Terok Nor_ Day Of The Vipers Part 24

The cloisters of the monastery were filled with prayers and panic in equal measure. Built high into the hillside, the ancient campus commanded an excellent view of the provinces to the west. It was with silent terror that the novices, prylars, and ranjens a.s.sembled for dawn ma.s.s on the square were witness to the streaks of sunfire falling from the sky to strike the distant blur of Korto's conurbation. The sounds of the detonations were only now reaching them, the shock wave rumbles rattling the ornamental stainedgla.s.s windows in the halls.

Then the first blast fell on Kendra, hitting the compound of service sheds and habitats for the visiting penitents at the base of the hill. The concussion turned the ancient gla.s.s to molten bullets, the plume of h.e.l.lish flame behind it erasing the cl.u.s.ter of stone buildings in a heartbeat. The next shot came and tore the tallest towers from the high levels of the monastery. A construction that had stood on the surface of Bajor for thousands of years, that had weathered wars and famines and storms beyond counting, now cracked and crumbled under its own weight, stone breaking with a mournful cry that carried down the valley. No more strikes followed; there were other targets scattered across Bajor's dayside to be prosecuted. No more were needed at Kendra. The damage was done, fires and collapse spreading with roaring, snarling fury.

The sound made Vedek Arin freeze where he stood, halfway down the length of the grand corridor toward the shrine. The polished floor beneath his feet shook as if wracked by an earthquake. His calling as a servant of the Prophets warred with his instinct for self-preservation. The Orb...Dare he leave it to whatever fate was to come, trusting in his G.o.ds to preserve it so that he might flee-or should he enter the shrine and carry out the ark holding the Tear, risking his life to venture inside and perhaps be buried alive? A way behind him, a huge chandelier made of bra.s.s and crystal tore free of the ceiling and struck the ground with a colossal crash. Arin's terror leapt a hundredfold and he gaped in panic, rooted to the spot by his fear. He took a hesitant step toward the shrine; he registered that the doors were hanging open. The priest staggered forward, and his foot touched a rent in the floor where a stone tile should have been. He pitched forward, crying out, and he struck the stonework hard. The impact dizzied him, pain blurring his sight. "Prophets..." he called out. "Aid me..."

Strong hands dragged him to his feet, and the vedek blinked. There was blood in his eyes from a streaming cut on his forehead that sang with pain. Cascades of dust and falling tiles were impacting all around him. "The cloister..."

"It's coming down, Vedek!" He recognized the voice, saw the man who was holding him up.

"Osen?" He staggered. "What...Were you inside the shrine?"

"I came after you!" insisted the ranjen. "We have to get out!"

"But the Tear of the Prophets is still in there!" cried Arin. "We can't leave the Orb of Truth!"

Gar was dragging him away. "The Prophets will protect it," he shouted over the grind of stone on stone, "and we must protect ourselves!"

Great chunks of the walls and the pillars supporting them were impacting all around them now, and finally Arin surrendered to his fear, letting the young priest drag him away, out of the building.

Outside, the vedek stumbled and fell to his knees, turning in time to see the monastery groan like a dying man and collapse in on itself in a final tide of noise and gray-brown dust. The clouds of powdered stone and ash washed up and engulfed the monks, coating them in the cloying powder, painting them the color of ghosts. Arin looked up into the sky and saw white fire falling toward the horizon, in the direction of Janir and Ashalla.

In Dahkur, dawn had still to break across the city, but the streets were choked with people and vehicles desperate to flee the conurbation. Streetscreens were showing live broadcasts from the destruction wrought in Korto, and the citizenry was panicked.

In the halls of the emba.s.sy of the Carda.s.sian Union there was a skeleton crew on duty on the upper levels, soldiers guarding the doors to keep the place secure, but no staff members at the checkpoints or on the office tiers. All of them were a dozen levels below, in the emergency bunker along with the command staff and Jagul Kell himself. All of them but Rhan Ico.

The emba.s.sy was replete with protected chambers, a monument to the Carda.s.sian obsession with paranoia and security, but the room that Ico stood in was the most secure of them all, constructed to tolerances and designs that were so secret no living being had a hand in fabricating them. It existed on no plans for the building; there was no door, so access was only via a hidden transporter; it had nothing to connect it to the outside world. The machine-manufactured room was a module that, like the rest of the building, had been made whole on Carda.s.sia and s.h.i.+pped to Bajor to be beamed into place. The walls were laced with complex circuits that could defeat a million kinds of listening devices and sensors. Ico had even heard rumors that the panels contained a bio-neural matrix based on cultured Vulcan brain tissue, which could fog penetration by telepaths. She was confident that no one on the planet could know what was going on in here.

The folded-s.p.a.ce transporter unit before her completed its phase-s.h.i.+ft cycle with a hiss of displaced molecules and commenced the reintegration process. Inside the sealed receptor capsule a shape began to take form, and she pressed her hand to the transparent wall of the pod. A cool smile unfolded on Ico's lips. It was a genuine emotion on her part, a rare thing for the woman. Certainly, it was not something she would have exhibited in the presence of anyone else. But here, in the room, she was utterly alone, and so she could drop her pretense for a short time. It was, in its way, refres.h.i.+ng.

The transporter completed its work, and the capsule opened to her. Ico reached in and ran a hand over the careworn wooden case that lay inside. Intricate scrollwork in an ancient Bajoran ideogram script framed the planes of the box, looping around convex oval lenses set in the sides of the container. The carved wood was warm to the touch. For long moments Ico's fingers dithered over the small iron latch on the front of the container. The glow of the object inside the ark cast a honeyed illumination that scintillated, compelling her to open it.

"And this is what drove Hadlo to his folly," she said to the air. Ico smirked and pushed aside any thoughts forming in her mind that she might actually give in to the same curiosity. Instead, she gathered up the box and placed it inside a padded cargo container, pausing only to seal it with a beam tool and tag it with an encrypted transporter locater. "The first of many," Ico said to herself.

A faint rumble made her look up at the ceiling. The bombardment of Dahkur had started. She returned to her work, secure in the knowledge that she was in no danger.

The Carda.s.sian wars.h.i.+ps dropped out of warp inside the orbit of Jeraddo, shedding velocity in flares of rainbow radiation. The maneuver, like every other event in the sequence, was a precisely timed, perfectly ch.o.r.eographed display to present the right image to the Bajoran s.h.i.+ps still drifting damaged inside visual range. Their firing grids pulsing, the Kashai Kashai and the and the Daikon Daikon fell toward the Tzenkethi marauder like swooping raptors. Disruptor bursts arced through the vacuum around the teardrop stars.h.i.+p, flas.h.i.+ng off the force s.h.i.+elds. fell toward the Tzenkethi marauder like swooping raptors. Disruptor bursts arced through the vacuum around the teardrop stars.h.i.+p, flas.h.i.+ng off the force s.h.i.+elds.

"Phase three initiated," said the glinn, gripping the helm console as the marauder shook under the impacts.

The thought had crossed Dukat's mind that if Ico or Kell or any one of a dozen other enemies he had made wished to end his existence, this was an opportune moment for him to do so. All that was needed was someone able to exercise the right amount of influence over Dalin Tunol, to have her turn her aim away from showy near-hits to a direct shot at the Tzenkethi command tier; but Dukat was not concerned. He had picked Tunol for her loyalty and her intelligence. The woman had placed her banner by Dukat's because she knew the kind of man he was. Driven and ruthless, and in the Union such an officer would make his mark or die trying. He had known Tunol was of the same stripe from the moment she was a.s.signed to his vessel.

The s.h.i.+p rocked again, and a plasma conduit ruptured across the bridge, spitting sparks and white gas. "Are the charges set?" demanded the dal.

The glinn nodded. "Countdown is under way, sir. Awaiting your final orders."

"Disengage from ground attack mode and return fire. Simulate damage to the targeting sensors. I don't want any serious. .h.i.ts on either craft." He got to his feet and tapped his comcuff. "This is the dal. Operations team, secure stations and gather at the designated transport points. You have one metric, mark." mark."

"Next run, incoming," The glinn was pale; the prospect of taking fire clearly didn't agree with her.

"Drop the s.h.i.+elds after the first volley." Dukat watched the time dwindle on his chrono. "Make it look like a cascade failure."

A blue light on his bracelet blinked once, twice. Tunol's signal. Tunol's signal. The tingle of a matter transporter p.r.i.c.kled his skin as clouds of orange energy s.n.a.t.c.hed away the Carda.s.sian crew, making the s.h.i.+p lifeless for the second time. The tingle of a matter transporter p.r.i.c.kled his skin as clouds of orange energy s.n.a.t.c.hed away the Carda.s.sian crew, making the s.h.i.+p lifeless for the second time.

The Kashai Kashai rolled away from the marauder, spitting energy bolts as it veered off. The Tzenkethi s.h.i.+p, suddenly ponderous and wallowing with none of the agility it had exhibited before, spun a lazy turn as if it were making a halfhearted attempt to place its main gun on the light cruiser. rolled away from the marauder, spitting energy bolts as it veered off. The Tzenkethi s.h.i.+p, suddenly ponderous and wallowing with none of the agility it had exhibited before, spun a lazy turn as if it were making a halfhearted attempt to place its main gun on the light cruiser.

It was the Daikon Daikon that dealt the blow that signaled the end of the marauder's performance. Concentrating every iota of energy in the s.h.i.+p's spiral-wave disruptors, the Carda.s.sian vessel ripped into the Tzenkethi fuselage, tearing away great divots of hull metal. Something critical failed inside the marauder; in the s.p.a.ce of a microsecond orange spheres of explosive detonation appeared in the s.p.a.ceframe at the bow, the stern, in the warp core, in the central tiers. The that dealt the blow that signaled the end of the marauder's performance. Concentrating every iota of energy in the s.h.i.+p's spiral-wave disruptors, the Carda.s.sian vessel ripped into the Tzenkethi fuselage, tearing away great divots of hull metal. Something critical failed inside the marauder; in the s.p.a.ce of a microsecond orange spheres of explosive detonation appeared in the s.p.a.ceframe at the bow, the stern, in the warp core, in the central tiers. The Daikon Daikon veered away as the Tzenkethi s.h.i.+p became a tiny, fleeting sun, an expanding ball of flame consuming the marauder and the secrets that it had so briefly concealed. veered away as the Tzenkethi s.h.i.+p became a tiny, fleeting sun, an expanding ball of flame consuming the marauder and the secrets that it had so briefly concealed.

Tunol climbed out of the Kashai Kashai's command chair and surrendered it to Dukat, but the dal waved her away. He had come straight to the bridge without pausing to throw off his environmental suit, and he had no wish to take his place unless he was in a proper duty uniform; but he wanted to see the Tzenkethi s.h.i.+p die, and there it was on the main viewer, consuming itself in fire.

"Mission accomplished," said Tunol, with the hint of a grin.

"A performance worthy of the grand theater itself," Dukat replied. "You played your part well."

Tunol nodded. "The transporter signatures were masked beneath the discharges from the Daikon Daikon's weapons. Any sensors directed toward the engagement from the planet's surface or the surviving s.h.i.+ps will see nothing to contradict the evidence of their own eyes." Tunol's grin returned. "A dangerous invader, brought down by Bajor's bold comrades in the Carda.s.sian Union."

"Misdirection," mused the commander. "What the eye sees and the ear hears, the mind believes." He could see that Tunol wanted to ask him why, why, she wanted to know more. Dukat knew she was intelligent enough to piece together the reasoning behind the mission by herself, but now was not the time to bring her deeper into the circle he had forged with Ico and Kell. He grimaced. she wanted to know more. Dukat knew she was intelligent enough to piece together the reasoning behind the mission by herself, but now was not the time to bring her deeper into the circle he had forged with Ico and Kell. He grimaced. No. That alliance was made in order to bring this to pa.s.s, and now it is done. I have no more need of it. No. That alliance was made in order to bring this to pa.s.s, and now it is done. I have no more need of it.

Dukat left the bridge for his duty room, turning his back on the screen, the flaming wreck, and beyond it, a scarred and terrified Bajor bleeding from ugly wounds across its landscape. The hatch closed behind him, granting him privacy to discard the environmental suit.

The deception was complete. Dukat detached his thick gloves and stared down at the gray skin of his bare hands. I have steeped myself in the blood of thousands of Bajorans, I have steeped myself in the blood of thousands of Bajorans, he told himself. he told himself. How many of their deaths now lie at my feet, how many in the prosecution of this duty have I taken? How many of their deaths now lie at my feet, how many in the prosecution of this duty have I taken?

He took a breath. "Necessity has a price," he said to the empty room, "and one day, they will thank me." Dukat found his chair and sat down, nodding at the rightness of his words. "What I have done today was as much for Bajor as it was for Carda.s.sia."

Darrah brought the flyer in over the city low and fast, banking and turning to avoid heavy clouds of black smoke and the thermals from burning buildings. Many of the elevated highways and tramlines were broken or toppled off their piers, and the streets were choked with rubble and the s.h.i.+fting ma.s.ses of people. He saw automated fire tenders dodging back and forth, spraying r.e.t.a.r.dants over the worst infernos, but there was so much destruction, it seemed almost pointless for them to try.

The pattern of the firestorm was strange; some parts of the city had been left untouched by the bombardment, city blocks and tenements standing without injury next to blackened canyons scored through the residential district. Sunlight, where it made it through the cowl of smoke, glittered and flashed off broken gla.s.s lying in drifts through the streets. The ornamental park near the orphanage was a smoldering patch of black ruin, the aviary domes cracked open like mouths of broken teeth; the devotional tower in the dressmaker's district had broken along its length; there was a heap of metal spines and dull flakes of drywall where the night market was supposed to be. Every scene of devastation bled into another.

Darrah felt cold, chilled to his very core. The sights that lay before him were unreal; he had to struggle to process what he had seen. The city-his city-and the streets he had grown up in, that only a day ago he had walked upon, were pa.s.sing beneath him shattered and thick with ash.

The falling plasma blasts, dropping from the heavens like the spears of a vengeful G.o.d; it was as if it were happening at a great distance from him, like a dream. I will wake and this will all be a phantom. I am in bed with Karys and none of this has taken place. Prophets, please, make that the truth and this horror the lie. I will wake and this will all be a phantom. I am in bed with Karys and none of this has taken place. Prophets, please, make that the truth and this horror the lie.

In the copilot's seat Proka was hunched forward with a hand communicator pressed to his ear, breathing hard and cursing under his breath. The constable was working the dial on the channel selector, skipping across the emergency frequencies. "They hit targets in Lonar as well. Even got some shots as far east as Dahkur." He was grim with the import of his words. Darrah could just about hear the tinny wail of a distant voice crying over the link into Proka's ear. The lawman s.h.i.+fted the frequency dial back to the local channels.

Darrah tried not to listen. He tried to stay in the here and now, but he couldn't stop himself from wanting to know the full extent of the attack. Both men had seen the blaze in the sky, the day-sun that had guttered and died far above them. The invaders were gone, but the shock wave they had created would continue to echo around Bajor for hours, days, years. years.

Proka repeated what he was hearing. "Kendra...The monastery is gone, totally obliterated. Most of the residents got out, but many are missing and presumed dead. The shrine was buried..." He blanched. "They're saying...They're saying that the Orb of Truth was destroyed."

Gar Osen's face flashed through Darrah's thoughts. "I shouldn't have taken him back there."

"He might have made it out," Proka offered, but he didn't sound convinced.

"I shouldn't have left him." Darrah went hot with anger.

"I shouldn't have left any of them!" He wrenched the controls around, sweeping though a bank of wood smoke, and threw the flyer toward the residential districts along the hillside road. His house stood out among the others, among the buildings with their broken windows and wind-ravaged roofs. The lawman's heart leapt; the buildings showed only the signs of shock damage and none of the awful effects of the firestorms and plasma strikes. He wrenched the controls around, sweeping though a bank of wood smoke, and threw the flyer toward the residential districts along the hillside road. His house stood out among the others, among the buildings with their broken windows and wind-ravaged roofs. The lawman's heart leapt; the buildings showed only the signs of shock damage and none of the awful effects of the firestorms and plasma strikes.

Darrah put the flyer down on the ash-coated road and threw off his safety restraints.

"Boss, what are you doing?" said Proka.

"Get out of here," Darrah snapped at him, and he vaulted out of the hatch toward the ruined fascia of his home.

The oval front door was halfway down the entrance hall, where it had been blown off its hinges. There were fans of gla.s.s radiating out from every window facing toward the ruined city. He saw streaks of blood, still fresh on the wall, and Darrah's throat tightened, silencing him. He had come across sights of violence and destruction over and over throughout his career, in crime scenes all across Korto, but the calm and professional detachment that he fell into there was lost to him. This was his his home, it was the sight of an atrocity that had bled in from the city, a crime on a scale so large it was beyond him to deal with it. home, it was the sight of an atrocity that had bled in from the city, a crime on a scale so large it was beyond him to deal with it.

He couldn't bring himself to call out the names of his wife and children; he was too afraid to do it, for fear that his only reply would be silence. The blood! The blood on the wall, whose is it? The blood! The blood on the wall, whose is it? Karys's, Bajin's, or Nell's? Was one of them up ahead in a room, or sprawled out in the yard, knifed by a piece of flying debris? Karys's, Bajin's, or Nell's? Was one of them up ahead in a room, or sprawled out in the yard, knifed by a piece of flying debris?

"h.e.l.lo!" He shouted it out, finding the strength to push the word out of his trembling lips. "Who's there?"

He entered the kitchen just as Nell called back to him. In the shambles of the room they were all there, frozen in a tableau. Every detail of the moment etched into Darrah's mind like acid burning steel, fixing the image: Nell, an adhesive bandage covering her cheek, red dots spotting across the shoulder of her white cotton dress, the streaking of dirty tears down her perfect little face; Bajin, shocked into silence at the far door, two bags stuffed with clothes in his arms, his expression ragged with fear; and then Karys.

His wife exploded toward him, and she hit Mace hard across the cheek, the slap stinging him with the force of the impact. He recoiled, not so much from the attack as from the look of pure fury on her face. Karys swore at him and threw another swipe, but he caught her wrist. She spat and tore away from his grip, shoving him back with the heel of her free hand. "b.a.s.t.a.r.d!" "b.a.s.t.a.r.d!" The word was caustic. The word was caustic.

"Karys, you're all right, I-"

"Shut up!" she bellowed. "Don't speak to me! Don't say anything, you don't have the right to say anything to us!" Karys gathered up Nell, as the girl started to cry. "You left us here alone!"

Mace swallowed a gasp of breath. "I had to...The minister's family, we had to get them to safety..." The words sounded weak in his ears. "No, it's just...I didn't know this was going to happen." He cast around at the destruction. "I never would have-"

His wife cut him off with a savage glare. "You left us here, Darrah Mace." Ice gripped his heart. "You put your job before your family, like you did before, like you always do!" like you always do!"

"I didn't know this was coming!" he shouted back at her. "You have to believe me!"

She was retreating away from him, taking Nell and moving to Bajin and the bags. Mace read the intentions in her expression before she said another word, and he shook his head. Karys nodded tearfully, denying him. "Yes, Mace, oh yes. We can't stay here anymore. We're leaving."

He took a desperate step toward her. "Where can you go?" he cried. "The city is in chaos, there are thousands of frightened people out on the streets! You think it will be any better in Ashalla with your mother?"

"I'm not going to Ashalla," she snapped back at him.

"I told you before, I can't live here. s.h.i.+ps will be leaving." Karys was guiding the children to the door, and Mace felt his heart tearing open as Nell and Bajin followed their mother, casting sad and piteous looks toward him.

"I'll come with you," he said desperately.

"No," she shot back. "You've let us down too many times. I'm leaving, Mace. I'm going to the Valo colony."

Everything Mace had been terrified of losing he had found safe, only to have it s.n.a.t.c.hed from him. "Karys, please!" please!" The pleading became a shout that made the children flinch. The pleading became a shout that made the children flinch.

On the threshold of the broken doorway, his wife threw a harsh glare at the wounded city beyond. "You care more about Korto than us, you always have. Now you can keep it."

They left him there, mute among the ruins.

17.

When the central tower of the Naghai Keep had been constructed, the level below the battlements was known simply as the upper hall. An open s.p.a.ce, studded with pillars supporting the roof and the ramparts above, in the days of the Republics it had been where the lord of the castle held his court, the high arched windows that ringed the room allowing him to look out over the region and see the breadth of his realm. In the centuries since that time, the upper hall had been used for many other things, but today it had turned back to some echo of its original purpose. In a mirror of the layout in Ashalla's Chamber of Ministers, a triad of tables were set out across the room, and Lale Usbor sat in the spot where Jas Holza's great-great-great-grandfather had once held domain. Several of the chairs were empty, in memorial to the men and women who had perished in the attacks.

The windows had been replaced only days earlier, and in some places the old polished wood of the floors was still scored where shock wave damage had ripped the aged surface. There was nowhere outside the keep where one could look and not see the devastation wrought in the aftermath of the Tzenkethi incursion. Behind Lale was the main ma.s.s of Korto, the proud spires and glittering domes broken and wounded. Here and there floater platforms from Carda.s.sian military engineering squads dithered over sites of importance: the power station, the water purification plant, the central hospice. It had been raining earlier in the day, and the smell of dead fires was heavy in the air. The rainfall sluiced down in streaks of gray, tainted by the ashes that had been thrown into the sky. It would be months before the atmosphere worked the effluent from the attack out of its system; for now, each time it rained, it was a fresh reminder of the a.s.sault on their world.

Jas studied the city and felt within for some kind of emotional reaction to the wrecked vista; he could bring back only a cold fury, a detachment to the sight he saw before him. In the weeks since the attack, the deadness had grown worse. In moments of privacy, he had been able to conjure some flashes of emotion when Lonnic Tomo's face was there in his thoughts, but for the most part Jas was consumed by a dark, numbing anger. He saw the same feeling reflected in the faces of other ministers, those of them who weren't too afraid to step outside of their homes, or who flocked like whipped children to the sides of Kell and the Carda.s.sians when they arrived with repair crews and emergency relief supplies, pathetic in their grat.i.tude. They were a microcosm of Bajor as a whole. The people were torn between two polar sentiments: a fierce mixture of furious anger and dull shock at the murderous lethality of the attacks; and, in lesser numbers, a gratefulness toward the Carda.s.sians who had put themselves in harm's way in order to destroy the Tzenkethi invaders. Resentment was on every street, the hard need for retribution burning in the eyes of every man and woman.

With the Chamber in Ashalla sealed closed while engineers worked to make the old building safe, the First Minister had chosen the Naghai Keep for the site of this a.s.sembly so that everyone could look out and see the harsh realities of the matters they were here to debate. Jas took his seat, pausing for just a moment to rest a hand on the empty chair to his right. He had yet to name a replacement for Lonnic as his adjutant.

"The Tzenkethi Coalition has formally stated that they did not order the bombing of the Lhemor Lhemor or the attack on Bajor," said Jagul Kell, arching his hands over the table. A wave of derision followed his statement. Jas watched the Carda.s.sian carefully. Offworlders had been granted access to the a.s.semblies many times in the past, but today was the first time that an alien had been given formal permission by the chamber to take part in the debate. Kell sat at the benches as if he were a minister, and Lale was giving the man the same degree of respect and consideration he would give any Bajoran official. It was unprecedented, and yet no one had been able to stir up a majority to prevent Lale's introduction of the alien. Kell let the reactions of the ministers fade before continuing. "The statement is, as I warned you, exactly what we expected. Furthermore, they state that any such attacks, if they were indeed committed by Tzenkethi citizens, were the exploits of renegades and therefore beyond their control." or the attack on Bajor," said Jagul Kell, arching his hands over the table. A wave of derision followed his statement. Jas watched the Carda.s.sian carefully. Offworlders had been granted access to the a.s.semblies many times in the past, but today was the first time that an alien had been given formal permission by the chamber to take part in the debate. Kell sat at the benches as if he were a minister, and Lale was giving the man the same degree of respect and consideration he would give any Bajoran official. It was unprecedented, and yet no one had been able to stir up a majority to prevent Lale's introduction of the alien. Kell let the reactions of the ministers fade before continuing. "The statement is, as I warned you, exactly what we expected. Furthermore, they state that any such attacks, if they were indeed committed by Tzenkethi citizens, were the exploits of renegades and therefore beyond their control."

"They lie to our faces?" spat a minister from Hedrikspool.

"Do they take us for fools?"

"Finally," Kell concluded, "the Coalition's governing body wished it to be known that they will consider any attempt by Carda.s.sian or Bajoran citizens to take reprisals against Tzenkethi property or nationals as an act of war, and they will retaliate in kind."

The minister banged the table with a balled fist. "War? "War? They started this! These creatures attack us and then make threats? We should blast them from s.p.a.ce!" They started this! These creatures attack us and then make threats? We should blast them from s.p.a.ce!"

"Minister," said Lale, cutting off the other man. "We all feel as strongly as you do. Everyone on Bajor has lost a friend or a family member in the cowardly attacks four weeks ago. We all want to see a price paid for that violation, but I called this session of ministers to Korto for a reason." He pointed out of the window. "This city was the first to be struck. It is a symbol of the great hurt done to Bajor. Look at it." There was a moment of silence as all the ministers did as Lale asked them. "Even with the help from our Carda.s.sian friends, this city and the other settlements that were struck, at Janir and elsewhere-all of them need our every effort to rebuild. So I ask you, do we direct our energies to seeking revenge or to ensuring that we have clean water and shelter for those who were fortunate enough to survive the attacks? Do we bury our dead and sing the chants for them or do we let their spirits falter while we take up arms?" The last question was directed to the priests gathered at one end of the triangle. Vedek Arin nodded sagely at Lale's words.