Bind
By t-bear

Kira opened her eyes. She was still there. It was no dream. The station had only twenty minutes of air left. A generous estimate for one person. And now Kira was convinced she was not alone. A life sign, weak, but registering, flickered on the OPs computer terminal.
 
"Computer, who is it? What is it?" Kira barked, only too quickly remembering that the voice function of the computer had been the first thing to go down in the accident. In fact, Kira was lucky the computer worked at all in any capacity. She patted her com-badge. Force of habit.
It was long dead.  

The air in the station was already stale, bitter, like a Klingon bar just before closing. There was no time. The last usable escape pod was ready, primed, awaiting a finger to depress the release button, but this was a life. Somebody, something was alive in cargo bay three. Life meant everything to Kira.

There had been no time in the station-wide evacuation to take names. There had been too much sheer panic and shock to take an orderly roll call. That faint life sign blipping on the readout screen could be anybody. If that had been me, I would want somebody to save me, Kira thought, sealing her decision.
  
Armed with only a flashlight and a phaser the Major swiftly made her way down to the cargo bay. The damage on the cargo bay level was just as severe. The hallway illumination system was out. Thick smoke hung in the air. It's death shroud of darkness punctuated by small fires and the glowing embers of burnt out wiring. The air smelled of burnt flesh.
  
Kira shuddered. She was in hell. The explosion had destroyed nearly every internal system on the station. Upper pylon 1 was completely destroyed. Fractures in the pylon's structure had been torn into gaping holes by pressure, ripping out its innards and turning it inside out into the vacuum of space. Only a single backup system had prevented the leak from spreading to rest of the station.
  
The solid metal door to cargo bay three was shut. Jammed shut. Kira checked her tricorder. Whoever or whatever was trapped behind that door. They were still alive. Then her tricorder went dead.
  
Kira took aim and began to phaser the door lock mechanism. Within seconds the override snapped into place and the cargo bay door hydraulically slid open.
  
Shining her flashlight inside, Kira could make out the form of a gold Federation uniform heading across the smoky cargo bay towards her.
  
"Chief?" Kira said, surprised as the engineer approached her.  
"I've been trapped in here since the explosion," O'Brien said. "Have you seen the Captain?"
"He's been evacuated. He's in pretty bad shape."

O'Brien was a mess himself. Blood trailed down the side of his face. His uniform was charred with black soot.
  
"I hope you have a way out of here, Kira," O'Brien said.   
"And I hope you have room for one more, Ma-jor." Kira knew those dulcet tones. Gul Dukat stepped out of the shadows of the cargo bay and into the beam of Kira's flashlight.
"Dukat?" O'Brien said. "What were you doing in here? I thought I was alone."
"Oh, just minding my own business," Dukat replied. "Come to think of it, I don't remember seeing you in there either."
  
Kira remembered her tricorder readings. One life form. Maybe that reading was a result of the damage the tricorder had received when Kira had been thrown to the ground in the explosion. But, no. OPs had also only shown only one.
  
"What are we waiting for?" O'Brien said.
Kira stared at them, hesitating.
"Well, Ma-jor?" Dukat said.
"Chief?" Kira said, shining her flashlight into the engineer's eyes. "Do you love me?"
"What?" O'Brien replied incredulously.
"Do you love me?"
Dukat looked on in surprise.
"Come on. Kira," O'Brien pleaded. "We have to go."
"If I said I loved you too, Miles. That I really do. Would that make any difference?"
  
O'Brien grew more confused. "I'm a married man, Major," he said, shaking his head. "I'm not in love with you."
  
Kira raised and fired her phaser point blank into the Chief. O'Brien slammed back into the corridor wall and then collapsed onto the floor.
  
Dukat looked down at the dead Chief of operations. "Major," he began, staring at Kira, "if that's how you treat those who don't love you, let me just state for the record, that I worship the ground that you walk on."
  
"He's a changeling," Kira said. Within seconds the Chief's body began to morph into a congealed bronze liquid and then quickly into coal-black ash.
  
Dukat's expression was unchanged. "How did you know?"
Kira glanced at Dukat. "Long story."
Kira and Dukat swiftly made their way along the corridor back towards the turbolift. There was no time. The thought kept streaming through Kira's mind. They had to get out. The air was thinning with every breath. 
  
"It was you? Wasn't it? You destroyed the station," Kira snapped.
"Look around you, Major."
"Look at what?"
"Terok Nor is a Cardassian station."
"So if you can't have it, you want to destroy it?"
"No. This was an accident. An oversight on behalf of one of my men."
"You call this an oversight?" Kira yelled.
  
"Let's not quibble over semantics, Major. I simply want to reclaim what belongs to Cardassia, not blow it up." Kira frowned at this. "I'm only fighting for what's rightfully ours."
  
Kira wanted to phaser Dukat right there in the corridor. But deep down she understood Dukat. She understood his motivation. He was fighting for what he believed in. Kira knew that feeling. It had fueled most of her adult life in her own fight to free Bajor. To take back what was rightfully hers. This one small strand of sympathy, of similarity between them, had been the only reason she had never yet killed Dukat.
  
"Well then, don't push your luck," Kira snarled at the Cardassian.
  
The turbolift doors slid shut and the elevator quickly began to ascend.Kira looked across at Dukat.
  
"You know, the humans in the Federation have a saying," she said. "You can't take it with you."
  
Dukat smiled back at the Major. "Yes, and the Klingons have an even better saying." He flashed his teeth at her. "Maybe today is a good day to die."
  
Suddenly the turbolift ground to a halt. A brief power surge ran through its system and the lift moved a another meter, then stopped. The interior light flickered out. Kira flicked on her flashlight. Everything suddenly went quiet. An eerie quiet.
  
"That's it," Kira said, shining her light in Dukat's eyes. "The backup power grid has gone down. The station is dead."
  
Dukat stared back at Kira. "Well, Ma-jor. Now what?"
"Fuck you, Dukat," Kira screamed, her rage unleashing itself. She grabbed Dukat. With one swift motion she threw him back up against the wall of the turbolift. Dukat smashed into the metal wall, denting it and then wobbled forward in a daze. The flashlight hit the floor and lit up their boots.
  
Before Dukat could regain his senses, Kira was on him. With a knee up into his groin Dukat doubled over. Kira then grabbed Dukat's head and then ran him headfirst into the wall on the other side of the turbolift. Dukat staggered back and then fell down to his knees.
  
Kira froze. She was pale with shock at her actions. Dukat stared up at her. Blood trickled from his nose. He examined it on his fingers. "I'm going to die, anyway, Major. Do you really have to bloody my corpse in this manner?"
  
Kira's eyes flashed with rage once more and she lunged at Dukat, grabbing him and throwing him onto his back on the metal floor of the turbolift. She dropped down to the floor after him and straddled him, sitting on his chest, pinning his arms down. Her instinct was to bite at the Cardassian's face with her bare teeth, to unleash her anger, to rip his face off, but instead she found her lips smothering Dukat's, pushing down into them. Sexually biting them. Her hands gripping his shoulders.
  
Dukat's own instincts were to strangle Kira. The small delicate Bajoran neck was no match for his strong Cardassian fingers, but instead he found himself intoxicated by her kiss. Swept away by it. He could taste her lips on his. He could feel her breath. He could smell her heat. Dukat tightly held Kira's arms. He kept her from rising. He kept her from breaking from their kiss.
  
Kira's mind was awash with a tidal surge of information. There was no way out this time. The air in the station was almost all gone. There was no rescue. There was no way out. She could feel the surge in her blood.
  
Dukat's Cardassian instinct for survival sharply gave way to arousal. He felt himself stirring in his pants. He felt his penis erecting itself upwards towards the Major. He felt it straining at the fabric of his uniform to get to her.
  
Kira broke from the kiss and raised her head a few inches above Dukat's. Saliva trailed gently from her lips to his. They stared into each other's eyes. Deep. Speechless. For one moment, both Kira and Dukat were the same.
  
Fate, kismet, the prophets, something, had brought them together this one last time. Their lives were already deeply intertwined. And here, trapped in a turbolift on board the dead space station, for one brief moment, they both knew the future. Their own future. It was the same one.
  
Kira's fingers tore at Dukat's clothes, but his were stronger and he soon tore the Major's blackened red uniform top from off of her. Kira felt her breasts flow freely out from her chest, no longer restricted by her uniform. She closed her eyes tightly, leaning back, feeling Dukat's warm fingers slide up her chest and then cup her breasts. She began to breathe deeper as she felt her nipples harden to the Cardassian's touch as he ran his fingers over her pointy tips. Kira felt a heat burning between her legs, it's temperature rising with every breath. She felt her breasts heaving on her chest.
  
Dukat stared up at the Major, her head tilted back, her eyes closed, her breasts in his hands. The Bajoran had such smooth pale skin. Such beautiful texture. He wanted to burn with her.
   
Kira tore violently at Dukat's pants and dragged them down to his knees in one swift motion. Dukat's erection was free and now had the freedom to grow to its full size. Kira grabbed it in her hand. She felt its rippling sensations in her palm. She wanted it. Anywhere. Dukat felt his hardening in the Major's grip. It only hardened him more.
  
Dukat scrambled to his knees and grabbing Kira,  flipped her onto her back. Kira landed on the floor of the turbo lift with a thud, her boot kicking the flashlight.
  
Both Dukat and Kira herself ripped at her leggings. Dukat near shredding them as he tore them from her legs and ripped them off her. Kira lay back, opening up her naked limbs, spreading them to Dukat. The flashlight shone up Kira's legs, illuminating her milky white inner thighs.
  
Dukat stared down at the small tuft of hair between Kira's legs. Beneath it his eyes became lost in the shape and folds of her skin. Beads of moisture on her flesh were caught in the glow of illumination.
  
Dukat's erection screamed at him.
  
Dukat pounced on the Major. His body enveloping her. His face coming down hard into the side of her neck. He bit hard into her skin. Kira sharply inhaled her breath. She clenched her eyes. She spread her legs wider, wrapping them up and over the torso of the Cardassian, gripping Dukat tightly to her as she felt his long slender erection slide up into her.
  
Dukat inserted himself. He buried himself inside her. Kira felt like she had been impaled. She was too scared to breathe. Then Dukat began to slowly withdraw himself. Kira could feel his long shaft rippling every millimeter of her interior flesh as it passed by. Then Dukat returned it. Sliding it all the way back again. Kira felt her head begin to start spinning.
  
Dukat began to thrust himself into Kira. Back and forth, violently plunging himself further and deeper into her. Kira's hands tightly held Dukat's shoulders, her legs gripped him like a vise. Dukat continued to slam into Kira. Slamming her into the floor.
  
Kira gripped Dukat so tightly with her legs she started to rise up off the floor with him, only to slam back down again as he thrust into her. With one hand on her hip, Dukat tried to hold the Major down and he bucked against her.
  
The ocean of thoughts inside Kira's head had become a tidal wave. She had become pure instinct. She began to thrust herself back up against Dukat's motions. Meeting his thrusts with sharp moans of pain and pleasure.
  
Kira felt the tidal wave in her blood. It was flooding up inside her head. She began to arch her back. From deep inside her throat came an animalistic groan. A long deep moan.
  
With every last ounce of energy he had, Dukat shoved himself down and up into Kira. He clenched every fiber in his body. He strained every artery in his body. Kira screamed. Her head was spinning, out of control. Then Dukat released. The tidal wave of blood flooded up into Kira's brain. She felt a hot flood unleash itself between her legs.
  
Then it was over.
  
Dukat peeled himself off Kira. He collapsed to the floor, but then tried defiantly to raise himself up to a more respectable position.
  
Kira stared at Dukat. With her last breath she squeezed the words from her lips. "May you walk with the prophets."
  
"I'll take my chances..." Dukat's voice trailed away as he slowly lay down, losing his last breath of consciousness.

Kira opened her eyes. Her vision was blurred, but she was still alive. It was no dream. This was not the turbo lift on the station, this was not even the celestial temple. This was a biobed, or at least it felt like it.
  
After a moment Kira's eyes began to focus, and she found herself staring up into a pair of affectionate Ferengi eyes.
  
"Welcome back, Major Kira," Rom said.  
"Rom?" Kira asked confused, weak. "Where am I?"
"You're on board the Defiant."
"The Defiant?"
"Err- we came back and rescued you. And Gul Dukat, too." That was no dream either, thought Kira.
"The station?"
"Badly damaged. No life support functions, but repairable."
"I thought the Defiant was destroyed in the explosion?"
  
"We were pretty badly damaged, but Chief O'Brien and I managed to get most things back up and running." Rom hesitated. "Err- perhaps I shouldn't ask, but there has been some speculation on the state of your clothes when we beamed you and Gul Dukat over from the station."
  
"Never trust speculation," Kira smiled. Rom nodded knowingly, then tried to fathom her meaning.

The invalid space craft defiantly limped it's way back toward the space station. Kira sipped on a hot Raktajino and peered out through the bulkhead window.
  
Debris littered space and hung silently around the remaining upper pylons. The windows of the station were dark. Black.
  
Maybe it was possible to salvage and rebuild the station. Maybe things could be returned to normal. But only one thing about the future was certain. Normal would never be the same.

- the end -