by Judith
aren't we?"
"That's a good point." Jadzia looked pointedly at Bashir.
"Unless we are also a good cover for Nog's plans," Worf said.
"We still don't know for sure what those plans are," Bashir countered.
"We could argue about this for hours," Jake said, looking at each of them in
turn with frustration. Adults!
"We have to be certain about our next step," Bashir told him.
"But why waste all this time and effort?" Jake persisted. "Why don't we just ask
Nog what he's going to do?"
"You said you had already tried that," Worf said.
"No. I said I thought he was lying. I didn't ask him why. And even if I had,
there was no reason for him to give me a truthful answer."
"If he had no reason to tell the truth to you then," Jadzia asked, "what makes
you think he'll tell the truth when you ask him again?"
"Because," Jake said, "if we wait till tomorrow morning we'll be on his ship.
And that will give us all the leverage we need. Tell the truth or..."
"You would propose to sabotage the ship yourself?" Worf growled.
"Commander," Jake said seriously, "I don't believe that's what Nog is planning
to do. So I do believe that he will do everything he can to keep us from
damaging the Phoenix."
"Everything he can," Jadzia said thoughtfully. "Even tell the truth?"
"It's like my dad says," Jake told her. "All we can do is hope."
"That is not an inspiring plan to entrust the survival of the universe to," Worf
complained.
"No, it isn't," Jadzia said as she slipped an arm around her mate's waist. "But
for now, hope is all we have."
Worf grunted again. "If that is true, Jadzia, then the universe is doomed."
CHAPTER 18
in the nightmare of the defiled ruins of Deep Space 9, now more like an ancient
decaying fortress of war than an orbital station, Sisko felt Arla shudder in his
arms.
He understood why.
The dead of this mad prison were coming to life.
Skeletal creatures emerged from the shadows, their gaunt torsos little more than
cages of skin-wrapped bones, curved ribs that swept from a central exposed spine
to encompass ... nothing.
Bone feet clattered on the Promenade deck. Bone joints and bone hands creaked
and clicked as the dead came ever closer, trudging over bodies that had not yet
stirred.
"Is that the best you can do?" Dukat's voice suddenly echoed.
All the skeletons in Sisko's view stopped at the sound of that challenge. Each
of their heads snapped to
the side, the dark eye sockets of their inhumanly elongated skulls seeking the
source of Dukat's voice.
And then Sisko noticed something that had no place among a walking army of the
dead.
The skeletons were carrying weapons—sleek rifles, long and fluid, shining like
cooled and captured strands of melted silver.
That was when Sisko realized these beings were not remnants of the dead, nor
were they exactly dead.
They were Grigari.
A flash of red light set the shadows aflame, and a Grigari near Sisko flew apart
violently. A skeletal arm fell at Sisko's feet, bending and flexing, leaking a
thick yellow liquid from a web of coolant tubes—or were they blood vessels?
Sisko couldn't be certain.
Whether Grigari were alive or dead, machine or animal—such questions had not
been answered in his time, and he doubted they'd been answered in this one.
The remaining Grigari lifted their weapons and fired. Silver lightning pierced
the air with high-pitched static. More red bolts sought out white-boned targets,
dropping one after another of the walking skeletons in shattering explosions of
flying limbs and dripping components.
As the battle raged, Dukat stalked through it, invulnerable, defended by a
flickering ovoid of red energy that responded like a Starship's shields,
intensifying in color wherever Grigari weapons fire connected with it.
Sisko crouched down, and then dragged Arla off with him to find refuge in an
alcove on the outer ring of the Promenade. The silver and red blasts of energy
flew back and forth nonstop now, illuminating the darkness like lightning,
causing the metal to sing in time with their impact strikes.
But the battle was ultimately one-sided. The Grigari weapons could not penetrate
Dukat's personal shield, nor did they appear to be weakening it.
"I don't understand," Arla muttered as she huddled by Sisko.
"A minute ago, you seemed to understand everything," Sisko said.
Arla looked at him, confused. "Did I?" She shook her head so that her earring
chain swayed. "I remember Dukat attacking you by the airlock... I know I swung
at him... and then... we were here. Is this the Promenade?"
Sisko didn't try to explain what he couldn't yet explain. Instead he kept his
eyes fixed on Dukat. The Cardassian was now standing in the very center of the
Promenade concourse firing energy blasts at the attacking monstrosities as if
he were a living phaser cannon. And Sisko still had no idea where he and Arla
were, or why Weyoun would deliver him into Dukat's hands.
A familiar glimmer of light at the far curve of the concourse caught his eye.
Then another and another. And then Sisko comprehended just where the Grigari
were coming from. Not from among the piles of dead bodies as he had first
thought. They were being beamed into the station. But from where?
Sisko involuntarily blinked as a second intense source of crimson energy joined
the Grigari fusillade of silver beams, and Dukat was blasted from behind by a
meter-thick shaft of translucent fire that deformed the ovoid shield surrounding
him.
The Cardassian stumbled forward, recovered, spun around, reached out both hands
and shot his own energy blasts back toward the source of new attack.
Weyoun.
The Vorta was striding purposefully along the concourse, encased in the same
type of flickering personal forcefield that protected Dukat and firing the same
type of red energy bursts from each outstretched hand.
"BETRAYER!" Dukat screamed, as he seemed to gather his strength to withstand
Weyoun's onslaught.
"MADMAN!" Weyoun shouted in reply.
Like sorcerers of legend, the two beings advanced on each other on an
unstoppable collision course, energy shields blazing with power, energy beams
crisscrossing the air in spectacular bursts.
And the eyes of both Vorta and Cardassian glowed with the red madness of the
Pah-wraiths.
Ricocheting shafts of energy leaped from the two forcefields—searing piles of
corpses, setting still-fleshed bodies on fire, and mowing down the relentlessly
marching rows of Grigari, whose weapons' silver fire embroidered the air of the
red-blasted battleground.
Dense smoke began to fill the Promenade, replacing the breathable atmosphere.
Sisko knew he and Arla had to make their move now. Their eyes met in complete
understanding, though each knew there was nowhere to go on the station.
A new glimmer of light appeared behind Arla, and two Grigari materialized. Sisko
pushed her aside, tensing, ready to leap, stopping only in shock as he
&nbs
p; recognized a third figure now joining the Grigari.
Tom Riker.
But he was a surprise that Sisko did not intend to question.
"Come with me!" Riker shouted.
Sisko could barely hear the words above the light-
ning-like crackle and sizzle of the energy exchange on the concourse, but he had
heard enough. He yanked Arla around to show her Riker and gestured for her to
run ahead of him, behind the two Grigari guards. Then, before he followed after
her, Sisko took one last look back at the concourse.
Now Dukat and Weyoun were locked in physical combat, encased within the same
ovoid shield of red energy, both bodies inexplicably rippling and distorted by
intermingling layers of flame. Their tangled bodies tumbled and spun like an
airborne gyroscope, as if gravity were no longer of any importance to them.
Their single shield trailed bright cascades of sparks and oily smoke wherever it
struck the walls and decks of the Promenade.
Sisko called out to Riker ahead of him. Perhaps he would have the answers.
"What's happening?'
The answer that floated back to him was less than satisfying. "That fight's been
going on for millennia, Captain. It won't end here." Riker stopped to allow Arla
and Sisko to catch up to him and his Grigari guards. Then he reached down to his
side, and Sisko saw a slender silver tube attached to Riker's belt 'Take hold of
me," Riker instructed. "Both of you."
Immediately Sisko gripped one of Riker's arms, Arla the other, Riker nodded at
the two Grigari, and the guards marched forward like machines, adding the fire
of their own weapons to the lethal struggle still continuing undiminished.
Now it seemed to Sisko that half the infrastructure of the Promenade was
melting, coagulating into glowing pools of superheated hull metal, reflecting
blazing pyramids of corpses. Yet the joined forms of Dukat and Weyoun were still
locked in battle, glowing hands
around each other's throats, the two opposing forces oblivious to the
destruction they were causing.
"Has this happened before?" Sisko asked, tightening his grip on Riker's arm.
Riker tapped a control on the silver cylinder. Lights on it began to flash,
slowly at first, then faster. "Not here," Riker said cryptically. "We were
surprised that Dukat had actually brought this station within range. It seems
you were the perfect bait to force his hand."
"What do you mean, bait?"
But before Riker could answer, everything flashed around them, and then Sisko
and Arla and Riker were standing on—
—the Promenade again.
A different one.
Brightly lit. Carpeted. With clean, breathable air.
Storefronts lined the outer and inner rings. Customers—all Bajoran—walked
slowly by the storefronts, looking at Sisko, Riker, and Arla, curious but not
breaking their pattern, as if strangers beamed into their view every day.
And men Sisko remembered Dukat's words about looking into a mirror.
"That other station," he said to Riker, who was paying close attention to what
appeared to be the small medical scanner he held close to Sisko, then to Arla.
"It was in the Mirror Universe."
"That's right," Riker said, distracted, reacting with surprise to something he
evidently saw on the scanner's small screen. "Dukat used his energy beam against
you?'
Arla, still groggy, frowned at Riker's question. "Yes. Is there long-term—" But
she didn't have a chance to finish her own question. Riker had touched the
medical
scanner to her neck, and after a soft hissing noise, she at once fell backwards.
Sisko caught the Bajoran before she could hit the deck of the Promenade. He
glared at Riker. "Hasn't she been through enough?"
Riker slipped the scanner back into his belt. "We take possession very seriously
around here. She wasn't showing signs of being currently inhabited by a
Pah-wraith. But she has been. Quite recently. Probably a low-level transference
when Dukat attacked her."
Sisko rubbed at his temples, as if by doing so he could rid his brain of the
disturbing thoughts Riker's news provoked in him. Possession. "I thought you
people worship the Pah-wraiths."
Riker regarded him with surprise. "Not the ones from the Fire Caves. There was a
reason why Kosst Amojan and those who followed him were expelled from the True
Temple."
"And that would be?" Sisko asked wearily, angrily. Would no one tell him what
was going on here?
Riker declined to enlighten him. "Something for you to discuss with the
Emissary." He nodded at Arla, supported once again in Sisko's arms. "Let's get
her to the Infirmary."
Sisko struggled to control his impatience as he followed Riker along the
concourse, distracting himself by trying to identify landmarks from his past.
But the layout had completely changed from his day. The Infirmary was where
Garak's tailor shop had been, and all the equipment within it was Bajoran. In
fact, except for the basic architecture, everything about the station now was
Bajoran in design and color.
Riker had Sisko put Arla on a diagnostic bed, then
turned her over to the care of a young Bajoran physician.
"Now what?' Sisko asked, as he followed Riker to an office area near the
Infirmary's entrance.
"We wait for the Emissary."
"If he survives."
Riker smiled grimly. "He always does. The struggle among the Pah-wraiths is as
old as the war between the Pahwraiths and the False Prophets. It won't end until
the universe ends."
Sisko wanted to grab Riker by his white beard and shove his face against the
closest wall. Weyoun's followers were insufferable. This entire situation was
insufferable. He longed for his own time. His son. Kasidy. His station. His
life.
Riker appeared to sense Sisko's mood. "You have a problem with that?'
"I didn't think the universe was ending," Sisko said bluntly. "I thought it was
being... transfigured."
Riker kept his eyes locked with Sisko's. "You've spent time with the Emissary.
What do you believe?"
"I believe the Emissary is insane."
Riker appeared to consider Sisko's statement for a few moments, as if trying to
uncover hidden subtleties, then he withdrew his medical scanner again and moved
it around Sisko's face, then around the sides of his head.
"What are you looking for now?' Sisko demanded.
To his surprise, Riker leaned closer as if to read the scanner's display screen,
and whispered, "I'm working for Starfleet The real one."
Sisko's anger vanished at once. He caught Riker's eyes, and hi an instant an
unspoken, blessedly sane, and
understandable communication had flashed between them.
Tom Riker had just placed his life in his hands. And Sisko knew he
wouldn't—couldn't—betray that trust.
After an awkward moment, Sisko looked at the small medical scanner. "Is
everything all right?"
"No sign of possession," Riker said loudly. "Of any kind."
"Good to know." Sisko waited before saying anything else, hoping Riker would
give some clue as to how they wer
e to proceed.
But Riker gave none.
Sisko gestured at the station around them, not knowing what else to say. "Can I
ask how the station was restored?'
Riker looked puzzled.
"Deep Space 9," Sisko said.
"Oh! No, no," Riker answered. "This isn't Terok Nor. It's Empok Nor. The
Emissary had it towed here from the Trivas system. One of the prophecies of... I
believe it was Eilin, was that the True Emissary would restore the Gateway.
So..."
Sisko needed to act on what Riker had told him, but it was clear that Riker felt
they were under some type of surveillance.
'I'm not familiar with the prophecies of Eilin," he said carefully.
Riker didn't seem to think that was too important. "How about Shabren?"
Sisko nodded. Shabren's Fifth Prophecy was one with which he was especially
familiar.
"Eilin was a contemporary of Shabren. And of Naradim. The three great mystics of
Jalbador. Though
Eilin and Naradim were considered apocryphal by the religious leaders of your
time. Until recently, most of what they wrote was known only to scholars."
Despite his earlier relief, Sisko felt now as if he were drowning in a sea of
small talk. He looked around the Infirmary, trying to see where surreptitious
sensors might be hidden. "But not Shabren."
Riker smiled. "People used to say that Shabren's writings were never censored
because no one could be certain what he was saying."
Sisko didn't want this to go on any longer. "When will Arla be released?"
"That will be up to the Emissary."
"Where are the rest of my crew and the people from foe Defiant?"
"The Emissary has made arrangements for them all to be quartered here, until...
the ceremony."
Sisko stared at Riker until Riker acknowledged the unspoken question.
"At the end. When both halves of the Temple will open their doors at the same
time and in the same place, and... they will be rejoined, praise be to the True
Prophets of the One True Temple."
"In what now—nine days?"
Riker nodded.
"How'd you come to work for Weyoun?" Sisko asked. "And not Starfleet?"
"When Cardassia fell, the camp I was imprisoned in at Lazon II was liberated by
the Grigari. It was Starfleet that abandoned me to that camp. Starfleet
cowardice and—"
"As I recall," Sisko interrupted, "you willingly sacrificed your freedom to
