by S. D. Perry
The body on the narrow table between them convulsed sleepily and gave a ragged, guttural exhalation—the last sound it would make. The blood ceased to pump, the woman’s thin, alien face relaxing.
“Horrible,” Kalisi said, unable to help herself.
“This one stayed unconscious, at least,” Crell said, with no emotion save for the affable tint that usually colored his voice. “Your reaction strikes me as slightly hypocritical, darling. You’ve devoted your entire adult life to designing weapons that target and kill them.”
Kalisi stared at him. “Since my detection grid was installed, combat deaths of both Bajorans and Cardassians have been reduced exponentially. My work has prevented unnecessary suffering.”
Her lover nodded. “As will mine,” he said evenly. After a moment, he leaned in and resumed cutting, and Kalisi left him.
The ground unfolded beneath him, broad and green and thick with shadows. Odo was tired—he’d had so little time to regenerate—but decided it was for the best that he just approach these resistance people now and be done with his task. In the short time since he’d left Mora’s care, things had happened so quickly, the environments and faces and rules constantly changing. He wished for time to assimilate his new experiences, to draw conclusions, but away from the laboratory, he’d discovered that time moved differently; it seemed that there was not always opportunity to stop and think.
A final stretch of his wings, and he landed in the mountain pass that Sito Keral had told him of, hopping across a fallen tree, fluttering for balance. He became a small tyrfox that could amble effectively over the rocky ground.
It was exhilarating to fly, but being a bird was not easy. Flying was new to him, and tiring—not to mention a little frightening. Odo had never been exposed to such great vistas of height before, nor the perpetual biting wind that came with it. His experience until recently had been limited to what the laboratory had been able to provide. The possibilities of what he could do, what he could be—it was more to consider, more to process. The sooner he had finished his errand, a favor that he felt he owed the kind villagers, the better.
It took him only a short time to find the small opening in the rock, concealed by thick brush, but he could see that the brush had been pushed aside sometime recently. Someone had come through here, though it surprised him that a humanoid would clamber through such a tight passage. He transformed into a vole and entered the chamber, which immediately plunged into dense blackness. He adjusted his eyesight and made his legs longer, guessing that the distance to the resistance fighters within was considerable.
He traversed the tunnels for a long while, noting that there was more than one passage to go through. He heard many things—water and insects, other small, warm-blooded bodies moving through the dark. Finally, he heard voices, melodic whispers on the dusty air, and he followed the sounds. When he’d found the tunnel that seemed to definitively lead to the source of the conversation, he morphed back into a humanoid.
He hesitated, listening for just a moment. The voices were raised in argument, he was sure.
“Kohn Biran?” He called out into the tunnel. There was an abrupt silence, and then a lone voice responded, strained and careful.
“Who’s there?”
“I come from Ikreimi village, to deliver a message from Sito Keral.”
Another beat of silence. “I know you, friend?”
Odo was not sure how to respond. “We have not met,” he said finally.
“Perhaps you should introduce yourself,” the voice said.
“I must warn you,” Odo called before entering the passage, “my appearance is…unusual.”
The man said nothing else, so Odo entered the tunnel, which was larger now, so that he could expand to his usual height as a humanoid, and made his way to a much larger grotto; dimly lit with a few rudimentary torches. Its furnishings were plain and rough. A table—piled high with wooden dishes and the components of mismatched computer systems—some stools, heaps of bedrolls along the uneven walls. Two men were in the room, standing next to rough wooden benches, their posture tense—whether because they did not expect a visitor or because they had been quarreling, Odo could not say.
“I come with important news,” he said, the words he had memorized.
“And what might that be?” one of the men asked, and Odo recognized his voice as the one that had called to him from the tunnel. This must be Kohn Biran, the cell’s leader. Odo deduced that he was older than the other man, his heavy beard and thick, wild hair streaked with silver. The other man was no less unkempt, but appeared slightly younger.
“The anti-aircraft component of the detection grid. There is a way to reprogram it.”
“Go on,” Kohn Biran coaxed, looking at his companion.
“A code sequence may be entered to override the program’s diagnostic,” Odo continued. “It will alert the system to recognize Bajoran flyers in the same category as Cardassian craft, allowing raiders to leave the atmosphere unharmed. This is a procedure that would have to be performed on each tower individually; it will not be effective for the system as a whole.”
The two men began to speak excitedly. “The comm relays—we can finally send people out to repair the comm relays—”
“We can regain contact with the others—”
“…And if it works, the towers in other provinces—other continents—can be disconnected—”
Kohn turned back to Odo. “What about the biosensors?”
“I have no information about how to disable that aspect of the detection grid.”
“But you have the code sequence for the flight sensors?”
“I have it memorized,” Odo told him, and began to recite the code he had carefully remembered. The Bajoran asked him to repeat himself once, and Odo complied willingly. “If there is any doubt about my integrity or ability, someone may be sent to Ikreimi to confer with Keral for himself,” he suggested.
Kohn studied him for a long moment, his eyes clear and sharp, then shook his head.
“That won’t be necessary, Mr….”
“Odo,” he said. He felt that something more was required, so he added, “And I appreciate your trust in me.”
“Well, the resistance functions on trust,” the man told him, extending his hand. Odo clasped his arm.
“I’m Kohn Biran, and this is Ma Jouvirna.” The other man nodded his head.
“You are welcome to stay here, Mr. Odo. The rest of my cell has gone out for provisions. You must be hungry…”
“That will not be necessary,” Odo told him, “though I thank you.” Just as Mora had taught him. Thinking of Mora, he felt a thing he’d long known, but had only recently come to understand. Resentment, that was the word. So much to see and do, so much to experience, and Mora had wished to keep him in the lab, had wished to keep him from the world. He stared at the two men for just a moment longer before ducking his head to dismiss himself, and then he turned and backed out the tunnel, morphing again into a vole and scampering back out the tunnel, the way he had come.
Quark had welcomed Natima home with open arms, and their trysts had continued, to their mutual satisfaction. But today, this very day, Quark had received the bulk of the main transfer to his personal account, credit that he’d garnered using Natima’s access code. And when he’d seen the damages, he’d realized that his time with Natima was over. The feeling was a weight in his chest, a tightness in his throat, strangling his responses to his customers as they made their orders. Quark wished very much that he could just be alone today, but the bar needed him; his profits weren’t going to make themselves.
Not that I can’t afford it, he thought, considering what he’d just earned. The thought was like an invisible jackscrew clamped down on his heart, for there was no way Natima wasn’t going to notice what Quark had done. It had been one thing to make a few false purchases that her employer would attribute to Natima herself, but when that had turned out to be so easy, Quark could not resist using the code for
further gain. He had concocted a false acquisition number for himself, and used her purchase authorization to make an order to a company that did not exist, payable to an untraceable account in the Bank of Bolias. Untraceable to anyone, of course, but Quark, for he had opened the account himself. It was foolproof—that is, it was foolproof until someone from the Information Service alerted Natima to the discrepancy on her purchase records. That day should be coming around any time now.
Quark tried to busy himself stacking and restacking the glasses beneath the bar, trying to hypnotize himself with the monotony of the activity, but he couldn’t block out the creeping misery he felt. He wasn’t sure what had come over him, but whatever it was, it was obviously built into his very constitution, and he supposed he just couldn’t help himself. If only he could believe that would be a sufficient excuse for Natima! Somehow, he doubted very much that she would accept it.
“Brother!” It was Rom, coming up behind him so suddenly that Quark almost dropped the glasses he held in each hand.
“Rom, I wish you would refrain from ambushing me in my own establishment,” Quark snapped. “What is it?”
“Uhhhh…it’s that woman again. That Cardassian female. She’s trying to find you.”
“She’s here?” Quark looked around, panicked. Should he duck under the bar?
“No, not this time. She’s on the comm system again. She wants you to meet her in her quarters tonight.”
Quark tightened his grip on one of the glasses as if he would crush it. He cleared his throat, and set the glass down underneath the bar, turning the other one over in his hands. “Tell her I can’t, I have to work a late shift tonight because…because some Bajorans who were supposed to come for cleanup duty never showed.”
The aged Bajoran busboy turned to gape as he overheard the lie.
“Get back to work!” Quark screamed, almost hurling the glass at the half-blind old idiot.
“But, brother, the Bajorans are right over there,” Rom supplied helpfully. “And she keeps calling and calling. This is the fourth time today.”
“I’m aware of that, Rom,” Quark said, as carefully as if he were speaking to a child—a thick child. “But I want you to tell her that anyway, because it is easier than telling her the truth, which is complicated. And also private,” he added.
“Okay,” Rom said, shrugging. “But…it feels wrong.”
Quark’s voice was tight. “Rom, unless you want me to throw you and Nog out on your lobes—”
“Fine, Quark, fine!” Rom replied, agitated. “I’ll do it! But I don’t have to like it!” Rom scurried off to answer the comm, and Quark set the glass down underneath the bar with a dull clang. If Rom’s intolerable honesty kept up, he might have to have his brother arrested again. He didn’t like to do it, but occasionally it was necessary to frame Rom for some minor infraction just to get him out of the way for a night or two. Of course, he always dropped the charges in the end, but still, it was a hassle that he would have preferred to avoid, and anyway, Thrax was getting wise to it. He licked his lips and steadied himself for a moment before a large group of soldiers entered the bar all at once, and Quark looked up with his customary smile, more artificial than usual.
“Welcome to Quark’s,” he said cordially. “What’ll it be?”
The soldiers were not in the mood for conversation, which normally would have been preferable to Quark, but today he regretted it; the distraction of idle chatter would have been welcome. He poured several glasses of kanar and handed them around, accepted his payment on padds and in cash, and even stopped to rub his fingers over the currency, as he often did, almost as an unconscious inclination. But the sensation of hard latinum in his hands had little of its usual effect on him today.
It occurred to him that there wasn’t much purpose to making profit when it was only going to be accompanied with such doubt. But he quickly chased the thought away, experiencing a surge of shame at the notion. This must be exactly what Gaila and his mother were talking about—going soft, losing focus of what was really important in life. After all, love was temporary; everyone knew it didn’t last. Latinum, though—that was forever. Maybe it couldn’t keep you warm at night, but…
Who needs it, he snarled to himself, and went back to the distraction of stacking glasses, reviewing in his mind the day’s hefty revenue margin. If that wasn’t enough to soothe his nerves, then nothing would.
Kira had been the first to volunteer for this one. She knew Tahna Los was furious that she was the one who had been assigned to reprogram the sensor towers, but since he had been out on a provision run when Kohn Biran got the news, Kira claimed the job for herself uncontested. The older members of the cell weren’t especially eager to do it, but Kira and Tahna had built up a friendly rivalry between themselves, and she knew he was burning with resentment to think of her getting the credit for this job.
She worked her way across Serpent’s Ridge, keeping to the thick undergrowth of the wooded hill as she headed for the tower. She moved quickly, but not with haste, finding the softest step, the deepest shade of the late afternoon. The days were getting shorter, but it was still warm out, still mostly green. She’d thought she was in good shape, but after so long hiding in the tunnels, she’d gotten lazy. Her ankles and back ached with the unfamiliar effort of staying unheard, unseen, and her adrenaline shot up at every sound, birds and small animals that she’d all but forgotten about.
Not that it would matter. She could be the fastest, quietest runner in the world, and if the sensors were able to pick her up, there would have been soldiers on to her by now. As with all of the active missions the cells took part in, she had to be carefully shielded for this venture, but there was always the chance that the shields would fail; despite Mobra’s careful attention to detail, there was a first time for everything.
I’m small, though. Smaller than Tahna, anyway. And just small enough to make all the difference apparently. It was a suspicion that had grown within her for a long time, but not so much that she would have gone out unshielded.
She could see the automated tower less than a half tessipate ahead of her, rising from the apex of the winding ridge. Thankfully, this one wasn’t too far from the tunnels; the next closest was eight, nine days on foot. Still, she was nervous. Even the dense cover of the woods high on the ridge felt too exposed, and she had to climb the tower, melt the panel lock, and plug in a whole series of carefully memorized passcodes and commands. What if the lock didn’t melt? What if she forgot a number or a character? What if whoever had cracked the code in the first place had made a mistake?
I’ve hacked a hundred system panels, she told herself. And I won’t forget. And if there was a mistake in the code’s translation, there was nothing she could do about it, anyway. Worrying wouldn’t rewrite it for her.
The sensor tower was a slender metal cage that rose well over the tree line, built of the dusky matte composites that the Cardassians favored, that they manufactured at a massive plant in the southern highlands. Surely there was no ambush, no reptilian squad hidden in the shadows, waiting for her to show herself. Kira took a deep breath and stepped out from the cover of the trees, moving quickly to the tower’s base before she had a chance to second-guess the action. This wasn’t a job to linger over.
She approached the tower and shifted her small pack to one hip before starting to climb, the structure’s design creating its own ladder. The panel she wanted was about midway up, perhaps four times her height from the ground. Not a terrible fall, but bad enough. She concentrated on the rungs one at a time, holding tight, always looking up, and finally, the boxy computer relay access panel was in front of her.
An evening breeze blew, cool through the late heat of the day. She uncoiled her belt with one shaky hand, clipping each end to the tower’s metal hook-rings, creating a simple sling she could lean against. She felt horribly exposed, sitting on top of the trees, and quickly reached into her pack and drew out a slender vial about the length of her index finger. She
uncapped the vial, dripped its contents onto the duranium lock that sealed the panel. The solution hissed and reeked, the lock dissolving as the magnasite did its work. Kira turned her head away from the acrid fumes, ignoring the magnificent view, all too aware that it was still light enough for her to be seen. Early evening was the best time for one of their raiders to lift out, all of them agreed—the setting sun caused problems with the Cardassian visual systems—but for her own sake, she wished it was dark.
A thin ting as what was left of the metal turned brittle, and the panel was open, the tiny screen and keypads lighting up.
Access first, she told herself, using the trick Lupaza had taught her to memorize the long list of codes, breaking it down into mental pictures and associations. 2698178, she thought, tapping it in carefully. Twenty-six hours in a day. Keltis had ninety-eight prophecies. Seven plus one was eight.
She touched the input bar and the screen blinked once, twice, a third time—And someone screamed, so loud and close that she lost her grip on the tower, fell back against the sling, her knees banging into the structure hard enough to hurt. The sound stretched impossibly long as Kira scrabbled for the metal rungs again, her breath coming in shallow sips, the alarm klaxon tearing through the empty canyon from the top of the tower. The scream rose and fell, alerting the world to her trespass.
Kosst! She considered running for almost a second, disregarding the impulse in less time. She could afford a few minutes. She forced herself to think of the entry code. Twenty-six hours, Ninety-eight prophecies, seven plus one is—
