believe that any version of Julian Bashir wasn’t a complete jerk, he felt an irrepressible thrill at seeing the people who had inspired O’Brien and Ben Sisko into starting the Terran Rebellion.

But the wonder of the moment threatened to dissipate as Iliana Ghemor began to tell them what was, in Sloan’s estimation, a preposterous tale.

If pressed, Sloan would be forced to admit that Ghemor had worried him from the start. She wasn’t the first Cardassian to have sided with them against the Alliance, but she seemed an unlikely traitor. She was the daughter of its former director and had been an agent of the Obsidian Order before fleeing her people under extremely suspicious circumstances some months ago. Of course, similar doubts had once been cast upon Ishikawa, especially after she’d started sleeping with General O’Brien, but in both circumstances, the rebellion’s leader had stood by his decision to accept the women who had joined their cause. And to her credit, the information Ghemor shared with them on Alliance security had been directly responsible for the success of a number of strikes the rebels had launched against military targets in Klingon-Cardassian territory.