Star Trek: Terok Nor 02: Night of the Wolves

by S. D. Perry

  His face was more gaunt than it had been when he first left, the soft edges of his childhood replaced with the craggy features of an adult. He sported a new scar that crept diagonally across his left cheek, but his eyes were still the same, warm and wise. She stood and hurried to embrace him, her tears joyful now.

  After a long, lovely moment they parted, Opaka smiling up at her boy. She’d never been a tall woman; Fasil had gotten his father’s height.

  “It is good to see you, Mother. You are looking well.”

  “You also look well, my son. Of course, just to have you here…” Her eyes welled again.

  “I can’t stay long. I came because I heard about Kai Arin.”

  She nodded. “Yes. He was a good man, and he will be missed. Surely, you can stay a few days?”

  He smiled at her, but did not answer. “I came to ask you what you have considered, regarding who his successor will be.”

  “I suppose there will be an election,” she said. The Vedek Assembly was no longer a powerful force in her world, nor was it in the realities of the people she spoke with each day. Perhaps that was why the Cardassians still allowed it to exist.

  “I imagine Gar Osen will be a candidate,” she added, then shook her head. “It doesn’t matter who the kai is now.”

  “It does matter,” Fasil said. “I believe the next kai should be you.”

  Opaka laughed briefly before realizing that her son was serious. “Fasil, I have no interest in holding that office.”

  “Do you know how many people know about you?” Fasil asked. “And what better way to spread your message than under the authority of the kai?”

  “I do not wish to be kai,” she repeated. “Let the people choose who they want, it will not affect my work.”

  “The people will want you, Mother.”

  “The kai is chosen from the Vedek Assembly,” she said. “I’m not even—”

  “—a vedek anymore, I remember,” Fasil said, a touch of young male exasperation in his voice, and she smiled, loving him so much that it hurt her heart.

  “But think, Mother. This new prefect cares not about our religious beliefs. You would have access to travel permits, to political functions, to so many more people.”

  Opaka considered him seriously for the briefest of moments. If she were the kai, she could spread her message everywhere, she would not be dependent on word-of-mouth among small fringe groups. She might even have access to media—Kai Arin’s Festival sermon on the D’jarras had been recorded and broadcast, had even reached Bajorans who had settled offworld…

  But it was only a moment before the absurdity of it made her laugh again—Kai Opaka!—and she took her son’s hand. “You must be tired,” she said. “Let us eat something. Help me prepare food, and we’ll talk of this later.”

  He grinned. “I admit, the offer of food is enough to make me agree to anything. It is very good to see you again, Mother. I have…missed you.” He squeezed her hand, looking away, his face working to avoid tears.

  Opaka was nearly overcome to see her son so affected. It seemed she wasn’t destined to have dry eyes today. She embraced him again.

  “I have missed you, too, Fasil. So very much.”

  The days had turned into weeks since the Derna incident. Lenaris had not entirely given up hope that Lac would return to them—his disappearance had been so abrupt, Lenaris still couldn’t quite believe it—but he knew better than to mistake hope for possibility. Lac was not coming back.

  Seefa, who had always leaned toward the anxious, had become convinced that the Cardassians would be coming for them any day now.

  “The Cardassians have Lac’s raider,” he’d said, on more than one occasion since Derna. “They know he was using balon to power it, and they know there is a massive balon deposit right here. Mark my words, they will come. After that, it’s only a matter of time before they find the rest of our ships and take us all to work camps—or worse. Most likely, they’ll execute a few of us to make examples, and then—”

  “Let’s not get hysterical, Seefa. There are plenty of other balon deposits on Bajor.” It was always Taryl who pulled him back. She refused to be rattled by what anyone had to say regarding Lac, choosing instead to approach the situation with her customary calm rationality. It worried Lenaris not a little that Taryl seemed so placid in the face of her brother’s disappearance; he feared that one day the reality of it was going to hit her, and then—he didn’t know what would happen then, for he had never seen Taryl succumb to the kind of upsets that he himself was prone to. Taryl had a fiery temper, but sadness and worry were not usually in her repertoire. Lenaris envied her for it. If he could have drawn on that kind of strength when Darin had died…Lac’s disappearance held certain parallels to that particular tragedy, but Lenaris was determined to keep himself together this time.

  Still, he was overwhelmed with guilt that it had been Lac who had been caught, and not himself. It was just dumb luck, of course. But then—Lenaris had forgotten to put in a transmission to Lac after exiting the atmosphere himself. What if he could have helped his friend somehow? He didn’t know how, but still…He could not help but agonize over every detail of that ill-fated mission.

  Meanwhile, Taryl had taken it upon herself to plan a rescue effort with some of the Ornathia cousins, much to Seefa’s vehement disapproval. Taryl was certain that Lac must have been taken to Terok Nor, and to her way of thinking, they would have to stage an effort to smuggle him off the station. While the three were calibrating the sensor arrays on some of their ships, Lenaris had been present for one of many arguments that Taryl and Seefa had been having in regard to the matter.

  “You have no idea what something like that would entail,” Seefa admonished her.

  “That’s why we will have to gather information first,” Taryl told him calmly. “The comm equipment on Derna will be helpful with that.”

  “It’s ridiculous, Taryl. We don’t even know if Lac is there! I absolutely forbid anyone from going to Terok Nor.”

  “You don’t have the authority to forbid anyone from doing anything.”

  Lenaris cleared his throat loudly, and the two lowered their voices.

  But, as she had been with her efforts to repair the freighter, Taryl was undaunted. In secret, she met with Lenaris and a handful of others from the cell who thought they could put together a rescue party.

  It had been more than a month since Lac’s disappearance when Taryl approached Lenaris, who was washing out some old metal cans with Ornathia Sten, someone Lenaris liked almost as much as he liked Lac. The salvaged cans would be reused for food, or else beaten flat to repair damaged hull plating.

  “You’ve got a call on the long-range comm…it’s from Halpas Palin.”

  Palin. Feeling a surge of real hope, Lenaris chucked the can to Sten, who caught it neatly, and followed Taryl back to Lac’s empty shack, where the Ornathias’ best communication equipment was set up. Work on the warp ship had been all but forgotten in the wake of the Derna incident, but Halpas had been a pilot since long before the occupation—he could certainly fly the thing, if he hadn’t any ideas regarding how to fix it—and even if he didn’t, he might be able to help locate Tiven Cohr. Lenaris had sent out word months before, trying to get in touch with his old contacts.

  “Halpas Palin! It’s Lenaris Holem!” he shouted into the comm.

  “No need to scream, Lenaris, I hear you loud and clear. Whoever posted the long-range comm towers did fine work. I got word from someone in Jalanda that you were looking for me.”

  “For you—and Tiven, as well,” Lenaris said. “It seems we might have access to a warp vessel that could use a little…adjusting.”

  “So, you’re finally ready to apologize, are you?”

  Lenaris scowled to himself. “Did you hear what I said?” he asked. “A warp vessel, Halpas! Maybe we could forget the past for a minute and consider what that might mean for the resistance.”

  “It was my understanding, Lenaris, that you
were through with the resistance.”

  Lenaris tried to swallow his anger, but it was not easy. The older man had always been an absolutist in every sense, never forgetting a single slight—Bajoran to his very core. Lenaris tried to forget the many times that Halpas had treated him like a child, the sneering and insistent reminding of every mistake Lenaris had ever made. And then the final, furious rift that had torn the cell—or what was left of the cell—apart for good. Lenaris had foolishly underestimated the old man’s tendency to hold a grudge.

  “Listen, Halpas,” Lenaris said tightly. “Let’s just let bygones be bygones. I’ve got a warp ship. One that I think has a good chance of being salvaged. And if anyone could pilot it out of the atmosphere, it’s you. Now, if you know where Tiven Cohr is, then there’s nothing stopping us from using this ship for a full-scale attack. Are you with me?”

  “I know where Tiven is,” Halpas said. “He lives near me, at the edge of the Berain Valley.”

  “In the city?” Lenaris asked. He’d been to Berain City a few times.

  “I also know,” Halpas went on, as though Lenaris hadn’t spoken, “that he wants nothing to do with you—unless you’re willing to apologize, of course.”

  Lenaris was incensed. He didn’t have time to pander to the foolish politics of a couple of stubborn old men. “Forget it,” he said sourly. “I’ll find someone else who can fix it.”

  Halpas laughed, a faraway sound on the comm. “Still as prideful as a batos,” he said.

  “Look who’s talking,” Lenaris muttered, and he ended the call. The warp ship wasn’t a priority right now anyway; he had a rescue effort to help organize.

  6

  “Hello, my old friend.” Kalisi greeted Miras warmly as the two met near the turbolift at the Ministry of Science. Miras was pleased to see her. Although they both worked in the same building, they rarely saw each other; they had been hired by different departments, worked in different wings of the facility. Kalisi’s position in defense technology, sanctioned and funded by the military, held a great deal more prestige than the field Miras had chosen. Miras found her agricultural studies fascinating, especially from a historical perspective—for it was generally believed that Cardassia Prime had once been green and abundant, before a dramatic shift in the climate had turned it to desert—but she seemed to be one of the few who cared. Miras believed she had seen ancient Cardassia herself, in the unfinished dream that continued to plague her; while she had no illusions that their homeworld would ever again be so fecund, she held hope that it could again be made fertile.

  Not that it matters at the moment, she thought. The dream came almost every night now. She felt as though her life had been put on hold, that she could not pursue any matter, personal or otherwise, until she could decipher its meaning.

  “What was it that you wished to see me about, Miras?”

  In spite of her eagerness, Miras approached the subject hesitantly. “Do you remember that object that we examined just before we completed our final project? The thing from Bajor—”

  “Yes, the dirty old box with the strange writing on the sides.” Kalisi smiled. “It hasn’t been that long, Miras. Two, three years? Of course I remember it.”

  “I’ve learned a few things about it. I learned—some time ago, actually—that it was probably one of the Orbs of the Prophets. Have you heard of them?”

  Kalisi frowned. “Orbs of the Prophets? It does sound familiar—the Bajorans call their deities ‘prophets,’ don’t they? So the item is ceremonial, then.”

  “Yes, in a way. The Bajorans believe an individual may have…experiences from exposure to these Orbs.” Miras smiled, making an effort not to seem crazy. “Anyway, I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately, and I thought I might like to have another look at it.”

  Kalisi nodded slowly. “And you don’t have high enough security clearance to access it.”

  “That’s right.” Miras felt a tinge of shame, for she didn’t want her old friend to think that asking this favor was the only reason she’d contacted her. “I thought of you instantly, because I haven’t seen you in such a long time, and wanted to catch up anyway—”

  Kalisi laughed. “It’s all right, Miras. I’ll clear you to have a look at the object. I can arrange for it to be sent to one of the laboratories here at the ministry—would that be all right?”

  Miras nodded enthusiastically. “Yes, that would be perfect. Thank you so much, Kalisi. In the meantime—would you like to have lunch with me?”

  It was Kalisi’s turn to look uncomfortable. “Actually, I can’t. I wish I could, but my responsibilities right now…I usually eat lunch in my laboratory, while waiting for my downloads to complete.”

  Miras decided that she didn’t envy her friend’s position. There was no one pressuring her for results. “Another time then, perhaps?”

  “Yes. Let’s not make it quite such a long time between calls, shall we?”

  Miras quickly agreed, and Kalisi ran her thumbscan on a security padd to allow Miras access to a vacant laboratory in the main building’s lower level. “Room 109-green,” Kalisi told her before they parted company. “Wait there while I arrange the artifact’s retrieval.”

  Miras wasted little time, feeling a strange kind of giddy anticipation as she walked to the lab. She didn’t know what she expected to find, looking at the object again, but she’d realized only recently that her strange dreams had begun shortly after her exposure to it. They’d been intermittent at first, but as the months had passed, as she’d settled into her new career, the dream had grown in frequency and clarity, almost becoming a part of her. She’d done more extensive research on the artifact and its possible origins in what spare time she had, and when she’d learned that the objects were said to inspire visions, she had made up her mind that she needed to see it again.

  And it’s not as though I have anything better to do… She’d had a brief, unhappy romance with one of her co-workers soon after coming to the ministry, a man who had since transferred to the private sector; she was not ready to engage in another relationship anytime soon, much to the displeasure of her rather traditional family. Pursuing this minor mystery had become something of a fixation for her, one she was eager to solve. The sooner she could put this behind her, the better.

  The lab was small but brightly lit. Within an hour of her arrival, the artifact was once again transported in its shipping container. She thumbed the lock and lifted the heavy object onto the work table, thinking that perhaps she had lost her mind, after all. If she’d told Kalisi that she’d started to believe she was having visions of ancient Cardassia…

  Just thinking it made her feel incredibly foolish, but she’d come this far; she was determined to see her folly through. She looked at the thing, the case—the “ark,” in Bajoran vernacular. It did not appear that the object had been disturbed since she had seen it last. Traces of red Bajoran dirt still smeared the outside of the container and rested in the crevices of the characters and stones that stood in relief from the object’s flat paneled sides.

  Miras ran her fingertips down the side of the object, as she had before, wondering if she would be able to open it again. Perhaps there had never been an opening, she thought to herself; perhaps she had been slowly losing her mind ever since her first encounter with this thing. Why not? Maybe the Bajorans had visions because of some mind-altering chemical in the materials of the box, or in the Orb itself, one that gave Cardassian women frustrating dreams and irrational notions. But the seam was indeed there.

  Miras gently pried at the corner…and stepped back in amazement as a brilliant light spilled from the vertical opening in the case. She knew she should be closing the case, calling for help, but the sense of tranquillity that she recalled from her prior experience had returned, compelling her to further open the case. The Orb inside was illuminated so brightly that she could not even make out its size or shape, and after a moment, she could see nothing at all, nothing but a white, piercing light that flooded her
vision, her reality, her thoughts.

  Blind and confused, she struggled to maintain her senses. From a pinpoint of distinction within the harsh flood of brilliant light, the shimmering figure of a woman began to appear.

  “Miras.” The Hebitian woman’s voice was as gently rolling as the hills of the surrounding farmland, melting into place all around Miras as the impossible whiteness began to recede. “I have been waiting.”

  It was the dream…But this was no dream, this was happening. The woman led Miras inside the sparsely furnished little house of black brick, and walked to the heavy wood table. She reached into the obsidian box—

  —and brought out the mask, turning to Miras. Miras half expected everything to dissolve as it always did as soon as the mask appeared, but she knew better, too. This, this whatever it was, vision, was real.

  “The mask of Oralius,” the woman said, and handed it to her.

  “Oralius,” Miras repeated, taking the delicate carving. She frowned. The Oralians had been a cult of some kind that had been extinct in the Cardassian Union since Miras was barely more than an infant. It was something that was rarely discussed, a topic that seemed distasteful to most, a superstitious holdover from an unfortunate time.

  “Go ahead,” the graceful Hebitian woman coaxed, and Miras slipped the mask over her face.

  She turned to find herself alone in the house—but it wasn’t the same house anymore. This new place was made of cool stones, coated thinly with delicate mats of velvety green foliage. Miras could smell the pungent odor of food cooking, foreign and overpowering. The ceiling was very tall, accommodating a rickety wooden ladder that stretched to a sleeping loft against the far wall. The loft was equipped with a door, situated very near the peak of the ceiling. Miras watched as an old man, an alien man with smooth, ruddy skin and an oddly slender neck, climbed up to the loft and exited through the door. After a beat, Miras followed him. He’d walked out onto a large wooden porch that overlooked part of a lush forest, with trees so giant and bizarre that Miras knew with certainty that she was not on Cardassia Prime.