Darkened Stars - Chapter 26

Darkened Stars - Chapter 26

Stardate 29400.5 - May 26, 2352 - 13:59:31

“Okay.” Rain muttered in a strained breath as she and Keiko did their best to carry the bagged Tholian back to their hover car. “I'll admit, I may have underestimated just how heavy she was going to be.”

With how generally svelte the Tholian had been, Rain had figured she would be maybe two hundred pounds at most, not exactly light, but Asari were stronger then comparatively fit humans. And Keiko had a fitness level of someone who trained almost religiously. So Rain had thought it would be relatively easy for them to carry her in the body bag if it came down to it.

Unfortunately it looked like she had misjudged the Tholians weight by at least a good hundred pounds, because they'd only made it halfway back and already the Asari's arms were screaming at her.

“Should have brought Korak.” Keiko grunted as they maneuvered around a corner.  

Rain pouted at her. “Yes, well, hindsight. In the future when going out to grab someone I’ll make sure to bring dumb muscle along to carry the person afterwards.”

“You!” A rough voice called out in a gruff tone that instantly made Rain flinch in expectation of the type of being it was almost surely connected to. “Stop!”

A quick glance in the direction the call had originated from confirmed her fears, a quartet of Klingons rapidly trudging down one of the side streets towards them.

“If you delay me unneeded there will be blood” Rain yelled back, since paradoxically with Klingons that was the least suspicious way she could actually respond. 

“Pah!” The one in the lead scoffed as he stalked over to them, glancing at the sack they were carrying the Tholian in for a moment before ignoring it to focus on Keiko.

“It's not her.” He said with an annoyed scowl. “Too young, the one we're looking for is in her thirties.”

That was potentially interesting on several levels, but Rain knew better than to ask Klingons in the hunt questions. So she put on her best pissed off look and growled at the Klingon.

“Of course she isn't whoever you're looking for, I conscripted her to my service myself on Terra a little over two weeks ago.”

“I'm sure it was quite the battle.” The Klingon mocked as his stare returned to the large sack.

“Open the bag.” He ordered, and Rain felt her eye ridge twitch in annoyance.

“And why would I do that!?” The Asari shot back with a defiant glare up at the over foot taller man. “I conscripted the Brikarian inside through honorable single combat, are you questioning that!?”

With whatever the Tholian had used to cover the red of her crystal she looked close enough to that particular species that Rain doubted most Klingons would be able to tell the difference with just a cursory examination. Not that she planned to let the Klingon do said examination, but it paid to be prepared given she really didn't want the trouble that would come from actually killing them.

“I will repeat myself only once, small one.” The Klingon growled out as his compatriots set their hands on their weapons in an impressively synchronistic move. “Open the bag.”

For a moment Rain stared at the Klingon, and then she carefully lowered the sack down and opened it to show the unconscious head of the disguised Tholian within. Because Klingon’s only repeated themselves when they were operating under the type of very specific orders that would have them move to directly try and kill her if she didn’t comply.

“See.” She said as gave the Klingon a moment to look at the form within before cinching the sack back up. “Nothing more than a Brikarian.”

The Klingon scoffed but gave an accepting nod. “I do not know what you are doing hunting crew here, and I do not want to know. But you should leave this area, quickly.”

With that he motioned to the others in his group and they stalked off down the direction Keiko and her had just come from.

Rain watched them go, and then poked the sack with the trudgen to apply another stun to the being inside just to be sure.

“What was that?” Keiko inquired nervously as Rain maneuvered to get the sack back in a position where she could actually carry it. 

“Contrary to what I originally thought, it looks like they were hunting for a Terran that looked like you.” She offered as they began moving again. “Given the dearth of other Japanese Terran’s around, my guess would be they’re hunting Demora Sulu.”

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Wanting to minimize what was sure to be an unpleasant wakening, Rain had brought the Tholian to one of the Deathwind's currently unused cabins. Not the nicest of accommodations for a princess to wake up to all things considered, but Rain doubted she'd complain given the alternatives.

“Wakey wakey.” Rain repeated under her breath for what felt like the fifth time, wondering if maybe she shouldn’t have stunned the Tholian quite as many times as she had ended up doing.

At last a gloved hand shot out and tried to grab her leg, smacking into the barrier she had been holding up.

“Still not going to work.” Rain said as the Tholian pulled herself up into an uncomfortable looking sitting position to openly glare at her. 

A series of chitters and chirps interposed with hand gestures followed that gave the distinct feeling of being some kind of threat. Something which just about made Rain roll her eyes, because the woman was absolutely not in any position to be issuing such.

“Given the lack of other Tholian’s on the planet, downloading a Tholian language matrix would have basically pointed anyone looking for you right at us. So I’m sorry to say I still have no idea what you’re actually saying.”

Yes, she could have tried to hunt down someone willing to sell her one on the blackmarket, 

Several chirps and a single whining squeak was her only response.

“Okay, I’m going to lay out what’s going to happen.” Rain put forward with a sigh, not really seeing any other options given the understandably uncooperative nature of the Tholian and current language barrier keeping things so one sided. 

“You’re going to stay here, if someone tells you to hide.” She pointed at one of the room's wall panels which she knew contained a shielded smuggling compartment. “There’s a shielded compartment behind that wall panel that for your own desire to end up back in Risian hands you’re probably going to want to hide in.”

“We’ll be finishing our business on Risa in roughly two days, at which point we’re going to be transporting a package to Trill. And while there we will hopefully be able to purchase, among other things, a translation matrix that lets us actually understand you. Then you can tell us how to contact your people so we can return you to them.”

The Tholian woman stared at her for a moment, and then pushed herself to her feet. Pulling off a glove to reveal a sharp nailed crystalline hand, she reached over to one of the nearby surfaces and scratched something into it with one of her fingers.

Frowning at the damage, Rain got up off the chair she’d been sitting on and walked over to get a closer look at whatever it was the Tholian had done.

“I can write in Empire Standard you nitwit.” The Asari read out loud, feeling the flush of embarrassment color her cheeks for not thinking to even ask if the Tholian could.

“Or I suppose I could go get you a padd with a text to speech program on it and we could have a full conversation now.” She said in deadpan as the Tholian used a finger to poke the barrier she was still actively holding up a few times.

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She watched the Tholian woman play around with the padd for a moment before deciding it would probably be better to just warn her now then wait for her to figure it out.

“I had Jack disable network connectivity on the padd before bringing it here, so it’s basically just a bunch of Orion adventure novels, a few idle games, and the text to speech program.”

The Tholian woman quickly tapped something out on the padd and a female voice echoed out from the padd’s audio system. “You would have to possess an intelligence level comparable to the Klingon you dress as to give the one you are holding captive an active network connection.”

More tapping quickly followed. “I am Paracene The Crimson, and you will tell me what it is you hope to gain from my people through facilitating my return.”

“Sure.” Rain offered, getting a distinct sense of defensiveness from the Tholian’s posture even though her words weren’t phrased in any way that would actually suggest it. “When I actually return you to them.”

She wasn’t going to tip her hand on what she actually wanted before she was actually in a position to get it. Since there was every possibility something might come up to throw a wrench in her plans and she really didn’t want to have the risk of someone getting that particular bit information out of Paracene.

“But just to be clear, it’s nothing that would put your people at risk.”

“I shall see.” Paracene tapped out on her padd before making her way over to one of the bunks and taking a crossed leg seat on the bed. “You may go, blue one.”

Rain shot the Tholian a narrow eyed glare for a moment, dearly tempted to voice her objection to the woman she had just rescued from a fate worse than death, effectively dismissing her on her own ship. In the end however she decided to just let it lie, turning and heading out the door to leave the alien woman to her own limited devices.

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Stardate 29405.3 - May 28,  2352 - 08:09:18

“A hundred and forty four thousand for each of the thirteen Orions, and thirty thousand for each of the three humans.” Bella Dree, the non-descript yet somehow still moderately attractive female Risian that Neva had sent to finally collect the slaves quoted to Rain as the men she had brought along marked each of those people for transport. “That will be a grand total of one million nine hundred thirty two thousand darsek.”

Rain smiled at the number, because that was a lot more than the Asari had assumed they would get when she had first had the idea to sell the slavers.

“From which we will subtract nine thousand darsek for various expenses your ship’s people incurred during their time here, an additional twelve thousand for local taxes, a further ten thousand for standard Alliance tithes, and a final thousand for the processing fee of re-registering your vessel as the Emerald Falcon.”

The Asari’s smile lessened some, that an exact enough number to subtract from the sum total that she highly suspected at least some graft going on.

“That’s fine.” Rain told her, because even with that it absolutely was as that was still nearly enough to buy an entirely new warp capable starship if she wanted to. Or enough to run her current one for several years assuming she was at least somewhat circumspect in how she spent her money.

Bella motioned to one of the other Risian’s at that, and they quickly exited the ship, returning moments later with a secure case that he handed over to her. “The password is one three seven hold two, then four three nine. Thank you for doing business with the Risian trade consortium, please come again.”

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Author’s Notes: Sometimes, things actually work out without too much trouble. And sometimes that trouble just gets itself kicked down the road.