Vaughn closed his eyes and issued a long sigh, an expression of exhaustion and relief, he knew, but only somerelief. From the moment he had seen—had thought he had seen—Prynn die, tension and fear, anguish and guilt, had cleaved to him, even through the revelation of her survival. His daughter had endured, yes, but if nothing else, the century of his life had brought him the sure knowledge that all existence fades, fragile as a leaf in winter. Whether Prynn eventually fell to earth first or he did, he felt he could no longer cling to a life that did not include her.
And yet he also knew that it might be beyond his ability—perhaps now more than ever—to change their circumstances. His previous efforts to reconcile with his daughter—he had made several attempts through the years—had all been vigorously rebuffed. Just a few weeks ago, after the surprise of finding himself assigned to the same post as Prynn had waned, he had asked her to have dinner with him; she had told him to go to hell. Now, with his orders not to return fire against the Jarada having contributed substantially to her injuries, his chances with her had likely worsened.
Strange,he thought, the way things sometimes work out.After living a turbulent life for so many years, Vaughn had recently dispatched many of the burdens of his decades of work, had seen into himself and then chosen to look back out in a new direction. He had wrestled a lifetime of difficult, sometimes painful duty, and won himself a reprieve. He had arrived at Deep Space 9 almost a new man, intent on finding his way to a life lived for simple joys, and not just for professional obligation. And when he had done that, he had found Prynn again. But she had still not found him.
If only it had been the work,he thought. If he had neglected his daughter in favor of his career, he could, even at this late date, atone for it. But his work had not been the problem; the problem had been what he had done.
The enormity of what Vaughn had brought down on Prynn seven years ago had never left him—and never could—and now he had compounded her pain and, consequently, his own. He leaned forward in the darkened medical bay, straining to see her face, but he could only discern the vague shape of its outline. He reached up, his wrapped right hand extending to where her arm would be. He wanted—he needed—some contact with his daughter, but before his hand reached her, he stopped and pulled back. For what seemed like a long time, Vaughn stood there, both maintaining a vigil and struggling for hope.
At last, he stepped away from the bed and walked over to where the nurse had continued working. She looked up at his approach, and as he had when she had examined him earlier, he noticed her eyes; a distinctive blue-green, they stood out, complementing her pale complexion and her reddish blond hair, which she wore in plaits that joined behind her head.
“Nurse,” he asked, “do you know what Ensign Tenmei will be able to remember?”
“About the accident, you mean?” Richter asked, and Vaughn nodded. “Probably nothing at all. When she was awake earlier, she didn’t know why she was in the medical bay. It’s possible she might eventually recall being on the bridge, but the accident…” The nurse shook her head from side to side.
Prynn had spent most of yesterday unconscious, initially as a result of her injuries, and later, owing to the anesthesia administered prior to surgery. She had awoken a few times today, and though extremely tired, she had been coherent. Vaughn had been visiting the medical bay during one of her periods of wakefulness, and he had gone to her bedside. When their eyes had met, she had offered a wan smile, but Vaughn had known better than to take such an event to heart. He had simply been happy that Prynn was alive and would recover without any problems—at least, without any physicalproblems. He hoped that the most significant damage she had suffered had been to her body, because flesh often healed more quickly than the heart or the mind.
“Thank you,” Vaughn told the nurse. He walked to one of the room’s two exits, the doors sliding open before him. He stopped and looked once more toward Prynn, then continued out into the corridor. The shadowy ship seemed empty. Most of the crew would be asleep, he knew, with only a skeleton staff on the bridge and in engineering.
As Vaughn headed for his cabin, he knew that he would have to determine a new course of action, that he would have to figure out what to do, for himself and for Prynn. He understood that it would not be easy, and on top of that, that despite whatever efforts he ended up making, he might not be able to bring about the resolution he so desperately sought with his daughter.
Only one mission in his life had been more important. And more difficult.
5
The rain fell cold and hard. Kira reached the boulder at a dead run and threw herself down behind it. Her hands pushed into the sodden ground as she landed, mud oozing up wetly between her fingers and engulfing them. She rolled quickly onto her side and pulled her hands free, then regained her feet and crouched behind the great rock.
Why did I agree to this?she asked herself, not for the first time. She hated the holosuites. Seeking a setting in which to meditate was one thing, but this was another. Simulation or no, she was miserable. The temperature must have dropped fifteen degrees during her descent from the top of the ravine, low enough now that her breath emerged into the air in a white plume. Her uniform, soaked through two hours ago, added at least ten kilos to her frame. And the rain, misty and relatively warm at first, now plummeted down as though it had been hurled at the ground, as though the fat drops were themselves weapons in this battle.
Kira paused, catching her breath after her last dash. Around her, the unrelenting rain struck the saturated earth with a sound strangely reminiscent of applause. I ought to take a bow and end this right now,she thought. The holosuite safety protocols ensured that she would not suffer serious injury during the course of the program, she knew, but nothing prevented her from being wretchedly uncomfortable.
Lightning flashed overhead, illuminating the scene with an uncanny clarity, and lending everything an eerie, bluish white cast. Kira waited for the darkness to reassert itself, then bent low and peered out from around the boulder. It could almost have been night, so dense was the cloud cover. Thunder boomed, closer now than it had been, reminding her of the ever-encroaching sounds of warfare during the Occupation: grenades, mortar fire, bombs. Fresh and vibrant even eight years after the Cardassians had been driven from Bajor, the memories felt more unpleasant than the weather.
The ridge where Kira squatted clung to the side of the ravine five meters above its floor. Across from her and down, she could make out the shapes that marked her destination: a copse surrounding a small structure of some sort. “They hide within the canyon,” Taran’atar had told her before the simulation had begun. “And they watch for pursuers.”
Kira waited for the lightning to aid her reconnaissance. With each series of flashes, she focused on a different section of the ravine floor. Up and down the canyon, she saw nothing: no beings, no vehicles, no animals, and no visible traps. Or maybe the whole area is a trap,she thought. As inhospitable as the weather had been, the geography had proven even more difficult: the canyon walls fell steeply; the mud, as well as loose stone and shale, made footing precarious; and no obvious routes—either naturally formed or created by wear—had revealed themselves beneath Kira’s scrutiny. She considered herself fortunate to have made it this far without incident.