Star Trek: Deep Space Nine®: These Haunted Seas, page 5
“Do you have time to speak with me, Colonel?” the admiral asked. Though phrased as a question, the request sounded very much like an order. “It will require perhaps thirty minutes.”
“Of course,” Kira said. “May I ask what this is about, Admiral?” She wondered about the early arrival of Mjolnir, and about the presence on board of an admiral.
“I am headed to Bajor,” Akaar said, “to assist with the resettlement of the Europani, and to observe the labors to send aid to Cardassia.”
“I see,” Kira said, curious about the need for a Starfleet admiral in either endeavor. She also realized that he had not actually answered her question. “Excuse me, Admiral, but I wasn’t asking why you’ve come to Bajor; I was asking why you’ve come to DS9.”
Akaar seemed to consider the question before answering, though his eyes remained on Kira. “Councillor zh’Thane will be accompanying me to Bajor,” he told her. Charivretha zh’Thane, the Andorian representative on the Federation Council, had been visiting Europa Nova prior to the gateways crisis, and she had subsequently been evacuated to the station. “And I wanted to speak with you,” he added.
“All right,” Kira said, taking a step toward the turbolift. “The wardroom is closest, or we can go to my office—”
“If you don’t mind,” the admiral said, not allowing her to list all of their options, “we can use a conference room aboard Mjolnir.” Akaar moved aside and motioned back toward where the starship sat docked at the end of the airlock.
“All right,” Kira said. Again, she felt uncomfortable, as though she had somehow tripped up with the admiral. She tapped her combadge, a quick burst of electronic tones signaling its activation. “Kira to ops.”
“Ops, Nguyen here,” came the immediate response. The words carried the slightly hollow quality of a transmitted voice.
“Chief, I’m going to be in a meeting on board the Mjolnir for the next half-hour,” Kira informed him.
“Acknowledged,” Nguyen said. “Should I consider you unreachable, Colonel?”
Kira looked to Akaar for an answer, but while he returned her gaze, he offered no suggestion as to his wishes. “Yes,” she finally answered, slightly frustrated at her seeming difficulty in communicating with the admiral. “I’ll check in when I’m back on the station. Kira out.” She deactivated her combadge with a touch. She did not have to tell Nguyen that she should be contacted if an emergency arose.
Akaar turned and stepped back into the airlock. As Kira followed, she realized that she still had no idea why the admiral wanted to see her.
The conference room sat far forward in Mjolnir’s primary hull. The outer bulkhead angled dramatically inward toward the bow of the ship, giving the room an essentially triangular shape. A third as big as DS9’s wardroom, it held a table that could accommodate eight people—Fewer, Kira thought, if they were Akaar’s size. Great floor-to-ceiling windows lined the entirety of the outer bulkhead, and a large viewscreen was set into the long inner wall.
Akaar sat down at the conference table, his back to the windows. The chair actually creaked beneath him as he settled his enormous bulk. Kira felt a moment of embarrassment for the admiral, but he gave no sign that he felt similarly.
“Will Captain Hoku be joining us?” Kira asked as she sat down opposite the admiral. Past Akaar, she saw the tips of two of DS9’s docking pylons reaching upward into view like great metallic fingers clawing at the heavens. In the distance, a Bajoran transport drifted lazily outside their grasp.
“No, she will not,” Akaar said. He rested his forearms flat on the reflective black surface of the table. “I must inform you, Colonel,” he said, “that Mjolnir will not be standing in for Defiant while it explores the Gamma Quadrant.” He did not have an accent after all, Kira decided, but a tendency to overpronounce his words, enunciating with a slow, cautious clarity. “Gryphon will instead substitute for Defiant.”
“I see,” Kira said, not pleased to have been left unaware until now of the change in Starfleet’s plans. “I typically get some notice of these things.”
“I am giving you notice now,” Akaar said. Although his voice remained level, Kira detected a note of antipathy toward her that she did not understand. In the past, she had experienced few difficulties with members of Starfleet Command, who had always shown confidence in her abilities to command DS9—
Except for one person, she suddenly remembered. It must have been six weeks ago, back when the first minister had been returning from a monthlong trip to various Federation worlds. Shakaar had warned her of an admiral who had been championing a reversion to the station’s former hierarchy, with a Starfleet captain installed in the top spot. The possibility that the unnamed admiral had been Akaar occurred now to Kira. If that turned out to be the case, she would not allow his presence here to threaten her. Although she had been in command of Deep Space 9 for only four months, she had served in the position well, and she had every intention of continuing to do so.
“Thank you, Admiral. I’ll note the change for my crew,” Kira said, determined to maintain an even bearing. During her tenure as the station’s first officer, she had learned to better control her impulses, to think twice before acting. Now, as DS9’s commanding officer, she had been further pressed to hone her diplomatic skills.
“Colonel,” Akaar said, “I would like you to detail for me the evacuation of the Europani to Bajor.”
“Almost three million people have been brought here from Europa Nova,” Kira said, “and Defiant is scheduled back in a few days, accompanying the last of the convoys from Torona IV.”
“Yes,” Akaar said, but the word seemed less an agreement than merely a placeholder, a word to fill the time and segue to the next subject. “How are the Europani being housed on Bajor?”
The question surprised Kira. The information Akaar was seeking had nothing to do with either Deep Space 9 or Starfleet. “I’m not sure what you’re asking, Admiral, but I received a report just yesterday that the refugees have been divided up into groups—large groups—and taken to several dozen cities.”
“Where are the Europani staying?” Akaar persisted.
“In hospitals, some of them, obviously,” Kira said, not really knowing the precise answer to the question, but making logical assumptions. “In schools, government facilities, inns. Perhaps even in private residences.”
“And the Europani on the station,” the admiral asked, “why have they not gone on to Bajor?” Akaar’s voice held a neutral intonation, but his words seemed to carry an implicit criticism.
“Some of the smaller vessels in the evacuation came directly to the station…Bajor’s orbit got a bit crowded for a while. It was faster for some of the refugees to disembark here. And for those who’d suffered radiation poisoning, we were able to treat them. Since we have the facilities, I saw no problem with that.” Kira realized that her last statement might have sounded defensive, as though she were attempting to support her decision to allow thousands of the refugees to remain on DS9. She brushed the characterization aside. “We’re functioning close to capacity right now,” she went on, “but the station is in good shape.”
“Do you know how the Europani on Bajor are being fed?”
Again, the admiral seemed to be asking for information well outside Kira’s purview. She turned her chair away from the table and toward the inner wall of the conference room. “I can have one of my officers in ops upload whatever data we have about the Europani operations on Bajor.” She pointed to the viewscreen set into the wall, then tapped her combadge. “Kira to Ensign Ling.”
“Ling here. Go ahead, Colonel.”
“Ensign,” Kira said, “I’d like you to aggregate all of the information—”
“Colonel.” Akaar raised his hand, the flat of his palm toward her, a clear signal that he wanted her to stop what she was doing.
“Stand by, Ling,” Kira said, then closed the channel with another touch to her combadge. “Admiral?”
“Colonel, I have already seen the data you have available on the Europani situation. I do not need to see it again.”
An angry response rose in Kira’s mind—Then why are you wasting my time?—but she controlled her impulse to shout it across the table at Akaar. Instead, she stood from the chair and activated her combadge once more. “Kira to Ling.”
“Ling here, Colonel.”
“Belay my last order. Out.” Kira ended the communication without waiting for a response. She looked over at Akaar, who remained seated and very still. “If you don’t mind, Admiral,” she said, barely able to contain her annoyance, “I have duties to tend to.” She started for the door.
“Colonel.” Kira stopped, the double doors sliding open before her with a soft whoosh. She turned back to face Akaar. “Colonel,” he went on, “I am interested in what you have to say about the Europani rescue and resettlement operations. Raw data and reports have their places, but I wish to hear from you.”
The words bordered on flattery, intimating that he held Kira’s opinions in some regard, but she put no trust in them. Nevertheless, she chose to honor Akaar’s request. She walked back over to the table, the doors to the conference room sliding shut behind her with a whisper. “What would you like me to tell you, Admiral?” she asked as she sat back down.
For forty-five minutes, Kira responded to Akaar’s questions about the rescue and resettlement of the Europani as best she could. She doubted that her perspective added anything new to the admiral’s understanding of the situation; some of the questions involved the station, but many concerned Bajor, which she was not always able to answer. They paused only once, so that Kira could check in with the station, letting them know that she would be aboard Mjolnir longer than anticipated. When she thought the admiral had finished speaking with her, she rose to leave.
“I have one more question,” Akaar said. “Have the efforts to help the Europani had an impact on Bajor’s aid to Cardassia?”
“Deep Space 9 is continuing to function as a staging platform for Cardassian aid,” Kira said, placing her hands on the back of the chair she had been sitting in. “The situation has become more complicated with the Europani on the station, and all the ships and crews waiting to take them back to Europa Nova, but we’re managing.”
“Yes,” Akaar said, seeming to acknowledge and dismiss Kira’s reply at the same time. “What I am asking about is the aid going to Cardassia directly from Bajor…directly from the Bajoran people.”
“Oh,” Kira said. This was not an issue that she particularly wanted to address. Following the war with the Dominion, Bajor, by virtue of its close proximity to Cardassia, had been the natural place from which to coordinate and launch relief efforts. DS9, with its docking and cargo facilities, and its status as the nearest Federation starbase, had been a further logical choice to assist. Kira had been comfortable with those decisions, though her tolerance for Cardassians had developed by degrees over the years. She had not come to such acceptance easily, nor even always willingly, but her experiences with men like Aamin Marritza, who had sought to force Cardassia to accept responsibility for the atrocities perpetrated by Gul Darhe’el and others during the Occupation, and like Tekeny Ghemor, who had fought the military dominance of his own government, had helped her understand that not all Cardassians were evil. And she had also come to believe that Bajorans could find both peace and strength in forgiveness and charity for their enemies.
Now the Cardassians required both. The choking stench of the fires consuming the Cardassian capital at the end of the war recurred to Kira, bringing her back to that horrible time. She remembered battling beside Damar to free his people from Dominion control, to help them escape the perfidy that would ultimately see eight hundred million Cardassian dead, including Damar himself. Kira had grown to respect Damar as a rebel and as a man, and she had to admit now that she had seen more than a little of herself in him.
She stepped back away from the conference table and gathered her thoughts. She paced the length of the room, searching for an appropriate way to respond to Akaar’s question. “Yes,” she said at last. “There’s understandably been an impact.” Understandable, because there was only so much food and medicine on Bajor, only so many resources.
But there’s more to it than that, Kira thought. Her experiences with the Cardassians after the Occupation were very different from those of most Bajorans. For most of her people, their last contact with the Cardassians had been during the Occupation itself. And while the people of Bajor could be merciful, and while their government had agreed not only to help organize relief efforts but to contribute their own food and medicine and other necessities to Cardassia, many seemed to support the measures with great reluctance. And there were even those Bajorans who opposed the humanitarian efforts.
“Colonel?”
Kira turned at the far end of the room. “Yes, there’s been an impact,” she repeated. “There’ve been fewer ships, fewer supplies, going to Cardassia from Bajor since we’ve been dealing with the Europani crisis. But we’re still continuing to coordinate the Cardassian relief effort, with supplies being provided by other worlds.” The admiral said nothing in response, and Kira suspected that he wanted her to say more. But there was nothing more she wanted to say about it.
Looking toward Akaar from where she now stood, with the conference table no longer between herself and the windows, Kira saw a large portion of Deep Space 9 laid out below Mjolnir. She allowed her gaze to sweep along the arc of the station’s outer ring, from which the docking pylons emerged like the impossibly tall towers of a great city. Her eyes traced the shape of the station around the outer ring to a crossover bridge, and from there, into the habitat ring and the central core. Light shined from ports throughout the structure, testament to the thousands who worked and lived here. The oval windows encircling the Promenade glowed brightly, and she could even discern movement within.
Atop the upper core sat the operations module, and visible to one side was a window in Kira’s office. She recalled looking out this morning at the ships arrayed around the station, and then she thought about When the Prophets Cried. Her fanciful notion that Mjolnir might be bringing another Orb back to Bajor returned to her, and as quickly as that daydream had occurred to her earlier, it now abandoned her completely. She knew that none of the sacred artifacts were aboard. And still, she could not escape the feeling that something significant was coming to Bajor—something more than a taciturn Starfleet admiral.
And then suddenly Kira knew. Mjolnir was bringing something to Bajor. She regarded Akaar, who sat mutely observing her. She said nothing, and after a moment, the admiral interrupted the silence.
“Colonel Kira,” he said, using her name for the first time since asking her identity in the receiving bay. “How do you like commanding Deep Space 9?”
Kira smiled. She could not be certain, but she thought Akaar might have seen her come to the realization. She walked back to her chair and sat down again at the conference table. The admiral wanted to know about her running the station, and so she told him. She spoke for an hour about the challenges of command, about the responsibilities of leadership, about the gratification of striding confidently into the future, all the while thinking about just what that future would hold for her people.
It was not an Orb of the Prophets that was headed to Bajor, she had realized. It was the Federation.
3
The springball struck the front wall high in the white oval. A short, high-pitched bell confirmed the score as the ball rebounded toward the left rear corner of the court. Asarem Wadeen sprinted across the floor, the rubber soles of her sports shoes squeaking on the black hardwood as she changed direction. She instinctively gauged the path and speed of the ball, and realized she would not reach it with a normal effort. At the last moment, she lunged, just managing to backhand the ball before it bounced on the floor a second time. She twisted as her momentum carried her hard into the side wall, her left shoulder absorbing the brunt of the impact with a thump that reverberated in the enclosed court. Recovering quickly, she pushed away from the wall and back toward the center of the floor. She crouched on the balls of her feet, her weight forward, her racquet swung back to a forehand position, primed to keep her solitaire volley going. But two deep rings told her that her return shot had gone wide, hitting the front wall beyond the outer foul line.
Asarem straightened and caught the ball in her gloved left hand as it bounced back to her. She could easily have backhanded the ball again and continued playing, but even warming up by herself, she liked to follow the rules the same way as when pitted against an opponent. It better prepared her for games, she felt, both physically and mentally.
Slipping her fingers from the glovelike grip of her racquet, Asarem let it dangle from the cord circling her wrist. She tugged the scarlet gloves from her hands, then unfastened the chin strap of her helmet. Beads of perspiration ran from her hairline down the sides of her face. Despite the coolness of the weather outside—the winter months had just begun, though the temperature never dipped too low here in Ashalla—the air in the court had grown close and warm. Her padded springball uniform, also scarlet, covered her from neck to ankles and offered no relief from the heat, although she would never play the full-contact sport without it. She believed herself a tough competitor, toned and fast, but at just a dozen centimeters past a meter and a half, many of her opponents stood a head taller—or more—than she did. She would never reject a challenge, but neither would she play unprepared or unprotected.
Asarem removed her helmet and cradled it upside down in the crook of her arm, then dropped her gloves and the springball inside it. She wiped the perspiration from her face and forehead with the back of her hand, and headed to the back of the court. Suspended from the cord around her wrist, her racquet swayed back and forth, tapping against her leg as she walked. At the rear of the court, beside the closed entryway, a storage compartment sat recessed into the wall. Asarem poked a finger through the hole in the transparent door of the compartment and pulled it open, its hinges creaking as she did so. She set the helmet down inside and retrieved a small gold locket strung on a delicate, matching chain. Holding the locket flat on her fingers, the chain hanging down, she slid the front panel aside with her thumb to reveal a timepiece within.
