Cerulean Stars: An Asari Security Officer in Commander Sisko's Court

Standing with his back to the gate house as the pair of security who had grabbed them discussed their fate, Benjamin Sisko couldn't help but worry about just how badly this could end up going.

"How do you feel?" Bashir asked in a near whisper.

"Better." Benjamin admitted, the headache and disorientation having faded remarkably fast.

"Me too." Bashir agreed as he shot a furrative look over at the trio of arguing officers. "It was probably transporter shock, disorienting but it wears off quickly."

He grimaced. "I caught a glimpse of the Golden Gate Bridge a few blocks back."

"I saw it too." Benjamin confessed, the sight not having been nearly as reassuring as it usually was. "Looked a bit more tarnished than I remember though."

"It's the air pollution." Bashir offered glumly. "What do you think happened to our com badges?"

Grimacing, Benjamin really hoped the worst case scenario didn't happen with that. Though given the circumstances they had bigger temporal contamination problems than just a couple of lost combadge. Probably stolen while we were unconscious. But I'm more worried about what happened to Brooks and Dax."

"If what happened to us happened to them…" Bashir began, only to trail off as his eyes went wide in sudden alarm. "Dax should be able to pass a human… But Brooks…"

"Exactly what I'm worried about." Benjamin confirmed, desperately hoping for all of their sakes that the Asari would be able to figure out some way to stay out of the public eye.




By the time they'd arrived at the Ritz-Carlton hotel, Raine had been able to put at least some pieces of the puzzle together. The biggest clue in the end had been the date, August 30th 2024, two days before the Bell Riots began.

She'd completely forgotten how that particular episode began outside of the fact that it had something to do with the transporter. Which was more than a little unfortunate in hindsight given she shouldn't be anywhere near the Bell Riots. A feeling apparently shared by whoever it was that had arranged for Guinan to show up with a holographic disguise specifically calibrated for her.

"This." Guinan said as she motioned with a wide arm around the presidential suite that had been reserved for them. "This is the real reason why I agreed to help you out, five nights all expenses paid."

Something about that seemed off to Raine, and she looked up from the three outfits she was trying to choose between to frown at the El-Aurien. "Aren't you rich?"

Guinan glanced over to her. "Girl, I run a bar. This place is an entire income bracket above me."

"And that's actually how you make money?" Raine asked, finding it more than a little hard to believe given the woman was a two hundred year old alien. "I mean, didn't you know Mark Twain?"

"I don't even want to know how you know that." Guinan said, scowling slightly at Raine. "But the asshole died owing me forty seven dollars. And my fifth husband got the signed first editions in the divorce."

"What about you?" She continued as she popped down in one of the comfy loungers. "You rolling in cash in your Utopian future?"

Raine made a so-so motion with one of her hands as she used the other to hold up the black blazer she was leaning towards. "I have a marginally profitable investment portfolio and am saving up to buy my own starship."

"It's not all it's cracked up to be." Guinan confessed with a shake of her head as she walked over and flopped down onto the couch. "Kind of like owning a boat, but worse because you need a rocket scientist to fix anything that goes wrong."

"I'm marginally qualified as a rocket scientist." Raine idly admitted staring at a light blue jacket and jean set as the sudden realization hit that she could finally wear blue again without looking naked.

"Probably gonna want to save those for tomorrow." Guinan advised.

"You were staring at them the same way I do a forty percent off hat sale." She offered upon seeing the odd look Raine was shooting her.

She shook her head and pointed at the clothing set the Asari had been focusing on. "But those are dumpy walking around town clothes. And hot as you are, you're going to need em if you wanna go running around town doing whatever it is you're going to want to do without being bothered by every single guy who gets a shine in his eye.."

"I could just wear the same set tonight and tomorrow you know" Raine groused, feeling oddly like she'd just been scolded by her mother.

"Your species eat?" Guinan inquired in an odd non sequitur.

"Yes?" Raine returned uncertainly, not sure where the El-Aurien was going with this.

"Then you'll want the blazer set." Guinan said. "Hotel lounge has an unofficial dress code."

Oh right, Raine had forgotten for a moment that personal replicators weren't a thing, though couldn't she also…

"And room service would cost you an arm and leg at this place." Guinan continued, seemingly reading her train of thought. "And I don't know how much your friend set you up with, but at this point I doubt you do either."

That was also an excellent point that Raine hadn't considered, and while there was probably room to argue the merits of not going out, she was starting to get the distinct sense that Guinan herself wanted to try eating there and didn't want to go alone.

"Blazer set it is." Raine said, grabbing the outfit from the table and then taking a moment to look around the suite with a frown.

"You can use the bedroom to change." Guinan put forward with a sigh. "Just keep in mind, I'm calling dibs on the bed."

That wasn't something worth arguing over given Raine's back wasn't the type to protest even if she fell asleep on the floor. So with a nod of acquiesce she made her way to the bedroom, taking a moment to close the door behind her before setting the clothes on the bed and carefully removing the armband.

"I really don't know how to feel about this." She muttered as she stared at the technological marvel with her once more normal Asari self.

The gold and silver metallic appearance didn't match Starfleet's general choice of technological aesthetic at the very least, but that wasn't saying much given it might have been from sometime in the future where that had changed.

Setting it carefully down on the bed as a mystery to deal with later, she shrugged out her shirt and tossed it onto the bed before beginning to pull off her boots, making sure to be extra careful with the type 1 phaser in her boots as that was functionally the only piece of 24th century technology she currently had outside of her combadge.

"Dax to Brooks." The Trills voice suddenly chose that moment to echo out from the combadge half buried under her uniform top. "If you can hear me, please respond."

For a moment the Asari considered staying silent weighing the pros and cons of answering, but there were no guarantees things would just work out like they had originally with her presence already having thrown at least one butterfly into the mix so she grabbed her combadge from the bed and pressed it with a thumb.

"Brooks here."

"Oh thank goodness." Jadzia exclaimed in clear relief. "Is–"

She stopped mid sentence, and a male voice came across the still open comlink moments later.

"Okay, it looks like my assistant was able to reserve you a room at the Clift up to Wednesday."

"You didn't have to do that." Jadzia demurred.

"I know." The male voice returned in a tone that was just a tiny bit flirty. "But I wanted to. So, do you have any plans the next few days?"

"I still need to find my friends." Jadzia told him apologetically.

"Speaking of which." The man put forward. "I had Britt run a check. And nobody matching their descriptions has been admitted into any of the city's hospitals or emergency rooms."

"That's a relief to hear." Jadzia agreed, and Raine could all but hear the smile in her voice. "I did have a little luck on that end myself. Apparently one of my friends was able to keep hold of her phone."

"That's great!" The man exclaimed happily. "Look, at this point I'm invested in how this is going to turn out. So I'm having a little get-together here tomorrow. And I'd like you to come, maybe even bring your friends if you can track them down."

"I'd like that." Jadzia returned.

Setting the communicator down as the pair exchanged pleasantries, Raine slipped out of her Starfleet issue pants and began shimmying into the somewhat tight pair of black slacks.

"Oh no." She muttered sarcastically to herself as she pulled up on the edge of the pants and hoped in place. "My mysterious friend couldn't have gotten me comfortable baggy jeans. That would obviously have been too much trouble."

She had several theories at this point about just who that friend might be, the most likely one being a member of the group involved in Picard's early 21st century adventure. Though the holographic projector threw at least some doubt on that given she couldn't remember anything of the sort showing up during that particular adventure.

"Raine." Jadzia hissed out.

"Still here." Raine said as she grabbed the combadge from the bed.

"Are Ben and Julian with you?" Jadzia asked in worry.

"No." Raine admitted as she slipped on the blazer, taking a moment to admire how the whole outfit looked on her in the mirror before securing the holographic projector back on her arm. "I didn't really have time to stick around the subway station and look."

"I suppose not." Jadzia grudgingly agreed. "How did you even get out of there without causing a panic?"

"Still not entirely sure." Raine confessed, flicking her vividly blonde holographic hair a few times in dismay. "Have you ever run into an El-Aurien named Guinan?"

"Curzon did." Jadzia admitted in an oddly conflicted tone. "Why?"

"Someone sent her to find me." Raine said. "She woke me up with a holographic emitter, set of identity documents, and reservation at the Ritz-Carlton. We're currently in the presidential suite under the name Tina Hansen."

Silence was her only response, and the seconds ticked by for nearly a full minute before Jadzia finally responded. "The Department of Temporal Investigations is going to absolutely hate this."

That sadly wasn't wrong, and Raine was absolutely dreading the debriefing about this given how much she was going to have to dance around if she didn't want people to think she was violating temporal displacement policy.

"But I have to know." Jadzia continued in a suddenly impish tone. "How do you look?"

"Blonde." Raine confessed, suspecting the Trill would find out eventually even if she didn't tell her. "Really blonde."

Sadly it wasn't like she could just say Tricia Helfer with bigger breasts and a tighter ass, since that wouldn't mean anything to Jadzia. And to be honest Raine wasn't entirely sure it was an accurate description either, as the last time she had seen the actress had been twenty five years ago. So it was a fuzzy remembrance at best of someone who at the time had been a good twenty years older than she currently looked.

"I always figured you'd be a blonde." Jadzia admitted with a giggle that quickly trailed off into a shaky breath. "We need to meet up, this could go bad in so many different ways."

Unfortunately the Trill likely didn't even know the half of it. "Do you know anything about twenty-first century human history?"

"Not unless you count baseball." Jadzia confessed.

"I was afraid of that." Raine said, grimacing in realization of everything she was going to need to warn the other woman about. "Long story short, we're a day or two out from a pivotal historical event called the Bell Riots that occurred in San Francisco which functionally reshaped the course of North American society in a way that led to World War Three."


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Author's Notes: Insert star trek blue "To Be Continued" placard here.

Having dealt with a number of Starfleet Admirals over the years, Kira Nerys liked to think she had something of a handle on how to do so without sticking her foot in her mouth. That knowledge apparently fell somewhat flat however when the Admiral in question also happened to be the adopted mother of one of their missing officers.

"O'Brien assures me the system log shows the transport was completed successfully."

"And yet Spacedock sensor recordings show the transporter signal disintegrated immediately after you began the beam out sequence." Admiral Brooks said, all but glaring at Kira through the monitor. "Given the four didn't show up at their destination, it doesn't seem likely that it's our sensor records that are wrong."

"If I may, Admiral?" O'Brien asked, glancing between Nerys and the Admiral on the monitor for permission.

"Go ahead, Mister O'Brien." Admiral Brooks acquiesced with a nod.

"There was a surge in temporal energy seconds before I initiated the transporter sequence." O'Brien began as Nerys gratefully ceded the position in front of the monitor to the engineer. "We think it was caused by the explosion of a microscopic singularity that was passing through the solar system shifting the chroniton particles lodged in the ablative armor matrix of our hull into a high state of temporal polarisation."

Admiral Brooks nodded as he spoke, seeming able to follow the technobabble without the issues Nerys herself had. And by the end the older woman looked distinctly like she had bitten into an unripe moba fruit.

"Please tell me you're not saying you think the transporter beam was redirected temporally?"

"I'm afraid so, ma'am." O'Brien confirmed with an apologetic nod. "Going by the readings I'd say we're looking at least a couple centuries into the past."




The 2024 Raine currently found herself in was distinctly different from the 2024 she originally lived through in a number of different ways. However it was still similar enough that she found herself almost unconsciously slotting into a more 21st century persona.

Which was why she was currently relaxing in the suite's hot tub with a bottle of Malbec while watching the newly released Terry Pratchett movie Making Money on Big Creek Plus.

"I know people constantly go on about how unchecked genetic engineering is terrible because it led to the Eugenic Wars." Raine muttered to herself as she refilled her glass. "But it literally cured Alzheimers and let Terry Pratchett live to the ripe old age of ninety seven. So I'd consider that a wash at best."

Though she supposed that was only true if you didn't consider the Eugenic Wars one of the primary instigating factors of World War Three. Something that she supposed most did since they lacked her knowledge of the fact the Eugenic Wars hadn't always occurred in the 21st century.

"Dax to Brooks." The combadge she'd laid on the rim of the hot tub suddenly announced.

Setting her glass down and pausing the video, she picked up the badge and activated it with a pinch. "Brooks here, did something happen?"

"No." Jadzia returned. "I just figured now might be a good time to have that talk since we don't exactly have anything better to do."

Sliding into the water till her head was completely submerged, Raine let a few bubbles of air escape as she tried to think up some excuse to put off that particular discussion.

"Raine?" Jadzia called out, the water proving nowhere near deep enough to block out its sound. "Raine? Why do I hear splashing?"

She let her head surface as the realization settled in that short of flushing her combadge down the toilet she wasn't going to avoid this.

"I'm in the hot tub, I was relaxing with a bottle of wine while watching one of the lost human masterpieces."

That was a bit of an exaggeration as to the movie's quality, but unfortunately not its lack of existence as World War Three really hadn't been kind to digital only media storage.

"You have a hot tub and wine" Jadzia asked, sounding oddly put out about those facts.

"The wine came in the gift basket." Raine admitted with a shrug. "Guinan said it was too young for her and I wasn't really of the mind to be picky when it came to getting tipsy."

Jadzia let out a sigh, and Raine could all but imagine the slightly annoyed look that must have been on the Trill's face at this moment.

"You're too much of a forbidden romance girl." She finally said.

"What?" Raine asked, holding the combadge up in front of her face to stare at it in confusion as she tried to process the turn the conversation had taken.

"You're too much of a forbidden romance girl." Jadzia repeated. "It's why we'd never work out, you want the whole Masai and Tulle epic love story."

The oddest feeling suddenly hit Raine that Jadzia was dumping her, even though they hadn't actually been dating.

"I don't know that one." She admitted.

"It's a fictional romance about an Initiate and their Field Docent who fell in love in the face of tradition, stole a warp-shuttle when the Symbiosis Commission tried to break them up, and then flew off to have a number of morally dubious adventures together." Jadzia explained. "And you're Masai, just waiting for the right Tulle to come around and give you the excuse so you can run off and have morally dubious adventures together."

Frowning at the combadge, Raine couldn't help but feel like her entire romantic history had just been painted in less than accurate light.

"That's only happened twice you know." She put forward, pushing herself up a bit more so she could properly glare down at the combadge. "The whole asking me to run away with them thing, and in both cases I turned them down."

And she was pretty sure Jellaa's offer had just been perfunctory, because Raine had made it very clear to the Orion woman beforehand that she had absolutely no desire to leave Starfleet.

"But how does this have anything to do with us having sex!?" Raine demanded, feeling distinctly like they had lost the plot somewhere.

"Well." Jadzia began testily. "I just figured that the reason it took you so long to finally decide we should talk about us having sex was that it was so good you had fallen deeply in love with me and were trying to decide on how to go about confessing it."

Raine's eye ridge twitched as the sudden urge hit to chuck her combadge into the tub's lightly steaming water.

"That is not even close to the reason I didn't want to talk about it!" She angrily hissed.

"Oh?" Jadzi pressed. "Then what was it? Because we've known each other for three years, and in all that time being in love is the only thing I've ever seen turn you into that much of a blushing maiden."

It was Raine's turn to let out a sigh. "Of course you noticed that. You could have just asked though instead of going on about our long term romantic prospects."

"Could I have?" Jadzia inquired in an expectant tone. "You're remarkably good at dodging around things you don't want to talk about."

Which was mostly because the things she tended not to want to talk about involved her life before Q had snapped her to Earth. But that wasn't something she could just say without making people even more curious.

And Jadzia was right, Raine had been planning to try and dance around any questions of why she was so uncomfortable with what had happened. Something which in retrospect was more than a little unfair to Jadzia given the intimate nature of their encounter.

"You're on the mental list of people I told myself I shouldn't sleep with." She admitted, a feeling of embarrassment all but radiating off her at the words.

"That's it?" Jadzia asked, disbelief clear in her voice. "Everyone has one of those, though if I'm being honest a tad offended to be on yours."

"You, Sisko, Kira, Odo, Bashir, O'Brien, Keiko, and Garak." Raine listed off, really not wanting Jadzia to think it was something about her in particular.

"And you secretly want to sleep with all of them too?" Jadzia prodded impishly.

Raine's shudder wasn't even remotely feigned. "God no. Sisko has too much dad energy, Odo has a stick up his ass the size of galaxy class nacelle, Bashir is waaay too much of a white knight, and O'Brien and Keiko are very married."

Jadzia gave an intrigued hum. "So it's just me, Kira, and Garak who you secretly want to sleep with."

"At this point it's not exactly a secret that I wanted to sleep with you." Raine deadpanned, more than a little relieved the rest of the station seemed content to pretend the whole event never happened. "Nor that you wanted to sleep with me."

"I've wanted to sleep with you since I was Curzon." Jadzia offered with a giggle. "And that wasn't exactly a secret given how many people we've both told that story too."

"Yeah, but you're not Curzon." Raine said as she set her communicator back down on the edge of the tub. "Because he never had a chance with me."

"Only because you don't like older men." Jadzia shot back teasingly. "If Curzon had been sixty years younger I bet he would have swept you right out of those lacy black panties you like so much."


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Author's Notes: Well, at least they had something of a talk about the whole issue. Even if it involved Jadzia more or less reading Raine like a book and forcing the issue.