Demons of Air and Darkness by Keith R. A. DeCandido

Author:Keith R. A. DeCandido
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pocket Books/Star Trek

12

THE DELTA QUADRANT

THESTARS ARE WRONG.

Kira had that same thought every time she left the Bajoran sector. For years in the resistance, she had depended on the stars in the sky over Bajor. It was better to move at night when they were on the run from Cardassian patrols. Scanners could fail or be jammed, but all she had to do was look up to know precisely where she was. Even when most or all of the moons were visible, she still could see enough of the constellations to orient herself.

In space, it was the same thing. Navigational equipment wasn’t always reliable, particularly when you were being fired on. Again, the stars were always there for her—as long as the Prophets provided a view of the other suns in the galaxy, she could find her way.

Before becoming first officer on Deep Space 9, she had spent very little time out of the Bajoran system, and even when she did, she’d had other things on her mind—picking up supplies, or some other errand related to the resistance. For most of the first twenty-six years of her life, the stars as they were seen from Bajor were her anchors. It was something she could depend on in a life that had precious little of that.

The first time she went through the wormhole and into the Gamma Quadrant, the disorientation had been almost painful. Her anchor was gone. Everything was arranged differently, and Kira—at the time, still not accustomed to working with reliable Starfleet equipment—found herself in the uncomfortable position of being forced to depend on technology far more than she was used to.

Now, seven years later, it was hardly an issue. She’d made dozens of trips to the Gamma Quadrant, and had traveled all over the Alpha Quadrant, from Cardassia Prime to Earth. Still, every time she found herself far away from home, there was that feeling that the sky was somehow lying to her.

As the Euphrates came careening through the gateway, piercing the the thick green jet that choked the passage, the sky told her a new lie, one as big as the one it told her when she went through the wormhole.

She kept going at full impulse when they cleared the gateway—she wanted to get away from the radioactive waste as quickly as possible. Taking up a position about a hundred thousand kilometers from the gateway, Kira did a sensor sweep.

Her eyes went wide and she felt her jaw go slack. “Oh no . . .”

“I assume,” Taran’atar said, “that you have just noticed the waste concentration bearing 273 mark 9.”

Kira nodded. “That single mass is putting out more radiation than everything that’s in orbit of Europa Nova right now combined. If we let that go through, the planet’s as good as dead.”

“Can we destroy it?”

Kira shook her head as she studied the readings. “Best we could do is blast it into smaller pieces. Impact damage might be less, but it wouldn’t alleviate the radiation.” She didn’t have to remind Taran’atar

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