Rise Like Lions Page 5

  “So have I.”

  A scathing blue beam shot from a pitch-dark tunnel behind Picard, sliced through the hazy air above his head, and slammed into Ajur’s chest. The female Vorgon rebounded off the wall behind her and pitched forward off the ledge. Her unconscious body struck the rocky ground with a heavy crunch and kicked up a choking cloud of dust.

  Deanna Troi emerged from the tunnel, garbed in olive khakis, an off-white linen shirt, and well-weathered knee-high boots. She kept her plasma rifle steady and aimed squarely at Boratus. “I think it’s time you left.”

  Boratus seemed to smile, though it was hard for Picard to be sure what emotions might be at play on the Vorgon’s hideously ridged face. “An obvious strategy,” he said. “One for which precautions have been taken.” He raised his voice. “Gul Edoka?” A lanky Cardassian man with a high forehead and heavier-than-usual ocular ridges stepped slowly from the darkness behind Troi. As he raised his weapon, she grudgingly lowered hers.

  “Put the box on the ground or she dies,” Edoka said.

  Picard dropped the box. Boratus said with smug self-satisfaction, “You and your companion will be remanded to the custody of Gul Edoka.”

  “And in exchange he’s letting you take the Tox Uthat?” Picard huffed derisively and shook his head. “He doesn’t know what it is, does he?”

  “He does not seem to care. Your capture appears to be his sole desire.” He looked at Edoka. “You may arrest him now, but please do not harm the artifact.”

  At first, Edoka didn’t move or speak. Then the gul gently lobbed his disruptor away. The weapon clattered across the rocks, stopping at Picard’s feet.

  Keenly aware that Boratus was still aiming at him, Picard made no attempt to pick up Edoka’s discarded weapon.

  The Vorgon hollered at Edoka, “What are you doing?”

  Troi moved aside as Edoka took another step forward, and it became clear that there was someone behind the Cardassian, prodding him forward at gunpoint. The trailing figure edged into the pale moonlight that illuminated the cavern through a hole in its ceiling. It was a male human, slight of build, with fair but thinning hair. He was clad all in black and wielding a compact hand weapon unlike any Picard had ever seen. He smiled meekly at Boratus. “Pardon the interruption.”

  Boratus’s hand began to tremble. Apparently, Picard surmised, the Vorgon hadn’t anticipated this turn of events and was now aware that the odds were turning against him. “Most ingenious, Picard. But do not think this is over. You cannot hide the Tox Uthat from us forever.”

  As if from thin air, a female voice that Picard didn’t recognize said, “He won’t have to.” Then an angry red streak of energy slashed through the tiny artifact from the future and destroyed it in a brilliant flash. Picard stumbled backward from the miniature conflagration and recovered his bearings in time to see a tall and strikingly attractive woman of partial Klingon ancestry shimmer into view between him and Boratus. She wore the same solid black body suit as the man who had rescued Troi. The half-Klingon woman pointed her peculiar weapon at the Vorgon. “Your little toy is dust. And unless you feel like joining it—”

  Boratus pressed a button on his wrist bracer. A red swirl enveloped him and Ajur, and they teleported back to the future from which they’d come.

  The man in black gestured with his weapon at Edoka and asked his female compatriot, “What about this one?”

  “Heavy stun.”

  A blue pulse lit the cavern as a screech split the air. Edoka collapsed face-first to the ground, unconscious. The two strangers holstered their weapons, and the woman smiled.

  “Jean-Luc Picard, I presume?”

  Picard’s cool façade gave way to fiery indignation. “Do you have the faintest idea what you’ve done?”

  The woman shrugged. “Saved your life, for starters.”

  He pointed at the blackened scorch on the floor. “That was a weapon of inestimable power! Its value was beyond measure!”

  “Actually,” said the man in black, “it was worthless, booby-trapped by its creator. Anyone who tried to use it would’ve blown themselves to bits.”

  Picard glanced at Troi. She gave him an almost imperceptible nod that confirmed the strangers were telling the truth. He continued, still upset but less overtly hostile. “Be that as it may, it was a unique artifact, with intrinsic archeological value. Do you have any idea how long we’d spent looking for it?”

  The woman cocked one eyebrow. “According to your dossier, five years.”

  “That’s right! Five long, miserable—” He stopped short and considered the first part of the stranger’s answer. “Did you say dossier?”

  She nodded. “I did. We’ve had a file on you ever since you assassinated Lursa and B’Etor at the Sacred Chalice on Betazed.”

  “Actually,” Troi cut in, “I was the one who shot the Duras sisters.”

  “We know,” said the male stranger. “We have a file on you, too, Miss Troi.”

  The half-Klingon moved closer to Picard. “You two make quite a pair. Not many people have survived planetside encounters with the Crystalline Entity. And I’d love to know how you talked the Romulans into saving Drema IV.”

  “It was easy,” Picard said, “once they found out the planet was full of dilithium.” He still regarded the interlopers with suspicion, but his mounting curiosity came to the fore. “Who are you?”

  The woman offered him her hand, and he shook it. She had a powerful grip. “My name is K’Ehleyr, and this is my partner, Reg Barclay.”

  Picard released her hand. “Charmed. But if you’re here to recruit us into the Terran Rebellion, don’t bother. We left that behind years ago.”

  “We’re not from the rebellion,” K’Ehleyr said, “though I’d be lying if I said we weren’t on their side.” She loomed over Picard as he squatted and gathered his digging equipment into a canvas roll-up. “We’ve been directed by our superiors to invite you to a meeting.”

  He tied the roll shut and looked up at K’Ehleyr and Barclay. “Your superiors? Who do you represent?”

  Barclay said, “No one you’ve ever heard of.”

  “That doesn’t answer my question.”

  K’Ehleyr sounded impatient. “Edoka’s men are going to come looking for him, probably sooner rather than later. We should go.”

  “No,” Picard said. “Not until we get some straight answers.”

  Barclay and K’Ehleyr looked at Troi, who held up her palms. “Don’t look at me. He’s in charge.”

  “Fine,” K’Ehleyr said. “We belong to an organization called Memory Omega. It was a secret program initiated nearly a hundred years ago by Emperor Spock, to preserve the knowledge of the Terran Empire after its fall, and to help steer the galaxy toward a new age of freedom.”

  It was all Picard could do not to laugh. “Preposterous.” Then he looked at Troi. Her eyes were wide, her jaw slack. This time there was nothing subtle about her nod of affirmation. Picard was struck by the sensation that he stood on the cusp of a discovery that was as remarkable as it seemed improbable. “You expect me to believe that a century-old resistance cell can stand against the Alliance?”

  Barclay stepped forward to reply. “It’s not some mere ‘resistance cell.’ It’s a vast network representing the finest scientific minds in the galaxy. We have access to technology more advanced than anything the Alliance has ever seen. And we’re gearing up to put the full weight of our support behind the Terran Rebellion.”

  “I won’t deny that your equipment is impressive,” Picard said with an envious glance at their stealth suits and sidearms, “but the rebellion is doomed. We’ve tried to help them, but they’re hopelessly disorganized. They have no viable strategy for victory, no consensus, no unity. Soon they’ll be gone, and once more the law of survival will become every being for itself.”

  K’Ehleyr fixed Picard with a bold stare. “The rebellion’s fortunes are about to change, Jean-Luc.”

  “Call me Luc. I’ve only ever let one person add
ress me by my full name, and it was a privilege she had to earn.” The memory of Vash’s death at the hands of the cybernetic horrors known as the Borg still felt like an open wound to Picard.

  “My apologies,” K’Ehleyr said. Her contrition caught Picard’s attention. It sounded genuine and was, as far as he could recall, the first time any Klingon—or half-Klingon, in this case—had ever apologized to him. “You don’t know us, and you have almost no reason to believe us. But we’re not asking much, Luc. All we want to do is bring you safely to a meeting so you can hear what our leaders have to say. Then you can decide for yourself what to do, and if you choose to go your own way, no one will stop you. But I promise you—this is an opportunity unlike any you’ve ever had, or any other you’re ever going to have. You need to trust us.”

  He was torn. As much as he treasured his independence, he knew that alone he and Troi were vulnerable. Sooner or later the Alliance would catch up to them, and then there would be hell to pay. These people seemed competent and earnest, and their comportment suggested that the organization backing them had the kind of discipline and foresight that the rebellion had sorely lacked.

  Weighing even more heavily upon his thoughts was his concern for Troi. He had long felt a quasi-paternal obligation to the young half-Betazoid woman, whose mother and sister—and, for that matter, her entire life as she had known it—had been destroyed by a chain of events he had set in motion. It had taken him and Troi years to heal all the lingering hurts between them, to forge an emotional bond. Now she was woven inextricably into the tapestry of his life, and he loved her like the daughter he’d never had. He couldn’t bear the thought of her coming to harm.

  Troi looked at him, her eyes shining with the promise of tears, and Picard knew it was because her empathic and telepathic gifts enabled her to perceive his unconditional affection for her. She shot subtle looks at Barclay and K’Ehleyr, and then she nodded to Picard, who took her meaning clearly.

  “Trust,” he said, choosing his words with care, “is a hard thing to come by.” Harsh Cardassian voices echoed from the passages behind him; the enemy was drawing near. It was time to make a decision. He slung his equipment roll over his shoulder, beckoned Troi to his side, and took his transporter-recall controller from his pocket. “Where and when shall we rendezvous?”

  K’Ehleyr handed him a data rod. “These coordinates in ten days.”

  Picard pocketed the data rod. “See you then.” Then he triggered the beam-up sequence, and the cave seemed to vanish in a flood of white light as he and Troi returned to their ship with an appointment to keep.

  6

  Storm Sign

  O’Brien joined Eddington at the railing on the upper level of a bar that once had been called Quark’s but now was a space with no name. The shelves were bare, its bottles stood empty, and its replicators had been looted. Like most of the former shops along Terok Nor’s once-bustling Promenade, the place was just a shell.

  The two leading generals of the rebellion looked at a long row of pushed-together tables on the level below. Around them had gathered the senior members of the rebellion—cell leaders and ship commanders, most of them recruited in the last few months. “Here we go again,” O’Brien said under his breath.

  “Let’s hope it goes better than our last war council.”

  The mere mention of that day drew a grim look from O’Brien. It had been nearly two years since Julian Bashir and his Ferengi cohort Zek had, in this room, usurped control of the Terran Rebellion from O’Brien and Eddington, only to blunder into an ambush that cost the rebellion hundreds of lives, eleven Defiant-class ships, and the vital tactical advantage of an untrackable Romulan cloaking device. O’Brien’s only bitter solace was the knowledge that both Zek and Bashir had paid for that catastrophe with their lives.

  Eddington straightened and clasped O’Brien’s shoulder. “Ready?”

  “Let’s go.”

  Side by side, they descended the spiral staircase to the lower level. Together, they looked mismatched—O’Brien stocky and heavy-jowled, Eddington tall and square-jawed—except for a passing similarity in their receding hairlines. The hushed babel of overlapping voices dwindled to silence as they approached the head of the table. Standing at the far end were Sloan and Keiko. Gathered on either side were nearly two dozen of the rebellion’s most experienced commanders, all looking lean and hungry for action.

  Resting his fingertips on the tabletop, O’Brien looked around and met the stares of the men and women gathered there. “Good morning, and thank you all for coming. Some of you took great risks to join us today. For that, we’re grateful.” He glanced at Eddington, who took the cue to continue where O’Brien had left off.

  “We’ll cut straight to business. The rebellion is stronger now than it’s been in over a year, and we need to change our strategy from defense to offense.”

  Anxious murmurs rolled through the room. O’Brien raised his voice to stifle any nascent protests. “Now that Bajor is helping us defend this station, our ships are free to take the fight to the enemy—and that’s exactly what we’re going to do.”

  “Nothing personal, General,” said Steven Wexler, a bearded Terran man whose compact physique had been honed by years of forced hard labor and clandestine martial-arts training, “but this sounds a lot like the hot air General Zek was blowing before he got all those people killed at Empok Nor.” The criticism drew fervent nods and mumbles of agreement from around the room.

  Another dissenting voice rose from the murmurs. “How can you say this is the time to go on the attack?” The wall of bodies parted, and a striking brunette named Rebecca Sullivan leaned forward to question O’Brien and Eddington. “Any day now the Alliance’ll come gunning for us and Bajor. No matter how well armed the planet is, it’s still a stationary target. Making a stand here is suicide. My entire crew wants to run for cover in the Badlands. And frankly, so do I.”

  Eddington answered her with his trademark preternatural calm. “Yes, it’s true: The Alliance is gearing up for a siege of Bajor and this station. Our long-range recon suggests it will be a unilateral action by the Cardassian Union. If our intel is correct, we have roughly a month before they attack. But if we can hit them first and inflict enough damage, we could throw them off balance and force them to play defense instead of us.”

  No one said anything, but O’Brien felt the air thicken with doubt. He felt compelled to rail against it. “Don’t you see? This is our chance to start fighting the war on our own terms.”

  “What war?” The question had come from Alan Kistler, an irreverent, cocky young Terran who in recent months had orchestrated dozens of guerrilla attacks on several high-value Alliance targets. “Up till now, all we’ve been doing is sabotage and terrorism. No offense, but monkey-wrenching and limited collateral damage hardly counts as a ‘war,’ in my opinion.”

  “Technically,” Eddington replied, “what we’ve been engaged in might be categorized as a ‘low-intensity conflict.’ The Alliance refuses to call it a war only because they fear doing so will legitimize us in the eyes of their labor class—and the last thing they want to deal with is an interstellar slave uprising.”

  L’Sen, a Vulcan woman who had come to the rebellion as a gunrunner and in short order had risen through the ranks to command one of its captured warships, leaned apart from the throng and looked O’Brien in the eye. “General, for the sake of discussion, let us presume that we choose to join you in this preemptive attack upon the Alliance. What would be the intended target?”

  O’Brien cleared his throat. “Olmerak Prime.” Stunned gasps were followed by whispered variations of Is he out of his mind? After giving the room a few seconds to recover its composure, O’Brien continued. “This target is a triple threat, people. It’s a major shipyard, the Cardassians’ main port of call for this sector, and the Alliance’s joint intelligence headquarters. Destroying this will be like cutting off the enemy’s right arm in the Alpha Quadrant.”

  It was Sloan’s tu
rn to protest. “Miles, we don’t have that kind of firepower. Even if we send every ship we’ve got, we’d be lucky to get within two light-years of that system. What makes you think this is even remotely possible?”

  “I have a plan.”

  Kistler lifted his hands and raised his voice as he addressed the other commanders. “Did you all hear that? He has a plan! That changes everything!”

  L’Sen planted a hand on Kistler’s shoulder. With alarmingly little effort, the lithe Vulcan woman forced the husky, black-haired young Terran back into his chair. Her voice was low but rich with menace. “Sit down and be quiet while the general is speaking.”

  O’Brien ignored the kerfuffle and continued as if it had never happened. “Fifteen days from now, a massive ion storm is going to pass through the Olmerak system. For approximately eleven hours and forty-seven minutes, every sensor, comm system, and defense screen in that system will be inoperable. So, that’s when we’re going to blast it all to hell. By the time the Cardies find out they’ve been hit, we’ll be long gone.”

  “Whoa, hold on,” Wexler said. “In a storm like that, we’ll be just as blind as they are. How can we attack when we can’t even navigate to the target?”

  “We won’t have to,” O’Brien said. “By the time that storm hits Olmerak, we’ll already be in attack position, under cloak, locked on with visual targeting. The moment the Cardies’ sensors go dead, we fire. Game over.”

  Nodding heads and excited grins.

  “We need to move quickly to make this happen,” Eddington said. “Any ship that needs parts, personnel, munitions, fuel, or supplies, get your requests in to me by 1300 hours today. Ship commanders, we’ll meet back here tonight at 1900 to start hammering out the tactical details. Bring your XOs and tac officers. Any questions?” None came. “Dismissed.”

  As the commanders filed out of the defunct bar, their collective mood had an electric quality that O’Brien hadn’t experienced in a very long time. Belatedly, he realized the feeling he was struggling to name was hope.