Julian returned the squeeze, though his expression remained grim. Ezri could tell at once that he was already in “triage mode.”
“Bashir to Defiant. Please beam me directly to the medical bay.”
The clear tenor voice of junior engineer Jason Senkowski responded, “Acknowledged.”
Ezri released Julian’s hand so he could take a step back. Noting that Nog’s attention seemed occupied, she mouthed a silent “I love you” to Julian just before the shimmering transporter beam took him. A moment later, the Sagan floated upward into the narrow shuttlebay in the Defiant’ s belly and was maglocked into its parked position as the docking-bay door silently rolled closed beneath it.
Ezri’s stomach suddenly lurched up into her chest. For an absurd moment, she thought that the Dax symbiont was trying to escape from her body.
She became aware of Nog’s concerned stare. “Are you all right, Ezri?”
She opened her mouth to speak, and heard herself release an unflattering and uncharacteristic burp instead. I haven’t yarked on an instrument panel in over eighteen months. Why the hell should I be getting spacesick now?
She assayed a weak smile as she started shutting down systems and putting her console into “safe” mode. “I’m fine. Lunch must not have agreed with me.”
“I warned you,” Nog said with a grin. “You should have had the tube grubs.” The thought made Ezri feel as green as the skutfish that plied the floors of Trill’s purple oceans.
Nog had obviously noticed. “Maybe I’d better run some diagnostics on the Sagan’ s food replicators.”
Ezri’s stomach heaved again. “I’d rather not discuss food at the moment, Nog. Let’s just finish locking down this shuttle. And we have to get that alien document transferred to the bridge.”
Nodding, Nog thumbed a comm panel and called Lieutenant Bowers.
“Bridge. Bowers here.”
“Sam,” Nog said as he began scratching at his leg. “I’ve just started uploading a pretty big file to your station.”
“I see it,” Bowers said. “It’s coming through now. What is it?”
“Text. Alien text, and we’re going to need a translation and a cross-linguistic analysis of the thing.”
Now it was Ezri’s turn to stare at Nog. He hadn’t stopped scratching his leg.
His left leg, she realized with some surprise. The biosynthetic one.
“That’s one big document, all right,” Bowers said with a whistle. “There’s megaquads and megaquads here.” Ezri heard Bowers crack a joke featuring the phrase “billions and billions,” an expression which apparently had been mistakenly attributed to the Sagan’ s human namesake. She wished she felt like laughing, but decided instead that she’d settle for not feeling nauseated.
“Thanks, Sam. Nog out.” The engineer continued scratching his leg.
Ezri’s own distress melted away, at least somewhat, as she allowed herself to segue into her “concerned counselor” mode. Though she had spent three months on the command track, none of her nurturing instincts had dulled. Besides, focusing on something other than her own lurching insides seemed like a good idea just now.
“Phantom limb still bothering you?” she asked. She knew all too well that Nog didn’t appreciate any tiptoeing around the subject of his biosynthetic limb. It was usually best just to be up-front about such things, at least with Nog.
“No, not really,” he said, only now seeming aware of what he had been doing. “I usually don’t think much about it. I mean, it was a lot worse during the first few months after AR-558, but it still happens from time to time. The itching, I mean.”
Ezri furrowed her brow as the obvious solution came to mind. “I wonder…” She trailed off, lost in thought.
“Wonder what?”
“Nog, do you mind if I put my counselor hat back on for a moment?”
He bared his sharpened teeth good-naturedly. “Bearing in mind, of course, that free advice is seldom cheap.”
“No charge, I promise. But I wonder if your old psychosomatic symptoms might have begun flaring up again lately because of delayed stress.”
Nog looked skeptical. “From AR-558? Sure, that battle was hell, and it cost me a leg, but—”
“I don’t think this is only about AR-558,” she said, shaking her head. “At least not directly. I think it’s really about Taran’atar.”
Nog looked blank. “I don’t follow you.”
“Ever since Taran’atar came aboard DS9, you’ve been forced to share space with a Jem’Hadar soldier.”
“Oh. And it was Jem’Hadar who shot my leg off at AR-558.”
Ezri winced at that image. “Sounds like you’ve already done the math.”
“I’ve thought about it,” Nog said, his mouth a grim slash. “And I’ve concluded that the less I have to see of any Jem’Hadar soldier, the better I like it.”
Ezri was taken aback by Nog’s vehemence. “Why?”
The young Ferengi appeared to consider carefully just how much he wanted to reveal before replying. Ezri was about to try to change the subject to something less threatening when he said, “Right before we left for the Gamma Quadrant, I had a little run-in with Taran’atar that convinced me I’ve been right about him all along.”
Ezri’s counselor instincts went into overdrive once again. “What do you mean?”
“I mean that all Jem’Hadar are cold-hearted killers, and nothing can change that. Not even a direct order from Odo.” Nog turned away, apparently concentrating intensely on an instrument panel.
They finished stowing the Sagan in silence. After Ezri advised Commander Vaughn that they were coming up to the bridge to make a preliminary report about the alien artifact, she and Nog disembarked into the narrow shuttlebay, entered the adjoining corridor, and made their way to the turbolift.
“Bridge,” Nog said, his voice hushed.
“Taran’atar isn’t responsible for what happened to you at AR-558,” Ezri said, trying to keep her tones even and nonjudgmental.
“No. But he won’t let me forget it, either. Just by being on the station. That’s one of the reasons I was so glad to come on this mission—no unnecessary reminders.”
Ouch, Ezri thought. I deserve that for trying to play counselor as well as first officer. Still, she hated to leave emotional loose ends hanging. Aloud, she said, “I don’t want to see you let an old resentment like this fester. It won’t do you
