Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Worlds of Deep Space Nine #1: Cardassia and Andor (Volume 1) - Softcover

Buch 1 von 3: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

McCormack, Una; Jarman, Heather

 
9780743483513: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Worlds of Deep Space Nine #1: Cardassia and Andor (Volume 1)
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0743483510 ISBN 13: 9780743483513
Verlag: Pocket Books/Star Trek, 2004

Inhaltsangabe

Within every federation and every empire, behind every hero and every villain, there are the worlds that define them. In the aftermath of Unity and in the daring tradition of Spock's World, The Final Reflection, and A Stitch in Time, the civilizations most closely tied to Star Trek: Deep Space Nine can now be experienced as never before...in tales both sweeping and intimate, reflective and prophetic, eerily familiar and utterly alien.

CARDASSIA: The last world ravaged by the Dominion War is also the last on which Miles O’Brien ever imagined building a life. As he joins in the reconstruction of Cardassia’s infrastructure, his wife Keiko spearheads the planet’s difficult agricultural renewal. But Cardassia’s struggle to remake itself—from the fledgling democracy backed by Elim Garak to the people’s rediscovery of their own spiritual past—is not without opposition, as the outside efforts to help rebuild its civilization come under attack by those who reject any alien influence.

ANDOR: On the eve of a great celebration of their ancient past, the unusual and mysterious Andorians, a species with four sexes, must decide just how much they are willing to sacrifice in order to ensure their survival. Biological necessity clashes with personal ethics; cultural obligation vies with love—and Ensign Thirishar ch’Thane returns home to the planet he forswore, to face not only the consequences of his choices, but a clandestine plan to alter the very nature of his kind.

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Über die Autorinnen und Autoren

Una McCormack is the author of ten previous Star Trek novels: The Lotus Flower (part of The Worlds of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine trilogy), Hollow Men, The Never-Ending Sacrifice, Brinkmanship, The Missing, the New York Times bestseller The Crimson Shadow, Enigma Tales, The Way to the Stars, the acclaimed USA TODAY bestseller The Last Best Hope, and Wonderlands. She is also the author of five Doctor Who novels from BBC Books: The King’s Dragon, The Way Through the Woods, Royal Blood, Molten Heart, and All Flesh Is Grass. She has written numerous short stories and audio dramas. She lives with her family in Cambridge, England. 

Heather Jarman lives in Portland, Oregon, where she supplements her day job as a tired mommy with her writing career. Her most recent contributions to the Star Trek fiction include "The Officers' Club," the Kira Nerys story in Tales from the Captain's Table, and Paradigm, the Andor novel in Worlds of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Volume One.

By night Heather flies to distant lands on black ops missions for the government, where she frequently breaks open industrial-strength cans of whupass on evildoers.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Chapter 1

The mountains rose sheer and high to the north and the west, their shadows shifting across the valley throughout the course of the day. When you walked around the settlement, you could always feel them. You could usually make a good guess as to the time. Like living in a sundial, Keiko thought absently, propping her elbows on the windowsill and resting her chin in her hands, staring up at the peaks that marked and measured out the days at Andak.

The mountains were shot through with black rock, which would glitter when hit by the harsh Cardassian sun, sending sudden sharp shards of light over the base and the settlement. Obsidian, Feric had told her, and then had launched into an impromptu lecture about the volcanic activity that had formed this part of the province. It had been the subject of his thesis.

"Too much information, Feric!" she'd groaned as his eyes, beneath their ridges, took on a zealous gleam. "There's a very good reason I'm not a geologist!" He'd laughed, taking it in the good humor she'd intended, but couldn't resist adding a little bit more information ("Don't worry -- the volcanoes are extinct"). He was a first-rate scientist, and she hoped that soon enough he might also be a trusted friend. She was sure that she had made a good choice, appointing him as her deputy.

Early evening in Andak brought with it an acute light that, for an hour or more, seemed to settle upon the ancient valley and the new base that lay there in its folds. If you looked at the calendar, it was supposed to be autumn -- but the heat had not noticeably dissipated, and it endured even after it went dark. As the year died, Keiko had been told, and winter did come at last to the mountains, the days would become more barren and the nights would be bitterly cold. Cardassia, she suspected, had many cruelties left to reveal.

This evening, the sun seemed to have intensified further, and the efficient gray edges of the buildings were outlined with silver. It was still and hot -- and expectant, as if the valley was waiting for something to happen, as if it was waiting for some change. Keiko opened the window, wishing for a little breath of air upon her face. She watched as a small group of people -- ten or twelve, perhaps -- assembled in the dusty, unpaved square around which the settlement was ordered. Feric was among them. He stood for a while, speaking to one or two of those gathered, and then he and a young woman -- Keiko recognized her as one of the junior engineers -- moved a little distance away from the others. They each were carrying something, and it was only when they held these before them and then fastened them over their faces that Keiko saw that they were masks.

They turned to face one another, each studying the mask that hid the other from view. The moments slipped past more quickly now, and a hush had fallen over the others gathered there. They were drawn to the scene before them, and stood by unknowing, but eager, watching and waiting. Keiko gazed at this tableau as it held for a long, still moment. The mountains behind at first framed the scene and then, almost imperceptibly, seemed to become part of the composition.

A ripple passed through the onlookers as first Feric, then his companion turned to them. It seemed as if, each in turn, they became connected; whether by their own fascination or some other, more physical charge, they could not afterward tell. The sense of anticipation in the square was growing, the air was becoming slow. If this had been anywhere else, Keiko might have said a storm was coming.

The young woman began to speak, her voice low and rhythmical.

"The power that moves through me, animates my life, animates the mask of Oralius..."

There were some children in the square too this evening, Molly included, playing some game or other -- it looked to Keiko as if Molly was organizing proceedings. Like mother, like daughter, she thought, with a grin. Growing up on Deep Space 9 had been good for Molly in many ways. She seemed to be able to fit in wherever she was -- she certainly had none of her father's difficulties mixing with the Cardassians here, although there were some children hanging back, Keiko noticed, watching the games but not taking part. Well, Molly could be a bit much at first, if you were a shy kid. No doubt they'd get used to her in time, or perhaps get used to each other.

As must we all....

The woman was still chanting:

"It is the song of the morning, opening up to life, bringing the truth of her wisdom, to those who live in the shadow of the night..."

Keiko had known even before she'd set foot here that a large part of her job at Andak would be making the staff come together not just as a team, but as a community. Cloistered together, all this way out, it would be easy for feuds to grow, for minor incidents to take on massive significance -- for the place to become a hothouse of resentment and intrigue. Keiko was director here -- but it was not just the scientific research that would need her attention. A community, that's what she wanted too. And so she'd requested that the team she'd assembled should bring their families with them to Andak. It was only when the requisitions came through -- for living quarters, for rations -- that she began to realize what a Cardassian "family" might mean. Everyone at Andak had been touched by the war. She, Miles, Molly, and Yoshi -- they were the oddities: mother, father, sister, brother. No one else was that lucky. Some of them were the only survivors of their families: Feric, for one, had lost everyone -- mother, two sisters, a wife, and a little boy. When Feric looked at Yoshi, Keiko thought her heart would break -- another good reason to encourage a community at Andak.

She heard Feric's voice rising, clear and sure in the evening air.

"It is this selfsame power -- turned against creation, turned against my friend -- that can destroy his body with my hand, reduce his spirit with my hate..."

She'd had to fight a hard battle to get Feric's appointment confirmed, right the way up to the advisory board. At least Charles Drury back at the I.A.A.C. had supported her -- well, she was his appointment, after all, it wouldn't do to lose face and faith in your new research director this early on in the project....

"You've got your geologist, Keiko," he'd said, with a twist to his mouth, "Despite his, ah, fascinating beliefs..."

"He's a member of the Oralian Way, Charlie -- and don't raise your eyebrow at me like that. The only reason there's been this much fuss is that he's had the nerve to discuss his beliefs openly. And since when did the I.A.A.C. hire people based on their religion, or lack of it?"

"You make, as ever, a convincing case. But no more controversy if you please, Keiko," he'd said, leaning over to turn off the link. "The budget won't stand for many more emergency meetings. Catering for the great and the good doesn't come cheap, you know. The funding isn't that secure. Yet."

Politics, politics, politics...We're meant to be doing science!
0

Keiko sighed and leaned her forehead against the cool plastic of the window. It would be all politics again tomorrow, she thought ruefully, with far too little chance for science. Abandoned on her desk, a padd flashed a lonely and unnecessary reminder that the following afternoon, the Andak Project was to be favored with the presence of one Vedek Yevir Linjarin. As if that weren't intruding on her every thought already. A high-profile visitor, putting the project under the spotlight. Yevir, it seemed, never went anywhere without a cavalcade of cameras in his wake. All in the cause of peace -- although it didn't seem to be doing his popularity back on Bajor much harm...

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Verlag
Pocket Books/Star Trek
Erscheinungsdatum
2004
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0743483510
ISBN 13 
9780743483513
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
384
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