JMJ

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Dark Dealings of the Shadow Nagus

Down the short corridor, the sounds of the other guests of the Vital were very loud. Julian Bashir turned instantly around to see that Pel was still relaxed as the automatic door closed on her. She looked the same, and he nodded.

"Well, it doesn't feel right, me being shipped off planet while everything else is going to the Vault!" complained Rom.

"Would you rather you were dropped back down into the midst of it?" asked Zek perhaps a little less concerned than he should sound.

Bashir sighed, and paused there in the corridor to catch up with the conversation before intruding.

"No," Rom was quick to admit, "but…but there's gotta be something we can do."

"Moogee?" whined Arkos.

"Sh… baby…" cooed Leeta, though she was already obviously trying to calm down Nissa too who had been sobbing not too long before and not was chatting just like everyone else in baby gibberish.

"Come here, Arkos," said Ishka gently, and Arkos evidently obeyed; then to Rom she said, "At the moment there isn't much we can do but wait."

"Wait for what, though?" asked Rom. "The planet's gunna be overrun by the Keeoopii while they blame it on Hidden Profiters— and my brother! They could be burning down the Tower of Commerce right now, and we can't even see it."

"Do you want to see it?" asked Zek.

"Well, couldn't we contact the D'Kora on standby?"

"And do what, Rom? Blast civilians that are under the control of the Keeoopii?" asked Ishka.

"Besides, how many of them do you think are compromised?" asked Traymak darkly.

It was now that Bashir entered the room. Traymak was closest to the doorway, leaning against the wall with arms crossed and head lowered as he glanced at Bashir and back at Rom who had been pacing in the middle of the room. Everyone else was seated. Leeta held Nissa and Ishka held Arkos and was petting his tuft of burgundy hair as she was rocking him back and forth on her knee. The boy's head was on her chest until he looked up at Bashir. Everyone else did too.

"Dr. Bashir?" asked Rom.

Rom looked frazzled and tired and he still was not altogether well even with his pyrocyte levels back safe and stable. He looked like he wanted to cry as much as Nissa had been, and he all but fell upon his knees before Bashir after he rushed up to him, his Nagal clothes in complete disarray, his compasses dangling, his throat piece and buckle the only object holding everything in place.

"Have you heard from Cpt. Sisko?"

"No, I'm sorry," said Bashir. "I've been with the patient, and you're next in a moment."

"Is she alright?" asked Ishka.

"Yes, yes, she'll be alright, but you, Rom, might not be, if you don't remain calm," said Bashir.

"But—!"

"He's right," said Ishka with care. "You're the figurehead of the entire Alliance. To save you is to save the morale of all your people, whether you think you could be more helpful another way or not. You being not dead will be more helpful. It's the accountability of the Grand Nagus just as much as having the guards and the security. It isn't your selfishness, it's the people's selfishness, and it is a good one. It's your accountability— perhaps one that I never should have burdened you with."

Traymak raised a brow.

"What are you looking at?" asked Ishka icily of Traymak.

She looked away and rubbed Arkos' shoulders.

The way she looked at the little boy's head, Bashir could only surmise that her thoughts were betraying her to a time when she was happier despite how she had then longed for something better for herself. A time when she had Keldar to look forward too when he came home, when Rom would cuddle with her on an especially clammy and thundery night, when Quark would tell her that her tube grubs were the best of anyone's before urging her to come and engage with him in an especially exciting part of a Marauder Mo story. Things were not all sweet, of course. Arguing with poor Keldar about business when he was so embarrassed to have to let her help him, Quark complaining about how their household was not strict enough, and Rom complaining that it was too unfair… with all the bad things that did happen even, though, were not the good times worth it?

Bashir lowered his head. He had seen all that before. Ishka, admittedly had been more of the side effect of it all, but all he had seen of Quark's life had so much to do with his mother. After all, that had been his whole world, that house in Lagoran and the rustic Ferengi town it was accompanied to.

"No one here doesn't know or at least suspect," muttered Ishka as she kissed his head; though Arkos did not seem to overly appreciate the kiss. "You most of all, Traymak. I wouldn't wonder for the amount of time you pretended not to be the true DaiMon behind DaiMon Kej's back before you allowed his foolishness to do away with him. All as a true privateer instead of a proper Alliance tradesman of the D'Kora."

"My lady," remarked Traymak.

"Hmm, hmm," said Ishka humorlessly.

"Moogee?" asked Rom pressing his wrists together and slouching miserably before her.

Even Leeta's mouth was hanging open a little more Ferengi-like than she probably would have liked to know.

"It's a difficult thing, Rom. I understand, and your pride against such passive responsibility is probably my influence, anyway," said Ishka, and she smiled at him.

Rom choked, but otherwise remained simply standing until suddenly he stooped into kneeling beside her.

"It was her idea," muttered the former Nagus sagely before Rom could do more than squeak; Zek was seated comfortably in his hover chair stationary on the floor. "But in the end it was not a bad idea."

"What wasn't a bad idea?" asked Traymak with a sniff.

"Putting a nice, young, simple-headed face on the new Ferenginar," retorted Zek with a sniff right back; but it could have been partly from beetle snuff, the package of which he had handed back to Maihar'du who was looking very gravely upon Ishka and took it absently.

"Rom," said Ishka. "You have done everything in your power to be as good a Nagus as you can possibly be, and I'm proud of you."

Rom lowered his head.

"You put Rom as the face while you were the one really in charge, after all," said Leeta very quietly.

"Yes."

"Then…" said Bashir with care when no one said anything for a moment, "Please, Ishka. Now that we're all together, can you tell us what is going on?"

"Traymak already told you most of it," said Ishka. "There isn't much else to say."

"But how do you fit into all this?" Bashir pressed.

Ishka held her head up high and sucked in a deep breath as she looked Bashir straight in the face. She looked proud as she set those heavy brown orbs onto his. Her regret was only too obvious. Well, admittedly, she was fully consenting to give that to him.

"How else does a Ferengi fit into anything?" she demanded. "I did business. And sometimes, Dr. Bashir, no matter how in control a good businessman or woman is, there may be a loophole that can be overlooked. In fact, the more in control you feel, the more likely you are to miss something. Just like Traymak and his otherwise brilliant undercover work and his commendable courage, but in his latest transactions he still nearly lost the most valuable commodity among his assets. Pel."

"It's Meegs," insisted Bashir.

"I dealt with Krax," said the Shadow Nagus first with a shrug. "He tried to hoodwink my husband in his frail age."

"And she took care of Krax handily," sneered Zek.

"He had the audacity to follow us up on Risa, and I can tell you he was the most stubborn—"

"—The most conniving," laughed Zek slapping the arm of his chair. "The cleverest little Ferengi backstabber, I've ever known. It almost made me think that disowning him had given him a firm grasp on what it meant to be a cutthroat Nagus after my own heart, after all! But your mother, Rom. Oh! That's why I worship her, you know. She outwitted him right there on the stop— I mean spot! And I never loved her more!"

"Oh, with some good balance of bribing and showing some good guesses about him that proved I was no fool," said Ishka with a shrug, "I got him to reveal that the Keeoopii were on his side, and that he acquired this 'intimacy' from the old ex-DaiMon Vrendid, father of the infamous and insane DaiMon Bok, which explains a lot about that incident. Traymak may be a cutthroat, but Vrendid proves what vengeance can do to yourself and the proper upbringing of your family, and so did Krax buy up what Vrendid died too soon to accomplish and made up for what Bok or his own son Flax could not inherit."

"But that means that this has been planned for a long time!" exclaimed Leeta.

"Yeah," agreed Rom shakily. "DaiMon Bok got revenge for his son's death years ago now and his father…"

"You got that much out of him," Bashir could not help but smile at Ishka.

Ishka shrugged carelessly. "I could have found out more if he was not so paranoid about arrest once he found out I was no fool."

Zek nodded. "Not even bankruptcy is as bad as a Ferengi who would risk the depths of the Great Material Continuum to be lost to us all with no one to bring to balance 'too much of one and not enough of the other.' Then I was glad I disowned my delinquent son!"

"He got away before a true arrest could be made," said Ishka. "We were on Risa, after all."

"Should have had someone shoot him down, anyway," shrugged Zek.

"Oh, Zeki, you don't want the death of your son on your hands," said Ishka.

"It would have saved everyone a lot of trouble."

"I don't think it matters when the one gone out of control is Meegs," Bashir remarked.

"Yes. Meegs. I miscalculated him," said Ishka nodding. "I didn't realize how much control he had. I thought he was a fool being tricked by the Keeoopii on one side and Krax on the other, but…"

"Oh, Moogee!" choked Rom grasping her as hard as he could with his son still between them. "I don't care how he tricked you! I don't care what happened! I just want you to know that I don't blame you for anything!"

Deeply, Ishka sighed. "Rom, let Arkos have some air."

"Oh, sorry, Arkos," sobbed Rom as he backed away.

Arkos was gasping for breath as he clutched Ishka's arms; then he leapt off of his grandmother and scurried away behind his mother. There really was not much place else to go, unfortunately.

Leeta grabbed Rom by the sleeve, and Rom stood up and stepped back a pace to allow her to hold his hand tightly.

"Even this thing with sending Quark out to get Belongo…" Ishka went on. "I'm sure he won't be there when Quark's ship arrives, but I had to get Quark off the planet."

"Why?" asked Bashir.

"Traymak told you. He's part of the plan, and Meegs made it very clear that if he stayed here, he would kill him. Humiliatingly."

"Why?" breathed Rom.

"Because he did not find you as much of a threat," Ishka admitted very gravely, "even if he did use you against me…"

"Oh."

"What if he had sent him off planet lat. Quark is neatly packaged for it," remarked Traymak.

Darkly overcast, Ishka turned at Traymak, but not with surprise. She had already considered the notion.

"You mean Quark's gunna die!" cried Rom. "And no one's there to save him! What about Nog!? He's with him too!"

"I don't know," Ishka retorted. "Rom, you have to calm down."

"But, Rom, didn't Nog have a recorder with him? Don't you still have it?" Leeta asked.

"What?" demanded Traymak more alert than he had been since Bashir had arrived.

"It was… supposed to be an alert to Starfleet if something went wrong," said Rom sheepishly. "Nog said that… well, he said that he would turn it on to hear a confession… or if anything went wrong."

"It was my idea," said Ishka. "I hope that the only Ferengi Quark runs into are the Arka salesmen on Freecloud, but I did have a fear that they may run into Meegs, especially if Quark started getting creative in trying to discover what happened to Belongo."

"What happened to Belongo?" asked Zek.

"I don't know," Ishka told him. "But if they do find Meegs, and he starts saying something worthwhile, we will get the message, and so will Nog's captain."

"Good," said Bashir. "And… they'll be able to track him?"

"It depends on how good Meeg's precautions are, doesn't it?" asked Traymak with a shrug. "Even without the help of Keeoopii, Ferengi have technology to evade Starfleet if they're clever enough."

Rom pulled a device from his pocket. "Uh… it's turning yellow…"

"How long's it been yellow?"

Rom didn't answer but looking quite guilty instantly turned it on. Sure enough there was sound and an image, even if not the best quality. Who knew what barrier lay between them.

Bashir held his breath. He could hear Meegs' voice, and what was worse, as he looked over Rom's shoulder, he recognized the place.

He had flashed it before. Last year when he had flashed about Quark more than once. It was the place and time he could not explain to Pel. It was the place and time that he could not describe to Quark, but it was about him. Quark was there. His voice came through too, and a cold sweat of a shiver swept through Bashir like an oncoming fever.

Traymak perked at that doctor.

"Something you want to tell us?"

Bashir shook his head. "No. Just, try to get the signal of the place. Rom. Go. You wanted to help, now do it."

Rom nodded and went instantly to the ship's computer.

"Rooga?" called Arkos. "Can I come?"

Meanwhile, Traymak gave one last glare to Bashir.