Steiner: Camp Sunrise -Stranger on the shore
Posted on 23 Jul 2023 @ 9:17pm by Chief Deputy Marshal: Ridge Steiner - FMS & Major Porter Wallace & Chief Petty Officer Ibis Xeri
Mission:
M3 - Into the Deep
Location: USS Pathfinder - Secondary Sick Bay
Timeline: M3 D12 1600Hrs
9082 words - 18.2 OF Standard Post Measure
Steiner stopped by the Nurse's Station. The lieutenant glanced up at him and sighed, intuiting what he was going to ask. "Is Major Wallace okay to have a visitor now?"
He had called earlier that afternoon and been informed Wallace was playing cards with one of the Doctors and the recuperating Major Finn. He had not intruded, even though he really wanted more information about this alleged Marshal who may have been at the prisoners' camp.
He had spent a couple of hours doing Chief of Security type stuff, feeling out of place as most of it had revolved around creating a false narrative to comply with the Starfleet need-to-know protocol. That was almost as frustrating as waiting to learn more about Cubo.
Now he was back.
"Yes, that would be fine," the Nurse confirmed with a sigh, "CPO Xeri is with him now. But please no more card games, he really does need his rest."
"No poker," Steiner promised, "Just have a few questions about his time on Korix."
The Nurse shrugged reluctantly and led him over. Wallace was sitting up in bed, a blanket draped over his legs. Ibis sat close by in a chair. They weren’t speaking to each other, simply holding hands in silence as if communicating telepathically.
"Er…Hi," He gave them a wave and a smile "I'm Ridge Steiner, Federation Marshal's Service. The Chief here" He nodded to Xeri "told me there may have been a Marshal at your camp at one time, and that you met them, I wonder if you are feeling up to answering a few questions?"
Wallace grunted. After DeHavilland’s questions and her promise that there would be many more when they finally arrived at the station, he didn’t relish the thought of having to go back there in his memories. Still, he could tell that this was eating the man up from the way he stood near his bed, almost dancing with anticipation.
He glanced at Ibis, who seemed to register the man. So, not a stranger.
Having heard the Marshal Steiner speaking with the nurse, Ibis had an inkling what he might be coming to inquire about, and her eyes seemed to shadow with the seriousness of it. At least the kids weren't present this time for her to worry about the difficult subject of Cubo's condition being talked about over lunch. It had bothered her how Olivia had talked about death and brutality so flippantly, and she was at a loss for it.
"This is Marshal Ridge Steiner,” she introduced him, guessing the Marshal already knew who Wallace was. “He was on the evacuation team with the Marines who brought you back." She remembered gratefully Steiner's encouragement in the corridors after rushing Wallace to sickbay. "We talked in the mess hall earlier, and Olivia mentioned that we had a Marshal on the island too. She remembered the badge design on his grave marker."
Wallace grunted. “Sure then, Marshal Steiner. Now’s as good a time as any.”
"Thanks" Steiner drew a chair over, then pulled out his Service Tricorder, sat down and held it out, looking to both of them. "Ok if I record this?"
The laid up Marine simply shrugged. He figured there’d be a lot of recording going on in the future, too. “Ibis…uh…Chief Petty Officer Xeri won’t have much to say on the subject. She was pretty sick. And it wasn’t…” Wallace shrugged again as he let the rest of the thought drift away. He squeezed Ibis’s hand. It hadn’t been his finest leadership moment, but he didn’t regret it for a second.
“I know a little.” Ibis said quickly, almost to cover for Wallace’s difficulty in caring to recall the hardship. “I quizzed Laura… Dr. Winetrout, after I recovered. I know it’s not first hand, but it’s the closest thing to a doctor's report, whatever I can recall. I just… couldn’t be that specific, not in front of the kids.” She looked back at Wallace, as if for strength, but they were equally struggling. “We’ll share everything we can, to the best of our ability.” Bearing the memory was the burden of surviving. It was what they would have to do, for the entire crew. And for this lost Marshal, as briefly as they had met him, too.
"Okay, well if you would Major, just tell me as much as you can remember about what happened that day. I'll just let you tell it without interruption. Then I might have a few questions at the end. That work?"
Ibis patted Wallace's hand as he composed his thoughts. "As I understood it, it was Laura and Jimoh that first ran out when they heard a transport ship over the dunes," she prompted, as a place to begin.
"Right, yeah. It was over four years ago, I guess. They found him dropped off in the dunes nearby our camp..." Wallace began to recount.
Laura scratched the mark for another day into the calendar they'd etched on the wall of the clinic. Seasons didn't work the same here. And the Korinn day seemed longer than average to Laura. And, indeed, it was. A few of the others with advanced degrees had found means of nature to measure time by, with help from some of the Korin slaves with time pieces, the aid of some universal constants of some sort, and a number of figures worked out in the sand, they had a conversion rate and a general star date. The working theory was that the tally of Korinn days up until this point put them at roughly five years since internment. Eventually, if they were rescued, they’d get to check all their math on that.
Laura also kept a few markings on dried kelp, stored under the workbench in baskets. It was her effort at trying to keep a record of who had been sick and when. She was closing most of their files. Four had recovered. One dead. One... she wasn't completely sure. Ibis had been in a complete fugue and Laura couldn't keep up her care any more with everything else.
Her young daughter, Olivia, was on the clinic floor playing with some shells. It was strange, how the children seemed to be able to have lives like that. As if there was nothing out of the ordinary for them. Laura walked to the front stoop of the clinic. Ibis was usually around the clinic every day to talk with her, play with Olivia, and work on restocking the preparations they used. But she was sick now. Maybe even gravely ill. It had been a week since Ibis had even seemed conscious. The fever wouldn't break and the usually tenacious little dark-haired woman was disconcertingly unable to break her fever and chills and the dissociation from her senses that had set in over her. She’d quake and moan and chatter, her eyes rolled back leaving mostly the whites in a scary look at times as she coping with the muscle pain and seizures. But she wasn’t exactly present. Any time the pains would subside she would fall asleep in exhaustion before it would begin again. Ibis was going to be lucky a million times over if she didn’t already have damage to the brain from encephalitis.
When Laura reported that Ibis’ condition was likely not going to end well, Wallace himself had gone to the sick shack to claim her. Laura wasn't stupid. Those two loved each other. They had always been love sick for each other, even before the Sunrise had crashed. It was only the two of them acting like they didn't know it. On the ship it had been an entertaining drama for anyone clued into it. But for the years they continued their self-made charade in the Camp it was one of the hardest things Laura had to watch. She missed Matt everyday. Without a picture to help, she spent a lot of time trying to remember his face. She’d try to imagine his voice, recalling when he'd tease and goad her and banter. She wouldn't have wanted to miss a single one of their days together.
Wallace, she had thought that day as he clutched Ibis to himself and carried her away, was just realizing he might have missed his chance. Normally he was around keeping everyone honest with their chores and labor rotations, counting heads and keeping the perimeter watch manned. But since he'd taken Ibis home with him, Jimoh had been sitting in the command center of the camp, manning the fires with baby Ikemba strapped to his back. Jimoh was a very different man himself since Rachel's death. They were all changed, Laura knew. She was just at a loss for what to do about it. Acceptance and grief... But strangely she never felt truly hopeless. She had to survive, she knew, so Olivia could grow up. And that was just that. She was too stubborn to allow reason to argue with her decision on the matter. Besides. She was the only treating doctor in the camp. For all the good it was doing them. Even her closest friend was trying to die on her now.
Laura took a tin cup and walked towards the fire, intending to beg some hot water to make up a tea to take to Ibis.
"Jimoh—" She started to say.
But she was interrupted. There was a strange, distant whine in the sky that drew Laura's attention. She looked up and shielded her eyes from the sun, trying to make it out.
Jimoh shot up to standing. Despite the sudden motion, Ikemba continued to doze in the backpack-like contraption he and one of the last engineers had sewn together from kelp and seaweed a few weeks ago. “That’s a ship,” he said spotting a rapidly descending craft to the south, “but not one of those slaver ships.” He never referred to the Z’ala by anything other than ‘slavers,’ as if he could shame them into turning on the Pyrryx.
He whistled loudly, a piercing sound that even the Irix seemed impressed by when he did it around them. A head popped out of the door of one of the nearby shacks. Mikel, a bartender-turned-security-officer asked what was going on. “Go let the Major know, we’ve got company. Laura, better get everyone inside just in case. Please, take Ikemba with you.”
Turning so that she could lift the child out of the pack, Jimoh heard the sound suddenly increase in pitch and saw the ship vanish behind a dune. It must be hovering just on the other side of that tall dune, Jimoh thought. Just as he felt Ikemba’s weight disappear the craft shot straight up and toward the sky. “What the heck? Just dropping by to say hello?”
Laura's head jerked as she traced the shuttle into the air. It was too much of a blur for her to identify it. The brief hope that it might have been a rescue died before she'd had much chance to think it. She hurried towards the clinic with the baby, calling for Kahler. The Flaxian woman was within earshot where she had been threshing some oats and ran to her in response.
"Watch the children," Laura said, pushing Ikemba into Kahler's arms and motioning to where Olivia was playing.
Uncertain if it would be needed, her doctor's impulse still came to the fore, and Laura quickly wrapped up some supplies in a tied off square of kelp cloth, serving as the closest she could form for a medical kit, and then ran after Jimoh. She came over the dune in time to see Jimoh inspecting someone.
The figure laying on the ground appeared Humanoid and male; it was hard to tell much at first as its head was covered with a grubby and stained brown hood, possibly sackcloth. The figure lay slumped in the sand where he had fallen, not moving after being dragged off the aircraft's ramp. The only sign of life was his labored breathing, a shallow gasping that ruffled the material of the hood. Besides the hood the only other clothing he wore was the tattered remains of some kind of uniform pants, mostly black. The pants were torn, ripped and stained. He was shoeless, his feet were covered in dirt but not enough to cover the bruising and dried blood.
The figure's naked torso was covered in bruises, some fresh dark blue ones, others older and turned yellow. There were numerous, cuts, welts and what looked like burn marks. Rows of round red sores, some in lines, some randomly placed, some had scabbed over, others look more recent.
One arm, the right was outstretched, the other under the body; the right hand was like the feet, bruised and bloodstained, where there had once been fingernails there were now just scabs and puss. The wrist was encircled with a wide band of torn and smeared skin, where some kind of restraint had been in place, and there were similar marks around both ankles.
A thick putrid smell rolled off the figure, sweat, blood, infection, cut with a sharper odor of urine and feces.
“Iye mwẹn! Did they get another one of our starships?” Jimoh exclaimed, putting the back of his hand to his nose to ward off the stench.
Even Laura was repulsed. But not more than she was deeply pained for this obviously tortured man. "He looks like he's been brutalized for weeks, if not longer!" It was hard to tell with the injuries and bruises compiled. She tried to find a spot on his body that wasn't a sore, in order to try and turn him a little and evaluate the rest of him, while Jimoh reached to remove the hood—
At the first touch the figure jerked, recoiling, trying to squirm away in the sand. The right arm came up protectively towards its hooded head and a thin wavering cry of fear came from within the hood, cut short by a racking heaving cough as the figure struggled to pull its left arm free. He curled up in a near fetal position—one hand over his head, the other hugging himself by the knees— and lay there, on the left side, trembling, panting and sobbing.
The side, and what could now be seen of the figure's chest, was similarly marked like the back. Cuts, some fresh, some older, numerous welts and a dark spread of bruises over the left rib cage. There was more, a series of lines had been cut, almost carved into the chest, there were many of them forming some kind of complex shape, but not all could be seen due to the figure's position.
Laura continued to mentally catalog the injuries. “Good grief. Some of these are infected. He's been carved up like a halloween pumpkin."
"Hold on man, we are trying to help." Jimoh managed to snatch the hood even as the man writhed away.
As the hood came off the sobbing and panting increased. The figure curled up tighter, and he pushed his head down towards its chest, both arms wrapped around his knees, rocking and mumbling incoherently. The face was still hidden, but the rest of the head was visible, the severely cropped blonde hair did nothing to cover the multiple scars and dried blood. Part of one ear, the right, had been cut away in an almost surgical slice, although the open wound oozed with infection. The shorn hair blended into thick matching blonde stubble down the sideburn. Around the back and side of the neck was a mark like those on the wrists and ankles, it circled down under the chin.
Laura could tell the man had been tied with restraints a long time. They'd cut into him everywhere and worn him raw. Her heart was breaking. She was honestly not sure where to begin, but she started with speaking gently and trying to daub some of the puss from his wounds with a plant fiber swab and some alcohol, keenly aware that it was going to burn. When she touched him, he recoiled and she looked to Jimoh, uncertain what to do without holding him down to be treated.
The figure sobbed louder, then slowly lifted its head, the nose was broken and split, there were traces of nasal ridges, which Laura atfirst mistook to be scabbed over cuts before she realized he was Bajoran and the ridges were just caked with blood which had pooled and dried in them. Both his eyes were blackened, the left one swollen shut; there were cuts on both cheeks, almost like small puncture wounds, in an oval pattern, dozens of them overlapping, these continued over the cut, cracked and torn lips. The remnants of shattered and broken teeth flickered between the lips as they sucked in and expelled air. The right eye flashed open, blood shot and fearful, a wild, unfocused gaze, that saw nothing, then shut again in the bright sunlight.
The figure moaned in terror, "Jalda Jalda Jalda... please...Ah'no balchi... Jalda.. please... I'm sorry.. I don't know! Please" He curled up tighter, rocking back and forth, whispering to itself "Jia'kaja, tre'nu'tol'a rem... La'por i'lanu kos... I'nar tan'a'tali nor..."
Mikel came up from behind them, out of breath. Mostly skin and bones now, he’d once been a portly middle-aged man and still moved like it. Upon seeing the man lying in the sand, he immediately began retching.
"It sounds like Bajoran," Jimoh told Laura.
"It is!" Mikel had retreated several yards and was looking everywhere, but the man. "I worked on Bajor after the war. In a brothel. A nice one. Classy. Heard a lot of Bajoran there. I never learned much myself, but Riya's a Bajoran. I mean, you already knew that, of course."
Riya and Wallace had been apprenticing with N’to to work on small machinery. She’d been glad to find something to do, quantum physicists were not in much demand on the island.
“Where is she now?” Jimoh asked.
“There was some work up at the complex. She and N’to have been up around the ‘cano all day. Should be back any minute I suspect.”
"Mikel, come, help us move him to the Clinic..." Laura said sadly. She was already preparing herself for the idea that they would have to hold him down just to treat his wounds. But there was nothing for it. Although there were a few numbing herbals she could try, she had no anesthesia or medications to relax him or take away the pain. "He's going to struggle, but I don't think he has much strength left in him."
"No way in hell! I'm not going to—"
"Mikel!" Jimoh repeated. "Get over here!"
Mikel was slow to make any move towards the disturbing sight but Jimoh barked again for him to come, now. It had been years being on the island and the old chain of command was nothing like it used to be, but there was still something of a force of law among them. Jimoh answered faithfully to Wallace, and if Mikal gave Jimoh a hard time, he knew Wallace would hear of it, making his own miserable life less pleasant than it already was. The thought was sufficiently motivating for Mikel to shuffle his way closer. He dry heaved at the smell before he could manage to touch the mangled figure, getting under one of his arms while Jimoh raised the Bajoran between them under the other arm.
As the man was lifted, he twisted and tried to pull his arms away, a wild incoherent cry of fear left his ruined lips, spittle and blood flew, his eyes stared wide and fearful at those holding him. Looking without comprehension, his eyes were focused not on them but on whatever nightmare vision he was seeing in his mind. He tried to struggle, but within seconds the resistance left his limbs, his head dropped to his chest and he sagged, trudging forward now without resistance. The defeated compliance of a broken man.
He sobbed quietly, repeating the same few words over and over "Jia'kaja, tre'nu'tol'a rem... Oh Prophets do not forsake me... La'por i'lanu kos.... Protect me from this torment I beg of thee... I'nar tan'a'tali nor."
As he stumbled forward his bare feet left bloody marks in the sand, with his arms held out to his sides the marks on his chest were more visible. The many bruises, fresh and older, were marked with cuts and burns, over his heart was a larger burn, a star shape, five pointed, with an encircling band. There was some kind of lettering or characters within the burn, but it was smudged and partly scarred over. Over the star-shaped burn there was a series of geometric cuts, fresher, still red, they were in a sort of octagonal shape, like a square with rounded off corners. The shape was repeated within the outermost cuts, it looked almost like gemstone or a spider's web.
Led to the building the figure collapsed onto the makeshift table, chest heaving as he panted and murmured his prayer over and over, eyes tightly closed, rocking his body gently back and forth.
Quickly, Laura moved to collect what supplies she thought she could use, setting up on the worktable. She wished very much for Ibis' help, but it was not going to be had. "Hang in there, Mister," she said. "Let's see what we can do for you."
The first few hours of tending the stranger they had found on the shore were, in a word, rough. Laura asked for Jimoh and Mikel to stay awhile. Not that Jimoh would have left her alone to tend someone who he wasn’t sure would cause her injury. As was the case with much of the doctoring business, helping someone often involved hurting them. She’d had to rinse his wounds, dousing him with clean water for a start. The kelp they used for most cloth applications was not very absorbent, so she relied on a supply of fibers from seeding tall grasses that served something like cotton. The grain alcohol from Amos’s still was a precious commodity, and she had dashed it out carefully and kept the glass bottle well away from the radius of flailing limbs; each stroke was calculated, working through caked up dried blood and scabbed over pus. She talked softly through the whole ordeal, promising him it would be alright, she’d get him cleaned and patched up.
The man never made eye contact, looking down or away; his lips moved, speaking words, sometimes aloud, more often soundlessly. It was the same Bajoran phrases, repeated over and over "Jia'kaja, tre'nu'tol'a rem... La'por i'lanu kos... I'nar tan'a'tali nor." in a breathless gasping chant.
After they’d made a start of it, the cleaning of his wounds and injuries brought little reaction, just an intake of breath or a pause in the soft chanting. Nerve endings that had been tormented through his ordeal were no longer sending signals to a brain that had been overloaded.
Laura didn’t like the sound of his breathing, the wheezing in it made her certain he’d taken internal organ damage. She took the tin funnel she used for a stethoscope and had a listen. When Jimoh fixed her with a look as if to ask what she thought, she had to shake her head quietly. It wasn’t good. If she had a whole sickbay like old times, she would have reported that she could run proper sets of scans, plan a surgery, even get him into stasis while she made some consultations with fellows and ran a few holo-surgery dry runs. But with what she had to work with? Landing in her clinic on Korix with these particular pre-existing conditions was essentially just asking to be made marginally comfortable as you gradually drowned in your own blood.
The remnant of his torn and soiled pants had to be cut away, the man did little to hide his nakedness, trying only to turn into the curled position whenever they were not working on him. The pants were beyond repair; they had once been black, of a heavy material, numerous cargo pockets, a couple with zippers, clearly the last vestige of some kind of a uniform, not Starfleet or Marines, but something utilitarian. The pockets were empty, there was no insignia or other identifying mark. Being far beyond cleaning or repair, the cut away garment was left aside,to be disposed of.
Cleansed and disinfected, the removal of the dirt and filth revealed the true extent of his injuries. His body had been systematically beaten and tortured over a prolonged period, probably weeks, if not months.
When they were done, they covered him with a woven seaweed blanket, and he turned towards the wall, eyes tightly closed, huddled over, rocking to and fro, and still repeating his chant. After several minutes the chanting stopped and the figure lay still, with just the rasping breath of sleep.
Laura stepped back and collected her supplies, corking her bottle of disinfectant and covering her jars of salve. She gathered the spent cotton and scrapped clothing for the fire, binding it in a sheet of worn out kelp cloth and tying it off. It was such a shame to waste any fabric. Everyone had worn through half or more of their original clothing, making do with a mix of patched items and crafted kelp weaving. But those cut away pants weren’t going to be salvaged in any number of hand washed efforts.
Jimoh sent for someone else to come stand watch over the clinic and Laura took her bundle of tied off bio waste out to set aside. Someone would have to take it up his hill to burn away from the central camp area later. They had a system. She left clinic trash by the back corner, Wallace had it taken away and properly disposed of as part of duty rotations.
She disinfected her own hands and then tried to remember what she had been doing before meeting the new stranger. Her eyes fell to the tin cup she’d dropped in the sand and she picked it up, knocking it against her thigh to loose the sand before remembering now that she’d meant to check up on Ibis and take her some medicinal tea. That was just as well. Certainly someone had already told Wallace there was a newcomer. He’d need an update on his condition.
As the sun was setting, she took the time in the waning light to prepare the tea and then knocked on the Major’s door. “It’s Laura,” she said. It had been a dog’s age since she felt like introducing herself as Doctor Winetrout. With Matt gone, the surname itself felt only half occupied by her, and the Doctor part seemed less and less meaningful with her marginal successes in keeping everyone alive. “May I come in?”
After a moment the door cracked open, Wallace’s face barely lit by the withering light. Deep circles under his eyes gave him a haunted look, as if he was living a day that just would never end. The stubble of a growing dark beard, salted with gray, decorated his face and his hair was bedraggled. Up until Ibis took ill, Wallace had insisted on keeping his hair short and his face shaved. It was a shock to see him now.
“I just got her to sleep,” he said quietly, stepping out of the hut and shutting the door behind him. “Fever has been coming and going all day.”
“I meant to come follow up on her earlier,” Laura said. “Is it any better? Has she been able to eat at all today?” It had been a while of just fish broth and tea, and even her liquid diet was less and less.
“I got her to eat some of the broth. She’s…” Wallace sucked in a breath and had to hold his hand up to his mouth to stop his lip from trembling. “...she’s alive.”
It was hard to see Wallace like this. Laura tried to stick to the actionable stuff for his sake. “I’ll start a new kettle of bone broth tonight.” Someone would have to stay up and man the fire. It took a lot of fuel to simmer it.
“I heard we have a new guest. Jimoh,” he said, the name explaining his information.
“Man.” Laura inhaled and exhaled, shaking her head. “I’ve seen some pretty nasty flesh wounds in a few years of tending accidents in sickbays. But this takes the cake. Brutal. I never saw out and out torture. Not like that. Jimoh told you how he was when they threw him out on the dunes?”
Wallace grunted an affirmative.
“It wasn’t just some angry beating. There’s not an inch of the man that hasn't been busted up, or lacerated, or burned, or bruised. Probably went on for weeks, shut up some place. He has sores from bindings. And worse, there’s internal damage. I don’t have the means to operate on that kind of thing. His lungs are being pressured by blood building up. I did what I could to treat his wounds but… I don’t know how long he’s going to last like that. A few days, at most.”
He shrugged and half-stepped back toward the door, his mind already returning to Ibis. “Do what you can to ease his pain and burn the body on the dune after he’s gone.”
“I think you should have a look at him.”
“What good would it do me coming to see the guy? Sounds like he’s about expired.”
“He was talking a lot. Whoever put him in that state… Maybe we should at least figure out what happened and how he got to be here with us. It’s unusual, don’t you think? Just look into it. See what you make of it.”
“Nothing about this is usual, Laura,” he snapped.
Disliking his tone and not so easily chased off, Laura drew herself up and shook her head, disapproval in her eyes. She understood his anguish, but it wasn’t an excuse. “The clinic is literally right here.” She pointed to the next shack. “I can tend Ibis for you while you make the trip.”
Seeing the look on her face, Wallace sighed. He hadn’t left Ibis alone for days and even going out to the campfire felt like he was taking a shuttle to Mars. There was no such thing as a short trip for him nowadays. “Alright. Let’s make this quick.”
“It’s no good right now. He’s not talking now. He fell asleep. I’ll come over when he starts up again.”
“Then why are you bugging me?” Wallace growled, half turning to go back inside when Laura put her hand on his arm to stop him.
“Maybe there’s something to this,” said Laura. “This guy gets dropped on us, a Bajoran. First sign of anything homewise we’ve had since we got here. What if something is changing? What if the Federation is close by? What if he was part of a search party? C’mon. There’s more happening here.”
“So what?” Wallace flew into a rage, “Let’s say there’s a conspiracy that threatens the universe and this guy is the key to understanding all of it! What exactly are we supposed to do? Throw rocks at the problem? Carve the word ‘DANGER’ into the beach with sticks in hopes that a passing starship glances our way? Right now—”
“Major!” Laura addressed him very intentionally by his rank. She had taken a step back, overwhelmed at first. He couldn’t crack like that in front of everyone.
He became aware of the other people staring at him from the dwindling fire. His hands scrubbed across his face and let out a long breath through his fingers. “Laura, right now all we can do is survive and hope. Nothing else matters,” he said quietly after a moment.
She lowered her voice. “You’ve kept us together. Everyone is still following your orders, even if you’re not giving them out anymore. You’ve got to do more than just make occasional appearances by the fire at dinner.”
“If it was Matt or Olivia in there, what would you do?” he murmured.
Laura’s face twisted with the pain of her wounded heart. Instead of answering, she took one of Wallace’s big, calloused hands and wrapped it around the mug of tea, passing it off to him and looking him in the eyes as he avoided her with his. “Tell her it’s her own brew and she’ll take it if she knows what’s good for her.” It was bitter as sin, and extremely puckering. Made from an anemone Ibis went diving in the shallows for, which she dried and processed for a certain alkali, then did some sort of blend with one of the red, suction-cup fingered seaweeds. Everyone hated the stuff. “Taste of her own medicine.”
“I will. Come get me when the guy wakes up. I’ll go and talk to him or whatever.”
Laura walked away, pinching the bridge of her nose. If Ibis didn’t make it, she wasn’t sure the Major would come back either.
Bleary eyed - he had yet to go to sleep, Ibis had had a rough night - Wallace had only stepped towards the clinic and already felt irritated by the muffled babbling that could be heard through the thin walls. What exactly did Laura have in mind for his interaction with this Bajoran? Hold his hand while he sucked in his last breaths and ranted nonsense? He’d done enough of that (and that was only for people he knew) during the War. He could be with Ibis instead.
He turned to go and bumped directly into Riya. That wasn’t an uncommon occurrence. The two happened to work in confined spaces regularly. Or did except for the past couple of weeks, as he’d been languishing in his hut with Ibis. The scientist-turned-mechanic still wore her bajoran earring. They hadn’t taken it from her as it didn’t come up as a piece of technology. There were a few such pieces of jewelry among the survivors. She usually took it off for work and put it back on when she returned. It was too precious to lose down a shaft. And too risky to get caught in a gear and sacrifice her own ear by. She kept her hair short, although the cut was always a hack job and she styled her light hair up in any old direction. With a few passes of her hands, it kept in place from sheer greasiness and suited the look of the mechanic she had become. She promised herself to grow her hair back out if she ever had access to shampoo again.
Riya wasn’t as tall as he was, but still presented an obstacle as she stood between Wallace and his path back to his shack. “Sorry, were you looking for me?” Riya asked.
“Not particularly. This guy is too far gone. I’m going to go back and sit with Ibis instead of…” he hesitated over finishing the thought. People in the camp put high stock in common decency; Wallace hadn’t for years. “He needs real medical assistance, more than we can provide. I was just going to let him rest.”
“Ibis would want you to meet him. You know she’d be going absolutely crazy, knowing someone had landed from offworld. She’d be in there already. And when she gets better, she’ll smack you if you missed this chance to learn what you can.” Riya, like Laura, was trying to stay as positive as possible. But it was obvious she was applying conviction like repair tape, trying to patch over the chasm of uncertainty.
“She won’t get better if I waste my time here.” There, he said it, decency be damned. Riya's withering look spoke volumes.
“Laura’s with her. What more are you going to do than she can?”
Love her, he thought. That had to count for something.
“Besides, he’s Bajoran,” she continued when Wallace still stood there stubbornly. “I need to meet him,” Riya said. It was terrible he’d been abandoned here with them, but it meant something to her. “And you do too. Maybe knowing how he got here will lead to a way off this forsaken rock. It’s a crapshoot, but it’s possible.”
“Fine. Whatever. Let’s get this over.”
Riya motioned ahead for him to take the lead, marching after him, up the single landing step and into the front door, which she pulled shut behind them both.
The screaming was loud, a terrified wailing of fear and anguish that awoke the camp at what passed for five thirty in the morning on Korinn. When they came to the hut the man was huddled in a corner, naked, his hands beating away unseen demons. “I told you! Jalda Jalda! Please… Ah'no balchi I don’t know any more! Just Koruchan! Desorn Koruchan! He was the only one at Trans-Elliptical! Jalda! Jalda!”
His hands dropped feebly as he was racked with a bout of hacking coughs, blood flecked his lips and he huddled tightly into the corner, eyes tightly closed, shivering despite the warmth of the night.
“Ouv, he’s had a time.” Riya summarized. Although Laura had tried to prepare her for the grim scene, Riya couldn’t help but be repulsed by the image of pain. She hadn’t much memory of the occupation herself, but there were more than enough people whom she knew with memories of that level of brutality. She lowered her voice to whisper to Wallace. “Desorn Koruchan. It must be a name he gave the sick bastards about this Trans-Elliptical whatever. The rest is just begging and pleading.”
“Bentel, Sorol! Prophets, brother! Rey buru albakon aka?What’s happened to you?” She tried now in Bajoran, hoping he spoke the home tongue. “Have you got a name to share? I’m Riya.”
The man’s eyes flashed open at the words, looking around him but the gaze was unfocused. “Bentel? Why have you forsaken me?” he stared upwards, whatever he was seeing was not within the room.
Riya’s hand went to pat him softly on the head but he pulled away in a reflex of self defense, as if she were moving to strike him. She saw the torn right ear and reflexively her hand went to her own. “The bastards.” Riya ground her teeth, as she tried to explain for Wallace. “They ripped the lobe through at both linking points. Probably grabbed it and yanked it right off. That’s worse than pain. That's just undignified.”
Wallace grunted, but not out of any sense of agreement. He’d once jammed his knife through the eye of badly wounded Jem’Hadar out of sheer malice. Tearing earlobes was tame in comparison, although there was more to this than that. This Bajoran had been worked over and not out of revenge or hatred, but professionally. “Look at those marks, the little indentations. I’m no forensic scientist, but I knew a sergeant who wore these brass knuckles with spikes on top, about an inch long. They left marks like that.”
“Prophets have mercy.” Riya shook her head, thinking it looked like he was beaten with a meat tenderizer.
The man cried out, closing his eyes again, his hands waving away at whatever he believed had touched him. He shrunk back, turning away, huddling into the corner, trying to bury his face in the wall of the hut, breathing rapidly.
Riya tried to think of something to get him to turn around. Something they maybe hadn’t used to torture the man. She tried a song, one that had been popularized in standard after joining the Federation.
“The wind has carried her off to sea off to sea off to sea
The cresting waves drive my heart o’r kelipates
A gale at her back and the sun on her face
She shant be seen here, no place but memory
The light is waning, the path is waiting
I take the lonely road for—
The figure’s breathing slowed at the lyrics, while still pressed into the corner, the tension gradually dropped from his body. In a cracked voice he mumbled some of the lines.”- for my love has sailed the oceans beyond the southern islands, no more will she walk the Bestri woods with me… walk the Bestri woods with me…”
The words faded but he hummed the melody softly through broken lips, gently rocking to and fro.
When Riya picked up the next line he slowly turned around, eyes more focused than they had been minutes before. He looked directly at her, head dropped to the side as though trying to recall if he knew her. His eyes moved from her face to her right ear and stared at her earring, his hand reached up to his own torn ear, but then dropped before touching it.
“Ilani? Friend?” He asked hesitantly, almost flinching as he said it, as if expecting an immediate denial or a blow. “Ilani?”
“Yes. Ilani.” Riya pointed to herself and then to Wallace as well, pulling him closer by the arm. “We’re friends.”
The man’s head tipped to the side again, looking at the pair of them, but his lips trembled “Juk no…Juk.. no ilani! Juk friends here! Juk noley… No help here!” He closed his eyes tightly and repeated the song line “...walk the Bestri woods with me… walk the Bestri woods with me…” something in the lyrics brought him comfort. “...walk the Bestri woods with me”
She just sang along with him, softly. There were tears in her eyes and her voice was cracking with sympathy for this man, but just as much because she had never thought she would meet another soul who would know the lyrics to the folk ballad from her childhood.
When she picked up the line again, his eyes fluttered open, then focused on her. He took in a ragged breath as though steeling himself for something, his mouth opened as though he was about to speak, but then closed. He looked down, then tried again, not looking at her this time.
“Why does…” his voice broke and he gulped in air “Why does a rai… a daughter of Bajor do
this to her brother?” he paused and added “ Why would one who knows the Bestri song do this?” He ducked his head, protectively, a seemingly learned reaction to the consequences for asking questions.
“I don’t know who did this to you. I’m a prisoner, too. We are prisoners on a small island. You’ve been left here with us.” Riya tried to explain. “I haven’t seen the Bestri woods for a long, long time. Not since I set sail with Starfleet. Since being left here, I never thought I’d meet someone who knew of them ever again. What’s your name, Brother?”
The man rocked back and forth as through struggling to answer at first, then it just poured out of him. “Told…. Told you… Dredan…. Told you… Dredan Cubo Senior Deputy Marshal…. Told you Badge… Badge Number seven one two one… Told you told you told you… walk the Bestri woods with me… walk the Bestri woods with me…” he closed up again, hugging his legs to him and rocking slowly back and forth, eyes tightly closed. The lyrics faded away and he stilled, bundled up, just the sound of his ragged breathing escaped his lips.
Wallace put his hand on Riya’s and gave her a gentle squeeze, “Let’s go outside.”
Riya nodded, though she didn’t move right away. It had been difficult to look at Cubo when she had first seen him, and now it was difficult to step aside, as though she were abandoning him, even if he was confused about who she was or her motives. Maybe especially because he was confused. She just didn’t want him to be alone. But she eventually came to standing and followed Wallace.
They stepped out and Wallace let out a long, shaky breath. He was staring at the azure sky, a single star still visible. “I used to sing,” he whispered, almost too quiet to be understood.
Riya looked at him with a quirked expression as if he was being an insensitive ass and making fun of her for singing to poor Cubo, before she realized he wasn’t even addressing her. “You used to sing? Right. To who?” Weirdly, he looked like he might be ready to have a cry. Riya could count on one hand how often he’d looked like that.
Lost in the past, he didn’t hear her, and murmured to an invisible soul, “You’re never far away are you?”
She wasn’t sure what he meant, but she noticed the bright morning star in the direction of his gaze. “It’s not exactly close. That’s the gas giant, the one the Korinn call Salmat.” She didn’t have a telescope but she couldn’t help but point out the wandering star she’d learned about, still a bright point on the morning sky, among a few others, fading into the light, as the sun was warming the horizon. Wallace didn’t seem to be registering any of that. Besides, they’d pointed out the planet other times. He’d know by now what he was seeing. He wasn’t looking at the star. Not exactly. It was something past the sky that held his attention. Beyond stars. “What are you thinking?”
“Nothing,” Wallace said and then cleared his throat, and his momentary tenderness disappeared into the warm morning air. “He’s a goner. Laura said as much. You’ll stay with him?” It wasn’t really a question; his crewmates weren’t really cut out for leaving people to die on their own. Then again. He looked over at his own hut, maybe that was rubbing off on him.
“I can’t leave him like that. I’ll camp out in the clinic.” She wasn’t looking forward to watching the man drown in his own blood. But she couldn’t abandon him for his remaining hours either. She wouldn’t want to die alone like that.
“It doesn’t quite work out huh?” he asked the sky as much as Riya. “Our hosts scooped up our escape pods and stripped us of any tech, but didn’t so much as threaten a hair on our heads. But Cubo has been broken.”
“Someone wanted something out of him. Obviously. The Sunrise was just at the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“They branded the bastard, did you see? His own badge and some diamond thing. Ack. Doesn’t really matter much anyway. Maybe it’s better this way. He doesn’t have to live in our little paradise with its million ways to die.”
“I guess. I still wouldn’t call it lucky. It’s an awful way to go.”
Wallace grunted noncommittally. “I’m going back to Ibis. Let me know if someone else gets dropped on our beach.”
Riya took another deep breath and sighed as Wallace went. She gave the wandering star a shake of her head. How many times before she had known what it was had she startled, thinking it could be a ship in orbit? A lot of good a far away gas giant did. But at least it was something to mark the seasons by. She closed her eyes and reached back in her memory for another folk song. Maybe Cubo would know some lines from the Well of Rekantha…
When Riya reentered the hut, the figure was in the same position, curled up against the wall, but quiet now. At first it appeared he might be sleeping, but his left hand had dropped to the floor, it was by his feet, but unnaturally positioned, the palm twisted upwards, the fingers limp.
His pagh had started its long journey home.
Steiner had sat quietly letting Wallace recount the events. He had been mentally listing questions to ask while listening. Later he planned to review the recording repeatedly and have it transcribed to seek out further details. Then he could build up an interview plan for a formal deposition.
But for now he had the most important piece, a name! Senior Deputy Marshal Dredan Cubo, Badge seven one two one, Bajoran, Male.
"Thank you Major." He nodded to Wallace. "When you're fully recovered I will need to take a formal statement from you, but for now just a couple of questions. Any idea what kind of ship dropped Cubo off, can you recall if anyone said if it was a local Korix craft, or Pyrryx, or something else?" he asked.
“Laura and Jimoh both told me it sounded like one of the Z’ala’s small shuttle craft. But no one saw it clearly,” Ibis offered. “Wallace and I didn’t.”
Steiner nodded, "Thanks Chief," and waited for Wallace to answer.
Wallace shrugged: he didn’t have anything additional to add. Jimoh would’ve told him if there’d been more ,he’d been the best pointman on patrols Wallace had ever worked with, and Laura was a stickler for details in her work and everyday life.
"Ok" Steiner nodded and moved on.
"You also said the man mentioned a couple of names Desorn Koruchan, and Trans-Elliptical ” Steiner asked "Is that correct, you are sure of those, did you hear any other names?"
“He mumbled a lot in Bajoran. I don’t know if ‘jalda’ was a name or something else.”
"I can check that out" Steiner nodded "You said his badge was burned into his chest, along with another mark, what else can you recall about the mark?"
“Looked like a cut diamond. Or spiderweb looking thing. The memory is a bit hazy.”
"Spiderweb or diamond, ok. After he died, Chief Xeri -" Steiner nodded towards her "-said he was buried and an ‘Amos’ put his badge on his grave marker.
Sorry if this is hard, but did you bury your shipmates’ bodies, or were they all cremated, you said you told the Doctor, Laura, to ‘burn the body on the dune’? So he was cremated first?"
“Always. It was healthier for the rest of us.”
Steiner nodded "Understandable" but was disappointed at that, no forensics, even if they could have recovered the remains, but he did not reveal that and instead tapped his tricorder, flipped it around to show them the screen.
"This is an aerial image of your camp. Good job on laying it out like that by the way. All the Marines who saw it identified it as being Corps standard by the design, that's what led us to you and the children. Your layout saved you all. " He gave Wallace a respectful look. "Can you show me where the graveyard area is?" He held it out for Wallace and Xeri.
Ibis moved to point out the large dune that sat further back from the ocean. “The graveyard was on this side where it was a little more sheltered. To avoid being washed away in the storms,” she explained. “Facing… facing the sunset. West.”
Steiner turned it back and logged the place they had indicated. He could get the resolution on the image increased and analyzed for more details
"Ok, so to your knowledge, his remains, and the rest of your crewmates, would still be there?"
The aerial photo left Ibis feeling dizzy. She thought about the forty some funerals they had on that hill. By constructing calendars from memory and making their closest guesses, they had tried marking down the days and celebrating better things for a while. Birthdays and holidays from home. But eventually all they had were graveside memorials, the rest forsaken. Ibis was staring off through space between the Marshal and the wall, now, her lips loosely parted and her dark eyes eerily disturbed, barely blinking as the Marshal’s question rang in her head, echoing until the sound of them became a squelch of her senses, washed over by the sound of wind and waves— All of their remains, there. Remaining there. Still there.
“I doubt there’s any remains,” Wallace said gently squeezing Ibis’s hand, “Certainly not of the Marshal. The reeds and grass we used burned pretty hot and we fed the fires for a couple of days. Laura Winetrout was the last one we cremated. Maybe you’d find a stray bone or two. We buried the ash in the graves, so I guess those markers are all there is to ‘them’ left. I wouldn’t mind having those back.”
"Thank you, I hope we can get them all home one day" Steiner replied.
"Finally, is there anything else you can recall that would help me investigate this?"
Wallace sighed and shook his head. “Wish I did. You’re the one who wants to investigate the Pyrryx. I think you’ll probably need all the help you can get.”
"Yeah, you're not wrong" Steiner nodded and got up, tapping off his tricorder. "Thank you for your help, both of you. We'll talk again when you're ready Major. Take care of each other"
He gave them a smile and left. He blew past the Nurse's station with just a nod, hand clenched tightly around his tricorder. He had a case!
