The War of the Prophets Read online

  ensign no older than twenty, face pale with fear, the looped chain of his

  sil­ver earring trembling. "You can't all die because of us." Bashir saw the

  other four Bajorans beside the young ensign nod nervously. Apparently they had

  discussed this act of sacrifice and he spoke for them all. "Do what

  the captain wants. Save yourselves. We ... we'll trust in the Prophets."

  "Thirty seconds to explosive decompression."

  "Y'see?" Vash urged. "Even they don't want any false heroics!"

  "It is not false!" Worf barked at her. Then he faced the Bajorans and stood at

  attention. His words were calm and deliberate. "Ensign, your courage brings

  honor to us all. But as a Starfleet officer and a Klingon warrior, I cannot

  abandon you to an unjust fate." Worf placed his arm through the ensign's, taking

  his stand beside the Bajorans. Jadzia promptly followed his ex­ample. Then

  Bashir, Jake, and all the others, except for one, stood together on the hangar

  deck, their fates as inextricably linked as their arms.

  Only Vash stood alone.

  "Fifteen seconds...."

  "Captain T'len!" Worf's voice rang out across the cold, dark hangar deck. "If

  Starfleet has forgotten the ideals for which it once stood, then let our deaths

  re­mind you of what you have lost."

  Bashir watched Vash rub a hand over her face, al­most as if she was more

  embarrassed than afraid to be so obviously on her own.

  "Oh, for...," she muttered, then hastily crossed the few meters to link her arm

  through Bashir's.

  "Ten seconds...," the computer announced.

  "Happy now?" Vash asked Bashir.

  "We're in no danger," Bashir answered. "I don't know why, but I'm still

  convinced this is a test."

  "I'm convinced you're insane.."

  With a loud bang, the personnel door guillotined shut

  "Five seconds."

  Bashir detected an instant increase in his heart's pumping action at the same

  time as beside him he heard Vash say, "Oh, what the hell," and he felt her hands

  on his face as she pulled him around and kissed him as deeply as he had ever

  been kissed, just as the computer announced, "The hangar deck will now—"

  Then the rest of the warning was swept away in the sudden roar of rushing wind

  and the hammering of his heartbeat—and for all his enhanced intellect, Bashir

  couldn't tell if he was reacting to the threat of sudden death, or to Vash's

  thrillingly expert kiss.

  CHAPTER 4

  nog jumped in front of the Old Man to block whatever weapons the Romulans might

  have, but before he could do anything else, the ribbon-like discharge from a

  poly-wave disruptor smeared across his chest.

  Instantly Nog felt his entire body numb, then he col­lapsed to the floor,

  slightly puzzled by the fact that he was still alive. At maximum power,

  polywaves could set off a subatomic disintegration cascade that was far more

  efficient than disassociation by phased energy. He had seen Starfleet's sensor

  logs of the aftermath of polywave combat—the ghastly scattering of limbs and

  partial torsos left behind by the tightly-bound poly-spheres of total matter

  annihilation.

  Yet at the moment, whether he himself lived through such an assault or not was

  of no importance to him. Be­cause if the Old Man had been hit with even the same

  type of low-intensity paralysis beam, it was extremely

  doubtful that the elderly hew-mon's fragile body would survive the shock.

  Nog lay absolutely still on the floor—he could do nothing else, no matter what

  had happened to the admi­ral. Unlike a phaser stun, the polywave version left

  its victims completely alert but completely immobilized.

  His vision began to blur. He was incapable of blink­ing, and the flow of air

  through his emergency breath­ing mask was drawing moisture from the surface of

  his eyes. His hearing was also becoming less acute, as if the small muscles

  connecting to both his primary and secondary eardrums were losing their ability

  to func­tion. The only sound he could hear clearly was the slow thud of his own

  heart.

  But... there. Somewhere in the increasingly indis­tinct background noise, Nog

  thought he heard the Old Man speaking. Though how could the hew-mon do that if

  he'd been paralyzed as Nog had?

  Suddenly, Nog's field of vision shifted and shook as someone raised him up,

  ripped open his emergency hood, and peeled back the air mask. At once his vision

  cleared, and die first thing he saw was a young Romu­lan woman in the bronze

  chainmail of the Imperial Le­gion waving a small device in front of his face.

  The device, Nog realized, was a dispenser that sprayed a moisturizing mist, to

  keep his eyes clear.

  "Ferengi," the Romulan said, her voice distorted and muffled as if she spoke

  from behind a door. "I am Cen­turion Karon. You are on board the Imperial

  cruiser Al-tanex. Though you cannot respond, I know that you can hear me. Your

  paralysis will begin to lessen within an hour. There is usually no permanent

  damage."

  Usually?! Nog thought with alarm.

  The Centurion shot a second cloud of mist into his eyes. 'To answer what I

  suspect are your most pressing questions, the crew of this ship are no longer

  allied with the Ascendancy. We need to talk to Admiral Pi­card. We presume you

  are his bodyguard or attendant. When we have concluded our discussions, if

  either or both of you desire, we shall return you to a secure Starfleet base."

  If either or both desire? To Nog, it almost sounded as if Karon expected that he

  and the Old Man might be per­suaded never to return to Utopia Planitia. What

  could she ever say that would make that even a possibility?

  Karon misted his eyes again. Though Nog could still only look straight ahead, he

  now saw the Old Man, hood removed, being led away by two other Romulans without

  sign of force or struggle.

  The Centurion recaptured his attention with her next words. "No matter what

  decision you ultimately make, neither you nor the Admiral will be harmed. Two

  bions will now take you to our sickbay. When your paralysis has ended, we will

  speak again."

  Nog tried his utmost, but failed to make a single sound of protest. He wasn't

  the one who needed sick­bay—the Old Man was.

  Her statement delivered, Centurion Karon slipped from his view, as once again

  Nog realized he was being moved. And only full polywave paralysis pre­vented his

  drawing back in disgust from the ... things that moved him.

  Bions.

  Starfleet Intelligence had examined captured bions, and Nog had read the

  classified situation assessments with horror. Bions were supposedly artificial

  life-

  forms, created by Romulan science and now used as workers and soldiers

  throughout the Star Empire. Though the creatures were disturbingly humanoid, the

  Romulans insisted bions had no capacity to become self-aware. They were simply

  genetically-engineered organic machines, no different from the myriad forms of

  mechanical devices that served the Federation, from self-piloted shuttlecraft to

  nanite assemblers. The only difference, the Romulans maintained, was that

  instead of being built from duraplast and optical circuitry, bi
ons were

  self-assembled—that is, grown—from pro­teins swirling in nutrient baths. Or so,

  Starfleet warned, the Romulans would have the galaxy believe.

  As far as Starfleet was concerned, there was a reason why bions had begun to

  appear shortly after the Romu­lans had allied themselves with the Ascendancy,

  and the first battles had been fought in the undeclared War of the Prophets.

  Bions, Starfleet's biologists had con­cluded, were not genetically-engineered

  artificial life­forms; they were genetically-altered prisoners of war.

  Nog shuddered inwardly, if not outwardly. The Rom­ulans were now doing to their

  captives what the Borg used to do with theirs. Except in the case of the bions,

  the Borg's biomechanical mechanisms of assimilation had been replaced by

  strictly biological processes.

  The underlying technology was, without question, Grigari. And if only for that

  reason—the unconscionable alliance with the Grigari Meld—Nog fervently believed

  the Ascendancy deserved to be wiped out

  Nog was grateful he could not see the dreadful mu­tants that carried him now.

  Without constant misting his vision had blurred again, and he was able to form

  only the vaguest impression of green metal doors sliding

  open before Mm, a surprisingly narrow corridor mov­ing past him, and, finally,

  an oppressively small med­ical facility, where an angular treatment bed emerged

  from a dull-green bulkhead, the display screen above it glowing with unreadable

  yellow Romulan glyphs and multicolored status lights.

  He was maneuvered onto the treatment bed, and al­most immediately his vision

  cleared again. This time the ocular mist came from an overhead pallet of

  med­ical equipment. Just in time to give Nog a brief, shock­ing glimpse of a

  bion.

  Its face—for the bions were neither male nor fe­male—was unnaturally blank, its

  severe features nearly obliterated by the camouflage effect of its bizarrely

  mottled skin, a dizzying patchwork of Andorian blue and Miradorn white, Orion

  green, Tiburonian pink, and Klingon brown.

  Even more disconcerting, its mouth was a tiny, lip-less gash intended to do

  little more than ingest nutri­ent paste. The creature had no real nose, only two

  vertical slits that pulsed open and closed like the gills of a fish.

  Yet the real problem for Nog was what had happened to the bion's ears. Despite

  years of working with hew-mons and Vulcans and other cartilaginously-challenged

  species, Nog knew he still had difficulty abandoning the old Ferengi presumption

  equating intelligence with ear size. And the same ruthless efficiency displayed

  in the bion's other minimal features had reduced its ears to mere vestigial

  curls of flesh that protruded from the jaw hinge like the wilted petals of a

  flower. On a purely visceral level, it was as if he was looking at creatures

  whose skulls had been flayed open and were empty—

  that they could even stand upright with such minuscule ears, let alone carry out

  useful tasks, was unnerving.

  Hostage within his own still body, Nog could only watch now as one bion reached

  above him. Its two fin­gers and thumb identified it as a common worker unit

  Other versions, Nog had read, had up to seven fingers for delicate mechanical

  repairs or complex weapons operation. No doubt other details of the bion's

  specific capabilities were indicated by the markings on the front of its tight

  gray jumpsuit and by the pattern of green stripes ringing each of its sleeves.

  Perhaps even the identity of the captive species from which it had been created

  was encoded there.

  Another spray of mist clouded the air for a moment, and at the same time the

  gray-suited bion moved to po­sition its face directly in front of Nog's

  unblinking eyes.

  The bion's eyes were humanoid in size and place­ment, but the portion of the

  eyeball mat was typically white in most species was a lustrous black. Nog didn't

  know if that color provided a specific, engineered ad­vantage; he suspected it

  was a cosmetic detail designed to remove any sense of personality from the

  bions. Even a Vulcan's placid eyes could convey emotion. But bions had eyes that

  revealed nothing. Whatever secrets the pitiful creature's brain held, its flat

  gaze betrayed no trace of any individuality or past life.

  The bion mercifully stepped back out of Nog's sight

  Nog waited for whatever would happen next, thinking of the Old Man, worried

  about where he had been taken and what their captors had done with him.

  Long minutes passed without sign of anything else moving in the medical

  facility, and Nog concluded he had been left alone. He willed peace upon his

  racing

  mind. There was nothing he could do until his paralysis ended except meditate on

  the Great Material River, and hope that somehow it would take from him his

  mental clarity—of which he had no great need right now— and, just for a few

  hours at least, transfer it to Jean-Luc Picard, who most certainly did.

  After all the effort these Romulans had expended in order to contact the the

  admiral, Nog didn't want to think what would happen when they realized that

  their prize captive was not the great man of years past, only a man.

  Nog's thoughts paused. Hadn't someone once said something about that condition?

  But whether it was ex­haustion or the effect of the polywaves, he no longer

  recalled who.

  Another lost memory, he thought, troubled, as his consciousness finally sank

  into the Great River. In time, he supposed, that would be the fate of them all.

  CHAPTER 5

  he was only nineteen, but Jake Sisko already under­stood the inevitability of

  death. And on the hangar deck of this Starfleet vessel of the future he was, in

  his way, prepared to die.

  Or so he told himself.

  But even as the computer's warning was drowned out by the explosive burst of air

  that rushed over him, tugging him back against the linked arms of his fellow

  prisoners, Jake still didn't believe that the time of his death was near.

  Part of the reason for his confidence in his survival came from his half-felt

  suspicion that the Bajoran Prophets might intercede, or that, at the very least,

  their existence implied that death might not be the end of his own awareness.

  But as to whether it was faith in the Prophets or faith hi Dr. Bashir's logical

  assessment of their situation—

  that they were merely being tested by the Vulcan cap­tain of mis ship—or simply

  the fire of his youth that at this moment made him unwilling to accept the final

  ex­tinction of his intellect, Jake wasn't certain.

  All he knew was that when a second blast of air rushed over him, and he realized

  that the ship's atmos­pheric pressure had been maintained and that he could

  still breathe—he wasn't really surprised.

  Smiling broadly like most of the others at their close call, Jake glanced over

  hi Bashir's direction. What he saw men did surprise him. The doctor was engulfed

  in an embarrassingly passionate embrace with Vash. Jake couldn't help gawking as

  a handful of excited conver­sations began around him and he saw Vash draw back

  from the doctor, look around, and he heard her say, "Guess you were
right, Doc."

  Bashir was looking de­cidedly flustered, and Jake felt himself experiencing an

  unexpected pang of jealousy. Vash was extremely at­tractive, in a dangerous,

  older sort of way.

  Then his and everyone's attention was diverted to the personnel door as it

  opened once again and Captain T'len reappeared, accompanied by her two visored

  offi­cers in the black Starfleet uniforms with red shoulders.

  "Is the test over?" Bashir asked. Jake appreciated and mentally applauded the

  defiance in his tone.

  "It is," T'len replied.

  But the doctor wasn't finished. "May I ask what the purpose of it was?"

  "It was necessary to see if you had been altered by the Grigari. No Grigari

  construct yet encountered is ca­pable of facing a life-or-death .situation

  without at­tempting to bargain for its life."

  Jake vaguely recalled Kasidy Yates telling him sto-

  ries of the Grigari, though she'd seemed to imply that few experts believed that

  the fabled lost species was real—merely a name given to an amalgam of legends

  that had accumulated over time.

  Bashir was nodding at Vash, who was still standing beside him. "Not a very

  convincing test. Vash here was ready to bargain with you from the beginning."

  Jake regarded Bashir anxiously, wondering if it was a good idea to say anything

  that might provoke the cap­tain, but the Vulcan seemed unperturbed by the

  doctor's identification of a logical flaw in her test.

  "Vash is not a Starfleet officer. Her reaction was in compliance with historical

  records of her personality."

  At that the archaeologist broke away from the group of captives, heading

  straight for T'len. "Yeah, well what about this reaction?" she said

  threateningly, lead­ing Jake to half-expect she'd try to deck the Vulcan captain

  when she reached her.

  But before Vash could cross more than half the four meters that stood between

  her and T'len, what looked to be a phaser beam shot out from the visor worn by

  the officer on the captain's right. The silver beam hit Vash dead center, and

  she immediately crumpled to the deck as if stunned.

  "Whoa...," Jake whispered. Then, as Bashir, Worf, and Jadzia rushed to Vash's

  aid, he took a closer look at those special clear visors of T'Len's officers,

  what he had at first thought were a type of safety eyewear. After a moment, he