The Klingon Con
Posted on Mar 18, 2015 @ 12:43pm by Commander Jacob Crichton
Edited on on Mar 18, 2015 @ 12:43pm
Mission: Limbo
= The Klingon Con =
(cont'd from "Tools of Conquest")
LOCATION: Shuttle
SCENE: Interior
STARDATE: [2.15] 0317.1714
Jake felt like an idiot. Kalenda had taken his suggestion that she blindfold him more literally than he'd anticipated, and now he sat in one of the shuttle's passenger seats, buckled tightly in, with a smelly bit of dirty bandage wrapped several times around the top of his head. If the fabric wasn't doing enough to obstruct his vision, Jake had a feeling the *smell* would have managed the job.
Jake had managed to take a quick inventory of the shuttle's interior before they'd blindfolded him; Kalenda was at the co-pilot's station, while one of her burly Klingon flunkies manned the main controls. They'd searched him thoroughly before letting him aboard, but found no weapons. Kalenda's flunky had made a fuss over the bag of engineering tools that Jake had slung around his shoulder, but Jake insisted that he would need them to give the torpedoes a proper inspection.
"What's he to do?" Kalenda had asked her subordinate, flashing him one of those toothy smiles that could mean almost anything. "He's not going to kill us all with a hyperspanner, is he?"
The Klingon flunky frowned, and cast a suspicious glance in Jake's direction. Jake stood there, trying to look innocent.
"He'll be under guard," Kalenda said. "Now enough fuss, just get him aboard."
A few minutes later, Jake was trussed to the chair, with a stinking piece of moldy cloth pressed up against his eyes, and they were on their way to Kalenda's hidden storeship. It was called the WHISPERHAWK, after a fierce avian creature native to one of the Klingons' earliest colony worlds.
"An impressive name, don't you think?" asked Kalenda. Jake couldn't see her, but he turned his head towards where her voice had come from.
"Ambush predators, aren't they?" Jake asked. It had been awhile since his xenozoology courses at the Academy, but he remembered helping Dahlia research whisperhawks for a school project, and some of the details appeared to have stuck.
"They fly higher than any other creature on their homeworld," Kalenda said. "All the way to the upper atmosphere, they say. Their eyes are as sharp as Klingon steel. They float, way up in the heavens, until they spy something they want. Then, the whisperhawk comes crashing down, quick and quiet, like a shooting star. The prey never even knows they're there, until the hawks talon's are bearing down on it."
"And what prey has caught your eye?" asked Jake.
"Fortunately for the people of Limbo, this particular hawk is full," Kalenda said. "Though you'll be clearing out some significant space in my holds, won't you little duck?"
"So the WHISPERHAWK rides again?"
"It would be glorious," Kalenda said, sounding nostalgic. Jake imagined her staring wistfully out at the passing stars. "But no. I've fought too hard for my position on Limbo. I will not risk all that I have won to snatch after faded glory."
"I understand," Jake said, though really he thought Kalenda's hesitancy had more to do with fear of Tella Yavin's reprisals than anything else. Kalenda the Black had not so far struck him as someone overly concerned with consequences, but she was smart enough to know not to stir up the hornet's nest.
Jake felt the subtle shifts in the vibrations from the engine, and realized they must be on their final approach to the WHISPERHAWK. He was glad; he wanted to get on with this. His heart was pounding in his ears, but he was making a good show of looking calm. He couldn't wait to get the stinking bandage off of his face, too. As the shuttle began to dock with the WHISPERHAWK, Jake hoped that Russ was keeping up his end of the plan, because otherwise he was going to be in a lot of trouble.
=[/\]=
LOCATION: USS PHOENIX
SCENE: Bridge
{{Sir, I'm picking up a disturbance in Shuttle Bay 2,}} Byte reported from the Ops station. Kane looked over from the captain's chair.
"What kind?" he asked.
{{Someone is running start-up procedures on the USS TIGRIS,}} said Byte. {{Shall I override, sir?}}
"Override," Kane agreed. "And patch me through."
Byte tapped a few commands on his console, then looked over at Kane and nodded. Kane didn't have time to appreciate how human the gesture looked. He frowned at the air and stood up, tugging his uniform down as he did.
"Bridge to Shuttle Bay 2," Kane bellowed. "What the hell is going on down there?"
[[Uh, sorry sir...]] came the voice of Russ BaShen. Kane quirked an eyebrow and glanced at Byte. The android stared back impassively.
"Mr. BaShen," Kane said. "I thought you were on the station with Crichton."
[[Yes, that is, I was,]] BaShen said.
"And now you're here, trying to sneak off with one of my runabouts?" Kane asked. He was irritated, but also curious. Commander Jos had briefed him on Crichton and BaShen's initial plan, but the two officers had been out of contact for several hours now. Kane hoped they hadn't gotten themselves into some kind of trouble, then decided that was probably exactly what had happened.
[[I can explain,]] BaShen said quickly.
"I'm all ears, Lieutenant."
Over the comm, Kane thought he heard BaShen taking a deep breath.
[[Well Jake went off with some Klingon arms dealers to their cloaked storeship to inspect some torpedoes he's pretending to buy from them, but really he's going to rig them to leak radiation, which I'll be able to track from the runabout all the way to the cloaked ship's location, and then when they decloak to vent the built-up radiaiton, I'll be able to beam out Jake plus whatever valuables I can find in the Klingon's holds,]] Russ said, so quickly that it almost made Kane dizzy.
Kane stood for a moment, absorbing everything Russ had just said. It was... a lot.
"Follow-up question, lieutenant," Kane said finally. "Are you *insane*?"
[[Not that there isn't enough blame to go around here, but I'm going to have to pin this one on Crichton, sir.]]
"Get up to the bridge," Kane sighed, sinking into the captain's chair. "We'll scan for that radiation signal and get Crichton out of there."
[[No good, sir,]] BaShen said quickly. [[They'd see us coming a mile away. The runabout is small enough that they won't pick out it's signal against all the radiation.]]
"And if you're wrong, they'll shoot you down," Kane said.
[[Not me, sir,]] BaShen said, and Kane could imagine the wide grin on the flight lieutenant's face as he said it. [[We don't have a lot of time. We, uh, sort of put this plan together pretty fast.]]
"I can tell," Kane said dully. "Alright. But I want you in contact, Mr. BaShen, and if *anything* goes wrong..."
[[Roger that, sir,]] said BaShen. [[Thank you.]]
Kane looked over at Byte and nodded. The android tapped a few more commands on his console, releasing the lockdown on Shuttlebay 2. The main viewer switched to an image of the USS TIGRIS flying up and out of the PHOENIX and accelerating away.
=[/\]=
LOCATION: WHISPERHAWK
SCENE: Storage Bay
Jake knelt beside the torpedo and waved his tricorder over its chassis. He wasn't paying attention to the results, since he wasn't particularly interested in the torpedo's specifications. Instead, he was looking for an access panel, something he could open up to get at the torpedo's inner workings. Behind him, two of Kalenda's men stood, leaning casually against one of the other torpedos that lined the bay.
Kalenda's storeship looked like a modified Bird of Prey. Most of the crew quarters had been gutted to make room for more storage space, resulting in large bays like the one in which Jake now stood. He could imagine more of them, all filled with various types of munitions. Her collection was probably large, and impressive, but Jake doubted if she had anything more valuable than these torpedoes. Torpedoes were powerful, hard to make, and closely guarded by every major power that manufactured them. Getting black market photon torpedoes, especially high quality ones like these, must have cost Kalenda quite a bit.
But of course, it wasn't the bombs that Jake had to keep an eye out for. This whole plan was so he could get away with Kalenda's money... money which she conveniently kept in the form of gold-pressed latinum, as she'd let slip back at her warehouse. This made things easier; instead of gaining access to the ship's computer and bypassing who knows how much internal security- not to mention external security from LIMBO's network- all Jake had to do was find out where Kalenda kept her crates of wealth. When Russ showed up to pull him out of the fire, he could beam up her latinum too. One daring getaway later, and Jake and Russ would be sitting on top of an impressive pile of loot.
"Hurry up," one of the Klingons growled. Jake rolled his eyes and put his tricorder away.
"Readings look good," Jake said. "I just have to check the internal circuitry for corrosion."
He reached into his pack for another tool, but one of the Klingons stepped forward and clamped an iron hand on Jake's shoulder.
"No," the Klingon said.
"Kalenda said I could inspect them," Jake argued. "That means I take a look inside. Otherwise there's no deal."
"She never said anything about taking them apart," the Klingon said. "Not about to let you start digging around inside those things, human."
"Then take me back to LIMBO," Jake said, fiercely shrugging off the Klingon's hand on his shoulder. He stood up quickly, but the Klingon was still at least a half foot taller than him. Jake stared up into the Klingon's face and set his chin defiantly.
"Not a good place for you to make demands," the Klingon said, his voice a low rumble from deep inside his barrel chest. "Could get hurt."
"Blow this deal, and *you* get hurt," Jake said. "Kalenda will see to that."
The Klingon didn't say anything, but bared his teeth and growled at Jake. Jake bared his own teeth in reply, but he decided that growling was probably not one of his strong suits. Instead, he decided to assault them with a piece of old fashioned terran wisdom.
"The customer is always right."
The Klingon stared down at him for a moment longer, and Jake tensed himself, waiting for a backhand blow across his cheek. But the blow didn't come. The Klingon took a step back, spat a wad of phlegm at Jake's feet, and returned to lean against the nearby torpedo with his comrade.
"Good," Jake said, waiting to reinforce his dominant position now that he had it. He cast a final dirty look in the Klingon's direction, then knelt beside the torpedo again. He opened the access port and began to fiddle with the circuitry inside. He could feel the Klingons watching him, but he doubted they had any frame of reference for what he was doing. Sabotage can look like basic maintenance to the untrained eye.
Jake replaced the access panel, then took out his tricorder again. He waved it over the torpedo chassis, inspected the results, then nodded. He closed the tricorder before either of the Klingons could sneak a peek at the readout: a blinking yellow message that read "WARNING: RADIATION LEAK DETECTED".
"Looks good," Jake said, looking at the two Klingons. "I assume all the torpedoes are in similar condition."
"Inspect another if you have to," said one of the Klingons, the one who hadn't come over to give him grief about opening up the torpedo.
Jake glanced back at the torpedo he'd just rigged. The leak was small now, but it was going to get bigger, and fast. The countdown had officially begun.
"I think we're good here," Jake said. He made for the door. The two Klingons followed lazily.
=[/\]=
LOCATION: USS TIGRIS
SCENE: Cockpit
Russ hunched over the long-range scanner controls, running the scan on the wavelength that Jake had told him, and frowning each time the result failed to yield any response. Russ ran the scan again, then again, refreshing the results each time they came in, and hoping like hell that Jake had given him the correct information.
"Come on," he said quietly. "Come on. Come on....."
Suddenly, a blip appeared on the sensor. Russ widened his eyes and quickly ran the scan again. The blip was there. Russ grinned and spun his chair to face the flight controls. He set course and the TIGRIS zoomed off.
"Here I come," he said.
=[/\]=
LOCATION: WHISPERHAWK
SCENE Bridge
The Klingons led Jake to the bridge, where Kalenda was waiting. She rose from the captain's chair and smiled at Jake as he approached.
"Duckling," she said, brushing his cheek lightly with the back of her hand. "I trust everything is in order?"
"The merchandise looks fine," Jake said. "Has my colleague signaled your man on LIMBO yet?"
"Not yet," Kalenda said. "Don't worry. These things take time. I'm sure your friend would never *leave* you here."
She smiled again, and Jake thought that Kalenda the Black wouldn't mind if Russ never came back. She looked like she had plenty of ideas for ways to keep him entertained... and he had a feeling most of them would hurt.
"Is there somewhere I can wait?" Jake asked. "Your ship is beautiful, but it's not quite comfortable."
"We take that as a compliment," Kalenda said. She flicked her wrist dismissively at the turbolift door. "There is replimat one deck down. You may refresh yourself and wait for your friend there."
"Mistress!" one of the Klingons said. He stood, locked eyes with Kalenda. The two Klingons barked a conversation at each other in their native language, one that Jake had a sneaking suspicion was about *him*. Jake couldn't tell who was winning, but then Kalenda stepped forward and knocked her subordinate off his feet with a powerful palm strike to the chin, and suddenly right and wrong didn't seem to matter. The two other Klingons on the bridge laughed heartily as Kalenda basked in their adoration, then turned and smiled to Jake.
"A brief disagreement as to leadership style," she said. "You understand."
"Of course," Jake said.
"The replimat," Kalenda said, gesturing at the turbolift again. "We'll notify you as soon as your friend makes contact."
Jake nodded, and stepped into the turbolift. He took the ride to the lower deck, but did not exit. Instead, he leaned out, glanced up the corridor in both direction, and saw no one. The ship had a skeleton crew: four permanent officers, the Klingon flunk that had accompanied Kalenda, and Kalenda herself. Six in total, and at least four of them were on the bridge.
Satisfied, Jake ordered the turbolift to the engineering level. It hummed silently along to its destination as Jake tried to keep his breathing slow and steady. Things were going smoothly, he told himself. Just a little more to go, and he'd be home free... assuming Russ was ready with the getaway vehicle.
=[/\]=
LOCATION: USS TIGRIS
SCENE: Cockpit
The TIGRIS dropped out of sublight speed and into a vast section of empty space about 300,000 kilometers away from LIMBO. This area of space was unexceptional but for a slightly increased level of background radiation, which Russ guessed helped further conceal the cloaked storeship's location. This also meant that it would cover Russ's approach quite nicely. As long as he took care to stay outside the range of the cloaked ship's close-range sensors, they shouldn't notice him.
The radiation signal was still there, and it was getting stronger. Jake had told Russ that the radiation leak would become gradually worse, until the Klingon ship's internal sensors detected the problem and automatically vented the chamber. The ship would have to drop its cloak to do this, which would leave them wide open for Russ to quickly beam Jake and the loot back to the TIGRIS.
Russ ordered the TIGRIS to a full stop and inspected the sensor readouts. It was only a matter of time.
=[/\]=
LOCATION: WHISPERHAWK
SCENE: Engineering
The WHISPERHAWK's engineering section was small and cramped, a poor comparison to the state of the art engineering section Jake enjoyed on the PHOENIX. He picked his way carefully through, looking for an access port for the vessel's central computer. As he rounded a tight corner, he spotted one of Kalenda's men, hunched over a workstation with his back to Jake.
Jake stopped suddenly and looked for a way around. He spotted one, took a quick look at the Klingon, and decided to risk it. He moved slowly, keeping low and ducking behind equipment whenever possible. The humming of the WHISPERHAWK's warp core helped cover the sound of his movement, and a moment later Jake was on the other side of the room. He found the console he was looking for and activated it.
Jake brought up the WHISPERHAWK's schematics first. It had been heavily modified, and was mostly storage and defensive systems now, but Jake knew that Kalenda kept the bulk of her wealth somewhere aboard. Jake ran an internal scan, and glanced over his shoulder quickly as he waited for the results to compile. He saw no sign of the Klingon engineer.
Jake looked back at the scan results. It was a list of chemical components aboard the ship, and their respective concentrations. Jake scrolled quickly though the results until his eyes lit upon the result he was looking for:
Latinum, Concentration 84.061%.
Gold, Concentration 12.471%.
Jake highlighted those results and brought up the command console for the room they had come from. The vault was heavily protected, of course, and Jake ran into a firewall almost immediately. But he'd expected that, and tried a backdoor, accessing the room's environmental controls. He grinned with satisfaction as he dropped the temperature in the room down to below 10 degrees, far below that standard ambient temperature aboard a Klingon ship.
"There you go, Russ," Jake said to himself. "Ice marks the spot."
Satisfied with his results, and not wanting to press his luck any further, Jake logged out of the computer station. He turned and began to slowly make his way through the Engineering section, moving carefully to avoid alerting the Klingon he'd seen lurking there earlier. All that remained now was for the ship to vent the radiation, and for Russ to beam Jake and the latinum home. The plan looked like it might actually work.
And that's when the alarm went off.
=[/\]=
LOCATION: WHISPERHAWK
SCENE: Bridge
"
Kalenda the Black turned to look at the officer and raised an eyebrow. "
"
"
"
Kalenda frowned. She stood and strode over to the second officer's station. She leaned over his shoulder and pressed a few buttons on the console herself.
"
But Kalenda wasn't satisfied. She modified the scan parameters, compensating for the increased amount of background radiation, and ran the scan again. This time, there was a hit: a faint warp signature nearby.
Kalenda smiled.
"
"
"
"
"
The second officer nodded. Alarm klaxons began to blare throughout the ship, and some of Kalenda's crew moved to the turbolifts to begin the search. Kalenda sat back, feeling for the first time in a long while the thrill of the hunt.
"Thank you, duckling," Kalenda the Black said.
=[/\]=
LOCATION: USS TIGRIS
SCENE: Cockpit
Russ frowned. The radiation levels were high enough that the ship's internal sensors should definitely have been tripped by now, and they were still rising steadily. Russ waited for the ship to decloak and vent the excess radiation, but it never appeared.
Russ waited. And waited.
He glanced back at the readouts. The radiation levels were growing dangerously high. He supposed it might be possible to seal off the chamber, but that wouldn't stop the leak, and the seals wouldn't hold forever. If Jake wasn't off that ship before those seals failed...
Russ frowned and stared helplessly at the readout.
"Come on, Jake," he said.
=[/\]=
LOCATION: WHISPERHAWK
SCENE: Engineering
"You!" an angry voice shouted from somewhere up ahead. Jake dropped behind a workstation, but it was too late. The Klingon he'd slipped by before was charging up the walkway towards him, disruptor in hand. The alarm klaxons still blared loudly, and Jake didn't want to think about how many more of Kalenda's men might be on their way. He turned and ran back the way he had come, keeping his head low.
A lance of yellow fire scorched an ugly black line into the bulkhead just above Jake's head. Jake ducked away from a shower of stinging sparks and rounded a corner, just in time to avoid another disruptor blast. He couldn't keep this up; the Klingons knew the ship's layout better than Jake did, and sooner or later they'd trap him in a corner. He had to find a way to even the odds a little.
Jake put a little more distance between himself and his pursuer, then skidded to a halt in front of a maintenance access panel near the warp core. Jake fumbled through his pack, digging desperately around for the tool he needed. Somewhere behind him, he heard the Klingon shouting for him.
Jake removed the panel. He wasn't an expert on Klingon computer systems, but most humanoid species had a lot of commonality in their starship design. He looked around for points of references and made a series of intelligent guesses until he found a row of quantum cables plugged in to energy convertor matrix. He dug at the cables desperately, trying to loosen them. He could hear the Klingon's heavy footsteps on the walkway behind him, getting closer.
Frustrated, Jake dropped the tool back into his pack and grabbed a handful of cables just as the Klingon rounded a bend and saw him. The Klingon sneered in triumph and raised his distruptor, and Jake yanked on the handful of cables as hard as he could. The cables separted, tearing apart, and the energy convertor matrix made a strange, high-pitch squelching sound. Lights throughout the Engineering section flickered off briefly before blinking back to life. And suddenly, Jake felt himself lifting off the ground.
He snatched at the lip of the maintenance panel, tucking his pack tight against his body to keep from floating away. The Klingon looked confused as the gravity disappeared and he bobbed gently into the air. The confusion didn't last long, and the Klingon was aiming his weapon at Jake again when Jake launched himself off the maintenance console and towards the Klingon. They collided hard, knocking the wind out of Jake, and began a frantic struggle for control of the disruptor. As they flailed in the air, they bumped against the bulkhead on one side of the corridor, then the other.
Jake got a tight grip on the weapon's muzzle, planted both of his feet against the Klingon's chest, and shoved as hard as he could. Jake and the Klingon went sailing off in opposite directions, but much to Jake's chagrin, it was the Klingon who had retained possession of the disruptor. Luckily, the Klingon was spinning in place, with no nearby equipment or bulkheads to grab to stop his wild trajectory. Jake took advantage of the Klingon's distress to scramble along the side of the bulkhead, moving from handhold to handhold to climb the side of the ship's corridor like a ladder.
All he could think was that Russ should have beamed him out by now.
=[/\]=
LOCATION: WHISPERHAWK
SCENE: Bridge
Kalenda snatched at the armrests of her captain's chair to keep from floating away.
"
"
"
"
"
=[/\]=
LOCATION: USS TIGRIS
SCENE: Cockpit
The sensors blinked frantically, indicating that radiation levels had built to unsafe levels, and Russ BaShen decided he was done waiting. He had to find some way to signal Jake. If the engineer knew that Russ was there waiting for him, maybe there was something he could do inside the ship.
Unfortunately, Russ only knew of one way to get the cloaked ship's attention.
He fired up the engines and powered up the TIGRIS' forward phaser array. He set the phasers to their lowest setting, targeted the coordinates for the radiation reading, and crossed his fingers.
"Here goes nothing," he said, holding his breath.
=[/\]=
LOCATION: WHISPERHAWK
SCENE: Engineering
The ship suddenly rocked violently. Jake grabbed tightly to a bulkhead and waited for the vibrations to pass. The ship's power flickered and died, and a moment later the emergency lights flared to life, filling the corridors with an infernal red glow.
"What the hell was *that*?" Jake asked himself, shaking his head and trying to clear the ringing sound out of his ears. It felt like the ship had hit something, maybe, or that someone had fired on it.
Fired on it.
Jake's eyes widened. It was Russ. Russ was out there.
Something must have gone wrong, Jake realized. The ship wasn't venting the radiation, so the cloak wasn't dropping, and radiation was building to critical levels. Kalenda must have smelled a rat and overridden the emergency protocols. So Russ was shooting at the WHISPERHAWK, maybe trying to get them to drop the cloak and shoot back.
**Or maybe he's letting me know he's waiting for me,** Jake thought.
He looked around, trying to orient himself. If he could find another command console, he could order the ship to vent the radiation, giving Russ the opening he needed. He thought he remembered passing one a little ways down the corridor to his left, and started scrambling for handholds along the wall, pulling himself in that direction.
He could hear more Klingons now- apparently the Klingon engineer he'd tussled with earlier had called for backup. Jake slowed his scramble as he approached a T-junction at the end of the corridor. He listened, and heard a steady metallic scuffling coming from around the bend. Jake hugged himself closer to the wall as another Klingon came into view, traversing handholds like monkey-bars along what used to be the corridor's ceiling.
Jake waited until the Klingon passed by, then scrambled quickly away in the opposite direction. He finally came to what he was looking for and grabbed for the edge of the command console. His fingers brushed lightly against it and fell away. Jake pushed himself off the wall towards the console, slamming into it a little harder than he'd intended.
Jake heard a voice curse in Klingon, and turned to see one of Kalenda's men, alerted by the sound, coming up the corridor. He hadn't seen Jake yet, so Jake tucked himself against the wall as best he could and waited for the Klingon to lumber clumsily into view.
Jake pushed off the wall quickly, the strap of his engineering toolkit held out before him. He collided with the Klingon's back and whipped the strap up and around the Klingon's neck, cinching it tightly around the Klingon's throat. They spun wildly in the air as they struggled, but with no gravity, the Klingon just couldn't get the leverage it needed. Jake held on to the straps as tightly as he could and waited for the Klingon's struggles to weaken. When Jake was satisfied that his attacker was unconscious, he slowly unwrapped the strap and shoulder his bag again. He pushed himself off the body to float back over to the command console, and activated it.
=[/\]=
LOCATION: WHISPERHAWK
SCENE: Bridge
"
"
"
A flashing light on one of the keypads built into her captain's chair attracted Kalenda's attention. Someone was trying to access the ship's command systems. Kalenda grinned and traced the access back to it's location.
"
Kalenda pushed herself up from the chair and floated towards the turbolift. She stopped outside the doors, activated the control for an emergency supplies panel built into the wall next to it, and retrieved a pair of magboots.
"I'm coming for you, little duck," she said, sounding excited, as she pulled the boots over her feet.
=[/\]=
LOCATION: WHISPERHAWK
SCENE: Engineering
The computer buzzed angrily at him once again, denying his request for access with a rapidly blinking red light. Jake backed out of the command menu and cursed. The WHISPERHAWK's firewalls were too good to easily bypass, especially now that Kalenda had ordered a red alert. Jake couldn't find a way in to the tactical subsystems to deactivate the cloak.
He cursed again. There had to be a way.
Behind him, Jake heard the steady hum of the WHISPERHAWK's warp core. Gradually, an idea blossomed in his mind. He set to work in the computer once more.
=[/\]=
LOCATION: USS TIGRIS
SCENE: Cockpit
"Come on!" Russ shouted angrily, as he made yet another pass. The TIGRIS' phasers lashed out, clearly exploding against the cloaked ship, but still it only sat there, refusing to decloak, fire back, or even raise its shields.
"Don't you want a piece of me?" Russ said, maneuvering the TIGRIS around for another pass. He briefly considered increasing the phaser strength, and decided to do it. He had to show Kalenda that he meant business, it was the only way for him to get at Jake.
Russ entered another firing pattern, and as the TIGRIS approached the cloaked vessel, he fired again.
"Sorry Jake," he said under his breath. "Keep your head down."
=[/\]=
LOCATION: WHISPERHAWK
SCENE: Engineering
The ship rocked again, more violently than before. Jake banged his head against the console and briefly saw stars. He shook his head and returned to work. The tactical systems were all locked down due to the red alert, but that meant power had been diverted away from certain systems considered to be non-essential during combat. With Kalenda's attention focused on her external attacker, she'd never notice if someone hacked into, say, the automated maintenance subsystems and turned a few of them off.
Jake gave a tight smile and logged out. He pushed himself away from the console, looking around for better cover. If he just kept his head down a few moments longer, he might just make it out of this in one piece.
Then he heard a familiar sound, a WHUMP ka-CHUNK sound of metal on metal. Jake recognized it as magnetic boots. He scrambled along the wall, trying to get away from the sound, but it was still getting closer. Jake was turned around, not sure which way to go, and as he rounded a bend he came almost face to face with Kalenda the Black.
"Hello little duckling," she said, her smile promising all manner of pain to come. Jake watched as she removed a mek'leth from her belt and began to advance on him, tracing lazy circles in the air before her with the blade.
"Someone's shooting at you!" Jake shouted, doing his best to scramble along the wall away from her. "Aren't you mad at them?"
"Mad?" Kalenda asked, her eyes wide and wild. "On the contrary! This is the most fun I've had in *years*! And now I even get to kill you myself! Honestly, it's the best gift I've ever gotten!"
"It might get you killed!" said Jake. "That radiation will cook a Klingon just as well as a human!"
"Exciting, isn't it?" Kalenda asked. "Death lurking, ready to pounce at any moment!"
She was getting close now, close enough that she might try a lunge. Jake thought he might be able to pull himself away in time, but if he launched himself off in the wrong direction, he could leave himself floating helpless in the center of a corridor, and Kalenda could approach him at her leisure. Jake glanced over in the direction of the warp core, listening to its rhythmic humming. Any minute now, he thought...
"Even if you kill us," Jake said, pulling himself hand over hand away from Kalenda the Black. "Your secrets out, right? Tella Yavin's people are definitely gonna notice if you blow up a Starfleet runabout this close to LIMBO. There goes your secret hiding place!"
"Problems for another day!" Kalenda said, readying her blade. "For now, I'm content to simply run you through. Goodbye, little duck!"
Jake pushed himself off the wall, but Kalenda was faster than he'd expected. Her blade trace a shallow cut along Jake's leg as he floated by. Kalenda lashed out again, but Jake was already past her reach. She turned and began to lumber towards him again, eyes flashing with savage glee.
Jake listened for the warp core again. It still hummed loudly, but Jake thought he heard a slight irregularity in its steady heartbeat. **Just need to hold her off a few more seconds,** he thought.
"You have a lot of spirit," Kalenda said. "I will remember you, Crichton!"
"Wait!" Jake said, holding up a hand. Kalenda hesitated, and raised an eyebrow. "You hear that?"
"Hear...?" Kalenda asked, confusion shadowing her expression as she turned around.
"Sounds like an energy build-up around the warp core," Jake said with a grin. "Usually that excess energy gets shunted through auxiliary systems to power the rest of the ship... unless somebody turned those systems off."
Kalenda turned to look back at Jake, realization dawning on her face.
The warp core hum suddenly made a discordant crackling sound, and a pulse of energy burst through the ship. It was strong enough to push Jake backwards against the bulkhead, hard enough to knock the wind out of him. Kalenda remained standing, her magboots fixing her firmly to the floor, but the mek'leth flew from her grip to clatter against the opposite wall.
Computer consoles all around them sputtered and winked off, and even the ship's emergency lighting faded and eventually died. They were left standing in pitch darkness. The excess energy around the warp core had overloaded and dispersed in a sudden pulse, overloading the ship's systems. The WHISPERHAWK was exposed.
"No," Kalenda said quietly, as Jake disappeared before her eyes in a shimmering glow.
=[/\]=
LOCATION: USS TIGRIS
SCENE: Cockpit
Jake rushed into the cockpit. Russ BaShen turned to grin up at him.
"I got the latinum," he reported.
"Good," Jake said. "We need to get out of here. I knocked out the ship's power, but auxiliary generators will have it back online any second now."
"Wait," Russ said, turning to the flight controls.
"Wait?" Jake asked, eyes wide. "We need to *move*, Russ!"
"Hang on!" Russ shouted again, his fingers flying over the control. Jake looked nervously out the window as the WHISPERHAWK, now exposed, began to slowly return to life before his eyes.
=[/\]=
LOCATION: WHISPERHAWK
SCENE: Engineering
Kalenda scrambled over to a comm station and pounded the control switch repeatedly, shouting curses at it in Klingon. Finally, the console flashed to life, as the lights in the ship around her did the same. Power was coming back online. That meant *weapons* were coming back online.
"
[[
"
[[
"
=[/\]=
LOCATION: Space
SCENE: WHISPERHAWK and TIGRIS
The runabout trundled bravely away from the Bird of Prey, but not fast enough. An eldritch glow began to coalesce around the WHISPERHAWK's phaser array, building and building, reaching critical mass. The phaser blasted out, tracing green, flickering scars across the black as they raced towards the TIGRIS.
There was a blinding flash of light, and the TIGRIS was gone.
=[/\]=
LOCATION: WHISPERHAWK
SCENE: Engineering
[[
Kalenda grinned. Another enemy, consigned to the darkness forever, and Kalenda the Black still alive to tell the tale.
Then, she remembered her vault. All those crates of latinum.
"
But it was too late, she knew, even before hearing the computer's reply. Crichton's ship was destroyed... along with all of her wealth. Kalenda the Black roared her anger so long and so loud that her crew later would talk of how they could hear her, all the way up on the bridge. The story went that Kalenda was *still* screaming when Black Star forces arrived on the scene to investigate. They said she screamed all the way back to LIMBO, and only stopped screaming when she finally stood before the station's administrator, Tella Yavin.
But that is a story for another day.
=[/\]=
LOCATION: USS TIGRIS
SCENE: Cockpit
"She couldn't think we'd gotten away with it," Russ explained, as he ran a dermal regenerator over the cut in Jake's leg. "She'd never stop hunting for us, and since we don't know how long we'll be near LIMBO, that's not something we can afford."
"So you made it look like she blew us up?" Jake asked, wincing a little as his skin knit itself back together.
"It's a neat trick," Russ said, clearly proud. "If you go to warp just as the enemy ship's phasers reach your location, *poof*! You disappear, and it looks like they blasted you to pieces. It helps if you've released a pocket of flammable gas for their phasers to ignite, too. Makes for a nice fireworks display."
"Won't they be able to pick up our warp signature?"
"Not with all that excess radiation," Russ said. "The ship automatically vented when the power came back online, flooded the whole area. There's too much sensor noise to pick out much of anything, and by the time they get it cleared up, our signal will have degraded too much to follow."
"Too much to follow," Jake pointed. "But they might still know it was there."
"You're worried Kalenda might come looking for us again?" Russ asked.
"I think she'll have her hands full with Tella Yavin," Jake said. "But I'd have felt better if we got a clean getaway."
"Under the circumstances, I think you should appreciate the getaway you *did* manage," Russ said. "This plan didn't exactly go smoothly, Jake."
"But it worked," Jake said, smiling. He leaned back in the chair, and thought of the stores of Kalenda's latinum, ensconced safely in the TIGRIS's cargo hold.
It worked.
=[/\]=
NRPG: Oof. Heist of the Century.
Jake and Russ are done with their business with Kalenda the Black (for now, anyway), and they're coming home with a ship full of loot. That's a handy thing to have in a place like LIMBO...
Shawn Putnam
a.k.a.
Jake Crichton
Chief Engineering Officer
USS PHOENIX