Dukat remembered the specialists in the atrium. Waiting for something.

“Look at this,” said Kell, offering him one of the padds as he snapped off the holoframe. “If Central Command is questioning my motivation, show them this as an example of my plans to better exploit Bajor for Cardassia’s gain.”

The padd’s memory contained schematics for another prefabricated facility, but this was a surface base for military starships. He saw a communications intelligence center, shuttlebays, space for a trooper garrison. Dukat paged to the end. “A Cardassian naval outpost on Bajor’s outer moon? They would never let you build such a facility!” He tossed the padd back to the other man. “Is that the best you have to show?”

Kell’s jaw stiffened. “You haven’t changed, Dukat. Not one iota. You’re still the same man you were when you were my officer, spare and arrogant.” He grunted humorlessly. “I had thought you might have matured somewhat. I see I was wrong.”

Dukat seethed inwardly, but refused to rise to the bait. “I would submit to you, sir, that perhaps your perceptions may have been influenced by your time among these aliens.”

“Really?” Kell drawled.

Dukat fixed him with a hard eye. “It is our mission here to see that Bajorans become more like Cardassians…” He let his gaze drop to Kell’s gut. “Not that Cardassians become more like Bajorans.”

“You forget yourself, Dal,” said the other man, putting a hard emphasis on Dukat’s rank. “I’ve always considered your behavior to be insubordinate—”

The door to the office hissed open and the glinn Dukat had encountered outside rushed into the room. “Jagul! There’s been an incident!”

Kell glared at him, angry at the interruption. “The demonstrators? As long as they don’t attempt to breach the compound, let the Militia deal with them.”

The glinn shook his head. “No, sir, it’s something else.”

The comcuff around Dukat’s wrist vibrated with an alert signal, and he raised it to his lips, moving away from Kell’s desk. “Report.”

“In orbit,” the glinn was saying, “the Bajoran commerce station…”

“Dal,”Dukat recognized the voice of Dalin Tunol, his executive officer. She was clipped and businesslike. “We have registered an uncontrolled energy discharge in the vicinity of the Cemba orbital platform.”

“An explosion?”

“Confirming…”There was a pause. “Dal, the freighterLhemor appears to have suffered a core breach. The vessel was completely destroyed, and the detonation has caused major integrity loss on the platform. Reading power failures across the station. It’s coming apart.”

Dukat shot Kell a look, but the expression on the jagul’s face made it clear the other man was as surprised by the turn of events as Dukat was. He spoke again. “Tunol, coordinate with all Union ships in orbit. Lock on and transport out any casualties, immediately. Give priority to Cardassian life signs.”

“We’re attempting to comply, sir, but the radiation bloom from the blast is fouling our sensors.”

“Do what you can. Dukat out.”

Kell shot to his feet, knocking over the wineglass and spilling the contents over his desk. “Did you have anything to do with this?” he demanded.

Dukat’s eyes narrowed. “A question I was about to put to you.”

11

Placing his feet so he could stand evenly on the canted decking, Darrah Mace leaned forward and put his hand on the blast door. Patches of frost were already starting to form on the surface of the duranium plating, and the chill radiated out of the ice-cold metal. He threw a look at Proka Migdal, who was worrying at a messy cut above his eyebrow. “Vented?” asked the constable.

“Vented,” repeated Darrah. On the other side of the hatch there was nothing but the airless vacuum of space, and it was steadily leaching the heat from the sealed-off corridor.

Proka indicated an air vent over their heads. “Not a trickle coming through there, which means we’re without life support. No telling how long what we got is going to last us. Couple of hours, maybe.”

Darrah turned away, walking back along the carbon-scorched plates, picking his footing. “At least we still have gravity.”

“For the moment,” said the other man. “That could drop out anytime, too.”

“That’s it,” Darrah said dryly, “you just keep thinking positively.”

“You got a plan, boss?”

He eyed his subordinate. “What? Making it up as you go isn’t a plan?”

“Not as such, no.” Proka sighed. “I tried communications and the station intercom again, but there’s nothing there. Sounds like a rainstorm coming over the channels.”

Darrah nodded. “That tells us what the blast was, then. Radiological, not chemical.”

The constable paled. “You…you think we caught a dose?”

“Likely. Don’t fret. You’re too ugly to have children anyway.” Rounding the corner of the twisted corridor, they returned to the ragged group of survivors. The Oralians and the priests clustered together, many of them praying. There were a few men and women from the station crew they had found trapped in compartments off the companionway; but far more of the rooms had been sealed tight by emergency maglocks or else they yielded nothing but corpses.

He paused, crouching where Gar was lying on the deck. A Cardassian was at his side, probing at his torso. “You know something about medicine?” The ranjen’s skin was pale and his breathing was thready.

The Oralian priest looked up. “Only a little. I’m not sure how much I can apply to one of your people.” He gave a weak, fragile grin. “I…I was just talking to him when it happened…Then the blast, and I didn’t think, I just pushed him down…”

“What’s your name?”

“Pasir…”

Darrah placed a hand on the alien’s shoulder. “Pasir, listen to me. You saved the life of a good friend of mine. That means I owe you one, so as payback I’m going to get you and everyone else out of this mess, okay?” Pasir nodded. “You just look after my friend here and let me do the rest.”

He stood and crossed to Proka. Bennek, the senior cleric, was talking in a low, intense voice to one of the Bajoran novices, a blond girl whose face was wet with tears. The Oralian priest threw Darrah a nod; he was deferring to the inspector.

“Boss,” began Proka, “You think there’s other people still alive, on the other decks?”

“If there are, there’s not much we can do for them.” Darrah heard the leaden tone in his own voice. “With all the blast hatches sealed and the lifts offline, we’re trapped on this tier. First things first, we concentrate on getting thesepeople to safety.” He paused, massaging his arm. The explosion had thrown him straight into a stanchion and popped his shoulder out of place. With Proka’s help, he’d reset it, but the agony lingered on. He pointed and winced.

“Shuttle’s on this level. We get to it, we can get away. It’s not like we’re in the deeps here, after all. We’re in Bajor orbit. I’m willing to bet the sky all around is swarming with rescue ships. We just have to get to them.”

“You make it sound easy,”

“I always do.” Darrah gave him a smile. “I’m going to move ahead, scout down the length of the corridor to the shuttle dock. You stay here, keep the civilians from panicking.”

“Got it.”

He was stepping away when he saw the unfocused glaze in the other man’s eyes. “Mig? What is it?”

Proka glanced up. “How did this happen? One second we’re walking and talking, the next…” He trailed off. “I was at the front, I just heard the noise. Dennit was at the back, and she…I mean, the hatch came down and sealed off the compartment behind us.”

Darrah nodded slowly. “Yeah. Dennit and a half-dozen of the Oralians. It would have been quick, Mig. We can thank the Prophets for that.”