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Lost.
Section 31 agent Roberta Luke was lying awake in the fleet issue bed on the starship Voyager - she knew she should be asleep, and indeed across the room from where she was currently lying her roommate was fast asleep. From a practical point of view sharing her room with a roommate could be seen as a problem considering who she worked for, but it was good cover. It also gave her someone to bond with and talk about.
Her roommate was scared, scared of the unknown.
That was very human. Even now in the 24th century when humans and other races were spreading across the galaxy, across the Alpha Quadrant, she corrected herself, everyone was afraid of what was going bumpity bump in the night. Roberta was trying to be strong, but even she was scared of what was out there, in the Delta Quadrant. She let out a slow drawn out sigh and rested her head on the pillow, exhausted. It had been a tiring few days since Voyager had entered the Delta Quadrant, and this was the first time she was able to get some time to think clearly now they weren't under attack.
What had started as a simple and straightforward fact-finding mission had ended up as a disaster, well at least at first; unlike the rest of the crew, she didn't have any actual family. She was more fortunate than some of the rest of the crew in that regard. She had been born and raised on Turkana IV, a disaster of a colony and her parents had died trying to protect her; what Starfleet had of her family was a fabrication, a smokescreen. If anything happened, then Voyager would send a message directly to two people who didn't exist, and Section 31 would receive the message.
Roberta knew she was expendable since there were dozens of agents like her in the field, but she wasn't concerned about that. She had managed to escape that planet with several others and had gone into Starfleet Academy where she had been recruited into Section 31, and she had been a member of 31 for a long time. Some people, especially people like Captain Janeway, would be horrified if they learnt about her organisation's existence and what they did. But truthfully Roberta didn't really care for their opinions, and besides what Janeway didn't know wouldn't kill her. She wasn't going to tell the woman anything.
She had been placed on the ship as a member of the crew when the ship had been prepared to go after a Maquis ship, which was used by the cell commanded by Chakotay, Voyager's new first officer, to gather intelligence on the Maquis to put an end to the organisation. It hadn't been difficult getting her an assignment on the ship, and since Tuvok and Janeway didn't know anything about her organisation she was not worried about discovery.
Roberta knew of the differing opinions concerning the Maquis - in the past, Section 31 had taken a bored, almost indifferent view of them since they weren't really that dangerous, but that was before the Defiant incident, where Thomas Riker had stolen the ship, and gone on a rampage through Cardassian space. Ever since that incident Section 31 had begun adopting a more zero-tolerance attitude towards the group whereas in the past they had been watched closely in case they passed the point of no return, the point where they stopped being a nuisance and became a potential danger. The organisation she worked for were more interested in major threats and potential dangers - politicians, militants, scientists who had something they shouldn't, or they were running experiments designed to strengthen the Federation. The Maquis had only been a problem, nothing more.
Now Roberta didn't really see them as a danger. In her mind, the Cardassians deserved a great deal - she had visited Bajor once, shortly after the planet had been liberated; back then she had been part of a different crew, gathering intelligence for Section 31 to use, continuing the tradition the organisation had begun decades ago, planting agents on ships to gather information about potential enemies of the Federation.
Bajor had been a shambles when Roberta had seen it, and many of the Bajoran people were still suffering for what had happened after spending the best part of a century under Cardassian occupation, and when she thought of the Maquis and their colonies in that part of space called the Demilitarised Zone where they shared a large portion of the space with Cardassian colonies, she could see the Bajorans replaced by humans, Vulcans, Bolians and other Federation races.
But while Roberta didn't like the idea of the Maquis being destroyed, she was dedicated to Section 31 and to the Federation. Other Starfleet officers believed they knew what was out there waiting for them, but the sad fact was they didn't. Roberta knew that if they demanded answers, demanding the truth, then they would soon realise they could not handle the truth.
They lived in a galaxy which had walls, and they needed to be guarded by those who were prepared to make hard choices, and they also needed to be prepared to venture out to other enemy powers like the Romulan Empire, and even to allies like the Klingon Empire if their intelligence network hinted there was something ugly happening there in order to deal with those issues to keep the peace, and unlike Starfleet Intelligence, they handled things outside of Starfleet. They even helped civilians if needed.
Who was going to guard those walls? Starfleet Intelligence couldn't do it - they were focused on Starfleet matters, not the Federation, but while their existence, which could be considered grotesque, was needed. Starfleet Intelligence didn't carry out assassinations, they didn't frame government members into getting things moving, making changes.
The Tal Shiar and the Obsidian Order guarded those walls for the Romulan Empire and the Cardassian Union respectively, so what made Federation citizens think those same walls didn't exist for them?
Roberta shook her head to get rid of those thoughts - she had long since become accustomed to the work she did for Section 31, recognising it as important and necessary whereas other Starfleet officers and Federation citizens believed that their precious utopia was standing strong because of their beliefs of freedom, fairness, democracy and equality, but truthfully without Section 31 there to provide them their safety and to look out and actively seek out their enemies then that would not exist.
Did Starfleet really think that the Romulans had not gone to war with them because they were frightened, or because they had realised they had overreached themselves?
No. Section 31 had carried out plenty of assassination and sabotage acts against the Romulans, crippling supply lines, killing the strongest supporters of the ones calling for war, and virtually silencing them. And it looked like when Starfleet finally got out here this far and encountered the Kazon, her organisation would have more work to do.
When she had first found herself in the Delta Quadrant, Roberta had pretended to be bothered by the fact she was 70,000 light years from Earth, but truthfully she was more bothered that she couldn't contact Section 31 and inform them about the Kazon, As she rolled over in an attempt to get comfortable, her mind refusing to let her sleep while her body screamed for a chance to sleep and relax, Roberta couldn't help but make plans.
Some of the crew were having problems trying to cope with their new situation, but while Roberta herself was nervous about being out here this far from the Alpha Quadrant, she could see the possibilities; Janeway's speech was broadcasted throughout the ship, talking about exploring new worlds and new cultures, as was typical of a Starfleet captain determined to find trouble. But she would be doing what every Section 31 agent had been doing for decades, investigate what was out there, make notes and when she was ready, she would send it off.
Many people on Voyager were worried about the thought of spending 75 years in deep space, but Roberta doubted it would take that long. The Enterprise NX-01 had come up with new technologies that only helped to develop United Earth's science even more, and over the years like with Kirk's Enterprise new concepts came out.
No. Roberta doubted Voyager would take that long to return home. Plus, they would meet new races, new threats - that would be her speciality, she would gather that information and keep it until she could get it back to Section 31, so then they could develop the means and the strategies to protect everything they held dear. While she may not be a senior officer, or close to that level, many of her duties involved being on the bridge, so that was a plus but even if she wasn't then it was not a problem.
She had ways of getting information without needing to be on the bridge.
Roberta Luke may have been sent to spy on the Maquis, but she had bigger fish to fry, but she would be watching the Maquis closely, making files on all of them in case they were dangerous, though at this point they were irrelevant to her.
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A/N - Roberta Luke was a Section 31 agent assigned by Sloan to keep an eye on the Maquis. She tried to kill Seven of Nine in the Section 31 novel, Shadow. She was later killed in one of those medical experiments which mutilated the crew in season 4.