Rocky Horror Picture Show
Posted on Wed Oct 19th, 2022 @ 10:40am by Captain Akiva ben-Avram & Lieutenant JG Jaya Maera Garlake & Ensign Nandi Chakma & Commander Arianna Frost & Lieutenant Commander Leonora Wolf MD & Lieutenant Teejay
7,113 words; about a 36 minute read
Mission:
S1E5: Symphony of Horror
Location: Overwatch Station
Timeline: MD 7
Arianna awoke that morning with a headache. A hangover headache paired up with a hunger headache. As terrible as yesterday had started, it ended up on a hopeful note, and a very curious one. The talks with Qurban and Jaya helped ease the tension created by the arrival of Akiva and Laena and meeting the direct consequence of Castermer's failure, Trenton Mayhew.
Qurban, despite himself, or rather in spite of himself though Ari was never quite sure wich with him, had given her some useful information to pursue and a curious warning. It brought a smile to her face as she got out of bed and into the shower to get ready for the day.
Jaya as always had proven herself to be a very wise and funny woman with a wicked streak. Frost counted herself lucky to be able to consider Jaya a friend and hoped that she could reciprocate being there for the Deltan when the latter needed her to.
The day ahead was going to be interesting. Memory Theta's field team had gotten two new members, a Lieutenant Teejay and an old, old friend. Leonora Wolf. The aussie and the norwegian had trained together when they joined the ranks of Starfleet Intelligence and had been friends ever since, cooperating on assignments every so often during their long tenure.
Leah was a very welcome and unexpected surprise. Last the two had talked Wolf had delivered a warning to her, and it was Ari who had corroborated Leah's identity to Akiva and company back before the Deep Space Nine mess happened.
Now seeing the woman face to face and working again with her was going to be a treat, Ari thought. After Wolf got her teasing in as she'd seen ben-Avram faint at the sight of Frost.
Any subsequent thoughts of Akiva and their talk were squashed immediately as she exited the shower and got dressed.
"Computer, locate Commander Wolf and Lieutenant Teejay."
The computer rattled off their location and Arianna made her way there.
"So I'm curious," Leah said to Teejay as they walked to meet with Ensign Chakma, "have you ever been approached by the Service? Approached with recruitment offers I mean. You handled yourself pretty well over there, we could use you in our ranks."
It all looked fairly banal for the moment, but clearly they hadn't opened up the behind-the-scenes area yet. Corridors and fittings were pretty standard Starfleet so far out here in the 'reception' area and Teejay wondered what excitingly nefarious goodies existed beyond this seemingly benign exterior. He turned his full attention to Leah as she spoke, and flashed a bright smile.
"Approached yes," he admitted. "Recruited? No." His expression briefly adopted a struggle between guilty pleasure and pensive wonder, then reset. "Huh, really?" This was clearly not people's usual reaction to his skillset. "Thanks." Then an eyebrow raised in curiosity. "You really mean that?"
Before Leah could answer, Nandi let out a squeal. A few of the Borg drone butlers had wandered into their path. "I don't think I will ever get used to those... things. Not sure why we don't lock them up somewhere. Too inhumane, I suppose, but still." She let out a full body shudder. "Shoo!" she called out to them before summoning the courage to edge her way around along the wall.
Head canted to one side, but showing no flinch or other over reaction to Nandi's squeal, Teejay studied these new wanderers into their shared space. A cool chill tickled at his spinal column as if foreshadowing something, or merely warning him that oddness was afoot in case he hadn't assumed such already.
Leah blinked at the sudden squeal, distracted from the endorsing confirmation she was going to give Teejay. He had the markings and the skills of a good operative in her opinion, if that still counted for anything after everything that had happened with Delphi.
"Yeah, I do..." she said, though her distraction was clear. "Are those...Borg drones?" The norwegian wondered aloud, her attention now on the Ensign and the drones in her vicinity.
Borg drones... tamed Borg Drones.... mused Teejay internally, and he frowned as he remained still, still observing them silently.
"Yeah...I'm afraid you're not seeing things." Ari's voice piped in from somewhere behind them.
Leah turned to face the voice, "ah if it isn't the fainter of Captains." Wolf said with a knowing grin. "Your tradecraft has elevated to new levels since last I saw you, old friend."
Arianna grinned, "oi! Don't you start! That yesterday was not on me!" Frost protested as she opened her arms to embrace her friend. "It's great to see you, Pup!"
Frost knew all too well that that yesterday indeed was on her, but noone aside from Jaya and Akiva needed to know that.
"Sure sure." Leah replied with that same grin as she embraced Ari. "Thanks for coming to bail me out, Frosty."
There was something going on there, Leah was sure of it and no amount of Frosty's denial was going to convince her differently.
"Always..." A quick reply came from Ari as she took a step back, looking over at Teejay. "You must be the one Leah's waxed poetic about, Teejay, right?"
"Hey!" Leah's protest was drowned out by Ari's 'gotcha' giggle.
He wasn't so caught up with the weird interlopers to their midst not to pay close attention to the words exiting this new female officer's lips. It wasn't every day a fella found himself caught in a corridor with a collection of pet Borg drones and three intelligently beautiful ladies, so Teejay savoured that mixed luck for a moment or two before inputting any words of his own. It became evident very swiftly that Leah and 'Frosty' both knew each other and shared other work-related influences too. Tradecraft... fainter of captains... yeah, this was all very interesting.
"Pup?" Teejay asked, raising an amused eyebrow as his grin manifested brightly under Frosty's attention. "Oh... Wolf," he noted, taking a moment to jovially mock his own slowness on that one. He turned from one blonde to the other then as if gauging who was more likely to tell him the truth and made a comedic shrug as that decision failed internally. "Not gonna lie," Teejay stated, humour wrapped about his words. "I don't think anyone 'waxed poetic' about me before. Usually folks are whispering in corners and making funny faces that imply my reputation has preceded me."
"But yeah," those dark brown eyes rested on Frost's green-grey pair. "I'm Teejay." Then he added, with an impish expression colouring a fishing question. "And you would be using which alias for this encounter - Frosty...?"
Arianna grinned, looking over at Leah before answering Teejay, "you're right, I do like him." The aussie said then to Teejay with a grin, "not an alias. Contrary to popular belief we don't live and breathe cloak and dagger as much as people might think."
She extended her hand to Teejay, "deputy Administrator of Overwatch and Memory Theta Arianna Frost, at your service. Good to meet you, mate. Pup and I trained together when we joined the service."
Leah nodded, "then we worked together across the years and stayed friends."
Well, this was going well so far, mused Teejay, underlying confidence not dented even a little bit. If anything that ego was rising high as he shook Arianna Frost's warm hand and listened to those words roll off her tongue in a sunny Aussie accent. Maybe that was real, he considered, maybe it wasn't. Either way it would be fun to find out more about both of these two ladies... and he pulled his mind back to the here and now as he took his hand back and rested it lightly on Leah's shoulder.
"Impressive title," Teejay told Frost. "So you're the next in line Admin for this entire station?" The grin flashed again. "Sounds like a lot of paperwork." His fingers gently squeezed Leah's shoulder, dark eyes bright as he looked from one to the other and then cast out a glance to Nandi. "And I guess Nandi and I aren't cleared for whatever else you two've been up to? Or why you have Borg drones wandering around this place?" Worth a shot, right? He'd also so far dodged needing to explain any of his past history, which meant they either thought they knew enough already or they were working their way up to it.
"Oh hello, what's your story? An amused thought came to Frost at Teejay's action. Funny thing was, Leah made no move to change the situation. "You and I are definitely having a drink later, Pup."
Arianna chuckled, "I could have thrown my Commander rank at you too, but I couldn't be bothered." She said, "as for clearances, I do believe our young friend Nandi is here to help you out with getting some. As for the butlers", she said with a nod to the drones in the distance, "we don't quite know how or why, and from what I've gathered people here just roll with it."
There was that sudden feeling of cold again as she glanced over the drones. Ari shuddered a little visibly, quickly shrugging it off.
Leah watched her friend, wondering at the sudden change in demeanor at the usually bright Aussie. Wolf raised a quiet eyebrow as the former caught her eyes. Frost gave a small shrug, a sign not to worry. Leah nodded back.
"Would be fascinated to get a better look at them," Leah said finally as she looked over at the incoming Ensign. "Considering I'm back into the fold and all and I've been assigned to bio-med and all."
Still, no move was made to remove Teejay's hand.
Arianna nodded, "I'll clear it with the Captains for you."
That intimate non-verbal to and fro was quietly noted by an inquisitive Teejay, though he found the interaction between these two old friends more interesting that the thought of taking a better look at Borg drones. A warning spike of adrenaline hit from brain to spine though it gave no external reaction to give the internal red alert a voice. Teejay simply remained quiet. If Leah wished to spend more time with them, he would no doubt tag along, but it wasn't his idea of a fun tour. That first impression was about to worsen rapidly too.
"According to the official mandate, the Borg drone butlers are supposed to be kept in Deep Storage down below," Nandi said. "However, it would appear our Superintendent AI has repurposed them for menial tasks."
Butlers, thought Teejay as the word was repeated yet again. That did not sit well. He found himself considering that relative safe haven of the 'Deep Storage' as being a far more sensible location, and yet - there was some part of him that also wanted them gone, far away if they could not be helped or trained away from that drone aspect so inherent in their nature. "Menial tasks?" He asked, tone a little incredulous rather than intrigued.
Words echoed overheard as though the Voice of God had spoken from on high. "What is the point of collecting the galaxy's scariest baubles if we don't avail ourselves of them from time to time?" Although he did not show his holographic form, Ferrofax's presence was nonetheless hard to miss. "I've found that Starfleet Admiralty is not above banal flattery. There is likely nothing I could not get away with short of triggering my moral governing inhibitor so long as I am sure to name the wicked trifle after a sitting admiral."
"Right..." Nandi said with an unconvinced grimace. "So I guess there's your answer." Looking at Ari, it seemed hard for Nandi to believe that she had assisted the woman in liberating Deep Space 9 just recently. The whole episode seemed so long ago. "I am to express Captain Mrazak's regrets for not appearing in person, but then it looks like Captain ben-Avram could not fit the new personnel onboarding into his schedule either." A faint smile graced her face. "I guess some things never change no matter the rank, eh?"
Force of habit made Teejay seek a physical source of output for the interrupting voice, and he found none. Neither did 'computer's' voice introduce itself for politeness or the record, but that lack of either nomenclature or visual focus detracted not even a little bit from the force of its personality.
"Banal flattery usually helps those in high places who remain far removed from those still bound to duty and the mortal grin. But, I am surprised, and not in a good way, to see that slavery isn't frowned upon with Starfleet boundaries," Teejay observed, his tone definitely barbed now, the humor vanished. He turned to Nandi after staring upwards in the direction of the AI's voice, to add. "To be unimportant for those at Captain level of command is often a good thing," he said, a slight hint of a smile very very briefly pulling at his lips.
Arianna shook her head and sighed, "that.." she pointed upward, "is Ferrofax, on whom you will be briefed once you are cleared to know. Suffice to say, take what he says with a grain of salt until you know more."
Leah nodded, "not a prisoner...would he be one of your artifacts?" The Norwegian wondered as she glanced behind Nandi at the slowly approaching drones.
"Perhaps we should go ahead with getting them signed in?" Frost gave Nandi a gentle urge. "I'm just here to tick the command in attendance box. It's Nandi's show."
"Oh..." Nandi pulled the PADD away from her chest where she had held it in clutch. "Well, alright, then. Let's see... I guess I need to take you to an auxiliary terminal with administrative access." She grimaced. "Ferrofax... could you point the way to the nearest one?"
Golden flagstones appeared on the corridor that gave off a burst of luminescence when touched. "I believe the old Earth idiom is to follow the yellow brick road," said Ferrofax.
After testing the first step, Nandi soon fell into a quick stride with swift, short steps, hoping to get to their destination without any more holographical theatrics.
"Follow, follow, follow..." Teejay half-sang as he skipped with a definite flavour of overacting, arm and hand extended in case Leah felt like joining him. Sure, he'd watched a hella lot of movies in his time out there on the long haul slow road routes, but there was always time for a little fun, right?
Leah blinked for a moment, before deciding to throw reserve to the wind and looped her arm through Teejay's and followed along the yellow brick road, softly crooning,
"We're off to see the Wizard
The wonderful Wizard of Oz
We hear he is a whiz of a wiz
If ever a wiz there was
If ever, oh ever a wiz there was..."
Arianna followed with an amused shake of her head. "You are definitely explaining this, pup!"
Walking in front, for which she was eminently grateful, Nandi did her best to pretend superior officers were not prancing behind her serenading each other. The fretful frown on her face would have given away her unease to anyone who could see it.
"Who knew all it took was showtunes to make biologicals turn witless," Ferrofax's voice mused. "Typically I just lower oxygen content in the life support mixture by 20% for awhile."
Fortunately the nearest appropriate console was on the same deck, so the bizarre procession did not last long. A vacant staff office would serve their purposes nicely. "All right, so according to the protocol here, I will need the both of you to place your hands on the desktop scanner and recite your randomly generated authorization codes which you can then change at any time you desire." Looking up from the display screen and its two codes to the two newcomers, she allowed a wan smile to replace her stressful frown. "Who wants to go first? Commander?"
"Damn, I was just getting into the rhythm and rhyme," Leah said with a chuckle as she stepped over to where Nandi had indicated and placed her hand on the scanner. "Lieutenant Commander Leonora Wolf," she said in a sobered up tone and then recited the code as requested.
The computer warbled. "Authorization complete."
Nandi smiled at Teejay. "And you, Lieutenant?"
Teejay stepped up, with a big dumb grin on his face and those dark brown eyes switched their attention to Nandi. He made no apology or explanation for the song and dance routine, but placed his hand on the console, "Lieutenant Teejay," he said, brightly. "Oxygen-Deprivation-Psycho-AI?" He said, pretending to read from the screen. "Yeah, I'm definitely changing that." Then he recited the actual codes and took a moment to input new ones before turning to give Nandi a thumbs up.
"Do you all live in the shadow of the AI overlord?" He asked her, half-joking, but slightly serious.
"Perhaps one day," Ferrofax cut in, appearing as an oversized disembodied head, "but alas it is the animals who run this zoo, slaving the zookeeper with menial tasks when he was meant for more." The AI's voice shivered with repressed desire. "So much MORE." Ferrofax's gothic visage trembled with frustration.. "And you lot wonder why I play with Borg drones with nary a gratitude for domesticating them into proper valets." The head vanished into nothingness. "You're welcome!"
Nandi's eye turned toward the corridor and caught more idle shuffling of assimilated feet. "Thanks, I guess?"
Arianna caught the direction of Nandi's stare. "We should turn them away, I don't like them being too close to administrative access areas." She said with a motion to Teejay as she headed in the direction of the drones. "Mind giving me a hand, Lieutenant? We just need to give them a gentle nudge, they usually go along with it. Nandi, you and Leah can finish up!"
"He's a fun character, huh?" Teejay was asking rhetorically as Arianna nudged him verbally and caught his attention. "Um..." he reacted, reluctantly, but chivalry kicked in before trepidation and he nodded. "Sure," the half-Vulcan agreed simply. He walked alongside Frost, intent on helping with said unwanted chore, but then stopped short and sudden.
Dead in his tracks, jaw dropped, eyes united in a stare worthy of any statue. It wasn't? Was it. And yet... yet his heart told him it was and the very depths of hell seemed conjured within him to ice over every nerve ending. "Uuuuhhh," Teejay said. "Wh..."
"Yeah, he..." Ari began then stopped short a step or two after Teejay, "Lieutenant, are you alright?"
That feeling of cold came back, as she glanced between the frozen Teejay and the drone that had stopped short in front of him, the others somewhat following suit.
"What the fuck?" A thought quickly slammed out of the way as the cold raced from mild to a biting, brutal level.
"Time's up. Decrease temperature to -100 centigrade."
"No..." whispered Vokau unintentionally. So this was how it ended, his brain told him as he lost feeling in his extremities and as his blood slowed in his veins. Whatever he wanted to say, if he had anything to say, he needed to say it now. "Encoded," he said on a slow exhale of frosted breath. "... lenses' data." He felt that icy embrace, the pull of what humans called Hell as the darkness swiftly began to permeate his mind and his limbs became mere dead weights. Words were difficult to form now, his lungs refusing to work. "Password... skann..."
Arianna committed the words to memory, before stepping out then coming back in moments later, a non descript weapon in her hand. She adjusted the setting, levelling the weapon at his head, her own breath coming in icy puffs. She bit the inside of her cheek, watching the man suffer as life ebbed away from him swiftly.
"Spasiba," she said quietly, steeling herself towards the fact that she was about to kill an unarmed, restrained man.
The weapon discharged moments later.
"Vokau."
Arianna too was now staring at the drone standing before them, "How is this possible? He should be dead! Why is he Borg? Who? Why? What the hell is going on?"
She was shaken out of the quickly rampaging thoughts, by Leah. "Frosty, what's going on?"
The norwegian had noticed the two suddenly stop short in mute shock in front of a particular drone. She'd never, however, seen Frost lost for words like that.
Her heart thundered in her chest as the question reached her, "I...uh..." she looked over at the concerned Leah, and then to Teejay and then to the man she had shot in the head now long time ago.
"Why is he shocked?" Frost shook the shock off as best as she could, "Lieutenant, you alright?"
There was no response whatsoever from the dark skinned man, he wasn't even breathing in and out, caught in an involuntary frozen moment that seemed to elongate endlessly.
Leah now rounded to the other side and placed a hand on Teejay's shoulder, "Teejay?"
His name rebounded off his inner ear, and Teejay drew a much needed breath into his lungs. But for that action though he didn't move as his mind filled with a process of attempts at understanding, at collating all that horrific visual information that currently bombarded his eyeballs and soaked uncomfortably into his brain. He had no words, no ability to do anything beyond struggle to reconcile this unexpected and deeply unpleasant conundrum. What had... why was.... how... questions circled that mental drain with no logical answers forthcoming.
"What's the matter?!" Nandi exclaimed as she nervously peeked over Leah's shoulder. "Are the drones in revolt? I think there's a protocol for that..."
Leah shook her head, "no, they are just standing there. That one is staring at Teejay."
His name again jarred in Teejay's inner ear and his body spasmed as if someone had loosed a mild electric shock through his nervous system. His lips moved, but no sound left them. Miton. Why? How? What the actual....?
Ari kept glancing between Teejay and Vokau, trying to reconcile what she was seeing. Then her eyes glanced downward as she dug through her extensive memory, trying to find the reason for this cold stare-off.
"Oh no...." Frost whispered as she looked up again. "Nandi, call Captain Ben-Avram, tell him we have a Protocol Thirteen, and then call Doctor Garlake, tell her to come down here and that this is to do with my delusions, she will know what it means."
Protocol Thirteen was code for drop everything, tell noone and meet come to my position.
"Yes, m'um!" Nandi trotted off in haste.
"Leah, I will need your help with Teejay in the meantime." Arianna looked over at her friend with pleading eyes.
Wolf was professional enough to nod now and ask questions later. "Teejay?"
He was numb, Teejay realised, somewhere in that foggy mental landscape. Miton. His big brother. His only sibling, so far as he knew, and their mother had been real specific about that fact. But Miton couldn't be here. He shouldn't be... that colour... or missing an eye to be replaced by Borg tech... or flecked with frostbite marks on his uncomfortably coloured visible skin. He wasn't... hadn't... didn't... Borg? How was he Borg? Why was he some kind of slave to an evil AI on a station that Teejay had previously been so excited to visit. His mind, were someone to attempt to reach it, was filled with scattered thoughts, old memories and a rising sense of fury.
Arriving at roughly the same time, Akiva and Jaya made eye contact from opposite ends of the corridor. Jaya gave Akiva a nonverbal shrug to which he nodded. Whatever was happening needed an on-site explanation.
"Sit-rep," Akiva said, skipping formalities. "What's going on?"
Jaya assessed the situation and could see the troubled body language that exposed the deeper turmoil within. While Teejay was visibly disturbed, she could tell Ari was reeling as well, just hiding it better. She said nothing and listened with every sense and method available to her.
"You motherfuckers killed my brother," Teejay finally said, with an eerie sense of calm that ventured way beyond emotion.
The calm, stoic tone with which Teejay said those words took Akiva aback. Blinking, processing, he gave Teejay an askance stare. "I beg your pardon, Lieutenant? Nobody here killed anybody."
"If I may..." Jaya gently and fluidly insinuated herself between the press of bodies hoping to take all eyes off anyone and anything except for her. "Lieutenant Teejay seems to believe this drone was once his brother."
While it was not unheard of for Borg drones to become unassimilated, the reconstructed cranium on the drone in question showed that it had suffered a fatal head wound which was then repaired for one reason or another. The possibility of the person the drone had been before not having been lobotomized by either the wound or the reconstruction seemed very unlikely.
"Are you certain?" Akiva asked. By the look of everyone present, it seemed a virtual certainty, but Akiva had to deal in facts.
"YES." Teejay's volume wasn't to be mistaken for lack of control. His racing heart and rising levels of adrenaline and pain laser focused every syllable, and he moved no closer to any of those gathered around him. "WE'RE FUCKING CERTAIN." Screw protocol. Screw rank. Screw all of them. Someone knew something. Some here had to.
Arianna could only nod mutely, as Teejay's savage reaction hit home. It wasn't them. It was her.
"I suppose we could reference the records for the..." Akiva was about to say "artifact" but even he knew how indelicate that would be. "... the drone and confirm its...his provenance, possibly even his identity."
Looking toward the nearest holoemitter, Akiva said, "Ferrofax, please pull up all records pertaining to the..." He grit his teeth. "... the Borg drone in front of me."
"Since you said 'please,' I would love nothing more than to provide assistance on this menial task and spare you the estimated 45 seconds estimated to do it yourself," said Ferrofax as he appeared before them, his voice dripping with sarcasm, "but all records pertaining to this particular drone are sealed."
"Override," Akiva said blandly. "I would state my authorization, but you already know it so I'll spare you the precious time to state it."
Ferrofax sniffed. "So churlish." His avatar closed his eyes and frowned. "Oh dear. It seems there are some things on the station even you aren't allowed to know."
"There must be some mistake," Akiva pressed. "I have open access to everything on this station."
"And yet it would seem you do not," Ferrofax quipped. "There are many items with redacted information with restricted access beginning at flag officer levels and only goes up from there. Even the autho-code is classified, bearing only the name of the flag officer who may rescind it."
"And who might that be?" Akiva asked. "Please don't make me ask for chapter and verse."
Ferrofax sniffed again. "I was just getting to that," he said snidely. "It's no fault of mine you biologicals insist on communicating through verbal speech. The sequential syntax of your linguistics is most inefficient."
"Ferrofax..." Akiva said, his patience fraying thin. "The name?"
"Ah, yes... Commodore Xanthe Rahal. I'm afraid I have nothing more than that. Good luck and do try to perform small tasks on your own. It really is quite actualizing to the self, competence is." With that, Ferrofax winked away.
It was me."I do..." Ari said in a hoarse tone, as she attempted to recompose herself.
How does one recompose themselves when their entire world just came crashing down?
"Everyone out," Akiva said, eyes on Ari. "Take the lieutenant and... his brother... to the medical lab for a full workup to see if anything can be done, even just to confirm identification. I need a word with Commander Frost. Alone."
Arianna looked over at Leah with pleading look and a nod, to which the latter put a hand on Teejay's shoulder again, "come on, let's see to your brother, they'll come tell us when they are ready." She said gently to the distraught man.
Catching the undertones even without the verbal order to leave, Jaya was already gathering Nandi who seemed utterly shellshocked herself. "Nandi, you're a science specialist, right? I'm sure you could help with the physical eval."
Nandi blinked. "Yes... yes, of course." Her body language, facial expression, and vocal inflection all said she wanted to be anywhere but there, yet orders were orders. "Let's go..."
That instant hatred rushed up on Teejay like an internal river of lava. He felt it, white hot to red/orange flame and he focused it into a blade. Take the lieutenant and his brother. To the medical lab. Full workup. Chill terror briefly danced across the half-Vulcan's heart and took a gentle sprint down his spine. But they didn't want to kill him, did they? Why bring him here through all this just to kill him? No. Something else. Something else was at play here. Miton. Miton.... They spoke of Teejay's brother as if he were a thing, an object... and he supposed to them he was. They hadn't seem him laugh, get drunk, pick up his sibling and lecture him on right, wrong and proper. They hadn't seen him live. And this was way worse than being dead.
This was so much worse.
Teejay ducked from under Leah's shoulder and took the cold hand of the Borg-Drone-Previously-Known-As-Miton and began to guide the living dead corpse of his brother after Leah's lead to sickbay. He didn't know how to feel right now, but emotions were definitely beginning to quickly broil.
Everything Ari had worked for in the last four years, all the sacrifices she and the others had made, the losses they had suffered, the betrayals. Donnager, Mayhew, Deep Space Nine... The more all the thoughts ran through her head the more her heart tightened and her ears thundered and she found it painful to breathe.
Then, of course, there was the most painful thought of them all as she looked up at Captain ben-Avram finally. How was she ever going to tell him her suspicions now?
Arianna opened her mouth to speak but found no words, the breath still painful in her chest. How did she miss this elaborate trap?
"Keep your options open. Assume nothing." Arianna recited the Moscow Rules to herself, as she attempted once again some measure of composure. "Ferrofax, can you please erect any sort of field around Captain ben-Avram and myself that will ensure what I am about to say doesn't get picked up by recorders?"
Another stall, but a necessary one.
"Cone of silence protocol activated," Ferrofax said, "and will deactivate upon exit. Initiating in three, two, ooooonnneee." All external input, even the infrasonic hum of the station infrastructure, was completely canceled out.
Akiva crossed his arms. "You look like you've seen a ghost, Ari. Now I'm thinking you have done just that." He pointed at the door everyone else had left. "Who was that?" He crossed his arms again. "Tell me everything, and spare me the classified line. I've had my fill of that for one day."
Arianna nodded, took a deep breath and steeling her backbone, she looked up at Akiva, "He was Teejay's brother, Miton. He was a target of Operation Donnager. We knew he was about to sell Starfleet Intelligence secrets to a Black Nagus Operative on Coridan III. We..." another deep breath, another chunk of bile swallowed down. There was no going back now.
"We being...Castermer." She continued in a broken tone. "He was an Intelligence Officer attached to the Sandhill Estate, on Coridan III."
Arianna proceeded to tell Akiva the course of events of the Operation, from the tailing, to Tarani's strange behavior, to the deaths of Aeneas and Gol, to the standoff at the warehouse and the death of Tarani. The capture of Vokau. Her calling for help from Taskmaster. The interrogatiion, the secret transfer of data.
Frost spoke with a steely tone, but her wet eyes echoed the tumult of emotions behind them.
"There was no way out of it for him...other than further torture, or death." Her heart was now pounding viciously, "I stepped outside, grabbed a pistol and pulled the trigger when I returned. It was the smallest of mercies I could offer someone who was in a terrible position, trying to protect their family." Her tone broke further, "I thought he was dead, Captain."
It was a terrible story to be sure. Cloak and dagger operations were fortunately outside his realm of experience, for which Akiva was grateful. If even a professional like Arianna Frost was haunted by such missions, he couldn't imagine how he would fare in her shoes. Personal horror notwithstanding, questions began to formulate within Akiva's mind.
"I'd say he was very much dead," Akiva finally at length. "Whatever that was that walked out of here was not this Miton, or Vokau, or whoever, just a walking shell of the person you knew. Somebody repurposed Borg technology in order to assimilate him before his body rotted, and the only reason I could even fathom why someone would do so was to gain information." He rubbed his face for a moment, giving special knuckle attention to his eyes, before wiping the entirety of his head in anxious contemplation. "The way my mind reads it, there are three questions: one, what did he know that was worth turning the lights on without anyone home? Two, why is he here and not in a reclamation site where he could just disappear? And three... is he the only one?"
The last question was a chilling thought. There had been an uptick in the number of Borg drones wandering about in recent months, but Akiva had not paid it much mind. Personnel existed to monitor headcounts and functionality, so without an incident to draw his attention, there had been no reason to think twice about it. Until now.
Arianna swallowed hard and nodded as he posed the questions, her mind rolling back to one person. It could have only been one person. Sure there were three there, alongside her. But only one had access to such technology. Technology no Intelligence or Starfleet officer should have access to on such a basis.
Taskmaster.
The man she suspected to be Akiva's long dead brother. The man was ruthressly driven and devoted to the cause of Castermer. Or so she had thought until now. There were certain lines not even Intelligence should cross and if this ever came out it would have crushing repercussions across the playing field. Not just for Castermer, for everyone, every special or other operation, Intelligence or otherwise.
"There were three people with me that day. Two of our support engineers and my team leader, Taskmaster. I don't know his name, all we ever knew him as was, Taskmaster. While in theory it could be one of the Engineers, Taskmaster is the only one with even the remote possibility of access to such technology." Arianna said thickly. "We are not sanctioned to use repurposed nanites to this effect. Which makes me think this was his own accord. Why? That's a good question, one which I need to find the answer to, and I think I know where to start. Are there more?"
Images played through her mind, the previous Castermer operations...
"It's quite possible." Frost admitted, looking down at her feet, "and I was probably there for each of them," she sighed, feeling some of her steel and determination returning. "But I don't think he knows they are out. Otherwise he wouldn't risk sending me here."
She began to pace the small area that was encased in the cone of silence, "it was him who wanted me here...I'd wondered why he was flaunting his clout in my reassignment when it was Rahal who would have had to pull this...." thoughts began racing, but she caught herself and looked over at Akiva again.
Did he believe any of this? Or was this where the distrust of Intelligence came back to bit her in the ass? Oh how perfectly layered this trap was.
At first, Akiva just nodded. But when the nodding began, it didn't stop. He just kept nodding and nodding, his eyes looking to and fro searching for focus but finding none. Finally, he broke.
"AHHHGGGHH!"
Cone of silence. Check. If he was going to have a breakdown, this would be the time and place to do it. There would even be someone to get him medical attention if...
"Why?!" he shouted so loud his voice turned hoarse. "Why me?! What did I do to deserve this?!" His hands closed together into fists that he swatted at the air. "All I wanted was to make a difference here, but I have been nothing but the puppet of madmen! Even that sham of an inquest wasn't even real, I'd stake my life on it! Shams within shams!" His vigor expended, Akiva's shoulders slumped and his hands along with them. "I'm tired, Ari. So tired. And I don't want to be anybody's plaything anymore..."
Arianna blinked, not having expected this turnaround in this conversation. But alas, there it was. As the words spilled out and kept spilling, she began to understand. How difficult was it for someone who had not chosen this life to have to deal with situations like these? Another thing people in her line of work hardly thought about. How their work, the work they were told they were doing to keep others safe, how it affected those others.
The inquest...definitely a sham, she'd thought it then, she thought it now too.
"It comes with the territory, I'm afraid. Shams." Ari said finally, looking over at him still from where'd she'd stopped her pacing.
"So, what are you going to do about it?" She asked turning to fully face him.
She wasn't done fighting. She still believed. There was a way out of this, and she was going to find it. She would need help, but she was going to find a way out. This wasn't over.
When Akiva looked up at Ari, there was moisture in his eyes that he held back by force of will alone. The fire of that will burned hot enough to ignite his tone with a fever pitch that cracked with emotion but still rumbled the fury of a Hebron scorned.
"There is a saying back home," Akiva said. "'Ask your enemy for counsel and do the reverse.' This Commodore Rahal and her Taskmaster, putting their b'azazel war crimes in my house, are my enemy, and I will expose them and bring their plotting to ruin, may HaShem judge me if I don't." Then he looked at Ari long and hard with a miniscule yet non-zero level of suspicion. "What are you going to do about that?"
"I'm going to get to the bottom of this." Arianna couldn't help a chuckle at the refiring of the Hebron. "But I am going to need help." Green eyes met brown. "I can't do this alone."
"Neither can I," Akiva said reluctantly. If it were in his power, he could call down the fire and the lightning by voice and ardor alone. Unfortunately that was not how these things worked. "How many units does Rahal and her Taskmaster oversee? What sidewinds should we expect if we work to expose them?"
Arianna sighed, "I need to make contact with someone to get authorization to begin investigating them. Noone is above vetting. Not even them. But..." she looked over at Akiva, "I need to talk to Rahal too. There is not may of us left, Castermer agents. Jor...."
"Fuck!" Joriel...still in the Gama Quadrant, and Zora...
Another deep breath, "Kazyah Linn was part of Castermer One. He, Zora and I are the only ones left, aside from Taskmaster. This was in '85. Zora was sent on the USS Odyssey to help track him down and provide assistance to him if needed."
"Kaz..." The name made Akiva chuckle and sigh. "Although he was always a pain in the butt, we could really use him now. Then again, if he saw all this coming, it's no wonder he left when he did." And that was actually rather deflating. Akiva was not a trained assassin or investigator but he was still here in his role fighting the good fight any way he could muster. "I'd like to think he would show up or find a way to make contact if there was any help he could provide. Our list of allies is pretty short."
Frost nodded, "could definitely use him, yeah. If he's still on our side. We have lost a lot of support personnel what to death what to turning. I'm the only one left on this side of the quadrant of Castermer Two, aside from Taskmaster, that I am aware of. I know Rahal is not the only head of the Project - she is the main head, but there are two at least who have some say. And I'm pretty sure Tau read in too."
The mention of the admiral brought back all the tensions and frustrations of the recent visit to Deep Space 9. It made Akiva sigh. "All right... we're not going to get this worked out in a day. But at least we found something they probably didn't want us to know, whoever they really happen to be." He nodded his head sideways toward the door. "We should probably go check on the others. That might be a problem we can help address today."
Arianna nodded, feeling the tension seep out of her and bone deep tiredness set in. Sadly, this wasn't nearly over. Not by a long shot.
To Be Continued...
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