Stardate 53909.2, Earth Year 2376

Silence blanketed the cockpit of the Pharaon, broken only by the periodic beeps and clicks of control consoles and computer displays. It was a silence born of death and despair, of pain buried for far too long beneath a veneer of anger and detachment. Domenica Corsi found it stifling as she regarded her father through eyes blurred by tears, as he sat across from her in the cramped cockpit.

She watched him take a final drink of his juice, then sigh and begin to fidget with the now-empty bottle. Remembering her own beverage, Corsi looked down at the juice in her hand. Though her throat was parched, the thought of drinking the juice made her stomach lurch.

Instead, she returned her attention to her father and saw that his expression was one of misery and fatigue after unburdening himself of the secret he had carried all these years. Corsi thought she saw a hint of relief in her father’s eyes, however, as if the confession might somehow have begun the process of cleansing the anguish from his soul.

“I’ve never told anyone what really happened that day,” he said after several moments. “Not even your mother knows. After we got home, I swore the crew to secrecy. I didn’t want one of them saying something around you or your mother.”

Nodding, Corsi replied, “Thanks for telling me, Dad. It’s good to know the truth, about anything.” She paused before asking her next question, unsure of the reaction she would receive. “You’ve always said Uncle Gi died in an accident. Why did you lie about it?”

“It was no lie,” Aldo said. “He did die in an accident; a horrible accident caused by Starfleet officers who were incapable of doing their own jobs.”

“Dad,” Corsi said, her tone one of gentle caution, “Starfleet didn’t kill Uncle Gi. The Cardassians did.”

It was not the first time her father had endured discussion of this topic, she realized as she watched his features harden. The line of his jaw tightened beneath the weathered skin of his face and his nostrils flared in the way they always did as his temper rose toward its boiling point. The index finger of his right hand leveled at her, his hand still gripping the empty juice bottle, and his eyes were wide with anger.

“Did you even listen to me? Are you so schooled by your superiors that you believe everything they do is right? Is your loyalty to Starfleet stronger than your family blood?”

Corsi felt her own ire mounting at the words, the same ones her father had used against her before on those rare occasions that they actually had spoken to one another. He knew just which buttons to push to set her off, playing her family loyalty against her sense of duty and service, those aspects of her character that made her just like him.

And just like her uncle, as well.

He’s not driving me away. This time, I’m meeting him halfway.

“Dad, I listened,” she began slowly. “I can’t defend what Starfleet asked you to do, but it was a different time then. They were all but at war with the Cardassians and they asked for your help, but you knew what you were getting into. It’s not as if you were commandeered.”

“I might as well have been,” Aldo replied. “As soon as that Ross started talking, he had to have seen the fire in Gi’s eyes. Ross knew he was excited about helping, and he played us for suckers.”

“Uncle Gi was no sucker,” Corsi countered, “and he knew what he was doing just like you did.” She remembered the tales of Giancarlo Corsi’s life that her parents had shared with her in the years after his death. His enthusiasm and level-headedness in the face of adversity and even crisis were recalled often at the family dinner table, and accounts of his trust and loyalty were cited among them as unmatched, even by Corsi family standards. Her impression of the man was almost larger than life, she knew, a hero to be admired and even emulated. With all of that, it was no surprise that he would jump at the chance to help Starfleet, the organization he had admired but could not join.

Uncle Gi wanted to shine in Starfleet’s eyes. He wanted to make a difference.

“But his death wasn’t enough for them,” Aldo said, his face reddening in seething rage. “Oh, no. Starfleet wanted revenge for my giving up their precious sensors and secret data. They destroyed my business. They restricted access to my shipping routes, and that cut me out of contracts for shipments I had been running regularly for years. I had to sell every ship I owned but this one, Domenica. I rebuilt the business from the bottom up, but I didn’t have Gi to help me this time. I worked like hell so you kids wouldn’t know the difference.”

Corsi’s own jaw clenched in anger at the remarks. “Starfleet did no such damn thing, Dad, and you know it. Ours wasn’t the only family shaken up by the war, either. Much of the territory you and other freighters traveled fell under Cardassian rule, and Starfleet had no choice but to restrict travel in certain sectors. They did everything possible to make the quadrant safe for everyone.”

“Not everyone,” he corrected. “Not Gi.”

Sighing, Corsi shook her head. “It’s hard to explain, Dad. It’s different for Starfleet officers than it is for other people. It was different for Uncle Gi, too, at least if I’m to believe all those stories you told me about him. He understood the risks, but he was on a mission, not just standing by.”

“Your uncle was not a Starfleet officer, Domenica.”

“He was in his heart!”

It exploded from her lips, startling both of them into momentary silence. Aldo recoiled at the force of his daughter’s words, and Corsi herself had to pause to consider how she had reacted before continuing. How could she explain with mere words what drove her to put on her uniform each day?

“Dad, it’s like what I feel for you and for Mom, and for the family, but different. I feel completely responsible for the security officers on my detail, for my captain, my ship and its crew, for, well, the Federation and everyone in it. I’ve been called to serve, Dad. I have duties to perform, and people depend on me. It makes me feel alive to serve them. Uncle Gi felt the same way, and you do too. Who do you think gave that to me?”

Corsi watched as moisture gathered in the corners of her father’s eyes. After several moments, he nodded slowly. “I know. I’ve known for a long time. Your mother has talked of it for years, and I didn’t want to admit it, but I see it now.”

“What, Dad?”

“In your eyes,” he said, “and when you talk like that. I see Gi. All that time you two spent together when you were little, all of the games you would play, all of the dreams he shared with you when you were too small to really remember, Dommie. They really are there, inside you. I see it now.”

New tears welled up in Corsi’s eyes, and she reached over and placed her hand over her father’s. “If that’s really true, then maybe Uncle Gi realized just what he was getting into that day. I bet he was willing to give up everything for what Starfleet was trying to accomplish. That was his chance to live his dream.”

“Your mother said the same thing about him once,” Aldo said. “It took me years to accept that I’d lost him to that dream, just as it’s hard to cope with the idea that I might lose my only daughter to that dream, too.”

The words caught Corsi off guard and she found herself unable to respond to them. She had felt confident while explaining why she served in Starfleet, but during those fleeting moments she had forgotten the price for that service, as paid by half of the da Vinci’s crew.

Now, her father had thrust her backward in time, back to the boiling, deadly clouds of liquid-metal hydrogen that made up Galvan VI. He had plunged her back to the point of the ship’s near-destruction, to her own near-fatal electrocution, and the deaths of so many friends and shipmates.

Maybe I should be dead, too.

“As strange as it sounds, though,” Aldo said, “I think I understand better now. I’m not saying I’m comfortable with it, but this is good for me, and for both of us.” Looking up from the deck, his eyes locked with hers once more. “And I want you to know, Dommie, that I’m proud of you. If you do have anything of your uncle in you, then you probably feel like you’ve failed your friends and your captain, but you didn’t. You showed them how to fight until you couldn’t fight anymore, and then you showed them how to get up and fight again. That’s what Corsis do.”

Corsi smiled, letting the pride she had sought from her father for so many years, wash over her. “Dad, you know I’ll be in danger again. Maybe not as bad as on Galvan VI, but it’s sure to happen,” she said. “You can’t keep worrying about me.”

“Oh, I’ll worry, but not as much as I might,” Aldo replied, “because you’ll have the ax with you.”

It took a moment for that to register, and when it did Corsi caught herself gasping in shock. “I…Dad, I don’t understand.”

“When I think back to that day,” her father said, “I wonder if things might have been different had the ax been aboard. But it belongs with you now, Domenica. You earned the right to carry it, and you honor the family when you do.”

The tears came freely now, as Corsi absorbed her father’s words. For centuries, the ax had been a cherished family memento, its history rife with both triumph and tragedy. Passed down through the generations, it had grown to be more than a simple heirloom, taking on the role of good luck talisman and even, perhaps, that of guardian angel. Her father had begrudgingly entrusted it to her once, his concern for the upholding of family custom that the ax travel with a member sworn to the service of others winning out over his disdain for his daughter’s commitment to Starfleet.

Now, however, he was giving it to her with his blessing and the assurance that she too had done her part to sustain her family’s tradition.

Rising from her seat to go to her father, Corsi realized he had met her halfway when she felt his muscled arms wrap around her. She sank into the comforting embrace, a welcome act after so many years. Though they were a long way from closing the rift that had separated them for so long, she knew that the healing had begun, even in a small way, today.

As they stood there, the deck shuddered beneath their feet and Corsi heard a humming from somewhere below them that she recognized as the Pharaon’s main warp drive coming back online.

“I guess Wilson and Stevens are finished,” she said, wiping new tears from her eyes.

Pulling away from their embrace, albeit reluctantly, Aldo sighed in relief at the soothing drone of the ship’s engines. “Wonderful! I think we’re back on the road.” They heard footsteps bouncing along the metal deck plates of the corridor outside the cockpit and turned to see Stevens appear in the hatch opening, a smile on his face.

“We’re good to go,” he said. “Wilson’s checking a few readings but I think the replacement articulation frame will hold just fine. We found a couple of pieces in storage that did the trick. I only had to dig into the…”

He paused, the realization of what had just been said now evident on his face. Looking to Aldo, he stammered through the remainder of the sentence. “Uh…dig, into the storage hold and look for spare parts. Wilson did all the work, Mr. Corsi. I didn’t touch a thing without his being right next to me.”

Waving the explanation away, Aldo smiled. “Domenica spoke well of your abilities, Mr. Stevens. Forgive me for doubting them. I trust all went well?”

Stevens smiled and gave a thumbs-up. “Yes, sir. Now if you would excuse me, I’d like to wash up and get something to eat. Can I get anything for you two?”

Aldo shook his head. “I need to get us under way and contact the Thelkans to let them know we’ll be a bit late.”

“I’ll catch up in a bit, Fabian.” Corsi watched Stevens nod and return down the corridor. Behind her, Aldo had retaken his seat and started tapping commands into the control console. She waited in silence for the several minutes it took him to contact the Thelkan shipmaster and to make his preparations to get the Pharaon under way again before saying anything. “Dad?”

“Yes, Dommie?”

“This trip…this talk…meant a lot to me,” she said. “I hope it’s not our last.”

Aldo smiled. “It won’t be. Now go catch up to your friend. He’s a good man, Dommie, from what I can tell. It’s plain that he likes you a lot.”

“Yeah,” Corsi said. “And that’s part of the problem.”

*   *   *

As she headed in the direction of Stevens’s quarters, Corsi realized her pace was quickening the farther she walked. She wanted to tell him about the conversation with her father. For the first time in years, she felt reconnected to her family and completely proud of her chosen career in Starfleet, and she could not wait to share her newfound good feelings with him.

Tapping the keypad next to the door to Stevens’s room, she stepped inside as the hatch slid aside. “Fabian? Are you in here?”

Then she stopped short as she looked into the room’s small bathroom and saw Stevens standing at the sink, naked but for a towel around his waist.

“Uh, I’ll come back,” she said, turning to head back through the door.

“Hey, it’s okay,” Stevens replied as he turned from the sink, rivulets of water in his hair as he wiped his hands with another towel. “Come on in.”

Nodding, she made a concerted effort to avoid looking toward the bathroom as she stepped into the room and took a seat on the unmade bunk. “You guys made pretty quick work of the warp drive. I think Dad was impressed.”

“Wilson did all the real work,” Stevens admitted as he put away a washcloth and soap. “But play up the S.C.E. angle for your father. Maybe he’ll start coming around on his Starfleet issues.”

Corsi smiled at that. “He might be already. While you were working, we talked like we’ve never talked before. He may be starting to understand why I’ve stayed in Starfleet all this time.”

“That’s great, Dom.” As he moved from the bathroom, it seemed to be Stevens’s turn to avoid eye contact as he went through the motions of tidying up the small sleeping quarters. “Maybe you can explain it to me later, if you want.”

Something in the way he said the words caused her brow to crease in puzzlement. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Stevens turned from a storage compartment to meet her gaze. “I’m getting out,” he said. “I’ve decided to leave Starfleet.”

“What?” Corsi shuddered at the thought, a chill reaching from her belly into her throat with his words, and questions rang in her mind . Fabian is leaving the ship? For good? Where had this come from? “When did you decide this?”

“I’ve been thinking about it the whole trip,” he said, “since before we left the da Vinci, really. Seeing you at home with your family, though, that really set the hook in me. I can do what I do for the S.C.E. in plenty of places and not get myself killed.” He shrugged. “Maybe I’ll head back to Rigel, or maybe your dad can hire me on for one of his freighters. It doesn’t really matter. I just think it’s time for me to move on.”

“The hell it is.”

For the second time that day, Corsi found herself surprised by her tone of voice and the conviction of her words, this time directed toward an unsuspecting and now dumbstruck Fabian Stevens. Once more, Corsi’s thoughts turned to her mother, who was convinced that she would have the strength to find the words that would help Stevens when he needed it most.

If only I could feel so confident.

“Don’t just look stupid at me,” she said, her voice hardening with each word. “You know you’re not leaving. It sounds great, running away when the going gets tough, but that’s not how we handle things on the da Vinci.”

“So that’s how it is,” Stevens said, regarding her with his own look of determination. “You put on your ‘Core-Breach’ mask and charge your way through another situation. That may work for you, Dom, but not for me. I left too much behind on Galvan VI.”

The rage Corsi had been holding in check, first with her father and now with Stevens, erupted to the surface. “You did? I lost seven members of my security detail. Seven! Half the crew was killed! Do you know that for over a week I had to keep a highlighted list of the ship’s complement next to my bed, so that when I woke up from my nightmares I could check to see who was still alive?”

Stevens’s mouth fell open in shock, but he said nothing. Corsi did not give him a chance, either, rising from the bunk and pointing one long finger at him.

“This is not just your burden, Fabian,” she said, her pitch and volume continuing to climb. “We all are hurting, and we’ll hurt even more when we start seeing all the new people assigned to the ship when we get back, but we have our duty.”

“Duty!” Stevens shouted in response, the word echoing off the walls of the small room. It was his turn to vent anger, and she had never seen him do so with such force. “It wasn’t Duff’s damn duty to jump out of the ship for that warhead! Now he’s gone! It wasn’t his job but he took it, and now he’s dead!”

In barely a whisper, Corsi spoke. “It was my job.”

Stevens stopped in the midst of drawing breath for his next outburst, her response undercutting him. “What?”

“Fabian, it was my damn job!” She gritted her teeth and turned away from him, not wanting him to see the pain in her face and the tears in her eyes. “I was supposed to disarm the Wildfire device, but I got hurt! I was useless, and a damned engineer did my job! Do you think I don’t know that Duffy died because of me?”

Corsi threw away any restraint she had left and slumped back on Stevens’s bunk. The sobs racked her body with the sorrow, frustration, and anger that she had held within her since the moment she had learned of Duffy’s death.

Sitting down beside her, Stevens put an arm around her shoulders. “Dom. Duff did what he did for all of us. He saved the ship, and he would have done it a hundred times over if he could have. It’s not your fault.”

Meeting his eyes with tears running down her cheeks. Corsi asked, “If I can remember that and keep going, do you think that maybe you can, too?”

Stevens said nothing for a moment as Corsi tried to regain her composure, offering her one end of the towel slung over his shoulder. She dabbed at her eyes and blew her nose, drawing a disgusted look from Stevens before he handed her the rest of the towel.

“Keep it.”

She could not help the laugh that escaped her lips, and she had to wipe her eyes again as more tears flowed forth. “Damn you,” she whispered, a small smile forming on her face.

Drawing a deep breath, Stevens said, “You know, back during the Dominion War, when Duff and I hadn’t known each other very long, he dragged me out of a Breen firefight and saved my life. He said we were phaser-proof, and even bragged about it at this bar where we…well, that’s not important. What is important is that for some silly reason, I believed him. There were times I thought we were invincible, Dom.” He shook his head. “I don’t think I can go back to the da Vinci knowing that Duff won’t be there.”

Corsi paused, then offered her hand to Stevens. As he took it she said, “I’ll be there, Fabian, just like you were there for me when I needed you. No questions asked, you can lean on me as much as you need to.” Squeezing his hand, she added, “We’ll get through this together.”

“I could use a friend, you know,” he said after a moment, “especially one who knows her way around a good bar brawl.”

“What, you planning on talking to some more Tellarites, Fabe?”

He chuckled at that as he excused himself to the bathroom to finish getting cleaned up. There was a hint of the old Fabian Stevens in the smile he wore as the door closed behind him, one she was grateful to see. The door closed behind him, leaving her alone in the room with only her thoughts for company.

In just a few hours two men, whose importance to her she was only just now beginning to realize, had taken a few steps toward healing and understanding, both with her help. Corsi steeled herself for the journey ahead, both with Fabian Stevens and with her father, keeping mindful of her duties as a daughter, a friend, and a Starfleet officer. She was ready for anything.

After all, she was a Corsi, and that’s what Corsis did.