Chapter Text
Chester takes a deep breath before entering the alternate Engineering. She feels she won the costuming debate, but it’s a relative thing; she’s dressed in a close copy of her alternate’s snowy uniform, minus some of the gold braid. The difference between a Captain and an Admiral, she guesses, but the designer of this uniform had flattery and style on their mind. It’s tight and tailored and glittering, enough structure in the jacket and the waistcoat under it to add a reluctant sway to her walk. She sparkles, and she knows it, and she hates it.
She feels like a cat in a Halloween costume. She’s on the cusp of tearing the whole damned thing to shreds and stamping on the ornaments in her hair, and she considers it a minor miracle that she hasn’t done this already. Her mood when she reaches Engineering is not good at all .
She knows her Hawthorne instantly, because he looks at her and says, “What the hell,” in a flat, disappointed voice as she comes in the door.
“Commander,” she says. “I’m glad you’re already here. The Admiral and I have reached an agreement.”
He eyes her. “Yeah. I can see that.” The other Hawthorne waves at him to shut up, but that doesn’t lessen his expression of disapproval one little bit.
“I want to know about the specifics you have planned,” she says. “What’s your progress?”
Hawthorne looks like he’s going to protest for a moment, then subsides with a glance at his alternate. The look they exchange is not lost on her.
Good. Her Hawthorne is angry and defiant, and already working with his alternate. He may not trust her, but he’s not going to cooperate with the Admiral, either. That’s the result she was hoping for.
“Their shields are proving more difficult than expected,” his alternate says, covering for him. Chester likes him already.
“Give me something to take back to her,” she says, looming in close to them, and hating the way the other Hawthorne shrinks back. “It’ll go better for you.”
“It’ll happen when it happens,” says her Hawthorne, with a casualness that makes his alternate visibly shudder.
“She’s not a very patient woman,” says Chester.
“Yeah. Evidently,” says Hawthorne, giving her a dirty look.
All right, she’s going to have to find a way to explain this to him. Either he’s a very good actor—which goes dead against everything else she knows about him—or he genuinely thinks that she jumped aboard with her alternate at the first chance she got. Admittedly, her current attire doesn’t exactly discourage that impression. She moves in close to him and then, trying not to let her reluctance show, reaches out to heft him off his feet by the front of his uniform. It’s easier than she expected–it’s like there’s not hing to him.
He yelps, she really hopes she can explain this to him later and apologize, and she hauls him in close. “I said I want results , Hawthorne, not your smart remarks. I don’t have Starfleet regulations keeping me from kicking your sorry insolent ass. So how about you shut up and do your damn job. ”
Then she adds in the barest breath of a whisper, hoping his cybernetics really are that good, “I want the contents of this ship’s computers, and I want to know what the hell they’ve been doing to our engines. Also, get me the comms frequencies they’re using to keep in contact with the people on our ship.”
His head jerks in a nod, and although she can still feel him all but vibrating with rage in her hands, he doesn’t quite disguise a hint of relief - he’s a terrible actor.
He hisses, “She killed - the Bedivere - for this .”
Chester almost drops him.
She wants to say, she did what? She wants to shake him until something more useful comes out. Instead she stares at him with what she knows is naked horror, and they’re fucked if his alternate’s seen it. Even so, it takes a long moment for her to wrestle her face back under control.
Chester gives him a shake, for the look of the thing and to pull him in close again and hiss, “Then wreck her shit.”
Something slides into her pocket.
She drops him. “Get me results, Hawthorne. I’m not feeling patient, either.”
“That’s about what I expected from her,” mutters Hawthorne’s alternate as the doors slide shut behind the captain. Hawthorne shoots a sidelong glare at where the captain’s back was a moment ago.
“Let’s get back to the lab,” he says. “Seems the Captain wants results.” He makes a face, one his alternate mimics, and they retreat to the lab.
His misgivings about the captain have shifted. All right, she’s not working with her evil fascist self, but she is a terrifying actress. If she’s won her alternate’s trust, what’s to say she’s not pulling a similar act on Hawthorne himself?
She hasn’t betrayed him yet, and she hasn’t betrayed the Interpreter yet, but what’s to say she won’t?
“She seems like a piece of work,” his alternate offers, as Hawthorne settles in to try and retrieve the data. He makes a face. Maybe he should tell his alternate. But he still doesn’t fully trust the man, who is, after all, working for Admiral Murder.
Besides, his alternate already spilled everything to Hawthorne, which indicates to Hawthorne his alternate will probably tell his boss everything at the first hint of pressure. So he’s keeping his mouth shut.
He distrusts Chester, that hasn’t changed. He’ll keep waiting to see what she’s planning to do for her fascist Secret Police bosses.
But he’s not going to risk handing her over to that absolute psychopath of a counterpart.
Chester is shaken as hell and she doesn’t mind admitting it, at least in the privacy of her own mind.
She killed the Bedivere.
There’s a lot that keeps her awake at night. There’s a lot that keeps any captain awake at night, especially any captain who lived through the Dominion War. But the Bedivere sits right at the top of Chester’s list, where she assumes and sincerely hopes it will never have any competition.
Losing a starship is one of the very worst things an officer can live through, and the Bedivere… the Bedivere died ugly.
She can still smell it. Sometimes, when she’s just falling asleep, she can feel it again, the moment the inertial dampeners gave up the ghost and they were falling, really falling, her stomach swooping. It’ll jolt her awake, sweating. At least it doesn’t make her puke anymore.
She can feel her Captain’s blood on her hands and her arms and blotching across her stomach. She can smell the thick iron of it and the ozone of electrical fires and the roasting meat stink of burned flesh.
The Bedivere died about as ugly as a crashing starship can. Most of the escape pods were rendered inoperable. Most of the rest were inaccessible due to the gash the Jem’Hadar phasers had torn through her hull. And with Captain Steenburg dead, Chester was the one to tell her crew to stay in place. That only a handful of them would be able to evacuate.
Chester hauled too many of their bodies out of the wreckage, before the Jem’Hadar reached their position.
Her alternate killed the Bedivere.
It’s a simple statement Hawthorne made. Not much to go on. But it doesn’t need to be.
Chester cannot imagine killing the Bedivere . A self-destruct to keep it out of enemy hands would be one thing; foolish decisions in battle another.
She remembers the Intendant’s words.
Killing the Bedivere , she’s certain, wasn’t either of those two things. Killing the Bedivere was her alternate murdering her crew for her own personal gain, and that is something Chester knows, for all the dark places in her soul, she would never be able to do.
And that means—
—She’s miscalculated.
She’s been assuming her alternate is basically her—one more inclined to violence and cruelty than she herself is, but in ways easily attributable to the horrors she was raised around.
This is not correct.
Her counterpart is enough like her to be in some ways predictable. And in other ways, wildly, horrifyingly, not.
She can no longer count on being able to tell which is which, and all she can do is be glad that Hawthorne told her before she had to find it out for herself.
She draws a deep breath and squares her shoulders. This is not a time or a place to show weakness.
A hand grabs her arm and pulls her into a repair access alcove. Chester spins, ready to fight, and feels her shoulder slump with relief as she recognizes the person there. It’s Tanek. It’s her Tanek. The other one doesn’t have this level of resting bitch face. “Mr. Tanek,” she says. “Good to see you. Status report on the ship?”
“Repairs are progressing well,” he says. “We have a prisoner—my alternate. It sounds as if he was the one behind the kidnapping of Mr. Hawthorne. He has been… surprisingly cooperative.”
“Seems out of character for both of you,” she says.
“He seems to have a certain regard for you.”
Chester makes a face. “You could say that.” She looks Tanek over; he’s dressed in his alternate’s form-fitting clothing. “I appreciate your commitment to the bit, Mr. Tanek, but your alternate—”
“Is adept at projecting a friendly demeanor, which I have not the patience to mimic. I know. I assure you that I will rise to the occasion should it become necessary.”
“I’ll hold you to it,” she says. “As will my alternate. She has a tendency to decorate her walls with people who disappoint her.”
“So I have been informed. I am still determining how this reflects on you.”
“You do that.” Chester glances out of their hiding place. It’s such a relief to see him. She’s embarrassed by how much a relief it is. “I’m playing her game for now—”
“As is evident by your attire.”
“Glad you can tell. I’m playing her game for now. Hawthorne is trying, but he doesn’t trust me and he’s a dreadful liar. I need you to get all the information you can out of the computers of this beast, get Hawthorne, and get the hell out of here. I’ll figure out my own way back.”
“Leaving the Captain in enemy hands is tactically unsound.”
“Is that concern I hear in your voice, Mr. Tanek?”
“It is generally accepted that an individual is responsible for their fiancee’s wellbeing.”
Chester tilts her head at him, biting back the initial profane response. “You know, I’m not sure I can tell when you’re joking.”
He’s laughing at her, the way he really laughs, silent with the corners of his eyes crinkling up and a sly smile on his lips. On someone without his personality, it might even be attractive. She gives him an exhausted look, her annoyance ratcheting higher.
This is not the time, but she can’t resist. “Tell me,” she says, “did you notice Nivaan approaching?”
“Yes, and you as well. You are not as subtle as you think you are, Captain.”
“And you didn’t think to warn me to stay out of it?!”
“Allowing Nivaan to properly end our relationship was a great deal more important than protecting your fragile dignity. I actually esteem her.”
“Incredible. What the hell were you expecting me to do?”
“Respect my ability to defend myself.”
Chester turns to really stare at him now, indignant. “I had to pull a ten kilo rat off your face last week, mister. I respect nothing about you, let alone your ability to defend yourself.”
That snaps his expression right back into a glare, which is far more comfortable territory. “Very well. I will retrieve Mr. Hawthorne and the relevant data. Do not expect me to return for you; it is unlikely to be possible.”
“I wasn’t counting on it,” she says. “My alternate finds me highly distracting, and I intend to use that advantage as fully as possible.”
“Yes, as I am sure you already have.”
Dick. “As if you haven’t done worse.”
That brings him up short. Briefly, he looks angry, and then it slips out of his expression. What replaces it is his usual professional mask. “Subterfuge is seldom a dignified undertaking,” he acknowledges. “I will retrieve Mr. Hawthorne. Do attempt not to end up her latest wall decoration. It would be a disappointing end to a mediocre career.”
“Acknowledged,” she says. She frees her arm from his grasp, and steps back into the corridor. There’s an impulse to look back, but she ignores it.
He’ll do fine. He’s a big bad Tal Shiar agent, after all.