T'Pren's Quarters Post-Staff Meeting

T'Pren had already taken a sonic shower between Klingon breakfast and the staff meeting, but after receiving her private assignments from Commander Rai, she felt something of that nature was in order. She considered briefly going to the bath house and seeing what was available, since a long hot soak seemed like the best possible way to wind down after abruptly sobering up during her meetings, but the thought of running into Lorelei sent heat into more parts of her body than just her cheeks.

In the end, she stripped delicately out of her uniform, folding it neatly and setting it on the bed she still hadn't actually slept in. She had every intention of jumping into the shower for the second time that day, but as she stood in the nude, surrounded by nothing but Cardassian architecture and her father's guitar -- her one worldly object -- she instead folded her legs and settled on the floor in a meditative position. The half-Vulcan took a deep breath and let it slowly back out again, closing her eyes to better focus.

"Okay, Pren," she told herself, "you're not that little girl anymore. You have Starfleet training. You have Regan here and Akhil and a Commander who believes in you. This station is a Cardassian shell, but its heart is Federation now. You're not being held against your will. You're here of your own volition. You have chosen to be here, in this place, with these people. There's nothing scary about architecture. This room is what you make it."

With her eyes still closed and her breathing dropped low in her body, she spent the next several minutes French braiding her hair, granting freedom to the tips of her ears.

"When you open your eyes," she coached herself gently, "you will see your new home, nothing more. ...Open your eyes."

T'Pren's green eyes opened to her quarters.

Just before Pren opened her eyes, there was a flicker of light in the room, playing green off her eyelids. The computer's voice stuttered nonsensically as a message came through on the transmission screen, without any warning or prompting.

"I'm getting something now... Who is that?" A transmission barely came though, and the figure on screen phased in and out, the figure poorly lit when it was seen at all. The voice was a older man's, and though Pren couldn't recognize it, she knew to what race it belonged.
"..is that...?" the ocular ridge of the man in the transmission could be seen as he leaned close to whatever device he was using to puncture through the station's security clearance.

The Starfleet lieutenant had planned on opening her eyes softly and finding new hope in her spartan room. Instead, her eyes snapped open wide as she stared, Vulcan-faced, at the screen. She didn't breathe -- she forgot at first and then it just didn't seem worth the effort to get it started up again -- but her already quick-beating heart began to race as if to compensate.

T'Pren spared no thought for her nudity (she had no issues with nakedness so long as there wasn't touching involved) but instead focused intensely on the shadowed figure. Strangely, she noticed it wasn't panic or fear that flooded through her system; it was a touch of feeling territorial overwhelmed in a sea of calm and curiosity. Because, as Commander Rai noticed, if she did anything well, it was crisis.

So pale and slender, the half-Vulcan stepped lithely to her feet and crept closer to the screen, standing at her tallest and proudest, as though she were still clothed in her uniform.

"May I help you?" she asked the screen coolly.

"Well, damn... no sound yet.." The man said, though he still sounded perfectly content, and his eye still looking into his device with intrigue. "Well well, you've grown into quite the dashing young woman, haven't you?" His image blipped and scattered, then returned again.

It was the word 'grown' that twisted her stomach into a cold knot. T'Pren suddenly felt exceptionally naked, but it had nothing to do with her nudity. Her vulnerability coupled with her pride and she continued to stand as she was in front of the screen, brows lifted imperiously, practically on display in defiance of the scared little girl inside her. She was so stubbornly determined to stand her ground that she dismissed for the moment any idea of going to get a PADD to send him a message or even tinkering with her display to see if she could get herself sound from this side of things.

There was also something strangely arousing about choosing this response for herself; choosing to be the subject of voyeurism at the hands of someone who must have been one of her captors, though she didn't recognize his voice.

The slight half-Vulcan considered momentarily asking the Cardassian if he knew her, but that was obvious enough and he may not even hear her. And that's when her rebellious streak made itself known.

She smiled sweetly at her screen and held up both hands. With one, she gave the traditional Vulcan 'live long and prosper'. With the other, she gave the traditional Earth 'fuck you'.

The man on the screen peered to make out her gestures, then gasped and laughed, as though watching a precocious child make conversation above her age range.

"This *should* be the quarters of an officer," he reasoned, looking at the room behind her. "Are we star fleet now, or are we a kept girl?"

The twisted pleasure T'Pren got when the Cardassian laughed made her simultaneously sick and thrilled. She could feel her eight years of conditioning kicking in strongly and fought the urge to please her former captor with just about everything she had.

But the half-Vulcan couldn't fight both her urge to please and her urge to defy, so their strange dance of communication continued. Her chin lifted proudly as she tapped two fingers to her upper chest where her comm badge would go if she were dressed.

Starfleet.

The man chuckled. "Good girl... I wonder what your rank is. Well, I am sure I'll see you in your uniform soon// and perhaps I can get this damn audio to come through."

Good girl.

That was a disturbingly familiar phrase coming from a Cardassian mouth and T'Pren couldn't stop herself from actually shivering just a little. It rankled just as much as she was secretly and shamefully pleased. She tried to come up with a way to show him what her rank was, both because fuck him and because part of her was desperate for more praise.

Her body moved almost involuntarily to the uniform folded onto the bed, turning her back momentarily to the screen to retrieve it and bring it back with her. She stood in clear view of the Cardassian man, whoever he was, let her uniform unravel itself, and did what was perhaps the most minimalist but deeply intense reverse strip tease the quadrant had ever seen. With a final, firm adjustment of her blue-patterned Starfleet garb, she stepped closer to the screen and presented her pip'd collar for viewing.

The man leaned in, the ocular ridge taking up much of the screen, as though he were a giant looking into a small house's window at the occupants.
"Well, well!"

There was a wave of nausea that washed through T'Pren at just how terribly proud she felt that this man, this man she couldn't even remember, was making a show of being impressed with her rank. The sexual edge wore off of the meeting slightly (just slightly) and she took a step back to be in full view again, feeling more like herself now that her uniform was weighing against her skin. What exactly had she just done?

She put her hands out to her sides, palms up, and lifted her brows at the screen in question. But the former Obsidian Order pet couldn't quite keep the polite sweetness from her expression.

Who are you? her gesture asked.

"This is a very interesting development... too bad I have (unintelligible)..." the man's signal weakened and he sat back from the screen once more. "...make sure you tell them hello from me. (unintelligible) is some Betazoid?"
The computer stuttered once more, and the signal was cut off.

The fact that T'Pren was already preparing to give the mystery Cardassian information about her Commander was bad enough, but when the signal cut off, she actually felt a pang of loss.

"Wait!" she cried out weakly, and then sat down heavily on the floor, staring at the blank screen but really looking inward at herself in disgust.

The Commander shouldn't trust me. No one should, she thought dismally. But even as she felt deeply ashamed and defeated, her hand tapped her comm badge without thought.

"Lieutenant Inabnet to Commander Rai. We have a problem."

"Go ahead Lieutenant," he said. He had just finished his talk with Tal'Ara, and his mind was still turning things over, quietly obsessing over details, Tal'Ara's expressions, her microexpressions, Section 31, engineered viruses, and an Orb. Why now? Why all at the same time?

T'Pren took a deep breath, preparing herself for what she was about to say and carefully calculating what she could and could not tell Rai about what just happened. She also felt particularly dirty after hearing his voice, keenly aware of how weak-willed she had become in a matter of minutes.

"Sir...our communications are being tapped into by a Cardassian man, most likely Obsidian Order. He just took control of the screen in my quarters." The lieutenant braced herself: "Sir, he knew me as a child."

Rai's face fell, and his heart dropped. "I'll have communications run a trace to his origin and run a jammer so it won't happen again," he swallowed. "Are you alright, Lieutenant?" He knew she wasn't alright, he knew she was terrified.

Well, Commander, I almost started telling him about how you're a Betazoid and I'm a little worried that maybe I am some kind of Cardassian sleeper agent after all. Also I'm kind of turned on?

T'Pren pushed herself to her feet, dusted off the back of her uniform, and worked to control her breathing, so that it would sound a little more convincing when she said, "I'm fine, sir." Her voice caught in her throat, though, when she followed it with, "Thank you for asking."

Oh, and I'm preemptively sorry if I accidentally betray you and Starfleet.

"Let me know if anything happens again, immediately."

"Of course, sir," T'Pren replied automatically, but inside she wondered if she actually would. Which is why she immediately went to the wall, slapped the proper buttons on the panel, and demanded, "Computer, locate Counselor Akhil."

"Counselor Akhil is in Holosuite 3."

The half-Vulcan let out a long, shaking breath, glanced one more time at the screen, and practically burst out of her room at a jog. Because as much as she felt like sprinting, she had enough presence of mind to realize it would terrify the residents of the station.