Forwarded by the ASC-VSO 
Posted: Thu, 15 Apr 2004 04:45:56 GMT  
In: alt.startrek.creative 
From: Gabrielle Lawson  
 


Title: Oswiecim
Author: Gabrielle Lawson (inheildi@earthlink.net)
Series: DS9
Part: REP 8/42
Rating: [PG-13] (Violence)
Codes:

                           Chapter Four

      When Bashir woke again, gray dawn was just beginning to seep
in between the boards of the walls.  It was no warmer, but he could
feel his hands again.  He felt something sharp in one of the pockets
but hesitated at removing his hand.  His toes were stubbornly still
numb, and he still shivered with the cold.  Julian squinted around
the car, trying to make out the forms of the other people.  It
appeared they were all still sleeping.

      It was a good time, as good as he would get.  No one would see
him disable the communicator.  He hated to do it.  *One last try,*
he thought.  He pulled his hand from the warm wool pocket and
dug through the layers of his clothes until he felt the hard metal of
the comm badge.  Without removing it, he pressed it.  The clothes
would help to muffle any sound.  The same sick chirp greeted him.
No communication with the ship.

      Bashir sighed and removed his other hand.  It held the sharp
thing he had felt.  He held it up to the dim light.  A screwdriver,
small like a jeweler might use, only slightly larger.  It would work.
He pulled out the comm badge and began to pry off its face.

      Within a few minutes, it was a complete wreck.  It wouldn't
chirp.  The translator wouldn't translate.  And, unfortunately, now
no one on the ship would be able to track him by its signal.  He
was cut off.

      Then a thought occurred to him, and he pulled out the
screwdriver again.  Someone might find his comm badge
eventually.  He could leave a message there.  English would be too
recognizable, so he decided on Cardassian.  He silently thanked
Garak for all the Cardassian literature he had given him to read
over the years.  The symbols weren't as intricate as Bajoran and
any of the senior officers would be able to read them.

      He was not quite sure what to write though.  He had to keep it
short.  There was only so much space on the face of a comm
badge, but also, he just didn't know enough.  He knew he was in
Poland on a train bound for somewhere.  He assumed it would be a
camp, but there were hundreds of those, if he remembered
correctly.  Finally he just decided on "Poland" and "Arrested."
There wasn't room for much more.  He scratched symbols that
were nearest to the syllables of his message into the face and then
hurriedly put the screwdriver away.  Then, as an afterthought, he
added a set of numbers.  Sisko would recognize it as a stardate.

      A commotion was growing outside the train.  Bashir could hear
footsteps.  Hundreds of them.  And yelling.  German again.  He
could no longer understand it, but he recognized it just as well.
The people around him began to stir.  Julian held his broken comm
badge to the light.  He shined its surface on his coat sleeve and
looked at it one last time.  Its shiny surface reflected back his own
tired face and worried eyes.  Folding it into his fist, he shoved it
beneath some of the loose straw near his feet and tried to put it out
of his mind.

      The commotion was louder, and the other people were now
fully awake.  Andrzej said something to him, but it was all a
jumble.  He could no longer understand Polish.  Bashir looked at
him.  He didn't seem to expect an answer.  He nodded and Julian
nodded back.  Andrzej turned to talk to his cousin.

      And then the noise was right outside the door.  Julian heard the
clatter of the lock, and then the door was thrust open.  Light from
outside poured in, hurting Bashir's eyes.  He blinked it away and
stood up.  There were people at the door.  And a soldier.  He
pushed the people inside with curses and screams.

      Julian could do little but stare as the people climbed aboard.
Beyond the ones scrambling to get in were still many more,
clutching their spouses and children and looking around with
fearful eyes as they waited their turn.  The car filled up quickly,
but still the people were pushed aboard.  He couldn't count them
all, but Julian was sure that perhaps a hundred had already climbed
inside.

      Someone approached the soldier.  It was the old woman, the
one who had given him the clothes.  "*Wir haben hier noch einen
Toten!  Helfen Sie mir, ihn herauszutragen!*"  She gestured
toward the corner.  *She must be asking about the dead man,*
Julian decided.

      "*Der kann mir gestohlen bleiben!*" the soldier smirked as he
pushed her away with the butt of his gun.

      The people kept coming and they pressed close. Julian was glad
that he'd been staying  near the window.  Andrzej pushed his way
past some of them and pulled his cousin along with him until they
were beside Bashir at the wall.  This time he said nothing.  No
sarcastic remarks foretelling of their doom, no defiant words.
Bashir could see the fear in his eyes as well.

      When the door was pulled shut again, the car was filled from
wall to wall with people.  Bashir was pressed at every side.  He
was still tired and would've liked to sit down again, but there just
wasn't any room.  He was thankful for his height which allowed
him to see over most of the heads around him.  He could see out
the small window as well, where icicles hung like crystal daggers.
His breath blew out in wisps of vapor, but already the car was
beginning to get a little warmer from all the people.

      Bashir expected the train to start moving right away, but it
stayed still.  The air was filled with murmuring, fearful voices.
Beyond them, he could still hear the commotion and shouting,
doors being slammed and locked.  They were still loading the
train.  He tried to remember how many cars he'd seen when the
truck had pulled up the day before, but he hadn't really paid
attention.

      His stomach growled painfully, and he tried to ignore it by
staring out the window at the old buildings in this Polish city.  He
wished he were certain of its name.  Bialystok, he assumed, from
what Andrzej had said earlier.  Not that it would make any
difference.  He tried not to think about the *Defiant* and his home
on the station, instead he concentrated on the architecture of the
buildings he could see.  Some of it would have been quite
beautiful, he imagined, in a different time.


      Major Kira Nerys sat in the captain's chair of the *Defiant*
cradling the cup of raktajino that she'd carried up from the mess
hall in her hands.  The mess hall replicators were the only ones
that worked.  She had woken up for duty two hours ago and
checked the status of the repairs.  It had been decided the night
before--was it really night?  It was hard to tell anymore with the
change in time--that sensors were their main concern, followed by
main power.  The forward sensors were literally gone, as Dax had
put it, and it would take at least the better part of the day to get
main power back up and running.  Nearly half the plasma relay
was out of commission.

      Kira sipped her coffee and tried to ignore the frustration she
was feeling.  She was in charge of looking for the missing crew
members, but there was still no way for her to carry out that task.
The sensors were still out.  The transporter logs from the
shuttle--what they could get of them--were wiped.  Dax was
working on unscrambling any recurring data fragments, but that
could take hours, or days, considering the shape the shuttle was in.
And communications was no good either.  They were all still just
as lost as they had been the night before.


      By the time the train began to move, the sun was almost
straight over head.  *Noon,* Bashir thought.  How long had he
been gone?  It was hard to tell.  There had been a time change
when he was beamed down to the planet.  It was late evening on
the *Defiant,* but it had still seemed early here, with the sun just
beginning to go down.  Now it was noon.  So that was the better
part of a day, at least.

      The train jostled and moved slowly past the buildings, bringing
new ones into view.  Bashir's legs ached from standing still for so
long.  There really was no room to sit, but some of the other
people had managed to crouch down a bit.  Andrzej and Vlada
were crouched beside him. Vlada had fallen asleep on Andrzej's
shoulder.

      Leaning on the wall, and trying not to push too hard at the
people around him, Bashir slowly slid down as best as he could.
Andrzej gave him a quick, small smile and sighed.  "*Jedziemy na
po udnie,*" he said.

      Bashir didn't understand a word.  *Well, this is it,* he thought.
He took a breath and was about to speak but hesitated.  He had a
thought.  It was worth a chance.  "Andrzej," he began, pronouncing
the name very carefully, "*parlez-vous francais?*"

      Andrzej regarded him confusedly for just a moment.  But then
he nodded.  "*Oui, un peu.*"

      Bashir sighed, much relieved.  "Good," he said, in English, then
he switched to French.  "*Mon francais est meilleur que mon--*"
He stopped.  He had never had to think how to say Polish in
French.  "*Polsky,*" he finished and gave a sheepish smile, hoping
that he'd at least come close with the word.

      Andrzej smiled too, but he didn't repeat his earlier statement.
He sighed heavily and looked up at the ceiling above them.  His
smile disappeared and he whispered, "*Nous allons mourir.*"

      It took a moment for Julian to get used to hearing French again.
He hadn't used it for over five years.  *We're going to die,* he
thought.  *That's what he said.*  He didn't want to hear that, even
though he knew there was a high probability that it was true.  He
didn't want Andrzej to think it.  "*Non,*" he told Andrzej, touching
him lightly on the shoulder.  "*Nous allons vivre.  Vous et moi et
Vlada.  Ensemble.* We're going to live," he repeated, more for
himself than for his companion.

      Andrzej looked over at him and shook his head, but Bashir saw
some hope in his eyes.  "*Non,* he said, "*nous allons mourir de
faim.  Nous n'avons pas de--*  He stopped looking for the word.
"*Jedzenia,* he said finally.

      Bashir couldn't understand the last word since Andrzej had
spoken it in Polish, but he could easily guess at what it was from
the rest of his statement.  *Food.  We don't have food.* As if in
response, Bashir's stomach rumbled again.  He look around.
Where he could see, he saw bags and suitcases.  The people that
had been put on the train in the morning had brought bags with
them.  Andrzej and Vlada had been arrested the night before.
They hadn't had time to prepare provisions.  They'd probably been
taken off the street just like himself.

      The train was moving very slowly.  *Even for this time,*Julian
thought.  *There must be too much weight on it, if they packed all
the cars as full as this one.*  In all truth, Bashir didn't expect they'd
find much food once they reached their destination, but they didn't
have a chance on the train, unless the new people shared.  They'd
all looked hungry and each of their bags was small.  They wouldn't
share with strangers.  They would feed their own families.  He
couldn't really blame them.

      *A replicator would be nice right about now,* he thought
ruefully.  He was beginning to get cold again, so he wrapped the
extra shirt tightly around his legs and stuck his hands back
down in the pockets of his coat.


      Ensign Mylea Thomas took a moment to stretch her fingers and
pop her knuckles.  Then she plunged her hands right back into the
circuits and conduits before her.  She only had the minimum
training in engineering that went along with being a pilot, but with
a careful schematic beside her, she could make progress.  With
only three engineers on board the ship, everyone was having to
pitch in.  It wasn't the most exciting work, but it was necessary.  As
much as Mylea loved history, she really had no desire to spend the
rest of her life in it, orbiting the planet in a wrecked starship.

      She wouldn't have minded visiting it though.  History, that is.
There was quite a time going on down there.  World War II.  It was
one of the most fascinating eras for her.  Mainly because it scared
her, horrified her.  She'd always been drawn to things like that.
Wieland had jokingly called her morbid.  Maybe he was right.

      She hoped he was alright.  He was one of the missing.  Like the
others, she hoped he was down on the planet.  And she hoped he
wasn't.  There were too many places to get into trouble.  He was
German.  There was a war going on to stop the Germans.  Nearly
the whole world was fighting them and their few allies.  It was a
dangerous place to be.  But it was the only place to be right now
besides the ship.  And he was not on the ship.

      As soon as the sensors were operational, they'd be searching for
him and the other missing crewmembers, so Mylea was happy
enough to be helping to fix them.   Chief O'Brien was pretty sure
the forward sensor array was hopeless, but with the laterals they
would be able to scan at least a part of the planet's surface.

      A wire snapped and shocked the tip of her finger causing her to
flinch back.  She shook her hand a few times while drawing a
quick breath in through her teeth.  The tingling faded and she
looked at her hand.  There was no wound.  *Just a mild shock,*
she thought, but she would try to be more careful in the future.


      The sun was dropping again and with it the already low
temperature.  The train moved slowly and noisily along the tracks,
its clanking and clamoring nearly drowning out the murmur of its
inhabitants.  There was not a lot of talking, except from the
children.  But Bashir was even surprised by them.  They were
pretty calm, all told.  They were hungry, but only the littlest among
them really complained.  *They've been doing this for awhile,* he
thought,* in the city.  They must have been rationing there as
well.*  It made him sad to think of the children.  Childhood was
supposed to be a happy time.  He knew that was not always the
case, but no child should have to live through this, to die like this.
He knew--how could he not know?--that most of them would not
survive.

      The ache in his own stomach was becoming harder to ignore
with each hour.  At least they seemed like hours to him.  He
couldn't really tell.  But it was sunset again.  He had been there for
at least a full day.  He hadn't thought he'd be on the train that long.
He suddenly wished he hadn't disabled his communicator just yet.
He could've tried to contact the ship again.  They might have
communications fixed.  Or sensors.

      But the hope faded as fast as it had come.  What could they do
about it?  They couldn't just beam him out of the train.  He took his
hands out of his pockets to rub his shoulders.  He couldn't feel his
feet anymore either, and wasn't sure it was from the cold.  He'd
been crouched in this cramped position for far too many hours.  He
needed to stretch and move around.

      Slowly, bracing his back against the wall, he inched himself up
to his full height.  He still couldn't move around, but he could feel
the blood returning to his feet.  About half the others in the train
were standing up, but most were leaning on each other, half-sitting
and talking quietly among themselves.  Occasionally someone
shuffled and pushed to get to the corner by the door.  A bucket had
been set up there for people to relieve themselves.  He could smell
it all the way on the opposite side of the train.  Every once in
awhile they would dump it out the crack beneath the door.

      Bashir thought about his time in ore-processing on Terok Nor
when he and Kira had accidentally ended up in a parallel universe.
It had been hot and dirty and hard work.  But he would trade it for
this in an instant.  On top of the cold, the foul, stale air, and the
hunger, was the unknown.  The only thing he really knew about
where they were going was that most of the people who arrived
were killed.

      One thing was the same as that ore-processing center.  He was
thirsty.  He hadn't had anything to drink in over a day, and his
mouth was dry and sticky.  But he couldn't ask any of the people
around him for water.  They barely had enough for themselves.
Looking out the window, he remembered the icicles.  It wasn't the
best way to get water, but as a doctor, he knew it was more
dangerous not to have water at all.  Reaching out into the frigid air
beyond the train, careful to avoid the barbs on the wire that
crisscrossed the window in a tangle, he snapped one of the icicles
off.

      But then he was in a predicament.  He couldn't pull his hand
back through the wire without dropping the icicle, and there were
too few of them left on the window to risk that.  Using his other
hand then, he pushed his fingers through on top of his other wrist.
Then he very carefully tipped the icicle up until it lay along his
extended hand and touched the fingers of the other.  Very slowly,
then, he pushed the icicle back toward his other fingers until he
could hold the tip of it and pull it through on its own.  But in his
haste once he had the icicle, he scraped his first hand extricating it
from the wire.  There was a trickle of blood, but it didn't hurt
much.  His hand was nearly numb already.

      It was a fairly large icicle, and he knew Andrzej and Vlada
would be thirsty too, so he broke off a piece of it and then
crouched back down.  Vlada was awake by now, watching him, as
Andrzej slept against him.  Bashir handed the larger piece of the
icicle to the boy, gesturing that he should share it with his cousin.
Vlada snatched it from him quickly and snapped the piece in two,
shaking his cousin's shoulder with his elbow before he hungrily
took a bite of his piece.  "*Dekuji,*" he said, still crunching the
ice.

      Bashir couldn't understand what he said, but he was sure it was
"thank you."  He noticed his own piece was beginning to melt in
his hand, so he followed Vlada's example.  It felt good to eat
something again, even if it was only frozen water.  The piece was
gone quickly though.


      A hand touched his shoulder.  "Benjamin," Dax's scolding voice
came from behind him, "is that all you're eating?"  She released his
shoulder and walked around the table to sit across from him.
Anyone else would probably see the same serene expression she
carried most of the time, but he could see Curzon in her eyes, and
just a hint of a mother's worry, rebuking him for not taking better
care of himself.

      "I'm not very hungry, Old Man," he said.  He looked down at his
plate again and picked at his food.

      Dax just gave him a small smile and reached across the table to
touch his hand.  Then she drew her hand back to cup the raktajino
that sat in front of her on the table.

      "Any luck with the transporter logs?" Sisko asked, taking
another small bite as she watched.


      "Not just yet," she answered unhappily.  "We lost parts of the
shuttle before the emergency force fields came down, too."

      Suddenly the lights in the mess hall became brighter.

      "Main power!" they said together and smiled.

      Sisko forgot his food and slapped his comm badge.  "Sisko to
O'Brien."

      "O'Brien, sir."

      "We've got main power?"

      "That we do, sir, but we'll still need to regulate our power
flows.  Keep things rationed a bit."

      "I'll work on it, Chief," Dax volunteered.

      Sisko was not quite through yet.  "What about sensors, Chief?"
he asked hopefully.

      "Well," the chief hesitated, "they were more damaged than I
first thought, but we should be able to get limited use of the port
lateral sensor array."

      "That's still good news, Chief.  Keep it up.  Sisko out."  He
turned to Dax with a brightness in his eyes that had been gone for
more than a day.  "Old Man," he grinned, "let's see if we can't find
our people."

      Kira was already on the bridge when they arrived.  She was
standing leaning over one of the consoles.  She looked up when
she heard the turbolift doors open.  "We're able to scan about two
percent of the planet's surface at a time.  It's not much, but it's a
start.  This is your planet, Captain, where do you suppose we
should begin?"

      "Start with the most heavily populated areas," Sisko replied,
making a guess.  Where would a changeling beam his people
anyway?  "If they're down there we should be able to get a signal
from their comm badges."

      Kira nodded.  "Right, sir."  She took her seat.

      The turbolift doors opened again, allowing Worf to enter the
bridge.  His face was still stern, despite their small victory over
main power and port lateral sensors.  He walked stiffly to Sisko's
chair and stood at attention.

      "What do you have to report, Commander?" Sisko asked.

      "Beyond the damage to the ship," the Klingon began, "we have
found little evidence of the changeling.  But what we have found is
quite conclusive."  He glanced at the PADD he was holding and
began his report.  "Dr. Bashir's medical logs indicate the
anomalous blood sample taken when the crew was blood-screened
before the ship departed Deep Space Nine.  It belonged to
Lieutenant Julie Whaley, whom the nurse identified as a
changeling.  His further logs indicate that the samples had been
destroyed, against his orders by that same nurse.  The computer
shows an equivalent amount of organic material destroyed in
sickbay at a time index three minutes after the power drain began
in the stasis unit."

      "So that's when the shapeshifter replaced Nurse Hausmann,"
Sisko interrupted.  He couldn't help but notice that Worf seemed
comfortable with this investigative role.  *Back in his element, I
suppose,* Sisko thought.

      Worf seemed annoyed by the interruption and rolled his eyes a
fraction of the way up to the ceiling.  Hardly noticeable.  "Yes, sir.
Nurse Hausmann," he continued, stressing the name to indicate
that it was not Nurse Hausmann at all, "continued to report for her
duty shift until just before we reached this sector.  We also noted
another sizable amount of organic matter disposed of during the
second night."

      That caught Sisko's attention.  "How much organic matter?"

      "That equivalent to one human female's arm," the Klingon
answered with satisfaction and handed the PADD he had been
holding to Sisko.  The computer had managed to reconstruct a
schematic of the organic material.  The changeling, for once, had
slipped up.  "Lieutenant Whaley's arm," Worf added for emphasis.

      Sisko heard a sharp breath drawn behind him.  Dax was looking
over his shoulder at the PADD.  "That explains a lot, Benjamin."

      "The blood in the sample," Sisko finished for her, "was human.
It was from Whaley's own arm.  The changeling destroyed the
samples, because it thought Bashir would figure it out if he had
them to study."  Another thought struck him then.  "He wasn't
alone."

      "Sir?" Worf asked, not understanding.

      Sisko looked up at him and then looked to Dax.  "Doctor
Bashir.  He wasn't alone.  Someone notified us that he'd been
transported.  No one notified us of the others."  He stood up and
quickly walked to the Engineering station.  The lieutenant sitting
there looked up at him over his shoulder.  "Can we find out where
the missing crewmembers were when they were last on this ship?"

      "Yes, sir," the lieutenant said, turning back to his console.
"Shouldn't be too much of a problem."

      Worf and the others waited silently.  Worf looked guilty, like he
was disappointed in himself for not finding out that information
before.  But then it was hard to tell with him.  Most of the time, he
hid his emotions well.

      "Got it, sir," the lieutenant said.

      "On screen."

      The large central viewscreen immediately came to life,
displaying a diagram of the ship in two planes, from the side and
from above.  Thirty-four points of yellow light  marked the
location of each missing crewman twice, once on each plane.  Just
looking at the overhead schematic, fourteen of them were largely
grouped together.  One of the others was in the transporter room.
One was in sickbay at least a deck above all the others.  Bashir.
The other was in the shuttle bay.  The changeling.

      "Show me a time index," Sisko ordered quietly, still watching
the screen.  "Put them up in the order they disappeared."

      The points of light winked out and then began to return,
beginning with the transporter room and two small, yellow dots in
Engineering.  They expanded outward from there.  Just at the end
the light in sickbay popped on and then the shuttlebay.  "Show me
other life signs at that time on the ship, in a different color."

      The screen changed again, the schematics being filled in by
small red dots reaching into nearly all areas of the ship.
Forty-seven red and yellow dots per schematic.  The full crew
compliment.  Still, from Engineering out, there was a circle of
yellow dots without a single red to break them up.  Only Bashir
and the changeling and the transporter stood apart, yellows
surrounded by all red.

      "The changeling started here," Sisko said, pointing the
transporter room.  "And it transported all the crewman stationed in
this area, and then fanned out from there.  The shuttle's transporter
capacity is two.  Why did it skip from here," he pointed to the last
two dots to show up before the one in sickbay, "and then jump to
sickbay and only take Bashir?  There were other people there."  He
looked back at his officers.  Kira was watching him now too, and
he couldn't help but notice the concern in her eyes and wrinkled
brow.

      "Revenge," Worf stated bluntly.  "It was angry about the blood
samples, or the reprimand."

      Sisko raised his eyebrows questioningly, hoping Worf would
take the hint.  He did.  "His medical logs recorded a reprimand to
Nurse Hausmann--by this time the changeling--for destroying the
blood samples against his orders."

      Sisko remembered the blood he'd found in the transporter room.
It worried him even more.  The changeling had likely killed that
crewman in the transporter room, someone it probably had little or
no contact with.  His hopes of finding Bashir and the others alive
plummeted again.

      Everyone was too quiet, too still, watching him.  "Any luck yet,
Major?" Sisko asked returning to his seat.

      "Not yet, sir.  I've begun the search in the southeast section of
the largest continent.  The most populated, as you suggested, but
we're moving out of sensor range there."

      "We'll have to keep to daylight until the cloak is fixed.  Scan
wherever you can."


To Be Continued....



-- 
--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
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