Cerulean Stars - Chapter 122

Chapter 122

Stardate 48495.6 - June 30, 2371 - 21:27:21

Upon at last returning to her quarters after Bashir’s rather thorough examination Raine had found a giant brick of message waiting for her from the missing alternate universe future version of herself. She had more or less been expecting something of the kind, after all, in the other Asari’s position she would have absolutely sent one of her own. 

What she had not been expecting was that the message would include what amounted to the full 350 years of the other her’s life story told via log entries and every random musing that seemed to cross her mind.

“Still can’t believe T’Pol is straight.” The older version of her muttered unhappily. “Three months I thought I was flirting with her and it was just me mistaking the pre-Syrrannite Vulcan openness of this era for the standard Vulcan flirting of ours.”

With a sigh at the lost chance Raine marked T’Pol off her mental list of historical figures she’d make a play for if given a chance.

“That was a really awkward conversation.” The face on screen continued, hanging her head in clear embarrassment before looking back up with a grin. “But on the up side, I found out she totally has a thing for Egil, though of course I wasn’t–”

A chime rang out through her small quarters, and Raine paused the log before glancing over to the entrance. “Come in.”

With a swish the door opened allowing Jadzia to walk in, the Trill already back in her standard uniform and looking almost exactly how she had prior to their little trip.

“You got one too?” She inquired in interest as she caught a glimpse of the paused message.

“Too?” Raine inquired, not having realized anyone but her received a message.

“Both Julian and I found a data dump with a lifetime's worth of logs waiting for us.” Jadzia admitted as she walked over to sit down in the other of the room's two small chairs. “We’re both still thinking over whether we want to watch it or not, though I guess you didn’t have a similar problem.”

“I skipped over the first hundred and thirty or so years of logs.” Raine admitted somewhat ashamedly. “I mean, I know intellectually that I’m probably going to outlive all of you by a pretty extreme margin. But I’m very much not in the mood to confront that directly at this point in my life.”

“I’m sad to say it never really gets easier.” Jadzia put forward with a melancholy smile, before furrowing her brow in thought as she seemed to consider the frozen picture on the nearby screen.

She glanced over at Raine, then back at the screen again, repeating the action another couple times before frowning. “That is really unfair.”

“What?” Raine inquired, not liking the way Jadzia had said that.

The Trill pointed at the screen. “You got hotter.”

Raine cringed at the reminder. “Only a little, the nearly four hundred year old version of me was worse.”

She'd gotten the future version of her's general measurements from Robert, and while she fully understood her own growth wasn't likely to be completely identical given their differing circumstances. It had still left her once more cursing whichever horny game developers had decided Asari should get larger as they proceeded through their various life stages.

“So is that just normal for Asari?” Jadzia asked in interest. “Or did you just hit the middle age jackpot?”

“It's a life stage thing.” Raine admitted since there wasn't really any point in holding it back. “I'm a Maiden, she was probably a Matron.”

Jadzia bit her bottom lip. “A maiden? You?”

“I didn't pick the name.” Raine muttered, crossing her arms and pouting.

The perils of having your species designed in a video game writers room were many, though given all the other Mass Effect races she supposed it could have been worse.

“So there's just the two stages” Jadzia probed.

Raine shook her head. “No, there's three. Maiden, Matron, and Matriarch. On average each lasts about three hundred and fifty years. And besides the obvious physical growth, each also corresponds to a large boost in our psychokinetic abilities.”

An odd look seemed to come over Jadzia's face at that. “What level of boost?”

“A lot?” Raine offered uncertainly. “From what I recall from various media a single Matriarch could easily overpower a whole squadron of Maidens. Though of course, a lot of that might have also been the sheer experience difference at place.”

It had never really been clear in the various games just how much more biotically powerful Asari became as they advanced in age. Or even really how powerful biotics were at all given the disconnect between how they were treated in gameplay and story. But that uncertainty worked for her backstory, so filling in the blanks hadn’t ever really been something she had obsessed over.

“Still can’t believe you won’t let me study you.” Jadzia groused.

The phrasing was too good of an opening, and Raine found herself grinning despite the knowledge that Jadzia would find some way to make her suffer for it. “But you just studied every inch of me last week.”

Jadzia glared at her, though the way the corner of her lips twitched slightly somewhat belayed her true feelings on the joke. “You know what I mean!”

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Stardate 48496.9 - July 1, 2371 - 08:50:38

As far as Raine was concerned, the fact that the Department of Temporal Investigations would be showing up to interview them hadn't ever really been in question. What was a surprise however was the agents they ended up sending to do so.

Because she really hadn't expected to encounter Dulmer and Lucsly till their run in with Kirk and the Enterprise. Though she supposed it was very possible the DTI just didn't have a lot of other field officers given how disliked the organization was.

“And from there we just waited in the maintenance passage till the transporter grabbed us.” Raine finished, leaning back in her mess hall chair to stare at the two agents across from her. “Anything you want me to clarify?”

“Why the history archive?” Dulmer inquired with a frown. 

“We were there.” Raine admitted with a shrug. “And since it was data, I figured there would be functionally no risk to the timeline from downloading a copy to bring back with us for the historians to go over.”

“Dangerous thinking.” Lucsly said, making a note on his padd. “It's better to assume while in the past that everything you do could have unintended domino effects.”

“Not that most of those matter.” Dulmer added in. “But it’s still good practice to try and consider them so you don’t get blindsided when you run into a bunch of big dominoes like your Doctor Bashir and Commander Sisko did.”

“That said.” Lucsly continued. “You did a good job minimizing contact risks as much as you did. Though you should have avoided going to the party with Lieutenant Dax.”

“Probably.” Raine agreed, having actually considered that herself. “But Jadzia wanted the backup, and given the risks women tend to face on more primitive worlds I didn’t want to take the chance of leaving her unprotected that late at night.”

For all Jadzia’s years of combined experience, the closest she actually had to any experience dealing with risks similar to the ones found on Earth during that time period, were from a male and not female perspective. And as Raine herself had gotten hammered into her during her security training, there was a very big difference between those things.

Dulmer nodded in understanding. “I suppose it couldn’t be helped.”

“If there’s nothing else.” Raine began after nearly a minute of silence. “I don't suppose there's any chance I could the holographic emitter?”

Dulmer and Lucsly exchanged a glance.

“We ran it through the scanner before your interview.” Lucsly admitted. “Chronodating suggests its origin point is about twenty years in the future.”

“Not our future though.” Dulmer added in. “Quantum signature didn't match. And when we called up the DDI to try and pinpoint which quantum reality it originated from, the agent we were talking to got twitchy and suggested we just forget about the whole thing.”

Lucsly nodded. “Means it was probably one of the bad ones.”

Raine winced as that all but confirmed her theory about its origins being connected to Picard's Q induced jaunt across time and dimension.

“From that look I'd say you have at least some idea which reality it might have come from.” Lucsly said, staring expectantly at her. “And if you want any chance of keeping the emitter when this is done we're going to need to know everything about it that you do.”

It was obvious to Raine that he was dangling that possibility in front of her as a lure in hopes of fishing out whatever it might be that she was holding back. A respectable tactic given she really really wanted the thing back so she could put her name in for future undercover work.

Unfortunately it ran into the general problem that at this point she honestly didn't remember much of anything about that dimension outside of the Federation alternatives name. “Does the name Confederation mean anything to you?”

“Not particularly.” Lucsly admitted, taking a moment to type name into his padd. “I take it your knowledge about that has something to do with the being known as Q?”

Raine blinked in surprise. “Actually, yes.”

Almost in tandem the pair let out an annoyed sigh. 

Dulmer glanced over to Lucsly. “The Picard event?”

“Timeline matches up.” He agreed with a nod. “

Raine blinked again, more than a little surprised at what the man’s words suggested given their own end of that particular event should still be twentyish years in the future. “The Picard event?”

“Sorry.” Dulmer offered with an apologetic shrug. “Temporal prime directive. Just forget you heard us say that.”

“As to the holographic device.” Lucsly went on. “As much as I’d like to confiscate it, its existence unfortunately falls into a loophole in the DTI’s ability to do so.”.

Dulmer nodded in agreement. “While the holographic device is from about twenty years in the future, normal dating methods put its construction point at about fifty years before that point.”

“Which means from our own perspective it was built about thirty years ago.” Raine followed along with the logic.

“Exactly.” Dulmer confirmed. “And our department’s rules only allow for the confiscation of technology built after the current temporal date.”

Lucsly shot a reproachful glare at Dulmer. “There are exceptions however in cases of attempted espionage, so don’t get any bright ideas.”

Raine grimaced. “Honestly? Outside of the future encounter with the Kirk’s Enterprise that I already reported, I’m really rather hoping to avoid anything else having to do with time travel for the rest of my very long life.”

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Stardate 48497.1 - July 1, 2371 - 10:35:45

Raine gave a nod to Bashir as he exited Sisko’s quarters before leaning through the open doorway to offer the Commander a friendly grin. “Mind if I come in?”

“Go ahead.” Sisko said, leaning back into his bunk with a tired sigh. “Did your interview go okay?”

“They’re letting me keep the holographic emitter.” Raine confessed happily as she walked in, being sure to keep the surprise in her left hand out of sight.

Sisko nodded, motioning that she was free to take a seat in one of the nearby chairs. “Just go easy on the Ensigns, Odo already has them jumping at shadows with his shapeshifting.”

“There was something I left out when giving my report to the DTI.” Raine admitted as she walked over to the bed, grinning despite herself.

“Do I want to know?” Sisko asked tiredly, eyeing the Asari in a way that suggested he really just wanted these last couple days to be over and done with.

“That depends.” Raine began as she pulled out the object she had been hiding behind her back. 

Sisko's eyes widened almost instantly in recognition before confusion seemed to hit. “A baseball mitt?”

“Not just any baseball mitt.” Raine singsoned as she walked over and handed it to the man. “See, while heading to the meetup point with Jadzia I happened by a sports memorabilia shop, and since there was still a few hours before we needed to meet I thought, what's the harm. And low and behold what did I find there? But a Buck Bokai autographed baseball mitt.”

She hadn't gone in looking for anything in particular since she knew Sisko would have been happy with pretty much anything Baseball related. But sometimes the universe just decided to hand you a win, so she hadn't even hesitated to use what money she had left to purchase it.

Sisko stared at the name on the glove with an unreadable look in his eyes. And Raine was just beginning to wonder if she had screwed up when he looked back up at her. “Why?”

Raine shrugged. “We're friends, I thought you'd like it.”

Hell, he was probably the closest guy friend she had, which said some really weird things about her current friends group given the direction they had previously tended towards.

A small smile played over the corner of Sisko’s lips. “Well, I suppose I can’t say no to that.”

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Author’s Notes: And thus we end things, next chapter, we begin the grand opening of Quark’s Treasure.