Chapter Text
“How long?” says Chester.
“How long do we have?” says DeWinter. “We don’t know. I’d like to avoid doing things on the Dominon’s timeline if at all possible. If we sabotage the ketrecel white, however, it’ll blow the whole operation sky high.”
“What if they have enough already? It could just move their timeline up.”
“They don’t. We know that at least.”
“What if they don’t get evacuated? Dominion’s never been big on that.”
“Then we all get a demonstration of exactly why we can’t give the Dominion a toehold in our space,” says DeWinter, cold. They step around the corner back into the clearing where Chester beamed down, and Hawthorne is there, coming from the opposite side.
DeWinter’s breath hisses in sharply, and the blunt nose of a phaser nudges into the small of Chester’s back, just in the right place to shred the abdominal aorta and give her a few minutes of serious regret before she bleeds out. DeWinter doesn’t seem the sort to set her phaser to a nice instantly fatal setting under the circumstances. She raises her hands instantly.
“Stop right there, Lieutenant Commander Hawthorne,” says DeWinter. Piper’s hands are already up. To Chester she says, “What the hell were you thinking?”
“I was thinking it was a bad idea to go to an unknown location with an unknown party without some backup,” says Chester, her voice even. There’s something about having a phaser pointed at her that’s left her mind full of bright, clear adrenaline–a weird distant sort of sharp-edged calm. “How do you know my chief engineer?”
Said chief engineer’s eyes widen in apparent confusion.
“Not relevant,” says DeWinter. “One more step, Hawthorne, just give me an excuse. You have ten seconds to tell me why you’re really here.” She doesn’t need to finish the threat. A phaser shot through the guts isn’t going to be a nice way to go.
“He’s here on my orders,” says Chester. “He was doing scans of the planet–”
“Shut up,” says DeWinter, almost conversationally. “You don’t have anything I want to hear right now. Hawthorne, talk.”
“Lieutenant Commander Piper Hawthorne, USS Interpreter, reporting under Captain Chester’s command. I was performing planetary scans as ordered, but lost communications with the Captain when she beamed down. Planetary scans were picking up irregularities and I was concerned when I could not raise communications or transporter lock. I beamed down a safe distance away from the Captain’s transport site to investigate and provide any needed assistance.” His hands are still in the air, voice sounding like he’s reading something memorized by rote.
“Do you believe any of this?” says DeWinter to Chester, her tone poisonous. “I’ve read your files, Captain. You do everything you can alone . It’s not like you to drag one of your crew into danger. Much less your chief engineer.”
Chester closes her eyes at the last one, breathing out through her nose. She knows the button DeWinter’s trying to hit, and she’s not going to give her the satisfaction. “He insisted,” she says. “He said I had the responsibility not to go haring off on my own. He told me I could take him, or Commander J’etris, and if she went the possibility of Subcommander Tanek noticing and reporting to his superiors was significantly higher. So I allowed him to accompany me. Or did you want me taking the chance of the Tal Shiar joining our little party?”
DeWinter shoves her forward, so she can cover both of them with the weapon. Chester keeps her hands raised, darts a look at Hawthorne. She would very much like to ask what the hell he’s thinking.
“If there’s anyone here who has a damn good reason to want to stop the Dominion getting their fingers back in the Alpha Quadrant, it’s me,” Hawthorne snaps. “Whoever you are, if you’ve read her file, maybe you’ve read mine. The Dominion sneaking around in the Alpha Quadrant got me blown up - and then they stuck this tech in me and tried to turn me into a puppet. You think I’m not going to try and stop that? You think I’m going to let my Captain go out here to the enemy camp without help?”
“As I was saying, he insisted.” Chester gives a little what can you do shrug.
It finally makes DeWinter hesitate.
“He was doing scans,” says Chester. “Think about it–you showed up in my quarters in the dead of the night, claiming you were from a secret Starfleet agency. It seemed like a set-up. So he didn’t have to insist that much. When I was a commander–a lieutenant–I could get away with going off on my own. But I have a ship, a crew, an assignment with heavy public scrutiny, I don’t get to do that anymore. Because if I go off half-cocked on this, a lot of people will die. Interpeter’s mission is to help stop the next war before it even gets started, and if I were to spike the ketrecel white without good evidence–well, there are a lot of covert ops agencies just praying for the chance to start the next war, on every side.” She takes a breath in, tries to move so she’s a little in front of Hawthorne, so he’ll have a bit more time to run, if it gets bad. “I couldn’t take you at your word. So I took Commander Hawthorne, because he’s exactly who I want at my back right now. All right? And you’ve showed me, you’ve convinced me. There’s a Dominion invasion force right over that ridge, and we’re going to have to stop them. Commander Hawthorne being here won’t change that. Right?”
“Amazingly stupid,” mutters DeWinter. But the phaser lowers. Chester breathes out.
“Right, then.” Hawthorne’s hands are still in the air. “If we’re all done with the guns? I am already here, and you may as well utilize my technical expertise. The Dominion invasion force is just over the ridge? The irregularities in the scans prevented me from getting anything useful. I should make a firsthand technical assessment. And whatever this is with ketrecel white and the supply run, I’ll need to review it. No one knows the - ah.” he waves a hand. “Elliptics - Eccentricities of the Interpreter’s replicator system than I do. You’ll want me to make sure it’s an adjustment we can handle before we’re in the middle of the mission. Yes?”
“Yes,” says Chester, heavily. “We should have him take a look.”
“Absolutely not,” says DeWinter. “We’ve taken enough of a risk of being noticed as it is.”
“Well,” Hawthorne says dryly. “Given that you didn’t notice me until you’d practically walked into me, I don’t think I’m adding much to the risk of being noticed. And while the Captain has a superlative tactical analysis of the camp, I’m sure, I’m very closely familiar with Dominion tech, obviously, I’ll know what’s important right away when I see it, and I can assure you I will give you valuable insight.”
He has a sort of heightened arrogant affect to his voice, she has no idea if he’s intentionally putting it on. She wishes he wouldn’t.
“Very well,” says DeWinter. “Keep it brief. You lead the way, Captain. I’ll bring up the rear. Make sure we don’t get further unwanted guests.”
Which means they’re still very much in danger of being shot.
“‘Unwanted guests’,” Hawthorne mutters, with the same exaggerated arrogance, “I provide valuable technical expertise and I’m an unwanted guest…”
They reach the top of the ridge again and Chester hands Hawthorne the field glasses, staring down as best she can at this distance. Dominion outposts are all so similar, and she feels a queasy recognition of the layout. She did enough pre-mission briefings…
Wait. She’s letting her memories lead her. It’s not like the damn planet is shielded, why’s Section 31 the first concerned party here? It can’t just be willful blindness. “Thoughts, Commander Hawthorne?”
“A moment, please.” He has a white-knuckled grip on the field glasses. “They certainly aren’t set up to evacuate. This is a stable encampment - something that can be built out into a staging area. The ships are troop transports. I - hmm. I suspect they’re still active. Clearly in good working order.” He looks up. “The assessment of the threat is correct. Give me some time to review additional technical documents, and I can give you precise estimates for how many troops they can move at present, and how large the camp is likely to become. And whatever else you need to know about their ketrecel white supplies. They clearly have manufacturing facilities, all operational. Definitely meant to supply a larger group than this.” He’s still gripping the field glasses.
“If we could hurry up. You certainly won’t be reviewing technical documents here.”
“I’ve seen what I need to. I can evaluate the documents for modifications to the ketrecel white on our way back.”
That is a terrifying prospect. Chester closes her eyes briefly in dismay and hopes Piper saw something he’s not mentioning. “Well, DeWinter. It seems we’re at your disposal.”
They beam back up. Chester immediately turns to Hawthorne. “Please tell me you saw something there that indicates it’s not an invasion force.”
Hawthorne ignores her, turning to the transporter controls. “Gull?”
An ungodly series of screeching beeps comes through the ship’s comms. You fucking shit idiot do you know how long you were in comms blackout! I was dead in the fucking water! Are you trying to bloody die, you shit idiot?! I am not helping you with this kind of shit again! Never! Fuck!
“I know, I know. I’m fine, thank you very much, I’m beaming you up now.”
He drops the field glasses to the floor to grab on to Gull as soon as he rematerializes, cursing under his breath before finally remembering the Captain exists. “Yes, fine, I am suitably terrified of the imminent prospect of Dominion invasion, that’s my official report to Section 31, let’s go.”
Her face falls. “So she’s not lying? That really is…didn’t it seem off to you, aren’t those ships a bit old…?” She’s fishing, a desperate note in her voice.
He looks at her. Her expression seems entirely genuine.
There was, technically, an option here, one he’s already - grudgingly - acknowledged was a non-zero possibility, that she was telling the truth, that she was trustworthy. That she wasn’t a secret police agent, that Section 31 hadn’t bothered or hadn’t been able to get their hooks into all of the Armistice captains before the mission, and she had only met the secret police when they had tried to co-opt her tonight - last night? He was losing track of time. Lack of sleep makes you prone to errors and poor judgment. He knows this, it’s why he won’t let the safety of engineering and the ship be compromised by enthusiastic all nighters.
Where was he going with this. He had a point.
Right. Nonzero possibilities. A Captain Chester who wasn’t a Section 31 agent, who didn’t trust the secret police - that would make sense to be a Captain Chester who the secret police would draw a phaser on when he showed up - when one of their loose ends showed up. That would be a reason to lie about him being there, and not point out any of his obvious lies. Support him getting a good look at the camp. All of that would make sense.
On the other hand, the other possibility he’d laid out - the other one that ended with him alive at least for the next few days - was the one where the secret police had prioritized Chester appearing squeaky clean, and she would act trustworthy. That might even have been what they were discussing when he beamed down - and you didn’t become a secret police member by not knowing how to deal with unexpected contingencies - if his arrival had even been unexpected. If they could block Gull, maybe they had detected his transporter signature. Maybe they had time to put a story together before he got there. Or maybe they were just good at improv. Either way - a great way to make Captain Chester seem trustworthy, right? That would keep him nicely in the fold with no bodies to clean up.
And if that was the case - letting them know he wasn’t a monumental idiot and had actually recognized the old, grounded-for-months ships and lived-in camp for the near-zero threat it presented was a good way to get himself dead. Of course Captain Chester was fishing - she knew he’d been lying about thinking he had Dominion tech inside him, she knew he’d been lying for most of his performance on the planet, and he could just as well have been lying about the nonsense he’d just spewed back there. He’d already made it clear he hated her contact and didn’t trust her, why would she immediately believe him when he said he bought their story?
Either way, he has the information on the sabotage of the supply mission. He’s going to sabotage the sabotage. The most important things are a) ensuring he’s alive to do that and b) ensuring the secret police don’t have any reason to suspect that he’s going to do that, so they sabotage his sabotage of their sabotage.
Unless she’d handed him a dummy datapad and the real sabotage was something else.
Fuck, he’s tired. The rule was trust nothing and stay alive, and paranoia hasn’t gotten him killed yet. Lying it is.
“The ships will work,” he snorts. “Not everyone flies around in tech so new it’s barely a toddler.”
“You’re sure.” There’s a grim note to her voice, a mask settling over her face, flat determination and icy confidence sliding down behind her eyes. If he hadn’t just seen that apparent horror and uncertainty, it would seem she wasn’t surprised, that she already has a plan. But he did, so he realizes it’s the face of the Perfect Starfleet Officer In An Emergency. The part she’s playing to seem trustworthy; and she’s using it to excuse what she’s about to do, he thinks with a bitter twist. She does already have a plan.
“You looked at them too, before I got there. Wouldn’t you agree?”
“You’re my technical expert. But…” She frowns, shakes her head slightly. “You noticed how she hurried us? She hurried me, too, the first time. She didn’t want you to look at all. If that really was an invasion camp, you’d think she’d give us a nice long look. Really soak in the horror. But she didn’t.” She stands there a moment with her arms folded, then makes a decision. “We’re going back, and we’re having another look, and finding what she doesn’t want us to see.”
He stares at her for a long moment. What the actual hell. If this was fishing, it was an extraordinary effort. He just has to laugh. “You know, that’s a terrible idea, but it’s not more ridiculous than anything else I’ve done today.”
“Everything I’ve done today has been a terrible idea,” she says. “That’s why I didn’t want you coming along.”
Gull beeps his vehement agreement that they should not be there. “You can stay in the ship if you want, Gull.” Fuck you, you’re obviously too stupid to be allowed to wander on your own. “Yeah, alright.” He shakes his head. “Just to be clear, they can jam anything Gull and I can do, so I have no way of knowing if she’s actually left, or if she’s still here watching us, or even how the hell she got here. Just in case you were wondering.”
“I’m not throwing us into another war because I wouldn’t take a second look,” she says, still with that perfect Starfleet officer expression, and the voice, too. He wonders if the command-track cadets have to take classes on it. “But that’s my risk to take; you’ve already made your judgment. You should stay here.” She glances up at him, mouth turning up in an unnatural little grim smile, at odds with her cold eyes. “Actually stay, Commander Hawthorne. Almost getting gutshot once today was more than enough for me.”
He narrows his eyes. Right, and trust whatever she was going to do on the surface alone.
Maybe this was a situation where the best outcome did come from trusting her because she was actually trustworthy, not just play along, tell her it’s obviously not an invasion, avoid Captain Chester deciding to go back to have another look, not raise a watching Section 31’s suspicions and get them both shot to death on the surface and have it blamed on the Jem’Hadar invasion, and then have the go ahead for destroying this Jem’Hadar camp, whatever it really was.
But then again, telling the truth at any point in the past, oh, twenty minutes or so would have gotten him shot in the head, so.
Maybe this was an attempt to do something else on the surface out of his sight, something she had been meant to do before, but had been set aside upon his arrival. Maybe this was the extraordinary lengths to fish for his doubts - which, given that he’d made it very clear he hadn’t believed anything else they’d said…
Or maybe it’s an attempt to make it look like he was killed by Jem’Hadar.
Fuck it. He’s already thought he was going to die plenty of times today. What’s one more?
“No. I’ve come this far. If you’re going back there, I’m going with you. Going separately seems to end in too much phaser pointing.”