Club Xyxyrz is a single circular structure, perhaps a hundred and fifty metres across. The shallow domed roof seems designed to catch and amplify sound; the music from the central dance floor is an almost physical thing, a pounding beat that feels as though it will flatten my fur against my skin. Coloured lights dance in irregular patterns, and there is a Babel of conversation from the throng of many species gathered here.
I feel - inconspicuous. I am not wearing my uniform, but a set of bulky coveralls instead; bulky, because they conceal MACO-standard body armour underneath. This trading post on the planet Segeda V is not listed as a safe location in Starfleet's databases. But it does figure on the other list I was given....
Around the central dance floor, there are islands of seating, circular things under spotlights. I make for one with purple seat covers, all according to the instructions on the list. As I approach, I feel a change in the air, a surge of energies that strikes static sparks from my fur. I step into the circle of light, and suddenly the noise is gone, reduced to a dull pulse of bass notes in the background. A sonic suppressor. Useful.
In the middle of the ring of purple seats is the column of a replicator. I study the menu, select a drink that looks as if it is non-toxic. I sit down, and I wait.
I do not have to wait long. Two people make their way out of the crowd. One is a Bajoran woman, with dark skin, short hair, a squarish face with an expression of permanent disapproval. She is wearing a short yellow dress, something like a Starfleet uniform of two or three hundred years ago. The other -
Subconsciously, one expects Talaxians to be plump and jolly, but that is an artefact - the qualities of the Talaxian best known to Starfleet, not the species as a whole. Pexlini is short and rather thin, and her face has a slightly pinched, worried look about it. She is wearing the drab functional outfit of a moderately successful dilithium miner, with armoured boots and many pouches and pockets, and her mousy brown hair is drawn up into a simple topknot. Her pale blue eyes study me, and she gives a quick, nervous smile.
"Hi," she says. "M'eioi, right?" She drops into a seat, jerks a thumb at the Bajoran woman. "Umaro Ajbit, my exec. She's just here to, yanno, keep an eye out on stuff."
The Bajoran gives me a guarded nod. Pexlini rummages in one thigh pouch, and brings out a small electronic device. "Kinda feel safer with this thing," she says. "Neat little gimmick. Guy in engineering cooked it up." She sets it on the seat beside her and touches a control Nothing seems to happen, but she gives another quick smile. "Switches our universal translators to a private frequency. Even if someone's listening, and even if they get past the sound suppressor, we should just sound like gibberish to them. Well, probably. Hey, no system's perfect, yeah?"
I frown. "Are you concerned about eavesdroppers?"
"No. Well, yeah. Kinda-sorta. I mean, not specifically now, but... in general."
"A precaution," I say. "I see." Something is bothering me, though.
"Yeah," says Pexlini. "Precaution, right. Precaution's my middle name, me." The Bajoran woman snorts loudly, but says nothing. "You bring anyone with you?"
"The instructions on the list said to come alone."
"'kay." Pexlini nods, her topknot bobbing. I put my finger on the thing which is bothering me - which has been bothering me since our first, brief conversation, now that I come to realize it.
"Have we met?" I ask.
The pale eyes open wide. "Uh," she says, "seems, I dunno, kinda unlikely, yeah? I mean, born on different sides of the galaxy and all that."
"I see." I shake my head. "It's just that - well, something about you seems familiar, somehow."
"Yeah. I get that, sometimes." She shrugs. "I guess I must just have one of those faces, huh? Anyway. What can I do you for?"
I explain about the deaths of the Kobali colonists, the missing Kadirian ship. "My KDF counterpart -" I cannot keep a slight edge from my voice, there "- is investigating the Kadirian angle. I thought, however, it might be fruitful to pursue another angle. That's why I want some perspective on the Hazari - and, I suppose, the Kobali as well. From -"
"- a Delta Quadrant native's perspective, yeah, right," Pexlini interrupts. "Hmm." She cocks her head to one side, and her pinched face grows thoughtful.
"Is there a problem?" I ask.
"No. Just a... well, an idea, kinda-sorta. You chatted about this business with the Klingons, yes?"
"With the KDF. My, ahh, counterpart, is not Klingon. Ferasan."
"Oho," says Pexlini. "Right. Anyway. This KDF Ferasan called you up for help, right?"
"Yes." I am puzzled by her manner.
"Right. Well, maybe we can do each other a favour here." Pexlini reaches for a thigh pouch, rummages in it.
I am more puzzled than ever. "Do you want payment? Money?"
"Money? No, no... I keep telling people, I'm a Federation citizen, right? Got no need for money....." She pulls out a handful of what look like isolinear chips. "Where you can help is, you've probably got way better computers than me, so you could help crack these." She holds out the chips in the palm of her hand.
I make no move to take them. "What are they?"
"OK, lemme explain." Pexlini shoves the data chips back into a cargo pocket. "I've been running some DQ operations for Starfleet for a little while, now, making use of my local knowledge and all that jazz." She shakes her head. "Which is kinda daft, really, because it's a whole quarter of the galaxy we're talking about, right? I mean, how many of the hundred billion stars in the Alpha Quadrant do you know? Anyway. I've been helping out, keeping my ear to the ground, lending a hand here and there... and, the past few months, maybe more, I'm figuring, some of the ops I've been helping out with - well, they've been a lot tougher than expected. Like, as though people knew what was coming, see what I mean?"
"You suspect some kind of... security breach?" I say slowly.
Pexlini nods vigorously. "Got it in one. It kinda fits with your experience, no? You and the KDF start chatting about these Kadirians, next thing you know, their ship disappears. Coincidence? I don't buy it."
"I... see," I say. So that explains her skittishness over the subspace link. "Have you told anyone at Delta Command about -" I stop.
Pexlini nods again. "See the problem? The channels I'd use to report this - are the same ones I think are compromised. It'd be better in the Alpha Quadrant, because Starfleet has lots of alternate lines of communication, there. But here, we got one supply line, and one command and control centre. Everything runs through Delta Command." She shifts restlessly in her seat. "So, if we got a mole, or a data security breach, there -"
"Then every attempt to deal with it would be known to the people we want to stop." I frown. "So... why tell me? You don't know me -"
She pulls a face. "Yeah, but, that's kinda the point. You only recently got here, so you can't be the leak, right? OK, maybe you could, in theory, be someone who's in league with the leaker...." She shakes her head. "Don't think it's likely, though. Anyway, sooner or later you gotta start trusting someone, yanno? Otherwise you just go crazy. And the problem doesn't get solved."
"So what do you want me to do about it?" I am tempted to add, I have enough troubles of my own, but I restrain myself.
"These chips," says Pexlini, digging them out once more, "came from a guy who is very well informed about Starfleet and allied logistics in the Delta Quadrant. Like, whenever an Alpha Quadrant ship needs resupply, he's got whatever it needs in stock, handy. I, um, got them from him -" the Bajoran snorts, loudly, again "- and I need to break the encryption so's I can tell what they say. I could do it myself, eventually, but I'm guessing the computer core on a Dauntless-class would make the whole business a lot less, well, eventual, kinda thing." She holds out the chips. I take them, a little reluctantly.
"Other than that," she continues, "I dunno, keep your ear to the ground, be aware of the problem... and maybe report back to Starfleet Command once you're back at Earth Spacedock. We could do with Starfleet Intelligence looking at this... but their resources are spread pretty thin, this side of the galaxy. All Starfleet's resources are."
"I know this," I say.
She gives me a hard stare. "Hope you do," she says. "Really know it, I mean. It's too easy to get into the habit, yanno, of having the cavalry on call? But over here, any cavalry's gotta come through that one supply line, maybe run a gauntlet of Voth or Undine doing it -"
"I had to face off against a Voth ship on the way here," I say.
"So you know the problem. I guess that's good.... Out here, y'see, we're the cavalry. All there is." It's a frankly alarming prospect. Neither of us speaks for a moment. "Anyway. Your problem."
"The business with the Hazari, yes. All I really know of them is that they have a reputation for living up to their contracts. A race of bounty hunters."
"Yeah, well." Pexlini grimaces. "Obviously, that can't be right, can it? I mean, someone's gotta build their ships, and they didn't get to be a warp-capable society just through skip-tracing. That's the trouble with basing the whole view of someone's culture just on the drive-by glimpse Voyager got on her way out of the quadrant."
"The Hazari do place great importance on contracts -"
"Yeah. Cultural thing, and it allows them to have a sorta anarcho-capitalist free-wheeling society... usually, that sort of thing falls apart because it lets cheats prosper, but Hazari value their word, they don't cheat. Don't need laws against things nobody does anyway. 'Course, the odd Hazari who don't care about contracts... can do pretty well for themselves. Sorta like having super-powers. Anyway, yeah. Hazari...."
She tilts her head back and closes her eyes. "Not believers in powerful central authority, but strong on cooperation based on enlightened self-interest," she recites, as if by rote. "Usually pragmatic by nature, social prestige is based on personal accomplishment rather than nominal position, so Hazari may appear boastful, as they want their accomplishments to be widely known and identified with their names -"
"The one I met didn't give his name," I mutter.
Pexlini's eyes snap open. "Huh?" she says.
"The one I ran into at the - former - Hierarchy research station." I explain. "He didn't mention his name."
"Huh," says Pexlini again. "Now, that really is... kinda unusual."
"He'd just failed in his contract," I say, "so I suppose he might not have wanted to be associated with that."
"No...." Pexlini's eyes are thoughtful. "Hazari are pragmatists, they know things are gonna go pear-shaped once in a while, no matter what. This guy's got his own ship, he's reliable enough that the Hierarchy offer him jobs, he oughtta want to be sure you know that. I mean, not necessarily biting your hand off for a new contract, but at least making sure you can drop his name.... I'm not saying it's impossible, nothing's impossible, especially if it happens. But -" Her eyes take on an inwards, calculating look. I wait. "Y'know, you might be able to use this."
"Use it? How?"
"You got the transponder code from his ship, right?"
"It will... be on record, from the sensor logs, yes."
"Right, right." She sits forward, her expression more animated now. "See, the Hazari make up for not having much central authority by - well, they network. They know each other, they pass around recommendations, word of mouth, that kinda thing. Second thing is, really there aren't so many Hazari out here. We're a long, long ways from their homeworld. So, chances are good that this guy knows, or knows someone who knows, or can find out who it was took the contract with the Kadirians. And if your guy was keeping quiet about his name - only thing I can think of is, maybe he was up to something a little, I dunno, shady on the side. So if you can find him and find out what he's up to -"
"Leverage? To make him work for us?"
"'s possible, isn't it? If he's up to something... find out what it is, offer him a deal. Say, you keep shtum in exchange for his help with the Kadirian-escort guy. If he takes the deal, you know he'll keep his end up. Cultural thing."
"Yes." I shake my head. "It all seems - a bit tenuous. Not to mention irregular."
"Irregular," Pexlini says firmly, "is good. Remember our other little problem. A Hazari bounty hunter ain't gonna report through Delta Command, right?"
"I suppose not. But I don't really know how to approach one, especially in this way -"
"So let's work out some practical details," says Pexlini. She looks at the glass in my hand, the drink I'd forgotten about by now. "Jacaraxan Sunburst? Oh, yeepers. Pour it down the recycler and let's both get something with a little more kick to it. Believe me, heavy planning session, we're gonna need it."
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