Taking Sides
By Laura Schiller
Based on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Copyright: Paramount
"Everybody has to choose sides, Constable."
These words, and the woman who spoke them, changed my life in ways that have taken me years to define, and which I sometimes still don't understand. I can see her now, her red ponytail and silver earring glinting in the shadows of the Replimat, watching me like a Tarkalean hawk. Evaluating me, just as I was doing, with a fighter's instinct for telling enemies from allies. I recognized that look.
Kira Nerys was the first to call me Constable - a nickname, I know, but more than that. I've been called a lot of things in my life, from Odo'ital – "unknown sample" – to "Changeling" to various expletives used by the inmates of my holding cells, but never anything like this. Constable. Guardian of the community. Keeper of the peace.
Being defined by what I do, as opposed to what I am, is the greatest gift anyone has ever given me. I don't suppose she knew that at the time, but I believe she knows it now. I see it in her smile every time she says it.
Before she came along, I prided myself on my impartiality. If I must be an outsider on Terok Nor, I was damn well going to make it useful. Who better to serve justice than the one with no ties to interfere? How simple my life was back then.
If I'm honest, I stopped being impartial the moment I saw her sitting there. She looked so alone, and so defiant, just daring anyone to take pity on her. I recognized that, too.
The more I investigated the Vaatrik case, the more I learned about her, the less impartial I became. My world, formerly quite black and white, developed unnerving shades of gray: should I let her go free, knowing she belonged to the Resistance? Should I obey Cardassian law, or follow my own conscience? Which side should I choose?
I chose hers, and never looked back.
Even five years later, when the case was finally solved, I did not regret my decision. Learning that she really did kill Vaatrik, the old Odo might very well have had her arrested after all. I know now, however, that the facts were never so clear-cut: firstly, it was self-defense; secondly, he'd been a collaborator; thirdly, Cardassian law was no longer valid on Deep Space Nine; fourthly … well. This was Nerys. What more is there to say?
The Speaker of the Founders, if she knew this story, might have called it the starting point of my corruption. In this, as in many things, she is mistaken. In the years to follow, when it was her side I had the opportunity to choose, it was my memories of the Vaatrik case that guided me. Once again, I chose my own vision of justice instead of someone else's. Once again, it led me to Nerys.
Justice may be blind, but the people who uphold it should not be. For opening my eyes, for showing me my job in terms of people instead of cases, for pushing me out of my safe, impartial role and making me take a stand for what I believe in, I owe everything to Nerys. My memories, my actions, my very identity, are colored by her presence as brightly as her hair lit up the room when we first met. She runs through every droplet of my being. In her company, with her morning raktajino steaming on my desk, a stack of reports and her dark eyes sparkling into mine, I am no longer odo'ital. I am Constable Odo: officer, co-worker, confidante, friend.
I am no longer impartial because I am no longer alone.
It's a price I'm more than willing to pay.