Chapter Text
Lt. Steve Levy
“Little did I know as she walked into my office just how much trouble she would be and what dark and twisted webs of lies I’d be forced to drag into the light at her behest. If I had known I would have stopped it all right there, sparing all of us the pain.”
The door to my office slid open and a young woman half entered, standing on the threshold, she gave the proper Terran salute and then spoke:
“Ave quaestor Levy! Ensign Barnes of the Auxilia, I’ve been sent by OPS to fix your comms link, permission to enter?”
One of the first signs that something was amiss was that she called me by position “quaestor”, which was true I was a quaestor.
It was a low ranking position in the Inquisition, the intelligence branch of the Imperial Starfleet, specifically the position dealt with monitoring xeno allies that served aboard Starfleet.
Yet for a support ship like the Cerritos, there never were any xeno plots so my position was just sort of a glorified extra HR that had to sign documents for the alien crew members. Thus most knew me as just a science officer with a focus on statistics and applied maths.
I nodded for her to enter, Barnes did so and took a small look to double check the door to the hallway was closed and there was no one else in my office. She set her large and bulky toolbox to the side and adopted a rigid, upright stance pushing her chest forward.
As she was doing this I entered her name into the computer subtly with my left hand, my position giving me access to the files of all non-terrans on the ship, I have to admit before Barnes introduced herself as being of the Auxilia (i.e. that she was an alien serving in Starfleet) I had assumed from a glance that she was human.
And thus wondered why she was wearing the duty uniform, a combination of tight jumpsuit pants and a midriff exposing tight top, all in slate grey with stripes on her shoulders being of OPS gold.
Her lovely Trill spots that now I could clearly see explained it, being of the Auxilia and being of the strangely low rank of ensign and on top of that being in OPS meant she wasn’t assigned the newer more elegant uniforms like most Terrans got.
Suddenly Barnes took a dramatic step forward, to afterwards do a pirouette, stopping for a split second to show me her back where I could see the two parallel bands of spots going down under her top and then reappearing only to disappear into her pants.
Suddenly I was trying to remember from the studies on Trill that I had to do just how far down those spots went, Barnes continued her performance something between a dance and gymnastics moving with precision and purpose.
Yet always with an air of ceremony, finally at the end of her rhythmic routine she was on her knees, her head bowed low as if waiting for something from me.
The room was silent, I could actually hear my breathing, Barnes broke her position raising her eyes to meet mine, she was expecting me to say something.
“A Trill custom I presume?” I tried to keep my voice even.
“Terran. From the imperial court.” she replied matter of factly.
“I don’t really follow the various ceremonies of protocol from the court.“ came my admission.
“Much that I have learned about Terran culture has been through documentaries and studies.” Barnes tried to explain. “That was a dance new imperial consorts perform when first meeting their emperor. It is designed to showcase every part of a woman’s body so she can prove she has no hidden weapons upon her.”
No hidden weapons, except of course her wits and her body.
“You think I was considering if you had any weapons?”
“Your right hand has been at your phaser since the moment I entered.” Barnest noted.
She was right.
“Well you did come here under the pretence of fixing my coms link, but it’s actually working perfectly.” I set the weapon aside and bade her to come closer and take a seat.
“My apologies for the deception, I needed to see you and I couldn't know who was observing me as I entered.”
“I need your help, someone is stalking me, trying to entrap me and planning to attack me and … the people I work with.” she said starting on a dramatic note and finishing oddly flat.
“Ma’am you’re better off going to Security, I work in Intelligence.” I found myself saying.
“I tried, I tried going to Security, lt. Shaxs dismissed me … acted as if I was crazy “ the indignation in her tone was crystal clear “ he said I should come back when I have some concrete evidence! But I know his game, his dragging this out because he hates Rutherford and hopes something will happen to him.”
“Rutherford? The hero that saved the ship?” I just wanted to be sure I got her story correctly.
“The work team I’m part of, the other member is Rutherford … we are partners, we dive into the bowels of the ship together to keep this amazing piece of engineering going, we spend long hours alone cut off from any other officers in the Jeffries tubes my stalker knows this and she’s not shy about hurting Rutherford to also get me.”
“Quite the … “ I wanted to say conspiracy “little theory, you’ve got.”
“But Shaxs doesn’t care! He just cares about his stupid bad blood with Rutherford so he’s not doing anything.”
As she complained I pulled up the file on Rutherford and displayed it on my screen alongside Barnes’s data. The relevant part that seemed to jump out was that Rutherford had gotten the implant he was famous for while fighting on the Bajoran front.
Shaxs was more than an Auxilia, he was an mercenary that although not a Terran through his many years of service to the Empire had earned the right to become a citizen of the Empire. In theory that implied leaving behind all his old loyalties but it wasn’t so easy to do so in practice, Rutherford with his long combat record against the still KCA aligned Bajorans might have inadvertently drawn the resentment of the Bajoran chief of security.
While I was lost in thought for a second Barnes had moved and she was brazenly leaning on my desk so she could also see the files.
“You think I’m right?” she phrased it as a question but she spoke with an undertone of smugness, that was somehow charming to me and not annoying yet.
“It might be possible, maybe Rutherford’s unit had to destroy a village where Shaxs spent some time as a youth, maybe Shaxs has some cousins still loyal to the Klingons and he resents that Rutherford wounded him, anything is possible … “ I conceded.
“I won’t override Shaxs on this.” I drew a firm line.
“I don’t want you to override him, I need your help to investigate and catch this woman that is out to get me, she is a non-Terran so she falls under your domain.” she pleaded.
“Look, if Shaxs said you don’t have any evidence … “
“But you’re an Inquisitor, Lt. Levy! You don’t need evidence to lock her up.” Barnes insisted, her voice was very controlled and soft but I got the distinct impression there was steel hiding under that silk.
That was … very false … but I didn’t want to get into a whole discussion on the checks and balances on my powers here.
‘I don’t have time to waste on conspiracy theories.” was what I ended up pushing back with.
“It’s not a conspiracy theory! I’m not crazy! I’m not seeing things!” the crazy woman ranted.
I think I smirked or something because Barnes suddenly realised how loud she was talking and how she sounded and drawing a deep breath she continued in a more controlled and soft tone.
“If anything inquisitor I am being conspired against, I do not know exactly why she is doing this or for what reason but I am in direct danger, please lieutenant you are my only hope.”
I considered whether to indulge her, there was always the chance she was right and someone was stalking her, being a beautiful woman always carried dangers.
And even if many found it ironic, my position of quaestor besides safeguarding against an xeno mutiny also had the related responsibility of safeguarding positive relationships between the Terran and xeno officers in the crew.
Which I knew from my fellow quaestors on other ships mainly meant protecting the xenos from the abuse that some Terrans were unfortunately quite capable of.
This would be my first investigation ever as a quaestor on the Cerritos.
What else did I have to do? Work on some mathematical theories, but those were not a priority for the time being.
“Alright, ensign Barnes … “ my eyes shot to the screen where I had her file open.
“Hel’aena, it’s pronounced like your Terran name ‘Helena’ if you prefer to use it.” she guessed my intent. Smart girl.
“Alright Hel’aena I’ll take the case, please tell tell me everything from the start.”
“Thank you Stephen … “ I tried not to wince, only mom and grandma called me Stephen instead of Steve.
Barnes might be smart but it’s obvious she had not traveled much outside of the Trill Meritocracy before being drafted into Starfleet and she was leaning a lot on knowledge from books to interact with aliens.
Which was fine, I mean it’s what I would do in her case and scholarship was always to be admired but it seemed to me like she was operating on the impression that theory always lined up with reality.
“… my primary duty is working in the EPS diagnostics team for decks 8, 9 and 10, most of my day I spent it in the Jeffreys tubes doing diagnostics but in practice all kinds of tasks from other officers who don’t want to crawl into the tubes.”
I nodded.
“There’s always maintenance to be done on the EPS nodes or upgrades on the isolinear chip arrays but lately it seems like phantom defects keep popping up and not at random but designed so as to lure me deeper into the ship and away from my partner Rutherford.”
“Phantom defects?” I inquired, I needed us to be on the same page .
“The parts that are ‘malfunctioning’ are actually fine or at least their hardware is and if there was an emergency they would function correctly but the sub-procedures that would drive them in tertiary mode are just wonky enough to trigger warnings and necessitate me going to them running level 3 diagnostics and doing a factory reset and a re-config.”
“Which takes a lot of time, which I believe is the point of it all, defects from wear and tear and prolonged use follow a pattern, generally we can time our maintenance work so as to ensure maximum up-time and that we visit an area before the defects start appearing. But these phantom defects always pop up in the farthest possible parts of the ship. And I have to leave Rutherford behind and go out of my way to fix them. I easily lose one hour, maybe even two on each of them.”
“You leave Rutherford behind and go alone?”
“He has to do the normal work we have planned out, Ruth jokes that I’m the ‘diagnostics queen’ but I really am the one with the skills to handle these things most efficiently.” Barnes paused hesitating before she continued.
“As an OPS officer I report to Billups, if he thinks I’m being negligent or inefficient in carrying out my tasks … without Rutherford’s protection … he’d tie me to a rack and shove a pain-rod up my … “ Barnes shuddered and her body shifted into an instinctual defensive submissive posture.
Billups’s sadism and his degenerate lusts were well known on the ship, as a high ranking noble he was untouchable sadly, everyone on the ship bridge crew and lower deckers alike simply tried to keep him from having the excuse to indulge in his ability to punish others.
“I understand, please continue.” I said gently, putting my hand on her shoulder and waiting for her to feel comfortable enough to speak again.
“This is another part of how I figured out these defects were intentional, they seem tailor made to my skill-set.”
“If it was for example fixing an isolinear chip array then either myself or Rutherford could go or ideally we’d go together.”
“They might not be targeting you specifically, they if “they” exist might be attempting to isolate Rutherford.” I mused.
“Exactly!!” Barnes almost shouted “She could be after Sam! That’s why I needed to come to someone.”
“Orrrrrr …” I hated to be the wet blanket when she was all fired up like this, her eyes alight with energy, chest heaving “you could be finding a pattern in ‘pain in the ass’ tasks where there is no real pattern.” I had to be objective.
“The delays from these isolating incidents are frequent enough and regular enough that they are statistically significant.” Barnes cut me off.
That was a bold claim, so I made a note to check it.
“You keep saying ‘she’ … who do you suspect?”
“Lieutenant junior grade D’Vana of House Tendi.” Barnes said not even flinching.
“The vestal in charge of the chapel? The priestess??” I needed to be sure.
“Her.” I brought up Tendi’s file on screen, where it was now sharing space with Rutherford and Barnes’s files.
“Why?”
“What evidence do you have that it's Tendi?” I continued.
“When we were in the cafeteria, she thought I couldn’t see her, that I wasn’t paying attention but I caught her glaring at me. We’ve never ever talked or interacted in any way, why would she do that?? I didn’t react but from that moment on I paid special attention to her when we were in the same room.”
“She often shoots me mean looks and glares when I’m sharing lunch with Rutherford in the cafeteria. And it started around the same time these fake incidents started.”
I suddenly considered ordering Barnes to march her ass out of my office and into the brig for wasting my time. Instead I just facepalmed which seemed to cause her distress.
“You’re wasting my time with this ... this … highschool drama?”
“It lines up, it all lines up! It’s got to be connected.” Barnes pleaded.
“Yes, yes and the incident with the Wolf-359 aliens was an inside job?” My sarcastic question relieved some of my nerves while also rattling the Trill woman.
And now I felt bad for mocking Barnes, she took a very brave step coming here in my office, she felt threatened, she didn’t have a lot of evidence, Shaxs had already denied her request for protection and Barnes had to know appealing to me could backfire I had rank and a superior position on her.
And I just repaid her courage with mockery.
“I’ve seen her climbing out of the Jefferies tubes when she should have no business in them at all … what could she have been doing there? Banishing some demons or ? I have the exact times and access hatches I saw her use!”
Barnes took out a small isolinear data module from her back pocket, presumably where she noted the vestals suspicious activities, she didn’t say a word but her beautiful golden eyes were begging me to take it.
I reached out and gently took it from her hand, I would investigate it later, Barnes let out a sigh of relief and gave me a genuine smile.
“The Jeffries tubes are due to their structure and especially size hard to properly monitor “ I admitted “ so we just … don’t. We launch investigations into them, when we have another incident that we think might be related, that's when we go in there. So yeah we know the tubes are the place to do shady business like smuggling and the like.” Barnes nodded along.
“Lt. Tendi going in there is definitely suspicious, could be nothing more than her buying some grey market items or having a tryst with a married officer or etc. But it is something more than the ‘mean looks’ that tipped you up.”
“What motive do you think Tendi can have to conspire against you?”
“I don’t know, maybe she doesn’t want me to discover something she is doing in the Jefferies tubes. Maybe she is running an smuggling ring … “
“Her file notes her family is noble and very wealthy, some of her cult talismans seem very expensive, she could just get money transferred to her if she needs it here in the fleet, we don’t stop that.” I countered.
Barnes leaned in, I think out of reflex because there was no need to whisper in my office no one could be listening in on us.
“She is an Orion priestess, I’ve heard about their pheromone cults, she could be setting up her own little cult in the bowels of the ship. Luring men and women to her and enslaving them through her pheromones and sex.”
Suddenly I felt it was hot in my office, although I knew rationally the temperature had not changed, Barnes to her credit had a small flush on her cheeks, she was a little ashamed of her salacious theory.
“Now that’s just a stereotype.” I replied hoping my voice did not betray how tantalising her scenario was to me.
Barnes pulled back looking guilty but she continued.
“A lot of my people work in the galaxy as freelance mercenaries, I know Orion hired many of these Trill soldiers for hire to bolster their defences in their last stand to try and fight off the Terran Empire’s invasion force.”
The fact that both Tendi and Barnes were now serving aboard Starfleet ships, part of the tribute of flesh their planets agreed to when they were made client states, spoke of how effective that last stand was.
“I think I heard rumours that many of them deserted or broke or just took the Orion’s latinum but didn’t even show up. She might have something against me for that.”
“Seems like a stretch.” I shrugged.
Hel’aena glared at me but quickly tried to hide it.
“She could be preparing a general mutiny and she wants me and Rutherford out of the way because she knows we wouldn’t join.”
“Ok now you’re just reaching to try and link it with my duties.” I deadpanned.
Barnes looked conflicted but she raised her hand to the zipper of her top, her slim fingers pulling it down revealing her cleavage,I watched her with baited breath but despite the lust driven reverie that formed in my head she pulled out of that very private area what looked like a small scroll or papyrus.
“I had to keep this hidden, I don’t know what it is … I noticed Tendi hiding this away in a section of the Jeffries tubes, I kept watch but she never came back for it, it seems like she placed it there with a purpose and decided to leave it.”
“I was hoping I could convince you to investigate Tendi based on my previous evidence because I don’t know what this scroll means. Without resorting to … whatever this is.”
“In case your paranoia and bad feelings were not proof enough you mean?” Barnes shot me a dark look but kept extending the papyrus.
I finally took the scroll and noted it was covered in xeno symbols, but I couldn’t read them, granted languages were not my specialty but as the xeno oriented inquisitor I had to at least on the surface study a lot of xeno cultures.
That would not be a problem as I got up from my chair and went to the back of my office,with Barnes following me even if she had not been invited.
Quite the inquisitive individual she was, though she was also convinced someone was out to get her or get the persons near to her so I could understand.
My “office” was actually a standard-built inquisition station, it had the area I converted into an actual office, a small brig for prisoners, an interrogation room complete with an agony booth, secure personal quarters for two officers (usually inquisitors would not work alone but the Cerritos being a safe posting I was no assigned more personnel) and a lab.
Usually I just used the lab computers for my statistics or AI research but now we were both there for the high resolution scanner, I placed the scroll within it.
“Full analysis, origin, purpose and especially the writing.” I ordered and the computer immediately got to work with multiple sets of micro scanners going over the object and looking up its patterns in the full Imperial databases.
“Object is inert scroll, non-dangerous, origin of material is Imperial replicator banks, exact origin impossible to locate as object was hand crafted from raw replicated materials.”
Barnes was biting her lip watching the scanner do its task.
“Don't worry, the origin might be hard to pin down but it being made on an Imperial installation whether that be in space or on the ground is still something … And it’s not done yet.” I put my hand on her shoulder trying to be supportive.
She looked like she wanted to say something but the computer got in between us:
“Object identified with 89% certainty as Orion prayer scroll.”
“Yes! Yes!! I told you, I told you!!!” Barnes erupted.
“Computer, are there any bio signs at all on the object to prove who handled it recently?”
“Only bio traces recognizable are fingerprints and bio residue matching Auxilia Ensign Hel’aena Barnes and Quaestor Lieutenant Steve Levy. Other possible bio traces, if there are, are not traceable.”
“Well that makes sense. I carried this around recently after I got it from where Tendi left the scroll, Tendi’s carrying it must have been just too long ago to leave easily matchable traces.”
“Convenient” I said under my breath.
“Computer, please explain Orion prayer scrolls.” I inquired sheepishly, since Tendi was the only Orion thus far in the crew and Orion had been subjugated very recently, my study of her file when she had come on board had focused more on her as an individual than on Orion’s culture.
“An Orion prayer scroll is a special scroll or papyrus prepared by an Orion ritual expert as a priestess or nun with the intention of acting as a multiplier to her prayers when requesting the blessing of their gods in a particularly difficult endeavour. They are written in a variant of High Orion that has only been preserved for ceremonial purposes by their temples and other elite institutions. After being fabricated they are supposed to be buried or left on mountain tops.”
“On a ship she can’t really bury it or leave it on a mountain, leaving it in the Jeffries tubes must have been the closest thing that she could think of.” Barnes gave me her theory.
“Computer, translate it.” I demanded.
“Attempting translation, attempting … vocabulary sparse … increasing inferred content to provide coherency. Translation complete.”
“Oh gods of both the high heavens and the lowest depths grant unto me victory, I want to conquer Rutherford. I will split his skull, I will rework his brain and put it back in. Grant me this victory!”
“The savagery!!! This proves it.” Barnes shouted as I tried to process it all, she grabbed me by the shoulders trembling, perhaps too much, looking as if she was trying not to faint.
“You need to arrest Tendi right now, she’s after Rutherford.” she pleaded.
“Miss please, remain calm. I'll see to this. Come to my office you need to sit down” I said as I gently pushed her towards my office leaving the scroll in the scanner, I still wanted to analyse it in more detail later.
As Barnes crashed into the chair I had for visitors I fired up the replicator, requesting a jaeger coffee and to get her out of her approaching hyperventilation, I asked.
“Do you want some coffee?”
“No! I don’t want your terran coffee! I want Tendi arrested or thrown off of the ship or … “ she snapped at me, at least getting focused and not overwhelmed with fear.
“No. Not yet.”
“No? Surely you can’t think her innocent, inquisitor? That … thing turned out to be the most damning evidence.”
“Not yet.” I repeated myself.
“She’s got some friends in high places.” Barnes sighed in a defeated tone, she was a smart cookie.
“Her family is very wealthy and influential on Orion, while that doesn’t make her above Starfleet law, one of her stature to be imprisoned now in the initial phases of Orions beginning to serve in the Auxilia … the Admiralty wouldn’t have it. Maybe even the imperial court would get involved if the nobility on Orion thinks we are not respecting the treaty that made Orion a client state of the empire “
“She’s not a simple Trill nobody.” Barnes whispered bitterly.
“And the head science officer Dr. T’Ana I understand took a shine to her, Tendi’s family has given to charities that have helped struggling Catian frontier outposts. With T’Ana’s influence on Captain Ransom it will be hard just to get the accusation made.”
Barnes got up, her whole body language screaming not exactly defeat but that she had hoped for more and she was feeling denied, she got her toolbox and made to leave.
“Please Levy, I know I’m just a nobody alien ensign no one will miss, but this is about Rutherford I … you, we have to protect him.” she said with her silken voice before leaving me to think this whole conspiracy over in my now cold office.