Ad Astra :: Star Trek Fanfiction Archive ^{Beam me up, Scotty.}

Chapter Text

Piper wouldn’t forget her face. He never got a name, but he knows the faces that swept in, just there on the edges of the project before everything went to hell. 

Finally.

He sends Gull up to snap a holoimage before she can disappear, then starts to follow. Casually. Super casually.

Okay, really not all that casually.

She does disappear. Dammit.

He has Gull send the holoimage to ‘Pret, with the request for a flag if someone matching this image showed up on board, or if the Ship’s systems ran into any other irregularities. There’s a flood of data, he tries filtering for anything related to the Captain; ready room, quarters - a hah. 

Someone had thought they were being clever. Or maybe they just thought no one would be looking that closely. Fortunately, he and ‘Pret were cleverer.  

‘Pret’s sensor readings of the Captain’s quarters had been briefly interrupted, then looped.

He knew it. He fucking knew it…

When he gets back on the Interpreter , ‘Pret lets him know that J’etris is outside of the Captain’s quarters. Damn. She’s got enough of a history with Chester that he’s been assuming she’s in on it, but he’d been hoping she wasn’t. Also she could break him like a toothpick without really trying, so - he keeps his distance to stay out of her sight. He has no idea what he would give as an excuse for skulking around the Captain’s quarters at this hour. From around the corner, he overhears something about - voles? Maybe code. Hmmm.

‘Pret pings him with a notice of a non-standard runabout request, with the Captain’s authorization codes. So, Starfleet Secret Police was sending their operative off on some covert mission. Well, not covert enough. 

He pulls open the cover on a Jeffries tube and starts taking a shortcut to the shuttle bay. 

This is it. He’s going to put a stop to whatever nefarious mission Starfleet Secret Police is running here, expose their existence, and watch them burn to the ground to restore the integrity and ideals of Starfleet.

… Yeah, it’s a lot more likely that Captain Chester is going to shoot him in the face and claim that secret Dominion programming in his cybernetics had activated. What a tragedy, what a shame, everyone thought they had gotten rid of all of that, damn that wiley Dominion programming. 

Marbog won’t buy that story. He hopes his friend has the good sense to keep his head down. He can try and - but no, that would put too much risk of leading back to them, Marbog is already closely linked to him. 

It’s him, and Gull, and the programming from ‘Pret that runs the runabout. They’re a good team. And when it came to finding hiding spaces in a runabout, well, at least that was one benefit of being - ugh. Short. 

Gull is tucked away, out of sight in one of the upper bulkheads, but still able to monitor - but then he hears the sound of footsteps and has to hurl himself into a small cargo trunk quickly. Dammit. 

Chester gets into the runabout, stows her things, sets the course, and leans back in the pilot’s seat once they’re clear of the station. 

A few seconds later, her eyes open. A certain paranoia has woken up in the back of her brain, and she can’t fully relax. So she carefully searches under the console for tampering, then moves on to the crew quarters, the replicators, the little ‘fresher in the back, not sure what she’s looking for. It’s not like Section 31 would instantly kill their new operative, but she doesn’t want any surprises. 

She’s not sure what she’s looking for until she pulls open the port cargo hatch and stares in appalled surprise.

Chester knows Lt. Commander Piper Hawthorne doesn’t like her. He doesn’t seem to like much of anyone; she’s guessed that’s just what happens when Changelings infiltrate your top secret research project and get your entire team horribly killed, mutilating you on the way by. She also knows they got off on the wrong foot and have continued on the wrong foot, as she’s asked him one too many times for the miracles that captains too often expect from their engineers, though she knows damned well he’s a safety-minded, by-the-book officer. She’s tried not to, but Interpreter’s high-risk missions don’t leave a lot of room to spare his feelings. Neither does the ship’s incredible wealth of malfunctions. 

This does not explain why he’s staring up at her from the port cargo locker, his face a sickly gray-white, looking like he expects a phaser blast. 

Is he the way Section 31 has been evaluating her? Of all the people on the ship, he’d find it easy enough to override the access to her quarters, shut down her computer terminals, and whisk DeWinter away when their meeting was done.

Thing is, his appearance seems a little too clumsy to be DeWinter’s style. His clear terror isn’t in keeping with a secret agent, either, and to consider the possibility it’s an act invites paranoia. 

“Lieutenant Commander Piper Hawthorne,” she says, enunciating each word carefully, “what the hell are you doing?”

Hawthorne looks - well, he looks like he’s spent the past several minutes hyperventilating, and he stares up at her with something like blind terror, frozen. Then in a jolt of movement, he pushes himself half upright, jolting himself partway out of the tight space, and when he looks back at Chester horror and fear are quickly covered up by defiant anger. He inhales a sharp hiss of breath. “I think I should ask that of you,” he practically spits, “Captain. What ‘mission’ do the ‘Secret Police’ have you on this time? Or don’t you have anything to say for yourself before you shoot me?”  

Chester stares at him a long moment, trying to parse that. She knows her confusion is clear on her face, and what it seems to be doing is making him even angrier. Scared and angry is a good recipe for him doing something stupid, but now he’s upright he’s frozen again, like a frightened rabbit. 

It seems she may have an explanation here for why he dislikes her so very much. That is, if she can tease it out of his defiant, accusatory declarations, which will be a task in and of itself. 

She slowly steps back and out of the way, like she’s trying to soothe a wild animal. “All right,” she says, “first things first, I’m not armed.”

That doesn’t make her much less dangerous to him, and he knows it. He’s happened through the gym a few times when she’s been sparring with J’etris. The incredulous glare he gives her is about what she expected. “Commander Hawthorne, I’m not going to hurt you. We’re going to turn around and go back to the station. Why don’t you come on out of there, have some tea or something, and you can kindly tell me what you think is going on.”

She then deliberately turns her back on him and goes to the replicator for some coffee herself. She steps well back afterward so he can get to the replicator as well without getting too close to her. The height difference is probably not doing any good at all.

He does clamber the rest of the way out, very slowly, but heads for the open space in the center of the ship, not the replicator. “I don’t know what game this is,” he says, pulled up to his full 5’1” of height and looking every inch a furious feral cat, minus a puffed out tail. “But it’s unnecessary. I know what’s happening.”

Chester raises her eyebrows and takes a drink of her coffee–anything to occupy her hands and make it clear she’s not a threat. “That’s more than I do,” she says. “Care to read me in?”

He glares at her. “I’m not stupid,” he says. “I know Starfleet has its own Tal Shiar, or ‘Secret Police’ or whatever name they’ve decided to give themselves. And I know if they had their fingers deep inside my project - and inside me, literally - just because it might have helped them beat the Dominion, then there’s no way they sent out a mission of this magnitude into Dominion space without making sure they had their agents running the ‘Armistice Class’ ships.” Air quotes again. “I don’t know whether you’ve been working for them before the war or if they recruited you after it ended, before giving you the Captaincy, but I know you’re working for them. I told you, Captain, I understand wanting to do anything to prevent the kind of loss you experienced happening again. But,” he continues, fists clenched, “I’m also going to do everything I can to try and prevent what I experienced happening again, and I know that Starfleet’s Secret Police was responsible for it, and they’ll be responsible for worse in the future. Whatever they have you doing now, I’ll stop it, or die trying. Though,” he adds dryly, “the latter is looking much more likely right now.”

Chester looks at him over the rim of the mug, puts it down, and stalks to the controls. “We’re turning around,” she says. “I’m sure you believe everything you’re saying, Commander, but I want you checked by Dr. Tyrell and Counselor Rala.” Even as she speaks, doubt twinges at the back of her mind. The woman who showed up in her quarters tonight admitted that Section 31 answers to no one, and Chester is far from convinced that such an entity has anyone but its own interests at heart. 

“Yes, so you can just quietly make me go away,” snaps Hawthorne. “Oh, Hawthorne went crazy, we had to lock him up for his own good. Nice try. Not going to happen.”

Chester sits, hesitating before she starts punching in the course change. “Then start talking. You have context about this Section 31, then give it to me. They’ve taken an interest in our upcoming supply mission, and I mean to find out why.”

“‘Section 31.’ I knew it,” Hawthorne mutters.

“I’d never heard of them until a few hours ago, when a woman claiming to be affiliated with them showed up in my quarters unannounced and apparently canceled my leave .” That actually rankles more than she thought–she’d been looking forward to a week of backpacking with Rilas. “I don’t like the implications of their existence. I am not planning to kill you. Think of all the paperwork.” 

Hawthorne snorts at that.

“I’m not bringing you along, either, because I’m not going to be responsible for putting you in this kind of danger.”

She leans back and eyes him. The thing is, getting him off the ship might be a problem. Yes, she can pick him up and physically carry him, but he will probably make a lot of noise about it, and stunning him will not help their work relationship one bit. Which weirdly enough, she’d like to try and preserve, even if starting all over with an engineer who isn’t a paranoid insubordinate mess seems really appealing right now. “...you’re going to make a fuss about being put off the ship, too, aren’t you. Hawthorne, kindly tell me what I’m getting myself into. ”

He has his eyes narrowed still, not quite a glare, but an expression she recognizes from when he’s looking at engineering problems he’s trying very hard to solve, but hasn’t quite cracked yet. Like the last time the industrial replicators started making tubas again, after he had confidently asserted that he had solved the problem.  

That had ended with one falling on her, so it’s not really the best sign. 

“... Right,” he says slowly. “We’re going back to the station, so you can let your superiors decide what to do with me, you’re not going to make that call. They’ll move their mission to one of the other operatives - it probably makes more sense for Captain Jeln anyway, she’s the one with the experience in Intelligence work, isn’t she? Unless this is all coordinated, and she’s already somewhere else. Either way, Captain, no, I don’t think I plan on being cooperative with waiting and letting your secret police - ‘Section 31’ superiors decide what to do with me. It hasn’t turned out so well in the past.”

 The thought occurs to Chester that he might be right–not about Rilas, not about her own involvement… but that Section 31 might be less than thrilled with his involvement, and could take action against him once she’s out of the picture. Returning him to the station might just be putting him in more danger. 

She frowns at him, thinking. She’d like to leave him on the Interpreter . Probably to beam him directly to Sickbay for rest and evaluation, given that he’s had what most people would term a paranoid outburst. But that would make him a target for anyone watching–and she’s just had someone in her quarters, claiming there’s a secret branch of Starfleet doing all the things everyone else is too chicken to do, which takes some of the delusion out of the paranoia. Having someone who knows about these creeps and doesn’t trust them might make the difference between her getting screwed over, or surviving.

She sighs heavily. If this goes wrong, if he gets hurt, she’ll wear it. But she’d much rather have him right here, where she can keep an eye on him and protect him. “Fine,” she says. “Fine,” and resets the course. “Settle down here and please start from the beginning. You think it wasn’t the Dominion that installed your modifications?” She pauses. “You think it was Section 31 responsible for the accident.” It’s not a question. “Just…tell me from the beginning, as if you think I’m genuinely telling the truth when I say I just learned about Section 31 tonight, and possibly also as if you think I’m very, very stupid. And in return, I’ll tell you exactly what I think I’m doing. All right?” 

Hawthorne distinctly does not sit down or do anything else that might even resemble settling down, but crosses his arms instead . “Right. So you have a recording of this conversation to share with your supervisors, so they know exactly how much I know when they decide what to do with me.” 

Chester just looks at him with all the exhaustion the coffee isn’t doing a damn thing about. 

 He glares at her, and then sighs. “Fine. I’ll play along, none of this should be news to them anyway. I know the Secret Police - Section 31 was responsible for the accident, and I know damn well it wasn’t the Dominion who installed my cybernetics. You - well, playing along , I suppose if you’re not a Section 31 agent, then they wouldn’t have given you my real file before the mission, so you haven’t seen the real details of what I -” he grimaces “- woke up with, but I know Federation tech when I see it, and I damn well know it when it’s embedded in my own flesh, or when I wake up in a damn - fucking -” he waves a hand around in the air as he searches for a word, “ box made of it. You - well ‘someone’ should really let them know that sleek black everything is really isn’t the subtle, ‘we’re not the secret police’ look they think it is.”

Her stomach drops at his words. Whether or not he’s right, he certainly believes it. And even just imagining that Starfleet might be complicit is sickening.

No. Right now, it’s better to assume they’re a domestic extremist group. It’s probably closest to the truth.

“I agree,” she says, very dry. “I just had a strange woman in black leather show up in my quarters in the middle of the night, and try to order me around. The initial impression was not particularly professional.”

He lets out a snort of laughter at that. “That - tracks. It’s bloody stupid. I know the stupid -” he waves a hand again, “- Dominion goo , fuck, changelings - that story was a cover up, of course it was. Of course there was a smooth official cover story, because every bloody other thing about the ‘accident’ had been just as smooth. It wasn’t official channels and it wasn’t Intelligence, and it was too well - not repeated, practiced to be war exigencies. The Admiralty can sometimes seem like it’s their first bloody time doing something that’s been procedure for decades, much less when they’re throwing something together. This was a smooth operation, all so they could rush this tech out, regardless of risks, just on the chance they could have a bigger stick. Stupid. If it hadn’t blown up, I’m sure the Tal Shiar would have been proud. But of course they had a cover story for when it blew up, stupid ‘blame the witches’ cover story that it was. Of course they did. Section 31. Hah.

“They put Federation tech inside me and tried to turn me into - some sort of puppet, and when I woke up without strings they just - blamed that on their whole witch hunt cover story too, and expected - me not to recognize it? They thought I was that stupid? But of course,” he laughs humorlessly, “they could make me disappear just as easily, so,” he shrugs. “But then this? Obviously they weren’t just going to leave the Dominion alone. Obviously they were going to rush risky tech out, again, so they’d have the biggest sticks in the Gamma Quadrant. Of course they were going to have their hands on it.” He snorts. “And obviously they decided they weren’t done with me either, for whatever reason. 

“I’ve always known this was going on. It was just a question of when I could catch it and stop it, and today -” he snaps his jaw shut, abruptly cutting himself off, before taking a breath. “I told you, Captain, I’ll be fighting tooth and nail to keep everyone alive. I’m not letting the secret police kill anyone else.”

She leans back and looks at him. Frankly, he doesn’t look too good. “Would you please sit down, Commander? I promise I won’t kill you with anything if you do.”

“I’d say ‘if it’s all the same to you, I’ll stand’, but actually, I’m standing whether it’s all the same to you or not.”

 “I can’t blame you for your suspicions. If you’re right about what happened, it’s a wonder you stayed in Starfleet, and a wonder you’ve trusted me as much as you have. That was an incredible betrayal, and before tonight I’m not sure I could have believed it.” Her mouth twists a little. “But I find it more believable than I’d like now–and I certainly trust your assessment of your cybernetics.” 

There’s a brief screwed up expression on his face. “Well. You should.”

She scrubs a hand over her face, not sure what to do. “You accepted the post on the Interpreter because you thought they were doing the same thing again,” she says, “and you wanted to save the crew.” She doesn’t say us because he pretty obviously thinks she’s Section 31 and one of the people responsible for such an accident. “That was incredibly brave. So is being here right now, as much as I wish you were safe back on the ship.” 

He snorts. “Brave is generous. Might be better to call it stupid.”

“And I know you have no reason to believe me when I say I’m not Section 31–that I’m here because they seem to want to involve themselves in our mission, and saying no means that they’ll be doing it behind my back.” It sounds like a lousy excuse when it leaves her mouth, but she keeps going. “You’ve got very little reason to trust me, or to trust anyone in command right now, and I respect that. But I need you to tell me what you want me to do–take you with me or leave you behind–and if I do take you with me, I need you to stay back and follow my orders. If I tell you to run, you run. If I tell you to leave me behind, you leave me behind . I am not losing you.”

Her voice gets sharp on the last sentence and she regrets it. She clamps her lips tight and looks away, her fingers knotting in her lap with a sudden jolt of memory, the memory of another too-stubborn engineer. Mr. Bena, now is not the time to be a hero.

“No,” Hawthorne says, after a long moment. When she glances back, he’s absolutely glaring at her. “No. That’s not how this is going to go. I’m not going to be shipped off to the station to be parceled off to someone else, and I’m not going wherever it is you’re going just so I can be led around by the nose to see whatever your supervisors decide it’s strategic to let me see, or be sent running into another explosion or trap - if they don’t just decide to shoot me on sight. You,” he jabs a finger at her, “admit I have no reason to trust you. If you want me to play along with this game that you’re not Section 31, you should have no problem telling me exactly what you’ve been told in your ‘first meeting’. Any message gets sent to this ship, I see it first. Then I’ll decide.”

She just gives him a flat level stare. “If you insist on treating me like the enemy, we are going to fail. And if you’re right about them, we will probably die. I’ll tell you about that meeting, because it’s important that you know what I know at this point. Then we’ll see if we can work together on this, or if it will just get us killed.”

He glares at her but after a moment he nods. She’ll take that as a victory, however small.

“Right,” she says. “I woke up in the middle of the night with a stranger in my quarters. She introduced herself as DeWinter and told me to meet her at a rocky planetoid called Respite, which she claims is the staging ground for a Dominion invasion. By disrupting our supply mission, she believes we can undermine this invasion. Why she believed I was still a good recruit after she remarked on my hypervigilance and combativeness is beyond me.” She pauses, letting that sink in. 

He snorts. “Did you pull that from my psych file?”

“Is there anything I can say to make you think I didn’t ?” 

He raises his eyebrows and shrugs.

She sighs, stretches. Too much coffee, too little sleep- she feels like her teeth are buzzing. “She tried to butter me up next. Lots about what a great loyal Starfleet officer I am, which I won’t bore you with. She was still claiming to be with Starfleet Intelligence at that point. I told her bluntly I didn’t believe it, and she told me about Section 31– that it was even in the Federation Charter.”

He snorts, but his face pales dramatically.

“If anyone is planning to mess with our supply run, I want to know about it,” she finishes. “Hence the shuttle.”

“‘Come have a look’ - you can’t expect me to believe that was the extent of your instructions.”

“I didn’t say it was a particularly good idea.” Chester sighs. “I suspect it’s meant to lead me step by step into becoming one of their agents. DeWinter did express a certain hope that would be the outcome.”

He rolls his eyes. “‘Becoming’ - right, of course. ‘Playing along’ - are you just supposed to fly around this planetoid - is it actually named Respite? - until you spot - what? Ground based invasion forces?” He glares. “You can’t expect me to think you can fly me around a planetoid, point at something that looks shifty, and fly back and I’ll buy that. Please.  You were given coordinates, or at least a contact, a point to wait for further instructions.”

“Amazingly,” Chester tells the air, leaning her head all the way back against the pilot’s chair, “this is not all about you.”

For reasons she’s far too tired to parse right now, he actually grins at that.

“I have coordinates. I’m going to go down there and meet DeWinter there like the idiot I am, and find out what the hell she wants with my damn ship. And see if I get to survive them failing to recruit me. That’ll be really fun.”

“Right, right,” he says dismissively. “What are the coordinates? And how did she give them to you?”

She hesitates, weighing security risks against his trust. Then she pulls out the padd and taps the screen. “If this is actually a Starfleet operation, we’re both toast,” she points out. 

“I have no doubt this is actually a ‘Starfleet operation’,” he says, taking the padd immediately. “But that part of ‘Starfleet’ needs to be torn out and ejected before it blows up the ship. I don’t give a damn if some Black Widow wannabe says it was in the Federation charter, I didn’t swear any oath that included a secret police. There’s nothing more I can do to fulfill my oath, or for - well. I’m going to do my goddamn best to tear it out, and if someone doesn’t see that as fulfilling my oath, well. Most of me looks like toaster parts already, so…” he’s shortly distracted by scrolling the padd.

“This being the work of a domestic terrorist group would make a great deal more sense,” she says. “And be much better than Starfleet Intelligence being involved.” She doesn’t like saying it; it sends a chill down the back of her neck as she thinks of it. 

“If it was some branch of Starfleet Intelligence that got my team killed and stuck their toaster-parts in me, then I’ll tear them out all the same. I don’t care what they call themselves,” he says bitterly. “But - sure. This is a vigilante group with a fondness for black leather. And you only met them today. I usually prefer my holodeck fantasies with more swords and rich landscapes, but whatever you’d like me to play along with.” 

They’re going in circles, and enough is enough. “When we get there,” she says, “I’m beaming down alone. The last thing I need is this DeWinter spooking and running. I will need you on the runabout, scanning the planet for whatever they don’t want us to see.” She raises a hand to forestall his protests. “I’m not arguing about this, Hawthorne. If I were actually a Section 31 agent, I’d have had easily a dozen chances in the last hour to get you out of my way. And if I were a Section 31 agent, playing out this long complicated gambit to pull the wool over your eyes–especially as you’ve made it clear you won’t believe anything that comes out of my mouth–makes much less sense than just killing you.”

He actually laughs. “But pulling a long complicated gambit to stall for enough time to consult privately with your handler about what to do with me makes fine sense. Come on, Captain.”

“I understand you’re upset. I understand you feel betrayed. I am investigating a threat to Federation security; whether that threat is from the Dominion or Section 31 -” 

“Or both.”

“- remains to be determined. I’m here to determine that, not to earn your trust.” She hopes she doesn’t have to mention that sedating him and sticking him in crew quarters for the rest of the trip is very much an option, but she gives him a hard look. “We don’t know what the hell this is, and you jumping to conclusions, however extensive your experience, is not helping. Are we clear?”

“As mud, Captain,” he says dryly. “I’m not here to have my ‘trust’ earned. I’m here to put a stop to whatever the - Section 31, Starfleet Secret Police, whatever - is trying to pull. Sending you off alone is no part of that. Even if you’re not a secret police agent, sending the Captain alone into unknown territory to meet with some shady agent would be stupid. That said,” he adds, as she appreciates his flash of common sense, “I’m also not thrilled about the idea of showing my face to a secret police operative who already knows me. Even if you claimed my covert secret police programming reactivated, they’d probably want to check, and I’m not letting them anywhere near my skull.”  

“You can keep a transporter lock on me if it makes you feel better,” she says, electing to file everything that starts with secret police under rambling she doesn’t need to listen to. “You being there will compromise the mission and both of our safety. My decision is final.”

“Please. I’m Chief Engineer, I can do better than a transporter lock, and I fully intend on having ears on the ground without showing my face. Though I’d rather not do this.” He turns to a bulkhead and starts pulling it back. “Gull, friend, I think it’s time for you to come out now.”

“Your objections are noted,” says Chester. She watches Piper’s small drone emerge with raised eyebrows. “Aren’t you worried they’ll recognize Gull?”

“Absolutely bloody terrified.” 

“That’s the most common sense you’ve shown all evening.” She scrubs a hand over her face. 

He grins, and turns his attention to the drone. “Gull, how do you feel about doing something dangerous today?” The drone beeps. “Yeah, I know. Okay. Thank you.” He looks back at Chester,  “Gull’s smart enough to stay well out of visual range, even if they have some sort of super-secret-police-tech - and you will stay well out of visual range, understand?” he says to the drone directly. The drone beeps. “I know, I know.” He turns back to Chester. “If you’ll let me borrow your comm badge,” he says, “I’ll tweak it so that your connection will stay open, patched through Gull. He’s got enough redundant systems to cut through most interference, and then I can maintain my connection with him over the distance, and both of us will be able to hear what’s going on. And if they’ve got something that can interfere with Gull, or, say, someone tells them he’s there to knock him out of the sky - well. That’s the point where I’ll start to worry.”

“Understood,” says Chester, eying Gull. “I have to entertain the possibility that what DeWinter told me is correct–that there may be a Dominion invasion force waiting on Respite. We’ll hope she’s lying, but proceeding as if she’s not protects us in either case–we don’t want her to know we doubt her, if she’s lying, and if the Dominion is there…” She looks away, because the moment she entertains the possibility her gut drops with visceral dread. “Well, that prospect scares the hell out of anyone sane.”

Hawthorne pats Gull. “Do not get shot by any Jem’Hadar, understood?” he tells the drone. The drone beeps back. “Yeah, I know.”

“Great. You go get some rest. Don’t do anything that makes me wish Tanek had been the one to stow away.”

He snorts. “Yes, Captain.”