Janel isn’t dead,Ezri told herself, shaking her head as though stunned by a physical blow. Norvo isn’t dead either. Not inmy world. They’re the ones who stayed behind with Mother, and the Orion Syndicate didn’t begin leaning on them until years later.Meanwhile, Ezri had finished up at Starfleet Academy, then had shipped out on the Destiny.
Ezri had left home, and had stayed away. She had resisted the all too frequent squalls of withering maternal criticism that had kept both her brothers on such short tethers for so many years. She hadn’t allowed herself to be moved by Yanas’s levers of guilt and duty and obligation the way Norvo and Janel had.
It came to Ezri then why the cathedral had confronted her with this simulacrum of Yanas Tigan: It was an external representation of her need to separate herself from the infinitude of Ezri Tigans whose lives weren’t hers. It was her touchstone for avoiding taking a path traveled only by some phantom-Ezri in some other hypothetical reality.
This artifact-generated creature had to be the key to avoiding becoming “unmoored,” as Shar had put it, from the life she knew, washed away in a torrent of might-have-beens. She’s got to be my ticket to fixing those tangled “worldlines” Sacagawea kept talking about.
Ezri noticed then that Bokar was still talking. “There is a bright side to your little brother’s passing, though,” Bokar was saying, facing Ezri. “Some of those paintings of his are finally fetching some decent prices. It’s too bad that nobody appreciates artists while they’re still alive.”
Ezri could feel something moving within her. Shifting. Something at the core of her being was changing, awakening. She had her own life to lead, and now she was determined to take it back. Sacagawea’s translator-filtered voice rang in her mind: Misaligned in their worldlines.
She reached up and doffed her hat, tossing it to the ground. She touched her hair again, noting without surprise that it had returned to the severe, short style that she’d adopted shortly after her joining.
On the Destiny.
As a Starfleet officer.
Just before she’d been posted to DS9.
Yanas was confronting her again, as though she hadn’t heard Bokar’s cruel words about her late son. Mom never was a great one for listening, Ezri thought. Eavesdropping, perhaps, but not listening.
“So what are you planning to do?” Yanas said, clearly still attuned to Ezri’s thoughts. The older woman’s tone was harsh, obviously calculated to demoralize. To reassert control. “Will you go back to chasing those Starfleet daydreams again? You need to learn to accept life as it comes, Ezri.”
True enough,Ezri thought, recalling Nog’s dire warning about how little time remained before the “untethering” became permanent. The only question is,Which life?
“Listen to your mother, Miss Tigan,” Bokar said, his lips inclined in a contemptuous smirk.
And in that instant, Ezri made a decision. A command decision,she thought with some satisfaction. Advancing quickly on Bokar, she treated him to a pair of quick rabbit punches to the face, followed by a hard abdominal jab. The gangster’s unconscious form thumped hard against the stone floor. She was gratified to note that he was no longer smirking.
“Problem solved, Mother. At least for now. This time it’s yourturn to clean up the long-term mess.”
Ezri noticed then that a Starfleet combadge was attached to the left side of her jumpsuit. Had it been there all along, waiting for her to sever her ties to all her might-have-been lives?
She tapped the combadge. “Defiant,if you can hear me, beam me back. Now.”
Her stomach lurched. Whatever changes were going on within her mind and body seemed to be accelerating. Nausea rose within her, and she felt her knees turning to water. Abruptly, another realization came.
It’s the symbiont. I feel weak because my body needs the symbiont again.
It came to her then that she must have succeeded in “realigning her worldline.” That was the good news. The bad news was that without Dax she would probably be dead within a few short hours.
Yanas’s face was a mask of incredulity. Defiance wasn’t something she encountered very often, whether from employees or from offspring.
“You can’t just leave, Ezri. Why would you return to the life you had before? You never wanted to be joined in the first place.”
“I’m just following your own advice, Mother. Accepting life as it comes.” Or as itcame.
“But I need you here!”
“Hire a damned bookkeeper,” Ezri said, her consciousness beginning to ebb. She felt as though she were falling over a precipice into one of the open pergium shafts. A voice from her combadge spoke, perhaps in acknowledgment of her signal. But she couldn’t be sure.
Ezri saw another shape appear, as if out of nowhere, at her mother’s side. Janel smiled in Ezri’s direction. “I’ll take over from here, Zee.”
“I still hate your hair,” Ezri heard Yanas say a moment before darkness closed in around her.
The colorful tunic Moogie had given him for his Attainment Ceremony was already thoroughly soaked with sweat. Nog had already forgotten how he’d gotten here. Wherever herewas. He only knew that his pursuers had killed a lot of people. Kellin, Larkin, Vargas. Countless others. They all lay in the dust, some blown apart, others sliced to gory slivers. All Nog could think of was running, and staying ahead of their killers.
Uncle Quark’s voice sprang into his mind unbidden: Maybe you’ll grow up to be a real Ferengi after all. Not like your father.
Clutching his phaser tightly, he ignored the daggers of pain that lanced his side and kept moving as quickly as the absurd terrain permitted. Thanks to the semidarkness and the profusion of tall, irregularly shaped rock formations that seemed to cover every square meter of this Chin’toka hellhole, he couldn’t see them coming. But his sensitive hearing counted dozens of pounding footfalls, all coming toward him. Unvarying in their rhythm, their approach as inexorable as death itself.
He knew he was getting winded. He was also grimly aware that his pursuers never got tired. Sooner or later the Jem’Hadar would catch up with him, and there was nothing he could do to prevent it. He would have to stop, stand his ground, and fight them. Fight the most relentless, implacable, nightmarish foes he’d ever imagined.
The still-green memory of how they’d shot him during the battle for control of the Dominion’s AR-558 communications array—forcing Dr. Bashir to amputate his leg—sent a jolt of terror through his lobes and down his spine. He paused beside a large outcropping, the dusty air making him cough and wheeze as he struggled to catch his breath.
Sudden confusion struck him as he looked down at his two perfectly good, utterly normal legs. When did the Jem’Hadar shoot me in the leg?The recollection had the quality of a fading dream. He clearly remembered a time six years ago, when Captain Sisko and his Uncle Quark had briefly fallen into Jem’Hadar hands. Nog and his now-missing best friend Jake Sisko had done their best to mount a rescue. Luckily, Uncle Quark’s dignity had been the only thing seriously wounded that day.
Still, Nog couldn’t shake a strange mental image, half memory and half premonition, of wearing a Starfleet uniform. Of serving aboard starships. Of having fought alongside some of the bravest people he’d ever known, in this desolate place. Chin’toka,he somehow knew.
Before he could consider the matter further, an enormous humanoid shape flung itself toward him from behind one of the larger rocks. Without thinking, Nog leveled his phaser and fired with the ease of long practice.