Kira frowned. “What’s the target?”
Tahna smiled broadly. “The grind itself—at the source! We won’t have to waste our time taking out the towers over and over again, waiting for the spoonheads to just reinstall them every single time. We can sabotage the telemetry processing system on Terok Nor—”
Kira interrupted him. “Terok Nor!” she exclaimed, shaking her head. “No. No, Tahna, I’m never going back to that station. Ever.”
“Don’t be stupid, Nerys. If we could shut down that grid for good, then we’ll never have to argue about knocking out those towers ever again. Anyway, you’ve already been there, you know your way around—and you’re the only one of us who can beat the grid long enough to figure out a way to get smuggled onto a penal transport.”
Kira interrupted him again by snatching the rod from his hands.
“Watch it with that thing!” he warned her as she jammed the isolinear rod into her padd. “It’s not like I can just ask Fala for another copy!”
Kira ignored him as she looked over the schematic, her lips moving slightly as she read. “I’m not going to Terok Nor,” she said without looking up. Tahna started to interrupt, but Kira spoke over him. “I have another idea,” she said. “I know someone on the station who can help us.”
Tahna shook his head. “No, Nerys. There are only a handful of resistance people left on the station, not enough to—”
“The person I’m talking about isn’t in the resistance,” she said, handing him back the isolinear rod.
“Well then, how do you propose to…?” Tahna stopped after seeing the look on Kira’s face. She could convey her emotions with a single look better than anyone Tahna had ever encountered, and he wasn’t ashamed to admit that she intimidated him a bit. She intimidated nearly everyone, even those who were older than she was, though it hadn’t always been so. She was a far cry now from the skinny and eager little girl who had joined the resistance over a decade ago.
“He’s not in the resistance,” she said. “He’s in security.”
Tahna looked at her doubtfully. “In security?”
Kira finally smiled. “He’s the chief, actually.”
Keeve Falor did not often have reason to contact Bajor anymore. He knew that Kalem Apren and others on the surface had been trying to coerce him into helping them with their grandiose plans for a very long time, but Keeve couldn’t see much point to it. It was all he could do just to keep the people on his adopted world from starvation; he had very little reason to fool around with subspace communication system anymore.
But today was different. Something had happened in the past week, and Bajor needed to know it. In Keeve’s estimation, Kalem Apren wasBajor, being one of the very few former politicians from his homeworld that Keeve still trusted. Keeve had come to the old hangar on Valo II, the place where ships had once arrived and departed with some measure of regularity—but it was no longer like that here, or anywhere else on this world, for fuel was an import that the people of Valo II could not afford to squander without sufficient cause. The Bajorans of Valo II used the hangar for storage of salvaged parts, but it could also function as a communications center if necessary. A few of these ships still had functional communications equipment, and now that the long-range relays on Derna had been repaired, it was possible to send messages to Bajor, if the need ever arose. It seemed to Keeve Falor that the need had finally arisen.
“Apren,” Keeve spoke into the pickup, adjusting for interference. He hoped the signal would be strong enough. As he tapped the interface, he could pick up bits of chatter, both Cardassian and Bajoran, coming from Jeraddo, from Valo III, from Terok Nor, from Bajor herself. He fine-tuned the connection when he recognized the Bajoran signal code on the comm’s battered readout.
“Apren,” Keeve spoke the name again. “Kalem Apren. This is an attempt to reach Kalem Apren, of the Kendra Valley.” The channel was almost certainly wide open and traceable, but there was nothing that could be done about it—and it scarcely mattered, since the Cardassians already knew the piece of news that Keeve intended to pass along.
“This is Jaro Essa of Kendra Valley,”a voice finally acknowledged. “Who calls?”
“Jaro, it’s Keeve Falor. I am trying to reach Kalem Apren, but I don’t have the specific channel.”
“Keeve! I will bring Kalem here! He will be glad to hear your voice!”
The line went silent but for a smattering of interference and a faint wavering suggestion of another conversation coming in on a similar channel. Keeve waited patiently until someone else spoke, someone out of breath.
“This is Kalem Apren,”a crackling voice finally dispatched from Keeve’s aged system. “Falor, is that you?”
“It is me, Apren.”
“I am pleased to hear that you are still among the living! Tell me, how are things on Valo II?”
“Difficult,” Keeve said grimly, unaccustomed to the idea of friendly small talk—but then, Apren did always have a talent for being a bit glib, a talent that was helpful in his political career. “I have contacted you, Apren, because of a recent incident in which I was put in touch with a Federation captain.”
“The Federation!”Apren exclaimed. “Was this a fruitful encounter for us?”
“I would like to hope so,” Keeve replied, but he knew he did not sound optimistic—for he wasn’t. “You must know that I am not especially hopeful where they are concerned…however, I did feel that this encounter was relevant enough to pass the word on to you. The captain with whom I spoke was able to get a firsthand look at the colony here. He had a better idea, I think, of what we are dealing with than Jas Holza has ever given him—”
“This is very relevant!”Apren replied with enthusiasm. “Things have changed now, Falor. Surely the Federation can see that our current Bajoran government is nothing but an ineffective figurehead. They must have enough sense to deduce what has happened here.”
“They spoke of diplomacy,” Keeve said, “But we both know where that will lead us—into more of the same. You know how the Federation operates. I suppose I wish it were otherwise, but ultimately, I am skeptical.”
“You always were,”Apren replied. The static was getting markedly worse. “The Fed…ration…id they leave you…means…contact…them?”
“Only through Jas Holza, but he is reluctant to jeopardize his own standing with the Federation,” Keeve replied.
“Any…ther way to reach…m?”
Keeve considered. “I could relay a message to the border colonies, which will eventually find its way to the Federation,” Keeve said. “But…I am not sure what we could say to them to make them change their strategy to a proactive one. I imagine they intend to simply discuss it among themselves before choosing to do nothing—just as they did fifty years ago.”
“There was protocol that…required to follow,”Apren said.
“Federation protocol is exactly the reason we cannot rely on them,” Keeve said.
“What…bout J…olza. He once sp…e…bout…pons.”
“Your signal is getting weaker, Apren. Could you repeat that?”
“I can’t…you’re…could…”
“Too much interference,” Keeve said, though it was futile.
“…if…contact…Nechayev…”
Frustrated, Keeve disconnected the comm, deciding to wait until later to place another call. But he’d said all that needed to be said on the subject, and he doubted anything would come of it. It might someday prove beneficial to be on the Federation’s radar, but then, it had been fifty years since the Federation was here last, and they had done nothing to help Bajor in all that time. Keeve himself had kept in touch with a few Federation people, who had tried to learn something of the Cardassians in the Valo system. The reconnaissance had eventually gone awry, thanks to a single blunder on the part of a teenager named Ro Laren, and Keeve had lost touch with those people. He shook his head, remembering the past version of Ro Laren, the little girl who had single-handedly managed to sever his ties to the Federation. Strange, that it had been Ro to connect them once more, just these few days ago. In his wildest dreams, he would not have imagined that she would have gone on to join the Federation, and yet, there she had been, wearing the uniform of Starfleet.