Chapter Text
* * *
“You think they got home in one piece, sir?” Glal asked in the confines of Trujillo’s ready room.
“I hope so. We saw them slingshot around that star and vanish in an eddy of chroniton radiation. I have to believe that they got back to their temporal point of origin,” Trujillo said.
“I wish we could know how their war ended,” he said, issuing a gloomy sigh.
Trujillo nodded. “Fifty years or thereabouts until the entire quadrant is fighting for its collective life. I’ve been banging the drum for Starfleet to engage in more weapons and shield research for nearly ten years, and now I’m going to have to shut my mouth lest Temporal Investigations accuse me of trying to alter the future.”
Glal snorted derisively. “Who cares what they think?”
“According to Captain Steenburg, sometime between now and then DTI gets some teeth.”
“Ooooooh,” Glal waggled his thick fingers on both hands dramatically, “scientists and bureaucrats with teeth! So intimidating!”
“The captain seemed suitably concerned, so I’m going to take her word for it,” Trujillo countered. “Even in our time a critical report filed by one of their agents could cause trouble for an officer without sufficient patronage or political cover.
“The next few weeks will be difficult. While the ship’s under repair, we’re all going to be interrogated by Temporal Investigations personnel. Every detail of our encounter will be dissected and analyzed. Not talking about it with each other after such a grilling will be the hardest part.”
She looked pointedly across the desk at her XO. “Which means, my friend, that after this conversation concludes, we never talk about this again. Not in private, not over drinks in some quiet corner of a bar on Argelia. Never again.” She raised an eyebrow. “That’s an order. This never happened. Are we clear?”
“As Arcadian crystal, Captain,” he replied.
Trujillo poured a measure of Don Julio for each of them, pushing Glal’s glass across the desk to him. She raised her own. “To the brave crew of the starship Bedivere, most of whom have yet to be born.”
They drank to that, and true to their word, they never spoke of it again.
* * *
The war was over. It had ended a little over a year after the Bedivere returned to its own time. And it had exacted a heavy price.
What was left of the Bedivere was spread out over the Deep Space Nine wardroom table. There wasn’t much, just the few personal effects rescue teams had managed to salvage from the wreckage still on Cardassia. They were saying they’d try to salvage more, but the stubbornly smoldering fires throughout the ship’s carcass made that incredibly unlikely.
Chester looked down at the scant detritus, shoulders hunched. She was still moving slowly, courtesy of the extensive surgeries that had rebuilt her abdomen from the equally extensive damage a Jem’Hadar knife had done. She was still waiting on the last of a series of reconstructive surgeries that would allow what remained of her optic nerve to accept an artificial eye. In the meantime, she’d been running into things a lot. J’etris had taken to walking on her right side, covering her blind spot, without a word. Chester was grateful, but she hated needing it in equal measure.
There were a hundred and thirty seven survivors of the destruction of the Bedivere, of a crew of seven hundred fifty, and the majority of them had died in the first forty minutes after Chester had taken command. She’d been told by enough people that it was a miracle there had been any survivors at all, with a crew trapped aboard a crashing starship; she was heartily sick of it. It was like they expected her to simply accept having lost so many.
There were a lot of things here that would never be claimed. Chester reached out to run careful fingers over the battered remains of a pot from one of Captain Steenburg’s orchids, minus the plant that had occupied it, then lifted it. She’d get it back to Steenburg’s brother.
“Diane,” said J’etris, and Chester turned around, then turned a little further to compensate for her eye, finding J’etris with a cup in her hands. It took her a moment to recognise it. J’etris put it into her outstretched hand, and she turned it carefully to find the engraving intact: U.S.S. REYKJAVÍK NCC-3109. ‘First to Advance, Last to Retreat.’
The wooden box Captain Trujillo had presented it to her in had of course been obliterated–but the duranium coffee mug had hardly a scratch.
Chester weighed it in her hand, sniffed, using the back of her sleeve to wipe at her face. “Of course,” she said. “Of course this survived.” She gave J’etris a damp, wobbly smile. “I don’t know why I even bother to be surprised.”
“Do you think it will help you with your decision?” J’etris asked, her voice quiet.
Chester tucked the orchid pot under her elbow and turned the mug over in her hands. “I certainly know what she would say,” she said. “They’re offering me a state-of-the-art warship. I don’t want to be a soldier. I think–I mean, I hope–that’s not what Starfleet needs right now. Admiral Ross says he wants people to bring us back from our military role, but…”
“You think it is far too likely you’ll be pulled back into that role,” said J’etris.
Chester bobbed her head in a small, unhappy nod. “I’m good at it. Starfleet is very good at using your strengths.”
J’etris gave her a long thoughtful look. “I don’t think I have ever met a single person who’s succeeded at using any strength of yours that you weren’t fully willing to give them. And war is hardly the only thing you’re good at. In fact, it might be the least helpful of your current skills just now.”
“And leaving for the Diplomatic Corps right now would feel like running away,” said Chester quietly, still rolling the mug over and over in her hands. “I’m no good at that. And it doesn’t seem right. Not after…” She stopped, staring at the engraving again. The quiet hum of station systems filled the air; there were very few survivors still on their feet, and for the moment they had the room almost to themselves. The officer logging visitors and activity was politely ignoring them, likely inured to such conversations. The Bedivere was hardly the only ship lost.
“I’d always assumed it was one of grandmama’s friends who sponsored my application to the Academy,” Chester said, after a long while. “A retired Admiral taking an interest in me? It seemed like the only reasonable explanation. Grandmother’s network is expansive.”
J’etris looked down at the mug, up at her friend’s face with burgeoning suspicion. “What exactly was this retired Admiral’s name?”
Chester looked up at her, the corner of her mouth turning up–the closest to a smile she’d gotten in weeks. “Admiral Nandi Trujillo.”
Her attention returned to the mug in her hands. “I think I’m just realizing how much that is to live up to,” she said softly. “I guess I’d better get started.”
* * *
END