Gran smiled, tugging at his new uniform. “Yes, I’ve been awarded the rank of lieutenant already. It’s a bit…surreal, I think, but…I felt it was the only thing I could do. I’ve always been a soldier, you see, since I was barely a teenager…”

“You’ll be an asset to service, I’m certain,” Odo said, and he meant it. He hoped Gran could see that he did, but it was often difficult for him to convey his thoughts appropriately, and he could never quite tell if people took him seriously or not.

“What will you do now that the Cardassians are gone?” Gran inquired. “You’re out of a job, aren’t you?”

Odo looked up at the sky without quite meaning to, for it had occurred to him often since he had smuggled himself off the station that he was now further away from finding his own people than he had been while on the station. It had, of course, occurred to him that if the Federation was coming, there might be a better opportunity to find out where he had come from, but he didn’t have the first idea how to pursue that possibility. “I don’t know,” he finally said.

Gran scrutinized him for a moment as if he were trying to decide what to do with him, and then he said something that Odo would never have considered. “The Militia…is always looking for volunteers. If you tell them that you worked on the station—”

Odo scoffed. “They’ll have me executed. All known collaborators are to be turned in to the government immediately.”

“No, no. Odo, I can vouch for you that you helped the resistance. You did far more good than harm, and I know I’m not the only Bajoran who will say so. You remember Ficen Dobat? He joined the Militia as well, and I know he’ll tell Jaro Essa how you helped us all when the detection grid came down for the last time…”

Odo thought he remembered Ficen Dobat, but he remembered a few other Bajorans as well—Bajorans whom he had personally committed to death. He worked to keep his face free from emotion, but it was surprisingly difficult after it had become such a habit to associate his emotions with his facial expressions. “Perhaps I willjoin the Militia,” he muttered. It was like Gran had said—all he had ever known was to be a soldier. All Odo had ever known was to follow rules, although he had certainly come to question them in the end. But maybe the Militia coulduse him, and perhaps it would give him the opportunity to feel as though he could be forgiven for the sins he had committed while working for the Cardassians.

“I can take you where you need to go, if you’re considering it, Odo.”

“I am considering it,” he said quickly, before he could change his mind, and he began to walk with Gran through the crowds.

“Where will you be stationed?” Odo asked the Bajoran.

“I don’t know yet,” Gran told him. “I’ll be getting my assignment later today. I’m eager to find out what it will be.” He let out his breath all at once. “After all, wherever I go, that will be my new home. My parents are dead—I have no one left but those I fought with in the resistance. The Militia…will be my new family.”

Odo nodded to himself. “New family,” he repeated, and saw that they had reached the recruiting office. Outside was a short line of men and women waiting to sign up and serve their world. Odo and Gran took their place in the line, but the people just ahead of them quickly spied Gran’s rank designation on his uniform, and moved to allow him to pass ahead of them. He nodded gratefully, and Odo followed the Bajoran inside, suddenly overcome with what Gran had just been saying—he was about to join a new family, just like that. Of course, that all relied on the assumption that the Bajorans wouldn’t turn him in as a collaborator. He looked nervously at Gran, who returned a reassuring smile as they passed the line of people outside.

Just before entering the building, Odo looked up at the sky again, thinking of Terok Nor and how it might have been as close as he would ever be to his people. But he shook off the thought as he walked through the double doors that led them inside the temporary headquarters of the Militia, an old, partially destroyed building that had once functioned as the offices of the local lawkeepers. Just as Gran had said, he was suddenly eager. To be part of a new world, and part of a new family—though he knew, on some level, that it would not be as true for him as it would be for Gran. Odo was an outsider, and a Bajoran uniform wouldn’t change that fact.

He turned to Gran as he was led inside the building with towering, curved ceilings, all blackened with smoke from the fires that had destroyed the rear portion of the building. The aura of destruction was heavy in the atmosphere, but nobody seemed to be paying attention to it as the volunteers filed toward a wide table of officers. The men and women seated behind the tables tapped away at their keypads while doing retinal scans for each Bajoran as he or she approached the table. Odo suddenly felt very uncomfortable, considering that his physiology would hardly permit the sort of inspection that was likely required for a recruited soldier—until he saw something that astonished him. Kira Nerys, bearing the rank of major, was standing behind one of the tables, her once-tangled hair trimmed and smoothed neatly just beyond her chin, the rigid silhouette of her uniform lending an imposing outline to her slender shoulders.

She looked up from her computer, and recognition instantly flooded her face as she glanced in the direction of Odo and Gran. “Odo!” she cried out. “You’re safe!”

“Yes,” he said awkwardly, as several people looked to see what the fuss was about. Gran shifted, seeming to know that it was safe to leave Odo on his own, thumping the shape-shifter on the shoulder and backing away.

Kira gestured Odo forward to the spot at her table, and he moved through the smattering of curious onlookers. “Have you come to join the Militia?” she asked, with eagerness in her voice.

“I…” Odo began, uncomfortable with this very public reunion.

“I’m to be stationed on Terok Nor,” she told him, and then frowned. “Starfleet has been invited to help us administrate it—they’ll be renaming it to suit their own agenda, of course.” Odo could see that she was not at all pleased with the impending arrival of the Federation, but her face twisted back into a smile without further elaboration. “If you’d like to serve on the station as well, I can probably see to it that you can be appointed to security—”

“Security?” Odo replied with gratitude. “You could…you would do that?”

“Of course!” Kira replied emphatically. “Who better to do the job than someone who already knows the station? Odo, it’ll be perfect!”

“Yes,” he replied with faint confidence, before his own particular brand of self-doubt crept back in. He determinedly overrode it. “Perfect.” For a moment, as he watched Kira tap away at her computer console, Odo actually believed it.

Appendices

The following is a guide to many of the specific characters, places, and related material in Dawn of the Eagles. Where such an item was mentioned or appeared previously in a movie, episode, or other work of Star Trekfiction, its first appearance is cited.

APPENDIX I: BAJOR

Characters

Baj(male) resistance fighter, member of Li Nalas’s cell

Bareil Antos(male) priest, a ranjen and follower of Opaka Sulan (DS9/“In the Hands of the Prophets”)

Basso Tromac(male) personal aide to Skrain Dukat (DS9/“Wrongs Darker Than Death or Night”)

Bek(male) priest, a prylar living aboard Terok Nor; liaison between the Cardassian occupation forces and the Vedek Assembly (DS9/“The Collaborator”)

Bestram(male) resistance fighter, member of the Shakaar cell

Chavin(male) resistance fighter, member of the Shakaar cell