Chapter Text
Julian’s been flirting with this Xahean girl for the past hour, and so far all he’s gotten is her name (Dera) and how long she’s lived on Earth (three years starting next month). But! She hasn’t tried clawing his eyes out yet which he considers a very encouraging sign.
It’s about ninety minutes to the new year of 2367 (stardate…stardate…well, he doesn’t exactly remember the stardate right now), and Julian’s steadily on his way to getting drunk and finding a date (or at least a one night stand) which is somewhat hampered by the fact that this New Year’s Eve just so happens to fall on a Saturday meaning that every wayward first year cadet that would usually be leashed on a curfew is spilling into this and practically every other bar in San Francisco.
Still, he’s never been one to give up without a fight. “I’m not due to graduate until next year, but, but, but did you know I’ve already saved a few lives?” He hiccups. He tries to ignore the fact that he can’t remember exactly which lives he’s saved right now.
Dera places her drink back down on the bar. “Oh, really?”
He ignores the slight sarcasm. Besides, that’s probably just the alcohol sloshing around in his brain. Nice of his parents to decide to retain at least one human thing about him. “Yes, I…”
He frowns. Something’s buzzing. He looks down and taps his combadge. “Bashir here.” Which, if he does say so himself, sounds very clever.
“Bashir.” He recognizes the voice of Dr. Liang, the head of Starfleet Medical Academy. As a third year student, the program has been whittled down enough that they actually know each other somewhat. “Is Erit with you?”
Even drunk, Julian thinks this odd. “Er, yes, sir. He’s here. Somewhere.”
“Good. Find him and any other medical students you see and come back to the Academy as quickly as possible.”
Julian supresses a sigh. So much for his new year. “Yes, sir. Of course, sir.”
He turns to give an apology to Dera, but she’s already disappeared. Huh. And he thought his alcoholic brain lied. Well, at least that’s one mystery solved! He stands, stumbling halfway through the bar to where Erit is sitting at a table with a few others, all human except for him.
“Erit,” he mumbles. He’s trying to tap his shoulder, but he might be accidentally caressing his neck. “Erit. I need to, to, Ineedtotalktoyou.”
“Julian. You have terrible timing, as always. And it appears that you’re drunk.”
“That’s. What. New Year’s. Is…” He stops. He’s forgotten what he was going to say. Then he remembers! “Liang. Liang wants us back at the Academy.”
“Fine. I’ll head back soon. I’m in the middle of a poker game, in case you haven’t noticed, and the stakes are good.”
Julian actually hasn’t noticed. “All right. But I’m heading back.” Never let it be said that Julian Bashir didn’t obey his orders promptly.
“Hey, Julian, maybe you should just wait for me? You don’t look so good.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll be…be…be fine!” He grins and waves and staggers away.
He thinks that whatever Liang is calling them in for is probably medical, but as he stumbles his way through the bar he starts to hear more trilling from combadges and a lot more curses. It seems like everyone in the Starfleet structure is getting recalled. What’s up with that?
And then there’s the door. The door blocked up with so many colourful cadet uniforms, all of them yammering at each other, pushing, shoving, rushing to get past so that none of them are moving at all.
Julian steps forward. “Excuse me, but if you could all just settle down and—”
Someone places a hand on his shoulder and pushes. “No one was asking for your opinion, medic!”
He deduces this is supposed to be an insult 3.9 seconds after he’s stumbled and fallen to the floor.
“Hey, are you all right?”
Julian blinks in the direction of a cadet leaning over him who looks exactly like one of those first year cadets he was so irritated about a few minutes ago.
“Yes,” he says, shaking his head. “No,” he says, nodding his head.
“Er, maybe you should get up slowly. Sorry about that guy. Some people sure are jerks.” Said in the direction of apparent jerk. Julian wants to tell him it doesn’t matter, but instead he decides to focus on getting his feet under himself again.
“Maybe I should make sure you get back safely,” the cadet kid says. Julian would protest if he wasn’t so dizzy. Besides, this kid is actually pretty good at maneuvering both of them out of the crowded bar and into the street.
“Thanks,” Julian says once they’re far enough away that they can hear each other again. “What’s your name, cadet?”
“Oh! I’m Harry Kim.” He smiles, looking a little nervous, even though there’s absolutely nothing to be nervous about. “What about you?”
“I’m Jules—Julian. Julian Bashir.” Where did that slip come from? Maybe he has been having too much to drink if he’s starting to think that’s his name. “I’d shake your hand, but I might be a bit too drunk for that.”
“You’ve been enjoying yourself, huh?”
“Of course! What else is New Year’s Eve for?”
“I guess I’m just trying to keep my head above water. This is my first year at Starfleet. Or in San Francisco, for that matter. I didn’t realize things got so…rowdy.”
Julian laughs. “Only during the holidays, cadet. And I just happen to know all the best places in this city to get rowdy. I’ll show you sometime if you like.”
“Would you?” Harry Kim seems both intimidated and intrigued by the offer. Julian loves this kid. This is going to be his new best friend.
“Of course. I’d show you now if we weren’t being called in.”
“Yeah, what’s up with that? Do you know?”
“No idea.”
“No idea here, either. I was wondering if this was some sort of yearly prank they played on new cadets or something.”
“If it is, they’re apparently not just playing it on the new cadets.”
“Well, whatever it is, I hope it doesn’t take too long. I have to get up early tomorrow for a tennis tournament.”
“Tennis?” Julian forces them to a stop in the middle of the street. Oh, he knew loved this kid. “Are you kidding? I love tennis. I wanted to become a professional tennis player once, did you know that? If you ever fancy a game, let me know.”
“Sounds great. If you can handle the competition.”
“I wouldn’t worry too much about that. I’m sure you’ll do fine.”
“Oh, you’re on now.”
Julian’s enjoying himself so much that he nearly crashes into Harry when he stops abruptly. He looks up and realizes that they’ve already managed to reach the Academy proper, though the Medical Academy is still another block away. “I’m on the medical track,” Julian explains. “So I guess I’ll leave you here.”
“You’ll be all right getting back on your own?”
“You’ve done quite enough, cadet.” Julian does a dramatic bow. Then he raises his head. “I’m serious about that tennis game, though. Come look me up if you’re ever game.”
“I might just do that.” Harry pauses. “Happy New Year, by the way.”
“Happy New Year.” Julian stands there for a moment, swaying on his feet, as Harry walks away, thinking that this is the strangest New Year’s he’s ever had. But then he trots off towards the building he’s been calling home for the past three years, pushing away any feelings of nostalgia that always try to bother him during the holidays.
He’s still not exactly certain what’s going on, but his concern grows when all the medical students arriving are directed into one of the bigger lecture halls. From his vantage point at the back Julian can see both Bruce Lucier and Elizabeth Lense, but no Erit.
Some of the students are murmuring—about what this could be about, about what they were dragged away from in order to be here—but they all go silent when Dr. Liang comes to stand on the podium, his lined face looking grave.
Whatever this is, it isn’t good.
“My apologies,” Liang begins, his voice sounding unusually quiet. “I realize this is unexpected, and that you were all in the midst of celebrations that you had to cut short in order to be here. But I’m sure you’re aware that you would not be recalled unless this was something important.” He takes in a breath. “What I am about to tell you is not to be released to the general public until after midnight. That is less than an hour away, but I still expect you to abide by that silence until this becomes general knowledge.”
A few of the students nod slowly. Julian just watches him. What could this possibly be about? He’s used to patient confidentiality, but they’re hardly told prime Starfleet intelligence in most circumstances.
Liang clasps his arms behind his back and steps out from behind the podium, almost as if to make himself look less threatening. “A few days ago, the USS Enterprise was tasked to investigate the abrupt communications loss of the New Providence colony on Jouret IV. What they found there has confirmed what Starfleet Command had already begun to suspect. It appears that the Borg have reached Federation space.”
Whatever Julian was expecting, it certainly wasn’t this. Any sort of pleasant feeling he still has from drink drains away. Gasps and murmurs spark out amongst the other medical students.
Liang waits until they’ve settled down. “Yesterday, the Enterprise confirmed that they had located the Borg cube and were attempting to stop it by any means necessary. Then, a few hours ago, we received word that the Enterprise had been seriously damaged and that the Borg”—a slight hitch in his voice—“are confirmed to be heading towards Earth.”
Silence.
“This is a dangerous situation. You know that. I know that. But we also know that we are far from helpless.” Some of his more characteristic brashness is coming back into his voice. “Starfleet and other Federation planets are already calling up every single available ship in order to stop the Borg. They will convene at Wolf 359 and destroy the cube if possible. I find it likely that this is where it will all end. However, Starfleet also finds it prudent that we be prepared for other eventualities. It is possible that medical or other Starfleet personnel here at the Academy may be called up.” His gaze turns over every face in the audience. “I want you all to be prepared to do your duty should you be so required. You are Starfleet. And you may now be called up sooner than you expected, but I trust that all of you, should the occasion arise, will do your duty and make Starfleet proud.”
It is—if Julian thinks about it from a detached and analytical perspective—only a mediocre speech. But they don’t need to hear something fantastic tonight. They don’t need to hear something detached and analytical and perfect. Tonight, all they need to hear is this.
Students near the front start to applaud, and soon the entire lecture hall is joining them. Clapping, cheering, saying whatever smart slogan comes to mind. They are Starfleet and they will defeat any obstacle in their path.
Julian feels the sweep of this tide as easily as any of them. He is Starfleet. So he gets to his feet and cheers for all he’s worth.
Liang says a few other things besides—that their schedules will remain largely the same for now, that they’re expected to stay on campus and alert for the next few days—but it isn’t anything they couldn’t already parse out. By the time it’s done, Julian stumbles back to his room, exhausted and still slightly drunk and feeling very odd. He sits on his bunk and watches the fireworks go off in the city and drown his dorm room in light, signalling midnight and the anticipation of a new year.
He thinks this must be a dream.
Julian isn’t sure when he goes to sleep, but he wakes up to Erit moving around in their room and the beginnings of light coming through their window—which his post-alcoholic brain does not entirely appreciate.
Erit immediately turns towards him as he sits up. “Am I glad you’re awake. I haven’t been able to sleep.”
Julian rubs his eyes. Ow. Ow, ow, ow. “You heard, then?”
“Yeah. I was still at the bar when it happened. Everyone went wild. But not exactly panicking, which is what you might expect. We all just started talking to each other, like we’d known one another forever. Somebody was saying how they could get us off world. I heard someone else think that Starfleet would take care of it and that would be that. Some people just thought it was a joke. It was very strange.” Erit shakes his head. Then his antennae droop. “Boy, am I gonna get it when Liang sees me.”
“I think one of the positives about this situation is that Liang’s opinion has just dropped somewhat in importance.”
“You might be right.” Erit turns back towards the window. “I just can’t believe this is happening. This is like something out of holosuite. How can it be real?”
Julian understands. Not only does this feel like a holonovel, there have been actual honest to goodness holonovels with this very premise. Attack of the Killer Borg! which is about defeating the Borg as they do attempt to attack Earth (also, they eat people, which seems a little unlikely). Then there’s Intimate Encounters with the Borg Kind which goes with a more sort of xenophilia romantic angle.
(Julian has definitely not played that one.)
“I know what you mean,” he finally says. “But we knew this was coming, didn’t we? The Enterprise had that initial encounter with the Borg more than a year ago now.” How many times had they been told in class that this was going to be an eventuality, that all projections indicated some hazy future date when the Borg would arrive and they would need to defeat them?
“I know. But…”
But how can this be happening to me? To which Julian has no answer. As much as he likes to imagine his life as an adventure sometimes, this feels like something else entirely.
Since they’re still following their regular schedules that means Julian still has to go work in the infirmary they run for the Academy proper. Even setting aside the regular check-ups and health problems that occur in any population, Starfleet cadets are apt sometimes to risk-taking behaviour, so they always have a steady supply of customers coming in and out. Today is no different. In fact, today might be a little worse. Lots of scrapes and bruises from dancing around San Francisco. A few broken bones. A cadet who somehow ate ten plates of gagh (how?) and needs their stomach pumped. Nothing that Julian can’t handle.
And the more he stays in this calming medical atmosphere, bounding from one patient to the next and fixing all their ailments, the more he feels himself settle. Everything about last night feels like a bad dream. The Borg? Starfleet will take care of that, no problem. All their worrying is going to be for nothing. It’s ridiculous to think otherwise. It’s—
“For the last time, doctor, I don’t need any help!”
Julian looks up to see Dr. Henderson yanking in a very irate and dishevelled cadet who seems to be resisting him every chance she gets.
“Yes, you do,” Henderson says sharply, glaring at her (and he can glare rather impressively). “That arm of yours is probably broken.”
“It’s fine,” she growls.
Julian takes a step closer, thinking they’re liable to scratch each other’s eyes out if left alone any longer. “Dr. Henderson, may I…?”
Henderson faces him, relief evident. “That sounds like a fantastic idea, Bashir. Cadet Torres, one of our fine student doctors here will treat you.”
She turns towards him and Julian realizes with a jolt that she’s partially Klingon. “Oh, great,” she sneers. “So you’re not even going to give me a real doctor?”
“I thought you just said that you didn’t need a doctor in the first place,” Julian says to her chirpily, and then smiles to show he means it as a joke.
She apparently deigns not to make a response to this.
He thinks about telling her to get on one of the examination beds, but then figures this might not be a fight worth having. He takes out a tricorder. “Would you care to tell me what happened?”
“No.”
“She and another student got into a physical altercation,” Henderson says. “That’s the sort of thing that can get you expelled, cadet.”
Julian really wishes Henderson would find something else to do. He’s only exacerbating the situation and raising her blood pressure. But he was right when he surmised that she’d broken her arm. And it appears she’s bruised a few of her ribs, too.
“Well?” She taps her foot as if she is not in the excruciating amount of pain that she must be in.
Julian smiles. “You’re injured, but nothing that can’t be easily fixed. If you’d follow me…?”
“This is ridiculous,” she mutters as he leads them into one of the private examination rooms. Thankfully this also gets them away from Henderson.
“This should only take a few minutes,” Julian says as he gets the medical equipment in place. “Try to relax.”
She huffs in his direction. He’s going to take that as a yes.
“Cadet,” he says quietly, once she finally has relaxed, “you don’t have to answer this if you don’t want to, but these injuries were from a fight, correct? I shouldn’t be concerned about this? Someone isn’t hurting you?”
She barks a laugh. “I should have known the moment you pulled me into a room that you’d ask me that.” She sits up, and he tells her to lie back down, and for some reason she listens to him. “Well, you’re wrong, doctor. I slammed some poor little cadet’s jaw, and I have the summons to a disciplinary council to prove it.”
If he suggests counselling she is going to bite his head off. He asks instead, “And how do you feel about that?”
She glares at him, but leaves his head unbitten. “What does it matter what I feel?” She mutters, “And, in any case, I’m not sure why I should be worried. The Borg are apparently going to kill us all before it happens.”
“I think they’re putting together a fleet to stop them.”
“Well, we’ll see how that works out.”
“You don’t think they’ll stop the Borg?”
“Maybe they will. But I don’t trust any plan that doesn’t involve me.”
He smiles in spite of himself. “Well, you almost have me convinced, Cadet Torres. But I still think they have a fighting chance.”
She sighs. “Tell me something. Do you always have this sunny of a disposition, or am I alone forced to endure it?”
“Oh, I’m always like this.”
“That’s exactly what I was afraid of.”
He laughs. “I’m done, by the way. Rest for a few minutes, and then you’ll be up and on your way in no time.”
“This is ridiculous,” she mutters once again, but she does in fact stay put.
“Well, that might be true,” he admits. “But despite what you may think of me, or anyone else, it was a pleasure to meet you, Cadet Torres. And I do hope, whatever the outcome of the Borg, that your disciplinary hearing goes easy on you. I think Starfleet would be a lot less without people like you.”
He’s at the doorway when she says, “B’Elanna.”
He turns back.
“My name’s B’Elanna,” she clarifies. “It’s just that you keep calling me ‘Cadet Torres’ like some sort of instructor.”
He nods. “I’m Julian. It was nice to meet you, B’Elanna.”
He goes back out into the main part of the infirmary, picks up a PADD, and start typing.
“You treated her?”
He looks up to Henderson standing beside him.
“Yes, sir,” Julian says. “She had a broken arm and three bruised ribs, all fixed. I’m writing it down now.”
“I can’t believe it, Bashir. I’ll write you a good reference for this. You wouldn’t believe how she scratched me coming up to the clinic.”
Julian shrugs, not exactly liking where this is going.
“All Klingons are alike, eh?”
No, they aren’t all alike, and even if they were, that doesn’t mean that they should make generalizations on a whim. Julian has noticed this before, older generations on Earth so distrustful of anything to do with Klingons, even eschewing anything that resembles their clothing or culture or food. They still retain vague memories of the tensions that ran so rampant for decades between these two species.
And just for a moment, this gives Julian the strangest thought. He wonders if one day he will behave exactly like this whenever anyone mentions the Borg in his presence. It seems ridiculous to compare—the Borg are, after all, supposedly a completely different kind of species than humans or Klingons or anyone else—but even so it’s a thought he briefly can’t seem to shake.
He doesn’t say any of this to Henderson, though. Henderson, who is his supervisor. Henderson, who might give him a good reference if he says and does all the right things.
Besides, Julian’s learned long ago that he doesn’t need to make enemies who might want to poke into any skeletons he’s hiding.
He decides to shrug his shoulders. Again.
“Ah, you’ll see what I’m talking about soon enough, Bashir. So,” he says, picking up Julian’s PADD and looking it over, “what do you think about this Borg situation we’re having?”
Julian returns to his room just before lunch to find Erit sitting on his bed looking somewhat more like his usual self than he did this morning.
“So,” Erit drawls. “How was the infirmary?”
“Good. Busy.”
“It always is on a Saturday. Thankfully I never have to work there on a Saturday because I’m not afflicted with the need to overachieve like you are. You should get that checked out.”
“Oh?” Julian walks over to the shelf above his bed where he keeps his two most prized possessions—his stuffed childhood bear and an actual honest to goodness paperback copy of Philip K. Dick’s Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said. “I’ve been speaking to Kukalaka over here and he says you’re lying.”
“Julian, I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again: Why in the Northern Wastes of Andoria do you still have a stuffed bear?”
“Hey, toxic masculinity went out of style several centuries ago here. I’ll have a stuffed bear if I want to.”
“Weird. You realize that’s why we’re friends, right? We’re both way too weird for anyone else.”
“Probably,” Julian says and laughs.
“Hey, hey, hey, what’re you two up to?”
Great, Bruce Lucier is standing in their doorway. Bruce Lucier, the centre of social life here at Starfleet Medical Academy. Bruce Lucier, who is just So Cool.
All right, so maybe Julian is a little jealous.
Erit says, “We were talking about the mutability of toxic masculinity in Earth culture.”
“Huh. Interesting,” Bruce says, not sounding very interested at all. “So where were you guys last night when it all went down?”
Ugh. Julian was just having a nice ten second conversation where the Borg weren’t even being implied to exist. “I was in the exact same lecture hall that you were.”
Bruce looks him over. “I meant before that.”
“In a bar.”
“Hm. Doesn’t sound very exciting. You know, you should come to one of my New Year’s Eve parties sometime. My dad has this real nice place here in San Francisco. Course, he’s never here because he’s always away on missions for Starfleet.”
How could Julian have forgotten? It’s not as if Bruce reminds them every other nanosecond that his family descends from mythic Starfleet officers of yore. “I’ll think about it.”
“Well, I was still in the bar when I heard,” Erit offers. The two of them then spend a considerable amount of time going over what Erit heard in the bar. Julian decides to spend his time much more productively by straightening Kukalaka and smoothing his fur.
“But,” he hears Erit say, “the one thing I don’t get is why they’re coming all the way to Earth. They can’t want our technology that badly, and we don’t pose them all that much of a threat. So what do they want?”
“Well, I’ve heard that it’s about more than that. We’ve apparently been getting the Borg all wrong. It’s not our technology they’re really after—it’s us. That’s what they do, apparently. They turn other species into them.”
“What?” Julian scoffs, turning back around. “That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve heard in my entire life.”
“It’s true,” Bruce says, sounding a tad defensive.
“And who’s your source?”
“A cousin of mine. She’s posted on the Enterprise. She sent me a message telling me everything I just told you. And she told me something else, too. She said Captain Picard has already become one of them. ‘Assimilated,’ she called it.”
“I mean,” Erit says into the silence, “it would explain a few things. Maybe that’s why they’re so focused on Earth. They want to assimilate all of us.”
Julian crosses his arms. He thinks his voice sounds strange when he says, “You’d make a lot of money if you wrote a holonovel, Lucier.”
“Fine. Believe what you want. I’m just telling you what I heard.”
He grumbles a bit and then leaves. Good riddance.
Erit stretches and then stands. “Incoming assimilation or no, I’m hungry. You want to get something to eat?”
“Thanks, but you go ahead. I’m going to study.”
“Oh, Julian. Never change.”
Julian smiles and waits until Erit is gone before he drags his console onto his bed and begins his search.
Or at least he would begin if he wasn’t bombarded by several missed communications first. Most of them are from his parents (which he decides to ignore for now), but the last one is from Palis and after he didn’t respond there’s a text message: Just calling to see if you’re all right considering. You know. Thinking about you.
He leans back. What the hell is he supposed to say to that? He briefly considers calling her. Then he decides to just send back: I’m all right and I hope you are too. And a beat later: I miss you.
Is that too much? Too little? What exactly should one send to one’s ex-girlfriend almost fiancée who one broke up with nearly three years ago under extenuating circumstances? He doesn’t know, but it’s sent now. He decides to turn his attention back to his original mission.
As it happens, there’s now a vast array of information out there on the Borg—all of the major news networks are covering it as their main story, and there’s spates of discussions going on in chatrooms all across the Galactic Network about it. The news networks are reporting the bare bones—a Borg cube is headed on a trajectory towards Earth, a Starfleet convoy is gathering to stop them near Wolf 359, Earth has a wide range of defensive capabilities fully able to repel any sort of invasion—but beyond that nothing is really known, and so rumours fill the void. Julian sees the idea repeated multiple times that the Borg are capable of “assimilation” and that Captain Picard is already one of these unfortunates. He also sees plenty of other things, like that there’s actually a whole fleet of Borg ships coming, or that the Borg can be stopped if they just inject a lethal amount of radiation into Earth’s atmosphere, or even that the Borg threat is simply a black ops ploy by a secret organization within Starfleet in order to ensure that Starfleet Command comes out in complete control of Earth’s government. This last one Julian finds particularly ridiculous. Starfleet would never have a secret organization like this.
(Or so he will think for the next seven years.)
Reading all of this makes him feel a little better, strangely enough. Because it’s clear that these people are simply saying whatever frightened thought pops into their head. That makes Bruce’s whole theory a little less likely. Probably the Borg are just after Earth’s technology. The worst case scenario is that the Borg will arrive, steal most or all of their technology, kill a few people, and then leave the rest of them alone. Which isn’t great, but it’s a hell of a lot better than this ridiculous nightmare assimilation scenario.
What is more concerning is what these fears are doing to people on Earth at large. When the major news networks are done with their headline story of the Borg, they uniformly move onto stories of unrest. For the most part people aren’t being violent, but there are panicking. Transporter use on Earth has now been restricted to only essential service workers, and yet even still there have apparently been stampedes at some of the major transporter sites. Earth’s government is trying to keep things fair for people who want to leave on starships departing from Earth, but things are quickly deteriorating there as well. Seats are going for any monetary value people possess, or prized possessions if they don’t have any sort of currency and many people don’t. Bizarrely enough, this panic is even affecting replimats or any other place with replicators. Long lines are apparently forming in front of them, sometimes making people stand for hours, just to get food. Which is absolutely ridiculous. The Borg aren’t going to be starving them to death, and even if they were, nothing is helped by this hoarding.
Oh yes, and some news sites are reporting that a small share of people are reselling this replicated food for phenomenal currency exchanges to people who won’t, or are unable to, stand in those long lines for hours. Lovely.
Julian just shakes his head. Didn’t they leave this kind of behaviour back in the 21st century? They should have, at any rate. Here’s a gentle reminder that plenty of people on Earth are entirely willing to revert to a more primal state if given the chance.
Another call comes in from his parents, making the console chime. He swipes the alert away angrily.
Enough of this. He pushes his console aside and reaches up to the shelf that holds Kukalaka and takes down the paperback of Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said. He thumbs through several of the weathered pages. It’s a reprint from the early 22nd century, right at the tail end of when they stopped printing books on paper altogether.
He flips back to the beginning and reads one his favourite exchanges of dialogue in this or any other novel:
Jason said, “Sixes don’t grow old.”
“Oh yes,” Heather said. “Oh yes they do.”
In this book, the main character is a “six”—meaning someone who has been genetically engineered. And in their world, one of these sixes tried to stage a rebellion against the government so that all the rest of the remaining sixes have either been rounded up and executed or else are hiding their genetic status. This is what the main character has to do. He has to keep his genetics and his history hidden and yet he still climbs his way through life to all sorts of successes. In short, he manages to survive.
The book is actually about a lot of other things besides this—a lot of extremely ridiculous things like alternate universes and evil totalitarian states. In truth, Julian isn’t even entirely sure if he likes this book, but when you’ve been living in a desert you drink any water you can find. Any book written these days on genetic engineering is always so controversial, so many people frowning and murmuring about what sort of person the author must be in order to write so sympathetically about them. If they’re written sympathetically at all, which is rare. How many holo programs has Julian played through with friends where the dastardly villain is in fact a secret augment?
But this. A book that everyone accepts as a classic. A book that has a main character who’s genetically engineered and hiding his status. Even if he’s portrayed as an asshole, he’s also portrayed as human and vital and real.
Julian will take what he can get.
A soft knock at the door. Julian startles, hastily placing the book back on the shelf even though he wasn’t technically doing anything wrong. “Erit, if that’s you, I still haven’t changed my mind.”
“Uh,” a voice says. Wait, Julian knows that voice. “I’m sorry. I was told that these were the quarters of Julian Bashir?”
Julian reaches for the door and opens it. “Harry Kim, right?”
Harry beams. “Julian! And, er, yes, that’s me. Actually, I’m surprised you remember me from last night.”
“Last night was fairly unforgettable.”
Julian means because it was New Year’s Eve and that they met, but then he remembers another prime reason why it might be unforgettable.
Harry sighs. “Right. Anyway, that’s sort of why I came to see you. It turns out that they’ve cancelled my tournament due to the…um…yeah. So I was wondering if you wanted to play a game?” He adds hastily, “I realize this is very last minute. You might have plans.”
“Actually, that sounds like a fantastic idea.”
Harry grins. “Great.”
It turns out there isn’t too much of a demand for the tennis court by the other students, due perhaps to multiple extenuating factors, so he and Harry can get right into their game.
Here’s always a fun part: Julian having to gauge how well to do, how badly to fail in order to look like a normal human being. Thankfully, Harry is fairly good so Julian doesn’t have to pretend as much as he usually does.
They take a break after three games (Julian won two), going over to one of the replicators to get a drink. Now he just has to pretend that he’s exhausted when he actually isn’t.
“You’re not too bad,” Harry says when he briefly catches his breath. “You told me you wanted to play professionally, right?”
“Once upon a time.”
“So why did you join Starfleet? You change your mind?”
“Something like that.” Which is not what he told Starfleet, or anyone else for that matter. One of these days he really should get all his stories straight, but he won’t because if he does then he’ll have to consciously admit that he’s hiding something serious that could wound him lethally if it ever got out.
Enough about him. “What about you, Harry? Why did you decide to join Starfleet?”
“I don’t know.” But then he sighs. “No, wait, that’s not true. It’s…well, I know it’s going to sound ridiculous, and it’s the dream of every first year cadet, but I want to be a captain someday. It’s out there that mankind is making all its contributions now, and I want to be a part of that.”
“That doesn’t sound ridiculous to me. I suppose that’s the real reason I joined Starfleet, too. I want to help people.”
“Do you have any idea of what assignment you want when you graduate?”
“Yes, but…not exactly.” Julian hasn’t spoken about this to anyone yet, and he’s a little surprised that this cadet he met yesterday is going to be the first one. “I want to go somewhere that would be no one’s first choice.”
“Why?” Harry seems baffled, as Julian expected most people would be.
“Because the people there deserve to have a good doctor. And I want to see space the way it was meant to be seen, none of that flashy frontline mission stuff. No offense to the Enterprise. But I want the hard stuff. I want the frontier.”
“Huh.” Harry looks at him both curiously and intrigued. “Well, I can’t say I feel exactly the same, but I can see why that might appeal. And I hope you find it. Wherever that is.”
“I’m still not exactly sure wherever that is either, to be perfectly honest. And…”—he supposes he should get this topic of conversation over with—“with how the current Borg situation is going, I can’t imagine anyone’s all that interested in thinking about prospective assignments for medical students.”
“Yeah.” Harry shuffles on his feet. “Look, I’m just going to be honest, I think everyone’s kind of blowing this whole thing out of proportion.”
Julian can’t repress a grin. “Thank goodness.”
“Wait, you agree?”
“Of course. This whole thing’s ridiculous, and everyone’s panicking far more than they need to.”
“I know, right? From the way everyone’s talking, you’d think Starfleet has decided to do nothing. But they’re responding. They’re bringing out a whole fleet of ships. I’m sure this whole thing will be over in a few hours.”
“Exactly.” Julian laughs. He knew he liked this kid. “And then you can finally become a captain.”
Harry ducks his head. “I hope so. Anyway,” he says, setting his drink down, “you want to play another round?”
Julian thinks he can mentally handle that. “Sure.”
Forty minutes later, Julian is walking back to his dorm room in good spirits when Erit pops up out of nowhere and says, “Hey. So, uh, just to give you a head’s up, your—”
“Julian!” a second voice calls, and before he knows it, Palis is rushing into his arms.
“Palis?” He touches her waist, the end of her nose, just to reassure himself that she is not a mirage. “Palis, what are you doing here?”
“Well, to see you, of course.” She laces her hands around the back of his neck. “I’ve been worried about you. People are acting so wild right now, and you know there is a rumour going around that Starfleet and the government aren’t exactly seeing eye to eye.”
“Which isn’t true, of course.”
“Oh, of course not. But they absolute last thing this situation needs is tension between the government and Starfleet, fabricated or otherwise, when they need to be working together.
Nothing gets by her. He’s forgotten about that. “But, Palis, what are you doing here? They’ve shut down all transporter activity for regular civilians.”
“Yes, but Papa runs the largest medical facility in Paris, remember? Usually he uses the transporter there for medical emergencies, but I asked him very nicely…”
She smiles. Yes, Julian hasn’t forgotten this at least, how Palis has her father wrapped around her little finger.
She leans in to his ear. “Julian, I’d like it if we could spend some time together, just you and me. I know this is so last minute, and we haven’t seen each other in forever, but…well…will you come with me?”
He closes his eyes. This is a bad idea. He and Palis broke up for a reason. But…
Well…
The easiest excuse is the one with the worst consequences. “Palis, I’m not supposed to go off—”
“I’ll cover for you,” Erit cuts in and lowers one of his antennae in the approximation of wink.
“I shouldn’t…”
“Oh, please, Julian!” Palis says, begging and wheedling and flirting and now twisting him around her little finger like she used to do. “Just one night. And your Andorian friend is such a dear. I don’t think he’ll tell.”
He should still say no. He should—
“All right,” he says. Because Palis has always had the tendency to make him weak. “But I have to be back here in a few hours, maximum.”
Palis merely kisses his cheek. “I knew you couldn’t refuse me.”
He’s sort of nervous. He’s never exactly broken a rule like this before, and if Dr. Liang finds out he’s been off grounds, and if he gets into trouble, and if they start finding inconsistencies in his past…
But then Palis loops her arm through his, leans her head against his shoulder, and he thinks how unprecedented this situation is, and how he’s so usually on his best behaviour.
Maybe he deserves to have a break.
Outside is…strange, to say the least. They can go by homes with lights on that look as normal as can be. And then they reach one of the replimats with a line stringing up and around the block, a sight that Julian has never seen in his life. It reminds him of old photographs he’s seen of Earth history, when food was still a scarce resource to be fought over. And yet, even now, when their resources are endless, they’re still fighting.
Sometimes they pass by places where people are arguing about whether one of them has cut in line or how long it’s taking. Julian thinks to intervene a few times, but Palis always squeezes his arm and shakes her head.
He knows she has a point. Intervening in that sort of tense situation might very well be dangerous, and the absolute last thing he needs is to get caught, but still, he feels more than a little guilty passing them by.
It’s so easy to be brave when you don’t have a terrible secret to hide.
Julian knows where Palis is taking him, the only thing he’s surprised about is that she still has the key.
At the start of their time together as a couple, just right at the moment when they realized they were serious, they got this little apartment by the San Francisco waterfront where they could play house for a weekend or an evening together. They would have dinner and talk and do all the things they imagined that real adults did, that still made them feel like they were children pretending they were older.
Afterwards, they would stand by the glass and watch the sun sink into the Pacific Ocean. Palis would tell him once again about her father’s proposal. He was still a cadet in the Academy proper then, not yet in the medical program, and maybe, she was saying, he never should be. Stay on Earth. Don’t reach for the stars. Be here with me.
He said he’d think about it. That’s what he always said. Put it off until the last moment. A family trait that no amount of genetic tampering could do away with.
Now, the place is filled with dust when they enter. Even if she kept the key, she clearly hasn’t been spending too much time here before this. Not that he can blame her. Already the memories are flooding back to him at an unwelcome pace.
She comes up behind him, wraps her arms around his shoulders, and it’s too much all at once. He tugs out of her arms.
“Palis,” he says, has to say. “I think we should talk about this. I don’t think we should—”
“What?” She takes a step back, hugs her arms against her stomach. And for the first time today, he sees the trauma of their circumstances etched into her face. “Do one thing today that might make us feel better? I’m so afraid, Julian. Of the Borg and even ourselves. Do you have any idea what it’s like in Paris? It’s worse than here. There’s even been looting. And I was so worried about you. There was a rumour going around that they were going to ship you all out.”
He realizes suddenly what this is. Maybe to her this feels like a genuine desire to rekindle their relationship, and maybe part of it is, but he can see the evolutionary mechanisms kicking in, that need to seek out other humans for comfort during moments of crisis.
He is not immune. He recognizes this within himself, what drove him to go with her against all common sense. And seeing her so distraught now only makes him more eager to comfort.
“Hey.” He takes her hand in his. “I’m all right. We’re all going to be all right.”
She laughs softly. “See, when you say it, I can almost believe it.”
“You should.” He runs a thumb along her jaw. “Because it will be. Nothing bad is going to happen.”
She’s leaning into his touch. “I…” she says and doesn’t say anything else. She reaches up and kisses him. And he kisses her back, brings an arm around her back, their bodies moving in perfect sync even after all these years.
“Please,” she says when they break away. “Just one night. One time. That’s all I ask.”
He hesitates. He should say no.
But he’s already said yes to everything else.
He finds he doesn’t regret it.
Afterwards, they lie in bed together and she asks him all about his studies and the infirmary and how exactly his work on immunotherapy is going since that’s starting to become a specialty of his. He knows she’s not just asking for his sake, she is actually interested, pleased to learn all the medical advances that have happened in the past few years. That’s what happens when you date a doctor’s daughter.
Next he asks her about how her ballet is going. He has an interest in ballet (he does!), and he’s just as curious as her to find out what new innovations they’ve been doing in the arts in the past few years.
“Now, I know it’s going to sound strange, but we’ve decided to perform a ballet on Henry V’s invasion of France. It actually has a lot of lyrical opportunities when you think about it.”
“Of course it does,” he says, greatly amused. “Am I to presume that Henry V won’t be portrayed so well in this?”
“And why would he be?” she sniffs.
He laughs. “Well, whatever you might say about him personally, you have to admit he was a brilliant strategist who knew exactly how to take over a country.”
“Being the conquered doesn’t exactly lend yourself to think favourably on the conqueror.”
Are they still talking about Henry V? New topic of conversation, maybe. Julian’s eyes catch on a necklace she’s been wearing this entire time, a silver cross on a slender chain. “That’s a religious symbol, isn’t it?”
She looks down, touching the necklace. “Yes,” she says quietly.
“I’ve never seen you wear it before. I didn’t realize you were interested in religious artifacts.”
“Maybe it’s not just the artifacts I’m interested in.” She’s not looking at him and suddenly he feels uneasy.
“Palis, what are you saying?”
She smiles. When she looks back at him, her eyes are brilliant. “Maybe fear changes people. I don’t know. But they’re opening up the churches back in Paris. People need something to believe in right now.”
“I suppose so,” he admits. “But if we’re praying to a higher entity, maybe it’s Q we ought to be praying to. At least we know he exists.”
“Julian, I wish you wouldn’t mock me.”
“I’m not…” Or was he? He’s going to admit he finds this a little disconcerting. He’s never heard Palis express a religious thought in her life. Most of the people he knows are like that. It’s not that they don’t appreciate some of the things religion has done—he’s toured plenty of temples and churches and mosques in his time—but those that truly believe in such things are well into the minority these days.
Until now, of course.
“I’m sorry,” he says honestly. “I wasn’t…I wasn’t trying to be mocking. It just seems a little bit strange to me.”
“Believe me,” she murmurs, “this feels strange to me, too.”
They must talk more after that, though he doesn’t remember it later. All he remembers later is his dream.
His dreams have always been very vivid—perhaps a quirk of his engineering—and this one is no different. In his dream, he is on a stage before a large audience and Palis is with him, pulling him in and out of the dance they are in. He’s starting to feel dizzy with her movements and he keeps trying to stop her, keeps trying to make her stay in his arms, but she continually flits out of reach.
He starts saying what he recognizes is from Shakespeare’s Henry V: “Fair Katharine, and most fair, will you vouchsafe to teach a soldier terms such as will enter at a lady’s ear and plead his love-suit to her gentle heart?”
Palis has a look of false shock on her face. “Your majesty shall mock at me. I cannot speak your England.”
He can’t remember what line comes next even though he should, even though he’s had this play memorized from the moment he read it for the very first time. The audience is applauding as she draws near to him once again.
She queries, “Is it possible that I should love the enemy of France?”
“No,” a voice intones Julian’s line, a voice that does not come from him, “it is not possible you should love the enemy of France, Kate, but, in loving me, you should love the friend of France.”
Julian turns. There, on the wing of the stage comes forward a creature that he has seen in images as being a Borg. It comes forward in mechanical jerks and spreads its arms wide when it says in its mechanical voice, “For I love France so well that I will not part with a village of it. I will have it all mine. And, Kate, when France is mine and I am yours, then yours is France and you are mine.”
The audience applauds, stands in a rising ovation even though this is not the end of the play. Julian turns to Palis, desperately trying to remember the next line, but what comes out of his mouth is, “Sixes don’t grow old.”
She backs away from him warily. “What are you?”
“I’m me,” he says, though he knows with deep certainty that she won’t believe it. Because he doesn’t believe it either. “You know me.”
“No, we don’t.” A man stands in the audience. Harry Kim with arms crossed and severity on his face. “You’re an augment. You don’t belong here with us in Starfleet. You should be in prison.”
“That’s not true! I belong here just as much as any of you!”
Only jeers come out from the audience.
“Stay away.” Palis is rushing now towards the wing, and Julian turns to follow, but he’s stopped by the Borg who throws him to the ground. The Borg with Captain Picard’s face who’s leaning forward and—
He jolts awake.
He breathes for a moment. All right, so maybe that was a little weird(er) than usual. Probably just brought on by the unusual amount of stress of late. He stretches.
It takes him a moment to realize Palis is on the edge of the bed and crying softly.
“Palis?”
“Julian.” Palis wipes her eye with a thumb, which only succeeds in streaking the tear across her cheek. “I didn’t want to wake you. You seemed so peaceful.”
Well, his body was telling lies. He moves to the edge of the bed beside her and sees now that she’s looking at a console. “What’s wrong?”
“Oh, Julian.” Her eyes crowd with tears again. “It’s over. They lost.”
A cold feeling coils into his gut. “They?” he says, though the answer to that question is obvious.
“The Starfleet ships at Wolf 359. They were almost all destroyed. We don’t know the full causalities yet, but it must be in the thousands. Julian, there were children on some of those ships. Children.”
She buries her face in his chest. He takes the console from her, hurriedly does a search, but he doesn’t have to look far. It’s all over the Galactic Network. Details are sketchy (of course they are) but they all confirm what Palis just told him. The fleet failed and failed disastrously.
One Borg cube did this.
A Borg cube that’s now unimpeded on its way to Earth.
He hates how there’s some part of himself that actually isn’t so surprised by this.
“Hey.” He sets the console aside, wraps his arms around her. “It’s still going to be all right. There’s…you know, there’s the Mars Defense Perimeter.”
“Julian, that’s three small pods.”
“Three small pods can do a lot of damage depending on the circumstances. And Earth has defenses. We can’t just give up.”
Palis pulls herself out of his arms. She seems suddenly very composed. “Julian, I think we made a mistake three years ago. Come back with me to Paris and let Starfleet take care of the Borg on their own.”
Oh no. Not this. “Palis, can we not—”
“Can’t you at least consider it?”
“No.”
“Why?”
He stands. Runs a hand through his hair. “Because I’ve already considered this. And if you will remember, I said no.”
She draws her knees to her chest. “Then maybe I should stay here with you.”
“That isn’t a good idea.”
“Why not?”
“Because you wouldn’t be happy here. What would you do as a medical officer’s wife? There’s no ballet troupes at any of my possible assignments, at least none that could compete at your level.”
“Then I would train and perform over transmission.”
“Which you would grow sick of after a month, and then you’d blame me for having dragged you halfway across the galaxy, and we’d both end up hating each other.” She doesn’t respond to that. He says, gentler, “Palis, what your father offered me before was very kind, and I seriously considered it, but in the end I knew I belonged here. And you belong on Earth. There’s no future for us.”
“Can you at least explain to me why Starfleet is so important to you?”
He can’t. Because if he does then he will have to admit to himself that he is a fraud and a freak and not even remotely worthy of being here. And if he is all of these things then he has to admit that this drive to succeed—to have the most brilliant career any human being has ever had, to save as many lives as he can in as many places as he can—is to make up for everything else.
And he can’t even admit that to himself.
“Palis, this is just something I have to do.”
She looks away from him, towards the window that shows the harbour and the ends of the earth. “Have you considered the fact that there might not even be a Starfleet to work in next week?”
“Oh, I don’t know about that,” he says, going for a lighter tone. “We’re a little hard to get rid of.”
She glances back at him. “I wish you loved me as much as you loved Starfleet.”
He takes in a sharp breath. That hurt more than he’s willing to admit.
Palis closes her eyes. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. I just wish…”
“I know.” He pulls her into his arms again, kisses the crown of her head. “I love you, Palis.”
“I love you too.”
They’re both silent for a long moment before she murmurs, “I have to go now. You’re not coming with me and the fleet is lost. I have to see Papa one last time before…”
“You’ll see him plenty of times after this,” Julian says firmly. “But, yes, I think you should be with him right now.”
“And what about you?”
“What about me?”
“Your parents.” He stiffens. “Julian…I know you don’t see eye to eye with them. And I don’t know what went wrong between you, but maybe you should at least think about talking to them one last time. You might not get another chance.”
That’s you’re supposed to do. That’s what a dutiful son is supposed to do in a situation like this. A dutiful son sets aside all grievances and reassures his parents that maybe they didn’t do the best job, maybe they weren’t perfect, but they were under a lot of stress, and he understands, and he loves them regardless.
But maybe he isn’t the dutiful son. “I’ll think about it, all right?”
“All right.” She kisses him one last time and then takes a step back. “Papa,” she says into a transmitter, “I’m ready to come home.”
He watches her break into a thousand pieces. Then he’s alone.