The Trail: A Star Trek Novel (New Frontier Reloaded Book 1)

by ROVER MARIE TOWLE

  The situation on Cardassia is apparently more dire than Julian realized.

  He takes a seat, surprised that he wasn't tied to the chair by his unseen captors, but grateful all the same. The chair is uncomfortable enough without being shackled down. He imagines this is what the art of Cardassian torture has been reduced to: a cold, hard chair in an empty room. It's almost sad, really, this level of devastation to their culture. Julian feels something akin to pity. . . at least, for the first fifteen minutes he spends in the room alone, waiting. Then comes fear, anger, the realization that he's being toyed with, wound up like a top, left to sweat and fret, completely powerless to the whims of his captors.

  He can't see how, but he knows he's being observed, monitored so that the interrogators can begin at his most distressed, like farmers waiting to pluck a fruit at the peak of ripeness. Not content to sit there like a damn heirloom tomato on vine, Julian gives himself an unfair advantage, hoping that whoever is monitoring him is running a bioscan as well. Slowly, he raises his pulse and blood pressure, sends adrenaline coursing through his system and sweat dripping down his skin, dilates his pupils to the point where even the low Cardassian lighting gives him a headache.

  This reels them in.

  Two Cardassian males—different in height than the men who collared him, meaning they're specialists—crowd into the room, towering over Bashir. They're devoid of the standard Cardassian military get-up Dukat and Damar favored, wearing instead the Cardassian equivalent of casual wear. These men aren't guls or even military; they could slip away into a crowd in a second's notice, fleeing any culpability for their actions in that room.

  Julian swallows, trying to wet his parched mouth. “Why am I being held here?”

  The interrogators ignore his question. “Dr. Bashir,” the shorter one says, as the taller looms behind him, “why did you separate from your touring group?”

  “I was bored. Is that a crime?”

  “Why did you corner a Mr. Uro Flentar in the alley at the intersection of Seret and Coher?”

  “I thought he was a friend. I wanted to say hello.”

  “Which friend would that be?”

  “Gul Elim Garak. He was a patient of mine on Deep Space Nine. We used to eat lunch together once a—”

  The taller man announces to seemingly no one, “The subject freely admits to stalking a representative of the Cardassian government.”

  “What? I wasn’t stalking; I know him!”

  “The subject will be remanded to state custody until an appropriate trial can be—”

  Julian is mentally saying goodbye to his friends, family, and civil liberties when the door swings open.

  “Oh, my dear doctor,” Garak croons, “what trouble you've made for these poor agents. Honestly, my dear, do you understand how much paperwork this display has caused? And keep in mind that, unlike some people, these fine men aren't doctors who have nurses to file charts for them.” Garak smiles at the agents. “I do hope you'll forgive him. He just can't seem to wrap his genetically-engineered head around our customs. A deficit in his education, I'm sure.”

  The agents share a look before the shorter one says, “Of course, gul. We will wipe this from the record, immediately.”

  “Splendid.”

  The agents awkwardly shuffle out of the room, squeezing past Garak.

  Once the door shuts, Garak turns his gaze to Julian “Oh, whatever am I to do with you?” he asks, his tone just as syrupy-sweet as before. “I don't know what could've possessed you to try to approach a gul on the street. You know that's considered rude and imposing—even when you're as close as we are.”

  Julian forces a coquettish smile. “I just wanted to see you. You hardly have any time for me anymore.”

  “And you couldn't wait?”

  “You know I can't.” Julian turns on the puppy dog eyes. “I never can with you.”

  “Oh, my darling Julian.” Garak steps forward, pressing his knees against Julian's. “You must learn to control your human impulses.”

  Julian runs his finger along the cuff of Garak's shirt. “I thought you liked my human impulses.”

  “I do, but there is a time and there is a place for them and that is not in public. I think you learned that now.”

  “I did.”

  “Good. Then all is forgiven.” Garak holds up his hand, palm facing Julian, who presses his own hand against it. “Let's get you home.”

  –

  Garak's hovercar, cool and spacious, pilots easily through the atmospheric thoroughfare, every bus and car yielding to him. Guls, apparently, get the right of way. Julian sits silently in the passenger's seat, unsure of who or what could be listening in on them. Bloody Cardassia.

  Apparently, no one, because Garak starts in on him sans pretense. “For someone who believes they are so intelligent, you can be so incredibly, infuriatingly ignorant. Did you really think you could follow a gul, the liaison to the Federation, home without consequences? In Cardassia? We may have fallen far, but not that far, doctor. You are just lucky that I was able to spot Alexander before my security detail did. Do you know what him getting caught would've done to Cardassia's relationship with the Klingon Empire? I barely managed to save you from trial.” Garak's hands grip the wheel tight enough to turn his scales white. “You could have been killed.”

  “And I'd have you to thank for it,” Julian snaps.

  “Me? I'm not the one playing spy games like Cardassia is their own personal holosuite.”

  “You're a gul in a government that executes people without the benefit of a fair trial, which I know you believe is wrong or you wouldn't have rescued me.”

  “I would've rescued you—” Garak stops himself, taking a few deep breaths. The confinement of the hovercar must be getting to him. “I'm trying to change things, but there's only so much one man can do.”

  “That apparently includes kidnapping three vulnerable people from—”

  “Vulnerable?” Garak scoffs. “Doctor, your friends are a loaded gun.”

  “One that you're going to use to do your bidding, no doubt.”

  “No doubt.” Garak pulls the hovercar in front of the volunteer dormitory, lowering it to street level. “Good night, doctor.”

  “Good night, Garak.” Julian opens the car door.

  “Wait.” Garak holds out a PADD. “Give this to the volunteer coordinator; it will excuse your absence.”

  “Thanks.” Julian takes the PADD, stepping out the car which speeds up and away almost immediately after. Walking into the dormitory, Julian looks over the PADD, but most of it is unrecognizable Cardassian symblage, all except for Garak's pristine signature at the bottom. Garak is Garak in every language, he supposes.

  The volunteer coordinator is waiting for him behind the entry desk with three security officers. “Dr. Bashir, you missed the tour.”

  “Yes. . . I was. . . Here.”

  She scans the PADD, tutting as she reaches the end. “Very well. Lights out for your shift is in forty minutes.”

  “Yes, ma'am.” As he heads down the hallway towards his dorm, he can hear the coordinator and the security officer tittering over the PADD, gossiping in Kardasi, but Julian has a pretty good idea of what they're saying.

  Meet Dr. Julian Bashir, Gul Garak's ambitious little pet.

  When he gets to the dorm, Julian is expecting Alexander to be angry or concerned, but Alexander doesn't look up from his PADD. “You're back,” he says. “How was your trip?”

  “Uneventful.” Julian strips out of his sticky, smelly volunteer uniform, rifling through his drawers for his pajamas. “I can't wait to get to bed.”

  “I hope you're not too tired to learn that Russian folk song I was telling you about.”

  “What?”

  “The one my grandparents taught me.”

  “Oh, right. The one your grandparents taught you. How does it go again?”

  Alexander starts singing in a shaky tenor in completely untranslatable Russian, which Julian is for
tunate enough to know. “I just love to see your snowshoes in front of the fire. It reminds me that you're home. . . I think security might've activated a surveillance device in our room. . . they were messing with the control panel outside when I came back. . . what did you do?”

  “Let me try.” Julian picks up the melody. “I just love to see your snowshoes in front of the fire. It reminds me that you're home. . . You're right, I can hear the device humming in the wall. . . but my tailor friend told them to leave me alone. Hopefully, they will deactivate the device tomorrow.”

  “Good. But the tempo is more like this. I just love to see your snowshoes in front of the fire. It reminds me that you're home. . . I have something important to tell you. I got lost after you were arrested, and I stumbled on your tailor friend's house. I can take you there tomorrow after work.”

  “So, like this? I just love to see your snowshoes in front of the fire. It reminds me that you're home. . . No, I'll go alone; I don't want you getting into trouble. Well, I am confident I will have that song stuck in my head all day tomorrow. Shall we turn in?”

  –

  Julian takes his chances with the direct approach, walking out the front door of the dorm like he has every right to do so, leaving a gaggle of security officers gossiping in his wake. He spares a sigh of relief before working his way through the cracked and potted streets of the neighborhood. Again, walking with purpose keeps him safe, allowing him passage out of the ghetto and into one of the nicer, more suburban areas of the city just off of the imperial thoroughfare.

  All the lawns are spacious, perfectly manicured, each with several basking rocks made of the most heat absorptive material.

  The excess, in the face of so much poverty, is rather sickening.

  Julian locates the address Alexander gave him and rings the door chime, knowing full well that his presence in this neighborhood could be considered a crime even without breaking and entering.

  The door swishes open. “My dear doctor, what a lovely surprise. Do come in.” Julian steps inside, into some kind of foyer with a closet and a long, winding hallway coming off of it. (Cardassian architecture deliberately places the most utilized areas of the home farthest from any exits or entrances; something about protecting the sanctity of the family as a unit of the State.) The door closes behind them and Garak whispers, “What do you think you're doing?”

  “I'm trying to save my friends.”

  Garak hushes him. “Keep your voice down.”

  Julian pointedly does not. “Where are you keeping them? Squirreled away in some bunker? On Letau? Are they even on Cardassia?”

  “If you do not lower your voice—”

  “You'll what?”

  A loud, whining sob comes from the corner of the room.

  “Now, you've done it,” Garak murmurs.

  Julian turns to find Patrick clad in Cardassian sportswear, hair combed, well-fed, unharmed, crying, blubbering, “You—you. . . you were. . .”

  “Patrick,” Julian says, approaching the man, “it's all right. I'm here now.”

  This just seems to make Patrick sob even louder.

  “What are you whining about now?” Jack asks, coming through the hallway. He grimaces at Bashir. “Oh. It's you. You're not supposed to be here.” He hollers down into the hallway, “Lauren, your boyfriend is here!”

  “Which one?” Lauren pokes her head into the hallway and is likewise dismayed by Julian's presence. “You're not supposed to be here.”

  “That's what I said,” Jack says. “He's not supposed to be here.” He looks at Garak. “You weren't supposed to let him come. Now everything's ruined. I hope you're happy, Garak. Are you—are you happy? Huh? Are you? You've ruined everything.”

  “It's not his fault,” Lauren says, stepping around Jack into the foyer. “Julian couldn't help playing his spy game, meddling into other people's business, coming too soon. That's not a trait I find attractive in a man.”

  Jack giggles maniacally behind his fist. “She got you.”

  Patrick sniffles, wiping a tear from his eye. “We were going to make you a cake.”

  “What?” Julian says.

  “A cake,” Jack says. “We were gonna make you a cake. What? Are you deaf and rude?”

  “Rude? I'm here to—to—”

  “We know why you're here,” Lauren says. “And while I'm extremely flattered that you still carry a torch for me after all these years, we don't need to be rescued.”

  “We don't want to be rescued,” Jack corrects.

  “I didn't even get to send you your invitation,” Patrick sobs.

  “My invitation?” Julian asks. “To what?”

  “They were planning on throwing you a welcoming party when you first visited,” Garak says, coming out of the doorway. “But since you barged in here unannounced and uninvited, it appears the party is off.”

  “Oh, damn.” Julian reaches out, laying a hand on Patrick's shoulder. “Patrick, I'm sorry for ruining your party. It was very inconsiderate of me. I didn't mean to hurt your feelings.” He pulls Patrick into a hug, rubbing his back. “But we can still have the party. Right now.”

  “But we don't have the cake or the balloons,” Patrick cries.

  “Yeah,” Jack says. “We don't have the cake or the balloons, you idiot.”

  “You're right,” Julian says. “We don't have the cake or the balloons. But we don't need them. Having them would be nice, but cake, balloons, decorations aren't what parties are about. The most important part of a party is the people. And we have all that. The four of us back together again like old times. It's going to be great.”

  Patrick pulls away. “Okay.”

  “Good. Why don't you three show me around?”

  Lauren hooks an arm around Julian's waist. “You are going to love what we've done with the place.” She steers him down the long, sinuous hallway, Patrick following close behind, Garak from a distance, and Jack bopping along ahead of them. They pass a number of doors, each with a security detail posted out front, before entering the large, central family room.

  Or what was a family room.

  The traditional dining table has been gutted, along with the lounge area, the requisite basking rocks and heat leaps. The family tapestry is torn from the walls, replaced by maps and viewscreens, charts and whiteboards, several oil paintings of Jack in ridiculous costumes. Computer consoles and ergonomic chairs, holographic modeling tables, a trampoline, a divan, and a giant teddy bear litter the floor, all arranged in a regimented chaos.

  “What is this place?” Julian asks, eyes wide and full of almost childlike wonder.

  “This—” Lauren reclines on the divan. “—is where we work.”'

  “This—” Patrick points. “—is my computer. And that over there is where we make three-dimensional renderings of our plans and even run simulations. See.”

  Patrick presses a button on the holographic modeling table and a rendering of what appears to be green mud flickers to life. Slowly, the mud transitions from green to deep, rich brown, eventually stabilizing into fertile soil growing Cardassian knot grass and fragrant haba trees. Deep into the recesses of the hologram, a small factory appears, taking water from an aquifer underneath the wooded area and pumping it into the city. The sun shines bright on simulated Cardassia.

  “That's amazing,” Julian says. “How did you do that?”

  “Wouldn't you like to know,” Jack snaps.

  “Yes. I—well, actually, I would.”

  “Well, fine.” Jack goes into a longwinded, rapid fire explanation of the model, using every computer, chart, map, viewscreen, and (briefly) his own self-portrait to illustrate how they plan to use Hebitian algae to clean up the toxic sludge left by the Dominion's bombardment. “In three weeks—three weeks—we can have that land safe for public use and—and eventually for water reclamation. Pretty neat, huh? Bet you wish you would've thought of it.”

  “I wish I had,” Julian laughs. “Is this—is this all you've been working on? Purifying
the water table? That's it?”

  “Having clean water is not a petty concern on Cardassia,” Garak says.

  “I know. I'm digging a bloody well in the middle of Tocat for god's sakes. I just thought you'd be having them working on something a bit more nefarious. Like biogenic weapons or universal surveillance technology or shock collars that punish citizens for doublethink.”

  “We wanted to work on that,” Lauren says, “but Garak wouldn't give us the security clearance.”

  “You see,” Garak starts, “the Cardassian government has the foresight not to give untrained civilians of undetermined allegiance unfettered access to our most sensitive intelligence documents.”

  “Who knows what they could do with that kind of information,” Jack says, nodding furiously. “They could surrender to the Dominion.”

  “Somehow,” Julian says, “I think you're implying that that whole fiasco was my fault.”

  “Not entirely,” Lauren says. “But who gives Starfleet's crucial intelligence reports about an ongoing war to a bunch of mutant anarchists.”

  Patrick nods. “It was maybe a little your fault.”

  “Oh, come on,” Julian gasps, smiling widely all the while. “You know, Garak, I don't think I like what you've done to them.”

  “Honey,” Lauren purrs, “you should see what we've done to him.” She winks.

  –

  After dinner, Julian is physically pushed out of the house so Jack and Lauren and Patrick can allegedly work on their holographic model, but Julian will be damned if he doesn't come back inside to find a five tiered cake waiting for him. He humors them, genuinely sorry about ruining the surprise they worked so hard on (the disappointed looks on their faces was like a huge flashback to the time when Jadzia roped him into throwing Odo a surprise “discovery outside the wormhole” anniversary party, which Odo of course found out about weeks in advance and ended up hiding inside someone's shoe to avoid). He calculates roughly how long a cake needs to bake and decides to curl up on a rock for a nap.

  Unfortunately, Garak has taken the only one large enough to accommodate Bashir.

  Hearing Bashir's approach, Garak's eyes open, showing a glimmer of his secondary eyelid. “Doctor.”