Forwarded by the ASC-VSO 
Posted: Mon, 26 Jan 2004 21:30:39 GMT  
In: alt.startrek.creative 
From: Gabrielle Lawson inheildi@earthlink.net 
 

Title: Faith: Hope
Author: Gabrielle Lawson (inheildi@earthlink.net)
Series: DS9
Part: REP 14/18
Rating: [PG-13]
Codes:


      As he walked with the others in Riker's group, Bashir thought 
about the present circumstances of the moon.  His mind worked backwards 
from the result, the contamination, looking for all the possible causes 
of it.  And it worked forward, beginning with the natural resources of 
the planet and other materials likely introduced by both the Federation 
colonists and the Dominion.  He believed that somewhere the two, 
backward and forward, would meet in the middle.  And it wasn't until 
after four hours that they finally did.

      So clear was the answer, but also so perplexing, that Bashir 
stopped in his tracks, letting everyone else continue on around him.  He 
even pulled out his tricorder to verify it.

      "What is it?" Riker asked. He'd stopped the group and come back to 
where Bashir was standing.

      "The Dominion didn't do this," Bashir told him, surprised himself. 
  "They left because they couldn't solve it."

      Riker didn't say anything for a moment and Bashir watched as his 
face began to turn red.  "Over here," he ordered.  He was angry and 
Bashir didn't know what there was to be angry about.

      The rest of the group turned away to give them some privacy but 
Bashir could see them swapping questioning looks.

      Riker stepped a few meters away and waited for Bashir to join him. 
  "You stopped," Riker said, "and then you used the tricorder.  You knew."

      "Sir?" Bashir asked, trying to get at what had made Riker angry. 
Really, there were more pressing issues.  If the Dominion didn't do it, 
who did?  Bashir thought he knew and Riker should have been asking that.

      "You just plucked the answer from the air."

      Bashir took a deep breath to keep himself steady.  He also had to 
find the right words.  Riker seemed to be thicker than most of the 
people he'd worked with in the past.

      "Commander, for the past four hours, I have been thinking it out," 
he explained, "the different causes and contaminants.  I used the 
tricorder to see if I was right."

      "And, of course, you were," Riker said, throwing up a hand.

      "Would you rather I were wrong, Commander?" Bashir asked.  He felt 
like he was dealing with a childhood bully.  Riker was trying his patience.

      Riker stepped closer.  His nostrils flared.  "I want not to be 
constantly reminded of your genetic superiority."

      Another breath.  Riker was making it difficult to remain calm, and 
Bashir wished he would just let this drop and get back to the mission. 
"I wasn't aware that performing my duty would be such a reminder.  You 
said everyone was to perform their duty to the best of their abilities. 
  That is all I have done.  There are more pressing--"

      Riker smirked and didn't let him finish.  "You are arrogant, 
overbearing, and disrespectful."

      Bashir thought of all the things he could say.  He could argue, as 
Crusher had, that he didn't call Commander Data arrogant just because he 
was smarter or faster or stronger.  He could explain that he often felt 
as artificial as Data, more so perhaps since he was meant to be a 
natural human.  He could say that he hadn't asked to be enhanced or that 
he didn't revel in it.  He could ask Riker how long he should have 
waited until the commander would have worked it out for himself.  But 
all that was a waste of breath.  Riker was temporary, a mere figment, a 
blink of an eye in relation to the rest of Bashir's life, to the war, to 
the Alpha Quadrant.  Riker's attitude was nothing more than an 
annoyance, and Bashir had lived with worse for far longer than he'd have 
to deal with Riker.

      "Is that true?" Bashir asked, meeting Riker's gaze with his own. 
"Or is that only what you want to believe?  You can't know what is 
inside me.  Only I can.  And your opinion won't change anything."


      Riker was still stuck on Bashir's question, put forth so plainly, 
without attitude or accusation.  Was Bashir as disrespectful as he 
thought, or was that something Riker was projecting because he expected 
it?  Bashir had said much the same thing in the Brig.  He had known he 
was innocent and it hadn't mattered to him that Riker didn't think so. 
Riker considered the man before him, whom Troi had deemed practically 
emotionless.  He hadn't withered or cowered or even offered to defend 
himself when Riker had challenged him.  He was cold, as barren as the 
land they were standing on.  Riker wasn't sure which way was better.  At 
least arrogant and disrespectful was still alive.

      "Some things are more important than our opinions of one another, 
Commander," Bashir continued.  "A good many things are more important. 
Like the fact that it was the colonists themselves who contaminated this 
moon."

      *Right again.*  Riker rankled at that, but tried to keep himself 
from using that as an excuse to hound the man before him.  He risked 
looking like a real ass if he did, and, despite Bashir's words and 
Riker's opinion of him, Bashir's opinion mattered to him.  He wouldn't 
be an effective leader if it didn't.  And effective leaders carried out 
their missions, something Bashir was doing before he'd been called on 
the carpet.  Their mission was the colonists, and Bashir's attitude or 
lack of one was something to be dealt with later.

      "How do you figure?" he finally asked.

      "The contamination is coming from the dilithium itself," Bashir 
explained, opening his tricorder.  "They didn't want the Dominion to get 
hold of it."

      "So they destroyed their entire world?" Riker asked.  That didn't 
make a whole lot of sense.  "You said before that the contaminant wasn't 
native."

      "That doesn't mean it's Dominion, or Cardassian or Breen," Bashir 
returned.  "It's Andorian for the most part."  He handed the tricorder 
to Riker.

      "Andorian?" Riker repeated, taking the tricorder from him.  He 
studied the readout which probably didn't tell him as much detail as it 
did Bashir.  He relied on Geordie and Data, or science officers, for 
such things.  "I still don't see," he said, more softly, "why they'd 
turn this moon, their home, into an uninhabitable rock."

      "Have you ever heard of Masada?" Bashir asked.  "A Jewish town, 
built on the top of a plateau, defiant against Rome.  They fought and 
withheld the Romans for a while but were eventually overwhelmed.  Rather 
than be defeated, they committed suicide.  Every last one of them.  The 
Romans found nothing but corpses."

      "But this isn't deadly," Riker said, not so much contradicting him 
as holding out hope.  "They'd have some time."

      Bashir nodded.  "Several months.  They've got to have holed up 
someplace.  They'd want the Dominion to give up and leave.  Then they 
could, one would hope, reverse the contamination and come out of hiding 
when the air had cleared, so to speak."

      Riker looked around.  There was still no sign of civilization. 
Wherever the colonists' cities had been before, they hadn't set their 
relay up anywhere near them.  The cities wouldn't be much of a hiding 
place anyway.  But the mountains?  There were dark shadows visible in 
the rock, openings perhaps.

      "Feel like going caving, Doctor?" Riker asked, knowing that the 
idea wasn't going to be popular with Bashir.  "Let's move out!" he 
ordered the whole group.  He started back toward the front of the column.

      "Not particularly," Bashir replied behind him.  "But it makes the 
most sense."

      *Right again*, Riker thought, but this time, it was his own idea 
that Bashir was agreeing with.  And he had to admit he liked it better 
that way.


      He wasn't alone.  That's what Bashir kept telling himself when he 
felt the dread rising within him.  He wasn't alone.  Not like before. 
Even if the people he was with didn't like him, it was better than being 
cut off from everyone.  And this was temporary, a cave with an opening, 
possibly more than one.  He wouldn't be locked in.

      And there was the familiarity of it, an exact opposite to the 
dread.  A cave was something he could deal with, something he had dealt 
with.  The darkness would probably be more disconcerting to the others. 
  It was an interesting phenomenon to know something could be both 
comforting and threatening at the same time.  At once a sinister shadow, 
it called to him like an old friend.  *They don't know me,* it said, 
*but you do.*

      "I think I see something," Riker said, pointing his wrist beacon 
down the passage.  Bashir followed it with his eyes.  The wall at the 
end didn't look quite right, but then, he had to admit he'd never 
actually seen his cave.  He'd not had any light.

      But it was the snap that caught his attention more than that wall. 
  It was behind him and he spun around too late.  The dust was already 
flying and the stalactites were coming down.  The ground shook and 
Bashir lost his footing.  Someone screamed but he didn't know the others 
enough to know the voice.

      A rock hit his left hand where it was braced against the floor. 
He fell further, sinking his shoulder into the inch of mud that covered 
the floor.  He could see that Riker was down, too, and then he couldn't 
see anymore.

      But he could hear the furor die down.  He could feel the air 
clearing as the dust settled.  "Is anyone hurt?" he asked, hoping 
someone could answer.  No one did.  A bit of panic snapped at him.  He 
was alone after all.

      And then someone coughed.  "I'm okay," Riker said, trying to clear 
the rest of the dust from his lungs.  He yelled for the others, "Strauf? 
  Grierre?  Compton?  Enyar?"

      Bashir waited, listening for voices.  He heard it.  "Here, sir." 
A shout, muffled and soft, but definite.

      "I hear them," he told Riker.

      Riker was quick to respond, his voice tight and fast.  "How many?"

      "Sound off!" Bashir yelled, then he listened carefully to pick out 
the voices which seemed so far away.  Cut off, he decided, but it was he 
and Riker who were farthest into the cave.  The voices came back to him 
one at a time.  "Enyar," he repeated for Riker, "Grierre, and Compton."

      "What about Strauf?"

      Bashir listened again, and then reached down for his tricorder. 
It wasn't there.  "Do you have light?" he asked Riker.

      "Broken," the commander replied.

      So he would have to find it.  The tricorder or maybe Strauf. 
Using his hands and knees, and ignoring the sharp pain in his left wrist 
as he put pressure on it, he moved forward hoping to find one and not 
the other.  Strauf was too quiet if he was on this side, insubordinate 
if he was on the other.  Bashir could live with insubordinate.  He 
didn't like the alternative.  He could feel the rocks now, the 
stalactites that had fallen.  He still hadn't found the tricorder.  Then 
his fingers brushed against something soft and wet.  He explored it a 
bit more and found there were others. Fingers and then the whole hand.

      "I found him!" he shouted.  "Here."  He felt past the hand, but 
couldn't get to the wrist.  "Strauf!" he shouted again, hoping for a 
response.  But the fingers didn't move.  The wetness was blood.  Bashir 
knew that but he didn't want to give up hope that Strauf was still alive.

      A hand touched his shoulder.  Riker had found him.  Bashir took 
his hand and led it to Strauf's "We'll dig him out," Riker ordered.

      Bashir removed the rocks he could easily move from around the 
protruding hand while Riker started on some higher up.  Two or three of 
the rocks moved and Bashir could feel the wrist and a little of Strauf's 
forearm.  There was no pulse, no response to stimuli.  "He's dead," 
Bashir said.

      "You're sure?"  This time, Riker didn't sound like he was 
second-guessing or even angry with Bashir for being certain.  This time 
he sounded desperate.

      "He's buried, Commander" Bashir explained.  "I can't even give him 
CPR, and we can't dig him out in time even if he isn't brain dead.  He's 
gone.  I'm sorry."

      Riker didn't say anything, and Bashir wondered if he'd decided to 
be angry after all.  Finally, he spoke, "We have to dig him out anyway, 
if we want out ourselves."

      Bashir nodded, even knowing Riker couldn't see him.  He tried 
pulling more of the rocks away.  Then he remembered how distant the 
voices sounded.  The wall of rock cutting he and Riker off from the rest 
wasn't just a foot or two thick.  It had to be thicker.  "Can you see 
Strauf over there?" he yelled.

      "What are you getting at?" Riker asked.  Not angry.  In spite of 
his words to Riker, he did prefer this way.

      "It's too thick," Bashir answered, listening for the other voices. 
  "They can't see him.  If Strauf isn't protruding out the other side at 
all. . . ."

      "Then it's at least a meter thick," Riker finished.

      "Maybe more."

      Riker let out a long breath.  "Stay put!" he shouted.  "We're 
going to try and find another way out.  If we don't find anything by 
morning, we'll head back here.  You work on clearing it from your side." 
  He lowered his voice.  "Did they hear that?"

      Bashir listened for the acknowledgment.  "Yes, sir," he answered.

      "Let's go then," Riker said, and Bashir even felt Riker's hand on 
his arm, helping him up.  "The way we were headed, at least for now.  We 
might still find the source of that signal."

      Bashir took a small step forward, away from the rocks and Strauf 
trapped beneath them. The ground slid beneath him in a familiar way, but 
he felt vulnerable out in the open.  One needed walls in a place like 
this.  He tried moving sideways, sliding his feet so that he wouldn't 
lose his balance, and also so he might find his tricorder.  After a few 
steps, he felt cool wetness and solid rock beneath his hand.  And 
something hard at his foot.  He knelt down and touched it.  It was 
larger than his tricorder, with flat sides most of the way around.  His 
med-kit.  He'd forgotten that he'd dropped it, too.  At least he still 
had his rifle.  Now only the tricorder was missing.

      "You still there, Doc?" Riker asked.  He was farther away now.

      "Just thought I should find a wall," Bashir answered, letting him 
know where he was as well.

      "I had the same thought," Riker returned.  "We should keep 
talking, every meter or so, so we don't get separated.  You on that 
side, me on this."

      "Yes sir."

      They moved farther down the passage and Bashir remembered the odd 
wall he'd seen before the rocks fell.  "What about the wall, Commander? 
  The one you saw just before. . . ."

      "I don't know," Riker said.  "I didn't have a chance to find out 
anything.  Are you alright in here?"

      Bashir hadn't expected that question.  Well, not from Riker. 
Troi, perhaps, if she'd been there.  But not Riker.  "Why wouldn't I 
be?" Bashir answered, hoping to put him off.

      "Because we just pulled you out of one of these not too long ago."

      Bashir wasn't sure then how to proceed.  Was he alright?  He 
didn't know.  The rock-fall had changed things, like the cave had gotten 
one up on him.  He was losing, but also holding his own.  He had been 
prepared to die in that cave if Data hadn't received his signal.  What 
difference was it really if he died in this one instead?

      "I'm alright," he answered finally.  "It wouldn't be my first 
choice, but I was in that cave long enough to get used to it.  I'm used 
to the dark, the cold, the damp.  I hate it, but I'm used to it."

      "I wouldn't like the idea of being trapped in here either," Riker 
said, "but I think we're going the right way.  That was a booby-trap.  I 
saw the wire just as Strauf tripped it.  Someone didn't want others 
coming in here.  And since it's where the distress signal seems to 
originate, I'm hoping it's the colonists."

      Booby-trap.  Could the same trap have triggered other explosions, 
other rock-falls, to cover other exits?  No, they'd want a way out. 
"There has to be another way out then," Bashir said.

      "Unless they decided to follow the example of Masada," Riker added.

      Bashir hoped that wasn't what had happened.  He didn't want to 
face the thought of four hundred thousand dead.  He also didn't want to 
give in to the idea that he was trapped forever, and this time with no 
replicator.  The rock wall at his fingertips suddenly disappeared and he 
almost fell over when his footing slipped.  But he caught himself in time.

      "The wall's gone," he said.

      "Mine, too."

      "An intersection," Bashir concluded.  "Which way to go?"

      "Forward," Riker said.  "I still want to see what was with that wall."

      Bashir walked forward then, with his hands out in front of 
himself, expecting his fingers to reach the wall.  But it didn't happen. 
  What he felt instead was a soft tingle that moved from his fingers, up 
past his elbows, and to his shoulders.  "Holographic?" he guessed.

      "That would be a good sign, I think." Riker said.  "Let's go 
through.  Slowly."

      Bashir moved forward again and the tingle met his nose and chin 
and slipped up over his head.  Just as quickly, it fell on the back of 
his ears and over his shoulders until he was through it.  Since it was a 
holograph, he was hoping to see light on the other side, but it was just 
as dark.  "You through?" he asked Riker.

      "Yeah, let's find a wall."

      Bashir again found one at his right, assuming that Riker would 
find one on his left.  "Found one, right angle parallel to the other 
passage we didn't go down."  The wall was dry and smooth.

      "Wall, to the left and to the front," Riker said.  "And this time, 
there's no holograph."

      "But there is a breeze."  Bashir felt it on the back of his neck 
as he faced down the passage.

      "I feel it, too," Riker affirmed.  "But it's coming from behind 
me.  There's a wall there.  No passage."

      "But if they were hiding here, they'd want ventilation," Bashir 
thought out loud.  "There could be a vent up high somewhere.  Either 
way, there would have to be somewhere for the air to go for it to move 
like this."

      "Then let's follow it.  You stay to the right.  I'll take the left."

      They moved again, following the light current of cool air.  They 
spoke at times, little things, simple questions and short answers, just 
to know where each other were.  Bashir still took small steps, but he 
felt more confident in his footing since the ground here was not muddy, 
and it was flat.  It was a man-made tunnel.

      "They must have made this when the war started," he said.  "It 
would have taken time."

      "Like a bomb shelter in a backyard," Riker agreed.  "They just 
hoped they wouldn't have to use it."

      Bashir took another step and found that there was no ground 
beneath him.  His center of gravity was already off; there was nothing 
to reach for.  He tried to shift his weight to his back leg, but he was 
already falling over into whatever it was.  Then he could smell it.  An 
awful, familiar stench.  He was too busy to take much note of it, 
though.  His left arm had flailed out in front of him and there found 
ground once again.  But it was too smooth, he couldn't hang on, even 
with both hands.  He was slipping.

      "Commander!" he called out.

      "Bashir?" Riker called back.  "Where are you?"  To Bashir, he 
sounded high and behind.  He hadn't fallen, too.

      "There's a hole of some sort.  I've fallen.  I can't hold on much 
longer."

      "I'll try and pull you up," Riker spoke quickly, lower now.  He'd 
probably knelt to find the edge.  He let out an involuntary groan.  He'd 
smelt it, too.

      "The other side," Bashir gulped, trying to breathe and hang on at 
the same time.  The stench was overwhelming and it brought up ghosts 
from beneath him, faces he hadn't seen in a long time, names he never 
knew.  Death was waiting at the bottom of whatever he was falling into. 
  "You can't reach."

      He was hanging by his fingertips, trying to gain footing with his 
legs.  Then it suddenly occurred to him that there was little reason not 
to simply let go.  But his fingers didn't relax.  And his left foot 
found purchase on something protruding from the wall.  It was only big 
enough for a toe or two, but it was enough to give him a chance to 
change his hold on the upper edge.

      "Hold on," Riker said, "I'll try to find a way around."

      Bashir didn't plan on waiting, his lungs wanted air, clean air. 
He had his footing and he tried to pull himself over the edge.  But the 
little thing, whatever it was, decided not to hold him after all.  It 
creaked once and then fell away before Bashir could even register that 
it had creaked.  The foul air rushed up at him, growing stronger as he 
fell until it was all there was to breathe.  He hit something jagged and 
uneven, and it broke beneath him, slowing his fall.



-- 
--Gabrielle
I'd much rather be writing!

http://www.stormpages.com/gabrielle/trek/    The Edge of the Frontier
http://www.stormpages.com/gabrielle/doyle/   This Side of the Nether
Blog: http://www.gabriellewrites.blogspot.com

--
Stephen Ratliff
ASC Stories Only Forwarding

In the Pattern Buffer at:
http//trekiverse.crosswinds.net/feed/




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