The War of the Prophets
Page 33
"Damned Grigari took her. Battle of Earth. Good thing we can stop them with this
bloody marvelous ship, eh?"
"A very good thing," Bashir agreed. He looked up to see that he was the last of
the passengers in the battle bridge. It was time to go. "A real pleasure to meet
you again, Admiral Picard. I hope—"
"Oh, don't call me that, young man. I'm not Admiral Jean-Luc Picard anymore."
Bashir blinked in confusion. He felt Nog's hands on his back.
"Doctor," Nog said, with some urgency, "you really have to get to your
transporter."
"We're going undercover!" Picard called after Bashir. "A critical mission!"
"Are you sure his medication is under control?" Bashir asked Vash, as she took
over from Nog and pushed him toward the doors.
"Absolutely," Vash said. "You have to hurry."
"My new name is Shabren!" Picard shouted proudly.
Bashir stared at Vash in horror. "You can't be serious! You three?"
Vash patted his arm. "Don't know if we have to yet. But who else is gonna know
how to spell the Sisko's name twenty-five thousand years ago? Now run!"
The battle bridge doors slid shut before Bashir could say another word. So he
ran as instructed. And as he did, he tried not to picture the convoluted
timeline that might emerge if the archaeologist actually carried out what it
seemed she was planning.
For the truth was, unless Nog could accomplish the first part of his mission in
the next three minutes, its second part would mean nothing at all.
Because none of this would ever have happened.
And nothing would ever happen again.
The universe now had ten minutes left.
CHAPTER 28
"Does IT feel like coming home?" Weyoun asked.
Sisko looked around the restored bridge of the Defiant, almost unable to
believe he was really here. It had been a shock when the transporter effect had
faded and he had realized where he was. And the shock wasn't fading. He had
never expected to see this ship again.
But he refused to accept returning here under any conditions but his own. "I
won't play your games," he warned Weyoun.
The Vorta slipped into the command chair, examined the controls on either arm.
"I wish I knew what games those might be," he said. "I'm certain they'd be
amusing."
Sisko could feel his heartbeat quickening, nearly to the point of euphoria. Two
weeks ago, O'Brien had clearly explained that there was only one way back to
their own present, and that was by taking the Defiant—
and only the Defiant—on a reverse slingshot trajectory around the the mouth of
the red wormhole.
Two weeks ago, with the Defiant battered and being towed by the Boreth, even the
possibility of such a return trip had been unthinkable.
Yet here was a chance. It didn't matter how slight.
In only minutes, he knew, the red wormhole would open again. So a reverse flight
could be attempted. And even if he had to face the terrible prospect of leaving
his crew behind, if he could return to his present, then there was a chance he
could slingshot back to this future with a full task force to rescue them in the
minutes remaining.
Sisko shot a glance across the bridge to the engineering station, trying to see
if—
"I know what you're doing," Weyoun said. "I know what you're thinking. What
you're planning. What you're hoping. And I assure you, none of it is going to
happen."
Sisko faced facing the Vorta, hating the way his own robes dragged on the
Defiant's carpet, wanting more than anything to be in uniform again. He wanted
to belong on this bridge as a Starfleet officer, as he was meant to be.
Apparently untroubled by his own red robes, Weyoun steepled his hands, elbows
on the arms of the chair. "Benjamin, I know you'd like nothing better than to go
back to the past. To stop the Orbs of Jalbador from ever being brought together.
And I know mat this vessel following a reverse temporal trajectory is your only
way of doing that. So, not being the fool you take me for, when I had this ship
repaired I gave specific orders that her warp engines were to be ... gutted."
Weyoun leaned forward. "Go ahead, check the engine status. You'll find you
don't have any."
Sisko crossed quickly to the engineering station, called up the status screens,
to make his own confirmation.
Weyoun was right.
No impulse engines. No dilithium. The warp core had been jettisoned.
The Defiant had as much chance of traveling at warp as a falling rock.
"No going back," Weyoun said. "Only forward." He glanced over at a time display
on the science station. "At least for about the next sixteen minutes."
Sisko's pulse continue to pound, but with rage now. "Damn you, Weyoun! Why are
we here?"
Weyoun seemed genuinely surprised by the sudden show of emotion. "In the absence
of any definitive guidance, I thought it would be fitting—somehow in keeping
with this all-important theme of balance that runs through the texts of the True
Prophets. The Defiant after all was the first ship to enter their Temple. I
thought there would be a certain poetry in having it be the last, as well.
Surely you of all people see that?"
Sisko strode off to Weyoun's left, swinging his arms, shaking his head,
struggling to keep his mind clear.
"I asked you a question, Benjamin."
Sisko strode back, turned, then whirled around, and abandoning all thought he
lunged at Weyoun and smashed his fist into the Vorta's placid, hateful face.
Weyoun was thrown back in the command chair, then sat forward, looking down at
the carpet, a small drop of blood escaping from his nose.
Sisko caught his breath, expecting to be consumed by endless fire any moment.
He would welcome it.
But nothing happened.
After a few moments, Weyoun sat back again and rubbed his face, that was all.
"There," the Vorta said as if nothing of much importance had just happened.
"Did that help? Do you feel better?"
Pulse still pounding, Sisko checked the time readout Fourteen minutes. How could
he or anyone else have anything to lose at this point, so close to the end of
everything? What was to stop anyone from doing anything?
"Yes," he said. "And I'm sure I can feel even better!" He swung at Weyoun again
and the Vorta didn't dodge his blow. There was a loud crack, a gasp, and Sisko
saw blood gush forth from the Vorta's nose.
"You... you broke it," Weyoun said thickly, his fingers gripping the bloody
bridge of his nose.
"Then kill me," Sisko taunted.
Weyoun used the back of his hand to wipe the bright red liquid that dripped down
his upper lip, held out his blood-smeared hand and looked at it with a bemused
expression. "It's not my decision."
"Then whose is it?" Sisko demanded. " "As you would say," Weyoun replied, "your
fate is now ... in the hands of the Prophets."
"Which ones?"
Weyoun pursed his Ups as if Sisko had asked a trick question. "Why, the winners,
of course."
Then he tapped a bloody finger against the comm control. "Defiant to Boreth. I
believe we are ready
to depart." He looked ahead. "Screen on, please."
The Defiant's main viewer came to life. On it, Sisko saw the Boreth slide into
view just as a shifting purple tractor beam shot out from it.
Then the image on the screen changed, as the Defiant
was realigned in space. Bajor appeared, most of it in darkness, only a thin
crescent showing the light of day.
Next, slowly, the planet began to recede as the Defiant was towed at warp.
"A lovely planet," Weyoun said wistfully. "Would you like to say good-bye?"
Sisko checked the time display again. "Not for twelve minutes."
"Oh, no," Weyoun said. "It's not for Bajor to see the end of the universe.
Watch."
And then Sisko cried out in shock as on the viewer the crescent limb of his
adopted world blazed with blinding light and what seemed to be a vast wind of
white steam shot all around the planet and the atmosphere on the dark side
glowed with fire and the oceans boiled and the continents rose and—
—in a flash of light that hurt his eyes despite the safety overrides in the
viewer, Bajor became... dust and...
... disappeared.
"Bajor... what..."
"Supernova," Weyoun said matter-of-factly. "Don't worry though. I understand the
first pulse of radiation is enough to instantly kill any living being before the
shockwave hits. Your crew felt no pain. I know that was important to you."
With a roar of primal rage that startled even him, Sisko threw himself at Weyoun
and was suddenly flat on his back by the science station chair, each breath he
took stabbing him.
Weyoun's eyes glowed. Red. "We've played that game, I believe. And I don't like
it anymore."
Sisko got to his feet. Started for Weyoun again. "You have no choice!"
A bolt of red struck Sisko's chest
Sisko froze in place. He could not move. The lance bad come from Weyoun's hand.
"Neither do you," the Vorta said. "Now be still. And perhaps ... perhaps ..."
For a single heartbeat, the red light in Weyoun's eyes flickered, then vanished.
"Perhaps we can both find out what's supposed to happen next."
Sisko stood transfixed on the bridge of his Starship. There was a bigger
conflict here than he had ever imagined.
Not only was the universe about to be destroyed, the one person responsible
didn't even know why.
The real adversaries were still in hiding.
The universe now had nine minutes left.
CHAPTER 29
grigari were deactivated by the millions, and equal numbers of living beings
died in those final minutes, as a thousand battles raged through space in the
vast cubic-parsec sphere that surrounded the Bajoran system.
But the Grigari lines held.
The last Starfleet vessel attempting to reach Bajor— to destroy whatever
remained of the Ascendancy—was blown apart with less than eight minutes left.
The loss of that ship marked the Federation's end.
And with such a glorious dream lost forever, perhaps the universe no longer
deserved to exist.
Inward from the chaos of those battles, at the center of the calm eye of the
galactic storm, the Boreth towed the tiny Defiant at warp factor five. Easily
outpacing the protomatter-induced supernova of Bajor-B'hava'el, both in real-
and subspace.
Total transit time from Bajor to the required coordi-
nates near the Denorios Belt was three minutes, twelve seconds.
The universe had just over five minutes of existence left.
It was then that the Boreth came to relative rest and fired a small impulse
probe at the exact coordinates of the Bajoran wormhole, and for the first time
in twenty-five years the doorway to the Celestial Temple blossomed in a
majestic display of energies unknown to normal space-time.
Soft blue light bathed the pale hull of the Defiant. And in that same radiance,
five hundred kilometers distant, a trio of hourglass-shaped orbs of a
translucent red substance equally alien to this realm orbited together,
sparkling from within as they responded to that first verteron bloom, then
matched it.
A second opening appeared against the stars and the shifting Denorios plasma
ribbons. Radiating red energy as if every wavelength from the first wormhole had
just been reversed.
And then, with only two minutes remaining until there would be no time at all,
exactly as had been prophesied by the three great mystics of Jalbador, the doors
to the Temples opened together. '«. Both Temples.
One Temple.
The reason why the Prophets wept.
•''%; '
Still immobile, in place, Sisko struggled for breath as he saw both wormholes
expanding on the Defiant's main viewer. Weyoun had left the command chair to
stand closer to the screen, his weak Vorta eyesight robbing him of the grandeur
of the spectacle before him.
"Defiant to Boreth," the Vorta breathed. "You may release us now." He turned
back to Sisko. "Almost time." He open his mouth in a soundless laugh. "Almost
no time."
The ship's collision alarms sounded abruptly.
"What is it? What's happening?" the Vorta exclaimed, cringing, his hands over
his ears.
"Let... me... go...." Sisko's words were little more than a rasp.
Weyoun gestured impatiently and whatever cord of energy had kept Sisko bound, he
was suddenly released. He ran.
Toward the tactical station, where he saw a reading that he didn't understand.
"It looks like a Borg ship," he said to Weyoun, his voice stronger, freer by the
moment. "Coming in at transwarp velocities."
"Is it headed for us?" Weyoun gasped in alarm.
Sisko did an instant, rough analysis of the vessel's trajectory. A slingshot.
Good, he thought.
"Are we in danger?" Weyoun cried.
"No," Sisko lied. "It looks like it's out of control."
Weyoun had turned back to the viewer. The two wormholes remained open as a
subspace distortion wave made them ripple. Fine filaments of energy tentatively
splashed out toward each other, but still too far away to connect
"Why aren't we moving?" Weyoun wailed.
"Where to?" Sisko asked. Why should any location matter now?
"We have to get inside the Temple," Weyoun explained despairingly. "That's the
only place to escape what will happen." He looked up again. "Defiant to Boreth.
This is Weyoun. Release the tractor beam."
And then, finally, a voice replied from the Boreth.
"Never."
Weyoun's white face betrayed his utter shock.
"Who is that? Identify yourself."
The viewer switched to a new image, and both Sisko and Weyoun flinched back as
Dukat's features overwhelmed them, red eyes glowing, thin-lipped gray mouth
twisted in a terrifying grimace of victory.
"You?!" Weyoun cried out in disbelief.
"You lost before, you'll lose again," Dukat gloated. "The true War of the
Prophets is not your fight. It is ours!"
Suddenly, the Defiant's bridge rang with even more collision alarms,
weapons-lock sirens, and intruder alerts—all sounding at once as Weyoun twisted
back and forth, his hands pressed tightly over his sensitive ears.
And then the bridge pu
lsed with multiple flashes of light as three brilliant
starbursts exploded around Sisko, and from each of them a human figure seemed to
unfold.
Sisko shouted out in recognition.
It was Worf and Bashir—and a young ensign who had just arrived at DS9 only a few
days before the station's destruction. All three looked disoriented. They
gestured at him, urgent, their mouths open in entreaty. But Sisko couldn't hear
a word they said over the blaring alarms.
He ran to join Worf who staggered over to tactical, hampered by thick bandages
wound around his torso. As soon as he was by his side, Sisko heard Worf's voice
clear and victorious: "They all made it!"
"Jake?" Sisko cried out, his only thought. His only hope.
Worf nodded vigorously. "All of them! All through the ship!"
Then Sisko saw the time readout. Only a minute remained.
"We have to get into the wormhole!" he shouted to Worf.
Worf stared down at his station. "We have no engines!"
But Sisko refused to be beaten. Could no longer be beaten. Not when his son had
been returned to him. Not when the Prophets were finally showing he was right to
have hope.
"The tractor beam!" he yelled at Worf. "Steal momentum from the Boreth! Use all
the station-keeping thrusters at once!"
Then the alarms cut off and Sisko saw Bashir. At the conn. Frantically trying to
call up any set of controls mat might let him guide the ship.
"Now can you hear oblivion approaching?" Dukat declared, triumphant, from the
screen.
"Madman!" Weyoun screeched.
"Loser," Dukat cackled. "Remember that, pretender ... remember that, forever."
Then, laughing maniacally, Dukat vanished from the viewer, and Sisko looked up
to see the two wormholes again, both wavering as space shifted around them.
Then the Boreth appeared, heading toward the blue wormhole.
"Worf!" Sisko commanded. "Everything we've got! Now!"
A shaft of purple light sprang forward and gripped the Klingon ship.
"He is attempting to use shields to disengage us," Worf said.
"Keep us attached as long as you can," Sisko urged.
"Nooo!" Weyoun screamed as the view of the
wormholes began to shift and the Defiant was pulled forward by the ship it had
caught
"Dr. Bashir!" Sisko ordered. Commanded. Demanded. "Stand by on thrusters. Get us
into that wormhole!"
Sisko checked the time readout.