Cerulean Stars - Chapter 85

Cerulean Stars - Chapter 85

Stardate 48316.6 - April 26,  2371 - 13:24:00

Like most Starfleet officers Raine knew of, she had a favorite when it came to Starfleet's many varied ship designs. In her specific case, that design was the Sovereign, a ship class she had always felt was the epitome of Starfleet's engineering hull, neck, and saucer design philosophy.

That wasn't to say she didn't like others, the Galaxy class for instance would always hold a special place in her heart due to being her first ship named Enterprise. And then of course there was the Intrepid class, or as she liked to think of it, the scrappy little science ship that could.

Of course, under normal circumstances Raine wouldn't have wanted to get anywhere near the Intrepid class ship currently docked at upper pylon one, but there wasn't much she could do given Sisko had bowed out of the command officer meet and greet for his long overdue appointment with Na'Tal.

An appointment that it should have been far too late for, except for the fact her old instructor had decided, shortly after meeting with Kira, to postpone her departure so as to arrange a tour through various Bajoran temples.

She'd almost suspect the Prophets were messing with her as some sort of petty revenge, if she didn't suspect instead that Na'Tal had just found out that Bajor had some undocumented psychic based traditions and now wanted to try and poke them with a stick to see what might pop out.

Unfortunately though that once again left Raine standing in front of the airlock waiting for a VIP to disembark, only unlike previous times this one she just so happened to have gone to school with.

The large coglike door began to open, and Raine pulled down her uniform, feeling oddly self conscious given this was both someone she knew who had jumped far ahead of her career wise, and one of thee big captains of the era.

“Captain Janeway.” Raine greeted the woman with a smile as she stepped through the airlock. “Welcome to Deep Space Nine.”

“Commander Brooks.” Janeway returned as she looked around with a frown. “You'll have to forgive me, but I was expecting Commander Sisko to be here.”

“He had an important medical check he needed to get done.” Raine explained apologetically, though at this point she was starting to suspect that even if Sisko hadn't he would have figured some other excuse to delegate the meeting.

“A medical check?” Janeway repeated as her brow furrowed in concern. “Did something happen?”

“Nothing recent.” Raine answered with a wry grin as she saw a chance to get him back a little for dumping this on her. “He just put off the issue for so long that it's the last day that the Specialist who can perform it will be on the station.”

“Ah.” Janeway exclaimed, shaking her head lightly in a bemused understanding that suggested she was well acquainted with such things. “The command officers curse.”

“I suppose that's one way to put it.” Raine agreed with a nod as she offered the secure padd she had brought to Janeway “That's the list of supplies we can provide. I'm sorry to say we're more than a bit limited on the unreplicatable parts end of things as most of what we do have is earmarked for the ongoing station refit.”

Which was also why they were limiting station supply lists to secure in person padd's only. Because Starfleet wanted the extent of the refit to be at least somewhat of a surprise to whomever decided to be the first to try their luck.

“Thankfully everything seems to have held up to spec.” Janeway returned as she took a moment to look over the information on the padd before handing it back to Raine. “So all we really need is a top off of our antimatter and deuterium reserves since we might be out there for a while.”

Raine had to bite back her immediate urge to make a vaguely prophetic comment at the opening, and instead just nodded and marked it down.

“I'd also like access to the station's PTO sensor logs of the Cardassian and Defera sectors for the past two weeks.” Janeway added in, causing Raine to raise a single eye ridge at the woman.

“I'll see if I can get Commander Sisko to sign off.” She told Janeway in an apologetic tone since physical transfer only data was one of those things that needed command officer authorization to transfer anywhere. “Not sure how much help they'll be in your search though with how careful we have to be when pointing our sensors anywhere near Cardassian space.”

“Every little bit helps at this point.” Janeway returned with a smile before glancing over her shoulder at the partially hidden gaggle of junior officers Raine could just make out standing on the other side of Voyager's airlock. “Though we should probably move this to a briefing room before my first officer contacts me to complain about someone blocking the airlock.”

“Yours or ours?” Raine inquired despite the little voice in the back of her head yelling about how she should be avoiding interacting with the crew as much as possible.

“Can your replicators do a passable coffee?” Janeway inquired as she shot Raine a look that suggested that lying about this topic would be harshly punished.

“Chief O’Brien literally spent a week refitting all the briefing room replicators solely for the purpose of producing a workable cup of coffee.” Raine answered, still more than a bit amused at the lengths some Starfleet engineers would go to when it came to their drink of choice.

“Yours it is.” Janeway confirmed with a nod as she waited a moment for Raine to begin walking before following in step. “So tell me, do you think your Chief O’Brien would be interested in a transfer?”

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“Coffee, Black.” Janeway told the briefing room replicators, waiting patiently for the glass of steaming liquid to materialize before picking it up and taking a careful sip.

A pleased sound escaped her lips as she walked over and took a seat across from Raine. “Okay, you win on coffee.”

“Before we get started on the other issues though I have to know, what's going on with the gold plated K't'inga?”

Raine snorted, unable to help herself given just how often they had gotten that question the last few days of Quark's Treasure orbiting the stations.

“Our local Ferengi business mogul became involved with an issue on the Klingon homeworld and won it as his official flagship.” She summarized the story Natima had told them. “He decided to have it plated in gold on the way back because it appealed to him and is currently trying to decide between refitting it as a cargo or casino ship.”

“I guess there's no accounting for taste.” Janeway offered in clear bemusement as she took another sip of her drink.

“Tell me Commander.” She continued. “How much do you know about Voyager's mission to the Badlands?”

“Only what was mentioned in your information request.” Raine confessed, the Free Colonies really not much of a priority for the station right now with the way the organization seemed to want to avoid pulling anything overt in the Bajoran system.

“Starfleet Intelligence has reason to believe the Colonies are constructing a forward base of operations inside a rogue moon somewhere behind the Cardassian border of the badlands.” Janeway explained in a severe tone to underscore just how problematic Starfleet considered such an action. “To that end an undercover intelligence operative was tasked to learn the moon's location and then provide it to us for safe demolition.”

Huh, Raine thought to herself, so that's what the two tricobalt warheads Voyager had been carrying in the pilot were for. She'd always wondered about that given they'd never really provided a concrete answer in the show.

“Unfortunately, a little over a week ago the ship that the intelligence agent was on disappeared.” Janeway finished with a worried sigh.

“I don't think we'll be able to help much with either of those things.” Raine told her after a moment, not even having to minimally distort the truth on that. “The Free Colonies are doing their best to build a positive relationship with the Bajorans, so this system has been functionally off limits to them outside of civilian trade vessels.”

Which she really hoped wasn't her fault since it might mean they had missed gathering important information about just where Voyager needed to go to get grabbed by the Caretaker's search.

“And I'm going to guess the Bajoran government wouldn't be much help?” Janeway inquired, sounding more than a little annoyed at the thought.

Raine let out a sigh, almost wishing she had better news for Janeway on that front. “While the Bajoran government doesn't publicly support the Free Colonies in their fight against the Cardassians, privately, sympathies run extraordinarily high amongst most of their people.” 

“Things can never be easy.” Janeway groused as she leaned back in her chair and took another sip of her coffee.

“If any of us wanted things easy, we wouldn't have joined Starfleet.” Raine drolley pointed out, knowing the truth of that statement better than most due to the perspective granted by her odd circumstances.

“That said.” She continued with an impish grin. “Congratulations on being the first of our graduating class to make Captain.”

“Thanks.” Janeway returned with a tip of her mug. “It was certainly a journey.”

She motioned to their surroundings as she gave Raine an amused grin. “Though I feel like I had it easy compared to everyone here.”

“Honestly?” Raine began as she gave a shrug. “It hasn't been that bad. The biggest downside has probably been the lack of other Starfleet families with kids my daughter’s age.”

“Your daughter?” Janeway asked in surprise.

“An abject but loveable lesson on why you should always check biocompatibility before trying new and exciting drinks on Risa.” Raine quipped, not exactly surprised Janeway hadn't heard, given the Asari had done her level best to keep that particular bit of information from being widely distributed and officer’s kids were one of the few things the Starfleet rumor mill tended to respect the privacy of.

“So how old is she?” Janeway inquired with an interest that left Raine wondering if the woman had been considering the issue herself.

“Almost fourteen.” Raine informed her as a fond smile found its way across her lips. “And already reaching the point where half of what I do makes her embarrassed to be associated with me.”

Though Raine supposed that was moderately fair in at least a few cases given how less then put together she could be at times.

Janeway gave a fond smile. “I remember my sister being the same way at that age.”

She held up a single finger and shook it for emphasis. “Though never let it be said that a Janeway doesn't know how to read a room and utilize what they find for maximum effect. Because my father would take one look at what she was trying to avoid and double down.”

“My mother does the same thing.” Raine commiserated, the amount of similar encounters she had when growing up too numerous to count. ”I kind of suspect at this point that it might be a learned skill all Starfleet Admirals eventually come to possess.”

“I'll tell you in a few years when I make Admiral.” Janeway joked, and Raine had to hold back a wince given the career derailment she knew was coming.

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Author’s Notes: Watch out Raine! It’s a Trap! She’s one of those people captains who only wants you for your coffee!