Devil in the sky, p.20
Devil in the Sky, page 20
“There’s something I have to tell you,” Dax said. “There’s a Cardassian convoy about to arrive.”
“I know, I know!” Kira snapped. “Kira out!”
She risked a quick glance around the corner and an energy beam almost took her head off. Damn cagey, she thought, pretending to be hit like that. She reached around the corner and fired blindly again.
“Cover me,” Dyoran said. “I’m going to cross the corridor.”
“Ready,” Kira said grimly.
* * *
Ttan came to full consciousness with the noise of phaser fire echoing in her senses. She rose and went to the door to her cell. Through the force-bars she could see the corridor. Both guards had vanished.
Once more she heard sounds of phasers firing, and then the scream of an injured humanoid. She paused. Should she leave her cell? Gul Mavek might hurt her children if she did. But there was clearly something wrong. Had the Federation come to rescue her?
It was a possibility she hadn’t dared consider until now. The sounds of battle were getting more intense. She knew she had to do something, and soon.
Finally she decided to take a look. If they had come to rescue her, she had to let them know about her children. Perhaps they already had them. Perhaps it was a matter of their finding her and beaming her back to their ship to join them!
She burrowed through the stone wall, then out into the corridor, right behind the two guards who had been watching her cell. One of them whipped his weapon around and shot her at point-blank range. The phaser beam traced a painful line across Ttan’s back.
Ttan quivered all over for a moment, then leaped on top of him, acid pumping. In seconds his fragile carbon body had been reduced to a smoking black smear on the hallway floor.
The other guard was still firing at someone else up the corridor, but Ttan leaped on him, too, for good measure. As his flesh disintegrated under her, she felt a strange thrill of satisfaction. It was self-defense, she told herself. That’s what I’ll tell Gul Mavek if he questions me.
She surged forward. Two more humanoids were advancing down the corridor. They had smooth skins, like Captain Dawson of the Puyallup, but neither of them wore a Federation uniform. Clearly they weren’t Cardassians. Who were they?
The woman in the lead raised her hand in greeting. “Ttan!” she said. “My name is Major Kira. We have come to free you.”
Joy, joy! Ttan thought. It was true. The Federation had sent these people to rescue her.
She stopped in front of the female and asked, “Where are my children?”
The Universal Translator made a strange gurgling noise. Ttan hesitated, puzzled, then turned to examine it.
The Cardassian who had shot her moments before had hit her translator device, she realized with a gritty feeling inside. She tried again and got the same strange gurgling noise.
“I can’t understand you,” Kira said. “What’s wrong?”
Slowly, very carefully, Ttan excreted acid in the exact pattern the Federation used for written communication. It was a clumsy method of communicating, but Ttan had been taught to use it in case of an emergency, and this certainly qualified as one.
When she moved back, large, blocky letters had been burned into the floor. They said: NO TRANSLATOR.
“Can you understand me?” the woman asked.
YES, Ttan wrote. She moved back and etched another line: SAVE MY CHILDREN.
“Your eggs?” Kira said. “They are safe on DS9—the space station you were traveling to. The Cardassians didn’t take them. They only beamed you to their ship.”
Relief flooded through Ttan—and then a cold rage like none she had ever felt before. Gul Mavek had lied to her. He had threatened her children when in truth he didn’t even have them. It made everything else he had done seem all the more terrible. And she had believed him. Prime Mother, she had believed him!
* * *
Everything seemed to be coming together at once, Kira thought with little sense of satisfaction. But now they had to get out of here. She checked the time. They still had forty minutes before Dax would be in transporter range again … they had to hold out that long. Then perhaps Dax would be able to beam them a few at a time into whatever docking area this base had.
“Major!” Bashir called.
She jogged to the corner. With a sound like rolling boulders, the Horta followed.
“What is it?” she called.
“According to Ensign Aponte,” he said, “there are Cardassians approaching from every side!”
“Bring the others here,” she said.
When she turned back to the Horta, she found that Ttan had left a new message on the floor: I HELP. TELL HOW.
“Ttan,” Kira said, hardly daring to hope. “We need transportation away from here. Our ship is not large enough to carry all of the prisoners we have rescued. We need to capture one of the Cardassians’ ships. Do you know how to get to their docking bay?”
YES, Ttan wrote. FOLLOW.
Turning, the Horta touched the wall and seemed to melt into it. Her body turned almost sideways, leaving a tunnel large enough for a person to walk upright. The sides of the tunnel smoked a bit from the acid she excreted, but the acid became inert almost at once. Kira stuck her head into the tunnel. Yes, she thought, this would more than do. She could see Ttan burrowing upward at a rapid pace, and on a twenty-degree slope. Clearly the Horta knew exactly what angle humans needed to comfortably follow her.
Kira stepped back. The others were coming up the corridor in twos, with Dyoran and Muckerheide leading the way. Bashir darted around the marchers and trotted up to her side.
“We have about five minutes, Aponte says,” he reported. “They think they have us pinned down here.” He stared up the Horta’s tunnel. “Amazing,” he breathed. “Is she all right?”
“She’s been hit by several phaser blasts, but she’s a tough girl,” Kira said. She wished they had a dozen more like her. “You can doctor her to your heart’s contentment once we get aboard the shuttle. She’s taking us to the docking bay now.”
Julian jumped away from the tunnel. “She’s coming back!”
“What?” Surprised, Kira leaned forward to see.
Sure enough, Ttan was on her way back down, enlarging the tunnel even more as she went. Two, possibly three men could have walked through it abreast. Suddenly Ttan veered to the side and disappeared from sight. She darted in and out several times, and when she was done, the first section of her new tunnel now had a large stone column standing in its center, supporting the roof.
Kira grinned. If they removed that column, she knew the roof would fall in—making pursuit impossible. Ttan knew what she was doing, all right.
“Why is she doing that?” Bashir asked. “I don’t understand.”
“She’s left a booby trap of her own,” Kira said, and she took a moment to explain. By the time she finished, most of the rescued prisoners had queued up.
Next came the hard part—waiting while everyone entered the tunnel.
“Aponte, Muckerheide,” she called. “You and Captain Dyoran go through first, then Wilkens and Jonsson. Everyone else, follow in pairs. This tunnel leads straight to the docking bay. We’ll find a ship there. Dr. Bashir and I will hold our position here, then seal the tunnel to keep the Cardassians from attacking our flank.”
“Right!” Ensign Aponte said. She ducked into Ttan’s tunnel, and the others followed, two at a time.
Ten, Kira counted, twenty, thirty. She could only stand and watch, tapping her foot and trying not to get too jumpy. Hurry, she breathed. The Cardassians would be there soon.
She glanced at Bashir. He was taking tricorder readings. “They’re closing in!” he warned. “Both sides!”
Forty, Kira counted. Forty-two, forty-four. Come on, come on. Then she realized they weren’t going to make it.
Tensing, she raised her phaser. “Get ready to fire,” she said to Bashir. “As soon as you see movement. Then duck through the tunnel.”
Forty-four, forty-six …
“What about you?” Bashir demanded.
“I can take care of myself,” she said. Forty-eight—
Something rattled down the corridor toward them. It took her a half-second to focus on it. “Stun grenade!” she shouted, and instinctively she threw herself on Bashir.
She got Bashir to the floor just as the grenade went off—and just as the last pair of Bajorans were about to duck into Ttan’s tunnel.
Then the walls were shaking and she felt the floor heave under her almost like a thing alive. Lights flickered and died, and with a horrible metallic ripping noise, something fell on top of her from the ceiling.
She must have blacked out for a second, for the next thing she knew, she was inside the tunnel with Dr. Bashir. He was panting for breath in the semidarkness, and his eyes were wild.
“The last two—” she gasped.
He shook his head. “They didn’t make it into the tunnel. They’re both dead, crushed when the ceiling caved in.”
Kira tried to stand and almost blacked out again from the pain that lanced through the whole left side of her body. She glanced down. Her left leg was folded back at an odd angle, against the joint. Oh, by the Prophets, no. Broken, she knew. She felt sick inside. She bit her lip. He must have injected her with painkillers, she thought, for her to be conscious at all.
Bashir gently turned her head to face him. “Easy, Major,” he said, voice grave. “Do you have another stun grenade? Anything explosive?”
“No,” she said. Her voice sounded small and distant. I’m going into shock, she realized. This can’t be happening. They need me too much. Her gaze drifted down toward her leg again. She stared, disbelieving. How could it look like that? That couldn’t really be her leg, she decided.
“Major?” Bashir turned her face toward him again. “Major! The column is still in place! Ttan’s tunnel hasn’t collapsed!”
“Yes,” she said vaguely. She reached for her weapon, but it had vanished. “Give me your phaser,” she said.
“I lost it in the blast,” he said.
Kira drew a breath, then let it out with a gasp. Pain so intense she couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe racked her left side.
“Major?” Bashir said. “What should I do? Help me, Major. I’m counting on you.”
She whispered, “Leave me. I’ve done what I had to. I’ll slow you down. Get to a ship … get the others out of here….”
“I can’t do that,” he said.
“It’s an order!” she gasped.
“Whatever you say,” Bashir said. “You’re a real hero, Major. Never forget that.”
For a second, Kira smiled. Then everything went black.
CHAPTER 16
AFTER SEVERAL TRIES, Sisko succeeded in going over the deputy secretary’s head. Vedek Sloi, director of the Bajoran Council on Ecological Controls, appeared on the small screen in Sisko’s office. It was not a clear transmission; her image wavered in and out of focus, and was sometimes distorted by waves of phosphor “snow.” More evidence of the Hortas’ destructive handiwork, Sisko knew.
“Vedek Sloi, thank you for responding to my inquiries.” Finally, he added privately. The Vedek had been ducking his calls for hours, during which time the all-consuming Hortas had practically reduced the station to its bare bones.
The Bajoran cleric, her gaunt features framed by a headdress of folded red fabric, acknowledged his greeting with a nod. “I apologize for the delay,” she said. Persistent static gave her voice an unnatural, crackling accent. “The work of the Prophets, and of the council, is never-ending.”
Sisko was not surprised to discover that Secretary Pova’s superior was also a religious leader. On Bajor, the line between church and state was often uncomfortably thin. He hoped Sloi was more like the Kai Opaka and less like Vedek Winn and her followers. Kira could have informed him, discreetly, on Sloi’s reputation and politics, but Kira, of course, wasn’t here. Major, he wondered, where in hell are you? I need that Mother Horta back now.
“I understand,” he said. “Still, our situation is urgent. I assume you have been briefed on the emergency?”
“My respected colleague, Pova Lerg, has kept me apprised of the details. He has also shared his opinions on the matter, with which I am inclined to agree. The Hortas do not belong on or below the sacred soil of Bajor.”
Damn! He’d half-expected this reaction, but Sisko refused to back down now. “With all due respect to your friend Pova,” he said, deliberately letting some of his irritation creep into his tone, “perhaps he hasn’t made our position perfectly clear. While we debate, the Hortas are on the verge of invading the core of DS9. Despite our best efforts, they are destroying this station and endangering the lives of everyone aboard, human and Bajoran. We have to transfer the Hortas to Bajor immediately.”
The Vedek shook her head. “The Prophets created Bajor according to their divine plan, a plan which clearly does not include the Hortas. If such creatures were meant to exist on Bajor, they would have dwelt here from the beginning. What you are proposing is anathema.”
Beneath his desk, and out of sight of Vedek Sloi, Sisko’s foot tapped angrily against the floor. Incredibly, he found himself missing Pova, who at least pretended to secular motivations. “But alien life-forms have visited Bajor before,” he pointed out. Indeed, the Prophets themselves were far more alien than the Hortas, although this was not an argument likely to appease a Vedek.
“And our people have been the sadder for it,” Sloi said. “Or have you forgotten the Cardassians?”
“The Hortas are not conquerors, Vedek. They’re children!”
“Children who have brought your precious station to the brink of ruin. The more you speak of your own danger, the more I fear for my planet.”
“It’s not the same thing!” Sisko protested. “We’re an enclosed environment sustained artificially …” Sloi tried to cut him off with a wave of her hand, but Sisko would not be silenced. “They can’t destroy a planet. In fact, they came here to help Bajor.”
“Not at my request,” she reminded him, “or the provisional government’s.”
Sisko tried another tack. “Forget the Hortas’ rights, then. What about the other lives at stake here? Bajoran lives?”
“Our people are accustomed to sacrifice,” she answered coolly, apparently unfazed by the increasing heat of Sisko’s tone. Another band of interference rippled across the screen, deforming the Vedek’s face like a fun-house mirror. “There is another possibility, of course,” she continued. The signal’s distortion turned the straight line of her lips into a twisted grimace.
“Which is?” Sisko asked.
“Destroy the Hortas. Purely in self-defense.”
Sisko no longer saw any point to controlling his anger. “That, Madame Director, is exactly what our Cardassian computer suggested as well.”
Even through the snow and static, Sisko saw the Vedek’s eyes flash with fury at his comparison. “Our conversation is at an end, Commander. The decision of the council is final. Any attempt to deposit the Hortas anywhere on Bajor will be considered an illegal invasion on the part of Starfleet. Bajor out.”
The screen blanked abruptly. So much for diplomacy, Sisko thought. He stared at the screen as if he could beam his thoughts directly to the Vedek’s office on Bajor.
“I’ll find a way, Sloi,” he said aloud, “to save the station and the Hortas. And to hell with you and your entire council.”
Sisko stood up suddenly. He stepped away from his desk and marched toward Ops. There were other councils and committees that might be able to overrule or circumvent Vedek Sloi and her xenophobic brand of ecological protection, but he had neither the time nor the patience to wrestle anymore with the intricacies of Bajoran politics, not with a litter of feral Hortas breathing down his neck.
The double doors slid open automatically, selfishly depriving him of the pleasure of slamming them behind him. Sisko strode onto the upper tier of Ops. No one looked up to note his arrival; everyone appeared engrossed in tracking the Hortas or compensating for one of a hundred malfunctioning systems. The environmental controls were clearly in trouble, as well as the air circulators.
Despite the absence of Dax, Kira, and O’Brien, Ops was more crowded than usual. A bad sign, he realized. As they lost more and more territory to the Hortas, a larger percentage of his staff had crammed into Ops to assist however they could. Despite their injuries, Dawson and Shirar from the Puyallup had pitched in to help. Captain Dawson supervised the operations table while his Vulcan navigator scanned the surrounding area for transmissions from the Amazon.
Looking around Ops, Sisko was startled to see one young ensign wearing nothing but a blanket; at the moment, he knelt beside the science station, making rapid adjustments to the long-range sensor displays while his free hand struggled to hold the makeshift toga together. Sisko rolled his eyes wearily. There had to be a story behind the nearly naked ensign, but he didn’t have the time to look into it. Neither did anybody else, apparently; it was a measure of how bad things were that nobody on the floor was giving the young man a hard time.
Sisko decided to get the news straight from the front. “Chief O’Brien,” he said, activating his comm. “Sisko here. Report.”
The Irishman’s voice came through more clearly than the broadcast from Bajor. “We’re losing ground, Commander, and in a big way. We’ve fed the ugly rock-rats damn near everything but the docking pylons and they’re still coming.”
“How far from the core?” Sisko asked.
“Commander, they’re in the core already. They got past us on the bridge ten minutes ago.”
Silently, Sisko cursed Sloi and Pova and their useless council to the darkest corner of the Bajoran netherworld. “Chief, I want you back in Ops now. Prepare to be beamed here directly.”
There was a momentary silence on the other end of the line. “Chief?” Sisko inquired.
O’Brien’s voice took on a slightly embarrassed tone. “Er, if it’s all the same to you, Commander, I’d just as soon take the turbolift.”
