Note: I have no idea why I rewrote a whole bunch of this before posting. Masochism maybe? Anyway, some action, some adventure some more mysteries make themselves known. I think for every one thing answered about ten more take its place haha. Anyway, stay tuned for more action coming up and wild times abound. Thank you again everyone for reading and commenting and C&C is always welcome!
Garak is thankful at that moment that he hears the loud clang of three bells. It provides enough distraction that his pause to consider her statement isn't noticed. Well, Elim, that certainly answers why she was so insistent on coming with you for the trip. Now as for what she suspects... she must think it something rather dire for such subterfuge. Or perhaps not. After all, not every woman is like Mila. No, but she has never seemed unusually hysterical or overreactive. Not as far as your observation would indicate. And there is something that you're missing in this something that you're-
"The bell is just a formality for the rest of ship. We already know there are three." Keiko looks intent, listening carefully as if forgetting the somewhat ominous declaration of earlier as she turns that difficult wheel. "Please, don't let the bells distract you. I can listen for both, believe me. I've had enough years of children and distractions to mutitask." She seems slightly out of breath but she doesn't waver in her movements on the wheel. Neither does he, though he is sure to reserve some effort for the remaining two.
Garak recognizes quite easily that she's not going to lose her focus so quickly. He manages a smile that surely appears more like a grimace, but in the low light cast from the thin aether strips along the ceiling he doesn't worry a whole lot about his physical appearance.
"I should have expected a woman of your intelligence would have seen through such a poor ruse," he gives the compliment as easy an absent thought as breathing in the hopes that it might buy him another moment to-
"Why are you going to the West Continent?" she grits out sounding possibly more angry than she intended with the exertion of the turning. One glimpse to her face, however, stomps that hope neatly dead. Ah, what fortune, you get to be on the receiving end of that rather charming expression. Garak is sure if looks could kill, as the idiom goes, he would at the very least have spontaneously burst into flames already. He would not normally assume an easy resort to violence no matter how angry the opponent, but he has learned where traditional parent child relationships are concerned most are unusually quick to go on the offensive.
"Surely you must have deduced as you discovered the ruse itself that there is a necessity to discretion and while I would relish an opportunity for full disclosure I do hope you understand the inherent difficulties in such a position." The number three shield locks into place with that last effort and as Garak looks to the number one and four, he almost hopes she decides to just slit his throat does he doesn't have to repeat such unpleasant muscle strain two more times. Keiko as well, is breathing hard with that exertion but not quite as much as he. Garak decides right then and there at the end of this he's going to need to reenter a phase of serious reconditioning. Reconditioning? He catches that thought with disgust. Really, Elim, at your age you should be starting to wind down, to enjoy the spoils of a well earned position commanding, moving the pieces on the Kotra board to your delight, enjoying the great mental game without a single care for your prowess at calisthenics. Enabran Tain isn't sitting there trying to determine the most efficient way to reshape his girth into a fit fighting machine.
Keiko gives him an assessing look. And in spite of such a stalwart mental case for allowing his form to sink into a blissful middle aged complacence, he finds that a certain self conscious vanity presents itself as he squares his shoulders back.
"We should each be able to pull the one and four," she informs him as she steps to the number four wheel. "They'll be firing at the gondola and these need to hold even while we're pulling them." Keiko takes a deep breath, not allowing her interrogation to interfere with what he is sure is a critical activity. "Don't let go of the wheel." She reminds him of a teacher he had years ago and he recalls Julian mentioning that she once tried her hand at that same endeavor. "The shields are smaller," she informs him pedantically, "but there are more gears and more pulleys. They'll be firing at the-" As if on cue, Garak hears a loud boom and feels the concussive shock rock the very floor beneath them. He doesn't think however, that the gondola has been hit. It doesn't have quite the same feel as the explosion from earlier. Garak considers that as he takes hold of the wheel and begins to turn in earnest, feeling a similar effort required solo as the two center shields had with the two of them.
"The first shot was a warning," Keiko says, voice tight. "They're not going to stop unless we disable their ships or they board."
"Such rousing evening entertainment," Garak remarks as he hears another round of blasts and almost feels his arms ripped out of their sockets as the wheel jerks. But again, there's no massive quake to the ship and Garak sucks in a breath, continuing to turn even as his shoulders and biceps start throbbing with every motion. He pauses when he hears another bombastic fire of what he's determined to be primitive cannon shots from multiple directions, another blast making him hold onto the wheel as the ship jerks again. He has no idea how many turns are left but he hasn't heard the locking click in spite of what seems to be several minutes of moving. He swallows, the immediacy of the assault diverting his attention from the terribly tiny compartment until just now that he allows the walls to come back into focus. Garak's mouth is dry in spite of the tea he drank earlier, and he turns again, and again, getting close to screaming why hasn't it locked into place yet.
"Whatever you do," he hears Keiko again but closer, right behind him now, the wheel catching again. "Don't let go." Garak knows damn well that he is in the impossible position of letting the entire port shielding drop or likely being stabbed in the back. There's an almost euphoric sensation as his head starts to swim, another firing of rounds, sensing some life or death moment that he's been rather neatly locked into. He can feel a squirming unpleasant sensation between his shoulder blades and he cannot help but feel that's it's deliberate that she continues to stand there, a soft quick step left then right as he turns his head. Garak ceases that futile search, deciding that it's a far better expansion of his energy to continue to raise the shield. The sooner he can complete the task, the sooner he'll have lost that air of vulnerability. Garak had watched her pace; he knows that even with the lock up from the hits he cannot possibly be that far behind.
"Julian can shoot almost anything out of the sky. It comes naturally to him, his reflexes..." she trails off and he wonders briefly where she's going with this new line of questioning. "But you knew that, didn't you?" Yes, yes I did. And you do as well. But you seem to want me to admit it.
"Julian and I have had many a discussion," Garak answers tightly, finally breaking through that stuck spot, the wheel giving a last reluctant lurch. He feels it lock into place a new volley of thunder reaching his ears, making his jaw clench. He turns quickly, but not so alarmed, not so fast as to invoke an involuntary response on her part. Garak finds however that she's standing there calmly, and in fact, far from menacing, she's standing legs apart- a solid base- as she grips an overhead bar to keep her balance with the motion of the gondola as another tremor hits the ship.
"The shields are graphene. They'll hold. But Miles always said that he didn't trust the scaffolding that holds them. He said that it would be better to build it out as a permanent structure around the gondola. The gondola is reinforced- the hull can take a lot of hits before there's a breach. He promised me that." A deep breath reveals an anxiety to that calm that he can see now. "This is dangerous work, Garak. This isn't the Federation. There aren't any laws here. Not in the sky- not even on land unless you're lucky," Keiko adds mostly to herself, and he can see her tension. "I told her if she wanted to fly, if she wanted all this space, this... flying she'd be better off joining Starfleet." Keiko huffs, looking up at the planks of the ceiling, and Garak's eyes cannot help but follow. His eyes trace the whorls of the wood in the darkness. He can see in his peripheral vision that without his scrutiny she allows her body language to become less guarded, that there's a much more worried cast, another volley, another parry. He's finally figured out that Julian has been aiming at the cannonballs themselves the two forces colliding in mid air.
Garak grabs the bar when he hears it and his shoulder screams as they're both nearly thrown with the impact. He catches the grit of her teeth, the tendons of her neck obvious with that effort. But far better than to be thrown into anything else here. His arms aren't that far above his head. He can see that the cabin wasn't designed for a giant and as that thought passes, so too does another reminder of the small space. Garak is masochistically thankful that the threat of actual death is high enough to trump the imagined walls closing in, though he isn't sure which he would prefer right now.
"I would imagine Starfleet pales in comparison to such dramatic battles of the sky," Garak says, perhaps a touch too glibly but Keiko just shots him a mother's dark disapproving distant look.
"She wanted to feel the wind. She and her brother... they said that space was boring."
"Well, I would be hard pressed to argue that this is anything but invigorating," Garak agrees as the ship takes a sudden lurch and Keiko's expression mirrors his inner most thought that any moment they're going to crash horrifically to the ground.
"Where is..." Garak swallows hard, the reality of the ease with which they might fall out of the sky terribly present. "Where is her brother?" he asks conversationally.
"Why do you want to know that!?" Keiko snaps at him and there's an odd panic that appears outside of their current predicament. Curious. Garak grits his teeth as the tilt seems to even out and he looks for a bar to grip that might be on the wall itself. He doesn't see any and supposes the fewer protrusions they can be thrown into the better.
"Merely making conversation," Garak assures her. "Julian had mentioned Molly had a brother but you know as loquacious as our dear doctor is, I'm afraid he's been quite reticent where your children are concerned. Not a complaint, just an observation," he's quick to add. "We Cardassians are always eager to talk about family as a matter of pride, our connections, you see are an endless source of fascination... And while I could wax poetic about your favorite designers, your husband's every little idiosyncrasy down to yesterday morning's breakfast, in fact, Julian has always been somewhat... evasive where your children are concerned."
"Humans find it suspicious when strangers ask about their children." He can see her bristle. She's lying, Elim. You've yet to meet a single human who hasn't leapt at the chance to converse for hours about their offspring, their accomplishments, their friends, their education, what sports they played in school. Perhaps in the context of strangers on a train it might be an unusual subject to suddenly broach but where clearly adult offspring are concerned- Garak's head nearly snaps up as he replays that statement, a bell going off like someone dropped him on his head. She said "their children" as if they were his. It could be nothing, you know. It could be a figure of speech, some generalization, some grammatical point that you're misinterpreting. He barely keeps any bodily reaction and is almost thankful when he hears a longer series of bells that he imagines to be some sort of basic code. He thinks quickly. His instinct tells him that his hunch is correct. There are a million things he wants to ask but he knows that to jump on that suspicion now while her guard is up would yield little.
"You have my sincerest apologies," Garak says at last with an awkward duck of his head as he decides a better story is in order for the trip. The truth after all would be such a vulgar thing to just spit out like an unpleasant morsel of dinner. No, he knows better than to insult his host in such a crude manner. Especially not when she's gone through all the trouble for this subterfuge. She's Starfleet- or she was- the same as her husband, the same as Julian, the same as Jadzia, the same as the mayor. Of course you should have seen it earlier. Watters wouldn't even think of allowing Jadzia aboard until she gave him her name and rank. Why should the pilot's mother be any different? She must have told him. She must have been able to prove it. By the State, what is going on in Indigo for such a series of coincidences? Is that it, Elim? Could the Kironide be nothing but a curiosity? What if the mystery is Indigo itself?
Garak thinks at this point it's a moot issue. He won't have his answer until they arrive at the rendezvous point and he confirms with the contacts Pythas is sending. And they'll either abandon you in the dirt or restore you to your proper station. But until then, there's nothing left but to play the game and to stay alive.
"It was foolish of me not to tell you the real reason for going west. It is your family that is involved... at least in part... in the transport," he adds shrewdly, paying close attention to the shift in her eyes, to the slightest change in her pupils as he speaks and he catches it as he does. He also sees her eyes narrow, some game inside her own head as she studies him back. It's in that moment that Garak realizes the bells have stopped their intermittent chiming, the firing of the cannons gone.
Keiko lets go of the bar, unable to hide a wince as she rotates her arms. His own shoulders are hardly faring any better. She doesn't move towards the ladder but continues to stand there waiting. Garak waits with her, content to stand there in their strange staring contest seeing her watching him until seeming to come to a decision.
"I know why we're going to the West Continent, Garak," she says at last and he immediately thinks that she's bluffing. What was the point in all of this, after all, if she knew the entire time? But he holds back, not letting his expression change.
"I see..." is all he allows.
"They can't hear us down here. Not even Julian. Miles designed this space that way. When it's locked you can't find the hatch." She lets that information sink in and Garak wonders why she's telling him this, already feeling a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach.
"My husband doesn't trust Cardassians," Keiko informs him suddenly changing the subject. He merely nods in cautious agreement.
"An understandable sentiment given his history."
"I think that's an unfair prejudice. I think it's foolish to judge an entire race based on the actions of a few. But I still don't trust you, Garak. Not because you're Cardassian but because Julian..." She shakes her head taking a few steps not looking at him before slapping her palm back behind her to the wall. She hesitates until finally looking up at him again. "I don't like this. I think you're up to something. But I also think that Julian is in over his head. And there isn't anyone else I can turn to." "Julian said something to those people upstairs to arrange this," she says, forcing out every word like a curse. "And you don't know what it is... do you?"
"The thought had crossed my mind," he answers noncommittally. He sees Keiko look at the hatch, as if waiting for a sign from the heavens before continuing. He can almost hear her thoughts, clear as a bell, God help me if I'm wrong to tell him this, screams at him as if she shouted the words at the top of her lungs. He knows he has nothing to do but watch, and wait. Garak doesn't wait long. Her voice is almost wooden, as if she decided to memorize those exact words, soft, monotone, and Garak strains to hear, but when he does, he cannot help the surprise that flashes across his face.
"Prisoner number 50B112165 places himself in the full custody of Captain Watters at the conclusion of this mission." He doesn't even need to ask what Julian could have possibly been thinking when making such an insane agreement. He knows, just as soon as Keiko says it that-
"He has no intention of going with them and they know it. Whatever guns you're bringing, Garak, you better hope that they're bigger than theirs."
