The two runabouts immediately returned fire with their phasers. The Ascendant weapons quieted as the vessel dived away, neatly evading the red-yellow beams. Platte reacted quickly, maneuvering to cut the attacker off, while Volga swung around and raced back along its original path, ensuring that the runabout remained between the Ascendant vessel and DS9.
From a point offscreen, the white beams—a pulsating baryon charge, according to Dax’s sensors—resumed firing. Both struck Platte amidships. Dax saw a flurry of blue pinpoints flickering along one side of the runabout, a telltale sign of a failing shield. Before she could even check Platte’s status, the runabout deftly whirled on its vertical axis, protecting its collapsing shield as three bright green bursts landed on the hull.
As Dax studied Platte’s condition on the tactical readouts—one shield gone, two others on the verge of breaking down—she also spied the strength and composition of the Ascendant vessel’s second weapon: powerful tetryon torpedoes. The lieutenant didn’t know how much more fire Platte could take, but she made a command decision to take no chances. She dropped the station’s shields, then worked the transporter.
As a familiar whine rose in Ops, Dax saw the Ascendant vessel reappear on the viewscreen, headed toward Platte. The enemy ship fired on the runabout at point-blank range, sending a combined barrage of baryon beams and tetryon torpedoes crashing into it. As the Ascendant vessel veered off and resumed its course toward the wormhole, a fiery explosion consumed Platte.
Dax snapped her head up to look at the small transporter stage on the periphery of Ops. It hummed in operation, but remained empty. She opened her mouth to call out for assistance—I’m not a transporter expert, I need help—but her hands moved across her console as though driven by a mind of their own.
Or maybe driven by Tobin’s mind, she thought. A former host of the Dax symbiont, Tobin had been a skilled engineer by trade; he’d even taken part in the initial testing of a transporter prototype. Although Ezri had learned to cope with the numerous memories of Dax’s previous hosts, and even to take strength from those lifetimes of experiences and abilities, she wondered if she was earning her own way.
But I did earn this, she told herself. Starfleet just prepared me for this.
Dax took in the readings on the transporter console and understood instantly that either the radiation from the Ascendant vessel’s weapons or the shock wave from Platte’s destruction had affected the rematerialization sequence. She had pulled Ro and Si Naran’s patterns from the runabout, but they had been distorted in transit. Dax needed to determine the source of the corruption and compensate for it.
She called up a visual model of the patterns and immediately recognized interference from radiation. Without even thinking about it, she engaged an appropriate filter, cross-circuited the transporter from A to B, and reenergized the materialization sequence. When she looked back up at the transporter stage, Ro and Si Naran stood there. Dax immediately raised the station’s shields.
“Did the Platte make it?” asked Ro as she and Si Naran started down the stairs from the transporter stage.
“No,” Dax said, and she peered over at the main viewer. Volga raced across the screen, firing phasers and microtorpedoes. Several connected with the Ascendant vessel, but it immediately struck back with its baryon weapon. Volga’s shields flared and held, but Dax saw that another hit would take them down.
“Open a channel to the Volga,” Dax said.
At the communications station, Candlewood worked his controls. “Channel open.” Ro and Si Naran crossed Ops to stand by the tactical station.
“Dax to Alfonzo. Pull back.”
“Sir, we’ve compromised their shields,” Alfonzo said. “A few more microtorpedoes should bring them down.”
“Your shields won’t last that long,” Dax said. “Pull back now and return to the station.”
“Aye, sir.” On the viewscreen, Volga swerved from its course, peeling away from the Ascendant vessel. Dax worried that the enemy ship might pursue the runabout, but instead, it resumed its heading for the wormhole.
“Lieutenant,” said Candlewood, “we’re receiving a message from the captain.”
“Put her on speaker.” Dax assumed that Kira had followed the clash with the Ascendant vessel on the sensors of her own runabout.
“Yolja to Deep Space Nine.”
“This is Dax. Go ahead, Captain.”
“Lieutenant, do not send any more runabouts after the Ascendant ship.”
“Agreed, Captain,” Dax said. She did not say that she’d had no intention of risking additional lives. She knew that Kira wanted to question the surviving Ascendants, but Dax did not judge that opportunity worth losing anyone.
“Did you successfully beam out the Platte crew?”
“Yes, sir, we did.”
“Good work, Lieutenant,” Kira said. “Keep the station locked down. I’m going after the Ascendants.”
The idea seemed like a bad one to Dax. “Captain, they already destroyed one runabout, and very nearly a second one.”
“Their shields are down to sixty percent,” Kira said. “That should give me a fighting chance.”
“Captain, this is Ro,” said the security chief from beside the tactical console. “You shouldn’t go alone. You can beam me aboard as you pass the station.” Dax’s jaw tightened at the interruption.
“Negative,” Kira said. “I’ll do this myself. Dax, I need you to keep the station secure. Report everything that’s happened to Starfleet Command, and request that the Mjolnir and the Bellerophon stay at Deep Space Nine once they arrive, at least until we can obtain a new warp core for the Defiant.”
“Yes, sir.” Ops suddenly brightened, and Dax looked to the viewscreen to see that the wormhole had opened, bathing the control center in its brilliant illumination. She watched as the Ascendant vessel flew into it, and then as the swirling currents of blue and white light folded in on themselves until no hint remained of their existence. “Captain—”
“I saw it,” Kira said. “I’m not far behind. If you don’t hear from me in one hour, assume that I’ve been lost, and call Commander Vaughn back to the station aboard one of the Defiant ’s shuttlecraft.”
“Yes, sir.” Dax knew the wealth of Vaughn’s Starfleet experience, and she consequently understood the logic of recalling him to command the station in the captain’s absence. Still, it bothered the lieutenant; it almost felt as though Kira did not trust Dax in command.
That’s foolish, Dax chastised herself. After all, Kira actually had left her in command of the station. Moreover, Dax had not been promoted to the position of Deep Space 9’s second officer all that long ago.
“Kira out.”
Dax heard the tones that signaled the closing of the comm channel. She looked across her console at Ro, whose expression left little doubt that she thought the captain was making a mistake by chasing the Ascendant vessel by herself. But then Ops brightened again, and Dax gazed up at the viewer to see the wormhole opening once more.
A moment later, Yolja soared into the maelstrom.
* * *
The second ship limped away. Raiq briefly considered altering course to go after it, but decided against it. Her own vessel had taken some damage from the aliens, and so close to her goal, she did not want to jeopardize her chances of reaching it.
Raiq saw on her navigational instrumentation that she approached the spatial coordinates at which she had exited the Fortress of the True. Excitement brimmed within her, mixed with the nauseating certainty that she would be unable to find the gates. After all, the Ascendants had set out to prove their worthiness by performing a final sacrament for the Unnameable, and their armada had been wiped out, unable to vanquish a population of alleged heretics. It stood to reason that their failure demonstrated they were unfit to burn beneath the gaze of the True.
But then the emptiness of space bloomed before Raiq. A great, spinning formation of blue and white light rushed out of nowhere and twisted open.
Emotion like none Raiq had ever experienced—not even when she had first passed through the gates—filled her so completely that she felt as though she might physically burst. She navigated her ship into the brilliant light, and then—
And then Raiq returned to the Fortress of the True. She beheld it as she had the first time: in awe. Opulent blue light swaddled her through the transparent canopy of her vessel. She saw enormous, glowing white rings as she soared past them, as though she traveled through a great tunnel, one that would carry her from the ordinary universe of Questers and heretics and heathens, into the sublime realm of the Unnameable. Circles formed, grew, and vanished on the periphery of the space, imbuing the journey with an even greater sense of motion.
The same forces that Raiq had encountered on her initial trek through the Fortress pummeled her ship once more. She modified the settings of the navigational deflector, using sensors to compensate for the spatial discontinuities. The turbulence eased, and the ship grew more stable.
In the cockpit of her vessel, Raiq waited, her emotions equally split between anticipation and apprehension. Would she burn before the True and be found worthy, or would her gods find her wanting? Would she join with the Unnameable, or be reduced to nothing more than a pile of cinders?
At that point, it didn’t matter. She either would achieve the goal of every Ascendant who had ever lived, or she would relieve herself of the burden of false hope. At a minimum, the Quest would finally be at an end, and she felt thankful for that.
Except that it does matter. Raiq heard her own voice as a whisper, far back in her consciousness. It does matter whether I join with the Unnameable. She tried to convince herself that attaining the goal for which she and all her people had forever striven would lend value and meaning to the terrible loss they had just suffered. She tried to convince herself, but she couldn’t. I want this for myself, she confessed. I want—
Up ahead, a circle of darkness appeared in the center of the flowing colors and shapes of the Fortress. Expectation thrilled through Raiq. She watched with wide eyes, eager to behold the True, and yet also uneasy.
The moment did not last. The round, black region expanded as she neared it, and with horror, Raiq recognized it from her first voyage through the Fortress of the True. The urge to slam her eyes shut nearly overwhelmed her, but she could not look away, even as she saw the gleam of starlight ahead.
Raiq’s ship plunged through the opening and back into normal space. She identified arrangements of stars. I’m back where I started, she thought.
Without much thought, Raiq reached to the navigational controls and slowed her ship to a complete stop. Then she turned the craft so that she could look back at the path she had just traversed. The gates to the Fortress of the True had already folded back in on themselves and disappeared from view.
It’s not the Fortress, she thought. It’s a subspace bridge . . . or a wormhole . . . or an interdimensional passage.
Raiq closed her eyes and screamed.
* * *
As soon as Yolja emerged from the wormhole into the Gamma Quadrant, Kira saw the Ascendant vessel, even before she registered the chime of the proximity alert. She also realized that the ship had halted in space and turned in her direction. She quickly examined the main console to confirm the runabout’s shields, then she reached for the phaser and microtorpedo controls.
To the captain’s surprise, the Ascendant vessel did not fire on her, nor did it move. Kira brought Yolja to a halt, wondering if something had happened. Could the Prophets have intervened?
Of course, They could have, Kira thought. She also knew that her gods did not generally act so directly. For years, They had worked through the Emissary, though even he did not always comprehend Their will.
And what about me? Kira asked. The Prophets called me Their Hand. But she did not know what that meant, any more than she understood what They intended her to do.
Kira knew that the Prophets did not exist or act in a linear fashion, but she felt that she might already have failed in her role as the Hand. What more obvious situation could have a need for Their instrument than the arrival of a fleet of religious extremists? Kira had done little to combat the danger the people of Bajor had faced. And although the Ascendants had ultimately been stopped, thousands of scientists on Endalla had lost their lives.
Up ahead, clearly visible through the forward viewport of the runabout, the Ascendant vessel remained motionless. Kira opened a channel and tried once again to hail the invader. She received no response.
An alarm signaled in the main cabin of Yolja as the Ascendant ship fired its pulsing white beam. Kira moved her hands to the weapons panel, but before she activated the phaser or microtorpedo controls, she hesitated. The Ascendant’s weapon had missed the runabout.
Confused, Kira scanned the enemy vessel. To her surprise, the sensors encountered none of the interference that had previously prevented the collection of detailed readings from any of the Ascendant ships. More than that, Kira saw that its shields had come down.
What’s going on? During their attack on Bajor, and in the brief historical account of their destruction of the Pillagra colony, the Ascendants had been nothing but relentless. Kira knew that the vessel just ahead had taken phaser and microtorpedo hits, and that its shields had been weakened, but they had not failed completely.
Kira used the sensors to scan the ship again. She read one life-form aboard. She located the Ascendant vessel’s shield generators and found them intact. As she reviewed the readings, she saw the enemy’s power levels drop further—not just on its shields, but on every ship’s system: weapons, engines, life support. It was as though the Ascendant was surrendering.
No, not surrendering, Kira realized. Committing suicide. She thought about the fact that the Ascendant on that ship had been part of a fleet comprising thousands of her people, and that they had all perished. The captain tried to understand what the loss of so many must mean, and she readily found a frame of reference: the Occupation. In her own life, Kira had watched so many friends and comrades die. It had never grown easier, and many times, it had seemed almost too much to bear.
Kira reopened a channel and attempted once more to contact the Ascendant. Again, she received no response, but the sensor displays changed, showing that the engines of the enemy ship had begun a buildup to overload. In just seconds, she saw, the vessel would be reduced to dust.
Without hesitation, Kira erected a containment field around the compact transporter platform at the rear of Yolja’s main cabin. She then locked on to the cockpit of the Ascendant vessel and beamed out its lone occupant. The materialization sequence had just completed when the enemy ship exploded.
Kira stood up from her position at the runabout’s main console and walked to the back of the cabin. The Ascendant stood on the transporter platform. At first glance, the captain thought it might actually be an artificial life-form. Tall and perfectly proportioned, it had an outer surface that gleamed silver. It had large, golden eyes, with radial lines around the outer edges. When it blinked, though, it lost any impression it gave that it might be an android.
The captain opened her mouth to say something, but the Ascendant dropped to its knees, then fell back against the rear of the transporter compartment. Its body began to tremble, and Kira wondered if it had been hurt during its altercation with Platte and Volga. She moved to the freestanding console in front of the transporter platform, intending to configure a sensor panel so that she could scan the alien for injuries, but then she stopped, realizing what she saw.
The Ascendant wept.
Interlude
Aftermath
February 2378
For what felt like the tenth time that shift, Ezri Dax sat at the situation table in Ops and reviewed Deep Space 9’s external sensor logs. The same four ships remained docked at the station as yesterday: a Frunalian science vessel, a Rigelian transport, and a pair of freighters, one Alonis and the other Gallamite. As well, no ships had entered the orbit
of Bajor, and the wormhole hadn’t opened for any vessel other than one of DS9’s own runabouts. Only the position of Defiant on its patrol of the system changed, and that hardly qualified as new, different, or interesting.
Six weeks had passed since the Ascendants had invaded the system and marched toward Bajor. The incident marked the latest in a series of demanding events that included the parasite crisis, Dax’s trip to Trill with Julian and everything—both personal and professional—that happened there, and the entire convoluted situation involving Taran’atar and Iliana Ghemor. Dax faced all of those challenges, meeting her career responsibilities with considerable success. In many ways, though, Dax felt that her forward progress in Starfleet had stalled.
She thought back to before all of that, to Defiant’s three-month exploratory mission into the Gamma Quadrant. Much had taken place during the expedition, not all of it easy or positive, but despite the difficulties she’d endured, she could not deny that those had been the three best months of her career. Afterward, back on DS9, the captain assigned her to crew the communications console so that she would have a dedicated position in Ops. That allowed Kira and Vaughn to guide her as she settled into her posting as the station’s second officer.
But then nothing happened, Dax thought. At least, it had seemed that way to her. She wanted to grow in her new position, wanted something different from what she had. Change did not happen quickly enough for her, or profoundly enough.
After serving for a year as second officer, she had applied for Advanced Tactical Training. Although DS9 already had an alpha-shift tac officer in Sam Bowers, Dax still believed that expanding the scope of her abilities would only make her a more valuable officer and help advance her career. After completing her training on Tellar and returning to the station, she chose to work alpha shift at communications and beta shift at tactical as she made the transition from one to the other.
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Ascendance Page 13
