The Complication

Indubitably

A/N: Thank you all for your support of this story! Seriously, you lot have been giving me LYFE.

Holy shitsnacks Batman I can't begin to tell you how excited I am to announce that "The Complication" will be turning into a series in the future – there will be sequels to this story once we get through this fic!

But we've still quite a long way to go before we finish this installment!

We're going to play a wee bit with the canon but I'm trying to keep it in line with the general plot of the show. So, you may run across a few scenes where you think to yourself "wait a tick, 'a' happened before 'b' in the show."

Aye, you're right – it just worked better for this story to make a few tweaks.

I want to express my deep gratitude to Lady_Lore for agreeing to team up with me on telling this story. Her accompanying story "The Complication – Missing Scenes" is available now!

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Tasha, Data, and Commander Riker were standing in Captain Picard's Ready Room. They had lost subspace communication a little over an hour ago. Thus far, the engineering techs had been unable to restore it. They were running behind schedule to deliver the Antican and Selay delegations to Parliament and the electrical malfunctions were beginning to increase in frequency.

"Alright, your theories on this sudden vulnerability in our systems?" Picard asked as he stepped from his desk.

His three officers exchanged a glance. They had all reached the same conclusion, but Data was the first to speak it aloud.

"If the Enterprise were really this fragile Sir, she never would have left space dock. Therefore, her system's failures are not endemic to the ship but are the result of the actions of an unknown adversary," Data explained.

"We have a saboteur aboard," Riker summarised.

"I believe I said that," Data stated as his brow furrowed.

Tasha suppressed a grin as she watched her lover's confused face. She shook the thought from her mind immediately, the Enterprise was under threat and she could not dismiss that danger.

"The question is who?" Picard asked before adding, "I can't believe it is one of our own people."

"Agreed. It must be someone from one of the alien delegations," Riker said concurring with the Captain's assessment.

"If the Ferengi could have bought or bribed even one of them, that's all they'd need," Tasha said.

Following their initial encounter with them, Data had heavily researched the Ferengi and shared his findings with Tasha. She had concluded they could most certainly be a threat and had set to studying their tactics and patterns.

"Ferengi contacts have been detected on both Selay and Antica, Sir," Data added.

Silence fell onto the group. Captain Picard and his three officers knew that an allegation against either delegation could have disastrous political consequences.

"Can any of you suggest any other suspects?" Picard asked rhetorically.

Riker grinned broadly.

"You're sounding like a private eye, Sir," he said gently teasing the Captain.

"Inquiry, 'private eye'?" Data questioned.

Picard decided he would field that one.

"A private consulting investigator, Data. One who solves crimes," Picard tried to explain as he walked back behind his desk.