Darkened Stars - Chapter 20

Darkened Stars - Chapter 20

Stardate 29385.2 - May 20, 2352 - 23:35:48

The Risian man had turned out to be Raten Tor, the ‘floor boss’ of the Fighting Caracal arena, who, after some drinks and conversation, had been willing to introduce Rain to the arena's operations director, a woman by the name of Torra Fel.

A good hour of further drinks with Torra Fel had secured her a meeting with the ‘owner’ of the arena, a man who'd introduced himself as Sorren Grest, that had such an uncanny resemblance to Mark Sheppard, that Rain found herself expecting an eventual backstab even though he had been generally genial during their entire encounter.

So genial in fact that he had convinced Rain to join him for dinner and drinks before pointing her towards Nuvia’s ‘staffing supervisor’, someone by the name of Nira who, according to Sorren, was the only Risian in the city actually authorized to purchase off world slaves.

All that had led to the Asari’s current state of trying to make her way back to the Deathwind’s landing islet while the happy fuzz of too much alcohol gave everything a glow that she was pretty sure for once had nothing to do with her ability to see into the ultraviolet spectrum.

“Hey kid, you sure you’re going to be all right if I drop you off here?” Her aircab driver asked with a worried look out at the spiderweb-like walkways that connected the various landing islets together.

“Not a kid!” Rain protested, wavering slightly as she pulled herself out of the cab. “I’m in my forties!”

“Suuure you are.” The man scoffed as the door to the passenger compartment automatically slid shut behind her. “You already paid though, so it’s not my problem if you want to do a header into the surf.”

With that the car flew off into the night sky, and Rain watched it disappear for a moment before the comeback hit 

“Jokes on you!” She announced, shaking her fist in the direction of the departed vehicle. “Asari are aquatic!”

With that she spun around, ignoring the stares of the various people still wandering around the well lit boardwalk as she tried to remember just where it was she’d parked her spaceship.

“Maybe I shouldn’t have worked so hard to convince Mark Sheppard’s cameo that I didn’t need an escort.” Rain muttered drunkenly to herself as she swayed back and forth on her feet. 

A loud crack of a firework going off echoed across the night sky, and Rain stumbled slightly in surprise, bumping into someone by accident as she did.

“Careful there cutie.” The woman she'd bumped into offered with a giggle before walking off, leaving Rain to openly boggle at the luminescent body paint the departing woman's form was swathed in.

She started following after the woman almost immediately, the sudden desire to ask the woman where she had gotten the body paint done now more important than returning to a ship that Rain was sure would still be there in the morning.

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“Take it off! Take it off! Take it off!” Salora drunkenly chanted at the dancing pair of Risian's as she shook the still half filled bottle of some kind of Orion alcohol that she'd pulled out of the ships stores.

That wasn't an act Keiko would normally mind herself, as both of the Risians had bodies that looked like they had stepped out of one of the Yuki clan's higher end strip clubs. But the fact that the so far completely passive Salora was suddenly acting so unrestrained was suggestive enough that Keiko had misread the half-Cardassian woman, that the Japanese woman just couldn't find it in herself to relax completely.

“Where did she even learn that on that station of her's.” Jack muttered from where he was sitting cross legged watching the show.

“Porn!” Salora yelled with a giggle as the pair of Risians began to slip off their clothing. “Cause while my brother picked up the cute freighter girl who didn't mind that he was a half breed, all I had those years were things run on power cells and my own two hands!”

Keiko was pretty sure Salora was going to regret yelling that loud enough that everyone on the beach had likely heard come morning, since sober she seemed to be nearly as repressed as Raine was. And that was saying something given the blue woman seemed to be stubbornly set on ignoring the signals Keiko was sending to indicate she'd be up for some fun in favor of doing nothing more than casting furtive glances at her ass or chest when she thought Keiko wasn't paying attention.

“Pretty sure one of the Risians would give it a go if you offered.” Jack shot back with a laugh.

“But I want to be wooed.” Salora muttered sullenly with a pout as she took another swig of her bottle. “Where's my sexy Gul who will make me this wife and take me away from everything in exchange for mind-blowing sex!?”

A moment of silence stretched out after the half-Cardassians utterance, and for the first time in her life Keiko found herself morbidly curious about just what Cardassian porn was like. 

“Close as you're probably going to get to that now is captain blue breasts.” Jack offered with a smirk towards Keiko.

“Ha!” Salora laughed in a suddenly hollow tone as she flopped backwards to lay fully on the sand. “Have you seen the ways she stares at Strelka's chest?” 

The half-Cardassian woman jammed her bottle into the beech before clutching at her own much less impressive assets. “No way I have a chance with one's this small.”

Oh, Keiko was absolutely going to make the half-Cardassian woman pay for that comment come their next training session together since the two of them were the same cup size.

“Small is preferable.” Citrine offered quietly from where she was sitting next to Salora. “Makes people pay less attention to you.”

Keiko still wasn't sure what species Citrine's father had been, just that his genetics had ended up gifting her with skin near the color of her namesake, and a distinctly feline cast to her features that left her with a look that had been strikingly exotic enough that upon hitting puberty her mother had seen currency signs and forced her into prostitution.

Unfortunately instead of hardening the woman up like Keiko had seen happen to most other women in similar situations, that only seemed to have beaten near any hint of a fight out of her in a way that made the Japanese woman pretty sure she would just end up performing the same job under someone else's thumb if they ever kicked her off the ship.

Not that that was necessarily a bad thing for them given from what she’d been able to find in local databases, ‘trade ship prostitute’ could be a relatively effective money maker.

“Don't like how you look, just pay a doc to change things.” The Terran Lara interjected as she returned from stealthily dumping the last of the maraji crystals. “That's what I did, and everything came out great.”

O?“Didn’t you wake up from the procedure in an Orion cell?” Jack inquired as he shot the woman an odd look.

“Yup.” Lara confirmed with a pout as she plopped down onto the sand next to Jack. “But I look and sound just like Empress Sato now.”

Which, Keiko suspected, was probably why the black market doctor had decided to sell her to the Orion’s in the first place.

“Which is not at all creepy given all the history vids of her we watched growing up.” Jack muttered as he pushed himself to his feat and began walking back to the ship.

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Stardate 29386.4 - May 21, 2352 - 10:08:15

A bright light shining onto Rain’s face slowly dragged her back to consciousness, and she forced open her eyes through the throbbing in her head only to immediately shut them with a wince as the sudden increase in brightness seemed to send twin spikes of pain directly into her temples.

With a groan she draped a hand over her eyes in hopes that further reducing the lightly would help with the migraine, only for the motion to make the sand under her bare back shift in a way that brought her still slowly waking mind up short as she couldn’t recall actually falling asleep somewhere where there was sand.

Dredging her memory, the last thing she could clearly recall was following a glowing woman down the boardwalk with the vague idea of wanting to see what she herself would like outlined in similar.

Which meant…

She moved her hand to act as a shade before cracking her eyes open, and all but immediately confirmed that yes, she was not wearing a top. After which a quick wiggle in the sand, that sent yet another spike of pain into her temples, confirmed her fears that she was in a similar state down below the equator. 

Knowing she shouldn't put it off any longer, no matter how much she wanted to just curl up in the sun till her head starting hurting, Rain forced her eyes open despite the pain before pulling herself up into a sitting position.

That turned out to be a mistake however, as the change in orientation made her stomach begin doing immediate flip flops.

Propping herself up on an arm as she desperately fought back her sudden queasiness, the Asari was able to confirm that she'd apparently followed up on her brilliant idea since she could see some sort of glittering silver paint tracing across her otherwise naked form.

“So much regret right now.” She muttered as she looked around trying to figure out just where it was she had ended up.

The city and parts of the boardwalk sat prominently not too far from where she’d apparently decided to fall asleep, so that was good, as she’d been more than a bit afraid she might have transported herself halfway across the planet for some reason. Less good however was the fact that she very much wasn’t alone on what she was rapidly coming to suspect from the similarly unclad people around her, was a nude beach.

Resting her head in her hand for a moment to try and hide the luminescent purple blush now on her face, she quickly pulled away her right appendage to blink dumbly at the silvery metal ring encircling her fourth finger.

“That’s… I… What!?” She finally shrieked as pure panic cut through everything else and she grabbed for the ring desperately trying to yank it off her finger.

No matter how hard she pulled however, the ring stayed stubbornly stuck on her digit, not to be deterred with what she was terrified the piece of jewelry represented, she resorted to trying to twist the offending wedding device off.

“Boardwalk storage locker P-R-9” A digitized voice suddenly rang out from the ring, the suddenness of it enough to once more leave Rain staring at the item.

She twisted it again.

“Boardwalk storage locker P-R-9” The digitized voice repeated.

“Okay so.” Rain began, her mind sluggishly working through the options as she continued to stare at the device. “Either a storage key, or I’m the designated victim in some kind of horror movie plot.”

That it could honestly go either way was a depressing reminder of just how much the mirror universe sucked to live in, though she took some small comfort in the fact that at least she hadn’t woken up in somebody’s BDSM dungeon.

Having a target now, she focused her brain on that and pulled herself up to her feet before beginning a careful walk towards the stairway she could see a hundred or so meters away that would take her back up to the boardwalk.

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Pulling her hand, now sans ring, out of the small inset next to the storage locker Rain had finally tracked down, she pulled open the now unlocked locker door only to frown at the sight that greeted her. 

There was the instantly recognizable form of her dagger thankfully, her belt that the dagger would hang on, a communicator clipped to said belt, an over the hip fanny pack, a pair of flip-flops that looked appropriately sized for her feet, and absolutely nothing else.

“So it’s official.” She muttered as she stared with a baleful look in her eye at the lack of any actual clothing items within. “Drunk me apparently wants sober me to be an exhibitionist.”

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Author’s Notes: It had to happen eventually, Rain’s just lucky she hasn’t seen the space-tube videos yet.

Also, because I’ve seen a couple questions about the name spelling. Keiko has only seen her name spelled as Raine. So that’s what she uses and tells everybody.