Probably need to find a tool to tighten up Devan's loose screws and locate his marbles...
Keep it coming...
Thanks!! rbs
Keep it coming...
Thanks!! rbs
Star Trek: Bounty - 8 - "A Klingon, a Vulcan and a Slave Girl Walk into a Bar"
- Thread starter BountyTrek
- Start date
Part Two (Cont'd)
The rear doors of the Ktarian Moonrise opened with a telltale hiss.
For a moment, all that was revealed through the opened doors was a patch of darkness, leading to the bar’s rear storeroom. Then, there was a brief hint of movement, as Klath peered around the corner of the door with his disruptor poised.
Rain thudded down onto the ground of the alleyway behind the bar, but the Klingon peered through the continued downpour, all the way down to where the alley opened up onto a wider square of ground that the row of buildings the bar was a part of backed onto.
And in the middle of that square sat the stocky form of an atmospheric shuttle from the Varris IV Security Division, side door opened ready for boarding.
Having tactically assessed the situation as swiftly as his old training from the Klingon Defence Force allowed, Klath ducked back inside the dark storeroom.
He had a tight grip of his weapon in one hand, and a tighter grip of the miserable Palmor in the other, the wily Ktarian still very much in the middle of a hostage situation. To their side, Denella kept a similarly tight grip on Evina, while Sunek had Tegras in his own grasp. All kept their disruptors visible enough to keep their unwilling Ktarian companions keenly aware of the gravity of their situation.
“It looks clear,” the Klingon reported, “Though I am certain there will be guards positioned on the roof, and possibly more nearer the shuttle.”
“Hey,” Sunek chimed in, “Trelok has firm assurances from Chief Whats-his-name that we’re clear to get to the shuttle. That right?”
The Vulcan held up the small comms unit that they had located to continue their ongoing dialogue with the security team now that they were mobile.
“That’s right, Trelok,” Security Chief Tylor Ral affirmed, electing not to correct the Vulcan’s take on his name for the time being, “You have my word. We’re just glad that you’re giving us the other hostages for the time being. Safe and sound.”
“See?” Sunek grinned at his colleagues, “I’m a genius.”
“If you’re that confident,” Tegras grunted from Sunek’s side, “Perhaps you should leave a few more hostages behind.”
“I’m a genius, but I still need insurance.”
Denella suppressed a shudder at that off-hand comment. The logic of their plan made sense, and it was clear that whatever security teams were positioned around the shuttle would be significantly less keen to start shooting with civilians in the mix.
Still, the fact that she was on a Ktarian colony, having already committed a fair few felonies and on her way to committing half a dozen more, and was now using an innocent woman as a shield, for the benefit of two people who had installed a bomb on her ship, wasn’t exactly filling her with comfort.
“I’m sorry about this,” she offered to Evina.
The dirt-streaked miner studied the Orion’s expression for a moment, and then nodded.
“Yes. You are, aren’t you. I’ve seen a lot of thugs down on this colony before, but there’s something different here. You’re--”
“Green. I know. You’ll get used to it,” Denella offered quickly, before looking back at Klath, “We need to get going.”
“The transport inhibitor?”
Denella fumbled around in her pocket and then held up the small disc device she had carried with her from the bar.
“It’s not exactly designed to be used like this, but it should be enough to disrupt anything if they try to get clever.”
“Won’t stop a phaser though,” Palmor muttered from Klath’s side.
Denella kept her focus on the Klingon, who shrugged his burly shoulders in tacit acknowledgement of that point. Though there wasn’t much they could do about that.
“We go,” Klath concluded, “But stay alert.”
The six figures, led by Klath and the ever-reluctant Palmor, stepped out into the downpour.
****************************
“Huh. Well I’ll be damned.”
Behind the cover offered by a large air filter stack on the roof of the bar, Tylor peered down through the rain at the motley gaggle of individuals as they emerged. True to the data that had been provided by the drone scans, there was indeed a Klingon, a Vulcan and an Orion on Varris IV. Armed, and leading their remaining trio of Ktarian hostages towards the empty atmospheric shuttle at the end of the narrow alley.
To his side, Deputy Jalon Sep moved over to him in a low crouch, keeping her voice low, but her tone still effortlessly formal.
“Strike team inside reports that all other hostages are accounted for. And unharmed.”
“Just like they promised,” Tylor mused to himself.
Jalon didn’t look entirely satisfied with that response from her superior, but she was careful not to let it show in her demeanour. She knew how important it was to maintain trust in the chain of command during a crisis situation.
“Chief,” she offered instead, in as even a tone as was appropriate, “They still have three hostages. And they appear to be taking them onboard the shuttle.”
“Let them go,” Tylor muttered back as he watched the group slowly advancing towards the shuttle, “And make sure everyone understands that order, ok?”
Despite her level of training, his deputy paused for a moment.
She knew that wasn’t the appropriate response to an order. The appropriate response was to affirm acknowledgement of said order and set about relaying it to the rest of the team. But she was sufficiently taken aback by the content of the order that she remained where she was for the moment, long enough for Tylor to notice.
“Relax, Deputy,” he offered with a wry smile, “We’ve got most of the hostages out. But my instincts are still telling me we need to see the play out a little more.”
He paused for a second, feeling stronger for the rekindling sense of excitement he was feeling to investigate such a mystery that was in front of him.
Retirement or no retirement, he suddenly felt like a detective again.
“Besides,” he added, “They’re getting into one of our shuttles, aren’t they?”
She nodded in sudden understanding at the full extent of his plan.
“We’ll activate the transponder remotely as soon as they’re underway, and track them at a safe distance. See where it leads us. Like I said, there’s more to this than some junkie holdup.”
“Yes, Chief,” she replied, “Understood.”
Now satisfied with the plan, she grabbed her comms unit, ready to issue the order to the rest of the units. But, thanks to her momentary diversion from established procedure, she was delivering the order some twenty seven seconds later than Tylor had issued it.
Which turned out to be a problem. Because right then, the shooting started.
End of Part Two
The rear doors of the Ktarian Moonrise opened with a telltale hiss.
For a moment, all that was revealed through the opened doors was a patch of darkness, leading to the bar’s rear storeroom. Then, there was a brief hint of movement, as Klath peered around the corner of the door with his disruptor poised.
Rain thudded down onto the ground of the alleyway behind the bar, but the Klingon peered through the continued downpour, all the way down to where the alley opened up onto a wider square of ground that the row of buildings the bar was a part of backed onto.
And in the middle of that square sat the stocky form of an atmospheric shuttle from the Varris IV Security Division, side door opened ready for boarding.
Having tactically assessed the situation as swiftly as his old training from the Klingon Defence Force allowed, Klath ducked back inside the dark storeroom.
He had a tight grip of his weapon in one hand, and a tighter grip of the miserable Palmor in the other, the wily Ktarian still very much in the middle of a hostage situation. To their side, Denella kept a similarly tight grip on Evina, while Sunek had Tegras in his own grasp. All kept their disruptors visible enough to keep their unwilling Ktarian companions keenly aware of the gravity of their situation.
“It looks clear,” the Klingon reported, “Though I am certain there will be guards positioned on the roof, and possibly more nearer the shuttle.”
“Hey,” Sunek chimed in, “Trelok has firm assurances from Chief Whats-his-name that we’re clear to get to the shuttle. That right?”
The Vulcan held up the small comms unit that they had located to continue their ongoing dialogue with the security team now that they were mobile.
“That’s right, Trelok,” Security Chief Tylor Ral affirmed, electing not to correct the Vulcan’s take on his name for the time being, “You have my word. We’re just glad that you’re giving us the other hostages for the time being. Safe and sound.”
“See?” Sunek grinned at his colleagues, “I’m a genius.”
“If you’re that confident,” Tegras grunted from Sunek’s side, “Perhaps you should leave a few more hostages behind.”
“I’m a genius, but I still need insurance.”
Denella suppressed a shudder at that off-hand comment. The logic of their plan made sense, and it was clear that whatever security teams were positioned around the shuttle would be significantly less keen to start shooting with civilians in the mix.
Still, the fact that she was on a Ktarian colony, having already committed a fair few felonies and on her way to committing half a dozen more, and was now using an innocent woman as a shield, for the benefit of two people who had installed a bomb on her ship, wasn’t exactly filling her with comfort.
“I’m sorry about this,” she offered to Evina.
The dirt-streaked miner studied the Orion’s expression for a moment, and then nodded.
“Yes. You are, aren’t you. I’ve seen a lot of thugs down on this colony before, but there’s something different here. You’re--”
“Green. I know. You’ll get used to it,” Denella offered quickly, before looking back at Klath, “We need to get going.”
“The transport inhibitor?”
Denella fumbled around in her pocket and then held up the small disc device she had carried with her from the bar.
“It’s not exactly designed to be used like this, but it should be enough to disrupt anything if they try to get clever.”
“Won’t stop a phaser though,” Palmor muttered from Klath’s side.
Denella kept her focus on the Klingon, who shrugged his burly shoulders in tacit acknowledgement of that point. Though there wasn’t much they could do about that.
“We go,” Klath concluded, “But stay alert.”
The six figures, led by Klath and the ever-reluctant Palmor, stepped out into the downpour.
****************************
“Huh. Well I’ll be damned.”
Behind the cover offered by a large air filter stack on the roof of the bar, Tylor peered down through the rain at the motley gaggle of individuals as they emerged. True to the data that had been provided by the drone scans, there was indeed a Klingon, a Vulcan and an Orion on Varris IV. Armed, and leading their remaining trio of Ktarian hostages towards the empty atmospheric shuttle at the end of the narrow alley.
To his side, Deputy Jalon Sep moved over to him in a low crouch, keeping her voice low, but her tone still effortlessly formal.
“Strike team inside reports that all other hostages are accounted for. And unharmed.”
“Just like they promised,” Tylor mused to himself.
Jalon didn’t look entirely satisfied with that response from her superior, but she was careful not to let it show in her demeanour. She knew how important it was to maintain trust in the chain of command during a crisis situation.
“Chief,” she offered instead, in as even a tone as was appropriate, “They still have three hostages. And they appear to be taking them onboard the shuttle.”
“Let them go,” Tylor muttered back as he watched the group slowly advancing towards the shuttle, “And make sure everyone understands that order, ok?”
Despite her level of training, his deputy paused for a moment.
She knew that wasn’t the appropriate response to an order. The appropriate response was to affirm acknowledgement of said order and set about relaying it to the rest of the team. But she was sufficiently taken aback by the content of the order that she remained where she was for the moment, long enough for Tylor to notice.
“Relax, Deputy,” he offered with a wry smile, “We’ve got most of the hostages out. But my instincts are still telling me we need to see the play out a little more.”
He paused for a second, feeling stronger for the rekindling sense of excitement he was feeling to investigate such a mystery that was in front of him.
Retirement or no retirement, he suddenly felt like a detective again.
“Besides,” he added, “They’re getting into one of our shuttles, aren’t they?”
She nodded in sudden understanding at the full extent of his plan.
“We’ll activate the transponder remotely as soon as they’re underway, and track them at a safe distance. See where it leads us. Like I said, there’s more to this than some junkie holdup.”
“Yes, Chief,” she replied, “Understood.”
Now satisfied with the plan, she grabbed her comms unit, ready to issue the order to the rest of the units. But, thanks to her momentary diversion from established procedure, she was delivering the order some twenty seven seconds later than Tylor had issued it.
Which turned out to be a problem. Because right then, the shooting started.
End of Part Two
Great cliffhanger - and reminder of the importance of following chain of command in the moment.
Nicely done! Thanks!! rbs
Part Three
Two buildings down from the Ktarian Moonrise was an unassuming establishment that was currently being run as a kitsch laser nail salon, which itself was a front for an elaborate latinum laundering scheme, which itself was connected to a small-scale drug dealing network that spanned the entire colony.
But none of the four members of the Varris IV Security Division’s 7-A Heavy Armed Unit, in place on the rooftop of the building, had any idea of the complex, multi-faceted scheme underneath them. Instead, they simply crouched behind their phaser rifles, focused on the rain-soaked alleyway.
On the end of the line of four, Deputy Constable Regor Lok was also focused on controlling the shivering that was threatening to consume his body.
The cause of the shivers were a combination of several things.
He was currently lying in a cold puddle of accumulated rainwater, which had soaked right into the thick layers of his uniform. That was certainly a contributing factor.
He had also been working since sunrise, on a prolonged double shift that was clearly not ending anytime soon, and as such had lost count of the number of double raktajinos with foam and sugar he had replicated for himself since he had woken up. That definitely wasn’t helping.
But also, this was the first serious situation that Deputy Constable Regor Lok had found himself in since he had passed his advanced marksmanship course and joined the 7-A Heavy Armed Unit. And the pressure was starting to get to him.
Making sure not to shake his phaser rifle enough for his colleagues to notice, he took one hand off his weapon and wiped the rain from his eyes, blinking a few times to re-focus on their target.
The most recent orders they had received were to take up position and hold. Which was exactly what they had done. Since then, there had only been radio silence over their intercoms.
Part of him wanted to call in, to request confirmation on their next move. But he had been told that wasn’t the way to do things when you were part of a Heavy Armed Unit. You didn’t query orders, or ask questions. You kept your finger on the trigger, and kept your focus on your target.
Then, he saw the figures. Six of them, furtively creeping down the alleyway towards the waiting shuttle.
He kept them in his sights, just as he had been ordered to do.
During a later debriefing back at headquarters, Deputy Constable Regor Lok would be asked several times why he fired the first shot. He wouldn’t really have a straight answer.
It may have been the stress of the situation. It may have been that his view through the rain and the poor ambient lighting caused him to mistake a movement by one of the figures as an aggressive motion. It may have been the dozen or so double raktajinos with foam and sugar.
But whatever the specific cause was, what happened next was not up for any debate.
He felt his breathing become faster. He felt another shiver down his spine. He felt his shooting arm tense up on his rifle.
And he fired.
****************************
None of the six figures had time to figure out where the first shot had come from. All they knew was that one second they were edging towards the waiting shuttle, the side door yawning open to receive them. And the next, they were in the middle of a battlefield.
All three Bounty crew members reacted according to their own instincts, with each hostage at the mercy of whomever had a grip on them.
“Crap!”
Sunek opted for self-preservation and immediately made a break for the shuttle itself, dragging Tegras along with him. He made it inside just as a trio of phaser blasts scorched into the thick hull of the craft.
“No!”
Denella’s own instincts resulted in an intricate piece of multi-tasking. She virtually threw Evina through the side door of the shuttle, to get her to safety, while at the same time spinning around with her disruptor raised, looking for Klath.
“Ragh!”
Because she knew that Klath’s own instincts would be to immediately turn and fight. Even though the odds were clearly hopelessly against him.
Which was very bad news for Palmor Fot.
The growling Klingon fired off a few disruptor blasts as he swung around, intuitively aiming in the rough direction of where the initial shots had come from, on top of one of the nearby rooftops. All the while, he kept a firm grip on Palmor’s arm with his other hand.
“Let go of me!” the Ktarian screamed over the melee, “You’re going to get us both killed!”
Klath ignored him, and continued to fire back. Which may have been what his instincts told him to do, but in the context of the current situation, it merely served to exacerbate the issue.
Because while the initial flurry of phaser fire had been precipitated by Deputy Constable Regor Lok’s moment of weakness, the fact that they were now under fire themselves caused the rest of the guards in position to return fire.
Fortunately for the prone Klath and Palmor, none of the guards had a particularly clear shot right now through the rain and the mass of rooftops and buildings.
But still the phaser blasts continued.
“Klath!” Denella called out from behind, as she fired off a couple of covering blasts of her own, “Get back here!”
The Klingon took a step backwards, keeping his back to the shuttle and his eyes on the danger even as more shots peppered the alleyway.
“Hey, Denella!” Sunek called back from inside the shuttle, “Get in already!”
Denella gritted her teeth. She ignored the Vulcan’s call to get herself to safety, and prepared to dash the short distance over to where Klath was still fighting. She saw one phaser blast arc down and catch Palmor on the leg, causing the Ktarian to cry out in agony and collapse to the ground.
And then she heard a deeper, pained growl from Klath.
And she saw him fall.
****************************
“Hold your fire! I repeat: All teams, hold your fire!”
Jalon bellowed the order into her comms unit, over the sound of the firefight all around them.
She and Tylor were ducked down behind their cover, as further disruptor blasts whistled past their position from the strangers down in the alley.
After a few more shots, the Ktarian side of the impromptu battle fell silent, the night air now merely filled with the patter of rainfall and the odd covering disruptor shot from below. A few seconds later, with no further attacks coming their way, even the disruptor fire ceased.
Tylor grimaced in frustration at how quickly the situation had spiralled out of control. The thumping in his temples returned with a vengeance.
Ever since he had arrived on Varris IV, he had found that most of the personnel under his command were not exactly the best and the brightest that Ktarian Security had available.
Most of them were either wet behind the ears trainees who had been unfortunate enough to be assigned to Varris IV fresh out of their training programmes. Or long-serving veterans too slow-witted or ineffective to have been seriously considered for a transfer elsewhere.
Ordinarily, that hadn’t especially bothered him. After all, he had only come to Varris IV for a final payday before retirement, and the less overly capable subordinates making his life difficult with their initiative and enthusiasm, the better.
But now Varris IV was facing an actual crisis, he was starting to have some doubts about the rank and file available to him. He just prayed that their aim with a phaser was as haphazard as their permanent records.
Alongside him, Jalon breathed a shallow sigh of relief as the shooting ceased. But she also felt a pang of guilt that her momentary inaction, and her unforgivable deviation from established protocol, could have had a potentially fatal result.
Tylor cautiously peered over the top of their cover as he grabbed the comms unit still patched through to the group at the shuttle.
“Trelok?” he grunted with urgency, “You still with me, Trelok?”
There was a burst of static.
Through the rain, he could just about make out the shuttle, and he saw two figures being dragged limply across the wet ground into the side door.
“Goddammit,” he muttered, to himself as much as to his deputy, “Two down. Can’t tell how bad.”
Jalon swallowed a gasp as she saw the activity down by the shuttle for herself.
“Chief,” she replied, managing to keep most of the emotion out of her voice, “I didn’t mean to--”
“Trelok! Talk to me!”
Tylor cut her off mid-apology as he barked back down the comms unit, and Jalon got the implied message. Now wasn’t the time for apologies or recriminations, and all of Tylor’s old instincts from back on Ktaris were now kicking in.
There was another burst of static from the comms link. Then, a familiar voice.
“Hey!” Sunek yelled over the link, agitation clear in his tone, “What the hell was that? You promised we’d be clear all the way to the shuttle!”
“I’m sorry about that, Trelok. You have my word, that wasn’t supposed to happen.”
“Starting to think your word isn’t worth much!”
“What’s the situation down there?” Tylor continued, making the concern in his voice as clear as he could in an effort to underline his sincerity.
Down in the square, he could just about make out the final figure disappearing inside the shuttle.
“Ugh,” the Vulcan griped, “Looks like we’ve got two injured. One badly. So, yeah, thanks for all of that, guys!”
“The hostages--?”
“Ok, screw this,” Sunek fired off as the shuttle door closed, “We’re getting the hell out of here. Just like you promised we could!”
“Trelok,” Tylor urged, “You need to keep this channel open, and we need to--”
The comms link definitively clicked closed. Tylor let out a tired sigh and checked his chronometer, seeing that they had officially passed into the early hours of a new day on Varris IV.
He rubbed the rainwater out of his eyes, even as the anti-grav units on the underside of the shuttle down in the square began to glow a familiar deep yellow, and the small craft began to ascend into the heavens. Through the downpour, Tylor and Jalon watched as the shuttle uncertainly gained cruising height, and the rear thrusters fired up and propelled it away from the scene.
Mercifully, as far as Tylor was concerned, this time none of the more trigger-happy members of the Heavy Armed Units dotted around decided to take matters into their own hands. As per Tylor’s slightly tardily-delivered orders, they let them go.
Tylor sighed again and stood up straight from behind the cover, stretching his aching body that was crying out after so long crouched down.
He was definitely getting too old for this sort of thing.
The shuttle skimmed along just underneath the heavy layer of rain clouds, and then banked up and disappeared from view.
As soon as it did so, Tylor turned to Jalon and nodded, before leading her off the roof.
It was time to give pursuit.
Two buildings down from the Ktarian Moonrise was an unassuming establishment that was currently being run as a kitsch laser nail salon, which itself was a front for an elaborate latinum laundering scheme, which itself was connected to a small-scale drug dealing network that spanned the entire colony.
But none of the four members of the Varris IV Security Division’s 7-A Heavy Armed Unit, in place on the rooftop of the building, had any idea of the complex, multi-faceted scheme underneath them. Instead, they simply crouched behind their phaser rifles, focused on the rain-soaked alleyway.
On the end of the line of four, Deputy Constable Regor Lok was also focused on controlling the shivering that was threatening to consume his body.
The cause of the shivers were a combination of several things.
He was currently lying in a cold puddle of accumulated rainwater, which had soaked right into the thick layers of his uniform. That was certainly a contributing factor.
He had also been working since sunrise, on a prolonged double shift that was clearly not ending anytime soon, and as such had lost count of the number of double raktajinos with foam and sugar he had replicated for himself since he had woken up. That definitely wasn’t helping.
But also, this was the first serious situation that Deputy Constable Regor Lok had found himself in since he had passed his advanced marksmanship course and joined the 7-A Heavy Armed Unit. And the pressure was starting to get to him.
Making sure not to shake his phaser rifle enough for his colleagues to notice, he took one hand off his weapon and wiped the rain from his eyes, blinking a few times to re-focus on their target.
The most recent orders they had received were to take up position and hold. Which was exactly what they had done. Since then, there had only been radio silence over their intercoms.
Part of him wanted to call in, to request confirmation on their next move. But he had been told that wasn’t the way to do things when you were part of a Heavy Armed Unit. You didn’t query orders, or ask questions. You kept your finger on the trigger, and kept your focus on your target.
Then, he saw the figures. Six of them, furtively creeping down the alleyway towards the waiting shuttle.
He kept them in his sights, just as he had been ordered to do.
During a later debriefing back at headquarters, Deputy Constable Regor Lok would be asked several times why he fired the first shot. He wouldn’t really have a straight answer.
It may have been the stress of the situation. It may have been that his view through the rain and the poor ambient lighting caused him to mistake a movement by one of the figures as an aggressive motion. It may have been the dozen or so double raktajinos with foam and sugar.
But whatever the specific cause was, what happened next was not up for any debate.
He felt his breathing become faster. He felt another shiver down his spine. He felt his shooting arm tense up on his rifle.
And he fired.
****************************
None of the six figures had time to figure out where the first shot had come from. All they knew was that one second they were edging towards the waiting shuttle, the side door yawning open to receive them. And the next, they were in the middle of a battlefield.
All three Bounty crew members reacted according to their own instincts, with each hostage at the mercy of whomever had a grip on them.
“Crap!”
Sunek opted for self-preservation and immediately made a break for the shuttle itself, dragging Tegras along with him. He made it inside just as a trio of phaser blasts scorched into the thick hull of the craft.
“No!”
Denella’s own instincts resulted in an intricate piece of multi-tasking. She virtually threw Evina through the side door of the shuttle, to get her to safety, while at the same time spinning around with her disruptor raised, looking for Klath.
“Ragh!”
Because she knew that Klath’s own instincts would be to immediately turn and fight. Even though the odds were clearly hopelessly against him.
Which was very bad news for Palmor Fot.
The growling Klingon fired off a few disruptor blasts as he swung around, intuitively aiming in the rough direction of where the initial shots had come from, on top of one of the nearby rooftops. All the while, he kept a firm grip on Palmor’s arm with his other hand.
“Let go of me!” the Ktarian screamed over the melee, “You’re going to get us both killed!”
Klath ignored him, and continued to fire back. Which may have been what his instincts told him to do, but in the context of the current situation, it merely served to exacerbate the issue.
Because while the initial flurry of phaser fire had been precipitated by Deputy Constable Regor Lok’s moment of weakness, the fact that they were now under fire themselves caused the rest of the guards in position to return fire.
Fortunately for the prone Klath and Palmor, none of the guards had a particularly clear shot right now through the rain and the mass of rooftops and buildings.
But still the phaser blasts continued.
“Klath!” Denella called out from behind, as she fired off a couple of covering blasts of her own, “Get back here!”
The Klingon took a step backwards, keeping his back to the shuttle and his eyes on the danger even as more shots peppered the alleyway.
“Hey, Denella!” Sunek called back from inside the shuttle, “Get in already!”
Denella gritted her teeth. She ignored the Vulcan’s call to get herself to safety, and prepared to dash the short distance over to where Klath was still fighting. She saw one phaser blast arc down and catch Palmor on the leg, causing the Ktarian to cry out in agony and collapse to the ground.
And then she heard a deeper, pained growl from Klath.
And she saw him fall.
****************************
“Hold your fire! I repeat: All teams, hold your fire!”
Jalon bellowed the order into her comms unit, over the sound of the firefight all around them.
She and Tylor were ducked down behind their cover, as further disruptor blasts whistled past their position from the strangers down in the alley.
After a few more shots, the Ktarian side of the impromptu battle fell silent, the night air now merely filled with the patter of rainfall and the odd covering disruptor shot from below. A few seconds later, with no further attacks coming their way, even the disruptor fire ceased.
Tylor grimaced in frustration at how quickly the situation had spiralled out of control. The thumping in his temples returned with a vengeance.
Ever since he had arrived on Varris IV, he had found that most of the personnel under his command were not exactly the best and the brightest that Ktarian Security had available.
Most of them were either wet behind the ears trainees who had been unfortunate enough to be assigned to Varris IV fresh out of their training programmes. Or long-serving veterans too slow-witted or ineffective to have been seriously considered for a transfer elsewhere.
Ordinarily, that hadn’t especially bothered him. After all, he had only come to Varris IV for a final payday before retirement, and the less overly capable subordinates making his life difficult with their initiative and enthusiasm, the better.
But now Varris IV was facing an actual crisis, he was starting to have some doubts about the rank and file available to him. He just prayed that their aim with a phaser was as haphazard as their permanent records.
Alongside him, Jalon breathed a shallow sigh of relief as the shooting ceased. But she also felt a pang of guilt that her momentary inaction, and her unforgivable deviation from established protocol, could have had a potentially fatal result.
Tylor cautiously peered over the top of their cover as he grabbed the comms unit still patched through to the group at the shuttle.
“Trelok?” he grunted with urgency, “You still with me, Trelok?”
There was a burst of static.
Through the rain, he could just about make out the shuttle, and he saw two figures being dragged limply across the wet ground into the side door.
“Goddammit,” he muttered, to himself as much as to his deputy, “Two down. Can’t tell how bad.”
Jalon swallowed a gasp as she saw the activity down by the shuttle for herself.
“Chief,” she replied, managing to keep most of the emotion out of her voice, “I didn’t mean to--”
“Trelok! Talk to me!”
Tylor cut her off mid-apology as he barked back down the comms unit, and Jalon got the implied message. Now wasn’t the time for apologies or recriminations, and all of Tylor’s old instincts from back on Ktaris were now kicking in.
There was another burst of static from the comms link. Then, a familiar voice.
“Hey!” Sunek yelled over the link, agitation clear in his tone, “What the hell was that? You promised we’d be clear all the way to the shuttle!”
“I’m sorry about that, Trelok. You have my word, that wasn’t supposed to happen.”
“Starting to think your word isn’t worth much!”
“What’s the situation down there?” Tylor continued, making the concern in his voice as clear as he could in an effort to underline his sincerity.
Down in the square, he could just about make out the final figure disappearing inside the shuttle.
“Ugh,” the Vulcan griped, “Looks like we’ve got two injured. One badly. So, yeah, thanks for all of that, guys!”
“The hostages--?”
“Ok, screw this,” Sunek fired off as the shuttle door closed, “We’re getting the hell out of here. Just like you promised we could!”
“Trelok,” Tylor urged, “You need to keep this channel open, and we need to--”
The comms link definitively clicked closed. Tylor let out a tired sigh and checked his chronometer, seeing that they had officially passed into the early hours of a new day on Varris IV.
He rubbed the rainwater out of his eyes, even as the anti-grav units on the underside of the shuttle down in the square began to glow a familiar deep yellow, and the small craft began to ascend into the heavens. Through the downpour, Tylor and Jalon watched as the shuttle uncertainly gained cruising height, and the rear thrusters fired up and propelled it away from the scene.
Mercifully, as far as Tylor was concerned, this time none of the more trigger-happy members of the Heavy Armed Units dotted around decided to take matters into their own hands. As per Tylor’s slightly tardily-delivered orders, they let them go.
Tylor sighed again and stood up straight from behind the cover, stretching his aching body that was crying out after so long crouched down.
He was definitely getting too old for this sort of thing.
The shuttle skimmed along just underneath the heavy layer of rain clouds, and then banked up and disappeared from view.
As soon as it did so, Tylor turned to Jalon and nodded, before leading her off the roof.
It was time to give pursuit.
The best laid plans... Really liking the break-down about how the break-down broke down.
Thanks!! rbs
Thanks!! rbs
Part Three (Cont'd)
Inside the shuttle, the ride was proving to be a bumpy one.
The interior of the craft was fairly generic, with two pilot seats at the front, semi-partitioned from the main body, which was a wide, open-plan design.
There was a bench of seats down the opposite wall to the side door, where Denella and Sunek had managed to lie the injured Klath and Palmor before they had departed, and a couple of raised storage crates further back, where Evina and Tegras sat, clinging on for dear life. A fenced off area at the very rear housed a transporter. It was clear that the shuttle was designed to ferry security teams where they needed to go as smoothly and efficiently as possible.
But there was very little in the way of smooth efficiency in their current trip. The small vessel bucked and weaved around uncertainly as it flew onwards, tossing the six occupants around from side to side with varying degrees of violence.
“Keep us steady!” Denella called out, as she did her best to tend to the wounded on the bench.
“Good call, genius! Hadn’t thought of that!”
In the pilot’s seat up front, Sunek fired off the comeback even as he focused on desperately trying to figure out the controls in front of him.
The Vulcan had, on plenty of occasions, referred to himself as the greatest pilot in the galaxy. And while that statement was usually presented humorously, as so many of Sunek’s statements were, there was still a kernel of truth to it as far as he was concerned. His distinctly un-Vulcan ego really was of the considered opinion that he was a master at the controls of any craft.
He had learned his piloting skills pretty much on the fly, after he had left his life on Vulcan with the V’tosh ka’tur behind. And after leaving his home, he had found himself behind the controls of a variety of ships as he had drifted through the galaxy.
To his surprise, he had found that, in the pilot’s seat at least, he was a natural daredevil. His swirling emotions gave him the confidence and the desire to always push the envelope, and his intrinsic Vulcan mind gave him the ability to calculate precisely what he needed to do in order to pull it off.
Onboard the Bounty, he had navigated his way through endless firefights and squabbles with a myriad number of enemies. He had steered them through or around all manner of interstellar hazards, from gravity wells, to quantum singularities, to tachyon eddies. And over the years, his skills had improved and his ego had swelled to the point that he genuinely started to believe that he was the greatest pilot in the galaxy.
Until he had gotten behind the controls of a Ktarian atmospheric shuttle, that was.
The shuttle was an older design than he was used to. The controls consisted of a bank of mechanical switches and dials as opposed to the sleeker LCARS panels of the Bounty.
He wasn’t entirely sure what half of the dials were measuring. There were too many of them to even begin to try to decipher. And the switches themselves were labelled with a confusing sequence of proprietary acronyms, which didn’t help matters.
There was a central control column, which he was more familiar with. But for reasons he couldn’t begin to fathom the logic of, moving it left and right actually moved the shuttle up and down, and up and down were used to steer from side to side.
If all of that wasn’t bad enough, there was the matter of traffic.
Although the skies of Varris IV were relatively empty this early in the morning, there were still a few other shuttles and drone vehicles flying merrily through the night above the main settlement and in between some of the taller buildings. And if the controls were baffling enough, Sunek had absolutely no idea what the rules of the skies were on a Ktarian mining colony.
As a result, not only was it taking all of his piloting skill to figure out how to fly the shuttle, it was taking all of his spatial awareness to avoid being involved in an almighty mid-air collision.
“This is the single dumbest thing we’ve ever done!” he called out in frustration as he desperately flicked the control column down to move the shuttle to the right in order to avoid a substantially larger delivery shuttle meandering across their path.
“It was your idea!” Denella called back.
As the shuttle continued to buck and weave, the Orion kept her own focus on the improvised triage area she had established on the main compartment's bench.
Klath grimaced as he gripped his left leg, blood already seeping through the fabric of his trousers where the phaser blast had caught him just above the knee.
“I am fine,” he predictably grunted, as Denella tore at the fabric to get a better look at the wound.
“Liar,” she fired back, as she saw the extent of the injury.
To her rudimentary medical eye, it looked like the blast had only caught him with a glancing blow. But even a glancing blow from a Ktarian phaser rifle had been enough to do substantial damage.
“What about me?” the shrill voice of Palmor reverberated around the confines of the shuttle from the other end of the bench, “I’m injured too!”
Denella glanced over at the Ktarian, who was holding his substantially less badly injured arm, and waved her disruptor at him dismissively.
“You’ll live.”
The Ktarian didn’t seem too pleased with that response, and fired back by gesturing down at Klath’s leg with a dark sneer.
“Perhaps. But your friend might not.”
Denella clenched her jaw and tightened her grip on her weapon. Not for the first time, she wished they could have left this particular hostage behind at the bar. But they still needed him.
They were disturbed by the shuttle making another violent change of direction, causing Klath to growl slightly as his wounded leg jarred awkwardly against the bench.
“Sorry! Another truck!” Sunek called out from the cockpit, “Also, does anyone wanna tell me where we’re going?”
Denella looked up at Klath, then across at Palmor, who seemed determined to remain mute on that particular subject all over again.
“Go,” Klath grunted at her through gritted teeth, “We must get to the latinum.”
“But you’re--”
“I am fine,” he lied again.
She gave her friend a particularly withering glare, which he countered with his best insistent nod.
“Um,” Tegras awkwardly piped up from the rear of the shuttle, “If I may?”
Everyone on the bench turned to the older Ktarian, as the vessel swayed in the air again. He pointed at a storage locker embedded in the wall of the shuttle’s interior.
“There should be a medical kit in there,” he explained, “Standard requirement for all atmospheric shuttles on the colony.”
“And I’m a registered field medic back at the mine,” Evina added from his side, “I can take a look at your leg for you.”
Denella smiled at the source of the unlikely assistance. Klath merely grimaced further, continuing his occasional role as the worst patient in the history of the universe.
“Thank you,” the Orion engineer nodded at the two Ktarians, “And again, I’m sorry that you had to be a part of this.”
Evina smiled back, then gingerly made her way across the unstable deck of the shuttle and retrieved a small medical kit from the storage locker.
“Pah,” Palmor mocked, “Tending to our captors’ wounds. Perhaps while she does that, you might like to fetch him some Liset root tea and a pillow, Tegras?”
“They may have taken us hostage,” Evina calmly replied, “But they protected us back there when the shooting started. They didn’t need to do that.”
“They didn’t protect me very well,” Palmor grouched, looking down at his arm.
Evina ignored him and approached Klath, who kept his disruptor raised in his hand despite the growing pain in his leg.
“I will be watching you closely,” he grunted at her.
“Good to know,” she replied with a sliver of sarcasm.
Denella mustered a smile, then stepped over and grabbed Palmor’s good arm.
“Come on, you. Time to tell our chauffeur where we’re going.”
Before the Ktarian had the chance to begin a fresh round of protestations, he was hauled up into the cramped cockpit, where Sunek was still wrestling with the controls.
“Ok, buddy boy,” the Vulcan called out over his shoulder, gesturing to a particular set of dials on the panel in front of him, “Coordinates go in there. I think.”
As Denella had expected, Palmor didn’t immediately try to do anything. She sighed and prodded her disruptor into the small of his back again.
“Seriously, we don’t have a lot of time.”
With extreme reluctance, the Ktarian leaned over and tapped in the requisite coordinates.
“There,” Sunek nodded, “That wasn’t so hard, was it? Next stop…um, wherever we’re going.”
He tapped a few more controls in front of him, briefly activating the shuttle’s turning indicators before stopping them again with a slightly embarrassed glance, and then gripped the control column with determination as the shuttle sped on to its destination.
With Sunek focused forwards and Denella relaxing slightly now that they were on their way, neither of them noticed Palmor gently reaching into his pocket with the hand of his injured arm. He felt a familiar small disc-shaped object inside, and tapped the button on top.
Then he allowed himself the slightest of smiles, having played his final roll of the dice.
****************************
Some distance behind, a similar Ktarian shuttle was cutting a considerably more dignified pattern through the early morning traffic. The vessel was working nowhere near its top speed. Instead, it was hanging back and keeping a watching brief.
Metaphorically, at least.
Neither occupant could actually see their target. The other shuttle was lost somewhere in the gloom and the rain and the traffic. But that didn’t matter. So long as they kept within range of the tracking transponder of the other shuttle, they were on the right track.
Tylor peered through the forward window of the shuttle, ignoring the gentle throbbing in his temples, as they gently picked their way through the few other vehicles out and about at this time.
Alongside him, Jalon expertly worked the controls, keeping her focus on following the trace from the transponder. Which was proving trickier than she’d have liked.
“They’re all over the place,” she grunted as she completed another turn to fall in line behind a bulky cargo transporter, “Altitude, direction, they’re going to cause an accident if they’re not careful.”
“Just keep us in range,” he replied, “Let’s not spook them.”
Jalon nodded and kept her eyes on the instruments.
Tylor could have taken the controls himself. He knew that he was more experienced at pursuit and interception than his deputy from his time further down the ranks back on Ktaris, and especially in atmospheric shuttles as old as the ones still used on Varris IV.
But he’d seen the impact that her momentary lapse in protocol on the comms link back at the Ktarian Moonrise, and the resulting firefight, had caused. And the last thing the grizzled old chief needed now was his most valuable officer having a full-blown crisis of confidence. So he had decided to make sure she had something to keep her focused on the immediate task at hand, without second guessing herself for failing to follow procedure.
“They’re changing heading,” she reported quickly, “Looks like they’re taking a direct route through to the old financial district.”
“Huh,” Tylor mused with intrigue, “Not a lot there these days, is there.”
“I believe that depends on what you’re looking for, Chief,” Jalon replied mirthlessly.
Tylor mustered a nod at this knowing comment.
As Varris IV had faded into insignificance in the eyes of the central Ktarian government, the main financial hubs of the settlements across the planet’s surface, once thriving hubs of commerce filled with mining enterprises, retail spaces and recreational districts for the workers, had all slowly dwindled away. After the business and the commerce had departed, the deserted streets that had been left behind were filled by financial schemes of a different variety.
Nowadays, the financial districts were where you went if you wanted to score some narcotics, some illicit materials, some company for the evening, or any combination of the three.
Still, it now seemed the most likely destination for their quarry, and that was good enough for Tylor to reach for the comms unit on the shuttle’s bank of controls.
“Teams three, four and seven, divert to the south side of the financial district,” he grunted, “All other teams maintain the outer perimeter. Keep your data receivers pointing at that transponder, but do not engage until I confirm. Out.”
He set the comms unit back down and braced as Jalon made another sharp turn to keep them on the right track.
“Chief,” she piped up as she worked, “I need to formally acknowledge my failure earlier.”
Tylor sighed and shook his head. Putting her in the pilot’s seat hadn’t distracted her for long.
“It was an inexcusable breach of protocol to question your order,” she continued, “And it could have resulted in more casualties. Rest assured that when this is over, I will submit a full report to the Head of Ktarian Security and recommend myself for a transfer--”
“Hey,” Tylor grunted, causing her to pause as she flicked the shuttle to the left, “You made a mistake, Deputy. Now, I don’t like it when that happens. But we all make them from time to time. And over the years, I’ve found that what’s really important is what you do after the mistake.”
She went to reply, but immediately had to execute another turn, which allowed him to continue.
“Now, we’ve still got a lot of work ahead of us tonight before we get back to our families. And I need my deputy to stick with me through it all, ok?”
Although her focus was still on the transponder reading and the traffic around them, Jalon mustered a whisper of a smile.
“Ok, Chief.”
“And listen,” he added, “Never feel like you shouldn’t question my orders, ok? Like I said, we all make mistakes.”
She considered this for a thoughtful moment, before an alert from the shuttle’s computer called her attention to another navigational change.
Tylor let her complete the latest sharp turn.
And contemplated whether he was making a mistake right now.
Inside the shuttle, the ride was proving to be a bumpy one.
The interior of the craft was fairly generic, with two pilot seats at the front, semi-partitioned from the main body, which was a wide, open-plan design.
There was a bench of seats down the opposite wall to the side door, where Denella and Sunek had managed to lie the injured Klath and Palmor before they had departed, and a couple of raised storage crates further back, where Evina and Tegras sat, clinging on for dear life. A fenced off area at the very rear housed a transporter. It was clear that the shuttle was designed to ferry security teams where they needed to go as smoothly and efficiently as possible.
But there was very little in the way of smooth efficiency in their current trip. The small vessel bucked and weaved around uncertainly as it flew onwards, tossing the six occupants around from side to side with varying degrees of violence.
“Keep us steady!” Denella called out, as she did her best to tend to the wounded on the bench.
“Good call, genius! Hadn’t thought of that!”
In the pilot’s seat up front, Sunek fired off the comeback even as he focused on desperately trying to figure out the controls in front of him.
The Vulcan had, on plenty of occasions, referred to himself as the greatest pilot in the galaxy. And while that statement was usually presented humorously, as so many of Sunek’s statements were, there was still a kernel of truth to it as far as he was concerned. His distinctly un-Vulcan ego really was of the considered opinion that he was a master at the controls of any craft.
He had learned his piloting skills pretty much on the fly, after he had left his life on Vulcan with the V’tosh ka’tur behind. And after leaving his home, he had found himself behind the controls of a variety of ships as he had drifted through the galaxy.
To his surprise, he had found that, in the pilot’s seat at least, he was a natural daredevil. His swirling emotions gave him the confidence and the desire to always push the envelope, and his intrinsic Vulcan mind gave him the ability to calculate precisely what he needed to do in order to pull it off.
Onboard the Bounty, he had navigated his way through endless firefights and squabbles with a myriad number of enemies. He had steered them through or around all manner of interstellar hazards, from gravity wells, to quantum singularities, to tachyon eddies. And over the years, his skills had improved and his ego had swelled to the point that he genuinely started to believe that he was the greatest pilot in the galaxy.
Until he had gotten behind the controls of a Ktarian atmospheric shuttle, that was.
The shuttle was an older design than he was used to. The controls consisted of a bank of mechanical switches and dials as opposed to the sleeker LCARS panels of the Bounty.
He wasn’t entirely sure what half of the dials were measuring. There were too many of them to even begin to try to decipher. And the switches themselves were labelled with a confusing sequence of proprietary acronyms, which didn’t help matters.
There was a central control column, which he was more familiar with. But for reasons he couldn’t begin to fathom the logic of, moving it left and right actually moved the shuttle up and down, and up and down were used to steer from side to side.
If all of that wasn’t bad enough, there was the matter of traffic.
Although the skies of Varris IV were relatively empty this early in the morning, there were still a few other shuttles and drone vehicles flying merrily through the night above the main settlement and in between some of the taller buildings. And if the controls were baffling enough, Sunek had absolutely no idea what the rules of the skies were on a Ktarian mining colony.
As a result, not only was it taking all of his piloting skill to figure out how to fly the shuttle, it was taking all of his spatial awareness to avoid being involved in an almighty mid-air collision.
“This is the single dumbest thing we’ve ever done!” he called out in frustration as he desperately flicked the control column down to move the shuttle to the right in order to avoid a substantially larger delivery shuttle meandering across their path.
“It was your idea!” Denella called back.
As the shuttle continued to buck and weave, the Orion kept her own focus on the improvised triage area she had established on the main compartment's bench.
Klath grimaced as he gripped his left leg, blood already seeping through the fabric of his trousers where the phaser blast had caught him just above the knee.
“I am fine,” he predictably grunted, as Denella tore at the fabric to get a better look at the wound.
“Liar,” she fired back, as she saw the extent of the injury.
To her rudimentary medical eye, it looked like the blast had only caught him with a glancing blow. But even a glancing blow from a Ktarian phaser rifle had been enough to do substantial damage.
“What about me?” the shrill voice of Palmor reverberated around the confines of the shuttle from the other end of the bench, “I’m injured too!”
Denella glanced over at the Ktarian, who was holding his substantially less badly injured arm, and waved her disruptor at him dismissively.
“You’ll live.”
The Ktarian didn’t seem too pleased with that response, and fired back by gesturing down at Klath’s leg with a dark sneer.
“Perhaps. But your friend might not.”
Denella clenched her jaw and tightened her grip on her weapon. Not for the first time, she wished they could have left this particular hostage behind at the bar. But they still needed him.
They were disturbed by the shuttle making another violent change of direction, causing Klath to growl slightly as his wounded leg jarred awkwardly against the bench.
“Sorry! Another truck!” Sunek called out from the cockpit, “Also, does anyone wanna tell me where we’re going?”
Denella looked up at Klath, then across at Palmor, who seemed determined to remain mute on that particular subject all over again.
“Go,” Klath grunted at her through gritted teeth, “We must get to the latinum.”
“But you’re--”
“I am fine,” he lied again.
She gave her friend a particularly withering glare, which he countered with his best insistent nod.
“Um,” Tegras awkwardly piped up from the rear of the shuttle, “If I may?”
Everyone on the bench turned to the older Ktarian, as the vessel swayed in the air again. He pointed at a storage locker embedded in the wall of the shuttle’s interior.
“There should be a medical kit in there,” he explained, “Standard requirement for all atmospheric shuttles on the colony.”
“And I’m a registered field medic back at the mine,” Evina added from his side, “I can take a look at your leg for you.”
Denella smiled at the source of the unlikely assistance. Klath merely grimaced further, continuing his occasional role as the worst patient in the history of the universe.
“Thank you,” the Orion engineer nodded at the two Ktarians, “And again, I’m sorry that you had to be a part of this.”
Evina smiled back, then gingerly made her way across the unstable deck of the shuttle and retrieved a small medical kit from the storage locker.
“Pah,” Palmor mocked, “Tending to our captors’ wounds. Perhaps while she does that, you might like to fetch him some Liset root tea and a pillow, Tegras?”
“They may have taken us hostage,” Evina calmly replied, “But they protected us back there when the shooting started. They didn’t need to do that.”
“They didn’t protect me very well,” Palmor grouched, looking down at his arm.
Evina ignored him and approached Klath, who kept his disruptor raised in his hand despite the growing pain in his leg.
“I will be watching you closely,” he grunted at her.
“Good to know,” she replied with a sliver of sarcasm.
Denella mustered a smile, then stepped over and grabbed Palmor’s good arm.
“Come on, you. Time to tell our chauffeur where we’re going.”
Before the Ktarian had the chance to begin a fresh round of protestations, he was hauled up into the cramped cockpit, where Sunek was still wrestling with the controls.
“Ok, buddy boy,” the Vulcan called out over his shoulder, gesturing to a particular set of dials on the panel in front of him, “Coordinates go in there. I think.”
As Denella had expected, Palmor didn’t immediately try to do anything. She sighed and prodded her disruptor into the small of his back again.
“Seriously, we don’t have a lot of time.”
With extreme reluctance, the Ktarian leaned over and tapped in the requisite coordinates.
“There,” Sunek nodded, “That wasn’t so hard, was it? Next stop…um, wherever we’re going.”
He tapped a few more controls in front of him, briefly activating the shuttle’s turning indicators before stopping them again with a slightly embarrassed glance, and then gripped the control column with determination as the shuttle sped on to its destination.
With Sunek focused forwards and Denella relaxing slightly now that they were on their way, neither of them noticed Palmor gently reaching into his pocket with the hand of his injured arm. He felt a familiar small disc-shaped object inside, and tapped the button on top.
Then he allowed himself the slightest of smiles, having played his final roll of the dice.
****************************
Some distance behind, a similar Ktarian shuttle was cutting a considerably more dignified pattern through the early morning traffic. The vessel was working nowhere near its top speed. Instead, it was hanging back and keeping a watching brief.
Metaphorically, at least.
Neither occupant could actually see their target. The other shuttle was lost somewhere in the gloom and the rain and the traffic. But that didn’t matter. So long as they kept within range of the tracking transponder of the other shuttle, they were on the right track.
Tylor peered through the forward window of the shuttle, ignoring the gentle throbbing in his temples, as they gently picked their way through the few other vehicles out and about at this time.
Alongside him, Jalon expertly worked the controls, keeping her focus on following the trace from the transponder. Which was proving trickier than she’d have liked.
“They’re all over the place,” she grunted as she completed another turn to fall in line behind a bulky cargo transporter, “Altitude, direction, they’re going to cause an accident if they’re not careful.”
“Just keep us in range,” he replied, “Let’s not spook them.”
Jalon nodded and kept her eyes on the instruments.
Tylor could have taken the controls himself. He knew that he was more experienced at pursuit and interception than his deputy from his time further down the ranks back on Ktaris, and especially in atmospheric shuttles as old as the ones still used on Varris IV.
But he’d seen the impact that her momentary lapse in protocol on the comms link back at the Ktarian Moonrise, and the resulting firefight, had caused. And the last thing the grizzled old chief needed now was his most valuable officer having a full-blown crisis of confidence. So he had decided to make sure she had something to keep her focused on the immediate task at hand, without second guessing herself for failing to follow procedure.
“They’re changing heading,” she reported quickly, “Looks like they’re taking a direct route through to the old financial district.”
“Huh,” Tylor mused with intrigue, “Not a lot there these days, is there.”
“I believe that depends on what you’re looking for, Chief,” Jalon replied mirthlessly.
Tylor mustered a nod at this knowing comment.
As Varris IV had faded into insignificance in the eyes of the central Ktarian government, the main financial hubs of the settlements across the planet’s surface, once thriving hubs of commerce filled with mining enterprises, retail spaces and recreational districts for the workers, had all slowly dwindled away. After the business and the commerce had departed, the deserted streets that had been left behind were filled by financial schemes of a different variety.
Nowadays, the financial districts were where you went if you wanted to score some narcotics, some illicit materials, some company for the evening, or any combination of the three.
Still, it now seemed the most likely destination for their quarry, and that was good enough for Tylor to reach for the comms unit on the shuttle’s bank of controls.
“Teams three, four and seven, divert to the south side of the financial district,” he grunted, “All other teams maintain the outer perimeter. Keep your data receivers pointing at that transponder, but do not engage until I confirm. Out.”
He set the comms unit back down and braced as Jalon made another sharp turn to keep them on the right track.
“Chief,” she piped up as she worked, “I need to formally acknowledge my failure earlier.”
Tylor sighed and shook his head. Putting her in the pilot’s seat hadn’t distracted her for long.
“It was an inexcusable breach of protocol to question your order,” she continued, “And it could have resulted in more casualties. Rest assured that when this is over, I will submit a full report to the Head of Ktarian Security and recommend myself for a transfer--”
“Hey,” Tylor grunted, causing her to pause as she flicked the shuttle to the left, “You made a mistake, Deputy. Now, I don’t like it when that happens. But we all make them from time to time. And over the years, I’ve found that what’s really important is what you do after the mistake.”
She went to reply, but immediately had to execute another turn, which allowed him to continue.
“Now, we’ve still got a lot of work ahead of us tonight before we get back to our families. And I need my deputy to stick with me through it all, ok?”
Although her focus was still on the transponder reading and the traffic around them, Jalon mustered a whisper of a smile.
“Ok, Chief.”
“And listen,” he added, “Never feel like you shouldn’t question my orders, ok? Like I said, we all make mistakes.”
She considered this for a thoughtful moment, before an alert from the shuttle’s computer called her attention to another navigational change.
Tylor let her complete the latest sharp turn.
And contemplated whether he was making a mistake right now.
Really liking the walk-on characters, particularly Tylor - far from a one-dimensional foil.
Also enjoying the world-building. A very believable environment.
Thanks!! rbs
Also enjoying the world-building. A very believable environment.
Thanks!! rbs
Part Three (Cont'd)
“Ow!”
Jirel couldn’t help but yelp as the tiny laser cutter nicked his skin for what felt like the millionth time.
“I’m sorry.”
“I’m really starting to doubt that.”
Natasha couldn’t help but suppress a smile as she redoubled her efforts to complete the task at hand. A task which was proving somewhat difficult.
With some small amount of effort, some coordinated shuffling around the circumference of the bomb, and what she was pretty sure was a strained hamstring, she had managed to hook the small engineering tool with her foot, close enough for the pair to secure it in their hands.
Then, after an awful lot of false starts, Jirel had finally been able to position the tool in her left hand in the right direction for her to activate it and laser through the metal. Or roughly the right direction, at least. It seemed to be pointing at Jirel’s wrist as much as it was pointing at the cuffs themselves.
In fact, so far, she hadn’t made contact with the metal at all.
“I’m doing my best,” she insisted to the slightly singed Trill, “You try doing this when you can’t see what you’re doing.”
“Gladly. Hand it over, and let’s see how your wrist likes it.”
“We don’t have time for that,” she countered, not entirely accurately, “Plus I don’t wanna risk dropping it again.”
“Fine,” he pouted, “Just be a bit more careful? I’d hate to be one of your patients in surgery.”
She elected not to go for another jibe in response, and instead refocused on her task, feeling for the cuffs and doing her best to align the end of the laser tool with the edge of the metal, before carefully depressing the button for a test shot.
“Ow!”
“Sorry!”
While still apologetic, part of her did start to wonder if she was subconsciously doing it on purpose.
There was a moment of silence, as she tried to prepare for another attempt. A silence that JIrel decided it would be a good idea to fill.
“Hey, listen, I guess…I’m sorry too.”
She suppressed a frustrated sigh. There was definitely something to the subconscious theory.
“Ugh. If this is about--”
“Mizar!” he hissed back quickly.
“Yep, that’s what I thought. And as I am getting so very bored of telling you, it’s none of your business--”
“No,” Jirel hissed again, more urgently, “He’s coming down the corridor!”
With realisation now dawning, Natasha jerked her hand up so quickly that she nearly dropped the cutting tool completely. But she was just about able to gather it up and hide the small device inside her palm as best she could, pressing her hand into Jirel’s own hand in an action that she hoped would simply come across as a strategic attempt to hide their means of escape, and nothing else.
“What the hell are you smiling about?” Mizar grunted at the dorky grin on Jirel’s face as he and Devan entered the bay.
Before Jirel could muster a response, Mizar’s attention was drawn to the mess around the supply cupboard that Devan had been using earlier.
“And what the hell’s all that?”
“Um,” Devan muttered nervously, chewing his nails, “That--Um, I slipped.”
Natasha felt herself tense up involuntarily as she saw Mizar studying the bits of engineering equipment on the ground. She couldn’t help but push her hand further into Jirel’s, who squeezed back tightly.
“And what if one of these tools had fallen close enough for them to get it, hmm?” the taller Ktarian continued to berate Devan, “What then?”
As the other Ktarian stammered and squirmed, Jirel felt the need to act. Both from the desire to somehow protect his old friend from further verbal abuse, and also from how emboldened he felt from the hand squeezing that was going on.
“Come on, Mizar,” he scoffed, “You really think if we had a cutting tool, we’d still be tied up here like a pair of idiots?”
Mizar whirled around to the Trill, as Natasha felt herself tense up even more. Why the hell was Jirel lampshading their actual plan like this?
She did her best to communicate her displeasure with a slightly irritated squeeze of her clenched fist, causing Jirel’s grin to widen slightly.
The Trill remained confident in his approach, as he kept his attention on the handsome Ktarian. He didn’t want to admit it, but he was beginning to see that he might have more than a little in common with Mizar. Specifically when it came to his ego. And that meant that, if Jirel was correct, he could be easily distracted. After all, as far as Mizar’s ego was concerned, he was a genius, and they were a pair of idiots. So how could they have the means to escape?
Mizar’s eyes narrowed with disdain, as Jirel kept his focus on him, hoping that he was a good enough judge of bad characters.
“You know,” the Ktarian replied eventually with a slightly superior grin, “I’m almost going to miss these little chats of ours.”
His grin stretched to a sneer as he stepped over to the other side of the bomb, where Natasha was putting on her best impression of someone who didn’t have a small cutting tool nestled inside her palm.
“And as for you,” Mizar’s ego continued, all concerns about the engineering equipment now forgotten, “I guess I’m going to miss just about everything about you.”
“Gross,” Jirel chimed in.
For once, Natasha was in complete agreement with him. And she mentally added yet another session that she’d need with the quadrant’s best counsellor to try and get to the deeper reasons for her consistently terrible taste in men.
“P--Please,” Devan quietly offered, “Let’s go.”
“Go where?” Jirel said, more seriously, “Your shuttle?”
Mizar allowed himself a lingering look at Natasha before walking back over to his partner in crime with a casual swagger.
“Yes, I’m afraid this is farewell. Your friends down there definitely need a hurry-up. So we’re going to try and save a bit of time and make sure we’re at a suitably safe distance to bring our little present into play.”
He gestured idly to the bomb in between the two of them. Jirel grimaced and forced his focus back for one last effort to appeal to his old friend.
“Devan, come on. I’m telling you, if this guy stole your wife, I can help with that.”
“N--No, you can’t,” Devan replied, “Only Mizar can.”
“Why?” the Trill asked, with genuine confusion.
Devan paused for a moment, and looked over at the confident Mizar, and then back at his old friend from the Tyran Scrapyards.
“B--Because I need someone who can help me kill.”
Jirel felt a chill pass down his spine.
As soon as Devan said the words, he looked away, unable to face his friend’s glare any longer.
Before Jirel could formulate an appropriate response, Mizar patted Devan forcefully on the shoulder, and the two of them made for the exit of the cargo bay, heading for the Bounty’s transporter. He stared into space for a few moments, still processing his friend’s words. Until he heard a cough from behind him.
“You can let go of my hand now,” Natasha urged with a waggle of her clenched fist, “Kinda feels like we need to get out here as soon as possible.”
“Oh,” Jirel nodded quickly, “Yep.”
He unclasped her hand, and Natasha quickly started to reposition the cutting tool for another attempt to breach the cuffs. As she continued to work in silence, Jirel’s attention switched to something else that he’d just realised.
“I, um, we were just holding hands that tight to hide the cutter, right?”
There was no immediate response forthcoming from the other side of the bomb. At least, not a verbal one.
“Ow!”
“Ow!”
Jirel couldn’t help but yelp as the tiny laser cutter nicked his skin for what felt like the millionth time.
“I’m sorry.”
“I’m really starting to doubt that.”
Natasha couldn’t help but suppress a smile as she redoubled her efforts to complete the task at hand. A task which was proving somewhat difficult.
With some small amount of effort, some coordinated shuffling around the circumference of the bomb, and what she was pretty sure was a strained hamstring, she had managed to hook the small engineering tool with her foot, close enough for the pair to secure it in their hands.
Then, after an awful lot of false starts, Jirel had finally been able to position the tool in her left hand in the right direction for her to activate it and laser through the metal. Or roughly the right direction, at least. It seemed to be pointing at Jirel’s wrist as much as it was pointing at the cuffs themselves.
In fact, so far, she hadn’t made contact with the metal at all.
“I’m doing my best,” she insisted to the slightly singed Trill, “You try doing this when you can’t see what you’re doing.”
“Gladly. Hand it over, and let’s see how your wrist likes it.”
“We don’t have time for that,” she countered, not entirely accurately, “Plus I don’t wanna risk dropping it again.”
“Fine,” he pouted, “Just be a bit more careful? I’d hate to be one of your patients in surgery.”
She elected not to go for another jibe in response, and instead refocused on her task, feeling for the cuffs and doing her best to align the end of the laser tool with the edge of the metal, before carefully depressing the button for a test shot.
“Ow!”
“Sorry!”
While still apologetic, part of her did start to wonder if she was subconsciously doing it on purpose.
There was a moment of silence, as she tried to prepare for another attempt. A silence that JIrel decided it would be a good idea to fill.
“Hey, listen, I guess…I’m sorry too.”
She suppressed a frustrated sigh. There was definitely something to the subconscious theory.
“Ugh. If this is about--”
“Mizar!” he hissed back quickly.
“Yep, that’s what I thought. And as I am getting so very bored of telling you, it’s none of your business--”
“No,” Jirel hissed again, more urgently, “He’s coming down the corridor!”
With realisation now dawning, Natasha jerked her hand up so quickly that she nearly dropped the cutting tool completely. But she was just about able to gather it up and hide the small device inside her palm as best she could, pressing her hand into Jirel’s own hand in an action that she hoped would simply come across as a strategic attempt to hide their means of escape, and nothing else.
“What the hell are you smiling about?” Mizar grunted at the dorky grin on Jirel’s face as he and Devan entered the bay.
Before Jirel could muster a response, Mizar’s attention was drawn to the mess around the supply cupboard that Devan had been using earlier.
“And what the hell’s all that?”
“Um,” Devan muttered nervously, chewing his nails, “That--Um, I slipped.”
Natasha felt herself tense up involuntarily as she saw Mizar studying the bits of engineering equipment on the ground. She couldn’t help but push her hand further into Jirel’s, who squeezed back tightly.
“And what if one of these tools had fallen close enough for them to get it, hmm?” the taller Ktarian continued to berate Devan, “What then?”
As the other Ktarian stammered and squirmed, Jirel felt the need to act. Both from the desire to somehow protect his old friend from further verbal abuse, and also from how emboldened he felt from the hand squeezing that was going on.
“Come on, Mizar,” he scoffed, “You really think if we had a cutting tool, we’d still be tied up here like a pair of idiots?”
Mizar whirled around to the Trill, as Natasha felt herself tense up even more. Why the hell was Jirel lampshading their actual plan like this?
She did her best to communicate her displeasure with a slightly irritated squeeze of her clenched fist, causing Jirel’s grin to widen slightly.
The Trill remained confident in his approach, as he kept his attention on the handsome Ktarian. He didn’t want to admit it, but he was beginning to see that he might have more than a little in common with Mizar. Specifically when it came to his ego. And that meant that, if Jirel was correct, he could be easily distracted. After all, as far as Mizar’s ego was concerned, he was a genius, and they were a pair of idiots. So how could they have the means to escape?
Mizar’s eyes narrowed with disdain, as Jirel kept his focus on him, hoping that he was a good enough judge of bad characters.
“You know,” the Ktarian replied eventually with a slightly superior grin, “I’m almost going to miss these little chats of ours.”
His grin stretched to a sneer as he stepped over to the other side of the bomb, where Natasha was putting on her best impression of someone who didn’t have a small cutting tool nestled inside her palm.
“And as for you,” Mizar’s ego continued, all concerns about the engineering equipment now forgotten, “I guess I’m going to miss just about everything about you.”
“Gross,” Jirel chimed in.
For once, Natasha was in complete agreement with him. And she mentally added yet another session that she’d need with the quadrant’s best counsellor to try and get to the deeper reasons for her consistently terrible taste in men.
“P--Please,” Devan quietly offered, “Let’s go.”
“Go where?” Jirel said, more seriously, “Your shuttle?”
Mizar allowed himself a lingering look at Natasha before walking back over to his partner in crime with a casual swagger.
“Yes, I’m afraid this is farewell. Your friends down there definitely need a hurry-up. So we’re going to try and save a bit of time and make sure we’re at a suitably safe distance to bring our little present into play.”
He gestured idly to the bomb in between the two of them. Jirel grimaced and forced his focus back for one last effort to appeal to his old friend.
“Devan, come on. I’m telling you, if this guy stole your wife, I can help with that.”
“N--No, you can’t,” Devan replied, “Only Mizar can.”
“Why?” the Trill asked, with genuine confusion.
Devan paused for a moment, and looked over at the confident Mizar, and then back at his old friend from the Tyran Scrapyards.
“B--Because I need someone who can help me kill.”
Jirel felt a chill pass down his spine.
As soon as Devan said the words, he looked away, unable to face his friend’s glare any longer.
Before Jirel could formulate an appropriate response, Mizar patted Devan forcefully on the shoulder, and the two of them made for the exit of the cargo bay, heading for the Bounty’s transporter. He stared into space for a few moments, still processing his friend’s words. Until he heard a cough from behind him.
“You can let go of my hand now,” Natasha urged with a waggle of her clenched fist, “Kinda feels like we need to get out here as soon as possible.”
“Oh,” Jirel nodded quickly, “Yep.”
He unclasped her hand, and Natasha quickly started to reposition the cutting tool for another attempt to breach the cuffs. As she continued to work in silence, Jirel’s attention switched to something else that he’d just realised.
“I, um, we were just holding hands that tight to hide the cutter, right?”
There was no immediate response forthcoming from the other side of the bomb. At least, not a verbal one.
“Ow!”
Quite a bit of fun with Natasha's subconscious punishment of Jirel. She's not the only one who needs a counsellor...
Thanks!! rbs
Thanks!! rbs
Part Three (Cont'd)
“How’re you feeling?”
Denella looked down at Klath, whose leg wound was now looking substantially improved thanks to Evina’s triage work.
“Better,” he admitted, before looking over at the Ktarian woman and adding with a little reluctance, “Thank you.”
“It’s not fixed,” Evina admitted, “You’ll need a proper medical facility for that. But I’ve cleaned it up and stopped the bleeding for now.”
The hulking Klingon started to stand up, showing further reluctance in accepting help from Evina and Denella to get back onto his feet. As soon as he put his weight on his injured limb, he immediately stifled a grimace.
“Like I said,” Evina added sympathetically, “Not fixed.”
Denella watched on with concern as Klath tested his weight again. He eventually looked up at the Orion’s dubious expression and nodded.
“I can still fight,” he affirmed.
“Sure,” she sighed, “If any guards storm the shuttle when we land, I’ll just ask them to play fair, line up in an orderly fashion and let the guy with one leg shoot at them.”
Klath responded with a withering glare, but before he could offer anything more as a counterpoint, Sunek called out from the cockpit.
“Hey, we might have a problem here.”
Klath’s glare switched to one of concern in an instant, as Denella’s own expression hardened.
“Feels like that’s the theme of today, doesn’t it?” she offered as she stepped and Klath hobbled over to the Vulcan’s position.
Sunek was still wrestling with the controls to the shuttle, but had enough of a handle on them by this point to be able to glance over at them and gesture out of the cockpit window.
“We’re almost at these coordinates, and something doesn’t feel right. I’m not seeing anything on the scans that looks like a secure facility. Most of these buildings look totally abandoned. It’s like Friday night at a Promellian discotheque down there.”
Denella peered out of the cockpit window. Sunek had successfully located the controls for the wipers, and they were now manfully fighting a losing battle against the lashing downpour hitting the transparent surface.
Through the dark skies, the driving rain and the shining beacons and lights of the scant passing traffic, she made out rows and rows of tall skyscrapers below them, packed close like a small forest of trees straining up towards the top of the canopy layer.
But while this vista looked like it might have been an impressive sight at some point in Varris IV’s past, the sense of decay all around was palpable, even through the pitch black downpour. The buildings looked run down. Windows smashed, metal supports rusting and stone edifices crumbling. Around the tops of some of them, local plant life seemed to be flourishing, sprouting out from the mighty skyscrapers in haphazard tufts.
As Denella chewed her lip and Sunek flicked the shuttle around to complete another loop, Tegras called out from the rear, having seen the view himself.
“No, no,” the grey-haired Ktarian said, shaking his head, “This is the financial district. There’s no latinum here.”
Sunek and Denella both mustered a double take at this. But Klath’s attention was diverted by something else. And the Klingon’s leg may not have been at one hundred percent, but there was nothing wrong with his arms.
“Argh!”
The squeal of pain from Palmor caused everyone else in the shuttle to turn around and look at where Klath had shot out a burly limb and grabbed the Ktarian’s own arm.
“You,” Klath grunted, wrenching Palmor’s hand out of his pocket, as Denella spied the tiny disc-shaped object in his grasp.
She reached over and grabbed the disc from the struggling and horrified Ktarian. It didn’t take long for her engineering brain to figure out what it was.
“Some sort of tracker. Or a homing device.”
“A trap,” Klath grunted unhappily, squeezing extra hard on Palmor’s arm and eliciting a further squeal of pain.
“He’s been trying to scam you again,” Tegras nodded, “And he’s got plenty of contacts around the colony to call on for a rescue.”
“Well, that’s just great,” Sunek tutted sarcastically from the pilot’s seat.
“I don’t know what this fool is talking about--!”
That was as far as Palmor got with his latest protestation. The rest of the sentence was lost in an even louder scream of pain, as Klath grabbed the Ktarian’s other injured arm and squeezed down on the phaser burn.
“The truth,” he grunted, as Palmor’s scream reached a crescendo, “Where is your latinum?”
“I--I swear,” he stammered, “It’s here--!”
Another squeeze. Another scream. Denella winced at the sound, and part of her wanted to tell Klath to stop. But a greater part of her was tired of being screwed around, and was focused on the Bounty in orbit, and the possible bomb in its cargo bay. So she allowed the heavy-handed treatment to continue.
“My penthouse!” Palmor screamed eventually, “T--The latinum is in my penthouse! I haven’t used a holding facility since one of my shipments got stolen last year!”
Klath kept up the pressure on Palmor’s wound as he stared into the eyes of his adversary, tears beginning to form from the pain.
Eventually, he released his grip and turned to Denella with a look of satisfaction.
“The truth.”
“I know where his penthouse is,” Tegras offered.
The defeated Palmor didn’t even bother to call out this latest piece of treachery from one of his fellow Ktarians. Released from Klath’s grip, he slumped back onto the bench down the side of the shuttle’s rear section, holding his injured arm. Denella saw the look of pain, and reluctantly gestured to Evina.
“Now you’ve helped my friend’s leg, might be an idea to fix his arm.”
Evina gave the Orion a dubious look, one that suggested that she didn’t entirely agree that Palmor deserved that sort of treatment. But the look of compassion from Denella eventually caused her to nod and step back over to the medical kit.
“Um, guys,” Sunek chimed in again, “I realise I’m becoming a serious buzzkill here, but we’ve got another problem.”
“What?” Klath grunted, as he, Denella and Tegras turned their attention back to the driving rain in front of the shuttle.
“I’ve got something closing fast on our position,” the Vulcan offered as he gestured to the controls in front of him, “And I’m still figuring out how to read a lot of this, but I think it’s either another shuttle, or a cataclysmic rift in spacetime.”
Denella compartmentalised the slight feeling of shame that registered when she instinctively glanced through the cockpit window for signs of a cataclysmic rift in spacetime, and slid into the co-pilot’s seat next to the Vulcan.
“Get us the hell out of here.”
“Already on it.”
Sunek didn’t need telling twice. He pirouetted the shuttle around and took off in a flash through the downpour.
Palmor Fot’s contacts had arrived.
****************************
“I repeat, all units move in. Intercept and escort!”
Security Chief Tylor Ral fired the order out over the comms link as Deputy Jalon Sep kicked their security shuttle’s systems up to full power.
Their watching brief was over.
Moments ago, the readouts of their shuttle had begun to flare up with alerts, as they had detected a suspicious craft that was breaking several Varris IV traffic laws, and appeared to be intercepting the shuttle they were tailing.
That had been enough to make the two most senior members of the colony’s slapdash security forces into action. Tylor gripped onto the shuttle console, his headache forgotten, as Jalon gunned the thrusters and moved in on the location of the transponder trace.
Elsewhere, on the perimeter that had been established in the skies above the financial district of the main settlement, several identical shuttles began their own manoeuvres towards the targets.
“Is this what your instincts were expecting, Chief?” Jalon couldn’t help but ask as she flicked on the security shuttles alert sirens to clear a path through the traffic.
“I’m not entirely sure what I was expecting, Deputy. That’s kinda the trouble with instincts.”
Jalon suppressed a stifled smile at this, as she swung the shuttle into a sharp climb to avoid a small civilian craft.
“But,” Tylor continued, “Something’s definitely going down. And I can’t risk leaving those remaining hostages with them any longer. So I’d say it’s time to round ‘em up.”
“With pleasure, Chief,” she nodded, before she acknowledged a chance on her instruments, “But they’re moving!”
“I see ‘em,” Tylor nodded, grabbing the comms unit again, “Teams four, five and seven, intercept the new target. All other teams, form up with the lead shuttle for the primary target. Stay with them, keep them out of civilian lanes, use grapplers if you have to, but get ‘em stopped. Out.”
As he clicked off the comms link, he turned back to Jalon, whose focus was entirely on the task at hand, all of her previous doubts having been forgotten now they had a job to do.
“Right then, Deputy,” the grizzled chief nodded, “Let’s go get these sons of bitches.”
The shuttle burst forwards, sirens blaring, and closed in on their target.
****************************
“Oh, good, more shuttles.”
Sunek managed to fire off his latest volley of sarcasm even as he wrenched the control stick in front of him upwards and to the right, to throw the Ktarian shuttle to the left and downwards.
Denella gripped on to the console and the other passengers did their best to brace as Sunek managed to just thread the shuttle past the edge of the wall of a rusted skyscraper.
The Orion checked the console in front of her and grimaced as she saw the fresh traces that Sunek had been referring to.
“These ones look like they’re from Ktarian Security,” she reported, “There must be a transponder in here somewhere.”
“Probably too late to find it now,” Sunek called back, as he flicked the control stick to the right again to send the shuttle into a sharper descent.
Denella ignored his comment and began to do her best to check through the ship’s systems for some sign of tracking software.
The tiny craft plunged deeper into the maze of crumbling skyscrapers, dropping away from the civilian traffic in the higher altitudes, pursued by four identical security shuttles, all of them with sirens blaring.
Whoever Palmor Fot had called in as backup had temporarily broken off their own pursuit, disappearing into the night to try and lose their own tail. Which now left Sunek free to swing his controls one way, then the other, between the fading metal and glass constructs.
In the rear, Klath gritted his teeth as his weight was forced onto his injured leg, as Tegras, Evina and Palmor all gripped onto the padded bench.
“Slow down, you maniac!” Palmor managed to spit out, “You’re going to get us all killed!”
“Relax,” Sunek fired back, “I’m a professional.”
The shuttle swung to the right, skimming around the corner of a building and getting almost close enough to scrape the paintwork as it did so.
“See? Loads of room!”
Sunek had initially assumed it would be an easy enough job to lose their pursuers amongst the buildings themselves. All he needed to do was get two or three turns ahead of them and make a swift break for the cloud cover well above their heads. But he was finding that, no matter how many turns he made, he couldn't get any sort of clear moment to make that break. Which backed up Denella’s assumption.
“Yep,” the Vulcan grimaced, “They’re definitely tracking us.”
“Damnit!” the Orion snapped, as the shuttle banked again and Klath growled in pain from behind, “I can’t find anything here to disable! Whatever they’re tracking us with must be some sort of built-in failsafe hardwired into the shuttle's systems somehow!”
“Makes sense. In case three complete idiots ever decided to take one out for an early morning joyride.”
Sunek glanced over at his colleague and grinned, even as he pitched the shuttle around another turn. He was met by an unamused glare from Denella.
“Fine,” he shrugged, “Two complete idiots and a hot chick.”
He ignored the way the unamused glare increased in intensity, and skimmed the shuttle between two more skyscrapers before he continued.
“Either way, if we can’t disable that transponder, then we’re never gonna shake them.”
At this, Denella was forced to concede the point with a nod of her head, even as she heard one of the Ktarians slide off the bench behind them onto the deck with a thump.
“Any bright ideas, flyboy?” she replied.
Sunek considered the situation for a moment. Engaging both his methodical Vulcan mind, and his very un-Vulcan ego’s confidence in his own abilities, to figure out how they were supposed to escape from a security detail who would literally always know where they were.
Then, he made out something down below them, on the ground. And suddenly, his eyes lit up.
“Hey, did I see a transporter back there?”
“Um, yes,” she replied, a little confused, “Short-range only, though. Not enough to get us where we need to go, or--”
“Nah,” Sunek shot back, “That sounds perfect.”
“For what?”
The Vulcan glanced over at her and grinned, before calling back to the rest of the passengers.
“Everyone get ready. We’re going on a little trip…”
****************************
The modest two-person Ktarian craft hung in the cloud layer that currently covered the entirety of Varris IV’s single vast continent.
It was a standard warp shuttle design, with small nacelles hanging down underneath a squat main body. But this one had been modified and stretched to include a more substantial rear section for habitation purposes, making this a long-range ship. Not an especially comfortable one, but one that could ferry Mizar and Devan to a distant spaceport once all this was over.
The tiny vessel bucked and rolled inside the swirling clouds, like a sailing boat on the ocean.
In one of the forward seats, Devan wished that the rising sickness in his stomach could be blamed on the uncertain motion of the craft. But he knew that wasn’t true. It was being caused entirely by the tension that was bubbling inside him. The feeling that he was finally closing in on his target. And that was fraying what remained of his nerves to breaking point and beyond.
He was this close to Palmor Fot.
Even picturing the name sent a fresh stab of pain through him, and he forced himself to try to focus on something else. Other than Palmor Fot. And the sickness in his stomach.
The waiting wasn’t helping.
They still hadn’t heard from the team down on the planet, and whether or not they had managed to find the latinum that his entire plan now apparently hinged on. But he couldn’t do anything about that. So he tried to ignore the memories swirling around inside his mind, and focused on quelling his nausea.
Alongside him, Mizar looked up from the padd he was idly reading, the screen displaying a list of current rentals available on Risa. Just one of the things he was considering spending his ill-gotten loot on, once they had recovered it.
The larger Ktarian gestured over at the object Devan was holding with a slight trace of amusement.
“You really sure you’ll be able to use that when the time comes?”
Devan didn’t look up at Mizar, but he did look down at the ugly disruptor pistol in his hands. The one he had purchased before he came to Varris IV.
Part of him still wanted to run away from all of this, to give up and not finish what he had started.
But then the memories came swirling back through his mind, and he found himself overwhelmed by a new feeling. One of determination.
And he nodded.
End of Part Three
“How’re you feeling?”
Denella looked down at Klath, whose leg wound was now looking substantially improved thanks to Evina’s triage work.
“Better,” he admitted, before looking over at the Ktarian woman and adding with a little reluctance, “Thank you.”
“It’s not fixed,” Evina admitted, “You’ll need a proper medical facility for that. But I’ve cleaned it up and stopped the bleeding for now.”
The hulking Klingon started to stand up, showing further reluctance in accepting help from Evina and Denella to get back onto his feet. As soon as he put his weight on his injured limb, he immediately stifled a grimace.
“Like I said,” Evina added sympathetically, “Not fixed.”
Denella watched on with concern as Klath tested his weight again. He eventually looked up at the Orion’s dubious expression and nodded.
“I can still fight,” he affirmed.
“Sure,” she sighed, “If any guards storm the shuttle when we land, I’ll just ask them to play fair, line up in an orderly fashion and let the guy with one leg shoot at them.”
Klath responded with a withering glare, but before he could offer anything more as a counterpoint, Sunek called out from the cockpit.
“Hey, we might have a problem here.”
Klath’s glare switched to one of concern in an instant, as Denella’s own expression hardened.
“Feels like that’s the theme of today, doesn’t it?” she offered as she stepped and Klath hobbled over to the Vulcan’s position.
Sunek was still wrestling with the controls to the shuttle, but had enough of a handle on them by this point to be able to glance over at them and gesture out of the cockpit window.
“We’re almost at these coordinates, and something doesn’t feel right. I’m not seeing anything on the scans that looks like a secure facility. Most of these buildings look totally abandoned. It’s like Friday night at a Promellian discotheque down there.”
Denella peered out of the cockpit window. Sunek had successfully located the controls for the wipers, and they were now manfully fighting a losing battle against the lashing downpour hitting the transparent surface.
Through the dark skies, the driving rain and the shining beacons and lights of the scant passing traffic, she made out rows and rows of tall skyscrapers below them, packed close like a small forest of trees straining up towards the top of the canopy layer.
But while this vista looked like it might have been an impressive sight at some point in Varris IV’s past, the sense of decay all around was palpable, even through the pitch black downpour. The buildings looked run down. Windows smashed, metal supports rusting and stone edifices crumbling. Around the tops of some of them, local plant life seemed to be flourishing, sprouting out from the mighty skyscrapers in haphazard tufts.
As Denella chewed her lip and Sunek flicked the shuttle around to complete another loop, Tegras called out from the rear, having seen the view himself.
“No, no,” the grey-haired Ktarian said, shaking his head, “This is the financial district. There’s no latinum here.”
Sunek and Denella both mustered a double take at this. But Klath’s attention was diverted by something else. And the Klingon’s leg may not have been at one hundred percent, but there was nothing wrong with his arms.
“Argh!”
The squeal of pain from Palmor caused everyone else in the shuttle to turn around and look at where Klath had shot out a burly limb and grabbed the Ktarian’s own arm.
“You,” Klath grunted, wrenching Palmor’s hand out of his pocket, as Denella spied the tiny disc-shaped object in his grasp.
She reached over and grabbed the disc from the struggling and horrified Ktarian. It didn’t take long for her engineering brain to figure out what it was.
“Some sort of tracker. Or a homing device.”
“A trap,” Klath grunted unhappily, squeezing extra hard on Palmor’s arm and eliciting a further squeal of pain.
“He’s been trying to scam you again,” Tegras nodded, “And he’s got plenty of contacts around the colony to call on for a rescue.”
“Well, that’s just great,” Sunek tutted sarcastically from the pilot’s seat.
“I don’t know what this fool is talking about--!”
That was as far as Palmor got with his latest protestation. The rest of the sentence was lost in an even louder scream of pain, as Klath grabbed the Ktarian’s other injured arm and squeezed down on the phaser burn.
“The truth,” he grunted, as Palmor’s scream reached a crescendo, “Where is your latinum?”
“I--I swear,” he stammered, “It’s here--!”
Another squeeze. Another scream. Denella winced at the sound, and part of her wanted to tell Klath to stop. But a greater part of her was tired of being screwed around, and was focused on the Bounty in orbit, and the possible bomb in its cargo bay. So she allowed the heavy-handed treatment to continue.
“My penthouse!” Palmor screamed eventually, “T--The latinum is in my penthouse! I haven’t used a holding facility since one of my shipments got stolen last year!”
Klath kept up the pressure on Palmor’s wound as he stared into the eyes of his adversary, tears beginning to form from the pain.
Eventually, he released his grip and turned to Denella with a look of satisfaction.
“The truth.”
“I know where his penthouse is,” Tegras offered.
The defeated Palmor didn’t even bother to call out this latest piece of treachery from one of his fellow Ktarians. Released from Klath’s grip, he slumped back onto the bench down the side of the shuttle’s rear section, holding his injured arm. Denella saw the look of pain, and reluctantly gestured to Evina.
“Now you’ve helped my friend’s leg, might be an idea to fix his arm.”
Evina gave the Orion a dubious look, one that suggested that she didn’t entirely agree that Palmor deserved that sort of treatment. But the look of compassion from Denella eventually caused her to nod and step back over to the medical kit.
“Um, guys,” Sunek chimed in again, “I realise I’m becoming a serious buzzkill here, but we’ve got another problem.”
“What?” Klath grunted, as he, Denella and Tegras turned their attention back to the driving rain in front of the shuttle.
“I’ve got something closing fast on our position,” the Vulcan offered as he gestured to the controls in front of him, “And I’m still figuring out how to read a lot of this, but I think it’s either another shuttle, or a cataclysmic rift in spacetime.”
Denella compartmentalised the slight feeling of shame that registered when she instinctively glanced through the cockpit window for signs of a cataclysmic rift in spacetime, and slid into the co-pilot’s seat next to the Vulcan.
“Get us the hell out of here.”
“Already on it.”
Sunek didn’t need telling twice. He pirouetted the shuttle around and took off in a flash through the downpour.
Palmor Fot’s contacts had arrived.
****************************
“I repeat, all units move in. Intercept and escort!”
Security Chief Tylor Ral fired the order out over the comms link as Deputy Jalon Sep kicked their security shuttle’s systems up to full power.
Their watching brief was over.
Moments ago, the readouts of their shuttle had begun to flare up with alerts, as they had detected a suspicious craft that was breaking several Varris IV traffic laws, and appeared to be intercepting the shuttle they were tailing.
That had been enough to make the two most senior members of the colony’s slapdash security forces into action. Tylor gripped onto the shuttle console, his headache forgotten, as Jalon gunned the thrusters and moved in on the location of the transponder trace.
Elsewhere, on the perimeter that had been established in the skies above the financial district of the main settlement, several identical shuttles began their own manoeuvres towards the targets.
“Is this what your instincts were expecting, Chief?” Jalon couldn’t help but ask as she flicked on the security shuttles alert sirens to clear a path through the traffic.
“I’m not entirely sure what I was expecting, Deputy. That’s kinda the trouble with instincts.”
Jalon suppressed a stifled smile at this, as she swung the shuttle into a sharp climb to avoid a small civilian craft.
“But,” Tylor continued, “Something’s definitely going down. And I can’t risk leaving those remaining hostages with them any longer. So I’d say it’s time to round ‘em up.”
“With pleasure, Chief,” she nodded, before she acknowledged a chance on her instruments, “But they’re moving!”
“I see ‘em,” Tylor nodded, grabbing the comms unit again, “Teams four, five and seven, intercept the new target. All other teams, form up with the lead shuttle for the primary target. Stay with them, keep them out of civilian lanes, use grapplers if you have to, but get ‘em stopped. Out.”
As he clicked off the comms link, he turned back to Jalon, whose focus was entirely on the task at hand, all of her previous doubts having been forgotten now they had a job to do.
“Right then, Deputy,” the grizzled chief nodded, “Let’s go get these sons of bitches.”
The shuttle burst forwards, sirens blaring, and closed in on their target.
****************************
“Oh, good, more shuttles.”
Sunek managed to fire off his latest volley of sarcasm even as he wrenched the control stick in front of him upwards and to the right, to throw the Ktarian shuttle to the left and downwards.
Denella gripped on to the console and the other passengers did their best to brace as Sunek managed to just thread the shuttle past the edge of the wall of a rusted skyscraper.
The Orion checked the console in front of her and grimaced as she saw the fresh traces that Sunek had been referring to.
“These ones look like they’re from Ktarian Security,” she reported, “There must be a transponder in here somewhere.”
“Probably too late to find it now,” Sunek called back, as he flicked the control stick to the right again to send the shuttle into a sharper descent.
Denella ignored his comment and began to do her best to check through the ship’s systems for some sign of tracking software.
The tiny craft plunged deeper into the maze of crumbling skyscrapers, dropping away from the civilian traffic in the higher altitudes, pursued by four identical security shuttles, all of them with sirens blaring.
Whoever Palmor Fot had called in as backup had temporarily broken off their own pursuit, disappearing into the night to try and lose their own tail. Which now left Sunek free to swing his controls one way, then the other, between the fading metal and glass constructs.
In the rear, Klath gritted his teeth as his weight was forced onto his injured leg, as Tegras, Evina and Palmor all gripped onto the padded bench.
“Slow down, you maniac!” Palmor managed to spit out, “You’re going to get us all killed!”
“Relax,” Sunek fired back, “I’m a professional.”
The shuttle swung to the right, skimming around the corner of a building and getting almost close enough to scrape the paintwork as it did so.
“See? Loads of room!”
Sunek had initially assumed it would be an easy enough job to lose their pursuers amongst the buildings themselves. All he needed to do was get two or three turns ahead of them and make a swift break for the cloud cover well above their heads. But he was finding that, no matter how many turns he made, he couldn't get any sort of clear moment to make that break. Which backed up Denella’s assumption.
“Yep,” the Vulcan grimaced, “They’re definitely tracking us.”
“Damnit!” the Orion snapped, as the shuttle banked again and Klath growled in pain from behind, “I can’t find anything here to disable! Whatever they’re tracking us with must be some sort of built-in failsafe hardwired into the shuttle's systems somehow!”
“Makes sense. In case three complete idiots ever decided to take one out for an early morning joyride.”
Sunek glanced over at his colleague and grinned, even as he pitched the shuttle around another turn. He was met by an unamused glare from Denella.
“Fine,” he shrugged, “Two complete idiots and a hot chick.”
He ignored the way the unamused glare increased in intensity, and skimmed the shuttle between two more skyscrapers before he continued.
“Either way, if we can’t disable that transponder, then we’re never gonna shake them.”
At this, Denella was forced to concede the point with a nod of her head, even as she heard one of the Ktarians slide off the bench behind them onto the deck with a thump.
“Any bright ideas, flyboy?” she replied.
Sunek considered the situation for a moment. Engaging both his methodical Vulcan mind, and his very un-Vulcan ego’s confidence in his own abilities, to figure out how they were supposed to escape from a security detail who would literally always know where they were.
Then, he made out something down below them, on the ground. And suddenly, his eyes lit up.
“Hey, did I see a transporter back there?”
“Um, yes,” she replied, a little confused, “Short-range only, though. Not enough to get us where we need to go, or--”
“Nah,” Sunek shot back, “That sounds perfect.”
“For what?”
The Vulcan glanced over at her and grinned, before calling back to the rest of the passengers.
“Everyone get ready. We’re going on a little trip…”
****************************
The modest two-person Ktarian craft hung in the cloud layer that currently covered the entirety of Varris IV’s single vast continent.
It was a standard warp shuttle design, with small nacelles hanging down underneath a squat main body. But this one had been modified and stretched to include a more substantial rear section for habitation purposes, making this a long-range ship. Not an especially comfortable one, but one that could ferry Mizar and Devan to a distant spaceport once all this was over.
The tiny vessel bucked and rolled inside the swirling clouds, like a sailing boat on the ocean.
In one of the forward seats, Devan wished that the rising sickness in his stomach could be blamed on the uncertain motion of the craft. But he knew that wasn’t true. It was being caused entirely by the tension that was bubbling inside him. The feeling that he was finally closing in on his target. And that was fraying what remained of his nerves to breaking point and beyond.
He was this close to Palmor Fot.
Even picturing the name sent a fresh stab of pain through him, and he forced himself to try to focus on something else. Other than Palmor Fot. And the sickness in his stomach.
The waiting wasn’t helping.
They still hadn’t heard from the team down on the planet, and whether or not they had managed to find the latinum that his entire plan now apparently hinged on. But he couldn’t do anything about that. So he tried to ignore the memories swirling around inside his mind, and focused on quelling his nausea.
Alongside him, Mizar looked up from the padd he was idly reading, the screen displaying a list of current rentals available on Risa. Just one of the things he was considering spending his ill-gotten loot on, once they had recovered it.
The larger Ktarian gestured over at the object Devan was holding with a slight trace of amusement.
“You really sure you’ll be able to use that when the time comes?”
Devan didn’t look up at Mizar, but he did look down at the ugly disruptor pistol in his hands. The one he had purchased before he came to Varris IV.
Part of him still wanted to run away from all of this, to give up and not finish what he had started.
But then the memories came swirling back through his mind, and he found himself overwhelmed by a new feeling. One of determination.
And he nodded.
End of Part Three
Nice rollicking shuttle chase - and a transporter escape...
"Where does it say teleportation device??"
"Just over here, in fact. Just below the sign that says "Out of Order" and above the sign that says "Do Not Use."...."
Thanks!! rbs
"Where does it say teleportation device??"
"Just over here, in fact. Just below the sign that says "Out of Order" and above the sign that says "Do Not Use."...."
Thanks!! rbs
and to the left of the sign that says Danger....
Part Four
“Damn, this guy’s good.”
The atmospheric shuttle banked sharply again, even as Tylor quietly offered his opinion regarding the skills of the pilot they were chasing.
Fortunately, he was sat next to the only pilot on all of Varris IV who was a match for whoever was behind the controls of their target. And Jalon was matching the precise skills of the guy in front, turn for turn.
She did have the advantage of the transponder, meaning that even if she missed a turn or two, she would be able to relocate their quarry with ease. But it hadn’t escaped Tylor’s attention that she hadn't needed to utilise that particular cheat code even once so far.
He gripped his armrest tightly as she expertly dipped the shuttle around the corner of the next skyscraper, before making a sharp downward plunge to continue their pursuit.
“They’ve descended to 100 feet,” she reported calmly as they levelled off, “We’re getting a little too low for my liking, Chief.”
“He’s just trying to spook us,” he replied as calmly as he could, even as the shuttles blasted down the former main street of the district close enough to the ground for them to kick up plumes of dirt and detritus in their wake.
In truth, it was starting to work.
He had already ordered the additional teams that had joined them for the chase to back off and remain tracking them above the roofline of the district, not wanting to endanger too many of his personnel now the chase was getting so dicey.
And he was also increasingly worried about the hostages onboard the other shuttle, not to mention any pedestrians out this late, as their target got more and more daring.
He might be good, but Tylor knew that every pilot had their limits.
Even though he knew it was probably futile, he grabbed the comms unit and switched the transmission to the shuttle ahead of them.
“Trelok, if you can hear me, what do you say we both find somewhere to park up and talk this over, hmm? Before someone gets hurt?”
Silence. Just as he had expected.
“They’re dropping again,” Jalon reported urgently, matching their target's moves, “Descending another twenty feet.”
Tylor grimaced, as both shuttles shimmied left and right at this new, even lower altitude. The sense of adventure inside him that had been rekindled by this sudden burst of seat-of-the-pants detective work was starting to be replaced by his more mature, restrictive side.
“I assume my deputy thinks that this is all going too far?” he offered to Jalon, casually trying to give himself an excuse to call it off.
The response that he got surprised him.
“Actually, I’m quite enjoying myself.”
She made her comment even as the two shuttles swept around another tight corner and dropped even closer to the ground below.
“And,” she continued, “Our target has slowed slightly. I believe I can get close enough for us to use the grappler. If I…use my instincts.”
Tylor suppressed a smile and nodded back at his usually reserved deputy instead.
“Ok then, let’s do it.”
Jalon kept her focus forward and leaned on the thrusters a little more as the gap between the two shuttles further decreased. Alongside her, Tylor tapped at a bank of controls and brought the shuttle’s grappling arm online.
The grappler was a magnetised arm more often used to tow stricken vessels. But it could also be used to electronically assume control of a craft, which was of more use to them in this pursuit.
A grappling manoeuvre at this sort of speed was a last resort. But it would be achievable.
“They are descending further,” Jalon reported as they coasted over a large landing pad filled with rows and rows of parked-up civilian shuttles lying dormant beneath them, “Now at 65 feet!”
“Grappler online,” Tylor reported back, “Preparing a shot.”
“Wait! Now ascending!”
Jalon jerked the controls to the left to follow the sudden pitch up from their target, and the two craft ascended again, now less than three shuttle lengths apart.
Tylor licked his lips and gripped the grappler controls, preparing for his shot. As they reached a safer altitude, their target levelled off, and for a moment appeared to have lost interest in shaking them off, flying along in a straight line instead.
“This is our chance, Chief,” Jalon affirmed.
Tylor saw the same thing. He fired.
The small flexible arm shot out from the nose section of their shuttle, and magnetically locked onto the target’s rear hull at the first attempt.
“Got him!” Jalon called out, the emotion in her voice even surprising herself.
“That we have,” Tylor nodded, more calmly, “I’m remotely powering down their systems.”
In an instant, the glow from the other shuttle’s thrusters decreased as the grappler connection brought the vessel to station-keeping. At the same time, Jalon slowed their own vessel to bring the pursuit to a halt.
As soon as the drama was over, Tylor’s jaw tightened. His instincts kicked in again.
“That was too damn easy,” he muttered.
“Chief?”
“Scan for lifesigns, Deputy.”
Jalon jumped to action immediately, then gasped at what she saw.
“There’s nobody onboard,” she reported, “The shuttle’s empty. Must’ve been…on autopilot. Chief, where the hell are they?”
Tylor didn’t reply immediately, as he ran over the last few minutes in his head. They’d missed something. Specifically, he’d missed something. That didn’t used to happen. But what? What had he missed?
Then, it hit him.
“Son of a gun…”
He tapped his controls quickly and barked out commands at the same time.
“I’m releasing the grappler. Get unit four to tow that shuttle back in. And then get us back to that landing pad we just passed.”
Jalon nodded and relayed the orders. Not questioning anything this time.
Moments later, they hovered in place just above the landing pad.
Below them, through the driving rain, they saw the rows of tired, battered private shuttles, just as they had flown over before.
Except now, there was an empty spot. One of the shuttles was missing.
“My god,” Jalon whispered as she shook her head in realisation, “They…?”
Despite the situation, Tylor allowed himself a wry smile.
“Damn, this guy’s good…”
****************************
“Damn, I’m good.”
It hadn’t taken long to get to Palmor’s penthouse from the financial district. Which was a small mercy for five of the occupants of the dirty grey shuttle as it quietly sped above the main settlement of Varris IV. Because it limited the amount of time Sunek had to brag.
“Seriously,” he called back from the tattered pilot’s seat of their new ship, “I deserve, like, a medal or something for that one.”
Denella finished helping Evina as she bound up Klath’s leg as best she could in preparation for them to move out, and shared a tired look with the Klingon.
“Or some kind of award, maybe?” the Vulcan continued, “I mean, setting up the autopilot that quickly, short-range transporting all six of us into this thing, all without them noticing? We are talking ‘idea of the century’-level crap here…”
As Sunek’s vainglorious ramble continued, Evina looked over at the Klingon and the Orion.
“Does he ever stop talking?”
Denella stifled a grin. Klath grunted.
“Unfortunately not,” he offered back with genuine unhappiness.
“Like I said,” Denella called out, “It was a pretty good plan.”
If she hoped that would satisfy him, it didn’t even come close.
“A ‘pretty good plan’? That’s really all you’re gonna give me? This was an incredible plan! I mean, when some stuffy guy with a haircut and a Starfleet uniform pulls off something like that, they get seven years of holosuite programs made about them. And what do I get? ‘You know what, Trelok? That was a pretty good plan’...”
As Klath got back to his feet slightly uncertainly, Denella sighed and paced over to their pilot and his rapidly inflating ego.
“Fine,” she offered, putting on her best impression of someone in genuine awe, “Oh exalted saviour, great masterful one, king of the Alpha Quadrant, could you help out us mere mortals and use that incredible genius of yours to…park us up?”
She gestured out of the cockpit window through the rain. Sunek shrugged.
“No need to overdo it, you know.”
Palmor Fot’s penthouse had turned out to be hard to miss. It was located atop one of the tallest buildings in the downtown residential hub of the main settlement, in a grey metal building that towered over everything in the local vicinity.
The penthouse itself seemed to take up the entire top two floors of the building, and also featured a flat rectangular landing pad which took up most of the top of the roof.
Even on somewhere as downtrodden and forgotten as Varris IV, it was still a residence that hinted at a level of luxury that could only be attained by a very rich individual. Which was a good sign as far as their efforts to finally locate some latinum for Mizar was concerned.
Sunek tapped the controls in front of him and gently guided them downwards. The dented shuttle landed on the rooftop pad with a slight thump.
Seconds later, the side door opened. Denella led Palmor down the steps and out into the persistent rain, keeping her disruptor pointed squarely at his back.
“Come on,” she barked at him, “Time to show me the money.”
With an exaggerated sigh, the defeated Palmor led her across to the small building at the edge of the landing pad, which contained steps down to the penthouse itself. He walked with clear reluctance, but also with the slumped shoulders of a man with no more cards to play.
The rest of the shuttle’s occupants followed. Sunek kept his own weapon raised at Tegras.
“Everyone remember where we parked!” he quipped as they descended the steps.
Finally, Klath emerged, guarding Evina and casting an unhappy look at the sky as he hobbled down the steps.
“Does the rain ever stop?” he grumbled.
“Unfortunately not,” Evina replied with a smile.
The Klingon looked back at her, and his grimace subsided imperceptibly. Then, he gestured for her to proceed with a wave of his disruptor.
“Even after everything I just did for you,” the Ktarian woman sighed as they walked, “There’s still no chance of you putting that away?”
Klath considered the question as he hobbled across the slick landing pad surface. It was true that Evina and Tegras were now entirely cooperating with them. Hostages or no hostages.
Still, he also wasn’t about to let his guard down. Especially given his compromised physical condition. So he simply offered her a slow shrug of his shoulders.
“Unfortunately not.”
“Damn, this guy’s good.”
The atmospheric shuttle banked sharply again, even as Tylor quietly offered his opinion regarding the skills of the pilot they were chasing.
Fortunately, he was sat next to the only pilot on all of Varris IV who was a match for whoever was behind the controls of their target. And Jalon was matching the precise skills of the guy in front, turn for turn.
She did have the advantage of the transponder, meaning that even if she missed a turn or two, she would be able to relocate their quarry with ease. But it hadn’t escaped Tylor’s attention that she hadn't needed to utilise that particular cheat code even once so far.
He gripped his armrest tightly as she expertly dipped the shuttle around the corner of the next skyscraper, before making a sharp downward plunge to continue their pursuit.
“They’ve descended to 100 feet,” she reported calmly as they levelled off, “We’re getting a little too low for my liking, Chief.”
“He’s just trying to spook us,” he replied as calmly as he could, even as the shuttles blasted down the former main street of the district close enough to the ground for them to kick up plumes of dirt and detritus in their wake.
In truth, it was starting to work.
He had already ordered the additional teams that had joined them for the chase to back off and remain tracking them above the roofline of the district, not wanting to endanger too many of his personnel now the chase was getting so dicey.
And he was also increasingly worried about the hostages onboard the other shuttle, not to mention any pedestrians out this late, as their target got more and more daring.
He might be good, but Tylor knew that every pilot had their limits.
Even though he knew it was probably futile, he grabbed the comms unit and switched the transmission to the shuttle ahead of them.
“Trelok, if you can hear me, what do you say we both find somewhere to park up and talk this over, hmm? Before someone gets hurt?”
Silence. Just as he had expected.
“They’re dropping again,” Jalon reported urgently, matching their target's moves, “Descending another twenty feet.”
Tylor grimaced, as both shuttles shimmied left and right at this new, even lower altitude. The sense of adventure inside him that had been rekindled by this sudden burst of seat-of-the-pants detective work was starting to be replaced by his more mature, restrictive side.
“I assume my deputy thinks that this is all going too far?” he offered to Jalon, casually trying to give himself an excuse to call it off.
The response that he got surprised him.
“Actually, I’m quite enjoying myself.”
She made her comment even as the two shuttles swept around another tight corner and dropped even closer to the ground below.
“And,” she continued, “Our target has slowed slightly. I believe I can get close enough for us to use the grappler. If I…use my instincts.”
Tylor suppressed a smile and nodded back at his usually reserved deputy instead.
“Ok then, let’s do it.”
Jalon kept her focus forward and leaned on the thrusters a little more as the gap between the two shuttles further decreased. Alongside her, Tylor tapped at a bank of controls and brought the shuttle’s grappling arm online.
The grappler was a magnetised arm more often used to tow stricken vessels. But it could also be used to electronically assume control of a craft, which was of more use to them in this pursuit.
A grappling manoeuvre at this sort of speed was a last resort. But it would be achievable.
“They are descending further,” Jalon reported as they coasted over a large landing pad filled with rows and rows of parked-up civilian shuttles lying dormant beneath them, “Now at 65 feet!”
“Grappler online,” Tylor reported back, “Preparing a shot.”
“Wait! Now ascending!”
Jalon jerked the controls to the left to follow the sudden pitch up from their target, and the two craft ascended again, now less than three shuttle lengths apart.
Tylor licked his lips and gripped the grappler controls, preparing for his shot. As they reached a safer altitude, their target levelled off, and for a moment appeared to have lost interest in shaking them off, flying along in a straight line instead.
“This is our chance, Chief,” Jalon affirmed.
Tylor saw the same thing. He fired.
The small flexible arm shot out from the nose section of their shuttle, and magnetically locked onto the target’s rear hull at the first attempt.
“Got him!” Jalon called out, the emotion in her voice even surprising herself.
“That we have,” Tylor nodded, more calmly, “I’m remotely powering down their systems.”
In an instant, the glow from the other shuttle’s thrusters decreased as the grappler connection brought the vessel to station-keeping. At the same time, Jalon slowed their own vessel to bring the pursuit to a halt.
As soon as the drama was over, Tylor’s jaw tightened. His instincts kicked in again.
“That was too damn easy,” he muttered.
“Chief?”
“Scan for lifesigns, Deputy.”
Jalon jumped to action immediately, then gasped at what she saw.
“There’s nobody onboard,” she reported, “The shuttle’s empty. Must’ve been…on autopilot. Chief, where the hell are they?”
Tylor didn’t reply immediately, as he ran over the last few minutes in his head. They’d missed something. Specifically, he’d missed something. That didn’t used to happen. But what? What had he missed?
Then, it hit him.
“Son of a gun…”
He tapped his controls quickly and barked out commands at the same time.
“I’m releasing the grappler. Get unit four to tow that shuttle back in. And then get us back to that landing pad we just passed.”
Jalon nodded and relayed the orders. Not questioning anything this time.
Moments later, they hovered in place just above the landing pad.
Below them, through the driving rain, they saw the rows of tired, battered private shuttles, just as they had flown over before.
Except now, there was an empty spot. One of the shuttles was missing.
“My god,” Jalon whispered as she shook her head in realisation, “They…?”
Despite the situation, Tylor allowed himself a wry smile.
“Damn, this guy’s good…”
****************************
“Damn, I’m good.”
It hadn’t taken long to get to Palmor’s penthouse from the financial district. Which was a small mercy for five of the occupants of the dirty grey shuttle as it quietly sped above the main settlement of Varris IV. Because it limited the amount of time Sunek had to brag.
“Seriously,” he called back from the tattered pilot’s seat of their new ship, “I deserve, like, a medal or something for that one.”
Denella finished helping Evina as she bound up Klath’s leg as best she could in preparation for them to move out, and shared a tired look with the Klingon.
“Or some kind of award, maybe?” the Vulcan continued, “I mean, setting up the autopilot that quickly, short-range transporting all six of us into this thing, all without them noticing? We are talking ‘idea of the century’-level crap here…”
As Sunek’s vainglorious ramble continued, Evina looked over at the Klingon and the Orion.
“Does he ever stop talking?”
Denella stifled a grin. Klath grunted.
“Unfortunately not,” he offered back with genuine unhappiness.
“Like I said,” Denella called out, “It was a pretty good plan.”
If she hoped that would satisfy him, it didn’t even come close.
“A ‘pretty good plan’? That’s really all you’re gonna give me? This was an incredible plan! I mean, when some stuffy guy with a haircut and a Starfleet uniform pulls off something like that, they get seven years of holosuite programs made about them. And what do I get? ‘You know what, Trelok? That was a pretty good plan’...”
As Klath got back to his feet slightly uncertainly, Denella sighed and paced over to their pilot and his rapidly inflating ego.
“Fine,” she offered, putting on her best impression of someone in genuine awe, “Oh exalted saviour, great masterful one, king of the Alpha Quadrant, could you help out us mere mortals and use that incredible genius of yours to…park us up?”
She gestured out of the cockpit window through the rain. Sunek shrugged.
“No need to overdo it, you know.”
Palmor Fot’s penthouse had turned out to be hard to miss. It was located atop one of the tallest buildings in the downtown residential hub of the main settlement, in a grey metal building that towered over everything in the local vicinity.
The penthouse itself seemed to take up the entire top two floors of the building, and also featured a flat rectangular landing pad which took up most of the top of the roof.
Even on somewhere as downtrodden and forgotten as Varris IV, it was still a residence that hinted at a level of luxury that could only be attained by a very rich individual. Which was a good sign as far as their efforts to finally locate some latinum for Mizar was concerned.
Sunek tapped the controls in front of him and gently guided them downwards. The dented shuttle landed on the rooftop pad with a slight thump.
Seconds later, the side door opened. Denella led Palmor down the steps and out into the persistent rain, keeping her disruptor pointed squarely at his back.
“Come on,” she barked at him, “Time to show me the money.”
With an exaggerated sigh, the defeated Palmor led her across to the small building at the edge of the landing pad, which contained steps down to the penthouse itself. He walked with clear reluctance, but also with the slumped shoulders of a man with no more cards to play.
The rest of the shuttle’s occupants followed. Sunek kept his own weapon raised at Tegras.
“Everyone remember where we parked!” he quipped as they descended the steps.
Finally, Klath emerged, guarding Evina and casting an unhappy look at the sky as he hobbled down the steps.
“Does the rain ever stop?” he grumbled.
“Unfortunately not,” Evina replied with a smile.
The Klingon looked back at her, and his grimace subsided imperceptibly. Then, he gestured for her to proceed with a wave of his disruptor.
“Even after everything I just did for you,” the Ktarian woman sighed as they walked, “There’s still no chance of you putting that away?”
Klath considered the question as he hobbled across the slick landing pad surface. It was true that Evina and Tegras were now entirely cooperating with them. Hostages or no hostages.
Still, he also wasn’t about to let his guard down. Especially given his compromised physical condition. So he simply offered her a slow shrug of his shoulders.
“Unfortunately not.”
Kudos for the best chase scene I've read in SF fanfic...
And a great slogan for this story - reminiscent of the SW slogan "I've got a bad feeling about this..."
Thanks!! rbs
I don't think ships like the Bounty get fancy dedication plaques. But if it does, that's definitely a contender for the pull quote at the bottom.
Part Four (Cont'd)
The Bounty’s cargo bay was quickly filling with the scent of burning metal.
“You know, it’s actually a good thing this took me so long to get right,” Natasha idly opined, “We’d have been found out in minutes.”
Jirel could see what she meant. It would have been impossible to have hidden the smell from their captors. But fortunately, they had left them to it. And Natasha was finally making progress.
“Just hurry up,” he urged her, unnecessarily.
He couldn’t tell exactly how long ago Devan and Mizar had left them, but he knew it was long enough for his old friend to have already done something stupid. And that was worrying him. Not to mention the fact that Mizar still had the ability to detonate the cabrodine bomb that remained between them.
Even if Jirel still wasn’t entirely convinced that it was a bomb.
“You think they’ll still be on their shuttle?” Natasha asked from the other side of the metal cylinder, as she inched the cutting tool further along the cuffs.
“I hope so,” he replied, “They’ll just be waiting for a call from the others before…”
He paused and considered the last thing that Devan had said to him. How he needed someone to help him kill.
It didn’t please him to admit it, even to himself, but Jirel was no stranger to death. With the amount of misfortune that the Bounty and her crew tended to run into, it was almost written into whatever passed for his job description.
But he still preferred to think that they were the exceptions in the grand scheme of things. That people like Devan Gol, occasional run-in with a Nausicaan aside, didn’t need to get involved in that side of galactic life. And yet, it seemed as though that was exactly what was happening.
“You really think he’s gonna go and kill someone?” he asked out loud.
“He’s your acquaintance,” Natasha pointed out knowingly, “But...in my experience over the last few years, I’d say that anyone has the power to kill someone. If they really want to.”
“I guess,” he admitted with a sigh, “But there’s got to be more to it than--”
In an instant, and for the first time in hours, he felt the sensation of his hand being freed from the constraints of the cuffs.
“Got it!” Natasha squealed triumphantly.
Still shackled together by their other arms, they managed to get to their feet and extricate themselves from around the bomb, Natasha then making short work of the other set of cuffs, as they dropped to the deck with a satisfying clang.
“Ok,” Jirel urged, as he rubbed his slightly singed wrist, “Let’s get down there, and find Devan before he does something stupid.”
She nodded back urgently, before the two of them paused and awkwardly took each other’s underwear-clad forms in.
The Trill held up a finger to make a slight, but important correction to his plan.
“...Let’s get dressed, then get down there and find Devan before he does something stupid.”
Natasha nodded twice as urgently, as the two reddening figures raced for their respective cabins.
****************************
“It’s beautiful…”
Sunek stood and gawped at the pile of latinum on the table in front of him. All fifty bricks of it.
Across all of his travels, even before he had joined the Bounty’s crew, he had never seen so much wealth in one place.
The fifty shiny bricks sat on top of an anti-grav unit and glistened in the artificial light of the penthouse’s main living area, which was an appropriately decadent setting for such a sight.
Palmor’s residence was filled with fine furnishings and lavish decorations, finished with the most indulgent of fabrics and precious metals. It was a venue entirely out of place with the rest of the Varris IV colony. And it was also a venue that contained a secure storeroom, which Denella had frogmarched Palmor to in order to retrieve the treasure that now sat before them.
“You reckon he’d really notice if we just kept one for ourselves?” Sunek added as he continued to stare at the latinum in awe.
“I believe it likely that he will be able to count to fifty,” Klath replied, with a surprising amount of sarcasm.
“Spoilsport.”
“Heh,” Tegras couldn’t help but grunt, “I wonder how much of that came from legitimate business transactions, hmm?”
“All of it,” Palmor muttered back as he stared impotently at the riches in front of him.
“A likely story.”
As the two Ktarians bickered, Denella pulled the communicator from her belt and glanced at Klath.
“Guess we’d better call this in. Before…”
“Kaboom,” Sunek offered, almost mirthlessly.
The Orion engineer stifled a grimace, and tapped the communicator.
“Mizar. You there?”
Silence. For a horrible moment, she wondered if things had escalated a little too far in orbit above their heads. Then, eventually, Mizar’s voice came through.
“You found my latinum? Or is this just another social call?”
Denella suppressed the urge she felt to punch something whenever she heard the smug Ktarian’s voice, and worked hard to maintain a level of calm.
“The latinum’s here,” she reported, “We’ve done everything you asked us to do down here. So, how about you give us our ship back--?”
Before she could get any further, Mizar cut in, his voice still supremely confident.
“Palmor Fot?”
The Ktarian man’s yellow eyes widened upon hearing his name directly again.
“He’s here as well,” Denella said simply.
There was no further comment from the other end of the comms link. It simply clicked off.
“Wh--What more do these people want from me?” Palmor stammered, “I’ve done all you asked, given you my latinum, now what?”
“Now,” Tegras offered, his old gloating tone having returned as he watched his old foe squirming once again, “I suspect that life has finally caught up with you, Palmor.”
“Happens to all of us,” Sunek chimed in, “Except for old Trelok here. He’s gonna live forever.”
“B--But,” Palmor stammered, “You have to let me go! You can’t--!”
He was silenced by a familiar noise. All six individuals in the room turned towards the whining sound of the incoming transport.
Klath immediately tensed up. With their transporter inhibitor having been left behind during their shuttle-switching manoeuvre, there was now nothing stopping Ktarian Security from getting to them.
But this wasn’t Ktarian Security. They watched as Mizar Bal and Devan Gol coalesced on the other side of the living area, as the transporter process completed.
Both of them held disruptors of their own.
“Thank you for all your help,” Mizar smiled, stepping forwards with his weapon raised, “But we’ll take it from here…”
****************************
“Damnit!”
Tylor punctuated his frustrated growl by slamming his hand down on top of the shuttle’s control panel. His headache was back with a vengeance.
Alongside him, Jalon kept her own emotions more in check. Though she could definitely appreciate the sentiment.
They had completed several circuitous searches around the skies of the financial district, but had turned up no trace of the missing shuttle, or scanned any lifesign matching their known targets in any passing vehicle.
They had somehow managed to escape from under their noses.
The shuttle gently banked through a final loop of the southern end of the district, returning to its starting point once again.
“Should I prepare for another pass, Chief?” Jalon asked.
Tylor shook his head as he rubbed the hand that had impacted the top of the console a few moments ago.
“No point,” he replied, “We’re looking for a goddamn needle in a haystack, and we don’t even know we’re in the right haystack.”
Jalon nodded. She had come to the same conclusion three loops ago. But she hadn’t wanted to say anything directly to her superior out of respect.
“Nothing from the other teams either,” he grimaced, “I guess we call this off. Get back to HQ and see if we can get anything out of those goons in the other shuttle for our reports.”
They had at least received word that the second target had been successfully rounded up, but that had done little to ease Tylor’s grim mood. He looked out of the cockpit window with a hint of sadness, as the rain thumped down on the hull of the ship.
“Guess that’s just one more bunch of criminals that got away down here--"
He was interrupted by a chirp from the console in front of Jalon. She quickly checked over the incoming message and dismissed it, returning her attention to their issues.
“What was that?” he asked off-handedly, not entirely interested in the answer.
“Oh, nothing, Chief,” she reluctantly replied, “It’s just…I asked the units back at the bar to compile a full list of the hostages that were released, and profiles on the ones still being held.”
She offered him a slightly guilty shrug at the inevitability of her reasoning.
“It’s…standard procedure.”
Tylor stifled a smile and nodded, before returning his attention to the rainfall outside. Then his face lit up, and he spun back around to her.
“Let’s see that report.”
“Chief, it’s just--”
“I know, standard procedure. Let me see.”
She called up the report for him on the central screen of the control panel. It didn’t take long for him to break out into a satisfied smile.
“Well, well, well. Would you look at that?”
“Chief?”
“In your list of profiles of those hostages still on the shuttle. Palmor Fot.”
She recognised the name, but still looked a little confused.
“Local businessman,” she nodded, “One of the richest men left on Varris IV.”
“And also someone who’s caught up in every criminal enterprise across this whole goddamn colony.”
“Allegedly,” she reminded him, “Ktarian Security has never been able to pin anything on him, since well before I got here.”
“Right,” Tylor tutted, “Guy’s an expert in the art of plausible deniability. At least enough of one to stay ahead of the sort of resources we’ve got. But I’m willing to bet that it’s a bit too much of a coincidence for him to be one of the hostages still on that shuttle.”
“You think he’s part of this?” Jalon asked.
Tylor looked over at her with a satisfied smile, then gestured to the report on the screen that her adherence to standard protocol had handed them.
“I think,” he replied, “You just found us our haystack...”
The Bounty’s cargo bay was quickly filling with the scent of burning metal.
“You know, it’s actually a good thing this took me so long to get right,” Natasha idly opined, “We’d have been found out in minutes.”
Jirel could see what she meant. It would have been impossible to have hidden the smell from their captors. But fortunately, they had left them to it. And Natasha was finally making progress.
“Just hurry up,” he urged her, unnecessarily.
He couldn’t tell exactly how long ago Devan and Mizar had left them, but he knew it was long enough for his old friend to have already done something stupid. And that was worrying him. Not to mention the fact that Mizar still had the ability to detonate the cabrodine bomb that remained between them.
Even if Jirel still wasn’t entirely convinced that it was a bomb.
“You think they’ll still be on their shuttle?” Natasha asked from the other side of the metal cylinder, as she inched the cutting tool further along the cuffs.
“I hope so,” he replied, “They’ll just be waiting for a call from the others before…”
He paused and considered the last thing that Devan had said to him. How he needed someone to help him kill.
It didn’t please him to admit it, even to himself, but Jirel was no stranger to death. With the amount of misfortune that the Bounty and her crew tended to run into, it was almost written into whatever passed for his job description.
But he still preferred to think that they were the exceptions in the grand scheme of things. That people like Devan Gol, occasional run-in with a Nausicaan aside, didn’t need to get involved in that side of galactic life. And yet, it seemed as though that was exactly what was happening.
“You really think he’s gonna go and kill someone?” he asked out loud.
“He’s your acquaintance,” Natasha pointed out knowingly, “But...in my experience over the last few years, I’d say that anyone has the power to kill someone. If they really want to.”
“I guess,” he admitted with a sigh, “But there’s got to be more to it than--”
In an instant, and for the first time in hours, he felt the sensation of his hand being freed from the constraints of the cuffs.
“Got it!” Natasha squealed triumphantly.
Still shackled together by their other arms, they managed to get to their feet and extricate themselves from around the bomb, Natasha then making short work of the other set of cuffs, as they dropped to the deck with a satisfying clang.
“Ok,” Jirel urged, as he rubbed his slightly singed wrist, “Let’s get down there, and find Devan before he does something stupid.”
She nodded back urgently, before the two of them paused and awkwardly took each other’s underwear-clad forms in.
The Trill held up a finger to make a slight, but important correction to his plan.
“...Let’s get dressed, then get down there and find Devan before he does something stupid.”
Natasha nodded twice as urgently, as the two reddening figures raced for their respective cabins.
****************************
“It’s beautiful…”
Sunek stood and gawped at the pile of latinum on the table in front of him. All fifty bricks of it.
Across all of his travels, even before he had joined the Bounty’s crew, he had never seen so much wealth in one place.
The fifty shiny bricks sat on top of an anti-grav unit and glistened in the artificial light of the penthouse’s main living area, which was an appropriately decadent setting for such a sight.
Palmor’s residence was filled with fine furnishings and lavish decorations, finished with the most indulgent of fabrics and precious metals. It was a venue entirely out of place with the rest of the Varris IV colony. And it was also a venue that contained a secure storeroom, which Denella had frogmarched Palmor to in order to retrieve the treasure that now sat before them.
“You reckon he’d really notice if we just kept one for ourselves?” Sunek added as he continued to stare at the latinum in awe.
“I believe it likely that he will be able to count to fifty,” Klath replied, with a surprising amount of sarcasm.
“Spoilsport.”
“Heh,” Tegras couldn’t help but grunt, “I wonder how much of that came from legitimate business transactions, hmm?”
“All of it,” Palmor muttered back as he stared impotently at the riches in front of him.
“A likely story.”
As the two Ktarians bickered, Denella pulled the communicator from her belt and glanced at Klath.
“Guess we’d better call this in. Before…”
“Kaboom,” Sunek offered, almost mirthlessly.
The Orion engineer stifled a grimace, and tapped the communicator.
“Mizar. You there?”
Silence. For a horrible moment, she wondered if things had escalated a little too far in orbit above their heads. Then, eventually, Mizar’s voice came through.
“You found my latinum? Or is this just another social call?”
Denella suppressed the urge she felt to punch something whenever she heard the smug Ktarian’s voice, and worked hard to maintain a level of calm.
“The latinum’s here,” she reported, “We’ve done everything you asked us to do down here. So, how about you give us our ship back--?”
Before she could get any further, Mizar cut in, his voice still supremely confident.
“Palmor Fot?”
The Ktarian man’s yellow eyes widened upon hearing his name directly again.
“He’s here as well,” Denella said simply.
There was no further comment from the other end of the comms link. It simply clicked off.
“Wh--What more do these people want from me?” Palmor stammered, “I’ve done all you asked, given you my latinum, now what?”
“Now,” Tegras offered, his old gloating tone having returned as he watched his old foe squirming once again, “I suspect that life has finally caught up with you, Palmor.”
“Happens to all of us,” Sunek chimed in, “Except for old Trelok here. He’s gonna live forever.”
“B--But,” Palmor stammered, “You have to let me go! You can’t--!”
He was silenced by a familiar noise. All six individuals in the room turned towards the whining sound of the incoming transport.
Klath immediately tensed up. With their transporter inhibitor having been left behind during their shuttle-switching manoeuvre, there was now nothing stopping Ktarian Security from getting to them.
But this wasn’t Ktarian Security. They watched as Mizar Bal and Devan Gol coalesced on the other side of the living area, as the transporter process completed.
Both of them held disruptors of their own.
“Thank you for all your help,” Mizar smiled, stepping forwards with his weapon raised, “But we’ll take it from here…”
****************************
“Damnit!”
Tylor punctuated his frustrated growl by slamming his hand down on top of the shuttle’s control panel. His headache was back with a vengeance.
Alongside him, Jalon kept her own emotions more in check. Though she could definitely appreciate the sentiment.
They had completed several circuitous searches around the skies of the financial district, but had turned up no trace of the missing shuttle, or scanned any lifesign matching their known targets in any passing vehicle.
They had somehow managed to escape from under their noses.
The shuttle gently banked through a final loop of the southern end of the district, returning to its starting point once again.
“Should I prepare for another pass, Chief?” Jalon asked.
Tylor shook his head as he rubbed the hand that had impacted the top of the console a few moments ago.
“No point,” he replied, “We’re looking for a goddamn needle in a haystack, and we don’t even know we’re in the right haystack.”
Jalon nodded. She had come to the same conclusion three loops ago. But she hadn’t wanted to say anything directly to her superior out of respect.
“Nothing from the other teams either,” he grimaced, “I guess we call this off. Get back to HQ and see if we can get anything out of those goons in the other shuttle for our reports.”
They had at least received word that the second target had been successfully rounded up, but that had done little to ease Tylor’s grim mood. He looked out of the cockpit window with a hint of sadness, as the rain thumped down on the hull of the ship.
“Guess that’s just one more bunch of criminals that got away down here--"
He was interrupted by a chirp from the console in front of Jalon. She quickly checked over the incoming message and dismissed it, returning her attention to their issues.
“What was that?” he asked off-handedly, not entirely interested in the answer.
“Oh, nothing, Chief,” she reluctantly replied, “It’s just…I asked the units back at the bar to compile a full list of the hostages that were released, and profiles on the ones still being held.”
She offered him a slightly guilty shrug at the inevitability of her reasoning.
“It’s…standard procedure.”
Tylor stifled a smile and nodded, before returning his attention to the rainfall outside. Then his face lit up, and he spun back around to her.
“Let’s see that report.”
“Chief, it’s just--”
“I know, standard procedure. Let me see.”
She called up the report for him on the central screen of the control panel. It didn’t take long for him to break out into a satisfied smile.
“Well, well, well. Would you look at that?”
“Chief?”
“In your list of profiles of those hostages still on the shuttle. Palmor Fot.”
She recognised the name, but still looked a little confused.
“Local businessman,” she nodded, “One of the richest men left on Varris IV.”
“And also someone who’s caught up in every criminal enterprise across this whole goddamn colony.”
“Allegedly,” she reminded him, “Ktarian Security has never been able to pin anything on him, since well before I got here.”
“Right,” Tylor tutted, “Guy’s an expert in the art of plausible deniability. At least enough of one to stay ahead of the sort of resources we’ve got. But I’m willing to bet that it’s a bit too much of a coincidence for him to be one of the hostages still on that shuttle.”
“You think he’s part of this?” Jalon asked.
Tylor looked over at her with a satisfied smile, then gestured to the report on the screen that her adherence to standard protocol had handed them.
“I think,” he replied, “You just found us our haystack...”
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