Second Chances: Chapter 34

Stardate 51088
February 2374
Federation Space

Lt. B'Elanna Torres frowned as she surveyed the selection of ration packs, and then sighed and grabbed one at random. "Breakfast of champions," Chief O'Brien commented as she sat across from him.

"If this is what the champions eat, I hate to think what the losers have," she replied.

"Also this," he replied with a wry smile. "Sleep well?"

"Well enough." It had been four days since they had lifted off of that planet, pulling another captured Jem'Hadar ship with them. Once they were safely out of the nebula, she had headed to the bunk room and slept for almost eight hours. Not record breaking for her, but still more than twice as long as usual. She had requested that she be the first to head over to the new ship to perform an assessment, in part because she didn't trust anyone else to do it and in part to ensure that she would have the place to herself when she woke up. Once she got over there, she found that in her more well-rested state, the ship didn't look quite as bad as it had initially. It would still take quite a lot of work, but they learned a lot from the first one; Starfleet could probably start taking it on covert and ethically questionable missions after a month or so. She had spent most of her time in the new ship since then, prioritizing repairs and starting on what could be done while being tractored in space. "Things going well over here?"

"Well enough," he replied, making her smile. "Are you taking the other ship back to UP?"

"It's heading that way. I didn't ask about the details of how it's getting there." Commander Winters had been her second comm after they returned to Federation space; the Parises had been the first. Owen had looked visibly relieved to see her and was happy to put Izzy on the comm. They had had a long conversation about the penguins at the aquarium, and B'Elanna was a little sad that Izzy had seemed completely unaffected by her mother's absence over the past several weeks. "I'm going to head back over to the other ship as soon as I'm done eating… breakfast," she said, making a face down at the ration pack and earning a chuckle from O'Brien. "Let me know if you need anything over here."

"Will do, sir," the chief promised.

She beamed over to the other ship to find Crewman Pagano sitting on the floor of engineering next to an open console, painstakingly going to through a detailed repair of the targeting array. "Pagano," Torres said in surprise. The young crewman lifted her head quickly in alarm, obviously unaware that anyone else had beamed over.

"I'm sorry, sir," she said quickly. "I…" Her voice trailed off and she looked around as if unaware of what she had been doing. "I know I should have waited until you assigned a task, but—"

"It's fine, Pagano," Torres interrupted. "I just didn't expect to see anyone over here." She hadn't been assigning any repair tasks to the new ship, because everyone deserved a little bit of rest after what had happened on the planet and any repairs they could do while being tractored space were only minor.

"I can leave if you want," the crewman offered.

"Unless you have an assigned task on the other ship, there's no need," Torres replied. She frowned at the crewman; Pagano was usually well put-together, but she was looking a little rough. "Are you okay, Pagano?"

"I'm fine, sir," Pagano said automatically.

"Brynn." At the sound of her first name, the crewman exhaled and looked away. When she looked up at Torres, her eyes were filled with tears.

"I'm sorry, sir," she said, wiping at her eyes. "I just… I haven't been able to sleep. I thought if I came over here, at least there would be something I could do."

"You don't need to apologize to me for doing work," Torres said. "But if you're having problems sleeping, I'm sure Dr. Bashir can give you something—"

"No, it's not that," Pagano said quickly. "It's just…" Her voice trailed off, and then she said in one long rush, "I killed somebody. And I can't stop thinking about that. And I keep seeing it, and that was just one person, and we're at war and if I can't even deal with shooting one person what's going to happen if I'm in some sort of battle and I just don't think I'm good enough for Starfleet."

Torres took a deep breath. Being comforting was never something she was good at, even with Izzy. "The man you killed was trying to kill you."

"I know," Pagano managed. "But that doesn't help."

Torres knew that pointing out the Jem'Hadar didn't have the same views of life and death as humans wouldn't help. They were hatched and didn't have families; nobody mourned them after they were gone. But humans had a fatal flaw, and that was that they viewed everyone and everything—other sentient species, animals, plants, inanimate objects—as if they lived and felt and valued the ways humans did. "They were dying, Pagano," she said instead. "They were out of ketracel-white and they can't live without it. My sister-in-law says that's a painful way for them to die. It would be like…dying of thirst. And they wanted to die on their own terms instead. In battle. The way they were designed to."

"Couldn't we have helped them?" Pagano asked. "I mean, to live. Not to kill themselves. Because they kinda made us help them with that."

"Not if they didn't want our help," Torres replied. "War is messy, Pagano. You did exactly what was needed of you and we all made it through the day."

Pagano seemed to think about her words for a long minute. "Does it get easier?" she finally asked, her voice small.

Torres was tempted to point out that that was also her first battle, but she didn't, not when she knew the answer. "You get better," she replied. "But it doesn't get easier." She hoped it didn't, anyway. She hoped it wouldn't for Pagano, because she couldn't bear the thought of that talented teenager who was kind to Izzy and yearned for motherhood losing any of her humanity or anything that made her who she was. "You're more than good enough for Starfleet, Brynn. You're good enough to go to the Academy and become an officer."

Pagano smiled slightly and shook her head. "That's not me, sir," she said, sounding more confident now. "I've always been good with my hands, but I am not good with books. I don't want to do what you do, sir. I want to be a chief. Like my dad was." Her smile widened. "He was so proud that my first assignment out of tech school was with the Repair Company at UP, because that was his first assignment, too."

*Sisko to Torres,* her combadge chirped before she could respond. She gave Pagano an apologetic smile before tapping on it.

"Torres here."

*General Martok would like to see you on the Rotarran.*

"I'm a little busy right now, Captain."

*That wasn't a request, Lieutenant.* Torres gave Pagano another apologetic smile as she rose to her feet.

"Aye, Captain. I'll beam right over."

Torres had never been on a Klingon ship before, but if she had been asked to describe what she thought it would be, the Rotarran would have fit that perfectly. The bekk at the transporter controls escorted her to the mess hall, where miscellaneous crew members were eating and talking. The room got quiet as she entered; quiet enough that she heard one of them mutter, "Just look at her ridges."

Her hands flew to her forehead in mock alarm. "Oh, no!" she said sarcastically. "What happened?" She rolled her eyes as she dropped her hands. "Fucking bastard," she muttered. She usually preferred to swear in Klingon, because it sounded so much harsher—and because she could throw in random other Klingon words and her colleagues didn't know the difference; she once told an ensign that he had a pleasant dog after a particularly stupid mistake, and he looked as if it was the worst insult he had received—but she got an immense feeling of satisfaction at swearing in Standard to a Klingon audience.

Lt. Commander Worf and Lt. Commander Dax came in a minute later—Dr. Bashir had transported the science officer to the Rotarran immediately after their rendezvous, as the Klingon ship's infirmary, while not great, was still better than none—and an older man that Torres could only assume was General Martok right behind them. "You must be Lt. Torres," the man said. "I am General Martok. We are honored to have you on our ship and request that you dine with us."

Torres glanced dubiously at the table; there was gagh, of course, and Bregit lung, and several other dishes she wasn't sure she recognized, and a very large tankard of blood wine. "I would be honored, sir," she said, the only acceptable answer. And between Klingon food and ration packs, she wasn't convinced the gagh was the worst choice.

She discovered that washing everything down with blood wine was the best way to eat Klingon food, and it might have been the blood wine talking, or the relief at not eating rations, but she kind of enjoyed what she was eating. "Captain Sisko has told us a great deal of your work," General Martok said, likewise digging into his food as if he had been eating rations for the last month. "You have brought great deal onto the House of T'PaH," he continued. She merely raised her eyebrows, slightly bothered but somehow not surprised that he knew her Klingon lineage. "It may not be a noble house, but it is a fine one. The engineer who created the Empire's first cloaking device was of your house."

"I thought it was the first warp drive?" she asked mildly. Martok burst out in laughter.

"Perhaps it was both!" he exclaimed. "Would you be interested in continuing your family's proud tradition of serving the Empire?"

She almost choked on her blood wine. "Thanks, but I have a job," she said when she recovered, and Martok again burst out in uncontrolled laughter.

"I do not mean on a permanent basis," he explained. "Our alliance now has two Jem'Hadar ships. The Klingon Empire would benefit from instruction on how to operate and repair one. And perhaps, we will make it three. Or four."

She thought it more likely that a Klingon crew would blow a Jem'Hadar ship out of space than capture one, but she kept that observation to herself. "What are you suggesting?" she asked.

"That you come to Qo'noS and teach our engineers what you have learned. We can head that way immediately."

"Not immediately," she said. "I teach classes at the Technical Services Academy. We have two more months of the term, and then I'll be free." She paused a second before adding, "My daughter hasn't been to Qo'noS," she said. "I'd like her to see it as well."

"As she should," Martok declared. "It will be arranged."

"In that case, I have a favor to ask as well," Torres said. She saw both Martok and Dax raising their eyebrows. "A cloaking device," she said. "I tried to integrate a Federation cloak on the ship, but couldn't make it work. I think I'll have more luck with a Klingon system."

Martok nodded. "Then a cloaking device you shall have! I will have one delivered to Utopia Planitia."

They finished their meal and another round or two of bloodwine before Martok declared that he was returning to the bridge. "Julian says I need to move around," Lt. Commander Dax said. "Lieutenant, I'll walk you back to the transporter room."

"I shall join you," Lt. Commander Worf declared.

"No, you won't," Dax said forcefully, and with the aggrieved sigh of a man accustomed to not getting his way, Worf headed for the bridge.

They walked in silence for a few beats. "She didn't mean it," Dax finally said. "Your mother-in-law," she elaborated. "She didn't mean what she said."

"I know," Torres agreed. "Tom's death was… hard. On Alicia. And on all of us." She left it at that, because there was too much of that story to tell.

"I was a test pilot," Dax said. "Well, Torias, my fifth host, was," she elaborated. "He died in a shuttle accident less than a year after he was joined. His wife, Nilani, warned him about going out on that flight, but she worried too much and he ignored her. I regret that."

Torres wasn't sure how pronouns worked with joined Trills, so she wasn't sure if it was Dax herself who regretted it, or if she remembered Torias' regret, or even if there was a difference. "I didn't worry about Tom," she said. "Not really. He had a dangerous job, but he was a good pilot and always careful. All those shuttles and all the stupid stunts he pulled, and it was a shakedown cruise of a ship that killed him." She paused, then said, "We just found out I was pregnant, right before he left on Voyager. He wanted to get out of the mission and stay home, but I wouldn't let him. Sometimes, I regret that." She paused again, then asked, "Do you think you'll ever forgive yourself for…dying?"

"We have a different view of death than most," Dax said. "So that's hard to answer. Torias hurt Nilani with his death, and I regret that, but hurting those we love when we die is inevitable. There's nothing to have to forgive." They were in front of the transporter room and she stopped and turned to face Torres. "If you're asking if Nilani ever forgave Torias for dying… I don't think she did."

Torres nodded slightly, not trusting herself to acknowledge the words further than that. She knew Tom had done nothing that needed forgiving; Voyager hadn't been a dangerous ship, and while the Badlands were rough, he had been prepared for them, logging hours in the simulators. He had been the one who didn't want to go when they found out she was pregnant, and she was the one who insisted. And yet, there was a part of her that, even three years later, hadn't forgiven him for disappearing. For dying. For leaving her to raise Izzy on her own. "Good luck with your wedding preparations," she said instead.

"Have a safe journey back to Earth," Dax said in reply, giving her a smile before turning and walking back the way she came.

"Back to Earth," Torres murmured to herself before she entered the transporter room. Back to her real life, to a new Jem'Hadar ship that needed repairing, to the countless experiments she would run in efforts of integrating a viewscreen, replicators, or a cloak. Back to teaching new crewmen how to become mechanics. Back to Izzy.

As they stepped out of the airlock onto Starbase 375 four days later, Torres, Pagano, and Anand were greeted by their crew that had stayed behind. "You brought us a new ship," Bamber said in surprise. "We were betting you wouldn't even be returning with the old one."

"We wouldn't want you to get bored," she replied dryly. "It's not flyable. We'll meet up with it at UP in about two weeks. Captain Lin said the Raza will be ready in about three hours to take us back to Earth. Let's not keep them waiting."

The ensigns, chiefs, and crewmen obediently turned and made their way to the Raza's airlock. All except Crewman Pagano. "Thank you, sir," Pagano said when the others were out of earshot. "It was an honor to work with you. I learned so much, and—"

"Pagano," Torres interrupted. She smiled at the young crewman. "Take care of yourself, okay?"

Chief O'Brien had asked Lt. Torres if he could steal Pagano for his own crew, and Torres would have been lying if she claimed to be surprised. The chief could recognize talent when he saw it, and Pagano was talented. But she was also young, and the battle on the planet had shaken her hard, so Torres told her that she would only agree if it was what Pagano wanted. Staying with the Defiant crew and working almost exclusively on the captured Jem'Hadar fighter would undoubtedly mean more battles, more dangerous missions, more dangers. To her surprise, it was what Pagano wanted, and Torres had cleared it with Lt. Gonzalez and Commander Winters.

Now, on Starbase 375, Pagano surprised her again by giving her a tight hug. "I hope I get to work for you again someday," the crewman said.

"Whenever you want, I'll find a space on a crew for you," Torres promised. "Always remember: stay calm. Trust your training. Hit them before they can hit you."

Pagano nodded and pulled away. "Tell Izzy I said good-bye."

Torres said she would, and then turned to follow the rest of her crew toward home.

That would be the last time she saw Crewman Brynnlyleigh Pagano.