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“Something’s wrong. I can’t call up the Arch.”
“Naturally. When does something not go wrong with one of these things?”
“Are you going to help, Nerys, or just keep saying ‘I told you so’?”
“I can do both.”
To prove the point, Kira hiked up the leg of her skirt and removed from a small thigh holster a tiny peashooter of a pistol. Jadzia – whose eyes had previously been on the small band of mooks slowly working their way towards cornering the pair behind the water feature they were crouching behind – made no secret of her now diverted attention. Her eyes racked up the colonel’s shapely calf and thighs before Kira dropped her skirt back down to its place around her ankles. The cocktail dress was a familiar shade of red that suited her well, but with an added flourish of fashionable, period-accurate sequins that sparkled in the simulated moonlight.
Jadzia had been very specific when requisitioning the outfits earlier on the Promenade. The hidden holster, however, must’ve been Kira’s touch. Jadzia smiled at the thought that maybe her friend had been getting into the game of make-believe a little more than she’d previously let on.
“Dax!” Kira’s shout drew the Lieutenant back from her idle gawking right as a bullet whizzed by. The slug caught a flunkey right between the eyes and he toppled off the edge of the balcony.
“Nice shot.”
Kira huffed her reply. “You said you had a plan out of this?”
“A plan? I thought we’d just fly by the seat of our pants,” Jadzia said before shooting not only a winning smile but also the last remaining henchman, who fell backwards neatly into a set of pristinely trimmed hedges. As Dax stood and dusted herself off, fiddling with the places along her elbow where her immaculately over the top royal blue tuxedo had begun to wrinkle, she could feel the glare Kira was giving her. Apparently her friend was less than amused by the call back.
“We’ll be fine.” she said, taking her by the shoulders and jostling lightly. “All we have to do is see the story through to its natural end. When it’s over, the holosuite will deactivate automatically.”
“And what if it's not just the Arch that’s malfunctioning? What if the safety parameters are offline, too?”
“Well, I wasn’t planning on getting shot, personally.”
“Jadzia–!”
She only laughed as she let go and went about reloading her pistol and screwing on a new silencer. “Relax, Nerys. Have you ever seen the old movies Felix bases these programs on? These guys couldn’t hit the broadside of a barn from ten paces away. Even Mourn has beat this level. Now come on.” She started to move forward towards the gates of the chateau. The sounds of a party in full swing drifted gently towards them. A live band, half a dozen foreign dignitaries, any number of unsavory characters representing even more unsavory Cold War era Earth factions (all of which Kira knew painfully little about), at least a hundred clueless guests, and somewhere deep within the complex a very expensive and extremely unstable chemical agent that was about to be auctioned off to the highest bidder. And, outside, two alien women in woefully impractical formalwear with archaic projectile weapons and, at least in the Colonel’s case, a set of pantyhose that were really starting to ride up in a rather uncomfortable fashion.
Kira was less concerned about the internal politics of the childish narrative than she was the very real possibility that one of those armed factions would threaten to detonate the explosive device if they didn’t get their way, taking herself, her subordinate officer (who’d dragged her into the game in the first place and therefore maybe had it a little bit coming), and half of Deep Space Nine with them in the process.
Dax stopped abruptly and Kira slammed into her from behind, tensing as Jadzia brought up her hand and said, “Wait.”
Kira quickly scanned the area around them, frantic to ascertain what the Lieutenant was seeing that she wasn’t, before she turned and suddenly felt a soft and warm peck against her lips.
“For luck,” said Jadzia, winking as she wiped the Colonel’s lipstick from her mouth and was off before giving her friend time for a proper reprisal.
Despite herself, Kira smiled and rolled her eyes as she followed behind.
