Chapter Text
Lieutenant JG Kayden Rychel and Lieutenant Helik Dakbar had not gotten off to a good start. On the one hand, it seemed perfectly obvious. Even in 2408, there were tensions between Cardassians and Bajorans, and there were some who believed that the Federation would be at war with the Empire before the decade was done. Still, they were both Starfleet officers, fighting the good fight, or so it appeared, until a “harmless” comment from Rychel provoked an unexpected reaction from Dakbar.
Afterwards, Dakbar stormed through the halls of the Talon not caring who saw or got in his way. His stride was smooth, purposeful, but his expression was what caused many to step aside without comment. He could hear the blood pumping past his ears, through the great vessels, and he knew he should relax. Well, at least part of his brain was telling him that. However, Dakbar ignored that little tidbit of advice and let the fury consume him.
He stopped at the console and tapped on the panel, selecting one of his seldom used programs. The doors to the holodeck parted and Dakbar stepped into his old home.
"Helik!" A Cardassian woman emerged, towel in hand, "late as always, but ever welcome." She extended her arms to him and Dakbar hurried into them.
As he felt the warmth of her embrace, he could detect her perfume, the same one she had worn since she had met his father. It smelled like the flowers on the northern expanse of their property; it smelled like home. His strong arms were gentle as they wrapped around her.
"Why don't we go into the-"
"Computer, freeze program." He stood there, holding his mother, not willing to let go. Deep in his chest, it began. A growl, so utterly primal that it would have been exactly the same as when the first Cardassians crawled from the primordial ooze. It grew in intensity until his head tilted back and he screamed to the heavens, his soul crying out for all that he had lost, and all that he would soon lose.
Meanwhile in Engineering, Rychel was performing diagnostics, when she found a fault in one of the holodecks that was presently in use. Frowning, she pulled up the holodeck’s log, and froze as she saw who was inside. He’s going to think that I planned this… The timing couldn’t have been worse.
She tapped her combadge, "Engineering to Holodeck 1. Diagnostics indicate that the Safety Subroutines have been disabled for this holodeck... is everything ok in there?"
Dakbar had just taken a breath when Rychel's voice cut through the holodeck. His eyes narrowed. How utterly convenient it was that she be the voice at the end of the 'line'. Not a stranger to subterfuge, Dakbar had his own ideas as to the cause of the malfunction. "Everything is fine," he snapped. Stepping back, he looked into the vacant eyes of his mother and shook his head sharply, trying to clear it. "Computer, end program." Nothing happened, so he repeated the command again, but with the same results. He turned. "Computer, archway." The arch appeared and he hurried to the door, only to smash chest-first into it. Cursing, he pounded violently on the doorway.
Rychel sighed. There was no way that everything was fine unless Dakbar had deliberately disabled several features of the holodeck, which she sincerely doubted that he had the security access to do, considering many of the subroutines that were malfunctioning were for Maintenance use only.
She entered the turbolift. "Holodeck," she directed, continuing to read through the PADD that she carried. If Dakbar was doing anything remotely dangerous in there, he was at tremendous risk.
The turbolift stopped at her destination, and she ran over to the control panel for the holodeck. "How in the world did this happen?" She asked to herself. It looked almost like the holodeck had been sabotaged. But who would have done that?
"If she thinks this is funny..." Growling in frustration, Dakbar looked behind him. There was no way he wanted the Bajoran to see that. It was a private matter and not one for her eyes. "Computer, run program Dakbar zero-zero-one."
"Unable to access."
This wasn't happening. "Computer load Dakbar zero-two-five."
"Unable to access."
He turned and punched the wall. "Computer, run prior program." Maybe it was stuck in a loop or something. Maybe it could remember what had come before this one if it was still in a buffer. Maybe-
The room changed and he looked down at himself. "Oh, this so much better," he said sarcastically as he viewed the clothing the program had put him in.
Outside the holodeck, Rychel began looking through its log. Dakbar had attempted to end his program,and to start several others. He'd also tried to exit - all of which were unsuccessful. "Could the encounter with the Q have done this?" She mused to herself, remembering Talon’s previous mission.
Despite her desire to afford Dakbar with privacy,she needed to know what program he was accessing to see if he was in danger. But the computer would not allow her to see. "What is wrong with this thing?!" She demanded to no one in particular.
She tapped her combadge reluctantly. "Kayden to Holodeck 1. I'm outside,I can see that everything isn't alright in there. Are you in immediate danger?"
He's never going to forgive me now...
Dakbar began pacing. He assumed he could transport out, but then the rumor mill would have a field day about that. Besides, then he'd have to answer Lieutenant T'Kar's questions about the necessity of the site to site transport. She was very strict about them, almost as if using the transporters sapped her of energy.
"Only from the fashion police," he muttered. His outfit reminded him somewhat of a combination between the pirate outfit he had worn to his only Halloween ball at the Academy, and the costume he had put on for Robin's birthday party. However, this outfit was much stuffier. He tugged on the collar of the shirt. Taking in a deep breath, he felt the tug of fabric from the dark vest. Who would wear this? Obviously, they had no job.
Rychel frowned, wondering what he meant by that. But she didn't have time to ponder over the matter. She needed to figure out what was wrong with the holodeck, and preferably before the ship got into trouble. She did not want to be the one telling Security that they had to handle things a man short because she couldn't get one of their crew out of the holodeck!
"And, please cease calling me Holodeck one. Unless, of course, you really do want to talk to the holodeck, in which case I would be more than happy to put it on the line." He held up a hand and examined the detail of the useless fabric at the ends of his sleeves. He had time to wait. Maybe the Bajoran would get bored and go away.
"My apologies, Lieutenant Dakbar. I just figured I was the last person on the ship you wanted to deal with right now.” Rychel's face reddened for what seemed to be the millionth time that day. And to think, the morning had started off so well.
"I hardly think that referring to me as the holodeck would change that fact. I'm-"
"Filthy pig!!"
"Excuse me?" Dakbar whirled around to come face to face with a rather irate, red-faced man.
“The console isn't accepting any commands, I'm going to open it up and try and connect with it directly. Let me know if anything changes in there, ok? I'll get you out as soon as I can," Rychel said.
Taking a deep breath, she removed the panel and took a look inside. It was worse than she had previously expected. The gel packs within looked like they'd taken damage; some of them had even burst open entirely. She assumed that either the force of the explosion from the warp core, or perhaps radiation that had gotten into the ship while the shields were down were at fault. Fortunately, she'd brought everything she could possibly think would be necessary to repair a holodeck. Also, she was lucky to have taken an interest in holodecks while she was at the Academy, else she likely wouldn't have the ability to essentially rebuild one from scratch.
Inside, Dakbar ducked a fist that was aimed directly at his face. "Sir, I do not have a curly tail." What was it with this ship's obsession with all things pork, anyway? First bacon ice cream, now this?
Flash!
"No no no," Dakbar said to the ceiling. He knew the holodeck had an imager built in that could, on command, take a snapshot of the occupant during their exploits. "Computer, deactivate imager!"
"Unable to comply"
"Of course you are." He also knew it printed out a hard copy if the occupant so desired. The question was, whether it was doing so now.
"You'll be squeelin' when I get through with you."
Rolling his eyes, Dakbar stepped aside as the man barreled past him in a rage. "Who writes this stuff," he remarked.
"Lieutenant Kathryn Burnham," the computer replied with authority.
"Who asked you," Dakbar snapped.
Rychel removed the first of the bio neural gel packs, then paused a moment. She tapped her combadge, "Lieutenant Dakbar, are you still in a holoprogram, or did that terminate it?" She would have checked the computer other any other circumstance, but in this case she did not trust it to be correct.
Oh Prophets, I promise I will stop being so skeptical if he doesn't blame me for this… she thought.
There was a shimmering of the hologram for a moment and the scene changed to a bedroom most likely found in the seedier side of any city. A figure moved on the bed and Dakbar, bored, wandered over and pulled the covers off. "Lieutenant Alexander," he asked, surprised. She purred at him and crawled over to the edge. "You're late, flyboy," she said.
"Oh, I'm in it all right..." Kinin grabbed the front of his trousers.
Flash!
Rychel sighed heavily, and busied herself with figuring out the problem. Part of the issue was that she'd never tried to repair a holodeck that was in use before; it wasn't necessarily something Starfleet wanted people to do. She removed a few more gel packs, hoping that one of them would be essential to the holodeck's operations, and would cease the program. She needed to get Dakbar out of there, and she had a feeling that he didn't want to be transported out. That would certainly start rumors.
She tried to manually open the doors, but found that they were locked. "Computer, unlock this door for maintenance. Engineering Override Kayden Alpha Niner," she said, her voice raising as she became more frustrated with the situation.
"Unable to comply."
"Of course not," she muttered, kicking the door to vent her annoyance. "That's why I didn't try that in the first place..." She took a deep, steadying breath, trying to focus on the problem at hand. "Fine, if that's how you're going to play it," she said. She hadn't wanted to damage the holodeck in any fashion, but it was clear that it was too late to prevent that. Whatever had messed it up in the first place had turned it into a dangerous threat.
Returning to the supplies she brought with her, she reluctantly grabbed a bipolar torch. While she could have employed a phaser to cut the door, that would send a message up to the bridge that a phaser had been fired on the ship, and that would cause more problems then the engineer wanted to deal with at the moment. She quickly targeted just the areas involved in the locking mechanism of the doorway, then pried at it. The door squealed in protest as she attempted to force it open.
Kinin crawled closer to Dakbar, her hand still clutching the waistband of his trousers and Dakbar turned at an angle when he heard the door squealing. Just as the door gave up its fight, Kinin stuck her other hand down behind the fabric, causing Dakbar to jump and yelp at the same time. "Computer," he croaked. "End program."
"Unable to comply."
Kinin had a tight hold of anatomy. "What's your hurry?"
Unable to pull away for fear of never having progeny, Dakbar glared at Rychel, then back at Kinin.
"Come to bed," Kinin said, tugging. Dakbar had little choice but to follow. "If you don't get me out of here soon, Lieutenant Kayden, I promise you-"
His eyes about bugged out of his head as Kinin, with her free hand, tugged down his trousers and shorts in one swift motion, exposing Dakbar's backside toward Rychel. Kinin looked down and grinned.
"No!" Dakbar shouted, then said, "Computer, site to site transport to my quarters!"
"Acknowledged."
Within seconds, both Rychel and Dakbar vanished in a sparkle of energy.