No one spoke as they came upon the massive ship, mostly buried in dirt and dense foliage. It was well camouflaged. Lenaris could see from the outline that it had been a mid-sized carrier. Someone, presumably Lac, had excavated part of one wing and a section of cockpit that permitted access to the interior. Ground birds had nested in the gentle fall of rock covering the ship, spiders had spun their webs across the dark, jagged entrance holes; the vessel had a desolate feel, dead and abandoned.
“You’ve gone inside?” Lenaris asked, his heart thumping.
Lac nodded. “A couple of times,” he said. “It’s a little spooky in there…but I didn’t find any bodies—at least, not yet. I think whoever was inside must have bailed out before she came down—I couldn’t find any escape pods.”
Lenaris started to clamber up the incline that led to the exposed cockpit, Lac right at his heels, but Taryl hung behind.
“What is it?” Lenaris asked.
Taryl frowned and looked at her brother.
“You don’t have to come in, Taryl,” Lac said, sounding uncertain. “I mean—maybe you shouldn’t have even come along, if—”
“No,” Taryl said. “I want to come in. I just…”
“What?” Lenaris repeated, trying not to let his impatience show.
“It’s just…I promised Seefa I wouldn’t.”
Lenaris looked to Lac for explanation, since Taryl didn’t seem to want to elaborate.
“Seefa thinks—and some of our cousins as well—they think it’s a bad idea to fool around with this ship. Besides thinking it’s a lost cause, they’re afraid the Cardies are going to find her. Once they’ve seen that she’s been boarded recently, it’s going to lead them straight back to the settlement.”
Lenaris scratched his head. “Well, but…you’re just farmers. You wouldn’t pose any threat to them, just trying to find salvage out here to make your lives a little easier. They’re not going to expect you to be trying to…to fixthe thing, right?”
Taryl’s mouth twisted. “Lac and I agree with you,” she said. “But Seefa and some of the others are worried that the Cardies will find out that we’ve been using balon to power our impulse and sub-impulse vessels—ships that we aren’t authorized to be flying in the first place.”
“How would they—?”
“We’ve been shunting balon to the surface at a point near where the mining facility was abandoned—just a stone’s throw from here, in a skimmer. If the Cardies were to find our laboratory, the place where we fuel our raiders—they probably wouldn’t continue to underestimate our abilities so much.”
Holem frowned. He could see the logic well enough, but he couldn’t bear to simply ignore the warp vessel here, just waiting to be fully excavated and repaired. With a warp ship, they could finally regain access to Prophet’s Landing, or Valo II, or any of the other pre-occupation Bajoran settlements. They could conduct a serious assault on occupying forces if they could network with other Bajorans outside the system. Maybe they could even organize an offworld attack.
That would surely make waves among the spoonheads,Lenaris thought, with a helpless grin. He avoided the persistent voice that told him he just wanted to have a crack at flying a warp vessel. This was for the resistance. For his people, his world.
“She’s been here this long without being detected,” Lenaris said. “I say the benefits outweigh the risks. Let’s just have a look inside. If the damage isn’t too bad, maybe we won’t even need Tiven Cohr. I know a couple of things about simple flyer repair—if we just put our heads together…”
Lac didn’t need any persuading, but Taryl lingered behind for another minute before she finally succumbed to what she really wanted to do, anyway, and followed them inside the ship.
Vedek Opaka had set about on this day to tidy and sweep the dust from her stone cottage. Fasil had offered to help, but she sent him off to be with his friends, to enjoy the weather. Summer had finally come to the valley, which meant both good news and bad for the Bajorans who called it home. More and more people went without proper food and shelter with each passing year, and summer was a time for respite from the elements and the inevitably lean colder months. But the hot weather also meant more Cardassian activity on the surface. Opaka knew that many of the local resistance fighters chose to spend the summertime in hiding, plotting their next moves for the winter, when the Cardassian troops would again be at their weakest.
She’d learned as much from some of the people she’d been meeting. Opaka had taken the warming weather as her cue to begin meeting with the scattered groups of people in the valley who did not attend services: the elderly who could not travel far from their camps, the more cynical and despondent Bajorans who believed the Prophets had abandoned them, and of course the restless young people who had begun to live like nomads—many of whom fought in the resistance. These were the people, Opaka had decided, who most needed to hear the message. She’d begun to travel regularly to the camps on the outskirts of the village on days when her duties were light, speaking to whoever would listen. She didn’t preach so much as try to make connections, to remind people that the Prophets were real and that Bajor had a future, and she had been pleased with the mostly positive reception.
She had changed the bedding, dusted and swept the result out the cottage’s front door. She propped the door open and went to wrangle the wood-and-glass panel that covered the tall window near the roof, to air the cottage out. As she turned from the window, she started a bit when she saw the silhouette of a man standing in the doorway, backlit by the afternoon sun.
“Kai Arin,” she said, bowing deeply. “You honor me with your presence. Welcome to my home.”
“Thank you, Vedek Opaka.”
“Please, sit.” Sulan gestured to one of the turned-leg chairs at the wooden table in the center of the room.
Kai Arin sat and immediately began to make small talk, something Opaka had come to expect from the kai when he wished to calm himself. Obviously, he had something to tell her.
“You know…did I ever tell you…this house, many centuries ago…Kai Dava used to live in it. Did you know that?”
Opaka shook her head. “No, I didn’t, Your Eminence. I suppose I knew that someone lived here…I mean, someone besides the porlifowl.”
“It’s true, or at least, so I’m told. In fact, it is rumored that before the old shrine was built, he kept the relics here, in this very house.”
“You mean, a Tear was kept here?”
The kai looked away. “It’s only a rumor, of course.”
Kai Arin’s faraway look spoke volumes. Eighteen years ago, he had tried to save the Orb of Truth, when the Kendra Shrine was destroyed. He had tried to save it, but he had almost died doing so. He had never spoken of it, but Opaka knew he carried guilt, remorse for choosing to save his own life over making every attempt to save the Orb. The Orbs—the Tears of the Prophets—represented a fundamental aspect of Bajoran spiritual life, the ability to connect directly with the Prophets. No one judged Arin for what he had done—no one but Arin himself. He was a spiritual man, and felt keenly the responsibilities of his service.
She quickly changed the subject. “There was a fire here, I was told, long ago…”
Arin spoke quickly. “Yes, it burned the roof off, and the dwelling sat vacant for some time. It was later converted into a springhouse, or something of that nature. It was a toolshed when I first came here, and then, as you say, it was a coop for the fowl, with a batospen on the other side. Funny, nobody seems to keep batosaround here anymore.”
“I suppose nobody can afford to feed them,” Opaka said.
“Things are certainly different now.”
Opaka nodded, recognizing that he was coming to his point.
“Vedek Opaka, I’m told you have begun to preach outside the sanctuary.”