A severe-looking Andorian brought him to a bowed room where one wall was a series of portals looking out over the disk of the starship’s primary hull, over a cluster of warp nacelles and out to the static blackness of space. The void reminded Darrah a little too much of the darkness that had claimed him, and he sat with his back to it. He didn’t understand the shape and meaning of the rank sigils worn by the blue-skinned woman. She told him her name was sh’Sena. She sat across from him with a human male who tried to look friendly, watching. The Andorian dipped her head forward in that way that her species did, so that the antennae rising from her skull were trained upon Darrah, sensing him. She told him this was a debriefing, but he had given enough interrogations in his life to know when he was on the wrong end of one.

After a while, after a few questions too many, he began to get irritable. “I’m tired of giving you answers and getting nothing back,” he snapped. “I want you to do some talking now.” He pulled at the collar of the nondescript coverall garment they had given him to wear. It was itchy against his flesh, rubbing the dots of scar tissue from the dozens of small lacerations he had suffered aboard Syjin’s dying ship. His hand kept falling to the place on his hip where his phaser would have been; they had let him keep only his earring, although it was tarnished and in need of some repair. He pitched forward suddenly, startling the human. “I’ve told you what happened on Bajor, now what are you going to do about it?”

“That’s not up to me,” said sh’Sena.

“Then, who is it up to?” he demanded.

A door slid open and another human entered. He was of average height, athletic, but he carried himself with a poise that Darrah noted immediately. The reactions of the other Starfleet officers confirmed it. This was the commander.

“I’m Captain Mark Jameson,” he explained. “Mr. Darrah, you have to understand the circumstances. Things have moved very quickly.”

Mace was about to argue when a horrible thought struck him. He swallowed hard. “How long? How long was I out for?”

Jameson frowned. “By Bajoran reckoning? You were unconscious for twenty days.”

A choke of air caught in his throat. Like only moments ago.“Where…where are we now?”

“Still in the Bajor Sector. We’ve been monitoring the situation on your home planet, gathering information and tracking signals. As I said, things have moved quickly while you were recovering.”

Darrah felt sick. What does he mean?He was gripped with sudden terror that Bajor had somehow been destroyed, the planet flashed to atoms by some catastrophe.

“You do deserve answers,” said the captain, getting to his feet. The other two officers followed him to the door.

“These people will try to give them to you, if they can.”

As Jameson and the others left, two women entered the room. Alla and Wenna. But not.

“I’m Lieutenant Alynna Nechayev,” said the blond woman. “You’ve already met Gwen Jones.” She nodded to the dark-haired girl.

Jones placed a steaming cup in front of him. “Dekatea, from the replicators. It’s not quite the real thing, but I thought you’d like it.”

“Thanks.” He sipped the drink; she was correct. Darrah blinked, and rubbed the ridges on his nose with his index finger. “You both look…weird without them.”

Nechayev spread her hands as she sat. “This is who we really are.”

Darrah nodded, but inwardly he doubted the woman would ever really show him that. She wasn’t like Jones, all close to the surface. Nechayev was one of those people who sank into their own depths, hiding almost all of themselves.

“How are you feeling?” asked Jones.

“Lost,” Darrah said, with a sigh. “Look, isn’t it possible for me to claim asylum or something with you people?”

The women exchanged glances. “If you want to, yes,” said Jones.

“And then you could do something? Call in Starfleet?”

Nechayev shook her head. “Doesn’t work that way. Bajor is an independent world, Mace. We can’t just intervene in its affairs.”

“But you can come and spy on us?” He blew out a breath, exasperated. “How can you sit back and let the Cardassians invade?”

Jones’s face was sad. “We can’t stop it, Mace, because it’s already happened. Bajor is under Cardassian occupation.”

“What? No! They had troops and tanks, but they don’t have control—”

“Yes, they do. Two weeks,” Nechayev broke in. “It’s been two weeks.” She shook her head. “Key figures in the Bajoran Chamber of Ministers have officially announced that the unrest on your planet was caused by a terrorist group, the Alliance for Global Unity. They claimed they were working with militants in the Oralian Way to destabilize Bajor, funded by the Tzenkethi Coalition and the United Federation of Planets.”

“Key figures?” he spat. “Lale?”

“Lale Usbor is dead,” said Jones. “Murdered by Oralian radicals, so the newsfeeds would have you believe. Minister Kubus Oak is currently acting as interim secretary for planetary affairs.”

Jones tapped a keypad set into the tabletop, and a monitor on the wall ran a series of clips from intercepted public broadcasts. Darrah’s gut twisted as he saw Kubus being sworn in at the Chamber. His eye was caught by the sight of Jas Holza in the background. The man’s face was a rigid, unexpressive mask. He looked beaten and cowed. Of Militia leaders like Coldri Senn and Jaro Essa there was no sign.

“Kubus has officially gone on record as stating that the Cardassian troops on Bajor are ‘peacekeepers,’” Nechayev continued. “He says they were invited in to help bring stability to the planet.”

“No one will believe that!”

“It doesn’t matter,” she replied. “The Federation cannot legally become involved in something that has been given official sanction by the Bajoran government.”

“Kubus Oak isn’t the Bajoran government!” Darrah snapped. “He’s a Cardassian puppet!” He was going to say more, but then he saw new footage unfolding on the screen: images from the rebuilding site at the Kendra Monastery. There was Vedek Arin, calling for calm across the planet and endorsing Kubus’s stance; but Darrah couldn’t look away from the concerned, faithful expression on the man at his side. Vedek Gar’s head bobbed in agreement with everything that Arin said.

Syjin’s words came back in a rush. They knew where to find us! They must be tracking you, or me—

“Or someone told them,” he whispered. The import of that thought, that Gar Osen could be a traitor, made him feel sick. He performed my wedding ceremony. He blessed my children. We are…friends.

And with the thought of Osen, Mace thought of Syjin, the laughing, wild fool torn apart in a welter of blood. He thought of Proka and Myda, still back there on Bajor. Were they still alive? Had they been gunned down in some back alley, named as terrorists after the fact? He held on to the table, feeling dizzy. With a trembling hand, he reached out and sipped at the unpleasant tea.

After a long moment, Nechayev spoke in a low voice. “We can’t do anything for your planet now. But there are operations in place. Other people—this ship, even—are taking steps to oppose the Cardassians.”

“And what can I do?” he asked in a dead voice. “A lawman without law to enforce. A man without a world.”

“You can take asylum within the Federation if you want, like you said,” offered Jones. “Or somewhere else.”

He nodded woodenly. “Yes. I’ll tell you where you can take me.”

Jameson wouldn’t let Jones accompany them down to the surface of Valo II, so they said their good-byes in the Gettysburg’s transporter room. As Darrah and Nechayev materialized in the square of the main settlement, Mace still had Gwen’s D’jarraearring in his hand, the one she’d used during the mission. The gift was all she had to give him, she explained, a small piece of Bajor for him to carry.