“Phase three initiated,” said the glinn, gripping the helm console as the marauder shook under the impacts.

The thought had crossed Dukat’s mind that if Ico or Kell or any one of a dozen other enemies he had made wished to end his existence, this was an opportune moment for him to do so. All that was needed was someone able to exercise the right amount of influence over Dalin Tunol, to have her turn her aim away from showy near-hits to a direct shot at the Tzenkethi command tier; but Dukat was not concerned. He had picked Tunol for her loyalty and her intelligence. The woman had placed her banner by Dukat’s because she knew the kind of man he was. Driven and ruthless, and in the Union such an officer would make his mark or die trying. He had known Tunol was of the same stripe from the moment she was assigned to his vessel.

The ship rocked again, and a plasma conduit ruptured across the bridge, spitting sparks and white gas. “Are the charges set?” demanded the dal.

The glinn nodded. “Countdown is under way, sir. Awaiting your final orders.”

“Disengage from ground attack mode and return fire. Simulate damage to the targeting sensors. I don’t want any serious hits on either craft.” He got to his feet and tapped his comcuff. “This is the dal. Operations team, secure stations and gather at the designated transport points. You have one metric, mark.”

“Next run, incoming,” The glinn was pale; the prospect of taking fire clearly didn’t agree with her.

“Drop the shields after the first volley.” Dukat watched the time dwindle on his chrono. “Make it look like a cascade failure.”

A blue light on his bracelet blinked once, twice. Tunol’s signal.The tingle of a matter transporter prickled his skin as clouds of orange energy snatched away the Cardassian crew, making the ship lifeless for the second time.

The Kashairolled away from the marauder, spitting energy bolts as it veered off. The Tzenkethi ship, suddenly ponderous and wallowing with none of the agility it had exhibited before, spun a lazy turn as if it were making a halfhearted attempt to place its main gun on the light cruiser.

It was the Daikonthat dealt the blow that signaled the end of the marauder’s performance. Concentrating every iota of energy in the ship’s spiral-wave disruptors, the Cardassian vessel ripped into the Tzenkethi fuselage, tearing away great divots of hull metal. Something critical failed inside the marauder; in the space of a microsecond orange spheres of explosive detonation appeared in the spaceframe at the bow, the stern, in the warp core, in the central tiers. The Daikonveered away as the Tzenkethi ship became a tiny, fleeting sun, an expanding ball of flame consuming the marauder and the secrets that it had so briefly concealed.

Tunol climbed out of the Kashai’s command chair and surrendered it to Dukat, but the dal waved her away. He had come straight to the bridge without pausing to throw off his environmental suit, and he had no wish to take his place unless he was in a proper duty uniform; but he wanted to see the Tzenkethi ship die, and there it was on the main viewer, consuming itself in fire.

“Mission accomplished,” said Tunol, with the hint of a grin.

“A performance worthy of the grand theater itself,” Dukat replied. “You played your part well.”

Tunol nodded. “The transporter signatures were masked beneath the discharges from the Daikon’s weapons. Any sensors directed toward the engagement from the planet’s surface or the surviving ships will see nothing to contradict the evidence of their own eyes.” Tunol’s grin returned. “A dangerous invader, brought down by Bajor’s bold comrades in the Cardassian Union.”

“Misdirection,” mused the commander. “What the eye sees and the ear hears, the mind believes.” He could see that Tunol wanted to ask him why,she wanted to know more. Dukat knew she was intelligent enough to piece together the reasoning behind the mission by herself, but now was not the time to bring her deeper into the circle he had forged with Ico and Kell. He grimaced. No. That alliance was made in order to bring this to pass, and now it is done. I have no more need of it.

Dukat left the bridge for his duty room, turning his back on the screen, the flaming wreck, and beyond it, a scarred and terrified Bajor bleeding from ugly wounds across its landscape. The hatch closed behind him, granting him privacy to discard the environmental suit.

The deception was complete. Dukat detached his thick gloves and stared down at the gray skin of his bare hands. I have steeped myself in the blood of thousands of Bajorans,he told himself. How many of their deaths now lie at my feet, how many in the prosecution of this duty have I taken?

He took a breath. “Necessity has a price,” he said to the empty room, “and one day, they will thank me.” Dukat found his chair and sat down, nodding at the rightness of his words. “What I have done today was as much for Bajor as it was for Cardassia.”

Darrah brought the flyer in over the city low and fast, banking and turning to avoid heavy clouds of black smoke and the thermals from burning buildings. Many of the elevated highways and tramlines were broken or toppled off their piers, and the streets were choked with rubble and the shifting masses of people. He saw automated fire tenders dodging back and forth, spraying retardants over the worst infernos, but there was so much destruction, it seemed almost pointless for them to try.

The pattern of the firestorm was strange; some parts of the city had been left untouched by the bombardment, city blocks and tenements standing without injury next to blackened canyons scored through the residential district. Sunlight, where it made it through the cowl of smoke, glittered and flashed off broken glass lying in drifts through the streets. The ornamental park near the orphanage was a smoldering patch of black ruin, the aviary domes cracked open like mouths of broken teeth; the devotional tower in the dressmaker’s district had broken along its length; there was a heap of metal spines and dull flakes of drywall where the night market was supposed to be. Every scene of devastation bled into another.

Darrah felt cold, chilled to his very core. The sights that lay before him were unreal; he had to struggle to process what he had seen. The city— his city—and the streets he had grown up in, that only a day ago he had walked upon, were passing beneath him shattered and thick with ash.

The falling plasma blasts, dropping from the heavens like the spears of a vengeful god; it was as if it were happening at a great distance from him, like a dream. I will wake and this will all be a phantom. I am in bed with Karys and none of this has taken place. Prophets, please, make that the truth and this horror the lie.

In the copilot’s seat Proka was hunched forward with a hand communicator pressed to his ear, breathing hard and cursing under his breath. The constable was working the dial on the channel selector, skipping across the emergency frequencies. “They hit targets in Lonar as well. Even got some shots as far east as Dahkur.” He was grim with the import of his words. Darrah could just about hear the tinny wail of a distant voice crying over the link into Proka’s ear. The lawman shifted the frequency dial back to the local channels.

Darrah tried not to listen. He tried to stay in the here and now, but he couldn’t stop himself from wanting to know the full extent of the attack. Both men had seen the blaze in the sky, the day-sun that had guttered and died far above them. The invaders were gone, but the shock wave they had created would continue to echo around Bajor for hours, days, years.