Chapter Text
The Federation's take over of the station had not been news to Garak. He knew that the Federation, the saviors and protectors of morality in the Alpha Quadrant, was interested in expanding its empire and Bajor was a very key position indeed. To most of the Alpha Quadrant the Federation was seen as a great power but often resented for its naive belief that everyone should be governed under principles it dictated. Declaring itself the moral epitome of the Quadrant made certain cultures standoffish, notably the Klingons, Romulans, and of course, Cardassians. The fact that it deemed itself so righteous was in the end, what made Garak's hand a little easier to play.
Garak's exile kept him from his home, but also made him a target. To stray very far from Cardassian space would risk the potential occurrence of running into someone he used to know. Anyone who knew him would not be someone he would want to interact with. So with the station as close to home as he could be, he was mildly appreciative for the Federation. Had the station simply been returned to Bajor, the Bajoran trial he would have no doubt endured would have been far less pleasant than one he would have received on Cardassia. At least there he would have been given a quick death. The Bajorans felt they were in need of justice for their suffering, and to them, any Cardassian wasn't worthy of an easy death. So the federation had granted him one kindness, to stave off the eventual Bajoran backlash of his continued residence on what was now being called Deep Space 9. With all of their federation principles, they could not force a simple tailor to vacate a Federation Space Station, especially one with such a clean record.
Still, Garak was no fool, and while the federation could only delay the inevitable, he was still at risk as long as he was on the station. That meant he had to be ready for the eventual violation of his Cardassian rights. No doubt several Bajorans who had passed his shop today had been in the resistance and were most likely planning his demise at this very moment. He'd need some sort of protection, some sort of assurance that should harm come to him, someone would bat an eye.
Tain, in all his talk of self-reliance, had always protected his operatives when they faced a situation that they were not fit to handle themselves, or that went past their capabilities of self-protection. There had been safe houses and contacts on relatively every planet where, if faced with something unexpected by the Order, he could be extracted. If extraction wasn't permissible under the circumstances, at the very least there was a place he could go to update the Order and receive instructions and any medical aid that was deemed necessary. The back of his left leg still ached from a particularly long operation where he had been thankful for the contact, a retired doctor who owed the Order a favor for misplacing a file that could have led to a malpractice suit.
Garak ran over his options. Doubtless no remaining contacts he knew of would be willing to help him, and Tain had likely changed the codes to the safe houses the day of his exile, so those were both out. Making new contacts seemed unlikely, especially if he wanted to keep up the guise of tailor. The security chief had a reputation for justice. He knew better than to challenge the men who believed in justice, because occasionally, the ends could justify the means, and he didn't want to give him cause to believe there were any means he should be achieving. He would have to find someone reliable and dependable within the limits of his cover which, unfortunately, would severely limit what he could do on the station. If he wanted to stay alive, he would have to avoid as many potentially dangerous encounters as possible, and limit any amount of interaction with people beyond his "simple tailoring business." Regardless of what Tain and Cardassia thought of him, he still loved his homeland and would one day return, but until then his main priority was finding a person who could help him in dangerous situations and offer either protection or aid. Preferably a Starfleet Officer since they ran the station and one of their own would hold more weight than a Bajoran Officer. He'd have to keep an eye out.
Until then, Garak planned to stay in public as often as possible, ideally under the watch of the Federation Security. The irony didn't escape him, the fact that he was safest in the hands of the enemy.