Forwarded by the ASC-VSO 
Posted: Thu, 15 Apr 2004 05:06:06 GMT  
In: alt.startrek.creative 
From: Gabrielle Lawson  
 


Title: Oswiecim
Author: Gabrielle Lawson (inheildi@earthlink.net)
Series: DS9
Part: REP 33/42
Rating: [PG-13] (Violence)
Codes:

                Chapter Fourteen

      Ensign Thomas had returned to the ship that night before
Jordan left for the camp.  So for once, Jordan was there when the
report was given.  Doctor Bashir had been alive as late as the
fifteenth of February.  The Gestapo files recorded that he was
detained for three days under suspicion of espionage before being
returned to Birkenau.  Unfortunately, the files made no mention of
his prisoner number, his barracks, or the work detail he was
assigned to.  So, while the crew was a little more hopeful, they
were no closer to actually finding him.

      Jordan beamed back down and quickly joined with the next
group of men.  He was trying to make a systematic sweep of the
barracks, working his way in rows from south to north a section at
a time.  He had begun in the south western corner, nearest to the
construction site of the twin crematoria.  He could see the tall
chimney of the nearest one from where he stood.  It looked
finished, but the flames had not yet begun to shoot from its top.
But Jordan knew, like they all knew, that eventually all four new
crematoria would be finished, and then the slaughter would
increase.

      It would be so easy, he thought, to walk over there and
blow the whole thing up and then just beam away.  But he didn't
know what consequences such an act would have in the years and
centuries to come.  It might change everything.  It might make it
better.  Or it might make it worse.  The only future they knew of
for certain was their own past and, like it or not, that past included
the Holocaust and too many other horrors to count.  So in the
coming weeks, that chimney would learn to glow and a million
people would pass through this hell on their way to destruction.


      *Julian,* the voice called to him.

      *Go away,* he thought.  He knew the voice would not be
able to hear him, but he couldn't make the words come out.  All he
could do, it seemed, was breathe.

      *I'm not going away,* Julian, the voice stated evenly.
*You need me.*

      Julian opened his eyes to see who had spoken.  O'Brien
was kneeling beside him.  *I did need you,* Julian corrected, *but
you've gone home.  No one can help me now.*

      *You're wrong, Julian,* O'Brien said, taking a seat on the
floor.  *You can help you.  And I'll stay here until you don't need
me anymore.  Now get up off the floor.*

      Julian managed a hoarse whisper, "I can't."

      *Yes, you can,* O'Brien argued.  *You've done it before.
I've watched you.  You always get back up.  Haven't you
noticed?*

      Those two words had been very hard for Bashir, and, since
he knew it wasn't really O'Brien he was speaking to, he stopped.
O'Brien was just a thought he was having, so he answered in a
thought.  *Maybe if I don't get up, she won't knock me down
again.*

      *Maybe not,* O'Brien conceded, smiling a little, *but
you'll be trampled when everyone comes back after roll call.  And
they'll probably beat you to death for being in the wrong barracks.
Please, Julian, get up.*

      Julian couldn't argue with his reasoning.  But at least when
getting trampled, one only got hit on the outside.  Julian closed his
eyes, trying not to remember what it felt like to have that strand
squirming around inside him.

      *No, Julian,* O'Brien admonished.  Even with his eyes
closed, Julian could see him.  The Irishman leaned over to touch
his shoulder, but of course, it didn't work.  His hand passed right
through.  O'Brien was a ghost, or Julian was.  Only one was real,
and Julian felt unlucky in that he suspected it was himself.  But
O'Brien wouldn't simply go away just because he'd been called an
apparition.  *You have to get up.  Now, Julian, get up!*

      Julian decided that perhaps negotiation was in order.  *If I
get up,* he offered, *will you stop bothering me?*

      *Only when you're safe again.*

      *But I'll never be safe again,* Julian told him, rolling over.
*Can't you see that?*  "She'll kill me eventually," he whispered as
he gasped for air.

      *You've got to believe, Julian,* O'Brien encouraged as
Bashir lifted himself onto his knees with his good arm.  The other
hung loosely beside him.  It ached and weighed at his side like a
pendulum, but it hadn't dislocated this time.  The bandages had
held.  *That's it!  Keep going!*

      Bashir could no longer argue, even in his mind.  He was
too busy trying to stand.  The whole room seemed to wobble and
shake, but he found the bunks with his hand and climbed his way
back onto his feet.  O'Brien hadn't left, and he smiled up at
Bashir, clapping his hands together.  *I knew you could do it,
Julian.*


      Max had watched Bashir go that morning more confident
this time that he would return relatively unharmed.  Szymon was
more of a concern.  But he was a veteran of such selections, and he
managed to hide his sickness from the doctors.  For once, it was in
the prisoners' favor that they only made a cursory inspection of
one's health and physical condition.  Szymon was dying.  Max
could tell even though he was no doctor at all.

      Max had hoped to get some extra food during the day,
thinking that a double-ration of bread would give Szymon
strength.  But the *Blocksperre* had kept him away from the
trains, and Max knew by now that strength was something you lost
in Auschwitz.  It was not something to regain.  When night came,
Szymon was coughing again, and Bashir had still not returned.

      Just before curfew, Max heard the lock fall away from the
door.  Once again, he looked up to see Bashir standing in the
doorway.  It looked nearly the same as the night he returned from
Block 11, when Vlada and he had had to pick Bashir up off the
floor.  Bashir walked slowly, but not with his usual, careful gait.
He stumbled and, several times, nearly tripped on a hand or head
on the floor.  When he reached the bunk, Max reached down to
help him climb.  Bashir's eyes were unfocused, and his breathing
seemed wrong.  He was shaking when he finally climbed over the
top railing and collapsed onto the bunk just as he had before.  He
didn't even take his shoes off.

      Max leaned over to look at him.  He could see no obvious
injuries beyond what he'd had before.  But he could see that
Bashir's eyes were still opened.  He stared straight ahead and
hardly blinked.  The days of rest he'd gotten in the hospital were
used up.  Bashir was a Muselman again.  Max looked over at
Szymon, his other dying friend, and found that Szymon had been
watching the whole time.  He met Max's gaze and then sighed,
which started him coughing again.  He laid back down and once
again, Max was alone.


      Thomas had at first decided against Novak.  He would be
searching the *Sonderkommando* tomorrow.  He didn't need her
problems.  Dax though, like the other women, was finished
searching.  There was nowhere left for the women to go where
they wouldn't be questioned.  It was up to the men now.  Thomas
was glad to be back in her Starfleet uniform. Tomorrow, she and
the others would rejoin the duty roster.  But tonight they could
sleep.

      But the duty roster also showed that Commander Worf was
off duty.  By tomorrow, Dax's shift and his would be
incompatible. They only had this one night, and Thomas knew
they would be together.  She couldn't disturb them.  So she kept
her dreams and memories for one more day and went to bed.  As
sleep took her, she couldn't shake the feeling that she'd broken a
promise.


      Novak beamed down early; he wanted to try and prepare
himself.  The ship would have been more comfortable, but he
wanted more solitude than its corridors of tiny quarters could
provide.  It was never night there, either, not in the real sense.
Night was a construction.  And so there was no real morning
either, and Novak wanted to be with the morning.  He remembered
how his grandmother used to rise early and begin baking bread
even before the sun would rise.  It was comforting to smell it
baking while he was still under the warm feather comforter with
the cat curled at his feet.  He always felt serene there, at peace.
And that was what he needed now before he went to search the
*Sonderkommando.*

      But it wasn't quite the same.  From where he stood, on the
edge of the camp, he could just see the light beginning to rise on
the horizon.  But it dissipated quickly in the smoke that hung
overhead.  There was no warm blanket.  He turned up his collar to
the cold breeze which stung at his nose and cheeks.  The sweet,
awful smell of burning flesh hung in the air too heavy to be moved
by the breeze.  There was no serenity to be found, no way to prepare.

      The rest of the camp was just beginning to rise, but the
*Sonderkommando* was already busy at work.  They were kept in
a different part of the camp, separate from the other prisoners.
They worked in shifts, right through the night and all day long,
burning the bodies of the dead.  Novak headed toward them and
tried not to look at the bodies.  He kept his eyes off the ground and
only looked at the faces of the prisoners.

      Like the others, their faces were gaunt, their cheeks sunken
from hunger.  But there was a difference born of their merciless
work.  Many of them dared to look right at him as he passed.
There was no fear left in their eyes, and no hatred.  Their eyes
were cold, devoid of feeling.  They had been forced beyond the
boundary of decent men.  They went about their work
methodically, scarcely noting the people the bodies used to be.
They pulled gold teeth from the mouths of men and cut the hair
from women.  Children who used to play were piled onto the fire
with little effort.  But their eyes told Novak that they saw
everything.  They felt everything and they knew that they would
be made to walk into the gas as well.  In a few months, someone
else would be pulling their teeth and lifting them onto the fire.


      Julian was still awake when Max shook him to wake him
up.  He had stayed awake the whole night, listening as O'Brien
talked of his children, of the future, of the life Bashir might have
lived.  And with the first rustlings of the other prisoners rising,
he'd watched O'Brien walk away.  *Time for dreaming is over,
Julian,* he had said.  *Now it's time to live.*  But Bashir knew
what he really meant.  It was time to work, time to get up and eat a
bird's rations and stand in the cold for three or four hours while all
around men dropped dead.  It was time to meet Heiler and let her
beat him for working too slow.  The initial pain of what she'd
done was gone, leaving only a dull ache in his chest.  He would be
able to do all those things.  But it wasn't life.  Life was something
that O'Brien could return to, but that Bashir never would.

      Still, he got up.  He joined the line for bread and ate it
when it was given to him.  He ignored Max and his looks of
concern.  He was beyond the need for concern, and Max's
friendship could only end in the end of Max.  Instead, Bashir
looked for the man whose face the changeling had worn the day
before.  He kept his eye on him as he ate and followed him when
he went to the latrine for fear of losing him in the crowd.  He saw
him come back out again just as the *Blockalteste* began to herd
them all toward the *Appellplatz.*

      "Where are you going?" a raspy voice asked from behind.

      Bashir turned only part way; he didn't want to lose sight of
the other man.  Szymon had asked the question.  He was leaning
on Max, kind Max, who helped the sick and condemned as if they
were still in a normal world.  "A new kommando," Bashir
whispered to him.  He didn't feel like speaking out loud.  Bashir
answered him because Szymon was sick.  He knew that Szymon
would die on his own with or without friendship from Bashir.

      "What did Heiler do to you?" Szymon asked.

      *Nothing I could tell you about,* Bashir thought in answer.
"What about you?" he asked in return.  "The selection."

      "We are still here," he answered,  "Max and I."

      "Try to stay warm, Szymon," Bashir suggested.  "And get a
good place in line for soup."  Szymon smiled at him. Bashir didn't
smile back.  He wanted to tell him not to die today, but the words
were too much.  He turned to look toward the *Appellplatz,* but
the man was gone.  He'd have to try and find him again after roll
call.

      "*Los, los, zum Appellplatz!*" the *Blockalteste*
screamed, and the three of them ran to catch up to the block and
join the ranks.


      Jordan watched the others leave and ducked back inside the
barracks.  He slid under one of the bunks and hid there until he
heard the block elder leave.  He was just about to climb back out
when he noticed another pair of eyes watching him from the end
of the room closest to the door.  They were young eyes, full of
fear, but surrounded by the face of an old man.  *This place will
do that to you,* Jordan thought.  He couldn't beam out as long as
that young man was there.

      Both of them lay there silently watching each other for
perhaps half an hour before the boy spoke.  "I can't go out there,"
the boy told him.  He didn't have to speak loudly, Jordan could
hear.  "I can't."

      Jordan didn't know what to say.  He certainly wasn't going
to squeal on the kid.  He was hiding himself.  The world outside
was insane and brutal.

      "They killed my father, you know," the boy said.
"Yesterday, right in front of me.  He was supposed to be in the
next barracks.  He came to give me an extra bit of bread.  The
block elder beat him, smashed his face in.  Right in front of me."

      "Shh," Jordan said.  The boy was half-crazed and was
beginning to speak louder.  "They'll hear you."  Still Jordan's
stomach turned at what he had heard.  He doubted the boy's
sanity; he didn't doubt that he was telling the truth.

      "And he took the bread," the boy nearly shouted.  "Ate it
with my father's blood still on his hands.  They made me carry
him outside.  Did you see him last night, lying in the snow?"

      Jordan shook his head.  He couldn't tell the young man that
he'd been in a different barracks the night before.

      "Now there's no one," he said, quiet again.  "My mother
and my sisters are gone.  They were too young.  They went to the
smoke.  Now there is only me."  He stopped and a gloomy silence
filled the spaces beneath the bunks.

      It was filled again by the sound of shouting and of feet
running, slapping and slurping in the mud.  The door burst open
quickly and the boy froze.  Jordan did too, though he reached his
hand slowly into his pocket.  They found the boy first and grabbed
his feet.  He screamed as they pulled him out.  "Help me!" he
shouted.  "They'll kill me like they killed my father!"  He tried to
hold on to the bunk but there were two pairs of legs that Jordan
could see.  The boy wouldn't be strong enough.  They pulled him
free, and Jordan could hear the thump when they hit him.

      "There's someone else!" he cried from where he was
sprawled on the floor.  "There!"  He pointed right to where Jordan
lay under the bunks.

      "There was only one missing number," one of them
argued, bending down to lift the boy.  He struck him and again the
boy fell.

      "But he's there!" he choked out with obvious effort.  A
leather-booted foot caught him in the ribs.

      "Go see," the leader sighed, and Jordan watched the other
set of legs move down the barracks toward him.  They still
couldn't see him, not until they bent down.  It was dangerous to try
and beam out with them in the room, but there was no choice.  All
the second man had to do was bend over and look under the bunks.
Jordan would be dragged out and beaten just like the boy.  Of
course, unlike the boy, he still had strength enough to fight back,
but it would only cause more commotion, more attention, and he'd
still be unable to beam back to the ship.

      The boots came to the end of Jordan's bunk and stopped.
Jordan tapped the comm badge in his pocket four times.  When the
man bent down to look underneath, he saw nothing.  He snorted
once.  "It was some sort of trick," he called to the other man.
"There's no one there."  He returned to the other man and helped
him to drag the barely conscious young man to the *Appellplatz*
to be counted with the others.


      The more he walked among them, the more Novak found
his eyes drawn to the bodies.  He couldn't help it.  Bashir might be
one of them, too.  But even the children drew his eyes.  Their
motionless forms shouted for his attention and broke his heart.  He
wanted to shout with them.  Children were supposed to play, to
laugh and learn.  They were supposed to grow up, to become
someone.  They were the future and here they were slaughtered,
being put into the fire.  It was wrong and Novak silently, secretly
raged against it.

      He was glad when he could finally leave them, though he
felt guilty for it.  He felt he had betrayed them by keeping silent
even though he knew his one voice would not stop the killing.  He
was sure he would see their faces for the rest of his life.  But for
now he left them and the sad men who burned them and moved on
to crematoria.  Only two of them were nearing completion.
Number IV would be done within days, and its ovens were already
being tested.  The *Sonderkommando* would work here as well,
firing the ovens to test them for defects.  Once the engineers were
satisfied, the body-burning would start to take place inside, and the
infamous chimneys of Auschwitz would spill forth their smoke
filled with the ash of the children Novak had seen outside.

      It was hot inside the building, and haunted, though no one
had been gassed there yet.  Novak wondered why the Nazis didn't
feel it.  Didn't the dead voices of the children follow them to bed
at night?  Didn't the screams of the women pierce their hearts, the
choking of the men foul their stomachs, the stench of the dead
burn their lungs?  Were they not at all human anymore?
Sometimes, when they weren't watching, he looked at them trying
to see the difference between himself and them.  They looked so
normal, just like men.  It made no sense.

      Prisoners inside the building had removed their coats or
simply not worn them at all.  They shoveled fuel into the ovens
while the SS and the engineers watched.  Novak could hear them
talking.  There were problems with Crematoria II.  Novak would
be searching that one after lunchtime.  It was supposed to be
finished by now and processing transports.  Novak couldn't
understand when they discussed the actual problems.  They were
too far away, and the words were too technical, words he had never
learned.

      The prisoners here didn't even look up when he passed
them.  He pretended to be checking the ovens as they worked so
that he could get a look at their faces.  They worked fearfully, and
just as somberly as the men outside.  They were aware of his
presence, but they didn't acknowledge it.  They all looked old with
their haggard faces, though Novak could tell that some of them
were still quite young.  For some, the stubbly hair that showed
beneath their caps had turned gray.  The work had aged them.
Mud caked on their wooden clogs showed that they had worked
outside.  They knew what would burn in the ovens they were
testing.  These were the poorest of men.


      The ache in Bashir's chest had increased during the
morning.  All his aches and pains had increased, and he was glad
for the chance to sit and drink the murky soup that was his lunch.
The work here was harder than what he'd been doing at the
crematoria.  This kommando was building barracks, and Bashir
had to work with lumber.  He was constantly lifting and
hammering.  His whole body had to work, and many parts of his
body didn't have the strength.

      The *kapo,* too, made the work harder.  He was a brutal
man, and he would beat his fellow prisoners whether or not the SS
were watching.  He wore a green triangle on his uniform.  Red was
for communists, pink for homosexuals.  Green, if Bashir
understood it properly, was for criminals.  Three men were dead
before lunch and a fourth was beaten into a coma.  Bashir didn't
doubt that the man had been a murderer in his previous existence
in the world beyond Auschwitz.  He was one of the few who
hadn't had to change his vocation upon entering the camp.

      Heiler kept his distance, letting the *kapo* keep the
prisoners in line. Whenever Bashir caught site of him, he was
conferring with the other SS.  He wasn't completely preoccupied
however.  One of the dead belonged to him, and Bashir suspected
that he was proving his worth to his new coworkers and
reemphasizing a point with Bashir.  The man he had killed was the
one Bashir had followed to work after roll call.  There would be
more room in the bunk when he returned tonight, though he was
sure he'd be too sore and too exhausted to appreciate it.

      When the *kapo* decided they'd had enough time for
eating, he began to yell again, kicking prisoners in the back until
they poured the rest of their soup out on the ground.  Bashir
poured his out voluntarily before the man reached where he was
sitting.  His life was already forfeit.  A few milliliters of lukewarm
water wouldn't make a difference.  Pain would.  He had more than
enough already.  He wondered why Heiler had chosen this
kommando for him.  He doubted he would last long here.

      Bashir returned to the lumber pile and lifted one of the
boards with his right hand.  He lifted his leg and let the board rest
against his knee while he wrapped the warped and crooked fingers
of his left hand around it.  He did it quickly, not wanting to give
the *kapo* a reason to watch him.  His hand was numb so he
didn't feel pain, but he also didn't feel the wood.  He couldn't grip
the board well, and it often tried to slide from his grasp.  He had to
hold most of the weight with his right hand which had also lost its
feeling.  It was only by sheer luck that he made it to the partially-
built barracks every time without dropping it into the mud.

      But luck hadn't been with him since he was abducted from
the ship, and the board began to slip from his fingers.  He couldn't
catch it with his left hand, the broken fingers wouldn't move the
ways he needed them to.  He tried to hold it with his right, but it
fell, catching him on the shin of his bruised leg.  He didn't have
time to contemplate that explosion of pain however.  Another one
had erupted on his back.

      The blow came so quickly and so powerfully that it drove
him instantly to his knees.  The second was just as hard,
punctuated by the *kapo*'s crazed screams.  "*Ungeschicktes
Judenschwein!  Heb es auf!  Heb es sofort auf!*"

      Bashir's left arm wouldn't hold him, and he fell over,
rolling on his back.  He could see his attacker now, and the two-
by-four he was using to beat him.  He was also in a position to see
the man choke.  It was amazing.  In the middle of one of his
tirades, just as he swung the board around again, a long strand of
leather had wrapped itself expertly around his throat.  Bashir
followed it back to the whip handle in Heiler's grip.  The
changeling pulled hard, and the board simply fell out of the kapo's
hand.  "*Das ist mein Jude,*" Heiler said calmly, releasing the
whip.  "*Wenn irgendjemand ihn verprugelt, dann ich!*"

      The *kapo,* still gritting his teeth and rubbing his neck,
nodded his assurances and even bowed, cowering before the SS.
Heiler must have been satisfied, because he turned his back on the
*kapo* and returned to wherever he had been.  "*Steh' auf!*" the
*kapo* growled at Bashir, scowling.  "*Zuruck zur Arbeit!*"  He
walked away without so much as a kick, leaving Bashir to pick
himself up out of the mud.

      He felt dizzy and he couldn't stand up straight, but he
could see the glares of the other prisoners.  Heiler had showed
favor with him, saving him from a beating that might have killed
him.  But it appeared she had also set him up as a favored prisoner,
a traitor of sorts to the others in the kommando.  They would hate
him.  Bashir couldn't really complain.  They wouldn't dare touch
him.  They feared the SS more than anything, and he wouldn't
make any friends.


      Novak approached the construction site with a little
surprise.  Crematoria IV and V had had a rather innocent
appearance, looking like brick boxes with chimneys, but the two
he approached looked like nice houses or small country mills.
They didn't look like killing factories, and yet these two would
'process' even more people than the two near the pyres.  The first
one he came across was a flurry of activity.  They were still laying
bricks there and digging into the mud for the underground cellars
where the people would die.  There was months of work left to do.

      There was less going on at the farthest one, Crematoria II.
A construction kommando was still working there, but only on the
final touches.  It was for the most part, finished.  But there were
problems.  The SS had been complaining about it.  The ovens
weren't right, or the door to the chamber didn't seal.  Something
was holding it up.  Crematoria IV would open first. The
*Sonderkommando* might still be inside though, training
themselves or testing the ovens.

      Novak stayed at the unfinished one for several hours,
watching the prisoners, looking for Bashir among them.  The
ovens there weren't fully installed yet.  It didn't have the
menacing look that the others did.  He wasn't in a hurry to see the
ovens of Crematoria II, but he knew that he had to go there.  From
where he was, he couldn't see any other SS guarding the prisoners,
but he knew they had to be around.  He could see the *kapo,* and
hear him haranguing the prisoners on the construction squad.  The
*kapo* had his back to Novak, and didn't see him approaching.
Novak watched as he grabbed a passing prisoner and cringed
inwardly when he realized the man was about to be beaten.

      But the *kapo* didn't beat him.  He even stopped yelling.
He was talking to the man.  Stevens, on the engineering staff, had
been showing his particular brand of genius lately and had
designed little gadgets to aid the away team in their search.  Novak
pulled out such a gadget from his inner breast pocket now.  It was
very small, slightly larger then a pea.  It looked like one of the
hearing aids Novak's grandmother had worn after her hearing had
started to go.  She wouldn't go to the doctor for surgery.  She was
stubborn that way.  He placed the device in his ear now, and the
sound of the construction became a roaring din.  But equally as
loud was the conversation between the *kapo* and the worker.

      "The Englishman isn't here today," the *kapo* was saying.

      "A different kommando," the worker said, and amazingly,
his voice didn't sound fearful.  He did sound hoarse though.  He
coughed once and then added, "Heiler went that way, too."

      "Good for us," sighed the *kapo.*  "You should work
before they see you."  He tapped the worker on the shoulder and
then went back to screaming at the prisoners.  Novak didn't bother
approaching.  The conversation had just saved him another look at
the *Sonderkommando.*  But more importantly, it let him know
that Bashir was alive that morning, provided he was the
Englishman they spoke of.

      *My God,* Novak thought.  *He was right here.*  He
needed to contact the *Defiant.*  Novak turned around, removed
the device and walked away from the construction site.  It was too
bad they hadn't said which kommando the Englishman had gone
with.


      Sisko was finding it harder to sit still now that they knew
where Bashir was.  When it was all still up for grabs, he could
keep himself calm, focus on other things.  But now, with the ship
almost as repaired as they could get it, and Bashir somewhere in
the camp below them, he was antsy.  It was doubly hard sitting
still while the away team went down day after day looking for
him.  He had traded shifts with Worf so that he could see them off
in the morning.  Then he just waited all day for them to return so
he could hear what they had found.  He knew they were doing a
good job, making a thorough search.  But that didn't shake the
irrational feeling that he could do it better.  He would really just
feel more useful if he could be there, searching with his own eyes.

      He had told the crew to assume that Bashir was alive until
they had proof otherwise.  But now he was beginning to doubt his
own order.  Every day that went by put them farther behind Bashir
and put Bashir closer to death--if he had still been alive to start
with.  He knew that others in the crew felt that way, too, but they
wisely kept it to themselves.  The away team surprised him
though.  They were the ones that faced the horror day after day,
yet they were the most optimistic.  They were very determined
that they would keep going back until they'd searched every inch
of the camp if that was what it took.  He was proud of them.  He
had already filled out the paper work for commendations.  He just
had nowhere to file them at the moment.

      "Captain," Kira called from the helm.  "We're receiving an
urgent signal from Lieutenant Novak."

      "Beam him aboard," Sisko ordered, coming up behind her.

      "He wants to stay, actually," she told him.

      *Strange,* Sisko thought.  The away team usually didn't
call unless they needed transport. "Put him through."  Kira pressed
the control and then nodded that the connection was established.
"What is it, Lieutenant?" Sisko asked.

      "I heard two people talking, sir.  The *kapo* and a worker
from a construction detail.  The worker told the *kapo* that 'the
Englishman' had a different kommando today.  Just changed.
Apparently he was there the day before, sir."

      Sisko froze.  He didn't mean to.  He just stopped moving.
He even stopped breathing for a moment.

      When there was no reply, Novak spoke again.  "I'm going
to stay and keep looking, Captain.  It's got to be him."

      Sisko nodded, though, of course, the Lieutenant couldn't
see it.  "Yes, do that."  And then he regained his composure.  He
was the captain after all.  He couldn't to go into shock at every
piece of news.  Good news.  He smiled.  "Good work, Lieutenant.
We'll let the others know.  *Defiant* out."

      Kira was smiling, too.  In fact, the whole bridge crew was
on the verge of cheering.  All the others had been found.  Bashir
had been their focus for almost a month.  And he was alive.


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

http://www.trekiverse.us/ASCAwards/commenting/

No Tribbles were harmed in the running of these Awards

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