life's blood

[warpfairy]

They're not near Cardassian Union space.

But then, they're not near Federation space either. This ship has as much right to be in this system as they do.

It makes Isabella nervous, anyway, and she's just about to suggest leaving and coming back another time, when the Prometheus is hailed.

They're armed. She can't warp inside a solar system.

She answers the hail.

"Hello, Federation vessel," says one of the three visible Cardassians in bad but intelligible English. "What're you doing out here alone?"

Isabella swallows. "This is the deep space survey vessel Prometheus," she begins.

The computer lets her know that they're charging weapons.

"We have no hostile intention," she says.

Comments

[alicornucopia]

"My friend here likes you," drawls Janor. "And our other friend likes your squeeze. But it doesn't look to us like she returns that interest, so he," he aims a thumb at Kelvok, "thinks it'd be much friendlier all around if you agreed to go play with him and our other friend waited for someone else to come along and left your girl alone. What do you think?"

[dream_me_up]

Lalita looks at them suspiciously.

"How do I know you're really going to leave her alone?"

[alicornucopia]

They start talking in Cardassian again. "He wants to know how he can be sure. Do you think Brol will actually -"

"He owes me a favor."

"If you have to take a picture of her for him once an hour to satisfy your plaything are you going to do that?"

"No, just - look, what does he even want as proof?"

Janor turns back to Lalita, switches back to English. "What would be satisfactory?" he asks.

[dream_me_up]

Might as well aim high.

"If I could see her," he says, affecting nervousness.

[alicornucopia]

Janor translates this for Kelvok.

"That is so not hot," scowls Kelvok.

"I don't need any more details than I have, thanks," snaps Janor. "What about earshot? If we shuffle some rooms."

"Fine," grumbles Kelvok.

"That won't happen," Janor tells Lalita. "But we can put her near enough that you'd be able to hear if anything were going on."

[dream_me_up]

"I guess," says Lalita.

[alicornucopia]

"You'd better tell Brol fast so she doesn't squeal on him to her boyfriend," Janor tells Kelvok. And to Lalita: "You have an idea what cooperating means, yeah?"

Kelvok gets on the shipwide communicator and has a brief exchange with Brol about leaving the Vulcan girl alone. Brol is begrudging but doesn't announce an intention to disobey.

[dream_me_up]

"Yeah," Lalita murmurs.

The look he gives Kelvok this time suggests much less trouble.

[alicornucopia]

Oh good. Kelvok smirks and offers Lalita his hand.

[dream_me_up]

Lalita takes it.

[alicornucopia]

And off they go.

Kelvok shows him to a room. He gestures at one of the walls - he doesn't speak English, but it's pretty clear he means to indicate Isabella is past it.

[dream_me_up]

He nods hesitantly.

[alicornucopia]

Kelvok smiles.

Predictable nonlinguistic solicitations of cooperation go from there.

[dream_me_up]

Lalita is extremely cooperative.

[alicornucopia]

Good for him.

There is no sound from the adjoining room.

Kelvok is eventually tired of all the cooperation for the time being, and leaves, and locks him in.

[dream_me_up]

He sits quietly for a little while, calculating the odds that he's being monitored right now and examining the room for likely avenues of surveillance.

[alicornucopia]

Apparently the room-shuffling required to put him adjacent to Isabella - presuming he really is - put him in a room without an interior camera, although there are microphones - perhaps originally intended to allow voice commands to the computer, but easily repurposed if they so chose.

[dream_me_up]

So if he wanted to, say, circumvent the lock, all he'd have to do would be keep nice and quiet about it.

That's no trouble.

But he doesn't try it yet. So far they've been surprisingly nice, for Cardassians.

[alicornucopia]

Kelvok's back a few hours later, apparently having had a nap.

[dream_me_up]

Lalita decides to be welcoming.

[alicornucopia]

Kelvok feels so welcomed! He is very pleased with this idea he had. He talks occasionally, in Cardassian, not expecting Lalita to understand him - it's mostly compliments.

[dream_me_up]

Well, that's sweet of him. Lalita is slightly charmed. He hopes he won't end up having to kill this guy.

[alicornucopia]

Kelvok is quite ignorant of that even being on the table. Unless Lalita has been demonstrating unusual-for-humans strength?

[dream_me_up]

His unusual-for-humans brain tells him that that would be a bad idea, not that he really needs augmented cognition to deliver that fairly obvious warning.

Anyway, for now, if Kelvok is going to be sweet then Lalita is going to be sweet right back. And Lalita has a lot of sweetness to offer.

[alicornucopia]

Sweetness all around, then.

This continues in shifts - visits from Kelvok, departures thereby.

The room next door is silent. If Isabella is even sleeping, then the walls are too thick to convey the talking in her sleep that she always does. If she's there.