Mary Jane's Last Dance | An Aisha Marc Story

[Naota East]

Prologue

---

Wilem Jenner
Crewman, Starfleet
USS Kyushu
Born 2350
Died 2367
“A Good Soldier”

The words on the tombstone stared back, time and and the Martian sands having weathered the stone. The letters were faded behind a shroud of red dust but it didn’t matter. She knew what it said.

More than that, she knew who it was a memorial for.

She avoided the Sol System when she could, but could never avoid coming here when she did visit.

Standing in a sea of graves. Wondering why she was so touched or so cursed as to have lived when others hadn’t.

She’d just received her commission, coming from initial training to her first posting as the Chief Tactical/Security Officer for a New Orleans-class starship. The capstone to what had been an enlisted career spent in the armory and forensics lab. To not be part of a security force, but to lead a security force. It was supposed to have been the end to a dream and the start of an adventure.

The ship had arrived at Earth for a brief maintenance period at McKinley Station. Crewman Wilem Jenner had come to the ship straight out of basic training. Barely seventeen, little more than a boy and so awkward as he fumbled into what it was to serve in Starfleet.

He had belonged to her.

...and then the Borg had reminded her just how powerless, how meaningless, her rank and title were.

She couldn’t save him. She hadn’t been able to save any of them

She’d had a security force of sixty trained peace officers. Fifty-three were marked by headstones, scattered around one corner of a Martian memorial that had been set aside for the fallen crew of the late USS Kyushu.

A small ship. She knew every name. Maybe not well, but enough to put a face to a name.

His stood out the most, even in a graveyard in which his headstone wasn’t any different from a hundred in a sea of marble. It stood out to her.

Kneeling down, the elder Trill woman brushed her hand across the front of the small, white stone to clear away the dirt. Turning the palm toward herself, the woman stared down at the hand now stained red from the Martian dust.

He’d been about the ship for three days. He’d only been in Starfleet for six weeks.

He’d deserved more – she’d owed him more – than just a plaque that read ‘a good soldier.’

“‘Out damn spot,’” the woman whispered quietly, folding her fingers down over the palm and holding the fist against her chest as she eased herself back up to her feet. The familiar pains of joints – her left knee in particular – stabbing at her as the tired veteran stood and looked over the field of graves.

Another black uniform stood out against the red clay landscape, the Trill’s short, fading blonde hair flitting in the breeze as Aisha looked up with the realization of someone standing off a respectful distance away.

By his body posture, he’d been there for awhile. Too polite to interrupt.

She imagined that if anyone understood, it would be a survivor of the Galitop Labor Camps.

Looking down at her hand, still clutched to her breast, Aisha caught another glimpse of the hand stained red. Lowering her arm, the middle aged Trill brushed the palm against the dark trousers as she casually began making her way through the graves toward the vedek.

“Beg’n your pardon, Chief,” Tal Hobis intoned, his deep baritone inflected with the strange mix of accents that made him... him. “Ah wouldn’t want to interrupt...”

“It’s fine, sir,” Aisha remarked brusquely, wincing inwardly even as she caught the sound of her own voice. Folding her hands in front of her at her waist, the Trill tried to give the vedek a wan smile.

When she’d accepted an invitation to help shepherd a ship of doctors and nurses for the Rorkal-Valentz humanitarian mission, Aisha hadn’t expected such a colorful cast of characters as she’d found in the USS Hope. One that, strangely, had gotten the job done; and been effective enough that the vedek now bore the bar of a brevet captain on the collar of a newly replicated red shirt.

When the Federation starship Hope left Utopia Planetia, the Bajoran expat would be staying with it rather than going back to Texas.

“Starfleet Security’s lookin’ fer you. Somethin’ bad too. Had seventeen calls from someone named Van-a-wa-loo.”

The drop of the name caught the woman’s attention, but she kept her expression neutral. “Thank you, sir. I’ll report in immediately,” Aisha said, in what she hoped was a softer tone of voice.

Awkwardly, the Bajoran vedek-turned-officer seemed at an impasse as to whether to say something more or just leave. Seeing his hesitation, Aisha decided to be the one who’d make the next move.

“You know, sir... you could have just called.”

The look on the Bajoran’s face showed a moment of relief at the opening she’d given him. Clearing his throat with a sound that seemed half of an awkward laugh, the Texan chaplain said, “Yeah. Yeah, Ah could have. Didn’t like that option though.”

Inclining her head, the Trill bowed her head in respect to the man and then straightened back up. “I should get going.”

Tal Hobis cleared his throat a second time.

“Chief, Ah hope you’ll forgive an old man for being a little forward, but... Ah’d be remiss if Ah didn’t ask fer your comm channel.”

An actual smile slipped across the Trill’s wisened face. “Captain of the Federation starship Hope,” Aisha intoned playfully, stepping around the man and then giving him a look back from over her shoulder. “Don’t worry, sir. I’ll find you.”

And then she walked away.

From Tal Hobis.

From Wilem Jenner.

From a graveyard of friend’s names and a memorial to regrets mourned for the last twenty years.

There was always another duty to perform. Another case, another assignment, another reason to put one foot in front of the other. And keep walking.

[Naota East]

Chapter 1

---

Starfleet on the bay.

The Presidio in San Francisco. The smell of the sea, the Golden Gate Bridge, and the hum of air trams buzzing through traffic overhead. It was a picturesque stroll down memory lane for anyone who had served time in the uniform and Aisha was no exception. Glimpsing at the faces of cadets and new enlisted recruits, wondering if she had ever been that young, and questioning where the time had gone in the decades since she'd counted herself among the inexperienced aspirants of Starfleet's future.

It was a bittersweet reminder of times, both past and present. The inconvenient truth of her age revealed in how people stepped aside for her - cadets, recruits, lieutenants, and even one commander - as the fifty something Trill made her way through the halls of Starfleet's Security Division headquarters, traversing the labyrinth of corridors until she'd descended into the forensics crime unit tucked away in the basement.

The utopian ideals of humanity. The high civilization of Vulcan. The honor of the Andorians. The steadfastness of the Tellar. It was no wonder that the division dedicated to pursuing the antithesis of society's values would be shoved under the proverbial carpet. Out of sight, out of mind. Going about their duties unseen as they investigated things the people above didn't care to talk about over dinner.

"Holy shit. That's got to be the first time I've ever seen you in uniform."

Coming out of the small lounge, a well-stained porcelain cup of coffee in hand, the human warrant officer stood there looking at her as though she had grown three heads. If not for the office being located in one of the most secure parts of Starfleet Headquarters, it wouldn't have been recognizable as a military organization. Agents of all species mulled and mingled through the sea of cubicles and work stations in casual wear, Starfleet communicators the only outward sign of their service affiliation that all of them shared.

Leveling a cool glare over at the man, the Trill paused to look the Hawaiian shirt attired man over before she spoke. "Some of us volunteer for real jobs now and again."

"I'm just saying, I've known you for ten years," the man stated, taking a long sip of his coffee before he added, "I didn't think you knew how to replicate one."

"I'm surprised you know what one looks like now. When was the last time you wore one?"

"The collar-less unitard. Though I usually went for the male skirt version."

Giving a short laugh, Aisha could only shake her head. "Why doesn't that surprise me?"

"Marc, the Frak are you wearing?"

Rear Admiral Van Awalu was an Iotian. Outwardly, he looked like a human with a Chicago-Sicilian accent like one would expect from an old gangster movie, complete with leather fedora and a well-chewed cigar that seemed surgically attached to his hand. Professionally, he was the head of Starfleet's criminal investigations division. He was also a man wound so tight that he seemed like he was going to stroke out three times in any given conversation.

The cigar darting through the air with the harried motion of his hand, the admiral made a dismissive gesture toward Aisha's uniform and said, "Don't answer that. Here's a better question. You think I called you down here, 'oh captain, please send me my own Fraking agent whose Fraking off on your Fraking ship' just so you can shoot the shit with Henderson over coffee?" the Iotian barked hoarsely, as Aisha wondered just what the man's blood pressure was. Sticking the cigar back in his teeth, the admiral made a sweeping gesture into his office as he muttered loudly, "You want a Fraking invitation? Get the Frak in here!"

By the time that the Trill woman had crossed into the admiral's office, the goodfella was seated behind his desk - which was a jumble of padds. The monitors on the wall behind him displayed the status of the 'most wanted' lists being maintained by seventeen different Federation member worlds. No sooner had she entered than the Iotian's hand had come up to pluck the cigar from out of his mouth.

"I've got cases to move and I get this polite note by this nice doctor-admiral that one of MY senior agents is off babysitting a bunch of Fraking n'er-do-wells with a goddamn Miran for a captain of all Fraking things," the admiral barked, jabbing a meaty finger at the woman. Then, raising both hands, the man gestured toward his head as he added, "Twenty-seven years, I've never had a 'what-the-Frak' moment quite like that."

Aisha thought about making a comment as to 'permission and forgiveness,' but then decided against it and simply tucked her tongue against the side of her mouth as she braced herself mentally to simply let the admiral burn himself out.

"So you're back? Ready to work? Vacation's Fraking over?" the Iotian snapped, grabbing the cigar with his teeth again to free his hand to instead snatch up a padd and toss it over to her. "Good, you can get this off my desk."

Thankfully, experience had told her that had been coming. Otherwise, there was no way Aisha would have been prepared to catch that padd. And definitely not in a mood to where she wanted to give the admiral any other reasons to declare open season on Trills.

Turning the device over in her hands, the speckled warrant officer called up the display and found herself thumbing through the personnel bio of an Academy student. Then a gap in her attendance. Finally a missing persons report. It was the date on the latter that had Aisha's attention at the moment. "This missing person's report was filed more than a year ago," the woman noted aloud, glancing up from the padd to the cigar-chewing gangster behind the desk. "What am I supposed to do with this, sir?"

"As of an hour ago, it's a murder," the admiral answered gruffly, pulling the cigar from out of his teeth as he explained, "Hikers in Florida discovered her remains. She last logged a transport to Miami for shore leave. I want you to get out of that Fraking clown suit, get down there, and then find out what she was doing there and who she was with."

Nodding, the Trill tapped the side of the padd against the palm of her free hand. "Yes, sir."

She'd only just turned around when she heard the admiral call out.

"Chief."

Turning, the Trill saw the Iotian looking - if at all possible - even more upset than was usual.

"I don't like dead Starfleet officers and I like dead cadets even less," the man spat flatly. "I want that case closed."

[Naota East]

Chapter 2

---

The heat greeted Aisha the second that she'd stepped out of the airtram, already feeling herself beginning to sweat as her body reacted to suddenly being far and away from the temperate coastal temperatures of the San Francisco bay. Reaching up both hands, the seasoned Trill cop slid a pair of sunglasses over her eyes as she paused to get her bearings.

The speckled veteran had exchanged the official outfit of the Federation Starfleet for her usual uniform. She wore a white, long-sleeved, button-up blouse that was untucked, it's length hanging over just enough to cover the compact EM-33P that was soft holstered over her right hip, and a pair of gray tactical cargo pants with hiking boots that were well broken in. Her commbadge was in her pocket, along with her credentials. She had a civilian wrist commlink on her left arm that was keyed to the appropriate law enforcement and security channels. The commbadge drew too much attention. Starfleet Headquarters insisted on it, but at Starfleet Headquarters you needed to be in uniform in order to get anyone to even give you the time of day.

Things didn't work like that outside of Starfleet Headquarters.

Aisha had landed the tram in a wooded area, with trails splitting off in three directions. The area wasn't too well kept, but there wasn't a lot of overgrowth either. Looking around, the woman could see a handful of hikers. And it was afternoon on a Wednesday. Safe to assume this was a fairly well trafficked area. A rather public place for a murder.

Mary Jane Dixon was lying under a white tarp, buried in a shallow grave at the foot of a slight, rolling hill that was blanketed in leaves. Heavy rainfall had washed out the top soil and exposed the remains. A family of campers had literally stumbled across the corpse playing frisbee. They'd called the local cops, who'd called Starfleet when their tricorders had pinged a match on the DNA.

If Aisha thought that time hadn't been kind to her, Mary Jane had definitely seen better days. Heat, parasites, predation, and a number of other factors contributing to a rather harshly decomposed body from which the Trill was left to try and reconstruct a crime.

The knife blade broken off between the third and fourth rib took the mystery out of murder. She'd been stabbed. Five, maybe seven times, judging by nicks in the bone.

Excavating the body carefully, the Trill worked methodically. The cadet's clothing had been replicated, the recycling technology producing a stable - if temporary - fiber that hadn't held up well so that there were only tatters of disintegrating fabric to try and guess at what Mary Jane had been wearing. The ring of plastic around her wrist was a different story.

A wristband for entrance into a club.

The cadet had only been sixteen.

Aisha found the fake ID under the girl's left hip.

* * * * *

Vulcan Emotional Underground was a club on the historic A-1A beachfront avenue. The discordant beats trickled out through the doors, the bright lights and clientele making it clear that this was a game for the young. The club branded their logo on the wristbands that they used. The same logo that had been on the band around Mary Jane Dixon's wrist.

The bouncer at the door was a Tellarite and had the mouth to prove it. "Lost, grandma?"

"Yeah, I can't seem to find my bacon," the Trill quipped, even as she smoothly flipped her credentials out for the porcine creature to see. "Why don't you get out of my way before I take it out of your hide."

Holding up his hands, the Tellarite simply stepped aside.

Descending into the disco from hell, Aisha found herself squeezing into a crowd of party-goers each trying to talk above the music, that was in turn played at a volume so to be heard over the sound of the people in the club. The kind of volume where the bass seemed to trigger a shockwave in your body, a migraine in your head, and a pit in your soul for the fact that the idiots gyrating to the musical genius of DJ Snakefist were the future of the galaxy.

Also, the bartender and the bouncer had the same lack of tact.

"Please, god, tell me you're not tonight's stripper."

Sliding up to the bar, the Trill cut the young man a cold glare before surveying the club. Three floors that she could see. The second level seemingly just a balcony overlooking the main floor. The third was glassed in. Private rooms. "Water, with lemon," Aisha ordered, at last giving her attention to the bar man.

"You're kidding, right?"

"If that's too difficult, plain water will be fine."

"Yeah, okay, lady," the college aged boy muttered, grabbing a glass, dropping in a wedge of lemon and decanting a splash of water over it. Sliding that across the bar, he gave her another skeptical look as he asked, "I'm sorry. What is someone your age doing here?"

"Business," Aisha answered flatly, taking a sip of the water. "You worked here long?"

"About a year I guess."

Reaching into the front pocket on her blouse, Aisha flipped a small picture of Dixon out onto the bar top. "Ever see a girl like that come in here?"

Picking the image up from the bar, the young man glanced at the photograph for a moment before passing it back to Aisha with a shake of his head. "Looks like about a hundred girls that come in here to me."

Nodding, Aisha tucked the image back away in her pocket.

"Your granddaughter?"

If looks could kill, Aisha's would have been worthy of a small nuclear device. And she'd almost decided she liked this kid.

"Excuse me, officer, is there some problem?"

From the nasal sound of the voice, she knew even before turning around that the person addressing her was a Ferengi. That would be the club manager. Owner possibly. When she had turned around, she found what she was expecting to see and an entourage of Naussicans dressed in the same black attire as the Tellarite she'd dressed down earlier.

There was a lot of latinum going into a nightclub for the twenty-something wild crowd.

"Agent Marc, Starfleet," the woman said, introducing herself formally as she flashed the badge. "I'm investigating the murder of a young woman who had been a customer here the night she died. You're monitoring the club. Do you have recordings that go back a year?"

The statement as to monitoring the club hadn't been a question.

"There's no security recordings," the Ferengi countered snidely. "And unless you have a warrant, I'm going to have to ask you to leave."

"Funny. That's a Spektor-35J surveillance unit," Aisha noted, tipping her water glass toward a small half-globe shape on the wall.

"You must be mistaken," the Ferengi reiterated, as the Naussicans moved to either side of the security officer. "And I'm sure you have better places to be, Agent Marc."

Civil. But enough to raise the hairs on the back of her neck.

"At the moment," Aisha conceded, setting her glass down on the bar as she took a step forward to leave. Leveling a cold gaze down to the Ferengi, she added, "But only for the moment."

[Naota East]

Chapter 3

---

Starfleet Medical

Pathology & Mortuary Affairs Division
San Francisco, Earth

"Why is it every time you need something from me, it involves something a year dead and decaying?"

Senior Chief Hildabrant von Buron was, among many other things, an autopsy technician and a qualified coroner. She was also something of a legend in the medical community. During the Cardassian Wars, the fiery red head had been an enlisted medic who had been among the first responders to the Setlik III massacre. Images of her running the battlefield and dragging injured back with her had made her something of a poster girl of the war and earned her the name 'Hot Ice Hilda,' a moniker that had stuck with her through the decades even though few in Starfleet today knew of the famous Setlik images of a red headed medic sprinting under fire with a Starfleet officer twice her size over her shoulders. Today, Hilda's red hair had hints of steel gray at the temples. The woman was probably as near retirement now as Aisha was, and seemingly just as ready to push it off for as long as possible.

She'd also been the medic who had pulled Aisha out of the lifepod after Wolf 359.

The two had a unique history of crossing paths, Aisha having been the special agent in charge of the Starfleet Security office on Risa at the same time that Hilda had been the medical examiner at the Starfleet hospital there. The question she'd posed went to a number of rather nasty cases involving bodies, or parts of bodies, that the pair had sort through together.

"Because the guy that was shot on the street this morning bores you," Aisha answered evenly, giving a faint nod to the body under the white sheet on the morgue rack behind the other woman.

Hilda merely scoffed in reply, the woman working meticulously over the decomposed remains of Cadet-Freshman Mary Jane Dixon. "This was a farm girl," the coroner noted aloud.

The statement matched what Aisha recalled of the file. "Indiana," the Trill remarked.

"Ah, a local farm girl," Hilda murmured, pausing to look at a reading on the board before she raised her head up. "From what's left, I'd estimate cause of death to be internal hemorrhaging, from multiple stab wounds to the chest and neck."

"Time of death?"

"Ballparked in the week of May 21, 2387," Hilda replied, picking up a padd and making a few annotations. When she'd finished, the woman held the padd out for Aisha to take. "May 23 is going on the certificate. Give or take a day... two days in either direction."

Nodding, the Trill took the medical examiners report. "Anything on the weapon?"

"Surprisingly, yes," Hilda answered, turning behind her to pick up the tray containing the sliver of metal.

"I've had to remove these from bodies before. It's an Andorian shiv," the red headed medic reported, setting the tray aside and then reaching over to call up a display of a knife on the monitor at her work station. Gesturing to the image, the woman added, "People use them for hunting and fishing. They're relatively cheap and made for mass production, so the blade isn't of the best quality. Tends to break off when it strikes bone. Makes for a nasty fishing accident."

* * * * *

Dixon Residence
Delphi, Indiana

"I appreciate your joining me, sir."

Vedek Tal Hobis - Captain Tal Hobis now - made a rather striking figure in his uniform. Barrel chested. Dark chestnut hair that was peppered with gray. The ridge and folds of his nose and how they mingled with the lines around his eyes. The strong chin and cut of his jaw. Even without the resonate baritone that made him a respectable orator, the Most Right Reverend Rodeo Bajor just looked like a good ol' country boy who could kick some ass when he had to.

"These ain't easy conversations with people, Chief," the chaplain answered as the pair started up the dusty walk toward the door to the Dixon's farm house. That much was a given. The Starfleet officers were here to tell the Dixon's that their little girl had been found, and she was coming home in a box. No one wanted to be the bearer of that message.

No one wanted to get that knock on their door either.

The woman who answered was a short, slightly stocky human whose homemaker appearance was such that it wouldn't have surprised Aisha if the lady had been baking an apple pie when she'd heard the knock at the door. Green eyes lit up with recognition at the sight of the black uniforms, confusion giving way to surprise... and then a look of horror that pained Aisha for the many, many times she'd witnessed people letting go of hope and struggling with a reality that marked the death of dreams.

The woman had been waiting a year for Mary Jane Dixon to walk through that door.

Without anyone saying a word, she knew now that her daughter wasn't coming home.

"Ge..." Her voice faltered as her hand slipped down the door, taking a step back as she tried to call inside of the home. "George!"

Gently, Tal cupped a large, scarred hand underneath the woman's arm to help keep her on her feet. A balding man in a plaid shirt, a newspadd clutched in one hand came walking out from what looked like the den. "Genie? What's wr..."

The man just stopped when he saw the two officers standing on the other side of the front door. There was no need to ask. He knew.

"May we come inside?" Tal asked softly.

The newspadd hit the floor, the man coming over to take his trembling wife's arm from the Bajoran's helping hand. Cutting both of them an angry, desperate look, the man gruffly demanded, "What business do you have here? You found our baby?"

Stepping back respectfully, Tal tactfully answered, "We need to talk to you about your daughter, sir."

"Don't talk to me about my daughter," the man snapped back forcefully, now trembling as well. "I asked you a question. Have you found her?"

"We found her in Miami," Aisha stated in a quiet, even tone. That got their attention off of Rodeo Bajor and focused on her. It was clear by the expressions on their faces that they weren't certain what to make of what she'd said. "I'm sorry to have to tell you that your daughter has passed."

Softly, the Bajoran vedek cleared his throat. "We'd like to help you make the necessary arrangements, sir," the chaplain intoned gently. "And, if you'll permit, ask you some questions."

"Come in," Genie Dixon managed weakly, her voice warbling even as she pressed a hand against her husband's chest in a clear indication for him to back down.

It was a simple home, decorated with plain furnishings and adorned with pictures of a girl. Aisha recognized the face in the more recent ones as that of Mary Jane Dixon. The remainder told the story of her childhood. A little girl on a pony. In a garden. In a pair of overalls bailing hay. Graduating high school. In the uniform of a Starfleet cadet.

A quiet warbling was almost too muted to have been heard, the Trill excusing herself to bow out and answer the communicator discretely. "Marc, go."

It was Henderson back at the office.

[ "I ran that fake ID you gave me. There's a credit account associated with the record." ]

"Has it been accessed since May of last year?"

[ "Better than that. It was used for a purchase just last week." ]

"Where?"

[ "Ship stores. USS Galaxy." ]

[Naota East]

Chapter 4

---

Starfleet Security Headquarters
Criminal Investigations Division
San Francisco, Earth

She'd have to send Vedek Tal an apology note later.

Coming back to San Francisco from Indiana, the Trill detective hadn't said a word to the kindly chaplain. And he'd been far too respectful to interrupt the brooding Trill. It made them quite a pair. Neither of them said a word. With that kind of set-up, maybe the two of them actually stood a chance at a relationship.

Not likely. He was the captain of a Federation starship and she was a cop. Both of them jumped whenever the communicator buzzed. And each was running in different directions when it did.

But that was her problem. And not the one she needed to deal with now.

No, the immediate problem was the growing mystery of an Indiana farm girl with a fake identity, false financial record, and an anonymous line of credit; who had frequented a club of questionable activity; and wound up murdered in a public park without a sole coming forward about it.

Her parents were so clean, Aisha would have eaten off their bathroom floor. Other than their IDs, they were blips. People whose names existed only in databases of names for people whose sole interaction with the government was that they were born and they died. Not in debt. Not in trouble with the law. Honest, hard working folk who eked out a living on a farm that satisfied their needs and contributed meager amounts to the local farmers market.

They'd raised their daughter the same way. Her grades were enviable in school. No problems in the classroom. No gaps in attendance. No juvenile records or any recollection by the cops of her having been involved in anything hinky. The fact that she had joined Starfleet was the culmination of everything her friends said about her. Patriotic. Hard working. Dedicated. Selfless.

The people in Mary Jane Dixon's hometown all recalled the posterchild for Starfleet.

The commentary didn't quite match up with what Aisha was looking at now.

Seated at her cubicle, the Trill idly spun around in her chair for a momentary break in which to try and grasp everything she'd been reading in the slew of padds scattered across her desk. Academy attendance record. Grade report. Transporter logs. Financial logs. Letters home. Letters to friends.

More importantly, a cross reference between her Academy class and the crew of the USS Galaxy that had come up negative.

What was the connection between Mary Jane Dixon and the Galaxy?

How did an Indiana farm girl have a fake identity, complete with anonymous credit accounts?

And who was underwriting that line of credit?

Drumming her fingers on the desk, the Trill reached over to call up the correspondence log on her monitor when a white porcelain mug interjected itself into her field of vision. As her hazel eyes scaled up, the woman found herself looking at Henderson hanging over the top of cubicle.

"Raktajino?"

Accepting the cup, the Trill took a sip of the beverage as she waited for the other agent to step around to the other side of the carved out niche in the sea of cubicles. "Mary Jane was a busy girl," Aisha noted aloud, grateful for the excuse to talk aloud. Not that she was against talking to herself, but that was generally frowned upon and yet she felt she needed to talk through everything in order to piece it together. "Seventeen letters home the first month. Thirteen the second. Twelve the third. Then just four letters over the next three months."

"Maybe the homesickness finally wore off," Henderson offered with a shrug.

"She made her first trip to Miami in March. Stayed three hours and transported back," Aisha noted, switching to the transporter logs. "The following weekend, she made day trips both days. Out in the morning, back for the night."

"Found something she liked there?"

"Found a place to stay there," Aisha corrected, highlighting the next series of logs. "She was logging out on Friday after classes and not beaming back until either late Sunday or early Monday."

The Trill split the screen, calling up the academic grade report and the attendance records side-by-side. "At the start of March, she was on track to be on the Commandant's List. At the start of May, she was recommended for remedial review. She was failing," Aisha noted

"Maybe Starfleet just wasn't for her."

The aging blonde shook her head. "Something was wrong. She was missing class. Showing up late. She was up for academic probation before she went missing," the Trill murmured, rambling on as her fingers drummed across the desktop. "Something was going on with this girl... What was in Miami..."

Pausing, Aisha turned her head slightly as she said, "Computer, cross reference all students at the Academy in 2387 against current crew roster of USS Galaxy."

[ Three records match query. ]

Even for a Galaxy-class starship, that was more results than Aisha had expected. "Computer, cross reference their Academy transporter logs against those of Cadet Dixon."

[ No records match query. ]

"And we hit a wall," Henderson deadpanned beside her.

The Trill's fingers drummed across the desk again. "Computer, display records of earlier query."

"Now you're on a wild goose chase."

Tongue tucked against the side of her mouth, even as the Trill flipped through the files she was prepared to concede the point. Then something; or, rather, the lack of something caught her attention. Pausing, the woman meticulously perused the minute file that the computer had pulled. "Perhaps," Aisha murmured slowly in reply.

Leaning over the woman's shoulder, Henderson read the top line of the file. "Ensign Enzo Marchetti... What, are you serious? He's one of us."

There in red letters below the ensign's name were the words STARFLEET SECURITY PERSONNEL.

Nodding, the Trill highlighted an empty section. "Look at the logs. No transports. Perfect credit."

"Yeah, he's clean."

"Exactly my point."

Straightening back up, the haggard man stuck his hands in his pockets and shrugged his shoulders. "I really think you're staring at a whole lot of nothing here, Chief."

"Really? He's from Io. How'd he get to Starfleet Academy? How'd he get to McKinley Station for zero-g combat training? He stayed in his dorm room every shore leave?" Aisha remarked, firing off one question after another as she slowly rotated her chair around to face Henderson. "When I say there's no transporter records here, I mean there's literally no transporter records here. And, like you said, he's one of us..."

"Level 5 security access."

"Level 5 security access," Aisha echoed. The access required to access - and manipulate - data logs.

"Well, there you go."

"No, all that gives me is a clue as to who might be using Dixon's credit chip on the Galaxy," the Trill replied, circling around in her chair out of frustration again. "We can't place him at Miami. And Miami is the question here. Marchetti's just a loose end for now."

"So go talk to him."

"Oh, he and I are going to have a conversation. Just not yet," the woman said, coming to a stop in front of Henderson. "Any luck running down the line of credit."

"I hit a bank out of New Sydney and trail ends there. No Federation jurisdiction."

"Nova Financial?"

"How'd you know?"

"Risa," Aisha replied flatly, referring to her prior assignment running cases there. "Nova Financial is a Syndicate front. A lot of latinum laundering operations all seem to start and end there. So now what we have an Indiana farm girl with a fake identity, fake credit account, and Syndicate money. How the hell does that happen?"

With another shrug, Henderson turned his head and caught a glimpse of a file photo of Dixon. "At least she had her looks going for her," the man remarked, giving a low, appreciative whistle. "Prom queen?"

Aisha had merely nodded, almost unaware of the question.

Then she thought about it. More to the point, she thought about the conversation with the bartender.

"Please, god, tell me you're not tonight's stripper."

"Looks like any of a hundred girls that come in here."

"...tonight's stripper..."

The chair went sliding off into the cubicle sea as the Trill popped up to her feet.

"Judge Harker still the magistrate for the southeastern seaboard?"

"Yeah," Henderson relied, then quickly found himself staring at the woman's retreating back. "Wait, where you going?"

"I just remembered I had better places to be."

[Naota East]

Chapter 5

---

Judge Harker was a fair jurist.

He didn’t have a hard-on for civil liberties, but he wasn’t going out of his way to do Aisha any favors just because she was a cop. He made her state her case, and then pressed her aggressively over the fact that she had all of a thin ring of plastic on which to stand. A former Starfleet Judge Advocate who had sat the appellate court before he’d gotten an appointment to the Federation bench, when attorneys discussed likely candidates for nomination to the Supreme Court his was a name that came up in those conversations.

He also had a daughter, now in Starfleet and also in the Judge Advocate’s Corp, and more to the point, he’d been at Starfleet Academy during the time of the Three Rivers cadet murders. Hell, John Prichard had played him in the holo-novel based on the book that had been based on the true story. It was all of a three second cameo in a scene that was supposed to have been in the Academy cafeteria but had actually been filmed in the Denny’s in San Diego, but still there were not a whole lot of people who could say that ‘The John’ had played them in a holo-novel.

But for the experiences and loyalties of his past, Aisha had every idea the magistrate would have told her to take that search warrant and shove it, but she’d played a wild card and come away with her ass intact and a signed order from a judge.

The bad thing about running an operation on Earth was that it was a jurisdictional nightmare. Miami-Dade County, Florida State Police, Federation Bureau of Investigation... if it had a three letter acronym and carried a badge, it was suddenly barking on the comm and making a string of demands, exhorting inter-agency cooperation bullshit, and otherwise spouting territorial pissings.

About the time that the state police and FBI starting inspecting the size of one another's gun to determine who should be in charge, Admiral Awalu had called up the boys in Starfleet Ops and had an Intrepid-class starship with Defiant escorts literally parked off the panhandle.

The local boys finally shut up and zipped their holsters up after that.

Miami-Dade cops were going in with Aisha's team. If they did net any evidence of civilian crimes it made sense to hand it off to the city. The Florida State Police and FBI were backing them up, surrounding the building while Starfleet monitored for any communications or transporter activity. There was a DEA or ATF or WTF guy in the mix there somewhere, probably with a badge in one hand and a clipboard in the other, but if there was one thing Aisha had run out of patience for it was three letter acronyms.

The black jacket had a broad, horizontal mustard stripe around the chest and back, the latter of which was broken by the letters CID. Aisha threw the garment on over her usual white, button-up blouse and then checked the security of her holstered sidearm.

Once they entered the club, this was only going to happen one of two ways. Her way. Or the hard way.

Neither was going to be very pretty.

Henderson was right behind her as the interior team moved through the doors. Even while the place looked completely different without the mass of people, a quick survey of the walls told Aisha what she needed to know.

The surveillance modules had been removed. Covered up with pictures in some of the more obvious spots. Wall mountings left bare in others. As first impressions went, this was already looking like it was going to be the hard way.

The Ferengi was behind the bar, with the 'help' - that being the Naussicans, the Tellarite, and the college kid - scattered around in the L-shaped bar top in the same black trousers and black t-shirts she'd seen them in the night before. If Aisha didn't know better, she'd have said that they were expected.

"Agent Marc, so good to have you in my humble establishment again," the Ferengi intoned snidely, sneering at the woman from behind rows of pointed teeth. "To what do I owe to pleasure?"

Aisha dropped the padd down on the bar with a loud clatter.

"I have a warrant here for all your surveillance recordings from March to June of 2387."

Picking up the padd, the Ferengi made a show of fishing through his pockets and then producing a pair of reading glasses. Perusing, or appearing to peruse, the search authorization, the broad-eared businessman was quiet for a moment. Then he set the padd back down on the bar. "As I said, Agent Marc, there are no security recordings," the Ferengi stated in a congenial tone, pulling the glasses from off his face and folding them away.

"What a pity," Aisha quipped dryly, pulling a slim tricorder from out of her hip pocket and flipping the device open even as she began to walk toward a spot on the wall that had an exposed wall mounting. "Because Spektor models always have a redundant memory dump in the retaining pin that's anchored in the wall, so stealing the external sensor doesn't defeat the purpose of having it even if the feed to the recorder is interrupted," the Trill commented, raising up the tricorder to wave it over the empty wall mounting.

Turning to look over her shoulder, Aisha was pleasantly amused by the amount of color that had drained out of the Ferengi's face. "You did know about the redundant memory, didn't you?"

The tricorder gave a loud chirp as the sensors pinged on something inside the wall.

"Oh, that is bad luck," the Trill remarked, folding the tricorder closed as she turned to face the Ferengi again. "Because what happens now is everything, including the floorboards - and, now, the drywall - is coming up or out."

The crew at the bar were all looking at one another. The college kid was looking at the Tellarite. Porky was looking at the Ferengi. And the Ferengi? He seemed like he was trying to recall the Rule of Acquisition that had his lawyers phone number with it.

If anyone was going to make a choice as to how this was going to go down, now was the moment of truth.

"Bag 'em all. Obstruction. We'll sort it out at the precinct," Aisha stated, looking over at the Miami-Dade officers who nodded and reached for the restraints hanging off their belts.

In her peripheral vision, she'd caught the flash of movement. The sound of a bar stool scraping against the floor distinguishing itself in her mind even as the aging Trill turned her head. About the time that the large Naussican fist filled her field of vision, all she could think was:

I am really too old for this shit.

The haymaker connected across her face, lifting her up and sending her reeling backward until she collided with a bar table and chairs, slamming into the furniture with enough force that she bounced off and spun down onto the floor, sprawled out on the floor in the most inelegant landing possible.

Her brain felt like it was still rattling around inside her skull, a general haze clouding the woman's sense of much of anything aside from the feeling that her head had just been cleaved in two. Who she was, where she was, or what had just happened were all logical questions that she should have had some answers for. Instead, she had pain shooting down her neck. Pain shooting up her back. A right knee screaming for a replacement and an artificial left one that was giving every indication it might just be past warranty. Add to all of that, a rush of blood to the head and a huge dose of adrenaline and you had all the ingredients for a really bad day at the office.

Somewhere, somehow, thirty-eight years of training took hold even though Aisha honestly had no idea what she was doing. She was in trouble, she knew that much. And that was really the only thing she needed to know.

For right now, she'd just react. Figure out the 'who's on first' bit later.

Kicking up from the floor, the warrant officer managed to get to her feet - and stay there - in spite of the knee that had just locked up on her. Arms up in a defensive block, the moment that Aisha's mind registered the six-foot-five humanoid blur rushing her, she woman just snapped forward on the offensive. The three Miami-Dade cops that had been rushing to her aid all jumped back in surprise as the petite Trill woman came back with straight arm punch that landed square in the center of the Naussican's face.

Twenty years ago, that punch would have landed the perp on his ass.

Unfortunately, this was twenty years later, and now Aisha's gripes as to her neck, back, and knees were superseded by the feeling that she'd just broken every bone in her right hand.

Surprised the hell out of the cops though.

Stunned the Naussican, too. Taking him back a step.

Going forward with the adrenaline-fueled momentum, Aisha moved to stay on top of the Naussican. Her left hand came up in a hooked jab to the kidney, taking the perp off-balance as she forced her pained right hand open and cupped the man's chin in the palm of her hand.

Then she merely tried to tap his forehead with her middle finger as she stepped in and thrust her hip forward. It was an Aikido 'breath throw' and it could be damn effective in putting a large opponent down on the ground.

True to form, the Naussican went back, went up, and then went down.

Apparently the hard way wasn't good enough. They wanted to do it her way.

Someone had to keep the lawyers and insurance companies in business after all.

The Naussicans were fighting, College was making a run for it, the Ferengi had crawled under the bar to hide, and the Tellarite was sitting there nursing a drink, apparently realizing that he had front row seating for a train wreck in slow motion.

Henderson had a second Naussican up against a wall. Miami-Dade had tackled College onto the pool table. A third Naussican was going for something in his pockets.

Aisha and about three of the Miami guys had their sidearms out before he could get to the next part. Both of Aisha's fans froze, the one on the floor just lying there while the one with his hand in his pocket just stood there. The Miami cops swooped in, leaving the fifty-something Trill detective to drag herself over to the bar.

Grimacing, the woman carefully eased the EM-33P back to the soft holster on her hip; having to use her left hand to pry the swollen fingers from off of the pistol grip as she took a seat and drew in a deep breath, feeling pain shoot through various parts of her body as she did, and exhaling slowly.

Leaning over the bar, the Trill woman peeked in on where the Ferengi was cowed in a fetal position with his arms raised, palms out, in a Ferengi submissive posture. "This is the part where I tell you that you're under arrest for obstructing a Federation investigation. That conversation includes little factoids, like 'you have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can, and will, be used against you in a court of United Earth and interstellar law. You have the right to an advocate. If you do not have an advocate, one can be appointed for you by the court.' And when we're done having that conversation, you and I get to know each other better. And you get to familiarize yourself with the lavish accommodations of the finest county jail on the eastern seaboard."

"I'm sure we can come to some... mutually profitable understanding," the Ferengi remarked immediately. Took him all of two seconds to think about that one.

"We might," Aisha conceded quietly, glancing over as she watched the Miami officers restraining the Tellarite and pulling him out of the bar.

Henderson came over as the Miami boys began extracting the fetal Ferengi. "You all right?"

The Trill sat there, hunched over the bar, massaging the throbbing muscles of her right hand and honestly fearful that her left knee was never going to allow her to stand up from that barstool. Turning her head, the woman gave the other agent a determined smile as she looked around the inside of the club. "Are you kidding? We haven't even gotten started here yet."

[Naota East]

Chapter 6

---

There was nothing quite like standing in the lobby of a municipal police station. Working an operation in Marseilles, France, Aisha had learned about a human phrase that went something like plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose. She was told it meant 'the more things change, the more they stay the same.'

If Aisha ever believed the utopian bullshit being spoon-fed over the newslinks or spouted by the political talking heads, orating from on high, about how the people of the Federation were dedicated to helping better themselves and their posterity, she would come and spend just five minutes observing a local police station.

A strung out teenager was passed out and still tweaking from the come down off something on a bench, beside which was a Caitian prostitute who was pretending not to notice. A drunken parent was arguing with the desk sergeant, as a dark suited woman who was obviously from child protective services was leading a little kid out of the police station by the hand.

Welcome to the 24th Century.

In her more philosophical moments, Aisha wondered whether they had failed the future or whether the future had failed them. Or maybe this was just who and what people were. Flawed. Corrupt. Drunk, either with power, with drink, or with chemicals. In the end, it all worked out the same.

Zephram Cochrane gave a good speech. Hell, Martin Luther King, Jr. had a beautiful dream hundreds of years ago, but it was still just pretty words and heartfelt sentiments. This was real. And whenever Aisha needed a dose of reality, she knew she'd find it in places like this.

A dermal regen patch was affixed to the back of her right hand. Flexing her fingers, the elder Trill found them still stiff from the punch she'd delivered to the Naussican's face. And she was moving with a limp, her left knee still locked up from having been knocked on her ass earlier. Plus her back was still bothering her, but she was already one dose of Aleve over the maximum daily recommended allowance so at this point there wasn't really anything she could do to medicate that. At least not until she could get to a martini glass or wine bottle.

A padd held in her one good hand, the Trill shadow detached herself from the wall and made her way through the back of the precinct to the interview room containing the first of her 'clientele' for the evening. During the arrest at the nightclub, Aisha had thought that the Tellarite bouncer had been the one person not to resist because he had some common sense. Of course, she should have realized, common sense was a myth. The Tellarite just had more to lose, and that gave her a potential bargaining chip.

"Crewman Porcis. You know, if I was going to desert from Starfleet I think I'd go on the lam somewhere a little bit more obscure than Miami," the Trill detective noted aloud as she came into the small room. Gimping her way over to the table, the woman pulled out the chair and dropped down across from the Tellarite.

Porcis had enlisted in Starfleet after the Dominion War. He'd been part of the clean-up on Cardassia for a time and then gotten himself assigned to McKinley Station, which had brought him to the Sol System. He wasn't the picture perfect posterchild of the fleet - a handful of reprimands for insubordination and an Article 15 for drunk and disorderly behavior - but he wasn't the worst of the worst either. Aisha would have summed him up as being more or less the 'average joe.'

He'd deserted at the height of the Triad War, during the moment when it seemed entirely possible that the Triad was going to cut a path straight down the middle of the Federation.

"I needed latinum, the club paid out. That's my whole role in this," the Tellarite offered aloud.

"The club seemed like it had a lot of latinum. Going in and going out."

The Tellarite shifted uncomfortably in his chair. "Yeah, I'm obviously Fraked by all this. I get that. But if I talk to you, can you at least put in a word for me or something?"

"Cooperation can only help you at this point," Aisha replied in a neutral tone.

The club was a front. Dancing on the first floor, drugs on the second, and anything else you could want on the third. They moved red-K, stardust, and even some homegrown cannabis. They'd bring in girls, hook them on the drugs, and then turn them out as strippers while they broke them down far enough to get them out whoring. The video feed from the memory dump that Aisha's team had captured showed the bar crew emptying out the place after Aisha's initial visit to the club, but the traces of the drugs remained. With Porcis' testimony, it might be enough to get a conviction with a short sentence.

He didn't know Mary Jane Dixon, but he did know Enzo Marchetti. And none of what he had to say were terms that Aisha would have associated with a Starfleet officer. 'Thug' and 'pimp' being just two of the more polite words.

It was a shame. Porcis didn't seem like a bad guy, just the victim of his own series of unfortunate decisions. If he came through with testimony against the club, Aisha would have to speak at his court martial. Try and get the kid cut a break.

In the meantime, armed with a little better bit of information, Aisha decided to go see her next appointment.

College had been screaming for a lawyer since before the cuffs had been slapped on him. And Aisha knew better than to try and talk to either of the Naussicans. No one hired Naussicans because of the thinking ability, but they took orders well and the first order was always not to talk to the cops.

That left the little green man.

Negotiating with Ferengi was always something of an extreme sport as police interrogations went.

[Naota East]

Chapter 7

---

Gorad looked like someone who was having a bad day. Situated at the table in the small interview room, the Ferengi had lost a lot of his color as he seemed to be contemplating the situation in which he now found himself. He didn't so much as raise his head when the door opened, instead staring down at a spot on the table. It was unusual for a Ferengi. Usually, well before now, they had 'lawyered up' and assumed at least a posture of arrogance while they allowed their advocate to negotiate for them.

Gorad hadn't asked for an attorney though. And, right now, he looked like a man who felt as though he was at the end of his rope.

If the Syndicate was financing the illicit activities of the club, then what was a Ferengi doing running errands for his species' chief rival in the Alpha Quadrant?

Lowering herself down into the chair across from where the big eared man sat hunched over, the Trill allowed the silence to linger as she mulled the question around in her mind. "So I'm trying to figure something out," the woman began in a quiet, conversational tone. "What's a Ferengi doing involved with all of this?"

"Are you familiar with the two hundred eighth rule of acquisition?"

Something in the Ferengi's tone of voice caught Aisha by surprise, a realization that was only confirmed when the short alien man looked up at her. He was terrified. Genuinely afraid. "I'm not," the Trill responded, folding her arms down on the table. "Maybe you could tell me about it?"

"It says, 'the only thing more dangerous than a question... is the answer.'"

"Do you feel like my question was dangerous?"

"I think you want answers. I think you want to hold people accountable," Gorad remarked, his eyes moving around the room. To the door, the one-way mirror, the sensors monitoring them from overhead. "I don't think you know who these people are though."

"I think I may know some of them," Aisha countered in a neutral tone, in her mind growing curiouser and curiouser about the fear that was outright radiating from off of the Ferengi. He was skiddish, almost to the point of feral panic. As norms of interrogation went, it was the far extreme from what she expected of Ferengi suspects. "Enzo Marchetti for example."

The Ferengi turned his head, white, panic-filled eyes looking her straight in the face as he answered only, "Exactly."

Sitting back, Aisha tapped her fingers on the edge of the table. "Exactly..?"

"You don't know. You don't know who these people are."

Leaning forward again, the woman began to speak when the door to the interview room popped open. It was two men in black, synthetic replicated suits. Even without IDs, she knew who or what they were. "If you didn't notice, we're having a conversation here," the Trill noted coolly.

"Agent Marc, could we speak with you outside for a moment."

No matter what the rules of grammar, that hadn't been a question. Sliding her chair back, the Trill slowly rose from the table and did her best to walk out of the room with her head held high and as little of a limp as she could manage with the knee acting up like it was.

They dropped the other shoe the moment that the door behind her swept shut.

"Your investigation into the murder of Mary Jane Dixon has failed to produce any evidence that Vulcan Emotional Underground was involved," the first man in a suit stated.

"What you have now is a bad search that has nonetheless revealed a drug trafficking operation in a major Federation spaceport," the second suit declared.

"As such, the Federation Bureau of Investigation will now be exercising jurisdiction over this case and these suspects," the first stated, as the pair tagged teamed their delivery of the territorial ultimatum.

Aisha's hands came up to her hips, even as the hair stood up on the back of her neck, but even before she could get a word out, the second suit silenced the objection. "Starfleet has assured us of your cooperation."

The middle aged Trill was standing there with her mouth open. The first suit disappeared into the interview room that held Gorad, the second looked past Aisha and gave a nod of his head before he followed after his partner. Pivoting around slowly, the woman was acutely aware of an elevated blood pressure that was building a head of steam underneath her skin.

Standing in the corridor was a Starfleet admiral in a gold colored uniform.

It wasn't Van Awalu.

"You must be Chief Warrant Officer Marc," the man stated, holding out his hand even as he offered one of the most fake smiles that Aisha had ever seen on someone who wasn't a politician. "Mike Winkofski. Internal Affairs."

The drop of either name was not for the sake of introductions, and Aisha felt a chill run through her veins even as her blood pressure kicked up another notch. Rear Admiral Michael Harriman Winkofski was the head of 'Eyes,' the division of Starfleet Security that was supposed to be responsible for watching the watchers. "I'm sorry that your search didn't net the results that you were hoping for, but I think we've at least given the FBI the tools it needs to crack down on a piece of Earth's drug problem. That's a positive, right?"

For the volume of sewage she was stepping in, Aisha could only think that she'd picked the wrong kind of shoes to wear today. One corner of her mouth twitched slightly, even as Aisha was aware of one eyelid that felt like it was now throbbing as her anger boiled just beneath her demeanor. "I'm curious, sir. How come Eyes just turned over a CID case to the Feds?" the woman snapped, not at all in a quiet or polite tone. "And where is Admiral Awalu?"

Still holding out the hand that she'd pointedly ignored, the admiral finally dropped the attempt at a handshake. "Van had to go down to San Francisco to explain why he had Starfleet Ops divert three Federation starships into Earth's atmosphere. A misunderstanding, I'm sure," the man stated flatly, the smile fading from his face as he added coldly, "Just like something you said, a moment ago. This isn't a CID case. The regulations are quite clear. Where Starfleet Security personnel are involved as suspects in criminal investigations, Eyes is responsible for the investigation."

Crossing her arms across her chest, the Trill inclined her head back defiantly as she stood her ground. "Was there a Starfleet Security person named as a suspect in my preliminary report, sir?"

"Let's not split hairs, Chief. 'Person of interest' or even 'someone I want to interview' in a criminal context all amounts to the same thing," the admiral retorted back coldly. "But... that's no longer your problem."

Her eyelid twitched again. "Oh, I don't know, I think the regulations also say that this is my case until I'm relieved of it by a CID command officer."

"You might be right on that," Winkofski conceded, the large, fake smile returning as he added, "Oh, I did almost forgot though... One of the Naussicans filed a complaint of excessive force against you."

The woman just stood perfectly still. She didn't even think that she was breathing. Her fingernails dug through the material of her shirt, painfully pinching at her arms. But for clinging to the shirt, it was entirely likely that she'd demonstrate for Mister 'Mike Winkofski' just what force she'd used against the Naussican. Repeatedly. So that he fully understood the scope and technique that she'd utilized.

"I'm afraid I'm going to have to place you on administrative leave while Eyes conducts an inquiry into the arrest," the man continued, coming off as though he was fully in love with the sound of his own voice. "Strictly business. You understand I'm sure."

"Business? Really?" the Trill asked pointedly.

"Careful, Agent Marc. It would be a tragedy for insubordination to be the capstone of such a lengthy career..." Winkofki began, holding out his hand a second time. This time with the palm up. "I'm going to need your badge and duty weapon."

Aisha continued holding the man's gaze, allowing the silence to settle uncomfortably between them before she stared down at the waiting hand and then back up to Winkofski's face. Finally, she uncrossed her arms and pulled her credentials from out of her pocket. Slapping that down in his waiting hand, she then unclipped the duty pistol from off her hip and planted that on top of the slim cased badge.

"Do have a good night, Agent Marc," Winkofski commented from behind the big smile. "And don't call us. We will call you."

[Naota East]

Chapter 8

---

Dex's Diner was a dive on the lower east side. In the early hours of the morning the small eatery was crammed with teenagers contemplating their dark and grim lives over clove cigarettes and coffee, quoting Poe and reciting poetry beside where the cops from the graveyard shift all shuffled up to the counter. It was a place Aisha had found years ago. It was a book end on the far side of the world, a place where it seemed time passed only outside of its doors. It had been a least a decade since the Trill had come looking for a place to think.

Dex's was good for that. Lord knows, no one came here for the cobbler or coffee.

Within minutes, it was as though Aisha had been coming to Dex's every night for the last couple of years. There was Dale. Dale was a peace officer with the California State Patrol. He was coping with the fact that he'd gotten his girlfriend pregnant and was debating what he was going to do with a baby on the way and a baby-momma who had a voice that could curdle fresh milk. Dale's partner was a Vulcan. Soban had moved to Earth in order to attend Starfleet Academy, but had later decided that Starfleet was not a logical pursuit for him. Soban would get into intellectual sparring matches with the GrimDark Kids, a battle for which they were woefully unprepared.

At the other end of the counter was Arjin Belar. A fellow Trill, Senior Chief Belar was someone who had been around the block a time or two. An alcoholic, he'd gotten his life together for his wife and kids only to lose both at Setlik III. He was a man that had fallen off the wagon and gotten back on a few times, probably because Starfleet was the only 'family' he had left. It was just the kind of 'tear in my beer' sentiment that Aisha could appreciate.

At fifty-five years old what did she have? A long list of people she'd busted, handful of disruptor burns, and some scar tissue. She'd injured her back, her knees, and walked away from the graves of her shipmates. There was no one waiting for her when she went home and so she stopped going home. Moving from assignment to assignment, flashing a badge and living out of a suitcase. Another day, another bust, another rush of blood to the head wondering at what point she'd have to get off the roller coaster.

Then she just watched as the whole thing jumped the tracks.

"I thought I'd find you here."

Even as she looked down into the now cold cup of coffee in front of her, Aisha found that even after hours of having thought about what she was going to do when this moment happened... she didn't have an answer. She thought of turning and laying Van Awalu out flat was one that might have been her first instinct twenty years ago. Unfortunately, she was a little older and a little lazier. Her hand still hurt from putting five across the eyes of the Naussican. Throwing her drink on him was another alternative, but to be honest if she was going to get court-martialed for assaulting an admiral then she was going to do a hell of a lot more than just throwing bad coffee on him.

The Iotian's hand slapped something down on the bar top. The man's hand stayed there, just beside the coffee cup, as he heaved himself onto the bar stool at the counter top next to her. When the large palm slid away, her badge and weapon were there, staring back at her. The speckled woman slid her gaze over to the short man. "You knew."

It hadn't been a question.

Admiral Van Awalu smiled weakly as the waitress, Francine, brought over a steaming cup of shit. "I found the case during a search of Starfleet's backlog of unsolved cases. It had been opened as an administrative placeholder and then archived without ever having been assigned," the man began quietly, shuffling the warm porcelain mug between his hands. "Computer Crimes ran the file for me. They couldn't say who created the report, but it was done at a terminal inside Internal Affairs."

The Trill just blinked. In a flash, she'd seized the cold porcelain mug in front of her and then gave the Iotian a taste of cold coffee as the black fools-gold doused the man and splashed down onto the counter.

Whether the porcelain mug was about to follow, as well as maybe her foot, remained to be seen.

The move caught the attention of everyone in the diner. Even the GrimDark Kids, who actually shut up for a change. Aisha had just achieved something that even Soban, in his logic, had failed to accomplish.

Picking up a napkin, the Iotian calmly began to dab his face. Flashing another thin smile, the man waved off the suddenly re-appearance of Francine. "I deserved that."

"No shit," Aisha snapped back.

"I needed you focused on the investigation. If you'd been looking over your back, it might have alerted the Syndicate that we already knew," Awalu commented, plopping the now soggy napkin down on the wet counter top. "And you might not have chased down every lead. I needed to know how deep this thing went."

"And just how deep does it go, sir?" Aisha asked dryly, not letting up the attitude but curious for herself whether they had actually achieved anything by the act of tossing her under the bus.

"Deep enough that I'm ordering you to close the Dixon murder case."

"Sir..."

"You still have the credit fraud on the Galaxy," Awalu added, interrupting the woman. "You said there were two other suspects on the Galaxy, people beside Marchetti who had been with Dixon at the Academy that were now on the Galaxy. That means Marchetti isn't the prime suspect in the credit fraud investigation, and so that investigation isn't under Eyes' jurisdiction."

Awalu stood and pushed himself back from the counter, dropping a handful of credits down into the dark puddles that still lingered. "Get to the Galaxy. And watch your ass. Their security chief is a loose canon and I wouldn't take odds he or more of them might be on the take."

And with that, the admiral pulled a cigar from out of his coat pocket and stuck it between his teeth as he turned to make his way out of the diner. Leaving Aisha with her thoughts, an empty cup of coffee, and her badge.

Slapping her hand down on the counter, the Trill palmed the creds and then slipped the sidearm into the waist of her trousers as she found herself suddenly back on the roller-coaster.

[Naota East]

Epilogue

---

"Investigator's log, supplemental. Mary Jane Dixon was an Indiana farm girl who came to San Francisco with a dream of going to the stars. Instead she became a victim. First to manipulation, then to drugs, and finally at the hands of someone wearing the uniform. There's something wrong with a world where a prom queen joins the Starfleet and winds up as a dead whore in a public park, while her killer walks free of suspicion behind the badge of public trust. I'm going to the starship Galaxy. And there will be hell to pay..."

"Computer, delete last log entry."

Sitting at the terminal in her cubicle at Starfleet Security Headquarters, the speckled warrant officer gazed at the computer screen holding an image of Victor Krieghoff's personnel file. Darren M'Kantu, Arel Smith, James Corgan, Jan Hoffman Spengler. It seemed that the Galaxy was the land of misfit toys, no wonder Awalu had warned her to watch her ass.

"Investigator's log, supplemental. Case number 2385-ZX-49576, missing person's report for Cadet-Freshman Mary Jane Dixon has yielded no new evidence or leads. Information pertaining to Internal Affairs has been forwarded to them for their action. In accordance with orders from Rear Admiral Van Awalu, CID Command, this case is now closed. Stardate is 65554.06. End log."

* * * * *

DIXON
Mary Jane

We can only be said to be alive when our hearts
are conscious of our treasures. Let it be forever
remembered she was always a diamond to us.

The tombstone lay before the freshly dug earth, a single red rose lying on the dirt as the Trill's determined footsteps moved away from the site where the Starfleet cadet lay. A proper burial that had come too late, and yet too soon as well. As she made her way to the skytram, Aisha caught a glimpse of Mary Jane's parents coming to visit their only child.

No doubt, she'd been buried in a plot that had been purchased for one of them. The Dixons had probably made arrangement and prepared themselves for if one of them died, but had never imagined their daughter's funeral.  They remembered and knew a Mary Jane Dixon who had loved life and lived before Starfleet.

And, if Aisha had anything to say about it, the Dixon's would never know their daughter was anything other than a farm girl prom queen who had gone off to become one of the Federation's finest.