Darkened Stars - Chapter 16

Darkened Stars - Chapter 16

Stardate 29364.3 - May 13, 2352 - 08:00:00

Walking through the open door of the cargo bay Rain felt something large and heavy slam into her barrier. She whipped around to see a Terran staring dumbly at the heavy Orion weapon in his hand that he had clearly just tried to kill her with.

Her last bit of patience snapped like a brittle twig at the tail end of a drought, and she pulled her gloved fist back and punched the man in the nose with every bit of her strength.

He stumbled back, dropping his purloined weapon to grab his bleeding nose.

“This is why you Terrans can never have nice things!” She lectured as she followed that up with a spiky booted foot to his groin.

“The two of us literally took over this ship by ourselves!” She exclaimed as he fell to the ground clutching himself.

Rain reached down to grab a handful of his shirt and stalked further into the hold, dragging the still somewhat struggling Terran behind her.

“We let you out of the slave cages!” She punctuated to the nearly dozen other not locked up people gathered in the hold.

With a grunt of effort she lifted the man back to his feet, before shoving him forward to stumble and be caught by one of the other Terrans.

“And I was planning to offer at least some of you jobs!” She continued, as she did her utmost to glare them into submission. “That would involve pay! And benefits! And vacation days! And other things because I'm a person who knows how to invest in employee loyalty!”

Which was how you were supposed to do it, sure there would always be those idiots or sociopaths who thought they could do things better, but without loyalty that sort of thing was sure to end with you being stabbed in the back the moment things took a downward turn.

“You done?” A particularly brave half-Klingon woman with shoulder length curly brown hair and a rather impressive set of breasts asked as she gave Rain an unimpressed stare. 

She motioned to the pair of Terran's who were helping the one Rain had punched before looking around at the rest who were now giving the trio a very wide berth.  “Cause most of us aren't with that idiot.”

“You fuckers aren’t going to get away with this!” One of the slowly waking Orion’s suddenly yelled out from the slave pens.

“Not! Now!” Rain growled as she turned a cowing biotic energy fueled glare to the Orion who had just spoken up before looking back at the half-Klingon woman.

“You didn’t try to stop his idiocy either.” She continued. “Let me guess, you thought you’d wait and see what happened before officially choosing a side so as to not burn any bridges.”

The flinch the half-Klingon woman gave at her accusation was all the answer the Asari needed to know that her guess had been right on the money.

“The only thing it takes for idiots to fuck things up is for smarter people to do nothing. And that idiot.” She pointed at the man in question. “Could have just fucked things up royally for you. I mean, what exactly did you think would happen if he had succeeded? You’d charge the bridge like heroes from some action vid and take over? That worked for us because the Orion crew were idiots.”

“Hey!” One of said idiots objected.

“But I locked the bridge down before I left.” Raine lied, ignoring the attempted interruption for the sake of her point. “And if any of you had even the slightest idea of how to do anything on this ship you’d already be on the bridge or somewhere else important doing those things.”

“Meaning the most likely result of your attempt would have been my partner pumping knockout gas into the corridors and then tossing you back into the slave pens with the Orions.”

She wasn’t sure if Keiko had any idea how to actually do that, but the general point that they didn’t know what the circumstances in the rest of the ship were was more important than being accurate in describing them.

“Now.” She said as she took a step towards the half-Klingon woman, who amusingly tried to take a step back as she did only to bump into one of the slave-pens. “Since you seem to be the only one not locked up capable of saying anything, congratulations, everyone else in here is now your responsibility.”

“But I–” The half-Klingon woman began.

“Are going to do what I say.” Rain interrupted with an overly sweet tone. “Because I’m in charge, and the other option is me selling you to the Risian’s like I’m planning to do the chucklefucks that tried to gas me.”

“What!?” One of the Orion’s yelled. “You can’t–” 

“I can do whatever the fuck I want!” Rain yelled as she stalked over to the slave pen that particular Orion was held in. “I’m a member of a Klingon great house! I seized this ship in battle after you dishonorably attacked me! There’s an annoyed Cardassian Gul that is probably doing the paperwork to re-register this ship in my name in their databases at this very moment!”

“Your lives literally belong to me to do with as I see fit!” She screamed as a firelike blue energy began leaking off her.

She whirled around, her eyes takinging in each of the clearly frightened people in the room before settling back on the half-Klingon woman. “Does anyone have a problem with this!?”

The silence of the ship’s running noises was the only response.

“Good!” She said as she began walking back the way she had just come in, way too fed up with everything that had happened the past few days to work through with this now. “I’ll be back to figure out what to do with the rest of you when I’m not liable to explode someone’s head by accident. So don’t fuck things up!”

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Taking a moment to wander around the quarters that were confusingly both familiar and not, Rain couldn't help but be relieved that Nezia seemed to have forgone anything BDSM related when putting together her very pirate themed bedroom. Something the Asari supposed might have just been a general aesthetic choice for Orion’s given everything she remembered about them from Lower Decks.

The highlights of the small apartment like lodging seemed to be an opulent bed with with a roof and curtains that looked like something she would have seen in an over the top pirate show, a large secure looking chest made of some kind of silvery metal with a keypad who’s code Rain rather hoped was the same as all of Nezia’s others, and something that nearly made her cry tears of joy, a small jacuzzi.

Her time with Lek had been sonic showers, her time with Jel’ang had been a combination of steam baths that left her feeling like a half boiled shrimp and sonic showers, and there had been no way she was going to chance Terran public baths given that had seemed like a good way for someone to try their luck and end up dead.

So to see an actual bath that she could use after all these years, well, she was going to ignore just what had probably gone on in there and spend the next however many hours the comfortably warm water lasted letting the years worth of stress melt off her.

“Fill faster dammit.” She muttered as she stared at the slowly increasing water level.

One of the walkie-talkie like communications devices she had found plonked, and Rain turned a glare to it for a moment before with a sigh grabbing the device from the edge of the bath and flicking it on. “Yes?”

“There was a fight.” Keiko’s voice echoed out with the slightest tinge of annoyance in it.

Rain hung her head and groaned. “Is anybody dead?”

There was a pause on the other end of the line before Keiko’s voice returned. “Maybe?”

Another pause, and Rain looked longingly at the now half full tub as she mentally debated just throwing the communications device in and claiming it was an accident.

“One is dead, two are just bleeding a little.” Keiko finally confirmed.

“Is it anyone important?” Rain asked, hating how callous that sounded but not finding the energy to care at the moment.

“Bald terran, tallish, looked like someone might have broken his nose recently.” Keiko listed out, the description specific enough given the limited number of Terran’s on the ship to all but immediately tell Rain who it had to have been.

“Guess the rest weren’t too fond of the guy potentially torpedoing their chances.” Rain mused half to herself as the likely prison style beatdown scenario played itself out in her head. “Throw the body in the matter reclaimator or whatever equivalent the ship has and make sure the rest know that while I’m not particularly broken up about that one’s death, I will be annoyed if it happens again.”

“Okay.” Keiko confirmed, the click of the communications channel being closed the only other response.

Rain sat on the steps of the jacuzzi staring at the communicator for a moment as the the tub continued to fill, mentally daring it to go off again before with a tired sigh tossing the device into a corner and beginning the arduous task of divesting herself of the Klingon armor she’d spent the past day in.

“I need new clothes.” She muttered in annoyance as the tub reached what must have been its automatic shut off depth and stopped filling with water. 

As oddly comfortable as Klingon armor was, her current set had been pinching in the recognizable way of her still growing body hitting the point of ‘next size needed’ for at least a couple of weeks at this point. Though she was amusingly coming around to the upside of Asari supermodel genetics in other matters, since they seemed destined to have her arrive at the upper end of the five foot something measuring stick.

Slipping out of her faux leather underwear, an unfortunate Klingon standard that thankfully somehow avoided the chafing issues she had heard about such things when she wasn’t a she, Rain slid into the pleasantly warm waters with a groan of absolute bliss as the mere touch of the water seemed to drain the past few days built up tension out of her muscles.

“That’s it, I’m just going to live here from now on.”

Was it reasonable, no, would she actually do it, also no, but with the lack of any immediate threat it may have been the most she’d been able to truly relax since arriving in this particular asshole of a universe.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Stardate 29365.2 - May 13, 2352 - 15:55:00

“My name is Strelka.” The large breasted half-Klingon woman informed Rain as the Asari stared impatiently at her.

“I am.” She paused and grimaced in a manner that was becoming sadly familiar to Rain before correcting herself. “I was, training to become a yI'el until my mother died honorably fighting the Terrans on the North American continent. Shortly after which my ‘honorable’ uncle decided he did not want a half-breed further dishonoring the name of his house, so he offered me up for sale to recoup the cost of my dishonorable existence.”

Translated out of Klingon, she had been training to be an entertainer of some kind and her uncle was one of the sadly common Klingon’s who hated half-breeds and decided to get rid of her the moment her mother was no longer in the picture to stop him.

Somehow still better than the half-cardassian twins whose father had sold them off because he was part of a major Cardassian troop withdrawal and didn’t want the embarrassment of their existence to follow him back to the Cardassian homeworld.

Or the half-Klingon teenager who had ended up in prison after killing his Klingon father to protect his Terran mother from being beaten. 

Or the… Rain stopped herself from going further down the rabbit hole of tragedy that universally seemed to be how the non-Terran members of the Orion’s slave haul had ended up in their possession and instead focused on what that meant for the specific woman in front of her.

“How many languages are you fluent in?” She asked Strelka, skipping over the other obvious jobs she could potentially slot the young woman into and zeroing in on those that involved talking to other people.

“Seven.” Strelka admitted as she gave Rain an odd look.

“And those would be?” Rain prodded when it looked like the half-Klingon wasn’t going to continue.

“Klingon, Cardassian, Terran, Orion, Naussican, Bajoran, and Romulan.” Strekla answered cautiously.

“Moderately useful on several levels.” Rain offered in a happy tone as she looked up at the slightly taller young woman. “So here’s your long term options. I can drop you off somewhere generally neutral with five thousand darsek to get on your feet. Or you can take a job as the ship's communications officer, which will include technical training, pay, healthcare, and eventual vacation days.”

“You want me to be the ship's communication officer?” Strelka repeated as if she couldn’t quite process the suggestion.

“You’re fluent in multiple regionally relevant languages and have at least some skill in dealing with people.” Rain pointed out drolly as she waved a hand dismissively at the woman. “Unless you have some unmentioned skills in engineering, economics, or cargo management there’s not a lot more available so far as respectable positions are concerned.”

And Rain would be damned if she offered the half-Klingon a job as ships cook, because she’d had more than enough Klingon food to last a lifetime at this point.

“Do I have to decide now?” Strelka inquired after seeming to consider the issue for a moment.

“No.” Rain admitted, really not having expected the half-Klingon woman to do so given she seemed to be one of the relatively normal members of the bunch. “You’ll have till we arrive wherever it is I find that’s a good place to drop those who don’t want to stick around off.”

“Which isn’t Risa.” She added in just so the woman would know it wasn’t currently on the table. “Because that place is almost as bad as Terra when it comes to the group of assholes running the place.”

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Author’s Notes: Next Chapter, T’Lyn and Risa. And yes, all Raine’s share a love of hot tubs and swimming in general. Except the briefly existing Borg Queen Raine, who just sinks when she tries.