by S. D. Perry
They’d monitored events from inside the plasma storms as best they could. Cloaked surveillance probes had recorded some very interesting images on most of the frequencies in the EM spectrum, detailed enough that they knew the moment Locken was dead, but not the exact circumstances, save that somehow Bashir had turned the would-be Khan’s own Jem’Hadar against him. But once the kill was confirmed, Cole gave the order to deploy.
He took off his night-vision lenses and glanced around to get a better look at the spot he had staked out as his observation post. The sun had just barely climbed over the top of the tree line and he would have to switch to the standard binoculars now. The worst part about dawn operations, he reflected, is that sooner or later you have to see everything that was done under cover of darkness. There were bodies everywhere, most of them Jem’Hadar, but some of the local ape creatures, too. A few of his men had gone down, but not many, and well within acceptable losses.
But Cole knew some things about this rain forest. It wouldn’t be long before things started to smell bad. And there were scavengers crawling over some of the bodies. These would disappear as soon as the sun came up, but then the insects would begin to appear and they would lay eggs and the eggs would turn into larvae and then the larvae would begin squirming—
Cole was glad he would be gone within the hour. He was here to make sure the cleanup operation was well under way, but he had no intention of staying for the whole thing.
One of his runners ran up beside him and waited to be acknowledged. Cole made him wait for a few seconds, then spoke without turning. “Yes?”
“Sir, sensors report a Starfleet runabout lifting off to the northwest of us. You gave orders to be alerted if we picked up on anything like that.”
“Right. I did, didn’t I?” He picked up a pair of standard-issue binoculars and studied the battlefield—no, the killing field. Cole shook his head in wonder at how careless Sloan had been to let Bashir get away. He would have been an astonishingly effective field agent. Not that he didn’t have other uses…Well, that explained where the locals got phaser rifles. He wondered how many of Bashir’s team were making it off alive.
“Orders, sir?” the runner asked.
Cole lowered his binoculars, and stared into the northwest sky, almost convincing himself he could spot the fleeing runabout with his naked eyes. “Let it go,” he said.
“Sir?”
“Let it go.” He studied the front of the compound and wondered how many quantum torpedoes it would take to level the place once they had cleaned out the useful bits.
The Euphrates would, as Ro had said, get them home, but she wasn’t the same ship she had been when she left DS9. Ezri was fairly sure she could get them out of the Badlands, but if they ran into any major plasma-storm activity, it would be a near thing. Once clear of the Badlands, they would activate the distress beacon and head for home at a conservative pace.
Julian was in the back treating Taran’atar’s wounds, which were already healing at an astonishing rate. According to his readings, Taran’atar had suffered a punctured lung, but it was completely healed now.
Ro was back in the aft compartment. She wanted to be alone.
And then there was Julian. She had seen him in some black moods, but nothing like this. In his eyes, the fact that they had probably just saved the quadrant from months or years of struggle and strife didn’t mean anything. The only thing that mattered was that he hadn’t been able to slay his dragon. Section 31 was still out there, still three steps ahead of all of them.
The sensor alarm blipped and Ezri glanced at the readout. The short-range sensors had begun to act up shortly after liftoff and she was tempted to just shut them down, but she was worried about encountering another orbital weapons platform. She checked the display and found—what? A sensor ghost of some kind. She reset the master grid and the ghost disappeared.
Steering to starboard, giving a plasma plume a very wide berth, she wondered why so many of their missions didn’t have happy endings.
Chapter Twenty
“Deep Space 9, this is the Euphrates. Come in, Deep Space 9.” Ro waited for several seconds for a response, then repeated the message.
“Are you sure the transmitter is working?” Ezri asked.
Ro stared at her, expressionless. “Would you like to try?” she asked.
Ezri smiled guiltily. “No, sorry. Go ahead. I’m just getting worried.”
“We’re all worried,” Bashir said from the engineering station behind them. “But there’s no way to be sure whether the scanning problem resides in the runabout’s systems or in the diagnostic programs. Everything looks like it’s working, but we could be transmitting on the wrong frequency…”
“Or the station’s comm system could be offline,” Ro added.
“But shouldn’t we be able to pick up one of the patrolling starships?” Ezri asked.
“There may be subspace interference,” Ro suggested. She didn’t elaborate; she didn’t need to. Everyone aboard knew that only a massive explosion was capable of causing that much interference—the kind of explosion no one wanted to think about.
“Can we get any more speed out of this thing?” Bashir asked.
Ro shook her head. “Without knowing whether the diagnostic programs are functioning properly—and I’ll say again that I don’t think they are—then, no. Warp two is the maximum and we’re taking a big chance there. If it were up to me, we’d drop to impulse and send out a distress call.”
Bashir didn’t want to admit it, but he knew that what Ro was suggesting was not only proper protocol, but the sensible thing to do. The problem was he didn’t feel like being sensible—he wanted to go home. “Best speed, Lieutenant,” he said, rising from his chair. It was his turn to get some sleep. “But do whatever you think is best.”
“Yes, sir,” Ro said flatly, and it was clear from her tone that if they had done what she thought best they would still be on Sindorin. A problem to deal with after I’ve had some sleep, Bashir decided.
Bashir was so weary that when he lay down he thought for a moment that Ezri had suddenly doubled the gravity, but then realized, No, it’s only my body surrendering. He closed his eyes and a gruff voice asked, “So, what did you learn, Doctor?”
Bashir struggled feebly to open his eyes, but it was too late, his system had been too abused. He couldn’t rouse himself and he couldn’t refuse to answer. What did I learn? I learned that it’s always possible to feel more alone than you thought you could ever feel.
And from up out of the dark came the approving voice of Sloan. “Excellent, Doctor. You’ve learned your lesson well.”
“Julian, you have to come see this.”
Bashir’s eyes snapped open. He didn’t remember closing them, which was unusual for him because most of the time sleep was an elusive thing. He tried to sit up, but his arms felt numb, his legs rubbery. “What? Yes…. Coming.” His mouth felt like a dried-up tennis ball and his eyelids were grating over the surface of his eyeballs. He had been dreaming about…something disturbing. What? Oh, the clones…just before he had triggered the phaser, the clones had come to life and pressed their faces against the tubes….
He stumbled to the cockpit and felt the runabout shudder as they switched over from warp engines to impulse. “What’s happening?” he asked, his eyes still not clear. “Where are we?”
But then he looked out through the main viewport and he knew where they were. It hung there—a glistening jewel, an ornament against the night—Deep Space 9. Nog had done his job: all the lights were on, much brighter even than usual, blazing so brilliantly that the stars themselves seemed dim.
Ezri, seated in the copilot’s chair, reached up, took his hand, and said, “We’re home, Julian.”
Ro repeated, “We’re home,” and it was clear that the betrayal of the Ingavi was still foremost on her mind. Bashir felt it, too, but didn’t begrudge himself the wave of relief that swept through him.
“Can we contact them?” he as
ked.
“No,” Ezri said. “It’s definitely our subspace transmitter. The diagnostic program sorted it out while you were asleep. It also said we were safe to go to warp four, so we got back a lot faster than we had expected.”
Bashir did the calculations. “So I was asleep…ten hours?”
“Twelve,” Ro said. “The rest of us took turns. We figured you needed the sleep.”
He didn’t know how to respond, so he said only, “Thank you,” and gripped Ezri’s hand more tightly. A shadow crossed between them and the station and he looked up. Directly above them, a Klingon attack cruiser shed its cloak.
“They’re challenging us,” Ro said.
“Come to a halt,” Bashir said. “And release the emergency beacon. They’ll figure it out.”
Ro did as he asked, and several minutes later the attack cruiser grappled the Euphrates with its tractor beam and set them down on a runabout pad. Suddenly her combadge—the only one to survive the mission—chirped for attention. “Ops to Lieutenant Ro.”
“Ro here. Go ahead, Nog.”
“Lieutenant? Is everyone all right? I have no other combadge signals from your team.”
“We’re all okay, Nog.”
“That’s a relief. Colonel Kira would like you all to report to her office directly.”
“Of course she would,” Ro said quietly.
“So,” Nog continued, “doesn’t the station look great?”
Even Ro smiled a little at that. “Yeah, Nog,” she said softly. “It sure does.”
“That’s a hell of a story,” Kira said when the companions finished delivering their report. “My only question is: How much of this can you tell to Starfleet Command?”
The question seemed to surprise Dax, but Bashir understood what she was asking. “I think we can tell Admiral Ross most of the tale,” he replied. “Though I expect he’ll have to edit it heavily before Starfleet shares it with any other Federation worlds. I’d like to be able to tell the Romulans something about their missing ships. But the part about what happened on New Beijing…”
“That’ll never come out,” Kira sighed. “On the bright side, now that we know what was done, Starfleet can take steps to ensure that such a thing never happens again.”
Ro sat stone-faced, arms crossed over her chest. “I can’t help but notice,” she said, “that none of you has said a word about the Ingavi. What are we going to do about them?” She looked from face to face. “Colonel? Doctor? Any thoughts? Do you even care?”
“You’re being unfair,” Dax said. “Of course we care. And it’s not like we didn’t accomplish anything. If we hadn’t gone to Sindorin, probably all the Ingavi would be dead by now.”
“Most of the Ingavi probably are dead by now,” Ro muttered.
“That’s enough,” Kira snapped. “This is hard enough without everyone sniping at each other.” She turned to Ro, modulating her tone. “You’re welcome to make your thoughts on the subject clear in your formal report, but otherwise I think that’s the end of the topic for now. We’ll do what we can.”
“Right,” Ro said. “When things cool off. When the Romulans stop searching the area for the missing ships. When no one will have any reason to suspect anything terrible has happened on Sindorin.” She leaned forward and slapped the top of Kira’s desk with the flat of her hand. “When they’re all dead.”
“Ro…” Dax began, but Kira signaled for her to be silent.
Unable to listen to any more, Ro rose from her seat without asking leave. “I’m going back to my office to check on some things. Sir.”
“When you get there,” Kira said, “contact Commander Vaughn. He left me a message saying you should get in touch with him. He’s on Empok Nor with one of the engineering teams.”
“Where is Empok Nor?” Bashir asked.
“Nog towed it into orbit of Cajara.”
Cajara. The Bajoran system’s seventh planet, Bashir recalled. Currently on the same side of the sun as DS9. A short trip by runabout.
Ro sighed, picked up her travel-stained bag, and headed for the door.
As soon as she left, Bashir rose. “Well, you’ll have to excuse me, too.”
“No, wait. Stay right there,” Kira said, pointing Bashir back into his seat. “I already know what you’re thinking.”
Bashir sagged back into his chair. “What am I thinking?” he asked.
Kira folded her arms. “One: You’re thinking that you utterly failed because you weren’t able to bring back the evidence you wanted in order to expose Section 31 and bring it to justice.”
Bashir smiled wanly.
“And, two,” Kira continued, “you’re pondering ways you could slip back to Sindorin while no one is looking and save the Ingavi. ‘It should be simple,’ you’re thinking. ‘I’m ever so much smarter than everyone else. And, oh, while I’m there, I’ll look around for some more evidence that I can someday use to crush Section 31. And, no, I don’t need to bother telling the colonel because she would just try to tell me I’m being an idiot.’”
Bashir’s smile turned into a weary grin. “You’ve been listening at my door,” he said. “That’s pretty good, though I’m not nearly that humble.”
Kira almost smiled in return. “I’ve ordered ops to keep a close eye on all outgoing traffic. I already have one missing person; I don’t want another.” Then, she filled in Dax, Bashir, and Taran’atar on the situation regarding Jake Sisko.
When she finished, Dax rose and said, “I’m going to call Kasidy. She must be frantic.”
“She seemed all right when I spoke with her,” Kira replied.
Dax shrugged. “And she probably was at the time. But the hormones kick in at unexpected times. Pregnancy, you know. I remember—”
Kira nodded, also remembering. “All right. Thank you, Ezri. Yes, please call her and tell her we’ll come down to Bajor to see her as soon as possible.”
Dax nodded and left.
Bashir rose to follow, but before he could leave Kira stopped him and said, “I know this must have been difficult for you, Julian. So let me just say thank you. If you have trouble sleeping tonight, think about how many people you saved on this mission.”
Bashir nodded gratefully and said, “You’re getting good at this command thing, Nerys. That almost makes me feel better. It almost helps me forget the ones I didn’t save.”
“I don’t want you to forget them, Julian,” Kira said. “I just want you to forgive yourself for not being the superhuman you sometimes think you are.”
Bashir locked eyes with her for several seconds, unblinking, then bowed his head, the tension that he had been holding in his shoulders and neck melting away. Finally, he nodded, and with a heartfelt “Thank you, Nerys,” he left.
That left only the colonel and Taran’atar.
He had been sitting in the corner, in the seat farthest from her desk, and though he had not said a word during the debriefing unless asked a direct question, Kira had sensed his interest in the proceedings.
Even after Bashir had left, he did not speak for some time, but only stared at her from beneath his brow. She waited for him to speak, but finally decided that Jem’Hadar weren’t accustomed to speaking first. “Dr. Bashir said that the mission would have failed without your assistance,” she said. “Thank you for that. It must have been difficult for you to be here so short a time, and already finding yourself having to face other Jem’Hadar in combat, twice now.”
“These were not the first times Jem’Hadar have fought Jem’Hadar. They will not be the last.”
Kira mentally filed that statement for later consideration. “The doctor also said that you were badly injured and that some of the injuries might not have been battle-related. Again, if that was the case, I appreciate how you might have suffered. I know a little bit about torture—”
“How to take it or how to give it?” Taran’atar asked.
Kira hesitated. “I don’t think I want to answer that question,” she finally replied. “Let’s
just leave it at that.”
“All right,” Taran’atar replied. “We will.”
When he did not rise to leave, Kira asked, “Is there anything else we can do for you right now? Do you want to send a message back to the Dominion? I could arrange it if you like.”
“I was not instructed to make reports, so I will not. The Founders will contact me when they wish—if they wish.”
Again, he did not rise to leave, so Kira asked again, “Something else?”
Taran’atar inhaled deeply, then slowly released it. She could see that he was trying to make up his mind about something, but she resolved to wait it out in silence. At last, he leaned forward in his chair, balled up one fist, and cupped it with his other hand. He said, “Lieutenant Ro told me that she has never met anyone who has as much faith in her gods as you. Is this so?”
Kira was more than a little surprised to find out that Ro had any opinions about anyone’s spiritual life, let alone Kira’s own, but for the sake of discussion, she decided to agree. “It’s hard to measure such things, but, yes, I believe my faith is very strong.”
“How did it get to be so strong?” Taran’atar asked. “How can you…not doubt?”
Kira leaned back in her chair. She hadn’t been prepared for a theological discussion today, especially not with a Jem’Hadar. She resolved to cuff Odo the next time she saw him…
…if she ever saw him again.
But she said, “I do doubt. Every day, I doubt everything. I doubt that I’m doing this job right. I doubt that I’m a good and decent person. I even doubt that we’ll all be here tomorrow. I doubt, and doubt, and doubt. But through it all, I draw strength from the idea that the Prophets are weaving a tapestry in which my life is a thread, and that my faith helps bring me closer to understanding my part in the whole. It’s become my belief of late that the Prophets have no use for blind devotion. They want us—their people—to question our beliefs every day, because the only way our faith can grow stronger is by having it challenged.” Kira stopped then, slightly embarrassed. “Does any of that make sense?” she asked.
