Twist of Faith

by S. D. Perry

  Torrna strode purposefully toward the exit. “I will abide by whatever you decide in this room, Prefect,” he said as he walked, “but I will not sit here and listen to any more foolish ramblings. Just remember this one thing.” He stopped and gave the table one final glance. “Periki Remarro did not die so we could become part of the Bajora. Or part of Endtree. She died so we could be free. If we are to name ourselves for her, then we should never forget what she stood for.”

  And with that, he left.

  Chapter Three

  Kira found Torrna two hours later in his quarters. He was sitting on the windowsill, staring out the window at the port. Kira noticed that his quarters were clean, which was a first. Guess that’s how he spent the last two hours, she thought with amusement.

  “You want the good news or the bad news?” Kira asked as she entered.

  Torrna didn’t even look at her. “I find it impossible to believe that there is good news.”

  “Well, there is. Natlar rejected the Bajoran offer.”

  Shaking his head, Torrna said, “Amazing. I wouldn’t have given them credit for thinking that clearly.”

  “Why not?” Kira asked angrily. “You think you’re the only one who was fighting out there?”

  Torrna sighed. “I sometimes wonder.” He shook his head. “No, of course, you’re right, Ashla. I simply don’t want to see everything I—we fought for ruined by shortsightedness.”

  “Give Natlar a little credit, Antosso. She’s not about to throw everything out the window.”

  “I suppose not.”

  Kira wasn’t finished. She moved closer to Torrna and went on: “But give the Bajora some credit, too. What they’re trying to do is important. I know you don’t believe in the Prophets, but what they’re doing is bringing—bringing the world together.” She had almost said, “bringing Bajor together,” but that word would not be applied to the planet as a whole until after the Bajora succeeded in uniting it many years hence. “Don’t let a little bit of agnosticism blind you to that.”

  Chuckling, Torrna said, “‘A little bit of agnosticism.’ What a wonderful way of phrasing it. I may not be the most spiritual person in the world, Ashla, but—” He hesitated. “Perhaps you’re right. But even if I thought the Bajora were the most wonderful people in the world, I wouldn’t want to become part of them. Someday, maybe, but not today. Not after all we’ve fought for.”

  Kira put a soothing hand on Torrna’s shoulder. “I know, Antosso. Believe me, I know. But you can’t blind yourself to a good thing just because you don’t like it.”

  “I know that.” He smiled. “Well, at least, I sometimes know that.”

  Taking in the newly cleaned room with a gesture, Kira asked, “That why you had the cleaning frenzy?”

  Torrna laughed. “It was either that or punch through the walls—and I do have to live here.”

  Wincing, Kira said, “Well, actually, no, you don’t. That’s the bad news—the prefect wants you to relocate to the port and set up your office there to serve as liaison to the Endtree fleet.”

  It took only a second for Torrna’s face to go from amused contriteness to vicious fury. “An office? Inna hasn’t even asked her government’s permission yet, but Natlar wants me to set up an office?”

  “She’s hoping for the best,” Kira said with a shrug. “Besides, after your performance today, I think she wants to keep you far away from the capitol building.”

  “Yes,” he said bitterly, “to keep my voice from being heard.”

  Kira smiled. “Antosso, even from the port, your voice is going to be heard.”

  Torrna whirled on her, then let out a long, hissing breath that sounded like a deflating balloon—apt, since the crack seemed to deflate his anger. “How do you do that, Ashla?”

  “Do what?”

  “All of this.”

  “I haven’t done anything, Antosso.”

  “You may not think so, but you have been a most valued right hand. And one I am reluctant to lose. If I am to be exiled to Natlar Port—”

  “What?”

  He smiled. “The resolution to pass the name change has been postponed until the prefect isn’t in the room, since she’d never let it come to a vote otherwise. In any case, if that is where I am to be sent, I want you by my side. To guard my back and to keep me from making a complete ass of myself.”

  Kira hesitated. “Can I think about it?”

  “Of course. Let me know tomorrow. It will take me that long to pack up my own belongings and inform Lyyra and the boys that we’ll be moving.”

  “Moving where?” came a voice from the doorway.

  Kira turned to see a large, stout woman with a mane of red hair to match Torrna’s own standing in the doorway to Torrna’s quarters. She had met the general’s wife only once, but she was probably the only person who could stand up to Torrna and not be killed for their trouble.

  “I am to be the new liaison with the Endtree fleet that will be occupying the port.”

  “Good. The change in climate will do some good. The humidity opens your pores, you know.” She turned to Kira. “How are you, Nerys? Is the arm healing well?”

  Lyyra was an apothecary, and the first time Kira had met her was when she’d given her a remedy to help heal her arm faster.

  “Well enough,” she said neutrally. I’d kill for a dermal regenerator, but this’ll do.

  “I still want to know what you’ve done to keep your teeth so perfect.”

  “Nothing special.” Not wanting to pursue this line of questioning, she said, “I need to get going—and think about your offer. I’ll talk to you tomorrow. Good to see you, Lyyra.”

  Chapter Four

  Kira Nerys lay on the bunk in the barracks that she shared with a dozen other soldiers. It had been surprisingly easy to readjust to sleeping in uncomfortable beds or no beds at all. Since arriving here—

  Whenever that was…

  —she had either slept on cold ground or on uncomfortable beds, either way crammed into a too-small space with dozens of other soldiers.

  Just like the good old days, millennia from now.

  Kira’s memories of arriving in Bajor’s past were hazy. She often didn’t bother trying to think about it, simply accepting what her senses told her as reality.

  Tonight, facing the end of the conflict that had raged since she arrived here—

  However that happened…

  —and the start of something new, she once again cast her mind back to see how she should proceed forward.

  The last thing she remembered with any clarity was that arid desert planet in the Delta Quadrant.

  Everywhere she looked on the ground was sand, broken very rarely by bits of plant life, and the one freshwater lake that she had made sure to land near. It was flat land, with the only variations being the curvature of the planet itself. Not even any hills or mountains or sand dunes in sight.

  She’d gone there and abandoned her runabout in order to block a gateway, a portal in space through which deadly theta radiation was flowing into orbit around the inhabited planet of Europa Nova, in the Alpha Quadrant. Kira’s actions had prevented one lethal piece of radioactive waste from going through the gateway, thus saving the lives of the Europani as well as the task force she herself had assembled to evacuate the planet.

  But to do that, she’d also had to abandon her companion, the Jem’Hadar named Taran’atar, who had stayed behind to fight a Hirogen hunter, keeping him occupied while Kira blocked the gateway.

  After that, she couldn’t recall what happened. She knew that she found a gateway on the planet where there had been none before. She knew that the theta radiation on the planet had grown to fatal levels.

  And she knew that she was now many thousands of years in Bajor’s past, fighting in a rebellion that the history of her time had long forgotten. She wasn’t even sure how long it had been since she’d arrived in this time. All she was sure of was that she no longer had the radiation sickness she’d been afflicted
with—

  —and the Prophets had something to do with her sojourn to the past.

  Maybe.

  The gateways weren’t built by the Prophets, after all, but the Iconians—in fact, there weren’t any gateways within ten light-years of the Celestial Temple. Based on the reports she’d read en route to Europa Nova, the gateways had not only come in all shapes and sizes, but types. Some even seemed to work inter-dimensionally—so it was quite possible that they could move through time as well.

  (Of course, the Orb of Time had that capability, too, as Kira knew from more than one firsthand experience…)

  Still, she hadn’t questioned her odyssey, simply because it felt right. Once before, during the Reckoning, she had served as a vessel for the Prophets. That same feeling she’d had then, she had now.

  Well, okay, she thought wryly, it’s not exactly the same—then I couldn’t even control my own actions. But I can’t shake the feeling that They’re the reason I’m here, somehow.

  She lay awake on her pallet, listening to the sounds of the other slumbering soldiers. Some snored, some mumbled in their sleep, some simply breathed heavy. Until the Cardassians pulled out of Bajor, Kira Nerys had always slept in large groups of people, so tuning out the sounds came easily to her. In fact, when she’d first been assigned to Deep Space 9, one of the hardest things had been learning to sleep in a room by herself.

  But sleep eluded her, not because of the noise, but because she wrestled with her conscience. Fighting with the rebels had been an easy choice. Agreeing to accompany Torrna to his new duties at the Natlar Port was somewhat less so.

  On the one hand, she was concerned about altering the past. On the other, very little was known about the history of this region.

  If the Prophets had sent her here—and she felt at the core of her pagh that they were involved somehow—then they’d done it for a reason. She needed to continue down the path that was set before her.

  Dying didn’t concern her. She had accepted the reality of her own death in the Delta Quadrant. As far as she was concerned, any living she did from this point forward was a gift. That was why she had no compunction about fighting alongside Torrna with weapons far more primitive and, in their own way, more brutal than any she used in the resistance.

  Besides, she thought, I have to believe that I’m here for a reason. There are far too many similarities to my own life for this to be a coincidence.

  She resolved to accept Torrna’s offer first thing in the morning.

  Within minutes of making that resolution, she fell into a deep, peaceful slumber, unbothered by the breathing and snoring around her.

  Chapter Five

  “Look, Torrna’s not going to bite your head off if you take this complaint to him.”

  “Are you sure?” The merchant looked dubious. More than that, he looked scared to death. “I’ve heard about how he drove off the Lerrit Army by breathing fire into their camp and setting them alight!”

  Kira tried not to laugh, but she did at least keep an encouraging smile on her face. “I can assure you that his days of breathing fire are long in the past. Just go to him and tell him that you object to the inspections. I can’t guarantee that he’ll do what you ask, but he will listen. Just give him a chance.”

  The dubiousness did not leave the merchant’s face. “If you say so.”

  “I say so. He should be back in the next day or two, and I’ll make sure you get to see him, all right?”

  “Fine. Thank you, ma’am.”

  Nodding, Kira excused herself from the merchant, leaving his quarters and going out onto the deck of the docked merchant trawler. It never failed to amuse her, this fear that people had of Torrna. Mainly because she knew that his bluster was worse than his bite.

  She also had to wonder, though, if this was what people thought of her after the Cardassian withdrawal. Did people fear that she would breathe fire? Was that why she had been sent to Deep Space 9? After all, she’d been assigned as first officer and Bajoran liaison before the discovery of the wormhole turned the station into a major port of call. She’d never had any illusions that it had been done to get her out of the way of the provisional government, who found her intemperate ways to be too much for them to handle—at least nearby. So they sent her into orbit.

  Natlar had all but done the same to Torrna. The disruptive influence he could have in the council chambers—as evidenced by the way he all but took over the meeting shortly after the Lerrit Army’s final retreat—was probably seen by the prefect as an impediment to actually getting anything done.

  Kira walked down the gangplank of the merchant’s ship to the marina and took a deep breath of the sea air. She’d lost track of how long she’d been serving as Torrna’s adjutant at the Natlar Port, but she’d been enjoying it immensely—particularly now that the weather was warmer, the sun was shining, the Korvale Ocean was a clear green, and a lovely breeze was pretty much her constant companion every time she walked outside. She hadn’t spent much time near the sea prior to this, and when she did, it was during her days in the resistance. She had other things on her mind, then.

  She nodded to the assorted dockworkers who passed her by, then whirled around when someone cried, “Look!”

  The Perikian Peninsula jutted out into the Korvale Ocean along the southern end of the coast of the continent. Any ship that came down the coastline from the west would have to, in essence, come around a corner and therefore would not come into sight from the marina until it was almost ready to dock.

  Right now, one of the largest and most impressive ships that could be found on the planet was coming into view around that bend. It stood at ten meters above the surface of the ocean, with the green-and-black flag of Endtree whipping in the breeze from the mast.

  Kira peered more closely and noticed that there was a second flag under it: the flag of the Perikian Republic. Interesting, Kira thought. That wasn’t there when they left.

  The ship was Admiral Inna’s flagship, the Haeys, returning a day early from their investigation of the reports of pirate activity.

  Several people on the marina stopped what they were doing to see the flagship approach the dock. As it settled into port, a cheer started to break out, which spread all the way across the marina. Kira found herself joining in the cheer—and she wondered how much of it was general goodwill toward Admiral Inna’s fleet and how much was the new presence of the Perikian flag.

  Within half an hour, Inna and Torrna had extricated themselves from the admiring crowd. Kira noted that they had been chatting amiably as they approached the gangplank before they were set upon by the admirers. Quite a switch, she thought, from all the sniping they’ve been doing. The admiral went off to consult with the captains of the other fleet ships in dock, and Torrna walked with Kira back toward their office in the rear of the marina.

  “So what happened?” Kira asked.

  “We found the pirates and took care of them in fairly short order. They didn’t have anything to match Murent’s cannon.”

  Smiling, Kira said, “‘Murent’? That’s new.”

  “I beg your pardon,” Torrna said, a little indignantly.

  As they approached the office, nodding to the sergeant at the desk, Kira said, “It wasn’t that long ago that the only way you referred to her was as ‘the admiral’ or ‘that damned woman.’”

  To Kira’s surprise, Torrna actually blushed, his skin turning the color of his hair and beard. “I suppose so. But she showed me something on this trip that I didn’t expect. She was efficient yet merciful with the pirates, she was very effective in questioning the pirate leader without being unnecessarily brutal, and she agreed to fly the Perikian flag.”

  “I was going to ask you about that.”

  They entered Torrna’s tiny office. The general sat behind his rickety wooden desk, which was cluttered with assorted pieces of paper that required his attention. Torrna ignored them and instead poured himself a drink from the small bar that sat under the window lookin
g out onto the mainland. Torrna had specifically requested a north-facing office so he could look out on, in his words, “the republic that I fought for, not the ocean that is controlled by someone else.”

  He offered Kira a drink, which she declined. They liked their drinks a little less smooth in the old days, she had thought after the first drink she had shared with Torrna, and she made it a point to avoid the stuff when possible.

  “It took surprisingly little argument,” he said as he sat down. “I pointed out that her fleet was there at the invitation of the Perikian government and was there to protect Perikian interests, so it made sense that they should fly our colors. Not that she gave in completely, of course…”

  “Let me guess, you wanted the Perikian flag on top?”

  Kira had spoken with a modicum of facetiousness, but Torrna leaned forward and said gravely, “These are our waters, Ashla. We must never forget that.”

  “I haven’t,” she said with equal seriousness.

  She also noted that she’d said “the Perikian flag,” not “our flag.” Perhaps a minor point, but, even though she had fought for the republic’s independence, even though she now worked for Torrna, she still couldn’t bring herself to think of this as home. She knew this was the right place for her to be, but in the back of her mind was the constant feeling that this was not her new home, that she was only visiting. It made no sense to Kira on the face of it, and she wasn’t sure what to think of these feelings.