Star Trek Expanded Universe
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The True Way is the first story of the Star Trek: War Aftermath tetralogy.

Introduction[]

The Federation has been sending relief missions to Cardassia. A political extremist group that fought hard to rid the Cardassian Union of the Dominion feels that the Federation's intentions are less than benign. Commander Elias Vaughn and the crew of the USS Defiant must diffuse a tense hostage situation.

Back on Deep Space 9, Colonel Kira Nerys and company have their own terrorist situation to deal with. An important conference is being held and someone is planning to assassinate one of the delegates. The plan involves someone from Kira's past.

Summary[]

Since the end of the Dominion War, Cardassia Prime has become a hotbed of terrorist activity. An interstellar diplomatic summit in Cardassia City is bombed. The anti-Federation group called the True Way later assumes responsibility for an attack on two Federation starships responsible for escorting relief convoys. Its leader, Gul Revok sends an ultimatum that the convoys cease or he will begin executing hostages who make up the crew of the just destroyed USS Lambda Paz. The solution to the conundrum is to send the USS Defiant while cloaked to Cardassia to deliver the most urgently needed cargo and conduct a covert rescue of the hostages. But a spy may be aboard Deep Space Nine and the Defiant, as the True Way is immediately tipped off.

Station personnel, meanwhile, have been preparing for a diplomatic conference involving the Federation, the Cardassians, the Breen, and various non-aligned worlds. The Breen's treaty of alliance with the Dominion stipulated the concession of planets within the Cardassian Union to the Breen. Now that Cardassia is no longer part of the Dominion, that part of the treaty, at least, is now null-and-void. The Breen, however, disagree. This contention, along with news that someone will attempt to assassinate one of the delegates, leads to suspicion of the enigmatic Breen.

Aboard the Defiant, former Lambda Paz CO Limis Vircona has little patience with government bureaucracy and prepares her own rescue mission. This plays right into Revok's hands, as Revok intercepts her transporter beam and threatens to kill the hostages one at a time if she does not comply with his demands. One of those demands is to provide the cloaking frequency of the Defiant. The Defiant personnel are uncertain how attacking Cardassian ships can see right through the cloaking device. Commander Elias Vaughn executes a maneuver allowing the ship to escape while creating the illusion of the starship's destruction. Revok sees right through his ruse but is willing to let the ship go, as its crew is now in no position to prevent his plans from being carried out. Tactical officer Raul Fitzpatrick believes Julian Bashir to have tipped off the enemy based on Bashir's resemblance of a notorious terrorist leader from 21st century Earth. Vaughn, however, refuses to point fingers without concrete evidence.

Back on the station, one of the delegates learns that members of the Kohn-Ma terrorist cell on Bajor plan to assassinate Cardassian ambassador Pirak, begging the question of why the group wants an advocate of peace dead and why the ambassador's own chief of staff is in on the plan. Colonel Kira Nerys allows herself to be captured to get answers to those questions and learn how the assassination is to be carried out. She comes face-to-face with former resistance colleague and current Kohn-Ma Tahna Los. Anti-Federation terrorist groups became less common since the Occupation's end, but became more pronounced before, during, and after the Dominion War. The Kohn-Ma have become disillusioned with the Federation's diplomacy-first approach. They plan to assassinate Pirak and blame the Breen delegate as a pretext for taking more aggressive action against the Breen. Kira is still suspicious of Cardassian motives. The True Way is using this plan for their own gain in order to establish a military presence in the Bajoran system. Acting on a hunch from Admiral William Ross, station personnel learn of this plan and prevent the rogue Cardassians' seizure of the station. Security personnel are then able to thwart a Bajoran assassin wearing a Breen refrigeration suit. He killed the Breen ambassador first to create the illusion of a murder-suicide.

On Cardassia, Captain Limis learns that the hostage situation was a means to lure her and coerce her into assisting in the assassination of the Castellan Alon Ghemor. She tips off the Defiant when asked to contact its commander. Vaughn orders the ship into orbit on the far side of Cardassia Prime's nearest moon. Two teams then shuttle to the planet. Ezri Dax's team is dispatched to prevent Ghemor's assassination, while Vaughn's attempts to rescue the hostages. Both missions are successes, but chief of operations Aiman al-Rashid is caught attempting to sabotage the True Way encampments reactor core. He was the spy all along, serving as a triple agent for both Section 31 and the True Way. He reveals that Section 31 will do whatever is necessary to assure the survival of a friendly Cardassian government.

References[]

Characters[]

Deep Space Nine and USS Defiant[]

Peripheral characters[]

Bajoran Militia Major Cenn Desca (Bajoran liaison officer, Deep Space 9; Bajoran male) | Starfleet Ensign Magnaulty (Security guard; Earth male) | Starfleet Crewman Marquez (Security guard and engineer; Earth male | Starfleet Lieutenant (j.g.) Nog (Engineering Assistant, Ferengi Male) | Starfleet Ensign Prynn Tenmei: (Flight Controller, USS Defiant; Earth female)

USS Lambda Paz[]

Other Protagonists[]

Elim Garak | Alon Ghemor | Ambassador Pirak | Ilon Tandro

Antagonists[]

Gul Revok | Gul Enic Hadar | Korinas | Legate Turrel | Tahna Los | Mar Ronnick | Mar Solarin

Flashback only[]

Weyoun | Legate/Gul Skrain Dukat | Corat Damar | Odo | Michael Eddington

Referenced only[]

Benjamin Sisko | Worf | Jadzia Dax | Miles O'Brien
Jack Bauer | Victor Drazen | Hamri al-Assad | David Palmer | Wayne Palmer | Noah Daniels | Charles Logan | Hal Gardner

Political entities and other organizations[]

External links[]

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