Prologue

Stardate 51623.3,

Commanding Officer's Log. We're abandoning Coroticus III. Hell, we're abandoning the entire sector. I remember previous wars, against the Cardassians or whoever. Limited engagements, minimal losses. They lasted forever. What was it? Thirty years against the Cardassians? But those wars were what used to be called cold conflicts. This one, though--I don't think we're going to get through it. We take twenty years to create someone who can pilot a starship or fire a phaser. The Dominion takes weeks to raise a Jem'Hadar soldier. I thought I would see out my commission here, studying these people on this planet, but now I frankly don't know if I'll survive the day. Even if I did, what a final day this is. Wiping the computers. Destroying the physical evidence of the observation lounge. Abandoning a primitive but wonderful humanoid race to the tender mercies of the Dominion. And for hours and hours now the repetitive wailing sound of the red-alert sirens. It's enough to--Oh, that's it. Enough! 

"Turn that bloody noise off!" shouted Commander Tarsem Johal. "It's driving me mad."

"Red alert muted," replied the calm voice of the tactical officer. Lieutenant Saed Squire was young, barely out of the Academy where he'd taken a joint degree in security and ancient galactic civilizations. It was a rare degree, but it made him perfect for a sociological observation post on a pre-warp world orbiting Coroticus. "We've just heard from the U.S.S. Valletta, an Istanbul-class vessel. They'll enter orbit in five minutes and request that we be ready for immediate departure."

"How did we do with the transporter apparatus?"

"All outposts destroyed with minimal sign of their presence."

Johal nodded and glanced at his second-in-command. "Moseley, how's the data backup going?"

Sheila Moseley tucked a stray lock of red hair behind her ear as she read the progress reports. "We're at seventy-five percent, Commander. We need another hour."

"We don't have it," growled Squire. "Commander, I recommend we dump it now."

"We'll lose all that information." Moseley turned to Johal. "Commander, I--"

The red-alert siren started up again, triggered by some new disaster. "We have four...no, six! Six Jem'Hadar warships entering the system right behind the Valletta!"

There was a silence for a few seconds.

"The Valletta is four minutes away." Squire's voice remained muted.

"And the Jem'Hadar?"

"I can't be sure. Fourteen minutes if we're lucky."

"Lieutenant Moseley." Johal reached out and squeezed her shoulder.

"Aye, sir," she whispered. "Commencing total data purge."

"The Jem'Hadar are being joined by a Cardassian frigate."

"Data purge at seven percent."

"Keep an eye on the Jem'Hadar. Begin evacuation procedures. All nonessentials get out now in order of seniority." The outpost could only transport three people at a time, but with only six permanent personnel this wasn't much of a problem.

"That leaves who, exactly?" muttered Moseley.

"Well, us and the commander," Squire said with a wry grin.

"Data purge at twenty-nine percent."

"The first three personnel are away, Commander," Ensign Zophres called from the transporter station.

"The Valletta is two minutes, five seconds from standard orbit and have reported our personnel safe and sound."

"Except for the warships right behind them."

"Except for that. Definitely an occupying force."

"Doesn't seem big enough for a whole planet."

"The local population uses pointy wooden sticks, Sheila."

"Point taken. Data purge at fifty-four percent."

"The second group is away."

"Ensign Zophres, get yourself up to the Valletta. Lieutenant Squire, run the transporter."

The two men obeyed instantly.

"Two Jem'Hadar just entered orbit!" cried Squire, his composure broken at last.

"Where'd they come from?" asked Johal.

"I don't know! Commander, you need to get out of here."

The commander turned to Moseley. "You too, Sheila. Let's go."

"The data purge isn't complete, sir."

"We're being jammed. The Jem'Hadar are beginning a planetwide scan." Squire looked at his commander. "They can't be allowed to find the post, sir."

"I'm praying you have options for me."

"I'll secure the base. There won't be much left to come back to, but a limited-spread photon grenade inside the shields should keep the base hidden and wipe out the relevant data. The shields should also mask the explosion itself. I hope."

"Get it done, Lieutenant." Johal took up his position on the transporter pad, Moseley beside him, her hair in her eyes. She didn't bother to tuck it away this time. "Follow us up."

"Aye, sir." The lieutenant engaged the transporter and the beams took Johal and Moseley away.

The Valletta lurched under fire, causing Johal and Moseley to stumble even as they coalesced on the ship's pad. Johal hadn't experienced ship-to-ship fire since his time on the Grixalon. He stumbled off the pad, trying to control his movement with a burst of forward momentum.

The young crewman at the controls nodded. "We're taking Jem'Hadar fire, sir. Are you the last ones up?"

"No," said Johal. "One of my officers is still--"

"Shields down to fifty-six percent," said the familiar voice of the ship's computer.

"Prepare for warp." The voice was female and authoritative, and coming from the transporter chief's combadge.

Johal slammed his hand against his badge. "Johal to bridge. Belay that. I have a man still down there."

"We can't wait, Commander. It's one officer or an entire ship...my crew and the rest of yours." A pause. "We just read an explosion from your previous coordinates." Another pause. "No life-signs. I'm sorry, Commander."

Johal felt the sudden, indescribable alteration in the vibration of the deck plates as the Valletta went into warp. It matched the sinking feeling in his stomach. I'm sorry, Squire.

Chapter

1

Two years later

F abian Stevens and Tarsem Johal stood above the treeline, perched on a rocky outcrop that allowed them a vantage point over the village far below. Coroticus III was a class-M world, and Stevens allowed himself a moment to breathe in the scent of alien pine drifting up on the mild wind. This almost makes it worthwhile, he thought. The S.C.E. was to begin the process of rebuilding a dozen cultural observation posts on pre-warp worlds throughout the sector, with the da Vinci handling Coroticus III and Sachem II. Stevens was leading a small team on Coroticus, training a group of young technicians in the process before they could be left on their own, while Corsi located the Dominion headquarters for the planet and Abramowitz observed whatever cultural contamination the Dominion might have left behind. It was not a mission that promised to be much of a challenge. At the same time, escape was impossible; the da Vinci wasn't due to pick them up for seven days. The ship was now dropping off another team--with P8 Blue, Chief Hawkins, and Bart Faulwell in Stevens, Corsi, and Abramowitz's roles, respectively--then would report to Avril Station for a week to conduct upgrades on their outdated systems.

"You're not pleased to be on this assignment." Johal's smile was gentle.

Stevens dragged his attention away from the scene below. "I'm sorry if I seem distracted, Commander. The S.C.E. is happy to assist however it can. That's what we're here for."

Johal shrugged, the smile never leaving his eyes. "Rebuilding duck blinds is hardly a challenge worthy of the Corps of Engineers. Nevertheless, your expertise is appreciated. This sort of mission hasn't been the highest priority lately, but it is what we're out here for. Exploration. Discovery."

Stevens nodded. High above them, a dark green bird floated serenely. There was nothing Stevens could see that even hinted at this world's recent past as a Dominion conquest. Of course, that didn't mean Coroticus III wouldn't reveal some scars eventually. Rebuilding Starfleet's observation posts here wasn't simply meant to resume the original mission. It was to study the effect of alien conquest on a pre-warp civilization. "We take that duty seriously, sir. You'll be back at work in no time."

"I won't be staying on when the post is up and running again. I'm only here to patch things up, and then only because I know the place better than anyone else." His eyes lingered on the vivid forest, and beyond toward the purple mountains in the distance.

"So, what is your next assignment? Or should I say, where?"

Johal chuckled. "Picking strawberries."

"Strawberries?"

"An Earth fruit. A delicacy the galaxy over. The Mizarians will pay almost any price for a kilo of strawberries." He shrugged, smiling faintly. "It acts as a mild narcotic for them."

"I know the fruit, Commander. I'm guessing that Starfleet isn't assigning you to strawberry duty?"

"Good guess, Mr. Stevens. My sons own a large farm on one of Shiralea's moons. Turns out the equatorial belt is virtually perfect for strawberries. Just as good for blueberries in the right season. My whole extended clan lives there: sons, daughters, grandchildren, various in-laws." He paused to allow a faint, wistful smile. "And my wife."

"It sounds...idyllic. Very idyllic."

Johal laughed. "No need to be polite, Mr. Stevens. It's not for everyone."

"No, sir, it isn't. I tried it, before the war started. It didn't take, and I found myself off Rigel and on the da Vinci before I knew it. If you don't mind my asking, if retirement beckons, why not leave this assignment to one of your officers?"

Johal looked out at the vista before them. "My tactical officer died destroying the post so that it wouldn't fall into enemy hands. My first officer was lost when the Ogun was destroyed a few months later. She'd been reassigned as a yeoman. It was only supposed to be until the war's end." He smiled faintly. "It just goes to show that you can never take anything for granted."

Stevens remembered Salek and Chan Okha, who died during the war, and 111, who died shortly afterward, and Ken Caitano and Ted Deverick, who died just a couple of weeks ago, and Diego Feliciano and Stephen Drew and all the other crewmates who died at Galvan VI--including his best friend, Kieran Duffy. He whispered, "Amen."

Domenica Corsi, head of security on the U.S.S. da Vinci, sniffled and pinched her nose in annoyance. She growled softly, but the growl became a kind of peep before ending in a surprisingly delicate sneeze.

Carol Abramowitz glanced away from her padd, her fingers poised over the keys mid-task. "Is something wrong, Commander?"

Corsi glanced up at the cultural specialist, a look of mingled guilt and defiance on her face. "No."

Abramowitz watched for a moment as Corsi sniffed repeatedly. To her surprise, Corsi broke first, pulling a handkerchief from her pocket and wiping her nose. Above the handkerchief, her eyes glared. "Do you have a cold, Commander?" Abramowitz tried to keep the amused disbelief from her voice. "Core-Breach" was never slowed by anything as commonplace as an illness.

"No." Corsi looked away to where her team was setting up the research post's security perimeter. Unfortunately, neither T'Mandra nor Makk Vinx was doing anything wrong with the equipment, and Corsi couldn't find any excuse to walk away. "It's...it's an allergy."

Abramowitz frowned. "Didn't the EMH take care of all that before we left?"

"Apparently Coroticus III has something new, with which my immune system disagrees. I'll be fine." She sneezed explosively as the breeze brought some foreign pollen or microscopic feather dust to her nose's attention.

"Gesundheit," chuckled Abramowitz.

"That's a nasty word in Klingon," muttered the security chief, stalking past Abramowitz and determined to find somewhere else to be.

"I'm a cultural specialist," called Abramowitz toward her retreating back. "You know that I know that gesundheit isn't a Klingon curse word."

"It's bound to be a curse somewhere." She walked out of site, down toward the proximity sensors along the hidden path leading to the nearest Corotican settlement.

Abramowitz shook her head, smiling softly despite her sympathy with the security chief. Modern medicine was full of miracles, but the universe was equal to the task of throwing the miraculous offtrack. Something Corsi had said caused her to pause. The Klingon meaning of "gesundheit," she thought. Corsi was wrong--it wasn't a swear word. In Klingon, "gesundheit" (properly, ghISong Heytlh) simply meant a calendar. A particular type of lunar calendar that had gone out of favor after the destruction of Praxis, but the point remained. Yet that wasn't really what Corsi had said that made her consider. Rather, it reminded her of a conversation she'd had with the da Vinci's captain, David Gold, just before they'd been beamed down to the surface of Coroticus.

Gold had asked her to stay for a moment after the mission briefing. The cultural specialist paused at the door as the others filed out. "Yes, sir?"

"I wish I had two of you, one for each team. I'm sure Faulwell will do fine on Sachem, but we don't know the depth of the cultural contamination in these places." Bart Faulwell was the da Vinci's linguist, and although his profession demanded a certain knowledge of cultural issues, Carol was the ship's acknowledged expert. "The Federation has barely begun rebuilding itself, much less the pre-warp cultures under its care. But reports indicate the Dominion was more involved with the locals on Coroticus. Your observations will be crucial."

"Firsthand observation of a pre-warp civilization." Abramowitz whistled. "I considered becoming a proper archaeologist, once. Patient observation, good old-fashioned field work, that would be the dream life."

"Well, I wouldn't expect dreams when the place has been under Dominion rule for over a year."

Carol waved a hand dismissively. "I doubt they'd make that big a difference to the planet. Coroticus III was a strategic move. There was nothing about the natives which would have riled up the Dominion."

"Except that they were solids."

Carol paused. "Well...true. Still, there's no indication that the Dominion committed any kind of genocidal crimes on Coroticus. During the treaty process, Dominion negotiators claimed not to have interfered with the local populations."

"But the Dominion doesn't have a Prime Directive. Unless it's something about worshipping the Founders as gods."

The sociologist looked lost in thought for a moment. "Then we should have fought harder to keep them off the planet."

Gold shrugged. "We didn't have the resources to protect Betazed, let alone Coroticus or Sachem II. Besides, it was a Prime Directive issue."

"I've never understood this obsession with the Prime Directive anyway." Carol folded her arms. "I can never keep it straight, and I did quite well in Professor Gyffled's class at the Academy. It seems to change from year to year."

Gold's eyes twinkled dangerously. Carol could feel a lecture coming, and had nobody to blame but herself. "What's not to keep straight? Don't interfere with pre-warp cultures."

"Or the Klingons. When the Klingons had a civil war, we stayed out because of the Prime Directive."

"Ah!" Gold smiled, warming to the subject. "That's because it was an internal matter."

"Of an ally, and part of the problem was that we were an ally. So we were already involved. It just looked lazy. Or cowardly. What about Bajor?"

"There are different facets and interpretations, but generally it means don't interfere if you can help it."

"So maybe the next time the Dominion attacks we should surrender, so that fighting them doesn't break their natural development?"

The captain frowned. "You're exaggerating, Abramowitz. I expect you might even be pulling my leg--playing devil's advocate?"

Carol grinned. "Color me red."

Gold chuckled. "You remind me of my old friend Gus Bradford. We used to argue about things like this--although, to be fair, I usually took your position." His smile faded. "Seriously, Abramowtiz, can I trust you with this? Nothing tests our characters like the Prime Directive. I've seen it before. Misplaced pity, inappropriate anger. It's so easy to stand on high and see what's best for other people."

Carol nodded. "I'll do my best, sir."

Gold was silent for a long moment, observing her and stroking his chin. When he finally spoke, his voice was soft. "Are you sure you're up to this?"

She suppressed the sudden, irrational spurt of anger. "With all due respect, sir, people have to stop asking me that. I'm a cultural specialist on a Starfleet vessel. This is what I do."

He held his hands up in mock surrender and smiled. "I know, I know. But you know me, I have to ask." He let his smile disappear. "Given what happened on Teneb."

"You mean when I was nearly stoned to death by xenophobic refugees who caught me with a magically disappearing tricorder?" She kept her face expressionless. "I'd completely forgotten about that."

Gold looked straight into her face for another long moment before shaking his head, chuckling again. "Sorry to have reminded you. If you're okay, I'm okay."

"I'm okay."

He ducked his head in a friendly dismissal. "Okay."

Now Abramowitz was on the surface of the planet itself, standing in the midst of the forest clearing where the observation post had stood, hidden from the locals. The post was currently visible, the holographic duck blind down while the da Vinci team surveyed the damage done by self-sabotage and time. The emitters had apparently kept working throughout the Dominion occupation, and it was an open question whether the occupiers had found it.

The main post was a series of four buildings high up in the boughs of the large jopka, cedarlike trees that dominated this stretch of the forest. The buildings had been connected by high-tension suspension bridges, which were to be the first things reconstructed. Visual and auditory sensors hidden throughout the region had fed information back to the post's computers, and secondary posts elsewhere on Coroticus collected similar information about the world's other civilizations. Those cameras, located in places with heavy native traffic, would have to be replaced last, given the inherent difficulties of working with advanced technology around pre-warp aliens.

The Coroticans were humanoid, and close enough to Terrans on the surface that no cosmetic surgery was deemed necessary beyond slightly tapered ears, at least for the humans of the da Vinci crew. The ears of the Vulcan security guard, T'Mandra, were deemed within acceptable physiological parameters for Coroticus. The locals wore rough clothing, cloaks and trousers, generally in peacock colors, with tall boots reaching to midcalf. Even the men wore some jewelry on the wrists and ears, although they were more heavily bearded than either Federation woman was used to.

In fact, it was one of Abramowitz's jobs to explore the closest Corotican settlement, Baldakor. While tiny by Federation standards, Baldakor was one of the most important political and spiritual centers on the planet. Further, Starfleet Intelligence believed that the village had been the closest spot to the Dominion presence, and thus most likely to have been affected. Granted, information was sketchy, but that was where she came in.

There was no time like the present to start out on the hour's hike to Baldakor, although she would need to locate Corsi, her bodyguard, first.

A loud sneeze from behind a nearby copse of shrubs gave her a fairly good starting point.

Chapter

2

T he outpost was a mess.

Inside the shields, the photon grenade had destroyed the base's equipment, causing the walls to collapse on themselves. Even if a Corotican native had managed to slip past the holographic shielding, he wouldn't have known what he was looking at. A Jem'Hadar soldier, on the other hand, would have been potentially quite interested in the outpost and the information on Coroticus contained within it.

"There's nothing left," said Stevens, running his tricorder in a slow circle around the room. "I can't detect the smallest trace of information, encrypted or otherwise."

Johal nudged a fallen support beam with his foot. "That's good. It was a great source of concern at the time. We had to abandon Coroticus to the Dominion, but we certainly weren't interested in providing research that could help them control the local population."

Fabian was searching for something to say, something about the lost research and horror of war (something that wouldn't sound trite) when he was distracted by approaching footsteps, crunching in the fine debris of Starfleet sensor banks and swivel chairs. He turned and nodded to Lauoc Saon, the diminutive Bajoran security guard.

"Mr. Stevens, I've found evidence of footprints in the area."

"Normal local traffic?" asked the engineer.

"I'm not sure. They're humanoid, but they appear erratic, as if they were looking for something."

Stevens raised his eyebrow. "Something like a Federation observation outpost?"

Lauoc nodded. "The chronology is confused, but they've definitely come back more than once."

Johal cleared his throat. "It could be locals. If a hunter noticed that wildlife avoided a certain area, and the duck blind has the effect of making it appear that way, then he might have been curious. The Coroticans are just like us, in that way."

Stevens nodded before turning to Lauoc. "Have you informed Commander Corsi?"

"Yes, sir. She'll look into rumors regarding the outpost in Baldakor."

"Is there anything else you've found?" asked Johal.

Lauoc turned to the older officer. "Sir," the Bajoran said, scratching idly at the scar on his face with one hand and holding a tricorder in the other. "If I understand the situation when you evacuated the outpost, you left your tactical officer behind?"

The older officer's face colored lightly. "Saed Squire, yes. I wouldn't say we left him behind. It was an unfortunate bit of timing between the Valletta's arrival and the explosion. I think..." Johal paused for a moment before sighing. "I think he knew he wasn't going to make it."

Lauoc nodded. "I didn't mean to imply anything. Everyone who joins security knows the risks, and we're glad to take them."

Security personnel seemed to share this sense of sacred duty, thought Stevens. Dom sure does. Stevens found his attention wandering back to Lauoc's scar, the result of a Breen neural whip encountered during the war. Security always seemed to pay the heaviest price. In fact, Lauoc was one of seven replacements for security personnel who died at Galvan VI.

"It's just that I can't find any sign of that, Commander." He stepped closer so that he could show the tricorder's screen to Johal. "Even given the powdering of the outpost, there should be some sign of the lieutenant's body, even if it's only at the molecular level. The shields should have kept some of the...material...localized."

Johal frowned and took the tricorder. He grunted in acknowledgment. "May I ask what you're suggesting?"

"It could be the local background radiation, Commander," suggested Stevens. "There's some low-level thoron radiation throughout the region, which is interfering with our sensors."

"From the grenade explosion?" asked Johal.

Lauoc shook his head. "Definitely not. It might be related to some sort of weapon discharge, but it would need to be on a fairly large scale to have these effects."

Johal looked out in the direction in which, Stevens knew, the nearest Corotican village lay. "Do we think the Dominion attacked the locals?"

"We couldn't tell based on the da Vinci's sensor readings before we beamed down." Stevens felt like apologizing. The man was clearly affected by the possibility of the locals suffering at the hands of Jem'Hadar weaponry. For that matter, so was Stevens, and he had no firsthand knowledge of Coroticus at all. Meeting the Jem'Hadar and their level of military technology would have made the meeting between the Aztecs and the Conquistadors look almost equal.

Lauoc glanced at Stevens before continuing. "But more than that, there's a small chance that Squire survived the explosion. I don't want to get your hopes up, but if Lieutenant Squire learned anything from his Academy survival classes, this wouldn't have been a bad world to put them to practice." He shrugged. "Even with the Jem'Hadar around."

"Squire was one of the last officers to take survival from Owen Paris before he was kicked upstairs." Johal rubbed his bearded chin thoughtfully. "Can we make a search?"

"I'll ask the commander when she gets back from the village," Lauoc replied with a nod.

Stevens's attention was drawn by one of the computer technicians. Ensign Hj'olla was a Tiburonian woman straight out of the Academy, and a year early at that. She was ostensibly in charge of the small team of young computer specialists and engineers temporarily assigned the S.C.E. for this mission, and had made her eager nervousness well known to both Stevens and Commander Gomez from the moment she boarded the da Vinci at Starbase 212.

Stevens wandered over. "You look like you wanted to speak with me, Ensign?"

"Yes, sir. I was wondering if we could get started clearing debris? I noticed that you were speaking about the missing officer, and that perhaps we've learned all we can?"

Stevens felt an uncustomary twinge of annoyance. "Were you eavesdropping, Ensign?"

The Tiburonian turned slightly blue under her cauliflowered ears. "No, I mean, I heard...I mean...Yes. I suppose I was, sir."

The annoyance passed and Stevens chuckled. "You don't need to call me 'sir'. You're an officer, I'm just a noncom." He smiled sweetly. "Granted, I'm a noncom in charge of this particular operation. Still 'Fabian' is fine, or 'Mr. Stevens' if you really want to be formal."

"Until my team is ready to take over reconstruction efforts throughout the sector on our own, yes, sir."

Fabian got the distinct impression that Ensign Hj'olla would continue to show him the respect due to him by virtue of the mission, for the duration of the mission, and not a moment sooner. No respect for the noncommissioned, he sighed to himself, even when we routinely save the day.

"I suppose you're right, though," he said at last. "No reason not to start cleaning up. Your team's on a pretty tight schedule, even with our help."

Hj'olla's face lit up with a sudden transforming smile. "Thank you, sir! I'll keep one member of the team scanning for trace elements of, of whatever, while we work."

Stevens nodded and smiled back, slightly overwhelmed. I didn't know Tiburonians could smile like that. "That's a good idea."

Again, she said, "Thank you, sir." She put her hands behind her back and her feet together, almost unconsciously. "I'm sorry if I came on strong. Again. I really do appreciate everything you've done to help me." She smiled again, softly this time, almost shyly. "Fabian."

Stevens swallowed. "Carry on, then," he managed.

Did the ensign just...flirt? His first instinct was a certain self-satisfaction. His second was to look around and make certain Domenica Corsi hadn't seen. He might not be sure what his relationship with the security chief was, exactly, but he was very certain that flirting with attractive young ensigns wasn't a part of it.

Not if he wanted to keep all of his internal organs intact.

Chapter

3

A bramowitz breathed in deeply. The smell of livestock and inadequate sewage systems made for an unpleasant aroma, but experiencing it was part of her job. She took another deep breath and frowned.

"What's wrong?" wheezed Corsi, her own nose red and thoroughly protected from Baldakor's scent.

"It doesn't smell as bad as I'd expected." Abramowitz breathed in again, held it longer. "No, not as bad at all."

Corsi shook her head. "You make it sound as though that's a bad thing." Her stuffed-up nose made all her th's sound like d's.

Abramowitz tilted her head to the side thoughtfully. "It might be." She pointed her tricorder toward one of the larger buildings in the village, a three-story wooden structure decorated with weathered stone statues adorning the top floor. To her trained eye, the statues looked like grimacing lizards holding sticks and blades, protective spirits rather than honored ancestors. "That building has a more sophisticated plumbing system than I would have expected."

"All cultures develop in different areas at different rates," said Corsi. "Maybe these people value sanitation above weaponry or vehicular transport."

Abramowitz nodded her head appreciatively. "Well said, Commander, and certainly a possibility. You're full of surprises."

"And pollen." Corsi growled.

Abramowitz touched her left-hand little finger to her right shoulder as two Corotican women passed. They returned the gesture, but frowned at Corsi, who had neglected to do so. "Commander, we need to blend in."

Corsi glowered. "Are you saying they don't have cranky, rude people on Coroticus? Why does Starfleet always assume we all need to be friendly?" She sneezed, snarling at herself immediately afterward.

"We need to get you another hypospray. We could try another medley, maybe mix anti-sheep with anti-Omicronian orchid?"

"I'll wait for a real doctor. I'm fine."

Abramowitz refrained from pointing out that their "real doctor" was off being up for some medical prize or other and wouldn't be back until this mission was over in a week. Instead, she turned her attention back to the locals as they went about their business. "Their culture approximates that of medieval Europe on Earth, with a strongly agricultural basis." She touched Corsi's shoulder lightly, pointing to a nearby domed building, one of the few stone structures in the village. "They even have stained glass."

Corsi narrowed her eyes thoughtfully. "Isn't that Hodge's Law of Parallel Planetary Development?"

Carol chuckled softly. "Now you're just showing off. It's actually Hodgkins's Law, which describes how separate planets develop similar or even identical cultures, like the Nova Romans. Anyways, it's no longer in favor since the Palmieri Hypothesis."

"How's that work, then?"

"Well, Professor Palmieri always felt that Hodgkins's Law was...deeply flawed...and..." Abramowitz wandered toward the domed structure as her voice trailed off.

"Oh, very nice," muttered Corsi, following the cultural specialist.

Placing her hands against the domed building's stone, dark gray and cool to the touch, Carol stood on her toes and strained to take in the glass above. The building seemed to be a religious structure, the spire above the dome straining toward the skies, home of the gods across the galaxy. "I need to get in there."

Corsi glanced over the building's front, which was dominated by two sets of massive wooden doors, one of which was carved and the other nearly plain. The wood of the second set of doors was yellow and smelled strongly. To Corsi's eyes, it looked as though it were unfinished. "I've been watching, and I think the unfinished doors are for women, the other doors for men."

"Sounds about right."

Inside, the building was lit by a combination of braziers lit with coal and reeds, and sunlight streaming in colored beams from the ornate glass. There were no seats and no altar. Some sweet smoke, native incense perhaps, immediately overpowered the senses. A native stood in the room's center, muttering to himself and occasionally referring to the sheets of paper in his hand. Carol thought she heard the name Ushpallar, and the words for abandonment and sin, punishment and forgiveness. She moved closer to the small crowd of believers, hoping to hear more of the sermon.

"...for the Scriptures told us, verily, that the tuilgpa-swee would be yoked to the jimjim, and the kuilka to the gomgom."

The universal translater isn't even trying anymore, thought Carol with an amused inner sigh.

"And these things came to pass when Ushpallar, He Who Blesses and Condemns, son of Ashpa of the Sun and Vwainleila the Earth, moved among his people and dispensed gifts to those who fell upon their faces, and curses to those who stood tall against the wind like the tjib-reed."

Standard fire and brimstone, mused Carol, glancing around the domed interior. The ceiling was remarkably free of ornament where it should be brightly painted, but perhaps that had more to do with the newness of the building and not any cultural change.

"The believers cowered unto the earth when the fires came and consumed our brethren, and..."

"AH-CHOO!" Corsi waved her hands across her face, trying to dispel the smell of the incense. "It's the resin!" The man with the papers glanced up and scowled, but Abramowitz couldn't tell if it was with annoyance or concern. The gathered faithful glanced back in alarm, and many of them whispered to each other and began rushing for the doors.

"You just provided some kind of signal, Commander. The captive flock can't wait to leave." She smiled at the scowling security chief. "Maybe you should wait outside." Abramowitz held up a hand to stall Corsi's protest. "I'll be fine, and you need the fresh air." She restrained herself from physically pushing the security chief back outside, and was relieved when Corsi allowed herself the briefest of scowls before agreeing.

Carol moved toward the entrance, preparing herself for close observation, and praying the universal translator would be able to handle Corotican theology. At least Domenica didn't ask me if I was "okay" with this.

Outside, Corsi drank in the relatively harmless air with relief. She'd probably pay for gulping away at it despite the certain presence of trace elements of resin and whatever else was driving her sinuses to distraction, but for the moment it seemed to help more than harm.

The sudden ringing of bells caught Corsi's attention even through the allergic haze. There was no obvious bell tower on the domed building Abramowitz had entered, so Corsi looked around. Most obviously, Baldakor's people were now on the move; where moments ago they were carrying on what looked like the daily business of trading and gossiping, now they were rushing for their homes, slamming doors as they hid themselves away. A few unfortunates hid in alleys between buildings, obviously caught well away from their own homes. To Corsi's eye, the sudden activity didn't look like complete panic, but rather had the air of anxious practice. Whatever the bells meant, whatever these people were hiding from, was something they'd encountered many times in the past.

At last she spotted the source of the bells. A small procession of five Coroticans, four of whom were carrying a bier covered with a shimmering dark red cloth; the material was the darkest Corsi had yet seen in this culture of bright blues and vibrant greens. The man at the head of the procession was wearing robes made of a similar fabric, and it was he who was ringing the hand-held bells.

There was something on the bier, something lumpy. Corsi narrowed her eyes. She assumed the covered object was a Corotican; covering the dead was an almost universal tradition among humanoids, at least at some stage of the grieving process.

From the nearest alley, a Corotican male was staring openly at her. His expression was one of faint puzzlement and, perhaps, more than a touch of curiosity. The man leading the procession was slowing now, the bells ringing with less force, softly chiming to a halt as he lifted a hand. The procession stopped behind him. There was complete silence as they all stared at her.

If I wasn't so bloody slow-witted just now, she thought in annoyance, I would have spent less time observing the local behavior and more time emulating it.

Abramowitz turned her attention back to the lone Corotican in the building, who was now gazing after Corsi with mild interest. And why not? The commander chased everyone else from the room. "My sister is ill. I'm to pray for her. We apologize for the interruptions."

The Corotican, a large man who obviously had the wealth necessary to live luxuriously, held up his hands and smiled pleasantly, tucking his sermon into a flat square pouch on his belt. "Not to be troubled, daughter." He extended his arm toward a particular alcove, dominated by the glass Carol had come in to see. "Might I point to our shrine of Ushpallar? The glass is but newly installed, and the god is delighted to take offerings therein."

Carol bowed slightly, allowing her left leg to sweep forward until her foot rested on top of her right. The man smiled and bowed in return, and Carol breathed a sigh of relief that she had the gesture correct. She'd only had camera images, and a written description, to go on. "I would be pleased to pray to He Who Blesses and Condemns." She brought out a handful of coins, carefully constructed by the da Vinci's replicators based on the post's field work.

The man took them and they disappeared soundlessly into the folds of his robes. He withdrew with a bow, smiling softly. "Be never found wanting," he intoned.

"Be blessed by the clouds," she answered.

When he was gone, she turned to the shrine, stepping carefully into the alcove and letting the light wash over her for a moment. She took a stick of incense from a basket to her left, and lit it from a small candle on her right, then placed it in a wooden rack projecting from the wall beneath the glass. When she wasn't attacked from behind, she assumed her mastery of local ritual was complete, and she put her hands together and looked up at the glass.

Even half-expecting it, Carol still gasped softly. This is not good, she thought.

The glass was made of all colors, but the blue of the god's robe dominated the scene. Three Coroticans bowed before a being on a dais, his hand raised in benediction. The god, Ushpallar, had long black hair and pointed, scalloped ears that seemed to grow straight out of his chin. Behind him stood two reptilian beings carrying black sticks, cradling them strangely in their arms.

Ushpallar, He Who Blesses and Condemns, was clearly a Vorta.

Chapter

4

T he procession leader stepped forward, holding up his hands as if placating a madwoman. "Are you quite well, daughter?"

"Yes," Corsi said, and barely suppressed a small sneeze. "I apologize for...standing here."

The man smiled gently. "That is no crime. It is just that most do not wish to be so close to those who've gone on." Closer now, he stopped and glanced at her eyes and nose. "You are clearly ill." His voice was sympathetic, but the speed with which he pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and slapped it over his face startled her.

"It's nothing." Corsi was growing concerned. The man looked extremely anxious now, his body tensed as though he were fighting the urge to step back. "It's just an allergy," she said, trying to soothe him. Even Corsi realized she wasn't a soothing presence, even at the best of times. Not surprising that the man didn't seem at all calmed.

He nodded quickly, but did not remove the handkerchief from his face. He motioned to his followers, who lifted the bier with a single coordinated movement. The covered lump shifted, and a humanoid arm swung down, its blood-covered hand pointing languidly to the earth. The forearm was open from wrist to elbow, revealing mangled sinews and white bone.

Corsi glanced sharply at the man's face. "What happened to him?"

He swallowed visibly, and for a moment Corsi thought he would turn away without another word. "This man died in the woods," he said at last. "A wild animal. Pray you do not contract his condition." He turned his back on her and hurried away, his associates struggling to keep up while carrying their morbid burden.

Contract a death by mangling? thought Corsi, scowling. The phrase might have been the result of a problem with the universal translator, but that was still an odd way of putting it.

"Are you quite well, daughter?"

The soothing voice of the priest dragged Carol's attention away from the disturbing new window. She smiled at his concerned face. "Yes, I'm well. Thank you, father."

He smiled back tentatively. "It's only that you mentioned that your sister was ill, and I was worried."

Sister? Oh, right, Corsi and her allergies. The Vorta window was flustering her more than she'd like to admit. "I am well," she repeated.

The priest still hesitated. "Perhaps...?" Carol was surprised to realize that the priest seemed nervous. Had she done something wrong? A newcomer in the community might alarm the locals if she acted strangely, especially if their recent alien "guests" had been cruel or oppressive. Although, she admitted sourly, the window and its implied respect probably meant that aliens and locals had worked out some arrangement. "I wondered if perhaps you had been vouchsafed a vision?" he asked hopefully. "Your eyes were wide in contemplation, your brow furrowed in deep thought."

Carol looked back at the window as if it had some answers for her. She glanced back at the priest. "No, no visions. Has someone in the community been given visions by...by the god?"

The priest smoothed his robes over his ample belly and stepped forward to stand beside her. "Not as such, I'll admit, although the community was blessed by the presence, the corporeal presence, of the god and his servants." His eyes had begun to shine with excitement, and Carol thought she saw the barest hint of a tear. "For three turns he lived near to us. He spoke to us, shared his wisdom, protected us from our enemies, made the crops grow."

And improved the plumbing, reflected Carol wryly. In the days before the war, the Dominion had always claimed a certain benevolence; perhaps, if unchallenged, the Founders really were inclined to act kindly. "Protected you from your enemies? Why would the God Who Blesses and Condemns choose sides?"

The priest glanced down at her, thoughtful. "Not for our sakes, our sinful selves. No. Our enemies and rivals blasphemed. They did not look to the god for truth. They did not obey. They called Ushpallar a false god." He waved a hand dismissively. "The people of Ajjem-kuyr were always of the heretical persuasion. They worshipped the gods on the third day, and not the fourth. Can you imagine?"

Abramowitz immediately recognized the pompous statement as a test. She wracked her brain for an appropriate answer. "Do we speak of the month of growing, or the month of sky-seeing, holy father?"

He smiled. "The month of growing."

She nodded in a manner which she hoped implied humble sagacity. "Then heretics they were."

The priest chuckled. "You are not from Baldakor, daughter. Have you traveled far?"

Carol could never resist that question. "Far enough. I am delighted to learn I have come to a place in which a god walked. Might I ask where he lived, in his time among you?"

"You may ask." The priest folded his hands into his sleeves monkishly. "But we do not know for certain. He would appear among us all suddenly, and his guards with him. It is said that they were seen in the forests to the north, but I do not know the truth of this. They were seen in many of the towns and cities, and the god even spoke with humble farmers in their hovels. Imagine! Humble farmers!" His eyes shone with delight.

"It must have been a great honor for those so fortunate."

The priest smiled softly. "I've been unforgivably rude, questioning your faith so. The Siblings should be here to assist faith, not trouble it?"

The Siblings, Carol recalled, were the holy orders, men and women who had dedicated their life to the service of the gods and their villages.

"I am honored by your attention, father." She repeated the awkward bow.

He nodded in acknowledgment. "I shall make myself available to you for as long as you stay, daughter." He began to glide across the floor, silent and graceful for a man of such size. Carol imagined he knew the building inside and out. "My name is Dyrvelkada, should you or your sister need me." He sketched a small bow, a gesture familiar from her own culture but not contained in the Corotican database; either it had never been observed by the outpost's research team, or the information had been lost in the data purge.

Or it was something new, something introduced since the Starfleet evacuation.

"May I ask," she called out spontaneously, "what happened to Ajjem-kuyr?"

Dyrvelkada stopped and glanced back at her over his shoulder. "It is not for the weak of heart, or of faith, to delve into the righteous wrath of the gods."

It seemed to Carol that this was another challenge. She nodded once, as firmly as she could. The priest's face was solemn as he nodded back, before continuing on his way through the clouds of incense.

"I appreciated his offer of spiritual guidance," mused Abramowitz. "But what troubled me wasn't anything he'd understand. Dyrvelkada's culture has been damaged by Dominion rule, to an extent that I don't know yet. I'd be asking him to question his gods...." She glanced at the security chief, who had remained silent since Carol had emerged from the temple: no acerbic comments, no interested questions, not even a sneeze. "Are you all right? We could try a Benecian flour/Elaysian tear hypo next?"

Corsi's look might have stripped the duranium from a shuttlecraft hull.

Every so often I remember why they call her "Core-Breach," thought Abramowitz. "Forget I offered. You seem distracted."

"There was a procession while you were inside." Corsi told Abramowitz about the frightened priest and the mangled body. "I still can't figure out what he meant by his last comment."

Carol ducked her head to the side, chewing her lower lip as she thought. "Maybe it doesn't mean anything. Cultural specialists need to remember that sometimes an errant phrase is just a slip of the tongue, or a speech pattern unique to an individual. Still, Dyrvelkada seemed concerned about your condition, and worried that I might be ill as well. I took it for simple kindness, but I suppose it might have been more."

"I'd like to get a look at that body." Corsi grimaced. "If there's a wild animal out there that isn't afraid to attack humanoids, my team needs to know." She sneezed again, this time with an amusing degree of delicacy.

"Fair enough. Baldakorans burn their dead, though. We can try to crash the funeral, but given the priest's reaction to your sneezing..." Carol shrugged. "We could try that Benecian cocktail, if you like."

Staring straight ahead with a look best described as annoyed resignation, Corsi rolled up her sleeve and thrust her arm in Abramowitz's face.

The funeral grounds were outside the community, in a vast field of orange and gray flowers. Small burial mounds dotted the landscape, topped with tall wooden poles adorned with silver flags, some more ragged than others. In the growing breeze, Carol found it difficult to make out the flag's designs, sewn in black. All she could tell for certain was that each flag seemed different. A small crowd of Coroticans had gathered near a flagless mound, an access door open to the sky.

"There's the priest I met," said Corsi. He was standing before the bier, still held by the four followers. He was holding his arms to the sky and chanting.

"Long-winded, isn't he?" asked Corsi after half an hour.

"I don't think the shroud is coming off anytime soon," replied Abramowitz with a sigh. She glanced at Corsi. "You sound better."

"I feel better." Corsi's admission sounded grudging. "Not perfect, but better."

"We'll try another orchid combo later."

Corsi decided not to growl. She was beginning to suspect that Carol was baiting her deliberately. "I think that shroud isn't coming off anytime soon," she said.

"I just said that," moaned Abramowitz. "I don't think--"

"You're right," said a voice behind them. "The shroud doesn't come off until he's in the mound."

Carol's quick glance at the unconcerned Corsi confirmed that the security chief had been aware of the man's presence all along, probably the reason for her distracted contributions to their conversation.

"Thank you," said Corsi calmly. "We're not from around here."

The man chuckled softly. He was dressed less colorfully than the average Corotican, in drab browns and grays that did nothing to complement his pale skin and gray eyes. "I gathered that when you stood like a tree in the square upon the approach of the corpse."

The two humans turned to face their unexpected contact. "You're the man from the alley."

He touched his forehead in a polite gesture which, Carol recalled, meant "well-met." She repeated the gesture, and Corsi followed suit, albeit slightly awkwardly. Carol frowned when Corsi's gesture was accompanied by a sniffle. If these people were paranoid about illness, they had to find a way to suppress Corsi's symptoms as soon as possible.

"I am Jarolleka. I, too, am a stranger to Baldakor."

His smile, Carol noticed, did not extend to his eyes, but she had the impression it wasn't unfriendliness. It was wariness, perhaps even weariness. A traveler's eyes. "I am Carolabrama, and this is my sister, Domenica."

"I am pleased to meet you. You were lucky, Lady Domenica. A few turns ago, and the priests would not have let you stand before them so brazenly." He held up a dirty hand to stop her protest, a protest Corsi didn't know to make. "Forgive the word, 'brazen,' but it is one that the Siblings of Baldakor had much occasion to use but recently. When their god lived among them."

"Their god," Abramowitz repeated. "Not yours?"

Jarolleka smiled bitterly. "Not mine. Never mine." He leaned forward, his voice dropping to a whisper. "I am of Ajjem-kuyr."

"When the god began sending his lizards out to the other cities and villages, farther and farther every turn, only Ajjem-kuyr refused to bend the knee. We were the home of the Academy, a place of reason and philosophy. At the Academy, we had taught that the gods were mere stories, meant to explain natural phenomena. Why did the rains come? What were the stars? Why did people die? There was no reason to believe in the gods. When had they ever shown themselves to mortals? Only in old fables."

Jarolleka tapped the burning logs of the campfire with a stick. Beside him, Abramowitz and Corsi chewed quietly on their rations. "You didn't believe in the gods?"

He shrugged. "They might live somewhere, I suppose, but if so they don't concern themselves with us." He spat suddenly. "Until the God Who Blesses and Condemns arrived with his lizards, all scales and black armor and horns."

"And then the Academy began to believe, I imagine?"

The Corotican smiled. "No, not at all," he said with quiet pride. "At first we asked why the god would come to live among mortals, when the stories say the gods live a life of bliss in paradise? He said he came to bring things to better our lives, and certainly Baldakor prospered. Better medicine. The stench of the city, a stench we never realized was there, disappeared. More food."

"Sounds good," offered Corsi.

"Too good, and all explainable through natural laws. There were no miracles. An Academician from a hundred years ago drew many of the same conclusions about farming, and she was no god." He shook his head. "We still refused to bend the knee, even when Ushpallar threatened to call his fellow gods. More lizards, and shape-changers. Mighty spirits." Jarolleka's tone was sarcastic, his shoulders hunched and tense. "Still we refused. Worse, I think, we began to implement many of the 'miracles' in Ajjem-kuyr, which the god had brought to Baldakor. That was the last blasphemy, I believe. To think that we mortals could achieve the work of the gods? Unthinkable!" He laughed without humor. "Unallowable."

"What happened?" asked Carol, spellbound despite herself. A world on the cusp of a renaissance, only to be held in the grip of enforced superstition.

Jarolleka looked into her eyes, and Carol saw a barely concealed pain. "I can't tell you," he said at last. "I can only show you. It's the only way you could ever understand."

Chapter

5

A s far as the eye could see, the ground had been turned to a rough and lumpy glass, dully reflecting the Corotican sun back into the blue sky. There was no life, no birds in the sky above, nothing skittering along the ground below. There was no smell to the place at all. "Now we know where that ambient radiation came from." Corsi's voice remained impassive and neutral, but Abramowitz knew it concealed the same deep horror she herself felt at such utter devastation. If this was Ajjem-kuyr, literally nothing had survived the Dominion's assault. It had undoubtedly taken less time to destroy the town than it had taken to deliver the threat.

"You're wondering how I survived the vengeance of Ushpallar." Jarolleka shrugged languidly. His eyes were glazed, not showing any of the bright curiosity or quick wit Abramowitz had come to expect of him in the three days it took to reach the site. "It was quite...fortunate, really. I was away, visiting one of the nobles on the Qrantish Coast. He wanted someone to tutor his youngest son." Another bitter laugh escaped his lips. "As it turned out, I was turned down for the post." He glanced over at the women. "Ushpallar's priests advised against my employment. I returned in time to see a bright cloud erupt over the heart of Ajjem-kuyr."

"I am sorry for your loss," said Carol, meaning every word.

He shrugged again and glanced at Vinx and Lauoc, who were examining the edge of the destruction, where the grasses and shrubs of the surrounding plain grew smaller and sicklier, until there was no growth at all and the ground itself grew glassier. If Jarolleka had been at all disturbed by the sudden appearance of Domenica's "brothers," he had never shown it.

"Did you have any family in the city?" asked Abramowitz tentatively.

"My elderly mother. I had just managed to buy her a home in the city, and only moved her from the country the year before." There were no tears; Carol wouldn't have been surprised to learn that the man was still in some form of shock, even years after the event. "I lived here for a month after my return. I don't know why. I never found another survivor. I would have been content with even a single page from one of the Academy's books, floating charred on the breeze." He smiled, his lips pale and thin, shaking his head slowly. "And still I do not believe they were worthy of my worship."

Carol nodded. "I am so sorry," she repeated.

"There was nothing you could have done in the face of their power."

She shot him a look, guilt racing coldly along her spine. We abandoned this sector, without a fight, because of the Prime Directive, she thought. Our most sacred law, designed to protect the innocent on pre-warp worlds. She stared again at the shimmering devastation, like a motionless and chill northern sea stretching out to the horizon. Some protection.

It was only after a moment of indeterminate length that she noticed he was watching her with faintly curious eyes. "I'm still sorry," she answered at last. "Even if it wasn't my responsibility." Did her voice break on the last word?

"I believe you," he said, and turned away to walk along the edge of the destruction. He nodded as he walked past Vinx, who was working on building a fire against the approaching night. The Iotian security guard restricted himself to a nod, rather than risk confusing the native with his peculiar manner of speech. Vinx was a native of Sigma Iotia II, a planet famously contaminated by outside influences. Their culture had obviously adjusted by now, though.

Carol sat on a fallen log, after testing its strength. It was ossified somehow, almost as strong as stone, and no creep-crawlies were disturbed by her actions. Even past the obvious signs of Ajjem-kuyr's death, there was very little alive except for the thin and colorless grass. Judging that Jarolleka wasn't coming back right away, Abramowitz surreptitiously took out her padd.

She called up the Sigma Iotia records, not certain why she was bothering. She knew the Prime Directive debate inside and out; but something had been bothering her since her conversation with Captain Gold. While the Prime Directive, Starfleet General Order Number One, seemed set in stone, in practice it led to a confusion of policies and results. The same captain could save a pre-warp planet threatened by a faulty sun, and a month later watch, with somber but grim resolve, as another planet in similar straits was destroyed. On paper, the Directive was simple; in the breach, it was anything but.

What do you do when a planet is contaminated, but nowhere near ready for further contact?

Abramowitz stole another glance at Vinx. Sigma Iotia seemed as good as place as any to start looking for answers.

Personal log, Lieutenant Michael

Theivamanoharan, Stardate 7822.4

Sometimes I get the distinct feeling that Starfleet's cultural specialists have spent the last twenty years following James Kirk around. True, this particular mess isn't really his fault, but his solution left something to be desired. He's turned the Federation into a protection racket, collecting a cut of the profits gathered by the planet's mob bosses. 

Granted, the profits have been steered into creating a more democratic and open society, with free elections and a growing planetary consensus. The Iotians might even be ready for an official first contact within fifty years, and Federation membership soon after that. But that's only because the Federation Council threw so many of us at the problem after Enterprise left; call it collective guilt over the damage wrought by the Horizon's unintended gift of a single book, Chicago Mobs of the Twenties. The Iotians were quick to emulate the culture they found in the book (why couldn't the Horizon have left Pride and Prejudice , I ask?), but once adopted, some of these cultural patterns have proven to be lasting. Speech patterns, for instance; talk to any Iotian and it's like being in a twentieth-century Mafia film.

Much of the progress made has been from encouraging a small subculture, which has found its model in Eliot Ness and other so-called "untouchables." Iotians like Kall Porakan have worked to form honest police forces that bridge the gaps between the mob-controlled territories. These police forces have formed the basis for a rudimentary planetwide government, kept honest by their allegiance to the ideal they found reading between the lines of Chicago Mobs .

All in all, I can report that from an unpromising beginning, the Iotians are making this work. A word of caution is always necessary, however: we still don't entirely understand the mechanisms by which the Iotians filled in the sociocultural gaps in their book. How much was guesswork, how much was precontact? It might be decades before we understand everything. Despite my cautious optimism, I can't recommend expanded contact at this time. 

That didn't sound so bad, thought Carol, stealing another glance at Vinx. Sigma Iotia eventually won a place for itself in the Federation. But not all such cases turned out so well.

Mission Report, Commodore Goller, Stardate 34675.8

It is with deep sadness that we report the loss of Lieutenant Shewer Freeman, U.S.S. Crockett , while on assignment on Zeon in star system M43 Alpha. Lieutenant Freeman showed great courage under Ekosian fire, assisting local evacuation efforts and ensuring the survival of the Federation cultural team assigned to the planet.

As you're aware, Admiral, the Zeonian culture was nearly eradicated by their neighbors, the people of Ekos, in 2268; the actions of James Kirk prevented a genocide at that time. The situation was created by John Gill, a Federation historian who defied the Prime Directive in an attempt to create the perfect planetary government, based on a combination of progressive ideals and an ancient national socialist political model. The political model proved overwhelming, and Dr. Gill died denouncing the government he'd created. Captain Kirk had, at the time, expressed optimism that peaceful relations between the planets could be restored, and Ekos returned to its own cultural roots. 

It was not to be. Both Ekos and Zeon eventually became xenophobic and aggressive as a result of their experiences with Gill and the Federation; further, cultural contact with the Klingon Empire resulted in an arms race which led to full-scale conflict by 2287. The withdrawal of Klingon interest following the explosion of Praxis did nothing to alleviate tensions. Federation cultural teams, accompanied by security contingents, worked behind the scenes to broker a peace. Lieutenant Freeman died trying to fulfill those ideals. 

I recommend immediate withdrawal of all Federation personnel from the system until the Ekosians and the Zeoni are able to achieve peace by themselves. You can't win them all, Admiral. 

My condolences have already been sent to Lieutenant Freeman's family. 

Two relatively contemporary contact situations, two attempts by the legendary Kirk to solve the problem, two very different outcomes. What was it Soloman had taken to joking lately? A fifty-fifty chance for everything. There will either be peace, or there won't. A culture will survive, or it won't.

Carol's next entry was a familiar one.

Mission Report, Carol Abramowitz, Stardate

47532.7

Damn if I didn't see this one coming. Nikolai Rozhenko went and broke the Prime Directive while observing a pre-warp civilization. Surprise, surprise. 

Assigned to observe a village on Boraal II, reports from the Enterprise indicate that Rozhenko fell in love with a local woman, married her, impregnated her, and then found himself with a conflict of interest upon learning of the planet's imminent destruction by atmospheric dissipation. He tricked the Enterprise into evacuating a village (his village, needless to say) to a similar M-class planet, Vacca VI.

Have I said I'm not surprised yet? 

It's not that I don't have any sympathy for Nikolai or the Boraalans; of course I do. I frankly don't see why Jean-Luc Picard was so adamant about allowing the death of the Boraalan culture when, in exactly similar circumstances, he acted to save the inhabitants of Drema IV from tectonic instability. I suspect it might be the record deposit of dilithium found on Drema, but maybe I'm just cynical. 

You asked me for recommendations, Commander, and having spoken with Nikolai I have to say that he won't be budged. Further, the solution he found seems workable, barring anything unforeseen being discovered on Vacca. I further wonder what it is you expect me to counsel. Take it on ourselves to fix the cultural contamination by blowing up Vacca VI? What's done is done, it seems to me, and what makes me so angry is that it's the exception that makes a mockery of the rule. Why Boraal or Drema and not Cholmondeley III or T'Lakana? 

Is Starfleet enforcing General Order Number One, or are we pleased when we're tricked into breaking it? 

I was so young, thought Carol, wincing as she read her own angry words. She realized now what she only half-knew then: it wasn't Rozhenko she was angry at, irresponsible and arrogant though he was. It was Starfleet and the Federation, creating a law that they barely knew how to administer, and the meaning of which seemed to keep changing depending on which way the winds were blowing. Lord only knew what Commander Uxmen had really made of it, but as far as Carol knew the Boraalans (or Vaccans or whatever) were still there, dancing attendance on their savior Nikolai.

And so the log entries continued: planets saved, planets destroyed but witnessed, planets that made contact too soon and either prospered or failed utterly. Of course things were always trickier in reality than in theory; her years with the S.C.E. had taught her that. She knew now to give Starfleet some credit for trying to make sense of the Prime Directive, and further she acknowledged that the Federation got it right at least as often as they got it wrong. The fact remained, however, that when they did make efforts at fixing cultural contamination, it was usually because the Federation had somehow been responsible for that contamination in the first place. It was about cleaning up your own mess.

On Coroticus, the Federation could only be held responsible through indirect and perverse reasoning. For decades, the Federation and Starfleet had taken their responsibilities toward the Coroticans seriously, protecting them from the power struggles and economic necessities of the galaxy's citizens until such a time as Coroticus would be ready to join the family. But the day had come when Coroticus had been in the path of a power potentially greater than the Federation itself, and although the Dominion at least hadn't handed the planet over to the Cardassians or the Breen, they had muddied the waters. By destroying the Ajjem-kuyr Academy, it looked to Carol as though the Dominion had set back the planet's cultural and scientific development by centuries. What had looked like a nascent renaissance had become a glassy, radioactive dead end.

The question now wasn't the rights and wrongs of Federation withdrawal or Dominion aggression. Captain Gold was right about one thing--the Federation hadn't been able to protect Betazed from Dominion occupation, much less Coroticus. No, the choice was now much more stark: interfere again and try to put the Coroticans back on course, or wash her hands of it?

I wish Vance was here. The deputy chief of security had been more than a lover to her the last few weeks--since the very Teneb mission that Gold had thrown in her face before departing the da Vinci--he had been a friend and confidant. Vance Hawkins was an excellent listener, someone she could talk a problem out to without interruption. There were few on the da Vinci who were adept at the noninterrupting part, and it was one of many aspects of her relationship with Vance that she treasured. But, because of their relationship, he was assigned to head up the security detail on Sachem II.

"You look troubled, doll."

Carol glanced up and realized that Vinx had somehow come up behind her without her hearing. The big man with the brash accent could be silent when he wanted to be. "Just thinking."

"About these Coroticans, right?"

Nodding, Carol was grateful he'd said that rather than asking if she was pining for Vance. Not that their relationship was anything like a secret, but the Iotian was hardly somebody with whom she'd talk about her personal life.

The security guard shrugged languidly. "It's a tough break but it can work out okay. Look at us Iotians, we're livin' the high life now that we're in with the Feds."

"Don't you ever feel a little lost? Don't you ever wonder what Iotia would've become without that book?"

He grinned. "The Book changed everything, and that's no lie. But it gave us the stars. Before the Book we were alone in the universe, wonderin' what the score was. Sure there was some trouble, some mooks ate lead, but then capo Kirk came along and wham! We was in business, and the stars was ours." He touched his forehead as though he expected to find a fedora on his head, and winced comically when he didn't find one. "It's all growing pains, Doc. Every species has them, ours are just different. Unique. Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations, ain't it?"

Before Carol could correct Vinx--she didn't mind being addressed with an honorific representing her doctorate, but "Doc" made it feel like she was horning in on Lense's territory--Corsi came up behind them.

"Lauoc found another mangled body. The mission's in danger."

Chapter

6

"The replicators are online," announced Ensign Hj'olla with a slight hint of satisfaction in her tone. "Would you like to test it, Fabian?"

Thank goodness for that, thought Stevens, allowing himself a small grin. No more field rations, and not a moment too soon. Only the hated roast beef and blue-berry pie packs were left after four days on the surface without replicator technology, and by unspoken agreement the remaining party seemed to have decided that starvation was the preferable option. He threw his caution concerning the ensign's flirtatious behavior to the winds. "I certainly would, Ensign." He laced his hands together and stretched his arms out, cracking his fingers. "A cup of Colombian coffee, two creams, one sugar. Warm."

With a welcome hum, the cup materialized, and Stevens gingerly took it to his lips. "Smells about right." He took a tentative sip. "Tastes about perfect. Good job, Hj'olla."

The Tiburonian woman blushed, resembling the northern oceans of Rigel in a storm.

Better stop that line of thinking. He and Corsi had a good thing going--he wasn't sure what kind of a thing it was, but it was a thing nonetheless, and he didn't want to mess it up.

Hj'olla smiled and placed her fingers lightly on his arm, the one holding the coffee. He almost jumped and spilled the precious brew.

"Corsi to Stevens." 

This time, Stevens did jump. Scowling at his own case of nerves, he tapped his combadge. "Stevens, Commander. What's up?"

"We've found another body, exhibiting signs of being mauled. It's been dragged a fair ways." 

"An animal of some kind?" T'Mandra's searches hadn't revealed any further sign of their mysterious humanoid prowler, or any hint of dangerous animals. The area around Baldakor had been settled for a long time, and the wilderness was hardly wild at all.

"Uncertain, but I don't think so. We're staying out for a while, see if we can track it." 

Fabian frowned. "It's your call, obviously, but I don't know if you should be interfering. Animal or not, local maulings aren't our business."

"Abramowitz suspects this one is our business." Silence, long enough that Fabian wondered if he was supposed to respond somehow. I'm just enlisted personnel; I don't have opinions. Stevens felt a chill as Corsi's uncharacteristically dramatic pause lengthened. When she finally spoke, her statement caused his stomach to drop. "She thinks it's a Jem'Hadar."

The body was Corotican, dressed in the robes of a Sibling. The woman's eyes stared upward, her final look of terror etched forever into her expressive features. Bluish blood covered her face, streaked through her hair, spattered throughout the small clearing. The amount of gore was not surprising, given the way whatever did this had pounded through the chest cavity to find and remove the organs within: heart, lungs, liver.

A trail of blood on matted grass showed where the body had been dragged from the remains of the Ajjem-kuyr road to the north.

"Is your sister going to be all right?" asked Jarolleka, his hands folded before him, glancing back at Carol, who continued to dry-heave under a shrub.

"She'll be fine. She was just startled." Corsi looked into the Corotican's eyes. "Are there any local animals that operate like this?"

Jarolleka shrugged. "Natural history was never my specialty, but no. I don't think so. The only predator large enough to attack a Corotican is a hill vajell, and it hunts in packs. There'd be nothing left of the body."

"Unless we startled them when we arrived, see?" drawled Vinx.

The Corotican shook his head, his eyes never leaving Corsi as she examined the body in situ. "There'd be other signs of their presence. Ask your...sister. She can confirm that."

Corsi glanced up sharply. Was the man starting to suspect that her "family" wasn't what it appeared to be? Control your stomach and get back here, Carol.

Lauoc appeared at her shoulder, keeping his voice low. "This can't be a Jem'Hadar. None of them could survive this long without ketracel white. The footprints I found at the observation post were inconclusive, but probably not large enough to be a Jem'Hadar."

"The prints might be unrelated. Commander Johal thought they could be native. Besides, it's not unknown for the rare Jem'Hadar to be born without a need for white. Dr. Bashir from Deep Space 9 encountered one a few years back, and Taran'atar, that guy the Dominion sent to observe on DS9, doesn't need it, either."

Abramowitz was getting to her feet now, wiping at her lips. She glanced at the group, and Corsi immediately saw how pale she looked. It was gruesome, she thought, but Abramowitz was bravely making her way back to the bloody scene, albeit shakily.

Jarolleka stepped back as she passed, and slowly made his way to the edges of the field. Corsi wondered about his behavior, but it was fortunately timed; now the Starfleet party could talk without fear of contaminating the local culture further.

Vinx moved in to share his thoughts. "Ya think it's a Jem'Hadar mug, yeah? I think you're right, doll."

Corsi narrowed her eyes.

Vinx grinned in embarrassment and corrected himself. "What I mean is, I concur, Commander."

Lauoc shook his head and met Carol's eyes. "I'm not convinced. You said the locals felt completely abandoned by their new gods. Surely someone would have seen a Jem'Hadar and reported back to the village?"

"Maybe they did see one," said Vinx, nodding with his chin toward the decaying corpse. "Maybe seeing one was too hot for them, capisce?"

"Don't say 'capisce'," muttered Lauoc.

"What other possibilities would you suggest, Lauoc?" Corsi stood to her full height between the two men, eager to sidetrack any diversionary conversation of the type that seemed to constantly infect the da Vinci crew.

"A local, something completely unrelated to either the Federation or the Dominion. Or a religious ceremony, meant to call back the gods through sacrifice." He ran a hand through his short hair. "Is it possible that we've got a changeling?"

Corsi thought for a moment. "I hope not."

"I doubt it," added Abramowitz. "Think about it. If there was a Founder here, I suspect we'd have seen or heard evidence of more than one god appearing to the locals, not just Ushpallar. Further, we've seen evidence that the locals are replacing artwork that depicts Ushpallar, which implies that the god appeared at least marginally different than they expected. A Founder would have just taken the most appropriate and expected form."

Corsi nodded. "Makes sense."

"There's one final possibility, but you aren't going to like it, Commander." Lauoc scuffed the ground with his boot nervously.

"Try me."

The Bajoran looked off into the distance. "Starfleet potentially has a man missing down here. Stevens couldn't find any sign, even at the molecular level, of Lieutenant Squire, last man at the observation post prior to its destruction."

Vinx whistled, low and nervous. "That'd mean he'd gone kinda wacko."

Corsi tried to fight the headache, tucking an errant strand of ash-blond hair behind her ear. "Near death, isolation, and possibly eluding Jem'Hadar soldiers every day for two years. Sounds like a recipe for wacko to me too, Vinx."

Chapter

7

T he party had been hiking for the better part of the day, Lauoc ranging widely for hours at a time. Jarolleka had kept his distance as well, rarely speaking to anyone other than Vinx, and averting his gaze whenever one of the women spoke to him. He was never outright rude, but Carol's attempts to ascertain what was wrong went unfulfilled. Neither Corsi nor Carol were terribly happy that he had decided to accompany them, but they seemed unable to ditch him short of knocking him out; given the local situation and his obvious lack of friends, that might well have been a death sentence. Carol assumed that, after seeing his town destroyed by a Dominion weapon, seeing a Jem'Hadar base wouldn't do any further harm. It could always be explained, or his memory erased.

Now they had found a small farm in a forest clearing. One of Dyrvelkada's humble hovels, thought Carol, suddenly eager to visit a Corotican after days in the wilderness. Without a second thought, she began trudging toward the small wooden building with its tiny three fields carved out of the woods.

"Wait, Carol." Corsi held up her tricorder. "I'm not reading any life signs. Vinx?"

The Iotian checked his own tricorder. "She's as empty as a speakeasy after the cops've raided, sir."

Corsi sighed, turning her attention back to the cultural specialist. "There isn't even any livestock. I think its been abandoned."

Carol suppressed a mild feeling of disappointment. "Well," she said finally. "I can still learn a great deal from firsthand observation of whatever's left."

"Could be trouble with that killer around," growled Vinx softly.

"I agree," Corsi replied, "but we both determined that the coast was clear." She raised her voice again. "Okay, Carol, go ahead. Vinx, do recon and then wait for Lauoc to return."

She jogged toward Carol, catching up without any visible loss of breath. Her professional eye took in a wealth of details related to the safety of the party, even as she knew Carol was collecting a similar amount of information related to the planet's culture.

Corsi's eyes narrowed. "The door's off its hinges." She drew her phaser with one hand while stepping forward and halting Abramowitz with her other arm. "Wait here."

She stepped forward into a single room, noticing the lack of decoration. There was a single wooden table and two chairs, a small cot, and shelves holding jugs and tableware. Some of this lay broken on the floor, signs of a struggle or an earthquake; it was impossible to say without more information. Whatever had happened, it had happened months ago at least. Everything was covered with a thick layer of dust.

"Abramowitz to Corsi." 

Corsi tapped her combadge. "Carol, you've got to give me time to check the situation before you start complaining. It's hardly been two minutes."

"There's something you should see out back." 

She felt her headache coming back, and closed her eyes for a moment. "If you're out back, I assume you didn't obey my orders to wait."

Carol didn't answer for a moment. "I really think you should see this."

The security chief kept her phaser ready while she left the building and jogged to Carol's position behind the farmhouse, near to a large wooden structure that seemed to be a barn.

Carol was standing with her arms crossed, staring at a rough mound of dirt covered with leafy green shrubs. "How many people do you think lived here?" she asked quietly.

Corsi mulled the question briefly. "Two, three at most. If that mound is a grave, it would certainly be big enough." She ran the tricorder over it. "And if I don't miss my guess, the mound was dug out and filled back in just the once."

"Meaning everyone on the farm died at the same time."

"Why hasn't anyone taken the farm for themselves? Land seems good, building structures are sound."

The wind began to whistle past the wooden buildings. Carol hugged her cloak closer to her body. "Unless their deaths were considered ill-omened," she said. "They could be the victims of a disease, but we've discovered no signs of a plague. I'd guess they were murdered."

"Perhaps by an entity which at that time still had enough self-control to bury the remains." Corsi was about to signal for Lauoc and Vinx to join them, when Lauoc contacted her.

"I've found the Jem'Hadar base, Commander. It's about two hours from your position." 

"Wait there, we'll join you." She severed the link. "I think we might be getting closer to our killer."

They moved into the forest cautiously, Vinx on point, weapons hidden from Jarolleka. The Corotican had decided to move closer to the group now, after Vinx had explained that the mysterious killer was possibly nearby. Corsi walked behind Carol and Jarolleka, keeping an eye on the Corotican as much as on the dark woods. There was no reason to assume their strange companion wasn't dangerous, perhaps even the very quarry they hunted.

"Why have you been avoiding my sister and me?" asked Carol, trying to sound as unassuming as possible. Either woman might have inadvertently broken a cultural taboo at some point, something that governed relations between the Corotican genders. Still, she had been given very few opportunities to ask, and subtlety was not always an option. He had seemed less bound to local traditions than the other Coroticans they'd met, and more inclined to philosophy.

He was silent for a few minutes, and Carol feared she'd lost him altogether. "You're sick."

"What?" For a moment, Carol was confused, before she recalled Corsi's allergies. "You mean Domenica's sneezing? That's an...that's a reaction to something in the air. It's not contagious."

Jarolleka scowled. "All disease can be spread, through the air or by touch. I would have separated from you, if we were not in danger of catching a bloodier death."

"I'm not ill, though," replied Carol.

"You vomited, when we found the mangled body."

Carol almost chuckled. "That was because I was...disturbed, by the body. It was a reaction, not an illness."

"Sick is sick," he barked, and walked faster, trying to outpace her. Vinx turned and hissed at him, and Jarolleka reluctantly resumed his place in the formation.

These people believe that everything can be spread like a cold or a flu, she realized. Even stress reactions. Carol suddenly recalled Corsi's priest, who had said something about catching a disease from the first murdered victim. Could they actually believe that you could "catch" murder?

"Jarolleka," she asked slowly. "Are you worried that you'll be killed by the murderer, simply because you were so close to the body?"

He looked away. "It was one thing Ushpallar was right about."

After another awkward silence, she realized he wasn't going to give her any more willingly. "About what?"

"When Ushpallar told us about 'disease' and 'germs,' some at the Academy were thrilled. Ixardes had been arguing for tiny atoms invading the body and causing illness for decades! But when people angered the god, he would predict doom, or kill every one of ten. And sure enough, soon the nine would follow. Dead in their homes, and sometimes their families with them. Sometimes there was no sign of violence or disease at all. The people were just dead." He turned back to her, and the anguish and confusion was written on his face. "This was 'germs' at work. Some force called 'bacteria.' What natural science did we have to face that? All one could do was cover one's face when death passed, or avoid being on the same street as a dead man. That's all anyone can do." This time, when he began to march forward, Vinx looked ready to let him pass.

"Look out!" shouted Corsi.

A dark shape leapt from the trees, hammering Jarolleka to the ground in a flurry of leaves and noise. A limb shot up and caught Abramowitz under the chin, throwing her back into Corsi's line of fire. Carol arched her back, arms flailing, as Corsi's shot hit her in the shoulder.

Vinx spun on his heel and lashed out with his right arm, but failed to connect with anything solid. The whirling shape, covered in filthy rags, threw itself forward. Something cracked against Vinx's forehead, and he wobbled backward against a tree. Without a pause, the shape leapt into the thicket and crashed away.

Checking that Jarolleka was still facedown on the ground, Corsi aimed her phaser toward the noise and fired three times, aiming with five degrees of difference with each shot. She knew she'd hit nothing. "Vinx, are you up?"

"We'll put 'im in cement shoes if we got to," said the Iotian unsteadily.

"Damn." Corsi knew she couldn't leave Abramowitz alone with a potentially dangerous local and an addled security guard, and it was always possible that there was more than one killer, trying to trick the party into separating. She'd have to trust that Vinx would recover his wits while the trail was still warm. She glanced at Carol, who was sitting up and groaning.

Concentrate on what you can do, she thought. "Carol, did your tricorder get any readings on what that was?"

Abramowitz shook her head. "Not sure." She quickly picked her tricorder up. "The radiation must still be interfering. This says that our attacker was a Gallamite. And it was too dark and the attack too quick to make it out visually."

Corsi rubbed the back of her neck. "It seemed too small for a Jem'Hadar."

"The mug seemed pretty big to me." Vinx was rubbing his eyes and getting slowly to his feet.

Carol got to her feet and pulled out a small flashlight. Taking Vinx's head in her left hand, she shone the light into each of his eyes while he stood still and blinking. "No concussion, I think. You'll be fine."

"Shake it off, soldier." Corsi grinned. "I want to follow that trail. Vinx, get these two to the Jem'Hadar base."

"Aye, sir." He watched as his commanding officer moved into the woods, following the attacker. After a moment, he turned to Carol and Jarolleka. "C'mon, guys and dolls, let's motor."

Chapter

8

C orsi was following the trail as best she could, her tricorder all but useless in the radiation. Sometimes it would flash a warning that there was a Klingon ahead, or a Tiburonian, or on one exciting occasion, that there was an Andorian, a Tellarite, and a Vorta three kilometers to the west. That sounds like a very bad joke, mused Corsi.

Regardless, the tricorder's problems were the main reason why the discovery of Lauoc's prone body was such a surprise. Corsi didn't need her faulty equipment to tell her that the Bajoran wasn't moving, and with her allergic reactions still suppressed by Carol's last cocktail, her nose was enough to inform her that the area was covered in blood.

She knelt and quickly took Lauoc's pulse. It was faint, but steady. She rapidly took stock of his injuries: lacerations on the face and chest, a broken right leg where he'd fallen, and a bite mark on his arm. She frowned and shone a light on the last injury. Tooth marks, humanoid tooth marks, and it wasn't a simple bite taken in the heat of battle.

Someone had eaten a chunk of Lauoc's arm.

"That's disgusting," she muttered, even as she realized her quarry might still be close.

She pulled an emergency hypospray. "Sorry, Lauoc, this is going to sting." She pressed the device against his neck, and a groan informed her that Lauoc was waking up. A second groan told her he was feeling the bloody wound on his arm.

Corsi touched her combadge, cursing the little bleep that accompanied its activation. "Vinx, I'm heading back with Lauoc. He's injured. Whatever this thing is, it's not averse to eating us."

"We're almost at the base, Commander. "

Corsi cut the contact without another word; as much silence as possible was best under the circumstances. "Let's get you up and back to the others." Letting the creature that did this go, even for the moment, gnawed at Corsi's conscience. But there was no alternative, not if it meant letting Lauoc fend for himself with his injuries. She draped his right arm around her shoulders and forced them both to their feet, and began moving back the way she came.

The small group was silent, each nursing their own thoughts. The news of Lauoc's injury confirmed their worst fears: There was something sentient out there, attacking both natives and Starfleet indiscriminately. Madness is disturbing in every culture, thought Carol.

"What if it's one of us?" asked Vinx quietly, Jarolleka well behind them. "What's if it's that Starfleeter who was left behind?"

Carol shook her head. "It doesn't matter. Whoever it is, they're not well, and we have to help them."

Vinx shuddered. "But...cannibalism, doll? Even Iotia at its worst, we never ate nobody." His gangland accent was as thick as Carol had ever heard it, the stress of the moment causing him to revert to his most basic speech patterns.

Carol placed a hand on his shoulder. "It's the madness, not the person. We'll do what we can to stop it, and then we'll do what we can to make certain it doesn't happen again."

The Iotian shook his head in horror. Carol was reminded, as she had been again and again in this mission, that Sigma Iotia had only been a member of the Federation for a decade, and had only known about the Federation for a century or so. They hadn't had the benefits of living with modern psychological practice. Madness was madness to them, a thing to be avoided, to be feared. Just as any kind of illness was a frightening mystery to the native Coroticans. The idea that this savage wandering the woods might be a representative of the Federation, possibly even a human, was bound to disturb a man from a society heavily influenced by old Earth.

Vinx was saved from having to respond to Carol's assurances by a sudden glimpse of a clearing through the trees. "That's the base ahead," he said, his voice rough. "I'll go down first, make sure the coast is clear." He moved silently into the brush, his Starfleet training taking over.

"Where's Iotia?" asked Jarolleka quietly, standing in the shadows behind Carol.

Corsi was barely making any progress at all, and with the team obeying an unspoken command to radio silence except in dire circumstances, she couldn't be certain Vinx had managed to get the team safely to the Jem'Hadar base. Worse, she wasn't certain what they'd find there if they had arrived safely.

"Looked...abandoned," spat Lauoc through gritted teeth. Had they served together long enough for him to anticipate her thoughts that way, or was he just a damn fine soldier?

"I'm sure it was," she replied. "No Jem'Hadar could live without the white for this long."

Lauoc chuckled, a grim sound more pained than amused. "We both know that's not necessarily true."

One step after another, she thought. Aloud, she asked if he knew what had hit him.

"Tricorder said it was human, possibly an Alpha Centaurian."

"You didn't see it?"

"Just a shape lurching up from the ground in front of me. The thing's fast. Taking us down earlier wasn't a fluke." He paused, drew in a shuddering breath. "There was an odor, but I couldn't place it."

Corsi nodded, aware that Lauoc wouldn't see it in the dark. "Would you recognize it if you smelled it again?"

He sucked in his breath as Corsi stumbled slightly over a root in the dark. "Not...sure. It was like..." His voice trailed off.

Corsi stopped and took him by the shoulders. His eyes were closed. "Stay with me, Lauoc."

The Bajoran's eyes fluttered open. "I am with you. And so is it. I'm smelling it again."

She let him drop, knowing the fall would do less damage than an unprotected assault from the creature. She aimed her phaser steadily and rhythmically, first behind her and then to the left, and then forward.

Something shifted in the trees above her and she glanced up, the phaser following her line of sight perfectly. She could see nothing but darkness until something shone briefly.

Eyes. Bright blue eyes, blinking.

She fired into the branches, and something black against black moved quickly away. She knew instantly that she hadn't hit it, and that it had moved in exactly the direction it had wanted to move, toward the Jem'Hadar base and her team.

Chapter

9

"I otia?" Carol wracked her brain, trying to summon a visual image of the Corotican continent. "It's on the eastern coast. It's very small. Lady Domenica's family is from Iotia."

Jarolleka stared at her for a moment, calmly. "That might be so."

Carol glanced toward the Jem'Hadar base, willing Vinx to summon them down. Reluctantly she turned back to the Corotican. "You sound like you're not very sure about that."

The man shrugged with a sigh, glancing up at the stars. "My whole life," he said, not looking at her, "I believed that the gods didn't care. They weren't evil. They just weren't concerned with us. They weren't our creators, weren't our masters. They were simply another order of beings, living their lives as we lived ours."

Carol felt a wave of sadness. "And then one of them showed up."

Jarolleka nodded, eyes shining with unshed tears. "And then one of them showed up. The One who Blesses and Condemns."

Carol moved closer to him, debating whether to touch his shoulder sympathetically or not. "And he condemned Ajjem-kuyr."

"The Academy had survived zealots before. The city hadn't always appreciated our efforts. We'd been accused of corrupting the youth, or angering the gods, or whatever. In the old days, any famine or storm could be an excuse to torch the library and kill the scholars. But gradually, over time, they learned to accept us. Ajjem-kuyr became a city of enlightenment. We kept our temples and ceremonies, but we did it for ourselves, because of who we were."

He laughed bitterly. "And then it turned out the zealots were right. We had angered the gods, and they did care. They cared very much. So much death because of our arrogance."

Carol fought back the lump in her throat. Her own society prized knowledge and valued human achievement beyond all else. Humans respected the beliefs of their allies, the Klingons and Bajorans who still held fast to religious belief; some humans, even her own commanding officer, participated in traditional Terran spirituality. Her ship was named after a man who had achieved excellence in almost every field of endeavor available to him. But above all else, Federation life was a journey of discovery and tolerance and liberty. Before her very eyes, this world's own Leonardo da Vinci seemed to be withdrawing into a shell of ignorance and fear. If she let him, the Federation's problem would be solved: This world's traditions would be preserved, but at the expense of its diversity.

A Nikolai Rozhenko would be thrilled; another primitive culture saved so that the Federation could babysit it, learn from it, admire its own past made visible in the present.

She still hadn't decided what to say when Vinx called from the base, his voice strained as he ordered them to hurry down.

Vinx walked to the messed-up building slow-like, an itchy trigger finger on his heater. The building wasn't nothing to write home about, maybe thirty feet tall, no windows, and a big pair of double doors with what looked like a steel strip across the middle.

People told tales back home, from back before the Book, about people that ate other people. Moms and Dads told their kids about cannibals to make them sit down and shut up, but the stories hit real close to home with every Iotian. Rat-a-tat-tat, and things that went bump after the music stopped and streetlights went off. Maybe it was the same for everybody in this crazy galaxy, but it also meant that Makk Vinx was as jittery as a stool pigeon at a family reunion.

He sprinted as quiet as he could to the wall of the plastisteel structure, which looked as out of place in the forest clearing as a Vulcan lyre in a jazz band. There were empty wooden poles around the perimeter, which Vinx couldn't make heads or tails out of. He knew that some folks back home, people who hadn't been touched by the Book, made wooden idols like this--least until the Feds came and brought the whole damn planet together. It wasn't like those Dominion mokes to build in wood, or to use nothing but metal and force fields for their protection. Nah, the Dominion were hard as rocks, and wanted everyone on their block to know it.

He paused and waited for something, anything, to make a peep. After a few seconds, he breathed again and started sneaking along the wall to the big doors.

The doors definitely weren't Fed gadgets--or Dominion ones, neither--since they didn't open up automatically. His heater in his left hand, Vinx reached out to the big bar in the middle of the door. As he ran his fingers across it, he realized it was welded to the doors. It was a bar to make it so that everything inside the building stayed inside the building.

Vinx swallowed hard, but he knew he didn't have no choice. He had to know what was what inside this dump before he called down Doc Abramowitz and the local mug. He leveled his heater and fired along the soldering point, watching as the metal turned all red and bubbly. The job had been done in a hurry, and not by professionals like the guys and gals on the da Vinci would do.

Another moment, and the left door was mostly unlocked. The bar's bottom was still welded on, though. Vinx didn't want it dropping to the ground in case anyone inside could hear it go clang, and he sure as shooting wasn't catching the scalding-hot metal. Nah, their first warning would be when he kicked the door in like Kall Porakan bursting in on the Yakkle Gang.

He switched on his wrist light and breathed in deeply. Using a move he learned in his Starfleet security training, he spun himself around and kicked out at the door. Lot more sophisticated than the coppers back on Iotia, I'll tell you that.

The door went flying open, making a big racket, and the bar hit the dirt with a sizzle. Flames burst out as it hit the dry grass, which suited Vinx fine--it'd give him cover.

Without hesitating, Vinx went in.

Stevens rubbed the back of his neck, trying to ease out the kinks that had built up over the week. Part of his aches and pains was the work itself, all the intricate wires and sensitive equipment necessary to a proper observation post, which all seemed to require awkward positioning. Fabian would've thought that spending hours under a low console would be second nature to him by now, but the treetop location of the duck blind meant that much of the work had to be done while suspended from various branches and trestles.

But Fabian was bothered by more than the work. Corsi and her team had barely been in contact since they'd decided to pursue the creature killing the locals. He knew that minimal contact was necessary, not only because of the danger but because they were accompanied by a Corotican native. Not knowing how Corsi was doing still bothered him, even though he knew she was more than capable of taking care of herself.

He'd known plenty of people who'd been capable of taking care of themselves. Past tense intended.

Stevens glanced toward Ensign Hj'olla. The Tiburonian was installing a perimeter sensor into one of the native jopka trees, facing toward Baldakor. The engineer had to admit that the woman had a knack for the camouflage, and she'd managed to fool him once or twice when he'd tried to tell the real bark from the fake that covered each sensor. She barely left a hair fracture between the two.

As if she realized she was being watched, Hj'olla glanced up toward him. She smiled tentatively and waved slightly. Stevens pulled his hand away from his aching neck just long enough to wave back quickly, and she looked away.

Their friendship had started out flirtatiously, and Fabian had to admit he'd enjoyed the slightly guilty little secret. But as Corsi remained in the Corotican wilderness for day after long day, Stevens had found that flirting had come less and less easily.

He hadn't wanted to offend or trouble the Tiburonian officer, but Fabian only had mental space for two things: his work on the duck blind, and the safe return of Domenica Corsi.

The Jem'Hadar base was darker than a tar pit, and quieter than Rosie's Bar after closing, but even without the wrist light Vinx would've known that it was a space as big as a hangar. He smelled something like rotten meat, and some twisted shapes were looming in front of him. Vinx shone his light through the smoke of the grass fire at the floor in front of him, and jumped as it fell on the eyes of a Jem'Hadar, its mouth snarling.

Shouting, Vinx dropped, aimed his heater, and fired, holding the trigger until the Jem'Hadar started to smoke.

Panic settling into his bones, Vinx shined the light from left to right. Everywhere he looked, some Jem'Hadar mug stared back at him, eyes all blank. It was only when he doped out that they were piled on top of each other that Vinx was frosty enough to look away and try to find the light switch in this dump.

He found a panel, but tapping it didn't do nothing. Vinx looked around with the wrist light until he found a Jem'Hadar hand. Bracing for the jamoke's weight, Vinx stumbled when he yanked on the arm and realized it wasn't attached to nothing.

Holding the severed limb, all red and crusty at the end where the shoulder shoulda been, Vinx muttered the most expressive of all Iotian curses: "Mamma mia." He pressed the cold dead hand against the access panel.

When the lights came on, row by row to the hangar's back wall, Vinx realized that this wasn't no tea party. Hundreds of these Dominion mooks were all over the place, most of them in pieces. A bunch were piled in a semicircle around the doors. Vinx saw that the inside of the doors had scratch marks and burns that were probably from Dominion heaters.

The twisty stumps at the end of some Jem'Hadar hands showed Vinx how that happened.

Worse, as Vinx stepped gingerly over the mangled corpses, he saw that lots of these guys had weird scars on their arms and faces. There were green scales on the floor, like someone ripped them off, and lots of the Jem'Hadar had blood around their mouths.

But Jem'Hadar don't eat flesh, 'cause they just like to chow down on that white stuff, thought Vinx, trying to keep from vomiting all over the bodies. Unless they ran outta white, and someone gets the bright idea of getting it straight from another mug's veins...

Corsi's voice on his squawk box caused Vinx to nearly drop his heater, and he truly hoped his boss lady hadn't heard him squeaking like a little girl.

He cleared his throat. "Vinx here."

"The creature's nearly killed Lauoc and it's heading back to base. I'm pursuing as fast as I can, but it's likely going to be up to you." 

"Me?" stuttered Vinx. He felt queasy. It was all too much. What the hell was a dumb kid from the slums of Grak Street doing in Starfleet, anyhow? "It's a massacre here, sir. All the Jem'Hadar, they were trapped in the building. They killed each other." He paused again, the pieces falling into place. "I think their Vorta did it."

There was a silent pause. "Vinx, can I depend on you?"

Vinx worked his throat, but he couldn't make the words come.

"Vinx," came Corsi's voice, with more steel in it than Vinx had ever heard. "I need you to stop this jamoke, Vorta or not. Capisce ?"

The Iotian took a deep breath and tried to calm his nerves, his own dialect from an unexpected source working like a salve. "I got it, doll." He checked his heater, and knocked up to a higher setting than stun. "I got it."

Outside, Carol and Jarolleka skittered down the slope toward the Jem'Hadar clearing in a hail of small stones and twigs. Vinx's warning had been perfectly clear: The creature was coming, it was likely a Vorta, and it wouldn't hesitate to kill. Carol resisted the urge to glance over her shoulder, afraid of what she might see screaming out of the alien forest.

The doors to the base were open, and Vinx had told her that he was inside and that she be prepared for the worst. She called on the almost-forgotten sprinting she'd done at the Academy, willing her legs to move faster.

Behind her, Jarolleka fell with a startled scream.

Carol whirled, aiming her phaser, unsure of what she'd be able to do face-to-face with an insane killing machine but unwilling to leave the Corotican philosopher to his fate.

Jarolleka's face and elbow were bleeding as he forced himself up from where he'd fallen. He kicked his right leg free from the root that had tripped him up, and Carol's anxious glance quickly told her that no murderous creature had pushed him. "Come on," she said, relief washing over her. "Let's get inside!"

Without waiting, she turned back to the doors just as a figure shimmered into view directly in front of her, its wild blue eyes filled with a mad hunger.

Corsi ran faster than she'd run in years, legs pumping and lungs burning, crashing through the scrubby brush and past the thick local pine trees.

She was just as worried about the wounded Lauoc, left on his own behind her, as she was for the team members ahead of her. If the creature wasn't as mad as she thought, if it decided to double back for the easy mark, Lauoc would pay for her gamble with his life. Everyone knew that security often had to make the ultimate sacrifice. Galvan VI had brought that reality home to Corsi rather brutally--seventy percent of her security force died there. But sometimes you had to decide who to save instead of just risking your own life. Lauoc knew that, but Corsi prayed she wouldn't have to live with the consequences of her decision. She'd only just buried Ken Caitano....

All she could do was to keep running, committing fully to the decision she had made. Nothing killed faster than indecisiveness.

"Hello, meat," said the Vorta, its teeth black and rusty-red with grime and blood, barely recognizable from his image in the stained glass.

Carol tried to pull her phaser up, aware that she couldn't miss but also curiously certain that she would. The Vorta was faster, grabbing her wrist and squeezing hard enough to break it. The phaser fell to the ground. His other hand darted for her throat, his sharp nails scratching the skin. His breath was fetid, and between the stench and his iron grip Carol had to fight to retain consciousness.

Behind her, Jarolleka's knees buckled. To him, Carol knew, Upshallar had returned, returned to kill the last son of Ajjem-kuyr and his strange allies. Tears began to stream down his paralyzed face.

"We've...come to help," gasped Carol. "The war's...over."

"The war?" wheezed the Vorta. "The war against heresy never ends. Never. I came to bless this place, and now I must condemn it. I condemn thee, disbeliever!"

Carol managed to make her arms work, but her blows were weak and getting weaker as the air left her lungs and her vision began to fade. "You're not a god!" she gasped.

"Aren't I?" His mouth opened, and the grimy teeth began to move toward Carol's cheek.

Carol shut her eyes, nearly unconscious, the blood roaring in her brain. This was how she was going to die? She survived combat, Galvan VI, and Teneb, only to be the last victim of the Dominion War, at the hands of a cannibal Vorta with delusions of godhood?

Just as his thin scabby lips brushed her skin, a shadow fell across the Vorta and his victim, and his grip loosened. Carol dropped to the ground like a stone as the Vorta lurched forward, hit from behind by a thick branch.

"If you are a god," snarled Jarolleka, breathing heavily with the effort to force his limbs into motion, both hands gripped tightly on his impromptu weapon, "you're a pretty pathetic one. We don't need your condemnation any more than we need your help."

The Vorta glanced back at him, shoulders hunched, a terrible smile playing across its pale features. Jarolleka paled and took an involuntary step backward.

"It doesn't matter what you need," said the Vorta. "You are to serve us." Shimmering, the Vorta disappeared. Dimly, through the pain that wracked her body, Carol noted that the disappearing effect didn't look like a Jem'Hadar shrouding--which was a biological ability of that species, one the Vorta didn't share--but looked similar to what happened when a Federation observer post's duck blind was activated.

Jarolleka looked around wildly, whimpering.

Carol rose to her knees, rubbing her bruised neck. "It's a shroud," she hissed, every word painful. "It's...it's just a kind of natural law."

The Corotican looked into her eyes, and it seemed to Carol that he calmed visibly just before something hit him hard from behind. He buckled forward, his arms barely resisting his fall. Carol tried to scream, but no sound came from her damaged throat.

A shape hurtled out from the entrance to the base, leaping up and over Carol before she had time to duck. She fell backward, looking up to see Vinx putting his shoulder into a shimmering figure.

Both combatants fell to the ground, but Vinx leapt to his feet first, catching the now-visible Vorta on the chin. Blood spewed from the Vorta's mouth, but Vinx showed no mercy, following up with another solid blow to his stomach. The Vorta collapsed to the ground, and Vinx slowly pulled his phaser and carefully set the weapon to stun.

"Good night, buddy." Vinx fired a short burst into the Vorta's chest.

Carol forced herself to stand. "How did you know where to throw yourself?" she whispered.

Vinx smiled, wiping his brow with a dirty uniform sleeve. "The bad guy always goes for the dame first."

"That's so...old-fashioned."

"I'm an old-fashioned kind of guy, toots," he said with a shrug that involved his entire upper body. "And I did it...my way."

Chapter

10

T arsem Johal slowly turned his combadge over in his right hand, letting the light from the Corotican sun catch it as he repeated the gesture. The sacrifices his crew had undergone since the Dominion War began--Moseley on the Ogun, for example--had largely been unrelated to their work here on Coroticus. They were scientists, archaeologists and historians, and like everyone in the Federation they'd become accustomed to pursuing their research in peace, undeterred by an angry universe. Well, barring the occasional discovery of a primitive supercomputer or the sudden appearance of an angry and omnipotent godling.

Where had he heard that before? Johal smiled softly and glanced down at the shining combadge again. Saed Squire, imparting his wisdom to the unwary scientists under his protection. He seemed to know every obscure story of Federation archaeology gone awry, and have at least three plans prepared to deal with each and every eventuality. Just as he'd had a plan for protecting Coroticus as best he could while ensuring his crew escaped safely.

Johal hadn't realized, until Corsi and her team caught the renegade Vorta, just how much he'd been dreading the possibility that the madman was Squire. To know that the man's last actions were uncomplicated by a subsequent period of murder and insanity meant that this small story had a decent ending; it was part of a much larger story of sacrifice and despair, and eventual triumph, but Squire had gone out as he'd have wanted.

The commander had briefly considered returning to active duty, delaying his retirement to finish the job here on Coroticus and replace the memories of those last frantic, tragic moments with something better. He looked back at the S.C.E. crew, shaking hands with the personnel who'd be left behind to finish the rebuilding of the observation post.

Seeing a Starfleet crew giving their all in the service of science rather than war, knowing that every effort had been made to correct the damage done to Coroticus not because they had to or because it was their fault, but because it was a sacred duty...Tarsem Johal knew that those better memories had already been made.

He was looking forward to fresh strawberries.

Dyrvelkada rubbed his chin thoughtfully, glancing up at the sky with both wonder and fear. "A war in heaven?"

Walking beside him in the funeral grounds, Carol nodded. Jarolleka, recovering from his injuries, walked at a discreet distance behind the Sibling and his female companion. "Heaven has been torn by the strife of gods. Ushpallar came to you to protect you, to protect all who walk and think upon the green world, but now he has returned to defend his own kind."

The priest looked back over his shoulder at Jarolleka. "He Who Blesses and Condemns told us that he had destroyed Ajjem-kuyr for its disbelief. Now you are telling me that this was not true. Can a god lie?"

"You heard the rumors of shape-shifters?" The Sibling nodded. "These are the enemies of the gods, as you well know. They have been active among you. Sometimes, Ushpallar was your friend. Sometimes, he was your foe." Well, it had a certain kind of truth to it, thought Carol with a grimace.

"Our legends knew the shape-shifters of old, the Henjiqi who hunted our kind before we knew language or tools." Again, he glanced at Jarolleka. "Please, my son, walk with us. If you believe what Carolabrama says is true, we have no reason to be enemies."

"I'm not your son," said Jarolleka with the faintest of snarls, but at a warning glance from Carol, he consented to walk beside the priest.

"Far from enmity," Carol ventured, "your causes are more alike than you know. You both seek truth, each in your own way. The Henjiqi shape-shifters knew that Ajjem-kuyr could discover the truth through observation of the stars. And so they decided that Ajjem-kuyr would be destroyed."

Jarolleka did not meet her gaze. Although they had not spoken of the Vorta or the events at the Jem'Hadar base, Carol knew that the Corotican was deeply troubled by what he had seen and felt. He seemed even more uncomfortable with Carol's explanation of their recent history, but with no greater explanation of his own, he seemed willing to nurse his doubts privately.

Dyrvelkada was less willing to gloss over the inconsistencies. His demeanor was troubled, and he paused to glance again at the blue Corotican skies. "A war in heaven." He looked back at Carol. "And how is it that your people know this?"

When Carol had come up with her plan for the containment of the cultural contamination, she had desperately tried to find a satisfactory answer to that question, which she knew would be asked. Now that the question had come, Carol surprised herself by having a sudden answer to hand, as though it had been lurking in her mind for months. She looked directly into Dyrvelkada's eyes. "We know because the dark gods came to us, and tried to rule us as Ushpallar ruled you."

The Sibling gazed at her thoughtfully for a long moment, before nodding once, and turning away to return to the safety of Baldakor's temple. Carol knew, somehow, that her story was about to enter the region's spiritual lore.

"That was the first thing you said to him that I believed," said Jarolleka softly.

"Why that?"

He smiled faintly. "Because you said it with a sadness that cannot be false." He came forward to embrace her, and she returned the hug. "I have much to do. I think that Dyrvelkada will support my application to rebuild the Academy, and help to raise the necessary funds. Your tale has seen to that. It is as though a balance needs to be restored."

Carol nodded. "It seems that way to me, yes."

Jarolleka shook his head ruefully and gave a hesitant grin. "It will be like starting over from the beginning, making the people see what we have to offer. We'll have to go through the same persecutions, the same censorships. But it will be worth it."

"Where will you seek to rebuild?"

This time, his smile was real. "In the field where I saw Ushpallar brought down by a mortal with a strange manner of speaking. It is time I began." With a nod, he turned and followed Dyrvelkada's path back to Baldakor.

She heard faint footsteps approaching from behind her. Was everyone on this planet addicted to sneaking up on her? She turned to see T'Mandra, who paused long enough to tell her that the da Vinci was to arrive within twenty minutes.

"Thank you, T'Mandra." The Vulcan woman nodded curtly and marched off to find other errant personnel.

Carol smiled. She had indeed restored the balance between tradition and innovation on Coroticus, but she didn't think anyone could blame her if she was pleased that innovation might have received just a little extra help on the way.

About the Author

CORY RUSHTON is a Canadian living in the United Kingdom with his lovely and patient wife, Susan, where he teaches English at the University of Bristol. Having now fulfilled a lifelong ambition to write for Star Trek, he feels that retirement from the world is the only rational option.