Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: The Soul Key (20 page)

S
he fell through the Temple Gates, down into the gullet of infinite possibilities. And as the wormhole consumed her, the world she knew receded behind an infinite vista of radiant white, until all that remained was the beating of her heart—the steady rhythm that kept her anchored to her life on the linear plane. She found her hand, pale fingers flexing above her open palm, and slowly she came to understand that she was not alone.

“I’m here!” Iliana announced. “Can you hear me? I’ve opened the Temple Gates! I’ve fulfilled the prophecy of the Emissary! Show yourselves!”

“Corporeal entities,” noted Tekeny Ghemor. Her father stood before her, aglow in a strange light that made him indistinct around the edges. “They come from the Broken Line.”

“No,” said Corbin Entek, his face as strangely diffused as her father’s. “Only one of them is from the Broken. The others other are from the Penitent.”

Suddenly Iliana saw that her counterpart and Kira were present as well, not glowing like the others, but
seeming more tangible. The three of them formed the points of a triangle in the whiteness through which the others—the Prophets, Iliana realized—circled and weaved.

“Broken?” asked Kira. “Penitent? What does that mean? Is that how you refer to our two universes?”

“They are intrusive,” said Skrain Dukat as he approached Kira. “Aggressive. Adversarial.”

“One is the Hand,” interceded Kira Taban, suddenly standing between Kira and Dukat. He turned toward the two Ilianas. “One is the Voice. One is the Fire.”

“But only one was meant to come to us,” said Ataan Rhukal.

“Then send these others away!” Iliana said. “You don’t need them!”

“Why do you need
any
of us?” her counterpart asked the Prophets. “Why must you interfere with our worlds?”

“You
interfere,” Dakahna Vaas said.
“You
come to
us.”

“I’m
the one!” Iliana cried.
“I
can fill the vacuum that Sisko left when he died.”

“This one is conflicted,” Entek said, studying Iliana’s face. “It speaks with two voices.”

“I
opened the Gates!” Iliana insisted.
“I’m
the Emissary. Please! You must help me—”

“Help?” asked Shakaar Edon. “What is this?”

“Give me back my
life,”
Iliana screamed.

The Prophets looked at one another, but whether they were conferring among themselves in some way she couldn’t perceive, or were merely puzzled by her demand, Iliana had no way of knowing.

Finally the Prophet wearing Kaleen Ghemor’s face turned toward her. “Which life?” she asked.

Iliana opened her mouth, but no answer came.

“Conflicted,” repeated Entek. “Broken.”

“Her existence is entwined with that of our Hand,” observed Kira Meru. “It is no longer linear.”

“An anomaly,” Dukat said as he slowly approached her. “We should examine it more closely.”

Without warning, the past of Iliana Ghemor exploded. Faces and events were yanked from her soul like pages ripped from a book. And as the tatters of her exposed lifescape were laid bare before the beings arrayed around her, she began to understand just how small she truly was.

“H
ere she comes!” Dax shouted. “Helm, hard to port! Weapons, target their impulse drive!”

“Incoming fire!” Bowers announced. “Ahead one-ten mark two.”

They came under attack much sooner than expected. The
Negh’Var,
a monstrous Klingon warship, had somehow managed to pull ahead of the rest of the Klingon fleet that was still speeding toward them from Bajor.

She was coming in with every weapons tube blazing.

Dax instinctively reached for her armrests. “All hands, brace for impact!”

Defiant’
s bridge rocked as a spread of photon torpedoes pummeled the ship’s shields. Men and women all around were tossed away from their stations as instrument panels cracked and erupted in flames.

The fire suppression system kicked in as Tenmei clawed her way back to her seat and fought to right the wounded vessel, aligning inertia with
Defiant’
s artificial gravity. Portside instruments became coated in a fine mist of flame retardant that quickly doused the fires.

“Damage report,” Dax called out.

“Power outage on deck two, section three,” Leishman reported from the engineering console. “Hull breach on deck four, section three. Force field in place and holding. Impulse power reduced by twelve percent.”

“Several injuries reported, Captain,” Bowers said. “Doctor Bashir is on it.”

Dax hit the comm to engineering. “Nog, how’s it going down there?”

“You want the good news first, or the bad?”

Dax sighed. “Give me the bad.”

“You’re about to lose another fifteen percent of impulse efficiency.”

“What’s the good?”

“You’re only going to lose another ten percent shield strength.”

“Your way of looking at the bright side never ceases to amaze me, Nog,” Dax said. “How much time do you need to crank up those numbers?”

“Ten minutes, minimum,”
the engineer said.

“Take your time. You’ve got five. Bridge out.”

“Negh’Var
coming about on an intercept course,” Bowers said.

“How long until the rest of the fleet gets here?”

“Nineteen minutes.”

Dax watched the screen, the hawkish forward profile of the
Negh’Var
resembling an ungainly raptor descending on its prey.

She rose from the command chair. “Prynn, can you get us under the belly of that thing, inside their shield envelope?”

Tenmei turned to look at her. “We’ll take a hell of a
pounding if I do,” she warned. “And with the shields and impulse drive both getting weaker, we could easily lose one or both by the time we’re through.”

“I have a thought about that,” Dax said, and proceeded to describe what she had in mind. Prynn listened, her eyes widening only once as Dax outlined her plan.

“I’ll need a few extra seconds to plot that,” she said.

“Get started,” said Dax. “Sam, I want pulse phasers and shields at full strength for this. Get the power from wherever you have to, but get it done.” She turned to Leishman. “Mikaela, call engineering and let Mister Bright Side down there know what’s going to be expected of him.”

“The
Negh’Var
is closing fast,” Bowers said. “Phasers at full. Shield strength up to ninety percent and climbing….”

“Prynn, have you got that maneuver plotted yet?” Dax said, hearing the tension in her own voice, willing herself back to calmness.
Easy-peasy.

Prynn didn’t respond, her hands continuing to fly across her console.

“Prynn!”

“Done!” she said.

“On my mark,” said Dax, returning to her chair. “Execute!”

“Negh’Var
firing forward disruptors,” Bowers said.

Defiant
dived on approach, corkscrewing as she passed below the
Negh’Var’
s command pod, putting her ventral hull toward that of her adversary.
Defiant’
s shields glowed with terrifying brilliance as the Klingons’ particle beams sought to slice them open and sink deep into the remaining ablative armor that protected the starship’s exposed belly.

As the
Negh’Var
streaked past,
Defiant
rotated on her lateral axis, her nose angling toward the Klingons, freeing her pulse phaser cannons to target the aft section of the
Negh’Var’s
impulse drive.

“Fire!”

Massive sections of drive plating ripped apart as multiple phaser bolts tore through them, exposing the glowing fusion plants within as the two ships pulled away from each other.
Defiant
poured on the acceleration as the Klingon power cores burst behind her, the entire back half of the
Negh’Var
blowing apart as it began to tumble out of control toward the charged plasma fields of the Denorios Belt.

It didn’t take long for Dax and her command crew to assess that the victory had been a costly one, however.
Defiant’
s shields were gone, and her ablative armor was now severely compromised. Impulse power was functioning well below optimal levels. EPS conduits and isolinear optical cable had been exposed by fallen ceiling plates, and now hung over the bridge crew like rainforest vines.

“Klingon attack fleet closing in,” Bowers reported. “ETA now three minutes.”

“Nog,” Dax called, breathing heavily. “Can you give me shields?”

“Not in three minutes, I can’t. Sorry, Captain.”

Dax pushed the hair out of her eyes. “Prynn, how long can we evade them?”

Prynn turned and simply shook her head.

“Oh, damn,” Dax muttered. “Status of warp drive?”

“Online,” Leishman told her.

“Prepare to withdraw,” Dax ordered, her own words
stabbing her in the throat like knives. “We’ll return and reengage as soon as—”

“Captain, the Klingons are veering off,” Bowers said, sounding nonplussed.
“All
of them. They’re now taking a heading of two-nine-three mark fourteen.”

Dax opened her mouth to ask why, but Rahim saved her the trouble. “I have multiple contacts coming out of warp,” Rahim said. “Thirty—no,
forty
ships, heading two-nine-three mark fourteen.”

Dax’s heart sank, and she sagged into the command chair. “More Alliance forces?”

Rahim took a second look at his instruments, as if he couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing. “No, sir. They’re Talarian.”

“Talarian?” Dax said. “Confirm.”

“They’re definitely Talarian, Captain. And there’s now a ship decloaking directly in front of them, taking the point.”

Rahim turned to look at Dax with eyes like deflector dishes. “It’s
Defiant!”

“The Klingons are heading straight for us,” Shar said, his antennae taut with tension as battle approached. “They’ve forgotten the other
Defiant
completely. Just as you guessed, Leeta. They’ll be in firing range in six minutes.”

Leeta smirked. Klingons just never knew when to pack up and go home. She turned toward the broad-bodied man who stood next to her command chair.

“Once again, I want to thank you for your assistance during this crisis, Minister Endar,” she said.

“You can thank me
after
the battle is won, Captain.” the Talarian said. “The Alliance has threatened my people long enough. We are eager to join swords with whoever else may share our enmity.”

Leeta nodded toward Pennak, who was manning communications. “Raise the other
Defiant.”

“They’re answering,” Pennak said a few moments later.

“On screen.”

The face of the other ship’s captain filled the forward viewer. To Leeta’s surprise, it was Ezri Tigan’s counterpart.

Okay, now that’s just plain
weird, she thought.

“Leeta, isn’t it?”
the other woman asked.

Leeta grinned, wondering if her counterpart and this Ezri were married, too. “It is. Pleased to make your acquaintance, Captain Tigan.”

“It’s Dax, actually.”

Oh, right. The worm. Zee told me about that.

“Thank you for your timely assistance,”
the other Ezri said.
“As soon as we’ve effected some necessary repairs, we’ll join—”

“From what I’ve been able to see,” Leeta said, interrupting, “you and your people have done plenty already. Do what you need to do. But my new friends and I can take it from here.”

Ezri Dax nodded.
“Good hunting, Captain.
Defiant
Out.”

“Shar,” Leeta said. “Begin attack run. Weapons, target the lead ships and fire on my mark. Prennak, send word throughout the fleet…

“It’s showtime.”

K
ira witnessed the life of Iliana Ghemor unfolding, and felt pity.

The terrible things Iliana had described to her in Kira’s holding cell on Terok Nor had seemed intolerable. Now Kira knew they’d merely been a glimpse into the depths of the loss, misery, heartache, and betrayal that had defined this woman’s life.

And the tragic, winding path that had led her to this moment.

“It speaks with two voices,” she’d heard the Prophets say. And so it was. She really was as much Kira Nerys as she was Iliana Ghemor, and it was a sobering thing to understand—that Kira’s life had played such a part in shaping such a dark and damaged creature.

She looked at Iliana and saw tears flowing freely down her cheeks, saw her spreading her hands toward the nonexistent sky, soundlessly pleading to those whom she had so fervently sought.

And, at last, she was answered.

A radiant white light enveloped Iliana, permeated her,
and mingled with her. Her features became indistinct as the light steadily escalated in magnitude, but Kira saw her expression change just before she vanished completely. It was a look that Kira recognized, though she had but rarely been sufficiently blessed to experience its cause.

Clarity.

Iliana disappeared.

And then there were two,
Kira thought.

“What happened to her?” she asked aloud.

The image of Opaka Sulan answered: “She is the fire.”

“What does that
mean?”
Ghemor demanded. “What does
any
of this have to do with
my
universe? What is the Voice?”

“You
are the Voice,” a spectral Winn Adami told her. Kira suddenly noticed that Ghemor’s left hand was encircled by the Paghvaram.

“Does that mean I’m the Emissary?”

“You are not the Sisko,” Jaro Essa’s image proclaimed, as if he were offering clarification. “But you will do.”

And like her counterpart, Ghemor also vanished, leaving Kira alone to face her gods.