Cerulean Stars - Chapter 101

Cerulean Stars - Chapter 101

Stardate 48374.1 - May 17, 2371 - 13:06:57

The large Dominion ship on the Defiant’s main viewscreen was intimidating for a multitude of reasons, though the one Raine was most concerned about was of course the weapon array's locked onto their ship.

“It's been two hours.” Jadzia groused from her current position at the helm as she shot an annoyed look at the viewscreen. “What do you think Odo is talking about in there anyways?”

Sisko looked up from the padd he was reading. “He mentioned that he was hoping to have an in depth conversation with whoever was in command.”

“Which means we could be sitting here for hours if not days.” Raine added in helpfully.

“The thought certainly hadn’t occurred to me when I told the Constable that he could as long as he needs.” Sisko returned with a smirk as he returned to his padd.

Given the choice between attending a week-long series of Bajoran religious ceremonies and sitting in space catching up on paperwork, Raine couldn’t exactly blame him for choosing the paperwork. Because as much of a fan as she usually was of immersing herself in alien cultures, Bajoran religious ceremonies were just extraordinarily boring. 

“Shoot.” Raine muttered as a sudden thought occurred to her.

“Brooks?” Sisko questioned as he looked over to her.

“I just realized.” She put forward, frowning as she looked back at the battleship on screen. “I should have asked Odo if he could try to pick up a primer on Vorta cultural practices.”

Sisko considered that for a moment before giving an acknowledging tilt of his head at a good point made. “Something we can ask him to try and ask about next time.”

“So.” Jadzia continued in a speculative tone once it became clear nobody else was going to step in to break the silence. “Do you think Kira and Bareil will continue going out now that he’s the Kai?”

Sisko let out an audible sigh as he attempted to bury himself back into his padd to avoid the gossip.

“I don’t see why not.” Raine answered, seeing no reason not to talk about it herself given they didn’t exactly have anything better to do at the moment. “The Bajoran religion doesn’t have anything against its religious leaders having personal relationships like that, or even getting married. And they’re obviously still in the honeymoon phase of their long distant relationship given the way Kira smiles when she talks about him.”

“I'm starting to think it might be more than that.” Jadzia offered. “I've caught her giving the O'Briens considering stares a few times when we catch them on date night.”

Raine let out an over exaggerated groan. “I swear to Q, if Kira of all people gets married before me I'm going to--”

“Finally take Morn up on his offer for a date?” Jadzia interrupted teasingly.

“No!” Raine exclaimed, giggling slightly despite herself.

“What's wrong with Morn?” Sisko interjected, seemingly unable to help himself. “Everything I've heard suggests he's never anything but a perfect gentleman.”

“He is.” Raine agreed, leaving out that he was also a famous bank robber since the statute of limitations hadn't expired on that yet. “But as I told Jadzia, as good of a man as Morn is, I however am a remarkably shallow woman.”

“Who has legendarily bad taste in partners.” Jadzia added in jokingly as Raine shot the Trill put upon glare.

“I should never have told you about the Malinche betting pool.” Raine grumbled, even if it had been one of her more amusing lower-decks stories to tell.

“Betting pool?” Sisko inquired in interest as he set his padd down and looked over at her.

Sighing, Raine steeled herself to tell the story, since if she didn't Sisko would likely just get it from Jadzia at a later date. “After the third time one of my dates ended up causing a red alert, the other ensigns started taking bets any time I went out on a date about what type of dangerous secret my date partner held.”

It had been all in good fun of course, though slightly annoying to her since every now and then someone had in fact won the pot by guessing right.

“We had something similar for Curzon.” Sisko put forward with an amused glance over to Jadzia.

“What!?” The woman demanded in shock as she glanced over her shoulder with an affronted look on her face. “You did not!”

“Oh yes.” Sisko confirmed with a chuckle. “Though in his case it was betting about just who we'd be dodging on our way off planet.”

“That was only a few times!” Jadzia objected with a pout as Raine bit her lip to keep from giggling. “And at least one of those was on the diplomatic corps for not providing a proper warning about the Quinalians group marriage ceremonies.”

“Thirteen percent of all diplomatic corps marriages begin that way.” Raine agreed sagely, though she didn't blame the diplomatic corps themselves for it. After all, it was a rare first contact exchange that covered all the various ways a civilization might have thought up to get married. “Though that does leave me wondering just how many spouses Curzon had.”

“Don't you dare!” Jadzia warned Sisko as a sudden look of alarm flashed across her face.

“I have to.” Sisko returned with a chuckle as he shot the Trill woman a wry grin before turning back to Raine. “Last I knew? I believe it was seven wives and two husbands over the course of his career.”

“I’m only really surprised about the husbands.” Raine admitted, never having really gotten the feeling from the man.

“Curzon tended to be a lot more selective about his male partners than his female one’s.” Jadzia confessed as her shoulders slumped slightly. “It’s pretty normal with hosts that had preferences more unidirectional before their joining.”

“A moderately interesting fact that once more makes me annoyed that your people are so secretive about everything to do with joining.” Raine groused as she turned back to the tactical console.

“Commander.” Sisko warned.

“It’s all right.” Jadzia offered in a somewhat melancholy tone. “The past couple months have done a good job of convincing me that she’s not exactly wrong about that.”

“Though.” She continued, and Raine could all but hear the smirk that was likely on her lips. “It is a bit odd you don't like secrets given you're dating someone whose entire culture is built around them.”

“The amusing irony is it's actually not.” Raine corrected as she edited a few parameters on the simulation she was running. “The primary pillar of Romulan culture is truth, which is why so much of what they do revolves around obscificating it.”

“Makes as much sense as anything I suppose.” Sisko offered in a bemused tone.

Several minutes of relative silence passed as they each went back to their various bits of work, and Raine was just about to switch to finishing up the last of her preliminary personnel reviews when the beeping of an incoming communications signal drew her attention to the Ensign at the communications station.

“It's Constable Odo, sir.”

Raine frowned, exchanging a brief glance of uncertainty with Sisko since the communications channel should have opened automatically if he was using a combadge.

“Put it on screen.” Sisko ordered.

The main viewscreen switched to showing a clearly annoyed Odo standing in front of an ill defined backdrop that had all the hallmarks of some kind of masking program at work.

“Commander.” Odo greeted.

“Constable.” Sisko returned, giving the Changeling a nod of acknowledgement. “Did something happen?”

“Unfortunately.” Odo put forward with a brief glance to the side at something they couldn't see. “It seems the situation with Rex is more complicated than I was originally led to believe.”

There was a slight tone of disappointed accusation to his words that left Raine wondering just what had prompted that particular response given the Changeling’s normally stoic demeanor.

“And it reached the point of necessitating the presence of one of the Founders.” He continued with another glance off screen. “The closest of which is apparently several days away from here.”

Given the size of the ship and its location relatively close to the wormhole Raine rather doubted that, but she wasn't going to voice her suspicion given it was based almost completely on her gut feeling that they were trying to manipulate Odo in some manner.

“All right.” Sisko confirmed as he crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair. “Will you be returning to the Defiant during that time, or staying on board the Dominion vessel?”

A third glance off screen, and a slight frown. “It’s probably for the best if I stay over here.”

“Then I’ll tell the crew we’ll be here for a few days.” Sisko returned with a smile.

“Thank you Commander.” 

The screen returned to showing the Dominion vessel, leaving Sisko to lean forward and scratch his chin. “Thoughts?”

“I’m pretty sure that was one of Odo’s ‘I found something that annoys me and now I’m going to try and put it right’ faces.” Raine offered, having seen similar looks from the Changeling a number of times while serving under him.

“Whatever it was, someone on board didn’t want him getting very specific about it.” Jadzia added in.

“I caught that.” Sisko said, frowning in thought for a moment before shaking his head and turning to Raine. “Has there been transporter activity on the internal sensors?”

An interesting thought, and Raine took a moment to check over the report before shaking her head. “Nothing that the Defiant’s internal sensors can detect.”

Which didn’t necessarily mean there hadn’t been given they didn’t have enough data on Dominion transporters at this point to determine their energy signature falloff.

“Do you want me to begin a random drift pattern?” Jadzia inquired as she glanced over her shoulder at Sisko.

Sisko seemed to consider the suggestion. “Tempting, but they might take it as a provocation, better to just keep an eye open for now.”

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Author’s Notes: Short chapter, but I’m trying something new with this and letting things end at a natural point instead of pushing for a specific minimum word court.

Also, Darkened Stars next chapter will be delayed till later in the week.