After a long time, she turned a blind corner where the passageway widened and she was able to walk upright at last, her knees and spine creaking a little as she rose to her full height. Kira was small in stature, probably the smallest person of any who used these burrows, but the northwest entrance tunnel still felt claustrophobic to her. She had often wondered how some of the larger men managed to tolerate the press of rock all around them—to say nothing of the darkness. She was nearly to her cell’s main hideout now, the place where they lived, ate, slept, bathed, and plotted together. Kira had always thought of it as a warren or a den; it was rough and sometimes depressing, but it was home. For now, anyway.

“Shakaar!” She called out to the leader of her cell as she came into the primary chamber of the Shakaar cell’s camp. “Has Bestram checked in?”

Mobara was the only member of the cell in the primary chamber, working on a piece of equipment at a table in the main tunnel, near where the cell’s comm system was usually kept. Lupaza and Furel were back in Dahkur, where they had been visiting some friends, and nobody had heard from them in days; it was part of the reason Kira had wanted to go back into Dahkur with Bestram, to ensure that they were all right. Mobara put down his tools and began to relieve Kira of the equipment she carried, stopping to examine a tricorder. “Shakaar told you not to go out, Nerys,” Mobara said absently, turning the tricorder over in his hands, already laying out a plan for how he would put it to use.

“I know, but—”

Shakaar emerged from another of the tunnels, with Gantt just behind him. “Nerys—I told you not to go out!”

“I know, but—Bestram, have you heard from him?” She was too anxious about the missing young cell member to argue with Shakaar about going out.

Shakaar looked tired. “I haven’t heard anything,” he said, wiping his face with one of his rawboned hands. He had been awake for at least two days and nights, manning the long-range comm system, fielding the reports that were coming in from all over the planet. He looked to Mobara, who had been attending to the shortwave system. “Did you hear from him?”

“I didn’t,” Mobara said, and turned to Kira once more. “Do you think he could have been behind you?”

Kira shook her head. “No, I’m sure he wasn’t. He took off in another direction. Three soldiers came after me, the rest followed him.” She took a breath. “I think he was making for the ravine, so maybe he’ll come in by the western route.”

Shakaar nodded, but his expression was grave. The knots of tension in Kira’s stomach tightened as she realized that if Bestram had taken the western route, he would have beaten her here by a healthy margin. He’d either taken cover somewhere else, or—

Or he didn’t. Kira took another breath, tried to think of something she could say or do to sound encouraging, but nothing came to mind.

“So they found you,” Mobara said.

“Yes,” Kira said. “But what were we going to do? We’ll starve in here. We have to be able to get to the village for supplies—”

“We’ll do that when it becomes absolutely necessary,” Shakaar said firmly, “and after we’ve rigged a way to transmit false life signs, or some kind of a shielding device…”

“I’m working on one right now,” Mobara said. “It should be ready within a week. If you and Bestram had just waited to speak to us about this…” His tone was uncharacteristically scolding.

Kira said nothing, feeling mildly defensive, but mostly afraid for Bestram. She’d feel responsible if he didn’t come back, even if it washis idea to go out in the first place. But why, then, had she been able to go out by herself earlier this week, with no sign of a Cardassian anywhere? When she’d told Bestram about it, he’d been eager to sneak out past Shakaar, believing the enemy patrols had been redeployed elsewhere. But he was wrong. The Cardassians had found them anyway.

Gantt spoke up in a low voice. “We’ve gotten more bad news since you’ve been gone,” the stoic medic informed her. “The comm chatter says Li Nalas has been killed.” Stunned, Kira looked to Shakaar for confirmation.

“Is it true?” she asked him.

Shakaar’s voice was solemn. “It’s what they’re saying on the comm—that his entire outfit was wiped out three days ago, somewhere in the outback.”

This was the fifth report they’d gotten of a cell being taken out completely. The cells in Jalanda, Renday, and Elemspur were also said to be gone—not a single member left.

Shakaar continued. “There was a report…someone claims that Jaro Essa is confirming he heard it was a new Cardassian detection grid.”

“Is that what’s taking down the raiders?” Mobara wanted to know.

Again, Kira looked to Shakaar. She hadn’t heard anything about raiders. He looked as surprised as she did.

“The Kohn-Ma cell have lost five of their aircraft,” Mobara explained. “Five of their men.That’s more than half their cell.”

“When did you hear that?” Kira asked with some urgency. She had become friendly with one of the Kohn-Ma cell members…

“I heard it an hour ago, from Tahna Los,” Mobara said. “The rest of the Kohn-Ma are still in the city, and Tahna put in a call to me to see if we were still here.”

“I heard reports of other raiders being shot down, as well,” Shakaar said, his voice troubled. “But I didn’t hear that Jaro Essa said anything about it…. I thought it might be another of their propaganda plants…”

“We shouldn’t take any chances,” Gantt said.

Shakaar nodded. “We won’t be launching any of our own raiders anytime soon. At least, not before we know what happened with the Kohn-Ma’s ships,” Shakaar said.

“So what should we do?” Kira asked. It wasn’t enough for her to sit here and listen to all the frantic gossip coming from the comm. She wanted to act—to get outside and confirm what was happening.

“We’ll do nothing until we’ve gotten more information. First thing, we wait for Bestram. We give it the usual fifty-two hours before…” He trailed off.

“Before the search party?” Kira finished for him.

Shakaar shook his head. “Not this time,” he said. “This time…I think this time will have to be different.”

Kira swallowed hard and met Mobara’s gaze, found fear there, too. She had the distinct sense that things were changing, big things.

“We can’t just stay in these caves forever,” Gantt pointed out. “If there’s a system monitoring Bajoran movement, we’ll all have to go back to the city, get fake papers—blend in, somehow…”

“Not me,” Kira said firmly. “I’ll stay here.”

“I’d rather stay here, too,” Mobara said. “I think I can figure out a way to temporarily mask our biosigns so that we can get from place to place, at least in the short term. With careful planning, we can still—”

“But how are we supposed to plan full-scale attacks with temporary masks?” Gantt argued. “If we’re being targeted at this location, we’ve got to leave.”

“We’ll have plenty of time to figure that out later,” Shakaar said. “For now, we gather information. We work on getting in touch with the rest of the cell, making sure everyone is all right.”

Kira swallowed. “What about the Kohn-Ma?” she asked.

Shakaar shrugged. “They can do what they want,” he said. “But if there are only four of them left, they might just feel as though it’s over for them.”

Kira felt her resolve harden. “No,” she said. “They won’t feel that way.” Kira didn’t know Tahna Los especially well, but she did know that he wouldn’t give up, even if he was the only one left in his cell. She knew it because it was how she felt about the Shakaar.

Quark was less than thrilled that he’d had to give up such a large quantity of gold-press latinum to the pompous Cardassian who ran this place. It was a lucky thing he’d had that emergency stash at the bottom of one of the crates Gart had unceremoniously unloaded when he’d marooned Quark. Buried under a quarter-ton of rotting vegetables, the latinum had been safely shielded from his nosy shipmates. He remembered the way the prefect’s eyes had widened when Quark had presented him with a full brick, despite his obvious revulsion to the smell coming from it. It pained Quark to leave it on the gul’s desk, but he took comfort in knowing that he’d made a sale.