O’Brien’s eyes darted to his wife and Judith, then back to Joseph. “Uh…well, I…”
“Hi!” somebody called.
Joseph looked down. There at his feet was a child, a boy no older than three. He was holding Jake’s old toy alligator and smiling up at Joseph. On the floor nearby, a little girl lying on her stomach and drawing pictures on a padd stopped and looked up.
“Hi!” the boy called again, grinning at Joseph now. He was beautiful. So was the girl. Such beautiful children…
“Mr. Sisko?”
Joseph looked up.
It was the mother, speaking quietly. “I don’t know if you remember me, but I’m Keiko O’Brien. We met a couple of years ago when you visited Deep Space 9. These are my children. That’s Molly on the floor, and that one’s Kirayoshi…”
“Well, of course I remember,” Joseph snapped. “What do you think I am, senile?” He lowered his eyes to the boy again.
“Hi!” Kirayoshi beamed, and he giggled. Joseph smiled. Kirayoshi started flexing his knees up and down in a little happy dance. When Ben was a baby, he used to do the same thing….
Joseph’s nose wrinkled suddenly. He sniffed the air and looked up again, recalling what had brought him downstairs in the first place. His eyes found O’Brien and impaled him where he stood. With slow, deliberate steps, Joseph walked into his kitchen, his gaze never leaving O’Brien.
The pot was coming to a boil, the lid rattling as foul steam billowed out noisily. Without a word Joseph reached for a pot holder and pulled the lid off, the stench at its most powerful. Joseph steeled himself and looked inside.
“Do you mind telling me,” he said after a moment, “what in the name of heaven this is?”
“Err…it’s corned beef and cabbage,” O’Brien muttered.
Joseph winced. In my kitchen…!“This,” he said quietly, “is what you feed your family?”
“What?” O’Brien said. “What’s wrong with corned beef and cabbage?”
Joseph sighed and turned off the stove. He grabbed the pot and handed it off to O’Brien, then went to the sink to wash his hands. Toweling off, he reached for an apron and tied it around his waist. “Judith, go to the cellar and get me some andouille right away. Then head down to the fish market and pick up some jumbo shrimp—about two dozen.”
Judith flashed O’Brien a smile and got up at once. “Right away, Dad.”
Taking a large sack of rice out of a cabinet, Joseph said, “Mrs. O’Brien, would you mind going into my garden and picking two large red bell peppers? They’re on the far left. We’re gonna make sure these children of yours get a proper meal.”
“I’d be happy to,” she said. “And please, call me Keiko.”
“Wait a minute,” O’Brien protested as Joseph began chopping onions. “What am I supposed to do with this?” he asked, indicating the pot he held in both hands.
Joseph glanced at him briefly and then went back to chopping. “Did you bring a phaser?”
12
For the first time in years, Kira stood among Starfleet officers and felt as if she was in the camp of the enemy.
Just after the Cardassian withdrawal from Bajor, a newly commissioned Major Kira Nerys had been standing in the prefect’s office on Terok Nor, watching as the first Federation starships docked with the station. She remembered that the sight had made her furious. Bajor’s independence was only days old, and even though the Occupation was still an open wound, Bajorans were celebrating and savoring their first taste of freedom in half a century. After decades of oppression, the Cardassians had been forced out and Bajor was standing on its own legs—ready and willing, Kira had believed, to face the future on its own terms.
The moment had been fleeting. The arrival of the Federation had felt like substituting one overseer for another—one that, like the Cardassians, came with its huge starships and vastly superior firepower to remold Bajor in its image. She remembered when the first Starfleet officers had swarmed through the airlock in their black uniforms, looking around in shock and disappointment at the disarray of the station. She felt their barely disguised pity for the exhausted Militia officers gathered to meet them. She recalled their disapproval for the civilians picking through the refuse that the Cardassians had left behind. And all at once Kira had known she was surrounded by her enemies. How dare they come here in their immaculate starships, in their impeccably pressed uniforms with their superior attitude and presume to judge Bajor?
It had taken Kira a long time to get past those feelings, to see beyond her automatic resentment of the Federation’s presence. Years of serving alongside Benjamin, Jadzia, Miles, Julian, and even Worf, had helped her to understand that these people were her partners, her friends and allies—not her adversaries. They hadn’t come with the misguided idea of helping Bajor become more like the Federation; they’d come to help Bajor help itself—and the distinction between those two ideas could not be minimized, no matter what the skeptics might say.
But they were all gone now. Captain Sisko was with the Prophets. Worf had moved on. Miles with his family had transferred back to Earth. Jadzia was dead, and even though she lived on, after a fashion, in Ezri, she, Julian, and Nog had left almost three months ago for their mission into the Gamma Quadrant.
Now, standing here in the main briefing room among the senior staff of the U.S.S. Gryphon,in the aftermath of Shakaar’s assassination at the hands of a Federation official, all Kira’s old feelings were back, full force. She couldn’t help it. Those she had put her faith and trust in had betrayed Bajor, had betrayed her.
Easier to believe that than the alternative.
And you know damn well what the alternative to blaming the Federation is, don’t you, Nerys? To blame yourself. Maybe the Federation murdered Shakaar, maybe not. But it was you who failed him. You failed Bajor. And if this really was a rogue action, then by letting it succeed, you allowed Bajor’s entry into the Federation to disintegrate. Everything you worked for in the last seven years—everything the Emissary worked for—is in ruins.
And maybe that’s even for the best.
“Commander Kira?”
Kira looked up abruptly, realizing she had let her mind wander. Captain Mello, seated on the opposite side of the room at the head of the meeting table, had called the briefing immediately after Gryphonhad gone to warp. Kira had declined to sit at the table with the Starfleet officers, choosing instead to stand where she could see everyone in the room. “I’d prefer to be addressed as Colonel, Captain,” Kira said.
Mello looked at her gravely. “As you wish, Colonel. I was saying that our analysis of the energy trail is still inconclusive insofar as the exact type of cloaking device we’re dealing with is concerned. But perhaps if you examined the data yourself, you might see something we’re missing.”
“Yes, I’d like to do that,” Kira said, her voice hollow in her own ears. “Thank you, Captain.”
Mello let out a long breath through her nostrils as she regarded Kira. Her eyes moved to her senior officers. “We’ll adjourn for now, and reconvene at 1400. Dismissed. Colonel, will you stay a moment?”
As the other officers filed out, Kira moved to the foot of the table, looking at Mello across the length of it. When only she and the captain were left in the room, Mello spoke again. “Colonel…what can we do?”
Kira felt the corner of her mouth lift, mentally thanking Mello for not asking something as predictable and pointless as Are you all right? Gryphonhad been assisting Deep Space 9 on and off for the last four months, and Kira had always found the ship’s captain to be forthright and direct. It was one of the things she had come to admire most about Mello.