by S. D. Perry
She walked him to the door, promising again to see him at services. She was glad Yevir had come, and grateful that he’d be around for a little while…and Jake, returning unexpectedly—nice to have a little good news for a change.
As she returned to her desk, a loud and abrasively urgent voice squawked from her console. “Colonel Kira? This is Quark, and I have a proposal for you.”
“Get off the comm,” Kira said, scowling. “Now.”
“I wouldn’t have dared,” he intoned earnestly, “except it’s come to my attention that Captain Sisko’s son has come home to us, and I feel that he deserves a proper welcome back. And although I’d like to throw him a lavish party, the kind of reception he truly merits, the financial burden is really too great for a single businessman—”
“Off, Quark, I mean it,” Kira warned. He was strictly prohibited from official channels unless it was an emergency.
He went on as if he hadn’t heard her. “—and, of course, it would also be a chance for everyone on the station to come together, to reestablish a sense of community in these uncertain times…and it occurred to me that since you’ve always been so generous, so unstinting when it comes to providing for the emotional needs of the people who live here, I thought that you would want to lend your support to my humble gathering.”
Kira sighed. She hated to admit it, and she certainly wouldn’t to him, but Quark’s idea wasn’t all that bad. Not a party, but…a connection. A reminder for everyone that they weren’t alone, and that even after all they’d endured, there were still good things to share.
“Bottom-line it,” she said, sighing. Quark’s tone instantly hopped from wheedling to mercenary. He knew he had a sale.
But after all, he is the son of the Emissary. Smiling, Kira let Quark try to talk her into a few things, thinking about positive omens and old friends.
After a quick shower in his quarters, Jake put on fresh clothes—clothes that seemed too clean after B’hala—and went to see Kasidy, walking briskly along level three of the habitat ring and checking the numbers over each door. Level three, corridor C…he’d only been to her place a few times before, and when she didn’t answer her door signal, he thought he’d forgotten, after all. The computer had said she was in her quarters, but maybe it was 0246, not 0426.
No, I remember the enviro panels, she’s two doors down. I haven’t been away that long. He signaled again, frowning, thinking that maybe he’d just missed her—
—when the door opened, revealing a bleary, tousled Kasidy Yates. He grinned as her eyes lit up, as she stepped forward and hugged him tightly.
“Jake! Why didn’t you tell me you were coming?” She leaned back, gazing up into his face with a look of sheer happiness. “Did you just get in? How long are you staying? Oh, it’s so good to see you!”
Her hair was sticking up, and Jake playfully patted it, smoothing it down. “Just wake up, Kas?”
She laughed, releasing him and stepping back, touching her hair and straightening her loose dress. “You got me. It’s what, five o’clock? I must look a mess…come in, come in and tell me things.”
He followed her inside, happy to see that some things never changed; there were five or six empty tea cups sitting amongst several partially filled packing containers, a few random articles of clothing strewn across chairs and countertops. The woman was not a cleaner. Dad used to complain good-naturedly about it, having to pick up after her visits.
Kas settled into a chair across from the couch, and as he sat down, he saw for the first time how big she’d gotten. Her jawline had softened, the curves of her body definitely thicker, and there was a noticeable swell in her stomach. She looked fantastic, and distinctly pregnant.
“Are you going to tell me whether that’s my brother or sister in there?” he asked, gesturing at her belly.
Kas laughed, touching the soft curve with both hands. “No way. It’s going to be a surprise for everyone, you know that. And don’t go asking Julian, he’s sworn to secrecy.”
“Yeah, right. I bet I can get it out of him.”
She laughed again, a bright, familiar sound. “Well, if you find out, don’t tell me. Now fill me in, kiddo. What’s up?”
He didn’t want to lie to her, he didn’t want to lie to anyone, but especially Kasidy. The story he’d worked out could be the truth, depending on what happened after he left the station….
…just say it. If the prophecy turns out to be true, no one is going to be mad…and if it’s not, there’s a good chance nobody will ever know, anyway.
“I guess I got tired of working in the dirt,” he said, surprising himself by meeting her gaze evenly. “I’ve decided to go see Grandpa.” He smiled, shrugging. “See if I can get tired of working in a kitchen for a while.”
Kasidy’s smile faded, but only a little. “So you’re not staying?”
“I’d like to. But no, I just came to find myself a ride.” He grinned at her again. “Don’t worry, though, I’ll be back in plenty of time to help you get ready for the baby.”
She nodded. “Well, I can’t say I’m not disappointed for my sake, but I know Joseph will be thrilled.”
She looked at him seriously, and for just a second, her calm, caring expression was so like Dad’s that he felt a chill. “And I’m glad you’re going to see him for your sake. Family’s important, Jake. So, tell me—what’s B’hala like?”
Jake relaxed. He’d expected…actually, he wasn’t sure what he’d expected, but not such an easy acceptance of his plans. It made him feel guilty, but only a little. It was best this way; if things didn’t work out, he was going to go to Earth, and he wouldn’t have to feel like a jerk for getting anyone’s hopes up.
He told her a few anecdotes about B’hala, about some of the artifacts he’d handled and some of the people he’d worked with. She listened attentively, even though he caught himself telling her a funny story he’d told her before, in one of their transmissions. The fact that she laughed just as hard the second time made him feel lucky to know her; she was going to be a terrific mom.
The conversation meandered around to the house, to plans for a garden and a few questions from Kas about final touches for his room. From there, she chatted about changes in station personnel and the aftermath of the attack. He tried to appear casual and interested, but considering what he was planning—what the possible consequences could be—it was hard to sit still.
Maybe I’ll leave early tomorrow. Maybe even tonight. He wanted to see a few people, Ezri and Nog and Kira at least, but only so they wouldn’t feel slighted if he ended up going on to Earth. And I won’t be, because it has to be true. My father is waiting for me in the wormhole, the prophecy was clear.
“The son enters the Temple alone. With the Herald, he returns.” He saw it every time he closed his eyes, felt the truth of it every time he thought the words. In the days since the prylar had given him the ancient writing, he’d been able to think of little else.
“…and I never thought I’d end up being happy about having a Jem’Hadar on the station, but I was getting worried about Kira—”
“What? There was a Jem’Hadar, here?”
Kasidy glared at him in mock reproach. “You haven’t been listening. There is a Jem’Hadar here, his name is Kitana—something…really, you’ll have to get the story from someone else. All I know is that he turned up in Quark’s yesterday, and that they’ve got him in a holding cell now.”
That was news. “Did he attack anyone?”
“No, but it gives me the creeps, knowing he’s been wandering around ever since their strike on the station. That’s why I was worried about Kira, she was acting a little strange, and after everything she’d been through, I thought maybe she was suffering some kind of paranoia. A friend of hers was actually murdered on the Promenade, just a few hours before the Jem’Hadar ships hit. And it turned out she thought she was being watched because she was being watched.”
“Murdered. That’s terrible,” Jake said, shaking his hea
d, feeling very much like an outsider. He’d missed all of this. “Who was it?”
“An old friend of hers who’d just come up from Bajor, a prylar. Someone stabbed her during an attempted robbery, some crazy man who grabbed her bag and then ended up falling off the second floor balcony and breaking his neck. You know, she might even have been at B’hala—she was an archeologist, I’m pretty sure. Istani Reyla?”
Stunned, Jake stared at her, at a complete loss for anything to say. Istani Reyla, murdered, here on the station. It was all he could think, and the thought repeated itself several times as Kas moved to his side, frowning, gently taking one of his hands in hers.
“You knew her.”
Jake nodded mutely, new thoughts coming in, none of them comfortable. The woman who’d given him the prophecy, one that had surely been buried for thousands of years, murdered only a few days later by a thief—or someone who knew that she had taken something extremely valuable from B’hala. It couln’t possibly be a coincidence—
—but you don’t know that. You don’t know anything about it, and she seemed like a nice lady, but it probably doesn’t have anything to do with what you’re here for—
It was the voice of rationalization and he clung to it, desperately hoping it was true and suspecting that it wasn’t. He couldn’t change plans, he wouldn’t…but she was dead, somebody had killed her—
“Jake?”
He looked into Kasidy’s worried, searching gaze and forced himself to speak, more determined than ever. If she knew what was going on, there was no way she’d let him go.
“Yeah. I didn’t know her, exactly, but I met her once. She seemed really nice. It’s just a surprise, you know?”
It was the best he could do, and it was enough for Kasidy. Still holding his hand, she murmured a few words of comfort and then delicately eased the conversation into less troubled waters. Jake let her, comforted by her careful maneuvering to make him feel better, telling himself that he’d be bringing Dad back to her and that everything was going to be okay, very soon.
Chapter Eighteen
“You’re finished already?”
Ro Laren’s first words upon answering her door. Smiling, Shar held up the wrapped Bajoran artifact in one hand, a padd with the translation in his other, and Ro quickly stepped back, motioning him inside with a somewhat anxious expression.
Shar stepped into her quarters, looking around with interest; his first invitation to see inside her rooms. Like the security office, there was not a single personal item in sight. Disappointing, but not really a surprise. The lieutenant didn’t strike him as a particularly sentimental person. He didn’t see Quark’s flowers anywhere.
Ro took the book and its translation from him and sat down at the small table next to the replicator, scanning the padd’s content numbers.
“Have a seat. Can I get you anything, a drink?” The offer was absently given, her attention fixed on the padd.
Noting how distracted she seemed, Shar shook his head. “If you’d rather, I could excuse myself so that you might have an opportunity to read the text,” he said. “It seems to be of primary interest to you.”
Ro looked up him and smiled, setting the padd aside. “I’m sorry, Shar. Please, sit down. I just wasn’t expecting it so fast…how did you do it? You didn’t use the main computer, did you?”
She seemed concerned by the prospect, apparently forgetting that she had specifically asked him not to upload the text. “No. It seems that one of the station’s previous science officers—Jadzia Dax, in fact—made a number of improvements to a translation program the Bajoran archeologists had already been utilizing. It’s been in a near-constant state of update and revision on Bajor since then. There are two vedeks on DS9 who regularly record new changes in the program for their own use. I copied the file to the terminal in my quarters and scanned the pages manually…though I’m afraid the translation is only about 94 percent accurate, and parts of the text are missing.”
“That’s all right, Shar. I appreciate what you’ve done…and knowing that I can count on your discretion.”
Shar nodded. “As you said, it’s evidence in an investigation. I understand your desire for caution…although considering the material, I’m not sure that I understand the need.”
“What are your impressions of what you read?” Ro asked.
“It seems to be a book of prophecies, written in a religious context. The few I read were very old, and I don’t know enough of your history to know whether or not they were accurate.”
Ro nodded slowly, a look of resigned displeasure on her face. “I figured as much. We Bajorans seem to be lunatics when it comes to prophecies.”
Shar wasn’t clear about her meaning, but didn’t think it was appropriate to ask about the evidence, which he assumed had something to do with the two Bajoran deaths on the Promenade. He was curious about her attitude, however.
“Laren, I have noted before that you don’t seem to share the same religious enthusiasm as other Bajorans. Is there a particular reason?”
She didn’t answer for a moment, and Shar was about to rescind his question, afraid that he’d overstepped social boundaries, when she finally spoke. He was relieved. Ro’s forthright manner was one of the reasons he so enjoyed her company. It continued to mystify him that there were those on board the station who avoided her, apparently perceiving her bluntness as unfriendliness; he welcomed the opportunity to be around anyone who avoided deceit.
“I don’t think that there’s any one specific reason,” she said. “I had a hard childhood, but so did just about every other Bajoran currently living, and it didn’t stop them from believing…the weird thing is, I do believe in the Prophets. I mean, they obviously exist, and I even believe that they watch out for Bajor, after a fashion. But just because there are some mysterious beings living in the wormhole, that occasionally interfere with our people—I don’t think that’s enough of a reason to worship them as gods.”
She smiled, a small and bitter smile. “And it doesn’t help that the prevailing attitude among the faithful is that if you don’t worship, there’s something wrong with you, or that you’re missing out on some great truth. Maybe I’m just contrary, but I don’t like the suggestion that I’m somehow less of a person, just because I don’t want to do what everyone else does. Whether or not the Prophets are gods, I’d like to feel that I’m free to make my own choice and not be judged because of it.”
Her smile changed, becoming the half-whimsical expression he recognized as an attempt to lighten the severity of her statement. She used it often. “Does that make any sense at all?”
Shar’s heart was pounding. He understood, better than she knew. With few changes, it was a speech he could have made concerning his own life, the feelings expressed the same as his own—the desire to be independent from what was expected, to make choices deviant from tradition. The difference was, he had never dared to speak his thoughts aloud.
Nor are you at liberty to do so now. The time, the place, even the person was inappropriate.
“It does,” he said slowly. “And I support and applaud your decision, Ro Laren.”
She raised her eyebrows, surprised perhaps by his sincerity, as she couldn’t possibly know the cause. “Well, that makes one of you. But thank you, Shar, that’s nice of you to say.”
He stood, feeling a strong urge to be alone for a while, to ponder the importance and relevance of Ro’s statements. It was with an effort that he remembered what else he’d meant to ask her.
“I was informed by Ezri Dax that there’s to be a celebratory gathering at Quark’s later this evening, about 2130 hours,” he said. “The son of Captain Sisko is being welcomed back to the station, and Ezri says he’s an exceptional young man. I thought I might attend…perhaps you’d like to meet me there? Ezri suggested that I bring a friend.”
“Actually, I think I’ll stay in tonight, see how much of this translation I can get through,” Ro said. “But thank you for asking—and please
don’t talk about any of this prophecy business to anyone, all right?”
Shar nodded, and after Ro thanked him again, he left her spare quarters for the cold solitude of the corridor, feeling hopeful and reflective and very much afraid of the thoughts that their talk had inspired.
Alone in one of the engineering offices, Vaughn sat looking through files on some of the Enterprise’s past missions, a cup of cooling coffee at hand. The warp drive was still faltering, but they’d be headed for DS9 as soon as it was on-line; less than a day, surely. And officially, without another assignment waiting, Vaughn’s time was his own.
He supposed it was awfully boring of him, but reviewing the tactical history of different commands was a pastime he’d always enjoyed, probably due to all of the years he’d spent out on loan as an adviser. Hopping from ship to ship, most without the holodeck facilities that had become standard these days, meant finding a hobby that didn’t require lugging around a lot of equipment, one that he could take up anywhere.
And no matter how I’ve come to feel about my participation in battle as of late, I can’t deny the interest. It had been his life for too long not to have become a part of him, and a change of perspective didn’t mean that everything had changed; reading mission reviews relaxed and entertained him.
Only a few years out, and the Enterprise-E had already been involved in a number of extremely interesting tactical situations, and reading about them inspired memories of his own, conflicts and resolutions that he hadn’t thought of in years. It was ironic—the Orb’s influence had worn off, but his taste for reflection seemed to be growing.
He’d just finished perusing a number of entries about Picard’s decision to defy the Federation’s initial stance during the Ba’ku affair. It was fascinating material, but he was finding it hard to concentrate; he kept thinking about the fact that they still had no subspace communications, and what it might mean for the Enterprise and her passengers once they reached DS9. The coded transmission he’d received two days ago wasn’t one he could talk about, but Picard would undoubtedly have been notified by now, if communications were working. Until Vaughn had official word of declassification, his hands were tied.
