Macet appeared at Kira’s side. “Colonel. I apologize for the behavior of my crew.”
Kira shook her head. “We don’t know who started this.”
“It doesn’t matter who started this,” Macet said sharply. “My men were wrong to have been fighting. They will be appropriately punished, I assure you, and will submit to any interrogations Lieutenant Ro might require.”
“Interrogation is a very strong word,” Kira said, picking her way through collapsed, bruised and beaten revelers toward the west platform.
Macet walked alongside Kira, paralyzing with a cold glare whoever among his men dared look at him. “If interrogation is required to assure my people’s compliance you have my blessing to do whatever you need to do.”
“Thank you. I’m sure Lieutenant Ro will appreciate your cooperation.” As she walked, Kira began making mental calculations about how much damage had been done, what the cost would be, who would pay, and whether they would even be able to reopen the Promenade before morning. Irritated by the pointlessness of such wanton destruction, she gritted her teeth. When will we ever learn?
Out of the corner of her eye, Kira saw Dr. Girani and four nurses rushing out of a turbolift to join their colleagues already tending the wounded. Several of the medics appeared to have been roused from their beds: Lieutenant Chagall, usually a stickler for regulation, wore shorts and his Academy T-shirt; and Ensign Mancuso had thrown on a flowered bathrobe. Kira allowed herself to relax a bit: at least the wounded could be attended to properly.
“Considering the numbers involved, I hope that you don’t have any objections to my securing Cardassian prisoners in the brig on my ship,” Macet said. “Lieutenant Ro can post her own squad of security guards, of course, but I suspect your facilities will be over taxed if she has to detain my men as well.”
Kira paused to look over at Macet. He’s trying as hard as the rest of us.“I’ll inform Lieutenant Ro. Let’s get to work.”
After Ro delegated the investigatory assignments, she went to interview Quark. Kira made herself useful helping out both the security and medical teams. Amazing how a threatening glare from the CO helped induce a belligerent Militia member to cooperate, or how an extra pair of hands, regardless of rank, were appreciated. Case in point: a massive, but unconscious Cardassian had collapsed on top of his groaning crewmate. With Kira taking the shoulders and a security officer taking the legs, they heaved him off, leaving the formerly pinned crewmate available for Macet to take into custody.
How could this have happened?Kira wondered, nauseated by the smells of sweat and blood. A hand touched her shoulder and she turned to see Counselor Matthias and Thriss standing behind her.
Matthias, like Ro and some of the others, looked like she’d tumbled out of bed. Unlike Lieutenant Ro, who had been striding around barefoot, Phillipa had managed to slide her feet into a pair of fuzzy pink slippers. Gratefully, Thriss wore sensible, nondescript civilian clothes.
“Ummm, Colonel,” Matthias started in a gravelly voice before interrupting herself with a yawn. “I only have Starfleet’s field medicine certification, but when I heard the emergency call go out over the com, I knew you’d need extra hands. I’m here to help.”
“Thank you, Commander. And Thriss has joined you because…?”
Commander Matthias rubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands. “Thriss trained as a medic through level three. Preparing for med school, in fact.” Phillipa yawned again. “She worked with the civilian population on Betazed after the emancipation. Situations like these are all in a day’s work for her.”
“I spent two months working in hospitals in the capitol city,” Thriss said, thrusting out her medkit for Kira to inspect. She appeared to have the right tools, but Kira had reservations.
At Kira’s skeptical look, Matthias added, “I’m confident that Thriss can handle anything Dr. Girani would assign her. Allowing her to help out could be mutually beneficial.”
“Report to Dr. Girani, then,” Kira instructed them both. “And thank you.”
Matthias lingered behind for a moment, waiting for Thriss to be out of earshot. “Colonel, I’ll stay close by. If I sense that she needs to leave, I’ll escort her back to her quarters.”
“Thriss does seem more—alert—maybe cheerful?” Kira observed.
“She expects to hear from Ensign ch’Thane when the next batch of communiqués comes from the Defiant.She loves him—misses him. Hearing from him reassures her,” Matthias explained. She yawned again and trailed off after Thriss.
Kira appreciated Matthias’s efforts: the only way they’d survive the current craziness was to be vigilant in looking out for each other. No matter the planet of origin, parentage, past misdeeds or present challenges—we have to assume that our success or failures come by every individual’s choice.She considered the work being done before her, the cooperation of diverse organizations and species in helping these stupid fools who probably deserved their misery.
A Cardassian sporting a bruise on his forehead the size of a jumjafruit moaned somewhere to her left. She dropped to a knee, clicked the tricorder off her utility belt and scanned his skull, looking for evidence of a concussion. Jerking away from her, the soldier stared up at her, fear and distrust in his eyes, his body rigid.
“You’re going to be fine,” Kira said, reassuringly. “I’ll find you something that will take care of the pain.”
Ro made her way around the debris until she reached the keypad access port to Quark’s bar. An alphanumeric combination overrode Quark’s lock and the door obediently opened. Nonchalantly, she strolled into the bar, nodding a hello to Morn, who sat nursing a mug.
What a mess.
Shattered goblets and snifters, malodorous cheeses and seafood sauces smeared into the upholstery, wadded-up napkins, overturned tongowheels, and more than a dozen broken wine bottles drizzling fermented fruit juice onto the floor. Navigating this in bare feet was akin to picking her way through a minefield. There had to be something…an idea occurred to her.
“Hey, Treir! You around here somewhere?” Ro called, craning her neck, trying to catch a glimpse of what other surprises might yet await her.
Quark popped up from behind the bar. “Not even a ‘hello, Quark, I was worried about you?’ We had a regular Core breach in here tonight and you’re not the slightest bit concerned.” He clicked his tongue. “You and Treir don’t have something going on that I don’t know about, do you?” he said, a shade too casually.
“Shut up, Quark. I need shoes.”
“Now that you mention it, your wardrobe is on the skimpy side tonight. I’m sure I’ve got something in the storeroom. Back in a flash.” Disappearing into the rear, he materialized a moment later, a pair of spangly, sparkly-blue high heels dangling from his ring and pinky fingers.
Ro resisted her impulse to force him to contort his feet into those podiatric nightmares. “Be serious,” she snorted.
“You have such pedestrian taste, Laren.” He pulled a pair of flat sandals from behind his back and plopped them onto the counter. “Better?”
Taking a seat on a bar stool, Ro hoisted one foot onto her knee and into a shoe and then repeated the process with the other foot. “You wanna tell me what happened here tonight?” she said, sweeping aside ground-up matza-stick crumbs with her elbow. She needed a space to work.
“Ask five different people who started it, you’ll get five different answers,” Quark said solemnly. He took a bar towel and brushed refuse into a dustpan, whose contents promptly went into the replicator. “All I know for certain is that it was Bajorans and Cardassians failing to work and play well with each other. Like it takes a quantum physicist to understand that the bad blood between your people and the Cardassians is destined to lead to disaster.”