Cerulean Stars - Chapter 66

Cerulean Stars - Chapter 66

Stardate 48198.9 - March 14,  2371 - 14:21:50

Starfleet’s current charts of the Gamma Quadrant extended out to about a sector from the Bajoran wormhole, which amounted to a radius of roughly 20 lightyears. Not the most auspicious start Raine knew given Starfleet had had nearly three years to work at it, but it was what it was.

The Karemma homeworld, which was their current destination, sat roughly 10 lightyears from the Bajoran wormhole. A trip that could take the Defiant traveling at its maximum speed of warp 9.75 anywhere from 10 to 60 hours depending on the skill of its helm officer and various subspace conditions along the way.

They were still heading there because Eris, despite apparently having a sudden change of heart when Odo had informed her that he wished to locate the Founders, had only given them a two word location name to work with. Which Raine supposed made some sense given she had a vague recollection of there being a sort of genetic memory thing that had led Odo to the location of the Founders chosen homeworld in the show.

A blinking notification appeared on the tactical display in front of her.

“Long range sensors are picking up two Jem'Hadar ships directly ahead.” Raine announced, wondering if it was just chance, or if they had actually seen through the Romulan cloak. “It looks like they're heading our general direction at warp five.”

“How close will they pass?” Sisko inquired, glancing over his shoulder at her from this position in the captain's chair.

“Assuming they don't change course?” Raine put forward as she checked the course projections and frowned. “Almost exactly one hundred thousand kilometers.”

“That's well within range of their weapons, Commander.” Kira advised, the Bajoran woman in the odd position of having the most combat experience out of all of them against Jem'Hadar ships.

“Should I alter course?” Dax asked from her position at the helm.

“No.” Sisko disagreed, focusing intently on the main viewscreen. “We need to know if they can see through the cloaking device and this is as good a time as any. Maintain course and speed. Red Alert.”

“Aye sir.” Kira confirmed, triggering the alert from her station.

“They'll pass us in five seconds.” Raine called out, holding back her urge to start tapping a nail on the console surface in nervousness.

“On screen.” Sisko ordered, and Raine all but instantly transferred the computer interpreted image onto the main screen.

With the speeds the three ships were traveling at, they passed in and out the Defiant's visual sensor range in little more than a second.

“They're altering course back towards us with weapons powering up.” Raine announced less than a second after they did, having continued tracking the two ships as a standard beyond visual range. “It looks like a general pursuit course.”

“They must've seen us.” Dax commented in concern.

“They may not have.” Sub-commander T'Rul interjected from her monitoring station in a tone that suggested she really didn't want to admit what she was about to. “A cloaked ship radiates a slight subspace variance at warp speeds. If that's what they have detected, dropping out of warp should leave them nothing to find.”

“Do it.” Sisko commanded to Dax before glancing over to Raine. “And keep a weapons lock on them just in case.”

The Asari gave him a nod, doing just that as the Defiant dropped out of warp.

“All stop.” Dax told them, a choice Raine suspected was made to minimize any additional traces the Jem'Hadar ships might pick up.

The two insect-like vessels came to a stop on the main viewscreen, and a moment passed before they began emitting a fanning beam of some kind from their forward hull.

“It looks like they're sweeping the area with some kind of anti-proton scan.” O'Brien informed them.

“Will and anti-proton scan penetrate the cloak?” Sisko asked, as Raine hovered her finger over the command that would send a pair of quantum torpedoes slamming into the Jem'Hadar vessels.

“That's a good question.” O'Brien offered with a look towards T'Rul.

“I'm not sure.” The Romulan woman returned, an answer that likely meant 'potentially yes’ given Raine knew there was no way T'Rul would be authorized to tell them if it could.

“It looks like they missed us.” Raine reported in relief a moment later as the two ships began to move away. “Because they've just returned to warp on their previous heading.”

A question occurred to Raine at that point, and for a moment she weighed whether it would be worthwhile to voice before deciding it could be too dangerous not too given the circumstances.

“How did they know?” She put forward in a contemplative tone.

“Brooks?” Sisko asked, swiveling in his chair to give her a concerned look.

“The subspace variance.” Raine clarified with a frown as she tried to figure out the Jem’Hadar’s logic. “They followed it to where it stopped and immediately conducted an anti-proton scan. That suggests their first thought upon seeing the variance was ‘cloaked ship’. So how did they know?”

Commander Sisko’s eyes widened in sudden realization as he followed her logic.

“Sub-commander.” He began, turning to the Romulan woman whose forehead ridges were now scrunched together in thought. “Have your people lost any ships in the Gamma Quadrant?”

“Not that I am aware of.” T’Rul admitted with a shake of her head. 

That unfortunately didn’t mean much given Raine had come to suspect that every member of the Romulan contingent, Tal’Shiar or not, was functionally an expendable asset given the very real risk of their capture by the Dominion on this mission or in the future.

“What about the Klingons?” Dax threw out.

“All their ships outside of the Toh'Kaht are recorded as having returned without incident.” Kira answered with a shake of her head.

“We’ll leave the how to our various intelligence agencies to figure out.” Sisko finally said as he seemed to come to a decision. “But from here on out we’ll operate under the assumption that they’re actively on the lookout for cloaked ships.”

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Stardate 48218.6 - March 21, 2371 - 18:56:09

It had taken all of five minutes for Quark’s Karemma contact, a man by the name of Ornithar, to sell them a generalized star chart to the location Odo had been informed of by Eris, a roughly 10 light year in diameter nebula called Omarian that sat about 90 light years from the Karamma’s solar system.

A nearly week-long trip at the Defiant's maximum sustainable warp that had them arriving at the edges of the nebula at the tail end of the beta shift, which thankfully freed Raine herself to try and prod things along with their resident changeling.

“I know you're in there Odo.” Raine called out, standing in front of the door to his quarters.

“You can save your breath, Commander.” Odo said as the door swished open. “Unless we've arrived at the nebula I'm not in the mood to listen to whatever 'genius’ idea you might think you have.”

“We've arrived at the edge of the nebula.” Raine offered to him, feeling oddly put out by changeling’s words. Because she really didn't think she was that bad when it came to trying to help him out.

“Then we need to go.” Odo insisted with such an utterly obsessive tone that if Raine wasn't already aware of the cause she would be suggesting he take an immediate trip to medical.

“Go where?” The Asari prodded him instead, silently hoping he might just tell her where in the giant area of space the Founder’s world was.

“I don't know.” Odo answered her in an almost manic tone that sent several of Raine's instincts to high alert. “I just know I have too.”

“Okaaay.” Raine returned cautiously, not recalling anything about Odo getting this bad. “Why don't we go to the bridge and I'll tell them to let you set a course?”

“No!” Odo yelled, his arm shooting out to grab her by the shoulder with a grip that was just shy of bruising her flesh. A move that left the Asari blinking owlishly at the sight of the shimmering golden liquid of his arm passing through the blue biotic light of her barrier as if it wasn't even there.

“We'll take a shuttle.” Odo continued as Raine's thoughts skidded to a halt at the impossibility that had just thrown several years of mental reassurances that she could take a changeling in a fight out the airlock. “It'll have to be–”

“Odo?” Kira questioned from further down the corridor as a feeling of relief swept over Raine and she gave a mental thanks to Commander Sisko for designing the Defiant as small as he did.

“Nerys.” Odo muttered, the Bajoran woman's voice seemingly enough to bring the changeling just a tiny bit back to himself. “I just… Need to go…”

With those words the pressure on Raine's shoulder disappeared as Odo collapsed in on himself, taking the form of some kind of small bird and darting off past the Bajoran woman down the corridor towards the shuttle bay.

“What's going on?” Kira asked in confusion as she looked between Raine and where Odo had departed too.

“Brooks to Bridge.” Raine began, tapping her combadge as she grabbed the Bajoran woman by the wrist and began pulling her along towards the shuttle bay. Knowing what she was about to order would answer the Major’s question as well as a direct explanation. “Something’s affected Odo and he just made a break for the shuttlebay, I need you to lock it down till we can secure him.”

She wasn’t entirely sure they would be able to do that given Odo was better than her when it came to overriding such things, and they didn’t have the ten or so minutes that would be needed to strip him of his various levels of access to the Defiant’s systems. But it might at least slow him down long enough for Kira and her to catch up and stop the changeling from making a mistake that could screw them over in any number of ways.

“Shuttlebay’s locked down Ma’am.” Her combadge chirped as the pair arrived at the closed shuttlebay doors that should have opened at their approach. “But it wasn’t me who did it.”

“The transporter.” Kira suggested as she moved over to the door and began trying to override Odo’s preemptive lockdown.

“Can you get a lock on Odo and beam him to the brig?” Raine asked hopefully.

“Sorry.” The officer's voice returned after a moment. “We’re getting some kind of weird energy flux when we try to lock on that’s throwing off the targeting scanners.”

“Can you beam us to him?” Kira yelled out as she smashed her fist into the door control with an annoyed growl that told Raine all she needed to know about how successful the Bajoran had been.

“Affirmative, standby for transport.”

The tingling of the transporter whisked them away to reappear in the interior of one of the Defiant’s type 9 shuttlecraft, where a quick glance showed Odo was already hard at work at the helm entering a string of commands into the controls.

“Odo, you need to–” Kira began, holding out her hands pleading only to be interrupted by only the shuttlecraft shuddering slightly in the distinct feeling of the bay doors beneath them opening.

“Stop…” She finished, trailing off as the view out the cockpit window rapidly changed as their shuttle exited the Defiant into open space.

“You realize we don't actually have any way to physically stop Odo right?” Raine whispered to Kira, keeping her eyes trained on the maniacally focused changeling who she wasn’t entirely sure had even noticed them as she did.

“Can't you restrain him with your glowy thing?” Kira whispered back.

“I could try if we were still on the Defiant.” Raine answered her, biting back the immediate urge to correct the Bajoran woman about calling her biotics a 'glowy thing’. “But I'd likely cause a hullbreach if I attempted it here.”

“Great.” Kira muttered unhappily.

Well, Raine mused to herself as she watched their shuttle accelerate into warp, at least she'd get to talk to a Founder without it immediately trying to kill her, and if they were really lucky, maybe Sisko would decide to have the Defiant follow them under cloak.

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Authors Notes: For those wondering why Odo was so insistent on the shuttle, it’s because I’m running with the idea that the Founders included a healthy dose of paranoia in their “Home is here” message to keep people from doing exactly what Raine was trying to do.