Cerulean Stars - Chapter 95

Cerulean Stars - Chapter 95

Stardate 48332.6 - May 2, 23710 - 9:45:00

“My current theory is that they used a predictive matrix fed with their own records to generate the artificial memories of Iliana's Bajoran life prior to sending her on the replacement mission.” Doctor Bashir explained as they waited for Legate Ghemor to make his way to the conference room. “So I suspect the differences stem from either Cardassian biases that ended up skewing the predictive matrix, or a purposeful attempt to soften the resulting personality towards certain Cardassian values.”

From the way the other version of her seemed to hold Cardassians in general to far less a level of disdain than Kira herself did, she would guess it was the second. Though given her experience with Cardassian ego, she wasn’t entirely sure they hadn’t just assumed certain things about their own people must be a universal truth of others.

Nerys turned an uncertain look to Bashir from where she was sitting next to Kira. “So you’re saying I believe her father told me about what happened to her mother because Cardassians place a higher degree of importance on familial matters then Bajorans do?”

Bashir blinked, giving the other woman an odd stare. “Yes actually, I’m rather surprised you caught that.”

Because Kira herself very much had not, though, she supposed that might have been different if she had spent ten years in Cardassian custody like Nerys had.

“I spent a lot of time listening to the guards talk about themselves in hopes of learning something that might help me escape.” Nerys confessed with a grimace as she focused her gaze out one of the viewports. “So I ended up learning a lot about the way Cardassians culture works.”

Kira offered the other woman an awkward smile. “I suppose if there's one thing you can trust Cardassians to do, it's talk about themselves.”

The conference room door thankfully chose that moment slid open, saving Kira from the uncomfortable silence that followed her attempt to lighten the mood with a joke falling completely flat.

An older Cardassian that Kira recognized as Legate Ghemor from the briefing they had received on their way back to the station was the first to enter, followed shortly by Sisko and a younger Cardassian she didn't recognize.

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Raine materialized onto the Defiant's transporter platform and breathed a sigh of relief, for as much as she usually enjoyed dealing with diplomatic issues, she was glad Commander Sisko had let her off with only the meet and greet. Since she rather doubted she was currently in the right frame of mind to be an impartial party after with the first hand recounting of various atrocities she'd been listening to the past few days.

Of course, the caveat to Sisko letting her off was that he wanted her to try and dig deeper into the Garak situation. 

“Ah Commander.” Garak greeted her with a grin as she walked into the Defiant's brig. “How good of you to come visit.”

“You know how it is.” Raine began as she motioned for the Junior Lieutenant on duty to leave. “You get a message from a visiting Legate, and just have to follow up on it.”

There wasn't even a flicker of surprise on Garak's face at her words, which annoyingly told Raine absolutely nothing given how good the Cardassian in question was at controlling his expressions.

“I've certainly experienced that a time or two myself if you can believe it.” Garak returned with a genial smile. “I take it he had interesting things to say about me?”

“Someone certainly did.” Raine admitted as she walked over to take a seat in the recently vacated chair. 

Garak visibly grimaced. “Ah. Then I suppose Ghemor has called a bit more attention to himself then I had hoped.”

“Given that someone very specifically wanted us to know it was you who informed Ghemor about the Kira situation.” Raine pointed out as she raised a questioning eye ridge at the man. “That seems like a safe bet.”

“I just wanted to reunite a lost daughter with her grieving father, you understand.” Garak put forward to answer her unasked question, not that she particularly believed what he was claiming.

“And get yourself back in the food graces of the Cardassian government if they're to be believed.” Raine added in with an amused smirk. “Though of course, I don’t.”

After all, if Garak had any faith in that actually working she was moderately confident that he would have just disappeared onto a transport to avoid the arrest warrant instead of getting himself locked up on the Defiant.

A look of amusement briefly flashed over Garak's face as he gave Raine an almost pitying shake of his head. “I assure you Commander, my desire to return home is quite real.”

“So is my desire to spend a week in bed with a beautiful woman.” Raine immediately shot back, since there was no way Garak didn't know what she was actually talking about. “That doesn't mean I think it's going to happen anytime soon.”

“Oh?” Garak put forward sounding moderately intrigued. “Trouble with miss T'Rel?”

“No, that's going fine.” Raine waved off this concern. “She's just the type that prefers to take things slow. Well, or the Tal’Shiar ordered her to take things slow for some reason. But that really amounts to the same thing in the end.”

“I had wondered if you were aware of the young woman’s likely loyalties.” Garak idly mused, the statement enough to make Raine roll her eyes in annoyance at the idea that it wouldn’t have been obvious to her.

“It’s so obvious I ended up with a memo from Starfleet Intelligence about it.” Raine groused, still not sure what that said about the level of common sense they must believe the general pool of Starfleet officers was in possession of.

“And we’re getting away from the actual subject.” She continued, shooting a glare at the Cardassian so he’d know that she had caught that it had been a purposeful attempt on his part. “So what was it really? A plan to point Legate Ghemor's wraith at Gul Dukat and maybe bank a future favor with Ghemor for whenever you might actually need it?”

That was her going theory at least, since she was pretty sure she remembered Garak utterly despising Dukat. Though she couldn't exactly recall just why that was, at least, outside the obvious of Dukat being a generally horrible person even by Cardassian standards.

“Yes.” Garak offered with a happy grin that Raine suspected might be the only honest expression he'd made all day. “I imagine the Legate will be rather angry when he finds out about that. Though I fear you've skipped over a rather important question in all this.”

For a brief moment his normally genial smile seemed to morph into something ugly. “Did the Obsidian Order truly not know Iliana was being held by the military?”

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An hour after leaving the brig Garak's question still troubled her, because the thought that the Obsidian Order might have known Iliana's location was prompting a large number of troublesome possibilities.

One of which was of course that Garak had just been fucking with her, since that was always an option when dealing with the stations resident burned spy.

The most likely of those possibilities, at least to Raine's mind, was that the Obsidian Order had purposefully set the whole situation up to try and gain deeper control of the military. After all, it had always seemed a bit odd to her that the Obsidian Order would deploy a barely trained agent on a deep cover mission to replace a low ranking terrorist.

Of course, that theoretical begged the question of why the Obsidian Order would have kidnapped Kira in the original timeline, though she supposed it was possible that Gul Dukat had just had Iliana so well hidden that they hadn’t known for sure just where he was keeping her. Or maybe Enabran Tain just hadn’t shared that bit of information with his replacement when he had officially retired, something Raine could easily see the man doing if even half of what she had heard about him was true.

Either way however, Raine was now faced with the unfortunate question of whether the Obsidian Order actually wanted Iliana to make it home alive. Especially since if they didn't, the most likely group to pin Iliana's death on would be either Bajor or the Federation.

“Commander Brooks?” Jaxa asked as the Asari walked past the open door to the Bajoran Ensign’s room. A necessary compromise to help with her anxiety, even though it normally wouldn't be allowed while the ship was circling the station at combat readiness.

Raine paused in her step and turned to the woman. “Everything all right Jaxa?”

“Is… Is everything okay with Nerys?” 

Raine held back a wince, as they had very specifically not been keeping Ensign Sito up to date with what was going on with that.

“That's kind of complicated.” Raine confessed with a grimace, not sure how to explain what was going on to the young woman in a way that wouldn't cause her anxiety to spike. “But we've been able to confirm that one of the pair is a Cardassian by the Iliana Ghemor, the daughter of a rather important Cardassian Legate.”

“Then that's his ship out there.” Jaxa muttered in seeming relief. “I was afraid they were here for…”

“As far as the Cardassians know the terrorist Sito Jaxa is already back on Bajor.” Raine reassured the young woman with a comforting smile. “And by the time they find out otherwise, you'll be on an Excelsior class vessel on your way to a proper Starbase in Federation space.”

The tension visibly bled out of Jaxa's form upon hearing the Asari's words. “Oh thank goodness.”

“Not that the Defiant's not a great ship.” She quickly added. “Or you don't have a nice station…”

“It's a small cramped ship and horribly designed station.” Raine agreed with a wry grin. “Trust us, we know.”

A look of sudden realization flashed across Jaxa's features before morphing into a nearly full blown panic. “Ma'am… I… I just realized… If Nerys is a Cardassian, she knows I was a Starfleet officer.”

Which was why Raine hadn't even entertained the idea that the Cardassians wouldn't find out who Sito Jaxa really was after confirming that it was actually Iliana that they were dealing with. Something that was apparently shared by the people at Starfleet Intelligence given the semi-cryptic message she had received from them this morning.

“You can relax ensign, Starfleet is aware your cover is unlikely to survive what's currently going on, and as such have already begun taking steps to safeguard things.” She told Jaxa before grimacing slightly. “The official story is going to be that you were an undercover operative who was infiltrating a terrorist group in the demilitarized zone, only to be caught while out on a mission for them.”

Jaxa took a moment to process that before a look of confusion settled onto her face. “But won't that just make the Cardassians think Starfleet was secretly supporting the terrorist group?”

“I rather suspect that's the point.” Raine confirmed with a nod, and because they already believed Starfleet was doing that, she would bet good latinum Starfleet Intelligence's hope was that Cardassians wouldmt just take the win and not look any deeper into things.

“I… See…” Jaxa returned in a tone that said she clearly didn't.

“Don't worry about it.” Raine said, really hoping as she did that Jaxa would actually listen. 

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Author's Notes: Sorry about the wait, and the way the first part of this chapter seems a bit stunted. On top of Dragon Age, and the new story bug, I hit a dead end with the first part of this. I knew what the characters would talk about, I had how it would end worked out, but every time I tried to put it into words it was blank page. So in the end I ended up sidestepping that part as best I could. And while I can't promise a return to three chapters a week I am going to at least try to get one to two out on top of my Stargate one and Darkened Stars.