Darkened Stars - Chapter 25

Darkened Stars - Chapter 25

Stardate 29400.3 - May 26, 2352 - 12:14:06

“How!?” Rain asked as she rubbed the bridge of her nose, trying to process just what had prompted Keiko to not just look, but succeed, in finding one of the missing 'artworks’.

“You mentioned it when you were high.” Keiko offered as she shuffled a few inches further away from the faux wood desk Rain was currently seated at. “Sounded like they could be worth money, so told the others to keep an eye out.”

The annoying thing was Keiko wasn't exactly wrong, because the Imperator would likely pay a small fortune for the return of even one of those 'artworks’. But while Rain could justify to herself the idea of selling off slavers and sociopaths, returning a captured and mutilated Tholian princess to that particular fate would leave the Asari sick to her stomach.

“So they just found her?”

“Jack hacked the old Empire monitoring systems hooked up to Risa's network.” Keiko explained in a tone of almost grudging admiration. “Used it to hunt her down. But if we want to grab her we should probably hurry. Cause he's been heading off a bunch of others trying similar.”

The phrase 'what would Mal Renalds do’ suddenly popped into Rain's head as she was about to tell Keiko to just forget about it. And the Asari had to bite her bottom lip to keep from breaking out in sudden laughter at the thought. Because doing the right thing was for people who could afford the risks that came along with it.

“No it ain't” the traitorous little voice of her newly resurgent conscience whispered.

Sighing slightly in annoyance, she began drumming her fingers on the faux wood of the desk as her mind conjured reason after reason why doing anything other than ignoring this could backfire horribly on them.

But on the other side of things what if it didn't, what if they could grab the Tholian princess and get her off planet with no one the wiser. That would be great for the princess of course, but it could also be great for them as rescuing a princess usually came with a pretty hefty reward.

Well, that or a marriage offer, but Rain rather doubted the Tholians were interested in doing that sort of thing with non-Tholians given their species was very much not cut from the standard progenitor mold.

Of course, the Tholians were effectively a rump state at this point, so any reward would likely be limited to either rare goods only they could produce or valuable information only they had. Which basically just amounted to rare goods since it wasn't like there was anything…

Her thoughts ground to a half as her brain dredged up sudden memories of a specific Enterprise episode involving a Constitution class starship the Tholians had figured out how to move between universes.

“Good work.” Rain said, grinning in excitement as visions of escaping their current craphole of a universe danced across her imagination for the first time in several years. “Get two of the trudgeons from the armory and one of those people bags. Then meet me at the loading ramp.”

Keiko opened her mouth to say something only to pause as her eyes strayed down to the still healing leg that Rain had stretched out to the side of the desk.

“I could take care of it.” She offered in a careful tone loomed back up to meet Rain's eyes.

“I'm sure you could.” Rain reassured her, not wanting the Japanese woman to take it as a slight against her abilities. “But if things go tits up you're just a Terran of no real importance, while I potentially have a way to cover our asses.”

Two plus years of cramming her head full of every Klingon expectation and ritual under the sun had some perks after all. Even if it had left her constantly confused at how the Klingons could operate as anything even approaching an organized government.

“Tits… Up?” Keiko mouthed slowly as she gave Rain an odd look.

“It's a saying.” Rain explained, internally cringing at the thought of that of all phrases not surviving to the twenty fourth century. “It's basically another way of saying if things go badly.”

“Oh.” Keiko muttered with a considering frown. “Think I need to get my Universal Translator updated then. Cause that came out as you telling me to push my breasts up.”

Unable to help itself, Rain's mind followed that image back to its logical conclusion of Keiko in a black lace push up bra and nothing else. At which point she let her head fall onto the desk with an annoyed groan, as that was the last thing she needed to be thinking about right now.

“I'll tell T'Lyn to put it on the list.”  She said, picking her head off the desk to make a shooing motion at Keiko. “So to do they thing, I'll meet you there after getting everything set up with Jack.”

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Renting a hover-car had been a necessary expense given the old industrial sector was on the other side of the capitol and Rain hadn’t wanted the extra risk of hiring someone to drive them there. However, that had come with the moderate downside that she couldn’t actually drive, nor unfortunately could Keiko.

In the end the only person on their ship who did seem to know how to drive one of the vehicles was the ever unfortunate Lara Yamamoto, their erstwhile Hoshi Sato duplicate whose story Rain was really beginning to wonder about given 

“Okay.” Lara said happily as she set the vehicle down in the general area of the district Jack had pointed them towards. “Doesn’t look like a very bad neighborhood, so I shouldn’t have any trouble just waiting here for you two to come back.”

“The Risians mostly avoid this area of town outside of the urban explorer types.” Rain told her, having taken the drive over to look up what she could about the location. “So using the normal logic of such things it’s probably where the various non-organized criminal elements are hiding out.”

Carefully sliding out of the car, Rain waited for Keiko to join her before pulling out the Orion hand scanner she’d brought along.

“You sure that’ll work?” Keiko asked skeptically as she eyed the device.

“Nope.” Rain returned with a shrug as she did what she could to narrow the sensor returns. “But Jack said she runs really hot for a humanoid, so if I set it to track moving heat sources above a certain temperature it should point us in the right direction.”

She spent a minute fiddling with the settings before Keiko tugged on her sleeve, and Rain looked up to see the Japanese woman subtly motioning towards a cloaked figure that was eyeing them from a nearby alleyway.

Blinking, Rain looked back down to the scanner to see it happily reporting nothing of note before letting it fall to her side with a sigh of annoyance.

“Or I suppose we could just wait for her to come investigate the hover car.” She deadpanned as she stared at the cloaked form. “Okay Keiko, I'm going to try and talk to her, so I want you to keep an open communicator and circle around back in case things go badly and she tries to run.”

“She's running.” Keiko pointed out drolly as the woman turned and began doing just that with a somewhat unsteady gait.

“Oh for the love of…” Rain muttered before dashing after her, wincing as each step caused a mild sting of pain to shoot up from her still healing leg.

The industrial district was familiarly mazeline in its design, no doubt harkening back to its origin as a location set up by the Terran Empire. And her two years and change spent growing up in New Chicago seemed to put her on a distinct advantage there compared to the Tholian as it was only a brief chase before the Asari was able to corner her in a dead end.

Panting slightly, Rain purposefully kept herself from leaning against the wall to alleviate some of the pain in her leg as she kept a purposely distance from herself and the increasingly tense looking Tholian.

“I… Just… Wanna talk.” She told the robed Tholian woman as her breathing slowly stabilized.

A series of high pitched chirps, clicks, and whistles echoed out from the woman’s mouth as she gestured aggressively with a gloved hand in Rain’s direction. And the Asari immediately felt like facepalming for not even considering that her translator might not have the other being’s language programmed into it.

“Okay, so apparently my universal translator doesn’t cover Tholian.” Rain said as her cheeks flushed purple in embarrassment. “Please tell me yours at least covers Empire standard?”

More chips and whistles were her only answer, and it was clear from the almost mantis like way she was staring at Rain that the taller woman was weighing her options for just forcing her way out of the dead end.

“Trust me when I say I’m a lot less squishy than I look.” Rain warned her, not entirely sure yet whether the other woman understood or not.

“But let’s try something simple, thumbs up for yes, thumbs down for no, okay?” She finished, making each of the motions in turn.

Studying at her for a moment, the Tholian princess tilted her head in a very insect-like manner that had Rain briefly wondering if she really would have to resort to her plan B, before the woman hesitantly copied her thumbs up motion.

“Great.” Rain said, exhaling in relief at not having to go that particular direction. “Let’s get straight to the point then. “I assume you’re trying to figure out a way to get off this planet?”

It was a safe bet after all, because the Asari doubted the Tholian princess would be out here on her own if the Risian Liberation Front had been willing to do more than the bare minimum of freeing her from being a stasis field held art piece.

The Tholian princess continued to stare at Rain and the Asari got the distinct sense the other woman was focusing her gaze on the blue hairdo like fins on her head before she finally gave a careful thumbs up.

“Great!” Rain exclaimed as she relaxed her shoulders slightly. “Because I have a ship that will be leaving in a couple of days, so how would you like to be rescued?”

A distinct feeling of skepticism radiated off the Tholian woman’s form at that, not that Rain could blame her given people who would do things out of the goodness of their hearts were a distinct minority in the mirror universe.

“Cards on the table.” She put forward, not seeing any point in lying about it. “I'm hoping for a reward when we get you back to your people.”

A chitter and odd hand movement that had a feeling of neutrality to it was the only response the Tholian gave to that, leaving Rain to puzzle at the answer for a moment before deciding to just continue on.

“It's not like you have a lot of better options.” Rain pointed out. “The Imperator is almost surely hunting for you, alongside a number of others who probably want to return you to her in hopes of receiving whatever reward she might be offering. Something I don't particularly care about given a long term relationship with your people is a lot more valuable to someone with a starship then whatever money she might give us.”

Tension whipped through the cloaked form as an odd bluish hue Rain had come to associate with the higher end of the UV spectrum briefly radiated through whatever material the Tholian princess had used to disguise her face and neck.

“Do you really have any better options?” Rain asked her, finally giving in to the throbbing in her leg and leaning up against the wall in a casual manner that she really hoped looked as cool as she was trying for.

A rapid series of clicks and chirps issued out from the Tholian that Rain was sure would have answered her question one way or another if she could actually understand them.

“I'll take that as a maybe.” She admitted instead, feeling just the slightest bit impish now that the pain in her leg was settling down. 

“Really though, what other options do you have? Kill me and steal the hover car I came here in?”

Her only answer was a somewhat cheeky feeling thumbs up from the Tholian.

The communicator on Rain's belt choose that moment to crackle to life. 

“Ah, Captain Raine.” Lara's voice echoed out. “A skimmer full of Klingons just landed on a building somewhere around the direction you run off in.”

There were several questions Rain wanted to ask in there, but given the circumstances she would save that for when they got back.

“Got it.” She replied as she tapped the button that would close the channel.

“I'm just going to assume the person who found you for me overestimated his ability to keep others from doing so and they're here for you.” Rain said as she glanced to the nearby rooftops and let out a brief sigh of relief upon spotting Keiko poised to jump down if needed. 

“So sorry.” She continued in an apologetic tone as she locked eyes with the suddenly tense Tholian. “But I'm going to have to invoke the rite of forced conscription so we actually have a chance to maybe work this out later.”

The Tholian princess lunged at Rain before she even finished speaking, the surprising speed of the move likely enough to keep even a trained Klingon warrior from fully reacting. However no matter how she might dress, Rain wasn't actually a Klingon warrior, so she just stood there and let the Tholian woman slam into her barrier before bringing up the trudgen and smacking the princess upside the head.

A crackling discharge filled the alleyway as the weapon discharged its stunning energy into the Tholian before the other being collapsed into an unconscious pile at Rain's feet.

“Never get into a melee fight with an Asari.” Rain offered sagely as she motioned for Keiko to jump down and join her.

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Author's Notes: Jack may be better than Risian bounty hunters by dint of having been a moderately successful criminal on hard mode world. But he isn't better than members of the Alliance who caught him in the first place.

And yes, the Rite of Conscription was always Rain's plan B. Because in Alliance space Klingon law trumps Risian law.