“At 1823 hours, you placed a call from the governor’s mansion back to the USS Polaris. Do you recall how you described the situation?”

“Not exactly,” Captain Lewis replied disinterestedly as he stared blankly at the wall behind the JAG officer. “But that’s what you’re here for.” The USS Serenity and the USS Diligent stalked the graveyard of Wolf 359, and the USS Ingenuity had just reached Beta Serpentis III, yet here he sat in a comfy conference room aboard the USS Polaris getting interrogated by an ivory tower lawyer about how some sadistic creature had died on a far off planet many months ago. What a waste of time. There were so many better things for him to be doing.

“You described the situation as ‘peaceful’,” Commander Drake reminded the captain. “If the situation at the mansion was peaceful, how did the Vorta end up like this?” He slid a PADD across the table. On it was a picture of the Vorta that had terrorized Nasera City. The monster was hunched over dead, tied to a chair, with a phaser burn in the middle of his forehead.

Captain Lewis shrugged ambivalently.

“During that call, you also said you needed ‘to have a conversation with an old friend’. Was that in reference to this Vorta?” pressed Commander Drake.

“Yes,” Captain Lewis replied. “As you’d know if you’d paid attention the previous times you asked.” The career intelligence officer knew the drill. The investigator would take him round and round, trying to get him to slip up on his story. The beauty of his story though was that it left out only two details: how the drugs came to be in the Vorta’s system, and the moment he raised his sidearm and pulled the trigger. “We spoke with the Vorta about ending the conflict.”

“Discussed with him the need to end the conflict?” Commander Drake asked incredulously. That certainly wasn’t how he would have described the scene that unfolded in Nasera City when that conversation was done. “You mean you convinced him to order thousands of his men to commit suicide, right?”

“I didn’t say that,” Captain Lewis insisted. “It is best you not lead the witness, Commander.” He leaned back in his chair and shook his finger condescendingly at the JAG officer like a teacher scolding a student.

“I’ve read the transcript of your call with Admiral Reyes,” Commander Drake reminded him. “You said: ‘Victory is life. So too must the opposite be true.’ That sounds like an admission to me.”

Captain Lewis just sat there, his mind elsewhere. Why hadn’t the USS Ingenuity checked in as scheduled at 1300 hours? In his head, he played back the distress call they’d received, the subsequent discussion they’d had with Administrator Thoss, and the last report they’d gotten from the USS Ingenuity about preparing to send a delegation down to the colony. Sure, they might have legitimately just missed their check in, but what if it was something more? This deposition, and the entire investigation for that matter, was a needless distraction.

“Captain, did you hear me?” Commander Drake asked, tapping the table.

“I did.”

“And?”

“And what?” chuckled Captain Lewis. “You didn’t ask me a question.” All the JAG officer had done was make an inadmissible conjecture. It didn’t even warrant a response, as ‘sounds like’ would be thrown out if this ever went to trial.

Commander Drake sighed. The spook was insufferable. Commander Drake retrieved the PADD from the captain, flipped it to a medical report, and slid it back across the table. “Anticholinergics… γ-hydroxybutyrate and gamma-aminobutyric acid receptor inhibitors… a laundry list of heavily controlled psychoactives. Could this stuff have caused him to issue those orders?”

“That would be a question better asked of a medical professional,” Captain Lewis countered, dodging the question. “I can’t even spell some of the words you just said.” He paused for a moment and then added: “But what I will remind you is that this is not the first time the Jem’Hadar have behaved this way. Captain Benjamin Sisko reported a similar outcome on Torga IV during the war. Failure is not an acceptable outcome for them.” It was something he sort of admired about their foe. The Dominion would never encumber itself with folks like Commander Drake. They would simply have celebrated the victory and moved on.

“Yes, I’m aware of Torga IV, but it does not explain how these substances got into the Vorta’s bloodstream. How did that happen?” The problem that Commander Drake had was that he could not find any record in the ship’s system about a requisition for such substances.

“I’m not responsible for what the Vorta was doing in his spare time,” Captain Lewis shrugged for what must have been the hundredth time in the last hour. “As I have told you before. Many, many times.” His tone did not at all conceal the annoyance he felt at being cooped up here. He could have been out there with the USS Ingenuity, investigating why the backwater colony had sent a distress signal and then denied it, or he could have been commanding the USS Serenity as it searched for the Borg signal that mysteriously vanished before they arrived.

“Captain, don’t be coy with me,” Commander Drake warned. “These are important proceedings. Why do I get the feeling you’re not taking this seriously? Or even really paying attention?”

“Because I’m not,” Captain Lewis answered flatly. If the reports were correct, the Borg were moving once more. They needed men like him doing what needed to be done to safeguard the Federation, not entertaining pompous, ivory tower JAG officers. “I understand that I am required to sit here and entertain you, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t more important things going on out there, things I should be doing.” Captain Lewis resented that Rear Admiral Grayson had restrained him from any missions away from the USS Polaris until such time as the investigation was over, but the Rear Admiral wasn’t here so he could only direct his frustration towards the JAG officer that stood between him and doing his job. His real job.

“Things you should be doing?” Commander Drake asked incredulously. “Things that you, and only you, could be doing? This squadron has over two thousand qualified officers and crew. Do you really think you’re so important that they can’t manage without you?”

Captain Lewis just sat there silent. The question didn’t deserve a response. If the JAG officer would have just taken his head out of his ass for a second, he would have been able to answer his own question. Recent history gave evidence enough to that.

“Let me tell you how I see it,” Commander Drake continued. “You have an overstated view of your own self-importance. You see the universe as full of enemies, and you believe that you are the only one that can deal with them.”

“I do what needs to be done, and so far, I’ve been right.”

“You see, that’s what worries me the most about you Captain,” Commander Drake admitted. “One day, you will be wrong. One day, you will see good people as bad, and it is my job to make sure that day never comes.” It was a misconception that Robert Drake cared about the law above all else. A more accurate description was that he cared about the law because it restrained bad people from their worst instincts.

“And it is my job to make sure you live to see the day when you are proven either right or wrong,” Captain Lewis replied, his voice growing deep with conviction. “Do you not realize how, were it not for the sacrifices of good men, men like Nam Jae-Sun and Ryssehl Th’zathol, you would not have survived the Battle of Nasera?” Admiral Reyes had been seconds from ramming the USS Polaris into the orbital platform over Nasera II. Had Ryssehl and Crewman Nam not laid down their lives, Commander Drake would have died in a massive fireball with sixteen hundred other officers and crew aboard the Polaris. “And every day, I rise ready to answer the call once more.”

“Those are nice platitudes,” Commander Drake replied, shaking his head indignantly. “But I don’t buy your fatalistic view of the universe, nor that you, and you alone, can solve what lies before us.” There were always choices, choices that didn’t rely on such sacrifices, but out of respect for Admiral Reyes and the impact that the fog of war could have on command decisions, he wasn’t going to litigate those today. “Since we’re not going to agree on this though, let’s get back to what we can agree on, which is that you need to finish this deposition if you want to get back to whatever it is that you think is so important no one else can do it.”

And so Commander Drake picked the PADD back off the desk and resumed his deposition of Captain Lewis. Meanwhile, several decks above them, the officer of the watch made note that the USS Ingenuity had just missed its second consecutive check in. There were many reasons this could happen, and it made no one besides Captain Lewis nervous, but it was entered into the log nonetheless.