A Price to Pay

[Cptn Corizon 0]

A clock in the corner ticked softly. It was archaic, but it served its purpose. Three hours to go. Three hours until a result, any result would come. The waiting. Waiting that's what killed him. In three hours, he'd know if his plans had worked...or if they'd failed.

 

Someone had noticed his brooding and asked him if he were worried about his crew—the one he'd sent to die. He said of course, but he lied. That wasn't his real concern. He'd sent too many good people to die before to start worrying about the cost of a mission in human terms.

 

The fact was he only wanted the mission to succeed and if some of his crew had to die to accomplish that...so be it. A stray memory entered his head and took root. A dizzying array of thoughts filtered through his mind, distracting him. Maybe that's why he stopped caring about a single human life. Or maybe that's why he was so cold.

 

It was a given that if you really wanted to hide something, if you really didn't want anyone to find something that if they found you'd be in fairly deep trouble, you hid it in plain sight.

 

Corizon's shuttle touched down just outside a four-story building on the outskirts of the District of Columbia. Dressed in his standard uniform he headed towards the entrance. The grounds were well manicured and nothing differentiated the building from any of the various other buildings in the area.

 

The whole area had once been the seat of power for the most powerful single government in Earth's history. A global war and the ensuing chaos that followed left the whole place a wreck. It wasn't until the mid-2100's that offices returned to the once proud city. Now it was just another hub for the bureaucracy that was the Federation of Planets.

 

Putting a hand to his eyes, he shielded them from the bright morning sun that was rising in East towards where the Washington Monument had once proudly stood.

 

Glancing towards the approaching building as the sun fell behind it, he looked up at the latin phrase adorning the gateway to the building. non facias malum ut inde fiat bonum. Corizon had never fully understood the human predilection for using an archaic language symbolically...but never the less he understood fully what it meant...and what a farce it was.

 

The doors slid open and he smiled at the young Ensign at the desk. He remembered those days of blissful ignorance. When he first started working at ATAG, they were purely an analytical agency, determining the usefulness or the importance of raw intelligence gathered from the field by SIA operatives. Determining if the new leader of the Cardassian High Command was more of a threat than the last, if the Breen could be plotting something behind their icy facade.

 

But as time grew on, and the undercurrent of the Federation lead to a more..martial way of thinking, the mission of ATAG grew darker and deeper in secret. Soon he found himself deep in the enemies territory collecting information that only the highest levels of the Admiralty and then sometimes only the Commander of Starfleet would lay eyes upon.

 

That was a long time ago, Corizon thought lucidly to himself. A long time ago. But yet his thoughts then were in line with his thoughts now. The Federation was changing. He'd never resisted then though, why was he having a problem with it now. Was it because he was the one giving the orders? Memories of the past continued to pervade his mind as those questions, and his doubts percolated in the brewing and brooding stream of conscious in his thoughts.

 

“Commander Checkers,” the ensign said as Corizon walked by him. “You have an appointment waiting for you.”

 

“Thank you, Ensign?”

 

The young boy turned a slight shade of blue...blushing for his species. “Strawberry, sir.”

 

The Dameon allowed a small smile to run across his lip, revealing fangs before tucking it away behind the facade that he wore to work everyday. There was a story there, he was sure...just like there was a story behind his own call sign...Checkers...but he didn't have time today, he had an appointment after all.

 

“Good Day, Ensign Strawberry.”

 

The lift doors cut off whatever salutation the Ensign likely sent back and Corizon headed towards the basement. He rubbed at his temples slightly. He hated this building. On the outside it was normal...almost welcoming. On the inside though, it was hard, cold and decidedly antiseptic. Tokoyo at least wasn't so...depressing.

 

The walls were dark and obviously prefabricated, fitting neatly against each other. Smooth to the touch. He ran his hands along the wall as he exited the lift and headed down a lonely corridor to a security door. On the wall a file filled a box.

 

In the old days, you kept as much information as you could in your head or stored it digitally underneath encryption and encryption. And to an extent that was still true. In this facility, however, files for appointments were kept anarchically on paper.

 

At first that had thrown Corizon himself off. Why the hell would you keep things on documents that could easily be stolen? He'd asked the director of the facility—a man who's name he'd later rather have never learned—why. And then it was clear. In today's world of technology, how hard would it be to intercept a padd's information stream? No one kept anything important in physical files anymore, so no one would ever think to look at them. Genius he supposed...or an unnecessary amount of paranoia.

 

With an ease he flicked through the file, looking over the individual he was getting ready to meet for the first time. Romulan. This would be more of a challenge than normal. But why had a Romulan been sent to him today?

 

Mentally he shuffled through the list of current events that could possibly involve the Romulans. But that was likely why he had a Romulan in the office in the first place. Green blooded little bastards always had their hands in all kinds of things. Looking over the file, his eyes finally found the reason for his visit with Erei'Riov Sael tr'Maik—assuming that was his real name—and indeed it certainly was interesting.

 

None of why this was coming out of his past now made sense to the Dameon. None of it. But maybe that was the point? What was stirring inside him waiting to be released.

 

Corizon hated clichés. Especially in the area of interrogation. So many people went with the typical approach—dark rooms, sparse furniture, low lighting. He on other hand preferred...alternative methods to gathering information.

 

The room in which Maik waited wasn't all that different from a normal Starfleet office. The walls were full hue of gray with scattered adornments. Two moderately comfortable chairs sat across of a single glass desk where larger chair sat empty. In the corner a single replicator stood unused. The chains at his ankles prevented him from standing. He had dishonored himself and the Empire by even staying alive. What else could they do to him?

 

A woosh of air accompanied the sound of evenly measured footsteps into the room. Walking intently, Corizon headed towards the desk, file tucked underneath an arm. Laying the file down on the desk, he headed towards the replicator and punched in a command. A few moments later the replicator sprang to life, producing a single glass of water.

 

The master set to work. Taking a drink of water, he sat it down sending a reverberating wave of sound across the room. Carefully opening the file, he sifted through it meaningfully, taking his eyes off it only to look up at random intervals at the Romulan sitting across the table from him and shaking his head before returning to the file disdainfully.

 

This continued for sometime. An hour, maybe two. During which time, Maik had begun to squirm. Why was this...fvadt keeping him here like this? Why wasn't he doing anything? Anything! Not so much as a single question. All he did was look at that file. Look and scowl. And his eyes. The eyes seemed to penetrate deeper each time.

 

“What do you want?” Maik finally said in frustration.

 

Still nothing. Only a simple glance up from the file, a shake of the head and the yellow-rimmed orbs returned to the file.

 

Again Maik probed Corizon, getting the same response.

 

The silence continued for another thirty minutes. Maik was fidgeting in his skin. What was with this Starfleet officer. “For the love of Elements what are you upto???”

 

Corizon's eyes lifted from the file as they'd done before, but this time they stayed locked on target. Still nothing came from his lips, not even a smile.

 

The yellow eyes began to sear against his psyche. They were cold as space but burned with the fire of the stars. “What do you want from me!”

 

“I understand your sister is attending the Imperial Astrophysics academy,” Corizon's voice finally came out. “You must be very proud of her.”

 

The sheer absurdness of the question surprised him and sent him reeling in another direction entirely. How did they know that, and what else did they know? And what did he want with him?

 

That had gone well. The information he gained from the Romulan was invaluable. And it saved lives even as it ended another. Of course there had been complications to the truth of what he'd learned. Complications that had a price to pay.

 

The Romulan in question was helping direct the destabilization of diplomatic relations between two nations that the Federation had needed desperately as the Dominion War began to flare. Know one could know what was really going on, or all hell would have broken loose. Corizon did what he had too. He suppressed the information and purged knowledge of it.

 

The result was nearly fatal for a Koshic N'Dak, but in the in end, the benefit out weighed that very cost, even if it required an evil to be done. That's why this memory was surfacing now. It was reminder to him that in certain situations, the security of the Federation meant more than one person, or several persons lives. If there had to be blood to pay, then he would gladly pay it, even in his own blood.

[Kansas_Jones 0]

It was reminder to him that in certain situations, the security of the Federation meant more than one person, or several persons lives. If there had to be blood to pay, then he would gladly pay it, even in his own blood.

 

Still not worried. Nope. Totally ignoring that huge "Shoot disrupter here" target on back. Nice conspiracy/politics log!