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Darkened Stars - Chapter 15
🕑 Added 2024-09-23 16:20:56 +0000 UTCDarkened Stars - Chapter 15
Stardate 29364.2 - May 13, 2352 - 07:07:00
The thing about flying by the seat of your pants was that eventually you ran out of extra pairs and were left mooning everyone around you, or at least, that was vaguely how Rain remembered the saying going.
Accurate or not, it at least worked for describing her current circumstances given the original plan for this impromptu trip hadn't really involved much of anything past making her way to a planet that wasn't Terra.
Mainly because her skills were so eclectic she wasn't exactly sure just what sort of job she should be looking for. And she was almost visceral against justifying the bad writing that had pegged so many young Asari as strippers or mercenaries.
Though of course, that was all now secondary to the fact that she was functionally in the middle of pirating a starship with a number of things she'd really rather not dwell on rattling around in her brain.
Which was why she was currently hiding out in the bridge bathroom staring at her own face in the mirror, an act that while helping to center herself away from Nezia's memories, was unfortunately causing her a number of extraordinarily conflicted feelings.
“God I'm hot.” Rain muttered to herself at the stark reminder of just why she tried to avoid looking into mirrors as much as possible nowadays.
“Why couldn't I have been dropped in the prime universe instead, I could have scanned myself on the holodeck and rocked my own world.”
A tiny niggling part of her brain chose that moment to suggest she could look even hotter with eyebrow stenciling, a little eyeliner, and some violet lipstick.
Something that left her blinking dumbly into the mirror for nearly a full minute before slapping herself across the face hard enough to leave her cheek stinging.
“Stupid Nezia memories.” She groused as she grabbed onto the sides of the sink and glared at herself in the mirror. “I only wanted to know how to run the ship, not experience a clipshow of your greatest shitty acts, learn a language, and gain a minor degree in cosmetology.”
She hung her head and let out a sigh, knowing it was far too late at this point for recriminations about that particular boneheaded choice.
“So think Rain, what do you have?” She asked herself as she finally tried to organize the various pieces available to her into something resembling a solvable puzzle. “A ship that's probably not in the best of shape, a moderately competent questionably loyal ninja, slaves previously destined for the flesh markets with variable levels of skills, a cargo hold full of surely Orion slavers, and whatever loot might be stashed around the ship.”
Pragmatically speaking her best option for long term survival would probably be to sell the Orions and all the slaves that didn't have useful skill sets. But while she didn't have any particular moral qualms at the idea of selling the Orions given they had been doing the same to others, as far as she knew the slaves had been a combination of inconveniences in need of disposal and whatever attractive enough prisoners the Klingon authorities had been willing to lose track of.
And that meant she’d probably feel bad about it, even if they had been put in prison by the Klignons for good reasons. Though, she should probably check the purchase records just to be absolutely sure since this was the mirror universe where horrible people seemed to be the standard.
“So plan with the captured Orion’s as the resource base.” She told herself with a nod.
The average going price for an Orion in the twenty to fifty year age range was between forty to eighty thousand darsek, depending heavily on where you tried to sell them. Which meant the thirteen Orion’s they had would translate to somewhere between five hundred thousand to a million darsek.
A fact Rain hated that she now knew, no matter how helpful it was sure to prove in setting her up with seed money. Of course, that left her with the question of where to actually try and sell them. Orion was right out, as there were just too many risks inherent in taking this particular ship and trying to sell its crew there.
Unfortunately that seemed to have been the only place Nezia had sold slaves, or at least, the only memories of selling slaves that Rain had been able to get from her. As the only other place she could think of was Risa, a location she had mapped during her escape planning as somewhere to avoid due to the mirror universe Risian’s being more of the Roman style of hedonists then their ‘let us service you with a smile’ prime universe counterparts.
“If I’m not planning on staying there long myself though.” She mused in consideration as the sound of the door opening dragged her out of her own head.
“Salora wanted me to tell you we’re nearing the Andorian quarantine zone.” Keiko’s warned from the other side of the now open doorway. “Whatever that is.”
“When Emperor Spock started transitioning to a Republic and carrying out a staggered reduction of its military forces the Andorians grabbed what they could and began turtling up in their home system.” Rain explained as she took a couple steps over to the door and made a shooing motion to clear the Japanese woman out of the way.
“By the time the Alliance invaded it was a choice between the Andorian system or the Terran system, they chose the obvious, and when the Andorians didn't send even a single ship to try and help out, the Alliance decided they could live with ignoring the issue so just blockaded the system and called it a day.”
“Spock was an idiot.” Keiko said as Rain walked past and made her way over to the helm.
“How far are we away from the blockade?” Rain asked the female twin who had taken the seat.
“Fifty million kilometers.” Salora offered as she looked down at the controls. “I think.”
“You think?” Rain repeated, shooting the woman a confused glance as she followed the half-cardassians gaze to the controls to confirm that the navigation computer was showing them at roughly that distance from the quarantine line and nearing via a shallow approach.
“My Klingon is limited.” Salora confessed apologetically, leaning slightly away from Rain as if in anticipation of something as she did. “But the computer only had Orion, Naussican, and Klingon in its translation files.”
Rain felt like smacking herself, having completely forgotten the language issue could be an actual issue given the uniqueness of universal translators.
“Just do your best.” Rain told her as she reached over and patted the woman on the shoulder supportively.
“I take it you're fluent in Cardassian and Terran?” She inquired as she added purchasing a Terran interface translation matrix to her mental list of things needing to be done.
“Cardassian more than Terran.” Salora confirmed as she relaxed slightly, only to all but immediately tense up again as something on the console started blinking.
“Something’s on an intercept course.” She informed Rain after a moment.
“That sentence translates to ‘class six drive with encrypted transponder’. “Rain explained helpfully as she leaned down to look over what the sensor readout was saying.
“A class six usually means something cruiser sized or up.” Salora added in.
“Good to know.” Rain returned, having honestly had no idea, something that must have shown on her face given the additional information the half-cardassian had decided to offer.
“Given where we are we’re probably looking at either an Alliance blockade ship or–
An almost tonal scale began echoing out across the bridge before Rain could finish, and she had to wrack her memory a moment before a vague recollection hit her.
“Incoming com signal.” She explained as she walked over to the captain’s chair, flopping down into the surprisingly comfortable piece of furniture before searching the arm rest for the blinking control she knew should be there.
Tapping it, she looked towards the front of the bridge only to blink at the annoyed looking Cardadassian Gul that appeared on screen.
“Orion vessel Deathwind, drop out of warp and prepare for…”
He paused, his eyes flicking from her fins, to her face, and finally settling on the set of Klingon armor that made up Rain’s only real set of clothing.
“Who are you?” He demanded as his eyes momentarily flicked to something off screen. “And where is Captain Tendi?”
“Raine, of house Palkar.” She introduced herself, almost sure that the Cardassian Gul would have access to her records so as to confirm her claim. “And Captain Tendi suffered a sudden case of my d'k tahg finding its way into her heart after she broke her guarantee of safe passage and tried to take me as a slave.”
Close enough to be technically true, though the guarantee was more an implicit part of her paying for passage in the first place.
“As such I took her life and seized her holdings as is my right under Klingon law.”
The Gul frowned at that, hitting a button on his arm rest that visibly muted the communications channel before he began to talk to someone off screen.
Rain leaned back in her chair and sighed, tapping her fingernails on the armrest as she waited for him to finish whatever discussion about their ship they apparently needed to have.
After nearly five minutes of this he turned back, and the screen unmuted.
“We’ve confirmed your identity.” The Gul stated, sounding almost disappointed at the fact. “Be aware that your vessel is less than twenty million kilometers away from the Andorian quarantine zone, which is off limits to non-military vessels.”
“Understood.” Rain replied, knowing better than to poke a Cardassian’s pride by arguing with them.
“Salora.” She continued, looking over to the half-cardassian woman who seemed to be doing her level best to shrink into her chair. “Alter our course to take us to Risa, and make sure it keeps us at least ten million kilometers from the quarantine zone.”
She turned back to thank him for the warning, only to frown at the standard screensaver-like view of warp travel that instead greeted her.
“Rude.” She muttered.
“He was probably annoyed that he couldn't extort you for a bribe.” Salora offered in a hesitant tone.
“They can’t?” Rain asked in surprise, not having heard anything about that during her time with Jel’ang.
“It’s part of the Alliance’s reciprocity agreements.” Salora explained with a confused glance over her shoulder.
“We…” She began, only to grimace and correct herself. “They, don’t go after Klingon adjacent ships for the normal tariffs and fees of doing business, and in turn the Klingons don’t raid Cardassian adjacent shipping lanes.”
That was useful to know on several levels, though Rain hadn’t really been planning to raid any ships period given she still remembered the Reboot lesson about just how razor edge pirating profits tended to be when factoring in costs.
She frowned as a sudden thought hit her, and a quick look around the bridge confirmed it.
“What happened to the other two?” She questioned with a look over to the rear of the bridge next to the turbolift doors where the silently standing Keiko had positioned herself.
“Medbay.” Keiko answered simply, reminding the Asari about what she’d forgotten in her sudden need to hide away for a half hour to try and think.
“Oh, right.” Rain muttered.
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The ships medbay was both surprisingly small and surprisingly well equipped, with a plethora of drugs and devices most of which, outside of a few exceptions, Rain didn’t have even the slightest idea of their purpose.
Which was enough to add ‘hire a doctor’ to her ever increasing mental list of things that needed to be done now that she was the captain of an actual starship.
“Okay, so that’s the purple stuff.” Rain told Jarat as she pointed to a purple vial in the drug storage fridge. “Give her one milliliter now, and then repeat that again in six hours. The staggered dose allows a slower reversal which minimizes the chance she’ll go temporarily crazy.”
With that self reminder of a potential pitfall she turned to T’Lyn, who Jarat had laid out on one of the medbays two biobeds.
“Are you an adherent of Spock’s new way?” She asked, referring to the partial resurgence of logic based vulcanism after it had been nearly wiped out by the Terran empire.
“No.”
Rain waited a moment for T’Lyn to say more before turning back to Jarat with a sigh that she really hoped didn’t betray how tired she actually was right now.
“Okay, so, that panel can control the biobed restraint fields.” She said, pointing out a specific control panel next to where Jarat was standing. “Don’t be afraid to use it if it starts looking like she’s going to have a negative reaction.”
“I… Would not… Hurt him…” T’Lyn objected.
A moment passed as Rain turned a suspicious look to the Vulcan woman, only to follow her gaze over to Jaret to see the half-cardassian looking down at the Vulcan woman with an obvious and caring look of concern on his face.
“Did you two know each other before this whole thing?” She asked as a sudden suspicion formed in her gut.
Jaret physically flinched at her question, before taking an almost defensive position in front of the Vulcan woman’s biobed as he met Rain’s eyes. The act more than answering the Asari’s question for her given it all but screamed ‘young fool in love’.
“You know what, never mind, don’t care.” She waved off before either could say anything more about the subject. “As long as you’re not planning to try and kill me and take my stuff as the start of some cockamamie bonnie and clyde plan it’s literally not my problem.”
With that she turned and walked out, fully aware that a pair of star crossed lovers was probably the least of her worries given she still had a cargo hold full of former slaves and slavers to deal with before she could claim the captain's cabin as her own and pass out for a majorly needed night's rest.
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Author’s Notes: Her first day of being a captain, and already having to deal with corrupt officials and relationship issues.
Comments
Templar9999
Always happy to see a Reboot reference. It's also historically true.
