“Gul Dukat, there is a red alert coming in from the military base on the outskirts of Musilla Province!”

“A facility in Gerhami Province has gone offline!”

“Another report, sir, from Ilvia—”

More shouts, console lights winking and pulsing, simultaneous reports of scattered disasters, and Dukat felt his internal temperature plummeting, becoming as cold as his space station. This was not accidental, nor, likely, was the distraction of the environmental malfunction. This was sabotage, a carefully planned attack, and it had occurred on the prefect’s watch—on his own station.

21

The man who now stood at the podium was proving himself to be a poor speaker. Though it had been arranged far in advance of this date that he would preside over the meeting, Natima suspected that he felt uneasy with the location she had chosen—an empty classroom at the University of Prekiv, Natima’s alma mater and current place of employment.

Natima had worked very hard to get to her current position; in just under five years, she had earned a postgraduate position as an assistant professor in the political sciences department. She continued to take classes in her spare time, and expected to be a full-fledged professor within the next two years; Natima was nothing if not driven. But she was also nothing if not cautious about her own political status as a dissident, and she would not have agreed to host the meeting if she were not confident that the meeting would be private.

She knew that most of the staff here at the university were sympathetic to her causes, particularly those professors who worked in her department. Natima was confident that any members of the university staff who felt otherwise could not touch her. She had flourished within the precise hierarchy of the university system, and she knew her place in it. This classroom was by far the safest public location the group could have chosen to meet in—safer than in a private residence, for large gatherings at people’s homes were often secretly monitored by the government. Universities were generally better protected from that sort of intrusion, enjoying a certain measure of lenience in the name of education. Cardassians still valued education and knowledge very highly in the great scheme of their society, for it was the Cardassians’ superior knowledge that had allowed their scientific community to be one of the most advanced in the galaxy.

The soundproof room was large, with chairs arranged in semicircular rows before a podium in the center. The design of the classroom, with graduated tiers rising up to the back of the room, made amplification devices unnecessary, helping to ensure that conversation was not likely to be monitored. Natima had personally checked for listening devices, and as she had expected, there were none. But Dr. Tuken, a professor from the settlement in the Cuellar system who had been chosen to chair the meeting this afternoon, still appeared too ill at ease to speak freely. His statements were vague, his intentions unclear. Natima felt a little annoyed, for she took the man’s unease as a sign of his mistrust in her. She found his overly cautious, halting manner to be distracting, as well.

She glanced across the room to Gaten Russol, now a gul in the military, and saw from his expression that he was thinking the same thing that she was. After so many years of friendship, she could read him like a book. He met her eye, and then he stood.

“Thank you, Doctor Tuken,” Russol said smoothly, “for that introduction. I have a few items that I wish to address.”

“Of course, Gul Russol,” Tuken said, and stepped down from the podium. If he resented the interruption, he didn’t show it; nearly everyone knew to defer to Gul Russol. If their unnamed movement had a leader, it was Gaten Russol, and while the membership remained only somewhere in the hundreds, the squabbling and lack of direction of days past was gone now. The small, committed groups around the Union had mostly narrowed their focus toward common goals.

“Regarding my communication with the Federation,” Russol began, which brought up a faint murmur from a few people seated around the room. Talk of Federation correspondence was probably the riskiest topic anyone could have chosen to address out loud, even taking the new treaty into consideration. It was certainly an attention getter. Natima thought he may have deliberately chosen it to offset Tuken’s cautious approach, and watched with mounting interest. Her friend seemed especially intense this day, his shoulders tight, his expression grim.

“The talks have been mostly fruitless,” he went on. “The Federation adheres to a very strict set of rules regarding involvement in other worlds’ affairs. They are reluctant to help us, especially now that they have a treaty with our government. The treaty has, unfortunately, weakened our position with our own people, for there were many who felt that the struggles over the border territories were drawing strength from the Union. Now, many of those Cardassian subjects who were beginning to lose faith in the military government have been placated by the treaty.”

Natima nodded, along with many of the others. The movement had lost a few of its followers as a result of the treaty, although most of the people involved with the dissidents felt that Cardassia’s social, political, and economic woes could not be solved with one insincere treaty. Natima was sure the treaty was simply a means for Central Command to buy some time while it plotted its next move. But even if it had been genuine, the treaty was no better than a sticky plaster over a terminal hemorrhage.

“We all know that Cardassia has problems that extend far beyond the border colonies,” Russol said, echoing Natima’s thoughts. “The violence on Bajor is worse than ever. Even more perplexing, it is said that the resources there will not last another generation—but Central Command will not admit that it is time to withdraw our presence on that annexed world. And yet—” Russol paused dramatically to look around the room at his friends and cohorts. “What if we did pull out of Bajor? What would happen then?”

More murmuring as people in the audience muttered the answers to themselves and to the people seated near them. Russol spoke again, his eyes shining passionately. “Some say our government would simply look for another world to exploit, instead of drawing on the strengths of our own world, our own people—we would look for other worlds to conquer, instead of forming alliances that could help Cardassia become self-sufficient. But I do not see that as a foregone conclusion.

“We know that the Detapa Council has relatively little power in our governmental structure. In leaner times, our world was forced to defer to the military, stripping the power away from our civilian leaders. However, a majority vote coming from that body can still make certain decisions for Cardassia Prime. The issue, as we all know, is that the varied interests of the council members has made it all but impossible to achieve a majority vote on anything. We know it, and Central Command knows it. But what if this were to change?”

Russol leaned forward on the podium, as if to draw his audience physically closer for what he was about to say. “We can’t rely on the Federation, or anyone else, to help us anymore,” he said. “It’s time for more drastic measures. We have talked long enough, and now we have to act.”

A hush had fallen over the room, until someone finally spoke. “What are you proposing, Gul Russol?” It was Dr. Tuken, his voice trembling slightly.

“We cannot expect any change to come about from the military—we need the Detapa Council to be on our side,” he said. “In recent years, with no small thanks to the efforts of the people here, many of the civilian leaders on the council have begun to favor a position very much like our own. In fact,” he added, “there is more than one member of the Detapa Council taking an active involvement in our movement.”