And, of course, a stopover at Letau as well….

A signal at his door, although it was late. The operations center staff was minimal at this hour, only a few men moving about among the softly blinking consoles. He saw that it was Glinn Trakad, and sighed.

He motioned the soldier inside. “Yes?”

Trakad carried a padd, held it up. “Summary of surface transmissions for the day, quotas, incident reports.”

Dukat nodded, reaching for the padd. Trakad brought it to him, stepped back as the prefect scanned the reads.

“Anything of interest?” Dukat asked.

“A malfunction with one of the sensor towers. Possible sabotage attempt.”

Dukat glanced up. “In what way?”

“An alarm was tripped, suggesting that someone tried to access the diagnostic system with an unauthorized passcode,” Trakad said. “And the lock on the tower’s relay was tampered with.”

“Has the system been compromised?”

“No. It’s been triple-checked. Everything is in working order.”

Dukat frowned. “So, someone tried to break in and failed…?”

“Yes, but the alarm was shut down before the ground team arrived,” The glinn said. “Not disabled, but turned off. They would have had to have a code to override it.”

“But the system is still working?”

“That’s right.”

Dukat shook his head. “Contact the Bajoran Institute of Science at once. We will need to alert the engineer who designed the program to see if it is malfunctioning.”

Trakad nodded.

“Anything else?”

“Several flyers—three, I believe—were detected leaving atmosphere late this afternoon, but air traffic says there were no ships scheduled for departure, no flight plans filed.”

“Are there any ships currently unaccounted for?”

“You think the resistance stole them?”

“Well, without knowing all of the facts, I can’t say, can I?” Dukat said. He smiled thinly at Trakad, printed the padd to show that he’d seen the day’s reports. “Check airfield inventory. I want all of our crafts accounted for. And see to it that the security unit from that tower is brought here.”

He handed the padd back to Trakad, who nodded quickly, a slight bow before leaving. Dukat waved him on, idly wondering if the few remaining insurgents were up to something. But no. The Bajorans were a cowed people, pacified once more by their religious amenities, submissive to the will of the Union. In truth, he couldn’t afford it to be otherwise, with the pressure to produce more always weighing on his shoulders. In any case, he would take no chances, looking into any reports of potential resistance activity himself.

It was much like being a father, he often thought, overseeing a planet of children, some willing, some willful. It was a balance, knowing when to encourage, when to provide strict correction, but one he felt he excelled at finding. As the Bajorans grew, culturally, intellectually, they would come to appreciate him more, to understand the choices he’d made.

I’ll be remembered here long after I’m gone, he thought, and smiled, leaning back in his chair once more.

12

Thrax, finished with his station business for the evening, closed out the reports on his office computer, relieved to have finished the tedious chore after an especially trying day. But he didn’t shut down his system after the mainframe link was disconnected; instead, he put a personal call through to Cardassia Prime.

It was some time before the call was answered, and he began to wonder, with disappointment, if the party he was trying to reach might have left her new “office” already, but she finally responded to the call, her face filling the tiny screen and causing Thrax to break out into a foolish grin.

“Hello,” he said to her, feeling the welcome tremble that always attended their correspondence.

“Hello,”she replied, her voice musical and soft, projected from his faraway homeworld. How he missed it. How he missed her! “To what do I owe this occasion?”

“I know it has been a long time,” he apologized. “My business here keeps me from contacting you as often as I would like.”

“Just your business?”she asked. “Not…threats?”

“No,” he said firmly. “There are no threats, I have told you. I am safe. I only wanted to let you know…I located a dissident on the station, someone who is to return to Cardassia Prime tomorrow. A woman—a correspondent for the Information Service.”

“What is her name?”

“Natima Lang. Do you know of her?”

“No, but I’ll see what I can find.”

“It could be helpful to do so. She is affiliated with Gaten Russol. But more interesting to you and me—she contacted a member of the Detapa Council here on Bajor. An exarch at one of the old settlements.”

The woman’s eyes shone with interest. “Do you think he is a dissident as well?”

“Time will tell,” Thrax told her. “But I believe he may be.”

“And you believe this is good news for us?”

He nodded. “If the Detapa Council continues to oppose the government to gain power, it could eventually wrest the Union out of the military government’s hands. It seems that the handful of dissidents I have been tracking have begun to add more followers to their ranks—followers in the civilian government.”

The woman nodded. “This could be favorable for us. But the Detapa Council may be no more in support of us than Central Command has been.”

Thrax frowned before his face twisted into a rueful smile. “Have you always been such a pessimist, Astraea?”

She smiled back, embarrassed. “No, Glinn Sa’kat,”she admitted, “only realistic.”

He laughed quietly. It always amused him that she continued to refer to him by his military title—even his colleagues on the station called him by his first name. But for her, it had become almost a sign of affection to maintain the formality he had shown to her upon their first meeting. “Well,” he said. “I thought it might be useful for us to find out more about these people, the dissidents. If there is any question that supporting their cause could serve to help us in the future—”

“I agree,”she said. “I don’t suppose they could detest us any more than Central Command already does.”

“One hopes not.” Thrax fell silent.

There was so much he wanted to say to her, but he would have preferred to do it in person. He had never been able to convey his feelings regarding her, not even when he was with her, on Cardassia Prime. His support of her position within the Way was much more important than their personal relationship, a relationship that had started when he had discovered her walking in a near daze along the periphery of Cardassia City, trying to put some meaning to the frightening visions she had been having. If the Fates hadn’t intervened that day, hadn’t seen to it that he would find her there—But of course, Oralius watched over Her guide. It was meant that he would find her, and he hoped it was meant that he would be reunited with her someday on his homeworld—sooner rather than later.

Two quartiles, three at most,he promised himself. No more than another year, certainly. He would be done with this place, and with Dukat.

“The Bajoran religious man we spoke of…he is still safe?”

“I can’t be certain, but I believe so,” he told her. “The one they call the kai is still safe, and I believe the man from your vision has a connection with her. That is what Prylar Bek tells me, but he will reveal no more.”

“He is mistrustful of you?”

“No,” Thrax said. “I believe he trusts me now, since I gave him the information to get his kai to safety before the detection grid went online. But he is simply not at liberty to reveal information. It is much the same way…that I feel about you, Astraea. I would guard you with my life.”