Cerulean Stars - Chapter 98

Cerulean Stars - Chapter 98

Stardate 48358.4 - May 11, 2371 - 19:35:02

“I have to agree with Iliana.” T'Rel said as she stabbed a leaf of Andorian lettuce with her fork. “It was most likely Dukat.”

“Really?” Raine asked skeptically as she stared at the Romulan woman sitting on the other side of the table from her. “He seemed like the least likely to me given how quickly it happened?”

Finally taking a bite of her grilled redbat salad, T'Rel made a pleased noise before giving a nod of appreciation at the choice.

“With the Legate discovering that Dukat had been both holding and abusing Iliana for the past ten years. Dukat's only real options for avoiding reprisal would have been to either kill or discredit the Legate before he could return to Cardassia and begin moving against him.”

“Oh absolutely.” Raine agreed between bites of her own, the odd jury rigging of Quarks replicators once more coming through to create a dish several degrees better than the replicator in her own quarters was capable of. “But how would he have pulled it off? Because that's what I'm stuck on with the Dukat theory.”

“You're underestimating the Dukat family's connections.” T'Rel told her as an amused smirk tugged at the corners of lips. “And overestimating the desire of those in the Cardassian government to find out the truth.”

Drumming her fingers on the table, Raine considered for a moment what the woman who likely had at least some connection to the Tal'Shiar had just told her. 

“So you're saying Dukat's attempt to frame Legate Ghemor only needed to be enough for others who had a grudge against Ghemor to run with it?” 

“Indeed.” T'Rel said, clearly pleased Raine had been able to follow. “I would even go so far as to surmise you were ordered by Starfleet Command not to investigate the issue further.”

“I can neither confirm nor deny that.” Raine answered in a complete deadpan, not even remotely trying to hide the accuracy of the Romulan woman's guess.

T'Rel openly smiled at her reply. “It is the only sensible thing to do given you were all but handed an intelligence asset of incalculable value. At least, assuming he and his daughter can survive their trip to Federation space.”

Raine let out a sharp laugh of amusement at that. “Starfleet's sending the USS Sovereign to pick the pair up. If the Cardassians want to try something with that ship, well, they better send a full battlegroup to do it.”

That wasn't even really hyperbole, because while the Defiant class had been designed with the theory in mind of utilizing wolf pack tactics against Borg cubes. The Sovereign class had been designed with the theory of getting into slugging matches with them and surviving long enough that it could do damage and then pull back to lick its wounds in between rounds.

Not normally something that would favor Starfleet in a fight against the Borg, but the idea had been to continually cycle ships in and out of the fight slowly overwhelming the Borg's own ability to repair their ship. A tactic Raine knew ended up being at least moderately effective given what she remembered from the First Contact battle.

“Ah yes.” T'Rel said as an amused look briefly flitted across her face. “Starfleet's new assault cruiser. I must admit, we were somewhat surprised to hear you actually got it to work.”

Raine wasn't even remotely surprised the Romulans had been aware they were having trouble with the design. 

“They don't call Starfleet engineers miracle workers for nothing.” She returned glibly.

“In less pleasant news.” She continued with a slight grimace. “My government wishes my temporary return to Romulas to provide in person explanation of the modifications I made tqo the Defiant's cloaking field during its sojourn to the Founders homeworld.”

There was really only one reason Raine could think of that the Romulan government might want that now when they had been perfectly happy to just ignore T'Rel's modifications these past months.

“Make sure to tell them that it's highly likely the Founders have moved to another planet by now.” She said, doubting her warning would be given much credence by the Romulans but feeling the need to give it all the same.

“Would such an evacuation not take a significant amount of time given the number of Founders covering the surface of the world?” T'Rel inquired as she took a sip of her Xixu wine, not even denying her people's interest was leaning in that particular direction.

Taking a drink of her own, Raine was mildly impressed with the subtleties of flavor in the alcohol given the berries were mildly toxic to most species due to having a chemical makeup very similar to antifreeze.

“Sure, if they evacuated by ship.” Raine said, oddly unsure if her date's people were just playing their ignorance up or had somehow missed the obvious. “But they're Changelings. All they have to do is change into Cosmozoans and they can all evacuate the planet at once.”

The skeptical look T'Rel shot Raine at that thought was anything but reassuring to the Asari. “Nothing Odo has done would suggest Changelings possessed of that kind of capability.”

“Odo's only twenty two years old.” Raine returned, chuckling slightly at the contrast with his chosen humanoid form that thought brought to mind. “The only Cosmozoan he's ever seen was the Promethean Ray that hatched here a couple years back. And as far as I know he's never actually tried to become one.”

“So as I said in my report, don't attribute any limitations Odo might have to the rest of the Changelings in the Great Link.”

She didn't feel that bad implying that Odo was actually kind of bad at shapeshifting, though he had actually improved remarkably with his shapeshifting since the mind meld with Na'Tal. Something Raine was chalking up to him absorbing the extensive experience with differently shaped organic bodies the Vulcan woman possessed from her centuries of mind melding with others.

“I'm afraid it was classified above my clearance level.” T'Rel returned apologetically as she finished the last of her salad and moved on to the bisque style soup. “I expect to be gone for at least a month however. So I'm sorry to say I won't be able to attend the Gratitude Festival with you.”

“It’s fine.” Raine reassured her with a smile. “I’ll just go with Jadzia and mingle around the singles areas.”

T’Rel shot her an impish look that made Raine’s stomach clench at what was likely coming. “In that case, do try to avoid ending up in bed with any former Obsidian Order agents who might have their eye on you.” 

“Don’t you start with that too.” Raine scolded, waggling her fork at the other woman playfully as she gave her a heavy lidded stare. “I get enough teasing about it from Jadzia.”

Her combadge chirped, and the Asari let out a sigh of annoyance before tapping it. “Brooks here.”

“Brooks.” Odo’s voice echoed out, sounding distinctively uncomfortable for some reason. “I need you in the infirmary now, it’s an emergency.”

“On my way.” Raine returned as she tapped the device on her chest again to close the channel, 

“Sorry.” She told T’Rel, giving an apologetic shrug as she got up, moderately relieved they had at least gotten to finish most of their dinner before something had once more come up.. “I’d normally order someone else to take care of it. But it sounded like Odo was off kilter about whatever it was that came up, so it’s probably something I need to help with personally.”

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The fact that Sisko arrived at the Infirmary almost in lockstep with Raine suggested whatever the problem was, it was apparently enough to justify the presence of both of the stations ranking officers.

Entering the infirmary, the Asari was left somewhat dumbfounded at the sight of a panicked Quark and relatively calm Doctor Bashir standing over a biobed upon which rested what was very clearly a small baby of the humanoid variety.

Raine slowly looked to Quark, then down to the baby, then once more back to Quark, something about this situation familiar enough that she was moderately sure it was something that had happened in the original timeline of events.

“Explain.” Sisko ordered simply, his face softening as he stared at the baby with a look of clear caring look in his eyes.

“I bought it from Rionoj.” Quark answered, looking anything but happy about that fact.

“Him.” Bashir calmly corrected, the man betraying the amusement he was feeling at the entire situation from the slight twitching at the corner of his lips.

A look of thunderous rage briefly flashed across Sisko’s face as he turned to Quark. “You bought a child?”

Quark flinched back from him. “I just thought that I was buying some wreckage from the Gamma Quadrant. I did a standard bioscan, but how was I supposed to know there was a baby in there when his stasis pod was shielded?”

“That’s odd on several levels.” Raine muttered as she continued to stare at the child for a moment before turning to Bashir. “Have you run a genetic search yet?”

“Yes.” The young doctor confirmed with a nod. “Which is a big part of why I called Odo, because the baby’s genetics match that of the Jem’Hadar.”

Several dots connected themselves in Raine’s brain at that, leaving the unfortunate knowledge behind that there probably wasn’t a lot they could actually do to change the child's fate short of sticking him back in stasis and shipping him to a Starfleet research lab in hopes they would be able to figure out how to duplicate Ketracel White. Something which she was pretty sure would end up with the kid being seized by much less scrupulous portions of the Federation to be used for highly unethical medical testing.

“I’m pretty sure the thought of dealing with babies makes him nervous.” Raine offered apologetically as she remembered the odd tone in Changelings voice when he had contacted her.

“Finally something we have in common.” Quark muttered unhappily as he looked hopefully over to Sisko. “Now that you have everything figured out, I really need to get back to the cargo bay to supervise Rom before he throws out anything I might want to keep.”

Which Raine suspected was functionally everything given any number of governments would probably pay through the teeth for wreckage from a Jem’Hadar vessel.

“Tell him to stop entirely.” Sisko told him as he pried his attention away from the baby to turn a stern glare to the Ferengi. “I’m going to want Chief O’Brien’s team to go over that wreckage with a fine toothed comb.”

“Now wait a minute.” Quark protested as he took a few steps over to glare up at the man. “I paid good money for that wreckage and…”

Sensing Sisko was very much not in the mood, Raine interrupted by laying a calming hand on the Ferengi’s shoulder. “As you are currently the legal owner of that wreckage, Starfleet will of course compensate you at fair market value for any destructive testing that ends up being required.”

That was standard policy in cases like this after all, though the Asari suspect Quark might be a bit annoyed at whatever fair market value ended up being. But that would be the problem of whatever bean counter Starfleet ended up assigning to the task.

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Author’s Notes: So we begin The Abandoned, which should hopefully only be another chapter or two since there really isn’t much to do with it. After which will be a quick Meridian and then Defiant before moving on to Fasicination.