Star Trek: DS9: The Never-Ending Sacrifice Read online

  Six

  The war stuttered on, corrosive and unwinnable, and during the winter of that year, the Maquis attacked more than a dozen colony worlds in the DMZ. Yet Meya Rejal remained defiant. She had waited a long time for power, and she did not intend to relinquish it without a fight. She knew that her weak point was her reliance on the military; she needed them to fight the war and to keep food, water, and other essential supplies moving around the Union. But her dependence on them infuriated her allies in the civilian political bodies. Where was the new Cardassia she had promised? Why were the guls still so powerful? Rejal needed to break with them somehow. Changing the constitution had failed to control them as a body. She would have to break them one by one.

  As winter took hold of the capital city, a series of public scandals—some genuine, some entirely contrived—kept the population gripped. The ’casts were full of the latest legate caught bringing the family name into disrepute. The Cardassian people fell on the stories like honge upon fresh meat. It was a welcome distraction from the rationing, the queues, the stream of young soldiers returning broken from the front. It felt good to see somebody punished. Why not the rich and the mighty? A moralistic mood gripped the Union; family values were back in fashion. Privately, Rejal congratulated herself on her success, on finally making public opinion work in her favor. And then, by chance rather than her own connivance, Rejal found herself placed to destroy the most powerful gul of all: her own senior military adviser, Skrain Dukat.

  Rugal first heard the name Tora Ziyal during a long day shift spent at the beck and call of his immediate superior, Nelita. Rugal had begun training as a nurse at the start of the autumn, and Nelita believed that there were only two important things that Rugal needed to learn. First of all, he should obey everything she said. Immediately. Second, he should under no circumstance even think of sitting down. Medical knowledge came a long way below all this. Halfway through his shift, Rugal took his twenty-metric break and, as usual, slipped up onto the roof for some fresh air. Even in the winter months he went outside, preferring the cold to the dank interior of west Torr’s only free hospital.

  Two of the nursing staff were up there already, sharing a bag of hot canka nuts and swapping gossip. They acknowledged Rugal’s arrival with a nod, but they didn’t speak to him. He kept a deferential distance. These two were qualified, he was not, and when you were this far down the Cardassian hierarchy, the slightest degree of superiority mattered vastly. Rugal leaned back against the wall, took out a packet of dried leya fruit, and started eating as quickly as he could. Nelita had not yet let him take more than twelve and a half metrics of his break.

  “So what’s her name?” one of the pair said to the other.

  “Tora Ziyal. Can you believe it?”

  It was the Bajoran-sounding family name that made Rugal pay attention. Tora Ziyal (it turned out) was the daughter of a senior military adviser to the government (they didn’t say his name), but not his real daughter.

  “It’s wrong,” said one, furiously breathing out steam from her mouthful of hot nuts. “Nobody else gets to parade their bastards around. I don’t see why he should get away with it just because he’s in with the government. Aren’t things supposed to be different now?”

  “So you’d think.” Her friend’s face screwed up in distaste. “Is it true she’s a half-breed?”

  Rugal didn’t hear the answer to this because at that moment his wrist comm lit up red. He was wanted back inside. “Better get down there,” one of the pair said, not unkindly. “Nelita will throw you in the river if you keep her hanging around.”

  Rugal carefully tucked away what remained of his leya slices and rushed back down to work. Throughout the rest of the day, however, he pondered this Tora Ziyal. A half-breed? It didn’t take much to guess what the other half was; not only was there the family name to go by, there was also his colleagues’ disgust. Which other vassal planet stirred up such revulsion in ordinary Cardassians? He went home that evening intent on learning more about Tora Ziyal.

  He was fortunate to be sharing rooms with one of the best sources of information on Cardassia Prime. Arric was addicted to the ’casts. He would watch anything: holo-documentaries with titles like “Great Guls and Legates” and “Heroes Against the Federation”; state news of highly doubtful content; and every single gossip channel he could get without having to pay.

  When Rugal brought up the topic, Arric was busy assembling his daughter’s supper. There were five of them living in this space at the moment: Arric and Serna and their little girl, Tela; Rugal; and another female called Elat who worked with Serna cleaning a big office building in Barvonok. Rugal still hoped that Penelya would eventually be able to come and join them here. Perhaps once she had passed her first set of exams, Mikor might decide she had earned some freedom and give her formal permission to change her address. Rugal hated to think of her stuck all the way out in Coranum by herself. There wasn’t much room here, but it was friendly and the rations for four adults combined stretched further than you would expect. With a fifth adult’s rations, they could live like legates.

  “Of course I’ve heard of Tora Ziyal,” Arric said. “She turned up on Prime weeks ago. She’s Gul Dukat’s daughter.” He stopped stirring and frowned at his friend. “Are you all right?”

  Gul Dukat. The man was inescapable. “I’m fine,” Rugal said. “Go on.”

  “It’s been everywhere. I keep telling you to spend less time reading broadsheets and more watching the ’casts—you find out more about what’s going on in politics that way. She’s half Bajoran...” Arric paused for a moment, spoon in hand, contemplating what that might mean. “I suppose you have to feel sorry for her. I can’t imagine she’s having much fun with the bigots up in Paldar. But it’s hard to feel sorry for Dukat—he’s the worst product of our narrow-minded militarism.” Arric laughed. “That’s more like how I used to talk, isn’t it? Look, I’ve got to give this to Tela. Put channel six on—they run an item about Tora Ziyal and Gul Dukat and how it means the end of civilization as we know it at least once an hour. That’ll tell you more than you need to know. They’ve even been following her around the capital city the last week or so.”

  Rugal cleared the couch of assorted shoes, laundry, and lessonpadds, stretched out, and put on channel six. Within fifteen metrics, as Arric promised, there was something about Tora Ziyal. Ten metrics after that, Rugal had become so angry that he had to turn it off. He went back to the news, which was reporting triumphs against the Klingons in the Hagal system and projecting higher than average year-end figures for the manufacturing sector. The newsreader had her eyes down, which everyone knew was intended to signal that what she was saying was a pack of lies. Rugal abandoned any attempt to work out what was really going on and went to make a pot of redleaf tea. He was thinking about Tora Ziyal. She was the daughter of the man who had ruined his family—both his families—but she was Bajoran, like him. He was sure Arric was right and that she was not being made welcome on Cardassia. He sympathized with this young woman, stuck among strangers, far away from her own kind.

  The tap gave out a stutter and nothing else. Rugal sighed. He grabbed the big bottle by the sink, shouted to Arric that he was going out, and ran out into the cold evening down the street to the public pump. There was a queue of five ahead of him, stamping feet, rubbing hands, and grumbling. As he stood waiting, Rugal wondered how much of all this business was Rejal’s doing. It would certainly suit her to see Dukat’s influence reduced. Did Kotan know anything about it? Had he given his approval? Kotan would also like to see Dukat’s reputation in ruins. But would he do that at this poor girl’s expense? By the time he got to the front of the queue, Rugal had convinced himself that Kotan was to blame. And he had determined to find out more about Tora Ziyal.

  Rugal balanced the bottle under the pump and keyed in his ration code to activate the flow of water. The key-panel lit up, briefly, and then went dead. A collective groan went up in the queue behind him. Rugal gave
it a thump—sometimes that worked, but not this time. “They said they’d come and fix it,” the next person along said mournfully. “They were supposed to be here last month.”

  Rugal tapped the barrel. It gave a dull sound. There was plenty of water in there, if they could only get at it. He looked at the faces around him—cold, tired, dispirited—and he found himself thinking of Geleth, going mad with thirst in the desert, while the Assembly tried to summon up enough interest to build a new pipeline to Anaret. “We’re not waiting any longer,” Rugal said. “We can do this ourselves. This casing isn’t thick. Does anyone have anything sharp?”

  Kotan Pa’Dar was very well informed about Tora Ziyal. He had heard all about her the evening of her arrival on Cardassia Prime. But his opinion on the subject was much more complicated than his son assumed.

  Once a week, Kotan and Alon Ghemor met for dinner at the Civilian Assembly Hall. The hall was a huge burnished dome in the heart of the Tarlak sector; the restaurant that served the Assembly members took up the top floor of the building, and it revolved gently, so that the view out was always in the process of changing. It was best at night: to the north one could see the golden palaces crowning the hill of Coranum; to the southeast, the silver-blue light show pulsing across the surface of the Natural History Museum; to the south and west, the sheer steel towers of Barvonok, the Union’s counting houses. Kotan had always longed to bring Rugal here and show him the jeweled city, but the boy had Geleth’s contempt for ostentation, not to mention that unfortunate tendency to blurt out whatever he was thinking. A trip here would have to wait, but Kotan was ready for the long haul. Kotan’s whole life had been a test of his staying power.

  Even in these slender days, it was no hardship coming here. The food was a marvel. Yet Alon had been sighing over his plate of elta leaves stuffed with tuli fish ever since it had been brought out to him.

  “I’ve had enough,” Alon said at last. Kotan guessed he wasn’t talking about his dinner, since Alon immediately shoved a forkful of leaves into his mouth. Through them, he said, “This has been the worst week of my life.”

  Kotan nodded his understanding. At the start of the week, the last three trials of those former high-ranking Obsidian Order agents arrested for crimes against the new Cardassia had drawn to a conclusion. Their executions had been conducted at sunrise.

  “Twenty-seven,” Alon said bitterly. “Twenty-seven of my former colleagues. Do you know what they call me at the Bureau these days? The Great Leveler.”

  “It was all necessary,” Kotan said, but without the enthusiasm to carry it off.

  “I wish I could believe that.” Alon took a huge gulp of kanar. “If this was all really delivering a new Cardassia, I might be able to stomach it. But it hasn’t, and it won’t. The Bureau’s nothing but a rumor mill these days. When we’re not spying on legates and their whores, we’re faking up holo-images of the same. What does that possibly do for Cardassia? Who’s served by that?” He drained his glass. “She won’t let me do anything more substantial. She doesn’t trust me—can’t trust me, not with my name. Whenever I speak, she hears the whisper of Tekeny.”

  “I know it’s been difficult, but we have to stay hopeful. What else can we do? There’s still a faint chance that Meya can make something of all this.”

  “Well, she can do it without me.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m finished. I’m resigning. Tomorrow morning. I’m done.”

  “Leave the Bureau?” Kotan sat back in dismay. “You can’t do that! What would the Bureau do without you? When it comes to that, what in the name of Tret Akleen himself would you do with yourself?”

  Alon finished his plate with relish. “I’m going offworld. I’ve bought an estate in the Peyit system. I’m going to drink kanar all day and write a set of scurrilous memoirs that no one will dare publish. If I’m going to waste my life, I might as well enjoy myself doing it.”

  “But, Alon! All your talent! And what about your duty? We have a duty to see this through—”

  “We have to face facts, Kotan. We lost. I’m still not sure how it happened, but we lost. This was going to be the golden age—do you remember? A new Cardassia. Do you remember how we’d talk about what we’d do when we got into power? Reform, and change, a peaceful, prosperous nation with Tekeny at its head, father to us all... And what do we have instead? Outbreaks of yatik fever, a war with the Klingon Empire that we cannot and will not win, and Skrain Dukat. What happened? How did it all fall apart? Why does the scum always rise to the top? Why aren’t good intentions enough? For the life of me, Kotan, I’ll never understand it.” He pushed his plate away with a clatter.

  Kotan glanced around the dining room. Before the war, in any given week, all Cardassia’s political elite passed through the doors of this place. You had to be seen here. It was where one picked up gossip and news: who was falling, who was flying. Now the place had a subdued air, as if the party had ended and only the most dogged were hanging around to see what the dawn would bring. At least it meant that there was nobody around to see the director of the Intelligence Bureau crying into his kanar.

  “We shouldn’t lose heart, Alon. There’s still a chance that we can create something better. What we need is to end this war as quickly as possible, even it means all but defeat—”

  Alon shook his head. “Dukat would never allow it.”

  “He’s not invincible. And the war can’t last forever. We can’t sustain it—there’s no public will for it and there certainly aren’t the resources. One small victory, that’s all Meya needs, and then she’ll have saved face enough to sue for peace and shed Dukat like she’s sloughing off scales. I bet you our next dinner that’s what happens.”

  “I’d like to think you’re right. But I don’t believe we’ll see even one small victory. And if it does by some miracle happen, it will be the guls that take the credit, not Meya.” Alon lowered his voice. “She’s already putting out peace feelers. I don’t think she cares about saving face any longer.” He sighed. “I lie awake at night wondering where this is going to end. If this government falls, what will happen? Who will take its place? I’m afraid it might be something worse.”

  “Who knows—it might even be you and me. We’re what passes for the opposition. Imagine it—Alon Ghemor, leader of the Cardassian Union.”

  Alon snorted. “The Cardassian Union would have to be desperate. Anyway, the first thing I’d do is get my uncle back. Tekeny Ghemor, leader of the Cardassian Union. It has a much better ring to it.”

  Kotan tipped his glass forward to tap it against Alon’s. “I’ll drink to that.”

  A more cheerful mood descended upon them. Alon ate with more pleasure. Kotan watched him carefully, trying to decide his next step. His aim was to get to the end of this dinner with Alon’s mind changed, and this whole madness of resignation forgotten. The idea of losing his friend from the capital was appalling; he felt lonely just at the thought. Surely he could think of a way to persuade Alon to stay? Even if he could no longer remain at the Bureau, he ought not to quit the political scene completely. Duty, at least, should keep them going, even if there was little promise of reward.

  Their next course arrived, a meticulously constructed dish of breast of petha resting on a bed of temet roots. They had barely finished admiring the artistry when the doors swung open and Erek Rhemet strode in, a crowd of junior officials from the Justice Ministry following in his wake. Alon peered at the party balefully. “Erek’s in remarkably good form tonight. You’d never guess the government was on its knees. Makes you wonder what’s going on. Oh well, not my problem any longer.”

  Rhemet didn’t keep them in suspense. The moment he saw them he waved and came over to their table. “Gentlemen,” he cried, calling to the servitor to open a fresh bottle of kanar, “at last we have something to celebrate!”

  Kotan glanced across the table at Alon. He looked about ready to take his knife to something other than the poultry. Rhemet’s bonhomie had been b
earable while they had all been dissidents. In power, it had transformed disagreeably into self-satisfaction, particularly once Kotan and Alon had been sidelined from the Five. “Go on,” Kotan sighed. “Tell us what’s happened.”

  Rhemet leaned forward, putting one elbow on the table, as if to draw them into his confidence. Then he boomed, “Dukat! We’ve got him, the slithering psychopath! He won’t get out of this one!”

  Heads turned. Whispering began. Alon tapped impatiently on the table with his knife. “I’m still none the wiser, Erek.”

  “A daughter! He’s turned up with a long-lost daughter in tow!”

  Alon winced and averted his eyes. “I must be missing something,” Kotan said frostily. “Isn’t the return of a missing child good news?”

  The people around Rhemet nodded frantically. “Very good!”

  “Best news since Enabran Tain got himself killed!”

  “I can’t believe he’s had the nerve to bring her back to Prime, never mind the capital. Athra must be furious with him—he’s even got the girl in the house!”

  “Did you hear what he was calling her?” another added. “Tora Ziyal.”

  There was a collective grimace. “I gather from her name she’s not entirely Cardassian?” Alon said.

  “A half-breed and a bastard,” one of them confirmed cheerfully.

  Erek Rhemet seemed to have realized his misstep. With one eye on Kotan, he said carefully, “The girl’s mother was Bajoran, you see, one of Dukat’s whores, I should think. Nothing at all like your own particular circumstances, Kotan. Besides, you must be pleased to see Dukat in this position, surely?”

  “One would think so,” Kotan replied pleasantly. Alon grimaced, but Erek decided it was better to be agreed with than to be found at fault. “Exactly! A most satisfactory revenge, I’d say if I were you. And exactly what poor Meya needs at the moment—it’ll be all over the screens tomorrow, and I bet the guls won’t be so self-satisfied for a while! Well, I’ll leave the two of you to your dinner. Have this bottle on me.”