To The Journey
Disclaimer: If you recognize it, it's not mine. This is an AU story.
Chapter Twenty-One: Overshadowed
"I cannot believe we have to be separated."
"I know." Tasha had been specifically asked to join Captain Kirk on a reconnaissance mission to the Gamma Quadrant, a strictly two-person job. "But it'll only be a week."
They shared another kiss. "I will miss you."
"I'll miss you."
His hand caressed the ring he'd put on hers. "Come back to me, Tasha. Come back safely."
They kissed again, longer this time. "I will, Data. I promise you."
xxxxxxxxx
"So." Jim grinned at her. "How's the wedding planning going?"
"Well, it's a good thing I have a fiance with a perfect memory," she laughed. "We can't forget anything we already discussed. But we still keep coming up with stuff. We started a month ago, and it was the day before yesterday we realized that we hadn't arranged for food."
"It's September. You have time until April."
"Maybe that's why people have long engagements. It gives them time to remember everything they forgot about the wedding."
They both laughed, and the sound filled the small runabout.
"Have you ever thought about getting married, Jim?"
He grew suddenly serious. "Twice, actually. Three times if you count twice to the same woman."
"Who?"
"The first one was Carol Marcus. David's mother. I really did love her, but she was so certain I was only asking because she was pregnant, and she was worried he'd turn out too much like me. I never even met him until he was an adult."
"I'm sorry."
"The second was Edith Keeler. I thought she was the most wonderful woman I'd ever known. Smart, beautiful, kind, and unbelievably interested in me."
"What happened?"
"I met Edith in nineteen-thirty."
"Time travel." She sighed.
"Exactly. My doctor went back in time and changed history, and Spock and I had to go back and fix the problem. We ran into Edith after we ended up hiding in the basement of the shelter she ran."
"Why were you hiding in a basement?" She couldn't help the off-topic interjection. The mental image was so funny, she wanted to know it had come to be.
He laughed despite himself. "We arrived on the street in our Starfleet uniforms. I, ah, borrowed some clothing from a balcony and got caught by a policeman. My explanation was, ah, less than perfect. Ask Spock sometime, he'll remember exactly what I said, but suffice to say it ended with Spock neck-pinching the officer and running away looking for a place to hide."
"And what happened with Edith?"
"We had to figure out what McCoy had changed. It turned out Edith was the focal point. In the original timeline, our timeline, she had died in a traffic accident. But in the altered timeline, when McCoy went back in time he saved her. She was such an angel - her pacifism delayed the United States' entry into World War II, giving Germany a chance to conquer the world." He bit his lip. "In order to save our future, I had to stand there and let her die, knowing I could have saved her. I've never been able to forgive myself for that."
"How many other people died in that alternate timeline?" she pointed out gently.
"I know, I know. The needs of the many and all that. But twice now, the one has been someone I loved dearly."
"Spock," she realized. The story of the Vulcan's death and resurrection was a matter of some public record. For one thing, it had gotten the man sitting next to her demoted from Admiral to Captain - right where he belonged, in her opinion and she knew in his too.
"Spock. What have you got?"
"What? Oh." She realized they'd reached a point they had to mark. "Nothing. Just background noise. Wait, what's that?"
"What's what?"
"That. I've got a sensor blip, just barely in range. Hang on."
"We're not going closer!"
"Of course not. I just want to see if I can tweak the sensors a little, get a clearer picture. Uh oh."
"What?"
"Jem'Hadar."
"Those cloned Dominion attack dog-type fighters I was reading about?"
"That's them."
"Let's get the hell out of here."
"I couldn't agree more. Lay in course -"
But he broke off suddenly. The ship had apparently put in a tiny warp jump and was now hovering above them. Almost before they could blink, several Jem'Hadar were on the shuttle with them.
xxxxxxxxx
"Do you remember what happened?"
"The last thing I remember is those Jem'Hadar boarding us."
"Same. They must have stunned us or something." She rubbed her head as if that would clear the fog from it.
A tall Jem'Hadar approached them. Jim spoke first. "Where are we and what have you done with us?"
"No questions," the soldier said shortly. "This is Internment camp three seven one. You are here because you are enemies of the Dominion. There is no release, no escape, except death."
She and Kirk glanced at each other, barely resisting the urge to roll their eyes.
"They have been scanned. They have no weapons and their identities have been confirmed," said a guard.
"Very well. You will be sheltered in barracks six. You are free to move about the compound. But remember, beyond the atmospheric dome there is nothing but airless vacuum and barren rock. Leave the dome, even for an instant, and you die."
"Come on, Jim." Tasha pulled him away from the guards before the temper she knew he had could flare up.
Once they were out of earshot, she leaned forward and spoke softly. "If we're going to get out of here, we won't be doing it alone. I say we go meet our new roommates."
The barracks was in complete chaos when they entered. It looked to Tasha like they were trying to hide something, though they were doing a good enough job that it was impossible to say what.
"You are not Jem'Hadar," a gravelly voice said finally, and everybody relaxed marginally.
"No," said Tasha, fighting an absurd desire to laugh at the extremely obvious statement.
"Well, I'll be." The source of the voice, a Klingon with one eye missing, finally showed himself. "Captain Kirk himself."
"In the flesh." The man in question gave an easy grin.
"It cannot be." This from a Romulan woman. "Captain Kirk is dead."
"It was said just before I was captured that he had returned. I dismissed it as a rumor. It seems I was mistaken."
"I think you have an advantage over us," Tasha said smoothly. "You know who my companion is, but we don't know who you are."
"I am General Martok of the Klingon Defense Force, and this is Commander Duval and Subcommander Solam of the Tal Shiar." He indicated the woman and a Romulan man. "We don't know his name." This while pointing at a Breen who lay silent on a bunk. "And later you'll meet Enabran Tain of the Obsidian Order. He's busy right now."
"Tasha Yar, Lieutenant Commander, Starfleet. Is whatever Tain's busy with what it was you didn't want us to see?"
Martok gave her an approving look. "Very astute, Commander. Although the secrecy had nothing to do with you, specifically. It's the Jem'Hadar we're worried about.
"What are you doing?"
"More like what's he doing. This is an old mining colony, and these barracks used to all have their own life support systems, which are now just inactive machines sitting inside the walls. He's re-wiring one into a transmitter."
"A transmitter? What's he transmitting?"
"A coded message, to an operative in the Alpha Quadrant. Something about a tailor. He wasn't making much sense on that part.
"A tailor? What's he going to do, sew us a transporter?" Kirk asked, astonished.
"That was my reaction."
Tasha said nothing at all.
xxxxxxxxx
"So tell me," Tasha asked. "How long until you finish the transmitter?"
"Probably a few weeks at least," Tain admitted.
"And what do you think Garak will do when he gets it?"
"Well, if he's - wait, what? How -?"
"How did I know who you were sending the message to? How many Cardassian tailors that have previously worked in the spy business are out there? And anyway, I can tell you know him well."
"How's that?"
"You have a lot of the same very small mannerisms, things you're probably not even aware you do. But the only people who tend to share so many of the exact same little quirks are people who are either blood-related, or have spent a lot of time, by which I mean a question of years, together, or both."
"Has anyone ever told you you'd make an excellent spy yourself?"
"Once." She wasn't entirely sure why Tain didn't scare her like most Cardassians did. Maybe it was because he reminded her so much of the one Cardassian who she might go so far as to call a friend.
"I have to ask you one thing. How did you know Garak was a spy? More observations?"
"Nothing so complicated. I met him once in Cardassian space, when he was trying to get information from a Gul Dukat." She couldn't stop her voice from cracking a little on the name, but he was courteous enough not to comment. "Then I met him again as a tailor. I can put two and two together."
"All the same, I'd appreciate it if news of your particular form of arithmetic didn't get out."
"You have my word."
xxxxxxxxx
"So, what do you think?"
"Of what?" The prison's only two human inmates were seated on Jim's bunk, speaking in whispers so they wouldn't be overheard.
"Tain's plan. Is it going to work?"
She sighed. "I won't lie to you. A lot of things could go wrong, and we're putting an awful lot of eggs in one basket. But what else can we do?"
"What indeed?" He looked around. "You know, this camp could teach the Alpha Quadrant something."
"What's that?"
"Look at us. The four main Alpha Quadrant powers. Federation, Klingon, Romulan, and Cardassian, and it doesn't matter a bit to anyone. We're all standing together in the face of adversity."
"There's some irony there," Tasha said softly. "I have a feeling that if anything can unite the powers on the other side of the wormhole, that same adversity will be it."
"Amen to that." She knew he was still thinking about the Khitomer Accords, which they hadn't been able to reforge yet.
They were interrupted by Martok, who stumbled in gasping for breath. Tasha and Jim had learned that Martok was forced to fight Jem'Hadar warriors on a regular basis, an activity which had cost him his eye and caused more than a few other injuries. As the only prisoner with any medical knowledge, she had become his doctor.
"What's the damage today? And don't sugarcoat it."
Martok had quickly come to respect Tasha the first time he'd fired an angry stream of Klingon at her and she'd calmly replied that he'd just told her the sky was green and the floor was upside-down. He'd admitted it readily enough, accepting that she was really telling him she couldn't be intimidated and that she knew enough about his people not to be fooled by a simple trick.
"He got one right in the chest."
"Let me have a look." She sighed. "God, while I can't wish for someone else to be locked up in this place, I really wish we had a doctor now."
"Ask and you shall recieve."
She did a full 180 degree turn to see a tall man standing behind her. "What the hell?"
"Doctor Julian Bashir at your service."
"Dominion works fast," Kirk said with a raised eyebrow, and the man smiled uncomfortably. "That was a joke."
"Right. What's the trouble?"
Tasha gestured to Martok. "Jem'Hadar beat him up pretty badly. From what I heard, he put up quite a fight, too."
Bashir went to work. "The last thing I remember is falling asleep in my hotel room at a burn treatment conference. Next thing I know, I'm here."
"Well, while I can't be grateful for anyone else being incarcerated here, having a doctor could be a serious help. Martok's not the issue, either."
"Who is?"
"We have an elderly Cardassian here who appears to be in ill health. He thinks I don't know, but I've seen him struggling to breathe. He's also our only hope to get out of here."
"I'm flattered."
Tasha's head snapped around. So did Julian's.
"How much did you hear?" she asked resignedly.
"From 'ill health.' But I do appreciate you trying to respect my desire not to tell you." Tasha had managed to win Tain's rather grudging respect as well.
"Tain?" Julian, in a state of apparent shock, probably hadn't heard a word they'd just spoken.
"In the flesh. And you, Bashir, have a knack for turning up in unusual places."
"Oh, you've met before?"
"Yes. The good doctor tracked me down, on my retirement colony no less, to help him solve a problem. But then, there was always more to you than met the eye, wasn't there?"
"Maybe." The word sounded forced, and Tasha noticed him looking out of the corner of his eye at Kirk, of all people. What did Kirk have to do with any of this?
"Doctor, I may need your help on our escape plan."
"Mine?"
There was definitely something Tain wasn't saying when he said "well, you did take some engineering extension courses at Starfleet Medical, didn't you?"
Why is Julian so uncomfortable, and what is Tain hiding? Well, if you watch DS9 you may know, and if not you'll know soon enough. One hint: Kirk did mention the second time that he lost someone because the needs of many outweighed the needs of one. The circumstances therein will become important in that same arc.
This chapter references the TOS episode The City on the Edge of Foreverand the DS9 episode The Wire, and the plot is based on the two-parter In Purgatory's Shadow/By Inferno's Light.
Please review.