Cerulean Stars - Chapter 84

Cerulean Stars - Chapter 84

Stardate 48297.6 - April 19, 2371 - 14:58:00

“His name was Joran Belar.” Doctor Bashir offered as he passed a padd with the relevant information on it over Raine’s newly installed work console.

“The one who put the memory block on Dax?” Raine asked, purposefully playing dumb as she began reading through the information.

Bashir frowned at her. “Commander, please. Jadzia’s life could be at stake, this isn’t the time to be covering things up to keep secrets.”

Raine held back a grimace, having forgotten just how perceptive Bashir could be when he stopped playing the foppish doctor.

“I didn't have a name till you brought it to me.” She honestly admitted having forgotten his name and not having been able to track down any connection that reminded her of it. “But yes, I've been able to put together a general idea of what's going on in between dodging attempts by the Symbiosis Commission to throw me off the trail.”

“Mostly because I'm having to dodge the commission's attempts to throw me off.” She admitted with an annoyed glance to the currently blank monitor on her workstation.

“They haven't stopped trying to pressure me to hand over Jadzia's medical files since I first contacted them in hopes of gaining access to the Dax symbiont's full history.” Bashir said as his frown morphed into an almost tired look. 

“The short of what I've been able to figure out is that there was another host between Torias and Curzon.” Raine began with a sigh as she brought up the information on the less than thorough job they had done covering up the synthesizer usage records during the implantation and removal procedures before motioning for Bashir to walk over and take a look. “And the Symbiosis Commission murdered him or her by forcefully extracting the Dax symbiont.”

Which wasn't something she could remember having considered when she had watched the episode all those years ago, even though it had been all but spelled out by the fact it had been a successful joining.

And that made things that much worse for Trill, because capital punishment was one of the few things that was supposed to be considered universally illegal under Federation law. Not that she fully begrudged them doing so in this particular case given Joran may very well have been untreatable without serious risk to the Dax symbiont.

But the law did in fact have exceptions for cases like that, so long as you didn't try to cover up the act of doing so.

“Joran was a sociopath?” Bashir inquired, looking over to her with concern all but written on his face as he got to the part of the notes where she used what Jadzia had explained to infer potential reasoning for why they might have done it.

“Jadzia gave me the lead.” Raine confirmed with a nod. “And I was able to track down three 'accidental’ deaths of Symbiosis Commission personnel during that six month time period.”

They had certainly tried to disguise it, she'd give them that at least. But death by garroting was newsworthy enough that pictures of the bodies had gotten out to the public data feeds. At which point they likely hadn't wanted to risk a full cover up, so instead just altered the where and what to make it look like a series of unfortunate accidents instead of murder.

“So all this was to cover up a murder?” Bashir asked in an unconvinced tone as he went back to looking over the files.

“They wouldn't have needed to cover things up if it was just that.” Raine agreed with his unvoiced criticism of the idea. “My current theory is that they were covering up that Joran could be successfully joined at all since, according to what I've been able to covertly drag out of the Commission, that level of psychological instability should have caused an almost immediate rejection.”

“Three, maybe four days on the outside.” Bashir confirmed in a distracted tone as he followed the redirect to the death files she'd been able to track down. “Apologies if I'm out of line by saying this Commander, but this is surprisingly well put together.”

“You can blame Constable Odo for that.” Raine confessed with a wry grin, not particularly annoyed given she was well aware her normal reports could get a bit rambling at times. “He's amazingly good at putting together investigative reports, and I ended up copying him for so long to avoid being lectured that it stuck.”

“You were right.” Bashir added after a moment. “These people were almost certainly killed by the same person and weapon.”

Raine raised an eye ridge at the still completely focused man.

“The fact you can tell that from a visual examination is more than a little impressive given I had to run the pictures through a half dozen forensic analysis programs to get the same result.”

“Yes, well.” Bashir began without an ounce of humility in his voice as he turned a somewhat flirty smile to her. “I was nearly valedictorian, you know.”

“And you would have been if you hadn't mistaken a preganglionic fiber for a postganglionic nerve.” Raine finished for him, having heard the line a number of times before in passing.

Bashir gave a disappointed sigh as he straightened up. “My findings should be able to fill in a few holes in yours, but I'm not sure it will be enough.”

“It won't be.” Raine confirmed with a grimace, having run into the same problem he was likely seeing. “Unless Jadzia is willing to dig into Joran's memories to give a first deposition, I can't see the Federation Council being willing to push the Trill government on the issue.”

“She's not.” Bashir confirmed what Raine had already expected given the lack of any further communication from Jadzia on the issue since their talk in her bedroom. “She's been working with Na'Tal to bury Joran as deeply as possible.” 

“In which case you're likely in a better position to do something about this then I am.” Raine confessed, fully aware of her own legal limitations when it came to publicly disclosing information about an investigation.

“I am?” Bashir asked, sounding more then a little surprised at the idea.

“As long as you get Jadzia's permission you can write and publish a medical paper detailing the cause of her condition and the treatment for it.” Raine pointed out as she stared at the genius with a raised eye ridge, really wondering why he could so often miss the obvious when it came to things like this.

“It probably won't put direct pressure on the Federation Council unless the news picks it up, but the Trill won't be able to cover up the issue any longer. Especially if you can get Na'Tal to corroborate your medical findings, which shouldn't be too hard if Jadzia gives permission since I'm pretty sure my old professor is offended on a professional level about what the Commission did with that memory block.”

“Could Na'Tal give a direct deposition to the Council?” Bashir floated as Raine could all but see the metaphorical gears beginning to turn in his brain.

Raine shook her head, wishing dearly that it was that easy. “Not unless Jadzia gives Na'Tal permission to give a full testimony on what she experienced during the treatment.”

“Telepathic ethics continue to both relieve and annoy me.” Bashir confessed with a sigh of exasperation as he looked back over to the monitor.

“Well, I suppose we can't all be members of the Betazoid intelligence services.” Raine joked as Bashir glanced over his shoulder to give her an odd look.

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Stardate 48305.6 - April 22, 2371 - 13:03:00

Sitting in Sisko’s office and watching the man stand clutching his baseball with his back turned to her, Raine couldn’t help but suspect that she wasn’t going to like the news he was about to deliver.

“Given the full details of your report.” Sisko began with a tired sigh as he finally turned around to address her. “I’m guessing it won’t surprise you to learn that Starfleet has decided to officially close down the investigation into the Joran Belar incident. As your timetable firmly confirms that the events in question predate both Jadzia and Curzon’s service to the Federation.”

It actually did, and it must have shown on her face as with a tired sigh Sisko decided to expand.

“The Trill claimed that makes it an internal Trill matter, and both the Federation Council and Starfleet Command agreed.”

He paused and gave her a wry grin.

“Well, most of the Federation Council agreed, I was informed that both the Vulcans and Betazoid representatives had some rather harsh words for the Trill about the issue.”

“I’m playing the galaxy’s smallest violin for them.” Raine offered in a deadpan tone, glad that particular saying had remained relatively intact over the centuries.

“I’m not too torn up about it either.” Sisko admitted as he sat down. “However they’re not wrong about it falling under the internal issue purview of the Trill government.”

She had thought since it had caused a persistent health issue the investigation would be able to bypass that particular pitfall, but there had always been an argument to be made otherwise, and it looked like the Trill had succeeded at it.

“I’d like to lodge an official protest, sir.” She made sure to put an extra disappointed emphasis on the sir to tell the man how unhappy she actually was with this.

“I’ll make sure to hand yours in right after my own.” Sisko agreed with a nod. “I just wish Dax would tell me why the Trill are fighting so hard about this.”

Confusion flashed across Raine’s face for a moment before she remembered that she hadn’t actually risked including her ‘theory’ in the preliminary investigation reports to avoid spooking the Trill too heavily before she had all her ducks in a row.

“Ten billion Trill to Ten million symbionts.” She explained, fully aware he’d figure it out on his own given enough time to dig into the issue. “And the Trill government has spent the past couple hundred years constructing a giant cultural house of cards where, for a significant portion of their population, the end all be all of being a Trill is the idea of gaining a symbiont.”

“That’s it?” Sisko questioned, sounding honestly surprised it was something that, to people who grew up on Earth, likely felt particularly banal.

“Every species has their thing.” Raine returned with a shrug, holding back from pointing out the obvious problem Earth had with basically shipping anyone with even a moderate amount of ambition off world. “Of course, that doesn’t mean we have to–

The sound of the station going to yellow alert interrupted her before she could finish, and both of them were up and heading to ops before the wall panels had gone through a full alert rotation.

“Report.” Sisko snapped as they exited his office.

“A Klingon K't'inga class vessel just decloaked five kilometers off of upper pylon three.” Kira answered as she brought up the visual on central display.

The Bajoran woman stared at the ship they now had a visual of in open mouthed confusion.

Sisko tilted his head, very clearly not sure what to make of it either.

“Are the sensors malfunctioning?” Raine asked, shooting O’Brien a look to confirm whether what they were seeing was actually accurate.

“Sensors are operating to normal standards, Commander.” O’Brien confirmed with a bemused shake of his head. “The ship is apparently just plated in gold.”

“We’re being hailed.” Kira added in, dragging her eyes away from the odd sight with an almost physical effort. “It’s… Quark.”

“Put him on screen.” Sisko ordered, sounding particularly tired all of the sudden.

The display changed to show Quark standing on the Klingon vessels bridge, a more standard design thankfully lacking any of the obvious alterations that had been performed on the ships hull.

“Sorry about the surprise Commander.” Quark offered with a toothy grin that suggested he really wasn’t. “We’re kind of under-crewed over here since it’s just me, Natima, and the handful of hands I was able to hire to help out when I stopped to have my new ship detailed.”

“Your new ship?” Sisko repeated in a tone that suggested he almost didn’t want to know.

“Quark’s Treasure.” Quark confirmed, the grin not leaving his face in a way Raine hadn't seen since they’d first gone over the profits of their licensing deal together. “You might say it’s my half of the divorce settlement.”

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Author’s Notes: Because Quark is absolutely the type to have his new starship plated in gold if he could afford it.