Two Sides of a Coin, Part II

Why did I waste my time?
Two steps, I don't rewind
Feeling I can't define
I give back to you

Give it all away, take it all away
Give it all away, take it all away

I see my demise
From behind your eyes
I can't pass you by
I put back to you

Give it all away, take it all away
Give it all away, take it all away
Give it all away, take it all away
Give it all away, take it all away

Between love, between hate
Shake the silence back but it's too late
And it haunts you, and it haunts you
It's a love hate heartbreak

This could be suicide
A kiss with these red knives
Why am I driving blind?
I give back to you

Give it all away, take it all away
Give it all away, take it all away

Try on one for size
I thought boys don't cry
You're my perfect lie
I give back to you

Give it all away, take it all away
Give it all away, take it all away
Give it all away, take it all away
Give it all away, take it all away

Between love, between hate
Shake the silence back but it's too late
And it haunts you, and it haunts you
It's a love hate heartbreak

Between love between hate
Shake the silence back but it's too late
And it haunts you, and it haunts you
It's a love hate heartbreak

Between love between hate
Shake the silence back but it's too late
And it haunts you, and it haunts you
It's a love hate heartbreak

Between love between hate
Shake the silence back but it's too late
And it haunts you, and it haunts you
It's a love hate heartbreak

Give it all away, take it all away
Give it all away, take it all away
— "Love/Hate Heartbreak" by Halestorm

"Captain, something's seriously wrong," Wiggin says without preamble as Biri and I make the bridge. "We've picked up a series of triolic wave pulses, and they're getting stronger."

"Well, Dalton says it's not his doing. Maybe the Devidians are playing games again, but in any case we can't afford to take chances. Triangulate the source and patch it to the helm." I hit my combadge. "All hands, this is the captain. Sound yellow alert."

"Destiny's hailing us, ma'am!" Esplin announces.

"Onscreen."

Captain Merkell looks more worried than before, and I can see crewmen running around frantically in the background. "Things are going nuts over here, Kanril. We thought we had a rad leak but the source is external."

"I know, Merkell. Patch Main Engineering in."

Jerrod appears on split-screen. "El, there is something really wrong here. All the diagnostics are going nuts, giving readings that don't make sense. I can't tell if this is a major system failure or…" He trails off but I know what he's thinking: they've been compromised. "Get to the source and try and see what's going on. I'll work on the safety interlocks down here."

"You got it. Park, let's move!"

As the impulse drive engages there's a bright red flare from the Destiny. Wiggin mutters, "What… the… fuck?"

"Yes? 'What the fuck' bad? 'What the fuck' good?"

"You tell me, ma'am. I can't see Movarish III on sensors anymore, or even its sun!"

"Run that by me again?" Tess says.

Wiggin and Biri frantically hammer at their consoles. "No good," she hollers. "There are massive subspace shear waves all around us. It's like we've gone to warp, and we've taken the whole asteroid field with us!" Then the Trill gasps. "Gaunt's… forty… hosts. The interwarp drive. It works."

"Well, how the frak do we shut it down?!" Tess snaps.

Dalton's voice comes through the comm, distorted by static. "…overrides are shot to hell; can't control the triolic injection… won't disengage until you cut off… at the source…"

"I've lost the signal!" Esplin cries.

"He told us enough! Park, full impulse!"

The Bajor barrels into the asteroid field, ducking around whirling boulders ranging from groundcar-size on up to city-busters the size of office parks. Smaller rocks and gravel spark harmlessly off our navigational shields as we close on a planet-killer seventy klicks across at the center of the formation. "So, what are we looking at?" I ask Wiggin. "Besides a big rock, I mean."

"I'm not sure. Sensors say there's something going on but I can't tell what. Wait. This interference… looks artificial somehow."

Biri says, "I've got an idea. If we get close to that thing we can fire a full-spectrum particle pulse to try and dissipate the interference and get a clear scan. It'd take computer timing but—"

"Do it!" I order her. She hammers out a few lines of code and hits the trigger. There's a thrum of power through the ship's hull but nothing happens.

Then, as I stare out into the blackness, I see something. A ripple in the dark.

Prophets. "Shields up! Go evasive!"

Tess's hands race across her board as the dark green prow of a warship bites a hole in reality ahead of us. The bow mount glows a sickly green as Park throws us hard to starboard and a supercharged disruptor lance snaps out and skitters across the port shields. Tess got them up in the nick of time but the lights briefly dim. "Romulans!" Tess barks.

"Battle stations!" I hammer my hand against the key for the general quarters alarm. "Tess, damage report!"

"Port shields at eighty-four percent; returning fire! Master Chief, identify!"

"His IFF's off but I've got a match on optical," Wiggin calls over the howl of the red alert klaxon as the port phasers return the ambush with interest. "D'deridex-class, ChR 20336, IRW Javelin. She's Tal Shiar!"

Registry 20336. Fourth production run, built for the Dominion War. One of the few ships in the known galaxy that can potentially take the Bajor in a head-on fight. "Esplin, send him a canned 'surrender or die'. Park, continue turn! Tess, aft battery!"

"Ready on aft battery. Rear torpedo loaded."

"Well, that was rude," Esplin comments, presumably about the response to our hail.

As the oncoming warbird passes into our rear arc, still firing, Tess slams her hand down on her console and a spread of quantum torpedoes shrieks out of the chase tube. "All power to aft phasers. Locked and firing!" Quadruple beams snap out from the arrays on the stardrive, nacelles, and saucer, smashing into the Javelin head-on. The first torpedo goes wide and the second is swatted by a disruptor mount, but the following trio pound one, two, three, into the forward shields. Tess fires the phasers again and batters them down as the D'deridex's impulse engines flare; it struggles to turn and interpose fresh shields.

"Tess, take a headshot!"

"Firing!" Another lance of nadions snaps out and slips in just under the edge of the shield hole, carving into the warbird's "head" and blowing a gash through several decks. Debris and bodies belch out of the hole and the ship keeps turning, out of control, and careens into the surface of the asteroid. Its bow, already wreathed in flames, crumples like a drink can hit with a sledgehammer, then the singularity core blows and begins eating everything nearby, starting with what's left of the wreck. The bridge breaks out in cheers and I nod in grim satisfaction.

"Captain," Wiggin calls over the noise, "I've got a small task force heading in. Read three T'varo, one Mogai-class."

"Park, take us after them. Biri, did you get anything?"

"Yeah, in addition to collapsing the cloak on that warbird the particle burst unmasked what looks like a small underground installation on that rock. Probably not going to be a problem anymore, what with that loose drive singularity. Ugh." She shakes her head. "How'd you know that shot would work?"

"Educated guess. Pointy-ears follow some of the same doctrines we do—you can regain control from the engineering section if you shoot out the bridge, but that's not meant to be easy 'cause they're more worried about sabotage than running into something while they get control back."

"Kind of a gamble," Gaarra remarks from the ops console.

"Hey, it worked. And if it hadn't, we could've beaten him the old-fashioned way."

That's what I tell him, but I'm still trying to get my heart-rate down. Rommies sure keep you on your toes…

The Bajor barrels after a trio of T'varo-class light warbirds. They see us coming, of course—ship this big is hard to hide—and frantically fan out. Tess fires and skewers the port-most one dead center, its shields nearly useless against the full power of the forward phasers. The tiny frigate swiftly crumples into its own drive singularity, which then decomposes and detonates. "I lost number three—he cloaked!" Wiggin calls.

"Hard to starboard, forty degree up!" I order. "Reduce speed one-third!" Park fires the side jets and the ship slews right and pitches relative up.

"Locked! Firing!" A volley of phaser fire snaps out from the dorsal arrays at the dancing ship, but a flash erupts at its position. Singularity jump, I realize as the little warbird reappears on the far side of a tumbling rock bigger than us, spins like a top, and comes at us guns blazing.

Then the missing one slices back into reality and hammers our still-recharging port shield with a volley of plasma torpedoes; the impact of the big red one sets the lights flickering. "Shields at sixty and falling!" Gaarra reports. "Diverting engine power!"

"Mogai heavy warbird, coming at our two o'clock low!" Wiggin adds as the broad-winged ship screams in. "ChR 25327, IRW Esemar!"

Phekk this. I jump up and throw an ops petty officer out of my way to get at his console. "Sorry," I mumble to him as Tess swats one of the frigates with a glancing hit that pulverizes its starboard nacelle, and start keying commands.

There. Tractor beam. I lock onto the other light warbird and seize it in a death grip, redirecting its momentum and sending it for a tumble right up the larger warbird's nose.

Well, close enough for government work, anyway. The Esemar almost banks away in time and instead of smashing them both to powder the the T'varo takes off half the starboard wing and disintegrates. A spread of quantum torpedoes finishes her, and lifeboats begin to pop from the blazing wreckage.

"Bean ball, take your base," I comment. Tess turns to me with an eyebrow raised. I shrug and help the petty officer back up. "Esplin, get me Destiny, please."

"One moment, ma'am." Esplin taps at her console. "Uh-oh."

"Oh, what now?"

"Ma'am, they've been boarded, probably by Esemar. Captain Merkell's got the bridge locked down but needs help clearing the rest of the ship."

"Phekk." Pretty easy to outnumber the crew on a tacscort. I hit the intercom. "All hands, this is the captain. Scramble assault unit!"

"Frag out!" I yell, tossing a grenade around a corner. The blast is thunderous in the confined space and I'm thankful for my helmet dampening the noise. I extend the fiber-optic camera on my wristguard around the corner. It's spattered with green blood and a cluster of bodies lies unmoving.

"They were trying to break into Captain Merkell's ready room," Kate McMillan says from across the hall, where she took cover after the Romulans pinned her down.

"All right, go, I'll cover you."

McMillan and Athezra move up as I swing my rifle around the corner and cover it; Crewman Minassian and Security Officer zh'Planathalian head down the hall and lay a frag mine to cover our backs. "It's locked, ma'am!"

"Merkell, Kanril," I radio as I take up a position behind them, "I need you to override the lock on your quarters, otherwise I'm going to have to breach. Give me a five-count when you've got it."

"Stand by. Five, four, three, two, one, mark!"

The door slides open and Athezra throws in a flashbang. My visor polarizes and blocks the flash. I hear some swearing in Romulan as I storm in. A pointy-ear officer loopily goes for his pistol but can't bring it to bear before I bullrush him to the ground.

"Captain, look out!" A disruptor blast hits my side; I'm thrown off the male and bang my helmet against the bunk. Athezra's pulsewave phaser howls and a female flies into the wall with a fist-sized hole through her breastplate, landing in a heap on the floor. She groans once and expires. "You hit, Captain?"

I crane my neck to inspect the damage. "Nah, didn't penetrate. Phekk, how did I not see her?"

"She was behind the desk when we breached. Yours still alive?"

I glance at the insensate male centurion. "Alive, but probably no use to anyone for a while." I pat him down and find a boot knife, then zip-cuff him to Merkell's bedframe for later.

"Ma'am," zh'Planathalian says, gesturing at the screen on the desk. I come over to her. "Looks like they were using Captain Merkell's terminal, looking at personnel records in Science and Engineering."

"Interesting," I murmur, recalling Dalton's suspicions. "What else?"

The Andorian clicks through two more screens. "Look, it's the interwarp modifications, these are classified files. They knew exactly which ones to retrieve, but I think we stopped them before they could download the data."

"Captain, Tess!" my radio suddenly crackles. "There's another warbird closing in!"

"Prophets, they must've had a whole fleet out there. Tess, I've already taken two hits to my armor. Head out and intercept, try and keep them from landing any more boarders."

"We're on our way. Be advised, it will take us out of communications range."

"Walk with the Prophets, Tess." I look to the others. "We've gotta get down to Main Engineering and I don't trust the turbolifts." I radio the bridge again. "Merkell, I'm going to need your access codes and the location of the nearest Jefferies tube."

A ladder down, I kick open the access grate and emerge next to a Romulan. My rifle's slung over my back but I pull my bayonet and open a second mouth on his throat before he can do anything, spraying me with bright green arterial blood. Disgusted, I wipe my gauntlets off on his shirt and turn to a ship status display. "Looks like the security force fields are up all over the deck."

I open a door to head down the corridor to starboard and run right into a fire. "Phekk!" Lucky for my armor or else I'd have no eyebrows left.

"Why aren't the fire suppression systems running?!" Athezra shouts as I backpedal.

"Sensor must be knocked out!" I quickly key the manual controls and foam sprays out of the ceiling and walls. "All right, watch yourselves."

"God, I hate this stuff," McMillan grumbles as our boots swish and squish through the foam.

We come to a corner and I raise my wrist-camera, then retract it and turn my head. One, group, I hand-signal. Two by two. Three, two, one. I turn the corner and crack off an unaimed burst on the run. The Romulans are ready this time: several disruptor bolts fly past me, one grazing my right pauldron as I duck into a doorway. Zh'Planathalian tries to follow but takes one in the head and crashes sideways missing half her face. Phekk.

Athezra fires two blasts down the hall from the corner as McMillan hides behind his breach-grade heavy armor, shooting around him. Zasrassi dives across to my position and makes it. I fire again and an officer screeches and goes down.

"Zass, cover fire!" I order. "Thez, on me! Move!"

The Caitian crouches and flicks her rifle to full auto as I charge, hoping the GUNGNIR II hardsuit's battered breastplate will hold up. Two bolts shatter on my midsection, another hits my groin guard as I make the next doorway. Behind me I hear McMillan yell, "Goddammit!" as Athezra nails two Romulans at once with his gun. One more pokes his head over their barricade and I put a burst into his belly. Zasrassi fires again, aimed this time, and the last one goes down.

"Clear!" I yell. "McMillan, you all right?"

"Sweet mother of holy fuck, asswipe hobgoblin shot my goddamn leg!"

I turn to check on her. She's on the floor with a big hole through the kneeguard of her Interceptor armor, but for some reason she doesn't seem to be in much pain and her vitals read as good on my HUD. Then it hits me. "Wait a minute, Lieutenant, is that your—"

She starts laughing. "Yeah, he shot my goddamn fake leg!" Zasrassi and Athezra and I all start cracking up, blame stress. "Well, heh, I guess I can't, heh, follow you any further, not until I take it to the shop."

A blinkenlight in my HUD catches my eye. "Ahem, rad levels are increasing anyway, you probably shouldn't," I answer. "Zasrassi—"

"I'll stay with her," the Caitian agrees.

"You said 'radiation', ma'am?" Athrezra asks, checking for a pulse on zh'Planathalian I already know won't be found.

"Probably triolic. Medkit in my backpack, get the radvax." I trigger the med dispenser in my suit and wince at the sting.

I start to continue into Main Engineering but a pointy-ear subcommander with a nasty phaser wound on her left flank groans. I spin and level my phaser at her head. "Ve hwi yhfev, lloi'dhohh hwi arhem."

"Urru Areinneye, susse-thrai Bah'jor." She spits on my breastplate as I kneel down next to her to check for weapons. "Oi ihhaonn'hrhae'edh hwai rayha."

Okay, that second one stings a bit. "Athezra, see to her. Docgae-d'ifv hwi fvah vr'...". I pause to think up a translation. "... vr'aethl'avaihh'etrehhevha?"

She manages a smirk despite clearly being in a lot of pain. "Mnean docgaen aeu aei temmnuei haeinha thaihnhas dhenovher Rihan mhastev Temehludet." She coughs again. The spittle on her hand is tinged with coppery green blood. "Oi docgaen llillaa mnean aeu payr kroiha hrian."

"Captain?" Athezra prompts.

"She thinks Dalton's project is a threat to their national security." Which if Dalton's right, it probably is, but I maintain my poker face.

"Nice," he grumbles. "Don't suppose she knows how to turn the phekk'ta thing off."

She starts to laugh at the question but it quickly turns to another coughing fit. Athezra jabs her in the neck with a hypospray, probably an anesthetic. "Sehhaekhe ssuy venireal hraen." She chuckles again. "Nihroikhe arhem aihkh tlhojur, susse-thrai."

I slap her. The servos in my armor split her lip and work her jaw around. "Dhroi ehlrh!" But she just glares sullenly at me and I know I'm wasting my breath. Maybe if I had two months and a hole to dump her in until she started howling at the moons, but she's too stubborn and too principled to get anything useful here, so I just zip-cuff her hands to her legs. "McMillan, Zass, can you—"

"She won't go anywhere," McMillan promises, laying her phaser across her bad knee with the emitter leveled threateningly at the wounded Romulan, who sticks her tongue out at the human.

I turn a corner and I'm there: Main Engineering. Commander Shrel sees me waving and quickly lowers the forcefield. "I'm hoping this means you've dealt with those boarding parties!"

"Yes," I yell back over the noise. "Now how do we shut this phekk'ta thing off?!"

"I've been trying to figure that out the whole time but this frakking radiation is destabilizing the crystals! Go help Dalton in the back! I haven't had a chance to talk to him, been too busy trying to stop a core breach! He got hit but he might know how to SCRAM this thing!"

Jerrod is in a corner out of the way. I reach around for the medpac attached to my waist, eyeing the third-degree disruptor burn on his upper thigh. "Eleya, back so soon?" he asks, coughing. "Can't stay away from me, can you?" He eyes his machine as I open up the pack. "Isn't this beautiful?"

"You can flatter yourself later," I grumble. "You're not allergic to metorapan, right?" He shakes his head and I grab an ampoule. "What the phekk happened in here, anyway?"

He winces as I jam the hypospray into his neck. "Well, after you went out to investigate the radiation pulses, our readings went off the scale in here. I think the Romulans were focusing a coherent triolic wave beam on us… It must have been intentional. Then something blew out near me and I hit the floor. I'm not sure exactly what happened next but the interwarp drive was already engaged when"—he coughs again—"when I got up."

"Who activated it? Oh, damn," I add, reading the rad levels off my HUD. Radvax, where's the damn radvax…

"I don't know. It could have been due to an overload induced by the radiation pulse, or maybe someone tripped a switch. Before I could get to a console the Romulans stormed the place. I think Shrel managed to toss up a bunch of forcefields to isolate the rest of them, but one squad still got in here." He coughs again, but not as hard this time, the metorapan must be having an effect. "Seemed a lot more interested in the warp core than us. They killed Petty Officer Rehnquist"—he indicates a dead redshirt tucked against the back wall—"and I got blasted. I was sure I was dead but I think they were trying to keep the rest of us alive. I heard them talking."

"Yeah, I had a nice chat with one in the next compartment. They want your little project."

He nods. "And they're flying us right into Romulan space to get it."

Oh, of course. "Starfleet's gotta have noticed by now, they'll send a fleet—"

"No, I… I don't think help is coming," he says as I start rubbing burn cream into his wound. "It's possible they can't detect us at all—OW!"

That last part was me accidentally squeezing his leg in shock. "What? What the phekk are you talking about? This warp field is twelve hundred klicks across!"

He laughs ruefully, which quickly morphs into a hacking cough. "I told you I was keeping some things to myself, especially since I started getting suspicious. There is a theoretical consequence of… of expanding a warp bubble through an accessible dimension. I calculated it might—"

I grab his shoulder. "Would you spit it out already?! I don't have time for all your technobabble!"

"The math suggested that the warp bubble could end up slightly out of phase when it formed. It's possible that would mask its warp signature almost entirely."

I just sit there with my mouth hanging open, then finally cast my eyes to the ceiling. "Right! Because the Prophets just couldn't be done phekk'sha mab sor'ah! You phekk'ta built a giant, invisible phekk'ta warp drive!?"

"I didn't know for sure, damn it!" he shouts at me, then is reduced to another coughing fit. Finally, he explains, "The math wasn't exact, El, any number of real-world conditions could've factored in. I needed to test it to see what would happen… before I knew. But that means we have to shut it down, and fast, or we could end up on the other side of the quadrant before anyone realizes we're missing."

"Oh, right, this thing is also slipstream-fast, because of course it is." I press my gloved hand to my visor. "All right, how the phekk do we turn it off?"

"I tried… The triolic induction that flooded the chamber seems to have set up some kind of positive feedback loop. I'm not really sure where the energy is coming from, maybe the zero-point field, but right now it's self-sustaining. It's almost like they engineered it this way. How could they possibly know…?"

"Dalton!" I tap his forehead. "Focus!"

"Well, maybe… Okay, try this. If you disengage all of the safety interlocks at the main console, maybe we can just blow out the triolic induction module."

"Won't go boom, will it?"

"At this point, I'll take my chances." He probably has a point. "First, you'll need to dump every bit of power you can into the thing, next set up a resonant pulse in the regulator console. And then stand back."

"All right, this is gonna hurt." I finish bandaging his leg and hoist him into my arms, ignoring his screech of pain, then move to carry him out the door and down to my assault team, ordering Shrel to evacuate the section as I go.

"Carrying me over the threshold?"

"Shut up, I'm not finished with you. You stay alive, you damn fool."

"Okay… Don't want to spoil… our reunion… later…"

He goes limp as I hand him off to Athezra, who just looks up at me and says, "Go, Captain."

I run back in and override the console, telling the safety systems to go phekk themselves. Every spare joule I can find on the ship goes into the triolic induction module: life support, weapons, emergency force fields—BANG! I drop flat just in time as a fireball washes over the console.

Suddenly all is quiet. Commander Shrel peeks back around the door. "You got it?"

"I don't know." I trigger my suit radio. "Mama Bear to Bajor, you hear me okay?"

"Loud and clear," Tess sends back. "The interwarp field just collapsed all at once. We destroyed two more warbirds and disabled a third; remaining bogeys are bugging out. Shall I pursue?"

"Negative, negative. Tractor your prisoner and get back here, we need medical yesterday."

"On our way. Out."

"How is he, Warragul?"

The doctor's dark face is grim. "He's dying."

I look at him in disbelief. "He had a disruptor burn on his leg! I've gotten hurt worse—"

"Cap'n, he has massive radiation poisoning," he explains quietly. "Everyone on that ship near Engineering does but not as bad as him. You and the boarding party weren't there long enough, you only took about two-and-a-half grays of triolic radiation and that MACO suit of yours stopped most of it. He absorbed somewhere north of forty. He must've been too close to something. And he's deteriorating too fast. I'm good but I'm no miracle worker."

"Phekk that, there's got to be something you can do! You can bring people back from brain-death but you can't—"

"No, I've done everything I can, Cap'n! I've decontaminated him externally and I've got him half-blasted out of his mind on painkillers and nausea and seizure meds. That's all I can do, is make him as comfortable as I can." He waves at the door to the intensive care unit. "He's asking to see you, and if you'll excuse me for sounding callous I have to go work on the patients I can save!" He storms off behind a curtain wall, yanks off his smock and starts scrubbing his hands, barking orders to Dr. Maela and the nurses.

I head into the ICU, where a nurse and Chief Corpsman Watkins are standing over Jerrod's form. His face is ashen, his eyes milky, and bandages flecked with bloodstains shroud his left arm and his neck. "Eleya?" he wheezes, his voice tremulous. "Is that you? I… I can't see."

I take his good hand. "Yes, it's me. Don't talk."

"You came through. You always do." He coughs hard and the nurse, a pale Hathoni Bajoran, wipes blood off his mouth with a tissue. She gently presses a hypospray to his neck and it hisses; the coughing fit subsides. "Last month… would've been our eighth anniversary." He coughs again. "Reshek, you there?"

"I'm here."

"You break her heart like… like I did, and… I'll come back."

"Would you stop trying to talk?" I beg him.

"Eleya? Come closer?" I lean my head in. "Somebody on this ship… must have… activated it… intentionally," he wheezes. "Someone must have… been planning it all… with the Romulans." He coughs again. "I thought… I could trust… all of my crewmates… but I can't trust…. any of them. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I love you. I never stopped… loving…"

His hand falls limp in mine. "No. No, no."

But his chest has stopped moving, and the lifesign monitor is sounding a constant tone. Watkins reaches over and presses Jerrod's sightless eyes closed with one gloved hand. "Time of death, 0737 hours and eight seconds. I'm sorry, Captain."

I collapse across him and Gaarra grips my shoulder as the death chant drops unbidden from my lips, my voice breaking. "Ahn-kay ya, ay-ya vasu. Coh-ma-ra, di-nay-ya. Ahn-kay ya…"

I stand there in a haze for hours. I barely notice Warragul giving me a massive dose of radiation treatments and warning me of possible side-effects, cancer risk, infertility. It feels like someone else entirely is sweeping the asteroid field for clues, like I'm a spectator in my own body. My answers to Admiral M'Rann's interrogation are sullen and robotic.

I'm trying to drown my sorrows in a bottle of Romulan ale (ha ha, I'm not laughing) when Captain Merkell walks up. "There any of that left?"

"Help yourshelf."

"Sounds like you're three sheets to the wind already," the Bolian comments.

I look blearily over at the bottle. It was a party-size bottle when I started but there's barely two fingers of ale left in it. "Takesh a lot to get me good and drunk these daysh. Uh, shorry for your losh, ahem, Captain."

"I should be saying that to you. Seems like you really loved him."

"I've sheen sho much death, losht sho many friendsh. Why him? I thought I hated him. Thish wash eashier when I hated him. Damn you to Hell, Jerrod Dalton…"

"He's the one that got away. I had one of those once."

"Yeah? Where ish he?"

She chuckles. "She's writing holoprograms on the south continent with three husbands and seven kids. Sometimes I think she was the smart one." She takes a drink of the azure brew in her glass, then asks me, "I don't mean to pry, but… he never said anything about his religious beliefs and there's nothing in his file. Do you happen to know—"

From somewhere in my ethanol-fuzzed, grief-hazed mind I dredge up a memory, one of several spirited discussions about religion and politics that always ended in bed-battering make-up sex. "He was a lapsed Lutheran when I… knew him. I think…" I cough and swallow. "I think the ordinary shecular funeral would be best."

Merkell nods. "Alright, then." She taps her combadge. "Commander Reshek, it's Captain Merkell. I need you to drop what you're doing and come to Ten Forward."

"Already here," he announces from the doorway. "Mr. Lang commed me before you did."

"Phekk you," I grumble at him. "I'm all right."

"No, you're not." He takes the beer stein out of my hand; I only half-heartedly fight him as he raises me to my feet. "And you're cut off."

"Get her some sleep, get her sober," Merkell murmurs as I continue to grumble against his shoulder.

"This isn't my first jaunt around the sector, sir."

The remaining members of Merkell's crew stand, or sit in wheelchairs, in a half-circle on the forward observation deck of Admiral M'Rann's flagship USS Arcadia. Four hours of shut-eye and a detox pill means my hangover has receded to a dull twinge as I look over the tidy flag-draped torpedo casing.

"We are assembled here today to pay our respects to our honored dead," Merkell begins. "Each of them leaves an absence that can never truly be filled. But with Commander Jerrod Dalton, I think it may be harder.

"There are few people in our lives that burn with such passion, who can see so far ahead, that we burn brighter, we see farther, just for being in their company. Jerrod Dalton was one such man. Someday he may be remembered amongst such peers as Joris Brock and Zefram Cochrane. And someday the insights he had into the folds of time and space may change how we sail the stars."

She looks at the casket. "But today we can only pause and mourn the passing of our colleague and friend. As per his wishes we commit Jerrod Dalton's remains to space. It is fitting he will rest here, a displaced soul amongst the asteroids displaced by his vision." She looks up. "Do any of you have any thoughts to add?

I step forward. "I'd like to say a few words, Captain." Merkell nods and yields the floor as I marshal my thoughts.

Finally I sigh. "Eleven years ago I was stationed aboard RBS Kira Nerys. I was an E-5, naval gunnery technician. We were ambushed by an Orion frigate and boarded, and I learned something." My voice takes on a bitter tone. "I'm a killer. No matter what words you use to dress it up, no matter what uniform you put me in, what I am doesn't change: I'm a professional killer. I'm not proud of it, but it's what I'm good at, and I accepted that a long time ago. And to the best of my knowledge I've never taken an innocent life—everyone I've killed had a weapon in hand or was going to hurt someone else. But… removing evil from the world isn't the same thing as creating good.

"That's what Commander Dalton wanted to do. He was trying to leave this world a better place than people like me make it, and he believed in that with a passion few of us ever attain. And I… I loved that about him. And when he left me, I hated him for taking that from me. I hated him for a long time." I swallow. "I think I understand, though. If the price of sharing his passion with others was a period of pain, then I think it was a fair trade.

"It feels like the Prophets are torturing me, to have him disappear out of my life just after he returned to it. But I have to remind myself that, really, I'm lucky to have had those few minutes with him. I hope we can all remember not how much we miss him, but how much greater we are for having been close to him." I pull a stargazer lily from behind my back and lay it on the business end of the torpedo. He gave me one as a corsage before the Academy Yule Ball. "Prophets guide you to your rest, my friend. And thank you for bringing me back into your life… just in time."

Captain Merkell steps forward again. "Then we now commit the remains of Jerrod Dalton to the universe. From whence we come, so do we return. Captain, I yield this duty to you."

I lay my hand on a control panel. Blue sparks wash over the coffin and it fades from existence, lost to the stars.

Captain Merkell says to me, "I wish you well, Captain Kanril. Perhaps our paths will cross again under happier circustances."

"Walk with the Prophets, Captain Merkell."

Back to Bajor. Back to the war. There's always the war, the endless struggle for one more stupid chunk of rock in one more stupid sector, the killing, the dying, the laughter of thirsting gods. But orders are orders. We're carrying a full division of Marines belowdecks and we're already four days behind schedule thanks to this little excursion.

"Captain," Biri says to me quietly as we resume course to the Jouret system, "somehow it feels we're leaving here with unfinished business."

"I agree. But I also have to agree with Admiral M'Rann's logic, I'm no good to him as an investigator, not here."

"We're with you, Captain," Tess says, "whatever you decide. Um, if you need a rest, I can handle things up here."

"I appreciate it, Tess. You have the conn."

"I have the conn."

Gaarra follows me to the turbolift. "Are we okay? Should I sleep in my own quarters for a little while?" I know he's joking. I look up at him and mumble something, just noise, I don't even know what I'm saying. But he takes me in his arms and holds me tight. "I guess not."

"I love you," I whisper to him. "Don't ever leave me."

"I love you. I won't."