The Autobiography of Benjamin Sisko E-Book

Derek Tyler Attico

• Herausgeber: Titan Books
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Seitenzahl: 455

Beschreibung

The fascinating life of Starfleet's celebrated captain, and Bajor's Emissary of the Prophets, celebrating the 30th anniversary of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Benjamin Sisko tells the story of his career in Starfleet, and his life as a father and Bajor's Emissary to the Prophets. Chart his rise through the ranks, his pioneering work designing the Defiant class, his critical role as ambassador and leader during the Dominion War, and his sacred standing as a religious leader of his adopted home. Explore the hidden history of his childhood and early career in Starfleet, and the innermost thoughts of the man who made first contact with the wormhole aliens and opened safe passage to the Gamma Quadrant, and united Starfleet, Klingon and Romulan forces to defeat the Dominion. Discover Sisko's personal take on his confidantes Lieutenant Dax and Major Kira Nerys, the enigmatic Garak, and his adversaries, Gul Dukat and Kai Winn, as well as his fatherly advice for his son Jake. Passing on lessons from father to son, from his experiences with the Prophets to the writings of Benny Russell, Sisko's story is a unique phenomenon in Starfleet and human history, told in the way only he can.

Leseprobe

CONTENTS

COVER

TITLE PAGE

LEAVE US A REVIEW

COPYRIGHT

DEDICATION

INTRODUCTION BY JAKE SISKO

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

CONCLUSION

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF

BENJAMIN SISKO

THE UNIQUE CAREER OF DEEP SPACE 9’S LEGENDARY CAPTAIN,AND BAJOR’S EMISSARY

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The Autobiography of Benjamin Sisko

Hardback edition ISBN: 9781803366234

E-book edition ISBN: 9781803366241

Published by Titan Books

A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd

144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP

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First edition: November 2023

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TM ® & © 2023 by CBS Studios Inc. © 2023 Paramount Pictures Corporation. STAR TREK and related marks and logos are trademarks of CBS Studios Inc. All Rights Reserved.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead (except for satirical purposes), is entirely coincidental.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

Illustrations: Russell Walks

Editor: George Sandison

Interior design: Adrian McLaughlin

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

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Dedicated to everyone who is reclaiming their storyand speaking their truth.

INTRODUCTION

BY JAKE SISKO

THERE WERE NO SHIPS ON THE UPPER OR LOWER PYLONS. No protests or pilgrimages on the promenade. No station repairs that needed immediate attention. No scheduled vessels coming through the wormhole.

Deep Space 9 was quiet.

The silence unnerved Lieutenant Nog as he sat at the situation table in the center of ops. On the night shift, the silence would have made sense. At night, with most of the promenade shops closed and station personnel in their quarters or asleep, there was simply nothing to hear.

But now, at 0630 hours, on the day shift of the first anniversary of the end of the war, and Captain Sisko’s disappearance, this wasn’t what Nog expected. The Ferengi had been thinking about the seventh Rule of Acquisition all morning: “Keep your ears open.” However, the ambient noise in the operations center was barely above twenty decibels.

There was more sound coming from the computers at the different stations in ops than the people manning them. No one was talking, and if they were, it was only to ask and answer the occasional question. The lieutenant looked around at the people in Bajoran and Starfleet uniforms; even the Starfleet operating system in the computers was an indication of what had been saved by winning the Dominion War. At the same time, the station’s Cardassian architecture would always be a reminder of just how close they’d come to losing everything. Nog realized maybe the silence on the station wasn’t silence at all, but a way for everyone to reflect on what had happened.

And whom they’d lost.

Without warning, the dormant sensor array at the situation table was activated. Years ago, Jadzia Dax had fine-tuned the station’s sensors to detect a sudden surge in neutrino emissions. Nog watched the emissions rise steadily on the early detection system, which could mean only one thing.

The wormhole was opening.

Outside the station, light, energy, and gravity coalesced at a single point, and neutrinos surged.

A whirlpool of light and color spiraled open, gaseous clouds miles in diameter blossomed into existence. At the center, not a rip or tear in space, but a doorway. And within the open doorway, a blazing tunnel of energy beckoned.

Nog flashed a quick look at the trans-wormhole subspace communications relay that connected the Alpha Quadrant to the Gamma Quadrant. Seventy thousand light-years separated the two relay stations, but a subspace filament made communication nearly instantaneous. You would know when something had entered the wormhole and was taking the two-minute trip to the other side.

However, no ship had entered the wormhole.

Lieutenant Nog had seen what the Bajorans called the Celestial Temple of the Prophets open many times before. But it was rare for the stable wormhole to do so without something entering or exiting. He tapped the communications console on the monitoring station. “Colonel, the wormhole is opening, but no ships have entered or exited.”

Less than ten seconds later, Colonel Kira Nerys stepped out of the station commander’s office. Gripping a baseball, she paused atop the short staircase that elevated the office above everything else in the operations center. As all eyes turned to her, she focused on the empty iris of the Cardassian display that sat high above ops for everyone to see. “On screen,” Kira commanded as she descended the stairs.

Like an ever-watchful eye, the elliptical viewscreen snapped to life. The wormhole appeared as it had thousands of times before.

But this time, something was different.

The energy at the heart of the doorway that always blazed like an infinite sun began to pulsate.

Nog didn’t bother to hide the anxiety he was feeling as he said, “That’s… new.”

Lieutenant Commander Amir’s attention was pulled away from the main viewscreen to the external sensor readout, at the science station he was manning. The half Andorian, half Vulcan’s antennae shot up in surprise from his head full of white hair as his blue-green-skinned hands raced over the panel.

“Something’s happening in there. I’m reading a massive buildup of tachyon energy,” he said. The science officer looked up, his face filled with concern. “The wave pattern is similar to what we see with some directed energy weapons, Colonel.”

Colonel Kira knew her science officer wasn’t prone to make rash judgments or mistakes. As she stood next to Nog at the situation table, her eyes went back to the viewscreen. Amir was right. Something was going on inside the wormhole. The energy at the heart of what the Prophets had constructed was pulsating, fluctuating, and changing somehow. Kira couldn’t allow herself to think about what that meant for the Prophets or anyone else inside the Celestial Temple. Right now her responsibility was for the station, and quite possibly everyone in the Alpha Quadrant.

The Bajoran commander of Deep Space 9 felt her grip tighten on the baseball as she ordered, “Shields!”

Less than a second after the order was given, a tight beam of energy erupted from deep within the wormhole and slammed into the forcefields that activated around Deep Space 9. The entire station shook from the strength of the impact on the shields.

Chief Engineer Tekoa was shaking her head frantically as she spoke, her soft brown eyes unable to mask her confusion. “I—I don’t understand it. No structural damage to the station; shield integrity at full strength. With the amount of power that beam is generating, it should have blown a hole in our shields, but it didn’t.”

The colonel could see it on Tekoa’s face. The station’s new Bajoran chief engineer didn’t know why or how, but somehow they’d gotten lucky. Kira looked over at the science officer. She hoped the young man had some answers. “Amir?”

The Andorian-Vulcan raised an eyebrow.

“Colonel, while the beam has the power of a Sovereign class ship phaser bank, it appears to have been attenuated to a non-lethal frequency. But I have no idea why this has been done.”

Nog interjected: “I know why.” The lieutenant tapped a few buttons at his communications station, and the entire situation table began to display the information from his monitor. A cross-section evaluation of the beam that was still impacting the shields. “The beam’s strength is probably just to ensure the fidelity of the communication. There’s a compressed message encrypted within the beam.” Nog looked up at Kira. “With Captain Sisko’s old command codes. He’s sending us something.”

Kira looked down at the baseball, the object that had become so much more than an essential tool used in a game. It had become a symbol of a presence that was as much a part of the station as the bulkheads and duranium girders that held the station together. A presence that could be felt in the laughter of the promenade on good days and in the fortitude of her new staff on bad days. But it was also a promise that had been made, and perhaps most importantly, for her, it embodied something this commander of Deep Space 9 and former freedom fighter had used all her life to guide her.

Faith.

The colonel looked up at the viewscreen and the continuous energy beam that emanated from within the Celestial Temple and gave the only order she could. “Lower the shields.”

*   *   *

A NOTE TO THE READER

What you’ve just read is an account of the events that transpired as relayed to me by Deep Space 9’s senior staff from interviews I conducted with them over a two-day period after what is now known as the Sisko Event.

There has been a great deal of speculation about what or who actually came through the wormhole that day. The rumors range from the mildly entertaining to the absurd. Some believe the wormhole has now become a conduit to the far future and that Captain Sisko returned after negotiating for wormhole technology on behalf of the Federation. Others have started a religion known as ‘The Sisko’, the followers of which think Ben Sisko now exists everywhere in the universe and should be worshipped as a deity. Conspiracy theorists even believe the wormhole is a creation of the Federation and the Dominion, that the war was really a plot set up by both governments to consolidate power in two quadrants. A deal brokered by Ben Sisko.

My stepmother, Kasidy Yates-Sisko, has recently been forced to raise my sister at an undisclosed location, away from prying eyes and the paparazzi. There are new “Sisko sightings” throughout the Federation nearly every day, and the speculations have become endless.

As a writer and journalist, my first duty isn’t to the Federation, Starfleet, or even my lifelong friends. My responsibility has been, and will always be, to the truth.

The truth is that everyone wants a piece of Benjamin Sisko.

The Bajoran people want to preserve the sanctity and deeds of the Emissary. The Cult of the Pah Wraiths want to defile everything the Emissary stood for. Starfleet wants their captain back. Me, I just want to see my father. And the truth is, no one will get what they want.

But maybe, for now, that’s okay.

It has taken me nearly two years to sort through the gift my father sent me in the beam that struck Deep Space 9 that day. Over fifty hours of video, with some moments that I can only describe as jarring. I’m not sure how my father was able to send the signal. Perhaps, now that he’s in the wormhole with the aliens the Bajorans believe are prophets, he’s learned some tricks from them—honestly, the how doesn’t really matter to me. What does is that he was able to send it. In the time it’s taken me to go through the video, I’ve come to see, understand, and relate to my father in a way I never could have before.

What I’ve transcribed from the video, what you’re about to read, isn’t what any of us really wants. But, it may be precisely what the Alpha Quadrant needs.

Benjamin Lafayette Sisko, in his own words.

Jake SiskoStardate 55902.0

CHAPTER ONE

WHAT YOU LEAVE BEHIND—2375

JAKE. SON.

I was on Bajor, in the fire caves, with Dukat.

Falling.

But now I’m here, in the wormhole, with the Prophets. They saved me. It’s only been a few minutes, but the spaces between seconds feel like decades. It’s not easy to explain, son. Time. The future, present and past are all unraveling and coalescing around me, through me.

I need to talk to you. I need to do this now before I talk to Kasidy, and while it’s all still… linear for me.

The Prophets saved me, and they have work for me to do, things they want to teach me. But before I’ll allow any of that to happen, I wanted, needed to talk to you. To send this transmission to you.

A few years ago, when you came with me to watch the wormhole inversion, there was an accident I never told you about. I was trapped in subspace, and while I was there, I experienced a different timeline. What was minutes for me there was years, even decades, on the outside, in normal space-time.

I wasn’t dead or even lost. I was stuck somewhere outside of time. In that timeline, son, knowing I was out there somewhere, you lived a life of mourning and obsession, with only fleeting moments of happiness. You were so preoccupied with trying to find me, save me, that you let your life and loves slip away.

I know I’ve only been in here for a few minutes, but I’m thinking now about how me being here, in the wormhole with the Prophets, could feel like that to you. Jake, I think of you in that timeline and how your sadness twisted into obsession, how in the end you had nothing and no one. I don’t want to see you go through that now, son. I won’t lie to you, I don’t know when I’ll be back, but it doesn’t mean I can’t be in your life.

When I was around your age, my father started talking to me differently. We’d have conversations, it was always father and son, but it also became man to man. Honestly, a lot of it was me just listening to your grandfather as he told me about his life and what he learned along the way. At the time, I often didn’t see the point he was trying to make to whatever story he was telling me, but as I got older and I began to live my own life, I found myself thinking about the things he told me about his more and more.

There’s so much I never talked about with you, about me, about our family. I just thought I would when the time came; that we’d be having these conversations in person. But life isn’t always what we expect or what we plan. When I get back, we’ll do this the right way, but for now, right now, let your old man tell you about his life and some of the things he’s learned along the way.

CHAPTER TWO

FAMILY—2332–2338

MY FIRST MEMORY IS OF HOLDING MY MOTHER’S HAND.

I was a baby, no more than a year old. My small fingers reached out, exploring the boundaries of my new world, and I found her. Those little hands held onto the enormity of her fingers, and even though I couldn’t remember her face, or really anything about how she looked. But I could feel her, feel her love for me, feel the safety and comfort she gave me. My whole life, that feeling has never really left me. I always wondered how I could remember something from such a young age. I understand now that I could hold onto that memory because part of my lineage isn’t linear.

Now, I realize that memory isn’t of Mama, the woman that raised me, the woman I thought was my mother, Elizabeth Sisko. That memory is of my birthmother, my father’s first wife, the woman that a wormhole alien inhabited to orchestrate my birth.

Sarah.

Now that I’m here in the wormhole, it’s easier to understand that the love I felt, and thought was from one woman, was actually from two—one human, and one that existed outside of time. When I made first contact with the entities that live here, in the wormhole, we didn’t just communicate—we helped each other. I gave them an understanding beyond themselves, and they helped me to look within myself.

Jake, this may be hard for you to understand, but Sarah, or rather the entity that inhabited her, knew me, saw me save her people time and again, and cared about my well-being long before she went back in time to conceive me.

Because it had happened, she ensured it would happen.

I know Sarah, in her own way, loves me, but she didn’t raise me. The truth is Elizabeth Cohen Sisko is the only mother I’ve ever known.

Thinking about her now, Jake, I realize we never really talked a lot about your grandmother. I know you’ve seen pictures and even a few holographic recordings of her, but that was well after she was a mom with four kids. I want to talk to you about what she was like before that, back when I was still an only child, like you are now. In those early days, before my brothers and sister showed up, and with my father working, it felt like it was just Mama and me.

She was my first best friend.

Back then, Mama had long, thick, black and brown dreadlocks that framed her round face perfectly. Her small button nose and high cheekbones would lighten up every smile. Every night she’d read to me, her voice soft and gentle, like a melody that soothed you whenever you heard it. Some nights she would read Aesop’s fables. On others, it would be African folktales, or mythology from different cultures. Her brown eyes would light up with excitement as she took on the personalities and voices of the characters. I was always so enthralled that I fought to stay awake, but I’d always lose that battle only to dream of faraway lands and mysterious creatures. Mama would leave a nightlight on, and usually that was enough. But sometimes, I’d look at the shadows on my wall and imagine the monster from the story we’d just read together. On really bad nights, I’d wake up screaming, and Mama would come into my room and stay or let me sleep with her and Dad.

After this had been happening off and on for about a week, Mama told me she had found a new book for me. It was a small, thin book titled: Life Doesn’t Frighten Me And Other Poems by Maya Angelou. I remember that before I knew anything about Maya Angelou, I immediately liked her name because it said she was an angel, and Mama told me angels protected people. The book wasn’t much bigger than my hand. We opened it together, and almost immediately, as Mama read and acted out the poem, it put me at ease. The words of this woman—this angel—told me that even though things might look and feel scary sometimes, in the end, there is nothing to be afraid of.

The book quickly became my favorite, and even though I never told Mama, I would often pull it out at night, feeling their power emanating off the page as I read the words aloud in the quiet of my room.

Our days were just as much fun as our nights. Every morning, class would begin. Even before I realized Mama was a teacher, she was homeschooling me. Over breakfast every day, she would ask me about the story she had read to me the night before. She’d want to know what I thought about the monster, or the characters. Sometimes she would ask me what I would’ve done differently if I were in the story, or if I were telling it. One-word answers were never allowed in our house. “Sentences or not at all,” Mama would say.

Whenever I didn’t know a word, she wouldn’t just teach it to me, she’d explain the etymology in a way that I promise you was fascinating to me at four years old. And whenever I didn’t understand something, whether it was a word, something in a story, a math problem, or just why the sky was blue, she never lost her patience, and she explained it to me (sometimes in a hundred different ways) until I got it and could describe back to her what I understood.

That was Mama.

Before Elizabeth Cohen was my mother, she was an orphan, a second-grade teacher, and a photographer. Her parents Sonya and Alonzo were Starfleet officers aboard the U.S.S. Leondegrance. They were killed during a First Contact mission gone wrong. Captain Nyota Uhura brought the Leondegrance back to Earth, to take “Tin Lizzy” to her godparents in New Orleans. The story goes that Captain Uhura brought little Elizabeth to her godparents in an antigrav stroller that looked like the tins that mints were kept in centuries ago. And the name Tin Lizzy was born.

As a kid, Mama grew up not wanting anything to do with Starfleet, but she was fascinated with people. When Elizabeth was five, she’d beg to go to the park—not to play with other kids, but to people-watch. She was mesmerized by all the different species but didn’t really understand that they came from different worlds. Since they were on Earth, they were human. For hours after a visit to the park, Elizabeth would talk about the human with the pointy ears, or the human with the blue skin, or the human that looked like a cat. This would often go on throughout dinner and well into her bedtime. After several of these conversations, her godparents got her a holo-camera, probably more for them than it was for her. She’d capture images from the day’s park adventure and then project them into the living room or fall asleep to them in bed nearly every night.

By the time she was a teen, she’d gone retro and turned in her holo-camera for an old-style camera that used film. As a kid, I’d spend hours with Mama in her studio, watching her develop pictures she’d taken. We’d be standing together in the near darkness of the small developing room, and magic would happen right in front of me. I’d hold her hand in the fading sunset emanating from the light panel above us. She’d slip a sheet of paper into a tray filled with liquid, and an image would slowly, patiently appear. It was as if she had the ability to breathe life into those sheets of paper.

Mama was a talented, even gifted photographer. So much so that some of her pictures still hang in the New Orleans Museum of Art. But as gifted as she was, she would be the first to say teaching was her true calling.

I’ve been in Starfleet for over twenty years. I’ve seen some very impressive technology and breakthroughs, but the truth is that the future isn’t built with technology or even by engineers. The future is built by teachers. Every mind that is educated, every consciousness that is opened to new ideas and different ways of thinking, is a brick paving the way toward tomorrow.

Mama was in her fifth year of teaching at Dorothy Mae Taylor Elementary when she learned of a new weekly cultural program being instituted at the school. Once a week, a local chef would cook non-replicated meals for the student body with pots, pans, and real ingredients. The idea being to give the student body a completely authentic taste of New Orleans cuisine and Cajun cooking.

As the story goes, after about a month of different dishes like red beans and rice, po’ boys, jambalaya, and even Hubig’s pies, she went to meet the talented but impractical chef that had devoted his life to an extinct, archaic, and unnecessary career.

They were married three months later.

In my life, I’ve met and been friends with a lot of people that are married. Honestly, son, a lot of the time, people are married for more than what’s apparent and less than what everyone else thinks. For some, it’s just because the two work well together—convenience. For others, it’s out of a physical attraction, and for the select few, it really is because of that thing everyone wants when they wed.

Love.

Even as a kid, I could see that what Mama and Dad had was special. Your grandfather always told me he didn’t know what he did that made Elizabeth fall in love with him and want to spend the rest of her life with him, but he was glad she did.

Mama was four years older than Dad, and he always thought that her maturity and insight were part of it. “Your mother saw the world in a way that wasn’t like anyone else,” he used to say to me. “She didn’t let her past or pain become an obstacle in guiding her future.”

After he told me about Sarah, he told me he had no intention of getting in another relationship. The pain was just too great. But when he met Elizabeth, she started to court him! She would write letters to him by hand, when no one does that anymore. Your grandpa told me that reading those letters, it was like she had found a way to put all the emotion and sincerity of her soul on the page. Those letters helped him to let go of the pain he was holding onto from Sarah and make room in his heart for Mama.

I wish you could’ve seen them together, Jake. They had an ease with each other that just made them fit. In many ways, being around them as a kid helped me understand what I wanted for myself in a relationship and helped me recognize a little about what that should look like. But it wasn’t just Dad and Mama. Your great-grandparents—my Grandpa James, and Grandma Octavia—had that too. In my earliest memories of them, they were already in their sixties. Grandpa James was bald when I met him, something I’m pretty sure was by choice. He was tall and thin, which is where all the Sisko men got it from, I guess. His grin and the way he laughed were like nothing else I’d ever seen or heard. Both were so filled with joy and always made him appear much younger than he was. Grandma Octavia was shorter than Grandpa, and her long dark hair with streaks of gray just seemed to highlight the electricity in her eyes whenever she got excited about something. She never held back how she felt about anything. The whole family could always expect her to tell the truth and let us know when we weren’t.

I know we’ve never really talked a lot about it, Jake, but you know there was a time Sisko’s wasn’t just a restaurant in New Orleans. Grandpa James and Grandma Octavia ran the hotel next door while Dad was the head chef. Sisko’s was one of the only remaining pre-war hotels not just in New Orleans but on Earth.

Everything I knew about the world and everyone in it existed in and around those two buildings.

We all lived in the brownstone over the restaurant just like your grandfather does now. The hotel was five floors of Louisiana, where time stood still. Nineteenth-century furniture and architecture alongside New Orleans culture that goes a lot farther back than that. Grandpa James would tell me stories of how Siskos have been living in, and serving, the New Orleans community for centuries. All the way back to Antoine Dubois Sisko, a free man, and officer in the Corps D’Afrique. He fought in the Civil War for the Union and aided in the capture of New Orleans from the Confederacy. Isaiah Sisko, a photorealism painter, lost his house in the Tremé during Hurricane Katrina. With no home and no money, he became a street artist and squatter in two abandoned buildings in the French Quarter. After rebuilding his life, Isaiah bought the buildings, and opened an art gallery and halfway house for artists and musicians.

During World War III, when the world was tearing itself apart, the people of New Orleans did what they’ve done throughout history in every crisis, whether it was a natural or man-made disaster: they banded together.

By then, the Sisko property had been transformed into a hotel and jazz club, and Clora Sisko ran both. Everything went to hell while Clora was pregnant, but she didn’t let that stop her from helping people. She used her trumpet as a beacon to lead people out of the darkness and into the safety of the hotel and club.

When the family business was passed to Grandpa James, he was a young man. But, to his father’s disappointment, music wasn’t in his soul. For my grandfather, it was the other half of New Orleans’s beating heart that captivated him. That other foundational element that sustained and carried slaves through those darkest of times, that would remind them of their culture, their identity, and their true homes, far away across the ocean on another continent.

Creole cooking.

Louisiana cuisine came as naturally to Grandpa James as breathing. So when Sisko’s was handed to him, he transformed the jazz club into a creole restaurant. Grandma Octavia ran the hotel, and from the stories Grandpa James told me, it changed everything. Before the restaurant, people would come from all over Earth to hear the live music. But a few months after the restaurant opened, they got their first customers from off world. At first, it was humans from Luna, then Mars, and then Starfleet. After that, it was Tellarites, Andorians, and on occasion, a Vulcan or two. They would come in to sample the creole cuisine and sometimes stay a couple of nights to experience an authentic nineteenth-century hotel.

Everything was cooked by hand, just like Dad does now. Real meat, fish and spices, pots, and pans on an electric stove. But back then, it wasn’t just in the kitchen like it is now: this was everywhere throughout the Sisko household. No replicators. No computer or communicators. No transporters. All of our doors had knobs on them, and we used cellular phones instead of the global communications network. The hotel had a transporter and communicators, but that was only a convenience for the guests.

In our house, New Orleans, and most of Louisiana, new technology and the change it represented weren’t welcomed.

You have to understand, son. Since its birth, New Orleans has always been a story written in the deep rhythms of music and food. A city built out of the many diverse cultures that used music and food as its foundations. From the creation of New Orleans until the twenty-second century, that meant it was a service industry city.

With the advent of replicators and holodecks, the future was telling New Orleans it was no longer relevant or necessary. Craving a bowl of authentic gumbo? Don’t worry, this slot in the wall will turn resequenced protein into a meal that will taste just as good as the real thing. No time to see some live jazz? No problem, there’s a holodeck program that will make you think you’re right back at the moment jazz was born, listening to the real thing. I can’t think of a greater sin, Jake, than to eat resequenced-protein-turned-into-gumbo in New Orleans, or watch a holodeck jazz session while in the birthplace of such an original art form. But that was what the future threatened to take from New Orleans—from all of us actually.

Just like the Amish did centuries ago, New Orleanians rejected the notion that new technology meant better. Even though the United Earth government didn’t necessarily agree, it respected places like New Orleans that held onto tradition over technology. And as a result, the city is still one of the few places on Earth that hasn’t just preserved the history and culture of the past, but thrives because of that commitment to history.

That preservation of history and culture was more than a philosophy for my grandfather—it was a sacrosanct edict. One of the ways it manifested was through the restaurant. For Grandpa James, traditional Creole cuisine was a way to hold onto his past. A past that was rarely written about in history books, but was written within family recipes kept in bibles passed down through the decades. This was a way of paying homage and respect to those first generations of Creole cooks, many of whom were brought to what was once called America as slaves.

In a lot of ways, Jake, your grandfather was even more serious about preserving and respecting the past than my grandfather. Somewhere along the way, cooking became more than something Dad did. It was part of who he was. I never saw my father sterner than when he was in our restaurant’s kitchen.

When I was about four or five, he’d sit me out of the way on top of a counter in the back of the kitchen next to the freezer. Whenever I sat back there, I felt like I was in the audience watching a play. Dad would tell me, “Benjamin, I only have three rules when you’re in my kitchen. I’m not Dad—call me Chef, always. Raise your hand if you have a question, don’t touch anything unless I say it’s okay, and don’t eat anything unless I say it’s okay.”

I knew that was four, but one of the first things I learned while in Chef Sisko’s kitchen was that “Yes, Chef,” was the only acceptable answer. Besides, the last rule was always the hardest. From my vantage point, I could see and smell everything. The aromas of things being chopped or cooking would float their way to me, making my mouth water and my stomach ache with anticipation. I’ve been to the Gamma Quadrant and back, but some of the best things I’ve ever tasted in my life were in that man’s kitchen.

I’d watch the kitchen crew cooking, cutting, cleaning, and arranging food on dishes like they were works of art. Everyone would work independently, but also in unison, not unlike the bridge of a starship.

My first lessons of discipline, structure, and order came from those days in my father’s kitchen. I also learned how to work with people, and, most importantly, how to treat them. From Nathan Greene, his sous chef, all the way down to the waiting staff, I never saw my father raise his voice to anyone. When someone did something he didn’t like, he’d look them straight in the eyes and tell them. Usually, it was off to the side, but on occasion it was in front of everyone, and it was always done with respect. After talking to them, he’d move on from whatever it was, expecting them to take him seriously, even if he was friendly afterward. When I first saw that, I realized he was the same way with his kids, and it made me feel good to know we were being treated the same way he treated adults. It made me feel like even when I disagreed with whatever Dad said, I knew he was being fair.

My father worked harder than I’ve ever seen anyone work. Running a restaurant and kitchen crew. Coming up with new dishes all the time, taking over a cooking station from one of his cooks at a moment’s notice, the entire staff preparing everything without twenty-fourth century automation. Sometimes during the week, the only way any of the family would get to see him would be to sit in the back of the kitchen and watch him work. There were days I’d wake up and go to sleep without seeing my father at all, but on those days, there was always a note on my nightstand when I woke up. Idea for a new pastry is in the fridge. Need your input. Love, Chef.

We’d get notes like that during the week but we all also knew the rule. Weekends were for the family, with no exceptions. Nathan was in charge of the kitchen on the weekends, and when my grandfather retired from cooking and running the kitchen he became the restaurant’s maître d’. Grandma never stopped running the hotel, but on the weekends they both found someone else to take over.

*   *   *

My grandparents would take me fishing every Sunday morning. We’d go out to Lake Pontchartrain, sometimes even catch fish good enough to cook in the kitchen.

One Sunday morning, I was sitting on the edge of the pier with Grandma Octavia while Grandpa stood next to me, leaning on the guardrail, tugging on his fishing pole. My toes teased the water’s surface, skimming across the smooth glass-like surface, creating intersecting ripples. I loved fishing, loved going to the lake, but the mysteries under the water captivated and terrified me. I never said any of this to anyone, but my grandparents, as somehow all grandparents do, knew.

I could feel Grandma Octavia looking at me. After a long silence, she finally spoke. “There’s nothing in there to be afraid of, Benjamin,” she said.

I remember letting out a barely audible “I know,” as I stared into the unknown. I felt her hand on my back, and the next thing I knew I was in the lake swallowing water, my legs kicking, my arms reaching, grasping for anything and everything. The look on my grandfather’s face must have mirrored my own. He dropped his fishing pole and was about to dive in and get me when Grandma Octavia spoke, without taking her eyes off me: “Stay right where you are, James Sisko. That boy has got to learn sometime.”

I kicked so hard I felt like I was running in place, and I saw my grandfather open his mouth to say something, close it, then open it again. Finally, he closed it and squatted at the edge of the pier. I was only a few feet away from the edge but it might have well been a mile. He said, “C’mon Ben, you can do it!”

Even in my panic, I realized it was the first time Grandpa had called me Ben and not Benjamin. But as I slipped under the surface, I didn’t know if I’d hear him say it again. I thrashed around in some mad dance of confused limbs. This was exactly what I’d envisioned, what I feared every time I’d looked into the water, and now here I was! I looked up at the surface and the shapes of my grandparents. Now both of them appeared to be moving. But I noticed something else.

I wasn’t that far from the surface.

I realized if I didn’t just kick but use my hands maybe I could get back to the top before I sank any deeper. So while I was kicking, I started to use my arms to reach up and push down the water that was on top of me. At first, it didn’t work, but when I started kicking up and scooping down at the same time, I could feel myself slowly rising. And I broke the surface.

As I kicked and paddled back to the dock, I felt bigger, stronger and a little braver than when I went in. Grandpa was laughing and clapping so hard I thought he was going to fall in with me. Grandma wasn’t laughing, but she was smiling, and crying. This was the first time I remember being truly afraid, and even though it wouldn’t be the last, I learned fear could be conquered.

*   *   *

When I was four, Mama had Judith Josephine Sisko. Mama loved the famed twentieth-century dancer, singer, and actress Josephine Baker, and that’s where Judith’s middle name came from. Mama always said that when she was in high school, she found Josephine Baker intriguing because she was a woman that blazed her own trail when it was nearly impossible for a woman to do so. Because Mama was an orphan, she wanted Judith to feel tied to that kind of strength, independence, and self-reliance. Since birth, we all just called her JJ, and the nickname stuck.

I remember that before she had JJ, I’d see her eating desserts from the kitchen all the time. Sweet potato pie, bread pudding, peach cobbler, and sometimes even Hubig’s pies dipped in chocolate. I remember one day asking Mama why she got to have all those wonderful desserts when I wasn’t allowed to. She said, “Because I’m having a baby, honey.” I looked at her belly and told her that I wanted to have a baby too. She laughed and told me that one day I would, but my wife would do all the work.

Jake, we both have something else special in common. We’ve both been an only child and soon, you’re going to have a sibling. Thankfully I know you’ll be a better older brother than I was at the start. When JJ was born, I couldn’t believe how little she was. I was a giant by comparison. Her tiny hands would reach out, and it was like her whole world depended on grabbing my finger. I remember thinking there was no way I was ever that small.

I felt the shift of attention from me to my sister, and I didn’t like it. Whenever Judith cried, grinned, or did anything really, Mama and Dad would be there for her. They put the baby in my room, and there were so many nights Dad would be in there with us, gently rocking Judith in his arms while I went to sleep. I’d wake up in the middle of the night or early in the morning from her crying, and Dad would still be there, usually in his chef’s apron from the night before or a clean one to start the day. I’d ask him where Mama was, and he’d say to me, “Your Mama’s sleeping. She did all the work. Now it’s my turn.”

One day I was in a particular mood for a four-year-old, my arms folded as I walked through the house with a frown just as sour. Grandpa James saw me, and when he asked what was wrong, I started complaining about Judith. This probably wasn’t the first time he heard my litany because he interrupted me right away. “Boy, you don’t understand,” he said. “You’re the big brother. Now, who do you think Judith is going to look up to when she gets to your age? And you’ll be there to tell her how to do everything the right way!” Grandpa James laughed, probably because I was smiling so hard. I’ve always loved my grandparents, but I remember after that conversation thinking Grandpa James was the smartest person I knew. He was my Dad’s dad, so he had to be. A year after that, David and Elias were born, and I could see that what he was saying was true. Judith would start laughing and clapping her hands when I was with her and would cry whenever I left the room. I was hoping the same would happen with my twin brothers. Being a big brother wasn’t so bad after all.

CHAPTER THREE

ABSENCE—2339

BY THE TIME I WAS SIX OUR HOUSE WAS FILLED WITH KIDS. Judith was two, and the twins, David and Elias, were one. My sister was learning to walk and my brothers were getting comfortable with their first words, “no” and “ball.” Mama left teaching kids in high school to homeschool Judith and me. When the twins came, Dad worked fewer hours in the kitchen to help raise all of us.

One afternoon I was doing homework in my room and heard someone playing the piano in the restaurant lobby. I’d heard the piano before, but this sounded different. I could actually feel the music. It was so good I couldn’t concentrate on my schoolwork. I closed my book and ran out of my room. Halfway down the stairs, I looked over the staircase to the piano to see who was playing. I didn’t realize my mouth was open until I closed it.

“Grandma?”

Her hands were moving across the piano keys in a blur. She looked up at me laughing. “Come sit next to me, baby!” she said.

I nearly jumped down the rest of the stairs and sat next to Grandma Octavia. She was moving in rhythm to the music as she coaxed me to the piano. Usually, people played something slow and subdued while customers ate. Sometimes during live music sessions, I’d hear something exciting, but it was always part of a group and never by itself. Now I felt like the notes were floating over my head and were going to take me away with them. I couldn’t stop clapping my hands and tapping my feet. When she finished, I gave Grandma a big hug. “What kind of music is that?” I asked.

“Jazz, Benjamin.” Grandma made fists with her hands quickly several times and then held her hands up in front of her and shook them out as if they were wet to relieve tension. “That was ‘C Jam Blues’ by the one and only jazz master, Oscar Peterson. It’s been a long time since I pulled that one out of me, but when jazz gets in you, it has to get out. Did you feel it, baby? Did you feel the music get inside you?”

I remember shaking my head so hard I felt it might fall off. “Again, again!” I demanded.

Grandma put her hands over the keys, about to play, then slowly pulled them back. She turned to me and had a knowing grin on her face I’d never seen before. “You know, Benjamin, Oscar Peterson was younger than you, five years old, when he started playing piano. He had a lot inside him that he had to get out. Do you want me to teach you how to play so you can get all that jazz out of you too?” Grandma put her hands on both of my shoulders and looked me straight in the eye. “Now, before you say anything, I’m not going to teach you if you’re going to quit when it gets hard, and it’s gonna get hard, but I promise even then, we’ll make it fun. But if you finish what you start, no matter what happens, you’ll never waste your time or others’, and you’ll never be disappointed in yourself. Do we have a deal?”

My grandmother held out her hand to shake it. I could see it on her face. She was deadly serious, and she didn’t want to be disappointed, but this was the first time I could remember wanting to do the hard work, so I didn’t disappoint myself.

“Deal,” I said.

*   *   *

I used to love sleeping with my parents. We’d have this nightly ritual we’d go through. Mama would put me to bed, and read to me. If I didn’t go to sleep by the time she was finished, she’d give me a kiss, turn the light out, and leave the door to my room open just enough so a sliver of light from the hall could seep inside. After a few minutes, I’d get up. With my stuffed alligator, Mister Bayou, in tow, I’d go to my parents’ room and get in bed with them. They never said anything. We had an understanding. One night after Judith was born, I had been tucked in but couldn’t fall asleep. I went to my parent’s room and found Judith already sleeping between them, right where I usually slept. Mama saw my disappointment and did her best to make me feel better as she kept her voice low.

“You’re such a big boy now, Benjamin, and a big brother. Why don’t we let your baby sister sleep here tonight, okay?” she said.

Even though I was only six years old, I knew what Mama was doing. I wanted to cry and say no. But she was right; Judith was just a baby, and after all, I was six! So I nodded and left the room, dragging Mister Bayou behind me.

When I got back out into the hall, I dreaded the thought of going back to my room. And then I noticed a light coming from the third floor. I climbed up the staircase and walked into my grandparents’ bedroom. Grandpa was in bed reading, and Grandma was combing her long silver and black hair in front of her mirror. They both stopped what they were doing and looked at each other and then at me.

Grandma Octavia laughed and said, “Well, I guess it’s time for bed!”

After that, I had a new ritual that took me up the staircase a couple of times a week. Sleeping with my grandparents was an adventure. On some nights, we’d just go to sleep, but most of the time, they’d be waiting for me, and the fun would begin. We’d listen to music or dance for hours. Sometimes we’d talk about the family, and what they were like when they were my age. Sometimes my grandparents would ask me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I’d just shrug my shoulders and continue playing with Mister Bayou.

Grandpa James was always talking about cooking. So I wasn’t surprised one night, when the three of us were in bed talking, and he said, “Benjamin, there’s nothing wrong with learning how to cook and running a kitchen. I’m a chef, and so is your daddy. You’re gonna be one too.”

Grandma Octavia leaned over towards me but was looking at her husband when she spoke. “Or not, baby.”

The intensity in Grandpa’s face softened into a smile as he looked at his wife. “Or not, Benjamin. You can do anything you put your mind to, and whatever you decide, it’s going to be spectacular!”

*   *   *

I was six when I hit Judith and made her cry.

My little sister was always hitting me. With everyone else, she used words. JJ was one of those three-year-olds that spoke clearly and didn’t engage in ‘baby talk.’ Even at two-and-a-half, her brown eyes were so expressive, and after spending a lot of time with Grandma Octavia, JJ’s no became, no thank you.

But when it came to her big brother, her language of choice was her fists. When she was little everyone thought it was cute, even me. But as she got older, I started to feel the force of her blows, on my leg, my back, and even in the face! That was until one time, without thinking, I punched her back. It was in the arm, of course, and not hard, just enough to tell her to stop in her own language. Judith started crying so loud that the whole house came to see what was going on.

Every time my father asked me what happened, I had an excuse for what I’d done. Another excuse to justify my actions. Finally, he just looked at me and said, “Hitting is wrong, Benjamin, and that’s your little sister. What message are you sending as a big brother? We raised you better than that!” My father crouched down so we were eye to eye. “Excuses are like lies, Benjamin. You can’t hide behind them. When you try, they just point to the truth, son.”

My father had talked to me before, but it was rare when he came down to my level. Whenever he did, it was because he wanted, and needed, me to not just listen to what he was saying, but to do my best to understand him. “Yes, sir,” I whispered.

Judith came over to me and kissed me on the side of my head where she had just hit me, then she wrapped her little arms around my neck and gave me a hug. “Sowwy,” she said.

*   *   *

One evening I went to my grandparents’ bedroom, and the door was closed. I tried turning the knob and couldn’t believe that the door was locked! As I was twisting the knob back and forth, Grandpa James came to the door. His usual pleasant grin was gone, and as he looked down at me he looked like he was somewhere else, far away. It was almost like he didn’t recognize me. “Not tonight, Benjamin. Grandma isn’t feeling well.”

As he closed the door, I could see my grandmother in bed behind him. Grandma Octavia had an authority and strength in everything she did, even when she sat up in bed, but now, suddenly, she looked frail. She was slouched down and staring off into space. I stayed at the closed door for a minute, not really knowing what to do. Finally, I decided to go downstairs, and as I got back to the second floor, Dad was waiting for me.

“Something’s wrong with Grandma,” I said.

My dad looked at me, his face looking like Grandpa’s had just a few minutes ago. “I know, baby,” he said, finally.

Dad picked me up and carried me to my parents’ bedroom. Judith was asleep in my old spot, but Mama was awake watching the twins sleep in their crib. My father put me in bed next to Judith, then he got in, and then Mama.

That night we all slept together.

*   *   *

Early the following day, a tall man wearing a brown jacket with black pants came to the house. He had silver hair and black eyes, and carried a small black shoulder bag with a long thin strap. He wore seriousness on his face like it was part of his attire.