“I understand your frustration,” Bashir said, “but—”
“My frustration?!” th’Shant roared. “Your use of such a word demonstrates your insensitivity and complete lack of understanding about the situation. My people are suffering a reproductive crisis—not something frustrating, but a danger that threatens our existence.”
“I know the situation is grave,” Bashir said. “And whatever help the Federation could have provided to the Andorian people, it should have, of course. But my understanding is that they did do what they could, that nobody in our government, from the president on down, even knew about the Shedai genetic information.” A century earlier, Starfleet had apparently discovered a massive, complex genome in the Taurus Reach, created by an ancient civilization known as the Shedai. Deemed too dangerous even for general research purposes, the entire catalogue of genetic information had been classified. Until the Tholians had revealed its existence, the Taurus Meta-Genome—and therefore its potential to address the Andorian crisis—had been unknown to present-day Federation scientists.
“Starfleet discovered it, but they didn’t know about it,” th’Shant said sarcastically. “And yet the Tholians provided that same information to the Andorian people. The Federation denied it to their allies of more than two centuries, to one of its own founding members, but the xenophobic Tholians made a gift of it to Andor.”
“I understand why you’re appalled by what’s taken place,” Bashir said. “I’m appalled by it too. It shouldn’t have happened. Surely, you must realize that it wasn’t intentional. But even if you believe that the Federation willfully withheld the assistance your people needed, I don’t see how killing Federation citizens—innocent civilians and your own crewmates—I don’t see how that could possibly help the situation. If anything, it makes it worse.”
“How could anything make the Federation’s racism worse?” th’Shant asked. “My people opted to secede, but I stayed.” The Andorian rapped his fist against his own chest with a thump. “I didn’t go home when so many others did. I stayed in Starfleet when others left. I continued performing my duties. But what did I get for my loyalty? I was accused of plotting against Starfleet, against Deep Space Nine, and as you say, against my own crewmates—all because of the color of my skin.”
“Are you talking about what happened a few months ago?” Bashir asked. At that time, when two Andorian crewmembers had resigned their commissions and prepared to leave Deep Space 9, Sarina had overheard the departing Ensign zh’Vesk in a heated discussion with th’Shant, in which one of them threatened to avenge their people upon the Federation. Captain Ro had ordered th’Shant investigated—as well as Sarina, and the station’s chief of security, Jefferson Blackmer. “The captain ordered a probe into your background and connections because she feared that somebody might attack Deep Space Nine—which you did.”
“I hadn’t done anything like that at the time, and I hadn’t planned to,” th’Shant said. “I had friends and family members who decried my misplaced loyalties when I chose to remain in Starfleet and not immediately return to Andor. My family begged me not to stay with bigots. I actually defended my crewmates, and then what did they do? I was accused and investigated because of the species I belong to.”
“But that’s not what happened,” Bashir protested. “You weren’t arrested. You were temporarily removed from duty until you could be cleared, and not because you were an Andorian, but because you were overheard participating in a conversation in which threats were made against the Federation.”
“I never made any such threats.”
“Which is why you weren’t the only one investigated; two humans were also under suspicion,” Bashir said. “And you were all cleared.”
“When I was accused,” th’Shant said, hissing the words through his clenched teeth, “it became obvious that my family was right: the people of the Federation hate Andorians.” It seemed to Bashir that the ensign willfully ignored the facts of what had taken place. “So when a friend on Andor contacted me about the Typhon Pact needing help to restore the balance of power with the Federation, I listened—because the Pact, and especially the Tholians, had shown their willingness to help my people.”
“Can’t you see the calculation the Tholians made in doing what they did?” Bashir asked. “That they only helped the Andorians in an attempt to weaken the Federation?”
“Who cares why they did what they did?” th’Shant said. “If losing Andor weakens the Federation, then you’d think the UFP would do everything it could to help resolve our reproductive crisis. Even for their own self-interest, though, they didn’t do that.”
“No, but the Federation didn’t intentionally withhold the information.”
“What difference does it make whether or not their actions were intentional?” th’Shant said. “The Federation didn’t help the Andorian people, and the Tholians did. It’s clear who our friends truly are.”
“So you were willing to kill your own crewmates?” Bashir asked quietly, still having difficulty accepting the cold-bloodedness of th’Shant’s acts.
“The bombs were only supposed to cause the evacuation of the station,” said th’Shant, his own voice dropping to a lower level, his eyes peering downward at the deck. “And if we did need to set them off, they were only meant to damage the reactors in order to require their ejection.”
“That was a terrible risk.”
“Don’t you think I know that?” said th’Shant, looking up, his tone rising. “But . . .” He looked away again, as though searching for an answer. Finally, he shrugged, though unconvincingly. “Casualties are inevitable in war.”
“I don’t think you believe that, not as justification for what you did,” Bashir said. He might not have known th’Shant that well, but even after all that had happened, he found it difficult to consider the Andorian a heartless killer. “Otherwise why would you have fired on the Typhon Pact vessels? And why would you have saved Captain Ro and the senior staff?”
Th’Shant stared at the doctor, but didn’t answer any of his questions. Bashir wondered if a motive other than guilt or reclaimed altruism had driven the ensign to go into battle against the Typhon Pact ships, and to transport Ro and her senior officers from ops: plausible deniability. When Bashir had found him out—or at least when th’Shant believed he had—the Andorian had attempted to flee; clearly, he did not wish to face Federation justice. In the end, Bashir decided that th’Shant’s aims didn’t really matter—certainly not to the more than a thousand people who had perished on Deep Space 9, at least in part thanks to the ensign’s actions.
“You’re wrong about the Federation,” Bashir told th’Shant. “But then I guess that the Federation was also wrong about you.”
Th’Shant suddenly lunged forward. Bashir again reflexively stepped back. The Andorian’s hands and head struck the force field, which flashed blue at the points of impact. His mouth contorted into a rictus of agony, his yell consumed by the grating electrical sound of the security screen.
As th’Shant fell back a pace, visibly stunned by his contact with the force field, Bashir caught movement off to his side. From her place at the security console, Ensign Elvig darted over to the cell. As she arrived beside Bashir, th’Shant rushed forward again into the force field, which erupted in more blue flashes and bursts of static. Whether the Andorian acted out of uncontrollable anger, unable to keep from attempting to attack the doctor, or he behaved out of remorse, wanting to punish himself, Bashir could not tell.
Elvig rushed to the bulkhead and tapped a control panel set beside the cell. A bright blue pulse flashed through the force field, accompanied by a high-pitched sound reminiscent of a phaser blast. Th’Shant froze, then fell to the deck. Bashir saw his chest rising and falling, indicating that he’d only been rendered unconscious.
The security officer activated her combadge. “Ensign Elvig to sickbay.”
“Sickbay,” came the response. “This is Doctor Crusher.”
“Doctor, I
’m monitoring the brig,” Elvig said. “We’ve had a prisoner make prolonged and repeated contact with his cell’s force field. I used a neutralizing charge to stop him. He’s still breathing, but unconscious.”
“I’m on my way with a medical team,” the doctor said. “Crusher out.”
“I’m a doctor,” Bashir told the security officer, but she held up a hand to quiet him as she touched her combadge once more. “Elvig to Lieutenant Choudhury.”
“This is Choudhury,” replied the Enterprise security chief. “Go ahead.”
Elvig repeated her story, then added that she had contacted sickbay.
“I’ll dispatch a security team at once,” Choudhury said. “Do not permit medical personnel to enter the cell until security reinforcements arrive.”
“Understood, Lieutenant,” Elvig said.
“I’ll inform Captain Picard of the situation,” said the security chief. “Choudhury out.”
Elvig looked to Bashir. “Does the prisoner appear to be in distress?” she asked.
“No,” Bashir said, gazing at the inert figure of th’Shant. “His breathing appears regular. I’m more concerned about how his contacts with the force field affected his antennae and central nervous system.”
Elvig seemed to consider this. “We’ll wait, then,” she said. The statement impressed Bashir, not because she had chosen to wait for the medical and security teams, but because she had obviously considered violating a direct order and allowing Bashir to treat the Andorian. The doctor believed that if he’d indicated that th’Shant’s health had been at risk, she would have lowered the force field and allowed Bashir to tend to him.
As they stood peering into the cell at the fallen form of Vakell th’Shant, Ensign Elvig asked, “Why do you think he did it?”
Bashir knew that the security officer specifically asked about why th’Shant had hurled himself into the force field, but the doctor’s own thoughts ranged farther afield than that. He thought about the bombs planted on Deep Space 9, and the terrible destruction that had followed. So when he replied to Elvig, he answered many more questions than she’d asked.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I truly don’t know.”
Captain Benjamin Sisko stood from the command chair. He knew that below U.S.S. Robinson, the world of Bajor floated in space. Since the confrontation in the wormhole, and as Sisko awaited the return of all his crew, a monotony had arisen throughout the ship. That would change as soon as Robinson enjoyed a full complement and they headed the ship for Starbase 310, where they would deliver Rubicon and receive their new orders, but for the moment, the captain and his available crew had little to do but test and confirm all of the recent repairs to the ship.
Since the collapse of the wormhole—which still showed no signs of reopening, or even of whether it still existed—the Cardassians had reported a coincident explosion near their border. Investigation by Gul Macet aboard Trager uncovered readings that revealed the location of the other terminus of the Typhon Pact’s wormhole. Evidence, though, confirmed that the wormhole itself, as well as the equipment that generated it, had been completely destroyed.
“Commander Rogeiro, you have the bridge,” Sisko told his first officer, who sat to his right. “I’ll be in my ready room.”
“Aye, sir.”
Sisko crossed the bridge, his thoughts wandering to Kira Nerys. Her loss had been a terrible blow. Still, despite his own bitter estrangement from the Prophets, he continued to hope that they had somehow survived the explosion within the wormhole, and that they had also managed to save Kira. On one level, it seemed like a wildly optimistic thought, but Sisko had experienced far more improbable events since he had first arrived in the Bajoran system nearly fifteen years earlier.
The captain entered his ready room. As he took a step forward and the doors closed behind him, though, he saw before him not the familiar environs of his personal workspace aboard Robinson, but a shabby, old-fashioned room. He halted in his tracks.
The area before him measured roughly the same size as his ready room, perhaps a little larger. To the right, he saw an old, threadbare couch; a chipped, wooden coffee table; a shaded standing lamp; and a chair placed beside a short filing cabinet. A hulking, metal typewriter sat atop the cabinet. On the other side of the room, Sisko saw a sink, a stove—on which two pots cooked—and an icebox lined up along the wall. Dishes and flatware had been set on a round table, next to which stood a highchair. He spied a closed door past the kitchenette, and two others along a short corridor leading away from the living area. Sisko didn’t recognize the place, but he knew its style and the era from which it came.
The captain turned back around and, to his surprise, saw the doors to his ready room. Sudden vertigo caused him to lose his balance, and he lurched a step to one side before he caught himself. He peered down the length of his body to see the familiar black and gray material of his Starfleet uniform. Bracing himself, Sisko slowly rotated in place.
He could not identify the precise moment when his ready room somehow became a run-down apartment in Harlem, or even how he knew the place’s location, but again, he felt lightheaded. He tottered, then steadied himself by grabbing onto the back of one of the chairs at the table. Its legs chattered along the wood floor.
“Benny, are you all right?”
Benny closed his eyes in an effort to regain his equilibrium, then looked over to the couch. Cassie sat there in a black skirt and lavender blouse, a few white sheets of paper in her hand, with another small stack of pages sitting beside her. Becky lay asleep on the other side of Cassie, her small form a scatter of arms and legs.
“I’m . . . I’m fine,” Benny said. He glanced down at himself and saw a pair of charcoal gray slacks and an olive-green, button-down shirt.
“Have you read Kay’s new story? ‘The Abjuration of Rough Magic’?” Cassie asked. “She does a terrific job with her woman first officer. She saves the day aboard the U.S. Temple, and it’s just so good and so . . . I don’t know . . . so honest.”
“No,” Sisko said, knowing that he hadn’t read the story, that he’d never even heard of it or of its author, but somehow also knowing the identity of its first officer character: Kira Nerys. “No, I haven’t read it yet.”
“You should,” Kasidy said. “The report has a lot of unanswered questions.” She sat on the sofa in Robinson’s ready room, holding a padd, and wearing one of the multi-toned jumpsuits she often favored during cargo runs. Rebecca, clad in a pretty floral-print dress, slept stretched out on the sofa, her head resting on Kasidy’s thigh.
Benny pulled out the chair from the table and sat down hard. He hadn’t felt this way—fractured—in quite a while. At the same time he’d been cleared of the charges of assault and battery on the orderlies at Riverdale, a court-appointed psychiatrist had pronounced him well enough to avoid his re-committal to the asylum. Since then, he and Cassie had married and moved into an apartment together with their little girl. Benny continued to write, mostly for himself, though he occasionally sold a story to Pabst over at Incredible Tales or to Quinn over at If, and he’d even managed to get a novelette into an issue of Galaxy. But for the most part, he worked construction, good, honest labor that he actually enjoyed, and which allowed him to take care of his family. In all that time, he’d felt whole.
“She’s really becoming a very good writer,” Cassie said, and Benny gazed over to see her holding up the pages of Kay’s latest story.
“I’ll read it,” Benny said, but something nagged at him—something about Kay. He tried to think, tried to dredge up the memory he sought, but to no avail. He closed his eyes, but then someone knocked on the front door. “Who can that be?” he asked Cassie.
“It’s Kay,” Cassie said. “Don’t you remember? She’s joining us for supper.”
“Oh,” Benny said. “Of course.” He didn’t remember, though, which scared him.
Cassie took the pages of Kay’s story and set them on the coffee table, then carefully extracted herself
from where Becky lay. “Would you get the door while I go check on the stove?”
As Cassie crossed to the kitchenette, Benny rose a bit shakily to his feet. He headed past the living area and down the short hall. At the front door, he unlatched the locks, thinking that it would be good to see Kay. As the doorknob turned beneath his hand, though, he recalled what had eluded him earlier: Kay had been in an accident—a terrible accident.
He pulled open the door. Kira stood outside in the corridor. “Hello, Benjamin,” she said. She wore a traditional, earth-toned vedek’s robe. In one hand, she carried a curvy, elongated bottle filled with pale blue Bajoran springwine.
“Nerys,” Sisko said. “You’re all right.” Relief flooded through him. He thought his friend had been lost.
“Of course, I’m all right,” Kay said, wrinkling her nose up at Benny. “You didn’t think a little accident would keep me down for long, did you?”
“I . . .” Benny started, but the feeling of his mind splintering had returned, and he had difficulty forming complete thoughts.
“Cat got your tongue, Benny?” Kay asked. “This oughta loosen it.” She held up the bottle of red wine she’d brought with her. She entered the apartment, and Benny closed the door after her.
When he turned around, Sisko nearly walked into his desk. Kira peered at him from its other side, her hand on the bottle of springwine she’d set down between them. “Nerys?”
“It’s time to celebrate, Benjamin,” Kira said.
“That you’re alive?” Sisko asked.
“We don’t need to celebrate that I’m alive,” Kira told him. “We need to celebrate that you are.”
“I’ve got glasses,” Kasidy said, returning from the replicator. She carried three delicate flutes with her, which she placed beside the bottle of springwine.
“I . . . I don’t understand,” Benny said.
Kay pulled the cork from the bottle and poured the deep-red liquid into three water glasses. She handed one to Cassie and then one to Benny. She took the third for herself and held it aloft before her. “To family,” she said, then held her glass out, first toward Cassie, then toward Benny. “To mother, father—” She motioned toward where Becky slept on the couch. “—and daughter.” When Kay and Cassie sipped at their glasses, Benny did too.
Star Trek: Typhon Pact: Raise the Dawn (Star Trek, the Next Generation) Page 43