“You have to stop that ship, Akaar,” Gard said. “You can’t allow it to reach Trill.”
11
Chief Petty Officer Miles O’Brien tended to think of himself as uncomplicated. He lived life by a very fundamental rule: If something’s broken, you fix it. And if his long career as a Starfleet engineer had taught him anything—from his time aboard the Rutledge,to the Enterprise,to Deep Space 9, to his current posting on the faculty staff at Starfleet Academy—it was that people needed fixing as much as machines. More so. Especially family.
So when Kasidy Yates had contacted him all the way from Bajor with her unexpected request, O’Brien didn’t hesitate. Privately he was skeptical about what he could accomplish—after all, he’d only met Joseph Sisko a couple of times and had no special influence on the man. But O’Brien also had a fierce loyalty to Ben Sisko, his former commanding officer, and there was no way he would hesitate to do whatever he could for the man’s family, especially after what had happened to him…and to Jake.
New Orleans was literally minutes away from San Francisco by shuttle—only seconds by transporter—and O’Brien still had months of accumulated leave time he hadn’t used up. Once he’d explained the situation to his current C.O., Admiral Whatley—commandant of the Academy and another old friend of Captain Sisko’s—O’Brien quickly put his affairs in order and returned home, announcing to his wife and children that they were all taking a summer vacation to New Orleans.
Keiko had been none too pleased at first, rightly anticipating that August wasn’t exactly the most comfortable time of year to visit the sultry city on the Louisiana bayou. But once Miles had explained the reason for their impromptu holiday, all thoughts of the temporary inconvenience promptly vanished. Keiko arranged to take time off from her research, and the kids, Molly and Kirayoshi, both seemed genuinely excited by the idea of a visit to a new city. O’Brien pulled a few strings with some friends in the Corps of Engineers, and by evening the family had materialized on the pavement directly outside Sisko’s Creole Kitchen.
Judith Sisko, the captain’s sister, seemed as warm and welcoming as every other member of her family O’Brien had ever met. She also seemed to look on the O’Briens’ arrival as a godsend, which immediately made him worry. Kasidy Yates had believed that hearing from one of the captain’s old crew, someone who had worked closely with him and been a friend to Jake, might somehow get through to Joseph where his immediate friends and family could not. It was an idea born of desperation, O’Brien knew. Something you did when all the better ideas had failed. If the family had indeed put all their hopes on him, this could turn into a disaster very quickly.
O’Brien rapped on the door to Joseph’s room. When no response came, he slowly opened the door and stuck his head inside. “Mr. Sisko…?”
Joseph, seated at his window as Judith had described, turned on O’Brien with a scowl. “What the hell do you want?”
“Uh…I’m Miles O’Brien, sir. Your son was my commanding—”
“I know who you are,” Joseph interrupted. “I also know you’re trespassing. I didn’t invite you here.”
“No, sir, that’s true,” O’Brien said. “But Kasidy Yates—”
“Is she all right?”
“She’s fine, sir. She contacted me in San Francisco and asked me to pay a call on you. And your daughter—”
Joseph turned back to the window. “Why can’t people just learn to mind their own damn business? A man has a right to mourn his son, and his grandson, in his own way. You tell my daughter I don’t need somebody from Starfleet coming into my home to talk to me about my grief.”
“But sir, if I could just—”
Joseph abruptly rose from his chair and walked toward O’Brien with a fist shaking at his side. “Didn’t you hear what I said? You’re not welcome here! Get out and leave me the hell alone!”
O’Brien backed away, and the door slammed in his face.
When he went back downstairs, Keiko and Judith were staring at him. No doubt they’d heard everything.
“No luck?” Keiko asked.
O’Brien shook his head. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone so angry. Is he like this all the time?” he asked Judith.
Judith shook her head. “Usually he just withdraws into himself. You saw the way he looks, Mr. O’Brien. He isn’t eating much. He never leaves his room and hardly budges from that chair. He’s wasting away. It’s like his bitterness is eating him from the inside out.” She shook her head and covered her eyes. “I’m sorry you were brought into this. But I was desperate, and Kasidy said—”
“Shsh, Judith, it’s okay,” Keiko said gently, placing a hand on top of Judith’s. “We’re glad to have been asked to help.” She looked at her husband meaningfully. “Aren’t we, Miles?”
“What? Oh, absolutely,” O’Brien said, wondering what he could possibly say to a man who’d lost so much. And would he be any different in Joseph’s shoes? Molly and Kirayoshi were everything to him. To believe you’d outlived your own children had to be the most crushing state of mind for any parent. Or grandparent, for that matter. How does anybody recover from something like that? How do you move past it?
Move…? Wait a second!
“Ms. Sisko…”
“Judith, please.”
“All right,” O’Brien said. “But you have to call me Miles. Do you have a replicator?”
“In thishouse?” Judith shook her head. “Dad wouldn’t hear of it. To listen to him talk about it, you’d think they were the biggest threat to human creativity ever devised, especially to the art of cooking.”
O’Brien smiled. “I’m not all that sure I disagree. But I need to get access to one.”
“I know there’s a replimat a few blocks from here….”
“Perfect.”
Keiko looked at him suspiciously. “Miles Edward O’Brien, what scheme are you cooking up now?”
“Funny you should put it that way,” O’Brien said with a grin. “I’m not giving up on him, Keiko. When I was upstairs, he got mad enough to get out of his chair and slam the door in my face. I think I know how we can get him to come downstairs.”
“But what good will that do?” Judith asked.
“I’m not sure yet,” O’Brien said. “But it’s a start. Lead the way, Judith. It’s almost suppertime.”
It was the smells coming from his kitchen that finally did it.
As night fell, Joseph’s nose was accosted by a stench that had, in all the years he’d been a chef, never once darkened his restaurant. It was the smell of murdered food. Of flavors and potential boiled away to nothing. It invaded his room and assaulted his senses like a troop of marauding Klingons, filling the house with a reek.
And it was coming from the kitchen. From hiskitchen.
With thoughts of exacting painful retribution billowing behind his narrowed eyes, Joseph rose from his chair and followed the offending stench to its source. At the door of his bedroom it grew stronger. At the top of the stairs it was even worse, accompanied by the sounds of conversation and laughter. As he decended the steps, the room fell silent, but the smells only got worse.
Joseph Sisko surveyed his restaurant, the faces of his daughter and her guests staring back at him like children who’d been caught drawing with crayons on the living room wall. The father, Miles, stood in the kitchen, looking at him over the top of a huge steaming pot on the stove. The only sound in the restaurant was that of the wooden floorboards creaking as Joseph moved slowly toward O’Brien.
“What in the name of all that’s holy,” Joseph said, “do you people think you’re doing?”