by S. D. Perry
Benny was grinning. “I bet there was hell to pay when you got home.”
“No, I was out of town,” Eli said, his own smile fading. “Ruri told me about it a few days later . . . I was in the middle of a conference, I think. Or . . . no, I was traveling, on my way to a meeting in D.C . . . .”
He looked at Benny, surprised that there was a sudden knot in his throat, surprised into saying what he actually felt. “I missed a lot of things, Benny. I was providing for them, I told myself—I thought I was doing the right thing, doing what I was supposed to do. But I missed it, I missed all that time, all those memories, and there’s no way to get any of it back.”
Tears were threatening, and Eli swallowed them back, hard, covering with a cough and a forced smile. For a change, Benny didn’t return it.
“You’re right,” Benny said, but he wasn’t talking to Eli, Eli could see that by his distant gaze, by the wash of concern on his strong features that was entirely personal. “You can’t get it back.”
Eli felt a flush creep up the back of his neck. Listen to him, going on about missing his child’s life when Benny was about to be a father; open mouth, insert foot.
“I, ah . . . I’m sorry,” Eli started uncomfortably, but then Benny was smiling, back to his usual self.
“Don’t be sorry, Eli,” he said, his sincerity real. “I’m glad you said what you did. And I’m glad you’re here.”
It was an odd thing to say considering where they were, but somehow, Benny could get away with it. Eli understood what he meant, and was relieved.
“Just don’t forget that you still have a daughter,” Benny added. “And just because you missed part of her life, doesn’t mean you have to miss all of it.”
“She’s—” Eli hesitated. How to explain? It was complicated . . . but the bottom line was simple enough, wasn’t it? “She doesn’t want to see me anymore.”
Benny reached across the table, patting the back of Eli’s hand. “If my child didn’t want to see me, I’d keep trying. I’d try until one of us stopped breathing, just to let that child know that I loved them.”
Eli felt a kind of warmth flow through him at Benny’s touch, warmth and . . . hope? But no, there wasn’t any hope. He pulled his hand away, grabbed his cup and finished it off in one cold, bitter swallow.
“Guess we should get out of here,” he said, setting his cup back on the table and pushing away. Benny watched him stand, his gaze thoughtful.
“Guess we should,” Benny said.
* * *
It took less than an hour for the cell room to be readied, for Julian to prep Gard for the implantation, but Kira could feel time slipping by, fast, too fast. The mother parasite was in stasis; how long did they have before her brood figured out what had happened, if they didn’t already? What would happen when they found out?
And Akaar will be back soon. Any minute, probably. The admiral had beamed out to meet with the first minister literally seconds before Kira got the com from security, that Ro had been attacked; he’d wanted to “touch base” with Bajor, to reorganize the defense network, to call a meeting with Macet, with HQ, with Lenaris Holem. He’d planned to return to DS9 as soon as preparations were made. The second she’d learned of the attack, Kira should have called him back immediately, should have held that holomeeting with all of the Bajoran and Federation officials standing by, to weigh the situation, to make decisions about the next step.
And instead, I make a snap judgment to risk my career and possibly jeopardize the entire defense web we’ve established thus far. That was probably—hopefully—an overstatement, but she had to be willing, at least, to assume the worst. She would see what her own people could do with the situation, first, before she called in the administrators. Ideally, she’d learn something vital, something big that she could pass along to the admiral as she passed “the buck” along, as Benjamin used to say—something so beneficial to the UFP’s defense that her neglect to make that immediate call might be overlooked. Practically, there was a better chance that she would gain nothing but the wrath of Starfleet, along with the outrage of every major dignitary currently aware of the parasite situation. She’d be stripped of rank, removed from her position, perhaps even judicially prosecuted. And yet try as she might, she couldn’t talk herself into making that call, not yet. Her people were being taken over, the people of her homeworld, the people she worked with every day. By the parasites, of course . . . and by the great devouring machine that was the Federation, that was bureaucracy and talk and more talk. The Federation was a good, even necessary union, a strong, just ally, beneficial to the worlds it accepted into its membership; she believed that, wouldn’t have continued to work toward Bajor’s induction if she didn’t . . . but she was a good commander, too. DS9 was her command, Bajor was her home, and she was through playing politics with them. Politics had taken away her religion, had sidestepped her authority in making the simplest of decisions for the greater good of the men and women she led, had made it impossible to be up front about what she knew, when she knew it. If the people up top were going to take her down for being good at her job, for making the decisions that needed to be made, she didn’t want to work for the Federation. It was high time to take a few risks, to gamble at getting ahead of the parasites, and talking to one of the queens might be their best shot.
She watched as Julian strapped Gard to a gurney, as Shar and Nog hooked up computer screens and gestured at patch boards and conduits. Nguyen was at ops, and Ro had moved back into her office, but it was still crowded in the small holding area. Ezri and Cyl stood near Julian, watching over his preparations. The female parasite was in a stasis chamber on a tray stand near where Julian worked, frozen in a clear field of static energy. As the room was readied, Kira walked over to look at her, repulsed and intrigued by the tiny creature that seemed so intent on dominating and destroying the humanoids it encountered.
It was small, barely the size of the palm of Kira’s hand, a mottled orange-brown color with a sliver of blue on its pointed tail. Its compact body had six short legs and an oversized pair of pincers at its head, that seemed to be its head. Kira couldn’t make out eyes or a mouth; according to Julian, there weren’t any. The tail was a kind of gill that expelled spent gases taken from the host’s blood, absorbed through pores in the parasite’s exoskeleton. The thought of volunteering to have something like that put inside of you . . .
“Not very appealing, is she?”
“The Enterprise report described the queen differently,” Kira said. “A big, bloated thing . . .”
“That was the gestational body,” Julian explained. “When the soldier parasites are ready to begin maturation, the queen grows a temporary second body for that purpose, connected to the main body at the brain stem by an umbilicus.”
“And there was one of those inside Tigart Hedda?” Kira asked.
“I’m afraid so, Nerys,” Julian said. “She was beyond saving. I think her death came as a mercy.”
Kira looked up, saw that Gard was watching them. Julian had moved off to talk with Ezri and Cyl about something, and Shar and Nog were finishing the environmental readjust on the other side of the cell. Kira smiled at Gard, at the man who’d killed her lifelong friend and former lover, and shook her head.
“Are you sure about this?”
Gard nodded. “Absolutely.”
He hesitated, then spoke in a slightly softer tone. “I’ve already talked to the doctor, but I want you to know, too. If things start . . . going badly, don’t worry about my host body. But save the symbiont, if you can.”
“It won’t come to that,” Kira said firmly. “We’ll take her out before we let either of you get hurt.”
Gard nodded again, though he didn’t seem convinced. Kira searched for something more reassuring to tell him, but was still searching when Julian turned around and stepped to the gurney’s side.
“We’re as ready as we’re going to be,” he said.
A nod from Nog, and Shar tapped at the
environmental controls. Kira felt the faintest tickle across her skin as the cell filled with unseen energy. Shar had theorized that the particles would be proof against the queen’s ability to communicate with her brood.
“Let’s do it,” Kira said, and Gard took a deep breath, closing his eyes.
“This won’t take long,” Julian said. He reached over to a medical padd, typed a few commands, adjusted a setting switch on the stasis chamber . . . and an instant later, the female parasite was gone, transported out of her box in a brief sparkle of light.
Kira held her breath, looking down at Gard. Julian said he would place the parasite where the cerebellum met the spinal cord, where they typically nested . . . and also where the Trill symbiont’s neuro-chemical pathways intersected with the host’s. He didn’t have an estimate on how long it might take for the female parasite to be able to communicate, if at all—
Gard opened his eyes, and was different. Kira could see it, they all could, his dark eyes muddy now, bleared with some unidentifiable emotion or sensation, there was no way to know which. He stared off into space for a moment, his gaze sharpening—and then winced slightly, his eyes blearing again. This repeated twice more—an expression of awareness crossing his features, a wince, then that look of dazed confusion again.
Julian manipulated the keys of the padd and spoke in a low voice, almost to himself. “Cyatizine levels down twenty-one point one, cortical proteins at functional count . . .”
“Is it working?” Cyl asked quietly, frowning as Gard started again.
Julian ignored the question for a few beats, then nodded slightly, not looking away from his screen. “She’s trying to attach, but can’t integrate. She may not have actual control of Gard’s speech, but he’s in contact with her on a basic chemical level.”
Kira leaned in, tried to look Gard in the eye. His gaze blurred, focused, blurred again. “Gard? Can you hear me?”
“She’s here,” Gard said, his voice so hollow, so dead that Kira shuddered. It was Gard’s voice, but sounded nothing like him. “She knows what’s happening.”
“Will she hear what I say?” Kira asked.
Gard’s gaze cleared. “Yes,” he said, the tone dead but the shine in his eyes glittering and spiteful—and then the shine was gone again, lost to that tiny wince as Julian tapped at his controls.
Kira cleared her throat and prayed for guidance. “I’m Kira Nerys. I’m in command of DS9.”
“We know who you are,” Gard said, faltering on the last word, not so much drifting in and out of awareness as being jerked, like a fish on a line. “We know what you represent.”
“Then you must know that none of this is necessary. The Federation would be willing to help you, to help your species find an alternative solution to whatever problems you and your kind face,” Kira said. “Stop your attack on Bajor. We don’t wish to fight with you.”
Focus and blur, in and out. “It’s too late. We’ve already won.”
Kira’s jaw clenched. “What do you mean?”
“We know, now,” Gard said, a hint of a smile touching his lips before fading away, that glitter of malice there and gone again. His empty, toneless voice continued to skip and falter. “We know everything. You will destroy Trill. You will leave us the worm-hole, and withdraw from this space. You will give us the bodies we need, or we will obliterate all that you hold sacred, and take what we want. Tell them.”
Kira’s heart was pounding with anger. “You won’t succeed. I won’t let you do this, do you understand?”
“I’m taking him, now,” Gard said, and his voice was no longer so hollow, so devoid of emotion. A kind of hard brightness had crept into it, a false and frightening good cheer. “You’ll have to kill him. Kill us, it doesn’t matter. We’ve waited for the time and it’s happening, now. You will all be taken.”
“Julian?” Ezri sounded scared, as frightened as Kira felt.
“She’s working her way around the pulse line,” Julian said quickly, looking to Kira. “I have to pull her, now.”
Kira didn’t hesitate. “Do it.”
Gard was grinning, a wide, soulless grin, his gaze finding Kira’s, his back and limbs arching against the gurney. “Doesn’t matter, doesn’t matter, doesn’t—”
The restrained Trill gasped suddenly, his eyes widening in shock. Julian jammed a hypospray against his arm, injected, snatched up a handheld scanner and checked vitals with a practiced eye.
Silence, tense and taut, as they all waited, Gard staring at the ceiling, unmoving. Every muscle in his body seemed to be flexed—and all at once he relaxed, his eyes closing, head rolling to the side. Behind them, the female reappeared in her box, her body convulsed, frozen.
“Report,” Kira snapped, her voice sounding far away against the rush of blood in her ears.
They waited, the few seconds like years before Julian spoke. “Neither symbiont nor host appears to have sustained any permanent damage.”
Kira let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. “And the queen?”
Julian checked the stasis chamber. “She didn’t survive the separation.”
Gard rolled his head back, opened his eyes slightly. His lips moved, but his voice was barely a whisper. Kira crouched next to him.
“She’s . . .” Gard rasped. “They’re . . . She’s . . . There’s only one. She sees the artifacts . . .”
“Who? What artifacts?” Kira asked.
Gard’s gaze flickered. “Mother. Bajor. Tears.”
His eyes closed again.
Tears . . . Kira chewed at her lower lip. Was he talking about the Orbs? The Tears of the Prophets were at the monastery, where Opaka was staying. Commander Vaughn, too, until he got some rest.
“Do you think he meant the Orbs?” Ezri asked.
“Another mother parasite, maybe?” Cyl added. “Or maybe the mother the doctor hypothesized. The matriarch.”
Before she could answer, Kira’s combadge chirped. She tapped it, shaking her head at the questions.
“Kira.”
“Colonel, there’s a medical crisis—we’ve got reports from the Promenade, from engineering decks five, seven, eleven—two more at the docking ring—”
It was Nguyen, in ops. His voice was high and strained. Even as she rattled off locations, Julian’s badge bleated, an emergency signal, and Ro stepped into the cell room, her cheeks high with color.
“Colonel, I’m getting reports from all over the station—people are collapsing, at least nine incidents so far and six alien sightings. The parasites are leaving their host bodies.”
Julian had grabbed a med kit. “Colonel, he’s stable and I’ve got to—”
“Go,” Kira said, nodding. She turned to Ro. “Get your people out there, coordinate with Vlu’s teams to track the parasites, top priority. We need crowd control . . . Get ID verification on everyone, oral or visual, we need to know where our people are.”
She spoke into her badge, already moving. “Stationwide address—red alert. Alien presence on board, lockdown status. Describe invaders as small, insectile, extremely dangerous—”
At Kira’s pause, Nguyen interrupted, a new note of worry in his voice. “Colonel, something’s happening on Bajor. General Lenaris is reporting . . . he’s receiving news that a number of skirmishes have broken out . . .”
“I’m on my way up,” Kira said, the cold grip of responsibility knotting her insides. This female’s death may have released the victims on the station, but what about Bajor? Killing the queen had set off something much bigger in motion, Kira was sure of it; the telepathy block hadn’t worked. It only remained to be seen how far-reaching the consequences would be.
She snapped off instructions to Shar and Nog to help Ro organize the general quarters detection, to find O’Brien, brief him, and get him involved; the chief’s ship should be docking any minute, if it hadn’t already. She told Ezri to get back to the Defiant and stand by, and asked Cyl to escort Gard back to the infirmary, all as she strode for the
door. By the time she reached Ro’s office, she had instructed Nguyen to alert the Cardassian and Federation ships standing by that the parasites were moving, and to arrange extra security on the few dignitaries still aboard the station. She’d call Akaar personally, he should still be with Asarem, I can tell them both. They could string her up if they wanted, they probably would, but later.
The alert status loop went off as she hurried out onto the Promenade, the computer’s cool voice informing the station’s residents that they needed to get to their respective crisis positions. Most of the people she passed were already moving, running to or from a large gathering of people just past Quark’s, a woman shouting that someone needed a medic. A security team ran by, began working its way through the crowd, but Kira was already trained on the lift, her mind running a mile a minute. Was Cyl right? Had Gard been talking about the parasite matriarch? The Tears could only be the Orbs—he’d said artifacts—and if the monastery wasn’t safe, she had to get word to Vaughn, to protect Opaka.
“Colonel Kira.”
A short gray alien stepped in front of her, blocking her way, female, dark eyes. Kira blanked on the name for a half second, then remembered. She’d seen the girl a number of times recently, usually with Taran’atar.
“Wex,” Kira said. “Now isn’t a good time. If you’ll excuse me—”
The girl nodded. “I understand, but it’s important that we talk. I may be able to help you. I want to help.”
Wex’s expression was blank, almost stoic, but her eyes seemed to reflect some deep inner feeling. Kira couldn’t place it, wasn’t about to stop to figure it out.
“You want to help? Find Taran’atar, tell him to report to Ro,” Kira said. She sidestepped the girl, headed again for the lift, calling back over her shoulder. “You can go with him.”
“I know you’ll want to hear what I—” Wex began.
Kira reached the lift, stepped on and turned to face the girl as several others climbed aboard. “It’ll have to wait,” she cut in, ordering the lift to proceed nonstop to ops, snapping off her override code. The last thing she saw was Wex’s upturned face, her dark eyes shining brightly, watching as the lift rose up and out of sight.