Epilogue
It was a small world, at what seemed like the edge of the universe. Deep within the Badlands, it had been the last place the Maquis had run to – its sky forever scorched by the storms that raged above and below the forgotten planet. It had been sanctuary for the refugees of the Maquis, the last survivors of a grand lost cause.
The shuttlecraft set down on the outskirts, the Galileo resting on the deep lines in the dirt that were still left from where the Gale had rested for five years. Ro and Chakotay were the first to emerge, but Chakotay reached back to help Janeway jump out, followed by Picard.
The buildings were an ugly brown and yellow, a mismatch and conglomeration of whatever was available. There weren't many survivors – colonists from Volan III, mostly children, and the Maquis who had evacuated them with the Jem'Hadar on their heels – but there were some.
From some of the houses, people popped out or looked through the glassless windows as they strode through the village. The people stared, taking in the Starfleet uniforms that once they had considered the enemy, but they did not take up arms. There had been enough fighting.
Ro popped her head inside the largest building, then snuck inside around a corner, moving to rest on a chair. She raised her feet and rested them on Amaros' table, lounging.
Amaros came into view, his eyes running over Ro, taking in her uniform and the rank and combadge that adorned it. "You came back. I thought you would be dead."
"I couldn't leave you here," Ro said quietly. "There's no life for you here, Amaros."
"Is there one for us somewhere else?" Amaros asked, sitting softly in the chair across from her.
"It's forgiven," Ro said. "All is forgiven." She pulled her feet off the table, sitting up. "I have a friend, Keeve Falor, on Valo II. There are three M-class planets there, Amaros, and it's no longer the world it was when I grew up. You won't have to live in a refugee camp anymore, or worry about food and water, or have to look up into the sky and see the light from the storms, even in the darkest hours of night."
Amaros smiled. "Another chance?"
Ro nodded. "A better place."
Ro walked out of the building, her uniform jacket tucked snugly around her shoulders and rejoined her companions. Captain Picard nodded at her, resting a hand on her shoulder as Janeway and Chakotay looked on.
From beside her Ro felt movement. She looked down as someone tugged on her uniform leg, one of the children who had grown up on this world and had known nothing else. "Laren?" the little boy asked. "Why do we have to go?"
Ro knelt down, reaching up behind her. Janeway lifted up one of the blankets they had replicated and placed it in Ro's hand, and she wrapped it around the shoulders of the boy. "When I was your age," Ro whispered. "I lived in a place much like this. It was a place of despair and hopelessness, where the people who lived there had forgotten what it meant to dream and to hope for something more." Ro tucked the blanket around his chest, tying two ends together. "But on that world, the children, like you and like me, could look up to the stars and see infinite possibilities. They could dream for a day when they wouldn't have to cry or to fight, when they wouldn't have to hide and fear."
Beside Ro, Picard knelt down. Janeway leaned into Chakotay, his arms wrapping lightly around her waist. Ro smiled as the boy continued to look up at her, clueless. "We're going to take you to a place where you can look up at night and see more than the storms. Where you too can see the stars and dream of that better day – a day when you can take control of your own fate." Ro stood, patting the boy on the head. "And when you find it, because you will, grab onto it with both hands." She turned and looked up to the sky, her eyes seeking out that little speck of light that was the Enterprise. "Grab on to it, little one. Grab on to it and never let it go."