2369
When consciousness finally fluttered close enough to grab hold of, Eyara’s eyes opened long enough to recognize that she had, against all odds, somehow evaded death one more time. The warm, sand-colored ceiling, the hint of an arched doorframe nearby, the soft geometry of Bajoran architecture soothed her, and she took a short, shuddering breath. The expansion of her chest caught strangely, as though something were stopping her from inhaling deeply, and a shiver of fear prickled across her skin. This time she tried to move, to lift a hand, but the soft buzz of an activated force field interrupted the motion, keeping her pinned on her back, unable to even rock her head to one side or another.
The memory of the explosion, as muddled as it was, came back in a rush, and later she would recall, to her shame, that her first thought was not of her compatriots, but a sharp, sudden horror at the state her own broken body must be in. She couldn’t move or even look down to confirm the presence of her own limbs, and a pulse of pain hit her somewhere in her middle, a flash of memory of the crushing stone column as it fell and trapped her. They’d failed. She’d failed. The Cardassians had found them– Eyara croaked out a dry groan, testing her voice, anxious to know where she was, where the others were. Where was everyone? Why had noone noticed she was awake?
“Hello?” she tried to call, but the word came out a hoarse whisper.
As reality came more into focus she was aware of the quiet beeps and hums of technology around her. Kept in place as she was, she could only strain to take in her surroundings by eye movement and could see screens all around her, showing medical readouts — in Cardassian.
After a moment, she heard a door hiss open to her left, and the sharp tap of footsteps entered the room.
“I see our patient is finally awake,” a feminine but monotone voice said. The footsteps neared the bed, and a Cardassian woman with elaborate braids atop her head came into Eyara’s sliver of perception. The woman was made up with dark lips and bluish accents on her neck ridges and wearing a medical uniform. Before Eyara could say anything, she leaned over the Bajoran’s immobilized body and shone a bright light in one eye, gently holding her eyelid open. “Aren’t you a little miracle.”
If Eyara had been able to move more than the muscles of her face, she might have fallen off the biobed. Every instinct in her screamed to scramble away, to run, to get to safety. She hadn’t survived, she was in a hellish vision inflicted upon her by the pah-wraiths. She was dead, and being punished for all the things she and her family had done and failed to do. But though she yearned to wither away, to return to unconsciousness, all she could do was faintly flinch, as those too-cold reptilian fingertips made contact with her skin. ”Where am I?” she rasped, the edge of panic in her eyes.
“Kandor province,” the Cardassian woman replied easily, gaze focused unnervingly directly into Eyara’s eye which protested and watered in response to the bright light. The Cardassian stepped away, out of Eyara’s frame of vision. The tap of her heels in the hollow room was unnerving. “You really should be dead. It’s only Cardassian scientific ingenuity that saved you. What is your pain level?”
Kandor Province. Then she was still on Bajor. How had she gotten here? The mission had been on the near opposite side of the planet— why had the Cardassians not simply left her there to die? Did they want to extract information from her? Why would they think she was important enough to interrogate? A flash of fear shook her. They’d never get her sister’s name from her if that’s what they were after. “Where is the rest of my team?” she asked, ignoring the woman’s question, though she began to notice and process the deep, throbbing ache in her guts more keenly as attention was drawn to it.
“Most likely dead, I would imagine,” came a cold, distracted reply. “It was only your parents’ position that allowed you to be saved. I’ll have them alerted that you’re awake. Now, if you please, what is your pain level? Certain things still can’t be derived from instruments.”
All of the color drained from Eyara’s freckled face as the woman tossed those first three words so flippantly. She had barely begun to process them, when the next ones hit their mark, and she sucked in a short, sharp breath. Her parents. She hadn’t seen them in almost five years. Not since Ruuk had turned her in –and let her escape. Elke had, blessedly, avoided being found out, and had stayed in contact as much as was possible and safe. So Eyara knew that their parents had brushed her ‘betrayal’ and disappearance under the rug. She knew that they’d publicly denounced the Resistance, claiming that terrorists had brainwashed and kidnapped their daughter. She knew they’d later had the rumor spread that she had been killed, to explain their inability to bring her home. Easy lies. All to save face with the Cardassians, to avoid losing the status they felt they deserved by virtue of their innate superiority. The d’jarras might be a relic of the past, but those they had favored still commonly clung to them.
A familiar bitter rage knotted in her stomach and she swallowed hard, her initial thoughts pushed aside by a new wave of guilt. The others… her team. Dead. Maybe the Cardassian was lying to get under her skin. Maybe they’d gotten out. But even as she tried to silently bargain for a better outcome, Eyara knew, more likely than not, they were gone. The explosions should have killed her– how likely was it that anyone else had been so lucky. Angry tears shone at the corners of her eyes, and she grit her teeth against the emotion she couldn’t fully hide.
“Why didn’t they just let me die?” Eyara grit out, not a death wish, but genuine confusion. Wouldn’t it have fit their narrative so neatly? What did they want from her?
The Cardassian woman gave a vaguely irritated sigh at her question continuing to be ignored. She appeared in Eyara’s vision, focused on a scanning device that she waved over Eyara’s middle. “That is something you’ll have to talk to them about,” the doctor said with disinterest. “But they certainly called in some big favors to get you extracted and fixed up. We had to replace your liver, kidneys and part of your large intestine. Not to mention the repairs to your skeletal structure.”
“Replace?” Eyara echoed with surprise, straining to look down, though the forcefields kept her firmly in place. She shoved thoughts of her parents to the side, the swirl of emotion painful to touch and useless to linger on, when there were more pressing concerns. Such as assessing and surviving her current situation. Even if her team was dead, Elke was still out there, depending on her to keep it together and keep her mouth shut. Besides, it would be foolish to take anything the Cardassian said at face value. “Replaced with what?”
“Well, at the moment your liver is holographic, hence the force fields. Holo-organs are efficient but mobility is still an issue. But I’m sure you know that as a medic.” The woman went on easily, casually passing over the hint that she knew more about Eyara’s existence than the Resistance fighter would have liked. “Your kidneys and intestines are state-of-the-art Cardassian technologies. And you’re scheduled for surgery for the installation of the liver tomorrow.”
For a long beat, Eyara said nothing, taking in, processing this information with a kind of horror– a shameful mix of awe and curiosity and disgust. While she’d been unconscious, while others from her cell had been blown apart or murdered, she’d been lying in some evac ship, with Cardassian technology keeping her corpse alive, Cardassian hands holding her guts in, Cardassian doctors indulging their medical curiosities upon her body. She shuddered at the invasiveness of it all, and imagined she could still feel those cold fingertips rifling through the cavity of her abdomen, pulling out what couldn’t be repaired. She felt sick. She bit her tongue for the distracting pain of it, trying to ground herself enough to keep down the bile she felt at the back of her throat. “Seems like a lot of valuable tech to waste on a Bajoran,” she finally hissed through clenched teeth. “Even for a collaborator’s kid. Why did Central Command agree to this?”
There was a beat of silence. Then, as casually as before, “Some of this technology is still in its experimental phase. I’m Doctor Kareesa Nolar. I designed most of the equipment keeping you alive.” Pride.
Ah, so that was it. She was a convenient test subject. This tech was probably too new to allow testing on Cardassian citizens, but Bajoran bodies were a convenient way to push medical progress ahead more quickly. Even taking into account the muddy ethics of it all, her injuries must have been extensive enough that it was this, or death. She wasn’t sure what she would have chosen if she’d been offered the choice. But it didn’t matter now. Her parents and the Cardassians had made it for her. The only comfort she could find in the moment was knowing that at least Elke wouldn’t have to grieve her.
“And if I survive your experiments?” Eyara asked, not bothering to hide the bitter taste in her words. “What happens then?” She itched to escape this bed, this building, to go back to what she was supposed to be doing– keeping the members of her cell alive. If there were any of them left. And if not, then moving on, and helping wherever she could.
“You’ll survive,” the doctor assured her with confidence. There were quiet, familiar sounds of puttering with medical equipment. Changing cartridges, entering in data. “It may be a few weeks you’ll have to stay with us for observation but then you’ll be released into your parents care. I do apologize for the restraining fields. I’m sure it’s quite uncomfortable. As soon as your new liver is installed you’ll be able to move freely.”
Eyara considered this with quiet surprise, then suspicion. Even if the Cardassians were willing to let valuable experimental technology walk free out of this hospital, Eyara had little doubt that there would be supervision, check-ins, monitoring while in her parents’ “care”. Something like this was not a gift, and certainly not one without strings attached. “I don’t suppose I have a choice in that. Going with them.” What would they even do with her? Keep her hidden? Announce her miraculous recovery? Make her into some kind of cautionary tale about the evils of the Resistance? Find another Cardassian general who didn’t mind her cloudy past and her damaged body, some old man who would get a thrill out of breaking a stubborn animal like her?
“It would really be best for you to have family keeping an eye on you for a while after all the procedures,” Nolar said, her conciliatory tone like the mimicry of a bird in Eyara’s ears. “There will of course need to be follow up visits to ensure that the technology is functioning as expected.”
“Of course,” Eyara echoed, cheerlessly smug to have been right. If half her internal organs belonged to the Cardassians, then even being released into her parents’ care didn’t mean she was free. If she ran, they’d come after her– after their investment. For all she knew, there was some method of tracking her built right into the prosthetics themselves. Even if she escaped, she couldn’t risk going back to her cell.
She closed her eyes then, frustration and resignation tight in her chest. “A six,” she said, when a long beat had gone by without the Cardassian speaking. “If your Cardassian pain scale is one to ten, then it’s a six. And I’m thirsty.”
“Thank you,” the doctor said with surprising sincerity. “I’m sorry that’s so high. I’ll adjust your medications right away. We have no intention of keeping you in discomfort.” There was the sound of rummaging through a drawer and a packet being opened. Nolar appeared over her again. “Open your mouth, please.” She held up a small tablet in Eyara’s vision. “This will help with the thirst. Don’t swallow it, just allow it to melt on your tongue. It will be a few days until you’ll be ready for anything other than intravenous nutrients. We were barely able to save your stomach and it didn’t go unharmed. You’ll most likely notice discomfort when you start eating again and will need to start with small meals.”
Eyara briefly considered the possibility that the tablet was poisoned, but she couldn’t think of a good reason why they would go through all this trouble just to kill her in such a way. So, though she hesitated, she did as was requested and let the hydration capsule dissolve on her tongue. Thankfully, she had no appetite or desire to eat at the moment, so this news caused little disappointment. At least there was one organ that still belonged to her, diminished though it might be.
“I’m tired,” she said, once her mouth was clear and her thirst eased. She didn’t feel poisoned, just exhausted. The pain was making itself known, now that the initial shock of her situation was wearing off and she just wanted to be alone before the tears came. “Let me sleep.”
“Very well,” came the unconcerned reply. “The nurse will be in to check on you every 45 minutes. It’s only routine.” The door hissed open, the heels clicked out and it slid back into place.
Maybe Eyara was alone or maybe they had monitors in the next room over and were watching her at every minute. But when the doctor had gone, and she could feel no eyes on her directly, the enormity of the situation slammed into her like a concrete wall. She could do nothing to stop it, not even lift a hand to wipe away the helpless tears as they gathered and fell, tickling her freckled cheeks. She knew she should stay hopeful– she was alive and that meant she could keep fighting, in whatever way she was able. But all she could do now was lay there, trapped on a Cardassian biobed, in a stolen Bajoran hospital, the names and faces of her team repeating over and over until she drifted into the restless, but welcome oblivion of sleep.
~~~
Time passed in a haze of medication to control Eyara’s pain. She slept soundly for the most part, hardly aware of the regular movement in the room around her as the Cardassian staff monitored her status.
The next day came and Dr. Nolar reappeared with a small group of staff. “Good morning,” she said as she showed up in Eyara’s frame of vision. “Today will be a good day. After this procedure you’ll be free of the force fields and by the end of the week you should be able to sit in a hover chair.”
“Liver, right? How long will it take?” Eyara asked, trying not to seem too interested, lest that curiosity be somehow used against her later.
“A few hours at least,” Dr. Nolar replied while her staff busied themselves unhooking Eyara from various machines. “You may be sore and tired for a few days while your body adjusts to the prosthetic. Tell me something, Miss Lanak, if you would. How competent are you as a medic?”
Eyara’s first instinct was to bristle at the question– why needle her now about her inadequacies? Of course most of her training was unofficial, gained in the field, necessity and repetition, trial and error, and other harried, exhausted medics as her mentors. Don’t think about her right now, Eyara. Don’t let the Cardassian see you vulnerable. She took a breath and raised a brow in a casual expression that might have paired with a shrug had Eyara been able to move her shoulders.
“Competent enough to keep my cell on its feet,” she answered, summoning up her pride, ignoring the voice that whispered until this mission.
“That’s good,” Dr. Nolar said with a tinge of enthusiasm. “Once you’ve recovered from this surgery I intend to educate you about the technologies. Your experience and knowledge will lend an additional layer of expertise to developing these prosthetics. The level of technology rivals even that of Federation medicine. You may be instrumental in furthering the field of organ transplantation.”
Suspicion held Eyara’s tongue from immediately replying. It was plain that Nolar was trying to appeal to her pride, but what she was offering was what Eyara wanted. If she had to be stuffed full of Cardassian tech, then she was damn well going to make sure she knew how it worked. “Alright,” she finally answered. “If I’m going to be stuck in a biobed for the next few days, I might as well have reading material to keep myself busy.”
“Splendid,” Nolar said. “I’ll make the documentation available to you whenever you’re feeling recovered enough to review it. Looks like we’re ready to go.”
The bed hovered smoothly forward and the door whispered open as Eyara was pushed into the hallways. Soon she was staring up at the ceiling and lights of a shiningly clean operating room.
Dr. Nolar leaned over her, masked and gloved. “We’ll see you in a few hours. You’ll be better than new in no time.”
“Don’t fuck it up,” Eyara demanded, straight-faced, just before the hypospray was pressed against her throat. Nolar gave a quiet, bemused laugh and a nod before Eyara faded into unconsciousness.
~~~
True to her word, when Eyara woke from surgery, Nolar already had a hands-free screen installed on a swing arm at her bedside, providing access to information about the prosthetics with which she had been fitted. Over the next few days, Eyara read voraciously whenever she was awake, slowly transitioning from the reclined biobed to spending some of her time sitting upright, still with the assistance of forefields from her chest downward, but finally able to use her hands and arms, head and neck free to look about her environment.
By the fifth day, Eyara had made it through most of the reading material and was feeling significantly better. Her color had improved from pale and sallow to its normal freckled brown. The ache in her middle had dulled and was almost entirely controlled with some mild medications. In the morning, a pair of Cardassian nurses helped Eyara move to a hoverchair which locked her into place with fields from the chest down. It was somewhat awkward and her back protested to the stiffness but it was a relief to be able to guide the chair to the window and look out from the third story view over well manicured grounds.
That afternoon, Doctor Nolar came by her room and gazed down at her admiringly. “My, aren’t you looking well. How are you feeling?”
Eyara’s eyes didn’t turn from the window, the strange sight of Cardassian military and scientists crossing the courtyard from time to time. There didn’t seem to be a large number of people working here, and the number of patients even fewer. What had once been an immense Bajoran hospital, seemed now to be a research facility staffed almost entirely by Cardassians. She wondered if there were other Bajorans like her, other lab animals being treated humanely, but none-the-less without a choice in the matter.
“Pain level is a 3. It’s fine. Nice to be able to sit up, anyway. I’m sure your superiors are very impressed with your work.”
“I do my best,” Dr. Nolar said with a hint of smugness. “Have you finished reading the materials?”
“Yes, though I decided to read through it again.” This was in part because she hardly had anything else to do, but additionally, though she didn’t admit it outloud, the reading was dense and the science complicated. Emergency field medicine had little in common with this kind of time-consuming and precision work, but Eyara was determined not to let the doctor sense that she was out of her depth. She would learn this, no matter how many times she had to read the files.
“That’s wise,” Nolar said, nodding as she stood over Eyara with eyes on the device she scanned her with. “Your body is accepting the new implant well. You’re nearly at normal liver function. When you’re able to stand again, I’d like to take you on a tour of our lab where these implants are constructed.”
This surprised Eyara, and she tore her gaze away from the window to search Nolar’s impassive face. “Your supervisors would allow such a thing?” she wondered, skeptical but curious. She didn’t know what all she might learn on such a tour, but if there was a chance that information could be useful to the Resistance, then she intended to learn as much as possible.
“I’ve gained permission,” Nolar replied. “Of course we’ll have an armed escort so don’t get too excited about the chance to potentially cause damage.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Eyara shot back, a stiff grin on her face. Let Nolar think she was only looking for escape or sabotage. She would be watching, absorbing, learning all she could, both for her own benefit and for her peoples’. Besides, she rather suspected that even if she were to get into trouble, the doctor would hesitate to allow harm to come to her– not when Eyara was chock full of the woman’s life work.
Nolar startled Eyara by sitting down in the window seat, crossing her legs and folding scaled hands on her knee. “Do you mind if I ask, Miss Lanak, in your experience, have you had much access to proper medical texts? I ask because I could make more reading material available to you while you’re here. With the speed that you went through my materials, I’m sure you could absorb a great deal of new information.”
Eyara hesitated, weighing the cost of honesty, looking for a reason why lying would be safer, but Nolar already knew she came from a family of privilege, there would be no surprise in hearing that she’d had access to medical journals and other reading material. Her parents had humored –if not taken seriously– her sudden desire to learn about doctoring and other healing arts after her orb vision as a young child, but of course, she’d only been 17 when she had to run away, so the actual schooling she’d been able to receive was limited to what her parents and home tutor had thought appropriate.
“I left home young, so most of my medical knowledge has been gained on the battlefield. Hands-on medicine, you know.” She met Nolar’s eyes. She wanted to learn, but she wouldn’t let either of them forget the context in which she had ended up here. “Not much access to textbooks the last few years. Wouldn’t say no to your offer, though. Seeing as how I’m needing less sleep and finding myself with more free time.”
“I’m sure you’re very proficient as a field medic,” Nolar said, genuinely, with no hint of sarcasm or demeaning. “But you’ll be even better with a proper education of the entire soma.” She offered Eyara a Cardassian padd that she’d set down beside her. “This content may be somewhat rudimentary for you, but I’ll see that you also get more advanced materials.”
Eyara picked up the pad, and glanced at the list of contents. There were some texts which she recognized from her childhood reading, the books Elke had bought her when their parents had begun gently discouraging Eyara from pursuing medicine as more than a hobby. But there were other files here that she didn’t recognize, much of it related to Bajoran internal medicine– the sort of stuff that didn’t take priority on the battlefield. She itched to begin reading right away, but her instinct was to dampen her enthusiasm while Nolar was watching. Passion could be used against a person, after all.
She nodded stoically at the padd and laid it on her lap, meeting the doctor’s gaze with another dip of her chin, the closest to a thank you that she could bring herself to offer. “How long have you been studying Bajoran physiology?” she wondered suddenly. Nolar didn’t seem very old, but it was hard to gauge age under all those scales.
“Several years now,” Nolar replied vaguely. “The similarities outweigh the differences, believe it or not. The equipment you’re using was designed for the Cardassian body but only needed minor adjustments to be suitable for Bajorans.”
Eyara’s face went stony with the memory of her sister’s warnings when Ruuk had begun to pursue her, the stories of pregnant comfort women, the half-breed war orphans shunned by Bajorans and Cardassians alike for having the audacity to exist. Oh, she understood all too well the biological similarities between them, nevermind what they each looked like on the outside. In response, however, she only nodded again, as though thoughtful, and schooled her expression into something as neutral as she could make it.
“Lucky for me, then, that your knowledge has transferred over so well.”
“Lucky for you,” Nolar agreed, the ‘lucky for me too’ going unvoiced. She stood. “I believe your parents will be visiting you this afternoon.”
All the composure slipped from Eyara’s face in an instant, her mouth going dry and a pulse of emotion gripped her chest, rendering her voiceless for too long to casually play it off. “Today?” she croaked, cleared her throat, looked away, eyes darting to the middle distance. She didn’t know what she was feeling– anger, fear, disgust, something bigger and more complex than any of those. She knew she was only alive because of their meddling, their status as part of the Bajoran Occupational Government. She owed them her life, but she resented them for it, hated that they would come here now, when she was weak and vulnerable, whatever their purpose was behind it. Maybe if things had been different, she would have looked forward to seeing the first up-close Bajoran faces since she’d woken here. “I didn’t… expect to see them so soon,” she added hastily, trying to salvage some semblance of cool indifference.
“Your recovery has been quite speedy,” Nolar said in an agreeable tone. “Let me know if you’d like to discuss any of the topics in the literature. I’d be happy to set aside the time.”
“Yes,” Eyara replied, distracted, suddenly feeling chilled. She couldn’t suppress the shiver that raised bumps across her arms and the back of her neck. “I will be sure to let you know if there’s anything that warrants clarification.” Eyara didn’t even notice the way thinking of her parents had triggered a shift in her speech to something more formal, less of the rough manner of speaking to which she had become accustomed among the Resistance.
Nolar’s eyes were nakedly curious as they raked over her, too observant an individual as a medical professional (and likely representative of some shady Cardassian Organization) for the change in Eyara to go unnoticed. “Let us know if there’s anything we can do for you, Miss Lanak,” she said in a voice that was almost kind.
Don’t trust them, Eyara wanted to say, but she wouldn’t put herself in opposition to other Bajorans, not in front of a Cardassian, not even when it was her parents– the least trustworthy Bajorans she knew. There was a small, 5-year old part of her who wanted to believe they were coming to see her because they loved her and wanted to reassure her that everything was going to be okay. But the other, bigger part, the one that was born when she was twelve, when she learned what it was their parents had been training her for, what they already had her sister doing– that part of her balked at having to see them at all.
When Eyara said nothing, Nolar gave her a polite nod and left Eyara with her thoughts and the massive cache of reading material.
After that, time passed in a haze. Eyara tried to read, tried to plan, tried to think of what she would even say to the people who had ruined and then saved her life. But there was nothing she could focus on. Her thoughts jumped from one thing to another until she exhausted herself into thinking about nothing, doing nothing, and feeling nothing.
It was several hours later that a courteous chime came from the door before it opened and a Cardassian nurse that Eyara had grown familiar with poked her head in.
“Miss Lanak, your parents are here to see you. Are you feeling up to some visitors?”
No, but I don’t really have a choice do I? A sudden urge came over her, to beg the nurse to stay, but she swallowed it back and set aside the medical journal she hadn’t been reading.
“I’m ready,” she lied.
The nurse gave her a smile and ducked out of the room. Her parents entered, and she laid eyes on them for the first time in almost six years. They seemed smaller than she remembered, though her growth spurt had occurred before leaving home. They also looked as polished and put together as ever– always on, always politicians. Her mother, petit and demure, dark hair in a braided updo, and a worried mouth that looked like Eyara’s. Her father seemed paler, the freckles she’d inherited standing out strong across his carefully neutral face. He stood straight as a board, as though trying to gain as much height as he could, nevermind that he was already taller than most. They were both beginning to go gray, her father’s neat red beard salted with white.
Eyara hadn’t known what she would feel when she saw them, but now that they stood there, barely in the door, flanked by a nurse on one side and a security officer on the other, she was surprised to realize that she felt almost nothing.
Upon seeing her, Eyara’s mother’s face lit up with agonized relief and she rushed forward with hands outstretched. Eyara lifted a hand on reflex, letting her take it once she realized she couldn’t properly embrace her child, strapped to the chair as she was.
“Oh, Eyara! Thank the Prophets you survived!”
Her father lingered stoically closer to the door, looking over Eyara’s hover chair and the medical devices that filled the room.
“Hello, Father. Mother.”
“How are you feeling?” her mother asked in a bleating, pleading voice. “Are they treating you well here?”
“I feel like a building fell on me,” Eyara answered, truthful and blunt, uncomfortable with her mother’s show of concern. “But I’m as well cared for as any lab animal could hope to be. I assume you’ve been given the details.”
“They did,” her mother replied, eyes shining faintly with an unwelcome level of drama. “But they tell us when this is all over, you’ll be able to live an entirely normal life! You’re safe now with us, Eyara!”
“I’m not trying to stay safe!” Eyara barked, almost startling herself with the way the words shot from her mouth, carried by resentment and embarrassment. “I’m trying to save Bajorans! They’re dying, Mother. We’re dying.”
Gela’s face was stricken with surprise and hurt but her father harumped from the corner at Eyara’s outburst.
“We’re dying because of the Resistance,” Daltir finally spoke up, stepping further into the room. “Your little movement is doing nothing more than throwing away Bajoran lives.”
Eyara’s eyes flashed, and her face warmed with protest. Leave it to her father to throw accusations first without even half a hello. Her mother may have been performative, but her father was downright incendiary. Unfortunately or not, her temper was inherited from him. “The puppets you call our government are throwing away Bajoran lives by literally signing them over to Cardassian labor camps. They turn away while invaders steal land and homes and resources– they bow politely while Cardassians enslave and murder us! You might be willing to lie to yourselves, but don’t expect me to believe you’re worried about any Bajoran lives besides your own!”
A nearby machine began to beep a warning as Eyara’s pulse climbed and her chest heaved with angry breath.
Similarly, her father’s face reddened. “If this had all been handled differently from the beginning, there wouldn’t have been such a loss of life! We were fools to ever believe that we would be able to stand up to the Cardassians and if everything had been handled peacefully we wouldn’t be in this position today — with you and your lot only fueling the fire!”
Gela shrank away, small and frightened. “Oh, please don’t,” she begged both of them.
“It’s easy to be content with ‘peace’ when you’re safe in your privilege and have the luxury to turn away from the people who are being literally enslaved!” Eyara shot back, sweat starting to bead on her brow. “I stopped being able to pretend everything was fine when I learned what you had taught Elke to do, what you wanted me to do!”
“We gave you the best life you could possibly have as a Bajoran,” her father exploded, towering over her menacingly. “You’re nothing but ungrateful! We had to make sacrifices for that, you know!”
The door opened and the Cardassian nurse rushed in with worry etched on her features. “What’s happening here?” she demanded as she hurried to the computer output that was blaring warnings about Eyara’s vitals.
“I didn’t want that life!” Eyara cried out, ignoring the nurse’s concern. Her hands clenched into tight fists at the arms of her chair, every cell in her body screaming to leave, to lash out, to get away. She was deaf to the alarms, only vaguely aware of the ache in her belly. “I made my choice! I was helping Bajor, I was saving lives! I was willing to die for it! I’ve loved people who did die. What have you sacrificed besides the innocence of your children?”
“Eyara, please!” her mother bleated, tears spilling down her cheeks.
“You’re going to have to leave!” the nurse interrupted forcefully, shooing Eyara’s parents toward the door, placing herself between them and her patient. Somehow the woman had the threatening stance of a bull preparing to charge.
“You could have had anything, Eyara,” her father shot back at her even as he edged toward the door. “You were given a good life! If we hadn’t arranged your extraction, you would have thrown that life away in your useless Resistance!”
Eyara strained against the forcefield keeping her in place, face hot with anger and grief that even now, her parents still couldn’t –or wouldn’t– see that what they’d chosen was wrong, that the ‘good life’ they spoke of couldn’t exist without stepping on the backs of other Bajorans, without denying the suffering they were subject to at the hands of the Cardassians.
Words of denial, of protest, leapt to her tongue, but then her father’s words finished processing through the haze of emotion, and she felt a cold chill grip the back of her neck. She must have been minutes from death when the Cardassians dragged her from that rubble– there wouldn’t have been time for word to reach her parents once the mission went south.
“Wait!” she cried out to the nurse, who was doing her best to herd her father out the door. Her eyes fell on his red face, searching it for truth. “How.. did you know we were there?” she rasped, what was left of her stomach flipping over.
Her father gave a cruel snort. “You think your Resistance is so infallible… but it was easy to plant the right information to ensure we would get you away from that misguided group.”
Eyara felt her blood run cold and her eyes grow hot. “What?” The word came out a whisper, when she wanted to scream. The guilt of the survivor which she’d quietly avoided dwelling on hit her like the column that had crushed her middle. She gripped the arms of her chair, grit her teeth against a sudden nausea. Was it possible that she wasn’t just a survivor by chance, but by design? Her parents’ design? “What… did you do?”
“We saved you from your own mistakes,” her father replied scathingly.
“H-how did you know where I would be?” Eyara asked, needing confirmation of her fears, as much as she feared knowing.
Daltir shook his head. “Your naivete has been your undoing, Eyara. You think it was difficult to feed false information into your Resistance?”
Eyara shivered with emotion, rage and guilt wrestling to win out over the other, stunning her into temporary silence as she stared into the smug face of her father.
“How could you?” she finally choked out. “People died. Thirteen people died so that you could… what? Teach me a lesson?? Don’t you see how monstrous that is?”
“We could have let you die too, Eyara,” her father said with a chilling coldness. “But we trust that eventually you’ll come to your senses and this mark on our family will come to an end.”
“You should have let me die,” Eyara countered, the heat of anger drained from her face, leaving her shaky and pale. She felt sick and her side ached. “You.. you put the blood of people I cared for on my hands. Good people who chose to fight for the freedom of all Bajorans. And you expect me to come home, tail between my legs, and… and do what? Tell all your collaborator friends I was wrong? Go back to ‘entertaining’ Cardassian generals so you can keep your wealth and status and security?”
Even now, her parents still couldn’t –or wouldn’t– see that what they’d chosen, what they were still choosing, was wrong, that the ‘good life’ they’d spoken of couldn’t exist without stepping on the backs of other Bajorans, without denying –without profiting from– the suffering their people were subject to at the hands of the Cardassians.
“You could have a good life, Eyara,” Gela finally spoke up again, tremulous, her face wet with tears.
The Cardassian nurse who oversaw this entire exchange looked decidedly worried, glancing between Eyara and the various machines behind her.
“I chose the life I wanted,” was Eyara’s answer, tired, defeated, caught in a conflict far less winnable than the one fought by the Resistance. “Maybe you can’t understand that. Maybe you just don’t want to understand– but I don’t want to live a life at the expense of others. I can’t… I can’t make that make sense. Ever since I was 5 years old, and I looked into that orb– I knew I wanted to help people, to keep what I saw from coming true. But I can’t do that if I go down your path. That life wouldn’t mean anything.”
A faint sob escaped her mother, but her father remained stone faced.
“You have your recovery period to reconsider,” he said coldly and with that, stepped out of the room.
Gela looked at Eyara imploringly, tears streaming down her cheeks. “Please come home, Eyara.”
Eyara’s own eyes were wet now, red with emotion she couldn’t make her parents understand. Her father wanted power and her mother wanted comfort, and the path Eyara walked led away from both of those things for the sake of a better future for Bajor. She looked away, unable to meet her mother’s pleading stare any longer, unable to muster another word. What was there left to say?
After a moment, she heard Gela’s hesitant footsteps as she left the room without another word, the door whispering shut behind her.
The nurse approached her bedside and asked gently, “Are you alright, Miss Eyara? I’d like to give you a small dose of enorazine to help your body with the strain of stress.”
A part of her wanted to reject the offer, to shout at the nurse to leave her be, to wallow in the suffering she now knew she had brought upon herself —and the others, her guilt whispered– by acting on the bad information her parents had planted for her to find. It was tempting to turn her anger inward, to punish herself as thoroughly and painfully as she deserved. But the medic in her stayed her tongue. If she was going to be of any use to the Resistance after this, if she was ever going to write over this new red in her ledger, her body would have to heal first. Maybe her parents had put the blood on her hands, but she could still be of use to Bajor, couldn’t she? Her hands were bloody, but they could still patch up soldiers, they could still save lives, couldn’t they?
She squeezed her eyes shut, ignoring the tears that spilled free and nodded jerkily. “Do it then,” she choked out, hating how her voice wavered.
It only took a few taps on a screen for the drug to be administered intravenously and though Eyara’s thoughts still spun, she felt her thundering heart rate begin to slow.
She didn’t fight it, welcomed the medicated haze that fell over her brain like the comforting weight of a blanket.
~~~
Two days passed. There was no further contact from her parents. Mostly she was relieved. But a small part of her could quietly admit to being hurt, too. Even disappointed. She hadn’t believed they would change, but she had hoped they might.
In the afternoon, the door hushed open and Dr. Nolar entered the room.
“Good afternoon. Your vitals have been quite stable. How are you feeling?”
“Pain’s at a 2,” Eyara answered blandly, after a beat. She was watching the courtyard again, noticing which employees and officers were beginning to look familiar in their daily routines, their mundane-seeming comings and goings.
“That’s good to hear. I wondered if you might be interested in a stroll in the courtyard. Some sun would do you good.”
Eyara raised a brow just slightly, surprised, despite her emotions’ valiant efforts to stay MIA. “Is that allowed?” She’d assumed, or at least guessed, that her existence here was meant to stay under the radar. But then, perhaps anyone who worked here had already been deemed need-to-know.
“You’re simply a patient here,” Nolar replied easily. “It seems as though you’d be physically up to it. I wouldn’t recommend trying to make an escape in a hover chair, though.”
Though she was tempted to deny that the thought had occurred to her, Eyara only snorted softly, the mildest expression of the gallows humor she felt around the situation she’d found herself in. Really, where was there to go? Even if she did escape? She didn’t know if her parents were still in the city, or if they’d gone home, and she wouldn’t run to them anyway. Elke would welcome her, but she couldn’t risk her sister’s cover– her participation in the Resistance had, so far, gone unknown. Eyara was happy to take the heat, to claim her place as the sole criminal of the family, even if she’d been a mediocre terrorist at best.
“Alright,” she finally said, glancing sideways at Nolar. “If you show me all the exits, I promise not to use them.”
Nolar gave a nod and gestured toward the door. It hissed open before them and Nolar led her into a wide, sterile hallway lined with similar doors. A standard Bajoran hospital. Lift doors opened for them.
“How has your reading been going?” Nolar queried.
“Fine,” Eyara answered. Truthfully, she’d been doing nothing but reading for the last two days, finding it to be the only activity that could distract her from the turmoil in her chest, the painful wound with which guilt and grief had struck her. Some of the reading was dense and difficult, and she found she liked the challenge. Though Nolar hadn’t, of course, offered her much in the way of Cardassian medical literature, she’d given Eyara some basic reading on other species– humans, Vulcans, even Ferengi. These, she found fascinating, though she didn’t suspect she would have any practical opportunity to put the information to use. At least, not here. Maybe one day, if the Resistance succeeded and the occupation ended, then Bajor might become part of the more peaceful galactic community. It was a nice thought. “Is there more I can read about your work?”
“Much of my work is classified,” Nolar answered. The lift opened onto another hallway but Eyara sensed she was at ground level. “There may be a few of my early papers I could share with you. I’ll take a look.”
“Thank you.”
The hallway emptied into a large lobby with many other hallways branching in various directions. Most of the people they passed were Cardassian but there was the occasional Bajoran, mostly in patient’s outfits like Eyara’s. A wide glass door slid open before them and when they stepped out into the courtyard, sunlight streamed over Eyara’s skin for the first time in weeks. The grounds were well-kept and attractive, the early summer day pleasant with a soft breeze.
She took a breath, and then another, slower, taking her time, letting her eyes close briefly, savoring it. She hadn’t realized how she missed the sun, as used as she was to being cooped up in some bunker or hideaway, in caves, even an asteroid once or twice.
“If you’re interested, I could provide you with some testing materials on the reading you’ve been doing. If you’d like to measure your retention.”
Eyara opened her eyes, but kept them on the courtyard. It was odd to realize that, despite having been appropriated from the Bajorans, some Cardassian must have taken it upon themselves to keep the plants here alive, groomed, cared for. There was little practical reason for it, and surely the military would consider such work a waste of time and resources, yet, none-the-less, someone had done it. It humanized her captors in a way that made Eyara suddenly uncomfortable. She had a complicated personal history with Cardassians, of course, but most of the resistance had no hesitation about seeing the occupying forces as a monolith of monsters, nor could she blame them. It was easier to kill monsters.
“Alright,” she agreed, seeing no reason to turn down the offer. If there was a risk in showing herself to be too clever, she could always intentionally test more poorly.”I could try.”
“It seems there’d be no harm, hm? Even poor test results further engrain the material. I did quite poorly in my first years of university. But I sense an aptitude in you.”
“Why did you become a doctor?” Eyara wondered, uncertain how to respond to Nolar’s complimentary words, and thus opting to ignore them.
“At first, because of the prestige,” Nolar answered with surprising honesty. “But with education I became fascinated by the science, particularly cutting-edge technological advancement. I developed an expertise with peripheral medical devices all the way back in university.”
“Am I the first person you’ve tested your models on?”
“No, my designs started out as Cardassian-only in nature, so most of my patients have been Cardassian. But I find xenobiology particularly interesting and I’ve enjoyed branching out.”
“So you volunteered for this posting?” Eyara wondered. Maybe she was searching for a reason to hate the woman– she hadn’t expected to meet a Cardassian doctor during her time in the resistance, and certainly not one who seemed so… normal. If they’d met before Eyara had left home, before everything fell apart, it might have been easy to become friends with someone like her. It was unsettling. Why wasn’t it easy to hate them all, like it seemed to be for her fellow liberationists?
Blood on her hands, the smell of it in her nostrils, the Cardassian’s face, twisted in confusion and rage as he slumped against her, the weight of his corpse pinning her against the wall of the makeshift med bay. A drink shoved into her shaking hands later that night, comrades celebrating her kill. Throwing it up. Sick at what she’d done. The others laughing jovially. Eyara can’t hold her alcohol. But she could hold back her tears, and she did. She was good at that.
Eyara blinked, shaking herself from the memory, dimly realizing Nolar had spoken.
“Sorry, what?”
“I said yes,” Nolar repeated easily. “I was interested in expanding my skills in xenobiology. This is a teaching hospital, you know. There are Cardassian and Bajoran medical students here.”
Collaborators, Eyara thought instinctively, then felt her neck grow hot with shame. And what was she then? No, she knew that’s what she was, what her whole family was. And all she could do was try to make up for it, to keep working toward bringing her–if not her family’s– ledger back into the black. For all she knew, the other Bajorans working here were doing something similar, were looking for ways to improve the lives of their fellow Bajorans by taking advantage of the Cardassian’s medical knowledge. It wasn’t her place to judge or assume. She nodded idly.
“Lots of military for just a teaching hospital,” she noted, eyes darting toward a pair of officers in black armor, sporting familiar, wicked-looking phase-disrupter rifles.
Take it, Eyara. The rifle pressed into her hands. Cardassian blood still spattered the barrel. If they break through the line again, you’ll need to protect yourself. Your patients.
Distantly she heard an acknowledging hum from Nolar. “I’ll admit, it’s not an ideal learning environment. But the technology is cutting edge and some of Cardassia’s most accomplished doctors are teaching here.”
“But why?” Eyara heard herself say. “Why are you here? Why couldn’t you have just stayed on Cardassia?” Her outward demeanor didn’t change, but the words caught in her throat. She felt so helpless.
Nolar looked at her rather quizzically. She sat down as they passed a bench overlooking a patch of grass and flowers. “It was a good opportunity for me,” she said, as if unaware of the gravity of her very presence on Bajor.
“Not you,” Eyara scoffed, half a sob she quickly swallowed, turned into a quiet growl. “Not just you,” she amended, voice gravelly. “Everyone. All of you. Why did you have to come here to Bajor to have your medical breakthroughs, to mine your ore, to play politics and war games. To make orphans.”
Nolar, nonplussed, puzzled over Eyara for a moment. “I won’t be able to excuse what’s been done here nor do I condone everything that my people have done. I’m afraid I don’t have answers.”
Eyara huffed a humorless laugh and looked away, unfocused gaze on the manicured lawn that had once been a Bajoran’s responsibility to tend. “It should be simple. But it never is.” A long pause stretched between them. Finally, Eyara spoke again. “Did my parents go back to the Capitol?”
“I don’t know honestly,” Nolar answered. “We haven’t heard from them. I did hear about what happened when they visited. Are there other family members that we can contact for you?”
Eyara shook her head. The last thing she would risk was getting Elke involved. Not when her connection to the resistance had yet to be discovered. There was other family, distant cousins and such, but noone they were close to. They either held the same politics as her parents, or were ordinary people trying to live what lives they could. She didn’t blame them for that. Not everyone was suited for the fight. You aren’t either, rich girl. Too soft, too privileged.
“No, there’s noone.” She just had to wait until she was well enough to live on her own. Then she could reach out to her contacts and figure out where she could go, how she could be of use again. “But there’s war orphanages and half-way houses. There’s places I can go.”
“Well,” Nolar began, “Between you and me, you can stay at the hospital essentially as long as you like. I can easily get the clearance for it.”
Eyara didn’t answer right away, but glanced over at the doctor for the first time since pausing here in the courtyard. Was it a gesture of kindness? Or only Nolar taking advantage of the opportunity to keep her latest project (and all the experimental tech inside her) close at hand? More importantly, did her motives even matter so long as Eyara herself could get something out of the arrangement? If she stayed long enough to heal fully, would Nolar come to trust her enough to give her access to better information? To the schematics of the organs themselves? To Cardassian biology? If not in written data, then perhaps in conversation? There was opportunity here, to learn more. To learn things that could help not just herself but the cause.
“Well. Maybe for now,” she finally replied, her hesitance genuine. “At least until these things you put in me don’t need so much constant monitoring.”
“What does it feel like?” Nolar wondered, changing the subject. “The organs, I mean. Some of my patients swear they can feel the devices. I think it’s a psychological effect.”
Eyara shrugged. “Mostly I don’t feel them. So far. Everything’s pretty numb on the right from here,” she indicated with a flat palm just below one breast, “To here.” She lowered her hand to the bend where thigh met hip. “I suppose nerve repair is still slow and complex, even for Cardassian technology.”
“Mm,” Nolar agreed. “It’s one of the most challenging hurdles. Bajorans generally recover faster than Cardassians. Your wounds heal faster and your skin is less prone to scarring.”
“I wonder if it’s physiological or environmental,” Eyara pondered, mentally taking note of this information. “Have there been any notable changes or differences in the healing process here versus back on Cardassia? Perhaps something about Bajor itself is more conducive to cellular restoration.”
“What an interesting hypothesis,” Nolar said with a rare smile. “If anything, recovery is easier for us on our homeworld. Bajor is beautiful but Cardassia’s habitable regions are hotter and drier, which we’re more adapted to.”
This much, of course, Eyara knew already. Whenever her parents had entertained Cardassian guests, they’d always kept the environmental controls set to warmer temperatures than would be preferable to most Bajorans. Just one more way to make their occupiers more comfortable in a place they didn’t truly belong. “Bajoran winters must be unpleasant for you,” she observed. “If your planet is so warm.”
“Extremely,” Nolar replied conversationally. “I usually go home during the winter months.”
Eyara nodded vaguely, suddenly struck by the oddness of their casual small talk. How could it be so easy to hate her parents and so complicated to hate Cardassians? The distant, muffled sound of explosions and the cries of the dying began to disturb the quiet of the garden as though in accusation of her conflict, and Eyara grew tense, fighting the urge to clap her hands over both ears.
“Miss Lanak?” There was no telling how many times the doctor had said her name before it registered. “Are you feeling alright? Perhaps it’s time to return to your room.”
“I’m fine,” Eyara insisted through grit teeth, shaking her head as though to chase the hallucinations away. She knew that’s all they were– it wasn’t uncommon, after all, to come across shell-shocked Bajorans. She’d done her best to ease their discomfort with sedatives, even herbs. She knew the best things to smoke and to eat for such conditions, but hadn’t expected the intense vulnerability that came along with being on the patient side of the equation. She found she didn’t want Nolar to see her like this, and on top of that she didn’t want to share her knowledge of Bajoran remedies with a Cardassion– even someone non-military like the doctor. “I want to stay outside. Please.” The words tasted ashy, and she could almost smell the dust and smoke.
The doctor looked at her with a moment of hesitation but eventually nodded. She sat down on the edge of a planter spilling over with fragrant flowers. A long moment of silence passed, the doctor taking a moment to close her eyes and lift her face to the sun appreciatively which somehow took years off the middle-aged Cardassian’s face.
Eyara tried too, to close her eyes, but found the sounds grew louder, so instead she tried to focus on her surroundings, recalling grounding exercises that Parin had taught her. I can see the grass, the sky, the paving stones, the concrete benches, the doctor. I can feel the chair, the breeze, the warmth of the sun, the… the slick, hot blood on my palms. No! Eyara’s gaze flew down to her hands, dry and pale brown, un-stained. I can.. I can smell the soil. And… she wrinkled her nose. I can smell sweat. My own sweat. I can hear footsteps. And the doctor’s breathing. And… my own breathing. She took a deeper breath then, as she became aware of it, exhaled slowly, remembering Parin’s patient voice. “Breathe out as slow and long as you can. Longer on the exhale. It helps ease the sympathetic nervous system.”
Eyara’s heart ached to think of the woman who had trained her, looked out for her, loved her even maybe. But her heart rate had begun to slow, and the shouts and explosions were more and more distant. She reached up to touch her naked ear.
“I don’t suppose you know if they retrieved my earring?” she asked, finally breaking the silence after a handful of minutes had passed.
“Oh, yes, I recall it being removed during your first trauma surgery. I’m sorry that it hasn’t yet been returned to you. I’ll see to that right away.” She looked away from the basking sun to the Cardassian padd she carried, evidently immediately sending a message to someone.
Eyara breathed a small sigh of relief, dipped her chin into a nod of acknowledgement. At least Parin’s earring wasn’t lost in the rubble of her failure. As little thought as she gave the prophets on a day to day basis, without the weight of the jewelry, she felt unbalanced. It would be a comfort to have it back.
“Thank you.”
“Of course. That should have been taken care of. Overall has the staff been treating you well, Miss Lanak?”
“Please. Call me Kotri.” She had already claimed Parin’s earring. She might as well take her name. “I no longer wish to hear nor claim the name of my parents.”
“Kotri?” Nolar repeated with a bit of surprise. “Very well. Miss Kotri then? Of course.” She gave a sympathetic sigh. “I’m sorry about your family. I don’t know what you’ve been through but It’s very unfortunate to not connect with those who are meant to protect you.”
Kotri Eyara didn’t answer for a breath or two, and she wasn’t sure she would be able. “Thank you,” she finally managed, licking dry lips and swallowing with a dry throat. “You’re right, it is unfortunate, and no, you don’t know what I’ve been through.”
Nolar just hummed in acknowledgement and let a long moment of silence stretch between them. Finally she said, “You know, if you’d like to talk to someone while you’re here I can arrange that. Mental health is part of the somatic recovery.”
Eyara immediately, instinctively screwed her face into an expression of distaste. But her visage softened quickly after with a heavy sigh. She knew Nolar spoke truth. It was the same thing she’d been taught. “I’ll… consider it.”
The doctor nodded but didn’t press the issue and lapsed into silence, scanning her padd. It was another good twenty minutes before she finally apologized that she had an appointment to get to but would see that the nursing staff gave Eyara opportunities to go outside since her recovery was going well.
Eyara could think of nothing else to say, and thanking the woman twice in one day seemed just too much. So she only nodded and let Nolar guide her chair back to her room.
The days went on and on, much the same. Nolar was good to her word and arranged for walks in the gardens once a day, which seemed perhaps to speed Kotri’s recovery. She spent the rest of her time reading, watching, absorbing as much information as she could, about her surroundings, about the other people here, and about Cardassians in general. Her medical studies took up much of her attention, and she participated in testing as suggested, though she didn’t do quite as well as she knew she could, reluctant to draw too much of Nolar’s attention by proving to be more exceptional than average. Slowly, she regained more of her movement, though it was weeks longer before Kotri was allowed to stand, let alone walk, and even then, only for short spurts.
She grew more and more restless, itching to leave, itching to reach out, wanting to rejoin the Resistance, but now too, afraid to do so. Afraid to face those who might know of the mission she’d failed, of the people she’d gotten killed. But they were idle fears, because she could do nothing in the moment but wait. Wait and watch, and learn as much as she could in the time she had been given– the time she’d paid for with her people’s blood.
Time slowed to a crawl. It was two months in when Dr. Nolar deemed her strong enough to be able to have a tour of the organ production facility where she donned protective gear to be able to witness the smocked and masked professionals as they oversaw the intricate process.
“What do you think?” Nolar asked proudly at the end of the tour.
“I think… that it’s impressive,” Kotri confessed. She was walking more regularly now, though the chair hovered nearby for when she inevitably got winded. For now, she stayed on her feet, following Nolar at a politely slow pace. “I hope that more Bajorans will benefit from your developments in the future.” I hope we aren’t just the lab animals for advancements that will be taken back to Cardassia and never shared.
“It may be hard to believe but I honestly hope that as well, Miss Kotri. By the way, how have you been feeling about your studies? Now that you’ve got a level of essentially collegiate education you could specialize your efforts.” There was little doubt in Eyara’s mind at this point that Nolar had a particular interest in her, in spite of her efforts to stay under the Cardassian’s radar. Though she tried to come off as mediocre, Nolar encouraged her as though she were family. The woman was obviously busy but over the three months she’d been there, she went out of her way to visit Kotri frequently, taking time to talk to her about medicine and Kotri’s personal experiences as a medic, offering to quiz her before she planned to utilize the testing materials.
Eyara considered her words, ever cautious about how truthful to be around the woman, as much as she’d come to believe Nolar sincere, if still somewhat ignorant and certainly privileged. Still, one thing that hadn’t changed was Kotri’s determination to be as much the master of her own body as possible. She needed to know about her own prosthetics and how to care for them. She needed to know she could be self-sufficient away from the facility and Nolar.
“I confess… my curiosity about the medicine of artificial organ and limb replacement has yet to diminish.” Eyara glanced aside at the doctor. “There are so many people touched by the fallout of the occupation that these technologies could help. I think I’d like to help make that happen.”
Nolar beamed at her, but Eyara could never quite shake the feeling that, to the doctor, she was just the smartest primate in the test facility.
~~~
It was a morning like any other, another full month later, when everything changed.
Kotri was finishing breakfast in the room she’d occupied for over three months when the door rang and Doctor Nolar entered. Kotri could tell right away that something was going on — the doctor generally had a very easy-going air in spite of her often packed schedule. This morning she was hurried, even slightly disheveled.
“Good morning, Miss Kotri,” she said and went on right away, “I have some important news. We just received the word that Cardassia will be withdrawing from the Bajoran system. I didn’t want to leave without saying goodbye to you.”
Kotri’s stomach dropped, and her skin prickled with the onslaught of startled emotion. How had she not seen this coming? Had this been planned for a while and they’d simply kept it from her, or was it as sudden for them as for her? She opened her mouth to speak, then found her thoughts too much a jumble to pick one thread from among them. She should be happy, of course, elated even. This is what the Resistance had been fighting for for decades. But a renewed wave of guilt washed over her at the same time. She had been sitting here all this time, with the hope and idea that whatever she learned would be useful to the Resistance, that she’d be able to leave and find a new cell, make herself useful again. Was there even a Resistance anymore? Just what had happened?
“What–” she started, voice cracking, then began again. “What happened? Why is the military withdrawing? Wh-when?” During her stay here in the hospital facility she’d naturally had limited access to outside news, but she never thought she would be missing something so big as this.
“Unfortunately at my level I don’t have that sort of information,” Nolar said apologetically. “But the military has already begun its retreat. Cardassian citizens like myself are advised to leave immediately. Miss Kotri– I know our relationship is complicated and unusual. But don’t hesitate to contact me on Cardassia Prime if you ever need help with your medical devices.”
“Immediately immediately?” Kotri echoed, beyond shocked. “As in today?” She couldn’t even respond to the offer, the invitation, as much trouble as she was having wrapping her mind around this enormous shift in her reality. In Bajor’s reality.
Nolar nodded seriously. “Today. I’m honestly not sure what will happen with this hospital. Most of the Bajoran staff are fleeing for fear of retribution. You’d be best off finding new housings, I believe.”
“I–” Kotri began, then realized she had no idea what there was to say. Her world had been, once again, tilted on its axis, and her figurative footing now matched her literal footing– shaky and unstable. She started to think, started to go down the list of people she might be able to reach out to, couches she might be able to crash on. She couldn’t conceive of returning to her parents’– she’d rather sleep on the streets again than go back to them. She might be able to contact Elke, but last she had heard from her sister, she was still a continent away, inaccessible without transportation. There was no telling which of her fellow Resistance fighters were still alive, and many of them had been on a first names only basis for the safety of themselves and their families. Parin had had a brother… she’d never met him– he was a civilian, a… a grocer, maybe, Kotri thought. The city he’d last lived in wasn’t nearby, but at least there wasn’t an ocean between here and there.
“Can.. can you get me access to communications?” she asked. “And… how much information– about my organs and, and anything else that could help me– how much can you give me? Data rods, a padd, anything? Please, Nolar, anything you can do for me right now is the best way you can ensure you’ll ever see your work again under better circumstances.” She gestured at her torso, pressed a palm against her abdomen.
Nolar hesitated for a moment, taut and thoughtful. “Yes. Communications is easy. The console in this very room should be activated by now. The information… give me twenty minutes. I’ll see what I can do.” With that, she hurried out of the room.
While Nolar was gone, Kotri prepared. Her panic and fear and even her joy at the apparent end of the Cardassian occupation– all of that she wrapped up neatly and set aside for later. Now, she had to focus on surviving. She had very few items belonging to her, even after 3 months of stay, but she replicated a bag, some clothes and boots, simple basics that she was allowed to access. She added ration bars and a canteen, and frowned when her attempts to replicate or access even a simple first aid kit were met with failure. She found a handful of hypospray vials– the formulations required to supplement her body’s new limitations, and packed those, though she’d have to beg or scavenge the hypospray elsewhere. She took the padd she’d been reading on, though leaving the boundaries of the hospital would no doubt lose her access to the medical journals and other reading material if Nolar was unable to procure the data rods for her.
Ten minutes later she sat at the console, unable to put it off any longer, and attempted to access local communications. She queried the computer, somewhat trepidatiously, on the possibility of contacting Parin’s brother, Kotri Ezit.
After a moment of waiting, a thin man with unkempt brown hair appeared on the screen and looked at her unknowingly. “Yes? Can I help you?”
“Kotri Ezit?” she confirmed, managing somehow to keep the tremor from her voice.
“Yes, this is Ezit.”
“You don’t know me, but I– I knew your sister. She– spoke fondly of you.”
She watched as surprise and a bit of sorrow passed over Ezit’s face. “Oh, I see. Yes… My sister and I were quite close. She’s missed. And you are…?”
“My name is Eyara. I don’t… know how much you were in contact with her or if she ever had a chance to mention me– we were… understandably cautious about sharing names.” She reached up and touched Parin’s earring nervously. If she had to, she’d trade it back to him, but she selfishly hoped she would be able to keep it.
Another wave of surprise and recognition appeared on Ezit’s features as his eyes focused on the earring. “Ah, I see… Honestly, Parin and I haven’t communicated much in recent years, unfortunately. She was concerned about her activities putting me in danger. She didn’t mention you but if she left you her earring, she must have considered you family. What can I do for you Eyara?”
Kotri swallowed, nodded, took a breath. “The truth is, I– I need somewhere to stay. Just– just until I can find my sister. I’ve been in a Cardassian hospital and everyone’s pulling out suddenly– I guess you’ve probably heard. I…wouldn’t ask if I had anywhere else to go on such short notice.” Her words spilled quickly, anxiously, from dry lips and she couldn’t quite bring herself to meet Ezit’s eyes through the view screen.
Ezit listened quietly with a faint, contemplative frown. “I see. It sounds like you’ve been through quite a bit. Yes, the news is everywhere about the withdrawal… The Cardassians are trying to pass it off as the decision being to no longer waste their efforts… but we all know that they haven’t been able to keep up with the Resistance attacks for months. Anyway, Eyara… My home is modest but I do have a room you could stay in to transition. Right now especially is a time for us to support one another, right? I’m sure it’s what my sister would have wanted.”
Relief washed over her so quickly, it made her feel light-headed. But she managed another breath. “Thank you– thank you so much. I’m in your debt.” She bowed her head and let her hand fall from the earring. The dangling chain brushed comfortingly against her earlobe. “I’m not likely to be able to get my hands on a functioning vehicle, so it may take me a few days to reach you. But I will arrive as soon as I can. I– look forward to trading stories.”
The man nodded and gave her an encouraging smile. “As do I. I can finally hear about Parin’s exploits. Try to stay in touch as you travel, I could meet you at least part way. Be safe.”
“I will, and I’ll try to contact you again along the way.” The smile she gave him was one of relief and gratitude. She finally began to feel some of the muscles of her shoulders unknot, just a little bit. She had a place to go, a first step. She could worry about the rest of it later. “Thank you again.”
When the screen blinked back to black, Kotri took another deep, steading breath and stood again. She returned to her bag, and began to look around the room for anything else she could scavenge. With some elbow grease and a makeshift pry bar, she was able to procure an previously inaccessible emergency kit tucked into the wall and retrieved a dermal regenerator and a few basic hyposprays with things like pain control and antibiotics.
By the time Nolar returned, she had a pack ready to go. The doctor handed her a stack of three padds. Her face was lined with an unusual anxiety, but she paused to catch Kotri’s eye and say, “This is as much as I could obtain copies of discretely. With your intelligence it should be enough to get you by. As I said, if there is a crisis you’ll be able to find me on Cardassia prime. And… even if there’s not a crisis, it would be nice to hear from you someday, Miss Kotri. Not just because of the organs you’re carrying. I’d like to know where your story takes you.”
Kotri took the stack of padds, and tucked them securely into her bag, hefting it over one shoulder. She reached out a hand then, and took the doctor’s wrist with a quick squeeze and a nod. “Thank you for this. And these.” She let go of Nolar and touched her own stomach with a wry smirk. Even though half her organs were artificial now, she still felt the fluttery sensation of anxiety and adrenaline. “If you’re as clever as everyone here says you are, I’m sure I’ll do alright. And if my story takes me somewhere interesting, you can bet you’ll hear about it. Good luck, Doctor. For a Cardassion, you didn’t suck.” She shot a grin at Nolar.
A smile twitched across the woman’s stressed features and she gave a quiet huff of laughter. “Good luck to you as well, Miss Kotri. I think you’ll do great things.” She gave a final nod and then she was gone.
Everything felt different, even the hospital itself. Outside, the courtyard was vacant where it would have once been filled with milling Bajorans and Cardassians. Inside, the hospital felt quiet and abandoned when she stepped out into the hallway. No one was at the nurses’ station. A few people hurried through the lobby, ignoring Kotri entirely on their own important routes.
Beyond the wide glass doors of the lobby was a world entirely new to Kotri.
She had a direction in mind, and with a little luck, enough supplies to get her there. It wasn’t the first time she’d suddenly found herself alone, staring down an uncertain future, and she didn’t expect it to be the last. But she’d lived through worse, with less help and fewer resources. She could do this.
Kotri took one last, deep breath as a patient, a captive Resistance medic and took her first step out of the hospital as a free Bajoran.