Star Trek: Terok Nor 03: Dawn of the Eagles (9 page)

H
e was too close. No Cardassian had ever come this close to the Shakaar cell’s hideout before, at least, not anytime before last week. He wasn’t close enough to guess where the hideout was, necessarily, and his scanning equipment couldn’t possibly reveal its location, for the hillside surrounding the caves was riddled with kelbonite. But he was still too close. Kira Nerys would have to get him before he got even a linnipate closer, just as she had gotten his two companions. The bulky Cardassian rifle she had lifted from one of the slain soldiers was slowing her down, and Kira knew that she was going to have to ditch it. She could come back for it later, she decided, even though Shakaar had been insisting for over a week that nobody leave base camp until they could confirm or deny the rumors they had been hearing. She was sure to get an earful from him when she returned to camp, especially when she told him that she didn’t know where Bestram was.

She pitched the stolen rifle at the base of a tree with distinctive branches. She had been to this spot many times in her life, countless times, and she would be back again, to get that rifle, just as soon as she finished her job here.

She set off again, lighter now, clutching her phaser pistol in one hand and walking the way she’d learned years ago, the way that kept the needles and leaves and bits of bark and the papery seed hulls of the blackwood trees silent beneath the soles of her soft old boots. She could hear his footsteps, though they were a ways off; she would hear him long before he would hear her, and no matter how precise his scanning equipment, she would be the one to shoot first.

She stopped walking as she heard a subtle shift in the echoing crunch of the soldier’s footfalls, edging for a large tree. He was headed vaguely in her direction, and although he probably knew exactly where she was, if she held completely still, she could still manage the element of surprise. He would approach as quietly as he knew how, but it would not be quiet enough. He would get within striking range, but she would be well protected behind the trunk of a wide tree. Before he even had a chance to aim, she would charge; he’d be dead before he realized she was coming.

She let her breath out in tiny increments, held her body as still as stone. His footsteps drew closer…and when she heard the telltale whisper of dry brush less than a body length away, she sprang out from behind the tree, already firing.

She did not miss. His body jerked as it staggered backward, his phaser falling, and he let out a single dying groan before he landed, and then he was silent and motionless on the floor of the forest. The birds chirped overhead, and Kira scrambled forward, phaser still trained on the dead soldier, to strip him of his weapons and comcuff. She stopped for a moment to listen, but she heard nothing more. Her companion, Bestram, was nowhere in sight, and neither were the Cardassians who had chased him off in a different direction.

Loaded down with equipment, she made for the tree where she had stowed the other phaser rifle, and then beat it back to the Shakaar cell’s hideout in the nearby mountain, a mountain so low it was scarcely more than a hill, nearly invisible behind the grand, old-growth trees that surrounded it.

She took the chance that there were no more soldiers around and ducked for the entrance, a tiny, camouflaged opening in the rock that led to a system of tunnels, some of them natural, some of them blasted out by the network of resistance cells that operated in this region. She had to squat down on her haunches to avoid bumping her head on the low ceiling of this passageway, one that had been carved out a little at a time by another cell, the nearby Kohn-Ma. She shimmied along, grunting with the weight of all the equipment she pushed ahead of her, wishing that she had walked around to the more accessible west entrance, but then she remembered that the Cardassians had come from that direction—there could have been more of them, waiting for her. She swallowed her doubts regarding Bestram. He must have gone around, she told herself, though she doubted very much that it was true.

After a long time, she turned a blind corner where the passageway widened and she was able to walk upright at last, her knees and spine creaking a little as she rose to her full height. Kira was small in stature, probably the smallest person of any who used these burrows, but the northwest entrance tunnel still felt claustrophobic to her. She had often wondered how some of the larger men managed to tolerate the press of rock all around them—to say nothing of the darkness. She was nearly to her cell’s main hideout now, the place where they lived, ate, slept, bathed, and plotted together. Kira had always thought of it as a warren or a den; it was rough and sometimes depressing, but it was home. For now, anyway.

“Shakaar!” She called out to the leader of her cell as she came into the primary chamber of the Shakaar cell’s camp. “Has Bestram checked in?”

Mobara was the only member of the cell in the primary chamber, working on a piece of equipment at a table in the main tunnel, near where the cell’s comm system was usually kept. Lupaza and Furel were back in Dahkur, where they had been visiting some friends, and nobody had heard from them in days; it was part of the reason Kira had wanted to go back into Dahkur with Bestram, to ensure that they were all right. Mobara put down his tools and began to relieve Kira of the equipment she carried, stopping to examine a tricorder. “Shakaar told you not to go out, Nerys,” Mobara said absently, turning the tricorder over in his hands, already laying out a plan for how he would put it to use.

“I know, but—”

Shakaar emerged from another of the tunnels, with Gantt just behind him. “Nerys—I told you not to go out!”

“I know, but—Bestram, have you heard from him?” She was too anxious about the missing young cell member to argue with Shakaar about going out.

Shakaar looked tired. “I haven’t heard anything,” he said, wiping his face with one of his rawboned hands. He had been awake for at least two days and nights, manning the long-range comm system, fielding the reports that were coming in from all over the planet. He looked to Mobara, who had been attending to the shortwave system. “Did you hear from him?”

“I didn’t,” Mobara said, and turned to Kira once more. “Do you think he could have been behind you?”

Kira shook her head. “No, I’m sure he wasn’t. He took off in another direction. Three soldiers came after me, the rest followed him.” She took a breath. “I think he was making for the ravine, so maybe he’ll come in by the western route.”

Shakaar nodded, but his expression was grave. The knots of tension in Kira’s stomach tightened as she realized that if Bestram had taken the western route, he would have beaten her here by a healthy margin. He’d either taken cover somewhere else, or—

Or he didn’t
. Kira took another breath, tried to think of something she could say or do to sound encouraging, but nothing came to mind.

“So they found you,” Mobara said.

“Yes,” Kira said. “But what were we going to do? We’ll starve in here. We have to be able to get to the village for supplies—”

“We’ll do that when it becomes absolutely necessary,” Shakaar said firmly, “and after we’ve rigged a way to transmit false life signs, or some kind of a shielding device…”

“I’m working on one right now,” Mobara said. “It should be ready within a week. If you and Bestram had just waited to speak to us about this…” His tone was uncharacteristically scolding.

Kira said nothing, feeling mildly defensive, but mostly afraid for Bestram. She’d feel responsible if he didn’t come back, even if it
was
his idea to go out in the first place. But why, then, had she been able to go out by herself earlier this week, with no sign of a Cardassian anywhere? When she’d told Bestram about it, he’d been eager to sneak out past Shakaar, believing the enemy patrols had been redeployed elsewhere. But he was wrong. The Cardassians had found them anyway.

Gantt spoke up in a low voice. “We’ve gotten more bad news since you’ve been gone,” the stoic medic informed her. “The comm chatter says Li Nalas has been killed.” Stunned, Kira looked to Shakaar for confirmation.

“Is it true?” she asked him.

Shakaar’s voice was solemn. “It’s what they’re saying on the comm—that his entire outfit was wiped out three days ago, somewhere in the outback.”

This was the fifth report they’d gotten of a cell being taken out completely. The cells in Jalanda, Renday, and Elemspur were also said to be gone—not a single member left.

Shakaar continued. “There was a report…someone claims that Jaro Essa is confirming he heard it was a new Cardassian detection grid.”

“Is that what’s taking down the raiders?” Mobara wanted to know.

Again, Kira looked to Shakaar. She hadn’t heard anything about raiders. He looked as surprised as she did.

“The Kohn-Ma cell have lost five of their aircraft,” Mobara explained. “Five of their
men.
That’s more than half their cell.”

“When did you hear that?” Kira asked with some urgency. She had become friendly with one of the Kohn-Ma cell members…

“I heard it an hour ago, from Tahna Los,” Mobara said. “The rest of the Kohn-Ma are still in the city, and Tahna put in a call to me to see if we were still here.”

“I heard reports of other raiders being shot down, as well,” Shakaar said, his voice troubled. “But I didn’t hear that Jaro Essa said anything about it…. I thought it might be another of their propaganda plants…”

“We shouldn’t take any chances,” Gantt said.

Shakaar nodded. “We won’t be launching any of our own raiders anytime soon. At least, not before we know what happened with the Kohn-Ma’s ships,” Shakaar said.

“So what should we do?” Kira asked. It wasn’t enough for her to sit here and listen to all the frantic gossip coming from the comm. She wanted to act—to get outside and confirm what was happening.

“We’ll do nothing until we’ve gotten more information. First thing, we wait for Bestram. We give it the usual fifty-two hours before…” He trailed off.

“Before the search party?” Kira finished for him.

Shakaar shook his head. “Not this time,” he said. “This time…I think this time will have to be different.”

Kira swallowed hard and met Mobara’s gaze, found fear there, too. She had the distinct sense that things were changing, big things.

“We can’t just stay in these caves forever,” Gantt pointed out. “If there’s a system monitoring Bajoran movement, we’ll all have to go back to the city, get fake papers—blend in, somehow…”

“Not me,” Kira said firmly. “I’ll stay here.”

“I’d rather stay here, too,” Mobara said. “I think I can figure out a way to temporarily mask our biosigns so that we can get from place to place, at least in the short term. With careful planning, we can still—”

“But how are we supposed to plan full-scale attacks with temporary masks?” Gantt argued. “If we’re being targeted at this location, we’ve got to leave.”

“We’ll have plenty of time to figure that out later,” Shakaar said. “For now, we gather information. We work on getting in touch with the rest of the cell, making sure everyone is all right.”

Kira swallowed. “What about the Kohn-Ma?” she asked.

Shakaar shrugged. “They can do what they want,” he said. “But if there are only four of them left, they might just feel as though it’s over for them.”

Kira felt her resolve harden. “No,” she said. “They won’t feel that way.” Kira didn’t know Tahna Los especially well, but she did know that he wouldn’t give up, even if he was the only one left in his cell. She knew it because it was how she felt about the Shakaar.

Quark was less than thrilled that he’d had to give up such a large quantity of gold-press latinum to the pompous Cardassian who ran this place. It was a lucky thing he’d had that emergency stash at the bottom of one of the crates Gart had unceremoniously unloaded when he’d marooned Quark. Buried under a quarter-ton of rotting vegetables, the latinum had been safely shielded from his nosy shipmates. He remembered the way the prefect’s eyes had widened when Quark had presented him with a full brick, despite his obvious revulsion to the smell coming from it. It pained Quark to leave it on the gul’s desk, but he took comfort in knowing that he’d made a sale.

Quark grinned, thinking of the possibilities. He’d left home a lowly freighter cook, driven from the beautiful swamps of Ferenginar by a ridiculous accusation that was, sadly, true. But he’d been listening, from the beginning, from his very first day boiling the morning snail juice for Gart’s idiot crew. Listening for that faint, come-hither breath of opportunity, seeking out the entrepreneurial brave—and now she had come panting after him like a two-strip dabo girl, and he had the lobes to take action.

He patted the vest pockets containing his remaining strips and slips, and settled down in a chair in his new quarters, his grin souring slightly. The Cardassian hadn’t gotten all of it, but the loss had hurt. And yet, what other recourse did he have? Where else could he possibly go? Dukat obviously didn’t want him here, but latinum bought welcome, he’d found. Even with Klingons, to some degree. It was too bad Dukat hadn’t wanted the perishables, but Quark already had an idea or two.

He’d known about the occupation, of course. No self-respecting businessman would travel the starry seas without knowing who had the power where. In the B’hava’el system, the Cardassians carried the big stick. They’d run over some backward agri planet to “borrow” most of their resources, to boost a sagging economy at home—not a bad business plan, considering the payoff, though not so hot for the Bajorans. He’d seen plenty of Cardassians, but until his little tour of his new home this morning, he’d never seen a Bajoran before, not up close. In some of those pale faces he’d read crazed desperation, barely concealed; in others, utter, total defeat.