Cerulean Stars - Chapter 128

Chapter 128 - The Chase (Not That One)

Stardate 48519.1 - July 9, 2371 - 11:18:57

“Ug.” Saya groaned tiredly as she flopped back onto her bunk. “She's worse than mom.”

She tried to mimic Jellaa's slightly scathing tone. “You're throwing the knife wrong Saya. You're not moving your feet right Saya. You should be going for the kill and not trying to disable them Saya.”

Honestly she didn't know why her dad was so set on all that other stuff when the Asari had already proved she knew how to handle a sword well enough to kick the asses of various members of her dad's crew.

“You shouldn't ever try to kill someone.” Jake insisted firmly, making Saya pull herself back up so she could shoot a glare at where the older boy was sitting.

“Don't be stupid.” She when he failed to look sufficiently cowed. “Yeah sure you shouldn't try and kill people if you can help it. But you can't always help it.”

“Like…” She spent a few seconds trying to think of a good example before one hit her. “The Borg! 

Sure her mom liked to say it wasn’t really the Borg’s fault, but everyone knew that wasn’t how hiveminds actually worked.

“The Borg don’t count.” Jake countered, crossing his arms to match her glare. “They’re basically machines, but in most cases it’s just people who are desperate or don’t know any better.”

“Like, I was talking to Sahash, she's the one with the long half red half blue hair.” Jake clarified upon seeing her look of confusion. “And would you believe she’s only doing this whole pirate thing so she can save up enough Latinum to open a cake shop?”

Saya pushed herself up to glare at Jake. “Yes…” She drawled. “Like I told you before, the whole, all Orions are pirates thing is just a stereotype.”

And a stupid one at that since there was no way the Orion's would be able to run a civilization if they were all pirates.

She tilted her head in self acknowledgement there were at least some good reasons for people thinking that. “Though yes, the current planetary government of their home system is kind of based on a pirate code sort of thing. But that's only because the great plague three hundred years ago nearly wiped them out. And the only reason they were able to recover once their industrial base collapsed was by using the few working ships they still had to raid others.”

Her mom liked to use that particular historical event as a lesson for why Starfleet was so important. And truthfully Saya could see it, because if Starfleet had been around back then, all the Orions would have had to do is call for help and they would have shown up to provide whatever assistance they could.

“That sounds suspiciously like you’re saying they’re pirates.” Jake returned dryly.

“Na-ah!” Saya shot back.

Jake rolled his eyes. “Okay sure, the whole pirate thing is a stereotype. But it’s obviously one of those with a lot of evidence behind it. Unlike that story about pheromone Orions taking over the Enterprise.”

“No.” Saya corrected. “The pheromone thing is real. It's just something that only crops up in certain specific Orion bloodlines.”

She was also supposed to avoid those kinds of Orion since, according to her mom, their pheromones generated euphoric feelings in Asari that were not unlike the effects of nitrous oxide on a human.

“The Tendi's aren't one of those.” She quickly clarified upon seeing Jake's worried look. “In fact, they kind of hate those kinds of Orions because of recurring husband stealing issues.”

At least, that was what she remembered her dad telling her a few years ago when she'd asked.

“Reoccurring husband stealing issues?” Jake repeated as if he was having a hard time making sense of that.

Saya shrugged. “Apparently it's a thing. Don’t humans do stuff like that too?”

“No!”

Jake grimaced and looked away from her towards one of the cabins off green walls. “Okay… I suppose some people probably do stuff like that, but it's not a normal thing.”

“I didn't say it was a normal thing either!" Saya pouted at him. “It's just a thing.”

Letting herself fall back onto the bed she glared angrily at the bunk above her. “Why don’t you go ask your new girlfriend to explain it. I’m sure she knows more about it than I do.”

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Stardate 48527.4 - July 12, 2371 - 12:01:26

“Same as with the last two California's.” Raine announced as she watched the little red dot that represented the Serenix rapidly approach the blue delta that represented the Carlsbad. “She's not even slowing down.”

“The Nova and Antares bought us nearly four hours.” Sisko said, staring at the tactical map being displayed on the center viewscreen with worried eyes. “That's better than I expected given the circumstances. But why isn't Captain Reighly pulling back?”

“They can't.” Jadzia interjected before Raine could speculate. “The Carlsbad just began transmitting a general distress signal, they have a failure in their plasma intercooler and can't go to warp.”

Raine frowned, something about that not adding up.

“A general signal?” Sisko muttered, leaning forward in this chair and rubbing the stubble forming on his chin.

Raine's eyes went wide as a sudden realization hit, and the words slipped out before she could stop them. “Dammit Drea.”

Sisko's head snapped around. “Brooks?”

“Captain Reighley might be trying to bait them into a fight.” Raine admitted with a sigh, mentally promising to cuss out the idiot if that turned out to be true. “We were friends during my time on the Carlsbad.”

And by friends she meant that the Rigilian had had a giant crush on her that she had been too up her own ass, and then too pregnant, to notice.

“Knowing him, he's probably hoping they'll come in thinking it'll be an easy raid and he'll be able to use the surprise of being fully operational to get an opening strike in on their engines.”

It was close enough to the type plan she had desperately wanted to suggest to her mother that someone as tactically minded as Drea would have absolutely seen the possibility too. However the attacking ship's safety would rest solely on the idea that Jellaa wouldn't want to chance sticking around longer enough to finish the fight. And the Asari didn't trust Saya's father to be able to weigh the odds like that.

“Could work.” Jadzia agreed.

Sisko gave a grim shake of his head. “No, there's too many uncertainties.” He reached down and tapped a control on the arm of his chair. “Bridge to engineering, how are the engines holding up?”

“Borderline.” O’Brien’s voice responded after a moment. “We’ve been pushing maximum warp long enough that I’d really like to dial her back to let things cool down a bit. But we should be good to keep at this level for at least a few more days before damage starts building up.”

“All right.” Sisko nodded. “Keep me updated if anything changes, bridge out.”

The two dots were on top of each other now, so Raine zoomed in the tactical display to the system level only to blink in surprise upon seeing the Serenix’s dot already moving away from the Carlsbad.

“She ignored them.” 

Leaning back in his chair, Sisko spent a few seconds studying the display before frowning. “There's a rogue gas giant about two AU from the Carlsbad.”

“Captain Reighley was probably planning to use it as a fall back point.” Raine theorized as she considered various possibilities. “Hit the Serenix’s engines then duck into the upper atmosphere of the gas giant to hide.”

“That’s what I was thinking.” Sisko agreed. “But a pirate would think about it the other way, hide a couple ships in the upper atmosphere to swoop in once a ship dropped out of warp and you’d have the perfect ambush setup.”

“And Jellaa wouldn’t know that the Carlsbad is the only Starfleet ship other than us within a lightyear.” Raine followed along, letting out an annoyed sigh at herself for missing something so obvious.

“Two point three.” Jadzia corrected.

“Is the Carlsbad still broadcasting their distress signal?” Sisko asked with a frown. 

Jadzia took a moment to check her console before nodding. “Yes, but the Mount Shasta has already responded and is on course to render assistance.”

It likely wasn’t needed, but if the Mount Shasta hadn’t already responded it would have been the Defiant’s duty to drop its cloak and open a direct channel to confirm the Carlsbad’s status.

“We’ll leave that to them then.” Sisko said as he focused back on the main viewscreen.

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Stardate 48532.4 - July 14, 2371 - 07:49:26

The omnipresent hum of the warp drive suddenly cut out, causing Saya look up from the Orion padd whose contents she had been reading in confusion.

“Think it’s another course change?” She asked, glancing over to where Jake looked to be writing something on his own.

“Probably.” He offered with a shrug. “It’s only been a week, so we should still be a couple days out from Orion at the very least.”

The room's communications system choose that moment to let out a beep indicative of an incoming call, and moments before later her dad’s voice echoed out. “Start getting your shit together kids, we’re two hours out from Orion, and I want to get ground side before big blue catches up with that cloaked starfleet ship of hers.”

“Big blue?” Jake repeated, scrunching his face in confusion.

“It’s what she sometimes calls mom.” Saya admitted, ducking her head slightly to try and hide the blush of embarrassment that colored her cheeks while desperately hoping he wouldn’t ask her just what that nickname referred to.

Jake pursed his lips in seeming consideration, but in the end thankfully let it lie. “Do you think that means they have a way to see through the Defiant’s cloak?”

“Maybe if it was a Klingon cloak.” Saya said after thinking about it. “But the Romulans are really paranoid, so there’s no way they’d let the Orions have a way to hunt them down.”

She really didn’t know what her mom saw T’Rel, the Romulan woman was such an obvious spy that the only way she could be any more obvious was if she started dressing up in black leather and wearing dark sunglasses.

Glancing over at the only things they really had other than the pair of padds they’d been gifted to keep them out of the way, Jake visibly grimaced. "I really don’t wanna wear something like that.”

“You’ll regret it if you don’t.” Saya warned him as she got up to grab her own embarrassingly skimpy outfit from where it was hanging. “The whole planet's on the hot end of tropical because of all the thermal vents. Mom said even someone in a Starfleet uniform would come to regret their life choices after a couple hours.”

Which was about as much of an endorsement not to wear one as you could get. Given the only place Saya could remember ever having been where her replicated ship suit wasn’t perfectly comfortable was a desert world her mom had taken her to so the older Asari could show off her biotics without worry of accidentally destroying something people would care about.

“Also.” She continued as she glanced over at Jake, who was wearing the same replicated ship suit he’d been more or less in since they had been grabbed from Deepspace Nine. “That’s really obviously Federation, and most Orions don’t really like the Federation, so you probably don’t want to be walking around in it.”

Leaving him to think about that she ducked into her bunk and began pulling down the privacy shade. Only to pause and raise it back up just enough that she could shoot a glare of warning at the older boy. “And don’t even think about trying to peek.”

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Author’s Notes: At least Raine’s plan sort of worked, but really it would have been a horrible tease on my part if they didn’t at least make it to Orion. Especially since this means I get the chance to send Sisko and Raine on an undercover mission as Orions.