"Filling in the Blanks"

[Guest Naara]

Naara looked appreciatively at the Arcadia's commanding officer, slowly regaining consciousness on the riverbank. The waters, which had seemed to have flowed by at unfathomable speeds when Dacotah been lost in them, lost their rapid speed after the danger had fled.

 

It was a plus to all of them that they'd actually recovered her, of course. Aside from the fact that they didn't know exactly how the rules of this game worked -- i.e. whether or not you died out of the game if you died during part of it -- Naara would have felt responsible if she'd gone MIA! And taking responsibility for something that was... less than favorable in outcome...

 

"We know exactly what kind of operation you're running, Ms. Chendral."

 

Assuming her most innocent smile, the Orion looked up at the charcoal-clad duo before her. "You do? Then you must know that it's legitimate. Like everything I do."

 

"You're Orion."

 

She blinked a few times, as if the proposition of a racial slur hitting her ears tainted her permanently. "There's something wrong with that?"

 

The one on the left, dark hair slicked back against his skull, rolled his eyes. "You're not exactly known for your purity of spirit."

 

Naara shrugged. "Some of us are."

 

"Can you name one?"

 

Her eyes drifted across the gleam of the table towards the stars outside. "Not off the top of my head."

 

"Well then," his counterpart smirked, happy to have made his earlier point, "I think that we can all agree that, despite your theatrics, Starfleet can prove your involvement in several acts of smuggling..."

 

"Salvaging," she interrupted, waggling a finger at him chidingly.

 

"...smuggling," the leader of the two continued, "a fair number of which can be thereafter linked to acts of terrorism both within our borders and within those of the Klingon and Romulan Empires."

 

She leaned back, her coquettish veneer dropping as she crossed her arms, the cold gleam of a businesswoman entering her eyes. "Well, why haven't you just hauled me in, if you have all this dirt?"

 

He waited a beat, looking to his companion, then returning his attention to her with a sardonic smile. "We would be willing to make an arrangement with you."

 

... was not her idea of fun.

 

Naara didn't need Starfleet suddenly breathing down her neck; nor would she particularly like the aftermath and potential inquiry into her own background that the hassle of retrieving a new commanding officer might yield. Definitely didn't need that.

 

Three days later, the Orion female sat in another Starfleet office, her feet casually placed on the metallic desk as she listened to a representative of Starfleet brass prattle on about borders' security and her apparently lack of respect for institutions of power, as if she might care about the Federation's, Klingon Empire's, and Romulan Empire's collective need for her now-previous line of employment to... not exist.

 

"I've told you all you need," she cut him off with a loud sigh. "Anything else is beyond much circles of influence."

 

"On the contrary -- I've been told that your involvement in the Syndicate ran pretty deep. Not that we expected much less -- most smugglers with green skin and a good operation have ties to the Syndicate."

 

"There's the generalization of the year." Naara snorted, pulling one foot off the table. "You told me that you'd let me go if I told you what you wanted. And I did. So, time to put in your end of the bargain."

 

The balding admiral gave her a lopsided, amused expression that she couldn't quite put a name to. 'Smug, comfortable smirk' came close, but not quite. "What we want is continued information and perspectives supplied to us while we're in our continued battles with the Syndicate."

 

"So you're going to keep me on this miserable starbase until you take it down? There's a life sentence."

 

His lips pursed. "Not quite..."

 

"Just spill it," Naara snapped. "I'm tired of playing games. Whatever you want you can just say, or else all deals are off."

 

"All deals off? That means you rot in a cold, icy prison manufacturing registration tags for targs for the rest of your life. Or maybe we could just turn you over to the Klingons -- you could eat gagh for the rest of your Orionly existence. Or would you prefer Rihan ways to deal with a traitorous little smuggler? They'd cut you to pieces and rip you apart just to see what greenskins looked like on the inside. They hate Orions, you know. In fact," he paused, nodding to himself as he raised eyebrows, taken with his own theory, "I think that might be our best plan. I'll contact a Romulan emissary immediately --"

 

"Stop. Stop it. What deal do you," she fluttered her eyelids before smiling, "offer to a tainted, ill-mannered, ungracious little fool like me?"

 

The change in temperment, meant to soften the admiral's heart, instead made his eyes narrow. "We put you on a ship, and contact you when we need you. Until then, you get to be something -- I'd suspect an engineer -- more useful than a typical prison wench."

 

"Thathas be one of the worse deals I've been offered in my life. And that's saying something."

 

"So I should contact the Romulans?" he asked, starting to grin.

 

"No, no... just tell me... how do you plan to sneak me on a ship without anyone noticing?"

 

"I'll help, but that'll be your job. There's a nice Galaxy-class parked here already. Arcadia. That's your ride."

 

"And how did you want me to get aboard, again?"

 

A few more hours later, there she'd been, scoping out the terraces of the station's promenade, dressed in something a little less conservative than she'd worn as a, well, smuggling ringleader.

 

Gods, she still hated that word.

 

And a few minutes after that, she'd found a nice, gullible young doctor, played him right, and in the short time that'd followed, gotten easy access to the ship, an easy field commission...

 

... and was supposedly completing cadet-ly lessons out of Starfleet Academy. In fact, the week before she'd gotten herself mixed in with the shore leave crowd, she'd managed to "pass" the required courses and was now in that nebulous space between "acting ensign" and just "ensign". But she still had to give her acting skills a solid summa cum laude. Slowly now, easily, she was starting to drop the 'dumb Orion' veneer that suited her when she needed it. When she needed it -- not constantly -- constantly made her want to smash things, which was particularly bad if you were an engineer.

 

At least she'd been able to dump the Bajoran easily enough. Another few days with him playing puppy dog and following her about might have driven her to insanity... not that he wasn't going to be a star doctor one day. But until then... she'd rather attach herself to someone with just a little more... something. Oh well. Tynte was still fun to torment when caught alongside him on occasions like this.

 

And on occasions like this, she was almost able to forget exactly what she was doing on Arcadia. Not entirely, but almost. And on occasions like this, she was almost glad she actually was on Arcadia. Then she got tortured, and, well, that's where the 'almost' came in.

 

No more Syndicate information requests for the time being, and she did her job; did it well. At least she was useful in the giant melting pot that was Starfleet.