Chapter 87
Stardate 48327.3 - April 30, 2371 - 11:08:00
"Anti-grav sailing, really?" Raine asked Jadzia with a skeptically raised eyeridge as she briefly looked up from the simulation she was running on the Ops's tactical station.
"Really." Jadzia confirmed with an amused nod as she looked up from her science station to meet Raine's eyes. "And you have no idea how hard it was to convince Kira to even join me for that."
"I can imagine." Raine returned, fully aware of the Bajoran woman's distaste for holosuites. "But what I don't get is how anti-grav sailing of all things was what finally convinced her to give it a try."
"Maybe she just likes boats." Jadzia returned with a shrug as she turned back to her work.
Raine shook her head ruefully before turning back to her own simulation. "Funny thing is, I could actually see that. Because she seems like the type who would enjoy sitting on deck and just enjoying the sea breeze."
"Meanwhile something like that would bore you to tears." Jadzia added.
"I'd last five minutes before pulling out a padd for something to read." Raine confirmed, frowning slightly to herself as the results began coming in. "Any word on when the Chief will have the third defense sail's capacitor banks up to snuff?"
"It's on the list."
Raine sighed. "So it could be tomorrow or it could be a–"
An alert sounded on her console, and the simulation results immediately fell to the background as a real time display of local space came up.
"Yellow alert!" She yelled out, the station computer responding immediately to bring the shields online and send out a station wide alert.
Less than twenty seconds later Sisko and Kira rushed out of the station commander's office.
"Report!?" Sisko ordered, as Raine tracked their rapidly approaching problem.
"Three Cardassian warp signatures on an intercept course from the direction of
Amaleth." She said as the two took their positions at the central station. "ETA four minutes for the first and five minutes for the other two. We've got intermittent weapon fire passing between the first ship and following pair."
"That's well inside Bajoran space." Kira muttered unhappily.
A recognizable flash lit up the station's short range sensors.
"Photonic shockwave detonation." Raine informed those in the room. "No noticeable effect on any of the three ships."
"We're receiving a tight band transmission from the leading vessel." Jadzia announced as her brow furrowed noticeably in concentration. "It's barely making it to us through the pursuing ships jamming."
"On screen." Sisko ordered.
A flickering static filled image of a battered looking woman at a control station appeared on the central monitor.
"This is…
Ensign Sito… ID code… Gamma three seven… Emergency assistance…"
The screen went dead.
"Is the Defiant ready?" Sisko snapped as Raine shook herself out of her momentary shock at hearing the voice of someone she had been completely sure was actually dead.
"The ready crew should have started launch procedures the moment we went to yellow alert." Raine told him as she checked her readouts, Sisko already moving to the transporter pad as she did. "Confirmed, they're separating from the docking port now."
"Beam me directly to the bridge." Sisko instructed with a look towards Jadzia.
"Energizing." The Trill confirmed as he disappeared in a swirl of yellow sparkles.
"You both recognized that officer?" Kira asked as Raine switched the monitor to a real time view of the Defiant as it accelerated away from the station.
"Classified sector briefing." Raine explained with a grimace as she continued tracking the quickly approaching warp signatures. "I can't get into any specifics without the Commander's okay, but we were told to be on the lookout for an officer with that name."
Nobody Raine had talked to actually thought the Bajoran ensign was alive of course, but Starfleet was nothing if not eternally optimistic, so the watch warning had been issued to senior officers on places she might reasonably try and escape to nonetheless.
"She was speaking Bajoran." Kira pointed out as she shot Raine a suspicious stare.
Raine winced, the ubiquitousness of universal translators having actually caused her to forget that particular tell. "I'm sorry Major, that's really all I can say."
Kira turned her look to Jadzia, and the Trill gave a helpless shrug. "I know as much as you about this."
"The Defiant just reached the lead Cardassian vessel and they're relaying an ID to us now." Raine said a minute later as both ships dropped out of warp and moved into transporter range of each other. "It looks like a
Hidiki class shuttle."
"The favored class of dissidents and escaped prisoners everywhere." Kira muttered, sounding more than a little annoyed at the whole situation. And Raine suspected there was a long lecture in the future for the captains of whichever Bajoran vessels were supposed to have been paroling that portion of the Bajoran system's border.
"Given Starfleet's record with similarly sized vessels being stolen, we're probably not in the best position to taunt the Cardassians about how often they lose theirs." Raine put forward with an amused smirk at the thought
"The Brooks rule seems to be remarkably effective in keeping cases of that to a minimum." Jadzia offered in a teasing tone. "Maybe we should send a suggestion to the Cardassians that they implement it themselves.
"Don't you dare call it that." Raine snapped, shuddering slightly as terrifying visions of that name being memorialized for all time danced through her brain.
"What's wrong with the name?" Kira asked, sounding more than a little amused at the thought.
"If it sticks Starfleet will award me a plaque." Raine told her. "And then, a thousand years from now when I'm retired on a tropical beach somewhere all anyone will remember is…"
She trailed off mid sentence as the alert on her console announcing an incoming encrypted message began to blink, and she quickly entered her command code to bring up the message. She took a moment to read through the hastily typed up message, then read through it again in hopes that doing so would help make sense of what her eyes were telling her.
"Major." She finally said as she reached down to rest a hand on her phaser.
"Commander?" The Bajoran woman asked in confusion, seemingly sensing from the Asari's tone that something was seriously wrong.
"I just received a secure communication from Commander Sisko to take you into temporary custody." Raine explained apologetically as she stood up and carefully took a few steps towards the woman. "So if you'll please remove your weapon and set it on the console we can get whatever the problem is sorted out without any trouble."
For a moment it looked like Kira was going to argue, but something she saw in Raine's eyes must have made her decide better of it because she carefully reached down to unclip her holster and set the entire thing down on the central console.
"Okay Commander." Kira said as she held her hands up and took a step away from the weapon. "But this explanation better be good."
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The nervousness that was eating at Kira only intensified as Raine escorted her into the Infirmary, though there was at least some small comfort in the idea that their destination suggested she might be able to avoid spending any time in the Cardassian holding cells given how much of a recurring nightmare waking up in one had been for her since moving onto the station.
"Major." Odo greeted them with a severe nod. "Commander."
"Odo." Kira returned with a half hearted smile.
She took a moment to shoot a brief glance over her shoulder to the still tense looking Brooks "Do you have any idea what this is about?"
"No." Odo growled as he glared at Raine.
"I'm really sorry about all this." The Asari apologized for what felt like the dozenth time in the past few minutes. "But it's kind of important we not tell you till we know something for sure."
"Know what?" Kira asked, looking around the otherwise empty medical bay for any clues about why she might have been brought there.
"Just a quick blood test, Major." Doctor Bashir offered as he walked in from the operating theater. "So if you'll hop up on the biobed we can get this entire business over with."
"You think I'm a Changeling!?" Kira exclaimed, not quite able to believe it as everything that had happened slotted together in her head.
Bashir motioned to the biobed as he grabbed a hypo-extractor from a nearby tray. "Major, please."
"All right." Kira said as she walked over to the biobed and hopped up, not seeing any reason to fight the request given she knew she wasn't a Changeling. "Left arm or right?"
"Right please." Bashir instructed as he walked over.
With a sigh Kira rolled up her sleeve, preparing herself as she did for the slight pinch of the extractor.
The pinch came.
"She's clear." Bashir offered with a small nod to Raine before the ampule even finished filling. "No sign of Cardassian implants on the scan."
"Cardassian implants!?" Nerys repeated in confusion as she looked between the pair. "Someone needs to explain what's going on here."
Raine tapped her combadge. "Brooks to Defiant, we've cleared her of any immediate risk, you're clear for transport to medical."
The sound of a transporter filled the room, and four forms materialized, three standing and the fourth laid out on one of the open biobeds.
The most noticeable of the group was, as always, the Emissary, who was supporting a blond Bajoran woman with a young face who looked like she'd been on the wrong end of one too many Cardassian disciplinary reprisals.
In the biobed was a young Cardassian man who appeared to be somewhere around Kira's age, with an energy weapon wound on his side that looked like it had already been somewhat treated, while holding his hand with a very clear posture of worry was…
"Not again." Kira muttered as she stared in shock at the woman who, outside of the long hair and slightly gaunt appearance, could have been her identical twin.
"Kira Nerys." Sisko began as he helped the blond Bajoran over to one of the remaining biobeds. "Meet Kira Nerys."
"But I'm…" Nerys began, glancing between Kira and Sisko with a look of confusion nearly mirroring Kira's own. "How can she be…"
"Is she like the Intendant?" Kira asked, the events of the past half hour suddenly making a lot more sense outside of a single glaring exception.
"Scans confirm both of your quantum signatures match our universe." Bashir offered as he deposited the blood he had drawn from her in the analyzer and moved to check on the blond Bajoran.
"I ended up in
Elemspur ten years ago after a botched intelligence gathering mission." Nerys offered with a haunted look in her eyes that Kira had seen more than enough in others to know that at least was the truth. "I was only there for about a week however when a Cardassian Gul by the name of Dukat showed up and had me transfered to the Amaltha detention center."
Something in the tone of Nerys's words made Kira suspect there had been a good deal more personal attention from Dukat during the other her's transfer then the brief summation otherwise suggested.
"Should have slammed his head into the bulkheads harder." Raine muttered almost too softly for Kira to hear.
"As the only two Bajoran women at the camp we spent the last year sharing a cell." The blond offered, grimacing slightly as she removed one of her boots to reveal a clearly swollen ankle. "So I can confirm she's been there that long at least."
"And I can confirm that your ankle is broken, Ensign Sito." Bashir followed up as he closed his tricorder and began gathering up a number of medical devices from one of the storage units.
"You should be focusing on Tarnek." Sito protested with a worried look to the Cardassian. "We wouldn't have been able to escape without his help."
"Robert already stabilized your friend." Bashir informed her as he began running a glowing device over her ankle. "And loath as I am to admit it, his skills are superior to my own when it comes to emergency care."
Kira had to hold back a cringe at the thought, for as much faith as the Federation might put in the technology, experience during her time in the resistance had taught her that at the end of the day holograms like the Defiant's doctor were no more than easily manipulated computer programs.
"Why did he help you escape?" Raine inquired, an admittedly good question given that in Kira's experience Cardassians assigned to places like Amaltha were the last kind who'd save a pair of women out of the goodness of their hearts.
"He's a member of the dissident movement." Nerys said, still clutching the unconscious man's hand in a way that was starting to make Kira just a little uncomfortable given the implications.
Raine crossed her arms under her breasts, and Kira could see her visibly fighting the urge to begin pacing like she often did when thinking over a problem. "So probably one of Natima's people then."
"That's interesting." Kira put forward as she began to feel like that they were getting distracted from the more important matter at hand.
"But why does she," She pointed at Nerys. "look like me.
"That's what we were hoping to find out." Sisko admitted as he turned a questioning look over to Bashir. "Doctor?"
The man in question looked up from his treatment of the ensign and glanced over to the still running analyzer's display. "I'm not seeing any immediate differences from the sample Robert took of the other Nerys on the Defiant."
"Which leaves the options of one of them being a genetically altered infiltrator, a clone, a
transporter duplicate," Raine put forward before tilting her head slightly and grimacing. "or maybe a genetically mimetic shapeshifter."
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Author's Notes: So who saw this series of butterfly effects coming?
Also shameless plug time, for those who don't want to wait, the next chapter of this story is already available on my Patreon at the lowest level. A link to which can be found in my signature.
