Star Trek: Terok Nor 02: Night of the Wolves (25 page)

Lenaris took the briefest second to survey their own casualties. Delle was nowhere in sight. Sten’s foot was visible a short distance away, poking out from beneath the brush ahead of him, but Lenaris could not gauge if he was alive or dead. Crea was dead, crumpled in the dirt. The Legan brothers were firing wildly in tandem. Tiven also continued to fire, and Taryl, ducking behind insufficient cover, clutched her bag anxiously, her expression wide-eyed with the fear of first combat.

“Go, do it!” Lenaris shouted to her, and she quickly snapped into action. She chucked the palm-sized slap packs with all her might, one after another as he continued to fire, covering her. More soldiers fell, but it was not enough.

“Tiven!” he shouted, risking a look in the old engineer’s direction—and he saw that Tiven was on the ground, the upper part of his body a blackened mass, still smoking from the impact of Cardassian disruptor fire. Lenaris changed his position, continuing to fire. He still could not see Delle, and Sten appeared to be frozen behind the patch of bushes where he hid. One of the Legans had used up his power cell and was retreating, his brother continuing to fire methodically.

Lenaris made his way to Sten. “Go go go!” he screamed, firing over the other man’s shoulder, and Sten jerked into action, dashing forward just far enough to pluck the phaser rifle from Tiven’s corpse. With a cry, Sten discharged Tiven’s phaser at the line of spoonheads, until there were no more standing. At least, none that they could see.

“Delle!” Lenaris cried out, but Taryl stopped him, her expression tortured as she shook her head. Sten had fallen to his knees next to his cousin’s unmoving body. It had all happened too fast, was still happening. There was only a beat of ringing silence before they were made aware of more fire heading their way. Another line of identically dressed soldiers had just emerged from somewhere unseen, and there was no way of knowing how many more were waiting to replace these.

“Sten, your pack!” Lenaris shouted. The other man looked down at the satchel still slung around his shoulder as if he had forgotten it was there, and without wasting another second he pitched the explosive devices back at the camp—larger than those Taryl had used, meant to finish off the camp once they were done here—and it seemed to Lenaris that they were indeed done here.

The Legans had already retreated, both their phasers having run dry. “Let’s get the
kosst
out of here,” Lenaris ordered, and Taryl and Sten followed his lead, stumbling back through the squat trees, gasping, running for the shuttles. Lenaris sidestepped, firing back at the camp, hoping to the Prophets that they hadn’t been flanked.

Powdery dirt and alien vegetation flew up beneath their boots. Taryl tripped and Lenaris snatched at her arm, yanked her after him, his head pounding as the first of the explosions tore through the thin air. Behind them, soldiers shouted, but they hadn’t broken formation to give chase until it was too late. Sten and the Legans reached their raider first, and Lenaris pushed Taryl to hers before scrambling toward his own, blood thundering in his ears, expecting to feel the fatal blast to his back as he climbed into his vessel, his skin and muscles trembling in anticipation of it.

There were more explosions from the camp, one so big that it could only be the power station, a lucky hit. He fired up the raider, talking to himself, his voice a thready whisper as he frantically studied the sensors.

“Go, go, move…”

The instant he saw that Taryl was off the ground, he tapped himself into the air, imagining he could feel blasts of heat from the burning camp, pushing him toward the stars as he slammed on his comm.

“Halpas! We’re running! Get ready to go to warp!”

If the Cardassians had flyers, they were too preoccupied with their camp to come after the Bajorans. The brief fly time seemed like an eternity, Lenaris trying to catch his breath, sure that each second would be his last. A bright-hot blast of light, a single pulse from a patrol ship’s disruptors, and he’d be so much debris, blowing silently through icy space…

The carrier was waiting. Lenaris came in right behind Taryl, with Sten and the Legan brothers bringing up the rear. The bay’s hatch clamped shut behind them, and Lenaris felt a quick jerk just before the inertial dampers kicked in and the old Bajoran ship went to warp. He clambered out of his raider, huddling against the cold, stumbling toward Taryl’s craft. Taryl was still sitting in her cockpit, crammed in beside the Legans, who both looked to be in a state of shock. Taryl’s head was down on the instrument panel.

Lenaris lifted the hatch, the fear finally hitting him.

“Taryl, are you all right? Are you hit?”

Taryl gasped once, twice—and started to cry, deep, rending cries of heartbreak that echoed through the dim, cavernous bay.

“Lac,” she wailed, and Lenaris tried to hold her, but it was as though he wasn’t even there.

D
ukat was fuming as he tapped off the comm. The facility in the Pullock system had been badly damaged, and a good many Union troops were dead. He’d thought he’d been sufficiently cautious, sending soldiers to the work camp on Pullock V to oversee the execution of the prisoners there, which included the terrorist who had been apprehended at Derna—the man had given up plenty in the interrogation, confirmed that he’d tried to send word back to his friends. But even with that lead, Dukat had underestimated the Bajorans once again.

He sat back in his chair, his mood black. The average Bajoran’s quality of life had improved dramatically since his rise to the office. He had promoted better health care, encouraged work-training programs, allowed them religious freedoms that they had no right to expect, and this is what they gave in return.

He started to call for Damar, but then remembered that the gil had gone to the surface; his betrothed had gotten herself into trouble, another hostile incident with a Bajoran terrorist.

Dukat templed his fingers, considering his next move. He did not particularly care to admit when he had made a mistake, but he knew that on very rare occasions, it was the best course to take. A change in tactics was required. He summoned Basso Tromac to operations, deciding how best to tighten the reins as he waited for the Bajoran to appear.

“You called for me, sir?” Basso stepped into his office not five minutes after being called. One thing to be said for Basso, he was punctual.

“I need you to deliver a message to Kubus Oak,” Dukat said.

“Right away, sir.” Basso slid a padd from his belt, fingers poised to record. “What message?”

“Inform Kubus that I am instituting new policies on Bajor, effective immediately. It will be up to him to be sure that the word is spread across his world. My men will be on hand to enforce these directives.”

“Yes, sir,” Basso said, suddenly sounding a little uneasy.

“Chief among them: no more religious counsel allowed in the work camps. In fact, we need to even the playing field for religious officials in general. I’ve allowed your priests a certain amount of leniency up to now, but I feel it is time for them to earn their keep, just like everyone else. All religious officials will receive work code numbers. And I believe we will be dismantling some of the monasteries. It is common knowledge that resistance members hide in them.”

Basso was tapping away at his padd, his expression revealing nothing, but Dukat could see him swallow, hard. He was as superstitious as the rest of them, of course.

“Additionally, I am lowering per-month food allowances. And I am tightening restriction boundaries in Relliketh and Dahkur. I will post the specifics on the comnet.”

“Yes, sir,” Basso said. “Will that be all?”

Dukat nodded. “For now,” he said.

Basso left him, and Dukat looked over transmission reports, trying to find the record from the patrol ship that had reported the balon shuttles in the Pullock system. He was having trouble locating it and became frustrated, considering that this was the type of thing for which he usually relied on Damar. Dukat muttered a curse at Damar’s fiancée. Women could be so troublesome.

Dukat gave up on the transmissions and spent a few moments drafting his new directives, then uploading them to the Bajoran and Cardassian comnets. He then sent copies to the appropriate parties of interest—Legate Kell’s office, the guls who oversaw surface operations. Dukat didn’t bother himself overmuch with the details; what mattered were the bold, broad strokes. This would stir the rebels, make them reckless. His soldiers on the ground would make quick work of them, some small justice for the tragedy of Pullock V.

Hours later, he began to feel the intense solitude of command taking its toll. There was one other person who was adept at listening to his troubles, who might be able to ease his mind.

As he entered her quarters, he was immediately aware of Meru’s posture. She sat on the bed with her back to the door, her head bent as she gazed down at her hands, her fingers twisting in her lap.

“Meru,” Dukat said, wondering if she had already heard about the new directives. He looked to her companel. The screen was dark, but she had probably been at it, where she pored over the comnet reports on those days when she wasn’t painting pictures or reading what passed for literature among Bajorans. The holosuites had never interested her, though Dukat had done his best to try and encourage her to use them.

“Hello, Skrain,” she said, her voice hollow.

Dukat frowned. It was unusual for Meru to act this way. Even though Dukat knew she wasn’t always entirely happy, she almost always managed to put on a convincing smile for her lover—it was one of the reasons Dukat had kept her around this long.

Dukat sat down on the bed behind his mistress, touching the back of her bare neck. He nudged away the few tendrils of hair that grazed her skin, having worked themselves loose from the arrangement on top of her head—similar to how a Cardassian would wear her hair, but especially striking on the delicate-featured Bajoran. “Is something troubling you, my dear?”

She shook her head, but she continued to avoid his gaze, and Dukat began to feel annoyed. She was acting a bit like a petulant child. He would find no solace from his worries here.

“I must go,” he said irritably. “Gil Damar is not on the station. My duties will keep me busy for the next few days.”

Meru finally looked up, and Dukat saw that her eyes were quite red, the edges of her nose laced with pink. A strange effect that Bajorans often experienced when upset, it did not flatter her.

Dukat turned away in disgust. “I won’t be back tonight,” he announced, and left the room.

Rain had come to the Kendra Valley, and a heavy downpour was soaking the muddy terrain that surrounded the old cottage once occupied by the Opaka family, the cottage where Gar Osen now resided. The same cottage that had been built in the time of Kai Dava.

Opaka Fasil pulled his oilcloth cloak over the top of his head to keep the fine spray of misty rain from his head and shoulders. Despite his best efforts, rivulets of water ran down the tip of his nose, and his fingers were cold and slippery where they clutched at the little shovel he was using to poke around the foundation of the little stone house.

“Quiet,” whispered the older man who had come from his mother’s camp—the artist, Ketauna. “The vedek will hear you!”

“He won’t hear me,” Fasil assured him. “I lived in this cottage for most of my childhood. It’s very well insulated.”

“But you’re tapping the shovel right up against the house!”

“Let him work,” the other man said, the younger one with the phaser pistol. His name was Shev. “If you’re worried about it, go round to the front and watch the door. You can warn us if they come out.”

The older man did as he was told without a word. In the half a day it had taken them all to reach the sanctuary, Fasil had learned that Ketauna was unexpectedly stodgy, for an artist. Fasil thought his sour mood might have something to do with the news they’d heard earlier, on their brief journey.

Gul Dukat had issued a list of new edicts. It was all that anyone could talk about. Among other restrictions, all religious personnel were to register with the work office for identification numbers within the next week, just like any other Bajoran citizen. Dukat was also planning to raze several of the sanctuaries and to discontinue the practice of allowing religious counsel in the work camps. The people of the villages and camps they’d walked through were horrified by the news, as was Fasil’s mother, but it also gave her a legitimate reason to seek counsel with Vedek Gar, who apparently wouldn’t see just anyone anymore. Fasil supposed they should be thankful for that.

Fasil found the ground near the foundation of the house to be quite soft underneath the superficial layer of rotten needles and leaves. It would have made excellent compost, he thought, for the little garden tended by the members of his cell. Beneath that was a layer of humus that gave way to rich, soft soil that lifted away easily, even with the unwieldy little tool he was using.

He dug quickly and quietly, Shev keeping watch. When the hole was deep and wide enough that he could stand in it, almost up to his knees, his shovel began to hit much more solid ground, a layer of soil that differed in composition, blackened, as if it had been burned.

A trap door. To the cellar. This
had
been wood, he could see by the splinters he was turning over with the sharp tip of the shovel. He was startled, though not terribly surprised, when the shovel
chunked
through the soft wood and hit air a moment later. Dirt and pebbles rolled down into the crack he had just made, rattling thinly as they hit the ground somewhere below. He scrambled up out of the hole, wary of falling through what he was sure was an old hatch. It was a wonder it hadn’t caved in long ago, just from the weight of the soil.

Shev examined the hole from the edge, looking at the ovoid black spot in the center that seemed to open up into nothingness. “I have a palmlight,” he offered, and produced a torch that he waved down into the hole. From the flash that crossed the small opening, Fasil could see uneven ground—a set of steps? Both men reacted to the sight, and Fasil felt his heart begin to pound in a fashion that was unrivaled by even the sketchiest missions he had been involved in with the resistance. He knew, now, that his mother had been correct. He was about to find something precious here.

“There’s a cellar behind our house. There’s something there that belongs to us. Will you help me?”

Fasil turned to the other man. “Hold the light while I finish digging. I don’t want to fall through the hole.”

Shev nodded wordlessly, and Fasil carefully set his feet back in the ditch he had dug. He scraped away the dirt that covered the old cellar door, checking his footing periodically, then started widening the hole with the shovel. The wood had rotted, swelled by seasons of rain, and it was only a matter of minutes before the ragged opening was wide enough to admit him.

Fasil put one foot through the inky black square, testing his weight on the rest of the old trap door. He put the other foot through, his feet dangling above the broken stairs beneath him. Shev handed over the palm beacon, and Fasil placed it into the waistband of his pants. He wedged his hands up against the sides of the hole. He looked up at Shev, who nodded without a word. Taking a tremendous breath, he lowered himself down into empty space and let his body fall.

Natima could not tell if the palmlight was flickering or if her eyes had simply grown too tired to see clearly. She had no idea how much time had passed since they had been taken belowground, but she was certain that it must be long past sundown by now. Her hands were covered with tiny cuts, her knees and elbows bruised and scraped. She was exhausted and hungry and scared for Veja, but oddly, it was the unpleasant sensation of the dried clay, jammed underneath her fingernails, that seemed to annoy her the most. She thought it might be the very thing to send her over the edge of tolerable misery.

“Hey,” she said to the Bajoran. It occurred to her, not for the first time, that she didn’t know his name. “Maybe we should take a rest. If we wear ourselves out, we’ll never get out of here.”

He shook his head and continued digging at the pile of dirt in front of him. “If we go to sleep, we may never wake up. I’d rather die trying to escape.”

Now Natima was certain it was the palm beacon that was flickering, as it had been earlier. Seefa had adjusted something or other, made the beam softer, but now that was beginning to go, too.

“If you aren’t going to sleep, you should make yourself useful with that communicator instead of just digging away in the dirt like a vole,” she said. “The light is going to go out before we ever make a dent in that heap, and you know it.”

The Bajoran finally stopped digging. “If we use it, I’m as good as dead,” he said quietly.

“That isn’t true! I promise I will tell them this was all an accident. I will tell them that you tried to save us. I know you have no reason to trust me, but I give you my word.” She sighed, annoyed with his silence. “And anyway, what other choice do you have?”

He did not look at her, sitting back on his haunches to regard the tumble of rock, which looked very much the same as it had when they had begun digging. He heaved a sigh of his own. “I suppose I have to trust you. It’s either my neck, or all of our necks. That’s not much of a choice.” He was quiet for a moment.

Natima spoke quietly. “Please,” she said. “Please. For Veja…?”

He turned. “Fine, I’ll do it.”

Natima picked up the light, crawled to her feet. “Let’s go down to where Veja is. I want to keep an eye on her.”

He nodded, and they walked the length of the conduit, picking through the rocks. When they reached Veja, the Bajoran held out his hand.

“Give me the phaser,” he said.

Natima was taken aback. “What do you want with it?”

“I’ll need some of the components in it to fix the communicator. Give it to me.”

“But you said the power cell was dead.”

“It is. That isn’t the part that I need. There’s a pin inside the trigger mechanism that I can use to reset the relay, to send out a general distress call.”

Natima hesitated. She didn’t want to give up the phaser.