The Cardassian eyed the canine a moment and the two shared eye contact
for a brief moment before the dog lowered its muzzle in acquiesce of the
more dominant creature. Harun, satisfied, began his story.
Animo and Lester maintained a look thereafter and the dog harrumphed
quietly. What, if anything, was shared between them in that moment
remained unsaid.
"I read the official report of what happened to the Lone Star-F, that a
malfunction in its navigational array led it to careen off course into a
plasma storm where it was reportedly torn apart." Harun's tone was
light and conversational, holding an excellent cadence for storytelling
as he helped himself to a bit more champagne, "But I heard from a
friend of my father's that it wasn't the whole story. In fact, it is a
story of betrayal, jealousy, and a pair of surgically altered Cardassian
Voles."
Regina, seeing that the Cardassian couldn’t quite reach the bottle,
picked it up and poured its contents into his glass. Harun nodded his
thanks and continued, "It all started on Cameron Station when a young
Petty Officer decided to pick up a gift for his lady love. He approached
a merchant who offered him a pair of mated Risian ferrets; little did
the Ensign know that they were surgically altered Cardassian voles. "
Harun paused to take a sip of his drink, his eyes lingering on the glass
a moment and admiring the bubbles that rose to the surface of the
golden liquid before he returned his attention back to his audience.
"Now the lady in question was not actually in love with the smitten
young man. You see he worked in engineering and she discovered with a
little smile here, a small flirtation there, he would do her repairs
faster. To my knowledge she was in a relationship with the ship's
executive officer."
"Well," Harun paused a moment for dramatic effect, "when the Petty
Officer had the voles delivered to the woman's quarters as a gift her
lover was the one who answered the door. Deciding to teach the Petty
Officer a lesson he released the voles into the air ducts." At this
Harun shrugged a bit letting his gaze drift down the table to eventually
land on Regina who was seated next to him, "I suppose he thought they
would die, cause an odor and the Petty Officer would be the one to end
up doing the repairs. Rather cruel really but a solid plan."
"However, the voles did what Cardassian voles do best and after a month
or so the systems on the ship began to malfunction. Cut wires and
destroyed components led the crew to suspect a saboteur." Harun smiled a
little bit as if he enjoyed the idea of everybody turning on each other
aboard a ship. "Yet, with no definitive evidence and more systems
beginning to fail the crew began to blame each other."
"Eventually, the voles got into the navigational array and the ship
careened off course. All the while the crew accusing each other of
treachery, a paranoia that only escalated when a shuttle went missing.”
He now raised his glass as if in salute, “And so Lone Star-F drifted
into the storm and was never heard from again. Though, there is rumor
that it was found and taken apart for scrap by an enterprising group of
Ferengi."
Edie could feel her blood pressure rise at the thought of such damage
being done to her own beautiful Lonie. She had heard horror stories over
the years from many of her colleagues in Starfleet, about the chaos
created from these creatures. “That poor starship…” The wires, the eaten
conduits, the bits of isolinear chips – it all came together in one
convoluted thought which led to a single tear being shed. The CEO
quickly dabbed it away with the provided cloth napkins each guest had
received with their table setting.
“And what of this shuttle?” She composed herself before looking up at Harun once more, this time pickle-less.
“Oh, that,” Harun was now draped back into his seat looking a bit more
relaxed than he had been when he’d first come into the galley. He
knocked back the rest of his glass of champagne and smiled at Edie,
“There was an agent of the Obsidian Order on the ship. She recognized
exactly what was doing the damage and decided to abandon ship before she
was compromised or killed.”
Around the table people were nodding, smiling and chuckling
appreciatively at the Cardassian. They were all interrupted by a string
of curses mumbled a little too loudly and slurrily. “Where’d it go?”
said Burgundy to the table, and to Lester. Just as the Prepondrian had
found himself drunk enough to regain his appetite his food has
disappeared. He looked under the table, for reasons that weren’t
entirely clear even to himself.
When his head came back to an upright position his plate had been
replaced with a new one. The dessert had arrived. It was a cake,
essentially made of seven layers of different chocolates. The coating
was made from a type of cocoa that had been crossed with a Risian bean,
gaining extraordinary culinary qualities. It smelled sweet, full, a
little smokey, carrying a promise of aphrodisiac.
Burgundy looked at it in horror. He just wanted something simple and plain.
“That agent is reputed to be Gul Beza, who became chief administrator to
Enabran Tain,” Felix said, primarily to Tonx. Around them the senior
staff had started to slither. They’d once laughed about it as a
conditioning measure: he had to know that, if incapacitated in any way,
the siren could sound and the ship could respond to any order.
Someone, likely Regina, had refilled Harun’s glass and he blinked at it
stupidly as if the champagne had replicated by magic. He sipped at it
and pondered the mystery of regenerating alcohol. It was in this revery
of magically appearing champagne that the Cardassian actually noticed
the arrival of dessert. Not one for sweets his nose wrinkled a bit at
the overwhelming smell of sugar.
Yet, somehow, a piece of the cake appeared on a plate in front of him
and not wanting to be rude he ate some of it. The cake was, as the
Cardassian had already surmised, unbearably sweet but yet he found
himself eating more of it. Surely it cannot be this awful, he thought taking another bite and before he knew it he found himself pondering the nuances of how awful the cake was.
Felix was considered an aphrodisiac in his own right by four separate
cultures. He spooned his way into the mixture happily. His eyes looked
to the right at Tonx, probably for a second too long. Her three months’
penance were nearly up. And they were due to be on tour for far longer
than that.
And, adding grist to his own mill, Omega Fleet command training manuals
were being written up on the bridge the next morning and he’d be damned
if an inspection of the Arboretum wasn’t more important. The captain
purred under his breath, pleased to have found a way to abuse his
privilege.
Tonx met Felix’s gaze, and smirked ever so slightly, “Gul Beza? Had
quite the reputation from what intelligence reports I’ve read, and had
quite the career if she became chief admin to Tain.” She glanced briefly
towards Harun before looking at the chocolate cake before her. The
dessert was a work of art in her mind, though she had a weakness for
chocolate second only to her weakness for... well, extracurricular
activities. Since said activities had been sidelined by her ‘house
arrest,’ she had to settle for the cake, but what a cake it was. Taking a
bite of the overly decadent desert, she closed her eyes as she savoured
the taste. “Oh my word. Whoever picked the desert, I love you.”
“Who’s a good boy,” Felix whispered across the table to Lester, missing Tonx’s declaration.
-= [to be continued] =-