Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - 057 - Fearful Symmetry

by Olivia Woods

  Rokai shrugged. “I don’t know anything about it.”

  Kira studied his face. “You’re lying,” she decided. “And I think that’s the first lie you’ve told since I took you captive. But why would you feel the need to lie about something like this?”

  Rokai said nothing.

  “It was part of an unrestricted cache of data,” Shing-kur explained. “Included in it were several files about some Starfleet and Bajoran personnel-including you-along with a Cardassian intelligence summary on Bajor.”

  Kira looked at Rokai again to gauge his reaction. He gazed back at her impassively.

  “Show me the summary,” Kira told Shing-kur. The Kressari did as instructed, allowing Kira to read through a brief history of the occupation. It was skewed toward the Cardassians’ perspective, of course, but the historical highlights right up to the year of her capture tracked with her memory: the attack on the Kiessa monastery, the Kendra Valley massacre, the construction of Terok Nor and Dukat becoming prefect, the raid on Pullock V and the liberation of Gallitep, the various attempts on Dukat’s life and even the bombing of Gul Pirak’s compound-it was all here, all accurately dated, if not objectively described.

  Moving beyond the history with which she was familiar was a revelation, however: seven years ago, the occupation had finally ended; the Cardassians withdrew, leaving Bajor weary and deeply wounded, but finally free. It gave Kira a brief sense of elation to know that the resistance had finally beaten back her world’s occupiers…until she learned of Bajor’s alignment with the Federation and that body’s subsequent years of interference in Bajoran affairs. Bajor had welcomed the arrival of the long-prophesied Emissary and the opening of the Gates to the Celestial Temple…but the Emissary was an alien, a Federation officer and the new commander of Terok Nor! According to the report, this same individual had provoked the Dominion’s decision to invade the Alpha Quadrant, leading directly to their involvement with Cardassia and a second occupation of Bajor-something this supposed Emissary had allowed to happen-and to the war Shing-kur had described, which the Federation and its allies were staging from the Bajoran system itself.

  How could her fellow Bajorans have traded one group of overseers for another? How could her people have allowed themselves to be duped into believing one of those new taskmasters was Touched by the Prophets?

  How could everything I’ve gone through have been for nothing?

  She found part of the answer in the personnel files, one of which belonged to “Colonel Kira Nerys,” the first officer of Terok Nor, serving under the man who was supposedly the Emissary-a woman who looked like Kira, claimed Kira’s name and past as her own, and who for the past fifteen years had lived a life that Kira had not…now as a servant of the new order, betraying everything Kira had fought for.

  “An agent,” she realized, then turned back to Rokai. “Your people sent an agent to pretend she was me, didn’t they? That’s who that person is. She’s part of some conspiracy between the Federation and Cardassia to keep Bajor weak and submissive.”

  Even as she said it, she was gnawed by doubt, and with every second that passed, her agitation grew. The awful thought that she had been replaced by someone else was coiling itself tighter and tighter around her mind, constricting her ability to think straight, strangling her very soul.

  “There’s a restricted cache in the same sector of memory,” Shing-kur informed her. “It’s huge. But I can’t access it without a code key.”

  Kira’s attention returned to Rokai. “Give her the code.”

  “I don’t know it.”

  “That’s another lie.” Kira raised her weapon and shot Rokai in the leg. He howled in agony and fell to the floor, clutching his blackened, half-incinerated knee. “The code. Now.”

  Rokai grimaced against the pain, forcing a string of numbers and keywords through his clenched teeth. Shing-kur entered them, and the desk answered with a tone as it opened a new menu of files. “That’s odd.”

  “What now?” Kira asked.

  “There are scores of files here, but they all have the same name; they’re differentiated solely by their dates.”

  Kira peered past her shoulder, frowning at what she saw displayed on the desktop screen: a single name appearing over and over:

  ILIANA

  Kira blinked, mouthing the word under her breath. It was the name from her dream; the name her mother had used when—

  Wait-what? Where had that come from? Her mother was Kira Meru, dead many years now. The woman in her dream was Cardassian!

  “Don’t you dare presume to talk to me of responsibility. I’m your mother!”

  “Yes, and I’m your daughter. But I’m not your child anymore.”

  Her heart was pounding. “Open one of them,” she said.

  “Which one?”

  She looked at the dates alongside each appearance of the name: all of them were from the last fifteen years. “It doesn’t matter.”

  Shing-kur accessed a random file, one bearing a date from nine years ago. It was an audiovisual recording. Kira immediately recognized her prison cell and realized she was seeing it from a surveillance camera she never knew existed. She gasped at the sight of herself, nude and dazed and sobbing, screaming helplessly as Dukat moved toward her.

  “My Gods,” Shing-kur breathed, and quickly cut the playback. “Kira, are you all right?”

  Recordings. He made recordings. He kept them.

  “I know exactly who you are.”

  She looked at the file names again.

  “What do you remember?”

  She closed her eyes. It’s not true. It can’t be true.

  “And who is this lovely creature?”

  “Kira?” Shing-kur prompted.

  “What do you remember?”

  No. She felt herself trembling. No, no, no, no, no-

  “Are you really so ashamed of the person you were? Is there nothing of her left in you?”

  “What do you remember?”

  “But that isn’t who I am anymore. Why can’t you be proud of me now?”

  “What do you remember?”

  “I don’t believe in ghosts.”

  “But my dear Iliana…you are defined by one.”

  “What…do you…remember?”

  “Kira!” Shing-kur shouted.

  “Kira Nerys,” she whispered. She opened her eyes and locked them on Rokai, who still lay on the floor, watching her from beneath the ridges of his eyes.

  She brought her foot down hard on what was left of his knee, the cracking sound loud and clear even over his wails of agony. She struck him across the face with her rifle. “Say it!” she commanded. “Say my name!”

  Rokai’s body folded up in misery, his breathing ragged. “Iliana, please,” he moaned. “I can help you.”

  “I’m Kira Nerys!” she screamed, and shot him in the face. She kept on firing until there was nothing left of Rokai above the shoulders.

  The water fell against her in frigid sheets, numbing her wherever it struck. Where Rokai’s blood had spattered her, the icy spray blasted it off, the dark gray-red flecks vanishing into the metal grate beneath her feet.

  She leaned heavily against one wall of the transparent shower stall, her hands flat against it, the tangled mess of her long red hair hanging over her eyes.

  “I don’t understand,” came the voice of Telal, muffled by the roar of the water, but still reverberating through the stall well enough to be heard. “Did she experience a breakdown?”

  “I’m not sure what to call it,” she heard Shing-kur say. “All I can tell you is, she saw some files that strongly suggested she was the subject of some obscene Cardassian deception against Bajor, and it pushed her over the edge. She killed Rokai, then staggered into the ‘fresher, stripped off her clothes, and got into the shower. She hasn’t moved since.”

  “And now?”

  “Now I’m just waiting. What’s the progress on the transporter?”

  “Mazagalanthi is making some final
tests, but he believes we’ll be ready to beam out of here soon.”

  “All right. You and Fellen raid the storage rooms. She should be almost finished with the armory. Load up with as much as you can. I’ll take care of Kira.” A pause. “She’s the reason we’ve made it this far, Telal. I’m not simply going to leave her.”

  “We can’t wait forever.”

  “I know. Go. I’ll be there.”

  For several minutes after that there was only the white noise of the water. Then the icy spray abruptly ceased, leaving only its echo in her ears.

  “We need to go,” Shing-kur said.

  At first she refused to move. Then slowly she turned and met Shing-kur’s vermilion gaze. There was a tricorder in the Kressari’s hand. “You know.”

  Shing-kur nodded. “How much do you remember?”

  She looked down at her hands, studied her skin-her pale Bajoran skin. Skin without ridges, without scales…without truth.

  “Everything,” Iliana answered.

  “You’re shivering,” Shing-kur noted. She pressed a touchpad on the wall. Several hot white lights in the ceiling came on, targeted at the stall. It was a heat meant to invigorate a Cardassian, and it embraced Iliana like an old friend as it drew moisture from her lying skin.

  “The others?” she asked.

  “I haven’t told them. And I won’t,” Shing-kur said. “I figured that after the last fifteen years, you ought to be the one to make those choices.”

  Iliana watched as steam rose from her arms.

  “I want you to know I’m still with you,” Shing-kur added, “no matter who you are.”

  Iliana looked at her. “Why?”

  “Because I think you want the same things I want,” Shing-kur said. “Revenge, and your life back.”

  “My life?” Iliana’s eyes narrowed. Still covered in beads of moisture, she left the stall and stopped in front of Shing-kur. “Which life?”

  The Kressari was at a loss to answer her.

  “Bajor is turning into the very thing I remember trying to prevent it from becoming,” Iliana continued. “Cardassia is being decimated as we speak. Maybe they both deserve their fates. There’s nothing left for me on either world.” She spread her hands, inviting Shing-kur to look upon her. “This is what I have left.”

  “But, Iliana-“

  “Don’t call me that!”

  Shing-kur blinked, startled.

  Iliana turned away from the Kressari’s intense stare and went into the adjoining bedchamber. She headed directly to the replicator and, speaking Cardassian, she ordered up undergarments, boots, and a casual brown suit for a woman of her height and build. She dressed quickly while Shing-kur watched her from the doorway.

  “I’m sorry, I-I don’t understand. You said you remember everything.”

  “That’s right,” Iliana said, “I remember everything. I remember growing up as part of the ruling elite on an arid planet so poor in natural resources that we needed to annex our inferior neighbors to keep our proud civilization going. I remember believing I could change the world just by following my dreams…and how, in the end, it was the world that changed me.

  “But I also remember being a child born into a world of brutal enslavement, where the value of our lives was measured in how much ore we could mine for our vicious alien overseers. I remember the thrill I felt with every Cardassian butcher I took down, the self-loathing that followed each kill, and the decision I made to go on fighting in spite of it. I remember praying to my gods for the clarity and resolve to do what was right, and I remember the mass graves at Gallitep.

  “I remember Ataan Rhukal, the man to whom I had given my heart, who was murdered in a despicable terrorist bombing on a pathetically backward planet, and how I joined the Obsidian Order just so I could go on living with myself. And I remember the night I crept through the shadows to set the explosive that took his life.

  “I remember Dakahna Vaas, one of the best and bravest fighters in the resistance, someone I loved, and how losing her almost destroyed me. And I remember my satisfaction when I killed her for the Obsidian Order.

  “But do you know what I remember more than anything? I remember how for fifteen years I was locked in a box, the occasional plaything of the most sadistic creature I’ve ever known. And now I understand it wasn’t just my body that was raped for those fifteen years. It was my mind, and the very memory of me. Both of me. He took everything. My freedom, my friends, my dignity, my faith-everything except my identity. My sense of self, my certainty about who I was-that was the one thing I could cling to when I had nothing else.

  “I’m not giving it up now, Shing-kur, not again, not after all I survived. I’m Kira Nerys, and no one, no one, is taking that from me.”

  “And what exactly does Kira Nerys intend to do next?” the Kressari asked.

  “I’m going to find Dukat and punish him for what he did to me.”

  “And then?”

  “Then?” Iliana closed the final clasp on her tunic and considered her reflection in a nearby mirror. She liked what she saw. “Then I’m going after the rest of them.”

  “Nice suit” was Mazagalanthi’s only comment as Iliana strode into the transporter room. The towering Lissepian lifted his double-pointed chin as he peered down at her with his tiny, deep-set eyes.

  Shing-kur arrived shortly thereafter. Both women were similarly outfitted, having replicated large backpacks and shoulder bags loaded up with everything Telal and Fellen had not been able to pack. Iliana, however, had one additional item. At her request, Shing-kur had transferred the complete contents of Dukat’s personal database to an isolinear rod, which now resided securely in an inner pocket of Iliana’s jacket. Shing-kur had told her that in addition to the caches they’d already discovered, the database contained a veritable treasure trove of military intelligence, security files, even Dukat’s own reports and personal logs going back forty years-and it was Iliana’s intention to read every word at the earliest opportunity.

  Telal approached them, scrutinizing Iliana carefully. “You appear recovered.”

  “Drop it,” Iliana said. “Mazagalanthi, is this thing ready?”

  Standing at the control pedestal, the Lissepian nodded his great head. “The unit is fully charged and all systems are at optimum. We can leave at any time.”

  Iliana cast a glance at the stage, which was already half-filled with silver cases, overstuffed satchels, and piles of loose equipment. “How confident are you that we aren’t going to overtax the transporter’s mass limitations?”

  “Completely,” said Mazagalanthi. “I inspected the activity log. There are records of far greater loads than this being beamed, and always to the same location. As far as I can tell, this unit was never used to go anywhere else.”

  Interesting. “Fellen, how are we set with plasma charges?”

  “I’m carrying six,” the Efrosian answered. “There are fourteen more in one of the chests on the platform.”

  “Set four of them on a five-metric delay and place them around the room where they’ll do the most damage.”

  “Understood,” Fellen said, and quickly went to work.

  Telal arched an eyebrow. “Burning our bridge behind us?”

  “Aptly put,” Iliana agreed. She turned to Shing-kur. “You took care of the computers?”

  The Kressari nodded. “Six more charges inside the mainframe and elsewhere will detonate in thirteen metrics. There won’t be much left of this place at all after that.”

  “Good,” Iliana said.

  “And once we’re away from here,” Telal pressed, “then what? We all agreed to join forces and follow your lead in order to escape this place, but beyond that…”

  “That’s up to each of you to decide on your own,” Iliana told them. “I’ve got business to take care of that has nothing to do with any of you, and I’m not expecting anyone to stick with me once we beam out of here. But if you do,” she added, glancing briefly at Shing-kur, “then I vow to make it worth y
our while.” She looked at each of the others in turn. “I don’t know who you were before Letau, and I don’t care. The way I see it, who we used to be is dead. This is our chance to start over.”

  No one spoke. Then Fellen announced that she was done setting the plasma charges, and promptly started handing out fresh weapons. “We’d better be ready for anything. I hate the idea of transporting blind.”

  “What do we know about our destination?” Iliana asked as she ascended the stage.

  “The planet Harkoum,” Telal said as he and the women joined her on the platform, followed quickly by Mazagalanthi after he initialized the transport sequence. “Remote, relatively isolated, and sparsely populated. Primarily a scattering of industrial complexes, mostly long abandoned. In short, a good place to hide.”

  “No,” Iliana corrected just before the beam took them. “It’s a good place to begin.”

  END OF SIDE TWO

  TO BE CONTINUED…

  About the Author

  Olivia Woods was born in Cape Town, South Africa, where she also spent her early childhood before moving with her parents to Ireland. At the age of fourteen she came to live with her extended family in the United States and began her torrid and enduring love affair with all things Star Trek. She currently resides in upstate New York with her spouse and daughter.