The cleric nodded. “You were not born a priest, my friend, and neither was I. Before Oralius called me to walk the Way, I was a public transporter clerk in Lakarian City.”
A crooked smile appeared on Darrah’s face. “Okay. Nowwe have a plan.”
There was a heart-stopping moment when the smoky interior of the cargo bay melted away from him and Darrah felt the transporter beam take hold. The last thing he saw was Bennek fiddling with the knot of wires dangling from the control console, then sprinting around to join him on the hexagonal pad. What is he doing?The panicked thought was barely formed before his mind, like the rest of his body, came apart in the matter stream and discorporated.
Then he was in a white space that was full of sound. He felt something cold tug at the skin on his neck, and he blinked furiously. Strong hands took his arms and guided him forward. He swallowed and took a cautious breath.
His eyes refocused on the face of a severe-looking bald man in a Militia uniform. The man waved a tricorder at the inspector and nodded. “You’re fine. The electrolytic booster shot I just gave you will kick in quickly, but for the time being don’t do anything strenuous.”
“Right.” He glanced around the transporter room and found Bennek. “Where’s everyone else?”
“Medical bay,” said the bald man. “You’re on board the assault ship Clarion.”
“My ship.” The words came from another man who approached them with a purposeful gait. “Colonel Li Tarka, Space Guard.”
“Inspector Darrah Mace, City Watch. Thank you, sir.”
Li had the stone-cut manner of a career soldier, a face that was all hard angles and a crest of regulation-length oil-black hair. “You the one who got them out?”
Darrah shook his head and indicated the Cardassian priest. “That was Bennek here.”
The other man made a small noise of surprise. “Quick thinking, Mr. Bennek, establishing a transport bridge with our ship’s systems. We never would have been able to get you people off the station otherwise.”
Bennek smiled weakly. “All matter transporters work on the same principles, Colonel. I knew that once the bridge was established, the Clarion’s integrators at this end would compensate for any signal loss.”
“There’s a lot of people who owe you their lives,” Li replied, and Darrah could sense that the other man found it difficult to attribute such behavior to an alien.
“Aside from us, how many others made it to safety?” asked Darrah.
The bald man frowned. “A few escape pods were ejected from the platform and one of the bulk lighters on the far side of the docking array. There were some beam-outs, and we’re tracking them down at the moment, but some were probably lost in transit. The numbers are grim, Inspector. Cemba Station alone had a crew of two hundred and ten people, and there were five ships of varying tonnages at dock there.”
Bennek paled. “Oralius, watch over and preserve them,” he whispered.
“I’ve already spoken to your man Proka,” Li continued in a brusque manner, and belatedly it registered with Darrah that the colonel was here to interrogate him, not to greet him. “Why don’t you tell me what you think happened, Darrah?”
“A reactor malfunction aboard the Lhemor,maybe a cascade failure from a plasma breach?” He sighed. “I don’t know. I’m not an engineer, Colonel, I’m a police officer.”
Li’s flinty expression never altered. “Then I’m surprised your first assumption is that it was an accident.”
Bennek gasped. “Someone did that deliberately?”
The colonel directed the bald man to a wallscreen. “Kored, show them,” he ordered.
The display lit up with waveforms of sensor data. Darrah recognized the basic shapes from the thousands of pieces of forensic data he came across in his caseload.
“I don’t understand,” said the cleric. “What are we looking at?”
Darrah pointed. “Scanner readouts. The Watch take the same kind of readings at crime scenes, looking for biological signatures, energy discharges, latent clues.”
“This is the raw feed,” Li explained, “and we’re not done sifting the patterns yet. The Clarionwas close by when the explosion took place. We were conducting operational drills, one of which happened to be a sensor test.”
Operational drills.That was likely a euphemism for running in combat mode close to the Cardassian ships. The Space Guard made no secret of their dislike of the alien vessels being near Bajor, and Darrah had heard that some commanders had taken to testing the resolve of the Union crews by running weapons-hot battle drills right under their noses. For a moment he entertained the wild notion that the colonel might be responsible for what had happened—what if some nervous Bajoran gunner had set his sights on the Lhemorand accidentally fired on it?—but then he dismissed the idea. The Cardassians were watching, and the sky would have been a war zone by now if that had happened.
“See here.” Li indicated a particular set of waveforms that crested from the mass of signals in the microsecond after the detonation. “Do you know what those are?”
“It’s artificial,” Darrah replied, his mind automatically kicking into investigative mode. “You can tell by the dispersal pattern. I’d say definitely not the result of a malfunction.” His lips thinned. “Someone put a bomb on that freighter.”
“The discharge originated just below the warp core,” said Kored.
“Any line on a trigger signal?” He leaned closer, running the display back and forward. Behind him, he could hear Bennek murmuring more prayers under his breath.
“Negative. It’s possible it’s there, but we haven’t been able to pick it out yet.”
Darrah nodded to himself. “A timer, then, or a proximity switch.” He halted the waveform display again and glanced at Li. “Colonel, are you seeing this as well? The peaks here and here?” He indicated two distinct energy spikes. “Those are molecular markers.”
“Ultritium and triceron. Both extremely lethal explosive compounds,” said the officer.
“That’s an exotic mix,” Darrah said immediately, his mind racing. “Undetectable by transporters and most civilian sensor suites. A military-grade munition, probably.”
“I concur, Inspector. You know your job.”
Darrah nodded. “Activists from the Circle have been making noise in Kendra Province recently. We’ve been on the lookout for bombings. I was briefed by General Coldri on some worst-case scenarios…”
“The device, it’s not Cardassian.” Li eyed the priest. “At this point, the weapon profile only fits three possible origins. Gorn, Nausicaan—”
“Or Tzenkethi,” said Darrah.
“Order! Order!”The First Minister struggled to be heard over the chaos in the chamber as everyone in the room tried to talk at once. Lonnic looked this way and that, catching snatches of shouted words and angry retorts. At her side, Jas Holza’s face was an immobile mask. He was growing more withdrawn with every day.
Finally Lale slammed his fist on the table in front of him and the sound echoed like a thunderclap. The wave of voices from the ministers ebbed for a moment, and the man drew himself up. “At last. Are we children? This is an emergency session, and a matter for serious debate, not for squabbling and posturing.”
Lonnic raised an eyebrow. It was the first time she had ever seen anything like annoyance from the First Minister, and from the reactions of the other politicians, it was the first time they had seen it too.
Lale Usbor sat, and by degrees his usual manner reasserted itself. “Now,” he said, with bland graveness, “we have all read the report prepared by General Coldri’s people.” He nodded to where the Militia representative sat, flanked by Jaro Essa and Li Tarka. The three senior officers were like statues, their gray uniforms accenting the image. “It makes a damning case.”