She took a deep drag and exhaled slowly. The smoke danced upward, snaking around her nose and rising into the blackened sky of the cold desert night. She watched it go, its wisps like her worries and her sins, fading into the darkness. The stars, the patio, and the shisha pipe, it all felt so real, but really, it was nothing more than an illusion of photons, forcefields and replicated matter. Wasn’t it all though? In the end, was any of this – even her life itself – any more than a passing projection? Wouldn’t they all disappear just the same, no different than this place? Still, in the moment, it didn’t make it feel any less real – not this simulation, nor her life itself.

“Ya sayyida alfawdaa, ‘akhbiriniun ean mashakilik?” the old man with yellowing teeth and weathered skin asked from across the table. Nadeem Abadi was a veteran of a war centuries before her time, a conflict of fates as scarring on him as her own had been on her, yet while, in reality, he was nothing more than a construct of bioneural subroutines and holographic emitters, he was, in many ways, still the closest thing to a reflection of what Ayala Shafir saw in herself.

“Tell you of my troubles, sadiqi alqadim?” the chief sighed as she passed the hookah hose. “Where would I even begin?” Where was it that things had really gone wrong? Was it Nasera, when she pressed that detonator and erased Lieutenant Commander Brock Jordan from existence? Or was it back nearly two decades now, when she watched, motionless and emotionless, as her fellow officers were executed, simply to preserve her cover? Or was it during those times in-between when she ran with the Fenris Rangers and Sebold Logistics, walking in the gray? The gray, just like the smoke now rising from the old man’s mouth. “It’s been quite a journey, Nadeem, over the years.”

“Your scars, the scars of that journey,” Nadeem replied, his words soft as he switched from his native tongue to hers. “They live forever on your body, yes.” His skin too was weathered and marked by his own journey. “I sense, though, there’s something more present on your mind.”

He passed the hose back to her, and as she raised it to her lips, her hand passing by her face, she stared at the stub where once her index finger had been. The doctors had offered to make her whole again, but she’d declined. She’d lost that finger in captivity, but Lieutenant J.G. Jace Morgan had lost so much more. Jace had died a forgotten fighter of a shallow victory. Forgotten by all but her. Her and that stub of a finger. “Does anything we do ever really truly matter?”

“I’m the wrong person to ask that of, my dear,” the old man admitted. “I fought war after war to protect my people, and to avenge all those they’d taken from us, but sitting here now, what’d it really accomplish? We are still divided, and still we suffer.”

“If there’s a synopsis of our galaxy someday,” Chief Shafir lamented. “Maybe that’s all it needs to say: we are still divided, and still we suffer.”

For a moment, the two sat in silent contemplation. In the late night hour, the lights in the mudbrick flats had been extinguished, and no vehicles passed by. The only sound in the background was that of the desert wind as it blew softly down the dusty thoroughfare afore the patio. That wind, though, couldn’t blow away that which afflicted them. Nothing could.

“We fight, we suffer, and we die, but for what?” Chief Shafir asked at last. “Maybe Nasera was worth it… and Earth… and Beta Serpentis, even… but the Underspace? I’m not even sure we were on the right side.” The Underspace had imbalanced the galaxy, but it was the Cardasians, not Starfleet, that had taken it upon themselves to restore equilibrium. Captain Lewis and the others, they’d been lost, and she wasn’t even sure if it’d been for a righteous cause – and what they’d done, and their sacrifice, it certainly had not mattered in the end.

“There’s an old proverb that seems fitting for what you’re going through now,” offered Nadeem. It was one that he, or at least the subroutines that defined his personality matrix, held close to heart. “Falsayf sabaq allawm.”

An apt metaphor, Chief Shafir thought in quiet contemplation.

“The sword preceded the blame,” came a new voice, not that of Nadeem, but rather a female voice, one beyond the patio, somewhere out in the darkness. 

It pulled the chief from her thoughts, her face growing wary as she looked for the speaker. A faint silhouette was advancing towards them down the dark thoroughfare. Who had intruded on her in this private moment? The holodeck wasn’t programmed for this, and she certainly hadn’t invited anyone. As the figure neared, the dim lamps of the cafe’s patio cast long light upon the new arrival. At first, it was just enough to make out a Starfleet uniform, but then, as the figure drew closer, her blonde hair and her fair skin came into view.

“Emilia?” Chief Shafir asked. She was more than a bit confused. Lieutenant Emilia Balan was a colleague from the Advanced Science, Technology and Research Activity. She worked in the Cultural and Psychological Research Unit, and they’d been on a couple away missions together. That didn’t mean they were friends, though. They didn’t socialize together – not that the chief socialized with practically anyone – and she certainly hadn’t been invited to join. Still, at least the girl was harmless. “You… you speak Arabic?”

“The galaxy is full of languages, but it speaks with only one voice,” Lieutenant Balan mused as she drew to a halt beside the table. What a curious sight, thought the lieutenant: a Chief Petty Officer and an old man with decaying teeth, sitting on either side of an Arabic water pipe on a dusty cafe patio in a nondescript desert village.  “From Earth to Qo’noS, nearly all cultures have a similar proverb. I’m curious, though, what it means to you?”

The chief studied the young lieutenant. There was nothing off-putting about her, and her question carried not a lick of judgment. Just curiosity. Still, Ayala Shafir had no interest in sharing her most private thoughts with anyone besides the illusion of Nadeem. “Don’t take this the wrong way, Lieutenant, but what are you doing here?” Her tone was pointed, and it came out a bit more harsh than she meant it to.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Lieutenant Balan backpedaled, noting the response she’d provoked from the chief. That certainly hadn’t been her intention. Had she overstepped by inviting herself in? “I had a holodeck reservation to enjoy some hearty Klingon opera, but I arrived to find myself in…” She looked around at the nondescript desert architecture, the trappings of the cafe, and the wardrobe of the hologram opposite Chief Shafir. “The Arabian desert on Earth in what looks to be about the twentieth or twenty-first century?”

“Not bad,” Chief Shafir nodded, impressed by her deduction from what little surrounded them. The young woman had placed it as close as one could, for it wasn’t a specific place or point in time, but rather a generic representation of her heritage. “I should be the one to apologize though. I had not realized the time. I can shut this down so you can enjoy your…” She couldn’t keep a straight face as she said it. “Your Klingon opera.” What the hell was the innocent, pretty little flower that was Emilia Balan doing listening to such a raucous cacophony of sound?

“Oh no, the ambitious solo passages of Gav’ot toH’va, belted by the great tenor Moktor, son of Grogh, can wait for another night,” smiled Lieutenant Balan as she stared at the mysterious woman who, although they’d ventured out on away missions together, she still knew almost nothing about. “I’d much rather join you, if you’d be willing to have my company?”

Company was not the least bit what Chief Shafir wanted – not real, human company, at least – but this was Lieutenant Balan’s holodeck time, so maybe she’d humor it? At least for a bit. She could always excuse herself if need be. “Nadeem, would you give me and my colleague some time to talk?”

The hologram, as with most, had been programmed to accept hints of intent. “You know, it’s gotten mighty late, truth be told,” he said as he rose with labored effort. “I think my old bones would benefit from some sleep. Close up the cafe when you’re done, would you, Ayala?”

“Certainly, old friend,” Chief Shafir nodded as she watched him go. Nadeem Abadi, or at least different incarnations of him, had followed her ever since her time on the USS Nyx a decade and a half prior. “Please, Lieutenant,” she then offered, her tone more formal as she gestured to the vacant chair opposite her. “Have a seat?”

“Just Emilia, please,” Lieutenant Balan smiled warmly as she took a seat. In a setting like this, the formalisms hardly seemed fitting. And she’d never really liked them anyways.

“Alright, Emilia,” Chief Shafir replied with a smile. “First names it is.” She drew another long drag from the hookah, and then, as she exhaled, she extended her hand, offering the hose to the lieutenant. “Would you like some?”

“Is it…” Lieutenant Balan asked, hesitating. “Is it real?”

“The water pipe? Hell no. With how much I jump from place to place, I’d certainly break it,” Chief Shafir chuckled. “And besides, once I got the specifications right, the holodeck does a fine job with it. It even materializes fresh, warm coals with a flick of the wrist.” As if to accentuate the point, she waved her hand over the bowl, and the burnt coals transformed into a fresh set, rewarming the shisha in the bowl beneath.

The Lieutenant seemed appeased and reached out to accept.

“But, I should warn you, the tobacco is real.”

The lieutenant paused, looking at the pipe warily.

“The holodeck can’t – or more accurately, won’t – recreate it,” Chief Shafir explained. “At least not the real stuff, the stuff that gives you that nice soft buzz, due to associated health hazards.” Instead, she had to import it from where it was still grown and cultivated naturally.

Now the Lieutenant just looked confused. “I don’t understand. Why do you… why do you smoke it? Isn’t it… isn’t it bad for your health?” There was no condescension in her tone. Just genuine curiosity. The hazards of smoking had been understood for hundreds of years, and while modern medicine could cure many of its ails, why would a sharp and fit Starfleet officer partake in such an activity?

“Many things are bad for my health,” Chief Shafir laughed. “Running with Reyes or… or Lewis…” She looked down regretfully as she mentioned his name. “Running with this crew is gonna kill me long before a little pipe does.” She retracted her hand and took another long drag as she thought about Captain Lewis, her mentor, now lost to the deep. She never thought the captain would go before her.

“If you feel that way about running with them,” Lieutenant Balan asked. “Why do you keep doing it?” Who would willingly do something they felt would kill them?

“Because I believe,” Chief Shafir replied reverently.

“Believe in what?”

“In them,” Chief Shafir replied without a moment’s hesitation. “It’s fitting that Reyes flies her flag on the Polaris, isn’t it?” She looked up at the sky. Here in this simulation, unadulterated by light pollution of modern Earth, the north star shined bright. “Against the Dominion, the Borg, and even Starfleet itself, she’s our north star. And Lewis, he never waivers, a rock that never cracks.” She then turned back to Lieutenant Balan. “What about you, Emilia? Why are you here? What do you believe in?”

“Not for anyone or anything like that, certainly,” Lieutenant Balan admitted sheepishly. “I came to the stars to see the beauty of our galaxy and the diverse peoples in it.” She’d been wholly unprepared for the boundless tragedy she saw on Nasera II and the cold ruthlessness she witnessed on Beta Serpentis III. “To be perfectly honest, though, I’m not sure I had any idea what I was getting into.”

“None of us ever really do, huh?” Chief Shafir observed, thinking back as she took another long drag. “In my younger years, I thought I knew it all.” She let the smoke go as she flashed back to those days. “Back in the early nineties, I signed up for a mission to infiltrate a terror cell, thinking it’d be a quick thing… we’d dig up some dirt and squash some bad guys. But then I spent a year undercover – deep fucking cover – seeing things… doing things… I thought I knew darkness, the worst the galaxy could offer, but it turned out I had no idea.”

“How did you process it?” Lieutenant Balan asked curiously. She was still trying to process what they’d survived over the last year, the scenes she saw of broken worlds, the stories she heard of a brutal occupation, and the moments – moments, plural – when her life flashed before her eyes.

“For a while, I didn’t,” Chief Shafir admitted, her eyes darkening, growing almost black. “I turned in my pips, and I drifted, aimless and faceless, in all the darkest places where one can go to just disappear. For years, I was nobody, and I was nowhere.”

“But you’re here now, Ayala,” Lieutenant Balan offered warmly, her heart paining for the woman across the table. What a thing to share, she thought to herself. It suddenly made her struggles, those nights spent crying alone at night, seem like nothing. “How’d you find your way back?”

“Because Jake found me,” Chief Shafir replied.

Lieutenant Balan appeared to not get the reference.

“Captain Lewis.” 

Now she got it. At least who Chief Shafir was talking about, but not how. Lieutenant Balan had only peripherally interacted with the man who stalked shadows in the corridors for a pastime, but Captain Lewis didn’t seem the sort of person who’d help you out of your darkest moment. Quite to the contrary, he seemed the sort that gravitated towards them. She’d heard, second hand, what had come out at the trial, the accusations of murder… and worse.

“You see, back then, Starfleet had given up on him, but he wasn’t ready to give up on them,” Chief Shafir explained. “He went off and created his own private outfit to do what he could, in the service of the Federation while beyond it. He brought me back, and he gave me purpose. We did the things that Starfleet couldn’t – or wouldn’t – sometimes with their quiet nod, and sometimes without it. Those had been the days, doing what needed to be done.” No protocols, and no policy. Just what they had to. On Nasera, with their old colleagues, they’d fallen back into that same pattern, except of course that the JAG had come for them when it was all over.

Lieutenant Balan just sat there with a stunned look on her face. She’d come to the holodeck for an opera, but she’d gotten so much more. She’d certainly never expected to, in such a short time, learn so much both about the aloof Chief Shafir and the haggard Captain Lewis. There was always more to a book than its cover, and this was more proof.

“And then, a couple years ago, when the Osiris Initiative was first launched, Allison… or sorry, Admiral Reyes…” Chief Shafir continued. “She reached out to Jake and asked him to come back. And then Jake called me, and the rest is history. I followed him at Sebold Logistics, and I followed him back to Starfleet.” She regretted none of it. Except Vespara. Except when they lost the Serenity and the Ingenuity to the Underspace. Where was he now? Had he made it out? Was he limping back from some distant place, and would he make it home? Or had he fallen to the enemy? Or to subspace itself? She longed for answers. She needed answers.

“I… I…” Lieutenant Balan stuttered, trying to come up with a response. At last, she settled on something simple: “Thank you, Ayala.”

“For what?”

“For welcoming me to your table,” Lieutenant Balan offered with all the sincerity in the world. “And for sharing something so personal.” She had a sense how vulnerable it must have made the chief to share it. Fuck it, she thought. If Ayala Shafir could open up to her like that, couldn’t she at least be open to something so small? She reached out and nodded at the pipe. “May I?”

“This?” Chief Shafir asked, raising the hose with a surprised look on her face.

Lieutenant Balan nodded.

Chief Shafir folded the end over itself in a traditional gesture of respect and passed it across the table. Why, she wondered, the change of heart?

Lieutenant Balan accepted the hose and turned it over in her hand, tracing it back to the water chamber. She noticed, for the first time, the delicate ornamental scene carved onto it, one depicting some battle from an era long past. Curious, she thought to herself, that the chief, in providing the specs for this device, had taken the time to inscribe it with such art.

“Just gonna stare at it?”

Slowly, Lieutenant Balan raised it to her mouth and inhaled. But as the smoke hit her lungs, she began to cough uncontrollably, leaning over the table to catch herself.

“Takes a bit to get used to it,” Chief Shafir giggled.

It was a sweet giggle, Lieutenant Balan thought to herself as she regained her composure. It was nice to see Ayala Shafir giggle. It was almost cute, and a nice shift from the mood of the prior conversation. “It’s… it’s not bad.” A hell of a lot less abrasive than her experiences on the Polaris had been recently. She took another drag, and this time, it didn’t hurt. Exhaling slowly, hints of vanilla and cinnamon tickled her tastebuds. “Actually, it’s pretty good.”

“Wait til you try zaghloul.”

Lieutenant Balan looked confused.

“The flavor of toothless old men,” Chief Shafir explained as she glanced towards the mudflat where her holographic old friend had turned in for the night. “A favorite of Nadeem’s. It’s a bit like being punched in the face.”

“You don’t sell it well,” Lieutenant Balan smiled. “Not that I’d know what being punched in the face felt like either.”

“All that Klingon opera, and not one melee?” Chief Shafir laughed.

And from there, they fell into a comfortable conversation – strangely comfortable given how different they were, but it was nice, Chief Shafir had to admin, to just sit and talk with someone like Emilia Balan, someone so genuine and curious with not a lick of judgment.

Slowly, the minutes turned to an hour, and an hour to two, and as the night drew late, the pair shared a great many things, stories of the beauty Emilia Balan found beneath the Tzenkethi skyline, and tales, both triumphant and tragic, from Ayala Shafir’s turbulent past. They shared, too, their perspectives on the galaxy, their lives, and themselves. It was a form of healing, in a way Ayala Shafir never knew she needed, to listen and talk to a young woman, so beautiful and so different from herself.