Eps 2 Act 3: Skin Game

[Amanda Rose]

[SabrinaPandora]

Setting the type 1 hand phaser for an overload, the Chief of Security and Tactical of Starbase 42wedged it between a few boards in the vendor's wagon before bracing herself against it, preparing to give it a proper shove out into traffic. It would expose her to some random fire, but the distraction it provided would likely give the away team a chance to make their way across the Bazaar to the Gorn's shop where all this slavery and misadventure had begun.

There was still the possibility of beating the reptilian smuggler into submission, and that thought would keep the Andorian antagonist cool for now.

As the whine of the phaser charge building to overload became audible, Talla counted in her head, since she did not have the chronometer built into her coldsuit to time this trick. Instead she would have to rely on guesses and experience and luck, which suited her fine. This was war, and this was something she was good for, after all. Pressing her small shoulder into the corner of the wagon, she dug in before barking out orders in her squeaky high-pitched voice.

"I will place the distraction where it needs to be, but I need all of you ready to move when it goes off. Keep your heads down and run as fast as you can to Burns' shop, and I will join you there. Distraction in t-minus ten..." the security smurf left it at that, as she bent her considerable strength and knowledge of leverage to getting the vendor cart rolling, powerful little legs weaker than they would normally be but still sufficient to the task at hand. After all, she was running on adrenaline now, which enabled her to push herself harder in short bursts despite the debilitating heat and her dehydration.

As the crude wagon picked up speed, she let it go, leaving it to bounce and wobble into the street, where with no one to guide it the front wheels turned sharply and upended the cart, flipping it over onto itself in an unimpressive crash.

The explosion that followed was considerably more impressive, and garnered considerably more attention from the local populace. After all, the overload settings were as subtle as the beam settings, and if one knew what they were doing the results could be quite spectacular. While there was not much room in the frozen slush of grey matter that passed for Talla's brain for social conventions, psychology, history or warp mechanics, one thing the stunted sapphire-skinned security smurf knew was her job, and how to use the various tools of said duties to bring order or cause chaos when needed. And as the vendor's wagon flipped up to pinwheel into the sky from the explosion, all eyes nearby at least glanced that way if not outright staring as an unprecedented sight took place in the Bazaar.

~tag any

[Ciara Mei]

Zayna was sick of it. Sick of playing the lowly ensign roll. She had the experience to deal with this. She had the training, and she was forced to hide all of it. What was the point now?

She watched the exploding phaser trick, which really was a distraction. But once they stopped watching, where would they end up looking? Most likely they knew where that particular cart had come from. But they had to get out of the area.

Following what had been said, Zayna headed off to where they needed to be to get their parts. Her mind was still on the engineer they needed to save. How had they gotten to this point?

She looked back to make sure the others were with her. She was determined to not take no for an answer. They were getting the parts and somehow the engineer.

In her head, she had some elaborate plan, that sadly would never work. They'd have to have a few days of planning, as well as many more Intelligence officers.

Shaking her head, she let out a heavy sigh and stopped near where they had to be. Looking over at the captain, she lowered her voice. "Captain...do we actually have a way to pull anything off? We might have to find a way around the rulebook...even more..."

Tags

[lucasausems]

Well, Lukat had to give it to them. Of all the scenarios he had prepared for in his mind for when he got to SB 42, he had never imagined himself getting shot, pinned down, hiding behind a rickety table, covered in hasperat seasoning, on a Pirate's Planet. And he hadn't even been here for more than a few hours. These Fleeters had a knack for getting themselves in trouble, and Lukat blamed it on their amateurism. How Starfleet had managed to beat the clearly superior Jem'Hadar and Cardassian military now completely baffled the young Gil and he could only assume that Sjet's group was not representative of the larger Starfleet whole. He extrapolated further and concluded from the recent events and the people he had met that most of the officers posted to SB 42 must be the misfits of the Fleet and sent here after committing some crime or erring in some way, or sent here with politically motivated motivated reasons, to get the person in question as far away from the centre as possible. The Shoal definitely qualified for such a posting...

Lukat couldn't supress a grin as he realised the irony of it. He was a misfit himself. He was, in fact, in the same ship as the rest of this crew (was that how the expression went?.) He saw P'Trell readying a phaser for overload just as Lt. Jones dived through the tent and landed next to Lukat behind the table.

The chaos was the diversion Emerald had been waiting for. She gathered herself together, and made a run for it, sprinting through the crowded area and towards the nearest cover. It was, thankfully, in keeping with the role she’d been playing. Nobody looked twice at the young woman in the skimpy silks. After all, it wasn’t as though she was the only one trying to get out, or to find somewhere to hide.

Emerald dodged around a portly merchant, who was gesticulating wildly and yelling something about Hadialian Worms coming to take them all away. She grabbed his hand, closing it around a coin, and then pivoted, snagging a richly coloured shawl from his table. He didn’t stop yelling, and she didn’t stop running.

She slid behind a table, just as something exploded nearby, and landed next to the Cardassian she had been talking to earlier. You know, before things went sideways and she needed to get back to building a reputation here that’d stand them in good stead.

“Fancy meeting you in a place like this,” she grinned. “Anyone would think that it was fate. What’s going on?”

Lukat simply pointed at P'Trell who'd put the phaser in a cart and pushed it out into the crowd. Acting like true gregarious animals the mass of people moved over to where the explosion sounded to simply stand and watch in a direction that was neither Burns' shop or the Starfleet Officers and Cardassion CIB operative in disquise. Lukat didn't think most involved in the firefight were of the brightest minds. A thoughtful man would think twice before entangling himself in a brawl such as this and therefore those still involved in it were likely not intelligent enough to realise that all major players had already vacated the area. All players except Lukat and his Starfleet comrades, that was..

"We should make a dash for Burns' shop", Lukat stated, he wasn't in a mood to return her grin, he was in survival mode. "But be careful when you reach there, we cannot know what to expect inside."

“Burns?” Emerald asked, glancing over at the Cardassian. “I’ve been busy trying to make things a bit smoother for all of us. Who’s Burns?”

She ducked out from the table for a moment, her eyes raking over the crowd. When she popped back beside Lukat, her eyes were dark. She stared at a memory, long long past. “If I was an unscrupulous sort, this is the perfect time to get people to riot. Panic them. And I think I saw someone starting the process in the middle of that lot. So, where’s this Burns?”


Lukat had not expected the question. "That lizard who we were attempting to acquire the slave for...", Lukat reminded her. Maybe she had hit her head on the way out and was suffering from short-term memory loss... Lukat brushed it aside as it was not important for now, they first had to get out of this nasty business, preferably alive. Lukat pointed at Burn's shop in the distance. "Over there, but make sure people riot away from where we need to go, otherwise P'Trell's diversion is for naught." Lukat approved of her suggestion, it wasn't difficult to scare a mob, especially under the current circumstances, it would provide the team with ample time to make a dash for the shop, if successful.

“Oh, so that’s the name of the chap.”

Emerald didn’t seem to be bothered by this. The noise of the crowd suddenly escalated, just as she’d feared it would. She’d spotted a lithe figure pushing and shoving around the edge of the group. Sooner or later, they’d smash into just the right person, in just the right kind of mood to create chaos. She peered out again. The mass of people was staying more or less in the same place. Fists were flying, connecting with solid thuds. The cries of pain were changing into cries of anger.

“Guess we’d better get moving then,” she commented, sounding detached. “Can’t control a mob. But probably should get out of the way before things start getting thrown.”

"Agreed", Lukat said. Signalling the others to follow, Lukat made a dash for the shop. It seemed farther away than the first time, but everything seems to take forever when haste is involved. For someone who prided himself in presenting himself as a calm and reserved individual, someone who sees any necessity of haste as a failure in careful planning, Lukat's sudden dash into the throng, gracefully avoiding obstacles and people without losing any speed, was quite unexpected.
He did not look back to see if the others were following, they were trained officers and Lukat expected them to follow without any difficulty. They might lack in diplomatic subtlety and fail utterly in undercover missions, they were all sporting athletic figures bursting of health, so running should be no problem for them.

tags

JP brought to you by Jones and Lukat

[SabrinaPandora]

The wounded Klingon watched the small blue powerhouse, appreciation in his eye as she professionally executed the distraction.

“ You’d freeze your member off in that, idiot. “ his companion grunted out as he was hauled up by one arm.

“ It will be fine, I’ll use yours. “ he responded, still using lower Klingon, and they both laughed.

The explosion made them both wince but the tall one-eyed warrior scrambled forward to retrieve a half empty pot of stew that had fallen off the cart. He sniffed, gulped a few swallows and passed it to the other two.

“ Some kind of targ... “ was his only comment, the other two rapidly finished the pot in disciplined gulps.

Sai’tan had listened to them converse, the lower Klingon they used took him a second or so to understand but something about their faces nudged at his mind. They were all three gaunt from near starvation but seemed, except for the wounded one, to be as ready as warrior class klingons ever were for a fight.

Then came a moment of silence in the chaotic scene. Everything froze in place as his wife, wearing her duty uniform with freshly polished captain pips at her collar, stepped around behind the tall one and looked at all three with a level enigmatic expression.

“ You recognize them, don’t you, husband? “

Sai’tan took a slow blink,“ … from a report... “

She raised an eyebrow fractionally, “...seen on the desk of Admiral Barrett. The brothers Quo’aff and Rig’k of house... bladed weapon, something relating to Batleth... and Kah’on.“ Sai’tain nodded, now recalling with unusual clarity the glimpse he’d seen of the report on the desk before the admiral had closed the old style folder.

“ How are you here? “ he asked.

“ That is the wrong question, husband. “ She have smiled slightly, “ Perhaps you should ask, what has changed in you that allows me to be here? What allowed your comm implant to work in the depths of a dampening field?“

She faded as time unfroze and chaos reigned once more.

Sai’tan had time for a short breath of the arid desert air. Filing that last anomaly for later consideration and probably medical diagnosis, he was momentarily aware that his body almost relished the heat and dryness, if the gravity was a bit higher he would have felt... comfortable. Sadly, the others were not faring as well, the humans on the verge of heatstroke and dehydration, the Andorians struggling to function at all. He could tell that the overachieving little lieutenant was pushing herself too hard.

As for the klingons...

“Warriors,“ he addressed them, using military Klingon, “I offer alliance, temporary. Come with us, there may be bloodwine and fresh gahk where we go.“

The landing party hustled their way across the chaotic street even as the riot was breaking out. All looked positive for this little phase of this misadventure, save when Lieutenant P'Trell looked back to find the aged Vulcan engineer in some sort of discussion with the trio of Klingon's whom had apparently used the distraction to escape slavery.

He finished addressing them before moving at his best sprint to follow the group. In this environment, he could probably run all day but the days of sprinting had left him long ago, a quick trot was all he could manage as the three escaped slaves, one supporting their wounded comrade, struggled to pass him.

While Talla appreciated their desire for freedom and fully supported it, right now she had to get the old man across the road to the relative safety of the workshop of the Gorn trader Cobalt Burn. As much as she felt for the escaping Klingons her responsibility was the landing party- Federation citizens in need were low on her priority list at this precise second.

Are they speaking Klingon? she wondered to herself as they muttered and growled at one another before she tugged insistently at the Vulcan’s sleeve. It would be rude to just grab and haul a senior officer but they needed to go, and quickly. The riot in the streets was getting worse, as these things tended to do. Bad blood and hot tempers all mingled for grudges old and new to be settled, and every second spent out here was placing them in more danger.

“We have to go I think very much right now,” she hissed, mopping a few beads of sweat from her forehead. The makeshift refrigeration unit currently wrapped at the base of her skull was helping her deficient hypothalamus compensate for the heat, but she had already been exerting herself and she was excited. Which meant that her system was making considerably more demands on it than just strolling through the desert bazaar. Instinctively the small soldier’s blue fingers moved to adjust the dial on her coldsuit, which of course was absent. A new one needed to be replicated, which required that she have the template and a sufficiently advanced replicator. Neither of which had been available to her for a while now, as she was making do with the jury-rigged refrigeration coil Lukat had fashioned for her to prevent her from collapsing entirely.

Sai’tan nodded and moved at his best speed to keep up while the wounded one leered at her backside.

“Better than here for certain,“ the tall one, Kah’on, growled out and a few long steps took him to the old vulcan's side, “ I have a relish for prune juice. “.
“ Aye, “ the brothers moved together, limping to follow him.

One of the rioters, a humanoid with dark ridges of bone along his face planes, flew back from the central mass of the rioters and knocked into the Klingons, who in their weakened state were caught off-balance and they fell to the dust. Sparing a glance, Talla was going to let them fend for themselves until Saitan turned, retraced his steps and offered a hand up. Whining slightly in her throat, P’Trell pivoted to retrieve him, only to find the humanoid struggling to draw a pistol of some sort as the Klingons grappled with him.

Laying a boot that was two sizes too large upside the humanoid trader’s head, it did not pack the punch that it was supposed to and the man was merely dazed instead of deeply concussed. Her form was fine but she lacked the strength and stopping power that she usually commanded, which was a bad sign. She was pushing too hard and soon she would feel the muscle cramps of dehydration and heat prostration once more, she was certain, which added that much more urgency to her task.

Sai’tans boot heel snapped out in a precisely aimed kick that finished the job for her before he hand signed *move* and pointed after the rest of the group as an incoming energy bolt burnt a head size hole in the tent near where they’d been concealed.

Tugging insistently at the Klingons whom the old Vulcan had apparently invited along, she squeaked, “We very much have to go I think. I do not want to die in this burning hell and we must get to shelter!”

“Come,“ was all Sai’tan said to the remaining klingons and he moved to take rear guard as the four moved toward the rear of the landing party.

Getting underneath one of the Klingon’s arms to haul him to his feet the Andorian officer was dismayed to realize that her compact frame was not responding as it should, and the Klingon was, despite his malnourishment, surprisingly heavy for her.

This is not the time for weakness, Talla. Stop whining and get on with the job! she chastised herself internally as she managed to get the Klingon up and moving. The one hand on the swell of her taut gluteus muscle was a minor distraction that didn’t faze her in the least. One of the other Klingons took some of the burden, looping an arm over his shoulder as they dragged the wounded one between them.

Sai’tan was supposed to be ahead of her and now he was guarding their escape, which made her already sapphire skin blush with that much more embarrassment.

Another body was thrown in their path, which they clumsily avoided, while behind her Saitan strode calmly as if he were simply crossing the mess hall of a starship instead of avoiding a riot. The Vulcan had center, that was for certain.

“paHlaw’ chImQeH, parHa’ puq ghu, pIn’a’, jISuvchoHQo’-” one of the Klingons muttered under his breath, elbowing P’Trell in the ribs as the one-eyed warrior barked a laugh. “Poetry, Rig’k?”

If it was meaningful it was lost on the lilliputian lieutenant, who neither understood the language nor the implication as she struggled to keep the Klingons moving, nearly collapsing in the dust as they reached the rest of the landing party, who were huddled together behind a grav sled vehicle for heavy cover. Cobalt Burns’ workshop was within reach with but one more short dash, then they would be out of the general chaos and into another type of trouble, given that they had failed to successfully conclude their dealing with him.

“We have secured additional assets,“ Sai’tan directed to Lukat when they finally rejoined the group. “Captain Kah’on, Quoff and Rig’k, of house Batleth,“ he introduced the three, raising his voice to carry over the riot noise. The trio of Klingons looks baffled for a second, and tensions rose as the potential for three violent Klingons to start an all new fight arose. Then the one-eyed warrior laughed, clapping the elderly Vulcan on the shoulder.

“You knew who we were all along, you old son of a phlug, Yet you did not betray the information... I am impressed, Vulcan,” he growled with grudging admiration.

“Tales of your deeds are sung in the halls of my house. “ Sai’tan said calmly, giving as much of a diplomatic answer as he could manage. The statement had a reflection of truth, he could imagine that somewhere in Starfleet someone had voiced those names in praise or consternation.

As the rest of the landing party hustled the short distance to the entrance to the Gorn’s workshop, the sweat-slicked Andorian tried to pull the injured Klingon to his feet, eyes wide with surprise when she failed to do so. Grunting and hauling more insistently on the mass of Klingon the determined doll furrowed her grey brows. “Talking inside and would be better, I think. We should go now, Lieutenant Commander Sai’tan?”

“Agreed.”

The Vulcan engineer turned to regard the two superior officers onsite, Lukat and S’jet, “Sirs?“

~tag S'jet and Lukat


A jp brought to you by Sai'tan and P'Trell

[Ciara Mei]

Listening. That's what Zayna was best at. She listened to the conversations, hearing the Klingon, translating it in her head the best she could. She realized that her Klingon was rusty. With a heavy sigh, she stood with the group, watching all the excitement.

They weren't in the best position. They were going to be the ones in the most trouble if someone caught on (more so) to who they were. Their actions probably didn't help any.

She then looked down to what was hooked onto her belt. She still had the bag of gold pressed latinum that she'd been given earlier. Was it going to do them any good at this point? She made sure that it was concealed so that no one could get to it or even realize that it was there. She wiped a bit of sweat away from her forehead from the heat and listened once more.

"Speaking inside, and perhaps somewhere a little cooler. Or getting out of here completely and speaking away from where we could possibly be attacked. I get that we need to get these things to get ourselves repaired but...shouldn't we make sure we are safe first?"

Zayna sighed and pulled her hair back, tying it at the base of her skull before looking to them all.

"I get that you all have no reason to listen to me, you don't know me. But I've been in these type of situations before, and I don't want to see anything happen. Well," She looked around again. "Anything worse than what has already happened. And besides, how many of us can handle this heat much longer?"

Tags

[Sjet]

Cobalt Burn’s compound was eerily quiet as the Committee for Ethnic Diversity And Universal Cooperation (A Vulcan, a Cardassian, an Andorian, three Humans and a handful of Klingons) rounded the corner into the lee of a gutted transport shuttle. There was the shop, the collection of spare parts, and more importantly the large sand blasted bulk of the reactor torus. To Sjet’s eye it looked to be in order, but he’d feel safer knowing that Sai’tan and his engineers would be going over it inch by inch to make sure it didn’t blow up when they turned it on.

That would make it the third command he’d been a part of that had atomised itself.

There were no workers in sight, no sign in fact that anyone else had come upon the idea of using the compound as a safe haven away from the violence. Which either meant no one messed with a one eyed Gorn, or the compound had wicked good self defence protocols. Though Sjet found that statement hard to swallow as in the middle of the compounds courtyard laid the still, and quite dead form of Cobalt Burn. The Gorn was laid out on his back, head upturned to the scorching sky, and for a second you might think he was just sleeping. Then you’d notice his legs ended at his knees, with a large puddle of drying blood baking into the sand.

No...wait that wasn’t right. His legs hadn’t just been taken off at the knees, or vaporised: Sjet could still see them. They just looked flattened, as though a cargo container had fallen from a height and crushed them flat. Also the way the blood was...pooling upwards in a…

Like something large and in invisible had landed on top of the Gorn.

As if on cue the Moon class Runabout reappeared, the orange hash marks of a holographic emitter grid fading back into the matt black hull cladding of a sleek spacecraft. As those marks faded other marks appear, indicating airlocks, intake vents and fuel couplings. It looked to have arose from the same design philosophy as many Starfleet auxiliary craft, an aerodynamically sleek design that just screamed ‘speed and cunning’.

At least that explained where the slave engineer had been beamed to...because anywhere else would be one to many questions for today.

“Watch our backs.” He said to the others, edging towards the de-cloaked Runabout before simply jogging to its side. If the craft had self defence protocols it would have used them before they got that close. Close to the hull he stood before the outline of the starboard airlock, and glanced around for a access panel. There wasn’t a need for one as the door clicked and slid away, releasing a sudden and almost sinfully pleasant rush of cool climate controlled air.

He leaned in, and then stepped in more fully. Standard layout: two pilots seats up front, mission and operations stations behind made up the cockpit. The smooth glass display panes were slowly beginning to glow back to life, awakening from some deeper hibernation in familiar status screens. Captain Sjet had never quite seen anything like this, though when he put his hand down on a wall and it came away smeared with a thick grey dust coating he thought it resembled his Starfleet Academy dorm room.

“Everyone, I think we just found out ride out of here!” he shouted back out through the open air lock door “Sai’tan get in here and run this thing through a preflight check! Skip the bells and whistles, I just need to know it’ll move when we bit the button. Ryler, get P’trell in here stat: airs cold as a Montana morning in December in here! Jones, there’s some communications gear in here i’d like you to fire up and talk to the Big Red in orbit: I don’t think Cobalt’s going to be wanting any of his things. Have the Big Red use its cargo transporters to grab the parts we need, starting with that Reactor Torus.”

He looked over at Zuub.

“My money is that this ship beamed away our slave engineer. Which means this ships got a compact med bay, probably a MediBox with an expert system. We used them during the War when we couldn’t get wounded to a sickbay promptly: throw in a nearly dead marine, and the MediBoxes expert computer system can keep them alive until you can get a doctor to see them.” he looked at his grey, dust covered hand “And watch out, place has had some sand or dust blow in. Might want to pass out rebreathers.”

He eyed Lukat.

“As for you Gil...you're a guest, but please don’t leave my eyesight whilst your on board. I’m pretty sure this is already breaking the Secrets Act just by having you walk by it.” he looked over the Cardassins shoulder “Same goes for you my Klingon friends, if you want a ride out of town?”

TAG-All. Welcome aboard the runabout Quam, a odd little thing that Ken came up with and has kindly donated to the cause. We’ll use it to escape, get back to the station (With the Big Red carrying the booty). Find something to do, say, and we’ll get this plot a-moving.

[Ciara Mei]

[lucasausems]