Disclaimer: I own nothing related to or part of Star Trek.

The Adventures of Augment Gothic

Chapter 29

Gothic's Quarters. Deep Space Nine.

Something was very wrong here. I was pretty sure that the woman currently eating breakfast with me was not, in fact, Annika Hansen. Oh, this creature certainly looked like her, it sounded like her, it even smelled like her, and she sure as hell felt like her last night when I pounded her into the mattress to our shared delight, but I didn't think that this being was even human.

The clues were there if a person knew where to look and was willing to ignore what their eyes were telling them. This woman, if this was even a woman-and didn't that thought cause me to shudder a little-was not like the real Annika Hansen in personality. For starters, now that I was thinking clearly, without the guilt I felt for how I had left things with Annika, nor with my dick, I sincerely doubted the real woman was anywhere near adventurous enough to uproot her entire life and move to an alien planet on virtually the frontier of the Federation, even though her explanation seemed plausible enough. And that was the thing, it was all perfectly plausible! Believable, even! I suppose a part of me had always hoped that our separation from each other might have made her miss me so much that she'd willingly uproot her life to be with me. That I would be worth it. What arrogance.

There were smaller clues as well. For one, she was too perfect a replica or perhaps it would be better to put it as 'just slightly off.' Every detail of her general body was right, mostly, but she didn't have any of those little flaws everyone has that you don't care about when you're really into someone. No little scars, no birth marks, nothing like that. My Augment memory certainly contained those images of her naked body, but maybe this replica of her was based on some over-idealized version of her that I had in my mind, based more on emotion rather than the reality, her willingness to travel and go on an adventure included?

That and more had been enough to tip me off and convince me to risk sending a quick subspace message to Earth to the real Annika Hansen, who'd been quite surprised to hear from me, but really quite polite about the whole thing, intrigued even. It seems time did, in fact, heal all wounds and if I did find myself on Earth again in the near future, I might not be so unwelcome in her bed again. Our call had planted seeds, seeds that would hopefully grow in time. Only time would tell.

Our call flashed through my mind and I couldn't help but devilishly smile a bit at the unexpected turn it had taken.

XXXXX

Gently and quietly extricating myself from the tangle of limbs I had with Annika or whatever alien I had just slept with, I slipped away from the bed as quietly as I could, but not before placing a warm pillow in her arms to cuddle with and hopefully lull back to sleep.

Stepping quietly into the private office attached to my personal quarters, while throwing several glances back at the sleeping form to see if 'she' remained asleep, I hit the button which would close the door separating my office from the rest of the living area. After taking a seat in my sumptuous executive chair, I slipped on my omni-tool and began typing commands one-handed, unsure of the physical abilities of the imposter currently in my bed.

'Scarlett, seal the bedroom area and activate a level-10 noise suppression field around that space. Do not respond out loud,' I commanded through typed instructions, rather than risk being overheard.

'Acknowledged. Area sealed. Noise dampening field established,' came the acknowledging written words of my computer who had worked with the station's systems to carry out my commands. It was infinitely easier to use Scarlett to manhandle the station's cumbersome and awkward Cardassian systems into compliance, so I gave most of my commands through her these days.

No longer worried I'd be overheard, I spoke aloud, "Establish long-range subspace communication link with Annika Hansen on Earth. The information necessary is in my personal contacts."

"Link established," Scarlett responded after nearly 20 seconds, using Annika's stored contact information from my personal database, the link taking little time to establish even with the significant interstellar distance to cross between Earth and Deep Space 9. The large black rectangular holo-image containing the floating, rotating symbol of Bajor, was projected in midair by my omni-tool and depicted the current status of the video link. The symbol of Bajor was soon replaced with a very familiar sight.

It took a few moments before I heard Annika's groggy voice.

"Hello? Who's calling at this hour?" Annika asked, somewhat grouchily, before the video link activated and we could see each other, in perfect, full high-definition quality. The holo-image of the video link was rich and vibrant considering the highest quality components I'd used in my personal omni-tool. Guess I forgot to check the actual time in San Francisco on Earth before making the call. Whoops!

Even though I'd obviously just woken her in the middle of the night, Annika looked…beautiful. Her blonde hair was untied and flowing loosely over her shoulders. It didn't help that she was wearing a familiar sheer pink silk camisole top which hung over her frame, emphasizing everything underneath, including how the air of her apartment was obviously cooler than the warmth of her bed. The hard nipples on her large, full breasts were tenting the silk in a visually captivating manner. Unbidden, my memory filled in the details on how they had felt under my fingertips and how they had once tasted in my mouth. If my memory was any indication, she was wearing matching short shorts in pink silk which rode up her ass, though I couldn't confirm as her lower body was outside of the video pick up.

Was there any deeper meaning to be had in her still wearing the sexy pajamas I'd once gotten for her? Even after all this time?

"It's Gothic, Annika, sorry to wake you at such an early hour," I apologized sincerely, though I was still drinking in the sight of her. "I know it's been a long time, but I really am happy to see you."

"Gothic? Is that really you? I-It's been so long since we last saw each other," Annika responded uncertainly, looking surprised, her brain obviously still catching up to this unlikely communication. "I-I'm glad to see you as well."

And she did.

"You look…well…too," I replied with a smile, which turned mischievous, my eyes conspicuously and obviously dropping lower. "Can't help but to notice that you're still wearing the sexy pajamas that I got you."

The way her cheeks turned a lovely rosy red and how she practically squeaked as she glanced down at her sexy and inappropriate clothing, and consequently the free show that she was giving me, just made my day. The way she crossed her arms over her chest to hide her full breasts and hard nipples was delightful, though not as effective as she thought as her arms compressed and pushed up her breasts like a push up bra. Even with all the quality pussy I was getting daily these days, she had the best rack out of all my girls, only T'Maz coming close to beating her.

"Gothic, don't read anything more into it than that they're comfortable! Now, what the hell do you want?" Annika quickly and angrily asked, like an angry kitten, though I could tell it was mostly out of embarrassment and not real anger. "We haven't seen or spoke to each other since you left me and now you call me in the middle of the night out of nowhere?"

"I have a good reason, I promise!" I said, trying to soothe her, continuing to smile. "This is going to sound crazy, but I have to ask you a few questions that I really need the answers to, no matter how obvious they seem. It's important. Can I do that?"

Looking like she visibly calmed herself, she sighed and answered.

"Go ahead."

"Thank you," I said with a smile. "Are you currently in your apartment, in San Francisco, on Earth, taking this call?"

"Yes?" Annika responded uncertainly, looking visibly confused now.

"Have you left Earth at any point between now and when we broke up?" I asked in follow up.

"No, I haven't," she answered slowly. "Why are you asking me these strange questions?"

"I'm not sure if you knew this, but I'm currently on Deep Space 9 in the Bajoran sector; 6 weeks away at high warp from Earth. Approximately 6 hours ago, Annika Hansen of Earth, or someone who appeared to be her in virtually every way, stepped off a transport and onto Deep Space 9."

Quickly tapping into the station's security feeds using my access codes, I found the security tape of her ship docking with the station and what looked like her clone stepping onto the station. I grabbed the video and with a throwing motion, threw it into the holographic video display feed of our subspace communication, sharing the video file with her.

She watched, her mouth opening in shock and confusion, "That's not possible; that's not me!"

Looking sheepish now, I responded.

"I know that now. It's probably some alien doppelganger, though it took me an embarrassing amount of time to realize it. Maybe it was wishful thinking on my part," I trailed off in an embarrassed whisper.

Annika visibly turned her eyes away from the security feed to look me in the eyes, probably having heard me. Her eyes were softer at my admission, more empathetic, almost searching for something.

"I've missed you too, Gothic. Very much," she whispered. I could tell that she was sincere. "What happened after this imposter, or alien, came onto the station."

"Maybe it's better if I just show you," I said with a slightly embarrassed sigh and sent her the feed from my armor's sensor records, which include full audio-visual recordings of everything within range of my armor's sensors. My sensor records used holographic camera technology, so I could build a detailed and full immersion holo-program directly from the records if I wanted to.

After the last time I had lamented (in the privacy of my thoughts) not having a sex tape of my time with Annika, I had added the capability to my armor systems. The irony here was not lost on me. If ever asked in the future why I added such a capability to my amor's sensors, I'd probably use a less lascivious reason for the capability, maybe bullshitting something about the long history of gun camera footage in warfare and its value in conducting after action reviews. Or how the police from my time wore body cameras when on duty.

It played our conversation and meeting in real time as Annika just raptly watched.

"So, I thought 'why not help the Bajorans restore their lost ancient literature and write a dissertation on the topic, with a secondary focus on why the Cardassians sought to erase this part of Bajor's history and culture.' The more I thought about it, the more excited I got. Their culture is thousands of years older than Earth's after all and yet the rest of the galaxy knows so little about it. They were sailing the stars in their light ships when the humans on Earth were just starting to sail the oceans!"

"Pause, please!" Annika instructed and I paused the playback of my conversation with fake Annika. "I am struggling with finding a doctoral thesis subject that excites me, one that hasn't been done a thousand times before. I started work on my doctorate after you left, as my way to get over you and distract myself. How would it know that?! I doubt you even knew that I had done that, unless you've been keeping tabs on me?"

"I genuinely had no idea, Annika. I've thought about you a lot, but never looked into what you were up to. It didn't feel right considering that I was the one who left," I answered honestly. "Did you know that that old University on Bajor was reopening and they were looking for a non-Bajoran Head Research Librarian?" I asked, trying to determine what she knew and didn't.

"Actually yes, I had heard about the position through the grapevine a little while back, even considered taking it for a few seconds, before ultimately deciding that I didn't want to leave Earth," she admitted, still looking confused. "I hadn't connected the job with the potential doctoral thesis subject, though."

"Surprise?" I offered with a laugh. She gave me the same look of condemnation that every girl seems to have standard in their womanly toolbox.

"I just don't understand how this alien could know all this. This thesis idea is intriguing, but it's not something I ever considered, probably because I wrote off the job as something I wasn't interested in. I should have, though. Bajor has an ancient and rich culture; the wider galaxy really does know so very little about their literature. And no one off Bajor has done scholarly work in this area, as far as I know…" Annika trailed off into silence, looking thoughtful and introspective.

It was intriguing to closely watch her reaction to all this in real time. Where did this alien get all of her information? It didn't get it from my thoughts, that I was certain of. Two God-like beings were indirectly protecting my mind. But where did it get all this information that even I was unaware of? Did they have the ability to glimpse alternate realities? It was the only thing that made sense, no matter how insane that was. Was there a universe out there where Annika had learned of the open position on Bajor and decided to take it? Maybe the reason this entire scenario had felt so plausible and genuine was that it had happened in another 'close' alternate reality.

Annika looked lost in thought, so I just hit 'play' on the video.

"I've never regretted my decision to go out into the galaxy. It's been an adventure worthy of a Klingon opera, but I've often thought of you, of us, and wondered how you were doing and if you were thinking of me too.

There was a long pause as she gazed into my eyes. It lasted so long I wondered if I had made a mistake and had made things unbearably awkward between us.

"I have often thought of you too, Gothic," she responded quietly, looking down at the table. "I loved the time we spent together, and was very sad when it ended, but I understood your desire to go out into the galaxy to explore and find adventure. I never blamed you or hated you for that! And I'm so glad we ran into each other today. You sent me a note a while back saying that you were in this sector, but I didn't anticipate running into you the very second I got off the transport!"

"Pause playback," I ordered, Annika's eyes turning back to me again, questioningly, probably wondering why I had stopped the playback. "Is that true for you?"

"Is what true?" she asked softly.

"That you loved the time we spent together and was sad when it ended, but that you understood my desire to leave Earth and explore. That you didn't blame me or hate me for leaving?"

She looked sad for a moment, "Of course that's true, Gothic. I missed you so much in the days and weeks after you left, but I was never truly angry at you. I understood. Given the time you came from and your enhanced abilities, how could I be angry at you for having the same wanderlust as my parents did or the best and brightest of the Federation that joins Starfleet. The same desire to explore the galaxy and make your mark on it. I wouldn't change that about you even if I could."

I kept silent, only nodding at her words and starting the playback again, not trusting myself enough to say anything in response, unwilling to embarrass myself if any overly emotional drivel came shooting out of my mouth unprompted and unchecked.

The playback continued for some minutes, giving Annika all the information that I had given to the alien impersonating her, including my position and rank in the Bajoran Militia.

As past-Gothic pressed alien-Annika roughly up against the bulkhead of my quarters and started almost violently making out with her, I thought the real Annika on Earth would ask that the playback be stopped. To my surprise, she didn't say a word. In fact, she just continued to intently watch, not even stopping the playback to question why I had recorded my sexual encounter with 'her.'

"Did you miss me," I growled into Annika's ear, licking and biting around her earlobe.

"Yes," Annika whispered breathily. "So much."

"Did you miss me fucking you?"

"Yes!

"Did you miss my cock inside you, filling you, making you come?" I growled question after question.

"Yes! Yes! Yes! I've missed it so much; I've dreamt of it!"

"Prove it then," I ordered and stepped back.

It took a few moments for her mind to realize what was required before she quickly grabbed the bottom of her floral print sundress and pulled it over her head, exposing a sun yellow colored bra and thong set. She unsnapped her bra from the front, letting her full tits bounce free, before turning away and sensually lowering her thong panties over her wide hips.

She then placed both palms against the wall of my quarter, spread her legs wide, and bent over, swaying her ass in my view.

"Beg," I commanded her.

"Please Gothic, fill me with your big cock. It's been so long. Fuck me please! I'm yours! I'm yours!" she yelled.

I stepped up behind her. Her pussy was beautifully wet and engorged, spread open and waiting for me, so without preamble I ran the head of my cock up and down her wet lips, tightly gripped her wide hips, then thrust all the way inside her.

She screamed in a seemingly spontaneous and instant orgasm.

Admittedly, I had gotten caught up in the scene myself, as I had stopped watching real Annika's reaction to all this. In the time since I'd stopped paying attention to her, she had leaned back on her couch, her eyes locked on the video playback, as one hand squeezed her large, exposed, naked breast, playing with the nipple and flesh roughly, while the other snaked off below the frame of the screen. I could her the schlick, schlick sounds of her wet fingers as they plunged inside her pussy in time with my thrusts into the alien Annika.

Grabbing the holo video screen, I grabbed both corners and expanded it to maximum before I pushed away from the desk and took my cock out, watching both real-Annika and the alien Annika.

Real-Annika glanced over and saw what I was doing, but didn't say a word, only giving me a coy smile before her eyes darted between the video playback and me.

And that's how it went. While this situation was surreal on multiple levels, I couldn't be happier with the way it had turned out so far.

I guess I could cross interstellar phone sex off my new bucket list.

XXXXX

"General, would you please join the senior staff here in ops?" Sisko called from the station's comm system.

Sisko was calling me? And so soon after our little confrontation in his office?

It must be something bad, or something extremely strange and unusual that required all hands-on deck if he wanted me around in the center of his power. But if I had a Founder in my quarters I couldn't just leave, now could I. Assuming that this was a founder at all. It seemed way, way too early in the timeline for that though. Unless my actions and the various changes I had made butterflied this into existence far earlier than it should be. Which episode did this correspond with?

"Acknowledged, Commander. I'm on my way," I responded after a moment's pause.

No, I couldn't leave this 'Annika' look-a-like here alone in my quarters. I'd have to take her with me and hope that I could contain or destroy whatever she might turn out to be, even though she'd been a fantastic and nostalgic lay.

XXXXX

Ops. Deep Space Nine.

I walked into Ops and saw an Asian man in an archaic baseball uniform, of all things, with the word 'Kings' emblazoned on the front of it. Then there was a short-wrinkled elf-looking guy sitting on one of the consoles. Doctor Bashir was intently scanning the baseball player with his medical tricorder and looking alternately bewildered and fascinated by the results. There were also two Jadzia Dax's in Ops, one hanging off Bashir like a lovesick teenager. Two Dax's would normally be a very pleasant, fun, and sexy time in the making given how adventurous she could be, but right now I had other more important things on my mind. Thinking with my dick could be fun, but it had its time and place and this most definitely wasn't it. As soon as I'd reached Ops all of them had turned their attention to me intently, then glancing at the alien-Annika next to me. I saw her shrug from the corner of my eye in response.

After a few sluggish moments of thought, as if an outside force was trying and failing to get access to my mind and thought process, I realized what episode this was. Had this attempted 'intrusion/first contact' been going on this whole time? Was it only because of the multiple vectors of attack here in the presence of several of these aliens that I had even noticed it? That suspicion felt right. Why had I taken such a shamefully long time to recognize this episode though?

I suppose I should cut myself some slack. Annika showing up was a far more plausible possibility/reality than a centuries old and long dead baseball player turning up, or an elf/demon little person appearing out of nowhere. Now that would be instantly noticeable.

This must be the episode were everyone's imagination starts running wild, effecting reality, but the truth of it is that it's actually aliens who are studying the people here on the station by observing their reaction to this phenomenon. Admittedly, it was an intriguing way to conduct first contact.

How would I handle this? How should I handle this with what I knew? This was a question I knew I would have to answer over and over again as more and more of these canon episodes started showing up, but this was different in a fundamental way. These aliens were able to reproduce Annika extremely well, even predicting her reactions and future actions in a way that I wouldn't have been able to do. They were able to recreate Annika, somehow, despite my mind being protected by Gods, but did they know I had knowledge about the future? That would be a fucking disaster in the making, especially if they said anything that even hinted at that future or that I had knowledge of it.

Hopefully Q and my patron had protected that bit of knowledge a bit better than who I had fucked in the past and wanted another shot at. If they had gleaned information about Annika and her relation to me from viewing alternate realities or possibilities, I doubt they'd have learned about my extra temporal knowledge as I intended to take that knowledge to my grave. The only time I had ever freely spoken about it was when I had been talking to Q and I'm sure he had his God-like ways to protect that information from the mortal races, even ones with powers as wild as this race's.

"It seems we have a small mystery on our hands, General," Sisko explained. "I'd like you to meet Harmon Bokai, a baseball player from the London Kings who's been dead for two hundred years. He followed my son out of the holosuite."

Had London ever had a professional baseball team in my time? American baseball must have gotten profitable enough for a time for even Britain to want in on the action, or the MLB had been desperate enough to expand the League outside the US, hoping for a new, larger audience of European fans. The NFL had been trying for years to do the same in my time.

"Don't look at me," Bokai was saying, acting innocent. "I can't figure it out either."

Sisko then turned to the elf.

"And a medieval fairy tale character named Rumpelstiltskin," the commander informed me. "Who, until today, only existed in storybooks and ancient folklore from Earth."

The creature was not pleased to hear that.

"Fine, now everybody knows my name," it complained, acting in character.

I gestured to 'Annika.'

"This is Annika Hansen, an ex-girlfriend of mine from Earth, who showed up last night on a transport," I told everyone. "Only the real Annika Hansen is on Earth at this very moment. I called her on subspace and checked after I fucked this one into unconsciousness last night. So, yeah, some mighty weird shit is happening. The 24th century is just crazy, dude."

Everyone gave me a look of surprise at my crass words. Sisko and O'Brien looked gob smacked, while the real Jadzia just gave me an amused smile, to which I just shrugged and blew her a kiss. Kira just shook her head at me, with a look of fond exasperation at my shenanigans, which she was well used to. I had talked about my previous relationship with Annika, including some regrets I had about the way that I had ended it, when we had been between missions one-time during the Occupation, so she knew all about Annika. Maybe that had been another source of information the aliens had plumbed. Her thoughts were almost certainly not protected like mine were.

"What?" I posed to Sisko. "If an ex-girlfriend you still had a thing for showed up ready to bang, like you wouldn't do it too."

"Dax…" Sisko began to say, after he had visibly recollected his thoughts. Was it a trick of the light that I think I saw an unconscious nod?

Two people replied.

"I mean the original Dax," the commander clarified. "Could this be related to the increased Thoron emissions in the Denorius plasma field?"

She considered this.

"It could be a subspace disruption or maybe a dimensional shift?" she posited. "I didn't see an anomaly when I scanned the plasma field, but it could be so small that the scanners missed it, so our guests could be from alternate realities."

Perhaps I should guide them quicker on the path to figuring this out, but not giving it away entirely.

"It seems like our guests are figments from our own imaginations; thoughts made manifest in reality," I told the room, trying to guide them down the path towards realization, albeit perhaps in a quicker fashion, one that didn't require the near destruction of the station. "The other Dax is Doctor Bashir's wet dream where his dubious charms are successful ("Hey!") and she finally shows him the time of day. Last night I was thinking about a woman to spend the night with, with, shall we say, certain bountiful assets and Miss Glorious Rack from my past suddenly appeared in the crowd departing the transport."

Everyone looked at Annika and then at me with a stink eye, Dax and Kira looking a bit offended after involuntarily glancing at their own racks for a moment before catching themselves.

"What? They're huge and perky and lovely to motorboat in! An Augment like myself has enhanced needs, you know. Ask Bashir!" I said with mock outrage, before getting back to the matter at hand, though Dax and Kira nodding sagely made me laugh a bit. "And then there's the ugly dwarf over there."

I ignored his token protest.

"Which came from my daughter's imagination when I read her the Grimm's fairy tale," Chief O'Brien said in realization.

This was just the start.

"Don't think your little one is the only one that brought me here," the imp told the Irish man. "You were thinking about me too, you know."

This needed to be kept on track.

"So, either these guests of ours are advanced aliens who are somehow reading our minds and taking forms found in those minds," I said, "or those Thoron emissions are the result of someone opening a gateway to imagination land out there and we're all in extremely deep shit."

Before anyone could comment on those chilling possibilities a voice came over the comm.

"Odo to Sisko."

"Go ahead," Sisko said.

"Is there something you want to tell me?"

"I'm in no mood for games, Constable. What do you want?"

"Are the environmental controls broken down? It's snowing on the Promenade."

Everyone other than me looked at each other in bafflement, whilst the Chief hurried over to his station to begin a diagnostic on those systems.

"Snowing?" Sisko asked incredulously.

"We're looking at five or six centimeters of it down here."

"Bring in all available security, Odo. We're going to Blue Alert."

From my memory blue alert was an alert signal status on Starfleet vessels and outposts which was only used in some exceptional situations, including, but not limited to, environmental hazards to the crew, main power failure, docking and separation maneuvers, and landing protocols, for ships with the capability. This did seem like a Blue Alert situation since the environment was now being affected, but we weren't under attack. It wasn't something that appeared in the various episodes I was familiar with.

"What's going on?"

"According to General Gothic, we may be letting our imaginations run wild and that is somehow effecting reality. As soon as I have a better explanation, I'll give you one. Sisko out."

I'd already given him an explanation, the correct one: mind reading aliens in a first contact situation.

"I think I've got something," Jadzia said while frowning at the readings her console was giving her. "Look at the wave patterns of the plasma field."

Perhaps I would have, but I just didn't care. When in doubt Starfleet personnel just retreated into the familiar, science and technical mumbo jumbo, and unusual sensor readings.

"The wave front's converging to a single point," O'Brien reported. "The particle density rises as you get closer to the center, but then it drops off completely. I'm not getting any particulate readings from the core, and it's definitely a subspace phenomenon."

"What does that mean?" Kira asked.

She was clearly frustrated at all the science speak, and who could blame her, because really it made no sense. In this case that was okay because Jadzia, the real one, was herself creating the phenomenon with her imagination and the aliens were making it real.

"Whatever falls in there is just…gone," Jadzia explained grimly.

"I want a full analysis. Chief, get a class four probe ready," Sisko ordered.

Typical Starfleet, trying to science a problem away when there was a more plausible and direct solution right in front of them. I had freaking given them the answer and they just blew right past it like they never heard it in order to retreat to the familiarity of their sensors. They weren't even questioning the abnormalities in Ops anymore, just a few feet away from them, having retreated into science.

"Is there anything I can do to help?" Rumpelstiltskin asked.

At this I stood up, enough was enough and I was bored. I was going to be in this situation a lot in the future, where I could derail entire episodes and give the answer early. There was value in letting some events play out, probably most of them if I was being truly honest with myself. There would also be value and profit in subverting some of these situations for my own benefit. Those were going to be my best opportunities.

"Stop with the act, guys," I told the aliens. "I know that you are advanced life forms and that you are studying us through our reaction to an unknown phenomenon."

I then turned to Sisko.

"And this is why an outsider's perspective that never underwent Federation indoctrination is so valuable. Hey, but maybe that's why you called me to Ops in the first place. Our imaginations are not running wild, Commander, this is a first contact situation, forget about the subspace phenomenon and focus on the room full of unknown aliens right in front of your faces who can read our minds. Well, yours at least," I strongly advised.

I still wasn't sure if I was right about them viewing alternate realities to get information on Annika, but I didn't much care. I just wanted them to go away so that I could forget about faux Annika and get on with my life and finish my deal with Zek. On the plus side I did get to make that holo sex tape last night. Yeah, it wasn't actually 7, but it was close enough for wanking! I'd even watched and mutually masturbated to it with the real Annika! No complaints here.

"Everything else is a distraction," I told the crew of DS9 even as Odo called Sisko to complain about exotic animals now running loose on the promenade. "Focus on the talking aliens right in front of your faces. Fucking Starfleet indoctrination," I grumbled quietly as I walked off, though I made sure that they could all hear me. Kira looked smug at my words, having long complained about it herself.

Thankfully, people finally started listening to me and soon the stupid test came to a safe and satisfactory end.

XXXXX

Onboard The Flighty Temptress. On Route to Planet Carraya IV. Carraya Sector. Near Romulan Space.

I remembered this TNG two-parter when Worf is told by a Yridian information broker that his father is alive and in a Romulan prison camp filled with Klingon prisoners on a planet near Romulan space. On the word of this shady information dealer Worf then went off to save his father only to find out that his father wasn't there at all, but many Klingons actually were. In fact, there were generations of them.

Then there was some crap involving Worf teaching some young Klingons to act like 'proper Klingons' despite the fact that Worf himself didn't act like a proper Klingon, as unlike the rest of them he actually acts with some semblance of honor. And, of course, had been raised on Earth by human parents. While I think Worf visited the Klingon home world a few times in his youth, most of what he knew about Klingon culture was from books, rather than true immersion or having grown up in that culture. It was bizarre on multiple levels.

It all gets resolved by having the younger Klingons leave to join the Empire, while the rest remain with the Romulans who'd they'd formed a community and families with for decades. The episode was a one-off, like so many in TNG, so we never learned the ultimate fate of these Klingons who'd rejoined the Empire, though I had a very strong suspicion that they had encountered a whole lot of hostility and prejudice, and had had a very hard time adjusting to life in the Empire. Being the sons and daughters of parents who had lost their honor by being taken alive probably meant that that dishonor, and all that came with it, had fallen on their shoulders too. That probably wouldn't have painted Worf in too good a light, which is likely why it hadn't appeared in a future episode of TNG.

If the Empire was smart and even slightly forward thinking, they would leverage all the knowledge and experience these Klingons had to improve their dealings with and/or spying on the Romulans. Knowing your enemy was the first step to destroying them. These Klingons had lived amongst Romulan military officers for decades. They probably understood Romulan culture, technology, and the language in a way that would be extremely useful to the Klingons. Of course, the Empire was far from smart and forward thinking most days, so I didn't have high hopes for that particular outcome.

While all this was going on, Data gets zapped with an alien gizmo and starts dreaming, which sounded way more interesting than being alone on my ship while Worf had his latest adventure.

As to why I'd agreed to bring him out here, well, for starters, there was no reason to trust a shady information dealer to give you a lift-which Worf only achieved through threats in the show-when you knew someone who had a strong, cloak capable ship of their own, of non-Federation design, one that was far more suited for a clandestine trip so close to the Romulan border. I wasn't even charging the man for his transport, which was normally against my code, but Data had personally requested that I help Worf, as a favor to him, and I certainly owed Data several favors for his help over the years. In fact, Data was still working on the programming of my heads-up display. Early versions of the software looked amazing so far. No one was ever going to be able to accuse me of not paying back the favors I owed. I knew how the game of favors was played.

Plus, besides paying back owed favors, Worf would be coming to DS9 in a few short years and become quite an important character in the timeline, so building a better relationship with the man would be in my best interest. I had mixed feelings about the man, but it didn't hurt to try to build a good working relationship with him as early as possible.

I was also starting to suspect my strong and steadily improving relationship with Dax might mean marriage between the two of them was looking decidedly unlikely, so throwing the guy a bone was the least I could do. I think I checked a lot more boxes than Worf did in Dax's perfect mate criteria, being a strong as fuck deadly warrior, successful inventor, professional adventurer, holoauthor, and very proficient lover with a very open mind when it came to sexuality, the evidence for which was in my burgeoning harem that she would be able to partake of.

The Temptress also had its own Klingon military-grade cloaking device for hiding from short-range sensors and a stealth mode which protected me from detection on long-range sensors even when uncloaked, which made it excellent for sneaking a Federation officer into space so close to the Romulan border. Uncloaking directly in front of the Enterprise when I had arrived to pick Worf up had shocked Picard and the Enterprise like you wouldn't believe.

Thankfully, the Carraya sector was a rather strategically unimportant area of space, near the Romulans or not, and this prison camp was supposed to be a secret one, which the Romulans could easily disavow if discovered, so they couldn't exactly monitor it in a visible or detectable way. If these were not the circumstances at play here this mission would have been significantly more difficult and carry far more risk.

My ship had better armor, shields, and weapons than any other craft its size. If I ever got my hands on either more Collector power cells or decalithium to make my own red matter, a major overhaul and redesign of the Temptress was going to happen first thing and hopefully well before the Dominion war started up, though I really had to wonder how the Collector threat was going to possibly change things there. Maybe the Founders would say 'fuck this' and try to close the wormhole themselves rather than deal with those conquerors who could probably give their Empire a serious run for its money. One could certainly hope, though that was trading one terrible enemy for another and arguably the Dominion might be the better choice in the end as the Founders had no desire to actually eat anyone.

What fucked up times I lived in.

My cloaking device and stealth systems had probably saved our lives while on the way here as otherwise we may have been spotted by that fucking huge Collector ship I'd detected on long-range sensors. At least it had seemed like a Collector ship on the scanners, since I'd never seen another ship that size with such a strong energy signature, and it had been partly organic. Oh, and it had also been filled with Collector life signs, as best as I could tell. The chances of it being a Collector ship was extremely high, though anything at that range was a little suspect, despite how good my Section 31 provided sensors were.

I'd kept our distance from that ship, just in case the Collectors could detect cloaked ships, but otherwise charted a parallel course to give my sensors as much time as possible to gather readings on the ship, its likely course, and any possible destinations. If anyone was going to deal with them I assumed it would be the Romulans since we were so close to their space and the Collectors didn't appear to be making an effort to hide their presence. Again, a very alien way of thinking.

Whether the Romulans had detected them or not was uncertain, but if they did the Romulans would be out for blood and vengeance considering the last Collector ship had killed millions of their citizens when it had destroyed that colony world of theirs. Unfortunately, like I said before, this was a very unimportant area of space so it'd likely take time to amass a fleet to take them on, assuming they even detected them. I had a bit of an unfair advantage in that regard due to my few encounters with them, including time spent inside the cargo bay of one of their ships, and my studies of their technology and the database I'd stolen from them.

After several hours of shadowing the ship at a distance, I felt like I'd likely learned all I would be able to. When Worf stepped out of the cockpit, I sent Sloan a subspace communique with a full encrypted copy of my sensor readings to give him a warning about the Collector incursion into Romulan space and the current location of the Collector ship. Their investment in upgrading my sensors had paid off as my sensor readings were as good as you could get. With how well he knew me, I'm sure a nice payment in latinum would be waiting in my account for passing him the information. Normally, I would have contacted him and negotiated a price ahead of time, but this information was time sensitive and I didn't want to risk it going stale (and thus become worthless) while I tried to make a deal.

While Federation interests didn't appear to be currently at risk, the chaos the Collectors would cause in Romulan space might be the perfect opportunity for operations against the Romulans or for a myriad number of other missions to be advanced.

XXXXX

Worf was currently within the compound down on the planet and had been for a while now while I stayed cloaked in high orbit. I was keeping track of him using a special device I'd implanted under his skin with his permission. During the Occupation of Bajor, members of the Bajoran Resistance had subdermal implants composed of tritonium isotopes. In the event the Romulans took him prisoner, the implants could be activated to leave a trail that could be followed, even into shielded areas. In the modern day, this was a decidedly low-tech method, but something that would be easily overlooked unless you were specifically looking for it.

With such an exotic energy reading to lock onto I could beam him off the planet whenever I wished, but I wouldn't do that yet as he would need time to fully destroy the peace and harmony the people on this world had painstakingly created for themselves while learning to live together over the course of decades. Knowing what I knew about the Romulans and their level of ruthlessness, it was hard to believe that the Romulan government even allowed this blending of their two races to happen. The Romulan officer in charge must be the son of some important and connected family, otherwise it made little to no sense. Maybe the Romulans were playing the long game and were developing Klingon spies/assets of their own? Who knew.

I'd also supplied the Starfleet Officer with a subdermal transmitter for two-way communication, which was still working, and since Worf hadn't contacted me it was safe to assume that he didn't want to leave just yet. As such all I could do was wait for his signal.

If he was imprisoned, I felt confident that I could bust him out. All that stood between myself and Worf were a few fat and lazy Romulan guards with disruptors who were guarding prisoners that didn't even want to leave anymore and hadn't for decades. Nothing my sensors could detect on the surface presented a true risk to my ship either. Them calling for help, though, would put me in danger. Even a single warbird would be too much for my little ship to handle, escaping under cloak would be my only option at that point.

This might seem like a lot of trouble to go to with a great deal of risk involved given that I was violating Romulan space, but it wasn't really that much work or even all that much danger given my cloaking device and my ship's stealth mode coupled with my foreknowledge of events. There was still risk, of course, and it was a major favor I was doing for Data, which should balance the scales between us considering the help I provided in rescuing Picard a way back.

Not getting paid to sit here was making my greedier, more mercenary side a little annoyed, but I consoled myself with the knowledge that I would no longer owe Data for all his help, and would probably be getting a nice payday from Section 31 for the sensor data that I'd sent them on the Collector ship and their current location. My improved relationship with Worf should also pay dividends in the future when he came to DS9. So, maybe it wasn't all bad.

To kill time, I was working on a few design projects I'd had on my to-do list. Currently I was working on a pair of 'levitation boots', as I jokingly called them, like the kind used by Starfleet personnel during Kirk's era. Those boots were equipped with booster rockets in the heel of the boot. The booster rockets allowed for a more rapid ascent should it be needed. The boots also allowed the user to hover in the air. The pair I was currently putting together were loosely based on the same designs as those used by Spock in the Star Trek movie: The Final Frontier, but I wouldn't be using something so akin to rockets anymore. Anti-grav technology had come a long way since the era of Kirk and had been miniaturized to a greater degree, the same with micro thrusters.

The boots were part of a long-term plan I had to build an entire Iron Man-esque suit using advanced Star Trek technology. My personal armor system was already incredibly advanced and probably part of the way there already. The boots I currently wore, for example, had jump assist thrusters in them, but sustained flight with them was not in the cards at the moment. The new boots I was designing were the most important part for sustained flight, but I still needed to tweak my armor overall because my current design wouldn't be able to handle the sustained stress of flying through the air at supersonic speeds or even flying in anything but a straight line, though developing a new shield configuration for aerodynamics and heat shielding would solve many of my armor's issues. In space there was no need for a special shield configuration beyond the norm, like protecting against micro meteorites and such, because there would be no air resistance and the armor was already designed to be airtight and maintain pressurization in vacuum. Adding attitudinal impulse thrusters in the palms could be used to alter course, again similar to Iron Man, but a more complete reaction control thruster system distributed throughout the armor would be better than relying on two thrusters in the hands.

I'd combined the original boot designs with current 24th century tech, combining ship thruster/impulse tech, with anti-gravity and repulser tech, with a dash of the tech from magnetic gravity boots, so that my 'Iron Man' suit would allow me to attach and walk upon the hull of a starship. That ability could be mighty handy should I ever have need to board a starship but couldn't dock or transport myself on board for whatever reason. With an antiproton weapon, like my rifle or pistol or even my sword, any standard hull material could be quickly cut through so I would be able to slice a hole in the hull of an abandoned ship and get in that way. That would be useful if I ever wanted to do some salvaging.

Actually, now that I thought about it, if I flew in my armor in space there would be no atmosphere or friction to slow my acceleration. So, any sudden deceleration could easily kill me. I'd have to put in some inertial dampening technology as well. Thank the Prophets my Collector power cell produced so much power for its size or this entire design would be completely unfeasible. It was a ridiculous power hog given all the bells and whistles I had currently installed.

"Worf to Gothic."

It had been a couple of days since I'd last spoken to Worf, or anyone really, so it took me a few moments to realize that I had to speak in order to reply. I really needed to spend more time with people and less time working on developing cool new tech like one of my 'fictional' inventor idols, Tony Stark. During the period I was working on my rifle and armor designs days and weeks had passed without me even realizing it, my girls coming to keep me company the only time I really stopped.

"My mission is complete," he informed me. "I will be leaving this planet by different means. You no longer need to wait for me."

Guess the Romulans were providing him with a lift home. Glad they weren't mad we had trespassed on their secret prison colony and came so close to their borders. Again, these were some really unusual Romulans in temperament.

"Understood, I will be departing the system shortly then. Please give my regards to Data and the senior staff of the Enterprise. Gothic out," I replied calmly and succinctly, Worf cutting the communication immediately after.

What an asshole.

I was pretty annoyed that I had waited all this time for nothing and the asshole hadn't even bothered to say thank you for getting him here safely and waiting for days to provide him a way home. I owed him nothing; this was a favor for Data and I had gone well above and beyond the demands of the favor by just waiting for an indeterminate amount of time in semi-hostile space. Did he think I was some kind of fucking paid taxi service? He certainly hadn't paid me! Hopefully the fucker thanked Data at least.

Thankfully, these last few days had at least been uneventful, yet productive, as I had made some solid progress on my levitation boots, or thruster boots, or whatever silly name I could think of next, otherwise I would have been super pissed.

Might as well go home then.

XXXXX

Holosuite 3. Deep Space Nine.

"So, what's this holonovel about?" Kira asked.

It had taken considerable effort to accommodate/change everyone's schedule, but I had finally been able to coordinate everyone's schedule and get Kira Nerys, Ro Laren, Neela, and Jadzia Dax to spend some time with me all together. The shared availability was nowhere near long enough to go to our little island paradise for a well-deserved bit of pampering by the beach or in my palatial master bedroom, as it was several hours travel from the station to Bajor, but it was more than enough time to try out at least some of my new in-progress holonovel and get to know each other better as a group.

At this point I was pretty sure that all the girls here knew that I was sleeping with all of them and yet none of them seemed put out by this fact. Given this acceptance, if I played my cards right, in my opinion there was a distinct possibility that I'd get that orgy I was hoping for with Dax involved. After Risa I knew that she was fine with having another woman in bed with us, why not three more? She already knew Nerys extremely well, as they worked together daily in Ops, but she wasn't acquainted with Ro or Neela to any significant degree.

"Writing my Mass Effect holonovel is taking too long," I responded to Nerys. "The world is too deep and complex and it's requiring a lot of time to get to the level of quality that I demand of all my works. My publisher is getting annoyed with my delays, so I've spent a few weeks putting together a much simpler holonovel based on the movie Aliens, which never got made in this dimension; I'm hoping that will satisfy them for now and buy me more time to work on Mass Effect."

And even if it had been made here, the copyright would have long since expired and gone into the public domain. Since it had never been made here, as best as I could tell with the record keeping in that war torn era on Earth, regardless of its origins in my home dimension, it was essentially now my original creative work and thus accorded all the protections an author received in this galaxy.

"The story is pretty simple really. The female lead, Ellen Riply, is the only survivor of a crew who all got horribly killed by a non-humanoid creature known as a xenomorph," I explained to my Bajoran babes and Jadzia. "It came out of an egg, raped someone's face, and a few days later a baby alien burst out of their chest after using the human body to incubate. You get the full story from Ellen Riply if you play her during the holo adventure. We play the badass marines who have been sent to investigate a colony that they have lost communications with. Oh, and that colony was built on the same world Ellen Riply and her crew originally found the egg containing the xenomorph, so it's safe to assume that tons of people are already dead and that there are horrible monsters loose in the colony that we marines have to somehow save."

It should make for a decent action-filled holonovel with some strong horror elements, since I liked to remind humanity whenever I could that not every species out there wanted to be best friends with us, and that there were terrible threats out there in the galaxy that would destroy us if they could. My super fans in the Klingon Empire, who frequently sent me subspace fan mail with video clips of their most badass kills, which I actually got a kick out of, were going to love this holonovel. It was a 50/50 shot whether the Federation would ban this work from sale in their territory.

To increase emotional buy in, at the start of their mission, the players got to choose what the species makeup of the colony under threat was. So, humans could choose to make it a human colony to save, Klingons could select their own race, or even make it a mix, whatever would best motivate them to save the colony at any cost.

That was when I'd noticed that Ro Laren and Dax had started to hotly debate some issue and it didn't sound related to my most recent holo-novel. How they had gotten so off topic, I hardly knew.

"Can you tell me why the Federation isn't preparing for the coming war with the Collectors? I just can't understand it!" Ro asked Dax, hoping a high-ranking Starfleet officer with so much experience and history with the Federation could explain the apathy that she was seeing and the total lack of preparation. "Bajor has done more with its incredibly limited resources by switching to disrupter weaponry than anything the vast and powerful Federation has done. As best as I can tell, most people in the Federation aren't even aware of the Collectors and the threat they pose!"

We had discussed it several times in private, but I guess she wanted to hear it from the horse's mouth, as it were. Laren probably thought Dax's multiple lives, including some spent in very high-level, policy-making positions in the Federation over the course of its history, would give her a unique perspective on what was going on.

It was a valid question, with no clear answer. After that Romulan colony was destroyed by the Collectors, Laren and I had run dozens of battle simulations. If a Hur'q/Collector hive ship attacked Bajor itself, of the variety we'd already seen, there was no way we'd be able to stop them in space with the assets we had available, which meant there was nothing to stop the Collectors from landing tens of thousands of troops on the planet, not by a long shot. Every simulation said it would be game over for Bajor without significant external help.

With the station having been moved to the mouth of the wormhole, hours away at full impulse, it wasn't in any position to defend the planet from a Collector attack. We would have to rely on the 12 attack ships I had purchased for Bajor, assuming they were all operational at the same time, and the handful of other Raiders and Cardassian shuttles we had stolen during the Occupation to defend the planet. This was nowhere near enough to stop a whole hive ship. We'd need firepower along the lines of a Galaxy-class starship or two, since one really didn't do the job last time. And those weren't cheap or many and with Bajor being a non-Federation world, the sector was unlikely to get one assigned to protect it when there were actual Federation worlds that needed protection. Even the wormhole likely wouldn't merit giving Bajor additional help. It was easy to imagine the Federation and various other powers hoping the Collectors decided to go through the wormhole and fuck the gamma quadrant up, rather than the alpha. Why discourage them from that?

Frankly, I was long resigned to relying on some kind of Hail Mary-ish non-traditional method to take one out, like shuttling or beaming aboard a large tricobalt explosive device to destroy it from within. Getting ahold of tricobalt was the problem as it was a strictly controlled and monitored substance, even for me as the military general of an allied world. If I still couldn't obtain one I had plans in mind to build a large nuclear weapon, which was relatively simple to do with holo design and precision replication these days. The risk of deadly radioactive fallout to Bajor, though, if it exploded too close to the planet, was a concern. In open space it wouldn't matter much if I used a nuclear weapon, but exploding near a planet could be risky. Maybe I should still keep one on hand in the Temptress at least? It certainly would have been useful the last time I was onboard a hive ship.

"What makes you think we aren't?" Dax shot back, sounding defensive.

Ro Laren didn't back down.

"Because I checked!" Ro shot back. "At a minimum, the Federation could be preparing by increasing starship production or their recruiting into Starfleet, or updating/upgrading planetary defense systems throughout the Federation, or transitioning the Federation's vast infrastructure to a more wartime economy, or upgrading their sensor network to better detect incursions into their space. None of that is happening. The Collectors are conquerors. If they attacked the Federation right now, as unprepared they are at this moment, it would be an unmitigated disaster."

Dax had no answer for that. She probably agreed.

It was only the terrible threat of the Borg that had motivated the Federation to design and create the Defiant-class warship in canon, the Federation's one and only attempt to design and build a ship meant exclusively for war, and that had only required 39 ships being destroyed, approximately 11 thousand deaths or assimilations, and one of the Borg's giant cubes getting all the way to Earth itself. Fast forward a few years, the threat of the Borg dimming in people's minds, and the Federation wasn't even motivated enough to fix a few design problems, an extremely common happening when creating a new ship-class, before scrapping the Defiant-class entirely.

The Collectors were much less of a threat in people's minds, at least for now, perhaps due to ignorance or the fact that the Federation had only suffered minor losses compared to the other powers, so I didn't imagine anything was getting done about them even secretly, behind the scenes. The Federation would have to suffer quite a loss to motivate them to see the true threat. Sure, Section 31 already saw it, and were obviously doing what they could to prepare should the worst happen, but even their influence and resources had limits when they had to continue to hide their existence.

"I know for a fact that Starfleet is not prepared for the deadly threats that the future will bring," I said to Jadzia in as serious a tone as I could muster, interrupting this argument before it got even more heated. I wanted it to be crystal clear that I wasn't fucking around right now, even if I had to hint that I might know more than I really should, which could put me in acute danger. "Which is a shame because a few years down the line you're really going to truly regret not having some warships in your arsenal, crewed and ready to deploy."

Jadzia looked confused.

"Did Q say something to you about the future?" she asked, sounding both confused and curious. "You sound like you know for certain that there is some danger coming our way, a danger the Federation is not ready for."

I wasn't sure how to safely answer that, though suggesting that my knowledge might be from Q and/or the Prophets seemed like the smartest move.

"After having a vision granted to me by an Orb of the Prophets and talking with Q, let's just say that I have some idea of what is to come and leave it at that," I replied. "We're going to lose a lot of people if Starfleet doesn't start acting like the defense of the Federation is actually its primary mission. Exploring and expanding our knowledge of the universe is important, most definitely, but that isn't the sole reason, or even the most important one, that Starfleet was created for. It's to protect and preserve the lives of its citizens."

Jadzia sighed, and somehow you could almost feel the weight of many years of memory, wisdom, and regret in that sigh, her eyes looking distant for a few moments, like she was remembering many things from the past.

"I remember what Starfleet was like in the twenty second and twenty third century," she responded quietly.

Dax, the slug, not the beautiful young woman, was nearly as old as I was chronologically.

"I don't know. It just seems as if somewhere along the way we lost the ability to think like soldiers, like people who could defend their right to exist in a harsh galaxy. Curzon Dax worked very hard to obtain and keep the peace with races like the Klingons. Because of people like him we have had this golden era of mostly sustained peace that we're enjoying now, but sometimes it does seem like Starfleet lost its edge, like it stopped being a military at all and became all about exploration."

At that my mind flashed back to my earliest research upon arriving in this dimension, when I realized that the fictional Star Trek shows were real here. Starfleet was the deep space exploratory and defense service of the United Federation of Planets, yet far too much time and effort these days was invested in the former rather than the latter.

Its principal functions included the advancement of Federation knowledge about the galaxy and its inhabitants, the advancement of Federation science and technology, the defense of the Federation, and the facilitation of Federation diplomacy.

As per its mandate of deep space exploration, its personnel were frequently brought into contact with cultures and sentient species whose existences were unknown to the Federation. Starfleet officers therefore acted as official representatives of the Federation in these cases.

Starfleet vessels were also frequently used to ferry ambassadors on diplomatic missions. Which seemed odd to me now that I thought about it more, Starfleet should have special ships for diplomatic missions. I didn't think the ambassadors of my time went to trips to foreign nations onboard the equivalent of navy destroyers or cruisers.

"But while I do agree with you about the Hur'q and the threat they pose, it's not as if the Federation Council would hear me out if I suggested we start building warships. If I was still Curzon Dax, an ambassador of renown and influence, maybe I could do more. Unfortunately, the reality is that I'm just a young lieutenant now," Dax said. "I know Ben has tried to do more, and has repeatedly requested that a starship be permanently posted here to the station. Even a small request like that has been denied by Starfleet time and time again because they think it might upset the Cardassians and risk the peace."

And they wouldn't listen to me either, even if I told them I knew something about the future; I was a general of a non-Federation planet and an Augment after all. If I suggested a military buildup they'd just think it was part of some complex scheme for me to seize power like Khan and his lot had.

"Let's quit with the weighty bullshit of galactic politics and warfare and just get through this holonovel," Neela suggested after a period of contemplative silence. "My work shift starts in a few hours."

Yes, we lacked the ability to lessen the apathy that gripped the Federation as a whole. Better to get to what I had originally planned for this outing and just have some fun together by running through the program and kicking some alien ass! With all of us going through it together we should be able to easily spot and note any bugs in the matrix. Having Bashir and O'Brien run through it a few times should also help in that goal since they were big fans of action oriented holo programs and had quite enjoyed some of my previous works. I needed this holo adventure to sell well if I was ever going to be able to afford a proper starship to defend myself and Bajor with.

If the Federation refused to get off their collective asses and see the threat out there, then it would be up to me to defend my new home, to the best of my ability, even if that cost me my life.

XXXXX

Office of General Gothic. Deep Space 9.

"Major Lupaza is requesting additional spare parts for her patrol squadron and has again requested to be assigned additional pilots," my adjutant Ro Laren reported from the guest chair in my office, her legs crossed and her eyes locked on the holographic display being projected from her ever-present omni-tool. "Maintenance requirements, ship and pilot downtime, and expenses for the squadron have been 25% higher than predicted."

Leaning back in my chair, I let out a sigh.

"Yeah, no shit," I groused, looking up at the ceiling, before turning my eyes back to Ro. "That's what happens when you've only got 12 modern attack ships to defend an entire planet running patrols 26 hours a day. Which might be ok, in a pinch, if Bajor wasn't experiencing such an uptick in ship traffic because of the wormhole."

Ro just shrugged helplessly in response, before I continued.

"These ships were not designed to be deployed on continuous operations for this long without a suitable maintenance interval. We initially, maybe unrealistically I admit, planned on having 9 in space at any given time and 3 in the maintenance/repair bay; how often has that actually happened since we began this deployment?"

"According to Lupaza, 67% of the time, though that's likely to trend down as time goes by and the ship's components accumulate more hours in space," Ro Laren reported. "However, she notes that we've managed to continuously have 6 ships deployed on patrol in Bajoran space, 26 hours a day. I think that's an accomplishment given the number of pilots assigned to her squadron."

"It is, I agree. A credit to her leadership and their stamina," I responded. "Has she sent a list of what she needs for spare parts?"

Ro Laren, tapped away bringing up that information.

"Yes," she answered, before 'grabbing' the information and 'tossing' it with her hand towards me. My omni-tool was set to accept data transfers like this from those on a trusted, authorized list and Ro Laren, as my adjutant, was at the top of that list given how closely we worked together daily, but all my regular lovers were too.

Pulling it up, the list displayed in midair over my desk.

"Scarlett, please reorganize the list into two parts, those parts which I have the ability to replicate with either the Island or the station's industrial replicator, cost to replicate is irrelevant, and those we'll have to requisition or buy elsewhere," I spoke my orders aloud. "Adjust Ro's list on her omni-tool in the same way."

"Acknowledged," Scarlett replied, our lists being instantly reorganized per my orders.

"Hmm, it seems we'll be able to replicate nearly 70% of the parts and systems Lupaza needs on our own," Ro pointed out, further organizing our two lists in real time by Lupaza's stated priority and the time needed to replicate. More precise replication, like that required for components on an active starship with strict engineering tolerances, or which used more complex/exotic materials, meant that it commensurately took longer to complete. "The remaining 30% of the parts are mostly for the Federation fighters."

"Not surprising really. Klingon design and engineering philosophies are more combat oriented, better suited for more rugged, continuous operation, with limited resupply in the field," I said. "Divide up the list of replicable parts and systems between the island and the station. Mark these as high priority Militia replication tasks to get to the top of the list. If Sisko or someone else has a problem with that, tell them to contact me directly. Once it's done, ship them all to Lupaza," I ordered.

"How do you want to handle the non-replicable parts?" Ro asked.

"Add the Federation parts to O'Brien's requisition list to Starfleet, be sure to pad the quantities in case of supply disruptions or delays due to the Collectors. The Federation is going to need to step up and help out. If they give you a hard time I have a few favors I can call in to grease the wheels."

"Understood. And the rest?" she asked, continuously taking notes as we spoke.

"See if we can source the materials and fabricate anything in house, again, either on the Island or on the station. Again, work with O'Brien; Dax might be a good resource as well. Curzon had a lot of experience with Klingon technology," I answered, thinking about the future. "If that's not feasible, source the parts from Gaila or whoever else is willing to sell to us at a fair price. Remind him I'm a preferred customer. Dax might have a few supplier suggestions, same with Quark."

"Will do," Ro responded, quickly tapping away on the holographic displays in front of her. "And Lupaza's request for additional pilots and training?"

"There aren't any more available pilots to be had on Bajor; I looked!" I complained. "We're going to have to train them ourselves, Ro, but it doesn't need to be as 'on the job' and dangerous, like it was during the Occupation. Tell her to work with Militia personnel to start recruiting interested parties. See if you can acquire a holographic pilot training program for the fighters either from Starfleet or somewhere else."

"I don't think I'll have an issue there. Starfleet almost certainly has a program like that and it can be tweaked to work for the Klingon fighters too. Once I get the program, assuming Personnel comes through, where do you want them to train? There are no holodecks or holosuites on the planet itself besides those on the Island. Quark's holosuites are the only alternative," she reminded me.

I cringed internally at the idea of idea of people I didn't know or trust having access to my Island's facilities, especially when I wasn't there and my internal security wasn't yet up to my standards. Most of the security on the island was oriented towards preventing external intrusion, rather than to prevent a bad actor who was given approved access to the Island from doing anything nefarious.

"No, I don't want anyone on the Island that I don't know or trust. Work with Quark; I'll pay for any use of his holosuites for training, just make sure the bastard applies my discount! If he gives you a hard time about it, subtly warn him that I may just purchase my own holosuites for the station if he doesn't play ball. He knows I can afford it," I instructed. "If he gives you some bullshit about having an exclusive license for gaming and holosuites on the station, remind him that that agreement was signed during the Occupation, and given to him by the Cardassians, and has no bearing on today, and perhaps we should reevaluate his license. That'll shut him up."

Ro laughed hard at that, probably imagining the look on Quark's face. After a few moments she sobered and looked as if she wanted to ask something else.

"What?" I asked, looking at her intently. "Just spit it out. I don't want you to hesitate asking me anything."

"Lupaza asked if you'd be willing to purchase more ships for her squadron," Ro relayed, having found her courage after I'd given her permission.

Sigh.

"No, not at this time," I answered slowly. "The squadron has proven its value already. They've stopped 3 illegal smuggling operations, resulting in the seizure of all the smuggled goods. They've even seized a Nausicaan ship. The squadron has not only protected the planet, it's realized a net gain. The Provisional Government needs to step up and help more. They shouldn't rely exclusively on my generosity to carry them."

Ro nodded at my words in agreement. We'd talked about this in the past and she felt that I was being more than generous paying for so much out of my own pocket.

"Are they still fighting over that ship?" Ro asked, surprised, not being privy to the internal deliberations of high government like I (unfortunately) was. "I thought they'd make a decision on that months ago!"

"It's politics, Ro, don't even try to understand it. Bajor could certainly use the money, but ego and self-interest are strong everywhere and under all circumstances," I advised, waving my hand in the air. "Every faction has their own agenda with regard to that ship and what they want to do with it, and the First Minister has had his hands full keeping things from getting too nasty. Minister Jaro is the worst of the bunch and is the primary reason no decision has been reached yet. I officially advised the First Minister and the Provisional Government months ago to just sell the damn thing to whoever will pay for it and be done with it."

Ro looked visibly surprised, "Wouldn't it be a good addition to the fleet?"

It was a credit to her professionalism that she could say the word 'fleet' with a straight face. I waved her question away.

"Nah, it's an obsolete Nausicaan ship that doesn't do anything particularly well. There aren't many people, besides the Nausicaans, who are trained to operate the thing, and it uses technology both Bajor and Starfleet aren't very familiar with, so it'd be a pain in the ass to maintain, repair, and get spare parts for. We don't have anybody trained to crew it either and the full cost to get people semi-competent just doesn't make sense for a single specific ship that we're unlikely to be able or want to acquire more of. No, much better to just sell the thing for the money and buy something we can actually use, or build ourselves. As Bajor will likely join the Federation in the future, a Federation designed ship would be a much better purchase, in my opinion."

Ro nodded slowly, "You're right. That makes a lot of sense."

"Don't act so surprised!" I joked, smiling. "I'm getting good at this job."

"You certainly are," Ro purred, sending me a look that said she might want me to lock down my office and bend over my desk.

Unfortunately, the universe decided to cock block me once again.

"Incoming classified communication," Scarlett reported, a flashing red holographic icon appearing over my desk that only I could see.

Sigh.

"I've got to take this, Ro," I groaned. "Get started on what we talked about and communicate our plan to Lupaza. If she needs to speak with me, tell her to set an appointment for tomorrow afternoon."

"Will do. Thank you, General," Ro said politely, fully back in business mode, before she quickly left the office.

Once the door closed, I activated the office's security seals and opened the subspace call. A familiar bland face in a black leather Gestapo-esque uniform appeared in a holographic window over my desk.

"Sloan, my second favorite Section 31 agent," I joked, though there was no reaction whatsoever. Sometimes I wonder why I even tried. This joking, happy go lucky countenance was meant to disarm and differentiate myself from the augments of the past, but it seemed wasted on this man. "What can I do for you?"

"We wanted to send our thanks for the sensor data you sent us," Sloan said. "T'Maz and the Collector research team were very happy to get the new data to work with. In response, we dispatched several cloaked ships into the area to monitor the Collector incursion into Romulan space. They will hopefully be able to gather real time data on the Collectors (and the Romulans'), capabilities in combat."

"Excellent, let the Romulans do the fighting and the dying while we learn all we can about this enemy from a safe distance and at no risk to ourselves," I replied, smiling ruthlessly. "And if the Romulans are weakened by this in general, even better."

"Precisely," Sloan replied with his own small smile and because I was watching so closely, for one brief infinitesimal moment, I caught the ruthless, shark-like gleam of a predator in his eyes. "Twenty-five thousand bars of gold pressed latinum have already been paid into your personal account."

"Much appreciated, Sloan," I said with a smile. "Should I encounter anything else you might be interested in, I will, of course, send it your way."

"Please do," he said. "Your intelligence also presented us with several other opportunities to advance our interests. While the Romulans would have eventually discovered the incursion into their space, two of our co-opted information brokers were supplied with the data and they provided it to their contacts with the Romulans. The veracity and value of the data will cement their reputation and credibility as information sources for years to come, so we can use them in the future to disseminate what we want the Romulans to have or to control future narratives in a way that benefits us."

"A smart play, as always," I complimented. "I'm guessing an opportunity presented itself that I can assist with, or you wouldn't be contacting me."

"Yes. After the Collectors destroyed the Romulan colony of Naybrok, the Romulan Empire has been in chaos. Practically overnight they stopped supporting the Klingon Civil War, an operation years in the making, and transitioned to a war footing. The Romulan military and intelligence apparatus have been in disarray with the suddenly changed priorities, which has presented us with a lot of opportunities that would have otherwise not have existed otherwise. The sudden reallocation of resources across the Empire exposed many of their intelligence operations across the quadrant and created holes in their detection abilities as their attention remains fixed on the Collectors, which had blinded them to other threats," Sloan explained.

"So now is the time to do what would have been too dangerous or would have carried too high a risk of detection previously," I guessed.

"Exactly, we have a long-term asset in the Romulan government who has been collecting information for us for years. She's managed to recently acquire a great deal of valuable intel while the Tal Shiar has been otherwise distracted and we want the data."

"What is the mission?" I asked.

"Extraction of the data only. We want the asset in place and in good standing for years to come," Sloan explained. "I'm sending the mission information packet over now."

Within moments a great deal of data was transferred which I quickly scanned.

"I'll study this and let you know if I accept the mission."

"You have 12 hours to make a decision. We only have a small window in which to extract the data. The Romulans will quickly get their act together before long," Sloan warned.

"I'll get back to you as soon as possible then."

XXXXX

Onboard The Flighty Temptress. In Orbit of Terix II. Romulan Colony World.

"Sixty seconds to orbital insertion," Scarlett informed me over my armor's integrated comm system.

"Acknowledged," I replied tersely, feeling suddenly nervous as I once again checked my armor and gear. It was an old habit from my time in Iraq and Afghanistan. "Begin countdown at 10 seconds."

Orbital insertion, in this case, was a euphemism for dropping out of a moving, cloaked starship while flying just below high orbit at 22,000 miles above the planet's surface. The mission parameters called for the utmost secrecy in order to keep the asset's position from being burned and the flow of intelligence coming for many years to come. That meant traveling the entirety of the way to this Romulan colony in the Beta quadrant under cloak following a route that Section 31 believed would be safe.

The need for utmost secrecy meant that I couldn't just land the ship somewhere either, as there could be sensor records of my arrival. Even trying to land the Temptress under cloak would likely be detected given the atmospheric disturbance I'd create with a ship as large as my own. I had considered transporting to the surface from orbit, but that would have required dropping the cloak, meaning instant detection. This colony world was of minor importance, more of a vacation destination for military officers and those of middling rank in Romulan government and society, and chances were good that my ship wouldn't have been detected, but it was a risk that both Section 31 and I weren't willing to take.

The silence in the airlock of one of the two auxiliary storage rooms on the Temptress was eerie, but it was the perfect environment to let my thoughts wander to other orbital drops I'd seen before. It was a very cool scene in Star Trek 2008 when Kirk and Sulu performed a 'space dive' to deactivate Narada's drill platform over Vulcan. Thankfully, my objective was far simpler, namely just to get to the ground safely and hopefully undetected.

If only my old squad could see me now, I thought with a chuckle. As part of my standard military training, I had jumped out of a few planes, but that was infinitely easier than what I was doing now. HALO jumps, or high-altitude low opening jumps, were the stuff of special forces, not a regular soldier like me, but here I was again, living out yet another fantasy.

"Thirty seconds to drop."

Bringing my omni-tool up, a holographic outline of the planet's curvature in red, along with the Temptress' course was shown, along with a curved dotted line connecting the ship to the ground, showing exactly when I'd need to drop in order to reach the landing coordinates I'd picked out. The ship was perfectly on course.

Fifteen seconds were left, so I tapped a command on my omni-tool to disable artificial gravity in the airlock. As I floated up in the air, I reoriented and engaged my magnetic boots on the metal of the rear airlock door, then kneeled, my head now pointing directly towards the closed doorway. The ship was already rotating slightly on its axis to point me directly at the planet's surface.

"Ten seconds, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1," Scarlett finished her countdown, my magnetic boots disengaged, and the outside doors to the auxiliary storage room opened, decompressing the airlock in a quarter second and shooting an Augment out the side of the ship like a bullet from a gun. I hurtled towards the surface at an insane speed, my armor's cloaking rendering me invisible.

"Yahoo!" I yelled into the total silence of my helmet as I was surrounded by the blackness of space and innumerable dots of starlight, the planet getting larger and larger as the minutes went by.

I was going stupidly fast right now, according to my display, but the perception of speed was based on reference and that was a little harder when your reference point was the size of a planet and the distances involved were so great. I couldn't help but to showboat a little, engaging my thrusters here and there to spin or twist and turn, before I put myself back on the ideal course I had calculated, outlined in my HUD with lines showing a glowing tunnel. The Star Trek movie really underplayed just how long it would take to get to the surface, or perhaps they had been a lot closer to the surface than my ship had been.

My ideal course was being displayed by my helmet, along with my altitude above the planet, a countdown showing the time left until I hit the planet's outer atmosphere, which was at about 62 miles above the surface, along with a slew of other datapoints. I had borrowed the head's up display software from a few Starfleet environmental suits and the highly dangerous sport of orbital skydiving. Hitting the atmosphere was where the real fun would begin. Right now, I was just 'flying' through empty space, with no air friction or anything to slow me down or throw me off course and I had purposely chosen this area for lack of ship traffic. Once in atmosphere I would light up like a falling star as the air friction made me catch fire. Over top my normal armor were gold plates specially designed to withstand the intense heat, but my hope was that my personal shield, reconfigured for atmospheric entry, would be the only protection I needed. The plates were backup really.

I had specially designed a shield configuration program to cut, like a laser scalpel, through the atmosphere that would get thicker the closer I got to the ground. My goal was to be invisible to sensors and the naked eye, which necessitated slower descent speeds as the atmosphere thickened up. Of course, my angle of insertion needed to also be perfect or I'd bounce off the atmosphere itself and go floating out into space. If I was spotted I was hoping my descent would make me look like a natural object, but the course corrections required to get back to the surface after being bounced would pretty much give the game away.

The countdown was approaching its end and the planet looked very large now. Raising my hands above my head I engaged thrusters to slow my descent. The inside of my armor was getting uncomfortably warm right now, even for an Augment like myself, which meant a normal human would have died already. In order to be stealthy, I had had to skimp on a few standard safety protections.

I quieted my mind of all other concerns and focused on reaching the ground safely. So far I hadn't caught fire, but I was definitely glowing a deep orangish red with the heat of atmospheric entry. To any sensors or onlookers, hopefully I'd just look like a common meteorite falling to the planet and worthy of no more notice.

XXXXX

Grabbing my dick to make sure that I was all in one piece, I let out a silent chuckle of glee at surviving my first orbital skydive, all without a parachute and doing it in a very stealthy manner if I had to say so myself.

Before I did anything else, I brought my omni-tool up and conducted several discreet scans of the wooded area I had chosen for my insertion to make sure that I was entirely alone and no fast approaching ships or vehicles were converging on my location or sensor scans being directed here. According to my armor's limited sensors, at least in comparison to my ship's, there were no life signs within 20 miles and nothing to indicate that I had been spotted.

I then established a connection with the Temptress currently cloaked and in orbit above my position and reviewed her passive sensor readings. Active scans would be detected, but passive scans were relatively safe. Nothing there to worry about also. The link between my armor and ship was based on the Section 31 stealth probe and would appear like normal electromagnetic background noise if anyone checked.

Shrugging off the gold plates of my orbital skydiving equipment I threw it on the ground in a pile. Pulling a Romulan disrupter pistol from a special protective box on my back, which I also threw on the pile, I set the weapon to vaporize and fired a thick, acid green beam of energy at my equipment, causing it to vaporize into airborne molecules and disappear from view. There could be no sign that I had ever been here, so vaporizing my unneeded equipment was just prudent operational security.

The Romulan disrupter pistol felt slightly awkward and light, and frankly a little fragile in my hand compared to the antiproton pistol I'd custom designed for myself, but the mission required it. A unique, one-of-a-kind weapon and design like my pistol, which also used a Collector micro-singularity power cell, was a dead giveaway and would lead right back to me with little effort. No, it was much better to use the ubiquitous Romulan disrupter. They were a common weapon all over the quadrant and would be even less unusual on this world in particular. At least it felt more useful and better designed than a Federation type 2 phaser, as it had a covered hand grip and felt more secure in the hand.

I tucked the weapon into the back of my waistband and pulled my 'jacket' over it, gangbanger style, along with a thin, but long knife I slid into a hidden sheathe on my right hip, before conducting another final, discreet scan of my landing area to see if I had left anything behind that could be detected. Nothing. This wide-open clearing in the middle of the woods had been specifically chosen so that I wouldn't disturb any plant life on the way down. The ground here was solid stone too, which made the landing harder, but would show less evidence of my touch down like disturbed or burnt ground or vegetation would have.

Starting the next stage of my plan, a map of the planet with 15 separate markings on the surface showed a sequence of transporter jumps that would be required before I got to my final destination. I would be relying entirely on my armor's personal transporter for this portion of the mission. Like so many security systems, the planet's sensor network was far more oriented towards detecting external security concerns, rather than internal, so I wouldn't be relying on the Temptress' far more powerful transporter, hence the 15 smaller transporter jumps into isolated areas. According to the ship, thanks to the late hour, the next several transport sites were all currently clear, so I had better get started.

XXXXX

Pushing open the doors, I couldn't help the wide shit eating grin that grew on my face as the wave of sound and deep bass beats hit my body like a drum. The music sounded like a 24th century unholy union of synth pop, EDM, and techno mixed with several other musical forms that somehow came together in a way that actually worked for me. The smell of alcohol, sweat, and sex pheromones was heavy in the air and was a heady brew for an Augment like myself who possessed enhanced senses. This, along with the beautiful and scandalously clad bodies on the dancefloor were enough to get me sport a half chub already. Why were some races so sexy as a general rule?

The nightclub was dark, with fog and holographic effects, with a crush of sexy youngish people on the dancefloor grinding on each other. Some things changed, but others stayed the same. If I had to describe it with a few references from my time it was like the nightclub scene from the first Matrix movie, crossed with the Zions tribal dance/sex/orgy in the second movie, crossed with a warehouse rave. Fun fact, the nightclub scene where Neo meets Trinity for the first time was filmed at an actual BDSM club in Australia with all the extras being actual patrons of the place in their own BDSM leather garb. This didn't feel far off from that.

This night club was one of the most popular in the city, catering to a variety of different races, with Romulans, obviously, being the most prevalent and was the perfect place to meet with others without suspicion. A colony world on the outskirts of the Empire couldn't thrive without opening itself up to some tourism and off-world travel. This club was also the agreed upon location where I would be meeting with Section 31's asset for the handoff of the data, though I hadn't realized just how awesome this club was. Now this was some real spy shit, straight from the movies, meeting in a decadent and awesome nightclub with sexy people all around, rather than pitched combat or sleeping on cold and damp cave floors during the Occupation, the sound of Bajor's rat equivalent scurrying in the shadows. There were couples literally fucking on the dancefloor and women bouncing on laps in dark corners. The Vulcans could stand to learn a thing or two from their ancestral cousins, I thought with a chuckle.

With a large smile on my face that went well with my cover of a rich, young Romulan trying to find his latest sexual conquest, I walked towards the bar. Yes, I looked Romulan right now. While I hadn't had the benefit of a doctor to perform the complex cosmetic surgery I required, good old-fashioned prosthetics for the ears, the forehead, and hair dye and a severe haircut were all that I required to perfect the look. My armor was also in a configuration that fit the tone of this place, akin to a form fitting black leather tunic that showed my thick biceps rather well. I looked like a sexy, young, Romulan male, in my opinion. The looks of interest I was getting from several sexy looking women in the room confirmed that. What was it about Romulan and Vulcan women that made them so fucking hot?

A Ferengi, of course, was behind the bar, so I grabbed his attention with a slip of latinum tapped against the bar top. Of course, the little shit heard that as he immediately made his way over to me.

"A large ale," I ordered in perfect Romulan, complete with a posh accent. Given the large population of Romulans on this planet, it was unnecessary to specify that I was ordering a 'Romulan' ale. My study of all the major languages of the alpha quadrant, when I was preparing for the Bajoran mission, was coming in handy now. Nothing screamed spy like a supposed Romulan speaking in Earth English and needing the universal translator to be understood. Of course, there were ways around that, but it was unneeded in my case, when you actually knew and could speak the language as well as a native speaker.

My drink was soon poured and I was a few strips of latinum poorer, but it was a lovely drink. Drinking Romulan ale on a Romulan colony world didn't mean that this was the finest Romulan ale I'd ever drunk due solely to authenticity; I had actually been rather spoiled by the quality of ale that Quark's cousin had been able to acquire for me on the regular. The guy specialized in high quality drinks and spirits from all over the quadrant and could procure practically anything, of any vintage or quality, assuming you could pay his high prices, but I rarely cheaped out on anything these days. Life was too short and unpredictable to be drinking cheap booze and I was plenty fucking rich, though I was always open to getting richer.

I turned around nonchalantly, leaning my side against the bar top as I casually scanned the club's inhabitants with a lascivious smile that I only had to partially fake, my eyes stopping on several occasions when I spotted a couple fucking right out in the open. There was even a Romulan woman being spit roasted in the corner, which I felt was ambitious on her part. My cover was a man on the prowl for his latest sexual conquest, after all, so it was perfectly reasonable for me to check out the available offerings. In my opinion, if you were banging in public, you didn't mind being watched. It reminded me fondly of my time on Risa and those free-spirited aliens.

My mission packet had included a copious amount of data on the planet, its security infrastructure, and the plan to meet up with the asset (aka, the spy) and retrieve the information she'd acquired, but really nothing on the asset itself beyond her gender. Section 31 was paranoid as fuck, so I had not been given the asset's identity in case I was captured. She, on the other hand, had been given my information, in some manner, to identify me in this club and approach me to perform the handoff.

Unlike the various spy movies of my time, we weren't given prearranged code words or phrases. A one-time use program had been given to me intended to be installed on my omni-tool. It contained the heavily encrypted DNA profile of the spy I was to meet. There were an insane number of safeguards and failsafes to protect the spy's identity, but I was told that when the asset's DNA was detected in physical contact with me, it'd signal me with three pulses then ready itself to perform one more function.

It was only on my third beautiful Romulan dance partner of the night that my omni-tool vibrated 3x to indicate that the DNA was a match. Like so many Romulans in this club, she was young and very beautiful with the requisite glossy black hair, but hers was longer than most, reaching the top of her shoulders, almost stringy and with a very deceiving carefree style, as if she had just woken from a night of exhausting, yet wonderful sex. Her captivating eyes were dark and outlined in a black eyeliner which made them pop. Her lips were full and pouty, with a pink glossy shine on them.

Her dress was a glossy black, looking almost like patent leather. Her top was like a corset of shiny leather, with distinct half cups holding her large full breasts, their tops expanding and practically popping out with each deep breath, the four straps holding her dress up framed her breasts to perfection, drawing the eye. Her skirt was connected to the top and hung to high mid-thigh. Each movement or turn made the material bounce and flow, as if she were always a moment away from flashing you, which was titillating in the extreme. On her long, toned legs were black, sheer stockings, held up by garters.

It was a very sexy picture in total and she was probably in the top 5 hottest women in this club, which was saying something considering the competition.

The lights flashed bright intermittently, a deep bass line practically vibrating in my chest as she slid closer into my arms and reached up, crossing her arms behind my neck as she rubbed her body against me, gracefully and sensuously dropping and lowering herself in time with the beat, staring me right in the eyes, but without a smile. In fact, it was more of a smirk. Somehow that made it even sexier, like she was challenging me to be worthy of her.

The song was amazing and perfect for this moment. If I had to describe it it was like a cross between Darude, Sandstorm and Kaskade & Deadmau5 – Move for Me (GTA Remix).

She turned away from me and I brought my hands to her sides, our hips moving in synch as I ground my hard cock into her ass and she obviously liked it. I brought my hands up further cupping under her breasts and her arms came up to hold mine.

'Linkup with recognized external data module successful. Beginning transfer,' Scarlett reported stealthily via a connection my omni-tool established with my implanted universal translator. It was a trick I'd recently come up with.

Transferring the data in plain sight had been the plan all along. Using the 24th century equivalent of near field technology, my omni-tool had connected with the data module she was wearing, likely concealed in the leather band on her wrist that was pressed against my omni-tool hidden under my sleeve. The ultra-close proximity of the two devices, they were practically touching, greatly minimized the chance for detection or interception.

We danced like that as long as possible, moving into a different position when it would appear too suspicious.

'Connection lost. 10% transfer complete.'

It must be a hell of a lot of data if 30 seconds of connection had only downloaded 10% of the total. By my quick calculation, we'd need 4.5 minutes of connection to transfer the entirety of the data packet.

Turning her quickly around I brought my hands up to cup her face, drawing her into a deep scandalous kiss like so many others on the dance floor, our tongues dueling each other. Her hands immediately came up to hold mine tightly to her face, as if encouraging me to do more.

'Connection reestablished. Transfer resumed.'

We continued like that for another 30 seconds, while I laid kisses on her neck and on the tops of her large breasts, my tongue very much liking the taste of her skin. As much as this was a job, a mission, I was distinctly enjoying myself. The song then changed and we had to change with it.

'Connection lost. 20% transfer complete.'

The data transfer required another 4 minutes of connection to complete the transfer. While we weren't on a strict timetable, the longer we went transferring the data piecemeal the greater the risk of detection, or potential corruption of the data, which would make all this effort and risk worthless. I needed to complete this mission as fast as possible.

As I contemplated this problem, I asked myself a question. What would James Bond do? When the answer came to me, I nearly let out a laugh.

Grabbing her hand, I brought it down to my hard cock and gave her a meaningful look. She caressed it for a long moment, getting a sense for its size, before she took my hand and led me to a dark, unoccupied corner on the edge of the dancefloor. She placed a hand on the wall in front of her, as if to steady herself on the wall, and bent over at the waist at a 45-degree angle, her long legs spread a good way apart, before she threw a look over her shoulder in clear invitation. The sense of deja vu was strong.

She made quite the sight with those long, toned legs in that leather dress. I slid up behind her and ground my cock against her ass. I then lifted her skirt up, only to find a distinct lack of panties. Nice. Fishing my cock out, I placed my left hand over top of hers on the wall ('Connection reestablished. Transfer resumed.') which was leaning against the wall.

Without moving my left hand and losing the connection, I put a condom on one-handed. Yes, they still existed in the 24th century, but not exactly for the reasons you'd think. Some alien sexual couplings were a bit more risky than you'd realize, for various physiological reasons, so the condom was still around. Advancements in materials technology meant all the protection was there, but it felt like you weren't even wearing one, or so I was told by Bashir. This was actually the first time I'd used one in this new life, but fuck me if I was going to risk any of my DNA being left behind in this situation.

With my right hand holding my cock, I rubbed it up and down her extremely wet slit and then slid into her to the hilt in one hard thrust, my right hand now gripping her hip tightly as I thrust into her from behind in time with the bass line of the music. I leaned forward and nipped on the sensitive point of her right ear, a trick that I had learned from T'Maz. Luckily, this erogenous zone was shared by the Romulans.

With my Augment hearing I could hear our moans and groans of pleasure, but it was mostly drowned out by the loud music all around us. We were just another couple fucking on the dance floor, but that didn't take away from the extreme pleasure of the moment. The sheer taboo of it all, from my more conservative time, added a spice to the moment that was sheer ecstasy. I had certainly never done something like this before.

Her pussy was hot and wet and tight the likes of which I had only experienced with T'Maz before, and maybe that Orion girl. I could practically feel her working her internal muscles to drain my cock. When Scarlett finally informed me that the transfer was complete, I almost didn't care anymore as I continued to thrust deep into her wonderful pussy, her white ass tinged with green blood shaking with each hard thrust that I didn't need to moderate as much as normal, lest I risk injuring her. Now that it was no longer necessary to keep our left hands together to affect the data transfer, my hands locked onto both of her hips tightly and I really went buck wild pounding into that pussy. Vulcans and Romulans were made of tough stuff. When I felt her orgasm coming, I endeavored to come with her and with one final thrust I unloaded my seed deep inside her clutching pussy.

I stayed connected with her for several more moments before we reluctantly separated and I removed the condom and tied it up, tucking my cock back into my pants, her skirt flipping down like nothing had even happened. She turned around and gave me a satisfied smile, a tongue filled kiss, and then she was gone, threading her way through the crowd and out of sight.

To cover my tracks and not arouse suspicion with an immediate exit, I'd get another drink and take a seat, as if catching my breath, before leaving in less than 30 minutes.

'Data integrity is 100%. Transport coordinates extracted,' Scarlett reported. Included in the data packet I'd just retrieved were transport coordinates on the planet from which I could transport back to my cloaked ship in high orbit undetected, thanks to a malfunction in the security grid. I still needed to get safely off planet, but I was confident I could.

An orbital skydive, a fun nightclub, hot sex right on the dancefloor, and a successful mission that would net me another 25,000 bars of latinum? I was beyond happy. This was some serious James Bond shit and the most fun I'd ever had on a Section 31 mission. I'd have to ask Sloan to send some more my way.

Life was good.

XXXXX

Author's Note:

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Chapter 30: 21,022 words

Chapter 31: 19,939 words