Lt Jovenan – Along the streets of history
Jovenan
((CO’s office, Ops, DS9))
Jovenan picked up another PADD. They were supposed to find something, eventually, but CloQ’s smug face watching over them constantly didn’t make it any easier for them. Nor did the fact that they didn’t know exactly what they were supposed to find anyway. There was supposedly something that was important, but how CloQ had put it, it might not even be an obvious inconsistency, just something they didn’t know about. And Jovenan likely didn’t know, considering they were likely talking about still undisclosed matters from the time she was an infant.
Jovenan: What are we even looking for? Senator Vreenak? Something about Romulans, or is it something even further back?
The rest of her team were going through the pile of PADDs and the console with her. Each of them looked equally uncertain as her, at least that’s how she interpreted their expressions.
Dakora: Yes. All of the above. Anything involving Vreenak, their meeting, the Romulans… we’ll start wide and narrow it down as we go.
Jovenan sighed inaudibly and took another PADD. They were in a mess. They didn’t know what to look or where, but they just had to do so. CloQ didn’t help, just kept looking at them in their work.
Silveira: Logistics PADD, nothing more here.
Sadar: As far as I can tell... No indications of any Romulans on the station in the past few months, no mention of the Senator specifically. And there’s no Romulan vessels - commercial or otherwise - slated for docking in the near future.
Jovenan was disappointed. She had hoped they could find a clue among the docking records and plans. If the Senator had been here, they’d know that the events were at least related. Instead, they had to seek for the answer in random PADDwork Captain Sisko happened to have on his desk, like the communique Jovenan was reading from the Chancellor of the Klingon Empire…
Actually, hmm.
Jovenan: Does any of you recognize the name Grathon Tolar? Sisko had negotiated him a pardon for death penalty and a release from a Klingon prison.
Some of her team turned to look at her. She might have hit something interesting, although it wasn’t a certainty quite yet. This might have been just a false lead, and they were walking off the right path.
Silveira: That’s a pretty big negotiation. Why?
Sadar: Hardly charity, right? From what I’ve read of Captain Sisko, he doesn’t seem the type, and considering the political climate between Starfleet and the Klingons at this point in time, it had to be vitally important.
Dakora: Grathon Tolar? ::He jabbed a finger at the screen decisively.:: He’s here on the station. Or at least he was at one point. ::He paused.:: There’s a report from the Security Chief that one Grathon Tolar… ::He trailed off for a moment.:: Was held, briefly for the attempted murder of the station’s bartender. He was released after the victim refused to press charges.
Jovenan turned to Talos, who had been studying the console the entire time, and raised an eyebrow. She didn’t always understand the logic behind the offworlder legal systems (Why wasn’t he executed? Was the punishment zone not active?), but she had taken many enough legal courses in the Academy to know that it was sketchy anyway.
Sadar: That would be… The current Grand Nagus’ brother, right? Or am I misremembering?
Jovenan turned her head quickly to Sadar. The investigation involved a relative of a future head of state? That made it more complicated, and it seemed more and more like they might have found what they were looking for… unless there was something even more pressing still hidden.
Silveira: That’s odd. Doesn’t that need to be investigated even if the victim doesn't press charges?
Jovenan: Legally, not necessarily. It’s possible they found a way to conciliate their argument and didn’t have a need to get the law enforcement involved.
Jovenan tried hiding her disgust. Being merciful was a trait she adored in people around her after leaving her homeworld, but letting a person who attempted a murder to walk away seemed unacceptable to her. In her deep-rooted opinion, he should have been executed on spot… just like she should have been after the events on Romulus.
Or had she died already once? With CloQ involved, the world made less sense.
Dakora: Either that bartender was as forgiving as you were with Genkos’ penchant for perforation or something weird is going on here.
As others had joined Talos to take a look on the documents on the console, Jovenan walked to them as well.
Silveira: Commander Adea wasn't himself when he stabbed me. I don't think this is a similar situation.
Jovenan shivered. It had been an awful event she had witnessed.
Dakora: See if the terminal can tell us where Tolar is now. ::He frowned.:: He seems like the only lead we’ve got.
Sadar nodded and began to work. Jovenan looked at the screen over her shoulder, trying to make sense of the map they were seeing.
Jovenan: That’s the bar. He seems to be in the one of the holodecks belonging to it.
That was admittedly odd. Tolar had stabbed the barkeeper but was still using his amenities. Either the bartender was a saint or there was something more going on with the man.
Dakora: Sounds like we need to get down to that Holo-suite and see what he’s up to, then.
Right. Holosuite. They were on a station, so holodecks were called holosuites. Got it.
Silveira: Is there any other background from this Grathon Tolar?
Sadar: None here, Sir, but I’m seeing some peculiar allowances to ‘Quark’, the proprietor of the bar, on behalf of the Captain. A cargo shipment that was detained because of an outdated permit was released without explanation, and the Captain’s personal funds were used to reimburse the bar for ‘loss of business’... Five bars of latinum?
Jovenan raised an eyebrow and looked briefly at the human Starfleet Captain frozen in time. They couldn’t yet say he was involved in some illegal activities, but he certainly looked less like the Saviour of the Alpha Quadrant and the Emissary of the Prophets the history books painted him like.
Jovenan: A compensation for not pressing charges, maybe? Why would the Captain be paying that instead of Tolar himself, though?
Silveira: Are we supposed to find out the hero's clay feet?
Sadar: Cl-Clay feet, Sir?
Dakora: Response
Silveira: It's an old Portuguese expression. An Idol with clay feet. It means that no matter how high the pedestal is, the foundation might be weak.
CloQ: Actually, it’s from the human Christian Bible. It predates your Portugal by several hundred years. ::their eyes flashed at the human:: Not everything you know is Portuguese.
Jovenan looked briefly at CloQ, her eyes full of contempt. She had almost forgotten they were there. She decided to take the conversation back into the right tracks.
Jovenan: Is Mister Tolar alone in the holosuite?
Dakora: Response
Sadar: According to internal sensors, Tolar is in the holosuite with a Cardassian resident of the station, named ‘Elim Garak’. He’s a tailor by profession, but I don’t see any evidence that the two of them knew each other prior to this?
Cardassian? Jovenan didn’t remember all the details of the Dominion War, but she was fairly certain the Cardassians were on the side of the Dominion at this point of the War. Granted, governments rarely represented every individual of their species.
Jovenan: Maybe he’s just trying on a new outfit the tailor had created? Or maybe they’re just spending time together?
CloQ/Dakora/Silveira: Response
Right. They could only do so much from an office, they’d need to go and investigate on the field.
Sadar: Lead the way, Sir. I only hope the turbolifts aren’t frozen in time…
CloQ: Luckily you know a guy.
Good. Although Jovenan didn’t like CloQ much, she wouldn’t have wanted to find out what decades old formerly Cardassian slave-manned station’s maintenance tunnels were like either. The team departed the office, leaving the frozen Captain and his crew behind.
Dakora/Silveira: Response
The turbolifts worked as expected, and the team managed to walk across the Promenade uninterrupted. Jovenan watched all around her as they approached their destination; she hadn’t expected to find the business area of the station quite so lively during the War. DS9 was a subject of several holonovels, but Jovenan had never watched those, so she didn’t have an image of the place beforehand. War stories made her feel sad.
At the centre of the Promenade, the team found their destination.
Sadar: This would be our destination, Sirs.
Jovenan: Oh, so this is the first Quark’s! I never realised it was a single bar here before becoming a franchise.
Dakora/Silveira: Response
CloQ: Welcome sirs!
Surprised, and honestly quite startled that there might have been someone who wasn’t frozen in time with them, Jovenan turned around. To her relief and disappointment, it was just the pseudo-god in a particularly silly outfit.
Dakora/Silveira/Sadar: Response
CloQ: You’re getting so close, but excuse me a moment. I want to go back and watch ::they pointed at Silveira:: this guy getting stabbed again. ::a pause:: I’m adding it to my highlight reel, it’s right up there with the fall of Romulus, the Napoleonic wars and ::they pointed to Sadar:: your violent death.
Jovenan was appalled and shocked of what CloQ had said. She hoped they were referring to the shuttle crash on Romulus and not handing out prophesies. Angered by the fact that CloQ was targeting the one of them who, by her account, needed emotional support more than any of them, she walked closer to Sadar. She stood next to her and put herself between CloQ and Sadar, placing her arm around Sadar’s back, though being careful to keep a little distance from touching her – they were both assassins, but there was no reason for her to abandon her other personal rules and violate the personal area of someone she cared about.
Jovenan: Don’t listen to them, they always lie.
Dakora/Silveira/Sadar: Response
The team located the holosuites upstairs. After a while, they also found the holosuite they were looking for, running an active programme.
Jovenan: This is the one. Do you think we can just, um, open it?
Dakora/Silveira/Sadar/CloQ: Response
As the holosuite doors opened, Jovenan hoped that Tolar and the tailor were in progress of doing something nefarious. She didn’t want to find out the team were breaching their privacy while they were in the middle of something innocent, like a holonovel, a relaxing massage hour or whatever people normally were doing on a holosuite. On Rubicun, they learnt to knock first for a reason.
But when the doors did open, the team was greeted with a surprising sight. With everyone frozen in time by CloQ, she had trouble identifying who was a real person and who was a hologram. Either way, she saw a person operating the holosuite, likely Mr Tolar himself, several Cardassians… and a Vorta.
Jovenan: Wha- what is this?
Dakora/Silveira/Sadar/CloQ: Response
TAG/TBC
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Lieutenant Jovenan
Chief Science Officer
USS Artemis-A
E239911J11