Chapter 5

From what they’d seen at the met-station, Jake knew it was unlikely he’d be able to home in on Bashir’s combadge, in the full brunt of the storm. But he knew the doctor. His most likely location was somewhere around the farthest emitter, the one that had been first to fail, the place Bashir had failed to report from.

Normally, it wouldn’t have taken Jake long to reach the emitter, taking a direct route, while the doctor had been taking a circuitous route past four different sites. But he was fighting a rough wind all the way. Without the goggles, he’d never had been able to see his way. Without the filtering mask, he’d have choked on dirt before he reached the city limits.

It was hard to see where he was going anyway. The particle-laden wind created a near brown-out, as disorienting as any blizzard could be. But as long as he could keep fixed on the fourth emitter, he had a chance. And he suspected that might be the only hope Bashir had.

If it wasn’t too late already.

With that worried thought, Jake pushed himself on.

* * * *

They clung together in the darkness, the handful of Cardassians that was all that survived of a family, and the single human woman. The children were huddled in a group, one at the feet of each woman, and the three women had locked their arms together and pulled blankets over their heads, for whatever protection that would give them.

Above them, the tent billowed and swayed, while outside the howling winds continued.

And then the sound changed.

The scraping sound of grit abrading the side of the tent gave way, all of a sudden, to the spattering of drops hitting the roof.

Aya poked her face out from under the blanket, wondering what it meant. “Rain?” she said uncertainly.

At that moment the tent collapsed. She screamed as it came down on top of them.

* * * *

Jake had almost reached the emitter when he saw a figure huddled against a rock.

“Julian?” he shouted.

No response.

Jake ran to the shape. To his incredible relief, it was the doctor.

Bashir had his face buried in one arm, breathing through a piece of fabric torn from his uniform; his other arm gripped a broken spot in the rock that formed a handhold of sorts. He knelt in the dirt, leaning away from the wind. The sand had buried his feet and covered his knees.

“Julian!” He leaned over the other man, already pulling the biosuit, goggles, and filter face mask out of his pack.

Bashir finally seemed to sense his presence; he groped with his shielding arm, turning his face even more to the rock with his eyes tightly closed.

Jake grabbed his hand for just a second, trying to reassure him, then released it to give him the mask.

When he looked back, Bashir had shifted his position and was squinting at him. His face was scraped and streaked with sweat and dirt, some of it disquietingly reddish-colored. He realized there was red muck in the man’s hair, too.

“Jake?” the doctor forced hoarsely through a throat burned raw.

“Get this on....”

In a few seconds, with the mask and goggles on, Bashir was able to look at him and tried to stand. It took a minute to dig his legs free of the sand. Between them, the doctor finally got to his feet.

“Jake ... you shouldn’t have come....”

“But I did. Let’s go....”

“Someone ... hit me.... Might be here ... somewhere—”

Jake looked around quickly. “Not in this weather. C’mon, Julian, let’s go....”

By the time Bashir had taken a half dozen steps, he was staggering.

“Here....” Jake pulled the other man’s arm over his shoulder, keeping him on his feet and moving.

“No, I can....”

“Julian, there’s no harm or shame in getting help when you need it. Isn’t that why we’re here? Now save your breath and let’s get back to the city. At least we’ll have the wind at our backs this time....”

The doctor nodded in silent acceptance, and let himself lean on Jake.

With the wind now behind them, it was easier. It was almost as though the storm was urging them on, and that if they tried to stop moving, the gale would shove them forward or push them over. Dust continued to whirl around them; they could seldom see more than a few yards ahead or to either side. But Jake felt confident he knew where they were going. He trusted that he had a good fix on the met-station, and he felt quietly confident, too, that, having come this far, he was going to get them both safely back to the city.

Suddenly something heavy spattered on the rock in front of them, followed by an erratic splotching on other rocks and ground.

“What....” Bashir asked, holding out a hand. One of the raindrops landed there, a little brown puddle that looked like a spit of some kind of tobacco, murky and dark and streaked.

Around them, the drops became more frequent, and the wind seemed to pause a little, as though the rain was beating it down as well.

“Lausten did it. He did it. He made it rain,” Jake breathed, then began to grin. He knew it was only the back-up plan, and only short-term, but it was working. It was something.

* * * *

With the change of sounds, Garak risked opening a clinic door, one opposite the direction of the wind, to see what was happening. Rain. A heavy rain. The wind seemed to be letting up, too.

He watched, fascinated. Heavy rain was incredibly unusual where he had grown up, although he had seen rain like this on Bajor.

Or so he thought.

At first it looked as though the pavement in front of the clinic was simply getting wet, with water beginning to pool and make natural rivulets to lower ground.

Then he realized the water was thick and heavy with dirt and ash, leaving little silt deltas along the cracks in the pavement. The rain was brown before it ever hit the ground, and the large, dark drops seemed to strike with the force of projectiles. It was creating a sticky, gooey muck that they would probably be weeks cleaning up.

A figure appeared from somewhere on the other side of the wall that was all that was left of the next building. As he watched, the figure raced toward the clinic door. He stepped aside to let the person in.

The woman stopped beside him, pushing back her hood and shrugging the long jacket off her shoulders. The garment was already stained from her brief run, along with her boots and trousers from the thigh down.

It was Rekel. Her face was spattered, she briskly brushed at the spots, succeeding only in smearing them across her features.

“Garak,” she said in a tense whisper. “I know where Limorin is.”

He smiled.

* * * *

The walk back hadn’t seemed nearly as long as the walk out, even with the added weight of Dr. Bashir.

But the weather hadn’t quite been what Jake expected when he envisioned a rain. He’d anticipated something cleansing, like strolling through a spring shower that rinsed away the grit and grime.

Instead, it had been like slogging through a Parallax muddrip, without any of the health benefits or the pampering, and as puddles began to form and expand, plodding through mud that sucked at their feet and slowed them down even more. A distinctive mixture of smells, none of them good, rose from the muck.

Their hair was slicked with the silt that continued to fall. Scum caked around their face gear. Their uniforms were no longer different colors, but matching shades of brown mottled with streaks of black and gray. The muddy water had found its way past collars and wrist openings, and soaked them to the skin; every footstep squished with the pools in their boots. Heads bent, saving their breath and energy for walking, they trudged on silently.

By the time Jake and Bashir reached the city, they were both as dirty, smelly, and disreputable-looking as the bilge cleaners of a Denebian cattle freighter.

Eske gasped in shock when they wearily staggered into the clinic, Jake practically dragging the exhausted and injured Bashir.

“What ... what happened to...?”

“Julian got caught out in the storm, checking the emitters. He’s kinda battered. Where’s Dr. Ptacek?”

“Resting! She ran out to find those children who are always hanging around here. She looked almost as bad as.... No, never mind. Nobody could look as bad as you two! Or smell that bad! Here, sit down — no, get those clothes off, then sit down.... Medic! Anyone who’s available!”

“And call security, too!” Jake told her, remembering Bashir’s insistence that someone had hit him.

“Security?” Eske hesitated just a second, then yelled, “Security! Somebody call security!”

Leaning against each other, the two men followed her out of the entry hall toward a smaller room where they could strip, wash, and decontaminate as necessary.

“Jake?” Bashir said haltingly, clearing his throat immediately after. Speaking was obviously still difficult.

“Yeah?”

“Thank you....”

“No problem,” he said, grinning a little in relief as the nurse pulled Bashir along, her nose wrinkling. “That’s what friends do.”

* * * *

Ptacek had arrived back on duty by the time the two men finished decontamination, and immediately ordered Bashir to bed. Personally, he thought she looked as scraped up as he did, and that if she could be on her feet, so could he. She pointedly mentioned the gash and bump on his head, followed by the long walk in the muck-fall, and rather emphatically said if he didn’t at least get some sleep, she was going to call the Nightingale and have him relieved of duty.

Under such a threat, he had little choice but to obey. She’s also insisted he have a “private room” — one of the converted storage rooms, barely large enough for the bed and a chair — stating that if he were out in the main ward, he’d be out of bed and checking patients every time the nurse turned her back, rather than getting rest himself.

She had, however, cleared him to talk to security before sleeping, but the statement was not going well. The security officer was in the chair. Jake was leaning against the wall. Bashir had just finished telling what he recalled of what happened, but it looked like Blake intended to question every detail.

“You sure you didn’t just fall and hit your head?” the security commander asked a little snidely. “Or don’t the genetically enhanced do normal things like that?”

Bashir gritted his teeth. Why did it have to be Blake who came to find out what had happened at the emitter? The security commander made no secret of his dislike for the doctor, nor of his contempt for the Cardassians and his anger about being here helping them.

“I am quite certain I did not fall and hit my head,” he replied carefully. “I was approaching the emitter when a wind gust blew some dust in my face. I was just blinking it clear when I caught a glimpse of somebody moving beside me. The next thing I knew, he struck me with something, and then I fell. But the fall was most definitely caused by the blow. I’m sure Dr. Ptacek’s scans will confirm the location and likely source of my wound.”

“You know it was a he?” Blake continued impersonally. “Can you describe him? What was he wearing?”

“Actually, I assumed it was a he, based on the size — I’m sure he was the same height as me, broader shouldered. I don’t think I saw what he was wearing, I just recall brown, as though he were trying to blend into the storm.”

“Cardassian?”

Bashir shrugged a little, trying to think of any more details. “Probably. Considering this is Cardassia.”

“Well, now, we wouldn’t want to jump to any conclusions,” Blake said, making no effort to hide the sarcasm. “After all, the Cardassians are good people that we’re here to help.”

The doctor clenched his jaw again.

“And what was the ... attacker doing?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t see that.”

“Did he damage the emitter?” The officer’s voice was sharper.

“I don’t know,” Bashir repeated wearily.

“Is it possible?” To that, at least, Blake was responding with genuine concern.

“Trey won’t be able to go out and check the equipment until the storm passes.” He hesitated. “It’s possible that’s why the force field went down.”

“And Sisko didn’t see anything?” Blake glanced at Jake.

The younger man shook his head. “Nothing.”

“I’m sure my assailant had completed whatever he was there to do, and was long gone to shelter by the time Jake arrived.”

“Mmm,” Blake came back noncommitally. “Do you recall anything else?”

Bashir thought hard, finally shaking his head. “No, I don’t— No, wait.” His brow furrowed. “I do remember something else....”

Blake had already been standing. He almost scowled as he sat down again. “What do you remember?” he asked with the resigned air of a martyr.

“Boots.”

“What?”

“I saw boots. The person walked past me before I lost consciousness.... Boots. Black ones. High.”

“Boots. Doctor, half the damn Cardie population wears boots like that.”

Bashir closed his eyes and sighed heavily. “That’s all I can think of, Commander.”

“Okay. Well, if you think of anything else, let me know.” Blake thumbed his PADD to end the report session, then stood up and walked out of the room without amenity.

“Why do I get the feeling that if it were anybody else that had been attacked, he’d have the entire security force on alert and patrolling the city, storm or no storm?” Jake asked cynically.

“Probably because he would,” Bashir couldn’t help saying a little bitterly. Then he took a deep breath and lay back on his pillow. “Jake, I have to say thanks again. I wouldn’t have made it without you coming for me.”

“Awh, you don’t know that. You’da figured something out.”

He smiled wryly. “I’d already figured out that I was going to be buried alive and likely mummified by heat, dessication, and chemicals, by the time anyone found me after that storm.”

“The rain—”

“Is probably more toxic than the wind.”

Ptacek stuck her head in. “All right,” she said briskly, her abraded antennas twitching as she picked up their continuing conversation. “Somebody in here is supposed to be getting some sleep! Sisko, out!”

“Right... See ya in the morning, Julian?”

“In the morning, Jake....”