“How did this happen?” Akaar demanded. “You were supposed to have—”

“I was supposed to have been securing this ceremony from outside forces that might have reasons to disrupt it,” Ro interrupted hotly. “Not from one of the Federation’s own security representatives!”

Akaar’s eyes narrowed. “Maybe if your own precautions had been more effective, Gard would not have been able to circumvent them.” Ever since her court martial over the Garon II debacle, Akaar had never attempted to hide his disapproval of Ro. If he’d had his way, she’d probably be in the Federation penal facility right now instead of serving as Deep Space 9’s chief of security.

“And maybe if the Federation’s screening procedures were more effective, he would never have been part of the delegation to begin with,” Ro countered quietly. “You want to blame me for this disaster, Admiral? Fine. But then maybe you should ask why a member of the Trill ambassadorial staff would want to kill the first minister just as Shakaar was about to thumb the agreement to make Bajor part of the Federation.”

“Precisely the question I want to ask, Lieutenant,” a voice at her shoulder said. General Lenaris Holem of the Bajoran Militia matched Akaar’s stern gaze before turning it on zh’Thane and Gandres. “Can you explain this, Admiral? Councillor? Ambassador?”

The delegates looked at one another but said nothing, Ambassador Gandres becoming paler by the second.

It didn’t take long for Dr. Girani to make her pronouncement: Shakaar had died instantly, and the brutal damage done to his brain stem and medulla oblongata ruled out any hope of resuscitation. With emotion cracking her voice, Girani called the time of death at 1119.

The bladed projectile that had slammed into Shakaar’s neck had been absurdly redundant. As if the impact damage alone hadn’t been enough, the tip contained a phaser charge that activated on contact with Shakaar’s uppermost vertebrae, disintegrating the back of the first minister’s lower skull. Kira had never heard of a more vicious weapon.

She had stood by throughout the ordeal, feeling helpless. In a matter of seconds a single act had unraveled everything. The assassin had killed not only Shakaar, but quite possibly Bajor’s future with the Federation. Everything else the day had brought—Yevir’s startling breakthrough in forging a relationship with the Cardassians that went beyond politics, the long-awaited return of the lost Tears of the Prophets—was now tainted by what had followed. The murder of the first minister at the hands of a Federation national and a member of a diplomatic delegation would be the undoing of everything they all had worked for during the last seven years.

Magistrate Hegel, who had arrived in the Infirmary in time to witness Girani’s confirmation of the death, departed immediately, no doubt to deal with the succession. There could be no delay in the transfer of power to Asarem. Now more than ever, Bajor needed a leader.

Girani had left with the magistrate, giving Kira a few minutes alone with the body before the doctor returned to begin her autopsy. Perhaps Girani knew that Kira would need those minutes…would need the closure of saying goodbye and the reality of Shakaar’s lifeless, murdered body to prepare herself for what lay ahead.

It was difficult for her to look at Edon’s blank face, the bloody absorbant pad that had been draped around his neck, the still chest that no longer rose and fell. Unbidden, she remembered those rare mornings after they’d shared a night of passion, when she’d awoken to find him still asleep beside her. She’d watch the rise and fall of his chest, stroke his skin, feel his life beneath her fingers.

So much had changed over the years. Once they’d been friends fighting side by side in the resistance, then lovers swept together by their mutual desire to bring stability to post-Occupation Bajor. Eventually, Kira and Shakaar had drifted apart, as lovers sometimes do. Their romance had ended amicably more than two years ago, but during the last few months, something had changed.

The Attainder that had separated her from the Bajoran spiritual community notwithstanding, she And Edon had become estranged in a way that had puzzled and hurt her at first, then even made her question her ability to trust him as the leader of Bajor. Now she would never know why. Nor would she ever learn what had made him so manipulative in recent weeks, or why he’d become vindictive toward the Cardassians after working so hard at first to help them in the aftermath of the Dominion War.

Was that why he was killed?she wondered. Had Gard, or someone close to him, also noticed Shakaar’s inexplicable behavior and been so confounded by it that they’d felt compelled to kill him? As far as she was aware, only she and Asarem had known of his duplicity with the Cardassians, and unless Kira was willing to entertain the notion that Asarem had conspired to kill Shakaar in order to seize power—

Steady, Nerys. That kind of speculation before the facts are in could be as damaging as the assassination itself.

But what if someone in the Cardassian delegation had found out about Shakaar’s orders to have Asarem scuttle the Bajoran–Cardassian talks? One of them might have wanted revenge. But to use Gard? What could the connection be?

Or were there elements in the Federation, or Trill specifically, who wanted to sabotage Bajor’s admittance?

Every possibility contained its own unique component of horror, because each one meant that there were forces at large willing to harm Bajor. And that was something Kira Nerys would not allow again. Whoever was behind this, for whatever reason, Kira would learn the truth and expose it, no matter where it led. That was the vow she made as she stood over Shakaar’s body.

She stroked his cold cheek with the back of her hand. Never again,she swore. Then she squared her shoulders and marched out of the surgical bay.

Never.

3

Her back resting against the antigrav dolly, Prynn Tenmei reached up with both hands through the access panel beneath the belly of the shuttlecraft Sagan.She was up to her elbows in isolinear circuitry and subspace field coils, prying loose a stubborn ODN cable that she discovered was nearing the end of its operational life, when she lost her grip on the hyper-spanner in her hand, catching it full in the face.

“Dammit dammit dammit…” Hearing her expletives echoing through the otherwise empty shuttlebay, Prynn kicked the flight deck with her heel, sliding the dolly out from under the shuttle so she could sit up to rub her bruised cheek. Bad enough she’d been exiled to the shuttlebay to work on a craft that was hardly in need of more maintenance, she didn’t appreciate adding injury to insult.

“Maybe you should have asked the bridge to lower the gravity in here before you tried that,” a voice said behind her. “Fewer accidents. Well, less painful ones, anyway.”

Prynn looked over her shoulder and scowled, waving the spanner. “Yeah, but if I throw this at you in one-gee, it’ll hurt more,” she cautioned. “Sir.”

Lieutenant Nog, standing near the port shuttlebay entrance with his hands behind his back, grinned back. “Nice save, Ensign. And just to show you there are no hard feelings…” Nog brought both his hands out, holding two tall glasses of something frothy and white. A clear straw stuck out buoyantly from each one.