In memory of Robin Williams, who gave light and laughter to the world, even in its darkest, most sorrowful hours. Rest in peace.
Cold.
For what seemed to be an eternity, cold was the only sensation she was aware of. It wasn't a coherent, intelligent, awareness, but rather an instinctual feeling, a vague observation noted somewhere in the deep recesses of her brain. She was aware of only what she could feel. There were no thoughts in her mind, no memories to be recalled, no ideas to be explored. There was nothing - nothing at all for her brain to register, aside from bone-chilling cold.
Gradually, consciousness began to return to the motionless figure, floating a few meters off the floor. Her eyes opened, albeit, with some difficulty, as her muscles were locked firmly in the cold's grasp. Her vision was slow to respond, and for a few moments she could see little more than a lone, blurred point of light, dimly flickering in front of her in a seemingly infinite abyss.
She was slowly beginning to regain her faculties, and was just cognizant enough to know that she was enveloped completely in a cloud of pure, piercing pain. She had taken a survival course toward the end of her days at the academy, but even the two days she spent in an Antarctic blizzard did not prepare her for the agony of the freezing air surrounding her lightly protected skin. With each inhale, she felt as though her lungs were being stabbed by thousands of tiny needles, and with each exhale came a plume of crystallized water vapor that froze to her face.
Oh God, this is it, she thought silently. For a split second, the trill was convinced that mortality had finally claimed her, that this was the other side, but something inside her, perhaps the experience of seven preceding lifetimes, made her push that fear aside long enough to get her bearings. An almost inaudible moan briefly slipped through her chattering teeth as she finally awakened fully - or at least, as fully awakened as someone could be while freezing to death. Her sight came into focus. A single, cracked panel on the rear bulkhead cast thin rays of light inside the cockpit. It began to dawn upon Dax that she felt inexplicably lighter; weightless, in fact. She gazed ahead of her, giving her irises some time to adjust to the environment. To her surprise, the deck plating looked as though it were nearly two meters below her: if anything, she was actually closer to the ceiling.
She flailed around in the air in an attempt to right herself. She swiftly kicked her legs out then tucked her body in tight, sending her into a slow but steady forward tumble. She spun around once, missing the top of the cabin with her hands by just a hair. She stretched out a leg for anything within reach. Another rotation. Her foot grazed the covering on one of the ribs that supported the ceiling. Though it was barely even perceptible, it was just enough force to redirect her upward. She waited until she could get both feet flat, then pushed off with a gentle jumping motion toward the jump seat at the rear of the cockpit, latching on to the seam between two of the cushions when she neared it. With a bit of effort, she managed to muscle herself into a more workable position.
Dax tapped one of the consoles a few times. No beeps, no haptic feedback, no visual response whatsoever. Persistently, she tried the display beside it. It, too, was dead.
"You've got to be kidding me," she mumbled to herself, grabbing her face in frustration. She flipped around and pushed off the bulkhead, making her way to the main panel up front. Again, she grabbed hold of a seat, and tried her luck with a display. She tapped it once. Nothing. She tapped it again. Still, it refused to turn on. As she was about to make another feeble attempt at interfacing with the computer, the light from the panel on the rear bulkhead went out.
"Damn it!" she yelled. With fear and anger building up inside of her, she smacked the panel a few times with her fist before finally giving up.
None of this made any sense. This was just supposed to be a simple, boring commute to Bajor. There wasn't anything inherently dangerous about it. The flight plan was a straight shot in. No trips through any asteroid belts, no trespassing through enemy space, no traversing of any hidden minefields. There was literally nothing between the station and Bajor but a three-hour flight through a few million kilometers of empty space. But even still, as it always seemed to be Dax's luck, yet another unusual incident had befallen her.
Last thing she remembered, she was sitting in the pilot-side seat, sipping away at her morning raktacino, leaving the runabout on autopilot. She had just kicked her boots off and lowered her seatback, and was busy taking in the sight of the stars during her talk over the com with Dr. Bashir.
Wait, she thought. Julian...
"Julian!" she called out, realizing that the doctor was nowhere to be found.
She pushed off her seat in the runabout, clamoring to reach the cargo hold, where Bashir had been located prior to the accident. She apprehensively felt around on the bulkhead for the door, totally invisible in the pitch blackness of the cabin. She ran her fingers over the surface of the wall as she floated alongside it. After a few seconds, her they bumped into the trim around the doorframe.
"Julian, can you hear me? Are you okay?" Jadzia held her breath as she waited for any sounds coming from the other side of the door, silently praying that he was wasn't hurt.
She waited for a moment before sticking her fingertips in the door. With every ounce of strength that she could muster, she let out a loud grunt as she fought to pry it open. The panels wouldn't budge; it was sealed up tight.
"Julian?" She yelled through the door, slapping it a few times to get his attention.
She waited for what seemed like centuries with her ear pressed against the door. Not a single sound. By now, a wave of adrenaline was flooding her veins. Her heart started racing faster and faster, until it felt as though at any moment, it would jump right out of her chest. Her eyes darted all around the cockpit, aided solely by the light of the heavens streaming in through the windows. Her hand reached out into the darkness, grasping at anything it could touch. There was nothing to grasp but the air.
Suddenly, Dax recalled the toolkit that was stashed in the equipment locker just a few meters away. She made her way to it, keeping her left hand on the wall until she felt the icy surface of an aluminum panel on the bulkhead. Frantically, she ripped it open and thrust her hand through a floating mass of various supplies. Almost instantly, she felt a small plastic box. Taking it into her grip, she shook the box and heard the sound of clanking metal objects. Even if this weren't the toolkit, she figured, at the very least, there would be something she could use to her advantage.
Dax floated back over to the door and grabbed on to the frame with her free hand.
"Julian?" she called again, "I'm going to get you out, just hang on!" It was in Dax's nature to comfort her friends in situations such as these, and she would certainly do whatever she could to help Bashir, but in the back of her mind was the sobering realization that with the power out, the hydraulics holding the door shut would not disengage on their own. It was entirely possible that she might not be able to muscle it open, especially with how badly the biting cold was beginning to affect her muscles. She was shaking almost uncontrollably, and was hardly able to hang on to the box in her hand. If she waited any longer, there would be no way that she could do anything to help Julian.
Dax undid the clasp on the toolkit. She kept it closed enough that she could barely fit her hand in, so as to keep anything from floating out. She felt around for anything narrow enough to fit in the crack between the door panels. There was a long metal tool at the bottom of the kit. At first, she wasn't certain what it was, but feeling around at its ends revealed it to be an old, slightly rusted crowbar. She yanked it out and practically threw the box to the side.
She inserted the crowbar into the seam, put her feet up against one side of the door frame, and leveraged against it with every bit of her remaining energy. It slid open just enough for her to get a good grip on either door panel. She struggled for a moment, but once the hydraulics pistons hit the emergency release, the door sprung open. Dax rushed the cargo hold.
The hold was filled to the brim with floating debris. Dax waved one arm around in front of her to clear a path, using the other one to find her comrade.
"Julian, can you hear me?"
Initially, there was no response, but a few seconds later, she heard a gasp of breath in the darkness. Right after, she hit a large, soft mass with her leg. It was Bashir.
"Julian? Julian, please tell me you're okay!" She blurted. Bashir moaned quietly; he was still knocked out. If he needed medical help, a room filled with debris would not exactly be the best place to provide it. Dax grabbed on to his collar and pushed off the rear wall, pulling him out into the forward compartment.
Bashir began mumbling to himself. Dax couldn't quite make out what he was saying, but it didn't matter. He was alive, and for the moment, that was all that she cared about.
Unable to see any features in the lightless cockpit, Dax's only landmark was the star field outside the windows. She floated her way over to the seats up front, feeling for them as she went by. She touched the cold fabric of one of the seats and dug into it. The momentum of Bashir overwhelmed her for a moment, and continued to push her forward into the flight displays. She was bumped into them, and was nudged by Bashir's motionless body. Dax removed the belt from her uniform and fumbled around for a moment as she fastened Julian to the nearest seat, then grabbed a hold of the other one and pulled herself down. She tried to rest for just a moment, exhausted from the aerial ballet that had just ensued.
"How did the early astronauts put up with this?" she asked herself aloud. How anyone was ever willing to go into space before artificial gravity was totally lost on her. For the mundane tool that it was, it was surprisingly indispensible. While zero-g might be fun on occasion, have to live and work without it, Dax thought, would be a living hell.
She snapped back to reality as Bashir began to stir.
"Jadzia..." he whispered. He said something afterward, but it was again so quiet and incoherent that Dax couldn't understand any of it.
"Julian, how do you feel?"
He paused briefly, still trying to get his mind back together. "I've been better. What's our condition?"
"We lost our grav system. Coms are down, all three of our electrical busses are dead." Dax responded. She began feeling around his torso for any broken bones or wounds.
Bashir sighed. "That's some pretty severe damge. I'm guessing life support is offline as well?"
"I'd say that's a safe bet."
Bashir clenched his eyes in disappointment.
"And our ELT?" he asked, half knowing already what Dax's answer would be.
"I don't know," she sighed. "It should have activated automatically, but if it was damaged in the accident..." Dax stopped her triage briefly. She could feel a distinct depression on Bashir's rib cage. She pushed slightly. Even with minimal pressure, he let out a painful scream.
"Bloody hell, Dax!" he cried, "don't press so hard!"
She lifted her hand to give Bashir a moment. "Sorry. My hands are so cold I can barely feel anything."
"Do you know what happened?" he inquired.
"I'm not entirely sure." Dax put a hand around the back of her head, trying to recall whatever she could about the accident. "I was talking to you and zoned out. Next thing I knew, the sensors lit up like a Christmas tree, the engines cut out, the power fell to zero and we got thrown around like a toy."
"Jadzia," Bashir heaved out as Dax continued feeling around his ribs, "there's a flashlight on my belt. Left side."
Dax reached down, one hand on his belt to hold her position, the other one searching for a flashlight. She unclipped it, activated it, and positioned it over the flight displays facing upward, filling the cockpit with light.
"Much better," she said softly.
As she turned back to Bashir, Dax's face paled as a wave of fear overcame her. Immediately, Bashir could recognize that something was horribly wrong.
"Oh my God." Dax sat aghast, staring at his side. His uniform was soaked in blood. A massive laceration ran all the way from the bottom of his ribs to the front of his pelvis, and it was gushing.
Terror befell the doctor, who knew the look Dax was giving him now: it was the same look he would get each time he knew he was about to lose a patient.
"It's bad, isn't it?"
Dax said nothing in return. She grabbed the flashlight and shined it around the cockpit. A field of debris and specs of dust glinted in the light's beam as it was flashed across the cabin. Dax pushed off the dashboard and looked around, hoping to spot a med kit floating among the wreckage.
"I can't find the med kit," she said, struggling to hide the panic in her voice.
"Look in the equipment locker," Bashir called out across the runabout.
Dax returned to the locker on the rear bulkhead to find the supplies that were once secured to its walls had been jostled loose from their restraints and were now floating freely amongst the other debris. She whipped her head around in a frantic search for the med kit. There were bags of field rations, tools, bits of plastic and metal, and even a few articles of clothing floating around her in the absence of gravity, but worringly, the little red pouch which she so desperately needed was nowhere among them.
Dax returned to Bashir's side, her options now more limited than ever. She removed her uniform jacket, tore it into long strips, and fumbled awkwardly with them as she tied them together to craft a makeshift bandage. The cold was affecting her more than she believed was even possible. It was almost impossible for her to tie the bandage with her frozen fingers. Just closing her grip around the torn cloth felt like trying to crush a cannon ball with her bare hands.
"Sit forward," she said as she began to wrap it around his torso.
"I feel rather dizzy," he admitted, shutting his eyes as the cockpit spun circles around him. Dax pulled the bandage as tight as she could without making Bashir's wounds worse.
Even for Dax, whose Trill physiology made her particularly resilient to cold, the stinging sensation of the air through her thin uniform felt akin to being electrocuted. And if she didn't do something soon, she realized, to her human companion, it would quickly become fatal, assuming he didn't succomb to blood loss first.
"I don't suppose there's a thermal blanket floating around in here somewhere?" Bashir asked, his teeth chattering.
Dax grabbed the flashlight and drifted to an emergency kit affixed to the rear bulkhead. She put the light between her teeth, then with a single, quick jerk, snapped the clips holding the kit shut. Without even bothering to take it off the wall, she forced the lid open and snatched a reflective, dark gold roll out of the air as it floated off. She flipped around and with a gentle effort pushed off the bulkhead once again.
"Looks like we'll have to share."
Bashir looked up at Dax as she floated over the adjacent seat.
"No matter," he said as a thin grimace grew across his face. "I could have worse luck."
"Yeah," Dax replied, wrestling the blanket's packaging open with her teeth. She tore the top off the plastic and spit it out into the cockpit. "You could have to share it with a 200-kilo Reman wearing nothing but a loin cloth."
"Would I be in the loin cloth, or would the Reman?" Bashir joked, playing along with Dax's sarcastic ambiguity.
"...yes," she quipped.
The two shared a momentary chuckle, only for it to be interrupted by Bashir yelping out in pain as he clutched his wound. Cautiously, Dax wrapped the blanket around the two of them and huddled up against him.
"You know," he snickered, "A few years ago I could only dream of being wrapped up in a blanket with you." He let out another quick giggle.
"Of course, I doubt that bleeding all over my clothes was a part of that fantasy." Dax rebuked.
"No, of course not." Bashir paused for a second or two, uncertain if he should share his next thought.
"Then again, clothes weren't a part of that fantasy either."
Dax shot him an expression of slight underlying amusement cloaked in one of stern disapproval.
"I'm sure Worf would appreciate hearing you say that," she repudiated.
Bashir turned away out of embarrassment. The two sat in an awkward silence, concurrently trying to determine how to proceed with a conversation after Bashir's colorful remark.
"Sorry," Dax retracted, "I guess I'm not completely myself right now."
"No need to apologize, I understand how you feel." Bashir replied in an unusually downbeat tone, sounding as though he had suddenly become depressed.
They once more descended into silence.
This was an unusual occurrence for Dax and Bashir. In the years they had known each other, not once had there been a time when they didn't have something to discuss. Even if there was nothing of importance for them to talk about, there was always at least some piece of station gossip for them two indulge in. This time, however, was somehow different. Perhaps it was the stress that the accident was putting on them. Perhaps it was the mind-numbing cold, the decreasing oxygen levels, the uncertainty that rescue would come before disaster.
Or perhaps it was something more trivial entirely. It occurred to Dax in that instant that she had not been alone with Bashir since she married Worf a few months earlier. Of course, she and Bashir had stayed friends, but oddly, either by chance, or perhaps by some subconscious intention, there was always someone else with them every time they met: Worf, Miles, Benjamin, Odo...as far as she could recall, ever since her wedding day, one of them was with them every time they ate at Quark's, whenever they were on duty, and even every time they happened to run into one another by chance.
While they'd never had any sort of falling out, nor any disagreement or tense moments - at least, not in recent memory - something had, indeed, changed between them. Their private conversations had become a part of the past, and perhaps as a result of the changing dynamics, they had somehow grown apart. And somewhere in the deep, dark recesses of her mind, even if she didn't want to admit it, Dax knew exactly why: because the day she married Worf was the day Bashir officially lost her.
It wasn't an easy idea to contemplate, especially for Bashir. For nearly a month after that day, he distinctly recalled feeling an indescribable sense of loss, a sense of emptiness - a hole that had wedged its way into his life. For weeks on end, for some reason that even he couldn't understand, he woke up every night gasping for air, as if he had just surfaced after nearly drowning in a swimming pool. He'd spend hours on end just standing in his quarters, staring out the window at the stars, and at the tiny, distant blue-green dot in the distance that was Bajor. Sometimes, if he was lucky, he'd see the wormhole burst open for a departing transport to one of the colonies on the other side. The gold and blue aura from the discharge of energy would fill his quarters. For just a moment, the pulse of ions would cause objects to glow slightly, he would feel a touch of warmth from the low-level radiation, the hairs on his body would briefly stand on end from the electromagnetic field emanating from the opening of the wormhole...it was a peculiar experience. Many of the station residents found it rather disconcerting, some even thought the sensation to be outright frightening, but for some reason Bashir found it anything but that. To him, rather, it was surprisingly soothing. Each time he felt it, he was inexplicably reminded of Jadzia. Maybe it was because of the way she lit up the room with her mere presence; the way that she always made him feel welcome and wanted; the way the sound of her voice sent shivers down his spine.
Regrettably, it was all for naught: he could never have that feeling for himself, for it belonged to someone else now, and it killed him inside.
At the end of every shift, he'd trudge back to his quarters, lay his head on his pillow, and simply stare straight up at the ceiling as he would mentally interrogate himself. Why, he'd wondered, why didn't I make a move when I had the chance? Maybe he was just waiting for the perfect moment, which, sadly, just didn't come before it was too late. Or alternatively, maybe he was just afraid: afraid that if he wasn't careful, he might destroy what he already had with Dax - a rapport unlike any that he'd ever been lucky enough to experience. The friend of a lifetime. To him, it seemed, this was a sentiment which was echoed prominently among his colleagues. Almost everyone he knew viewed the spry lieutenant Dax as the rare gem in an unending ocean of stones, the one person who could make them forget all about this damned war with the Dominion. The sole point of light in an otherwise bleak and foreboding universe. Yet, as much as it pained him, he had let her slip away. Never, he thought, would he be able to forgive himself.
Though it was of small comfort, there was a time when Dax felt much the same way toward him. Of course, she never acted upon these feelings, as at the time, she preferred her solitude and found solace in her work. Her duty to Star Fleet was all she needed. Though, admittedly, it was not all that she wanted, but this was a realization which she would not make until after she met Worf, and by then, his Klingon heritage and his distant, mysterious detachment from his peers was more alluring than anything anyone else alive could offer her. On one hand, he was a rough 'n' ready warrior with a thirst for battle, and a staunch defender - or zealot, perhaps - of honor. And at the same time, his devotion to his uniform, to Star Fleet, and his loyalty to the Federation, so uncommon amongst his people, made him an outlier in the universe. An unlikely one of a kind combination of a battle-hardened soldier and a peaceful explorer. The best of both worlds, which was too much for the ready and willing Dax to pass up.
And that was that. Where once there had been an open door for Bashir, there was now nothing but a brick wall in its place.
But perhaps this was no longer important. For the first time in months, they were alone together, albeit, under less than ideal circumstances. It was ironic, really. Bashir had once fantasized about something like this happening. He'd once dreamt that they would be sent on a mission together, and through some unforeseen set of events, be thrust into each others arms in the heat of the moment. But now that it had finally happened, now that they were literally in each others arms, the fantasy somehow lost its appeal - likely because the situation only served to remind him that his fantasy was just that. Nothing more than a concoction of events fabricated by his own imagination, and in none of those fantasies was Dax involved with someone else, not to mention married to them. Cruel was the universe that would keep them apart for so long, only to push them together when any of what Bashir desired would be completely impossible.
It seemed, though, that they had bigger problems. The runabout was adrift, without power, no way to call for help, no medical supplies, and limited rations. Dead in the water, and given that all the heat was being slowly bled off into the vacuum of space, it would take nothing short of an act of God to just get them - and the doctor, in particular - through the night alive. Neither Bashir nor Dax were religious. In fact, both considered themselves atheists, but somewhere in the spaces of their minds they had each decided that in such situations it was perfectly reasonable to make an exception, and the two castaways prayed to a deity which they did not recognize to begin with in a desperate attempt to save their lives. Whether or not it would make even the slightest difference remained to be seen, but it couldn't do any harm, the figured.
The inner voice somewhere deep in the recesses of Dax's conscience told her that there had to be a way out of this. She had been in desperate, seemingly impossible situations before. The Klaestron trial. The attempt on her life by Verad. Her injury on Soukara. She had beaten the odds time and time again, and while she always felt that her luck would someday run out, somehow, she did not believe that day to be today.
Dax gazed out the window into the bleak, endless star field before her, trying to piece together some idea of where they were. She knew the Bajoran system, the neighboring systems, and the sector by which they were encompassed better than anyone else she knew, and had an almost uncanny ability to form a mental map of them in her head. She realized, of course, that it wasn't much good if they were any more than a light-year from DS9, as the constellations with which she was so familiar would be contorted and skewed into completely unrecognizable shapes, thus rendering her attempts to get a fix on their location pointless.
She scanned the glimmering points of light that dotted the heavens, turning a mental image over and over in her head. A binary cluster here, a white dwarf there, cosmic dust and debris as far as the light could reach...it looked similar, she thought, but something seemed...off. It was not so much that things were unfamiliar, but rather they just appeared differently, as if they had been rearranged somehow.
We're not in the system anymore, she realized, but it must be nearby...
This epiphany, however, was of little use, because as far as she was concerned, not a soul in the galaxy knew there were stuck out here. Of course, it would only be a matter of time before Bajoran Flight Watch realized they hadn't closed their flight plan and dispatched someone to look for them, but even so, if the emergency locator transmitter were damaged in the accident, it could be as much as a few days before anyone spotted them, perhaps even longer if the anomaly took them very far off course. By then, given the falling temperature in the cockpit, both of them would have succumbed to hypothermia. And even if they somehow survived the frigid cold, Dax thought, Bashir would still likely die long before a search crew could even be sent out.
"Julian, do you have your phaser on you, by chance?" she asked as a plan began to form in her head.
He reached down to his belt, unclipped his holster, and pulled out his sidearm.
"You're in luck," he said weakly, passing it to Dax.
"First good luck I've had all day." Dax took the phaser in one hand and reached out into the cockpit with the other to grab the freely-floating light. She traded it back to Bashir and manipulated it to point down toward the phaser. "Hold this for a minute," she commanded. The doctor, growing increasingly weak, simply nodded.
Dax turned the weapon over in her hand, felt around for the circuit board cover, then dug a fingernail under the release tab and pulled it off, letting it float off into the dark cockpit. She reached under the instrument panel beside her and yanked one of the service panels off, exposing a rat's nest of wires and circuitry. With a great resolve, she latched onto the first wire bundle she could find, and with a few strong tugs, forcefully wrenched the wiring loose from its mount.
"What are you doing?" Bashir asked, somewhat baffled.
Dax quickly unfurled the bundle in her hand and pulled a single, long strand of wire out.
"Have I ever told you about the survival course I took at the academy?"
Bashir thought back momentarily. "Not that I can recall. Why?"
"Well, it's actually not that interesting...save for one story," she said, looking inside the phaser for one of the pins on the motherboard.
"There was one simulation in particular," she began, "the scenario was that we were in an escape pod, and an ion storm had knocked out our communications array. We had no rations, no propulsion capabilities...and all we had were the standard away mission supplies, the problem, of course, being how do we signal for help?"
She paused for a second upon locating the pin, twisted the end of the wire and slid it into place on the circuit board.
"Why does this sound familiar?" Bashir stated, implying a similarity to the present dilemma.
"I know, what are the odds?" Dax agreed. "Anyway, I sat with my partner in that pod for nearly seven hours. By then our oxygen was starting to get low. We were hungry, we were fatigued...and then, out of seemingly nowhere, she gets this idea in her head."
"Oh?"
Dax reached down to a second maintenance panel on the floor and opened the hatch. She shook her head as she plugged the other end of the wire in to one of the circuits, laughing a little under her breath.
"I thought it was the dumbest idea, but then the more I thought about it, the more I couldn't believe how obvious it was, and yet it wasn't until we had nearly given up that we thought of it."
Bashir looked up at her with his curiosity piqued.
"What was it?" he pushed.
Dax half-smiled as she recollected the experience.
"Most of the system's on a ship put a massive power load on the electrical grid, but a small handful can't take the voltage running through the main conduits, so they have secondary, low-voltage hookups that run independently. As it turns out, the subspace radio is one of those systems, and it just so happens that the amperage needed to run it..." she stopped. Cautiously, she pressed the firing button, activating the phaser. The instrument panel before her flickered to life.
"...is equal to the electrical output of a hand-phaser." Bashir realized.
"Exactly," Dax nodded. She lightly touched the panel a few times to verify that it was functional, then began rhythmically tapping away at it as she set to work. In spite of the bitter cold, her fingers danced across the screen with an inhuman dexterity. With the computer offline, Dax circumvented the standard LCARS startup routine and instead opened the command line console.
She sat still, trying to recall the lines of code she needed to access the transceiver array. Though she was well-versed in the inner workings of Star Fleet computers, the only people that ever used old-style command line interfaces these days were programmers working on low-level software, and even then, it was only on rare occasion, as practically everything was created using automated compilers.
She sat, eyes locked to the screen before her. A little prompt, "sysFLT: ~$" popped up on the display, a little underscore at the end of the line flashing periodically, as if it were asking her, come on, show me what you got! After a few moments' pause, the old coding knowledge she had acquired in her academy days started to slowly come back to her.
"sysFLT: ~$ l – jDax18a2d1425 –c"
The system beeped twice, indicating that her login had passed verification and was successful.
"What was that?" Bashir questioned, taken somewhat off guard at the unfamiliar noise the computer had emitted.
Dax smiled at him reassuringly. "Nothing to worry about. With the computer offline, I have to use a back door in the runabout's operating system. It's a bit complicated, but I think I should be able to work it out."
She turned back to her console and inputted a few commands, instructing the system to load some of the maintenance tools.
"sysAdmin: ~$ service fmware \start
"sysAdmin: ~$ service sysCheck \start
Dax queried the computer for systems status.
"sysAdmin: ~$ sysCheck comSat_main \test
...
"fmware: 'DIAGNOSTIC IN PROGRESS...STANDBY'
"Anything?" asked Bashir.
"Not yet," Dax answered, scanning the display's readout as the hardware test finished.
The diagnostic completed, returning only two short lines of information. To most people, it would have come across as little more than a few lines of numbers and gibberish, but Dax's extensive Star Fleet training told her it was something more serious.
...
"fmware: ***/comSat_main fault type=900913***
"fmware: ***/comSat_main INOP
She sighed and slumped down slightly in her seat as she came to realize the meaning of the message.
"It looks like our main com's system was taken out by the accident. The relay won't initialize."
She typed in yet another line of code to check the backup transceiver.
"sysAdmin: ~$ sysCheck tcvr_Wband%tcvr_SSA \status
...
"fmware: ***/service tcvr_Wband%tcvr_SSA OFFLINE***
sysAdmin: ~$ service tcvr_Wband%tcvr_SSA \restart
...
fmware: ***/service tcvr_Wband%tcvr_SSA ONLINE***
With the last line, Dax felt a sudden urge to cheer out loud.
"Ha! Now we're getting somewhere!" She exclaimed. "The main relay is dead, but it looks like the backup radio transceiver is still working."
Bashir exhaled in relief. Despite both of their worst fears, with the radio system functioning – even though it was extremely obsolete – their odds were starting to look surprisingly favorable. Better than zero, at least.
There was, however, one minor problem: nobody used radio anymore. In the early years of space exploration, the first time the bounds of the Earth were overcome, it was quickly discovered that even with its information moving at the speed of light, at stellar distances, radio communication was excruciatingly slow and prone to data degradation. Even assuming they succeeded at sending out a message, it could be hours before it would reach anyone nearby, and that was assuming the signal didn't break down. For that matter, Dax realized, even if the carrier wave were to maintain its integrity, there was no guarantee that it would ever be received. At the range they were transmitting, there was a not-insignificant possibility that it would be overlooked by DS9 or Bajoran Flight Watch, perhaps misinterpreted as an EM surge from a nearby star, thus blending in to the background radiation of the cosmos.
This concern, however, was of little consequence to Dax and Bashir, as it was now their only realistic chance of getting help before there was nobody left to receive it.
Dax punched in the command to activate the transceiver. She waited for a moment to confirm that they were transmitting, then spoke.
"Mayday-mayday-mayday, this is the USS North Platte declaring an emergency! We have encountered a spatial anomaly of unknown nature and are in need of immediate assistance! Does anyone read?" She lifted her hand from the panel, desperately hoping for some sort of reply from anyone that might by in the nearby vicinity.
Static.
She repeated.
"I repeat, mayday-mayday-mayday! USS North Platte to anyone nearby, we urgently need assistance! Does anyone read?"
Static.
The radio picked up nothing but the faint, crackly echo of the background noise of the cosmos. Nothing but radiation: the remnants of the long-passed big bang.
"USS North Platte to any nearby ships," she reiterated, her voice beginning to tremble slightly. "Mayday! Mayday! Mayday!"
Static. Empty, lifeless static.
"Come on, damn it." She moaned, fighting to hold back the desperation in her voice. She tried again.
"This is lieutenant-commander Jadzia Dax aboard the North Platte. Mayday!"
Bashir struggled against his injury to prop himself up in his seat. The wound brushed against the makeshift bandage Dax had wrapped it in, causing complete and utter agony as he moved around. He nearly yelped out at the searing pain as he sat forward. With one hand clutching his wound, Bashir reached out to Dax and placed his free hand on her shoulder.
"Jadzia," he said softly, hoping to get her attention.
She ignored him, intent on getting a message out.
"Mayday! Mayday! Mayday!"
"Jadzia!"
The white noise coming over the sound system echoed lightly in the cockpit as they both sat in a brief silence. Dax sat almost entirely motionless in her seat, despondently slumped over the instrument panel, her head buried in her hands. The muted ambiance in the cockpit was overshadowed by the sound of her labored breath and muffled thudding of her own heartbeat. In that instant, she could literally hear her own pulse, periodically pounding in her head, slowing down gradually as little by little, she regained control of her faculties.
"Jadzia," Bashir resumed, "there's no one out there."
Dax sighed and slouched back into her seat, wishing he were wrong. There was no one to hear her pleas for help. They were alone in the treacherous lifelessness of space.
She nodded, reluctantly accepting that there was nothing she could do. She turned slowly back to the console and entered a command to record her final message.
"Mayday, mayday, mayday. Runabout North Platte to anyone receiving this message, we are declaring an emergency. Require immediate assistance. Two souls aboard. Last confirmed position is one-nine-eight degrees, five-five mark five-eight decimal two-seven-two." She tapped the console again to stop the recording.
"If anyone's out there," she whispered, "...I hope you hear us."
With that, she set the recording to a continuous loop, then hit the transmit button.
And that was it. That was all either of them could do: just send a single, ten-second message in the off chance that someone received it and got out to them before it was too late. That, both Dax and Bashir knew, was sadly a possibility which was remote at best.
They were helpless. Life support was gone. Their warp and impulse engines were dead, and with both the main and auxiliary power busses down, all hope of getting any form of propulsion back online was lost. All that could be done now was to try and wait out the elements, and hope that someone eventually found them.
Dax returned to her spot beside the ailing Doctor Bashir, and pulled the covers back over them both, ensuring that the edges were tucked under them so that it wouldn't float away in the weightlessness. She wrapped one arm around him and laid her head against his shoulder. She melted into him as he reached up and gently stroked her compassionately.
"You did everything you could," He said softly.
Dax shook her head in denial. "It wasn't enough," she replied dolefully.
Bashir said nothing in return. After all, what could he say? He had been friends with Dax for years, and in all that time, he did not recall a single instance in which anything that anyone could say could cheer her up when she got like this. She had a bit of a tendency, he noticed, to take failure as a sign of personal inadequacy. She was, of course, always unfairly critical of herself, expecting, rather demanding performance from herself that was nothing short of perfection, and when she inevitably let herself down, she would unavoidably withdraw into herself, spiraling into an intense despair. And once she was down, Bashir knew, she was the only one who could lift herself out of it, though now that they were facing their own mortality, it seemed to him that she had every right to feel the way she did at this moment, as even though she had managed to call for help, because of the time delay, it most likely no longer mattered – at least, not for him, anyway.
By now, his blood loss had certainly been slowed by the bandage, and that was being compounded by the brutal cold, but unbeknownst to Dax, Bashir believed that he was already well past the point of no return. He surmised that he must have been unconscious, just floating in the cargo hold with his life bleeding away from him, for at least two, maybe three hours. As miraculous as it was that he didn't die during that time, he was absolutely shocked that he'd lasted this long. Although he didn't want to admit it, however, he knew that despite surviving until now, despite the insurmountable odds he had beaten to stay alive until this moment, he could not make it much longer. He said nothing about his present condition to his companion, but his head felt so light that it could simply float away. His dizziness had worsened as well. In just the last few minutes, it began spinning circles around him, and he felt as though he were locked in a giant centrifuge, with imaginary forces tugging on him in every direction. It had become so pronounced, now, that he was uncertain whether up was up and down was down. He recognized it was clearly just his blood-starved brain playing tricks on him, and yet the sensation felt so disturbingly real to him that he felt he might be launched in a random direction any second now.
His vision, he noticed, was getting blurrier with each passing minute. With each breath he took, he could feel his chest growing heavier and heavier, like someone was stacking weights atop him.
Bashir's mind wandered aimlessly as his condition deteriorated. For a few seconds, he thought about the game of darts he'd played with O'Brien just yesterday evening at Quark's. He replayed the match in his mind jumping around to various moments, what he considered the pivotal parts of the game – when O'Brien made a lucky throw and positioned himself to win, then when the doctor "luckily" scored a bull's-eye, even though Bashir had, in actuality, done it intentionally in response to the chief's undeserved gloating. A half-smile grew on his face as he pictured O'Brien's expression when he saw the shot. That look of sheer astonishment, Bashir remembered, one of both perplexed appreciation, and of hidden frustration, as O'Brien stood gaping at the board, his mind racing to determine whether it really was dumb luck that Bashir had made the shot, or if he was trying to pull a fast one.
His games with the chief were one of Bashir's favorite parts of living on DS9. It was so rare that Star Fleet officers got the luxury of being stationed in one place long enough to develop the kind of friendship he had with O'Brien, much less the brotherly rivalry that they shared. Star Fleet officers could typically expect to serve on an assignment for two, maybe three years at most before transferring or being reassigned – barely enough time to get settled, and, moreover, it was certainly not long enough to build a life. But in his case, Bashir had been one of the lucky ones. He'd been kept with the same crew, on the same assignment, for his entire six-year tenure in Star Fleet, and he had taken advantage of it. He was one of the more social members of the senior staff, fraternizing with the crew as much as he could, given his rigorous work schedule. There were days when he would devote entire evenings to simply relaxing in Quark's, making small talk with whomever came by, wanting little more than to get better acquainted with some of the crewmembers whom he rarely saw. But the more significant, fortified relationships he had built were what he loved most about being stationed on DS9. His nightly round of drinks and game of darts with O'Brien at Quark's; breakfast with Dax and Captain Sisko at the replimat; lunches with Garak, spent largely talking about the rather boorish Cardassian novels that had caught his latest fancy; target practice with Worf in the holosuites…all of them had begun as but a mere gesture of goodwill, and yet they had, over time, become a staple of his day to day life.
But now that was done. As far as he was concerned, Bashir was in his final hours of life: he'd be leaving everything behind, and he still had so many things he wanted to do, so many things yet to be said. Even after six years, there was still plenty of unfinished business, however the one thing there was not plenty of was time. It was such cruel irony, he thought, that six years wasn't enough time for him to do everything he still wanted to do there. Not that any amount of time could ever truly be enough, but he had so many lingering thoughts, so many regrets that he would now be unable to address. The mere idea that he would be leaving this world so deficient in experience was a heart-breaking insight to him, and left him with an indescribable tightness in his chest the more he pondered it.
Dax suddenly noticed Bashir's head starting to bob backward as he began to slip into unconsciousness. Oh no, he's already fading out, she panicked silently.
"Julian? Damn it, Julian, stay with me!" said Dax, her voice quivering in distress.
Bashir grunted once to acknowledge he was still awake.
"Come on, talk to me," she pleaded, "I don't care about what, just keep talking."
Bashir moaned as he tried to regain his focus, having to stave off not only the lack of blood flow, but the bitter cold that was seriously impeding his thought process. His head snapped forward as he jolted himself awake.
"It's okay," Bashir took a deep, fluctuant breath, "I'm still here."
Dax exhaled a sigh of relief.
"I feel perfectly fine," he maintained, reassuring Dax as best he could.
In truth, however, Bashir wasn't perfectly alright. Already, he could feel his alertness was fading as the life slowly drained away from his body. He blinked a few times as he shifted his focus out the window. The stars, he noticed, appeared fuzzy, with his eyesight diminishing as he gradually bled to death. Even with the cold slowing the flow of blood through his veins, there was no way that he could survive the hours, or, God forbid, the days that it may take for someone to come along be rescued - assuming rescue would come at all. Slowly, his lips parted and his eyes widened as the sobering reality finally hit home. For the good doctor, his time in this life was nearing its end.
Bashir returned his gaze to Dax's face, gently illuminated by the soft glow of the flashlight.
"Jadzia?" he whispered. Her head tilted slightly as she looked back down at his shivering body.
"Could I ask a favor of you?"
"Absolutely," Dax nodded in agreement.
"The last time we took the Defiant out on a mission, I left something in a drawer in my quarters..."
"Wait, Julian, where are you going with this?"
"Jadzia," he interrupted, beginning to slip into unconsciousness, "Jadzia, please, I need you to listen. Please. In the left drawer on my bed, there's a data chip between my old class-A and class-B division uniforms."
"Julian." Dax placed a hand over her mouth as she tried to hold back a sob.
"The...the data chip contains some holo-recordings I made." Bashir could now barely hold his head up or keep his eyes open.
"No! Julian, stop, don't tell me any more!" she said between forced breaths. Tears were beginning to well up on her eyelids.
"Jadzia," He placed his hand on her arm and looked into her shining blue eyes, "please, just listen..."
Dax peeled her arm away gently and took his hand in her's. She could tell by his tone that he had lost all hope of survival, but refused to accept it herself. In the years she had known him, she had never once taken him to be the type to yield to his own mortality, even when death seemed close at hand, and that he was doing so now was a disheartening thing for her to acknowledge. It was almost too much for her to bear.
"Give the chip to Captain Sisko, he'll know what to do with it." Bashir said between strained gasps.
Dax nodded reluctantly.
"There's one more thing," he started, his voice growing weaker. "Maybe you already know it, but I want to say it to you myself."
She nodded again, drying her eyes gently with her sleeve.
"After I came to DS9, for a while I wasn't sure it would work. I felt out of my element, like I didn't belong there, and many times I considered taking an offer at Star Fleet Medical. Of course, as I spent more time around the people there…Garrak, Kira, O'Brien, Captain Sisko…I started to adjust, but they weren't why I stayed."
"Then…what was it?" she asked.
Bashir took another stressed breath.
"It was you. I stayed on the station because of you. And I don't want you to take that the wrong way, because it wasn't for the reason you might assume. It was because while everyone else made my life there bearable, you are the one who made it worthwhile. Were it not for your kindness, your warmth, your companionship…I never would have lasted."
Dax shut her eyes tight, using every last bit of her resolve not to break down right then and there. She pulled herself toward Bashir and held him in a tight embrace.
"Jadzia, promise me you'll do one last thing?" he whispered, struggling to maintain consciousness.
"Anything," she whispered back, pulling away slightly to look him in the eyes.
With the last of his strength, Bashir lifted his arm and wiped a tear from her cheek and flashed her a weak, yet reassuring smile.
"Survive."
Time seemed to be at a standstill as they gazed upon each other, both knowing that this was the end of the road. With Bashir's last request, Dax suddenly noticed his grip on her arm had gone slack, and the hand with which he had wiped away a tear moments before was now floating freely next to her face, suspended by the weightlessness.
"Julian?" She shook Bashir slightly, trying to wake him back up.
"Julian?" She tried again, still not having any luck.
"Julian? Please, don't leave me now!" her voice cracked with pain in her voice. She touched her finger to his neck, hoping to find a pulse.
Nothing.
She buried her head in his chest as she burst out bawling, realizing that Julian Bashir, her colleague and best friend for the last six years, was gone. The tears she shed collected on his uniform, soaking into the light fabric as though it were made of paper, leaving her eyes and cheeks cold and damp in the icy air of the cockpit.
Dax lifted her head up and dried her face yet again while she held her breath to stop herself weeping any further. A few uncontrollable sobs and gasps slipped through, despite her best effort to restrain them. She turned away, holding her mouth shut with her hand, the sight of her friend's now motionless body too much to bear.
She stared out the window for what must have been ten minutes, wanting only to dissociate from the moment entirely. Perhaps it was the shock of what she had just witnessed, or perhaps it was simply her subconscious psyche trying to keep its conscious counterpart from snapping, but as she peered out into the starscape, she was devoid of all thought. She contemplated nothing whatsoever: a rare thing for her to experience. Generally, even in the most stressful of circumstances, her mind would race and wander uncontrollably, but now there was only a blank where once there had been conscious reflection.
She shut her eyes tightly, hoping to open them moments later to find herself laying in her bed on DS9 - to discover that the preceding few hours had been little more than a mere bad dream. Of course, when her eyelids finally fluttered open, to her chagrin, she was still silently floating in the runabout, shivering relentlessly in the cold. She had expected as much, yet somehow, none of it really felt real. Everything felt a part of her imagination, as if she were simply hallucinating the whole experience. But she knew deep down that no matter how numb she felt at this moment, it could not be any more real, though she did not totally believe it.
However, whether Dax really had just witnessed the death of her closest friend no longer mattered. Her fate was sealed, just as his was, even if it would still take a little while for it to claim her life. But that was the hardest part of it all; it was the one thought that had asserted itself in her otherwise vacant mind. She would not only spend her final moments of life alone, but the loneliness which terrified her so would follow her unto death. It was something which never seriously considered might happen. It seemed more plausible that when her time came, she would be surrounded by those closest to her: Worf, Benjamin, Julian, her parents, her friends from years past…perhaps even her would-be children. Whatever the case, her only wish regarding her last breath was that it would be in the presence of someone she loved, someone that she had known in life, and would be missed by in death. It was a rather morbid wish, of course, but her cohorts were strong, and could deal with her passing far more easily than she could theirs.
It seemed, though, that this was no longer a possibility. The only person that knew she was out here was now beside her, cold to the touch, the vitality which he had possessed having abandoned him, leaving behind only the shell it had inhabited. Rather, fate clearly intended for Dax to suffer in her final moments, afraid that her next breath would be her last, while having nobody there to comfort her. She would die alone.
And this brought up a more disturbing realization within her. She would die alone, with no one knowing about it. It could be hours, even days before they were located, and by then, they would find the corpses of not only herself and Bashir, but of the symbiant she harbored. It dawned on her then, that fate would today claim the seven lives of her previous hosts along with hers. Their memories, their experiences, their identities, which would all typically be passed along to the next brave soul to care for, would instead fade here into history, existing only in the stories she had shared with her colleagues before leaving the station.
The harsh reality of this sunk in slowly, causing her an immeasurable sadness and sense of failure as it began to really hit her. She had not only failed herself and Bashir, but she had failed as a host, and by extension, as a Trill. Her primary duty as a host was to ensure that the symbiant continue beyond her own mortality. The symbiant was, for all intents and purposes, even more important than her life. It was her life, and if it were necessary, she was willing to give it so that the symbiant may survive. And yet, here she was now, isolated in the desolate depths of space. There was nobody. No new host waiting in the wings - only herself and the memories of Dax's departed. Was it her fault that the accident had ever occurred? Perhaps not. And yet she nevertheless felt the heavy burden of guilt weighing down on her shoulders.
It was, therefore, hopeless. First Bashir, now her, and not long after, the symbiant would succumb to mortality, and there was absolutely nothing that she could do about it.
There was so much Dax still wanted to do. She wished she could have had more time with Worf. It had been only five months since they'd married, hardly enough time for the two of them to experience much beyond the initial honeymoon phase. Or a honeymoon, for that matter. Somehow, the opportunity to get away to a villa on Risa, or to his home on Qo'noS, or to visit his family on Earth, or even to spend a few hours in a holosuite had inexplicably eluded them.
And so much more had eluded her as well: the chance to see Jake grow into the laudable author he so desperately wanted to be, having children with Worf, getting to witness the end of the war with the Dominion. All of it was a part of her future that she wanted to get to experience more than anything. But no longer, she admitted, was it to be so. Simply, she had run out of time.
It was then that Dax noticed she was no longer shivering, not because she was warm, but rather because she was too cold. Hypothermia was starting to set in. Even in spite of her inherent resistance to prolonged exposure, her body was simply incapable of continuing on any longer and was starting to shut down. No one, not even the strongest of Trills, could survive in these kinds of conditions for very long, and it legitimately surprised her that she had been able to survive in them at all. But unwilling – and physically unable – to try and keep going, it was time, she figured, that she acquiesce and accept her fate. Plainly, there was no reason to fight it any longer. No matter what she tried, this brutal cold would most certainly take her sooner or later, and whether it was later rather than sooner did not matter, as it would still be before rescue could arrive.
Dax pulled the emergency blanket off of Bashir's body and wrapped it around herself, wanting now only to be at least slightly comfortable upon her death. She pulled herself back down into her seat with her legs wedged beneath the cushion, and settled in. Out the window, she gazed once more at the stars, and picked out her home star in the vast tapestry of light that was the galaxy. Around that bright blue ball of super-heated gas circled a little planet, only four-fifths the size of Bajor, and a little more than a tenth larger than Earth, nestled in its quiet corner of the universe. From her vantage point, it might not have seemed of any particular interest, but for her, it was different. It was home. On it was her family, her childhood friends, and the memories of her life and those of the lives before her life.
Trill was just a very small stage in the vast cosmic arena; a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. Her posturing, her imagined self-importance, the delusion that she or anyone else had some privileged position in the universe, all challenged by its ever-expanding infiniteness.
To others, it was nothing more than a large rock, spiraling endlessly around a distant point of light, tucked away in an obscure pocket of the cosmos. But to her, it was more than just another pale blue dot. It was home, and as she stared up at it, she knew that out there, in a place she didn't even know existed, someone else was doing the same thing: staring up into the night sky, taking in the beauty, the majesty of the Milky Way, trying to pick out their own star - their own home – and thinking to themselves, 'that is where it all began. This random, seemingly frenzied journey upon which all life is sent, whose end point can never be known nor predicted.'
To her surprise, Dax found herself experiencing a moment of apparent clarity, a moment which she had always maintained only came once, maybe twice, during the span of an entire lifetime. In her sudden epitome, it occurred to her that even in the overwhelming majority of the universe that was essentially empty – devoid of all but the interstellar medium – in a way, it wasn't actually possible to be alone. Separated? Yes. Hidden? Perhaps. But never alone, for out there in the darkness, was another little, obscured point of light much like her own, where someone was always looking back up at you, even if they weren't aware of it. It was an oddly reassuring insight to her, because suddenly, though there was no one around for light years, she felt as though she were nevertheless surrounded by those closest to her.
Worf.
Julian.
Benjamin.
Odo.
Kira.
Jake.
Miles.
…even Quark.
Her family. They were her family, and even though it was unknown to them all, they were right there with her, simply by looking out into the dark. They were her points of light, and even though hers might someday fade, theirs would shine on for all eternity.
Dax closed her eyes and took in the silence as she drifted off into unconsciousness, knowing that she was not alone. Just separated.
Warmth.
For what seemed to be an eternity, warmth was the only sensation she could perceive. It wasn't a conscious, intelligent awareness, but rather one of only vague knowledge of a stimulus being noted within the mysterious enigma that was her mind.
At first, there was nothing else. No sound. No light. There was nothing for her to sense; nothing but life-giving warmth.
What was this, she wondered. Was it some intangible concoction of her imagination? Was this the afterlife? Stovokor, perhaps?
Wherever she was now was in no way some figment of her subconscious or the life beyond life itself. No, this place was real. She was actually here, and, more importantly, she was alive. Somehow, for reasons she could not even begin to fathom, she was alive.
Dax slowly opened her eyelids, squinting as a blinding light rained down upon her from above. She raised a hand in front of her face to shade her eyes and waited a few moments to adjust to the radiant glow. It was difficult to keep them open, as her body's natural reaction was to clamp her eyelids shut amid the glare, but the stalwart Dax remained unperturbed, and kept her gaze affixed to a shadowed spot in her surroundings. Initially, she could distinguish only the basic outlines of shapes nearby, her vision blurred somewhat by the shock of waking up to the unexpected brightness. As her irises constricted, however, she could start to make out some detail. The wrinkles in her palms, the loose bits of cotton standing up on her gown, the rough weave of the fabric which she laid upon all came increasingly into focus.
She turned her head side to side as she absorbed her surroundings. This place was familiar. It didn't come to her at first, as her memory was all still a jumbled mess, but most certainly, she knew what this place was. She knew only the emotion it evoked. While it did not necessarily feel like a dangerous place, neither was it a place she was particularly afraid of. She could remember a mix both relief and remorse, grief and elation, overwhelming sadness and overjoyed delight. It was a place where both the best and worst of life could occur, maybe even with only a few seconds in between. Suddenly, she remembered what this mystifying place really was.
The infirmary, Deep Space Nine…home.
Struggling against her fatigued muscles, she propped herself up on the bed and took several slow, deep breaths, still not completely convinced she was really here. How could it be that not only had she survived her ordeal, but that she could awaken back in the safety and familiarity of her home base in the stars? The last thing she remembered, she was floating near-death in the biting cold of her disabled runabout, lamenting Bashir's fate as she waited for her life to end. She had shut her eyes, then with what seemed like the instantaneous passage of time, she came to, despite every fiber of her being, every intuition, every instinct she had shouting at her that such a turn of events was impossible. She had no knowledge of being rescued, and yet, here she was, alive and seemingly unharmed, as though none of it had ever truly happened, like it was just a harmless fantasy.
But it had happened: of that, she was absolutely certain. The memories were too vivid, too clear to have been anything other than reality.
Dax spun around on the bed and let her feet dangle over the edge. She gently slid off and stumbled slightly upon reaching the floor, the feeling of returning to full gravity leaving her somewhat disoriented. She steadied herself with one hand against the bed as she tried to regain her balance. She took a half step forward, only to stumble yet again. Even just to stand up without holding on to something was practically impossible given her current condition. Attempting to walk, she figured, would merely be an exercise in futility until she recovered further.
Against her impulse to leave the infirmary, she leaned back against the bed and jumped up back onto it, at least willing to give herself a few additional minutes to acclimate to the environment. As she sat, she ran her fingertips atop the bio-bed, feeling the rough texture of the spandex fabric stretched across the memory foam padding underneath. It was unusually intriguing. For being such a mundane sensation, the abrasive feeling of the cushion against her skin brought an odd sense of security and curiosity to her. She felt along the sewn seam on the edge of the bed, pushing her nails into the seam, noticing the bumpy stitch holding the two pieces of spandex together. She had never taken the time to examine anything in such detail, particularly anything of so little interest, and yet she remained utterly enamored by it. Perhaps it was a natural response to her near-death experience. After all, it wasn't every day that someone came back from the brink, but on the rare occasion it did happen, it seemed all too normal to her that such an experience would cause the survivor to take an increased pleasure in the more insignificant things in life, even something so insignificant as the stitching on the side of a bio-bed, for one could never be certain whether they would ever experience it again.
From around the corner, Dax heard an echo: the sound of approaching footsteps. She glanced at the doorway as they drew nearer. From the corridor, a young ensign in an old teal class-b uniform emerged quietly. He stopped dead in his tracks upon seeing that his patient was already up and about, and grinned lightly as they briefly held eye contact. He turned and strolled back into the corridor without saying a word, then reappeared a few seconds later with a tall, intimidating klingon. Leaving the nurse at the door, he approached Dax silently, not wanting to overwhelm her any more than she was already. He took his place beside her, then reached up to brush a few of the messy, dangling strands of hair away from her face.
"Worf?" Dax whispered, still stunned to even be here.
He did not speak, instead taking her up in his arms, embracing her firmly.
This was enough for her. She melted into him, a few tears of relief streaming down her face. Until now she was afraid that she might be imagining the whole thing, but the feeling of her husband's arms wrapped around her was the all the proof she needed that she was, in truth, really back.
"I thought I'd never see you again." She said softly, her head nestled atop his shoulder. He pulled her closer, holding her even tighter.
"For once, I am glad that you were wrong." He replied. She let out a small laugh.
Worf hesitantly released her, backing away just enough so that he could look into her eyes.
There was nothing else that needed to be said between them. Dax was alive. She had Worf, and he her. That was all that mattered. Everything else was a concern for another day. For now, all that was important to either of them was this exact moment in time.
A few minutes later, the nurse returned once more.
"Excuse me," he said, reluctant to interrupt them. "Captain Sisko would like to see you, if you feel up to it." Dax and Worf both turned to see the captain already waiting at the door.
Dax nodded to the nurse, and Sisko walked up to them.
"How do you feel?" he asked.
Dax froze for a moment, trying to determine whether she was any worse for the wear.
"I've been worse," she responded timidly. Sisko chuckled, admiring her sarcasm in the face of such trauma.
"I suppose so," he replied, "though you were in pretty rough shape when we found you, almost as bad as Doctor Bashir."
"Julian?" At that, Dax suddenly began to panic, for last she knew, he was dead. "Oh my…Julian!" she trailed off.
Sisko grabbed her hand reassuringly. "Don't worry, he's going to be fine."
"But, I saw him! He…"
"Jadzia," Sisko interjected, "He's alive!"
She stopped, flabbergasted to hear that he could have possibly survived. The nurse, hearing the scuffle, came to her bedside to reassure her.
"Don't get me wrong," he began, "He came close. When we brought him in, he had lost more than two liters of blood, and he was in fact clinically deceased. Ironically, it was the cold that saved him. It lowered his body temperature enough that we were able to resuscitate him even after he had been dead for nearly an hour. Or at least, we think it was around an hour, though there's really no way to be sure."
"So then..." Dax paused, gathering her faculties once more. "He's going to be okay?"
The nurse smiled. "Oh yes! Of course, he does still have some frostbite that we have yet to treat, but, otherwise, we should be able to release him in a week. All things considered, I'd say he was extremely lucky. As did you"
"It seems someone up there is looking out for you," Sisko joked.
"Me?" Dax asked, not sure what was meant by it.
Sisko dropped the humor for a moment, choosing instead to give her a serious answer.
"You weren't much better off than the doctor. You had severe hypothermia, your body was in shock...a few minutes more and we may not have had this conversation."
Dax covered her face with her hands. All of this was just too much to take in.
"I'm sorry, I'm not sure I understand all this. I'm not even sure what happened." She said.
"Chief O'Brien has been inspecting the runabout." Sisko replied. He walked around to the other side of the bio-bed and took a seat beside Dax. "He isn't completely sure what happened either, but he has a theory which might hold some merit."
Dax cocked her head to the side and wrinkled her eyebrows in curiosity. Sisko continued.
"A quantum filament." He declared.
She said nothing in return, giving only a look of confusion.
"It's a poorly understood phenomenon; I'm not surprised you haven't heard of it. I know I certainly hadn't until the chief suggested it."
Worf then chimed in, having more to contribute, given his personal experience with the anomaly.
"When I was serving aboard the Enterprise, we encountered one of these. It caused catastrophic damage to the ship, and disabled nearly all of our systems."
"We don't know much about them," Sisko interjected. "We don't know how or even why they form. In fact, they violate our current understanding of physics. All that we know is from a handful of studies and the personal accounts of the Enterprise crew. As far as anyone can discern, quantum filaments are essentially folds in the fabric of space – high-density pockets of energy. No mass, no sub-space interference. There's no way to detect them until you've already run into them, and they dissipate almost immediately afterward. It would seem, however, that you honestly got lucky. Every ship that's ever encountered one of these filaments has either been destroyed or suffered a loss of antimatter containment, but for reasons we don't know yet, your antimatter pods remained stable."
"We were contacted," Worf chimed in. "Several hours after you and Doctor Bashir departed the station. A denobulan freighter detected your distress call on its way to Bajor. They notified us of your emergency."
"So someone did hear us." Dax began, stunned that her call for help reached anyone. "I guess we weren't so alone out there after all."
"Apparently not." Sisko said as he placed a hand on her shoulder. "If you'll excuse me, I need to get back to ops."
Dax nodded in acknowledgement.
Sisko stood back up then proceeded toward the door. At the edge of the room, he stopped and stood still for a moment, before turning to look once more at his friend over his shoulder. He smiled, feeling a sense of relief – a feeling which seemed to be far too unusual during these tumultuous days of war. For a moment, all his anxieties, all his fears for the future were forgotten, as despite a close brush with mortality, his faithful comrade was still alive. It was of small comfort, but in this job of his, where dealing with death and the loss of friends was now a regular occurrence, it was those small comforts which made things just a little bit easier to handle. The captain smiled warmly at Dax, relieved that, against all odds, she had been spared a terrible fate.
"Jadzia," he said happily, "I can't say how glad I am that you're okay. It just wouldn't be the same without you here."
He looked at Worf, then back at Dax, and then exited around the corner.
Dax retrained her focus on Worf. Neither of them said a word, only looking deeply into each other's eyes, as though they could communicate everything they were compelled to share by simply thinking a single thought. In that instant, it was as if the entire universe came to a standstill, freezing in that one, finite moment of time as the two lovers silently immersed themselves in the palpable air of passion and euphoria.
The danger was behind her, and though she always feared that someday her luck would eventually run out, somehow, she knew that it would not be today.
She shut her eyes, sighed as the feeling of the safety and comfort of home finally sank in, and embraced her husband. Despite the odds, her luck had held, and for at least another day, she was calm, she was content…
She was alive.
Alive.