Chapter Two
Captain Benjamin Sisko opened his eyes and saw white all around him.
In an instant he remembered where he was and where he had been. He remembered the escape pod being targeted and then vaporised along with every other pod in the Chin’toka system. His colleagues and friends were dead. He knew that with certainty. The others were not important to the Prophets, not as important as the Emissary. Not worth saving.
‘Why?’ he asked to no one in particular.
Sisko found himself back on the Defiant, the battle going on him.
‘The Sisko is of Bajor,’ the Kira Prophet informed him.
‘His destiny is not yet complete,’ the Worf Prophet added.
‘The Sisko has a new task,’ the Sarah Prophet informed him, touching his ear as Kai Opaka once did.
‘The Sisko must follow his destiny,’ the O’Brien Prophet agreed with the Worf Prophet.
‘The Sisko can follow both paths,’ the Dax Prophet interrupted.
‘We must show the Sisko what will be,’ the Nog Prophet suggested.
‘What will be and what has been,’ the others agreed.
Sisko was confused. Never before had the Prophets spoken in such riddles and in such discord. ‘What is happening?’
‘The Sisko must see what will be,’ the Kira Prophet agreed and the scene changed to the escape pods being picked up by Starfleet, Klingon and Romulan vessels.
In what could have been a few seconds or several weeks, Sisko saw events unfold as they never would. Gowron taking control of the Klingon forces; Worf killing Gowron and Martok becoming Chancellor; Bashir’s hunt for Odo’s cure by luring Section 31 to the station; and Gul Dukat and Kai Winn working with the Pah-wraiths. He saw everything from the Prophets’ perspective. The way the war should have ended.
‘The Sisko must follow another path,’ the Sarah Prophet reminded them.
‘The Sisko must learn to guide people,’ the Kira Prophet told the others. ‘He must learn quickly. We do not have much time.’
Sisko’s eyes widened at the Prophet’s use of linear terminology. ‘What is happening?’ he asked again.
Sisko suddenly found himself in a baseball field with the same action being repeated over and over again. A red-hued figure was hitting home runs with every swing of the bat. The blue-hued figures always scrambled but never reached the ball.
‘The Sisko must protect the game,’ the Sarah Prophet said almost tearfully.
Sisko watched and realised that a Pah-wraith had caused the timeline to change, and that the Prophets were unable to do anything about it. Unable or unwilling, they were passing the job to Their Emissary.
‘What must I learn?’ he asked.
‘The Sisko must choose lives to guide,’ the Nog Prophet stated.
‘The Sisko must guide these lives to protect the game at all costs.’
He sighed. The game was not merely one life anymore, not to Them. It represented Them, the Celestial Temple and the people of Bajor. Perhaps all life. He knew that the Prophets had chosen Sarah once upon a time to create the outcome They desired, that They knew would come to pass. Now They didn’t know what would happen and it scared Them. And he didn’t have the time to breed new people to help them. He needed to choose people who already existed and who already had the capabilities to help.
‘Show me...what is,’ he asked Them.
The scene changed almost too fast for him to see what was happening but he saw enough to be able to choose three people...and then decided on a fourth as a failsafe plan.
‘I have chosen.’
‘You must make sure they are Touched by Us,’ the Kira Prophet informed him. ‘Only then can you guide them.’
Sisko didn’t know what to make of that but was aware of time running out. ‘What do I do?’
As the Prophets explained what he had to do, Sisko turned a small part of his mind to the tactical issues that had served him so well as a Starfleet officer making strategy plans against the Dominion and their allies.
***
Phaser in hand, Ensign Ro Laren crept through the underbrush of the planetoid on which she had made her base of operations. Officially persona non grata within Starfleet, she had been stockpiling weapons and rations and technology from wherever she could as a starting point for open rebellion which she convinced Nechayev was coming. Although Nechayev had not been able to convince Starfleet Command, she set into motion events which led to Ro’s current situation. Something moved ahead of her and she stopped, listening for the slightest sound.
‘Come on, Ro, I know you’re in the grass,’ a familiar voice said and Ro sighed, knowing the game was up.
‘How did you find me?’ she asked as she stood up and looked up at the tall bearded man that had been her constant companion over the last few months.
Thomas Riker tapped his nose. ‘My secret. Come on, your Starfleet buddies will be here in a few hours and we need to be ready to move out.’
‘We can’t take everything with us. They’re not going to send the
Enterprise into the Badlands. It’ll probably just be a shuttlecraft or a runabout.’
‘We’ll pack it full. Where are we headed anyway?’
Ro pointed the phaser at him. ‘I told you before. You’re not a Changeling are you?’
Riker sighed. ‘For Ho’nig’s sake, Laren, don’t you trust me?’
‘No.’
‘Not even after all we’ve been through?’
‘No.’
‘Do you trust anyone?’
Ro considered her response. There was one man she trusted because he was always there in her darkest hour. ‘Picard.’
‘I should have known,’ Riker replied. ‘It always comes back to the
Enterprise. What is it about him that inspires such loyalty?’
‘If you have to ask, then you can’t understand,’ she shot back.
He held up his hands in mock surrender. ‘So how long will it take us to get to the Temecklia system then?’
‘That depends on what we run up against,’ Ro muttered in answer and wished that she had not agreed to take Riker from Nechayev’s hands.
