Story:The Gift/Chapter 3

Story:The Gift, part 3

Meanwhile the other Selar had secretly returned to DS9 and was hiding in one of Quark’s holosuites. She’d never seen a holosuite before but had a pretty good idea how to use it. She had requested a Vulcan harp and was playing some notes on it. Although in hiding, she was watching Wesley and the others outside the suite.

“It’s beautiful.” A tall, grey-haired human in an odd uniform seemed to be standing behind her. “Allow me to introduce myself. I’m Vic Fontaine.”

Selar started to get up, but Vic held up his hand. For some reason he seemed to have a reassuring effect. Choosing his words carefully, he continued. “You know, you got a lot of people looking for you. Why is that kid so special?”

“He was a—friend,” Selar said cautiously.

“Your Wesley Crusher?” Fontaine asked. Selar looked up. Vic continued. “Yes, I know about your universe,” he said. “I may just be a hologram, but they keep me active 26 hours a day. You pick up quite a lot here. What happened?”

“He was killed while we were fighting the Alliance.”

Fontaine considered her words and answered. “I imagine people must often form close friendships in a situation like that. The Federation recently fought a costly war of its own.”

“What we had goes beyond that,” Selar answered. “We served on the I.S.S. Enterprise in the Empire’s final days. Many humans were blaming Vulcans for their Empire’s losses, because we wanted to follow Spock’s teachings of logic and peace.”

“Yes, I think I heard something about that,” Fontaine said. “They said Spock’s reforms were supposed to have backfired and left the Empire vulnerable to conquest.”

“Spock was overthrown before he could complete his reforms,” Selar answered. “But many Vulcans wanted to continue following his teachings. Because of this, in one of Earth’s earlier wars it simply let the Alliance overrun Vulcan. We became slaves to both powers.”

Fontaine had to admit he found her story compelling. “And you were a slave on the Enterprise?” he asked.

Selar nodded.

“That story seems a little different from what I heard,” Fontaine continued. “If it wasn’t Spock’s reforms that brought the Empire down then what did?”

“During its final war with the Alliance, Earth learned of a planet called Iconia that was supposed to provide gateways to other regions of space. It was thought that this would provide a huge advantage over the Alliance, so it sent a fleet of ships to secure the planet. What it didn’t count on was the planet sending up automated probes that attacked their ships’ computers and disabled the invasion force. What the Empire had left wasn’t enough to defend it.”

“Where does Wesley fit in?”