Darkened Stars - Chapter 27

Darkened Stars - Chapter 27

Stardate 29413.7 - May 31, 2352 - 09:56:26

“You seem happy.” Keiko offered as she shot Rain a somewhat confused look.

“This place has been more stressful than living on Terra.” Rain told the Japanese woman, all but bouncing on the heel’s of her feet as she watched the cargo ramp rise back up. “So believe you me, I'm happy to finally be leaving.”

She wasn't exaggerating either, something about her past couple weeks on the world had just set her nerves on edge in a way she couldn't quite put into words.

“I found it relaxing.” Keiko admitted as Rain turned and began walking back through the nearly transformed cargo bay. The holding cells now replaced with cargo containers filled with stasis preserved luxury food stuffs that T'Lyn had assured her would sell on Trill for over three times the two hundred thousand daresk they had paid for them.

“You really think seafood will sell?” Keiko inquired, stopping for a moment to stare at the crates before running a few steps to catch back up to Rain.

“The logic's sound.” Rain said as they entered the lift. “Bridge.”

“The Alliance functionally stifles any trade through their space that doesn't involve their own ships due to the way every Cardassian patrol a freighter passes demands various levels of bribes to let you pass. So any trade route basically involves factoring that in as expected cost that functionally amounts to somewhere between three to five payments every ten light years you travel.”

Honestly, it was no wonder the Alliance had fallen apart enough by the time of Prodigy that the Empire was apparently back and rebuilding. You could only choke off the economic potential of an area so much before it effectively withered on the vine too much to continue to support you.

On the upside however, that left her in the valuable position of being one of the few captains of a great house aligned starship who didn't think transporting luxury goods was a dishonorable waste of time. A potentially profitable place to be if her Tholian escape plan ended up falling to work out for one reason or another.

“So.” She began as they exited the lift. “Everything ready to go?”

“Your box of tanktops, shorts, and comfy socks was the last delivery we were waiting for.” T’Lyn offered in a slightly judging tone as she looked up from the wall station where she was running through the final system checks.

“I’m not going to be judged for wanting something other than armor and second hand Orion clothing to wear around the ship.” Rain defended in a slightly petulant tone as she strode over to take her seat in the center chair.

“But if that’s all, let’s get off this planet before something else happens.”

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Stardate 29419.2 - June 2, 2352 - 10:15:10

The distance from Risa to Trill was roughly forty lightyears, a trip that would take them somewhere between ten to thirty days traveling at warp seven point nine. Which was the highest warp factor T’Lyn had calculated they could go before the exponential increase in power requirements between warp factors hit a detrimental level of anti-matter consumption.

“I still don’t get why there’s such a large variance in our predicted arrival date.” Rain muttered, letting the padd she was reading drop onto her stomach and looking over to the viewscreen to see the same streaks of interstellar dust that had been going past for the past five hours of warp travel.

“Warp factor denotes the degree with which our vessel is bending space.” T’Lyn explained from her seat at the secondary command console up against the rightmost wall of the bridge. The Vulcan woman working through a series of mathematical calculations that left the Asari nearly blanking every time she glanced over at them. “Not the velocity with which our vessel is traveling.”

That sounded vaguely familiar to Rain, but at this point she wasn’t sure if it was something she had learned in the various engineering texts she’d pursued over the years, something she had pulled out of Nezia’s brain, or something from her original world.

“Because of that the speed with which we move through space is dependant on the general skill of the navigator in plotting a course between gravitational bodies and a number of outside factors ranging from interstellar dust thickness to the state of various subspace layers in the regions a ship is traveling through.”

“So you’re saying it’s Salora’s fault?” Rain asked in a deadpan as she glanced over to the half-Cardassian woman whose shoulders looked to be visibly tensing in a way that suggested she wanted to reach over and throttle the Vulcan woman.

“I was not saying that.” T’Lyn refuted in an amused tone. “The majority of it is caused by the lack of general traffic between the worlds of Risa and Trill creating a less then up to date navigational chart of the direct route through space that we are traveling through.”

A moment of silence passed.

“Though yes, it is also somewhat Salora’s fault.” She finished with a glance over her shoulder to the now clearly annoyed half-Cardassian woman.

“I have a class two flight license, you know.” Salora groused as she turned a glare to the Vulcan woman. “That’s perfectly adequate for piloting small warp craft.”

“And yet.” T’Lyn returned in a smug tone. “Ten to thirty days was the best estimate you could give when asked.”

“Oh for the love of Khaless.” Strelka muttered angrily as she looked up from whatever information she had been going over to glare at the pair. “Just sleep together already and save us from the constant flirting.”

“The offer has been made on more than one occasion.” T'Lyn said as she turned back to her math. “Sadly however it seems my threesome designs are not to be.”

“He's my brother.” Salora carefully said, and Rain could all but feel embarrassment rolling off the young woman at the turn this conversation had taken. Something the Asari would have likely felt a bit more sympathy for if she hadn’t also held the fantasy of the pair in a threesome.

“Your near identical resemblance is the point.” T’Lyn pointed out as the corner of her lips quivered slightly in a way that suggested she truly did enjoy poking at the half-Cardassian woman in that particular manner.

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Stardate 29425.1 - June 4, 2352 - 14:04:42

Holding her head in her hands, Rain couldn't help but wonder if Captain Picard ever had to deal with situations like this.

“Mreow.” The small horned catlike creature exclaimed as it licked one of its paws.

Finally looking back up at the woman who was coming to be a constant low level annoyance to her, Rain voiced the single question that was currently the only thing she could think to ask.

“Why?”

“You said we could spend our money on whatever.” Lara answered, smiling in a way that suggested she was completely missing the point of why Rain had called her to talk. “And I always wanted a cat, so when I saw the woman selling the pair of caracal kittens on the boardwalk I just couldn't resist.”

“The pair?” Rain repeated, staring at the single smallish white feline perched languidly on the break room table as a feeling of dread settled in her stomach.

“Of course.” Lara confirmed as she reached over and scratched the kitten behind its horns. “I couldn't separate the poor dear from her brother after all.”

There were several things wrong with that logic that Rain really wanted to voice, unfortunately her ability to do so was currently limited by the fact that the caracal kitten was currently wrestling with one of Lara's fingers. And it was absolutely adorable.

“They’re also really useful to have around.” Lara continued, oblivious to Rain’s now conflicted feelings on the subject. “Just yesterday her brother brought me a dead mouse.”

Rain’s thoughts went from slowly plodding to all the way stopped at that, and the Asari cocked her head trying to figure out just where one of the cat-like creatures could have actually found a mouse given their current state of traveling through space.

“We have mice?”

“Apparently.” Lara offered happily as the kitten rolled over onto its back and she began tickling its belly. “It was green, and mouse shaped. So I’m guessing it was an Orion mouse.”

“I feel like I should be worried about introducing potentially invasive species to every planet we visit now.” Rain finally said as she dragged her eyes away from the kitten. “But that’s a moderately good reason to actually have cat’s on a ship that regularly lands on planets. So yes, you can keep them.”

Not that it was ever really in doubt since she had always loved cats herself. But she had her captain’s image to keep up, and it wouldn’t do for her crew to think they could just walk all over her with such things.

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Stardate 29429.9 - June 6, 2352 - 08:14:29

Laying in bed and watching one of the few subspace channels they could get, Rain was slowly coming to realize just why the Prime universe's Starfleet had decided that sciencing everything they came across was the best way to actually go about traveling through space. And similarly why the Mirror Universe had apparently gone with sex and political power games as the way to go.

Because after a certain point there just wasn’t much else to do when traveling between solar systems.

“The withdrawal from the Terran system continues on schedule.” The Cardassian talking head narrated on the screen. “With the final wave of troops expected to return to Cardassia by the end of July. Legate Dukat of Terak Nor decries the withdrawal as a sure sign of Supreme Legate Tain’s unwillingness to provide the necessary support to the Union’s far flung troops.”

“When asked for comment Tain’s only response was that if Dukat thought he could do better he was free to put his name in for the position himself. An expected answer all things considered given Tain has long made clear his desire to retire and spend more time with his wife and children.”

Rain was pretty sure that she vaguely recalled something about Dukat actually being Supreme Legate by the time Deep Space Nine had rolled around. But there had been enough different takes on the Mirror Universe that she wasn't entirely sure at this point what were her memories of canon, and what were things she had seen in various books, comics, and video games.

“The Supreme Legate's oldest son Elim is currently serving as a Gul under Legate Dukat with the two said to be close friends. So perhaps this push by Legate Dukat for change may be an actual preceder of government transition instead of the standard dissatisfaction of the military with the Supreme Legate’s decisions.”

That certainly shined the Mirror Kira and Mirror Garak dynamic from the show in an entirely different light, but Rain supposed there had to be some reason the man had survived as long as he had given he hadn’t exactly appeared to be the brightest bulb in the bunch.

“Gods I’m bored…” Rain muttered as she thumped her head into her pillow.

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Author’s Notes: Short transitional chapter this week, and a warning there might not be a chapter next as the Christmas rush has begun hitting me.

Which is the same reason I’m delaying the next chapter of Cerulean Stars till Friday.