Chapter 14
"No way," Torres said as she crossed her arms. "It ain't happening."
"I assure you..."
"And I assure you that it ain't happening."
Seven sighed. Her lover could be so stubborn at times. "Very well. Would you be willing to bet on it, like you prefer to say?"
Torres grinned when hearing the words. Oh, this was going to be so easy. She had already won; the blonde just didn't know it yet. "Alright, you're on. What are we betting for?"
"The usual?" Seven suggested.
"You do realize that I've haven't lost a bet yet with you, right?"
"There is always a first time, and I have a feeling that today is the day that I will win a bet with you," Seven replied in total confidence.
"Alright, for the usual. I'm looking forward to a night of pampering and endless sex."
"Unless I win, in which case you will be the one doing the pampering and just maybe I will be nice and make you come once after you have worked me over to the point where all I can still move is my tongue."
"We will see, Blondie," Torres grinned.
"I wish you did not hear the other B'Elanna call me that," Seven said with an annoyed tone, which both of them knew only too well she was playing.
"Why, don't you like it?"
"I do not."
"Good," Torres said firmly. "There should be at least one 'endearment' that you hate to hear but suffer through because you know I like to pester you with it."
"If you say so," Seven merely said. Truth be told, 'Blondie' really wasn't her most favorite endearment, but because it was indeed used as an endearment, she still did like to hear Torres say it. "I believe we should begin, so I may prove you wrong."
"Alright; let's move to me proving you wrong," Torres replied.
Seven merely lifted her eyebrow and turned to the patiently waiting Toby. She picked up the ball laying in front of him and scratched his neck a little while as she threw the ball away. Toby's eyes followed the ball eagerly, but Seven patted his head softly, letting him know that his attention was needed somewhere else. Seven pointed at the two meter high wooden fence standing to one side. "Toby, over. Go."
The Targ reacted immediately and with a running start jumped at the wall and a little awkwardly managed to use his front legs to pull himself over.
"Sit," Seven said as the Targ hit the ground at the other side of the wall. And again Toby reacted; sitting down and looking past the fence at Seven in eager anticipation.
Seven meanwhile turned back and looked at Torres with a clear 'told you' expression on her face. Or at least for Torres it was a clear expression.
"Don't be so damn smug and just say it already," Torres growled.
"I am Borg; I do not believe in saying 'I told you so,'" Seven said as she gave a small smile.
"No, you just believe in having that smug expression and that lifted eyebrow. You don't say," she emphasized the word, "a damn word, but at the same time you are saying 'I told you so, I told you so, na, na, nana, na. I was right, and you were wrong, so there, take that.'"
Seven smiled fully at that. She stepped closer to Torres and molded her body against the Klingon. "I say all of that with just one look?"
"Yet bet your pretty ass you do," Torres said as she closed her arms around the blonde and then gave the 'ass' in question a playful slap. "But that's alright. Because normally you are standing beside me and looking at others like that. You, my pretty pet, give me a class that I will never manage to have by myself."
"You have class," Seven objected. She heard Toby whine, but gave him the hand signal to stay; she still wanted to show Torres something in a moment.
"I don't have class," Torres disagreed. She kissed Seven, and then just because she could, kissed her again before finally continuing. "I have a presence. There's a difference there. Sure, I can walk into a room and just by my presence let people know that their fate just walked into the room. But you, my dear, you have class. You are more sophisticated. You are a dagger, whereas I'm a sword; both get the job done, but the one sure is a lot more messy then the other. You persuade, I bully. You guide, I point. You... have class. I... have presence."
"And a 'fuck with me and die' attitude?"
"And that," Torres grinned.
"Good thing I like that attitude," Seven said, as she placed her own hand on Torres' behind. "Because let me assure you, I may have class, but there is something extremely satisfying about seeing how extremely well you make that attitude work. Now, let me show you a difference 'I' have discovered in our approaches." Seven turned to look at Toby. "What Toby just did, going over the fence that is my way. If there is a problem; a roadblock, I find a way to make it work." Seven took a step away from Torres and called Toby to let him know that a command was following. "Toby, through, go."
Once again the Targ responded, plowing headlong into the fence and using his thick head, body build, and mass, all designed by nature to forge ahead, to do just that. He hit the fence and just kept moving, sending splintered wood flying everywhere.
"Good boy," Seven rewarded, as Toby joined them. Looking back at Torres she said, "The first was my approach, the second was your approach. But did you notice the important part?"
"Enlighten me."
"The important part was, no matter which approach, the end result was the same: Toby ended on the other side of the fence."
"Are you teaching me some life lesson here?" Torres grinned as she started to scratch Toby behind the ears.
"A life lesson? No. I am merely pointing out that we might do things differently, but that does not mean that we are not moving in the same direction. As you said yourself when you talked about a dagger and a sword; both get the job done. Take the things that went differently because of my presence. Take the test you had planned to see if Jetur Adami would chose to side with Ro Laren over her family. My way worked and made her grateful to me. That does not mean however that your way would not have worked."
"It merely means that Jetur and Ro would be pissed at me. You are right. But as I said before, I prefer to have them thankful instead of hating me. But be that as it may. Let me ask you this, how the hell did you get Toby to go over that? It is well known that Targs can't climb. It is an unwritten... actually more than likely also written in some wilderness PADD somewhere... rule that if you are hunted by a Targ, you should climb into a tree because Targs can't climb."
"Then this rule should also state that if you climb, you better climb higher than three meters because a Targ my not be able to climb, but a Targ is able to jump. Toby just jumped; not climbed. There is a difference. So, it seems that I won a bet, and in the process proved you wrong."
"Well, there is a problem there. As we both know; I'm never wrong."
"So what are you going to do to keep this secret from leaking out?" Seven asked as she leaned against Torres once more, very deliberately pushing one of her breasts against Torres' arm.
"There is this famous Klingon saying: if at first you don't succeed... destroy all evidence that you tried. I think this could apply here."
"For it to apply here, you would have to 'destroy' the evidence of you losing the bet," Seven pointed out. "Toby is easy; he cannot talk and give your secret away. I however, could. So, how are you going to destroy the evidence?"
"Um, knife?"
Seven shook her head. "Even though we are on the holodeck, my real blood would requite cleaning. You would have to call for a cleaning slave, which you would then have to kill because the slave saw what they were cleaning, which means that you would need to get a second slave to clean away that mess; too much trouble."
"Right. Disrupter?"
Seven shook her head once more. "You left the disrupter in the quarters and a replicated one doesn't work on living beings."
"Damn. I'm running out of options here." Torres pretended to think deeply for a moment. "Oh, I know. I could always lick you to death. No mess, except for some tasty juices I love to clean up anyway."
Seven brought her hand to one of the buckles that held Torres' Uniform jacket closed and opened it with a playful tug. "Lick me to death you say? Hmm, I think I could 'suffer' through that, but this is not the payment for the bet I won."
"Yeah, yeah, a night full of pampering. Don't worry, I'll give you that, when we both feel like it," Torres assured. But the talk with Seven had put her in the mood for something else right now. She loved how Seven showed absolutely no fear; trusted her completely. The blonde had seen Torres kill people with her bare hands, had seen Torres do things that would make most people vomit, seen Torres sign execution orders for hundreds. Yet, Seven trusted her, rightfully so, so completely that she actually joked with Torres about finding a good way to kill her. Torres never could believe that it was possible to love someone that much, to love someone totally, completely, absolutely... and yet here she was, loving the blonde even more than that. "But now baby, I want something else. Talking about licking you to death had put me in the mood to just eat you, are you in the mood for a long dinner?"
Seven definitely was. This was nothing like the oral sex Torres performed pretty much every time they made love. There would almost always be at least some time that Torres ended up with her mouth between Seven's legs, and some time with Seven's mouth between Torres legs. Both of them loved to give oral pleasure, enjoyed the taste of the other. That was not what Torres was talking about now though. Torres didn't feel like it all of the time, but every few weeks there would come a time where Torres wanted to do nothing more than just lie between Seven's legs and feast.
The last time Torres had stayed right there, doing nothing more then concentrate on Seven's center, it had lasted for almost a full hour. When she felt like this she wasn't even really working to make Seven climax; in fact she had made Seven come 'only' once the last time. No, she simply placed kisses, licks, enjoyed the smell, the taste, and in the meantime talked unimportant nonsense talk with Seven.
"Computer, replicate a bed and add a beach with a slight ocean breeze," Seven said while she playfully tugged the second buckle open. She heard Toby whine when the scenery changed. The Targ didn't like the changing of scenery while he was on the holodeck. Of course, Seven had no illusion and knew only too well that Toby with his keen senses would know that not a single thing on the holodeck except for him, B'Elanna, and Seven were real. However things still moved. The fake animals still ran away and chasing was fun! Yet, he didn't like to see things suddenly disappear and appear around him. This was why he also didn't like the transporters. "I apologize Toby," Seven said sincerely. "I will make it up to you when we are done. The time you lost and an extra hour. But for now, Toby, private time."
Toby sulked away when he heard the command 'private time.' He wanted to play. Yet despite this little show of looking at the two nest mates with sorrowful eyes, he really wasn't too upset. He knew that if 'private time' happened when they had been spending time with him, they always made it up to him with much extra time later on.
Besides, 'private time' really wasn't that bad; it was actually kinda fun. He would sulk away to a corner of the room and just lay there, knowing that by not interrupting 'private time' he could stay in the room. He liked that. It was always fun to watch his nest mates play. He wasn't selfish. He really didn't mind if his nest mates played their funny game by themselves, just as long as they didn't forget to play with him too somewhere during the day. Besides, when his nest mates were playing with each other they always made those funny noises. It made him feel so at home, reminding him of when he was just a little one in the nest with mama, of how his brothers and sisters would play. They would yelp, give fake growls, howl; no, he didn't mind them playing at all. It made them happy, and he liked them happy. So he just lay down and pretended to be totally uninterested in anything. See, there was the first funny noise: a yelp.
***
"Just take him with you," Torres suggested.
"Mistress, I cannot. There is a strict law prohibiting any Targ to be brought onto Bajor. This law was put into place when a parasite that most Targs carry ended up eradicating thirty-three domestic animals on Bajor fifty-one years ago."
"So, Toby has the best vet there is to find in the entire Coalition."
"That is not the point," Seven insisted. "Mistress, considering what you are going to negotiate, considering the fact that you need the Bajoran help, do you really want to sent the signal that you do not even respect one of their simplest rules: 'Do not bring any Targs onto Bajor.'"
Torres had to think about that. If it had been just her, she would simply have done so and dared the Bajorans to say something about it. She sighed. She knew that the blonde was right, at this point she really couldn't afford to piss the Bajorans off over something as simple as whether or not her pet's pet could come along for the visit too. "Fine. We'll just plan the days in such way that we can beam up once during the day to give Toby his exercise, and when we retire to our room at night, we beam onto the ship from there." Torres grinned. "You know, that little change switches things from me getting in their face, to me being so thoughtful about their laws that I try to plan my day to it."
"Indeed," Seven agreed. "Which is why my approach of going 'around the fence' is not as difficult as it seems. The smallest things can make one look considerate and compassionate."
"If you say so. But I still say that you can pull that off better than me. Let's face it, I may be a lot of things but compassionate I am not. But, now it's time to play nice... so lets go play nice with the others," Torres said as she started to walk to the door.
Toby started to follow them but was stopped by Seven's command. "Toby, stay. Guard." Seven kneeled and gave him a good chin scratch before placing a kiss on is head. "I am sorry boy. You cannot come with us. Be a good boy."
Torres patted Toby's head in a goodbye. "We'll be back this afternoon boy."
***
"Damn it all to hell. I'm going to kill the fucking bitches!"
"Mistress, I have a feeling that even you will not be able to get away with killing the Bajoran, Betazoid, and Trill Intendants." Seven paused. "At least not all at once."
"Ooh, we are being funny today," Torres growled.
"And we are being cranky today. Mistress, why are you so upset? We have been in negotiations for three days now and none of them has made a request today that was unreasonable."
Torres sighed frustrated. "I don't know really," She finally admitted. "Maybe," She hesitated for a moment. "Maybe that's exactly the problem. We have been negotiating for three days already, talking about details that I normally never deal with. Normally I just agree, or not, to a deal and have others work out the details. But I can't do that now. This is too important. It's me that has to make the little deals, if for no other reason than the fact that this way I have nobody but myself to blame if I mess something up."
"However, your preferred way of doing business is to say 'take it or leave it,'" Seven said in understanding. "So, what are you going to do about it?"
Torres spread her hands a little in an 'I don't really know gesture.' "Sit back and let you do all the dealing?"
"Mistress?"
"Well, you are making about sixty percent of the deals as it is anyway; you with your 'Mistress, if I may make a suggestion' crap."
"I am merely making suggestions. I am not to blame for the fact that you, and the others, do think that most of my suggestions are a decent middle ground."
"Stop fucking arguing with me," Torres growled.
"My, we really are cranky," Seven said as she stood up and moved closer to the pacing Torres. "Want me to kiss it and make it better?"
Torres pointed her finger at Seven and after a moment she shook it a little. "You drive me fucking wild, you know that?"
"Of course," Seven said as she moved closer yet and placed a kiss on the pointing finger. "You know only too well that I have made it my goal in life to drive you wild at least once every day."
"Come here already," Torres said as she grabbed Seven's arm and pulled her closer. Once the blonde was standing as close as she could and still make it possible for them to look each other in the eyes Torres continued. "Now, why do you always have to interfere with my perfectly good temper tantrums?"
"Because it is fun to see you getting frustrated by the fact that you want to lash out verbally, I am a very convenient target, yet you do not want to lash out at me."
"Glad to see that me being pissed is amusing to you. So, what were you going to kiss and make it all better?" Torres asked.
"Does it matter?" Seven asked amused. "No matter what I kiss, I am certain that it will make you feel better."
"Let's test that," Torres said as she claimed Seven's lips in a sensual kiss. "Hmmm, guess you were right; I do feel better now."
"Do you think the others are being unreasonable?" Seven asked, deciding to get to the point of Torres' anger.
Torres sighed and resumed her pacing, this time at a slow stroll speed. "Realistically? No they aren't. In fact, considering the magnitude of this, considering that this is a deal that can get them in trouble while it is normally damn hard or even almost impossible to get an Intendant in trouble, you can even say that they are surprisingly forthcoming. It's just that," she hesitated, putting her thoughts together, "I don't give a fucking shit about whether or not that tax cut was by two-point-zero-one, or by two-point-zero-two percent."
Suddenly Torres turned to Seven and pointed at her. "And just why the hell did you insist that Risa should become the only place to train certified body servants and that no other 'certification' should be recognized or even allowed in the coalition? That damn point alone has kept us arguing for an extra half hour."
"I," Seven actually had to think a little about that. "Can we sit down again?"
"You go ahead and sit, I need to walk. Do you want a drink? I need one."
"I will," Seven began to say as her direction moved to the replicator.
"No, you just sit, I'll get it. Really Seven, I'm not pissed, anymore. Just annoyed, and that's why I need to walk."
"Very well," Seven agreed as she moved to the chair and sat down. "I think," Seven began, coming back to the question Torres had asked. "I," she hesitated again, trying to find the right words since she was explaining this as much to herself as to her lover. "The problem is that you are talking about things that will free the slaves, true. However, there is nobody there that can speak for them; nobody to simply say 'can this be done that way?' I guess that this is why I do so when there is a point that is very important to the future free slaves."
"But why is the point whether or not the Bajorans can also train body servants so damn important?" Torres asked as she handed Seven the drink that the blonde preferred to drink most of the time.
"Thank you. The problem is not with the Bajorans, as much. The problem is that if there are two places, what is there to stop a third place from being established? What is there to stop, say the Ferengi, from opening a 'school' that turns out thousands of 'qualified' body slaves every day? For the sex industry to survive and be a healthy industry it has to be an industry that people are proud to be a part of. A body servant should not be a glorified whore."
Torres had been looking at the carpet thoughtfully as Seven spoke, but with that last word her eyes snapped up, and she quickly realized that the crude hardness of the word had been chosen very deliberately by Seven.
Seeing Torres' eyes coming up, Seven continued. "A body servant should be a profession to be proud of. If there are three people at a party talking about what their profession is; an Engineer, a scientist, a Risa trained body servant, the body servant position should be so respected that with total respect the other two say, 'really? Wow.' When someone goes to that party the introductions to the host should be, 'thank you for inviting us. May I introduce my husband/wife to you, and this is our Body Servant.' You can only get that level of respect for a profession, which can just as easily turn into a shameful profession, if it has the full support of all factions and if its exclusivity is firmly guarded."
"Alright, I see your point," Torres had to agree. Thinking about it a little longer, she added, "You know, a grading system would help even more."
"Mistress?" Seven queried curiously.
"Well, think about it. If you only have certified, or not, it still doesn't say much about just how good a body servant the person is. Just that he or she can do certain things. But if a grading system was added, then they would leave Risa not just certified, but even classed. Then the job could be come even more exclusive. It would also help with the wages. Let's say that there are," she thought for a moment, "five grades, with five being the highest. If someone manages to work his or her way up; become a wealthy person. When they reach a stage where they have enough credits to afford a body servant they would hire a first grade body servant because that will cost them one hundred credits every month, or whatever a body servant will be making.
"But, lets say that a very rich person wants a new body servant. They can afford to spend more, so they hire the best there is to get. They hire a fifth grade body servant. But the thing is, this body servant has this certificate proving up front just how good of a service they are going to provide. So this freshly Risa trained, fifth grade, body servant that has never worked a day in his or her life can immediately start the negotiations by asking a ten thousand credits a month."
Both of Seven's eyebrows rose at that. "Do you really think that even in the beginning a body servant could ask that much? The average wages for a normal working person is between one and two thousand credits a month. How can a body servant ever ask ten times the average monthly wages, every month? When we were talking with Worf we all agreed that in the beginning the 'wages' for a former slave would more than likely be nothing more than food and a place to sleep. Can asking such high wages even be possible?"
"If you have a grading system that proves how good a body servant is? Sure. Can I use you as an example?"
Seven smiled at that. Liking how Torres had moved from simply using Seven as an example as a slave to first asking her if Seven minded. "Please do."
"Well, you have to remember that wealthy people can afford to spend some credits. If I didn't have you and I decided that I was going to get myself a body servant, well, I would look at the possible candidates and of course, nothing under a fifth grade would do. If you would be between that group of candidates. Baby, just from reading your stats I would be willing to pay twenty thousand per month for you. Even though I know that for that amount of credits I could get a hundred sex servants. Then once your first contract was over and we had to renegotiate a new contract, I would even be willing to pay you a hundred thousand credits a month just to keep your services."
"You would?" Seven asked amazed.
"Sure, no question about it," Torres replied emphatically. "Seven, the hundred thousand credits a month I wouldn't even miss, but you..." She trailed off, letting the words sink in.
"Of course, if you have a grading system you will have to make it possible for a lower grading to get higher; a low grading shouldn't influence their entire life. Maybe the grading can be some test and if a lower grading thinks he or she can do better they can take the test again to see if they actually can."
"A valid point," Seven said in agreement. "The first test that gives them the original grade could be a free part of their education, while any additional test they want to take will be an expensive test they have to save for. That would keep people from applying for the test time and again. If they apply and fail, they would first have to work for some time to save before they can apply again. This would also bring Risa some extra revenue. B'Elanna, may I ask you a question?"
"Oh ho," Torres said, having heard how Seven had suddenly addressed her as B'Elanna. "Go ahead."
"I know this is an unfair question to ask, but I am curious. If you really did have to pay me, just how much would you be willing to pay me?"
Torres snarled at the question. "Not nice, Seven. Not nice."
"Please be assured that there is no ulterior motive. I really am curious," Seven soothed.
"What would I pay you? For the services you now supply? Including actually loving me? Baby, I'd be ready to give you every damn thing I own."
"You mean that," Seven said surprised.
"I would sign it all over to you in a heartbeat," Torres assured. "Come on, Seven. I'm the Klingon Intendant, I get paid a million credits every damn day just because of that. You know I really don't give a damn about the credits I have, which ironically enough makes me more credits than if I did care. Even if I would lose it all, or sign it all over to you, I can simply go on some state visits tour that lasts a month. By the time I'm back I have 'saved' enough credits to buy myself a new mansion, slaves... or servants.... and a business or two just for the fun of it. I don't care about my credits, but I do care about you. So yeah, if that was what it would take, I'd do it."
"I love you, and no, that is not what it takes," Seven assured. "What it takes is for you to come here and kiss me."
Torres did so and soon they were spending a few fun minutes just kissing and touching while Torres was sitting on Seven's lap, in the chair that would never have allowed them to sit besides each other.
"Why did you ask me that, Seven?" Torres finally wondered when they stopped kissing.
Seven actually shrugged. "I really am curious. We both know that what we have, we both want. I know that the emotions, the love, you can not hang a price on that. I also know that because of the love the sex feels better than the same sex act would feel without the love. What I do may feel great to you, but if I was 'just' a slave that same act would feel... boring."
"Somehow I sincerely doubt that. But, if I understand this correctly, you basically asked how much your were 'worth' because you want to know how good you are?" The Klingon asked.
"You know that you were the first person I was every with sexually. All my knowledge came from research," Seven began.
"Did you ever stop to think that maybe that's a good thing?" Torres interrupted. "You never did things in a certain way because you assumed I would like it since previous lovers had. Because you were 'new' you learned on me, and in doing so learned exactly what and how I like it. You really are the best, Seven."
When Seven was about to speak again, Torres continued. "But that still doesn't answer your question, does it? You want the blunt truth. You want to know how good you are separated from how feelings may color it. Alright, I can do that. Pretend that we are negotiating the prolonging of your body servant contract. I say prolonging because I do know how good you are. How much would I be willing to pay you to keep you as my body servant?"
Torres thought about that for a moment, weighing the pro's and cons. "Alright, also keeping in mind that a body servant is more then sex, and that I also appreciate the input as an advisor, and the small things like the damn fact that ever since you help me dress my damn uniform doesn't pinch anymore," She thought about it for a moment longer before finally saying, "Two hundred thousand."
"Really? A month?" Seven asked, strangely satisfied by having a financial number.
"Seven, I was talking per day. Two hundred thousand a day, that's what I would offer you to prolong your contract. And no, I'm not just saying that to make you feel good. That's the brutal truth. Oh, as your lover I would simply beg you to stay, but as your employer, that's what I would be willing to pay. First, let's cover the sex angle. Seven, I don't know how I can convince you about this, but you are incredibly good. For that alone, for the great sex alone, that also is at my beck and call every moment I need it, for that alone I would pay you fifty.
"But you are also a great advisor. For that I would pay you another fifty. Suggestions you gave me for my businesses alone have earned me enough to cover the extra cost of having to pay you for years. You are also great in taking care of other business for me, simply because of those Borg implants you have, that you read all my PADDs and only hand me the ones that really need my attention, again fifty."
"And the other fifty?" Seven wondered.
"Those are simply for your company. As you yourself told my counterpart; you stimulate my mind. Just for your company, for the simple fact that I have someone around me the entire day that I can actually hold an intelligent conversation with instead of having to wonder if they are going to pee themselves, you are worth another fifty. So as I said, I would pay your two hundred a day, but to me you are worth all the billions I have."
"I am still amazed at the large amount though. I know that you can 'miss' two hundred thousand every day because you 'make' five times that amount every day as payment for your job. But there will not be many others that will have the financial means to pay someone seventy-three million credits every standard year, and if they do, they will prefer to spend that amount of credits on something else."
"Oh, I agree, there will not be that many people that will be willing to pay that, but you should also not underestimate the number of people that will. I think, once firmly settled into the new roles, there might actually be several hundred body servants in the Coalition that might actually really make that. Seven, on every Home planet there is normally at least always one person that managed to get to be the wealthiest, and normally there is a 'top' of four or five extremely rich people. There are several thousand billionaires in the Coalition, and on a total guess I would say over five hundred multi-billionaires.
"Once you have reached such a level of wealth, you see 'wealth' differently. Credits become just a number. But someone that makes you feel that you are the most loved person in the universe, that's priceless. You know, and I'm not kidding here, there will probably even be cases where the partner of the rich person insists that they get a body servant and the rich partner pay for it, because they want to have someone that makes them feel that they are more important than the credits the partner is making."
"So, if I understand this correctly, the most important part about a body servant might not even be his or her sexual abilities, but just how good they can pretend?"
"Right," Torres agreed. "If I may use you again?"
"Oh, but mistress, you know you may use me at any time."
"Cute, Seven... but that is actually a great example. I know you love me; I know you would do anything for me. I can simply feel how much you love me. A body servant that would be worth so much that he or she gets paid a five figure amount or more, every day, is someone that would make me feel just like you do. While thinking on the inside, 'bitch, can't you do that yourself instead of bothering me for something as small as that.'
"A 'cheap' body servant will actually more than likely have to perform sexual services a lot more then an 'expensive' body servant. Some body servants might actually never have to do the sex thing and get paid for their other abilities. While yet other body servants will get paid so much because of the simple fact that they really do make love to the employer instead of just have sex. Seven, no kidding here, a body servant that is able to really make love to an employer, that is really able to not have sex, but make love... Yeah, the more I think about it, the more I know for sure that body servant will be the profession where some payment records will be broken within a year. As soon as the first contracts start to end... yeah, expect some records that have never been set by the other normal contract jobs."
"Thank you for that explanation. And thank you very much for telling me honestly what you would pay me. You may find it strange, but knowing what I am worth to you in credits is very important to me. Please believe that I know that you love me, and that because of that I mean everything for you. However, it is satisfying to know how much my services are worth to you, be it the love making, or the other things. For instance, I really appreciate the knowledge that you value my advice just as much as my lovemaking."
"You didn't know that?" Torres asked surprised.
"Did you ever tell me?" Seven asked in her turn, but making sure that the tone didn't sound accusing. "All I could do until now is guess. I did know that you appreciated my advice, and my presence, and the fact that my implants are extremely convenient to you, but I never knew how much."
"Well, if you really want to have numbers, how about this, every quarter year I'll tell you. We do as we just did, pretend that if I had to pay you, how much I would pay you. Just as long as you remember that the package Seven of Nine is totally, absolutely and unconditionally priceless to me."
"I would like that. It would also tell me where I can focus more of my energy to please you more. Because until now all I knew for sure by direct reaction from you that pleased you was making love."
"As long as you don't start putting less energy into that," Torres grinned. "Kahless, I can't tell you how pleased I am to have someone that can keep up with my Klingon urges of making love at least, at the very least, an hour a night, and on top of that sometimes during the day as well."
"You make it sound as if you are the one that always starts our love making," Seven said before playfully nibbling Torres' neck. "May I remind you I am still the one that initiates the most lovemaking with fifty nine percent of the time?"
"Damn it woman, you really keep track of that?"
"Of course; I keep track of a lot of things. You never know when knowing percentages of something can be convenient, like it was now."
Torres just grinned at that for a moment before deciding it was time to go do something with their time away from negotiations. "So, my little blonde vixen, anything you would like to do? We have six more hours until it's a decent time for us to beam back to the ship."
"Are there no more negotiations this afternoon?" Seven asked surprised.
"No. Ro and Jetur had some Bajoran crap commitment they couldn't get out of. Since it was a real commitment and not just something they pretended was important, I suggested to the others that we get together again tomorrow. I think that we can finally wrap things up then."
Seven frowned at that. "And where was I during this conversation?"
"Talking to Martok about that plan of his," Torres replied. "It just happened to come up at that time because Ro and Jetur were informed then of the exact time."
"The Bajoran Intendant did not know the exact time of something that would influence something as important as negotiations with the Klingon Intendant?" Seven asked confused.
Torres lifted both her hands in a 'don't ask me' manner. "It's that Bajoran fate nonsense again. It has something to do with the hatching of the first young of some animal or something. All that was really important was that it was predicted that if they didn't attend, their popularity rating would fall, and if they did attend even though everyone knew that they were in a meeting with three other Intendants, their popularity would climb even a little more. Seeing how their popularity rating is actually real, I saw no reason to make them choose. I can understand how the high popularity rating makes things easier for them. And if things go easy for them, they go easy for me as well because now they appreciate me actually understanding them having to go. See, my pet, I am learning from you. That's another reason why you are worth those fifty as advisor."
"In that case, we could make love now," Seven suggested.
Torres shook her head with a grin. "You just want to work on getting that fifty-nine rating to a sixty. Come on, let's go look at some more Bajoran stuff. Hey, with the Bajoran whatever going on, I bet we can even slip away from those Special Forces that they had following us the last time. After all, they will be needed at that, um, whatever thing."
"I actually prefer it if there is some security following us," Seven pointed out.
"And I told you so many times already, I'm a Klingon; I like to flirt with danger. Besides, I got you."
***
It was quiet; in fact they were the only people there. Which was the exact reason why Torres had opted to go to this normally otherwise crowded location now. She knew that all the Bajorans would be at home or at gathering places following the 'whatever' like Torres kept calling the important Bajoran religious day.
"Great day, isn't it?" Torres asked as she looked up at the cloudless sky. "Come on; let's see what's so famous about the famous ruins of Ganyario."
*
"So, what did you think?" Torres asked. They had walked for over an hour between the old ruins, never seeing a single other person. Only now that they were moving back to the hover car did they see a second hover car parked besides theirs.
"While it was interesting, I believe that these ruins lacked the sphere of history that the colonial ruins had," Seven replied. "With the colonial ruins you had buildings that had been the seat of power, that were destroyed in the rebellion. But these ruins are only important because Ganyario once lived in this city: a person that was forgotten by history until one hundred years ago. There is nothing important about the buildings, merely the fact that an important person once lived in one of those buildings. In fact, even that is only a compromise because the last fifteen years of his life Ganyario lived in a different city. However, since they never were able to find out the name of that other city they simply turned this dilapidated city into 'the ruins of Ganyario' to give them a historical site they do not really have."
"Ouch, my pet, easy on the brutal honesty. Even I feel sorry for the Bajorans now. Of course, all you say is absolutely true, but still."
"That is because I am here with only you. If Bajorans were here I would be talking about the interesting facts that were indicated on those texts beside the buildings. Which were indeed interesting, just totally useless."
"You are here with 'only' me? Should I feel insulted?" Torres asked amused.
Seven was about to answer but then she saw movement at the hover cars and saw how someone was pointing something at them before suddenly all went black.
***
Seven woke up and found she was incapable of moving much. Only the very basics were possible, like opening her eyes, her mouth, letting herself drop onto her back instead of lying on her side and moving her head slightly. With that head movement she was finally able to find Torres laying on Seven's other side.
"Hmm, you are a strong one aren't you?" Someone said and Seven moved her eyes trying to find the owner of the voice. "You should be out of it for at least half an hour more." She saw the Romulan sitting a little further away, clearly making sure to stay out of any reach that a recently sedated person could have.
"No matter," The Romulan continued. "By the time the immobilization has fully worn off I'll be long gone. In case you are wondering, I have removed Intendant Torres' locator beacon and it's about five day's walk in northerly direction. Any sign of sentient life is about just as far away, so the best thing you can do is just sit and wait until the Klingons notice that their Intendant isn't coming back from her day trip and start scanning for her body after finding the locator beacon."
While the Romulan was telling the blonde slave this, giving the perfect impression of the half-ass criminal that was giving away his perfect plan just to show off, in reality he was less then thrilled with the situation. It went against all his training and 'on the job' experience to leave a witness behind. But five million extra credits were hard to pass up, and this blonde slave would be perfect. She would tell her story to the Klingons, but when the Klingons went to the Romulan Intendant he would wave them off because all their evidence was only the word of a slave.
"Just be glad that the job was for the Intendant only." Yet another deliberately placed piece of information. When hearing that, the Klingons would wonder just who had ordered the 'job.' Had it only been someone with a grudge, or had it been someone high up. Like the Romulan Intendant himself for instance. After all, The Klingons would have no idea of just for whom the assassin had been working.
The Romulan checked his time piece and gave a short nod. "It's time. Say goodbye to your mistress, slave. Because she is going to die now."
"You hurt her, I kill you," Seven managed to stammer with much difficulty.
The Romulan chuckled when hearing the words. "Feisty thing aren't you? Must be the reason the Intendant picked you; she's like that, I know," He said, secure in the knowledge that the slave would never be able to recognize him once he had changed his appearances. "You really aren't in a position to threaten me, slave."
"No threat; promise." Seven forced out. Of course, the Romulan had no way of knowing that the blonde slave had implants that had made it possible for her to not only put his fake face to memory, but also his thermal image. No matter how much he changes his face, he would never be able to change his thermal image and therefore Seven would be able to recognize him anywhere, if met face to face. Besides that, she had also committed his voice to memory, down to the last octave, and the chemical composition of his smell.
The only thing Seven couldn't do yet, was physically move to save Torres. To her horror she saw the Romulan take a small weapon that Seven easily recognized as a cellular destabilizor, making it very clear to Seven that this Romulan wasn't the amateur he pretended to be. Kira had been killed with the same kind of weapon and because of the investigation into that death Seven knew that a cellular destabilizor was a weapon favored especially by assassins. It was easy to hide, hard to detect with standard scans, and most importantly, once used any medical help would definitely be too late. Especially that last was an important factor for assassins. With a normal death someone could still be saved, sometimes hours after dying. With a destabilizor this wasn't the case, and assassins really liked for their victims to stay dead.
Without saying another word, the Romulan brought the weapon as close as needed and activated it. For a moment Torres' body was engulfed in a blue light, and then it was over.
Intendant B'Elanna Torres was dead, and not a single medical science in the Coalition could bring her back.
Seven wanted to scream, but all her body could manage was a weak 'nooo.'
As another proof of his being more then he pretended, the Romulan spent a moment to make sure that Torres really was dead, despite the fact that she had to be.
"I, kill you," Seven forced out when she saw the Romulan check Torres' body a final time.
"As nice enough a fantasy to keep you company as any," The Romulan merely said, not at all impressed. Then he turned and walked out of the cave they were in, secure in the knowledge that even Kahless himself couldn't save this Klingon anymore.
**
It took another agonizing slow thirty minutes before Seven started to get some control back over her body. Using all of her power, she managed to pull herself to the lifeless body of Torres. She knew that the situation would be hopeless; that there wouldn't be a single person from of the entire Coalition that could save Torres.
There was just one thing that the Romulan hadn't known: Seven wasn't from the Coalition.
"I am sorry. I hope that you will be able to forgive me, but I cannot let you die. I love you."
With those words, Seven plunged her assimilation tubes into Torres' neck and for the first time since being severed from the collective willingly let her nanoprobes free in someone's body.
The Doctor had used her nanoprobes to save people. For instance, Harry owed his life to them. Yet those had been programmed specifically for the job by the Doctor. These nanoprobes lacked the Doctor's fine programming and instead only had one basic command that Seven had given them; stop and repair the cellular destabilization going on in the body. Seven had no idea what else the nanoprobes would do to the body of the person she loved more then her own life.
***
Torres opened her eyes, only to close them again and open them once more.
"What the fuck?"
She looked around herself, trying to make out forms in the twilight that was suddenly surrounding her. She noticed that she was standing in some kind of mist that came up to her knees. While the area surrounding her had the feel of a cave, she couldn't seen any cave walls, nor a ceiling for that matter. She did however see Klingons, all of them walking in the same direction.
She tried to speak to one of them, but he didn't react. He just kept staring straight in front of him and as soon as she let go of him he started walking again.
Not really knowing what the do, Torres followed the Klingons to see where they were going. Soon she saw a huge gate looming in front of her, and just beyond, through the open doors, she could see a dock; a dock with two distinctively different ships waiting, taking Klingons on board.
Now Torres knew where she was; she was at the docks. She had finally gotten herself killed.
She gasped in realization. "Great, just fucking great."
She knew that one type of ship would sail to Gre'thor, while the other would sail to StoVoKor.
The gate had a certain pull to it, and she couldn't ignore its call. She just had to go there. Soon she was stepping through the gate. She wondered where to go. The others around her seemed to know; some went to the left, some to the right, but for Torres the choice just wasn't clear.
Suddenly she was stopped by someone putting his hand against her chest.
"Torres."
Torres looked up to the Klingon in front of her... and just kept looking up and up. The man had to be at least two and a half meter tall and had a body that clearly existed out of nothing else but strong muscles.
"Kahless," she breathed impressed.
"Hardly," the Klingon snored. "I'm just one of the lesser; doing all the damn footwork while he stands on his pedestal and gets all the credit. I'm the guardian of the docks. Most people have led their life in such a way that they know what way to go: either to the left to the barge of death and on to Gre'thor, or to the right to the barge of honor and on to StoVoKor. But some people, like you, Torres, have lived their life in such a way that they are dancing on the Bat'leth's edge. They have done things to make them go to the left, and they have done things that allow them to go to the right. I'm the person who, in those cases, makes the decision: left, or right."
"So what way should I go?" Torres asked, while her mind traveled to Seven, and the fact that she had died on the person she loved, leaving her behind after only having been with her for such a short time. There was so much more she had wanted to tell the blonde, so much more she had wanted to show her. So much more. But now it was too late, too damn late.
The realization made her sick to the stomach. That she had cheated herself and Seven out of a life together. That, and just what she had done to the blonde. Seven had urged her to take guards along, but Torres had told her that she would be enough protection. Now the blonde would live on knowing that she hadn't been able to save her lover. Nobody deserved to live with that notion, especially not Seven, who had done more than enough, and then some, to keep Torres safe.
"Eager, aren't you?" The Klingon asked. "Did it ever cross your mind that left and right aren't the only options?"
"What do you mean? Everyone knows that once you get here, you go either left or right, there is no other way."
"And they would know this... how?" The Klingon didn't wait for an answer. "Torres. Torres, Torres, Torres." Every time the Klingon said her name, he let the R's role, almost making her name sound like a purr. "That is quite a name you got there... Torres. Feared throughout the Coalition. Torres... just hearing the name alone has made grown men piss their pants. Torres... a name feared even more than Worf's name, for everybody knows that it is you that makes all the decision that can get them killed. Torres... a person not to be trifled with. Torres... You have more blood on your hands than any of the people that went onto the Barge of Death in the last half year... combined. Killing millions for harboring slaves, and yet here you are, in love with a slave.
"Torres... the name alone has decided debates. 'Let's ask Intendant Torres' has concluded many a debate. People don't dare to ask you; afraid that you might just have them all killed just the have the debate over with. Tell me... Torres. What do you think of the fact that the most feared name in all of Coalition space... is really a human name? That one of the most Honored houses in Klingon history carries the name of a slave?"
Torres merely shrugged her shoulders. "As the saying goes; 'Irony is a bitch that likes to laugh her ass off.' I don't care where the name comes from. All I care about is that the name is mine and I carry my name with Honor."
"That you do," The Klingon agreed. "But I still wonder about what your family was thinking when they gave you the name of the slave."
"You'll have to ask them, my guess is that they figured that my mother's name was disgraced by her having a child with a slave. So they gave me the name of the slave, it sounds Klingon enough for nobody to notice that it isn't really a Klingon name."
The Klingon nodded his head in agreement. "Oh, I will ask them alright, once I have them standing in front of me. Now, Torres. You are here too soon, now is not yet the time for you to stand here."
"Then why take me here? As far as I know, you have to be taken to the docks," Torres asked with a slight growl. It annoyed her that the Klingon was making it sound as if it had been her choice to be standing there.
"True," The Klingon agree. "You were taken here because you were critically injured, an injury you would have died of if your Mate hadn't been at your side. In fact; you did die. You weren't just injured; you were killed. She gave you back your life, Torres... and once you are back with her you will be thankful to her for saving your life, despite the way she did it."
"The way she did it?" Torres only repeated.
"You will find out soon enough. Just know that you didn't actively seek this out, and therefore there is no disgrace in accepting it. Now Torres, you are going to bring a lot of changes to the Coalition and I was told to give you a message. You make sure that the Klingons stay the dominate factor in everything. Be it through diplomacy, alliances, or aggression. You can make concessions, but you make sure that the Klingons don't become less powerful as they are now."
"What changes?"
"Torres, I'm not going to draw you up a schematic," The Klingon growled. "Changes, like the ones you have been working on for over a year now. We Klingons are a proud race; having slaves doesn't make you proud, it makes you weak."
"Ah, well, yeah, I think so," Torres agreed.
"Torres, about your Mate,"
"What about her?" Torres asked with a growl, ready to come to Seven's defenses.
The Klingon chuckled for a moment. "Now there's that famous protective streak that has sent more than one person to these docks. I was going to say that she makes a good Mate for you. She would also make a good Klingon warrior."
"For her to be able to be seen as a warrior, she would have to be free, beyond any doubt, and be part of a Klingon house," Torres stated.
"No really?" The Klingon drawled, making clear that this certainly wasn't news to him. "Then I guess you will just have to make sure that she is part of a Klingon house at some time; officially, that is. Which reminds me: that little trick with making her a part of your house, yet not officially, won't work. Really, Torres, what were you thinking? Do you really think that we would accept a bond here that isn't official? What Honor can be found in hiding your Mate? You should be proud of her; not hide her.
"Now, as I said, your time to stand here hasn't come yet, and unless you get yourself killed by your own stupidity, again, it won't come for some years yet. You can forget how you lived your life until now. As I said in the beginning, right now you could go to the left, and to the right. The life you lived until now won't decide if you go left, or right, the next time I see you. It is how you handle the changes you are going to make. Make the changes, but never at the cost of Klingon honor or power."
"And what about Seven? I won't give her up, not even at the cost of Klingon honor."
"Then I guess you have to make sure that she moves to the point where she is no longer 'just' your Mate, but your life partner as well. And if you live a life that allows you to go to the right the next time I see you, you might want to perform the blood oath at some point before that time so that she will be able to find you in StoVoKor."
"Make her into my wife. I could do that if slavery ends. Then she would be a free person and I can marry a free person. But despite what Seven wants, I still haven't given up hope of her actually being the Intendant for the former slaves. If she were to marry me, doesn't that weaken her power? Won't it make people think that she is just a puppet for me?" Torres asked with a worried frown.
"Weaken her power?" The Klingon snorted. "Get real, Torres. Those people will wet themselves in excitement from knowing that their Intendant has such a base of influence with the Klingons. They will know that this influence, and only this influence, will actually keep them free. But you, Torres... People will doubt you. They will start wondering if maybe you lost your edge, taking a human as your Mate. Don't, ever, let them doubt you," He glared as he emphasized every single word. "You will need to be on top of your power until the day you die. You will need that for yourself, and your Mate. If people challenge you, Torres, don't hesitate to send them and who ever is in with them to my docks, not even if the doubter is a member of the high council. Luckily you have found a Mate who understands that you need to do that sometimes, and won't love you any less for it."
"I am lucky to have found Seven," Torres agreed, "not only for that reason but for all that she is."
The Klingon nodded his head slightly in agreement. "And now it is time for you to go back. Your Mate is starting to wonder if she failed in saving you. And remember: be thankful to her for saving you."
"Yes, I remember, be thankful, no matter how she did it. I know, I know. But do you happen to know just how in all levels of condemnation I'll actually get back?"
"Torres, it is not a wise idea to speak about the levels of condemnation here. We actually can send you there to find out just what it is like to spend some time there. As for how you get back, that is very simple." The Klingon suddenly pushed Torres back with so much force that she was lifted off her feet and dropped back into the knee-high mist.
To Torres it felt as if she had been falling through that thin layer of mist for minutes. Finally the mist started to lift and she found herself being cradled in the strong arms of her lover.
"B'Elanna, please come back to me!"
"I'm here love." Was that soft hoarse whisper her own voice? Torres wondered. Damn she suddenly felt weak. "Need to rest."
"NO! No, do not. Stay with me, I can not bear to lose you again."
"Don't worry, love. You saved me. I'm not going to leave you. I was at the dock right now, but they sent me back. All I need is a little sleep. I promise I'll wake up again."
And then everything went black again.
***
"What happened to her?" Martok asked. He was standing beside Seven in the sickbay of the Intendant's ship. He had personally headed the search party when Torres hadn't returned at the scheduled time.
Seven only reluctantly took her eyes off the resting form of Torres and looked to her side. "I told you; she was shot with a cellular destabilizor."
"That I know. But I want to know what happened, who shot her?"
"A Romulan. A Romulan that is going to die." Without saying another word Seven turned around and left sickbay.
Chapter 15
Martok growled in frustration before giving the doctor some last orders and then turning to leave as well.
Meanwhile Seven had reached the turbolift and seconds later the doors opened and she stepped onto the bridge. She didn't care about the stares; she was used to them by now from the times Torres had sent her to the bridge for several different reasons. Seven stepped right up to the captain and addressed him in the normal manner. "Captain Tarch, I bring you an order from the Intendant. The Intendant has told me to tell you to break orbit and start scanning the entire sector for recent ship activity."
"I don't think so," Tarch said with a snare. He had never liked how the blonde slave would come and tell him to do stuff, but he had put up with it because he had known that those orders had come from the Intendant, but now he knew better. "I'm not going to listen to some slave telling me what to do."
"You will not?" Seven asked coldly. "May I remind you that not following the Intendant's orders has the most severe consequences."
"And we both know that this order didn't come from the Intendant. Now, get off my bridge before I throw you off."
While Tarch had said those last words the Turbolift had opened again and Martok had stepped onto the bridge; hearing the last sentence.
"Is there a problem here?" Martok asked as he stepped closer.
"I informed Captain Tarch of an order from the Intendant, and he refuses to follow it," Seven stated simply.
"And we all know that it's crap. The Intendant can't have given that order because we know that she is comatose. I'll be damned before I will follow the order some slave thought up."
"I see. Yes," Tarch heard Martok say, and he straightened up a little. He was glad that the General of the Klingon Security Department seemed to agree with him. Images of a promotion danced in front of his eyes. Maybe he would even get the command over one of the more important Klingon fleets. That was until the rest of Martok's words registered.
"Yes, you are right. Damned you will be. Captain Tarch, you are hereby accused, tried, and convicted of the Capital Crime of not following an Intendant's orders. The date of your execution will be determined by the Intendant at a later date. Martok pointed at two of the other crew members on the bridge. "You and you take this, person, to the brig." The choosing of the two crew members seemed random to the others on the bridge, but it wasn't. Martok had informed Torres years ago that he had two of his operatives working in the senior staff, and Torres had agreed that it wasn't that bad of an idea to have the Security Department keep an eye on the senior crew of the ship that was basically Torres' home. While the screaming, former, captain was dragged into the turbolift, Martok looked around the bridge and asked, "Anyone else have a problem with following the Intendant's orders?"
The others were smart enough to not speak up and instead focus all their attention on their work.
"Good," Martok said before turning to Seven and asking, "And just what were," a pause, "the Intendant's orders?"
"The Intendant has ordered the ship to break orbit and start scanning the sector for any recent ship activity."
Martok looked at the second in command on the bridge. "You are now promoted to Captain, make the Intendant's orders happen."
The second in command nodded her head and took the Captain's chair. "You heard the orders; do it." Then the she hesitantly turned the chair around to face Martok and Seven. "General, ma'am. We are orbiting Bajor, that scan is bound to come up with hundreds, if not thousands or ship's activities. Warp trails only start to disappear after twelve hours, in the last twelve hours so many ships will have flown through this sector that it will be impossible to see a difference unless you wait and see warp trails haven't disappeared yet in twelve hours."
Hearing that the tone of the now Captain Var'Ck was only informative, and not suggesting that the task was not worth trying, Seven nodded her head. "Start scanning and transfer the information to the tactical panel, I will bring the number down to an acceptable choice."
Var'Ck let her eyes drift to Martok for a second because she knew that this command was something none of them could pretend that it came from Torres because the blonde hadn't left the bridge or even pretended to contact sickbay. Seeing the small nod Martok gave, Var'Ck knew that it would be good for her health to simply follow any order the blonde gave. She turned the chair around while shrugging mentally. That was fine with her. She didn't have a problem with following the blonde's orders; it had just landed her a huge promotion.
Meanwhile Seven walked over to the tactical station. "Please move to a different station," Seven asked politely, knowing that despite the urgency of the situation she couldn't just tell people to get lost. Seven looked at the active scan and saw that there were indeed over one thousand warp trails to be seen. Looking over to Martok, she asked, "General could you please come take a look?"
As Martok joined Seven he was confused when he heard the blonde say, "You will be able to see better from this side of the console." Martok was even more confused when he went where Seven and suggested and could actually see less of the screen. Then all became clear to hem when suddenly Seven used her assimilation tubes to access the computer.
"I do see," Martok said. Indeed understanding that the real reason he was standing there was to block the others from being able to see what the blonde was doing. Mere seconds later warp trails started to be removed from the scan. "Process of elimination?" Martok guessed.
"Yes. These warp trails are already showing signs of degradation, they are the easiest to discard." Within a few minutes the 'process of elimination' had slowed down from removing several hundred every minute to removing only a few every minute. Finally, thirty minutes later, only three trails were left. "There were five more trails that could be of interest, and it would be wise to have ships intercept them just to be sure, but these three stand out because they are created at exactly the same time, my guess is down to the last second."
"Like someone had three ships waiting and sent them off at the same time so that the first people that could respond, us, can only follow one ship." Martok said in understanding. "Guess he made a big mistake then. There might be a Bajoran holiday going on, but they still have ships in space ready to go."
"I do not think this was a mistake from him. His mistake was to underestimate me. He does not have to worry about the Bajoran ships because the Bajorans might have good strong multipurpose warships; the downside of those ships is that they are the slowest of all the factions. I am certain that all three ships are of a type that can easily outrun the Bajoran war ships. The only ship he really has to worry about is this ship because it is the fastest ship in Coalition space, with the exception of Voyager now."
"But your friends are too far way to be any help in getting this guy," Martok added, knowing that it would take Voyager over three days to get to their location from their current location. "Which leaves us with the choice of which ship to follow." Martok thought about that for a moment while pulling his beard thoughtfully. "You know, it's the most obvious choice, but I would pick the one that is clearly running directly for Romulan space. Sure, it's so obvious that you are almost certain that it can't be him, that he is smarter than that, but since those other two ships are actually moving further into Bajoran space I would say that we can leave those to the Bajorans to hunt down. Those ships might be faster than the Bajoran's, but since they are moving into Bajoran space, the Bajorans can call in ships from different directions and surround the two ships."
"I agree," Seven said. "Especially since I have a feeling that he did not realize that we would find the trails of those three ships so quickly. As Captain Var'Ck pointed out some time ago, normally the only way we could have found those tree trails would have been to wait for twelve hours and see which trails would still be active then. That would have meant that he would have gotten an extra twelve hours head start. Even with the speed of this ship it would not have been possible to catch up with him them before he was deep inside Romulan territory and probably already on one of the planets."
"I have a feeling that it will be hard to catch up with him before he enters Romulan space as it is," Martok pointed out. "That is one of downsides to Bajor being so close to Coalition center. You can be in Cardassian, Romulan, Klingon, Betazoid, and Trill territory in only hours directly from Bajoran space."
"Indeed." Seven agreed before looking at the Captain and asking, "Could you please set a course that follows the indicated warp trail? Maximal pursuit speed."
"Yes ma'am. Helm, lay in a course."
Seven couldn't help but smile at the ease with which Captain Var'Ck was following her orders. Sure, the woman would be stupid not to do so; especially after seeing what happened to the last Captain. Captain Var'Ck was a Klingon woman however, and Seven was after all still 'only' a slave. It would have been acceptable if Var'Ck would sneer at the commands, or carry them out without first acknowledging receiving them. Yet here she was, addressing Seven with ma'am. Turning back to Martok, Seven continued their conversation.
"If we have to enter Romulan space, we will. It is not as if the Klingons have ever needed to ask permission to enter Romulan space before."
"True," Martok agreed. "Sometimes it's really convenient to be part of the dominant faction of the Coalition. I kinda like being the biggest Targ on the block and having the others come ask me if they may pass through my territory while I can just walk around anywhere."
Hearing Martok talk about Targs reminded Seven that there was one waiting in their quarters. "General Martok, would you accompany me while I retrieve Toby? He has been waiting for me and my mistress for hours now."
"Sure," Martok agreed, knowing that because of the dampening field around Torres' quarters beaming the Targ to the bridge wouldn't work. Besides, it would give him and Seven a chance to talk without the others hearing them.
Once in the turbolift, Seven continued. "No matter what the political cost, we will capture this man. I promised him that I would kill him if he hurt my mistress, and I fully intend to keep that promise. Beside that, my mistress would never forgive me, nor you, if we were to let the man that killed her escape."
"True," Martok could only agree. "I think it will be a good idea to have a show of force to back up our word though. I already ordered Gowron and his fleet back to Bajor as soon as Torres went missing, he will arrive in one day. After that he will have to catch up to where we are at that time."
"You will need more," Seven said.
"What?"
"You will need more ships. I would say that you need every ship that will be able to reach the Romulan border within two weeks time. And ships that cannot make it in that time still will have to be moved closer to take over the guard duties of the ships that moved to the boarder."
"My rough guess is that we are talking about five hundred ships or so. That's enough for a first wave of a war."
"They will not be needed for a war," Seven said as the doors of the turbolift opened and they stepped into the corridor. "The man that killed my mistress was a hired assassin, I am sure. This means that my mistress will order retribution measures as soon as she is able. Not because she personally was killed, but because the Klingon Intendant was killed. She will hold a personal grudge against the man that killed her, but for killing the Klingon Intendant, she will make the Romulans hurt." Seven closed her eyes before adding what she knew was true. "I am certain that the order my mistress will give as a retaliation will go down in history as the biggest peacetime slaughter in the history of the Coalition."
"And considering that it will be a retaliation for the killing of an Intendant, the others will not interfere," Martok added. With the evolution of medical science the debate of whether someone that was brought back to life had actually been killed or merely wounded had been settled decades ago. Because of that there wouldn't be a single person in the Coalition that would find it strange to have Intendant Torres leading the Klingon retaliation for killing Intendant Torres. Depending on where they lived they might be scared shitless, but they wouldn't find it strange. "I'll give the order as soon as we are back on the bridge."
They reached the quarters and Martok was smart enough to enter a step behind Seven. Even though he had been introduced as 'friend' to Toby and didn't worry about the Targ when he was visiting in Torres' quarters, he was smart enough not to walk into the quarters before Seven or Torres when Toby was still obeying the guard command. Martok stood back and looked at how Seven was greeting Toby, and here he could see how distressed the blonde really was. While she had been acting cool and remote, to the point that one had to wonder if she actually felt worried about Torres, now she was kneeling on the floor and hugging the Targ for dear life. Finally the blonde stood up and Martok pretended not to see her wiping away some tears.
"I want to thank you for your support. I do realize that I overstepped my boundaries today by giving orders which were impossible to pretend that they were coming from my mistress. It was however of paramount important to be as fast as possible."
"I didn't see any reason to step in; I know that it's indeed what Torres would have ordered."
"Do you want to take command of the situation from now on?" Seven asked before looking down at Toby and commanding, "Toby, heel." Letting the Targ know that it was alright to start following her around again.
Martok thought about that for a moment before shaking his head thoughtfully. "No. I will stay at your side to make it clear that you do indeed have full support, and when I have time I will give Worf ongoing reports on the situation, but... One of the reasons why Torres and I get along so well is because we both know that we are good at our job, but would stink at doing the job of the other. You have more insight into Torres' way of thinking than I will ever manage, and you will know what Torres would like to have done. I," Martok stopped talking for a moment while thinking of how to word what he wanted to say. "Nowadays I can normally understand the orders Torres gives, and see the reason, but I still would never have given them."
"Very well, in that case, would you please join me at the view screen?" Seven asked as she walked to the screen Torres normally used in her communications. "Some communications have to be made."
"Sure, but before you do," Martok said, following Seven. "About that... stuff. Do you think it will, well, grow more?"
"I am cautiously optimistic," Seven said slowly. "Assimilation is normally an ongoing process. Seeing that the 'grow' of 'that stuff,' as you call the process, has stopped I do believe what we have now is what the end result will be. Once my mistress wakes up she will be fully healthy again and her normal self, with luckily no external changes to be seen."
"And internally? Or in total, what kind of changes will there be?" Martok asked. "Worf will want to know, and I'm not pretending that he is the only one. I want to know as well."
"Again luckily, only three implants formed. The first is only a basic one time, but permanent, change; the thin metal lair covering her skeleton. This will make it a lot harder for any of her bones to break, but will also mean that for the rest of her life she, just like I, will set off any basic detector we pass through. But seeing that I have not yet seen a person dare to ask if my mistress would like to remove any metal objects and walk through the scanner again, I do not think that this is of any significance.
"The other two implants are more advanced, but are fully automated, and will only need slight monitoring during my mistress' yearly medical exam. One of the implants makes sure that the hormones that my mistress' body produces like adrenalin and testosterone are used more effectively. Because of this she will be approximately fifteen percent stronger, have approximately ten percent faster reflexes, her endurance and stamina will increase by approximately twenty percent, and her need for rest, sleep, will decrease also by approximately twenty percent."
"So in other words, she will be stronger, faster, more active, and need less sleep; kinda like you," Martok surmised.
"Yes."
Martok snorted at the idea despite the situation. "I almost feel sorry for you. You do realize, of course, whom she will turn to in order to work off that extra energy, and since she doesn't need that much sleep anyway..."
"That is something I do not worry about. As you said yourself: 'kinda like me.' Now we will be more matched in that area, instead the sixty/forty we now have."
Martok shook his head with a grin before getting serious and sighing. "I have to tell you, it's good to hear talk like that. I'm worried sick for that damn woman; it's good to pretend that all is going to be fine once she wakes up."
"You do not have to be worried; things will indeed be fine, as soon as my mistress wakes up. And once she had awoken I will personally kill her for being too damn stubborn for her own good."
Martok laughed. "Oh, she will love hearing her own words being used like that. Unfortunately you will have to stand in line; I'll kill her first for not listening to me."
"We could kill her at the same time," Seven offered with a smile.
"Deal," Martok grinned before getting serious again and asking, "Alright, now, tell me about the third implant."
"The third implant, the second advanced implant, controls and creates the nanoprobes. Removing this implant is too dangerous so my mistress will have to live with nanoprobes in her body for the rest of her life. Luckily, as I said before, this implant is automated and does not need continuous monitoring or conscious regulation."
"You told me about those nanoprobes of yours, but I never asked in detail because I considered them part of your body. I still do, but now I have to ask because I know for a fact that Worf will want to know how this affects Torres."
"Not in a negative way, I assure you. The nanoprobes normally have two functions. The second function is that they can be reprogrammed to assimilate a body and turn that person into a drone. Since my mistress does not have the implant that is needed to reprogram nanoprobes, her nanoprobes will never be able to assimilate anything; not even by accident. The primary function of the nanoprobes is to maintain the body. They will heal damage, fight foreign bodies. The result of this will be that just like with me, her bruises will heal in a couple of hours. Small cuts will be healed in a day. When my mistress broke her leg, if the bone had been set and no further medical attention was given, her leg would have been healed in less then a week. She is now also, after me, only the second person in the Coalition that is immune to cellular destabilization attacks. Also, viral diseases will have no affect on her because the nanoprobes will attack and kill the virus long before it can multiply."
"Hmm, about the hormones. Hormones can change people, their looks, their moods. Won't that happen to her since her hormones are regulated?"
"It will not," Seven assured. "The hormones are managed better, but the hormone levels are not changed in the overall picture. A spike of hormones might be needed and produced, but to balance this out the level will afterwards be slightly lower until the hormone level is as it should be. She will be, and will continue to be, physically and emotionally the same person that we know."
"Hmm," Martok said again. "So basically, with those three implants she had become a better, tougher, and more resilient fighter. No wonder she wants to keep the exact extents of your abilities a secret that she only shares with a select few. We Klingons, except for a few individuals, we wouldn't willingly search such changes out because it would be an unfair advantage. There is no honor in cheating. But others... the Ferengi for instance, wouldn't hesitate to use them to create some super army."
"If they were to do so, I would be more than happy to introduce them to some of the means the Borg have thought up to keep their technology from being used against them. Either way, that is theoretical talk that is of no importance now. You," Seven hesitated for a moment, fearing the answer to her question, yet know that it needed to be asked. "You said that Klingons would not search out these changes. Do you think my mistress will hate me for doing this to her?"
"Hate you? I don't think so. In fact, I know she wouldn't. Torres will understand that you saved her life in the only way you could, and she will be thankful for it. Will she resent having to live with the implants? I can't tell you. She didn't search this out. While there is no honor in searching out such unfair advantage, there is also no dishonor in accepting something done to you and dealing with it the best you can. So I really can't tell you which one she will choose. However, I can tell you that she won't love you any less for it."
"Thank you," Seven said, knowing how Klingons disliked saying the word 'love.' "I will see how my mistress feels once she wakes up, but now it is time to contact some Intendants. Computer, request a link with the Bajoran Intendant palace, priority Torres one."
"Link is being established."
**
"I'm glad that you don't hold this against us," Jetur said. "We feel bad enough as it is that Torres was attacked on our planet. We are still wondering,"
"You can stop wondering," Seven assured. "You supplied all the security you could. In fact, if had you supplied any more security you would have gone against Coalition law. My mistress quoted Coalition Intendant Law Twelve several times to me because she likes the freedom it gives the Klingon Intendant over other Intendants. 'While visiting, the Klingon Intendant may be observed by local security, but at no time may this security be of such level that it can be considered obtrusive. The security of the Klingon Intendant is, and will always be, organized by they Klingon faction itself.' Unfortunately my mistress has a tendency to use that rule to not bother with security instead of how it was supposed to be used; to make sure that the security could be completely trusted."
"Well, in that case, let me assure you that we will offer any support we can. Our ships are already closing in on the two ships you indicated, and those other five ships which you thought that they needed some closer attention are also being targeted. Two have already been stopped and while a preliminary search didn't reveal anything out of the ordinary, the occupants of the ships have been arrested and held until all of this is cleared up. Laren herself is at this very moment leading the investigation on scene. Seven, Laren told me that there are traces of a cellular destabilizor being used. Seven, Torres is she..."
"She is resting, but let me assure you that she will make a full recovery." Seven was quiet for a moment wondering just how much she would tell, but then she remembered the promise she had made herself that she would trust her friends, and also the fact that Jetur and Ro knew more about Seven than most anyway. "Please, for the sake of the investigation, do not share this information with anyone but Laren. A cellular destabilizor was indeed used, and my mistress did indeed die. Luckily some of my... unique abilities, of which you know a few, made it possible for me save her. I assure you, when she wakes up she will be fine." Seven decided not to add that there would be some changes that one couldn't see. Not because she didn't trust her friends with the knowledge, but simply because this was private information about Torres' body and only Torres could decide who she was going to tell such private things about her.
"Prophets, she was killed? This won't be... um,"
"It will not be pretty," Seven said in gross understatement. "There are some unbeneficial combining factors. Not only was an Intendant killed, it was the Klingon Intendant that was killed. For that fact alone there will be severe consequences. On top of that, it is the second Intendant that is killed in a less than a year. My mistress will order actions as retaliation the likes of which have never been seen in Coalition history. She will make is absolutely clear that killing an Intendant is the most stupid thing anyone can do."
"We're talking millions here, aren't we?"
"Double digits, if not even triple," Seven agreed.
"Laren will take this hard. The first Intendant killed, Kira. Laren,"
"Kira was killed by Delik Jetir," Seven interrupted, reminding Jetur of the official line. "If Laren has a problem with," a pause, "how helpful she was to the Klingons during that investigation, just remind her of the plans Kira had for Bajor. Laren's," another pause, "help in that investigation prevented either a civil war, or the killing of as much people as needed for Kira to keep her iron grip on Bajor. This will be a hard lesson for her to learn, it was a hard lesson for me to learn as well, but for an Intendant, be it Klingon, or Bajoran, deaths are nothing but a number. Laren can be assured of the fact that if she had not helped in the investigation in her specific way, the number of deaths could have been even higher, and literally right on your doorstep instead of in the Romulan sector."
"Today is not a fun day to be Intendant, let me tell you that," Jetur said with a look on her face as if she had just eaten something extremely sour. "But, as such Intendant, let me inform you of what has been going on here since this happened. Deanna, Jadzia, Laren and I agreed that with this on her mind, the last thing Torres needed was to think of the negotiations here. We talked it trough and we agreed that we can live with the last offer she made us before... Anyway, just let her know that she and we are in an agreement with the negotiations. We don't know if her plan can still work with the Romulan trouble that's brewing, but we will see. Also let her know that we agreed that we, and our factions, will fully support any and all retaliatory actions taken."
"My mistress will be glad to hear this. As for the retaliatory actions affecting the negotiations, maybe there is actually a way to use this in a positive way. That is also something you can point out to Laren. If she had not done what she has, there would have most certainly millions of Bajorans been killed. Now, things might not turn out as grim as they look right now."
"What do you mean?" Jetur wondered.
"It is still too early to talk about; more so because I have not yet been able to discuss this with my mistress. You will find out more soon, I am certain. As for now, please thank the others for their support."
"I will. Good luck Seven, and my most sincere well wishes to Torres. I'm not just saying that because she is the Klingon Intendant, I really do mean that. She may be a hard bitch, but she is a great person."
Seven gave Jetur a full smile when hearing those words. "Thank you. I will give my mistress your well wishes, with those exact words."
Jetur cringed at that. "Um, could you change the 'hard bitch' for 'tough person' or something?"
"I will see," Then the smile faded. "Thank you for your concern; you are a good friend to me, and a good friend to my mistress. Seven out."
As the screen went blank Martok asked immediately, "What was that about this possibly being used positively?"
"I am merely going over possible outcomes in my head, and depending how just how involved the higher levels of power are, if they are, and how forthcoming the Romulan Intendant is... yes, this can be used positively."
"Care to fill me in?"
"Martok, did you ever wonder why my mistress loves to use chess as an example in conversations, but only plays it with me when she and I are alone?"
"Um, no?" Martok asked confused about the sudden change in subject.
"Because she can never win. Even with the first move she makes, I have all possible counter moves thought out, and the counter moves to the counter moves, and the counter moves to those. At the moment I have contemplated 649 possible outcomes to this situation. 541 of which will end in different amounts of genocide, 108 result in a more favorable outcome. Do you want to hear all possible outcomes? Listed by probability of happening, or listed by most favorable outcome?"
"Forget I asked," Martok said, only to ask a moment later, "How can Torres be around you for more than a day and not go insane?"
"We have had our share of, altercations," Seven assured. "However, I have long since learned to discard any options of which I know my mistress will never agree. For instance, of those 649 possible outcomes, I would only have mentioned three to my mistress, but I can not do that for you because I do not, yet, know which outcomes you would find irrelevant."
Martok nodded his head and was about to say something when they were contacted. "Var'Ck to Intendant Torres' quarters."
Seven lifted an eyebrow at the address. "She knows how to choose her words wisely. Not contacting you, since you have clearly stepped back for the moment, and not contacting me because she does not know how to address me."
"I have been keeping my eye on her for some time," Martok agreed. "In a positive way, I assure you. I have a feeling she will do well as captain of Torres' ship, and won't let it go to her head as that moron did."
"Something to discuss at another time," Seven said, wanting to hear more about the woman. "For now; computer open channel. This is Intendant Torres' body slave. How can I help you?"
"Ma'am, I just wanted to inform you that at the present speed we will be entering Romulan space in one hour, and taking the time of the attack on the Intendant into account, the speed of other fast ships compared to ours, my guess would be that we won't be able to catch up with the ship in less than three or four hours. We'll be well inside Romulan territory by then."
"Understood. Keep going and enter Romulan space. Captain, I am not exactly familiar with the locations of stellar bodies in this part of space. Is there a place that the ship would be able to land before we can catch up?"
"No. The nearest planet will still be four hours after we will be able to catch up. There is, of course, always the possibility that there is a ship waiting for him and he will do a split again, forcing us to choose."
"I doubt it," Seven stated confidently. "In orbit over Bajor, yes. But I am certain that he was a paid individual. Having more ships waiting at places where he might never go to if he might need to change course for whatever reason would be a waste of good credits."
"Alright, we'll keep following. I'll report again when we reach the border."
"Captain," Martok spoke up suddenly. "To simplify communications, you can hail and address Torres' body slave as Seven from now on."
"Yes General. I will do so in the future. Var'Ck out."
"Thank you," Seven said to Martok before looking back that the view screen. "Now it is time to contact a different Intendant. Computer, contact Romulan Intendant Shinze. Authorization, Torres one."
Minutes later they were looking at the frowning face of Intendant Shinze.
"Intendant Shinze, we have a serious matter to discuss," Seven said, only to be interrupted by Shinze.
"Martok, why is this slave talking to me?"
"That slave is Torres' body slave and she is following Torres' orders. So I would suggest that quickly forget the small fact that she is a human."
"She can't be following Torres' orders since Torres is dead, so what's going on here?"
Seven was about to speak up and assure Shinze that Torres was still alive but Martok lifted his hand to stop her from speaking. "One moment, I want to know something first. Shinze, how do you know that Torres was killed?"
Shinze bristled at the fact that Martok was addressing him without using his title of Intendant, but he was smart enough to see it for what it was; a warning. Just because the Klingon Intendant was dead, didn't mean that there wasn't anyone that could give orders that could literally cost Shinze his life. "One of my spies informed me. You really don't think that it would take more than minutes, hours at most, before the other Intendants would find out that another Intendant is killed?"
"Under normal conditions you would be right," Martok agreed. "But these aren't normal conditions. The thing is, Torres was killed, that is correct, but by the time she was found she had already been brought back to life. Even the people that found her don't know that she had been killed, and I know that for a fact because I was heading up the search party. Even the Bajoran Intendant was informed only minutes ago of the fact that Torres had actually been dead for a moment. So, that means that there are only three people that know that Torres had been killed; Torres, her slave here, and the assassin. Tell me Shinze, how can you know things that are impossible for you to know? Did you by any chance hold a grudge against Torres that we don't know about and hired an assassin to kill her so that it couldn't be traced back to you? If that's the case, let me assure you, you did a lousy job."
"That's preposterous. I told you, one of my spies informed me; contacted me thirty minutes ago. Maybe that slave told someone. Who knows, maybe she actually killed Torres to begin with."
"Quite to the contrary," Seven spoke up. "I was actually the one that managed to bring my mistress back to life. Do you really believe that I would be so stupid to do that when I was the one to kill her in the first place? More so since my mistress is about to wake from her rest any minute now and can actually tell people her version of what happened."
"So that brings us back to the point," Martok took over again. "How exactly does one of your spies know Torres was killed when it's impossible for anyone to know that?"
"I have no idea," Shinze was forced to admit. "But I will find out as soon as he arrives."
"Oh, you mean he isn't actually on Romulus?"
"Of course not. He is one of my spies, I told you that, on of the official ones that is. He actually works in the Klingon Main Communication Center."
"You have three spies working there, that we know of. Two of which are women. So that only leaves one 'he' and I now know who it is. I want a word with him. Have him arrested, or hold him, or however you want to bring it. Just don't let him slip away."
"I find that rather strange," Seven spoke up.
"What?" Martok asked.
"General Martok, I have no idea how advanced the training of 'official' Romulan spies are, but I sincerely doubt that they would let amateurs working in the Klingon Main Communication Center."
"Of course not," Shinze spoke up. "We have our best 'official' spies working there. Any more qualified and they would be doing covert missions."
"So we are talking about a highly trained individual," Seven continued. "About a man that must have followed my mistress around waiting for a good opportunity, yet he was never discovered. All his actions at the scene of the crime spoke of a professional assassin, not just a 'mere' spy. As I told you, General Martok, I strongly believe that he had changed his face so to not be recognized. He had three ships waiting above Bajor," Seven was quiet for a moment to give her next words more meaning. "And now all of a sudden he so openly tells Intendant Shinze information that will link the assassination to the Romulans."
"To the Romulan Intendant even," Martok agreed. "You are right, that does seem surprisingly sloppy. Even a moron would realize that if he told Shinze that Torres is dead, that Shinze would talk about it and make us wonder how he can know."
"You don't really think I would do something as stupid like ordering Torres killed, do you?" Shinze spoke up. "You Klingons are troublesome enough to deal with as it is, at least with Torres I know how to deal with her. Who knows what kind of Intendant a new Klingon Intendant would be."
"A valid point," Seven agreed. "Yet the fact remains that my mistress, the Klingon Intendant, would have been killed with all evidence pointing to you. In fact, had we spoken to you at a later time, at a time that was to be expected if we first had to wait the twelve hours to see what warp traces would still be visible after that time, then all you could have said in your defense would have been 'nonsense.' After all, there would have been nothing strange about a spy letting you know that my mistress died."
"Just that she didn't actually stay dead, and that we made some good time," Martok added. "Feel lucky, Shinze. I sincerely doubt that you are really connected to this. But had we been forced to stick to the time plan that this assassin set up, I would have been sure that you were involved."
"Hmm, well, yes. I'm glad that this little misunderstanding has been cleared up. Rest assured we will capture this individual and hand him over to you."
"We will continue our pursuit and do the capturing ourselves," Seven stated confidently. "We will be entering Romulan space soon. I would strongly suggest that you keep any and all ships far away from the ship we are following. We do not want it to look as if you are helping someone by pretending to capture him, now do we?"
"I won't be told by a sl,"
"Shinze, don't forget just who's slave this is," Martok reminded. "Torres is still alive, and I have the utmost confidence in the fact that anything this slave does, is exactly what Torres would order. If I were you I would start worrying about what else Intendant Torres will order as soon as she wakes up. Whether you were involved or not, at the moment it seems that a Romulan spy, someone that the Romulan government trained, actually killed the Klingon Intendant. If I were you, I would start wondering about just what kind of retaliation measures Torres will order."
Both of them could actually see Shinze try to swallow when the words truly registered. "I will set a course now to meet up. Maybe it's best if Torres and I speak face to face."
"You do whatever you think is best, just stay away from that ship," Seven said before cutting the channel. She looked at Martok and raised an eyebrow. "Do you think that that last was a little 'too much?'"
Martok shrugged his shoulders at the question. "He knows damn well that Torres will come down on him a lot harder. The best he can hope for now is to seem as cooperative as possible. Like his comment about meeting Torres face to face. Depending on where he is it may take him days or weeks to get to where we will be. I don't think Torres will wait so long to speak to him. And if he really is close enough for a face to face, it won't make any difference and he knows it, but it sure looks cooperative."
"It is interesting, and frightening, to see how this is playing out," Seven said thoughtfully.
"You mean the retaliations for killing Torres?"
"No. That is... actually, that too. Let me come back to that in a moment. What I meant was that my mistress never took security too seriously because she believed that everyone knew that they had nothing to gain, only to lose, by killing the Klingon Intendant. She apparently never thought of the fact that her death could be pawn in a bigger game. The assassin made the mistake of letting me live, apparently believing that I was a perfect witness. He did not know that I had abilities to do something that is for the knowledge of everyone in the Coalition impossible: save my mistress despite how he killed her.
"However, let us assume for a moment that we did not have my abilities. My mistress would be dead, killed by a Romulan. We would have had to wait until we knew which warp trail to follow. By that time he would be long gone, and the Romulans would know about my mistress' death because one of their spies had done an excellent job of retrieving hard to find info. It would never have been noticed that he had this info at a moment that he could not have had it if he had not done the killing himself."
"You are right," Martok agreed. "If it wasn't for you, this would have been the perfect plan. Torres dead, the Romulans blamed for it, and he would actually be hailed at excelling at this job, probably being rewarded by his government."
"Which brings us back to the retaliatory actions. He must know that such actions would come; otherwise why leave me alive to tell somebody that a Romulan has killed the Intendant? Surely as Romulan spy he must at least care some about the Romulan faction. Why kill Torres, knowing that thousands, if not millions of Romulans will be killed for it? While I can believe that someone would underestimate the results and not think of numbers into eight digits or even nine digits, even the most naïve person must have thought about several hundred thousand. Why do that?"
"We will find out when we get him, but you would be surprised how many people there are that couldn't care less about how many will be killed, as long as they profit from it," Martok answered. "That's the difference between heartless and ruthless. Torres is ruthless. She has ordered millions killed, but she did so because she truly believed that it would make the Coalition stronger. That's ruthless. But people like that guy, they are heartless. All they care about is themselves, and you can accuse Torres of a lot of things, but not of only caring about herself."
"True. And talking about my mistress, while we are waiting to catch up to that ship I want to be with my mistress. Do you want to join me?"
"You go right ahead. I'll come by later. Right now I think it's a good time to go to order some ships around and also contact Worf."
"Very well. Please feel free to use this view screen; I will be taking Toby with me."
"You mean I won't have to worry about being used as a chew toy?" Martok asked amused. "Alright, I might as well."
***
"How is she?" Seven asked as she looked down at Torres.
"Good," The doctor assured. He looked at the Targ that was with the blonde for a moment but decided that it was smarter not to point out that animals really didn't belong in sickbay. "I can wake her up now. In fact, I was about to call you so that you could take a look at the readings of the implants. I learned a lot from you, and from the information your previous doctor gave me, but I don't know if the Intendant's readings should be the same as yours, which they aren't."
"They should not," Seven said as she took the PADD the doctor handed her. "The hormone levels and nanoprobes activity will be on a level that is best suited for my mistress' specific body. They should however be between certain limits." Seven added some information to the PADD and handed it back. "These readouts are acceptable. I have added the limits to the PADD. As long as the levels are between those they are acceptable."
The doctor nodded his understanding and after putting the PADD safely away so that he could add the information to the Intendant's file at a later point. He injected Torres with a substance that would wake her up. Having been Torres' personal doctor for two years now, he was totally surprised to see how quickly the eyes opened and Torres became aware of her surroundings. Clearly the implants were making a difference already.
Torres looked around her for a moment and once she had figured out where she was, she put her legs over the side of the bio-bed to sit up straight and merely asked, "Status?"
Seven couldn't help but smile. That one worded question was worth more than a thousand 'I'm fine's. This was Intendant Torres speaking; her B'Elanna.
"I'll go work on some reports," The doctor said while making himself scarce.
Toby put his front paws on the bio-bed beside Torres bringing his head to the perfect height for a chin scratch, which Torres promptly supplied.
"You were killed by a Romulan," Seven started to explain. "Our working theory at the moment is that he is an assassin. The more delicate part is that he is one of the 'known' Romulan spies that work in the Klingon Main Communication Center. My personal guess is that he has a side business of selling information. After all, it is only a small step from selling information to also taking credits for removing someone if the information is not to they buyer's liking. At the moment we are following what we assume is his ship and we will enter Romulan space long before catching up with him. Klingon ships are being ordered closer to the Romulan border as we speak. I assumed that you might need them for," a small pause, "countermeasures."
"Alright. Anything I need to do right now to make things work? Do I have to kick some butt?"
"No mistress. Not at the moment at least. There was a situation where your captain did not want to follow my orders, but Martok had him removed and appointed a new captain. She has been following my orders excellently."
"Alright then," Torres opened her arms and a second later they were filled with the body of a certain former Borg who was squeezing the air out of Torres' lungs with her hug. "Baby, ease up on the vice grip," Torres said, never the less suffering the tight hug gladly.
"I'm going to fucking kill you."
Torres eyes got wider and she pulled her head back trying to look at Seven's face. "Did you just say what I thought I heard you say?"
"I said that I'm going to fucking kill you. And when I'm done killing you, I'll kill you again just to be sure. You are more trouble than you are worth."
Torres closed her eyes as she felt tears dripping onto her shoulder. For as long as Torres had known Seven the blonde had never cried. It was clear to Torres that on this day she had crossed a line. She had hurt the blonde, truly hurt her in a place where it was almost impossible to hurt her; her feelings. It was at that moment that Torres made the most important, and most dangerous, decision of her life. She would never hurt the blonde like this again, no matter what the cost, no matter what the results for the Coalition would be.
It would be only much later, when she was old and gray, that she would realize that this resolve had actually done more good for the Coalition than any Intendant decree could ever have done. One day an old Intendant Torres would look at the loving face of her wife and realize that it had been their bond that had made sure that they, and by extension the entire Coalition, had been able to weather the changes that the two of them would bring.
"I'm sorry baby," Torres said over and over again while all the time holding the blonde in a secure hug. "So sorry. I'm sorry I hurt you, please forgive me."
"You died."
"I know baby. I'm sorry."
"You left me."
"I know baby, I'm sorry. If it's any consolation, they told me at the docks that my time was not to come for a long time yet, unless I got myself killed by my own stupidity again. I promise you baby that I'll learn from this. I won't leave you again, I promise."
It was an impossible promise to keep since neither of them knew what the future would bring, but right then it was exactly the words Seven needed to hear.
"Promise?"
Torres' hearts ached when hearing the desperate sound in the single word question. "I promise. With all my heart, with all of my honor. I promise you, my Mate, I will never, ever, leave you again."
"You said that you were at the docks," Seven said after a moment of silence. "This is the second time you referred to being at the docks." As Seven spoke she never stepped out of the hug she and Torres were still sharing.
"Well, that's where I went. I went there and was told that it was not yet my time." Torres decided that right now was not the time to talk about the other things she had been told, but she knew that once things had settled down she and Seven would have a long talk in which she would tell the blonde all.
"Probably a trauma-induced dream," Seven stated. "One moment."
Before Torres could ask what Seven meant with 'one moment' the blonde had stepped out of the hug. She patted Toby on the head for a second before walking around the bio-bed and climbing on it. Once she was stretched out she looked up at Torres and merely asked, "Join me?"
Torres didn't need to be asked twice. She turned and joined her lover. Because of the size of the bio-bed, Torres had to lay half on top of the blonde, but that was alright; they had spent many a night sleeping like this. Resting her head on Seven's chest, Torres sighed. "You know, realistically I would have to agree, that probably was some kind of dream. Unrealistically, I hope it's true. I've been told a few things that I really wish will come true. I'll tell you all about it when we have the time, but suffice it to say that if at least one of the things comes true, I'll be calling you my wife somewhere down the line."
"Really?" Seven asked. She placed a kiss on the top of Torres' head before adding, "I like that idea. Maybe we should not dismiss your dream too quickly."
Torres smiled at that. "Told you. Alright, now that I know that I don't have to be the mean bitch Intendant right this minute, why don't you give me a little bit more detail?"
Seven did, including describing the workings of the implants Torres now had. When she saw how Torres made light of the fact and even was hinting that she wouldn't mind the enhancements at all a great weight lifted of Seven's shoulders. It was when Seven told the Klingon about her promise to kill the Romulan that Torres interrupted Seven for more than just a small question to clear things up. "Wait a minute. Is that why you are so set on getting this guy, because you promised him that you would kill him?"
"Not at all," Seven disagreed. "I am so set on apprehending this individual because I knew you would not want him to get away. However, that does not mean that I will not get satisfaction out of keeping my word."
"Please don't."
"What?" Seven asked confused.
"Seven, I could tell you not to do it. I could pull rank; I am the Intendant after all. I could also remind you of the fact that he may have killed your lover, I'm the one that was actually killed. But I'm not going to do that. I'm merely asking you, please don't. Please Seven, don't become me. You know how to take lives, you did so before, but you did it to protect. You killed to serve a greater good. Please, please, I beg of you. Please don't become like me. Please don't become someone that can, and wants, to kill for nothing more than personal vengeance."
"Do you think it is wrong for me to want to see him hurt, to see him suffer?" Seven asked, wondering if Torres really thought that their feelings were that much different.
"I didn't say that it's wrong to want him hurting, I just don't want you to be the one doing the hurting. It's only normal to want him hurting for what he did; I would be worried if you didn't want that. In your mind you should want him dead, want to chop every limb off his body, or slowly strangle him to death. The point is that this should be in your mind."
"I do now want him to get away with this," Seven said, the both of them knowing that it was only a token protest. Seven knew that Torres was right. She had never wanted to kill anyone in her life, until now, and deep down she also knew that she didn't want to become a person that actually wanted to kill.
"Oh you don't have to worry about that," Torres assured. "The point is that I don't want you to become like me, but Seven," Torres was quiet for a second to give her next words more meaning. "I already am me. Trust me, by the time I'm through with him, he can only wish for a death as nice as you would have given him."
Chapter 16
Martok walked in half an hour later to find Torres and Seven still lying on the bio-bed. "My, doesn't that look really tough and Klingon like."
"If you want to see touch and Klingon like, I could always come over there and gut you," Torres growled.
Martok merely chuckled as he came closer. "That's alright, I like my intestines just fine where they are. So, are you feeling well enough for me to kill you?"
"Hey, let me point out here that I have already been killed once today," Torres said.
"Precisely my point," Martok came back.
Torres looked at Seven, only to see a total lack of support there. She sighed and started to get up, only to feel strong hands holding her down. Figuring that she really wasn't going to ruin her image with Martok, Torres decided that Seven was right and stayed at the blondes side, only turning a bit so that she was lying on her side and could see Martok better. "Why do I get the distinct feeling that I'm about to be yelled at? May I remind you both that I'm still the Intendant here? You know, boss of bosses and all that?"
"And here I thought that you were a person that was dead mere hours ago," Seven spoke up. "Being Intendant did not help you much then, did it?"
Torres bit back the anger that arose at the challenging words, reminding herself of just what she had put the blonde through. Sighing once more she dipped her head a little in agreement. "Alright, but before you two start yelling, let me go first so that we can see if there is still need to yell." Taking a deep breath, Torres began. "I told you several times already, Seven, that I'm a Klingon and I like to flirt with danger.
"Well, in the last half year I have broken my leg in the middle of the wilderness, some guards around would sure have been convenient then. I have been attacked in my own home, if it wasn't for the fact that you were with me I would more then likely have been dead. And now, now I actually have been killed, and it's only thanks to you that I'm alive now. Yes, I like to flirt with danger, but I think that danger is telling me that she is tired of my flirting. So, as of today, right now, I'm going to take security a lot more serious. I'm going to take along guards, and actually give them the opportunity to do their job and not just be there for crowd control."
"How many guards?" Martok asked.
"Eh, let's say ten," Torres said after thinking about it for a moment. "That way four of them can be on duty at any time while the others cover the second shift and two are there to take up any days off the others are having."
"Torres, ten guards is only false security," Martok growled. "It makes you think you are safe, but you aren't."
"And what would you think is a reasonable number?" Torres asked.
"Worf has a guard contingent of five hundred."
"Forget it," Torres said resolutely. "The reason why Worf has five hundred guards is because he is normally always at the same place. The times per year that he leaves Kronos are so few that I can count them on one hand. They need to secure the palace and the High Counsel building. I on the other hand am always on the move; I don't want hundreds of people running around me all the time."
"You go places that need to be secured," Martok defended. "Those ruins you visited today needed to be secured for instance."
"Damn it, I told you I'm not going to put up with that. You know what? You can just forget about it alright?"
"Mistress, is I may make a suggestion?" Seven spoke up.
"You know, one of these days I'm really going to get sick and tired of hearing that line," Torres growled while looking down at her lover.
"Then I will come up with another line," Seven said with a ghost of a smile, knowing that Torres would see it.
"Alright already, suggest away."
"Thank you, mistress," Seven said. "I believe you both have a point, and my suggestion would a combination of both your positions. Mistress, Martok is right; there will be situations where a few guards will not be sufficient. I still do not know that this assassin used at the ruins to render us both unconscious. Whatever it was, it worked from over twenty meters away, and rendered us both unconscious at the same time. I am certain that if we merely had the four standard guards with us they would have been rendered unconscious along with us. In a situation like with the ruins is would be best to have a small group of guards with us, and also a larger group that is securing the perimeter but keeping out of our way and maybe even our direct field of vision.
"On the other hand, Martok, my mistress is also right. When we are here on the ship the ship provides enough security that close guards are not needed at all. When at my mistress' home on her planet than close guards would also not be needed once it is certain that the home is secure and from then on can be guarded from the outside and at entrances.
"My suggestion is to have two groups of guard, the first group consisting out of ten people, highly trained and absolutely trustworthy. My suggestion for them would be to add six more operatives of General Martok's department to the four operatives that are already serving as your guard now. The second group of guards would then be the three hundred commandoes that are stationed on this ship anyway. The small group would then be a personal guard that would work just like my mistress just suggested, with four of the guards with us at all times unless the situation is totally secure; like us being on this ship. The commandoes would then be the ones that secure places with as many or few people they need to secure a situation. For instance, the ruins could easily have been secured by a group of twenty or thirty people."
Torres and Martok looked at each other for a moment, both of them going over the plan Seven had suggested. It was Martok that spoke up first. "I can live with that, as long as the commandoes are placed on alert whenever you leave a 'secure location.' Twenty or thirty people would have been enough to secure the ruins, but the rest of them should be on active standby; ready to beam down on a moments notice if needed."
"You do need to keep in mind that we can be gone for a longer time," Seven reminded. "It would be better to have the commandoes work in shifts as well. As the negotiations on Bajor have proven, we can be in situations where days of security is needed."
"I'll work something out with the commanders of the commandoes," Martok assured.
"Alright," Torres agreed. "I can live with that as well, but," Pointing a finger at Martok she added, "They'll work like Seven suggested. I don't want to see a wall of them around me. I can accept seeing one or two of them standing around at a distance pretending to blend in, but I don't want to have them standing around with their hand on their gun waiting for someone to make a wrong move."
"Torres, commandoes aren't trained to just stand around and pretend that they are people that are just happen to be at the same place we you are; at least the Klingon commandoes aren't."
"Then I guess the first thing you need to do is give them some extra training," Torres said in a tone that Martok knew only too well. He knew that Torres had reached the end of her willingness to give in a 'give and take.' He snarled but wisely said nothing.
"Glad you see things my way," Torres continued. "One more thing, those ten people that will be mine, and Seven's, personal guard..."
"What about them?" Martok asked when Torres didn't continue.
"Make half of them women, and of the four that are on duty, make sure that two of them are always women."
"Can't you make it a little bit more difficult for me?" Martok asked while he pushed away from the bio-bed and started to pace. "Not only do I have to find six more operatives that are 'compatible' to you so that you don't end up killing them, now I also have to make sure that five of them are women so that the ten person group is half/half."
"I thought you would be happy with the request," Torres said, and from her changed tone of voice Martok knew that the risk of Torres just forgetting about the guards had passed. It seemed that Torres really was going to do this, and that meant that Martok gladly would search the entire Coalition himself for suitable people if he needed to. But that still didn't mean that he couldn't complain about it.
"Why the hell would I be glad for that?"
"Because," Torres explained, "It means that I'll be letting those guards close enough to be witness to some private things, up to the point where I would rather have a woman guard than a man." Torres waved her finger at Martok in a warning matter. "Which means that you better make damn sure that they, all of them, are the kind of people that don't puke when they hear me tell Seven that I love her. That know how to keep their mouth shut and not tell their friends about how they heard me through the door begging Seven to fuck me harder. And on top of that, you better make damn sure that the men have enough control over all their appendages, because I swear right here and now, if I see ever, even once, one of them get a hard on because he happened to see Seven or me naked, I swear I'll cut the damn thing off."
"Oh, so it's alright for the women to enjoy what they see?" Martok asked with a grin, knowing that their agreement had been reached.
Torres grinned as well. "Well, with women it's harder to see. You don't really see nipples getting hard under a battle uniform, but I sure have seen more then one man walking around with a bulge."
"And just why were you looking at men in that place?" Seven asked before giving Torres a kiss and slipping from under her and off the bio-bed.
"You are right, my pet," Torres said as she got off the bed herself. "Time to get moving." Looking at Martok she added a little more serious, "I mean it, Martok. I'll be letting those guards as close as personal guards should be allowed to do their job right. As you know, I have nothing against men," A very pointed look at Martok, "I think they make the best of friends. It's just that I'd feel a little bit more at ease with female guards being the ones that are in the room when I have to change, and more so when Seven has to change. I know that whoever you pick as guards will be professional enough not to be sidetracked by something as small as a naked person. It's just... just make it happen."
"I will," Martok assured. "Give me a week or two to select the right candidates and you'll get your guards just like you want them. I'm just glad that you do actually finally want them."
"Var'Ck to Seven," The voice of the captain interrupted.
"Seven here."
"Ma'am, I just wanted to inform you that we just entered Romulan space, and that we are picking up a ship at the edge of our sensor range."
"Captain, I would like to inform you that Intendant Torres had fully recovered. Please contact her from now on."
"Yes ma'am. Intendant?"
"One moment," Torres cut the channel before asking, "Alright Seven, your guess is that this guy is a Romulan spy and that he is certain that it's impossible for us to catch up to him before he arrives where he is going, right?"
"That is the gist of it," Seven agreed.
"Alright. Computer, reopen channel. Captain, activate the cloak and get as close as possible. As soon as you can locate him with normal sensors without doing an active sensor scan, beam him off the ship and directly to sickbay."
"Yes Intendant. Var'Ck out."
"Alright, let's go find the doctor and after that I'll contact Worf; I have a feeling that he'll be waiting already."
"And your feeling is correct," Martok agreed. "He told me to let you know that he was expecting your message as soon as conveniently possible for you."
"Mistress, why do you need to talk to the doctor?" Seven wondered as she took her place at Torres' side with Toby beside her on her other side.
"Cause Romulan spies are known to have ways of killing themselves in case they are captured. I just want to make sure that he can't kill himself before I can ask him some questions. Once he answered my questions though..."
Neither Martok nor Seven decided to ask Torres to complete her statement.
***
"Torres, I'm damn glad to see that you are alright," Worf said from the view-screen in Torres' quarters. Yet no matter how glad Worf was that she was alright, she could still see from his face that he sure wasn't in the happiest of moods. "Having said that, I feel like kicking your damn ass for the mess you caused. Shinze just contacted me to object to how you are handling this situation."
"I haven't been handling anything yet; Seven has," Torres pointed out. "But now that I'm going to start handling it, I can assure you that Shinze will really have to start getting worried. What did you tell him?"
Now Worf smirked. "I told him that if he really wanted to I would take you off this case. Then I added that since this involves the Klingon Intendant that I personally would take over the case, and that if he really wanted me, the Chancellor, to lead the retributions for the Klingon Intendant being killed by a Romulan, that he could contact me again in five minutes to let me know." Worf lifted his hands in the universal 'I don't know' gesture. "I'm still waiting for him to contact me; guess he really didn't want me to take over after all."
Torres smirked at that as well. There were many official rules for the Intendants, but there was one unofficial one that was even more important than any of the official ones; you did not want Worf to come by to deal with matters personally.
"Now," Worf continued in a serious tone. "From Shinze's whining, and Martok's report, I know that that slave of yours basically took over your role as Intendant while you were unconscious. That she ordered ships around, talked to the Bajoran and Romulan Intendants and even told the Romulan Intendant what to do. She also ordered our flagship, your ship, to go into Romulan territory in pursuit of that guy. Martok told me that she is planning on killing the guy. Am I right in this?"
Torres first looked at Seven for a moment and then at Martok. She knew that Martok would have told Worf the bare facts as they were without adding any color to them. Turning back to the view-screen she nodded her head in a agreement. "That's pretty much it, but to give you a little update, I was able to talk Seven out of wanting to kill the guy. I want to have that pleasure all for myself." Torres decided not to add her other reason why she didn't want Seven to kill him; that was a too private of a reason. After all, how did you explain to your friends that were just like you that you didn't want your lover to also become like you?
"Do you have any idea what this mean?" Worf asked with a growl.
"It can mean a lot of things, why don't you tell me what you think it means?"
"It means," Worf began, only to stop again to give his next words more meaning. "That we have found our white crow."
"No, I stated before that I will not," Seven spoke up forcefully, remembering only too well the comment she herself made. "My viewpoint has not changed; I will not be separated from my mistress."
"Who is separating you?" Worf asked. "Troi and Dax never leave each other's side, I won't have a problem with two other Intendants traveling together all the time as well."
"I do not want to be Intendant."
Worf brought his fist down on the armrest of his chair. "Good. As Kahless himself once said, 'true leaders don't want power; the have it trusted upon them.' The fact that you don't want to be Intendant makes you perfect for the job."
"Seven," Torres spoke up. "I think you would do great. You have the mind for it, you don't cower for the other Intendants, you... Frankly Seven, you might become the Intendant of the smallest faction, but I have a feeling that you'll be able to out negotiate us all; just what the new faction will need in order for it to survive."
"Even if I were to travel with you all the time, B'Elanna, the Intendant work alone would take so much time that we would hardly have any time for ourselves," Seven said, hoping that Torres would forget about if it meant having less private time with the blonde. Unfortunately that hope was about to be dashed by Torres.
"I disagree. The part that's going to be the new faction is now part of Klingon space, any and all deals concerning that part is now already part of my workload. Sure, in the beginning, say the first two years when rules are being established and specific deals are being made, it will take extra time. You will personally have to be at certain places, but there is nothing that says that the Klingon Intendant can't be at you side when you go to those places.
"Seven, the basic work of being Intendant of the new faction won't make much difference to our daily life. You will still read all the reports coming in, just that there will now be a little les reports coming in for the Klingon Intendant because they are now replaced with reports for the new Intendant. Once the new faction is firmly set up you can leave the rest of the physical presence work to others. Hell, you can leave almost all the work to others."
"That is possible?" Seven asked confused.
"Sure," Torres assured. "Worf just pointed out that Deanna and Jadzia travel together all the time, do you think the could do that if they didn't have people that take care of they daily work? Or take the Bajorans; they have their advisors. Remember what Laren and Adami told us? Kira had all the work done by her advisors the only thing she did was go to things that required the physical presence if the Intendant. You could also install advisors. Remember what I told you when you asked me why the Klingons had so few rules for their Intendant while the Bajorans had so many, what did I tell you the reason was?"
Seven though back for a moment before quoting word for word, "You said: '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."'
"Exactly, and the important part of that is the line, 'but the rest of the rules were made up by the first Intendants and are more tailored to their faction.' Seven, if you become the new Intendant, you'll be the first Intendant of that faction, which means that you can set up every damn rule you want."
"Within limitations," Worf interrupted. "I don't care if you have a whole army of people helping you, for all I care you can even allow them to speak in name of the Intendant, but there is a reason why I want you as the new Intendant and not the next best person. Because of that you make damn sure that you'll be the one at the top of the line. If those below you mess up big time, it'll be you I'll come to see; not them, and I'll never accept 'I didn't know' as an excuse. Also, if there are things that are Intendant specific, you'll be there. Like the Grand Assembly that's coming up. For things like that I won't accept a substitute. Or when negotiating with the other Intendants, same thing; you'll be there. And you better make damn sure that you remember this, if someone of the new faction needs to talk to me, it damn better be you. You'll be the Intendant, you'll be the one I'm talking to."
"As I stated, I do not want to be Intendant," Seven said, coming back to the matter at heart.
"Unfortunately for you, I'm not letting you much of a choice," Worf said with a smirk, thinking that he had Seven in a position of no defense. "You see, my support for Torres' deal was only unofficial; nothing more than something that she could take to the other Intendants to show that there really is a chance of me supporting her deal. I'll tell you right here, right now, if you don't take the position of Intendant, I won't support the deal, which means that it's dead. How long do you think it'll be before there once again will be a Chancellor and enough Intendants to support the deal? If you say no, slavery is here to stay. And that, my friend, is a take it or leave it deal."
"I," Before Seven could say more, Torres interrupted her.
"Seven, one thing you should know about Worf, if he says it's a take it or leave it deal; it is. There is no more negotiating, at least not about the part where he said 'take it or leave it' about. Now, I also want you to become that Intendant, but I personally won't make you chose; Worf already did that. There is one final piece of information I want to give you though."
"And that is?"
"A number; thirty billion." (30 000 000 000) Torres stated matter-of-factly.
Seven merely frowned, clearly not understanding that Torres meant.
"That's my rough estimate of how many slaves there are in the Coalition," Torres explained. "Six slave species, an average of five billion each; thirty billion. Thirty billion people, living from day to day. Hoping that today will be a day they survive without being beaten, without having to sexually serve a master, or even without being raped. Thirty billion people that are nothing more than property, and you, as Worf said, right here, right now, will make the choice. If you agree to become the Intendant they will eventually be free. If you don't take the job their life will go on being only about surviving to live another day."
Seven glared at Torres, knowing only too well that Torres had used a number very deliberately. Most people couldn't even comprehend the meaning of such a number because they never dealt with it from day to day. The only big number they might have an understanding about would be millions, after that it was only 'more than millions,' but Seven did understand. She grasped the meaning of the number, and she also understood that every singe 'one' that combined to form the total of thirty billion was a living person who's fate she had in her hand at that very moment. "You said that I can have people do the work for me, could I call them 'sub-Intendant' and have the rules of Intendants also apply to them?"
"I don't see why not," Torres said with a grin. "So you're doing it?"
"Apparently I have to since you are not leaving me much of a choice about the matter, are you?" Seven said angrily.
Torres moved over to Seven and give her a kiss. Then she turned and said 'one second' to the men before turning back to Seven. "Baby, don't worry. I know you can do this, and I promise you that this won't separate us. I also promise you that we will still have our same amount of private time, and you will still have your time to train and play more with Toby here. That this new faction is stable and run in a correct way is very important to us Klingons.
"Because of this I'll be at you side, I'll play advisor to you in things that you don't grasp, yet, about being an Intendant. I'll give you my experience as Intendant and tell you how more than likely the Coalition or individual factions will react to things. Where you now go along with me, I'll then tag along with you, and if I have to go somewhere to do something as the Klingon Intendant I am, you'll be at my side. You really don't think that I'll give up the only advisor I ever trusted blindly, do you?"
"I still do not want this."
"I know baby, I know. But realistically, could this new faction even afford to have anyone but you being their Intendant? Would anyone else have stubbornly held his or her ground in a meeting with the Klingon, Bajoran, Betazoid, and Trill Intendants and stubbornly argue the point that Risa should be the only place to train body servants? Tell me honestly, if this new faction is installed, can they afford to have anyone but you de the Intendant?
"When they have to find their place in the Coalition, can they afford to have an Intendant that cowers for the other Intendants, that doesn't raise hell when a deal is not kept? Seven, forget about the fact that it's you personally for a moment. Only look at your abilities and tell me, play my advisor in this, tell me as my advisor, tell the Klingon Intendant... can she afford to pick anyone but the person Seven of Nine for the job Intendant?"
Seven sighed and leaned her head against Torres'. "Since the new Intendant will set the rules for the faction, you need this Intendant to be a person you can trust blindly; someone that will not set up rules for nothing else than to 'get back' at the former masters. You also need someone that you can trust with the power; someone that will make decisions to better the live of the former slaves, and not the live of themselves. As much as dislike to admit it, from all the people I have information on at the moment, Seven of Nine is the best candidate for the job."
"Then do it baby, be that new Intendant and be an Intendant that they will be proud to have. You will set the mold of how their Intendant should be, anyone that comes after you will have to live up to the standard you set; make it a great one."
"I love you, B'Elanna Torres, even though I may have to hurt you for making me do this."
Torres grinned, knowing that the battle had been fought. "Tell you what, later you can put me over your knee and give me a spanking alright?"
Both of Seven's eyebrows shot up at that. "I believe we need to get you back to sickbay, clearly you are suffering from brain damage." Seven sighed and took a step away from her lover, looking at the two men looking back at her; one on a view-screen and one standing with his arms crossed over his chest. "And apparently I am suffering from brain damage as well. Very well, I will take the position of new Intendant."
Seven looked directly at Worf before adding, "Chancellor, you just said; 'and that, my friend, is a take it or leave it deal.' I would like to thank you for calling me 'my friend' I appreciate it greatly. However, I find myself in a similar situation as my mistress was once in; there are bound to come times where I will 'piss you off' to the point where getting rid of me might be an option that comes across your mind. Therefore I am hoping that you would be so kind to offer me some 'free passes' of the same kind as my mistress has one."
"Some!?" Worf growled. "You really want to die young don't you?"
"I assure you, I do not. Which is why I am asking for the free passes."
"And just how many free passes are you hoping for?" Worf asked with a snarl.
"I am not an unreasonable person, and I know that too many 'free passes' would take away the fear for the Chancellor that should exist. I think that five is a reasonable number."
"I'll give you two," now Worf smirked, "and that, my friend, is a take it or leave it deal."
Seven dipped her head slightly. "Two free passes is a very reasonable and most generous offer, thank you Chancellor."
Torres moved behind Seven and put her hands on the blonde's shoulders. "And you thought that you were the wrong person for the job? Seven, you were just able to negotiate the Chancellor out of two free passes where I was only able to get one."
Seven looked over her shoulder and Torres was glad to finally see a small smile on those lips again. "I never said that I was the wrong person for the job; I merely said that I did not want to do the job."
Torres looked passed Seven and Worf and winked. "I have a feeling that we all have to have our mind on the job when she starts dealing for her faction; she'll talk us all under the table."
Worf laughed and nodded his head in agreement. "Maybe I should start taking my bat'leth to the meetings we will have then. You know; a subtle reminder."
"I don't think you want to do that," Torres said, stepping from behind Seven to beside her. "She is getting great at the bat'leth fights we have; wins most of them. Of course, that is with her doing the 'inefficient showing off fighting,' as she calls the friendly combat style. If she goes in for her 'efficient' style the battle is over in minutes."
"Really?" Worf asked. "Maybe we can hold a little friendly contest the next time we meet face to face."
"I am not worthy of that honor, Chancellor," Seven said, remembering what Torres had told her about the different challenge rules and that it was considered an honor to have a superior ask, not challenge, but ask you to a friendly fight.
"Oh now she plays humble," Worf said, with a grin.
"Not to be one to spoil the mood," Martok spoke up, "but it isn't even sure if there will be a new faction. For that to happen you need the support of all Intendants, including the Romulan one, and we have a small situation going on right there."
"Right," Torres agreed.
"Mistress, I have several suggestion on how this could be played out, depending on how much you want to 'get even' over the fact that it was a Romulan that killed you. We might actually be able to use this situation to get the complete support of the Romulan Intendant. I know for a fact that you will 'get even' with the man that killed you when we catch up to him, but the question is do you want to get even with the man for killing you, or do you want to get even with the Romulans because the man that killed you happened to be a Romulan?"
"How about you tell us why you are asking that, and then I'll tell you how much I want to get even."
***
"Now it's time for me to get even for him killing me," Torres said as she stood in front of the door to the interrogation room with Seven. Her plan had worked; by closing in on the ship under cloak and beaming the Romulan over as soon as it was possible they had managed to get him into sickbay alive. Once there he had managed to kill himself several times, but unfortunately for him, Torres' doctor had been prepared. "I'm planning on first asking him a few friendly questions about just why he killed me, and after that I intend to keep my promise to you that I'm going to make him wish that you had killed him. If you want you can go to the holodeck with Toby." Without waiting for an answer, Torres stepped up to the door and then into the interrogation room.
Seven knew what Torres was doing. At one point on Bajor, Seven had seen people being gutted because of an order Torres had given. When she had been with Torres for not even a full day, Seven had seen Torres kill a slave by shooting him with a disrupter. One thing that Seven had never yet witnessed was the truly gruesome side of Torres. The blonde had no illusion, Torres' interrogation would be a torture; plain and simple. After Torres had gotten the answers she was looking for she would shift to actually concentrating on hurting the Romulan as much as possible as a retaliation for killing the Klingon Intendant, maybe not even so much for killing her, but especially for killing the Klingon Intendant.
Seven knew that Torres was giving her an option of walking away, of knowing about Torres' cruel side, but not seeing it. To not hear the screams, to not see the blood, to not see why Intendant Torres was the most feared person in the Coalition. There was only one problem with that; Seven's love for Torres was unconditional. To Seven unconditional meant just that; without any conditions at all.
With head held high and eyes wide open, Seven stepped up to the door and in to the room.
***
"I'm not a happy person Shinze," Torres said while looking at the Romulan Intendant on the view-screen.
Shinze nodded his head in understanding. "Neither would I, surviving an assassination attempt is not at all amusing."
"Surviving one is not amusing?" Torres asked. "You think that not surviving one is amusing than?"
"No, of course not. What I meant was that this attempt,"
"Oh, but it wasn't an attempt," Torres interrupted. "The assassination succeeded. I was killed by a Romulan, and not just any Romulan; a Romulan spy even. Someone trained by the Romulan government killed me. No, I'm not amused at all."
"I assure you that he will face his rightful punishment as soon as you hand him over to me."
"Hand him over?" Torres asked.
"Of course, you did say that you captured him," Shinze said slightly confused.
"Oh, hand him over," Torres said as if seeing the light. "Sure, no problem. Do you want only his head or all of his parts?"
"What's that supposed to mean?" Shinze asked.
"It's just that he kinda fell apart when I was interrogating him," a pause, "literally." When saying the last word the look on Torres' face told Shinze that she was completely serious. "On the last count I think there were thirteen parts to him."
"Fifteen, mistress," Seven corrected.
"Fifteen?" Torres repeated. "Sorry must have lost count at one point. So Shinze, do you want all fifteen parts of him or just his head?"
"If you already killed him you can keep his body; I have no use for the body of a traitor to the Romulan cause," Shinze said.
"Hmm, you have no idea how much of a traitor he was," Torres agreed. "Or at least for you I sincerely hope that you didn't. It seems that he was something of a busy guy. When he wasn't working in the Klingon Main communication center he was busy doing his side job of selling the information he had gathered for you Romulans to interested third parties. If those third parties then didn't like the information, our guy would take offers of removing people that those third parties would like to have removed; seems that I was worth twenty million credits. But you know what really pissed me off the most, Shinze?"
"What?" Shinze merely asked, knowing Torres long enough to know that here seemingly carefree tone meant noting but trouble for him.
"What really pisses me off is the fact that this guy was so good at getting rid of people because he was trained by you Romulans."
"I told you,"
"Trained," Torres interrupted, "by the Tal Shiar."
"Nonsense," Shinze said immediately. "If he truly had been Tal Shiar, he would never have talked."
"Yes," Torres agreed, "I was kinda surprised at that. He already started talking at his fifth finger. I would have assumed that I would have had to cut off all of his fingers at least. Maybe the stability of the Coalition has made the Tal Shiar sloppy. Not only are they recruiting people that give so little about the Romulan cause that they rent themselves out to the highest bidder as an assassin, they also let this person working as an official spy. I mean, I can see the benefits of hiding a operative in the open by making him a official spy, but in reality it's a stupid move. If the operative has to fulfill an order there is the chance that he will either blow his cover as an operative, or make it impossible for him to keep working as an official spy."
"I still doubt that he really was Tal Shiar," Shinze said stubbornly. "It's more than likely that he was just making things up to appease you and stop you from," Shinze stopped talking for a moment to find a suitable word, "hurting, him more."
"I have the entire interrogation recorded," Torres said with a shrug. "I'll send the file over to you so that you can fact-check the things he said. He named quite some names. You might find it interesting yourself just how many Tal Shiar there actually are in your own top of command Shinze."
"I will take a look and take all the necessary actions," Shinze assured. "I think,"
"Not so damn fast, Shinze," Torres interrupted. "I'm not quite done yet. You can verify the information all you want, but for me the fact remains that I was killed by a Tal Shiar operative; I'm not pleased all Shinze."
"Torres, surely we can chalk this assassination attempt up to,"
"No attempt," Shinze," Torres interrupted. "The guy succeed in killing me. I, was, killed, by, a, Tal Shiar, operative," Torres growled, emphasizing every word. "Don't take my calmness wrong, I'm merely trying to be polite to another Intendant. Fact is, I'm pissed. Call me crazy but getting killed really, pisses me off!" The last three words were shouted at the top of Torres lungs and she had to take a calming breach before she could go on. "Shinze, I promise you, the next month will go down in history. I'm going to order retaliation actions that will make the entire Romulan faction cower. The planet this guy was born on, and where he was recruited by the Tal Shiar, every damn person on that planet will be killed, the planet itself will be destroyed, and that's only for started. After that I'll move on to,"
"Mistress?" Came a quiet interruption from Torres's side.
"What do you want? Will you fucking stop interrupting my piss moods?"
"Yes mistress," Seven said dutifully. "Please forgive me, I just thought that it might be a good idea to remind you of your plan."
"What plan?"
"The plan to end slavery," Seven reminded. "For that you will need the Romulan support, and I do not think they will give you that support if you perform the retaliation actions you were talking about."
"I most certainly wouldn't," Shinze said, seeing an opening.
"Of course you wouldn't," Torres growled. "You'd be fucking dead. How long do you think the Romulan Intendant would live that had not been able to prevent these retaliations from happening? You're already dead, Shinze; you just don't seem to notice it yet."
"So it's not already for you to get killed, but it is alright for me to get killed?" Shinze asked raising his voice.
"First," Torres said calmly, "you seem to forget that I'm the Klingon Intendant and if push comes to shove, you will eat every damn thing I shove down your throat. Second, you tell me, when is the last time a Klingon operative pulled something like this?" After a moment of silence where Shinze clearly couldn't come up with any examples, Torres continued. "I tell you Shinze, forgetting the rest for a moment, it seems to me that the Romulans have lost a little too much of their control over the Tal Shiar."
"Mistress," Seven spoke up again, "maybe this all can be prevented from escalating too much. Maybe if you were to, forget, the fact that a Romulan killed you, Intendant Shinze would be inclined to give you full support in your endeavor to end slavery. At the moment all that is known is that there was an assassination attempt, and even that is only knows in the tightest of circles. Maybe if Intendant Shinze were to support your endeavor you would be so thankful to him that you would be satisfied with the revenge you already have gotten by killing the man that killed you."
"Supporting the end of slavery will make me many enemies," Shinze said.
"Just how many enemies do you think you'll get when it is found out that you could have prevented the death of a planet full of Romulans?" Torres countered. "Shinze, I'm inclined to listen to my pet because she has a point, but don't try my patience because let me assure you; it's at a fucking end."
"Mistress, if I may?" Seven asked.
"What? Just talk already," Torres said annoyed.
"Yes mistress. Intendant Shinze, since I became my mistress' body slave I have been studying several aspects of the Coalition. I find it interesting that you Romulans have slaves, but that it is illegal to have Vulcan slaves in the Romulan part of the Coalition. Can you tell me why this is the case?"
"I'm surprised that you as a slave don't know this; it's common knowledge thought the Coalition."
"Humor me," Seven merely said.
"Well, it's simple actually. We Romulans see the Vulcans as our brothers; we are decedents of the same ancestors."
"If this is the case, then why not work to free your brothers from slavery?"
"It's been tried," Shinze said with a shrug. "There have been two attempts by previous Intendants to get the Vulcans out of slavery, but it never worked out. Fact is that the Vulcans had the chance to stop the humans from starting their Sol Empire, and they didn't do it. They thought they could guide the humans, and we all know how that ended. Because of this they too were punished into slavery."
"So basically they are slaves because it is better to see your brothers in slavery than being in slavery together with them?" Seven surmised.
"You could call it that," Shinze was forced to admit.
"You say that supporting the end of slavery will make you enemies," Seven continued. "Then what do you think would happen if you were to go down in history as the Intendant that was able to free the Vulcans? You should not look at this from the negative side of having to deal with the problems of people that can no longer make a living from slavery, instead you should see this as a chance for you to go down in history as the Intendant that succeeded where all other Intendants before him failed. Intendant Shinze, you could go down in history as the Romulan Intendant that succeeded in freeing your Vulcan brothers."
"Go on," Shinze said, clearly interested. He knew only too well that if what the blonde slave was suggesting actually worked he would not only gain the support of enough Romulans to offset the support he would lose by supporting the end of slavery; he would also gain the gratitude of all the Vulcans. He would go down in history as the savior and protector of the Vulcan brothers, that was a power base that none before him had been able to have.
"Intendant Shinze, Chancellor Worf insists that I become the new Intendant if this plan is put into affect. I always had the greatest respect for the Vulcans. I am certain that if the humans had listened to the Vulcans in the beginning, the Sol Empire would never have existed." Of course, Seven didn't point out that she was so certain of this because this was exactly what happened in the Universe that she came from. There the humans had listened for one hundred years to the Vulcans saying that the humans were not yet ready for space exploration.
"I plan on installing three people to share my workload so that I can stay at my mistress' side," Seven continued. "Because I respect the insight of the Vulcans so much, I intend to put it in to law that at least one of those positions has to be fulfilled by a Vulcan at all timers. Intendant Shinze, what do you think it will do for your support base if it was found out that you, after touch and long negotiations, had been the person that had demanded and gotten that concession that for all times a Vulcan will be at the very least in the second highest position amongst the former slaves. That for all times a Vulcan will share the Intendant powers with two others of the same rank, only to be outranked by the actual Intendant."
"It sounds rather interesting," Shinze had to agree. "But how will you make sure that the entire Coalition believes this?"
"We do not have to," Seven said. "You will get full freedom in 'spinning' the story. It is common in the Coalition for people to have different views of a situation depending on where they live. Ask anyone in the Cardassian faction who was the winner in the hundred day Klingon-Cardassian war and every single one of them is sure the Cardassians won, and that the Klingons are only the biggest power now because the other factions backed the Klingons since they feared the over-powerful Cardassian troops.
"Yet every other person in the Coalition knows the real story; that the Cardassians did indeed have a powerful army, but that they were not powerful to win the hundred day war. You would be free to spin the tail of how you managed to accomplish all these concessions that safeguard a more prominent position for the Vulcans. The only condition is that you do not try to undermine the authority I will have over them."
"Worf wants your slave to become the new Intendant?" Shinze asked Torres.
"He does," Torres agreed. "He thinks she's a good choice, and he also thinks that the fact that she actually doesn't want the job makes her perfect for being the first Intendant and set up the rules for the new faction. She also has a point about my proposal. I have been working on it for a long time now; too long to just give it all up. More so because this seems to be exactly the reason why he was hired to kill me. So, I'm willing to 'forget' that it was a Romulan that was trained by the Tal Shiar that killed me and instead concentrate on the person that ordered my killing, if you can find it in yourself to support my proposal."
"What do you mean with that it was the reason for killing you?" Shinze asked.
"As I said, I'll send you over the recording of the guy's interrogation, you'll find that it will answer a lot of questions for you." Torres was quiet for a second before adding in a completely serious tone, "Just a suggestion, you might not want to look at the recording right after lunch."
"I... see," Shinze said, clearly changing what he was going to say in mid speech. "Very well. I'll have a look at the recording, and if the facts are as you stated them, you will have my support for your deal."
"Glad to hear it. So how long did we negotiate again for those conditions that favor the Vulcans?" Torres asked with a smirk.
"Seeing that they were such touch and yet sensitive negotiations, I believe we spent three days on it, didn't we?" Shinze asked, seeing if this time frame suited Torres for the official story.
"Right, three days, sorry I forgot for a moment. I'm glad we could reach an agreement on this Shinze."
"As am I," The Romulan agreed.
"Shinze, since we just reached such a nice deal, let me give you a little suggestion, completely off the record and which has nothing to do with what we just agreed on."
"Go on," Shinze said curious.
"Have a look at that recording and listen to the Tal Shiar comments. I would suggest that you do something about them. I'm not talking about removal; we all need our secret services. Just make sure you have them a little better under control. If they go on like this, trying to get so far into the actual decision making field, how long do you think it will be before we Klingons had to sit down with the Cardassians and decide whether we will have to do something about them?"
"Rest assured," Shinze said with clear determination. "If I agree with your vision after seeing the recording the Tal Shiar will be dealt with."
Torres nodded her head, knowing him well enough to know that he would indeed do as he said. "Alright then. My pet told me that you have set course to meet up with me?"
"That is correct. I should arrive in sixteen hours."
"Good. In that case, I'll sent you the recording, you can study it, and once we meet up the three of us can sit down and Seven and you can talk a little more about you being the savior of the Vulcans. Now, I have some other people to contact so let me ask you clearly, we have a deal?"
"We have a deal," Shinze assured. "The only thing that can still prevent that is that the recording is not as you say it is."
"Seems that we have a deal then. See you in sixteen hours, Torres out."
Chapter 17
Once the channel was cut Torres looked at Seven and grinned. "Seems that your plan worked. Again that dagger and sword thing. I would have only offered Shinze the chance to save his own hide, if I would have even thought of offering in the first place. Now, you offer him the position of setting himself up as the savior of the Vulcans. Which means, though he doesn't know it yet, that he has to work well together with you since you will have the power to bring forth the actual story. And you have yet again created another Intendant that will like dealing with you instead of causing you problems simply because he can. Yes, dagger and sword... you know, I think I'll get myself a tattoo of that."
"A tattoo? Why?" Seven asked bewildered.
"Because that's how I see us two, and I don't think either of us will change any time soon in that regard. Seeing that it is very likely that you'll be an Intendant soon I think it's only fitting that I start walking around with your mark, since you sure as hell own me."
"You are in an extremely good mood," Seven observed with a smile.
"Sure," Torres agreed readily. "I only have to buy off Dukat and then the deal is made. And on top of that, you have now finally seen me at my worst; you have literally seen me at my worst. You have seen me torture someone; no mere words, you saw it with your own eyes. And yet... I love you Seven."
"And I love you B'Elanna, which is the every reason why seeing what I did does not change how I feel about you. I already knew that you were capable of that, and I accepted it. The rest," Seven gave the impression of shrugging without actually doing so; a feat of which Torres had still not been able to work out how the blonde did it. "The rest is merely visual images. B'Elanna, believe me, noting you could do can compare to seeing people assimilated; the second stage of assimilation that is." Seven lifted her artificial hand. "How do you think I got this hand? Do you think that the Borg would have taken the time to first sedate me and then prepare a sterile operating room? No, that would be inefficient. B'Elanna, please understand that to me knowing that you are capable of cutting of someone's fingers is more shocking, if I had not already known that, than actually seeing it happen."
"Alright," Torres said, deciding that a change of subject was in order. "Now I'll contact Dukat and see what he wants."
"Actually mistress, if you do not mind I would first like to contact the Bajorans for a minute."
"Sure, go right ahead," Torres simply said since Seven had dealt with the Bajorans last.
"Thank you," Seven said before opening a channel. Minutes later she was once again looking at the face of Jetur Adami, but this time Ro Laren was with her.
"Seven, good to see you again. And very good to see you alive and well, Intendant Torres." Jetur said.
"Thank you," Torres said before looking at Ro with a frown and asking, "You don't look too well, Ro. Are you alright?"
"She will be," Jetur said for her wife. "It's just that the pending retributions are a big weight on her shoulders, seeing that you were the second Intendant killed, and the first, well," Jetur didn't finish her statement, but she also didn't have to.
"That is actually the reason why we contacted you," Seven informed. "We did a little further investigation and it seems that the assassination attempt," there was no mistaking the clear emphasis on Seven's last word, "was simply the work of a misguided mental individual. He has already been sentenced and executed for his crime. So there is no further need for you to continue to investigate this event. My mistress personally reminded the would-be assassin of the fact that everyone in the Coalition would be wise to remember. Over all my mistress may be a nice person, but she has her 'mess with me and die' attitude for a reason."
"That's it?" Ro blurred totally surprised. "That's all there's going to be to it?"
"Actually, since you ask, I have a bit of good new to tell you, and I was hoping that you would be so kind as to inform Deanna and Jadzia as well," Torres said. "I had a little discussion with Shinze and he agreed that ending slavery would be in the best interest of the Coalition."
"Oh did he now?" Ro asked and Torres could see that her whole demeanor had changed in mere seconds. It was clear that she understood only too well the link between the Romulan cooperation and the fact that retaliations for killing the Klingon Intendant suddenly had disappeared.
"Yes he did. And since he now knows something you don't, let me rectify that," Torres said while placing her hand on Seven's shoulder. "Assuming that I get Dukat to agree to the deal, may I introduce your new colleague to you, Intendant Seven of Nine. That's Worf's personal condition, and I think he is right."
"Well congratulations, Seven," Jetur said with a broad smile. "I think you will be great for the job."
"So people keep telling me," Seven merely said.
"I'll be meeting with Shinze face to face tomorrow," Torres continued. "After that Seven and I will return to Bajor so that we, you two, and Deanna and Jadzia can talk some more. I know that our negotiations are over, but these evens cheated me out of spending some time with my friends instead of having to deal and negotiate with other Intendants, I want to rectify that."
"We would like that," Jetur said, touched by Torres' open acceptance of their friendship.
"At least that is," Torres said with a grin, "if you don't mind spending some time with such a hard bitch as me."
"You just had to tell her, didn't you?" Jetur said while glaring at Seven. Then she smiled. "See you both soon, touch bitch and all. Jetur out."
"You know," Torres said as she turned to face Seven. "I think we really lucked out here. Not only are there the Intendants willing to support the deal, for whatever reason. Most of them are even friends in some degree. You have the new to be installed Intendant; you, and then the Klingon, Bajoran, Betazoid, and Trill Intendants all being friends. While any deals made will still be between Intendants and not the friends, it will still be that those deals are made in the 'friendly get-together' kind of way, and not in the 'my gun is bigger than yours' kind of way. This will make it a lot easier to the new faction to make deals because deals won't be blocked for nothing more than the reason to make things difficult for you."
"You are talking as if Intendant Dukat already agreed to the deal," Seven noted.
"That's because I think he will, but let's find out just to be sure. Computer, contact Intendant Dukat."
*
"Torres, to what do I owe this pleasure?" Dukat asked minutes later.
For a moment they merely looked at each other, Torres grinning and Dukat smirking. Finally Dukat spoke up first. "My spies tell me that you already managed to get the support of all factions except the Romulans and me."
"Actually, I just spoke to Shinze mere minutes ago, he too agrees to the deal."
"Really? So that means that it comes all down to me, oh the power."
"Don't go overboard Dukat," Torres merely said.
"So what did you use to get his agreement?" Dukat asked, getting down to business.
"Shinze will go down in history as the savior of the Vulcans. He and I had very tough negotiations for three grueling days before we reached an agreement. It's actually it was an idea Seven here came up with. Intendant Seven by the way if the deal goes though; Worf's decision."
"Really?" Dukat asked, and Torres noted that he didn't look as surprised as she would have assumed. "In that case, may I congratulate you on your new position, Intendant."
"I thank you," Seven said politely. "Since you are congratulating me, does that mean that you agree to support my mistress' proposal?"
"If the price is right; sure. After all, that's the reason she contacted me last. Torres and I always knew where we stood with each other, right Torres?"
"Right. But before I go into the price, I would like to do you a little favor. You know that hobby of yours, with those smugglers?"
"Yes?" Dukat merely asked.
"Do you happen to have any dealings with the Orion Syndicate?"
"Some," Dukat said with a shrug, not really seeing any reason to deny it. "After all, they do have a firm control of a lot of illegal things; you can't really do smuggling without using their distributions routes from time to time."
"Then I would strongly suggest that you cut all ties and order your smugglers to lay low for a while; very low."
"And just why would I do that?"
"Because," Torres said. "I'm sure that you already heard on the assassination attempt on my life?"
"I did," Dukat admitted. "But when I heard that your ship was leaving Bajoran space in pursuit of another ship, I assumed that the attempt failed."
"Hmm, well, unfortunately for the other Orion Syndicate members, it was their boss that ordered my assassination. You can understand that I'm not too pleased with that. As of tomorrow I'll be making the Orion Syndicate first enemy of the Klingon faction; and authorizing our security department to take actions wherever needed in the Coalition, no matter in what faction those actions take place. I want the Orion Syndicate eradicated within one month; and they will be."
"Really now?" Dukat said strangely interested, only to reveal why with his next words. "You do realize that if you remove the Orion Syndicate, you will create a vacuum, and vacuums have the tendency to fill themselves again. A new crime organization will be bound to evolve."
"I don't give a shit," Torres said while waving her hand in a dismissive gesture. "Dukat, you know as well as I do that the Coalition needs organized crime; it's why we left the Orion Syndicate for what it was for so long. Organized crime governs itself; it sets limits on how much of what crime may happen where. It's better than small criminals doing their own thing. I don't have a problem with that. I do have a problem with the boss of the Orion Syndicate becoming so damn comfortable that he even orders the assassination of an Intendant.
"I think a signal is needed to organized crime that we only stand by for so long, and that we do have the means to hunt every single one of them down if we really want to. Having said that, I also don't give a damn about you and your hobbies, but I don't think it would be a good idea to expand your hobbies into trying to become the dominant factor in organized crime. I don't think it would strife too well with you being Intendant."
"You don't have to worry about that," Dukat assured. "I wasn't thinking of me. I was more thinking along the lines of some friends that make a good living of off slavery and will be very sad to see it go, if you catch my drift. Since you are getting rid of the Orion Syndicate anyway, I could throw that bone to my friends; keep them happy."
"You do what you want, as long as you remind them to be reasonable."
"I will," Dukat assured, then he grinned. "After all, I will then only have to remind them what happened to the Orion Syndicate when it became too blatant."
"Alright then," Torres said, closing that part of the conversation. "About your price for supporting the deal, I was kinda hoping that you would remember that you still owe me a huge favor for the Dilithium I gave you. Which reminds me, how is your sister doing?"
"My sister is just fine, thank you for asking, and you know damn well that that favor is no where near enough to cover this."
"It is not?" Torres said with fake surprise. "Then how about the fact that you also still owe me a favor for... you know what? Come to think of it you still owe me so many favors that I lost count. So what would you say if I just forger all of them in exchange for you support?"
"All of them?" Dukat asked, clearly liking what he heard. "As in even score? I must say that I do like the sound of that, but, there still is the fact that for the first time ever I have you in a position where you need my help or else you can forget about what you want. So how about instead of what you suggested, you forget all the favors I still owe you and on top of that you owe me five very big favors to be collected at some point in the future?"
"Now your just being plain greedy, Dukat," Torres growled. "Tell you what, three extra favors, big favors, but I have the final word on them. If I would not have done it if you had asked me normally I also don't do it then. But I will promise you that when you ask, I will keep in mind how helpful you were to me."
"Three seems like a reasonable number," Dukat said with a grin. "Always a pleasure doing business with you, Torres."
"Likewise, Dukat," Torres said, grinning as well. "Now, before I go let me give you a little warning to give to your friends. As I stated, I have no objection to the vacuum of organized crime being filled, but if they cross the line they'll piss me off,"
"And as the Orion Syndicate is about to find out," Dukat interrupted, "You don't want to piss off Intendant Torres. Don't worry, I'll make sure they get, and also understand, the message."
"Glad to hear that, Torres out."
"That is it?" Seven asked slightly surprised when the screen went black.
"That's it," Torres agreed. "It's done. The deal has the support of all Intendants and the Chancellor. We have the new Intendant picked, Intendant Seven of Nine, now all that is left to do is wait for the Grand Assembly to let the entire Coalition know."
Seven merely lifted her eyebrow at that.
"Yeah, so it's just a little bit more work than that," Torres agreed. "Deals will go back and forth between the Intendants to iron out any bumps there might be, but point is, they won't retract their support. The deal will be made official and will be rectified and the next Grand Assembly." Torres was quiet for a moment before adding, "Which means that your friends will have the means to go home soon. Why don't you sent them a little message, telling them that they should tune in to the Grand Assembly broadcast?"
"Yes mistress, that seems like a good idea," Seven agreed. "Mistress, about the name, Intendant Seven of Nine, I was thinking more of a different name."
"You can pick any name you like," Torres assured before asking, "Um, what name were you thinking of?"
***
"Do you think they'll mention something interesting?" Chakotay asked as he, just like the rest of the senior staff, sat looking at the view-screen where the Coalition emblem was shown with underneath it a clock that was showing the Coalition standard time.
"I doubt it," Annika said just as the emblem started to fade away only to be replaced with a shot of a huge hall with all seats facing a stage in the front of the hall. "Normally this is boring as hell. I would be surprised if anything major would be announced."
With the fade-over completed, the camera zoomed in on the stage and one could see a long table with chairs facing the hall. The table had a privacy screen so that nobody could look underneath the table and the only things one could see of the chairs were their backs. Besides the table and chairs there was also a speaker podium. For the rest the stage was completely bare.
"And than again, this could be one of the most important Grand Assemblies of at least the last six years," Annika said when they could see the table, and more importantly the chairs behind it. She straightened before leaning forward a little.
"Why do you think that, Captain?" B'Elanna asked from her engineering station. She had figured that it would be better to look at the opening of the Grand Assembly on the big bridge view-screen instead of some small screen in Engineering. More so because Seven's short and overly cryptic message had said that they might hear something at the Assembly they would find interesting.
"Because of the chair in the middle," Annika explained. "See how it's taller and more ornate then the other six? That's because it's the chair of the Chancellor, and he normally doesn't come to the Grand Assemblies. The last time he was present was six years ago, and at the time the reason he was here was to approve a redrawing of Faction lines. The borders between territories were straightened out some, which meant that some planets were going to fall under a different faction. The Chancellor was there so that people knew that the proposal had the complete approval from all Intendants as well as the Chancellor himself."
Annika stopped talking when the door at the back of the stage opened and a Klingon walked up to the speaker podium.
"All stand and show the proper respect for Chancellor Worf."
"I guess nobody wanted to be seen as the last one getting up," Tom said amused when all three thousand people in the hall practically jumped up at the words.
A few minutes went by in which not a sound was made in the hall. Finally the door opened again and Worf walked onto the stage and sat down in his chair with a sneer. "This Grand Assembly is now opened. There are some rather important issues to be announced, so let me say personally what anyone should know anyway. After this Grand Assembly is over, any and all things announced will be implemented according to the timeframe included in the information package about the announcement. Anyone that is found to ignore that timeline will suffer the most severe consequences." Worf looked to his side where the announcer was standing at the speaker podium. "Get the rest in here."
"All stand and show the proper respect for the Klingon Intendant Torres."
Annika couldn't help but smirk at the 'all stand.' As if anyone of those three thousand people had been so stupid to sit back down again while the Chancellor had been talking.
The door opened again and this time Torres entered with two steps behind her Seven who was carrying a small box.
"I'll be damned."
"Captain?" Chakotay merely asked, but while he was asking the one worded question, he heard a mumble starting to form in the hall on the screen.
"Torres took Seven with her. As far as I know there has never been a slave in that hall during a Grand Assembly."
On the screen, Torres took the chair to Worf's left side and Seven kneeled on the floor at her left side. The announcer choose that time to introduce the Cardassian Intendant, who was going to sit at Worf's right side, and continued like that until all the Intendants were seated. Finally the announcer told the people that they could sit back down again.
"The first proposal of this Grand Assembly is from Intendant Torres. Intendant?"
With the last word the announcer looked at Torres who dipped her head a little before starting to speak.
*
"On this day, it is exactly one hundred and fifty standard years ago that the Sol Empire fell and the complete and unconditional capitulation was signed. Because the Sol Empire used many of our ancestors as slaves, our ancestors felt that it was only fair justice that the six species that had the biggest hand in enslaving us, or in case of the Vulcans, didn't stop the Sol empire while they still had to power to stop them and instead choose the work with them, should become slaves themselves. It was agreed that for five generations those species should be slaves.
"But the Coalition got used to its slaves and made use of the fact that in that agreement it was never mentioned exactly which species would be used to measure the five generations time line. Everyone knows that we are still in the first generation of the species that was eventually picked as an indicator. If we continue to do as we have, the five generations time frame will only be reached twenty-four thousand years from now.
"We Klingons are proud and honorable people. I am of mind that having slaves doesn't make you proud, nor honorable; having slaves only makes you weak. Just think, what would Kahless have done? I think that he would have either killed them all, or taught them a lesson they would never forget. He would however not have enslaved them, their children, and their children's children.
"Some might want to point out that I myself also use slaves, and they would be right. But that actually proves my point; we have come to the point where we are dependent on slaves. You either have to have them, or you can never run a business or the likes.
"I think that we have taught them a lesson they will never forget, and therefore I think it's time slavery of any kind is ended. Continuing slavery will not teach them something new, it will only serve make us weak and complacent." Torres was quiet for a moment so that there could be no mistaking her next words. "I herby propose the complete and undeviating end of any and all slavery, barring any and all conditions set forth in an effort to ensure a smooth transition."
*
"I herby propose the complete and undeviating end of any and all slavery, barring any and all conditions set forth in an effort to ensure a smooth transition."
Annika's heart stopped beating for a moment when she heard that last sentence. Tears started to form in her eyes and she made no effort to stop them from falling. She knew that people were looking at her, but she didn't care. There was no way that she could explain to them that hearing those words meant for her. She would be an officially free person. No more property on the run; a nice bonus for anyone that might be able to catch her and turn her in.
Free.
A person.
A free individual with rights; someone that could simply say... no.
"Ha... Harry, download that information package into a PADD and give it to me."
"Yes Captain."
*
"Does anyone second the proposal?" The announcer asked.
Of course, there wasn't a single person in the Coalition that didn't know that the proposal already had the support of the others; otherwise Torres would never have brought it up. The only question was who would show themselves to be such a clear supporters of the proposal. The others would be able to say that they merely hadn't voted against it, but the person that second the proposal would be known as a person that voted for it.
Torres waited for Jadzia to speak up, just as they had agreed. But just as Jadzia took a breath to speak, Torres was surprised by an 'aye' coming from the other side of Worf. She looked past Worf at Dukat and saw him looking back. There was no mistaking the look in his eyes. That was the 'you owe me, big time' look, and he was right.
To have the Trill Intendant second the proposal was one thing, but to have the Intendant of the second biggest faction so clearly support the proposal gave it a foundation it could never have had otherwise, or so Torres thought. But within mere moments she was proven wrong.
"Aye," Shinze said, even though only one other person was needed to 'second' a proposal. Of course, Torres knew that by so clearly supporting her, Shinze was only working himself further into the position of being the 'savior' of the Vulcans. But that was alright, Seven had given him that approach to begin with.
"Aye," Ro and Jetur said at the same time, sitting on their one chair that was wide enough to seat them both. Torres wondered for a moment why they so openly supported her proposal, but then realized that they weren't just supporting her proposal; they were merely evening out some of the thanks they had for Seven's help in them becoming Intendant themselves.
"Aye," Deanna said with a small smile. That smile told Torres that her support was the help of one friend to another. Nothing more, nothing less.
"Aye," Jadzia said, and Torres knew that she had supported the proposal simply because she was looking forward to the troubles and challenges the upcoming changes would bring and no longer because they had agreed that she would second the proposal.
Yes, Torres was proven wrong. She had thought that with Dukat's support her proposal had gotten the best support that it could, but now she knew that it could be even better. With all Intendants 'seconding' her proposal it would become near to impossible for people to find a way to get 'passed' the proposal.
By now the hall was filled with a loud buzz of voices, but they quickly died down when Worf stood up and took a moment to pull his battle uniform straight. "Kahless once said, 'every man has his own fate in his hand. He, and he alone, decides if he dies as a hero, or as a coward.' I think it's about time that everyone in coalition space had their own fate in their hands. In case anyone is still wondering, let me be clear. The days of slavery are over. What comes when the Grand Assembly is concluded is an orderly transition to a Coalition in which everyone is a free person. Intendant Torres, aye, I too give my voice to your proposal."
*
"It's true. Their really going to end it," Annika said in nothing more then a whisper.
B'Elanna decided that protocols be damned and kneeled beside Annika's chair on one knee. "Are you alright? Maybe want to rest in the ready room, or at home?"
"No! No, I want to hear this; I NEED to hear this. They are going to end it, B'Elanna. They really are going to end it."
"Captain, the file is complete," Harry said as he handed a PADD to Annika. "I took the liberty to have a look while it was downloading, and there are quite some conditions. Most noticeably is the one that slaves are turned into something called 'long contracts' and they have to serve the contract with the same people that they were now serving as slaves."
"Probably the transition part they keep talking about," B'Elanna said in understanding. "I'm Sorry, Annika. I know it sounded like,"
"No," Annika interrupted. "No, don't you understand? Of course they had to do something like that. They can't do without us doing all their jobs. But don't you see? A long contract is a set time frame of ten years. After that time the contract is renegotiated, or if they prefer, the people can look for work somewhere else. Don't you understand? At the moment we lived our lives knowing that we would never be anything else but unnamed manual labor for the rest of our life. Now we... they... have something to look out for. Even if that is still ten years away. They can have hope again. Yes, ten years seems a long time, but it does give you the opportunity to say 'only ten more years, only nine more years, only two more years.' Your life gets a purpose again, and you can start dreaming of the time after."
"Actually, if they happen to be forty, or be that soon, they don't have to wait ten years. I didn't see the ten year part, but while I was downloading the info, I did see that there is an 'age forty renegotiation option,' or at leas that's what it's called in this thing."
"Thank you," Annika said as she took the PADD.
"Looks like they are about to go on," Chakotay said.
*
As soon as Worf finished his speech of support and set down again, the hall erupted into wild conversation. Worf let the conversations continue for almost five minutes before giving the announced a small nod to indicate that he should go on.
"It has been decided that a new faction should be installed that will cover the soon to be former slave species; headed by a new to be installed Intendant. This faction will be established in sector twenty-one through twenty-eight of the Klingon sector and it will enjoy the same rights and privileges as all other faction."
*
"Bring up those sectors on the screen; split screen," Annika said, and seconds later the left side of the view-screen was covered by the part of space that was being talked about.
"It isn't really a big part, compared with the other factions," Chakotay pointed out. "It's only one fifth the size of the smallest other faction, while it won't even really be missed in the huge territory covered by the Klingons."
Of course, he had no way of knowing that this part of space was actually bigger than what the original plan had been. Worf had decided that he really didn't like the idea of a 'sphere' of space which would intersect sector borders. This would mean that when people talked about a sector number they could be talking both about Klingon and former slaves territory. Because of that Worf had decided to make the territory a square eight sector part of space; a block of two by two by two sectors. The borders of which ran exactly along the sector grid lines. A side affect of this also was that there now were nine free species that fell inside that territory instead of the original eight.
"Considering that they are basically giving the territory away, I think that the slave species will be more than happy with the eight sector territory they are getting," Tuvok pointed out.
"You are right," Annika agreed. "But I'm a little surprised that 'I' have to point out the importance of that part of space to you two. In there you will find Sol as well as Vulcan. You will also find the Homeworlds of the other four slave species, and not at the least nine Homeworlds of free species. Risa is located there in that left sector."
"Why do you point out Risa specifically?" Tuvok asked.
Now Annika chuckled. "Because if all slaves fall under this new faction, and the new faction owns Risa, this means that the new faction is in control of all sex slaves as well as the one place in the whole Coalition that is known by name for turning out the best sex slaves."
"In other words, they will control the entire sex marked," Tom said from his chair.
"That's your first monopoly right there people," Annika said with a grin. "And what a monopoly it is. Oh, it doesn't sound like much, but just think about it. This new faction has the power to cut anyone in the coalition off from free and legal sex with people their not married to, if they're married and not single that is."
"Support our proposal or you will never get laid again," B'Elanna said with a grin. "That's a threat alright, especially in dealing with the Klingons."
*
"Since there are no free or former slaves at the moment and therefore no election for the first Intendant can be held, the Chancellor has decided that he will appoint the first Intendant for this new faction," The announcer said before handing the proceedings back to Worf.
"Before I appoint the new Intendant let me remind people that this new Intendant has full Intendant powers from the second the Intendant is appointed, and should be addressed as such and with the respect shown to all Intendants. I also want people to remember that not recognizing an Intendant as such is a Capital Crime that can be punished by immediate execution."
Worf looked passed Torres where Seven was still kneeling with her head held down. "Slave, get over here."
Seven got up, only to kneel once more at Worf's side. "Master?"
"What is your name, human?"
"I am merely a slave; I have no name, master." Nobody but the people sitting at the table would ever know just how hard it had been for Seven to say those words.
*
"Kahless," B'Elanna whispered.
"Are they going to..." Harry asked in total disbelief.
*
"As of this moment you are no longer a slave; you are a free person. Pick a name you want to be known as."
"Yes, Chancellor." Only the very smart people in the hall picked up on the smooth transition of Seven going from calling Worf master to calling him Chancellor, and the fact that he didn't react to it. Clearly this had been agreed upon. "Chancellor, if it is acceptable, I would like to be known as Annika Phoenix."
"Very well. Annika Phoenix, you are hereby appointed as the Intendant of the new Coalition faction. Do you have a name for this new faction?"
While they were talking a chair was added at one of the ends of the table, beside Jadzia Dax but Seven continued to sit on her knees besides Worf. It was clear that she was sending her own message to the Coalition. She was making it very clear that her reign would be marked with cooperation, not confrontation.
"Chancellor, with your permission, I would like to make the first Intendant decree that my faction will from now on be known as the Phoenix Alliance."
*
"Chancellor, with your permission, I would like to make the first Intendant decree that my faction will from now on be known as the Phoenix Alliance."
"Way to go, Seven!"
"Tom?" Annika asked at his clear excitement.
Tom turned around and looked at Annika. "It's the name she chose." When he still saw confusion on Annika's face he looked around only to see confusion there as well. "Oh, come on. Ancient earth mythology, um, our earth that is."
"Why don't you just fill us in and we will know as well," Chakotay suggested.
"Alright, here's the deal. The Phoenix was a bird that existed out of fire. A beautiful bird that was almost impossible to kill. But there is the part that it was known for the most. If it did die, its body turned into ashes, and from those ashes raised a new phoenix. One that was bigger, stronger, and more beautiful as ever before, and if that one died, from its ashes would come even more beauty and power. 'Rising from the ashes like a phoenix' was a saying that was used often to indicate people or organization that had been beaten in to the dust, only to come back better and more glorious than before."
"While everyone just assumed that their time was over and time would move on," Annika said in understanding. "And with that name Seven, Intendant Annika Phoenix I mean, is basically sharing her hopes for the new faction; that slave species will be back to become an important part of the Coalition."
"Way to go, Seven," B'Elanna said, mimicking Tom's original words.
*
"It's so noticed. The Phoenix alliance is as of now an official part of Coalition space."
"Thank you, Chancellor. For my second decree I would like it to be known that as of now, any person that will become Phoenix Alliance Intendant in the future will take the last name of Phoenix. Now, and in the future the Phoenix Alliance Intendant will be know as Intendant Phoenix."
"Again, it is so noted. Do you have an emblem that will become the Phoenix Alliance emblem?"
"Chancellor, with your permission, I would like to hand in two emblems. One the official Phoenix Alliance emblem, and the other one is my personal emblem. I would also like to make my third Intendant decree that where there is one emblem that represents the Phoenix Alliance. Besides that there is an emblem that only the Phoenix Alliance Intendant and first degree family of that Intendant will be allowed to wear.
"This emblem has to have the main trade of the Phoenix alliance in it to make clear that the Intendant is the Intendant of the Phoenix Alliance. However, the emblem is personalized for the particular Intendant and is never to be used again once the Intendant died, with the exception of any first degree family that is still alive. They are allowed to wear the emblem until their death as well. A new Intendant will then design a new personal emblem for them and their families."
"Show me the emblems," Worf said, and while he spoke a large screen started to decent behind the table until all the space behind the table was filled with the screen from floor to sealing.
Without words, Torres pushed the small box that Seven had taken with her across the table until it was lying in front of Worf.
Seven opened the box from her kneeling position, took a round emblem out of the box and handed it to Worf. "Chancellor, the official emblem of the Phoenix alliance."
At the same time as Seven spoke, the screen came to life with a picture of an orange and red bird made of fire. The picture looked as if the bird was flying straight up to the skies with wings fully outstretched and streaks of fire trailing behind it. To the Voyager crew the picture proved that Tom's guess had been correct.
"This is as of now recognized as the official Phoenix Alliance emblem," Worf said with an approving nod.
Seven took out the second emblem and handed it to Worf. "And this is the personal emblem of me, Intendant Annika Phoenix. As my fourth Intendant decree I would like it to be noted that it is a capital crime for anyone but me and first degree family of mine to wear that particular emblem. The same will be for the individual emblems of any Alliance Intendants in the future."
As Worf took the emblem it was once again shown on the screen behind them. Once more the firebird was in the emblem, but this time it was sitting proudly on a branch with its head cocked to the side slightly and its wings were folded nicely against its body. The most surprising part of the emblem however was that behind the Phoenix there was standing a B'Rel; the famous Klingon bird of prey. The B'Rel had its wings outstretched protectively over the Phoenix, offering the Phoenix its protection.
There was absolutely no mistaking the implication of that emblem. The fledgling Phoenix Alliance, and especially its Intendant, enjoyed a protection others should be right to fear. Of course, what nobody but the people sitting at the table and Martok knew was that the particular B'Rel was actually the B'Rel of Torres' mark, down to the coloring of individual feathers.
"Both emblems are accepted, as is the capital crime rule about the second emblem. Since you are now a free person, you no longer have to wear the mark of your former owner; you can take off Torres' mark."
"Chancellor, I beg of you that I will be allowed to wear my mistress' mark," Seven said as she touched the pendant of the necklace with her hand.
"Torres is no longer you mistress," Worf pointed out with a frown. This was something they hadn't talked about since Worf had assumed that the so stubborn slave would be only too glad to not have to wear a mark anymore.
"In our official life, no she is no longer my mistress. When I have to deal with her as one Intendant to another, then I will do so with the wellbeing of my faction in mind. But in our private life she will always be my mistress."
"Is wearing her mark really that important to you?"
"Chancellor, besides my mistress herself, and now the wellbeing of the Phoenix Alliance, wearing my mistress' mark is the most important thing in my life to me."
Worf smirked at that. Seven's public show of devotion to Torres was sure to start people talking about just exactly which of Seven's, qualities, had landed her the job as new Intendant. But it also meant that people wouldn't be so hasty to come to the Klingons to complain about the new Phoenix faction. Good; les problems for Worf.
"Well, I guess that if an Intendant wants to wear a necklace that bears her lover's mark, than it's that Intendant's own business. Just know that from now on it is no longer proof of your ownership. Or better said, no official prove of who owns you, mind, body, and soul."
"Thank you, Chancellor."
"You are welcome. Now go sit in your chair, Intendant Annika Phoenix." Worf waited until Seven was seated before speaking up again. "Before I give the word to Intendant Phoenix, I would like to make an announcement myself. I hereby wish the Klingon and Phoenix Intendants all the best and good luck in their upcoming marriage."
Torres had been looking to the end of the table where Seven had set down and her head snapped to the other side so that she could look at Worf so quickly that she almost gave herself whiplash. That she and Seven were about to get married any time soon was even news for her. But then she saw the self-satisfied smirk that Worf was sprouting and she understood only too well that he had announced this little surprise for only two reasons. So that the Coalition knew that he agreed to the marriage, and that two Intendants could actually get married to each other in the first place. All so that he didn't have to bother with it somewhere in the future.
She looked back to the other end of the table and saw Seven looking back with a surprised expression on her face, but also with a big smile. "Thank you for your well whishes, Chancellor," Torres finally said, her eyes never leaving those of Seven. "My pet and I are looking forward to the day that she will become officially what she already is unofficially; an irreplaceable part of the House of Torres." Now Torres looked out into the hall and her expression grew cold and hard.
"But let there be no illusion. That is our private life, and we keep that separate from the official part. As the Klingon Intendant I will focus on the wellbeing on the Klingon faction, even if that is at the cost of the Phoenix faction. The same goes for Intendant Annika Phoenix. Let there be none in the Phoenix faction that think that they can get away with things merely because their Intendant is my lover in our private life. I won't hesitate to take Klingon forces into Phoenix territory to take care of... problems."
"And I would not at all be pleased with people that think that they can use me to get to the Klingon Intendant," Seven added.
"Intendant Phoenix, I believe you have some information you want to share with the Coalition?" Worf asked to get things moving along.
"Thank you, Chancellor; I do." Seven looked out into the hall. She knew that anyone was expecting her to talk about all the grand things she was going to do for the new faction so she decided that it was best to lay out the bad with the good.
"Let there be no mistaking the situation. The other factions have absolutely no reason to end slavery, except for the simple fact that they think that we have learned our lesson. I fully intent to prove them right; the past will be put behind us. That means that now and in the future no claims what so ever for compensation can be made. Nor can claims be made for assets of any kind that once belonged to particular ancestors or families in general. As Phoenix Intendant, I hereby declare any such claim void and unsupported.
"I would like to thank the other Factions for all the help they offered, and are still offering, for the buildup of the Phoenix Alliance. I would especially like to thank the Klingon Faction for so graciously offering their sixteenth fleet for patrolling Phoenix Alliance space for as long as it takes us to build the ships and train the crews that are needed to do the patrolling ourselves. Because we are only starting to build our faction, it might be very tempting for pirates to raid our planets and moons, or for smugglers to set up base in our territory. Let it be known that we will not tolerate this. If you do enter our space you will be hunted down and captured, even if you leave our space again.
"For all others, because our space is located deeply in Klingon space, we will waiver the permission rights. You will not have to ask our permission to enter our space, nor will you have to ask permission of the Klingons to enter their space once you leave ours again. However do know that any and all ships inside Phoenix Alliance space are subject so search at any time at our discretion."
Having made it clear that they would not interrupt travel of others, but that it also would be a stupid idea for smugglers to come inside Phoenix Alliance territory, Seven moved on to addressing her future subjects.
"Slaves. Your slavery will officially end in two days time. As of that minute you will all be a subject of the Phoenix Alliance. However, it is of paramount importance that the transition from slaves to free people happens in an orderly and smooth fashion. Because of that all of you will be entering into a long contract at the place you are working now. It is very important that everyone in the Coalition understands that they will not suddenly lose their entire work force. At this moment an information file is sent out. It is mandatory for all, including slaves, to read that, or have it read to them if they cannot read. Employees that do not give their slaves this information file to read will suffer severe punishments.
"Also, this might give some slaves the idea that they do not have to work anymore, or not as hard, since soon they will be no longer slaves. Let it be known that such slaves will have to suffer the same punishments as all long contracts do that no longer fulfill the work they were hired to do.
"On the other hand, this might give employees the idea that this is the perfect time to even out some old scores with some troublesome slaves. Do not. Any and all incident will be investigated. To insure this the other factions have pledged their full support. Depending on which faction you live in, incidents will be investigated by the Klingon Security Department. The Cardassian Seventh order; Internal Affairs. The Bajoran Special Forces; Social Stability Section. The Romulan Tal Shiar. The Betazoid Security Agency. And the Trill Investigation Department. We want to work to a future where the former slave races are a proud, but equal part of the Coalition. The best way to insure this happens is to look forward and not hold old grudges."
Seven was quiet for a moment as she lowered her eyes. When she looked back up and spoke, her voice was soft and there was a slight trace of sadness in it. "As I said, the transition is a very important time. Now people can finally look forward to a future in which nobody but themselves owns them. Unfortunately this transition takes time. There will be people that are old now and will die of old age before ever having lived one day in freedom. There are people that will die from accidents. There are people that will get sick and die. All in all there will be millions that will die without having tasted the freedom we are promising. For this I apologize to you.
"But the Vulcans have a saying that is very fitting for this situation; 'the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.' For those that die before having tasted freedom, I hope that you can find consolation in the fact that while you have never experienced it, your children are born in freedom. I hope that your last thought will not be of the hard life you lived, but of your children growing up in a universe where they can make their own choices.
"For some, if not most, people it will feel like changes are coming for everyone but them. They will wonder why changes are not implemented for them 'now.' To those people I say, keep in mind the magnitude of this endeavor. We have to make plans for literally billions of people. We simply cannot do that in only a few days. But rest assured; changes will come, and the first one comes right now."
Seven looked to her side and down the table to Worf. "Chancellor, I thank you for giving me the chance to address my future subjects. As my last act on this Grand Assembly, I would like claim a monopoly for the Phoenix Alliance."
"You would, would you now?" Worf asked. They hadn't discussed any monopoly, but if it was a fair one, he would address it like any monopoly claim that had ever been made before. "And just what monopoly would you like to claim?"
"Chancellor, considering that all sex slaves will become subjects of the Phoenix alliance in two days, and will be called Physical servants from then on. Also considering the fact that Body slaves, from then on to be known as Body Servants, may only be trained by Risa, which is a member of the Phoenix alliance as of now. I would like to claim a monopoly for the Phoenix alliance on the entire physical service market."
"Would you now?" Worf asked slightly amused while a buzz was starting to fill the hall.
The people in the hall weren't stupid; they knew that if slavery was going to end, you would have to hire the people instead of buying them. And if Worf were to grant the monopoly claim this would mean that only Phoenix Alliance personal would be able to fulfill official contracts and have the renowned office buildings in capital cities. While the best others could hope for would be the crumbs, the small deals that weren't really worth the time of a higher level contractor.
"For a viable monopoly claim you need to prove an infrastructure that you can service the entire Coalition. How can you do that? You don't even have any people to negotiate contracts between employers and possible employees."
"With all due respect, Chancellor, I do," Seven disagreed as politely as it was possible while still disagreeing. "As of now Risa is part of the Phoenix alliance. A Risan representative can be found at in any capital city slave market in the Coalition. Since these places can no longer sell slaves, the Rira representatives there can from now on concentrate on negotiating fair deals between employers and employees. As you can see, the Phoenix alliance already has a full infrastructure through the entire Coalition; the Risa infrastructure. In fact, it would take any other organization years, decades, to build an infrastructure to rival ours if you were to awards the monopoly to another entity. Add to this also the fact that we do not only have the infrastructure, but also the personnel that has years of training in negotiating deals and contracts in this particular sector and you will see that we are the best choice for this monopoly."
"Hmm, true," Worf was forced to admit. "Very well, you got your monopoly position. As of now the main seat for the Physical service industry will be located on,"
"Risa," Seven supplied when Worf stopped so that she could fill in the location. The location of Risa had been chosen by Seven very deliberately for three reasons. First, having the main seat of an industry always brought extra prosperity to the planet the seat was located on. By having this be Risa, Seven was sending a message to the species that hadn't been slaves that they wouldn't become second place to the species that had been slaves. The second reason was a simple one; Seven hadn't been lying when she said that the Risan were the best at what they did. By having them take care of the seat, the industry would get a professionalism from the first minute without having to suffer from trial and error. And third, the name would go on. For generations people knew that 'the best' came from Risa and with the physical service seat located on Risa, 'the best' would still be coming from Risa, even though Risa was now part of a new faction.
"Very well," Worf said in agreement. "As of now the main seat of the Physical service industry is located on Risa. Good luck with your new faction Intendant Phoenix," Worf said before looking at Torres. "Intendant Torres, you had a few more announcements?"
"I do Chancellor thank you."
***
"So Intendant Phoenix, what is your next course of action?" Torres asked amused when she and Seven had entered the Intendant waiting hall here the Intendants always gathered during the Grand Assemblies. "Want to go over to the Bajorans and ask them for their help in getting your friends home?" she asked while pointing in the direction of the two Bajoran women. "Your friends could be home, their home, within days."
"That sounds like a good plan," Seven agreed. "They have seen several options to get home, only to see them disappear right in front of them. It will be good for them to finally have an option of getting home that does not disappear. For once the words 'a way to get home' are real. I believe they will like hearing them, and I also believe that I will like the fact that I will be the one to tell them; 'I have a way home for you.'"
*************
The end.
And this, my friends, is where the story I envisioned ends.
I thank you all for taking this ride along with me, and the nice words of encouragement along the way.
So, you might wonder, are we now leaving the 'Alternate Universes' universe for good? Welllll, no. See, while writing this story scenes came to my mind about how this would be done, and how that. Just where will Intendant Phoenix make her official residency seat? Just how can one free person create an entire Faction? Just who will help her? So to answer some of these questions, since the AU doesn't seem to want to let me go, there will be a third story called 'Alternate Conclusions.' But make no mistake, the storyline I was setting up has ended, so don't expect any big plot moves in the third story. It's more of me having fun with creating a fictive society. If you want to read it, do so, just know that the storyline you have been following is considered over now. My story was to end with the creation of Intendant Phoenix, and it did. Just that we now get to see a story that deals with the life of Intendant Phoenix. But if you don't want to read Alternate Conclusions, than let's just say that, yes, Voyager did get home this time and the storyline is over now. But if you do want to read Alternate Conclusions... Don't worry, we will be seeing the rest of the Voyager crew again.
Thanks for your time,
H.W.
Started 4th of April 2004
Finished 31st of January 2006