Cerulean Stars - Chapter 78

Cerulean Stars - Chapter 78

Stardate 48277.6 - April 12, 2371 - 07:46:00

Waiting for Jadiza to respond to the com link, Quark couldn’t help but idly wonder how just how much more complicated this current situation could get.

“Quark?” The trill woman put forward with a hint of confusion in her voice as her image appeared on the screen. “What are you doing on Qo'nos?”

“That's kind of what I was hoping to talk to you about.” Quark put forward with his best ‘I'm in over my head and could use some help’ grin. “I kind of ended up married, and could really use some help figuring a way out if it.”

Jadzia checked something on her display before turning a deeply confused look back to him.

“Did you just say married?”

“Yes.” Quark confirmed with a nod.

“To Natima?” Jadzia inquired with an almost hopeful tone.

“No Grilka.” Quark corrected with a shake of his head, though he and Natima had had a few talks about the issue.

“Who's Grilka?” Jadzia asked with a lost look on her face.

“Kozak's widow.” Quark explained.

“Oh no.” Jadzia muttered as her eyes went wide with sudden understanding. “Start from the beginning, and tell me everything.”

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Stardate 48278.1 - April 12, 2371 - 12:09:21

Sitting in the security office going through the weekly sector reports, Raine couldn’t help but feel that she really needed to get around to assigning herself an actual office. Because her current tactic of using one of the primary office’s small secondary interfaces was very much reaching the point where feet were punishing her for it.

“Request from Captain Janeway for information on the movements of the Free Colonies raider Val Jean.” Raine muttered to herself as she flipped to the next item on her list.

She’d been wondering when Voyager was going to come around, and debating with herself whether there was anything she could do to maybe make things easier for them in the long run. More then once she’d even found herself wondering if she should warn Starfleet that they should send a Galaxy class on this particular mission instead of Voyager.

Mostly because after having gone through the Academy with Janeway, she could easily see why the young woman had so often been overwhelmed with what she ended up facing in the Delta Quadrant.

Sadly pretty much everything she could think of was either beyond her ability to actually do, or likely to cause events to deviate so badly from canon, that the things that absolutely needed to happen to keep the galaxy from being overrun, wouldn’t.

“Val Jean, Val Jean.” Raine repeated to break the silence of the security office as she ran a quick search through their local files. “Okay, looks like we have some reports from ships passing through the Badlands corridor with sightings of a vessel with a matching transponder.”

With a few taps on the screen she packed those files together before opening a subspace link and sending the information back to the docking berth at the Utopia Planitia fleet yards where the request had originated from. 

“So next would be–”

The mechanical swish of the door opening interrupted her verbal train of thought, and she turned to Odo walking in with a scowl on his face.

“Afternoon.” She greeted, knowing better than to directly ask what was bothering the Changeling this soon after his return.

“You were right.” Odo said as he angrily he sat down in his chair. 

Given the sheer breadth of things Raine had said over the years, that didn't exactly narrow it down for the Asari, so she waited for him to expand further before replying.

The silence stretched on, and Raine was just about to return to her work when Odo continued.

“Na'Tal is very convincing when she wants to be.”

“Did she do that thing where she agrees with everything you say and yet somehow has you end up convincing yourself that you were wrong?” Raine floated, having always particularly hated the way the Vulcan woman could pull that off.

“Among other things.” Odo admitted with a grimace.

“The thing I try to remind myself of is that she's experienced life from thousands of different perspectives.” Raine confessed, suspecting that may resonate just a bit with what Odo was going through.

“Even when I said I'd be willing to attempt a mind meld with her, she said it might be best if I took the rest of the day to truly consider if that was what I actually wanted.” Odo groused as he turned a glare to the monitors on his desk.

“She sensed the uncertainty in your heart.” Raine offered with a small smile, well aware that Odo was unlikely to understand the deeper meaning of that comment.

“I've been uncertain since I got back from the Gamma Quadrant.” Odo confessed after a moment with a tired sigh that highlighted to Raine just how troubled the Changeling was about the entire thing.

“Have you figured out why?” Raine inquired, wishing once more they had a proper counselor on hand.

“You've experienced the true face of my people.” Odo began with an almost lost tone in his voice. “You know what they're like.”

“And yet…” He trailed off almost longingly.

“You still want to be with them.” Raine finished for him in a melancholy tone that suggested she understood perfectly.

“Speaking from experience you have two real paths before you.” She continued, remembering the similar conversations she'd had with the counselor on the Carlsbad after finding out she was pregnant. “You can continue living your life as you were before you meet them, or you can work to try and change them.”

“I'll bluntly admit here that I picked the second.” She continued with a self deprecating grin. “And almost completely failed in doing anything more than slightly blunting Jellaa's pirating ways.”

“So you're saying I should just continue living my life.” Odo muttered, clearly unhappy with the idea.

“No.” Raine corrected with a small smile. “I'm saying that with certain things even a small success can be a win.”

“Me convincing Jellaa that it was more profitable to ransom people back to their loved one's instead of killing them outright might have been only a tiny upward move for Jellaa.” 

“But it made a huge difference to the people who were left alive.” Odo finished for her with sudden realization.

“Yup.” Raine confirmed with a nod. “And you have it easier than me, because you have a lot of different relatives to work with, some of whom are already generally okay people.”

“It's a nice thought I suppose.” Odo returned in a slightly less tired tone after a minute of silence.

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Stardate 48278.3 - April 12, 2371 - 13:54:00

“So I’ve got good news and bad news.” Quark offered tiredly to Grilka, having finally finished going through the scores of financial documents the Klingon woman had provided. “Which do you want to hear first?”

“I suppose the bad.” Grilka responded, leaning tiredly back into the couch he had found her resting on.

“D'Ghor’s been manipulating your family's holdings.” Quark informed her as he handed over the padd he had compiled things on over with a grimace. “He’s been devaluing your land, undercutting you in various markets, and it looks like he’s the principal creditor on not just some, but all of Kozak's outstanding gambling debts.”

It was an honestly impressive financial takeover attempt for a Klingon, in fact, Quark didn’t even know many Ferengi who could pull something like that off without tipping their hands before everything was in place.

“It's no accident your family's getting weaker and D'Ghor's family is getting stronger.” He continued shooting Grilka an apologetic look. “Because he’s been systematically attacking your family's assets for over five years now.”

“You mean to tell me D'Ghor has been scheming and plotting like a Romulan p'taq!?” Grilka snarled angrily at him.

“For a decade at least.” Quark calmly confirmed, well aware that her rage wasn’t actually directed at him.

“There is no honor in what he has done.” Grilka groused as she rose to her feet and began pacing. “If he wanted to challenge my House, he should've made a declaration, met our forces in battle.”

“Just to confirm, that’s still an option right?” Quark asked, hating himself for doing it but knowing that it was the only realistic option for getting out of this with his skin intact that Jadzia had presented him.

“We are Klingons.” Grilka stated haughtily as she stopped to give him an almost offended look. “Battle is always an option.”

“Great.” Quark said. “Then we’re going to need to make a declaration against House D’Ghor.”

The look Grilka turned on Quark was rather reminiscent of the one’s Quark knew he tended to give Rom any time his brother suggested something particularly stupid.

“As loath as I am to admit it, even though your findings would be grounds for such a declaration, in our house’s current state it is highly unlikely we could come out the victors.”

“That’s where the good news comes in.” Quark offered smugly, idly wondering how impressed Grilka would be by what he was about to say. “Do you know the House of Kor?”

“Of course.” Grilka confirmed in a confused tone that suggested she wasn’t able to connect the sudden question to what they had previously been talking about.

“Well.” Quark continued with a sharp toothed grin. “I was able to secure an alliance between the House of Quark and the House of Kor.”

It was more like he’d begged, pleaded, and called in every favor he had with Dax until she relented and called in a favor with Kor. Who’d been oddly excited at the thought and spent almost four hours on the com with him working out just how to put D’Ghor down and get Grilka’s house back under the Klingon woman’s control where it belonged.

“You…” Grilka began, trailing off and scrunching her brow in confusion as she tried and failed to process what he had just told her. “How?”

“I know people.” Quark said simply. “But there’s one catch.”

“Oh?” Grilka inquired, looking almost unsurprised by the fact that it wasn’t that simple.

“After D’Ghor is dead.” Quark began cringing slightly as he did since this was where the plan could break down. “Kor is going to challenge me for your hand in marriage.” 

“A fight he will easily win.” Grilka mused, seeming to connect the dots to at least some degree. “Leaving you alive to be all but immediately divorced by me.”

She began pacing again, this time muttering under her breath to herself as she did.

“Kor’s line has ended, and the High Council has been pestering him for decades to take a new wife. So it is simple to see why such an arrangement might appeal to him. But will he actually expect an heir, his lineage would certainly qualify him, in which case…”

Grilka trailed off, turning back to Quark as she did.

“And I assume this plan includes some method to retrieve your female companion from D’Ghor’s clutches?” 

“Oh that’s the simple part.” Quark offered with a grin. “I just convince him to force me to challenge his house in exchange for her safe return before the actual fight.”

Given he was pretty sure the man was planning to use Natima as some form of leverage against him at this point, directing D’Ghor towards the thing he was already planning on doing hopefully wouldn’t be too hard. Of course, the big sticking point in that was that he was pretty sure D’Ghor didn’t actually want this to come down to a head on fight. 

Though Quark rather hoped the man might not feel the same after they outed his economic actions to the High Council tomorrow.

After all, as the 194th rule of acquisition always said, never cheat a Klingon, unless you can get away with it. And his lobes were telling him if he handled this right he could not just get away with it, but get away with a tidy profit when D'Ghor's holdings inevitably switched hands.

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Author’s Notes: The funny thing is I didn’t intend for Raine and Janeway to be the same age when I began writing this, it just ended up working out like that when I checked memory beta for her date of birth.

And yes, Quark’s plan is in motion.