by Emily
"Shar?" She rasped, and coughed, her throat dry.
Both Shar and the Bajoran nurse turned toward her, the nurse immediately moving to her side. Ro sat up a little, light-headed but in no pain.
"What happened?" Ro asked, and coughed again. The nurse miraculously produced a container of some mildly sweet beverage and stood by while Ro drank, gratefully.
"There was an attack on the station, and you were brought to the infirmary with a head injury," the nurse said kindly. "But your readings suggest a Ml recovery. I'll go get the doctor."
Shar stood next to the bed as the nurse went off to find someone. He held up the rather exotic-looking bouquet of waxy, tubular blooms with a slight smile.
"These are from Quark. I saw him on the way here and he insisted that I deliver mem; he said he was too busy ordering new inventory for the bar to stop in, although he might later. He says that flowers are a customary gift for the ill or diseased. These are Argelian, I think."
Ro smiled in spite of her confusion, not sure if she was more amused by Quark's gesture or Shar's uncertain explanation. "Ill be sure to thank him. Shar, what happened to the station? What happened to me?"
Before he could answer, Dr. Bashir appeared from smother room, walking slowly and looking harried, his hair uncharacteristically rumpled. The smile he gave her seemed genuine, though. He glanced at the bed's diagnostic before moving to her other side, across from Shar. "Lieutenant, Ensign. I have a few questions, if you don't mind."
"So do I," Ro said, propping herself up on her el-hows. "Chief among them, why is Quark sending me (lowers?"
Bashir grinned, the expression as sincere as his smile—but she could see the strain behind it, could see that he was hiding some pain behind the sparkle. With how full the infirmary was, she guessed he'd had a rough day.
"Oh, I can imagine," he said. He opened a medical tricorder and passed the scanner over her head, his intense gaze shifting from the readout to each of her eyes as he spoke, his smile quickly fading. "Tell me, what's the last thing you remember before waking up a few minutes ago?"
She frowned, thinking. "There was... a murder on the Promenade. I remember meeting with you and Kira. And then I, ah, talked to Quark a little later about it, I remember that"
She'd gotten an isolinear rod from him, she'd gone to her office, and afterward... she recalled feelings of unease, even distress, but she couldn't pinpoint the reason. Something about the holosuites? "I don't know what else, I can't remember."
The doctor nodded, setting die tricorder down. "I saw you on the Promenade not long before you were brought in; I'd say you've lost less than an hour of your
memory. An amnesic gap is perfectly normal with mis type of concussion, nothing to worry about Your cranial blood pressure is stable and your neurographic scan shows no disruptions. You can return to duty... but if you find yourself feeling nauseous or dizzy, or unwell in any way, you're to call for assistance and report back here immediately, all right?"
Ro nodded, a little surprised at his excellent bedside manner. She really hadn't interacted with him since coming to the station, and had assumed him to be generic Starfleet medical, patronizing and probably arrogant "How did I get hurt?"
"You fell from the stairs in Quark's," Bashir said. "Quark saw it happen, and brought you here. It's lucky he did, too. With the way the station was bouncing around, you could have been seriously injured."
She started to ask about the station and the doctor hurried on, nodding toward Shar. "But I'll let your friend fill you in on all of that If you'll both excuse me, I have rounds to make."
Ro thanked him and turned to Shar, who spent the next tew minutes filling her in. She was amazed at all she had missed, and appalled by the station's death toll; not to mention the loss of the Aldebaran.
And Commander last. Hearing about her death hit Ro harder than she expected. A lot of Starfleet officers on board had a cold attitude toward Ro. Not surprising, really. She suspected most of them bitterly resented her presence on the station and were probably dismayed that Starfleet Command hadn't made a move to arrest her for her past offenses. How the provisional government had persuaded the Federation not to exercise its rights under its extradition treaty with Bajor was a
mystery. The end result though, was that the Starfleet personnel on the station were forced to work alongside someone many of them believed belonged in prison. Or worse.
But last had been different. The commander had gone out of her way to be amicable. At first, Ro thought it was because Jast also seemed to be awkward at making friends ... but, just in the last few days, she had been starting to feel that the commander actually I iked her.
"... and with incoming communications basically inoperative, the only messages from the Federation have been relayed through Bajor, telling us to wait" Shar continued. "Colonel Kira has all of the senior officers on standby for a briefing as soon as she gets word."
"What are we doing for defenses?" Ro asked, finally sitting up. Physically, she felt perfectly fine, but their conversation was making her stomach knot
"The I.K.S. Tcha'voth got here just after die attack, and six Bajoran assault vessels arrived a few hours ago, so we aren't entirely defenseless," Shar said, "but there's great tension on the station, and the fear mat war is once again imminent. It doesn't help that the wormhole has opened three times since this morning, triggered by debris from the Aldebaran."
He lowered his gaze, speaking softly. "There's to be a service at 0700 tomorrow, in memory of all those lost. If you're not well enough to attend, it's going to be broadcast station-wide."
Listening to his gently lilting voice, she could sense a change in him. He was tired, she could see that, but there was more—something deeper, more fundamental.
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, bom in his career and in his Me. 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.
'1 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 far Quark, maybe, she thought, as Shar I landed 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 mat hard to inspire in a primarily civilian population. The soldier in
Ro couldn't get behind the idea mat 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 mat 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 ums 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 fed 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 fines of faces mat 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?
Tins 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 mem 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 mat 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 tune wishing things were otherwise.
She walked slowly between two of the rows, letting her fingers slip across the various container tops of nondescript black metal, hurriedly replicated that afternoon. She'd had some vague idea about looking for Tins to say good-bye, but she couldn't simply walk past the others. She thought that last 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 Mel-drarae 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 ums 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 w
ould 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 Me 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.
IO
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 amor-phic ocean of red and orange before rising anew, the dance of the storms beautiful, threatening, and eternal.