Title: Jerusalem
Author: Paula Stiles (thesnowleopard@hotmail.com)
Series:DS9
Part: NEW 1/1
Rating [R]
Codes: B, O'B


Summary: This story is an answer to a challenge from last spring: "What if the
Dominion won the War?" It occurs after "A Call to Arms." In this story, the events in "A
Time to Stand" never happen. 

Disclaimer: Paramount owns Star Trek, and all the characters herein. I just took them
down to the local bar to get likkered up and lucky. I hope Paramount doesn't mind.

Archive: Sure--if you ask first.

Warning: This is rated R for graphic descriptions of war wounds, and major character
death.

Originally posted on  alt.startrek.creative on January 20, 1999.




					JERUSALEM


And did those feet in ancient time
Walk upon England's mountains green?
And was the holy Lamb of God
On England's pleasant pastures seen?

And did the Countenance Divine
Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
And was Jerusalem builded here
Among these dark Satanic mills?
		Verses from Jerusalem (And Did Those Feet in Ancient Time)
		By William Blake


     "Hurry up, Miles. Miles, come on!"

     When O'Brien came to, he was already on the move. He was being hauled down a
long, dim tunnel. He couldn't tell if it was the lighting or his eyesight. His stomach was
on fire and all he wanted to do was lay down and die.

     "Stop, stop!" he gasped.

     "Sorry, Chief. No time." It was Bashir's voice--Bashir, his best friend, who was
dragging him down this tunnel to Hell. "Just a little farther, I promise."

     "I can't," O'Brien whimpered.

   "Yes, you can," Bashir replied. There was an edge in his voice, harder than
duranium. "Come on. They're right behind us!"

     'Just a little farther,' was an eternity of pain, but finally Bashir slacked the pace, then
stopped and allowed O'Brien to slide down to the floor and sit. The first few seconds of
non-movement were Heaven. That passed. Soon, aches that had not had a chance to
make themselves known before, did so. O'Brien groaned.

     "Easy, Miles," Bashir said gently. "I've got just the thing." O'Brien felt a hypospray
against his neck. It hissed, and the pain oozed out of him. It left him with a buoyant
emptiness. He opened his eyes.

     They were in a mine. In fact, they were in the mine that he, Bashir, and Commander
Dax had so painstakingly wired to the ceiling with explosives not an hour before.
When this place went, the whole mountain would go--and so would a major production
center for the fuel that ran the Jem'Hadar attack ships.

     They were not supposed to still be here. This was not part of the plan.

     He looked down. He'd taken a Jem'Hadar shot squarely in the stomach. There was
blood everywhere, but it wasn't spurting or flowing fast, so he doubted he'd die right
off. He looked away when he noticed his own scorched intestines. *Maybe I'm not
getting out of this one, after all,* he thought. *Maybe this is the message Keiko finally
gets to read.* He hoped that the one he'd dictated just a few hours before had been
more profound than he remembered.

     Bashir knelt with his back to O'Brien. The doctor was scanning a pile of rocks with
his tricorder. O'Brien gasped when he saw the diagonal burn that crisscrossed
Bashir's back from left shoulder to right hip. It was nearly a handsbreadth wide in some
places. The edges of the wound were an angry, bubbled red, alternating with blue,
where Bashir's uniform had melted into his skin. The center line was gray. O'Brien
thought he saw bone showing where the burn crossed over Bashir's spine. "That must
hurt," he said inanely.

     Bashir turned back to him. The doctor was shivering. His breath came too fast, and
his pupils were much too large. "It's all right," Bashir said. "I gave myself a morphine
derivative to block the pain. Actually, I'm high as a kite." He grinned at O'Brien. It
wasn't a reassuring expression.

     O'Brien tried to sit up more, but couldn't find the energy. Bashir hurried to help him.
"Julian, why are we *here?*"

     "We got trapped," Bashir explained. "They threw up a force field before we could
beam out, remember?"

     "But, the Defiant," O'Brien panted. "Dax was going to--"

     "There is no more Defiant. And Dax..." Bashir's face twisted with a pain that no
morphine derivative could block. "Dax is dead." He slid down next to O'Brien, leaning
one shoulder against the wall.

     "Do you know where we are?" he said.

     O'Brien squinted at the pile of rocks. "We're...right back where we started. Back in
the mine. We've been going around in circles."

     "Not exactly," Bashir corrected him. "I brought us back here to finish what we
started."

     "Julian," Miles protested. "We were supposed to set this thing to blow and get the
Hell out. There's no way, now. We'd never get out in time."

     Bashir put a hand on O'Brien's shoulder. "It doesn't matter, Miles. The Defiant is
gone."

     Gone. Not gone, as in escaped, O'Brien realized. Gone, as in destroyed. He closed
his eyes, wishing against it all that he was back with Keiko and Molly. He opened his
eyes, and there was still his best friend, and a job to do, and no way out.

     "All right," he said, hopelessly. "What's left?"

     "We need a detonator." Bashir held up a phaser. "Are you strong enough to rig a
grenade from this?"

     O'Brien reached out, tried to take the phaser from Bashir, it slipped from his fingers
and clattered on the floor. The sound was loud in the empty mine. Bashir started, then
picked up the phaser again.

     "Plan B," he said calmly. "Why don't you just talk me through it?"


     
     "I can hear them," O'Brien said a few minutes later. No one could mistake the
joyless tramp of booted feet for anything but advancing Jem'Hadar. Strangely, he
didn't feel anxious about it. Bashir had given him another shot without his having to
ask. It was very difficult to care about anything, anymore. All he wanted to do now was
sleep.

     "Hmm," Bashir replied. Undoubtedly, he had already heard them coming. That must
have been why he had begun to work more quickly, toward the end. He snapped the
firing button back into place, holding it down. "If I let this go," he said. "It goes off
automatically, right?"

     "Right," O'Brien whispered. "It's a dead-man's switch."

     The door glowed and began to buckle inward. "Well," Bashir said. "We're going to
die like Klingons, after all, aren't we?"

     "More like trapped rats," O'Brien croaked.

     Bashir held up the rigged phaser. His eyes glittered. "Oh, no," he said. "We're going
out with a bang. Worf would be so pleased. Let's finish with a song, Miles."

     He began to sing, loud, strong, and deep. O'Brien joined in feebly.

"Bring me my bow of burning gold!
"Bring me my arrows of desire!
"Bring me my spear! O clouds unfold!
"Bring me my chariot of fire!"

     On the last verse, O'Brien voice broke off in a fit of coughing. He was choking on his
own blood. 

     Bashir pounded O'Brien on the back and hugged him fiercely. "Come on, Miles.
Just one more verse." He started again. O'Brien's vision was darkness, now, shot with
fire. He was too weak to sing but he made his lips form the words.

"I shall not cease from mental fight;
"Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand,
"'Til we have built Jerusalem
"In England's green and pleasant land."

     O'Brien's world filled with a terrible, squealing roar. At first, he thought his hearing
was going. Then, he turned his head painfully toward the door. Where it had been was
a smoking hole filling up with angry Jem'Hadar. One of them pointed his disruptor at
Bashir.

     "Drop your weapon," he growled.

     Bashir was still holding up the phaser grenade. *They must want us alive,* O'Brien
thought. *You could still surrender, Julian.*  Then, Bashir looked at him, and O'Brien
knew that Bashir was done forever with Dominion mercy.

     Bashir bent his head until he and O'Brien were eye to eye. "I'm sorry I didn't get you
back home to Keiko and the kids," he whispered.

     "S'allright," O'Brien mumbled. "Did your best."

     Bashir's eyes were too bright. "You're the best friend I ever had, Miles O'Brien. Did
you know that?"

     O'Brien shook his head and chuckled painfully. "No."

     "Well, it's true."

     "Drop your weapon, *now,*"  the Jem'Hadar grated.

     Bashir turned his head and smiled brightly at his enemy. "All right," he said.

     *Oh, Julian.*

     Bashir opened his hand.



     Even from space, the explosion was impressive. Weyoun and Damar watched in
fascinated horror as the entire top of the mountain slagged off into the valley below.
They both stood frozen for several seconds, as the shattered squadrons that had been
converging on the mountain, now tried to regroup.

     Finally, Damar stirred. "Well, at least there were no Cardassians soldiers down
there. I told you not to try and take them alive."

     "Be silent," Weyoun snapped. Damar subsided, but Weyoun could still sense the
Cardassian's sullen glare. He would have to do something about Damar, soon. This
moment, however, was not the time.

     Weyoun turned the audio on his headset back up. Several squads were not
responding. Weyoun guessed that several hundred troops had still been in the
complex when it had gone off. He had been dreading something like this since the
moment he had heard the report that there were survivors from the Defiant cornered in
the weapons depot. Sometimes, he thought bitterly, Jem'Hadar could be complete
fools. 

     Whatever the cornered Starfleet officers had used to set off the mine had probably
had a deadman's switch. Better to have evacuated the complex and tried to talk them
out, but no Jem'Hadar would have ever considered that. Weyoun doubted that the
officers would have surrendered, anyway.

     With the wormhole aliens silent, and more troops coming into the Alpha Quadrant
every day, the Federation and the Klingon Empire had no chance. Every hour saw
more territory in Dominion hands. Weyoun should have been happy.

     He would have been, had it not been for the rumors which had been coming
through from the Gamma Quadrant. It seemed that some of the more restive territories
on the far edge of Dominion space had decided to follow the Alpha Quadrant's
example. By themselves, they were weak, easily destroyed. With the bulk of its forces
stationed in, or near, the Alpha Quadrant, however, the Dominion was suddenly hard
pressed to keep its farther borders safe from these opportunistic rebels. 

     Even the Alpha Quadrant was hardly pacified. The Federation and the Klingon
Empire would undoubtedly fight until the last ship and the last phaser, even though
they knew they were doomed to lose. The Romulans were staying neutral, for now.
That would change as the Dominion approached the Neutral Zone. Still, the Founders
not only refused to regroup, they refused to even slow the Dominion's advance.

     Weyoun had to believe the Founders were right. They were, after all, Gods. Yet, the 
Gods were making a terrible mistake. For a moment, Weyoun envied the vaporized
Starfleet officers on the planet below. For them, the War was over. For him, it was only
beginning.

END