“I know, I know,” Kira said. Kasidy had asked her several times in the past few months to go see the new house. Kira had always said that she would, but so far that had not happened, and she really did not know why. The station and all the duties required of her certainly filled much of her time, particularly with Commander Vaughn now off in the Gamma Quadrant, but she realized that it also must be something other than that. To Kasidy, she said, “It’s been a long time since I played in the snow.”

“You really should visit, Nerys,” Kasidy said again. She seemed tired to Kira. “I’d love to see you.”

“I know, I will,” Kira said. “When I can. In the meantime, though, don’t worry about me; I’m fine.”

“I know you’re not fine,” Kasidy said.

“I am,” Kira insisted. “I won’t tell you I’m happy or even indifferent about the Attainder,” she explained, “but I’m dealing with it. And there’s really nothing more they can do to me, no matter what happens in the Vedek Assembly. I still have faith, Kas. Don’t underestimate the power of that.” She found it awkward to have this conversation with Kasidy; after all, Kira’s gods had apparently taken Kas’s husband from her, at least for now. And maybe, it occurred to her, that was one of the other reasons Kira had not visited Bajor.

“All right,” Kasidy said. “But this still worries me.”

It worries me too,Kira thought, though not for the same reasons it worried Kas. Kira could handle the personal consequences of having uploaded the Ohalu text, but the possibility that there might be a division within the Vedek Assembly troubled her. Kira remembered the infighting that had occurred in the provisional government after the Occupation, and how it had weakened her people and stymied their progress. A spiritual rift, though, would be worse than that. The Bajoran faith had seen the people through the worst period in their history, had made them strong and seen them come through the fire united. A religious schism could fracture that unity.

“Kas, please, don’t worry about me,” Kira implored. “I really am fine. The only thing I want you concentrating on is that little baby you’re going to have in a couple of months.”

“Well, there’s not much chance of me forgetting that,” Kasidy said in a funny, exaggerated way. “I’ll talk to you again soon, Nerys.”

“Okay,” Kira said. “Bye, Kas.” The companel screen went blank for an instant, and then the symbol of Bajor appeared on it. Kira reached forward and deactivated the panel with a touch; it chirped and winked off. She sat and thought for a moment, then stood up and walked to the doors of her office, but stopped before they opened. She had been headed to speak with Admiral Akaar, but just what would she say to him? That she had concerns that some of her people might take actions that threatened Bajor’s admittance to the Federation? Kira did not even know for sure that the presence of Akaar and Councillor zh’Thane on the station had anything to do with that—except that Kira had been around Starfleet long enough to know that they did not leave their admirals sitting around somewhere for no reason, and she was sure the same was true of the Federation Council and their members. What she needed to do—what she would do—would be to meet with the admiral and finally determine what he was doing here.

And what if heis here to address Bajoran membership in the Federation?she thought as she returned to her desk. Not for the first time, she wondered what the near future would bring for her people. Three years ago, when Bajor had been on the brink of entering the Federation, Kira had not only come to accept the inevitability of the event, but to embrace it as the positive step forward it would be for Bajorans. Now, she found herself worried that it would not happen.

As Kira understood it, no restrictions existed with regard to the spiritual beliefs of Federation worlds. Certainly, member planets were not required to practice only a single religion. But if a schism had developed in the Vedek Assembly, and if it widened enough to threaten the peace and unity of the Bajoran people, what then? Would a population splintered by religious strife be permitted to join the Federation? And even apart from that, what would it mean for her people?

Kira did not know, and she hoped she never would.

21

Ezri Dax sat in the command chair on Defiant’s bridge and stared in amazement at the main viewscreen. She had never witnessed anything like this. The lone moon circling the planet of the Vahni Vahltupali had suddenly and inexplicably shattered.

Silence gripped the crew. Just moments before, the bridge had been full of sound and motion, the ship struck by something and propelled from its orbit. The crew had been thrown about, systems had fallen offline, and Defianthad careened toward the planet below. Only Nog’s ability to bring flight control back up quickly, and Prynn’s superior piloting skills, had saved the ship. Now, though, they all sat numb, transfixed by the sight of tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands, of fragments hurtling through space, the remnants of what had just been a dense, inert lunar body.

Ezri gaped at the scene, her mind working to make sense of what she saw, trying to find a context that would make it seem real. Instead, it felt as though she were trapped in some horrible holosuite program. And then a memory—an echoof a memory—reverberated in her thoughts. Praxis,it came to her, and she knew the recollection spilled from another lifetime. Curzon,she thought, though which host it had been mattered less than the content of the old thought: the Klingon moon, half of it blown out into space by an industrial accident. The massive Klingon energy-production facility on the moon had failed disastrously, the result of a tragic miscalculation. But the Vahni moon had been desolate, an empty, lifeless body.

On the viewscreen, masses of debris tore through space, and a voice, another echo— Audrid, maybe, or Jadzia—resonated in her mind: Do something.She stood up and went over to the sciences station, pulling her eyes from the viewer. Shar looked up at her as she approached, an expression of appalled disbelief on his face. His antennae appeared to recede a bit, as though retreating from the image before him. “Shar,” she said, “I need you to chart the courses of the biggest pieces.” Pieces,she thought. Of amoon. The words did not fit together. “Anything that could cause damage on the planet.” On the main viewer, it appeared as though most of the moon had been pulverized, leaving only dust and small fragments that would burn up in the planet’s atmosphere, but there also looked to be a number of sizable pieces left.

“Yes, sir,” Shar said, and he turned to his console.

Ezri moved across the bridge to the tactical station. Ensign Merimark worked her controls, a silver earpiece protruding from her left ear. Ezri put her hand on the young ensign’s shoulder. After a moment, she removed the earpiece and said, “We’ve heard from eighteen of our people on the surface, counting Commander Vaughn.”

“Is anybody hurt?” Ezri asked.

“Some of them are reporting injuries, but nothing serious,” Merimark said. “They all want to stay on the planet to assist the Vahni.” The ensign consulted her panel again, then said, “Three of the crew are still unaccounted for—Bowers, T’rb, and Roness—but two of them may have been the ones with Commander Vaughn.”

“Try to keep reaching them, Kaitlin,” Ezri told her. “Inform the others that they can stay on the planet for now.”