Chapter 76
Stardate 48275.7 - April 11, 2371 - 15:07:55
Loophole abuse was normally something Quark could respect, it meant whoever was attempting it had read and understood enough of the rules to figure out a way around them. However there was a stark exception to that respect, and that was in the case of a loophole being abused in a way likely to screw him over.
"What!?" Grilka growled as her hand went to dagger at her waist.
"You heard me." Quark told her as they waited in front of the
Great Hall. "You want me to go in there and help you take control of your house? Okay, sure. But you seem to be forgetting I'm a Ferengi who knows absolutely nothing about how you Klingons do things."
Which Quark wouldn't have normally realized was likely to be a problem, except for the fact he'd had to get an emergency breakdown on Cardassian courtship expectations from Garak after he'd spent a week sleeping at Rom's due to asking Natima if she wanted him to hire her an assistant.
"So before I go in there, I want to know what your High Council will expect from me."
Because there was every possibility that he'd do something to annoy the Klingon bigwigs and get stabbed for it.
"They will expect nothing." Grilka told him with an annoyed sigh as she relaxed her hand. "They will see my actions for what they are. A desperate attempt to keep my house and its holdings out of D'Ghor's hands."
"So it'll come down to which of you they like more." Quark muttered as the nature of the con slotted itself together for him.
"Have you already begun the work to tip the scales towards your favor?" He inquired, knowing they were likely to be starting from a negative due to the entirely overblown rumors surrounding his people.
"That is not how Klingons do things." Grilka told him simply.
That answered that question, Quark thought to himself with a mental grimace. As smart as Grilka seemed to be, it looked like she lacked a general deviousness to go along with it. Because as the 98th rule of acquisition said, every man has his price, even if that price wasn't always something as obvious as cold hard Latinum.
The sound of a gong rang out through the closed doors of the hall.
"The morning session has begun." Grilka said with a grin. "Come. I will enjoy the look on D'Ghor's face when he discovers we have preempted him so."
At that she pulled open the large double doors and strutted through, leaving Quark to let out a sigh before following.
Walking into the room, Quark had to clamp down on his immediate urge to offer to put the Klingons inside in touch with one of the better interior decorators he knew. Because gray stone brutalism could only take you so far, and they had gone a good many steps past that.
"Lady Grilka." The large Klingon sitting on the center throne greeted. "And… Ferengi?"
The confused tone with which he said that might have been amusing to Quark in a circumstance where his head very likely wasn't on the line.
"I have performed the brek'tal ritual, Gowron." Grilka offered primly to the gathered Klingons. "And he is the new husband I have chosen to lead my House."
Shocked chatter broke out at the announcement, and Quark turned his lobes to picking out which of the various Klingons in attendance seemed most amenable to Grilka's attempt.
"You can not believe a Ferengi should be allowed to rule a Klingon great house." A Klingon with a scar over his right eye and slightly graying hair protested.
"All I have done is follow the brek'tal ritual. If the leader of a House is slain in honorable combat, the victor may be invited to take his place and his wife." Grilka began looking over the assorted others with a smirk. "And the Federation itself certified that Kozak was killed in honorable combat by this Ferengi while attempting to take another woman for his own."
That stupid death report, Quark had known it was a bad idea when Raine had suggested filing it. But she had made it sounds like doing so would actually minimize the risk of something like this happening.
"As such." Grilka continued in an almost taunting tone "I am simply exercising my rights as an honored widow."
"By marrying a Ferengi." Gowron challenged with a glare towards Quark.
"Do you truly expect him to know anything about honor?" He asked almost mockingly as he looked back at Grilka. "Let alone enough of our rites and rituals to lead the house of…"
"Ferengi!" He demanded, his angry tone enough to make Quark jump slightly. "Your name!?"
"Quark." He answered immediately.
"The house of… Quark." Gowron finished in a tone that made the name sound like it almost physically hurt him to say.
"If he does not that would certainly be an exceptional circumstance, would it not?" Grilka put forward looking to each of the high council members with an expectant look on her face.
"Only if he dies while doing it." Gowron shot back, sounding thoroughly unamused at Grilka's further attempt to push things.
Which was all the warning Quark needed to be very careful in how he handled things. Because while Grilka didn't seem the type to purposefully try and get him killed just so she would have an excuse to take over. That didn't mean there weren't a dozen other dangerous spatial anomalies just waiting undiscovered to waylay his tradeship if he picked the wrong route.
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Stardate 48276.0 - April 11, 2371 - 17:45:36
Waiting patiently for Doctor Bashir to get off his shift, Raine couldn't help but wonder how much the after effects of the telepathic archive event had colored her interactions with the man.
Oh, she knew she hadn't exactly been a fan of his persistence when it came to flirting with her before that event, but looking back she could see there had been what now in hindsight felt like an uptick in her avoiding and or trolling him after it occurred.
"Commander." Bashir greeted her in mild surprise as he exited the medbay. "Did something happen?"
"Or have you finally decided to take me up on that offer to take you out to dinner?" He finished jokingly.
"I would break you." Raine returned in an unamused deadpan.
"But no." She continued, brushing aside the minor annoyance she felt at his joke. "Just stopping by to tell you you're probably going to want to get checked out by specialist Na'Tal."
"Was there a problem?" Bashir asked her with a worried look.
"Potentially." Raine offered uncertainly, unable to recall anything about that sort of thing from the show or expanded media but knowing just how weird stuff like that could end up from similar encounters by various Starfleet vessels over the centuries. "Remember that thing with the telepathic archive?"
"Of course." Bashir confirmed with a nod.
"I apparently had some minor psychic leftovers from that." Raine informed him with a mild grimace.
"Are you sure?" Bashir inquired as a concerned look made it's way onto his face. "All the scans I ran on us after came up clean."
"If scans could reliably pick up all levels of psionic energy we wouldn't need experts." Raine returned drolly.
"And of course you're not exactly working with the best the Federation has to offer here." She finished with a quick glance over to the med bay.
"Frontier medicine at its finest." Bashir returned in a fond tone.
"I assume you want the rest of us that were there to get checked?" He continued as a slightly worried look flashed across his features.
"Yes." Raine confirmed with a nod, glad she didn't need to explain things again.
"I assume Na'Tal operates under the standard privacy oaths?" Bashir inquired cautiously.
"Unless you're a malevolent psionic entity hitching a ride in the real Julian Bashir's body, you have nothing to worry about." Raine confirmed, naming the only exception to those oaths that she was aware of.
"I'll make sure to book an appointment in the next few days then." Bashir agreed with a small smile. "Lord knows the last thing Starfleet medical needs is more doctors with a god complex."
"Best to leave that to the terraforming corps where it belongs." Raine agreed with a snort as she recalled some of her more memorable encounters with that particular group of egotists.
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Standing in the doorway staring at the mess of scattered clothing, padd's, and technological parts that were strewn around the O'Brien's quarters, Raine was left wondering if maybe Keiko and Miles had been secretly replaced by Changelings when she wasn't looking.
"Keiko!?" She called out hesitantly, looking around for any sign of the woman whose voice had moments ago invited her in.
"Sorry about the mess." Keiko offered apologetically as she walked out of the master bedroom wearing a red and black kimono that really flattered her figure. "I was trying on outfits last night when Miles asked me something, so we started talking, and next thing you know he has this idea to put together a research grade-holotable."
"Huh." Raine muttered, trying to mentally work out how the things had led into each other and coming up blank.
"And Miles would be?" She asked in a bemused tone as stepped gingerly over the mess and into the living room.
"He needed to stop by the equipment replicators." Keiko answered with an embarrassed flush as she began to gather things off the floor. "Did something happen?"
"Sort of." Raine said, making a so so motion with her hand. "Did Miles ever tell you about our encounter with that telepathic archive a couple years back?"
"Vaguely?" Keiko admitted, scrunching her brow in a way that suggested it at least sounded familiar to her. "Didn't that happen when I took the class on a trip to Bajor?"
"I had completely forgotten about that." Raine confessed, the trip being just that generally unremarkable that Saya hadn't really said much about it.
"I haven't." Keiko returned with a self deprecating smile. "I was berating myself the entire time for not picking somewhere more exciting."
"Look on the bright side." Raine offered with a consoling grin. "At least you didn't take them to the
Fire Caves."
"What's wrong with the Fire Caves?" Keiko inquired defensively as she paused in her straightening up to shoot Raine a confused look.
"It's a prison." Raine told her slowly, seriously wondering at this point if she needed to write up a security report on the Bajoran religion since nobody else seemed to be doing so. "For the Prophet's sociopathic cousins."
"You don't think those are real, do you?" Keiko asked, giving her an odd look.
"Absolutely." Raine confirmed, not even really needing her metaknowledge for that given the sheer number of 'do not go here' warnings scattered across Bajoran history. "To paraphrase my mother, I might not know what killed all those Bajorans over the centuries, but something did."
"People have been killed?" Keiko questioned in alarm.
"Killed, disappeared, sometimes possessed." Raine listed off the various accounts she'd been able to dig up.
"Mind you." She admitted with a grimace, hating herself a bit for having to say this but knowing Keiko might actually research the subject herself. "I'm not entirely sure how much stock I would put in the last given the Bajoran's aren't exactly known for their psychic abilities."
That wasn't to say they didn't have them, because even without her experience with Kai Opaka there were a suspicious number of stories that had religious figures utilizing abilities that 'fit the mold' for psychic powers. But with how integrated the idea of such things seemed to be with the Bajoran religion, they hadn't attempted to document them in any publicly available source Raine had been able to access.
"You'd really think non-corporeal races would have learned how to put up warning signs." Keiko muttered in an annoyed tone as she clutched the wadded up ball of clothes in her hands tight enough that her knuckles began to turn white.
"Did I ever tell you about the time Miles got possessed by an alien criminal?" She asked, letting out a tired sigh as she relaxed her grip.
"No." Raine admitted, something about that sounded familiar. "Though that brings things back around a bit. I assume he got checked by someone with psionic abilities after it?"
"Counselor Troi." Keiko confirmed with a nod before a look of realization flashed across her face. "Don't tell me you didn't?"
"Sort of." Raine confessed with an embarrassed flush. "Doctor Bashir cleared us."
"I'll have Miles make an appointment the next time a ship with a qualified Counselor stops by." Keiko stated, and for Raine felt a brief moment of pity for the well intentioned nagging she could tell was in the Chief's future.
"The specialist who checked me will be on station for at least another week." Raine informed the woman with a grin. "I've already got Jadzia and Bashir to agree. But Sisko and Kira are being a bit of a hard sell."
"Want me to tell Nerys about some of my experiences on the Enterprise?" Keiko put forward with a light laugh.
"Couldn't hurt." Raine agreed with a wry grin as she imagined just what the Bajoran woman would make of some of the things that had happened on that particular starship.
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Author's Notes: What monstrosity has Raine inspired O'Brien to build? Tune in to future updates to find out.
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