Cerulean Stars - Chapter 94

Cerulean Stars - Chapter 94

Stardate 48332.1 - May 2, 2371 - 05:11:00

The.chirping of a priority communications request woke Raine from an odd dream involving Q chasing her around the beaches of Risa with a fishing pole. A sure sign if any that she was rapidly approaching the point where she needed an actual day off.

Reaching to the nightstand by the side of her bed, she grabbed the communicator there and pinched it on. “Brooks here.”

“Commander.” Odo's gruff voice called out in greeting, somehow sounding even more annoyed than usual. “An arrest warrant just came down for Garak, and the on duty officers on the Defiant are refusing to release him into my custody without your authorization.”

A moment of slice was the only response Raine gave as she stared proverbial daggers at the communicator, starting to get an idea of just how badly she had fallen into Garak's trap.

“I can't do that.” She finally confessed in an apologetic tone. “Starfleet has reason to believe he was responsible for the murder of a diplomatic attaché, as such I have been ordered by Admiral Toddman to keep him secured on the Defiant till the Potemkin can arrive to take him back to Federation space for trial.”

And she would give it better than even odds that Garak had a way out planned before it would get to that.

“Major Kira reported there was a witness claiming that he was responsible for the deaths of ninety seven Bajorans during the occupation.” Odo said, his tone enough to tell Raine that Changeling was planning to fight her on this. “So if I have to go to Commander Sisko about this I will.”

Raine ran a hand over her fins as she fought back the urge to say a number of particularly unkind things about Garak's parentage. “Commander Sisko will tell you the same thing I just did. Because this isn't a small matter for Starfleet.”

Which was likely putting it mildly as while Raine didn't know for sure that Natrel Lorem had been in the middle of a mission for Starfleet Intelligence at the time of her death, the speed at which the Asari's report had gotten a response from someone higher up the chain of command suggested it was highly likely that the attaché had been.

“A not so small matter that just so happened to come up hours before a warrant for his arrest was issued for a much more serious crime.” Odo angrily pointed out.

Raine wasn't exactly sure that was true given Lorem's death had set back the peace agreement between the Federation and Cardassian Union by nearly five years. During which time the Cardassians had attacked a number of Federation border worlds in their attempt to grab whatever they thought they could get away with. But pointing that out under the current circumstances felt like it would cause more trouble than it was worth so she let it pass. 

“Yes.” She agreed with a tired sigh. “The timing is coincidental enough that there’s no way it was actually a coincidence. But what do you want me to do about it? Because even if it turns out Garak wasn’t the actual killer, all signs point to him knowing information about the assassination that Starfleet Command is very much hoping he’ll divulge.”

“So Starfleet will just let him get away with it then.” Odo muttered bitterly, his shortsightedness enough to make Raine want to develop actual telekinesis so she could reach through the com channel and smack him.

“No.” She bit out in annoyance. “Starfleet will investigate what he tells us, put him on trial to determine his guilt, send him to rehabilitation, and then send him to Bajor to fulfill the no doubt soon to be issued extradition request.”

“I'd also point out that there's no way that Garak isn't aware of that.” She continued as she gave an evil eye to her communicator. “Meaning this whole plot of his likely only exists to buy time for something else.”

“Now if there's not anything else it's,” She squinted at the chronometer on her walk for a moment before groaning and flopping her head back onto her pillow. “less than an hour before I need to be up.”

The channel went dead without a further word, and Raine held the communicator over her face for a moment before letting the limb holding it flop to the bed. 

“I bet my mirror universe counterpart doesn’t have to put up with bullshit like this.” She muttered tiredly as she stared at the dimly lit ceiling of her quarters. 

Her combadge chirped once again, and she lifted the device back up to her face as she debated the merits of just throwing it across the room before with a sigh pressing it with her thumb. “Brooks here.”

“Sorry to wake you Brooks.” Sisko’s voice echoed out, sounding nearly as tired as she currently felt. “But I just got word from Starfleet Command that they want us to triple security while Legate Ghemor is on the station.”

“Legate Ghemor is coming to the station?” Raine asked just to be sure she had heard the man right, since she couldn’t recall having been notified about that.

“Forgot to check your messages last night?” Sisko inquired, sounding more than a little amused at the thought.

“I didn’t even have the energy to remove my makeup.” Raine told him in a deadpan, more than a little glad whatever future-tech formula they used nowadays was functionally inert to everything and didn’t leave that greasy feeling she’d heard some women complain about when they forgot and left their own on overnight. 

“Sorry to drop this on you on top of everything else then.” Sisko offered apologetically. “But Starfleet Command suspects one or more Obsidian Order agents will be in the Legate’s retinue, so they want all hands on deck during his visit.”

She couldn't even really argue with that, as while she knew Ghemor might be coming in hopes of finding his daughter, that didn't mean the Obsidian Order wouldn't use it as a chance to kill the woman they suspected was Iliana, Sito Jaxa, Garak, or even Legate Ghemor himself.

Raine groaned, thumping her head into the pillow a few times in dread at all the additional work this was going to require. “This is going to be one of those weeks isn't it?”

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Stardate 48332.6 - May 2, 23710 - 9:34:00

With everything else going on Raine had half expected Legate Ghemor to arrive on Gul Dukat's ship, but she supposed in the end even he wasn't egotistical enough to think he would be able to just talk his way out of abusing a Legate's daughter for nearly a decade.

Instead, Legate Ghemor had been brought to the station on a Galor class vessel under the command of a Gul by the name of Jasad. A thoroughly unimpressive officer who's claim to Starfleet notoriety was that he had showed up late to rescue Gul Dukat after the Prophets had decided to disable his vessel.

“How are you so awake right now?” Raine groused as she tugged down the hem of her dress uniform, a necessary requirement for meeting foreign dignitaries no matter how generally disliked it was by those officers who had to watch their waistlines. 

“Double strength Raktajino.” Sisko offered with an amused grin as he stared at the coglike airlock door. 

“Blech.” Raine exclaimed, shuddering slightly at the memory that brought up. “The one time I drank a thermos of that I woke up the next morning with a hangover sized headache.”

“I suppose there have to be some perks to being human.” Sisko returned with a grin.

“Mediocre cosmic power in exchange for limited coffee intake.” Raine mused jokingly as the airlock began to cycle. “A trade few if any Starfleet officers would be willing to make.”

The Cardassian who walked through the circular opening was clearly approaching the upper ends of middle age, and Raine could see the clear signs of prolonged stress lining his face in a way she recognized from seeing similar on Garak.

He was followed by a younger Cardassian man who was attractive enough to fall firmly in Raine's strike zone. However something about the set of his shoulders and the way he walked put her on edge in the same way she sometimes felt around Garak, so she'd bet her favorite Orion rapier that he was Obsidian Order.

“Commander Sisko.” Legate Ghemor greeted, walking up to stand in front of Sisko and, in a surprising display of cultural accommodation for a Cardassian, offered an open hand. “I know things are a bit tense with the way two of our ship’s recently intruded into Bajoran space. So thank you for agreeing to this meeting on such short notice.”

“I nearly didn't.” Sisko confessed as he reached forward and shook the other man's hand. “However as a father myself I couldn't bring myself to turn down your request after considering how I'd likely feel in your position.”

Raine took a moment to think about how she'd react if Saya joined Starfleet only to get immediately sent off on a secret undercover mission that resulted in her disappearance. And an all but immediate picture materialized in her head of her standing on top of the burning rubble of Starfleet headquarters using her biotics to beat various corrupt Admirals with each other.

“And I thank you for that.” Legate Ghemor returned as he released Sisko's hand to motion to the person who had entered with him. “This is my aide, Corbin Entek.”

Entek gave a small nod of acknowledgement.

Following suit Sisko motioned to Raine. “Starfleet's head of sector security, Lieutenant Commander Raine Brooks.”

That it was just the two of them there was a stark showing of just how overstretched the station's senior staff currently was. Because with Jadzia circling the station in the Defiant, O'Brien solo covering ops, Bashir watching the Kira's, and Odo hip deep in trying to prove or disprove Garak's guilt, it was literally just them left.

“Legate Ghemor.” Raine greeted the older man with a smile. “If there are any security concerns you have during your stay please be sure to forward them to me.”

Not that she really expected he would, but formalities needed to be upheld.

“You’ll have to forgive me for saying I say I don’t plan to be staying here long enough for that to be a concern.” Legate Ghemor told her curtly. “The truth is, for a number of reasons I’d much prefer to be doing this at my home on Cardassia, but I believe humans have a saying about needs must.”

“If you don’t mind me asking.” Raine continued, keeping the look of geniality on her face as she did. “How did you hear so quickly about your daughter? With the escape of the one of the pair from your holding facility on Amaleth, we were sure everyone involved would try to bury the issue.”

That wasn’t even an exaggeration on her part, since every intelligence analysis she had seen suggested the Cardassians would just pretend they had nothing to do with the duplicate outside of being her former captors.

“I normally would.” Legate Ghemor admitted as she shared a brief look of amusement with Entek. “But in this specific case I have been out right instructed to tell you that we were informed about it by a Mister Elim Garak.”

“It seems Mister Garak was under the impression that he would be able to leverage the return of Legate Ghemor’s daughter into a future favor supporting his own return.” Entek added in as his lips quirked ever so slightly in amusement at the thought. 

Raine held back a wince, the message loud and clear for those in the know that Enabran Tain was all but telling his son that he would have to try harder than that if he wanted to earn his way back into Cardassia’s good graces.

“I’ll make sure he gets the message.” She said with a nod, the pleased look on the pairs faces at that enough to tell her she had guessed right.

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Author’s Notes: The real question of course is now whether Legate Ghemor is just putting on a show with discounting Garak’s assistance or not.