The roar of the Morningstar’s transport dropping was almost relaxing. Tav lay on his back under a tree, staring up through the branches at the night sky. It was a warm summer’s night, like the ones he and Soren had spent camping out in the back of their grandparent’s farm when they were kids. They’d lay on their backs, looking up at the stars and talking about what they’d do when they grew up. 

Those plans had not included the Dominion, or the Jem’Hadar. 

“Get some sleep, kid,” Mason ordered, his voice a deep rumble in the darkness. 

Tav turned his head. The captain was sitting a small way away, back against a broad tree trunk. A padd by his thigh illuminated the side of his face but he wasn’t looking at it, he was looking out across the evac area. Civilians were already assembled for the final transport as it dropped through the atmosphere toward them. 

“Why’d you do it?”

For a moment Tav didn’t think the captain was going to answer him. Or perhaps pretend he didn’t know what he was on about. But Mason didn’t brush him off. 

He sat there, stripping the leaves off a rush as he looked out, jaw set. “Because you don’t need that on your soul, kid. Killing…”

Tav didn’t move, waiting as the silence welled between them. But it wasn’t a ‘we’re done talking now’ kind of silence. It was heavy with the weight of something… expectation. Potential. 

“It’s easy, kid. Too easy.” Mason sighed. “The price though, that’s too high. Especially killing that way, the way you were going to. That kind of killing kills a part of you. Bit by bit.” 

Silence again. The sound of the raft dropping for the last pickup.

“Yeah.” Tav moved his head, looked up at the stars again. “I get it. I was mad, I would have… wanted to…” He didn’t have the words. 

“Yeah.”

The stars were so peaceful. It didn’t seem right with what was happening. What had happened already. 

He turned his head again. 

“I get all that,” he said, studying the hard line of the captain’s jaw. “But why… why did you do that for me?”

The captain didn’t look at him, but Tav didn’t think he was actually seeing the evac point either. He wasn’t looking at anything. Or rather, he wasn’t looking at anything Tav could see. 

“Because I was there.” Mason’s voice was almost absent, and Tav got the feeling not many people saw him this way. It made him feel… special. He held his breath, waiting for the captain to say something else. 

“I was there,” Mason carried on, deep voice heavy with something. Not regret, but a sense of inevitability. “I stood where you did, with a man on his knees in front of me. Begging for his life.”

Tav frowned. The captain still didn’t look at him. 

“No one was there for me, kid. And I killed in anger. I killed in fury. I killed in rage.”

“But he was a bad man, right?” Tav asked, half sitting up. He’d seen the captain in battle and he knew Mason had a darkness in him, but he couldn’t see the captain as a cold-blooded murderer. 

But the captain wasn’t listening to him. His gaze sharpened on something and he leapt to his feet, hitting his commbadge. 

“Who’s on the south checkpoint?” he barked the demand, grabbing his rifle and breaking into a sprint across the field. “HOSTILES ON THE SOUTH PERIMETER!”

————

“Raft one clear,” RJ said over the comm and leaned, stretching out in the confines of the small cockpit. At over six feet, it wasn’t really built for people his size, more for midgets like Aya. Then Mason came to mind and he closed his eyes with a groan.

“Shitshitshitshit!” he slammed his hands into the bulkhead above his head. Not only was Mason a bloody combat veteran, but he was a freaking giant to boot. 

…Don’t get yourself killed because when this is done? You and I are having a chat…

Yeah, he could imagine what that chat was going to be about. Less verbal and more physical. Mason was going to bloody well kill him. Slowly and painfully. 

“Great…” he sighed. 

Wouldn’t be so bad, apart from the fact he couldn’t even remember sleeping with the guy’s wife. Well, he remembered waking up in the morning… but the actual night. Nope. Nothing. Zip. Nada. His memory was blank. All he remembered was being bundled out of the door in his boxers, and his clothes shoved into his arms before she’d slammed the door in his face. 

Pity, she’d been stunning from what he’d seen. Stunning, and Mason’s wife… he rubbed his hand over his face. Yeah, he was a dead man walking. 

“Shit! There’s shooting going on down here!” Aya’s panicked voice came over the comm. 

“What?” RJ shot upright. “Smith, you getting this? What the fuck is going on?”

“Looks like we have hostile forces infiltrating the evac area,” Smith replied immediately, any panic concealed under the professional ‘starfleet’ voice. If RJ didn’t know better, he’d think they went to school for it. “The captain and the other fire teams are converging on a large force that are trying to cut through and get to the capital city.”

“RJ!” Aya’s voice cut off with a scream. 

He started flipping switches. “Cut me loose, Smith. NOW! Raft one drop immediately!”

“On it,” Smith replied. “Clamps still locked on. Fifteen seconds to drop.”

“Shitshitshit!” RJ hissed. “Aya! Bring weapons online!” he shouted down the comm. 

God, how long could fifteen seconds be?

“AYA! Answer me!” he raged over the airwaves. “For gods sake! Talk to me. Bring your weapons online! Now!”

If anything happened to Aya, Nana was going to kill him. Slowly. With a blunt spoon. 

No, it wouldn’t matter what his nana did to him, he’d never forgive himself. He’d gotten her into this. She was his baby sister and he’d gotten her killed. 

“Raft one drop initiated. Now.”

RJ’s heart thundered as he and his raft dropped away from the Morningstar. 

“Smith! What’s going on? Talk to me!” he ordered as the raft plummeted, dropping through the atmosphere like a stone. “What’s going on down there?” 

“We’ve lost contact with the ground.” Now Smith’s voice betrayed a thread of panic. “I’m trying to raise Rennox now.”

“That kid?” RJ shook his head. It didn’t matter if Rennox was practically in the cradle, as long as he could help Aya. “Did you get him?” 

“Nothing as yet. I think the Jem’Hadar are blocking our signals.” 

Either that or they were all dead. RJ shook the thought off, his jaw tight as the raft dropped through the cloud cover. Shit. If he came down on the same drop vector before, then he was going to drop right onto Aya’s raft. If the Dominion hadn’t…already killed her, then him dropping a damn raft right on top of her certainly would. 

“Changing drop vectors,” he announced. “Where the hell are these bastards, Smith? Give me some co-ordinates. And quick. I’ve got like four seconds before the cut off point.”

Smith didn’t get time to reply. Instead, a new vector flashed up in green digits on the small screen in front of RJ. He punched it, accepting the vector and the raft banked sharply. Or as sharply as a shipping container half the size of a planet could. 

“Aya! Coming in hot on your side,” he said over the comm, only to get garbled messages back. 

The last of the clouds cleared and he could see what was going on. 

“Oh fuck…”

_______

The situation had gone to hell in a heartbeat. 

Mason growled as he sheltered at the side of the mangled drop raft, which was doing its best impression of a shark fin poking out of what remained of the dirt of the evac area, the injured pilot tucked in behind him. He was dirty, bleeding from gods-knew how many wounds, and on his own. The rest of his fire team were dead, scattered behind him.

They’d come from nowhere, managing to get around all their defense perimeters and Bennett’s minefields. He shouldn’t be surprised, the Jem’Hadar were born and bred for war. And they’d caught him on the damn hop. 

“Get those civilians into cover!” he bellowed as he hoisted the unconcious girl over his shoulder and ran toward Bennett’s fire team as they emerged from the trees. 

The civilians had fortunately scattered away from the drop point when the Jem’Hadar had shot the raft down, but now they were milling around like damn cattle, just creating extra targets. The Jem’Hadar themselves were using the ruined raft as cover and taking pot shots. 

“COVER!” he yelled again, waving at them. Gods, how dense could they be? If they didn’t get the message with him thundering toward them waving and the Jem’Hadar shooting at them, then what else could he do?  “Get into cover!”

“You heard the man! Let’s move!” a new voice shouted and a figure broke from  Bennett’s team to start herding the civilians toward the treeline. 

Thank the gods, someone with some sense. Mason carried on running, the Jem’Hadar taking shots at his back, the dirt around his feet kicking up in little plumes. Swearing, he yanked the girl down from over his shoulder to carry her against his chest. That way if he got hit, then she had half a chance of making it. Unless he fell on her, then she was screwed. 

The sound of firing made him turn his head, only to find Rennox running toward him, rifle in his hand as he shot back at the Jem’Hadar. 

“What are you doing, kid?” he snarled, trying to get between Rennox and the incoming fire. “Get back! Get back behind the line.”

“AYA!” The bellow came through the comm loud and clear as Mason bundled the unconcious girl into Rennox’s arms and grabbed his rifle. He’d lost his own fighting to get to the pilot. 

“Who is this?” he demanded, turning and picking off the snipers on the ridgeline of the destroyed raft. 

“RJ, in raft one. Coming down on the southside of the evac point,” the reply was short and swift. Mason looked up to see the stars being blotted out by something big. “If you ain’t clear then—“

Mason didn’t get time to bellow a warning to anyone. Instead, he dropped the rifle, turned and threw himself to cover Rennox and the girl. 

The shockwave of the raft hitting the ground hit like a sonic boom. It took Mason off his feet like the last time he’d gotten caught in an explosion. He’d be pissing blood for a week. He grunted as he hit the deck, braced over both kids as the world rained half a planet of dirt and bits of metal down over his shoulders. 

Silence.

…

… 

Either that or his eardrums had ruptured. 

More silence. Yeah, totally possible his eardrums were ruptured. He wiggled his jaw. No pain.

He grunted as something poked into his ribcage. 

“Huh?”

“Can’t… breathe.” Rennox’s voice was soft and muffled. 

“Oh… sorry.” 

He heaved up, shoving what felt like a construction site of dirt off his back, and giving enough room for Rennox to scramble out from under him, covered in mud and blood. 

“Is that yours?” Mason demanded, gaze sweeping over the kid to check for wounds. 

Rennox shook his head as he reached under Mason, and dragged the girl out as well. 

“No… I think it’s yours. Oh shit,” his eyes widened as they both managed to get to their feet and looked around. There was a new hill in the middle of the evac point. 

“He squashed them,” Tav breathed. “Or dropped the planet on them.”

“He did,” Mason murmured, gaze sharp on the area the Jem’Hadar had been. Just in case. But his instincts told him not even those scaled assholes could survive being hit with a raft from orbit and then buried. 

Movement caught his eye and he snapped his head up to see a parachute fluttering overhead. As he watched, it executed a loose spiral around the hill then headed for them. RJ Reese-Riggs landed at a run in front of them, unclipping the harness with a practised movement that said this wasn’t the first time he’d done it. 

“Aya!!” he shouted, ignoring them both to slide to his knees next to the unconscious girl. Grief twisted his features.

“She’s alive, sir,” Rennox said, his voice gentle. “The captain pulled her from the wreckage himself.” 

RJ looked up at Mason, his gaze narrowed. Then nodded. “Thank you.”

“No problem.” Mason inclined his head. Whatever problems he had with the guy himself, they didn’t extend to his sister. 

“We won, sir,” Rennox rejoined him, a small, relieved smile on his face as Bennett and the other survivors headed over the field toward them. “Didn’t we?”

“We did, kid,” Mason said in a low voice, but his gaze swept over the field. “We won.”

Everything came with a price. 

Even victory. 

Especially victory. 

That price was written in the other bodies among the fallen Jem’Hadar. Civilians. Starfleet officers. 

It was written in the new darkness in Rennox’s eyes. The tightness on the faces of his crew as they walked toward him. 

History was written by the victors, but they never wrote about the price. That price wasn’t for the history books. 

The price was for the survivors to pay.