Days of the Vipers

“Ships don’t vanish, Dal,” he barked. “They cloaked. Recalibrate sensors and get me a trail. I want it this very second!” He cut the signal before she could reply, but a heartbeat later the communicator signaled an incoming message. “Dukat,” he growled.

“Oh, Skrain.”Ico’s voice was cold. “I am so disappointed in you.”

23

Outside the shack the encampment used as its infirmary the congregation gathered and muttered darkly. Be

The airtruck was out by the perimeter, the engine still idling and the cab door hanging wide open. The driver was a youth the cleric remembered as being from Culat, and he sat on one of the collapsible metal-framed canvas beds, weeping. Be

Between choking sobs and gasps of air, the young man parceled out his story in broken pieces. The docks, the three men. The guns. Urad’s execution. The others, lost and likely dead. And Tima. Tima…

Be

“Who would do this?” Seren demanded, her voice strident and furious. “Why would the Bajorans strike at us? We have always shown them honor and respect!” She spat on the dirt floor. “Why have they turned against us?” The nurse glared at Be

Be

“Th-they called us filth,” stuttered the boy. “I was so afraid. I had to run…but the others…” He choked off his own words with a moan of guilt.

“You did the right thing,” insisted the nurse. “If you hadn’t come back to warn us, we would never have known this was coming.” She turned to Be

Be

“Are we going to tolerate this?” Seren was shouting. “We are forced out here to live on the charity of others, and then these scum attack us at our very weakest? They burn down our homes, try to starve us, and we do nothing!”

Be

“We have to strike back!” said the nurse, and a chorus of assent went with her cry. “Fight for the Way, defend ourselves!”

The cleric searched for some parable, something from the Recitations to rally them away from anger, but like everything else, like Tima, that had suddenly been taken from him. Be

He heard his name being called. The youth was behind him, screaming and pointing into the distance. They turned as one to see the lights approaching the encampment from the direction of the city—skimmers and flyers, dozens of them aimed directly at the Oralian settlement.

Be

“What do you want?” demanded Seren, and the Oralians snarled and growled in her support. “Come to finish off the rest of us?”

The cleric searched the faces of the new arrivals, looking for men in docker’s overalls, and found none; instead he saw hate on every face, the burning need for someone to blame, to find an outlet for a mass of stored-up hurts and lingering affronts.

Some of the Bajorans shouted out hard words in reply to the nurse, but Arin silenced them with a sharp wave of his hand. He glared at the Oralians. “Be

It was the last thing he expected to hear, and the cleric was bewildered. “What are you talking about? What did we do? What did youdo, Arin? You murdered our people!” And then, in that instant, as the words left his mouth the hollow inside him filled with a pure, burning sorrow so powerful he could barely contain it. “Tima is dead!” he moaned. “My followers have been slaughtered!”

Arin shook his head, and Be

“Are you insane?” demanded Seren. “Our people are all here,Vedek! Starving and sick because of what your kind has done to us!”

Arin ignored her outburst. “Be

Seren pushed past Be

“Seren, be silent,” Be

The vedek’s face flushed crimson. “This a matter above the legality of men. This is a matter of the holy temple! You must submit, or else you will—” Arin’s voice was silenced as a fist-sized stone shot out from the lines of the Oralians and struck the Bajoran priest on the temple. The impact dropped Arin to the dirt, a livid wound leaking blood down his face.

Be

The cleric stumbled back toward the encampment as the two groups collided with a clatter of violence. Stones and fire rained down toward him, scattering across the dull earth. Something impacted him hard across the small of the back and he stumbled forward, tripping over the ropes of a bubble-tent and falling to his knees. The confrontation was raging all around. He crawled, trying to drag himself from the melee, and every action was punctuated by a single thought. Tima is dead.