Fool me once, shame on you...

[ma_capitaine]

Who:  Kathryn Janeway, Gul Dukat, Elim Garak
Where: Inside Dukat's Room, Hallways and Lift
When:  Late Afternoon, following the events of this post
What:  In trying to fix the mess the hotel has caused, Janeway bites off more than she can chew again, Dukat evens the score, and Garak settles some accounts.

Comments

[ma_capitaine]

Janeway grimaced, turning her face into the covers as the light blinded her. The room had grown steadily darker as their conversation had dragged on. She unconsciously pulled a hand to her face and felt the restraints bite into her wrist.

Once they had adjusted, Janeway peaked out again, now seeing the room a bit better with some light, and could just see the Cardassian from her vantage point.

While she had on only one occasion been blessed with children...a situation that not a soul on Voyager would ever speak about, she felt an endearment to the people under her command that was akin to a mother and child. Dukat lost one daughter. She had lost several and as many sons too. Voyager's crew was a family and everyone on board had meant the world to her in those seven years.

Her own contempt was rising for the Cardassian. And she bit back a retort.

"I don't know." Janeway replied, her voice level but still touched with her frustration. "Dead crew members, Vidiians, Hirogen, Kazon, Species 8472...our mutual captors have quite a lot to pick from with the number of bad days I've had in the Delta Quadrant."

She blew out a breath and looked up to the ceiling out of the corner of her eyes. "I brought you medical supplies as peace offering, thanked you for not killing Bashir, and returned your phaser." Janeway flicked a cool glare back at the bathroom door. "Do you have any intention of letting me leave?"

[shadowed_scales]

"Nothing from the Alpha Quadrant?" he asked, still keeping his tone light enough but coloring it with implication.

"You also shot me, tied me up, exposed me to danger from an ape with a firearm, and passed absolute judgment on that situation without having all the facts. Coming here with a medkit to help fix me up after something one of your own people started by being somewhere he had no business being in the first place and returning my weapon all but non-functional is hardly what I'd call restitution." He deliberately withheld any outright answer to her question.

"You said the two of you already knew what year I came here from. If that's the case, then he couldn't have been here to discover the year." He dropped all pretense of patience, his voice going sharp. "You clearly think I'm an idiot. What was he doing here, and was it at your request, or Garak's?"

[ma_capitaine]

Janeway's eyes narrowed slightly at Dukat. "Alpha Quadrant?" She all but hissed the name that came off her lips next. "Crell Moset."

"Bashir came of his own choosing." She continued. "It was to determine if you knew him or not, hence why he came in civilian clothing and not a uniform. We deduced your year of origin after he had returned from here a bleeding mess. Garak met the man you assaulted in the middle of your own hallucination while you were grappling with the doctor in the middle of his. He told us while I was setting the broken nose you so graciously gave Bashir."

There was a steady thrum coming to her words now, the tone she used with command and authority. To hell with it, if Dukat wanted to pick a fight with a Starfleet officer then he could have it.

[shadowed_scales]

"Crell Moset?" He laughed so hard he had to set the regenerator down for a minute before he dropped it. "Admiral!" Still laughing, he came to lean in the frame of the bathroom doorway, arms loosely folded, large frame blocking the light that had fallen across her face, and his own face in deep shadow as a result of it. "I know that we Cardassians are intimidating. I had no idea that one Cardassian doctor could ever compare with the horror that is Borg." At the last word, the laughter left his voice. It came out as clinical and cold as a scalpel.

[ma_capitaine]

Janeway felt her frustration shrink away from revelation, and it only produced itself physically in the form of her expression growing incredibly cold. Something in the way Dukat went from mirth humor to direct implications gave her pause.

"I spent seven years in the Delta Quadrant, neck deep in Borg infested space. Allied my ship and crew to their efforts in conquering Species 8472. I have two liberated drones as part of my crew." Janeway replied, her voice remote, listening to her own words as they reminded her in this state that she had done more harm to the Collective. "My ship was outfitted with Borg technology so advanced that it bordered on disobeying the Prime Directive. I killed two Queens in 2378 and I teach a very thorough class in combating the Borg at the Academy."

Janeway considered telling him about the super cube, and decided against that. He didn't need to know those details. Though the thought did cross her mind that it might be an effective admission of power in this circumstance. Her morals though shot it down before it even came to fruition though. She would not use the deaths of thousands, and the billions after her death, to try and assert herself as the bigger monster in the room over Dukat.

She pinned a glare on the Cardassian. "Would you like the syllabus?" The admiral shot back.

[shadowed_scales]

He turned to finish up with the regenerator in the bathroom, letting the silence hang between them. When he shut it off, he turned the light out. There was barely any light coming through the curtains now. The room was dark for human eyes, well enough lit for his own to see her clearly. "I didn't ask about the Delta Quadrant," he said softly. Dangerously.

And now it was time for some dissembling of his own, since she wanted to play. "You mentioned the pagh wraiths," he said, stepping back into the room and starting to circle the foot of the bed slowly. "Such...amazing beings, really, with access to knowledge our races can't even conceive. Sometimes, late at night...I can almost still hear them. In my mind. The things they told me. Showed me... Now. You want to try again? Let's talk about the Alpha Quadrant. And the Borg."