Star Trek: Typhon Pact - 13 - The Fall: Peaceable Kingdoms

by Dayton Ward

  Ishan Anjar was just such a person, and Velk had taken an immediate liking to the Bajoran when fate saw fit to bring them both to the halls of the Federation Council within months of each other. Still mourning the loss of his family at the hands of the Borg when he began serving Ishan as the Bajoran was working his way up through the halls of power at the Federation Council, Velk finally had set aside his grief and immersed himself in his work. Like Ishan, Velk no longer was content to wait for the next interstellar power to come and put its boot on the Federation’s figurative neck.

  As Ishan advocated for stronger security, more ships, and installations to prepare for the next threats, Velk did everything in his power to ensure that the Bajoran’s voice was heard. Already possessing a reputation as one who let no obstacle prevent him from doing or getting what he wanted, the Tellarite had pieced together an impressive network of informants, confidants, and others willing to work for him for the right fee and favors in return. As time passed, Velk’s outlook changed, and his increasing approval for “the end justifying the means” took hold. Seeing that Nan Bacco seemingly was content to continue with the same sorts of policies that already had brought about mass destruction and now political turmoil in the form of the Typhon Pact, he began to posit ideas on how radical changes could be introduced. Bold action was vital, he knew, but what?

  Though Ishan displayed a genial, even paternal façade, his outspoken views on security and defense were a welcome change of perspective in the months after the devastating Borg attacks. Velk remembered thinking Ishan possessed an almost Tellarite-like sensibility when it came to debate and refusing to acquiesce to weaker viewpoints. Working together, Velk had helped Ishan shape his message, acting as an advocate for vigilance and strength in the new, post-invasion Federation. Never again, Velk vowed, should anyone be forced to endure the heart-wrenching sorrow that had gripped him from the moment his family was torn away.

  But, even Ishan Anjar had limits as to how far he was willing to commit to the cause. Yes, there were lines he was prepared to cross, but only at the expense of others, rather than himself. That always had been his nature. It was this character flaw that Velk had been able to exploit, but which inevitably had turned Ishan against even him, his closest and most trusted confidant.

  When Velk learned of a Bajoran from some remote planet formerly under Cardassian rule sniffing about, inquiring into Ishan’s background, he discovered the truth behind the Bajoran’s identity and what he had done on Jevalan. After addressing that potential embarrassment and the Bajoran doctor who had brought it forward, Velk realized he now had at his disposal the ideal person to affect the sort of real, rapid change that was needed. After all, if Ishan, or whatever his real name was, could kill dozens or even hundreds of his own people to incite rebellion and save thousands, what was killing one more person if it might ensure the security of billions? Already an influence within the council, and now within the line of succession should circumstances require such changes in leadership, Ishan was in the perfect position to benefit from an abrupt shake-up at the highest levels. He and Velk simply had to possess the courage to take the final, bold step to put their plan into motion: Remove Nanietta Bacco.

  The scheme had worked—flawlessly, in Velk’s opinion. Now Ishan was poised to be elected to permanent high office, campaigning on a platform of peace through strength and the resolve to never again be victimized by outside forces. Meanwhile, Velk was rotting in this cell, waiting for whatever fate Ishan might decree for him. The Tellarite knew that the only reason he remained alive was because Ishan was still looking for a way to reap some political benefit from having removed the Tellarite from his post, though he likely still was seeking a way to separate the illegal mission to Nydak II from his own complicity in Bacco’s murder.

  For a while, at least, I remain useful.

  The sound of a hatch sliding open intruded upon Velk’s thoughts, and he looked up to see a human male dressed in the gold-and-black uniform of a Starfleet lieutenant commander entering the detention block’s anteroom. The man was armed with a phaser holstered along his left hip, and he cast an indifferent glance in Velk’s direction before turning his attention to Cone, who had stood at the commander’s arrival.

  “Good evening, sir,” the lieutenant said. “What can I do for you?”

  Holding out a thin blue wafer of translucent material that Velk recognized as an isolinear data chip, the other man replied, “I’m Commander Hayden from Starfleet Security. I have transfer orders for Galif jav Velk. He’s being moved to a facility in Paris in preparation for his trial.”

  So, Velk mused, I was moved from Paris, after all, but to where? He had no idea how such information might be useful, but it still was a question worth pondering. How far had President Ishan seen fit to banish him?

  Cone frowned. “I’m sorry, sir, but this is the first I’ve heard of a transfer.”

  “It’s being kept low profile,” Hayden said. “The trial’s attracting a lot of media attention, and the president and the council want to avoid the whole thing turning into a circus.” He shrugged, offering what Velk recognized as a smile intended to disarm. “You know how these things are.”

  Though it was doubtful the younger officer did know how “these things” were, Cone still nodded. “Yes, sir.” Taking from Hayden the data chip, the lieutenant inserted it into a reader at his workstation and reviewed its contents. “Everything seems in order.”

  Velk said nothing as he endured the process of being fitted with a pair of wrist restraints, which then were secured to a magnetic belt cinched around his waist. It was not until Cone and Hayden escorted him from the detention area into the adjacent passageway before he cast a sidelong glance toward the commander.

  “My trial’s been scheduled?”

  Hayden replied, “Not yet, but there have been some new developments with your case. Your defense lawyers want to talk to you, but they don’t want to make the trip here, which is why I’m the lucky one who was sent to drag you back to them.”

  “And where is here, anyway?” As expected, his question received no reply.

  They reached a turbolift, and Cone punched a command string into the security keypad embedded into the bulkhead next to the doors. The lift opened once the code was entered, and Hayden gestured for Velk to step into the car.

  “Thanks for your help, Lieutenant,” Hayden said, offering an informal salute as the doors slid closed and the lift began to move upward.

  “So where am I being taken?” Velk asked.

  Hayden turned away from the doors, and when he raised his right hand, Velk saw that the commander now held his phaser.

  “Nowhere.”

  Twenty-nine

  Jevalan, Doltiri System

  Despite its crude construction, created as it was from whatever materials and other scrap could be scrounged, the temple, so far as Beverly Crusher was concerned, was beautiful.

  “This is amazing,” she said, stepping farther into the small, low-ceilinged chamber. Cut from solid rock, the walls, ceiling, and floor retained their rough, uneven texture. Much of that was hidden with crude tapestries fashioned from scraps of canvas or other materials, each presenting a unique, abstract design rendered with paint, charcoal, or whatever else their creators had been able to find. The familiar oval-shaped Bajoran symbol was a prominent feature of several of the tapestries.

  “Workers went to great lengths to conceal the temple’s entrance,” said Ilona Daret as he entered the chamber behind Crusher. “As I said before, none of the guards ever suspected anything.”

  The temple’s slight opening was nothing more than a hole drilled through a section of the tunnel where the rock wall formed a corner. With only small work lights providing just enough illumination to navigate the tunnel outside the room, the entrance itself was almost invisible. It was just large enough for an adult humanoid to step through, provided he ducked his head and shoulders. Daret already had shown Crusher the elaborate façade that had been pla
ced in front of the entry, consisting of a large piece of rock cut in a manner that allowed it to be set into the bend in the tunnel in such a way that it appeared in the low lighting as just another section of the wall.

  “Mosara learned of this place from one of the Bajorans who survived to be rescued from here,” Daret said. “According to that person’s recounting, it took six people to move the cover aside in order to access the temple. Mosara and I used an anti-gravity tool, of course.”

  Like other, similar shrines she had seen, the makeshift sanctuary was long and narrow. Metal poles, likely remnants from building materials used around the labor camp, had been placed in the rock floor along the walls and were mounted with a small flat platform, each sporting a candle of various size, shape, and color. The candles themselves were not lit, but Konya had taken a small work light from one of the other areas where excavation was taking place in order to provide illumination. Two pairs of low benches, fashioned from metal girders and supported with wide, stout wooden legs, were angled forward to face a raised platform sitting atop a piece of flat stone at the chamber’s far end. Positioned upon the dais was a large box that—although it might once have been rectangular—had been modified so that its sides bowed outward, and some kind of elliptical colored glass or other translucent material was set into the container’s side panels. The box also was adorned with painted etchings.

  “It’s a representation of an ark for one of the orbs from the Prophets,” Crusher said, running one hand along the container’s flank. “Someone made this?”

  “It’s a testament to the Bajorans’ devotion and strength of will that they undertook such risk. If the guards had found this, they would have destroyed it and hunted down anyone who had a hand in creating it.”

  Stepping onto the dais, Crusher moved behind the box and saw that its rear panel could be opened. Pulling it aside, she saw that within the cavity where an orb might reside inside an actual ark had been placed stacks of paper, parchment, cloth materials, and even thin pieces of wood, onto which were inscribed passages in what she recognized as native Bajoran writing.

  “Some of the workers recorded excerpts of scripture,” Daret explained, “recalling favorite or other appropriate passages from memory, and stored them here.” He cast a gaze around the room. “I truly hope that this place will be left intact, as a permanent memorial. It deserves to be seen by anyone who wishes to understand the truth and the harsh reality Bajorans faced here every day, and of my people’s role in their suffering. Perhaps it can serve as a reminder, so that such a travesty is never again perpetrated.”

  Crusher smiled. “You always were an idealist. Still, I can’t think of a more fitting tribute to the Bajorans who lived and died here.”

  Movement at the front of the room made her look up to see Tom Riker stooping low in order to enter the chamber.

  “Konya and Cruzen are making a sweep of the area,” he said. “So far as we can tell, we’re all alone down here, but it never hurts to be sure. The sun will be up in a few hours, so whatever we’re going to do, we should do it fast.” As Crusher had done upon first entering the temple, he paused at the threshold, allowing his gaze to take in the room before him. “Wow. This is something else.” He gestured with his thumb to indicate the tunnel behind him. “And that camouflage for the entrance? Genius. It almost makes you want to go hunting through the whole mine, looking to see what else might be hidden away down here.”

  “Mosara and I did that, on occasion, and other members of our expedition did so, as well. We found no other temples, but we did discover a few caches where weapons and other equipment had been concealed.” Daret shrugged. “After all, even here, the Bajoran resistance thrived as best it could. The weapons were removed, of course, but there still might be other hiding places. We’ll find them soon enough and handle them in similar fashion, for safety reasons if nothing else.” He gestured around him to indicate the temple. “However, this place has been left as undisturbed as we were able. Everyone working the site has respected its sanctity.”

  “Which makes it a good hiding spot for anything Mosara wanted to stash here,” Tom replied. “On the other hand, it seems kind of obvious.”

  Crusher said, “Not necessarily, and not when you consider how much trouble Mosara went to provide Ilona with very subtle clues. We may be overthinking this.” Looking around, she examined the temple’s contents. The room itself offered precious few hiding places. A quick check behind the tapestries and other items affixed to the walls revealed nothing, as did the benches for visitors to the sanctuary. There was the dais and the makeshift orb ark, of course, which were the first things Crusher might investigate, but she already had examined them and had not found anything resembling a hidden door or panel, and the dais itself was too heavy to move.

  Or, was it?

  It can’t be that simple.

  “Ilona,” she said, moving once more to the platform, “you said you and Mosara used an anti-grav lifter to push aside the rock covering the entrance?”

  Daret replied, “Yes, we did the first few times we came here, when we were still searching this part of the underground complex. We have retrieved remains from the tunnels and other chambers nearby, but we found nothing in here. Once it was decided by everyone not to disturb the site, we stopped closing off the entry.”

  Retrieving her tricorder from her jacket pocket, Crusher activated the unit and aimed it at the dais. At first the device’s readings were somewhat chaotic, owing to the rich concentration of raw mineral deposits embedded all around them in the rock. She adjusted the tricorder’s sensitivity settings, and the resulting feedback calmed a bit. “The platform is a single, solid piece.”

  “Yes,” Daret replied. “Mosara and I theorized that it was fashioned from a single slab of stone removed from a tunnel or other chamber opened up for mining purposes.”

  Another of her tricorder’s readings made Crusher frown; there was a discrepancy in the way the unit was reporting the composition of the rock floor beneath the dais. It took her several attempts at adjusting the unit’s readout before she realized what was causing the discrepancy.

  “There’s a pocket underneath this stone,” she said. “It’s small—less than a meter in diameter, but it’s almost two meters deep. With all the interference from the minerals in the rock, it would be easy to miss.” She looked up from the tricorder. “Think that’s what Mosara might’ve had in mind?”

  At the front of the temple, Tom was once again entering the chamber through the small opening, only this time he was carrying what Crusher recognized as a Cardassian version of an anti-grav lifter.

  “There’s a tool locker at the tunnel intersection,” he explained. “Look what I found.” Walking past Crusher and Daret, he moved to position the lifter atop the dais before activating it. He gripped its handle and pulled, and the stone platform rose from its resting place until it hovered a full meter above the temple floor. Crouching in order to afford herself a better look, Crusher smiled.

  “Bingo.”

  Daret kneeled next to her, and they both saw the small, ragged hole that had been carved into the rock. Crusher got the impression that the cavity had been cut in haste and without precision, as though the person who had created it possessed no real expertise with the required equipment. Inside the hole rested a burnished metal box. Using the anti-grav to set down the dais, Tom then applied the tool to removing the box from its hideaway. The container, long and thin, was more than a meter in height, but Crusher saw from its design that it was intended to lie on its long edge.

  “Why bury it on its end like this?” Daret asked as he and Tom worked to lay the box on its side.

  Crusher replied, “Maybe because it presented a smaller profile if anyone came looking for it with a tricorder. The minerals in the surrounding rock do a pretty good job of masking it, but if it had been buried lengthwise in a shallow hole, it might still be detectable without having to make a scanning adjustment.”

  Moving to knee
l before the container, Daret pointed to something etched into the metal lid’s surface. “See this? It’s Mosara’s name, written in Bajoran. This is it.” The box contained no locking mechanism, and he raised its lid. Inside, Crusher noted several storage cases of varying size, including one she recognized as similar in type to the stasis containers Daret had used in his lab. Each of the cases had been labeled in Mosara’s handwriting.

  “Remains,” he said, lifting the stasis case from the box and setting it aside. “Just as Mosara said he had done.” Crusher saw that the storage vessel also contained what looked to be the Cardassian equivalent to padd devices, along with several small, colored, translucent tubes that were a form of isolinear optical data storage rods. Each of the rods bore writing. Daret held up one of them. “His notes, I believe.”

  It took more than thirty minutes to inventory the storage box’s contents, during which Daret began reviewing the information stored on several of the data rods. Crusher, working from some of the notes Mosara had recorded during his examination of the remains, was using her tricorder to scan the samples the Bajoran scientist had stowed in the small stasis unit.

  “Mosara was right,” she said after a moment of scanning the remains with her tricorder. “This person was afflicted with Orkett’s disease, a common enough ailment for Bajoran children during the Occupation. I’m also detecting traces of donated bone marrow, which would’ve been necessary for this individual to have survived to adulthood.”

  Daret frowned as he listened to Crusher’s report. “Orkett’s disease. Why is that familiar to me, somehow?”

  “Like I said,” Crusher replied, “it was fairly widespread among Bajoran adolescents, particularly on the Bajoran homeworld, but it obviously made its way to the different labor camp worlds, too.” She gestured to the remains container. “This person could even have contracted it on Bajor before being transported here. After all this time, there’s just no way to know.”