"ODO, STAND STILL! Don't move!"
The shapeshifter bumped into Ben Sisko's thick arm as it was thrust out before him, and he stumbled back a step. The cool, dim passageway was like a coffin around the two of them, its long tubular shape stretching out before them into the undefined darkness. They might as well be in a cave.
"What?" Odo asked.
Sisko tipped his head forward just enough. "Look."
Odo peered deep into the shadows of the narrow corridor.
Two … three black-cloaked figures stood in the farthest shadow. Tall creatures, shoulders as wide as Sisko's, faces undefined in the darkness.
"It's them," Sisko said.
Odo puzzled, "How can you know that?"
"I just know."
There was no turning back—they'd come through four tubes no wider than wine drums in order to get to this passageway. They couldn't crawl away fast enough. It was time to stand and fight.
"Do you think the translators are back on-line yet?" he asked Sisko, keeping his voice down.
"I'll take the chance," Sisko said.
He stepped forward, his wide shoulders squared, knees locked, and his deep voice boomed under the low ceiling.
"You there! I am Captain Benjamin Sisko, commander of Deep Space Nine. Identify yourselves!"
Odo could see in the set of Sisko's jaw that he knew it might be useless, but that there was justice in announcing identity before demanding the same of others. That was the Federation way. No stabbing behind unidentified backs.
The beings in the shadows remained still, almost as if they themselves were shadows. For a moment it seemed as if there was no one really there and Odo thought the dimness might be playing tricks, but then the invaders moved.
They knew they had been seen. They were speaking to each other. Every few seconds a head would turn, a shoulder would dip, just enough to show that they were deciding what to do now that they had somehow cornered Sisko.
Odo realized with bitter self-recrimination that this was a deliberate trap. He'd imagined they were being followed, that someone had been watching them all morning, and now he knew his imagination had been more than the fantasy of a suspicious mind. He'd warned Sisko, but there was no stopping Sisko from going out on his own, pounding his way through the station, trying to get to engineering and help put back on-line the systems that were the station's heartbeat and blood.
And here, in the middle of some obscure corridor barely two men wide, they had been headed off—and there, only meters before them, was a cluster of cloaked infiltrators, right here, just like that!
Odo fumed that the station's security had been breached. The concept was poison to him, his only nightmare, because security was his responsibility and he had failed it. The station was his whole life, his pond and planet, and any adulterant his poison.
Beside him, Ben Sisko fully shuddered with fury like a leaf under the breath of a predator. His was an even deeper insult at the station's invasion. Odo watched and thought he understood, and was humbled by Sisko's restraint. He was letting the invaders make the first move, even giving them a chance to surrender.
"I should have suggested you bring your phaser," Odo uttered. "It's my fault."
"It's mine," Sisko grumbled out of the corner of his mouth. "I gave my phaser to Kira for Ops security. There are a dozen phasers in the lower core—I thought we'd get to the lockers before this happened. We're on our own. Just look armed."
"Look armed?" Odo whispered in horror. "How should I look armed?"
"Do what I do."
Sisko put his right hand into a fist and raised it to his hip, then hid it a little behind his back, as if going for a weapon. He bent his knees like a gunfighter Odo had seen in a holodeck plot.
"Insane!" Odo breathed.
Sisko held his left hand out in an accusatory gesture at the clutch of robed beings down there. "You! Surrender immediately!"
With a wonderful tin-box echo, the demand bumped on the low ceiling and set the thin plates to vibrating.
Suddenly provoked, two of the cloaked figures broke out of the shadow and charged.
Sisko shoved Odo back to get kicking room for himself. "Here they come!"
It was a kick that would knock a head off. A fabulous; unforgettable, heel-first kick, delivered to Malicu's shoulder, luckily, rather than his skull.
The High Gul stood in his face-shading cloak in a shadow of the narrow corridor. He had wanted to see for himself these people who had kicked out the Cardassian occupation of this place. Not even occupation—ownership. He had wanted to watch this fight between his Loyal Elite Guard and one of the occupying force.
When Malicu had come to him with an opportunity to kidnap the commander of the complex, the High Gul had hurried to agree. He wanted to talk to his opponent, understand his enemy. These moments of conversation were as fascinating to him as any battle. In many ways, they were battle.
So before him down the narrow corridor, the commander of the space outpost threw his kick at Malicu while Ranan held him from behind. Ordinarily, this positioning of one before and one behind would work well, but today the two strong young guards were helpless to possess this man. Malicu couldn't get anywhere near him.
It was something to see.
Strange how enjoyable, watching his own men be throttled so. Yet, the power of the beating was a thrill, and the High Gul knew his guards couldn't ultimately be beaten two-to-one. Only a matter of time.
Thus he enjoyed himself, kick by kick.
So this was a "human" … Elto had found the word in the computer banks and managed to translate it with the old Cardassian program.
As big as Malicu, shoulders wide as Elto's, thighs as thick and hard as Ren's, skin dark brown as toastberries in his home valley, eyes even darker—
Human. A race unheard-of in his time. How in twenty years had they become so powerful, enough to throw the Cardassian possession off a station in space? They must have come from outside, perhaps from another quadrant. Perhaps they were an army of settlers, unable to turn back. Yes, that would foster the fury he saw kicking and flexing before him like a rutting animal. As much as he wanted to destroy this man and possess what he possessed, the High Gul wished to talk to him for a few minutes before the destruction.
He pitied himself and mourned the time he did not have, to listen and learn.
But the man had said words the High Gul recognized now, even without a translator. Deep Space Nine … identify … Sisko.
Sisko.
The man in the muted uniform threw his weight back in a single great heave that threw Ranan back into a bulkhead strut and cracked that iron grip. Instantly the brown man was free, spinning like wind to land a blow upon Malicu's available face. Malicu jolted, but remained in place, feet braced, knees flexed, and leaned into yet another blow, which this time he managed to block with one meaty forearm. Even down the corridor, the High Gul heard the thunk.
Malicu raged forward and released terrible punishment upon the man, but his enemy soaked up the pummeling and would not falter. Blow after blow they rung off each other as, behind the man, Ranan struggled to find his senses. For a tantalizing moment the dark commander bent fully in half and committed the unthinkably bold move of grasping Malicu right around the middle as if to spin him up on his head. The weight was too great, though, and the heave put Malicu on the deck on one knee, and suddenly he and the commander were rolling in a bitter embrace toward the High Gul.
They never reached him. Ranan's instincts roused him from his daze and he threw himself forward so violently that he tripped on his targets, flew over them, and landed on the deck to become a solid brake.
There was vast invigoration in watching three such giants fight! The High Gul parted his lips as if tasting fine wine.
A fleeting thought interrupted the High Gul's enjoyment as he noted to congratulate his men for having singled out the leader of the complex, and for trapping him in this confined space alone. The High Gul had no idea how they did it, unable as they all were to understand the language here, and thus it was good work. Perhaps they had seen him giving orders.
Perhaps he wasn't the overall commander at all—perhaps he was only a brigade leader or a team captain or a corridor guard. Malicu had seemed so sure when they began following this one … mistakes were too easy in such a situation.
Down the dim corridor the embrace abruptly came apart and again there were three giants circling in a dangerous dance, with the human in the middle and the two Elites blocking his lines of escape. He was facing this way, facing Ranan now, and glancing expertly over his shoulder to measure Malicu's position and make sure he wouldn't be jumped on without knowing it, pacing himself to stay in the exact middle.
He was catching his breath, the High Gul noticed. Smart.
The dark man suddenly paused, stopped stock-still with both fists raised and his shoulders set, and stared down the corridor to its end.
And he saw.
The High Gul felt the flinch of his muscles as he realized without even thinking that he had been seen here in his shadowed nook. The commander spied him and now wouldn't look at anything else, though he erupted out of his pause and countered the punches that flew at him and hammered relentlessly on Malicu and Ranan.
Suddenly everything was different. Now the human refused to look away. He stared and stared, drilling down the corridor at the High Gul, and somehow, through the dimness and within the shadows of the hooded cloak, he found the High Gul's eyes and bored into them. Somehow they understood each other.
Yes, no doubt now. Sisko.
So they had entrapped the right man. Sisko himself, not just someone invoking the name of his leader. This was the commander of the complex, the ruler of everyone here, the person responsible for all lives, all success, all failure. This was communicated perfectly in that ferocious glare, unbreakable by the blows of the two Elites. No one else could have such an eye.
And the fight was different now, too—each chance he got to grab Malicu or Ranan and spin the action along the corridor, he took it. He volleyed punches and received them, poured forward into his task like a blade swinging, bright white teeth visible in a gritted square within his peeled-back lips and streaks of blood showing upon them. Now each blow, each kick, each shoulder up or down, each knee flung upward brought the brown man one more step toward the shadows. He was fighting his way to the High Gul.
Such ferocity! This man—what was he doing here? To administer an outpost, that was why the bottom of the barrel needed scraping. Such a creature as this, behind a desk? Why?
What if this were the most timid of these humans, if this were the kind considered most expendable by them? Imagine!
The commander still locked his glare upon the eyes of the High Gul, even as he punched his fists and drove his shoulders into the hard bodies of Malicu and Ranan, and centimeter by centimeter made headway down this narrow shaft toward the High Gul. There was instant communication between them—the commander knew this was the creature who had botched up his complex, scattered his peace, endangered his crew.
The High Gul raised his chin, only a touch, but enough to acknowledge the glory of the anger spinning in his opponent's eyes. And in that instant they understood each other perfectly. In a few moments they would be together.
The High Gul's attention shifted to the other human—
No, not human—the face was wrong. There was no expression, no lines or creases, no signs of wear, but only piercing blue eyes filled with excitement. A tan uniform—what did that signify? The Gul made a mental note to find out what the colors meant.
The other person was formidable, despite his thin body. Weight seemed to have no meaning to him as he dug his fingers into the shoulders of Ranan's cloak and wrenched the Elite off the brown man with a tremendous heave.
The abrupt change threw Malicu and the commander off balance and they struck the deck with a thunderous slam. Malicu took the chance to roll away from the commander, who lay for an instant and sucked a great sustaining breath before he too rolled to his feet. During that instant Malicu plunged to the side of the corridor, applied his brute hands to a wall stanchion, and wrenched it free from its place. Metal squawked, but the attachments gave. The long, thin pole came away from its braces.
Malicu spun around, let loose a ghastly shriek as he charged the newcomer, who was chest-to-chest with Ranan, up against the opposite bulkhead. Charging with his pole at his side, braced in both hands, Malicu drove the end of the pole into the spine of the stranger in the tan uniform.
The High Gul, who for his entire career had practiced not being surprised by anything that happened in a battle, sucked a quick breath in shock as the pole went straight through the newcomer as if he were hardly there, and plunged with Malicu's full force into Ranan's body.
The newcomer's back separated and his head kicked back a little, but he turned to look at Malicu without the slightest hint of having been pierced through. Where the pole went through him, his uniform and skin turned orange-red, separated, became liquid, and pulled out of the way, leaving Malicu staring into the stunned face of his fellow Elite. The newcomer dissolved to liquid across his middle, stepped out from between them all the way, spun against the bulkhead, and reassembled into his original form, his face twisted into a grimace as he expended effort.
Skewered to the wall, the pole driven cleanly between his lungs, Ranan stared with eyes almost as wide as the surrounding bone circles, his mouth that wide also, arms spread outward to his sides as if he were about to embrace Malicu in the terrible welcome that brought them together.
As well trained as the Elite Guard were, Malicu let out a yell of fright, as if waking up covered with insects, at what he had just seen—
Shapeshifter!
As the impaled attacker exhaled his last breath and slid to the deck, taking with him the pole that had pierced not only his body but the wall behind him, the other big assailant stumbled away and ran down the dark corridor with astounding speed for somebody so bulky. He grabbed wildly for the individual who had been watching them from the dark nook down there, and the two of them vanished into the folds of the station's bowels.
Odo growled an insensible noise and tilted to follow them.
"No!" Sisko said, and drove an elbow into Odo's chest. "You don't know what's down there, Constable." He shook his arms to get out the tension and huffed, "Cardassians! Dammit, I'd hoped it wouldn't be so simple!"
Tense and panting, still feeling his innards gathering back together, Odo stepped fully over the twitching body of the dead Cardassian attacker to Captain Sisko's side. "Sir, are you all right?"
"Dammit!"
"Sir?"
"Yes, dammit, dammit …" Then Sisko seemed to collect his senses, bury the steaming fury he'd needed a moment ago, and glanced at Odo. "How about you?"
"I'm all right." Odo heard the gravel in his own voice. Anger came out in it, disgust at having had the enemy, the saboteurs, within reach and having lost them. He knew he should've insisted that Sisko take a personal bodyguard with him everywhere as he crawled up and down the access ladders in the guts of the station as he went from area to area, trying to wrest control from confusion.
"I know what you're thinking, Constable," Sisko said, prodding the dead Cardassian with one toe. "But if I'd let you assign someone to me, then maybe these jokers would never have tried this, and we still wouldn't know who they were."
"Interesting logic," Odo rasped. "If you weren't my commanding officer, I'd have a smart response."
"You can go ahead with it." Sisko crouched beside the dead man and pulled apart the dark blue cloak. "I thought so! I thought I saw this! Look—it's one of those uniforms from those corpses you and O'Brien found."
"Why would anyone steal those uniforms?"
"Better question—how did these Cardassians find out about those Cardassians? And how far does the knowledge go now? Did these people contact the Cardassian Central Command, or do we have the whiteout on our side this time?" He looked up at Odo. "Do you recognize them? Did you see Cardassians on any ship's passenger manifest or crew roster?"
Odo battled down a sense of insult. "I would've investigated them if I had, sir."
He managed to keep from adding "don't you think" to either end of that sentence.
"All right, all right," Sisko grumbled, stood up, and dabbed at his bleeding face. "Have this one taken to Dr. Bashir. Tell him to do an immediate autopsy. Questions—is he really Cardassian, how old, and any identification."
"Yes, sir," Odo said. He wondered what else to say, if anything would do for this moment. Sisko was hot, bleeding, pumped full of anger, and flushed with aftermath, and Odo wondered if there could be true logic in such a physical condition. So far there had been, but would the anger crash in again? He could never tell. These humans were hard to measure.
"Sure you're all right?" Sisko asked him.
The question jarred Odo, and abruptly he realized he had been flexing his shoulders and back as he thought his thoughts. Ignoring the attention that made him uneasy, he gestured down the skinny corridor. "Do you want me to get a team and follow them?"
"Not yet. Let's wait and see if Dax can get the internal sensors back on-line, and we'll track them down with a bioscan." Sisko stared down the corridor as if he wished to disobey his own orders and plunge down there after those who had attacked him. "Something's very strange about this … those uniforms … why would anybody …"
The captain paused, his brow drawn as he involved himself in thought.
"He was the leader," he continued. "That one watching us from way down there. He was in charge of them."
Odo peered at him, curious. "How could you tell?"
"I don't know. Something about him … maybe his posture. He wasn't just hiding … he was observing. And when I tried to get to him, he didn't even flinch. And he looked—strange. This one does, too. The bones show and the face is hollow. They look more like ghosts of Cardassians than living Cardassians."
For a few long seconds Sisko stared down that dim corridor again, past the shadowed angles and the ghastly poor lighting, as if he could still see that face in his mind and was still memorizing its lines, its complexities, preparing for the moment when he would meet it again.
Sharply, then, he said, "Get O'Brien. And get a crowbar. We're going back down that tunnel you found. I've got an ugly hunch."
"Your Excellency! We went after someone with a uniform, and we found, instead, this!"
The new headquarters, pitiful and dim though it was, with its sad mustard walls and its senseless angularity, was lit only with a few tiny work implements stolen from other places in the tunnels.
And in that light was a Cardassian face. Not unusual, given the moment, except that this was a face unfamiliar to the High Gul.
A Cardassian he did not know—a branch into this new era.
He paused before the individual who had been forced to sit between Koto and Clus, and who looked particularly small between two such individuals. The High Gul took a moment to appreciate his chosen Elite. They might or might not be the brightest lights, but certainly they were the biggest and they were the most loyal. With their devotion and purpose, he would gladly do the thinking for them.
The visitor—captive—stared at him. It might have been shock or appreciation; he couldn't tell. A signal, the High Gul realized. This was not only fear he saw, if it was fear at all. He recognized that look—one of possibility, risk, not awe but certainly expectation. Instantly he changed his plan of approach to accommodate what he read in the visitor's face.
"My son," he said, his voice low.
The visitor's eyes changed, but very little. His mouth opened, but he said nothing.
The High Gul offered a step closer, but only one step, with a controlled swagger of his shoulders and with his chin slightly raised and his eyes gazing downward in just the right manner to cultivate what he saw in the visitor's face.
"Do you know," he began slowly, "who I am, my son?"
The visitor cleared his throat and blinked into the dimness. "You are the first and only High Gul."
"Very good. You're correct. Be calm, for I have many questions for you and I need you to answer them. Are you cold here? Would you like a cloak?"
"No, Excellency. . . ."
The High Gul glowed with satisfaction. This response! This impassioned shock at seeing him, at recognizing him—it told him many things and gave him tools. He thought about it.
With another step he drew even closer. "Are you the only Cardassian resident of this outpost?"
"At the moment, yes."
"What is your name?"
"Garak."
"And you are the one who awakened us, also yes?"
"Yes … I did that."
"And I presume you went away, didn't let yourself be known to us because you were afraid. You didn't know how we would react to you? Is that true?"
Garak was waffling between the truth and lies, balancing which would do him more favor, or at least get him out of the Elite's grips. Quite a process to watch. An argument with self.
"No," the High Gul finally said. "Not the truth. Tell me the truth, then."
"I thought I might observe your actions and …"
"And find leverage from your position of silence?"
"Actually … yes."
"I appreciate that strategy, Garak."
This seemed to relax the newcomer further.
"Let's speak to each other, then," the High Gul continued. "Talk as fellows. You know who I am, you know I need to know things about this place and its people. You awakened me from my trance, and so you must want me to know these things, is that right?"
The visitor's eyes kinked tight as he pondered this, but there was no other answer.
"Yes … High Gul."
The High Gul held silent and let Garak slowly convince himself of what he had just heard. Clearly he had already run through all this in the hours since the awakening, but only now was able to absorb the reality.
"Tell me," the High Gul began, pacing his words, "who is my enemy in this era?"
"Unfortunately," Garak said, "everyone here is your enemy. Even Cardassia is your enemy. There's a new government structure called the Central Command … but also there is the Obsidian Order. Sometimes they work for the Central Command … sometimes they work for themselves."
"I understand." With his expression the High Gul communicated just how deeply he did understand such webs of power. He knelt, and sat on a piece of metal jutting from the wall, then gazed into Garak's tension-frosted face. "You are alone here among our kind, is that right?"
"Yes."
"Are you in exile?"
"Of a sort."
"Sanctuary, then."
"Yes, of a sort."
"Sanctuary here is provided by what agency?"
"They're called Starfleet, High Gul. That's the military and exploratory arm of the United Federation of Planets. It was started by humans—Terrans—people from a planet called Earth, but now it's made up of many species. They came here a few years ago and shored up the Bajoran government following the evacuation of Cardassian troops from the planet Bajor—and from this station."
"What other forces exist now, that you know of?"
"Oh … Romulans, Klingons, Orions, Ferengi, Tholians, Eridani, Rigelians, and there's the Dominion beyond the—"
"So many! An interesting time to live. Tell me about Cardassia. Tell me why this Cardassian outpost is held by others now. How is it that our powerful forces were thrown off. Are we no longer powerful?"
"In ordnance, yes," Garak said with a shrug. "Ships, weapons, numbers … but our leaders have lost their talent for …"
"For choreographing assault? I understand. Go on."
Another shrug. "They attack at the wrong times, they retreat at the wrong times, they're brutal for no gain, thereby making resentment in conquered people, which comes back on them. And they rarely see it coming. They're also more suspicious of each other than of their enemies." He blinked upward. "And wisely so."
The High Gul nodded. "So Cardassia has become its own enemy. And therefore weakened."
"Yes."
"I see. Tell me this … where are the rest of my Loyal Elite? Are they asleep elsewhere in the complex? Or perhaps on that planet nearby? If so, we must awaken them also, that I might have strength with which to approach the forces I must face here. We shall face them together, my friend, and you will no longer suffer exile."
Garak flushed at the new burden. He shifted where he sat, glanced up to one side at Koto, to the other side at Clus, and around him at the other Elites who stood like statues around them. "High Gul … it's in all the history records of the Cardassian Prime Order that … the Loyal Elite of the High Gul …"
"Say what you have to say," the High Gul prodded gently. "I am able to accept anything."
Drawing a steadying breath, Garak looked as if he expected to have his head removed for this. "Two thousand of the Loyal Elite—" He swallowed again. "—came back and were paraded before the populace to confirm the death of the High Gul and weld into place the power of his … of your opponents in government."
Garak squinted into the High Gul's gaze.
And what a gaze it was. The High Gul stood up sharply, felt his eyes burning, his skin shrivel, his arms and legs grow tight with horror. Two thousand bodies, his handpicked force, his most loyal, paraded in gruesome death as leverage against all he had tried to build. Used, used against him, against Cardassia, for political gain!
Now there were only these who were with him now, this loyal handful, his personal guard. Not only had these sicknesses happened to his civilization, but his own army had been used against itself to make these things happen. His own men, his own name—
As his blood boiled and tornadic rage quaked within him, he battled as he ever had against an enemy to keep control of himself. He must appear eternally composed, the ultimate countenance, self-assured and unirritable before Garak, because he needed Garak. He needed, now more than even a moment ago, someone who could walk freely in this outpost. The rage must be reined within.
In his effort to rein it, he turned his back on Garak and strode between the pillars of his remaining Elite, forcing himself not to look into their faces or communicate his grief and desperation.
Two thousand of them. What a sight it must have been, body after body, open-eyed, shrouded, and utterly still. A powerful demonstration that must have rended many hearts and attracted others.
At once a question burst into his mind. He turned.
"Garak … how many years has it been?"
The exile blinked at him from down the hollow tube in which they had hidden themselves. At first he seemed not to understand the question, but soon a realization crossed his face and he fought with the answer. He glanced at the Elites, then looked again at the leader he had awakened.
"It's been rather a long time, High Gul … it's been almost a hundred years."