Chapter 13
Ensign Zoraya’s Quarters
USS Redemption
Ispaoreai Hyps’rat (Onyx Station)
Zoraya paced across her room for what seemed like the nine-hundredth time. She had almost reached the bed when her console chimed to signal an incoming message. She hurried over to the desk and sat down, inputting her access code before her back had even touched the chair.
The screen resolved into the familiar face of Parmek, her handler at Starfleet Intelligence. His Cardassian features were scrunched up, his forehead furrowed, as he stared at her.
“What has happened?” he demanded.
Zoraya quickly filled him in on her discoveries, though she glossed over the part where she had received the message offering her assistance. By the time she had finished, Parmek’s eyebrows had drawn down, his lips reduced to a narrow slit.
“You’re sure?”
Zoraya nodded. “I ran every possible check I could while I waited for you to contact me. The computer is 90% sure that the recording is genuine.”
“90%.”
“I know, I would have preferred 100 as well, but considering how badly the transmission has survived, I doubt we’ll be able to get anything more certain than that.”
Parmek nodded, but his frown deepened. “Very well.”
“What do you want me to do with it?”
“We don’t have any other choice. I would normally suggest that you handle the problem yourself,” – read kill Kalara, Zoraya knew – “but the Laurentii mission is too important for us to risk your cover that way. I think we’re going to have to trust to Sarine and his command crew to handle the problem themselves.”
“You want me to tip them off.”
“Discreetly,” Parmek confirmed. “Prepare an encrypted package and route it through incoming traffic buffers. I’ll provide you with some current comm satellite coding that should hide the fact that the tip-off came from on ship.”
“Who do I send it to?”
“Sarine is off ship?”
Zoraya nodded. “His XO will have to do then.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good work on this, agent,” Parmek said, then signed off.
Zoraya sat there for a moment, processing what he had just ordered her to do. She didn’t like torpedoing someone’s career like this, not based on a transmission she couldn’t be 100% sure of. And the help she had received from her unknown benefactor did not sit well with her, either.
Then why didn’t you tell him, she asked herself. She didn’t have an answer.
Sighing, she shook her head. She had orders and a responsibility. Sitting forward, she started to prepare the transmission for Commander Ly’et.
Unknown location
When Jasto opened his eyes, his quarters had vanished.
Sand and dust surrounded him on all sides, extending to the horizon which wavered in the distance due to the intense heat. His conscious mind knew that all of this existed only as an illusion, in a mindscape created by Q’sar as a reference point for their communion, and yet it seemed entirely too real. He could feel the sweat running down his back and the itchy burning in his eyes. For all intents and purposes, he was in the middle of a desert.
Taking in a scalding breath that seemed to be trying to incinerate his lungs, he looked around for Q’sar. He found the Vulcan, still dressed in his ensign’s uniform, a few steps away, studying the desert around them. Jasto would have sworn that he saw the slightest hint of homesickness in the depths of those deep blue eyes.
“It’s hot,” he said after a moment.
“It generally is,” Q’sar said. Jasto studied him for a moment. Did he just make a joke?
Before he could ask him, the Vulcan turned and looked towards the horizon. “He is waiting for us.”
Jasto started. “Who? Haebron?”
Q’sar nodded, his eyes distant. “He knows we are here, but he has decided to wait us out.”
“He’s in here, with us?”
Q’sar turned back to Jasto. “Of course. That is the objective of this exercice, Lieutenant Dax. To force you and Haebron to confront one another. To work out your differences. That would not be possible unless you were both here.”
Jasto nodded, though he didn’t feel any better about the idea. “What do we do?”
“We go to him.”
As Q’sar began to walk off, Jasto reached out and grabbed the Vulcan’s arm. To his surprise, the young ensign swung round, a sudden warmth burning in those cold eyes.
“Do. Not. Touch. Me.”
Jasto pulled his hand away as if he had been burned. “I- I’m sorry. I…”
Q’sar seemed to be struggling to pull himself together. After a moment, he nodded curtly. “For future reference, know that Vulcans do not like to be touched unless invited.”
For future reference. Right. Jasto knew that he should have known that, that parts of him did know that, but the jalapamine interfered with his access to the other hosts. He nodded. “Sorry.”
The Vulcan turned away. “Apologies are irrevelant, you did not have sufficient knowledge to make the correct decision. Now, come.”
Jasto watched him walk off into the desert, his heart sinking. This is a really bad idea, he thought. Not that I have any choice. Burying his fears as best he could, Jasto sighed and followed the Vulcan into the heart of the desert.
xxx
It felt as though they had been walking for hours. The heat had become a constant companion, an unceasing weight on Jasto’s shoulders. He felt as though he had time travelled back to his time in the Academy, trudging through the Kish’baher desert on Romulus during survival training. He had hated it then, and he hated it now.
He didn’t feel thirsty, he realised after a while. He didn’t even feel the need to drink. They had been walking for so long that he should have keeled over from dehydration by now. He tried to use that knowledge, to tell himself that his body was actually nice and cool in his quarters back on Redemption. It didn’t work.
His guide, however, didn’t even seem to feel the heat. Whether that was just normal Vulcan behaviour or whether he simply had better control over his construct body, Jasto had no idea. He just wished that he would share whatever trick was allowing Q’sar to walk across the sand as if he were strolling through a meadow.
The desert didn’t seem to change around them, an endless array of white and yellow grains of sand, broken every so often by regular outcroppings of dark grey rock. Jasto never saw a single animal, nor a bird in the sky – that made sense if the whole thing was just a creation of their joint imaginations. Still, he wished that something would break the monotony.
After what seemed like a half day of hiking through the sand, Jasto thought he saw something up ahead, a smudge of black on the horizon. Wonderful, he thought. Now I’m hallucinating. As their trek went on, though, he realised that what he had seen was real.
It was a camp site. As they drew nearer, Jasto saw that there were tents, plural, gathered around what appeared to be a rather large fire pit. A handful of implements hung from a wooden frame, and a large tarpaulin had been strung out over the top, providing shade. Jasto started to quicken his pace, desperate to get out of the sun. He was moving so fast he almost didn’t see Haebron until it was too late.
The former Dax host sat cross legged on a mat beside the empty fire pit. He had a knife in his hand and a sonic pommel that he dragged along the blade every few seconds. The sound sent shivers down Jasto’s back. He knew that sound, had heard it echoing in his head late at night.
While he held back, Q’sar walked purposefully towards the camp, forcing Jasto to follow him. By the time they reached the outskirts, Haebron was on his feet, smiling widely.
“Hello strangers,” he said. “Welcome to my home away from home.”
Q’sar turned and looked at Jasto, one eyebrow raised. Jasto just shrugged. This wasn’t what he had been expecting either.
“Please,” Haebron went on. “Join me.”
Both officers held back, unsure how to proceed. Haebron seemed to sense that and his eyes narrowed slightly.
“I said. Join me.”
Jasto decided it would probably be best to get the confrontation over and done with. Standing his ground, he shook his head.
“No. Not until we have a chance to talk.”
“What do you want to talk to about?” Haebron seemed genuinely confused, though his voice remained deathly cold.
“About your hounding me. It’s time you let go, Haebron. It’s time you gave it up.”
Haebron simply stared at him for a moment, then he threw his head back and laughed. The sound was so familiar to Jasto from the darker parts of his mind that he felt himself go cold. When Haebron went suddenly silent, though, that cold turned to ice. Haebron glared at him.
“You think you understand? You think you know what is happening? What I am doing? You think you know what I have been through?”
He lifted his hand and gestured to the left. Jasto felt an unseen force grab him and throw him to the side. He had time to shriek briefly before all the breath was forced from his body by the impact of his landing. He gasped, pain throbbing in his left arm.
“You think you know what I’ve been through?” he heard Haebron scream. ‘You think you can understand?”
His voice thundered and as if in answer, Jasto felt a hot wind blow past him, stinging his cheek and lips with sand and grit.
“You think you can tell me to let it go?!!!”
The wind turned to a gale. Jasto couldn’t see anything more than a few paces in front of him. He opened his mouth to beg Haebron to stop, to order Q’sar to get them out of this, but the sand surged forward, filling his mouth with dry dirt. He spat it out, but more poured in. It seemed like the wind was creating some kind of a funnel, designed to allow as much sand as possible to infiltrate Jasto’s open mouth. He tried to scream, but all he managed was choking sound.
When the sand began to fill his nostrils as well, Jasto started to suffocate. Waving his hands wildly as if he could somehow move the sand away manually, he fell to his knees. He didn’t dare open his eyes – he was sure that the sand would easily scour them from their sockets. Trying to get a breath, he sent out a silent plea.
Please, end this, pl--
Jasto Dax’s Quarters
“Please!”
Jasto’s eyes flew open and he found that he was able to take a breath. For a moment, he found himself propelled back in time, to the day when he first received Dax. He could see it clearly, the flickering light on the cave walls, the sensation of vertigo that came over him and a sudden breathlessness as the symbiont passed from Haebron to him… He let the breath out in a shuddering rasp.
As he tried to calm his beating heart, Jasto heard a moan sound from somewhere nearby. He forced himself to focus long enough to see Q’sar, in the process of raising his head from the bed where he had fallen. His eyes were closed and an expression of pain was plastered on his face, the first expression of any emotion that he had seen, apart from the sudden anger in the desert.
Taking a few deep breaths, Jasto tried to banish the phantom sensation of sand filling his lungs and the echoes of memory from his Joining. He turned his head slightly, wincing as his muscles creaked, and saw Doctor Malok staring at both of them, a snarl on his face.
“What happened?” Jasto asked, his voice coming out as a croak.
“You…” The big Klingon trailed off, looking stricken. He took a deep breath before continuing. “Both of your lifesigns began to spike. Heart rate, blood pressure, endorphin levels – they all flew off the chart. I had to terminate the mind-meld to bring you back.”
“Thank you,” Jasto managed to whisper.
“What- What happened in there?”
“Haebron Dax did not seem amenable to conversation,” Q’sar responded. Jasto glanced at the Vulcan and saw that he seemed to have regained his former control.
“That’s an understatement, “Jasto snapped. “He lost it and attacked us with a sand storm. He tried to kill us.”
“Unlikely,” Q’sar interrupted. “If he had truly intended to kill you, Lieutenant, he would have done so. I believe he was merely trying to frighten you.”
“Frighten me? Well he succeeded.”
“A pity.”
Jasto stared at Q’sar, eyes wide as he realised what the Vulcan was implying. “He just tried to suffocate us with sand. You don’t really think I’m going back in there?”
“As I said, your former host seemed to wish to frighten us. He recognised me, he knew where we were and I believe he knew the limits of his power. The question you should be asking yourself is, if he was trying to frighten you, what is he so afraid of?”
Jasto opened his mouth to refute what the Vulcan had said, then he thought about it for a moment. If Haebron had really been trying to scare them away, stop them from coming back, it might mean that he believed Jasto had a chance of getting rid of him by continuing. Maybe he knows something about this I don’t. The thought was worth considering.
After a few moments, he shrugged. “Maybe you’re right. I need some time to think about it.”
Q’sar nodded. “That is acceptable. You may contact me when you have decided.”
With that, the Vulcan turned and walked out, leaving Jasto to stare after him, his head throbbing. Part of him rebelled at the mere idea of going back into his mind to track Haebron down, but another part wondered whether the gains weren’t worth the risk. This is going to take some thought.
He looked up to see Doctor Malok studying him anxiously. When Jasto smiled in an effort to reassure him, the massive Klingon grinned, showing teeth sharp enough to make Jasto’s stomach roil.
“Well,” Malok said happily, “that could have been worse.”
Jasto started to laugh.
Captain’s Ready Room
Prin groaned as she stood up from Bay’s desk and walked over to the replicator. Pressing her hand against the wall, she leaned in.
“Raktajino, Cardassian variety B14, hot.”
With a hum, the replicator transmuted molecules taken from throughout the ship’s recycling systems into a silver Starfleet mug, steam wafting up from the liquid contents. Prin reached in and grabbed the cup around the middle, lifting it to take a deep breath of the coarse, bracing drink.
Her synapses seemed to snap all at once as the smell hit her senses, reminding her of long, boring patrol missions along the Andorian border. Raktajino was the only thing that had kept her going during her stint onboard the Invincible. Say one thing about Redemption, she thought, it is never boring.
Of course, back on the Invincible, she hadn’t had access to replicators either. They were considered a luxury on most Starfleet vessels, considering the dire need for them on the various rebuilding projects throughout Federation space. Redemption was the only ship to have had them installed, as far as she knew.
Slightly more awake than she had been, Prin walked back to the desk and settled back into the seat. Rubbing a hand over her neck, pressing her fingertips into the soft skin between her ridges and her shoulderblades, she tried to concentrate on the duty roster’s again.
Ever since Ba’el had beamed over to Onyx Station, Prin had been pulling almost non-stop duty shifts. She was having to juggle the job of a captain, a first officer and – in the absence of Dax – second officer, as well. No wonder I need a pick-me-up, she thought.
Her eyes scanned the list of recommendations, names of officers, non-coms and cadets blurring into a misty whole as seconds turned into minutes. If it hadn’t been for the message that suddenly appeared on her screen, she would probably have fallen asleep.
Blinking her eyes, Prin frowned at the small rectangle announcing that someone had sent her a message. Pressing her thumb against the screen, she called it up.
There was no introductory text, or even a signature. Instead, the moment she opened the message, another screen popped up, some kind of camera recording. It took Prin a moment to make sense of what she was seeing, but when she did, she felt her blood congeal.
Oh no. No, it can’t be. She shook her head, as if the simple motion could wipe away what she was seeing. This has to be a trick, a hoax of some kind. In her inner self, though, she knew that it wasn’t. Considering how things had already developed onboard Redemption, this could only be real.
Once the recording had finished, Prin sat there for a moment, trying to process what she had seen. After a moment, she reached forward and began the playback again.
After the fourth viewing, Prin started to run a battery of tests, probing the recording for any signs of tampering. While the computer did its thing, she walked over to the replicator and ordered another raktajino. Taking it over to the viewport, she stared out at Onyx Station as it spun before her, trying not to think too much about what she had seen.
The computer beeped. Fearing what she would see, Prin walked slowly back to the desk and stared down at the results. 97%. 97% probability that the recording was real. Damn.
She couldn’t put it off any further. Not something this important. Hating herself for what she was about to do, Prin reached up and tapped her comm badge.
Glad you're enjoying Restoration enough to call me a drug mule! 
