Cathedral by Michael Mangels (ebook reader color screen txt) 📕

Ro offered a wan smile as she raised her glass to her lips. “You should talk to Lieutenant Commander Matthias about apprenticing in the counseling business.”

Ro reflected on how much their relationship had changed since she and Quark had rescued Treir from the employ of the Orion pirate Malic a few months back. There was obviously a great deal more to Treir than her brassy exterior had initially led Ro to believe.

Treir glanced quickly over her shoulder, then returned her attention to Ro, to whom she spoke in a conspiratorial whisper. “Oh, and don’t forget the single most horrific item on the entire dreary list of troubles to be drowned—there’s still the matter of that second date my boss somehow tricked you into.”

Ro nearly spit her wine across the table. Lately she’d been so wrapped up in station business that she’d completely forgotten.

“I heard that!” The voice belonged to Quark, though it took Ro a moment to zero in on his exact whereabouts. Then she saw that the owner and proprietor of DS9’s principle hospitality establishment was standing three booths away, beside the small group of Terrellians whose drinks he had just delivered.

A moment later, he stood next to Ro’s table, scowling at Treir and gesturing accusingly at the drink in the statuesque green woman’s hand.

“Is this what I’m paying you for?”

“Check the schedule again, Quark,” Treir said, nonchalantly sloshing what little remained of her warp core breach. “I’m off duty. And when I’m off duty, I sometimes moonlight as Lieutenant Ro’s bodyguard.” She threw Ro a wordless I-can-make-him-leave-you-alone glance.

“Hello, Quark,” Ro said, involuntarily warming to his presence.

Quark’s rejoinder to Treir appeared to die before reaching his lips. “I hope we’re still on for tomorrow night,” he said to Ro with an anticipatory smile. “We’ll have Holosuite Three all to ourselves, starting at 2100 hours.”

Ro noticed Treir staring at her. No-really-I-can-makehim-go-away-if-you-say-the-word, she seemed to be saying.

Ro smiled back at Quark, and it felt like the first time she’d done anything other than scowl in weeks. “We’re still on, Quark. I haven’t forgotten.”

Shaking her head in incomprehension, Treir excused herself and departed, evidently having seen and heard quite enough. Let her think whatever she wants, Ro thought, amused.

“You know, I’m really beginning to look forward to this,” Ro said, more than a little surprised to discover that she actually meant it. “I think I could really use the diversion.”

Quark looked surprised for a moment, then quickly recovered his best tongo face. “You chose the program last time. So tomorrow night, I get to pick, just like we agreed.”

“I remember,” she said. Then she let her smile collapse in order to make her next point with absolute crystal clarity. “Now you’d better remember: Don’t even think about running one of your Vulcan Love Slave holonovels, or else it’s going to be an extremely short evening.”

He looked wounded, his hands raised in a don’t shoot! gesture. “I wouldn’t dream of doing anything like that.”

“And no programs that require me to dress like Treir.” She’d had to do that once already, in the line of duty, and that was once too many.

Quark was making quite a show of agreeing with her. “That’s fine with me. That sort of apparel wouldn’t be appropriate for Las Vegas anyway.”

“Las Vegas?” She didn’t recognize the name. “Is that a Gamma Quadrant planet?”

“It’s a city on twentieth-century Earth,” Quark said, cheerfully baring his snaggly teeth. “Courtesy of Dr. Bashir. Full of bright lights, indescribable sounds, and inhaled carcinogenic vapors. Harmless holographic carcinogenic vapors, of course.”

“Sounds like a Cardassian labor camp,” Ro said with a frown. “Except for the part about the holograms.”

“I suppose my description hasn’t done the place justice. Actually—”

Ro’s combadge chose that moment to speak up. “Kira to Ro. I’ve got a situation on my hands, Lieutenant.”

The sound of Kira’s voice neutralized the spring wine as authoritatively as a bucket of cold water. “Ro here, Colonel. Please tell me nobody’s hurt or dead this time.”

“It’s nothing quite that serious. At least, not yet. But I still need to see you in my office right away.”

“On my way.” Ro stood up and excused herself. “Tomorrow night, 2100 hours.”

“Wear a nice evening gown,” she heard Quark say as she walked quickly away from the booth. “Something semiformal and off the shoulder would be nice. With sequins!”

As she moved toward the bar on her way to the Promenade, she practically collided with Morn, who had chosen precisely the wrong moment to step down from his perch. Ro felt like an astronomer bearing witness to the formation of an antimatter quasar; the sight of Morn disconnected from his barstool had to be at least that rare.

Smiling politely, she picked her way quickly past the massive Lurian before he had a chance to draw her into yet another one of his interminable family anecdotes.

Moments later, she strode from the ops turbolift and into the station commander’s office.

Kira rose from behind her desk. “It’s Gul Macet,” she said in response to Ro’s unspoken question. “He’s asked for immediate departure clearance for his ship. And he won’t explain why, or when he intends to return.”

Ro frowned. “The Trager was supposed to stay at the station for at least the next few days. Macet told me he’d placed his ship at the disposal of the Cardassian delegates still on the station doing the low-echelon stuff.”

“Yes, the people who have diplomatic meetings about whether and when Bajor and Cardassia will have more diplomatic meetings,” Kira said, nodding. “My instinct is to tell Macet to just sit tight and wait his turn.”

Ro mulled that over for a moment. With the current levels of station traffic, that would bump back the Trager’ s departure by at least six hours. Why was Macet in such a hurry?

“Has he given you any reason to suspect anything other than an innocent internal scheduling mix-up?” Ro said.

Kira’s smile was small and rueful. “Besides his looking so much like Gul Dukat that it’s virtually impossible to think about him objectively?”

“Besides that.”