Syjin walked over, his dusty boots tapping across the marble. “Well, if they have pictures…”

“Be quiet!” Darrah growled, removing the memory core from the bag.

“I still don’t understand why you brought us here,” Syjin frowned. “Seems like a lot of trouble to read some files.”

Darrah worked the crystalline keyboard. “This is a stand-alone library computer. No connections to anything outside the walls of the keep, which means there’s no path of entry for any data-mining software or surveillance programs. Right now, this console is the equivalent of a locked room.” He drew a fistful of glowing optical cables from the bag and connected them to the battered piece of hardware. “Plug these into the interface socket there, behind the wooden edging.”

Syjin flipped open the finely tooled panels and locked the connectors home. “Done.”

Darrah placed his hands flat on the panel. “All right. Let’s take a look. See what we have.”

“Take a look at what, Darrah?” Both men glanced up, startled. Two levels above their heads, in the racks of scrolls from the Second Republic era, Vedek Gar leaned over the handrail and watched them warily. The cleric moved to a wrought-iron spiral staircase and made his way down, talking as he descended. “What are you doing here? Haven’t you seen what’s going on out in the city?”

Darrah had automatically drawn his pistol, but he didn’t holster it again straightaway. “I’ve seen,” he replied. “Believe me, I’ve seen it.”

“Syjin?” Gar continued. “Is that you? Prophets, you haven’t changed a bit.”

“Uh, Vedek,” managed the pilot. “Hello.”

Gar exited at their level and approached. “You have a weapon there, Mace. Are you expecting trouble?”

“I’m always expecting trouble,” he said cautiously. “Part of my job.”

The priest glanced at the memory core. “So. I repeat my question. Take a look at what?” He reached for the device. “This?”

Darrah interposed himself between Gar and the memory core. “I’m going to use the library computer. It won’t take long.”

There was a moment of awkward silence. “Do you want me to leave?” Gar asked. “Oh. It’s private, is it? Something you don’t want to share with an old friend?”

Darrah’s tone cooled. “Didn’t you tell me you couldn’t afford to be that anymore, Vedek?”He put emphasis on the title. “You said you were too busy for that kind of thing.”

Gar frowned. “I’m sorry if I offended you. That wasn’t my intention.” He reached out his hands and touched Darrah on one shoulder, and Syjin on the other. “Recent years have put a great distance between us, haven’t they? But on a day like today, we need to be close again.” He shook his head. “Bajor needs our strength.”

“Mace, let’s just do this,” said Syjin. “We’re wasting time.”

Darrah holstered his gun and activated the console. “All right.”

A data pane appeared as the ornate machine linked to the data storage device, a holographic screen shimmering into being above the stone table. The cleric gasped as he read the information presented there. “The Clarion?This is from the warship Clarion?”He shot a look at Syjin. “You found this in space? Where?”

“Ajir IX,” said the pilot. “There was wreckage all over the surface of a moon. It was pure accident that I happened to be there.” He grimaced. “Probably nothing left now, not after the Ferengi got to it.”

“Ferengi?”

He nodded. “A nasty little scumdrinker called Grek. But at least I got this away from him.”

Gar smiled. “We have the Prophets to thank for guiding you, Syjin. You’ve done their work by bringing this recording home.”

Darrah worked the console, filtering through layers of stored information. “There’s some corruption, but it’s still readable. I think I can play back the feed from the Clarion’s bridge monitors…”

The holographic sphere trembled and became a portal into events five years in the past. The display showed the command deck of the Space Guard warship, the crew moving on errands of duty. Beneath the main image, smaller data panels showed environmental information, sensor readings, power curves. Syjin leaned closer. “Systems all seem okay,” he noted. “When was this?”

“I spooled back to a few minutes before the recording stops,” explained Darrah.

Gar pointed at a figure who wasn’t sporting the same gray uniforms as the Clarion’s bridge crew. “That’s Lonnic Tomo.”

Her voice issued out of a hidden speaker, laced with static, but still clearly the woman they knew. “We have nothing but circumstantial evidence that the Tzenkethi were even involved!”

Darrah ignored the stab of emotion that came from seeing his friend alive and well once again. He steeled himself, knowing what would come next.

They listened in silence to the voices of the dead. “Sensor sweep complete. I can confirm the presence of volatile stocks aboard the alien vessel, sir. Refined triceron, military grade.”

“They found the Tzenkethi,” said the priest.

Syjin waved a hand at Darrah. “This part we know. They located the marauder and engaged it. But what happened then?”

Darrah moved the recording along in skips; they saw the engagement in fast-forward, the battle unfolding in blinks of motion. The destruction of the scouts, the fighting between the assault ships and the marauder.

Syjin’s hand stabbed out. “There! Stop it there!” He pointed at a time index. “Play that.”

Voices crackled through the halls of the library. “New contacts, bearing two-one-seven mark seven!”

“More Tzenkethi?”

“No. Cardassian. A pair of light cruisers. They’re closing…”

None of the men spoke as they watched the Cardassian ship commit murder; first the biogenic weapons were transported aboard the Tzenkethi craft, then the same horrific tactic employed on the Glyhrondand the Clarion.

Darrah’s blood rumbled in his ears, and for a moment he felt as if he was going to throw up.

They saw the deaths unfold. “Get the shields back up now!”

“Bioweapons…They’re beaming them in all over the ship! Deflector shields are inoperative!”

“What did they do?” Syjin gasped. “What did they do?”

“They killed them all,” Darrah said in a low voice, leaden with disgust and revulsion. Gar, his face a mask of static shock, reached out to stop the playback, but Darrah shook his head. “No. There’s more. We owe it to them to hear everything.” On the screen, among the dead and the dying, Lonnic threw herself over to the communications console and tried to speak.

Darrah saw a change come over her face, a terrible acceptance that her end was only moments away. She stiffened. “This is Lonnic Tomo aboard the Bajoran Space Guard warshipClarion,” she began. “We are under attack by Cardassian vessels. They have already…killed the crew of theGlyhrond and a Tzenkethi marauder, and—”

With that, she died and slumped to the decking. The replay went on, showing no movement, recording only silence.

“That’s not what was broadcast,” Syjin grated. “The last message from the fleet they played on the newsfeeds, after they went missing, it was different…They changed it!”

Darrah nodded. “To hide the Cardassian involvement. To stop us from knowing who really used that marauder to attack us five years ago.”

Gar blinked. “What are you suggesting?”

The lawman glared at the priest. “I’m not suggesting anything! You saw the same thing we did, Osen! There never was a Tzenkethi threat! The Cardassians engineered a lie for us to fall for, and we did….” He shook his head. “Prophets save us, but we did.”

“Clearly, this is a most serious revelation,” Gar spoke carefully, moderating his words. “But we can’t afford to act emotionally. We must be rational.”

“Rational?”Syjin bleated. “How can you be so cold-blooded?”