Back To Work

Posted on Feb 06, 2015 @ 12:08pm by Commander Jacob Crichton
Edited on on Feb 06, 2015 @ 12:09pm

Mission: Limbo

= Back To Work =

(cont'd from "The Gathering")


LOCATION: USS Phoenix

SCENE: Crichton-Bonviva Quarters

STARDATE: [2.15] 0131.2020



"But it's not *fair*!" Erika cried, adopting a tone that Jake would have previously thought reserved for angry dolphins. He could feel her stare on the back of his neck as he gathered his gear into a brown rucksack. He tried to ignore it, but it seemed Erika wasn't going to let him off that easily.



"I've been stuck on this ship for *weeks*," Erika frowned. "No entertainment, no other kids my age, and nothing to do! I deserve to go!"



"No way," Jake said, turning to look at her. "Not until we've had a chance to check it out."



"*You* get to go and have fun," Erika sulked, storming out of the room to flop dramatically onto the couch. "It's not *fair*."



"Erika," Jake sighed, going after her. "It isn't safe."



"You always say that," the girl scowled up at him. "It's not my fault that you never go anywhere safe. I shouldn't have to keep suffering for it!"



"Point," Jake said. "But you're still staying here."



"Ugh!" Erika grumbled, somehow finding a way to slouch down even further in her seat on the couch.



"Erika," Jake started again, but he trailed off. Reasoning with Erika didn't seem to be working, so he decided to adopt a different approach. He walked over to the entertainment console mounted into the wall and activated it. Erika didn't move, but Jake could tell he had her attention as he tapped a few buttons on the keypad and stepped back.



The screen lit up, displaying a scantily-clad Orion woman undulating under a mixture of red and gold lighting. Loud music filled the room, with a hard pounding baseline that matched up with the woman's gyrations. It went on for a moment before text appeared on the screen beneath the Orion: "All Your Fantasies And More Are Waiting... The Sanctum".



Erika frowned at the screen.



"Gross," she said.



Jake nodded with approval, and thumbed one of the controls. The images on the screen changed, then changed again: a marathon of advertising for everything from sex, to drugs, to violence-for-hire. Jake scrolled past flickering images of drunk/drugged aliens of a dozen species reveling under the strobe lighting of nightclubs, of sleazy-lookng Ferengi selling "slightly used" starships and shuttlecraft, of casinos where stacks of gold-pressed latinum changed hands again and again. The message was clear: Limbo was a place that chewed up innocence, a place that attracted the bent and the broken like moths to a flame. Jake glanced back at Erika, who's pout had subsided a little.



"Get it?" he asked. "This isn't a vacation, Erika. This place isn't safe. And I'm not going to be able to keep an eye on you."



"If it's not safe, then why are you going?" Erika asked.



"It's... complicated," Jake said. "We're lookin for someone."



"From here?" Erika said, frowning at the screen again. Jake followed her gaze, to see that the screen had cycled back to the advertisemet with the dancing Orion girl.



"It's not as bad as it sounds," Jake said, turning off the screen. "Listen, Erika, I need you to keep an eye on Benito and Dahlia for me."



"Can't Xana do it?" Erika said, her pout threatening to return.



"Xana might have to come to the station with us," Jake said. "I promise, it will only be for a day or two. I'll have someone from my engineering team look in on you too, maybe give you a few hours off. What do you say?"



"And just what are we supposed to do while you're over there looking for Orion dancing girls?"



"We're not--" Jake started, but sighed and decided not to pursue it. "Look, if I get one of the holodecks working, will that buy me a day or so of cooperation from you?"



"Any program I want?" Erika asked hopefully.



"Any program from a curated list," Jake countered. "Ben's still pretty young."



"Fine," Erika said. "But you owe me, Jake. I mean it. I want a *real* vacation after this. A nice planet somewhere, a space station, some place *fun*."



"As soon as we get the chance," Jake said. "I promise."



"Okay," Erika said again. "Be careful, Jake."



-------------------------------------------------------------



LOCATION: BAD WOLF

SCENE: Cockpit



The BAD WOLF slipped out of warp-space, and Raxl looked out at the space station Limbo. He hadn't laid eyes on it in almost five years; this part of the galaxy was a little too rough-and-tumble, even for Raxl's taste. He set a course for the station and activated his comm console.



"Limbo space-traffic control, this is BAD WOLF requesting a docking trajectory," he said. A moment later, a voice crackled back at him from the comm.



[[Acknowledged,]] the voice said. [[Reduce to one-quarter impulse and await further instruction.]]



Rax complied, settling back in the pilot's seat. As he waited, a compiled a mental list of Limbo's high-ranking riff raff, trying to remember which ones owed him favors and which ones wanted him dead. Brak said he'd pulled a few strings with the head of the local Ferengi Trade Mission, a DaiMon Snek.



"Snek's an up and comer," Brak had said. "Limbo's not the most glamorous posting, but if he can find a way to squeeze profit out of that place, he's going to be become a very powerful figure in Ferengi politics."



"Ferengi politics," Rax snorted. "You mean backroom deals, bribes, corruption..."



"Business," Brak said. "Be careful with Snek. He owes me a favor, but if he thinks there's more money to be made in selling you out, he'll do it without a second thought. Keep your head down, and try not to blow anything up."



"No promises," Rax had said.



So, there was Snek. He hadn't been around when Rax had last been on Limbo, but Rax had dealt with enough Ferengi gangsters in his time to know to watch his step around them. Other noteworthy personalities included an unpleasant Nausicaan whose name Rax couldn't quite remember ("Cujo"? "Kojak"? Something like that), as well as a Cardassian named Alket Daheel who ran a brutal arena that was a hotbed for gambling and gladatorial bloodsports. Rax had found himself in Daheel's Pit once before, and it was not a memory he was keen to revisit.



And then there was Tella Yavin.



When he thought of the brown-skinned Romulan, Rax shuddered a little involuntarily. She'd been running Limbo for years now, and Rax had seen the things she'd done to the people stupid enough to cross her on her own turf. He'd crossed her path once before, and had been his usual charming self, and Yavin had run him off the station in a hail of unfriendly phaser fire. Rax had barely gotten his ship to warp before Yavin's private army blasted him out of the sky, and she'd sent him a subspace communication warning him to never show his face on Limbo again.



So. Best not to run into her, either.



Rax sighed. As usual, the list of people who liked him was depressingly short, and the list of people who might like to shoot him on sight seemed to get bigger by the day. After wrapping up this Selyara bounty, Rax decided it was time for a long vacation somewhere quiet, sunny, and very very remote.



[[BAD WOLF, your trajectory is cleared, proceed to Bay 21 and begin docking sequence.]]



"Roger that," Raxl said, angling the BAD WOLF towards the docking bay. The next few days were going to be very interesting.



-------------------------------------------------------------------



LOCATION: USS PHOENIX

SCENE: Transporter Room



Jake was dressed in civilian clothes- brown pants, boots, with a plain black shirt and jacket , with his brown rucksack slung over his shoulder. It contained some of his engineering tools, as well as a tricorder, phaser, and his commbadge. He'd decided not to wear his uniform; they couldn't hide the fact that they'd arrived in a Federation starship, and news of their status as fugitives would probably have reached even a remote station like Limbo by now, but Jake thought it better not to advertise his allegiance (or former allegiance) to any major galactic political powers.



Russ BaShen, similarly attired, was already in the transporter room when Jake arrived. He smiled as Jake entered, but he looked like his mind was somewhere far away.



"Russ," Jake said. "You alright?"



"Just wanting to get this done," BaShen said with a shrug. "Sooner we find this Selyara person, the sooner we can get back to the fight, you know?"



"Don't count your chickens and all that," Jake said. "I have a feeling Limbo's not going to give up anything without a fight."



"You been here before?"



"No, but I've been to places like it," Jake said. "Pirate outposts, non-aligned space stations, out-of-the-way gambling dens..."



"Sign of a misspent youth?" Russ grinned at him.



"When you grow up in deep space, you get used to people with a few layers of grime on them," Jake said. "Being far away from any organized authority tends to appeal to a specific type of person, you know?"



"Oh, I know," Russ nodded. "You ready?"



Jake nodded back, and the two men stepped onto the transporter platform. They were the first pair to beam over to the station, with other teams to follow them shortly. Kane's orders were clear: split up, stay in contact, be careful. Smaller groups could cover a larger area, and would draw a lot less attention than a fully-equipped Starfleet crew moving through the station in a pack.



"Just a moment, Commander Crichton," the transporter tech said. "I'm waiting for the station to authorize transport on their end."



"Take your time," Jake said. "I don't want them scattering out particles across the quadrant because we were too rude to knock."



"So what's the plan if we run into this Seth character?" Russ asked.



"I'm planning to shove you at him and run," Jake smirked. "Why? Did you have something in mind?"



"Well, I figure maybe our search gets a little less frantic if we take him out of the picture, you know?'



"Your welcome to try," Jake said. "I do my best to steer clear of anyone labeled 'Galaxy's Most Dangerous'."



"You're about to beam aboard a station full of them," Russ observed.



"Well, nobody's perfect."



"Sir, Limbo's acknowledged our request and they're standing by," the transporter tech reported.



"Here goes nothing," Jake said. "Energize."



=========================================================

NRPG: Guess it's time to shake the rust off and get back to it. I've got the next few days free if anyone would like to JP!



Shawn Putnam

a.k.a.

Jake Crichton, Commander

Chief Engineering Officer

USS PHOENIX