Part 24 (1/2)

The cloisters of the monastery were filled with prayers and panic in equal measure. Built high into the hillside, the ancient campus commanded an excellent view of the provinces to the west. It was with silent terror that the novices, prylars, and ranjens a.s.sembled for dawn ma.s.s on the square were witness to the streaks of sunfire falling from the sky to strike the distant blur of Korto's conurbation. The sounds of the detonations were only now reaching them, the shock wave rumbles rattling the ornamental stainedgla.s.s windows in the halls.

Then the first blast fell on Kendra, hitting the compound of service sheds and habitats for the visiting penitents at the base of the hill. The concussion turned the ancient gla.s.s to molten bullets, the plume of h.e.l.lish flame behind it erasing the cl.u.s.ter of stone buildings in a heartbeat. The next shot came and tore the tallest towers from the high levels of the monastery. A construction that had stood on the surface of Bajor for thousands of years, that had weathered wars and famines and storms beyond counting, now cracked and crumbled under its own weight, stone breaking with a mournful cry that carried down the valley. No more strikes followed; there were other targets scattered across Bajor's dayside to be prosecuted. No more were needed at Kendra. The damage was done, fires and collapse spreading with roaring, snarling fury.

The sound made Vedek Arin freeze where he stood, halfway down the length of the grand corridor toward the shrine. The polished floor beneath his feet shook as if wracked by an earthquake. His calling as a servant of the Prophets warred with his instinct for self-preservation. The Orb...Dare he leave it to whatever fate was to come, trusting in his G.o.ds to preserve it so that he might flee-or should he enter the shrine and carry out the ark holding the Tear, risking his life to venture inside and perhaps be buried alive? A way behind him, a huge chandelier made of bra.s.s and crystal tore free of the ceiling and struck the ground with a colossal crash. Arin's terror leapt a hundredfold and he gaped in panic, rooted to the spot by his fear. He took a hesitant step toward the shrine; he registered that the doors were hanging open. The priest staggered forward, and his foot touched a rent in the floor where a stone tile should have been. He pitched forward, crying out, and he struck the stonework hard. The impact dizzied him, pain blurring his sight. ”Prophets...” he called out. ”Aid me...”

Strong hands dragged him to his feet, and the vedek blinked. There was blood in his eyes from a streaming cut on his forehead that sang with pain. Cascades of dust and falling tiles were impacting all around him. ”The cloister...”

”It's coming down, Vedek!” He recognized the voice, saw the man who was holding him up.

”Osen?” He staggered. ”What...Were you inside the shrine?”

”I came after you!” insisted the ranjen. ”We have to get out!”

”But the Tear of the Prophets is still in there!” cried Arin. ”We can't leave the Orb of Truth!”

Gar was dragging him away. ”The Prophets will protect it,” he shouted over the grind of stone on stone, ”and we must protect ourselves!”

Great chunks of the walls and the pillars supporting them were impacting all around them now, and finally Arin surrendered to his fear, letting the young priest drag him away, out of the building.

Outside, the vedek stumbled and fell to his knees, turning in time to see the monastery groan like a dying man and collapse in on itself in a final tide of noise and gray-brown dust. The clouds of powdered stone and ash washed up and engulfed the monks, coating them in the cloying powder, painting them the color of ghosts. Arin looked up into the sky and saw white fire falling toward the horizon, in the direction of Janir and Ashalla.

In Dahkur, dawn had still to break across the city, but the streets were choked with people and vehicles desperate to flee the conurbation. Streetscreens were showing live broadcasts from the destruction wrought in Korto, and the citizenry was panicked.

In the halls of the emba.s.sy of the Carda.s.sian Union there was a skeleton crew on duty on the upper levels, soldiers guarding the doors to keep the place secure, but no staff members at the checkpoints or on the office tiers. All of them were a dozen levels below, in the emergency bunker along with the command staff and Jagul Kell himself. All of them but Rhan Ico.

The emba.s.sy was replete with protected chambers, a monument to the Carda.s.sian obsession with paranoia and security, but the room that Ico stood in was the most secure of them all, constructed to tolerances and designs that were so secret no living being had a hand in fabricating them. It existed on no plans for the building; there was no door, so access was only via a hidden transporter; it had nothing to connect it to the outside world. The machine-manufactured room was a module that, like the rest of the building, had been made whole on Carda.s.sia and s.h.i.+pped to Bajor to be beamed into place. The walls were laced with complex circuits that could defeat a million kinds of listening devices and sensors. Ico had even heard rumors that the panels contained a bio-neural matrix based on cultured Vulcan brain tissue, which could fog penetration by telepaths. She was confident that no one on the planet could know what was going on in here.

The folded-s.p.a.ce transporter unit before her completed its phase-s.h.i.+ft cycle with a hiss of displaced molecules and commenced the reintegration process. Inside the sealed receptor capsule a shape began to take form, and she pressed her hand to the transparent wall of the pod. A cool smile unfolded on Ico's lips. It was a genuine emotion on her part, a rare thing for the woman. Certainly, it was not something she would have exhibited in the presence of anyone else. But here, in the room, she was utterly alone, and so she could drop her pretense for a short time. It was, in its way, refres.h.i.+ng.

The transporter completed its work, and the capsule opened to her. Ico reached in and ran a hand over the careworn wooden case that lay inside. Intricate scrollwork in an ancient Bajoran ideogram script framed the planes of the box, looping around convex oval lenses set in the sides of the container. The carved wood was warm to the touch. For long moments Ico's fingers dithered over the small iron latch on the front of the container. The glow of the object inside the ark cast a honeyed illumination that scintillated, compelling her to open it.

”And this is what drove Hadlo to his folly,” she said to the air. Ico smirked and pushed aside any thoughts forming in her mind that she might actually give in to the same curiosity. Instead, she gathered up the box and placed it inside a padded cargo container, pausing only to seal it with a beam tool and tag it with an encrypted transporter locater. ”The first of many,” Ico said to herself.

A faint rumble made her look up at the ceiling. The bombardment of Dahkur had started. She returned to her work, secure in the knowledge that she was in no danger.

The Carda.s.sian wars.h.i.+ps dropped out of warp inside the orbit of Jeraddo, shedding velocity in flares of rainbow radiation. The maneuver, like every other event in the sequence, was a precisely timed, perfectly ch.o.r.eographed display to present the right image to the Bajoran s.h.i.+ps still drifting damaged inside visual range. Their firing grids pulsing, the Kashai Kashai and the and the Daikon Daikon fell toward the Tzenkethi marauder like swooping raptors. Disruptor bursts arced through the vacuum around the teardrop stars.h.i.+p, flas.h.i.+ng off the force s.h.i.+elds. fell toward the Tzenkethi marauder like swooping raptors. Disruptor bursts arced through the vacuum around the teardrop stars.h.i.+p, flas.h.i.+ng off the force s.h.i.+elds.

”Phase three initiated,” said the glinn, gripping the helm console as the marauder shook under the impacts.

The thought had crossed Dukat's mind that if Ico or Kell or any one of a dozen other enemies he had made wished to end his existence, this was an opportune moment for him to do so. All that was needed was someone able to exercise the right amount of influence over Dalin Tunol, to have her turn her aim away from showy near-hits to a direct shot at the Tzenkethi command tier; but Dukat was not concerned. He had picked Tunol for her loyalty and her intelligence. The woman had placed her banner by Dukat's because she knew the kind of man he was. Driven and ruthless, and in the Union such an officer would make his mark or die trying. He had known Tunol was of the same stripe from the moment she was a.s.signed to his vessel.

The s.h.i.+p rocked again, and a plasma conduit ruptured across the bridge, spitting sparks and white gas. ”Are the charges set?” demanded the dal.

The glinn nodded. ”Countdown is under way, sir. Awaiting your final orders.”

”Disengage from ground attack mode and return fire. Simulate damage to the targeting sensors. I don't want any serious. .h.i.ts on either craft.” He got to his feet and tapped his comcuff. ”This is the dal. Operations team, secure stations and gather at the designated transport points. You have one metric, mark.” mark.”

”Next run, incoming,” The glinn was pale; the prospect of taking fire clearly didn't agree with her.

”Drop the s.h.i.+elds after the first volley.” Dukat watched the time dwindle on his chrono. ”Make it look like a cascade failure.”

A blue light on his bracelet blinked once, twice. Tunol's signal. Tunol's signal. The tingle of a matter transporter p.r.i.c.kled his skin as clouds of orange energy s.n.a.t.c.hed away the Carda.s.sian crew, making the s.h.i.+p lifeless for the second time. The tingle of a matter transporter p.r.i.c.kled his skin as clouds of orange energy s.n.a.t.c.hed away the Carda.s.sian crew, making the s.h.i.+p lifeless for the second time.

The Kashai Kashai rolled away from the marauder, spitting energy bolts as it veered off. The Tzenkethi s.h.i.+p, suddenly ponderous and wallowing with none of the agility it had exhibited before, spun a lazy turn as if it were making a halfhearted attempt to place its main gun on the light cruiser. rolled away from the marauder, spitting energy bolts as it veered off. The Tzenkethi s.h.i.+p, suddenly ponderous and wallowing with none of the agility it had exhibited before, spun a lazy turn as if it were making a halfhearted attempt to place its main gun on the light cruiser.

It was the Daikon Daikon that dealt the blow that signaled the end of the marauder's performance. Concentrating every iota of energy in the s.h.i.+p's spiral-wave disruptors, the Carda.s.sian vessel ripped into the Tzenkethi fuselage, tearing away great divots of hull metal. Something critical failed inside the marauder; in the s.p.a.ce of a microsecond orange spheres of explosive detonation appeared in the s.p.a.ceframe at the bow, the stern, in the warp core, in the central tiers. The that dealt the blow that signaled the end of the marauder's performance. Concentrating every iota of energy in the s.h.i.+p's spiral-wave disruptors, the Carda.s.sian vessel ripped into the Tzenkethi fuselage, tearing away great divots of hull metal. Something critical failed inside the marauder; in the s.p.a.ce of a microsecond orange spheres of explosive detonation appeared in the s.p.a.ceframe at the bow, the stern, in the warp core, in the central tiers. The Daikon Daikon veered away as the Tzenkethi s.h.i.+p became a tiny, fleeting sun, an expanding ball of flame consuming the marauder and the secrets that it had so briefly concealed. veered away as the Tzenkethi s.h.i.+p became a tiny, fleeting sun, an expanding ball of flame consuming the marauder and the secrets that it had so briefly concealed.

Tunol climbed out of the Kashai Kashai's command chair and surrendered it to Dukat, but the dal waved her away. He had come straight to the bridge without pausing to throw off his environmental suit, and he had no wish to take his place unless he was in a proper duty uniform; but he wanted to see the Tzenkethi s.h.i.+p die, and there it was on the main viewer, consuming itself in fire.

”Mission accomplished,” said Tunol, with the hint of a grin.

”A performance worthy of the grand theater itself,” Dukat replied. ”You played your part well.”

Tunol nodded. ”The transporter signatures were masked beneath the discharges from the Daikon Daikon's weapons. Any sensors directed toward the engagement from the planet's surface or the surviving s.h.i.+ps will see nothing to contradict the evidence of their own eyes.” Tunol's grin returned. ”A dangerous invader, brought down by Bajor's bold comrades in the Carda.s.sian Union.”

”Misdirection,” mused the commander. ”What the eye sees and the ear hears, the mind believes.” He could see that Tunol wanted to ask him why, why, she wanted to know more. Dukat knew she was intelligent enough to piece together the reasoning behind the mission by herself, but now was not the time to bring her deeper into the circle he had forged with Ico and Kell. He grimaced. she wanted to know more. Dukat knew she was intelligent enough to piece together the reasoning behind the mission by herself, but now was not the time to bring her deeper into the circle he had forged with Ico and Kell. He grimaced. No. That alliance was made in order to bring this to pa.s.s, and now it is done. I have no more need of it. No. That alliance was made in order to bring this to pa.s.s, and now it is done. I have no more need of it.

Dukat left the bridge for his duty room, turning his back on the screen, the flaming wreck, and beyond it, a scarred and terrified Bajor bleeding from ugly wounds across its landscape. The hatch closed behind him, granting him privacy to discard the environmental suit.

The deception was complete. Dukat detached his thick gloves and stared down at the gray skin of his bare hands. I have steeped myself in the blood of thousands of Bajorans, I have steeped myself in the blood of thousands of Bajorans, he told himself. he told himself. How many of their deaths now lie at my feet, how many in the prosecution of this duty have I taken? How many of their deaths now lie at my feet, how many in the prosecution of this duty have I taken?

He took a breath. ”Necessity has a price,” he said to the empty room, ”and one day, they will thank me.” Dukat found his chair and sat down, nodding at the rightness of his words. ”What I have done today was as much for Bajor as it was for Carda.s.sia.”

Darrah brought the flyer in over the city low and fast, banking and turning to avoid heavy clouds of black smoke and the thermals from burning buildings. Many of the elevated highways and tramlines were broken or toppled off their piers, and the streets were choked with rubble and the s.h.i.+fting ma.s.ses of people. He saw automated fire tenders dodging back and forth, spraying r.e.t.a.r.dants over the worst infernos, but there was so much destruction, it seemed almost pointless for them to try.

The pattern of the firestorm was strange; some parts of the city had been left untouched by the bombardment, city blocks and tenements standing without injury next to blackened canyons scored through the residential district. Sunlight, where it made it through the cowl of smoke, glittered and flashed off broken gla.s.s lying in drifts through the streets. The ornamental park near the orphanage was a smoldering patch of black ruin, the aviary domes cracked open like mouths of broken teeth; the devotional tower in the dressmaker's district had broken along its length; there was a heap of metal spines and dull flakes of drywall where the night market was supposed to be. Every scene of devastation bled into another.

Darrah felt cold, chilled to his very core. The sights that lay before him were unreal; he had to struggle to process what he had seen. The city-his city-and the streets he had grown up in, that only a day ago he had walked upon, were pa.s.sing beneath him shattered and thick with ash.

The falling plasma blasts, dropping from the heavens like the spears of a vengeful G.o.d; it was as if it were happening at a great distance from him, like a dream. I will wake and this will all be a phantom. I am in bed with Karys and none of this has taken place. Prophets, please, make that the truth and this horror the lie. I will wake and this will all be a phantom. I am in bed with Karys and none of this has taken place. Prophets, please, make that the truth and this horror the lie.