Empires' End

Chapter 7: The Paths They Follow

Phaser fire could still be heard as Kira quietly entered from the smoke-filled hallway. It was a treasure room; full of artifacts and arcane technologies under study by Dominion scientists. They had pilfered Bajor's wonders just like the Cardassians, but at least they had kept them on planet, where she could still steal them back. The Dominion had no homeland to take their trophies back to. They were an administration, a spreading virus that sought to convert Bajor rather than suck them dry. But the effect was the same: Kira with a phaser in her hand, giving them hell until she'd killed enough oppressors to get them off her planet.

But this particular firefight wasn't just wanton destruction. She was looking for something, something very precious her resistance cell had learned was here. Kira's eyes scanned the room until she found the signature curved brown casing with jeweled sides, a shell crafted millennia ago to house the miraculous blinding hourglass of light within, an Tear of the Prophets. She approached it with a deliberate pace both appropriate to the immediacy of their situation, but still respectful for a hollowed artifact. Carefully, firmly, she hefted it off the table and stuffed it into a large carrying case she slung on her back, then returned to the firefight outside.

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Back in the caves, Kira and the others placed the Orb on a stable chunk of raised rock to serve as a makeshift shrine.

"I wish we had somewhere more worthy of it," said one of the young rebels.

"Better here than a Dominion lab," replied Kira, staring at the large glowing emeralds on its sides, drawing her to it. "Besides," she said, puzzled by the feeling. "I think we were meant to have it." Kira approached the Orb and carefully opened its hinged doors. The green light of the Orb of Prophecy and Change washed over her face, and offered her a vision.

Kira stood on the bridge of the Defiant, with the Emissary in front of her.

"This one is strong," said Sisko, but it wasn't Sisko. She knew it was a Prophet.

Suddenly she was in a temple, with Kai Opaka.

"And faithful," said the Prophet as Opaka, "She will serve us well."

"Y-Yes, I will follow whatever path you lay out for me," said Kira, awed, if a bit frightened by this communion. She had felt a Prophet inside her when she became a vessel for the Wreckoning, and she knew their words through scriptures and the confessions of the Emissary, but she had never spoken with them before. The Orbs offered much, but not direct communication. What task must they have for her to speak so openly?

"But can you?" said a Prophet in the visage of Dukat, as he reached out and grabbed her jaw. She resisted the urge to punch a god. "Even if it goes against every instinct you've forged in a lifetime of rage?"

Kai Winn stared judgingly down at her from a bridge in the monastery gardens, "This one is aggressive, adversarial."

But then Kai Opaka held her ear, closing her eyes as she felt her paw, "But she is strong. Strong enough to remake herself."

Sisko spoke to her from across his desk in his old office, "Strong enough to be a leader."

Kira spoke up, "I am a leader. I've commanded this cell in battle, I've organized it and kept it going."

Vedek Bareil knelt in prayer at the monastery, and turned to her, "Your path is not to lead Bajor's warriors. It is to lead their souls."

Kira smiled in a half giggle, then frowned and shook her head vigorously, "Oh no, no. I'm no monk. I'm a terrorist."

Sisko stood on the bridge of a shaking ship, fire and smoke erupting around them, "You are righteous. A quality suited to crusaders on the battlefield and the pulpit."

Dax sat with her in Quarks, and placed a reassuring hand on her arm, "You told me Kai Opaka kept your people resolved through the worst of the Cardassian Occupation. Do you really think Winn can do the same?"

Kira shook her head, "No, but can I?"

Opaka smiled at her, "Trust in the Prophets, and your path is clear."

UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

Dumar's head slammed back against the wall. It took a moment to remember that Sisko had punched him again. It was hard to concentrate through the pain. He'd suffered weeks of this, and kept expecting it to get easier.

It didn't.

But still Dumar held out. He was a Cardassian. And Cardassians don't break.

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Sisko was panting from exhaustion and anger. He was furious at Dumar, and furious at himself. Dumar started to slouch over, he was already too woozy to be much help today. Ben considered ending it early then. Leave for today and be anywhere but here. It was a good excuse- but that was all it was. For weeks he'd been at this, and he kept expecting it to get easier.

It did.

Sisko helped Dumar sit back up, and went in for another beating. As he once again rendered his prisoner into a bloody pulp, he saw his son, burnt to ash as he imagined in his nightmares. He saw Jennifer broken under a bulkhead. He saw his father, back on dead Earth asking where he'd left his mostly he just saw Garak, grinning smugly back at him through this cardassian's face, taunting him for all he let happen. Not so principled now are we? he imagined him saying, I guess the self-respect of a starfleet officer wasn't worth much after all. Sisko screamed and thrashed the man over and over.

"Stop," whispered the prisoner through broken teeth. "Please... just... stop."

Relief washed over Sisko. This was the first words he'd gotten the cardassian to say. Perhaps this would not be in vain. If he could just get something, on Dominion installations, fleet positions, secret cloning facilities, anything. Then maybe he could justify this barbarism as serving the greater good, like he had failed to do with the Romulans. Even without starfleet, perhaps he could still be a soldier. And being a soldier was much better than admitting he was just a violent man impotently raging over his dead family.

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The hooded family came to the house under the cover of night, as arranged. The people inside the house kept the lights off, but opened the door. Without entering the home herself, the mother crouched and held her eldest, then stood and, against every instinct she had, placed her baby into the arms of another, knowing she would never hold him again. The door closed, and the lone hooded figure departed into the night.

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After O'Brien had given in to his heroic impulses and joined the resistance, his family became an inevitable target and Keiko had gone into hiding. But with young children she could not survive off the grid, and it was impossible for them to hide within the grid together. Their only chance was to be someone else's children, someone not wanted dead by the Dominion. It was the hardest choice she had ever made, and she couldn't believe she'd had the strength to make it.

If only her husband had been that strong.

UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

Bashir crept quickly through the dark cave rocks, escaping the electromagnetic field that shielded the colony from unwanted transporter beams. It had taken a bit of work to get here, but finally he was ready for his next mission. Once Bashir reached the extraction point, a shimmer of light brought him to the room of a ship- but not Sloan's stealth ship. By the shape of the bulkheads and the color of the panelled walls, it was a telorian freighter; a style of ship often favored by smugglers for its relatively faint warp signature despite its speed. Bashir thought through the possibilities as he turned around. It was extremely unlikely anyone else would know he was here, other than the Dominion, which would have beamed him somewhere very different. Maybe there had simply been a change in Sloan's plans…

"Garek!" Bashir shouted once he'd turned around and saw his old puzzlebox and mentor. His presence didn't really explain things, but it at least meant Bashir was safe- probably.

"I'm afraid Sloan is busy with other matters," said Garek. "But I was able to obtain the use of a Syndicate ship and pick you up myself. I must say you look rather dashing with Gul Usted's face, though I suspect you'll be wanting to change it out as soon as possible. There's equipment in the sickbay, such as it is. I would recommend a nice, thuggish looking andorian, purhapse with a few scars."

Bashir regarded Garek suspiciously, "So who are you working for, exactly?"

"Isn't it obvious?" replied Garek, "Section 31. And the Orion Syndicate. And a mining colony on Sappora Prime, but that's not important right now."

"I meant," said Bashir patently, "who do you really work for?"

Garek smiled, "I really work for all of them doctor. But if you're inquiring about my ultimate loyalties and motives, then I have to ask how you could know me all these years and still expect me to give an answer?"

"Alright, where's Sloan?"

"Off undermining some ketracel-white plant somewhere by assassinating the scientist tasked with fixing it. He'd infected their supply crop with some bioweapon a few months back, but they detected the resulting toxin in the drug and shut down the facility until they could root out the problem. Anyway that's why I'm here instead. Besides the next mission has us working together anyway. Just like old times, eh doctor?"

"Alright, what's the new mission?"

"We're going to take over the Orion Syndicate. I'm pretty far up their chain of command now, and with your help I think we can convert them into a new host for our shadowy organization, now that Starfleet is dead."

Bashir had expected they would go off plan when he heard about the Romulan attack, but the addition of Garek changed things completely. Bashir almost wondered how the man had found their little spy club, but then this sort of thing was right up Garek's alley, as were finding things. Honestly how had he not expected Garek to show up eventually?

"So, any news on O'Brien, Kira, or Odo?" asked Bashir as he followed Garek to sickbay. "I haven't seen them since I left."

"O'Brien is on some colony with his family last I checked, keeping his head down. Kira's in the resistance on Bajor. And Odo… was abducted while we were on Farius Prime looking for you. But he's almost certainly dead by now."

"Dead?" asked Bashir, shocked.

"Yes, he had caught some kind of wasting disease. I'm sorry."

"Oh god," said Bashir, as he realised what he'd done. "Sloan told me his bioweapon wouldn't infect Odo. I should have known it was a lie."

Garek stopped and turned on the spot. "You had something to do with this?" He hissed.

Bashir frowned, "I knew about it, when I joined Section 31 Sloan told me all the plans that were still in motion. The virus had already been released, but it would take some time for the Founders to die out."

"And you went along with genocide? I thought you were a doctor."

"Since when did you shun the hard choices? You wanted the Founders dead too. I didn't make the virus myself, but no, I didn't do anything to stop it once I found out. The Founders were the greatest threat we'd ever faced. They're very existence eroded trust and made free society impossible. Just a handful of changling operatives had destabilized this entire quadrant and turned longstanding allies to war. And they were utterly, irredeemably, evil. The Founders enslaved entire quadrants, forced their soldiers into drug addiction and so disregarded their lives in battle that few survived to the age of five."

"You want to talk to me about disrespecting life?" sneared Garek. "We spent months looking for you, after you abandoned us, because I knew if anyone could save him, it would be you. I felt like such a failure, when I didn't find you in time. Like I had let Odo die. And that whole time you knew Odo was in danger? You didn't even try to help him? You didn't even consider that your friend might fall to this, this sweeping decision of yours?"

"I checked with Sloan that he'd be ok."

"And that was enough for you? Did you learn nothing about trusting him?"

"I didn't have time to verify it myself. I had bigger concerns."

"O yes, you and your little eugenics think tank had plans to make. You didn't have time to think about us little people while you decided our fates."

"So what if we did?! I tried leaving it up to you simple people, and look where it got me. My planet dead! My parents dead! So yes, I let the Founders die for what they did to them, and I didn't care about the consequences. Then I plotted the downfall of their empire, using my talents. All of them."

"All of them, doctor?" said Garek, quietly. "I remember some years ago, when I was dying from an abused neural implant, I used every tactic I could to disgust you. To get you to give up on me as morally worthless, so you would leave me alone. But you kept trying to save my life anyway. You had a talent for caring, for valuing your job as a healer above all else. Not deciding who lives and who dies."

"Well maybe I'm not a doctor anymore," said Bashir. "I'm more than that now."

UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

Gul Rejel sat in the war room. Her war room, at least for now. A Vorta administrator pointed at some maps detailing the Romulan fleets. "As you can see," he said. "We have to strike now, before they get Vulcan's shipyards running."

A legate seated across from Rejel countered, "A siege would take weeks now to get through their defences. By then the shipyards would be running anyway. Vulcan is a strategic planet, but it's not worth the resources necessary to take it with half the weight of the Romulan Empire defending it. You lost Vulcan, the best thing now is to not lose the war."

Rejel turned to the legate, "What do you propose?"

The cardassian smiled, "Like I said, the Romulans have half their fleet centered around Vulcan now. So why not take Romulus? It's still heavily defended, but less so then it will ever be again. Take Vulcan, and you've recovered from the original failure. Take Romulus, and that failure becomes a victory. Vulcan will fall soon enough without an empire to defend it, and then all the Alpha Quadrant will finally be part of the Dominion, and under Cardassian leadership."

Rejel nodded. She turned to the Vorta, "I approve. Let's begin plans for the immediate invasion of Romulus."

UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

Weyoun found himself kneeling on a stone floor much like he had left, after the swirling energies subsided. Standing up, he saw darkness all around him. The stone floor only extended a few meters in all directions, seven bare pillars marking the edges where the ground dropped off into the void. The ground was unmarked, by carvings nor the passage of time. Weyoun felt fear swirling in his stomach as he calmly examined his surroundings.

From out of the void immense forms took shape, fractal structures covering the sky and filling it with their not-light. They resembled the crystalline entity Weyoun had seen in Starfleet's records, and yet they were so much… more. As they moved, he could almost catch glimpses of their true shape, like the morphing shadows a rotating hypercube cast on three dimensional space. As Weyoun craned his neck to see these beings, thoughts appeared in his head.

The vessel has returned.

No, this is a new one. Its structure is different. More complicated and yet, weaker. Messy. It is like the ones before. The one's that built the portal.

Weyoun had a guess at who they were referring to. "Excuse me?" he asked, with a diplomatic politeness he'd used equally on unimportant administrators and deadly alien kings. "Did an android visit and do business with you, about a decade or two ago?"

The vessel is vibrating the matter we encased it in. Does this have a meaning?

Yes. The others did that too. It is how they expressed agreement. The last vessel did this too, when it was not using light.

But we have not commanded it yet. To what is it agreeing?

The last vessel did this too, the first time it came. We did not learn why.

Purhapse now we should? A closer examination is called for. Let us learn its mind.

Weyoun became nothing as he was instantaneously ripped apart atom by atom, then came into agonizing being again as he was reassembled, slowly. Once he was whole again, the thoughts returned, this time directed at him.

You have power in your plane, of a kind.

You control ships and vessels and planets, in a way similar to but lesser than our control of structure and order.

Your plane is filled with food. Replicating patterns such as yourself concentrate order within yourselves as you consume extropy, creating convenient sources of high level structure for us to integrate and absorb.

You will help us harness it.

Weyoun shook his head. "Why would I help you destroy planets?"

You will because we command it.

There are many planets you have destroyed already. With ships and soldiers and weaker things. You may select the planets. Then help us absorb their structure.

You served false gods who claimed to spread order. Now help preserve order. Within us, the structure we absorb does not decay with the progression of thermodynamics. Entropy does not exist outside your dim plane.

Existential pangs returned at the mention of his dead and disappointed gods. He stared up at these vast beings, and a sense of awe returned for the first in a long time. Perhaps he could make use of them in his war across the galaxy. And who knows, maybe he could find new purpose in their otherworldly demands. If anything deserved the title gods, it was beings such as these.

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