Mission to Daleth IV - Chapter 07
Title: Mission to Daleth IV
Author: Soledad
For disclaimer, rating, etc. see the index page
Chapter 07 - The Hunt
Author’s notes:
The peculiarities of Andorian physiology were borrowed from The Worlds of the Federation by Shane Johnson. For visuals: Lamia Ar’rhaniach looks like the female Andorian simulation shown in the TNG-episode The Offspring, in the scene where Data’s “daughter” looked for a matching outfit.
Warning: once again, adult themes will be discussed in this chapter. Not for the faint of heart.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
It took another twenty standard minutes until all people involved arrived to Checkpoint Tango Six. Despite the urgency of their case, they had to follow certain safety procedures - now that their covert operation was in danger to be blown up more than ever. It’d have been a little suspicious, had all sorts of people come running from all directions to one of the maintenance crew’s rarely used workshops.
The Andorian agent glanced around nervously. She’d been the last one to arrive, and the only one who didn’t belong to Starfleet Intelligence on a permanent basis. She was a security officer, “borrowed” for this mission because they needed an Andorian and because she was good. Consequently, she’d only ever had contact with whom she’d known as Lieutenant Makepeace, although, of course, she’d seen most of the others before. She’d just not known that they, too, were involved.
“We must hurry,” the ‘half-Klingon’ woman said, “so we’ll lay the card on the table now, as long as this room is still secure. Greg, when have you last seen Jon?”
“About forty minutes ago,” the Centaurian, known in eyes-only Starfleet Intelligence files as Lieutenant Gregory Burt (most Centaurian officers wore Terran names, for administrative reasons) answered grimly. “He finished his number, went to the dress room to change - and vanished.”
“Have you found any traces?”
“None. There were no signs of a fight, and Miguel couldn’t smell anything else but the usual drug vapours, perfume and the green girls. You know how strong their musk is - it suppresses any other personal scent.”
Lieutenant Commander Elena Haiduk, now, in the absence of their commanding officer, responsible for the unit and the whole mission, looked at the man known for outsiders as Diego Sanchez.
“What do you think, Miguel?”
“They must have drugged him heavily,” the man, whose true name was Miguel Ortiz, replied. “I just don’t understand how. Jon didn’t drink anything else but a glass of Altair water - from my own bottle. And he never eats before his performance. They couldn’t have slipped him the stuff in his food.”
“We can theorize about the method later,” Lieutenant Benito Aguilar, alias Ben Makepeace, interrupted. “We should try to find him, before it’s too late.”
“Yeah, but where should we start looking for him?” Yeoman Applegnat, better known as Captain Vierchi all across the sector, asked. The worry about the abducted young man was clearly written in his round, bearded face.
“If I may, sirs… ma’am,” the Andorian agent waggled with her antennae nervously. “I think… I mean, if you are looking for the Mo’ari dancer who works in S’Bysh’s Bar, that is… he must still be somewhere in the back rooms of that bar…”
The others looked at her in surprise.
“What do you know about him?” Haiduk asked sharply.
Lamia Ar’rhaniach waggled her antennae again. Andorians were nervous by nature, and she found it… intimidating to speak in front of so many people who outranked her.
“I… I’ve been ordered to keep S’Bysh’s under surveillance, sirs, and… and we’ve bugged most of… of the backstage rooms, and… and I’ve just listened to… to that woman, S’Bysh’s First, a couple of hours ago, and… They were… were planning to drug someone for… for their master, and… Sirs, I didn’t know that the dancer was one of us… I mean, one of you…” Had Andorians tear ducts like humans have, she’d have been crying by now.
“Calm down, Ensign,” Haiduk said in an authoritive tone that, strangely enough, seemed to calm the extremely upset Andorian down. “You weren’t supposed to know who Jon is - nobody was. Now, can you remember more of what you’ve heard?”
“I…I’ve recorded it, ma’am… and encrypted, as I always do,” Lamia produced a data clip that had been hidden under her clothes. The partial exoskeleton covering an Andorran’s torso and upper limbs came on handy at times.
Aguilar shoved the clip into his tricorder, and they all listened to the First’s orders intently. The tricorder, having been equipped with a universal translator, gave back everything in Standard, so that the ugly truth became very clear in mere minutes.
“Well, the good news is that they obviously have no idea who Jon really is,” Haiduk said in relief. “Otherwise they’d have smuggled him off-station already.”
“Yeah, but the bad new is that he’ll end up as a bed slave of S’Bysh’s, if we don’t get him out of there at once,” Burt warned. “Jon was right - we’ve been slipping lately. All of us, including him. Things like this wouldn’t have happened a year ago. We’ve become careless.”
“True enough,” Haiduk admitted grimly, “but we can spread ashes upon our heads after we’ve freed him. Let’s focus on the task at hand, shall we? The bar closes in two hours. We don’t have much time. Suggestions?”
“We go there and take the back rooms apart, on the molecular level, if necessary,” Burt suggested.
But Haiduk shook her head. “I’m sorry, Greg, but we can’t do that. It seems that our cover hasn’t been blown up yet, after all. Which means, we can’t risk the outcome of this assignment. We have our orders - and we and a great many other people have worked on this for years. We can’t simply quit, not even for Jon.”
“Yeah, but if we can’t get him out, we can forget the mission, too,” Ortiz pointed out. “Once they start feeding him mind-altering drugs, he won’t be able to keep any secrets, no mater what kind. We have to act before they get him to S’Bysh’s private quarters, because not even we’d be able to free him from there, unless we blow the whole station to pieces. And that wouldn’t be exactly secretive.”
Haiduk shrugged. “I’m open to suggestions. Do you have some?”
“Actually, I do” Ortiz said. “This… woman was talking about a secure room. That must be a shielded chamber somewhere in the backstage area. We won’t be able to find Jon with the help of our tricorders, but manually searching the whole area should work.”
“It would, if we had two weeks, instead of two hours,” Burt said grimly. “That place is like a honeycomb.”
“But what if we had someone with insider information?” Aguilar asked.
Haiduk turned to him sharply. “What do you mean?”
“Well, strangely enough, just before our failed dinner date, the bodyguard of Madame Vithra approached me,” Aguilar explained. “He wanted me to take Madame’s most junior husband home to his family on Rigel V when I return to my relay station. And he offered a considerable sum, could I conveniently forget to register my passenger with Customs.”
The others thought about the strange request for a moment.
“That’s certainly… unusual,” Ortiz finally said. “I can understand why he asked you - you have a well-established reputation of being corrupt, after all - but why should they be trying to get a family member off-station in all secrecy?”
“Because they fear retaliation,” Yeoman Applegnat said quietly. “Remember, Sdan and Arrhae had been attacked by Orion mercenaries upon leaving the station. The same mercenaries were mysteriously killed in their jail cells, no less, only a few hours later. If S’Bysh had an eye on Arrhae - and it does seem that he had, doesn’t it? - he’ll no doubt find a way to punish Madame Vithra for losing her.”
“But why trying to send a junior husband away?” Ortiz asked. The headaches were getting worse again, slowing down his thinking process. The near sensory overload in the dressing room was killing him.
“Have you seen him?” Applegnat asked. Ortiz shook his head - and regretted doing so immediately. “Well, I have. He’s a pretty boy - well, not exactly a boy, he had to be an adult to marry into the clan legally, but he’s still very young, and he looks even younger. In fact, he almost looks like a girl.”
“I remember him,” Haiduk said. “Had to repair the environmental systems in his room; he was very quiet and seemed sad. But Madame Vithra didn’t seem to care for him too much.”
“She doesn’t as far as I can tell,” Applegnat agreed. “But the clan needs him. He’s from the family of the most famous numerologist of the southern continent; he makes the whole clan acceptable for conservative circles, despite the somewhat… colourful past of some clan members. Had he come to harm, the clan could lose a great deal of support back home.”
“Poor kid, just a pawn in clan politics,” Aguilar, a hopeless romantic at heart, in spite of his long years of duty in Starfleet Intelligence, murmured. “No wonder he seemed sad. What a sorry existence.
Applegnat shrugged. “He still has a much better life than he could have had with his own respectable but very poor family. And Madame Vithra isn’t such a bad person, actually; just practical. So, if her bodyguard does have some insider info that we could use, I’d suggest making a deal.”
“That’s the question, of course,” Ortiz said. “Does the man have any useful information?”
“Well,” the older man said, “there’s only one way to find out, is there?”
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Mondral had been irritated all day. He preferred things happening his way, and this day just wasn’t one of those on which things cooperated. His conspirative meeting with the corrupt Starfleet lieutenant hadn’t gone as he had hoped - the human hadn’t given an answer to his request so far - and what’s even worse, Ishul seemed very much averse to the idea of leaving.
“I don’t care for my senior spouses,” he said petulantly, “and I hate that stupid mussel farm of Bonkuyo’s.”
“I thought you hated to be here on the station, too,” Mondral reminded him, clinging to the shards of his patience with all his remaining willpower. Trying to force the young man to obey wouldn’t work; Ishul never reacted positively to such efforts.
“I do,” Ishul agreed, “but at least here I’m left alone, can get all the books I want and some edible food. Besides… you won’t be able to come with me, would you?”
“Afraid not.”
“Thought so. Mondral, there’s nobody on that whole backward planet we call homeworld who’d care for me. There never has been. You were the first person ever who saw in me anything else than… well, than the obvious,” he added, blushing in a lovely shade of green. “At least I thought you cared for me…”
“Child,” Mondral tried very hard to keep his frustration under control, “I do care for you. That’s why I want you to leave. You don’t like your marital duties toward senior spouses? How would you like to be dragged into S’Bysh’s bed?”
“He wouldn’t dare…” Ishul paled considerably. “I’m not one of the brothel boys, I’m a legally wedded spouse!”
“He would,” Mondral said grimly, “and he might make his move, soon. We displeased him, and he won’t let us forget that. I can’t protect you here - alone against who knows how many of his thugs. I’m only one man, and I have to watch over Madame, first and foremost, that’s why she keeps me here. But when things have calmed down a little…”
The beeping of the comm system interrupted him. He pushed the button impatiently, “Mondral. What do you want?”
“Are you still interested in a transport?” a male voice asked in Standard. There was no visual, but he recognized the voice of the Starfleet lieutenant.
“What if I am?” he replied.
“We might be able to make a deal,” the voice said, “for the right price, that is.”
Mondral frowned. “I’ve made you a more than generous offer…”
“I’m not interested in your money,” the human cut him off, “but if you happen to have what I need… well, I’m your man.”
“And what exactly do you need?” Mondral asked, more than a little suspicious now. This might have been a trap, after all.
“Just a piece of information,” was the level answer.
“What sort of information?”
“Meet me outside your… establishment and I’ll tell you.”
“When?”
“In two minutes,” and with that, the connection was broken. Mondral didn’t even try to track the call back. The human was a communications officer and a hacker.
Ishul looked at him with wide, frightened eyes. “Are you going?”
“Do I have a choice?” Mondral asked back and left.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
He found the human sitting in the small cafeteria opposite Madame Vithra’s. Makepeace wore civilian clothes, s if he’d had a previous appointment that had been interrupted, assumedly in a rather unpleasant manner, because his usually jovial expression was gone. He looked very tense.
“I don’t have the time for the usual dance around fact,” the human said as soon as Mondral had sat down to his table. “I need detailed information about the backstage area of S’Bysh’s Bar: possible hiding places, shielded rooms, hidden entrances… that sort of thing. And I need it now.”
“What for?” Mondral asked. “If you want to mess with S’Bysh’s business, you’ll have to find another fool to participate. I don’t have a death wish.”
“Neither do I,” the human said, “but someone I’m… acquainted to is missing, and I have reason to believe that he’s being kept there. At least as long as the bar is open for business, that is. I need to find him before they close the place.”
“If you are planning what I think you are planning, then you do have a death wish indeed,” Mondral said.
The human made an impatient gesture.
“Look, I don’t ask you to come with me, do I? I just want the info, assuming you do have it. If I find my man in time, I’ll get yours off her before anyone could notice he’s gone.”
“Yeah, but if you get yourself killed, which is a distinct possibility, what’ll I have out of this deal?” Mondral asked reasonably.
“Nothing, I’m afraid,” the human answered bluntly, “but there’s no business without risks, is there?”
“Hmmm…” Mondral pondered his choices for a moment. He happened to have the information the human needed - he’d made his policy to know everything about S’Bysh’s business that was there to know - but could he really trust Makepeace to keep his promise? Then again, his other chances to get Ishul out of harm’s way were practically nonexistent - which was the reason why he’d turned to the human for help in the first place.
“Very well,” he finally said, “I’ll give you what you want. But if Ishul isn’t off station by tomorrow, S’Bysh’ll learn who’s taken his prey. Assuming you survive this insane trip, that is.”
“Works for me,” the human replied with a desperate urgency that told Mondral everything about his true intentions. The man might have been a corrupt officer, but this time he was willing to risk everything to help someone who cared for.
It was a sentiment Mondral could understand very well.
He also understood that Ishul’s safety depended on the success of the human’s insane action. So, since he couldn’t allow that action to fail, there was only one thing he could do, no matter how much it went against his survival instinct.
“I’ll go with you,” he said. The human hesitated.
“I don’t think that’s such a good idea…”
“You can’t do this alone,” Mondral argued, “and I need to get Ishul out of here. I can’t do that if you get yourself killed.”
The human swallowed nervously. “I... won’t be alone. You don’t need to get involved, really…”
“I can’t let you fail,” Mondral said. “Bring whomever you want, but we’re going in in twenty standard minutes.”
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Elena Haiduk glared at her ex unbelievingly.
“You have agreed to what?” she demanded. Aguilar shrugged.
“There was no other way. And we don’t have any time to waste.”
“Ben is right,” Burt said grimly. “So be careful, people. Use our aliases. The Rigelian must think it was my brotherly concern that launched this whole action.”
“Would he buy it?” Haiduk asked doubtfully.
“Why not?” Ortiz said. “We hang out together all the time anyway.”
“Except Lamia,” Haiduk pointed out. “Which means we can’t take her with us.”
“We’ll have the Rigelian instead,” Aguilar said. “That’s even better. He’s a professional. And he deals with Orions on a daily basis. He knows them better than we do.”
“Which is exactly why I don’t like the idea,” Haiduk said. “It could be a trap.”
“Yeah, but we don’t have any other choice,” Burt reminded her; then he turned to Aguilar. “Where are we supposed to meet the Rigelian?”
Aguilar studied the blueprint of the entertainment ring on his electric notebook, then he pointed out a place. “Here, at this junction.”
Haiduk nodded. “One of the maintenance tunnels. I know the place. My password as chief technician will open the hatch for us. All right, people, let’s do it.”
They left the room through various exits - some through one of the two doors, Haiduk through another maintenance tunnel - and reached the meeting point from different directions. Mondral was already waiting for them, wearing the usual combination of dark jacket and trousers that Rigelian males of his status wore. He pretended to read one of the computer screens with the local news near the hatch.
“Corridor secure,” Aguilar reported.
Haiduk typed in her password and opened the hatch. “Get in here,” she ordered. “I’ll go last. I’m the only one who can lurk around in the mouth of a maintenance tunnel, without raising suspicions.”
“Besides, who’d ever dare to ask you what you are doing?” Aguilar grinned and crawled in, headfirst. Haiduk shoved the Rigelian forward.
“Go with him. And no tricks.”
“Don’t worry,” Burt said darkly, “I’ll be hot on his heels.”
For a moment, it seemed as if Mondral would answer something, but he decided against it and followed Aguilar without a word.
They crawled in the narrow tunnels as quickly as they could. Haiduk regretted the absence of Lamia; like all members of her race, the Andorian had a long torso and relatively short limbs, which practically predestined her to move easily in such claustrophobic spaces. But they couldn’t blow her cover. Not until it was absolutely inevitable.
She knew these tunnels by heart, of course. There was no way the Rigelian could have led them into the wrong direction. It was the exit that caused her great concern, not the route.
Just as she had expected, they came out in a storeroom of S’Bysh’s backstage area. She had been there before; this was a room where harmless foodstuff and legal beverages were kept, since it was accessible to station personnel. It also had the disadvantage of only having one exit, unless one took the maintenance tunnel into consideration.
“Diego, stay here and keep our escape route open,” she said to Ortiz, consciously using his alias. “If possible, I’d like to avoid beaming out. Ben, do you think your tricorder would be able to find shielded areas now?”
Aguilar shrugged. “I’ve done what I could recalibrating it, but there are too many unknown factors. Our best shot’s still the knowledge of… of our guide.”
“There are two secret rooms that I know of,” Mondral said at the questioning looks. “They are both heavily shielded, and the doors are practically invisible for the naked eye. We’ll have to follow the exact coordinates and then produce a low-grade microwave emission. That would counteract the holographic disguise. We then should be able to open the actual doors by conservative methods.”
“We should be?” Haiduk repeated. Mondral shrugged.
“Lady, this information is two months old. At that time, it was reliable, but I didn’t have the time or the chance to check if it still is. As a rule, I avoid getting involved with S’Bysh’s private matters. It’s better for my health.”
“We’ll check it when we’re there,” Burt said through clenched teeth. “Time’s the main issue here. Let’s hurry up!”
They left the storeroom, checking first the safety of the corridor behind the door. They were a unit that worked like a well-oiled machine, and it showed. Haiduk knew they wouldn’t be able to hide that obvious fact from the Rigelian. But if Mondral noticed anything, he made no remark.
They found one of the shielded rooms with relative ease. Two huge, green-skinned thugs were trying to pretend just wasting their time with some crude board game on a seemingly empty corridor - it wasn’t very convincing. Aguilar shot them from behind with his phaser, set on heavy stun. The green savages had a higher than average resistance against phaser stuns, but if one set the energy level high enough, they got knocked off just like everyone else.
With the help of his modified tricorder, Aguilar then neutralized the holographic disguise of the entrance, and in the next moment the door became visible, clearly outlined against the bulkhead.
“Do you think the guards might have a key or a code card?” he asked Mondral.
The Rigelian shook his head. “They are cannon fodder, not trusted servants.”
“Right, it would have been too easy,” Aguilar looked at Haiduk. “I guess the door is yours, then.”
She fished one of her useful little gizmos out of the heavy tool belt and started working on the door. It wasn’t an easy lock to pick, and the fact that they were running out of time didn’t help, either. Finally, after fifteen minutes or so, the door was open - and they were staring into a room full of unlabeled boxes.
“Well,” Aguilar said. “We haven’t found what we hoped to find. It seems more like the mysterious cargo of our old pal, Harry Mudd.”
“Check it,” Haiduk ordered.
“We don’t have the time for this,” Burt protested, but Haiduk gave him a look that could have frozen Vulcan over, and he shut up. Of course they needed to know what was in the boxes. It could be vital for their actual mission - the one for which they had spent three years on this station.
Aguilar was already checking the boxes, and his brows climbed up to his hairline.
“Well, it’s kireshet, all right,” he said. “But some new version I’ve never seen before. It’s a lot stronger than the one used commonly. Getting addicted to this…” he shook his head.
“All right,” Haiduk said, “get out, all of you. We must hurry; this here can wait.”
The others gave her bewildered looks, she seemed to contradict herself, but neither of them dared to protest - which made Mondral think. When they were out of the room, Haiduk changed the settings of her phaser to the highest energy level and fused the lock so completely that no one would be able to get the door open again. Not without a welder and a lot of work, that is.
“That’ll be secure for a while,” she commented grimly. “Let’s go on!”
The other shielded room was deep in the maze of changing rooms, storerooms, corridors and restrooms of the backstage area. Searching these places was extremely dangerous, as they could have been attacked from several directions at once, and Mondral began to doubt if it really was such a good idea to accompany these people.
When they finally found the right room, the door was not guarded. This fact alone was enough to make everyone nervous.
“The guards will be inside,” Mondral said, “and they’ll fight like madmen to protect what they consider their master’s property. So shoot first and don’t even bother asking questions - most of them usually get their tongues cut out anyway.”
This time, Haiduk had easier work with getting the door open, as she’d worked out the basics with the other one already. When the hatch opened, the unit stormed the dimly lit room behind it, shooting everyone in sight without hesitation. It was the right thing to do, too, as the slaves, although only armed with primitive hand weapons, launched at them with a single-minded intensity that would have made less hardened people back off. As they were used to fights, though, they managed to knock the defenders off - they went down, heavily stunned, all of them… save the one hit by Haiduk’s phaser.
She had forgotten to change her settings back to stun. The slave disintegrated in front of her shocked eyes.
“You did him a favour,” Mondral said coldly. “The others will be dead in an hour, as soon as S’Bysh realizes his prey is gone. Only that their deaths will be slow and very, very painful.”
That piece of information didn’t exactly serve to calm Haiduk’s conscience, but she could not be hindered by regret right now. She was in command, and the rescue mission was far from over yet. She belatedly reset her phaser and looked around.
“Have you found him?” she asked.
“Over here,” came Aguilar’s answer. “It’s bad, Nina, really bad. We’ll have to carry him.”
Haiduk hurried over, glad to have something else to focus on, and saw that their commanding officer was in a bad shape indeed. He was naked, his entire body covered with sweat, his pupils so dilated that ther was barely any of the red irises visible. His breathing was accelerated, too, more gasps than anything else, and he didn’t seem to recognize his surroundings at all.
“He is heavily drugged, overdosed perhaps,” Burt said. “We won’t be able to drag him through the corridors without raising a lot of attention, and the maintenance tunnel is out of question, too. We’ll have to risk a site-to-site transport, or we’ll be caught.”
“Agreed,” Haiduk said, ”but not all of us. Ben, you and our… guide will return to Diego and go back through the maintenance tunnels. You can work out the details of your little deal while you are at it already. Drreg and I’ll beam out with Forrd.”
The others nodded and left. Burt gathered their commanding officer in his arms; in order to beam out they had to leave the shielded room first. This was the most dangerous part of this action, but they were lucky, for a change. The entire area seemed abandoned at the moment.
Finally outside, Haiduk activated her communicator.
“Dethwe, can you read me?” she asked
“Loud and clear,” came the muffled voice of the clone.
“Three to beam out,” Haiduk ordered. “Energize!”
Only moments later, half a dozen Orion thugs, alarmed by the unconscious bodies of their pals found on the corridor, came running in. But the room was already empty, save from the phasered-down slaves lying scattered over the floor.
Next chapter
Previous chapter
Back to the index page
Author: Soledad
For disclaimer, rating, etc. see the index page
Chapter 07 - The Hunt
Author’s notes:
The peculiarities of Andorian physiology were borrowed from The Worlds of the Federation by Shane Johnson. For visuals: Lamia Ar’rhaniach looks like the female Andorian simulation shown in the TNG-episode The Offspring, in the scene where Data’s “daughter” looked for a matching outfit.
Warning: once again, adult themes will be discussed in this chapter. Not for the faint of heart.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
It took another twenty standard minutes until all people involved arrived to Checkpoint Tango Six. Despite the urgency of their case, they had to follow certain safety procedures - now that their covert operation was in danger to be blown up more than ever. It’d have been a little suspicious, had all sorts of people come running from all directions to one of the maintenance crew’s rarely used workshops.
The Andorian agent glanced around nervously. She’d been the last one to arrive, and the only one who didn’t belong to Starfleet Intelligence on a permanent basis. She was a security officer, “borrowed” for this mission because they needed an Andorian and because she was good. Consequently, she’d only ever had contact with whom she’d known as Lieutenant Makepeace, although, of course, she’d seen most of the others before. She’d just not known that they, too, were involved.
“We must hurry,” the ‘half-Klingon’ woman said, “so we’ll lay the card on the table now, as long as this room is still secure. Greg, when have you last seen Jon?”
“About forty minutes ago,” the Centaurian, known in eyes-only Starfleet Intelligence files as Lieutenant Gregory Burt (most Centaurian officers wore Terran names, for administrative reasons) answered grimly. “He finished his number, went to the dress room to change - and vanished.”
“Have you found any traces?”
“None. There were no signs of a fight, and Miguel couldn’t smell anything else but the usual drug vapours, perfume and the green girls. You know how strong their musk is - it suppresses any other personal scent.”
Lieutenant Commander Elena Haiduk, now, in the absence of their commanding officer, responsible for the unit and the whole mission, looked at the man known for outsiders as Diego Sanchez.
“What do you think, Miguel?”
“They must have drugged him heavily,” the man, whose true name was Miguel Ortiz, replied. “I just don’t understand how. Jon didn’t drink anything else but a glass of Altair water - from my own bottle. And he never eats before his performance. They couldn’t have slipped him the stuff in his food.”
“We can theorize about the method later,” Lieutenant Benito Aguilar, alias Ben Makepeace, interrupted. “We should try to find him, before it’s too late.”
“Yeah, but where should we start looking for him?” Yeoman Applegnat, better known as Captain Vierchi all across the sector, asked. The worry about the abducted young man was clearly written in his round, bearded face.
“If I may, sirs… ma’am,” the Andorian agent waggled with her antennae nervously. “I think… I mean, if you are looking for the Mo’ari dancer who works in S’Bysh’s Bar, that is… he must still be somewhere in the back rooms of that bar…”
The others looked at her in surprise.
“What do you know about him?” Haiduk asked sharply.
Lamia Ar’rhaniach waggled her antennae again. Andorians were nervous by nature, and she found it… intimidating to speak in front of so many people who outranked her.
“I… I’ve been ordered to keep S’Bysh’s under surveillance, sirs, and… and we’ve bugged most of… of the backstage rooms, and… and I’ve just listened to… to that woman, S’Bysh’s First, a couple of hours ago, and… They were… were planning to drug someone for… for their master, and… Sirs, I didn’t know that the dancer was one of us… I mean, one of you…” Had Andorians tear ducts like humans have, she’d have been crying by now.
“Calm down, Ensign,” Haiduk said in an authoritive tone that, strangely enough, seemed to calm the extremely upset Andorian down. “You weren’t supposed to know who Jon is - nobody was. Now, can you remember more of what you’ve heard?”
“I…I’ve recorded it, ma’am… and encrypted, as I always do,” Lamia produced a data clip that had been hidden under her clothes. The partial exoskeleton covering an Andorran’s torso and upper limbs came on handy at times.
Aguilar shoved the clip into his tricorder, and they all listened to the First’s orders intently. The tricorder, having been equipped with a universal translator, gave back everything in Standard, so that the ugly truth became very clear in mere minutes.
“Well, the good news is that they obviously have no idea who Jon really is,” Haiduk said in relief. “Otherwise they’d have smuggled him off-station already.”
“Yeah, but the bad new is that he’ll end up as a bed slave of S’Bysh’s, if we don’t get him out of there at once,” Burt warned. “Jon was right - we’ve been slipping lately. All of us, including him. Things like this wouldn’t have happened a year ago. We’ve become careless.”
“True enough,” Haiduk admitted grimly, “but we can spread ashes upon our heads after we’ve freed him. Let’s focus on the task at hand, shall we? The bar closes in two hours. We don’t have much time. Suggestions?”
“We go there and take the back rooms apart, on the molecular level, if necessary,” Burt suggested.
But Haiduk shook her head. “I’m sorry, Greg, but we can’t do that. It seems that our cover hasn’t been blown up yet, after all. Which means, we can’t risk the outcome of this assignment. We have our orders - and we and a great many other people have worked on this for years. We can’t simply quit, not even for Jon.”
“Yeah, but if we can’t get him out, we can forget the mission, too,” Ortiz pointed out. “Once they start feeding him mind-altering drugs, he won’t be able to keep any secrets, no mater what kind. We have to act before they get him to S’Bysh’s private quarters, because not even we’d be able to free him from there, unless we blow the whole station to pieces. And that wouldn’t be exactly secretive.”
Haiduk shrugged. “I’m open to suggestions. Do you have some?”
“Actually, I do” Ortiz said. “This… woman was talking about a secure room. That must be a shielded chamber somewhere in the backstage area. We won’t be able to find Jon with the help of our tricorders, but manually searching the whole area should work.”
“It would, if we had two weeks, instead of two hours,” Burt said grimly. “That place is like a honeycomb.”
“But what if we had someone with insider information?” Aguilar asked.
Haiduk turned to him sharply. “What do you mean?”
“Well, strangely enough, just before our failed dinner date, the bodyguard of Madame Vithra approached me,” Aguilar explained. “He wanted me to take Madame’s most junior husband home to his family on Rigel V when I return to my relay station. And he offered a considerable sum, could I conveniently forget to register my passenger with Customs.”
The others thought about the strange request for a moment.
“That’s certainly… unusual,” Ortiz finally said. “I can understand why he asked you - you have a well-established reputation of being corrupt, after all - but why should they be trying to get a family member off-station in all secrecy?”
“Because they fear retaliation,” Yeoman Applegnat said quietly. “Remember, Sdan and Arrhae had been attacked by Orion mercenaries upon leaving the station. The same mercenaries were mysteriously killed in their jail cells, no less, only a few hours later. If S’Bysh had an eye on Arrhae - and it does seem that he had, doesn’t it? - he’ll no doubt find a way to punish Madame Vithra for losing her.”
“But why trying to send a junior husband away?” Ortiz asked. The headaches were getting worse again, slowing down his thinking process. The near sensory overload in the dressing room was killing him.
“Have you seen him?” Applegnat asked. Ortiz shook his head - and regretted doing so immediately. “Well, I have. He’s a pretty boy - well, not exactly a boy, he had to be an adult to marry into the clan legally, but he’s still very young, and he looks even younger. In fact, he almost looks like a girl.”
“I remember him,” Haiduk said. “Had to repair the environmental systems in his room; he was very quiet and seemed sad. But Madame Vithra didn’t seem to care for him too much.”
“She doesn’t as far as I can tell,” Applegnat agreed. “But the clan needs him. He’s from the family of the most famous numerologist of the southern continent; he makes the whole clan acceptable for conservative circles, despite the somewhat… colourful past of some clan members. Had he come to harm, the clan could lose a great deal of support back home.”
“Poor kid, just a pawn in clan politics,” Aguilar, a hopeless romantic at heart, in spite of his long years of duty in Starfleet Intelligence, murmured. “No wonder he seemed sad. What a sorry existence.
Applegnat shrugged. “He still has a much better life than he could have had with his own respectable but very poor family. And Madame Vithra isn’t such a bad person, actually; just practical. So, if her bodyguard does have some insider info that we could use, I’d suggest making a deal.”
“That’s the question, of course,” Ortiz said. “Does the man have any useful information?”
“Well,” the older man said, “there’s only one way to find out, is there?”
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Mondral had been irritated all day. He preferred things happening his way, and this day just wasn’t one of those on which things cooperated. His conspirative meeting with the corrupt Starfleet lieutenant hadn’t gone as he had hoped - the human hadn’t given an answer to his request so far - and what’s even worse, Ishul seemed very much averse to the idea of leaving.
“I don’t care for my senior spouses,” he said petulantly, “and I hate that stupid mussel farm of Bonkuyo’s.”
“I thought you hated to be here on the station, too,” Mondral reminded him, clinging to the shards of his patience with all his remaining willpower. Trying to force the young man to obey wouldn’t work; Ishul never reacted positively to such efforts.
“I do,” Ishul agreed, “but at least here I’m left alone, can get all the books I want and some edible food. Besides… you won’t be able to come with me, would you?”
“Afraid not.”
“Thought so. Mondral, there’s nobody on that whole backward planet we call homeworld who’d care for me. There never has been. You were the first person ever who saw in me anything else than… well, than the obvious,” he added, blushing in a lovely shade of green. “At least I thought you cared for me…”
“Child,” Mondral tried very hard to keep his frustration under control, “I do care for you. That’s why I want you to leave. You don’t like your marital duties toward senior spouses? How would you like to be dragged into S’Bysh’s bed?”
“He wouldn’t dare…” Ishul paled considerably. “I’m not one of the brothel boys, I’m a legally wedded spouse!”
“He would,” Mondral said grimly, “and he might make his move, soon. We displeased him, and he won’t let us forget that. I can’t protect you here - alone against who knows how many of his thugs. I’m only one man, and I have to watch over Madame, first and foremost, that’s why she keeps me here. But when things have calmed down a little…”
The beeping of the comm system interrupted him. He pushed the button impatiently, “Mondral. What do you want?”
“Are you still interested in a transport?” a male voice asked in Standard. There was no visual, but he recognized the voice of the Starfleet lieutenant.
“What if I am?” he replied.
“We might be able to make a deal,” the voice said, “for the right price, that is.”
Mondral frowned. “I’ve made you a more than generous offer…”
“I’m not interested in your money,” the human cut him off, “but if you happen to have what I need… well, I’m your man.”
“And what exactly do you need?” Mondral asked, more than a little suspicious now. This might have been a trap, after all.
“Just a piece of information,” was the level answer.
“What sort of information?”
“Meet me outside your… establishment and I’ll tell you.”
“When?”
“In two minutes,” and with that, the connection was broken. Mondral didn’t even try to track the call back. The human was a communications officer and a hacker.
Ishul looked at him with wide, frightened eyes. “Are you going?”
“Do I have a choice?” Mondral asked back and left.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
He found the human sitting in the small cafeteria opposite Madame Vithra’s. Makepeace wore civilian clothes, s if he’d had a previous appointment that had been interrupted, assumedly in a rather unpleasant manner, because his usually jovial expression was gone. He looked very tense.
“I don’t have the time for the usual dance around fact,” the human said as soon as Mondral had sat down to his table. “I need detailed information about the backstage area of S’Bysh’s Bar: possible hiding places, shielded rooms, hidden entrances… that sort of thing. And I need it now.”
“What for?” Mondral asked. “If you want to mess with S’Bysh’s business, you’ll have to find another fool to participate. I don’t have a death wish.”
“Neither do I,” the human said, “but someone I’m… acquainted to is missing, and I have reason to believe that he’s being kept there. At least as long as the bar is open for business, that is. I need to find him before they close the place.”
“If you are planning what I think you are planning, then you do have a death wish indeed,” Mondral said.
The human made an impatient gesture.
“Look, I don’t ask you to come with me, do I? I just want the info, assuming you do have it. If I find my man in time, I’ll get yours off her before anyone could notice he’s gone.”
“Yeah, but if you get yourself killed, which is a distinct possibility, what’ll I have out of this deal?” Mondral asked reasonably.
“Nothing, I’m afraid,” the human answered bluntly, “but there’s no business without risks, is there?”
“Hmmm…” Mondral pondered his choices for a moment. He happened to have the information the human needed - he’d made his policy to know everything about S’Bysh’s business that was there to know - but could he really trust Makepeace to keep his promise? Then again, his other chances to get Ishul out of harm’s way were practically nonexistent - which was the reason why he’d turned to the human for help in the first place.
“Very well,” he finally said, “I’ll give you what you want. But if Ishul isn’t off station by tomorrow, S’Bysh’ll learn who’s taken his prey. Assuming you survive this insane trip, that is.”
“Works for me,” the human replied with a desperate urgency that told Mondral everything about his true intentions. The man might have been a corrupt officer, but this time he was willing to risk everything to help someone who cared for.
It was a sentiment Mondral could understand very well.
He also understood that Ishul’s safety depended on the success of the human’s insane action. So, since he couldn’t allow that action to fail, there was only one thing he could do, no matter how much it went against his survival instinct.
“I’ll go with you,” he said. The human hesitated.
“I don’t think that’s such a good idea…”
“You can’t do this alone,” Mondral argued, “and I need to get Ishul out of here. I can’t do that if you get yourself killed.”
The human swallowed nervously. “I... won’t be alone. You don’t need to get involved, really…”
“I can’t let you fail,” Mondral said. “Bring whomever you want, but we’re going in in twenty standard minutes.”
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Elena Haiduk glared at her ex unbelievingly.
“You have agreed to what?” she demanded. Aguilar shrugged.
“There was no other way. And we don’t have any time to waste.”
“Ben is right,” Burt said grimly. “So be careful, people. Use our aliases. The Rigelian must think it was my brotherly concern that launched this whole action.”
“Would he buy it?” Haiduk asked doubtfully.
“Why not?” Ortiz said. “We hang out together all the time anyway.”
“Except Lamia,” Haiduk pointed out. “Which means we can’t take her with us.”
“We’ll have the Rigelian instead,” Aguilar said. “That’s even better. He’s a professional. And he deals with Orions on a daily basis. He knows them better than we do.”
“Which is exactly why I don’t like the idea,” Haiduk said. “It could be a trap.”
“Yeah, but we don’t have any other choice,” Burt reminded her; then he turned to Aguilar. “Where are we supposed to meet the Rigelian?”
Aguilar studied the blueprint of the entertainment ring on his electric notebook, then he pointed out a place. “Here, at this junction.”
Haiduk nodded. “One of the maintenance tunnels. I know the place. My password as chief technician will open the hatch for us. All right, people, let’s do it.”
They left the room through various exits - some through one of the two doors, Haiduk through another maintenance tunnel - and reached the meeting point from different directions. Mondral was already waiting for them, wearing the usual combination of dark jacket and trousers that Rigelian males of his status wore. He pretended to read one of the computer screens with the local news near the hatch.
“Corridor secure,” Aguilar reported.
Haiduk typed in her password and opened the hatch. “Get in here,” she ordered. “I’ll go last. I’m the only one who can lurk around in the mouth of a maintenance tunnel, without raising suspicions.”
“Besides, who’d ever dare to ask you what you are doing?” Aguilar grinned and crawled in, headfirst. Haiduk shoved the Rigelian forward.
“Go with him. And no tricks.”
“Don’t worry,” Burt said darkly, “I’ll be hot on his heels.”
For a moment, it seemed as if Mondral would answer something, but he decided against it and followed Aguilar without a word.
They crawled in the narrow tunnels as quickly as they could. Haiduk regretted the absence of Lamia; like all members of her race, the Andorian had a long torso and relatively short limbs, which practically predestined her to move easily in such claustrophobic spaces. But they couldn’t blow her cover. Not until it was absolutely inevitable.
She knew these tunnels by heart, of course. There was no way the Rigelian could have led them into the wrong direction. It was the exit that caused her great concern, not the route.
Just as she had expected, they came out in a storeroom of S’Bysh’s backstage area. She had been there before; this was a room where harmless foodstuff and legal beverages were kept, since it was accessible to station personnel. It also had the disadvantage of only having one exit, unless one took the maintenance tunnel into consideration.
“Diego, stay here and keep our escape route open,” she said to Ortiz, consciously using his alias. “If possible, I’d like to avoid beaming out. Ben, do you think your tricorder would be able to find shielded areas now?”
Aguilar shrugged. “I’ve done what I could recalibrating it, but there are too many unknown factors. Our best shot’s still the knowledge of… of our guide.”
“There are two secret rooms that I know of,” Mondral said at the questioning looks. “They are both heavily shielded, and the doors are practically invisible for the naked eye. We’ll have to follow the exact coordinates and then produce a low-grade microwave emission. That would counteract the holographic disguise. We then should be able to open the actual doors by conservative methods.”
“We should be?” Haiduk repeated. Mondral shrugged.
“Lady, this information is two months old. At that time, it was reliable, but I didn’t have the time or the chance to check if it still is. As a rule, I avoid getting involved with S’Bysh’s private matters. It’s better for my health.”
“We’ll check it when we’re there,” Burt said through clenched teeth. “Time’s the main issue here. Let’s hurry up!”
They left the storeroom, checking first the safety of the corridor behind the door. They were a unit that worked like a well-oiled machine, and it showed. Haiduk knew they wouldn’t be able to hide that obvious fact from the Rigelian. But if Mondral noticed anything, he made no remark.
They found one of the shielded rooms with relative ease. Two huge, green-skinned thugs were trying to pretend just wasting their time with some crude board game on a seemingly empty corridor - it wasn’t very convincing. Aguilar shot them from behind with his phaser, set on heavy stun. The green savages had a higher than average resistance against phaser stuns, but if one set the energy level high enough, they got knocked off just like everyone else.
With the help of his modified tricorder, Aguilar then neutralized the holographic disguise of the entrance, and in the next moment the door became visible, clearly outlined against the bulkhead.
“Do you think the guards might have a key or a code card?” he asked Mondral.
The Rigelian shook his head. “They are cannon fodder, not trusted servants.”
“Right, it would have been too easy,” Aguilar looked at Haiduk. “I guess the door is yours, then.”
She fished one of her useful little gizmos out of the heavy tool belt and started working on the door. It wasn’t an easy lock to pick, and the fact that they were running out of time didn’t help, either. Finally, after fifteen minutes or so, the door was open - and they were staring into a room full of unlabeled boxes.
“Well,” Aguilar said. “We haven’t found what we hoped to find. It seems more like the mysterious cargo of our old pal, Harry Mudd.”
“Check it,” Haiduk ordered.
“We don’t have the time for this,” Burt protested, but Haiduk gave him a look that could have frozen Vulcan over, and he shut up. Of course they needed to know what was in the boxes. It could be vital for their actual mission - the one for which they had spent three years on this station.
Aguilar was already checking the boxes, and his brows climbed up to his hairline.
“Well, it’s kireshet, all right,” he said. “But some new version I’ve never seen before. It’s a lot stronger than the one used commonly. Getting addicted to this…” he shook his head.
“All right,” Haiduk said, “get out, all of you. We must hurry; this here can wait.”
The others gave her bewildered looks, she seemed to contradict herself, but neither of them dared to protest - which made Mondral think. When they were out of the room, Haiduk changed the settings of her phaser to the highest energy level and fused the lock so completely that no one would be able to get the door open again. Not without a welder and a lot of work, that is.
“That’ll be secure for a while,” she commented grimly. “Let’s go on!”
The other shielded room was deep in the maze of changing rooms, storerooms, corridors and restrooms of the backstage area. Searching these places was extremely dangerous, as they could have been attacked from several directions at once, and Mondral began to doubt if it really was such a good idea to accompany these people.
When they finally found the right room, the door was not guarded. This fact alone was enough to make everyone nervous.
“The guards will be inside,” Mondral said, “and they’ll fight like madmen to protect what they consider their master’s property. So shoot first and don’t even bother asking questions - most of them usually get their tongues cut out anyway.”
This time, Haiduk had easier work with getting the door open, as she’d worked out the basics with the other one already. When the hatch opened, the unit stormed the dimly lit room behind it, shooting everyone in sight without hesitation. It was the right thing to do, too, as the slaves, although only armed with primitive hand weapons, launched at them with a single-minded intensity that would have made less hardened people back off. As they were used to fights, though, they managed to knock the defenders off - they went down, heavily stunned, all of them… save the one hit by Haiduk’s phaser.
She had forgotten to change her settings back to stun. The slave disintegrated in front of her shocked eyes.
“You did him a favour,” Mondral said coldly. “The others will be dead in an hour, as soon as S’Bysh realizes his prey is gone. Only that their deaths will be slow and very, very painful.”
That piece of information didn’t exactly serve to calm Haiduk’s conscience, but she could not be hindered by regret right now. She was in command, and the rescue mission was far from over yet. She belatedly reset her phaser and looked around.
“Have you found him?” she asked.
“Over here,” came Aguilar’s answer. “It’s bad, Nina, really bad. We’ll have to carry him.”
Haiduk hurried over, glad to have something else to focus on, and saw that their commanding officer was in a bad shape indeed. He was naked, his entire body covered with sweat, his pupils so dilated that ther was barely any of the red irises visible. His breathing was accelerated, too, more gasps than anything else, and he didn’t seem to recognize his surroundings at all.
“He is heavily drugged, overdosed perhaps,” Burt said. “We won’t be able to drag him through the corridors without raising a lot of attention, and the maintenance tunnel is out of question, too. We’ll have to risk a site-to-site transport, or we’ll be caught.”
“Agreed,” Haiduk said, ”but not all of us. Ben, you and our… guide will return to Diego and go back through the maintenance tunnels. You can work out the details of your little deal while you are at it already. Drreg and I’ll beam out with Forrd.”
The others nodded and left. Burt gathered their commanding officer in his arms; in order to beam out they had to leave the shielded room first. This was the most dangerous part of this action, but they were lucky, for a change. The entire area seemed abandoned at the moment.
Finally outside, Haiduk activated her communicator.
“Dethwe, can you read me?” she asked
“Loud and clear,” came the muffled voice of the clone.
“Three to beam out,” Haiduk ordered. “Energize!”
Only moments later, half a dozen Orion thugs, alarmed by the unconscious bodies of their pals found on the corridor, came running in. But the room was already empty, save from the phasered-down slaves lying scattered over the floor.
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