38.
"We did it, Garak! Great job! Go Defiant!"
They walked past him, slapped him on the back, smiling, laughing, relieved. He smiled back. They hadn't won the battle, but they hadn't lost either, they were all still alive, their ship was flying. The crew was happy.
That was one of the advantages of war: being happy became so much simpler. If by the end of the day there wasn't a hole in themselves, one of their crewmates or the ship, they had reason to be happy. They took out their bottles of Romulan ale, or scotch, or bloodwine, or kanar, even though they knew it was against regulations, and had a glass or two with their comrades. And because of the war, the Captain would look the other way, and sometimes she would even join them, and they'd all sit together, drinking, talking, sharing stories. Listening to them one would think this war, a war that was barely a couple of months old, had been going on for years, for generations, and people who had fallen yesterday, or last week, were talked about as if they were heroes from a distant past.
It had to be that way, of course. Only by making themselves believe it had always been that way could they live through this: the constant danger, the fear, the separation from their loved ones. All of these men and women had gone from a life of comfort, with good meals, warm beds, family and friends, interesting jobs, structured days, to day after day of blood, hurt, barely edible rations, hard bunks, chaos, and never enough sleep. Life on the Defiant during the Dominion war was still better than much of what Garak had seen on the backstreets of the great cities of Cardassia Prime, or on Bajor during the occupation, but despite their training these Starfleet officers and crewmen had never known a continuous state of war. Telling stories, huddling together, creating heroes, that was how they gathered their strength for the next day, the next red alert, the next battle.
And when there wasn't time for that, a slap on the back had to do.
"Great job! We did it! Go us!"
Us, that meant him too, Elim Garak, former spy and assassin, former tailor, and currently - what? External consultant for Starfleet? War had worked another of its strange miracles. A few weeks sharing bad meals and dubious toilets on a cramped ship had accomplished what years living and working on Deep Space 9 couldn't: he was one of "us" now, one of the team. He was trusted. Worf and Bashir's tale of their stay in the camp and how he had helped with their escape had no doubt contributed to his new status, but it was more than that. For the first time, he was not being observed so much as seen.
They saw him running to a wounded crew member and administering first aid, then taking over the wounded officer's station until her replacement got there, sometimes until the battle was over because there was no replacement. They saw him not only decrypting devilishly tricky Dominion communications, but showing others how to do it, thus making himself expendable. They saw him hunch for hours beside an open console and fiddle with the relays until it worked again, without anyone telling him or even asking him to do it. And whenever someone cursed the damn Cardassians (and it happened often), they heard him patiently explain, again and again, that it wasn't Cardassia they were fighting now, it was the Dominion and one Cardassian, Dukat, who had forced the Cardassian people into this damnable alliance.
They saw, and they listened. Many, most of them, in fact, didn't share his opinion, but they listened, and the more they listened the more they tried not to blame the Cardassians whenever Garak was around, and since it wasn't a big ship and Garak moved around a lot, soon they stopped blaming the Cardassians altogether. He noticed, and he knew they didn't do it because they suddenly understood or even liked Cardassians. They did it for his sake, because they knew it bothered him. Some even began to start conversations about Cardassia with him, asking him about his home planet, things like was it true it was always above 40ºC there, even in winter? What kind of pets did people have? What games did the children play? This they also did for his sake, because they knew he missed his home and he liked talking about it.
Garak didn't quite know how to feel about that. Being thankful would be appropriate, he supposed, but he had so little experience with that…
And then one day, Dax pulled him apart and offered him a field commission.
"I don't know what to say."
Which was true, another sensation he had little experience with. Garak *always* knew what to say.
"You should say you're very honoured, and you accept, and thank you. It's not something that we give out lightly. But you have indeed shown this crew, this ship and Starfleet extraordinary services under combat conditions. Plus, it would make everyone's work easier."
"How so?"
"It would just make everything smoother. As it is, you're always doing things, but you report to no one, you don't fit into the structure. Things are chaotic enough as they are."
"So it would be essentially a question of order."
"Essentially. As an officer, you would have a clearly defined place in the chain of command. You could lead your own teams, make your own decisions, but you would also have to hand in reports and justify your actions. In short, you would be subject at all times to Starfleet regulations, which you would have to learn. By heart. And follow. No matter what."
"And you would trust me with that?"
Dax wasn't smiling, but there was warmth in her eyes.
"The crew trusts you. I'm just following their lead."
"What about Sisko?"
"What about him? He's with Starfleet Command now. He's not the captain of this ship, I am."
"I see. And if I turn out not to be worth of this - trust?"
"Well, we are at war, you know. Tragic accidents happen. You would be missed."
Garak looked at the floor and pretended to be shaken and humbled for exactly forty-eight seconds. Then he looked up. If Dax wasn't smiling, he certainly wouldn't be smiling either, although he felt like it for the first time in a long while. He felt - light.
"Do I get a uniform?"
"Maybe."
"Do I get pips?"
"Yes, you do get pips."
"Would people have to call me 'sir'?"
Not a muscle moved in Dax's face.
"Some people."
"Then, Commander, it would be my honour to accept."
Only after they had shaken hands they allowed each other a grin.
And so it came to be that he, Elim Garak, was going to be made a lieutenant in Starfleet. There was even going to be a party, which was of course just another excuse to get together and drink and sing and tell stories, but Garak was glad he could provide that excuse for them.
The quarters he shared with three other crew members was empty for once because the crew was already gathered in the mess hall, and Garak was trying to decide if it would be more suitable to wear something subdued to this party (I take this responsibility seriously!), or something festive (I am happy to serve!). The only difference would be a dark grey or a shimmering golden patch on his otherwise light grey jacket, the only one he owned. A trivial matter, surely. Probably no one would even notice. And yet, it seemed important.
He was reflecting on how absurd and yet oddly reassuring it was that something like the right clothes should and could be so important in the middle of a war, when he noticed an intermittent light on the computer console, indicating there was a message - which was strange, because messages on the ship were not sent to consoles in quarters, only to workstations. There weren't enough individual PADDs on the ship, so consoles in quarters were used to check duty rosters, team configurations, things like that.
Maybe now that I'm an officer, I'll get a PADD, Garak thought as he moved closer to the console. Maybe I'll finally find a way to send messages outside of the ship…
Of course he could have stolen a PADD very easily, and of course he could have sent any messages he wanted to anyone he wanted whenever he wanted. But sending unauthorised messages could give away their position and endanger the ship, and stealing a PADD would mean taking it away from someone who needed it, and possibly getting someone else in trouble who would be accused of doing it. Garak found those were things he no longer wanted to do, not even for his own advantage. Almost unconsciously he waited for his father's voice in his mind to mock him for it. But Tain was silent.
The blinking light on the console was a message, a message for him, and just to see that it came from Deep Space 9 made his heart skip a beat. Who else was there on DS9 who knew how to encrypt a message like this, and then to find out exactly where to send it? Who else was there who still cared if he was alive or dead? For a second, Garak even forgot how he and Ziyal had parted, what he had said to her before he left. How she had looked at him. All he thought about was her face and how he wanted to see it again.
The message was not from Ziyal. It was from Kira, and it was just one sentence.
If you loved her, get here soon.