Myriad Universes_ Echoes And Refractions Part 24

Picard had known Ro long enough to discern that she was originally going to say "than me," but said nothing. Instead, he turned to his first officer, sitting next to Ro. "What do you think, Number One?"

Worf had yet to grow accustomed to being referred to with that appellation, and he winced when Picard said it, but quickly recovered. "I believe that Amba.s.sador Krajensky is not trained in interrogation techniques. I also believe that a single insane Bajoran woman would not be capable of crossing the border alone with only the help of a Ferengi-nor do I believe that a spy would have quite so...outlandish a tale to tell."

"So you believe we should question this woman further?" Picard asked.

"Yes, sir. What's more, Counselor Troi, Lieutenant Ro, and I should conduct the questioning."

Nodding, Picard said, "Very well. I will clear it with the amba.s.sador. Summon the counselor to the lecture hall, and begin at once."

Worf, son of Mogh, kept forcing himself not to look at Deanna Troi.

It had been awkward, serving with his former parMach'kai on this new ship. It was even more awkward after the war began-and she and Riker rekindled their romance. They'd gotten married just before he was put in command of the Sugihara. She'd stayed on the Enterprise, since the Sugihara didn't have a position available for her-the ship had a qualified counselor whom Riker did not wish to dislodge for his wife-and she felt that she was still needed here anyway.

Ending their relationship had been the right thing to do. Worf knew that.

But it was d.a.m.ned hard to keep working with her.

At least the war usually kept her off the bridge. Her services were required quite a bit in these hard times, and she rarely had the opportunity to take her station at Picard's left.

Now, though, they had work to do.

Because Ro was, like their guest, a Bajoran, they arranged for her to take the lead. "Okay, Kira-tell us what you told Amba.s.sador Krajensky."

Kira Nerys took a deep breath, setting her hands in her lap. "It started about five years ago. A smuggler was trying to escape from Terok Nor-that's the s.p.a.ce station in orbit of Bajor," she added, presumably for Worf and Troi's benefit, though Worf was familiar with the station from recent intelligence briefings regarding the Carda.s.sian Union.

She continued, "The Carda.s.sians use it for processing uridium from the mines. This smuggler tried to lose his pursuer in the Denorios Belt-that's a stream of tachyon eddies and gases around B'hava'el."

Worf scowled. That was something he did not know. He knew that Bajor's sun was called B'hava'el, but he'd never heard of this belt.

"n.o.body goes into the Denorios Belt if they can help it-it's a huge navigation hazard. I guess the smuggler was counting on that." She shook her head. "Unfortunately, the Carda.s.sians were feeling particularly bold, and followed him in. That's when they found the wormhole."

"A wormhole?" Troi said.

Kira nodded. "It's a stable wormhole, and it leads to the Gamma Quadrant. The Carda.s.sian ship went through and came back several times."

Ro asked, "How come we haven't heard of this?"

The Ferengi spoke up, then. "If you found a stable wormhole, would you advertise it to the galaxy?"

Troi said, "Yes, actually."

That prompted a snaggletoothed smile from the Ferengi. "Can tell you're not Carda.s.sian. They kept it their little secret."

"A stable wormhole is impossible," Ro said.

"Not anymore," Kira said. "It's been there for years now, always opening in the Denorios Belt on one end and in the Idran system in the Gamma Quadrant on the other." Kira took a breath. "The Carda.s.sians kept the wormhole cla.s.sified. Only a few guls and legates knew about it at first. They sent a few ships to explore the other side."

"They also," the Ferengi added, "let other entrepreneurs go through for a small fee."

"Such as yourself," Worf said witheringly.

"Exactly. And I was the one who found out about the Dominion."

Ro asked, "And what is the Dominion?"

"A ma.s.sive interstellar empire in the Gamma Quadrant," Kira said. "The Founders of the Dominion are shapechangers. Decades ago, they sent out a hundred infants into s.p.a.ce. One fell through the wormhole and was found in the Denorios Belt. He was taken in by a Bajoran scientist and called himself Odo. He eventually became security chief of the Promenade on Terok Nor."

"And he is a shapechanger?" Worf asked.

Ro said, "I can confirm that. He served the Carda.s.sians for a long time. But he was replaced recently, right?"

Kira smiled. "The Carda.s.sians have been trying to find him for more than a year now with no luck. But he realized that he'd found his people-and that his people wanted to conquer the Alpha Quadrant."

Troi asked, "Then why have we heard nothing about this Dominion?"

"Because they don't come in with guns blazing to conquer worlds like the Carda.s.sians or the Klingons do. Instead, they sent in a number of the Founders to take the place of important people in the Federation, Klingon, Romulan, and Carda.s.sian governments. I'm fairly sure they replaced Gul Dukat-he's the prefect of Terok Nor-and they've done likewise elsewhere in the galaxy. The war you people are fighting? That was the Dominion's work. Remember, it all started with an unprovoked attack by a Romulan ship on a Klingon outpost. n.o.body knows why that Romulan ship attacked-but our guess is that it was a shapechanger who replaced the subcommander in charge of that vessel and then gave the order to fire on the outpost. The Klingons and Romulans took it from there."

Worf was extremely skeptical. "Why should we believe this story?"

"Because I don't have any reason to lie!" Kira was shouting now. "And because the Carda.s.sians are making their move with the Dominion's help. You think it's a coincidence that Central Command's moving on you now, when all three powers have been devastated by the war? And where do you think they got their new weapons from?"

That brought Worf up short. Starfleet Intelligence had been caught completely off guard by the Carda.s.sians' new weapons, and had yet to determine their source. The phased polaron beam was far beyond what the Carda.s.sians should have been able to develop and deploy on their own, and they had apparently done so entirely in secret, which Worf had found impossible to credit. No intelligence-gathering agency had a perfect record, but SI was never that bad.

But if the weapons came from another quadrant...

No, the idea was absurd.

Kira was still talking. "The Dominon have shock troops called the Jem'Hadar. They provided the new weapons. Once the war has gone on long enough to leave all three partic.i.p.ants weakened, the Jem'Hadar will come in and conquer on behalf of Carda.s.sia-and the Dominion."

Worf remained dubious. "All through a wormhole that they have kept secret from the entire galaxy?"

"Like I said, the Denorios Belt's a navigation hazard. No one goes near there."

The Ferengi said, "You're wasting your breath, Kira. These idiots don't believe you. Which is too bad. Why do you think the Ferengi Alliance became part of Carda.s.sia? The Detapa Council paid off the Grand Nagus to retire and cede Ferenginar to the Union in order to keep the wormhole secret. They paid me off, too. Had enough to buy my own moon-where I was perfectly happy until she turned up," he added with a glower at Kira.

"Then why did you help her?" Worf asked.

The Ferengi looked back at the Klingon, and Worf saw genuine fear in his eyes. "It needed to be done," he said lamely.

That answer told Worf a great deal.

Troi looked at Worf. "Commander, I need to speak to you and Lieutenant Ro in private."

Nodding, Worf rose, as did Ro. They moved into the corridor.

"I can't read Quark," Troi said, "but Kira's telling the truth. Or at least what she believes is the truth."

"So is the Ferengi," Worf said.

Ro stared at him. "How do you know?"

"He is afraid. He is also the owner of a moon, which makes him a...well-heeeled member of Ferengi society."

"Carda.s.sian society now," Ro muttered.

"He jeopardized that to aid the Bajoran woman. No Ferengi would do so without cause. Normally for a Ferengi, that would be profit, but she does not appear to have anything that would be of value to him." He looked back at the door. "Except fear. I could smell the fear on the Ferengi."

"But he could be afraid of Kira," Troi said. "She could be threatening him in some way, forcing him to go along with her delusion."

"The problem is," Ro said, "everything she said? It makes perfect sense. The tactics of this war have been a disaster on all sides. Look at the way things have been going-look at how Khitomer was botched. I have no trouble believing that someone's trying to sabotage this war."

"I do not believe in conspiracy theories," Worf said. "And just because their claims happen to fit the evidence does not mean they are true."

"Yeah, I know," Ro said, "I took the same security courses at the academy you did. But still-"

The door whooshed open, and one of the guards was on the other side. "Commander, Lieutenant? The Bajoran woman says she has something else to say. She says it's proof."

Worf looked at Troi and Ro, then at the guard. Without a word, he entered.

Kira was standing now. As soon as the foursome came inside, she said, "The items I had on me when we transported aboard-where are they?"

"They have been impounded and are in the security office," Worf said. "Why?"

"You obviously won't take my word-but I do have the word of someone you might believe more. I need one item in particular."

Worf mulled it over, then looked at Ro. "Bring the items."

Ro nodded to the guard, who departed.

A few minutes later, he returned with Kira's satchel. He handed it to the woman, who rummaged through it, pulling out something that looked to Worf like a kind of containment unit.

"This is a...well, container, for lack of a better word," Kira said. "When I deactivate it, the contents will be exposed. It's not anything dangerous."

Ro tapped her combadge. "Computer. Security protocol nine, this location. Secure the podium area."

A forcefield encased the area where Quark and Kira were. "What's going on?" Quark asked.

"If that contains a weapon of any kind," Ro said, "it'll only affect the two of you."

Kira glared at Ro. "If I wanted to kill myself, I'd have stayed on Bajor."

"If you were in my position, Kira, wouldn't you take every precaution?"

Sighing, Kira said, "Fine."

She touched a control. Worf watched as the green lights on the unit switched to red.

Then an amber substance started to ooze out of it. Worf was starting to believe that it was a weapon-a biological one. Tapping his combadge, he said, "Computer, security alert. Clear this deck."

But even as he spoke, the substance started to coalesce into a humanoid form. Eventually it settled into what appeared to be a humanoid male-but unfinished, somehow. The ears were simplistic, the eyes beady, the face smooth.

"My name is Odo," the creature said, "and you are all in very grave danger."

14.

Starbase 375 Sorax System United Federation of Planets Admiral Eric Hahn observed the watch officer as she ran the operations center of the starbase.

Commander Erika Benteen was an able officer. Before his death at the hands of the Borg, Admiral Leyton had always spoken highly of her. She had been serving as first officer on the Lakota, but after the Carda.s.sian invasion of the Federation, Hahn had requested that she be transferred here.

Hahn himself had been sent to this starbase by Leyton two years earlier, after a lengthy tenure at Starfleet Academy. He hadn't wanted to change a.s.signments, but he was a good enough officer that he didn't question his orders. Besides, he had thought at the time, it was a perfect a.s.signment: Starbase 375 was strategically important thanks to its proximity to the Carda.s.sian border, but not a great deal of work to maintain given how quiet the Carda.s.sian Union had been.

After the invasion began, however, Hahn's job suddenly got a lot more complicated. He didn't particularly want to be here-he thought of himself primarily as a teacher, not a leader-but this starbase was his responsibility, and it would be on the front lines if the situation with Carda.s.sia devolved into a full-scale war. His wife, Crystal, had said in their last subs.p.a.ce talk that Starfleet wouldn't have kept him there if they didn't think he was the right person for the job. As usual, his wife was right.

But that didn't mean he had to like it.

Now he watched as Benteen stood at the center of ops, giving orders in a calm, collected voice.

"Dax, identify the ships please," she said to the science officer.

Sitting serenely at Benteen's right was a Trill woman named Jadzia Dax, who said, "Three Galor-cla.s.s ships. They're running weapons hot."

"Red alert. Raise shields, load torpedo launchers."

Looking up, Hahn saw ops darken, the usual bright illumination replaced with red, a low alarm sounding just loud enough to be heard, but not so loud that it interfered with duty-a preference Hahn had programmed into the computer shortly after his arrival.

"Ledrah, hail them," Benteen added to the operations officer, a Tiburonian woman named Nidani Ledrah, whom Benteen had brought with her from the Lakota.

Shaking her head, Ledrah said, "They're not responding."

Letting out a small sigh, but standing straight, with her hands behind her back, Benteen said, "All right-hail the Lexington and the da Vinci."

The faces of Captains Gilaad ben Zoma and David Gold appeared on the forward viewer. Both men were humans, and Starfleet veterans. The Lexington had put in for repairs, and da Vinci-which was a.s.signed to the Starfleet Corps of Engineers-was there to supervise some upgrades to the starbase.

"Gentlemen, I'm afraid we're going to need some a.s.sistance. Captain ben Zoma, are your repairs far enough along?"

"We'll manage," the captain said with a small smile.

"Captain Gold, I realize that the Sabre cla.s.s is a bit outmatched by the Galor cla.s.s, but-"

Gold, who, with his snow-white hair and cornflower blue eyes, already had a grandfatherly mien, gave a smile that increased that affect a hundredfold. "Don't you worry about us. My people have a few tricks up their sleeves."

Ledrah said, "One of the ships is firing!"