“Well don’t you just look…glowing,” Blake Pisani quipped as she stepped into the turbolift, hands stuffed into the pockets of her medical jacket.

Racking her brain, Sidda struggled to think of a time she hadn’t seen Blake wearing the light blue labcoat. The doctor had taken the optional part of her uniform and made it a regular item. Though, the extra pockets she was jealous of.

“Successful mission,” Sidda answered as the lift doors closed. “Can’t complain.”

The lift had barely started before Blake guffawed at the comment. “Successful mission huh?” She turned to face Sidda, a hand raising from one of those coat pockets, a finger pointing accusatorially. “I’ve worked with enough Orions to recognise flushed cheeks. And,” Blake squinted, “slightly dilated pupils.”

“I keep my quarters dark and warm,” Sidda protested.

“Uh huh,” Blake replied, her tone indicating her disbelief. “Gul Lemec,” she spat out, bringing the conversation from the personal to the professional with the mere utterance of a name, “right bastard, am I right?”

“Let’s be specific – Cardassian bastard,” Sidda said with a smile and a raised finger. “It’s a very specific type of bastard. And one I’m happily playing.”

“Playing?”

“Playing,” Sidda repeated. “Selu and I won us a nice bottle of kanar, if Lemec is man enough to admit defeat.”

“Kanar?” Blake rolled her eyes. “Vile stuff.”

“Oh totally. But we put it aside, let it age for a bit, then use it in a trade of our own down the line.” Sidda rubbed at her face briefly, checking her palms afterwards. “Going into that briefing, listening to everything, come up with a plan for how we go forward and then make some ridiculous bet with Lemec and I bet I can score us a cask this time.”

“Wait!” Blake snapped out, grabbing Sidda’s wrist and pulling her hand up, palm upwards. “You’re not blushing? Your wearing makeup?”

“Just a touch. Enough to enhance a natural glow,” Sidda answered as Blake let her wrist go free. “Wanted it to be bloody obvious for the good Gul.” As the turbolift slowed, the doors parting on the short hallway that would lead to the conference room, she gave Blake a wink. “After all, if I wanted to walk here, I had to fight Revin off a while ago.”

“And how is my pastry chef?” Blake asked, jogging to catch up with Sidda. “You better not melt her brain. I need those croissants of hers.”

“Goddesses, don’t we all?”

“I have to hand it to you, Commander,” Gul Lemec said, boisterous voice filling the conference room. “You made a scene down there, but you got the data. Central Command is still decrypting it, but I’ve been told what they have should help us put away Administrator Helcta for quite some time.”

“I still don’t like this, or how we went about it,” Captain Charles MacIntyre said from his seat at the head of the conference table. And currently the only person in the room still seated after Lemec had stood when Sidda and Blake had entered. “Surely your civil order people and justice department were working on this already, yes?”

“Come now captain,” Lemec turned on Mac, smiling. “How is the human saying, you scratch my back, I scratch your back?” He waited long enough for Mac to nod in concession. “We know the Helcta Institute had hired this Doctor Shreln, but we don’t where, or what she was working on. And we know the Institute is working with criminal elements, including a tendril of the Orion Syndicate.”

“For shame,” Sidda said in a mocking manner as she walked around, taking a seat to Mac’s left, leaving the seat to his right for Blake. “But lo, an anonymous source has delivered all the secure data records from Helcta’s private terminal and office safe to Central Command.”

“Yes, anonymous,” Lemec said, actually smiling as he stared at Sidda. “I honestly thought your plan was a little…unorthodox for Starfleet.”

“So did I,” Mac half-hissed through gritted teeth. “But when in Rome.”

“Rome?” Lemec asked, pacing slightly. Staying on his feet afforded him a height advantage, which played well with Cardassian superiority complexes and therefore something all of the Starfleet officers were willing to concede to him at this time.

“It’s a human saying,” Mac answered. “And not important. When can we expect a full decryption?”

“Oh, sometime in the next two hours,” Lemec answered as he made his way to the windows, looking out back between the ship’s nacelles. “Which is about how long it’s going to take my yeoman to secure a decent bottle of kanar.” He turned, smiling. “I didn’t forget Commander, just figured I should get a good bottle for my favourite Orion.”

“The sentiment is appreciated,” Sidda answered, offering the sincerest fake smile she could. “But Gul, I’ll take a crappy bottle of kanar if it gets us that data on Shreln even five minutes faster.”

“From everything you shared with me about her and everything that my government was able to corroborate with yours, I’m just as inclined.” Lemec turned full to face them all now. “The woman is a menace and a terrorist.” His tone shifted from his usually jovial ‘gracious host’ routine he’d put on since they arrived in orbit to a much more serious tone. “I want your Starfleet to find her and get her out of Cardassian space as quickly as possible.”

Mac leaned forward, clasping his hands as he turned his head slightly sideways, a question forming, then uttered. “Andryn, is there something you want to tell me?”

“There are elements, old elements of Central Command, who would attempt to weaponise this Doctor Shreln, just based on hearsay. On the evidence you have provided,” Lemec trailed off, then shrugged his shoulders. “A shame we never found her, so sad. Oh, by the way, we had nothing to do with the deaths of thousands or millions of Breen.”

“Or Federation citizens. Must be a Romulan plot,” Blake interjected, sarcasm layered on so thick unfortunate souls a deck below likely drowned in it.

“That is old Cardassia,” Lemec continued. “I want a world with honour in it. So, you will have your information as soon as it’s decoded. And I will delay sending anything further up my chain of command for as long as I can to buy you as much time as possible.”

It was only a few minutes later, Gul Lemec having departed, leaving the conference room with just Mac, Sidda and Blake. “Are we buying this?” Mac asked as he leaned back into his chair.

“No,” Blake spat out instantly.

“I’m inclined too,” Sidda answered, drawing a slow look from Mac but an instant glare from Blake. “Ever seen Cardassian theatre? It’s horrible. Oh, they think they’re all that and the greatest drama writers in the galaxy, but I haven’t met a Cardassian yet that could act their way out of an open airlock.”

That mental image apparently pushed through Blake’s disbelief and drew a single snorting laugh. “Fuck, don’t do that,” she said.

“Make you laugh?” Sidda asked.

“Bitch,” Blake responded with a shake of her head. “Dammit, she’s right. He sounded goddamn sincere.”

“So, he’s a pompous ass, but he’s an honourable pompous ass?” Mac queried, getting a shrug and nod from his first officer. “Trust, but verify. He gives us the decryption, we’ll find what we’re looking for and we get moving. But we verify with Intelligence.”

“The Commodore should have the copied data by now. Give her a few hours to decrypt and get back to us.” Sidda shrugged. “We’ll be underway but not too far to turn around if we have to.”

“Assuming she has the right decryption keys,” Blake added.

“Oh please, she works for that Admiral Beckett spook. She’ll have up-to-date decryption keys for all Cardassian systems. Heck, I wouldn’t be surprised if her’s aren’t better than the ones Gul Andryn Lemec has.” Mac shook his head. “Probably better gear tucked into the walls of DS47 too.”

“Tucked in the walls, the coffee machines, the plants in the galleria.” Sidda once more got a snort from Blake. “But you’re not wrong boss,” she said to Mac. “We’ll get our own version of the data a few hours after at most, accounting for subspace transmission times. Then we’ll know if Lemec is on the up and up.”

“That we will,” Mac said. “Make preparations to get us underway Commander Sadovu.”

He waited for Sidda to stand, a short exchange of pleasantries between her and Blake, then depart, before turning to face Blake. “Problem with Cardassians hun?” he asked.

“No, just Cardassian military types.”

“So…Cardassians,” he reiterated.

“Now who’s stereotyping,” she shot back, then immediately grimaced and shook her head. “Sorry, that wasn’t fair. I know you were teasing.”

“Only just.”

“And it’s really more a problem with paternalistic, patronising, patriarchal bastards.” She stood from her seat and moved over to Mac, waiting for him to push back from the table before sitting in his lap. “This new Cardassia…still looks a lot like Old Cardassia.”

“Just softer and a bit cuddlier.” Mac took the light punch in his arm from Blake in stride. “At least Lemec is working with us, and not against us like Gul Mervek was.”

“Oh not Mervek,” Blake protested. “I think we could blow his ship up and Central Command would actually thank us.”

“You might be right.” He gave her a squeeze around the waist. “Free for lunch?”

“We best hit the Agora.” Blake’s suggestion an answer in itself. “Everyone’s favourite chef went off duty a few hours ago and I suspect your XO hasn’t left her in a fit state for anything. And you need to show your face down there anyway.”

“Yes ma’am,” Mac sighed in mock protest as Blake eventually dragged him to his feet. “Even my downtime is work now.”

“Oh pish! You complain about all this, but you’d happily take it doubled if it was the only way to have your own command.”

“Damn straight,” he answered as they left. “Damn. Straight.”