His gloved hands tightened into fists. The Order serves only the Order.That too was wisdom that his father had given him, and firsthand Skrain had learned the truth of it. It galled him to think that he was in partnership with them on this, but he was a pragmatist and he saw that no other choice was open to him. Ico and her kind may be a cancer on Cardassia, but there are other more pressing malignancies that must be excised first.The pitiable Oralians, with their sad weakness and their primitive beliefs. The recalcitrant Bajorans, refusing to come to heel like ill-trained riding hounds.

Warfare is always a matter of priorities.Another axiom from his training came to mind. The priority today is not my loathing of Ico’s nest of vipers, but to secure a future for Cardassia. For my people and my family.

“Sir,” said the glinn, interrupting his musings. “Plasma cannon is now operable.”

He gave the order without hesitation. “Destroy the Bajorans.”

The snarling chirp of Darrah’s communicator dragged him from the abyss of a deep and dreamless sleep. He rolled from the bed, ignoring Karys’s angry muttering, and padded barefoot across the floor to the chair where he had thrown off his uniform. He glanced out through the slats across the window, one hand reaching up to massage the back of his neck. Tension sat across his shoulders in a thick yoke of stiffened muscle. Light rain was drumming on the glass, and he blinked as a distant flash of lightning glittered in the distance. His fingers closed around the communicator brooch as the faint grumble of thunder reached the house.

“This had better be good,” he growled, raising the device to his lips.

He heard Myda’s ever-weary intonation. “Wait one moment, Inspector. I’m patching in a signal from the keep.”

“What?” His annoyance flared in unison with another lightning bolt. “Off duty means off duty—”

The very real fear he heard in the next voice made him stop dead. “Inspector Darrah? This is Tima, I’m a novitiate serving with Ranjen Gar…”

And suddenly Darrah was very much awake. “Is he all right? What’s wrong?”

The girl was on the verge of tears. “He’s gone! He was supposed to be back here hours ago, with Vedek Arin’s party from Derna…”

Darrah nodded. “Yeah, I saw him at the port. They didn’t arrive?” He shifted the slats and peered out at the encroaching storm front.

“The others did. Ranjen Gar stayed behind. They said he was with an Oralian, a cleric called Pasir…They took a flyer to Hathon…”

“Then he’s probably there. Try the Hathon city central comnet—”

“We did!”she insisted. “And Traffic Control as well. The flyer never went to Hathon, Inspector! No one knows where it is!”

“Osen…” Darrah’s throat tightened as he whispered his friend’s name. Abruptly, he found Gar’s last words to him echoing through his thoughts. I will admit I too have had some concerns of late.Darrah clamped down hard on the instinct to jump to a conclusion, but it was hard to hold back the notion that the priest could have been dragged into something dangerous.

“What’s wrong with Gar?” Karys called from the bed.

He waved her into silence. “Myda, are you still on the line?”

“Yes, boss,”said the law officer.

“What have you got from Traffic Control?”

He heard a heavy sigh. “Running a search right now, sir, but so far it seems that the flight plan filed by the Cardassian was a dud. I got a report from one of the precinct air units that a flyer matching the same description was seen heading west toward the Kendra mountains.”

Darrah instinctively looked in that direction, and straight into the teeth of the thunderstorm. “No crash beacons, no alert signals?”

“Not a one, sir. It’s like they vanished.”

“Not on my watch,” he growled, flinging off his night-shirt. “Tima?”

“Y-yes?”

“We’ll find Gar, don’t worry.”

“Thank you, Inspector.”He heard the click as Tima dropped off the network.

“Myda!” Darrah snapped. “Put together a search pattern and a rescue team, have them assemble at the port. Drag whoever you need to out of bed, and get a fast flyer routed to my house right now.”

“Boss,”came the wary reply, “the storm’s a real monster. Weather control has been trying to pull the teeth on this one, but it’s going to hit scale four before daybreak.”

“Just do what I said,” Darrah retorted. “If Gar’s lost out there, it’s not the Prophets who are going to rescue him, it’s us.” He tapped the communicator, ending the conversation, then grabbed at his clothes as another bass rumble of thunder swept across the city.

Karys stood, a sheet wrapped around her. “Mace, what are you doing?”

“My job,” he replied, pulling on his uniform.

The rain intensified, clattering against the window.

“Look at it out there,” she retorted. “You know how lethal the tempests can get this time of year.” His wife touched his shoulder. “I know the man is your friend, but you’re a ranking officer of the Watch. You could let someone else handle this.”

He nodded. “You’re right, Karys, I could.” Mace snatched up his gear belt. “But I won’t.” Above the sound of the rainfall, he heard the whine of antigravs. Myda had done as he’d ordered.

Her hand closed around his wrist. “You’re risking your life for him.”

“He’d do the same thing for me.” But as he looked into her eyes, Darrah knew that there was more to it than that, more than just the duty of his friendship with Osen. This isn’t any random misadventure taking place here. Something else is going on, something connected to Cemba.

The police flyer was settling into a low hover over the roadway outside the house. Grabbing his overcoat and his phaser holster, Darrah ran out into the rain without another word.

15

The rain across the roof of the enclave blockhouse was a constant rattle now, a sound like handfuls of gravel being thrown against the thermoconcrete construction. Outside, the pavilions snapped and cracked as they flexed on their supports, the cables holding them in place humming with vibration. Bajor’s sky was dark and heavy with menace, the night gloom mirroring Bennek’s soured mood. Aside from the sporadic flashes of lightning, the only illumination cast over the cleric’s room was the sullen glow of the communications screen.

The connection was thick with static; it was coming to Bajor on a side channel outside the normal frequencies open to Cardassian civilians. There was an illegal circuit concealed in the back of the communicator that, if it were discovered, would have meant instant arrest for the cleric. The fact that Hadlo was using it now to contact him filled Bennek with dread.

A flicker of lightning cast quick bars of white light through the room behind him, and on the screen Hadlo’s pale face reacted. “Bennek! By the Fates, are they already there? Are they firing? I can’t hear any shots—”

“It’s just a storm,” said the priest.

Hadlo nodded rapidly. “Oh, indeed, my friend, the storm is breaking upon us. This is the moment of our greatest testing, Bennek! The hammer falling…The clouds of ashes and the serpents rising…Do you see it as clearly?”

“What do you want?” Bennek almost shouted at his old mentor, afraid and angry all at once. Over and over he was forced to endure the priest’s directionless, unfathomable ramblings, and each time he spoke with the elderly man it seemed worse. Hadlo had never been the same since that day at the Kendra Shrine, and as much as Bennek was loath to give voice to it, he was deathly afraid that the priest had lost all sense of reason.