“I know you want your husband to be here, but you’re not alone. I’m here. Jack’s here. Garak’s here. Morn’s here. Lauren’s. . .” He cranes his neck, finding Lauren, Sarina, and Patrick gone. “. . . here somewhere. You’re surrounded by people who care about you and your baby. It’s not as good as having Captain Sisko here, but we want you to know that we’re here for you.”
“What if he never comes back?”
Garak takes a quick glance to make sure nothing is exposed before sitting down on the cushion next to Kasidy. “Captain Sisko is a good father, who any child would be lucky to have. He will come back. He won’t abandon you or your baby or Jake, no matter what god-like alien asks him.”
Morn steps forward, kneeling beside Kasidy. He opens his mouth to speak.
“It’s okay, Morn,” Kasidy say, patting his cheek. “You don’t have to say anything; I know you’re always there for me.”
—
Julian and Lenara guard the door out of Vic’s, baseball bats in hand.
“If they get in,” Julian says, nodding at the holosuite door, “do you really think they’d remove the symbiont from Nulat mid-surgery?”
“I wouldn’t put it past them,” Lenara says.
The holosuite doors open, several Hera’jato agents come bursting in, but Lenara and Julian stand their ground. Vic’s provided reinforcements.
Vic whistles. “Come on in boys.”
A cadre of Las Vegas gangsters barrel out from backstage, jumping into the fray, brass knuckles swinging. Hard light hits hard.
“Turn off the program,” Tebora Dek calls to a sub-commissioner.
Restrained by an agent, Ezri spits out her gag. “If you end the program, you kill the eggs.”
“Eggs?”
“Eighty. In that pool. All sustained holographically.”
“I didn’t think that possible.” Tebora locks eyes with her subordinate. “Leave it running.”
The fight rages and it looks like even holograms can’t hold off the scum the Symbiosis Commission employs. One Hera’jato breaks free and heads to the bar’s exit. Julian and Lenara ready their bats, but lower them when Nulat walks between them in infirmary cotton with an air of serenity Lenara has never seen in her. (Some people, it seems, are just meant to be joined.)
“Stop it,” Nulat says to Tebora. “It’s over. The symbionts you want are joined.”
“To you?” the commissioner snarls.
“To me.”
“Pull the plug.”
Vic and the gangsters and the bar and the pool fades away. The eggs rest helplessly on the ground.
—
In the basement, Kasidy stands over a clean towel, Alexander crouched down in front of her, Jack still tethered to her hand.
“Push,” Alexander says.
Kasidy bears down, grimacing horribly, sweat pouring down her face, unthinkable moans coming out of her mouth, and—how do humans propagate the species if child delivery is so ghastly? What’s the incentive?
Garak has seen people in terrible pain, truly epic pain that Klingons have written songs about, but he has never seen someone live through pain like this.
He clutches his sewing tightly.
On the vidscreen, the rebels take the plaza steps, fighting tooth and nail against the imperial guards. Well, against the imperial guards who haven’t switched sides already.
This all-too-familiar plan of storming the castle and unseating the king shouldn’t work—couldn’t work—on any other planet. Governments have checks and balances, systems of redundancies, caucuses, branches, chains of command with each link an individual actor in the State’s destiny. But not on Cardassia. They don’t call it the Cardassian Union for nothing; there is only one Cardassia, one State, one future. Their strength is not in solidarity, but uniformity. And, as Garak, like all Cardassian children, was taught in school, ‘if one person steps out of line, the State itself crumbles.’
Garak knows his friends in the Federation believe that to be nothing more than propaganda—a convenient lie used to scare citizens into conformity—but, to Garak, that’s probably the most honest thing the Cardassian government has ever said.
As a former member of the Obsidian Order, as someone who dedicated most of their adult life to rooting out the much-dreaded individualist, Garak knows not to underestimate the power of a single person. The Cardassian government, at every level, relies on the total allegiance of those working within her. If a doorman at the plaza turns coat, the entire first floor falls with him, and then second floor not soon after, then the third, the fourth, the fifth, until the entire government falls like a line of dominoes.
No sensible state should run like this. No government should have to turn neighbors into informants (no father should have to turn his only child into a creature of lies) to prevent society from collapsing.
Now, Garak hasn’t completely abandoned his principles; he still believes that any functioning state requires, at least, a secret intelligence service. But logic dictates state resources be used efficiency. Why waste all that manpower on spying on one’s own citizens when one could simply modify one’s method of government to safeguard for internal collapse? Then intelligence officers could devote themselves to their true purpose: covertly manipulating interstellar politics to render the galaxy a more favorable home for the glorious Cardassian Union.
But, no, you suggest something like that over dinner and suddenly you’re exiled to Terok Nor. (That’s not what happened. Not at all. But that’s what Garak will say happened. And that’s what’s most important.)
As the government stands now (however precariously), if the rebels make it inside, the building and the planet is as good as theirs.
Across the room, Alexander tells Kasidy that he “can see the head,” which seems to be a good thing? (Cardassians, of course, come out in semi-opaque egg sacs that burst when the umbilical cord is severed. “Seeing the head” in any stage of labor would be a very bad sign indeed.)
Lauren, Patrick, and Sarina come down the stairs, having been who knows where for the past half hour. They approach Kasidy heads hanging low and hands held behind their backs.
“Kasidy,” Patrick says a little above a whisper.
Kasidy grips Jack’s shoulder with her free hand, and, as if communicating thoughts she is too tired to express, Jack yells, “I’m a little busy right now!”
“We know,” Sarina says, not looking up from the ground. “We just wanted to say we’re sorry.”
“We tried to bring your husband back,” Lauren says.
“We got close to figuring it out,” Patricks adds.
“But then we realized we’d have to change the gravitational constant of the universe to even begin to consider—”
“And then a very strange man appeared from out of nowhere.”
“He offered us the ability to alter the gravitational constant of the universe,” Sarina says, “if we agreed to join his Continuum.”
“He was very attractive,” Lauren says. “Tall. Really knew how to fill out a Starfleet uniform. . . But we turned him down.”
“The job required a lot of travel,” Patrick says. “We’d like to stay here. Sorry we couldn’t bring your husband back.”
Kasidy takes a break from pushing, sucking on an ice chip while Jack wipes the sweat from her brow. “It means a lot that you tried,” Kasidy rasps.
—
Ezri struggles in the arms of her Hera’jato captor. “Turn on the program! You’re killing them!”
Nulat stares down at the floundering eggs, frozen in a kind of parental nightmare. (Those are her symbiont’s children.) Julian and Lenara have to push her out of the way to get to the eggs, scooping them up in their shirts (the only container they have available) and wetting them with water from Lenara’s canteen.
Tebora Dek watches coldly, her face hardened with the acceptance of utilitarian violence demanded by her position. “These eggs may die, but the Symbiosis Commission will live on.”
Ezri wouldn’t belie
ve someone could say something so horrible—believe something so horrible—if she hadn’t thought it centuries ago herself. When Audrid started all this.
Nothing ever changes. Joined Trill are practically immortal, but in all their lifetimes. . . Nothing ever changes.
“So, I guess what you’re saying is,” Jake says, emerging from behind Lenara’s console, his holocamera fixed on Tebora Dek’s face, “if you can’t have them, no one can.”
Tebora nods at one of her Hera’jato agents. “Get the footage.”
“You’re too late,” Jake says. “This is being sent live to every newswire in the Alpha Quadrant. You’re finished.”
“Please,” Lenara begs, “turn the program back on. You don’t have to do this. You can fix this.”
Tebora’s lips thin into a line. “History will be our judge.”
“You’re a monster!” Nulat flings herself at Tebora, getting in a few licks before being hauled off by Hera’jato.
Ezri watches Lenara and Julian’s shirts dry, knowing that the eggs can’t survive the dry air for long. Girani huddles in the corner, utterly incapable of saving the first eighty lives she helped bring into the world. Even if she had eighty stasis tubes stashed on her person, the procedure would kill the eggs.
It’s hopeless. Nothing ever changes.
And then the bar is back, and the pool, and Vic.
Lenara and Julian don’t miss a beat, racing to return the eggs to their watery sanctuary.
Tebora Dek glares at her sub-commissioner at the holosuite panel. “What did you do?”
“I didn’t do anything,” the sub-commissioner says. “It just came back on!”
“Holograms don’t just turn themselves on!”
“I’m smarter than the av-er-age hologram,” Vic says.
Just as the last of the eggs drop safely into the pool, Kira and a cadre of Bajoran deputies burst into the holosuite. “Everyone, hands up!” Kira orders. “Drop your weapons.”
The Hera’jato lower their baseball bats to the floor. The deputies start snapping handcuffs on their wrists. Kira takes care of Tebora personally.
“What am I being charged with?” Dek asks.
“Assault, reckless endangerment, conspiracy to commit murder,” Kira rattles off before handing Dek over to a deputy. She turns to Ezri, now free of her Hera’jato captor. “Put your hands behind your back.”
Ezri shrugs. “I was kind of expecting this.” And complies.
Nulat and Lenara come forward, their wrists held together for the deputies.
“Jake, Bashir, you too,” Kira orders.
“What did I do?” the men ask in unison.
Kira points to Julian. “Beaming onto a Bajoran station without going through customs.” And then to Jake. “Filming and broadcasting a holoprogram without the written consent of all persons present in the program.”
Kira looks to her acting chief medical officer. “Girani, I need you to follow me down to the holding cells. We’ve got a lot of injured locked up on assault.”
“What about the eggs?” Ezri asks, being dragged to the door.
“I got it covered,” Vic says. “You enjoy prison.”
—
“The rebels have now secured the fourth floor of the administrative building. . .” the reporter says, jogging up a flight of stairs.
“The baby’s crowning,” Alexander tells Kasidy. “Just a few more pushes.”
“We’re coming up into the fifth floor, where Legate Ferat has reportedly taken refuge. . .”
“The head is clear. Your baby’s as bald as its father.”
“Legate Ferat has refused to surrender himself to the rebels. . .”
“Now the shoulders. One more strong push. You can do this.”
“Assured that his family will remain unharmed, Ferat has vacated his post. . .”
“It’s a girl.”
“We can say with certainty that the old government has fallen with a new government of the people taking its—”
Garak clicks off the vidscreen.
Kasidy cradles the newborn in her arms, tears streaming down both their faces. “Hi. I’m your mommy.”
Even Morn is struck silent, awed by a new life in a new world.
Chapter 17: Bring it all on Home and Settle for the Best
“I can’t believe I was in jail for a week,” Julian grumbles, rubbing his neck, sore from the holding cell cots he’s been complaining about for the past six nights.
“Dax, Ezri,” Ezri says to the bailiff. She’s handed back her Starfleet commbadge. “Hey, you got off with a slap on the wrist. I have court-mandated anger management counseling for the next year.”
“Bashir, Julian.” He gets a few small possessions in a plastic bag. “I think we can both agree we got off considerably lighter than Tebora Dek, not to mention a few of our immediate family members.”
They stand off to the side, waiting for Lenara and Nulat to come through.
“How is your dad, by the way?” Ezri asks.
“Good, from what I hear. He hasn’t gotten into any more fights about football so he should be getting out in a few more months. . . What about Norvo?”
Ezri shrugs. “He’s probably doing better in prison than he was at home. As sad as that is.”
Lenara gets out of the possession reclamation line, followed by Nulat, who didn’t have anything on her at the moment of her arrest. They join Julian and Ezri by the security office door.
Lenara squeezes Ezri’s shoulder. “You ready for this?”
“As ready as I’ll ever be.”
She takes Lenara’s hand and they head out into the Promenade, where they are immediately met by more reporters than Ezri’s ever seen. (Jake, who was released only minutes before them, has a prime spot in the front row.)
Ezri steps forward, facing a flurry of raised hands and shouted questions.
“I’ll be taking questions in just a minute,” Ezri says over the crowd. “Right now, I’d like to give a statement prepared by my collective during our imprisonment.”
The reporters hush.
“Thank you.” She recites from memory, “Following the horrendous actions of Tebora Dek, and by extension the Symbiosis Commission, we call not only for Dek’s resignation as commissioner, but for the dissolution of the Symbiosis Commission itself. As caregivers for a small but thriving population of juvenile symbionts, we advocate immediately removing Guardians and symbionts from the toxic Caves of Mak’ala, relocating the symbionts to holographically rendered pools and providing treatment to Guardians affected by leurosulphine poisoning.
“In addition, as an autonomous, diasporic cooperative, we make the following recommendations to inhabitants of the Trill homeworld: Point one, place the responsibility of coordinating and conducting joinings entirely in the hands of the Guardians. Point two, abolish discriminatory policies against reassociation and exclusionary requirements for the initiate program. Point three, offer services, including identification and training, for the latent telepath community. Point four, begin an investigation into the Symbiosis Commission.
“Our community will be following those same recommendations. We hope that, in time, our two people can become one again.”
—
Julian settles down in the seat next to Jake, who is tapping away furiously at his PADD.
“You know,” Julian says, “you could have stayed on the station to work on your next Trill article; I’m sure Kasidy can make it back to the station fine with Morn helping her.”
Jake looks up from his PADD. “Are you serious?”
“No. I guess I’m not.” Julian pulls his hastily-packed carry-on onto his lap, rifling through for a spare subspace PADD.
“Hey.” Jake pulls Kukalaka out of the bag by his soft, furry paw. “Is this for the baby?”
“No.” Julian snatches the faded, worn teddy bear back, jamming him into his bag. “That is for me.”
“You’re really not coming back, are you?”
“No. At l
east, not permanently.”
“Does this have to do with you being naked at Garak’s house?”
“That, among other things. . . Ha!” Julian holds up a subspace PADD like a trophy before linking it into the the small subspace server the charter shuttle makes available for its passengers. “We should be able to catch Garak’s speech.”
Julian flips the PADD on, bringing up the Federation newswire. They’re just in time to watch Garak step up to the podium in a brightly-colored, high-necked tunic. New fashion for a new world, Julian supposes.
“Before I begin, I would like to thank the members of the foreign press for making today such an historic occasion,” Garak says, smiling down at the reporters below. “Under our new provisional government, reporters from off-planet are allowed, for the first time, to attend state press conferences, as well as move freely within our borders. This event is just the beginning of a new era of transparency and friendship.
“The people of Cardassia genuinely hunger for the rest of the galaxy to know us as we truly are—not as the conformists found in Federation textbooks, or as the poor, huddled masses in relief aid advertisements. But as a people just as varied and diverse as any other.
“We disbanded the previous imperial government precisely because they failed to recognize and serve the entire Cardassian population. For far too long, the Cardassian government has concerned itself with preserving an elite in the central continent’s major cities, neglecting the needs of the poor and those residing on the northern and southern continents. As the son of a maid, an unwed mother, I grew up knowing far too well that my opportunities in life were inherently limited by my birth.
“I can say on this new Cardassia, that is no longer the case. I remain, as ever, Cardassia’s humble servant. Questions?”
—
Ezri places her commbadge on Kira’s desk right next to Benjamin’s baseball.
Kira’s eyes travel from her PADD, across the desk, to Ezri’s commbadge. “That’s the second one today. Am I doing something wrong?”
“No.” Ezri’s hands fidget behind her back. “It’s not you, it’s me. . . I mean, it’s not you, it’s Starfleet. And me. I can’t be in Starfleet anymore. I can’t do what I need to do to lead these people without getting into trouble every once in awhile. I don’t have the luxury of behaving like a Starfleet officer anymore.”
The Trail: A Star Trek Novel (New Frontier Reloaded Book 1) Page 24
