Star Trek: The Fall: Revelation and Dust Read online

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  To Karen Ragan-George, the light of my life, the beat of my heart, gracing my eyes with her timeless beauty, my ears with the lyric of her laughter, my spirit with her artistic essence, and my mind with her depth of intellect. I love you, my sweet, for now and ever.

  Historian’s Note

  The primary events in this tale take place two years after the destruction of Deep Space 9 by rogue forces of the Typhon Pact (in the Star Trek: Typhon Pact novels Plagues of Night and Raise the Dawn). The main story begins on 22 August 2385 CE, just prior to the dedication of the new DS9, and ends on 1 September 2385 CE.

  And all of us sail the seas of our lives,

  Each guiding the tiller by our own hand,

  Sometimes slipping far into unknown climes,

  Leaving us on some darkling shore to land.

  We live as we can in that foreign realm,

  We hide as needed, or settle, or roam,

  Riding time’s currents, struggling to helm

  Our years, always seeking a return home.

  When finally we find the course to brave,

  We set out on turbulent ocean flows,

  Staring down each trough, cresting every wave,

  Yet still we remain adrift in shadows.

  —Akorem Laan,

  Revelation and Dust, “The Path to Ascendance”

  Prologue

  The Darkling Shore

  She flew through the air, anticipating the hard impact of her body against the unforgiving deck.

  Only moments before, Vedek Kira Nerys had pointed the bow of the purloined runabout she piloted toward a Romulan warbird trespassing within the Celestial Temple. When Kira first entered the wormhole, the alien starship had been engaged against a Starfleet vessel, the Galaxy-class U.S.S. Robinson, commanded by Captain Benjamin Sisko—the Emissary of the Prophets. Beyond the two ships, a great red wound gaped in the wall of the Celestial Temple, a misshapen circular rupture through which another wormhole attached. Peering into the ragged-edged lesion, Kira experienced a pagh’tem’far—a sacred vision—after which the vedek knew what she must do.

  At once, Kira had turned her runabout, Rubicon, into a projectile, aiming it at the Romulan starship in a bid both to aid the Emissary and his crew, and to safeguard the very realm of the Prophets. As she raced for the rear of the runabout’s main compartment to take cover, the bow of her smaller vessel tore through the long neck that connected the forward, beaked hull of the warbird to the ship’s main body. Amid the din of the collision and the unnatural sounds of rending metal, Kira pitched to her hands and knees, her head snapping back painfully. As she steadied herself and gazed through Rubicon’s lateral viewports, she saw the tremendous damage that the runabout had wrought to the warbird, severing the forward section from the rest of the starship. At the same time, she witnessed Robinson freed from its confrontation and dashing toward the Alpha Quadrant terminus of the wormhole.

  The cockpit had turned cold as its internal heat and atmosphere rushed out through a breach in the runabout’s hull. Kira looked toward the bow to see how badly Rubicon had been compromised. Instead, she saw Elias Vaughn.

  Or perhaps she’d seen merely a simulacrum of her friend and former first officer, or perhaps she’d only imagined him aboard the runabout. Certainly the figure she saw—or thought she saw—did not resemble the man she’d visited earlier that day at a hospice on Bajor. After suffering a traumatic brain injury during the Borg invasion two and a half years prior, Vaughn had never regained consciousness, surviving only by means of various life-sustaining medical equipment. His daughter, Prynn Tenmei, had over time ordered all but his feeding and hydration tubes removed, and then, within the previous few weeks, she’d directed that even those be disconnected.

  When Kira had seen Vaughn before appropriating Rubicon, his frail body had seemed destined for an imminent death, a fate long ago experienced by his mind. What remained of Vaughn bore only the barest likeness to the hale man Kira had once known. The tall, strapping officer, with his head of thick salt-and-pepper hair and matching mustache and beard, had given way to an emaciated, balding ghost.

  Aboard Rubicon, though, Vaughn had appeared reinvigorated. He stood over Kira no longer withered and dying but looking as he had when first he’d arrived on Deep Space 9—on the erstwhile Terok Nor, the Cardassian monstrosity of an ore-processing facility that Starfleet had taken over and run as a dedicated space station, but which had lately come to the end of its days, much like Vaughn himself. Or so Kira had thought.

  “How did you get here, Elias?” she had asked, although she’d barely heard her words over the squall of air discharging out into space. Kira thought to ask more than that—she wanted to know how Vaughn had grown healthy again, and why he’d suddenly appeared aboard Rubicon—but before she could, he moved toward her. Without answering her question or even uttering a word, he reached forward and hoisted Kira into his arms, cradling her in a way that made her think he intended to carry her away, as though he could simply exit the runabout and bear her through space to safety, an act that seemed manifestly impossible. Vaughn took no steps, though; rather, he bent at the knees, twisted his torso, then unwound himself, whirling around and tossing Kira into the air.

  The vedek faced upward as she sailed across the compartment, the lighting panels in the overhead passing before her eyes. She waited to crash to the deck. Expecting to strike it hard, she attempted to brace herself for the impact.

  But then Kira landed on her back, and although the force knocked the air from her lungs, she knew that she had not come down inside Rubicon. The surface beneath her felt firm but offered more give than the inflexible metal of a runabout deck. Further, where the air about her had only a moment before gusted noisily in the cabin as it blustered through a break in the hull, it had all at once settled into an eerie stillness.

  Even as Kira gasped in great gulps of air, she worked to push herself up. She bent at the waist, propping herself up on her hands. She wanted to examine her surroundings, but a brilliant white light suddenly rose all about her, with no apparent source. She squinted against it, but it continued to intensify, effectively blinding her.

  It occurred to Kira that perhaps the loss of the runabout’s atmosphere had brought on hypoxia and an altering of her perceptions. Perhaps she’d hallucinated Vaughn’s presence aboard Rubicon. She might even have lost consciousness, her awareness and observations relegated to the netherworld of her dreams. Or maybe her potentially lethal circumstances had led her to experience a near-death delirium.

  Or maybe I’m actually dying, Kira thought. Or already dead.

  Kira felt no fear at the thought, but melancholy washed over her for the potential loss of a life she hadn’t finished living. She had spent so much of her existence—a quarter of a century—captive to the brutal yoke of Cardassian occupation, fighting daily, year upon year, to liberate her people. When that had finally happened, she’d gone to Deep Space 9 for nearly a decade, first as the station’s executive officer and then as its commander, vigorously protecting Bajor’s newfound freedom. It had been only in the five and a half years that followed that Kira had finally been able to find her way forward past the violence that had so permeated her life in both thought and deed.

  Just a little more than a month ahead, her fortieth birthday beckoned—an
objectively meaningless marker, she knew, a mere arithmetic trifle, but she nevertheless regarded it as a milestone. For most of Kira’s life, she’d assumed that she wouldn’t reach forty, and so she thought that it would serve as an indicator of the progress she’d made and the peace she’d found within herself. She viewed the date both as a measure of her emotional and spiritual growth, and as a way station along her journey of devotional service. It had taken only three years for Kira to progress through the ranks of the Bajoran clergy up to the position of vedek, but she understood that she still had much to learn—about herself, about her people, and about their shared creed. Though she had already traveled far on her personal and religious trek, she envisioned the road ahead of her widening and climbing to greater heights. More than anything, she wanted to continue walking the path that the Prophets had laid out for her.

  The Prophets, Kira thought. She squinted into the gleaming light, striving to make out any detail but seeing nothing at all. Her breathing had eased back almost to its normal pace, and so she felt the need to take action, but she still could not discern anything about her surroundings.

  It doesn’t matter, she avowed, employing the force of her will to beat back her despondency, and turning to her faith as a source of strength. I was in the Celestial Temple, Kira thought, reminding herself that she had flown Rubicon into the wormhole. I must still be within its confines.

  The bright light evoked memories of the two times in Kira’s life when she had communed with the Prophets. During her convalescence from the terrible injuries she’d suffered at the hands of Taran’atar, her mind had soared into the Celestial Temple. There, the Prophets designated her Their hand, explaining—in Their abstruse way—that she must take action on Their behalf with respect to the Eav’oq and the Ascendants. The Prophets later reinforced that message when Kira ended up falling into the wormhole alongside Iliana Ghemor and the Cardassian spy’s alternate-universe counterpart, the three of them floating through space, bereft of either ship or space suit.

  Ultimately, Kira had acted, although it seemed to her that others—Benjamin, the Eav’oq named Itu, the Ascendant Raiq, even Taran’atar—had achieved so much more than she. Several times since those events had played out, Kira had wondered whether she’d truly fulfilled the Prophets’ designs for her. It pained her to consider that she might have disappointed Them, but she took solace in knowing that she had honestly tried her best; given the outcome of the Ascendants situation, perhaps she had accomplished precisely what They had wanted of her. No matter the measure of her performance in those matters, though, Kira never in any way doubted the Prophets.

  About Kira, the brightness of the light still left her unable to see. She closed her eyes and focused on her location within the Celestial Temple. She trusted the Prophets wholly, and she would readily accept whatever new path They wished her to follow.

  A sense of calm filled Kira, and almost as though her emotions controlled it, the light shining on her eyelids dimmed. She waited several seconds, wanting to ensure that it did not brighten again. Finally, she opened her eyes.

  A night sky extended across Kira’s field of vision like no other she had ever seen. A panoply of stars adorned the heavens almost as densely as the grains of sand on a beach. Even out in the countryside, away from the light pollution of cities, even out in space, removed from the dulling effects of an atmosphere, she had never beheld such a rich stellar tapestry.

  As she gazed up at the magnificent starscape, Kira became aware of a gritty coolness beneath her hands. She peered down to see that she sat atop a patch of simple earth, made visible by the faint glow of starlight. She dug her fingers into the ground, then brought her hand up to her face to see granules of dirt.

  Kira reached down and pushed herself up. When she did, she saw that the land appeared to fall away not too far ahead of her. She walked forward, and the horizon quickly drew near. Kira expected to look down on a valley or canyon, but instead she stood on the edge of space. Beyond the end of the terrain, she glimpsed the great sweep of stars stretching down as far as she could see.

  The view caused Kira to swoon. She quickly took two steps back and waited for the sensation to pass. Once it did, she dropped to her hands and knees and crawled forward, until she could see straight down past the rim of the land. The ground plummeted vertically away from her in striated runs of earth, and beyond, more stars shined back at her. Kira perched not on a planet, she realized, but more like on a surface section of a world that had somehow been scooped up and set adrift in space—yet managed to maintain an atmosphere and gravity.

  Kira backed away from the edge, stood up, and turned to survey the rest of her surroundings. A coarse, rocky plain marched away from her, with sheer cliffs rising up on either side. Above, the sparkling sea of stars disappeared from view behind a roiling mass of unbroken gray clouds. Flashes of lightning illuminated the scene in staccato bursts.

  Several hundred paces ahead, a wide chasm split the land, extending from one ridged rock face to the other. Unlike with the drop-off into space behind her, though, Kira could see more territory beyond the canyon. What lay on the other side could not have provided more of a contrast to the stark reality of Kira’s immediate environs.

  Across the chasm, clear blue skies replaced the churning cloud cover. A rolling, sun-bathed grassland put Kira in mind of Alavanu Green, the largest park in Bajor’s capital city of Ashalla. Trees of various shapes and sizes dotted the landscape, interspersed with low-lying foliage. Flowers of assorted hues lent color to the verdant setting.

  Kira stared across the dichotomous vista, trying to fathom what it meant. She did not entirely believe in the physical reality of what she saw, but she also suspected that even if it existed only in her mind, she would still have to interact with it. She simply did not understand how.

  Once more as though summoned by her thoughts, a change occurred to the scene before her. On the far side of the canyon, a sparkling hourglass shape appeared. It hovered just above the grass, spinning slowly in place and emitting an otherworldly green-white glow. The vedek recognized it immediately as an Orb of the Prophets.

  Just the sight of the hallowed artifact delighted Kira. She wondered about its identity and whether or not it was one of the nine extant such objects known to the Bajoran people. Even the possibility of a new Orb thrilled the vedek.

  I have to go to it, Kira thought. I have to learn what it has to tell me.

  Just before departing Bajor aboard Rubicon, she had consulted the Orb of Destiny at the Vanadwan Monastery. She had not completely understood the experience—nobody ever did—but it had left her with a new awareness and the knowledge of what she next needed to do. It only made sense that she should approach the Orb that had appeared before her in order to learn whatever information or intuition it could impart to her.

  Kira started forward. She didn’t know how she would cross the canyon that separated her from the parkland opposite and the Orb that hovered just above it, but she continued onward. She believed that if the Prophets meant her to reach the Orb, she would find a way.

  Above Kira, the dark clouds flared with lightning, rinsing the rocky ground and the steep cliff walls in a silvery, spectral radiance. The land quaked beneath her feet. She hastened her step.

  Suddenly, the land to Kira’s left fractured in jagged streaks. Intense white light emerged from the fissures and shot up to the swirling sky. The vedek veered right, but then the ground there broke open. More brilliant rays burst upward. Kira adjusted her course, hoping to thread herself between the newly formed crevices, but then they came together in front of her. She quickly turned so that she could backtrack and wend her away around the shattered terrain, but she found herself surrounded by it.

  Kira spun again to look toward the chasm. She considered attempting to leap the ruptures and through the light, but before she could, the earth jolted again, knocking her from her feet. She landed once more on her back. Around Kira, the fissures widened and lengthened, the er
uptions of white light sewing together and enveloping her in their unfeeling luster.

  At first, her body seemed to float, but then she lost all sense of her position, location, and even orientation. By degrees, Kira became aware of her own heartbeat, slow and steady, like the rhythmic pounding of a drum. She listened to it, concentrated on it, then raised a hand to cover her eyes. She flexed her fingers in the whiteout, trying to evaluate the quality of her sensations.

  Abruptly, a series of images sped across her mind: a recumbent woman; a figure catching a white ball in a leather mitt; a second woman, wearing a red headdress; and a Borg. It took a moment for Kira’s thoughts to catch up to her visualizations, but then she realized that she knew all the faces she saw, even as she grasped that the people represented something beyond themselves: the Prophets. Kira opened her mouth to speak with Them, but before she could say anything at all, she heard somebody ask a question, seemingly from somewhere nearby.

  “Who are you?”

  Kira gathered that the query had not been meant for her. As though in response, another quartet of likenesses rose in her mind: a man kissing a woman, a newborn baby, a teenage boy, and then another woman. Kira could still hear the pulse of her own heart.

  “Who are you?” the voice asked again, louder and more insistent.

  Kira lowered her hand from before her face to discover that the all-encompassing white light had retreated. To her surprise, she no longer lay on a splintering fragment of land, but stood on a sun-drenched beach of golden sand, the waves of a dark-blue ocean rolling onshore. A woman—the first person whose image had played across Kira’s consciousness—rested on a blanket and gazed up at a man who stood above her. The vedek knew him at once.

  It was Benjamin Sisko.

  Revelation