Cerulean Stars - Chapter 141

Chapter 141 - Station Bound - Part 2

Stardate 48536.4 - July 15, 2371 - 18:51:50

Running a hand over his head, Benjamin Sisko considered his new look in the small bathrooms mirror. He'd been thinking of changing things up for awhile, but every time he considered it he'd remember the various compliments Jennifer had given him about his hair, or her general dislike of beards.

“What do you think?” He asked, turning to the chair Jake had claimed for his own. “Keep it as is, or go back to the old look?”

“I like it.” Jake offered after taking a moment to look him over. “And the beard gives you a sort of intense look that really works.”

Benjamin let out an amused chuckle. “Dax said the same thing.”

Walked out of the bathroom, he took a seat across from Jake. “So, you wanna tell your old man what he missed?”

An awkward look flashed across Jake's face before he covered it up with a grin. “Nothing much really happened, honest dad.”

That was suspicious enough given the circumstances that Benjamin knew he couldn't just let the subject drop. “Come on Jake, kidnapped by pirates, locked away in a castle where you were playing card games with a princess? There's gotta be some interesting bits in there.”

“There really wasn't.” Jake protested somewhat lamely. “Sure, Saya was out doing stuff with her dad, but outside of mealtimes they mostly kept me locked up in the cabin. And it was pretty much the same on Orion, they stuck me in the room, brought me meals, and that was pretty much it.”

“And?” Benjamin pressed, knowing there had to be more given Jake’s usual exuberance about sharing new experiences.

“And nothing.” Jake shrugged, frowning in obvious thought for several seconds before his look morphed into a grin. “What about you guys? How’d you even get onto Orion and find us?”

“Bribery.” Benjamin said simply.

“Bribery?” Jake repeated in confusion.

“Brooks was keeping an off the books account on Orion.” Benjamin explained, still not entirely sure how much he believed the Asari’s claim of why she had been keeping the account given nobody should need that much money for holonovels. “So she used some of the currency in it to pay off someone in landing authority to register our shuttle as a newly captured prize.”

Something that the Orion’s apparently considered a normal enough function that there had been an actual pricing structure in place for such things.

“Once on the planet we hunkered down for the night, did some local research to fine tune our rescue plan, and you pretty much know the rest.”

He wasn’t going to mention their retrieving of the Orion couple, or the stop they were planning to make tomorrow to hand them off to a warbird.

“That’s it?” Jake asked in disbelief. “You spent an entire day infiltrating Orion and nothing interesting happened?”

“Interesting during an infiltration means you’ve messed up.” Benjamin pointed out, his lips twitching slightly at the memory of Brooks’s exasperated lecture on the subject during their recent adventure into the past. “But if you want interesting, I could always tell you about the time I had to smuggle Curzon off of Denobula to avoid a group wedding.”

To this day he still wasn’t sure how the man had ended up in that position, and he was more than a little afraid to ask Jadzia, because she would tell him, and then make a point of teasing him about the whole situation for the next week.

“No thanks.” Jake cringed before shaking his head in bemusement. “I still can’t believe mom was okay with you hanging around with Curzon so much given the types of things he always seemed to get up to.”

A fond grin found its way onto Benjamin's lips at the memory that dredged up. “Oh, Jennifer absolutely loved Curzon. Said he kept me from turning into an old man.”

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Of all the Starfleet ships Saya had been on over the years, the Defiant was probably the one she liked the least.

Because the ship's crew quarters were just way too small.

Sure, she knew objectively that growing up she had been more than a little spoiled since officers with children were able to bypass the normal lower deck bunk assignments to receive their own quarters. But that didn't make the cramped and antsy feeling that she always ended up getting while staying on the Defiant any better.

“You really didn’t have to stay with me, you know.” D’Vana put forward, wringing her hands together in her lap as she stared up at the Asari from the lower bunk she was seated on.

“I kind of did.” Saya cringed, still feeling more than a little bit guilty about dragging the other teen back like they had. “They needed someone to watch you since Mom really didn't wanna stick you in the brig.”

“Oh.” D'Vana muttered in a small voice. “I guess that makes sense.”

“Not that I wouldn't have done this without that.” Saya hastily added in so the other teen wouldn't think Saya was being forced to spend time with her. “Because it didn't have to be me. But mom said she's probably going to be out of it for at least ten hours after the past couple days. And I didn't think you'd be comfortable staying with one of the security officers.”

“Thanks?” D'Vana offered with a slightly questioning tone. “I mean, it probably would have been fine. Unless they put me with a guy, in which case it would have been kind of awkward. Especially if it was a hot guy. Which it probably would have been since the only non-hot guy I've seen here so far was the one who beamed us over.”

“Your place was worse.” Saya pouted. “Practically all the guys there were running around shirtless.”

D’Vana blushed, rubbing the back of her neck and avoiding the Asari’s gaze. “Mom says they bring up the ambiance.”

“Ug…” Saya groaned, hating the fact she couldn't really find it in herself to argue with that. “How do you even handle that all the time? I'd be an absolute mess.”

“I guess it's just kind of normal?” D'Vana confessed in an awkward tone. “I mean, once you've raided one pheromone dungeon you've pretty much seen it all.

Saya's train of thought screeched to a halt. "A what!?”

The Orion teen cringed, slumping down into the bunk in clear embarrassment. “Um… Can you just forget I said anything about that?”

“No!” Saya said, the word coming out in a squeak a good bit higher than she intended as her imagination conjured up a series of odder and odder images. “Because now I can't stop imagining what it might be.”

“Oh…” 

Shifting slightly in place, D'Vana chewed on the bottom of her lip for several seconds before offering a grin. “So what's going on between you and Jake?”

If Saya had been drinking anything she was pretty sure she would have spit it out. “Nothing!”

“Nothing?” D'Vana repeated innocently. “But you were staring at him super intensely while we were eating.”

“No I wasn't!” Saya lied, ducking her head to try and hide the flush of embarrassment that colored her cheeks. “I was just mad at him for being stupid!”

D'Vana cocked her head in confusion. “What was he being stupid about?”

“The girls on Dad's ship!” Saya said, hoping the honest annoyance that memory brought up would be enough to keep D'Vana from zeroing in on the real reason. “The whole time we were there he was spending time with them! And talking about how interesting they were!”

“Ohhh.” D'Vana murmured in seeming understanding before offering Saya an apologetic smile. “Don’t worry, some guys can be like that…” She winced. “Well, not Orion guys, cause they know they'll get stabbed if they are. But other guys.”

“And don't worry.” She held up her hands and waved them upon noticing the look of utter defeat on Saya's face. “There are a lot of other guys out there… Or girls.”

Saya let out an embarrassed whimper.

“So I'm sure you won't have any trouble finding a new person to date.”

D'Vana opened her mouth to continue only to pause, an odd expression flashing across her features as she looked down at the replicated ship suit she was wearing. “Oh… Right…”

“What?” Saya asked despite the little voice in the back of her head screaming out in warning about letting sleeping voles lie.

“It's just… I was going to offer to let you borrow a knife in case you wanted to stab Jake a little… But your mom confiscated all of mine…”

Saya nearly choked. “No stabbing!”

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Stardate 48538.3 - July 16, 2371 - 11:30:28

Having forced herself out of bed after a little more than seven hours, Raine had spent the rest of her morning working through various contact methods to try and figure out a way to get D’Vana back to the right part of the Tendi family. Unfortunately that seemed to be easier said than done, as the Orion’s own dislike of outside authority seemed to be directly working against her.

Which was why she was currently sitting in the Defiant’s small readyroom watching D’Vana fidget nervously in front of the small desk.

Motioning to the two chairs the Orion was standing between Raine offered the teen a friendly smile. “Feel free to sit.” 

“Thanks.” D’Vana said, lowering herself into the chair on the left before offering the Asari a worried look. “So… Um… Am I in trouble?”

“Not from us in specific.” Raine admitted. “But I’ve been having trouble getting in touch with anyone that matters on Orion.” 

Anything more than the Orion equivalent of online storefronts really.

“Personal com codes are being blocked, direct contact attempts with authorities on Orion are being ignored, and getting through to anyone at your people's embassy on Earth apparently requires either showing up in person or a hefty bribe to the ambassador beforehand.”

Starfleet had promised to send someone, eventually, but getting what was functionally a random Orion back to her family was sadly much lower down on their totem poll of importance then retrieving the children of moderately important/connected Starfleet officers.

D’Vana cringed. “If I could access a non-Starfleet communications system I could probably get through to someone. But um… You’d have to promise not to watch… Or try and trace the call…”

“We're not going to be somewhere that has a non-starfleet communications system till we get back to the Bajor system.” Raine told her, mentally running over the options she would have once they got back. “Quark can probably set you up with something there, though I can't guarantee that Odo won't listen in on the call since he tries to keep a firm eye on everything Quark does.”

“Who's Odo?” D'Vana tilted her head.

“He's in charge of the Bajoran side of security for the system.” Raine explained. “I used to work under him till I got promoted to Lieutenant Commander and put in charge of sector security.”

“You're in charge of security for a whole sector!?” D'Vana boggled.

“Technically yes.” Raine confirmed with a nod. “But functionally speaking it's really just handling the Bajor system, Prophets Landing, and various trade routes that go to and from those systems since the Bajor sector isn't actually within Federation space.”

Truthfully with the wormhole and Free Colonies around even that was more than enough work that there should probably have been a full Commander with staff assigned to handling things. However the Asari wasn't going to argue with Starfleet Command about it unless Worf ended up not being transferred to the station.

“Wow…” D’Vana muttered, sounding almost impressed. “Aunt Jellaa really went big.”

“Jake’s the son of Bajor’s most hallowed religious figure.” Raine added dryly. “Trust me when I say that if things had gone badly with Jellaa’s little kidnapping plot I would have been the least of your people’s worries.”

“So…” D’Vana hesitated for several seconds. “What’s going to happen to me till you can contact someone?”

“While on the Defiant you’ll be restricted to your quarters and the messhall.” Raine said in an apologetic tone, not wanting to put the girl in a position where she might feel the urge to do something piratey. “Once we get back to the station though…”

She frowned as she considered the question. While it was true that D’Vana was an adult by Orion standards, by Bajoran law she was still a minor. So they couldn’t just drop the teen into temporary quarters and call it a day. On top of that, there was the very real risk that an outside party might make a move against the girl because of her family. Which meant they also couldn’t just place her with one of the civilian families that normally volunteered for situations like this.

For a brief moment she entertained the amusing thought of asking Jadzia if she would be willing to take the girl on for a few days. Given everything Raine knew they would probably get along, but this felt like something that should be her responsibility given it was her choice in the first place to drag the girl along as a hostage.

“You’ll probably be staying with me.”

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Author’s Notes: There was originally supposed to be a bit in here about the Bashir thing from last chapter, but mid way through I realized it wouldn’t fit right now so I decided to move it till a bit after they get back to the station.