“It was during our mission to the Breen Confederacy,” Bowers said. “That was what? Two years ago?”
Dax nodded, though she could hardly believe it had been that long since she’d had a personal conversation with Julian. It made her feel ashamed. Whatever their differences, they had loved each other, and they certainly should have been able to remain friends. “Two years,” she said, but then something occurred to her. “Wait a minute, Sam. Wasn’t it just about two years ago that we visited the Venetan Outpost?”
Bowers looked off to one side for a few seconds, then back at the captain. “You’re right.”
“Our mission to Breen space was three years ago,” Dax said. It embarrassed her that even more time had passed since her last contact with Julian, doubly so because she hadn’t even been able to recall when it had taken place. She stood up and looked across her desk at Bowers. “I’ve got to go see him, Sam.”
“What are you going to say?”
“I don’t know,” Dax admitted. “But this is no way for adults to behave.” She started out from behind her desk, but then the door signal announced another visitor. Her eyebrows rose in a questioning expression.
“If that’s Julian,” Bowers said, “you should go enter the Lissepian lottery.”
Dax offered a close-lipped smile, then said, “Come in.” The doors sighed open to reveal a crewman she didn’t recognize, and who appeared barely old enough to have even entered Starfleet Academy. He stepped inside carrying a padd. “Yes, Crewman?”
“Captain, I’m Barry Herriot,” he said, in an accent that Dax thought she recognized as Australian. “I’m a security officer aboard Deep Space Nine. Captain Ro has asked me to invite you to the starbase this evening for a memorial service she’s leading. It’s specifically to honor the crew who perished when the first station was lost.” He held up the padd. “I have all the details for you right here.”
Dax walked over to the crewman and took the padd from him. “Thank you, Mister Herriot.” She glanced at the display and saw that the service would be held at twenty hundred hours in a place called the Observation Gallery.
“Captain Ro asked me to mention that she’s aware that, because you served aboard Deep Space Nine, you knew some of the people who were lost,” Herriot said. “She knows that’s also the case with several members of your crew. She’d therefore like to extend an invitation to all of them as well, pending your approval, of course.”
“Thank you, Mister Herriot,” Dax said. “Please thank Captain Ro and tell her that I—” She looked over to Bowers, who nodded. “—and my first officer will attend. I will also pass on her invitation to those other members of my crew.”
“Yes, Captain,” Herriot said. “Thank you.”
“Dismissed,” Dax said, and the DS9 crewman retreated the way he’d come. Bowers stood up and walked over to the captain. She handed him the padd.
“I’ll let Leishman and Tarses know,” he said. Aventine’s chief engineer and chief medical officer had both served aboard Deep Space 9 at the same time as Dax and Bowers. “I think there might also be a couple of others who were posted to the station at one time or another. I’ll check.”
“Thanks, Sam,” Dax said. “I’ll be on the station. The ship is yours.”
They exited her ready room to the bridge, where Bowers paced toward an aft engineering console at which Lieutenant Mikaela Leishman worked. Dax entered a turbolift and specified her destination as the aft hatch. Moments later, she passed the Aventine security team standing watch at the ship’s wide airlock, then cleared the DS9 sentries guarding the station’s lock.
Dax crossed the wide corridor of the starbase’s horizontal ring to another turbolift. The feel of the new Deep Space 9 already made an impression on her. The narrow, dimly lighted spaces of its Cardassian forebear had been replaced with broad, bright areas.
“Infirmary,” Dax said.
To the captain’s surprise, the turbolift did not react by simply accelerating her on her way, but by replying to her audibly. “Beginning journey to the hospital,” said the familiar female computer voice in use throughout Starfleet. Dax didn’t know if such an announcement accompanied the start of every trip on the station by turbolift, but she suspected that it had been more likely informing her of the designation afforded DS9’s medical facility: hospital, not infirmary.
After a few seconds, the lift started on its way. As the cab glided horizontally along, Dax studied the map of the starbase on the rear bulkhead. She saw that her route had been highlighted in red. The turbolift would take her around the outer ring to a crossover bridge, over to the main body of the station, and directly to the hospital, located on the deck below an area labeled the Plaza, which the captain assumed equated to the old DS9’s Promenade.
Dax tapped at the hospital on the map, and the image expanded to provide an overhead view of the facility. She could see immediately why the designers had eschewed the name infirmary for hospital: the place occupied nearly a quarter of the circular deck on which it sat. While the diagram lacked specific detail, the facility obviously had a much larger capacity for patients, and Dax guessed that it probably had more than one operating theater, as well as a number of medical laboratories.
When the lift finally eased to a stop, Dax stepped out into another broad corridor. Directly across from her stood the entrance to the hospital, a wide opening with a circular desk set in the center. The words SECTOR GENERAL marched across the front of the desk in Federation Standard. Several security guards stood deeper inside, next to corridors that radiated away from the entrance like the spokes of a wheel.
Dax approached the desk, where a Bajoran man looked up and greeted her by rank. He did not wear a Starfleet uniform. A small sign atop the desk identified him as Damas Hayl. “How may I help you?” he asked.
“I’d like to speak with Doctor Bashir,” Dax said.
The man consulted a computer interface. “Doctor Bashir is in his office at the moment,” he said, and then he tapped at the display. “You can follow the green lights straight back.” He stood up and pointed to the central corridor, where Dax saw a row of small lights embedded in the floor.
“Thank you, Mister Damas.” Dax circled the reception desk and headed into the corridor, past the security guard posted there. As she walked, she wondered if Damas would let Julian know of her impending arrival. The receptionist hadn’t asked for her name, but despite the traffic at the station—she’d seen several Starfleet vessels docked at the starbase when Aventine had arrived, not to mention Klingon, Cardassian, Ferengi, Romulan, and Gorn ships—Dax doubted anybody could find more than one Trill captain at DS9.
When she arrived at Julian’s office, Dax touched the door chime immediately, not wanting to give herself any time to reconsider. She received no response, and she wondered if Julian had been warned and had decided to bolt. Just as she reached up to the door signal again, she heard his voice. “Come in,” he said, and she could tell from the distracted note in his tone that he’d been busy. It did not surprise her after all the time that had passed that she still seemed to know Julian well.
Dax stepped forward and the doors slid open. As she entered, she saw Julian across from her at his desk, his face turned toward a computer interface. A slew of padds lay before him. Dax didn’t say anything, and after a moment, he finally looked up. His mouth fell open at once. “Ezri,” he said.
“Hello, Julian,” she said warmly. She felt awkward, but not too much so—not more than she’d expected after not having seen him for such a long time. She didn’t feel as though she harbored any resentment toward him.
Julian didn’t move at first, his surprise at seeing her apparently overwhelming any other reaction he might have. At last, though, he shook off his shock and said her name again. That time, he did so with a smile it pleased Dax to see. He came out from behind his desk and approached her, then stutter-stepped at the last instant, as though he’d had second thoughts about hugging her. Dax moved forward at once and embra
ced him.
It felt right—not like two lovers finding each other again, but two friends reconnecting. Dax knew that one hug did not resolve whatever issues still lingered between them, but at that moment, it seemed like a fine start. She could not help but smile.
When she stepped back, she regarded Julian with an appraising eye. He looked good—his thick hair and close-cropped beard, his dark coloring, his lithe body—and she told him so, though not in detail. He quickly reciprocated.
“You look good too, Ezri,” he said. “I guess starship command agrees with you.”
His mention of her position in Starfleet immediately set Dax on edge. Back when she had been assigned to Deep Space 9, her decision to forsake her counselor’s duties for a career in command had been a contentious issue between them. Or at least she thought so, though Julian—and his ego—likely would have disagreed. Dax nodded, unable to find words with which she could respond that wouldn’t sound petty and send them right back into an argument.
Fortunately, Julian didn’t seem to notice her discomfort. More likely, Dax realized, he noticed but chose to ignore it. The better part of valor, as they say.
Julian motioned to one of the chairs in front of his desk, and Dax sat down. He took the seat beside her. “I have to apologize,” he told her. “I saw that the Aventine arrived this morning, and I had every intention of contacting you. I just had so much work to get through on my shift today . . .” He waved a hand toward his desk and the many padds amassed atop it.
“I completely understand, Julian,” Dax said. She knew at once that she had overcompensated by using the word completely. Until that moment, she hadn’t even considered that it had hurt her not to hear from Julian during the few hours that Aventine had been docked at the station.
Julian seemed to match her disappointment—in him, in their absurdly extended situation, in herself—with his own. He slumped back in his chair, only slightly, but enough to convey his frame of mind. “No, I guess I wasn’t too busy,” he said. “I think I just didn’t know what to say.”
Dax smiled. “Now that, I do completely understand,” she said, and then laughed. Julian smiled as well—not a wide smile, but at least one that appeared genuine. “But actually, I think I do know what to say: I’m sorry.” She’d said the same thing when she’d seen him three years earlier. She couldn’t recall whether he had also apologized to her, but she knew it wouldn’t have mattered back then; at the time, neither one of them had been all that remorseful.
“Ezri, you don’t have to say that,” Julian told her.
“Maybe not for you,” Dax said, careful to speak her words gently, “but I certainly need to do so for myself. I behaved badly.”
“It wasn’t just you,” Julian admitted.
“No, I didn’t think it was,” Dax agreed, again taking pains to sound neither challenging nor reproachful. “But I can only apologize for my behavior. No matter what you did or what I thought you did, I’m responsible for how I acted and reacted. I think there were reasons for some of what I did, some of what I said—”
“You were going through a lot of changes,” Julian said, not unkindly. “Ezri Tigan never planned on joining with a symbiont, or on transferring to the command track and becoming captain of a starship. I can’t even imagine what all of that must have been like for you.”
Dax nodded, thinking back to those uncertain days. “Both of those changes were difficult in ways I hadn’t anticipated—that I couldn’t have anticipated. But even so, it’s not an excuse.”
“It was more of an excuse than I had,” Julian said. “I was leading with my ego.”
“Well,” Dax said, debating whether or not to say the words that popped into her mind, and then deciding that she would. “It’s hard not to lead with an ego as large as a starship.” Although she said the words through a smile, Julian reacted as though she’d thrown a punch into his stomach. Dax worried that she had reopened old wounds, but then Julian offered her a smile of his own—a sheepish smile, it pleased her to see.
“I was genetically enhanced,” he said lightly. “It wasn’t just my physical and mental abilities that increased.”
Dax chuckled, grateful that, after all that time, they finally seemed to be making some headway. “Hey, I’ve got the egos of eight previous hosts, Dax, and Ezri in here,” she said, tapping her fingers against her abdomen. They both laughed together, and then Julian reached over and took one of her hands in both of his. Dax nearly pulled away, but then gathered that he meant the gesture more in a fraternal than a romantic way.
“I really am sorry,” he said. He sounded so earnest that it reminded Dax of one of the things that had attracted her to him in the first place. As dashing and accomplished a man as he was, as superior because of his genetic enhancements, he still nurtured an innocent little boy inside him. “I know you think I loved Jadzia, and I did, but I also loved you, Ezri. I loved you for you.”
Dax patted his hand, which still rested atop her own. “I know you did, Julian.” In truth, she’d always had her doubts, and still did, but she also recognized that they no longer mattered. “Listen, I’m sorry about how things ended with us, but I’m not sorry that we were together.”
“I treasure those memories,” Julian said.
“I do too,” Dax said. “And even though I’m sorry for the way I behaved, for how I hurt you, I’m not sorry that we’re no longer in a romantic relationship. We were right for each other when we were together, but in the long run . . .” She didn’t need to finish her thought.
“You’re right, of course,” Julian said. “It would be nice, though . . . I mean, I hope that we can still be friends.”
Even with everything they’d already said, Dax felt relieved to hear Julian state that explicitly. “That’s why I’m here,” she said. “I wanted to apologize, and I wanted to see if I could get back somebody in my life who I still truly care about.”
“I want that too,” Julian said. Dax reached forward and put her arms around him, and he hugged her back. When they parted, Dax stood up from her chair, and Julian followed suit.
“Well, I really do have a lot of work,” she said.
“I’d like it if we could see each other while you’re here.”
“I’d like that too.”
“How long are you on the station for?” Julian asked.
“Until the day after tomorrow,” Dax said. “After the dedication, we’ll be taking President Bacco to Cardassia for some high-level meetings there.”
“Not a lot of time,” Julian noted.
“No,” Dax said. “Will you be going to the memorial service tonight?” Although it would be a somber occasion, she thought that perhaps they could have a drink at Quark’s afterward.
“Yes,” Julian said. “Sarina and I will be there.”
Dax felt her eyebrows rise on her forehead and she forced them back down. “Sarina,” she said, and felt foolish for parroting the name. “So you two are still together?”
“We are,” Julian said.
“That’s wonderful,” Dax said. “I’m happy for you.” Did I even know that Sarina was serving on Deep Space Nine? For some reason, she thought she had known that. Did I forget it—or did I intentionally put it out of my mind?
“Thank you,” Julian said. If he detected any of the stray thoughts running through her head, he gave no indication.
“I’ll check my schedule and figure out a time when we can get together,” Dax said, choosing not to mention her idea of meeting at Quark’s after the memorial. “We can talk after the service.”
“Great,” Julian said.
Dax left his office. As she made her way through the corridor and out of the hospital, she had to classify her meeting with Julian as a success. She didn’t know if they’d said enough to each other, if they’d each dealt with whatever residual issues they still might have, but at the very least, it seemed like a good start on the road back to friendship. She certainly hoped so.
She also hoped that Julian
had found the right woman for himself in Sarina Douglas. Dax wasn’t so sure.
• • •
Federation President Nanietta Bacco strode down a corridor on Deep Space 9, two of her protection detail leading the way and two following behind her. For a long time after she had initially taken office, she’d found their continual presence around her bothersome, though she’d eventually become inured to it. But all that had changed after the grisly events the previous year on Orion. Although Bacco had come to genuinely accept the necessity of the agents’ company, she resumed her earlier preference not to have them around, but for a different reason. Where before she had simply found the incessant attendance of her bodyguards at her side intrusive, she had come to fear for their lives.
It’s so tiring, Bacco thought. Of course, from her first day as Federation president nearly six years prior, she’d experienced a more or less uninterrupted state of fatigue. And although she’d enjoyed a sound sleep the night before in her cabin aboard Aventine, she still felt exhausted.
But not just exhausted, she realized. I feel like I’m operating on autopilot.
That had been the case for quite a while—for better than a year, to be sure. Losing Esperanza Piñiero had been an almost unbearable blow. Decades earlier, Bacco had been close friends with Esperanza’s parents and so had watched her grow up on Cestus III. When Bacco had later served as governor of that world, the woman she’d once called “Espy”—and who’d in turn called her “Auntie Nan”—had followed a successful career in Starfleet by joining her in the political arena. It had been Esperanza who had convinced her to seek the Federation presidency, who had then acted as her campaign manager, and who’d finally served with distinction in the Palais de la Concorde as her chief of staff.
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