STAR TREK: DS9 - Prophecy and Change Read online

  She smiled very slightly when an answer came to her.

  “The Federation will be extremely interested to learn that the Cardassian government has conspired to entrap and murder its citizens,” she said. “Even if they are Maquis outlaws.”

  “I can jam your transmissions,” Turrel pointed out.

  Winn shrugged. “That will only ensure that the Federation learns the truth about what you’ve done to the Maquis. If anything should happen to me on this mission, Legate Turrel, I assure you that the Vedek Assembly will give the Federation all of my files on that very subject.”

  Of course, Winn was well aware that she had made no such prior arrangements with anyone, either in the Vedek Assembly or anywhere else.

  But Turrel couldn’t possibly have known that.

  After a moment’s hesitation, Turrel said, “You’re bluffing.”

  Winn leaned fractionally toward the visual pickup, her eyes widening. “If you agree to return the Orb now, you won’t have to discover the hard way whether or not that’s so. And we can both go on pretending, for the sake of both our worlds, that the treaty we just signed still means something.”

  Lapsing into silence again, Turrel seemed to mull her proposal over very seriously. After all, he had spent at least as much time negotiating the recent treaty as both she and Bareil had. Perhaps he, too, didn’t want to see those efforts wasted.

  “All right,” he said at length. “Perhaps the best solution to this problem is indeed to return the Orb to you as promised—and to rely on your discretion.” Then he smiled unctuously, as though returning the Orb had been his true intention all along.

  “If nothing else, you may consider the Orb a token of my sincere thanks. After all, if your Bajoran Militia ship hadn’t engaged the Maquis vessel the Cardassian traitors were using, they might have eluded me—and escaped with the Orb. I applaud your wisdom for involving Starfleet and your own world’s military in this situation. You have helped immensely in ridding me of two vexing problems.”

  Cardassia’s political undesirables, she thought. And the Maquis cell.

  A great bitterness rose within her as she considered just how thoroughly Turrel had manipulated her. Just as she had manipulated Bareil and so many others throughout her life.

  Winn laughed then, but without humor. “Of course.” She had few illusions. She knew all about the pragmatic, often bruising compromises necessitated by real-world politics, or realpolitik, as the Emissary sometimes termed it.

  Just as she knew that neither she nor Turrel could ever afford to reveal the truth of what happened today to anyone besides each other; to do so would be far too politically embarrassing for either of them.

  She had already forgotten how close Turrel had come to attacking the Akorem Laan. Swallowing her anger, Winn reminded herself that she was about to return to Bajor in triumph, carrying before her the long-lost Orb of Contemplation and enjoying the laurels of a grateful Bajor. A victory has only to look like a victory to serve as such, she thought. And sometimes that can be enough.

  Winn smiled. “Please prepare to transfer the Orb to my ship, Legate Turrel. I will instruct Colonel Lenaris to expect the Tavracet to rendezvous with us.”

  Turrel scowled slightly just before his face vanished. Winn consoled herself with the idea that the Prophets had no doubt foreordained Turrel’s messy involvement in the Orb’s recovery, just as they had predetermined the unfortunate death of Bareil during the recent treaty negotiations—and those of the Bajorans whom Turrel had slaughtered in the Maquis base. She was grateful never to have known their faces.

  Seeing Bareil’s in her dreams every night was burden enough.

  Although it had been slightly less than four days since he’d left the station, Nog thought everything sounded, felt, smelled, and looked different. The Promenade seemed a little livelier, more colorful. The crowd appeared more varied and interesting, even the hew-mons. Maybe especially the hew-mons.

  As a crowd gathered on the lower level of the Promenade, growing hushed as everyone present awaited Kai Winn’s announcement, Nog spied the tall, gangly form of his friend, Jake Sisko. He caught Jake’s eye, and the pair moved to a spot from which they both could see the proceedings clearly.

  “Where have you been for the past few days, Nog?”

  Nog shrugged. “Out.”

  He barely paid any attention to the faith-and-homily-laden speech Winn made before she’d unveiled the Orb of Contemplation to the awestruck gathering. Cheers rang through the Promenade.

  “That’s really something,” Jake said afterward, leaning across the railing on his elbows. “I wonder how she got her hands on it?”

  Nog shrugged again as he watched a pair of prylars carefully guide the antigrav sled holding the Orb box toward the Bajoran shrine. “Who knows?”

  “Aren’t you even a little curious, Nog?” said Jake, a good-natured scowl on his face. “However it happened, I’ll bet it’d make for a heck of a story.”

  “Maybe.” Nog desperately wanted to tell his friend how he’d been an integral part of that story. But he’d promised the kai his silence, and despite what the Seventeenth Rule of Acquisition said, a contract was a contract—even with a non-Ferengi. Especially when the particular non-Ferengi in question, arguably the most powerful person on Bajor, had yet to pay him for his services.

  Shame and fascination struggled within him as he realized that he didn’t care about the money. At least, he didn’t think he cared very much. For the first time in his brief life, he had things other than money to consider. What would Marauder Mo think about that?

  Nog and Jake walked together along the Promenade, sharing a companionable silence. Just days earlier, the two of them had agreed to try to be more sensitive to the vast cultural gulf that separated them. Maybe Ferengi and hew-mons aren’t so different after all.

  “There you are!” called a familiar voice, coming from directly behind Nog. He turned quickly in the rapidly thinning crowd and found himself facing both his uncle and his father. The latter’s face bore a look of worry mixed with relief. The former merely looked annoyed, though not nearly as angry as Nog would have expected. Has he figured out where I’ve been?

  As his father embraced him, Nog realized belatedly that he and Jake had walked right up to the front of Quark’s bar.

  “I’ll catch up to you later, Nog,” Jake said, then disappeared around the curve of the Promenade.

  After Rom released him, Nog noticed that Quark was standing beside him, quickly tapping numbers into a padd. “About our last conversation, Nog,” Quark said, his beady eyes riveted to whatever was displayed on the device.

  “I think you said I should forget about ever drawing a paycheck from you again, Uncle.”

  Quark finally lifted his eyes from the padd. “Maybe I was a little hasty. Since I’m still shorthanded, I’ll tell you what I’ll do: You can have your old job back. With a thirty percent pay reduction, of course. To keep the rest of the staff in line. You understand.”

  Out of the corner of his eye, Nog saw Chief O’Brien approaching. He turned and caught the chief engineer’s eye.

  O’Brien paused beside him and spoke into his ear in a low tone. “You’ve got some real talent, kid. It would be a damned shame if you were to waste it.”

  With a parting wink, O’Brien resumed his course and disappeared into the milling crowd. Nog wondered just how much of Uncle Quark’s generous “offer” the chief had heard.

  “Well? What’s it going to be?” Quark demanded.

  Indecision abruptly seized Nog. It had been easy to walk out on Quark when he’d been at the start of a grand adventure. But that lay behind him now. And it hadn’t earned him so much as a slip of latinum.

  But then he considered what the chief had just said ...

  Nog looked to his father, whose gaze was imploring. It was obvious to Nog how Rom would have handled this situation. He’d simply go along, as he always had. No matter how badly his brother took advantage of him, per the Sixt
h Rule of Acquisition.

  What would Marauder Mo do?

  A confident smile spread slowly across Nog’s face. “I think I liked your offer from four days ago better, Uncle,” he said.

  Then he turned and walked away. And started planning the future.

  Broken Oaths

  Keith R.A. DeCandido

  Historian’s note: This story is set shortly after the fourth-season episode “Our Man Bashir.”

  Keith R.A. DeCandido

  “Broken Oaths” is the latest of Keith R.A. DeCandido’s many forays into the world of Star Trek fiction, which has also included the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine novel Demons of Air and Darkness and its award-winning follow-up novella “Horn and Ivory” in What Lay Beyond; the duology The Brave and the Bold, which was the first single story to encompass all five Star Trek TV series; the novels Diplomatic Implausibility and The Art of the Impossible; the comic book miniseries Perchance to Dream; the forthcoming I.K.S. Gorkon series, the first set of books to focus exclusively on a Klingon ship and crew; several Star Trek: S.C.E. eBooks, monthly adventures of the Starfleet Corps of Engineers; and more. He has also written novels, short stories, and nonfiction books in the worlds of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Gene Roddenberry’s Andromeda, Farscape, Doctor Who, Xena, and Marvel Comics. The editor of the groundbreaking original science fiction anthology Imaginings, Keith’s forthcoming work includes the original novel Dragon Precinct, editing the anthology Star Trek: Tales of the Dominion War, and at least one more foray into the worlds of Deep Space Nine. Learn too much about Keith at his official website at .

  O’Brien and Bashir’s dart board remained unused.

  Quark wasn’t too bothered by this. The tables and bar stools were occupied by customers consuming their libation of choice. Many were absent-mindedly munching on sand peas, which made them finish their drinks faster, thus prompting them to ask for refills. The dabo tables were all filled to capacity. Off in the corner, young Jake Sisko was hustling a couple of Bolians at the dom-jot table. Upstairs, all the holosuites were booked until closing.

  But the dart board just sat on the wall. Quark could afford that, of course. He didn’t profit directly from the board’s use, nor did its lack of use have a significant effect on his bottom line. He had installed the thing in the first place only because it was small and unobtrusive, and because two of his best customers requested it. As a bartender, Quark was especially mindful of the Fifty-Seventh Rule of Acquisition: “Good customers are as rare as latinum. Treasure them.” If the two of them wanted to spend their time in Quark’s throwing tiny spears at a series of concentric circles, who was Quark to deny them?

  Ironically, those two customers were both present, sitting separately. Dr. Julian Bashir sat at the bar with the ever-delectable Lieutenant Commander Jadzia Dax, while Chief Miles O’Brien was at one of the tables with the less than delectable Lieutenant Commander Worf. In fact, Quark hadn’t seen Bashir and O’Brien together at all since they returned from a mission to the Gamma Quadrant weeks earlier. But hey, he thought, as long as they’re coming in and drinking, I don’t care who they sit with—or whether or not they throw pointy things at a wall.

  As he refilled Morn’s ale, he heard Dax and the doctor’s conversation.

  “I notice you and the chief haven’t gotten together much lately. No darts games, no racquetball, no holosuites.”

  “We just haven’t,” Bashir said.

  As he put Morn’s ale glass back on the bar in front of the Lurian, Quark frowned. Bashir didn’t normally sound that crestfallen, especially since he got that “secret agent” program of his.

  “Well, Quark did go to all the trouble of putting the board in. You should at least play a few games just to give him something to have for side bets.”

  As if those side bets brought in enough to be worth it. Quark had to admit, though, that those side bets did bring a profit, albeit a small one.

  With a level of defensiveness Quark had never heard Bashir use with Dax, the doctor said, “I’m really not interested in lining Quark’s pockets, Jadzia.”

  “Of course not, but still—”

  “Look, I have to go.”

  Quark glanced over to see Bashir gulping down his tea and getting up from the bar. Dax, for her part, looked as crestfallen as Bashir had sounded moments earlier.

  “All right. Don’t forget, we need to go over those new radiation protocols tomorrow morning.”

  Bashir flashed that idiotic smile of his. Finally, the old doctor. “I’ll be there. And—I’m sorry I snapped at you. I’ve just been a little tired lately. Good night, Jadzia.”

  “Good night.”

  Quark shook his head. Dax stared down at her allira punch, looking disappointed in herself. He walked over. “C’mon, Jadzia, what did you expect? Some people don’t like having their personal lives interfered with.”

  Dax arched an eyebrow. “Eavesdropping, Quark?”

  Holding up his hands defensively, Quark said, “Just trying to see to the needs of my customers.”

  “That would be ‘yes,’ then.”

  “Look, for whatever reason, Bashir and O’Brien aren’t best friends anymore. It happens. It wasn’t that long ago that they couldn’t stand each other. If I’ve learned one thing as a bartender—”

  “Quark,” Dax said with a mild glower, “I’ve learned plenty of things about friendships over the centuries I’ve been alive, so I really don’t need a lesson from you.”

  “Oh, I think you do. I see people come in and out of here all the time. One minute they’re inseparable, betting together at dabo, experimenting with the same exotic Klingon beverages, sharing holosuite programs. The next they can’t stand the sight of each other, come in separately, and sit with different people. It happens—especially with these humans.”

  Dax finished off her drink and gestured for another. “I guess what bothers me is that I don’t know what happened. I mean, I know they were captured by some Jem’Hadar in the Gamma Quadrant, and then escaped. Julian even found a Jem’Hadar that wasn’t dependent on ketracel-white. But something happened there. They don’t play darts, they don’t play racquetball—the chief’s been working overtime, and Julian’s been spending all his spare time in the holosuite with that secret agent program with Garak of all people.”

  Quark shrugged as he placed a fresh glass of punch in front of the science officer. O’Brien had also been booking extra holosuite time, mostly that kayaking program he’d brought over from his previous posting. So as far as he was concerned, the sundered friendship meant double the holosuite usage. Somehow, though, he doubted that Dax would appreciate a reminder of that.

  He looked over at O’Brien, and noticed that both his synthale and the Klingon’s prune juice were running low. “Excuse me,” he said to Dax, who nodded absently, having gone back to staring at her drink. No doubt plotting some way to trick Bashir into revealing why he doesn’t like O’Brien anymore. Personally, I never understood those two in the first place.

  As he approached the table where the two men sat, he heard a surprising exchange:

  “I have observed that you and Dr. Bashir have not engaged in your—‘target practice’ of late.” To Quark’s abject shock, the tiniest hint of the most infinitesimal glimmer of a smile approached the beginnings of existing on Worf’s face. He knew that the Klingon and O’Brien had served on the same ship in the past—the Endeavour or the Odyssey or the Voyager or some other such ship, Quark could never keep track of them. Indeed, Worf usually only came to Quark’s in O’Brien’s company—which suited Quark fine. Worf was the most recent addition to the crew of Deep Space 9, and the Ferengi would have been just as happy for him to be the next subtraction. The amusement value of a Klingon who drank prune juice had worn off pretty quickly. If he didn’t use the holosuites as often as he did, he’d be of no use to Quark whatsoever—as it was, the floors and walls always needed repairs after he was done with them.

  In response to Worf’s observation, O’B
rien muttered, “We just haven’t.”

  “It is a surprising development. I was under the impression that you enjoyed the contests.”

  “We did, I suppose,” O’Brien said pensively. “But things change. Look, I really don’t want to talk about this.”

  “I understand.”

  Okay, this is weird, Quark thought. Dax being a busybody, the Ferengi could understand; it was her nature. But Worf?

  “Can I refill your drinks, gentlemen?”

  Before either of them could reply, a voice sounded from the combadge affixed to the chief’s uniform. “Chief O’Brien—please report to the Defiant.”

  O’Brien gave Quark a half-smile. “I guess none for me, Quark.” To Worf he said, “Excuse me, Commander.”

  “Of course.”

  O’Brien departed, leaving Quark standing staring at Worf’s impassive face. “More prune juice?”

  Worf’s glower was far nastier than Dax’s. “No.” Then he, too, rose and moved toward the exit.

  Dax, however, intercepted him on the way out. “Did you ask him?”

  Aha—now it makes sense, Quark thought.

  “Yes.”

  When no more information was forthcoming, Dax, who looked like she was ready to jump out of her spots, asked, “What did he say?”

  Impatiently, Worf said, “He said he did not wish to speak of it.”

  “So then what did you say?”

  Worf frowned. “I told him I would respect his wishes and not speak of it.”

  Dax smacked him gently on the arm. Quark suspected that she was one of the few people in the quadrant under the rank of captain who could get away with such an action. “What’d you say that for?”

  “Because I saw no reason to pry into Chief O’Brien’s personal life. And I still see no reason to.”

  “Well, I do. That friendship is good for both of them. Julian needs someone in his life like the chief—a stabilizing influence. And with Keiko and Molly spending most of their time on Bajor, the chief needs to have more friends around, not fewer.”