Jason almost bristled with indignation at the thought of drugging Kellea, but as he considered it he had to admit the plan had a certain elegance to it.
"Could you develop a counter agent I would be able to administer once numbnuts—"
"Hey!"
"—has the codes and is out?"
"I don't see why not," Doc said. "I have her bio scans on file so it's just a matter of synthesizing the compounds. Why not just let her sleep it off?"
"For one it would arouse suspicion," Jason said. "She doesn't drink, so passing out for the night with no memory of what happened would cause her to get a full workup in her med bay. That would likely expose the traces of whatever you want me to give her still in her system. For another it's too dangerous to leave the captain of the Defiant incapacitated. I need to be able to bring her out of it quickly." As he spoke, Jason couldn't believe he was even considering the plan, but he needed something to work with and he needed it fast. Crusher's life was likely hanging by a thread, if he was even still alive, and he owed it to his friend to exploit any advantage he had. He knew in the back of his head that this was going to have profound ramifications down the road, but he shoved the thought aside and concentrated on the present.
"I'll get to work on it now," Doc said, hopping up from the galley table and rushing towards the infirmary.
"And I'll get my stuff ready," Kage said.
"I can't believe we have to resort to this," Twingo said once they'd left. "Why won't Crisstof help on this? I'd say he owes us at least that much."
"I don't know what's going on with this project he's involved in, but he seemed distracted at the debrief," Jason said. "Once he'd learned the package we'd been hired to get out of De'Moltia was killed he became completely disinterested in anything else I had to say, including the fact Crusher is now MIA."
"Always nice to know where you stand with people, I guess," Twingo said. "I'll start getting the ship prepped for launch. I have a feeling we'll be leaving in a hurry."
"I will assist you," Lucky said and followed Twingo out of the galley. Once they'd gone, Jason began rubbing his temples with the palms of his hands, trying to alleviate the stress headache he could feel coming on. Crisstof had been distant, almost cold towards him and his crew for some time now, but Jason was still mildly shocked at the man's seeming indifference to the fact that Crusher hadn't come back from an extremely dangerous mission that had been at his request.
With a snort of disgust he pushed away from the table and headed towards his quarters to get cleaned up. He wasn't at all looking forward to the deception he was about to play a part in. His feelings for Kellea were complicated, to say the least. They rarely saw each other in person, they weren't even from the same species, and there were times he felt she was embarrassed about being seen with a hired gun no matter how laudable his missions might be. Be that as it may, he still felt grubby at the thought of drugging her so he could steal confidential information that she wasn't willing to give to him freely. But he knew Crusher would do no less for him if the roles were reversed, so he squared his shoulders (figuratively) and pushed all doubts out of his mind. Whatever happened would happen, but he would always know he did everything in his power to save his friend.
****
"You seem a bit distant tonight," Kellea said as Jason twirled his drink glass in his hand. As soon as the words left her mouth he could see the regret etched on her features. "I'm so sorry," she said. "It was completely selfish of me to ask you here when Crusher is still down on the surface in that prison. I apologize, but we get to see each other so rarely that perhaps my judgment was clouded."
"It's fine," Jason assured her without much enthusiasm or sincerity. "Unfortunately, there's nothing else I could be doing right now without knowing what happened to him. The person we were hired to smuggle out of De'Moltia was killed and dumped as a statement ... but I'm not sure what that means for my guy on the inside."
"I wish I could do something," she said, putting her hand over his. "But Crisstof hasn't felt it necessary to tell me what is going on down on Faulli. He's sequestered himself in his own suite and seems to only come out and go directly to the hangar bay where his shuttle is on alert around the clock."
"Seems very mysterious," Jason said. "Did he even give you a hint how much longer you'd be here?"
"Not directly," she said. "He intimated that with our contact now murdered the Defiant should be ready to break orbit at any time."
"I see," Jason said. "I guess we'll need to come up with a realistic plan of attack soon then."