Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Ascendance

by David R. George III

  “Thank you,” Sisko said again, and then he ordered Spingeld to energize the transporter. Amid the familiar whine and the white brume of dematerialization, Ro departed Robinson.

  Sisko left the transporter room, headed for the bridge. Around him, the ship felt like a living being, its muscles tensed and ready to spring. The deck hummed with the operation of the warp drive, on standby but coursing with power.

  As the captain passed members of his crew, he saw expressions of anticipation everywhere, and a few smiles impossible to suppress. He almost could not believe that the time had finally come. His crew’s extended mission of exploration had been tabled for so long that he half expected a last-minute communication from Admiral Akaar, informing him that Robinson would be required elsewhere.

  No, not this time, he thought as he entered a turbolift. Sisko had spoken just the night before with Admiral Herthum. Starfleet’s new chief of Starfleet Operations had assured him that he saw no impediments to Robinson’s mission. Herthum also added that he would look to Sisko’s voyage, which represented a return for the Federation to the Gamma Quadrant, as a significant milestone in a new era of exploration.

  “Computer,” Sisko said as the turbolift rose toward the bridge, “what is the ship’s time?”

  “The time is zero-eight-fifty-one hours,” came the reply in the standard female voice with which Starfleet had imbued its computers for decades.

  “Reroute turbolift,” Sisko said. “Deck Nine.”

  The turbolift slowed to a halt, then reversed direction. It traveled only a short distance downward before it stopped and the doors opened. Sisko walked out and quickly strode into the corridor. He would have just enough time before he needed to be on the bridge.

  Sisko entered the quarters he shared with his family almost at a gallop. Kasidy and Rebecca sat at the dining table to his left, eating breakfast. They both looked up at him.

  “Daddy!” Rebecca said, and she jumped from her chair and ran over to him.

  “What are you doing here?” Kasidy asked, also standing up. “I thought you had a ship to run.”

  “I do,” Sisko said, squatting down to let Rebecca throw herself into his arms. He squeezed her tightly to him. “But I wanted to come see my girls before the big moment.”

  Rebecca pulled back to look at him. “You mean the launch?” she said.

  “That’s right,” Sisko told her. “In just a few minutes, the Robinson will be leaving Deep Space Nine and traveling through the wormhole into the Gamma Quadrant. And then . . .” He left his sentence hanging, trying to coax his daughter into finishing it. She did.

  “And then we go exploring,” Rebecca said. “Where no one has gone before.”

  “Perfect,” Sisko said, and he hugged his daughter to him once more. Then he stood up and held his arms open to Kasidy, who walked over into his embrace. “This is what we’ve all been looking forward to,” he said. “It’s going to be a great big adventure.”

  “Then, Daddy,” Rebecca said, “shouldn’t you be going to the bridge?”

  Sisko laughed. “Yes, I should.” He kissed his wife, then bent and kissed the top of his daughter’s head. “I’ll see you two later.” As he headed out into the corridor, he heard Kasidy asking if Rebecca wanted to watch through the ports as Robinson traveled through the wormhole. The closing doors cut off his daughter’s response, but he didn’t doubt that she would want to see the spectacle.

  At precisely zero-eight-fifty-nine hours, Captain Benjamin Lafayette Sisko took the command chair in the center of Robinson’s bridge. A view of Deep Space 9 showed on the main viewscreen. The ship’s first officer, Commander Anxo Rogeiro, sat to his right, and the ship’s counselor, Lieutenant Commander Diana Althouse, to his left. The captain took a moment to gaze around at his command crew, then opened a comm channel that would carry his voice to the rest of the ship.

  “Attention, all hands,” he said. “This is your captain. We are about to embark on a journey into unexplored space. A few years back, the Robinson completed a six-month voyage into the Gamma Quadrant. Those of you who served aboard the ship then know how satisfying such a mission can be. Those of you who have joined the crew since then will now find that out for yourselves.”

  Sisko saw that the officers on the bridge had turned in their chairs to watch him as he spoke. “We set out now in the name of the United Federation of Planets, in the hopes of exploring strange new worlds, of seeking out new life and new civilizations, of boldly going where no one has gone before.” Until the words had left his mouth, he had not known that he would quote from the Starfleet charter when addressing his crew. “Sisko out.”

  Just ahead of the captain, Commander Gwendolyn Plante and Lieutenant Commander Sivadeki turned back to the operations and conn stations, respectively. “Commander Plante,” Sisko said, “ship’s status.”

  “All department heads report ready for launch,” Plante said, and the captain could hear the smile through which she spoke. “All systems show green.”

  “Viewer ahead,” Sisko ordered.

  “Viewer ahead,” Plante confirmed, and with the tap of a control surface, a field of stars appeared on the main screen.

  “Commander Sivadeki,” Sisko said, “set course for the wormhole.”

  “Course laid in, Captain,” the flight controller said at once.

  “Ahead one-half impulse power.”

  “One-half impulse, aye.”

  The thrum of the sublight drive rumbled through the deck as Robinson started forward. On the viewscreen, the Bajoran wormhole appeared as though out of nothingness, a bustle of circular motion. Its blue branches unfurled around its white center like a great celestial hand opening, as though the Prophets themselves reached out for the starship.

  Seconds later, Robinson surged directly into the spectacle, on its way to territories unknown.

  * * *

  Lieutenant Commander Selten sat at a table in a conference room located on the lower level of Newton Outpost. He typically attended meetings there only when new and potentially dangerous objects or specimens had been scheduled for delivery, but he had been invited by Doctor Gellish, who presently stood in as chief of staff while Doctor Norsa recovered from her concussion. A day after her injury, Norsa’s existing symptoms had intensified, and she displayed new ones: dizziness, ringing in her ears, and a general fogginess of thought.

  According to Gellish, he anticipated that the discussion he intended to oversee could have security implications for the outpost. Along with Selten and the acting chief of staff, five others had assembled around the large, rectangular table, all of them scientists who had been studying the specimen in Compartment L. Norsa usually led the team, but she remained in the infirmary, and the seventh member, geneticist Bruce Prestridge, had been killed during the creature’s escape, his neck broken when he’d been thrown awkwardly against a bulkhead. Gellish had brought the others together to discuss possible treatments for Odo.

  Two days after the creature’s flight from the outpost, the Changeling had shown no improvement in his condition. Uncertain about the possible effects on Odo of his brief link with the specimen, the medical staff continued to keep the shape-shifter in an isolation chamber. His semiliquid form, ash-colored and unmoving, had not changed since the incident. Perhaps not coincidentally, one of the issues that had caused the scientists to seek Odo’s assistance—namely, their inability to determine whether or not the specimen was alive—had come to apply to the Changeling. It also remained unclear whether his biomimetic cells had somehow been forced into replicating the specimen’s physical appearance, or if they had done so either through his conscious effort or reflexively.

  The dialogue in the conference room had to that point lasted nearly an hour. The scientists detailed what they had done to revive and restore Odo—including placing him in a nutrient bath and surrounding him with different types and wavelengths of energy—but they reported no improvement. Beyond what they had already tried, they could not reach anything app
roaching a viable methodology on how to treat Odo. From what Selten heard, he gathered that the difficulty underscored the fact that Federation science possessed limited knowledge about the physiology of shape-shifters.

  When the conversation flagged, Selten asked, “Who has the most medical experience with Changelings?”

  Across from the security chief, sitting in the center of one long side of the table, Doctor Mennil Farran spoke up. A Lendrin, he stood more than two meters tall, had a long, white mane, silver eyes, and a bony protrusion that curved downward from his brow. Light dots of natural pigment speckled his nose and cheeks. “Doctor Norsa,” he said, and then he looked to his colleagues for confirmation. They all offered words and nods of approval.

  “I understand that Doctor Norsa has the most experience among the staff of the outpost,” Selten said, “but is that true with respect to the entire Federation?”

  The scientists glanced around at one another, offering general murmurs of disagreement. “No, certainly not,” Farran finally said. “No Changelings were captured, either alive or dead, during the war, limiting the amount of research about them. Their leader surrendered herself into the custody of the Federation as part of the armistice, but she has declined to allow us to conduct even noninvasive medical tests.”

  To Farran’s right, Doctor Vika Leth said, “The majority of what little we know about Changelings comes from the medical record of Odo.” A Mizarian, she specialized in the study of biological regeneration. “The two primary physicians who served aboard Deep Space Nine during Odo’s time there had more experience than anybody else.”

  “Were they asked to join the study of the specimen?” Selten wanted to know.

  “We invited both Julian Bashir and Girani Semna,” Farran said, “but both declined.”

  Selten had heard of Bashir, a Starfleet officer. After the doctor’s recent actions at Andor, most of the Federation had. Bashir had been taken into custody by Starfleet so that he could stand court-martial for his actions. Selten didn’t know whether or not the trial had yet taken place.

  “I can make a request to Starfleet Command for assistance from Doctor Bashir,” Selten said, “but I think it is unlikely that they would permit outside contact with him. What about Doctor Semna?”

  “Doctor Girani, actually,” Farran said. “She’s Bajoran, and I believe that’s she’s practicing medicine on her homeworld.”

  “That’s right,” Leth agreed. “She was posted to Deep Space Nine as part of her planet’s Militia, but she chose not to transfer to Starfleet when Bajor joined the Federation.”

  “Does it make sense to attempt to enlist her aid?” the security chief asked.

  “Yes, I think so,” Leth said, and Selten saw nods all around the table. “Since we’re not talking about the study of a specimen, but an attempt to save a life, I’m sure she would do whatever she can to help.”

  Selten looked to Gellish. “Doctor, as the acting chief of staff, would you make that request? Go through Starfleet Medical if you need to, but in this situation, I think direct contact is advised.”

  “Of course,” Gellish said. “In the meantime, barring any negative change in Odo’s condition, we’ll continue to do what we’ve been doing, with the hope that we can prevent any deterioration.”

  Selten waited a beat to see if anyone would say anything more, but the meeting had clearly come to an end. As the scientists rose and prepared to leave, the security chief collected the padd he had brought with him and quickly exited the conference room. He made his way out to the entry hall, where technicians worked to repair the door that the creature had breached and forced open as it had fled. Two of his security staff stood guard there, and they or others would guard the access point until the door had been mended.

  Selten headed for the turbolift and took it up to the first level of the outpost. He entered the security office, where several of his staff monitored the installation and the planetary system. He intended to check on the status of the creature, but before he could, a member of his staff looked up from his console and spoke to him.

  “Sir,” said Ensign Connor Block, “we’ve been tracking the creature on long-range sensors. It has exited the system and gone to warp.”

  The news surprised Selten. Spaceborne organisms did exist that had the capability of traveling faster than light, but they possessed complex and very specialized structures to allow them that capability. The scientists had found nothing like that with respect to the creature. Of course, as a shape-shifter, it can presumably take many forms.

  “So far, it is maintaining a linear trajectory,” Block continued.

  “What is its bearing?” Selten asked.

  “Sir,” Block said, “it’s on a direct course for the Bajoran system.”

  * * *

  Ro tapped at the door chime and waited, unsure whether she should have come down to the residential deck. She had accepted an invitation a few days earlier from Quark to have dinner in his quarters, something they hadn’t done in quite a while. She’d contacted him from her office just half an hour before the time she’d been supposed to meet him, apologizing and saying that she had too much to do, and that she wouldn’t be able to get together after all. Quark made it easy for her, telling her that he understood, and also that it worked out well for him because he had a lot of things to take care of at his Public House, Café, Gaming Emporium, Holosuite Arcade, and Ferengi Embassy. They agreed to reschedule sometime soon, but the captain could see the disappointment on Quark’s face.

  I need to be honest with him, Ro told herself. To do that, though, she would first have to be honest with herself. Whatever that means.

  In front of Ro, the door glided open. Until that moment, she didn’t know what she’d expected to see—anger, grief, distress . . . some sort of strong negative emotion. Two nights previously, Cenn Desca had railed at the kai, drunkenly—and publicly—lambasting her for foisting the lie of the Prophets’ divinity upon the Bajoran people. Although those who witnessed the tirade could not possibly understand its source—the Ohalavaru discovery and their associated claims had yet to be announced to the general population—Ro certainly did.

  A week earlier, as he’d reported on the events on Endalla, Cenn had appeared on the brink of an emotional breakdown. When Cenn returned to the starbase after dealing with the Ohalavaru, the captain suggested that he pay a visit to Lieutenant Commander Matthias so that she could assign him to one of the counseling staff. When he didn’t do that, I should have made it an order, Ro thought. Instead, she encouraged him to take some leave, and to use that time off to settle his mind. Cenn demurred, telling her that he preferred to keep himself occupied, and that discharging his normal duties would allow him to do that. Ro empathized with his attitude, as she’d often felt the same way.

  But then he exploded at the kai, Ro thought. She blamed herself for allowing the situation with Cenn to get that far. At that point, she ordered him to see Matthias, and also to take five days of leave.

  That had been just two nights prior. Since then, Matthias reported that she had taken on Cenn’s case herself, and that he had already been to see her for a pair of counseling sessions. Despite that, Ro did not expect her first officer to recover emotionally—at least not fully—for quite some time.

  But standing before her and gazing out from just inside the doorway of his quarters, Cenn Desca looked fine. He wore civilian clothes of a modern Bajoran style—casual dark-blue slacks and a layered, aqua-colored sweater. Ro realized she’d thought that when she made her unannounced visit, she might find him drinking, but he had clear eyes and an attentive expression.

  “Captain,” he said. “I wasn’t expecting you. Please come in.”

  “Thank you,” Ro said. Cenn stepped aside and she walked past him. Once more, what she saw surprised her. Nothing had been thrown around the cabin, no dirty dishes had been left on the dining table, nothing seemed out of place.

  “Please have a seat, Captain,” Cenn said, moving toward th
e sitting area. “Can I get you something to drink?”

  “No, nothing, Desca, thanks.” She sat down in a comfortable chair, and Cenn did so as well.

  “I guess I don’t have to ask what brings you here, ­Captain.”

  “No, I’m sure it’s obvious,” Ro said. “But I’m not here as your commanding officer, Desca. I’m here as your friend.”

  “I appreciate that,” Cenn said. “I know I worried my friends and crewmates with my behavior the other night—and I certainly didn’t make a favorable showing before the kai.”

  “She told me that, given the circumstances, she understood,” Ro said. “The kai had nothing negative to say about you, and only offered her concern.”

  “Yes, well, she’s not the spiritual leader of billions for no reason.”

  Ro nodded in agreement. She had always found Kai Pralon reasonable and forgiving. The conversation lagged for a moment, and the captain rushed to fill the silence before it extended. “I’m glad that you’ve been talking with Commander Matthias.”

  “She’s really helped me in the last two days,” Cenn said. “It’s been good just to talk to somebody about everything that’s happened. Since the whole story hasn’t come out yet, I can’t mention it to any other of my Bajoran crewmates or friends. Commander Matthias isn’t Bajoran, but her husband is, so she has a better perspective than most on what all of this means.”

  “I’m glad she’s helping,” Ro said. “I also want you to know that you can come to me, Desca.” The captain immediately realized why Cenn hadn’t chosen to speak with her, and he immediately confirmed her suspicion.

  “You’re not a believer,” he told her. “I don’t mean that in a pejorative way—” Cenn stopped and chuckled. “How could I mean it that way, when it turns out that you were right all along? It’s just that, if I talked with a friend, I would want it to be with somebody who would understand in an organic way what it would be like to lose your faith—no, not to lose it . . . to have it ripped away from you.” Cenn’s jaw clenched, and Ro saw him make a conscious effort to calm himself. She sensed the deft hand of Phillipa Matthias at work.