He tapped his combadge. “Blackmer to Walenista.”
“Walenista here. Go ahead, Commander.” Blackmer had assigned the lieutenant to the Hub during the ceremony.
“Patrycja, scan the control booth in the theater,” Blackmer said. “Is there anybody there?”
“Scanning,” Walenista said. “I’m not reading anyone inside.”
“There’s somebody there,” Blackmer said. “I saw them. They’re armed with a projectile weapon. Attempt a generic transport of anybody inside into the stockade.”
A moment passed. “Sir, I can’t establish a transporter lock.”
Of course not. “All available security to the theater,” Blackmer ordered. “Out.” He glanced back over his shoulder. “Cover me.” Without waiting for a response, but trusting his people, Blackmer ran down the corridor, pulling up alongside the control booth doors. He touched the OPEN control, but the feedback signal told him that it had been locked—which he’d done himself prior to the ceremony, although clearly somebody had gotten inside the booth anyway.
Blackmer keyed in his security override, leaving his fingertip on the pad to allow the system to confirm his identity. He then activated his combadge again. “Blackmer to Cardok,” he said.
“Cardok here.”
“I’m going into the control booth,” Blackmer said. “Don’t fire.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Out.” Blackmer touched the OPEN control again. The doors parted, but nothing else happened. “This is Lieutenant Commander Jefferson Blackmer,” he called. “You are surrounded. You can also hear the red alert, which means that all avenues of escape from this starbase have been closed to you.”
Blackmer received no response. He listened attentively, but he heard no sounds within the booth. With an abundance of caution, he bent low and quickly ducked his head past the side of the doorway to look inside. When he pulled back, he processed what he’d seen: one person in the darkened compartment, lying on the deck, a firearm by their side but not in their grasp.
Blackmer whirled from the wall and into the doorway, his phaser up before him and aimed at the person on the deck inside. The figure didn’t move. Three bright rectangles marched across the deck, thrown there by the lights in the theater through the openings in the front of the booth.
Taking a step inside, Blackmer looked to either side of the doorway, but he saw nobody else. “Computer, lights,” he said. The overhead panels came on at once. Blackmer peered around at the control panels used to operate lighting and sound and other functions within the theater. Nothing appeared out of place but the woman lying on the deck before him, and the firearm by her open right hand.
The sound of running feet alerted Blackmer that Shul and ch’Larn had followed to back him up. He didn’t look around, but kept his gaze on the woman. She lay on her back, her face turned away from him. Her chest rose and fell with her breathing. She had long, straight red hair.
Carefully, Blackmer approached the woman. When he drew close enough, he used his foot to move the weapon out of her reach. He began to bend down when the woman stirred.
Blackmer backed up a step as she pushed herself up to a sitting position. She shook her head as though clearing it, and her hair fell away from her face. Blackmer aimed his phaser in her direction. “Don’t move,” he ordered. The woman looked up at him, and her eyes widened.
The security chief tapped his combadge. “Blackmer to Captain Ro,” he said. He fought to keep his voice level as he wondered if the president had survived the attack.
“Ro here. Go ahead.”
“Captain, we’ve captured the shooter,” Blackmer said. “It’s Enkar Sirsy, the first minister’s chief of staff.”
• • •
Ben Sisko walked up the aisle of the theater alongside Captain Ro. He had just spoken with Kasidy, who’d wanted him to stay with her and Rebecca—she hadn’t said so outright, but he could read the feeling in her eyes. He’d wanted that as well. But they both understood that he had a duty to assist Ro, and Kasidy focused on the two other actions she needed to take at the moment: to keep their daughter safe, and to begin dealing with the emotional impact of what they’d all just witnessed.
I just hope President Bacco survives, Sisko thought. She’d been a good leader for the Federation, but he felt something more personal than that: nobody deserved to have their life stolen from them, whether president or pauper.
“Why would Enkar Sirsy do this?” Sisko asked as he and Ro pushed through the doors at the top of the aisle and entered the lobby.
“This way.” Ro pointed left, and they headed in that direction. Then, responding to his question, she said, “I don’t know. I’ve known Sirsy and dealt with her a long time. I liked her. I never could have predicted this.”
“I couldn’t either,” Sisko said. He had first met Enkar more than a dozen years earlier, when she’d served as an assistant to Shakaar Edon after he’d been elected first minister of Bajor. Sisko had interacted with her only on a professional basis, and so he couldn’t claim to truly know her, but he’d always found her skilled in her job and pleasant to work with. The notion of her attempting to assassinate the president of the Federation seemed inexplicable.
A pair of security officers stood watch outside a turbolift, and they parted as Sisko and Ro approached. “Allow no one else through,” Ro ordered. The two captains entered the lift, and as they turned to face front, Sisko saw another set of guards taking up a position on the other side of the lobby, at the base of a stairway.
The turbolift ascended quickly, discharging Sisko and Ro on the second level of the theater. The long corridor ended at the top of a stairway, doubtless the same one Sisko had just seen in the lobby. Two more security officers stood halfway down the corridor, outside an open door that clearly led to the theater’s control booth, the location from which Lieutenant Commander Blackmer had contacted Ro.
Sisko and Ro had just started down the corridor when her combadge chirped. “Sector General to Captain Ro.” Sisko recognized the voice of Doctor Bashir.
Ro stopped walking at once. “Ro here,” she said. “What can you tell me, Doctor?”
“I need to see you in the hospital right away, Captain,” Bashir said, the evenness in his tone doing little to hide the urgency in his words.
Sisko’s heart sank. He read the doctor’s unwillingness to elaborate on President Bacco’s condition as an indication that she had not survived. Just the thought made Sisko feel hopeless.
“I’m on my way, Doctor,” Ro said. “Out.”
Ro continued walking toward the open doorway, and Sisko went with her. The security officers backed away to allow them past. Inside the control booth, Lieutenant Commander Blackmer stood with his phaser in his hand and what looked like a projectile firearm on the deck between his feet. Across from him, Enkar Sirsy slouched on a chair, her hair hanging down in her face. She looked up as Sisko and Ro entered.
“Captain,” she said, quickly standing up. Sisko saw that her wrists had been bound. Blackmer stepped forward and told her to sit back down. Enkar did as instructed, but she peered up at Ro beseechingly. “Captain, I don’t know what’s happening. I don’t even know how I got here, but Commander Blackmer has arrested me.”
Sisko saw Ro glance over at the security chief, who stared back as though his features had been set in stone. I feel what he feels: sadness, anger, betrayal, loss. Sisko wondered how he and Kasidy could possibly explain to their daughter what had happened. Hell, I can’t even explain it to myself.
Ro looked back over at Enkar, but when she spoke, she directed her words to Blackmer. “Take her to the stockade and hold her under the highest security,” she said. “Inform her of her rights under Starfleet regulations, Bajoran law, and Federation law.”
“Aye, sir.”
Ro stepped away from Enkar and over to the security chief. “No one gets to see her without my authorization.”
“Understood.”
“Captain,” Enkar said, “I
—”
Ro wheeled on the Bajoran woman with such speed that Sisko thought for a moment that the captain intended to strike her. Instead, she again spoke to Blackmer while facing Enkar. “Use the transporter,” she said. “I don’t want her anywhere on our starbase but in a cell.” If Ro had spat on her, it would not have surprised Sisko.
Ro stared at Enkar, who did not look away.
“Captain,” Sisko said gently, wanting to avoid any potential trouble.
Ro shook her head in disgust, then walked out of the control booth. Sisko followed her out, and so did the security chief.
“Captain,” Blackmer said, and he waited for Ro to turn back toward him. “Captain, we were unable to scan Enkar or beam her out of the booth before. She may be carrying a sensor block or a transporter inhibitor, or there might be one hidden in the compartment or somewhere nearby. We’ve performed cursory searches of both the prisoner and the booth, but we haven’t been able to locate anything yet.”
“Did you ask Enkar about it?” Sisko wanted to know. As upset as Ro clearly was, he didn’t think she’d mind him asking the question. He could have pulled rank anyway, if he needed to, but he wanted to respect her command of the starbase.
“She denies knowing anything about it,” Blackmer said.
Ro took a deep breath, then let it out quickly. “Attempt to transport her from the corridor or the lobby,” she said. “If that doesn’t work, then walk her to a turbolift and take her to the stockade that way. Cordon off your route and place security all along the way. I don’t want to take any chances.”
“Aye, sir.”
Ro looked down, then took a step closer to Blackmer. “Jeff, I know you know this, but I have to say it,” she told him, her voice low. “I need you to be painstaking in your investigation: clean sensor logs, documented chain of custody for all the evidence, nothing compromised.”
“I understand, Captain,” Blackmer said. “Believe me, I want her to go away for the rest of her miserable life.”
“Easy, Mister Blackmer,” Sisko said quietly. “Conduct your inquiry before we sentence anyone to life in prison.” He understood the rage plainly coursing through the security chief, and through Ro too—Sisko felt it himself. Blackmer probably also fought against guilt, given his position. But they would not find justice by indulging their heightened emotions.
“Yes, sir,” Blackmer said. Then, of Ro, he asked, “Is there anything else, Captain?”
“Just keep me informed,” Ro said. When she turned back toward the turbolift, Sisko again walked by her side. They rode down to the lobby of the theater, then strode out onto the Plaza. They entered another turbolift, which Ro ordered to take them to Sector General. They traveled in silence for a few moments, Ro staring at her feet. Then, without looked up, she asked, “How did this happen?”
Sisko shook his head. “I don’t know. But I do know that you and your crew will do everything possible to find out. And right now, you also have the crews of the Robinson and the Aventine at your service.”
“But this station was designed to be a fortress,” Ro said, almost as though pleading for her words to be true at the same time that she condemned them.
“And it probably is a fortress against enemies,” Sisko said. “Just not against people we think are friends.”
When Ro finally looked over at Sisko, he could see the pain on her face, the tremendous strain she felt. “How could she do this?” Ro asked, clearly meaning Enkar Sirsy. “Why?”
“I don’t know,” Sisko said honestly.
“Do you think . . .” Ro began, but then she stopped, as though searching for the thread of her thoughts. At the same time, the turbolift eased to a halt. “Computer, hold,” she said before the doors opened. “Captain, could this have anything to do with the Cardassians?”
“What?” Sisko said. The question surprised him. “Why would you ask that?”
“Something Castellan Garan mentioned when she told me she had to return home,” Ro said. “She was supposed to attend the dedication, but there’s a group called Cardassia First making trouble in the Union.”
“I’ve heard about them,” Sisko said. “They have an ultranationalist agenda.”
“I mention them just because they’re not happy about the Cardassian Union joining the Khitomer Accords—and essentially allying with Bajor,” Ro explained. “But they’re not the only ones who are unhappy.”
“No?” Sisko didn’t know if Ro spoke of her own sentiments.
“There are still Bajorans who don’t think that we should be in an alliance that includes the Cardassians,” Ro said. “More than a few.”
“But Bajor has been helping to rebuild Cardassia for almost a decade,” Sisko said. “First Minister Asarem has supported those efforts wholeheartedly, and she won reelection with more than two-thirds of the vote.”
“Those aren’t the Bajorans I’m talking about.”
“So you think Enkar Sirsy hates the Cardassians so much that she couldn’t endure the Federation, and therefore Bajor, being in the same alliance with them?” Sisko asked, trying to parse Ro’s reasoning. “And so she blamed President Bacco for that? Not Lustrate Vorat? Or even the first minister?”
“I don’t know,” Ro said. “I’m just . . . I’m trying to make sense out of this.”
“We may learn the reasons Enkar did this,” Sisko told Ro, “but I doubt it will ever make sense to us.”
“Yeah. I’m sure you’re right,” Ro said, and then, “Computer, resume.” The turbolift doors glided open.
Sisko and Ro crossed a wide corridor to the starbase’s hospital. A man in civilian attire sat at a circular desk in the entrance, and a number of security officers guarded corridors leading into the medical complex. Another security officer, a human man, stood in front of the desk, and he addressed Ro.
“Captain,” he said, “Doctor Bashir is waiting for you in the emergency medical transporter room.”
“Thank you, Jack,” Ro said, and she pointed toward the corridor just left of center. She and Sisko circled the reception desk and walked in that direction. They made their way down the entire length of the corridor, to where two more security guards stood watch outside the doors at the end. They stepped aside for Sisko and Ro to enter.
To Sisko, the compartment looked like a combination sickbay and transporter room. Doctor Bashir stood directly ahead, speaking with the other doctor Sisko had seen in the theater. Just past them stood three nurses—a human, a Bajoran, and a Bolian; all three looked as though they’d been crying. To the right, members of the president’s protection detail waited silently. They maintained a stoic exterior, but Sisko knew that could only be a front.
To the left, a body lay on the transporter platform, a sheet draped over it. Even though he had expected it, Sisko felt as though the wind had been knocked out of him.
“I’m sorry,” Bashir said, stepping forward. The color had drained from his face. “President Bacco was shot twice in the chest and once through the skull. Her body technically survived for a few moments after she sustained those wounds, but the brain injury killed her.”
Sisko and Ro both gazed over at the transporter platform, at the corpse of the woman who had so ably led the Federation for nearly six years. “Thank you, Doctor Bashir,” Ro said, her voice flat. “And you, Doctor Boudreaux. You both acted quickly. You did everything you could.” She took another deep breath, but she exhaled slowly, as though preparing herself for what lay ahead.
Or maybe just trying to deal right now with what’s happened, Sisko thought.
“Transport President Bacco’s body to the autopsy suite for postmortem examination,” Ro said. “Collect any evidence you can. I want the room sealed—”
One member of the presidential protection detail paced over to face Ro. “Captain,” she said, “we still have a duty to President Bacco.”
Ro nodded. “Yes, Agent Ferson, of course. Two of your group may observe, if Doctor Bashir has no medical objection.”
“No,�
�� Bashir said. “We can make room for two agents.”
“Thank you,” Ferson said.
Addressing Bashir again, Ro said, “I want the room sealed and under constant guard as long as the . . . as long as the body . . . is on Deep Space Nine. I also want absolutely no discussion of this outside of the people in this room until the entire crew is informed.”
“Understood, Captain,” Bashir said.
“Agreed,” Ferson said.
Ro peered over at Sisko, then told Bashir, “Doctor, I need an empty room.”
Bashir thought for a moment. “When you leave here, the second door on the left is a surgeon’s prep room. It’s empty.”
“Thank you,” Ro said, and motioned to Sisko. She led the way out of the emergency medical transporter compartment and into the surgeon’s prep room. In the spare facility, Sisko recognized a row of sleek devices as sonic disinfecting units. “Captain, the loss of President Bacco—” Ro’s voice broke. Just hearing her on the verge of tears threatened to unleash a similar flood in Sisko. Ro closed her eyes a moment, and then continued. “This loss will obviously devastate the people of the Federation. I can’t let the news leave the station until I’ve been able to inform the Federation Council.”
“Agreed,” Sisko said. “The people shouldn’t hear rumors, only information from our central government. They’ll disseminate it in the best, most efficient way they can.”
“And probably only once they have the president pro tem in place,” Ro said. By law, any vacancy in the office of the president mandated that the Federation Council fill the position of the president pro tempore. The chosen official would have the responsibilities and powers of the president for a period not to exceed sixty days—raised from thirty days after Ra’ch B’ullhy’s term in 2379—during which time he or she must call for a special election so that the people of the Federation could select a new leader.
“Probably so,” Sisko agreed. He remembered what had happened after President Zife had stepped down near the end of his second term. “I suggest contacting Admiral Akaar. He’ll request an emergency, closed session of the Council and inform them that way.”
Star Trek: The Fall: Revelation and Dust Page 26
