She stepped back away from the conference table and gathered her thoughts. She paced the length of the room, searching for an appropriate way to respond to Akaar’s question. “Yes,” she said at last. “There’s understandably been an impact.” Understandable, because there was only so much food and medicine on Bajor, only so many resources.

But there’s more to it than that,Kira thought. Her experiences with the Cardassians after the Occupation were very different from those of most Bajorans. For most of her people, their last contact with the Cardassians had been during the Occupation itself. And while the people of Bajor could be merciful, and while their government had agreed not only to help organize relief efforts but to contribute their own food and medicine and other necessities to Cardassia, many seemed to support the measures with great reluctance. And there were even those Bajorans who opposed the humanitarian efforts.

“Colonel?”

Kira turned at the far end of the room. “Yes, there’s been an impact,” she repeated. “There’ve been fewer ships, fewer supplies, going to Cardassia from Bajor since we’ve been dealing with the Europani crisis. But we’re still continuing to coordinate the Cardassian relief effort, with supplies being provided by other worlds.” The admiral said nothing in response, and Kira suspected that he wanted her to say more. But there was nothing more she wanted to say about it.

Looking toward Akaar from where she now stood, with the conference table no longer between herself and the windows, Kira saw a large portion of Deep Space 9 laid out below Mjolnir.She allowed her gaze to sweep along the arc of the station’s outer ring, from which the docking pylons emerged like the impossibly tall towers of a great city. Her eyes traced the shape of the station around the outer ring to a crossover bridge, and from there, into the habitat ring and the central core. Light shined from ports throughout the structure, testament to the thousands who worked and lived here. The oval windows encircling the Promenade glowed brightly, and she could even discern movement within.

Atop the upper core sat the operations module, and visible to one side was a window in Kira’s office. She recalled looking out this morning at the ships arrayed around the station, and then she thought about When the Prophets Cried.Her fanciful notion that Mjolnirmight be bringing another Orb back to Bajor returned to her, and as quickly as that daydream had occurred to her earlier, it now abandoned her completely. She knew that none of the sacred artifacts were aboard. And still, she could not escape the feeling that something significant was coming to Bajor—something more than a taciturn Starfleet admiral.

And then suddenly Kira knew. Mjolnir wasbringing something to Bajor. She regarded Akaar, who sat mutely observing her. She said nothing, and after a moment, the admiral interrupted the silence.

“Colonel Kira,” he said, using her name for the first time since asking her identity in the receiving bay. “How do you like commanding Deep Space 9?”

Kira smiled. She could not be certain, but she thought Akaar might have seen her come to the realization. She walked back to her chair and sat down again at the conference table. The admiral wanted to know about her running the station, and so she told him. She spoke for an hour about the challenges of command, about the responsibilities of leadership, about the gratification of striding confidently into the future, all the while thinking about just what that future would hold for her people.

It was not an Orb of the Prophets that was headed to Bajor, she had realized. It was the Federation.

3

The springball struck the front wall high in the white oval. A short, high-pitched bell confirmed the score as the ball rebounded toward the left rear corner of the court. Asarem Wadeen sprinted across the floor, the rubber soles of her sports shoes squeaking on the black hardwood as she changed direction. She instinctively gauged the path and speed of the ball, and realized she would not reach it with a normal effort. At the last moment, she lunged, just managing to backhand the ball before it bounced on the floor a second time. She twisted as her momentum carried her hard into the side wall, her left shoulder absorbing the brunt of the impact with a thump that reverberated in the enclosed court. Recovering quickly, she pushed away from the wall and back toward the center of the floor. She crouched on the balls of her feet, her weight forward, her racquet swung back to a forehand position, primed to keep her solitaire volley going. But two deep rings told her that her return shot had gone wide, hitting the front wall beyond the outer foul line.

Asarem straightened and caught the ball in her gloved left hand as it bounced back to her. She could easily have backhanded the ball again and continued playing, but even warming up by herself, she liked to follow the rules the same way as when pitted against an opponent. It better prepared her for games, she felt, both physically and mentally.

Slipping her fingers from the glovelike grip of her racquet, Asarem let it dangle from the cord circling her wrist. She tugged the scarlet gloves from her hands, then unfastened the chin strap of her helmet. Beads of perspiration ran from her hairline down the sides of her face. Despite the coolness of the weather outside—the winter months had just begun, though the temperature never dipped too low here in Ashalla—the air in the court had grown close and warm. Her padded springball uniform, also scarlet, covered her from neck to ankles and offered no relief from the heat, although she would never play the full-contact sport without it. She believed herself a tough competitor, toned and fast, but at just a dozen centimeters past a meter and a half; many of her opponents stood a head taller—or more—than she did. She would never reject a challenge, but neither would she play unprepared or unprotected.

Asarem removed her helmet and cradled it upside down in the crook of her arm, then dropped her gloves and the springball inside it. She wiped the perspiration from her face and forehead with the back of her hand, and headed to the back of the court. Suspended from the cord around her wrist, her racquet swayed back and forth, tapping against her leg as she walked. At the rear of the court, beside the closed entryway, a storage compartment sat recessed into the wall. Asarem poked a finger through the hole in the transparent door of the compartment and pulled it open, its hinges creaking as she did so. She set the helmet down inside and retrieved a small gold locket strung on a delicate, matching chain. Holding the locket flat on her fingers, the chain hanging down, she slid the front panel aside with her thumb to reveal a timepiece within.

It was nearly half past the hour. He’s late,she thought. Again.She shook her head slowly from side to side, her feelings a mixture of exasperation and disbelief. In the five and a half years she had served with Shakaar Edon in the Bajoran government, she had never known him to be late—had never even heard of him being late—for a single appointment. And yet this was the third time in a month that he had kept her waiting.

Asarem closed the locket, then reached into the compartment and placed it in her helmet. She slipped the cord of the racquet from her wrist, wondering what might have caused Shakaar to neglect their meeting. Though she had been looking forward to playing springball—the first minister usually gave her a good contest—she did not mind missing a game. But this meeting was to have been far more than that. In particular, they had planned to discuss Bajor’s renewed petition for membership in the United Federation of Planets; Starfleet’s Admiral Akaar was due to arrive soon, and—