DARK TERRITORY:
THE VALLEY OF PEACE
“The tragedy of life is
that every man has his reasons”-Jean Reinor (The Rules of the Game)
March 2376
The gloomy sky above mirrored Nebel Keshet’s sullen mood. She only wished that she could wrap its darkness around her fluttering heart while banishing her doubts to the fog enveloping the restive crowd before her. She bit down hard on her thin lower lip, tearing its gray flesh, but quickly wiping away the brackish blood with the tip of her tongue. She must maintain the illusion of calm, the deception of normalcy.
If she wavered now, the wary cohort of guards, both Romulan and Cardassian, protecting her target, would surely haul her away to a detention center if not execute her on the spot immediately.
Nebel pulled her fears deep inside her, and contorted her slightly scaly features into the mask of cool, reptilian confidence that she had used so effectively in her position as public conservator of Lakarian City, a title that had lost all meaning for her when the Dominion had leveled the metropolis in the closing hours of the lost war in a horrific pogrom to erase the Cardassian race from existence.
The fates had saved her, she realized for this moment alone, when her commitment to justice had driven her to the city’s detainment center wring one more confession from a guilty soul. Cocooned deep within the bowels of the detainment center, the prison had become her salvation when the Jem’Hadar flattened the city and its two million inhabitants through a ruthless, though admittedly efficient orbital bombing campaign.
Only she, several guards and prisoners had survived, picking their way through the rumble for days until they reached the blighted surface. Everyone else, her parents, siblings, and her son Thrain had been vaporized. She smiled with a twisted irony that her husband Aldur, fighting along the Klingon border, had been more safe than she had been nestled in the “secure” bosom of the homeworld.
Her smile morphed into a frown at the thought of her husband. She had not discussed this course of action with him, but she knew he would understand. How could he not? Even now he continued the fight for Cardassia somewhere beyond the stars, staging thrilling hit and run attacks, disrupting the shipping lanes of the scavengers picking over the remains of her fallen people.
Sub-Admiral Danclus, one of the triad of civil administrators overseeing the dissolution of the Cardassian Union, was one such vole. The tall, austere Romulan, as perpetually gray as the stark, scalded sky hanging overhead, slowly made his way down the welcome line, flanked by burly guards, tight, nervous grips on the triggers of their disruptors belying their fearsome countenances. They were scared, and they should be, Nebel smiled again. She straightened her posture, and ran a calming hand through the shock of her charcoal-colored hair, as if nervous and preparing herself for the honor of meeting this overseer. The words he had spoken only minutes before slid through her mind like a serpent. Standing before a podium, the dour man had actually smiled when he had said, “The upcoming elections for leadership of the new republican Diet are one more sign that Cardassia and its noble people are one step closer to reclaiming their place among the intergalactic community.” But his scorpion nature revealed itself when he added, “But it is necessary that the Cardassian people chose wisely. This is not the time for recrimination and anger; this is a time for hard choices and even harder work.” The closing statement was a not so subtle reference to the two candidates seeking to head the newly formed legislature of the provisional republic: civilian Professor Natima Lang and former Central Command Legate Pinute Tarkon.
Lang, once a darling of the subterranean Cardassian dissident movement, was the obvious preference of the Federation, Klingon, and Romulan triumvirate thwarting Cardassian destiny. Lang’s calls for admission of Cardassian complicity in their own near destruction, along with reconciliation with the powers that had waged war against them, and now dictated their fate, churned her insides. Her selection to premiership of the Diet would only rubberstamp the continuing dominance of the Federation alliance, as the triumvirate sought to symbolically hand off the reigns of power while maintaining tight control from the shadows.
Tarkon had
originally stood in the imperialists’ way, his bold call for restoring
Cardassian dignity and resurrecting the old
Of course
the Federation alliance hadn’t seen it that way, they had branded the
Nebel
wouldn’t have believed it if she hadn’t heard the blasphemous words slither
from Tarkon’s own lips. In a cloistered meeting with
It was in that moment of vacillation that her destiny had manifested, seizing her with such fervor that she had trembled with near erotic delight. Leaning on some of the convicts she had once sent to prison, Nebel had quickly acquired the materials she needed to transform her body into a biological weapon.
Admiral Danclus was almost upon her. With imperceptible grace, she used the tip of her tongue to press against her false tooth, hollow save for a detonator. The tiny click as the tooth slid out of alignment ignited a series of chemical reactions that would soon reach the bio-mimetic gel capsules cradled in her womb and give birth to a new era of Cardassian liberty. It would be a quick end, mostly painless, but very necessary.
“Are you okay milady,” courtly Pradesh Ottur, chief archon of the Lakarian court, asked, placing a gentle, fatherly hand on her quivering shoulder. Nebel glanced briefly at him, sad that the kind old man would die along with her and most of the crowd today, but she smiled anyway. She imagined Admiral Danclus’s frigid shadow falling across her turned cheek, as the pounding of booted feet drew near.
“Never better,” she whispered as the pain of childbirth knifed through her belly and her vision filled with the light of heaven.
CHAPTER
The Bajoran System
April 2376
USS Aegis
(Captain’s Suite)
Jasmine Glover’s nightmare saved her husband from his. Pulled from the bridge of his burning ship, Captain Terrence Glover quickly snapped awake, wrapping powerful arms around his trembling, whimpering wife. “Its okay honey,” he whispered into her ear. “It’s okay. I’m here.”
Still enthralled in remembrance of the destruction that had shattered her body and shredded her spirit, Jasmine pulled away from him. Despite the numerous skin grafts and the new prosthetic limbs that had replaced her missing arm and leg, his wife still was self-conscious about her body.
Though she had agreed to serve under his new command as Operations Officer, and had finally acceded to sharing quarters with him, she still maintained the separate cabin reserved for the Ops Officer. After several counseling sessions, Jasmine had been coaxed into spending the night with him, and Terrence had needed the warmth of her presence nearer to him as the mission the Aegis now streaked toward conjured up enough demons for them both.
“Where?” Her voice groggy, her gaze glassy, it took Jasmine a few seconds to gain her bearings. Blinking her almond shaped eyes several times, the haze slowly dissipated in them, and a small, relieved smile crept over her lips as the reality sank in. She allowed herself to fold into her husband’s embrace, until the damnable, and now customary, reserve returned.
Feeling her body stiffen, as the heat between them increased, Glover didn’t want to let her go, but sensed her pulling away from him again. He relaxed his iron grip, and she slid out of his grasp, creating a gap between them that was mere inches, but felt like an unconquerable chasm.
“I must’ve been dreaming,” she said, trying to sound sheepish and silly, but her voice was tinged with sadness instead of embarrassment.
“Was it about the Mandela?” Terrence gently probed, softening his deep baritone as much as he could. “The Tyra system?” Though the Dominion War had ended a little over four months ago in “victory” for the Federation, it had been a long, quadrant-spanning struggle whose outcome was in doubt up until the minute that the Dominion surrendered at the Battle of Cardassia Prime. Before that unexpected, miraculous event, the Federation had been pushed to the brink of defeat, outmatched by the shape shifting Founders, their scheming Vorta lieges, and genetically bred Jem’Hadar super soldiers.
The Dominion had been given entrée into the Alpha Quadrant by forming an alliance first with the desperate Cardassian Union and then the mysterious Breen once the Cardassians had began to see through the Dominion’s deceptive promises of galactic mastery.
The Cardassian revolt had finally helped turn the tide in the favor of the unprecedented alliance of the Federation, Klingons, and Romulans, but the self proclaimed rulers of the Alpha Quadrant had borne a terrible price for their reversal. In the closing hours of the war, the Founder in control of all Alpha Quadrant Dominion forces had ordered that the Cardassians be wiped from existence. Over 800 million were slaughtered before the Founder Leader surrendered her forces.
Glover blinked back the memories of the charred, cooked flesh, of too many sightless eyes and faces frozen in eternal horror. He had fought at the climatic battle over Cardassia, and he had walked on the scorched earth left behind by the spiteful Changeling.
His only consolation walking through all that carnage was that his wife had not been with him to see it. She had still been recuperating from her own brush with hell. Almost a year earlier, the Federation had suffered perhaps it greatest defeat ever in the Tyra System, when the 7th Fleet was virtually wiped out by Dominion forces. Out of a total of 112 starships, only 14 made it back to Federation space. Her ship, the Mandela, had blessedly been one of the few that survived.
The defeat had really hammered home to him and many other Starfleet officers that the Federation was on the verge of actually losing the war, and it had filled him and his compatriots with a fiery resolve that allowed them to retake the initiative, driving the Dominion and Cardassians from strategic Federation starbase Deep Space Nine that resided at the cusp of the wormhole leading to the Gamma Quadrant, the home of the Dominion.
His Academy roommate and dear friend Captain Benjamin Sisko, then the deposed commander of Deep Space Nine, had led the long shot mission to recapture the station, before the Cardassians and Dominion could deactivate a minefield that would’ve allowed thousands of Jem’Hadar warships to pour into the Alpha Quadrant and ensure certain victory for the Dominion. Commanding Destroyer Unit 5 during that watershed battle, Glover had been able to help his old friend punch through Dominion lines to retake the station and save the quadrant.
He had always been more braggadocios and flippant than either Ben, now ascended to a higher plane of existence to live with the wormhole aliens the Bajorans worshipped as gods, or his other Academy friend, the late Calvin Hudson, a man whose conviction ran so deep that he had abandoned Starfleet to fight and die with the rebel Maquis along the Federation-Cardassian border. It was a move he and Ben both had condemned as foolhardy at the time, but Terrence had grown to wonder if it wasn’t now prescient in light of all that had come to pass. The very thought of losing his wife, a pain that both Ben and Cal had endured before meeting their own fates, had encased Glover in a grim, rage-hardened prism that he had only found release from by killing as many Jem’Hadar and Cardassians as he could.
He joined Benjamin in the pantheon of
recipients awarded Christopher Pike Medals of Valor for his actions at the
Battle of Cardassia Prime, but it had been a hollow honor. He had lost several
crewmen and some very dear friends along the way.
Even the Cuffe, his first command, had been destroyed at Cardassia Prime. Hundreds more intrepid, good people had lost their lives over Cardassia when he had plowed his ship into a battery of orbital weapons platforms to protect the escape pods of two disabled starships.
Though he had both written and spoken to each of the bereaved families with consoling words that had become rote to him, Glover had only truly felt the loss of those lives in the intervening months since the conflict had ended.
And the more he thought about them, the more he felt responsible for their deaths. His desire, his need to inflict punishment, to win at almost any cost had done as much harm as it had been credited for doing good. He knew that many of his crew might protest his assessment of his actions, that many thought his leadership had saved them on countless occasions. Glover couldn’t argue with that, but he couldn’t evade, nor did he want to, the ghosts at the peripheries of his consciousness, haunting him with the lost possibilities, the lives never allowed the fullness of completion.
“Are you alright?” Jasmine’s warm breath was soft on his face. He shook his head, shaking away the spectral webs of his own grief. She gave a knowing smile. They might not share each other’s bed as frequently, but they constantly carried an almost shared pain, he realized. Terrence cupped her face in his hands, caressing her rich, walnut brown cheeks, tugging gently on her sharp chin.
“I love you.” He said, ignoring her question. In response, Jasmine’s hazel eyes grew moist.
“I know.” She whispered, carefully kissing one of his hands. Unable to control his need to be nearer to her, he sidled closer to her, and kissed her lips. She tore away from the kiss.
“Not yet. I’m not ready.”
“It’s been over a year Jazz.” Glover said, knowing that he shouldn’t, that he should be gentle, but not wanting to. Despite his doubts, he was still a man who had a tendency to force the issue. “I just want to be there for you.”
“I know,” she replied. “But I can’t. Not now.”
“Why?” He pleaded. “I’m your husband, and I love you. I still want us to do the things, have the family that we dreamed about having before this damned war.”
“I know you do, but you know how I feel about that.” Jasmine replied, her bright eyes breaking contact for a few seconds, as she unconsciously ran organic fingers over her artificial arm. The cerulean pajamas she wore covered up her scars and the prosthetics that only a practiced eye could actually recognize as non-organic. But of course, his wife knew what they were, and she knew that he knew.
“Damnit Jazz,” The angry words, born of frustration, slipped through his lips before he could stop them. “When are you going to see that you are not damaged goods? I don’t care about some scars and a couple of missing limbs. When I thought the Mandela was one of the ship’s that hadn’t returned from the Tyra system, I almost lost it.”
“Yes, yes,” annoyance crept into her voice. “I’ve heard the story before. Took on a Jem’Hadar armada single handedly while saving countless escape pods, lived to tell the tale; got the Pike Medal. I’m not in the mood for a history lesson.” The spell between them broken, Jasmine turned away from him, and sat up in the bed, swinging her legs over the side. “I’m going back to my own quarters. It’s almost time for alpha shift.”
Propping himself up on one elbow, Glover reached out to her with his other hand, fingers barely touching the sheer fabric of her pajamas as she slid off of the bed. “Don’t go. Please.” He begged. “We can work this out.”
Her back to him, Jasmine turned around to look down at him, and he saw the struggle raging within her. She looked at him for several more seconds until the chronometer beeped; alerting them both that alpha shift had begun. Without saying anything else, she turned on her heel and left the room. Glover pounded his pillow, and cursed at himself.
Sucking
up his grief and disappointment, he rolled out of bed and made his way to the
sonic shower. This day can’t get any worse, he joked to himself as the
soothing, sonic rays enveloped him, cleansing his body of any scrape of dirt,
grime, or musk. At least I hope not.
**************
USS Aegis
(En route to
Striding
down the long, gray and copper-colored main starboard corridor to the bridge,
Capt. Glover walked with a purposefulness he didn’t feel, nodding and smiling
on autopilot at various passing crewmen, his mind on Jasmine, his thoughts
mired to what had and had not just happened between them. Despite his sterling
record and his heroic status, marriage was proving his most difficult task, the
most enduring mystery to unravel. What frightened him most was that he felt his
wife slipping away from him, and he didn’t know what to do.
He had tried his best to help Ben and Cal both cope with the untimely deaths of their wives. And it had taken his father years to recover, if he ever really had, when his mother Deitra was lost along with all hands on the Tombaugh. Tragedy had even gored him once before when the first love of his life, Captain Tryla Scott of the Renegade, had been possessed as part of an alien conspiracy to take over the Federation.
He felt even more helpless now trying to break through to Jasmine than he did during the dark aftermath of the failed invasion, as Tryla had similarly pushed him away as she struggled to cleanse herself from the taint of violation and rebuild her reputation. Jettisoning an illicit affair with her Second Officer was just an unfortunate by-product of the healing process.
He was a starship captain, a man who was supposed to have all the answers to the big questions of space and time, who had been rewarded for his judgment, whether he felt it fully deserved, in both peace and war, but he couldn’t even figure out the right words to say to the woman he loved to get her to open up to him, to reveal her heart to him, to let him back in her life. He had hoped that closeness and time would dissolve the armor his wife had enclosed herself in, that was why he had suggested that Jasmine serve with him on the Aegis, and he had even enlisted his father’s help, something he wasn’t wont to do, to help make the case for him.
Admiral Samson Esau Glover, former commanding officer at Deep Space Five, had first become entranced with the captivating young engineer upon her posting to his starbase, and had strongly recommended that Terrence meet her. Glover, always eager to prove he didn’t need or want his father’s influence or help, had refused. Though he had expressed some initial reservations, Glover was glad that he succumbed to his father’s doggedness. He couldn’t help but speculate if his father’s hand was behind the Aegis’s current assignment; the admiral always eager to promote his war hero son. Ordered by Vice Admiral Salk not to discuss the mission, he would have to wait until its conclusion to find out.
Stepping onto the bridge, what little cheer he had tried to muster within himself had dissipated behind the somber mask melded over once convivial features. He tugged at the front of his stately black uniform as he took in the Aegis’s command center.
“Captain on the Bridge!” Ensign Culhane shouted, a little too eagerly for the morning shift. The rest of the crew stiffened as they stood at attention.
Glover grunted. “At ease.” The officers and enlisted crewmen quickly returned to their posts. Culhane flittered by the Science II terminal, several padds stuffed in a crooked elbow. The captain was pleased that the attentive officer had quickly learned never to approach the CO with the gamma shift status reports until he had sat down in his chair. As was his ritual, Glover liked to take in his surroundings before assuming the conn. It was a practice he had started as Second Officer on the Renegade and had continued through his XO/CO stints aboard the Cuffe and his turn at the helm of the Aegis.
One for two’s not good a
track record, he winced as he sadly remembered the Cuffe. The larger
Cuffe, of the Nebula-class, with its distinctively circular,
compact frame, would always hold a special place in his heart. Glover didn’t
know if he would ever be able to feel the same about the Aegis as he
looked around the streamlined bridge of the Prometheus-class starship. A
vessel belonging to Starfleet’s most advanced line of ships; his elevation to
the small club of
Bullet shaped, an array of consoles ringed the command deck; some manned and others left idle until needed. He nodded at the massive; olive skinned Tai Donar, almost inhumanly rigid at the Tactical station, his muscles straining against the confines of his suit. Despite the frenzied ministrations of Mr. Boaz, ship’s tailor, the Angosian security chief had yet to meet a uniform that comfortably fit his sculpted form. Lt. Donar curtly nodded back.
At the Science I terminal, Lt. Sial Keta of the Cardassian Security Forces, on temporary assignment to the Aegis at the behest of Starfleet Command, twittered, smiling nervously at him, the reptilian cast of her gray, Cardassian features making the gesture look like a grimace. And maybe it was. Glover certainly hadn’t gone out of his way to make the liaison feel welcome. Unable to fully hide his distaste for her or the dark brown Cardassian cuirass she wore, he rumbled with little enthusiasm.
“Lieutenant,” he acknowledged her, pointedly refusing to use the Cardassian military equivalent of “Glinn-sed”, before quickly turning to appraise his bridge crew. They were a motley band, culled from his two previous commands and from various remnants of shattered fleets. All, to his knowledge, had seen some combat in the war. All were coping with the war’s aftershocks in some fashion or other.
Even Keta he surmised, mentally reviewing the lieutenant’s dossier that had accompanied the mission profile he had received after Admiral Salk’s briefing at Starbase 375. An expatriate who had spent the later years of the war serving as an expert on Cardassian politics and culture for Starfleet Command, Keta had returned recently to her homeworld as part of the Federation’s efforts to build linkages between the conquerors and the conquered.
Still ignoring his seat, Glover
tried to shake the stiffness out of his body by sauntering over to the front of
the bridge, where both the Ops and Flight Control stations faced the main
viewscreen. Looking down over the helm officer’s shoulder, the smell of hair
spray wafting up from her reddish black hair, the captain asked. “
Craning her neck to look up at him, Lt. Juanita Rojas smiled before answering. “Under four hours sir.” Rojas was one of the few officers that had served with him under both commands. Both she and her late older brother had helped him tame the Cuffe and made it worthy of its namesake. And she had stuck with him through the dark days after Chin’toka when Pedro had been laid to rest, her loyalty and commitment to duty unwavering. He gave her a sadly sweet half-smile in response, memories of Pedro flitting almost telepathically between them.
“Thank you Juanita,” he whispered, but his gaze had already turned to his wife at the adjacent console. How she got to the bridge before him he would never know because he was afraid to ask. Her eyes glued to the readouts running down her interface, Jasmine didn’t acknowledge him. Memories of their recent fight and the bright flares of pain it had caused him crawled at the corners of his consciousness, seeking entry, but Terrence wouldn’t allow it. It was all part of the misgivings he had accepted as part of having his wife under his command. There was a time for personal matters, but not on the bridge.
Nervously quaffing a gulp of air, he turned away from her, glancing once over at the bridge before claiming his chair. Culhane was on him before his posterior had fully contacted with the black leather seat. Unctuous, eager to please, he almost dumped the padds in the captain’s lap as he stumbled over the small rise that elevated the captain’s chair above the two seats flanking his. Lt. Commander Pell Ojana, Diplomatic/First Contact Officer, to Glover’s left, chuckled before ostentatiously swinging her head down to check the small display connected to her chair, the Bajoran’s nose ridges crinkling with mischievous merriment. Glover glanced to his right. His Executive Officer, Ivan Cherenkov, ignored the gaffe, his clear blue eyes focused on the screen, or so he would have everyone think, the captain surmised.
“Thank you ensign,” Glover tried not to sound grouchy, though he felt he was a little too swift in shooing the young man away. “I’ll see to these later.” Disappointment shadowing his features, Culhane slinked back to the Science II station.
Reaching over to hand the padds to Lt. Commander Cherenkov, Glover played around with two of the status displays inset on the armrests of his chair, still not used to the plush throne-like command seat. It was still all too new for him, but at least he found the monochrome, gray, silver, and copper cast of the bridge more in keeping with his mood and the altered, morose state of affairs currently gripping the Federation. No more colorful uniforms or wooden guardrails on bridges. No more children, schools, or innocent, playful banter throughout the corridors. The Dominion War had taken all that way, ripped the illusion of innocence from the Federation.
And shredding my illusions as well, Glover sighed as he looked at the pensive, knotted back of his wife. For that, the captain could never forgive them. Turning his eyes to the starscape streaking past on the panoramic main viewer, his insides mirrored the vast, empty coldness of the vacuum.
Central Command
Vessel Rakal
(Bajoran System)
“You have reservations?” Gul Aldur Keshet, master of the Central Command Vessel Rakal probed his first officer, his hooded, obsidian eyes looking for any hint of hesitation or weakness.
Her cabled, neck muscles tensing as she made her ramrod posture even straighter and more unyielding, Glinn Levara Sulle replied, her raspy voice void of treacherous emotion, “Of course not milord.” The rapid eye blinking that she had never learned to control broke the illusion of unswerving veracity. It was a nervous tic that he sought to train out of her when she had first become his executive officer almost two years ago. Unsuccessful, he now accepted it as an endearing trait. He could now say with certainty that there was at least one Cardassian he could always tell was being less than forthcoming with him.
“Is it the Impai?” He questioned, turning the small monitor on his empty desk toward her to view. “At ease,” he added, granting Levara the permission to bend slightly over the desk to peer at the taupe cargo vessel innocuously trudging on the viewscreen. After she remained silent for several more minutes, Keshet, strands of impatience in his voice, prodded. “Speak freely.”
“There are Cardassians on that freighter Gul Keshet.” She replied, glancing at him when she spoke, her large, azure eyes filled with concern.
“Cardassians that work for Lissepians,” Keshet reminded her. “Cardassians that work for Lissepians who transport Tammeron grain and Regrean wheat husks from Golana to feed the starving, wretched populations of our homeworld. What is wrong with that picture?”
Without inflection, Sulle gave him the expected answer: “We were once masters of both the Lissepians and the Bajorans, and now we toil for one and accept charity from the other.”
“Inexcusable,” Keshet spat. “Unpardonable.”
“But there has been so much death,” Levara interjected. “There aren’t too many of our people left.”
“It is unfortunate,” the gul
offered, “that more of our blood must be shed, but we can’t turn away from our
cause. Cardassia freed itself from the Dominion, only to be set upon by
parasites from the Federation, the Romulans, and the Klingons.” He
couldn’t help but relish special venom when he spoke of the ‘foreheads’. Keshet
had spent the majority of the lost war fighting in the Klingon theatre of
battle, achieving his greatest victory when he helped liberate the Cardassian
colony world of Pentath
“By sacrificing their noble blood to labor in the bowels of a Lissepian freighter, pitied by the Bajorans, these so-called Cardassians have proven themselves true enemies of the state. And what is the punishment for treason?”
“Death,” Sulle whispered. Keshet nodded and rewarded her with a curt smile.
“Excellent. Now, carry out my orders.” Before the glinn could return to the Rakal’s bridge to execute Keshet’s command, the lighting in the room dimmed and the deck plates beneath the gul’s feet trembled.
“What was that?” He snarled, even though he knew the answer.
“Another power fluctuation from the cloaking device,” Sulle replied. Before Keshet could respond, a harried voice barked through the intercom hidden in the upper bulkhead of the gul’s stateroom.
“The cloak is down,” Lajal, the war craft’s engineering officer barked. “We are vulnerable to detection by the Lissepian vessel’s sensors.” Seconds later, the intercom squawked again.
“We’ve been sighted,” Intelligence Observer Darcis rumbled. “Impai is taking evasive maneuvers.” Even through the metal grid, Sulle could hear the customary smugness in Darcis’s voice.
Cursing, Keshet bounded out of his seat, beating Sulle to the door of his office. As the doors slid open to the bridge of the Rakal, the gul bellowed. “Battle alert!”
Deep Space Nine
(Bajoran System)
He looks so deflated. The dour thought ran through Colonel Kira Nerys’s mind as the large, airlock hatch rolled opened and the Starfleet captain stepped into the corridor. Closing her eyes, she shook her head to clear her mind. Commander Ousanas Dar, the station’s newest Executive Officer, came to attention beside her. The Romulan exile’s surprising spike of anxiousness was almost palpable as Colonel Kira struggled to find her voice. Nitala’Rax, the Dominion charge d’affairs for the entire Alpha Quadrant, also tensed, his pebbled, reptilian face twisting into a wary scowl.
“Welcome back to Deep Space Nine Captain Glover,” she finally managed to say, bowing slightly. The dark skinned human smiled broadly at her, bowing curtly in return, his eyes flicking next to Commander Dar, who nodded in greeting before finally settling on the solemn Nitala’Rax. The similarly hued female officer on the captain’s right, openly gaped at the reptilian. Glover said nothing for several seconds, his dark eyes spewing suspicion at the Jem’Hadar.
Since Nitala’Rax had arrived on the station a month ago as part of the Jem’Hadar security contingent for the intended Dominion envoy, a Vorta named Boran, he had elicited similar reactions, some even more pronounced, from a shattered and still fearful, war weary quadrant. Even Nitala’ Rax’s heroic actions in thwarting the Alpha Quadrant Jem’Hadar in his cohort from murdering the imprisoned female Changeling incarcerated at Kran-Tobal after surrendering on Cardassia Prime, first murdering Boran and then attacking the prison, still hadn’t earned him much trust. In fact, Kira’s support of Odo’s suggestion that Nitala’Rax fill the diplomatic post had led to calls for her resignation from the Bajoran government, and even some Starfleet circles.
The colonel felt a little sorry for the Gamma Quadrant warrior, a product of the Founder’s genetic manipulations who personally hadn’t seen action in the Alpha Quadrant. Her faith had taught her not only resilience but compassion and sympathy. But on the other hand, the hardened terrorist seething just beneath her more polished, professional veneer thought that a few hard stares and aspersions was the least the Jem’Hadar could endure for the pain his people inflicted on billions.
“Nitala’Rax I presume,” Glover almost spat. The Jem’Hadar grunted, mimicking Kira’s bow. Glover didn’t return the gesture. He merely continued to glare at the Dominion soldier, a glassy sadness filming over the suspicion. Unsure of how to segue out of the awkward pall of silence that had fallen over the group, Kira said nothing, uncharacteristically allowing the moment to play itself out without intervention. If the Federation was going to build the bridges of peace with the Dominion, it would have to start at junctures like these, small interactions, where fear and hatred had to be faced and overcome on a personal, and gut level. Instead of interceding, the colonel quickly studied the man whom the captain had become to see if such understanding would even be possible in him. Her inspection didn’t leave her with much room for hope.
Deep lines of worry were etched across Glover’s forehead and at the corners of his eyes and mouth. Dark, puffy patches of skin pooled beneath his hard brown eyes, a sign Kira knew all too well, of a serious lack of sleep. The dim glaze over his eyes revealed a person haunted by what waited for him beyond the veil of wakefulness.
It was a drastic, shocking reversal from the last time she had met him. The then more ebullient human had visited the station to celebrate Sisko’s promotion to captain almost five years ago. His good-natured chiding about the captain’s late promotion and his boasting about his own deserved elevation a year before Sisko almost rivaled the Klingons for bombast. In the halcyon days before the war, he had struck the colonel as a bit obnoxious for a Terran, but strangely compelling. Seeking first to avoid him during the small get together in the captain’s quarters, as the night wore on she had found herself drawn to him and his stories about life on the “final frontier” as he called it, exploring planets and spatial phenomena, making contact with alien species.
Station records indicated that Glover had returned once again as part of the taskforce that retook Deep Space Nine from the Dominion. In the euphoric sea of bodies that had poured onto the station after the evacuation of the Dominion and their Cardassian pawns, Kira hadn’t seen him.
“Captain Glover it’s been a long time. How is your father?” Dar finally punctured the awkward silence. Kira had yet to seen the usually composed Romulan get flustered, but the emphasis he placed on the word “father” suggested that perhaps the aged Starfleet officer had had less than pleasant dealings with Glover’s father, whom she had read was the recently appointed head of Starfleet Security. “I believe I…we… haven’t had the pleasure of meeting your staff.”
Glover shook his head, as if loosing himself from a dream. “Oh, of course,” the grin, a bit sheepish, returned. “Where are my manners?” He mumbled, before gesturing to his right at the striking mocha-skinned female. The two pins attached to the golden collar beneath her gray and black uniform denoted her rank as that of lieutenant. “Colonel Kira, Commander Dar this is Lieutenant Jasmine Glover, my wife and Operations Officer.”
Kira smiled warmly and the Operations Officer replied kindly in return. Glover shifted next to introduce the other member of his party, but she beat him to the punch.
“Nerys it’s good to see you again!” Pell Ojana stepped down from the docking ring and wrapped the startled colonel in a hug.
Barely catching her breath, the colonel gasped. “Good to see you too Ojana.” Both shocked and pleased that another Bajoran would be so publicly friendly with her after the controversy swarming around her support for Nitala’Rax, Kira stiffened in the woman’s embrace. Even First Minister Shakaar Edon, her former resistance cell leader and more recently her ex-lover, supported her from the shadows, not wanting to be seen with her in public. The rogue Jem’Hadar had razed the Vehlo settlement surrounding Kran-Tobal in their brutal attempt to incinerate the prison. Thousands of Bajorans had been killed.
“In order to keep the Federation admission process and the Cardassian relief efforts going, Sarish Rez, the First Minister’s top aide had informed her, “its best that Minister Shakaar disassociates himself from you.” Rez had always been blunter than Edon, Kira remembered darkly.
Squirming out of the older woman’s grasp, the colonel smoothed her tunic before turning to her immediate right. She introduced her XO.
“I haven’t been here in quite a while,” Glover remarked, his voice filled with forced cheer. He looked past Kira to gaze down the bustling corridor. “Care if we took the scenic route while you brought me up to speed.”
Kira shook her head. “Of course not, right this way.” She gestured with her hand for them to follow her. The contingent took the nearest lift to the habitat ring. The group walked in silence as they made their way from the upper docking pylon down to the Promenade, Nitala’Rax sullenly hanging back from them. The station’s main thoroughfare was brimming with life and activity as countless species shopped, drank, kibitzed, haggled, sang, and plied their wares.
Underneath the appearance of normality, Glover’s practiced eye noticed the discreet placement of Bajoran and Starfleet guards along the concourse, disruptors hanging from their hips. There was also an unusual amount, or at least he thought so, of Klingon and Romulan soldiers milling about the upper ring of the Promenade, much less discreet and much more fully armed.
He also felt the tension rippling through the civilians as they shuffled along, the fierce clinging to the illusion of normalcy all the more telling of its fiction. Especially here, the war had changed everything. Life would never be the same, but he hoped that after today, the denizens of Deep Space Nine could finally reclaim some semblance of their former lives.
Glover slowed as the group passed the station’s infirmary. He knew that his friend Capt. Banti Awokou, one of the few survivors from a Cardassian insurgent attack on his starship, was fighting for his life behind the medical facilities’ kelinide walls. Glover thought about breaking away from Col. Kira’s tour to visit him first before going to the mission briefing. But he knew that his old mentor would frown on Glover placing personal desire above his duty. So he walked on, despondent thoughts taking root in his mind.
This time the colonel decided to break the silence after she noticed Captain Glover’s wife looking agape at a the scantily dressed Ktarian female dancing on top of a table of cheering, leering spectators. “First time on the station?” She asked.
“Yes.” Lt. Glover replied, her eyes still locked on the salacious sight. “At Deep Space Five we didn’t have those kinds of establishments.” Something about how the lieutenant said “establishment” made Kira frown, but she decided to let the matter pass.
“Quark’s?” the captain almost laughed as a memory flashed through his eyes. “We’ll have to visit.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Maybe next time then.” The captain quickly switched subjects. “So how are things?” He asked carefully, avoiding mentioning his absent friend.
“Repairs are coming along,” Kira began. “Bajor has reapplied for Federation membership; the station is operating as well as can be expected, thanks to the influx of the new officers sent from Starfleet.” She nodded at Dar who gave a tight-lipped smile in return.
“Where is Jake? Kasidy? Or Dax?” As he listed each name, he looked around as if they would appear from the ether. The happiness in his voice was now genuine with interest and concern.
“Oh,” Kira
replied with after a pause, “they are well. Jake and Kasidy are both on Bajor,
overseeing the final construction of the Emissary’s…” She caught
herself, as a familiar pain flashed behind her eyes… “Kasidy’s house in the
“Dax?” The captain asked again.
“Lt. Dax is currently off the station.” Kira replied, adding, but not quite knowing why she did so, “on Risa.”
A mischievous gleam sparked in Glover’s eyes. “Change the host, but the symbiont stays the same.” The momentary respite of mirth quickly receded.” I wish we had more time,” Glover remarked more to himself than the group. “I haven’t seen Jake in ages, and I’ve only met Kasidy once. But she seems like a good person.”
“She is,” Kira affirmed, smiling with genuine fondness as a thought of her very pregnant friend flashed suddenly through her mind.
“Ben always
did have good taste.” Not knowing how to respond to that, Kira said nothing and
continued leading them on a winding path to the station’s
Without having to be told, Nitala’Rax took up a position outside the door to the conference room. Despite his title of charge d’affairs, the Jem’Hadar’s diplomatic status was tenuous. The Klingons and Romulans both refused to recognize him, and the Federation only tacitly acknowledged his presence to defuse any residual hostility from the Founders. Nitala’Rax didn’t seem to mind the freeze out, being designed for the physical and not verbal battlefield. Kira nodded her assent as the other officers plied past the hissing doors.
***
DS9
Inside the humid room, its dimness punctured by the starlight pouring in through ocular shaped view ports sat three pensive individuals. Fleet Vice Admiral Thuosana Shanthi, streaks of gray frosting her black hair, rose guardedly from her seat, as if she expected to be accosted by the new arrivals. Her dark brown eyes scoured the contingent, lighting on Jasmine with annoyance. “Colonel Kira, Captain Glover, Commander Dar, Lt. Commander Pell…” She listed each name curtly in clipped tones, nodding at each in turn. “And you are?”
“Lt. Jasmine Glover. Aegis’s Operations Officer.” Glover said before his wife spoke. The captain appeared oblivious to the similarly peeved glare his wife gave him.
“Oh.” Admiral Shanthi replied, turning away from them to introduce the meeting’s other participants. A slender, hawkish Romulan was standing at rigid attention, dark eyes boring into Commander Dar. The man returned her stare in full measure. Shanthi gestured at her. “Commander T’San, of the Romulan Imperial Fleet.”
“Jolan true,” she offered, shifting her gaze now to the others, her voice cold and words precise. Glover nodded in acknowledgement.
“And this is Captain Molok,” Shanthi replied, unable to remove the distaste from her voice. The burly Klingon slouched in his seat, not deigning to get up. He merely grinned at them with sharp, bloodwine-splotched teeth.
“Let’s get
down to business shall we?” the admiral said, retaking her seat. Colonel Kira
sat at the seat at the other end of the long table. The other officers sat at
the remaining empty seats, Jasmine shyly sliding into the seat next to her
husband. “The Dominion War Crimes Tribunal has arrived at Nimbus
Even though Glover knew the Aegis had been called to perform this duty, the actual realization that it was about to occur twisted his insides. The fate of the Founder Leader, the mastermind who had led Dominion forces during the war, the butcher who had unleashed genocide on the Cardassians, had been fiercely debated among the great powers of the Federation Alliance. Each had wanted to try the Changeling for her crimes, but also to show the Dominion through the conduct of the tribunal the sentience or superiority of their respective civilizations.
The Federation wanted to show that ‘solids’, as the Founders termed humanoids or non-morphogenic life forms, were merciful, fair, and that the Changeling would receive a thorough hearing based on law and not vengeance.
The Klingons, on the other hand, felt the Founder needed to be punished, as swiftly and harshly as possible to underline the resolve of the Alpha Quadrant powers. The Romulans drew a middle of the road position. They wanted to glean as much strategic information about the Dominion as possible from the Changeling before publicly executing her.
The wrangling had nearly frayed the fragile post-war coalition, and had forced the Federation Council to accept the death penalty as an option for the tribunes to choose from in order to appease their fractious allies.
Though Glover had become far too casual about dealing death to the Federation’s enemies during the war, the idea of the state putting a person to death, even one whose actions were as heinous as the Founder Leader’s, made him uneasy. He placed his elbows on the table and cupped his hands as a shiver ran through him.
“After much discussion,” Shanthi remarked. “It has been decided that both Commander T’San and Captain Molok will board the Aegis on its journey to Nimbus III; A show of unity and strength if you will.”
Glover glanced at his wife, Pell, and then the colonel before he nodded his head slowly. “I think we can handle transporting the Changeling on our own Admiral. Commander Cherenkov along with Security Chief Donar is running systems checks on brig modifications even as we speak. I don’t need babysitters.”
“Though that toy,” Molok spat, referring to the Aegis, “you call a warship is pretty to look at, I doubt it can match one of our attack cruisers.”
“I can assure you that a Prometheus-class vessel is not a plaything.” Glover replied, his voice tight.
“Of that there is no doubt,” T’San replied, her dry voice finely coated with arrogance. “Commander Rekar proved that.” Two years ago, a Romulan boarding party had captured the Prometheus prototype and utilized its multi-vector assault mode, splitting the prototype into three separate craft to assault a Federation starship before eventually being captured by a Starfleet taskforce, with the help of two onboard Emergency Medical Holograms. Since then, security modifications to the original design and countermeasures had been put in place to prevent a similar incident from occurring.
“And so did the two holographic doctors that defeated him,” Terrence quipped. T’San smiled coldly, nodding.
“Touché.”
“Chancellor Martok bowed to the beseeching of his Federation envoy, and wouldn’t allow us to claim the Changeling. At least you and your crew can benefit from a real warrior’s tactical experience when the Dominion comes to rescue their shape shifter.” Molok brayed, muscling into the conversation. “Just like Starfleet did in the Crolsa system.”
A nerve pinched in Glover’s jaw at the mention of Crolsa. Cardassian militants calling themselves the Crimson Shadow had employed several advanced weapons systems that destroyed two starships, the Sojourner and Phoenix, and ran a third one, the Gibraltar out of the system. The Federation Council had ceded oversight of Crolsa to the Klingons as a result.
Many of the captain’s fellow officers,
himself included, felt that the Federation had been wrong to abandon the
mission in Crolsa. It made the Federation look weak, and the expectant Klingon
iron boot had only sparked an insurrectionist impulse throughout all the
occupied territories. What galled Glover even more about the debacle, and
Molok’s boastful evoking of it was that he had a couple of personal ties to the
captains of the Phoenix and Gibraltar. Banti Awokou, the
He had been brought to DS9 after the Klingons took over in Crolsa in the hopes that the space station’s noted Dr. Bashir could find a cure to the neuro-pathogen infecting him and dozens of his crew. After Glover was finished he hoped to see his old friend before he shipped out.
Donald Sandhurst,
“About the
rescue attempt--I am forced to concur with Molok,” T’San admitted, the brows
running just above her eyes, crinkling with resignation. “I too failed to
convince the Senate that additional warships were needed to dissuade the
Dominion from attempting a rescue. Multi-vector capability or not, a flotilla
of warships to escort the Founder to Nimbus
Pell’s upraised hand shot through the air as if she were in a classroom, and had a burning question to ask or point to make. Shanthi ignored her for almost a minute, before sighing a response. “Would you like to ask a question Commander Pell?”
“Yes,” Pell
replied, “I can see both Molok’s and T’San’s points,” she added, shrugging her
shoulders at Captain Glover and Kira in silent apology. Glover was surprised
that Ojana would side with Molok after his implied jibe at
“With vengeful Breen and Son’a forces still on the loose and Cardassian insurgents itching for notoriety, not to mention rogue, or not so rogue Jem’Hadar, out to restore their lost honor, the quadrant is filled with people that would like to tear the Changeling apart. I think a convoy might disabuse them from that notion.” The Bajoran concluded, with real politick sagacity.
The Fleet
Admiral nodded, before slicing into Pell’s proposal. “A convoy might very well
draw the very attention that you have just described. That is why, in addition
to the Aegis, two decoy ships, one Klingon and one Romulan, will also be
making their way to Nimbus
Shifting in her seat to peer at the triad of Aegis officers, Shanthi’s voice softened as a faint sheen of praise glossed over her mournful features. “And that’s why I proposed that Aegis, and you personally Captain Glover, handle this assignment,” Shanthi remarked. “One of the Federation’s most powerful ships helmed by a Medal of Valor recipient, I think it will send the proper message that will deter any insurgents.”
Kira frowned at how stiff and uncomfortable the admiral’s unexpected appraisal had made Captain Glover, a man for whom she had once thought self-aggrandizement was as necessary as breathing. ‘War makes shadows of us all’. The colonel shook her head clear of the memories that accompanied her recalling the ancient truism repeated often by her father Taban during their imprisonment at the Singha refugee center.
“I would still feel more comfortable if the Defiant were accompanying the Aegis,” Commander Dar, the compact warship’s commander said, his quiet voice tinged with pride. “Its cloak might be of use.”
“Noted Commander,” Shanthi nodded. “However, the same could be said of our allies’ ships as well, each similarly equipped with cloaking technology. The Defiant will remain here, at Deep Space Nine, to defend the station in the event that the Dominion attempts to intervene in the extradition. The station is still recovering from the last Jem’Hadar strike. To leave it undefended in this climate would be unwise.”
“Odo has sent word via Nitala’Rax that the Founders won’t mount a rescue attempt,” Kira cut in. The colonel noticed that even the Starfleeters found it hard pressed not to roll their eyes in disbelief at her seemingly naïve declaration.
“I don’t think any Founder’s or Jem’Hadar’s proclamations carry much water with Cardassian militants,” T’San remarked, the specter of the recent assassination of the Romulan civil administrator Danclus on Cardassia Prime, haunting her statement. “In fact, Cardassian militants have only grown bolder in their plans to disrupt the reconstruction process on Cardassia Prime. The transport of the Founder Leader could prove too tempting a target.”
“Well, they’ll have potentially six targets,” Admiral Shanthi gravely replied, alluding to Aegis’s ability to tri-separate, the Prometheus-class’s well-known secret.
“You trust your pet changeling?” Molok goaded, shifting in his seat to peer at Colonel Kira. “Just because ‘Odo sent word’ means we are to disarm ourselves and lay bare before the Jem’Hadar.”
Knowing she shouldn’t, realizing it was unbecoming of the station’s commanding officer, Kira nonetheless bounded out of her seat. “Odo is a man of honor. I would my stake my life on his word!”
“Take your seat colonel!” Admiral Shanthi admonished.
“You have kajanpak’t Bajoran,” Molok sneered. “I can see why the changeling chose you.”
“That’s it,” Kira said, rounding the table. Glover quickly jumped out of his seat, and placed a firm grasp on her shoulder to slow her down. The colonel resisted the urge to yank away from the human, knowing he was only trying to help.
“All right, all right,” Glover said, nudging the colonel back to her seat. She reluctantly complied, never taking her eyes off the chuckling Klingon. “Admiral, I have no choice but to accede to Starfleet Command’s orders. However, and let me make it clear, both Captain Molok and Commander T’San will have restricted movement aboard the Aegis, and I will consult them only if I feel it is necessary to do so. Aegis is my ship.”
“I agree captain,” Shanthi said, emphasizing Glover’s rank to remind him of her superior status.
“As do I,” T’San said.
“Some ship,” Molok mumbled. More loudly he said, “I have no interests in your starship’s secrets.”
“It is settled then.” The admiral smiled at the assemblage, but there was no warmth behind the gesture. “The Aegis will depart Deep Space Nine at 2300 hours. The prearranged flight plan is being downloaded into your ship’s memory banks even as we speak. Meeting adjourned.” Shanthi got out of her seat, and headed for the exit without waiting on the others.
“I have affairs to attend to on my ship before it embarks on its journey,” T’San said as a way of farewell.
“The Ferengi’s holosuites are the only affairs I plan to attend to.” Molok guffawed before exiting, giving the colonel a goading once over before leaving. “My crew knows what it’s supposed to do.”
Unable to restrain herself, the fuming Bajoran pounded the table, and uttered an almost forgotten curse. “I can’t believe the arrogance of that Molok! How dare he question Odo’s honesty!”
“Captain Molok…or any of us really don’t know Odo like you do,” Dar offered. “The Founders have cut a bloody swath through much of the Quadrant. Asking for the trust of one, even as noble and honest as Odo, might be a tall order for some.”
Wanting to disagree with her XO, and looking for encouragement and confirmation from the others present, Kira’s fires dimmed somewhat when she saw that the captain was nodding his head in silent agreement and his wife had a glassy, pained expression in her eyes, as if trapped in a terrible memory.
She knew it was a continued failing of hers to allow her personal feelings to sway her judgment at times, but Kira had rarely seen the lopsidedness of her views versus reality as she did at that moment. “By the Prophets…” she whispered. “You are right. How could I have been so blind?”
“I wish a lot more of us suffered that type of blindness,” Glover remarked. He smiled and glanced at his own wife. Kira noticed that Jasmine Glover did not respond in kind.
***
DS9 Infirmary
Flashbacks of his mother’s funeral plagued Glover as he looked down at the too serene face of Captain Banti Awokou, the man’s body encased in a stasis pod that reminded him of a shiny casket. Even Dr. Bashir’s brilliance had its limits, and Awokou and the other victims of the Cardassian biogenic pathogen were in repose, awaiting transport to Starfleet Medical in the hopes that a solution might be found for them there. The captain was doubtful.
Ben had always spoken highly of Julian Bashir, in rapt
amazement of the man’s medical knowledge and talents. The revelation of his
augmented heritage had done little to dampen Sisko’s enthusiasm for the doctor.
Of course, Terrence being his usual competitive self had claimed that his CMOs,
Bashir had devised the cure to the morphogenic virus killing the Founders, the selfless gesture a key bargaining tool in convincing the Founder Leader to surrender her forces.
Glover wished Bashir were here now so he could ask the doctor personally about Awokou’s prospects. Though the junior medic, a weathered Bajoran named Girani had reported the man’s grim prognosis, Terrence would feel better if he heard it directly from Dr. Bashir. He was glad though that the medic was busying herself at the infirmary’s large curving interface, allowing him a modicum of privacy. That was one thing the DS9 docs had over the omnipresent Amoros too.
He touched the cold transparisteel covering, running his
hands just above Awokou’s lined, brown face. So much like his own fathers, yet
so different. For one, Banti still had his hair. Glover smiled at his dig,
imagining the steamed look or quick rejoinder his bald father would lodge at
him. In many ways, Banti had been a second father to him on the
Banti’s reassuring voice and large presence glided through the captain’s memories. He would never forget their last conversation.
“I really wish I had you with me on this one Terrence,” Awokou had said, after informing Glover that the Phoenix had pulled an assignment in the Crolsa system, protecting relief convoys for its solitary habitable planet Lakesh from predacious pirates and militants.
“It can’t be worse than the Lamenda system,” Glover had said, unwilling to be out topped in anything. Before their current assignment, Aegis had gotten its space legs along the long running Cardassian-Xepolite border on a host of missions including stopping the profitable maraji crystal trade fueling parts of the insurgency flaming across all Alliance-occupied Cardassian territories.
“Sending the
“I’m sure you can handle anything those spoon head bastards throw at you,” Glover had said sincerely. He had fought at Awokou’s side against the Cardassians during the first Federation-Cardassian war and he had witnessed the ferocity hidden behind the man’s placid veneer.
“It’s not me or the
“Really?” Glover, interest piqued, had asked. He hadn’t been up on the latest round of promotions. A deluge of captainships had come in the wake of the depleted ranks left by the last Borg incursion and then the Dominion War.
“Someone I think you’re familiar with,” the older man had smiled wickedly. “Donald Sandhurst.”
“I now see why
you’re antsy.” Glover had remarked. “Captain
Awokou.” Even after knowing the man for almost twenty years, the thought of
addressing the Awokou by anything less than his title seemed disrespectful. “
“I did some checking. Rear Admiral Covey signed off on his promotion.” Awokou had intoned darkly.
“Oh.” Monica Covey had preceded Glover as XO on the Cuffe before the woman before being
awarded a command of her own. Pell had served with them both, and the three had
formed something of a triumvirate that they recreated when
“Well, what about the Sojourner commander?”
“Commander Taun’Ma?
Don’t know much about her,” Awokou had admitted. “Which doesn’t speak much for her record does it?”
“No, I guess it doesn’t.” Glover had to admit. With Starfleet throwing out captain’s pips, for none to fall Taun’Ma’s way wasn’t a good sign. “Perhaps Command paired you with those two so they could learn from your experience?” Glover had tried to put a good spin on the despairing situation.
Awokou had smiled tightly. “You can’t con me Terrence. Remember who won all those games of chess?”
“I haven’t forgotten,” Glover had grumbled.
“As a matter of
fact you still owe me several strips of latinum.”
“Put it on my tab.”
“Will do,”
Awokou’s smile had been pierced with a yawn. “It’s late here. I shouldn’t be carking on and on about my problems. I
know you have your own.” His smile took on a sly cast. “How’s Jasmine by the
way? After forty years Rozi continues to confound me.”
“Same as Rozi it appears.” Glover had answered deadpan. Awokou’s laughter had been deep and fulfilling.
“Pray that it
always remains so,” he had said. “Good
night Terrence. Be safe out there.”
“You too.”
If Glover had known it would be the last time he would get to talk to his friend, to share a memory or laugh with him he would’ve never allowed the man to terminate the connection. But humans weren’t normally blessed, or cursed with such foreknowledge. And despite knowing they weren’t, they still took the truly important people in their lives for granted far too often. Glover knew he was guilty of such transgressions more than he cared to fully admit.
Tracing a finger along the frosty covering of the stasis
pod, Glover’s face grew hard. Even near
death and you’re still teaching me things, he thought, his eyes misting. I won’t forget this lesson…I promise.
USS Aegis
(Main Transporter
Room)
Lieutenant Commander Ivan Cherenkov, Aegis’s First Officer, blinked as the beings coalesced in a glittering cascade on the pad in the ship’s Main Transporter room. Lt. Tai Donar, shock probably being one of the emotions trained out of him as a product of Angosian military experiments, quickly raised his phaser at the pad. “Don’t move,” he warned, the weapon’s emitter cone trained on the Founder Leader’s unformed face. The three other security guards also leveled their weapons at the platform.
The Founder regarded the muscular Angosian and his weapon without interest. “It takes a lot more firepower than that to kill a Changeling, Angosian.” She remarked, her voice neutral.
“A lot of things have changed since the war ended,” Donar replied with quiet menace.
“Not the solids’ propensity for suspicion and violence it appears,” the Founder surmised.
“That’s enough Lt. Donar,” Cherenkov interjected. Without addressing the Founder, he rounded on the slender, hairless, deep blue skinned Bolian standing quietly beside her. “Lt. Daneeka, why isn’t the prisoner secured?” Ivan being a lateral entry addition to Starfleet via its Special Missions program for fifteen years, Daneeka’s odious role in Admiral Leyton’s abortive Starfleet coup four years ago still filled Cherenkov with disgust. But what had rankled him most about the obstreperous Daneeka was that she had actually taken the skills he had taught her in Advanced Tactical Training to use in Leyton’s attempt to subvert Federation President Jaresh-Inyo. Ivan glared at the almost languid lieutenant, expecting the light of recognition to ignite in her indigo eyes at any second. It didn’t.
Despite her
checkered past, the late Captain Benjamin Sisko had given Daneeka another
chance at redemption, the woman playing on her time as Security Chief of the
“What am I supposed to secure her with?” Daneeka asked, a sarcastic smirk inching up one side of her mouth. “She is a shape shifter you know.”
“The portable inhibitor field,” Cherenkov said, raising the gleaming metallic collar in his hand up for both Lt. Daneeka and the Founder to see. Based on a quantum stasis prototype created by the defunct Cardassian Obsidian Order, the inhibitor field denied a changeling the ability to revert back to their natural gelatinous state. First, discomfort, extreme pain, and then death would result if the reversion didn’t take place. Shackles that emanated the field had also been constructed specially for ship-to-ship transport. In addition, a more complex inhibitor field had been installed in Aegis’s brig.
Lt. Donar and Chief Engineer Uhnari had put their heads together and developed a method to alter the levels of the inhibitor field’s polarity, thereby keeping the Founder weakened without threatening her life.
“I offer no resistance,” the Changeling offered. “I promised Odo that I would willfully submit to your laws.” Cherenkov forced himself not to groan.
“The Founder has kept her word,” Daneeka added, actually vouching for a Changeling. It was all the Executive Officer could do not to retch. “She has given the Bajoran authorities no problems during her incarceration and I saw no need to shackle her for transport. If she had wanted to escape, she would’ve attempted to do so by now, especially since Bajor is so close to the wormhole.” Deep Space Nine’s security chief wrinkled her ridged nose as if having to state the obvious was a waste of good oxygen.
Lt. Commander Aquiel Uhnari, standing in for Ensign Huber, at the transporter controls, remarked. “I don’t see any cause for alarm,” she offered, smiling at the Bolian woman. Daneeka smiled back.
One malcontent to another, Cherenkov thought, flipping back through recollections of the chief engineer’s own less than stellar career in Starfleet. However, Aquiel had remained in the service, overcoming disappointing turns on Deriben V and then Relay Station 47 as a communications tech to find her true calling in warp engineering.
“‘No harm no fowl’,” Daneeka said, adding. “That’s an old saying I picked it up from Captain Zimbata on the Victory.” The security chief smiled wistfully. “Funny that I would think about that at this moment.”
Uhnari gasped, her brown eyes growing large with interest. “An old friend of mine used to serve on the Victory. His name’s LaForge. Do you know him?”
“Geordi?” Daneeka asked, her smile growing bigger. “Of course. We spent some very close times together.”
Uhnari’s excitement dimmed somewhat at the revelation. The perceptive Daneeka added. “Not that kind of close.” Instantly the engineer’s mood turned radiant again. “Just some rousing games of poker, the regular kind, not strip.”
Cherenkov cleared his throat. Commander Uhnari dipped her head in embarrassment. “Sorry sir,” she muttered.
“Back to the matter at hand,” the First Officer drew himself up to his full height, a stern, solemn expression on his face. “Mr. Donar, take your security team and escort the prisoner to the brig. I don’t think an intra-ship transport is necessary.”
Without being asked, the Changeling glided from the platform onto the deck. Daneeka followed suit.
Tai scowled at the change in the plan, but said nothing as he nodded for his guards to form a cautious circle around the Founder. The Angosian warily snapped the inhibitor collar around the changeling’s neck. Daneeka joined the contingent, also without waiting for Cherenkov’s permission.
He squelched the growl in his throat. Instead, he said, “Mr. Donar, proceed.”
**************
After the team had left, Cherenkov turned to Aquiel. “So, what’s with this Geordi business?” He smiled as he swept the mahogany skinned Haliian in his arms, stroking the twin ridges running just above her eyebrows.
“Old news,” she replied, her eyes twinkling with merriment.
“It better be,” he said, kissing her softly. “We Russians are quite possessive.”
“So I’ve been told,” she whispered, as she tangled her fingers in his blond hair and pushed his mouth against hers. Almost a minute went by before the now russet-faced Commander pulled away from her, smiling at her matching hunger.
Pulling in a lungful of air, Cherenkov remarked glumly. “I guess we better get back to work. Ensign Huber should be returning to his post any moment now.”
“Is that an order?” Uhnari pouted. Before Cherenkov answered, the Haliian reached down and lightly stroked his crotch. Tensing at the pleasurable contact, the Executive Officer grabbed her wrist with surprising roughness, causing the engineer to gasp in delight. “I like it when you get all Orion Corsair on me,” she teased.
It was at that damnable moment that Ensign Huber chose to resume his duties. With almost Scalosian speed, Cherenkov released his hold on Aquiel, but not quick enough to avoid being spotted by the Transporter specialist. “Sorry sirs,” he replied, his eyes downcast.
“Sorry about what?” Cherenkov replied, his manner steely serious. He didn’t even crack when he heard a small giggle escape from his lover.
“Ah…nothing sir.” Huber answered, his eyes still scanning the deck plates.
“Nothing indeed.” The First Officer snapped. “Carry on with your duties Mr. Huber.”
“Yes sir,” the young officer hopped to attention, quickly taking over his station, and almost mowing over the Chief Engineer in the process. “Sorry sir!”
“It’s okay,” Commander Uhnari placed a calming hand on the anxious man’s shoulder. He smiled nervously in response, his eyes now glued to the transporter console.
Cherenkov cleared his throat. “Lt. Commander Uhnari, I believe your report about upgrades to the ship’s impulse flow regulator is late.”
“Hmm…is that so?” The Haliian could barely maintain a straight face. “I’m sure I submitted the report on time. Would you care to join me…in Engineering? Perhaps we can get to the bottom of this.”
Gesturing at the door, Cherenkov nodded. “Lead the way.” Nodding at the still flustered Ensign Huber, the engineer walked through the sliding door, the First Officer quickly on her heels.
USS Aegis
(Main Sickbay)
“The prisoner is in perfect health…I think,” Dr. Amoros declared, his rich basso voice drowning out the incessant beeping of the electron resonance scanner. The scan complete, the biobed containing the Changeling slid out of the resonance chamber. With blunt, though nimble digits, the Aegis’s Grisellan Chief Medical Officer performed another scan with a medical tricorder. “The tricorder confirms my initial findings. Her morphogenic matrix appears stable. Of course, Starfleet Medical’s research into Changeling physiology is in its embryonic stages.” The doctor concluded, squeezing the tricorder in his large, hirsute silvery black hands with consternation.
“I think that’s good enough for me doctor,” Glover quickly offered. In her short time aboard the Aegis, the observant Keta had come to realize how perturbed incomplete medical files made the imposing ursine.
During her mandatory physical upon boarding Aegis, the furry medic bored her with a voluminous tirade at how the Federation’s lack of knowledge about Rudellian plague, a disease fatal for Cardassians such as herself, had severely impeded their efforts at administering effective medical care to many needy Cardassians on the shattered homeworld.
“Lieutenant…did you hear me?” Keta blinked, her mind returning to the present and the task at hand. She looked nervously at the scowling captain. “Are your readings in agreement with the Doctor’s?”
The young Cardassian held up her own tricorder and ran it over the prone form of the Founder. Anticipating the dearth of knowledge the Federation, and its allies for that matter, had about the mysterious changelings, Glover had requested that Keta also scan the prisoner to detect any anomalies that might prove threatening, sure that if the Founder was trying to alter her body chemistry or structure for any purpose, dual scans from two different machines, as well as two different sets of eyes would detect it.
Of course, Keta was sure she had caught a sigh in the captain’s voice when he had called her to the Main Sickbay. Now, that the Founder was onboard, she would perhaps be the second most unwelcome person on the Aegis.
Knowing that her
She was sure that after the
Changeling was safely on Nimbus
“Lieutenant?” Glover asked again, his tone ripe with annoyance. Flustered, the now bulky gunmetal device almost slipped from her gray fingers.
“My apologies sir. My readings indicate that the Founder is well.” Glover nodded tersely.
“May I sit up now?” The Changeling asked, her voice dripping tedium. The hulking Lt. Donar and his small group of equally intimidating guards moved to form a cordon between the biobed and the captain.
“Of course,” Glover replied. The Changeling turned into viscous orange goo, reforming seconds later sitting upright on the biobed. Donar was just pulling his phaser out of the holster, when the Founder looked at him, her lipless mouth curled into a mocking smile.
“No more theatrics,” the captain warned.
“I meant no harm,” the Changeling responded innocently. “I just find the solid need to rely on musculature for movement very time consuming.”
“Is that right?”
“It is.” The Founder nodded, shaking her head with feigned understanding. “I am glad to see that there is one solid at least who understands my dilemma. I am ready to return to the holding facility.”
“You don’t give orders on this…” Glover began, but the retort died on his lips when he noticed that the Founder’s eyes were looking past him. Turning his head to follow her gaze, with the doctor and the security team following suit, Keta found everyone starting at her.
Wanting to look away, to hide from the invasive scrutiny, but unable to give any of them the satisfaction of seeing her fear, the Cardassian met all of their gazes, eventually staring into the soulless eyes of the Founder.
“What is that doing here?” The Changeling spat, the first spike of emotion the monster had evidenced. “I thought I had had all of them killed. A pity.”
Dr. Amoros leaped over to the Science Officer, blocking her view from the sadistic Changeling.
“Mr. Donar, get her out of here, right now!” Glover barked, his face a caricature of righteous indignation. The security team coiled around the Founder, shuffling her out of the infirmary.
After the shape shifter had been removed, the Grisellan stepped away from her. Captain Glover walked over, and clamped two firm hands on her shoulders. She tried not to wince as he incidentally pinched sensitive muscles along her neck ridges. Looking down into her eyes, he said, as gently as he could. “I’m sorry you were subjected to that.”
It was the first time that this particular human had lied to her. Though she was sure Captain Glover was sorry for her as an individual, Keta knew he wasn’t sorry about the slaughter of the Cardassians, or at least sorry enough. She knew that somewhere deep inside his core, hidden from his enlightened Terran sensibilities, was the belief that the Cardassians had deserved the holocaust the Dominion unleashed on them.
She nodded acceptance for his sympathy, and smiled wanly in return. “It’s all right.” A lie for a lie. In the oblique corners of her own heart, Lt. Keta knew it wouldn’t be the last time such an exchange would be made.
USS Aegis
(
“Sir, picking up a distress beacon.” His wife informed him. “Code One Alpha Zero.”
“Location Lieutenant?”
“About a parsec from Golana. It’s a Lissepian freighter.”