Cardassian Heat

The Federation flag was a blue sore, flapping in the hot breeze amidst several red, brown and gold decorated Cardassian flags.  It didn't belong, Jordan Rampart had to admit.  He supposed it was intentional, on the part of some Cardassian or another, to set it up like that: The symbol of the Federation, on its own flag-pole, while nearby, Cardassian symbols clustered together, stronger and more colorful in their unity.  Rampart was never a glass-half-empty kind of person.  For him, the glass was half full.  He'd tried to think of it as such – that the separation favored the UFP icon, in its own blue and silver glory.  But watching it there, alone, rendered a sickly dark blue under the orange light of the Cardassian sky, he couldn't deny the feeling that it was meant as a disparagement.

He didn't ask if it was some Cardassian idea of a bad joke to put him next to the industrial district.  He didn't even have to wonder.  The liaison at the Federation embassy in Cardassia City – a thick-browed, heavy old legate, with a dark glitter in his eyes – had informed Rampart, in elusive Cardassian fashion, that, essentially, it was.  They had put him in a flat, in a building, overlooking a site once known as a killing field.  He could see part of the still-ongoing reconstruction, Cardassians toiling in the hot sun, where slaves from other species they had conquered once toiled.  The Federation had forced them to stop relying on imported slave labor.  Which did they detest more?  Having to perform their own hard labor, or – deep down, because they never admitted it openly – being part of the Federation?  War had robbed Cardassia of a self-sufficient independence, enjoyed for centuries.  Federation peace... Federation membership... despite saving them, their planet, and their very way of life, had taken something in return, that the Dominion never quite accomplished.  It had taken the pride of that knowledge.  Ever since the Dominion occupation – they called it that, despite once willingly allying themselves with the Gamma Quadrant superpower; despite the fact that a now-reviled Gul Dukat had negotiated the arrangement (Cardassians spat every time one mentioned Dukat's name, these days)... ever since the final days of the Dominion War, when the Founder and Vorta commanders ordered the deaths of millions of Cardassians and the destruction of Cardassian cities – ever since, Cardassians had been forced to rely on outside assistance, and they knew it.  Twelve years later, much of Cardassia had been rebuilt.  They were close to completing the reconstruction of Lakarian City.  But Federation, Klingon and Romulan forces remained, since those fateful days over a decade ago... not trusting Cardassia to reclaim full independence.  Another final scar of the war lingered, in the Federation flag waving over Cardassia City, right next to the group of Cardassian flags.  It seemed they never stopped finding ways to take potshots at their saviors... their conquerors... for it.

There was silence, a brief respite from the heat, as Rampart took his gaze from the window overlooking the construction yard.  A growling roar sundered that silence.  A brown, three-story dump truck, engine revving, pulled into view, lumbering across the muddy basin right outside of his window.  He squinted, making out the Cardassian driver, ready to fall asleep at the wheel.  They toiled, all hours of the day and night.  A week Rampart had been here, and still he had no idea what they were supposed to be building, if they were even constructing anything.  They mined the ground, for... what? nothing but rock and dirt?... taking it out, bringing it back in, moving it back and forth.  They just worked, as though that alone was the point.  There were some things about the Cardassian mind he would never understand.  Maybe it was some form of penance, for all the centuries of enslaving other species... trying to make up for it by enslaving themselves, in virtually the same conditions their victims once suffered.

Rampart picked up the fan off the desk and waved it over his face, blowing air from his lower lip, unsuccessfully, in an extra attempt to cool himself.  Cardassians sold folding fans at tourist shops in the city.  He had started a collection since he got here.  He wore nothing but a thin white tank top, soaked with sweat, and light gray shorts.  He had kicked off his sandals, until he saw something crawling under the baseboards, put them back on and called building maintenance.  They promised to fumigate the building... after he left.

It was hot, on Cardassia.  Cardassians loved heat.  Offworlders could rarely take it – probably why it didn't rank too high on the list of tourist attractions.  And, that was probably the way Cardassians, most of them, liked it.  April had advised Rampart, as the captain of the Arcadia mounted the transporter pad, about to get whisked across thousands of light-years, to visit the ruins of Hebitia.  That didn't rank too high on Rampart's list of places to see.  Those things interested April, not Rampart.  Seen one set of ruins, you've seen them all.  After that incident at Memiklon, and spending the next several weeks getting that data they pumped into his brain out of his brain, with Hon Jurmol's help, he didn't want to see anything exotic, with glyphs, or anything like that.

The alternative was to sit here slaving over a hot computer.  It was ridiculous.  They didn't need these old-fashioned comp terminals anymore, but Cardassians were a proud people, reluctant to let go of the past.  They still did things the old-fashioned way.  The walls of the flat were wood and plaster, painted dark gray and dreary.  A ceiling fan sat collecting dust overhead – broken.  What had gotten into him, agreeing to take part of his vacation here?  That damn Romulan woman... using her latent esper influence on him, even though she swore up and down she didn't, she would never do anything like that to him, no, of course not...

He heard a fumbling in the hall outside, and sat up as the door opened.  Cardassians made Rampart nervous.  In fact, they scared him.  They had been known to randomly bust into people's private abodes, stealing them away without a moment's notice.  People used to disappear on Cardassia all the time, before the turning point of the war, and sometimes, even, after.  They were real bastards once, with their interrogations and secret prisons, concentration camps and Obsidian Order, annexing lesser advanced planets simply because they could, especially if those worlds had valuable resources.  Cardassia was poor in resources before the war.  Although it led to Federation membership and peaceful relations, Rampart never fully trusted them... which made him wonder all the more, what made him agree to come here.

He was pleased to see that it was Vor'ana... despite the fact that being here was the result of her suggestion.  She promised him that she nothing to do with the Tal Shiar anymore, their former agents or activities, or anything like that, either.  Still, she was vague when explaining why she wanted to come to Cardassia... and what she intended to do, when she left the flat.  (Visit the art museum, she said.  Let Rampart get some work done, so they could leave that much sooner, she said, if he didn't really like it here... although, truthfully, any of this work he could have done a million light-years away, and sent the results by hololink.)

Vor'ana had her hair pinned up, exposing the curve of her olive neck and sharply pointed ears – which she rarely exposed, for her own personal aesthetic reasons.  Here, she seemed to have no qualms with showing them off.  A visible signal, perhaps?... to someone on the lookout for a Romulan woman on Cardassia?  Stop being so suspicious of your wife, Jordie, Rampart told himself... hearing a hint of Vor'ana's voice in the personal remonstration.

Speculatively, absentmindedly, Rampart scratched at stubble on his jaw, watching her.  Vor'ana was his wife, but continued to mystify him in various ways.  Black.  She loved black.  She wore it more than any other color, and looked good in it.  It matched her hair and inky stare.  But black was the worst color to wear in the heat... and she was wearing it: A black, form-fitting robe, reminiscent of a Japanese kimono, without the obi, over black slacks.  Blue threaded clasps fastened around black buttons in a diagonal slant across the front, from right shoulder to left hip.

Rampart looked at her empty hands.  Trying to ask her what she had been doing would be fruitless – she always saw through him, when that was on his mind.  So, he ignored his prickling suspicion and said, "How was the art museum?"

"Depressing," Vor'ana said.  It took a lot to make a Romulan depressed.  The floorboards creaked as she stepped in and closed the door securely, locking it.  Over a year she had been a Federation citizen, and still locked doors.  Habits died hard, with Romulans.  They did for Cardassians, too.  Rampart's own latent distrust of Cardassians told him some habits died hard, on all fronts.

She said nothing more about it, nor did he.  He chalked it up to one of those little points of cultural enmity between Romulans and Cardassians.  For all of their similar methodologies, they seemed to exist at opposite ends of a polar spectrum, when it came to art, politics, culture, social outlook... just about everything.  But, again... that being the case... why did she want to come here?

He should not have been surprised, yet he was, nevertheless, when, in the middle of their flat, right there in front of him, she undid her hair, letting it fall around her shoulders – swinging her head a couple times to loosen it, which he always found sexy – then stripped down to her undergarments.  It wasn't like a Romulan to be so... open.  Not even before a spouse.  Even in bed, she always kept some part of herself covered, hidden from him.  Jordan started worrying, a little: Worried that the heat was affecting her more adversely than it was affecting him.  Romulans became irate creatures, like their ancient Vulcan ancestors, in extreme heat.  It brought something out in their genes.  Vor'ana knew that.  She was obviously trying to compensate.  He just hoped it worked.  It wasn't a good idea to have a fight with a woman three times stronger than a man.

She stood in the center of the flat, arms out at her sides, palms open, as if imagining a breeze – head back slightly, eyes closed, thick dark hair splaying over her shoulders and down her back, breathing evenly.  Observing her bare, olive-tinged extremities, in her skimpy black underwear, Jordan found himself staring.  But that was all right.  He was her husband.  That gave him the right to stare.

Vor'ana's eyes opened, feeling his stare.  She looked at him.

Jordan grinned and batted his eyebrows.

She bent and picked up her clothes, started putting them back on.

"Rahn," he started.

"You humans," she sighed.  "You'll never learn to control your sexual appetites."

"Okay, I'll stop staring; I'm sorry."  He flicked a button on the computer, going to the next page of the report, and put the sight of his wife in next to nothing out of his mind.  He didn't know what she did next, because he succeeded.  A few minutes later, he glanced over his shoulder.  She was gone.  Relative silence had reclaimed the flat, offset by the clatter of Cardassian traffic.  He got up, went to the bedroom door, peeked in.  She was fast asleep on the small bed, fully clothed.  He closed the door quietly and returned to work.

A blinking Cardassian logo was waiting for him on the computer screen, when he returned, above the words, incoming hail.  Now who could that be...?  Maybe, if he was lucky, it would be the ship, calling to tell him something had come up, they needed him back on board right away....

Fingers crossed on one hand, he reached out with the other, and tapped a button.

The face was that of the legate who'd set them up.  Rampart tried to recall his name, and failed.  He ran a hand over his bald head, picturing the old man calling to see if they were enjoying their stay, though of course he knew they weren't.  Rampart glanced towards the bedroom door.  Well, one of them wasn't.

"Captain..."  The bulky Cardassian face creased, the momentary smile faltering.  Oh, yes, he was enjoying this immensely, Rampart knew that... but now he couldn't remember the Starfleet liaison's name.  Or putting on the pretense.

"Rampart," Jordan Rampart offered helpfully.  Opting for a little justice – very little – he said, "I'm sorry... Legate...?  I forgot your name."

The Cardassian's face twitched.  "Rutlik."

Rampart smiled, despite the suffocating heat.  "Right."

Legate Rutlik put his emotions away and said, "Captain Rampart, as the Starfleet liaison in our little city—"  He was referring to the capital; it was hardly little, though the ruins made it seem that way (April avoided mention of those particular ruins, perhaps tactfully).  "—you are required to investigate matters of Starfleet concern on Cardassia."

Rampart frowned.  This could be serious.  "While I'm here, in this province."

Rutlik nodded.  With Cardassian succinctness – and again enjoying whatever discomfort he thought it caused their Starfleet representative – he informed Rampart of the remains of the Federation ship they had discovered, by planetary survey satellite, in the jungles west of the city... downed during the war, probably.  Since Rampart was the Starfleet rep who happened to be closest, it fell to him to go out and put a Starfleet face on the scene.  When Rampart subtly tried to touch on the convenience of the timing – they just now happened to find it, while he was here, on temporary leave from the Arcadia? – Rutlik didn't know what he was talking about.  He was rather convincing about it.  For some reason, that made Rampart just a little more worried than he would have been, if he had known.

Ending the communication, Rampart stood there for a few minutes, in the sweltering heat, debating assigning an adjutant to go out and take care of it.  That was his prerogative.  And... a jungle.  It would be even hotter.