Forwarded by the ASC-VSO 
Posted: Thu, 15 Apr 2004 04:58:22 GMT  
In: alt.startrek.creative 
From: Gabrielle Lawson  
 


Title: Oswiecim
Author: Gabrielle Lawson (inheildi@earthlink.net)
Series: DS9
Part: REP 25/42
Rating: [PG-13] (Violence)
Codes:

                Chapter Eleven

      Max wrapped his coat tighter around him against the biting
wind.  He also didn't want the SS to know about the bread he had
hidden beneath it.  A full loaf.  He had found it on the train,
wrapped in a shawl beside a dead woman.  She wouldn't need it
anymore.  A few weeks ago, the sight of her might have bothered
him, but he'd seen many such bodies now.  Death was easy in
Auschwitz.  It was survival that was hard.

      The *kapo* took them by the quarantine camp before
heading back.  The flood lights from the outer fence lit it in an
eerie glow.  Max glanced in as he passed, hoping to see that Vlada
was still well.  Well enough, anyway.  He counted the barracks as
he passed until he found Vlada's.  There were several men still
milling about in front of the barracks, but Max didn't recognize
any of them.  He could see the *Blockalteste* though.  He
stomped around, yelling incoherent commands and smacking
those prisoners he could reach.

      A whisper passed down the rows of the kommando like a
breeze passing over a field of wheat.   A few seconds and it was
gone, hardly drawing the attention of anyone who wasn't poised to
notice it.  The SS marched on.  But Max had heard it.  There was
something in the fence.  He strained his neck to see what it was the
whisper was referring to.  He could make out a dark figure there,
silhouetted against the orange haze of the flood lights near the
corner where the road led deeper into the camp.

      The kommando moved quickly and the form grew closer.
Max could now see that it was a man.  His arms raised high; his
hands clenched the electrified wire.  He wore nothing, and his
head faced up to heaven--if it was still there.  As they neared the
corner, Max could see the pile of striped clothes, neatly folded,
just beside him.  A pair of real, leather shoes graced the top of the
pile.  Max pushed the man beside him just a little to get a better
look.  The man had hair, short and stubbly, but no shorter than
Max's.  He wasn't new to quarantine.  And he wasn't emaciated.
His bones didn't protrude against his skin like so many of the other
prisoners, especially those in quarantine.  Max rounded the corner
and the face came into view.  Vlada's face, young and troubled,
released of its pain.  His blinded eyes looked up through the murky
smoke to where the stars were supposed to be shining.  The line
ran on and Max with it.

      Roll call was longer that evening.  Someone was late.  It
was quite dark by the time they found him.  Max wasn't sure why
he was late.  He didn't really care.  He only wanted to move his
legs, to get out of the wind and to eat his bread.  And he wanted to
stop thinking about Vlada.  *At least Vlada had chosen his own
way,* he consoled himself.  But, still he felt a loss.  *He would
have died anyway.*  He could have had a life though, had not the
Nazis started this war.  He was young, full of life, innocence, and
dreams.  The Nazis took away his dreams, the *Blockalteste* took
his innocence, and Vlada, left with nothing, gave up his life.

      The late man was beaten and lain by the corpses and the
count went on.  This time the numbers matched up.  The roll call
was over.  Max hurried to get his evening ration, wondering if he
should tell Bashir about the boy.  The doctor had enough
problems.  He had been quite saddened by Henri's demise, and
Max thought that he blamed himself for it.  For the last few days
he had looked very much like when he was released from the
Death Block.  He spoke very little and never looked directly at
anyone.

      Max found the barracks at the same time everyone else did
and had to push his way inside through the crowd.  Still guarding
the bread beneath his coat, he shoved his way through to his bunk
and climbed up to the top.  Szymon was already there.

      "I have bread," Max told him, speaking German since that
was a language Szymon understood.  Then Max noticed that Piotr
was not with him.  They were always together. He thought for a
moment about asking Szymon where he was, but the blank stare on
Szymon's face, and the blood spattered on his right shoulder, told
the answer already.  Piotr was dead.  Best not to talk about how or
why.

      "Heiler killed him," Szymon said suddenly, as if he had
known what Max was thinking.  "He was my brother."  He said
nothing else after that.  Max held out some bread to him, and he
took it.  Max had also noticed that Bashir wasn't with him.  He
was afraid to ask about the doctor.  But then, Bashir didn't
normally come straight inside.  He always sat awhile outside,
looking up through the smoke to the stars.  Max wasn't sure why
he did that.  It wasn't much warmer inside the barracks, but at
least one could get out of the wind.  And the sheer multitude of
bodies raised the temperature a few degrees.

      When the call came from the *Blockalteste,* warning that
the door would be locked in ten minutes, Max began to worry.
Bashir still had not returned.

      Szymon sat up.  "You should go and get him."

      Well, at least he was alive.  Max wondered though why he
wouldn't come in on his own.  Had Piotr's death meant so much to
him?  Perhaps he felt responsible for that too, as he had for
Henri's.

      He only had a few minutes more, so Max climbed down
and walked as quickly as possible to the outside door.  He nearly
tripped and he couldn't help but step on a few of the men sleeping
on the floor.  They yelled at him, but were already too weak to do
much else.

      The *Stubenalteste* was just about to lock the door when
he reached it.  Max was sure it was still a little early.  "Please,"
Max said, "two minutes.  There's someone still outside."  He
pulled the loaf of bread from his coat and handed it to the
*Stubenalteste.*  He had already broken off a little for Bashir and
himself.  "I thought perhaps you were hungry."

      The other man snatched the bread from him quickly.  "Two
minutes.  Then I shut the door, and you and your friend freeze to
death."

      Max thanked him and the *Stubenalteste* opened the door
a crack.   Max hurried outside, praying that the man would keep
his word and not lock the door right away.

      Bashir was just around the corner in his usual spot.  Only
this time, he leaned back against the wall, and he wasn't watching
the sky.  His head hung down, staring at his own hands as they lay
across his thighs.  He didn't move and Max thought maybe he had
already frozen.  But he moved when Max touched his shoulder.

      He looked up to see who had disturbed him, and Max was
stunned by his eyes.  Like with Szymon, there was an emptiness
there, a sight that looked through a person as if there was only air.
But there was also a sadness there, and it burned right through to
Max's soul.  Something bad had happened at work.  Something
involving Piotr and, Max was sure, Bashir as well.

      "We must go in," he told him, knowing that he wouldn't
understand the words.  Still the message should be clear enough.
Bashir didn't say anything, and his expression didn't change.  But
he did move.  Max took his good arm and helped him to stand.  He
wouldn't walk on his own, but he went where Max led him.

      The *Stubenalteste* kept his word, and the door was still
unlocked.  Max pushed Bashir through ahead of himself and led
him back toward the bunk.  The lights were already out, so it was
harder to step around the sleeping men.  Despite his daze, Bashir
moved carefully avoiding them with each step and not taking
another until he was sure the way was clear.  It was too slow, and
it annoyed Max, but he knew there was no point arguing.  Neither
understood the other, and, at the moment, Bashir didn't seem to be
able to speak in any language.  He moved automatically, not like a
man, and climbed the bunks on his own.  He undressed and laid
down quietly, not even bothering to take the bread that Max
offered.  Max wrapped it up again and stuffed it away.  He would
try again tomorrow.


      Sisko paced the transporter room.  The away team had
been gone for over seven hours already without a word.  He was
beginning to worry about them as well as the doctor.

      "They've gone as SS, sir," O'Brien reminded him.
"Nobody would dare touch them."

      "There were revolts in the ghettos," Sisko countered.  Still
he saw no point in furthering the argument.

      "Sir!"  It was O'Brien again, but this time, he was
concentrating on the transporter controls.  "I've got them.  They're
ready for transport."

      "By all means, Chief," Sisko sighed.  He felt better.  He
didn't want to lose any more people.  Sending them down as
Germans in with Germans was one thing.  But sending them down
among the Jews was different.  He knew they needed the
information, but he felt guilty for doing it, as if he was siding with
the Nazis.

      They materialized slowly, each one standing stoically,
stiffly on the pad.  But as the transporter released them, everything
about them changed.  Most notable was Lieutenant Novak's
reaction.  He threw off his coat and began to unbutton his jacket.
"The bastards!" he spat.  "I want to burn this."

      "And I'd like to watch," Thomas added dourly, "but we'll
probably be needing it later."

      Dax was quiet, her normally serene face now showed signs
of her true age.  She let herself collapse until she was sitting on the
pad.  "I have never seen anything . . . ," she began.  "I counted
fifteen dead children just lying on the street before we even made
it to the *Judenrat.*  And those that weren't dead . . . .  They
looked at me with such hatred.  And I had to look at them with
disgust!"  She looked up at him, pleading.  "That is the hardest
thing that I have ever done."

      Sisko's heart wrenched.  He had already imagined what the
ghetto must have been like.  But they still had a missing doctor
and a job to do.  "Did you get the transport number?"  By now, all
three away team members were sitting down.  The debriefing was
going to happen right there in the transporter room, appropriate or
not.

      "No, sir," Thomas answered.  "They're supposed to have it
for us tomorrow."

      "The *Judenrat,*" Novak explained, "was not altogether
cooperative, as you can imagine.  They hated me.  I hated me.
They kept trying to get around it.  They had a million things to do.
We put too many demands on them already.  I had to order them
to look it up.  I had to yell at them.  I even had to threaten them.
And I still don't think they'll do it.  I wouldn't do it."

      "They'll have it," Thomas said quietly.  "He promised
me."

      "Who promised?" Sisko prodded.

      She looked up at him, and a tear fell down her cheek as she
spoke.  "One of the council members.  He was only too eager to
help.  He made me promise to save his family.  He has a little girl.
She's ten.  He showed me a picture."

      "Ensign," Sisko reminded her gently, "we can't save him."

      She nodded.  "I know.  But I'm SS."  She touched one of
the lightning bolt pins on her collar.  "I don't have to keep my
promises to a Jew."

      "I'm really beginning to hate Starfleet's Temporal
Displacement Policy, Benjamin," Dax said as she stood up.

      "Me, too."  Sisko looked at them.  The other two were still
sitting there.  They looked awful.  The ensign especially.  Novak
looked like he might explode; but Thomas looked broken.  He
could tell how much that one man had taken out of her.  If he did
die, she would feel responsible.  And she knew better than anyone
that he and his family probably would die.  "Can you go back
tomorrow?"  He asked the question of all of them, but he directed
it to Thomas.

      "We have to find him," she answered.  Sisko wasn't sure,
at first, who she was referring to.  "He can't survive much longer
down there.  And we're the only hope he has."


      Thomas didn't sleep that night.  She tried but when
she closed her eyes the man's image came to her, begging her to
have mercy.  And she would see her own image, too, pretending to
play along, laughing on the inside at this weak man crying to a
woman to save him.  She would wake up with a start only to do it
all over again when she dozed off.  So finally, she had given up,
leaving her quarters to offer her help to engineering.  She had
spent the night replicating and replacing burnt out transtators.  It
wasn't exciting work, but it kept her busy and moving around.

      When morning came, she was dressed and waiting in the
transporter room for the others to arrive.  She really didn't want to
go back down there, but she knew she had to.  The doctor was
counting on them.  She wasn't quite sure how, but she had decided
yesterday that he was still alive.  It gave her the strength to lie to
that man, even if it didn't assuage her conscience for doing so.

      The captain and Major Kira were there to see them off as
usual.  "Get the information and then get back," Sisko ordered.
"Try not to look at them."

      The away team was quiet.  None of them wanted to talk.
They were trying to prepare themselves for another walk through
the ghetto.

      "Ready for transport," Dax finally said.  The transporter
took them immediately, depositing them in the same alley from
which they had departed the day before.
      "I'm supposed to meet him alone by the pharmacy," Thomas
whispered, not looking at either of them.

      "We'll work on the *Judenrat,*" Dax said.  "Meet us there
when you have it.  And be careful, Ensign."

      Thomas nodded and took a deep breath before heading out.
A few Jews were walking by and they stepped out into the street,
keeping a distance of at least two meters away from her.  Others
saw her and hurried away back into the dilapidated buildings that
served as their dwellings.  Others stayed right where they were,
begging on the street or looking back at her with unrestrained fear
and loathing. It took a lot of energy and conscious effort not to
show her sympathy for them and abhorrence of their plight.  Some
showed no emotion at all.  They were the dead.

      The stench from them, from rotten food, and from sewage
made her nauseous, but she continued on. Her stomach ached with
anxiety.  Lying to the man was harder than even feigning hatred
for the ghetto's inhabitants.  As she walked past them, even those
dying of hunger, moaning on the sidewalks, she felt a distance
from them.  They were faceless people.  The man though, the one
that had been brave enough to ask her for help, was real.  He spoke
to her.  He had even touched her sleeve.  She didn't know what to
tell him.  She only hoped he had the information with him, so that
she could leave as quickly as possible.

      He was waiting for her.  He stood by the door to the
pharmacy, tugging absently on his beard.  He saw her and stepped
inside before she had even crossed the street.  Thomas looked to
see if anyone had noticed.  She didn't want the man to get into
trouble for meeting with her.  She felt guilty enough for lying to
him.

      The large, heavy, glass door squeaked when she opened it.
The room was dark inside.  There was no electricity and the
windows were covered to keep out the drafts.  The only light in the
main room was that which streamed in through the door.  There
was a woman behind the counter.  She looked up suspiciously, but
then nodded, tilting her head to one side.  Thomas followed the
movement with her eyes.  A small hallway led off behind the
counter.  The glass door opened behind her and another man
entered.  He saw the uniform Thomas was wearing and turned
right around to leave.  She let him go and stepped behind the
counter into the hallway.

      She did have a thought that this might be a trap.  She was
alone now.  The man had lured her off the street into a darkened
building.  They could kill her easily, hide her body.  The Germans
wouldn't even know, and they'd have a least a little revenge.  Still
she had to take the chance.

      The man was waiting there and he motioned her into one of
the rooms that lined the corridor.  "I think I have the information
you need," he told her.  He took a piece of paper from his pocket.
His hands shook as he held it out to her.

      She reached out to take a hold of it, but the man didn't let
go.  "How will you save my family?"


      "How can we find this information, *Herr
Oberscharfuhrer?*"  One of the members asked.  "You do not
know the date of the transport or where it was going.  We need
more information if we're to find the information that you
require."

      Novak sighed, convinced the old man before him was
merely stalling for time.  Passive resistance.  He admired it, but it
was annoying when he was on the receiving end.  "We can't give you
any more information without knowing the transport number."
Thomas had been gone now for well over an hour, and Novak was
beginning to worry about her.  She was a trained Starfleet officer
and could probably take care of herself against these half-starved,
emaciated ghetto residents.  But the delay could simply mean that
she hadn't gotten the information they needed.  And if that were
true, he had to get it from the *Judenrat.*

      "There have been many transports, *Herr
Oberscharfurher.*"

      "This one probably left here between February 6th and
February 8th," Novak repeated.  "Surely you can tell me the
numbers of all the transports on those days?"

      "We will try to find this information, of course, *Herr
Oberscharfuhrer.*"  And try they did, or at least they made a good
show of it.  Novak wondered if they were trying to protect
someone, someone who was on one of the transports.

      Suddenly the door burst open behind them.  "*Herr
Oberscharfuhrer!*"

      It was Thomas.  Novak glared once more at the man he'd
been dealing with and met her at the door.

      "*Wir mussen gehen,*" she said plainly.

      *We have to go.*  It meant she had the information.  They
didn't need the *Judenrat* anymore.  But then, they couldn't just
turn around and leave either.  Novak turned back to look at the
man.  He and several others were just staring at them.  Then again,
as Thomas had said, they *were* SS.  They could do what they
wanted.  Novak caught Dax's eyes and tilted his head toward the
door.  "I'll be back in five minutes," he threatened the man, "and
I'll want that information."

      He turned back to the door and stepped outside taking
Thomas by the arm as he did so.  Dax followed quickly.  He had
no intention of returning in five minutes or even five hours.  They
had the information.  It was time to get back to the ship and see
what it could tell them.

      As they walked back to the alley, Novak noticed a man
following them.  He stayed a good distance back and tucked
himself into doorways in order to appear inconspicuous, but he
was still too close for transport.  He was still behind them as they
neared the alley.  They'd have to go right out the gate.

      Thomas was watching him.  She turned her head back to
see what he was looking at.  She stiffened a bit and then nodded to
the man.  Then she pointed to the alley.  Novak took one more
look behind him.  The man was gone.


      Once safely out of sight, Dax called for transport.  Nothing
happened.  She removed the badge from inside her coat and tried
again.  "Dax to *Defiant.*"  When there was still no answer, she
put the badge away.  She felt her chest tighten.  She hated this
place and this time.  But she knew she couldn't panic.  Nor should
she.  The worst of the *Defiant*'s problems were over.  There was
no more sabotage, just repairs and glitches.  And that's probably
what this was.  Just a glitch.

      She looked at her away team, and for the first time she felt
like she belonged on this mission.  Both of them covered it well,
but she could see the panic just beneath the surface of their
expressions.  They may have known more about the history or the
language, but she was their superior officer and they looked to her
for guidance.  "They probably just lost communications while they
were working on the warp core.  Power surge.  They'll have it
fixed soon.  I don't know about the two of you, but I don't want to
wait around here for them to fix it.  I would assume our next step
is back in Berlin?"

      There was a moment's hesitation and then both Novak and
Thomas regained their composure.  Thomas especially. "Yes, sir,"
Thomas answered.  "We'll need Eichmann's office."  She handed
Dax a folded piece of worn paper.  "The
*Reichssicherheithauptamt* or something along those lines.  They
coordinated all the transports."  It was good to see her think again.
Dax could tell that, until recently, she had felt just as useless as the
Trill.  This had all been Novak's game.

      Dax looked at the paper Thomas had given her.  It
contained only numbers.  Some of them Dax could guess were
dates, since the last digits in the set were "43."  But it seemed to
her the months were wrong.   At first glance, Dax would have put
them in August or September, but then she noticed the middle
number was the same for all of them.  The day and the month were
transposed.  It was not June 2, but February 6.  The rest of the
figures on the paper must have represented transports and possibly
the number of people on each train.  The stardate Bashir had
marked on his comm badge fell neatly within the range of dates on
the page.  This was exactly what they had come for.

      "Good work, Ensign."  She noticed, though, the downward
cast of Thomas's eyes.  She probably felt guilty for her method of
acquiring it.  Dax decided it was best that neither of them dwelt on
it.  They had a job to do.  "Well, I guess we'll just have to take the
old-fashioned route.  How can we get to Berlin from here?"

      "Leaving the ghetto won't be hard," Novak supplied.  "Not
for us."

      "We should be able to catch a train from outside," Thomas
added.

      "Let's go then," Dax ordered.  "Lead the way, Lieutenant."


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
ASC Awards Tech Support

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