Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: The Soul Key (3 page)

“May I inquire as to what brings you here?”

Still smiling, the other woman leaned in and whispered conspiratorially. “My purpose isn’t for the ears of the rabble serving under you. Is there some place where we can speak privately?”

“Of course. Please follow me.” Opaka nodded to Winn, who dropped back, and then Opaka led her two visitors toward the cluster of sturdy old buildings along the camp’s eastern fence—it was all that remained of the thriving rural community that had occupied this site since long before the Council of Ministers had seized the land for mining operations on the Alliance’s behalf.

As they crossed the empty intersection at the center of the camp, Opaka offered up a brief history of Vekobet, pointing out its key features, expounding upon the great successes of her administration…and doing her best to keep her visitors’ attention diverted from the Klingon disruptor she was very slowly sliding out of the holster on her hip.

When she felt the muzzle of an unfamiliar weapon at her neck, she knew her efforts at discretion had been in vain. “Drop the pistol,” Kira whispered in her ear.

Opaka merely smiled.

“I said, drop the pistol,”
Kira hissed, pressing the weapon against her skin.

“I think not,” Opaka whispered back. “Take a good look around you.”

She felt the younger woman’s head turning, first left and then right, and slowly the weapon at Opaka’s neck eased off. The entire camp had fallen silent. Following Winn’s silent orders, both the “workers” and the “overseers”—nearly three hundred strong—had drawn disruptors of their own, each and every weapon targeted at the visitors.

“All right, look,” Captain Kira Nerys said as the alternate Winn Adami moved in to confiscate their phasers. “We’re not who you think we are.”

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.

Opaka stuck her disruptor under Kira’s jaw. “Where is she? If she’s dead, if you’ve killed her—”

“She’s all right,” Kira said calmly. “Only two of us could make the journey, but she’s safe, I promise you. It was she who told us where to find the religious enclave from which she received her…information about her counterpart.”

“Then why the subterfuge?” Opaka asked.

“Frankly, I wasn’t sure who among you I should trust. Ghemor didn’t have time to tell us what we should expect, or who we should speak to. When I saw that Vekobet is a labor camp, I thought posing as the Intendant was my best option until I could make contact with members of the enclave.” She looked around ruefully at the small army arrayed around them. “I never imagined that the entire camp was in on it.”

Opaka seemed to be studying Kira very carefully. Suddenly she reached out and grasped Kira’s bare left ear between thumb and forefinger. Kira gasped slightly but stood her ground. The older woman closed her eyes, and after a few silent moments, the disruptor slowly withdrew, and Opaka released Kira’s ear.

“They mean us no harm,” Opaka told Winn. “Have our people stand down, and give our visitors back their sidearms.”

Winn frowned. “Are you sure about—?”

“Do it,” the other woman said, “and bring them to the refectory. We’ll continue our conversation there.” Opaka turned and went on ahead, speaking quietly into a comm device that she retrieved from the pockets of her long coat.

Winn was eyeing them with suspicion as she handed back their phasers. “Move,” she told them, ordering Vaughn and Kira to walk in front of her as the three of them followed in Opaka’s wake toward one of the camp’s larger buildings.

Kira noted that Vaughn was still searching the faces of the alien “laborers,” all of whom had already returned to their mining. Mostly they were humans, but Kira had also noticed some Tellarites among them, as well as a few Bolians and representatives of several other familiar species.

“What is it?” she whispered.

Vaughn hesitated before answering. “I’m looking for someone who can help us.”

“Let’s hope we’ve already found them,” Kira said, though she was glad Vaughn was continuing to attempt to assess their options.

They were led to an elaborate wooden building, built entirely of nyawood. Massive timbers that may have been decades or centuries old lent the structure the solidity of stone—something that could endure the test of time. Inside it was revealed as a large, rustic dining hall, empty but for a dozen or so long tables and benches, which were arranged in orderly rows, and the presently unoccupied serving stations that ran along one wall. Large oval windows on the eastern and western walls allowed daylight to fill the refectory, and the smell of cooking permeated the place.

Opaka was already waiting for them at the head of one of the tables; Kira and Vaughn were made to sit opposite one another on the long sides. Shortly after they
were seated, a male Bajoran emerged from a door that presumably led to the kitchen, bringing a tray of bread and fruit along with several mugs containing something that smelled like freshly brewed
deka
tea. The server nearly stumbled when he saw Kira, but after receiving a stern look from Opaka he set down his tray and quickly retreated into the kitchen.

Winn remained standing near the door through which they’d entered, her weapon still conspicuously drawn but pointed at the floor.

“Please eat,” Opaka said. “The third member of Vekobet’s leadership triad will join us soon. In the meantime, you’re welcome to enjoy our hospitality, such as it is.”

“We appreciate your generosity,” Kira said. “Though we’re grateful simply for the opportunity to speak with you.”

Opaka chuckled. “You’re not like your counterpart at all, are you? That imperious air you put on earlier—it doesn’t come naturally to you.”

“Was I that obvious?” Kira asked as she reached toward the tray for a ripe
moba.

“Not terribly,” Opaka said. “But I see qualities in you that she couldn’t even begin to emulate, and I say that as someone who has made a study of Intendant Kira for many years, albeit from a safe distance.”

“Lady Opaka,” Vaughn said. “Is it true that the Bajoran religious enclaves are aligned with the Terran Rebellion?”

Opaka’s expression as she turned toward Vaughn seemed to border on amusement. “Yes,” she answered. “In fact, you could almost say that Vekobet represents
the marriage of the two groups. Years ago, I was one of the first to rally to Benjamin Sisko’s banner, after he took up the cause of freedom for the Alliance’s underclass. I fought at his side until we both came to realize that a violent uprising of former slaves would not be enough.”

“What did you think you’d have to do next?” Vaughn asked.

“There wasn’t much more we could do, at least not without widening the conflict,” Opaka said. “For the rebellion to succeed over the long term, it needed sympathizers within the Alliance itself—willing accomplices who could support the rebels secretly, with resources and intelligence. I left the front lines of the struggle and returned to Bajor to see what I could accomplish behind the scenes on the rebellion’s behalf, for I knew I was not alone in my dissidence; others on Bajor felt as I did—men and women who yearned for the dissolution of our unholy pact with the Klingons and the Cardassians, for a return to the kind of world that Bajor
used
to be. But it wasn’t until I came to Vekobet that I learned what it would truly entail to recapture that lost identity.

“Here I found kindred spirits among the enclave’s leaders,” Opaka went on, nodding toward Winn. “And working together we have tried to unify the Bajoran dissident movement with the Terran Rebellion. As you’ve undoubtedly gathered by now, Vekobet is far more than a labor camp. It is both a religious sanctuary and a secret training facility for freedom fighters. The workers here are not really slaves; they are soldiers awaiting their moment. They continue to do the work of mining ore in order to maintain our cover…and because our mines
yield far more uridium than even the Bajoran Parliament knows. This makes it possible for us to smuggle out a sizable quantity of unprocessed ore through third parties to rebel bases beyond the B’hava’el system.”

“And the other enclaves?” Vaughn asked.

“Not all of them are like this one, but each does what it can to advance the dual causes of Bajoran renewal and freedom from the Alliance.”

“That must be a huge risk for all of you,” Kira said.

“The risk to our
pagh
would be far greater if we did nothing, child,” Winn said.

“Well spoken, Adami,” said a new voice. Vaughn and Kira turned to see a tall man with close-cropped white hair entering the refectory through a back door. He strode toward the table, his tan-and-blue medical smock flattering his broad-shouldered frame. “Please forgive my tardiness. I was with a patient, but I came as soon as I could.”

The words had been softly spoken, but had an edge like steel. Kira recognized him at once—as the man who, in her universe, had once attempted to seize power on Bajor by leading a military-backed political coup. She rose automatically.

“Jaro.”

“Doctor Jaro Essa,” the man clarified. “I’m the camp physician, and the third leader of the Vekobet enclave. I’m quite pleased to make your acquaintance, Ms. Kira.”

“It’s Captain Kira, actually,” she said. “This is my first officer, Commander—”

“Elias,” Jaro breathed, a glint of surprised recognition suddenly evident in his dark brown eyes.

“You know my counterpart,” Vaughn said, evidently making the same deduction that Kira had.

Jaro merely nodded, studying the human commander in apparent fascination.

“Since we’re all here now, let’s get to the heart of it, shall we?” Opaka said as Jaro pulled up a chair to the foot of the table and Kira reseated herself. The older woman addressed Kira directly. “You’re from that other universe. Iliana Ghemor went there to stop her counterpart weeks ago, and we haven’t heard from her since. But within the last hour we’ve received word that Terok Nor is under attack by Alliance forces, and now here you are. I take this to mean that the situation is grave.”

Kira nodded, then launched into the story of everything having to do with the two Ilianas that had recently transpired in her continuum, including the fact that the real Intendant Kira was now presumed to be dead, replaced by the Iliana Ghemor of Kira’s home universe. Kira’s hosts listened attentively, usually with equanimity, but at other times with profound surprise. They asked many questions, all of which Kira and Vaughn tried to answer as fully as they could. Finally Kira told them of her attempt to warn the rebels, and of the energy field that was now constricting and disrupting dimensional transport in and around Terok Nor and Bajor—possibly a defense engineered by the false Intendant to prevent further interference from the other universe.

“Once we were cut off from your station, I was faced with having to decide quickly how the two of us might do the most good by beaming to your Bajor,” Kira explained. “Your Ghemor told me where to find your
enclave, and we decided to come here in order to warn you. My hope was that you—or somebody like you—might have the resources and the will to take action against the impostor.”

“A laudable effort, Captain, but a fool’s errand,” Opaka told her. “If what you say is true, and Iliana’s counterpart is carrying out the military assault on Terok Nor, there may be nothing we can do but await the outcome of the battle.”

“We could expose her,” Kira argued. “Alert your government and the Alliance that the woman leading the attack is a fraud.”

“It would take far more than either your word or ours to convince anyone on Bajor—much less in the Alliance leadership—that she isn’t the rightful Intendant.”

“You don’t need our word,” Vaughn said. “Despite her outward appearance, this Intendant’s physiology is Cardassian. That can be proven medically. In addition, her quantum resonance signature is the same as ours, and it’s possible to show that this signature is different from everyone else native to your universe. Surely that evidence—”

“No one will listen,” Winn insisted from her place near the door. “Certainly not while she’s leading a campaign directly over the surface of Bajor.”

“Then what about the rebels?” Kira asked. “The ones on those interstellar bases you mentioned? If you’re exchanging matériel with them, then you must have a way to make contact with them. Maybe they can be persuaded to come here and help to repel the Alliance fleet.”

Opaka shook her head. “What you’re proposing is quite impossible. As I said before, we reach the rebels in other star systems only through third parties, and that method of communication will take too long to do us any good, at least before
this
crisis resolves itself.”

“And the people you’re training here?” Kira asked, feeling her desperation level steadily rising. “You said they’re awaiting their moment. Well, I’d say their moment is
here!”

“If we had access to armed spacecraft capable of going into battle against the Alliance fleet, then the men and women here would gladly take them and go,” Winn said. “But such is not the case. Vekobet trains soldiers for the rebellion, yes. But it has no means of staging offworld attacks.”

“But there has to be
something
we can do!” Kira said. “For whatever reason, my continuum’s Iliana has decided to go after Terok Nor before she begins her search for the wormhole. That gives us a huge opportunity. We can’t simply squander it!”