Darkened Stars - Chapter 17

Darkened Stars - Chapter 17

Stardate 29367.2 - May 14, 2352 - 09:29:05

“I don't know why.” Rain muttered to herself as she held one of the pirate themed outfits she'd pulled out of Nezia's closet up in front of herself. “But the fact that I have a bigger cup size than an Orion annoys me on an almost fundamental level.”

It absolutely wasn’t rational Rain knew, Orions were after all an entire species with a wide breadth of different body types, though possibly less so than humans given the scattered memories she had from Nezia didn't include a single Orion woman who was more than slightly plush.

But it still annoyed her, and not just because it meant she couldn't actually steal the woman's clothes.

She looked back at the clothing for a moment as a thought occurred to her. “They would probably fit Keiko at least.”

Tossing the outfit on top of the pile of others she'd found, Rain looked over to the large chest, before with a sigh of resignation walking over to spend a moment just staring at the keypad.

She knew the code was six digits, she knew the code had to be entered by hand and there existed a three second delay between attempts. But for the life of her she had no idea what the code actually was, nor did she know what was actually in the thing. Meaning it could be anything from dilithium crystals to weapons, to Nezia's collection of vintage Orion sex toys.

And it was because of that uncertainty that she hadn't been willing to risk her first thought of trying to use a warp to break open the lock, since she didn't have enough control to make one small enough to just affect the lock, and who knew what effect biotics might have on whatever was inside.

Giving the chest one last look, Rain sighed again before heading to the door, stopping as she arrived to tap the small panel on the wall next to it because the Orions didn't trust automatically opening doors.

Walking out, she came face to face with Keiko, the woman looking very much the worse for wear as she leaned against the wall opposite her door.

“Have you been there all night?” Rain asked, the clear bags she could see under Keiko's eyes lending more than a little credence to her suspicion.

Silence was the Asari's only response, and she continued to stare into the Japanese women's half lidded eyes for a moment idly wondering if she had somehow fallen asleep like that for nearly a minute before Keiko finally responded.

“Mostly…"

“Congratulations then.” Rain said as she grabbed Keiko by the shoulder and pushed her towards the still open door the Asari had just come out of. “Because the first real order I'm going to give you is to take a bath and then sleep for at least eight hours.”

She motioned to the panel next to the door. “You can lock the door with the yellow button on the panel, but don't worry, I know the override.”

“But–” Keiko attempted to protest, only to stop short upon seeing Rain's glare.

“No buts.” Rain interrupted as she pushed Keiko into the room. “Feel free to take whatever you want clothing wise too, because I can tell those pants are just a tad too small on you, and I know from experience that's not anywhere near comfortable.”

With that Rain took a step backwards and tapped the outer door control to close and lock it, waiting a moment after she did just in case Keiko decided not to listen.

“I swear.” Rain muttered to herself as she began walking to the Deathwinds infirmary to check on the ship's resident Vulcan. “You'd think I didn't have super powers or something.”

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The infirmary was pretty much exactly how she had left it, with the sole exception of Jarat having apparently fallen asleep with his head resting on T’Lyn’s biobed sometime in the intervening period between when the Asari had left and returned. 

It was cute, particularly with the way T'Lyn began to poke him in the cheek with a finger upon Rain walking in.

“Feeling better I take it?” Rain asked the Vulcan woman as Jarat blearily sat up.

“As much as can be expected given the past month has involved a string of horrible experiences seemingly without end.” T'Lyn groused, her tone suggesting to Rain that the Vulcan didn't particularly believe her string of bad luck had ended yet.

“My past week has involved multiple groups trying to kill or capture me.” Rain offered in a deadpan, suspecting heavily that the Vulcan woman wouldn't win the game of 'my life sucks more’ if they actually played. “But I now own a spaceship, which is good news for you two because it means I need a crew to run it.”

“And if I do not wish to?” T'Lyn inquired with slightly narrowed eyes as if challenging the Asari to fight her about it.

Rain grimaced, since unlike with the others she actually kind of needed them to handle ship stuff until they could get somewhere with trustworthy people she could hire to help with things.

“I'm kind of going to have to insist in this case.” She finally admitted. “Outside of the Orion's it's literally just you, me, Jarat, and Salora who know anything about operating a starship. That's two shifts at the bare minimum level needed to keep us flying on course and dealing with anything unexpected.”

“That's annoyingly logical.” T'Lyn muttered, sounding moderately unhappy with the fact.

“What about after we arrive wherever it is you're taking us?” Jarat inquired in a tone that just radiated cautious suspicion.

“Our current course is taking us to Risa to sell the Orions for seed money.” Rain explained, rather doubting any of the three would want to try getting off there given how fast the Risian's would probably try to grab them. “After that though I'm thinking of heading to the Ferengi Association, and if you want to get off there more power to you.”

T'Lyn gave Rain an unamused stare. “The Ferengi Association does not allow non-Ferengi ships to pass through its borders.”

“They don't?” Rain asked, blinking in surprise at the Vulcan woman as she wondered why Lek had never mentioned anything about that to her.

“No.” T'Lyn returned drolly.

“Well fuck.” Rain muttered as her shoulders slumped slightly, because that had taken two hours in the hottub to decide on and her other 'good’ options were debatably harder to accomplish.

“Okay, well, I'm obviously going to have to workshop the next destination after Risa some, but once I do, and we get there, if you want to leave I'll give you enough money to get by on for a month or two and we can peacefully part ways.”

“So our options are to serve you or be kicked out with a few lek and the clothes on our back.” Jarat growled as he clutched T'Lyn's hand, the surprised Vulcan woman glancing down at their joined hands for a moment before raising a single sculpted eyebrow at the suddenly blushing half-Cardassian.

“Given conversion rates it would probably be somewhere around twelve thousand lek.” Rain corrected, resisting her sudden urge to spend the next several hours delving into the pair's romantic history. “And staying on would involve free room and board on top of being paid a fair wage.”

T'Lyn turned her raised eyebrow to Rain. “Do you know what a fair wage is for a technical officer on a starship?”

Rain knew what Nezia had paid her crew, but given their general lack of loyalty the Asari rather doubted that amount had been anything approaching a fair wage.

“I have some idea.” She lied, putting on her best ‘I know what I'm doing’ look. “Though now I find myself wondering what you two were paid on your previous postings?”

“I was not.” T'Lyn offered with a slight frown. “Father was an adherent of the new way and believed any profits made should be reinvested into improving the quality of life of all on the ship.”

Fighting back the urge to facepalm, Rain was once more left wondering how someone as intelligent as Spock supposedly was could have fucked things up in such a galaxy spanning manner. After all, as much of an ideal as things in the prime timeline were, they were something to be slowly worked towards, not dumped fully formed in the people living there.

“All our pay was taken by our father for living expenses.” Jarat admitted, refusing to meet either of their eyes in a way that suggested there was a lot more to that story than the half-Cardassian was willing to admit.

Rain shook her head lightly and sighed. “Well, I'll forward you a copy of the employment contracts to look over after I finish writing them up. If you like what you see you can sign on, if not the other option will continue to be open.”

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Stardate 29383.8 - May 20, 2352 - 11:17:57

Five days of being the effective captain of a starship had given Rain a whole new respect for what the various Starfleet captains that she'd watched on television must have gone through. Because the endless string of minor banal issues that she’d had to deal with had left her seriously debating the merits of just locking the majority of the former slaves in their temporary bunks till she found somewhere reasonable to dump them.

“And that’s when Jack broke Karlos’s nose.” Strelka told Rain with an annoyed sigh. “I don’t know what Karlos was thinking, Citrine isn’t even interested in humans after what her mother did to her. And everyone knows what you’ll do to anyone who tries to force the issue now.”

Rain cringed slightly at the reminder, it shouldn’t have been as surprising as it was that one of the former slaves would try and take out their frustrations at their situation on one of their former captors. But walking into the cargo hold to find one of the Terran’s in the middle of trying to rape one of the Orion captives hadn’t even been in her bingo book.

The small up side of that had been that it pushed her to finally check Nezia’s purchase records, which was how she found out that particular woman had been a Black Widow style member of the Terran resistance with a penchant for drugging and raping Cardassian men before killing them.

She was now back in the slave pens, alongside the serial killer with a penchant for young girls, and the guy who’d tried to poison Strelka so he could take her place in the pecking order.

“I assume Keiko had a talk with the two?” She inquired, since the Japanese woman had taken it upon herself to become the defacto enforcer of her space gang.

Strelka wiggled one of her hands in a so-so motion. “She threatened to cut off Karlos’s hand if he tried anything unwanted with Citrine, and then broke Jack’s nose for taking matters into his own hands instead of telling her about it.”

“I suppose that’s not–” The beeping of the ship's sensors detecting a vessel on an intercept course interrupted Rain before she could finish, and the Asari looked over to Salora as she waited for the woman to work through the information on her display.

“Two ships on an intercept course.” Salora reported, Strelka's assistance the past few days having resulted in a steady and noticeable increase in the half-Cardassian’s ability to read the Klingon controls. “Their transponders are reporting them as the system patrol corvettes Sparkling Sea and Windswept Coast.”

Rain got up from her chair and walked over to the communications console against the wall before leaning over slightly and entering the quick string of commands required to send out the directional hail.

It took less than a minute for a Risian man to appear on the small monitor above the communication console, and Rain quickly transferred it to the main monitor before turning and making her way back to the captain's chair.

“Sorry about that.” She offered with an apologetic shrug. “Still trying to replace our communications officer. So, what can I do for the Risian system authorities?”

“Your ship is heading to Risa.” He stated simply, leaving Rain to stare into the viewscreen trying to figure out what the problem with that might be.

“And?” She finally asked.

The Risian on the other end of the connection narrowed his eyes. “And, the Risian government does not allow trafficking in illegal goods.”

“Okay.” She said slowly, not sure why that was her problem given Slavery was very much legal in Alliance space.

Her eyes went wide as the realization finally hit her. “Oh! You think I’m Orion. No, I’m Klingon. I just took this ship over after the previous owners broke the honor code and tried to take me as a slave.”

The Risian on the other end of the connection crossed his arms and gave her a look that screamed he didn’t believe her.

Rain rolled her eyes. “House code, tlhoy 'Iwchaj je tlhoy'choH. Personal identity code, loSmaH Soch javmaH Hut vagh.”

The Risian officer looked away from the camera, and Rain started drumming her fingers on the armrest as she waited for him to confirm her identity with the Alliance database. Finally after nearly five minutes he looked back with a frown on his face.

“I’ve confirmed your identity.” He said. “However if it’s found that you’re smuggling illegal goods be aware that there are currently several high ranking Alliance members on world who will be more than happy to do us the favor of taking you to task for it.”

With that he disappeared from the viewscreen, returning it to the streaking stars of warp travel as Rain sighed in annoyance at the sudden feeling that this was going to end up a lot more complex of an affair then the quick in and out she would have preferred.

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Author’s Note: Because nothing can ever be easy in the mirror universe.