Julian
The Infirmary
The entire situation seemed unreal. Murder aboard the station was extremely rare, usually the result of some underhanded or illegal dealing gone bad or the occasional result of domestic violence. He performed the autopsy with his usual sense of detachment because it was his job. However, it didn't stop him from thinking about the circumstances of the death and the ugly climate that had permeated the station in just a matter of days from Akorem's announcement. He didn't buy the will of the Prophets rubbish. In his private opinion, non-linear aliens simply had no concept of time or the consequences of jumbling the time line. Who knew why they brought Akorem to the present, or if they had any reason at all other than to see what might happen?
It didn't take him very long to be able to determine the cause of death for certain, broken neck from the fall leading to rapid asphyxiation from total body paralysis. Fortunately, it seemed as though he lost consciousness upon impact. He entered his official findings for the record, stripped out of the red scrubs, and put the body in cold storage for evidence in the murder case. He was down to one nurse and one medic for the shift, both of them grim and silent. He wondered if they'd try to put in for a transfer soon. He wondered if Starfleet would pull all of them out of the sector within the year. The only positive he had to focus on in the moment was knowing Garak was with Leeta. He couldn't think of anyone better suited to keeping her safe.
“Sir,” his nurse approached him hesitantly.
He glanced up from the report he was writing. “Yes?”
“Aside from the murder, we had an incident at lunch,” she said.
“What sort of incident?” he asked, thinking silently, What now?
“You remember a family had an appointment to bring their two children in for routine vaccinations?”
“Yes,” he said, nodding.
“Someone from a higher caste walked in complaining of a rash and became irate when we refused to see him first. He said he's going to file a complaint with the Bajoran government. I was wondering what our official policy is going to be on this?”
He wanted to hit something. He genuinely wanted to hit something, his fists balling tightly. “Our official policy, Nurse, is that Starfleet doesn't operate under a caste system. Since the majority of our Bajoran staff has quit, this is a Starfleet medical facility, and it will be run as such. Tell them next time if they have a complaint to tender it to Starfleet, because we don't look to the Bajoran government for guidance on how we conduct our business.”
She smiled slightly and nodded in satisfaction. “Yes, Sir!” she said. “Before I forget, we also received three more Bajoran resumes.”
“This should be good for a laugh,” he said. “Are they in my office?”
“Yes, Sir.”
He retreated to the back and sat at his desk. As he expected, all of them were Belans, Belan Dar, Belan Rasheek, and Belan Pema. Healer caste. “Oh, this is promising,” he said wryly. “Thirty years on a farm in Lonar Province. Experience with wild herb craft, harvesting and preparation. Or how about this one? No formal education, but eager to learn. Oh, quite possibly my favorite yet. 'I've always known I had a special calling. It's the Prophet's blessing that I now know what it is. Please give me the chance to fulfill my pagh path. You won't regret it'. Perhaps not, but I imagine my patients soon would.”
The male medic ducked his head into the office. “Sorry, Sir, did you say something?”
“I was just talking to myself,” he sighed, “apparently loudly. I'll try my best to keep it down.”
An hour later he was summoned to the wardroom. He felt guilty about it, but he was relieved to get out of the oppressive environment of the infirmary, if only for a little while. He met up with Dax on the way. She wasn't her usual mischievous self, rather quiet and looking tired. “You've looked better,” she told him.
“I was just thinking the same thing about you,” he said. “Short staffing?”
She nodded. “In the worst way. We've now got a backlog of at least half a dozen necessary experiments. That's not counting things that are lower priority. For some of the work, we don't have enough people to man all the stations, so we're having to double up and hope we don't miss anything important. I can't imagine what it's like for you in the infirmary.”
“You don't want to,” he said. “I'm down to a skeleton crew. I had three nightmares last night, all about the same thing. We're overrun with Jem'Hadar and Klingons, and there's a constant stream of people with horrific injuries being brought into the infirmary. The only instrument I have is an old fashioned scalpel which I keep waving around like a concert director, trying to get three zombies to do my bidding.”
Dax tried not to laugh but couldn't quite stop herself. “Oh, Julian, that's awful,” she said, wrapping an arm at his waist and lightly bumping the side of her head against his.
“If I weren't really that anxious, I'd find it funny, too,” he said. “I'm glad at least one of us can get something of entertainment value out of it.”
She released him before they entered the wardroom. He had been glad of the comfort. They both took their seats and realized they were only waiting for Chief O'Brien, Major Kira, and Captain Sisko. Commander Worf, Lieutenant Commander Eddington, and Odo nodded to them. None seemed inclined to speak, so Julian took his cue from them.
Captain Sisko arrived with the major and quickly took a seat. “Chief O'Brien can't get away for this, unfortunately. He's a bit understaffed.” He nodded his understanding at the various grunts and displeased looks from around the table. “I'm aware we're all suffering the same problem.” Kira looked strangely guilty and refused to meet anyone's gaze. “In light of this recent murder and the Bajoran government's inadequate response, I feel as though I have no choice but to fly with Akorem Laan into the wormhole and find out what the Prophets really want.”
A chorus of protests immediately rose from everyone else at the table with the exception of Kira. Julian couldn't believe what he was hearing. “Captain, as Chief Medical Officer I really must object. What you're proposing...”
Sisko cut them all off with a sharp chop of his hand. “I know,” he said sternly. “Every single one of you has a valid point, and I'm well aware of the risk I'm taking. I can't just sit by and watch three years of hard work and progress flushed down the toilet in a matter of days based on the words of some ancient poet from two hundred years ago. Now, the way I see it, the only ones who can tell us what they're really thinking are the wormhole aliens themselves. If I don't do this now, Bajor and this station are going to descend into chaos and possible civil war. I will be leaving within the hour. Commander Worf, you'll have the station.”
Although he looked reluctant, Worf nodded. “Aye, Sir.”
“As for the rest of you, I expect you to continue doing your very best with your short staffing and aid Mister Worf in any way you can. For good or ill, I'm hoping I can bring us an answer within the next twenty-six hours. Dismissed.”
No one lingered after the meeting, as none of them had the luxury of the spare time. Julian was in no mood to talk on his way back to the infirmary. He had no reason to trust the wormhole aliens not to do away with the captain altogether if they had decided to back Akorem. While he knew Worf was capable of short term command, he worried about the long term effects on morale of everyone being under such a stern, unapproachable task master, particularly with the staffing issues. He really wished that Miles could have made it to the meeting. The bluff engineer had a way of putting things into perspective that made even the worst case scenarios not look quite so bad.
They saw two more patients before his day was done. Fortunately neither arrived at the same time, so caste wasn't an issue. One had a broken finger that seemed to have gone untreated for a few days. He was less than talkative about the circumstances. Julian gave him an antibiotic for a mild bone infection that had set in, broke and set the bone properly, and gave him pain medication. He noticed a suspicious cut across his throat, long since scabbed over and healing. Of that the man refused to speak at all. The other patient was another rash case. He wondered if stress might be getting to some of the people, because he could find no easy cause of the skin irritation. He prescribed a cream and sent the itchy woman on her way.
As soon as his relief arrived, he hurried back to Leeta's quarters. She was dressed for work, and she and Garak had their heads bent over a game board. He drew closer and discovered they were playing kotra. “I had no idea you knew how to play kotra,” he said to Leeta.
“I don't,” she answered. “Garak is trying to teach me. Operative word, trying.”
“You're too hard on yourself, my dear. It's a complex game that takes years to master. You grasped the rules more quickly than many I've instructed in the past. Improvement comes with time and practice,” Garak said. He straightened his back and twisted a stretch, looking at Julian. “You seem to have news,” he said.
“I do.” He pulled up a chair and straddled it backward, resting his forearms on the back in a loose fold. “I can't say I think it's good news, I'm afraid. Captain Sisko is going to enter the wormhole with Akorem so that they can ask the wormhole aliens directly what they really want for Bajor.”
“Well, that's good,” Leeta said, glancing sharply at him. “If there's confusion, go straight to the source. Why do you think this is a bad thing?”
“What if their answer is that this is what they actually do intend for Bajor?” he asked. “What if they decide the captain is a dangerous distraction? They could do anything to him. We could never see him again.”
Garak broke in before things could get heated. “Let's...not excite ourselves with what ifs,” he suggested. “Captain Sisko has returned from all of his encounters with the aliens so far. They've never seemed particularly malicious or spiteful, just...mysterious, correct?”
Julian grudgingly agreed.
“Regardless of the outcome, one thing we will be able to say is that there will be no more confusion or potential for varying interpretations, assuming they return with an answer at all. In its own way, that is progress, Doctor.”
Leeta gave a satisfied nod. “I'm glad he's doing it,” she said. “I'm glad somebody has the guts to challenge the status quo. Considering you look like somebody dragged you down the Promenade behind a rampaging rakazo, I'm going to ask Garak to escort me to work and ask you to get some sleep,” she said, leaning over and kissing Julian's cheek.
He was too tired to argue. The three of them left the quarters together and parted ways in the H-ring. Julian promised he would talk to both of them later. At home he was too tired to remove his uniform, simply flopping into his bed and going dead to the world within minutes. The last waking thought he had was, Two straight days in this uniform without a change. Somebody's about to get a little ripe.
Garak
The Promenade
Garak had an odd sense of symmetry of events as he watched Captain Sisko ascend the podium before the Bajoran temple. His arrival back on the station the evening before without Akorem sent shock waves through the Bajoran populace that still hadn't settled. He imagined this speech was designed to do just that, settle the people and get them back on track, whatever that might entail.
As he listened to the mellifluous voice, he also watched the captain's expression and body language. He was relaxed, serene. He was a man no longer divided within himself. For good or ill, it seemed that Sisko had finally accepted his role as Bajor's Emissary. Although he wasn't sure what that meant for Bajor or indirectly Cardassia, Garak couldn't help but to believe that this was better than the alternative that had been presented. Seeing a caste system from the outside had opened his eyes to some ugly truths about his own people. For one of the first times ever, he felt grateful to be at a distance from his home world so that he would have the luxury of processing his newfound insight without being accused of sedition. At the end of the speech, he applauded right along with the Bajoran throng no less enthusiastically than the least among them. The caste system was no more.
Julian
Quark's Bar
Julian accepted his ale from Quark with a grin and turned to survey the crowd from his vantage. He still felt a small thrum of adrenaline from the fracas in the holosuite, he and Chief O'Brien against the entire court of the King of Leinster in a brawl to end all brawls. Others could say they looked ridiculous if they liked. He thought that he and Miles cut fine figures in their Irish warrior regalia. He couldn't believe how quickly everything had turned around. If anyone had asked him two days ago if he thought he'd be spending a fun evening with his friend, have a full staff at the infirmary, and no longer have to worry about some hothead murdering his girlfriend for looking at him wrong, he would have scoffed.
Keiko's intervention on behalf of her depressed husband just couldn't have had better timing. Of course, he would never let Miles know that he had been told how he felt. That would just embarrass him. The stress release of being able to cut loose and just have fun was pure balm to his spirit. He slouched shoulder to shoulder against the engineer and toasted Leeta with his tankard. She smiled brightly at him from her place at the dabo wheel and rolled her eyes playfully. You look silly, she mouthed.
“Looks like things are better for you,” Miles observed. “Bein' honest paid off, didn't it?”
Julian beamed at him. “More than you can possibly imagine.”
The End
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
