Asset has no moral compunctions with killing or carrying out unorthodox survival strategies.
The first person Seska killed on the mission was a Cardassian, and she made sure to do it with her hands. The man was young. Idealistic. Her brother's age. His height. His weight. His gait. His idealistic demeanor.
She wasn't an idiot. It was a deliberate test of her loyalty. One of the many that the Obsidian Order built into their trainings and missions to measure the suitability of their agents. How would she handle murdering a Cardassian, even if that Cardassian that was committing treason by colluding with Maquis? How would she react to an overt warning that this would happen to her if she decided one day to step out of line?
Seska left the body where it fell on a guano covered cave floor. Her preference was to vaporize him, to leave no trace of this man's crime or his disgrace behind, but orders were orders.
Obarit wanted the corpse to send a message to the Maquis, their sympathizers in the Empire, and to her:
There was no room for morality not already defined by the Cardassian state.
She committed the execution without hesitation. What did it matter that he was Cardassian? There was no room for ethical discourse or detours in her line of work — either of them.
Later, Seska led the others from the Val Jean to the body. The fools didn't even suspect her. Why would they? Marva IV was a known hub of Maquis activity. Dozens of people were coming going on this festering rock of a planet daily.
Upon seeing the already cold body, Chakotay ground his teeth and began reassessing their mission. Their venerable leader concerned himself as he always did with measuring the likelihood of outside involvement. The poor idiot never looked inward, not even toward his own bed, when he clearly should.
Torres nudged the man's — Polkar's, like everything else, Seska would remember his name — rigid thigh with her boot and swore. The half-Klingon considered the only good Cardassian a dead Cardassian, but even she had wanted this one had lived at least a few more hours.
He'd promised them intel about Cardassian supply lines.
Seska could use all of this to her advantage: Chakotay's mounting worry and Torres' frustration.
"The only honest Cardassian is a dead one," she muttered, her disgust an easy thing to repurpose.
"What's to say the next one with a pulse won't be lying to us," she declared more loudly, to force the others to consider the thought.
The seed caught. Chakotay looked at her, internalized her words, and possibly evening agreed with them. If the Cardassian government could find and kill their own so easily, then surely they'd do their best to poison the well with false intelligence.
Seska knew she wouldn't need to kill the next traitor.
Not when her new friends would do that for her.
…
Seska was tired of this sickbay and the way it continually forced her to participate in conversations — with the EMH, with Kes, and with the captain of this ship — that she'd kill to avoid . At least this time the Doctor allowed her to stay in her own clothes, instead of insisting she wear the gauzy medical garments that barely covered her thighs. She might have threatened to decompile him otherwise.
He hovered within ear shot as she gave the captain the debriefing the other woman so desperately wanted.
"I told you they'd get sloppy," Seska drawled, flicking imaginary dirt off her collar. She'd changed into her civilian Cardassian garb the moment she'd come back, tired of the Kazon rags.
Low quality wool gave her rashes.
"It's Jonas, you're sure of it?"
"Oh, Captain, come on. If I was going to lie to you, I would have done it before you sent me to play nice with that dog."
Janeway pursed her lips, and a muscle in her jaw ticked at the impertinence.
Seska, not wanting a lecture on the appropriate way to address a superior officer — as if she'd ever be Starfleet, what a joke — relented., "It's Jonas. The idiot jumped at the opportunity to work with the Kazon — with me. I don't know why, he practically danced on the corpse of a Cardassian at Marva IV."
Seska shrugged, it didn't matter to her one way or the other, and continue chattering, "Do we have to recall Paris from the Talaxians? I'm sure it's been very peaceful without him here to open his mouth."
That muscle ticked again, but Seska ignored it to toss a wink at the Doctor. He agreed with her, about Tom at least, even if the only crack in his stern poker face was the slightest twitch of his lips.
She should outwardly criticize the other woman for so blatantly not trusting her, but having Paris fake dissatisfaction and abandon ship had been a good idea. If Seska was really looking to double cross Voyager, she might have taken the bait. Jonas the-half-wit certainly had.
Janeway crossed her arms and sighed, clearly deciding not to chastise her, "Good work."
"It always is."
The next step would be for the captain and Tuvok to interrogate the man in their brig. Seska would leave sickbay, physically unharmed by her mission, and confront a crew who could never be convinced she was capable of working in their best interest. They'd continue to believe she'd meant to betray them to Maje Culluh. Capturing and beating Chakotay within an inch of his life hadn't helped that perception, but his genuine anger and torment had helped obfuscate the information she'd slipped him from the Kazon. Seska had been pleasantly surprised when he'd actually passed it along to the Captain, expecting him to disregard it as a trick, doubly so when Janeway used the cover of creating an alliance with the Kazon to retrieve her.
"One more thing," Janeway halted her short march to the door, turning to look Seska up and down.
Seska played along gamely, crossing one leg over the other, lowering her voice, and raising a brow, "Yes?"
"The child…"
Her face contorted before she could control it, the disgust and contempt — those spectacular bedfellows — pulling her mouth down into a scowl, "There is no child."
She flicked her gaze to the hologram, to make the point and the use of tense clear, "Right?"
The Doctor cleared his throat unnecessarily.
Seska had demanded they have this debriefing here, right after her medical exam, for a reason.
"There is no child," he confirmed.
It only took a moment for Janeway to understand. The impact was immediate, and the captain's face sank like a lead balloon. She wasn't upset about that, not really. Voyager was no place for children, no matter how much Samantha Wildman hoped it could be. No, the captain was probably castigating herself for an order she was now convincing herself she must have given. Starfleet surely looked down on commanding officers asking members of their crew to seduce the enemy.
"Stop looking at me like I killed your puppy. Your orders were for me to find and infiltrate the Kazon, not open my legs for them. That was my choice."
If the Doctor were organic, he'd be blushing. Seska ignored his wide-eyed shock and sneered. She didn't hate Janeway, not really. Despite stranding them in this backward quadrant, the woman was a competent commanding officer. More than that, she'd kept her word that she'd protect Seska from the Maquis. But oh, she was still so painfully naive when it came to the members of her crew who'd spurned Federation ideals for their own dreams of heroics and violence.
One in particular.
"Want to stick around? I can tell you all about how I knew it would work."
Author's Note: Voyager Week, Day 3 Prompt: Allies and Enemies. Set pre-series and just after 2x12: Alliances.
The Kazon arc is likely the one that would change the most dramatically in this AU. Seska would leave late Season 1 to infiltrate the Kazon, after acting like an even bigger jerk than she usually is, in order to try to dig out the mole in the crew. Literally everyone but Janeway assumes she was the mole anyway, so it was easy to keep the secret of her mission between Janeway, Seska, and Tuvok. Tom would leave the ship in the first couple episodes of Season 2 instead of during 2x20 in order to make the mole think there are more like him on the ship. In this retelling, she does NOT pretend the pregnancy is Chaktoay's, but still uses it to leverage Cullah until she can leave.
Cullah would probably manage to wrangle a couple of other sects to join him in his attack on Voyager - convincing them that Voyager plans to help the Trabe re-enslave them. The Finale of Season 2 would play out much the same way, just without Seska being a part of plot. I'm sure Culluh would keep her on the ship just to torment and kill her for her betrayal, but in the end would fail due to the efforts of the Doctor and Suder (RIP).