Author's note: This is set 6 years after the end of the television series. I've never actually read any of the post-series DS9 novels, so some things may be wrong… I've tried to be as consistent as I can, mostly on information I've gleaned from RavenDove's Lily Plague story (read it! It's great!). Please forgive any errors. Any corrections are greatly appreciated.
Disclaimer: All things legally Trek belong to Paramount; all new settings, characters, and situations belong to me. Do not use without permission.
1
"Captain, I'm picking up a ship on sensors."
Kira looked up quickly from her work.
"What kind of ship?", she asked, circling around the console at which she had been working to stand by the ensign at the com.
"It– appears to be Cardassian, sir," he replied, frowning. "But it's not a military vessel. It's too small."
"On screen," Kira ordered.
The viewscreen jumped to life, and, replacing the image of the stars that lay beyond the Bajoran system was the image of a small, battered-looking Cardassian shuttle. It was limping toward the station, or at least appeared to be from her point of view.
"Hail them," she said.
The ensign nodded and sent out a hail, but shook his head after a moment.
"No reply, sir."
"Life signs."
"I'm picking up one, a Cardassian. It's pretty weak, sir."
Kira nodded curtly and turned to her strategic operations officer.
"It is on course for the station, although it appears badly damaged," Dax reported.
"Can you get a tractor beam on it?", Kira asked.
"It will be within range in less than a minute."
"As soon as it is, catch it. Keep an eye on its weapon's systems; I don't want to be taken by surprise." She paused, tapping her combadge. "Kira to Bashir. Meet me at docking port four. Medical emergency."
"Acknowledged," came Bashir's voice over the com system.
"Kira to Security. Send two officers and meet me at docking port four. We have a Cardassian on our hands."
The two security officers stood on either side of Kira and Bashir, their weapons aimed at the docking port doors as the ship was pulled into the moorings and secured. Bashir had his tricorder out and was scanning, a frown on his face.
"Whoever's in there, Captain, I don't think they're any threat," the doctor said.
"I don't want to take any chances," Kira replied.
"Agreed," Ro Laren said from Kira's other side. "We'll go in first."
Bashir looked displeased.
"If that person is injured–"
"They made it this far, doctor. I'm not going to risk you for the life of an errant Cardassian whose motives we don't know," Kira interjected.
Bashir's frowned deepened but he said nothing more as security released the doors and entered the ship, weapons at the ready. Ro glanced around quickly, then called over her shoulder:
"It's all right! And you'd better come in, doctor!"
Bashir hurried in, followed by Kira.
The captain was greeted by the sight a young Cardassian woman slumped in her chair, over the command console of the tiny ship. It looked like both she and her shuttle had taken quite a beating; there was steam hissing from broken vents, and a small fire in the navigational control system, which the security officers quickly stifled. Bashir eased the woman back up, very gently, and Kira was shocked to see that the young woman was really a girl, probably no more than fifteen years old.
"Bashir to infirmary: I need a stretcher and some help down here," the doctor called over the com system, then looked up at Kira. "She'll be fine; she hasn't suffered any serious injury."
Her superficial wounds were enough to concern Kira. The girl was bleeding from a number of cuts, her face was badly bruised, and, by the way Bashir was handling her, it appeared that her left arm was broken. Carefully, the doctor eased the girl into his arms and lay her down on the floor of the shuttle to better examine her.
"Secure the shuttle," Kira ordered her officers. "I want anything suspicious in here found and identified. And get an engineering team down here, too. I want the computer system examined. I want to know where she was before coming here, and any information on what happened to her and why, and what she's doing in Federation space."
Ro nodded as the medical team came in. Nurse Jabara knelt down and helped Bashir lift the girl onto the stretcher.
"Easy, now," Bashir said. "There we are."
The girl stirred slightly, and Kira's eyes snapped back to her, but she didn't awaken.
"Keep me informed, Julian," the captain said.
"Of course," the doctor replied, and led his team away, the girl's unconscious form resting on the hovering stretcher.
Kira turned her attention back to the nearly disabled shuttle and crossed her arms, pursing her lips unhappily. A small Cardassian shuttle with a Cardassian girl in Federation space.
And it had started out as such a dull day, too.
Kira entered the infirmary and found Bashir in a testing area, examining some results with the aid of the computer. He looked up and nodded at her when she stepped into the small room.
"How is she?", the captain asked.
"Still unconscious, but otherwise, no worse for the wear. I haven't tried reviving her; God knows she could probably use some rest."
Kira frowned.
"But she'll be all right?"
"Oh, yes. Although, there are some things I need to talk to you about concerning her."
Kira stepped up beside him.
"What is it?"
"I found an anomaly," Bashir said. "Some of her reproductive organs are absent."
Kira blinked.
"Excuse me?", she asked.
"She isn't able to have children. Look at these scans. You see here, she has the necessary organs to regulate her hormonal cycles, so she has the normal Cardassian female chemistry in that respect, but she's lacking the organs necessary to actually support a child."
Baffled, Kira stared at the medical scans.
"Is that something that can happen naturally?"
"In humans it can, although it's extremely rare, especially now, with gene suppression therapy. I suppose it could happen naturally in Cardassians, although I have no real idea."
"But?", Kira prompted.
Bashir sighed.
"But I'm not sure. I checked her body for evidence that she had these organs surgically removed, but I see no signs of that. What I do see signs of, however, is genetic tampering."
Kira raised her eyes quickly to meet the doctor's.
"What do you mean?"
"I'm not sure yet. I've checked her very thoroughly for genetic manipulation, and, although I am certain it's happened, I cannot find anything definitive, except of course, the reproductive system. But I can't even tell for certain if that was genetically modified."
"What made you look for it in the first place?", Kira asked.
Bashir shrugged and gave her a humourless half smile.
"Medical instinct. Captain, in every respect, this girl is a Cardassian, but something doesn't sit right with me. Something has been done to her; I'm sure of that. There are hints of it throughout her body, but when I examine suspicious sequences carefully, I find nothing unusual."
Kira looked back at the computer display.
"If someone has altered her genetic structure, they seem to have done a good job of it, then."
Bashir nodded.
"Better than I've ever seen," he said. "And believe me, I know a lot about this."
"Keep looking," Kira advised with a sigh. "The engineering team is still searching the ship and going over the records."
"Well, hopefully between us, we can figure out something."
"Can I go in and see her?"
"I don't see why not. She's not responsive, though."
Kira nodded and headed toward the doorway, stepping into the small room where the Cardassian girl was resting. She looked better now, with her bruises gone, her cuts sealed, and her broken arm repaired and resting in a sling to keep it still while she was unconscious.
Kira approached the bed and looked down. Healed, the girl didn't look any older than she had when Kira had first seen her. Again, the Bajoran wondered what in the world a Cardassian adolescent was doing so far from home, and why she had arrived at DS9 unconscious and injured.
With a sigh, Kira shook her head and left the room. The girl was giving no answers, and Bashir had only provided her with more, and disturbing, questions.
She wondered if she should contact the Cardassian government, and a warning flare went off in her head, as a feeling of discomfort settled into her stomach. While Bashir had spoken of medical instinct, Kira had command instinct, and decided that contacting the Cardassians now would lead to results she wouldn't like. There was only one person in the Cardassian government whom she could trust, and it would be difficult to get through to him. But perhaps Garak could be of service. Even if he had no idea who the girl was and why she had come here, Kira knew he could find out fairly easily and, above all, discreetly.
She decided to go see the engineering team first, before pulling someone else into this mystery, and headed back to docking bay four.
"Captain," Nog said, looking up from his work.
"What have you got, Lieutenant?"
"Nothing that you're going to like, sir," he replied grimly, pulling himself to his feet and shaking his head. "Most of the records have been erased, but we've been able to patch some of them together. The flight plan, for instance, as well as some information from the flight recorder. Come with me."
She followed him to a console, where he called up a display, and vaguely wondered if her whole day was going to be like this: files explained to her by various specialists.
"This is her original flight plan, as far was I can tell. She started from Retros V, which is in Cardassian space, but the system itself is very sparsely populated. From what we know, it's only a handful of scientists who live out there, studying whatever's there to study. You see it took her out of Cardassian space, but not through any heavily populated areas; she was deliberately keeping to the backwater systems. And here," he pointed to the screen, "She took herself right into the Badlands."
Kira raised her eyebrows.
"How long was she in there for?"
"At least a week, which accounts for most of the damage to her ship."
"A week. A teenage girl piloting around the Badlands by herself for a week."
"I don't think she was alone all of the time, sir," Nog said in a dark voice. "I had a team examine the scorch marks on her hull, and analyze the signature patterns. She was fired on, and by at least one Cardassian vessel."
Kira stared at him.
"What would possess a Cardassian ship to fire on one of its own small shuttles?"
"I don't know, sir."
"Can you tell me anything else?", Kira asked.
"Her flight here wasn't an accident. She had this destination programmed into her computer since she left Retros V."
Kira shook her head.
"Well, keep looking, Lieutenant. Thank you."
Leaving him, she found Ro, who was talking to two more security officers, and dismissed them when she saw Kira.
"Anything, Lieutenant?", she asked.
"Nothing, sir. We've been searching this ship top to bottom and all we found were some personal effects. We've scanned it three times already and there's no hint of anything dangerous on board, or any smuggling compartments."
"What about the weapons?", Kira asked.
"We checked her systems, and they aren't even on par with standard Cardassian equipment. Whoever built this shuttle designed it for short runs in safe systems, not for combat. She was lucky she had the Badlands to hide in, otherwise, the Cardassians who fired on her would have obliterated her."
Grimly, Kira nodded.
"Report to me when you've finished your investigation," she said, and Ro nodded.
"Of course, sir."
With a sinking feeling that this day was just going to get longer and longer, Kira left the shuttle again, and went in search of Quark.
Two strips of gold-pressed latinum clinked gently on the counter in front of Quark. He looked down at them, then up at Kira, who was standing across from him, looking displeased. As usual.
"What can I do for you, Captain?", the bartender inquired smoothly.
"I think the question is what can we both do for each other?", Kira replied.
"What do you mean?", Quark asked.
"I need your services, now, and discreetly. Not only am I willing to pay, but I'll also overlook those crates of smuggled Romulan ale you're planning to ship to Cardassia."
"I don't know what you're talking about," Quark replied.
"Good," the captain said. "Make sure that state of ignorance keeps up."
"What do you need?", Quark asked.
Kira leaned closer to him, lowering her voice.
"I need to talk to Garak, now, and without anyone else knowing."
Quark arched an eyebrow.
"I think we have a deal. Come with me."
He led her back into the storeroom and took several minutes to ensure a secure channel, then put a call through to Garak. Kira didn't bother questioning how he had Garak's contact information. The less she knew, the better.
"I'll leave you now," the Ferengi said and backed away graciously.
Kira held her breath unconsciously until Garak's face appeared on the screen.
"Captain!" he said, surprise in his voice. "How good to see you again. What can I do for you?"
"I was hoping you'd ask that," Kira replied. "I need your help."
"Of course," the Cardassian replied.
"Do you know anything about the Retros system?"
Garak frowned.
"I'm afraid I don't, Captain. Why?"
"Because a Cardassian girl just arrived on my station from Retros V via the Badlands. Her ship was badly damaged, and she was injured. She was attacked, Garak. By a Cardassian warship."
Garak's dark eyes widened in surprise.
"This the first I've heard about this," he assured her.
"Well I need you to find out what's going on. This girl planned a deliberate flight path from Retros through the Badlands to DS9. I need to know why, and I need to know why your people were firing on her."
"Are you sure she sustained Cardassian fire?" Garak asked.
Kira pursed her lips grimly.
"My engineers know Cardassian weapons signatures when they see them," she said.
"Good point, Captain. I assure you, I will find out what I can and get back to you."
"Make sure the channel is secure," Kira warned. "I don't want anyone else knowing she's here."
"I think, Captain, that goes without saying."