Darkened Stars - Chapter 14

Darkened Stars - Chapter 14

Stardate 29364.1 - May 13, 2352 - 06:15:00

Looking down at the unconscious Orion captain, Rain couldn’t help but wonder if she might have been mistaken to use the claim of melding as a threat against Keiko. Because she had only the barest inkling of an idea about how to even go about it.

But it was too late to back track on that now lest she lose the image she was building up, so she'd have to at least try, and hope desperately that she wouldn't explode the captains head by accident.

“Let's start simple then.” She muttered to herself as she grabbed the captain's head in her hands. “Embrace Eternity!”

A moment of literally nothing happening passed.

“Yea…” Rain admitted, feeling oddly embarrassed about that even though it was just her and the three unconscious people on the bridge. “I didn't really think that was going to work, but when in doubt, work through the list.”

The annoying part of this as far as Rain was concerned was that it shouldn't be that hard to figure out, since if it was the Asari surely would have gone extinct long before reaching the point of being a space faring species.

“I swear to god if I have to get horny for this to work I'm going to kidnap Smiley, have him invent a multidimensional transporter, and hunt down the mass effect developers to stick my blue foot so far up their asses they'll be tasting nail polish.”

Which was honestly one of her big fears in all this, not that it would be a particularly hard thing to accomplish with her current circumstances given green skinned space babes had always done it for her, but that was the type of embarrassing requirement that would follow her for the rest of her very long life. 

But she thankfully still had other things on the list to try before resorting to that.

“Okay.” She said to still unconscious Nezia as she continued to hold her head. “This is one of the options that might explode your head, so sorry in advance if that happens.”

With that, Rain focused in on herself, before attempting to reach out towards the Orion with the same sense she used to help direct the dark energy that was the heart of her biotic abilities.

Nezia's head didn't immediately explode, so that was a plus, unfortunately however she didn't find herself reliving the Orion woman's memories either, though oddly there was an impression of something the Asari didn't quite have words for, that made her feel like she might be on the right track.

So she focused on that feeling, following it through an almost water like blackness to a single point of–

Thousand gods she hated Terra, the planets air smelled like old gym socks, the entertainment feeds were functionally non-existent, the Alliance always wanted to perform full cargo inspections to make sure she wasn’t smuggling weapons to the Terran resistance, and worst of all it was full of Terrans whose only worthwhile point was that they sold for a moderately high price on the flesh markets.

The only good part was the Klingons made it oh so easy to get your hands on product so long as you knew what palm to lubricate, and Nezia absolutely did.

“You got your hands on a Vulcan?” She asked as she followed Krell through the cell block. The Klingon prison overseer one of her more frequent sources of profit since that troublesome rebellion had kicked off on the planet's eastern continent.

“We caught her father trying to smuggle weapons to the Terrans.” Krell confirmed with a smirk as they came to a cell inside of which she could see a near naked heavily shackled woman with tanned skin, short cut hair, and subtly pointed ears. “The rest of the ship's crew was already executed, but knowing you were on your way I delayed things with this one.”

“Looks a bit banged up.” She said as she looked over the Vulcan woman's body, taking special note of the blotchy dark green bruises covering her body. “She a fighter?”

“Aren't they always?” Krell returned with a barking laugh.

“Means it'll be more work for us.” She hedged with a speculative glance around the cell-block to disguise the naked interest in her eyes. “I'll give you five hundred darsek for her.”

“A Vulcan female of her age?” Krell scoffed. “She's worth a hundred times that on the markets.”

“Her age? What is she, sixty? Eighty?” Nezia asked, never having been particularly good at judging Vulcan ages.

“Try thirty three.” Krell informed her with a grin. “And with the way Vulcans age that's maybe another forty to sixty years of use to her.”

With the Vulcans looks she'd say more like eighty to a hundred, but he didn't need to know that. “I'll give you a thousand.” 

“Five thousand.” He countered.

“Fifteen hundred.” She put forward.

“I said five thousand and I meant five thousand.” Krell repeated with a growl. “With the Terran attacks of late I'll be taking an actual risk disappearing this one.”

That was annoying, unless she got lucky at the markets she'd barely be able to double her money after everyone else took their cuts. And that was before she factored in transport costs. But with everything else going on on his cursed planet it wasn't like her holds were bursting full.

“All right, five thousand.”

“Then she is yours.” Krell said with a nod as he pulled the cell's remote off this belt and flicked the control causing the duranium bars to slide apart. 

“You hear that T’lynn?” He continued smugly as he walked into the cell and grabbed the Vulcan woman by the arm before pulling her to her feat. “It looks like you–

Rain blinked, staring dumbly down at the D'k Tahg dagger she had apparently just plunged into the Orion captain's heart.

“Well fuck.”

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Looking around at those she'd let out of the cargobay’s slave pens, it wasn't hard for Keiko to tell what the Orion's had been selecting for with their choice of people. Because to a one they all had the overly attractive look of those she'd otherwise expect to see walking out of an underground image clinic.

“So does anyone here know how to do things?”

Thirteen hands went up, the only exception the Vulcan woman who looked like she could barely keep herself upright.

“Useful things.” Keiko clarified upon realizing her mistake. “With ships.”

When none of the hands went down she narrowed her eyes and added in what her sensei liked to call an honesty incentive.

“If you're lying I'll stab you.” 

All but two hands went down, a much more reasonable number made all the more believable to Keiko by the fact the two in question looked to be a pair of half Cardassian twins of indeterminate gender.

“Good.” She said with a nod. “You two come with me. The rest of you go around and drag the Orions I stunned into the pens. Four in crew quarters, two in engineering, and two in mess hall.”

“But–” One of the humans began hesitantly.

“Go.” Keiko ordered pointing to the still open door, unsure why anyone in their uncertain circumstances would hesitate to prove themselves useful given for all they know it was the only thing keeping them alive.

They went, thankfully able to read the room, because Keiko wasn't exactly sure just how far she was supposed to go with forcing them into line since whatever Raine's plan was, it seemed to want them still alive.

That just left her, the two Cardassians, and…

“I thought I said to go?” She asked the Vulcan woman in confusion.

“I… Know ships…” The Vulcan woman told her in a slow and deliberate tone that suggested she was working overtime to push through whatever haze the Orion's drugs had affected her with. “Grew up… Helping my father… Run his freighter…”

That might be useful if true, but everything Keiko had heard about Vulcans said they were consummate liars that couldn't be trusted. Though in this particular case she supposed the woman might make a useful example for the others if it turned out she was.

“All right.” She said, turning to the door and starting to walk, making sure to keep her hand on her weapon just in case one of them decided to try their luck. “Follow me.”

Three sets of footsteps began following her only for her trek to be interrupted before she could even make it the dozen or so steps by the sound of a heavy thud that had her whip around weapon at the ready, only to lower it with a sigh upon seeing the Vulcan woman face down on the ground having apparently collapsed.

“You two carry her.” She told the twins, motioning with the barrel of her loaned disruptor to the Vulcan woman who was feabily trying to push herself back up to her feet.

The one that Keiko was pretty sure at this point was a male bent over and helped the Vulcan woman back to her feet, attempting to position one of the Vulcans arms over his shoulder as he did.

“It's… All right… I can walk…” The vulcan tried to reassure them, her claims easily refuted by the way Keiko could see her leaning against the man.

“What did they have you on?” Keiko asked with a frown, knowing from what she'd seen others go through that there could be problematic side effects from such things.

“Makes me weak.” The Vulcan woman said, the lack of any real answer not entirely unexpected given her circumstances.

“Probably a combination of muscle relaxants and something to dull her emotional responses.” The other half-cardassian offered in a feminine voice that left Keiko judging her as a woman.

Keiko shot the half-cardassian woman a suspicious stare, the guess oddly specific given how little the Vulcan woman had mentioned.

“We worked inspections on Cardek-Nor.” The half-cardassian defended as her brother turned his head away. “Any time the Orions brought a Vulcan through you'd see them drugged up on something like that.”

There was probably a story there, but Keiko didn't particularly care outside of the fact that it meant they would probably know the best ways to dodge Cardassian inspections if it came down to it.

“Follow me.” She said again as she began walking towards the lift.

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Rain wasn't particularly upset about killing Nezia given how generally horrible of a person the Asari’s brief glimpses of the Orion woman’s life had shown her to have been. Though the fact that she had done so while in the middle of reliving said woman’s memories was more than a bit worrisome given what it probably said about her state of mind.

On the upside of having to experience the world through the eyes of an unrepentant monster however, she was pretty sure she now knew the generalities of flying this particular starship given a brief glance around the bridge told her the various controls that she hadn’t recognized before now held an air of familiarity.

The sound of the turbolift door opening turned her attention over to the door at the rear of the bridge, and she let out an audible sigh of relief upon seeing Keiko exit. 

“I take it you…” Rain began, only to trail off blinking owlishly at the pair of nearly identical half-cardassians that looked like they belonged on the cover of a J-Pop magazine propping up a vaguely recognizable and nearly insensate vulcan woman that followed after her.

“They’re the ones that say they know ships.” Keiko offered with a jerk of her head towards the three.

“Is she okay?” Rain asked with a concerned look to the Vulcan woman who had a startling resemblance to the actress she recalled voicing T'lyn on Lower Decks.

“Probably.” Keiko offered after considering the question for a moment. “Might be a problem when the drugs wear off though.”

“You can give her a shot of the purple stuff to minimize the chances of a psychotic break.” Rain responded almost automatically as Nezia's still fresh memory hit her.

“Purple stuff?” Keiko questioned with an almost hesitant glance over to the dead captain.

“I'll have to show you later.” Rain admitted with a grimace as she tried to shove down the unwanted associations that rose up those bits of memory before turning to the two half-cardassians. “Do either of you know how long it's been since they last dosed her?”

“About an hour before you followed the former captain up.” The male of the pair answered cautiously after following the line of Keiko's eyes to the body.

“Then it should be fine for a while.” Rain told them, the vague sense of 'lasts for days’ floating around prominently in her head. 

“Is there any chance one of you is pilot qualified?” She continued to the pair as a thought began niggling at her.

“We're both qualified on Alliance standard impulse craft.” The female confessed after exchanging a look with her twin.

“Close enough to learn.” Rain admitted, hiding her relief as started walking over to the helm. “Prop T'lyn in a corner, and I'll show you what you need to know to keep us from slamming into a planet.”

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Author’s Notes: Not exactly the most auspicious start to her career as a roving space princess, but you make do with what you have.