Part 21 (2/2)
”It mean-ah-it means that I'm going to-choo-I'm going to have a baby, Skrain.”
Dukat was speechless, and watched her clear her breath for yet another sneeze.
”Did you hear what I said? I'm going to have our baby.”
”How...wonderful,” he said, his voice a little faint.
The room was sweltering. Laren could scarcely bring herself to take a breath; the air was searingly hot and smelled reptilian, the distinct odor of the filthy Carda.s.sians who occupied it.
”Please,” gasped Ro Gale, twisting his body in a futile attempt to relieve the pressure from his wrists. He was manacled to chains that hung from the ceiling. ”Get my daughter out of here!”
The Carda.s.sian interrogator ignored her father's pleas, his horrid skin as pale as fusionstone, his expression a mask of cruelty. His hair, the strange, distinct color of sun-scorched gra.s.s, shone hideously beneath the hot lights of the room. ”We're not finished here, Mister Ro.”
Laren's hands tightened as she looked frantically for a way out. The cloying heat in the room was so intense, she feared she would lose consciousness if she remained much longer. She could not bear to watch her father be humiliated in this way. It shamed her; her father was supposed to be brave. He was supposed to fight the Carda.s.sians, not cry and squeal like a child. She wanted to be out of this room. She wanted to be anywhere else but here, anywhere at all- And then she was, bundled inside her sleeping bag, sweating between the layers of clothes and the coa.r.s.e bedroll. She blinked. The light of dawn was just beginning to seep through the dense tree cover overhead.
Dream, just a dream. Forget it. It was what she told herself every time. It was what she told herself every time.
She wriggled out of the blankets and stood, began shaking off the dirt and leaves she had used to conceal the place where she slept, deep in the Jo'kala forest. The foliage here was so thick, the forest so wide, that the Carda.s.sian ground tanks couldn't penetrate the hilly terrain beneath the dense, heavy-branched trees. Soldiers had to patrol it by foot-but no Carda.s.sian knew the forests well enough to venture very deep inside them, not without heavy communications equipment that buzzed and chirped so loudly the dead could hear them.
She rolled up her ”bed” and set about organizing her few things. Though it was not yet dawn, she knew it soon would be. She might as well get up and face the day; she didn't care to go back to sleep if it only meant having the same d.a.m.ned nightmare again and again.
She forced her thoughts ahead, going over what she had to do for the day. She stuffed her pack inside an old bag made from a sheet of Carda.s.sian smartplastic, and slung it up around her shoulders, her phaser rifle fastened down around the bottom. She stretched her thin legs as she did this, and headed toward main ”camp,” where Bram Adir and the others were probably still asleep. The nightmare, the memory memory was still there, but it grew dim as she walked. She replaced the violence of her father's death with well-worn thoughts of what it would be like to put a phaser salvo right into the hideously grinning face of that oddly light-haired Carda.s.sian. There were times when she could think of little else. was still there, but it grew dim as she walked. She replaced the violence of her father's death with well-worn thoughts of what it would be like to put a phaser salvo right into the hideously grinning face of that oddly light-haired Carda.s.sian. There were times when she could think of little else.
She had killed four Carda.s.sians already. Four different Carda.s.sian soldiers, on four separate occasions, with her resistance cell. She was one of the best fighters in this bunch, even though she wasn't quite fourteen yet. Some of the others in the cell still tried to get away with treating her like a child, but she knew better. She knew that her hide was tougher than that of many of the full-grown men she had met in her short time with the rebels. And there was n.o.body who could pick a pocket like she could, n.o.body who could steal a holstered phaser right from under a Carda.s.sian soldier's bony nose. She had a talent for it; Bram had said so, many times.
Part of her ability came with her age, her deceptively girlish face. She knew this, and she took full advantage of it. It did the spoonheads no good to underestimate any Bajoran, but least of all Ro Laren.
It was with that thought that she spied Bram's bedroll in the ethereal light of the approaching dawn, and she picked up a pebble to chuck at his sleeping form. It pelted the heavy fabric of his dirty blanket, and he sat up like a spring-loaded toy. Bram rubbed his forehead, wisps of dark hair plastered across it.
”What the kosst kosst...oh, Laren, it's you. I ought to have known. For Prophet's sake, girl, go back to bed! B'hava'el is just waking.”
”Lazy, that's what you are,” Laren chided him. She enjoyed pus.h.i.+ng Bram's b.u.t.tons. He was just so delightfully easy to rile.
Bram shook his head. ”I don't know why I bother to keep carrying you along with us after all the grief you cause me, day after day...”
”Because you need me,” Laren said.
”It's because you have nowhere else to go,” Bram said, ”and I have a foolishly kind heart.” He removed himself from his improvised bed, stretching, and shook his bedroll clear of debris, much as Laren had done.
”I have plenty of places I could go,” Laren said.
”Sure, of course,” Bram said. ”Go back to your uncle-”
”I'll never never go back there!” Laren said. She turned abruptly from Bram and ran down to the creek to wash her face in the icy water. Bram knew he could infuriate her by mentioning her ”parents,” and he always had to play that card when he was annoyed with her, which was much of the time. go back there!” Laren said. She turned abruptly from Bram and ran down to the creek to wash her face in the icy water. Bram knew he could infuriate her by mentioning her ”parents,” and he always had to play that card when he was annoyed with her, which was much of the time.
Laren had been on her own since she was twelve, when she ran away from her uncle's house for the last time. After Ro Gale was murdered, Laren's mother sank into such a state of despair that she had to be taken in by her family. She was no longer capable of looking after herself, let alone her daughter. Laren had been confused by her mother's reaction-she missed her father terribly, of course, and she understood being sad about it-but why would her mother turn away from her daughter, as well, the only person who might have been a source of comfort? And why subject her child to the random cruelties that had gone on in that overcrowded house, full of so many cousins and foster orphans collected from neighboring villages that her uncle didn't even know everyone's name? Laren wouldn't have dreamed of just...giving up, the way her mother had; a mother was supposed to protect her child. In this, both of Laren's parents had failed miserably.
After several attempts to strike out on her own, Laren was finally emanc.i.p.ated at twelve, when the adults from her extended family stopped coming after her. It was not the most unusual thing, on Bajor, for a child to be on the streets by herself. Common enough, in fact, as to be unworthy of remark. She was only lucky she'd never been picked up by one of the Carda.s.sian orphan-catchers. Lucky, or smart.
Laren learned how to dodge the spoonheads quickly enough, and how to pick their pockets even quicker. From the older children on the streets she had learned how to break and enter, and how to manipulate simple security systems, even the computers that ran some of the rationing checkpoints. It was a skill that had come in plenty handy when she finally encountered Bram Adir, the man who had taken her under his wing and been a bit like a father to her. Like a father, only bossier, and without much affection. Laren had long ago decided that she preferred it that way. Anyway, who else was going to teach her how to fly raiders? She was hungry to learn everything, but flying offworld-it was worth the price of Bram's constant nagging and admonishments.
Laren rubbed her face with the creek water and shook the droplets from her fingertips.
Bram came up behind her just then, to fill his water-pack at the creek. ”You know I was only having some fun, saying that about your uncle...” He trailed off.
”I know,” Laren said sharply. ”Are we ready to go?”
”Nearly,” he answered. He capped off his pack, br.i.m.m.i.n.g over with cold water, and fastened the flat pouch around his back with a pair of straps. ”Did you fill up your canteen? You're not sucking off my water like you always do.”
”I only did that one time, and that was ages ago!” Bram had a long memory where Laren was concerned. She followed him as they returned to their base camp, near where the cell's four raiders were hidden. ”Aren't we flying today, then?”
”Not today,” Bram told her. ”I got a tip about something on the surface, a few kellipate kellipates outside of town. We'll need you to override a security system-nothing fancy-just to let the rest of us in, and we'll take care of the heavy lifting.”
She pouted. ”Heavy lifting,” she sniffed. ”So I don't get to kill any spoonheads?”
”There won't even be anyone there,” Bram told her. ”We're just pinching some supplies. When I said heavy lifting, I meant that literally.”
Laren shrugged, supposing she could live with that. She withdrew her canteen from her improvised pack and shook it-nearly empty. She considered rus.h.i.+ng back to the creek, but decided it wasn't worth it. Bram had plenty of water for the both of them.
Doctor Mora Pol's hands were trembling as he poured the bluish substance from one beaker into another. He held it up to the light, and then brought it back down to his work surface, where he could measure the changes with his tricorder.
”Pol!” The familiar, clipped voice piped up so suddenly from behind him that Mora nearly dropped the beaker.
”Mirosha, you startled me!” Mora was openly irritated in his reply. Doctor Daul Mirosha was the only other Bajoran in the facility. Although it retained its pre-occupation name, the Bajoran Inst.i.tute of Science, the Carda.s.sians had taken it over long ago, expunging nearly all of the Bajoran researchers who had once worked there. It had happened gradually, the scientists leaving the inst.i.tute one at a time, a few finding their way to refugee camps with the rest of the idle Bajorans. But many of them had seemed to disappear-most likely sent to work camps, or possibly even executed. No one spoke of it, not even Mora and Daul.
The two Bajoran researchers knew that someday they, too, would most likely disappear. But for now, the two worked together in tight quarters, under tremendous pressure to yield results in the most unrealistic of time frames.
”How does it look?” Daul asked him, trying to peer around his shoulder at the beaker.
”Well, I suppose I'll tell you when I've run an active scan,” Mora said coolly. ”If you don't mind, that is.”
”By all means,” Daul replied, his tone equally cool. The two men did not always relish each other's company. It should have been comforting to have another Bajoran face in the facility, but familiarity often bred contempt in these close quarters.
Mora initiated the scan. The test was chemical, a possible precursor to a treatment for Orkett's disease. He moved a step forward, to free himself of the sour breath of his lab partner, and then frowned at the readouts.
”Let me see,” Daul insisted, reaching for the beaker, and Mora instinctively pulled it away.
”Just a minute,” he snapped. ”You're going to break it if you keep clutching and grasping like that.”
”Are you two finished squabbling?” Doctor Yopal, the director of the inst.i.tute, stood in the entry, her arms folded.
”We weren't squabbling,” Daul said quickly, his arms falling to his sides.
Yopal wore the same expression as always, a face mostly bereft of any detectable emotion, aside from a very obviously manufactured upward curve to her lips; that curve was always there. Whether she was angry, thrilled, exhausted, or depressed, Mora could never be quite sure, for her expression never deviated, not even for a moment. He had come to expect no less from her, or from any other Carda.s.sian.
Yopal was usually friendly, sometimes almost intimately so, chatting with Mora about various personal issues from her life just as his old Bajoran colleagues had. But it was all performed with that distinctive little half-turn of a smile, a subtle, consistent indication that her entire persona was a front, pasted over something else. Mora was slightly terrified of Yopal, in spite of her efforts.
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