54.
He is crazy and he needs to be stopped.
Dead bodies made everything simpler. Kira's was no exception, and Ziyal was mildly surprised that the rule still applied even when it wasn't her who had actually made the body - be dead. It was, then, a simple question of mathematics. The more people in the Universe, the more problems. One less person, one less problem.
Why she had come here to look for her father wasn't entirely clear to her. Of course she knew about him and Kira, everyone knew. But that they were having sex didn't mean he would come looking for her in a time of crisis - did it? Ziyal hadn't thought of Damar once she she had last left him. Wouldn't that mean more than sex then, wouldn't that mean - love? Or something like it? Some deeper connection? Did Kira feel it too? And what did it all mean for Ziyal? There was some meaning there, but she couldn't quite catch it - she was just too tired. Maybe later, she thought. Maybe later.
There was only one thing she was absolutely sure of, and that was that the place to look for her father right now was Kira's quarters. She would be there, Garak had said, because Kira was Command Central, or some other rather silly-sounding Starfleet expression. And where Kira was, there Dukat would be, sooner or later. She knew it, and Garak seemed to know it as well, because he just nodded and said "this way".
He hadn't even tried to fight her, talk her out of it. Smart man - he knew this wasn't the important fight. He was saving it for later. Or maybe he was just as tired as she was. Maybe he didn't care very much one way or another.
Now, kneeling down beside Kira's body, he looked more than tired. Ziyal could hear his knees creak, and a sigh that was more like a groan, although he tried to suppress it. He looked old.
Ziyal saw him touch the body. Why? Did he actually believe she might still be alive?
"Someone was here."
What did he think, that she had done this to herself? He looked up at Ziyal.
"Someone - fixed her. Arranged her body like this."
Now Ziyal knelt down too. Kira's eyes were closed, and Ziyal tried to find a peaceful expression on her face, but it was too badly beaten to discern any expression, or any face for that matter. She knew it was Kira, but it didn't look like her. Was that the reason Ziyal wasn't feeling anything? Shouldn't she be feeling fear, grief, anger? Hadn't she loved Kira? Didn't she love her father, who had done this to her? Wasn't Garak supposed to have cured her from all that non-feeling?
For a few panicked heartbeats she waited for that cottony feeling she knew so well, that cloud that enveloped her, that sickness that came over her, making the world go far away and deep inside her at the same time, where it hurt the most. She waited for Tora's voice but it didn't come, and when Garak put his hand in her arm, she felt it's warmth and weight and the little tremor in it.
"It wasn't him."
No one had said Dukat's name since they entered the room, but they both knew who she was talking about. No, it hadn't been Dukat. But then who?
"Riker!"
"Riker?"
Riker.
"He'll want to find him."
"Which means he'll want to find you."
"Because my father is looking for me."
Garak nodded. Ziyal got up and held out her arm to Garak.
"Then we better find him."
He leaned on her to get up, and for some reason Ziyal felt a burst of pride. For him, for her, for both of them. For making it here.
Then it passed.
And again she set about following Garak through the station. It seemed like she had done nothing else for days now, but she didn't mind. She trusted he wouldn't lead her astray.
None of them had said it, but they were both thinking it. We better find him before he finds someone else and does the same to them. Because-
He is crazy and he needs to be stopped.
Dukat was certainly not the only one going crazy. But he was at the centre of it, Damar was sure of that. Forget the Starfleet soldiers suddenly crawling out of every possible and impossible hole, lurking behind every corner, firing at everything that moved. Forget the throngs of utterly useless Cardassian guards, led by no one, running around in front of the Starfleet people's phasers, getting themselves captured or killed. Forget Kira, and Odo, forget Ziyal and even Garak - although he was sure they had all played a part in the station's fall.
None of them mattered. Only Dukat mattered. He was responsible. Everything was going to the dogs, just as Damar had predicted when no one was listening to him, and Dukat was to blame, just as he had known he would be. So there was only one thing to do: find him, and take him out. And if any of the others came across his way, so much the better. He would take them all out, and when they were all gone, with their conspiracies and machinations, with their tricks and schemes and their dirty, sticky feelings, he, Damar, would restore order. Everyone had seen what he was capable of. As soon as Dukat was gone, him and his weak, drunk daughter, and his filthy, filthy Bajoran whore of a mistress, they would follow *him*.
And it would be a relief for them to follow him. He would never lie. He would never negotiate. He wouldn't have to. Damar would restore Cardassia to his true greatness, not through deceit and cunning, but through strength. And his first show of strength, the most important, maybe the only one that really mattered, would be to kill Dukat. He should have done it before, right there in ops, when he was showing his weakness in front of him, swaying on his feet, a speck of spit clinging to the corner of his mouth - but it was better this way.
It would be in battle, an honest fight. Damar would give him a chance to defend himself. They would fight, hopefully in view of as many Cardassian and Starfleet soldiers as possible, and Damar would win. There was no doubt about it. Because Dukat was the past, and Damar was the future. Dukat was everything that was wrong with Cardassia, everything that was sick, and twisted. He needed to be purged, and a new Cardassia would emerge, and that Cardassia would have Damar's face. And it would be unstoppable. Because-
He is crazy and he needs to be stopped.
There seemed to be no order or plan to the battle, if a battle was what it was. Where was Sisko? Where was Odo? Didn't these people have any orders? And where were the Jem'Hadar? Shouldn't the place be crawling with them? Communications were down, of course, and as Will made his way through the station, the chaos of war seemed to have reached a level he had seldom, if ever, seen. He saw groups of Starfleet and Cardassian soldiers running straight past each other without firing a single shot. He saw two Starfleet men doggedly exchange shots from behind their parapets even though their uniforms were clearly visible. In the middle of the Promenade, with fire and smoke all around and boots threatening to crash their heads in any minute, he saw four Cardassian soldiers sitting on the floor, quietly playing some sort of card game with deadly concentration. They didn't speak a single word as he walked past them, they didn't even look up.
Will didn't speak to any of them, he didn't stop. Should he have started telling people to shoot in the right direction, to kill the right people? That was, after all, the most widely accepted, simple and proven strategy: the more enemy soldiers you killed, and the faster you did it, the sooner the battle was over, the more of your own soldiers you saved; the more soldiers you had to do it over and over, the sooner the war was over, and the sooner you won it.
Except that this battle wasn't about winning the war. It was the battle that would win the war, yes, but right now, right here, Will saw that is was about something much simpler: it was about people fighting for their home. Some to get back to it, some that didn't want to leave it. This is what this old, creaky, cold and ugly place does to you, Will thought, picking his way through the smoking debris of what had once been the Klingon restaurant. You come here and you think it's the most horrible place you've ever been, and a few hours later, you still think it's horrible, but you think of it as home. Home is not a quadrant, or a planet, or even a city. Home is the places you go, where you take your morning coffee, drink your evening beer, buy your milk and your bread. The replimat. Quark's. The Jumja stick stand. Garak's shop. Odo's station. As he walked through the remains of Deeps Space 9, Will thought about how every war was about fighting for home and every war destroyed the home you were fighting for. Not an original thought, he was sure, but not less true for it.
No, he wouldn't tell the soldiers to fight better, kill faster. Not the ones on his side, not the ones on the other side. That wouldn't end the battle, or the war. Only one thing would end it: find Dukat.
Well that's just wrong, Number One. History does not change with the fate of one single person.
Will had spent so many years having these debates with his captain that he could hear him in his head even when he was thousands of lightyears away. Yes, of course, that's what Picard would say. That he'd bought into Dukat's delusions of grandeur. That he'd let himself be fooled by the man, just like he'd fooled everyone else. Dukat wasn't the Dominion. He was a puppet of the Dominion, like thousands of others. His fall would mean nothing, nor his death.
Will slowed his steps. What was he doing? He should get back, find a Starfleet officer, get a status report. Find out where Sisko was. Coordinate. Yes, he should -
What's a girl like you doing in a bar like this?
I might ask you the same thing.
Kira's smile, smashed in. Her small frame, shattered. Her spirit, gone. Will straightened up, started to walk, then to run.
You're right, captain. You're always right. But sometimes it's just like this, sometimes you just know: right now, I have to find Dukat. Because-
He is crazy and he needs to be stopped.
They ran through corridor after corridor, all of them empty. They heard the battle but never saw it. The noises were strangely subdued. There were no screams, hardly any voices at all. There were shots, but they sounded more like single persons practicing with targets and then taking long pauses. Sometimes they heard whispers that seemed alarmingly close, but when they turned the corner, no one was there.
He told Ziyal it was because many Jefferies tubes were open and sound carried in strange ways, and she seemed to believe him. She followed him too, as if she believed he knew were he was going. Garak had no idea. It seemed to him as if he hadn't known anything - who he was, what he was doing, where he was going, what he wanted - for the longest time; and yet he was moving, and speaking, and thinking, and people moved with him, and listened to what he said, and trusted him.
She trusted him. He could feel her small hand in his, and it was not trembling, or heavy with fear. It was alive. He could feel Ziyal's pulse against his own palm and had the strange and exhilarating feeling that it was this he was following when he chose to turn this corner and not the other, walk right or walk left, wait or run. As if her blood was talking to him. And her blood knew where to find her father.
He wondered if she knew, if she would ever know: that even when he pretended to be leading, he was really following her. That even drugged, starved, hungover and sick to the bones, she was the one who knew. She knew they could not just steal (borrow) a transport and disappear. Because she had to find her father. Her father whom she loved and she hated, her father who was a monster, her father who could, and most probably would, kill her.
If they found him (when they found him) she might not survive the next hour. All the healing, all the pain, all the hope for the future would have been in vain. They would have found each other for nothing.
And yet, hadn't he left her? Hadn't he killed their future once already? All because his father called him, his own father that he hated and loved, his own father who was a monster. His father who would kill him, and only didn't because he couldn't, because his body didn't obey him anymore.
Take this boy away. What use do I have for him?
Famous last words of Enabran Tain. Taking yet another turn, Garak wondered vaguely what Dukat's last words would be. Because in the midst of this new uncertainty that he was becoming used to, there was one thing he was sure of: Dukat was not going to do them the favour of dying of illness and old age. If they - Ziyal and Garak, Cardassia, the whole quadrant, and possibly even the Universe - wanted to regain at least a semblance of peace, they would have to do the job themselves.
The corridor they had turned into was empty, except for one single chair, perfectly situated right in the middle of it. A dark wooden chair with a straight back. Nothing else. Suddenly, there was phaser fire and running footsteps, then a heavy fall. The sounds were no closer or farther away, no louder or softer than they had heard before during this last walk through the station. Just another skirmish, Garak thought, but Ziyal's grip on his hand became harder.
"I know where he is", she said.
Garak followed her.
