Darkened Stars - Chapter 11

Darkened Stars - Chapter 11

Stardate 29363.0 - May 12, 2352 - 20:35:00

The local branch of the Klingon Imperial Information Network was an interesting thing, not dissimilar to the internet from Rain's original world in that you could find pretty much everything in it. However, unlike the Asari's original world, it was stratified in a way that left it so most people couldn't access more than news, forums, and what was essentially the Klingon equivalent of facebook and youtube.

The latter of which, in true Klingon fashion, only really had five categories. Instructional videos, drunk videos, fight videos, bragging videos, and various types of pet videos that she had probably spent more time then was entirely wise watching. But she really couldn't help herself, because Klingons trying to teach their Targs tricks never seemed to get old.

Most relevant to her current circumstances however was the local news portion of that, because house Palkar's roaring rampage of revenge had apparently become the top story for a number of horrifying reasons.

“After the detonation of a pair of low yield Graviton weapons by the family shuVak, General Palkar and his troops journeyed out onto the New Tokyo field of battle, shortly after which they, and a significant portion of the city, was vaporized by the detonation of a 5 isoton photon warhead.”

The video on the monitor showed a still partially glowing semi-circular crater now bordering the eastern side of the Klingon’s New Tokyo fortress. The shimmer of the still active dome like shield just barely visible around it, likely the only thing that had kept everyone inside from suffering a rather rude awakening.

“The loss of General Palkar and his troops to such a dishonorable tactic has prompted a temporary lockdown of the entire island to non-alliance vessels. The Orion commerce guilds have issued several protests over this as they have a number of ships waiti–”

“Off.” Rain ordered, not wanting to hear more lest the queasiness in her stomach take over completely.

Hindsight could be a harsh mistress even on the best of days the Asari knew, but the way the picture fit the pieces of events together had her seriously questioning how she had missed something so obvious.

No, that was wrong, Rain knew how she had missed it, because she hadn't considered the possibility that anyone would be crazy enough to kill over twenty thousand of their own people to kill what had to be at most a few thousand Klingons.

“I must have been so close to completely wrecking someone's plan.” She muttered to herself, breaking out into giggles at the sheer absurdity of the situation.

She slapped herself on the cheek, because this wasn’t the time to have a breakdown since there was very little possibility this would work out well for her in either the medium or long term now that General Palkar was dead.

Something large and heavy chose that moment to slam into her barrier, and Rain turned a glare to the dumbly staring Keiko who had just tried to lodge what, from the chips on the handle, looked to be the hallway wall Bat’leth into her head.

“Not the time!” Rain growled as she grabbed the weapon out of the still stunned young woman’s grip. “And learn to read the fucking situation.”

“Seriously.” She muttered as she walked past Keiko to hang the weapon back on its proper spot. “Someone’s not going to leave you with free reign in a house full of weapons after you just tried to kill them if they consider those weapons to be a threat to them.”

Battering down her barrier with regular melee weapons was possible of course, but it wasn’t going to be done in any reasonable time period by someone Keiko’s size trying to club her over the head with a five kilogram bat’leth.

“It's my mission.” Keiko said as she shot the Asari an angry glare 

“Your mission was to get captured or die.” Rain bluntly informed the Japanese woman as she walked back over to the table where her partially eaten gyro sat. 

“Was not.” Keiko retorted, sounding almost offended at the very idea.

“Display.” Rain ordered as she sat back down to continue eating. “Replay afternoon news.”

She spent the time it took for the program to go through the various events that had occurred in the past twenty four hours finishing her meal, and then going back for seconds. Because she was still hungry and had probably burned through enough calories with the amount she had used her biotics the last day to drop her a full kilogram.

Throughout it all Keiko just watched the story depicted on screen with an inscrutable look on her face that was almost enough to make Rain wish she had actual telepathy.

“You were the bait for a trap.” Rain stated the obvious once it got to the part with the talking heads theorizing about the dishonorable reasoning behind the act. “Attack his family, leave enough easily discoverable evidence behind to track the culprits back to their location, and then when the General comes down with his troops seeking vengeance, boom, detonate the photon warhead and kill everybody in the area.”

“You didn’t use Graviton weapons, did you?” Keiko asked her after a moment.

“Nope.” Rain confirmed, seeing no point in holding the fact back from the woman given any number of sensors that had to have picked up her going off.

“And you’re getting ready to run.” Keiko continued in a tone that suggested to Rain that she thought that idea made perfect sense.

“Probably.” Rain confessed, not really seeing any other options given the house was about to be inherited by Jel’ang’s oldest brother. A Klingon who, the one time Rain had met him, had been laid out cold by Jel’ang after calling the Asari a fine bedroom prize that he would someday enjoy sampling. 

“Take me with you.” Keiko requested, the sudden flip enough to leave Rain blinking dumbly at the Japanese woman as she tried to fathom the why behind it.

“You literally just tried to kill me.” Rain pointed out.

“And?” Keiko inquired, tilting her head in a way that suggested she wasn’t quite sure why that should affect Rain’s opinion on the matter.

Which in hindsight Rain supposed made at least a little sense given she was talking to a Terran who had grown on Terra.

“Don't you have a fallback position or something?” She tried lamely, knowing her own fucked up morality enough at this point to tell she'd end up saying yes if pressed.

“They would have been there.” Keiko said as she pointed to the monitor, which was showing a panned out view of the nearly kilometer wide crater.

“Alongside my apartment, and everyone I knew.” She finished with a frown.

Rain honestly didn't know what to say to that, which was more than a little annoying given she really wanted to say something, if only so Keiko would stop looking at her like a lost Targ that didn't know what to do with itself.

“Why me?” She stalled as she tried to think up some other reason to refuse.

“Strength inevitably becomes power.” Keiko answered with the tone of someone repeating a line that had been drilled into them from a young age. “And what other choices do I have?”

That was a fair point, Rain admitted to herself with a grimace. Even assuming Keiko could make her way out of the fortress, which was a big if given the circumstances. With the family she worked for wiped out, the Japanese woman's options were likely pretty slim.

“How old are you anyways?” She asked, that train of thought leading her mind to somewhere it probably shouldn't go.

“Eighteen.” Keiko responded, giving the Asari a confused look at the question.

Rubbing her crest, Rain took a moment to send a silent prayer of thanks to Q that at least she hadn't strip searched and admired an underaged girl.

“You know what, fine.” She told Keiko, really hoping as she did that she wouldn't come to regret the choice. “But you're going to need to change out of that leather corset and into something reasonable.”

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Stardate 29363.1 - May 12, 2352 - 21:28:00

One of the first things Rain had done upon establishing herself as a person living in New Tokyo was put together a bailout plan just in case things ever went tits up. Over the two years living in the city she had refined that plan further, before letting it fall to the wayside the last few months as she had begun to feel safe.

In hindsight the past twenty-four hours had really ended up being an ever snowballing source of regret on her part, but well, short of stealing a time ship there wasn't much she could do about it. 

“Why do you have so many nanopulse-blades?” Keiko inquired as Rain packed away the various bits and bobs she'd collected over the past couple years.

“Lightsabers are cool.”She answered simply, not deigning to explain to Keiko the embarrassing fact that alone had been enough to have her grabbing every one of the devices she had come across during the past day.

“Nanopulse weapons aren't lightsabers.” Keiko objected with a frown. “Their temperature is too low to burn through most armor materials beyond the two centimeter range.”

There were several questions Rain had about what Keiko had just said, but given their lack of general relevance to the current circumstances she put them off to ask about later.

“And their power cells only last about twenty minutes.” The Japanese teen continued. “We only really used them because they read as plasma torches on most security scanners.”

That was interesting and potentially useful to know, though it left Rain wondering why that first ninja had shown up with an actual metal katana on his back.

“This rides up.” Keiko muttered, adjusting her pants for what had to have been the fifth time as Rain slung the half full backpack over her shoulders.

“Not my fault I don’t have the figure of an acrobatic ninja.” Rain returned as she shot the older teen a less than amused stare. 

Sure Keiko was about the same 170 centimeter height as Rain currently was, but it had been clear to the Asari that she had the Japanese teen beat in the breast and hip department by at least a full size. Something Rain found more than a little annoying given she was pretty sure she had at least another year or two of growing left to look forward to.

“Let’s go.” Rain told her as she began walking towards the door. “We need to make it to the port before someone shows up asking questions.”

Of her, not Keiko, because it had been depressingly easy to register the Japanese woman as a combat prize via com in the twenty minutes the other woman had taken to get herself cleaned up and dressed in some of the Asari’s old clothes.

“Ports are in lockdown.” Keiko pointed out as they left the small compound, the late time of day thankfully resulting in a minimum number of observers around to see the pair doing so.

“And I’m a tertiary member of a great house who isn’t above abusing the use of their authority as a negotiating point to get the Orion’s to give me a ride.” Rain tossed back.

It wasn’t the best of plans she would admit, leaving a good deal more of a trail than she would like, but if it was a choice between that and the various less than happy things she could imagine happening she was fully willing to take the risk.

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Stardate 29363.3 - May 12, 2352 - 23:13:00

The New Tokyo Alliance port had been built on the shore of what Rain was pretty sure had once been Tokyo bay, before someone had detonated a high yield bomb of some kind in the middle of it turning the entire landmark into a much more crater shaped structure. 

Currently landed at the port, were a half dozen 23rd century Birds of Prey, a pair of boxy cargo ships that looked like they’d been designed by someone with no aesthetic sense, a small Ferengi cargo vessel of some kind, two bulb like Orion ships that looked a bit familiar, and what Rain was pretty sure was a modern Orion interceptor.

Of the three Orion vessels in port, Rain’s first choice was definitely the interceptor, because it looked a lot faster then the other two, and the last thing she wanted to do was spend a month in a cargo ship slow boating it out of the Sol system.

Which was why the pair of them were currently waiting for the arrival of said vessels captain at the rather run down bar that serviced the port's non-alliance clientele. 

“It’s a slaver ship.” Keiko stated.

“Probably.” Rain agreed, not really seeing any other reason a ship like that would be landed on Terra. “But that means every day they sit here their cargo is literally eating away at their profits. So my offer to get them past the lockdown is sure to look pretty attractive, even without the extra Lek I’m willing to throw in on top.”

“And well.” She continued with a grin of false bravado. “If they try anything we can just kill them.”

Keiko seemed to consider that for a moment before giving a slow nod of agreement.

“Think that’s them?” Rain floated a moment later as an Orion woman with a short purple mohawk walked in, followed by a pair of Orion men with… Huh, the Asari thought to herself as she tilted her head slightly to better take in the entirety of what she was seeing, Orions really could get eight-pack abs.

Shaking off the sight, Rain got up from the stool she had been sitting on and walked over to the table the Orion woman and her entourage had sat down at.

“Would you happen to be Captain Nezia?” She asked the woman.

“Captain Nezia Tendi.” The Orion woman confirmed with a smirk, looking over the Asari’s form with a critical eye before settling on the house emblem still displayed on her shoulder. “What can I do for an illustrious servant of the Klingon great houses?”

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Author’s Notes: I’m sure this will work out fine, after all, what’s the worst that can happen?