D'A Green Room

...

The Bajoran snarled and jerked her attention back to the remaining inventory. "You'd better watch yourself," she muttered.
   "Just do your work," Tom told her. "Your fight's not with me."
   "It could be," she warned.
"... I don't think you or your captain would appreciate the Federation crawling up your ass for knocking off a registered trade ship in what should have been neutral territory ... Do your job and take your fight back where it belongs."
   A few of the others mumbled some choice words his way for that one.
   Tom didn't care.

Wandering along the Federation-Cardassian border, an exiled pilot is drawn into a boon he doesn't want, but accepts for want of options. Throwing herself into what work she could get, a troubled young engineer finds herself in a new situation. Both make use of their lots and their lives as they skirt the DMZ and deal with the forces at work there.

Set 16 months before "Caretaker."
......

I: Salvage

VIII: You can sometimes go home.

II: Orientation

IX: Departures

III: Poetry and Plasma

X: Paybacks are Hell

IV: Dealing a Round

XI: What Comes Around

V: The Border

XII: Landing Hard

VI: Beggars and Choosers

XIII: Home Field

VII: Ship Leave

XIV: The Lot

.........
Rated R (M) for language, violence and adult situations.

Many most grateful thanks to Lareina95 for her excellent and most thorough beta work, done in every kind of crunch. I could never have finished this as well without her efforts.

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Star Trek, its worlds and its characters all belong to Paramount. I merely think too much about them.