#(so did everything with Zakura and Sui)

[sabraeal]

He Who Studies Evil [Part 3/4]

Part 1 | Part 2

A prequel to Wanting Is More Pleasurable Than Having (And Other Things Vulcans Don’t Know a Damned Thing About), written for @bubblesthemonsterartist. Also many thanks to @claudeng80 for reading this over this whole fic for Star Trek mistakes since it had been...many many years since I’d seen a DS9 episode, and memory alpha can only do SO MUCH

It takes a week for the other shoe to drop.

It had only been a matter of time; tensions were high on Terok Nor, and negotiations had slowed to a crawl. Diplomacy had never interested him quite as much as the other subjects at the academy, and every minute he spends in the board room with Gul Dukat and his cronies, he’s reminded of why.

The prefect seems to take great joy in arguing over every concession, over every word, and at times it’s only Sui’s level head that sees them through the meeting without incident. It’s as if the Gul sees this armistice as a wish on a monkey’s paw -- meant to be worded with the utmost care, or else it will come around and bite you in the end.

Haruka groans. There’s probably some Cardassian saying about that too. God knows he’s heard nearly all of them, sitting across from that man.

“Here he is, Ambassador,” the constable tells him, bringing Shidnote forward with a none-too-gentle shove. “I hope, for your sake, cooler heads prevail in the board room.”

“I’ll see to it they do,” Haruka assures him, catching Shidnote around the elbow. “You know young men and their tempers.”

The constable is a strange looking man, features oddly rounded near the nose and brow, but he still manages a glare that make Haruka hope he won’t be dealing with the constabulary again. “No. I do not.”

The room has been silent for minutes now, Shidnote perched on his torture contraption of a bed and Haruka just standing there, hoping a solution would present itself.

“You may have lost us this treaty, you know,” he manages, though that’s hardly his concern. “I understand how you must feel, cooped up with the Gul and his men day after day, but you cannot just pop off at the first overseer that strikes a nerve.”

“Not to put too fine a point on it, sir--” the word comes out twisted, a mockery -- “but you have no idea how I feel.”

Haruka’s mouth thins. He does not miss being this young, not one bit. “I think you will find I know more than you think. You may tell Councilor Wisteria that if she means to scrub a file, she should hire someone with a better grasp of subterfuge.”

That makes Shidnote take notice, finally.

“I know about Lido,” he says, “and I know about Bajor, and I have suspicions about the Kohn-Ma --”

“I didn’t join the Kohn-Ma,” Shidnote grits out. “I was already fighting against butchers, I didn’t need to become one.”

“That, at least, I’m glad to hear.” Haruka sits, taking the chair at the desk. “I suspect you have your orders, though.”

He grimaces, only for a moment, but it’s enough. “Orders? I’m only --”

“It’s no good, Ensign,” he tells him with a bemused wave, “I know the Councilor too well. She sent me on my own secret mission as well.”

“The kid?” Shidnote asks with a wince.

Haruka nods. “The child, yes. Have you heard anything?”

“Just rumor.” The man shrugs, looking uncomfortable in his operations yellow. “I thought I might hear something a Quark’s--”

“The gambling den?”

His shoulders twitch. “You know how it is, men drink there, get sloppy...”

“A little too sloppy, it seems,” Haruka remarks. The boy flinches. “I won’t be able to take you back in the board room.”

“Oh no,” Shidnote deadpans. “Please. No. You can’t.”

“All right, all right.” He’d laugh, if there were any humor left in him, but Terok Nor has drowned the last of it right out. “Enough of that. There’s no need for theatrics.” He fixes him with a warning look. “I do, however, expect you to stay in your quarters until further notice.”

“But--”

“You may continue your inquiries as long as you take Sui,” Haruka tells him, enjoying the way the ensign’s jaw drops.

“Sui?” he squeaks, incredulous. “But he couldn’t be subtle if the Federation depended on it.”

“You’ll take him anyway. He needs the practice if he wants to go into command.” Haruka gives him a sharp smile. “And besides, I think he’ll be a good influence on you. Now if you’ll excuse me,” he says, creaking up to standing, “I think I have a Ferengi to apologize to.”

He, of course, does not apologize to the Ferengi. Firstly, because the man runs a gambling establishment of dubious legality with dabo girls who are little better than indentured servants, and he is no stranger to hot heads and even hotter tempers; secondly, every Ferengi expects to be consoled in gold-pressed latinum, and there just isn’t room for it in the Federation’s budget. Ever.

Instead, he buys a drink. By his math, that makes him and the proprietor even.

The Gamzian wine hits him quick, and for the first time in days he feels like he can breathe, that whatever muscles have been holding him ramrod-straight this whole time can suddenly relax. He leans over, resting his head on the bar, and lets out a long, heartfelt sigh.

“Feeling all right there, ambassador?” oozes a voice across from him, and perfect, he’s caught his host’s attention. “Not that I want to discourage your continued patronage, but I must remind you that we have a firm ‘no returns’ policy.”

Haruka raises his head, and wonders if the man is suffering from some sort of aphasia. “Excuse me?”

“I mean, if you are going to upchuck, as you humans so quaintly call it, you’ll have to leave.” He tugs at his jacket, as if it gives him some small measure of authority and -- well, it is his bar. He’s probably as close as one comes, in a place like this.

“I’ve only had the one drink,” he replies, annoyance seeping through his words. “I was only...relaxing.”

“Well, now.” The man leans over the counter, as if he’s about to let him in a trade secret. “If relaxation is what you’re looking for, friend, come no further. We have holosuites upstairs with the finest fantasies made by the Brothers Quark.”

Haruka only just manages to bite back a grimace. A night of fantasy conceived by a Ferengi man’s mind seems like something destined to be vulgar, if not disturbing. Taste was not something the Rules of Acquisition required or encouraged.

“I’m satisfied with the drink,” he assures his host. “It’s not even finished.”

“Well, you’re welcome to anything on the menu,” the Ferengi tells him. “Just make sure if you order anything new, you come ask for me, Quark. I am well-traveled, but my brother--” he makes a wavering gesture with his hand-- “We don’t get many of your kind out this way. Wouldn’t want you swilling down poison, now would we? Though I’d still let you buy it, if you wanted.”

“How gracious of you.” Kain must have planned this. There was no other reason how he would end up prolonged contact with a Ferengi.

“Business is business,” he shrugs. “Though I suppose allowing that sort of thing doesn’t exactly encourage repeat business. But the customer is always right. Ah, a complex philosophy.”

It would not be hyperbole to say that poison was looking to be an agreeable option the longer he sat here. “Quite.”

“I’d ask what brings you here, Ambassador, but I don’t think anyone on this station doesn’t know.” This...Quark takes a friendly lean, smile baring the sharp rows of his teeth. “Trying to bring the Cardassians into the Federation, eh? A hard sell, I’d say. They don’t bow to anyone but the Union. And the Obsidian Order, but well, it’s all one in the same really.”

He can only stare, stupefied. Aside from the vendors, there was hardly a person on this station that was not a Cardassian or a Bajoran, and yet a rumor like this had spun up: that after years of firing shots over the border, the Federation would try to bring the limping Union into the fold. If only he could trace those words back, if he could find whether they were words of the fearful Cardassians or the disgruntled Bajorans --

Ah, but it wouldn’t matter, not unless the idea was popular enough to leverage it against Gul Dukat. He may not know much about the Union itself, but he was certain that they had no interest in yielding up Cardassia to any other interests. Conquerors did not often enjoy becoming the conquered.

It would make a certain amount of sense on the Federation’s part, of course; they had managed the alliance with the Kingons decades ago, if not brought them fully in, and doubtlessly it would be part of the long-term plan. However....

He couldn’t see it. They would be lucky for the armistice to happen at all if Gul Dukat kept trying to negotiate as he was, as if the Union were in the stronger position and not merely a smaller force that had thus far gotten lucky in their engagements.

No, not lucky. Their strategies were tight, and their discipline superior to Starfleet. But they lacked the sheer manpower available to the Federation, and eventually those overwhelming odds would come to bear. Cardassia could not continue to lose ships, not as they had been.

“Is that s--?”

“Rom!” Quark snaps, whirling on one of the Ferengi hovering nearby. “Stop staring and get back to work!” He turns back to Haruka with an ingratiating smile. “You’ll have to excuse my brother, ambassador. As I’ve said, he doesn’t get out much. Never seen an adult human before.”

He nearly waves it off -- it wouldn’t be his first time he’s been a physiological oddity, not by a long shot, but -- his breath catches. “An adult human? Do you mean to say he’s seen a child?”

His host hesitates, and Haruka can see the gold-pressed latinum in his eyes. “Why, I have to say, it could be, but...the old memory isn’t working as good as it used to. We Ferengi live a long time, after all. These brains are big but...well...I can’t hold on to everything...unless I think it might be important...”

Let it never be said Haruka doesn’t know the prompt for a bribe when he hears one. He drops a few slips of latinum on the bar.

“Oh, the boy! The human boy!” Quark nods, pocketing the bars. “He’s been here a long while, far as I know. They walk him around the promenade every once and a while, just so we all know what happens when you defy the Union.” He leans in, whispering behind a hand, “Though you’d have to be a fool to keep your children here, if you ask me.”

Only the vestiges of his common sense keep him from flying to his feet, from giving this Ferengi far more leverage than is wise. “Do you know where they keep him?”

“Oh, I couldn’t possibly gu--” a handful of slips drop to the counter -- “the torture cells would be my guess. The constable is no friend of mine, but I doubt he’d let a boy like that in his brig.”

“Thank you,” he says, rising stiffly from his seat. “You’ve been more help than you could imagine.”

Quark’s mouth parts in another of his sharp smiles. “Then might I ask you to consider...a little more gratitude.”

The man leans over, jiggling a tip jar. Oh, how he hates Ferengi.

Shidnote’s barely said “Come in,” when Haruka steps through, taking in the two ensigns seated on the bed, both bent over the same PADD.

“Captain!” Sui yelps, scrambling to his feet. “I’m afraid we haven’t had a lot of time to --”

“Doesn’t matter now,” he snaps, turning his attention to Shidnote. The boy’s getting to his feet, but slowly, a belligerent expression on his face. “Do you know where the torture cells are?”

He blinks. “On a station like this? Sure.”

Haruka steps aside, sweeping his hand toward the door. “Then lead away.”

“Ambassador!” The Cardassian dogs his heels, dodging Shidnote and Sui as they trail along in his wake. “You’re not supposed to be down here! This is a restricted area, for senior officers only!“

Haruka barrels on; it’s the only way to deal with men like this, denying them the inch they need to take a mile. “I’m sorry, I don’t read Cardassian.”

There’s a pack of guards following him, each collected from the doors they watch along the hall, but despite their numbers they do not touch him, only lag just behind him and his ensigns, as if humans dripped poison. Perhaps they might as well, for the dressing down they would get if one of them came to harm.

One does dare, as they approach another door, and Shidnote whacks the hand away, giving him a warning look. “Ambassador, please,” the man tries instead, “you cannot be down here! You must leave!”

“Then arrest me,” he grunts, coming to the one door that doesn’t swish open at his passing. “And if you won’t, then open this door.”

His collection of Cardassians all look at each other, nervous. They must have sent for Gul Dukat by now, but the prefect is not here, and he is. According to protocol, he is the acting authority in this particular hallway, and there is nothing the Union loves more than obeying the hierarchy.

For a long moment, no one moves, as if they think they might be able to wait this out, that Gul Dukat might be able to make himself the through the bowels of this station in time to keep them from having to obey a Federation ambassador.

“You heard him” Shidnote snaps, jerking his head. “Open the door.”

Finally one surges forward, lips pressed so thin that gray turns white, and as the door opens he says, “This will cost me my life.”

It’s dim in this room, and it’s only with the ambient light spilling in from the hall that Haruka makes out the cells which line the wall. As his eyes adjust, he just makes out a small, hunched figure rounded over in a cell. Even through the distorted static of the force field, he sees the wild bristle of a head, the shivering spine of a child.

“You’ll have to excuse me,” he manages, hands fisted so tight his knuckles crack, “but I don’t give a single fuck about your safety.”

Sui and Shidnote slip through the door before him, and in moments Sui is holding up his scanner, face entirely too pale.

“It’s -- he’s human, sir,” he gasps, “and -- and alive.”

“Not for long, if the Cardassians have their way about it,” Shidnote grumbles, pacing in front of the force field like he’s the one caged.

“Open this,” Haruka demands, Still, the Cardassians hang back, somehow less eager to help, even now. “Perhaps I have not made myself here. You have been, at the least, complicit in the illegal incarceration and perhaps torture of a human child under the auspice of the Federation. Your lives will all be forfeit, if you don’t suddenly start being uncomplicit right now.”

That gets them moving.