Star Trek - DS9 - Avatar - Book One of Two.htm

by Emily

  Bajor. He'd bought the land just before the end of the war, and Kasidy had decided to build the home he'd designed and live there until his return. Through Kira, Julian knew that she'd agonized over the kitchen, about everything from whether or not to put in a dividing wall to what kind of appliances Sisko would want.

  'It's finished already?" Julian asked. "Last I heard, there was some problem finding the right kind of, ah, cooking device."

  "Quark came through," Kasidy said. "Don't ask me where he found it, either. Original wood stoves are hard to come by these days. As for the rest of the house, you'd be surprised how quickly things go when everyone on the planet wants you to get settled in."

  "That's all right with you, isn't it?" Julian asked gently.

  "Most of the time. They care about him, too, in their own way."

  She seemed a bit melancholy, but not actually depressed. Under the circumstances, it was the best he could hope for. Having one's love whisked away to fulfill his own spiritual destiny couldn't be easy, particularly with a baby on the way. Love could be such a tenuous thing, running from emotional ecstasy to fear of loss and back again in a matter of days, hours, really. There were times he felt so connected to Ezri, so elated with what they had, mat it was hard to accept the distance that could grow up between them sometimes, as sudden and strange as ...

  "... a robbery on board. Julian?"

  He started. "I'm sorry, I'm a bit distracted this mom-ing. You were saying?"

  "I said that the station seems different now. Even

  As usual, there was a lull in business as the last of the late-night drinkers straggled out and the early breakfast crowd chirped in, but there was a fifteen per-

  cent drop from the day before, which meant Quark wasn't happy. It was those damned security guards, hassling his clientele and the staff for details about the murder. Not only had he lost half of bis breakfasters to T'Pril's—although why someone would dare Vulcan cuisine first tiling in the morning was anyone's guess— he'd had to offer several of his less reputable customers free drinks just to keep them from fleeing. So when he saw Ro Laren walk into the bar, he wasn't nearly as charming as usual; as entirely awe-inspiring as she was, fifteen percent was enough to shrivel his lobes.

  "How about you tell your people to leave my customers alone?" he snapped, in lieu of a greeting. "If I remember correctly—and I do—die incident occurred outside, on the Promenade. Not in here."

  Ro sat at the bar, her lean body bent toward him, a slight, curling smile playing across her lips. "And a good morning to you, Quark. Would you do me a favor and take a look at this?"

  Still smiling, she dropped a slip of paper on the bar and leaned back, crossing her arms. Quark ignored the slip and studied her for a moment, not sure what she was up to. He'd heard a lot of interesting things about Ro, of course, practically everyone on the station had, but he hadn't had much of a chance to interact with her on a professional level. From the stories that had preceded her arrival, he'd expected DS9's new head of security to run around throwing tantrums, stealing Federation supplies, and shooting people—but so far she'd been a disappointment, employing almost Odo-like tactics to interfere with his less than legal enterprises. She'd already managed to re-route several contraband shipments, and with Rom gone and Nog too

  busy to help his own uncle, Quark had been forced to actually buy a program to further randomize his security code generator.

  At least Ro doesn't gloat about it. And unlike her predecessor, she's not in love with Kira. Nowhere close. The friction between the two women was already well-established, a definite point in her favor; between that and her looks, Quark wasn't quite prepared to write her off as a liability.

  "Of course," he said, picking up the slip of paper and mustering his most seductive smile. "Anything for you, Lieutenant—"

  He saw what was on the slip and his smile froze; his name and a series of numbers, written by that Bajoran monk. She'd promised that she would commit her storage code to memory and destroy the hard-copy scrap, but it seemed she'd gone and died before getting around to it Aware of Ro's close scrutiny, he casually dropped it on the bar and shrugged, silently cursing. The woman was dead, but there was his reputation to consider.

  "Doesn't mean a thing to me. Where did you say you found it?"

  "I didn't."

  He waited, but she didn't elaborate any further, only gazed at him serenely, ever smiling. Quark shrugged again, wondering how much she actually knew.

  And to think, my nephew could have been security chief...

  "I really have no idea," Quark said finally. "Maybe she was going to meet someone here, that's why it says my name, and those numbers—could mean a time..."

  He realized his mistake before Ro could point it out, and did his best to cover. He had to start getting to bed earlier; these late nights were killing him. "I mean, I assume this is something about that murdered woman. Isn't it?"

  "Give it up, Quark. I found it in her bag and you know it, and you also know what it means." Her dark eyes sparkled. "You already owe me for not telling Kira about that shipment of phaser scopes."

  Quark feigned innocence. "What phaser scopes? Really, Lieutenant, I don't know—"

  Ro moved so fast he didn't have time to react, reaching across the bar and taking a firm hold of both his ears—not hard enough to hurt, but pain was imminent Quark froze, shocked, afraid to breathe. She leaned over, so close mat her soft voice tickled his left tympanic membrane, arousing in him a strange combination of excitement and terror. Her tone was as firm and unyielding as her grasp.

  "Listen carefully, Quark," she half-whispered, sweet and deadly at once. "I don't have a problem with your petty schemes to make money, and unless you're dealing in something dangerous or unethical, I'm often as not willing to look the other way. I'm not Kira and I'm not Starfleet and a victimless crime is just that, right? But if you don't tell me what I want to know when I ask for it, I'll teach you new meanings of the word 'sorry.' And what I want to know right now is what you know about Istani Reyla. Make no mistake, this is not open to negotiation."

  She abruptly let go, leaving him stunned but unhurt, and in the time it took him to catch his breath, Quark decided two things: one, that it was in his best interests

  to tell her about the monk—she'd really only paid him a pittance, anyway—and two, he was halfway in love.

  Kasidy walked back to her quarters slowly, thinking about Dax and the doctor. She didn't know either of them as well as Ben had, especially Dax....

  ... but some things never change, and probably never will Ah, love!

  Kasidy grinned. The look on Julian's face had been so sincere, so entirely heartfelt as he talked about Ezri, and me "problems" so normal. He worried that they thought differently about some things, and said she sometimes seemed bored by his work. He felt lonely sometimes, and didn't know what she was thinking. He said she wanted to be alone occasionally, and that he did, too, but was afraid for diem to spend too much time apart Every now and then, he felt overwhelmed by emotion for her—and every now and then, she got on his nerves, and what did that mean?

  The brilliant doctor was certainly clueless in some ways, and Kasidy suspected that Ezri, for all her lifetimes, was probably on die same ship. They were in love, that was all. In love and finding out what drat meant, once die initial shine wore off. Falling in love was easy; maintaining a relationship was work, no matter how emotionally or intellectually developed die participants were, and it wasn't always fun.

  "I just want us to be happy. I don't want dungs to become dull for her. Or me," Bashir had stated, so honestly that Kasidy had been hard-pressed to keep a straight face. And he'd been visibly distressed by her advice, that mere was no way to set everything up in advance, to avoid mistakes before they happened—that

  it would take time to learn about each other, to let things unfold.

  In a way, being smart probably made it harder, Kasidy imagined mat they were both trying to reason out their diffe
rences, to logically define their roles in each other's lives. To decide how to feel.

  And nothing's more frustrating than having feelings you didn't decide to have.

  Kasidy stopped walking, struck by the intensity of the memory. Ben had said that, not long after they'd become a regular thing. He'd been teasing her about something, she couldn't remember what, exactly, although she recalled mat they'd been in bed together, talking. He had a way of doing that, of gently pointing out to her the most basic truths hi life—things that she'd learned, that they'd both learned but sometimes misplaced. It was the miracle of their time together, mat capacity for understanding the truth that they'd been able to share....

  The sense of loss flooded through her, so like a physical pain that she had to close her eyes. Oh, baby, I know you had to go, but I miss you so much, I want you here, with me—

  Kasidy felt tears threatening, and hurriedly Walked on, firmly telling herself that she would not cry, would not, not in public. She even managed a smile and a nod for a Bajoran couple passing by. She'd had no real choice in the matter about giving Ben up to the Prophets, but her feelings about it, at least, she could keep as her own.

  My feelings. As if anyone else would want them.

  It had become a full-time job for her just to keep track, so many things were changing. The connection

  she already felt with the baby wouldn't allow her to be truly unhappy; she was already in love with the small life, and that love kept her from descending into real sorrow—but in all, it was a very strange time for her. Most days she feh strong, positive about a future mat would allow for her and Ben to be with each other, with Jake and with their child. But there were also moments that she felt a kind of emptiness inside, a fear for what could be—mat too much time would pass and he would return a stranger to her, their paths so far apart that they wouldn't even be able to see each other. He was with the Prophets, after all, experiencing things she couldn't begin to imagine. And as the Emissary, what if he came back and men was called away again? What further sacrifices might they have to make? When those thoughts welled up, she felt like everything she was doing was madness—leaving her job, moving away from everything she'd known to wait for a man who might not return for months, even years....

  ... and that's okay. That's okay because my life will be as full as I want it to be, because I had a life before I met Benjamin Sisko and I have a life now. Two lives, she amended happily, and felt the slow, heavy warmth in her lower belly, where their child slept and grew....

  Her hormones were certainly in an uproar. She felt vulnerable to herself, to the wanderings of her own mind in a way she never had been before. It was almost funny; from amusement to tears and back again, in the time it took her to walk from the turbolift to her quarters. She thought she might be able to relax once she actually moved off the station and got settled on Bajor. She could hope, anyway.

  As she walked into her quarters, she realized sud-

  denly that she was tired. Tired and in a state of mild chaos. She was a strong, independent woman, on the verge of beginning a new life for herself—but at the moment, she thought she might like to go back to bed.

  Maybe with a cup of tea, and same of those ginger cookies...

  That sounded good. Kasidy yawned, and decided mat there wasn't anything on her slate mat couldn't be put off for another couple of hours. If she could nap, get away from her own turbulent moods for a little while, so much the better.

  "Oh, kid," she said, smiling, patting her lower belly as she headed for the replicator. "You're really something else."

  The colonel had not been happy with the status reports, although Shar had the impression she just wasn't happy, not this morning. He'd hardly finished listing the various systems and subsystems mat were still offline before she'd disappeared into her office, and she hadn't come out again. Not mat he could blame her, given how things were progressing.

  Short-range shield emitters, down. Tractor beam emitters, down. Six of the RCS thruster modules were being re-paneled, almost half of the ODN system still needed re-wiring, and the entire computer network was running on one processing core without backup. In short, the station was barely functional.

  Shar sat cross-legged on the floor of the engineering station next to a partially disassembled console checking plasma power levels and half-wishing he hadn't offered to work a double shift He didn't need as much sleep as most—about hah7 as much as a human or Bajo-

  ran—but it had been a long week and he was tired. The constant low-level drone of conversation, of tools clattering and the occasional soft curse, was making him sleepy, and he could honestly say he'd run enough system diagnostics to last him a lifetime. Everything had to be checked and triple-checked.

  This climate isn't helping much, either. The station's common areas were set to 22 degrees Celsius, 18 percent humidity; cold and dry by Andorian standards, making him long for the comfort of his quarters. Even after Starfleet Academy and a year on the U.S.S. Tam-berkune—with a primarily human crew—he still couldn't get used to the environmental conditions.

  Shar tapped a key on the padd next to him and saw mat he still had two hours to go. He briefly considered finishing with the console and leaving early—Kira and last had both urged him to take on half-shifts, if he insisted on working extra hours—but a look around made him decide against it Everywhere, stacks of partially wired sensor panels leaked from gaping console chasms, the men and women in front of them certainly as tired as he. They were already three days past the original deadline for finishing, and he estimated it would be another four before everything was back up and running. And mat wasn't including the Defiant; Lieutenant Nog's last report had suggested at least another week.

  If the SCE would just send a few more people... Typically, DS9 boasted thirty-five resident engineers from the corps, plus an affiliate group of almost as many techs from the Bajoran Militia. But in spite of Starfleet's assurances about more help coming soon, the station had been running with less man half that

  number since the war's end. Anyone with any engineering experience was being put to work.

  Including Ensign Thirishar ch'Thane, science officer; if that isn't desperate, nothing is. He wasn't an egotistical person, or at least he hoped not, though he was aware of his worth in his field—top of his class, already published several times over, and assigned to DS9 just four weeks earlier; only his second assignment, too. When he'd first graduated from the Academy, he'd been fought over by some of the best Starfleet scientists working. But he wouldn't pretend to be any mechanical genius; when it came to the physical application of his abilities, he thought "clumsy" was probably most apt.

  "Taking a break from your troubles, Ensign?"

  Shar started, realizing he'd been staring blankly. He looked up into the teasing gaze of Commander last and smiled, pleased to see her, to hear her distinctively accented voice. Although she was considered cold by some, he liked This last; there was something about her, something inspiring. She projected strength and confidence, as would any good commander, but there was also an unapologetic frankness in her manner that was rare in higher-ranking Starfleet officers. She openly discussed her feelings as well as her ideas, and not for any effect; she appeared to simply believe in expressing herself, whether or not it was diplomatic to do so. An interesting person and a superb officer, Shar considered himself fortunate to be working with her.

  Besides which, she knows what it's like to suffer these conditions. last was Bolian, but came from a similar environment. In the short time that he'd been

  aboard, they'd commiserated more man once over the chill aridity of the station.

  "Commander. No, sir. I'm just a little tired, nearing me end of my shift"

  last shook her head. "Your second, I imagine. What have I said to you about working doubles?"

  Shar nodded, trying to recall the exact phrasing. "That I'll end up freeze-dried if I don't get back to my quarters occasionally. Sir."

  "That's cor
rect" last glanced around, then leaned closer to Shar, speaking low. "I know things are in disarray ... but I think you could probably slip away, if you hurry. No one is looking."

  Shar grinned, fully aware that she was granting him permission to end his shift early, and relieved that he was starting to recognize it when she was being humorous, last was like mat; she could be as officially Starfleet as they came when necessary, but didn't flaunt her rank once she became acquainted with those under her command. O at least in his observation.

  "If it's all right, sir, I think I'll stay. The colonel wanted to get as much of ops finished today as possible."

  last nodded toward the science station, where several people were working. "Remind me why you're not handling the sensor arrays, Shar."

  Shar held up his hands, flexing his long—but somehow incapable—fingers. "The work is a bit too delicate for me. I'm sort of acting as a... technical consultant"

  "Sir," Jast added, her eyes twinkling. "You'll get better with practice, Ensign. Perhaps you should take up a musical instrument, or some sort of cloth-weaving. Work on improving your dexterity."

  "Yes, sir." Now he wasn't sure if she was being serious or not. Humor was still difficult for him. Andorians smiled often, but primarily looked upon it as a diplomatic tool; they were a serious-minded people, and he was no exception. From his time in Starfleet, however, he'd come to appreciate humor in other species, whereas most Andorians viewed too much laughter as frivolity. Or witlessness.

  The commander certainly seemed amused. "Carry on, Ensign. And no more extra shifts for a few days, all right?"

  "Yes, Commander. Thank you, sir."

  Jast headed for Kira's office and Shar picked up the diagnostic padd again, glad that she'd taken the time to speak with him. Although still quite new to the station, he already liked everyone he'd met—Jast, Colonel Kira, Ro Laren, Ezri and Prynn and Turo Ane... Even Quark, whose hard-hearted reputation preceded him, had been very friendly, going out of his way to offer discounts on Andorian delicacies in his bar. Shar was pleased with bis assignment to DS9, and hoped very much that he wouldn't be forced to leave.