Darkened Stars - Chapter 32

Darkened Stars - Chapter 32

Stardate 29463.3 - June 18, 2352 - 13:37:37

“Surprisingly more equipped than I thought it would be.” Verad confessed as he looked around the Emerald Falcons infirmary.

“The previous owners were slavers.” Rain offered, moderately relieved that the Trill hadn't taken one look at the room and declared everything in it so much junk.

“And unfortunate business.” Verad returned with a disapproving shake of his head before walking over to rooms sole biobed.

 “Do you mind if I?” He asked, motioning over to the device with a hand.

Rain gave a permissive nod. “Go ahead. We just updated the ships UI, so you can switch the language to Trill using the normal method if you can't read Terran.”

Verad spent a moment fiddling with controls on the biobed before nodding. “Looks to be about Empire standard. So pretty much the same as the one I have in my clinic, or at least it would be if mine hadn't been half stripped down for parts before I got it.”

“So is there any needed equipment missing?” Rain asked, hoping to get this finished and over with so she could get to lunch.

“Your medical bay seems to be geared mostly towards trauma care.” Verad said as he shut down the biobed and walked over to stand in front of her. “Not exactly surprising given what you said the ship was previously used for, but it means you're missing out on a few things.”

She wasn't even moderately surprised by that given she had brought up the likelihood in the first place, she just hoped the twenty thousand daresks she'd set aside for filling out anything missing was enough given she really didn't want to spend more than that. 

Looking around, Verad seemed to consider the available space of the room for a moment before nodding. “But I suppose as long as it's with the understanding that it goes with me if I leave, I can bring my own equipment to supplement what you have here.”

“You know what.” Rain began with a flippant wave. “That works.”

At the very least it would save the Asari from having to deal with spending the additional time on the station trying to hunt down whoever might be selling the necessary medical equipment.

“Are you going to need help bringing your luggage and equipment over?”

“It would be appreciated.” Verad returned with a smile.

“Great.” Rain said, turning and motioning for the Trill to follow her. “I'll introduce you to Karlos, he's skilled in both cargo handling and leg breaking.”

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Stardate 29463.7 - June 18, 2352 - 17:08:26

Walking up to the mess hall table T'Lyn was currently sharing dinner with Jarat at, Rain gave a nod to the half-Cardassian before focusing on the Vulcan. “We need to talk.”

The Vulcan woman exchanged a brief glance with Jarat, and the half-Cardassian let out a somewhat suffering sign as T'Lyn focused back on Rain and raised a single eyebrow.

“As we are not currently dating, I am left to wonder why you choose to open with that particular phrasing?”

“Where did you…” Rain started to answer, only to trail off with a shake her head at the realization that she didn't particularly want to know where the Vulcan woman had learned that reference from.

“Never mind.” She corrected. “I know it's probably still a bit of a sensitive subject, but I kind of need to learn the full details of how you ended up in that Klingon prison Nezia picked you up from.”

It might not have been a high likelihood that T'Lyn's ship had anything to do with the New Tokyo bombing. But that was the type of thing that if true could come back at her in any number of highly unfortunate ways. And Rain really didn't want to spend the next several years dodging assassins who wanted to tie up potential loose ends.

Or dodge assassins period, because she was quite happy being nobody of any particular importance thank you very much.

“I am sorry to say there is not much to tell.” T'Lyn confessed somewhat apologetically as Jarat laid one of his hands over hers in a remarkably adorable gesture. “We were to deliver a shipment of self sealing stembolts to Terra's orbital station. However, shortly after passing the Mars orbital perimeter we were set upon by a pair of Klingon vessels.”

Beating down her immediate urge to try and ask T’Lyn if she could explain just what self sealing stembolts were actually used for, Rain waited silently for her to continue.

“I was not aware of that at the time of course.” She acknowledged with a slight bowing of her head. “As I was in one of the maintenance passageways at the time, working to fix a slight imbalance in the primary phase inhibitors. The first I knew anything was happening was when the sound of weapons fire began, at which point, believing we had been boarded by pirates, I followed standard procedure and hid hoping the conduit shielding would mask my life signs.”

Moderately reasonable for someone Rain knew had little to no combat abilities.

“The Klingons who boarded our vessel were surprisingly thorough in their search however, and quickly discovered me. At which point I attempted to escape them, and failed to somewhat violent consequences.”

It was clear from the somewhat brittle look in the Vulcan’s eyes that there was more to what had occurred after her discovery than that, but Rain had seen similar looks enough times to strongly suspect it had no relevance to anything she was hoping to find out.

“I was eventually transported onto one of the Klingon vessels.” T’Lyn went on. “And placed in a holding cell with V'Leth and T'Pral. From whom I learned that the ship and crew had been seized under the mistaken assumption that we were smuggling weapons to the Terran resistance.”

“And you’re sure it was mistaken?” Rain pressed despite her own desire not to pry into what was very clearly a sensitive subject for the other woman.

“I…” T’Lyn began, a sudden uncertainty creeping into her voice. “I can of course not say for certain as my duties kept me distinctly away from cargo storage, but I cannot see my father choosing to work with the Terran resistance given the risks inherent in doing so.”

“We certainly never found anything when inspecting their ship.” Jarat interjected, something about his tone sounding just the tiniest bit off to Rain’s auditory organs.

Turning to the half-Cardassian, Rain crossed her arms under her breasts and shot him a piercing gaze that quickly had him fidgeting slightly in place.

Nearly a minute passed before Jarat’s shoulders slumped slightly. “Sometimes Captain Sokel would slip the supervisor a little extra to have us skip over visually checking the contents of a crate or two. But everyone does that, and the scanners would have picked up anything like weapons.”

T’Lyn was frowning slightly at Jarat now. “You never informed me of this.”

“I thought you knew.” The half-Cardassian whined, visibly cringing at the slightly disappointed look his girlfriend was now giving him.

“We shall discuss what else you think I might know later.” T’Lyn told him primly before turning back to Rain. “While I of course cannot tell you what I myself do not know about the subject. I assume there is some pertinent reason for the direction your questions are going?”

Taking a moment to double check that nobody else was currently within earshot, Rain let out a sign before sitting down on one of the fixed stools opposite the pair. “The current head of House Palkar seems to be moderately certain that your fathers ship was involved in smuggling weapon components.”

“Unfortunate.” T’Lyn said as she furrowed her brow in thought. “If it helps, the only stops our vessel regularly made were the Terra, Vulcan, and Kaferia.”

It did not, at least in any way other than cementing Rain’s desire to avoid returning to that particular sector of space for as long as possible.

“Though while I would certainly not mind returning to Vulcan at some point in the future.” T’Lyn continued with a grimace. “If my father was indeed smuggling weapons, it may be for the best if I avoid doing so any time soon lest whoever he may have been working with attempt to make me responsible for paying off their loss.”

Rain raised an eyeridge in surprise at the Vulcan woman, not having even considered that particular risk as a possibility.

“So your former vessel did mostly contract work?” She inquired, the Vulcan’s wording just now seeming to suggest that.

“No.” T’Lyn returned with a shake of her head. “However my father was not so well off that he could afford to purchase any significant quantity of weapon components without a backer providing the seed money to do so.”

Or a group that was providing the components as part of some plot, but Rain was desperately hoping it wasn't that given Chonak might one day discover something about it and insist the Asari try and help him take revenge. Because that would be the point she'd have to burn a bridge that had turned out to be more than a little useful since she had no desire to fall down the revenge hole all the way to it's inevitable Asari splattering bottom.

“Well.” Rain put forward as she got back to her feet. “If you remember anything else you think might be relevant tell me about it, because I have about as much desire as you to avoid being hunted down by various people wanting revenge.”

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Author’s Notes: More pieces of the much larger puzzle present themselves, and Rain very much wants to throw them into the trash bin so she can continue on with her somewhat regular life.

And next chapter, crew medical exams, because that’s just going to be traumatically hilarious for Rain and I don’t want to skip it.