by David Mack
The crowd pressed inward, and heated voices started shouting at one another from all directions. Some people argued for hope, others for cynicism; for each person who counseled diplomacy, another cried out for blood. Voices were raised, fingers were pointed, and epithets shot back and forth like flights of poison arrows, wounding egos as they tainted the discourse.
Pushed to his limit, O’Brien took to the dais, placed himself before the altar, and faced the raging throng with his arms upraised. “Enough!” he shouted, his roar cutting through the noise like a surgeon’s blade. “Listen to me!” A hush descended upon the crowd, and everyone gave their attention to O’Brien. “What have we been fighting for all these years? I said it before, on Terok Nor, and I’ll say it again here. This rebellion hasn’t just been about slavery or freedom. It hasn’t been about revenge. We fight for a belief. For the idea that we can all live together as equals under the law, no matter who we are or where we came from. Our goal hasn’t been to bring back the Terran Empire, or even the Terran Republic, but to build something new, something better. It’s been about making ourselves better, so that we can deserve to live in this new world we’re fighting to create.
“What’s been suggested here tonight—wiping out most of Cardassia to make a point and break their will—is the sort of thing our ancestors would’ve done. It’s what the Terran Empire would’ve done. And that’s exactly why we shouldn’t do it. Embracing this kind of merciless, scorched-earth warfare would be a major step backward. And progress is about moving forward.
“Before we decide how to end this war, we need to know what kind of civilization we want to build when we’re done—because the choice we make now will define that decision for us. You can’t build a noble society, a just society, on a foundation of genocide. That’s not a legacy I want to be known for. But if we do what Saavik is suggesting, anything born of this revolution will forever be tainted by that crime. History will never forget it.” He frowned and heaved a sigh. “That’s all I have to say. You tell me what kind of people we are.”
His speech was met with a long, shamed silence.
Then a woman called out from the back of the crowd, “You’re right.” The members of the crowd turned as one to see Iliana Ghemor, the Emissary, standing in the open doorway of the main temple hall. She strode toward the front of the room as she continued, and the rebellion’s rank and file parted before her. “With all respect, Captain Picard, the Cardassians aren’t ruthless because of their biology—they learned that trait from their culture. If you really want to put an end to this war, mass murder isn’t the solution.” She reached the front of the room, looked O’Brien in the eye, and favored him with a subtle, hopeful smile. “If you’ll let me, I can help you find a better way.”
It was midnight in Cardassia City, which sprawled beyond the oval windows of Supreme Legate Damar’s office. He stood alone with the lights off and gazed at the dim outlines of the capital as he downed a glass of his best kanar. Might as well finish it off while I still can, he reasoned, stepping to the liquor cabinet in the corner for a refill. Tomorrow this could all be gone.
Pouring a triple measure of the syrupy liquor into his glass, he wondered how many more it would take to submerge his melancholy in an alcoholic slumber. The kanar had become his only refuge in a world gone to pieces. Central Command and the Obsidian Order were both in utter disarray, each blaming the other for its latest high-visibility defeat. All but a few standing units of the Twelfth Order had been obliterated at the battle for Raknal Station, leaving the Central Command barely able to patrol the Union’s outermost borders. Meanwhile, the Obsidian Order—which Damar had been livid to discover was operating a secret fleet of military starships—had squandered its hidden arsenal in a failed bid to wipe out the Terran Rebellion at Bajor.
With both arms of the Union’s security apparatus broken, the people were in an uproar. The financial markets were crashing, interstellar commerce had been halted because the trade routes were no longer safe to traverse without armed escorts, and the media had slipped its government leash and was excoriating the Detapa Council in general and Damar in particular as “incompetents” who were steering the ship of state aground. Predictably, instead of uniting to weather the storm of public opinion, the incumbent members of Cardassia’s political class had begun pushing one another overboard. It was easy to see why: Metaphorically speaking, there was blood in the water, and everyone assumed the citizenry would be happy to feed on whomever it got hold of first. What Damar suspected but hadn’t said was that he feared the mob wouldn’t be appeased by a few token sacrifices, not this time. They won’t stop until they devour us all, he brooded.
He turned away from the dark metropolis and sank into his chair, glass in hand. Lifting it to down another mouthful in the hope of dulling one more iota of his bitter mood, he saw someone move in the shadows between him and the door. To his own surprise, he did not panic or cry out. Instead, he sipped his drink and set it down, then smiled at the unannounced visitor. “Are you an assassin?”
“No,” she said. “A messenger.”
Her voice was familiar, but he couldn’t place it. He leaned forward and eased the lights up to one-quarter brightness, revealing her face. “Iliana Ghemor.” His smile broadened into a grin. “Are you sure you’re not here to kill me?”
She stopped in front of his desk and stood before him, empty-handed. “I’m just here to talk. There’s been far too much bloodshed already.”
“Strange words from a member of the Obsidian Order.”
“That’s not who I am anymore.”
He sipped his drink. “Oh, yes. I forgot. You’re a Bajoran demigod now.”
The lithe, attractive woman circled around his desk. “I am to them what I am to you: a messenger. That’s what it means to be an emissary.”
He chortled; the implications of her statement were preposterous to him. “What are you saying? That the Bajorans’ magical ‘prophets’ sent you to me?”
“In part, yes.” He saw in her eyes that she was quite serious. She continued. “I’m here to help you do the right thing as a member of the Oralian Way.”
Panic clouded his thoughts and made his heart race, but he froze his expression in a mask of vapid amusement. “I think you’ve mistaken me for—”
“There’s no mistake, Damar. I know you’re a true believer in Oralius, that you were secretly raised in the faith by your mother. Even your father never knew that you were brought up with the song of the morning.”
How can she know this? A terrible possibility occurred to him. She was in the Obsidian Order. They must have vetted me when I came up through the ranks. But that would mean they know everything!
Ghemor rested a hand on the back of Damar’s chair as she leaned over him. “I can see that you’re scared, Damar. Don’t be. No one knows this but me… yet.”
“But how did you…?”
“The Prophets reveal many things to those who know how to listen.” She beckoned Damar to his feet, and he stood. With a gentle hand on his shoulder, she turned him to stand beside her and face out his windows. “I know that the Oralian Way is alive and growing as an underground movement throughout the Cardassian Union. It’s the philosophy our people used to live by, before the time of the Change. And it’s what we need to return to, if we’re to survive as a species and as a culture.”
He backed away from her. “You must be out of your mind! After all these centuries? There’s no going back now.”
“Then why put your faith in it? Why worship Oralius if she has nothing to offer?” She seized Damar’s forearms and pulled him back to the window. “Don’t run from this, Damar! This is your chance to do what Dukat never would have done, and what no one else in your place could do: You can bring the Oralian Way out of the shadows. You can usher in a Second Hebitian Age.”
“No!” He struggled to pull away from her, but her grip was ferocious. In his futile effort to break free, he dropped his glass, which shattered and drenched thei
r feet in kanar. “The people aren’t ready! If the disciples of the Way reveal themselves now, they’ll be slaughtered in the streets! And me with them!”
“You’re wrong, Damar, and I’m going to tell you why. Our people respect one thing above all else: strength. We value family, but we love power.”
She was a madwoman, he was certain of it. “So? The Oralian Way’s not about power. It’s about peace and compassion for others.”
“So is the Bajoran religion, which now has a link to its divine source—and I’m that link, Damar. Want to know what else I’ve learned from the Prophets?”
As desperately as he wanted to escape her clutches, he was deeply curious to hear what she had to say next. “What?”
“The Bajoran faith and the Oralian Way share a common heritage. They’re both linked to the ancient Hebitians, and to the Prophets. I’m not just Bajor’s emissary—I can also be Cardassia’s.” She let go of him, but he no longer felt the urge to flee. She pressed her palms to his face. “I can shed new light on your faith, on our true history, and even our future. That’s the kind of power I can give you—the kind no one else on Cardassia has: the truth.”
The burden of his doubt was oppressive. “I’m not sure that will be enough to spark the kind of change you’re hoping for.”
“I am,” Ghemor said. “The Prophets have seen it. It’s coming.”
He wanted to trust her; he was desperate to believe her words. “Asking the people to accept a change of this magnitude after everything that’s happened in the last year could be the tipping point. It might cause our society to implode.”
“If so, that will be your chance to rebuild.”
Staring out the windows across the Tarlak Sector, he envisioned a thousand ways this risk could end in catastrophe. “If I were to attempt something so rash and ill-advised… where would I begin?”
“First, you need to end the war with the Terran Rebellion.”
“And how am I supposed to persuade the council to do that?”
Ghemor’s countenance turned grim. “Tell them the truth. Your military’s been gutted, and the rebellion is still heavily armed. Unless you sue for peace in the next three days, the rebels will destroy every planet in the Union—starting with Cardassia Prime.” She cracked a sardonic smile. “After they swallow that little nugget, legalizing the Oralian Way will probably seem like no big deal.”
Damar shook his head and collapsed into his chair. “This is ridiculous. You ask the impossible, Ghemor. You want me to transform our entire society all but overnight, and almost entirely by myself. One man can’t change the world.”
“Wrong. It takes only one man with a vision to summon the future. You can be that man, Damar. More important, Cardassia needs you to be that man.” She offered him her hand. “And if you let me… I will help you.”
Mac and Soleta followed Saavik down a broad, two-kilometer-long corridor that was lined on both sides with spacious observation lounges. Next to each lounge was a hatch to a gangway that led to a docked starship. Some of them were new wormhole jaunt ships constructed by Memory Omega, and others were vessels from the rebellion armada that had been brought back to Erebus Station for repairs—or, in the most extreme cases, total rebuilds, from the spaceframes out.
“It’s not much farther,” Saavik said.
Soleta replied, “You might consider putting in moving walkways.”
“We did. We decided that promoting exercise was more beneficial.” The Vulcan woman continued a few paces ahead of Soleta and Mac, and didn’t see the dismissive glances that passed between them. After a few more minutes of walking, she detoured toward an observation lounge on their right, stopped at the towering transparent wall, and turned back to face the duo. “Here it is.”
Stepping up to the window-wall, Mac looked out at one of the sleek jaunt ships that Memory Omega had built. This one was white and pristine, and he suspected that even if he were to inspect every inch of its hull with a magnifying glass, he wouldn’t find so much as a scratch on her. “She’s a beauty,” he said.
“Very impressive,” Soleta added.
A friend’s voice echoed in Mac’s thoughts: Over here. Behind you.
In unison, he and Soleta turned, alerting him that she had heard the same telepathic summons. Without explaining themselves to Saavik, they walked away from her and crossed the corridor to the observation window on the other side. After a moment of confused hesitation, Saavik followed them.
They arrived at the other transparent wall and gazed together at a Romulan starship docked at the end of the gangway. It was a Mogai-class warbird, one of the Romulan military’s newer designs, but this ship clearly had been through hell. The distinctive feathering pattern of its green hull was scorched and pitted, and large sections had been replaced with unsightly gray patches. A team of robots were hard at work replacing its charred warp nacelles.
Without prompting, Saavik volunteered, “This is the Valdore, one of the ships salvaged from the Battle of Bajor.”
Staring at the sleek raptor of a vessel, Mac focused his thoughts. McHenry, is that you? Are you on the Valdore?
Yes, Mac. It’s me. Hello, Soleta.
Mac glanced to his right and saw Soleta smile. McHenry, what happened at Bajor? How did we end up on the Enterprise? How’d you get here?
The navigator sounded abashed and distracted. It’s a long story, Mac. I saved you by creating overlapping folded pockets of space-time and shifting our temporal constant. Do you really want me to go into detail?
Trading an exasperated look with Soleta, Mac projected back, No.
As for myself, I waited until the nanosecond before the Excalibur struck the bird-of-prey, then severed my consciousness from my physical form. Fortunately, these new Romulan ships are using bioneural computer cores, so when I found that the Valdore’s crew was gone, I took over its main computer. And here we are.
Ever the practical sort, Mac asked, Does the cloak work?
Of course, McHenry responded.
Soleta smiled, and Mac knew what to do.
He turned to Saavik. “We’ll take this one.”
The director arched an eyebrow. “Are you quite certain? We can restore this ship’s systems, but one of our jaunt ships would be far more powerful—and better suited to a figure of your stature within the rebellion.”
“We’re sure,” Mac said, “on one condition.” Despite himself, he smiled. “I’m renaming it Excalibur.”
Miles O’Brien walked alone through the empty corridors of the Defiant. The ship had been docked at Erebus Station for nearly three weeks, and its latest round of repairs and refits was nearly complete. Its ablative armor had been improved, and its new transphasic munitions were expected to deliver nearly six times as much firepower as the quantum warheads they were replacing.
Not that any of that mattered anymore.
Wandering the deserted corridors on the starship’s lower decks, O’Brien felt dazed and insubstantial. The rhythm of his own breathing filled his ears, and his footsteps seemed to land without sensation, making him feel as if he were afloat. He still couldn’t make sense of the news that had just been relayed to the fleet by the Memory Omega crew that manned the station. Though he’d watched it three times over, and had heard every word with perfect clarity, it still seemed surreal.
Supreme Legate Damar had decreed on an open subspace channel the acceptance of a cease-fire with the Terran Rebellion and an uneasy truce with the Klingon Empire—both of which had been confirmed immediately by Regent Duras. Though the Alliance remained dissolved, both powers had signed nonaggression treaties with the Taurus Pact, which in turn had surprised O’Brien by recognizing the Terran Protectorate as a nascent state.
It had been less than three hours since ambassadors from the Klingon Empire and Cardassian Union had met in secret on the neutral Orion homeworld with a representative of the Terran Rebellion to sign the Tripartite Armistice. In a surprising gesture of good faith, Ambassador M’Rod of Qo’noS had b
een the first to sign the document. Next, Ambassador Broca of Cardassia had affixed his seal on behalf of the Union, after which Representative Eddington had completed the ceremony by signing on behalf of the rebellion.
In addition to ending hostilities among the three powers, the armistice had formally ceded more than two dozen worlds in a twenty-light-year radius around the Sol system to the rebellion’s autonomous control and established a ten-light-year-wide Neutral Zone around the new independent territory. Despite the fervent objections of the Klingon ambassador, the armistice also restored the sovereignty of the Romulan Star Empire and compelled the Klingons to withdraw their forces from Romulan space without delay. Then, while the ink was still wet on the armistice, the rebellion had signed a treaty of alliance and mutual defense with the Romulan Star Empire, which was represented by Hiren, its once and future praetor.
After seven interminable, blood-soaked, and sometimes ostensibly hopeless years… the war was over. The rebellion had won.
Roaming the empty spaces of his battle-torn ship, O’Brien was overcome with melancholy. Everywhere he looked he saw reminders of the past, and he began to count the dead. His heart grew heavy as he remembered Leeta and Sam, and Muñiz and Luther Sloan. He mourned Sisko, who had started him down this long and bloody path, and Neelix and Seska, and Cal Hudson, and Kasidy Yates, and thousands of other patriots who had given everything for people they would never know. He even let himself grieve for men like Zek and Bashir, who had acted more like his rivals than his allies but who had died for the cause.
They, and tens of thousands of others he couldn’t even name, had made this day possible. It pained O’Brien to think that none of them would see the new world that had been paid for with their lives.
We owe it to them to make sure it’s a good one, he decided as he neared the door to his quarters. For all the times he had professed to hate the Klingons, or the Cardassians, or the Alliance, or even the war itself, he knew that none of those were the real object of his scorn. What he hated most was what he had become because of them. He vowed to himself that he would honor the sacrifices of the fallen by laying down his arms and never killing again.
