by S. D. Perry
Shar had probably liked Tiris Jast as much as Ro had, and had certainly known a majority of the station residents who had been killed. Though she wouldn’t call him extroverted, exactly, Ensign ch’Thane was one of those rare people who seemed to honestly enjoy listening to and learning about others. He had quickly found himself a place in DS9’s community, well-liked because, unlike herself, he never seemed to pass judgment. So different were their personalities, in fact, Ro had wondered more than once why he seemed to seek out her company. She’d finally decided that the old saying about opposites seeking out one another was probably true.
Shar was quite young and, though obviously brilliant, relatively inexperienced, both in his career and in his life. His only assignment before DS9 had been on a survey vessel, primarily collecting information on the Vorta. He’d seen little or no battle, and although he didn’t seem the type to shy from it—Andorians, as a rule, were combat-ready—she doubted very much that he’d savored his first figurative taste of blood. Shar was too inherently decent, and she found herself mourning what he could not—the addition of a kind of tense wariness to his electric gray gaze, a look she knew too well from years of watching innocents return from their first real fight.
“I should return to ops,” he said. “The sensor arrays are operational, but Colonel Kira wants them at peak efficiency now that we’re focused on the wormhole.”
Ro smiled at him. “I’m glad you came to see me, Shar,” she said, and was faintly surprised at how much she meant it. He was the closest thing she had to a friend on the station.
Except for Quark, maybe, she thought, as Shar handed her the flowers. They had a pleasantly spicy scent.
“I hope that you will continue to mend properly,” Shar said sincerely.
And I hope we’re not about to go to war.
The unbidden thought frightened her, reminding her of all that was at stake—but it was a strangely compelling thought as well. She was only barely conscious that the prospect of battle had sparked her interest.
They made tentative plans to meet later and he departed, leaving her to consider all that had happened and to wonder what would happen next. So, the station’s residents were scared, but fear wasn’t all that hard to inspire in a primarily civilian population. The soldier in Ro couldn’t get behind the idea that the Dominion truly wanted another war, not with what Shar had told her about the nature of the attack—and for all of Kira’s faults, Ro didn’t think the colonel was dense enough to think so either, not when it came to matters of conflict. Though, what Starfleet was convinced of was another thing entirely.
Forget it, Laren. None of your business. She had her own duties to worry about, reports to make and listen to, security measures to be reviewed and evaluated. And pointless as it suddenly seemed in the face of the larger tragedy, there was still that investigation into the prylar’s death.
Ro stood up, Quark’s flowers in hand, and though she’d already decided it wasn’t her concern, she suddenly found herself wishing very much to know what Kira was thinking about, what she would say when she finally spoke to Starfleet—and what Starfleet would have to say to her.
There was more than enough room in the cargo bay for the coffins and urns and memorial plaques, but it was no less crowded for the dark and cavernous space. She’d left the main bank of lights off, the barely lit shadows much more appropriate for her lonely visit…and somehow, it reinforced the vague feeling that she’d never seen so many of the dead in one place. It wasn’t true, of course, but the blank rows and stacks of sealed containers seemed to go on forever as they disappeared into the dark, an endless testimony to all that had gone wrong only a single day ago…and to her own place within that series of events that had left almost seventy of her people dead.
The memorial service had gone well, she supposed, as if any such thing could be said to describe a few simple prayers and a shocked moment of silent remembrance. It would have been better to wait a few days, but Kira knew from experience that reality assimilation often took time—which was an uncertain variable until they knew exactly why the Jem’Hadar had attacked the station. Better to say a few words when there was opportunity to say them, and hope that the survivors could manage their own personal closure in the days to come.
The service itself had been brief, the Promenade overflowing but still, everyone who could leave their work for a few moments standing en masse like a tide of lifeless dolls, watching her speak with flat and barely responsive gazes. After staying up all night walking the damaged station and personally taking reports from every section and subsection chief she could find, standing in front of the mostly silent assembly had seemed unreal, a disjointed dream filled with realistically unhappy details—the pale faces of the Aldebaran crew, knowing that only an assigned leave had spared them while their friends had died. The way Nog’s proudly raised chin had trembled, or the soft sigh of an elderly woman who had lost her son. Kira had heard tears and seen the hard, set lines of faces that reflected emptiness, for fear that even acknowledging the pain would be too much to bear.
Kira rested her hand on the cool, smooth surface of a keepsake box, destined for a family in the Hedrikspool Province of Bajor, a few personal items that their daughter had left behind. Setrin Yeta, one of Ro’s junior deputies, a bubbly redheaded girl with a high-pitched laugh. Gone. To be with the Prophets, surely, but would her family feel any less pain?
Will I? Will any of us?
Tiris and Turo Ane, Kelly and Elvim and McEwian and T’Peyn and Grehm and the list went on, some of the faces only known in passing, all of them real people with real lives, and if she had only done something more, if she’d made a decision a few seconds earlier, or later…
Without consciously deciding to, she had gone straight from the ceremony to the cargo bay, almost as if guided by some invisible hand. Even with all there was to do, her sense of responsibility wouldn’t allow her to avoid it; to understand what had happened, to really understand what had been lost, she needed to see them. To witness the reality of them.
As she’d stepped into the bay, her early morning dream from the day before had come back to her, from what seemed to be millennia ago. It was the environment that did it, bringing a flash of imagery—a cargo bay, and she’d been surrounded by dying people on the Cardassian freighter, the fleeting glimpse of Ben as she’d walked into the light of the Prophets…had it been an omen, even a warning? Had she been too quick to dismiss it as a dream?
Now, she was surrounded by the dead, but she knew that there would be no saving grace at the end, no friendly voice or affirmation of divinity. She wasn’t going to wake up, and although she’d been responsible for the deaths of others in her time, there was no real way to prepare for it, or work out moral rationalizations. It would always be something so vast and shocking that there was little to be done but to weather it, to let it be. There wasn’t anything that could make her less responsible; better to accept the consequences and move on than to waste time wishing things were otherwise.
She walked slowly between two of the rows, letting her fingers slip across the various containers of nondescript black metal, hurriedly replicated that afternoon. She’d had some vague idea about looking for Tiris to say good-bye, but she couldn’t simply walk past the others. She thought that Jast probably would have understood.
Here were two humans bound for home, two Federation diplomatic trainees—both male, bright, fresh from the Academy and excited to study in the field, observing Cardassian aid relations. During his first day on the station, the older of the two had actually tried to flirt with her; he obviously hadn’t yet learned how to read Bajoran rank insignia, and flashed a grin that told her that her eyes burned like the stars. She’d actually considered not telling him her name when he had asked, amused and secretly flattered by the ignorant attempt; in the end, she’d been unable to resist. The young man had blushed furiously and then studiously avoided her, right up until the day he’d died.
Eric, and his friend
was Marten. She touched the black lines of code at the heads of their containers, wondered what Asgard and New Paris were like, the places where their families unknowingly waited for notification.
Next to them, a small, sealed pouch of liquid that would be sent to Meldrar I, blood from Starfleet Ensign Jataq’qat’s heart that would be poured into the Meldrarae sea by its siblings. Jataq’qat had challenged her to a game of springball not so long ago, a date they would never keep. Kira walked on. A row away, a long line of small ceremonial urns bound for various Bajoran cities and townships, some containing earrings—the symbols of family, of the victims’ devotion to the Prophets and the spiritual community to which they belonged—others with small pieces from the lives that had been taken.
She sighed, her mind so full of masked recriminations that she didn’t want to think—not because she feared the pain, but because it was too distracting. Balancing between remorse and the cold, linear reality of the future was a cruel and terrible thing; she couldn’t even allow herself the questionable relief of wallowing in guilt, because the station needed her, it needed her to be at the top of her game and she couldn’t afford to shoulder the presumption of incompetence, no matter how much she thought she should.
“Why did you come here, Reyla,” Kira said softly, her voice almost lost in the soft hum of the air coolers. She wasn’t sure if it was a question, wasn’t sure what she expected, but the death of her long-ago friend meant something, it had to mean something, didn’t it? All of this had to mean something.
Kira felt her throat constrict and took several deep breaths, inhaling and exhaling heavily, clearing her mind. With each new breath, the tide of sorrow crept back, giving her room, reminding her that she was whole and alive and had a lot to do, too much to be standing around weeping in the dark.
Just as she felt herself reaching safer ground, her combadge signaled.
“Colonel Kira, there’s an incoming message from Bajor, routed from the U.S.S. Cerberus—”
Ross’s ship.
“Should I send it to your office?” It was Bowers, in ops, and he sounded tense. Everyone on the station understood that Admiral Ross’s call would set them on a definite course of action, to comply with whatever the Federation decided. What that course would be, Kira wasn’t certain; at one time, she would have called for immediate action, but she wasn’t so quick to assume the worst as she used to be.
And not so quick to fight, if there’s even a possible alternative. As far as she was concerned, the attack should be quietly investigated through diplomatic channels, at least until something solid turned up…and although Kira believed that the Federation wouldn’t act rashly, that they probably wouldn’t even whisper the idea of a counterattack before careful consideration, she wasn’t positive. That was bad, but what really scared her was the possibility that she wouldn’t have any way to influence their decision if they had, in fact, decided on some sort of retaliatory action. Deep Space 9 sat at the Alpha entrance to the wormhole, the first outpost that any Gamma traveler—or soldier—would encounter. Without question, the Dominion could not be allowed back, not if they meant to fight—but how could she allow one more life to be lost, when she might be able to prevent it?
My job here isn’t about me, and it’s not just about the state of the Federation. It’s also about trying to do what’s best for the people on this station, and for Bajor. She believed that, and it gave her strength, it was direction when she needed it—but as Bowers waited for her response, she gazed out over the sad remains of her friends, of her wards and peers and the semi-remembered faces of just a few of the thousands who depended on her, and she didn’t feel it.
I’ll be as strong as I need to be.
“Yes. I’m on my way,” Kira said, gathering her defenses as she turned toward the doors that would lead her back to the world of the living. She didn’t hurry and she didn’t look back, the possibility of tears already a memory.
Chapter Ten
Whirling plumes of light spun up from wavering plains of fire, the radiant shapes lengthening thousands of meters until they grew too vast to sustain themselves. The funnels collapsed, disintegrating back into the amorphic ocean of red and orange before rising anew, the dance of the storms beautiful, threatening, and eternal.
After watching for what seemed like hours, Commander Elias Vaughn finally broke the silence. “Are we done yet?”
Captain Picard smiled, not looking away from the incredible lightshow. “Done watching?”
“Done looking, for the Breen. They’re not here, Jean-Luc. I don’t think they ever were.”
Picard’s smile faded. “I’ve come to agree with you, but we have to be thorough. Another run through the thick of it, and we’ll have completed a second grid. We want to be able to declare a reasonable certainty, after all our efforts.”
They stood before the viewport in the captain’s ready room, the ever-shifting view of the Badlands spread out in front of them in shades of flame. For the last several days, the two men had taken to meeting there as the ship completed each run, to watch the plasma storms together.
The Enterprise had been searching the treacherous area for nearly three weeks, the constant atmospheric disturbances making it necessary to pilot and investigate manually, their sensors useless beyond a very short range. Vaughn had come aboard to advise the mission on Breen tactics…though even if their supposed presence had turned out to be true, he doubted he’d have been of much use. The captain and crew of the Enterprise-E were more than worthy of their distinction, and Vaughn was certain they could handle themselves against a few Breen.
It’s been nice to spend some time with Picard and his people, anyway. Vaughn liked Picard, having met him on more than one occasion in the past. He’d always thought the captain bright, if a bit dry, and surprisingly well-rounded. His tactical instincts were superb, and he carried his command well, with distinction and grace. A little formal, perhaps, but not offensively so, his politeness clearly stemming from a respect for others rather than some self-promoting mechanism. But Vaughn had worked with this particular Enterprise crew only once before, at the Betazed emancipation over a year ago—a mission that had earned them his profound respect.
The intercom beeped, Will Riker’s voice interrupting his musings. “Captain, the new course is plotted. Allowing for the predicted plasma currents, Commander Data suggests that we begin immediately, and that we start out at one-quarter impulse for the first two million kilometers.”
“Make it so,” Picard said, and as the ship eased toward the shimmering Badlands, Vaughn thought again about the coded transmission he’d received only a few hours before. Even the dramatic beauty of the plasma storms wasn’t enough to distract him entirely. He was bone-tired, and not from three weeks of chasing a rumor.
“I’m thinking of retiring, Jean-Luc,” Vaughn said abruptly, a little surprised at his own impulsiveness as the words left his mouth. He’d been considering it for months, but hadn’t planned to tell anyone until he’d decided. And he didn’t even know Picard all that well….
…although he probably knows me as well as anyone. Vaughn didn’t know if that was good or bad, but it was the truth.
Picard also seemed surprised. He turned to look at Vaughn, eyebrows arched. “Really? May I ask why?”
“You may, but I’m not sure I have an answer,” Vaughn said. “I suppose I could just say that I’m getting too old….”
“Nonsense. You can’t be much older than I am.”
Vaughn smiled; he’d never looked his age. “I’m a hundred and one, actually.”
Picard smiled back at him. “You wear it well. But you still have decades ahead of you, Elias.”
“I suppose I mean old in spirit,” Vaughn said, sighing. “Since the end of the war, I find myself thinking differently about things. After eighty years of charging off to battle…”
He paused, thinking. He’d never been an eloquent man, but he wanted very much to define the path of his feelings, as much for hi
mself as for Picard. After so long a war, so little time for pleasures or luxuries, he felt out of touch with the delicacy of his self-perceptions.
“I’ve always been a soldier,” he said. “I was trained for it, and have excelled at it—and for a long time, I’ve felt my role to be an integral part of the peace process. Now, though…just lately, I’ve been thinking of the universe as an unending series of conflicts that doesn’t need another aging warrior to help circumscribe them.”
Vaughn shook his head, searching for more words to explain what he’d been feeling. “Wars will always be waged, I know that. But I’m starting to think of myself as a participant in war, rather than someone working toward peace. And the difference between the two is immeasurable.”
Picard was silent for a moment, and they watched as the Enterprise slid effortlessly into the bright and turbulent space of the Badlands. Vaughn felt strangely relaxed, at ease with the captain’s silence. He suspected that what he’d said was being carefully measured by Picard, scrupulously considered, and the thought was oddly comforting.
“Perhaps you need a change of vocation,” Picard said finally. “Do you know the story of Marcus Aurelius?”
Vaughn smiled. A great warrior of ancient Rome, a general who’d lost his taste for battle in spite of his successes. The original soldier-philosopher of Earth. “You flatter me.”
“Not at all. And I’m not suggesting that you turn to writing your meditations on war and peace…though perhaps that’s not such a terrible idea. You have more strategic and tactical experience than any career officer I’ve ever known, Elias, but that doesn’t mean you have to use it as a soldier would. You could write, or teach.”
Picard faced him, his expression earnest. “Of course, you can do whatever you wish. But—forgive my presumption—I don’t think you’re the kind of man who would be content to sit back and watch the worlds go by.”