Strange New Worlds 2016 (26 page)

Federation ideals.
Bashir twisted his napkin. The fake tribe that the freighter had wiped out had flouted
those ideals. The real reason for their secrecy was avoiding the repercussions for
experimenting with sapient beings.

“What I can’t figure out is why the Order wanted Dal and Lubaar silenced. At most,
their evaluation was delayed. Whatever their conclusions were, no doubt a second team
would have reached the same ones.” Shrugging, Garak spooned up a mouthful of
sem’hal
stew.

Why indeed?
Had the Order wanted the delay to remove the Changelings and their stasis-field-generating-rock
enclosure? Had their Romulan counterparts, the Tal Shiar, crashed a freighter to cover
up?

“Congratulations, though. You won this week’s Manhunt Pool.” Garak leaned closer.
“Now tell me how you helped the Yridian con man.”

“You really enjoy hearing how gullible I am, don’t you?” Bashir grimaced. “Okay. Last
year, I received a subspace call claiming to be a classmate from Starfleet Medical
Academy. He said, ‘Guess who.’ When I tried Dicky Poole, he said, ‘Bingo. Now guess
my business.’ ”

Garak laughed. “Classic con.”

“Yes. I gave the Yridian the optimal sleep chamber idea. Every speculation I voiced,
he recorded. When I finished, he had a promo of Deep Space 9’s chief medical officer
endorsing the Best Nest franchise and agreeing that any agent Dicky Poole sent to
represent it could be trusted.” Bashir hung his head. “You’re right, Garak. I must
stop being naïve.”

“Ah, Doctor. Don’t take my judgments so seriously.”

Bashir raised an eyebrow. “So now you’re advising me to not heed your advice?”

“Correct.” When Garak’s eye crinkles deepened, Bashir suspected he was about to hear
a deliciously enigmatic bon mot. “After all, what kind of friend would I be if I allowed
you to trust me?”

T
HE
D
REAMER AND THE
D
REAM

Derek Tyler Attico

T
HE
O
RB OF
V
ENGEANCE
.

Three days ago the thought of the Pah-wraiths having an orb of their own would have
been sacrilege, but that was before the cult of the Pah-wraiths found the orb in the
Gamma Quadrant, before they bombed the Bajoran temple on Deep Space 9, and before
they kidnapped Kasidy Yates-Sisko and her son, Jonathan. Now, watching from the shadows
as the cult members performed their unholy ritual on this dead asteroid in the Badlands,
Captain Kira Nerys felt like the universe had simply gone mad.

“
Defiant
, report,” she whispered.

Lieutenant Commander Nog didn’t need to use his lobes to hear the stress in his commanding
officer’s voice. The Ferengi shifted uncomfortably in the
Defiant
’s command chair, regretting that he was about to add to it. “The weapons platforms
haven’t detected us, but the plasma storms are intensifying.
The
Defiant
isn’t going to be able to stay cloaked much longer, Captain.”

Kira’s voice sounded rushed—almost desperate—over the comm.
“I need good news, Chief.”

It’d been more than five years, but Miles O’Brien worked the
Defiant
’s console like he hadn’t missed a day. “In the chamber adjacent to you, I’m reading
nine Bajorans, three Cardassians, and two humans—one child, one adult female—but I
can’t get a lock on them. There’s some kind of force field around them preventing
transport.”
How the bloody hell had this happened?
O’Brien had been happy to get away from teaching, see old friends, and consult on
the
Defiant
refit. Now they were all racing to prevent the murder of both Jonathan Sisko and
his mother.

O’Brien frowned. “It gets worse, Captain, I can’t shut the platforms down. These aren’t
like the ones we saw during the Dominion War.” Finding impractical solutions to impossible
problems was what he did, what he taught at Starfleet Academy. Now it seemed like
everything just led to another dead end.

The viewscreen showed the three Cardassian weapon platforms orbiting the asteroid
it had taken them so long to find. The claw-shaped monstrosities looked like a trio
of gargoyles waiting amidst the plasma storm’s angry swirls of orange and red, ready
to unleash death and destruction. “I’ve never seen anything like this.” As O’Brien
read the telemetry from the platforms guarding the asteroid, he realized that he didn’t
have a solution for the impossible problem. “They’re receiving energy directly from
the plasma storms.”

Garak looked up from the communications console with disgust. He didn’t mind detaining
and torturing two high-ranking Cardassians to learn that the Pah-wraith cult had supporters
on Cardassia, but to find out about the kidnapping
after
it was under way was unworthy of the Obsidian Order he was rebuilding. “I’m afraid
it’s worse than that, Captain. It appears I have even less influence now than I did
as a tailor; my access codes have been rejected. In ninety seconds, the platforms
will initiate a tachyon sweep.” These people had helped his world, and this wasn’t
the time to fail them.

Ezri Dax felt like she’d aged more in the last three days than she had in eight lifetimes.
In the last seventy-two hours, she’d been treated for third-degree burns, held the
hands of dying friends, and promised Jake Sisko she’d get his stepmother and brother
back. Now that promise felt as worthless as the codes Garak had guaranteed. “A tachyon
sweep will fry the cloak, and when that happens . . .”

“Understood. Stand by,
Defiant
,” Kira said. The Trill’s despair on the
Defiant
seemed to have reached the rescue team on the asteroid below. Kira looked over at
Bashir and Odo, their faces cast in shadow—a shadow that seemed to have enveloped
hope itself. In one swift motion, the former freedom fighter pulled the phaser from
her hip holster. “We have to do this now.”

Kira pointed the weapon toward the group in the next cavern. From this distance, she
could just make out an orb ark being held by one of the figures. If she could destroy
the ark and the orb contained inside, she was sure all of this would come to an end.

Doctor Julian Bashir kept his voice low and his eyes fixed on the muted tricorder.
“There’s some kind of medical isolation field around them. I can’t locate the power
source.” The doctor looked directly into Kira’s eyes, making sure she understood the
message. “Phaser fire could overload the field and kill Kasidy and Jonathan.”

Kira considered Bashir’s words. Even with her skill, at this distance she couldn’t
be sure she wouldn’t hit the field. But within the next minute, the
Defiant
would be in serious trouble. She couldn’t block out the thoughts of Benjamin Sisko,
her former captain, her friend, the Emissary. This was his wife and child. He’d been
gone for five years and it was Kira’s job to protect them, save them—but taking the
shot could kill them.

Kira realized she didn’t need skill. She needed faith. Slowly, agonizingly, the woman
who had fought against evil all her life lowered the weapon.

It hurt Odo to see the desperation and fear in Kira’s eyes. When he learned the Pah-wraith
Orb of Vengeance was in the Gamma Quadrant, he had used all the resources of the Dominion
to locate it. When it was finally tracked to the Badlands, he knew he had to come
back, to help his friends, to help Kira. He desperately wanted to tell her that everything
would be all right, that he still loved her so much, but instead he turned to Doctor
Bashir.

Odo shifted his jaw slightly before he spoke. The former constable had been in a liquid
state for so long that being a humanoid for the past few days felt strange. “Doctor,
are you saying that after everything we went through to get here undetected, we have
to let them . . . carry out their plans?”

“Whatever they’re planning, they’re going to have to drop the field to do it.” Bashir
realized how empty the words sounded. He had lost thirty-two people when the bomb
exploded on the Promenade. Constable McCray’s blood was still on his uniform. After
seventy-eight hours without sleep, he could do without the Changeling’s signature
pessimism. “Once that happens, we can beam them up in seconds.”

Kira glanced at the semicircle of figures around Kasidy and Jonathan. Even now she
believed the Prophets watched over the Emissary in the Celestial Temple. She prayed
Their benevolence extended to his family.

The spotlight in Kasidy Sisko’s face seemed more like a veil of light, its glare shrouding
the figures that surrounded her. One of them stepped forward, the form breaching the
wall of light, to reveal a young man. His crinkled nose and robes indicated that he
was Bajoran—a people of peace and religion, but the hatred in his eyes belied his
smile. Slowly, he reached toward Kasidy’s ear. The isolation field shimmered in contradiction
as it allowed his hand to pierce its confines but prevented her from moving. “Your
pagh
is strong,” he whispered.

Kasidy stared defiantly into his eyes, hoping to match the evil there with strength.
“Why are you doing this?”

The acolyte withdrew his hand and crouched down, studying the little boy that slept
drugged at his mother’s feet. “The family of the Emissary deserves to feel the love
of the Pah-wraiths.” As he rose, he pulled the crimson robes in around him, as if
doing so gave him comfort.

Kasidy closed her eyes and focused not on the monster standing over her son, but on
Jonathan’s father, the only person she ever truly needed. “Ben, our son needs you,
please Ben . . . ” He’d spoken to her once before from the wormhole; now she desperately
needed to reach him.

The acolyte circled the isolation field. “The Emissary has forsaken you.” Leisurely,
he allowed his robes to drag across the circular pattern of runes etched into the
floor. He removed a knife from his robes and sliced his hand open. “He doesn’t love
you.” The blood burned as it fell upon the runes. Slowly, almost teasingly, flames
crept up to consume the acolyte’s robes. He ignored them. They burned away his robes
while leaving him unscathed; the disciple smiled. “He communes with false gods.”

Finally, he stood in front of his prey covered only in hundreds of ancient Bajoran
runes that had been tattooed onto his skin. The young agent of evil outstretched his
hands as if receiving an anointment from some unseen force, and the runes began to
glow.

For the first time in her life, Kasidy Yates-Sisko truly knew fear. The acolyte smiled
as he watched the turmoil play across her face. “Don’t worry,” he said. From beyond
the light, a woman holding the Orb ark came into view. “It won’t be long now.”

The
Defiant
shuddered as the illusion of light and energy surrounding it dissipated into nonexistence.

“Cloak is down, the platforms are firing.” A spread of torpedoes reiterated Ezri’s
words.

O’Brien kept the transporters on standby and pulled power from the warp engines to
feed the structural integrity field. Nog hadn’t given the order to raise the shields;
there were five reasons on the asteroid below why he wouldn’t. The groans from the
ablative armor and resulting microfractures told the chief what he already knew. If
the away team didn’t do what they needed to soon, there wasn’t going to be a ship
to beam them up to.