Cerulean Stars - Chapter 90

Cerulean Stars - Chapter 90

Stardate 48329.7 - May 1, 2371 - 08:10:00

Kira had never liked Garak, and it wasn't just that he was a Cardassian that rankled her either. There was just something undefinable about the man that made her feel like if the order ever came down, he'd happily kill them all with a smile on his face.

So there was a distinct tension in her shoulders as she, Bashir, and her erstwhile duplicate met up with the man in his shop. 

“Well now.” Garak muttered as he walked a circle around an increasingly uncomfortable looking Nerys. “This is certainly interesting.”

He stopped walking and looked towards Doctor Bashir. “And you think one of them is Cardassian work?”

“That's the current theory given she escaped from a Cardassian military prison.” Bashir confirmed with a nod.

Garak turned back to Nerys. “And you my dear. When was it you were taken?”

“Around ten years ago.” Nerys admitted as she leaned slightly away from the Cardassian.”From the Gallitup labor camp.”

“I doubt the where matters much.” Garak mused half to himself as he took a few steps back before turning to Bashir with a look of interest on his face. “I take it you've done all the standard tests on the pair?”

“Completely identical in all the ways that would let us tell them apart.” Bashir confessed with a grimace.

“It wouldn't be much use as an infiltration tool if they werent.” Garak pointed out with an amused smirk as he turned to her. “And I assume you've already failed at comparing timelines?”

“I was hiding in caves that entire winter with a handful of others who are no longer around.” Kira admitted, fully aware that was exactly the kind of story she'd expect a deep cover operative to utilize given the circumstances.

“In which case.” Garak continued as he returned his gaze to Nerys. “Did the officers who took you from Gallitup ever mention why?”

Nerys scrunched her brow in consideration in a manner much more familiar than Kira would have preferred given the circumstances. 

“No.” She finally said. “They just brought me to Gul Dukat, and he…”

Nerys trailed off as a haunted look seemed to fill her eyes, and Kira began to move to put a comforting hand on the other woman's shoulder only to stop as Garak held up a forestalling hand.

“He cupped my cheek and said I looked just like my mother.” Nerys finally got out with an almost full body shudder.

The thought alone of Dukat touching her in that manner was enough to make Kira want a hot shower to try and scrub the disgusted feeling off her body. However something else in what Nerys had just said drew her attention due to the sheer incongruity it held with her own memories.

“Dukat never met my mother.” Kira corrected, trying hard not to think about the mirror universe where Kira Meru apparently had. “She died in the Singha refugee camp when I was three.”

“She was killed when I was ten.” Nerys rejected with a glare at Kira that suggested her twin was very much not amused by hearing Kira's version. “By Crell Moset, who infected her with the Fostessa Virus as part of his experiments.”

An almost irrational anger came over Kira at that, which she quickly beat down to focus on the more important fact that for some reason Nerys believed Kira Meru had lived seven years longer than she actually had.

Bashir tilted his head slightly in confusion as he focused on Nerys. “Crell Moset? The foremost expert on non-humanoid exobiology in the quadrant?”

“Indeed.” Garak put forward as he gave the man a genial smile. “And to the Bajorans, a rather prolific war criminal who conducted horrifically immoral experiments on their people.”

“And to the Cardassians?” Bashir inquired as he shot a skeptical look at the man.

Garek gave the doctor a small smile before moving over to one of his in-progress dresses where he picked up a device and started running it over the hem. “While I can't speak for the Central Command, he is certainly not someone I'd be willing to trust in anything but a figurehead position far away from any actual research.”

And if that wasn't a damning condemnation Kira didn't know what was, not that she needed it in this particular case given the wide breadth of accounts she'd heard over the years from Bajoran's who'd survived Moset's depredations.

“As to figuring out which is the original, do you recall what I told you back during that unfortunate Rugal affair, Doctor?”

Bashir nodded. “Your people are nothing if not meticulous record keepers.”

“Exactly.” Garak agreed with a pleased smile. “So perhaps a good place to start your investigation would be the hospital where our newly arrived Kira Nerys believes her mother died.”

“How will that help confirm which of us is the original?” Kira asked him, unsure just what it was that he might have been suggesting.

“Creating a lifetime of fake memories for an already existent personality to latch onto is a lengthy and difficult task.” Bashir put forward, apparently having followed Garak’s train of thought better than Kira was able to. “But if you were to take, say, an orphan whose mother died in one of Crell Moset’s experiments. Then you’d only really need to alter a few key memories to make the person think they were Kira Nerys while letting their own already existing memories fill in the blanks.”

“I imagine it would also be a good deal easier to make a Bajoran appear to be a specific other Bajoran, then it would to make a Cardassian appear to be a specific Bajoran.” Garak added in with an expectant look to the Doctor.

“Oh, much.” Bashir agreed, and Kira had to wonder just how much experience Starfleet had with that sort of thing given the casual way he said the words. 

“Wouldn’t the same general reasoning hold true for your Major though?” Nerys inquired in an almost hopeful tone that left Kira twitching slightly with the urge to start up their argument about who was the original anew.

“I imagine it would.” Bashir interjected, likely in an attempt to head off yet another of their arguments. “But we run into the problem that there isn’t exactly any way to corroborate her end of things.”

Kira looked away slightly, knowing that wasn’t exactly true, but not wanting to dig up that particular family acquaintance if she could help it given her vague memories of her fathers complaints about her.

“Major.” Bashir prodded in a tone that told her the man had caught her movement.

“I may know someone who can confirm that part of my history.” Kira confessed with a sigh. “Her name is Tir Remara, last–”

The clatter of Garak dropping the tool he had been working with interrupted her before she could finish.

“Apologies, Major.” He offered as he bent down to pick up the device. “You were saying?”

“I heard she was working as a counselor at the Mihan settlement house in Ashalla.” Kira finished.

“It sounds like the five of us will be taking a trip to Bajor then.” Bashir put forward in a tone far too happy for Kira’s comfort as he shot a glance to the pair of security officers standing just outside the door to Garak’s shop.

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“Hard night?” Raine asked as she walked into the Defiant's mess hall to see Ensign Shaltra sitting next to the baggy eyed Sito Jaxa as the Bajoran woman lacklusterly picked at her breakfast.

Jaxa looked up from her meal to give Raine an embarrassed look. “I woke up a couple hours after I fell asleep and had a panic attack thinking I was back in my cell.”

Raine carefully schooled her features behind an understanding smile to hide the fact she wanted to smack herself for not taking into account the possibility that the tight quarters of the Defiant might reinforce a feeling of confinement.

“I found her huddled next to a stack of crates in cargo bay two.” Zara admitted with a shrug before taking a sip of some sort of blue beverage. “Brought her in here and opened up the blast shutters so she could see outside then replicated her a cup of tea to help with the shakes.”

One of the textbook answers for a closed in type panic attack, not exactly common given Starfleet tended to self select for people who were fine with spending prolonged periods flying around space in a tin can. But there was always the risk of someone getting trapped in a cave-in, stuck in a crashed shuttle, or any number of other things that might trigger similar reactions.

“End up falling asleep at the table?” Raine asked as she took one of the open seats.

“For maybe an hour.” Jaxa admitted, looking anywhere but at Raine in a way the Asari recognized from her own years dealing with people she didn't want to disappoint.

Raine shot her a wry grin. “Not exactly the most comfortable, but you'd be hard pressed to find a Starfleet officer who hasn't fallen asleep someplace odd at one time or another.”

“I know what you're doing, you know.” Jaxa said as she turned a self pitying look to Raine.

“I'd certainly hope so.” Raine agreed, the confused look that flashed across Jaxa's face showing she'd succeeded in temporarily directing the Bajoran woman's mind away from that depressive line of thought.

“Your first assignment out of the Academy was to the Enterprise.” Raine explained as she stared at the ensign with an impressed look on her face “Mine was to a California class.”

Jaxa's posting to the Enterprise was honestly impressive on multiple levels given the whole Nova Squad debacle. She would have had to have been not just the top of her class, but the top of her class when her instructors were riding her twice as hard as a normal cadet.

Jaxa grimaced. “I wasn't really anything impressive compared to Jean or Wesley.”

The fact that was Jaxa's go to comparison point was a bit worrying given Nova Squad's circumstances, but comparing yourself to your Academy classmates was still a tried and true Starfleet tradition, so Raine would file it away under 'things to keep an eye on’.

“It's funny.” Jazz continued as her tone suddenly became melancholy. “Even held prisoner by the Cardassian's Wesley was sort of there keeping me on track, or at least a hallucination of him was.”

Raine blinked owlishly at Jaxa for a moment almost unsurprised at this twist before turning to Zara with a serious look in her eyes. “You didn't hear that, and you certainly didn't hear what I'm about to tell Ensign Sito.”

“Ma'am?” Zara inquired in confusion.

“That might have actually been Wesley Crusher talking to you.” Raine told Jaxa as she glanced around the room in a sudden minor case of paranoia that the aforementioned person might be watching. “A few months after you went missing he kind of ascended to a higher dimensional level of existence. So if you think you saw and talked to him that might have actually been him dodging around whatever rules might exist at that level to try and help out a friend.”

“I…” Jaxa began, only to trail off and shake her head in bemusement. “I honestly don't know what to say about that.”

“We're Starfleet.” Raine returned with an amused shrug. “It happens.”

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Author's Notes: Was Garak purposefully leading them down the wrong track? Mistaken? Or third option? Who knows.

And yes, Wesley may or may not have pulled a Daniel Jackson to keep Sito Jaxa's hopes up.