Star Trek - DS9 - Fall of Terok Nor Read online

  Star Trek - DS9 - Fall of Terok Nor

  At that moment, before the sky was opened, it was all a flurry of this and that and the everyday. But with the Opening, there came a stillness, a pause in the endless avalanche of life, if you will, as if the stars themselves whispered for us to turn away from what troubled us and glimpse what waited at our journey's end. And the truth is, what the stars showed was no different from what we had already suspected: There were many paths to that final destination, and even in the Temple of All That Had Been and Was Still To Come, the place where all answers waited, it was up to us-to us-to choose our own way.

  -JAKE SISKO, Anslem

  PROLOGUE

  In the Hands of the Prophets

  "THERE was another time," the Sisko says.

  "It is not linear," Jake answers. The twelve-year-old boy dangles his fishing line in the quiet water of the pond, rippling the reflections of towering trees, green fields, and the pure blue sky of Earth. The sun is strong, and the rich scent of the bridge's sun-warmed wood makes uncounted summers happen all at once for the Sisko.

  "But it is, was, will be...." The Sisko falters with the syntax of eternity. His father plays the upright piano in the restaurant in New Orleans as the Sisko plunges into the depths of the Fire Caves with Gul Dukat and first takes his captain's chair on the bridge of the Starship Defiant, all within a single heartbeat- the same heartbeat.

  -The heartbeat of his unborn child, now grown,

  now fulfilling a destiny unimaginable to the Sisko, a destiny now known to him, now unknown.

  The Sisko laughs at the wonder of it all.

  "You're laughing again," Jean-Luc Picard tells him in the ready room of the Enterprise, in orbit of Bajor.

  The Sisko looks down at the old uniform he wears at this moment. The texture feels so real to him, even as it dissolves beneath his fingers and he is in his bathing suit on the beach carrying lemonade to the woman who will be/is/was his wife-still at this same moment.

  "That is correct," Solok confirms. The young Vulcan walks beside the Sisko on the path leading from Starfleet Academy's zero-G gymnasium to the cadets' residences. "All moments are the same."

  "In this time," the Sisko says. He watches Boothby plant fall flowers by the statue of Admiral Chekov. "But there are other times. That's my point." The gar-dener now prunes bushes for the spring.

  "This is not logical" Solok says. His cadet's uni-form becomes that of a baseball player, and he tosses a small white ball into the air, then catches it with the same hand an infinite number of times.

  "Logic has no place here," the Sisko says. He reaches out and intercepts the ball even as Solok attempts to catch it. "Because logic is linear."

  "Some logic is absolute," Sarah Sisko says. She % stands by the viewport in the Sisko's quarters on Deep Space 9, the radiance of the opening doorway to the Celestial Temple filtering through her hair. Wormholes within wormholes. Temples within temples. An infinite regression. Or an eternal one.

  "I think I finally know why I'm here," the Sisko says. "Why you... had to be certain my mother would marry my father, give birth to me."

  "You are the Sisko," Major Kira agrees. She stands at her station in Ops.

  "You need me here," the Sisko says.

  "You are the Sisko," Curzon Dax agrees, the vast spacedocks of Utopia Planitia orbiting with flawless precision beyond the viewport of his shuttle.

  "You need me here to teach you," the Sisko says.

  Interruption.

  The Sisko finds himself in the light space. Around him Sarah, Jake, Kira, Solok, Curzon, Worf, and Admi-ral Ross.

  "You have much to learn," the admiral says.

  "Then shouldn't I already know it? "

  "Your language is imperfect for these matters," Solok says.

  "You have much to realize that you already know," Worf says.

  "That you have always known," Jake says.

  The Sisko holds up a finger, and each of his observers watches it, as he knows they will.

  The Sisko regards their expectant faces and laughs again. "Look at you all," he exclaims. "You want to know what I'm going to say next. Because you don't know! "

  The Prophets are silent

  The Sisko thinks of a thing, of a time, of a moment, makes it real.

  And they are on the Promenade of Deep Space 9, as it is the day the Sisko first sets foot upon it.

  The Sisko can smell stale smoke, hear the clamor of work crews. Feels what the Prophets cannot feel, the... anticipation.

  He leads them to the entrance of the Bajoran Temple.

  "Since you do not know time, how can you know of

  other times?" the Sisko asks, so much that is hidden now known to him.

  As he knows they will, the Prophets continue their silence.

  The Sisko holds out his hand to them. "Welcome, Prophets," the Sisko says with a smile. "Your Emissary awaits you."

  All enter the Temple then. Intendant Kira and Jadzia and Ezri, Jake and Kasidy, Weyoun and Damar, Quark and Rom and Nog, Bashir and Garak, Vie and Worf, O'Brien and Keiko and Eddington and Vash. All at the invitation of the Sisko.

  It takes hours for them all to pass through, all in a single moment.

  The last is the Sisko, poised on the threshold of the Temple.

  He remembers his own words the first time he stands here.

  "Another time."

  An infinity of eternities in just two words. An infinity beyond the understanding of the Prophets.

  Until now.

  The Sisko enters the Temple.

  Not to show them the beginning of things. Because that would be linear.

  He enters the Temple to show them the end.

  As it was.

  As it is.

  As it will be....

  CHAPTER 1

  on this day, like a beast with talons extended to claw through space itself, the Station stalked Bajor one final time.

  Viewed from high above, from orbit, the dark, curved docking arms angled sharply downward, as if gouging the planet's surface to leave blood-red wounds of flame. And from each blazing gash of destruction, wave after wave of ships lifted from the conquerors' camps and garrisons, on fiery, untempered columns of full fusion exhaust.

  As those ships exploded upward through the planet's smoke-filled atmosphere, the sonic booms of their passing were like the echo of the death-screams of the ravished world they left behind. The jewel-like sparkle of the departing ships' thrusters like the glitter-ing tears of that world's lost gods.

  On this day, on this world, sixty years of butchery and brutality had at last come to an end.

  But on the dark station that was Terok Nor, with viewports that flashed with phaser bursts and shim-mered with the fire of its own inner destruction, there was still far worse to come.

  On this day, the Day of Withdrawal, the Cardassians were leaving. But they had not left yet...

  Held within the cold and patient silence of space, the Promenade of Terok Nor itself was a tumultuous pocket universe of heat and noise and confusion.

  The security gates that had bisected its circular path had by now collapsed, twisted by hammers and wire-cutters and the frantically grasping hands of slaves set free. Glowing restraint conduits that once had bound the gates now cracked and sparked and sent strobing flashes into the dense blue haze that choked the air, still Cardassian-hot.

  Hull plates resonated with the violent release of multiple, escaping shuttles and ships. A thrumming wall of sound sprang up as departing soldiers phasered equipment too heavy to steal.

  Decks shook as rampaging looters forced inter-nal doors and shattered windows. Among the empty shelves of the Chemist's shop, a Bajo
ran lay dy-ing, Cardassian blood on his hands, Cardassian bootprints on his back, his collaboration with the enemy no guarantee of safety in the madness of this day.

  Turbolifts whined and ladders rattled against their moorings. Officers shouted hoarse commands. Soldiers cursed their victims. In counterpoint, a calm recorded voice recited the orders of the day. "Atten-

  tion, all biorganic materials must be disposed of according to regulations. Attention...."

  But on this day, the only response to that directive was the desperate, high-pitched shriek of a Ferengi in fear for his life. And in fear for good reason.

  Quark the barkeep kicked and fought and shrieked again, as the Cardassian soldiers, safe in their scarred, hard-edged armor, dragged him from his bar, soiling and tearing his snug multicolored jacket.

  Quark opened his eyes just long enough to recog-nize the scowling officer, Datar, a glinn, who waited for him with a coil of ODN cable. In the same quick glimpse, he saw the antigrav lifter from a cargo bay bobbing in the air nearby; he heard the soldiers as they mockingly chanted the last words he would hear before he stood at the doors of the Divine Treasury to give a full accounting of his life-

  "Dabo! Dabo! Dabo!"

  Yet even as he faced his last minute of existence, Quark still couldn't help automatically tallying the damages each time he heard a crash from his establish-ment as the Cardassian forces laid waste to it.

  A sudden blow slammed Quark to the Promenade deck, and a quick, savage kick from a heavy leather boot forestalled any thought of escape.

  But even as he cried out in pain, Quark wondered if his brother and nephew had made it to a shuttle, and if the Cardassians had found his latinum floor vault. He gasped in shock as he felt Glinn Datar's rough hand claw at the sensitive lobes of his right ear, the viola-tion forcing him to his feet. In the same terrible moment, Quark found himself wondering just why it was Cardassians always had such truly disgusting breath.

  "Quark!" the glinn growled at him. "You have no idea how it pains me to take my leave of you."

  "All good things," Quark muttered as waves of incredible pain radiated from his crushed right ear lobe and across his skull and neck.

  Datar's swift, expert punch to the center of his stom-ach doubled Quark over, his lips gaping in vain for even a mouthful of air.

  "Relax, Quark," the glinn hissed, reaching out for Quark's earlobe again. "It's not necessary for you to speak-ever again!"

  Quark felt himself hauled up until he stared right into Datar's narrowed eyes. He felt his poor earlobe throb painfully, already starting to swell.

  "My men and I are going to make this a real farewell." The glinn nodded once and Quark felt huge hands forcibly secure his shoulders and arms from behind. Datar addressed his soldiers as if reading from a proclamation. "Quark of Terok Nor, you miserable mound of sluk scum: For the crime of rigging your dabo table, for the crime of watering your drinks, short-timing the holosuites, inflating tabs, and... most of all for the crime of being a Ferengi... I sentence you to death!"

  Incredulous, Quark tried to plead his innocence, but his rasping exhortations were drowned out by the cheers of the surrounding soldiers. He tried to blurt out the combination of his floor vault, the shuttle access codes Rom and Nog were going to use to escape, even made-up names of resistance fighters, but the sharp cutting pressure of the ODN cable Glin Datar suddenly wrapped around his neck ended any chance he had of saying a word. Even the squeak that escaped him then registered as little more than a soon-to-be-dead man's chocked-off wheeze.

  Eyes bulging, each racing heartbeat thundering in bis cavernous ear tunnels, Quark could only watch as two soldiers hooked the other end of the thick cable to the grappler on the cargo antigrav.

  Datar slammed his hand on the antigrav's control and the meter-long device bucked up a few centime-ters, steadied itself, then rose smoothly and slowly and inexorably, trailing cable until it passed the Prome-nade's second level.

  The cable snapped taut against Quark's neck, yank-ing him at last from the grip of the soldiers who had held him. Kicking frantically, he felt a boot fly free. He grimaced in embarrassment as he realized his toes were sticking through the holes worn in his foot wrap-pings. Hadn't his moogie told him to always wear fresh underclothes?

  Even Quark knew that was a foolish thought to have, especially at the moment in which he was draw-mg his last breath. His fingers scrabbled at the cable around his neck, but it was too tight and in too many layers for him to change the pressure.

  Dimly through the pounding that now filled his bead, Quark could hear the soldiers' laughter and hoot-ing. Even as his vision darkened, he raged at himself for having failed to predict how quickly the end of the Occupation would come.

  He had seen the signs, discussed it with his suppli-ers. Another month, he had concluded, perhaps two. Time enough to profit from the Cardassian soldiers being shipped out, eager to convert their Bajoran "sou-venirs" to more easily transportable latinum. He had even already booked his passage on a freighter and-

  -Dark stars sparkled at the rapidly shrinking edge of Quark's vision, as he mourned the deposit he had

  paid to Captain Yates. Just then the roar of something large approaching-something loud and silent all at the same time-swallowed the jeers of the Cardas-sians, and Quark felt himself fall, flooded with shock that he was not ascending to the Divine Treasury but apparently on his way to the Debtors' Dungeon. How could that be possible? He had lived a life of greed and self-absorption. How could he not be rewarded with eternal dividends? He wanted to speak to someone in charge. He wanted to renegotiate the deal. He wanted his moogie!

  And then the back of the deck of the Promenade smacked into the back of his bulbous head and scrawny neck.

  Through starstruck vision, he saw the glow of a phaser emitter node by his chin, felt a searing flash of heat at his neck, and then the constriction of the ODN cable was gone.

  "Breathe!" a harsh voice shouted from some distant place.

  "Moogie?" Quark whispered. His mother was about the only person he could think of who might have any reason at all for saving him from the Cardassians.

  Then Quark was roused from his lethargy by four nerve-sparking slaps across his face.

  He wheezed with an enormous intake of breath, then choked as he saw who was saving him from the Cardassians.

  Another Cardassian!?

  This new Cardassian, gray-skinned and cobra-necked like all the others, was someone Quark had never seen before. He wore an ordinary soldier's uni-4. form but had the bearing and diction of an officer, per-haps even of a gul. All this Quark observed in the split

  second it took for the new Cardassian to haul him to Ms feet. As a barkeep, Quark was a firm believer in the 194th Rule, and since he couldn't always know about every new customer before that customer walked through the door, to protect his profits he had been required to become expert at deducing a customer's likely needs and desires from but a moment's quick observation.

  This Cardassian, for instance, would order vintage kanar, and would always know if the Saurian brandy was watered. An officer and a gentleman. Quark (bought admiringly. Reflexively he considered the likelihood of the Cardassian also needing wise and seasoned-and not inexpensive-investment help.

  But then the gray stranger locked his free arm around Quark's neck to violently spin him around as he fired his phaser at two other Cardassian soldiers across the Promenade at the entrance to the Temple.

  Quark flopped like a child's doll in the stranger's grip. He goggled in surprise as he saw the body of Glinn Datar sprawled on the deck nearby, smoke still curling up from the back of his head and adding to the Hue haze that filled the Promenade. Cardassians fight-ing Cardassians? It made no sense. Especially when it seemed they were fighting over him.

  Suddenly Quark's captor crouched down and misted to return fire to the second level. Still held in a stranglehold, Quark squealed as with an ear-bruising thump he was whacked backside-first against the deck. Crackling pha
ser bursts lanced past him, blackening the Promenade's deck. The scent of burning carpet now warred with the stench of spoiled food wafting along from the ruined freezers in the Cardassian Cafe.

  "... I'm going to be sick..." Quark whimpered.

  But clearly, the Cardassian stranger didn't hear, or didn't care.

  Quark felt his gorge begin to rise. Under other cir-cumstances, he woozily decided, he might wish he were dead rather than feel the way he felt now. But he seemed too close to that alternative already.

  "... I have a stomach neutralizer in my bar..." Quark mumbled hoarsely. He waved a hand vaguely in the direction of an area behind his captor. If he could just get back to his bar....