Forwarded by the ASC-VSO Posted: Mon, 26 Jan 2004 21:30:56 GMT In: alt.startrek.creative From: Gabrielle Lawson inheildi@earthlink.net Title: Faith: Hope Author: Gabrielle Lawson (inheildi@earthlink.net) Series: DS9 Part: REP 15/18 Rating: [PG-13] Codes: Riker tried to find a way around the hole, but it seemed to stretch all the way from one wall to the other. He heard the creak and Bashir's gasp as he fell. He reached out desperately, knowing it was useless, but hoping just the same. Then he heard the muffled crash below and the thud as Bashir hit bottom. He also saw the lights come on down there. He could see Bashir, or part of him, lying on the bottom. He'd fallen though the ceiling of what looked like a primitive turbolift. Riker could even see the cabling for it, coiled up on part of the broken roof. "Doctor!" he yelled. "Bashir!" He had to back away to take a breath. Then he called out again, hoping that Bashir hadn't broken his neck, that he hadn't been impaled on some bit of construction torn asunder. The fall alone was only twenty meters or so, allowing the possibility that he could have survived. "Doctor!" But there was no answer, no further sound. Riker looked up and saw that there was cabling there, too, more or less. It was hung on either side of the shaft, at floor level, within reach if Bashir could have seen it. Each cable was frayed where it had come loose from the car down below. But that was only one end. The other end was anchored to the ground, wrapped around a pulley system. Riker reached out and grabbed the cable closest to him and pulled on it to get some slack. It took putting all his weight against it to move it and he hoped that meant it would hold him if he climbed down the other way. He could just reach that side of the cable if he stretched out all the way. But then he didn't have the leverage he needed to pull on it. He couldn't test it. Not from this side. He studied the pulley, thankful for the light below. The pulley was large and it protruded perhaps four centimeters beyond the wall. He stood and tested it with one foot, slowly putting more weight on it. It held. The other side of the shaft was less than two meters away. The pulley was halfway across. He could step over. Of course, he could also fall. The pulley was oiled. He'd felt his foot slipping even as he tested it. Still, it would only take a second. Bashir hadn't known about the shaft, hadn't seen the pulleys. He'd been taken by surprise. Riker could see everything. He had an advantage. And he'd only need a foothold for a fraction of a second. That decided, he stepped as close as he could to the edge of the shaft and placed his left foot on the pulley. He took a deep breath and prepared himself. *On the count of three,* he thought to himself. *One, two, .damn.* The light had winked out below. "Doctor!" he called again, wanting Bashir to be alive so that he could move and trip the sensors again to turn the lights on. No answer and no light. No matter. Riker had made his decision. He knew his course of action and trusted his memory to show him where the edge was on the other side. "Three," he said to no one in particular. He put his weight on the pulley and swung his other leg over. It found solid ground and he threw himself forward, landing with a thud on the floor. He hadn't seen much beyond the other side of the shaft, where he now stood, except that the passage continued. He turned back to the shaft and tracing the wall with his hand, he found the cable again. He pulled, and it slipped right out of the pulley. "No," he complained aloud. That shouldn't have happened. The cable should have supported the weight of the turbolift car in both directions. It shouldn't just release. But there it was, thick and heavy, hanging loose in his hand. He yanked it up, thinking it might still somehow be useful, if he could anchor it to something. In the meantime, he moved to the other side of the passage and tucked the cable under his knee. He tried the second cable, but the main pulley seemed to fall away. Riker heard it crash into the turbolift car below and hoped it didn't hit Bashir. The lights, obviously tied to motion sensors, obediently winked on when the pulley hit. Riker used the light to survey his surroundings as far as he could. The walls were smooth and plain. No light fixtures, no protrusions at all. Nothing to anchor the cable to so that he could climb down. He squinted, trying to see further down the passage. It appeared to angle off to the left. It was hard to tell though, since little light filtered out of the shaft. He could see the ceiling well enough. There were protrusions there, but he couldn't reach them. There was nothing else to do. Waiting here and shouting weren't doing any good. Bashir was either dead or unconscious. Riker decided he had only two options left. He could continue down the passage, with the cable, hoping to find an anchor before the cable was so far out of the shaft that it would do him no good. He could also just keep going, hoping to find an alternate route to where Bashir was. Either way, he had to leave the shaft. Still, he felt he had to try once more before giving up. "Doctor Bashir!" The lights were still on, and Bashir still wasn't moving. The lights winked out, and that was that. Riker picked up the cable he had tucked under his knee and turned his back to the shaft. He used one hand to guide himself along the left wall and around the next corner. Bashir's nose twitched but he wasn't aware of it. He was aware, though, of the sticky wetness against his cheek. That was nothing new, his mind told him. The cave floor was muddy. There was nowhere else to sleep. Sloan hadn't left him a bed. Still, he was becoming more and more uncomfortable and he wondered why he hadn't chosen a better spot, one that wasn't as lumpy. His nose twitched again and by this time, he was becoming aware of the smell. It brought him more into consciousness, told him of the pain he felt. His head, his arm, his ribs. He flexed his fingers to try and find his hands, and his eyelids were bombarded with light. Light. He opened his eyes and found another face looking back at him with cloudy eyes and open mouth. A small white worm squiggled out past the lips and fell to the floor. Bashir bolted upright and the movement sent waves of lightning through his head. He fell back again but saw what it was he'd fallen on and jerked back up. Bodies. Bodies beneath him, beside him, behind him. He stood, and fell again to his knees. Even then he had to put a hand down, but that shot pain through his wrist. He willed himself upright even though his head spun. He couldn't breathe. The stench was so strong his lungs wanted to shut down rather than draw it in. Death smelled like that. He'd smelt death before. It made him dizzy to raise his head and look out across the room he was in, but he did it anyway. There were more. They were everywhere. Women and men, human and Andorian, Vulcan and other species. A thousand, maybe ten thousand, maybe more. He couldn't count. He slumped to his heels where at least he wasn't sitting on anyone. "They can't feel it, you know." It was a quiet voice, from behind him. Bashir spun his head around, too late realizing that he knew the voice and that no one would be there. No one real anyway. Vlad'a. Vlad'a had died a long time ago. "I know," Bashir whispered, unable to raise his voice in the presence of the dead. "It's just . . . ." "We saw it everyday," Vlad'a argued. "I woke up beside one of them more times than I can count, and I wasn't there as long as you were." "As long as Max," Bashir agreed. Max had survived more than two years in the camps. Bashir less than two months. Vlad'a less than that. Vlad'a nodded to him. Bashir saw it and realized he'd never seen Max or Szymon when he'd hallucinated them in the cave. There had been no light then. Vlad'a was fully visible, still dressed in stripes, his head shaved, his skin pallid. His eyes were cloudy, too. "You'll be alright," Vlad'a said. "Someone's coming for you. Just wait." Then he turned and walked away. Martok paced around Sisko's office while the captain merely sat unmoving in his chair. "What do they need dilithium for?" the General bellowed. His Bird of Prey had fought off another attack that morning. That brought the total to six separate attacks by Dominion forces. "We don't know," Sisko offered in quiet response. "Garak has been decrypting transmissions all week and no one is even mentioning dilithium." Martok noted that Sisko wasn't even watching him pace. He listened and answered but he stared at the wall. The General dropped himself into a chair and thought about the captain's response. "Do you think they know we're decoding their transmissions?" "It's possible," Sisko replied. "It wouldn't be the first time one side has fed another false information during a war. If they know--and if they'd don't, I'd say it's an oversight on their part they might want to keep Garak busy with useless information rather than tip us off." "But this is only the dilithium issue," Martok argued. "Garak's information has been accurate for the most part. Until now." Sisko nodded. "I suppose we'll just have to wait and see if he's accurate again." The corridor had finally angled downward. It had also turned, finally, back in the direction of the shaft. Riker held one hand pressed against the cavern's smooth wall and the other covering his nose. The stench he thought he'd smelled over the shaft had been steadily increasing as he tracked his way to where Bashir had fallen. He hoped. At his next step, light flooded his eyes, causing him to raise his hand to shield them. He estimated that he'd been in the cave for less than an hour, so it didn't take long for his eyes to adjust. But, just as he hadn't been prepared for the light, he wasn't prepared for what it now allowed him to see. A body--no, more than one--lying on the floor, blocking the entrance to a larger corridor. The faces were unrecognizable, marred already by decay and the ravages of insects. This was the source of the stench and Captain Picard's worst fear for the colony. The inhabitants were dead. Riker could only hope that the few he saw here were selfless defenders, those who held off attack while the others escaped. He also hoped that Bashir hadn't joined then. Riker may not have liked him or what he was, but he didn't want him dead. He was still a member of his crew. Riker moved forward, trying to avoid the bodies and anything leaking out of them. Bashir was farther back, deeper in. He had to keep going. He could hardly breathe and he had to fight the need he felt to vomit. He stepped over the body that blocked his path and turned the corner into the next corridor. The corridor itself was rather pleasant and completely uncavelike, no different in quality than the corridor's of the *Enterprise*, bolstering his hopes that the slaughter had been minimal. The stench, though, refused to stay behind with the bodies he'd passed. Another corner. Another body. And another. This corridor branched off into smaller hallways and rooms, some of the doors held open by a fallen corpse. He tried to ignore the bodies and concentrate on the rooms. Bashir might be injured . . . and they might both be stuck in the cave longer than either would like. The rooms might contain useful supplies. Several of the rooms were actually suites of quarters, small and cramped. Riker estimated there was enough space--bunks and storage--for twenty, with five bedrooms and a common area. No replicators, no immediate supplies. And, thankfully, no more bodies. He also found a small classroom of sorts. The computer there was functional but contained little of value. No communications, no sensors, or schematics of the underground facility. There was another door on the left wall. Riker was surprised, when he opened it, to see trees and hear the soft babble of a stream. The floor was soil and grass. Even the light overhead was soft and warm like a late-afternoon sun. But Riker was well aware that he was still deep beneath the surface of the mountain. It was an artificial arboretum, and it bolstered Bashir's theory that the colonists had contaminated their own environment. This was their preserve, and Riker could only see two walls from where he was standing. One held the door through which he'd passed. The other, to his left had to face the corridor. The main priority was finding Bashir, not exploring the cave, so Riker made his way to the second wall. There were bodies here, scattered sporadically between the trees. He found the wall and two large cargo doors that opened, revealing the corridor and another set of doors. Those doors were already open, and they provided, perhaps, the most horrific scene he'd ever witnessed. Here the corpses were not scattered here and there. They were packed in tight, spilling from the large room beyond the doorway. They were laid close to each other, even stacked four high in some cases. And that was just what he could see with the light from the corridor. He couldn't breathe. There was no air but that which carried the stench of so many rotting corpses. He felt the bile rise up in his throat, and this time he couldn't keep it down. He retched there in the corridor. When his stomach was empty, he still stood coughing, which only forced him to inhale more of the foul stench. And that caused him to heave again. He couldn't go in. He couldn't even lean inside the doorway to trigger the lights. He didn't want to see anymore. But the lights came on for him and he froze. Someone was alive. And then his mind reasoned that this was the direction of the shaft. Bashir had fallen into the horror. "Doctor!" he called out and felt the volume and the voice an abomination to what he saw before him. The bodies filled the room, from wall to wall, and oozed from death wounds and decay. "Bashir! Can you hear me?" There was no answer and Riker began to realize he'd have to go in there. He didn't want to, and his mind looked for loopholes. He could be wrong about the shaft. It was farther down. A rodent could have tripped the lights. But somehow, his legs moved anyway, and he had to set his mind to trying to find footing between the bodies. There was no floor to be seen, and when his feet could find it, it was slippery and sticky and wet. He had made it perhaps five meters in before he vomited again, and this time there was nothing to hold on to. When he could open his eyes again, he took a few more steps and could then see around the protruding corner on his left where the remains of a light turbolift lay among the remains of the people. Bashir sat on his ankles, so still that Riker began to doubt that he had tripped the lights after all. "They killed the children first." He'd spoken softly, but it wasn't hard to hear in the silence. Riker tried to ignore the words for now and concentrate on the speaker. He was still several meters away, but he looked alright, considering his fall. There was filth, debris from the dead, on his uniform in places, and he was holding his left wrist in such a way that Riker assumed it was injured. His face, what Riker could see of it, was ashen, but Riker was sure that he was quite pale himself. On the whole, Bashir looked alright. Still, when he spoke, he kept his voice low. "Doctor, why didn't you answer when I called?" At first, Bashir made no move to show that he'd heard at all. Then he turned toward Riker, just a little but just enough for Riker to see the red that covered the other side of his face. He turned back and continued as if he hadn't been interrupted. "Slaughtered them one at a time while their parents watched and tossed them in a stack against the wall. Then the women. But no one would talk." Riker followed Bashir's gaze to see a large pile of small corpses stacked haphazardly against the opposite wall. His knees began to feel weak and he had to grab the wall for support. Children, just like Bashir had said. He looked down at his feet. Women. It had been men nearer the door. "Wouldn't tell them what?" he asked not really expecting an answer or even to be heard. "How to undo it, how to put the dilithium back the way it was." Riker wanted to ask him if that was even possible, but then he remembered the blood on Bashir's face. "We have to get out of here," he said, turning back to Bashir. "Do you still have your medkit?" Bashir slowly looked around himself and spotted the bag, such as it was, a few feet away. He tried to reach for it with his good hand but nearly lost his balance and had to brace himself against the floor, only the floor was covered in bodies and filth. His hand landed on what appeared to be an arm. He balked and brought it up again. Riker couldn't see his face, but he could read the anguish in the way his head hung and his shoulders shook. Riker tried to move quickly to help him, but his movements only caused himself to slip and fall to his knees in the muck. There really was nothing left in his stomach, but it didn't stop his muscles from trying. It was on his clothes, on his skin, the decay of others. He had to leave and that meant that he had to get to Bashir. It wasn't easy but he managed to get to his feet without the use of his hands. Bashir was still staring at his hand. Troi had said he was unemotional. She was wrong. He just needed something horrific enough to bring it out. "I never wanted to see this again," he whispered, and it sounded like a plea. Again? "I never wanted to see it ever," Riker replied. He straddled one of the bodies between Bashir and his medkit and bent over to pick up the bag. The strap was sticky and wet, but Riker ignored it and threw it over his shoulder. He grabbed Bashir under the arms and hauled him to his feet. Bashir swayed a bit, but didn't fight him as Riker led him back out the large cargo doors. By contrast, the air in the corridor was much cleaner, and Riker almost felt like he could breathe again. He led Bashir across the corridor and into the arboretum. There were bodies here, but they were fewer, stragglers maybe or defenders who tried to stop the enemy from reaching the rest of the population. There was room to walk here, grass and trees and life. Riker needed to see life, and he guessed Bashir did, too. There was also water where maybe they could wash away some of the death. Riker pulled him to the stream and helped him to the ground. At first Bashir didn't move, and Riker realized that he was probably in shock--or he'd just hit his head too hard. Riker knelt down beside him and turned Bashir's face toward the light. There was a gash from his temple to his ear, but he had no idea how serious the injury was. "You're bleeding," he said, hoping he could get Bashir thinking again. It worked. "My head hurts," the doctor replied. Riker braced Bashir's chest and forced him to lean forward until he could see his own reflection in the stream. Bashir raised his good hand toward his temple but stopped. He held it up to look at it and then placed both of them in the stream and began to wash them. Riker did the same and then pulled off his jacket. "It's about the only clean thing between us," he explained as he tore the soiled sleeves away from the vest. It wasn't as easy as it looked when others did it, especially with wet hands. When he'd finally gotten them loose, he placed his ineffective comm badge on his undershirt and handed the vest to Bashir, who dipped it in the water and started to clean the blood from the side of his face. "Concussion?" he asked Bashir. "Possible," he replied, "cracked ribs, fractured wrist, too many bruises." "Could be worse," Riker commented. He held up the bag. "What do you need?" He'd have to wash his hands again. Bashir looked, but he didn't appear relieved by its presence. He even frowned. "Tricorder." "How about a dermal regenerator?" Riker bargained. Bashir nodded and took the instrument. Using his reflection in the water, he began to heal the gash on the side of his face. He had to lean forward and almost fell once. He instinctively set his other hand down and grimaced sharply. But he didn't fall and within a few minutes, the gash was gone. Bashir started to pull off his own jacket, which was in worse shape than Riker's. He'd fallen right into the bodies, Riker realized, which, awful as that was, probably saved him from further injury. "I saw some quarters a few rooms back," Riker said. "I think we can be forgiven for being out of uniform under the circumstances. Will you be alright here?" Bashir hesitated a bit and then nodded and went back to tending his wrist. He'd pulled his shirt sleeve back, and Riker caught a glimpse of a strange tattoo. It looked like numbers and poorly written ones at that. "You don't seem the type for tattoos," Riker commented before leaving. "Wasn't by choice," Bashir answered. Though he was curious about that, Riker let it go. Not even wanting to look at the large meeting room, he left through the classroom. -- --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/ Yahoo! Groups Links To visit your group on the web, go to:http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ASCL/ To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:ASCL-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service. From ???@??? Thu Jan 29 01:01:47 2004 Status: U Return-Path: Received: from n5.grp.scd.yahoo.com ([66.218.66.89]) by killdeer (EarthLink SMTP Server) with SMTP id 1aM5eA5rs3NZFlr0 for ; Wed, 28 Jan 2004 22:00:59 -0800 (PST) X-eGroups-Return: sentto-1977044-13023-1075355594-stephenbratliff=earthlink.net@returns.groups.yahoo.