And Kira Nerys will witness it all.
While the Ascendants continued to deliberate about how they should vanquish the population of Bajor, Ghemor checked her sensors. As the last of the armada assembled in orbit, she saw that Defiant, the Federation starship assigned to Deep Space 9, would arrive shortly. A second vessel—which read not as Starfleet, but as a civilian ship, with strong shields and virtually no weaponry—would also reach Bajor soon. Kira Nerys followed in a runabout, too far away to make a difference, but close enough to monitor the Ascendant attack.
Of greater import, Ghemor detected no Starfleet vessels on long-range sensors. She felt certain that Kira had sent out an alarm, but apparently the Federation had no reinforcements stationed near Bajor. The Ascendants would have to contend with Defiant, but a lone starship would not be enough to stand in Ghemor’s way. Before long, she would either fire the subspace weapon, or the Ascendant armada would descend on Bajor. The latter course would require more time to complete, and it would progress less spectacularly, but it would still prove effective. The Ascendant ships would leave Bajoran cities in ruins and set fire to what remained. Poisons would choke the air. Arable lands would blacken. Waters would vaporize. Blood would spill.
Ghemor considered firing on Raiq’s ship so that she could use the subspace weapon against Bajor, but she felt that doing so would cross a line. She did not want to lose control of the Ascendants, or worse, to make an enemy of them. She needed their armada to ensure her vengeance on Kira’s people, and once that had been accomplished, to finally put an end to Kira. Ghemor had endured too much to allow herself a misstep.
For the moment, she awaited word from the new Grand Archquester. As she did so, an alert sounded in the cockpit just before another phaser beam carved through space from the closest Bajoran weapons platform. It slammed into Votiq’s ship, but once more, the defensive shields barely registered a dip in power levels or effectiveness.
Ghemor heard another chime. Scans showed the eight Bajoran assault vessels that had earlier fired on her coming around for another attack run. She quickly energized her own ship’s weapons. She targeted the two lead vessels and tapped a trigger on her console. From emitters on either side of the ship’s bow, brilliant white circles of energy darted out into the void, expanding in diameter the farther they traveled. Ghemor watched as the baryon pulses found their marks. Jagged bands of blue light erupted around the two lead Bajoran vessels like a violent but localized electrical storm. The faux lightning faded and then vanished as the weapon drained the shields of energy.
The eight assault vessels leveled a phaser salvo at Ghemor’s ship. The red-yellow beams buffeted her shields, which remained largely unaffected. Ghemor locked on to the two lead vessels again and fired a pair of tetryon bolts. Fiery green spheres streaked from the bow of her ship and caught their targets as they tried to veer off. A jet of gas burst from the flank of one vessel as it vented atmosphere through a breach in its hull, and then it broke into pieces. The second ship exploded in a blaze, reduced in an instant to fragments that intermittently reflected the Bajoran sun as they tumbled through space. The other assault vessels sped away.
Suddenly, a flash of light blossomed in the distance, off to starboard. Ghemor looked in that direction and saw a great deal of movement: clusters of Bajoran assault vessels leaving the atmosphere and reaching space, waves of Ascendant ships arriving in orbit, weapons platforms discharging their phasers. When she spotted a series of bright bursts at the far edge of the armada, she examined her sensors to find that Defiant had arrived from Deep Space 9, and that the Starfleet vessel had already engaged the Ascendants.
Seltiq is taking too long, she thought. Ghemor couldn’t wait any longer for the new Grand Archquester to make a decision about whether or not to utilize the subspace weapon against the Bajorans. Ultimately, it didn’t matter whether the Ascendants obliterated Kira’s people in the span of a heartbeat or in a full rotation of their world, just as long as Ghemor’s nemesis suffered through it.
The Cardassian reached for the communications panel, intending to contact Seltiq, when a tone signified an incoming transmission—from the new Grand Archquester. Ghemor opened the channel. The image of the nascent leader of the Ascendants appeared on a screen, and Seltiq identified herself.
“Fire, I have listened to the voices of many knights,” the Grand Archquester then said. Ghemor thought that she spoke with the poise earned from a long life. “I want to satisfy your request to use Aniq’s subspace missile against the heretics on the planet ahead. Many Ascendants support such an action, but far more seek to employ the metaweapon as a means to help us burn before the Unnameable and join with them. All agree, though, that we must first annihilate the heretics as one last sacrament before we reenter the Fortress of the True. I submit to you that we can accomplish that goal without resorting to the use of the subspace weapon.” If Seltiq felt any anxiety about contravening the wishes of such an important figure in her religion, Ghemor couldn’t tell.
“I retract my intention to use the subspace weapon against the Bajorans,” the Cardassian said. She could not risk losing the loyalty of the new Grand Archquester, much less that of the majority of Ascendants who opposed her plan. She quickly worked to deactivate the metaweapon. “I have disarmed the missile. I am content to allow the armada to strike the planet and level its population of blasphemers.”
For the first time, Seltiq hesitated. She blinked her big golden eyes. She obviously hadn’t expected her conversation with the Fire to proceed so smoothly. “I am pleased, Fire,” the new Grand Archquester said.
“Our goals are the same: to burn before the Unnameable in the Fortress of the True,” Ghemor lied. “To make that happen, let us embark on the final sacrament. I will keep the subspace missile with me and protect it from harm while the Ascendants eradicate the heretics.”
Ghemor waited to see if the new Grand Archquester would resist her intention to retain custody of the metaweapon. She didn’t—but then how could she? Seltiq could not question the integrity of the Fire.
Instead, Ghemor listened as the new Grand Archquester quickly contacted Raiq and ordered her to deactivate her ship’s tractor beam, releasing the subspace missile into Ghemor’s care. Once the younger Archquester had complied and withdrawn from her position, Seltiq then opened a channel to the entire armada. She informed the Ascendants of her joint decision with the Fire to preserve the metaweapon for their use inside the Fortress of the True, and also of their shared determination to eliminate one more heretical culture from the cosmos. “Assume planetary-advance formation,” she said, ordering the Ascendant legion into an offensive configuration. “And then,” she said, finishing by issuing a one-word command: “Attack!”
Iliana Ghemor observed through the transparent dome of Votiq’s ship as the Ascendant armada started toward Bajor. For the moment, she would relish her role as a spectator, fully aware that Kira would be watching too—watching, and powerless to prevent the coming massacre. If for some reason it became necessary, though—if the Ascendants faltered, or if the Bajorans somehow manufactured a miraculous defense—Ghemor would not hesitate to use the subspace weapon against all of them, or against Kira herself.
* * *
Raiq did as the new Grand Archquester ordered, pressing a control to deactivate her ship’s tractor beam. Some part of her expected that as soon as she released the subspace missile, the Fire would launch it at the planet ahead, regardless of her word that she would not. The thought caused Raiq tremendous anxiety, which did not abate when her fear did not materialize. Any treachery perpetrated by the Fire—or by the woman who at least purported to be the Fire—did not trouble her as much as her own skepticism did.
How can this be happening? Raiq asked herself. After a lifetime of more than a century spent in service to the Quest, with a mind-set absolutely dedicated to orthodoxy, how could she suddenly question the foundation of her entire existence? And not just of my existence, she realized, but that of all
Ascendants. Scripture foretold the coming of the Fire, whose arrival in turn augured the End Time, when the surviving knights would embark on the Path to the Final Ascension. For Raiq to doubt the word of the Fire, or worse, for her to distrust the truth of the Fire’s identity, placed her squarely on the brink of heresy.
“What is wrong with me?” she asked herself. She spoke softly, her musical voice shaky and sounding thin even in the compact space of her ship’s cockpit. Raiq felt distraught, her thoughts awash in doubt and shame. How would her profane turn of mind affect her when she burned beneath the gaze of the Unnameable? Would it still be possible for her gods to find her worthy of joining with them? Could her fall from grace impact the Final Ascension for the rest of her people?
Raiq didn’t have the answers to any of her questions, but she needed to find them. She did not want to wait to discover whether or not she had offended the True beyond the possibility of her redemption. She also discovered that she could not live with the idea that she had doomed all the Ascendants to burn before the Unnameable without then being elevated into their pantheon.
But what can I do?
Raiq considered taking an action that previously would have required no deliberation from her whatsoever: helping to exterminate the heretics on the planet below. But if her lifetime of unwavering devotion to the Unnameable, if all the cycles she had spent on the Quest, if the thousands of blasphemous cultures she had helped to extinguish, if the billions—perhaps even trillions—of heretics she had helped to destroy—if all of that failed to warrant her burning before the True and then joining with them, would attacking the Bajorans alongside the rest of her people actually make a difference?
No, it wouldn’t, she decided. But something else might.
After disengaging her vessel’s tractor beam from the subspace weapon, Raiq had retreated from the Fire’s ship—which until a short time ago had been Votiq’s ship. As the new Grand Archquester ordered the Ascendants to strike at the planet of heretics, Raiq for the first time in her existence disobeyed a direct order from the leader of her people: she turned her vessel away from Bajor. She would not take part in an action that could have no possible effect on her Path to the Final Ascension. But she reasoned that, if Votiq could, on his own, burn beneath the gaze of the Unnameable and join with them, then she could at least try to do the same thing.
Raiq set course for the Fortress of the True.
* * *
Defiant hurtled toward Bajor. In the center of the bridge, beneath the red glow of alert lighting, Commander Elias Vaughn listened to the strained whine of the impulse engines, alert for any indication that he pushed the bantam ship too hard. In the nearly two years he had served as the first officer of Deep Space 9, he had come to know Defiant well, owing particularly to his captaining the vessel during its three-month exploratory mission into the Gamma Quadrant. Equally as important—or perhaps more so—he knew the crew. He had met few engineers as naturally adept as Lieutenant Nog, who at that moment had the sublight drive functioning at 117 percent capacity.
Vaughn leaned forward in the command chair, his gaze fixed on the main viewscreen. On the journey from the station, he had spoken multiple times with both Captain Kira and Bajoran Minister of Defense Aland. There had been some positive news: Lieutenant Commander Ro and Lieutenant Chao had taken a runabout into the Gamma Quadrant, and while they’d discovered that Starfleet’s communications relay had been destroyed, they’d found that no more enemy ships were headed for the wormhole. They also confirmed that, while the Ascendants had attacked Idran IV, the Eav’oq had suffered no casualties. Kai Pralon and her cultural delegation had also survived, and Ro and Chao had accompanied the Bajoran spiritual leader and her party back through the wormhole to DS9. Vaughn did not know what to make of the return of Taran’atar, but the rest of the information that Kira and Aland had imparted—about Iliana Ghemor, about the Ascendants, and about their subspace weapon, not to mention that the nearest Starfleet vessels would take a full day to reach Bajor—could not have been more dire.
On the main viewer, the Ascendant fleet, thousands of ships strong, sprawled in a massive formation above Bajor. Aland had relayed his intention of mobilizing the assault vessels of the Bajoran Militia, in addition to utilizing the weapons platforms in orbit, but Kira’s initial attack on the Ascendants, as well as the brief historical record on the zealous aliens, suggested that far more than that would be needed to stop them. And if they did possess a subspace weapon, then the Bajorans faced a truly grave threat.
“Are you confident about the location of Ghemor’s ship?” Vaughn asked. Scans had so far not detected any subspace weaponry within the ranks of the Ascendant ships. Vaughn hoped that meant that the invading fleet did not actually have such a weapon, but he also knew that it might simply mean that they had shielded it from sensors. Whatever the case, finding the mad Cardassian woman and dealing with her directly seemed the most likely means of forestalling an attack on Bajor and its people.
“I’ve identified Ghemor’s ship based on the comm data Captain Kira provided after their contact,” said Bowers, who worked at the tactical console on the port side of the bridge. He raised his voice to be heard over the high drone of the overworked impulse drive. “It was the first Ascendant vessel through the wormhole, and the first to reach orbit. It’s still towing what looks like a missile behind it.”
“Set a direct course,” Vaughn ordered.
“Aye, sir,” said Prynn from the conn and operations station. “She’s positioned at the very heart of the Ascendant force. We’ll have to pass through a sizable portion of their fleet to get there.”
“Do it,” Vaughn said. “Avoid their ships as best you can. Lieutenant Bowers, report tactical status.”
“Shields at maximum. Phasers energized, quantum torpedoes primed and loaded.”
“Very good,” Vaughn said. “Lieutenant Nog, what are—”
“Captain,” Bowers interrupted. “I’m reading more weapons fire at Ghemor’s location.” The tactical officer worked his console, clearly seeking more detailed information. “One of the orbital platforms has discharged its phasers again . . . and the squadron of eight Bajoran assault vessels that fired earlier have resumed an attack vector.”
On the viewer, in the distance, isolated yellow-red flares colored the sky above the planet. They did not last long, nor did they repeat immediately. Vaughn hoped that meant the Ascendants had not come to Bajor to do battle, although their refusal to answer hails and the historical record strongly suggested otherwise—as did the presence of Iliana Ghemor among them.
“I’m now reading return fire,” Bowers reported. During Deep Space 9’s assault on the lead ship, and again when the Bajoran Militia had initially taken aim at it, the Ascendant ship had not engaged its attackers. “Sensors are showing an oscillating, high-energy baryon beam directed onto the two lead Bajoran vessels.” Vaughn noted that, with the exception of Prynn, who did not take her gaze from her console, every officer on the bridge had turned their attention toward Bowers. “The Bajorans are responding with a coordinated phaser barrage . . . the Ascendant ship is firing again . . . what read as tetryon torpedoes—” Bowers looked up from his panel and over at Vaughn. “The two lead Bajoran vessels have been destroyed.”
Vaughn snapped his head toward the main viewer, as though he could see across the kilometers of space to the confrontation that had just occurred. Two volleys, and two lost ships, he thought, more than a little concerned about what that implied about the offensive capabilities of the Ascendants. The Bajoran assault vessels might have been older ships, with aging systems, but it still should have taken longer than it had to destroy them.
“Coming up on the edge of the Ascendant fleet,” Bowers announced. A moment later, a knife-edged ship appeared on the viewscreen. Vaughn watched the perspective shift as Tenmei adjusted Defiant’s course, yawing it to port. The Ascendant ship slipped away in the opposite direction.
“Captain!” Bowers called out just
before Defiant shook violently. The sudden movement threw Vaughn against the side of the command chair, but he managed to hold himself in his seat. The alert lighting blinked off, leaving the bridge illuminated only by the glow of control consoles, but then it resumed. “We’ve taken a baryon beam to our aft starboard flank.”
“Shields are down to seventy-nine percent,” Nog said. The number shocked Vaughn. With just one shot, the Ascendant ship had reduced the effectiveness of Defiant’s shields by almost a quarter. Such a powerful weapon did not bode well for Vaughn and his crew.
“Return fire,” Vaughn ordered. “Phasers and quantum torpedoes, full spread.”
“Aye,” Bowers said. Characteristic feedback tones rang out across the bridge, signifying the firing of the ship’s phasers and the launching of quantum torpedoes. Vaughn noted that the ambient noise in the compartment had quieted just as Nog explained why.
“Velocity is down to ninety percent of full sublight speed,” said the operations chief. “One of the impulse reactors was knocked offline. I’m cycling it back up.”
“Direct hit on the Ascendant ship with phasers and one quantum torpedo,” Bowers reported. “Sensors are showing minimal damage. They’re swinging back around.”
“Quantum torpedoes,” Vaughn said at once. “Three shots, staggered attack. Target their weapon emitters.”
Vaughn didn’t hear Bowers respond, but the sound of torpedoes being dispatched again resounded across the bridge, once, twice, a third time. On the main screen, the view had been locked—doubtless by Ensign Cathy Ling, who worked the communications console—onto the attacking Ascendant vessel. Vaughn saw it nimbly elude the first two quantum torpedoes. The blue-white fireballs soared past it and detonated in the distance with dazzling intensity. The third caught the ship on the port side of its blade-shaped bow, but not before the Ascendant fired again, sending out what looked like expanding white circles of energy in Defiant’s direction.
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Ascendance Page 9
