#and then Zakura and Sui came along for the ride

[sabraeal]

He Who Studies Evil [Part 1/4]

A prequel to Wanting Is More Pleasurable Than Having (And Other Things Vulcans Don’t Know a Damned Thing About), written for @bubblesthemonsterartist for her for birthday. I’m already sorry about how unlivable she’s going to be now since she’s getting a 10K multichapter.

It would be no surprise to any of Haruka’s crew that their captain had placed at the top of his class at the academy. Valedictorian, though he’d declined to speak at graduation. There had been other, more popular options for them to pursue, and even then he had known -- his place wasn’t in the spotlight. It was just to the left, seated with the others graduating with honor, watching the real star burn brightly on the stage.

Ah, well. A man didn’t reach his age without a few regrets.

In all his time at the academy, he’d built a reputation for himself; not as the one with the highest test scores -- though he had those as well -- or the one with the best flight rating, but instead as the youngest cadet to ever memorize the whole of Starfleet’s General Orders and Regulations, able to cite them nearly verbatim by the end of his first year. It had not been a choice that made him popular with his classmates, especially not those who shared his ethics seminars, but it had prepared him well for the rest of his student career. There was no text an instructor could assign that was more dry, more boring than the rules that governed Starfleet, and even when every other cadet struggled with the coursework, he had forged ahead, remembering how many times he had nearly fell asleep when trying to memorize the uniform regulations for species with more than four appendages.

Which is why there is no reason at all for him to be stuck like this, rereading the same three sentences in a work of fiction.

“Captain?”

The book snaps shut; it annoys him to note that it is a satisfying noise, as he’d been told it would be.

“Ensign Sui,” he intones ponderously, enjoying how it makes the boy straighten in his uniform. He’s from a good family, Starfleet for generations, but he’s a bit meeker than the academy usually mills out; one of their many prodigy students that probably graduated a bit too early for their own good.

That’s why he’d taken him in: good stock, plenty of promise, only needing a firm hand to help him up to captainship. In a few decades, of course. The boy’s practically shivering in excitement just from being able to fly the runabout.

“Zakura says we’ll be docking soon. We’re just waiting for the Cardassians to clear us.”

Haruka leans, just slightly, catching the dark head in the runabout’s cockpit. Ensign Shidnote, soon to be Lieutenant Junior Grade if he can keep on the straight and narrow. Which he had, so far as he had seen. Quiet boy, a little older than Sui, but dependable. And his flight scores weren’t anything to sniff at either.

“Well, that will take an age.” He gives the boy a tight smile. “You two best get comfortable up there. This sort of position jockeying is how little dogs show their bite.”

He settles back, bench creaking beneath him, and Haruka casts a wary glance at the novel in his hand. The thing is as thick as three fingers, and he hadn’t bothered to mark his place --

Ah, it can’t matter too much, can it? Not with a story like this.

“Is it good?”

His head jerks up, finding Sui lingering just at the edge of the seating, awkward. “Pardon?”

“The book you’re reading,” the boy clarifies, looking like he might break into a sweat just attempting this conversation. “Is it good, sir?”

He’s been at this job long enough to know that saying the answer just at the tip of his tongue would be a mistake. “It’s very...different,” he settles for, instead. The diplomatic thing would be to lie, he knows, but he’s made his career on being earnest, on saying the thing that needs to be said whether it is politik or no. “Have you ever read a repetitive epic, Ensign?”

His grimace says more about its appeal than words ever could. “Ah, I can’t say I--”

The comm chirps on the runabout’s console, loud even outside the cockpit. Ensign Shidnote is the one to take it, his shaggy head bending, hand pressed to his ear. It’s only because he’s watching that Haruka sees it, that sudden stiffness in his shoulders, as if someone replaced them with a single, metal rod.

“Understood,” he says, terse. “Captain, there’s a call for you. From Starfleet Command.”

Haruka rocks to his feet, hard as if the gravity on the shuttle heavy as the air on Vulcan, and he gives the boy a nod. “Put it through.”

“Yes, sir.” Shidnote throws a surreptitious glance at his copilot. “Hey, Sui, I think it’s time we handled that thing in cargo now.”

The boy blinks, guileless. “The thing in cargo? But there’s nothing in there but--?”

Shidnote huffs out a breath, annoyed. “No, Sui. The thing. Remember?”

Haruka’s heard reports from Security about Ensign Shidnote; he’s a non-traditional recruit, only just joined a few years before and hurried through the courses on his last ship, no time at the academy at all --

And he’s a natural at subtlety. A good thing, since he needs to be subtle for two with Sui around.

The ensign’s gaze flickers over to Haruka, then to Shidnote, and back again before he manages, “Oh yes. The thing. The thing in cargo, which is not here.”

The expression Shidnote wears could only be termed long-suffering. Someone would be earning that promotion to junior grade just from this shuttle ride alone. “Yes. That.”

“Don’t take long,” Haruka tells them, settling into the pilot’s chair. “We’ll be docking whenever the Cardassians see fit to give us clearance, remember.”

“Be sure to let us know when that happens, sir,” Shidnote says, a little more wry than Haruka would call good for his career. Maybe it’s not such a surprise he’s been stuck at ensign for this long, if he’s this well acquainted with sarcasm in front of his superiors. “We’ll come running.”

Left alone, it’s easy to hear the soft creaking of the shuttle, the soft whirring of its systems. It’s both comforting and unsettling, a reminder that for all the Federation’s shine and chrome, only a few access panels and life support keep him from feeling the crushing vacuum of space.

Haruka shakes himself. He’s stalling.

With a flick of his wrist, Kain’s grim face resolves on the screen, his square jaw and precision-cut hair saying Starfleet Command more than any of his pips could. It’s only been weeks since he last saw him, but already there’s more white at his temples, the burnished gold of his hair ceding to time.

“Haruka!” Kain’s face is transformed when he smiles, no longer the grave Commander-in-Chief, but instead the popular, carefree young man he had known at the academy. The one who had so easily winnowed notes out of him after staying up all night, flirting with the female cadets at the bars off-campus; the one who he had so easily given up his speaking spot to, when the faculty had offered it to him. “It’s good to see you’ve reached neutral space intact.”

The camera adjusts, and then a fairer face resolves next to his, her mouth smiling yet tense. It’s been years since the academy, but to his eyes, Haruto Wisteria has hardly aged a day.

His fingers curl tightly around the book, the cover digging sharply into his fingers. If only that speech had been only thing he’d given up for Kain.

“Thus far,” he replies, mouth ticking up into as much of a smile as he ever allows. “We’re still waiting for clearance to dock. Plenty of time for accidents to happen.”

“I wouldn’t expect it.” Haruto’s voice is as clear across the light years as it has ever been, eyes bright as they meet his. “The Obsidian Order has doubtlessly been giving you a...quiet escort since you crossed out of Federation space. To avoid any...misfortune.”

She is right, of course, but he can’t help but add, “Or assure it.”

“The Union doesn’t allow the Order any vessels,” Kain tells them, mouth pulled thin. Haruto glances at him, pointed, but he knows better than to look back, to give any sort of hint of conspiracy or mocking. Kain is cross enough as it is. “And even if they did, they’d be dogging you coattails, trying to keep you from even getting a ding on that hull. The Cardassians have put up a good fight, but they’re stretched thin, not matter what the Union wants to believe. They need this deal to go through.”

He nods. “I’ll keep that in mind, sir.”

“Make no mistake, we need this too, Haruka.” Kain fixes him with a heavy look. He doesn’t know what’s happening back on Earth, but it’s left both Starfleet’s commander and one of the Federation’s most prominent Senators looking tense. Too much so for comfort. “The Federation is eager to end hostilities with Cardassia. We’re by no means as pressed as they are, but there’s no need to be wasting the resources we are on a sector with no strategic advantage.”

And they were willing to sacrifice Bajor to do it. No wonder they weren’t sending Bergatt on this one -- he was the obvious choice for a flex of their military might, the perfect presence to force Cardassia to stand down after the admiral spear-headed the defense at the border, but --

It makes sense now, why they would pick him, a man who had never seen a Cardassian in anything more realistic than a holodeck module. He was supposed to be neutral, unaffected by sentiment. He wasn’t supposed to care what the Cardassians did with the Bajorans, just as long as the Federation got to withdraw their forces.

He looks up, meeting Haruto’s steady gaze, a message heavy in her eyes.

Maybe that’s just what the Federation wants Starfleet to think. “Of course.”

“We have ‘em on the ropes,” Kain pushes, miming the fight with his fists. “You just have to make sure we don’t get screwed in the deal. Just--”

A chime sounds over the link, and all at once the humor falls from Kain’s face, leaving only harsh, forbidding grimness behind.

“Excuse me, Haruka. It seemed something else has come up.” He lets out a long sigh. “Well, I trust my wife can impress the importance of the situation on you, if I haven’t already.”

“I do have a reputation for being quite convincing, when I want to be,” she reminds him, smiling up with a doting expression. Haruka wishes he didn’t know her so well, that he couldn’t tell just how much of this was an act, a performance of appeasement for a man who could suffer no fault.

“I’ve always found that to be so,” he offers, letting his tone take more of a point than he would normally dare. A lesser woman would have looked alarmed, but Haruto only turns her head, just so, so that he may read her reproach on every feature.

Kain’s far too distracted to notice, just as he’d thought. “Good. I’ll leave it to you, then.”

The door swishes shut, and there he is, as alone as a man can be on a runabout with two ensigns valiantly pretending they can’t hear a conversation only one wall away with her. Even after all this time, it still feels too intimate, too dangerous.

She smiles, and it’s too warm, too much. “Hello, Commander. It’s be a while, hasn’t it?”

“I’ll try not to cause any interplanetary incidents while I’m there,” he assures her. “You don’t need to remind me, Councilor.”

“I would never presume,” she hums primly. “How are you enjoying the gift I sent you?”

His eyes dart down, staring at the blue cloth cover, and he tries to estimate how much of this story he could probably guess at, if she asked. “It’s certainly...interesting.”

“The Never-Ending Sacrifice is considered the pinnacle of classic Cardassian literature.” He remembers this tone, the one she would take teaching one of her classes, back when that was what she did, instead of -- this. “It’s the quintessential repetitive epic.”

“It certainly is repetitive.” He must be getting used to all this diplomacy claptrap, if he could say that with a straight face.

Haruto’s mouth breaks into a wide smile, a real one. Ah, how he wishes he couldn’t tell. “I always did prefer the enigma tales, myself.”

He looks at her, taking in the innocence of her face, even now all these years later, as if she’s hardly aged a day since he was nineteen -- and he knows what a cunning mind lays underneath. A secret few do, and none of them her husband. “You don’t say.”

Her mouth curls with the barest amusement, only a hint of the sly woman that lies beneath. “I do hope, at least, that it had given you some perspective on the philosophy of Cardassia.”

“Some,” he agrees, though they cannot possibly be as dull a people as this confounding novel suggests. “It is clear how duty to family was so easily conflated with duty to the state after the Union was formed. You only need to replace every instance of ‘obey the elders’ with ‘obey the state,’ and you have an accurate summary Cardassian current affairs.”

“Mm.” Her mouth tilts, wry. “But I would refrain from such observations while you’re with your most generous hosts.”

He scoffs, shaking his head. “I doubt we’ll have much time to exchange philosophy, Councilor.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure,” she warns him. “Cardassian culture views mealtimes as the perfect opportunity to exchange opinions, and doubtlessly they are interested on your views of them.”

“Of course.” He lets out a bitter laugh. “A bigot is easier to fool than a wise man.”

She inclines her head, pleasure sparking in her eyes. “As you say.”

A silence falls between them, and it’s far too comfortable, too nostalgic to let sit.

“I was, however, surprised about the devotion to children.” His fingers drum on the book’s cover, trying to cover his nerves. “The children are our future. Not something I had expected to see out of the Union.”

“They don’t give off that air of proud parents, do they?” Her mouth tilts with amusement. “It’s funny how you can be fooled by something like...”

She hesitates, and for a moment he sees her unsure, nearly nervous. “Haruka, we must -- we must talk about something else.”

He arches a brow. “Yes, Councilor?”

“No, not as -- not in our professional capacity.” She sends an uncertain glance toward the door. “I must talk to you in confidence.”

His heart pounds. He’s not -- he’s not ready for a conversation like this, for his suspicions to be confirmed when he is so far away, about to undertake a task with such importance.

“Of course,” he says even so, too eager. He will always be weak for her. “Whatever you need of me.”

She inches closer to the screen, until all he can see is her face, until all he can see is the worry in her eyes.

“There are rumors,” she breathes, eyes pleading, “that there is a member of the Federation incarcerated on that station.”

He blinks. Of all the things he thought she might tell him... “Terok Nor? It’s just a refinery station, convenient to get to, but not -- not a military installation.”

She nods. “That is what the Federation has heard as well. However, it also seems to have other...duties that it sees to, being so close to Bajor.”

He wouldn’t doubt it; from what he’d read, the Cardassians were pragmatic about such things. No need to ship pesky rebels far from home to torture them, not when an abattoir was in every home.

Haruka shakes his head. It wouldn’t do to think of them in unflattering hyperbole, not when he would be spending the next foreseeable forever ironing out an armistice everyone was eager to have, but reluctant to compromise for.

“I’m not sure what you think I can do,” he says instead. “Prisoners of war are not--”

“No, not a prisoner of war.” She raises a hand to brush back hair that has come loose, and he can see how it shakes. “It is a child.”

There might as well not be air in this runabout. A child. A Federation child. “I’m sure that can’t be true,” he hears himself saying. “Not when they revere children above all else--”

“Cardassian children.” There is something terrifying in her now, ruthless. “And what would you do to an enemy’s child, if you truly believed they were their future?”

He has never heard her be so forthright, so dire, but he cannot deny that her words make a frightening sort of sense. If each child was a priceless treasure to the Union, then to deny them to their enemies was --

Was unthinkable.

“Please, Haruka.” It has been so long since she’s spoken to him in that tone, since they stood outside the academy as she said, please understand. “I know it’s a lot to ask, but only -- only keep your ears open. I don’t know how accurate our intel is in Cardassian space but -- just in case.”

He lets out a long breath, but the tension in his chest stays, choking his lungs, his heart.

“What did I say, Haruto?” The name feels strange in his mouth, and it’s only then he realizes how long it has been since he’s said it, since it’s been safe to. “I will do whatever you need of me.”