by David Mack
“Give it time. Winter’s not over yet.”
“You think this is a joke? We need to be moving forward, making progress, pushing ahead to find a lasting solution to the fertility crisis. This place is a step backward.”
She opened the door to the commissary and ushered him inside. “I’m well aware of this facility’s shortcomings, Shar. But upgrading it is no small challenge, especially if we’re to keep its location a secret. That’s why our agent in the capital must be patient, careful, and discreet.”
He looked around and confirmed that he and zh’Thiin were alone in the commissary. Even so, he lowered his voice. “We have an agent in the capital?”
“Not yet. You leave tonight.”
“Me? But—”
“No debates, Shar. Your Starfleet experience makes you the best qualified for this. We need you to go back to Lor’Vela, make contact with our suppliers, and arrange for shipments of equipment and supplies—by routes most circuitous, if you please. And if you find an opportunity to make contact with your friends in the Federation, let them know what’s happened to us.”
Her instructions caught him off guard. “What about the rest of you?”
“Don’t worry about us. Our plans contain contingencies within contingencies.”
He accepted her assurances but remained wary of his new mission. “What time do I leave?”
“As soon as you’re ready. The transport’s waiting. But before you go, remember this: Use great caution in the capital. Be vigilant. Trust no one. We’re under siege now, both literally and figuratively. And as of this moment . . . you constitute our front line.”
Eleven
Officially, the new Deep Space 9 was fully operational, but the tangled logistics of moving thousands of civilian and Starfleet residents into new residential spaces, while also supervising routine daily operations and the opening of new commercial venues on The Plaza, consumed the vast majority of Ro’s time from one day to the next. The tragedy several days earlier had led to a cascade of delays, resulting in myriad schedule conflicts regarding the movements of materiel, personnel, and shipping traffic.
In spite of those hiccups in the station’s opening, thousands of personnel, both Starfleet and civilian, had already taken up permanent residence aboard the starbase, and a swarm of entrepreneurs had proved eager to sign long-term leases for prime spaces on The Plaza, a retail, dining, and entertainment ring that made the old DS9’s Promenade look like a mismanaged Orion tent bazaar. And no matter how many petty glitches seemed to clog the daily operations log, there was never any shortage of starship traffic at the new starbase, which served as a vital port of call for fuel, cargo, R & R, and ferry transfers for persons headed to Bajor.
Most days, Ro counted herself fortunate that she had lived to see so bright a future for her homeworld. Sixteen years earlier, Bajor had been suffering under the brutal Cardassian military occupation, a scourge that had lasted nearly half a century. By the time the Cardassians were finally forced off the planet, they had pillaged its natural resources, stolen its treasures, strip-mined its surface, and left behind an impoverished and traumatized native population.
Ro had been born into that world of violent oppression and had watched it destroy her parents. Fleeing Bajor and her bitter youth to build a new life in Starfleet, she hadn’t dared to dream that she might one day return home to find it flourishing and vibrant, its people free and its beauty restored, all safe beneath the banner of the United Federation of Planets.
Later, after being twice court-martialed by Starfleet—once as an ensign, after she was blamed for a fatal error during an away mission on Jaros II, and the second time in absentia, after she’d defected to the civilian resistance known as the Maquis—Ro had expected to be a persona non grata on all Starfleet vessels, starbases, and facilities for the rest of her life. But after coming home nine years earlier to accept an invitation to join the Bajoran militia as an officer, she had found herself assigned to the old Deep Space 9 as its chief of security, under Colonel Kira Nerys. Then, after Bajor was admitted to the Federation and most of the Bajoran Militia’s personnel on the station were absorbed into Starfleet, Ro had found herself the recipient of an unexpected amnesty. One of her former commanding officers, Captain Jean-Luc Picard, had persuaded her to accept the restoration of her Starfleet commission rather than resign. In the years that had followed, one thing had led to another. And now she was the captain of a starbase.
Ro picked up a padd from atop her desk in one hand and sipped her first raktajino of the day, fresh from her office’s replicator nook. The data tablet felt heavy with bureaucratic minutiae. I should have resigned when I had the chance. She was pondering slipping out the back door of her office, stealing down the corridor to the turbolift, and making a break for the recreation level . . . until the warbling of the comm intruded on her daydream.
“Cenn to Captain Ro,” said Colonel Cenn Desca, Starfleet’s liaison to the Bajoran Militia and also the station’s executive officer, who was seated a short distance outside Ro’s office, presiding over the command operations center, which the crew called simply “the Hub.”
“Go ahead.”
“He’s here, sir.”
She straightened her posture and shifted her padd and beverage away from the center of her desk. “Send him in.”
The door to the Hub slid open, admitting the steady chatter of comm voices, computer feedback tones, and the low-frequency ambient hum of the wide-open, high-ceilinged circular space. Through the open doorway, Ro spied Cenn in the commander’s chair, reviewing reports off a padd, and several junior officers holding a meeting around the situation table in the Well, the sunken area at the center of the level. Officers from the Engineering and Science divisions mingled or manned duty stations around the Hub’s upper ring.
Then Bashir sauntered in and blocked her view. “You asked to see me, Captain?”
Ro waved him forward. “Come in.”
He continued inside. The door closed, restoring their privacy, as he stopped in front of her desk and stood at ease. “Can we make this quick? I’m supposed to leave in ten minutes.”
She leaned forward and folded her hands on her desk. “That’s why you’re here, Doctor. Why did you file a flight plan before I approved your sabbatical?”
“I just presumed the paperwork would be a formality.”
It took all of Ro’s willpower not to clench her fists. “A formality? Forgive me, Doctor, but don’t you have an entire brand-new hospital to run?”
The question seemed to amuse him. “Have you seen the size of my duty roster? I have six attending physicians, scores of specialists, dozens of residents, more nurses than I can remember, and a small army of medical students and support staff. Sector General practically runs itself.”
“If the hospital runs itself, why do I need you?”
“To keep Chief O’Brien from having a midlife crisis?”
She tried to pierce his smokescreen of impertinent quips to gain some small insight into what he really was up to. “Just explain to me what you’ll be doing on Bajor.”
“Exactly what I said in my leave request.”
Ro picked up a padd on which she’d kept open Bashir’s application, and she read from its contents. “ ‘A private medical conference to discuss radical new strategies for the use of antigen resequencing in the treatment of Kalla-Nohra Syndrome and Pottrik Syndrome.’ ”
“Precisely.”
“Why can’t you host your conference here on the station?”
“Because, Captain, it’s been my experience that even when I declare quite clearly that I’m off duty, and I delegate my responsibilities to my subordinates, unless I physically remove myself from the station, somebody will find a way to pull me away from my conference and mire me in one bit of hopeless tedium after another.”
“I can’t argue with your logic.” He sounded sincere, and his candid, almost flippant manner suggested to Ro that he was being forthcoming with his a
nswers . . . but something about his request still felt odd to her. She looked into his eyes, searching for any sign of dissembling or evasion, but all she found was his disarming smile. “When can I expect you to come back to the station and, your hectic schedule permitting, resume doing your job?”
“Not sure, really. Depends how long it takes us to work out the bugs in the protocol.” He hooked a thumb toward the door. “If we’re done here, Captain?”
“Fine. But keep me informed about your schedule. And you owe me, Doctor.”
He hurried toward the Hub. “Thank you, Captain! I’ll make sure you get regular updates!” He was out the door and on his way like an Academy cadet scrambling to make the most of a seventy-two-hour weekend liberty pass.
Ro sat and watched Bashir slip into a turbolift, and then her office door closed. Though the doctor was far out of earshot, the captain’s pride demanded that decorum be observed.
“Dismissed,” she grumbled before taking another sip of her morning raktajino.
• • •
A gauzy fog lingered between the old-growth trees of the Bestri Woods, which resonated with the bright sawing music of insects and birds. The late-morning air was rich with the scents of the nearby seacoast, and except for the conference center—which in a previous incarnation had been a retreat for members of the Vedek Assembly—there was little sign of habitation, even though the southwest region of Rakantha Province was one of Bajor’s most densely populated areas.
Bashir emerged from the Tiber, which he had landed beside two small shuttlecraft on the large greensward beside the conference center. Known by the locals as the Bement Center, the main building was an X-shaped structure built around an open courtyard. Its architecture was evocative of shapes and patterns found in nature, and its connection to the forest was reinforced by its majestic, mortared-stone foundation, golden timber walls, and intricately thatched rooftops. Even though it boasted a wide array of modern amenities, including replicators, self-contained waste recycling, subspace communications uplinks, and a host of security measures to protect its guests, it looked as if it had been standing unchanged in the forest for centuries.
He crossed the well-manicured lawn of recently transplanted Xenexian dwarf grass, a variety engineered to remain short and simplify its care while reducing its ecological footprint, and bounded up the carved-granite steps to the Bement Center’s main entrance. The three-meter-tall transparasteel doors parted silently at his approach, and a gentle cascade of cool air washed over him as he crossed the threshold.
Diffused natural light cast a pacific glow over the center’s spare interior. Most of the walls were bare planks, and the floors alternated between polished hardwood and rough stone tiles, giving the place a rustic character that was at odds with the majesty of its lofty, peaked roof, which was lined with dramatic skylights. Amber-shaded sconces lined the walls.
Two wings, those to the northeast and northwest of the courtyard, were lined with luxurious, soundproofed residential suites. The southwest wing comprised several large meeting rooms and a small screening room, while the southeast wing was devoted to operations and management—environmental support, the kitchen and pantry, a laundry facility, and administrative offices. Under normal conditions, the resort would have been staffed by a dozen full-time employees. In the interest of secrecy, Bashir had arranged for the resort’s personnel to prepare the suites and the meeting areas, stock the pantry, and lay out a welcome buffet for him and his guests—and then abscond from the premises until and unless called for.
Echoes of a group discussion carried down the corridor from the largest meeting room, and Bashir’s enhanced hearing discerned the voices of all his expected guests. Two of his invitees had declined to join him, citing scheduling conflicts. He hoped that the four who had come would be equal to the task ahead of them, and willing to face the risks it would bring.
He stepped through the open doorway of the meeting room, and the conversation stopped as his guests turned to face him.
“If it isn’t the man of the hour,” said Doctor Katherine Pulaski. The venerated Starfleet surgeon had spent most of the past decade as a senior researcher at the Phlox Institute. Though her early work had focused on such specialties as cardiac surgery and epidemiology, her recent work had pioneered a number of innovative new protocols in the field of genomic therapy.
Bashir greeted Pulaski with a firm handshake. “Thank you for coming on such short notice, Doctor. It’s a pleasure to finally make your acquaintance.”
“The pleasure’s all mine, I assure you.”
Moving to the next guest, Bashir refrained from extending his hand and instead lifted it with the fingers separated into an awkward and slightly uncomfortable V. “Doctor Tovak,” he said to the white-haired Vulcan civilian with prominent cheekbones. “Welcome to Bajor, sir.”
Tovak returned the salute with dry formality. “Thank you, Doctor.”
His third guest could not wait to shake Bashir’s hand. The portly Benzite almost collided with him as he rushed forward, webbed manus outstretched, warm saline mist overflowing from his ventilator. “Greetings and salutations, Doctor Bashir! I hope you will not think me too familiar, but I have read all your papers, and I even took a special extended leave so I could see your acceptance speech when you received the Carrington Award. A shame you did not win.”
Bashir downplayed the lingering sting of defeat. “It was an honor to be nominated.”
“Still, after your groundbreaking work finding a treatment for the Teplan blight—”
“You’re too kind, Doctor Lemdock, really. Thank you so much for coming.” He extricated his hand from Lemdock’s and gave the Benzite a conciliatory pat on the shoulder as he stepped around him to greet his fourth and final guest. “Hello, again, Elizabeth.”
“Hello, Julian.” Doctor Elizabeth Lense, who had been the valedictorian to Bashir’s salutatorian during their graduation from Starfleet Medical School nearly seventeen years earlier, still had a youthful cast, though gray strands had found their way into the lithe human woman’s curly brown hair and fatigue had etched dark half-moons beneath her eyes.
“You’re looking well,” Bashir said.
“I look like hell, Julian. That’s what happens when you have a kid.”
“And how are things at the Forensics Division?”
“A new thrill every minute.”
Sensing it was time to change the subject, Bashir turned toward the buffet, to which his guests apparently had already helped themselves. “I trust each of you found something agreeable to your palate in the buffet. If you have any requests for dinner, we—”
“Julian,” Pulaski cut in, her voice suddenly as sharp as broken glass. “We’re all here, and none of us are getting any younger. I’m sure we’ve all noticed that we’re all experts in genomic medicine. So . . . are you ready to cut the crap and tell us why you really brought us here?”
Relieved to be free of the pretense, Bashir grinned. “I thought you’d never ask.”
• • •
Surrounded by the roar of white-water rapids, Prynn Tenmei fought to keep her kayak upright. Each passing second pulled her into faster water, making her passage of the jutting rock formations more perilous. A sudden drop over a mist-veiled waterfall left her in the vertiginous grip of free fall, her guts pushing up into her throat, until the bottom of the kayak splashed down with bone-jarring force that nearly capsized her. Leaning against the roll and paddling like mad, she fought her way back to equilibrium as the surging current carried her downstream.
These new holosuites are amazing! As much as Tenmei tried to remember that this was only a simulation, its vibrancy and detail made it easy for her to lose herself in the illusion. She loved white-water rafting almost as much as flying; it was one of the fastest ways she knew to sharpen her focus. Riding the rapids, all she saw was what was in front of her; all that mattered was the present moment. Navigating the fury of a river in flood, there was no time to dwell on the past
. Alone on an angry churn of white spray, she had no history and no future, only now.
Icy spray stung her face, and then a razor-blade wind added to the verisimilitude of the moment. The program’s sensory matrix evoked the Kingman Rapids of Izar down to its tiniest details: the cedar-like fragrance of the forest, the violet and orange flowers that lined the riverbanks, the ruddy rocks that stabbed up from the gray-and-white current and could cleave kayaks molded from some of the most sophisticated polymers known to science. A faint haze of late-spring pollen cast a halo around the red setting sun.
Her kayak sank without warning, and she gulped a breath a fraction of a second before she was plunged in the numbing chill of the river. Her insulated wetsuit protected her from the worst effects of the submersion, but the sting of a saltwater river chilled to barely one degree above its freezing point left her face tingling from the threat of frostbite.
Tenmei gasped, exhilarated. “Whoa! Yes!” Braving the worst that the river could throw at her was a baptism, an immersion into fear that left her reborn into courage. This was what she craved in sport, in action, in life—a sip of death’s bitter promise to make life’s rewards taste all the more sweet. Her gloved hands tightened on the double-bladed paddle, and she resumed the steady rhythm of her strokes, propelling herself forward, ready to best nature’s next challenge.
Another twist in the channel narrowed the river to a creek, accelerating the flow of the water and intensifying the risk. Tenmei could barely see the tips of jutting rocks through the white foam in the high-walled canyon, and as unseen forces threatened to roll her upside down, she shifted her paddle position to a low brace to prevent her kayak from capsizing. Her craft caromed off the stone wall of the canyon, and she barely forced its nose left around the next turn in time to avoid having it sheared off.
