Se...Se...Se...Secrets
Posted on Fri Nov 4th, 2022 @ 1:41pm by Commander Arianna Frost & Lieutenant Commander Leonora Wolf MD
2,191 words; about a 11 minute read
Mission:
Season 1 Interlude II (E5.5)
Location: Frost's Office
Timeline: later in the day after 'Roles In Play'
Of all the ways today could have started, Leonora most certainly wouldn't have picked this one. Of course, if things could go wrong all at once, they most certainly would and today they did. With one friend taken care of, Leonora was now in search of the other.
Frost had the unfortunate tendency to bottle everything up and deal with problems alone, whereas Leah herself preferred to tackle things head on where she could. She talked about it aloud. Frost...well, she would just frost her emotions over and plod on. Admirable in a professional sense, but destructive for the person in the long run. Something Wolf tried to remind Frost about whenever she could. Something the latter still didn't listen to enough.
Now, she stood in front of Arianna's office, a bottle of aquavit in her hand. If anyone asked, it was just two friends catching up after years and years. Leah tugged at her uniform and pressed the buzzer.
"Come in!" Came a muffled call.
"Permission to interrupt whatever it is you're up to, Commander?" She asked loudly as she came in.
Arianna looked up from her desktop display then finished tapping a command into it before closing it down. The look on her face spoke of wariness mixed in with relief. She expect another disaster... Leah realized as she took in the tell-tale signs of trauma in her friend's features.
"Granted, Commander." Frost said tiredly. "Have a seat..." the green eyed woman eyed the drink in her hand, "I'll get the glasses.
Wolf grinned, then reached into her pocket and took out the scrambler device. She placed it on Arianna's table and turned it on. Frost winced as she came back with the glasses and placed them on the table.
"Fuck, after today I'm starting to hate that sound." Arianna grumbled at her.
Leah nodded, taking in the weary expression and posture. She uncapped the bottle and poured them each a hefty shot. "Skol!" She said as she raised her glass and down the shot.
"Cheers!" Frost followed suit and downed the shot quick. Then the space aussie's face drew into a grimace. "Is this....Akvavit? Ugh!"
Leah grinned as she poured them second shots. "Drink it! It's good for you! Doctor's orders!" She raised her glass again and downed a second shot, the herby heat warming her chest.
"Oh fuck off, Leah!" Came an annoyed reply.
This only caused Leonora to grin further. "Come on Frosty, bring the wall down." Wolf observed her friend.
It was only after Arianna downed the second shot that Leah spoke again, "how are you?" She observed the woman carefully. In all this, noone had actually asked how Frost was doing. The focus was on Teejay, and the overreaching effect this incident would have Memory Theta and her crew. Frost had borne the weight as best as she could, losing her grip but once that she'd seen when Teejay pushed by his own emotion almost made that reckless move.
She watched Frost pause, looking down at the empty glass, twirling the glass in her hand. Pain, grief, anger, despair danced over her friend's face. "I...I'm not good, Leah." Frost said finally.
"I know, my friend, I know." Leah thought to herself and nodded, reaching over to pour them each another shot. She would give Ari a moment before she pushed again.
Leah understood Ari's reluctance, it was in their training, to keep everything close to their chest, and only reveal necessities. She had the same issue, though she'd learned in her time as a leader, her time on Delphi, that even people like them, people who did what she and Ari did, that even they needed to let it out from time to time so that they could keep going.
Frost leaned back in her chair, holding the now-filled glass in the air, still staring at it. "I gave everything to the Project. I believed in it. In us, in what we did."
"And the wall came a-tumbling..." Wolf took a small sip of her shot now and nodded.
Ari's breath hitched, "and now...now we're just as bad as those we fight against." She said bitterly and took a sip. "It's clever, his play, setting everything up so I take the fall if needed, so we take the fall and he gets off scott free!"
"Do you think it's this Taskmaster who masterminded this?" Leah asked, leaning back as well, crossing one leg over the other and holding the glass in her hands on her lap.
Frost took another sip and shook head. "He's a foreman, not a mastermind. Someone else is pulling his strings. I don't know if it's Rahal or one of the others or someone else." Ari replied as she pinched the bridge of her nose. "I missed it all. I've worked with him for a long time, and I missed that he's a fucking psycho. We're not meant to have this kind of power, Leah. I could have stopped this, but no...I was too busy with my own problems...with the mission, with this place, with DS9, with..."
"Ari, take a breath." Leah said gently, "this is not on you, my friend. This is entirely on that sick fuck and whoever's pulling his strings. This is the job, Ari, outsmarting the enemy. He's obviously good or he wouldn't have been put in charge of Castermer. So he outsmarted you. But guess what, you've caught his mistake and now you are on to him and you have help. Us!" Leah placed her palm on her chest then waved the same palm in the general direction of the hallway. "So now, we play the game back and we run counter on him. You are not alone. I know it feels like it, but you're not. I'm here...so's Teejay, believe it or not. So's young Nandi and your friend Jaya and her Colonel and your Captain."
Frost downed the rest of the shot, "he's not my Captain!"
"Oh please, I saw the faint." Leah grinned, "people don't just faint at the sight of other people."
"Leah, he's married and we're just friends." Ari sighed and then extended her arm for a refil.
Wolf reached over but paused momentarily, "are you sure?"
"I've done what I needed for the night and I don't think I'll be able to just sleep so I might as well get blind drunk and sleep it off. We're going to Risa soon so I have to focus on that tomorrow, make sure everything is set before we go." Ari said wiggling her empty glass.
Leah shrugged, "so, about your Captain..." She poured her friend another shot with a grin.
"Fuck you, Leah!" Frost grumbled as she leaned back.
"You have feelings for him." Leah said her thoughts as she poured herself another shot. "It's okay you know?"
Ari leaned her head back in her chair, "I know it is, Pup. But it doesn't matter. He's trying to reconcile with his wife and..."
A dark blonde eyebrow arched, "and?"
"And I don't want to be the convenient replacement. He needs time and what's happened is too important for me to entertain wishful thinking." Frost admitted with a sigh, nursing her glass in her lap.
Leonora chuckled, deciding to cut her friend some slack, happy that her attention had been switched. "You want to be loved for you. It's only fair."
Frost nodded, taking another sip, "okay, I've been polite enough, you and young Master Teejay?" The woman asked, her hand going to her sternum.
"I like him. He's gutsy, he doesn't seem to give a crap I do this job and that I'm trying to be professional. He's just himself and doesn't hide that he likes me too." Words spilled out of Leah to her surprise somewhat. This was Frosty though, she understood...despite what Teejay had done to her, despite what she had done to him.
Ari's smile was wan, "have you ever saw the direct consequences of what we do?" Came her quiet question.
The question gave Leah pause as she thought back on her career. She took another sip before replying.
"Not to this extent no. I've been lucky." Leah admitted.
Ari nodded and took another sip. "It's jarring. Especially when you don't expect it. Trent Mayhew...he copped it hard when Cal Jarsdel was controlled by Jumik and the latter tore out his voice box. The attack on this place that Castermer missed...while the field team was on Venus."
Another sigh from the space aussie, "and now Teejay. God, Leah I interrogated his brother, I watched as Taskmaster tortured him by freezing him...he'd shown repentance, he'd cooperated...and all I could do was to eliminate him. Taskmaster was against what I did. I didn't realize why...until today."
Leah listened quietly, her heart going to her friend. The normally stoic, strong, persistent woman was unraveling and it was hard to watch. The Doctor in her understood the necessity to process trauma and she hoped this was helping.
"It was his best way out...our remit was vet, and if found guilty we exposed, imprisoned (with required interrogation) or elimination." Frost continued, "Vok...Miton wouldn't not have survived the end of the interrogation. Taskmaster was too disgusted with him..." Yet again another sigh.
"I feel betrayed, Leah...and ashamed." An uneasy admission.
Leah sighed and took a sip, "you're only human, Ari. We're trained to hide how we feel and to power through it, but we still have all of those feelings. It's okay. The question is, are you going to wallow in them? Or get back on the horse?"
A bitter smile from Frost, "why do you think I'm drowning my sorrows in this herbal swill?" She raised her glass to Leah in a good natured jab.
"I don't know," Leah grinned back, "could be because of a certain someone who fainted at the sight of you."
"You can fuck right off, like I keep repeating." The aussie grinned back.
Leah laughed softly, then gave a sigh. "Did you want me to start identifying the butlers? And to see if I can ID the nanoprobes used?"
Frost took another sip and nodded, "yeah, we need tangible proof as soon as possible. I'll put together a list of dates and places and let you know. Probably having Nandi and Teejay with you will help and don't hesitate to utilize Ferrofax."
Leah nodded, "we'll get in it first thing. Have we found a secure spot to pool our data?"
"The Captain is working on something, he'll let us know soon." Arianna nodded.
Leah observed her friend for a moment before venturing forward with a question. "Are you going to be able to keep his focus? Keep up the charade until we are ready to force his hand?"
Frost took another sip and grimaced, which made Leah smirk for but a moment before returning her thoughts to the heavy topic at hand. It was a burden when you didn't have a personal stake in the matter, playing the distraction. It was a lot worse when you did, like her friend did.
"It's a personal stake for you too..." a thought bit back at her. It was true. She now had a personal stake in it too. One of her longtime friends was neck-deep in it and then there was Teejay.
"I have no choice, Leah." Came a reply from Frost. "I have to pull it off, it's as simple as that. I have to, otherwise we're fucked, mate. Even ignoring whatever else this brings, we're talking about the Federation purposefully creating drones. Crimes against humanoids at its finest. Then there's the whole - who's really behind this." The woman said, looking over at her.
"Any thoughts on who his Master's could be?" Leah poured them another shot.
Frost shrugged, "the first thought is Black Nagus - we've been their foil for years, so it makes sense they would try and turn us."
Arianna seemed to pause for a moment, lost in thought, before she sobered up and continued.
"Turning someone on Taskmaster's level - with the right amount of access and clout is how I'd go. Aiming too high will turn eyes before I'm ready." Frost suggested.
Leah nodded, "stone in hand, knife in the back."
Ari nodded in turn, "there are others who could be wanting a piece of the pie, but none that I can immediately see having enough use or interest for this level of infiltration. Well...I can see one, but they're out for the count."
"Thirty one." Wolf added.
Frost nodded, "yeah. Aside from the Nagus, they are the only ones I can see having the most benefit, but they are done and out."
"For now."
A sigh.
"Probably."
A glass raised, then the other.
"Skoll, my friend." Wolf said.
"Cheers, mate." Frost continued.
Down the gullet the shot went and then another and so on.
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