Prologue

"We're waiting for you, Doctor." Captain Sisko's voice. It didn't seem odd to be hearing it.

Comm link, he realized, and reached up to tap his badge. His fingers hit bare fabric over his heart. Nothing there.

But Bashir heard the familiar chirp, echoing oddly in the empty chamber. He glanced around, confused, and saw himself a few meters away, standing next to Garak in the main room of Cardassian Central Command. He watched as his twin dropped his hand from his communicator, nodding coldly to Garak in curt farewell. "One to beam up."

I'm dreaming. The realization was dully familiar to him, but it offered Julian no comfort as that other him dissolved as if blasted with disruptor fire. He disappeared from the center outward, a ring of crimson fire flashing around the edges. Gray hands thrust out to save him, or keep him from going. One arm plunged straight through the hole in his torso. An instant longer and he was completely gone.

Garak blinked, embarrassed at the sentiment he'd given away when he found himself clutching air. He let his arms fall to his sides, clenching and unclenching his fists, over and over compulsively as if he were wishing for something to hold onto. Something besides rubble. Julian felt helpless. He wanted to tell Garak that he hadn't left, that he still stood beside him, but he could only trail after the Cardassian as his friend drifted dead-eyed out of the room, through the corridors, eventually outside.

The overcast sky was choked with hot dust, making it hard to breathe as they wandered through the streets of the ruined city. The broken stones bled crimson as if the buildings had been alive, muddying the dry earth underfoot. The Command Center towered over everything, slowly separating the rubble into smaller chunks under its oppressive glare.

Julian nearly ran into Garak's back when he finally stopped in front of an old shed standing in the debris. Garak sank to a kneeling position on the hard ground, leaning his chin on his fist. Ordered piles of rock stretched up in pillars as tall as a man could reach: an abstract memorial.

"Garak," Julian said desperately. "Look at me."

The Cardassian didn't respond. Julian felt a stab of panic. "Elim."

Abruptly, Garak met his eyes. "I thought you'd left."

"I did. I've come back."

"Alone? How are we going to help all these people?" In every direction the horizon filled with dark shapes. Growing as they rushed inward, the forms took on definition. Silhouettes took on faces--the surviving casualties of war; the wounded and dying. Cardassians of all ages struggled towards them. Soon he and Garak would be crushed between the press of bodies.

Garak shook his head sadly. "I'm afraid it's just not possible."

"It might be. I brought people with me."

"Help?" Garak sat straighter, his fist falling away from his chin.

Julian nodded. "In orbit." He tapped his comm badge to give the signal. A lieutenant transported in beside Julian. Her short hair reflected crimson from the blood-soaked ground. She took in the scene before her, then squared her shoulders determinedly.

"One girl?" Garak laughed heartily, "You haven't lost your since of humor, have you?"

Julian's brow furrowed. The cries of the wounded around them began to grow louder. "This isn't possible. There were others...."

"What does it matter?" Garak shrugged. "The odds are the same. Your pitiful forces against a planet full of decimation? Federation optimism never ceases to amaze me."

The girl bent down to grab the Cardassian's ears. Julian felt Garak think about snapping her neck. "We can do it, if we work together. Now stop talking and get up! They're almost here." Julian had seen this lieutenant before. He could have told Garak her name, if he could only stop and think for a moment. Too bad they didn't have the time to spare for proper introductions. Back to back, the three of them prepared to meet the first wave of wounded.

One wailing man was the first to reach them, collapsing at Dr. Bashir's feet. Dozens more closed in, surrounding them, clawing at them with hands and pleas.

Julian let the others manage their own patients while he turned the man at his feet over and helped him lean against one of the stone pillars. The Cardassian was gasping, eyes wild with pain. Bashir tried to stem the flow of blood from his neck with the palm of one hand, groping for something to treat him with, finding nothing.

"There's nothing you can do," Garak snapped, dealing with his own patient as best as he could. "Leave him and move on to the next."

Even as Garak spoke, a last breath rattled in the man's throat. Bashir cursed and pushed the body as far out of the way as possible. As the dead man slumped from his hands, the doctor's knuckles scraped across the open edge of a medkit lying scattered in the dirt. "I could have used that earlier," he muttered.

As he touched it, the kit started to sink into the ground. He grabbed it and it sunk further, trapping his arm at the elbow.

Gray stones and ashes gave way to bloated, gray flesh. The pillars transformed into the jutting ribcage of a long-dead beast. The planet itself was writhing in pain, crying out for help. It blamed Julian for not being there to help it months ago.

Shrieks of horror echoed around him. He turned to see all the patients engulfed up to their waists by the angry ground.

Garak stood there, arms folded as if he'd expected this to happen.

"Don't give up yet," the girl yelled, even as she too started sinking. "As long as at least one of us is left, there's still hope!" She grabbed desperately at the closest child, tugging on his arms, trying to save just one more person while she could.

Both of them dropped below the surface before Julian could reach them.

Eyes wide, Garak smiled falsely at the place she'd been. "You're right. Maybe there is still hope."

"There is!" Julian seized Garak's hand desperately. "You have to believe that, or we've already lost before we've even begun!"

"Why should I when you don't even believe your own words anymore?" Garak tried to step away, but his feet were trapped. He began to drop rapidly into the ground.

Julian tightened his grip as Garak fell deeper, clawing blindly for anything to hold on to as he tried to pull his friend back up. At the last moment, his fingers brushed something at the very edge of his reach and he stretched to clamp his hand around it--then gasped as he almost lost hold, slipping even further into the muck.

In an eyeblink, Bashir's point of view shifted, and he was Garak. Or maybe he had always been the one sinking. Was he actually pulling Garak in? The world's weight still sucked Bashir inexorably deeper into the rot. Would he end up taking his friend with him?

"Not yet," Garak shouted urgently, pulling with all his might. "Don't let go!"

Everyone else had already disappeared below. Their muffled screams grew in number and strength with every slippery moment until Bashir could hear nothing else. The morass around him shivered with the sound, reverberating through to his bones, a pulsing heartbeat of pressure beating him back and forth and churning downward with a force that ripped his wrist from his arm.

The man above gaped, horrified, at the severed hand he held--the only piece he'd managed to save.

The world closed over Bashir's head, pulling him down into blackness. As the stench enveloped him, he heard one last murmur: "Goodbye, dear Doctor." He couldn't tell which of them spoke it.

Chapter 1