TITLE: The Times of Sand
AUTHOR: MikeJaffa
SYNOPSIS: Answer to Trek BBS Archaeological Anarchy challenge: Dax and Kyra come across an ancient memory sphere on an abandoned planet.
DISCLAIMER: Paramount owns Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. I am making no money off this fic.
8
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8
8
“Remind me again why we landed on this empty ball of dust that even the Prophets forgot about?” Major Kira Nerys complained as she trudged along behind Lieutenant Jadzia Dax through the dark stone underground corridor. The only light came from Jadzia’s tricorder and their wrist lights. The floor was covered with dust and sand.
Dax barely took her eyes off her tricorder. “To track down the energy readings we detected from orbit. We have standing orders to investigate any unusual phenomena we come across in the Gamma Quadrant.”
“A phenomenon we have seen neither hide nor hair of since we came down this hole. This looks like a dry well.”
“Or we just have to look a little more. A few more minutes, Major.”
“Ugh. All right. But what is it with you people? You Starfleet types have to look into every little thing. How do your ships get anywhere if you make all these detours?”
“Sometimes it’s about the journey, not the destination.”
“I’m beginning to think Starfleet never won any battles. You just didn’t show up because the entire fleet had to investigate another cave on an uncharted planet, and your enemies went home. They’re gone when you finally show up, and you win by default. And you never saw a cave or underground passage you never liked. Isn’t there a human saying about curiosity?”
“‘Curiosity killed the cat.’ I’m not human. And just to be on the safe side, I practice Klingon martial arts.”
“Pff! All right. Let’s go back to the runabout and you can replace your phaser with a bat--”
“I was right!” Dax stopped at a junction, grinning. “The reading is very faint, but it’s there. It’s not a sensor ghost. This way.” She started down a passage.
“Huuuuaugh!” Kira somehow dragged herself after Dax.
“With all due respect, Major, how did you manage in the resistance if you were so whiny?”
“We were fighting for a cause, not taking a detour. And Cardassians would have killed us if they had heard us.”
“Pretend there are some around here.”
“They wouldn’t be here. They hate sand-filled unexplored underground passages as much as I do. But let’s assume you’re right, Dax, and there is something here. Why couldn’t we wait to get back home to the station to report your findings instead of looking ourselves? We’d be back there by now, and I could be soaking in the bath I have been dreaming about for days.”
“You just called DS9 ‘home.’”
“Exhaustion and boredom will do that.”
“Boring. Boring? Kira, there is nothing boring about this! The satellites we found in orbit were clearly the product of a warp-capable culture, yet this planet is uninhabited. All the hardware is inert. This planet was clearly terraformed, but it was abandoned and is reverting to its original state. A few more years, and the air might not be breathable. And yet, in the middle of all this wreckage there is something that has lasted who knows how many centuries and is still generating power. If we don’t look now, it might burn out. Aren’t you the least bit curious about who these people were?”
“Nope.”
“All these months and I don’t understand you, Major. How can you be so incurious?”
“I’m curious about a lot of things, Lieutenant. Like, how relaxing will it be to take a bath in my own cabin after two weeks in the Gamma Quadrant? Will those scented candles I bought before we left be worth it? Can I get a good table at Quark’s after—hang on.” She tugged at Dax’s sleeve, bringing them to a halt. “What’s that?” In the darkness, she could see a faint blue light pulsing in a doorway.
Dax said, “Could it be another way out?”
“I dunno. Was the sun that shade of blue?” Kira replied.
“No, it’s a G class yellow dwarf.”
“Thought so.”
They drew their phasers and slowly advanced to the doorway.
The room was circular, thirty feet wide with a high ceiling and three other doors at equidistant points around it. The room was empty except for an ornate meter high stand in the middle with a crystal sphere the size of a basketball on top. The sphere pulsed with a faint blue light.
Dax scrutinized her tricorder. She said, “These readings are similar to the Saltah’na memory spheres discovered by the Klingons.”
“By the Prophets,” Kira moaned, “please, no, not that again.”
“It’s similar, not identical, and it doesn’t seem to be emitting--”
The sphere went dark.
Kira said, “Oh well. That’s it then. Hope you got some good data.” She turned towards the door. “Let’s go back to the--”
The sphere lit up, glowing brighter than before.
“KIRA!” Dax shouted.
The sphere fired a bolt of blue energy that hit Kira in the back. The sphere went dark as Dax ran to Kira. Kira’s legs gave out and she started to fall, but Dax caught her.
8
8
Kira opened her eyes. Her head hurt; she had just been hit on the side of her head. She was lying on a padded floor. She sat up and took in her surroundings. She was in the middle of triangular crash mat maybe forty or fifty feet on a side. It was in the middle of an open air courtyard in the middle of what seemed to be an ornate stone palace. A slim, dark-haired teenage girl, humanoid but with a ridge from the tip of her nose to her forehead, sat in a sedan chair at one of the corners, surrounded by armed body guards. Kira looked down at herself. She was wearing tights and a leather vest. A 6-foot wooden staff was next to her.
Another humanoid woman dressed in the same type of outfit and twirling her own staff in one hand circled her. She said in a mocking voice, “That was almost too easy. Maybe you should just yield.”
“What? I’m Major Kira Nerys of the Bajoran Militia, attached to Starbase Deep Space Nine.”
The other woman laughed. “Delusional, too! I really did hit you hard, Korlota. We should end this and send you to a healer.”
Kira touched her earring and the ridges on her nose. She was clearly still Bajoran, but this other woman thought she was someone else. “I…what’s going on here? Where am I?”
The other combatant shook her head. She said, “I cannot countenance continuing this. It wouldn’t be honorable.” She turned towards the girl in the sedan. “What do you think, Princess? Shall we show mercy? She’s clearly not up to the task.” The princess sat up in her chair, concern in her eyes.
Anger welled up in Kira. She thought, ‘This is Dax’s fault! I don’t care how fuzzy and friendly the Federation types are, I will take this out of her hide.’ But as annoyed as she was with Dax, she was really annoyed at this other woman. Kira had always hated being mocked, and age and her years in the resistance and not changed that.
Kira got to her feet and said, “No, I’m good.” She picked up her staff. “Maybe you did hit me a little hard. Good shot. But you know what? I’m tired and I’ve had a bad day, and I’m in a mood to beat someone up.” She hefted her staff. “And lady, you just nominated yourself to be beaten up.”
8
8
Dax carried Kira back to the runabout and laid her on a bunk in the rear section. She got a medical tricorder and scanner out of the first aid kit and passed the scanner over Kira.
“No injuries,” Dax muttered, reading the tricorder. “This thing says your vitals are good. But what the hell is up with your brain activity? Kira! Kira!”
Kira didn’t respond.
“Dammit,” Dax grumbled. “Help me out here, Nerys. I’m a science officer, not a doctor.”
8
8
Kira opened her eyes. She was lying in bed in her room on the upper floor of the palace, a white gown on under her blankets. She was immensely old. Though Jadzia Dax would recognize her face, Kira’s hair was white and her face was seamed with lines. Sunlight poured in through the window. A glowing blue sphere was on a stand in the corner. Kira thought it looked familiar. Someone had told her what it was for. She couldn’t remember.
The empress, whom Kira had known since she was a princess that day in the courtyard, came and sat on the edge of Kira’s bed. Dressed in a gold dress, she too bore the weight of years, white hair streaming down her back.
Kira smiled up at the empress. She said, “You know what I wish?”
“What?” the empress asked.
“I wish I could see Dax again.”
“The woman from that other life.”
“She used to drive me crazy, she and the other science types the Federation brought in. She was always putting every little thing under a microscope. She couldn’t walk two meters without studying the dust on her shoe. But she was a fun person. Always enjoying life. She was bubbly and funny. And had a little bit of an attitude. I guess all those years fighting Cardassians, I forgot what it was to have fun, and I resented her still knowing how. I should have appreciated it. I should have let myself…” She trailed off as her energy flagged.
“I’m sorry we never found the passage you described,” the empress said. “I should have liked to have seen this ‘Alpha Quadrant.’”
Kira waved it off. “For all I know, I sent your ships in the wrong direction. ‘Computer, lay in a course to Gallifrey’ is all I know about interstellar navigation. But yeah, I would have liked to have seen Dax again. All of them again. These Federation types breathe weird stuff. They could have figured this out before breakfast and then gone to stop a star from exploding.”
“You cared about them very much. That much has been clear to me.”
“I guess I did. Didn’t think so, but I did. How did that happen? And I miss Dax the most. She must be dead by now…Jadzia must be dead…but the Dax symbiont should be alive. Wonder if the new Dax is in Stafl…” She trailed off again.
The empress leaned down. “Perhaps, the gods will allow you to see your Jadzia again.” She gently kissed Kira on the lips. “And when I go to join you, you can introduce us.”
8
8
“Normal brain activity again,” Jadzia Dax said. “Well that’s--”
Kira’s eyes popped open.
“…good. Kira? Can you hear me? Do you know who I am or where you are?”
“Dax?” Kira squirmed away on the bunk. “What…where…are we dead?”
“Dead? No, although I feel dead after carrying you back here. I should have had the runabout beam us. I think you have to lose some--”
“C-carried me? Carried me from where?”
“From the room where that sphere was. Remember? It zapped you?”
“The sphere? But…wait, that was 75 years ago.”
“No, twenty minutes.”
Kira stared into space for a moment. Then she scrambled out of the bunk, crossed to the runabout’s small toiletry area, and looked at her face in the mirror above the sink. She ran her fingers over unexpectedly smooth skin. Her hair was red and her face was as youthful as it had been so many--many—
Kira said, “Minutes? I remember every day of those 75 years.” She turned to Dax. “How is this possible?”
“There’s tech out there that can transfer memories, even personalities. It sounds like the sphere gave you the details of someone else’s life. Captain Picard of the *Enterprise* went through something similar not so long ago. What exactly do you remember?”
“I was the bodyguard of a princess. She became empress.” Kira walked aft to the rear windows. “She came to this planet and oversaw the final phases of its transformation. She built a palace here and we lived here for the rest of our lives. We…we were close.”
“I’m sorry for your loss…even if it wasn’t really your life.”
Kira nodded and looked out the window. “It was beautiful here, Dax. You would have liked it.” She pointed. “The imperial gardens were right over there. I recognize the mountains. It’s all dust now.”
Dax muttered something.
“What?” Kira asked.
“An Earth poem,” Dax explained. “This traveler finds the remains of a statue in the middle of a desert. There’s nothing but sand for miles. An inscription on the base of the statue reads, ‘I am Ozymandias, king of kings. Look upon my works, ye mighty, and despair.’”
Kira spun and pulled Dax into a hug. “I missed that about you! All your puttering and your useless knowledge.”
“Yeah,” Dax said laughing nervously. “I’m glad to have you back, too. Uh, Major, you’ve been through a lot…”
“Of course.” She released Dax from the hug, but the moment remained awkward. “So...Lieutenant…do you think can we leave now?”
“Almost. I want to take the sphere back with us. I think I can rig a containment field that will allow us to bring it aboard safely. Maybe we can extract the data and find out about your empress.”
“Yes, tha…yes, yes, ok, Dax, get to it.”
Dax turned away and crossed to a work bench.
Kira said, “What were you planning on doing after we get back to the station?”
“Uh, well, if it’s not too late, I could grab a bite at the replimat and then run a holosuite program.”
“Klingon martial arts?”
“Yeah, sure, I could.”
“Mind if I join you?”
“I thought you were going to soak yourself in a bath.”
“I may have some extra energy to work off. Your program sounds like it fits the bill. And maybe I was too dismissive…before. If anyone has some good moves, it’s the Klingons, right? I’d like to try it. If you don’t mind.”
“No, sure, the more the merrier.”
“All right then, it’s a…we’ll do that.”
Dax nodded and turned back to her work. “And I know, no more detours.”
“Oh, I dunno,” Kira said. “In small doses, a little weirdness isn’t so bad after all.”
THE END
AUTHOR: MikeJaffa
SYNOPSIS: Answer to Trek BBS Archaeological Anarchy challenge: Dax and Kyra come across an ancient memory sphere on an abandoned planet.
DISCLAIMER: Paramount owns Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. I am making no money off this fic.
8
8
8
8
“Remind me again why we landed on this empty ball of dust that even the Prophets forgot about?” Major Kira Nerys complained as she trudged along behind Lieutenant Jadzia Dax through the dark stone underground corridor. The only light came from Jadzia’s tricorder and their wrist lights. The floor was covered with dust and sand.
Dax barely took her eyes off her tricorder. “To track down the energy readings we detected from orbit. We have standing orders to investigate any unusual phenomena we come across in the Gamma Quadrant.”
“A phenomenon we have seen neither hide nor hair of since we came down this hole. This looks like a dry well.”
“Or we just have to look a little more. A few more minutes, Major.”
“Ugh. All right. But what is it with you people? You Starfleet types have to look into every little thing. How do your ships get anywhere if you make all these detours?”
“Sometimes it’s about the journey, not the destination.”
“I’m beginning to think Starfleet never won any battles. You just didn’t show up because the entire fleet had to investigate another cave on an uncharted planet, and your enemies went home. They’re gone when you finally show up, and you win by default. And you never saw a cave or underground passage you never liked. Isn’t there a human saying about curiosity?”
“‘Curiosity killed the cat.’ I’m not human. And just to be on the safe side, I practice Klingon martial arts.”
“Pff! All right. Let’s go back to the runabout and you can replace your phaser with a bat--”
“I was right!” Dax stopped at a junction, grinning. “The reading is very faint, but it’s there. It’s not a sensor ghost. This way.” She started down a passage.
“Huuuuaugh!” Kira somehow dragged herself after Dax.
“With all due respect, Major, how did you manage in the resistance if you were so whiny?”
“We were fighting for a cause, not taking a detour. And Cardassians would have killed us if they had heard us.”
“Pretend there are some around here.”
“They wouldn’t be here. They hate sand-filled unexplored underground passages as much as I do. But let’s assume you’re right, Dax, and there is something here. Why couldn’t we wait to get back home to the station to report your findings instead of looking ourselves? We’d be back there by now, and I could be soaking in the bath I have been dreaming about for days.”
“You just called DS9 ‘home.’”
“Exhaustion and boredom will do that.”
“Boring. Boring? Kira, there is nothing boring about this! The satellites we found in orbit were clearly the product of a warp-capable culture, yet this planet is uninhabited. All the hardware is inert. This planet was clearly terraformed, but it was abandoned and is reverting to its original state. A few more years, and the air might not be breathable. And yet, in the middle of all this wreckage there is something that has lasted who knows how many centuries and is still generating power. If we don’t look now, it might burn out. Aren’t you the least bit curious about who these people were?”
“Nope.”
“All these months and I don’t understand you, Major. How can you be so incurious?”
“I’m curious about a lot of things, Lieutenant. Like, how relaxing will it be to take a bath in my own cabin after two weeks in the Gamma Quadrant? Will those scented candles I bought before we left be worth it? Can I get a good table at Quark’s after—hang on.” She tugged at Dax’s sleeve, bringing them to a halt. “What’s that?” In the darkness, she could see a faint blue light pulsing in a doorway.
Dax said, “Could it be another way out?”
“I dunno. Was the sun that shade of blue?” Kira replied.
“No, it’s a G class yellow dwarf.”
“Thought so.”
They drew their phasers and slowly advanced to the doorway.
The room was circular, thirty feet wide with a high ceiling and three other doors at equidistant points around it. The room was empty except for an ornate meter high stand in the middle with a crystal sphere the size of a basketball on top. The sphere pulsed with a faint blue light.
Dax scrutinized her tricorder. She said, “These readings are similar to the Saltah’na memory spheres discovered by the Klingons.”
“By the Prophets,” Kira moaned, “please, no, not that again.”
“It’s similar, not identical, and it doesn’t seem to be emitting--”
The sphere went dark.
Kira said, “Oh well. That’s it then. Hope you got some good data.” She turned towards the door. “Let’s go back to the--”
The sphere lit up, glowing brighter than before.
“KIRA!” Dax shouted.
The sphere fired a bolt of blue energy that hit Kira in the back. The sphere went dark as Dax ran to Kira. Kira’s legs gave out and she started to fall, but Dax caught her.
8
8
Kira opened her eyes. Her head hurt; she had just been hit on the side of her head. She was lying on a padded floor. She sat up and took in her surroundings. She was in the middle of triangular crash mat maybe forty or fifty feet on a side. It was in the middle of an open air courtyard in the middle of what seemed to be an ornate stone palace. A slim, dark-haired teenage girl, humanoid but with a ridge from the tip of her nose to her forehead, sat in a sedan chair at one of the corners, surrounded by armed body guards. Kira looked down at herself. She was wearing tights and a leather vest. A 6-foot wooden staff was next to her.
Another humanoid woman dressed in the same type of outfit and twirling her own staff in one hand circled her. She said in a mocking voice, “That was almost too easy. Maybe you should just yield.”
“What? I’m Major Kira Nerys of the Bajoran Militia, attached to Starbase Deep Space Nine.”
The other woman laughed. “Delusional, too! I really did hit you hard, Korlota. We should end this and send you to a healer.”
Kira touched her earring and the ridges on her nose. She was clearly still Bajoran, but this other woman thought she was someone else. “I…what’s going on here? Where am I?”
The other combatant shook her head. She said, “I cannot countenance continuing this. It wouldn’t be honorable.” She turned towards the girl in the sedan. “What do you think, Princess? Shall we show mercy? She’s clearly not up to the task.” The princess sat up in her chair, concern in her eyes.
Anger welled up in Kira. She thought, ‘This is Dax’s fault! I don’t care how fuzzy and friendly the Federation types are, I will take this out of her hide.’ But as annoyed as she was with Dax, she was really annoyed at this other woman. Kira had always hated being mocked, and age and her years in the resistance and not changed that.
Kira got to her feet and said, “No, I’m good.” She picked up her staff. “Maybe you did hit me a little hard. Good shot. But you know what? I’m tired and I’ve had a bad day, and I’m in a mood to beat someone up.” She hefted her staff. “And lady, you just nominated yourself to be beaten up.”
8
8
Dax carried Kira back to the runabout and laid her on a bunk in the rear section. She got a medical tricorder and scanner out of the first aid kit and passed the scanner over Kira.
“No injuries,” Dax muttered, reading the tricorder. “This thing says your vitals are good. But what the hell is up with your brain activity? Kira! Kira!”
Kira didn’t respond.
“Dammit,” Dax grumbled. “Help me out here, Nerys. I’m a science officer, not a doctor.”
8
8
Kira opened her eyes. She was lying in bed in her room on the upper floor of the palace, a white gown on under her blankets. She was immensely old. Though Jadzia Dax would recognize her face, Kira’s hair was white and her face was seamed with lines. Sunlight poured in through the window. A glowing blue sphere was on a stand in the corner. Kira thought it looked familiar. Someone had told her what it was for. She couldn’t remember.
The empress, whom Kira had known since she was a princess that day in the courtyard, came and sat on the edge of Kira’s bed. Dressed in a gold dress, she too bore the weight of years, white hair streaming down her back.
Kira smiled up at the empress. She said, “You know what I wish?”
“What?” the empress asked.
“I wish I could see Dax again.”
“The woman from that other life.”
“She used to drive me crazy, she and the other science types the Federation brought in. She was always putting every little thing under a microscope. She couldn’t walk two meters without studying the dust on her shoe. But she was a fun person. Always enjoying life. She was bubbly and funny. And had a little bit of an attitude. I guess all those years fighting Cardassians, I forgot what it was to have fun, and I resented her still knowing how. I should have appreciated it. I should have let myself…” She trailed off as her energy flagged.
“I’m sorry we never found the passage you described,” the empress said. “I should have liked to have seen this ‘Alpha Quadrant.’”
Kira waved it off. “For all I know, I sent your ships in the wrong direction. ‘Computer, lay in a course to Gallifrey’ is all I know about interstellar navigation. But yeah, I would have liked to have seen Dax again. All of them again. These Federation types breathe weird stuff. They could have figured this out before breakfast and then gone to stop a star from exploding.”
“You cared about them very much. That much has been clear to me.”
“I guess I did. Didn’t think so, but I did. How did that happen? And I miss Dax the most. She must be dead by now…Jadzia must be dead…but the Dax symbiont should be alive. Wonder if the new Dax is in Stafl…” She trailed off again.
The empress leaned down. “Perhaps, the gods will allow you to see your Jadzia again.” She gently kissed Kira on the lips. “And when I go to join you, you can introduce us.”
8
8
“Normal brain activity again,” Jadzia Dax said. “Well that’s--”
Kira’s eyes popped open.
“…good. Kira? Can you hear me? Do you know who I am or where you are?”
“Dax?” Kira squirmed away on the bunk. “What…where…are we dead?”
“Dead? No, although I feel dead after carrying you back here. I should have had the runabout beam us. I think you have to lose some--”
“C-carried me? Carried me from where?”
“From the room where that sphere was. Remember? It zapped you?”
“The sphere? But…wait, that was 75 years ago.”
“No, twenty minutes.”
Kira stared into space for a moment. Then she scrambled out of the bunk, crossed to the runabout’s small toiletry area, and looked at her face in the mirror above the sink. She ran her fingers over unexpectedly smooth skin. Her hair was red and her face was as youthful as it had been so many--many—
Kira said, “Minutes? I remember every day of those 75 years.” She turned to Dax. “How is this possible?”
“There’s tech out there that can transfer memories, even personalities. It sounds like the sphere gave you the details of someone else’s life. Captain Picard of the *Enterprise* went through something similar not so long ago. What exactly do you remember?”
“I was the bodyguard of a princess. She became empress.” Kira walked aft to the rear windows. “She came to this planet and oversaw the final phases of its transformation. She built a palace here and we lived here for the rest of our lives. We…we were close.”
“I’m sorry for your loss…even if it wasn’t really your life.”
Kira nodded and looked out the window. “It was beautiful here, Dax. You would have liked it.” She pointed. “The imperial gardens were right over there. I recognize the mountains. It’s all dust now.”
Dax muttered something.
“What?” Kira asked.
“An Earth poem,” Dax explained. “This traveler finds the remains of a statue in the middle of a desert. There’s nothing but sand for miles. An inscription on the base of the statue reads, ‘I am Ozymandias, king of kings. Look upon my works, ye mighty, and despair.’”
Kira spun and pulled Dax into a hug. “I missed that about you! All your puttering and your useless knowledge.”
“Yeah,” Dax said laughing nervously. “I’m glad to have you back, too. Uh, Major, you’ve been through a lot…”
“Of course.” She released Dax from the hug, but the moment remained awkward. “So...Lieutenant…do you think can we leave now?”
“Almost. I want to take the sphere back with us. I think I can rig a containment field that will allow us to bring it aboard safely. Maybe we can extract the data and find out about your empress.”
“Yes, tha…yes, yes, ok, Dax, get to it.”
Dax turned away and crossed to a work bench.
Kira said, “What were you planning on doing after we get back to the station?”
“Uh, well, if it’s not too late, I could grab a bite at the replimat and then run a holosuite program.”
“Klingon martial arts?”
“Yeah, sure, I could.”
“Mind if I join you?”
“I thought you were going to soak yourself in a bath.”
“I may have some extra energy to work off. Your program sounds like it fits the bill. And maybe I was too dismissive…before. If anyone has some good moves, it’s the Klingons, right? I’d like to try it. If you don’t mind.”
“No, sure, the more the merrier.”
“All right then, it’s a…we’ll do that.”
Dax nodded and turned back to her work. “And I know, no more detours.”
“Oh, I dunno,” Kira said. “In small doses, a little weirdness isn’t so bad after all.”
THE END
