Disclaimer: I don't own star trek or make money off it. I just miss a good show.
Notes: This takes place a few minutes after the ending of "The Emperor's New Cloak"
Future Reflections
Chapter One
It was over.
The Regent's ship had just been boarded.
The Intendent raised her hands in surrender and casually removed herself from the bridge, with the hope no one noticed her exit.
The route to the escape shuttles would be full of Terrans in no time, who would be trying to capture as many prisoners as possible.
Despite her attempt at a calm demeanor, her heart was racing.
I will not be taken prisoner! I'm too good for a prison cell.
The slender woman forced herself to walk at a normal pace to her temporary quarters. She thought that she would feel relief when she made it there without incident, but that wasn't the case.
She heard frantic steps in the corridor just outside. Terrans; and guaranteed to be armed.
Outmanned and outgunned.
Intendant snatched a phaser from underneath the padding of her bed and waited.
I would rather die than be taken by vermin.
The footsteps faded. She let go of the breath she didn't know she had been holding.
Transporter. I have to get my transporter.
She retrieved it from behind a hidden wall panel. She kicked herself for having ever allowed it out of her reach. Reckless. She wouldn't make that mistake again.
I wouldn't have kept it out of reach, if Bareil hadn't bled all over it.
"Ugh." She scoffed and rubbed away the dried blood that had covered the power cell and depressed the indicator button. One little light shone in red: Not many jumps left: one. Maybe two. She would have to be more tactical with its usage from now on.
If I leave, she thought to herself, I might not be able to come back. Did she want to maroon herself there?
This isn't a salvageable situation. She reasoned. I can't stay here. I'd be hunted down like an animal.
But if she left, she would be a nobody.
But what did being the Intendant mean in the end? Everyone I trusted here betrayed me, let me down! This is what I get for being too nice to people.
More hurried footsteps reminded her of the lethal danger lurking outside those doors.
There was no point to feel sorry for herself now: She had to make her escape, and quickly.
No, she decided. It was time to leave.
Elim stumbled out of the interrogation room holding his neck. He was gasping, but not from any physical ailment: It was too early to feel the effects of the Ulcartic virus: it was pure panic.
Yes, the Regent's ship was boarded. Yes the Terrans won. Yes the Ferengi got away. No, he couldn't smooth talk his way out of being executed by the terrans: He wasn't as bright as he used to be.
He was going to die.
But which was better? Death by this virus or by execution?
"I can't die!" He argued with fate.
He started at a low trot down the corridors. His pace slowly increased into a jog.
"Not... finished... yet."
There was one more thing that he had to do before he faced the inevitable.
His stomach was flipping from the viral load - or was it in response to knowing he would die soon? Did it matter?
"Rgh!" He growled and shook his head to clear his thoughts.
No. What mattered was that if he were to die, he was going to take someone with him.
He was going over the different ways he could kill the Intendent, and hoped she hadn't been taken prisoner already.
Phaser? Another 10ccs of Ulcartic Virus? Bare hands? Ah, but he was getting ahead of himself. He had to find her first.
"Think, think!" Where would she be? The bridge?
No, no. She was too cowardly to stay there; staying was something the Regent would do.
The escape shuttles were crawling with terrans, waiting to seize anyone who dared escape via that method. So she wouldn't go there. She could be in engineering, attempting to initiate a warp core collapse to take all those bastards out with her.
No, no. That's something he would do. Damn it, why couldn't he think!
Her temporary quarters were nearby. Surely she wouldn't go there: it was a dead end and guaranteed to be searched.
He watched as a slender woman, crowned with a thin metal tiara, snuck into the very room he thought she would never go. And she hadn't even noticed him.
With nothing left to lose, he thrust himself forward and barged into her temporary quarters.
In her hand was a small handheld transporter.
"You!" He hissed, "We have a score to settle!"
She activated the transport, mockery glinting in her eyes and a silent kiss on her lips.
"No!" He lunged and managed to make contact with her torso as they disappeared.
The Intendent hit the bulkhead with the full force of a man's body.
"Ah!" She shouted as her phaser fell from her grasp and slid across the floor. She reached for it, but a punch to the side of her face made her lose her balance. She fell to the floor, disoriented, and she didn't even know where the phaser was anymore.
She tried to crawl away. His hands grabbed her by her hair and bashed her face against the bulkhead. He let her fall to the floor.
I can't believe it. She thought as she felt his boot collide with her stomach. This animal is actually going to kill me.
She could vaguely hear someone gasping in shock. A witness.
A witness! This wasn't Terok Nor, this was Deep Space Nine!
"Help me!" She screamed.
He pinned her to the floor. She wrenched her body sideways as he attempted to land a fist, and punched the floor instead.
"Aah!" He shouted as an intense, searing pain overwhelmed him. But only for a moment.
"That Cardassian is attacking a Bajoran!" A man shouted and pointed in alarm.
Elim wrapped his fingers around her neck, ignoring the pain in his right hand.
"I never got to repay you for killing him." He said through grit teeth.
What the hell was he talking about? She tried to speak, but all that came out was a gurgle.
"It's Garak! Hurry! Stop him!"
Darkness descended along the periphery of the Intendent's vision.
All she could see was his icy-blue eyes, saturated with intent to kill.
Elim was overcome with a sudden sense of calm as he felt her body begin to relax. Her eyes unfocused.
Yes. If I am to die, you will die with me. We'll all be reunited. One, miserable family.
So focused on achieving his years-long goal, he failed to notice a mob of angry Bajorans were amassing for an assault.
He heard neither their shouting nor their footsteps in approach. But he did feel a metal pipe across his shoulder blade, so hard his armor failed to protect him against the blow.
"Nngh!" He let go of the Intendent, and instinctually darted down the corridor.
"It's the Major!" The Bajoran paused to inspect Elim's victim. "He's killed the major!"
"Kill that Cardi! Don't let him get away!"
Why did I let go of the Intendent? I am going to die anyway! Death-by-beating would be better than death by Ulcartic fever!
Regardless, his body had taken over his mind, and he was moving against his wishes in a hasty retreat from the mob. He darted into an alcove and hid. The mob ran past, and he sat there hugging his knees.
Surely the Intendent was dead after that?
He sighed and closed his eyes, allowing himself to feel the effects of the virus for the first time.
Maybe they had medicines here? Something, anything?
If what he heard about this dimension was true, that over-emotional idiot Bashir was the doctor, which was laughable.
What could someone like him do?
Bashir was enjoying a rather uneventful afternoon in the Infirmary, studying the mutagenic properties of the Blight, when a sudden cacophony of voices and footsteps filled his ears,
"He's killed her! He killed the Major!"
"Here, here! Put her here!"
He rounded the corner of his small office to see a group of Bajorans had placed a bloody, injured patient on one of his beds.
"Back away, let me through, let me through!" He commanded.
He heard the confused whispers of Bajorans, saying things like "The Major is dead!" and "Garak killed her." mixed in with gasps and unintelligible words.
"She's not dead! I need everyone out of here, now!" He shouted.
"All right!" Odo's gruff voice rose about the noisy crowd as he entered the scene. "Everyone, out of the Infirmary!" Odo remained as the rest of the group left.
"I don't understand!" Odo confessed as Bashir pressed a hypospray against her neck. "I was just with the Major not even five minutes ago!" Too many questions flooded his mind with too few answers.
How could this all go wrong within just five minutes? How could she change her clothing so quickly? Why would Garak try to kill her? Her blood was real, and it did not turn gelatinous when it separated from her body, so she couldn't be a changeling...
"I don't know, but I have to focus. Now please leave." Bashir said, while focusing on the readings of his tricorder.
Odo left the infirmary. There was a crowd standing outside. But the crowd looked so much smaller than before.
He shook his head to clear his thoughts. Witnesses. He needed to speak to the witnesses. Something wasn't right.
"All right!" He addressed the crowd. "I want every witness in this attack to report to security immediately!" No one left the group. "Are there any witnesses!?"
"They left!" One man shouted from within the crowd. "To hunt down the tailor!" Emboldened by the others, the man addressed the crowd. "We should go, too! We should back them up!"
The crowd cheered.
"There will be no acts of vigilantism on this station!" Odo announced with a booming voice. "I will apprehend the suspect! Anyone who tries to take matters into their own hands will answer to me! There will be Law! And there will be Order!"
"Then arrest that Cardi now!"
"Now!"
"We want justice!"
"Justice for Kira!"
"And you will have it!" Odo replied, gesturing to his security officers to follow.
He needed to make an arrest, talk to witnesses, gather evidence.
Assume a Baskilan Raptor and tear that spy's face off.
To Odo, torture never seemed so tempting before.
If only Bajor didn't have such strict laws against that practice...
Odd; he never thought he would resort to something like that. Perhaps he wasn't as resistant to violence as he thought? Something to ruminate on later. But now, he had a job to do.
There were witness statements to collect, and if what the Bajoran had said was true, they were actively hunting the Cardassian responsible.
A part of him hoped they would find him first.
There was a crowd of Bajorans outside his shop, and Garak watched them bash their fists against his doors in bewilderment.
He had locked himself in as he saw them approach while chanting "Get the Cardi!"
One Bajoran, who he recognized was part of the engineering crew, was working to override the security lock.
His hand hovered underneath one of his tables, where a phaser rest hidden from view.
What set them off like this?
They were all shouting over each other so loudly he couldn't make out a single word anymore.
The lock beeped, and the door slid open. They funneled in like a flood.
His hand shook. Take the phaser and fire? On this many people?
He knew couldn't shoot them all: there wasn't enough time!
What did they even want?
He had hesitated to take the phaser; that was a mistake.
They descended on him quickly, with one young Bajoran male having jumped over the table and swung at him with a metal pipe.
He fell to the ground dazed; the entire shop shuddered with the strike. Or was that his vision that shuddered? He felt confused.
"Kill the Major and we kill you!"
Kill the... ?
The pipe came back down across his face. Another. And another. A kick to the belly, a stomp on his hand.
Someone behind him shouted "He had a phaser! He was going to shoot us!"
"String him up!"
The sound of breaking glass tore through the air. He heard the shards of his full-sized mirror tinkle and they landed on the floor beside his head.
"To the promenade!"
Someone gabbed a fistful of his hair and began to drag him out of his shop.
The crowd started chanting something that sounded like 'justice', but that couldn't be right, because this didn't resemble anything close to justice.
He was being dragged across the promenade by this angry mob while others like Morn and Quark watched on in horror, but ultimately did nothing to intervene. Mobs had that effect on people.
He heard Odo shouting. Bajoran phaser fire; warning shots.
Something was slipped around his neck, and he was hoisted off his feet and left to hang from the railing of the second level of the promenade. He tried to work his fingers underneath the cord so he could breathe, but there wasn't enough room.
This is it, he thought to himself as his vision began to fade. Strange: he thought Bajorans were more peaceful than this.
Odo was still shouting.
The chaotic noise also faded away.
He thought he saw Ziyal in the crowd, walking lightly on her feet, smiling at him as she approached.
The other faces around her morphed into featureless blobs. Nearly everything was a featureless blob except her... Just her...
"Hello, Garak." She said sweetly. "It's been a while." She lifted her palm.
"Ah, my sweet. I did not think I would ever see your face again." He trailed his finger along her jawbone. The contact felt so real.
"Have you been behaving yourself?"
"When have I ever?" He leaned forward to kiss her spoon; she had always loved that. He wrapped his arms around her in an embrace. He didn't resist her affection anymore. It felt good to be loved again. He felt weightless and surrounded by light with her in his arms.
"It has been very lonely without you, my dear." He admitted. She pulled away from him, but that smile that lit her eyes never faded.
"Are you telling me you're ready to go?"
"Where?"
Ziyal nearly giggled. "To the temple. Where else?"
"Temple?"
"Your prophet will vouch for your entry to the Celestial Temple. She has been guiding you."
It was his natural instinct to decline the offer, since he never felt he was deserving of anyone's heaven. But the thought of hearing that glorious music, feeling that overwhelming sense of peace again, and being with her, was an irresistible draw.
"With you by my side, I would be delighted." He took her hand. Ziyal's fingers threaded between his and pulled.
"Just follow me." She said sweetly. "I'll show you the way. It doesn't even hurt, I promise. It's easy! Like walking in a field of flowers. Can you smell them?"
He could smell them; like a mix between Vulcan Jasmine and Andorian Cherry blossoms - wholly pleasant. And far in the distance, he thought he heard the harmonious chanting of millions of Bajoran and Cardassian voices.
He was about to follow, when she disintegrated like petals in a strong wind.
His body collided with the cold, hard floor, and he gasped for air. He saw Odo had shapeshifted into a protective wall around him. Kira was yelling at the crowd, their faces were no longer featureless: He could see they looked confused, frightened, and... was that shame?
He heard Kira ask him something. He really didn't understand what she said, but she looked concerned, which was strange considering the Major's predisposition to disliking him. Was she asking about Ziyal? Had the Major seen her, too? Yes, yes. That must have been it.
Ah, Major. Ziyal was just taking me to see your temple again. Care to join us?
He smiled and attempted to speak, then his eyes rolled back, and he fell backwards, unconscious.