Title: Big Lesson, Little Package

Author: DianeB

Summary: Set after theepisode "Indiscretion." At the height of Maquis activity against both the Cardassians and the Federation, a young Bajoran girl is given a mission she believes will elevate her into the Maquis "big leagues." A chance meeting with another young person changes everything.

A/N: Written in 1997 and revised a bit in March, 2005. Originally published in 1998, in the Orion Press fanzine, "Maquis."

This was Rebekkah's first mission, and she knew her mother would be very angry if she knew. Already excited by the conversation she had had with her uncle on Bajor, she was only spurred on by the knowledge that she would upset her mother. She didn't think she was such a bad kid, it was just that sometimes she felt as if her mother never let her have any fun. This certainly qualified as fun.

The conversation with Uncle Lou had been brief and uncomplicated: she was to take the 0900 shuttle to Deep Space Nine, along with the usual mob of kids, and go to one of the children's game rooms. After exactly two hours, she was to go to the money exchange station, swipe the thin magnetic card her uncle had given her through the Cardassian slot, and then disappear back into the game room.

Rebekkah, being a naturally-inquisitive child, had questioned her uncle about whey she was to do this. His initial reaction had been one of surprise, as if he had not considered that she might ask. Then he'd smiled widely, though not quite at her, and explained that there was a large delegation of Cardassians due on the station, en route to yet another "peace conference" between Bajor and Cardassia on some distant neutral planet. Her maneuver, he said, was designed to gum up the works and be a general pain in the ass to the Cardassians and the station until Chief O'Brien could get it fixed, which would probably take several hours. To Rebekkah's keen mind, there seemed to be something missing from this explanation, but at the time she hadn't quite been able to grasp what it was, and it still eluded her.

She thought about her task. Since the money station was located in the middle of the Promenade outside Quark's, accomplishing the job might prove difficult, as children were not normally seen around the money exchange. She'd been warned about Odo, but she was more worried about running into the Bajoran first officer, Kira Nerys.

Major Kira was a great friend of her mother's, and had visited their cottage many times. During the Occupation and at great risk to herself and her family, her mother had regularly provided the Shakaar resistance cell with the vegetables and bread they would have otherwise starved without. While Rebekkah knew Kira had Maquis sympathies, she also knew Kira was on Deep Space Nine as a representative of the Bajoran government and, as such, was required to maintain a strict professionalism and neutrality about such things as Maquis activity.

So Rebekkah was determined on this day to carry her mission to a successful conclusion, without getting caught by anyone. She wanted very much to be praised by the Maquis.

Slowed by her daydreaming, she stepped up her pace along the causeway to the shuttleport entrance, catching up with the rest of the children just as they began to board the shuttle. Although the kids were mostly her age and classmates at school, she didn't really have much in common with any of them. She spent a good portion of her time keeping blissfully to herself and was always thinking beyond her ten years, which were the very reasons Lou had singled her out during a family gathering a month ago and extended an invitation she could not believe or resist. Would you like to join the Maquis?

Maquis. . . .oh, the word gave her chills as she plopped down alone in a window seat, glancing down at the goose bumps on her arms. Stories flew daily in school about Maquis activity, and kids were always trying to outdo one another in their bragging about knowing someone in the group. None of the stories were ever true, of course, until now. She began fingering her earring, daydreaming again. . .

When Rebekkah's mother had learned that the man her sister had married was part of this group, she was at first frightened and then appalled. She lectured Emi endlessly about how dangerous the Maquis were, not just to Cardassians, but to Bajorans as well. There was peace now, a treaty had been signed, the Occupation was over. It was time to get to the work of rebuilding Bajor, Rebekkah's mother had said, not the work of exacting such vicious revenge as the Maquis was fast becoming known for. It didn't matter so much anymore what the Cardassians had done to the planet, it only mattered that it was finally over, she argued. The only way to heal was to let it go and learn to work together. There were families on both sides suffering losses, and who knew how many half-Bajoran children were out there, needing help and understanding, not hatred and bigotry.

Rebekkah's mom had always been very big on positive solutions.

But Emi was not so very big on that, even though she never quite said so. Nor did she ever tell her sister how she'd met Lou: at a clandestine Maquis meeting held in the back woods of the Mascilla Province one dark, humid night four months previous. It was love at first sight and Emi never planned on looking back. She certainly had not intended to use her niece for any Maquis-related business, but when Lou heard there would be Cardassians on Deep Space Nine, he itched to "blow a few spoonheads to hell," and asked Emi outright at the family party if Rebekkah might be interested in helping.

Rebekkah had overheard her aunt and uncle talking at the party and had heard Lou say those very words, "blow a few spoonheads to hell." She had heard the racist term used in the schoolyard, but it was quite different hearing it from an adult. Whereas the boys in school were just mouthing off to get a reaction, Uncle Lou said it with such seething hatred that Rebekkah had gone cold with the sound. She backed away from them, not letting on that she was there. Soon after, Lou asked her about joining the Maquis.

She'd never put it together. Until now, sitting in the shuttle, where it all came together of its own accord.

Rebekkah sat up, her eyes rounding with an understanding that hit her with stone cold clarity. She swallowed hard and gripped the metal bar across the top of the seat in front of her. Shivering in spite of the warm bodies heating up the shuttle, she was at that moment more frightened than she had ever been in her whole life. She'd never had to consider problems more complex than her math homework, and the reality of what she was going to do shook the very foundation of what she knew to be right and wrong. She was in a terrible bind, and the turmoil churned her stomach. She did not want to disappoint her aunt and uncle, but she was no longer sure she wanted to participate in this mission.

Being part of the Maquis was suddenly not nearly as inviting as it had been only a few minutes earlier.

She tried to distract herself by thinking about her life during the Occupation, but being only ten, she had no clear memory of it. Her parents had been some of the few Bajorans spared the labor camps or the mines and allowed to maintain their vegetable farm to supply Cardassians. Then, when she was three, a frightened horse accidentally killed her father. After that, the only thing she remembered was the fact that her daddy was gone. She'd never heard her mother weeping in the middle of the night or understood that she had to work twice as hard in the fields. Rebekkah only knew that her mother kept her clean and fed and out of the way of the Cardassian soldiers, teaching her to love the planet and promising her that one day all would be well again with Bajor.

Two years later, when the Occupation ended, her mother immediately sold the farm and they'd moved to a small cottage just outside the capital. There they maintained a tiny garden for themselves, and her mother obtained a job with the new Bajoran provisional government. So Rebekkah never experienced the Occupation the way most of the adults around her had.

As for the Cardassians themselves, since there hadn't been any on Bajor for over five years, she did not see them at all except when she visited Deep Space Nine, so they did not seem so threatening to her.

As the shuttle docked at the station and she moved into the aisle, she fought with herself about what she should do. She briefly thought about contacting Major Kira, but dismissed that idea right away. She wanted to work this out herself.

Rebekkah walked through the airlock and down the hallway to join the throng of people walking along the Promenade. She stopped at the entrance to the game room. There was an empty bench against the wall just to the left of the entrance, and she sat down, sliding her purple daypack off her back to rest beside her on the bench.

Sighing and shoving her thick braid of dark hair back over her shoulder, she opened the pack and began to paw through it for the slim black plastic case her uncle had given her. Finding it, she pulled it out and carefully opened it, glancing around first to see if anyone or anything was watching. No one was paying the least bit of attention to her. She had no idea if Odo was around, but she figured neither he nor Major Kira really cared about what one kid was doing on a Saturday morning outside the game room. She lifted the charcoal rectangle from the case and held it up. It was such a plain object, and the task itself was fairly plain, too. She tried to convince herself that her mission had nothing to do with anything else, but no matter how hard she tried, she could not ignore her revelation in the shuttle. The card trembled in her hand.

"Hello. May I sit down?"

The voice startled Rebekkah so completely, the card flew from her hand and hit the floor with a dry smack. The person who'd spoken bent down, retrieved it, and held it out to Rebekkah. Rebekkah reached out to take it and found herself staring straight into the amused brown eyes of a young Cardassian woman. But there was something not quite Cardassian about her, and as Rebekkah continued her impolite gawking, it came to her: this woman had a nose ridge exactly like Rebekkah's own!

Rebekkah forgot how to talk. The Cardassian woman smiled warmly and repeated her question. "May I sit down?"

By this time, Rebekkah had the card securely in her possession and was shoving it unceremoniously back into its case. She had also regained her ability to speak, at least enough to put two words together. "Uh, sure." She slid over and put her pack on the floor in front of her, dropping the slim case into it as she did so. The young woman sat down.

"Thank you. You seemed so preoccupied, I hated to disturb you, but this was the only available seat. What have you got there?"

"It's, uh, it's. . ." Rebekkah had no idea what she was going to tell this stranger, especially one so clearly Cardassian. "It's just a card for one of the games," she lied. Without a thought to her manners, she blurted, "Who are you?"

Another warm smile. "My name is Ziyal. My father is Gul Dukat. He's part of the new civilian government of Cardassia, and I'm accompanying him to the conference. As you might be able to tell, " she paused and touched her nose ridge, "I'm very interested in the ongoing endeavor for peace between Bajorans and Cardassians. And Father said it's a beautiful planet with a good hot sun and some lovely beaches, so I'm really looking forward to it. I'm hoping there will be time for he and I to relax together, something we can rarely do these days." A pause. "And who are you?"

"I'm Mills Rebekkah, but most people call me Bek." Rebekkah remembered her manners before she quietly spoke again. "I guess you don't see your mother very much then, huh?"

"My mother was killed over six years ago in the crash of the Ravanok, a Cardassian ship that was transporting Bajoran prisoners near the end of the Occupation. My father was trying to get my mother and I to a safe place, but things didn't work out quite like he planned." She looked so sad that Rebekkah knew the pain of losing her mother was still very fresh. Rebekkah tried briefly to imagine what it would be like to lose her mother, and couldn't.

Her face must have reflected her thoughts, because Ziyal placed her hand on Rebekkah's arm. "It's okay, Bek. I miss her terribly, but her death was the catalyst that brought my father and I together. At first, when he and Major Kira found the survivors of the crash, he wanted to kill me to protect his position on Cardassia, but thanks to Major Kira, that did work out quite like he planned, either. We've been together ever since."

Rebekkah didn't have a response to that. Besides—glancing at the chronometer on the wall—she had to get moving. She rose from the bench and picked up her pack. "Well, Ziyal, I gotta go, okay? It was nice to meet you. I'm glad you and your father have each other. I hope you have a good time at the, uh, at the conference."

She walked away from Ziyal and into the game room, not quite aware that she had finally come to a decision about what she was going to do. She went up to one of her favorite games and slid a token in, letting her thoughts tumble around while she played the game. She glanced once back at Ziyal, who had leaned back on the bench and was reading from a padd.

Time passed.

A half-hour before the appointed time, Rebekkah left the game room, noticing the bench was empty, and wandered down the Promenade toward the money station. There were Cardassians everywhere, especially in Quark's. She looked around for Ziyal but did not see her. But Rebekkah knew she wouldn't forget her face, its gentle blend of Bajoran and Cardassian features. In the short time they had been together, Ziyal had left quite an impression on Rebekkah. Aside from being a very nice person, she represented for Rebekkah all the mixed-race children her mother had spoken in defense of in her arguments with Emi. Further, there was the knowledge that Ziyal and her father were part of the peace conference delegation.

Rebekkah halted mid-stride, almost directly in front of the money station. The decision she did not realize she had made bloomed fully into consciousness: she would not do this. Her uncle had lied to her, and he had done it on purpose. He hadn't told her the whole truth about the mission, partly because she was just a child, but mostly because he'd seen it as unnecessary. And now, after meeting Ziyal, she knew for certain she could tell her aunt and uncle what she had decided, without fear of their reaction. The idea that she would be able to stop something very bad from happening seemed far better than being part of the Maquis.

She began walking again, stepping around the money station and heading for the wall of videophones at the end of the long corridor. She went to the one in the far corner and settled herself on the seat in front of it. She keyed in her home code and waited, fidgeting nervously. She was hoping that maybe Aunt Emi would answer, but no such luck. Her mother answered on the second chime.

"Bek? I didn't expect to hear from you!" One look was all her mother needed before her maternal instincts kicked in. "What's wrong? Are you okay?"

Rebekkah took a deep breath, a little curl of fear creeping up her back. "Yeah, Mom, I'm okay. Don't panic. Um, is Aunt Emi still there?"

"Yes, honey, I think she's outside saying goodbye to your uncle. He said he was going to the station. Maybe you can meet him in the dock—"

Even though she knew how it would sound, Rebekkah cut her off. "Mom, I gotta talk to Aunt Emi. Right now."

Her mother's blue eyes clouded at her daughter's unusually forceful tone, but she kept it from her voice. "Okay, sweetie. Let me go get her."

A minute later, Emi was standing in front of the screen, looking uncertain. Rebekkah saw her mother in the background with her arms folded across her chest, listening intently, wearing her classic "mom" expression that was a mixture of worry and annoyance. But Rebekkah had come too far to worry about her mom's reaction. Taking another deep breath, she got herself ready to say what she had to say. She was sitting on her hands to keep them from shaking. "Aunt Emi, I can't do what you asked. I won't."

Even though it had all come out in a rush, it was clear Emi had no trouble understanding what she meant. "Uh, Bek," Emi glanced over at her sister and then back at the screen. "Don't you think it's a little late to be talking like this?"

Per haps it was her aunt's tone—so like her uncle's— that did it, or perhaps it was just because it was time, but whatever the reason, all the rest of Rebekkah's fear spiraled down into one word that she spat angrily at the screen.

"No!"

The emotional strength of that single word brought hot tears to Rebekkah's eyes. "Tell Uncle Lou that I figured it out. I'm nothing but a diversion, Aunt Emi! I'm only doing something he needed a dumb little kid to do in order to distract everyone from what's really going on. But I'm not dumb! The Maquis are gonna kill the Cardassians on the station, aren't they?" She heard her mother gasp. "I bet Uncle Lou doesn't even care if I get caught, as long as I get the stupid card through the stupid slot first! Well, I'm not going to do it!"

A deep inhalation brought Rebekkah back to herself and she continued, in barely a whisper, still speaking with the courage of her newfound convictions. She let her tears run freely down her face, sniffing every once in a while and wiping her nose. "He called them 'spoonheads,' Aunt Emi, I heard him. I met a nice woman here, her name's Ziyal. She's not a 'spoonhead.' She's Cardassian, but she has a nose ridge, too! I thought it would be cool to be part of the Maquis, but it's not. It's wrong."

Emi looked whipped, but her only response to Rebekkah's outburst was to turn slowly to her sister, who was standing behind her in shocked silence. Emi fell into her sister's arms.

"Mommy? Aunt Em?" Rebekkah could see over the women's shoulders to the doorway. Uncle Lou was standing there, glaring so darkly at her that she was very glad she was seeing him through a viewscreen and not in person.

Lou shifted his green eyes from the screen to his wife. "C'mon, Emi. We gotta get outta here." He spoke roughly, reaching for Emi. It was clear he was beyond furious, but it was impossible to tell whether it was because he had underestimated a child, or because his chances for a righteous Maquis strike had been spoiled by this same child. No doubt both.

Emi reluctantly allowed herself to be taken from her sister's arms, mumbling a desperate apology for all the things she could not possibly apologize for. Then she disappeared from the house with her husband, leaving her sister and niece to gaze helplessly after her.

"Mom? Are you okay?"

Her mother turned her tear-stained face to the screen. "No, honey, but I will be. You did a very brave thing today, Rebekkah. I'm very proud of you." Her mother paused, as if about to say something else, but then did not, and Rebekkah could see pain and indecision cloud her features, as her fingers closed into a fist against her lips. Rebekkah spoke for her.

"What are you going to do about Aunt Emi?"

Her mother signed heavily, uncurled her fingers, and reached up to touch her earring, in much the same way that Rebekkah had done that morning in the shuttle. It appeared as though a solution was about to avail itself, but Rebekkah had a feeling that this time, it was not going to be very positive.

"Nothing, baby. I can't expect you to understand, but I won't turn in my own sister. I can't. I just can't."

But Rebekkah did understand. She understood that making choices involved more than simply deciding one thing over another, that the right choice wasn't always the most obvious one, and that thinking beyond the choice was necessary, as consequences could turn out to matter a whole lot more than the choice itself.

And while this understanding did not come without a hard lesson for Rebekkah about the complicated adult world she would soon be required to make her own way in, it certainly did come with a great deal of respect for others who struggled with difficult decisions.

"Don't move, Mom. I'm comin' home."

End.