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THE DAY THAT IT HIT THE FAN

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This is an AU story (surprise!), but it is not the same universe as my story OF THE HIGHEST ORDER. The two are in obvious conflict. Nor is it in the universe of OF THE HIGHEST ORDER AU2 or AU3.

 

Remembering Sisko’s nearly obsessive vendetta against Michael Eddington, I believe that his actions in this story are plausible, but even if you disagree, you’ll have to admit that he’s more in character with our Sisko than the Mirror-Universe Sisko. And given Bashir’s dedication toward saving lives, … voila!

 

            “He’s going to make it into the Badlands before we can catch him!” Sisko fairly growled.

            “Captain,” Dax said. “I’m picking up another ship. It’s Cardassian, Galor-class.”

            “Hail him!” Sisko’s eyes lit with hope.

            She shot him a glance. “It’s Dukat.”

            At this point, Sisko clearly didn’t care who it was. When Dukat promptly responded, the human captain filled him in quickly, and concluded, “I’m going to try to steer him right to you.”

            Skeptical brow ridges rose. “And then you take custody of him, I suppose?”

            Sisko gave it a moment’s thought, and then astonished everyone on the bridges of both ships. “No. He’s all yours.”

            Dukat presented a decidedly unsavory smile. “And no protesting against rough treatment, as you did regarding the Maquis Samuels?”

“Nope!” the human returned decisively.

“This from the man who also refused to destroy the vessel occupied by a Maquis leader who had betrayed his Starfleet oath??”

“That was different. Cal Hudson had been a longtime friend, and he wasn’t under my command.”

“Ah, I see, a personal vendetta.” Dukat nodded.

By this time, Bashir had come out of his outraged shock, and turned on Sisko. “Captain, you can’t! I understand the grudge that you bear for Eddington, but this is irresponsibly cruel!”

“As you were, Doctor.”

“And as Eddington’s doctor, as well as yours, I protest in the strongest terms! You remember what O’Brien said, that you wouldn’t want to turn anyone over to the Cardassians, no matter what he’d done!”

“Stand down, and that’s an order!”

“You can’t just hand him over to them!!”

“Dismissed, Doctor!”

By this time, Garak was on the side of Bashir opposite from Sisko, and he turned a frosty regard onto his human friend. “Julian, may I remind you that I am one of ‘them’?”

Adrenaline flowing, Bashir unthinkingly snapped back at his Cardassian friend. “Yes, and it’s times like this that I try to forget that fact!” He attempted to ignore Garak’s resulting outraged, affronted expression.

As if oblivious to the interrupting argument on the other ship, Dukat assured, “Benjamin, I promise you that I will do full justice to your revenge.” Dukat was clearly relishing the prospect for his own entertainment, more than for Sisko’s satisfaction.

“Do your worst,” Sisko agreed vindictively, with a resentful glance at Bashir, probably more out of bitterness for what he saw as the doctor’s disloyalty, than from support for Dukat.

“Captain!” The doctor was horrified, and then even more so as he noticed Garak’s smile of admiration and approval toward Sisko, a smile that mirrored Dukat’s.

“And you think that this is funny?!” Bashir challenged his alien friend.

Even as a stunned Bashir took in Garak’s purely venomous returning look, Sisko whirled in his chair. “Doctor, you are dismissed from my bridge, and confined to quarters!”

Bashir spun away from both of them, and stormed into the turbolift.

 

“Benjamin, another transporter beam is interfering with my effort to beam Eddington aboard, and it’s coming from your ship,” Dukat told him presently.

Sisko slapped his communicator. “Doctor, where are you?!” He paused for a beat. “Bashir, report!” After another instant, he barked, “Security…!”

“I’ll go,” Garak offered coldly. “I’ll deal with my suddenly unruly ‘friend’.”

 

“What do you think you’re doing??” Garak demanded harshly, upon entry into the Defiant’s transporter room.

“Saving a life. It’s my job.” Bashir struggled with the controls.

“No, you’re attempting to violate an agreement between your captain and a duly appointed captain of another empire: mine.”

“Yours, uh? Then go back to it. And stop distracting me; this is difficult enough. It’s not just a simple beam-in; I have to override a conflicting beam, and this is hardly my field of expertise. I need Miles, but I’m not about to try to involve him in this.”

“Because you know that you are in the wrong!” Garak seized the human’s arm.

“Let go of me!”

“You’re throwing away your career, as well as risking a diplomatic incident!”

“Sisko can court-martial me if he wants to, but I’ll not be a party to deliberate sadism! Not for petty vindictive motives, nor for any other reason! Eddington belongs in prison, yes, but he doesn’t deserve what they’ll do to him! Damnit, Garak, let me go!”

 

“Benjamin, I widened my beam, and increased its power. I have Eddington, and I’ve sent him to our brig, but I also find that I have Bashir and Garak. And frankly, I’d prefer not to return them to you just yet. I’m enjoying their little drama.” Dukat left his communicator signal open, so that Sisko could witness the heated exchange as well, and the gul watched the two with great interest and growing enthusiasm.

“I told you: it’s worth a possible court-martial to remain true to my Hippocratic Oath; it’s my greater priority! And Starfleet just might see it my way. Sisko’s taking way too extreme a position on this; he’s been so furious with Eddington for so long, that I don’t believe that he’s thinking as rationally as usual; he’s lost his perspective. He’s taken the man’s betrayal much too personally.”

“We’re discussing your behavior, and Sisko’s not the only one who is offended by it,” retorted Garak frostily.

“Well, then maybe you’re taking my responses too personally as well!”

“And maybe you’ve been listening to O’Brien too much lately!”

“Or maybe I should’ve listened to him better, sooner!” Bashir shot back at him. “I shudder to think of what Eddington’s undoubtedly facing!”

Garak’s eyes lit. “Maybe you should have a turn at our version of punishment, as well as Eddington,” he suggested ominously to Bashir. “Perhaps even before that Maquis gets it.”

“You can’t be serious.” Now Bashir’s voice was a whisper instead of a shout. Perspiration had instantly broken out on his forehead as he looked quickly, repeatedly, from Garak to Dukat. “Garak, surely you wouldn’t let him…!”

“In fact, I hope that Garak will join me, not just let me.” Dukat was grinning.

The human saw Garak grin back at his sometimes ally, sometimes foe, and Bashir murmured, “No!!” He looked pleadingly from one to the other. “Let me go!” He was trembling. “Garak, please! I truly didn’t mean to offend you; I was arguing with Sisko! To tell you the truth, I was so shocked at him, that I’d actually forgotten that you were on the bridge! I didn’t mean for you to hear!”

Garak’s frigid regard remained. “Oh, so you’d rather voice such insults behind my back?!”

“Yes! No!!!” Bashir reversed himself abruptly when he realized the trap that he’d fallen into, and that Garak had deliberately set for him. Flustered, he tried desperately to explain. “I’d never want to hurt your feelings! I…!”

“Actually, it’s only fitting that Garak participate.” Dukat’s grin had widened. “It’s his field of expertise, after all.”

Bashir lowered his gaze from both of them uncomfortably. “I try not to think about that.”

Garak said coldly, “And I generally let you ignore that reality about me. But maybe I shouldn’t, and maybe it’s time for you to face it. In luridly close-up detail.”

“No no no no!!!” The human was shaking his head in horror. “Don’t do this!! Please!!!” He suddenly addressed his plea to the air. “Captain, help me! Get me out of here!”

“I can’t,” came the quiet reply. “Dukat’s ship has erected a forcefield.”

Bashir’s wide-eyed dread silently met Garak’s unwaveringly cold gaze. His erstwhile friend was unmoved by his alarm and mute appeal. Dukat’s soft murmur of laughter from the other side of him made him shiver.

 

Meanwhile, Miles O’Brien was working feverishly at the Defiant’s transporter controls, and muttering to himself. “If only I’d been on the bridge! If only I’d known sooner! I’ve got to pull Julian out of there, and damn the consequences! Bloody hell!”

“Easy, Chief,” his assistant Esteban Rodriguez tried to soothe him. “Bashir’s an adult; he’ll handle it.”

The Irishman shot him a look. “No offense, but you don’t know what you’re talking about, Rodriguez! You’ve never been a prisoner of the Cardassians! No one is an adult when it comes to facing them! They can turn the bravest man into a puddle of goo! Trust me; I know! Anyone who has experienced the Cardassians’ brand of cruelty would rather face the Borg, …or anybody! And my innocent, idealistic young friend will be especially ill-equipped to handle it! If I can’t get him back in time, he’ll never be the same; he’ll be forever ruined!”

“You sound as if you’re trying to protect someone’s virginity!” Rodriguez couldn’t suppress a smirk.

“In a weird sort of way, yeah! Now let me concentrate!”

 

The dull, empty look in Bashir’s eyes at first seemed catatonic when O’Brien had finally worked his magic and broken through the Cardassian shields. The Irishman’s alarm grew as he knelt by his friend who sat unresponsively on the transporter pad.

“Julian, what did they do to you??!”

“They…made me…watch…Eddington….”

“They made you watch Eddington’s torture?? They didn’t hurt you?!” O’Brien’s face filled with nearly ecstatic hope.

But when Bashir turned toward the engineer, he looked more through him than at him. “They pretended that they were going to hurt me, and they were utterly convincing. They dragged me into the room still believing it. But then they tied me. And then they brought in their real victim….” Bashir’s gaze became distant as he turned miserably away from O’Brien’s increasingly anxious face.

“But…it could’ve been much worse! You…you….” The blond trailed off, not sure that his friend was even still hearing him.

Presently, the brunette roused again. “Oh, Miles! I should’ve listened to you! Garak is a monster! And Dukat…!! Oh my god!!!”

O’Brien felt cold all over; the damage that he’d feared was done, and without Bashir’s even being personally hurt.

“Eddington couldn’t stop screaming. But then, neither could I.” A convulsive spasm ran through him. “I know that I’ll see that scene in my nightmares forever!”

 

O’Brien went to see Sisko privately. “Sir, I know that it’s none of my business, and that you do have grounds to file court-martial proceedings against Julian, but….”

Sisko waved it away, shaking his head. “How is he??”

“Traumatized, sir. Unfortunately, he’s the only doctor aboard; and he’s the one who needs one. But even I’m competent enough to administer a sedative, and I’ve done so. But he’s going to need a lot more help than that.”

“I guess that I did get carried away in my rage at Eddington, and now this is my fault. How could I have expected a dedicated doctor like Bashir to do other than he did??” Sisko shrugged helplessly. “Well, you’re his closest friend. Any recommendations?”

“A leave of absence. He’s going to need extensive counseling; he’ll need to talk out what he saw. None of us are professional counselors, and frankly I don’t think that I’d have the stomach to hear about it, even if I could do him any good.”

 

Sisko’s demoralized state increased when he later saw O’Brien’s unconcealed animosity toward Garak.

“Why did you even come back here??”

Garak regarded him icily. “In case you’ve forgotten, I still can’t go home.”

“Well, just stay away from Julian!”

Resentment boiled to the surface. “He’s my friend, too!”

“Not anymore!”

“That’s not your choice to make!”

“You’ve done him enough harm!”

“We didn’t hurt him at all!!”

“You’ve spent years among humans, and you still don’t really understand us very well, do you?”

 

But to O’Brien’s disgruntlement, hours later, Bashir did agree to see Garak.

“How will we ever forgive each other?” the human asked plaintively.

“I’ve already forgiven your remarks that angered me. After all, what we did to Eddington only proved your point. As I’ve thought about it since, I’ve realized that you didn’t say anything that was untrue. I was only angry because you’d dared to give voice to it. And to express your revulsion at it.” The Cardassian hesitated. “Although I suppose that you’ll find it quite difficult to forgive me.”

The human stared up at him mutely from where he sat.

Garak sighed. “Julian, are you upset because we made you watch, or because we pretended that we were going to do it to you??”

“Both.”

That caused another sigh. “We were only trying to teach you a lesson.”

“Did Dukat know all along that you didn’t intend to hurt me?”

“Certainly. Any other Cardassian would’ve easily seen that I was bluffing.”

“Not being one of you, I couldn’t tell, of course.”

“Surely you know me better than to think that I would deliberately do that to you, as long as I had any choice at all.”

“You always warn all of us never to really trust you.”

“Well, we didn’t keep up the charade for long,” Garak protested somewhat lamely.

“Long enough for me to ‘die a thousand deaths’ of fright. All the way down to that horrible room. The corridor to it felt like it went on forever. And with you two dragging me every step of the way.”

“You humans are so sensitive.”

“You already knew that. But you still did that to me. And then you still put me through the trauma of watching you perform your ghoulish profession in all of its gory glory.”

“I was very angry.”

“And if you’d been just a little bit angrier? And someday in the future, when perhaps you will be??”

Garak stared back at him wordlessly. They both knew that he could make no promises.