748: Making Good Their Threat

by Azalea Adams
90116.0300
Following Kindred Spirits and Do You?

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-=Orphanage at the Altaan Sanctuary, Bajor=-

Azalea folded her arms over her chest and shuddered. She thought about Vettan Brell's threat, that the people that they cared about could be made to suffer if they pursued the issue of the manipulated vaccines and their distribution.

That was, she was certain, exactly what had just happened to Tress and Fleur. They'd been singled out specifically because Jariel had spoken out.

Jariel's expression changed several times in the seconds that followed Dane's announcement and finally settled on complete disbelief as he stormed past the others and up to the man.

"Tell me," he raged, "exactly what happened."

"We were loading the last of the mobile med-lab equipment back onto the Alchemy." Dane began, "Micah and I. Fleur was headed into the sanctuary to go get Tress, and next thing we knew Bajoran militia was here."

He still couldn't believe it, even as he replayed the events in his mind. "Then all hell broke loose."

"What happened, step by step, Dane? It's very important you tell us everything." Jariel wanted nothing more than to just scream in absolute frustration but doing so and giving in to his emotions now would not help Tress, or Fleur.

He had to help Tress and Fleur.

"They asked if she was Fleur Le Marc, and she asked how she could help them. The next thing we knew, they had her by the arms, and were putting handcuffs on her."

Jariel winced, finding the mental image physically painful.

"They said that she was under arrest for crimes committed against Bajoran citizens. She asked what the charges were and they refused to tell her."

Dane gave a calm and professional accounting of the event that showed off the law enforcement skills he'd learned from O'Sullivan, and which would have made the Irishman, could he see Dane now, quite proud.

"She must have been terrified," Azalea gasped softly.

Dane responded with a single, incredulous laugh. "No, actually, she was, well..." he paused, losing hold of that professional demeanor just a bit, "She was pissed. She immediately said she wanted to speak to counsel, and they said that she would not be allowed to speak to anyone until she appeared before the judge."

"But wait. Hold the com-line a second. The militia took the baby too?" Hartcort asked, not understanding why in the worlds they would care about one more Bajoran orphan- other than the fact that she was the orphan of interest to Jariel Camen. He had, in fact already come to that conclusion, just as Azalea had, that this was exactly the reason that they had taken Tress.

Still, he wanted to leave no stone unturned and no question left unasked before anyone did anything else.

"The militia came to take Fleur," Dane repeated, "The Child Protection Ministry took Tress."

"But she was located at a government sanctioned orphanage!" Jariel shouted, unable to resist the urge to do so a moment longer. "She was safe here! She was receiving specialized medical care!"

"She was also transported out of the Province by someone with no legal right to do so." Micah Samson declared sadly, as he emerged from the orphanage and joined the assembled group.

He folded his arms across his chest and shivered as the cold wind hit his face.

"I just did some digging and though they wouldn't tell us the charges against her when they took her out of here, that is what they are charging Fleur with. Taking a child across provincial lines without the legal right to do so. That and child endangerment...and..." he furrowed his brow, "they've just added the charge of 'resisting arrest'."

*I'll bet she resisted. They were trying to take her baby,* Camen thought.

"Kidnapping. That's the best they can do?" Azalea exclaimed in disgust. Now she knew without a doubt that this was a deliberate attack on Jariel and those he considered his 'family'.

"Child endangerment? Do they not understand that...oh forget it!" She knew that it was a charge so utterly ridiculous that it was nearly impossible to respond to it. It was a charge without merit- trumped up in order to punish Jariel. Plain and simple.

So good was Fleur with Tress that Azalea had actually

already written formal letters on the subject and tucked them away. Letters praising Le Marc's care for the baby, that she had planned to give to Fleur as evidence to support her case when she applied to legally adopt Tress.

Adopting Tress was, Fleur had confided to Azalea, her dearest wish and primary goal before she left Bajor.

If she ever left Bajor.

Fleur wanted to be certain that the girl's brother was also taken care of, and set upon his chosen path to study the teachings of the Prophets and...

"Wait," Azalea raised her hand in question. "What about the boy? Surely he'll tell the authorities that these charges against Fleur are baseless and that she was only bringing the baby here to try to save her from the fever. Maybe if we get him involved in the case, people higher up will begin to question the charges."

"From what I've just been told it appears that Gillan Pace is now in a juvenile detention center." Micah explained. "They got to him first."

"Juvenile? He barely qualifies at his age. He's almost-"

"He's fifteen, Vedek Jariel," Micah frowned even more deeply. "He's only fifteen."

Jariel's head fell into his hands. "No," he sighed heavily. "Pace, why didn't you tell me? I could've helped you, I could've prevented you from being separated from her. You didn't have to keep on lying." He understood why the boy had done it, but that decision complicated matters further now.

He looked up at the others as they waited quietly for him to elaborate.

"When Pace and Tress's parents died in the storms, Pace just took over caring for Tress. She was only six months old at the time, and this means that he was only,"

Jariel began to shake, partly from rage, partly from cold, as he truly realized all the young man had been through. Barely more than a child himself, Pace gone through hell trying to hold onto the only family he had left, and keep her safe from harm.

"He may have only been fourteen instead of sixteen, as he told everyone. But he didn't want them to take her away. He told me that much. He didn't want," tears filled his eyes, and Azalea and Dane stepped forward, each clamping a hand on one of his shoulders.

"Come on, Jariel, it's awfully cold out here," said Azalea, as snow began to shower down on them anew.

"Yeah, c'mon. We can talk inside." Dane gave Jariel a gentle push toward the doors, hoping he'd put one foot in front of the other and just keep walking.

"You said that Fleur was angry," Azalea prodded Dane while they walked, as Jariel seemed too overcome to speak. "What did she do? What did she say?"

"She decided to bide her time at first and handled the whole thing quite calmly. She told us to get in touch with Jariel. That she was sure there was some 'simple misunderstanding' as she put it. But she already had the look in her eyes. The one that said she knew that this was no misunderstanding, that of it had to do with the Relanon issue."

He shook his head as the group moved into the currently empty dining hall, and Jariel slumped down into a chair. The Vedek listened to every word intently as he stared blankly at the top of the table.

This very room had been filled with such joy and laughter just a few nights before. Now, Camen felt as if it was growing smaller and smaller by the moment.

Each sentence Dane spoke felt like a shovel of dirt being thrown into Jariel's open grave, as sorrow enveloped him and threatened to bury him alive.

"Did she have to," he asked finally, struggling to speak the words, "see them taking Tress away?"

"That was when she went ballistic." Dane answered sadly.

Tough as Dane was, even he couldn't say any more for the moment, and he urged Samson with his eyes to do his fair share of the storytelling as he regained his composure.

Watching that baby carried off, wailing for Fleur and signing frantically, was one of the most heartbreaking sights Dane had ever been subjected to in his life.

That was really saying something.

"As they were about to lead her away, she heard Tress crying and turned around." Micah finally picked up the account where Dane had left off, his expression devoid of emotion, but a slight tremor audible in his voice.

"She turned around to see the people from the Protection Ministry taking the baby out through the kitchen door. Tress called to her, was signing and," Micah stopped to clear his throat. "Calling her 'maman'."

Jariel closed his eyes, the expression on his face one of utter devastation.

"Fleur tried to call back to her, almost seemed she forgot for a moment in her panic that Tress can't hear." Micah whispered. "She tried to get away from the Militia and that was when it got ugly."

"Didn't you do ANYTHING to try to STOP THEM?" Jariel jumped up and grabbed Samson by the shirt. "Why didn't you try to stop them?"

Micah blinked, so shocked by the Vedek's sudden actions that he was momentarily frozen in place.

Dane stepped in, quickly putting himself between the two men even as Hartcort pulled Jariel back by the arms.

"Jariel, there was nothing we could do,"

"Nothing? Nothing?"

"Jariel. listen to me! They were holding weapons on Fleur," Dane raised his voice enough to speak with authority that Jariel would be able to grasp through his despair.

"She started kicking and screaming in French. Hell, I think she tried to bite one of them in her desperation to get free. They could barely hold on to her. She finally got away from them and they were about to fire on her, but Micah and I, we, got in the middle, between her and the militia men. We yelled at them not to fire, that we'd help. We did everything that we could to keep her from getting herself shot."

Dane sighed, sorry that was all they had been able to do for her.

"We took hold of her, tried to calm her down. She wasn't crying, but she was still yelling."

Dane ran his hand through his hair. "She's got fight, especially when it comes to that kid. We had to promise her that we would get word to you, that we would do everything we could do to help. Then as quickly as it all started, it was over."

He shook his head yet again, still disbelieving. "Tress and Fleur were gone."

"We've got to contact Starfleet Command," Azalea decided. "See if they can help. In the meantime, gentlemen, I think it best if you take the Alchemy and follow the Admiral's orders to get out of here as soon as humanly possible."

She was now afraid what would happen next if Vettan, Dendre, and Ram's cohorts decided to make an issue of their continued presence at Altaan.

Sending Hartcort back was a good distraction; they'd already taken aim at Camen and fired, and Azalea had no one on the planet that they could use to hold over her head.

"Commander Hartcort, I officially turn over command of the USS Alchemy to you for the trip back to Earth. Dane and Micah know that ship inside and out, they'll tell you anything you need to know, if you don't know it all already."

As smart as Hartcort was she imagined him juggling schematics of the prototype into his 'light reading' schedule while he solved the puzzle of the epidemic and designed a cure, all at the same time.

"Yes, you should go immediately, and contact Starfleet as soon as you're out of the system and tell them exactly what has happened." She repeated, more sure of the decision with each passing second. "I'll be trying to contact them from here as well but I'm betting that the comm station in the Vedek's office has been tampered with, or at least is being monitored now."

"We can leave you a spare." Micah suggested. "I can have it set to send all messages through a different encryption algorithm from the one already inside. That should throw the hounds off of your scent. I'll have it up and running before the Alchemy is through her pre-flight sequence."

"Excellent. Thank you, Micah. Dane, give him a hand? Doctor Hartcort, I'll speak to you briefly again before you take off."

As the three men departed, each silent and deep in thought, Azalea moved to put a reassuring hand upon Camen's shoulder.

"We're going to work this all out, Vedek Jariel," she whispered, "I promise you."

"The very first thing we have to do is find that little girl," Jariel answered. He said this knowing that Fleur would want him to do nothing else.

He also said this knowing that processing Fleur through the Bajoran court system now that she was visibly in it would take longer than it would take to make one small child disappear; perhaps even taken off planet to keep anyone who may be looking from locating her. "Before anything else, we've got to find Tress."

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Commander Azalea Adams
Starfleet Medical
Currently Stationed on Bajor