Chapter 10
"But the points that I just mentioned are not the only concerns," Seven said as she poured Torres some wine, even though it was only nine o'clock in the morning. But then, she was sharing a breakfast with two Klingons, and with them the only difference that the time of the day made was in whether one drank the strong blood wine, or a lighter wine. Of course, Torres didn't drink alcohol all the time, but now that they were sharing breakfast with Worf, Torres was 'keeping Worf company' as she called it, by also drinking wine. Seven didn't worry that it might ruin the rest of the day though. By now she had seen just how much alcohol Torres could have, and the light wine she was drinking now wouldn't be enough to even start affecting Torres.
Torres took the glass and made a 'go on' motion with her other hand.
"You should also keep in mind that freedom is something a rather large portion of the slaves actually do not want and that by forcing freedom upon them, you are actually punishing them."
"Not all slaves fall in love with their master," Worf interrupted, giving just the right amount of sneer to the word love.
"True," Seven agreed as she took one of the moving food items between her thumb and index finger. After looking at it for a moment, she popped it into her mouth and bit down. By now she had learned to savor the good taste of the Klingon food, and ignore the fact that several Klingon dishes were served alive. "But, I do believe that the number is higher than most would like to admit. There are billions of slaves in the Coalition, millions of body slaves, and even more sex slaves.
"There are bound to be cases in which the masters found that the 'services' they get from slaves they treat well are a lot better than services that they get from slaves that are treated poorly. The step from being nice to loving is a small one. There are bound to be at least several hundred-thousand body and sex slaves that want to stay with their masters.
"But let us ignore love for a moment. There are also bound to be slaves that realize that though they do not love their masters, they also do not hate them. That the masters treat them very well and are giving them a life that is far better than they could have by being free. At the moment they do not have to worry about having a decent place to sleep, or good food to eat. Why give that up to start a life full of insecurities? Then there is also the matter of other slaves. Older slaves for instance. Slaves that have been doing the same work for decades and do not want freedom, all they want is to live out the rest of their life well taken care of."
"I do see your point Seven," Torres agreed. It didn't matter that they were sitting at a table with Worf. When talking about the proposal they were talking as B'Elanna and Seven. Torres wanted advice; not to be told how great her idea was. "But it has to be the one of the other. Either they are slaves, or they are free."
"Not necessarily," Seven disagreed. "There is the option of long contracts. Change all slaves into long contract employees; long contracts that have to work the first ten year contract at the place that they are working now. That would take care of having a work force, and slaves that do not want to leave a master can stay with that master by simply renewing the contract when it ends."
"That's true," Torres agreed. "When a long contract ends, the employer first has to offer that job again to the long contract against the minimum conditions set by the industry the long contract is working in, but the contract has to have at least the same conditions as the old contract if those were better than the minimum conditions. A slave that wants to stay with the master can take the new contract because those minimum condition are always better than what they have now; only being fed and clothed."
"Indeed."
"But wouldn't that really only be moving the problem into the future?" Worf asked. True, the proposal wasn't due for two more days, but that didn't mean that he couldn't give his opinion of what Torres and Seven were discussing. "After all, if you make all slaves long contracts at once, then in ten years you still have the problem of suddenly all of them having their contract ending at the same time."
"A valid point," Seven agreed. "However it is a point that is easy to address. A new rule could be added to all the long contract rules, including the already existing ones. A rule that states that besides the normal renegotiation time of ten years, there will be one age based negotiating time introduced. When a long contract becomes for instance forty years old, then its contract can be renegotiated, even if the normal ten year contract has only been negotiated the year before."
"That would mean that over the next ten years more and more former slaves will have their contract ended because they turned forty," Torres said, liking the idea. "So a factory's workforce wouldn't suddenly disappear, instead it would be steadily replaced over ten years."
"Which would still leave the coalition with a shortage of billions of workers in ten years," Worf pointed out.
"I do not think so," Seven disagreed. "After all, those people still need a place where they can work so that they can make a living. Even the people that are not yet slaves and are still children living on the slave planets will soon reach an age in which they will have to find a job to sustain themselves and families that they want to create.
"Fact remains that even though the former slave races are free then, in the beginning they will only get the jobs that nobody else wants to do; the jobs that they are now doing as slaves. Fact also remains that they need a job to survive. Just like a Klingon cannot survive without a job, neither will a former slave. As I said, in the beginning only the jobs the slaves are now fulfilling anyway will be available to them, but over time other jobs will open up for them as well.
"There is a chance though that the former slaves will not want to work in certain places, like a factory that treats its workers extremely poorly. The former slaves will in that case take a job in the factory next door that does treat them if not good, at least better."
"Which will result over time in all employers improving the condition in their factories and businesses because they don't want to lose their workers to the guy next door," Torres said.
"Indeed," Seven agreed. "Which will also result, over time, in improving the wages of the former slaves. Again, no illusion, in the beginning the work these new long contracts will be offered will mostly likely only 'pay' the same that the slaves now have; a place to sleep and food to eat. But over time there will be that one employee that offers that, and ten credits a month because they really need new workers 'now.' Which will then result in someone else offering that, and twenty credits because they also need workers, and so on. Over the years, thirty or forty, the differences between these new long contract jobs and the old ones will even out and former slaves will be hired for both while the old long contracts also will be hired for both."
"That could work," Worf agreed. "But you do realize that you also have another problem; sex."
"Oh, believe me, we have absolutely no problem with sex," Torres spoke up as she took hold of Seven's hand and slowly sucked some sauce off one of Seven's fingers.
"Very funny," Worf said. "What I meant is this, as Seven just said herself; there are millions of body and sex slaves. They are that because they have to. If you turn those into long contracts that can choose what kind of work they do, all of them will do something else for a living. Which will mean that the people that now have such slaves will lose them and might just decide to grab a former slave and hide them, or simply not give up their slave to begin with. There simply won't be enough enforcement troops in the Coalition to check every house to see if someone is held against their will."
"Good point," Torres agreed, knowing that this was actually one of the biggest problems.
They are in silence for a moment, all three thinking about the problem.
Finally Seven spoke up. "An option would be to make sex a profession to be proud of; a profession that can be chosen by people without that choice being frowned upon by other people. Let me give you an example." Seven looked at Torres and said, "You once told me that Risa is known for training sex slaves and body slaves. I do not know what else Risa is known for, but in my universe Risa is known as a pleasure planet. Sex is very common there. In fact, when you go to Risa you can buy small statues that signals to all that you are willing to have sex. If you carry the statue around and put on the table that you are sitting at, the Risan people will even come up to you and offer to have sex with you; you do not even have to ask, they offer.
"If anyone in the Federation tells someone else that they are going to Risa for a vacation, then everyone knows that nature will not be the only thing enjoyed there. Risa is known as a pleasure, sex, planet. Yet it is pretty much standard for every single person in Starfleet to visit the planet at least once for a vacation. It is also quite common for couples to visit the planet together. This is not even taking into account all the people that visit the planet that are not in Starfleet.
"Also, the Risan people are not frowned upon, to the contrary, they are very respected. If a Risan goes to a different planet or a star base they normally automatically get VIP treatment, even though they are 'just' one of many Risan. They are highly respected through the Federation because they give Federation personnel a place to unwind."
"Unwind by screwing like crazy," Torres said with a grin.
"Basically," Seven agreed. "But there is more, the sex is just a part of it. The Risan specialize in one thing; making you feel good. Be it by physical pleasure, or simply by giving you an ear that is willing to listen to all your problems. There are people that spent their entire vacation on Risa in the company of one Risan and do nothing more with them than talk and relax on the beach."
"I see what you mean," Torres said. She thought about it for a moment longer before adding, "Long contracts are divided up over specific industries. We have the mining guild, the factory guild, the farming guild, and so on. We could create a sex guild,"
"Service guild," Seven suggested. "It sounds better. Besides, body... servants... I guess that they would be called body servants then, do a lot more than just have sex with the master... the employer. They basically take care of all the needs of an employer. A sex slave is only used for one thing; sex. Whereas a body slave take cares of all the master's needs, including the sex part. This would then still be the same for a body servant and a... sex servant." Seven frowned when saying the last two words.
"Don't worry, Seven," Torres said with a grin. "We can think of proper names to use later on, now we are only talking about the basics. Now, as I was saying, we could create a, service guild, and we could make it tempting for people to join this guild by giving them the best rules of any of the guilds.
"For instance, the rules of a guild don't set how much a person will earn; that's something negotiated individually between employer and employee. But the rules do set the percentage that has to be paid in taxes. The service guild could be the first, and also the last, guild that won't have to pay any taxes at all; no matter how much someone earns."
"You are right. That alone will give them a privileged position," Worf agreed. "The only guild in which you actually get every single credit you earn."
"Yeah," Torres agreed. "And we could make the industry even more tempting by making the position of body servant one of the most respected jobs there is."
"How would you do that, and how would making the position of body servant respectable automatically make the position of sex servant more interesting?" Seven asked.
"Well, it would make the position of the sex servants more interesting because we would make the rules in such a way that anyone that wants to become a body servant that isn't already a body slave now, has to serve at least two years as a sex servant and also has to go through the full Risa training before they get certified as a body servant. So the industry will have enough people that become sex servants because they want to move on to being body servants.
"We have privileged jobs in all industries, but as history has shown, people join the industry to get that privileged job, and then end up not getting that job because they don't want to do the extra training. Or all those privileged jobs are already taken and there are no free positions. The same will happen in the service industry. People will become sex servants because it's the only way they can become body servants, and they just know of themselves that they are the person that will be THAT good and will be picked as a body servant.
"And to answer your question on how we make the job more prominent, we can make the job of body servant more privileged by encouraging more important people to take body servants. Right now it is actually common for the leader of every house to have a body slave, but when they get into higher position they normally get rid of the body slaves because they would have too much power by being tied to that particular master."
"Like me being able to give orders in your name and nobody knowing if you really did give that order," Seven said in understanding.
"Right. But that problem will be taken care of by the fact that slaves will get recognized names and their own identities. So a body servant will have to sign off an order with his or her own name. They will still have power, which will make the position of body servant a very desired position, but that power is no where near the power you now have, Seven. That middle ground will make it possible for people up to High Council members to have body servants."
"For that to work, you will have to change other rules as well," Worf pointed out. "One of the reasons now to not take a body slave is the fact that if someone has a body slave they are not allowed to have sex with a other slave."
"Right," Torres said in understanding. "And the people I just talked about taking a body servant would never do it because those are also the people that have enough credits to buy more than one sex slave. They would not give up the variances of having five, or ten, or more sex servants to get one body servant... or at least not when it meant that they couldn't still have those sex slaves as well."
Torres suddenly grinned and looked at Worf. "You know, we could use that to simplify rules a lot. Now we have rules about who people are allowed to have sex with based on what kind of slaves they have, what their own relationship status is, and all that. We could simplify the rules to where consenting sex is simply allowed between all, as long as local and Coalition laws are obeyed."
Worf nodded. "Which would still bind them to marriage laws and age of consent laws, yet it would get rid of the limitation of exactly what servant to get. An all round good body servant, of several only good at sex sex servants."
"Right," Torres said. "That would make it possible for someone to take a body servant for all the other tasks besides sex that they also do, and still keep some sex servants on the side because they like the variances. A blonde today, or a redhead? A human, or a Denobulan? So many choices, let's just take them all and have a different one every day."
"This could mean that body servants that actually like their employers will have to share that employer with someone else," Seven said, not liking the idea.
"Every deal exists out of tradeoffs," Torres came back, having a feeling that she knew the reason for Seven's dislike. "Besides, don't you think it's only fair? They employers give the body servant a contract, that contract should be of benefit to the employer; not limit the employer. It will also add to the privileged position of body servants in the long run. The ones that are really committed to their job will make sure that they are simply that damn good that they employer doesn't need to look somewhere else.
"Take you for instance, even if we didn't have the relationship we have, if you really were 'just' a body slave. Even then I would not have sex with anyone else, slave or not, simply because you are that damn good. Can you imagine how respected a body servant will become if that servant managed to hold on to that position for years and keeping the employer satisfied for all that time?"
"I see your point," Seven agreed with a smile. "However this too influences the decision about whether or not these contracts should be long contracts. For things to work as you just suggested, the service industry should not be tied to long contracts. After all, how can someone serve for only two years as a sex servant before moving on to being a body servant if the contract is for ten years like all long contracts normally are?
"Also, shorter contracts will enable masters to not prolong a contract, which will make sure that they body servant continues to do the job well. They will want to prove how good they are by being employed by the same employer for many years. And short contracts will also enable a body servant to leave the employer if they do not treat the body servant well enough, which will also improve the living conditions of said servants."
"Good point," Torres agreed.
"To bring up a different point," Seven said after once again a moment of silence in which all of them ate some of the food in front of them. "What government would these former slaves fall under?"
"What do you mean?" Torres asked. "All six slave planets are inside Klingon territory. Granted we have deals with the other Coalition factions that allows them to 'harvest' certain percentages of slaves off the planets without having to buy them from Klingon slave traders, but beside that the planets are firmly under our control."
"B'Elanna, you once told me that despite rules against it, slaves are being raped by Klingons that can't afford to buy a sex or body slave, and that slaves that report this actually take the risk of being raped a second time for telling such 'lie.' For slaves to truly be treated as more than just slaves, they need someone that truly has their interest at heart; someone that is willing to believe their story over the story of a Klingon simply because it is their job to look out for the former slaves.
"To make sure that former slaves are not simply grabbed and used, you need someone that has the power to deal with that Klingon. Right now you do not have that. True, theoretically they should fear you, the Klingon Intendant, for what they do. Yet in reality they do not. They know that the chances of a complaint actually reaching your ears are slim to none. And even if it did, they are sure that you will believe them over the word of some slaves."
"Which is exactly what the long contracts did in that mine on Bajor," Torres agreed. "And they were Bajorans, Klingons will be even more sure that I will believe them. Damn, you are right. We would need someone that others will know will come up for the rights of the former slaves, someone that will have the authority to check things, even if it is in territory that is normally in firm control of the Klingons, or Cardassians."
"An investigator that has powers to disregard orders from an Intendant?" Seven asked. "Someone that will only answer to the Chancellor; an overseer maybe?"
"No," Worf spoke up in a way that made it very clear that this was a point that would not be open to negotiation. "If you introduce a position that is higher than that of an Intendant, then soon that person will try to get more and more of my power. I don't need that. It is troublesome enough to deal with the High Council and the Intendants. At least both of those know not to mess with me. But someone that is higher than them but lower than me might just decide to push that little until they have my position, or turned my position into being only a ceremonial one."
"Point taken," Torres said. "Besides, I kinda like being the top of the top..."
Worf cleared his throat but didn't say anything.
"...the top of the top, except for one person," Torres corrected smoothly. "I am not looking forward to have two people that I would have to give account to. But how else," Torres interrupted herself when an idea stuck her. "Actually, I think I have a solution to that. How about installing a new Intendant? An Intendant that goes over the former slave races?
"True, that Intendant can't just go into, say, Klingon territory, to check something. But, this Intendant would be a go-between. Someone that will hear those reports, and then can take their complaints to the other Intendants. If this Intendant would bring forth an official complaint about the treatment of former slaves in, say, the Cardassian mines, then the Cardassians do really have to check it out because of the Intendant inter-contact laws.
"And if something is wrong, the Cardassians will change the situation because it is more important to them that the former slaves continue to work in Cardassian territory, than covering up some bad treatment in some factory, mine, or sex contract. They will also know that this new Intendant will have the power that all Intendants have; the power to end and call back all long contracts that are of species that fall under that Intendant's territory."
"An Intendant needs a territory," Worf pointed out. "And I don't think that any of the other factions will be happy to give up territory."
"They don't have to," Torres said with a grin. "We Klingons will graciously give up the territory needed. We have the planets of all six slave races under our control; these will become the territory of the new Intendant."
"You, are nuts," Worf said while pointing at Torres with the leg of a bItak beetle. He threw the leg on his plate and pushed the plate away, indicating that he was finished with eating. "Why in the universe would we give up those profitable planets?"
Seeing that Worf had stopped eating and because she and Torres had finished before, Seven stood up and started to clear off the table.
"Seven," Torres said, taking hold of Seven's arms.
"B'Elanna," Seven looked at Torres with a smile. "I know that I am not a slave at this moment. However, seeing the subject that we are discussing the Chancellor sent away the slaves that normally take care of the table and this cluttered table is driving me insane. That is the reason why I am cleaning the table, there is no other reason."
"Alright," Torres relented as she let go of Seven's arm and continued her conversation with Worf. "But that is just the beauty of it; we aren't giving up profitable planets. Those planets are profitable because of the slaves that are sold from it. See, when slavery ends, no more slaves will be sold from those plants. Instead you would be stuck with planets that have been basically ignored for the last one-hundred and fifty years.
"The only infrastructure worth mentioning on those plants is the infrastructure created for the slave trade. For the rest the planets have been maintained by the slaves that have no tools other than the basic tools they made themselves. Buildings are nothing more than houses they build themselves to have a roof over their heads. We would have a choice, either we ignore the planets and let them cope for themselves, which will make them prime targets for illegal slavery. Or we would have to spend trillions of credits to bring the planets up to even a half way decent standard."
"But if we hand the planets over to this new faction, then it's no longer our problem," Worf said in understanding.
"You will have to give up more than only those six planets," Seven pointed out as she sat back down.
"Why the hell would we do that?" Worf asked with a growl.
Knowing the difference between a growl and a growl by now, Seven ignored it and started to explain. "Because if they only have the six planets then they are condemned to using up the resources found on those planets to rebuild their infrastructure. However, you have to take into account that those planets have been mined for recourses for a long time. First when the Sol Empire was expanding, and then by the Coalition because they were 'only' the slave home worlds anyway.
"In other words, all resources needed to rebuild the planet's infrastructures are located in the deeper levels of the plant's crusts. In the beginning these former slave races will not have the tools needed for such deep mining so either they will have to buy the tools; putting them in debt from their beginning since they have no credits in the beginning. Or they will have to buy the resources from others, still putting them in debt.
"Another problem is that if they only control the planets they would need to ask passing permission every time they want to travel anywhere outside the planet's gravity field. Even if they wanted to travel from one of their own planets to another of their own planets they would need to ask the permission for passing through Klingon space. "
"So, what would you suggest?" Torres asked.
"At the very least I would suggest giving them not just the six planets, but the six solar systems those planets are located in. That would give them fifty planets they can mine, not just six. True, they would still not have the means to mine from difficult planets, like the gas giants, or planets located too close to stars to allow for normal mining. However, they could rent out the mining rights to those planets to other parties. This would then give them the credits to buy the tools needed to do the other mining, and to buy items from the coalition that they need for the rebuild. It would also give them the opportunity to at least travel inside those solar systems without needing permission.
"Still, such a relatively small territory will result in the Intendant of the former slaves not being taken seriously. The only bargaining chip this Intendant would have would be to forbid the former slaves to work outside their territory. A threat that will get old very fast. Instead I would suggest making the territory a sphere of space that has the two outmost of the six planets as the border of the territory and that includes all that lies inside that sphere."
Torres frowned while trying to picture the position of the six planets and other planets that were inside that territory. "I believe that such a 'ball' of space would also include eight other species; free species."
"Indeed," Seven agreed. "As you know, I studied the layout of the Coalition, and that sphere or territory does indeed include eight species other than the slave species, one of them being the Risan. Besides that the territory also includes the moon Trakah."
"That's the richest source of natural Dilithium in Coalition space," Worf pointed out. "Give me one good reason why we would give that up."
"Because the situation is basically the same as with the slave home planets," Seven explained. "True, it is the richest deposit of natural Dilithium, but the moon has not been mined since the Klingons mastered the art of creating synthetic Dilithium. The Klingons will not miss that moon, yet it will give the former slaves a steady source of income,"
"They would flood the marked with it and bring down the price of Dilithium," Worf objected, waving his hand as if closing the matter for discussion.
"They could," Seven agreed. "Unless a limit was set as to how much Dilithium can be mined. One should not forget that we are talking about giving the former slaves a territory, but not about simply just handing that territory away. If slavery is ended, that does not automatically mean that they will also get control over the planets they live on. There are several species inside the coalition that do not own the planet they live on. The former slaves could become such species.
However you are indeed talking about giving them planets and territory. That means that you can set any condition you want to this 'gift.' You can limit the Dilithium mined, or which planet or moon can be lived on in that space. You can give condition like the fact that Klingon ships never have to ask permission to enter the former slaves space. In the beginning, when you are instating this new Coalition faction, you do not have to negotiate with them. They will be thankful with anything you give them; conditions and all."
"She has a point," Torres agreed.
"That she does," Worf said, nodding his head a little. "But there is also one problem. It is easy for us to talk about this now, but who is to say that the former slaves will keep to the limitations we made? For any of this to work you need the former slaves to be trustworthy. Let's be honest; people will either believe that the former slaves are too stupid to maintain their own territory, or that the former slaves will use the opportunity to build an army again and once more try to conquer the Coalition territory. Either way, you have to find a way to prove that all former slaves can be trusted."
"Not necessarily," Seven disagreed. "In the Universe that I come from there is a saying that is very popular amongst human scientists. 'To prove that not all crows are black you only need to find one white crow.'" Seeing both Klingons frown, Seven sighed and added, "A crow is a bird found on the planet you call Sol. Its feathers are always completely black."
"And if someone talks about a crow, everyone knows that it's black bird," Torres said in understanding. "And to prove that not all former slaves are untrustworthy and only want the destruction of the Coalition, we need to find that one person that we can put in charge that will prove to people that this person keeps its deal. We have to take care when we select the first Intendant that it's a person we can make deals with, but that still stands up for it's people so that this new Intendant gets the trust of both sides."
"Indeed," Seven agreed. "It is also very important that this Intendant does not just see the former slaves as its people, but also the species that live in that sector that are free now. They would go from being part of the most powerful faction to being part of the least powerful one. They should not also have to worry about becoming second grade species in the new faction; they must also be able to place their trust in the new Intendant. In fact, to prevent a 'civil war' inside this new faction these free species will need some reassurances. These reassurances too can be part of the condition you set forth for the new faction. For instance an assurance that the lives of the free species do not change, and that the Klingons uphold the right to step in to protect the wellbeing of these species if needed."
"That would basically give us an excuse to invade the new faction at any time under the excuse of 'safeguarding wellbeing,'" Torres said.
"B'Elanna, the Klingons are the most powerful faction by far in the Coalition. If you were to invade the territory that is yours anyway according to the Division document the Coalition is based on, none of the other factions will object to it in any way. This stipulation will not change anything about the fact that this new faction will not be able to defend themselves against Klingons. It will however give the free species a feeling of security. They will know that their life will not change too much, or else the Klingons will come to their rescue."
"True enough," Torres said before adding thoughtfully, "So, we would need to find someone that will stand up for their people. Someone that can hold their own in negotiations with the Intendants, without being intimidated by those Intendants or bullied into accepting deals." Looking at Seven, a grin came to Torres' face. "Say, Seven, how would 'Intendant Seven' sound to you?"
"Terrible. I will not, and that is not negotiable."
"Aww, come on, you are willing to stick up for your people, which is how you came to me. You already met the Trill, Betazoid, Bajoran, and Klingon Intendants face to face and all of them like you. In fact, the Trill and Betazoid Intendants call you friends. The two women that are the Bajoran Intendant are so thankful for your help and like you so much that they invited you to their life bond ceremony, even though you are officially a slave. And the Klingon Intendant, well, I don't think I have to tell you how much she likes you."
"I will not," Seven said with a resolute voice. "As I said, this is not negotiable. I will not put myself in a position where I am your equal at all times, and I will not take a position that will take me way from you. If I were to become Intendant then I would have to leave you to go to 'my' territory. Please, B'Elanna, we worked past me having to worry about you sending me away. Please, please, do not put me in a situation in which I have to fear once more that we will have to part ways. "I will do,"
Torres lifted her hand to stop Seven from talking. "You are right, and I apologize putting you in a position where you have to worry about that." Torres sighted and looked over at Worf before adding. "Besides, it would have been way too easy to have found the right person for the job that fast."
"It would have," Worf agreed. "And let's not forget the small fact that there is still the question if such a job will ever exist at all. Right now we are just playing 'what if' and while I find it interesting to talk about this, that still doesn't mean that I would actually support it."
"Of course," Torres agreed. "And on that note, I think it would be a good time to stop this 'what if' for now. It's time for Seven and me to go sightseeing some more."
"So where are you planning to go today?" Worf asked.
"I was planning to take Seven to Malki's temple."
"Figures," Worf snorted. "Only one woman made it into the hall of the great, and that's all the reason women need to go to her temple. Why not visit Likyi's temple for instance? His temple is much more impressive."
"Because," Torres said with a grin, "as a great chancellor once said; only one woman made it into the hall of the great, and that's all the reason women need to go to her temple."
Worf laughed at hearing his own words. He lifted his glass in a salute before drinking the little bit of wine still left in it.
***
Seven wasn't sure if she should be glad or nervous about the fact that no guards were accompanying them. She liked the fact that they were alone on the mountain path without someone seeing their every move. However, she didn't like the fact that Torres took her safety so lightly. Seven had asked her why they wouldn't be taking any guards with them and Torres had told her that there wouldn't be any crowds that would have to be kept away.
Clearly to Torres the guards were more for crowd control and making statements than actually to guard her. Seven wasn't sure how to feel about that. She didn't want Torres to get hurt. Yet she also had to admit that Torres, having been Intendant for seven years, had more experience with security than Seven did, so she just had to trust Torres' word.
"You alright, my pet?" Torres asked as they moved around another bend and yet another long path loomed before them.
"I am fine," Seven assured. "Wearing bio-suits does have certain advantages.
"Well, since there is nobody else around, I'm more than happy to admit that I'm beat. But, since transporters don't work in these mountains, walking really is the best way to get there. Good thing that we're almost at the top."
"We are?" Seven asked, pleased with that news despite indeed being fine.
"Yeah. Up this path, then one more bend and you are almost at the bridge where Malki fought the Sol troops, her temple is only six more kilometers (4 miles) further."
"Only?" Seven asked raising her eyebrow a little.
"Well, I said that we were almost at the top, not that we are almost at the temple," Torres said with a grin. "Come on, tell me you aren't having fun."
"I can not do that, since I am indeed having fun," Seven said with a small smile. "This scenery is beautiful,"
"What?" Torres asked when Seven didn't continue.
"I just realized how... nice it is to be able to say that."
"Why wouldn't you be able to say it?" Torres asked. "I'm the Klingon here, I'm the one that has to make sure that I sound tough enough. You on the other hand can simply say that you find nature beautiful."
"I know. What I mean is that on Voyager I started out being a Borg drone that had to learn being human again."
"Should have learned to be Klingon instead," Torres interrupted. Despite the fact that she thought that humans, and the other slave races, deserved the freedom that other races in the Coalition already had, she still didn't like the superior attitude they could portray sometimes.
"Because of that," Seven continued as if she hadn't been interrupted, "I shielded my emotions and portrayed a cool persona. Saying that a nature scene is beautiful was something I simply would not have done then. At most I would have said that this scenery is 'aesthetically pleasing.'"
"Hmm. Tell me something, my pet."
"Yes, mistress?"
"Have you ever been happy on that ship?"
"Mistress?"
"You heard me. Have you ever been happy, simply happy, on that ship?"
"I have made friends on Voyager. Friends I miss every day. They have provided me with good times and I miss those times. I have been happy on Voyager."
"But?"
"But, after spending time with my friends, enjoying myself, I would go to the cargo-bay alone. In my mind I would get stored with the rest of the tools. No matter how nice a part of my day was, it would be ruined by the fact that I would go alone to be stored away until needed the next day."
"And n,"
"Every day," Seven interrupted. "I am happy now every day. There are moments where I do not agree with what you do, or have to do, or where behavior from others towards me makes me unhappy. However over all, at the end of the day, every day, I go to sleep happy and I wake up happy the next morning."
"Good," Torres said as they moved around the bend and pointed to the bridge ahead of them. The bridge was narrow, but long. It had the same width as the path; enough room for three people to walk beside each other, but had to be over two hundred meters long. Now Seven could see how one person could stop a superior force at the bridge. Numbers really didn't matter much if you could only stand with three people beside each other. The only difference the numbers would make then was in endurance.
How long could one person hold out against an enemy that would just keep coming, and coming, and coming. Apparently Malki did have that endurance. Seven realized that the bridge had the perfect width for someone to use a Bat'leth in battle. Nobody would be able to slip passed the reach of the Bat'leth, but the railings were still far enough apart to not hinder the Bat'leth moves.
"Can you picture the scene?" Torres asked. "Let's forget the official number of ten thousand Sol troops, let's say that there were 'only' one thousand. Still, just imagine, one thousand Sol troops reaching this bridge and seeing a Klingon woman waiting for them. Can you imagine it, my pet? Them charging onto this bridge, knowing that they have their numbers in their favor, and then Malki just keeps holding her ground against wave after wave of Sol troops. Showing them what true Klingon stubbornness is all about."
"I can picture it," Seven said, indeed picturing the woman she had seen as a statue standing on the bridge wielding a Bat'leth. Looking over the side of the bridge, Seven could see the ground only ten meter (30 feet) below her. "But why did the Sol troops cross the bridge at all? This ravine is not that deep and one can easily get in and out at both sides."
"My pet, this isn't a ravine; it's a riverbed. We are in the midst of summer now and the river that normally runs through this bed is dried out now. But the Sol troops had to cross this bridge in spring when the snow is melting off the mountains. Then this river becomes a raging beast which sometimes gets so high that it reaches the bottom of this bridge. In spring time there is no way to cross the river without special tools. But the thing is that the tools normally used don't work in these mountain for the same reasons that the weapons don't work here. Besides that, the Sol troops were on the run; they didn't even have ropes with them."
"I see. Thank you for the explanation."
"My pleasure. Come on, let's get those six kilometers over with. want to get to the temple and get a drink.
"Yes mistress," Seven said as they continued to walk up the path.
A little bit further up they reached another bend and Torres gestured over to the side. "You liked the scenery so much, come have look at this." From where she was standing, Seven could see the riverbed fifteen meters below, and beyond that a wide tree filled valley with a lake. "Kinda looks like the valley at my home doesn't it?"
"It does," Seven agreed.
Torres stepped closer to the edge and pointed to one of the sides. "If you look over there,"
"I would much rather like for you to come back here instead. It is not safe so close to the edge."
"Oh come on. I have been here three times already and I have never fallen down. It's safe here, and from here you can really see... shit!"
The last word was said as Torres felt the ground drop from under her feet.
"B'Elanna!" Seven shouted as the jumped closer to grab Torres but she was a second too late and to her horror she saw Torres tumbling the fifteen meters down the slope until she came to rest at the bottom of the dry riverbed. Not thinking about it for a second, Seven quickly made her way down the slope; stumbling down more than actually walking. When she reached Torres, Seven was glad to see that she was moving.
"Arrrr. Kahless be damned. Of all the stupid..."
"B'Elanna, do not move!" Seven pleaded as she kneeled beside Torres.
"I'm fine, Seven. That fall hurt my pride more than my body."
"If you are fine, then why is there a bone sticking through your left leg?!"
"There is?" Torres asked looking down. "That explains that itch."
"B'Elanna!"
"Alright. Calm down, Seven. Yes, I'm hurt, but I'm not dying. My leg hurts like hell, but seeing that there, that really isn't a surprise. Other places of my body also hurt, but my leg is the worst."
"And how do you know that you do not have internal injuries?"
"Seven, baby, calm down will ya? Look back up that slope. It's not like I dropped ten meters straight down, I tumbled, rolled, down. I didn't hit my head, and the most of the blows to my body have been absorbed by this damn battle uniform I wear all the damn time. The leg really is the worst. I guess it got caught somewhere and I twisted it; snapping the bone."
"Be that as it may," Seven said, somewhat conceding that Torres was probably right, "you still need medical attention." Seven looked back up the slope that was covered with loose rocks. "I believe that I will be able to carry you back up. I,"
"Seven, get real," Torres interrupted. "Look, I know that you can do things that most people can't, but even you don't have omnipotent powers. The ground is so loose that you will have a hard time getting back up there alone, let alone carrying me. And even if you could get me up there, then what? Would you also carry me the six kilometers to the temple, and all of that so that the people in the temple can carry me back down the mountain?"
"Surely they will have a Doctor there..."
Torres grabbed Seven's arm and pulled her close. She looked Seven deep in the eyes for a moment until she was sure she had the blonde's full attention. "Seven, listen to me, are you listening?"
"I am listening," Seven said, starting to calm down now that she knew that Torres was, relatively, alright.
"Aright, here's the deal. Remember the whole story about that damn bridge? Why the Sol troops had to fight? Energy weapons don't work here. Transporters don't work here. That means that things as simple as bone knitters and dermal regenerators also don't work. So at best you would be hauling up there, and dragging me to the temple, all so that they can give me some first aid and then carry me down the mountain again so that I can get some real medical help. It would be a lot simpler if you just went to the temple, get some people with a stretcher, come back here, and we'll get off this damn mountain a damn lot faster."
"That would mean me leaving you here alone," Seven pointed out.
"I don't think we have much choice anyway baby. Do you really think I could make it up that slope and to that temple with that?" Torres pointed to her leg when she said 'that.' "Even if you did carry me all the way, the movement alone would kill me."
"At least let me get you back up the slope and out of this riverbed."
"A dry riverbed, Seven."
"The chance of flashfloods should not be underestimated," Seven objected. She saw the logic of Torres' statement, but she didn't want to leave her.
"Seven, this river is fed by a lake that on its turn is fed in the spring by the melting snow. For there to be a flash flood, it would suddenly have to rain as much as it normally does in the three months of autumn, and that in the time that it would take you to get up to the temple and back."
"B'Elanna, I,"
"Seven, please don't make me admit how much that damn leg is really hurting me. I need medical help that I can only get at the foot of these mountains."
Closing her eyes for a moment in resignation, Seven sighed and nodded her head. "Very well. I will go get help." Seven looked down at the white bone sticking through the pants leg and flinched at the sight. "I just wish that I could help in some way."
"I know baby, I know. But I can't even let you pull my leg straight. With Klingons and Humans the arteries lie in different places in the leg." Torres frowned. "I never asked what the case was with me; I didn't want to be reminded that I'm not fully Klingon. Pulling that bone back might damage an artery; better just leave it for now."
"I will be back soon," Seven said as she reluctantly stood up. "Please be safe." Looking around her for something to make Torres a little more comfortable, Seven could only see rocks, dirt, and more rocks. Sighing, Seven turned away to move up the slope.
"Seven," Torres said as the blonde had just turned around.
"Yes?"
"Don't break your neck trying to get me help, be careful."
"I will," Seven assured.
"And Seven?"
"Yes?"
"I love you. Go get me my help, I'm looking forward to soaking in that bathtub tonight and listen to you pointing out to me, in great detail, how we would not be in the predicament of you having to leave me now if I had taken the guards along."
Seven finally managed a smile at that. "I will hold you to that. I love you to, B'Elanna Torres, despite the fact that you are an annoyingly stubborn woman."
"That's what you get for getting involved with a Klingon."
"As far as I remember, you picked me."
"It's not nice to argue with an injured person," Torres pointed out.
"Then I will save my arguments for tonight," Seven replied with a smile before assuring once more that she would soon be back and then starting to make her way up the steep slope.
Only when Seven was out of sight did Torres look back to the protruding bone. She carefully touched it with the tip of her finger and immediately had to bite her lip to stop herself from screaming. "Kahless be damned that hurts. Sometimes it bites big time to be a too proud for her own good Klingon."
Torres' monologue was stopped when she heard the telltale growl/howl of a mountain Targ. Torres knew that in her state she would be seen as a wounded animal and definitely food. She also knew that her Daqtahg would never be enough to defend herself against a mountain Targ. With a silent curse she took the only other weapon she had with her, her mek'leth (Klingon sword like blade, about half as long as a bat'leth) out of its holder and settled in for a wait that suddenly was going to feel a lot longer.
***
Seven felt that she was making good time, she guessed that she had jogged four kilometers already which left her only two more to go. She would have liked to run but she knew that not even she could run six kilometers at top speed. Suddenly another growl/howl could be heard and Seven slowed down when she realized that this time it sounded a lot closer.
She carefully walked around yet another bend of the mountain path and then she could see two things. One thing was a building further up in the mountain of which Seven was certain that it was the temple she needed to reach, and the second thing was the biggest Targ that Seven had yet seen that was standing to the side of the road.
Seven looked at the animal for a few seconds. It had the standard Targ build but its shoulder height was so high that it had to actually come up to Seven's waist. Its coat was chocolate brown at its back and grayish/white at its belly while its legs were so dark brown that it came close to being black.
Caramel brown eyes looked at Seven for a moment before the animal curled up its lip and showed off a very impressive set of teeth with ten centimeter (4 inch) long eyeteeth. It let out a low growl that Seven more felt in her chest than actually heard.
Seven knew that she didn't have a choice; she had to get past the animal to get the help she needed. Seven slowly came closer, staying as far away from the Targ as the path allowed. She was slightly surprised to see the animal not trying to get any closer. Then, when Seven was as close as she would come while moving past the animal it launched itself at Seven, only to crash to the ground when its hind legs were pulled from under it.
Seven looked on as the animal tried to get back to its feet and only now did Seven see something that had been obscured by the grass before; both its hind legs were caught in a wire trap.
Knowing that her way to help for Torres was free, Seven turned back to the path, but something stopped her from actually moving up the path.
She looked back at the animal that was still trying to get back to its feet but was failing miserably. Seven could see that the wire had been pulled so tight around the animal's legs that it had actually cut in to the flesh and she could see the blood seeping from the wounds.
After a moment of more struggling by the Targ, Seven saw that the blood at the wounds started to flow more freely. she knew she should move on. Torres needed help, and this mountain Targ wouldn't hesitate to attack her if Seven tried to get closer to help it. After all, everyone knew that a wounded animal was at its most dangerous. Yet, moments later, Seven found herself trying to get closer to said wounded animal.
The Targ noticed its intended prey getting closer and once more bared its teeth and let out a low growl, never expecting the reaction it got.
Seven heard the animal growl again and decided to do the same. She pulled up her upper lip and also growled, trying to show the Targ that she wasn't afraid of it. Suddenly, as fast as she could, Seven grabbed the Targ's snout with her Borg enhanced hand and clamped its mouth shut.
The Targ was confused. This was supposed its prey; food. Yet this tall animal clearly wasn't afraid. It was the first time since its mother that the Targ met a creature that didn't show any fear. Instead it was growling as if it too was a predator. Suddenly the tall animal grabbed the Targ at its snout and try as it might, the Targ couldn't break the hold. Now the predator suddenly felt like prey.
Seven pulled the Targ's head towards her until she could look into both its eyes. She held the stare until the animal stopped struggling and did nothing more than merely looking back.
The Targ panicked for the first time ever in its life and started to struggle even more. Then the tall animal pulled its head so close that the Targ could have reached the tall animal's head if it could have extended it's tongue through the tight grip on its snout. The Targ saw light eyes of a color it had never seen before looking back at it. It also saw a total lack of fear in those light eyes, and something else. Somehow the Targ could feel that this tall animal wasn't going to kill it.
Now that the Targ had stopped moving, Seven focused her attention on the trapped legs, making sure not to let go of the Targ's snout. Looking closer at the wire, Seven saw that it was made of an alloy that had a breaking point so high that Seven would never be able to break it. Then she looked at the locking mechanism and saw that it was made of a different material. She still wouldn't be able to break it, but she did have another way of getting trough that material. However, it meant letting go of the Targ's snout.
Seven once more brought the Targ's head close to her own. "I am going to release your mouth now so that I can free you. Do not make me regret it." After a moment of silence in which Seven thought about the words she had just said, she added, "What am I doing? You do not understand what I am saying. Just... stay like you are."
The tall animal once more pulled its head close and the Targ wondered what was going to happen now. It had resigned itself to the fact that it had come across an even bigger predator than it was, yet this predator was not acting like a predator. Then the tall animal started to make strange sounds. It wasn't growls; the Targ knew what growls sounded like. Whatever it was, the Targ liked the sounds. They made it feel something inside that it had never felt before.
Sighing once more, Seven let go of the Targ's snout and slowly moved from its head to its hind legs. In the situation the Targ was in now, Seven really didn't fear it. She knew that if needed she had the strength and reflexes to kill the Targ with one hit against its head with her Borg enhanced hand. But she hoped that the animal would stay still. She wanted to help it; not kill it.
Suddenly the Targ felt its snout being released and the tall animal started to move to its hurting legs. Now it was confused again, had it been mistaking? Had this tall animal been attracted to the sent of its blood after all? The Targ growled once more, and once more it got a growl in reply. Then suddenly for a moment its legs hurt a lot more, and then... most of the pain was gone.
Seven brought her Borg enhanced hand close to the locking mechanism and started to drill away the mechanism with her assimilation tubes. After some time she carefully inserted a finger between the Targ's legs and under the wire, and with a sharp pull overcame the resistance of what was left of the lock and pulled the cable loose. She knew that she must had hurt the Targ with that last pull and looked up to the animal's head, only to see caramel colored eyes looking back in great interest. Seven knew that the animals wounded legs needed medical attention, but she also knew that someone else was also waiting for medical attention, someone that had a much bigger priority for Seven.
Seven softly patted the Targ's side and prepared to move on. "I am sorry that I can not give you better care. However, I did give you a chance now; something you did not have before." Seven knew only too well that someone who would have placed such kind of trap would also do only one thing with any kind of animal they found in that trap. The Targ had a much bigger chance of surviving with the injured legs than it did being found alive by the person that had set the trap.
The tall animal started to make those strange sounds again, and once more the Targ felt something it had never felt before. But now the Targ realized what it was. It was feeling a pull to this tall animal, so strong that it was even far bigger than the Targ's pull to its mother had been. Before it could stop itself, the Targ moved its head and started to lick the tall animal front paw that had just patted its side. The Targ was glad to see that the tall animal didn't pull away. Instead the tall animal it let it lick its front paw for a moment and then used that same paw to scratch the Targ behind its ear. The Targ really liked that, no it loved that. Then the tall animal started to move away and the Targ felt a sadness it had never felt before. Not even when it found its mother dead at the bottom of that cliff.
Seven slowly got up and started to move back up the path to the temple. She heard a sound behind her and looked back to see the Targ also getting up and starting to follow her. "No, you stay here. I do not believe that the people at the temple would appreciate your presence."
Yet again those nice sounds, but something in that timbre of those sounds made the Targ pause. It tilted its head and looked at the tall animal with sad eyes.
Seven saw the sad look on the Targ's face and rolled her eyes. "You look exactly like B'Elanna does when we are interacting on equal level and I am not, yet, giving her what she really wants. Just... stay."
The last sound had sounded different than the rest to the Targ, as if there was a clear meaning to the sound. When the tall animal made that particular sound again and once more started to move away, the Targ started to understand that the tall animal didn't want the Targ to follow it.
"Stay," Seven said again and this time she was glad to see that the Targ did as she had said. This time when she started to move up the path she didn't hear any sounds behind her and when a moment later she looked over her shoulder a final time she saw that the Targ was still where she had left it, looking back at her.
**
Seven walked through the open door of the temple and saw two Klingons coming her way. As soon as they saw her they hesitated for a moment and then rushed her while shouting 'escaped slave.' Seven treated one of the Klingons to a kick between his legs, which left him sinking to the ground while clutching his groin, and caught the arm of the second Klingon as he swung at her. She twisted the arm back until it was close to breaking point and the Klingon was shouting out in pain.
"Let him go, or you die right now," A third Klingon said while coming closer with a bat'leth in hand. He had come to investigate the commotion and found a human slave taking down two of the best temple guards.
Before Seven could say anything, a fourth Klingon came running and after looking at Seven for a moment his eyes clearly got a lot wider. "You all let her be."
"What?" The Klingon with the bat'leth in his hands asked as he still moved a little closer to Seven.
"You idiots, did any of you take the time to look at that thing hanging around her neck?"
At hearing the question the Klingon with the bat'leth looked back at Seven and only now really saw the necklace that had to be worth more than the temple had gotten in allowance in the last ten years, combined. More importantly, he saw just what mark this slave was wearing. Realizing that he didn't want to die that badly, he backed up and lowered his bat'leth.
Seven let go of the arm of the second Klingon and turned to the Klingon that seemed to be in charge, after she was sure that none of the other Klingons would attack again.
"Your assistance is required. I need a stretcher and Klingons strong enough to carry a grown person on said stretcher down the mountain."
"Where is the Intendant?" The commander asked.
"My mistress is six kilometers down the mountain. Her friend was injured and broke her leg, badly. My mistress needs assistance in getting her friend down the mountain. However, she did not want to leave her friend because she had heard the howl of a mountain Targ, so she sent me here instead." Seven decided that it was better not to mention that it was actually Torres that was hurt, one never knew if there wasn't someone with a grudge against Torres living in the temple.
"I will take care of it right now," The commander assured.
"Good." Seven pointed to the Klingon with the bat'leth before continuing. "You, hand me your bat'leth and then take care of your wounded comrades here."
"You heard her," The commander said as he saw the Klingon hesitate. Once he was sure that Seven had the bat'leth she had asked for, he turned away to get the men and stretcher needed.
"You said that you heard a mountain Targ," A female Klingon that had shown up asked as the wounded Klingons were taken away. "Did you also see one?"
"Why do you ask?" Seven said, evading the question for the moment.
"Because a mountain Targ has settled around here. Since the path up to the temple needs to be safe, the temple is trying to catch it, but until now it outsmarted them."
"And how would this change by me having seen it?" Seven asked.
"Because if you had seen it, and you made it up here, that would probably mean that it was trapped in one of the traps I set out for it."
"I see. Well, unfortunately I did not see one. I did however find a bloodied wire trap. Is that one of the traps you set out?" Seven thought that it would be better to admit that she had come across a bloodied trap, since that would explain the faint blood stains that were still on her hands in case someone asked about them.
"Yeah, it is. Damn, probably some other animal got caught in the trap and the mountain Targ found it and ate it."
"If you are trying to capture it, why use such kinds of traps? Why not use traps that do not harm the animal and then after you caught it you can set it out again away from this temple."
"I don't want it to be set free again; I want it dead. Do you have any idea how great the skin of a mountain Targ would look in my home?"
"I see," Seven said in understanding. "Since it is not allowed to hunt an mountain Targ unless they are a danger to the place they settled in, you want to use this opportunity to get the real skin of a mountain Targ."
"Damn right I do," the Klingon agreed with a grin.
"Well, in that case, good luck with your hunt," Seven said as she saw four Klingons coming closer with one of them carrying a collapsible stretcher. "Excuse me, I have to go now."
End of chapter.
Author note. The saying about finding the white crow isn't mine. I heard someone on the Discovery channel quoting some writer and I liked the simplicity, yet difficulty of the saying.
Chapter 11
"Here it is," Seven said as she pointed out the bloodied wire trap.
She and Torres were once more on the mountain. This time because Torres was 'too damn stubborn to let a damn mountain beat her.' Or so Torres said. But Torres also wanted to check out the story Seven had told her about the Targ. Not that she didn't believe Seven; she did. Torres simply had the same trait that most people did; she wanted to see things for herself. Seven was just glad that this time around they had the four guards with them that normally accompanied Torres if she only took a small guard force with her.
"Does it look like it's being touched?"
"No mistress. The trap is in exactly the same place where I dropped it."
Torres knew only too well that with Seven 'exactly the same place' meant something else than with most others. With others it meant that it was in the same place where they could remember it being. But with Seven, it meant that it was literally on the millimeter in the same place.
Seven picked up the trap and showed it to Torres. She pulled on the loop a little to indicate that it could open further, and thereby proving that she had indeed destroyed the locking mechanism.
"Seven, I'm not here because I doubt your word; you know me better than that."
"Then why exactly are we here, mistress?" Seven asked as she and Torres moved back onto the path and started walk up the mountain. Nobody in the group noticed the caramel colored eyes that were looking at them in great interest from a small distance away. "Somehow I do not believe that 'beating the damn mountain' is the only reason you came here."
"How about, I still want to see the temple?" Torres asked with a grin.
"Also doubtful, mistress. As you stated yesterday; you have been here three times before. While I do believe that part of your motivation is to go to the temple with me so that you can be the one showing me the temple, that alone would not be enough for you to do what you did. You cancelled other plans so that we could come here. Therefore there are not other things I will not see. If me seeing places was the only motivation, than we would have gone to the places that were planned for today and the temple would have been saved for another time."
"Well, I guess then in that case there is only one reason left."
"And that is?" Seven asked patiently, knowing that Torres was playing with her a little.
"Klingon Intendant rule fifteen."
"And that is?" Seven asked again, this time giving Torres a little smile.
"If someone sees you as weak, you have to prove just how tough you are."
"And because yesterday you were carried off this mountain by people of that temple, now you have to go there and remind the people at that temple that it still is not wise to mess with you?"
"Right."
"Is that not unfair? Those people helped you, and now you will punish them."
"Don't worry, my pet. I promise you, the people that helped me aren't the ones in deep shit. The person that set that trap back there is the one that is in deep shit."
"Why? I do realize that mountain Targs are normally not allowed to be hunted, but this one did settle in a part where it may be a danger to people that visit the temple. If I remember correctly that means that it can be hunted for the safety of the travelers."
"It isn't the fact that it's being hunted that I have a problem with; it's the how."
"I see. Mistress?"
"Yes?"
"You jokingly mentioned Klingon Intendant rule fifteen. Are there actually such rules? I do know that there are rules for the Bajoran Intendant, but I never heard you say that you yourself could not do something because of a certain Intendant rule."
"Sure there are, my pet. It is just that the first Klingon Intendant was a lot smarter than the first Bajoran Intendant."
"Mistress?" Seven asked, confused about the sudden mentioning of the first Intendants.
"Oh, sorry. See, the thing is that the general rules for the Intendants were set up when the positions of Intendants were created, but those are really only the minimalist amount or rules. Like, no I'm really not allowed to claim half of Cardassian territory as mine simply because I feel like it. But the rest of the rules were made up by the first Intendants and are more tailored to their faction. The first Bajoran Intendant was sooo set on making sure that he would keep his job and all the power possible for as long as possible that the set up a virtual mountain of rules making sure that his job was secure."
"Which explains why Intendant Kira could continue as Intendant while all of Bajor hated her and wanted her dead," Seven said in understanding.
"Right," Torres agreed. "But you see, the first Klingon Intendant was more into the saying 'less is more.' He realized that if you make a rule, sooner or later you are going to run into that rule. And that, my pet, is the reason why the Bajorans have the most of the rules for Intendants, and the Klingons have the least. In fact, we are the only faction that has less faction rules than Coalition rules for the Intendant. Something I like very much."
"Because you can basically do that ever you want," Seven said with a smile.
"Sure, it's that power trip thing, you know?" Torres shot back with a grin, forgetting for a moment that there ware actually four guards right behind her. "Thinking 'my word is law' and having it actually basically be true is even better than sex."
Seven didn't reply but only lifted an eyebrow in response.
"Alright, it was better than sex before I met you, now it's in a good third place."
"And what is in second place?" Seven wondered.
"Hearing you say 'I love you,'" Torres came back right away before remembering the guards behind her.
"Ah, I see," Seven said just as they reached the doors of the temple. "Mistress?"
"Yes?"
"I love you."
"And I love you, my pet," Now Torres simply didn't care about the guards. She was the Intendant, damn what the guards thought. "My pet,"
"I know. Now it is time to be the Intendant everyone fears."
"Right."
"Well, I still love you. It is that power trip, you know?" Seven smiled before adding, "to know that this woman that others have to fear is in reality the most tender person I have ever met."
"Don't have any illusions baby. I most definitely am that other person, just that you also brought out a side in me not even I knew I had."
"That is part of the power trip, to be the only person you ever show that tender person to fully." Seven sighed while she indicated the woman she had talked to the day before. "But now is not the time for the tender side of you. Mistress, that woman is the one that said that she had put out the wire trap."
"Thanks," Torres said as she turned to the commander of the temple that had come closer, no doubt warned right away the second Torres set foot inside the temple gate.
"Intendant, it is good to see you again. I see that got excellent medical help."
"Of course. Once I was down that damn mountain, it was really just a matter of minutes before my leg was fixed; my doctor is one of the best. Unlike you, I don't have hacks working for me."
"Intendant?" The commander asked totally confused.
"When my pet and I came up here yesterday we heard a mountain Targ. My pet told me that when she came here someone told her that efforts were being made to capture the Targ. Can you tell me a little more about that?"
"Um, well, there isn't much to tell really. About six months ago we heard the howl of a mountain Targ for the first time. Soon after that we also spotted it. We saw that it still had the fading stripes of a young Targ so we knew that it couldn't be much older than a year. Seeing that it was still young we left it be and waited to see if it would move on to settle somewhere else. But it didn't. Last time it was spotted, its stripes were gone, so now it's fully grown, which means that this is now its territory. So we took the only option we really have if we want to keep this temple open and hired a huntress two weeks ago to kill it."
"I see, why not hunt it down yourself?" Torres asked, though she knew only too well why not. At least she knew if the temple guards had any common sense at all.
"Intendant, as much as I like a good fight, I'm not suicidal enough to go up against a mountain Targ with bladed weapons only. As you know, other weapons don't work here."
"So how is your hunter planning to kill it?"
"Um, I don't really know. She just assured us that she could find it and kill it. If she wants to try her luck by trying to kill a mountain Targ with bladed weapons, then that's her choice."
"Ah, but that's the problem. She isn't going out to try and hunt it down and kill it, instead she is setting out wire traps to capture it. I can only assume that once she captured it in a wire trap she is planning to take a lance and kill it from a safe and very cowardly distance."
"What?!" The commander said as he turned to look at the woman that was standing very quietly against the far wall hoping very much that she was anywhere else but right there. "We are paying you all those credits so that you can disgrace this temple by capturing a Targ by the most cowardly way possible? This is the temple of Malki, damn it, and you, another woman, go and disgrace it by setting out wire traps? I will,"
"Do nothing," Torres interrupted. "I'll take care of this. In fact, I think that I have the perfect way of dealing with a coward that likes to use wire traps."
**
Torres patted the woman on her cheek, who pulled her head away with a growl. She knew right away that it was a mistake when she felt the wire cut into the skin of her throat and breading getting that little bit more difficult.
"Better be careful there. I made sure to take that trap of yours with that extra thin wire. Surely I don't have to tell you that these traps don't loosen up; they only get tighter and tighter."
"Bitch."
"You bet I am," Torres agreed happily. "But the difference between you and me is that I'm good at it." Torres got off her knee and looked down at her handy work. The woman was sitting with her back against a tree, and one of her wire traps around her neck. The trap had been attached to the tree in such a way that the woman couldn't do anything else than sit with her back straight against the tree. She couldn't get up, or even lean to the side a little.
Torres looked at the temple guards surrounding her and spoke to nobody in particular. "She stays like that for three days and nights; no food or drinks. If it is found out that any of you even gave her as much as one drop of water, that person will be sitting here for twice as long." Torres looked back down at the woman. "In case you actually survive, you will be cut loose then. Your hunting license will be revoked, and I can promise you that you will never find any job at all anymore here in Kronos. If you want to try your luck outside Kronos; good luck."
"Why, it's just an animal?"
Torres shook her head a little. "You really don't get it, do you? Well, let me explain it so that you can think about it while sitting here. The
mountain Targ is a proud hunter; a predator that earns respect because it's the toughest, most feared, land predator. Did you hear me? They deserve, earn, respect. There isn't a land animal on Kronos that doesn't fear the mountain Targ. You don't go capturing such a proud animal in the most cowardly way possible, and then on top of that don't even bother to check your trap every day.
"I don't hold it against you that you wanted to kill it for its skin; I think it would be a great decoration. But the way you went about capturing it, that's cowardly. I'm amazed that a Klingon would even use such a coward's way of trapping. Tell me, if you had captured it and then killed it. If someone had asked you how you had killed it, you would have said proudly; 'oh, I set out a wire trap and once I captured it I killed it from a safe distance.' Would you have said that?"
The woman didn't answer with words, but she did look away, still giving Torres an answer.
"I didn't think so. So when you sit here with that wire around your neck, you can think about how an animal would feel with that wire around its feet. An animal that unlike you doesn't know that it should keep as quiet as possible. Well, I have a temple to tour. Enjoy your stay under this nice tree. Don't fall asleep though; you might loose your head."
Torres turned away from the woman and walked the four steps to where Seven was waiting. "Come on, my pet. Now that we are here, let me show your around."
"Yes mistress," Seven said as she followed Torres into one of the buildings. "Mistress?"
"Yes?"
"I just learned something about you that I did not know yet."
"And that is?"
"You like animals."
"What gave you that stupid idea?"
"The way you talked about the mountain Targ and respecting it."
"My pet, I couldn't care less about some damn mountain Targ. I was just making up some crap excuse to do what I did, and you know that in reality I only did that to remind these people that a broken leg doesn't makes me any less of a bitch."
"Of course mistress. Forgive me for assuming that you like animals."
"You are forgiven, just don't bring that stupid crap up again."
"Of course not, mistress. Mistress?"
"Yes?"
"Do not worry, the fact that you like animals is safe with me."
Torres grinned. "Good, since I don't like animals anyway."
"Of course. Mistress?"
"Yes?"
"You are such a softy."
"Seven, just shut the fuck up already."
"Yes B'Elanna," Seven said with a smile. "But it will cost you."
"Cost me?"
"Yes, unless you pay the price, I will tell both Worf and Martok that you like little fuzzy animals."
"I do not like fuzzy animals!" Torres growled. "And what price?"
"I will tell you the price later; when we are lying in bed, naked."
"Well, come to think of it, my little secret should remain just that; a secret. Naked huh?"
"Yes."
"You, my dear, know how to negotiate with a Klingon."
"But there is one flaw with it; I will only ever negotiate like that with one very specific Klingon."
"Lucky me," Torres grinned.
***
"So what do you think?" Torres asked as they were walking down the mountain.
"It was very interesting, mistress. It was also very interesting to life size statue of Malki. Somehow this statue made her more 'real' than the black marble statue in the great hall. More so since the statue in the hall of the great was at least two heads taller than this life like statue."
"True. But some parts of her were still, big. I saw you checking out her boobs, my pet."
"I was merely comparing," Seven defended. "I personally prefer breasts to be a few sizes smaller than that." Seven let her eyes very deliberately drift down Torres' body to indicate exactly what size she preferred.
"Well, if you really were only comparing," Torres said with a smirk, "Then I'm sorry to disappoint you, but Malki even puts you to shame; hands down."
"I agree. In fact, I wonder how she was able to wield a bat'leth so effectively. I noticed that my chest is sometimes in the way when I use the bat'leth, I can only imagine how someone that has a chest almost twice as, large, as mine would be able to use the bat'leth."
"Well, rumor has it that this is actually part of why she was able to hold back the Sol troops. You are right, it's simply impossible to use normal bat'leth patterns if you have something as big as that in your way. Because of this, Malki spent her whole life, ever since her boobs started to grow, learning and creating her own bat'leth patterns. So, not only had the Sol troops to deal with a stubborn and determined Klingon. They also had to deal with that Klingon using bat'leth patterns the Sol troops had never seen before."
"Hmm, maybe I should learn some of her techniques then."
"My pet, you have a great set of breasts, and I love them, but not even you are so big that you would need Malki's techniques."
"I know, but the point is that you just stated that her techniques are not commonly used. Therefore, knowing those moves would put me at an advantage, an honest advantage, while in a honorable bat'leth fight."
"Hmm, you have a point there. Come to think of it, we could practice them together. There is no rule that says that a woman with 'a nice hand full' can't use Malki's techniques as well."
"And what a very nice hand full they are," Seven said. "I would really like practicing Malki's techniques with you."
"Intendant," One of the guards said, putting both Torres and Seven on alert since normally the guards never spoke up unless needed.
"What?"
"Over there," The guards said as he moved from behind Torres to beside her and pointing a little further down the road. Slowly but surely a huge mountain Targ stepped from the bushes and on to the path.
"I believe that is the Targ I met yesterday," Seven said after looking at its markings for a moment.
"You bet you ass it is," Torres agreed. "Mountain Targs don't share their territory, unless they are in mating. Kahless that thing is huge."
"Mistress, I did describe the Targ to you, and I told you that its shoulder height came up to my hips."
"I know my pet. But hearing something and actually seeing it makes a world of difference."
Seven slowly walked closer to the Targ.
"Seven, what the hell do you think you are going?"
"Mistress, if it wanted to attack me, it would have done so yesterday when I was hurting it while freeing it. We have to get past it to move down the mountain."
Before Torres could say more, Seven had reached the animal and reached out her hand to touch the animal's snout. The Targ moved its head into the touch and when Seven started to scratch it behind its ear, it's whole body started to shake slightly with excitement. But as soon as Torres and the guards came close the whole demeanor of the Targ changed. It put itself between Seven and the rest and let out a low and very dangerous sounding growl while all of its neck fur stood on end.
Torres frowned at the strange behavior for a moment and then realization set in. "Oh fucking great. Why am I not surprised?"
"Mistress?" Seven asked as she took a firm hold of the Targ's neck fur to keep it in check.
"You managed to somehow make the most powerful and dangerous people in the coalition like you, why am I not surprised to find that you also managed to make a mountain Targ bond with you?"
"I did what?"
"Seven, after all you heard about Targs and mountain Targs, do you really think that such protective behavior is something that they would do unless they are bonded to that person?"
"I, I did not really think about it. I just helped an animal that needed help. I was not looking for it to bond with me."
"It's alright, my pet. As you were told in that pet store; it's the Targ that makes that choice. It is more than likely that it would have also singled you out if we had made it up here together yesterday. You are, after all, a very likable person."
"Shall we move on now?" Seven asked, not really knowing how to handle the situation.
Seeing that these tall animals weren't going to attack the light colored tall animal it liked so much, the Targ sat down but didn't take its eyes off the group.
"And do you want to leave it..." Torres looked down the belly of the Targ before correcting, "... him I mean. Do you want to leave him here?"
"What do you mean? Of course it, he, should stay here. This is his territory after all."
"Which would mean that he would be dead soon. I dealt with that trapper up there, but the people in that temple are in their full right by wanting to get rid of him. In fact, they have no other option but to get rid of him. Either they do it themselves, or they hire a new hunter to kill him, but he will die either way if he stays here. Besides, look at his left hind leg. If that isn't treated by a vet soon that infection will spread, still killing him."
"I believe you are correct, Seven said as she looked at said leg. Where the wound was that had been made by the wire trap, the leg was twice as thick as the right leg and a yellowish liquid was seeping from the wound. "We could take him with us so that it can be treated and after that he could be released somewhere in the wild."
"What? You don't want him as a pet? You would be the only person I know in Coalition space that has a mountain Tart as a pet."
"He is a wild animal, he should remain just that."
"If you say so. Well, come on, let's get going."
The group started to move and once more the Targ started to growl at them.
"Alright, Seven hold him tight for a moment," Torres looked at the guards before continuing. You guys walk past him and a little up front. I think he will feel more at ease when he can see that you aren't too close. Seven, once they are moving, you keep him on that side of you and I'll stay on this side."
***
"How's the leg?" Martok asked at the third day of Torres' stay in Worf's palace. He had caught up on the work that he needed to do on Kronos and had taken the invitation to join them at breakfast. Torres decided that she really didn't want to know that the 'work' was that Martok, as head of the Klingon Security Department, needed to do on Kronos.
"My leg is fine, why do you ask?"
"Well, I just happen to have heard that you broke it."
"And where did you happen to hear that?" Torres asked absently while she was deciding which sauce to dip her food in.
Martok knew that so-called absent behavior of Torres only too well and knew that he had to watch his words. "Oh come now, Torres. You really don't think that I would give away my sources."
"You just blew it, my friend," Torres said with a grin. "There is only a limited number of people who knew that. I didn't tell you, nor did Seven here. As soon as we were down that mountain and could use a transporter we beamed right into the guest quarters here in the palace, and my doctor only found out there that I was wounded. He is smart enough not to tell anyone anything at all about me, not even you.
"So that leaves the people at the temple, and my guards. You can ignore the people at the temple; what reason would they have to contact you to tell you that I got wounded. Hell, they would never be so stupid to bring themselves to the attention of the Commander or the Security Department for whatever reason.
"Which leaves the guards. Tell me, Martok, just why would my guard tell you that I got hurt?"
"Um," Martok said as he looked at Worf to see if he could expect help from him. But Worf merely leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms across his chess with a smirk. "Why can't you be a little bit more like Worf here?" Martok finally blurred. "He is smart enough to take his personal guards along whenever he leaves his home. When he leaves Kronos he always takes his whole guard contingency along, and actually lets them do their job. But you? You just use them for crowd control, or parade some commandos around if you want to prove some point. Do you really think that you are that safe? True, no sane person would be so stupid to try and kill you. But there are also insane people in the Coalition. Or what about people that lost everything because of some deal you made?"
"Bla, bla, bla, Martok. I don't like it when people close to me don't actually report to me."
"But they do!"
"Just that they also report to someone else, right?"
"Right."
"What are they, Martok? They are not the average Commando, are they? I noticed it before, but it never really clicked because I was glad that they just stayed out of my way."
"They are operatives of my department," Martok finally admitted. "And I apologize that I had to resort to this, my friend, but if I had asked you to take them as guard you would never have done it."
"True," Torres was forced to admit. "Alright, I'll make you a deal. I kinda got used to them, and I really like the fact that they don't start puking when they hear me telling Seven that I love her."
While Seven listened to Torres' words, a smile came to her lips as she saw both Worf and Martok sneer just a little bit when hearing the word 'love.'
"So I'll keep them as the team that I'll take with me when I take along some guards."
"But?" Martok asked. After all, Torres had talked about a deal.
"But, they stop reporting to you..." Torres lifted her hand to stop Martok from speaking up. "...Except for the important things. Really, Martok, how can I trust them if I know that every little detail they see or hear is reported to you. Report that I am leaving the city so that you can put some people on alert just in case they might be needed, sure, I can see that. But why would they need to report to you what we did on that trip if we came back unharmed, or in this case came back with me having a broken leg. Why would you need to know that?"
"Alright, I'll talk to them and make it a little clearer on what they should report," Martok said, actually seeing the deal as something of a victory. Torres could just as easily have told him to mind his own business, which would have made providing her with good guards only that more difficult. "Tell me, what tipped you off about them?"
"Small things," Torres said. "The first clue was the replacement of all four guards including the commander when I told said commander to take care of the guard that was listening too much to what Seven and I were talking about. I told the commander to replace that guy, and suddenly all of them were replaced with other guards and there was no longer a commander in the group. Martok, if they don't report to the commander of that group, hell if they don't even have a commander in the group, than who do they report to?
"Also, as I said, they don't puke when I tell Seven kind things. They don't react at all. They don't do a double take when Seven and I are acting on equal level. And lastly, they don't hesitate if Seven asks them to do something. Seven isn't telling them that it is me that wants this or that. No, she, a slave, asks them to do something, and they do it."
"That's my fault then, not theirs. I told them to be cooperative so that you would keep them around and not replace them. I have only so many operatives I would place with you."
"Why, don't you trust them?"
"Sure I do, otherwise I wouldn't have them working for me. No, the thing is that I have certain operatives to do certain jobs and most are... incompatible with your character. I invested a lot of time and credits in having them trained, I don't want them killed because they pissed you off."
Torres grinned at that. "Alright then, why don't you go and have you talk with, my, guards? Seven and I will be leaving soon." Torres looked at Worf before asking, "Not that I want to rush you, but if I give you my proposal now, could you tell me by tonight if you will support it? If you do then I could leave tomorrow and catch Troi and Dax while they are still on Bajor. Then I could negotiate with all three parties being on the same planet; no tedious traveling."
"Torres," Worf growled. If Worf hated one thing, then it was being rushed.
"I'm only asking, Worf, nothing more. You know most of it already anyway from the talking we did about it in the last couple of days."
"I'll have a look, and we leave it at that for now," Worf offered.
"Thanks. I appreciate it. Alright, Seven. Let's go free your Targ."
***
"He looks miserable," Seven said with a frown. They were separated from the Targ by an observation wall, making sure that the animal couldn't see, hear, or smell them while they however could see him. "It is good that he will be released today."
"I'm sorry to tell you this, my pet, but I don't think that's the reason he is so miserable."
"It is not?" Seven asked surprised.
"Nope, I think he is miserable because the person he bonded with didn't come to see him for a whole day."
"He is a wild animal; he should be free. Eventually he will be better off. Why would he want to give up the freedom of the mountains to be in confined rooms with me?"
"My pet, Seven, he would prefer to live in captivity with the person he bonded to, instead of being free and having to live without the person he bonded to. I would think that you of all people could identify with that."
Seven had absolutely no reply to that. Finally after a few long minutes of silence, Seven finally asked, "What other option is there? I can not take him with me. Can you imagine a Targ on your ship? Having him in our quarters?"
"Actually, yes I can. It isn't uncommon for Klingon Captains to have Targs on their ships. There are devices that are used to 'housebreak' the Targ so that you can keep them on a space ship without them shitting up the place, literally. I do know for a fact that now that he is bonded to you he will be happy everywhere, as long as you are there, and he will be unhappy every where else because you aren't there."
"So you believe I should take him with us; treat him as a pet?"
"That is your decision to make. It really wouldn't be that hard to have a room added to our quarters where a device is that he uses when he has to go and also where a pet replicator is installed; providing him with continuous fresh food and water. The adaptation to the quarters isn't that hard and could already be done by the time we get back to the ship tomorrow.
"Before anything else, you should ask yourself if you even would want it. Seven, if your aren't sure if you should have a pet, or willing to give it the attention it needs, then you shouldn't take it, no matter how cute, or in this case, miserable it looks. And make no illusion, taking him as a pet would be a huge amount of work for you. As you say yourself, he is a wild animal, and while he will never attack or even accidentally bite you, you would have to train him to where he also doesn't attack anyone else... unless you say so."
"I do not think that training him would be that much of a task. As we were told in the pet-store, the mountain Targs are the most intelligent of the Targs, and I know that I have the determination to see his training trough. However, he would also be a great change in your life."
"Not really, Torres disagreed. "He is bonded to you, not me. He will mostly ignore me. But you. You should be willing to live with a shadow. He will follow you around everywhere. Maybe, if we are in our quarters he won't literally follow you from room to room because he can smell you all around him and will know that our quarters are 'home.' But as soon as you would leave the door, he would be at your side. You would also be the one that has to live with looking him in the eyes and seeing his disappointment when you have to tell him that he can't come along when you go to places that he can't be at. And not lastly, you will be the one that gives him some extra training."
"Extra training?" Seven repeated while thinking about whether she could live with an animal so close all the time.
"Seven, baby, as much as we make love, you have two options. Either you kick him out of the room every time we make love, no matter what room we are in when we make love. Or you will have to train him to where he will understand that if he values his life, he better not come close to us when we are naked. Especially train him to understand that I'm really not hurting you when you are moaning and groaning."
"What does that have to do with his life?"
"Because I give you a guarantee right here, if we are making love, and he would think that interrupting that would be a fun thing to do, 'I'll kill him and skin him for his hide."
"I see. Training is good idea then. But still, I am surprised that you would not object to having such a big animal around at all times, despite your liking for cuddly creatures."
"I hardly would call that cuddly," Torres said as she pointed at the Targ.
"He is beautiful," Seven defended.
"Beautiful, yes. Cuddly, no. As for not minding, it's more like me not looking a given Targ in the mouth... literally in this case. Despite the fact that you are my body slave, some people still would like to treat you like nothing more than just a slave, like that woman in that pet store did. They think that they can get away with it because they are Klingons and because they assume that you mean nothing to me. Frankly, I'm not looking forward to having to correct such behavior time and again. But people would think twice about offending you if you have a mountain Targ sitting right beside you showing them his impressive teeth. Even if you are 'just' a slave, they will be smart enough to not mess with the person who has a killer animal as a pet, even if that person is 'just' a slave."
"I see. But beside that, would you personally not object? I would not take him with us if you did not fully support it. He would be a constant presence in our quarters, you should be comfortable with that as well."
"I really won't mind, Seven. I've lived alone long enough, I think it's time for me to do the partner with pet thing."
"Partner?"
"Well, yeah, aren't you that? My partner?"
"That I am, B'Elanna, my wonderful mistress."
"Alright then, let's go collect our pet, my pet."
"My pet, you mean," Seven couldn't help but point out.
"So my pet has a pet huh? I kinda like it. My dangerous pet has a dangerous pet herself. I wonder if people will ever realize just who of the two is really the more dangerous. Come on."
They left the observation room, and as soon as they came close to the cage entrance they could head a whine coming from the Targ. "He knows you are here; he can smell you."
"Are you telling me I reek?" Seven asked with a smile.
"No, I'm just telling you that a Targ has a sense of smell that is almost a thousand times as strong as that of a Klingon, which would make it, what, five hundred times as strong as your enhanced sense of smell?"
"Approximately, and almost fifteen hundred times as strong as a human."
"You don't seem surprised by that."
"I am not, mistress. Even in this time of technology, there are animals used in the Federation for certain searches because of their strong sense of smell. The Sol animal called dog actually has a sense of smell similar to that of a Targ."
I see," Torres said as she nodded to the man at the gat to indicate that he should open it.
The Targ came running when he saw Seven, but then he saw Torres and stopped. Once more he bared his teeth and started to growl.
"I'm not going to put up with that though," Torres said. "Alright, Seven, hold him down."
Knowing that Torres wouldn't hurt the Targ, at least not right after suggesting that Seven would take it as a pet, Seven did as Torres had said. She put her arm around the Targ's neck and softly pulled down until the Targ was lying on its side.
"Alright, when I grab it, you let go. But stay close; I have no illusion about actually being able to handle a mountain Targ if he really wants to resist me."
Seven merely nodded her head, wondering what Torres was planning.
Suddenly Torres grabbed the Targ's neck and pushed the Targ down. She brought her head close to the Targ's and growled. She got a growl back from the Targ and Torres put even more pressure on the neck. By now Torres was leaning with all her weight on the neck, but as a testimony to the sheer strength of the Targ's neck muscles, she still wasn't even restricting his airflow. Torres growled again and this time she didn't get a growl back. Instead, after a moment of hesitation, the Targ rolled over a little more; clearly offering his belly to Torres in a submissive gesture.
The Targ was happy that the tall animal had come back, and when the tall animal pulled him down he was more than happy to go with her. Suddenly the other tall animal, the darker one, grabbed him by his throat and the light tall animal let him go. He noticed that the grip of the dark animal was no where as strong as the grip of the light one, and he knew that he certainly had the power to break the dark animal's grip and turn around to kill it.
But despite the fact that he was a predator, he couldn't bring himself to kill or even hurt the dark animal. The smell of the light animal was all over the dark one, and the smell of the dark one was also all over the light one. Clearly they were nest mates. And from the way the light animal was reacting to the dark one it was becoming clear to the Targ that the dark animal was the dominant one. It was confusing to him that the weaker one would be the dominant one. But he did understand that if he wanted to be with the light animal, he had to accept the dominance of the dark animal over him.
He could do that. He could see the dark one as the dominant of the pack, as long as he could be with the light one. He rolled over, offering up his soft belly to the dark animal in a show of total submission. For him, from now on, they were one pack, and if needed he would fight to the death to protect his pack mates; both of them.
Torres grinned as the Targ offer up his belly and she took a few minutes to pat him. "Seems like I'm accepted."
"Are you certain? This could be a one time behavior."
"No, what he's doing now is the important thing. Targs, all of them, never offer up their belly unless they feel that the one they are offering their belly to is their dominant. So, MY pet, what are you going to call YOUR pet?"
"How about Toby?"
"Toby?" Torres asked.
"Yes, Voyager's B'Elanna has a stuffed Targ that she has had ever since she was a child, she calls him Toby."
Torres frowned while thinking back. "I think I remember having a stuffed Targ. Yes, yes I did. Well, if you want to give him that name, suit yourself. I just don't wish him the same fate."
"Why? Do you no longer have Toby?"
"My pet, I got that thing when I was a little child. Within two days, I had cut off its head, pulled out all four of its legs, and set what was left of his body on fire."
"I see. Maybe a different name would be in order."
"So?" Torres prompted.
Seven looked at the Targ lying on its back and basking in the patting that both she and Torres were doing. "How about fluffy?"
"Will you cut it out with the fluffy cuddly stuff already?"
"Alright, I will. How about Nomi?"
"Nomi?"
"Yes. After my friend Naomi Wildman. I like the reminder, and I also like the fact that, 'Nomi' sounds small, cuddly, innocent, and then you have him reacting to that name."
"It's fine with me, my pet. He is yours, so it's your choice. But since the child is your friend, you might want to think about how she would feel about having her name connected to a killer."
"Mistress?"
"My pet, don't make the mistake of thinking anything else of that animal but as a ruthless killer. Which is why I think he actually fits in rather well with us. You have killed to protect me, I have killed about a hundred people myself, and I have ordered the killing of millions, literally. Face it, my pet; both of us are killers, if only for different reasons.
"He is also a killer. He kills for food, he kills to protect, he kills anything that is considered a threat to his dominance of his territory, and just like other Targs, mountain Targs are known to kill as a game; playing with their prey before killing it and then just leaving it. To you, and now us, he will always behave as that stuffed toy you just talked about, but others... Tell me, now would you feel about introducing him to your friend Naomi and telling her his name while he is showing her his teeth and thinking of her as dinner?"
Seven closed her eyes for a moment, pictured the scene of introducing the Targ to Naomi, and knew right away that Torres was right; there was no way that she could name him Nomi.
"You are correct; Nomi would be a poor choice. In that case I believe that I will call him Toby after all."
"After a butchered stuffed Targ?"
"I believe it is fitting. After all, you are bringing the Coalition into a time of second chances for the slave races. The first Toby was butchered, never getting any love. Now 'Toby' gets a second chance, and this time Toby will be loved and an essential part of our lives."
"Loved huh? So you like him?"
"If I did not I would not have agreed to take him as a pet," Seven pointed out.
"But you never said it," Torres shot back with a grin.
"You are correct, however now that I have accepted him as my pet that will change. To be honest, I really like him a lot, and I am glad that he will be coming with us. It is simply that I felt that he should live in freedom, not in captivity. Therefore I did not want to get attached to him."
"But now you can."
"But now I have," Seven corrected.
"Well, as I said, the name is up to you. If you want to call him Toby, then call him Toby."
"Toby it is then." Seven scratched the Targ... Toby behind the ear. "Would you like that name, boy? How does Toby sound to you?"
The Targ loved every second of the attention he was getting. Maybe accepting the dark one was a good thing, because the dark one sure gave a great belly rub. He looked at the light one when it made those sounds again. The light one was repeating a certain sound several times and the Targ had a feeling that he had to pay attention to that particular sound. Besides, he liked that sound.
"Alright, let's get a leash and get out of here," Torres said as she got up to get the leash.
***
Worf pulled his beard thoughtfully while looking at the PADD in his other hand. He knew that supporting the proposal would mean an upheaval in the Coalition that hadn't been seen since the Coalition was created. He would get more complaints and objections than he had in all his time as Chancellor. He would lose his slaves. Despite Seven's words, he doubted if sex slaves would really want to stay with the people they were serving if they had a choice.
"Master? Is something troubling you?"
Worf looked up to the slave that had addressed him.
She was of the couple of slaves that Worf had specifically for when he wanted to see two women together. They were a couple existing out of a redhead and blonde human, and Worf liked them because they actually were in love with each other and therefore their 'shows' were real and he could see the true love between the women. Despite the fact that he hated to talk about love, he sure appreciated the power of it.
And just as always when thinking about love, an image of K'Ehleyr came to his mind, combined with the sorrow of no longer having her in his life.
"Why do you ask, Red?"
Red wasn't the real name of the woman, but Worf had never bothered to ask for the names of the women. Dukat had given the slaves to him saying, 'a little present Chancellor, a blonde and a red slave.' Worf had just called them Blonde and Red since then, and this had never changed in the ten years that he now had them.
Worf looked at how Red kneeled before him and is struck him that of all his slaves, these two were the ones that were in his quarters the most. He had hundreds of slaves. Some he never saw... which was good for them because if he did see them it meant that they had done something wrong and their days were numbered.
Others he saw daily as they did certain things, like cleaning the quarters, or bringing him food. Yet others were his favorite sex slaves simply because they were damn good. But despite having so many people around him, the life of a Chancellor could be damn lonely.
A few years back this was different because at least Alexander lived with him all the time. But now Alexander was at the Academy and only came home at the weekends. Worf loved the time he had with his son, but this still left five days every week in which he was basically alone. One day he had called Red and Blonde to his chambers and when they had started to undress he had stopped them and giving them some mindless job to do, simply to hear some sounds in his otherwise quiet quarters.
Over time this had evolved to where Red and Blonde now spent about four hours every day in his quarters. And the best thing about it was that unlike with K'Ehleyr back then, with these women, he could simply send them away when he was tired of hearing them talk.
"Master, I just noticed that you have been scowling for some time now and I was wondering if I could be of help."
Worf snorted and looked over at Blonde. "Blonde, get over here."
"Master?" Blonde said as she kneeled beside Red.
"What do you think about the fact that your friend here thinks that she can help me?"
"I apologize for her behavior, master. She believes that talking about a problem can fix the problem, but it seems that she has forgotten her place. Please forgive her, master. I will try to make sure that it not happens again."
"And what if I make sure that it never happens again... by killing her?"
Neither Red nor Blonde replied and instead they both lowered their head a little.
"That doesn't phase you at all, does it?" Worf asked after a moment. "Do you really think that I would hesitate to kill a slave?"
"No master," Red said. She had always been the more daring of the two. "We know better, we have seen better."
"So why don't you fear me when I tell you that I will kill you?"
Red was about to answer but Worf stopped her. "No, Blonde, you answer.
"M, Master, you never punished us except by sending us away. We have survived in your service for ten years, while we have seen you kill others; clearly we are doing something right."
Worf smirked at that. Oh, they did something right alright.
"And you think that I won't kill someone that is doing something right," Not waiting for a reply, Worf Warned, "Complacency is a slave's worst enemy."
"Of course. Please forgive us master," Red said, fully understanding the warning.
Worf waved his hand, closing the matter. Looking at the PADD once more, and then back at the kneeling women, Worf decided that maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea to test Torres' sanity in asking a slave for advice. "Here, read this."
Red reached out to take the PADD but once she had it, Worf didn't let go of it. "Look at me, the both of you. If you ever talk to anyone about what your read here, in fact if you even talk between each other about it and I find out, I'll personally kill you both." Both women knew that look in Worf's eyes and knew that he was deadly serious, literally.
Worf finally let go of the PADD and the women began to read. Within seconds both of them had actually stopped breathing from total disbelief.
**
"Well?" Worf asked half an hour later, glad that the women had remembered how to breathe.
The women didn't answer, instead they looked up at him with eyes filled with confusion.
"What would you do, where would you go?" Worf prompted.
Suddenly their eyes got wider. "Go?" Red finally said. "You mean leave? Please don't sent us way master. Please tell us what we did to displease you. We will never do it again!" Red pleaded.
"You didn't do anything wrong," Worf assured. "But surely, if you are free to go, you will leave to go live somewhere else."
"But where would we go?" Blonde asked. "Why would we go?"
"The Sol Homeworld for instance, and as to why, to be free of course."
"But we would lose everything we have," Red said.
"Everything you have?" Worf asked in disbelieve. "You have nothing, you own nothing!"
"Of course not. Forgive us, master," Blonde was quick to say.
"Just what exactly do you have then?" Worf asked.
The women looked at each other for a moment and finally Red spoke up. "Master, we have everything. True, we don't have personal possessions,"
"You lie!" Worf interrupted. "Do you really think I don't know about that box you are hiding?! Maybe, since you should have no personal possessions, I will get that box and destroy it."
"Master, please," Red begged. "Please, there is nothing in our box except for some reminders, memories, like our collars."
"Collars? I haven't had you wearing those chokes for six years now," Worf said. One day he had enough of seeing that reminder when the women were making love and he had ordered them to take them off and never wear them again.
"Master, that is why we are keeping them in the box," Blonde said softly. "It was such a wonderful day when we no longer had to wear the mark of a slave; it was one of the best days of our lives."
"Hmm, well, let me ask you again; just what do you have?" Worf smirked before adding, "Except for some personal positions that is."
"Master," Blonde said, "five years ago you had a replicator put in our quarters,"
"Because I got tired of you coming in here with worn cloths or being skinny when I forgot to feed you again."
"Whatever the reason," Blonde said, knowing only too well that it would not be too smart to point out that they had never gone hungry even for a day, at least not since becoming Worf's property. "We can replicate everything we want. We don't have to fear punishment if we did nothing wrong." Blonde got a little daring and lifted her hands to indicate the room around her. "We are living in a palace."
"And you have to do whatever I tell you to do."
"But you don't tell us every minute of the day what we have to do," Red pointed out. "We are in your presence for four or five hours every day. For the rest of the day we can do what we want." Red looked at the PADD that Worf was holding once more. "If you sent us away and we need to get a job, we would have to work at least twelve hours every day just to get one tenth of what we have now."
"Also," Blonde added, "If we would leave the only industry we could find work in would be in the sex industry; other jobs would be given to the slaves that performed those jobs for years and don't need training. Master, we don't want to work in the sex industry."
"Last thing I knew, you were sex slaves," Worf pointed out. "What else would you call your services to me?"
"Master, because of the offer you gave us when we became your property, we haven't performed any sex services for ten years now," Red said. "Blonde and I make love, and you watch... Master, forgive me my forwardness, but that is not sex services to us because we actually like that."
"You what?" Worf asked.
"It is the fact that we don't have to worry about you wanting satisfaction, from us," Blonde said. And Worf was surprised to hear a trace of shyness in her voice. "We like being watched, by you. We, um, always cherish the times we are allowed to make love in front of you."
"So if you were free, you would still like to stay here? As sex servants?" Worf asked. "Are you telling me that there is absolutely nothing at all that you would want that you don't have now?"
"Please master, please let us stay," Red said, her pleading voice once more firmly in place.
"Actually, there is one thing we would want to do that we couldn't do as slaves," Blonde said very softly.
"And that is?" Worf asked curious.
"Get married. That is the only thing we knew we could never have."
Worf sat in silence for a moment. The conversation had given him a few things to think about, but it had also showed to him that Seven had been right about how relationships between masters and slaves could change. These two women had at one time been nothing more than sex objects for him. But somewhere along the ten years they had been with him, that relationship had somehow changed. He realized that he would be damn sorry to see them go, and that the felt a certain relief about the fact that they wanted to stay. He was certain that there would be countless situations like that in the Coalition.
"Master, I,"
"No, Red. Be silent for a moment and just sit there, both of you. I need to think.
Half an hour of silence later Worf finally spoke up again. "What would you think about moving?"
"Please master, please let us stay," Blonde pleaded, and Worf could see tears running down her face.
"Oh, I'm not talking about sending you away," Worf assured. "No, I'm talking about this," Worf focused on the PADD again and made some addition to it. Points Torres would have to add, and if she did, he would support it. Of course, this wasn't the official proposal yet. This was the opening proposal, and his support only meant that Torres could take the proposal to the other Intendants and show that there actually was a big chance that Worf would approve the final proposal that would include concessions and agreements with the other Intendants. A few minutes later he handed the PADD to the women once more.
Worf had added that it should be made clear in the new contracts that these, just like the other contracts, were allowed to have a private life and that in that private life they were allowed to be married. This also was so for the sex and body servants, as long as the service to the employer didn't suffer from it. Worf had also added that it had to be absolutely clear that people were only allowed to have one body servant, no matter what their position was. There was only one exception to that. The Klingon Chancellor was the only person in the Coalition that was allowed to have two body servants.
"Master?" Red asked. Not believing what she thought this meant.
"That's why I asked what you thought about moving. Don't you think that my future body servants should live a little closer to my quarters than in the general slave quarters? Besides, even if this proposal won't work out, don't you think it's time we elevated you a little to the privileged position that you deserve for putting up with me for ten years, and more importantly doing it is such a way that I haven't been tempted one to actually kill you."
"Y... Yes m, Master," Red stammered.
"But we can't," Blonde spoke up. "I mean, according to those rules, only slaves that are body slaves now can become body servants without having to first serve two years as sex servant."
"Well, I don't think that anyone will be so stupid to point out that small detail out to me, officially," Worf said with a smirk. "Alright. Go back to what you were doing, I have a PADD to send."
The two women stood up and turned away.
"Actually, there is one more thing," Worf said and waited until the women were facing him again.
"Yes master?"
"Just what are your names anyway?"
***
"I'm glad that we could come to this agreement," Jetur Adami said with a smile. "I believe that this will serve all our parties well."
She and Ro were having the last meeting with Deanna Troi and Jadzia Dax in the privacy of the personal quarters. The negotiations had gone surprisingly well. Oh, there had been tense moments. In fact, there had been some occasions where one or the other of the parties had to give a lot more than they would like. But in the end the giving and taking had balanced out and all in all, all three parties were satisfied with the result.
During the negotiations the women had also found out that they liked each other, and had actually openly expressed that they hoped that this was the tone that would be used in all business between the partiers. All of them liked the honest give and take a lot more than the approach that Kira had used; the 'eat shit and die' approach.
"Even though the Ferengi will be not so pleased about having to leave those star bases," Deanna pointed out.
"I'm sure that they will grumble, but all of them will take the buyout credits we Trill will be offering," Jadzia pointed out. "It is a more than profitable offer."
"So, what are your plans now?" Ro asked when it was clear that for now the talk about deals was over. "There have been several offers dripping in from theaters and restaurants and all that that would be delighted if you were to visit them."
"So that they can boast with it of course," Jetur added. "Our food is sooo good that both the Betazoid and the Trill Intendant always come and eat at our restaurant."
"Of course," Deanna said with a smile. "But as much as we would like to help them promote their business, we do have other plans. Jadzia here needs to buy some slaves from Risa as prizes to give away."
"Talking about promoting," Jadzia added, "we saw the Bajoran news last night, are those numbers real, or promotion work?"
"Numbers?" Jetur asked.
"Yes. They said that ninety-two percent of the Bajorans support you. Aren't those numbers a bit on the high side? A lower number would be easier to believe. There hasn't been a Intendant yet since Intendants exist that had such a high support number, which is why support numbers are normally never mentioned on any news."
"Ah, but that is the beauty," Jetur said with a smile. "Those numbers are real, at least at the moment. But to be fair, it's really not us; it's Kira that we have to thank for that. After how Kira ruled over the Bajoran sector, even a Ferengi would have been accepted as the new Bajoran Intendant and would have had great support numbers."
"It helped, of course," Ro added, "that the Chancellor already approved the new Bajor rules. Even though the official announcement is at the Grant Assembly, we let it 'leak' now already so that the people knew that there was nothing they could do about it anymore, and to show that we are serious about changing things. As soon as the people on Bajor found out that we were actually spending Bajor's credits to better Bajor, we couldn't do anything wrong. Even the people that did have to take a pay cut are glad that they still have a good paying job. After all, government jobs are still the best paying jobs on Bajor."
For a moment further conversation was stopped when the door opened and a Bajoran Special Forces member walked into the room.
Since becoming Intendant, Ro had handed many of the important supporting positions over to the Special Forces to take care of. The Intendants before her had never done so, afraid that the Special Forces would use the opportunity to get more influence on Bajor. Ro didn't have that worry. Having been a Captain in the Special Forces herself, she knew that the Special Forces had all the influence they wanted. And more importantly, that the Special Forces knew that gaining more influence than they already had would be very unhealthy. They didn't want the Klingons or Cardassians to become nervous. No matter how good the Special Forces were, with the five thousand people they had, even they wouldn't be able to take on the vast numbers of Klingon commandos, or the Cardassian fifteenth order.
"Intendant, an urgent message for you from the Klingon Intendant," The man said as he handed the PADD he was carrying to Jetur. "This message is also addressed to Intendant Troi and Intendant Dax."
"Thanks," Jetur said, and without a further word the man was gone again.
In the beginning Jetur hadn't been so sure about bringing in more of the Special Forces. But taking Ro's assurance, she had agreed, and now she was glad she had. It was amazing how good these people were at whatever job they did. They actually understood all orders given to them, and not in the least, since there were now thirty Special Forces working in the palace, the bickering and backstabbing between the former advisors was virtually nonexistent. Instead they were suddenly a lot more interested in doing their job right than trying to put someone else in a bad light.
Jetur decided that saying what the message was about would be a lot easier then handing the PADD from person to person. "Intendant Torres asks if the both of you wouldn't mind staying on Bajor a little longer. She is working on a proposal that she wants to have finished by the time of the Grand Assembly, and she hopes that she can negotiate with the Bajoran, Trill, and Betazoid Intendants here on Bajor to speed up the negotiations. There is an indicator here showing that the Chancellor gave the proposal initial approval."
"She first went to Worf before even starting to negotiate the proposal with us?" Jadzia asked. "That must be some proposal. She must have known that if she had taken it to us first we would never have agreed because we would be certain that it would never pass Worf's approval."
"She included the proposal so that we could read it and be prepared to negotiate," Jetur pointed out as she started to read the proposal.
"Probably didn't want to wait for a day or more while we go over the proposal when she gets here," Deanna said with a smile. "Instead she sent it now so that we can have a couple of weeks to prepare before she actually gets here. She knows that none of us will agree to any proposal without giving it some thought first."
"By the Prophets," Jetur whispered when she read the synopsis of the rather long proposal.
"What?" Ro asked as she saw the look of shock on her wife's face.
"This proposal, it's about ending slavery and installing a new faction existing out of the former slave species and eight species that would fall inside the territory that would be given to this new faction."
"You are kidding," Jadzia said, reaching over and taking the PADD to have a look for herself. "You aren't kidding," She added a minute later.
"Worf really supports this proposal?" Deanna asked.
"It's sealed by his thumb print and the official Chancellor's seal," Jadzia said, double checking it just to be sure.
After a moment of stunned silence, Deanna finally contacted her ship.
"Yes Intendant?"
"Cancel our trip to Risa and prepare to stay at Bajor for a few more weeks; two weeks at least." Deanna looked over at Jadzia and Jadzia answered the unasked question with a little nod of her head. "Let them know that the Trill Intendant will also not be coming. If they ask if we will come at a different time, just tell them that we will get back to them on that."
"Yes Intendant."
"Troi out." Deanna looked at Jadzia and deadpanned, "Good thing we didn't go to Risa first; we saved you some credits."
"So it seems," Jadzia agreed with a smile. The smile wasn't because of the situation, far from it. The smile was for Deanna, simply because Jadzia could. Then Jadzia looked at the other two women. "It seems that we are staying a little longer. If Torres is on Kronos now it will take her two weeks to get here. I hope you don't mind having us under foot for so long. Maybe it would be a good time to check out those offers you have been getting for us. After all, since we are here, we can do our share in supporting the Bajoran economy."
"Unless you would prefer to be alone, Laren and I could show you some of our favorite restaurants and plays," Jetur offered.
"We would enjoy the company," Deanna assured.
Chapter 12
"Alright, if there is nothing else, I have a little announcement," Annika said, looking around the table to make sure that everyone was indeed finished with their report. "It's still some time from now, but I just wanted to let you know already that in forty days there is something called 'the Grand Assembly.' We need to be prepared for that. Most importantly, we need to be able to record two days of continuous broadcasting, and up to one thousand information packages the size of your standard Federation package. It probably will be only a couple of hundred packages, but there has been an occasion once where eight hundred were sent out so we need to be prepared just in case."
"And what is this 'Grand Assembly?" Chakotay asked.
"I'm getting there," Annika replied with a smile. "The Grand Assembly is something that is held once every two years. All six Intendants meet to officially ratify the inter-faction deals they made in those two years. It's kind of telling the whole Coalition 'yes we really did make that deal so now shut up complaining about it.'"
"Though I think they will call it differently?" Harry asked amused.
"Of course. They call it 'keeping their people well informed and an imperative part of important Coalition changes."
"Captain, from what you told us about the Coalition makeup, I thought that the Intendants are the only ones that are a part of the Coalition changes," Tuvok asked.
"It's a bunch of nonsense really," Annika said while waving her hand a little as if wiping something way. "There is also something called the Coalition House, but I didn't tell you about them because the three thousand member House has no real power. They are representatives of certain planets and colonies in Coalition space, and the only real benefit they have from being part of the House is that they can say 'but I don't like that' one time without being killed. The House members are allowed to give their opinion, if done with the proper respect to the Intendants, and in the correct way, and in a way that makes it clear that they aren't trying to undermine the Intendants, and, well, you get the idea."
"So this Grand Assembly is basically nothing more than one long info-session?" B'Elanna surmised.
"Right. But, it is a great way to keep up to date with changes in the Coalition; which really is its point anyway. And for the Intendants it's the perfect way of concluding things. It is mandatory for everyone in the Coalition to watch these broadcastings. Shops close, factories shut down, all in an effort to make sure that everyone sees it. That way once something has been mentioned at the Grand Assembly everyone in the Coalition is assumed to know about it and 'but I didn't know' won't wash anymore as an excuse."
"You as slaves must have really hated this then," Tom guessed. "Hearing for two days how the rules were changes in such a way that you would be exploited even more."
"Actually, we loved it," Annika disagreed. "You are correct; rules about slaves were also discussed from time to time. Because of this the slaves also are 'forced' to watch it. This meant that for two days we didn't need to work or do anything else but watch some people talk, and talk, and talk. But you see, it was the only time off we had. For the rest we had to work, day after day after day."
"Two days off in two years?" Tom asked, "That's some lousy contract, you should have renegotiated."
Annika smiled at the remark. That was one of the things she liked about Tom. Where others, even B'Elanna, were sometimes still careful about saying some things, afraid that it would bring back bad memories for Annika, Tom actually joked about it from time to time. Annika didn't know if it was deliberate or because he simply didn't think further, but she didn't care. She wanted to move on, and for that she had to accept her past... if only those damn nightmares would stop coming. Annika looked over at B'Elanna and only just stopped herself from smiling. Well, she had found a damn good cure against the nightmares as well.
"Oh, I would have loved to renegotiate, but the employer's conditions for a new contract were a real killer."
"You said it lasted for two days, are the Intendants talking for all that time?" Chakotay asked.
"Not at all. In fact normally they just stick around for the first day. No, once the Intendants announced the relatively big changes and deals. The rest of the time is taken up by announcers announcing continuously smaller and smaller changes and deals. If I remember correctly, the last time the Grand Assembly was opened by the Cardassian Intendant announcing that the Cardassians now officially claimed the monopoly on any and all legal hallucinating drugs. The Grand Assembly closed with the announcement that the Ferengi were permitted to increase their Drapplant worm production by point-zero-zero-two percent."
"And nobody objected to the Cardassians simply claiming a monopoly?" Harry asked. "I'm surprised that the Klingons would let them get way with that."
"Actually, it's a very common thing here. It's pretty much normal for all bigger industries to be monopolized by one of the factions, even though the industry is in the entire Coalition. For instance, the Klingons have the by far most profitable monopolies. They have pretty much absolute control over the Dilithium market. Others still mine for it if they have it on planets or moons inside their faction's territory, but normally they fall far, far, short of the amount of Dilithium they need to keep all their ships flying. And no ships equals no trading. So what they can't mine, they buy from the Klingons.
"Beside that the Klingons also have all six slave planets under their control. They normally don't bother too much with doing the actual slave trade, though there sure are plenty of Klingon slavers. But all in all they normally just lease out the slaving to anyone that pays the right price. The Trill on the other hand have a firm control over the gambling market.
"But a monopoly doesn't mean that nobody else can do it, just that they insinuate themselves into the position of being the people you have to see if you want that thing. Again, take the Trill. They are in firm control of the gambling, but for as long as the Coalition exists the Ferengi are trying to take over that market, never quite succeeding, but never giving up hope."
"And I assume that the information packages you talked about are the things that are announced, just in all the details, conditions and sub-condition?" Tuvok asked.
"Right," Annika agreed. "For instance, they will announce something and the mentioning is nothing more than a paragraph or a page in length, yet the information package that hold the deal is actually three hundred margins long."
"Well, I don't think it will be a problem," Harry said confidently. "With the upgrades we did to the central computer we could record several thousand times that amount without even having to dump it out of static memory."
"Alright, in that case I now close this senior staff meeting," Annika said before adding 'one moment please' when people were starting to get up. "B'Elanna?"
B'Elanna smiled her thanks before getting up and joining Annika at the head of the table. She looked around the table before taking a deep breath. "I, we, Annika and I, wanted to let you know that we got engaged yesterday,"
She was interrupted by a round of congratulations from around the table. "Thank you. Last night Annika and I talked about when we would get married and, um, we know that for most people on this ship the thinking is that when we get back to our universe... but Annika and I decided that because Annika is from here, and we found each other here in this universe, we want to get married while being here. Because of that we have decided that we will get married next month. We would really like for you all to be there. Neelix, if you don't mind, we would like you to take care of arranging this together with Chakotay... if you also don't mind Chakotay?"
Both men assured that they wouldn't mind at all. Of course both of them also knew why Chakotay was asked as well. They knew that Neelix would set up the party and the ceremony, and Chakotay's contribution would mostly be to make sure that Neelix didn't plan anything too overly zealous.
"We have people in mind that we would like to ask to help in the ceremony, but we will do that in private," Annika added. "But we do want you all to know that we consider you all our friends. It's just that we have specific reasons as to why we will ask specific people to,"
"Captain, we are picking up a message on a Federation frequency, audio only," Came the sudden interruption from the bridge.
"Seven," B'Elanna said immediately.
"Play it in the conference room."
"Yes Captain," Came the reply before the message started. With the first few words they heard they knew that B'Elanna's guess had been right. "A message to my friends. I still have not been able to find the cure for the disease we talked about last time. It might be a good idea to meet in person to discuss the matter. I am on my way to Bajor, if you were to go there as well, and travel at warp five, we could meet there in exactly seven days and discuss our problem. Hopefully I will see you soon. Your friend, out."
Annika frowned as she thought about the words. "I wonder what that's supposed to mean. There is no way that we can be at Bajor in a week if we travel at warp five."
"I don't think that Bajor is the place for the meeting to begin with," Tom spoke up. "I told you all you should have played that gangster simulation on the holodeck. That way you would have heard them talk with messages in messages like Seven is doing now."
"Tom," B'Elanna said with a slight growl that let him know that he was starting to piss her off.
"Alright, alright. I think that what's she's really telling us is that we could meet at the place where we would be in seven days if we would have traveled from where we are now to Bajor in a straight line at exactly Warp five."
"Which, in reality, will actually be light-years away from Bajor," Annika said in understanding. "And for anyone else that picked up that message that still means absolutely nothing because they think that some kind of meeting will take place on Bajor itself in one week's time."
"That does seem like a reasonable conclusion," Tuvok agreed. "There is just one problem. For Seven to know where we will be in one week time if we do follow her instructions, she also needs to know where we are now. How would she know where we are? The last thing we know for sure that could have told her what our position is, was the encounter with the Cardassian ship. But she does not know what we did since then and therefore she can not know where we are now."
"Unless a tracking device has been installed in Voyager while she was being repaired," B'Elanna guessed. "I mean, we made the repairs, but the Klingons checked them. They had more than enough time to install a thousand tracking devices."
"So I assume that our next task is to search Voyager for things that aren't supposed to be there?" Harry asked. To his surprise, Annika shook her head slightly.
"I don't think it will be needed. It is clear by now, after what happened with that Cardassian ship that the Klingons aren't out to get us. In fact, we are getting some kind of protection from them. If they wanted to capture us or anything like that they would have already done so. I don't think we have anything to fear from those potential tracking devices.
"Besides, we don't even know that there is such a device. For all we know we crossed paths with a cloaked Klingon ship yesterday or today and they know our position from that. I don't want Voyager to be subjected to some wild Frzin chase. I actually think that it's to our advantage if the Klingons know where we are."
Annika looked to her side where B'Elanna was still standing. "But tell your Engineers that with any repair they make, I want them to check if everything is as it is supposed to be. No need to tell them why; I don't want the crew to get paranoid."
"Easy enough," B'Elanna assured. "I will simply tell them that I want to make sure that we really did get the best materials to make the repairs, which is partially true. Since we have all those replicator patterns you so nicely uploaded, I want to see if we don't actually have better stuff in the patterns than what we the things ordered while making the repairs."
"Sounds like a good idea," Annika agreed.
"Annika," B'Elanna said a little hesitantly, not sure if she should bring this up now. "If we are going to meet Seven in one week, do you think,"
Annika didn't need to hear more. "Neelix, Chakotay, would you be able to plan our wedding in a week?"
"Ooh, I love a challenge," Neelix said enthusiastically, followed by a more serious but still smiling Chakotay. "Well, it's not like we need to give people time so that they can travel to your wedding. I'm sure we'll be able to manage."
"Thanks. We will get together with your later to answer any questions I'm sure you have... I HOPE you have."
"Why Captain, it sounds as if you would object to the standard bright orange Talaxian wedding gown," Neelix said, trying to keep a straight face.
"We will most definitely be getting together, Neelix." Annika said in a firm voice, making Neelix laugh. Annika laughed as well when she realized that she had been firmly tweaked. She took a deep breath to stop laughing and looked around the table once final time. "Alright, let's break this up then; B'Elanna and I still have some quarters to redecorate."
"Would you like some help with that?" Harry asked.
"Thanks, but we already filed the requests with Engineering, they are supposed to come over and do it today," Annika declined, but still very pleased with the offer.
"Why don't you cancel it?" Tom asked with enthusiasm. "Harry and I could ask Jennifer and Megan to come and help, and with your and B'Elanna's engineering knowledge at hand there is no way even we could mess it up."
Annika smiled her thanks at them and quickly looked at B'Elanna. After getting the smallest of nods she gratefully accepted their offer.
**
"All done?" Torres asked when Seven closed the computer unit down.
"Yes, mistress. Thank you for making it possible for me to see my friends."
"Well, I did promise, didn't I? Even though I want to get those negotiations started, I think I can take a day longer to get to Bajor. It's not like Deanna and Jadzia will stop waiting for me."
"I am surprised that you have not heard anything from the Cardassian and Romulan Intendants, considering that you sent them the proposal at the same time as the others."
"Oh, believe me, eventually I will. I'm pretty much expecting to hear from them after my meeting with the others; after their spies have told them all about what kind of deals we made. Normally Dukat and Shinze need things from me. Now that it's the other way around for a change they are both going to try and milk this for what it's worth."
"Are you concerned about them?"
"I am 'concerned' about all of them, even the Bajorans which should be a sure vote since they owe me big time for them getting their job. This isn't chump-change I'm asking them, my pet. If they decide that it's better for them to not support this deal, even just one of them, then it's dead and buried. It's impossible to end slavery only in one faction. I need the support of all of them, and me needing all their support is something that hasn't happened since I became Intendant. But I'm pretty certain that I will be able to come to a deal with the Bajorans, Betazoids, and Trill. The question with those is mainly what it will cost me.
"Dukat though is a whole different story. He owes me so many favors that I think I'll be able to 'buy' him off with 'forgetting' some of those favors, I just don't know yet how many favors I'll have to 'forget,' probably all. But with him there is also the chance that he will decide that it's just not worth it. A small chance, but still a chance. So as I said, I'm concerned about them all. I am worried though about Shinze. He is the wildcard. He doesn't owe me any favors, nor do I owe him any.
"He is in control of the fourth biggest faction, which means that it's definitely in his benefit to keep me happy, but that he is also powerful enough to say 'no' to me without having to worry what any retaliation matters from my side would bring. It's not like I would be able to declare war on him for not supporting a deal, if I did that then all the other factions would align themselves with him against the Klingons.
"I mean, sure, I could hurt him badly by throwing up economical sanctions. Just look at how glad Jadzia and Deanna were to get rid of the Bajoran sanctions against them. It would really hurt Shinze if they had to suffer from an Klingon blockade on all deals, but the whole matter of just what this is about nullifies that option for me. I mean, it's the choice, either loose Klingon deals, or loose all their slaves. Both are things that he will have to explain to his people.
"The question is, which one would he rather explain to his people? I think that the biggest problem is that I really can't even threaten him with military actions because he knows just as well as I that I won't start a war over this. He knows that giving the order to kill millions might not bother me... after all, I'm feared through the Coalitions for giving exactly such order once before. No, killing millions doesn't worry me, but potentially loosing millions of Klingons in a war does bother me, and he knows that."
"Besides, freeing the slaves is not worth a war of any kind in the Coalition," Seven said in understanding.
"Right. No matter how much we Klingons like a good fight, there is no way, no way at all, that I would start a war over this. We are talking about giving people their freedom back, not about killing millions or even billions in a war. The last war we had was the hundred day Klingon - Cardassian war, and in those one hundred days over four hundred million people died because planets and colonies were the targets; not spaceships. And that's one and a half centuries ago. Can you imagine a war on Coalition scale, fought with the weapons we have today? Weapons that continued to evolve even though there was no war. Simply to be sure that 'my weapons are bigger than yours' should ever a war start."
"It is not worth the risk," Seven said, once gain in complete understanding.
"It's not worth the risk. So, I'll deal for all that I'm worth, I'll maybe make some economic threats, but if one of them simply keeps saying no, then I'll have to bow out and call it a good effort and move on... which reminds me. When we meet your friends, I don't want you to tell them anything at all about what I'm doing."
"Very well, but if I may ask; why not?"
"Because first of all it would only raise their hopes while we don't even know if it will work. Better let them believe what they do now, that it will take them another one and a half years at best to get back to their universe. Besides, for now I would like to keep the news of my proposal just between Worf, Martok, the Intendants... and the spies of course."
"Mistress, if I may ask, what did change? Why did you talk about two years first, and now you talk as if they could go home after the Great Assembly, if your deal works?"
"I answered that once before, my pet. It's the game of chess. Those two years were an estimate of what I knew then, but things changed. The Bajorans are very friendly to us and will probably now support this deal, and not to forget, will probably allow the star base to be used to send your friends home. The proposal is also coming along faster than I expected. I was certain that there was no way that Worf and I would be able to reach agreement on it so fast. I assumed that we would reach an agreement some time after this Grand Assembly was over, which means that it could only have been made official at the next one. That alone is those two years."
"Which would have meant that it would have actually taken Voyager almost two and a half years to get home, not the two years that you told them," Seven pointed out.
"First of all, Voyager will never make it home; your friends might. That system that can transport people from the Bajoran star base to its counterpart in your universe called, as you say, Deep Space Nine, can only transport people one at a time with a few things; pretty much what they can carry in a backpack, but certainly no space ships. Second, when I made that promise to see if I could get them home it was indeed still two years and three months... My pet, if I give a rough time estimate, two years and three months is two years, alright?"
The way Torres had spoken the last words told Seven that she was clearly annoyed. For a moment Seven decided if it was worth to argue her point, but then she realized that actually, they both had a point. "I apologize, mistress. You are right; it is very common to generalize timeframes down to full years, if it is more than two years. However, I personally prefer a generalization that is a little bit more precise. How would you feel about a compromise? Timeframes that are generalized in half year time frames?"
"Alright then, tell me, two years and three months, would that be two years, or two and a half years?"
Seven thought about that for a moment and finally nodded her head a little with a small smile. "It could classify as two years. You were right."
"As a very smart body slave of mine once said about me; I'm always right." Torres softly caressed Seven's cheek with a smile. "I'll try to be a little bit more precise in the future, with you at least."
A whine interrupted them and they looked to the side to see Toby looking back, his head tilted slightly in an adorably cute angle.
"I think someone is complaining that he isn't getting enough attention," Torres said amused.
"A situation that we should rectify," Seven agreed as she patted her leg. "Come on, boy, play time."
Torres was only too happy to follow them both. Even though play time was mostly between Seven and Toby, sometimes the Targ was nice enough to include her as well. But more than that, Torres really liked to simply see Seven and Toby play. It was at those times that she would see a side of Seven she normally didn't see at other times. Seven was always so composed, a perfect balance for the impatient and temperamental Torres. The only exception to this was of course in bed, Seven certainly could, and did, let go there.
But when she was playing with Toby the blonde would run and do things like tackle the beast to the ground to wrestle with him. It was as if playing with Toby made Seven forget about her composed nature. At those times she was just a person playing with her pet. Torres loved to see that transformation; she liked to see that carefree person that Seven became then; someone that only thought about having fun.
Another nice thing about seeing Seven and Toby play was that for a while it made Torres forget all about Intendant stuff. She didn't think about deals, rules, or spies. All she did think about then was that somehow, without her really noticing it, she had slipped into actually having a family life. A family, she had never expected to have; had never wanted as a matter of fact. The extended family she had was more than enough for her. No she never wanted the close, living in one house, family. Absolutely not.
Funny how one blue eyed blonde human and one brown Targ could change things around.
***
"You have some information to sell?" Bejal Mingan asked the Romulan sitting across from him.
"I have, for ten thousand credits."
"Give me the information and I'll tell you if it's worth the credits you're asking."
"Give me the credits, and I'll give you the information."
"You know that I don't work like that. You also know that I always do pay up, if the information is worth it."
"That you do," The Romulan was forced to admit. "Besides, you know better than to mess with me."
And Bejal did, for two reasons. First, the Romulan sitting across from him was one of the Romulan spies that worked inside the Klingon faction. There was nobody that could give Bejal the kind of sensitive information about the Klingons and Romulans that this Romulan could give him. Second, there also was a second side to this Romulan, a much more dangerous side. Bejal was one of only five people in the whole Coalition that knew that this particular Romulan was an operative of the Tal Shiar; the Romulan Secret Service, and that his specialty was eliminations.
Bejal only knew this because the Romulan had come to him and offered him his services, proving his worth by being able to reach Bejal despite the army of bodyguards he normally had around him. It seemed that the Romulan wasn't happy with what the Tal Shiar was offering him for his retirement. The Tal Shiar had given him the promise that if he did his job right, they would let him retire, alive, and give him a pension of one hundred-thousand credits a year. The Romulan had liked the promise to be left alive because it was an inner service promise and those were kept, normally. But he wasn't happy with the, in his eyes, meager pension. So he had decided to offer his services to the man considered the king of organized crime; Bejal Mingan, undisputed leader of the Orion Syndicate.
"My information?" Bejal prompted.
Knowing that the information was worth the credits he was asking, the Romulan took out a PADD and spent the next two minutes inputting codes, fingerprints, and voice prints, before handing the once so heavily secured PADD to Bejal.
**
"I can't let that happen," Bejal said half an hour later. The moon with human like slaves was being readied for 'harvest' as they were speaking. If slavery was ended, he would lose half a billion worth of slave assets. "But you were right; this information is worth the ten thousand credits you are asking. An unmarked credit strip will be waiting for you when your leave my office."
"Thank you. It is always nice to do business with you Bejal."
The Romulan wanted to get up but Bejal held up his hand to stop him. "Tell me, are you still taking jobs on the side to finance your early retirement?"
"I might, depending on the job."
"I'm willing to offer you one million credits for the, removal, of the Klingon Intendant."
"Funny, you never struck me as insane, Bejal."
"I'm not insane, just ruthless in my business and that bitch is interfering in my business with that plan. It's not the first time she has interfered in my business; but it will be her last time. Two million?"
"Try twenty million and I might consider it."
"For twenty million I can hire twenty others, I'm sure that one of them will succeed."
"If that's what you want to do, be my guest. You are asking me, not the other way around. But, I'm willing to take the job for fifteen, and that's my final offer, Bejal."
"Fifteen sounds reasonable for being sure that someone does the job in a way that I am sure that won't be linked to me in any form at all," Bejal relented. He knew only too well that with this Romulan his final offer was not just a dealing approach; his final offer really always was his final offer. The only thing you could do then was take it or leave it.
"Paid upfront."
"Half paid upfront, half paid upon completion."
"Alright. You have a preferred time?"
"Use your own discretion. But, I want it done before her plan becomes official. If you haven't done it by then the deal is off."
"That would mean that I have to do it before the Grand Assembly. A plan like that can only become official with full Intendant support at the Grand Assembly."
"You know, come to think of it, I would be willing to pay you those other five as well, if you were to do something."
"What?"
"Do it is such a way that the Klingons know it was a Romulan that killed her."
"That would mean me showing my face on record or something of the likes."
"Like that would be a problem for you. Come on, you really don't expect me to believe that you show up here with the same face that you have then you go work for the Klingons."
"I would need some extra credits for the surgery."
"Now, don't become greedy," Bejal really wanted to mention the Romulan's name, but even he didn't know it. "Twenty million for the complete job with evidence, you can pay your own surgery. Besides, I would be greatly surprised if anyone but yourself made those changes to your face."
"Hmm. You do realize that this could result in a war between the Klingons and Romulans?"
"If we are lucky, yes. As the Ferengi say; the best profits are made during war. But I actually doubt that it will happen. The Bajoran Intendant was killed only five months ago, and what was the result? One person got sentenced to death for it. Since we are talking about the Klingon Intendant here, I actually expect some military actions in Romulan space by the Klingons; maybe occupying a planet or two, some show court cases and that's it. The more important thing is that it will indeed cause tensions between the Klingons and Romulans and there is no way that the Romulans would agree to this plan, if a new Klingon Intendant even wants to continue it."
"If you say so. I want my credits in the normal way, and have the rest ready for when I'm done. You won't be seeing me then; I'll be in contact and tell you where to send them."
Without another word the Romulan stood up and left the office.
Bejal looked at the closed door for a moment before turning to his computer unit to make sure that the credits were waiting for the Romulan. "You fucked my plans up for the last time you bitch."
***
"Anything?"
"Nothing, Captain," Tuvok said while keeping his eyes on the sensor readings.
"Incoming message," Harry suddenly spoke up.
"On screen."
A moment later, Voyager's senior crew was looking at Seven's face. "Captain Hansen."
"Seven."
"Captain, please shut your weapon systems down completely. I would hate for there to be, problems, because someone on my mistress' ship believes that you are close to opening fire. My mistress also insists on you shutting down the warp core."
"I don't think so. We will shut down the weapons, but the core stays online. It would take half an hour to start if up again once shut down."
"That is the point," Seven said with a trace of amusement in her voice. "My mistress wants to be sure that you will not try to 'grab me and run.' I may trust the Voyager crew not to do this; but my mistress does not."
"Tuvok, shut down the weapons," Annika said, still deciding on whether or not to shut down the warp core. It wasn't as much the fact that they would only be stuck with thruster for propulsion and slower than light speeds, it was more the fact that with the warp core down, shields could only stay up for a couple of hours before the power was drained. And no shields would also mean that the cloaking system would no longer work since it was incorporated into the shield projectors. All round it just wasn't a good idea to shut down the warp core.
"Weapons powered down... A ship is de-cloaking to our starboard position."
"On screen."
"My mistress' ship," Seven explained, having heard the conversations on the bridge.
Annika was not at all happy to see the huge Negh'Var class ship. Especially not to see that the two Mark eighteen disrupter cannons were aimed directly at them. She didn't even bother to see how many or the eighteen mark twelve disrupter cannons that were located all around the ship were also aimed at them. Annika knew that the two Mark eighteen disrupter cannons alone could pretty much pulverize them; shields and all. Those weapons were designed to take on star bases and planetary defenses.
"Just remember that if capturing you were my mistress' intent, she would never have let you escape in the first place," Seven added, filling the Voyager crew in a little more on just how they were able to get away from that star base.
Annika dipped her head and looked over at B'Elanna. "Shut it down, the shields as well."
"Yes Captain."
"I assume that the shields would have been the next demand?" Annika asked, looking at Seven.
You assumed correctly."
Warp core is in automatic shutdown mode," B'Elanna informed. "The core can be online again in thirty-five minutes at the earliest." That last information wasn't really needed, but B'Elanna felt that it was something the people on the other ship wanted to know.
"Shields are down," Tuvok added, and only seconds after his last word the hum of transporters could be heard on the bridge and six forms materialized. Seven and Torres appeared, surrounded by four guards that had their disrupter rifles at the ready. Once it was sure that there was no threat, the guards lowered their rifles, but didn't put them away, and the two in front of Torres and Seven moved aside.
"Intendant Torres, Seven, welcome on board," Annika said, trying very hard to stay calm while faced by four armed Klingon guards and not at the least while standing in front of the most feared person in the Coalition. Even though this B'Elanna was basically the same as Voyager's B'Elanna, for Annika they were two different people. The one she feared, the other she loved more than life itself.
"Let me make something very clear here," Torres said, wanting there to be no confusion. "I'm not here as the Klingon Intendant. I'm simply here with my pet who is visiting some of her friends. But let me also be very clear with this; while I'm not here as the Klingon Intendant, I am very protective of my pet. Fuck with her, or think that you can get to me through her, and I'll stop being so nice to you all. Got me?"
"Very clearly, Intendant," Annika assured.
"Alright then," Torres said before addressing her guards. "Put those things away." She looked back at Annika and after a moment of silence spoke up again. "My pet trusts your crew, and I don't feel like walking around here with guards all the time while my pet is visiting, so here is what I'm going to do. I'm going to send my guards back. Please, don't do anything stupid. Grab my pet and I will find you no matter where you run to, and she will do anything in her power to get away from you. Try hurting me, well, you really don't want to go there; you really don't want the entire Klingon Faction after your ass."
"We won't," Annika assured. "Seven made it very clear that it is her choice to stay with you and we respect that decision."
Torres looked at one of the guards and gave him a small nod. Without a further order needed, he opened a link to Torres' ship and a moment later the guards were gone. It was at moments like this that Torres really liked the fact that she had decided to keep Martok's operatives as guards.
"How long can you stay, Seven?" B'Elanna asked.
Not having the answer to that surprisingly simple question, Seven looked at Torres for a reply.
"We really should be moving on by tomorrow, say this time tomorrow."
"In that case, there are some people that would really like to see you, Seven. Would you object to a little get-together in the mess hall?" Annika asked, still finding it slightly strange to be talking to herself. She was quickly getting used to the concept though. Annika looked at Chakotay before adding, "Since she can stay until tomorrow we can hold the ceremony tomorrow morning at nine. Is that alright?"
"Won't be a problem, Captain. Neelix has everything ready. All that's needed is to set up the mess hall for the reception, which won't take much more than an hour. We'll have it done in time."
"What ceremony?" Torres asked, having no problem with being impolite and simply interrupting the conversation.
"Forgive me for not mentioning that yet," Annika said, inwardly proud of herself for the fact that she actually felt that she was apologizing for talking about things others didn't know and not apologizing simply because she was face to face with the Klingon Intendant. "B'Elanna and I are getting married. We really would like Seven to be present for that, but since we didn't know exactly how long she would be here, we didn't know exactly how to fill out the plans."
"Getting married?" Torres asked with a grin. She looked at Seven before asking, "What do you think of that, my pet? Our counterparts found each other as well; guess that some things are simply destined to be. How do you explain this away with logic?" Torres knew that Seven would come up with some explanation about character traits and the appeal of certain traits to certain people. Torres smirked a little, having all her arguments ready... only to be completely surprised by the blonde.
"Mistress, I have learned that love defies all logic. One should simply go with it; not analyze it." Having replied to her mistress' statement, Seven took a moment to congratulate Annika and B'Elanna.
"One of these days, my pet, one of these days. There will come a time where you will stop surprising me."
"Doubtful."
Seeing the interaction between Torres and Seven made Annika realize that these women were a lot more like her and B'Elanna than she had ever suspected, and that just maybe the Intendant wasn't a person one should fear every second. "If I may suggest, we can go to the mess hall in a couple of hours." She looked at Chakotay before adding, "Say two hours." Letting him know how much time he had to shift people around so that Seven's friends could be freed up to be at the mess hall at the same time.
Annika didn't doubt that Seven would want to see some of them privately as well, but by first having a get together in the mess hall, Seven at least had to answer the common questions just once instead of over and over again. "Would you also let the Captain's assistant know that Seven will see her after the get together." Annika looked at Seven before asking, "I assume that you will like to spend some time with Naomi?"
"You assume correct. I see that you also gave her the position of captain's assistant?"
"I did, or better said, I finally did. I made her position an official one. She is now a crewman. But please, Intendant, Seven, would you mind accompanying B'Elanna and me to our quarters? I'm sure that there are a few things we still have to discuss a little bit more privately."
This of course translated, as everyone understood, to them all getting to know each other as persons, and not as 'counterparts of.'
***
"I am glad you made Naomi's position official," Seven said as she let her eyes drift around the living room.
"Feel free to look around," B'Elanna offered when she saw Seven taking in the quarters.
Seven took the invitation and did indeed look around for a moment while Torres merely looked at Seven moving around the room.
"Would you care for a snack?" Annika offered after a minute. "I assume that once you enter the mess hall you will actually be talking more than having the time to eat something,"
"Annika is a great cook, Seven," B'Elanna assured. "She loves to show that off. Trust me, whatever she makes will be absolutely great."
Seven looked at Torres for a moment and saw the smallest of nods. "Thank you, I believe that a 'snack' would be a good idea." Seven saw B'Elanna biting her lip and she couldn't help but smile. "Do you have something to say, B'Elanna?"
"I... well... Oh hell, you have to ask her permission if you can eat!?"
"She has a temper even shorter than mine, doesn't she?" Torres asked amused. Torres had promised Seven that during this visit she would try very had not to be the Intendant. She wanted Seven to have a good time and the stay to be about Seven, not a visiting Intendant. Torres found it interesting how she could let loose a little between these people. After all, what were they going to do if they saw Torres acting in a way not compatible with heartless bitch image she had?
"She does," Seven agreed. "I assume that this is also one of the reasons I liked to fight with her, but not with you, mistress. There is something about fighting with you that just feels wrong."
"Good thing, since I don't want to have to punish you for arguing with me."
Seeing the look on the faces of the other two women, Seven decided that a little explanation was in order. "You have to understand that both my mistress and I want to have the relationship we have. Since she is my mistress, yes, I have to ask her if I may eat. This is because the original rule she set forth for me was that I would eat when and what she would eat. Having said that, doing so is my choice. She really is not going to say that I am not allowed to eat, nor would I have to fear any punishment if I were to eat something without asking her first. But still, I want her approval. It is me that wants to have to ask my mistress if I am allowed to do something, and not her wanting me to ask."
"And what's this talk about punishment then?"
"Yes, my mistress does punish me from time to time, and it is such a hardship to have to suffer through her having her way with me."
B'Elanna was about to react then the real meaning of the statement and Seven's small smile registered. "Oh."
A little silence fell and Annika took it upon her self to break it. "Feel free to join me in the kitchen." Annika moved to the kitchen as she continued to talk since the others indeed did follow. "As for Naomi's position. We actually made several changes and promotions. I felt that Janeway's 'when we get back this could be a problem' thinking was the wrong way to run the ship. I felt that if someone did something that deserved a promotion or a real title, then they should get that title or promotion.
"Apparently the senior staff felt the same since I haven't gotten a single real objection; only Chakotay or Tuvok pointing out why Janeway hadn't done something, but not objecting. Neelix's position as moral officer is now an official position as well. We promoted Ayala to chief science officer and Samantha Wildman to his second in command.
"I also promoted Harry. He has proven his worth many times, and yet he was still an ensign. Even though he is part of the senior staff and has been in command of the bridge on a regular basis during beta and gamma shift. I took a look at this file and didn't find a single reprimand, only positive marks. I just couldn't understand why she didn't promote him years ago; still can't by the way."
"You made quite some changes in here as well," Torres pointed out, having been in the captain's quarters twice. Once when Seven showed her she ship the first time, and then when Seven showed her the ship again to see what progress was made by the time they got back from Bajor. "Where did you put my pet's alcove, in the cargo bay again?"
"Seeing that Seven made the choice to not come with us, I gave the order to dismantle the alcoves," Annika said while she replicated some ingredients. "We did take out all components that can't be replicated by the replicators we have and stored those though. Would you like to have them in case the alcoves you have malfunction?"
"That's a good idea," Torres agreed. "And since we are talking about that technology, could you let your doctor know that Seven will come by tomorrow for a full physical, including all her implants?"
"Mistress, that will take away from the time I can spend with my friends. A full physical takes two hours normally," Seven objected.
"Then we leave two hours later than I said we would tomorrow. In fact, we will leave three hours later because once the physical is over I'll have him explain a few things to me."
"You do not believe me when I say that the readings are acceptable?" Seven asked with a trace of hurt in her voice.
"Of course I do baby," Torres assured, realizing only after she said it that the private endearment had slipped out. Knowing that she couldn't take it back and that any correction would merely draw attention to the small word, Torres decided to simply go on with talking. "You know only too well that I believe you. But how often have you had to tell me 'I believe' about a certain level being dangerous or not?"
"Six times, mistress," Seven had to admit.
"And that, my pet, is the reason why I want to go over things with him. Have him present while we do the scanning we normally do and then have him tell me exactly what the 'safe' readings are. Have him tell me what can happen if something does go wrong with this or that implant, and even more importantly, what can be done to correct it."
"Very well. You are correct, mistress. Thank you for thinking of my wellbeing."
"As I told you before, I'm just being selfish. I don't want to break in a new body slave."
Seeing the interaction between Seven and Torres, a realization struck B'Elanna. As Annika put the finished food on the table, B'Elanna placed some plates for them all before addressing Torres. "You aren't as bad as you like people to believe."
Hearing the comment, Torres looked at B'Elanna in the cold hard way that she would look at someone whose last minute alive had just started. "Oh, but you are wrong there. I am that bad... and worse." Then she softened her stare and actually gave a small grin. "It's just that through my time with my pet here I have learned that I don't have to threaten to kill someone with every second word I say. But don't make the mistake of thinking that I've grown soft. I would still have no problem at all with killing you and anyone else on this ship. Wait, I take that back, I would have a problem with it. My problem would be that it would upset my pet here and I don't want that."
"But why?" B'Elanna asked. Her problem was mainly with the fact that Torres could talk so easy about killing someone. B'Elanna knew that it was a hard fact that if Torres could kill it so easily, somewhere deep down in her, B'Elanna also had a personality that could do the same.
Torres as about to reply, but Seven beat her to it.
"Because... forgive me for interrupting, mistress."
"That's alright, my pet. Go on, maybe you can explain it in a way that she will actually understand it.
"Thank you, mistress. B'Elanna, ask yourself this; what other option does my mistress have? The only other option is to not be Intendant. But even then she might have to do things you would not want to do. You seem to forget that we are in a Klingon society here. Even in our universe, Klingons challenge each other for things like honor and disgrace. Multiply that by the factor that here the Klingons are the most powerful force, and you have a situation where sooner or later you will have to fight someone until the death."
"Nicely put, my pet, and you didn't even bring in the whole Intendant crap and me having to do things simply to not have to do things in the future."
"What do you mean by that?" B'Elanna asked.
"Mistress, I was deliberately leaving out that part for the simplicity of the explanation," Seven said in a certain tone of voice. Torres really liked how Seven could say something in a way that made it sound like she was sighing without actually doing any sighing at all.
Seven looked at B'Elanna before continuing. "What my mistress means is that because she is Intendant she might have to do things like ordering several hundred or even thousand people to death. It is things like this that give her the name of being a person that you do not want to cross. However, what most people do not realize is that by having those several hundred people killed my mistress prevented a situation from occurring where in the near future a multitude of that number had to be killed."
"One of the reasons why the slaves never even tried to rebel in Klingon space," Annika said in understanding as she finished dividing the food over the four plates. "There have been problems in all the other factions. Situations where a group of slaves thought that they could further their position by stopping working or even taking over the places they were supposed to work at. It normally always ended by all those slaves being killed. But something like that never happened in Klingon space because the slaves knew up front that if they tried that, they would definitely be killed; no maybe about it."
"Right," Torres agreed before trying some of the food and finding it indeed to her liking.
"Are such rebellions common?" B'Elanna asked, starting to understand that basically the killing came down to nothing more than a cold numbers game.
"Eh," Torres said, wiggling her hand a little. "There are always places where the slaves try something like that. But those are normally places where the work situation is so bad that the slaves 'rebel' because they know that the death that will follow is a kind of escape for them. Situation like that occur at least once every week in the coalition. But still, if you think about the size of the coalition and how many planets there are, and how many regions there are on planets, then you can say that something like that happening in your region is a once in a lifetime occurrence. Real rebellions never happen however; for the very simple reason that we don't let it happen. If there is a problem we deal with it, one way or another, before it can spread further than one company or one mine."
"I believe that it might actually happen more often than that," Seven objected. "If a company has a hundred slaves and something like this happens it becomes public for the simple reason that they have to let it be known in order for them to be able to claim insurance credits. But what about small businesses, or slaves that work in homes? Situations like this will never become public because those people do not have insurance. If someone asks about a slave they saw in the house the last time the person will simply say that they sold the slave again. After all, it sounds a lot more interesting to say that one resold a slave with a good profit, then having to admit that they had to kill the slave because they were not able to break it."
"You may have a point there," Torres agreed. "So let me rectify my statement and say that cases worth mentioning rarely happen."
"To that one single slave who was killed, the case would have been worth it being mentioned," Seven objected. Seeing the two other women looking at them, Seven explained. "An ongoing argument between us. My mistress states things as they are, even if she personally does not agree with them. I see things from a personal side. My mistress is right, to any free person in the coalition the killing of a single slave is not even worth being mentioned. I might not agree with how dismissively most people think about slaves, but it is indeed a fact."
"You talk about insurance," B'Elanna asked. "Surely you can't insure people. I mean, surely that must play to the fact that killing someone might be simpler than letting someone live. Kill a sick slave and you get money, credits it's called here, right? Anyway, you get credits to buy a new slave. Or what about insurance fraud? If you have a group of weak slaves, just kill them all and claim the credits to buy yourself healthy slaves. You can simply have them all be killed in an 'accident.' Or what about a slave that is getting older? Just kill it and buy a new one."
"I see that you are getting into the killing groove quite easily," Torres said amused. "Now you might see why I, as Klingon Intendant, have to do it. If not the slaves then the people that tried to mess with me or the Klingon faction in total."
"There is indeed an insurance industry," Seven said before the two women could get into comparing character traits. "However, the fees are quite high and on top of that they only pay seventy-five percent of the common slave price, regardless of how valuable that slave was to you. You only get credits to replace slaves on a list you provided and have kept up to date, and you have to provide proof that you replaced a slave with a similar slave.
"In other words, that you replaced a male human with a male human, and a female Vulcan with a female Vulcan. As you can see, the conditions for such insurance are quite extensive. Because of that, such insurance is normally only taken by companies and people that have at least over one hundred slaves. At that point the amount of slaves gets to the point where having to replace them all at once could possibly put a company into bankruptcy and such an insurance becomes a expensive, but acceptable, protection against such bankruptcy happening."
"I know you people don't like to hear it," Torres added. "But fact is, here slaves are property, and you can insure property."
They finished the rest of their food in silence, with the exception of complimenting Annika on her creation. Only when B'Elanna started to clean away the plates did Annika start up the conversation again.
"To come back to the slave rebellions, I actually heard several stories about rebellions actually succeeding in some places outside Klingon space. Granted, they were far enough away from centers of power, but still. There are stories going around about slaves actually getting what they asked for."
"I'm sure there are," Torres agreed. "But it never happened." Torres lifted her hand to stop Annika from speaking up. "I'm not giving you a propaganda line here. I'm giving you the honest facts provided by someone that is an Intendant and does get to see the unedited information. I mean, think about it. Do you really think we would allow that? That we actually could allow that?
"If we were to allow something like this to happen successfully on some unnamed planet at the border of the coalition, what would there be to stop it from happening on a planet half way inside the coalition? Or in Klingon space? Or on Kronos itself? Fact is, large scale rebellions simply don't happen. The fact that you don't hear about us dealing with it should prove that to you. Don't you think that we would jump at the chance to kill every slave in a rebellion somewhere if for nothing more than to prove to other slaves just how stupid rebellion is?"
"That 'doing something so that you don't have to do it again in the future' thing?" B'Elanna asked sitting down at the table again after putting the plates in the replicator.
"Right. The only thing we don't do anything about are those five places where escaped slaves run to. But we have a reason for that as well. As I told my pet once, by leaving those we know just how many slaves do succeed in escaping on average. It also tells us that way if we should change the reward amount for escaped slaves. Not to forget that by leaving those places we know where the escaped slaves are and don't have them hiding all over the Coalition."
"Which is something I have been wondering about," Seven added when Torres was finished with talking. "Why did Voyager never go to those places? Surely you must also know that they exist and where they are."
"That they exist, yes," Annika admitted. "But where they are, no. All I really ever knew about them what that they are located somewhere on the border of Coalition space. I told the senior staff about them, but I also added that if it was my choice, which it was after they made me captain, that I wouldn't visit those places. I knew that first of all people would try to get the ship and do whatever it takes, including killing us. Second of all, I know that those places aren't paradise. If we were to go there we would see so many things we want to change, and we just can't. There is only so much one group of people can do. If we were to establish a new part, yes, maybe we could have built something by our rules, but going to those places we would have basically have to adapt to their rules just to get things done."
"I think you made a smart choice not to go there," Torres agreed. "Believe me; you are better off on that ship than you would ever be there. But just a tip, if you ever do find yourself in a position where you have to go to one of those places, try to go to the one they call 'Homestead.' There is a part of the planet that is run by someone that might actually be willing to do business with you instead of just kill you for your ship."
"Thank you for the tip; we will keep it in mind," Annika assured. "Of course, as I said, I don't know where these places are, so I certainly don't know where 'Homestead' is."
"Basically, if you headed straight to the Coalition boarder in the closest line from Zachian Prime, you can't miss it, or so the reports say."
"Again, thank you for the tip. We will make a run over there just to see where it is exactly," Annika assured.
"As long as you use your cloaking device while running past the Cardassian border you should be fine," Torres said before adding with a grin that showed off her teeth, "And don't go picking any fights with Cardassian ships. I smoothed over the first time, but you really don't want to test Dukat's patience a second time."
"And just how do you know about our cloaking system?" Annika asked. "And now that I'm asking, how did you know our position? Did you have tracking devices installed in the ship?"
"How do I know about the clocking system?" Torres asked disbelievingly. "Who the hell do you think paid the fucking bill for the damn thing!?"
"Mistress," Seven said in a calming tone.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Torres said while waving Seven off. "I know, calm down." Torres thought about the original question for a moment before shrugging her shoulders mentally. "Actually, no. There aren't any tracking devices installed on the ship; your ship is being followed by a cloaked drone ship. I decided that while tracking devices did sound like the most obvious choice, they can be accidentally discovered or actually looked for and found. A drone ship however simply rides along in your wake and is almost impossible to detect unless it starts malfunctioning. You can look for the ship and destroy it if you want, but I can assure you that for your sake it's a lot better to just forget about it. Trust me; it's better for you if I actually know where you are."
"But why are you helping us?" B'Elanna asked. "You don't gain anything by it. Seven already decided to stay with you."
"B'Elanna," Seven said softly. "That the Voyager crew is alive and in good health makes me happy. Just as I would do anything in my power to make my mistress happy, she does a lot for nothing more than the simple reason that it makes me happy."
B'Elanna saw how Torres was looking at Seven while the blonde was speaking and another realization hit her. Something that she had not suspected at all. She had known that Seven loved Torres, but she hadn't known that the feeling was so mutual. "You would also do anything in your power to make Seven happy."
"No I wouldn't," Torres disagreed. "You have to remember that I'm the Intendant. Anything in my power is a whole damn lot more than most people can even comprehend. But I would do a lot; more than most people who make such statements really could do."
"I believe that this conversation is becoming too serious," Seven spoke up as a small silence fell. "Since it is still one hour before we are expected in the mess hall, how would you feel about an introduction to my pet Targ? B'Elanna, I took the liberty of naming him Toby, I hope you do not object."
"You got yourself a Targ?" B'Elanna asked, glad for the change of subject. "I have to admit that I'm a bit surprised, I didn't really see you as the having a pet kind, Seven."
"Neither did I. However, Toby chose me by bonding to me and once I decided to take him as a pet and opened myself to having him in my life I realized that I enjoy having a pet. Even though I have only had him for a short time now, I could not bear losing him."
"Well, I sure would like to meet him," B'Elanna assured. "Does the little guy look like my Toby?"
"Not quite," Seven assured.
"We could beam over to my ship and then come back before you have to go to the mess hall," Torres suggested, trying hard to keep an uninterested expression on her face. She was wondering how her counterpart would react to seeing 'the little guy' that was Toby. Seeing the hesitation on Annika's face, Torres added, "I promise you that we will be back on your ship in time for Seven to be in the get-together in the mess hall."
"Alright," Annika agreed. She knew that she had to start trusting the Intendant at some point, and the woman had done nothing but show good intentions. Besides, if anyone on Voyager knew what Torres could do if she wanted to, it was Annika.
A message to Chakotay and then to Torres' ship later the four women disappeared in the sparkling light of transporter beams.
*
"Why didn't we simply beam into the quarters?" B'Elanna asked as they walked the short distance from the transporter room to the quarters.
"When I took over this ship, I had some changes made," Torres explained, figuring that it couldn't really do any harm. "One of the changes made was the incorporation of a dampening field around my quarters that is tied into the ships systems in such a way that it can't be switched off. It only deactivates if the ship looses more than eighty percent of its power. Last thing I wanted was for some moron to be able to take me out by transporting a bomb into my quarters from a passing ship."
"Is that something you have to worry about a lot?" B'Elanna asked. "About someone wanting to kill you, I mean?"
"There always is someone that wants to kill me, if nothing more than for my position or for the credits I have to my name. But no, not really. I just have to be a little careful in situations where I'm surrounded by a lot of strangers. But that doesn't mean that I don't use the simplest of security measures, like dampening fields."
"In my opinion my mistress takes her security much too lightly," Seven objected. "But that is a point we agreed to disagree on. I am merely glad that she allows me to provide her personal protection at all times."
"My security is just fine," Torres said with a tone of finality in her voice as they reached their quarters. "How about we concentrate on something else, like you introducing our guests to your pet, my pet?"
"Very well, mistress," Seven agreed as she opened the door by stepping up to the sensor. "B'Elanna, please come in so that I can introduce you to Toby."
B'Elanna walked into the room ahead of Seven and started looking around for the pet Targ. Then suddenly, without hearing any kind of warning at all, she saw a fast moving brown streak moving in her direction and she was plowed to the floor. Before anything else could register she felt the sharp sting of teeth closing around her neck.
Chapter 13
"Toby, yield!" Seven shouted in horror.
To B'Elanna's great relief the pressure around her neck eased off and a moment later she was looking into the brown eyes of the biggest Targ she had ever seen.
Toby looked down and snarled, taking great pride in showing off his teeth to this imposter. Oh the imposter had gone to great trouble to look and smell just like the dark nest mate but Toby was not to be fooled. He sniffed a dismissive breath of air into the imposter's face and just for good measure snapped his teeth with a loud click.
When the Targ snapped his teeth at her, B'Elanna finally got over the paralysis that had beset her body the moment she had been tackled to the floor by the huge beast. She crawled back, away from under the monster that Seven had chosen as a pet. "What the fuck!? That isn't a Targ; that's a Kahless be damned freight cart!"
"I apologize," Seven said as she helped B'Elanna to her feet together with Annika. "Normally I have to introduce guests to Toby to prevent something like this from happening. But since you are basically the same person as my mistress I assumed that it was not needed. I sincerely apologize for this mistake." Seven looked to her side before adding in an accusing tone of voice, "And you seem to find this extremely funny."
"You bet your pretty ass I do," Torres happily agreed between fits of laughter.
"Are you alright?" Annika asked as she moved herself slightly between B'Elanna and the Targ. Pet or not, if the animal tried to attack B'Elanna again, Annika would introduce the beast to the blades she still wore strapped to her arms almost all the time.
"Toby, be nice. Friends," Seven said, giving the Targ two different commands. First she told him to behave himself, and second he told him that the two people with her were people that were allowed into the quarters. Looking back at Torres, Seven asked, "Would you mind explaining why you find this so funny?"
"Because." Torres finally managed to stop laughing but was still grinning. "Our little pet just proved science wrong. Back when my doctor scanned my counterpart here to see if I was indeed a compatible match to be a donor for her, he told me that she and I are the same person; down to the last chromosome." Torres moved over to Toby and patted him softly on the head. "Yet there must be some difference; something that makes Toby here attack her while I can do this." Torres bent over and placed a kiss on Toby's head. Something that was rewarded with a sloppy Targ kiss. "Pheh, got to make him stop doing that though. Anyway, I kinda like the fact that even though there might be people that look like me, there clearly is only one me."
"Then why isn't he attacking me?" Annika asked.
"Simply, you were not in the quarters when Toby defended them. You only stepped in after I told him that you were allowed to," Seven explained. "That is why I invited B'Elanna to come in first. I knew that Toby would realize that you are not me. Even I can smell the difference between us."
"Smell?" Annika asked.
"No metal," Seven explained to make it clear that she wasn't implying that Annika stank. "Or better said, you carry a sent of metal that is far smaller than mine."
"You can smell my blades?" Annika asked surprised.
"I can; Borg enhancements." Seven affirmed before walking further into the quarters with Toby at her side.
"Is he always so protective?" B'Elanna asked, making sure to stay well away from Toby.
"He is, but he normally behaves in a different way," Seven looked at Torres for a moment and saw that she had no intention of stepping up as leader of the household. Clearly the day was still about Seven, even though they were no longer on Voyager. "I assume that he sees our quarters as his nest; something that is his to defend. Here he acts in a way that you would describe as 'kick ass first and take names later.' But normally when we are outside he is more than happy to intimidate people with a growl or by baring his teeth. This is behavior that mountain Targs also display in nature when they feel that the other creature is so weak that it poses no threat to him or his nest mates and no challenge in a hunt."
"A mountain Targ? Damn it Seven, you don't do things half way, do you?"
"As I said before, he chose me, not I him. Having said that, I am glad that he did."
"But how hell can you even keep an animal like that on a ship? Surely he must have his exercise?"
"I have to admit that this is something I underestimated. While I had realized that he would need some exercise, I had assumed that a few walks through the ship would suffice. It turned out that I actually have to spend two hours every day on the holodeck with him. We spend one hour on his training and one hour where we simply play or where he can chase the holographic animals around."
"Good thing too," Torres added. "At least now the slaves can clean our quarters when we are on the holodeck without them having to fear for their lives."
"Why? Did he bite someone?" Annika asked as she kneeled onto one knee to bring her eyes close to Toby's level.
"You could call it that," Torres agreed. "If you call having an arm ripped off being bitten."
"It could be reattached, and my mistress made it up to the slave," Seven was quick to add.
"How can you make up for that?" B'Elanna asked while wondering what it must feel like to have your arm ripped off by a set of teeth.
"By buying the pleasure slave that he fell in love with before I bought him and letting them live together, and also giving them my personal promise that she would never have to service anyone again... unless she wants to, that is."
"But why would you make it up to him anyhow?" B'Elanna asked. "Isn't he only property to you anyway?"
Torres had heard the mildly accusing tone and was about to react when Seven beat her to it.
"My mistress firmly believes in punishments and rewards. She feels that a slave will do his or her job well if that slave knows that by doing said job well they will live a life where they do not have to fear for their life every minute of the day. In fact, that rewards and punishment system is the very reason why the Voyager crew was not split up right away after being captured by my mistress. My mistress figured that since the slave had been accidentally 'punished' by his arm being ripped off by my pet, he deserved a reward."
"Hmm, you are a tough one, aren't you?" Annika, who had been looking Toby in the eyes, asked. Suddenly she snapped her teeth at him like he had done at B'Elanna, making Toby pull his head back in surprise. He looked up at Seven as if he was asking for permission to teach this tall animal just who the predator was. But unfortunately he didn't get the permission he was hoping for so instead he walked away and lay down, pretending that he didn't see any of the animals, including his nest mates.
"If I understand this correctly, the Voyager crew was allowed to stay together as a reward to you?" Annika asked as she stood up again. "What did you do to gain such a reward?"
"What did she do?" Torres asked. "She's a body slave; guess."
"What I did was give my mistress companionship," Seven corrected. "You would be surprised about how lonely the life of an Intendant is. My mistress was glad to finally have found someone that stimulated her intellect even more than her body."
"Which is a great feat, considering how well you stimulate my body," Torres said with a grin.
"Damn it, he is huge," B'Elanna said as she looked at Toby sulking off. "Aren't you afraid that he will choose to ignore your commands and attack someone? Hell he could attack you if he is in a bad mood."
"He would never attack us," Seven said with the confidence only a pet owner could have about their pet. "And granted, I do not yet have him for a long time, but until now he has never ignored a command, once he understood it that is. For instance, I never have him confined by a leash when we leave these quarters, yet he has not attacked or bitten someone. All he does is snarl at people that come too close for his liking. This has always been enough for those people to know that they should move back a step or two. Which I prefer anyway; I do not like people to enter my personal space unless they are my friends."
Torres moved on to the private part of the quarters and the rest followed, including Toby who once again was more than happy to ignore them once he was sure that they were in the same room he was. "Alright, enough talking about my pet's pet. Let's talk about something else, like you getting married. Since you are the captain, who is going to marry you?"
"Chakotay will marry us, being acting captain for the day."
Torres snorted at that. "So you have an acting captain marry the acting captain? Seems to me that some of the mentality of that redhead did survive after all. Oh, no, we can't make her a real captain; it's too hard to deal with her then."
"You could put it like that," Annika agreed. "I said that once I became captain I did away with a lot of that, but when they created my position I wasn't captain yet and Janeway's thinking was still very much policy."
"Hmm. Anyway, what are the plans for the wedding?" Torres asked, making Seven wonder about her mistress' interest in the marriage.
"We actually don't know much about the plans," B'Elanna said before starting to tell what they did know.
***
"... on this special day. Annika, B'Elanna, you have chosen to forgo the normal five year wedding contract and instead have chosen the unlimited contract. Do you both realize that once you are wed the contract can only be nullified by the Federation Civil Affairs Bureau?"
"We do," Annika and B'Elanna said at the same time.
"Because you have opted for the unlimited contract, I have to ask if anyone has any objections before I marry you in the name of the powers invested in me by the Federation. If anyone has any objections, let them speak now."
It was quiet for a moment and just as Chakotay was about to go someone did indeed speak up.
"Actually, I have an objection," Torres said as she stood up and got closer. "You people seem to forget that in this universe you don't have any 'powers invested in me.' So you, get lost."
Chakotay looked at Annika and B'Elanna and saw the same look of confusion that he was sure was on his own face.
"If you want to get married here, you might as well do it right," Torres said as she took the spot where Chakotay had been standing. Totally ignoring the man standing behind her, Torres looked at B'Elanna and spoke. "B'Elanna, I don't really know you, but scans say that you and I are the same person, physically. If you are anything like me mentally you will be a stubborn bitch with more pride than common sense. If it ever comes down to having to choose between your pride and your mate, do the smart thing. Use what little common sense you do have; chose your mate. You can work the rest of your life to redeem your pride, but you will never find another one like her."
Torres looked to her other side and at Annika. "Annika, I don't know you, but if you are anything like my pet then you are a proud woman with the ability to actually out-stubborn the woman standing beside you. Don't let her pull that Klingon crap on you. Trust me, if she is anything like me she will curse and scream, but secretly she will be thrilled by the fact that you stand up to her.
"You said that you wanted to get married here because you found each other here, and because Annika is from this universe. I hope that you will like my wedding gift to you, a marriage that is actually legal here. Annika Hansen, B'Elanna Torres, I hereby proclaim you Mates for life. I do so by the powers invested in ME, Intendant Torres, by the Coalition and the Klingon Chancellor. This means that the marriage is legally recognized in all of Coalition space. If anyone never the less has any objection to this marriage... let them come see me. Annika, B'Elanna, you are now married and legal Mates. If you were Klingons you would be leaving us now to take your new Mate to bed, I guess that with you people you will have to settle for a kiss."
Annika and B'Elanna stepped closer and smiled. They had actually talked about this very point; that a marriage under Federation law would not be seen as legal in Coalition space. But now, now their marriage was legal. Very legal in fact. It had been legalized by the highest political force one could find in the Coalition without having to go and see the Chancellor. They leaned in and shared a soft, short kiss.
"Kahless, you kiss like Zachian," Torres said with a snort, making people chuckle.
"Oh, I do have a little bit of a Klingon inside me too," Torres said before taking a good hold of Annika and kissing her with as much passion as she could, only stopping when the whooping and whistles penetrated her brain.
"Now, that, is a kiss," Torres said with a grin.
***
"Now I know why you were asking them about the marriage plans. That was an incredibly nice thing to do mistress."
"Yeah, yeah, yeah. I have to tell you, my pet, before I met you I never realized that doing things for others could actually feel good. I just hope that it doesn't come around to haunt me."
"Mistress?"
"It already did once, my pet. I was able to deal with it, but the fact is that I had to deal with Dukat because I let your friends go because of you. If I hadn't let them go, then they could not have interfered with that ship and Dukat would never have contacted me."
"Are you not more afraid that these people will see you in a way that you do not want them to see you?"
"What is that supposed to mean?"
"Mistress, I believe that in the Voyager crew you have found people with whom you can let your guard down a little. Whatever you tell them or whatever you do, all will only stay on the ship. It will not spread through the Coalition like a wildfire. It is not like the Voyager crew is going to search and find the next Klingon ship and gossip about the Klingon Intendant. Because of this you can let your guard down a little with them since nobody else in the Coalition sees what I see whenever a look at you."
"And just what do you see?"
"I see the person I fell in love with because she is beautiful and has a gentle soul. A person who cares about others and wants others to have a good life."
Torres looked around her as if searching for something. "Me? You're talking about me? Seven, baby, I know that love colors perception, but even you know that I'm not that."
"To me you are," Seven disagreed. "And that is all that matters." Seven closed the small distance that was between them and took Torres in an embrace, making sure to rest one hand on Torres' behind. "Did I ever tell you what a turn on it is for me? To see you in those meetings, during those visits? Being that feared Klingon Intendant? Seeing people start to shake when you walk by, and sigh with relief when you pass without focusing your attention of them? I know that you really are that Intendant they need to fear, B'Elanna. But, to me you are simply everything, and I will never stop seeing you in a good light, no matter what you do."
Torres sighed happily and tightened her own arms around the blonde. "You know, I think it's actually more those two than the rest of the crew."
"Those two? You mean Annika and B'Elanna?"
"Yes. As I told you when you decided to stay with me, I can be damn selfish. I think that the reason I treat that crew differently is simply because I want me to be happy with you, and they are us as well. For them to be happy they need that ship, they need that crew."
"For B'Elanna to be happy, she needs her little blonde vixen?" Seven asked with a smile. "No matter which B'Elanna it is, you want B'Elanna Torres to have that?"
"Right," Torres agreed with a chuckle as they parted. "Doesn't it sound strange to you as well to be talking about 'them' and 'us' and still to be basically talking about the same person?"
"Only physically. That B'Elanna is my friend, but she could never be you. Even if she tried, she could never be that Intendant that you become when you put on that battle uniform."
Suddenly Torres saw Seven actually gasp as an idea struck her. "What?"
"Mistress, B'Elanna, may I ask a favor?"
"As you know; you can always ask," Torres replied, reminding Seven of the fact that, yes, she could ask, but that didn't mean that the answer would be positive.
"B'Elanna, would you make love to me right now?"
Torres smirked at that. "I think I can agree to that."
"No, what I mean is, would you make love to me as Intendant? In full battle uniform? Make love to me, not as B'Elanna, not even as my mistress, but as that Intendant those others so fear?"
"You want to see the love in the eyes of that feared Intendant as I take you, right?"
"Yes," Seven agreed in nothing more than a seductive whisper.
"Do you what me to be a little, rough?"
"What I want is for you to be the Intendant, what ever that means; be it."
"Full battle uniform, huh?" Torres grinned.
"Full."
"And I can do what ever I want, no limitations?"
"What ever you want, I am yours to do with as you please. Just make it last."
Now Torres laughed. "Oh, I think I can oblige that part. But I'm going to change the rules a little."
"In what way?"
As an answer, Torres placed a hand in Seven's neck and gently forced her to a kneeling position before sitting down herself. "If I'm going to fuck you as the Intendant, then I want to actually be able to enjoy it without my own hornyness getting in the way. So, before I actually put on that uniform and take you, again and again... you first fuck me. Mouth and fingers. Take off my pants and get to it, and you damn well better make me come so hard that I see stars."
"Yes, Intendant," Seven said as she eagerly closed in on her target.
***
"You know, that is the silliest grin I have ever seen on that face," Annika said amused as she looked at how B'Elanna was looking at the PADD in her hands.
"It's official," B'Elanna said as she looked up to the woman she loved. "It's officially official even. We are married. She put her thumbprint on this. It's a legal document."
"Yes, I must admit that I'm surprised that she did that," Annika said as she sat down besides B'Elanna. She molded her body against B'Elanna's and they spent a few minutes exchanging loving kisses. "That could cause her a lot of problems if it was ever found out. The Klingon Intendant marrying a couple of escaped slaves? Oh boy."
B'Elanna placed her hand on Annika's hip and slowly started to move up Annika's side and back down again to the hip. "Actually, I don't think that she is taking that much of a risk. After all, her thumbprint is exactly the same as mine. She could simply say that I verified the document myself." B'Elanna felt one of her breasts being cupped softly and thinking suddenly got a lot harder. She moaned before finally managing to continue. "But I don't think she would do that. I think it's more like... well, is there actually a rule that forbids slaves from getting married?"
Annika actually stopped playing with B'Elanna's breast for a moment and then decided that since she had stopped, it was a good time to go play with its twin. "As far as I know... it's covered by general Coalition law, I think. Or more to the point, it's not covered by Coalition law. I don't know of any law that forbids slaves to be married, just that it's basically unheard of. I do know that for a marriage to be legal you have to be wed by a government representative, but who will ever marry slaves and lose their job in the process?"
"M... Kahless Annika, what are you doing to me? Maybe a Klingon Intendant, who is a government representative, can marry two slaves. After all, she can simply say, 'yeah, I did that; you got a problem with that? Do you really want to piss me off?'"
Annika smiled. "You actually sounded just like her there, growl and all. Put like that, I think you are right. Who would be stupid enough to mess with her for something as small as a marriage? But, for me, us, that marriage is a pretty big deal. And as for what I'm doing to you? I thought that it was quite clear; I'm ravishing you. Oh, look at that. Seems like someone is getting exited." Annika playfully circled a proudly erect nipple. "My, my, if they are reacting like this by me touching you through your clothing, just imagine how they will react when I touch them directly. You know something, B'Elanna? I would really love to close my mouth around one of your nipples right now."
"Annika, m, maybe it's b... oh boy, better if you stop."
"Why? Don't you like it?" Annika asked innocently. "Could have fooled me." Annika didn't give B'Elanna a chance to answer. Instead she kissed her, taking her time to explore B'Elanna's mouth with her own tongue.
"I'm going to bed, are you coming?" Annika asked seductively.
"I really don't think that's a good idea right now," B'Elanna said frustrated. "I,"
"B'Elanna?"
"Yeah?"
"Don't make me hit you over the back of your head again. I'm going to bed, and I have no intention of going to sleep any time soon. Come with me if you want to, come. I really, really want to make love to my wife."
B'Elanna didn't answer with words, instead she stood up and placed her arms under Annika and picked her up before she started to carry Annika to the bedroom.
"Let me down, you dope," Annika laughed. "You will hurt your back and that's really the last thing we need right now."
B'Elanna set Annika down with a goofy grin. "Sorry, I got a bit carried away."
Once they were in the bedroom, Annika pushed B'Elanna softly against the wall and moved a hand under her blouse, unbuttoning two buttons in the process. "I think that the problem is more that I kept you waiting too long." She pushed up B'Elanna's bra and took one of her nipples between her fingers, rolling it softly. She smiled when B'Elanna suddenly got a little shorter. "Careful there, better keep those knees working." She moved her second hand into B'Elanna's pants and moved down between B'Elanna's legs. "Oh my, you really are turned on, aren't you?"
B'Elanna could only moan her agreement.
"So tell me, B'Elanna, just how long do I have to torment you before you react?"
Apparently not long because B'Elanna's reaction was to push a laughing Annika back towards the bed with a frustrated growl. Once Annika was lying on the bed, B'Elanna took a hold of Annika's shirt and ripped it open, sending buttons flying everywhere.
"Hey careful, with the wedding clothes," Annika said between fits of laughter.
"Why? Do you want to wear them again?"
"Never. I married for life," Annika said as she beckoned B'Elanna closer.
B'Elanna crawled up Annika's body until she was sitting on her hips. She hooked a finger onto the bit of fabric that held the two cups of Annika's bra together and looked at those blue eyes.
"Go on," Annika urged, smiling when B'Elanna actually needed three tried to rip the surprisingly strong fabric.
Once she had freed Annika's breasts, B'Elanna took a moment to merely look at her wife.
"What? You don't approve?"
"I approve; you know I do," B'Elanna was quick to say. "You know how I like looking at your body; you teased me often enough with it. You are beautiful Annika. I, I just can't believe that this is actually happening that you are m..."
"That I'm yours?" Annika finished. She took B'Elanna's hands and placed then on her now exposed breasts. "Believe it, B'Elanna. I'm yours, all yours. And just for the record,"
"Yes?"
"You had to wait until now because I wasn't ready to make love to you; but now I am. Which means..."
"Which means?" B'Elanna asked, knowing that Annika had stopped only so that she could ask.
"Which means that you better get used to saying 'good idea' when I say that I'm going to bed because I sure won't announce that I'm going to 'bed' when I'm actually going to sleep. When I plan to go to sleep I'll say just that; that I'm going to sleep. Catch my drift?"
B'Elanna moved down Annika's body a little and leaned forward, capturing one of Annika's nipples between her teeth. "Oh, I caught something alright," She mumbled around the sensitive bud in her mouth. She moved her hand to capture Annika's right breast before letting go of the nipple of her left breast and capturing that one in a hand as well. She started to softly mold the surprisingly firm flesh and used her thumbs to roll the nipples around. "Annika Hansen, my most beautiful and wonderful wife, I thought I'd inform you, I'm going to make love to you right now. I ain't letting you leave this room until tomorrow morning."
Annika pulled B'Elanna closer and once more moved her hand into B'Elanna's pants, easily taking back control with that singe move. "Really, you aren't letting me out of this room? Then what if I get thirsty?"
"I'll get you a drink," B'Elanna managed to say before she had to close her eyes as Annika's fingers found their target.
"And when I get hungry?" Annika asked with a wicked smile.
"I'll get you... you s... something t... yes, right there... to eat," B'Elanna stammered as fingers started to move.
"And when I have to use the bathroom?"
"I'll," It took a few seconds before the new question actually registered with B'Elanna. She opened hey eyes and looked down at the blonde that seemed to have a mean streak a light-year long. "I'll let you do that all by yourself. But that's the only reason why you're leaving this room."
Annika looked B'Elanna in the eyes, making sure to have a clear contact before she moved her hand a little lower and slowly slipped one finger into the warmth that was B'Elanna. The feeling almost blew Annika away. Not the physical one of entering B'Elanna's body, though that was great too. No, it was the emotional feeling. The way she was looking straight into B'Elanna's unguarded soul. It was as if she was entering B'Elanna's soul at the same time as her body. For the first time in her life, Annika was looking into the eyes of someone that had opened herself completely to her. The feeling was overwhelming for her and she could feel tears escape from her eyes. "I love you, B'Elanna. I love you so much it hurts."
B'Elanna took a moment to softly kiss the tears away before caressing Annika's face. "I love you too, Annika. There have been times before where I thought that I was in love, but it's you that taught me what being in love truly feels like. Before I met you I didn't know that just being looked at could feel better than having sex. That just holding a person could make me feel more content than getting back home ever could."
"I am home," Annika whispered. "When I'm with you, I'm home."
B'Elanna took Annika's face between her hands and spent a long moment looking into those blue eyes that were telling her even more than Annika's words already were. She wanted to say something, but she didn't know how to convey the depth of feelings she had for her wife. But then she saw that words weren't needed. Annika smiled; then the smile disappeared for a moment only to come back with even more force and filled with delightful wonder.
Annika moved her finger, producing a small whimper from B'Elanna. "I'm going to make love to you now, my wife. You will be the first person I ever make love with instead of having sex. I'm glad that you're my first."
B'Elanna sat back up, moving against the single finger deep inside her. She slowly started to rock her hips against her wife's hand and pleaded with a shaky voice filled with barely contained passion, "Love me, Annika."
And Annika did.
***
"I think what bothers me is the huge potential of inflation," Jetur said thoughtfully. "I'm not worried about losing the slaves since, according to this proposal, we won't lose them. Under this proposal the workforce stays on, they are just named differently."
"Meaning?" Ro asked as she lifted the bottle of wine to ask in that way if the others wanted a refill as well; all three women did. It was late in the day and a few glasses of good wine were just the thing for an evening filled with pleasant conversations. Oh, they weren't negotiating yet, that stage would come when Torres arrived the next day. But that didn't mean that they couldn't talk about what they thought, about things they knew would be problem areas in the negotiations.
"Meaning," Jetur continued. "That in the short run this is actually good for business. After all, existing companies don't lose their work force and they can go on as they have been while at the same time countless opportunities are opening up for new businesses besides that. Now someone with a business idea needs that idea, and enough credits to buy the slaves needed to turn that idea into reality. But if slavery ends all they need is an idea, and enough credits to at least pay the first month of wages.
"After all, if their business doesn't work out they are proclaimed bankrupt. The long contract agreements will then be terminated because bankruptcy is one of the few exceptions in which long contract agreements can be terminated before they expire. At the moment someone will need at least one hundred thousand credits to start even the smallest of businesses, if that business needs more workers than just the person that starts the business. But if slavery ends anyone with an idea can try their hand at creating their own business.
"There will be a lot of people that will try and some ideas will certainly work. So in the short run the economy will actually get stronger. But here comes the 'but' part. As Torres says herself in the footnotes, she expects that eventually the 'wages' of the former slaves will get higher. They may start with only food and a place to sleep, but there is bound to come a time where the then former slaves will make as much as any other average free worker. More wages means that the employers of those former slaves will have to ask more credits for their products to actually make a profit. More credits for products eventually means more wages have to be paid to all. In the long run this will lead to the devaluation of the credits."
Jetur indicated the half empty bottle of wine that Ro had just placed back. "That bottle of wine was complementary of the best wine maker on Bajor. In the stores that bottle goes for about five hundred credits. If that wine maker actually had to pay the people that pick the wine flower grapes normal wages, that bottle would probably cost twice as much."
"And that is the reason why I let her do the numbers," Ro said amused.
"You have a very valid point," Deanna countered, enjoying the fact that she could 'what if' with someone that seemed to actually like the numbers thing just as much as she did. "But fact is that people that earn credits also spend them. If former slaves get paid wages they will eventually also have to pay rent for a place to live and credits for food to eat. After all, the business owners are already paying them credits, why should they also pay them in goods? That point is bound to come as well; where business owners will go from 'paying' with food and boarding to paying only credits and actually asking some of those credits as rent if the former slaves want to live in the former slave houses. That means that there are more credits around to be spent.
"True, because the wine maker has to pay more wages he makes less profit per bottle, but because of the fact that more wages are being paid, there are more people that can buy wine and he sells more bottles of wine. If he makes fifty percent profit on a bottle now, he may only make twenty-five percent in the future, he sells twice as many bottles, still giving him the same net profit at the end of the year."
"And that is why I let her do the numbers," Jadzia said with a little wink in the direction of Deanna, repeating the words Ro had spoken before.
"That may be true," Jetur agreed, also enjoying the 'what if.' "But then there are also added costs. Again the wine maker, he has ten slaves now. But to produce more wine so that he can actually sell more bottles to pay for those ten former slave's wages, he actually has to hire ten more former slaves. This means that now he has twenty people for which he as to pay wages, and he might even have to buy more land to grow more wine flower bushes on. Now, granted, I can agree to the fact that even if he has to pay more wages and hire more people, the offset of more sales will eventually reach the point where he makes just as much profit as he does now.
"But the point is, if he also has to buy that land, and maybe buy more equipment to be able to make more wine, he will have to take out a loan. A loan that not only will cut into his profits again because of interest he has to pay, but also will mean commitments that he would not have had to make otherwise. For all we know he is debt free now, maybe he is proud of the fact that the family business that he inherited from his parents hasn't had any debt for decades. And now he is forced to invest or go bust. Not a lot of people will take kindly to that. It could spark unrest, unrest that we must see to prevent before it even starts."
"She has a point," Jadzia agreed.
"We could work with grants of sorts," Ro suggested. "If they can prove that they need the credits, the government will loan it to them at very low, or even no, interest rates. Of course, I don't have to add that we would incorporate the necessary safeguards to make sure that those credits are really used only for that. This will have an advantage that other businesses that actually can pay the wages, but don't have the credits to expand, or businesses that don't have that many slaves now; all could use the system to upgrade their production process also, which would benefit the economy as a whole."
"Can't do that," Deanna said thoughtfully while shaking her head. "But you might be on the right track; it would just need a different color of paint. See, if you take credits out of the government accounts and just give it way, we would lose a lot of credits which would result in there not being enough credits to do other things. Just think of now, with all the plans you have for Bajor, to suddenly take out the part Kira always took for herself. Just imagine the projects you would have to scrap, and even more importantly, your approval mummers. 'Thanks' to Kira's reign your approval rating are some of the highest the Coalition has ever seen in its existence. How much do you think that people will still cheer you when you suddenly tell them 'sorry, we don't have the credits to do that after all.'"
Jetur cringed at the suggestion. "I really like doing things from the position we are in now. Even the people that are negatively affected by plans we have are more than happy to help because they know that, yes, they might be negatively affected, but their friends and family will be affected in a positive way. What would you suggest instead?"
"Tax cuts. Don't give them grants but give them tax cuts."
"Isn't it the same thing?" Ro asked. "Either way, its credits that don't go into the government accounts."
"Not if you give people the tax cuts out of the credits they will actually have to pay at end of the tax year."
"I think I understand what you mean," Ro said thoughtfully. "Yes, because we will get less revenue in taxes, we will have fewer credits to spend. But the point is that those are credits we never had to begin with. All the plans we have now are already in process, funded, and therefore won't be affected. What might be affected is that next year we can do fewer things, but the point is that since nobody knows what plans we have next year, they don't know that the program they would have benefited from has been cut.
"We are still cutting, but we don't have to tell one single person that their program has been cut. And the thing is that the tax cuts are individual and therefore a business doesn't have to take out a loan. If a company has to pay, say, one-hundred-thousand credits in taxes, but they have a plan that will cost them fifty, then they only have to pay fifty in taxes and the other fifty they can use for the expansion. They don't have to take out a loan for those fifty because those are credits they already have, just that normally they would have to give them to our governments at the end of the tax year."
"Which will still leave people complaining about the fact that even though we didn't tell what we would have used the credits for, there are still fewer credits coming into the government accounts," Jadzia pointed out.
Suddenly Ro snapped her fingers and pointed a finger at Jetur with a smile. "I don't know how our friends here will bring it, but the best thing for us is that we can actually openly use that to improve our popularity even more."
"How would you do that?" Jadzia asked. If all her time as several different Intendants had taught Dax something it was that the fact that telling people that there were less credits to spend did certainly not make you more popular.
Ro put on her best 'speaking to the masses' voice and spoke with clear enthusiasm for a plan she was unveiling, "It is therefore that we have decided that companies should be able to use this opportunity to grow. It pleases us to announce that, with the right approval, companies can use the credits they saved to pay this year's taxes instead to invest in their businesses. We will not burden businesses with loans they have to pay back; all business need to do is prove that the credits were used to expand their business."
"Ooh, nicely put," Jadzia agreed. "Hearing that, businesses will scramble to come up with plans to spend the tax credits on expansions instead of just handing it over, and almost all of them will listen over the 'with the right approval' part. Making sure that only enough plans are actually approved to not really hurt the economy with a lack of tax credits; it is after all easy to install restrictions."
"Told you that she could do the Intendant thing by herself soon," Jetur said proudly.
Ro took hold of Jetur hand and placed a soft kiss on her knuckles. "Never. I want you at my side at all times. Besides, you could do the Intendant thing by yourself right now already."
"Well, there are a few parts where it is really handy to have you around and do them for me," Jetur said with a smile. Both of them knew that she was talking about the things that Jetur couldn't bring herself to do; like the execution orders.
The first time Jetur had received one of those PADDs the realization had truly hit home for her. That with nothing more than a thumb print to a PADD, she could kill someone. Just the idea, just imagining putting her thumb to that PADD, had made her ill to the point of actually vomiting. Since that day Jetur had never again seen an execution order, even though she had seen a report a week before noting that the renovation of the prime prison had begun since the execution cells had been 'freed up.' It had proven two things to Jetur. First, that Ro was keeping her promise of making Jetur's problems go away. Second, that it was actually possible to love a person you already love more than life itself still more with every passing day.
"What I'm actually wondering about more at the moment is what we personally think of the proposal of getting rid of slavery." There was a long moment of silence after Jadzia had said this, none of the others really wanting to be the first to give their opinion. Finally it was Deanna that spoke up.
"I think that the whole idea of turning the slaves into long contracts is what might actually give this a chance. We need those people; we need that workforce. I alone have almost two hundred slaves just to take care of my homes and other stuff directly linked to me, and that isn't even counting the two hundred slaves on my ship up there, or the thousands that work in factories and businesses that I own. Having said that, for us Betazoids it would be such a relief if jobs were simply jobs that people can apply for and want, and not forced into.
"As you know, we Betazoid can feel the emotions of the people around us. Can you imagine having to walk through a factory and feel the hate, depression, and resentment of all the slaves there? That's the sole reason why we normally always hire people of another species to be the floor managers that take care of the slaves while we stay in the offices. But things get a lot harder with the personal slaves. Just imagine having a sex slave and you can feel how much they hate it when they have to serve you. That is why we Betazoid actually already now have meetings with slaves before we buy them.
"There are a lot of slaves that don't mind doing the job they do, or that actually like what they are doing. For private use, we already now select slaves on them wanting the job. So for us that wouldn't really change if it became free to apply for jobs. In fact, it would become easier. We no longer would have to see maybe a hundred slaves to find that one that wouldn't mind being that personal slave, instead maybe only ten people would apply for the job, but the point is that all ten of them actually want that job.
"We would get more choice while having to see less people. Where before we would have had to see a thousand slaves to find ten to choose from, now those ten people come to us. Nobody, not even I as Intendant, actually ever went through the process of going to look at a thousand slaves just to find a few to actually have a choice of physical differences as well. No, normally it's a matter of walking past the slaves until you come across one that you can feel wouldn't mind doing the job and you go, 'Yes, finally one I can take.' You just accept the fact that he or she actually doesn't have the hair color you wanted or is much shorter, simply because at least they actually want to do the job. For instance, I can tell you that I actually had to look at more than two hundred sex slaves to find the sex slave I now have."
"You have a sex slave?" Jetur interrupted as her eyes drifted back and forth between Deanna and Jadzia.
"Why, yes." Seeing the drifting eyes, Deanna added with a smile, "Both Jadzia and I sometimes want something else than a woman. I have a male sex slave that I very happily share with Jadzia. Whenever she or I want that something else we call on his services. And let me assure you, he loves his job. Which brings me back to the point. When he is serving me..." A wink to Jadzia. "...Or us, I can feel his emotions. I can feel how much he is enjoying the act of having sex with me, us, or Jadzia."
"But feeling the emotions of a slave that doesn't want to be there at that moment would certainly ruin the mood, big time," Ro said in understanding.
"Right. The thing is, I really would have liked to have a blonde sex slave, but all the blonde ones I looked at were... not suited. I ended up with a black haired one. Oh, I wouldn't trade him in now, he knows way too good what Jadzia and I like and I wouldn't want to lose that by having to train a new slave, but if it was a job that people could apply for, the chance of there also being a blonde person between them would have been actually bigger with only ten people applying for the job. So, to come down to the point, I don't think that there will be that much objection from the Betazoid faction. Mostly just worries about people that are wondering about the work force they have, and how hard it will be to get new workers later on. Which are things I will have to find exact answers for."
"If you don't mind me asking, how do you make sure that your sex slave loves his job?" Jetur asked.
Deanna lifted an eyebrow and asked amused, "You wouldn't enjoy it if you could have sex with me, or Jadzia?"
Hearing the question, Jetur started to blush a very nice shade of red.
"You walked right in to that one, my beautiful wife," Ro said amused as she put her arm around Jetur and pulled her against her.
"Actually," Deanna relented, "I took a lesson from Torres there. She believes in rewarding slaves if they did something very good. That's what Jadzia and I do with him. He serves us, very, very well, and in return we let him enjoy his services to us, if you know what I mean."
"Yes, I know what you mean. No further explanation needed thank you very much," Jetur said, making the other women laugh.
"Did you know that I actually was a slave once?" Jadzia asked Ro and Jetur, since of course Deanna knew. "Well, I mean, Dax was a slave once."
"No I didn't know that," Jetur said surprised.
"Oh, yes. In fact, Dax is a little more than three hundred years old. Dax was just joined with his first host for a couple of months then the Sol Empire conquered Trill. Dax actually lived through the entire occupation as a slave. In a way Dax was lucky, because Dax was bonded the host of that time wasn't used as a sex slave, but instead was put to work in the archives, where I worked for the entire occupation. Three hosts spent their entire life in the archives because on turn they were joined with me. Now you can probably understand why I have such a hatred for any kind of archiving, and why I like it so much that Deanna here actually loves playing with numbers."
"But if you were a slave yourself, how can you feel comfortable about having slaves yourself now?"
"It's a force of habit really. See, my first slave was given to me right after Trill was freed. Former Sol masters of that time weren't killed or anything, if it could be prevented. No, if killing them could be prevented we kept them alive and then a lottery was held between his or her former slaves as to who would get the former master as a slave. I won. I loved the fact that I could order him around, that now I could beat him just like he had beaten me. When he died four years later, not by my hands I might add, my hatred for the humans and those that helped them were still strong. I still felt that they had to pay for what they did to us.
"For one-hundred-fifty years I had lived in a two room 'home' whenever I was not working, and was told time and again that those were 'privileged' quarters and that the other slaves didn't have such an easy life as me. I hated them; boy did I ever hate them. So, I got myself more slaves, more people I could repay for what they did to us, what was done to me. By that time I had become the Trill Intendant and I had the credits to buy more slaves; I did. For some years my focus was on getting as many slaves as I could, just so that I would now let them live in small rooms. I wanted them to feel what it was like to be a slave. Over the years the hatred became less and they became a workforce. A workforce I was used to having."
"But?" Deanna asked, knowing her friend and lover more than enough to know that there was a 'but.'
"But, those people that are now sold as slaves aren't the ones that beat me with a pain stick because I wasn't learning the archive work fast enough. The people that are now sold as slaves are nothing more than people that have the bad fortune of being born into the wrong species. Be born as a Trill, Bajoran, Betazoid, Klingon, Bolian... any of over a hundred species and you can live your life as you want, as long as you stick to the laws. But be born as a Human, Vulcan, Tellarite, Denobulan, Ktarian, or Gorn, and you will spend your entire life as a slave."
"So you wouldn't mind supporting the deal?" Jetur asked.
"If Torres can prove the benefits to me so that I can prove them to others, no. There are actually still several hundred thousand symbionts alive that have experienced being slaves themselves. While some of them might still hold a grudge, I think that most will agree with me that maybe it really is time to move on. They will remember their own life as a slave, and agree that we shouldn't punish the children of children's children for what grandparents did. That would be a strong voice of support in my corner since the older the symbiont, the more respected it is."
"That makes me curious," Jetur said. "If you don't mind me asking, just how old can a symbiont get?"
"Would you believe me if I told you that I have no idea?" Jadzia asked amused.
"I... would be surprised," Jetur said with a smile.
"Well, it's the truth. I really have no idea. In the entire Trill history, or at least the history I know of, heard of, read, and all that, there isn't a single reported case of a symbiont dying of old age. I can tell you that the oldest recorded symbiont age was nine-hundred-four standard years. See, the thing is, the symbionts are very fragile. If a host dies and the symbiont isn't taken out of the body and placed into a new body in a very short time, the symbiont will die as well. Sooner or later there will come a moment where a host dies in an accident, or is killed, or... a number of ways that a host can die without the symbiont being able to be removed from the dead body within time.
"The only way the time between hosts can be prolonged is if the symbionts are taken out of the dead body and placed in a special liquid that is only found in certain caves on Trill. The chances of getting that liquid in time are actually smaller than finding a new Trill host." Jadzia was quiet for a moment before she added, "In a way I'm actually glad. I have no delusions of 'eternal life' I know that even the lifespan of a symbiont is limited, just that we have no record of what it is. But I have no concept of how 'old' I am. I'm the seventh host to Dax. Will I be the last? Will there actually be a hundred after me? And the best thing is, besides that I still get to live lives from beginning to end. I have had children. I have been a grandmother, and a grandfather. I have been a husband, and a wife. I have been used as a slave, and I have used slaves."
"What about you?" Deanna suddenly asked while looking at Jetur and Ro. "What do you two think about ending slavery?"
"Well, I'm actually for the ending of slavery for two reasons," Jetur said right away. "First, I love the fact that I can make choices in my life. I chose to align myself with Ro after Kira died. Because of that choice I now am at a place where I never thought I could ever be. I'm married to a wonderful wife, and I'm Intendant of the Bajoran sector. I'm free to make choices in my life and live with the results. Slaves don't have choices, save one. They either do or die. I think that everyone should be free to decide what they want to do with their life."
"Then that is the position we will take," Ro said simply.
"Just like that?" Deanna asked surprised.
"Just like that. Adami and I have a deal, if something really doesn't matter to one of us; we take the position of the person that it does matter to. Frankly, the position of the slaves doesn't matter to me because I can see pro's and con's to both sides. To keeping them as slaves, and to freeing them. Since it doesn't matter to me, we take Adami's position of being in favor of freeing the slaves."
"Effective," Deanna said amused before asking Jetur, "You said you had a second reason?"
"I do. In one word; history. Every species I know, all of them, have had a period in their history where there was a faction on their planet that grew out to be so strong that it could dominate the other factions on the planet and used people from those weaker factions as slaves. Empires like that have existed on every single Coalition planet. Where are they now? Every Empire that relied on slaves sooner or later fell."
Jetur gestured to Jadzia with her hand. "Where is the Egenk Empire? It fell over three thousand years ago." A hand gesture to Deanna. "Even you Betazoids had slaves before. Ten thousand years ago the Lonse dynasty fell because the slave system collapsed and the economy with it. Or more recently. The Sol Empire. Powerful, undisputed. Rulers that had the power to conquer whole planets. Where are they now? They fell because they relied on slaves. If we continue to use slaves, I see a time coming where the Coalition will fall and we all will once again be ruled by people that will be in charge until they themselves fall once more."
"How do you know about the Lonse dynasty?" Deanna asked surprised. "Even I had totally forgotten about them. It's, a time of our history that we aren't too proud of and in most learning texts it's reduced to a small footnote, if even that."
"I looked it up. Actually, I was looking up something about the economics of slavery when I saw something called 'the collapse of the soft currency market' and it dealt with how some Empires and governments had fallen because of problems with 'soft currency,' better known as slaves. Things went from there, my research that is."
"She can be 'a bit' focused on research," Ro said amused. "She finds it interesting to see if she can discover more things, like she is solving a puzzle."
"Here is another thing all of those fallen systems had in common," Jetur said, not disputing her wife's words since they were totally true. "A threat came to the system and at the moment the system really needed the slaves the most to do the grunt work, the slaves revolted. Actually giving the system even more trouble; trouble they couldn't deal with because suddenly they had to fight an internal conflict as well as an external.
"If we continue to use slaves and there will ever come a serious threat to the Coalition, you can be damn sure that no matter what the threat is, the slaves will work with it and try to sabotage us. But, if those same people are free people, free people that are working against that threat to protect their homes... the Coalition will stand twice as strong as it does now. If it is an armed conflict, slaves will actually work slower; as slow as they can without being killed. Free people will work harder to protect their homes. Where a group of slaves would be able to build one space ship in a month, the same group, but free, will build two space ships."
"A valid point," Jadzia agreed. "Speaking from my own history, that is exactly what I did. Yeah, I had to work or else get beaten, but if I had actually worked because 'I' wanted to, because 'I' wanted to get the job done, I could have done twice as much as I did."
"What I wonder though," Deanna said thoughtfully, and changing the subject slightly. "Is who Torres got to write that proposal for her. Having so much detail in it, it's just not her. In fact, the whole wording of the thing doesn't sound like her."
"True," Jadzia agreed. "Deanna and I have seen enough proposals from Torres to know her style, and that proposal isn't her style."
"I think it sounds like Seven," Jetur said thoughtfully. "Some of the suggestions she made in the plans we had for Bajor sounded just like that. Don't you agree?" That last was asked while looking at Ro.
"Seven?" Jadzia asked.
"Oh, Sorry. Seven is,"
"Torres' body slave, we know. I just didn't know that you were on a first name basis with Torres' body slave."
Jetur didn't answer but once gain looked back at her wife. Ro, as former captain of the Special Forces, was much better at reading the tone of a casual remark than she was. This was actually something that had surprised Jetur, since she was better at politics, which was full of casual remarks that one shouldn't take so casual. Seeing the slightest of inclination of Ro's head, Jetur knew that her wife was telling her that is was alright to take a chance. Looking back to Jadzia she said, "Actually, we are. We consider her a friend who we, I, owe a debt that I don't think I'll ever be able to repay."
"Really?" Jadzia said while crossing her arms.
For a moment Jetur thought that admitting that Seven was a friend had been a mistake. That was until she was the amused look passing between Jadzia and Deanna.
Deciding to take a little bit of a chance herself, Deanna asked, "Did you know that Jadzia and I were actually guests at the little birthday party of our friend Seven?"
"Really?" Jetur asked, also crossing her arms, but her relief was plain to see.
"Oh yes," Jadzia agreed with her lover. "In fact, I have to admit that we were a little surprised when Torres suddenly contacted us to ask if we were interested in coming to a birthday party. You should have seen the look on Seven's face when she realized that the little get together was actually meant to celebrate her birthday."
Suddenly Deanna laughed and asked, "Remember how Torres..."
Continued...