Cerulean Stars - Chapter 96

Cerulean Stars - Chapter 96

Stardate 48334.6 - May 3, 2371 - 03:05:45

“What’s going on?” Raine demanded as she exited the turbolift to ops, the red alert that had woken her still tinting the room in a clear sign that things were anything but okay.

“Radiation leak on Legate Ghemor's ship.” Lieutenant Primmin reported. “They're–

The hum of another turbolift car arriving caused him to pause, and then Asari was just about to order him to continue when Commander Sisko walked off.

“Report!” He snapped as he strode to join Raine at the central station.

“Radiation leak on Legate Ghemor's ship.” Primmin repeated. “They're reporting at least seven decks are contaminated and our internal sensors are showing it's already begun leaking into upper pylon one.”

Raine frowned as her gut twisted in suspicion, and she quickly sent out a confirmation request to the Defiant, not trusting the station's internal sensors given everything currently going on.

“Release the docking clamps.” Sisko ordered, as he began entering a rapid fire string of commands into the interface. “I want that ship at least ten kilometers away from the station. Even if we have to use the tractor beams to do it.”

“Already tried that.” Primmin returned with a shake of his head. “Docking clamps aren't responding. Ordered a maintenance team to suit up and manually disconnect the ship.”

“Good work Lieutenant.” Sisko told him as the Defiant's sensor report came in, somewhat surprisingly confirming both the radiation leak and docking pylon contamination.

“Sir.” Lieutenant Strek interrupted from the science station. “We're getting an emergency transmission from the Kraxon. They say their sick bays are overloaded and they want permission to begin beaming wounded over to ours.”

For a moment Sisko and her shared a look before he frowned and turned to Strek. “Give them the okay.”

“Brooks.” He continued as he turned back to her with a severe look on his face. “Odo can handle security, I want you to join Dax on the Defiant. Because I don't believe for a minute this was just an accident. And I want a command officer in that chair round the clock till that ship is gone from Bajoran space.”

Which was another way of saying he wanted someone in the captain's chair who could give the immediate order to open fire if it came down to it. Grimacing at the thought, Raine gave a nod of confirmation as she resolved herself to covering twelve hour shifts for the next few days.

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Stardate 48338.8 - May 4, 2371 - 15:53:16

“And that's when Morn brought out a bouquet of Casparian Lily's.” Jadzia said as she shook her head in complete bemusement at the memory. “I still don't know how he found out those were my favorite flowers.”

Raine gave the Trill a wry grin. “Probably the same way he found out I like…”

She stopped herself as she suddenly remembered just who she was about to admit that particular love too.

“No!” Jadzia pouted at her. “You can't just leave it there!”

“I absolutely can!” Raine shot back as she leaned over the captain's chair's left side command console to glare down at the normally taller woman. “Because if I tell you, you'll ruthlessly exploit it for your own amusement.”

“And if you don't tell me I'll just ask Morn.” Jadzia pointed out with a smirk that told Raine the other woman fully believed she had won.

“Who won't tell you because Morn actually knows how to keep a secret.” Raine returned with an exaggerated roll of her eyes.

A devious look momentarily flashed across Jadzia's face. “We'll just see about that.”

“So did you say yes?” She inquired, thankfully letting the other question drop for now.

“No.” Raine confessed with an embarrassed flush. “As sweet of a guy as Morn is, I am remarkably shallow when it comes to the physical appearance of those I go out with.”

It was one of many reasons why she would never date a Ferengi, they just looked too much like frogs to do it for her.

“You're missing out by limiting yourself like that.” Jadzia offered with an amused shake of her head. 

“I'm sure I am.” Raine agreed with a wry grin, knowing she could at least get a small win over the Trill on this. “But I've also dated a Medusan before, so I'm pretty sure I win on the dating history front.”

At the time Eon had been using an Arretan style body that had been designed to look a lot like a living marble sculpture, and they had only gone out a handful of times before the realization had set in that they were very much not a good fit for each other. But given how rare Medusans were she seriously doubted Dax could count one in their own dating history.

“I suppose Quark will be relieved to know he wasn’t entirely wrong to question your sanity.” Jadzia joked, and Raine heard the distinct snerk of a held back laugh from one of the other officers on bridge duty.

“Not actually a risk for Asari according to Starfleet Medical.” Raine informed the Trill as she turned a brief playful glare to the rest of the room. “Something about species whose vision extends fully into the ultraviolet.”

“It’s because the insanity is caused by a combined spectrum effect.” Jadzia explained in a somewhat distracted tone as she glanced at something on her chair’s control pad. “So change the spectrum a person see’s by adding or removing a wavelength and the effect goes away. It’s the same principle Starfleet used with their early protective visors.”

“Need me at tactical?” Raine asked as she followed the Trill woman’s attention to see a sensor readout showing a pair of incoming Cardassian ships.

“Probably for the best.” Jadzia confirmed with a grimace as Raine motioned for the junior lieutenant currently manning the station to switch with her. “Transponders are reading them as the Cardassian warships Koltah and Norjot, but the warp signatures don’t match any ship class we have on file.”

Taking a brief moment to adjust the chair, Raine brought up the tactical information on the incoming war signatures only to feel an eye ridge raise almost of its own accord at what she was reading.

“The power readings exceed the standard Galor class by seventy percent.” She reported as she ran a comparison. 

That put it roughly on par power generation wise with one of Starfleet’s Nebula class vessels, though given Cardassians liked to compensate for their lack of technical acumen by just throwing more power at the problem Raine would put her latinum on the Nebula if it actually came down to a fight. 

“Which means we're probably looking at something new they're sending as a show of force to collect the Kraxon.” Jadzia muttered unhappily.

“From the power levels I'm guessing they're the Keldon class.” Raine offered as she wracked her memory for other likely options.

“I don’t think I’ve heard of that class.” Jadzia confessed in an odd tone. "Something from the classified intelligence briefings?”

“Yes. So don’t ask where Starfleet got the information from, because even I don’t know.” Raine lied, because she wasn’t technically supposed to know about the agent Starfleet Intelligence had in the Cardassian military yet since it wasn’t something they could talk about over subspace communications.

“Looks like they’re hailing the station.” Jadzia mused as she looked up to stare at live feed of the station on the main viewscreen.

“The Bajoran patrol fleet has begun moving.” Raine informed her as the Defiant’s sensors relayed the movement to her tactical readout. “They’ll arrive at the station about twenty minutes after the Cardassian ships unless they kick in their warp drives.”

It wasn’t their fault in this particular case as the fleet’s current patrol distance had been calculated with the Galor’s top speed in mind, while the ships they had actually sent unfortunately appeared to be a good deal faster.

“And Quark’s Treasure just cloaked.” She finished with a sigh, not that any of the station's command crew had really expected otherwise.

“Ma’am.” Ensign Sanders reported as he turned to Jadzia. “We have an incoming communication from the station.”

“Put it on screen.” Jadzia ordered as the viewscreen switched to a view of Ops with a tired looking Commander Sisko standing front and center.

“I’d like to say I have good news for getting this whole situation over with, but it’s pretty much the opposite.” Sisko admitted with a sigh. “The two incoming Cardassian vessels are going to be handling recovery efforts for the Kraxon.”

Given the ship in question was currently a semi-large navigation hazard floating at maximum tractorbeam range from the station the Asari could only see that being a problem if Sisko expected them to conduct a full recovery operation instead of just dragging it out of Bajoran space.

“Oh no.” Jadzia groaned, apparently having the same thought. “That could take weeks.”

Raine gave a silent prayer of apology to Odo, because keeping tensions from becoming overly inflamed between the Bajorans and Cardassians was going to be a full time job and then some with that long of a time period. But better him than her given her current Defiant posting was finally giving her a chance to catch up on the backlog of busy work that had accumulated from various sector reports.

Spinning her chair to face the viewscreen, Raine gave Sisko an apologetic look for what they both knew was coming. “Have there been any more attempts on Iliana?”

His eyes flicked over to her, and she could all but see the way the adaptive viewing system redirected his screen to her from the way his eyes slowly traced back to the center.

“Thankfully no. But given the silence from Mister Entek and the death of the Glinn that made the attempt, Odo thinks it may have been someone in the military sending a warning to Legate Ghemor.”

“Dukat?” Raine asked hopefully, moderately sure the man would want to try and at least cover his tracks given how bad this had to look for him.

“Legate Ghemor doesn’t believe so.” Sisko told her with a shake of his head. “But he’s being tight lipped with us about who he does think was responsible.”

“Pity.” Raine returned, still not getting the various in’s and out’s of the Cardassian politics involved in this situation. “Back to circling the station then?”

“Sorry Commander.” Sisko offered with an apologetic shrug. “I’ll try and get O’Brien and Kira over to relieve you two when they aren’t so swamped. But as the situation is, I need an engineer and Bajoran liaison more than I do a science and security officer. Sisko out.”

With that the screen switched back to the view of the station, and Jadzia spun her chair around to give Raine a sly look. “I believe it’s your shift now, enjoy.”

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Author’s Notes: Sorry for the short chapter, got knocked out by a migraine yesterday so it cut into writing time.