Darrah grabbed the strap of the pack and Syjin caught the other end; they engaged in a brief tug-of-war. “Let go,” snapped the lawman. “Reset the coordinates for Ashalla and beam me down.”
The pilot couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He sighed. Police officers. They gave new meaning to the word “dogged.” “Did you miss all the shooting, exploding, crashing stuff just now?” Syjin pulled at the pack. “Think, Mace, think! They knew where to find us! They must be tracking you, or me, or this thing! If they were waiting for us in the air, don’t you think they might be waiting for you in Ashalla as well? You won’t get within a hecapate of the Chamber of Ministers.” He saw the comprehension on the other man’s face, and Darrah let go of the bag.
“If we can’t get to Jas, then we’re stymied.” Darrah crossed to the command deck and sat in the copilot’s chair.
“I’m willing to bet there’s an alert going out for us right this minute.” He snorted. “Not that there’s anyone paying attention.”
Syjin nodded. “In this chaos they’ll be able to disappear us, and no one will ever know.” He took his chair, commencing the ship’s warm-up sequence. “We show our faces on Bajor, we’re dead men. We have to get away.” The pilot blew out a breath. “There’s that free ride to Valo I promised you. Offer’s still valid.”
But Darrah shook his head, drawing his tricorder from his belt. “No. I’ve got a better idea.”
It took all of Dukat’s self-control not to throw the padd in the face of Glinn Orloc, right there on the bridge of the Vandir.His carefully directed plans to seek out and capture the Starfleet spies had disintegrated around him at the final moment, and now there was nothing. No leads, not a single direction to take that might turn him back on their trail. After beaming back from Korto empty-handed, he ignored Kell’s increasingly strident communiqués from Derna and took the Vandirout beyond Bajor’s orbit, opening up the sensors to search for the cloaked ship; but the zone around the planet was dirty with energy signatures from the large, slow troopships moving down from the lunar base, and the other cruisers that were taking up positions over the major cities, in case a punitive bombardment was needed to push along the collapse. Any ion trail or energy residue would be lost in the clutter, like one single voice subsumed inside the rattle of a hurricane.
Bajor was falling, graceless and slow, and Skrain Dukat should have been there to see it. Instead, he was sifting through empty space searching for a ship that had already escaped.
“Nothing,” he growled, referring to the contents of Orloc’s report. “The finest vessel the Union has to offer, and we can find nothing?” He glared at Tunol, demanding an answer when he knew there was none she could give; but the officer had a wary look on her face, as if she had something to tell him that would irritate him further.
“Speak, Dal!” He barked. “If you have something to say, spit it out!”
She licked her lips. “Incoming signal, sir. Source is, ah, encrypted.”
“Ico,”he spat, his ire rising a notch. “Put the witch on.” The woman’s face shimmered into being on the viewscreen. Her ever-present, insufferable smile was in place. Dukat wondered how much it would take to dislodge that infuriating mien, and privately hoped that one day he would have the chance to find out. He spoke before she had a chance to open her mouth. “What do you want?” demanded the gul. “I’m still trying to clean up your mess.”
Ico took the barb in good humor and dismissed it. “This is becoming a very interesting day, Dukat,”she said conversationally. “Opportunities, some taken, some missed. And now something unusual.”The woman smiled, as if in reference to some private joke. “Acts of the past return to haunt us. Like Ajir.”
He stiffened at the mention of the star system. “Get to the point, if you can. Or is there something in the Obsidian Order’s training that makes all its lackeys pedantic and verbose?”
Ico’s pallid lips thinned. “Such effrontery. And after I contacted you with a gift. How rude you are.”
Dukat turned away. “This is another waste of my time. Tunol, cut the channel.”
“That would be a grave mistake,”Ico grated, and for the first time there was annoyance in her tone.
Dukat halted his first officer with a wave of the hand, and inclined his head, waiting.
When Ico spoke again, all the usual artifice in her tone was gone. “It seems you were not as thorough at Ajir as you reported, Dukat. Materials from the Bajoran ships survived their destruction, including a memory core. I don’t believe I need to express the concern that will result if the data on that device is broadcast.”
Dukat’s muscles bunched under the sleeves of his armored tunic. A dozen questions immediately assailed him, but the most important pushed through to the front of his thoughts. “Where?”
“I believe it is aboard a Bajoran light freighter running under this transponder ident.”A code string bloomed in the corner of the screen, and Tunol set to work on it. “They’re doubtless going to make an attempt to flee the system. Perhaps, Gul, you might be able to redeem yourself by catching this one.”
“How did you come across this information?” he demanded. “What’s your source, Ico?”
She didn’t answer him. “It would be unwise for you to fail twice in one day, Dukat.”The viewscreen went dark.
He grimaced and looked away. None of the junior officers would meet his gaze.
“Sir?” Tunol beckoned him from the sensor console.
“The transponder code checks out. A ship with that ident is registered at Korto starport. Traffic Control logs it as entering Bajoran space several hours ago.”
“Where is it now?”
She worked the panel, bringing up a tactical plot of the B’hava’el system. A white square flashed, moving slowly out from the orbit of Bajor along the plane of the ecliptic.
“Here. At full impulse, we can be on them in ten metrics.”
“I grow tired of being at her beck and call,” Dukat said in a low voice. “She’s trying to diminish me in the eyes of my crew.”
Tunol inclined her head. “With respect, sir, the only order valued by the crew of the Vandiris that which comes from you.”
Dukat allowed a small smile. “Then my order is given. Obliterate that ship.”
Darrah Mace was careful to double-and then triple-check the data as he input the code string into the communications grid. He glanced at the tricorder again, selecting the correct subspace frequency.
“If you’re thinking about wide-banding that recording, you can forget it,” Syjin informed him. “This old bird doesn’t have that kind of capability.”
“I’m not doing that,” he replied. “I’m…I’m calling in a debt.”
“That’s a Federation code,” said the pilot, with alarm. “Is there something you’re not telling me, Mace?”
“Plenty,” Darrah replied, “so just concentrate on the flying. When can we go to warp?”
“Soon,” came the answer. “Just after we clear the belt.” The words were barely out of his mouth when an alert chimed on Syjin’s panel. He groaned. “Didn’t we just do this once already?”
“Cardassians!” Darrah saw the sensor screen react. “A Galor-class cruiser, closing fast. We’re no match for a ship of that tonnage.”
“No, really?” Syjin mocked. “Do you think?”
“It’s the Vandir,”noted the lawman. “Huh. That’s Gul Dukat’s command.”
“A friend of yours?”
Darrah shook his head. “Not even close.”
Syjin sneered. “Well, I make it a rule never to have more than one ship blown out from under me on a given day.” He poured more power to the impulse drive, and the ship surged forward. “Let’s play a game.”
Out beyond the canopy, Darrah saw a wall of glittering dust racing toward them: the Denorios Belt, a ring of charged energetic plasma that existed out beyond the orbit of Bajor. “What are you doing?” he asked, in the most reasonable tone he could manage. “I know I’m not a starship pilot like you, but isn’t the belt, to put it mildly, extremely dangerous?”