III. Contra Mundum
Disclaimer: I do not own DS9 or any of its character, although I sometimes wish I did! Please take note, this is a fan fiction. Though the characters I have created here are my own, I used a besieged Federation outpost during the Dominion war as the setting, and that does belong to Star Trek and Paramount productions.
Middle of the Year 2374
Alpha Quadrant, The Dominion War
It was dark. Dank, cold, quiet, and dark. It was cold, still, blank, shady, and uncomfortable. It was growing steadily warmer, lighter, noisier, and more uncomfortable. It was burning brightly now, and the warm haze was broken by a beeping noise, which came and went in syncopation with the beat of her heart. The ache had manifested itself in her chest. She tried to breath more clearly and began gasping for oxygen like a caught fish panting for water.
Ann Kesler opened her eyes to the bright ceiling lights of the isolation ward as she was jolted into consciousness by an outpouring of vicious coughing. The air was rough and dry against her throat. Ann was naturally claustrophobic. Naturally she tried to move against the restrictions she felt, but the moment she did sharp, dizzying pain shot up her back and neck.
"Ann, don't move. Aaron!" Amanda called as she rushed across the room, stopping Ann from moving any farther. "Listen to me, if you move there is a possibility that it may cause a small rupture and you begin hemorrhaging again. Aaron!" She shouted out into the hall.
The boisterous young man practically flew to the door way, a smile plastered onto his face the moment he saw the she was conscious. "Hey there little lady, you're awake. Long time no see."
"Long time?" Ann asked softly through parched lips. Her mouth was uncomfortably arid and she felt dehydrated.
"Oh yeah!" Aaron elaborated making a huge sign with his hands. "You've been out for eight hours, at least."
"Thank God." Amanda whispered as she switched the bag on the I.V. "It would not have been very pleasant had you woken up before your wounds had been completely regenerated. You would have been in a great deal of pain."
Ann was quiet for a moment, then her eyes widened as she realized something. "My shift last night, who took it?"
"This amazing lady here." Aaron pointed to Amanda as she continued to check the vitals on the machine. "I mean, not only is she relatively good looking, she's also versatile. Imagine that!"
"Don't listen to him." Amanda argued as she adjusted the dosage that was supposed to come out of the I.V. on the regulator beside it . "Lack of sleep impairs his judgment."
"Well, it does wonders for yours, I bet." Aaron shot back, looking over the clipboard he had been carrying at his side.
Amanda glared up at him, the familiar presence of an old friend: the wise crack, rising to come to her aide. "Oh, you're funny."
"Criticize me for whatever you want, because nothing you say today is going to ruin my good mood. Do you know why?" Aaron asked returning the clipboard to one side and going to lean against the door frame nonchalantly.
"My heart can't take the anticipation." Amanda sarcastically piped in as she prepared to take Ann's blood pressure. Pushing a button, the computer beeped and the patient's exact current blood pressure came to the screen, but despite her efforts to ignore him, she could feel Aaron's self-assured ginger eyes locked on to her. She sighed as she stood up and leaned back against the computer console behind her. "What is it?"
Ann smiled. If there was one thing in this world that you could set your clock by, it was Amanda's tendency for cynical remarks and mocking throwbacks. Not since childhood, had it ever failed to serve.
Aaron's grin became smug as he crossed his arms in front of his chest and leaned forward confidently. "I'm going home."
"What?!" Amanda shouted as Ann cringed from the angry shrillness in her voice.
Aaron moved quickly away from the wall. "Shhh! Keep your voice down, Amanda."
"I will not keep my voice down!" Amanda shouted as she marched on him threateningly. "I can't believe this! Three weeks ago I was supposed to be married and I couldn't even get leave for that! I had to put my wedding on hold for this fiasco of an assignment until this worthless war is over with! How did you ever get the right to leave?!"
Aaron shrugged and began walking around, gesturing with his free hand as he spoke, nearly excitedly frightened. "I spoke to the Admiral, sent my plea through to Starfleet Medical and then to Starfleet Command and voila! I am out!"
Amanda took a deep breath to calm herself, though in her tired and frazzled state of mind it did seem rather appealing to kill this man, she restrained her anger. "What reasons do you have for going home? If you don't mind, Aaron, I think I am entitled to know at least that much."
Aaron released a deep breath and ran a hand through his chestnut hair, the white gold of his wedding ring standing out in strong contrast from the dark hue of his head. "My wife is having a baby."
Amanda's deadly march came a screeching halt as her face became the human equivalent to the pinnacle of utter disbelief. She almost felt guilty about wanting so quickly to end the life of this man…almost.
"Sara's pregnant?" Ann asked in genuine astonishment. "Aaron, that's wonderful news!
Why didn't you tell anyone?"
"Because I didn't want to get anyone else's hopes up let along my own if I were to never come home from this place." Aaron stated, roughly rebuking the two of them. "I didn't want anyone being excited for me if I couldn't even feel excited myself, knowing that I might never see my baby or my wife again."
Amanda swallowed the dryness left behind after her anger had ebbed away. "Aaron, I'm sorry."
"You nearly bit my head off, you should be!" Aaron barked in mock horror.
"Aaron." Amanda cautioned in tone of voice very flexible to the give and take of unfriendliness. "Just because I said that I am sorry, does not mean that I am above any violent out bursts. After all, I had been planning that wedding for over three years-"
"Ill feelings die hard." Aaron interrupted.
"Yes, but the promise of vengeance lives forever." Amanda finished with a dry smile, a definite warning was in her voice this time.
Ann tried her best to suppress the smile, but was failing miserably. "When do you leave?"
Aaron looked a little miffed. "I sent the request through your office and you approved it, so you tell me."
Amanda turned around, a look of murderous horror on her face. No, getting back at Aaron would have to wait, right now dealing with Ann's treachery was first priority.
Ann tried to post a smile on her face to mask the fear that was slowly creeping through her. She honestly didn't remember signing that paper. "When did I give my consent for that?"
"Two weeks ago." Aaron responded slightly bewildered. "You know, come to think of it, I'll have Nurse Cromwell come by later tonight and perform some memory tests. Blacking out must have gotten to you." He shrugged any remaining bafflement off and looked down at his watch. "Oh, I have somewhere to be. I would love to stay and chat, but I don't have the time. Catch you both later."
Ann watched as he left. She really had no memory of signing that document. The last three weeks were all a mixed up jumble in her head. Yesterday was the day she remembered the least of all out of out of the last few weeks.
"You signed his leave!" the angry voice came out of no where.
"Well, I-"
"I can't believe you!" Amanda immediately jumped in. "I have known you your entire life and suddenly he take precedence over leave. You have known about my engagement since the day it happened and you have known the wedding date since the day were wrote it down. How could he sign his leave and not mine?!"
"You can't blame me for that." Ann spoke up, green eyes flaring dangerously as a sudden fury rose in her that she did not even know she had. "Your leave was canceled out by the Admirals and you know as well as I do if they don't give their consent first, then I can't write off on it!!"
The computer beeped as Ann's blood pressure rose significantly for a moment. She sat back resentfully and took a deep breath. It would be better for her if she could remain calm. No additional stress. She chanted the mantra in her mind. No additional stress.
"You're right." Amanda sighed taking a long steadying breath. "I apologize. You don't need this right now."
"You're right, I don't." Ann said, expecting another blowup, but it never came.
Amanda was silent for a long moment. Breathing normally, staring straight ahead at the floor in thought. Then suddenly, she came back to life.
"I'll be back to check on you tonight before my shift ends." Amanda said looking up. "The explosion caused some damage, not bad enough to be lethal, but you still need to get some rest. We theorize that you'll be laid up for about another two weeks."
Ann nodded. Amanda opened her mouth as if she wanted to say something more, but then closed it, turned on her heel and left quietly. The Chief Medical Officer was surprised to say the least. Amanda had never been that standoffish. She was never that type of person. Had she been, the two of them would never have become friends. She leaned back and relaxed against the pillows, feeling suddenly fatigued.
Ann remembered meeting Amanda Mechant early on in life. The two had attended primary school together first in Manchester. Ann's father was an officer in Starfleet and his assignments kept him long overdue from returning to his family and home. But she had fond memories of her father, when he had come home to them. She remembered one particular instance when they had gone together on a father daughter outing to pick out a Christmas tree.
They had gone to Mr. Matthew's and bought it from him, then they, along with her younger brother, had pulled it home on a sled over the snow. When they finally got it home, it had proven a tad too large to fit through the door and so her father had been forced to saw off the top. Remembering him in the checkered scarf her mother had made for him and the goofy blue hat the covered his ears which her mother had banned from the house, but he continued to wear it anyway. The mental image was perhaps her favorite memory of him.
In the course of her father's career, Ann and her family had been relocated to many different starships and countries. Ann's mother eventually began to fear that such an unbalanced life would harm the children, and so she moved the family to a permanent residence in her native home on the outskirts of Manchester. It was there, in primary school, when Ann had first met her best friend, Amanda Mechant. The were friends all through their younger lives and attended Starfleet Medical Academy together. And she was there when Amanda first met Michael Darence, a engineering student at Starfleet Academy. And also there when they announced their engagement and when they had announced their wedding date.
It had been the happiest she had ever seen Amanda. It was no wonder that she would be angry at having to postpone it to a time she couldn't foresee. Amanda would cool down eventually, she knew she would, or wouldn't she? It was quite a blow.
"'Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.'" Ann quoted, her hope waning a bit. "Or a best friend burned."
No, no. Amanda was reasonable, logical, and smart. She would deal with this well. Yes, that was it. Amanda was a Starfleet doctor for God sake. She knew how to handle herself, what was acceptable procedure and what was not. Everything would be fine.
Alright, Ann was poised to admit it. A common misjudgment had been made. Everyone at one point in their life had made it, so she was not alone. That crucial moment in one's day when they are tested on the merits of a friend. That lonesome hour when one finds that their closest companion does not forgive or forget easily and the former party, by their offence, is condemned to suffer along with the other. Ann had miscalculated. As it turned out, Amanda was not as tolerant as she had previously thought.
Dr. Mechant had returned later on in the evening, checking Ann's vitals, and the progress of the regeneration of her inner tissues and organs on the biofunction monitor. From the data she could glimpse over Amanda's shoulder she had deduced that her full recovery would take a week, if not longer. Still at least that meant one week out of work. Half of her was relieved. Finally, a break from all of the blood, death, gore, hopeless looks, and ends. People often became doctors to aide in the saving of life, not play firsthand witness to its demise. But the later seemed to be that which happened all too frequently these days. It was hard, knowing that despite every medical development that had been made in over four centuries, lives would continue to be lost in combat zones like this one.
Ann leaned back against the cool sheets of the biobed. She loved space. It was something she had a tendency to forget, even on this last outpost of the Federation's Alpha Quadrant. When she was young, Ann had spent a great many summers staying at her grandparent's home in the countryside. It was there where she had the fondest memories of her life up to this point. Her grandfather had been her first teacher and nurturer of her love for the universe. Her grandmother was a caring women whose family had come from Ulster and she often spoke freely and fondly of her home. Her grandfather, though kind to her, was not the most openly welcoming character.
He was always…untrusting of strangers and very protective of his family, but he loved his grandchildren. And he had the tendency to spoil them.
She had loved the old couple in her youth. Unfortunately, she lost touch with them when she entered the Academy and had not seen them since she was eighteen years old. Though she never saw them again, she did hear of them in a way that no relative likes to hear news of a parent or grandparent: in passing from this life to the next. Anne missed them now. Amanda had left crossly, without a word. Ann yawned, listening to sound of her jaw cracking as it sliced through the night's substantial silence. She hated being alone. When one was alone it became a time of personal reflection and realization. It was when someone was forced to delve back into their own memories, into shady corners intentionally left to their own devices so they would not have to be dealt with ever again. In a place lucrative with the opulence of shadow, CMO Ann Kessler lingered and wilted, feeling no more alive than she would if death had claimed her instead.
Almost expectantly, she welcomed death, the grip of those icy fingers which would bear her away never to have to live here among these totally cursed beings who strived on domination and discord again. She was alive, that much information she could not forget. But why?
Why, out of all of this base's fine staff who had been horribly injured or taken over the months, was she the one spared? Dr. Maverick had not been so fortunate and he had been wounded on the same day as she, in that exact explosion. Their wounds had both come from the same ammunition, had both been products of the flying shards of shrapnel and stainless steel. Ann closed her eyes against the darkness of the empty isolation ward. If the mannerisms of their injuries be so alike and their lives subject to the same fragile balance, why had it been him and not her? Ann squeezed her eyes so tightly shut that she could feel them screaming painfully from the other side, a mirage of fluorescent colors erupting behind the closed lids at her mind's own biding .
She had known Dr. Anthony Maverick. He had been a sophomore when she had entered the Academy and though the two never became close enough during those years to develop a clear friendship, they had bonded somewhat. When the shockwave of war had erupted throughout the system and the cry for medics had gone out, he too had been conscripted and sent here. Within a few months of him appointment here, Anthony had become a welcome friend of the CMO, certainly not as close to her as Dr. Mechant; but a close acquaintance nonetheless. He really was not all that different from any of his other fellow doctors, a person or more simply, just a man.
He was no stronger, faster, slimmer, smarter, fatter, or superior to any one of them in any form. Just a man, a doctor doing his job well. And for that the Furies had seen fit to send a million shards of airborne metal straight through his body, destroying that determined heart. Or of Stephen Shelby, the intern who was ordered to assist as field medic on the southern tree line when they were ambushed by the Jem'Hadar. It is needless to really explain the horrific end in depth, as when the young intern returned to the infirmary he was not helping to carry a stretcher, but rather laid out stiffly upon one.
Probably the most disturbing of these, was the death of Junior Doctor Edward Greenbrush who, like Maverick, had been on duty when he was killed. He had been nailed in the neck with a wayward piece of shrapnel while tending to a patient and had died almost instantaneously, being caught in a nurse's arms. Knowledge was a horrible thing that every doctor regretted having when it came to knowing someone laying prone down in the morgue, especially when they were a coworker. It was troubling to see a colleague sitting at peace in the Mess hall for breakfast and then to see them again lifeless and pale covered with a sheet in the morgue. Each death was a demoralizing blow to the senior medical staff. A warning that just more than the life they hoped to save was fragile, but their own too. If a doctor could lose his life simply treating the wounded in the infirmary, then anyone could. There was no safeguard, no place where one could hide. You were venerable, no matter what false assurances you managed to give yourself, they never protected you when the time came. In a way, it had helped to harden them. Though the doctors on this front considered themselves no different than when they had first landed in the wretched place, they had changed, both individually and professionally.
Life was never what you wanted or expected to happen. Nothing ever was. Ann Kessler had been privileged as a child. Her family was a normal middle class one, never going hungry or without necessary commodities. Her father was not often home, but he and her mother were a happily married couple. She had been honored in her youth with loving parents and even more caring grandparents, but this seeming life of love had been overshadowed by an agnostic cloud of the whole world's fears, troubles, and strife. Freshman year at the academy had been the hardest to endure out of all of the busily blurred years of her young life. That had been the year she had lost her parents.
It had not been a peaceful death. They had been on a trip to the vacation colony of Veralis IV to celebrate their twentieth anniversary when the shuttle they had been traveling on malfunctioned and crashed on the planet's surface, instantly killing all aboard. The message had been relayed to her first, seeing as she was the eldest of her family and to her brother and grandparents second. It had been a sore time of loss and development. For possibly the first time, she knew what it meant to feel irreconcilably alone. She had sat at the funeral, yes sat, not stood with the crowds of conversing relatives, not cried in the arms of family friends who want so hard to understand that they try to console what can not be helped. She just sat there. Empty and cynical in her Starfleet medical uniform, the standard issue blue and black jumpsuit worn for dress occasions.
The visitation, funeral, and the burial afterwards were still all a hapless smear within the realm of her reminiscence, vaguely recalled to consciousness in the limited detail offered as droning consolation by veteran acumen of these later years. The faces of all of those gathered were obscure to memory, faceless ghosts who troubled every waking aspect of that long, tormented week. She must have still been in shock because not once did she utter a tear in sadness. Oh she felt it, the undeniable emptiness, the consuming numbness which dulled everything; every whimsical moment, every tangent lie of a sympathetic from the lips of some hopelessly grieving relative. It took away everything…but the knowledge of what had been and of what was now irreversibly lost.
She had not sat down at the burial. No, she had done enough sitting. Ann had wanted to stand. A horde of coats and clothing items, all a apparently endless mass of chaotic and purposeless black, dominated the vibrant green foreground of the cemetery they had chosen for the burial site. A priest hired by her grandfather mumbled a eulogy to the fallen couple, his words meant to soothe grieving hearts, flowing easily through one of Ann's ears and out the other without effect. His words did not help. How could they? Words? Words?! Futile words in exchange for the family she lost, the parents she would never see again. The priest went on to speak of the afterlife, of what was awaiting the faithful there. Ann paid no heed to his words. She was an nonbeliever, an agnostic who's final act of earth would probably guarantee her passage to the suffering fires of hell in a hand basket.
She did not believe in the supremacy of some, divine higher, all forgiving God nor any sort of redeeming afterlife for that matter. She did not care, did not hope for anything better beyond this path, this life. Yes! She even went so far as to vehemently and bitterly renounce God. She mocked him and most of all, those who believed in him. Never would she verbally and outwardly denounce those foolish enough to believe in what they could not see, in what they could not even confirm. These small evils, these blatant insults to the Furies and the Fates and to every power which had ever been credited with the manipulation of the universe, had awarded her a destined place in Dante's hell, the Seventh circle: Inner ring. A blasphemer and unholy dissident of the faith, she would be offered no less than the wrath of fiery tongues licking every inch of burning skin. Oh, if only the priest could read her thoughts now, what would he see? Would he see a soul so destroyed by the realities of its own existence that he could condone such musings? No! He would tell her that every inhale and exhale she dared to take was a crime against his holiness and the church, that the natural right of freewill had given her a path to travel in the wake of mortal sin.
But his opinion did not matter. None of it mattered. Freshman year wore on and life, despite her own personal expectations, had continued on. Life at the academy had been adjusted to and advancement was eminent. Then junior year another catastrophe hit, this one carrying twice the weight of the last. Her young brother, Alan, had died in a car crash when he ran his all too intoxicated self over a bridge, straight into the assured death of an overflowing river current. Again a visitation, funeral, and burial attended to and categorized. Death was an old friend by now, one who was not the type a parent would encourage their children to run out and play with, but rather the shady man lurking in the shadows of a tortured mind and cursed memory. The memories of those bleak winter days had been filed away in the dark recesses of her mind where Ann strenuously intended to never reopen them again.
Her mind was a dangerous trap by now. A virtual compendium of all bad things: past, present, and future. A Pandora's box not to be trifled with. Junior year at the academy, albeit slowly, had continued. A new year came and Ann was vaguely hopeful that this year would be one of peace, a tranquil time for all evil happenings in her life to decay of their own wicked devices and leave her to reorganize all they had left of her life behind. But this was not so. Senior year at the academy, she received a message from the Dean's office concerning the ill fate of Nathaniel and Deanna Lory, her grandparents. They had died, peacefully, in their sleep within weeks of one another. Though it was noted that Nathaniel had a bad heart condition, his wife was a seemingly healthy woman and the mortuary doctors had a hard time finding a suitable cause of death for the woman. Ann, herself as freshly graduated Medical doctor, had deduced, not so much from scientific knowledge as from the insight of sharing the lives of two deceased persons over the years; that her grandmother had died of nothing more than a broken heart.
Ann rubbed her eyes jadedly, staring up at the lightless ceiling of the isolation ward. She was alone again. Even lost in her own thoughts, it was a bitter fact she could not forget. Ann laughed bitterly to herself, the almost noiseless sound penetrating the stillness of the empty room. If only she could forget. To not remember the sorrows of her life till this point, what a blessing. Maybe if that did happen, I would believe there indeed was a god.
If only she could go home to Manchester. If only her neighbors could see her now. Home? What home?! Everything that had made hers to begin with was gone. Her parents, her grandparents, her brother; all of it was gone! Even their house, where they had spent such happy times as children, was gone. She knew because she had sold it herself. With a commission in Starfleet it did not make sense for her to maintain a house on Earth which she would not come home to for many years. She had no distant relations, no family to speak of left still breathing in any part of the isles or the mainland. She had nothing.
Oh, what was she doing?! She did not want death to be free of this place so much. She wanted it to be free from herself. Free from the pessimistic, astringent view of life she had picked up on over the last few years. From the memories of all of the experiences which had dominated her existence thus far. She wished for death, a last pardon from this life. Others would laugh at her, call her a fool. Never would they understand. Never would they know how empty she was, how empty she felt. Ann swallowed back the tears as they rushed in. Denial did nothing to relieve the burning ache in her chest, the reality of what was, if anything it heightened it. Spite engulfed her, spite for herself and any and all who know privilege without pain in their lifetime. Against the gleefully happy and the foolishly naïve. How could such a life favor one individual over another?
She was being conceited! Conceited and malicious! This was not the person she was. What had happened to her over the years? What had she become? Ann closed her eyes and allowed the flood of tears to come, abided by gut wrenching sobs which spoke of years of suppressed agony and emotional trauma. When the first wave of repercussions subsided, she lay there breathing brokenly, feebly trying to regain what little composure she had to begin with. The tears settled themselves and CMO Ann Kessler fell into a fitful sleep.
A timeless void. One in which the stars flew, planets were realigned, and fates determined and peace…was attainable. Indeed, this was a dream.
Author's Note: Contra Mundum is a Latin phrase which means "against the world; denotes defiant perseverance despite universal criticism." I took my own interpretation of it to mean as one standing alone against the world. Ann is alone and somewhat defiant to cultural norms. Now, for the question and answer session. Yay! What was your opinion of the two main characters? What did you feel while reading this piece? What was tone of this piece, do you think? Did you enjoy it? Dislike it? Whys? Concerns? Opinions? Drop me a review and tell me what you think! Regardless of what you write me, I hoped you enjoyed it? "Me, myself, and I want to know"!