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From: "Keith & Jessica Bratcher" <campbratcher@psci.net>
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Date: Sun, 9 May 2004 22:52:12 -0500
Subject: [ASCEM-S] NEW DS9 "Nineteen Shades" 3/12 (G/B) [NC-17]
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Please see part 1 for codes, disclaimers, and notes.

-------------------------------------------
Nineteen Shades, by Penumbra (part 3/12)
-------------------------------------------


Unconsciousness due to no apparent reason. A cortical implant of
unknown configuration and purpose. Scars, echoes of broken bones, and
three missing fingers and toes, their amputation scars many years
old. Traces of gene degradation due to radiation poisoning. 

Bashir frowned and put down the PADD. The medical analysis of his new
patient, one Mr. Delemek Serka of the Cardassian Underground Movement,
was a collection of old injuries and unexplainable additions, and none
of it told him why he had suddenly collapsed at Garak's words, let
alone why he had attacked Garak with such anger and despair in the
first place. But the mystery of his patient was not what puzzled him
the most; no, it was Garak's behaviour. 

Turning to face the biobed, Bashir took in Garak's seated form. The
before so luxurious silk and wool of the tailor's clothes had absorbed
the contents of the box the Cardassian had hurled at Garak, forming a
chartreuse starburst that spanned the width of his chest. He was now
fingering the stain with absent, hesitant gestures as if it were a
gaping wound.

Even with the considerable mental might of his enhanced brain, Bashir
couldn't put his finger on what was so off about Garak's manner. It
seemed a profusion of emotions (as much as the Cardassian was capable
of such things), veering from delicate contempt to subconscious
affection. This was not the first time Bashir had seen pain in his
friend's eyes, but never before had it been of such interesting
nature. 

Bashir hunted for a word. Private? Yes, but still not quite
accurate. Perhaps...intimate? Ah. With a start, he realised it was
just that. It was a pain caused by the ruin of a strong bond. 

Turning to his computer, Bashir called up the meagre file Starfleet
had on the dissident. Delemek Serka, age unknown, a Legate disgraced
during the Bajoran occupation that turned into a poet with a
progressive slant. The doctor's eyebrows climbed up on his forehead in
surprise. Legate cum poet, quite a careers switch. It was turning out
to be a mystery of some merit, and if there was one thing Bashir had
always enjoyed, it was uncovering mysteries -- a tendency that had
turned his intrigue to obsession when it came to all things
Garak. There were other considerations to think of, too, but...

Stomping down hard on that line of thought, Bashir swiveled in his
chair to face his patient again. Garak was sitting by the biobed in
one of the uncomfortable visitor chairs, his back to Bashir and his
head held up high in a pose that was too rigid to look comfortable.

"There's a question you have?" Garak asked, his voice unusually quiet
when he turned towards Bashir. His cheek was a faintly darker colour
where his cut had been.

"Yes. How do you know this man? And don't you dare to deny your prior
familiarity with him -- he didn't attack you randomly," Bashir said,
wagging his finger at Garak. Dissembling was not going to work this
time. 

"I'm sure he was merely objecting to my clothing, much like you were,
doctor," Garak said, running his fingers across the band of silk
stretched across his chest. His smile was mischievous, but somehow
lacking in conviction. "Unrevealing as it is."

"Garak."

"Yes?" the man replied, oblivious to the tone of exasperation in
Bashir's voice.

"As far as I can tell, your clothes don't have your name stitched on
it, and I think we can rule out telepathy. So how did he know your
name?"

"Ah," Garak uttered, his eyes narrowing as the mischief in his smile
turned to something far more sinister. When he continued, there was
quiet darkness in his voice that made Bashir's mouth run dry. "Long
ago, in another life, my name used to not be associated with quality
garments, my friend. It's not outside the realm of possibility that 
he's seen my picture and name in some document he and his dissident 
friends came across during their shady activities."

Bashir shook his head. "This was personal, I can tell. Spill it. Who
is he? Why did he attack you? What did you do to him? What's the
purpose of his cortical implant?" he rattled off before his steam ran
out. "I've got questions and no answers."

Garak eyed him from underneath his brow ridges, and his expression
slid from enigmatic to tired amusement. "You plan on pestering me
until I tell you something."

Bashir couldn't help his triumphant smile at Garak's assertion that
was less a question and more an admission of a known fact. "Yes indeed
I will, until you tell me the truth."

"The truth," Garak sighed with baroque gusto and shook his
head. "Doctor, if there was nothing else I'd hoped you had learned
from me, it would've been the fact that no such thing as truth exists
-- only subjective views to it."

"Well, then tell me the truth as the beholder," Bashir said, gesturing
at Garak, "sees it."

"What I will tell you is a story," he said and sat back, his eyes once
again on the still form on the biobed. "A tale, I'm sure, that will
not bore you."

Bashir would've preferred a straightforward answer instead of a tale
that would surely be part misdirection and mostly lies with a smidgen
of twisted truth, but he knew that beggars couldn't be
choosers. Wordlessly, he assumed an attentive pose and gestured for
Garak to proceed. 

"There was once a young man in Central Command, a promising officer of
some strategic insight and considerable ability in the machinations of
Cardassian politics," Garak began. His comfortable tenor voice was
steady and sonorous -- a storyteller's cadence with an undercurrent of
duranium. "Through the years, he rose to a position of power through
his cunning and his willingness to employ whatever method necessary to
rise through the ranks. Whatever method necessary." 

Garak's emphasis and accompanying meaningful look made Bashir
frown. "Methods such as?"

Garak merely smiled and glanced at the still man on the
biobed. "Methods borne out of his extremely lucky draw in the genetics
pool. He was, simply put, a man of considerable beauty," Garak
murmured. "Such luck can be dangerous to its wielder, and thus it was
his willingness to use his looks that was the start of his downfall."

A light bulb went off in Bashir's head. "There was an affair. A
scandal."

Garak smiled at his enthusiasm, obviously amused. "Oh, nothing quite
so banal, doctor. But there was a...woman of power involved, too. She
was a high-ranking official in the Agricultural Ministry -- an agency
that prided itself in its secrecy and in the cutthroat nature of its
internal politics. Our young protagonist and this woman fell into an
affair and later, into love that was less pure than it could've been
because the man was more driven by his ambitions than his heart.

"Regardless, the affair was torrid and long-standing, and eventually
it came to the knowledge of the Secretary of Agriculture. He took upon
himself to, hm, discourage the woman from pursuing the affair, for he
viewed the man a threat to the high stand of the Ministry in the
Cardassian order of things. But it was not to be; she was in love. So
the Secretary of Agriculture framed our young officer, made his lover
believe he'd used her to his career advancement. She didn't believe,
but was nevertheless forced to...renounce their affair."

"Wait, Garak." Now completely confused, Bashir leaned forward and
rested his elbows on his knees. "They were in love, yet she let it go
because the Secretary of Agriculture told her to do so?"

"Don't sound so surprised, doctor," Garak replied, and there was
infinite sadness in his voice, not quite masked by his forcibly light
tone. "Duty to the state comes first, even when it's the Agricultural
Ministry."

"So what happened to our star-crossed lovers?"

Garak again glanced at the man on the biobed. "They were separated and
would never again see one another. Embittered, realising too late that
he'd lost his chance at happiness, the man abandoned his life and
career in the military and turned to the arts."

Bashir's eyes snapped to Delemek Serka, taking in the sharp, taut
planes of his face and the symmetrical, well-formed ridges that
adorned his face along with the deep welts of frown on his forehead
and at the sides of his mouth. This was a man who'd been an Adonis in
his youth but had then descended into a decadent yet still-sensuous
ruin because of a life lived hard, fast, and on the edge.

"He's the young officer," Bashir said, standing up and joining Garak
by the biobed. "Isn't he?"

"Perhaps."

Giving Garak the fish eye, Bashir turned his gaze back to Serka. "And
the woman? What happened to her?"

Garak stood up, his hand coming to brush down one of the forehead
ridges on Serka's brow before he turned to the doctor. "A mystery for
you to uncover, my friend. Now if you'll excuse me, I have an
appointment with some cleaning solvent," he said, gesturing at the
soiled front of his jacket with the smallest of grimaces. 

"What about him? I don't want to wake him up quite yet so that he can
get some rest, but I was going to wake him tomorrow morning. For that
I'll need to know more about that cortical implant of his, because I
think it's the root cause of this near-coma," Bashir asked, gesturing
towards the biobed. Garak was his best clue -- his only clue -- as to
what was going on. "The implant resembles the one in your head, but
that wasn't susceptible to verbal triggers. What did you do to him,
Garak?"

All Garak did was smile one of his half-smiles. "Just call for me when
you want him woken up."

Bashir's frown deepened. "What do you mean?"

"For once, doctor, I meant only that which was obvious."

The endless calm of Garak's voice, smooth and dark as oil on water,
stayed with Bashir for a long moment as he watched his friend walk out
of the infirmary and disappear into the late afternoon bustle on the
promenade. Long after his distinctive shape had gone, it remained on
Bashir's mind's eye, because it held something he'd never before seen
in his friend: regret. 

With effort, Bashir snapped out of his trance and turned back to his
sole patient -- the obvious key to both the mystery at hand, and to the
larger enigma that was Garak. His whisper was barely audible even in
the quiet calm of the infirmary.

"Who are you, Delemek Serka?" 

* * * * * * * * * *

O'Brien glanced up at his companion and was relieved to notice he
didn't flinch any more when his eyes found the Cardassian. Head bent
over the board and his brow furrowed around the spoon-shaped
protrusion on his forehead, Garak was deep in thought as he gazed at
the Kotra board. The game was on, and O'Brien had found himself
knee-deep in Cardassian tactics.

The uneven lighting on the second floor at Quark's was both
unflattering and strangely grotesque as it landed on Garak's head and
face, accentuating the darkness under his browridges and bringing out
the sharp planes and hollows of his face. O'Brien mused that it was
like looking at an alien skull, with the faintly blue skin smooth as
bone and eyes cold as ice glittering deep within the dark
sockets. While not an attractive view to his eye, the overall effect
was certainly striking and more than a little unnerving. 

"Like what you see, Mr. O'Brien?" Garak asked. He was still staring at
the board, and it was not until he'd moved his attack cluster into
position that he lifted his eyes from the board. "*Tempak adt*," he 
said softly. The pale blue of his eyes was almost innocent. 

"What do you mean?" O'Brien temporised, eyeing his transparent pieces
as they clustered around Garak's in futile attempts to bring order to
the board. The Cardassian idea of strategy was far less structured
than his.

"You were looking at me as if evaluating my worth."

"Your worth is not for me to decide, Garak," O'Brien replied and
placed his finger on the leader of his flank cluster. No, too risky,
he decided. Instead, he moved the roving wing into a sweep. "*Vetra
adt*, if I'm not mistaken." The terminology of Kotra was still mostly 
a mass of incomprehensible, infuriating contradictions to him, but
instinct helped. 

The frown marring Garak's forehead smoothed. "You're not. I'm
impressed."

As they fell silent, Garak puzzling over his move and O'Brien
attempting to mask his scrutiny better, it struck the human how he had
misjudged the man so many times. It was quite unlike him to so
underestimate someone, and while the roots of it could be traced back
to the war where it had been necessary for him to view all Cardassians
as mindless automatons, it just wouldn't do here. This wasn't just any
Cardassian. This was Elim Garak -- a complex man who made exquisite
trousers, talked in that voice that was half tease and all flirt, and
played games with the finesse of a master strategist. Which, O'Brien
conceded, was what he was. 

"I don't hate you, y'know," he said suddenly, not quite knowing
why. "Cardassians, I mean," he added as a point of clarification.

Garak's reply was but a noncommittal, "Oh?" and a toss of the variable
rhomboids. 

Feeling suddenly stupid for what he'd said, O'Brien kept his eyes on
the board and at the deft fingers arranging the pieces. "You thought
otherwise, so I just wanted to make it very clear."

"The hero of Setlik III doesn't hate Cardassians? I find that hard to
believe," Garak said, his velvet voice threaded with humour and
challenge. "*Qentok ma adt*," he interjected, flicking one of his 
pieces across the board into O'Brien's home base. "A man can change 
his mind but not what is in his heart."

"In retrospect, Setlik III counts as one of the low points in my
life," O'Brien said and smiled grimly, not rising to the bait. "This
may come as a surprise, but I never did have hate in my heart,
either. I was a soldier, doing my job."

"So if it was not your heart that needed convincing, what changed your
mind? Your move."

Arranging his defences into a penetration sweep, O'Brien pondered the
question. What had it been, indeed? There were many answers to that
question. "*Vetra adt*. A lot of things. It certainly started with
Rugal, all those years ago. But I guess you happened, mainly."

"Vetra adt, vetra adt..." Garak muttered, his eyes on the
board. Pinching his full lower lip between his thumb and forefinger,
he glanced at O'Brien. The perceptiveness of that sharp gaze made him
jump. "Me?"

"You. I've never actually known a Cardassian before. Really known,"
O'Brien replied. He no longer wondered what had made Garak such a
valued member of the Obsidian Order, for he seemed to have an uncanny
knack for making people talk of even the most uncomfortable
things. "And to my surprise, you turned out to be quite human, pardon
the expression. Julian always speaks very highly of you, but it wasn't
until we visited Empok Nor that I started to believe him."

With a graceful flick of his wrist that was obviously the result of
years of practice, Garak pushed his flank pieces to a straight
line. "*Pek*, pass. Empok Nor, you said?"

"Or rather, the aftermath," O'Brien said, waving his hand over the
board as he recalled the quiet conversation he'd had with Garak in the
infirmary. He'd seemed so fragile, a man and nothing more, lying on
the biobed and de-toxing from the psychotropic drug that had caused
his bout of insanity. "There was something in you I'd never seen
before in any Cardassian: regret. Actual regret, and it was so very
real. Vulnerable, almost, and you have to say that's a very unusual
thing to say about one of your people."

Tapping his finger against the board, Garak lifted his head to meet
O'Brien's gaze, and to the chief's amazement, he actually
smiled. "That's because my regret is very real, Mr. O'Brien. For what
I did to Amaro and Nog and, above all, you." There was subtle emphasis
on the last word. "Your move."

"Uh, *gerteem'eptak*," O'Brien said, pushing a secondary wing forward
with absent neglect. He was surprised Garak hadn't taken his
observation of vulnerability as an insult. "Me?"

"I have great respect for you and your abilities, Chief O'Brien."

For once, O'Brien was left speechless. "Well," he muttered as he
recovered, trying to figure out if Garak was having him on, but unable
to think of a single reason for him to do so. "Thank you, I guess. And
colour me surprised."

Garak moved his secondary pattern to a fan formation, eating away
O'Brien's flank that had been so carefully arranged to a double
defence. "*Enq'eptak*. Surprised, at what?"

O'Brien glared at his decimated defences dolefully. Damn. "That you're
so forthcoming with me. What Julian tells me is that nothing but lies
of differing degree come from your mouth."

Garak's smile was a bit too devious to be pleasant and when he licked
his lips, O'Brien noticed for the first time how long and pointed his
tongue was. He suppressed a shudder and then reproached himself for
his unbecoming yet instinctive xenophobia. He reminded himself that
while Garak was definitely alien, he was also much like himself: a
civilised being, someone who ate with utensils, listened to music, and
understood things about love and life. He deserved better than
prejudice.

"Only with Dr. Bashir," Garak said, slowly and with deliberation. "His
desire for intrigue and his need to have puzzles to solve are the keys
in keeping him on his toes. I wouldn't want to appear dull and boring
to him."

At that and despite himself, O'Brien smiled. "Mr. Garak, you may be
many things, but dull could never be one of them," he said. Feeling
adventurous, he scooped up two tactical squadrons and made an
offensive turn. "*Tempak adt*."

Garak's smile widened a fraction. "A bold move. But..." he said,
trailing off as he deftly grasped a leader and two wings between his
fingers, plowing a path through O'Brien's tempak with a small hum of
satisfaction. "You left your assets clustered too tight. *Adt ma
adt*. My game."

"Well I'll be damned," O'Brien huffed, studying the board in
dismay. "So it is."

With one graceful sweep of his grey hand, Garak brushed all the pieces
into his home base. "Don't feel bad about it, chief. This is a game
I've played for too many decades for me to mention here without dating
myself."

"And you've played it not just as a board game, I imagine," O'Brien
added and took a sip from his synthale. He'd forgotten it as the
intricacies of Kotra had pulled him in, and so it had
warmed. Grimacing, he set the tankard down.

"The best games are the ones with the highest stakes, Mr. O'Brien,"
Garak said, rapping his knuckles sharply against the board. "And when
played properly, Kotra can be a game of life and death."

"I'll take your word for it," O'Brien said and stood, glancing at the
wall chrono. "I need to go, I'm due in Ops in ten minutes. It's been
something of a pleasure, but next time we'll play chess. Next week,
same time?"

Garak, who had also stood up with him, made a minute bow and offered
one of his more enigmatic smiles. "Chess it is. I'm sure you'll defeat
me as soundly as I did you today."

"Mr. Garak, I doubt that very much."

Garak nodded but offered no words to contradict his statement. "Good
evening, chief."

As he departed Quark's, O'Brien couldn't help the chuckle that came
unbidden to his lips. It was so strange that it was amusing -- the fact
that he'd not only lost a game of skill to a Cardassian, but that he
didn't feel at all angry about it. It was all good and well, he
mused. He'd never truly like the man, but the least he could do was
respect him for what he was.

-------------------------------
End of part 3/12.




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