Post by magicmuggle01 on Apr 3, 2019 9:55:16 GMT
After diverting to the Federation hospital on Ajilon Prime looking for an interesting story, Jake believes himself to be a coward when repeated Klingon attacks awaken him to the reality of war and force him to abandon Dr. Bashir and run for cover.
Summary
Doctor Bashir and Jake Sisko are on their way back to Deep Space 9, having attended a medical conference. Jake is planning to write a news article on Bashir, who is upset that his proposed theory (which consists of technobabble as far as Jake is concerned) was so controversial. As Bashir rants about the goings-on from the conference, Jake's mind begins to wander:
I have absolutely no idea what he's talking about. If I don't find a way to get out of doing this article, my first writing assignment is going to be my last. Maybe if I write to the journal and explain... "Dear editors, Thank you for the confidence you expressed in me by accepting my proposed profile of Doctor Bashir."
Arriving at an important impasse in his explanation, which involves a protein anomaly, Bashir confirms that Jake is still following him. Bashir resumes explaining as Jake's voiceover continues:
"Who cares about anomalies? People want stories about things they can relate to. Life and death. Good and evil. An outbreak of Cartalian fever would be just the thing. The brave doctor battles the deadly virus... Listen to me, I'm actually rooting for a plague."
A few seconds pass with Bashir talking and Jake continuing to daydream, but they are both brought back to reality when the runabout receives a distress call from a Federation colony on Ajilon Prime. Despite a recent cease fire the Klingons have resumed their war with the Federation and attacked the colony. Though the colony has requested assistance, Bashir is reluctant to bring Jake along. Jake convinces the doctor to go anyway, and there is a hint that Bashir knows whatever they face on Ajilon will make a better story than his lecture. Jake thinks to himself:
""Surgery under fire"! Now we're talking."
Act One
As things are speeding up for Jake and Bashir, it is a slow day in Ops. Quark has just arrived with a beverage for Kira, and Dax, Odo, O'Brien and Worf are all there to see her reaction. The beverage is a decaffeinated raktajino (dubbed "Quarktajino"), which O'Brien asked him to prepare in the fear that Kira's caffeine consumption will cause his son to be born a caffeine addict. Unfortunately, the drink tastes horrible by both Kira and Miles' accounts. Sisko emerges from his office with the news about Jake and Bashir. The USS Farragut is on its way to Ajilon Prime with reinforcements and Bashir and Jake will leave as soon as backup has arrived. Although Dax tries to lighten the mood, Sisko is visibly worried about his son.
Jake and Bashir arrive at Ajilon Prime, where Bashir has second thoughts about taking Jake into the heat of battle. However, Jake is sure he can handle the experience, so they land and head for the front lines.
In the emergency room, Jake's enthusiasm about his story fades when he experiences the casualties of war first hand. He is shaken by the wounded people he sees, but particularly disturbing is an ensign Jake finds in a doorway, unconscious and bleeding, who turns out to be dead. Another man enters yelling for help, as he has apparently been shot in the foot by a Klingon disruptor. Despite the man's story, Bashir finds the man's injury was caused by a Starfleet phaser... he shot himself in the foot as a way of avoiding having to fight. Disgusted, Bashir moves on to another patient as the young man, though he initially sticks to his story, breaks down as he tells of how his fellow officers ran and he was so scared of the Klingons that he actually shot himself, wishing he was dead. Jake sits in a corner to work on his story but finds it increasingly difficult to concentrate:
"Triage... The sorting of the wounded forces decisions that... I've gotta get a grip. Focus. Decisions that test what it means to be a doctor..."
Jake's writing is disturbed when a medic asks Jake for help in watching a wounded man. As Jake stands with the injured man, he reaches up and spreads his blood on Jake's shirt and Jake begins to realize what he's gotten himself into.
Act Two
As Bashir lends his assistance, Jake has been recruited to help move the wounded. He continues to see many more wounded but starts to deal with it better. During a break in the flow of wounded, Bashir and the doctors ask Jake for help in getting to the replicator.
Back at the station, Sisko speaks with Odo, who has just injured himself in attempting to apprehend cheating dabo players. In reflecting on how fragile his new "solid" form is, he realizes that Sisko is worried about Jake. Sisko recalls when Jake was younger how he vowed to protect his son no matter what, and now he's in the middle of a war zone. Odo attempts to reassure the Captain that Jake will be fine, but Sisko says that always worrying about your child comes with being a parent. Odo admits he doesn't think parenting is for him to which Sisko tells him simply that he won't know what's he's missing, as the joy of being a parent is worth every second of worry. Just then Dax enters with bad news, the Farragut has been destroyed by Klingon forces. Now with no other reinforcements coming, Sisko and Dax immediately leave for Ajilon Prime on the USS Defiant.
Bashir and Jake are sitting down to eat, with Jake appearing to handle the blood and gore around him quite well. However, when Bashir makes a macabre joke about "making an incision" into the food, Jake is quickly overcome with nausea and runs outside to vomit. Later, Jake and Bashir discuss the man who shot himself and Jake is shocked that such behavior is possible among trained Starfleet personnel. Bashir explains that while a Starfleet officer may go through psych tests and battle simulations, nothing really prepares a person for when they go into actual combat. When Bashir is called back to the wounded, Jake talks with another orderly (Kirby) who communicates the dire outlook they face, despite their being medical personnel.
"I wonder if Kirby knew that the whole time we were talking, all I could think about is how close the Klingons were..."
Jake's reverie is interrupted with the sound of an explosion, signaling that the Klingons have resumed their attack. The cave loses power and Bashir realizes that the runabout, set down about 1 km south, has more generators that can help the situation in the cave. Moving a generator is a two-man job, so Bashir and Jake make their way on foot to the runabout and begin to undergo artillery fire. Jake gets behind Bashir and then sees him disappear behind an explosion. Overcome with fear, he turns around and runs away.
Act Three
Jake runs over a hill and through a great deal of smoke, finally falling upon a dead Klingon. He sees that he is in a field of dead soldiers and runs away in fear. He gets over a ridge and is struck in the head by a wounded Starfleet soldier. The soldier demands a hypospray and then explains that he is mortally wounded but wants to die facing the sky. He tells Jake of how he was hurt in protecting a hopper's escape. Jake yearns to help him but the soldier, hearing his story of running away, points out that Jake is trying to redeem his cowardice. As the soldier dies painfully, Jake runs away again.
Act Four
Aboard the Defiant, Sisko is busy tweaking the replicator pattern buffers. Dax sees his feelings of helplessness and tells a story of what Audrid went through when her daughter was came down with Rugalan fever. The girl, Neema, was in a hospital for two weeks and Audrid spent the time reading her all seventeen volumes of Caster's Down the River Light, even though she knew Neema couldn't hear her. It was simply so Audrid had something to do. Luckily, Neema pulled through (although she later didn't talk to her mother for eight years starting at age 21) and Sisko is glad the story had a happy ending. For now, however, he leaves Dax to the replicators and decides to work on the sonic showers.
Jake wanders back into the cave and Kirby is relieved to see him again. Kirby explains that Bashir is injured with plasma burns and the runabout was destroyed by the enemy fire but Bashir somehow made it back with the generator himself. Despite Jake's attempts to avoid it, Kirby gets him to go see Bashir. Bashir is relieved to see Jake and apologizes profusely and begins to berate himself for risking Jake's life by bringing him into a war zone. Jake angrily brushes off the apology and tells him it's OK, and Bashir is startled by his anger:
"I couldn't stand hearing him apologize to me like that. Not after what I'd done to him."
Kirby enters, unaware of Bashir's guilt over bringing Jake or Jake's guilt over leaving Bashir, to examine Jake's wound. Later, Jake once again tries to resume his story but can't concentrate on it:
"I keep turning it over in my head. The shelling. Losing sight of Bashir. Running. And I keep trying to make sense of it all. To justify what I did. But when it comes down to it, there's only one explanation: I'm a coward. Part of me wishes Bashir had seen me run away and told everyone the truth. They deserve to know what I am. To know they can't count on me. That if the Klingons attack, I'll run and hide, just like I did before."
Jake resumes his orderly duties and delivers food to the soldier who shot himself in the foot. The man explains his disappointment in himself and claims that despite his good scores in Academy battle simulations, the real thing is entirely different. Jake now realizes what the man has gone through and they bond over their similar experience. Jake suggests that the man may not get court-martialled and may yet have a future in Starfleet but the soldier says he does not belong in Starfleet anymore and wishes he'd aimed the phaser "a little higher."
As Jake rejoins the fellow medical personnel in the break room, their macabre jokes about which way they'd prefer to die drive him to frustration. He begins to shout about the stupidity of the war and yells that nobody will ever remember the events they are all going through. Bashir intervenes and takes Jake for a walk.
Bashir tries to get Jake to open up about his miserable behavior but Jake resists. Bashir leaves the door open for discussion but Jake refuses and brushes him off. After Bashir leaves, Jake sinks to the ground and begins to cry.
Act Five Edit
The Klingons attack.
Explosions rock Jake awake. He runs to the rest of the people and the head surgeon explains that they are evacuating the cave and they must move quickly and orderly if they are to survive. As most people evacuate, Jake is hiding under a table. The explosions frighten him away from the room he is in and Starfleet infantry personnel give him cover as the Klingons appear in the cave. Jake is soon pinned down by disruptor fire under a table and fires a phaser rifle blindly around the room. The room begins to collapse upon the Klingons and Jake as he screams in fear.
Bashir wakens Jake and points out that his father has arrived. They explain that Jake's actions created a cave-in that gave the rest of the personnel time to evacuate and that he is a hero. The cease-fire has been reinstated and the Klingons have pulled out of the system.
"More than anything, I wanted to believe what he was saying. But the truth is, I was just as scared in the hospital as I'd been when we went for the generator. So scared that all I could think about was doing whatever it took to stay alive. Once that meant running away and once it meant picking up a phaser. The Battle of Ajilon Prime will probably be remembered as a pointless skirmish but I'll always remember it as something more, as a place I learned that the line between courage and cowardice is a lot thinner than most people believe."
Jake gives a copy of his story to Bashir and also to his father. As Sisko reads what Jake has written, he comments that Jake's feelings are those that all who have been in battle feel, whether or not they admit it. He says Jake is courageous to write about it and tells him he is proud of him.
Memorable quotes
"Sorry, kid. Life doesn't work like that..."
- Burke, to Jake
"The removal of caffeine from beverages has plagued bartenders and restaurateurs for centuries! You can't expect me to cure it over night."
"I'm not paying for that! I want to get her off caffeine, not poison her."
"So much for Quarktajino."
- Quark, O'Brien, and Odo
"It's not up to you to tell Kira what to do."
"She is carrying his child. He should have some say."
"As the lessee he does have certain rights. (explaining) Back home, pregnancy is considered a rental."
"Rental?"
- Dax, Worf, Quark, and both Kira and Dax together
"You've been a changeling longer than you have been a solid."
"Solid. I wonder why my people use that term. Humanoid bodies are so fragile..."
"Yes they are. And there are a lot of ways you can get hurt."
- Sisko and Odo
"He's 18 years old. Does your father still worry about you?"
"All the time!"
- Odo and Sisko
"There are many situations in life which test a person's character. Thankfully, most of them don't involve death and destruction."
- Bashir
"It takes courage to look inside yourself, and more courage to write it for other people to see."
- Sisko, to Jake
"His first day?"
"Yeah."
"Pass the salt."
- Nurse, Kirby, and Bolian orderly, in response to Jake's weak stomach
Summary
Doctor Bashir and Jake Sisko are on their way back to Deep Space 9, having attended a medical conference. Jake is planning to write a news article on Bashir, who is upset that his proposed theory (which consists of technobabble as far as Jake is concerned) was so controversial. As Bashir rants about the goings-on from the conference, Jake's mind begins to wander:
I have absolutely no idea what he's talking about. If I don't find a way to get out of doing this article, my first writing assignment is going to be my last. Maybe if I write to the journal and explain... "Dear editors, Thank you for the confidence you expressed in me by accepting my proposed profile of Doctor Bashir."
Arriving at an important impasse in his explanation, which involves a protein anomaly, Bashir confirms that Jake is still following him. Bashir resumes explaining as Jake's voiceover continues:
"Who cares about anomalies? People want stories about things they can relate to. Life and death. Good and evil. An outbreak of Cartalian fever would be just the thing. The brave doctor battles the deadly virus... Listen to me, I'm actually rooting for a plague."
A few seconds pass with Bashir talking and Jake continuing to daydream, but they are both brought back to reality when the runabout receives a distress call from a Federation colony on Ajilon Prime. Despite a recent cease fire the Klingons have resumed their war with the Federation and attacked the colony. Though the colony has requested assistance, Bashir is reluctant to bring Jake along. Jake convinces the doctor to go anyway, and there is a hint that Bashir knows whatever they face on Ajilon will make a better story than his lecture. Jake thinks to himself:
""Surgery under fire"! Now we're talking."
Act One
As things are speeding up for Jake and Bashir, it is a slow day in Ops. Quark has just arrived with a beverage for Kira, and Dax, Odo, O'Brien and Worf are all there to see her reaction. The beverage is a decaffeinated raktajino (dubbed "Quarktajino"), which O'Brien asked him to prepare in the fear that Kira's caffeine consumption will cause his son to be born a caffeine addict. Unfortunately, the drink tastes horrible by both Kira and Miles' accounts. Sisko emerges from his office with the news about Jake and Bashir. The USS Farragut is on its way to Ajilon Prime with reinforcements and Bashir and Jake will leave as soon as backup has arrived. Although Dax tries to lighten the mood, Sisko is visibly worried about his son.
Jake and Bashir arrive at Ajilon Prime, where Bashir has second thoughts about taking Jake into the heat of battle. However, Jake is sure he can handle the experience, so they land and head for the front lines.
In the emergency room, Jake's enthusiasm about his story fades when he experiences the casualties of war first hand. He is shaken by the wounded people he sees, but particularly disturbing is an ensign Jake finds in a doorway, unconscious and bleeding, who turns out to be dead. Another man enters yelling for help, as he has apparently been shot in the foot by a Klingon disruptor. Despite the man's story, Bashir finds the man's injury was caused by a Starfleet phaser... he shot himself in the foot as a way of avoiding having to fight. Disgusted, Bashir moves on to another patient as the young man, though he initially sticks to his story, breaks down as he tells of how his fellow officers ran and he was so scared of the Klingons that he actually shot himself, wishing he was dead. Jake sits in a corner to work on his story but finds it increasingly difficult to concentrate:
"Triage... The sorting of the wounded forces decisions that... I've gotta get a grip. Focus. Decisions that test what it means to be a doctor..."
Jake's writing is disturbed when a medic asks Jake for help in watching a wounded man. As Jake stands with the injured man, he reaches up and spreads his blood on Jake's shirt and Jake begins to realize what he's gotten himself into.
Act Two
As Bashir lends his assistance, Jake has been recruited to help move the wounded. He continues to see many more wounded but starts to deal with it better. During a break in the flow of wounded, Bashir and the doctors ask Jake for help in getting to the replicator.
Back at the station, Sisko speaks with Odo, who has just injured himself in attempting to apprehend cheating dabo players. In reflecting on how fragile his new "solid" form is, he realizes that Sisko is worried about Jake. Sisko recalls when Jake was younger how he vowed to protect his son no matter what, and now he's in the middle of a war zone. Odo attempts to reassure the Captain that Jake will be fine, but Sisko says that always worrying about your child comes with being a parent. Odo admits he doesn't think parenting is for him to which Sisko tells him simply that he won't know what's he's missing, as the joy of being a parent is worth every second of worry. Just then Dax enters with bad news, the Farragut has been destroyed by Klingon forces. Now with no other reinforcements coming, Sisko and Dax immediately leave for Ajilon Prime on the USS Defiant.
Bashir and Jake are sitting down to eat, with Jake appearing to handle the blood and gore around him quite well. However, when Bashir makes a macabre joke about "making an incision" into the food, Jake is quickly overcome with nausea and runs outside to vomit. Later, Jake and Bashir discuss the man who shot himself and Jake is shocked that such behavior is possible among trained Starfleet personnel. Bashir explains that while a Starfleet officer may go through psych tests and battle simulations, nothing really prepares a person for when they go into actual combat. When Bashir is called back to the wounded, Jake talks with another orderly (Kirby) who communicates the dire outlook they face, despite their being medical personnel.
"I wonder if Kirby knew that the whole time we were talking, all I could think about is how close the Klingons were..."
Jake's reverie is interrupted with the sound of an explosion, signaling that the Klingons have resumed their attack. The cave loses power and Bashir realizes that the runabout, set down about 1 km south, has more generators that can help the situation in the cave. Moving a generator is a two-man job, so Bashir and Jake make their way on foot to the runabout and begin to undergo artillery fire. Jake gets behind Bashir and then sees him disappear behind an explosion. Overcome with fear, he turns around and runs away.
Act Three
Jake runs over a hill and through a great deal of smoke, finally falling upon a dead Klingon. He sees that he is in a field of dead soldiers and runs away in fear. He gets over a ridge and is struck in the head by a wounded Starfleet soldier. The soldier demands a hypospray and then explains that he is mortally wounded but wants to die facing the sky. He tells Jake of how he was hurt in protecting a hopper's escape. Jake yearns to help him but the soldier, hearing his story of running away, points out that Jake is trying to redeem his cowardice. As the soldier dies painfully, Jake runs away again.
Act Four
Aboard the Defiant, Sisko is busy tweaking the replicator pattern buffers. Dax sees his feelings of helplessness and tells a story of what Audrid went through when her daughter was came down with Rugalan fever. The girl, Neema, was in a hospital for two weeks and Audrid spent the time reading her all seventeen volumes of Caster's Down the River Light, even though she knew Neema couldn't hear her. It was simply so Audrid had something to do. Luckily, Neema pulled through (although she later didn't talk to her mother for eight years starting at age 21) and Sisko is glad the story had a happy ending. For now, however, he leaves Dax to the replicators and decides to work on the sonic showers.
Jake wanders back into the cave and Kirby is relieved to see him again. Kirby explains that Bashir is injured with plasma burns and the runabout was destroyed by the enemy fire but Bashir somehow made it back with the generator himself. Despite Jake's attempts to avoid it, Kirby gets him to go see Bashir. Bashir is relieved to see Jake and apologizes profusely and begins to berate himself for risking Jake's life by bringing him into a war zone. Jake angrily brushes off the apology and tells him it's OK, and Bashir is startled by his anger:
"I couldn't stand hearing him apologize to me like that. Not after what I'd done to him."
Kirby enters, unaware of Bashir's guilt over bringing Jake or Jake's guilt over leaving Bashir, to examine Jake's wound. Later, Jake once again tries to resume his story but can't concentrate on it:
"I keep turning it over in my head. The shelling. Losing sight of Bashir. Running. And I keep trying to make sense of it all. To justify what I did. But when it comes down to it, there's only one explanation: I'm a coward. Part of me wishes Bashir had seen me run away and told everyone the truth. They deserve to know what I am. To know they can't count on me. That if the Klingons attack, I'll run and hide, just like I did before."
Jake resumes his orderly duties and delivers food to the soldier who shot himself in the foot. The man explains his disappointment in himself and claims that despite his good scores in Academy battle simulations, the real thing is entirely different. Jake now realizes what the man has gone through and they bond over their similar experience. Jake suggests that the man may not get court-martialled and may yet have a future in Starfleet but the soldier says he does not belong in Starfleet anymore and wishes he'd aimed the phaser "a little higher."
As Jake rejoins the fellow medical personnel in the break room, their macabre jokes about which way they'd prefer to die drive him to frustration. He begins to shout about the stupidity of the war and yells that nobody will ever remember the events they are all going through. Bashir intervenes and takes Jake for a walk.
Bashir tries to get Jake to open up about his miserable behavior but Jake resists. Bashir leaves the door open for discussion but Jake refuses and brushes him off. After Bashir leaves, Jake sinks to the ground and begins to cry.
Act Five Edit
The Klingons attack.
Explosions rock Jake awake. He runs to the rest of the people and the head surgeon explains that they are evacuating the cave and they must move quickly and orderly if they are to survive. As most people evacuate, Jake is hiding under a table. The explosions frighten him away from the room he is in and Starfleet infantry personnel give him cover as the Klingons appear in the cave. Jake is soon pinned down by disruptor fire under a table and fires a phaser rifle blindly around the room. The room begins to collapse upon the Klingons and Jake as he screams in fear.
Bashir wakens Jake and points out that his father has arrived. They explain that Jake's actions created a cave-in that gave the rest of the personnel time to evacuate and that he is a hero. The cease-fire has been reinstated and the Klingons have pulled out of the system.
"More than anything, I wanted to believe what he was saying. But the truth is, I was just as scared in the hospital as I'd been when we went for the generator. So scared that all I could think about was doing whatever it took to stay alive. Once that meant running away and once it meant picking up a phaser. The Battle of Ajilon Prime will probably be remembered as a pointless skirmish but I'll always remember it as something more, as a place I learned that the line between courage and cowardice is a lot thinner than most people believe."
Jake gives a copy of his story to Bashir and also to his father. As Sisko reads what Jake has written, he comments that Jake's feelings are those that all who have been in battle feel, whether or not they admit it. He says Jake is courageous to write about it and tells him he is proud of him.
Memorable quotes
"Sorry, kid. Life doesn't work like that..."
- Burke, to Jake
"The removal of caffeine from beverages has plagued bartenders and restaurateurs for centuries! You can't expect me to cure it over night."
"I'm not paying for that! I want to get her off caffeine, not poison her."
"So much for Quarktajino."
- Quark, O'Brien, and Odo
"It's not up to you to tell Kira what to do."
"She is carrying his child. He should have some say."
"As the lessee he does have certain rights. (explaining) Back home, pregnancy is considered a rental."
"Rental?"
- Dax, Worf, Quark, and both Kira and Dax together
"You've been a changeling longer than you have been a solid."
"Solid. I wonder why my people use that term. Humanoid bodies are so fragile..."
"Yes they are. And there are a lot of ways you can get hurt."
- Sisko and Odo
"He's 18 years old. Does your father still worry about you?"
"All the time!"
- Odo and Sisko
"There are many situations in life which test a person's character. Thankfully, most of them don't involve death and destruction."
- Bashir
"It takes courage to look inside yourself, and more courage to write it for other people to see."
- Sisko, to Jake
"His first day?"
"Yeah."
"Pass the salt."
- Nurse, Kirby, and Bolian orderly, in response to Jake's weak stomach
