Star Trek: The Fall: A Ceremony of Losses

by David Mack

  “Good. And Captain? Work quickly. Your ‘reinforcements’ are closer than you think.”

  • • •

  Stars flashed past the Rio Grande, slipping away like all the years and days and hours of Bashir’s life that had led him to this moment. He couldn’t deny that it was exhilarating to be a fugitive, to be on the run. His heart was beating faster, his breathing had grown deeper. He felt more alive than he had in months. For the first time in years, he felt as if his actions meant something.

  Not much time left, he realized with a look at the long-range sensors. He accessed the ship’s log system and initiated a new recording. “Personal log, supplemental. Doctor Julian Bashir recording. By the time this log is recovered and reviewed, my efforts to bring a cure to the Andorian people will be over—either because I’ll have succeeded or because I was captured in the attempt. Some will call me a traitor for defying the orders of the lawful civilian government of the Federation. I don’t imagine my chosen defense—that those orders are immoral—will carry much weight in a court-martial. And though I’ve taken steps to shift the venue in which my case might be heard, I hold little hope that I will succeed. I know that, from a legal standpoint, I am grasping at straws. Unfortunately, even if I should enjoy the best of circumstances, I fear my life will be irrevocably altered. Long ago, Thomas Wolfe wrote, ‘You can’t go home again.’ He meant it figuratively, but in my case it will also be literally true. I can never go back to Deep Space Nine . . . or to Earth . . . or, for that matter, to the Federation. And even if some future government were to pardon me, I doubt Starfleet would be so forgiving.

  “So know that I have not undertaken this course of action lightly. My actions were done with full awareness of their consequences, and I will accept them all. But place no blame on those I duped into helping me. My fellow physicians, my peers—none of them knew the true origin of what they were working on. Only I possessed that knowledge, just as I alone now carry the last chance of survival for the Andorian people in my blood.

  “Call me a traitor if you wish. Call me a hero. Or forget my name completely. It makes no difference. As long as I complete my mission, the continued existence of the Andorian people will be my legacy. Everything else . . . is mere sound and fury.”

  He switched off the log recorder and saved his message.

  On the other side of the runabout’s cockpit, an alert warbled. Bashir got up and moved to the tactical station. One of the scenarios he had programmed the sensors to watch for had just transpired: long-range scans had detected multiple Starfleet vessels adjusting their headings and velocities to move into the sector from which the Rio Grande was approaching Andor.

  Fortunately, with the transponder disabled, they won’t recognize me right away. He checked the registry codes of the vessels that appeared to be tasked with intercepting him. One was a short-range patrol cruiser, the Sarrakesh; it was too slow and too far away to pose any real danger to the Rio Grande, so Bashir put it out of his thoughts. Two larger vessels, the Falchion and the Warspite, were of greater concern. While the Falchion was only a Sabre-class light cruiser, she was extremely fast—much faster than the runabout. And the Warspite was a formidable threat indeed: a huge Sovereign-class starship under the command of a noteworthy young captain. That was not a confrontation Bashir had any desire to hasten.

  But more worrisome than any of those was the fourth Starfleet vessel, which was cutting a swift path through subspace and heading directly for the Rio Grande.

  A good thing, then, that I did not think stealing a run-about would be the answer to all my problems. He adjusted his course slightly and then started disabling several of the safety systems in the runabout’s warp core. Outrunning the Falchion and the Warspite would pose no great challenge, as long as they didn’t isolate his ship as their target in the next two hours. A few radical changes to the ship’s warp-field geometry, combined with pushing it nearly a full warp factor past its rated maximum speed, would mask the Rio Grande’s identity well enough.

  A whine of protest from the warp coils resonated through the little ship’s hull. Bashir began shutting down systems and diverting their power to the inertial dampers. He started with the tactical grid, figuring he had no real chance of prevailing in an armed conflict with even the least of his pursuers; next he sealed the aft compartments and shut down their life support. Then he routed all the reserve battery power to the ship’s structural integrity field. By slow degrees, the whining from the warp coils faded away, restoring the runabout’s normal ambience—a deep, steady thrumming of the engines punctuated by soft computer noise.

  He checked his speed and position. So far, so good. I just might make it to Andor alive.

  But still his eyes kept returning to that fourth, troubling sensor reading. His fastest pursuer. The one that his gut told him would ruin everything. He reminded himself that he had the advantage of a genetically engineered intellect, but it was little solace; he was up against a captain with nine lives of experience who knew all his quirks, all his tricks, and all his fears.

  With each passing second, Captain Dax and the U.S.S. Aventine drew closer, and Bashir knew there would be no outrunning it, no outfighting it, and no stopping it—or her.

  He turned his eyes toward the stars and resigned himself to whatever came next.

  Let the games begin.

  Twenty

  If there was one thing above all else that Ro Laren missed about the life she’d led before taking command of Deep Space 9 nearly six years earlier, it was the priceless gift of relative public anonymity. She stepped through the parting airlock doors onto the main concourse of the new station’s horizontal x-ring and was met by a clamor of shouting voices and a crushing wave of bodies all thrusting recording devices into her face.

  The reporters’ frantic queries bled together. “Captain Ro! Is it true that Doctor Bashir hijacked one of the station’s runabouts?” “Captain! How was the Defiant disabled?” “Was the Typhon Pact involved?” “Has Doctor Bashir been charged with a crime?” “Does Starfleet know where Bashir is going?” “What were Bashir and his colleagues working on at the conference center?” “Is Bashir a Typhon Pact spy?” “Do you think Doctor Bashir is guilty?”

  Ro shouldered through the throng and tuned out their barrage of questions. The knot of journalists followed her for several meters down the concourse until their paths were blocked by a security detail that let Ro pass before forming a shoulder-to-shoulder line across the passage. Anchoring the line at its center was Ensign Nyyl Saygur, a Brikar who Ro had been assured was small for his species, even though he looked like a walking hillside compared to every other member of the station’s crew. Saygur halted the procession of reporters by holding out one massive, three-fingered bronze hand and intoning in his thunderous baritone, “No.”

  The flurry of inquiries that had peppered Ro came to an abrupt halt. Satisfied that none of the correspondents were foolhardy enough to challenge the high-density humanoid, who was surprisingly light on his feet thanks to the gravity compensator he wore as part of his uniform, Ro continued on her way and slipped inside a waiting turbolift. “The Hub,” she said.

  Her lift car sped away toward one of the spokes that linked the ring to the station’s core. Though there was no sensation of motion, the car’s position indicator tracked its progress through the station, changing perspective and scale as appropriate. Once the turbolift reached an intersection with a vertical ring, it made a swift ascent to the command level that crowned the new Frontier-class starbase.

  Ro stepped out of the turbolift. As she walked to her office, Colonel Cenn rose from his seat overlooking the Hub and fell into step beside her. He kept his voice low for the sake of discretion. “I just reviewed the latest updates on the hunt for the Rio Grande. Still no contact.”

  “Have we computed its maximum possible flight distance?”

  Cenn held up a padd with a small star chart on it. “We have two scenarios. One for the Rio Grande as rated, and one tha
t assumes Bashir will overdrive the warp coils.”

  “Go with the second one. And get sensor logs from every listening post, sensor buoy, and independent array between here and Andor. Flag any ship we can’t identify.”

  “Already on it, sir. We’re analyzing a small mountain of data right now.” They reached the door to her office, and Cenn stepped in front of it, blocking Ro’s path. “One more thing, Captain. You have a message waiting for you . . . from Doctor Bashir.”

  “How do you know what messages I have?”

  His voice dropped to a whisper. “Because he copied all senior staff on the message, as well as the station’s JAG office and the chief attending physician at Sector General.”

  “I’m not gonna like what it says, am I?”

  “I wouldn’t presume to speculate, sir.”

  She inhaled angrily and reminded herself to breathe, slowly and evenly. “Continue the search, and let me know if we get any leads on the Rio Grande.”

  “Aye, sir.” Cenn stepped clear of the office’s doorway. He watched Ro enter her office, and then he returned to his seat and resumed monitoring reports on his command panel.

  Ro strode to her desk. “Computer, lock door.” The order was acknowledged by a quick double-tone. Confident of her privacy, she settled in at her desk and called up the message from Bashir. It was a simple written missive, sent from his account on the station. Its subject line was terse and unambiguous: LETTER OF RESIGNATION.

  The body of the message was nearly as sparse:

  14 September 2385

  Stardate 62703.9

  Captain Ro Laren, Commanding Officer

  Starbase Deep Space 9, Bajor Sector

  Captain Ro,

  I hereby resign my Starfleet commission and my billet as chief medical officer of Deep Space 9, with immediate effect. The immoral nature of the orders given to me by President Pro Tem Ishan Anjar have left me no choice but to end my Starfleet career and follow the dictates of my conscience as a medical doctor and a citizen of the United Federation of Planets.

  With profound regret,

  Commander Julian S. Bashir, M.D.

  Ro read and reread the words on her display and felt a cold sensation brew in her gut. As many times as Bashir had disobeyed orders or defied regulations in the name of principle, he had never before taken the step of formally severing his relationship with Starfleet. Only now, as Ro sat and read Bashir’s pointedly accusatory resignation, did she realize that the headstrong physician had no intention of seeking a compromise or accepting some half-measure in order to save himself. He had declared his career and commission forfeit in the name of his cause.

  He’s more committed than anyone suspected. Which means he’s also far more dangerous. She wondered: If he was willing to do this, how much further would he go? Would he set aside his Hippocratic oath long enough to use force to accomplish his mission? Would he decide the preservation of a species outweighed the value of individual lives?

  She had no way to answer those questions, but this change in Bashir’s status quo was clearly a warning sign that this crisis was not one to be treated lightly. She opened an internal comm channel to Cenn’s post outside in the Hub. “Colonel, has Doctor Bashir’s message been transmitted yet to Starfleet Command?”

  “No, sir. It seems he expects either you or the senior JAG officer to do that.”

  “As per protocol. Naturally.”

  Cenn struck a cautious note. “Sir? Should I direct the JAG office to hold the letter?”

  For a moment, Ro considered doing Bashir a favor—deleting all copies of his message from the station’s archives and instructing the JAG office to disregard it. Then she realized that it was not her call to make—and that doing so might inflict more harm than good on Bashir. He made this decision for a reason. Let him live with it. “No. Tell Commander Desjardins to forward the letter to Starfleet Command, ASAP. And alert the ships hunting the Rio Grande that Doctor Bashir is no longer a Starfleet officer . . . and should be treated as a civilian criminal.”

  • • •

  Music mingled with the ringing of gambling machines and the bright noise of celebratory voices, filling Quark’s with a joyous roar.

  Sarina Douglas huddled over a pint of Bajoran ale and kept to herself at one end of the bar. She seemed to be the only customer drinking alone that evening.

  The mixed-species crew of a civilian freighter had taken over a block of tables in the center of the main room on the first floor, and their raucous drinking songs and gales of throaty laughter had forced all of the bar’s other patrons to be that much louder just to be heard over the merchant crew’s revels. Legions of empty glasses littered their tables, the tops slick with spilled exotic libations whose origins read like a travelogue of known space.

  A cluster of half-in-the-bag Starfleet enlisted personnel and noncommissioned officers had commandeered the just-installed dartboard for an impromptu championship. Chief Petty Officer Wilik held a comfortable lead over his nearest challenger—a feat that Douglas chalked up to the absence of chief engineer Miles O’Brien, who had secluded himself in his quarters since Bashir’s hijacking of the Rio Grande. Douglas couldn’t blame O’Brien for seeking solitude. Bashir had been so intent on his top-secret project that he hadn’t even said good-bye to his best friend before leaving the station to work on Bajor—and his only farewell had been a letter of resignation.

  Using the reflective surface of the bartop, she snuck a look at the two faces peeking down through the railing of the bar’s second level, from directly above her: a pair of undercover Starfleet Intelligence agents posing as civilians. An untrained observer would not have distinguished the pair from the other patrons that flanked them, but Douglas had noted the way the Denobulan man and Trill woman surveyed the bar at regular intervals and how discreet they tried to be when concluding each sweep with a downward glance in her direction. She also recognized the SI-standard comm on the woman’s belt; its presence had been betrayed when the woman’s shirt had ridden up slightly as she sat down.

  Someone’s keeping tabs on me, Douglas mused. It wasn’t unexpected. Her relationship with Bashir was common knowledge among her crewmates, and in the wake of his flight from custody, everything associated with him was under heavy scrutiny—including and especially her actions, both on Bajor and back here on the station. She had first spotted the two SI agents on The Plaza, when she’d spied their reflections following hers in storefront windows.

  Just as predictable as being placed under surveillance, she had been placed on inactive status pending the conclusion of the investigation into Bashir’s crimes against Starfleet and the Federation. Though she had been careful to cover her tracks and distance herself from any incriminating evidence, she expected it would be weeks, at least, before she was permitted to return to duty. Whether anyone would still trust her at that point, or ever again, remained to be seen. A damn shame. Just when it felt like I was one of the gang.

  Quark walked quickly behind his line of bartenders, double-checking their work and offering unsubtle corrections when he found flaws, which was often. Each tense exchange left the middle-aged Ferengi’s lobes flushed a half-shade brighter pink. He was a few meters away and about to step in Douglas’s direction. She checked the reflection in the bartop and waited until her SI minders swept their stares past her. As soon as she was free of their direct scrutiny, she used her best sleight of hand to sneak a nearly flat isolinear chip underneath her napkin. Then she summoned Quark with a tiny lift of her chin. “I could use a refill.”

  He picked up her empty glass. “Jalanda Midnight Ale?”

  “That’s the one.”

  He dropped the empty glass down a matter-reclamator slot, grabbed a clean pint from a shelf under the bar, and lifted it to an old-fashioned tap spout. A tug on the handle, and he was filling the glass with amber liquid topped by a thick, foamy head. “You know your brews. The Bajorans are so proud of this one, they won’t let me replicate it. Gas-powered kegs or nothing.
”

  “I know. That’s why I like it.” Another stolen glance confirmed her minders were focused elsewhere for a few seconds. She lowered her voice. “I need a favor.”

  “Favors cost extra.”

  “As always. I need you to pass a message through your diplomatic channels.”

  “To whom?”

  “Shar. On Andor.”

  The Ferengi cast a furtive look at the SI agents’ reflected faces on the bartop between them. “I don’t think your new pals would like that.”

  “What they don’t know won’t hurt us, Quark.”

  “And what I don’t get involved in won’t hurt me at all. I like my way better.”

  “It’s just eight simple words, coded on a chip under my napkin.”

  He drained off a bit of excess foam from the top of her beer. “Bringing a message in was one thing. Everyone’s on their guard now. And between you and me, I don’t like getting in the middle of messes like this one—especially when it means lying to Ro.”

  “I have fifty thousand Federation credits standing by for a transfer to your account.”

  With balletic grace, he swept away her napkin and the isolinear chip it concealed while dropping a coaster in their place, and then he set down her new pint of ale and grinned. “Always a pleasure to serve you, Commander. Let me know if you need anything else.”

  “I will, Quark. Thanks.”

  She noted the preternatural skill with which Quark tucked the palmed isolinear chip into his pocket while distracting casual onlookers by making a show of crumpling and discarding the napkin, all while walking away from Douglas to berate another one of his employees.

  Douglas chanced a direct look at the two agents on the level above her. They were still there, and neither seemed aware of the transaction that had just occurred under their noses. Her poker face as steady as her hands, she picked up her ale and took a long, slow sip.