Fallout 22

Tylha
Our two ships float in the void, half a parsec out from the orange K-type star that is Mageptis's sun. I nerve myself for the encounter. "Energize."

The transporter room sparkles, fades out... and a new one fades in. The lighting is dim and reddish, the air tastes sour in my antennae. "Permission to come aboard?" I ask.

"Granted," says Shalo, standing by the transporter console. She frowns. "You are alone?"

"For the moment," I say, stepping off the pad. The atmosphere aboard the Garaka seems subtly different from other Klingon ships I've been on. The influence of the Fek'lhri technology, or just my imagination at work? "I wanted to settle one issue before transporting the rest of my team."

"Oh?"

"Commander Kluthli tells me that under some interpretations of Orion law, she could be seized as an asset of the House of Sinoom." I fix Shalo with a hard stare. "I would regard any action along those lines as a violation of your diplomatic status. I hope you're clear on my meaning."

"Completely," says Shalo, unruffled. "I am a member of the KDF and a citizen of the Empire, and this ship operates under Klingon law, not Orion. I have no interest in sequestering my - kinswoman. As far as I am concerned, I wish you joy of her." Her lip curls in a sneer. I restrain myself from commenting.

"All right. Then Commander Kluthli will beam over with the rest of my support team. As per your suggestions, we've outfitted ourselves as - well, as non-Starfleet as we can manage."

Both Kluthli and Shalo agree, Starfleet uniforms and a Federation starship might spook the House of Sinoom contacts on this frontier world... hence, the masquerade. Shalo's gaze flickers over my black-panelled body armour. "Yes," she says, "that is very good - those cheap copies of Omega Force armour are very common in some of the free ports along the frontier." I can't decide if she's deliberately baiting me or not. I touch my combadge, a simple disc of metal on my chest. "Situation secure. Transport the away team when ready." Shalo nods to her transporter operator.

Pillars of light appear on the transporter pads, solidify into my team. Kluthli shoots one hard glare towards her cousin, then turns her head away, snubbing her. She is wearing her usual civilian-style clothing, but there is a stiffness about her leather jacket and trousers which bespeaks the body armour underneath. Anthi is wearing black polyalloy mesh in a passable imitation of the Imperial Guard style, an Elachi cannon pistol riding on her hip. Thirethequ and Amiga have both opted for plain, bulky coveralls to conceal their armour. Thirethequ, with his mauve skin, long arms, and impressive beard and head crest, looks positively dangerous - especially with a Romulan plasma flamethrower slung across his back. As for Amiga.... Normally, the android is quite open about her origins; for this mission, though, she has closed the open panels in her cheeks, and put cosmetic caps over her metal eyes. She appears quite human, and disarmingly soft and vulnerable.

Whatever else we look, we don't look particularly Starfleet. "Yes," says Shalo, "this will do." She herself is wearing her white KDF uniform; I suppose she looks like some sort of mercenary, anyway, though the bat'leth slung across her back is openly Klingon. "Let us proceed, then. This way."

My antennae twitch as she leads us down the corridors of the Garaka, into the waiting turbolift. Of course, I've been on Klingon ships before... but I can't shake a nervous feeling. The turbolift hisses down and across the body of the carrier, comes to a halt.

The door opens onto a shuttle bay, the metal deck empty except for one battered-looking ovoid craft. Standing beside it is an alien of a species new to me; immensely tall, barrel-chested, with long gangling limbs, a high pointed head, and blue-grey skin with some sort of war-paint pattern on it. He salutes Shalo in the Klingon style. "Of readiness, all is," he says in a high sing-song voice. "For departure, immediate may be. To embarkation, all persons, I recommend, sir."

Shalo's universal translators aren't up to scratch, it seems. I repress a sly smile at that. My translators can cope with Jolciots.... "Lieutenant Commander Foojoy is of the Gral Temm people," says Shalo. "Since this vessel is a Gral Temm long-range dropship, it seemed only reasonable that he should be its pilot. Shall we board, Vice Admiral?"

The dropship's interior is small and cramped, with only the most basic facilities. Foojoy folds himself into the pilot's chair while the rest of us take seats along the wall behind him. I take the time to slip my visor on. The custom-built headset contains electronics that interface with my battle armour's systems, and short-range force field emitters that give almost as much protection as a standard Omega Force helmet - and, unlike the helmet, it doesn't squash my antennae flat. Until Omega Force's designers come up with a helmet that will work properly with Andorian heads, this is my best option.

The dropship takes off with a lurch. I call up my command interface on the visor, check my communications, including the emergency subspace link. All seems well. "Let's run over what we're doing here," I say. "And, Shalo, Kluthli, can you try to cooperate?"

"Of course, sir," Kluthli says smoothly. Shalo's head jerks up, and her lips are compressed in anger for a moment; then she says, "The point is well taken."

"All right. Tell me about this Galpor spaceport."

"It's a free port, under Federation jurisdiction," says Kluthli, "but with very little regulation. It's one of several such places on Mageptis. The House used to move goods through it -"

"Nothing either the Federation or the Empire would consider smuggling," Shalo adds. "Simply one of a hundred such places on our trading networks."

"But we did have good relations with one of the local shipping concerns," Kluthli continues, "and it's this one, the firm run by Cysitra Cira'tenis, that's been at the centre of some sort of battle with Klingons in a Chariot-class shuttle."

"There is an issue here," says Shalo. "Cira'tenis maintained an extensive subspace communications network. She is not, perhaps, the person one would go to, if one were smuggling goods or personnel. But, if one wished to smuggle information...."

"You think Klur was trying to use her to get a message to his backers in the Empire?"

Shalo stares fixedly ahead of her, and doesn't answer for a moment. Then she says, reluctantly, "I have to accept that Klur cannot have acted alone. And if he is to survive, he must reach some accommodation with the Empire. So - yes. That is the most likely prospect."

"All right," I say. "Then our goal is to make contact with the local authorities, confirm whether Klur's crew were involved -"

"I have biometric ID data for every one of that crew," says Shalo, "and details of Klur's Chariot. That will not prove a problem."

"Then we go to this Cira'tenis and get access to her comms records, and try to piece together what message he sent. And we track the Chariot's warp signature, to see if we can get a lead back to his ship." It sounds so simple, in theory. "What problems are we likely to encounter?"

"The local authorities, for one," says Shalo. "Local government is very limited, with matters such as port security and administration being handled by private contracted groups hired by coalitions of the local merchants."

I sigh. "Because that sort of thing worked so well on Nimbus III.... All right. Let's talk about precautions."

---

By the time we bring the dropship down on a landing pad at Galpor, my misgivings have increased.

The spaceport is a miserable sight, prefabricated domes and ramshackle warehouses as far as the eye can see. The only grimmer place I can remember is Hfihar. As the seven of us leave the ship, we're met by a motley-looking group of security guards, mostly human, with a couple of Nausicaans and Orions thrown into the mix. "Commodore Sutton will see you in his office," says one of the humans, with a jerk of his thumb to indicate the way.

"Commodore Sutton?" says Shalo. "We understood that security was in the hands of a Commander Antell."

The human spits. "Antell's Galactic Security Bureau used to have the contract," he says. "But then those Klinks came, blew out the power grid, shot up the place... so, now the Commodore's got the job. We're Sutton's Consolidated Unaligned Mercenaries." He grins. "And we love our acronym."

This just keeps on getting better. My misgivings increase further when Sutton's "office" turns out to be a booth in the back of a spaceport bar. Not even a good spaceport bar, either; synthetic drinks and prefabricated walls - no sawdust on the floor, but only, I suspect, because this world has no trees and it would be too expensive to import offworld sawdust.

"Commodore" Sutton is a small, wiry human male with close-cropped, light-coloured hair and a seamed, thin-lipped face. He is sitting at a table, with a half-empty bottle before him. He studies us with unfriendly eyes. "Andorians and Orions," he says. "Interesting mix. So what do you want?"

"We'd like to know more about the incident with the Klingons," I say. His eyes don't get any friendlier.

"What's there to know?" he asks. "They came, they busted up a chunk of the port and shot some of Antell's half-assed goons, they went away again. I guess I owe them, come to think of it. I got what I wanted after that business."

"Is there anything else you might want?" I ask. "Perhaps we can come to some sort of deal, about the information."

Sutton shakes his head. "I'm a happy man," he says, "I got everything I wanted. I might not be an Omega Force Shadow Operative -" he sneers at me "- but I do OK. The Klinks are gone, good riddance to 'em, or good luck to 'em, I don't mind which." He snickers under his breath; something is amusing him.

"Did they take any casualties? Were there bodies left behind?"

His eyes shift slightly at that. I've touched a nerve, but how? "Antell's idiots got three of 'em," he says. "We've got 'em on ice down at the morgue. Families might pay to reclaim 'em, you never know."

"Three dead? No injured, no survivors?"

Shiftier still. "You think Antell's useless mob could have taken Klingons prisoner?"

I shrug. "I don't know Commander Antell. And stranger things have happened."

Shalo speaks for the first time. "Besides," she says, "they weren't all Klingons, were they? We would expect to find a more mixed force."

Sutton's gaze flicks over towards her. "One of the stiffs is a kitty-cat," he says.

"Ferasan?"

"The blue ones, yeah. And I heard the one in charge was an Orion. Like you."

Shalo smiles. "Possibly one very like me," she says. "Hence my interest in this situation."

Sutton is starting to look confused. So far, he's clearly been under the impression we're some sort of cops - which, I suppose, we are. Now, Shalo is suggesting there's something else going on, and already he's out of his depth. "If the people who carried out this raid were - the people we think they are," Shalo continues smoothly, "we are anxious to make contact with them. For a range of different reasons. If you could facilitate that...." She smiles at him. "Perhaps you should give more thought to things you might want. All sorts of possibilities might open up for you."

Sutton purses his lips in thought. "Tell you what I don't want," he says. His finger stabs out at me. "Andorians. Never could stand 'em. That creep Antell was an Andorian."

"Was?" I ask.

"Last seen hanging onto the front port of that Klink shuttle," says Sutton. "Was, I reckon. Anyway -"

"If it would help negotiations," says Shalo, "I'm sure the... Shadow Operative... and her team could go and verify the identities of the corpses. My pilot and I will remain, to talk things over with you." She pulls out a datapad from her belt, enters a code. "Transferring all the required biometric data to your tricorders now. Is that acceptable to everyone?"

On the face of it, no - but I have a feeling Shalo is up to something, and if this Sutton is an anti-Andorian bigot, I might only get in her way. "I'll do it," I say, with as much ill grace as I can manage.

"Sounds good to me," says Sutton. He speaks into his wrist communicator. "Show our Andorian guests the way to the morgue."

---

We're met outside the bar by a group of Sutton's mercenaries. "We're going to the morgue," I say to a tall human who seems to be in charge. He really is wearing a cheap copy of Omega Force armour. He grins at me and gestures with his phaser carbine. "Let's go, then."

We start to move off in the direction he's pointing. "Just a minute," says the human. "Commodore Sutton said, take the Andorians to the morgue. No mention of the rest of you." He signals to one of his troops. "Take these three to a holding area."

Thirethequ opens his mouth to begin a protest, but I raise a warning hand. "Let's get on with it," I say.

Four of the humans come with Anthi and me, while another four lead my team off in another direction. All this has taken time; the orange sun is already sinking below the horizon. The street lights are wan and inadequate. I shoot a quick glance at the humans; all of them have vision amplifiers on. Their leader takes us down a dark passage between two huge warehouses.

My visor has a command interface that responds to eye movements. I blink and squint a few times, and get down a menu to the command I want. Universal Translators: OFF. "Four armed men are taking us down a dark alley," I say to Anthi in conversational tones. "Wait for the lights to go off."

"What was that?" the leader demands.

Universal Translators: ON. "Just clearing my throat?" I say.

He growls, and lifts his weapon. Then the dim street lights go out, and we move.

They expect to have the advantage; they expect to be able to see us, that we won't see them. They just don't reckon on Andorian senses - or on actual Omega equipment. I hit the stealth module on my suit, and disappear from sight as light bends around me. The leader can't see me. He can certainly feel me, though, when I slam my autocarbine very hard against the side of his head.

Anthi doesn't have a stealth module, but she doesn't need one. I'm reasonably good at th'kara, the Andorian martial art that evolved in the cramped lightless tunnels; Anthi, though, is an expert. One man is down from a neck strike almost as soon as the lights go out; she dodges a second man's clumsy blow and takes him out with a neatly executed combination strike. That leaves one. Anthi hits him from behind as I hit him from the front, and he goes down like a sack of tubers.

Anti and I sprint for the mouth of the alley. Behind us, there are confused sounds. The streetlights come back on as we emerge.

I look back. "I don't think there's anything down that way that I want to worry about," I say.

Anthi is already aiming the cannon pistol. The captured Elachi weapon whines and shudders as it builds up a charge, then releases it suddenly in a crescentric wave of destruction, aimed straight into the mouth of the alley. As it spreads, the crescent catches the walls of the warehouses on each side. They're made of shoddy material, they collapse. Wreckage pours into the alleyway, blocking it.

I check my tactical scans. The men we knocked out are buried; still alive, but it'll take time to dig them out, we needn't worry about them - just about a few dozen others. I scan for the rest of my team. "This way," I say to Anthi, and we're off at a run.

As I expected, though, we don't have too much to worry about. By the time we reach the "holding area", one of the guards is smiling in blissful unconsciousness at Kluthli's feet, another is whimpering in Amiga's iron grasp, and Thirethequ is using his immense Jolciot strength to hit the third guard... with the fourth one.

"Mr. Thirethequ," I say mildly, "you do have an actual weapon, you know."

Thirethequ throws the unconscious man aside. "I crave your pardon, esteemed commander!" he shouts. "The temerity of these rapscallions drove me to forget myself." He unslings the plasma flamethrower. "In any case, I had thought this merely a property through which we might assume the appearance of frightfulness. But now, say the word, noble leader, and I shall emit conflagrations to rival the fiercest furnaces of my homeworld!"

"We do remain Starfleet officers," Amiga says, "and should try to avoid unnecessary bloodshed." She looks at the groaning man in her arms, apparently noticing him for the first time. She lets go, and he drops limply to the floor.

"And we need information," I say, "so that means we need some of them alive and able to talk. Also, I think we should be scanning these guys - to see if any of them match up with the biometric data we got from Shalo."

Anthi's eyes widen at that. "Oh, yes," says Kluthli, "that makes sense. That fracas would have been a perfect chance for one of Klur's crew to try and jump ship."

"And Sutton got shifty when we asked about prisoners," I say. "So, try to take prisoners, avoid unnecessary loss of life... still, we're in dangerous ground, surrounded by a much larger hostile force." The old bloodlust is rising in me, no matter what. I check my autocarbine: fully charged.

Sutton doesn't like Andorians, huh? I'm going to give him some good reasons for that.

"All right," I say. "Let's emit some conflagrations."