Cerulean Stars - Chapter 67

Cerulean Stars - Chapter 67

Stardate 48218.6 - March 21, 2371 - 19:00:00

The sound of the ship going to yellow alert pulled Benjamin Sisko from pondering whether or not to finish the lackluster philly-cheese steak sandwich sitting on a plate in front of him.

“Sisko to Bridge.” He began as he tapped his combadge. “Report?”

“Chief Odo just stole a shuttle with Major Kira and Commander Brooks on it, and there is a pair of Jem'Hadar ships on a general intercept course for them.” Lieutenant Blake announced over the com.

“Put the ship on an evasive course impulse only and go to red alert.” Sisko ordered as he sprang to his feet and ran out of his quarters. “But try to keep the shuttle on sensors.”

The alert changed before he had gotten even half dozen meters down the corridor, the door to Dax's quarters opening mere moments after that as the young trill woman hurried out.

“What's going on?” She asked him.

“Not entirely sure.” Sisko admitted with a grimace, knowing there had to be more to the story than the brief summary he had gotten. “But there's a good chance we're going to need you at the helm, old man.”

Thankfully with the Defiant's small size it only took them about a minute to make it to the bridge, and he could see the beta shift officers looking more than a bit lost as they worked to follow his orders.

“So what exactly happened?” He asked the red headed Lieutenant as Dax exchanged places with the Ensign at the helm.

“About ten minutes ago Commander Brooks called in with a request to lock down the shuttle-bay bay because something had affected Security Chief Odo.” Blake said as she got up and offered him the captain's chair. “We attempted to do so, but Odo beat us to it and locked us out of the shuttle-bays systems.”

Sisko wasn't going to blame them for the failure, almost three years of experience had taught him that Odd really was just that good when it came to local security matters. 

“At which point Brooks ordered us to try and transport, but we couldn't get a lock.” Blake continued with a shake of her head. “So Major Kira ordered us to try transporting them into the shuttle.”

“At which point Odo took off.” Sisko put forward with a sigh, able to follow the likely chain of events from there.

“Exactly.” Blake confirmed with a nod. “And we couldn't beam them back at that point without dropping the cloak.”

A fortunate limitation of cloaking devices most times since it meant the Romulans or Klingons couldn't just beam weapons or troops over to enemy ships, but in this case it meant the Defiant had lost nearly half of it's senior staff.

“Benjamin, I think you're going to want to see this.” Dax interrupted in a confused tone. “The Jem'Hadar ships were on a direct intercept course for the Leonidas, but then they veered off and are now heading to the location we were when it launched.”

“ETA?” Sisko inquired, not entirely sure whether the nebula would make it easier or harder for them to try and track them down if it came to it.

“At their current speed?” Dax offered as she checked the long-range sensor readout on her station. “I'd say twenty minutes.”

Sisko let out a breath he didn't know he had been holding at that, before a new worry hit him.

“Wasn't the area around the nebula clear?” He asked, knowing they had done a preliminary scan of it before settling in to try and narrow down just where they needed to go.

“It was.” Lieutenant Blake confirmed.

“Cloaking?” Sisko threw out, remembering the theories they had bandied around the past few days about the Dominions experience with the technology.

“I don't think so, Commander.” Dax disagreed as she looked over something on her station. “From the way they appeared, I would say it was a combination of their hull's sensor scattering properties and the nebula itself acting as some type of natural camouflage from our sensors.”

“Can you compensate?” Sisko inquired with a frown, the idea of the nebula being potentially full of waiting Jem'Hadar vessels not a reassuring one.

“Not with long range sensors.” Dax admitted after a moment. 

“And it looks like three more Jem'Hadar ships just entered sensor range.” She added in as Sisko felt one of his eyebrows rise.

“Feels like we kicked over a hornet’s nest.” He muttered, tapping a finger on the arm of his chair as he considered the Jem'Hadar response. 

“You think maybe we're a bit too close for comfort, sir?” Blake asked hopefully.

“A bit too close to something at least.” Sisko agreed with a nod as glanced down to check the position of their lost shuttle on his command interface. “What I'm more interested in is why they decided to ignore the Leonidas.”

“You think it might be connected to whatever happened to Odo?” Dax inquired.

“Either that.” Sisko put forward solemnly as he began drumming his fingers on the arm rest. “Or they’re using the shuttle as bait.”

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Stardate 48220.2 - March 22, 2371 - 08:57:00

The Founders planet was one of the rarest of the rares, a class M rogue planet. And even though Raine was operations instead of sciences, she was still all but itching to use the shuttle's sensors to try and figure out the how of it.

“Major, Commander.” Odo began with a look of almost pure shame on his normally placid face. “You have no idea how sorry I am about all this.”

“It's all right Odo.” Kira tried to reassure him. “Things like this… Happen.”

“They really do.” Raine agreed with a nod. “Remember that time the telepathic archive had us nearly killing each other? There's good reason Starfleet excuses things done while a person is mentally impaired due to an outside force.”

Such encounters had been known to run the entire gamut of possibilities, up to and including a number of things that wouldn’t have been safe to put on network television back in her original universe. And that wasn’t even getting into the times mental effects came with physical changes of one kind or another, because her case of ‘oh so you woke up in the opposite sex body of a completely different species’ wasn’t even close to unique.

“I was kind of hoping to forget that.” Kira admitted with a shudder. 

“Yes, well.” Raine put forward with a mild shrug, already having gotten over that minimally traumatic experience. “Odo’s followed the telepathic homing signal or whatever it was that drew him here, and now he’s at least generally better. So what do you two want to do? Take off and try to get back to the Defiant, or brave going outside to see what it is whoever summoned Odo here wants?”

“I…” Odo began with a somewhat trembling voice. “I want to see what’s out there.”

Kira crossed her arms, staring at Odo for a moment before giving a shake of her head.

“All right, we might as well.” She finally agreed with a sigh.

“In that…” Raine paused, trailing off mid sentence as a sudden realization occurred to her and she began all but bouncing in place in sudden excitement.

“Brooks?” Kira inquired in sudden concern.

“I just realized!” Raine exclaimed, oddly giddy at the thought that had just hit her. “I’m going to be the Starfleet lead for a first contact situation!”

Sure it was with the Founders, so likely destined to end with her being bodily kicked off the planet. But this was still the sort of thing that got her name a small blurb in the history books.

Kira and Odo took a moment to exchange looks before letting out a sigh in near unison.

“I’ll go first.” Odo offered, walking to the rear of the shuttle and tapping the control that would lower the hatch.

A light glow lit the small island they had landed on to an amount Raine would consider roughly comparable to that of a full moon lit night on Earth. Dark enough that the Asari picked up a wrist beacon from one of the wall mounted survival kits to go along with the padd and tricorder she was bringing along for note taking reasons.

Moments after Odo set foot on the world, a half dozen separate liquid forms began to rise up from the golden glowing sea that surrounded the island, quickly taking on general humanoid shapes before solidifying into physical bodies resembling Odo himself in both facial features and style of dress.

While Raine had known it was coming, she still felt a brief pang of disappointment at the choice having kind of hoped to see something more 'them’ then just mirroring Odo.

“Welcome home.” The center female stated as she took a single step forward before giving a slow and deliberate half nod to Odo. 

And Raine itched to begin taking notes, because the levelness with which she spoke was a sure sign the universal translator was actively struggling to decipher intotation with whatever language the changeling was actually speaking. 

“You're… Like me…” Odo muttered as he studied each of them with a detective's eye.

“And you're like us.” She returned almost patiently. 

“Yes.” Odo admitted in a bemused tone. “I suppose I am.”

“But I see you have brought others.” The female changing continued, looking over to Raine and Kira for the first time.

“Lieutenant Commander Raine Brooks, of the Federation” Raine introduced herself with a smile, suspecting the changeling wouldn't particularly care but seeing no reason not to put Starfleet's best foot forward.

“Kira Nerys, of Bajor.” Kira followed suit.

“Indeed.” The female changeling returned in an almost dismissive tone.

“Come.” She instructed as she and the others began walking down a path deeper into the island. “There is a more suitable location for our discussion a bit further in.”

Odo began following all but immediately, and Raine exchanged a look with Kira before reaching back and tapping the control on the shuttle's outer hull that would close and lock the hatch. After all, even if the shuttle's databanks only really contained the bare minimum, that didn't mean she was going to make it easy for them to slip in with a data-skimmer.

“So this really is where I'm from?” Odo asked the female changeling as they walked.

“This is your home.” She confirmed with a nod.

“I wish I could remember it.” Odo muttered almost pityingly, which Raine supposed was fair given she knew from this file his actual childhood memories involved being experimented on in a lab.

“It's understandable that you cannot.” The female changeling consoled him, stopping in her walk to meet his eyes with her own. “You were still newly formed when you left us.”

Raine was honestly tempted to ask about the mechanics of that, because she had always wondered how new changelings were formed. But that was unfortunately one of those subjects that was touché enough that most races wouldn't talk about it until you'd wined and dined them for a number of years.

“Newly formed?” Odo pressed in interest. “You mean I was any infant?”

“An infant.” The female changeling mused, seeming to test the word as she did. “Yes, I suppose that would be the closest way to put it.”

“I suspected as much.” Odo acknowledged with a nod. “But tell me, do I have any family still here?”

“Of course.” The female changeling answered with an amused smile. 

“Is there any chance I could meet them?” Odo inquired hopefully.

“You already have.” The female changeling confessed to him. “We are all part of the great link.”

“Is that what you call the ocean? How many of you are there in there? Is that all of us, or are there more?” Odo shot out in rapid succession.

“Odo.” Kira scolded, giving the security chief a disappointed look. “This isn't one of your investigations.”

“Let him ask Major.” Raine told the woman, shaking her head lightly in disapproval, after all, this was a giant info dump of species information they could take back to Starfleet. “If they didn’t want him to they'd say something. And it's not really our place to decide that far them.”

“It is understandable that you have many questions.” The female changing offered to Odo in seeming agreement of that. “And yes, the ocean is the great link. The meaning of our existence where we merge thought and form to share idea and sensation.”

And also very likely their dead end as a species, though for obvious reasons Raine didn't mention that thought out loud.

“I've lived a very solitary existence.” Odo confessed almost seeming ashamed of that as Kira shot Raine a glare.

“That was unfortunate, but necessary, as you'll learn in time.” The female changeling told him, the wording leaving Raine to wonder if that might be the only way for them to actually form new and or unique changelings.

 “But now, that part of your life is over, you're home.” With that they female changeling held out her hand to Odo expectantly.

“What are you doing?” One of the others, a taller male, spoke up for the first time.

“Take it.” The female changeling instructed Odo. 

“It's too early.” The male changeling objected. “He isn't ready.”

“He's been gone too long. He needs to remember, if only for a moment.” The female changeling told him with a shake of her head before turning back to Odo. “Take it.”

Hesitating for a moment Odo looked to them, and while Raine had a functional list of reasons why he shouldn't, she got the distinct feeling that if she voiced any of them any chance she had at even a minimal level of diplomacy with the Founders would go out the window. 

Of course, that didn't mean she wouldn't give him the Trip Tucker lecture, and make him change all his access codes. Though that would be for later, so she just gave him a reassuring nod, a move surprisingly matched by Kira.

With that Odd reached out and took her hand, their bodies intermingling for a brief moment before separating to leave a stunned Odo standing there staring off into space.

“Odo?” Kira called in concern as she looked quickly between the security chief and other changeling. “What did you do to him?”

“I allowed him to experience the link.” The female changeling confessed with a light smile.

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Authors Notes: Remember folks, don’t have mind sex with random aliens you just met. You never know where they’ve been!