The War of the Prophets

  you're out of uniform, Nog."

  Nog laughed with affection. "Look who's talking, Jean-Luc."

  Fleet Admiral Jean-Luc Picard—the beloved Old Man to Ms staff—joined in the

  laughter. "I was in the sonic shower when—" He doubled over, coughing.

  Immediately, Nog pulled from the couch a blanket untouched by Romulan blood, and

  draped it carefully around the Old Man's sharp-boned shoulders. Fittingly, Nog

  saw, the blanket was woven with the old Starfleet emblem and the name and

  registration of Picard's last ship command: the U.S.S. Enterprise, NCC-1701-F.

  Nog reached for the bat'leth. "Maybe I should take that."

  The Old Man stared at the weapon for a few mo­ments, as if wondering how it came

  to be in his hands.

  "That's the one Worf gave you, isn't it?" Nog asked gently.

  The Old Man seemed relieved. "That's right." He handed the bat'leth to Nog. "How

  is Worf? Have you heard from him on Deep Space 9?"

  Nog kept his smile steady. He had already conferred with Starfleet Medical on

  this: The Old Man was in the secondary stages of Irumodic Syndrome, a

  degenera­tive disorder linked to a progressive and incurable dete­rioration of

  the synaptic pathways. The doctors had told Nog that the Old Man's short-term

  memory would be first to show signs of disruption, and that's just what had

  happened. It had become common this past year for the admiral to forget the

  names of the newer re­searchers who had joined Project Phoenix. But now, as the

  project drew nearer its absolute deadline and the unrelenting pressure mounted,

  it was distressing to see that the Old Man also seemed to be having more and

  more difficulty recalling events that had occurred years, even decades, before.

  "Worf is dead, Jean-Luc," Nog said quietly. "When Deep Space 9—"

  The Old Man's eyes widened. "—was destroyed.

  That's right" He licked his dry Ups, pulled the blanket of his last command more

  tightly around his shoulders. "That's when it all started, you know."

  Nog understood what the Old Man meant. Everyone in what was left of the

  Federation did. With the destruc­tion of Deep Space 9 and the discovery of the

  second wormhole in Bajoran space, all the conditions that had led to this

  terrible state of siege had been set in place.

  "I was there when it happened," Nog reminded him.

  Late at night, the memories of that last day, that last hour on DS9, that last

  minute before he had been beamed out to the [7.5.5. Garneau, were as vivid to

  Nog as if they had happened only hours earlier, as if he were still in his

  youth, still only an ensign.

  Back then, back there, he had been working in Ops with Garak and Jadzia,

  painstakingly restoring the sta­tion's computers. Then something had happened in

  his uncle's bar. Captain Sisko had asked for Jadzia's help, for Chief O'Brien's

  help, even for Nog's father's help. But he had not asked for Nog's.

  Less than an hour later, the gravimetric structure of space had suddenly

  distorted, and every warning light and siren in Ops had gone off at once as the

  order came to abandon the station. Even now, Nog was still unable to make sense

  of the readings he had seen at the time. Only after the fact had he learned that

  a wormhole had opened unnaturally slowly in his uncle's bar on the Promenade.

  After the fact, he had learned that a few survivors from the Promenade had been

  beamed aboard the rescue flotilla, with stories describing how the three Red

  Orbs of Jalbador had moved into alignment by themselves, somehow triggering the

  wormhole's ap­pearance.

  But in the confusion of those final moments, Nog had been left with the mystery

  of the sensors, watching uncomprehendingly as transport indicators showed the

  start of mass beam-outs, and—inexplicably—a handful of beam-ins.

  Then, only seconds from the end, when the station's power had failed, plunging

  all of Ops into momentary darkness before the emergency batteries came on-line,

  Nog had heard Jake Sisko's voice as if he were calling out from far away. He

  remembered spinning around, al­ready so close to panic that only Garak's eerily

  calm example had kept him focused on his work of dropping shields according to

  emergency evacuation procedures in order to permit as many transports as

  possible.

  But when he had turned in answer to Jake's call— that was when Nog had screamed

  as only a Ferengi could. Because Jake was only centimeters behind him.

  Jake had reached out to him then, silently mouthing Nog's name as if he were

  shouting as loudly as he could. To his perpetual regret, Nog had drawn back from

  his friend in fear. His abrupt move caused him to stumble back over his stool,

  begin to fall, and when he landed, he was on a cargo-transporter on the Garneau.

  Two muscle-bound lieutenants had dragged him off the array so quickly, one of

  his arms had been dislo­cated, the other deeply bruised. And by the time a

  har­ried-looking medical technician had finally gotten to him, everything was

  over.

  Deep Space 9.

  The Defiant.

  His father, his uncle, and his best friend, Jake.

  Gone. Snuffed out. The void within him the equal of the one that had swallowed

  everyone he had loved.

  "I was there when it happened," Nog said again. "When everyone died."

  That sudden flash of a smile came to the Old Man again. "Oh, no. They didn't

  die, Nog."

  But Nog knew that theory, too. And he didn't accept it If there was any hope for

  the Federation, for the galaxy, for the universe itself, that hope rested

  instead with Project Phoenix and the brilliance of Jean-Luc Pi­card, however

  much that brilliance was compromised. What needed to be done now—the only thing

  that could be done—was something that only the Old Man had accomplished before;

  at least, he was the only star-ship captain alive today who had accomplished it.

  And Nog, and everyone else who had sacrificed and strug­gled to make Jean-Luc

  Picard's Phoenix a reality, con­tinued to believe he could do it again. They had

  to believe.

  Fifteen more standard days, Nog thought. All he had to do was keep the Old Man

  calm and stress-free for 360 more hours. Keep the Old Man's peridaxon levels up.

  Make sure he slept and ate as his medical team de­termined was necessary, and

  the Phoenix would fly and the nightmare would end. Failure was unacceptable— and

  unthinkable.

  "Jean-Luc, Captain Sisko was lost with the Defiant. They were all lost. And now

  the Federation is counting on you, and science. Not some ancient prophecy."

  The Old Man stood in the middle of his sitting room, shaking his head like a

  patient teacher addressing a confused student. "You know ... you know people

  used to fight over whether or not a photon was a wave or a particle. Centuries

  ago they used to think it had the characteristics of both, and depending which

  character-

  istic an experiment was set up to find, that's the charac­teristic that was

  revealed."

  It might have been a long time ago, but Nog still re­membered the science

  history classes he had taken at the Academy. He was familiar with the muddled

  early be­ginnings of multiphysics, when scientists had first en­countere
d

  quantum effects and had lacked the basic theory to understand them as anything

  more than appar­ently contradictory phenomena. He knew that the old physicists'

  mistake had not been in trying to determine the nature of light as particle or

  wave, but in thinking it had to be only one or the other. Fortunately, the

  blinding simplicity of the Hawking Recursive-Dimension Inter­pretation had taken

  care of that fallacy, and all apparent quantum contradictions had disappeared

  from the equa­tions overnight, opening the door to applied quantum engineering

  for everything from faster-than-light com­munication to the Heisenberg

  compensators used in every transporter and replicator system to this day.

  "The debate over the nature of light is ancient history," Nog said kindly. "Not

  science. Certainly not prophecy."

  Another tremor shook the floor beneath them. Longer and more sustained man the

  others that had pre­ceded it Nog looked away from the Old Man as his ears picked

  up a distant, high-pitched whistle, some­thing he doubted any hew-mon would be

  able to hear. To him, it could mean only one thing: The atmospheric forcefields

  were down.

  "But the way the question was resolved," the Old Man insisted. "That's what's

  applicable today."

  Nog quickly slipped one of the vacuum-compressed emergency suits off his wrist,

  tugged on the loop to break the seal, and in less than a second shook out a

  crinkly, semitransparent blue jumpsuit. "Here, Jean-Luc. We'd better put these

  on."

  "Y'see," the Old Man said, as he stepped agonizingly slowly into one leg of the

  suit, then the other, "the con­flict between particle and wave was resolved when

  it was discovered that the real answer united both aspects. Different sides of

  the same coin."

  Nog slipped the blanket from Picard's shoulders and helped pull both the Old

  Man's sleeves on, making sure the admiral's hands reached to the mitt-like ends.

  "Same thing with ancient prophecy and science," the Old Man explained.

  Nog smoothed out the flaps of Picard's suit opening, then pressed them together

  so the molecular adhesors created an airtight seal. All that remained now was to

  pull up the hood hanging down the Old Man's back, seal that to the suit, then

  twist the small metal cylinder at the suit's neck, which would inflate the face

  mask to provide the admiral with ten minutes of emergency air while at the same

  time transmitting a transporter distress beacon.

  Though he estimated the atmospheric pressure in the personnel dome would hold

  for the next minute or two, Nog didn't want to take any chances with the Old

  Man. Swiftly, he positioned Picard's hood, sealed it, then twisted the cylinder

  so that a clear bubble of micro-thin polymer formed around the Old Man's face.

  "Science and ancient prophecy," the admiral shouted through the mask, undeterred

  by all of Nog's minister-ings. "Look deeply enough, and who's to say both aren't

  different aspects of the same thing? Just like par­ticle and wave!"

  Even as Nog shook out his own suit, quickly don­ning and sealing it, the

  admiral's words had a chilling

  effect on Mm. The Ascendancy's propaganda had won it dozens of worlds

  already—fifty-two to be exact, ac­cording to the latest intelligence estimates.

  If those falsehoods were to reach the workers of Project Phoenix, perhaps the

  project would survive. But if they infected Admiral Picard... Nog didn't even

  want to think of the consequences.

  Nog hesitated before pulling his own hood over his head. Fortunately, the

  pressure suits were designed to fit up to a 200-kilogram Tellarite, so there

  would be ample room even for a Ferengi head and ears. "Jean-Luc, you can't allow

  yourself to be distracted by Ascendancy lies. You have to concentrate on

  finishing die Phoenix." "But they're not lies," Picard replied indignantly. Nog

  put his hands on the Old Man's shoulders, and their suits crackled like a

  blazing campfire. "Jean-Luc, please. Remember what you've been telling us since

  the project began. The Ascendancy will do anything, say anything, to divert us

  from our course."

  Picard patted Nog's hand on his left shoulder. "But that was before, Will."

  "Before what?" Nog didn't bother to correct the Old Man. When he was tired or

  confused, the admiral often thought Nog was his old first officer from the

  Enter­prise-D and E, Will Riker. Another casualty of '88.

  "Before this attack!" The Old Man spread his arms grandly, and Nog noticed that

  both his suit and Picard's had begun to expand slightly, obviously in response

  to reduced air pressure in the dome.

  Nog checked the ready light on the small metal cylinder on his own suit. The

  emergency beacon was transmitting. The automatic search-and-rescue equip­ment

  installed throughout the Utopia Planitia Fleet

  Yards was designed to be activated by the first sign of falling air pressure. By

  now, Nog knew, sensors throughout the domes should be locking onto emer­gency

  beacons and activating automatic short-range transporters to beam personnel to

  underground shelters.

  "What's so special about this attack?"

  "It's fifteen days!" the Old Man said. "Don't you see? It's no coincidence

  they're attacking now! It's a di­version. To keep us from the truth."

  "What truth?" Nog shouted. The air outside his suit was thinning rapidly, and

  the Old Man's voice was fading.

  "They've come back!" the Old Man said. "It's the only explanation."

  Then, before Nog could offer an alternate explana­tion of his own, he was

  relieved to see the Old Man begin to dissolve in a transporter beam, followed a

  mo­ment later by the transformation into light of the admi­ral's quarters. They

  were both being beamed away.

  But as their new location took shape around them, Nog realized with a start that

  they hadn't been beamed to safety in the underground shelters.

  Martian gravity had been replaced by Class-M normal.

  He and the Old Man were no longer in the shipyards, and the people surrounding

  them were not Starfleet emergency-evacuation personnel.

  They were Romulans.

  And this close to the end of the universe, Nog knew that Romulans could only

  want one thing.

  The death of Admiral Jean-Luc Picard.

  CHAPTER 3

  sometimes, Julian Bashir remembered what it was like to be normal.

  But such bittersweet memories were suspect, be­cause they were invariably mixed

  in with disjointed recollections of his early childhood, from his first faint

  glimmerings of self-awareness to age six. For the rest of his childhood—that is,

  everything beyond age 6 years plus 142 days—there were, of course, no

  dis­jointed recollections, only perfect recall. Because on the one hundred

  forty-third day of his seventh year of existence he had awakened in the

  suffocating gel of an amino-diffusion bam, with an illegally altered genetic

  structure. On that day everything had changed—not just within the boy he had

  been, but within the universe that had previously surrounded him.

  In fact, sometimes it seemed to Bashir that the inno­cent male child who had

  been born to his parents thirty-

  four years ago had peris
hed in that back-alley gene mill on Adigeon Prime, and

  that he—the altered creature who now called himself Julian Bashir—was in fact a

  changeling of old Earth legends.

  Little Julian—the terrified boy who had been im­mersed in the diffusion bath

  with no idea what he had done wrong to make his parents punish him in such a

  way—had been undeniably slow to learn throughout his entire, brief life. His

  environment had been a constant marvel to him, because so much of it was simply

  be­yond his natural capacity to comprehend. His beloved stuffed bear, Kukalaka,

  had been no less alive to him than his mother's cruelly nipping and yipping

  Martian terriers. To little Julian, it had been obvious that the var­ious

  computer interfaces in his home contained little people who could speak to him.

  And he had only been able to watch in wonder as the other children at his school

  somehow answered questions or accomplished tasks with abilities

  indistinguishable to him from magic.

  One recollection that most often resurfaced when least wanted from those blurry,

  half-remembered days of dull normalcy, was of standing in his school's play­room

  listening to Naomi Pedersen chant the times table. To little Julian there had

  been absolutely no connection between the numerals that floated above the

  holoboard and the words that his classmate sang out. The discon­nect had been so

  profound that Bashir clearly remem­bered his early, untransformed self not even

  attempting to understand what was going on: Naomi was simply uttering random

  noises, and the squiggles above the holoboard were only unrelated doodles.

  From his present vantage point, Bashir regarded those days of simple

  incomprehension as the peace of

  innocence. They marked a time when he was unaware that life was a continuing

  straggle, a never-ending se­ries of problems to be overcome by those equipped to

  recognize and solve them.

  Now he recognized that same peace of incomprehen­sion in most of the fourteen

  others with whom he had just been transported from the Defiant, and he envied

  them their unknowing normalcy.

  But, incapable of giving in to what he suspected was their hopeless situation,

  Bashir still studied his surround­ings. He and the others were standing together

  in what appeared to be a familiar setting: the hangar deck of a Starfleet