Rise Like Lions

by David Mack

  A collective groan filled the hall, and Eddington knew that this day—despite starting off with a powerful and historic message from the past—was about to devolve into a long, loud, obnoxious, messy, and utterly wonderful exercise in representative democracy. The thought of it made him smile—then he reminded himself to take every moment of this government seriously, because if history was any guide, it would last only as long as he and people like him could defend it from those who would do anything to subvert it, corrupt it, and tear it down.

  Let them come, he decided, reclining as he listened to Zife drone on about optimal allocation strategies for civil engineering personnel and resources. I’ll be here for the long haul.

  In seven years of war, the Alliance had never once brought O’Brien to his knees. Now a small patch of hardscrabble ground humbled him like a penitent fifty times a day. Genuflecting on his rock-infested soil, he dug with rough hands through the cold earth and ferreted out large stones that were obstructing his effort to plant a row of potatoes. He cursed under his breath as he cast each one into a wicker basket that he dragged behind him while he worked, but in his heart he found the process deeply satisfying.

  Standing straight, he clapped the dust from his hands and looked up at a sky masked by clouds like white marble. It was late spring by his reckoning, but the weather remained stubbornly cold and overcast, with the occasional random drizzle to keep everything damp and dreary.

  It’s my own fault, he scolded himself. I could have put my farm anywhere, but I chose here. Grimacing good-naturedly at his bleak surroundings, he considered his decision a triumph of nostalgia over common sense. He and Keiko had built a house on Inis Mór, a small isle off the western coast of a Terran island nation once called Ireland. The isle was hard country, in the finest Irish tradition. Its rocky soil was overgrown with brush and weeds that were hardy from surviving long, harsh winters at high latitude, and the countryside was a patchwork quilt of centuries-old stone walls, most of them crumbling and carpeted in moss.

  Several ancient stone forts, the handiwork of a people known as the Celts, still served as the tiny isle’s key landmarks. O’Brien had situated his home and farm on the site of a deserted village known as Cill Mhuirbhigh, at the bottom of a path that led up a hillside to Dún Aonghasa, “the Big Fort.” His nearest neighbors were more than six kilometers away, in Cill Rónáin, near Dún Dúchathair, “the Black Fort,” and that was just the way O’Brien liked it. He had come to Inis Mór for the solitude and, most of all, the quiet.

  In the mornings, lying in his bed, he could hear the sound of his border collie trotting up the gravel road from Cill Rónáin from half a kilometer away. Some evenings, after dinner, he walked the trail up to Dún Aonghasa and laid himself down on the grassy field inside its walls. The fort was walled on only three sides, with its western face open above a dizzyingly tall cliff whose base was pounded day and night by the relentless sea. Lying in the grass, O’Brien had finally been able to hear himself breathe, and for the first time in his life he’d known peace. In a way no other place had ever been, Inis Mór was his home.

  O’Brien looked back on the progress he’d made preparing this plot of soil for planting. As best he could tell, he had cleared only two of the eight rows he intended to plant in that afternoon. Time to get back to it, then. He lifted his garden hoe and resumed his steady chopping at the hard, cold ground. Just as the hoe’s blade struck another rock with a grating scrape, he heard the back door of his house open. He turned and saw Keiko standing in the open doorway, balancing their infant daughter, Molly, on her hip.

  “Someone’s coming up the road,” Keiko called out. “On foot.”

  He sleeved the sweat from his brow. “Did you see who it is?”

  She shook her head. “No, but it doesn’t look like Maggie or Aidan.”

  In addition to being Miles and Keiko’s closest friends on the island, Maggie and Aidan McTeague were also the ones who brought them fresh supplies from the cargo shuttles that visited Cill Rónáin on the first Monday of each month. None of the island’s other residents had visited the O’Briens since they built their home in Cill Mhuirbhigh, so an unexpected caller at the front gate was cause for curiosity. O’Brien set down his hoe and made his way out of the fields, then followed the path that circled his house until he reached the front gate.

  He arrived in time to see the visitor, a lone figure in an off-white hooded robe, rounding the curve on the steep incline that led up to his house. Observing the traveler with a trained eye, O’Brien concluded that it was a woman, and that she likely wasn’t armed. He waved to her. “Hello, there. Can I help you?”

  She pulled back her hood. It was Saavik. “Greetings, General.”

  “Don’t call me that,” he said, waving away the honorific as if it were a bad odor. “I’m just Miles now. Or Smiley, to people who ‘knew me when.’”

  Saavik nodded. “As you prefer, Miles.” She continued walking toward him, and he ducked through the planks of his fence to step out and greet her. They met in a light but friendly embrace. “Are you and Keiko well?”

  “Very,” he said.

  “And your child?”

  “Molly’s great. A bit colicky some nights, but nothing we can’t handle.” The wind picked up, and he tucked his hands into his pockets to keep them warm. “What’re you doing here? Is something wrong?”

  Folding her hands together in a way that made the drooped sleeves of her robe overlap to block the wind, Saavik arched one brow. “I had meant to ask you the same thing. I was surprised to find you here rather than at the Assembly on Deneva. I’d expected you to join Mister Eddington in the new government.”

  O’Brien shrugged. “Earth only needs one delegate, and I figured Michael was the better man for the job.”

  She cocked her head, ostensibly confused by his reply. “There are other positions in which you could serve besides delegate. You were a leader, Miles. People looked up to you. They respected you and followed you. Why walk away now, after all you did to bring this new order into being?”

  Overhead, the cloud cover broke just enough to let some sunlight dapple the countryside. Squinting up at the golden beams and a patch of blue heaven, O’Brien squinted. “Honestly? I feel like I’ve done enough leading.” Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Keiko and Molly watching him through one of the bedroom windows. He smiled at them, then looked back at Saavik. “Now I just want to live.”

  “I understand,” Saavik said. She lifted her hand in the V-shaped Vulcan salute. “Live long and prosper, Miles Edward O’Brien.”

  He tried to emulate the gesture, but his fingers refused to obey. Saavik, however, didn’t seem to mind. “May the road rise to meet you, Saavik, and may the wind be ever at your back.”

  For a moment, he thought he saw the ghost of a smile on her face. Then she nodded at him, lifted her hood, and walked back the way she had come, her steps crunching on the gravel as the wind whispered its valedictions between them.

  EPILOGUE

  The Far Side of Night

  The Honored Elder crossed the bridge and snapped to attention at Eris’s side. “We have reached the coordinates.”

  The slender, violet-eyed female Vorta turned toward him and lowered the holographic eyepiece of her command headset. “Well done, First.” She quickly accessed the Dominion battle cruiser’s sensor logs and superimposed the trajectory of its long-range sensor probe over the latest readings gathered by her crew. “Have your men found any evidence of the high-energy phenomenon the probe detected?”

  “None.”

  Eris was not ready to abandon the investigation. “Check for gravitational anomalies within ten light-minutes.” A nod from the First to his Second initiated the new sensor sweep.

  Perhaps the anomaly has vanished or moved, she speculated. It would be a shame if we missed such a rare event. Years had passed since the deep-space probe had recorded the massive subspace fluctuation less than five light-years from the Idran system. Because of th
e event’s great distance from Dominion space, its verification and analysis had not been considered a priority.

  The First conferred in a low voice with the Second, then he returned to face Eris. “No gravitational anomalies detected.” He waited a moment, apparently to see if Eris had further orders. “May I make a recommendation?”

  “By all means, First.”

  He lowered the eyepiece of his own headset and used it to relay data in real time to Eris’s display. “Navigator Rogan’agar reported disruptions to our subspace field as we dropped from warp to impulse. I suggest we check for deformations in the local fabric of subspace.”

  Eris graced the First with a fleeting smile of approval. “An excellent idea, First. See it done.” With a glance he delegated the task to his Second. Eris knew it was no mere accident of fortune that the First had become an Honored Elder among his kind. He was a gifted thinker condemned to live among the cannon fodder. She also admired his unshakable loyalty to the Founders; though he had been born without the normal Jem’Hadar dependency on ketracel white, he took it with thanks each day. He considered it part of his duty as First to accept the gift of the Founders with gratitude, as an example to his men.

  He returned to her, looking pleased. “We have found something.”

  “Route it to my display, please.” She waited as the sensor data appeared, complete with annotations, in her holographic matrix. A storm of neutrinos silhouetted a funnel-shaped gravity well. “Is it stable?”

  “Preliminary readings are inconclusive. May I recommend we launch a new probe to gather detailed telemetry from the anomaly’s interior?”

  Flush with excitement, Eris nodded. “At once, First.”

  More quick looks were translated into efficient action. Seconds later, a flash in Eris’s display signaled the launch of the probe. She watched with rapt attention as it arced into seemingly empty space. Then a cerulean bloom spiraled open to swallow it whole, like a leviathan devouring an amoeba. The wormhole was a majestic vortex of matter and energy, hypnotic in its invitation. It took all of Eris’s willpower to resist ordering the First to plunge their vessel in after the probe.

  “Readings are steady,” the First said. “The wormhole appears stable. Verteron nodes inside it may be a navigational hazard. Shielding on our warp core might be required for safe passage.” The wormhole irised shut and vanished from sight, leaving only stars and darkness. The First confirmed his findings with the Second, then he turned back toward Eris. “We have lost contact with the probe.”

  She lifted her eyepiece back to its standby position. “Ready a secure channel. I need to report this discovery at once.” The First nodded. Eris stepped away, intending to make her report from the privacy of her quarters. She paused in the open doorway, looked back, and smiled at the First. “You’ve done well, Taran’atar. I’ll be sure to mention you by name when I speak with the Founders.”

  Consummatum est

  Acknowledgments

  It has been my practice since my first direct-to-paperback novel to thank my wonderful wife, Kara, for her support during the writing of this book, and it remains as right and proper on this, my twentieth book, as it did on my first.

  I also wish to extend my thanks to the editors who helped bring this project to life. Margaret Clark first commissioned this novel from me; Jaime Costas shepherded the book through the approvals process; Marco Palmieri offered me sage advice on the outline and helped me smooth some of the tale’s rougher edges; and Ed Schlesinger guided the finished manuscript through editing and revisions to help it become the tome you now hold.

  My agent, Lucienne Diver, also deserves her measure of my gratitude for keeping up with the business side of my endeavors and making sure all my paperwork is dotted and crossed to perfection in triplicate.

  In keeping with the collaborative nature of a shared universe, I am indebted to two authors who assisted me before, during, and after the writing of this manuscript. The first is Peter David, who graciously agreed to vet the chapters in which I used characters he created for his Star Trek: New Frontier series. The second is Keith R.A. DeCandido, who gave me ideas and let me bounce some of my crazier notions off him. I also tip my hat to the very long list of authors who contributed tales to the Star Trek Mirror Universe: Shards and Shadows anthology that built upon and expanded the mythology and backstory of the secret cabal known as Memory Omega.

  Also, I’d be remiss if I did not acknowledge the inspiration of Jerome Bixby, writer of the Star Trek episode “Mirror, Mirror,” which spawned this whole concept, and Michael Piller and Peter Allan Fields, whose Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode “Crossover” dragged the alternate universe kicking and screaming into the twenty-fourth century—and my imagination along with it.

  Along the way, I relied on many fine reference works to help me keep my facts straight. Topping the list are The Star Trek Encyclopedia and The Star Trek Chronology, both by Michael Okuda and Denise Okuda; The Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Technical Manual by Herman Zimmerman, Rick Sternbach, and Doug Drexler; Star Trek: Star Charts by Geoffrey Mandel; and the wiki-reference websites Memory Alpha, for canonical Star Trek information, and Memory Beta, for information from the world of official licensed Star Trek literature and more.

  Lastly, I continue to be thankful for you, the readers and fans who keep the dream of Gene Roddenberry alive. May you all live long and prosper.

  About the Author

  David Mack is the national bestselling author of more than twenty novels and novellas, including Wildfire, Harbinger, Reap the Whirlwind, Precipice, Road of Bones, Promises Broken, and the Star Trek Destiny trilogy: Gods of Night, Mere Mortals, and Lost Souls. He developed the Star Trek Vanguard series concept with editor Marco Palmieri. His first work of original fiction is the critically acclaimed supernatural thriller The Calling.

  In addition to novels, Mack’s writing credits span several media, including television (for episodes of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine), film, short fiction, magazines, newspapers, comic books, computer games, radio, and the Internet.

  His upcoming works include the new Vanguard novel Storming Heaven, and a Star Trek trilogy scheduled for late 2012. He resides in New York City with his wife, Kara.

  Visit his website, www.davidmack.pro/, and follow him on Twitter @DavidAlanMack and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/david.alan.mack.

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