Part 31 (1/2)

The guard behind him hesitated long enough to fire his phaser, and missed. He gave chase once more, easily gaining on the narrow, swaying bridge, and just as he was about to close in on Daul, the Bajoran doubled back and headed straight for the guard, ramming his head directly into the other man's armored chest. Unhurt but startled, the Carda.s.sian almost lost his footing, and clung to the sides of the unwieldy structure that held him. The bridge swayed more dangerously than ever. Daul grabbed for his phaser pistol, and almost had it, but the Carda.s.sian's grip was too strong for him.

Daul made a quick decision. The computer behind him was the primary server for all systems in the facility. It would have to be destroyed before the security shutdown request could be canceled. With a single burst of adrenaline, he slammed the Carda.s.sian's arm backward and pulled the trigger, aiming straight for the metal cube that housed the AI.

The Carda.s.sian flung his arm back the other way, but not before a shower of sparks lit up the AI station behind them. The little structure shuddered and the catwalk with it, the station pulling away from the narrow footbridge on its legs of crisscrossed scaffolding, tottering backward. In the moments it took to fall across the width of the chasm, before it crashed into the side of the mine, rolling down the steep walls of the pit and exploding somewhere near the bottom, Daul realized that he had not been able to program the system to self-destruct, as he had originally planned. The Carda.s.sian guards would live; Gul Darhe'el would live. It was his last thought, as the guard with whom he still wrestled on the dangerously swaying walkway finally got his phaser pointed in the intended direction, and Daul received a quick, indiscernible blast, full in the chest. He didn't feel a thing.

Kira compulsively looked back at the door of the bas.e.m.e.nt transporter room. Though she knew they were alone here, that Furel was outside waiting to give a signal if anything went wrong, it was terrifying to be inside an actual Carda.s.sian facility. The only missions she'd been part of until now had been attacks from outside facilities or s.h.i.+ps; this was the first time she could remember actually entering Carda.s.sian domain, and it made her feel uncomfortably claustrophobic. She couldn't imagine how she was going to feel when she was inside Gallitep. She would never have admitted it, but she was having second thoughts.

”I think I've got it,” Mobara said from behind the transporter console. ”The scientist said you would be beamed directly into the facility if I use these coordinates; you'll close your eyes, open them, and find yourself standing somewhere in the Gallitep mine.”

”I think we all understand the basic concept,” Shakaar said wryly.

Kira held her breath. What if Mobara had the coordinates wrong, and she were somehow transported into the solid rock that surrounded the open mine? The thought was beyond horrifying. Kira trusted Mobara's expertise, and she knew that transporter technology had been used safely by the Carda.s.sians for decades, at least. But still...it was impossible not to be afraid.

”Are you sure you're up to this?” Gantt said to Nerys.

”Of course I am,” she said fiercely, terrified.

Lupaza, who stood close to Kira, reached out to grab her hand. ”You'll do fine, Nerys,” the older woman a.s.sured her, but Kira met Shakaar's eyes for a moment and saw that he wasn't so sure he should have agreed to let her come along.

Shakaar stepped onto the transporter platform. ”I stand here?” he asked. Like the rest of them, he'd never used a transporter in his life.

”That's right,” Mobara told him.

Lupaza stepped up after him, along with Kira and Gantt. The rest of their strike team would be transported immediately after them, slightly higher in the mine so that they could deal with the guards. There were ten from Shakaar's cell in all-not as many as Daul had requested in his detailed instructions, but several of their group were already on a.s.signment in Ilivia with another cell when Daul had contacted Shakaar, and they were out of reach. Ten would have to be enough.

”Now, just remember,” Shakaar told them all. ”We get inside, make sure the Bajorans are all in a central location, kill any hostiles we find, and then we contact Mobara with these.” He held up one of the comm devices the scientist had given to Furel. Kira fingered hers nervously; it was pinned to her tunic, and she feared she was going to lose it. She unpinned the small oval of metal and slipped it in her pocket.

”Is everyone ready?” Mobara called out, and Shakaar gave a nod.

”See you on the other side,” Gantt said, and Kira shut her eyes tightly.

Lenaris Jau was monitoring one of the dozens of subterranean smelters at Gallitep, so weary that he could scarcely keep his head above his shoulders. So many of the sick workers had died lately, and those who were not affected by disease had to pick up the slack, working nearly round the clock. Jau had no idea how long it had been since he'd slept. Exhaustion and the darkness of the underground tunnels in the mine tended to distort his sense of time. It could have been three hours, it could have been three days. It didn't really matter.

Jau wondered why the number of workers had been dwindling lately. The dead were usually replaced, but lately they had not been. He wondered why the sick workers were no longer being treated. Those who died were unceremoniously dragged from the mines, to be taken to some undisclosed location for disposal, though it was not unusual for their corpses to remain where they had fallen for up to three days, swelling and stinking in the baking sun. The numbers of dead seemed to have escalated quite dramatically lately. Was it only yesterday that over three dozen people had died, in a single day? There were rumors that Darhe'el was planning to shut down the camp, which would not bode well for the workers here. Jau thought he would walk with the Prophets soon, and mostly, he was too weary to care-if anything, death would be a welcome release from the horrors of this place.

Jau had seen the most unspeakable things of his life happen in this place. He had seen plenty of tunnels cave in, had listened to the screams of those left to suffocate inside. He had seen scarcely recognizable corpses retrieved from the vats of chemicals used to separate the rock from the valuable minerals, and even worse, he'd seen the gruesome-looking survivors from similar accidents, forced to go back to work with no hair, no skin-even no eyelids. He'd heard the groans and wails of people who were ”treated” in the camp infirmary, more like a torture chamber or the laboratory of a mad scientist, bent on using live subjects. He'd seen dozens of people crippled from injuries sustained after stumbling down the steeper precipices at the very top of the mine. He'd seen people beaten within an inch of their lives for what Gul Darhe'el perceived as insubordination. But Jau was numb to it, mostly. At least, as much as he could have hoped for.

Jau adjusted the smelter's temperature, ignoring the echoing groans and wails all around him. He drew his forearm over his brow, wiping the sweat away, when he noticed that the system of conveyor belts that delivered the ore to the smelter had stopped, and the overwhelming noise that usually accompanied it had ceased as well. It took his sluggish mind a moment to register what was going on, and he looked around, his heart fluttering. Something must have gone wrong with the artificial intelligence system, though in all his time at Gallitep, Jau could not remember that happening, even once. No, it had not happened since the accident, which had occurred before Jau had been brought here. An alarm began to tear through the hollow caverns of the mines, indicating a systems failure-the mine was to be evacuated at once. Jau's breath froze in his lungs; was this going to be Darhe'el's method of disposing of him, and everyone else here?

Before he could think further on it, he was instantly swept up in a crush of panicking Bajorans. Jau began to run, drawing on reserves he didn't know he had, pus.h.i.+ng and stumbling until he found himself stepping out onto a wide dirt road that curled down from the very top of the pit all the way down here, just a few linnipate linnipates from the bottom. He was immediately aware of the heat-more than just the heat from the hot, midday sun that he was accustomed to; it was from a fire, somewhere not far below him. Something burned and scorched with chemical brightness at the base of the pit, sending up great plumes of toxic smoke. Jau began to scramble up the gravel road, trying to get away from the flames below him, but he encountered so many confused Bajorans, he could not get far. The road was packed with people, crying out in panic. Finally, Jau came to the road's widest point, and realized he could go no farther. He would have to wait for the crowd to thin out, which he suspected would not happen before they were all murdered here, en ma.s.se-for it seemed logical to Jau that this was really it-Darhe'el's final solution had come.

He looked up once, panned the miserable and frightened faces of the crowd that surrounded him, and did a double take. There was a girl standing there, a Bajoran, and he could have sworn that she wasn't there before. This girl did not look like she belonged here. She looked like one of the younger ones that might have been brought in many months ago, but Jau wasn't aware of any new workers coming in for some time. And there was something else about her too...There was a bulge at her hip, underneath her tunic, and Jau felt certain he knew what it was-this girl carried a phaser. She caught his eye and moved closer to him, shoving her way through the tight press of gangly limbs and exposed rib cages, bruised beneath too-tight skin.

”Don't worry,” she said to him, and suddenly, he did worry-he found he still had the capacity to worry, even after feeling mostly nothing for such a very long time.

Ro had not expected to feel so conflicted as she warped back to Valo II. She had been on and off the Ferengi freighter in less than ten minutes; the entire operation really had been as easy as Bis had said it would be. She kept reminding herself of the wonderful, risky, and brave thing she had just done, but the thoughts were not quite resonating within her, and she was eager to find Bis and hear his rea.s.surances.

Still wary of landing the valuable warp s.h.i.+p on her own, she left it in orbit of Valo II, hoping that Bis would be able to retrieve it later. But she could not immediately find him once she materialized on the planet's surface. He had implied that he would meet her near the landing field when she returned, but she was back much faster than expected, and she did not know where he could be. She went to his house, but he wasn't there, so she wandered the dusty, tightly packed village, asking those people who bothered to look up as she walked by. It was in the center of the crowded town that she encountered Keeve Falor, the old politician she'd met those years ago with Bram. She did a double take as he pa.s.sed, and he stopped to regard her.

”You look familiar to me,” the man said, stepping back as he tried to place her.

”I'm Ro Laren,” she said, feeling suddenly as sulky as her younger self.

”The little girl from Jo'kala?” Keeve mused. ”Is that right. What are you doing here?”

”I'm helping Bis with something,” Ro said. ”Akhere Bis.”

Keeve immediately looked alarmed. ”Helping Bis!” he exclaimed. ”Tell me he hasn't recruited you for that foolishness with the alien s.h.i.+p?”

Ro wasn't sure if Keeve was talking about the plan she had just undertaken, but since he seemed not to approve, she supposed she'd better not confirm her involvement. ”I haven't decided if I'm going to help him,” she lied.

”Prophets help us,” Keeve said. ”Bis is young and reckless-he doesn't understand the great cost that would be suffered by destroying Terok Nor. Thousands of Bajoran lives...It simply doesn't make sense, to sacrifice what we are trying to preserve.”

”If those lives buy millions more, maybe the sacrifice is worth it.”

”Is that how your resistance is going to save Bajor?” Keeve asked in disgust. ”Using arithmetic to decide who lives, and who dies? That isn't what the Prophets teach us.”

Ro felt a flash of anger at the sanctimonious mention of the Prophets. ”At least...at least it would be doing something to fight the Carda.s.sians, instead of hunkering down on this world like a coward, hiding here where they won't trouble you, and letting them do as they please with Bajor!”

Keeve studied her a moment. If he was angry, she didn't see it; he only looked tired and sad. ”Perhaps to you, I seem a coward,” he said, after a moment. ”But I know that when the people on this world still listened to my advice, we were learning things that could have brought the Federation in to aid us in our struggle. We had warp vessels, we had trade relations with other worlds. But that is changing, and the people here have begun to grow impatient. We've lost most of our warp s.h.i.+ps, and we have to rely on charity from others within this system for our very survival. We've fallen out of favor with the Federation, especially since the unfortunate incident that occurred on Valo VI. The Federation once had a lot of questions about what that little group might have been doing there, and I suppose now they have much less of a chance of ever finding out.” He looked at her very pointedly when he said it, and Ro felt a strange thing, a thing she thought might be guilt.

Troubled, Ro looked past Keeve to see that Bis was approaching her, his face unable to contain its excitement. Sensing that Ro was done with him, or wis.h.i.+ng to avoid confrontation with Bis, Keeve moved on down the road, toward his own residence.

”Is it done?” Bis asked her eagerly, and Ro gave him a single nod, her head feeling heavy. This time, she did not respond when he grabbed her tightly, lifting her nearly off her feet.

”We have to celebrate,” Bis said. ”Come with me, we'll have spring wine at my friend Lino's house.” He gestured toward a dwelling not far from where they stood.

”We did a good thing, didn't we?” Ro said.

”We did a brilliant thing,” he said. He laughed out loud, a picture of jubilation.

”And...the people on the station...”

”What people?” Bis said, beginning to walk.

”The Bajorans,” she said. ”They'll...walk with the Prophets? Is that what you believe?”

Bis looked puzzled. ”That's right,” he said, but his voice sounded a little less excited now. He stopped walking. ”Come on, Laren. Just think. We're going to be responsible for killing Gul Dukat! Gul Dukat and Kubus Oak, all their henchmen. We're going to destroy Terok Nor! Do you have any idea of the significance of it?”

”Yes, I know,” Ro said. ”But Keeve Falor just told me-”

”Forget Keeve Falor!” Bis said, and he sounded angry now. ”Just wait-once Terok Nor is really gone, once the prefect is dead-Keeve and the others will see that I was right.”

”Of course,” Ro said. She thought of the botched mission on Jo'kala, her last. She'd been so sure the others would see that she was right-but she hadn't been.

”I left the s.h.i.+p in orbit,” she told him.