Twist of Faith

by S. D. Perry

  The journey to the land hides, but is difficult; prophecies are revealed and hidden. The first child, a son, enters the Temple alone. With the Herald, he returns, and soon after, the Avatar is born. A new breath is drawn and the land rejoices in change and clarity.

  Jake rubbed his eyes, wincing at the hot and grainy feel of them, too excited to care much. It was late, hours after he normally went to bed, but he couldn’t sleep. He sat at the ancient chipped desk in his small field shelter, the translation and the original in front of him, writing and rewriting the text’s story in his mind. He’d lost count of how many times he’d read it, but if it was true…if he decided to believe it…

  …everything changes, and how can I not believe it? How can I deny what’s in front of me?

  He’d already verified an approximate age, making it a credible artifact. To get an exact date, he’d need access to equipment in B’hala’s lab complex; they had a sensor there for detecting the degradation of cytoplasmic proteins in plant cells, used specifically for pounded root parchment. It was amazing, how well-preserved most of the ancient Bajoran writings were, the materials treated by some method long lost to Bajor of the present; even the oldest books seemed to have held up better than many stone carvings from only a few centuries ago.

  The remnant in front of him was way beyond “old.” His tricorder had only been able to run a basic biospectral analysis, but that still put it as written between 30 and 32 millennia ago—putting it in the era of the tablet that had correctly foretold the Reckoning.

  And what it says…the son goes into the Temple and comes back with the Herald, the lost messenger who communed with the Prophets—and in time to witness the spiritually significant birth of an alien child.

  The translator’s dictionary said that avatar meant “embodiment of revelation” in the document’s context. The word for herald, “elipagh,” could also be translated as messenger or proxy, as carrier or bearer of news—and as emissary.

  The son, him. The elipagh, Benjamin Sisko. The Avatar—Kas and Dad’s baby, conceived in wartime, due in…five months, give or take. He’d have to get a ship, go into the wormhole by himself…

  “‘Prophecies are revealed and hidden,’” he said softly, and rubbed his eyes again. Was that meant for him? Did it mean that a revealed prophecy would be hidden, or that there were things that wouldn’t be revealed? Maybe it wasn’t a prophecy at all; a lot of the ancient writings contradicted one another, or foretold things that had never happened.

  But…it feels right. True. He wasn’t Bajoran, and didn’t share the Bajoran faith—but he’d seen and experienced enough not to doubt that the Prophets, whatever they really were, had an interest in the destiny of Bajor, and he knew from his father’s encounters with the wormhole beings that feelings counted for a lot. It felt true, and he couldn’t shake the distinct feeling that he was meant to see it.

  Jake shook his head, not sure where to put such an overwhelming thought—that millennia ago, someone had foreseen him. And written about it.

  He’d already tried to track down the prylar, but she was gone, or hiding. He wanted to know more, to ask her so many things. According to Site Extension, Prylar Istani Reyla had signed herself out for an indefinite leave of absence the day before. She’d been working alone in a newly excavated section of the tunnels, beneath B’hala’s foundation. The ranjen Jake had talked to obviously thought highly of her, commenting several times on both her dedication to the Order and her reputation as a scientist. Jake had been careful not to ask too many questions; until he decided what to do, he planned to take Istani’s advice.

  Think about it, and trust my heart. Easier said than done, when all he could think about was that his father might be waiting, expecting Jake to come and bring him home.

  He was too tired to think about much of anything anymore. Jake carefully wrapped the ragged parchment up and slid it into the top drawer of the desk, then stood and stretched. He had to try to get some sleep.

  He crawled into bed, tapping the manual light panel at the head of the cot and pulling the dusty coverlet to his chest in the sudden dark. He doubted he’d be able to fall asleep right away, but it was his last coherent thought before he drifted off into an uneasy slumber—and he dreamed again of Dad, dreamed that the two of them were flying through space without a ship, his father laughing and holding his small child’s hand as they swam through the infinite black.

  Chapter One

  The freighter was Cardassian, of an older class, and everyone on board was about to die.

  I’m dreaming, Kira thought. She had to be, but the awareness brought no relief. The details were too real, the sensations too vivid. She stood at the entrance of a large cargo bay, the curved and heavy lines of the ship obviously Cardassian, the kind once used to transport laborers and plunder during the occupation. And in front of her, sprawled amidst the broken crates and overturned bins, were a few dozen raggedly dressed Bajorans and a handful of Cardassian soldiers, gasping for air, many of them already unconscious, bathed in the dull glow of the ship’s emergency lights. Life-support failure.

  She clamped down on a flutter of panic, inhaling deeply—and though she could breathe easily, she had to clamp down even harder, her senses telling her that she couldn’t possibly be asleep. The air was cold and sharp, and she could smell the fading scents of sweat and fear and watery katterpod bean gruel, the smell of the Bajoran camps where she’d spent her short childhood. It was dark, the only light coming from emergency backup, casting everything in deep red shadow, and the only sound—besides the pounding of her heart—was the hopeless, laboring beat of slow asphyxiation, a chorus of strained and pitiful hisses.

  She stepped into the storage bay, afraid, struggling to stay calm, to try to make sense of what was happening.

  The clothes, the Cardassian’s weapons, the very status of the Bajorans—occupation. And from the bulkiness of the guard’s uniforms, probably from before she was born.

  Kira stepped further inside, feeling old defenses rise to the surface, grateful for them. Though bloodless, it was as terrible a death scene as any she’d witnessed. Except for the struggle to breathe, nobody moved. Most of the Bajorans had huddled into couples and small groups to die, clinging to one another for whatever pitiful comfort they could find. There were several children, their small, unmoving bodies cradled in the thin arms of their elders. Kira saw a dead woman clutching a pale infant to her breast and looked away, fighting to maintain control. The Cardassian soldiers were in no better shape; they still gripped their weapons but were obviously helpless to use them, their gray, reptilian faces more ashen than they should have been, their mouths opening and closing uselessly. The image of fish out of water came to her, and wouldn’t go away.

  Kira turned in a circle, dizzy from the helpless terror she saw reflected in so many eyes, so many more glazing as they greeted death—and saw something so unlikely that the disaster’s full impact finally gripped her, sank its dark teeth into her and held on tightly.

  Two young men, slumped together against the wall to her right, their stiffening arms around each other in a last desperate need for solace, for the consolation of another soul with whom to meet the lonely shadows of death. One was Bajoran. The other, a Cardassian.

  What’s happening, why is this happening? Her composure was slipping, the things she saw all wrong—foreign to her mind and spirit, a nightmare from without her consciousness. She was lost in some place she had never known, witnessing the final, wrenching moments of people she’d never met. Stop, this has to stop, wake up, Nerys, wake up.

  A new light filtered through her haze of near-panic. It filled the room, coming from somewhere above and toward the back of the cavernous space. It was the pale blue light she’d always thought of as miraculous and beautiful, the light of the Prophets. Now it threw strange shadows over the dying faces of the doomed men, women, and children, combining with the emergency lights to paint everything a harsh purple.

  She felt herself dra
wn toward the source of the light, breathing the air of her youth. For some reason, she couldn’t pinpoint the light’s origin. It was bright enough, and well defined—but there was a sort of haze at the back of the bay, obscuring the exact location. It was like looking at a sun from under deep water, the light source shifting and unsteady, far away. Kira walked on—and then she was in the haze, like a mist of darkness, and the light was as bright as a star’s, only a few meters in front of her.

  Nerys.

  A voice, spoken or thought, she wasn’t sure, but there was no doubting its owner—and there he was, emerging from the dark like a spirit, like a borhya. He stepped in front of the light and was enveloped by it, his face serene and aware, his deep gaze searching for hers. The Emissary, Captain Sisko. Benjamin.

  He’s been waiting for me….

  Colonel Kira…

  Kira, this is

  “…is Security. Colonel?”

  “Go ahead,” Kira croaked, and opened her eyes as she bolted up, instantly awake. Her room. Her bed. A man’s voice on the com…Devro?

  Dream, just a dream but it was so—

  “I’m sorry to wake you, Colonel, but there’s been an attack on board the station.” It was definitely Devro, newly assigned to security, and he sounded excited.

  Kira sat up, blinking, forcing herself to leave the dream behind. “What happened?”

  “Ah, I don’t have the details, Colonel, but it appears that at least one person was killed, possibly two. The lieutenant said that she’d meet you at Medical D.”

  Autopsy facilities. Kira felt a rush of anger. Quark’s, it had to be, and he was going to be sorry this time. There had been several drunken riots in his place in the past few months; no fatalities, but it had only been a matter of time. Just two weeks before, a female Argosian had stabbed one of Quark’s servers for mixing up a drink order. He’d been lucky to survive.

  I told him to start cutting them off earlier…and where the hell was security? After I specifically ordered higher visibility on the Promenade?

  “On my way,” she said, and Devro signed off. The computer informed her that it was 0530, only a half hour before she had to get up, anyway. She swung her feet to the floor but sat for a moment, eyes closed. Bad news after a bad dream, after a whole series of bad days. Frustrating ones, anyway, with the station’s overhaul running past schedule; she had enough to do without having to worry about the continuing stream of die-hard revelers on the station, still looking for a party to celebrate the end of the war. Or having to babysit her new security chief, a woman to whom inconstancy was no stranger.

  She dressed quickly, her anxiety growing as her mind began to work, as she woke up and considered the possibility that Quark’s had nothing to do with the incident. Maybe she should talk to Jast about trying again to request a few additional security details from Starfleet, just until things settled a little….

  …wishful thinking. Might as well have her ask for a few dozen Starfleet engineers while she’s at it, and the backup tactical and science cadets to fill out the duty rosters, not to mention medical. They’d have as much luck requesting a new station made out of gold-pressed latinum. The Federation’s postwar reconstruction efforts meant that Starfleet’s resources were spread thin, almost to the point of being ineffectual in some places. Not to mention their humanitarian work, the aid being extended to independent worlds and cultures that had been damaged by the war. Politically, it made sense—the new allies and friends they were making meant potential new Federation members, and if that meant that facilities like DS9 had to run overextended and understaffed for a while longer—well, those facilities would just have to make do with what they had.

  Some of us more than others. As if they didn’t have enough to do, DS9 had also been designated the official coordinator for the multi-societal relief efforts to Cardassia, which meant extra work for everyone on staff. With supply and aid ships from over a dozen worlds arriving and departing daily—supplemented by an ever-changing number of freelance “ships for hire”—there seemed to be a near-constant stream of problems great and small. Add to that a strange new emotional climate on the station, like nothing the colonel had ever experienced. Although Kira had faith in the good intentions of her people, with the overwhelming majority of the station’s nearly 7,500 inhabitants being Bajoran, she wasn’t so certain that DS9 was the best choice for the restoration effort, regardless of their position and capacity.

  First Minister Shakaar had disagreed, arguing that Bajor’s willingness to take point in the relief efforts would be an important step toward rapprochement with the Cardassians…as well as in Bajor’s renewed petition to join the Federation. “Besides, Nerys,” Shakaar had said, “you were there. You saw what it was like. How can we not help them?”

  The question, so gently asked, had left Kira unable to argue as she recalled the carnage and destruction the Dominion had wrought. There was a time, she knew, when she might have looked on Cardassia’s fate as a kind of poetic justice. But thinking back on the blackened, smoking ruins, the corpses that lay everywhere, the shocked and vacant faces of the survivors…It was no longer possible to view them as the enemy that had raped Bajor for half a century.

  But while convincing Kira of the role that Bajor, and DS9 especially, was to play in the healing of Cardassia had been relatively easy…the Bajoran populace was another matter. A Bajoran installation providing aid to the Cardassian homeworld? Irony was seldom so obvious, and the atmosphere of reluctant, often grudging charity from some of the Bajorans aboard the station was less than ideal.

  At least Starfleet had given her Tiris Jast. The commander had already proven herself able to work miracles when it came to administrative matters, among other things; after a somewhat rocky start, Kira’s new first officer had turned out to be a definite asset.

  It wasn’t until Kira checked herself in the mirror on the way out the door that she thought about the dream again, and was surprised by the sudden loneliness she felt, the loneliness she saw in her tired reflection. Was it just a dream? And if it wasn’t, what meaning was she supposed to take from it?

  It would have been nice to talk to Benjamin again, under any circumstances….

  “Get moving, Colonel,” she said softly, straightening her shoulders, her gaze hardening. She was the commanding officer of Starbase Deep Space 9, arguably the single most important outpost in the Alpha Quadrant, and there was a matter on board requiring her immediate attention. How she felt about it—or anything, lately—was of secondary consideration.

  Will of the Prophets, she told herself, and taking a deep breath, she stepped out of her quarters and started for mid-core.

  The colonel marched in looking alert and fully rested, like always, making Ro Laren wonder—and not for the first time—if the woman ever slept. Ro herself had been dragged out of bed on four hours of sleep, and was feeling it; her days of catching a few moments here and there and calling it even were long gone.

  “Report, Lieutenant.”

  Brisk and efficient, undoubtedly Kira’s finest qualities; Ro could respect her, at least. Too bad it didn’t seem to be mutual.

  “At this point, it appears to be a botched robbery attempt,” Ro said. “Two dead, the victim and the perpetrator, both Bajoran civilians. Dr. Bashir is conducting the autopsies—”

  “Where did it happen?” Kira interrupted. “The attack?”

  “Promenade, in front of Quark’s. I’ve got people talking to the witnesses now…”

  The colonel’s eyes had narrowed slightly, and Ro hurried on, remembering their last terse encounter. “There was a strong security presence in and around Quark’s, as you, ah, suggested, but it didn’t seem to matter. He stabbed the woman in front of a crowd, took her bag, and ran. Two of my deputies chased him to the second level, where he attempted to jump one of the railings. He fell badly, he died.”

  Kira nodded. “Who was he?”

  “We don’t have an ID yet. He came to the station yesterday, but apparentl
y he was using a false name. He wasn’t much of a thief, whoever he was; there was nothing in her bag but a few personal items. The woman was a monk, a Prylar Istani Reyla; she’d only been here two days, which makes me wonder if he somehow came after her specifically—”

  Ro broke off, surprised at the change in Kira’s demeanor. The color had drained from her face, and her eyes were wide and shocked.

  “Reyla? Istani Reyla?” Kira whispered.

  Ro nodded, uncomfortably aware that Kira knew the victim. “Yes. Colonel…are you all right?”

  Kira didn’t answer. She turned and walked away, headed for the door that led into the autopsy room. Ro hesitated, then followed her, wondering if she should say something else. Something comforting. She and Kira didn’t get along, but they weren’t exactly enemies, either. Shar had been pushing the idea that they were too much alike—both strong, stubborn Bajoran women with histories of following their own rules….

  …and if I was also judgmental and blindly pious, we’d definitely have something in common.

  Ro sighed inwardly as she stepped into the autopsy room, reminding herself that she’d rarely been accused of open-mindedness. Besides, she’d only been on the station for six weeks, and although she didn’t feel the need to prove herself to the many doubters on board—and doubted herself that it was possible—she was aware that even a grudging acceptance would take time.

  Dr. Bashir was speaking softly, standing over Istani’s body as Kira stared down numbly at the woman’s still face. Ragged circles of blood radiated from several wounds in the old woman’s chest, staining her monk’s robes a dark, shining crimson.

  “…several times, and with an erose blade. The atrioventricular node was destroyed, effectively severing neuromuscular communication between the chambers of the heart. Even if I’d been standing by with a surgical team, it’s unlikely that she could have been saved.”