The Long Mirage

by David R. George III

  Ro whipped the covers from atop her body and threw her legs over the side of the bed, sitting up in the darkness. Am I the same person I used to be? she asked herself. Am I the person I want to be? She wondered if her ascent through the ranks of Starfleet had suppressed the more independent parts of her nature. She preferred to believe that her rise to the command of Deep Space 9, to her captaincy, had stifled those aspects of her personality out of necessity. But that’s a lie, she had to admit. The same traits that had gotten her in trouble throughout her life and in her career had also contributed considerably to every promotion she’d ever received.

  So then what’s changed?

  “Computer, lights up one-quarter.” The overhead panels eased on, and Ro got up and crossed to her closet, where she pulled out a thigh-length lavender robe and put it on. She walked out of her bedroom and into the living area of her quarters, for no other reason than the need to move her body.

  I’ve had to keep moving my whole life, she thought as she paced to and fro, and all at once, the answer to what had changed seemed obvious. It surprised her in its simplicity: she had called one place—essentially one place—home for the longest time in her life. She spent almost eight years on the original DS9, then two at Bajoran Space Central on Bajor, and the last five months aboard the new starbase, and all of that decade-plus among many of the same people.

  Have I become complacent? she asked herself. Do I need to move on?

  The question startled her. Her transition from the defeated Maquis to the Bajoran Militia had been a boon to her, a life-affirming decision that had presented her with the opportunity to play a positive role in her people’s society. Her assignment to DS9, and then her transfer into Starfleet when it had absorbed the off-world duties of the Militia, had both been bumpy. Even her posting to first officer of the station, and then to commanding officer, had not been smooth, the result of resistance to her advancement by several admirals in Starfleet Command, most notably Starfleet’s current commander in chief, Leonard James Akaar.

  But I fought to stay here, Ro thought as she leaned against the sill of one of the ports that looked out on the grassy sweep of the residential deck. Because of the lateness of the hour, the footpaths wound emptily through the space. For the first time in my life, I didn’t move on. Is that why I’m feeling what I’m feeling? Because I’ve been in one place for too long?

  Despite the peculiarity of her rootedness on Deep Space 9, the slew of negative emotions coursing through Ro possessed an air of familiarity, from her disappointment to her loneliness, from her sense of failure to her feelings of abandonment. Memories from all across her life percolated upward. She had never been able to bury the recollection of her father’s torture and eventual death at the hands of a Cardassian occupier. She remembered the little boy in the refugee camps who turned her in to the Cardassian overseers for hoarding paltry scraps of food. She could easily visualize the last time she saw her mother, shipping off the young Laren to be raised by an older and ill-equipped uncle. She recalled her life on the streets and the girlfriend who pledged to stick by her side no matter what happened, but who bolted the first time a Cardassian caught them attempting a con.

  What good is thinking about all this? Exhaustion took hold of her and threatened to drop her where she stood. Ro pushed away from the port and crossed back to her bedroom, where she flung her robe to the deck and threw herself onto the bed. She didn’t know if she would be able to sleep, but she at least needed to rest. She had to try to clear her mind, even if she lay awake for hours.

  Ro thought to concentrate on the darkness, but even before she could order the computer to black out the lights in her cabin, slumber found her. While her body rested, her mind did not. Dreams descended on the captain, bringing with them bittersweet memories of a youth best left in the past.

  Three

  Market Exposure

  i

  * * *

  Ro sat in the command chair in the Hub and listened to the overnight status report from Ensign Leo Lubitsch, the delta-shift duty officer that week. Mercifully, the watch had been quiet and nothing required the captain’s attention. Ro copied Lubitsch’s report from his padd to her own, then dismissed the ensign. She waited for Commander Blackmer to arrive, and when he did, she handed over the reins of the Hub to him and withdrew into her office.

  Bleary-eyed, Ro dropped heavily into the seat behind her desk. She had slept fitfully, visited by dreams she could no longer recall, but which had done little to allow her unsettled mind to rest. She had awoken that morning still troubled, and by the time she’d made it to her office, anger had joined the emotional mix.

  Ro directed her ire neither at Altek Dans nor at Kira Nerys, but at herself. It bothered her to feel jealousy, but she also found it disturbed her that she had let herself become vulnerable to such emotions in the first place. I know better, don’t I? She had never been averse to love or commitment, to finding the right person to stay with for the long term—even if she doubted that she ever would—but in the absence of that, she had still striven to live a full, active, and mostly satisfying life. Isn’t that why I’ve had many of the relationships I’ve had—those that were more than a friendship, but less than a commitment? Isn’t that why I haven’t gotten more deeply involved with Quark? Ro hated having to ask herself such questions.

  The captain also ruminated about the Prophets apparently delivering Kira into Dans’s life deep in Bajor’s past, and then summoning both of them forward to the present. The circumstances made the time-travelers’ relationship seem fated—even literally gods-given. Which also means that Kira knew him first, Ro thought, and then she castigated herself for what sounded like an idea more suited to a lovesick teen than to the commanding officer of a starbase.

  I don’t want this, Ro told herself. Living with this sort of melodrama is not who I am.

  That quickly, Ro made a decision. “Captain to the Hub,” she said.

  “Blackmer here, Captain,” her first officer replied at once.

  “Jeff,” she said, “I’d like to see you in my office.”

  ii

  * * *

  Quark stood amidships and pointed to the aft section of the small but fleet scoutship he had contracted out of Nexvahl IV. “Load that into the sleeping quarters,” he told Flink, one of the many Ferengi he employed as a waiter in the bar, but who could also function as a stevedore when necessary. Quark stepped aside as Flink used an antigrav to push aboard a trunk—mostly filled with the barkeep’s flamboyant clothing.

  “I’ve programmed our course to Janus Six, boss,” called Zirk from up ahead, from inside the vessel’s cockpit. Though Zirk was another of Quark’s waiters, his skills as a pilot sometimes came in handy. “I’ve got the warp engine powered up in standby mode.”

  Quark entered the cramped cockpit, which featured only two seats, one forward and one rear. Zirk occupied the chair at the main control console, and Quark sat down behind him. “How long will the trip take?” he asked.

  “Depends if this ship can maintain its advertised cruising speed,” Zirk said. “I ran a diagnostic when it arrived this morning, and the warp drive checks out, so I’d estimate something just shy of two hundred hours.” Quark hated to be away from the bar for that long—at least a week to Janus VI and another week back, plus however long it would take him to deal with Mayereen Viray—but he hated having his latinum stolen even more.

  Flink poked his head into the cockpit. “All done, boss,” he said. “Is there anything else?”

  “Just keep your ears on Treir while I’m gone.” Quark didn’t actually worry much about Treir stealing or otherwise betraying him in some way—she’d been working for him for almost ten years—but he also didn’t fully trust her either. He based that not just on the 190th Rule of Acquisition, but on his own life experience; he had been disappointed more often than he cared to recall. “In fact, keep your ears on all my employees.�
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  “Okay, boss.” Flink ducked out of the cockpit and headed back to the starbase. Quark returned his attention to Zirk.

  “You ran a diagnostic on the warp engine,” he said. “Did you check out the rest of the ship’s systems?”

  “I tested the computer, life-support, the navigational system, the deflectors, the transporter, the emergency pod, and the sublight drive,” Zirk said. “All matched or exceeded your requirements in the contract.”

  “Really?” Quark said, surprised. Despite the success he’d enjoyed with his establishment on Bajor, and how well business had gone aboard the new DS9, he usually anticipated setbacks. “How long will it be before we can get under way?”

  “We can depart immediately,” Zirk said. “I just need to coordinate with the dockmaster and—”

  Quark interrupted Zirk by holding up a hand toward him, palm out. The barkeep thought he’d heard ­something—footfalls, arranged in a familiar gait. He listened closely, but they’d stopped. But do I hear breathing? Is that—

  “Hello?”

  The single word elicited a complex mix of emotions within Quark. He quickly stood up and looked out the cockpit doorway. In the external hatchway stood Ro Laren.

  A rush of heat surged through Quark’s lobes at the sight of her. The romance that they had nurtured for so long had in recent months begun to slip away. He tried to curb the plunge in the amount of time they spent together, he wanted to reverse the downward trajectory of their relationship, but despite his efforts, that hadn’t happened. The loss of their intimacy saddened him, but the way she treated him the day before, the way she dismissed him when he sought her aid, made him angry.

  “Captain,” he said, his voice flat. “Are you here to apologize for not wanting to help me? Maybe by lending me a security officer for my trip?”

  “Not exactly,” Ro said. “But I did speak with Commander Desjardins in the JAG office. While you might have witnessed a crime from Deep Space Nine, and while you initiated a transfer of funds here under false pretenses, Viray’s presence in Geopolis puts Janus Six’s law enforcement squarely in charge of the matter.”

  Quark nodded. “Of course it does,” he said with as much disdain as he could muster. “So you won’t send one of your crew with me?”

  “Not one of my crew, no,” Ro said. She reached back through the hatchway and hoisted a travel duffel onto her shoulder. “I am going with you.” Quark’s mouth dropped open, and he made a conscious effort to close it. “If that’s all right with you.”

  The prospect of spending any time at all with Laren thrilled Quark, and the idea of taking a journey with her that would last a minimum of two weeks sounded better than winning the Lissepian Lottery. He called back over his shoulder, “Zirk, I found another pilot. Go back to the bar and help Frool and Grimp with doing the inventory.”

  “Are you sure, boss?” Quark turned and glared at Zirk, who shrank back in his seat. “Okay, sorry, sorry.” He got up, squeezed past Quark, hied through the main ­compartment—which spanned the middle half of the ­vessel—and ducked into the sleeping quarters. He reappeared a moment later carrying his own travel bag. “Is there anything else you need?” he asked. Quark felt a quick surge of pride at how well he’d trained his employees.

  “There’s nothing else,” Quark said. Zirk excused himself to the captain, who moved to one side so that he could exit.

  Once he had gone, Ro said, “So when do we leave?”

  “Right away,” Quark said. He had actually intended to return to the bar and take care of some unrelated last-­minute business, but he didn’t want to risk something arising that could provoke Laren to change her mind.

  “All right,” she said, setting her duffel down inside the hatch. “Let’s go.”

  Quark stepped out of the way so that Laren could enter the cockpit, then followed her inside and sat down behind her. He watched her as she executed a series of systems checks, her hands moving nimbly across the main console. “Would you close the hatch?” she asked as she worked, and he found the proper control on the auxiliary panel beside him.

  Laren continued to work, until at last she spun in her chair to face him. “I have something for you,” she said.

  Quark didn’t see anything in her hands, and she certainly didn’t carry anything in her Starfleet uniform, but he liked the prospect of receiving a gift from Laren. He waited, and she lifted her hand and tapped on the main console. Quark craned his neck and saw a navigational display, which listed their destination not as Janus VI, but as Mericor. The change distressed him. As highly as he would value time alone with Laren, he still wanted to track down the duplicitous Mayereen Viray and retrieve the latinum she’d swindled from him.

  “I have a friend at the spaceport in Geopolis,” Ro said. She stood up and left the cockpit, but raised her voice and continued talking. “I contacted her to confirm that your private investigator and possible thief was still there.” Quark heard Ro rummaging through her duffel. “It turns out that Viray boarded a flight out of Janus Six yesterday.” She quieted for a moment, then returned to the cockpit with a padd, which she handed to Quark. On the display, he saw a paused image of Viray. He touched the screen, and a clip played of the Petarian woman boarding a ship. “My friend secured this sequence from spaceport surveillance,” Ro said as she sat back down at the main console. “That ship is a Mizarian transport headed for Mericor. Depending on their route and speed, we might be able to get there before Viray. We should be able to reach the planet in two days or so.”

  Quark took in what he heard and tried to process it. Beyond the obvious value of the information he’d just received, it also touched him that Laren had gone out of her way to help him track down his lost profits. Unfortunately, a journey to Mericor rather than to Janus VI would mean considerably less time alone with her. Still, Quark would take it.

  “The sooner we leave, the sooner we’ll get there,” he said.

  Ro swung back to the console and operated the controls. “Nexvahl vessel to Deep Space Nine,” she said. “Requesting exit vector and immediate departure.”

  Five minutes later, the scoutship raced away from the starbase on a heading for Mericor. Quark was alone with the woman he loved—a Starfleet captain—on a quest for latinum. It seemed like a fantasy.

  If this is a dream, Quark thought, I don’t want to wake up.

  iii

  * * *

  The space had been decorated with a simplicity and soft beauty that Kira found welcoming in the most unobtrusive way. Understated yellow lighting suffused the air like early-morning sunlight, just before dawn. Brighter beams picked out several pieces of hanging abstract artwork. A number of chairs and curved benches offered comfortable seating, and a lazy stream of water seeped from a fountain in one corner. The setting put Kira in mind of a Bajoran temple.

  Which makes sense, Kira thought, since it’s the kai’s ship.

  Though unnamed—Pralon Onala did not care much for pomp—the ship belonged to a group of vessels permanently at the kai’s disposal. The transport had arrived at DS9 during the night, and its master—a man named Beren Togg—had left Kira a message that she’d received upon rising that morning. The ship would depart for Bajor at ten hundred hours.

  “This is the passenger lounge,” said Jamay Pal, who had introduced herself as an aide to the kai, and who’d barely been able to contain her wonderment at Kira’s return from being MIA in the Celestial Temple. Pralon had not made the voyage to DS9, Jamay explained, because she preferred to remain on Bajor while the controversy surrounding the Endalla falsework continued to unfold. “You may relax here during the trip, or if you prefer, I can offer you a private cabin.”

  “This will be fine, thank you.” Alone in the passenger lounge, Kira would have all the privacy she needed.

  “Would you care for something to eat or drink, Vedek?” Jamay asked.

  “No, thank
you.”

  “If you would like something later, you may contact me, or there’s a replicator in an alcove down the next corridor.” Jamay motioned to the passage, which ran aft from the lounge. “You’ll find a refresher down that way as well.”

  “Thank you.”

  “We will be departing shortly,” Jamay said, “just as soon as our other passenger arrives.” Before Kira could ask who would be joining her on the way to Bajor, a figure appeared in the forward doorway: Altek Dans. Kira felt something like an electric charge jolt through her. She had yet to overcome the shock of seeing him the previous night, of realizing in what context the two had known each other—known each other, and more.

  Jamay greeted Altek with the same information she had provided Kira. The kai’s aide offered him refreshments and the option of traveling in a private cabin, both of which he declined, and then Jamay pointed out the locations of the replicator and refresher. “Now that you’re both here,” she said, “we will be leaving Deep Space Nine and heading for Bajor at once. If either of you require anything at all during the trip, please let me know.” Jamay exited the lounge, leaving Kira and Altek alone. The moment felt immediately awkward.

  “It’s good to see you again,” Altek said. An inactive padd dangled from his right hand.

  Kira regarded him, unsure what she should say. She opted to ask the most basic question of all. “What are you doing here?”

  “Here in the future? I have no idea,” Altek said with a smile, apparently trying to make a joke. “As far as being on the ship, I was contacted by Kai Pralon this morning. She told me that she had spoken directly with the first minister and the minister of state, and that I finally have full clearance to go to Bajor. The kai said that she’d sent a ship to bring you home, and she invited me to come along. I took the opportunity because . . . well, because I wanted to go to Bajor, but also because I wanted to see you again . . . to speak with you.”