I'd call the story's rating PG. There are mild depictions of substance abuse and infidelity as well as the repeated mention of a murder that set this whole sequence into motion. It's set between and briefly within a few DS9 episodes during the Dominion War, but no dialog is taken directly from any of them.
Drinking from the Bottle of Sure Defeat
Flight
He didn’t pull the trigger. He had her dead in his sights, and he uncharacteristically hesitated. Dukat drew Ziyal into his arms for a final, emotional farewell before fleeing with the retreating forces abandoning Terok Nor. It was a loss, yes, but as Dukat had proven time and again, losses only made him more dangerous.
“Damar!”
Weyoun’s voice dragged him back to the bridge of the Galor-Class cruiser. “What?” he snapped, hoping his irritation would cover his alarm at just how lost he’d been in the attractive fantasy. He didn’t expect it. The Vorta was too observant for clumsy misdirection.
“You didn’t hear a word I said, did you?” It was unnerving how quickly Weyoun’s obsequiousness could give way to cold, authoritative reproach.
“It wasn’t worth comment.” He could feel the eyes of the other Cardassians sharing the bridge upon him. He didn’t dare look at them and further undermine his precarious position.
“Your prospective promotion to legate not worth comment?” Weyoun scoffed. “That would make you unique among all of your fellows.” He gestured theatrically around the bridge with graceful hands. “Isn’t ambition one of your highest cultural tenets?” He glanced at the others as though to include them in the joke.
Damar wasn’t too lost to see amusement at his expense. “I’m not in the habit of repeating myself,” he said flatly. “Or justifying myself to you. If you have something useful to say, say it. Otherwise, you’re wasting everyone’s time talking about things we already know.”
The surface humor dropped away as though it had never been. “I wouldn’t take it as such a given,” Weyoun cautioned. “The Founder will expect a full accounting of how and why we’ve lost your leader. If you hope to conceal your part in it—”
“I stand behind every decision I’ve made, all without clones in line to replace me for fatal mistakes. I don’t need a lecture on consequences from someone who doesn’t understand their cost. I’ll be in my quarters. Summon me if things get interesting.” As he stalked from the bridge, he felt proud of himself for the retort and the spark of anger he’d seen in the Vorta’s eyes.
On the lift, he heard Dukat’s voice in his mind. “Temper, Damar. You can’t let him provoke you. Now more than ever, it’s important to maintain control.” It was nothing he hadn’t heard from him before, dozens if not hundreds of times through the years of their working relationship. Now that he considered it, the best advice he gave himself always came in Dukat’s voice, reinforced by his galvanizing presence and uncanny ability to stay one step ahead of his foes.
He shook his head and strode into the ruddy light of the corridor. A few Jem’Hadar passed him on their own business. The entire ship reeked of the White. He doubted the stench would ever fully scrub out. If there was any advantage to upcoming potential shortages, it was that fewer of the shock troops would be stationed on Cardassian vessels in the future.
His bunk provided no sanctuary from what he felt most desperate to escape, the crushing realization that Dukat was gone beyond retrieval. “That traitorous half-breed!” he growled. It was her fault. She helped snatch defeat from the jaws of victory in collaborating with the enemy. Dukat’s heart when it came to Bajorans always overrode his head, one of his few weaknesses exacerbated by the fact she was his daughter. Damar wanted to save him from it. It was his duty as his subordinate and friend to save him from himself when he was incapable of clear judgment.
If he knew him as well as he thought he did, how had he not foreseen the consequences?
He snatched up his kanar and poured himself a glass. He’d be no match for Weyoun or that damnable female Founder agitated and out of sorts. The thick, syrupy liquor burned a straight line from tongue to gut. Another consumed with equal determination quelled the buzzing of conflicted thoughts flying in trapped circles in his head. It was nowhere near enough to get him drunk. “Restraint,” came the advice in the comforting voice.
Yes, restraint. He sat at his terminal and began the report he knew would be required of him when they dropped out of warp in Cardassian space. Dukat’s worst moods always manifested after closed door meetings with the Founder, whether in person or across a comm. He sought to insulate himself against the possibility of provocation by giving her what she wanted before she could demand it. A wise man knew his weaknesses and shored them up.
Sticking to the facts was never an issue for him. Virtually everyone around him with the exception of Dukat said it was his lack of imagination that held him back, always a better soldier than commander, one to follow the rules rather than make them. Didn’t he prove the rest of them wrong by coming up with the way to disable the minefield? It was hardly his fault the expected reinforcements never appeared. It was definitely not his fault that Ziyal decided to distract her father at the worst possible time. Would Dukat have stayed with her instead of fleeing with the rest of them? In light of what happened, he couldn’t rule it out.
“Your problem is that you were comfortable in his shadow,” he muttered to himself as he put the finishing touches on his report. Every day beyond his position under Dukat’s command had been a some day. Weyoun was dead wrong in his observation about Cardassians, about him in particular. It wasn’t always about being on top. It was about serving where he was most useful.
He consumed several more hours and a few more glasses of kanar in contemplation of his usefulness and what must come next. He couldn’t afford to look back. He had to look forward, had to consider the role of his people in this war and Cardassia’s future beyond it. Without the promised reinforcements from the Gamma Quadrant, their military was sure to bear more of the brunt of the heavy fighting than before. Could he angle that for more control and influence in the quadrant overall and within the Dominion itself? How?
The mentor in his head remained disconcertingly quiet in the face of those questions. Lying on his bunk brought little sleep. Every time he closed his eyes to settle, he saw the flash of disruptor fire and heard a horrific cry not from his target but from the one he’d hoped to save.
The chime of his comm brought relief from the cycle and told him he’d managed more of a doze than he realized. He had not heard the change in the sound of the engines signifying their drop from warp. He hastily smoothed his hair with both hands and accepted the hail.
The Founder’s repulsively smooth face filled his screen. “Gul Damar, it’s time for a conversation.”
“I’ve compiled a report of the final moments of the retreat,” he said. “Transmitting it to you now.”
“I’m aware of all of it. Weyoun was quite thorough, as usual. What he couldn’t tell me was your motivation in the killing. Is that included in your report?” she asked, her low voice powerful and completely controlled.
“No,” he said, frowning. What did it matter what he wanted to accomplish? It was what happened that they had to face.
“Then tell me,” she said.
“What do you think?” he demanded. “I did what any loyal soldier would do to an enemy collaborator given the chance. I neutralized her.”
“The daughter of your commanding officer? Supposedly also your friend?” Her gaze bored into him from the image as surely as if they shared the room. “Or were you keeping an enemy close? Newly appointed to gul, did a step toward legate seem suddenly just within your grasp?”
It was such an outrageous accusation he couldn’t immediately find the words to refute it. His blood roared in his ears loudly enough almost to drown out the thrum of the engines. “Ridiculous!” he spat.
“Is it? I’ve observed your race for some time now. It is well within the bounds of expected behavior. Indeed, such cunning is admired and rewarded. Legate Dukat himself dealt with many rivals in just such a way.” Her reasonable tone hammered at his control more than if she’d hurled her accusations in open malice.
“I would never betray him! I never have. Not once. If I had known—” He cut himself off before raw emotion could get the better of him. “I did it to help him. I did it for all of us.”
“I’m sure our fleet is much safer now,” she said dryly.
“It might be.” He forced himself to slow down and think. Off balance was exactly where she likely wanted him. “You don’t understand the pull she had on him. If he had left Terok Nor with her still there, we’d be paying for that distraction in one way or another in time.”
“You know him well.”
He didn’t have to be political to hear the implication in the statement. He felt his shoulders sag and hoped his armor hid it from her. “I thought I did,” he said bleakly.
Freeze
He didn’t pull the trigger. Dukat forgave Ziyal for her betrayal. Of course he did. She was the only family he had left after the debacle of her debut in Cardassia City. He persuaded her to come with them after all. She had no place on Bajor, especially now. She had been happy on the Bird-of-Prey. She could be happy with him again.
Dukat knew exactly how to put Weyoun in his place and never allowed the Vorta to circumvent him when it came to what was best for Cardassia. The people no longer starved in the streets. Dukat’s strategies insured that they never paid disproportionately in the conflicts. The reinforcements weren’t so necessary after all. For his part, Damar watched the Union climbing from the ashes of near ruin from the Klingon-Cardassian War and contributed where he was most useful, at his leader’s side.
“You’re so far away.”
He shook himself from the compelling fantasy that consumed his thoughts of late and lifted her hand to kiss. He’d already forgotten her name. “Just tired,” he said.
“I know how to fix that,” she offered, her smile beguiling and one of the main reasons he’d chosen her company for the night.
“I doubt it.” The moment it passed his lips, he knew it was the wrong thing to say. He was too exhausted to care or pursue her when she left him to his kanar haze and regrets. He wasn’t ready to face the bed or what it had in store for him.
Why did he kill the girl? If he was honest with himself, he knew it wasn’t for Dukat, not wholly. The action stemmed from his two most enduring flaws, his temper and vindictiveness. He was as good as anyone at justifications. It was sustaining them that proved difficult.
Dukat’s voice over the past several months had faded, barely an echo that resurfaced now and then when he was required to make real decisions. Those occasions were also rarer. Increasingly, he jumped to Weyoun’s commands, and it was just so much easier that way, no politics, no grandstanding, no pointless arguments that ended in acquiescence regardless of his intentions. What could he do, anyway?
“You can drink,” he said with a humorless laugh and proceeded to do just that. It was the only way to sleep, the only time he could close his eyes behind closed doors and not see the girl’s shocked expression and collapse followed by Dukat’s wrenching grief.
He had no idea what had happened to him after they fled. He’d tried to find out. He was about as good at espionage as he was at politics. Either no one else knew what had happened, they knew and had been instructed not to tell him, or they simply didn’t care. He wished he could stop caring. It would make everything happening go down almost as smoothly as the kanar, and then he wouldn’t need to drink.
It took a while to register the sound of his comm and longer yet to decide to answer it. His wife’s face blossomed to life on the screen. He glanced around in a panic until he recalled the other woman had left him.
“You look terrible,” she said without preamble.
He searched for a humorous rejoinder. All that came out was a gruff, “I’m fine.”
“You’re not. You’re drunk. Sakal wanted to tell you about his test performance. I don’t want him seeing you like this.” Her usually severe expression grew even more pinched. “I never used to have to screen your communications.”
“I wasn’t running Cardassia then,” he snapped.
“You’re not running it now.”
It took him completely off guard, a barb he could neither deny nor dodge. It sank deep to lodge with the rest of his self-loathing and fed it a fresh supply of venom. She left him nowhere to retreat except rancor. “I don’t need this from you, Niala. It’s why you’re not here with me, either one of you. You’ve never been supportive.”
“You said it was a security concern,” she protested.
“I lied.” He watched his barb sink home, too, the flicker in her eyes, the way she stiffened and lifted her chin.
“Then I’ll add ‘liar’ to the list of why you’re not fit to speak to your son,” she said and abruptly ended the transmission.
He rubbed the ridges of his temples and brow as he slumped back into his chair. There had been a time his love for her wasn’t trapped behind a defensive wall, a time he could reach her. How could he expect to do it now when he could no longer reach the parts of himself that mattered, if indeed there were any left at all?
The war ground forward. It seemed as though it would with or without his consent. He signed forms, made appearances and speeches, talked to the aliens Weyoun brought before him and shunned those he was told to ignore. He found a better mistress and told himself she made him less lonely. Liar, indeed.
Fight
The first time he saw Dukat, the real Dukat, after what he’d done, he thought for certain he’d come to kill him. If anything could bring his mentor back from a nosedive into grief, vengeance was high on the list. He thought he might welcome the blow.
Instead it was a favor. His answer was yes, yes, a thousand times yes if it meant that for just a little while he could feel like himself again. He’d listen to crazy talk about Pagh Wraiths, such utter nonsense, as long as it meant he wasn’t as useless as he felt. It wasn’t until Dukat returned to him with the face of an enemy and the encouraging words of a friend that anything changed. If Dukat could forgive him and still see something of worth within him, how could he not at least try to forgive himself, and if not find forgiveness, then acceptance?
He pulled the trigger. It was the biggest mistake of his life. Not a day went by he didn’t regret it or wish that he could take it back. He couldn’t, so what could he do?
Maybe he let out the breath he’d endlessly held in the hope that Dukat would return and make everything right. Maybe he remembered that one man with enough determination and fire could turn a tide and make a difference. Maybe he finally grew up.
When the Founder requested a separate comm system that would be difficult to hack or monitor, he was the first to test it before having it installed in her quarters. He hailed his wife, and when she refused to answer, he continued to do so until she yielded. “Listen to me,” he said. He dropped his defenses and reached to her from the place that first connected them. He willed her to meet him there with everything he had left of value.
“What is it, Corat?” she asked. Time and distance dropped from her demeanor. It took ten years from her face.
“Not right away. You’ll know when. I need you to take Sakal somewhere safe, somewhere I don’t know about, a place we’ve never been together. Preferably take him somewhere you’ve never been, yourself. Tell no one.”
She gave him a searching look before nodding slowly, her hand lifting to her throat. “Come to the house,” she said at last. “Come see your son.” He heard her unspoken, Come see me.
“I will,” he said and ended the transmission. He was done with mistresses, done with kanar, and very nearly done with the Dominion. That entanglement would be the hardest to unravel. For the first time since well before he pulled the trigger he felt something he’d thought as dead as the girl. He felt hope.
Drinking from the Bottle of Sure Defeat
Flight
He didn’t pull the trigger. He had her dead in his sights, and he uncharacteristically hesitated. Dukat drew Ziyal into his arms for a final, emotional farewell before fleeing with the retreating forces abandoning Terok Nor. It was a loss, yes, but as Dukat had proven time and again, losses only made him more dangerous.
“Damar!”
Weyoun’s voice dragged him back to the bridge of the Galor-Class cruiser. “What?” he snapped, hoping his irritation would cover his alarm at just how lost he’d been in the attractive fantasy. He didn’t expect it. The Vorta was too observant for clumsy misdirection.
“You didn’t hear a word I said, did you?” It was unnerving how quickly Weyoun’s obsequiousness could give way to cold, authoritative reproach.
“It wasn’t worth comment.” He could feel the eyes of the other Cardassians sharing the bridge upon him. He didn’t dare look at them and further undermine his precarious position.
“Your prospective promotion to legate not worth comment?” Weyoun scoffed. “That would make you unique among all of your fellows.” He gestured theatrically around the bridge with graceful hands. “Isn’t ambition one of your highest cultural tenets?” He glanced at the others as though to include them in the joke.
Damar wasn’t too lost to see amusement at his expense. “I’m not in the habit of repeating myself,” he said flatly. “Or justifying myself to you. If you have something useful to say, say it. Otherwise, you’re wasting everyone’s time talking about things we already know.”
The surface humor dropped away as though it had never been. “I wouldn’t take it as such a given,” Weyoun cautioned. “The Founder will expect a full accounting of how and why we’ve lost your leader. If you hope to conceal your part in it—”
“I stand behind every decision I’ve made, all without clones in line to replace me for fatal mistakes. I don’t need a lecture on consequences from someone who doesn’t understand their cost. I’ll be in my quarters. Summon me if things get interesting.” As he stalked from the bridge, he felt proud of himself for the retort and the spark of anger he’d seen in the Vorta’s eyes.
On the lift, he heard Dukat’s voice in his mind. “Temper, Damar. You can’t let him provoke you. Now more than ever, it’s important to maintain control.” It was nothing he hadn’t heard from him before, dozens if not hundreds of times through the years of their working relationship. Now that he considered it, the best advice he gave himself always came in Dukat’s voice, reinforced by his galvanizing presence and uncanny ability to stay one step ahead of his foes.
He shook his head and strode into the ruddy light of the corridor. A few Jem’Hadar passed him on their own business. The entire ship reeked of the White. He doubted the stench would ever fully scrub out. If there was any advantage to upcoming potential shortages, it was that fewer of the shock troops would be stationed on Cardassian vessels in the future.
His bunk provided no sanctuary from what he felt most desperate to escape, the crushing realization that Dukat was gone beyond retrieval. “That traitorous half-breed!” he growled. It was her fault. She helped snatch defeat from the jaws of victory in collaborating with the enemy. Dukat’s heart when it came to Bajorans always overrode his head, one of his few weaknesses exacerbated by the fact she was his daughter. Damar wanted to save him from it. It was his duty as his subordinate and friend to save him from himself when he was incapable of clear judgment.
If he knew him as well as he thought he did, how had he not foreseen the consequences?
He snatched up his kanar and poured himself a glass. He’d be no match for Weyoun or that damnable female Founder agitated and out of sorts. The thick, syrupy liquor burned a straight line from tongue to gut. Another consumed with equal determination quelled the buzzing of conflicted thoughts flying in trapped circles in his head. It was nowhere near enough to get him drunk. “Restraint,” came the advice in the comforting voice.
Yes, restraint. He sat at his terminal and began the report he knew would be required of him when they dropped out of warp in Cardassian space. Dukat’s worst moods always manifested after closed door meetings with the Founder, whether in person or across a comm. He sought to insulate himself against the possibility of provocation by giving her what she wanted before she could demand it. A wise man knew his weaknesses and shored them up.
Sticking to the facts was never an issue for him. Virtually everyone around him with the exception of Dukat said it was his lack of imagination that held him back, always a better soldier than commander, one to follow the rules rather than make them. Didn’t he prove the rest of them wrong by coming up with the way to disable the minefield? It was hardly his fault the expected reinforcements never appeared. It was definitely not his fault that Ziyal decided to distract her father at the worst possible time. Would Dukat have stayed with her instead of fleeing with the rest of them? In light of what happened, he couldn’t rule it out.
“Your problem is that you were comfortable in his shadow,” he muttered to himself as he put the finishing touches on his report. Every day beyond his position under Dukat’s command had been a some day. Weyoun was dead wrong in his observation about Cardassians, about him in particular. It wasn’t always about being on top. It was about serving where he was most useful.
He consumed several more hours and a few more glasses of kanar in contemplation of his usefulness and what must come next. He couldn’t afford to look back. He had to look forward, had to consider the role of his people in this war and Cardassia’s future beyond it. Without the promised reinforcements from the Gamma Quadrant, their military was sure to bear more of the brunt of the heavy fighting than before. Could he angle that for more control and influence in the quadrant overall and within the Dominion itself? How?
The mentor in his head remained disconcertingly quiet in the face of those questions. Lying on his bunk brought little sleep. Every time he closed his eyes to settle, he saw the flash of disruptor fire and heard a horrific cry not from his target but from the one he’d hoped to save.
The chime of his comm brought relief from the cycle and told him he’d managed more of a doze than he realized. He had not heard the change in the sound of the engines signifying their drop from warp. He hastily smoothed his hair with both hands and accepted the hail.
The Founder’s repulsively smooth face filled his screen. “Gul Damar, it’s time for a conversation.”
“I’ve compiled a report of the final moments of the retreat,” he said. “Transmitting it to you now.”
“I’m aware of all of it. Weyoun was quite thorough, as usual. What he couldn’t tell me was your motivation in the killing. Is that included in your report?” she asked, her low voice powerful and completely controlled.
“No,” he said, frowning. What did it matter what he wanted to accomplish? It was what happened that they had to face.
“Then tell me,” she said.
“What do you think?” he demanded. “I did what any loyal soldier would do to an enemy collaborator given the chance. I neutralized her.”
“The daughter of your commanding officer? Supposedly also your friend?” Her gaze bored into him from the image as surely as if they shared the room. “Or were you keeping an enemy close? Newly appointed to gul, did a step toward legate seem suddenly just within your grasp?”
It was such an outrageous accusation he couldn’t immediately find the words to refute it. His blood roared in his ears loudly enough almost to drown out the thrum of the engines. “Ridiculous!” he spat.
“Is it? I’ve observed your race for some time now. It is well within the bounds of expected behavior. Indeed, such cunning is admired and rewarded. Legate Dukat himself dealt with many rivals in just such a way.” Her reasonable tone hammered at his control more than if she’d hurled her accusations in open malice.
“I would never betray him! I never have. Not once. If I had known—” He cut himself off before raw emotion could get the better of him. “I did it to help him. I did it for all of us.”
“I’m sure our fleet is much safer now,” she said dryly.
“It might be.” He forced himself to slow down and think. Off balance was exactly where she likely wanted him. “You don’t understand the pull she had on him. If he had left Terok Nor with her still there, we’d be paying for that distraction in one way or another in time.”
“You know him well.”
He didn’t have to be political to hear the implication in the statement. He felt his shoulders sag and hoped his armor hid it from her. “I thought I did,” he said bleakly.
Freeze
He didn’t pull the trigger. Dukat forgave Ziyal for her betrayal. Of course he did. She was the only family he had left after the debacle of her debut in Cardassia City. He persuaded her to come with them after all. She had no place on Bajor, especially now. She had been happy on the Bird-of-Prey. She could be happy with him again.
Dukat knew exactly how to put Weyoun in his place and never allowed the Vorta to circumvent him when it came to what was best for Cardassia. The people no longer starved in the streets. Dukat’s strategies insured that they never paid disproportionately in the conflicts. The reinforcements weren’t so necessary after all. For his part, Damar watched the Union climbing from the ashes of near ruin from the Klingon-Cardassian War and contributed where he was most useful, at his leader’s side.
“You’re so far away.”
He shook himself from the compelling fantasy that consumed his thoughts of late and lifted her hand to kiss. He’d already forgotten her name. “Just tired,” he said.
“I know how to fix that,” she offered, her smile beguiling and one of the main reasons he’d chosen her company for the night.
“I doubt it.” The moment it passed his lips, he knew it was the wrong thing to say. He was too exhausted to care or pursue her when she left him to his kanar haze and regrets. He wasn’t ready to face the bed or what it had in store for him.
Why did he kill the girl? If he was honest with himself, he knew it wasn’t for Dukat, not wholly. The action stemmed from his two most enduring flaws, his temper and vindictiveness. He was as good as anyone at justifications. It was sustaining them that proved difficult.
Dukat’s voice over the past several months had faded, barely an echo that resurfaced now and then when he was required to make real decisions. Those occasions were also rarer. Increasingly, he jumped to Weyoun’s commands, and it was just so much easier that way, no politics, no grandstanding, no pointless arguments that ended in acquiescence regardless of his intentions. What could he do, anyway?
“You can drink,” he said with a humorless laugh and proceeded to do just that. It was the only way to sleep, the only time he could close his eyes behind closed doors and not see the girl’s shocked expression and collapse followed by Dukat’s wrenching grief.
He had no idea what had happened to him after they fled. He’d tried to find out. He was about as good at espionage as he was at politics. Either no one else knew what had happened, they knew and had been instructed not to tell him, or they simply didn’t care. He wished he could stop caring. It would make everything happening go down almost as smoothly as the kanar, and then he wouldn’t need to drink.
It took a while to register the sound of his comm and longer yet to decide to answer it. His wife’s face blossomed to life on the screen. He glanced around in a panic until he recalled the other woman had left him.
“You look terrible,” she said without preamble.
He searched for a humorous rejoinder. All that came out was a gruff, “I’m fine.”
“You’re not. You’re drunk. Sakal wanted to tell you about his test performance. I don’t want him seeing you like this.” Her usually severe expression grew even more pinched. “I never used to have to screen your communications.”
“I wasn’t running Cardassia then,” he snapped.
“You’re not running it now.”
It took him completely off guard, a barb he could neither deny nor dodge. It sank deep to lodge with the rest of his self-loathing and fed it a fresh supply of venom. She left him nowhere to retreat except rancor. “I don’t need this from you, Niala. It’s why you’re not here with me, either one of you. You’ve never been supportive.”
“You said it was a security concern,” she protested.
“I lied.” He watched his barb sink home, too, the flicker in her eyes, the way she stiffened and lifted her chin.
“Then I’ll add ‘liar’ to the list of why you’re not fit to speak to your son,” she said and abruptly ended the transmission.
He rubbed the ridges of his temples and brow as he slumped back into his chair. There had been a time his love for her wasn’t trapped behind a defensive wall, a time he could reach her. How could he expect to do it now when he could no longer reach the parts of himself that mattered, if indeed there were any left at all?
The war ground forward. It seemed as though it would with or without his consent. He signed forms, made appearances and speeches, talked to the aliens Weyoun brought before him and shunned those he was told to ignore. He found a better mistress and told himself she made him less lonely. Liar, indeed.
Fight
The first time he saw Dukat, the real Dukat, after what he’d done, he thought for certain he’d come to kill him. If anything could bring his mentor back from a nosedive into grief, vengeance was high on the list. He thought he might welcome the blow.
Instead it was a favor. His answer was yes, yes, a thousand times yes if it meant that for just a little while he could feel like himself again. He’d listen to crazy talk about Pagh Wraiths, such utter nonsense, as long as it meant he wasn’t as useless as he felt. It wasn’t until Dukat returned to him with the face of an enemy and the encouraging words of a friend that anything changed. If Dukat could forgive him and still see something of worth within him, how could he not at least try to forgive himself, and if not find forgiveness, then acceptance?
He pulled the trigger. It was the biggest mistake of his life. Not a day went by he didn’t regret it or wish that he could take it back. He couldn’t, so what could he do?
Maybe he let out the breath he’d endlessly held in the hope that Dukat would return and make everything right. Maybe he remembered that one man with enough determination and fire could turn a tide and make a difference. Maybe he finally grew up.
When the Founder requested a separate comm system that would be difficult to hack or monitor, he was the first to test it before having it installed in her quarters. He hailed his wife, and when she refused to answer, he continued to do so until she yielded. “Listen to me,” he said. He dropped his defenses and reached to her from the place that first connected them. He willed her to meet him there with everything he had left of value.
“What is it, Corat?” she asked. Time and distance dropped from her demeanor. It took ten years from her face.
“Not right away. You’ll know when. I need you to take Sakal somewhere safe, somewhere I don’t know about, a place we’ve never been together. Preferably take him somewhere you’ve never been, yourself. Tell no one.”
She gave him a searching look before nodding slowly, her hand lifting to her throat. “Come to the house,” she said at last. “Come see your son.” He heard her unspoken, Come see me.
“I will,” he said and ended the transmission. He was done with mistresses, done with kanar, and very nearly done with the Dominion. That entanglement would be the hardest to unravel. For the first time since well before he pulled the trigger he felt something he’d thought as dead as the girl. He felt hope.
