“It would ruin me,” Quark said weakly, suddenly realizing he was no longer cold.

“Yeah, it might,” Ro agreed, a small smile playing on her lips. “But I think you could stand a little ruining.”

“Devil woman.”

“Troll.”

“Kira to Lieutenant Ro.”

Quark closed his eyes and buried his head in his hands. There’s just no justice…

Ro shrugged apologetically and touched her combadge. “Go ahead, Colonel.”

“I need you on level ten. Section 65, conference room four.”

“The Cardassians.” Instantly, Ro was on her feet, brushing dirt off her clothes. “I’ll be right there. Ro out.” She turned to Quark. “Sorry, but duty calls. Computer, end program.”

Earth’s Pacific Northwest forest dissolved instantly, leaving Quark sitting on the hard holosuite floor, still wrapped in a blanket. Ro hollered her regrets for the abbreviated evening as she exited the room. He waved back absently, but remained seated on the floor for some time, trying to recapture the moment that the colonel had thoughtlessly extinguished.

From the beginning, Ro knew that putting Cardassians and Bajorans together on Deep Space 9 would be akin to a Rakantha typhoon. It might start off slow, but once the air masses collided, the tidal waves would start. The first tidal wave came ashore tonight,she thought, hoping this would be a sprinkle as opposed to a downpour. She had expected the storm front before now, but who was she to complain about a few extra days of quiet?

Traversing back corridors, an engineering turbolift, and not bothering to strip off her wetsuit, Ro reached the conference room in a matter of minutes. Kira, to avoid contaminating the crime scene, waited in the anteroom with Sergeant Shul, who ran security’s delta shift. Two corporals stood posted outside the conference room doors.

Being prepared for the worst, Ro was initially grateful she wasn’t dealing with a murder. On another level, the careful staging of what she saw inside the conference room was almost as chilling. Whoever, whatever did this, might well be capable of murder. She suspected the sick mind she now contended with would be vain enough to show off a few more times before blood was shed, giving Ro time to smoke out the culprit.

Ro performed a cursory inventory, looking for obvious clues, but didn’t observe anything incongruent; even in the dimmed lights, she could see the conference room had been divvied up by delegation and individual, with each spot at the table corresponding to an identifying nameplate, indicating who sat in what chair. The Bajoran team lined one side of the table, with Minister Asarem seated in the center of her group; the Cardassian team lined the other, Ambassador Lang being seated in the spot directly across from Minister Asarem. Nothing unusual rested on the table either: neat collections of padds, writing styluses, maps and several legal tomes, etched with Bajoran pictographs. All the items appeared to be consistent with the work underway.

Whoever defaced the flag had used a natural flame of some sort, Ro guessed; the singed fabric edges had too much fraying to have been caused by a precision laser instrument such as an engineering drill or a surgical scalpel. And a beam weapon would have set off an alarm. The lines burned over the crest of the Cardassian Union followed an artful pattern, likely an Old Bajoran rune, though Ro wasn’t sure which one. She looked over at Kira, who appeared to be studying the same insignia.

“I think it means ‘war.’ From one of the religious texts, I believe,” Kira said.

After a tricorder scan of the flag proved inconclusive, Ro ordered Shul to comb every centimeter, every wall, keypad and hallway for evidence. No one was to touch anything. She didn’t even allow Kira to sit until she’d scanned the chair for hair and fiber samples. Taking a seat beside Kira, Ro had her recite the sequence of events leading up to the discovery of the violated conference room. Unfortunately, Kira’s experiences didn’t cast any light on who might be responsible for the vandalism. The cleaning personnel Kira had run into as she entered had already been found and questioned by Shul. They claimed not to have seen or heard anything unusual.

“Whoever did this is playing mind games with the Cardassians,” Kira concluded. “Now that I think about it, even the rune has layered meaning. It comes out of the Book of Victoryfrom the First Republic. A rallying symbol. A symbol of righteous indignation that warriors would paint on their foreheads in the blood of their fallen comrades. Whoever did this wanted the message to have the narrowest of interpretations.”

“But it was done quietly, in a clandestine fashion where the public won’t see or find out about it. Quite an effort for such a small audience,” Ro observed. “No chance of a rally when the propaganda warfare is invisible.”

“I’ve reviewed the checkpoint logs. No one has been in or out of this area that hasn’t been cleared through channels,” Kira said, puzzled. “Is it possible someone transported this flag in?”

“The flag, maybe, but the knife through the chair more or less indicates that our vandal was in the room. The stabbing angle, the irregular entry. Maybe the vandal transported in and out from one of the docked ships. I’ll check our transporter logs and request the logs of every ship in the vicinity.” Ro repeatedly ran her eyes over the chair, the flag, the knife, hoping that she’d find a new piece of information.

“Will you brief Ambassador Lang?”

Ro nodded. “I’ll give her all the forensic analyses as well. There’s always the outside possibility that someone within her group did this. Kind of a reverse psychology approach from a Cardassian who wants to prevent the talks from succeeding.” She had witnessed firsthand the reluctance among Macet’s men to turn in their weapons. If the lack of progress in the talks had frustrated any one of them, Ro could envision a Cardassian sending a symbolic warning. The rune could have been pulled out of the station database. Hardly classified material.

“I’ll sit in on the talks tomorrow,” Kira said finally. “Ambassador Lang needs to know that she has our official support. If the culprit is on either side, it might not hurt to observe the parties involved.”

Letting whoever it was know that they were being watched might not be a bad idea either,Ro thought. “Recommend we place a gag order on all Militia and diplomatic personnel. This incident shouldn’t be reported anywhere outside the highest-ranking officials and those it impacts directly. From now on, information is on a need-to-know basis. We don’t want to encourage our terrorist by providing publicity.”

Kira nodded her approval. “You classify the report and briefings. I’ll notify Admiral Akaar and the first minister.”

Imagining how ratcheting up the tension on the station with rumor would complicate security matters, Ro hoped that senior staff would understand this wasn’t an order to be second-guessed. If she discovered any in her purview that violated her declared policy, strict disciplinary measures would be taken. She felt grateful she had a commanding officer that put the interests of the job first, one who wasn’t jostling for political influence or courting popularity. She walked Kira to the door. The colonel paused, resting a hand on the door frame. Since they had dispensed with business, Ro guessed what Kira might still have on her mind.

“I take it you were in the holosuite when I paged you,” she asked, with a bemused half-smile.

“Windsurfing,” she affirmed. “With Quark.”

“And he—”

“Hated it.”

“Are you two—” Kira began, then cut herself off. “On second thought, belay that. I don’t want to know.” The colonel shook her head as she left the conference room.

Walking the room’s perimeter, Ro mapped out an investigation strategy in her head and then sent her deputies back to the office to retrieve the equipment they’d need. While she waited, she sat down in a chair across the table from the vandalized one, rested her elbows on the table, threaded her fingers together, meditationlike, and reexamined the room.