The lightless and battle-scared corridors of the USS Geronimo stood as a testament to the totality of the Dominion War. The once pristine Akira class had been reduced to an empty husk by the Breen energy weapon and subsequent bombardment as it had made its retreat leaving only its saucer section and its port strut and nacelle intact. Debris floated throughout the ship, as the two swirls of blue light appeared providing the first illumination for a quarter of a century, vanishing to leave two figures behind.

“Welcome to the USS Geronimo Gil Droc,” Sonia said as she turned to face him. The headlamps from their EVA suits provide the only light onboard the ship.

“She appears to be in better shape than the CDS Bazal, Etrace and the USS Nairobi. The CDS ships took heavy fire as the Federation ships made their way into the system and the Nairobi, I am not sure why we even looked, there wasn’t even a quarter of it left. This one may actually have something salvageable,” Droc said as he looked past Sonia and towards the opened door to engineering.

Sonia shrugged, “We had to check her, same with the CDS ships. Her engineering section was mostly intact, and the Maquis could have found something.”

“True,” the young Cardassian commented as he looked around again. “Let’s hurry up, these ships feel eerie like this. Cardassian or Federation, too many people died on them. I wouldn’t be surprised if we found a body left behind.”

Sonia began to make her way forward and stopped at that comment. She would be lying if she had said it hadn’t crossed her mind either. “The Federation, Klingons, Romulans and the Cardassians went through all their ships at the war’s end. They put a lot of time into the recovery operations in the system so there shouldn’t be any bodies but if we do find one, we make sure they get the proper burial they deserve.”

Droc nodded as he stepped up behind her, “That goes without saying.”

“Damn right,” Sonia remarked as they made their way into engineering. Pulling out her tricorder she began to run a detailed scan of the equipment. Switching off her magnetic boots she pushed upwards and grabbed hold of the railing on the second floor before looking back down at Droc as he knelt beside one of the access panels looking inside. “Systems are completely offline, not that it’s a surprise…” Sonia said absently,

“If there was power that would be something else,” Droc responded as he stood up and turned to look up at Sonia. “I thought you said these ships were stripped down after the war ended? The Nairobi had been picked clean but these power conduits look almost as good as new.”

“Really? That’s odd, I read the report, and the teams did a full recovery on her. Maybe they just missed one,” Sonia said as she stepped up to the warp core and stopped when the tricorder flashed. “Right, I think the recovery team missed more than one thing. I think this warp core is salvageable at least. Possibly even more of the equipment here from what my scans are showing.”

With that she turned and dropped from the second floor, the zero gravity letting her land softly, “We best go check other systems but this may be our first candidate for salvage. Hell, the core seems ok at first glance they may be able to get her powered up if engineering works a miracle.”

Droc just nodded as he looked around, “Where to next?”

“The main armoury, medical and then the shuttle bay,” Sonia said as she made her way to the door.

Forty-five minutes later they found themselves standing outside the main shuttle bay. Droc looked over at Sonia, a quizzical look on his face, “If I were a betting man I would say there will be some shuttles in there. The original savage team didn’t do a good job so far.”

“There was a lot of work to do after the war, the recovery work must have been focused on the bodies more than the hardware,” Sonia remarked though she couldn’t help but feel it had been a security lapse. If the New Maquis had found this ship and stripped it they would have a significant amount of weapons. “Given the almost full complement of torpedoes, medical gear and small arms on here I half expect to find the full fighter wing. Either way, though the Columbia will need to send over a full salvage team and an engineering detail to see if they they could get the core online again.”

The Cardassian let out a snort at the remark, “Do you think your engineers could get this core back online and even repair the ship?”

Sonia shrugged as she pried open the panel beside the door to the main shuttle bay to access the manual controls. “The core? Sure. As for the ship? Not here but…at a shipyard, maybe? Maybe they could.” She moved the panel aside, letting it drift away slowly in the zero gravity and stepped back as she shot Droc a crooked smile, “Seems jammed, use those muscles of yours will you?”

With a roll of his eyes, Droc stepped up beside Sonia, “Fine.” With that, he grabbed the lever and grunted as he pulled it into place. With a click, the door popped open a couple of centimetres.

“Great,” Sonia said as she grabbed the door and gave it a tug which caused it to slide open enough to squeeze through. Before her, in the vast hanger bay of the Akira sat multiple shuttle craft and runabouts, some with their clamps still in place, others adrift within the enclosed space.

“Well I’ll be damned,” she muttered. “It is not a fighter wing but two runabouts and some shuttles is something to report back for sure.” She made her way further into the bay in disbelief as Droc squeezed through the door, “Safe to say, I think they forgot some equipment….” 

“You could say that again,” Droc said as he made his way to the closest runabout clamped only a few metres away. “Shall we check these out and see if they can be salvaged?” 

Sonia looked back and forth between Droc and the shuttles for a moment, “Yeah, you check that one I will check out this one over here.” She turned and pushed off the deck plating and drifted towards the runabout further into the bay. Just as her mag boots clicked back onto the floor Droc’s voice came over the com.

“Ensign Jeden, get over here right away.”

“On my way, what is it?” 

“Sadly, nothing good.”

A few moments later Sonia stepped up beside Droc, who stood outside the opened hatch. “What is it?”

He nodded towards the hatch, “They didn’t recover everyone.”

“What?” Sonia said as she stepped towards the hatch, her head turned to look at Droc.

“They didn’t recover everyone,” Droc repeated again, his voice pained.

A sinking feeling grew in her stomach as she stepped into the runabout and looked into the main cockpit. “Oh my god,” she gasped. Without pause she opened a com channel to the Columbia, “Columbia, this is Ensign Jeden. I need a full medical team on the Geronimo. There a bodies of the crew still on board.”

“Repeat that again Ensign?” Came the voice over her coms.

“There are,” she paused as she looked around, “six, no seven bodies in the cockpit of one of the runabouts. I need a medical team to assist with ID and, handling.”

“Understand, medical has been informed and a team will be with you shortly.”

Sonia stood there for another moment as she looked at the desecrated bodies. “I am so sorry,” she whispered before stepping out of the runabout and returning to stand beside Droc. 

“This shouldn’t have happened,” she said after a moment.

“None of it should have,” Droc said quietly. “Everything that war causes should never have happened.”

Sonia sat and stared out the window of the Lower Deck Social area lost in thought. It didn’t help that she could see the bulk of the Geronimo not far off from the Columbia surrounded by a flurry of activity as shuttle crafts and engineering crews crawled over her hull. The lights from the ship were clearly visible after an engineering team successfully restarted the core.

She barely registered when a cup was set beside her and Gil Droc sat down. “How are you doing Sonia?” he asked before he reached over and felt her up. “Your tea has gone cold.”

“Hmm?” was all she said before realizing that he was talking to her. “Sorry, was somewhere else.”

“I told you not to listen to the recording,” he said. “There are medical teams and specialists for that.” He frowned, “Well there are on some of our ships, I assume the Federation has them as well.”

Sonia sighed and leaned back, stretching her neck as she did, “I needed to hear it. Wish I didn’t but it was their last words.”

“It could have been worse I guess, more crew trapped,” she continued. “I just cannot shake the realization they had when they couldn’t get the clamps to release, let alone power up the runabout. That with the decompression of the bay trapped them. They deserved better.”

Droc nodded, “They did. But now they will be put to rest with full honours. If we hadn’t checked that ship who knows how long they would have remained there. If the Maquis had found them I don’t know if they would have treated them with the respect they deserved.” He reached out, and gently placed his hand on her shoulder. He began to speak and paused for a moment, “I…I don’t know how spiritual you are but if I recall the Bajorans will light a duranja during the period of mourning. Would that be something you would like to do?”

Sonia sat in silence for a long moment before nodding, “Yeah, that would be nice.” She started to stand and looked back at Droc, “You know a lot about Bajoran cultural practices, how come, beyond the occupation and such?”

“Our people have a long history even before the occupation. Sadly most of it isn’t anything my people should be proud of,” Droc responded. “I like to learn from our past and the cultures linked to it so that those same mistakes don’t happen again.” 

Sonia cocked her head at him for a moment and set out a single laugh, “You are not what I expected from a Cardassian military officer Gil Droc. In a good way.” With that, she turned and made her way to leave before she stopped and called back, “What are you sitting around for? I’m not going to light it alone. Come on.”

The Cardassian let out a faint chuckle and nodded, “Lead the way.”