“Well,” Jartek said, “at least that’s a bit of good news.”
Garak, standing next to Miles, shifted forward slightly. “That’s an odd remark,” he said mildly. “Perhaps you might like to elaborate on it?”
Now, that’s not a good tone of voice, Miles thought absently, his hand still pressed against his forehead, trying to sift some sense from everything going on around him.
“What I mean, Garak,” Jartek said, and now he didn’t disguise his irritation, “is that while the situation isn’t under our control, at least that isn’t being broadcast across the whole of the quadrant. We’ve got time to find out what’s going on, time to get things under control, sort out a proportional response, and get the message out that Alon deals promptly and effectively with threats like this. That’s what needs to be done.”
“Is that right?” Garak said. He was smiling now, just a little.
That isn’t good either…. Miles closed his eyes.
“Garak—” Ghemor said, the warning clear.
“There are political implications to all of this, Garak,” Jartek shot back, “whether you like it or not. If this all blows up in our faces, it’ll be a disaster for this government. And someone has to be thinking ahead to what capital we can make out of it—”
Miles felt a cold stab of fury slice its way through the haze in his head. His eyes shot open. The next thing he knew he had one hand around Jartek’s throat, and the other was pulling back to thump the little snake all the way to Andak.
“Mr. O’Brien.” Ghemor’s voice rose—and Miles suddenly had more than a glimpse of why it was that Ghemor was in charge. “I feel I ought to remind you that Mev is the chief political advisor to the Cardassian castellan. And since you’re the Federation’s representative here—I don’t think you really want to do that.”
“Let him go, Chief,” Garak murmured. “He’s not worth it. It’s not a…proportional response.”
“You’re not helping, Garak,” Ghemor said sharply.
Miles stared at Jartek—at the ridges on his face, at the strange and alien skin—and loathed him, and all of Cardassia with him.
We shouldn’t have come here. This place and its damn people turn on you and bite. It really is just a pit of bloody vipers. We shouldn’t have put our kids in the middle of this!
Jartek was staring back at him, eyes wide, mouth open. His tongue slid nervously around his teeth and his lips. Miles shuddered in distaste.
“Mr. O’Brien,” Ghemor said again.
Keiko always said I’d make a terrible diplomat….
Out of the corner of his eye, Miles could see that Ghemor had risen from his chair. And that Garak had taken one preparatory step forward.
Keiko….
“Bloody hell!” Miles said, and let Jartek go. The young man pulled back quickly, jerking up a hand to rub at his neck. Bluish bruises were already appearing against the gray of his skin.
“Well,” said Ghemor, letting out a slightly ragged sigh, and sitting back down in his chair, “that’s one crisis resolved, at least. Mev,” he said, more calmly, and glancing over at his aide, “you’ve said some helpful things—thank you. I’ll be bearing in mind everything you’ve drawn to my attention. But why don’t you…why don’t you go and have a chat with security and find out how soon they think they can raise someone at Andak for me talk to? I really need to know exactly what’s going on down there, and I need to know quickly.”
Jartek hesitated, and Ghemor nodded toward the door. Jartek slid out, giving both Miles and Garak as wide a berth as he could. As the door shut after him, Miles turned to Ghemor.
“I’m sorry,” he said, sitting down heavily, “I shouldn’t have lost my temper. Don’t know what came over me—”
Ghemor waved a hand to stop him. “Well, I do. Mev’s sharp and he gets done what needs to be done—but he can be a bit single-minded. And—as a result—he does sometimes lack tact.”
Garak snorted. Ghemor glared at him. “He also doesn’t know when to shut up,” he added, pointedly.
Garak raised his hands, accepting the admonishment. “Can I say this at least? You need to get someone down there to Andak as soon as possible. Someone you trust—”
“Offering your services, Garak?”
“Well, I’m most flattered to learn that you hold me in such high esteem, but I was going to suggest Macet.” Garak frowned. “Much as it pains me to say it, Mev does have a point—and whether or not it seems you can deal with this promptly and effectively, you do also need to deal with this promptly and effectively. I think Macet’s the man to do it. He’s experienced, and he’s good in a crisis.” Garak gave a wry smile. “He’s also the military man least likely to score political points off you should he bring this to a satisfactory conclusion.”
Ghemor eyed him for a moment, and then nodded, and opened up a com channel. “Get hold of Gul Macet for me, will you?”
The rush of adrenaline had passed, and Miles had listened to all this through the haze which had descended upon him once again.
Keiko…Molly…Yoshi…
He was dimly aware of Macet voice’s coming through the com, was dimly aware of Ghemor ordering Macet out to Andak to resolve the situation. And then he became aware of a hand on his shoulder again. It was Garak, looking down at him, a concerned expression upon his face.
“Macet really is very competent, Chief,” Garak said softly. “It’s impossible to make any promises, but if anyone can end this safely, I’m sure it’s him.”
Miles nodded wordlessly.
“Might I make a suggestion?”
“What is it, Garak?”
“That you go back down to Andak with him? I hardly think that the committee will be reconvening this afternoon.”
“Long way to come for nothing.” Miles stood up, and then gave a short bark of laughter. “Well, we knew the project’s future would be decided one way or another this afternoon. It’s just all a bit more literal than we’d thought, isn’t it?”
“I think you can leave that to us to worry about here.”
“You know what the worst thing is? That there’s nothing I can do. I just have to sit it out and watch and hope for the best.” He paused. “These situations are very unstable, you know. Are you sure Macet would want me breathing down his neck? It’s not as if I can do much there,” he finished, bitterly.
“I’d beg to differ on that score. Not to put too fine a point on it, but almost all of the authorities on the Andak Project are stuck inside that lecture hall. You’re about the only person outside with the requisite expertise. Macet’s bound to find that useful.”
“I’m just an engineer—”
Miles stopped speaking as the door opened and Jartek came back in. Jartek glanced across at Miles and Garak and then bypassed them and went straight over to Ghemor.
“You, Miles,” Garak murmured, “are just an engineer in exactly the same way that I am just a tailor.”
He stretched out his hand and offered it to Miles.
Miles shook it.
13
Keiko, trying her best not to move, felt a chill creep down her spine, and suppressed a shiver. Her shirt was sticking to her back, but the sweat was cold. The temperature modulators must be set too low, she thought—and then her heart clenched as she thought of Miles, his head stuck behind the panels of the wall, trying to put off working, trying to make their quarters cooler for her.
She looked over at Molly, a few rows from the front, sitting with all her classmates. Molly wasn’t excited now—she was pale-faced and very still, with her arms wrapped around her. Keiko swallowed hard on the lump that had risen up all of a sudden in her throat and carefully, ever so carefully, risked giving Molly a slight smile. Molly didn’t return it, just stared back at her mother with eyes gone wide and huge with fright.
Shock, Keiko thought. I think she’s in shock. Why on earth did we bring our children here?
She looked fearfully along the row at the other schoolchildren, and the
n at the row in front of Molly, at the little ones. All of them school age, not as tiny as Yoshi (Yoshi!—and her heart clenched again), but small nonetheless. After Nyra had delivered her speech the first time, Keiko had seen the teachers whisper hurried instructions to their charges to keep very quiet and very still, and since they were mostly dutiful little Cardassians, they had all done exactly what they were told. All together, from the small ones up, there were twenty-three children of school age in this room.
Or twenty-four, if you counted Nyra Maleren.
Cautiously, as cautiously as she could manage, Keiko twisted her head so that she could look at Tela Maleren’s daughter.
Nyra was standing at the far side of the dais from her. Her jacket was open, which meant that Keiko could see, that they could all see, a package strapped across Nyra’s chest. It seemed so innocuous—it was almost like something you might use to play pass-the-parcel—except that when you looked more closely, you could see a steady, an ominous, pulse of red light.
She said it had to be triggered—but would she even know if there was a countdown? She can’t have made that herself—someone must have done it for her….
While the rest of the room watched her, Nyra herself was rocking slightly on her feet, back and forth, back and forth. Every so often she seemed to mumble something to herself. Her lips were parted and dry, her gaze darting around the hall.
Who could have put her up to this? She’s just a child….
Keiko’s instinctive reaction, when Nyra had first come up onto the platform and set out her demands, had been to assume that Tela was behind all this somehow. Hadn’t she already said much the same? That Yevir should leave Cardassia Prime? That she disapproved of the Oralian Way? It had not come as much of a surprise to hear the same sentiments coming from Nyra’s lips. And then all of Keiko’s angry preconceptions were blown away (she winced to herself slightly at that expression), because then Tela had tried to speak to her daughter—had asked her what she was doing, had begged to know why she was doing it. And Nyra—although she had not screamed, had not shrieked—had obviously, from her shaking, which had gotten worse as her mother murmured haltingly at her, been close to losing control. It had taken Yevir, of all people, sitting back in his chair next to Tela, to set his hand gently upon the woman’s arm and whisper to her that it would be better if she stopped speaking. Keiko noticed that he had kept his hand in place for quite some time.
Tela had been silent since then, her head dropped low, her hair coming loose in long strands. She was all but motionless, save for one fingertip that had not stopped stroking, stroking, the red stone on the bracelet around her wrist.
And, against Nyra’s chest, a red light flashed on and off, on and off.
Someone in the hall coughed, and hurriedly tried to smother the noise. Nyra started a little. Her hand clenched and raised, and then she dropped it. She ran her tongue over her lips, and then started speaking. She had quite a small voice (because she’s just a child…), but tension was making it come out shrill and, in any case, the hall was so deadly silent that her words carried across it quite easily.
“I am here today,” she said, staring out across the hall, concentrating hard on her words as she enunciated them with great care, “to speak out for the future of Cardassia. Because that future is in danger, and because no one will act to preserve it, we must act. Cardassia is being polluted by alien influence and alien ideas, all of which threaten to destroy what little remains of our own ideas, our own culture…”
Keiko shifted backward in her seat. It was the same speech Nyra had made twice already. It was clear she had learned it and rehearsed it many, many times.
“So this is a message for Alon Ghemor—who claims to be our leader, who pretends to be our leader—but who is really diluting us further and further, who is giving away all that we have left piece by broken piece—”
The little red light beat in time with the rhythm of her words. She was rubbing her thumb along the edge of the device on her chest, up and down, just like her mother, caressing the bracelet on her wrist.
“It is time for this to be stopped. It is time for us to become pure again….”
Keiko felt Feric move in his seat until he was leaning close to her.
“What do you think is going on outside?” he muttered from the side of his mouth, watching Nyra closely as she carried on with her speech.
Keiko kept her eyes on Nyra too as she answered. “They’ll have people here as soon as they can,” she whispered. “I’m sure they’ll try to start talking to Nyra soon; they’ll try to talk her down….” She stopped for a second, as Nyra glanced in their direction. When the girl looked out across the hall once again, Keiko continued. “What we need to do in here is nothing—we just need to keep quiet. Most of all, we mustn’t startle her. Let her keep on making this speech. As long as she’s still talking, she’s not blowing us all to little bits.”
“How long,” Feric said, from between his teeth, “do you think it’ll take for them to get someone here? And who are ‘they’ anyway?”
“The police? The military?” she suggested. Miles, she hoped, and tried to put that thought out of her head. This was not the time to be thinking about herself—she was in charge here, with two hundred people looking up at her, two hundred people her responsibility. “And I know they’ll be here as soon as they can, Feric,” she murmured, hoping it sounded reassuring. “I know they’ll be doing all they can.”
If for no other reason than because Andak means so much.
“These, then, are our demands; this is what Ghemor’s false and treacherous government must do. Firstly, we wish to see that government dissolved. It is the idea and the instrument of aliens—of Bajorans, of humans. It does not speak for any true Cardassians. It is not part of the Cardassian way. Second,” and at this point she stared at Feric, who could not help but press back a little into his seat, “the Oralian Way claims to show the way back to our past. But true Cardassians are not taken in by their lies and superstitions. We want these people stopped; we want their practices forbidden. They are polluting our way of life.” She stopped for a moment and frowned, as if struggling to remember the next part of the message. The red beat against her breast urgently. “Finally,” she said, turning and pointing at Yevir, “all aliens,” and then she gestured toward Keiko too, “must leave Cardassian soil. Cardassia must find its own, true way. They have come here pretending to offer us peace, but they’ve lied to us! All that they have to offer us is slavery!”
There was a bit more to come yet, Keiko remembered, the bit where Nyra explained about the bomb she was carrying.
But this time round, Nyra wasn’t going to get there.
Keiko jerked up her head at the sound of a chair scraping across the floor.
Miles, she thought, always had the right words for any occasion. And Keiko had been married to Miles Edward O’Brien for a long time now.
What the bloody hell does he think he’s playing at?
Because Naithe, sitting at the end of a row just by the aisle, had pushed back his seat, stood up, and now he was walking toward the front of the hall.
Nyra stopped speaking and froze to the spot. She stood staring at Naithe as if she couldn’t comprehend what he was doing, as if she couldn’t quite believe that he was doing it.
This isn’t in her script, Keiko realized—which didn’t make her feel any better. If she feels threatened, she’s going to trigger that bomb…. Oh, Naithe! I don’t know what you think you cando, but you’re way out of your league here! Sit down and shut up!
“Now, my dear little lady,” Naithe said, stretching out one of his hands, not looking anywhere near where Keiko was shaking her head at him, as frantically as she could without startling Nyra, “I think that you should listen to me….”
14
The shimmer of the transporter haze diffused and the world all around Miles resolved itself. He blinked and shook his head, disoriented for a moment by the dissonance between the lowerin
g skies of the capital and the sharp, stark light of Andak.
Strange how quick you get used to things….
And then he came into focus.
The base was like a ghost town, emptied of life. Only the mountains remained, patiently watching all that happened. During the days, the square was often quiet—the children were at school, the scientists were in the labs—but it never felt deserted as it did now. You could always hear, even if only faintly, the heartbeat of work and the pulse of conversation, you were always aware that life was going on in the little buildings gathered around the square. At night, people would be passing to and fro, and all the little houses to the east of the square were lit up and alive, and you could usually see a light on in one of the labs, as someone pressed on with their work in the early hours.
But this quiet was unnatural.
Beside him, Macet too was taking in their surroundings. He muttered something to his second-in-command, and then troops began to materialize in the square. Fifteen or twenty blocks of uniform and weaponry, solid black-and-gray in the bright light, shifting into action as soon as they arrived to deal with the equipment they’d brought with them. Miles eyed them cautiously. Armed Cardassians tended to make him a bit jumpy. Even looking at Macet only added to Miles’s underlying sense of unease. Macet was just like Dukat—and yet completely unlike. The face was the same (well, near enough), but the voice and the bearing were markedly different. Friends who looked like foes. Cardassia turned things upside down.
Miles turned away from his confusion to look toward the lecture hall. Someone was hurrying across the square to join them. It was one of the handful of Starfleet personnel stationed at the base—Jack Emmett, a security officer, very young, very keen. He had a padd in one hand, and his other was twitching nervously around his phaser.
“Chief O’Brien,” Emmett said, rather breathless. He was obviously very glad to see someone senior, but he was also looking at Miles with trepidation. Miles felt a stab of sympathy for him.
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