Path: newsspool2.news.atl.earthlink.net!stamper.news.atl.earthlink.net!elnk-atl-nf1!newsfeed.earthlink.net!border2.nntp.dca.giganews.com!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!ngpeer.news.aol.com!audrey-m2.news.aol.com!not-for-mail Lines: 612 X-Admin: news@aol.com From: gojirob@aol.comendspam (Rob Morris) Newsgroups: alt.startrek.creative Date: 27 Sep 2004 16:01:11 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Subject: NEW DS9 Telling, 6A/7, (post-Valiant), Jake vs. Nog Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Message-ID: <20040927120111.03961.00004208@mb-m19.aol.com> Xref: news.earthlink.net alt.startrek.creative:160921 X-Received-Date: Mon, 27 Sep 2004 09:02:29 PDT (newsspool2.news.atl.earthlink.net) Title : Telling Author : Rob Morris Contact : gojirob@aol.comendspam Archive : www.southroad.com/brightfame Series : DS9 Type : Follow-up to the events of the S6 DS9 episode, ‘The Valiant' Characters : Jake, Nog, DS9 Late S6 Cast, Retired Admiral P. Kirk, aged 115 Part : 6a/7 Rating : PG13, for rough tides in a friendship and in Starfleet Summary : The Dominion battleship that destroyed the Valiant has met its fate, -- Telling by Rob Morris Part Six If anyone had thought that the sequence of events that began with Admiral Leyton's misuse of Red Squad had ended with the destruction of the Dominion battleship that had claimed all but one of the cadets, it was not a thought held for very long. "Captain, we will not permit them to be continually slandered in this way. We can still go to the press. There are reporters out there who are not your ungrateful son!" Peter Kirk sat across from Ben's desk, his uncle's Admiral tunic safely back in storage, and listened to the angry parent Sisko was arguing with on-screen. "Mister Belham, my son is grateful for his life, as am I. And I would be grateful if you would consider the thought that taking a group of good kids who got badly lost and artificially raising them up to be heroic angels does them just as great a disservice as any percieved slander. Your daughter and all her comrades would now be unvarnished living heroes had they only headed home. The decision on their culpability stands. Starfleet is not the board of regents at a private school, and assigning responsibility for disaster is not detention or academic probation, to be threatened away. But I'll tell you what, sir. You keep on being concerned for their public images---and I will concern myself with the sobering sight of their names on the Wall Of The Fallen at Admiralty Hall! Sisko out." Ben sighed as he keyed in the codes to disallow further calls from that source. "I didn't just say that to a grieving parent, did I?" Kirk had an answer of sorts. "At the risk of sounding pathetically like a name-dropper, I once knew a great man whose huge wrenching grief over his son's murder nearly caused him to let a historic chance for peace slip away. Speaking of name-dropping, Ben, did you ever get any grief at the Academy, over your great-grandfather's actions?" It was a massively off topic question, and Sisko welcomed it. "By the time I was a cadet, Admiral Cartwright was a note in a history book. By then, he was just another cardboard villain stopped by---what was that man's name again?" Kirk smiled. "Ya know, I can never remember it?" "Plus, Pete--I didn't have the same last name." Kirk nodded. "Half the people expected me to be his heir apparent--" "Presumptive." "Yes, they were." Sisko shook a finger in the air. "No, I meant heir presumptive. A son is an heir apparent. A nephew can only be heir presumptive." Kirk's face turned into a deep scowl, and Sisko felt horrible, til the scowl broke apart in chuckles. "God, Captain--you are soooo easy to play!" Ben chuckled, too, but then got back on track. "Half the people---" "Yes. And half the people were determined that I should never be that. Half thought I was a disappointment, and half a threat. I was able to get through it all by reminding myself that Jim Kirk was as much as anything else a moment in history, never to be repeated. It probably helped that it was Jim himself who told me that." Sisko smiled. "The man had perspective." "He needed it. If he had listened to even one-tenth of either the criticism or the praise, he would have ended up---" Kirk nodded. "Pretty much like I did." Ben tried to shake him from that thought. "It wasn't your fault. What happened is well-documented as a side-effect of the process. And sir? You made one hell of a comeback from it." Peter Kirk also had some perspective. "A standard-bearer, Captain. Not a legend. Have you ever seen the musical play version of Camelot?" "Yes. It was among the things I watched in the holounits at Utopia Planitia after, well, after Wolf 359. Shelby could never see the point of it." "The woman has not a lick of romance in her soul. That's probably why she's so good at what she does. Do you remember how it ended?" Sisko grimaced a bit. "The fall of Camelot. The dying of the dream." Kirk actually began to smile again. "No. It ended with Arthur directing a little boy to run from the last battle and live, so that he can tell everyone that it wasn't just a myth. That incredible though it seems, there was a Golden Age. No matter how old I get, Ben--I am still that boy, and I will keep to what was asked of me." Sisko wasn't having it. "That's T.H. White, and Lerner&Loewe. Mallory, though, has a King Constantine who runs things after Arthur. His burden is incredible, for he stands in the reflected glory of Arthur. But you know what, Pete? Even to this day, there is a place called Britian. So maybe that forgotten king actually did an okay job." Kirk stopped feeling sorry for himself, and nodded. "Angling for that fifth pip, are we, Ben?" Just as Sisko was again thinking how sorry he would be to see the older man leave DS9, he was forcibly reminded by a message from Kira that Kirk might not be leaving to return to his family, or even be staying in the Federation. "Send him in, Major." His name was Travek, and if his displeased look seemed more pronounced than the normally somehwat dour Romulan aspect, this was not just imagined on Sisko's part. He looked at Ben with raw contempt, and at Kirk with a half-sneer that seemed to indicate a target had been acquired. "The agreement has been wholly violated. Admiral Kirk is to surrender himself into our custody immediately." --- "Talk to me!" As fervently as he had traveled the station to discredit him only a week ago, Nog now traveled it to speak to him. He sought doggedly to gain back one of the few things he could ever truly call his own, Ferengi beliefs about property aside. "Talk to me!" Jake was not going out of his way to avoid Nog. But nor was he seeking him out. "The tribunal is over. You can talk to me now." Jake finally turned from his stride and looked at him. "Like we talked on board the Valiant, when I asked too many questions? Like we talked at the Academy, when I cramped your style?" "Oh, please, Hu-mon! You have a fairly long list of blatant stupidities yourself. I mean, your one girlfriend was a disembodied entity of some kind. I mean, what is it with the men in your family and women who dwell on the higher planes of existence?" Jake folded his arms, and then looked around. Seeing that they were alone, he spoke some less-than-reverent words. "Grandma---smite him, please." "Funny. Now how about we have this out?" Jake moved for his father's quarters. "Nog, we had a good run. But we've grown too far apart. We've seen that about five times now. Let's leave it where it is, before it ends--maybe literally--with us at each other's throats. In the future, I'd rather run into a good childhood friend I parted ways with than an enemy I have to avoid. Where we aboard Valiant? While we are together, that is where we're always gonna end up. I'm not standing here as Mister Pure, Nog. I'm just standing down from the battle. I'm stepping away from the chasm, and I'm suggesting you do the same." Furious, Nog walked away without responding to Jake's invalid argument. Why was he at this point, Nog wondered? And why did it seem all-too familiar? As he entered Rom's quarters to have dinner, he could not have realized all the whys and the wherefores were about to catch up with him in a major way. "Father?" Neither Leeta nor Quark were with Rom. On Nog's plate sat Pmiwek, a hard cold bread similar in some ways to the hardtac biscuits of the British Navy on Ancient Earth. Among Ferengi, it was a meal served for one reason alone. "Father, what's going on?" Rom looked at his son. "It took your uncle to see it. How I was hellbent on making sure no one punished you, despite knowing that you maybe had done something wrong." "Isn't that what a parent does?" "Yes. But I was finally forced to see it. I wasn't protecting you from their punishment. I was keeping you for mine. By not saying anything, by always sparing you whenever I could, I was making sure you felt guilt over things long past." Rom walked over slowly, and shook his head as he did. "At first, it all sounded like most of the things your uncle says, but he actually managed to make a good point or two. Mind you, it took him just about forever to get there. I mean, why he thinks he's some kind of Counselor...Commander Worf's ex-girlfriend, now THAT's a Counselor. But anyway, he showed me how maybe what happened between you and Jake on the Valiant wasn't the first time something like that happened to you." Nog had mentioned this in passing during the hearing. But he had thought it would surely be swept aside, as surely as every one of his early attempts to talk about it had. "You told me that we never discuss that. Has that changed?" "Because it has to, son. Because I want to end your punishment for something that you didn't even realize was wrong, and that I didn't even realize I resented you for. Don't you see? Not using my skills in any meaningful way for the longest time, stupidly agreeing to keep you out of school, letting our existence become an appendage of Quark's. I was even punishing me to punish you. I was wounding us both, just to make sure you always felt rotten inside, and unable to even bring it up." Nog looked down. "You have to know I'm sorry. That I wished I could take it all back." "But you can't, Nog. Its done. And I know you're sorry. I'm sorry that I didn't bring this up with you the instant you were old enough to really understand what happened." "I always understood. I knew what I did. I was just afraid to even touch on it. Uncle certainly learned not to. But I'm surprised Moogie never did. No way you'd punch her and survive." Rom sort-of smiled. "If your uncle sometimes can't give me a break, your Moogie sometimes indulges me too much. I have this knot of sheer dread in my stomach that she's going to persuade Zek to get me some sort of high-ranking job. Besides, whether she's letting me off the hook or Quark is pushing me, it doesn't matter. Because in not getting this over with, I wronged you worse than you ever wronged me. And I'm supposedly an adult. So Nog? As I punish you with my overdue words, remember that they are also my way of letting you go from the past, and saying that I'm sorry, too. You were a child, and I should not have kept it back this long. It wasn't either of our fault how it started. But I find that doesn't change the way I feel about those things. Do you want me to do it now?" Nog sat down to his meal. "My best friend isn't speaking to me, Father. I don't want to repeat that history with him. I want to end that history with you, and start over with you both. I'm ready to be punished. I've been ready for a long time. Let me pay my debts. Let me eat the worst from our cupboard. Let me take the worst from our stores, and thus raise the value of our inventory. Let us retire the old debts." Rom continued from Jahrin's Foreclosures and Fables. "Let us retire the old debts, and from their refinanced value create new opportunities and then draw up a new ledger, and know only profit thereby." If those words might seem comical to a non-Ferengi, Rom's next ones through tearful eyes would not. "Nog---you tore out my heart." --- Sisko gave the caller his best assurances. "Admiral, we reminded Travek that by law, a Starfleet Officer may be called back into service at almost any time, so long as it is of their free will. He huffed a bit, but withdrew his claim that the agreement had been violated by virtue of Admiral Kirk being mostly retired. He did vow rather strongly to scour the records of the hunt and the battle for any other violations, though. In the meantime, Admiral Kirk is free to roam the station, though he is not to attempt to leave it." On-screen, Starfleet Senior Operations Chief Admiral Alynna Nechayev sighed. "Captain Sisko, Peter Kirk is an unapologetic reactionary and an old fiend. He is forever chewing someone's ear off about the Golden Age of the blessed James T. Kirk. He and his wife can't seem to go a day without telling me that a tough but workable treaty ruined the Federation for all time." Sisko saw the tough woman's gaze soften considerably. "And if you let him be dragged off to a Romulan prison for any reason other than the most grotesque, blatant, undeniable violations of that agreement, you won't just have me to deal with. That old man is well-loved by every Starfleet officer to pass through his classroom for the past fifty or so years. Including this one. And you do not want to be the one who tells Admiral Saavik her husband isn't coming home." Sisko couldn't dispute that. "We played it tight and by the book, Admiral. I cannot see them finding a blasted thing in those records. So tell Admiral Saavik and the forty or so children they've adopted over the years to whip up some coffee, and heat it with a hand-phaser if they have to. 'Kobayashi' Kirk is coming home." The nickname cadets had given Kirk had nothing to do with the famous test of command skills. Rather, it was due to the fact that his exobiology course was one of eight that a cadet had to pass in order to graduate, and while he never made it easy, the most basic lessons were less about speculated unknown alien life forms and more about life in general. Nechayev still seemed worried, though. "Remember, Captain, these are Romulans we're talking about. And their displeasure about certain aspects of their entry into this war have been made very evident." Sisko braced himself. He had to know. "Admiral, what about their entry has them so upset with the Federation?" Nechayev's gaze hardened again. It now seemed to convey transmitted ice. "This is a dirty war, Captain Sisko. Its dragged us all down into the mud. Some of us more than others. Nechayev out." Ben sat alone, and again heard words from a deleted log entry. The words of a man who had found it far too easy to justify the grimmest, most corrupt actions and almost cheerfully say that he would do them all over again. Ben knew that man was not entirely likeable or someone he wanted to have around. Now joining all that was the thought that this man was also not as clever as he thought. "My God." -- "You do realize that pursuing this will have people calling you for an utter hypocrite? That doing this will make you the most unpopular man in Starfleet for an awful lot of people? Julian, even Keiko took his course, when preparing for life aboard the Enterprise-D. Everyone who's been at the Academy for the most tangential of reasons, and that includes exchange students from allies, new contacts and enemies all hold Peter Kirk in great affection." Bashir was having none of it. "And is any of that any reason why I should ignore the law? The same law that nearly ended my career, and placed my father in prison? The law that has everyone, yourself included, thinking the name Khan Singh right along with Julian Bashir? The law that when ignored, can create tyrants or people who, let us be honest, will never be fully integrated into the rest of society?" Miles sighed. "I only think of you as a tyrant when I'm under your care. And I'm not urging you to ignore the law. But maybe before you go on this ex-smoker's crusade, you should confront the man with what you think you know. And here is a thought, Doctor : Right or wrong, you're taking on a dynasty. George Kirk died young with parsecs of promise forever snuffed out. James Kirk is the great legend in amber. But where he hated serving in administration, Peter Kirk for the most part stayed there and helped build the world we know today. And Admiral Saavik has ridden herd over thirteen different major crises between Vulcan and the Federation. That's not even counting the families of Kirk's command crew and those just one step removed from that. This is Starfleet's royal house, and the reaction to your charges are going to hit the accuser as hard if not harder than the accused. All because you think an old man walks too fast. Am I understood?" "I'm not taking on a dynasty, Chief. If my suspicions are correct, I'm bringing it down, and quite deservedly so." O'Brien left, unsure of what further advice to give. Julian returned to his patient, the other person he spent the most time with aboard Deep Space Nine. "What precisely is wrong with me?" "Precisely? You have a hangover." Garak held the cold compress to his forehead, on occasion switching it to his throbbing temples. "I don't see how that could be possible. All I had yesterday was my usual lemon tea and wheat toast for breakfast, and later on that delightful if somewhat gastronomically challenging honey butter kettle popcorn. I didn't even have my nightly taste of Malonedgeberry wine, before going to sleep." Bashir waved an open hand. "Well, there you have it. Cardassian digestive tracts always hold back a small portion of each meal to be processed sometimes much later." "Doctor--this may surprise you, but I do know just a little about the Cardassian body. After all, I use one quite extensively." Julian walked over to his diagnostic display screen. "That comment I'm not touching. But what ended up happening was that each element of your meals combined. The acidity of the lemon. The wheat from the toast. The corn. The sugars coating your popcorn. They fermented inside you, Mister Garak, and became a rather potent, almost alcoholic variety of beer." Garak felt slightly better just for knowing, in any event. "So I was intoxicated? It would explain how unusually talkative I was during that little gathering." "Actually, Garak, I've found that your talkativeness has a direct correlation to how mysterious you wish to seem at any given time." Garak smiled. "You are learning, Doctor. But could I perhaps have an antidote available for potential future recurrences of this accident?" "Whatever for? You weren't even truly inebriated, merely off balance." Garak looked a bit nervous as he responded. "I've never trusted myself when impaired, Julian. Since Empok Nor, I think that I even fear the prospect of accidentally losing my judgement." Bashir felt a trifle foolish. Of course Garak would have such a concern. "I'll see if I can get you something that will aid in the corn's digestion. I'll add that to Odo's request and have an idea within a week, I hope." "The Constable has a health concern?" "More a security concern. An offhand comment from the Admiral made him realize he has no true way of showing that he is not another shapeshifter. All of our current tests are only concerned with exposing shapeshifters posing as Solids. I wouldn't know where to start figuring how to verify the identity of one particular Changeling." Garak considered for a moment. "Two things, Doctor. One, you should perhaps look for aftereffects of the merger between the Constable and the unfortunate infant changeling, that restored his abilities a year or so back. That can't be something that's happened to most shapehifters." "I was going to look for effects of the process they used to banish him, but the re-merger would tend to be both unique and not easily duplicated. Perhaps those seeming anomalies I spotted in Odo's structure at last scan are just that, though as always, what we know about the Founders is dwarfed by that which we simply don't." Bashir would learn otherwise about those very real anomalies, as he, Odo and Miles joined together to end the very dirty program that would yet help end a very dirty war. But for now, the slow decay of the Constable's structure matched that of the Federation he was allied with. For then and there, Garak contnued. "Two--I would carefully consider both your approach and your evidence in this matter concerning Admiral Kirk. For example, why would a mostly retired officer play with his health and remaining career that way?" Bashir shrugged. "If what I've found is correct, his reason speaks to the most basic Human drive." Garak nodded. "Sex." --- The commanding figure on the TV screen finished the most stirring of his words in that selection. "....then let them come...to Berlin!" Vic Fontaine shut the device behind his bar off, as he always did forty-five minutes before his set began. "I only set it up because the patrons insisted. The holo-patrons, I mean. The program has to be responsive to their needs and wants, but I never wanted this idiot box anywhere near my place." Admiral Kirk sipped a Coca-Cola mixed nicely with grenadine cherry syrup, and nodded. "I don't blame you. Why people would want to stare at a limited-use vid screen when all this is going on is beyond me. Vic, yours is the second most elegant place I've ever seen." "Admiral, I'm gonna ask you to defend that, and no offense, you better be good." Kirk twirled his drink. "I was seven. I could only walk with powered braces, because of the nerve damage the parasites caused. He took me into the turbolift, and gave me a small version of his mustard-colored tunic. We went up, the lift opened--and there it was. My uncle's home among the stars. The only place he would ever truly belong. The only place I ever wanted to be. The only man I ever wanted to be." Vic smiled. "What about the ladies? Heh---those miniskirts." Kirk nodded. "Every time we mind-meld and she sees me thinking of one of them, my wife just arches her eyebrows and calls me a baby pig. But she hasn't kicked me out yet." Fontaine almost broached asking how it was keeping up with a Vulcan, but the customers started to come in, and with a mix of holos and Niners about, he would have enough non-1960's references to explain as it stood. Kirk asked a question instead. "How far into the 60's does this program go?" Vic pointed at the TV. "That handsome gent you just saw who crashes at 1600 Penn Avenue kind of stops the show, if you get my meaning." November 22, 1963. It made sad and perfect sense. Fontaine saw that Kirk got it. "I tried going past it, but it is such a sad day. Plus, when February of 64' rolls around, and the Mop-Tops get off the plane from England? Ho, boy. Every single old man in the joint says 'Geez, Vic--they look like girls!'. So I compromise. Dusty Springfield crops up on occasion, and the record machine has Frankie singing 'Yesterday'--and 'New York, New York'. You can't have Frankie without that song. I thought about Rod Stewart in his later years--some good covers. But Julian tells me we'd need an upgrade to handle it, and my beloved programmer likes to sneak little tricks in those. As a button-pusher--he makes a good key-pusher. Hey--its the Major!" Kira sat down next to Kirk, and the older man gestured. "Vic--could we have a private booth? Major Kira and I have to mix business with pleasure." Fontaine found one, whether it was there before or not. Once they were seated, a slightly confused Kira had a flavored seltzer. "Admiral, what exactly is this concerning?" Kirk may have loved the atmosphere, but he became very, very serious. "Major, I'm told the Prophets' Orb Of Time is on board the station." "Well, yes. There was a recent incident involving Keiko O'Brien and her lookalike remote ancestor, a Korean woman who emigrated to the United States in the 1950's. We kept it here in case the chronal chaos began again." Admiral Kirk looked badly upset. "There's no easy way to put this, Major. Its potentially explosive, so it was decided that I would communicate it face-to-face. Arne Darvin was broken out of prison several months ago. We found his body a few days later. He drew a clock on a stone with his own blood. He had been tortured, slowly. We believe it was to gain his knowledge of the Orb. The kidnapper wore a disguise, but we now know who it was without a doubt. I'm sorry to tell you this, Major." Kira saw that she was being prepared, but a name was already forming. The very worst name possible. "Admiral--who was it?" She already knew, long before he said it. "Gul Dukat." ---- TBC... -------------------------------------------- "Your would-be attackers don't like you. Your would-be rescuers don't like you. Harry, *most* people don't like you." - Peter Kirk to Harry Mudd, 'Lawful Warrant' NewMessage: Path: newsspool2.news.atl.earthlink.net!stamper.news.atl.earthlink.net!elnk-atl-nf1!newsfeed.earthlink.net!feed1.news.rcn.net!rcn!wn14feed!worldnet.att.net!205.188.226.97!ngpeer.news.aol.com!audrey-m2.news.aol.com!not-for-mail Lines: 623 X-Admin: news@aol.com From: gojirob@aol.comendspam (Rob Morris) Newsgroups: alt.startrek.creative Date: 05 Oct 2004 00:10:15 GMT References: <20040927120111.03961.00004208@mb-m19.aol.com> Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Subject: NEW DS9 Telling, 6B/7, (post-Valiant), Jake vs. Nog Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Message-ID: <20041004201015.07554.00001514@mb-m18.aol.com> Xref: news.earthlink.net alt.startrek.creative:160980 X-Received-Date: Mon, 04 Oct 2004 17:10:38 PDT (newsspool2.news.atl.earthlink.net) Title : Telling Author : Rob Morris Contact : gojirob@aol.comendspam Archive : www.southroad.com/brightfame Series : DS9 Type : Follow-up to the events of the S6 DS9 episode, ‘The Valiant' Characters : Jake, Nog, DS9 Late S6 Cast, Retired Admiral P. Kirk, aged 115 Part : 6b/7 Rating : PG13, for rough tides in a friendship and in Starfleet Summary : The Dominion battleship that destroyed the Valiant has met its fate, -- Telling by Rob Morris --- After a silent minute or two, Kira finally reacted. "You say it took you a while to penetrate his disguise?" Kirk nodded. "Besides his physical disguise, he used a chemical that scrambles the ability of scanners to read DNA. They got a trace, but it read as too many different species. Though the list was narrowed, I was brought in. My field is exobiology, and--well, I'm old. By sheer passage of time, I've encountered more species than any other person in this quadrant, or damned near." Kira fought to remain on subject, but when that subject was Dukat, it was a redefinition of pain itself. "Must have been some interesting ones." "I could tell you about a particularly nasty mutant variant of Aldebaran serpent, Major, but I doubt it would be of much help to either of us." She looked up. "You're right, Admiral. But you see, Gul Dukat and I weren't always enemies. When I helped him to have a relationship with his half-Bajoran daughter, Tora Ziyal---" "The girl who was killed during the re-taking of the station?" "Yes. I'm surprised you know that." Kirk pulled out a holo-padd. A young girl with antennae and a curious face appeared. "I have 23 adopted daughters, Major. Most of my children are hybrids. Saavik and I always felt like born misfits, so we took in the children who still have the highest rate of abandonment in our supposedly enlightened galaxy. That small wonder is Andia. Half El-Aurian and half-Andorian. She listens just well enough to make you regret saying what you did. Only her brother Telemachus--half-Klingon, half-Vulcan--can corral her when she's on a sarcastic tear. But he never would. She has him firmly wrapped around her finger. I'm only slightly less so. So when a man--even a man like Dukat--loses his little girl in so public a manner--I know." Kira found herself mentally asking the Prophets to keep the little one before her in image out of harm's way. "She's adorable, Admiral." "Thank you. Her one sore spot is the look she gets when forced to think about the birth parent who most betrayed her. Not merely by way of abuse, but by way of severe disappointment." Kirk then let loose another surprise. "What did he do to your mother, Kira?" Nerys' eyes went wide. "How?" "Its that look, Major. A father knows." "Does a father also know what may well be none of his business?" Kirk, instead of reacting harshly or apologizing, smiled. "No. That a father has to learn." Kira calmed quickly. "Admiral, I can tell you this much : Dukat did hurt my mother. And I did find this out through him and use of The Orb. And though it seems like a man like Dukat would have infinite uses for such a thing as that, he is also so obsessed with the idea of his destiny that tampering with the past to change it would probably frighten him more than us." "Then he hasn't changed at all." Kira realized what he meant by those words. "You've known him?" Kirk brushed something off his moustache. "Tain and I arranged a meeting. The Orion Syndicate was making use of one of our disputed border regions to run their contraband freely and unchecked. With him--and I honestly couldn't tell whether they were friends standing together or enemies watching each other--was Gul Terem Dukat, and with him as an aide was his son, the man you know. Dukat endlessly berated his son, sometimes to the point where Tain asked his boy Elim to clear them out of the room." "You knew that Garak was Tain's son?" "Everyone knew that, Major. Tain was never as clever as he thought, and he was forever making cutesy remarks about the subject of Garak's parentage, as though no one could figure it out from their resemblance. I mean, people used to make insinuations about Jim and my mother, until I showed them just how much he and my father looked alike. So if my less pronounced resemblance caused such talk, people could do the math on Garak. In any event, Tain treated his secret son far better than Dukat treated his known heir. Finally, the son told the father that his shadow was an oppressive place to live in. Then, Dukat pointed to me." Kira knew that, aside from the awkwardness Kirk must have felt at that past moment, something far grimmer surely began then. Kirk kept on. "He said that I was the sole heir to the Federation's greatest hero, yet I was not swallowed by a comparitively larger shadow than his son dwelt in. Whatever the truth of that, Dukat the younger then looked at me, sneered and said : 'You are a man worth remembering, Admiral.' And I had no doubt that he would." "Have you seen him since?" Admiral Kirk nodded. "I had nailed down the species of Darvin's killer to being a hominid reptiloid one. So as I ran the last cross-check of known DNA scans, I recieved a message." "From Dukat." "He told me to say hello to you and Ben Sisko--and then he ended the transmission." "If its worth anything, Admiral, there is no way he's as obsessed with you as he is with myself and Captain Sisko." "That's not what bothers me most, Major. Five minutes later, my cross-checks pegged him as our killer, and ten minutes after that, I was asked to head up the Valiant tribunal." This surprised Kira a lot less than it obviously did Kirk. "He is insane, and he has insane ways. Happily, given that both you and Dukat are involved, I should be able to obtain permission to use the Orb rather quickly, so we can see if its been tampered with. Was there anything else, Admiral?" "In fact, yes. Major, I teach a Cadet Seska Nahan, a promising student of exobiology. He wants to one day Captain a ship that explores a freed Gamma Quadrant. But when he learned I was coming here, he asked that I be his Intercessor. It seems an older cousin of his, a Seska Marlis, was falsely accused of collaboration during the Occupation. He wants the record cleared up, and her name restored. But I've gotten nowhere corresponding with your Kai on this matter." Kira breathed in. Somehow, the Kai just couldn't be kept out of her life for very long. "Nor are you likely to. Admiral, the Senior Mass Cleric in charge of sometimes harshly dealing with collaborators during the latter part of the Occupation was Winn Adami. Even though Seska Marlis was theoretically proven innocent of those charges and lived, she never came forward to have them expunged. Until she does that, she can't be helped, and the Kai is unlikely to call attention to anything like that from her own past, unless she's forced to." Kirk had come fairly loaded with surprises, it seemed. "The Seska Marlis who turned up alive and well a few years after her supposedly bungled execution was an Obsidian Order deep-cover spy. She joined the Maquis, and was among those swept from the Badlands, and with Chakotay joining the crew of the Voyager, currently lost in the Delta Quadrant. Files sent from Voyager during their brief window of contact with Starfleet told how she was exposed, joined a local indingenous power in a series of pointless schemes, and was finally killed. They never learned her Cardassian name. Major, I must assume that the real Seska Marlis is long dead, and that she may even have been set up by the Obsidian Order so to create a spy. On that basis, could Kai Winn at least consider summarily restoring the real Seska's honor?" Kira had a thought, but there was no need to bother the Admiral with it. If Captain Sisko could get her a look at the Voyager's files on the false Seska Marlis, the promise she had made to Legate Tekeny Ghemor might at last be fulfilled. "Again, if its you making the request, plus with all this new evidence, it should be easy." Kirk seemed pensive. "That's another thing I meant to ask while I was here. Major Kira--why am I a hero to a people whose defense I abandoned? Maybe I'm just missing something, but I would think my name would be reviled, if it were remembered at all." Grateful to have the riddle of whether this woman could have been the long-missing Ileana Ghemor off the table, not to mention avoiding thoughts about another of Dukat's sick mind games, Kira answered the older Terran honestly. "You were reviled. All through my time in the Resistance, along with every other pipe dream we spoke of, it was always said that the restored Bajor would call for your extradition." "What changed?" "After the Cardassians left, Kai Opaka studied the damage they deliberately did to our world as they withdrew. She saw some of the worst-off places, and then declared 'Captain Peter is to be commended, not condemned. For if this was what they did during a peaceful, orderly, planned withdrawal, the mind does not contain room enough to contemplate their actions if made to withdraw under threat. Captain Peter made the right choice, and I say that he is a hero for it.' It didn't take long before everyone agreed." Kirk understood better now, but still had some confusion. "Errrr--Captain Peter?" Kira nodded. "Your name was mistakenly transliterated in early documents by some of our people who couldn't understand why anyone would put their family name second. In fact, the first time I ever heard of your uncle, Julian Bashir had to tell me who he was, and I only later found out that you were his nephew." Peter Kirk looked nearly stunned. "You mean to say that, when most Bajorans think of Kirk, they think of me first and Jim second?" "Yes, Admiral. I'm sorry if you find that offensive." Kirk began to laugh audibly. "Offensive, Major Kira? I'm going to have my next vacation on Bajor!" Kira wasn't quite sure she understood, but smiled along with him as they exited the holosuite. Quark was waiting, looking impatient. "Its about time you two finished up. Well, the bar is closed for the evening, so thank you for your business, and please leave." Kira saw that the tavern was emptied. "Quark, what is this? You almost never close." He came out from behind the bar, looking honestly delighted. "Major, the Admiral's kind exoneration of my nephew has led to certain events which in turn led to tonight's ceremony at Rom's. The Retirement Of The Old Debt." "That's a very important celebration in Ferengi culture, isn't it? Also very rare." "Not only rare, Major--wholly unexpected. I mean, I thought they'd never really sit and talk it out, even if you had them at phaser-point. Anyway, you have the lock-up code. I have to make sure Leeta feeds the yhlie-grubs the right herbs, or they'll end up tasting like plaster. Come again to Quark's!" Kirk watched the Ferengi practically dance out the door. "He seems happy." Kira moved for the tavern's door. "I'll say. He didn't even stop to leer at or proposition me. Admiral, I'll contact First Minister Shakaar. He can likely expedite matters on the Orb. Now, I have to enter---" Someone stopped her. "Nerys, I'll lock up Quark's for you." Bashir looked at Kirk, not quite hiding his glare. "The Admiral and I have to talk about something we may have in common." Kirk spoke to the Bashir after Kira left to set things in motion, regarding the Orb Of Time. "Doctor--you have no idea just how much we have in common." Julian saw that the older man was not at all nervous, even with the implied threat of his possible exposure. But perhaps that would change, once he was confronted with Bashir's startling evidence. --- "I still don't see what we have to discuss." Jake was wavering, but it would still take more time than Nog wanted to invest in breaking through the barrier whose existence he now fully realized was somewhat more on him than on Sisko. So he didn't try in any direct way at this point. "Its not a discussion. You're doing the follow-up story to your original article on the Valiant, right?" "Yeah. So?" Jake didn't ask 'You Have A Problem With That?'. His tone of voice asked it for him. But Nog knew enough to bypass it. "So when I called you 'one-fourth a deity', Dax told me to apologize before a Bajoran Mass. Its tomorrow. I assume you'll want to include that in the article, as well." Jake sighed. "Nog, I'm not going to include that comment in my article. You were in a bad way. That's understandable. I don't want us to be enemies, alright?" Nog shook his head. "I want you to include it. If you don't have what happened on the record, it'll end up as a rumor, and before I know it, someone will be saying that I desecrated one of the Orbs, or something. I want those words on the record, along with the fact that I apologized, and that everyone who was offended forgave me--or not, as the case may be. You are a reporter?" Jake seemed to bristle a bit. "Yes. A very truthful reporter." "Good. Then you're who I need, to bring this matter to a close. I'll see you there. I intend to sit through the entire mass, by the way." "I'll be there." "There's a rumor that Admiral Kirk may finally accept the Bajora Medal. Maybe he'll do that there, too. It would make an excellent coda to the story, especially the juxtaposition." Jake looked surprised. "Juxtaposition?" "Of course. The original good Starfleet child, having helped avenge the downfall of the wayward cadets of Red Squad, finally accepting his due? Its a natural." Jake nodded. "Okay. Thanks--I mean it. Thanks." The door closed again, but perhaps not as tightly. Nog chuckled, and saw Rom doing the same around the corner. "Did you hear my whispered advice?" "Loud and clear, Father. But won't he be upset if Admiral Kirk doesn't take the medal?" Rom pshawed the thought. "We had to get him there for you. Rule Of Acquisition Number 219 - A customer may come into your shop for what you do have, but more will come in for what you might have." Nog looked back at the door. He had crossed one bridge with his father, but he knew that the worst was yet to come. "Let's go and have our feast, Father." --- "Of course we will, Child. Thank the Admiral on my behalf. To have it known once and for all that poor Seska was merely another innocent victim of the wretched Obsidian Order will help more souls than merely her own to be at ease." Kai Winn signed off, and Kira could not stop her dripping sarcasm immediately thereafter. "I'll just bet some souls feel more at ease. So long as you can blame condemning an innocent on someone else, eh, Eminence?" Had anything less than an unjustly condemned soul's reclamation been at stake, Nerys would have been no more hesitant than usual to let the Kai have it with both barrels. But she also had to complete the other, more vital piece of business Kirk had brought before her. The second call was answered, and she was thankful he showed no signs of being bitter. "Nerys! You look wonderful. I'd heard tell of a holographic tavern with an odd host--and that you and the Constable were seen frequenting it. Just loose talk, mind you. Mainly, you and Odo were mentioned in passing. This--Soonatra Packrat?-- was the real subject of discussion. Especially among the ladies." Kira smiled. "You and Glora have got to stop by the place. Vic makes that world come alive." "Count on it. At least, count on it eventually. If I don't have a legislative logjam to clear, she has a vote in the Assembly. However did we manage to see each other?" "I think the Prophets lent us some time." He nodded. "The Orb Of Time again?" "Sorry to impose, Shakaar. But I know that you now have say over who gets near it." The First Minister looked tired. Kira understood this all too well. "The Kai and some of the elder Vedeks threw a fit. But ultimately, though we are blessed by the Prophets to even have it, the Orb is, quite literally, a time bomb waiting to be exploded. We need pacifists to guide our souls, but we need soldiers to guard the Orb. Especially if Admiral Kirk is correct about what monster somehow used it. Nerys, will you journey alone?" "No. Dukat's threats may include Admiral Kirk's family. I feel we owe him a chance to see firsthand what damage may have been done. For all we know, his late parents lived longer before Dukat made his trip." "I grew up hating him, til we saw the ruined lands, and the correctness of his choice. I shall consult Elder Varan, and she shall have the final say over whether you may approach the Orb.. I believe that she will allow it. After that, Nerys...." Kira steeled herself. "Its in the hands Of The Prophets." -- Sisko very nearly threw the docu-padd back in the Romulan's face. "The parts for the extra cloaks were three hours late in being delivered to you, that's true. But this 'violation' was done to better keep the part of the agreement that has us turning over any and all designated parts used in this operation." Travek seemed incapable of any expression except displeasure. "Do you even intend to attempt to honor this agreement?" Sisko stood up. "If you find that even one captain kept his parts, or reworked another cloaking device, then I will order Constable Odo to arrest that captain and the appropriate officers in his crew, and then to immediately arrest Admiral Kirk and turn him over to your custody. I will then contact Starfleet on whether I, as group leader, should simply resign or remand myself over for Court-Martial. But short of a bursting shell, Travek--you'll just have to go home empty-handed." Travek nodded. "Very well, Captain Sisko. But I shall continue my diligent, thorough review of these records. Admiral Kirk's family is well-known to most true Romulans as scheming, anti-government subversives..." He turned to leave, but looked back at Sisko before he did. "...while you are known to all Romulans." Sisko was beyond tired of remarks that hinted at everything and yet spoke about nothing at all. 'If you have something to say about me, Travek, then I suggest you go ahead and say it." Travek offered up a small, grim smile. "I just did." After Travek left for the tenth time that day, Ben Sisko realized that the needs of the war effort didn't even leave him the option of buying the Admiral's freedom with his own. -- "So it's as simple as all that?" Miles pointed to the screen. "It was Garak's suggestion that did it. When the infant Changeling gave you back your true form and abilities, it rewrote your internal chronology. Based on Professor Mora's scans of you, we know your approximate age, and the readings he took that corresponded to it. But now, you're only reading as being one year old." Odo was quite pleased with this development. "And even fully linked, a 'toddler' Changeling wouldn't have enough experience to mimic me properly. Thank you, Chief. I'll thank Garak for his input at mealtime. If you see Doctor Bashir before I do, be sure and give him my thanks as well. I'm glad we now have a means of verification for my identity. I now also know what you Humans mean when you talk about 'trying not to think of a pink elephant'. I usually pursue my objectives with zeal, but this one really got to me." "I'll be sure and tell Julian, Constable..." After Odo had gone, Miles spoke under his breath. "If he hasn't already committed career double-suicide with Admiral Kirk." -- "Would you please explain just what you meant by that remark?" "Of course not, Doctor. After all, flag-officers with nearly a century of service are bound by tradition to explain themselves to cryptically speaking subordinates." Kirk saw the fixed scowl on Bashir's face. "That was a joke, Doctor Bashir. You might do an old man the courtesy of at least pretending to laugh." "Look at my face, Admiral Kirk. Am I laughing, or even pretending to?" Kirk then stepped over and got up in that younger face. "Wipe off that scowl, Doctor. I've stared into the faces of Satan himself, and you just don't impress me." As ridiculous and hyperbolic as that statement was, Julian found himself somehow believing it. But though the glare left his visage, his disapproval did not. "You, Admiral, once did impress me. But now I'm afraid that you no longer do. I have a charge to make, sir. I need to run a medical scan on you, and I am perfectly willing to pursue this matter through channels, if I must." "Just what charge are you looking to bring, Doctor, and on what evidence are you basing this request for a scan?" Bashir nodded. "That you are in violation of the laws of The Federation prohibiting the artificial evolution or genetic enhancement of humans, and the the regulations that forbid such individuals from serving in Starfleet." Kirk shook his head. "You are aware of just how completely asinine and hypocritical you sound, right?" Bashir kept on. "You are a fraud, sir. An old man serving well past your time, all in an effort to keep up with a past legend that was never yours and the septennial sexual demands of your wife. You thought you could cross any line you saw fit to cross, and then get away with it cleanly. Well, I'm calling you out." "And your evidence? That I'm a spry old man? That I satisfy my wife?--and I do. That I never forget our anniversary, or fail to leave the refresher seat set to gender-neutral when I'm done?" "The T'Ven Clinic, sir. THAT IS my evidence!" Kirk chuckled. "Thanks a lot, Doctor. I now owe Will Riker money. He bet me that I'd never find a more casually insubordinate officer than you, and damned if he wasn't right." "Considering what Admiral Jellico once muttered while under sedation in my Sickbay, Will Riker would be an expert on insubordination, wouldn't he?" "The T'ven clinic, Doctor?" Bashir was becoming agitated. Kirk knew how to press his buttons almost as well as Jack, which he just considered further proof of his assertion. "The T'ven Clinic is on a Vulcan colony world within sight of T'Kuht. It helps non-Vulcans survive the rigors of their mate's time in Pon Farr. Their medical facilities aid in heart rate and breathing, both of which many non-Vulcans find at risk when their mate's instincts take over." "So?" "So--Admiral. You have never once been there, and you and your wife have seen over ten Pon Farrs in your time together. That is odd enough to make me believe I can obtain the orders to force you to undergo that scan--don't make me." Kirk shrugged, and walked over to the dartboard. Grabbing a single dart-bolt, he crossed back to the very edge of the room, until he exited the tavern. Looking around to see if they were alone, he then spoke. "Hold the door, Doctor." Word that Quark's was closed had apparently traveled quickly, for the halls nearby were deserted. As a confused Julian kept the tavern door open, Kirk threw the dart-bolt from a distance half-again as long as Bashir's personal best. It struck true, at dead-center of the board. Admiral Kirk came back inside, and looked at Bashir. "Kind of eliminates the need for a scan, doesn't it?" -------------------------------------------- "Your would-be attackers don't like you. Your would-be rescuers don't like you. Harry, *most* people don't like you." - Peter Kirk to Harry Mudd, 'Lawful Warrant' NewMessage: Path: newsspool2.news.atl.earthlink.net!stamper.news.atl.earthlink.net!stamper.news.pas.earthlink.net!elnk-nf2-pas!newsfeed.earthlink.net!wns13feed!worldnet.att.net!205.188.226.97!ngpeer.news.aol.com!audrey-m2.news.aol.com!not-for-mail Lines: 368 X-Admin: news@aol.com From: gojirob@aol.comendspam (Rob Morris) Newsgroups: alt.startrek.creative Date: 06 Oct 2004 10:02:45 GMT References: <20041004201015.07554.00001514@mb-m18.aol.com> Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Subject: NEW DS9 Telling, 6C/7, (post-Valiant), Jake vs. Nog Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Message-ID: <20041006060245.13148.00002188@mb-m28.aol.com> Xref: news.earthlink.net alt.startrek.creative:160990 X-Received-Date: Wed, 06 Oct 2004 03:03:00 PDT (newsspool2.news.atl.earthlink.net) Title : Telling Author : Rob Morris Contact : gojirob@aol.comendspam Archive : www.southroad.com/brightfame Series : DS9 Type : Follow-up to the events of the S6 DS9 episode, ‘The Valiant' Characters : Jake, Nog, DS9 Late S6 Cast, Retired Admiral P. Kirk, aged 115 Part : 6a/7 Rating : PG13, for rough tides in a friendship and in Starfleet Summary : The Dominion battleship that destroyed the Valiant has met its fate, -- Telling by Rob Morris "All I can tell you, Admiral Saavik, is that Travek is being both very thorough and very belligerent. He seems very determined to find some minor violation of the temporary cloaking agreement, and then magnify it into a galactic case." Since Curzon had in his time only met Peter and not Saavik Kirk, Jadzia was a bit surprised by the woman's response. "Damned Romulans. You cannot trust any of them." "Buuut...aren't you part Romulan?" "What's your point?" Dax saw Saavik turn and yell to someone off-screen. "Xaertia! Do not hit your brother--with your other brother!" The Vulcan raised an eyebrow. "They ensure that I will never enjoy retirement. How many times have you been a parent, if I may be so personal, Lieutenant Da....CHILDREN! Commander Data left us that cat with the promise that it would be cared for. Clown makeup does not qualify. Aileed! I thought I told you to keep that know-it-all Camden girl away from this house---errr, keep me informed, Lieutenant. Right now, I must meditate and contain my emotions, the better to kill them all while they sleep." As she signed off, Worf looked at his wife amazedly. "That was a Vulcan?" Dax chuckled. "You try raising forty children over seventy years of marriage, then see if you could keep to the path of Surak." After he left, Dax smiled to think of what the Kirk household must be like, and then she answered Saavik's truncated question. "Maybe at least one more time?" -- Around the station, lives resumed as best they could in a time of war. "How is she, Keiko?" "Ro says she may be out soon. The fact that she turned herself in before the Dominion destroyed the Maquis counts in her favor. So do the casualty counts. Molly's still furious she couldn't go with me. I also stopped by the Kirks. Its amazing how big that place is. Saavik is hiding her worry well. She only broke three vases--and one lirpa--and her son's bath'leth--and his wrist." "Well, Telemachus should know better than to fight his mother when she's upset. How is Ba'el adjusting?" "She misses her parents, and hates pretending she doesn't know who they were. And Saavik is going gray trying to keep her and Telemachus apart. Having her husband back would help a lot." Miles sighed. Most of the Klingon children Worf had discovered among the survivors of the Romulan attack on Khitomer were able to travel to Q'onos and be adopted with simple oaths of silence, vis-a-vis their true parents' survival. But as the daughter of a Romulan officer, Ba'el would find little acceptance and far too many questions. The Kirk household was another story. "He earned some points with me, for simply going on that mission at his age, not to mention rank and standing. That--wasn't my way of saying I should have gone." Keiko stood up and then hugged him from behind. "Maybe you should have. I love you for keeping your word to me. But I also saw a lot of young, wounded people back on Earth, Miles. Maybe this is the time where the little agreements need to fall by the wayside." He turned and kissed her, wrong though she was. "Maybe this is the time we hold them all the more sacred." As a revered Elder Vedek heard of Kira's plea, as Dax considered the first children of the host's current life, as Worf and Odo collaborated on yet another disaster drill for a station with a bullseye on its pylons, and as Ben Sisko saw a decision once cast in dark onyx crystal turn to mud on his dress uniform, two men went at each other over their biggest commonality. --- Bashir held Kirk's spirit-staff, which he now realized must have been carved from something very much like solid oak. It felt like it weighed a ton. Slowly, he shook his head. "What did you do to yourself?" Kirk was calmer, but no less patient with the junior officer. "I was dying, Doctor." Bashir put the hefty artifact aside, as he did this explanation. "You've lived a rich, full life, sir. People die, Admiral. We fret and strut our time on the stage, and then we are done." Kirk rolled his eyes. "That is so damned pretentious, my head hurts." "Admiral, give me one good reason why I should not contact all of the appropriate authorities on this matter." Kirk opened the same magno-sealed Padd he had used during the hunt for the Dominion battleships. After inputting the decrypting codes, he punched something up and handed it to Bashir. The doctor's eyes went wide. Kirk nodded. "My note from the Principal." Bashir pored over what he saw, then checked it again. It looked no different the third time through, either. "The senior Admiralty knows of this? This is a scandal unparalleled...so now when a favored family has one of its members too ancient and creaking to serve any longer, the laws that apply to everyone else--and yes, I mean myself as well--are just winked and nodded away? Or is it only the nephews of outlaw princes who..." Kirk cupped his hands, and then slapped them toegther. The resulting pop shook the glasses around them and cut right through Bashir. Kirk then held up a finger, directing the doctor to look at his face. "Never--Never--Never-NEVER disparage his name in front of me, Doctor, or you will find out what I did to Kruge's sponsor, when I tracked him down. Got me?" "My tone may not be proper. But the meanings behind my words stand for themselves." "So do my socks, when I leave them on too long. And even then, they don't stink as badly as your premise." Bashir breathed in, his ears still ringing just a bit. "So tell me just how my premise is faulty." "Alright. For starters, this wasn't the result of an old man trying to be a young one again. Doctor, when I got the treatment--I was just about the same age you were." That got Bashir's attention. "Your parents?" "This happened after my parents had died." Bashir had reviewed Kirk's history prior to this confrontation, and so knew who to ask about next. "Your grandmother?" "No. She tried to enhance me with chocolate chip cookies." "Do you have to make those sort of remarks?" "To you, Doctor? Yes. I have to." "Sir, are you going to tell me when and why this happened or not?" Kirk nodded. "I'm getting there, Doctor. Even if I have more time left than some, at least potentially, it doesn't mean I don't savor it. How I tell you this is all mine, though. And if you interrupt again, I will walk away. Known and understood?" "Yes, Admiral." Bashir was annoyed, both at the Admiral and at himself for letting the situation get the better of him. But he kept silent as Kirk went on. "Your parents found one of those mobile sites that would do the enhancement procedure. They searched it intently, looking over the doctors--finding most of them as sturdy as you might expect in an illegal facility. Some of the doctors probably looked like they were high--most probably were. They found a surgeon who was well past his prime, but very sober. He even tried to talk them out of going as far as they did. Maybe just bringing you up to speed, instead of pushing you so far up the ladder, as it were." Bashir almost asked how Kirk could know that, but was afraid of having him walk out. "He tried to explain to you what would happen. In order to help you better deal with the so-called 'personality detachment' that always follows the procedure, he suggested that you start thinking of Jules as who you used to be. He had a distinct New England accent. He wore the worst hairpiece in creation." Bashir felt himself gulp hard. "May I speak?" "Not just yet. He urged your parents to leave the facility as quickly as they could, because the facility manager was trying to sell them time-share. This seemed to make your mother particularly nervous, and so they left. The surgeon wasn't going by his real name, of course, so you could never track him down." Kirk sat down. "The next day, that facility was raided and shut down by Starfleet Intelligence. We got a whole bunch of names that day, and made a major dent in that practice for the next decade." Bashir actually raised his hand. "Sir? The older surgeon was an operative of 31?" Kirk smiled. "There is no Section 31, Doctor. Everyone knows that. And no, he was not. Never would be. But he hated those facilities, and his large heart was with the children who would suffer for the 'gene farms' lackadaisical, slipshod methods and poor quality control. So he agreed to go in. A Doctor long past his technical certification, but still sharp as a tack. A Doctor who was had restricted himself to minor procedures as long as he could, while he fed us information about the facility's movements. A Doctor who had no choice but to perform the procedure on you, so as to keep the thugs overseeing the place from guessing he was a plant. Luckily, he had better equipment and knowledge of the consequences of the ins and outs of genetic enhancement than he did when he performed the procedure on me. He was able to keep you from suffering the level of personality detachment I did--I spent some time away, for my own good, and everyone else's." Bashir's mind did some advanced math, and he didn't like the answer he was seeing. "No. You're lying!" Julian was visibly shaken. He shifted from demands to pleas in a heartbeat. "Please tell me you're lying." He was not lying. "The problem with doing this procedure, even when its legal, is that the only research available is that which we confiscate from those 'gene-farms'. With me, he didn't know how to enhance only one area. It was all or nothing, and though grateful, I paid the price. Mental problems. Growing pains almost every decade til I was seventy. And of course, there's children. The mental instability I overcame, my children would have been born with. Can you imagine a Human-Romulan-Vulcan hybrid, criminally insane and hyper-evolved? That couldn't be permitted." "How--how could it be legal?" Kirk looked up at the ceiling. "They came at us through an air duct. They flew like a shot onto my father's back, but just high enough so that he could grasp it. That was a mistake. Tearing it off caused him to roar in pain. Then he just keeled over. I hope he was gone quickly." The parasites, Bashir realized. The neural parasites that attacked Kirk's birthworld of Deneva Three. "They hit the small of my mother's back. She backed against a wall, hard and fast. Oddly, physical force worked a lot better on them than phasers, for all it mattered. It only left her, it wasn't killed. As I knelt to check her, I was relieved that she was alive. That's when I felt it take me. Well, I had to be a little hero. I reversed the air duct, and the invaders were hovering too damned near it. Hooray for me. As punishment or prompting, they turned my nervous system into jelly. Relays and motor skills fried. My brain and its stem were just about all I had left." Bashir was still silent, and looked ever more pale. "Most of it you surely know. In short : Uncle Jim arrived. But even after the parasites were destroyed..." "Yes. I recall reading it in my epidemiology class. The people started dying en masse." "Indeed. They had killed the puppet masters, but their puppets were ruined. Remember your history, Doctor. This was the year of Cestus Three. Contact was already being lost with the star systems that were later found to be victims of the Planet-Killer, the Unicellular being that killed the USS Intrepid, and the altered Nomad-Probe. There was panic in the Federation Council. It was the first time in our history that it really sank in that whole worlds and their populations could just go away. So after enough people had died, the order was given at last." Julian knew the ominous wording, having studied it in case the Dominion struck at Bajor as they had at one of their own rebellious worlds in the Gamma Quadrant. "Any And All Life-Saving Procedures Are Hereby Authorized. Any And All Resources Must And Shall Be Brought To Bear. They must have been panicked indeed, to have issued such a blanket authorization." "They were. Never before or since has it been issued quite so explicitly. To twist the knife, by the time the orders came down--only I could be helped any more, since I'd been on Enterprise the whole time. He later told me that the only thought that disgusted him more than performing this procedure was handing my uncle another relative to bury." Kira appeared at the door, and Bashir looked up at the departing Admiral. "Are you sure of this? I mean, he wouldn't----he wouldn't ever---" Kirk stopped him. "The toupee was his touch. The New England accent was faked through use of a mind-meld from a Vulcan operative---No, not Him---and a few wrinkles added, a few tightened. Doctor Bashir, ask yourself--of all the people to undergo this procedure, why are you and I the only ones to successfully pass for so long?" "But your career?" "Prior to entering the Academy, I agreed to certain lifetime restrictions. Julian--we'll talk more later." After he left, Bashir locked up Quark's, and departed for his quarters, though he couldn't later remember doing either, so numb was he from Kirk's 'bursting shells'. Not him, he thought. Not him 100 years ago. Not him a few decades ago. Surely the ethical decay didn't spread back quite that far? "Computer---Project image from files. Circa 2271. Subject---" And inwardly,as he stared in fury, he cursed a man who had been one of his greatest heroes. "--Doctor Leonard H. McCoy." End Part Six -------------------------------------------- "Your would-be attackers don't like you. Your would-be rescuers don't like you. Harry, *most* people don't like you." - Peter Kirk to Harry Mudd, 'Lawful Warrant' NewMessage: Path: newsspool2.news.atl.earthlink.net!stamper.news.atl.earthlink.net!stamper.news.pas.earthlink.net!elnk-pas-nf1!newsfeed.earthlink.net!pd7cy1no!shaw.ca!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!ngpeer.news.aol.com!audrey-m1.news.aol.com!not-for-mail Lines: 647 X-Admin: news@aol.com From: gojirob@aol.comendspam (Rob Morris) Newsgroups: alt.startrek.creative Date: 21 Oct 2004 09:12:09 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Subject: NEW DS9 Telling, 7A/8, PG13 (Post-Valiant) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Message-ID: <20041021051209.27979.00002918@mb-m02.aol.com> Xref: news.earthlink.net alt.startrek.creative:161122 X-Received-Date: Thu, 21 Oct 2004 02:12:57 PDT (newsspool2.news.atl.earthlink.net) Title : Telling Author : Rob Morris Contact : gojirob@aol.comendspam Archive : www.southroad.com/brightfame Series : DS9 Type : Follow-up to the events of the S6 DS9 episode, ‘The Valiant' Characters : Jake, Nog, DS9 Late S6 Cast, Retired Admiral P. Kirk, aged 115 Part : 7a/8 Rating : PG13, for rough tides in a friendship and in Starfleet Summary : Bashir questions the veracity of his own past and that of revered -- Telling by Rob Morris Part Seven Before they reached the shrine, she stopped and turned. "Let's get one thing straight. Unless you happen to be one of the Prophets' themselves, wearing mortal guise, do not raise the subject of my family again. Do we have an understanding?" Kirk had wiped the floor with Bashir mere moments ago. But he no longer felt proud of that fact. "Yes, Major. We do. It was entirely inappropriate of me to even raise the issue of your mother." "Then why did you? We're strangers, Admiral. Did you just think that, having solved Nog's problem, you'd make rounds of the station? You could have just told me about Darvin and Dukat, then left it at that. Instead, you tell me--someone who has spent years watching Dukat go from striking serpent to a man with flashes of decency and back again--about your one and only encounter with him, decades prior?" If she expected a roaring reminder of his rank of the courtesies extended to officers in other services, Kira was to be more than a bit surprised. "I was only trying to help." The older man looked very apologetic, and not at all high-handed. He even looked a bit lost. "I can't believe this. You're nothing but a grown-up Nog." Kirk just sat down for a moment. "I'm not Superman, Major. Just his nephew. I know I try too hard. Even my wife says so. There is an old Earth song--about a father, not an uncle--but I've always felt it applied to me and Jim." He put on an appearance of having to recall the words. "My Life Has Been A Poor Attempt To Imitate The Man. I'm Just A Living Legacy, To The Leader Of The Band." Kira's look softened, but her words still spoke of leeriness. "Am I supposed to pity you, now?" "No. Just accept my awkwardness if you can, my help if you'll have it, and my apology if you will." *Accept yourself, Child.* Those were the words of a Kai who sought not political power, but the path of the Prophets. Nerys now felt awkward herself. "I'll take all three gladly, if you'll extend the same courtesy to someone who isn't as angry at your well-intentioned intrusion as I am Dukat's repeated intrusions." Kirk got back up, now determined to have a similar moment with Julian Bashir. "Done. Listen--I don't have to go with you on this. My gut tells me that his message to me was a red herring. That he intercepted a few things here and there, and used it to make himself look omniscient. This much I can tell you--during that brief encounter, his father did the same thing ten or twenty times. Tain took pleasure in deflating him." Her resentment towards the Admiral done, Kira realized she had shunted aside a valuable resource. "Can you tell me anything else about his father?" "Not much more to tell. The son I remember, because of the hate in his eyes. Terem Dukat, though? Tain at one point told him to go play with his Caslin Puzzles." Kira shook a finger in the air. "Those--are puzzles that have up to twenty hidden puzzles within them. You can solve the main one without ever even seeing the hidden ones, which of course means you haven't really won. I wouldn't be shocked to find out a Dukat had invented it." Kira looked ahead of them at the shrine. "Any famous quotes from your uncle, Admiral? Ones meant to calm dread would do." Kirk shook his head. "Just one lifted from Lucas's The Farmboy Messiah, Major." Kirk moved with her to the shrine as he spoke. "I've got a bad feeling about this." --- He was lying. The damned old man was lying. "Aggrandizing himself. Pumping himself up at the expense of a far better man." So what if he had the permission to be what Julian had been forced to hide most of his life? It didn't mean he knew everything. "Or anything, for that matter." Leonard Henry McCoy was not a scofflaw. However far things had fallen since Wolf 359 and then the Odyssey, there had once been a golden age. Those incredible men and women, moving as gods a century ago. Those people--and the one tougher-than-tough, oath-driven healer who had charge over them all, even the 'cowboy' Captain. Peter Kirk was the impostor, the criminal. The liar. "And yet. And yet. And yet." It made sense in some respects. The Federation was relatively replete with victims of those genetic farms, people who made Jack and Patrick seem meditating Vedeks by comparison. But the investigations after Zimmerman's exposure of him bore one fact out. There was only one person to undergo the process and hide for a significant amount of years in StarFleet. "No. Not one. Two." He'd always known that whoever his doctor was, he'd been a cut above. Several cuts. Was he among the very best ever to lift a medical tricorder? Or had Kirk planted this thought in him as punishment, a thought that he would now never put out? "Yes, Julian. It could have been punishment. After all, you handled what could have been a peaceful discussion in your usual brilliant manner, didn't you?" Still, if it was a game, and even if Bashir had it coming, did Kirk have to drag McCoy into it? Couldn't he have said that Klingons or Romulans captured and altered him? His legal sanction meant that he could have shut Bashir down with no problem. Did he have to tweak him? "Still, it indicates---he is exactly like me." *It feels like the retinas in my personality are detached*. That was what the first man genetically enhanced said in the mid-20th Century. He too, had been a surgeon, and was disgusted by what had been done to him without his knowledge or permission. "It's just a poor excuse." Personality detachment. The feeling that your true self had been eaten by the process meant to raise you up. He would never tell anyone, not Miles, or Garak. It sounded so trite. The condescension, the snobbery, the sometimes disdain and dismissal of others. Julian knew of this, but also knew that he was a grown man, capable of reining it in if he so chose. That he didn't choose it often enough was his problem, not anyone else's, and not something to be explained away by convenient medical jargon. "Except I don't keep it under control, do I? Not me. I just merrily slander senior Admirals and legendary figures. And what if he hadn't been?" The truth was still as harsh as acid. But now, Julian again looked at the picture of a medical hero. "Why would you do it? Then--why would you do it again? You must have had a reason." The picture wasn't giving any answers, and so Bashir entered a fitful sleep. -- Sisko looked over the painfully-crafted letter of resignation. He held his finger over the transmit prompt. "I'm really going to do it." After a minute, he went to transmit. The words vanished off the screen, and Sisko himself was pulled into another realm. "Its about time. Or not, as the case may be." It was as he expected. "You stopped me from resigning." This one appeared as Jennifer. But if he learned anything from that last sad excursion to the Mirror World, Ben had learned not to let her face take down his defenses, or soften his distaste. "The Sisko must not leave." He looked at her, and grew ever more angry as he did. The Prophet had quietly shifted to Kasidy. "You directed me to stop Bajor from entering the Federation." As he turned, the Prophet gained nothing by shifting to Jake. "You stopped me from blowing myself up in the wormhole." His fury needed a target besides himself, and the Prophet now appearing as Joseph was helping matters right along. "You stopped me from yielding up the position of Emisarry." This time, Sisko saw only light. He yelled out. "Just for the record, my sister still speaks with a slight lisp, and has a dimple on her left cheek! Now could you just choose a form and listen?!" "As the Sisko wishes." This one nearly unnerved Ben. Facing him was a man with a full head of hair, no facial hair, the recently and reluctantly appointed officer in mourning for his wife and raising a young son in the shadow of Wolf 359, and living in a run-down station orbiting an ungrateful world that didn't want him or the Federation around. "I believe the Sisko had a question." But Captain Benjamin Sisko wasn't about to let Commander Benjamin Sisko unnerve him. "Cute. Face me down with someone who lived in a seemingly simpler time. Well, I don't live there anymore. Its not where I dwell. Here it is, then : You've held my hand, slapped my hand, scolded me, directed me, given me visions galore, and maybe even moved me through time on a few occasions. You've stopped me from certain actions any number of times. So when I schemed, lied and allowed men to be murdered, where was your hand in my face? Where were your words? Where was this play of people from my life? I don't regard it as anyone's responsibility but my own, and yet, you've acted for and against me for less than what went on when Garak and I brought the Romulans into this war. So why didn't you do it then? Why are some things your business, and others just trifles?" The Commander pointed. The landscape shifted to a harsh rocky area. In the middle was a viscuous lake. Ben knew. "This is the Founders' world. The Great Link. Why are we here? When is this?" Commander Sisko spoke grimly. "When the seed was planted." As Sisko watched, a light descended from the sky, and towards the Great Link. "Weapons fire? Is this back when they were hunted?" "No. It is when they chose to hunt." Sisko saw the lights slow. The lights---the blood-red lights, that descended into the link. His heart sank. "No." The lights rose and left. After an unknown amount of time, Ben heard the voice of the one he knew as the Female Founder. She spoke ominous words for the very first time. "Even here, in our perfect hiding place--we are not safe from the Solids. We must plan to make ourselves safe. And so over them, we shall establish total Dominion." Sisko stared at Sisko for a good while thereafter, struck wholly silent. At last, the Prophet spoke. "The grim ones must be brought low. This is the task of the Sisko. Does the Sisko understand this?" Ben nodded, numb but regaining his feeling very rapidly. "I do. What you're telling me is, the Alliance serves your interests, while the Dominion serves those of the Pagh Wraiths, however unwittingly on either side." He turned away, and kept talking. "And that since the Pagh Wraiths wish to destroy all that we know, we must do anything it takes to defeat the Dominion. I see it now." "Then the Sisko both hears and sees." Ben turned back towards his past-dopple, the rage and disgust in his face disguised not at all. "Oh, I see. I see that living beings are fighting the proxy war of bodiless cowards who get off on the bloodshed, misery and worship of we lesser beings. Or is it all the same thing to you? You live outside of time, so how can you possibly comprehend the wasted years? The years wasted on battle. The years the Founders have wasted on hate. It all must mean so very little to you. That's why you didn't stop me from listening to Garak. What were the men we murdered but a few more proxies, easily replaced? What were the lies we told but the buzzing of worker drones, making honey for your hive? What were all my loathsome actions, and the stains on my soul, except oil to move your wheels and cogs about?" "The Sisko blames us?" "No. I blame me, for listening to Garak without really listening or looking. I blame me, for thinking that, somehow, anything I did was right because I was the one doing it. I blame me, for allowing the fall of one world in the first all-out war we've ever really fought to so panic me, it made any option seem palatable, even desirable. But most of all, I blame me for being so stupid as to think that, were I really so far in the wrong, that you all would step in and stop me. So stand above me, stand beside me, and guide me, and shine your lights down on me and speak of space wasps and dragons the size of planets, and tell me to eat my broccoli. Just don't think that I will any longer take your words uncritically. Because as of right now, you are no longer possibly gods in my eyes. You are forevermore just another allied race in our war against the Dominion, complete with your own agenda, and while I will hear what you have to say, and take it under advisement, I just won't take it as gospel truth any longer." The Prophet now became Curzon. "The Sisko acts inadvisably." Ben grinned. "Sorry, Ambassador. But this discussion is over. I have to take a meeting with the..." He found himself back on DS9. "...Romulans." The guilt was still his. The responsibility and blame was still his. Yet Sisko still said certain words. "Damn, that felt good." -- Having dressed Kirk down, Kira now hoped she could press him for a spiritual favor. "Admiral, I'm not trying to convert you. But can you accept who the Prophets might be?" It was painful for her to phrase it that way. They were who they were to her. But while Sisko spoke in the most respectful terms, much of Starfleet seemed at least awkward about the subject. "I've had good instruction on allowing for all the wonders of eternity, Major. Especially those we can't completely understand." "Lemme guess. Your uncle?" "Yes. But not Jim. The uncle with the pointed ears." Kira smiled, despite the tension. "Was he all they say?" "I once asked Jim where he'd be without Spock. He replied : 'Organic debris floating in the wreckage of a footnoted Constitution-Class ship.' The feelings went that deep." As she made her initial chanting request before the Orb, Kira wondered, not for the first time, if Benjamin Sisko would ever say such a thing of her. As a light came up from the revered relic, Kirk whispered, well under his breath. "Damn chronitons. Always make my scalp itch..." "Our child again seeks answers." Kira was doubly silent. The Prophet who appeared before her was not only the first she had really seen, if if in fact sight applied where she was, but it took the form of Kira Meru. The image turned to Kira's companion. "This one is known to us. The hand that stayed the wrath. Why do you travel with our child?" Kira didn't know who to pray to, that Kirk would say the right thing. "The repeated violation of your domains, conducted by one misguided and one your enemy, is of concern to those who stand with Bajor. That one is our enemy as well. For myself, I fear for my family, for-----" Nerys nearly rolled her eyes. Now was not the time for him to be at a loss for words. But he quickly found them. "The Seven. The Seven, and sometimes more than Seven. I fear he may try to do them harm, and change the path that brought the Sisko to you." He was only trying to help. And this time, Kira felt, the old man had succeeded. The Kira Meru Prophet gave at least a few pieces of good news. "You may travel with our child, and stand with our child. The More Than Seven were not the concern of our foe. The Foe was permitted to walk our domains." Kira then asked a question she would have skinned her companion alive for broaching. "Why? How could you permit him, of all beings, to use your sacred power in his insanity?" The Meru image did not scold or scowl just yet. "His path now leads to the caves. We may not hinder this. The journey was part of his path, and the path to The Last." Kira now had her mouth clamped shut. For she knew that the next words from her mouth would surely be blasphemous. Whether she had wanted Kirk there or not, she turned and gave him a look. His next words were happily more respectful than those Nerys kept back. "May we observe the path The Foe walked through your domains?" "You may." The light shifted around them, and Nerys swallowed hard as it did. "Thank You." "Its nothing. One of the few talents of his I inherited without question is the ability to talk with omnipotent beings." Yet the question of whether or not he had inherited that ability earlier than before quickly became moot as the pair once again stood back on DS9. Kira looked about her. "Why did they send us back? Is this a test?" Via the sudden, sometimes-undetectable quick matter transmit/recieve system known to the Federation as the 'hyper-transporter', Gul Dukat appeared in the room with them. He was grinning from ear to ear. "There you are. Oh, its been a while--but you're looking as lovely as ever." Kirk saw Kira do a yelling jump-kick at Dukat that would have had his head's integrity in question, under any other circumstance. "I passed through him?" Kirk nodded. "They did only say we could observe." Dukat walked over and stroked the Orb. Kira again fought down the kind of words one simply didn't use around the gods of creation. But it was a close fight. "You're going to bounce me around eternity, my dear. So much more efficient than risking a star's gravity well, or messing around with a faulty Romulan cloak, don't you think?" Noises came from outside. Dukat seemed pleased by this. "My new friends are engaged with the Prophets as we speak. Meaning that not only are you physically unguarded, but also wide open. I wonder if their prediction about the Kai interfering will come to pass? No matter. Lets do what poor Arne gave so much to show us how to do, hmm? It would seem a shame to waste his lessons, along with everything else. Odd thing was--he still wouldn't tell me why the Klingons of his era looked so different, even under torture. Well, let's get down to it, shall we?" Kira knew personally, and Kirk knew from briefings when this was occurring. The Prophets had chosen her as a surrogate to fight their battle against a Pagh-Wraith infested Jake Sisko. The Orb had been left behind under a cover story of its being in-transit to Bajor. The Jem'Hadar indeed attacked the convoy that supposedly had it. But Dukat had been informed otherwise, it seemed. "By 'new friends'? Why am I not surprised? Was their part in the battle all so he couid get to the Orb?" Kirk still waited to see what was going on. Images of a dead James Kirk or Spock still streamed before his vision. "Major, he's doing something." A man appeared before Dukat. His uniform was slightly different, as were his features. But it was clear who the visitor was. "That's Dukat as he looked during the Occupation." The younger Dukat looked no more pleased than Kira. "Who---Where am I? I demand to know what's going on here!" The elder Dukat stunned, and then dropped a commlink on his younger counterpart. "Yes, that is something you would tend to do." Both Dukats then disappeared, only to have the older Dukat appear again, minutes later, albeit in the younger man's clothes. "A cloaked ship, some careful cryo-stasis, a change of clothes--well, a change back--and some quick plasti-laser facial tweaks, to take away a decade or two. Oh, I do hope I didn't cause myself any brain damage. That could lead to insanity." Kirk spoke up at this point. "This, as opposed to talking to yourself." Dukat was in his glory. Kira was beginning to have a sick feeling of Deja Vu. "Now, little Orb. Let's continue our good works. First, a view of things to come. After all, there has to be someone to forward our little distraction, when the time is right." The light flashed, and they all three stood before the Valiant tribunal. Collins was in the middle of her awkward testimony. Dukat looked at Kirk's counterpart, overseeing events. "Admiral! It would be you, wouldn't it? Both of us crushed by the foolish quest to meet up with a legend. You never will. But myself? I intend to end all legends, forever. So you'll be on my station? A little further scanning along the timeline and----" Kirk and Kira watched as Dukat found what he was looking for, and recorded the message that was now made to predate Kirk's discovery of Dukat as Arvin's killer and his assignment to the tribunal. Admiral Kirk sneered. "Sneaky bastard. Tain said it was the son you had to watch." Kira was still torn inside by the thought that the Prophets had allowed this to go on. Dukat returned to the DS9 still torn by the battle of the great powers. "And now for the dear, dear Major. Six to twelve weeks ago should do it." Kira felt her heart sink still further. The new scene that played out came from a place she could not believe. "He's in Captain Sisko's office?" Activating protocols set up during two different occupations, Dukat kept a good many security systems from reporting his presence. "Good. By the time all is done, all I'll be is an excuse for the ever-cautious Constable to open the door to the most secure room on the station." The transmission he made was painfully familiar. "Sorry...early...don't bother to try and locate where I'm...your mother's...yes I knew her...I assure you it is the truth, Major..." The transmission was ended. Kira recalled Odo finding some of Dukat's long-hidden protocols not long thereafter, in the wake of the nerves raised by his taunting. Again he returned to the Deep Space Nine of his relative present. Kirk looked at an increasingly frozen Kira. He himself could only mutter a bare word. "Madman." Dukat moved again in front of the Orb. "Actually, it isn't yet the truth, Major. But it will be." Kira witnessed anew what Kirk saw for the first time. Dukat assuming his past self's place as Viceroy of Bajor, with Terok Nor as his base. Dukat taking a sudden interest in a Bajoran family, and particularly its striking matriarch. Kira saw herself, traveled back via the Orb to find out the truth about her mother, and being massively disturbed by it and her. "Exactly as Dukat set me up to do." The monster had known who she was all along, and he had played his role with psychotic perfection. Every inch of it had been part of his plan, even to this later viewing of it all. Kirk had been played as well, the past witness to a young man's disgrace now witness to the sick intracacies of his evil triumph. Yet upon his return to the present, he shrugged as though a detail were off in a treasured painting. "I suppose some minor damage to the timeline was inevitable. But I'm certain my past self will make use of it. He was such a creative sort. Oh, I do hope the Admiral doesn't keep all this top secret. It would just ruin the final crescendo, wouldn't it?" The younger Dukat was sent back, and the then-present-Dukat got off the station before the abortive battle of the gods was done. In their own present, Kirk watched Kira head for the door, then turn back to him, looking blankly at the older man. "He could have saved Ziyal, his own daughter. He could have exposed the Martok Changeling before Gowron ordered the invasion." She roared in near-agony, tears falling unbidden from her eyes. "I WOULD HAVE EVEN UNDERSTOOD IF HE HAD GIVEN CARDASSIAN FORCES INFORMATION TO DEFEAT THE FEDERATION!!! At least that would have been comprehensible. But what in the sight of the Prophets was this?!!" Kirk wanted to say that Dukat was a petty man, who would likely meet a petty end, grasping at percieved power and glory as he fell. But a much harsher truth escaped his lips. "I'll keep my silence on the details of this. Otherwise, I have nothing for you." Kira shook her head. "Yes, you do. Take me to my quarters. A young man I consider my friend is making a speech in this shrine in a few hours. A speech of penance, such as I will never hear certain people make. I want to be here for him. So guide me to my quarters, because right now, I just can't see straight, or stand completely on my own. Will you do this, Admiral?" "Of course." Kirk thought of his mother, taken by parasites. He thought of his Aunt Lori, killed in a pointless transporter accident just before the Enterprise left to combat V'Ger. He thought of his beloved wife, and the mental ripping she felt as her first bondmate, his cousin David, was gutted by Klingons. He thought of his little Andia, seized as so many of his children were, by night terrors of the abuse they had escaped. And now forevermore, Admiral Peter Claudius Kirk would think also of the look on Kira Nerys' face as she was played full circle in a rigged game set up by a sick mind. But he said not one thing as he guided the young woman to her quarters. -- Nog stood before the Bajoran Mass, its required rituals now completed. He had a full house, even to the Romulan Travek. Jake was seated in front, just as he had hoped. "Now, if I can just keep from screwing this up." TBC.... NewMessage: