Cerulean Stars - Chapter 68

Cerulean Stars - Chapter 68

Stardate 48220.2 - March 22, 2371 - 09:00:00

As sketchy as her memories were of various small details after all this time, she honestly didn’t know if the disagreement between the male and female Changelings on whether Odo was ready or not had been a thing that had actually happened when events were just pictures on a television screen.

But it was an interesting enough occurrence that Raine was left wondering just how many differing factions of thought there might be in the Great Link. And more importantly, whether the entire war with the Alpha Quadrant could have just been a small number of those factions at work.

Which was why as the Female Changeling, Kira, and Odo were focused on each other. Raine took a few steps over to the Male Changeling that had spoken up earlier.

“Hello.” She greeted him with a light smile.

His eyes flicked over to Raine at the greeting, and she suspected he was weighing whether it would be worth even talking to her or not.

“What do you want?” He finally asked.

“I was wondering if your people would be interested in a general cultural exchange.” Raine offered, really doubting they would be but figuring it couldn’t hurt to ask.

“It’s just so rare that we run into species like yours.” She continued, baiting the hook a bit with the one thing she thought might interest them when it looked like he was going to tune her out. “So I was really hoping you might be interested in telling us about yourselves.”

Was she playing up the Starfleet stereotype of witless explorers at the moment, a little bit, sure. But her first love really was interspecie relations, so her interest wasn’t really feigned.

“You’ve met others like us?” He asked her with what felt like the thinnest tone of interest in his voice. 

Raine knew it was entirely possible that the Founders already knew everything she was going to say and this one was just playing along for reasons known only to him. But it was also entirely possible that the Founders information gathering was rather patchy in its scope, because even the publicly available Federation database was so vast and byzantine that you could easily miss entire species without the right keyword.

“Not exactly like you, at least outside of Odo.” Raine admitted with an acknowledging tilt of her head. “But as for species capable of altering their form’s there are the Dauphin’s of Daled IV, the  Vendorians of Vendor, and the Antosians of Antos IV. The last of which have been members of the Federation for over a hundred years at this point.”

“As to your Great Link.” She continued, leaving out the more predatory shapeshifters the Federation had encountered over the centuries. “The only species we really have experience with which does something like that naturally is the Medusans.“

“Probably some of the nicest non-corporeal life forms you’ll ever meet.” She admitted with a fond smile. “Shared an advanced psionics class with one in the academy. Think they’re currently on a long term exploration mission in the Beta Quadrant.”

She wasn't lying either, Eon had been one of the most unique minds Raine had ever had the pleasure to encounter. 

“And those who do it through non-natural means?” He inquired, apparently deciding she was worth humoring as at least a minor information source. Which was truthfully a win since Raine hadn't even been sure she would be able to get them to engage with her.

“The Borg Collective.” She admitted with a not entirely feigned shudder. “They're well… Not a group anyone looks forward to encountering.”

That wasn't entirely true of course, but even by Starfleet's mad scientist standards the information she had looked up after her Mirror Universe encounter had painted the Hansen's as particularly lacking in common sense.

“We should return to the Great Link.” The female changing suddenly announced, the other five Changelings exchanging looks with each other before giving a nod of agreement.

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They had been left at an area Raine was pretty sure was some kind of Changeling shapeshifting park that was a couple minutes walk from their shuttle. Something the Asari was more then a bit relieved about given they once again seemed to have forgotten that solids needed bathrooms.

“So how was it finally meeting your people?” She asked Odo as Kira looked around the area taking in the artfully designed environment in amazement.

“It was…” Odo began, clearly searching for a word that he felt would properly encompass just what he was feeling. “Amazing.”

Raine let out a sigh, a man of words Odo was not.

“Mind melding will do that.” She agreed with an amused quirk of her lips as she walked over to a strategically placed rock and sat down on it. “However, now comes the down side, we have to have 'the talk’.”

Kira stumbled slightly at that, and Raine was forced to bite back the sudden urge to break out giggling at the thought of the many possibilities the universal translator might have translated that particular colloquialism to in Bajoran.

“Brooks.” Kira semi-scolded. “This isn't really the time for–”

“It is Major.” Raine cut the Bajoran woman off with a tone of complete seriousness. “This is one of those obscure Starfleet things that we all learn about in the Academy, but almost never talk about.”

“I personally call it the Trip Tucker lesson.” She continued with a smirk. “After the first Starfleet officer to suffer the consequences of keeping before he looked.”

“Never heard of him.” Odo confessed, shooting her a glare that suggested he really wasn't on board with the direction this conversation was heading.

“He was the chief engineer of Earth's first warp 5 starship the NX Enterprise roughly 220 years ago.” Raine explained, knowing Odo actually did like those kinds of details. “Which is relevant because the event in question involved a first contact encounter between the crew of that ship and the Xyrillians.”

“You see, Trip Tucker was over on the Xyrillian ship helping them with some engine repairs. While he was over there the Xyrillian engineer introduced him to a telepathic game, they play it for a bit, have a generally good time, and eventually fix the Xyrillian's engines at which point they go about their way.”

Looking at Kira and Odo she could all but see the questioning look hanging over the pair's head, so after taking a moment for dramatic pause she continued.

“A few days later Trip Tucker discovered he was pregnant.”

The look of horror on both Odo and Kira's faces was more than a little gratifying.

“Long story short, the Enterprise discovered Xyrillian females could transfer genetic material through any prolonged physical contact, and then we later discovered that game was their equivalent of the type of prolonged physical contact romantic couples do.”

Well, it was more like one of a couple of different Xyrillian equivalents of getting to second base, but given how out of use that saying was she didn't really trust it to translate.

“And what happened to Tucker?” Kira inquired in a morbidly curious tone.

“Oh.” Raine offered with a light shrug. “The Enterprise found the Xyrillian ship and they transferred the children out of him. Rather anticlimactic outside of a run-in with some Klingons, but it formed the basis of several official and unofficial Starfleet policies involving inter-species contact.”

“Also through an odd twist laid the building blocks for modern holodeck technology and Xyrillian multi-species birth control.” She finished with a wry grin.

“I rather doubt she would have suggested it if there was any risk from linking, Brooks.” Odo told her, sounding more than a bit defensive about the idea. 

“Probably not.” Raine agreed, keeping quiet about the very real risk of viral transfer given that was the last thing she wanted the Founders considering. “But it does mean you're now going to have to go through and randomize everyone one of your security codes.”

“Why would I…” Odo began in confusion only to trail off, a frown slowly growing on his face as he realized what she was inferring.

“You just went through an experience that involved two way telepathic contact.” Raine pointed out with a judging stare. “And I know for a fact that you don’t have even the moderate level of telepathic training I do.”

“It wasn’t like that.” Odo defended, his tone suggesting he didn’t think Raine properly understood what he experienced.

“How do you know?” She asked, staring at him with a single raised eyeridge. “While it’s true I can’t speak to exactly what you experienced when linking with the other member of your race just now, the rule of thumb with unstudied psychic encounters is that you can never be sure of anything that you think happened.”

“That feels a bit paranoid.” Kira interjected, shooting the Asari a frown.

“The entire first week of advanced psionics my class thought there were four instructors.” Raine confessed with a grimace at the memory. “There were only ever actually three.”

An interesting lesson on what sort of inconsistencies a person should look for Raine would admit, though the instructors had been less than amused at her follow up solution of randomly throwing a tennis ball at them to check that they were real.

“Anyways.” She continued, ignoring the skeptical looks the two were giving her. “It would probably be a good idea to get checked out when you get back to the station. And if you need a referral, I know some Vulcans that specialize in that sort of thing.”

“I’ll consider it.” Odo responded after a moment in a tone that told the Asari he was clearly unamused at the last suggestion.

Raine let out a sigh as she pulled her padd out of her pocket and began entering notes about her observations so far, knowing from experience that was pretty much Odo’s way of saying he didn’t want to talk about it further.

Even the brief interaction they’d had was enough to tell Raine there was a lot to unpack with the Founders. And if she didn’t already know they were literally the founders of the Dominion, she’d probably want to spend a couple weeks living out of the shuttle while attempting various diplomatic techniques to see if she could get any of them open up.

“How long do they plan on making us wait here?” Odo muttered, all but pacing in obvious annoyance as she was half way through her fifth page of notes.

“It’s barely been an hour, Odo.” Kira said, giving the normally patient chief of security an odd look. 

“They’re probably working out which of them should take the lead.” Raine offered as she deleted a half completed paragraph and started over. “The Federation had the same problem during first contact with the Medusans. Though given the circumstances I wouldn’t be surprised if they settled on the female presenting one that linked with you earlier.”

“It’s just, it feels like they’re treating me like an outsider.” Odo confessed with a sigh, 

“I’m pretty sure it’s me and Brooks who are the outsider’s here.” Kira told him, having apparently caught the general aura of disdain the female changeling had emanated when looking over them.

“How perceptive, Major.” The female changeling offered, walking out of the tree’s from where Raine suspected she had been watching them for some time. “If our history has taught us anything, it's to avoid contact with Solids whenever possible.”

“Solids?” Kira asked her with a confused look on her face as Raine took the opportunity to add a note that they might be somewhat xenophobic.

“Our name for mono-forms like yourself, who'll never know the joys of the Great Link.” The female changeling answered her in an almost pitying tone.

“What about mono-forms that can link with you?” Raine inquired with interest as she tucked her padd away, having always wondered about the exact parameters of the Founder’s dislike. “Or multi-forms that can’t?”

“We have never encountered such.” The female changeling admitted in a tone that seemed to Raine to be almost amused at the very idea of what she had proposed.

Which wasn’t entirely hard to believe, telepathic species with universal compatibility were exceedingly rare, to the point where the only one’s the Federation knew of were Asari, Medusans, and Vulcans. Meanwhile shapeshifters tended to be, well, the Founder's fear of a lot of species reaction to them wasn't without a basis in historical fact.

“Would you like to?” Raine floated, unable to help herself now that the opening had been given, the thought flashing across her mind as she did that this might be one of the Federation's few openings to avoid an actual war.

“We value our isolation here.” The female changeling rejected with a shake of her head. “No more of your people will be welcome here for some time.”

She shouldn't Raine thought to herself… She really shouldn't… But the opening was there… And if by doing so she could convince even a tiny part of the Great Link to rethink its choices… That could completely change the future of multiple quadrants…

“What about me?” She offered, the words leaving her lips despite the little often ignored voice in the back of her head yelling about how this was a horrible idea.

For a single moment a feeling of bemused confusion seemed to flash over the female changeling’s features before being replaced with a placid look that just screamed to Raine that the Changeling believed the Asari had just solved some unknown yet existent problem for her.

“You are certainly welcome to try.” 

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Author's notes: Raine you dumbass! What did I just say!