As Commander Jake Lewis and Ensign Elyssia Rel walked through the burned out shell of the Nasera Municipal Spaceport, reminders of the great toll that had been paid lingered all around them. The scars of polaron blasts were etched into the walls, and bodies lay motionless on the cold duranium floor.

“You see the evil heart of our enemy all around,” Commander Lewis said coldly. “This is why we fight, why we suffer, why we die…” His voice trailed off as his thoughts drifted to their fallen colleagues.

“Because if there’s a chance that we can put an end to this, then it makes it worth doing,” Ensign Rel replied, finishing the Commander’s thought as memories of her symbiont’s past life flowed through her. She saw the battle of Chin’toka flash before her eyes, the moment Jaxon Rel died on the floor of the lifepod feeling the massacre. It had been worth it then, and it was worth it now. But it didn’t mean it didn’t hurt.

“You speak with a voice beyond your years, Elyssia,” Commander Lewis smiled. Through the hardest of moments, this young flight controller had somehow always found the words. She’d found them after Atwood’s execution, while they waited for Ayala’s return, and in the tunnels under Nasera City, and now here, yet again.

The two stepped out of the spaceport into the streets of Nasera City. Now, among the bodies of colonists, they saw the lifeless corpses of Starfleet officers and Jem’Hadar soldiers as well, evidence of the duel to the death had transpired here as the resolve of the Federation collided with the brutality of the Dominion.

“You never did explain why they just stopped fighting, why they just gave themselves up,” Ensign Rel observed. “After we came out of the tunnels, Ayala and I linked up with a squad clearing block by block. It was so strange when the Jem’Hadar flipped. All their strategies and tactics just vanished, and they threw themselves at us with reckless abandon.”

“We reminded the Vorta commander that victory is life, and that the opposite must be true as well.” There was a deep sense of loathing in Commander Lewis’ voice, but also something else. “So he made the call to the Jem’Hadar to remind them of their final duty.”

“I assume he did not come to this of his own accord?”

“Certainly not. Some lines were crossed to get him there,” Lewis replied, recalling what he and Dr. Hall had done to their captive. His hands were certainly not clean. “But was it not worth it?”

Ensign Rel nodded. On the streets, she’d seen how badly the battle was going. Starfleet officers were not soldiers, but they’d been called upon to serve as soldiers tonight, and the Jem’Hadar were making them pay steeply for every inch of ground. Whatever Commander Lewis and Dr. Hall had done, it had saved hundreds of lives. Still, Rel worried about the Commander. He seemed uncharacteristically unnerved.

“I will not lie to you,” Lewis continued as he came to a stop in the middle of the street, his eyes dark and pained. “What we did was not humane.” Indeed, he thought to himself, by any normal definition, it was torture, murder, and a war crime. “But we set aside our humanity for the good of the mission.”

“Jake,” she said, using his first name for the first time ever as she gazed into his eyes. “I know you act all tough, that you say it is all for the mission, but deep down somewhere in there, there’s a human heart.” She pressed the palm of her hand lightly against his chest. She could feel the slow rhythm of that pained heart through his shirt. “A heart that hurts the same as ours when we do unspeakable things.” She wanted to take that pain away.

“Elyssia, my ticket to hell is already booked,” he said in an almost regretful voice. “There are too many sins on my soul already.” It wasn’t just what they did to the Vorta tonight either. It was the choices he’d made for the last quarter century, compromising the ideals he held so dear in order to protect them. “But I am okay with that. It is a burden I carry so that others do not have to.”

“You do not have to carry it alone,” Elyssia offered gently, her hand lingering on his chest.

It was such a simple statement, but it caught Commander Lewis off guard. He had never had anyone say that to him before. Especially not a flight controller in her late twenties. Elyssia Rel was an enigma. “I appreciate that,” he offered with a light smile. “But it would not be fair to you.” He stepped back, breaking away from her touch. He would take these burdens to the grave when that time finally came.

They began walking again with labored steps.

“Do you ever ask yourself why you do it?” Elyssia asked. “With all you have done, you’ve more than earned a quiet retirement on a peaceful farm somewhere.” Commander Lewis was fifty three years old, and he’d been in this line of work for almost half of his life.

“Because someone has to.” He had never thought of it any other way.

“But I see it in your eyes, Commander. You’re tired.”

“I will have eternity to sleep when at last the long night comes,” Commander Lewis answered as they stepped past the body of a young man with a polaron blast to the chest. This man had met his end as the Jem’Hadar turned their weapons upon the colonists when they knew the battle was lost. And there were so many like him littered across the streets of Nasera City.

“It’s all going to catch up with you eventually.”

“You may be right,” Lewis acknowledged. He could not disagree. In body and in mind, he could feel his age creeping in. His response times had slowed, his injuries took longer to heal, and it all got under his skin more than it used to. “But I’m not ready to hang my hat up just yet.” 

Commander Lewis looked at her bright eyes and fair skin. If it weren’t for what Elyssia Rel had just been through with them, he would have asked why the young woman was out at this late hour on these dangerous streets. She did not look like the sort of person suited for this type of work, but then again, did any of them when they started? He wondered if it would someday wear on her too, just as it had for him. Would her skin become weathered, her hands callused, and her body scarred, just as his had?

“What about you Elyssia?” he asked, flipping the script on her. “I know you said your symbiont had unfinished business with the Dominion, but there’s a big difference between saying it and actually doing what we just did. How are you now that the mission is done?”

“Honestly, I’m okay,” Rel smiled lightly. “It was… oh, what’s the right word… therapeutic to get some retribution after all these years.” It had been twenty six years since Jaxon Rel had died at the hands of the Jem’Hadar.

She paused then to consider the rest. There was more to his question than simply what had transpired with the Dominion. There was also what had happened with the team.

“As for those we lost along the way, I’ll be honest,” she admitted sadly. “I don’t think it’s fully sunk in yet. It probably won’t until the next time we get the Hazard Team together… when… when they just don’t show up. I can’t imagine running drills without Brock shouting at us, without Atwood going for a crazy stunt, without Nam on my six, without Kora’s liting words ever time I fall.” Each of the fallen were integral members of the team, consistent presences over the last two years. And now they were gone.

Commander Lewis was silent. He wasn’t good at this sort of stuff. He didn’t know what to say to help her. And he regretted that, because she was trying to be there for him, and he had no idea how to be there for her.

“I mean,” Ensign Rel continued, trying to dissect her own thoughts. “Besides Jason, I didn’t actually see any of them… you know… I didn’t see any of them actually die. It’s just kind of hard to accept that they’re gone.” While she struggled with the words, Commander Lewis understood exactly what she was saying. Death was strange like that. Your mind played tricks on you. It would create this sort of subconscious denial even if consciously you knew the cold truth. “If you don’t mind me asking, what happened with Lieutenant Kora?”

“It was a fluke,” Commander Lewis explained, omitting the tactical error she had made to avoid dishonoring her memory. “A Jem’Hadar unshrouded on an uncovered angle, and he got the drop on her. That’s the hard thing about this job. No matter how hard you train, no matter how capable you are, sometimes death will just find you.” Death would find them all someday. But for now, they would just keep walking.