At the Table

[STSF Corizon 0]

“Give me a Vodka Tonic,” Corizon said gruffly.

 

“On the rocks?”

 

He didn't recognize the barkeeper and he lifted an ear curiously. “Do I ever take my drinks on the rocks?”

 

The barkeeper looked at him for a few moments, sizing the Dameon up. “Nope...waters it down.”

 

This time lifting his brows and ears at the same time, Corizon glanced to the bartender. “What was your name again?”

 

“Cap,” he said as he slid Corizon's drink across the bar to him, stopping just short of the Dameon's clawed reach. “But before you can have this drink, you owe me a story.”

 

“A story?”

 

“How about you give me the drink now,” Corizon said relaxing a little and smiling with his fangs, “And I'll tell the story while I drink it.”

 

Tipping his head as if thinking about it, Cap finally smiled and nodded. “I suppose that wouldn't violate any rules of the establishment.”

 

Taking the glass in his hands, Corizon tipped it up slightly, letting the clear fluid flow through his mouth and down his throat. “I suppose this means I should start talking, eh?”

 

“That's normally how one tells a story, yes...although you could go for interpretive dance...”

 

“I think an auditory experience would be more...enjoyable.”

 

Now this happened some years ago, so my head may be a little foggy at times, maybe the Vodka Tonic will loosen my brain up. Anyway, I guess I should start from the beginning of the story...or at least do some sort of introduction. Frankly, I've never been a very good story teller. But this is a pretty good drink, so I suppose it's worth it.

 

It was right before the Dominion War got hot and heavy. I was a field operative for ATAG, the Advanced Tactical Assessment Group, and my job was to assess our relative strengths and weaknesses along the Federation-Cardassian border. The Klingons had just gone in and wiped the floor with the Spoonies and that moron Dukat had opened Pandora's Box.

 

Everyone in the intelligence community knew that the war was coming—it was just a matter of when, not if. Most of us had also come to the startling realization that the Dominion was going to clean our clocks if we didn't act quickly.

 

I'd spent most of the time leading up to the war back and forth between the DMZ and Earth, dealing with the Maquis and preparing for the eventual fight with the Dominion. I was in transit aboard the Redoubt, on my way to Sepia VII.

 

Sepia. What a place. Right along the Cardassian-Federation border, it was an Y-class world. A demon planet. It'd been settled by the Federation about fifty years earlier as mining base. Later it'd become an important listening post for SI and ATAG as the clouds of thick volcanic smoke and highly ionized atmosphere rendered detection of the highly sophisticated equipment used for spying nearly impossible for the Spoonies. When the Maquis started to cause Starfleet trouble, Sepia had doubled as a base of operations for people like me. It was close to most of the major Maquis centers of operation and also not highly traveled. We could slip into Sepia aboard a ship on a milk run and be in any of the major Maquis staging areas within a few days.

 

Of course that was before all the trouble with the Dominion. Once the Jem'Hadar reared their ugly, horned heads—the Maquis and Starfleet had come to an uneasy truce; Starfleet would stop working to disrupt the Maquis activity so long as they provided us with intelligence.

 

That was my mission. To make my way to Sepia where I'd grab a transport to the Maquis base world of Sankara Prime. The Maquis cell leader there had contacted us and told us through channels that he had information about a possible Dominion plot.

 

Now, by this point it didn't take an expert intelligence officer to know what the Jello and the Spoonies were upto—really you don't bring hundreds of warships into the quadrant daily if you're not planning on using them; but the guy had made it clear that this was of absolute importance.

 

So Munich dispatched me aboard the Redoubt.

 

Everything had gone swimmingly; we were just a few days from Sepia and had made a layover at DS9, where I'd had fantastic luck at the dabo wheels at Quarks. The Captain of the Redoubt was a fine man, a little green and wet around the ears but a fine man—and an excellent cook.

 

Jaravaiq. That was his name. Captain Morbious Jaravaiq. He'd taken over the Redoubt less than a month or so before my mission and he was still feeling out the ship and crew. You could tell his crew liked him though.

 

The Redoubt herself was a fine ship. A New Orleans-class, she'd managed to survive the Borg attack at Wolf 359 and the Maquis fighting, not to mention—as her Captain put it—the handling of a novice captain. Of course, Jaravaiq, while young, wasn't a novice. No. He was a man who you just knew belonged in the Center Chair.

 

Most of that whole time period is a blur now. I either repressed it, drank it away or forgot the biggest part of that entire experience, but some of it is as clear as if I were looking through my eyes then.

 

Everything happened so fast. We were so unprepared for the war. For everything that happened. I was down in my quarters; sleeping and dreaming of tomorrow where danger no longer lurked behind every star and nebula no longer filled with the dark desires of tyrannical opposition.

 

I had so much on my mind then, so many worries. Would the Federation survive the war? Could we win? How many people were going to die? When would the Dominion strike? How could Dukat let himself be played for such a fool?

 

It had been an arduous journey, even if the crew of the Redoubt had done their best to attend to my needs and sleep was such a welcome respite from all the troubles that darkened my days. That night for some reason, I couldn't sleep. I laid in the darkness, just watching as the starfield out the windows of my VIP quarters rushed by, filling my room with low light. Something was foreboding about the night, but I couldn't place it.

 

Did you ever have the feeling that someone was walking on your grave? I couldn't shake it all night. I just kept having this...I don't know.

 

Anyway, I was laying awake when the ship suddenly shuttered out of warp. My initial thought was that we'd arrived ahead of time, the almost instantaneous blaring of klaxons that proceeded it told me otherwise.

 

“Commander Corizon to the bridge.”

 

I sighed, tugged on my uniform and headed to the bridge. I figured that something had mechanically gone wrong, or they'd gotten a distress signal. I was dead wrong.

 

As soon as I got on the bridge, Jaravaiq's look told me something was wrong that was beyond his control.

 

“I am afraid we're going to have to abort your mission.”

 

I remember, and why I do I am not sure, looking indignantly at the man as if to question his sanity. Had he missed that entire 'Security of the Federation at risk' part of the dossier. My almost instant second thought was that my contact had been compromised. Softening, I asked him.

 

“No,” Jaravaiq had said.

 

“Why are we aborting then?” I am not sure if what I said was that nice or not—I really can't remember.

 

“We have new orders that supersede yours. They come direct from Starfleet Command. Commander it is my duty to inform you that you will be taking the position of Executive Officer aboard the Redoubt for the remainder of the mission.”

 

It took almost an hour staring at the orders that he produced for it to sink into my head. I am not sure how many times I looked over that PADD. It was one of those moments where you see your whole world turned on its head. Like a nova suddenly exploding and altering the entire sector of the galaxy it occupies, my life was never the same after I read those orders. For that matter, no one in the Alpha Quadrant was ever the same either.

 

The words on the PADD are seared into my head like they'd been written in fire and blood.

 

“TO: Captain Morbious Jaravaiq U-S-S Redoubt.

CC: Commander Corizon, ATAG Operative

SUBJECT: NEW ORDERS... “

 

It's funny how those things stick with you.

 

“Captain, you are hereby requested and required to abort your mission pertaining to the ATAG Operative currently aboard your vessel and divert to Sector 136-J to rendezvous with the fleet in preparation for a preemptive strike...”

 

Nothing else in the memo mattered. War was coming to the Federation. The Dominion had launched a fleet that was on its way to take Deep Space Nine and the wormhole from our grasp, but we were going to strike first. It was a single moment of pause. The Federation was attacking first. In all my years the crystallization that things were changing had never been more evident.

 

Word of the contents of our orders had begun to leak to the crew and by the time we arrived at the rendezvous point for our fleet the entire ship was wound so tight with anxiety that you could hear a pin drop on any deck and in any section, even the junior officers' mess.

 

Just before we were about to warp out with the fleet, Captain Jaravaiq went on the comm. I could tell he was just as nervous as the rest of us about what we were about to do. I was probably more nervous than even the greenest Ensign. Not because I worried for my own safety, but because I knew what the Dominion were capable of and because I wasn't sure we could win the war. They had such a technological advantage on us. Which completely ignored that while their soldiers were inexhaustible in number—ours weren't.

 

Sitting at my station a few feet from the Captain I looked away from my console and lifted my ears to listen to him.

 

“I know you're all anxious. You're all worried. I am too. No one knows if we will succeed here today or not. No one knows if this ship, if this crew will survive the battle to come.

 

"But what I am certain of, is that we will win this war. I may not live to see the day when the Dominion and the Cardassians surrender. I don't know how many people will have to sacrifice between now and then, but I know that despite all of their advantages...despite superior fire power and superior numbers...our will to remain free will always triumph.

 

"Today, my fellow officers, my fellow citizens of the Federation, we go into battle not for glory, not for conquest but for freedom. We fight today so that the Quadrant may remain free. We fight today for freedom. And even if we do not survive the day, as many like us will not, the will of the Federation will only be strengthened by our sacrifice....”

 

I think at any other time in my life I would have rolled my eyes at him. It was so...melodramatic. So over the top. But at that moment, at the time, it was exactly what the crew needed.

 

“So what happened?” Cap asked as Corizon slid the empty glass back across the bar.

 

“Well,” he said, “we went boldly into battle, crossing into Dominion space just a few hours before they got to DS9 and did some heavy damage. But...”

 

“It came at a heavy price...we lost dozens of ships and the wormhole.”

 

“Right,” Cap nodded. He knew enough about the war to know that much. “Whatever happened to that Captain fellow? Did he go on to be an Admiral? He sounds like he was quite the man.”

 

Corizon's face went fallow. “No. No he didn't.”

 

“Oh...” Cap and Corizon just looked at each other for a few moments. “What happened to him?”

 

We were in the midst of heavy fire, consoles were blowing up left and right. Our shields were down and the warp drive was fried. We knew we were dead. I'd taken the helm and Jaravaiq was shouting orders as we tried our best to keep the whole thing from flying apart beneath us. We took a direct hit and the whole ship shook so hard I can still feel it.

 

Alarms started to sound. We were losing containment.

 

“All Hands Abandon ship...”

 

I looked at him for a few moments then opened my mouth.

 

“With respect sir, I say we take a few of these bastards down with us first.”

 

“I was planning on it.”

 

Someone had to stay behind though since the auto-pilot was shot. I am pretty sure he stunned me and threw me in the nearest escape pod, because I don't think there was any other way I was leaving his side.

 

When I woke up, I was laying on a biobed of a hospital ship with a dozen or so monitors on me. I'd nearly passed out from blood loss. When I realized I'd lived and he'd not... well to say they had to sedate me was putting it mildly.

 

“Oh...”

 

“It took me the longest time to realize he'd saved my life for a reason and that I was able to carry on the fight in his name because I was alive.”

 

“So he went down with the ship?”

 

“Yes, he did. And I can't think of any better way to go. Can you?”

 

Cap smiled and poured another drink. “No, I can't And in honor of the Captain, this ones on the house.”

 

Corizon smiled and took the drink raising it in the air and tapping it on the bar before he drank it. “To Captain Jaravaiq...”