Death presented an opportunity. It made people weak. It caused them to drop their defenses. With six lifeless bodies in the square, and only one a colleague, that meant five with grieving friends and family to seize upon. While her surviving colleagues retreated to nurse their grief and guilt, Dr. Lisa Hall stayed behind. She wouldn’t let this opportunity slip by on account of a dead man. They’d all be dead eventually anyways.

The Vorta and the Jem’Hadar departed swiftly. She had to give it to them. It was as impressive a psyop as any she could have devised. If there were Starfleet officers on the ground, who would help them after today? But the one thing they didn’t anticipate was a Starfleet officer as sick and twisted as them. She would paint the masterpiece of their demise over the canvas they’d laid before her.

Dr. Hall surveyed the dispersing crowd. All around her, she saw the typical fear and panic that followed an indiscriminate massacre, but that was mundane and uninteresting. What she was looking for was that sort of debilitating grief and despair that could only come from the heartache of losing a loved one.

A mother and a daughter lay across the body of a middle aged man, crying uncontrollably. They weren’t helpful since a surviving parent was typically risk averse on account of being solely responsible for the child now. There was also an elderly lady crouched over the old man who had traded his life to save another. Good guy, for sure, but his widow wouldn’t be particularly useful since she’d probably just spend the remainder of her days waiting to join him beyond the grave.

Finally, the conniving psychologist spotted what she was looking for. By the stage, a well-built man in his early twenties stared down at the body of a dead girl at his feet. She wore a ring, and he did not, but the fountain of tears flowing down his cheeks and the emotion emanating from his being meant there was deep love there. This was either a brother or a fiance, and either suited Dr. Hall’s purposes just fine.

She let down her hair, as it made her look younger. She took off her sweater, as curves could never hurt. She loosened her stance and softened her expression, as her usual stiff posture made men wary. Then she made her way over towards the grieving man and his fallen love.

Dr. Hall slowly approached, looking distracted, her attention appearing elsewhere, as she carelessly bumped into him. The grief-stricken young man lost his balance, almost falling over the corpse of his dearly beloved. Hall extended her hand to steady him.

“Oops, my bad,” she began to say, and then she feigned terror at seeing a dead girl on the pavement before them. “Oh my god… was she your?” The psychological combatant masterfully balanced the shock and compassion in her tone.

“Yes,” the man started to say, tears welling as he struggled for words. Lisa Hall put a reassuring hand on his shoulder. “She was my everything, the love of my life. We were going to get married, but then the Dominion came.” He looked at the now-deserted stage where the nightmare had just unfolded. “Before that, I was saving money so we could move to the countryside, buy a farm, start a family…” His voice trailed off.

“I can’t even imagine,” Hall offered gently. It was true, she couldn’t imagine, although the hard part for her to comprehend was how one could fall for such a fairytale. But she didn’t say that. Instead, she channeled all the warmth and compassion she could muster as she gave him a hug and held him. It was all part of the act.

He cried, and cried, and cried. Every now and then, he’d get it together enough to say something about the girl, and Dr. Hall would offer a sweet platitude with carefully constructed undertones meant to send him right back into another bout of tears.

Slowly, the crowd around them vacated the square, until it was just the two of them left, plus the dead girl and the fallen body of Petty Officer Jason Atwood. She didn’t even risk her colleague’s corpse a fleeting stare in case they were covertly watching. Instead, she focused on the fiance.

In a moment when the young man was between bouts of tears, Dr. Hall offered: “We really shouldn’t be out here. They might come back. Can I help you move her somewhere that we can give her the respect she deserves?” It was more that Petty Officer Jason Atwood would get. As much as it sucked to abandon his body, they couldn’t risk bringing it from the square. It would tell the Dominion he mattered to someone, that he wasn’t just flying solo. Their guard would already be up after discovering him.

Another bout of tears started to come on, but then logic cut through the man’s sorrow: “Yes, we should do that. I can’t leave her out here for… for those animals.” There was a mix of despair and anger in his eyes. Hall was pleased. It was how she wanted him to feel.

“Is there somewhere safe we can take her?”

“Her dad’s place is nearby,” he shared. “Just over on Malachite street.” Hall had no idea where that was, but a dad and a boyfriend? Wonderful.

“Here, I’ll help you with her.” She reached down and, with all the grace and gentleness she could muster, she helped the young man lift his dead fiance. Together, they made their way through the streets, stepping through long shadows cast by towering buildings in the waning evening light.

As darkness settled in, they reached what was presumably the father’s home. They knocked, and a man answered.

First he saw his daughter’s fiance and a strange woman he didn’t know. “Evenin…,” he began before his eyes fell upon the lifeless corpse of his daughter. “What the… John, what…” he stammered, and then he saw the polaron burn on her chest. “Those savages! Those fucking savages!” Rage filled his eyes, and his fists clenched. “What did they do to her?”

“Can we come in, sir?” Hall interjected. “Before more arrive.” She gave a meek and timid look, letting a shadow of fear wash across her face.

“Yes, yes of course,” the dad agreed, stepping aside for them to pass.

Together, Dr. Hall and the fiance, now identified as John, carried the girl into the living room. Dr. Hall helped him set her dead body on the couch. She liked the couch because it would keep her prominently featured in front of these two men. That physical presence would hopefully accelerate them through the typical denial stage of the grieving process.

Behind them, the dad barely shut the door before he started weeping. “What happened John?”

“Mike, I’m sorry. It all happened in an instant. The Jem’Hadar stormed in and grabbed her. They were just so big, I couldn’t stop them…”

“Why… why my sweet baby girl?”

John was too busy crying to provide an answer, but Dr. Hall was there to volunteer one: “They said they caught some Starfleet guy. They swarmed the crowd and grabbed people indiscriminately. Your daughter was one of them. It was some sadistic, twisted bullshit.” Her eyes looked ghostly at the terror they had just witnessed. “I’m so sorry sir.” 

Dr. Hall bowed her head in remorse. It wasn’t feigned either. It came from the very real emotion she felt as she stood there idly, watching as they murdered Petty Officer Atwood. At least he’d chosen this path though. This girl had not. She’d literally just been there. That was regrettable. But Dr. Hall pushed those thoughts from her head swiftly, as she had a job to do, an opportunity to seize upon. Jason Atwood’s death didn’t have to be in vain if she made something of the aftermath.

“I can’t…” the father stammered. Then he suddenly seemed to realize he didn’t even know the name of this woman who’d helped bring his baby girl home. “I’m sorry. In all of this, I’m afraid I didn’t introduce myself. I’m Mike. Thank you for helping bring my sweet little angel home.” He extended his burly hand.

“I’m Lisa,” Dr. Hall replied, extending her own. His shake was strong, and she kept hers gentle. This was a man who knew the toils of hard labor.

“How did you know my little girl?”

“I didn’t,” Dr. Hall admitted. “Not until tonight.” She let a tear fall down her cheek, a technique she’d mastered over the years. “I saw what happened, and I saw John standing there alone with her. I couldn’t just leave them like that. Especially not with the Jem’Hadar all around.”

“Well, you have a good soul, miss Lisa,” Mike offered, totally unaware that she had no soul whatsoever and that he was just a pawn to her.

For a long while, the two men sat there struggling to process the reality that lay on the couch in front of them. Dr. Hall listened patiently. You couldn’t rush these things. As they grieved, she learned that the girl’s name was Angelica, that she was Mike’s only child, that Mike had lost his wife many years ago, and that Mike considered Angelica his everything. This was a sentiment he shared with young John, the suitor that had swept little Angelica off her feet. Mike and John had found a common bond in their love for Angelica, and Mike considered John his son-in-law even though the Dominion invasion had prevented them from going through with their wedding. 

Over time, their denial and sorrow began to turn to anger and despair. It was the natural progression of grief, and, as minutes turned to hours, Dr. Hall only had to give the most subtle of nudges to get them there.

“I hate them,” Mike admitted as he walked over to a cabinet and pulled out a bottle of Romulan ale. “With every drop of my being.” He poured each of them an overly generous glass and took a sip. “Actually, I hated them before they took my sweet Angelica. Now I want revenge.”

Dr. Hall could see the rage building in his eyes.

“Mike, I told you. I still see that wretched Vorta every day,” John said.

“You what?” asked Dr. Hall, stopping midway through a sip of her drink, caught completely off guard by the remark. She had injected herself into their grief hoping to collect some mild intelligence or take advantage of a feeling of helplessness to convert them into agitators. But if this kid had a connection to the Vorta, that was a whole different sort of opportunity.

“I used to be a groundskeeper for the governor’s mansion,” explained John. “But since the Dominion descended on us, that mansion has become the home of the Vorta, the creature that spoke to us from the stage, the one that commands all the Jem’Hadar, the one that killed Angelica.” In the way he uttered those last few words, there was no more denial. Only anger. “I see that demon every day.”

“John, I told you before, there’s nothing we can do. There’s nothing any of us can do.”

“But what do we have left to lose?” His youth left him less encumbered by his frontal lobe.

Standing over the body of the girl they both loved, the two men who loved her locked eyes. And from there, Dr. Hall simply gave them the push they needed to take them to the inevitable conclusion, and to line the timing up for her purposes. She could not have been more happy with the outcome.