Trek Reverse Bang: Dynamite With a Laser Beam (part 1)
Title: Dynamite With a Laser Beam
Artist: The brilliant korilian!
Author: framlingem
Rating (both art/fic): PG--13
Genre/Pairing: Gen
Word Count: 7 688
Warnings: Mentions a past rape. Some violence. Scantily-clad (or unclad) women.
Fic Summary: History, duplicity, and treachery as Starfleet sends Gaila and Uhura on an undercover mission to the world of Gaila's adolescence.
She's in the middle of eating breakfast when the door chimes. She's running on very little sleep, having been up late the night before working on some software Scotty asked her to take a look at. If her idea works, it'll let the computer interpret sensor data more efficiently. The astrophysicists and tactical officers love the idea, and Sulu's promised that if it works, not only will he name his first successful hydroponic orchid variant after her, but he'll cook her dinner. She tells herself it's worth it, but it's an effort of will to not slink back into her bunk, and the last thing she wants to do right now is open the door.
She puts her spoon back into her oatmeal with exaggerated care, stands up, takes the two steps from her table to her door, and checks her reflection in the full-length mirror she smuggled aboard and affixed to the wall next to the intercom. Her reflection is, thankfully, wearing clothes, so she she opens the door, grits her teeth in what she hopes is a reasonable approximation of a welcoming smile, and says, “good morning, Yeoman Rand! I wasn't expecting to see you here!”
Yeoman Rand, damn her, looks as fresh as a daisy. “Good morning, Ensign Gaila!” she chirps efficiently. (How the hell can anyone chirp efficiently, Gaila wonders uncharitably.) There's a padd being waved under her nose, so Gaila takes it. “Message for you from the captain, eyes only. He asks that you read it and present yourself in his ready room when you're done. The Chief Engineer has already been advised that you may be late for you shift today.”
Training and habit override the fog of sleep deprivation, so Gaila thanks the Yeoman (“My pleasure, Ensign! I'll have some real coffee percolating in the ready room for you when you get there.”) and sits back down to read Kirk's message, pushing her bowl of oatmeal to the opposite side of her tiny utility table. She thumbs on the padd and is taken aback to discover that the first words on the screen are an apology.
“Gaila,” Kirk writes, “I'm sorry. I'm about to ask a lot of you. Starfleet is about to ask a lot of you. I've attached the overview of a mission. Read it and report to my ready room. Consider who you'd want as backup - I have some candidates in mind, but I think it'd be better if you picked.” She opens the attachment, and her mouth tightens in response to what she's seeing. Twenty minutes later, what remains of her oatmeal is a congealed lump of concrete that's going to be hellish to remove from her bowl, and she's too angry to mourn the loss of the cinnamon she's been hoarding carefully since they left Earth on their five-year-mission. The padd is face down on the floor, where she dropped it. She can't leave it there given what's on it, so she picks it up, shoves it into a pocket, and heads up to her meeting with Kirk, annoyed by the whispering of doors she'd like nothing more than to slam.
***
Uhura is not eating breakfast when Yeoman Rand requests entry to her quarters some time later. She's not even in her quarters. Rand looks up and down the hallway discreetly and, finding no-one, grins to herself.
“Ha. Way to go, Lieutenant.”
Humming, she departs further down the corridor towards the First Officer's quarters.
***
“Captain, I'm sorry I wasn't here sooner. Commander Spock and I were discussing a paper we're co-authoring.” Looking at Kirk's face, Uhura knows that he knows that wasn't what she was doing with Spock. On the other hand, he's probably still wrong: Spock has been teaching her to play his harp, and they do it in his quarters rather than in the designated recreational areas of the ship so that it can be stashed away quickly and safely in case of an emergency. She hates the idea of taking any risks with what is now a rare and precious thing, one of the last harps to be made in the great conservatory of ShiKahr.
Kirk is wearing his most professional face, which means he would be teasing her about what he thinks she was doing with Spock if something serious wasn't up. Instead, he waves her towards the unoccupied chair at his desk.
“Not a problem, Lieutenant. Your shift doesn't actually start for fifteen minutes, anyway. Have you had breakfast? Ensign, have you?”
For the first time, Uhura realizes that the woman in the occupied chair, facing away from the door, is Gaila. Her usually cheerful friend looks anything but cheerful; every line of her shoulders and neck screams that military discipline is all that is keeping her in the chair. Gaila waves off the pastries Kirk is offering, but Uhura takes one -- fresh strawberries, I should have breakfast with the captain more often if he can get his hands on things like this -- and sits.
Kirk takes the lead, leaning his elbows on the desk and steepling his fingers in a pose Uhura's pretty sure he picked up from the How-to-Command textbook under “Management Poses: Delivering Important Information”.
“Lieutenant, you're here because the Ensign thinks you're the best woman to back her up on the mission she just agreed to take, and I agree with her.”
Oh? thinks Uhura, and sits forward slightly in her seat. Kirk looks to Gaila, but she's still staring fixedly at a spot just above his left shoulder, so he continues.
“Earlier today, I received a communiqué from Starfleet Command. It concerns a delicate matter. Gaila's already had the overview since it directly concerned her.
“This,” Kirk says, pulling two eight by ten photographs from a folder, “is Commander Andrew Guffin.” Uhura examines the picture she is handed. It shows a smiling man in early middle age, wearing Starfleet engineering reds. “Until three days ago he was a key member of the design team for our next generation of space station. He left the office, and when he didn't show for the weekly poker night, his CO went round to his apartment. It was empty.”
“He wasn't there?” Uhura is starting to have a bad feeling about this.
“I mean it was empty. Furniture, clothing, personal items, all gone. He left the carpets and the appliances, but that's about it. The mainframe had been wiped. When they checked his workstation, there was a padd missing, and a check of the security footage indicated that that padd had recently had the latest schematics and specs downloaded to it.” Kirk frowns, and suddenly looks very tired. “That includes weapons designs, shield frequencies, and specifications for repair bays for all active Starfleet classes of vessel.”
Beside her, Uhura hears the hiss of air sucked between teeth. Apparently Gaila hadn't been aware of that detail. For the first time, Gaila speaks.
“That can't be leaked.”
“No,” says Kirk, “it can't. And we need it back.” He turns earnest eyes to Gaila. “That's the only reason I didn't tell the Admiral exactly which orifice he could shove this mission into when I found out what the plan was.”
“I don't understand,” Uhura says. “What's wrong with the mission?”
“They want me to go back.” Gaila's voice is low, controlled. Uhura's never heard her sound like this, except for once.
Uhura arrived home from her Structure of the Klingon Language study group to find Gaila sacked out on the couch, which wasn't a usual occurrence on a Friday. Usually, Gaila spent Friday evenings at the Antique Film Society's weekly showing, and then spent Friday night with whichever available man caught her fancy during the movie. That night, though, she was sprawled across the cushions, staring into space.
“Gaila? Everything all right?”
“We saw Gone With The Wind.”
Uhura's first instinct was to say how much she loved that movie, but somehow she knew that wasn't a good idea.
“Oh?
“Things were supposed to be better here.”
Oh. Uhura repressed the urge to say that it was a long time ago, that things were better, and decided to make tea instead. The warm mug gave Gaila something to do with her hands, and they sat and drank in companiable silence.
“They want me to go back,” says Gaila, “and be a slave again. They asked me to take someone with me.”
“Gaila, I promise you, this is only temporary. In and out. The day after that auction, we'll be in-system to beam you out. Starfleet will not leave you there. I will not leave you there. You're part of my crew.”
“We're going to Orion?” Uhura doesn't hesitate to include herself. She never did find out the whole story, but she knows Gaila shouldn't go alone.
“One of our intelligence officers was passed a guest list for an auction taking place on Orion. It's being held in the Palace of the Sun in the capital. There's a human male on the list, and we have reason to believe it may be Guffin, looking to sell the space station plans on neutral ground. If he's selling
it, he won't have leaked it yet. Exclusivity will get him a better price.”
“And I,” Gaila says, grimacing, “am the only currently active Starfleet officer who is familiar with the Palace of the Sun and who is close enough to get there and infiltrate it before the auction. I'm also a computer engineer, so I should be able to hack Guffin's padd if I need to. And I need backup.”
“Which is where I come in.”
“Which is where you come in,” Kirk agrees, handing her another dossier. “The spooks and Gaila were on the same wavelength in figuring that a female officer would be a better fit as the second team member, and they've already got a cover identity in place for you.”
“That makes sense. I gather women on Orion are practically invisible.”
“Oh, no,” Gaila says. “Women on Orion are extremely visible. They're - we're - just not noticeable. You were my pick since I've already taught you some Orion. Your cover identity is an Orion raised offplanet by humans, so any mistakes you make'll be believable. You've got a background in music and dance, too, which'll probably be useful. Not to mention...” she pauses ruefully, finally smiling a little.
“Not to mention you're hot,” says Kirk, finally letting go of his Efficient Professional Captain persona. “I can't wait to see what you look like green.”
***
“Well,” says McCoy, tilting his head and examining his work critically. “You'll look like an Orion, all right. Can't guarantee you won't start itching like hell after a couple of weeks of use, but you'll do. Should be proof against pretty much everything. Just stay away from Spock while you're wearing it.”
Uhura examines the patch of green on the back of her left arm. It constrasts bizarrely with her usual brown, but when she touches it it feels the same. She raises it to her face and sniffs. It's definitely her skin, which she's just daubed with a fast-acting dye McCoy came up with.
“Stay away from Spock, Doctor?”
“Yeah. Something in his body chemistry neutralizes the active agent, damnit. I'd need another week to figure out how to counteract it, but that's not something we've got. Not like there's a snowball's chance in hell of running into a Vulcan on Orion, anyway.”
“True. This'll work on my whole body?” Uhura tries to picture herself green, and fails.
“Should do. We'll give you a good dunk before you go, and I've made up enough for you to give yourself touch-ups whenever it starts fading. Should last you a few days longer than you need.”
Gaila knocks on the wall outside the Sick Bay doorway. “Doctor, can I borrow the Lieutenant?”
“Sure. Just make sure she's back here in an hour or so. I want to check that test patch, make sure she doesn't have any weird reactions to the dye.”
Uhura follows Gaila out of Sick Bay and into a small meeting room, where they sit down opposite each other. Gaila looks uncomfortable, she thinks. Her friend is fidgeting, and has to clasp her hands to stop before she begins to speak, eyes lowered to the tabletop.
“Your cover identity depends a lot on my real identity, and you'll need to know that to make following my lead easier during insertion. I don't have a cover. I'm going as myself.
“I haven't been there since I was eighteen. I was chosen to belong to the Royal House at thirteen, and Prince Lonat-Sor himself chose me for his own when I was sixteen. I was honoured.” She lifts her eyes and meets Uhura's gaze squarely. “You have to understand, it was a big deal. I'd worked hard for it. The higher a man's rank, the more women he owns, so to belong to a high-ranking man means you get a break once in a while, because he has choices. Some nights, he won't choose you.
“The prince wasn't bad. He never hurt any of us. He was a generous man, though, and liked to share his things. When I was eighteen, he lent me to a friend of his, a minor lord, for a hunting weekend. He had a private ship and took me to an offworld game reserve. He... tried to hurt me.” Gaila's mouth works silently for a moment, searching for words.
“I killed him.”
“Gaila,” Uhura breathes. She tries to take Gaila's hand in hers, but Gaila pulls it away and keeps going.
“Please don't. This is hard enough as it is. I killed him. I killed him, and I'm glad. I'd do it again. I took his ship, but I didn't know how to plot a course, so I wound up floating in the middle of nowhere, running out of air, until a Vulcan ship doing a survey picked up mass where there shouldn't have been any. There was a doctor aboard on an exchange from Starfleet, and she didn't think Vulcan would be a good place for me, so she took me to San Francisco. You already know the relevant parts of the rest. Danced for a while, earned some money, learned English, joined Starfleet.”
“I didn't know.”
“No, you didn't. I never told you. It's not your fault. The reason I'm telling you this is that we're going to be doing the same thing, sort of, in reverse. Scotty's modifying one of the warp-capable shuttles to look like it's been hot-wired, and a couple of the other engineers are doing cosmetic work so it'll look like a corporate craft. I'm going to play it as though I was actually kidnapped by the people who killed...him, and like I'm running back to the Prince, and bringing you with me. There are enough Orions off-planet that it's not unheard of for one to have never even been to Orion. Play it like you're glad to be returning home, and we should be all right. Nobody ever expects us to have brains.”
Part Two
Artist: The brilliant korilian!
Author: framlingem
Rating (both art/fic): PG--13
Genre/Pairing: Gen
Word Count: 7 688
Warnings: Mentions a past rape. Some violence. Scantily-clad (or unclad) women.
Fic Summary: History, duplicity, and treachery as Starfleet sends Gaila and Uhura on an undercover mission to the world of Gaila's adolescence.
She's in the middle of eating breakfast when the door chimes. She's running on very little sleep, having been up late the night before working on some software Scotty asked her to take a look at. If her idea works, it'll let the computer interpret sensor data more efficiently. The astrophysicists and tactical officers love the idea, and Sulu's promised that if it works, not only will he name his first successful hydroponic orchid variant after her, but he'll cook her dinner. She tells herself it's worth it, but it's an effort of will to not slink back into her bunk, and the last thing she wants to do right now is open the door.
She puts her spoon back into her oatmeal with exaggerated care, stands up, takes the two steps from her table to her door, and checks her reflection in the full-length mirror she smuggled aboard and affixed to the wall next to the intercom. Her reflection is, thankfully, wearing clothes, so she she opens the door, grits her teeth in what she hopes is a reasonable approximation of a welcoming smile, and says, “good morning, Yeoman Rand! I wasn't expecting to see you here!”
Yeoman Rand, damn her, looks as fresh as a daisy. “Good morning, Ensign Gaila!” she chirps efficiently. (How the hell can anyone chirp efficiently, Gaila wonders uncharitably.) There's a padd being waved under her nose, so Gaila takes it. “Message for you from the captain, eyes only. He asks that you read it and present yourself in his ready room when you're done. The Chief Engineer has already been advised that you may be late for you shift today.”
Training and habit override the fog of sleep deprivation, so Gaila thanks the Yeoman (“My pleasure, Ensign! I'll have some real coffee percolating in the ready room for you when you get there.”) and sits back down to read Kirk's message, pushing her bowl of oatmeal to the opposite side of her tiny utility table. She thumbs on the padd and is taken aback to discover that the first words on the screen are an apology.
“Gaila,” Kirk writes, “I'm sorry. I'm about to ask a lot of you. Starfleet is about to ask a lot of you. I've attached the overview of a mission. Read it and report to my ready room. Consider who you'd want as backup - I have some candidates in mind, but I think it'd be better if you picked.” She opens the attachment, and her mouth tightens in response to what she's seeing. Twenty minutes later, what remains of her oatmeal is a congealed lump of concrete that's going to be hellish to remove from her bowl, and she's too angry to mourn the loss of the cinnamon she's been hoarding carefully since they left Earth on their five-year-mission. The padd is face down on the floor, where she dropped it. She can't leave it there given what's on it, so she picks it up, shoves it into a pocket, and heads up to her meeting with Kirk, annoyed by the whispering of doors she'd like nothing more than to slam.
***
Uhura is not eating breakfast when Yeoman Rand requests entry to her quarters some time later. She's not even in her quarters. Rand looks up and down the hallway discreetly and, finding no-one, grins to herself.
“Ha. Way to go, Lieutenant.”
Humming, she departs further down the corridor towards the First Officer's quarters.
***
“Captain, I'm sorry I wasn't here sooner. Commander Spock and I were discussing a paper we're co-authoring.” Looking at Kirk's face, Uhura knows that he knows that wasn't what she was doing with Spock. On the other hand, he's probably still wrong: Spock has been teaching her to play his harp, and they do it in his quarters rather than in the designated recreational areas of the ship so that it can be stashed away quickly and safely in case of an emergency. She hates the idea of taking any risks with what is now a rare and precious thing, one of the last harps to be made in the great conservatory of ShiKahr.
Kirk is wearing his most professional face, which means he would be teasing her about what he thinks she was doing with Spock if something serious wasn't up. Instead, he waves her towards the unoccupied chair at his desk.
“Not a problem, Lieutenant. Your shift doesn't actually start for fifteen minutes, anyway. Have you had breakfast? Ensign, have you?”
For the first time, Uhura realizes that the woman in the occupied chair, facing away from the door, is Gaila. Her usually cheerful friend looks anything but cheerful; every line of her shoulders and neck screams that military discipline is all that is keeping her in the chair. Gaila waves off the pastries Kirk is offering, but Uhura takes one -- fresh strawberries, I should have breakfast with the captain more often if he can get his hands on things like this -- and sits.
Kirk takes the lead, leaning his elbows on the desk and steepling his fingers in a pose Uhura's pretty sure he picked up from the How-to-Command textbook under “Management Poses: Delivering Important Information”.
“Lieutenant, you're here because the Ensign thinks you're the best woman to back her up on the mission she just agreed to take, and I agree with her.”
Oh? thinks Uhura, and sits forward slightly in her seat. Kirk looks to Gaila, but she's still staring fixedly at a spot just above his left shoulder, so he continues.
“Earlier today, I received a communiqué from Starfleet Command. It concerns a delicate matter. Gaila's already had the overview since it directly concerned her.
“This,” Kirk says, pulling two eight by ten photographs from a folder, “is Commander Andrew Guffin.” Uhura examines the picture she is handed. It shows a smiling man in early middle age, wearing Starfleet engineering reds. “Until three days ago he was a key member of the design team for our next generation of space station. He left the office, and when he didn't show for the weekly poker night, his CO went round to his apartment. It was empty.”
“He wasn't there?” Uhura is starting to have a bad feeling about this.
“I mean it was empty. Furniture, clothing, personal items, all gone. He left the carpets and the appliances, but that's about it. The mainframe had been wiped. When they checked his workstation, there was a padd missing, and a check of the security footage indicated that that padd had recently had the latest schematics and specs downloaded to it.” Kirk frowns, and suddenly looks very tired. “That includes weapons designs, shield frequencies, and specifications for repair bays for all active Starfleet classes of vessel.”
Beside her, Uhura hears the hiss of air sucked between teeth. Apparently Gaila hadn't been aware of that detail. For the first time, Gaila speaks.
“That can't be leaked.”
“No,” says Kirk, “it can't. And we need it back.” He turns earnest eyes to Gaila. “That's the only reason I didn't tell the Admiral exactly which orifice he could shove this mission into when I found out what the plan was.”
“I don't understand,” Uhura says. “What's wrong with the mission?”
“They want me to go back.” Gaila's voice is low, controlled. Uhura's never heard her sound like this, except for once.
Uhura arrived home from her Structure of the Klingon Language study group to find Gaila sacked out on the couch, which wasn't a usual occurrence on a Friday. Usually, Gaila spent Friday evenings at the Antique Film Society's weekly showing, and then spent Friday night with whichever available man caught her fancy during the movie. That night, though, she was sprawled across the cushions, staring into space.
“Gaila? Everything all right?”
“We saw Gone With The Wind.”
Uhura's first instinct was to say how much she loved that movie, but somehow she knew that wasn't a good idea.
“Oh?
“Things were supposed to be better here.”
Oh. Uhura repressed the urge to say that it was a long time ago, that things were better, and decided to make tea instead. The warm mug gave Gaila something to do with her hands, and they sat and drank in companiable silence.
“They want me to go back,” says Gaila, “and be a slave again. They asked me to take someone with me.”
“Gaila, I promise you, this is only temporary. In and out. The day after that auction, we'll be in-system to beam you out. Starfleet will not leave you there. I will not leave you there. You're part of my crew.”
“We're going to Orion?” Uhura doesn't hesitate to include herself. She never did find out the whole story, but she knows Gaila shouldn't go alone.
“One of our intelligence officers was passed a guest list for an auction taking place on Orion. It's being held in the Palace of the Sun in the capital. There's a human male on the list, and we have reason to believe it may be Guffin, looking to sell the space station plans on neutral ground. If he's selling
it, he won't have leaked it yet. Exclusivity will get him a better price.”
“And I,” Gaila says, grimacing, “am the only currently active Starfleet officer who is familiar with the Palace of the Sun and who is close enough to get there and infiltrate it before the auction. I'm also a computer engineer, so I should be able to hack Guffin's padd if I need to. And I need backup.”
“Which is where I come in.”
“Which is where you come in,” Kirk agrees, handing her another dossier. “The spooks and Gaila were on the same wavelength in figuring that a female officer would be a better fit as the second team member, and they've already got a cover identity in place for you.”
“That makes sense. I gather women on Orion are practically invisible.”
“Oh, no,” Gaila says. “Women on Orion are extremely visible. They're - we're - just not noticeable. You were my pick since I've already taught you some Orion. Your cover identity is an Orion raised offplanet by humans, so any mistakes you make'll be believable. You've got a background in music and dance, too, which'll probably be useful. Not to mention...” she pauses ruefully, finally smiling a little.
“Not to mention you're hot,” says Kirk, finally letting go of his Efficient Professional Captain persona. “I can't wait to see what you look like green.”
***
“Well,” says McCoy, tilting his head and examining his work critically. “You'll look like an Orion, all right. Can't guarantee you won't start itching like hell after a couple of weeks of use, but you'll do. Should be proof against pretty much everything. Just stay away from Spock while you're wearing it.”
Uhura examines the patch of green on the back of her left arm. It constrasts bizarrely with her usual brown, but when she touches it it feels the same. She raises it to her face and sniffs. It's definitely her skin, which she's just daubed with a fast-acting dye McCoy came up with.
“Stay away from Spock, Doctor?”
“Yeah. Something in his body chemistry neutralizes the active agent, damnit. I'd need another week to figure out how to counteract it, but that's not something we've got. Not like there's a snowball's chance in hell of running into a Vulcan on Orion, anyway.”
“True. This'll work on my whole body?” Uhura tries to picture herself green, and fails.
“Should do. We'll give you a good dunk before you go, and I've made up enough for you to give yourself touch-ups whenever it starts fading. Should last you a few days longer than you need.”
Gaila knocks on the wall outside the Sick Bay doorway. “Doctor, can I borrow the Lieutenant?”
“Sure. Just make sure she's back here in an hour or so. I want to check that test patch, make sure she doesn't have any weird reactions to the dye.”
Uhura follows Gaila out of Sick Bay and into a small meeting room, where they sit down opposite each other. Gaila looks uncomfortable, she thinks. Her friend is fidgeting, and has to clasp her hands to stop before she begins to speak, eyes lowered to the tabletop.
“Your cover identity depends a lot on my real identity, and you'll need to know that to make following my lead easier during insertion. I don't have a cover. I'm going as myself.
“I haven't been there since I was eighteen. I was chosen to belong to the Royal House at thirteen, and Prince Lonat-Sor himself chose me for his own when I was sixteen. I was honoured.” She lifts her eyes and meets Uhura's gaze squarely. “You have to understand, it was a big deal. I'd worked hard for it. The higher a man's rank, the more women he owns, so to belong to a high-ranking man means you get a break once in a while, because he has choices. Some nights, he won't choose you.
“The prince wasn't bad. He never hurt any of us. He was a generous man, though, and liked to share his things. When I was eighteen, he lent me to a friend of his, a minor lord, for a hunting weekend. He had a private ship and took me to an offworld game reserve. He... tried to hurt me.” Gaila's mouth works silently for a moment, searching for words.
“I killed him.”
“Gaila,” Uhura breathes. She tries to take Gaila's hand in hers, but Gaila pulls it away and keeps going.
“Please don't. This is hard enough as it is. I killed him. I killed him, and I'm glad. I'd do it again. I took his ship, but I didn't know how to plot a course, so I wound up floating in the middle of nowhere, running out of air, until a Vulcan ship doing a survey picked up mass where there shouldn't have been any. There was a doctor aboard on an exchange from Starfleet, and she didn't think Vulcan would be a good place for me, so she took me to San Francisco. You already know the relevant parts of the rest. Danced for a while, earned some money, learned English, joined Starfleet.”
“I didn't know.”
“No, you didn't. I never told you. It's not your fault. The reason I'm telling you this is that we're going to be doing the same thing, sort of, in reverse. Scotty's modifying one of the warp-capable shuttles to look like it's been hot-wired, and a couple of the other engineers are doing cosmetic work so it'll look like a corporate craft. I'm going to play it as though I was actually kidnapped by the people who killed...him, and like I'm running back to the Prince, and bringing you with me. There are enough Orions off-planet that it's not unheard of for one to have never even been to Orion. Play it like you're glad to be returning home, and we should be all right. Nobody ever expects us to have brains.”
Part Two