Chapter 80
Stardate April 12, 2371 - 21:47:31
"Am I right in assuming you would be D'Ghor of House D'Ghor?" Quark asked the Klingon on the other side of the com link as he did his best to lean into the generally unjustified reputation his people had.
"Of course." D'Ghor confirmed with a growl of annoyance.
"I thought so, you have that look of grandeur about you." Quark offered with a friendly grin, knowing it was rare that a little flattery ever hurt anybody. "It's recently come to my attention that I have something you want, while you have something I'd like returned intact."
"I have no idea what you're talking about, Ferengi." D'Ghor returned with a smirk that all but directly confirmed it.
Quark wasn't entirely surprised the Klingon was being cagey about things, after all, you never knew just who might be recording communications like this. And while he had in fact briefly considered trying to trap D'Ghor in that manner, the deviousness of the Klingon's financial work had been enough to tell Quark he was unlikely to get anywhere.
"My mistake then." Quark admitted as he began moving towards the cutoff control in a slow slightly exaggerated manner. "I just thought there might be room for a deal to be made before I took my new house's financial data to the high council."
"Stop!" D'Ghor ordered, and Quark paused his hand a few centimeters above the control. "While I may not possess what you seek, it is possible that I might be able to help you locate it under the right circumstances."
"Then we have the beginning of a negotiation." Quark confirmed happily as he lowered his hand.
"Cards on the table though." He continued with a look of faux annoyance. "Grilka knows about the financial data, so I can't exactly stop it from getting back to the high council. Assuming I'm able to find what I'm looking for before then, however, it shouldn't be too much trouble to go over it again before it ends up in their hands to make sure I actually did all the math right."
A calculating gleam seemed to enter D'Ghor's eyes at the suggestion, and Quark could all but see the rapid string of plots that must be flashing across his mind at all the options a false claim of dishonorable conduct against House D'Ghor would open up.
Of course, Quark knew even a real claim could likely be spun in such a way that it would give D'Ghor grounds to kill him, especially with the forewarning he had just given the Klingon. But without that sort of win win in place, Quark was doubtful someone like D'Ghor would be willing to free Natima before he had gotten what he wanted.
"If you are willing to go out of your way to protect my house's honor like that." D'Ghor finally put forward with a sly grin. "I suppose it would only be right that I give you what assistance I can. What is this thing you think I may be able to help you find?"
"About 167 centimeters." Quark began, fighting back the urge to roll his eyes at having to go this far with the performance. "Cardassian make. Helpful for dealing with communication issues and last seen on Deep Space Nine."
"I will see what I can do." D'Ghor admitted with a toothy grin as he tilted his head downwards slightly. "Qapla."
"Quapa." Quark repeated, pretty sure he got the pronunciation wrong but not caring enough to try and correct himself since it helped play up the unknowing Ferengi angle.
With that the screen went dark, and Quark let out a sigh of relief at the fact D'Ghor hadn't gone too off script from what he had hoped.
"I do believe he's planning to kill you." Grilka offered primly as she walked over from where she had been standing out of sight of the monitor's visual sensor.
"That's the plan." Quark agreed glumly, trying not to think too hard about the various ways that part could go wrong. "Now we just need to beat him to the point when we're before the High Council."
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Stardate 48280.6 - April 13, 2371 - 10:03:21
The request Raine had gotten yesterday from Janeway had been a reminder that she couldn't keep shifting back the final checks on the one thing she was going to risk doing for the Voyager crew.
So it was lucky that she, like most of Starfleet, had a backlog of unused vacation days that could be measured in multiple months.
"Computer, begin program Citadel Noir. Start time, noon." Raine ordered, hoping desperately that Felix actually lived up to his referral only reputation when it came to storyline, non-player character, and special request work, even if the only one's likely to experience the last were going to be her and the Voyager crew.
The interior of the Holosuite disappeared around her and she found herself standing on an open air space station station that looked suspiciously similar to an obscure 23rd century Starfleet design that had been
proposed but never really built due to its combination of technological impracticality and extreme resource price tag.
And while she'd have rather gone for the real thing, with location work it was really a choice between using something already designed and altering it to do the job, or spending however long it would take putting together everything from scratch.
The 'new player' entry point for this particular version of the program was set to drop people directly in front of an establishment that proudly displayed itself as Korra's Lounge. So knowing that was where the main part of the program she needed to check sat, Raine ignored the nagging urge to explore and made her way into the building without further preamble.
"Shows don't start for another couple of hours." A female voice offered mere moments after she passed through the stylized double doors,
"It's all right." Raine told the young looking human woman with a small smile. "I'm here to see Korra."
"They always are." The woman returned with a roll of her eyes before jerking a thumb towards a passage next to the bar. "She's in her office, if you're supposed to be here you know the way, if not, good luck."
Given the lounge shared about eighty percent of its floor plan with Starfleet Academy's famed Blue Alert Lounge that wouldn't have been particularly difficult for Raine, even if she hadn't designed the location.
But of course, that was the point, a subtle bit of psychological manipulation to make members of Starfleet find the place just the tiniest bit nostalgic. So she gave a nod and smile to the woman before heading past, taking note as she did of the trench coat and fedora wearing Human that looked suspiciously like
Jeffrey Combs who was passed out at the bar.
It was a quick trip through the hall to get to the Korra's office, something that was again a purposeful point, because it wasn't supposed to be difficult for those who wanted to visit the woman.
"I was wondering if you'd stop by." An almost familiar voice said as Raine walked into the office.
"Felix didn't think you would." She continued giving Raine an amused look from the chaise couch she was relaxing on. "But I've seen enough of your work here to figure out you're the type that can be surprisingly anal about the little details."
Korra De'val's physical form was mostly Raine's work, an Asari, about five centimeters shorter than Raine herself, and more to the azure end of the blue spectrum then her own cerulean. The important part of her design however was what was under the proverbial hood.
An adaptive program not unlike what Raine suspected
Vic Fontaine had started out as, except loaded up with enough psychological analysis, response, and treatment programs that if Korra ever actually became sentient, she'd likely be considered a fully qualified psychologist.
"I'm aware." Raine returned dryly as she looked around the room, only to have to fight back her sudden urge to move the Enterprise D model on one of the shelves so it was pointing towards the doorway instead of away from it.
"So do I pass inspection?" Korra inquired as Raine switched her gaze back to the holographic Asari. "Or are you debating with yourself over whether you made my breasts big enough?"
Raine instinctively looked away from the other Asari's chest as long buried instincts momentarily came to the fore before she remembered that there was no way this particular hologram actually cared about people staring at her breasts.
"Your breasts are fine." Raine told her, they were better then fine really, but she'd gone for the 'gal friday' look when designing her so that wasn't exactly a surprise.
"I realized my body is just a thinly veiled advertisement for your many sordid inadequacy issues." Korra put forward with a slightly sad smile. "But I do like it, so don't worry so much about if others will."
"Aren't you supposed to be more subtle with your help?" Raine asked as she narrowed her eyes at the hologram, well aware of how accurate that particular bit of prodding was.
"I can be both subtle and blunt depending on what the circumstances require." Korra confessed with a shrug.
"And just to be clear here, my inadequacy issues are well earned due to being constantly surrounded by people who are better than me on pretty much every conceivable level."
"You know I'm also qualified for sex therapy." Korra offered with a slightly exaggerated giggle and wink. "And while I'd usually make someone work for it to create a feeling of accomplishment when I eventually say yes, I can tell I'm not going to be around you long enough for that, and you really look like you're overdue for some of that kind of relaxation."
Raine grimaced at how close to home that actually hit, and while she wouldn't say it wasn't tempting, there was one big problem with it.
"Given I designed your body, the thought kind of makes me feel weird. And not in the 'you only live once so go for it' sort of way. But more in the one where I feel guilty for even considering it."
"I'm a sex positive omnisexual hologram." Korra offered back as she dropped the flirtiness and sat up on the couch. "I'd say you should just think of me like a normal sex-rated holonovel character on that front, but I can tell from your body language that you've already convinced yourself that I'm not."
"Felix doesn't do normal." Raine explained, and she didn't just mean on the hologram front. Something about the man was just off in a way that made the Asari think there was more to the man than just a regular middle aged human.
"If it makes you feel better, Felix debated with himself rather heavily about including those portions in my program." Korra informed Raine as she motioned for the other Asari to join her on the couch. "It was the general psychological projections about your species that actually tipped the scale for him. Because if he wanted me to be me, I couldn't just be what he thought I should be. And forming those types of physical, psychological, and emotional connections seemed to be a big part of the Asari species psychological makeup."
Taking the holographic Asari up on her invitation to sit down, Raine couldn't help but run that last part over in her mind. Because unless the Federation had done a much deeper dive into her then she thought they had, her own rather unique status should have skewed the bar rather heavily on that.
"You know the why behind your program, right?" Raine inquired instead of dwelling further on that particular issue.
"Of course." Korra confirmed with a smile. "You wanted me for someone who might eventually be going on a long term mission to help with psychological care and upkeep."
"Though I should probably warn you." Korra continued, her smile morphing into a general look of embarrassment. "Felix set my program up to auto upload into the ship's computer if your friend just throws the program drive in a drawer and forgets about it."
She was tempted to ask how that would work with a Starfleet ship whose internal network was supposed to be secured against such things, but she doubted the hologram actually knew, though it did bring another question to mind that left Raine giving the holographic Asari an odd look.
"Why'd he tell you?"
"I mentioned I was worried that it might happen." Korra answered with a shrug, leaving Raine to stare at the hologram a moment before deciding it might be better for her sanity not to follow up on that particular line of questioning further.
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Author's Notes - Yes, Raine's grand idea to help Voyager is to give them a holographic Asari psychologist bolted on top of a collaborative holonovel she's putting together that's a Mass Effective inspired open world detective noir.
