“First Minister,” she began, proceeding to outline what little she knew of Macet’s mission and a few of the details of his impending arrival.
Shakaar absorbed her report without surprise. “Thank you for this news, Colonel. I admit we suspected something like this was coming. The timing is rather unfortunate; whatever the Cardassians want, it will best be dealt with on the station, I think. The talks with the Federation could easily be upstaged and we can’t risk that. Make whatever preparations are necessary to properly host them.”
“Of course. Can I tell them when you’ll be available to meet with them?” Kira crossed her fingers, hoping Shakaar wouldn’t expect her to babysit Macet’s group for an indefinite period of time.
“Give me a few days to wrap up some loose ends here. I’ll be back on the station before the end of the week.”
Kira hoped she didn’t look too relieved. “Thank you, Minister. I’ll get back to you when—”
“Come to think of it,” he interrupted, “a reception would be the polite way to receive them.”
“Excuse me?” Kira said, uncertain where Shakaar was taking this line of thinking.
“We need to facilitate their introduction to Admiral Akaar, Councillor zh’Thane, and the other dignitaries in the system. We can’t assume they’ll randomly bump into each other in the habitat ring.” Shakaar was gesturing animatedly with his hands, a trait Kira recognized as something he used when he was conveying his plans for a surprise assault on a Cardassian patrol. “We need to do this properly. Show how we’ve mastered the finer points of diplomacy. Bajor, after all, is a citizen of the quadrant.”
“That’s a fine idea, First Minister. Just let me know what kind of support you’ll need from my staff. I’m assuming Lieutenant Ro will provide security—”
Shakaar smiled broadly. “No, Nerys. I believe you’re misunderstanding me. I’d like you to take charge of this event.”
Kira stared. Be calm, Nerys. Don’t let him dare you into saying something you’ll regret, she thought, biting back a curt reply she longed to deliver coupled with a vivid scatological epithet. “I’m hardly qualified to work on issues of interstellar protocol. I’d probably end up seating the Romulan attaché next to the Klingon delegate and then where would we be?” She smiled insincerely, curling her fingers into tight fists.
“Colonel, I don’t need to remind you how fully occupied my own staff is at this time. Not to mention that most of the Militia is still cleaning up the vestiges of the Europani matter.” Shakaar shrugged his shoulders. “At the moment, I can’t spare the personnel. You’re familiar with the parties involved—you and your people have had more direct dealings with Lang and Macet than any of us—I think that qualifies you perfectly.”
Taking a deep breath, Kira rose from her seat and laced her hands behind her back, keeping her expression as neutral as she could. “Really, First Minister, I have to protest. I believe this is a case of misplaced belief in my abilities.”
“My aide Sirsy will be at your disposal. She’ll contact you with the list of Bajorans I believe should attend. She’ll also give you our tentative schedule over the next week or so,” Shakaar said. “Have some faith , Nerys. Shakaar out.”
When her desk screen abruptly reverted to its standby pattern, the most profane word Kira knew tore itself from her throat. He’s not going to let me forget who’s really in charge here. That he could use my religious situation to punish me. On his whim I could be back on Bajor planting crops before the next moon waxes. She gritted her teeth. And who in the hell decided I needed to moonlight as the station’s social secretary? As she touched her combadge, the inklings of a plan began forming in her mind. What was the first rule of leadership? Know how to delegate. Ensign Beyer seemed anxious to please. A crash course in diplomatic reception planning would keep her busy and out of Kira’s way. And the Cardassians? She’d be damned if she had to be the only one yanked around by this unexpected visit. “Kira to Ro.”
“Yes, Colonel?”
“You learned something of diplomacy when you served on the Enterprise?”
“Excuse me, sir?”
“The Cardassians, Lieutenant. You’ve been appointed to head Deep Space 9’s welcoming committee.”
When Beyer notified Ro that the Trager would be docking within the hour, the lieutenant used her remaining time to review any information Odo might have accumulated about the ship’s passengers. Only Lang and Macet proved to have substantive entries in the station’s database.
Because Macet’s military career apparently had never taken him to Bajor until recently, the most information she found on him was in a Starfleet Intelligence file that had recently been uploaded to the station from Command. Presumably Kira had requested the file following her encounter with the gul during the Europani evacuation. Among other things, it included Captain Picard’s official report on the Phoenix affair that Macet had been involved in, plus some recent updates by Kira and Vaughn. But little else.
Lang was another matter; Ro found the name cross-referenced in more than a dozen files outside her own. While Ro appreciated Odo’s thorough but terse summaries of facts and observations, she found his subtext most illuminating.
For example, the contents of Odo’s “Natima Lang” file, compiled during the ambassador’s second visit to the station, fascinated Ro. She was impressed by Lang’s unorthodox political views and active resistance against Cardassia’s Central Command. Why the Ghemor government had selected her to run errands to Bajor was obvious. What took Ro a moment to figure out was the relevance of Odo’s inclusion of cross-references to stationwide crime reports in Lang’s file. She focused on a few specific items that caught her attention.
Forty-two percent reduction in illegal trafficking linked to Quark’s
Six complaints regarding quality, swindling or thievery re: bar service (twenty-seven in same time frame previous year)
Dr. Bashir: dabo girl w/sprained finger from stuck dabo wheel; no harassment involved
The conclusion was obvious: Odo attributed the crime rate drop to Lang’s influence on Quark. So Quark had ties with Ambassador Lang, probably romantic ones. What did Lang have that he wanted? she wondered. Ro might be considering her possibilities with Quark, but she wasn’t stupid about him. Quark, characteristically, wasn’t one to plunge into a relationship without a profit motive hovering in the background. If some mutually beneficial emotion passed between interested parties, so much the better, but love alone never justified any transaction. His steadfast belief in the 229th Rule of Acquisition, “Latinum lasts longer than lust,” assured that.
She considered Lang’s holo. Unless one found exotic reptiles desirable, Ro never understood what might make Cardassians attractive to anyone outside their own species: she found them brutes who gloried in the slow, sadistic kill. Never distinguishing between those who could defend themselves and the sick, weak or young, Cardassians in Ro’s experience gloried in calculated brutality simply because they could.
But Lang…If the eyes, indeed, were the windows to the soul as the old Terran adage went, Lang’s eyes lacked the chilly veil of superiority all Cardassians seemed schooled in. Rather, Lang evinced a steely softness Ro believed characterized those who knew and practiced compassion, but understood that protecting goodness required a willingness to go into battle when circumstances required it.
Her viewscreen’s chronometer reminded Ro that she had less than twenty minutes before the Trager’ s arrival—and she still had an errand to run before she greeted the station’s latest guests, if “guests” was the right way to reference them. Usually guests didn’t require more than uneventful arrivals, pillow pastries and quiet quarters to find comfort aboard DS9. The Cardassians might be comfortable, but the rest of the station was another matter.
After reviewing the potential pitfalls of hosting a warshipload of Cardassians, Kira and Ro determined that the station status would have to be pushed up to security level yellow. Impact to the day-today tasks occupying
most civilians would be minimal: other than permitting only scheduled trips to and from the station, internal communications, commerce and activities would continue as normal. Those affiliated with the diplomatic delegations, Militia members and Starfleet personnel, would have to provide retinal scans in addition to the usual voiceprint ID in certain secured areas. All ships would be subject to random security checks and no last minute flight plans would be authorized. The cargo pilots would complain, but Ro felt the inconvenience would be mitigated by the decreased likelihood of some militant anti-Cardassian group deciding to use the station as a staging ground for an act of revenge.
Reassured that her people were in position and that all available measures had been taken to guarantee an uneventful remainder of shift, Ro closed Lang’s file, hoping she could glean a final insight into her guests by visiting the one person on Deep Space 9 who might know more than Odo.
Quark polished the last in a set of exquisitely crafted Gamzian crystal snifters (an idea he’d thought of after reading last year’s bestseller on Ferenginar, Packaging Your Way to Easy Profits) when Ro sidled up to the bar. She smiled cryptically.
“After we talked the other day, I went ahead and reserved the holo suite for tonight. Hope that wasn’t too forward of me,” Quark said.
Ro shook her head and shrugged. “Tonight isn’t going to work. Station business.”
“Come on, Laren. Tell that slave driver of a boss of yours that all work and no play makes for perpetually irritable employees,” Quark said, and muttering under his breath added, “and if she’s not walking evidence of that truism, I don’t know who is.”
“I have a feeling you’ll want to be behind the bar tonight, not in a holosuite.”
“Hmmmm. Must be some kind of show you’ve got planned if it’s better than gazing at you across a candlelight dinner for two, the moonlight etching your profile in silver against the velvety night sky.”
“Quark,” Ro warned, her eyes narrowing.
“Fine, fine,” he groused. “I’ll have to unload the holosuite time, though at this late hour that might be hard to do without deep discounts…Then again…” He craned his neck around the corner and hollered into the storeroom. “Hey you, Treir!”
Treir appeared in the doorway, a two-meter statue cut from jade. “Try again,” she suggested, gazing placidly down her green nose at her boss.
Rolling his eyes, Quark gestured for her to come closer. “Check the attitude in the back, Treir. This is business.” He waited, looked back over his shoulder and saw his number one dabo girl still fixed in the doorway, clearly unimpressed by his dictum. And what was with the outfit? Wearing scanty and provocative exercise attire instead of scanty and provocative work attire. Disgusted, he dropped his hands to his hips. “I could fire you for being out of uniform during business hours.”
She folded her arms across her chest, yawning. “Try again, Quark.”
“I don’t—This isn’t—I refuse to—” he sputtered. Glaring, he gave an annoyed sigh, squared his shoulders and took a deep breath.
Resting her chin in her hand, Ro’s eyes danced with amusement; she unsuccessfully suppressed a smile.
Insulted, Quark spun around and said, “Try to remember you’re on my side, Laren.” He turned back to Treir and said very slowly, “If you have a moment, Treir, I have a business proposition I’d like your input on,” he punctuated his amiable sentence with a decidedly sardonic smirk.
“Sure, I have a sec. What do you want?” she said, hopping up on the counter. She threw her bare green legs out in front of her, braced her hands behind her and arched her back in a stretch.
She’s trying to distract me—and it’s working, Quark thought, noting how equally effective she’d been in blocking his preferred escape route. “As your employer, I shouldn’t have to recite a damn sonnet to get answers to my questions. You signed a contract. I could fire you—without cause.”
“Yeah, but we both know you won’t. I’m too valuable to the bar,” Treir said pleasantly, removing a pair of metal bracelets from her pocket and bending to snap them around her ankles.
“Hey!” Ro jumped up from her stool and circled round to where Treir perched on the bar. “Are those new grav weights? I saw some of the Starfleet people using them during their rec periods.”
Treir nodded affirmatively, unsnapped one and handed it to Ro. “They’re great for extra resistance. Improves the workout like you can’t believe. Just press this button here and it enhances the artificial gravity by—”
“Ahem,” Quark cleared his throat. “Were we not having a discussion, Treir?”
Pressing her face between her calves, Treir grabbed her ankles and flattened her back. “You were talking. I wouldn’t call that a discussion.”
Quark looked pleadingly to Ro for support, but Laren was preoccupied tinkering with the grav weights. So it’s just me and Treir’s fantastically pliable limbs…
“Be careful with that, Ro. It can be tricky if you aren’t used to them. Increase the resistance gradually,” Treir advised.
Ro nodded in acknowledgment and locked one of the grav weights on her wrist.
Distracted by Treir’s point-flex-bounce rhythm, Quark paused, straining to recall what started the discussion in the first place. He admired Treir’s unapologetic advocacy of her own interests, but her unpredictable demands certainly slowed the pace of doing business. Then his brilliant idea reoccurred to him. “Due to an unforeseen change in plans, the bar has three hours of available holosuite time.”
“Didn’t I tell you that last-minute date scheduling is a surefire way to end a relationship before it starts?” Treir rolled over onto her stomach, grabbed her foot with her hand and pulled it up to her shoulder. She repeated the stretch with the other leg, maintaining her balance between the counters all the while. “Ro, I think you might have the setting on that weight too high…”
“My evening with Lieutenant Ro has been rescheduled,” Quark clarified. “Leaving us with a prime business opportunity.”
Ro activated the grav enhancement field with a quick flick, sending her arm plunging to the floor like a falling rock, dragging her along with it. “That was predictable,” she said to the tile pressed against her cheek.
“Can we please focus?!” Quark growled.
An uncharacteristic silence descended on the bar. Servers paused, protectively hugging their drink-filled trays since Quark deducted broken glassware and spilled beverages from their salaries; gamblers peered from behind the tongo wheel and over the dom-jot table, hoping for a front seat view of any fight that might break out; diners tossed tips onto tables, eased out of their chairs and closer to the door. Even big, brawny Hetik froze over the dabo wheel.
“As you were, everyone!” Treir said, dropping off the counter. “The house announces a complimentary round of Orion ale!” A cheer went up through the bar as she ordered several pitchers from the replicator and began filling mugs. Servers whisked by to collect the libations as swiftly as Treir poured.
Quark extended a hand to Ro and helped her up off the floor. “We’ll send out a stationwide notice advertising that we’re auctioning off this rare and valuable holosuite time—” he said to Treir.
“In half-hour increments,” Ro suggested, brushing smudges off her uniform.
Quark continued, “Highest bidders have the company of the dabo girl—”
“Or boy,” Treir said.
“Yeah, yeah. Whatever. The dabo person of the customer’s choice. We’ll have a stampede by day’s end.”
“Good idea. If you want me to proofread the notice, let me know.” Treir finished pouring the last round of complimentary drinks and strolled toward the door.
“The idea was for you to write the notice!” he shouted at her back.
“Break time,” she said apologetically. “I’ve got a few laps around the docking ring to cover before my next shift.’
Watching as Treir disappeared into the Promenade crowds affirmed Quark’s deep belief in the i
ncompatibility of females and finances. No sense of timing in females. A business proposition required tending, to be cultivated like a rare cheese. How typical for Treir to run off, just as the real work started. She confirmed why females proved most useful when naked, in the mud, wombs rented out. Quark retrieved another Gamzian glass snifter from the box and began polishing it. “I do not need my notices proofread.” Ro would validate him. As females went, Ro was surprisingly like a male.
Ro shrugged. “Last time—”
“Weren’t you here on business, Lieutenant?” Quark said, irritably. Maybe she wasn’t as malelike as he’d hoped.
“Right. Business.” She checked her chronometer. “Damn! I’m running late,” she said, rising from her barstool. “Wanted to give you a heads-up. The Narsil won’t be able to dock until tomorrow.”
Quark blessed his excellent eye-hand coordination when the glass he held threatened to slide out of his grip. “What is it with bad news and station management today. You collectively wake up on the wrong side of the bed?”
“The captain of the Narsil didn’t file a flight plan until an hour ago. We’re not permitting any unscheduled dockings or departures until further notice,” she said as she headed for the exit.
He followed after, walking beside her. “I have a load of Matopin rock fungi on that ship, Ro. It festers if it isn’t put into proper storage so if the Narsil’ s cargo bay needs decontamination—”
“Oh, yeah,” Ro said. “Speaking of food, Colonel Kira requested that you send up a catering menu to Ensign Beyer. Minister Shakaar assigned her to oversee the planning of a diplomatic reception.”
The portrait of Kira as a domesticated female doing female business—for once—at the bidding of her male superior had a certain appeal to Quark. “What’s the occasion?”
As Ro outlined the parameters of Kira’s latest assignment, Quark ran his thumb up and down the glass stem, mentally calculating the number of VIPs and high-powered individuals likely to be in attendance; he found the potential bottom line very attractive. “We’re talking a lot of guests then. Starfleet, Cardassians, Bajorans, Trill, Andorians, Alonis…. Numbering in the two to-three-hundred range?”
This Gray Spirit Page 4