After they had beamed aboard the runabout, Orta immediately set about securing his prisoners. Keogh grudgingly admired the technique—Orta never put the weapon down, so he tied them up as best he could with one hand. Only after they were all sufficiently encumbered was he willing to put the weapon down and do a proper job with the knots—and even then, he made sure that the other two were in plain view and that he was between them and the weapon.
Orta had, of course, left their combadges on the moon.
Very professional, Keogh thought. But then, I’d expect no less.
Orta then went to the fore compartment. As soon as he was gone, Keogh looked across the mess table at Kira, who had a pensive expression on her face. “What is this prophecy he was talking about?”
Kira looked up. “Akwar’s Ninth Prophecy states that when Bajor’s moons align, then peace will reign. The thing is, the moons aren’t supposed to align for another two hundred years.”
Remembering what Gonzalez had said a few days ago, Keogh said, “Most of them will be. I think it’s today, now that I think on it.”
Dax, who looked more grim than usual, nodded. “In about half an hour, actually. Every moon except this one will be aligned.”
“But that’s not what the prophecy says,” Kira said. “So I don’t see how—”
“The artifact,” Dax said simply.
Kira’s eyes widened. “No.”
Keogh frowned, then realized what Dax was implying. “Lieutenant, do you expect me to believe that that weapon is powerful enough to knock the moon out of its orbit?”
“No, Captain, I don’t expect you to believe it,” Dax said snippily. “But what you believe doesn’t matter a whole lot. The point is, Orta believes it, and I’m willing to bet half a dozen bars of latinum that his plan is to mount that box onto the Rio Grande and try to bring the moon in line with the others.”
“Brava, Lieutenant,” came Orta’s mechanized voice from the hatch to the fore section. “That is, in fact, my precise plan.”
“There’s no way that thing of yours can accomplish this,” Keogh said.
“Oh, you’re wrong, Captain,” Orta said in a surprisingly quiet voice. “In fact, it is the least of what this wondrous device can do.”
Dax snorted. “You really think you can change the moon’s orbit just by firing a big gun at it?”
“I know I can—especially with this runabout to plot a precise course. I have no love for Starfleet, Lieutenant, but I will concede one thing: you build excellent machines. I’m quite sure that this ship’s computer can aid me in bringing all the moons into alignment. This will bring about true peace.”
“Bajor is at peace, Orta,” Keogh said. “The only one preventing that right now is you.”
“I’d pretend to be shocked at your naïveté, Captain, but you are Starfleet, after all. Bajor is at the very antithesis of peace. When the Cardassians left, Bajor would have lasted less than a year before the squabbling tore it apart. The only reason it didn’t was the fortuitous discovery of the wormhole. And even with that, the Circle’s attempted coup almost brought Bajor down less than a year after the withdrawal. The Federation and the Cardassians still fight with each other and with us. Then there’s the deplorable situation with the Maquis, and Bajor has been drawn into that, as well. The government still calls itself ‘provisional.’ Bajor is not at peace, Captain. Bajor will never be at peace, until Akwar’s Prophecy is fulfilled.”
“The prophecies aren’t there for you to make happen, Orta,” Kira said.
“Nonsense. If the Prophets have shown us anything, Nerys, it’s that we make our own destiny. We threw the Cardassians out, not the Prophets.” Orta then smiled again, as revolting a sight as Keogh had ever seen. “Besides, the prophecy only says that peace will come when the moons align—it says nothing about them aligning naturally.”
“There’s something I don’t understand,” Keogh said.
The sound that came out of Orta’s vocoder was probably a laugh. “I daresay there are several, Captain.”
Keogh ignored the barb. “You don’t strike me as the kind of person who gloats over his victims. You’re telling us all of this for a reason. I’m not a very patient man, Orta—I’d prefer you simply tell us what you want from us instead of boring us to tears with rhetoric.”
“My intent is not to bore you, Captain,” Orta said, moving closer to Keogh. “I wish you to understand the scope of what I’m trying to achieve. The prophecy is very clear.”
“Prophecies are never clear,” Keogh said angrily, “and you can’t seriously expect me to believe that a freak astonomical phenomenon is capable of bringing about peace.”
“You doubt the prophecies, Captain?”
“Of course.”
“So you have no intention of aiding me in my quest to bring about peace on Bajor?”
“I can’t see any good reason why I should.”
Orta nodded. “Understandable. So I’m sure I can’t count on you to provide me with the access codes to this runabout?”
“You haven’t tried to access any of the runabout’s systems?” Kira asked.
Laughing a mechanical laugh, Orta said, “I didn’t survive as long as I did by being a fool, Nerys. I know how well Starfleet likes to secure its secrets. If I even attempt to touch a control panel, I have every faith that the runabout will totally shut down. So you will provide me with the access codes.”
“And if I don’t?” Kira asked.
Orta held the box proximate to Keogh’s head. “Then the captain dies.”
“Don’t do it, Major!” Keogh shouted. “That’s an order!”
“You do have a death wish, don’t you, Captain?”
Keogh turned and looked up at Orta, who was trying to loom menacingly over the captain. But Keogh refused to be so menaced. “Ten years ago, Orta, I was captured by a Tzenkethi raider. While I cannot say that I endured anything on the level of what you went through in Cardassian hands, I fully expected to die. In my time, I’ve seen combat against Romulans, Tzenkethi, Cardassians, Tholians, and alien races that I’m quite sure you’ve never heard of. Each time, I was ready to die—because I swore an oath to—”
“Tell me, Captain,” Orta said, “does this speech have a point? Or an end? Or perhaps you do have a death wish, and are hoping I’ll vaporize you rather than listen to a pretentious Starfleet diatribe.” He leaned in close. Keogh noted that the man had mal-odorous breath. “You know nothing about suffering or dying for a cause, Captain—or about believing in it. Nothing. You took an oath? Words are meaningless without action, without passion—without faith.”
Keogh snorted. “Honestly? My speech was more interesting.”
Again the awful smile. “Perhaps.” Orta stood upright and looked at Kira. “But you understand my point, don’t you, Nerys? You know what the Prophets are capable of—if we just seize the moment. They gave us the prophecies for a reason. And we can make it work for us—transform Bajor into the place it was meant to be.”
Intellectually, Keogh was impressed by Orta’s skill with oratory, especially when handicapped with a vocoder. Philosophically, of course, he found the man infuriating. He was exactly the kind of fanatic Keogh had feared he would be, and the trouble he was causing now was as bad as anything he might have predicted to Sisko days ago on the Odyssey. If he pulled off this lunatic plan to fire his weapon at the moon, the damage it would do would be incalculable. Tide shifts, gravitational fluxes, weather disruptions—not to mention the likely loss of life, particularly on the farms below.
But much more infuriating was that Kira appeared to be buying his line.
“Don’t kill him,” Kira said in a small voice. “I’ll give you the codes.”
Furious, Keogh started, “Major, I gave you a direct—”
“I don’t report to you, Captain,” Kira said sharply. Then she turned to Orta and rattled off a series of numbers and Greek letters. Keogh held out some hope that the codes she gave were gibberish and Orta would enter th
em, be seen by the computer to be a fraud, and lock down.
“You have done the greatest service you can for your home, Nerys,” Orta said. “Believe me, you won’t regret this.”
Orta turned and headed back to the fore chamber. Within seconds, Keogh could feel the thrum of the runabout’s impulse engines, though the ship did not yet move, based on his glance at the viewport.
“You actually did it.” Keogh shook his head in dismay. “Major, I can’t believe you’d be so stupid! He’s a terrorist—Starfleet doesn’t deal with terrorists.”
“I used to be a terrorist,” Kira said in a tight voice. “I know how they think, I know how they operate—and I can assure you, Captain, that this is the only way. You have to trust me.”
Keogh couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Trust you? Major, you just handed over a Starfleet runabout to a lunatic! And why? Because he’s quoting some nonsense?”
To Keogh’s surprise, it was Dax who spoke. “It isn’t nonsense, Captain. Don’t forget, I’ve met the Prophets. I was with Benjamin when he discovered the wormhole, and I’ve had an Orb experience.”
Eyes wide, Keogh said, “Since when, Lieutenant, do you subscribe to the Bajoran faith?”
“I don’t,” Dax said in a tone Keogh found to be unconscionably smug, “I’m a scientist. And I don’t let narrow-minded prejudices get in the way of empirical evidence.”
With a snort, Keogh said, “I’m not the one who just handed a weapon of mass destruction to a madman.”
Kira sighed. “I don’t expect you to understand, Captain. But you will. Trust in the Prophets.”
Easily keeping his temper under control by dint of years of long practice—besides, he could hardly get a proper mad-on while tied to a chair—Keogh nonetheless was furious as he said, “Right now, Major, the only thing I can trust is my own officers—Lieutenant Kovac should have discovered our disappearance by now. I can only hope that he’s alerted DS9 and they’ve alerted the Odyssey. And when this is over, assuming we survive, I can assure both of you that you’ll face the full disciplinary wrath of Starfleet for what you’ve done today.”
Chapter Thirteen
“JOE, WE’LL BE AT BAJOR in ten minutes,” Gonzalez said. “Coming into range now.”
Shabalala hadn’t realized he was gripping the sides of the command chair until he let go and realized how cramped his long fingers were becoming. “Full scan,” he said.
“The Rio Grande is still in orbit. Can’t get a solid fix on it—there’s interference,” Gonzalez said, shaking her head in annoyance. “I can tell you that there are four humanoid life-forms on the runabout, but I’m not picking up any combadges.”
“What’s causing the interference?”
Gonzalez turned toward the command center and half-smiled. “Well, since the readings got clearer after I compensated for the interference generated by the Malkus Artifact, I’d say that. It’s not perfect resolution, unfortunately, but I’d say whoever’s on that run-about must have the artifact.”
“What about on the surface?”
The second officer gazed back down at her readings. “Plenty of lifesigns—mostly Bajoran and human. I’m reading combadges for everyone who should be there except for Captain Keogh, Commander Rodzinski, Lieutenant Dax, and Major Kira.”
“Odyssey to Kovac,” Shabalala said, reopening the channel to the surface. “Anything, Mislav?”
“No, sir. We haven’t turned up a trace of them, or Orta’s people.”
Shabalala muttered a favorite curse of his mother’s.
Odo, standing next to Talltree at tactical, said, “We have to assume that they’re dead, and the four people on the Rio Grande are Orta and his followers—and they obviously have the artifact. We may need to destroy the runabout.”
“General Order 16 is very specific, Constable,” Talltree said. “We have to retrieve the artifact, not destroy it.”
“You may not have that luxury, Lieutenant,” Odo said in a belligerent tone.
Shabalala said nothing. He still was thinking about Odo’s words.
The captain may be dead.
He shook his head. We don’t know that yet. We can’t assume it’s happened again. Even if it has, it isn’t my fault this time.
Unbidden, images came to him of the strange, mutated thing that Captain Simon had been transformed into by the Patniran weapon, of Shabalala raising his phaser and destroying her before she could kill him, and then being helpless while other crew members who had been similarly mutated destroyed the Fearless.
Not again, dammit, not again…
Gonzalez interrupted his reverie. “Joe, the Rio Grande is powering up.”
Talltree said, “That means whoever’s on board has the access codes. It could mean that either Kira or Dax gave the codes away before they were killed.”
“That is exceedingly unlikely,” Odo said. “Besides, it could have been Captain Keogh.”
“He didn’t know them,” Sisko said. “But I agree with the constable. We need to find out what’s going on on that runabout.” Sisko looked expectantly at Shabalala.
I need to make a decision. He forced away the image of Captain Simon, his dear friend, his commanding officer, dying at his hand, and focused on the situation at hand. “Hail the runabout, Mr. Talltree.”
“Yes, sir.” After a moment: “No reply.”
“Joe, I’ve managed to refine the scan,” Gonzalez said. “At least one of the people on that ship is giving off a bio-signature that matches that of a joined Trill.”
Sisko broke into a grin. “Dax.”
“She may have betrayed us, sir,” Talltree said.
“We don’t know anything, Lieutenant,” Sisko snapped. “And I’d advise you to be careful of who you accuse of betraying the uniform.”
“That’s enough!” Shabalala said. He was so busy wallowing in the past, he was losing control of the bridge. “Mr. Talltree, lock phasers on the Rio Grande, and open a channel.”
Talltree manipulated his console. “Phasers locked, channel open.”
Shabalala stood up, for no other reason than that he needed to stand alone—to be in command, not to sit uselessly next to Sisko. “This is Commander Joseph Shabalala of the U.S.S. Odyssey. If you do not respond to our hails, we will be forced to open fire.”
Several tense seconds went by. “Nothing, sir,” Talltree said.
“Joe, I don’t like this,” Gonzalez said.
Shabalala walked over to her console and stood next to her. “Don’t like what, Maritza?”
“I’m picking up some modifications to the weapons systems.”
“What kind of modifications?”
Grimly, she said, “Well, that’s the fun part—the interference is strongest there. To my mind, that says that they’re hooking the artifact up to the weapons array.”
“If they have the energy weapon,” Odo said, “then they could be attaching it to the runabout’s systems.”
“That’s my guess, too,” Gonzalez said.
Again, Shabalala muttered his mother’s curse. “Prepare to fire, Mr. Talltree.”
From one of the aft science consoles, O’Brien said, “Excuse me, Commander, but I’m picking up fluctuations in the Rio Grande’s power signature.”
Both Sisko and Odo shot O’Brien looks, then moved as one to the back of the bridge. “Is that what I think it is, Chief?” Sisko asked.
“Probably, sir.”
Frowning, Gonzalez said, “It’s just a minor power fluctuation.”
“That’s all it’s supposed to be,” Sisko said. “Commander, don’t fire on the Rio Grande.”
“What?”
“Trust me—let them power up the weapon.”
Less than a year ago, a Patniran doctor he didn’t know asked Joe Shabalala to trust her when she said that Captain Simon would suffer no ill effects. That bit of trust led to Shabalala having to murder his captain and watch as their ship was destroyed.
Sisko stepped down the horseshoe and stood eye to
eye with Shabalala. “Give them one minute. If Dax has done what I think she has, this will be over then. Please, Commander.”
(“Kill me, Joe. Please kill me.”)
Shaking off the memory of Captain Simon’s last words to him, Shabalala stared at Sisko’s intense brown eyes.
“Stand by, Mr. Talltree,” he finally said.
Talltree didn’t sound happy as he said, “Yes, sir.”
In Declan Keogh’s mind, the court martial was already in session.
Jadzia Dax and Kira Nerys stood before a tribunal. Keogh had chosen the three admirals he knew to be the toughest around—Brand, Haden, and Satie. No, wait, Satie had resigned in disgrace. Maybe Nechayev. Alynna’s always been a major pain in the neck. Besides, she was in charge of the Maquis mess in the DMZ, so she knew the players. Yes, she’ll be perfect.
Keogh imagined some useless JAG officer defending the major and lieutenant. He remembered some lieutenant commander or other who’d defended Keogh’s old Academy classmate during a court martial several years previous. He was an incompetent boob, as Keogh recalled, so he defended. The prosecution, of course, was handled by Keogh himself. So what if he wasn’t trained? This was his fantasy, after all.
“And so, sirs,” he said in a loud, clear voice, “it is my recommendation that Lieutenant Dax and Major Kira receive the full penalty for disobeying a direct order and aiding and abetting a known terrorist.”
Haden handed down the verdict: guilty. They didn’t even need to meet to discuss it. The three admirals just glanced at each other and nodded. Keogh’s case was, after all, airtight.
Then Keogh amended the situation. After all, they were entitled to some defense. Kira pointed out that she wasn’t in Keogh’s chain of command, as she had done on the runabout only minutes earlier, but Keogh blew holes in that theory quickly. She was subordinate to a Starfleet officer, Benjamin Sisko, and Sisko was subordinate to Keogh. Therefore, simple logic dictated that she was beholden to his orders.
The Brave And The Bold Book One Page 18
