Judgement – Vi Coactus
by Commander Isha t'Vaurek & Alderman Yolanthe Ibalin
Post Details
::ON::
The night shift had begun and the duty officer was clearly not looking for a hard time. He admitted Isha with the minimum of fuss, not surprising as he had been ordered directly by the Captain to do so. But that changed, the moment she wanted something that was outside his rulebook.
"Drop the field and seal the door," Isha told him.
Isha was angry. She was not slightly miffed, upset, or in a mood. What she was feeling was the sort of full blown fury that she had not experienced since her youth when she had railed against the authority of her mother, the Head of her House, and been brought into line the hard way.
Though the circumstances were different, Isha was not handling the experience of being under someone else's control any better now than she had then, she had, however formulated a plan to turn this unfortunate set of circumstances to her advantage.
"I can't do that its against Federa ..." he began to protest, but she cut him off.
"I don't care about Federation protocol! Make a complaint to the Captain if you want but do what I tell you, and do it now," Isha snapped at him, "I'll let you know when I'm done. Now drop the field and get out of my sight," she told him as she folded her arms and waited for him to do as she had requested.
Hearing the fuss outside, Yolanthe opened sunken eyes, though she wasn't really focused on anything. It sounded like the Romulan ambassador. Perhaps she had come down here to grill Dorian Gabriel. He wasn't far away, she knew, in a cell of his own awaiting his trial.
At least she did not have much longer to wait, he'd had sense enough to do as she'd asked. Isha stepped forward, her soft clad feet making no sound on the hard floor, it was only the swish of her skirt that announced her arrival.
"So, serving drinks and blowing Cardassians got boring did it?" Isha asked, her tone ascerbic. "A little bit of murder to liven things up? That's what your yellow clad friends out there are saying, anyway," she added with a twist of her lip that was straight out of Rh'vaurek's book.
The grey green tinge to the bokkai's skin slowly coalesced to a similar colour to security yellow as she sat up. She pushed herself up on one elbow to look at the ambassador, her pure white eyes seeming more grey in the gloom. "I beg your pardon?"
Isha shrugged. "You heard me. It seems to be quite the running joke out there. I can't for the life of me think how that started," she continued with a sigh. "I'd have thought a woman such as yourself would have better taste for one thing, and for another more sense than to dump a body on your own doorstep.
Yolanthe stood slowly, her muscles still aching from the seizures earlier. But the yellow brightened as she stepped over to Isha. "One, the man I choose to put in my bed is no ones business but mine. And two, I didn't kill Klia. I don't know why you're here ambassador, but if you can't keep a civil tongue then I suggest you leave."
Isha broke into laughter. "Don't you understand anything?" she said eventually. Ibalin had already given her all the answers she needed but as Isha really did not want any stories getting back to that bastard, she would at least explain the purpose for her taunts.
"You might think the Federation are terribly 'nice' but their justice system is adversarial. If I were prosecuting you I'd have you hanging from the gallows within a day ... if they still allowed such verdicts, of course," Isha told her emphasising her words with her fingers. "I have simply made a case out of rumour. The actual prosecutor will use anything to dissect and defame your character and it will feel to you just as though he's cutting off your skin sliver by sliver. Your reaction, well, all you will do is play to the jury's prejudices."
It took a few moments for Yolanthe's exhausted brain to process the implications. "You're advising me?" She sank back on to the bench, confused and exhausted, the yellow fading back to the ditchwater green. "Why?"
Normally Isha would have waited for an invitation to enter, even though the room she was walking into was a prison cell. This time she did not wait but as she crossed the lip of the cell she plucked the compact interference generator from her sleeve and tossed it onto the bench next to Ibalin. "Unless they have the walls monitored for audio vibrations they will not hear or see a word," she said.
"May I?" Isha asked with a wave toward the other half of the bench. Isha felt something akin to pity for the woman. She either had no idea what sort of a creature she had got into bed with, or it didn't matter to her - in either case it was tragic.
"Why?" she said, because I wasn't given a choice. "Because I have been asked to."
Yolanthe shifted over on the bunk to give the slight romulan woman enough room for her not so slight gown. "I asked Villiers for a woman. I wasn't expecting you."
As Isha sat she smoothed her gown across her knees then turned her head to Ibalin, "Villiers did not make the request," she said, "it is an independent appointment. I am qualified in Federation law and whilst it is not my forte, I am quite capable of acting in defence."
Independent appointment. There was only one person she could think of who'd have the nerve to approach an ambassador on her behalf. Tharek. Her hair and body faded from green to azure to rich imperial purple at the thought of him, and she smiled to herself. Bless him. "I don't know what to do," she admitted. "They say they've found my DNA on the knife. That she was killed by someone my height. But I'd never hurt Klia. And I didnt kill her. So how can they possibly have my DNA?"
Ibalin's physiological reaction answered another of Isha's unspoken questions. Pity indeed, Isha felt for her.
"I don't recall claiming that you did kill her," Isha said, "anybody with half decent training in observation ought to know that you did not. As to the DNA, well, how many ways are there to skin a Ferengi?"
Yolanthe looked at the romulan ambassador. She knew it was a rhetorical question, but wasn't sure whether a reply was expected. In the end she asked, "Maybe you could give some of that observation training to Trellis and the rest of Gabriel's proteges?"
"That would be an exercise in futilty. One is either born with the underlying talent or one is not," Isha said absently. She had already been shown the evidence before she came in and as she sat she saw everything, disparate fractions of time, glances, words, events, faces, reports all in a rapid flicker before her eyes. "It will never reach court," she said eventually, "what a shame."
The bokkai turned a sharp lime green in a blink of an eye. "Why not? What will they do?"
"Because there is reasonable doubt." Isha's tone suggested that such ought to be obvious, "Oh, I doubt there is a soul native to the Federation who could see it, they just need to turn the evidence upside down and view it from behind. This isn't murder, its politics, a gambit played by someone who knows that the Federation are sloppy."
The green became more yellow again, and Yolanthe shifted on the bunk to face Isha. "So, you're saying someone killed my best friend to get at Tharek? Becuase i Just run a bar. There's no political gain there." Her fingers clenched, the knuckles becoming bright yellow she squeezed.
"But you're not the only one in the frame, are you?" Isha said. She dearly wished that she could walk away and let this fiction run its course, Turvan had provided her with information, fabricated or otherwise that could make these charges stick like napalm.
"I don't know who actually killed your friend, but I know it wasn't you, and because the Elements will play whimsical games with me, I know it was not Getal." Isha could be very certain of that, because if it had been him he would no doubt have told her exactly how and when he did it, then demanded that she clear his name.
"You're the first person I've met who believes that." Yolanthe admitted, relieved. "He might have lashed out at the time, but he wouldn't have gone back three days later. Its just not him." She gave Isha an earnest look, "I know he can be a bit boisterous, but he's a passionate man."
BOISTROUS!? this ... idiot was referring to Getal as though he was a naughty child rather than a violent and sadistic thug. It was a testament to her self control that Isha did not express that thought aloud. Without a ripple in her demeanour Isha smiled a very cold and thin smile. "For all your gaudy show you really are rather naive, aren't you?" she said, not entirely unkindly.
Yolanthe went aqua, yellow, orange and back to yellow in short order. She opened her mouth, and shut it again, lost for words. "I don't follow?"
Isha tilted her head slightly to one side, "You seem to lack a certain ... appreciation of the intricacies of interaction." Quite absently Isha rubbed her left thigh through the fabric of her gown - the mark was gone now, but it wasn't what showed on the surface that counted. "You appear to believe without question what is shown to you," she said.
"Lying is hard for my kind. It doesn't come naturally to us, and we're not used to looking for it." Yolanthe shrugged. "And quite frankly, its not something I've really had to deal with from the federation. And even if it was." She waved a hand at Isha's olive complexion. "Do you have any idea how hard it is to read people who are one colour all the time?"
"I don't find it any more difficult than I find it to read you," Isha replied, and there it was again, naive trust. "People in the Federation lie all the time, they name it tact and pretend that is something other than deception," Isha told her.
Yolanthe shrugged again, setting a wave of aches running down her spine. For a moment she turned cardassian grey. "Maybe they do. I don't know. Either way, I'm in the shit aren't I?"
Far deeper than you know Isha thought, but she said, "You are not in a comfortable position, no. You should be thankful this is not a Rihannsu trial, because you don't have a chance in a thousand of proving your innocence in the matter, but as I said, the evidence shows reasonable doubt, no Federation court would convict on that basis," Isha sighed, the entire sordid matter was beneath her, but as she was here she might as well say it anyway. "May I give you some advice?"
"I'll take anything I can get."
Isha had thought to provide a false alibi, but that ruse was going to be about as successful as a Klingon beauty contest. "A resolute and stoic belief in your innocence will do more to convince these people than what, according to the reports you have done so far. From what I have read, and I accept that you do not intend deceit, your excessive protests of innocence have done as much to damage you as the evidence of your DNA. To them you sound like a child who has been caught in the act of stealing from the pantry and has resorted to wailing in the hope that she'll escape punishment, if you'll forgive me for telling you the absolute and direct truth, without that wonderful filter named tact."
It wasn't the truth of course, but Isha wished to seed doubts in Ibalin's mind. Deluded yes, stupid, no, she had concluded. Undermining any little faith that she had in the Federation was as good a place to start as any. The one thing that Isha would not do was directly attack the woman's delusion, that would only cause her to take refuge in it. She would make no secret of her distaste for Getal, but nor would she give a reason for it, if Ibalin possessed any sense of curiousity at all she would, in her own time come to wonder why.
Yolanthe pursed her lips, the grey coming back to a smoky teal. "Alright. Then what?" She couldn't see how it would help, but the Ambassador was the expert.
Isha smiled. The expression was still very cold and thin. "While you are here being stoic and resolute, I will be talking very quickly to the Captain, and should I need to, the ranking JAG Officer in residence. The case will never reach court, of course," Isha repeated her earlier words. What she was about to say was going to leave her tongue as dry as Vulcan. "I suggest that you use your rights to communicate to inform your benefactor that I have given you this assurance," she said. This was not really fair, giving Ibalin a little hope then taking it away, offering advice that she would never be able to test because before she had the chance to, Isha would perform what would appear to her to be a miracle.
"I can do that?" Yolanthe was surprised. They had mention a right to a lawyer, but they hadn't mentioned anyone else. And she had assumed that even if they did, they would never let her talk to Tharek. "Well, yes, of course I'll let him know. Thank you."
Another thougth hit her, and the teal deepened. "But what can they do about it, if there's evidence?"
Isha nodded. "You have the right to communicate, and to have legal representation. Who you choose to communicate with is beyond their control," she told Ibalin. This was actually painful to Isha, the woman did not seem to understand anything, even even the Federation, the most benign empire in the Alpha and Beta Quadrants appeared to be able to treat her like a complete chump. No wonder Getal had found her easy game.
Isha switched to Ibalin's other question - evidence. "If you will recall I said that there is reasonable doubt. It is my ... job to demonstrate that, and I can, but don't expect me to find the killer. I have an idea about who is behind this, but knowing who he used is beyond even me," she said regretfully. Trust was what Isha intended to achieve, it would be much too late before Yolanthe understood that Isha's approach to politics was every bit as ruthless as that of Klia's murderer.
In an instant the taller woman had gone from dark aqua to a white that practically glowed in the dark. "Who?"
A very delicate chuckle escaped Isha's lips. The light show was something new to her, but despite the height Ibalin lacked the solid menace of her Cardassian consort. She found her about as intimidating as a tribble.
"Ask him if he has received any visitors from Cardassia in recent weeks," Isha suggested. "Oh, another question, how long have they held you, and have you been formally charged?"
The white faded down to a powder blue. Now, she had hope of getting out, and hope of finding who had killed her friend and tried to set up her herself and Tharek. "What time is it?" With all that had happened, she had totally lost track of the time.
Isha shrugged, "I've been here, what, twenty minutes? I arrived, around 23:00," she said.
"Hmm, about 36 hours? give or take. And no, I haven't been charged yet. I'm not even sure they will. Trellis wants Tharek and seems to think he just has to wear me down."
"So I suppose they did not raise the issue of bail either?"
The bar owner shook her head. "No. Not that I've got much spare cash anyway."
"Latinum is latinum," Isha shrugged as rose to her feet. "What's a few bars?"
Spoken like someone who'd never had to scrape for cash. "My wage bill for a couple of nights?" She pointed out. "The amount of stock I have to replace if there's more than three marines in on any given evening. Cost of transporting targ and yamok sauce across the better part of a quadrant to make non-replicated bar snacks."
"For that I apologise," Isha said in a tone that managed to sound both sincere and humble. "One is too easily blinded by one's own privilege. I imagine that your business is suffering too while you languish here," she continued. "I don't suppose Trellis has even considered the hardship he is causing. Not properly informing you of your rights, keeping you here without charge … and now me being adding to your burden. You must think me a terrible woman."
Yolanthe gave a short but genuine laugh, "You've hardly added to my burden. I was up a creek, now I may have a paddle. Assuming they are willing to offer a bail that doesn't instantly bankrupt me." Her skin fluctuated between blue and yellow again, "And you've given me more than I hoped." The words that went unsaid were obvious from her colours, a target for my revenge
Isha sighed, "I sometimes forget how difficult things can be when one finds oneself without a friend to turn to. If I have given you hope, then perhaps I have achieved something. I wonder ..." Isha paused her and examined her fingernails as though what she might be about say made her uncomfortable. "I'm sorry, I don't wish to embarrass you," she said without saying what might be embarrassing about what she had not said.
"You'll notice," Yolanthe reassured her, "I'll be peach."
Isha chuckled softly. "I am not without friends among the senior staff on this station," she said. "Perhaps there is something I could do, other than offer you verbal assurances that the accusation against you will not hold, I mean."
"You have something in mind?"
"Perhaps with my assurance that you will continue to co-operate, and not abscond it will be possible to have bail set at a reasonable level," she suggested, anticipating the question, why?
"You'd do that?" Yolanthe was sky blue.
"Miss Ibalin, Yolanthe, I once found myself in a difficult situation, nobody was coming to help me because nobody knew where I was," Isha saiid. Difficult was an understatement. She was thinking back to when she and Rh'vaurek had been the bitterest of enemies, the culmination of ten years of persecution, and all because he mistakenly thought that she had betrayed him. The memory gave her exactly the cast of forlorn sorrow she was aiming for. "It pains me to think that in a place like this, teeming with life, that you cannot even reach your friends."
Isha paused as her cheeks darkened slightly, "See, its me that's embarrassing myself. Its foolish to be so sentimental, but I find it remarkably easy to put myself in your place. Please let that be our secret," Isha said, "I'm supposed to be the granite face of the Stelam Shiar, not a living feeling being, or so my government tell me."
The bokkai shifted on the bench, a more relaxed slump than before; Her people called it the spirit of the gift, and it had to be kept moving. Humans called it 'pay it forward', but either way, she understood the Romulan's stated position. "Madam t'Khellian. I tend a bar. Keeping the sanctity of the bar side confession is an important part of my job. Your secret is safe with me."
"Thank you," Isha said. "It is no easy thing to represent a hybrid society, the old Houses are Matriarchies of one type or another, the government is a conflict of warring interests, and the populace ... well, if it could organise itself it would be anarchy. But I do what I must." Isha aimed to appear jaded without giving the impression that she felt that her diamond shoes were pinching her toes and fancied a grumble about her lot.
"Its not easy is it?"
The sound of wistful grumbling automatically put Yolanthe into sympathetic bar-tender mode. She was tired, angry, confused, and she took refuge in the familiar. "Nothhing ever is. I've served drinks to the highest and the lowest. Everyone has troubles. Privilege isn't always a shield."
"Its anything but," Isha agreed. "If I had any choice about where I was sent I wouldn't be here," she said oddly amused by the double meaning behind her words, "Its always night on a space station, have you noticed that? No wonder such terrible things happen."
It was a comment the bartender had heard many time. Always night in space. There were several stock responses she could choose from, and she was too tired to think of anything wittier, "but night is also when you get to see stars..."
"They're like eyes, always open and always watching, they see everything that goes on," that was how Isha had begun to view the perpetual night, "beautiful, perhaps but vigilant, and unforgetting."
"My people used to say they were the souls of warriors who fell in battle. Which, if you believe the histories, makes them all a bunch of drunken tarts who spend most of their time stealing all the other stars' planets." Yolanthe remembered her conversation with Tharek the previous month. He too had waxed lyrical and turned maudlin looking at the stars. She began to turn towards a rich purple again.
Isha felt her left eyebrow twitch very slightly. "Well, we should be thankful that though they see, they cannot speak, shouldn't we," Isha said, another rhetorical question. She had started improvising when she had met with the Captain, and still did not have a solid plan in mind. That was still forming as she continued with this somewhat banal display of innapropriate sentiment, but at the least Isha wished to establish a rapport, and Ibalin to her eye simply oozed innapropriate sentiment.
"I have heard it said that some will tell a stranger things that they would not tell their best friend," Isha said, "Perhaps there is some truth in that, but it is wrong of me to unburden myself to you. You will forgive me, I'm sure."
Yolanthe gave a slight shrug. "Its comes with running bar. You buy drinks, I listen. And indirectly, ambassador, you've bought an awful lot of listening."
The response puzzled Isha for a moment, then she understood it - Rianni's party. How Isha had regretted her choice of venue when she found out whose pockets she was lining - Getal's whore - but she had gone through with it, and perhaps she could make it to her benefit that she had done so.
"I merely accepted the most competitive offer and the best appointed venue," Isha replied, "and you have a distinct advantage over some of your major competitors," she intimated, "you never once gave me the impression that you thought I might bleed latinum if you squeezed hard enough."
"Treating people like cash cows makes them unhappy, and unhappy customers don't come back. At the risk of sounding mercenary, ambassador, Its bad business to take your customers for granted."
It was Isha's turn to shrug, "I understand perfectly. We are all in business, one way or another. I cannot give you any guarantees that I can get you out of here," she said, returning to the reason why she had come, "but there may be something I can do. In the meantime, believe my assurance that the allegations will never become formal charges."
She nodded, "Thank you. For anything you can do." Her voice was thick with relief, and real gratitude.
"There are too many injustices and iniquities in this universe that pass because people choose not to notice, if I cannot use my position to try and right some of them, then what is it worth?" Isha said.
Yolanthe, now a tropical blue, gave a grin. "Its still very generous of you. I can't thank you enough."
Isha smiled, a warmth lighting her bright green eyes, "Don't thank me yet," she said, "thank me when I get you out of here." And after that thank me if my hand is not forced into damaging you, she thought, Silly innocent creature.
With that thought in her mind she rose, "Let's see if our friend out there is any more amenable now that I want to leave than he was when I refused to speak through a forcefield," she said.
The bokkai stretched, and stood as well. "And tell him I want to talk tharek. As soon as possible." She thought about it. "I know you're already doing a lot for me already. But could you go to Tharek for me too, tell him that I want to see him. I'm not sure I trust Gabriel's cronies to let him know."
Isha paused though she did not look back, not yet anyway. Was it not enough that that ryak'na sseikea believed himself entitled to threaten her every time he wanted something from her, and to hammer her into submission if she refused? Now his concubine was asking her to run errands!
Seeing Isha pause, Yolanthe regretted asking. The romulan woman had already done enough for her. But she'd been stuck inside the same four walls for the best part of a day, punctuated by a nightmare that had almost killed her. She needed to see a friendly face. "Please?"
The tone of her voice was so plaintive that Isha half expected her to beg. How deeply lost must one be if the only thing that can give one hope is the thought of seeing Tharek Getal? Isha thought with a slight.
Slowly Isha turned her head and looked at the woman over her shoulder, "I will consider it," she said turning away before she stepped out of the cell and the field fizzled back to life behind her.
OFF
Ihhei hru'Hfirh Ambassador Isha e-Khellian i'Ramnau t'Illialhlae (NPC)
hru'Llaudh Rihannsu Stelam Shiar
Ambassador to Deep Space Five
Yolanthe Ibalin
Owner of the Box of Delights
by Commander Isha t'Vaurek & Alderman Yolanthe Ibalin
Post Details
| Title | Vi Coactus | |
| Mission | Judgement | |
| Author(s) | Commander Isha t'Vaurek & Alderman Yolanthe Ibalin | |
| Posted | Mon May 23, 2011 @ 8:33pm | |
| Location | Security | |
| Timeline | SD37. 23:00 |
The night shift had begun and the duty officer was clearly not looking for a hard time. He admitted Isha with the minimum of fuss, not surprising as he had been ordered directly by the Captain to do so. But that changed, the moment she wanted something that was outside his rulebook.
"Drop the field and seal the door," Isha told him.
Isha was angry. She was not slightly miffed, upset, or in a mood. What she was feeling was the sort of full blown fury that she had not experienced since her youth when she had railed against the authority of her mother, the Head of her House, and been brought into line the hard way.
Though the circumstances were different, Isha was not handling the experience of being under someone else's control any better now than she had then, she had, however formulated a plan to turn this unfortunate set of circumstances to her advantage.
"I can't do that its against Federa ..." he began to protest, but she cut him off.
"I don't care about Federation protocol! Make a complaint to the Captain if you want but do what I tell you, and do it now," Isha snapped at him, "I'll let you know when I'm done. Now drop the field and get out of my sight," she told him as she folded her arms and waited for him to do as she had requested.
Hearing the fuss outside, Yolanthe opened sunken eyes, though she wasn't really focused on anything. It sounded like the Romulan ambassador. Perhaps she had come down here to grill Dorian Gabriel. He wasn't far away, she knew, in a cell of his own awaiting his trial.
At least she did not have much longer to wait, he'd had sense enough to do as she'd asked. Isha stepped forward, her soft clad feet making no sound on the hard floor, it was only the swish of her skirt that announced her arrival.
"So, serving drinks and blowing Cardassians got boring did it?" Isha asked, her tone ascerbic. "A little bit of murder to liven things up? That's what your yellow clad friends out there are saying, anyway," she added with a twist of her lip that was straight out of Rh'vaurek's book.
The grey green tinge to the bokkai's skin slowly coalesced to a similar colour to security yellow as she sat up. She pushed herself up on one elbow to look at the ambassador, her pure white eyes seeming more grey in the gloom. "I beg your pardon?"
Isha shrugged. "You heard me. It seems to be quite the running joke out there. I can't for the life of me think how that started," she continued with a sigh. "I'd have thought a woman such as yourself would have better taste for one thing, and for another more sense than to dump a body on your own doorstep.
Yolanthe stood slowly, her muscles still aching from the seizures earlier. But the yellow brightened as she stepped over to Isha. "One, the man I choose to put in my bed is no ones business but mine. And two, I didn't kill Klia. I don't know why you're here ambassador, but if you can't keep a civil tongue then I suggest you leave."
Isha broke into laughter. "Don't you understand anything?" she said eventually. Ibalin had already given her all the answers she needed but as Isha really did not want any stories getting back to that bastard, she would at least explain the purpose for her taunts.
"You might think the Federation are terribly 'nice' but their justice system is adversarial. If I were prosecuting you I'd have you hanging from the gallows within a day ... if they still allowed such verdicts, of course," Isha told her emphasising her words with her fingers. "I have simply made a case out of rumour. The actual prosecutor will use anything to dissect and defame your character and it will feel to you just as though he's cutting off your skin sliver by sliver. Your reaction, well, all you will do is play to the jury's prejudices."
It took a few moments for Yolanthe's exhausted brain to process the implications. "You're advising me?" She sank back on to the bench, confused and exhausted, the yellow fading back to the ditchwater green. "Why?"
Normally Isha would have waited for an invitation to enter, even though the room she was walking into was a prison cell. This time she did not wait but as she crossed the lip of the cell she plucked the compact interference generator from her sleeve and tossed it onto the bench next to Ibalin. "Unless they have the walls monitored for audio vibrations they will not hear or see a word," she said.
"May I?" Isha asked with a wave toward the other half of the bench. Isha felt something akin to pity for the woman. She either had no idea what sort of a creature she had got into bed with, or it didn't matter to her - in either case it was tragic.
"Why?" she said, because I wasn't given a choice. "Because I have been asked to."
Yolanthe shifted over on the bunk to give the slight romulan woman enough room for her not so slight gown. "I asked Villiers for a woman. I wasn't expecting you."
As Isha sat she smoothed her gown across her knees then turned her head to Ibalin, "Villiers did not make the request," she said, "it is an independent appointment. I am qualified in Federation law and whilst it is not my forte, I am quite capable of acting in defence."
Independent appointment. There was only one person she could think of who'd have the nerve to approach an ambassador on her behalf. Tharek. Her hair and body faded from green to azure to rich imperial purple at the thought of him, and she smiled to herself. Bless him. "I don't know what to do," she admitted. "They say they've found my DNA on the knife. That she was killed by someone my height. But I'd never hurt Klia. And I didnt kill her. So how can they possibly have my DNA?"
Ibalin's physiological reaction answered another of Isha's unspoken questions. Pity indeed, Isha felt for her.
"I don't recall claiming that you did kill her," Isha said, "anybody with half decent training in observation ought to know that you did not. As to the DNA, well, how many ways are there to skin a Ferengi?"
Yolanthe looked at the romulan ambassador. She knew it was a rhetorical question, but wasn't sure whether a reply was expected. In the end she asked, "Maybe you could give some of that observation training to Trellis and the rest of Gabriel's proteges?"
"That would be an exercise in futilty. One is either born with the underlying talent or one is not," Isha said absently. She had already been shown the evidence before she came in and as she sat she saw everything, disparate fractions of time, glances, words, events, faces, reports all in a rapid flicker before her eyes. "It will never reach court," she said eventually, "what a shame."
The bokkai turned a sharp lime green in a blink of an eye. "Why not? What will they do?"
"Because there is reasonable doubt." Isha's tone suggested that such ought to be obvious, "Oh, I doubt there is a soul native to the Federation who could see it, they just need to turn the evidence upside down and view it from behind. This isn't murder, its politics, a gambit played by someone who knows that the Federation are sloppy."
The green became more yellow again, and Yolanthe shifted on the bunk to face Isha. "So, you're saying someone killed my best friend to get at Tharek? Becuase i Just run a bar. There's no political gain there." Her fingers clenched, the knuckles becoming bright yellow she squeezed.
"But you're not the only one in the frame, are you?" Isha said. She dearly wished that she could walk away and let this fiction run its course, Turvan had provided her with information, fabricated or otherwise that could make these charges stick like napalm.
"I don't know who actually killed your friend, but I know it wasn't you, and because the Elements will play whimsical games with me, I know it was not Getal." Isha could be very certain of that, because if it had been him he would no doubt have told her exactly how and when he did it, then demanded that she clear his name.
"You're the first person I've met who believes that." Yolanthe admitted, relieved. "He might have lashed out at the time, but he wouldn't have gone back three days later. Its just not him." She gave Isha an earnest look, "I know he can be a bit boisterous, but he's a passionate man."
BOISTROUS!? this ... idiot was referring to Getal as though he was a naughty child rather than a violent and sadistic thug. It was a testament to her self control that Isha did not express that thought aloud. Without a ripple in her demeanour Isha smiled a very cold and thin smile. "For all your gaudy show you really are rather naive, aren't you?" she said, not entirely unkindly.
Yolanthe went aqua, yellow, orange and back to yellow in short order. She opened her mouth, and shut it again, lost for words. "I don't follow?"
Isha tilted her head slightly to one side, "You seem to lack a certain ... appreciation of the intricacies of interaction." Quite absently Isha rubbed her left thigh through the fabric of her gown - the mark was gone now, but it wasn't what showed on the surface that counted. "You appear to believe without question what is shown to you," she said.
"Lying is hard for my kind. It doesn't come naturally to us, and we're not used to looking for it." Yolanthe shrugged. "And quite frankly, its not something I've really had to deal with from the federation. And even if it was." She waved a hand at Isha's olive complexion. "Do you have any idea how hard it is to read people who are one colour all the time?"
"I don't find it any more difficult than I find it to read you," Isha replied, and there it was again, naive trust. "People in the Federation lie all the time, they name it tact and pretend that is something other than deception," Isha told her.
Yolanthe shrugged again, setting a wave of aches running down her spine. For a moment she turned cardassian grey. "Maybe they do. I don't know. Either way, I'm in the shit aren't I?"
Far deeper than you know Isha thought, but she said, "You are not in a comfortable position, no. You should be thankful this is not a Rihannsu trial, because you don't have a chance in a thousand of proving your innocence in the matter, but as I said, the evidence shows reasonable doubt, no Federation court would convict on that basis," Isha sighed, the entire sordid matter was beneath her, but as she was here she might as well say it anyway. "May I give you some advice?"
"I'll take anything I can get."
Isha had thought to provide a false alibi, but that ruse was going to be about as successful as a Klingon beauty contest. "A resolute and stoic belief in your innocence will do more to convince these people than what, according to the reports you have done so far. From what I have read, and I accept that you do not intend deceit, your excessive protests of innocence have done as much to damage you as the evidence of your DNA. To them you sound like a child who has been caught in the act of stealing from the pantry and has resorted to wailing in the hope that she'll escape punishment, if you'll forgive me for telling you the absolute and direct truth, without that wonderful filter named tact."
It wasn't the truth of course, but Isha wished to seed doubts in Ibalin's mind. Deluded yes, stupid, no, she had concluded. Undermining any little faith that she had in the Federation was as good a place to start as any. The one thing that Isha would not do was directly attack the woman's delusion, that would only cause her to take refuge in it. She would make no secret of her distaste for Getal, but nor would she give a reason for it, if Ibalin possessed any sense of curiousity at all she would, in her own time come to wonder why.
Yolanthe pursed her lips, the grey coming back to a smoky teal. "Alright. Then what?" She couldn't see how it would help, but the Ambassador was the expert.
Isha smiled. The expression was still very cold and thin. "While you are here being stoic and resolute, I will be talking very quickly to the Captain, and should I need to, the ranking JAG Officer in residence. The case will never reach court, of course," Isha repeated her earlier words. What she was about to say was going to leave her tongue as dry as Vulcan. "I suggest that you use your rights to communicate to inform your benefactor that I have given you this assurance," she said. This was not really fair, giving Ibalin a little hope then taking it away, offering advice that she would never be able to test because before she had the chance to, Isha would perform what would appear to her to be a miracle.
"I can do that?" Yolanthe was surprised. They had mention a right to a lawyer, but they hadn't mentioned anyone else. And she had assumed that even if they did, they would never let her talk to Tharek. "Well, yes, of course I'll let him know. Thank you."
Another thougth hit her, and the teal deepened. "But what can they do about it, if there's evidence?"
Isha nodded. "You have the right to communicate, and to have legal representation. Who you choose to communicate with is beyond their control," she told Ibalin. This was actually painful to Isha, the woman did not seem to understand anything, even even the Federation, the most benign empire in the Alpha and Beta Quadrants appeared to be able to treat her like a complete chump. No wonder Getal had found her easy game.
Isha switched to Ibalin's other question - evidence. "If you will recall I said that there is reasonable doubt. It is my ... job to demonstrate that, and I can, but don't expect me to find the killer. I have an idea about who is behind this, but knowing who he used is beyond even me," she said regretfully. Trust was what Isha intended to achieve, it would be much too late before Yolanthe understood that Isha's approach to politics was every bit as ruthless as that of Klia's murderer.
In an instant the taller woman had gone from dark aqua to a white that practically glowed in the dark. "Who?"
A very delicate chuckle escaped Isha's lips. The light show was something new to her, but despite the height Ibalin lacked the solid menace of her Cardassian consort. She found her about as intimidating as a tribble.
"Ask him if he has received any visitors from Cardassia in recent weeks," Isha suggested. "Oh, another question, how long have they held you, and have you been formally charged?"
The white faded down to a powder blue. Now, she had hope of getting out, and hope of finding who had killed her friend and tried to set up her herself and Tharek. "What time is it?" With all that had happened, she had totally lost track of the time.
Isha shrugged, "I've been here, what, twenty minutes? I arrived, around 23:00," she said.
"Hmm, about 36 hours? give or take. And no, I haven't been charged yet. I'm not even sure they will. Trellis wants Tharek and seems to think he just has to wear me down."
"So I suppose they did not raise the issue of bail either?"
The bar owner shook her head. "No. Not that I've got much spare cash anyway."
"Latinum is latinum," Isha shrugged as rose to her feet. "What's a few bars?"
Spoken like someone who'd never had to scrape for cash. "My wage bill for a couple of nights?" She pointed out. "The amount of stock I have to replace if there's more than three marines in on any given evening. Cost of transporting targ and yamok sauce across the better part of a quadrant to make non-replicated bar snacks."
"For that I apologise," Isha said in a tone that managed to sound both sincere and humble. "One is too easily blinded by one's own privilege. I imagine that your business is suffering too while you languish here," she continued. "I don't suppose Trellis has even considered the hardship he is causing. Not properly informing you of your rights, keeping you here without charge … and now me being adding to your burden. You must think me a terrible woman."
Yolanthe gave a short but genuine laugh, "You've hardly added to my burden. I was up a creek, now I may have a paddle. Assuming they are willing to offer a bail that doesn't instantly bankrupt me." Her skin fluctuated between blue and yellow again, "And you've given me more than I hoped." The words that went unsaid were obvious from her colours, a target for my revenge
Isha sighed, "I sometimes forget how difficult things can be when one finds oneself without a friend to turn to. If I have given you hope, then perhaps I have achieved something. I wonder ..." Isha paused her and examined her fingernails as though what she might be about say made her uncomfortable. "I'm sorry, I don't wish to embarrass you," she said without saying what might be embarrassing about what she had not said.
"You'll notice," Yolanthe reassured her, "I'll be peach."
Isha chuckled softly. "I am not without friends among the senior staff on this station," she said. "Perhaps there is something I could do, other than offer you verbal assurances that the accusation against you will not hold, I mean."
"You have something in mind?"
"Perhaps with my assurance that you will continue to co-operate, and not abscond it will be possible to have bail set at a reasonable level," she suggested, anticipating the question, why?
"You'd do that?" Yolanthe was sky blue.
"Miss Ibalin, Yolanthe, I once found myself in a difficult situation, nobody was coming to help me because nobody knew where I was," Isha saiid. Difficult was an understatement. She was thinking back to when she and Rh'vaurek had been the bitterest of enemies, the culmination of ten years of persecution, and all because he mistakenly thought that she had betrayed him. The memory gave her exactly the cast of forlorn sorrow she was aiming for. "It pains me to think that in a place like this, teeming with life, that you cannot even reach your friends."
Isha paused as her cheeks darkened slightly, "See, its me that's embarrassing myself. Its foolish to be so sentimental, but I find it remarkably easy to put myself in your place. Please let that be our secret," Isha said, "I'm supposed to be the granite face of the Stelam Shiar, not a living feeling being, or so my government tell me."
The bokkai shifted on the bench, a more relaxed slump than before; Her people called it the spirit of the gift, and it had to be kept moving. Humans called it 'pay it forward', but either way, she understood the Romulan's stated position. "Madam t'Khellian. I tend a bar. Keeping the sanctity of the bar side confession is an important part of my job. Your secret is safe with me."
"Thank you," Isha said. "It is no easy thing to represent a hybrid society, the old Houses are Matriarchies of one type or another, the government is a conflict of warring interests, and the populace ... well, if it could organise itself it would be anarchy. But I do what I must." Isha aimed to appear jaded without giving the impression that she felt that her diamond shoes were pinching her toes and fancied a grumble about her lot.
"Its not easy is it?"
The sound of wistful grumbling automatically put Yolanthe into sympathetic bar-tender mode. She was tired, angry, confused, and she took refuge in the familiar. "Nothhing ever is. I've served drinks to the highest and the lowest. Everyone has troubles. Privilege isn't always a shield."
"Its anything but," Isha agreed. "If I had any choice about where I was sent I wouldn't be here," she said oddly amused by the double meaning behind her words, "Its always night on a space station, have you noticed that? No wonder such terrible things happen."
It was a comment the bartender had heard many time. Always night in space. There were several stock responses she could choose from, and she was too tired to think of anything wittier, "but night is also when you get to see stars..."
"They're like eyes, always open and always watching, they see everything that goes on," that was how Isha had begun to view the perpetual night, "beautiful, perhaps but vigilant, and unforgetting."
"My people used to say they were the souls of warriors who fell in battle. Which, if you believe the histories, makes them all a bunch of drunken tarts who spend most of their time stealing all the other stars' planets." Yolanthe remembered her conversation with Tharek the previous month. He too had waxed lyrical and turned maudlin looking at the stars. She began to turn towards a rich purple again.
Isha felt her left eyebrow twitch very slightly. "Well, we should be thankful that though they see, they cannot speak, shouldn't we," Isha said, another rhetorical question. She had started improvising when she had met with the Captain, and still did not have a solid plan in mind. That was still forming as she continued with this somewhat banal display of innapropriate sentiment, but at the least Isha wished to establish a rapport, and Ibalin to her eye simply oozed innapropriate sentiment.
"I have heard it said that some will tell a stranger things that they would not tell their best friend," Isha said, "Perhaps there is some truth in that, but it is wrong of me to unburden myself to you. You will forgive me, I'm sure."
Yolanthe gave a slight shrug. "Its comes with running bar. You buy drinks, I listen. And indirectly, ambassador, you've bought an awful lot of listening."
The response puzzled Isha for a moment, then she understood it - Rianni's party. How Isha had regretted her choice of venue when she found out whose pockets she was lining - Getal's whore - but she had gone through with it, and perhaps she could make it to her benefit that she had done so.
"I merely accepted the most competitive offer and the best appointed venue," Isha replied, "and you have a distinct advantage over some of your major competitors," she intimated, "you never once gave me the impression that you thought I might bleed latinum if you squeezed hard enough."
"Treating people like cash cows makes them unhappy, and unhappy customers don't come back. At the risk of sounding mercenary, ambassador, Its bad business to take your customers for granted."
It was Isha's turn to shrug, "I understand perfectly. We are all in business, one way or another. I cannot give you any guarantees that I can get you out of here," she said, returning to the reason why she had come, "but there may be something I can do. In the meantime, believe my assurance that the allegations will never become formal charges."
She nodded, "Thank you. For anything you can do." Her voice was thick with relief, and real gratitude.
"There are too many injustices and iniquities in this universe that pass because people choose not to notice, if I cannot use my position to try and right some of them, then what is it worth?" Isha said.
Yolanthe, now a tropical blue, gave a grin. "Its still very generous of you. I can't thank you enough."
Isha smiled, a warmth lighting her bright green eyes, "Don't thank me yet," she said, "thank me when I get you out of here." And after that thank me if my hand is not forced into damaging you, she thought, Silly innocent creature.
With that thought in her mind she rose, "Let's see if our friend out there is any more amenable now that I want to leave than he was when I refused to speak through a forcefield," she said.
The bokkai stretched, and stood as well. "And tell him I want to talk tharek. As soon as possible." She thought about it. "I know you're already doing a lot for me already. But could you go to Tharek for me too, tell him that I want to see him. I'm not sure I trust Gabriel's cronies to let him know."
Isha paused though she did not look back, not yet anyway. Was it not enough that that ryak'na sseikea believed himself entitled to threaten her every time he wanted something from her, and to hammer her into submission if she refused? Now his concubine was asking her to run errands!
Seeing Isha pause, Yolanthe regretted asking. The romulan woman had already done enough for her. But she'd been stuck inside the same four walls for the best part of a day, punctuated by a nightmare that had almost killed her. She needed to see a friendly face. "Please?"
The tone of her voice was so plaintive that Isha half expected her to beg. How deeply lost must one be if the only thing that can give one hope is the thought of seeing Tharek Getal? Isha thought with a slight.
Slowly Isha turned her head and looked at the woman over her shoulder, "I will consider it," she said turning away before she stepped out of the cell and the field fizzled back to life behind her.
OFF
Ihhei hru'Hfirh Ambassador Isha e-Khellian i'Ramnau t'Illialhlae (NPC)
hru'Llaudh Rihannsu Stelam Shiar
Ambassador to Deep Space Five
Yolanthe Ibalin
Owner of the Box of Delights