It is the conclusion of this evaluator that the asset's skills and background make her expendable.

The provincial hamlet of Monestat was in a state of decline. It had been since her youth — its rich soil poisoned by the industry upriver. The cities, twin beacons of excitement and influence, looming over the southern horizon had had an even more devastating effect. Together, they'd drained the surrounding villages of their most talented youth.

So few that remained here would ever step foot off this planet, resigned as they were to a life of stagnant lower-class toil. The ones who did leave did so mostly as enlisted troopers. It was a position that promised high risks and high reward. Upward mobility was as likely as dying from a phaser wound suffered on some other plot of useless dirt on some other planet.

Yet, the people here never went hungry. They never needed for medical care or education. They suffered no epidemics of violent crime or illness. The state provided well for those who completed the tasks of farming, energy production, and waste reclamation.

It made those tasks no less thankless.

Preka had spent the last month here, for lack of anywhere else to go, as she waited to be called to duty. She'd thought that, once she'd finished her probationary missions, the Obsidian Order would make her disappear. That all traces of her would be removed from the outdated structure her aging parents still called a home.

Perhaps all undercover agents were afforded this final goodbye. A day, a week, a month of familiarity before erasing them for good?

Her parents would be well taken care of, as long as she did her duty, and that was the only closure she needed. The rest was just an unnecessary delay.

"Good morning," the low, familiar voice and the man that it belonged to came up behind her as she retraced her childhood steps.

All evidence that her brother once lived were gone from this path. They'd walked it daily for years, from her living block to the school and back again, but nothing remained of those many thousands of steps.

Preka could recall any of those mornings if she closed her eyes, but it wasn't the same.

"Sir," she greeted, setting aside the past and adjusting her pace to match his longer stride.

"Obarit will do nicely, now that you've been approved for active duty."

She tried to suppress how pleased she was, but some of it came through anyway. Obarit reacted to her smile like an accommodating father might, with a small one of his own.

"I have booked passage for you on a transport. You will leave for the capital tonight. Apartments have been acquired and furnished for your use. You will go and await further instructions."

By the time he finished and handed her a copy of her instructions, Preka regained control over herself.

"If you don't mind my asking, why have you come here in person?"

Cardassia had many secure communication channels across the planet, all impossible to infiltrate. Except, of course, by the Order.

Obarit didn't look like he minded at all. His face wore the same serene expression it always had when he was pleased, nearly ever-present since the day he'd plucked her from this hamlet for her training five years ago.

They came to a crossroads on the walkway, a four way stop that lead into different housing blocks. These were the oldest. Though none stood in disrepair (nothing on Cardassia ever did), the families here were looked down upon for the crime of being unable to produce children with the skills needed to dig them out of their stagnation.

Obarit paused here for some time, considering her question.

Preka waited patiently, not because she had to but because she respected him.

Finally, he gestured to a square set of housing units, nestled between other square housing units. They were unremarkable, a dull orange, and bare, "To remind myself where I come from—"

She opened her mouth but closed it again when he turned to look at her more intensely than he ever had before.

"—I assume you've read the final evaluation."

Even though it wasn't a question, she nodded. Preka knew what she was to the Obsidian Order: an asset with a short shelf-life. This had pained her to learn — it had pained her to realize that Obarit might also consider her expendable — but she had come to accept it.

Such was the life of a tool.

"It is common for those of us who find our own way out of obscurity to be seen by those who haven't as replaceable. We have no natural means of gaining leadership experience as children, and we lack connections with those who are powerful enough to protect us."

It was in this moment, on this slightly uneven path, staring at what must be Obarit's childhood home, that Preka learned the two most important lessons of her heretofore short career.

The first was something she concluded on her own. Obarit had come here to speak to her face-to-face so that no one else would hear what he was about to say. It wasn't treason, it wasn't even against Order protocol, but it was something he considered personal. Something he deemed necessary but dangerous if shared with anyone other than her.

Some secrets, assuming she still had any, must be kept from the Obsidian Order.

The second lesson was said outright, in a tone of voice more animated than she'd ever heard him use before. He needed her to understand this, to believe it, with no more evidence than his own conviction:

"Do not resign yourself to the low expectations of others. If you want to be more than what you are — if you want to be more than what you were born into — you have to prove them wrong."

…

When the debris from the Caretaker's array burned away in the Ocampan atmosphere, Seska had to confront two inescapable truths. First, she was no longer an asset to her people but a liability. Second, the three acceptable paths laid out before her would all lead to her death:

She could neutralize herself by her own hand, attempt to take the ship, or remain under disguise as long as possible until forced into one or the other.

None appealed to her. To be indispensable to others, she must first be so to herself. The Empire couldn't reckon with the choice of pardoning her or killing her if she was already dead, no more than Seska could live by choosing to die.

The first was too hasty.

Any information Starfleet might glean from her about the Empire would be woefully out-of-date by the time Voyager made it back to port. Janeway spoke about finding a shortcut, but immediate travel vectors were unlikely. Stable wormholes like the one near Terok Nor would be as zealously contested, hot beds of conflict — if any even existed at all. Species with faster than light capabilities like the Caretaker were likely to be either isolationist or aloof, since they had yet to appear in the alpha quadrant seeking friendship or war.

The ship needed luck to get home in less than 70 years, but luck wasn't a plan. In seven decades, she would succumb to old age, the vacuum of space, or violence. Should they get home sooner, the Empire could execute her if they'd like.

Borrowed time was still borrowed after all.

The second option bore no real consideration. She could not take Voyager. Even as Seska the Bajoran, she lacked the political capitol to convince the Maquis to mutiny. Chakotay had made it clear that the Captain was their captain now, and while some might turn against him, most would not. As Seska the Cardassian, she had no chance in any hell. Perhaps she could use the Kazon to good effect, if they weren't so clearly uncoordinated and unsophisticated.

Brute force could only get her so far before that brute force turned itself on her.

This left the final, trying to go unnoticed. A worthy approach, if she wasn't trapped across the galaxy from her home. How long until the manipulations to her genome began to degrade on their own? How long until one of the many changes threatened her life and her health and gave her away.

If she survived this journey, Seska would forge the stardates on encrypted personal logs to give the illusion she'd weighed these option before setting each aside in judiciously in turn.

In reality, her choice was the result of an intuition that had been ruthlessly trained out of her from birth. The one she'd ignored when she told Pagat about Limet's strange new friends; the one she'd listened to when she accepted Obarit's proffered sponsorship despite other, flashier options. The one telling her now that, while it had been foolish to strand them here for the sake of an inconsequential race, Captain Janeway herself was no fool.

Naive, perhaps, but Starfleet captains outsmarted Cardassian Guls and Legates all the time, no matter how rosy their view screens might appear to outsiders.

"You weren't injured in the aftermath of the array, I don't know why you've insisted on an exam."

The EMH moved around her with his medical tricorder, clearly perturbed that a member of the Maquis forced their way onto his schedule.

Seska toyed with the gauzy blue material of her medical gown. It settled around her knees where they bent over the side of one of the biobeds, showing off skin too pink and too warm for her liking.

She waited…

The doors to sickbay opened, and Janeway strode in.

"Captain, has something happened? I don't have you scheduled for a physical for another week," how the EMH managed to sound so accommodating and so annoyed at the same time was a skill Seska realized she must learn.

For no other purpose than to utilize it to great effect against Torres and Chakotay in the future.

"I asked her to come," to her own ears, Seska sounded like someone who had floated beyond her physical body and was watching this violation of her mission parameters at a safe distance.

Janeway for her part, affected a look of genial bemusement, "Whatever this is, wouldn't you rather prefer Commander Chakotay be here instead?"

Commander Chakotay.

She'd rather immolate herself.

"Your EMH is about to detect Cardassian DNA in my genome. Bajoran children who contract Orkett's disease require bone marrow transplants from Cardassians, a procedure that leaves trace amounts of the donor's genetic code behind."

The Doctor frowned and moved to his medical terminal, where he eventually gave the human a nod.

Janeway, for her part, continued to look on with a mild smile of confusion, "I see no reason—"

"It's a plausible cover story for Cardassian agents pretending to be Bajorans."

Ah, there it was. Janeway slid easily into the alert posture of a person born to lead.

Just in case she mistook her, Seska added an abrupt addendum to her statement, "I'm saying that I'm Cardassian."

"Yes, I was able to infer that," all friendliness was gone, replaced with a steel-laced voice.

Janeway paced then, all the energy in her small body going to thinking this through. Eventually, a hand moved up to cover her mouth as if the consequences of this one conversation altered all the decision calculus she'd previously thought settled.

Seska had violated no laws that Tuvok had not also violated, despite their different loyalties. Seska was not here to spy on the Federation, just by the same horrible stroke of luck that had brought all the others.

When she thought she might have to point this out, Janeway deactivated the EMH abruptly and spoke, "Are you asking for asylum?"

Asylum would require Seska align herself with Federation laws with the aim of becoming a citizen. Following Starfleet protocols while on a Starfleet vessel was one thing, but Seska had to draw the line somewhere.

She scoffed, "That implies I want Federation protection from my own people. I fully expect to return to Cardassia when this is over."

That would make Janeway's calculations easier, but only by a little. If she was cunning, she'd put Seska off this ship immediately or execute her.

Both would win the Maquis over immediately.

But Janeway was as Starfleet as they came, as evidenced by her stranding them here to save the infantile Ocampa. She wouldn't do what was easy instead of what was right.

While Seska found that trait both naive and performative, it was what she was relying on now.

"You're asking for my protection from the Maquis."

Tuvok might one day win the acceptance of Chakotay and the others —Starfleet and the Maquis were mutual antagonists, not enemies— but Seska's betrayal went so much deeper. In every way.

"In exchange for offering my unique set of skills, when you need them," Seska confirmed.

"You'll need them," she insisted more strongly, when Janeway looked like she wanted to argue that Seska's Obsidian Order training would never be applicable.

This set off another round of pacing. It was possible that Janeway was thinking through the benefits of Seska retaining her Bajoran appearance. It might work, but it still came with all the risks of her being found out later.

It was better to work harder for the trust of Chakotay's now than to lose it later due to shortsightedness.

The Captain was coming to a decision. It was in the way her movements slowed, in the way her posture straightened, in the way her eyes focused like chips of ice on Seska's.

"You will follow my orders and behave in line with Starfleet protocols as long as you remain on this ship."

It wasn't a question.

Even though there were many exploitable loopholes in that demand, Seska would have to refrain from taking advantage of them too often.

She plucked at the hem of her gown, "Anything else?"

"You won't antagonize the Maquis."

"My existence alone will antagonize them."

At the glare she received in response to that, Seska added without any real conviction, "In all the ways that I can control, I will not antagonize the Maquis."

"You'll report directly to me or to Tuvok when I am unavailable."

This was more of a concession than a demand, as it allowed her to circumvent having to work with Chakotay.

It also required no verbal response, so she said nothing.

"In return," Janeway's posture deflated as she said the words that would make her journey so much more difficult than the mere Herculean effort it had been just ten minutes prior, "Starfleet will—I will— protect you as I would any other member of my crew, to the best of my ability. Do you accept my terms?"

The temptation to argue over the wording was nearly too strong to resist; instead, Seska took a single deep breath and made the deliberate decision to defy every expectation ever placed upon her.

Most of all, her own.

"Yes, Captain."

Author Notes: Voyager Week, Day 7, Prompt: Caretaker

Here we are, at the end and where it started.

I feel alls sort of emotional about this, mostly due to my interpretation of Obarit's (an OC I never thought I'd think up let alone one I wouldn't want to say goodbye to) and Seska's relationship and how his influence on her life may have lead her to make this choice.

Also, I think a longer treatment of this story would have to grapple with all the ways Janeway's decisions in this chapter affect her commend. What wedges would this drive between her and the Maquis? Between her and Chakotay? What would having a Cardassian whispering in her ear do to her psyche. Who knows!? Not I!

Thank you for taking a chance on a Seska AU!