by S. D. Perry
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Contents
Acknowledgments
Linear Time 2376
September
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Epilogue
For Cyrus and Benjamin, the new boys. And for big brother Jeremy.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book would not have been possible without the creative input of Marco Palmieri and Paula Block, nor without the talented authors who continued the DS9 saga after Avatar: David Weddle and Jeffrey Lang, Keith R.A. DeCandido, David R. George III, Heather Jarman, Michael A. Martin and Andy Mangels, Robert Simpson, and J. G. Hertzler.
I’d like to thank my friends and family for their patience and support—the entire Perry clan, Gwen Herzstein, Curt and Joelle, Sera, Thad and Britta, Leslie and Paul, Doctors Goldmann and Cohen. Oh, and Tamara, of course.
I’d also like to thank Denise and Michael Okuda for their compilation and reference masterpieces, and the other ST writers I’ve met, who are all cool; we deserve more money, don’tcha think?
LINEAR TIME
2376
JANUARY
• Following the end of the Dominion War, Chancellor Martok returns to Qo’noS to consolidate his power base as leader of the Klingon Empire. Upon his arrival, a coup d’état destroys the Great Hall in the First City, killing the entire Klingon High Council. With the aid of Federation Ambassador Worf and Lieutenant Ezri Dax, Martok defeats the coup, but at the cost of many lives close to him, including his wife Sirella and their two daughters.
• Starfleet Commander Tiris Jast, a Bolian female, is assigned to Star-base Deep Space 9 as first officer and commander of the U.S.S. Defiant. Also arriving around this time is Lieutenant Sam Bowers, the station’s new tactical officer, formerly of the U.S.S. Budapest, and Ensign Prynn Tenmei, the Defiant’s new conn officer, formerly of the U.S.S. Sentinel. Due to personnel shortages in the aftermath of the war, Lieutenant (j.g.) Nog, already the station’s chief operations officer, briefly doubles as DS9’s chief of security.
• War-weary Starfleet renegade and Maquis survivor Ro Laren returns home to Bajor, having spent the final year of the Dominion War as leader of a group of independent fighters staging guerilla attacks against Dominion forces. In recognition of her actions on behalf of the Alpha Quadrant, the Bajoran Militia awards her the honorary commission of lieutenant in its special forces division, and gives her an administrative post at Militia headquarters.
• Captain Kasidy Yates begins building the house designed by her missing husband, Captain Benjamin Sisko, in the Kendra Valley province of Bajor.
• Bajoran First Minister Shakaar Edon spearheads initiatives to bring humanitarian aid to Cardassia Prime, and Deep Space 9 is designated official coordinator of those relief efforts.
• The autonomous covert organization Section 31 locates an abandoned Jem’Hadar hatchery on the planet Sindorin in the Badlands. A team led by Dr. Ethan Locken, a genetically enhanced human, is sent to study the hatchery for possible exploitation by the Federation.
• Hoping to come to grips with the loss of his father, Jake Sisko joins the archaeological dig at B’hala on Bajor, where he spends most of his time excavating and cataloguing ancient artifacts.
FEBRUARY
• Starfleet’s attempts to extradite Ro Laren to face charges of treason to the Federation are met with resistance from Bajor. Unknown to Ro, Starfleet is further impeded from pursuing the matter by Captain Jean-Luc Picard, her former commanding officer, who lobbies Starfleet Command to drop its charges against Ro.
• In the Gamma Quadrant, Odo encounters resistance from the Great Link toward his insights into “solids,” but perseveres. Wishing to discontinue the exploitation of the Jem’Hadar and to prove that they possess the potential to become something other than killing machines, Odo instructs the Vorta to begin searching for anomalous Jem’Hadar who do not need to take ketrecel-white, the health-stabilizing enzyme the Founders use to control their soldiers. Odo hopes to find one suitable to send to Deep Space 9 in order to realize the Jem’Hadar potential outside the Dominion.
• Ensign Thirishar ch’Thane, also known as Shar, formerly of the U.S.S. Tamberlaine, is assigned to Deep Space 9 as science officer.
• Unable to adjust to life on Bajor, Ro is assigned to Deep Space 9 as chief of station security.
MARCH
• As Cardassia Prime continues the long and difficult process of recovery, a new democratically elected provisional government, headed by Alon Ghemor, nephew of Tekeny, rises to power. At the same time, an increasing number of the surviving population begin to rediscover their lost spirituality, turning to an ancient religion, the Oralian Way, that dates back to Cardassia’s First Hebitian civilization.
• Shakaar begins a diplomatic tour of key Federation planets to lobby for Bajor’s membership, which was approved more than two years earlier and subsequently declined by the Bajoran government at the urging of Benjamin Sisko.
• Dr. Ethan Locken breaks away from Section 31, assuming full personal control of the Jem’Hadar hatchery on Sindorin. Modeling himself on Khan Noonien Singh, Locken begins to plan the takeover of the Alpha Quadrant, with himself as leader of a genetically enhanced ruling class.
• In the Dominion, the Vorta’s search for ketrecel-independent Jem’Hadar uncovers four. One of these is Taran’atar, a twenty-two-year-old “Honored Elder” who didn’t fight in the war for the Alpha Quadrant. Odo selects him to become his cultural observer on DS9, with instructions to obey Kira Nerys and immerse himself in life aboard the station, until Odo calls him home.
• Deep Space 9 begins a series of upgrades to the station’s infrastructure and defenses, as well as to the Defiant. The U.S.S. Aldebaran is assigned to DS9 to stand in for the Defiant as the Bajoran system’s first line of defense.
• Acting on sensor readings provided by the Klingons, the U.S.S. Enterprise goes into the Badlands to investigate the possible presence of the Breen. On board as a mission specialist is Commander Elias Vaughn, a centenarian human and Starfleet special operations officer, who is contemplating retirement.
• On Cardassia, Elim Garak sends an autobiographical letter to Dr. Julian Bashir on DS9.
• Members of the Petraw species posing as ancient Iconians begin making overtures to governments and other interest parties throughout the Alpha Quadrant, offering the secrets of Iconian gateway technology to the highest bidder.
• Prylar Istani Reyla, working at the dig in B’hala, unearths an ancient prophetic text by the heretic Ohalu. While more historically accurate than any of the accepted prophecies, the book appears to refute the orthodox interpretation of the Prophets as gods. It further foretells the birth of the Avatar, the second child of the Emissary, for whom it says ten thousand people are fated to die before
the birth. The Vedek Assembly attempts to suppress the Ohalu prophecies by censuring Istani and demanding that she turn over the text to them.
APRIL
• Prylar Istani seeks out Jake Sisko at B’hala and entrusts him with a fragment of the Ohalu prophecies, one that describes a son who is destined to enter the Celestial Temple and return with a lost herald. Believing the prophecy describes the return of his father, Jake sets out to fulfill it by entering the worm-hole alone in a shuttle obtained from Quark, without telling friends or family.
• Istani comes to DS9 to inform Kasidy Yates about the prophecy of the Avatar, but is murdered before she can contact Yates.
• A Jem’Hadar ship carrying Taran’atar leaves Dominion space for Deep Space 9. It is followed and attacked by four ships of renegade Jem’Hadar, who seek to redeem themselves for their failure to conquer the Alpha Quadrant by sparking a new war. Though one of the attacking ships is destroyed and Taran’atar’s ship is disabled, the other three succeed in reaching DS9. Taran’atar’s vessel arrives in time to help thwart the attack, but his ship is destroyed, the Aldebaran is lost with all hands, and over seventy people on the station die in the attack, including Commander Jast.
• Unknown to anyone on Deep Space 9, several of the renegade Jem’Hadar beam aboard the station before their ship is destroyed, and remain shrouded while they attempt to destroy DS9 from within. Taran’atar beams aboard as well, and, also shrouded, systematically begins eliminating the rogue Jem’Hadar without alerting the station residents.
• In the Badlands, the Enterprise discovers the Cardassian freighter Kamal, trapped in the plasma storms for over thirty years. Aboard the dead ship, Vaughn discovers and experiences the lost Orb of Memory, which he recovers for return to Bajor.
• After learning of the attack on Deep Space 9, Admiral William Ross assembles a task force of Federation, Klingon, and Romulan ships to enter the Gamma Quadrant and, if necessary, respond with force to the new Dominion aggression.
• Shar senses one of the shrouded renegade Jem’Hadar on the station, Third Kitana’klan. In order to give his accomplices time to carry out the destruction of DS9, Kitana’klan claims to be the observer sent by Odo, and that he acted to stop renegades from carrying out an attack not sanctioned by the Founders.
• Ro discovers the Ohalu prophecies hidden aboard the station and learns that Istani’s murderer was a vedek sent by Vedek Yevir Linjarin to stop Istani from releasing the heretical text. Shocked by the prophecy of the Avatar but even more apalled by the actions of Vedek Yevir and his supporters, Kira uploads the Ohalu prophecies onto the Bajoran comnet, making them public.
• The Enterprise arrives at DS9 with the Orb of Memory. Shortly thereafter, Kitana’klan attacks Doctor Julian Bashir and sabotages the station’s fusion core before he is stopped by Kira, Vaughn, and Taran’atar. Kira succeeds in ejecting the core before the station is destroyed.
• The Allied task force arrives at Deep Space 9, and Taran’atar explains the truth about the attack against the station and his assignment. As proof, he gives Kira his credentials: a message from Odo inviting the Federation and its Allies to renew their exploration of the Gamma Quadrant—if they agree not to violate Dominion space.
• Due in part to his Orb experience on the Kamal, Vaughn requests a transfer to DS9, replacing Jast as first officer, and begins plans to test the Dominion’s sincerity by taking the Defiant on an exploratory voyage into the Gamma Quadrant.
• After an encounter with the newly recovered Orb of Memory, Kira learns that the prophecy of the Avatar has already been fulfilled. Taking Vedek Yevir, Kasidy Yates, and Ro Laren to Bajor, she reveals previously unknown catacombs beneath B’hala, in which are interred ten thousand people who over the millenia gave their lives to protect the Ohalu prophecies.
• Lieutenant Ezri Dax, forced to take command of the Defiant during the Jem’Hadar attack, begins to actively experiment in the use of the Dax symbiont’s past lives, sometimes involuntarily. Hoping to discover her true potential as a joined Trill, she transfers to command, becoming second officer of the station and Vaughn’s executive aboard the Defiant.
• As punishment for placing her own judgment regarding the spiritual well-being of Bajor above the judgment of the Vedek Assembly, Kira is Attainted, formally cast out of the Bajoran community of faith.
• Jake’s shuttle encounters some anomalous activity in the worm-hole that disables his ship but propels it more than a hundred parsecs into the Gamma Quadrant. He is rescued by the Even Odds, a ship of fortune hunters—retrievers of valuable artifacts and antiquities. Though their business prevents them from ferrying Jake directly back to the worm-hole, Jake is invited to remain aboard for the months it will take them to reach Ee, a free port where Jake may be able to obtain passage back to the Alpha Quadrant. Jake joins the crew, and in the process, decides the prophecy was wrong and resigns himself to a life without his father.
• Nog devises a solution to the station’s lost fusion core: replace it with the one from Empok Nor, DS9’s long-abandoned twin station in the Trivas system. With the aid of the Starfleet Corps of Engineers and a task force of nine ships, Nog has Empok Nor towed to the Bajoran system, and its fusion core is transferred to DS9.
• Bashir is contacted by Cole, a member of Section 31. Cole apprises Bashir of Ethan Locken’s activities on Sindorin, and recruits Bashir to help stop him. With the help of Ro, Dax, and Taran’atar, Bashir succeeds, but fails to prevent Section 31 from recovering Locken’s data, or to bring back evidence capable of exposing the organization. Bashir is also aided surreptitiously by Vaughn, who reveals he is part of a small Starfleet group that has been working against Section 31 for decades.
• Kira begins to experience how difficult the Attainder will make her life among her fellow Bajorans. At the same time, Shakaar, on his way back to Bajor, shows the first signs of atypical behavior.
• It becomes common knowledge that Elias Vaughn is the father of Prynn Tenmei. The two have been estranged for seven years, ever since Prynn’s mother, Commander Ruriko Tenmei, was lost on a mission while under Vaughn’s command.
• Quark is approached by Malic, a member of the Orion Syndicate, who blackmails Quark into acting as a negotiator in the Syndicate’s bid for control of the Iconian gateways.
• Kasidy Yates and Joseph Sisko learn that Jake has disappeared, and the search begins to find him.
• Quark seeks out Ro’s help with his blackmail problem. Ro tells him to go ahead with the negotiations for the Orion Syndicate, but to bring her along disguised as a dabo girl so she can get useful intelligence on the Syndicate’s operations.
• Vaughn takes the Defiant through the worm-hole to deploy a sub-space communications relay at the Gamma terminus, facilitating communication between the two quadrants.
MAY
• Hoping to accelerate the bidding on the Iconian gateways, the Petraw open all of them at once, in every quadrant of the galaxy, creating chaos. In the Delta Quadrant, a Malon tanker under attack by a Hirogen jettisons its radioactive cargo into one such gateway, which leads directly to the independent human settlement of Europa Nova in the Bajor sector, putting the colony of three million people at risk.
• Deep Space 9 is assigned the task of evacuating Europa Nova. Kira leads a task force of numerous Starfleet and Bajoran ships, and together they successfully evacuate the colonists to Bajor and the station, as well as the Jarada homeworld. The task force also gets aid from a Cardassian warship, the Trager, commanded by Gul Macet, who closely resembles his missing blood relative, Gul Dukat. Unlike Dukat, Macet was a member of Legate Damar’s resistance during the war and his offer of aid is genuine, a gesture that Cardassia is at last ready to begin working harmoniously with its neighbors.
• Among the evacuees to DS9 is Federation Councillor Charivretha zh’Thane of Andor, the zhavey (mother) of Shar, who had been on Europa Nova for talks with the government when the crisis broke out. On the station, zh’Thane uses the
opportunity to remind Shar of his responsibilities to Andor, where he is expected to return soon to fulfill his obligation to produce children, a culturally mandated necessity in order to delay the gradual extinction of the biologically troubled Andorian people. Shar is resistant.
• On Farius Prime, Quark’s negotiations on behalf of the Orion Syndicate deteriorate when his family connection to Nog, a Starfleet officer currently attempting to deactivate the gateways, is revealed. At gunpoint, Quark admits that he is, in fact, working with station security, at which point Ro abandons her dabo girl disguise, and engineers their escape from Malic’s ship, with the aid of a hostage: Treir, one of Malic’s slaves. Once safely back on DS9, Quark convinces Treir to accept a job as his new dabo girl.
• In an attempt to prevent irreversible damage to Europa Nova, Kira takes the runabout Euphrates through the gateway into the Delta Quadrant, where she and Taran’atar are forced to fight the Hirogen hunter on the dead Malon tanker before they can plug the gateway using the Euphrates. Taran’atar is nearly killed in the battle, but prevails, giving Kira the time she needs to save Europa Nova, even though it means sacrificing herself on the irraditated surface of a nearby planet. Taran’atar succeeds in making it back to the Alpha Quadrant, and Kira is saved by the appearance of another Iconian gateway on the planet’s surface.
• Passing through the gateway, Kira inexplicably finds herself on Bajor, thirty thousand years in the past, and becomes caught up in a battle between two warring republics. The experience forces her to confront her own self-doubts as commander of DS9. The appearance of another gateway beneath the surface takes her back to the present, to an Iconian outpost outside the Milky Way galaxy. With the help of the outpost’s custodian, Kira returns to Deep Space 9, uncertain if her experiences in Bajor’s past truly happened, or if they were a vision from the Prophets.
• Fleet Admiral Leonard James Akaar comes to Deep Space 9 to join Councillor zh’Thane in observing Bajor’s handling of the Europani crisis. He is also representing Starfleet as part of a larger diplomatic delegation assembling to work out the details of Bajor’s admittance into the Federation.
