The False Promise Of Safety

Posted on May 07, 2015 @ 1:12am by Lieutenant James Barton
Edited on on May 07, 2015 @ 1:13am

Mission: The Lights of Hyperion

“The False Promise of Safety” (Continued from “The Gorn's Tale”)



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“We feel free when we escape – even if it be but from the frying pan to the fire.” – Eric Hoffer



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LOCATION: USS PHOENIX

SCENE: Sickbay

TIME INDEX: Shortly Before “A Matter of Time”



In one moment, the world was thrumming with the pulse and sound of the terrified refugees, layered on top of the incessant screaming of the alarm klaxons. The air was thick with the aroma of thousands of unwashed denizens of at least a half dozen worlds, most soaked in fear-sweat. Docking bay lights blazed above them, so bright that that gazing into the large airlock almost hurt the eyes, so stark that it made everyone within look old and tired, or moreso, anyway. There was no joy in the air, no sense of heady excitement at the prospect of travel to new worlds or new opportunities. Instead, the air was a thick mixture of fear and despair – fear from those who were close enough to the doors to expect that they would be loaded up and ferried away from their homes, friends, and any semblance of the lives they knew at speeds faster than light itself; the despair was from those who were far enough back that they could already tell they’d be left behind.



Then, there was a shout from the Andorian, a cocky grin from the engineer, a whine, the briefest chill (*The dying,* he told himself) and suddenly he was in a different place entirely. The chorus of a thousand voices gave way to a purple velvet silence, only interrupted by the odd whisper or unassuming beep of a diagnostic machine. The shiny, black, plasteel floor had been replaced with a dense carpet, which seemed to absorb sound. The air was cleaner, drier, and slightly touched by the scent of antiseptic. A Starfleet sickbay. A moment earlier, Barnes could tell, it had been quiet. The transporter had ended that, bringing some of the chaos of LIMBO into this peaceful space.



The woman he’d pulled out of the arena, the woman called Kass Thytos, took one look around the room they’d emerged in and, apparently convinced she’d gotten as far out of danger as was likely, promptly collapsed into a surprised looking man with a two day beard and a jumpsuit in medical blue. The doctor and Jos, the neurosurgeon, surged forward, falling into a rhythm that spoke of not only confidence, but familiarity. Barnes nodded as he watched them, satisfied. She would live. Whatever nonsense operation these people were running that had led her to the Pits hadn’t quite killed her, though not for lack of trying on the universe’s part. She’d been very, very lucky.



A thought struck Barnes like an open handed slap, and it made him blink in surprise: The woman hadn’t just "been lucky"; Jacen Barnes had *saved* her. The Andorian, Jos, had provided his skill. The unconscious woman, Montoya, had provided her blood. But if it hadn’t been for the worthless screw up drunk who wasn’t any good to anybody, none of that would have been possible and she’d have died unremarked in the Pits. He’d done something…good…for someone else. The sensation was strange, disconcerting. He opened his mouth, on the verge of apologizing for lack of any other way to respond, when he felt a hand at his elbow. He glanced down, and saw the man with the wings, Thomas, was gently, but firmly, steering him away from the doctors. He followed the smaller man’s lead. They moved a few steps away, near the bulkhead wall. Barnes saw that nearby, a blue skinned woman lay perfectly still in a biobed – a stillness that spoke of a coma. Another woman nearby dozed as well, but her twitching suggested she was less at peace, and the telltale flash of blue when she touched the restraining force field confirmed the suspicion. Whoever she was, she was a prisoner first, and a patient second. Between these two, and the two that had arrived with his traveling crew, this sickbay was rapidly filling with women in distress.



Thomas spoke. “She’ll be fine. Cade’s kind of a jerk, but he knows what he’s doing.” Barnes saw that the other man wasn’t looking at him, his eyes were transfixed on the working doctors. He wore an expression similar to Barnes’ own, one born from concern at being unable to help further, but at least satisfied by the competency displayed by those who had taken over. Then, as his eyes swung to the still unconscious Montoya, his expression contorted, just for an instant, into a twisted mask of rage, then grief…then it had gone slack, unreadable. Barnes knew the look. This Thomas had just put his pain into a drawer within his mind, one with no lock and greased to open quickly and quietly, and later this evening, when he was alone, he would take that pain out, hold it up to the light, and examine it from every possible angle until he’d discovered every reason why it was all his fault. It was a hobby Barnes was familiar with.



“Who is that,” Barnes ventured, nodding to the woman who held his attention so fiercely.



Thomas grimaced. “Just someone we used to-“



“Oh, Jesus,” Barnes hissed. Thomas whipped his head at the larger man, eyes widening in surprise. “What’d they do? Get you guys to memorize a script?”



Varn's anger was replaced with confusion. “I don’t follow-“



“You know what? Forget I asked.” Thomas eyes narrowed again as he took another look at the stranger in his ship’s sickbay. In the turbulence of the Pits, he had only thought of the larger man as an immediate threat to Kass, but that impression had faded pretty quickly upon encountering Barnes and Jos in their penny-ante triage. Now, with the Major out of the worst of the situation, he was taking a second look at this newcomer, and he wasn’t sure about what he saw. Bare chested to the waist, as Cade and Jos were currently using surgical shears to remove the last of his tunic from the bleeding Thytos, his chest and arms were covered in a patchwork mural of burns, slashes, and puckers. Atop the scars, he was a drip-and-splatter painting in blood: Human-red, Romulan-green, another unidentified shade or two for contrast. He’d interjected himself into their delicate operation, and offered not one word of explanation. In the thick of the bedlam on LIMBO, Thomas had warily adopted an “any port in the storm” mentality, but now, removed from LIMBO and back in the sanity of the Phoenix, this new stranger was starting to look less like a safe haven from the storm, and a little like a thundercloud himself…



“Let’s get out of here.”



“Where are we going,” Barnes asked. In response, the smaller man’s grip subtly tightened on his elbow.



“They’ve got a lot of work to do, Mr. Barnes, and we’re just in the way,” Varn replied, though Barnes noted that his question hadn’t been answered.



Barnes considered pressing the point, then turned his attention back to the doctors working over Major Tytos. There’d be no sense, he decided, in ruining his good deed of getting her here by starting a fight that would distract her doctors. “Fine,” he whispered back. “After you,” he raised his hand in the direction of the door.



Varn scowled at him, then turned and began to walk away. Barnes followed.



He also readjusted his grip on his knapsack so that it hung lower on his back and covered the Ferengi weapon tucked into the back of his waistband. He knew the ship’s computers would automatically disable phasers, but disruptors operated differently. The screening crews at the front would have disarmed him had he come in through the airlock like the other refugees, but they’d never had the opportunity. Finally, he knew that a skilled or prepared transporter operator could have depowered the weapon during the beaming process, but Barnes doubted that anyone was paying that kind of attention on an emergency beam-in to sickbay. He couldn’t be sure until he had a free moment to pull out the disruptor and examine it, but he imagined that he was likely currently one of the best armed people aboard, and almost certainly the best armed of the refugees.



Not an advantage to give up, if he could avoid it.



Exiting the sickbay, they stepped into the halls of the USS Phoenix, and Barnes was immediately rushing to keep up with the smaller man. Like her exterior, the colors inside were more muted than was typical of Federation vessels, but the overall aesthetic was still the same. The difference between the ship and the station he’d lived on for nearly a decade was striking. He’d grown used to the patina of filth that covered LIMBO, but the walls and carpet here were pristine. Outside the sickbay, the air had no discernable scent, a far cry from the cookpits in the Forums, the heavy incense in the brothels, the blood-smell in the Pits. Aboard the station, where there was light, it was often near blinding – designed to make it easier for Tella Yavin’s Black Stars to spot and kill the fools who broke her laws. But where the light was blocked, the shadows cast were bottomless and black as pitch. Here, the lights were dim – *To save on power,* he guessed – but there were no great shadows for danger to wait for him in, either. But the greatest difference, the unfathomable chasm between where he'd come from and where he’d found himself, was the silence.



It wasn’t a pure silence, naturally. Somewhere, hundreds of meters away, a warp core housed a series of explosions powerful enough to destroy microscopic universes every few intervals of nanoseconds, and the force of those eruptions reverberated through the air, the floor, and the walls of the ship. It was almost…almost…imperceptible, but it was there. It was the sound of space, of eternity, speaking to you through your ship. Once, he’d been very practiced in that dialect. There was also the slight hiss of ventilation system. There was the sound of Thomas breathing, the brisk sound of his footfalls in the padded carpet, and the soft rustle of feathers against feathers. There were sounds, yes, but when compared to the cacophony that reigned on LIMBO, this almost-silence was the rarest of treasures. For just a moment, he heard the sound of his blood flowing in his ears. It was…nice.



Then Thomas was speaking to him, even as his brisk clip through the corridors sped up. To Barnes’ eye, he was moving like a man who was just barely holding his temper, letting his anger set his pace. “Keep up, if you will, Mr. Barnes. I’m sure they’re preparing a place for the refu-“ he caught himself and glanced back with an expression that was almost sheepish, then his face regained the stony cast he’d worn almost since they'd come aboard. “For the ones coming with us.” He faced forward and continued his march.



Behind the former science officer, Barnes smirked. Is that what he was now? Well, if so, he wasn’t the kind to take offense at the truth. He’d been called worse than ‘refugee’ before and he guessed the same was true for most of the new arrivals. “Where abouts? One of the shuttlebays, I guess.” It wasn’t exactly a question.



Thomas glanced back at him, an eyebrow raising, but if he had an observation to make, he kept it to himself. “Most likely.” He turned back and resumed his pace for a few steps, but then paused. The larger man halted as he neared. Half turning towards Barnes, Thomas spoke aloud. “Thomas Varn to Lieutenant Byte.”



A calm, disembodied voice responded from nowhere. {{Lieutenant Byte, here.}}



“Where are the…” There was another brief pause as Varn struggled to choose a word, then gave up. “Where are the refugees from LIMBO being housed?”



{{Currently, those embarking from LIMBO are being loaded into Cargo Bay One. How-}}



Varn cut him off. "Thank you, Lieutenant." It sounded to Barnes as if this Byte had more to say, but Varn had obviously gotten the information he was looking for, and the comm channel was severed. His jaw was working fiercely, as if he was secretly trying to chew through a diamond. "Cargo Bay One. Deck four. Let's go."



As he turned and resumed his stride, slower now though it was sure to pick up speed again, he passed a powered down display screen on the wall and Barnes saw his own reflection in it. Jacen Barnes wasn't much for mirrors, and for all of his deadly sins, he was a stranger to vanity. Practicality, however, he was familiar with.



"Excuse me, Mr. Varn, do you think it would be alright if-" but Thomas didn't even pause. Barnes let out a small sigh and began to half-jog behind the winged man. "Pardon me, I was just wondering..." He was close enough now to realize he was being ignored. "Hey. Hey, Thomas. Hey!" Now he was even closer and began to realize that he wasn't being ignored, this Varn was just so lost in whatever drama was playing in his head that he couldn't even hear Barnes. The larger man slowed to a walk and lifted a hand to put on Thomas' shoulder. "Hey, Varn, hold up and listen to me a seco-"



"DON'T YOU TOUCH ME!" Varn whirled on his heel, his wings exploding outward, touching the walls of the corridor they stood in. With the gore that covered him, and the thundering fury on his face, he reminded Barnes again, and moreso, of the avenging angel he'd imagined when he first saw Varn. One of his bloody hands was rising towards Barnes, either in a defensive maneuver or to push the larger man away. Whatever it was, it came at the former resident of LIMBO too fast, and triggered his own instinctive maneuver.



He raised his own hand and cupped Thomas' forearm, the better to push it away and off target if this bloody angel was going to swing at him. However, in the instant that Barnes made contact, it seemed to Thomas that this stranger was trying to grab ahold of his arm, to restrict him and hold him prisoner. His anger fused with his Starfleet training and he did the first thing he could think of to escape the predicament.



It was an open handed strike, aimed at Barnes' face. He'd been in enough of them to recognize it coming, and he knew the quickest way to deal with it. The larger man twisted his shoulders, placed his hand on Thomas' chest and shoved him back a step. He knew that if he wanted to, he could put the winged fella on his ass, but he didn't want this fight. One look at the two of them told everything someone would need to know about how a fight would end up. He wished that he'd just yelled louder to get Thomas' attention instead of putting a hand on him, but he hadn't and now he had to deal with the ramifications. He just needed to create some space without hurting the smaller man.



As Thomas recovered his balance, his temper flared further still and he raised his hands and gave Barnes a shove of his own. He wasn't worried about hurting the larger man, though he also wasn't attempting to do so. He'd just had ENOUGH, and he didn't want to be ASSAULTED or GRABBED AT. It had been a VERY, VERY HARD DAY. So, Varn held nothing back as he pushed Barnes away.



Barnes took three steps back to keep from falling backwards on his ass. It wasn't the hardest he'd ever been pushed, but it wasn't worlds away, and nothing about Varn's physique suggested he'd be capable of generating that kind of force. The bearded man's eyes widened his surprise, but as he gained his footing, he saw that the distance he'd been hoping to create now existed. Who had been backed up really didn't matter. He held up his hands as Varn glared at him, waiting for the next move.



All told, it had taken about two seconds. Varn was breathing heavy, Barnes was not.



"Whoa, whoa. Whoa. Truce, yeah?"



"Don't...touch me." Again his jaw worked at his invisible diamond.



"I'm sorry. That was my fault. You're right. I just-



"What?"



"Can we just calm down here? I'm not looking to fight." He dropped his hands. "Fact is, I owe you guys. All of you. So I'm not trying to bite the hand that kept me from getting vaporized by Tella Yavin, know? Look...it's Thomas, right? I heard you say it, Thomas Varn." Varn's eyes narrowed. "Like Jos said, I'm, uh, Jacen Barnes. We didn't actually get a chance for a civilized real-people-like introduction back there."



"Now's not the time, Mr. Barnes."



"That's actually exactly what I'm saying. Because I don't really wanna shake your hand and I doubt you wanna shake mine." As evidence, Barnes raised his hands, palms up, and displayed the dried blood there. Varn looked down at his own hands, and just for an instant, his face suggested he was seeing it for the first time. The grief-thing passed over him again, but then his face was impassive. But, unless Barnes was wrong, a little less hostile. "I'm also thinking, just from a first impressions standpoint, that it might not be best for me to march into Cargo Bay One with my new friends and neighbors half naked and covered in blood. So, what I wanted to ask earlier, before, and I'm sorry again about that, but what I wanted to ask was is there any chance that I can grab a shower somewhere before we go down there?"



=[/\]=



SCENE: Thomas Varn’s Quarters - Bathroom

TIME INDEX: Twenty Minutes Later.



It was a well-known truism throughout the galaxy, as unshakable as Newton's first law: Starfleet had the best sonic showers. Even Romulans didn't tend to argue the point. Barnes guessed that no matter how many millions in latinum Tella Yavin had amassed during her years in LIMBO, she never got to take a shower as good as the one he was stepping out of. He found himself thinking that if they had just beamed him to Thomas Varn's shower instead of sickbay, he wouldn't have minded giving up the satisfaction of living to leave LIMBO.



He looked at himself in the mirror for a moment, more out of novelty than any honest interest in his appearance. His hair, which was often dirty and curled, hung straight. It was longer than he realized. The shower had cleared away the bloody splatter, but, of course, left the patchwork quilt of injury underneath. Not even Starfleet showers were that good.



He turned to the folded pile of freshly-replicated clothing on the counter nearby. It had taken a couple tries to get them big enough as he hadn't replicated anything in years and didn't have much clue as to his actual dimensions. Varn had rolled his eyes, but didn't know that Barnes had seen. The first shirt had been much too tight, and the second still too tight but much too long. Finally, he'd given the computer in Varn's quarters enough data to provide a new long-sleeved grey shirt, and a long vest with pockets to wear over it. Then, because it was available just for the asking, Barnes went all out and replicated new undergarments, trousers, socks and boots as well. His old, bloody clothing was sitting in a pile on the bathroom floor, awaiting its date with the recycling unit.



Barnes slid on fresh jockeys, then the trousers. A part of his mind couldn't help but luxuriate in the smooth feel of the fabric, and another part of him railed at him for it. The socks and boots came next, and while the boots weren't quite a perfect fit, he could tell they'd break in nicely. He slipped the grey shirt over his hulking torso, and moved over to the pile on the floor. With a glance at the closed door, he uncovered the Ferengi disruptor and slid into the waistband of his new trousers at the small of his back. Finally he threaded his arms through the vest sleeves. Turning around and looking at his reflection from behind, he carefully tugged the vest until it covered the weapon. Shifting his weight left, then right, he nodded, confident that it was hidden enough, at least unless someone was looking for it.



He recovered his knapsack from the bathroom floor and casually draped it over one shoulder. He grabbed the pile of his old clothes and turned towards the door. He stopped as he pivoted, catching his reflection in the mirror once more. Clean, in new clothes, freshly molecularly dis- then reintegrated, and soon, once the ship disembarked, he'd be far away from LIMBO. Probably forever. Hopefully forever. He looked at the stranger with the familiar face in the mirror and whispered the only question he needed an answer to now.



"Who are you?"



=[/\]=



SCENE: Varn’s Quarters -> Cargo Bay One



Thomas had been pacing outside the bathroom door in his quarters when Barnes emerged. He had thrown a long coat over himself, but Barnes noticed he hadn’t bothered to get cleaned up first. He could already see blood on the cuffs of the smaller man’s sleeves.



“I appreciate it,” Barnes said as he stepped into the room.



“Yeah, sure.” Varn still looked like he was miles away, but his hostility had all but evaporated. Jacen imagined it would return and fade more than a few times. He was familiar with the strange cocktail brewed of adrenaline and regret, and how its effects came in waves. “We should get going.”



The trip to Cargo Bay One had passed in silence between them. Barnes considered several questions – questions about the ship, and what had brought them all to LIMBO, and who all these “someones I used to know” were, or even just what the deal was with the wings, but he didn’t need to be a Betazoid to tell that Varn wasn’t interested in talking. That was fine with Barnes. Not only was he the last person qualified to set another person’s mind at ease, it gave him the chance to enjoy the stillness of the ship. He’d gleaned that the Phoenix was understaffed, but the reality was more extreme than he’d imagined. They hadn’t passed another Starfleet officer since leaving the sickbay. If she weren’t obviously fresh-out-of-the-box, he’d have taken her for a ghost ship.



Within a handful of minutes, they were standing outside of the door to the Cargo Bay where Byte had directed Varn. The door was closed.



[[The main cargo bay door requires special permissions to access. Please state name and rank, and authorization codes to open.]]



*They’re keeping people locked in?* The thought seemed incongruous, both to Starfleet in general, and to what he had seen of these people. Taking in refugees simply to keep them under lock and key seemed paradoxical.



Varn glanced around briefly, clearly stymied. Barnes couldn’t see why, exactly. It’s not like Varn was going to have to sleep in there. All he had to do was provide his rank and command codes and…



Barnes eyes went wide as he realized. His voice was quiet in the stillness of the darkened corridor. “You’re not Starfleet?”



Varn’s eyes as he glanced furtively at the larger man told Barnes all he needed to know. Instead of answering, he turned away from the newcomer and activated his communicator. “Thomas Varn to Lieutenant Byte.”



{{Byte. Go ahead, Mr. Varn.))



“I’m with Mr. Barnes outside Cargo Bay One. The main entry has been code locked.”



{{A temporary measure, at Captain Kane’s direction, until our passengers settle.}}



“Has there been a disturbance?”



{{Disturbances. Plural. But of the four, Cargo Bay One has been the most quiet for at least a half an hour.}}



*Of the four?*



“Right. In any case, Mr. Barnes needs to get inside and I don’t have a code. Please override.”



The comm channel severed, and before two moments had passed, the mammoth door of the Cargo Bay began to slide open. As it started to move, Barnes puzzled on what the Andorian had said about the passengers “settling.” That made no sense to him. A mass exodus like these people had faced was bound to be traumatizing and adrenaline-soaked. Once outside of danger, most people in that scenario would become quiet as their internal chemistry restabilized. Sure, there were outliers, but that was the most common reaction to a situation like these people faced today. It would make sense that the majority of them would be napping, or sitting quietly, or just holding tight to whatever family they were able to escape with. Barnes couldn’t imagine what would cause…



What would cause…



What…



He couldn’t believe the scene before him. The shuttlebay was packed was hundreds – maybe *thousands* - of people. Most were Human, but staggered throughout the throng, you could identify members of most of the rest of the Federation’s species. Cots had been replicated and beamed in, probably in a uniform order at first, the but the early arrivals had moved and rearranged them. There was no rhyme or reason to the place. The smell reminded Barnes of the Forums, and not in a pleasant way. He couldn’t see any, but he smelled smoke. He could hear conversations, debates, heated arguments, and he was nearly certain that he heard a woman cry out in obvious passion. He felt, for a moment, as if he must have imagined the quiet from earlier. The din in this room made it difficult to believe that silence existed anywhere, or ever had.



Varn’s expression betrayed that he was just as bewildered by the scene before him as Barnes. The throng of people in front of him reminded him of the LIMBO crowds as well, specifically the crowd in which he’d spotted Eve Montoya, and lost track of Solomon Arn. He flushed, and Barnes could see the anger returning. He knew it would be like that for a while. Thomas Varn would be surprised at how often the universe would remind him of LIMBO. As his gaze settled on the new arrival he escorted, Jacen knew that, at this moment, he was just another of those reminders. Varn’s face was set and his voice was cold. “I’m sure you’ll be alright. Stay out of trouble, Mr. Barnes.”



“Thomas… I’m not sure-“



“Not my call, Barnes.” Varn thumbed the cargo bay door button, which hissed shut in Barnes’ face. Through the porthole, he saw the winged man face twitch in what might have been remorse, then turn, stride up the corridor, and disappear. He was starting to regret not taking the fight to the feathered twerp when he’d had the opportunity. He’d tried to understand where the smaller man had been coming from, but his empathy didn’t go as far as allowing himself to be locked up in a cargo bay like an animal. He made a mental resolution that if he and Varn tangled again, it would take more than a surprising feat of strength to slow Barnes’ down.



He turned around away from the door and realized he wasn’t locked up like an animal. This wasn’t a zoo. He could already see the cliques forming. The sullen looks. The sharp eyes scanning the room looking for marks of opportunity.



No, not a zoo. A prison.



He suddenly found himself missing his piece of shit hole in the wall in the Dungheaps. With a sigh, he trudged into the sea of humanity, resigned to the fight he knew was coming.



=[/\]=



SCENE: Cargo Bay One

TIME INDEX: Thirty-five Minutes Later



He’d made his way slowly, inexorably, to the far back corner of the cargo bay. As he hoped, there had been a cot placed flush against the corner, and luckily for Barnes, it was unoccupied. Or, at least it had become that way after he’d spoken with the gentleman who’d claimed it. As a result of their conversation, his right eye was swelling now and the tenderness around his eye socket was the most painful injury he’d taken today. Now he sat in his new bunk, back against the wall, eyes closed but very much awake. For something to do, he was poking at his swollen eye and wincing when it protested. He knew it looked a little bit weird, but so much the better. When there were eyes on you, and he could feel the eyes, no mistaking, one of the most helpful things to do was to appear crazy. No one who knew what they were doing wanted any part of messing with crazy.



He heard the buzz around him change, but he didn’t understand its significance until he heard a strange beeping sound that seemed out of place. Opening his eyes, he glanced in the direction of the noise and his eyes narrowed in concern. Kass Thytos was maneuvering through the crowd, in his general direction. Around her, people were starting to turn and face her. Some looked with only the mildest passing interest, some with obviously lascivious intent. The ones who concerned Barnes were the ones with brows furrowing and lips twisting into sneers. From not too far away, he heard someone whisper the word, “Barbossa.”



For her part, apart from being upright and conscious, Thytos didn’t look much better than when Barnes had left her. She’d thrown on a relatively simple ensemble in colors that didn’t match, but there was still evidence of dirt and dried blood on her face and hands. It was hard to read her unseeing eyes, but something in her gait suggested that the drugs hadn’t quite run their course yet. He guessed the high had passed, he doubted she’d be out and around otherwise, and now there was just the damage. In her hands she carried a polished wooden box that almost appeared red.



“I’m looking for Jacen Barnes. Big guy. Hairy. They pointed me this direction. Jacen Barnes.” Barnes would have been embarrassed to be reaching out to these people for help, embarrassed and a little scared, but if Major Thytos was experiencing either of those, she’d buried them completely. Her defiant posture and strong voice suggested nothing but command. People were beginning to turn to look at him now, drawing the connection between her description and the tough who’d cleared out the bunk fifteen minutes earlier. However, while he could see in their faces that they’d realized she was looking for him, no one spoke up to point her further. LIMBO’s code of silence had survived at least this far. They’d disembark soon and find out if that tether would break or hold as the station fell away behind them.



He stood. “Here. I’m over here.” She turned in the direction of his voice and moved towards him. The people between them scuttled out of her way. Barnes could tell that people were expecting a confrontation. Maybe they thought their hosts had sent the Butcher of Barbossa to discipline him for provoking the fight over the bunk. They were excited. Already, the thirst for bloodsport was awakening again. Twelve feet away, Barnes caught the barest glimpse of latinum changing hands. A wager. He took a step towards her.



Her manner was no nonsense as she approached. She stopped short of walking into him when the device on her wrist beeped, then she took a powerful, commanding stance in front of him, eyes trained somewhere in the region of his throat. Her mouth was set in a firm grimace. “Mr. Barnes. I need you to come with me. You can bring your belongings or leave them here and a member of the ship’s staff will retrieve them.”



Barnes raised an eyebrow. Everything about her tone and demeanor screamed professional hostility, almost daring him to challenge her so that she could put him in his place. Her body language however, didn’t seem tensed or ready for combat, and she knew him to be a fighter. She was also stone-cold blind in a way that she obviously hadn’t been in the Pits, and though he didn’t necessarily understand the hows and whys, he guessed they had something to do with the lights which had stopped their sporadic blinking under her skin. Her gibbering ramblings in the corridors notwithstanding, she obviously wasn’t stupid, so what was the play here?



“How can I help you, Major?”



“You can help me by following me now and not making me repeat myself, Mr. Barnes. Are you ready?”



Around them, a few people literally “oooooooh’d” as if they were on a schoolyard, and not the cargo of an advanced warship. The crowd’s tension level raised a notch, as more and more heads began to turn in their direction. They’d seen a taste of what Barnes could do, and many of them had watched Kass fight less than an hour and a half earlier. *Jackals,* he thought bitterly. To spite them, he took a moment and rolled his shoulders…before relaxing and speaking casually. “Of course, Major. After you?”



“I think I’ll let you lead the way.”



“Let me grab my bag.” He moved back to his bunk and retrieved his knapsack from underneath. He turned to a nervous looking man on the next cot. Leaning over he whispered in the man’s ear. No one could hear what he said, but they could see Barnes point at his bunk, then at the crowd surrounding, then at Barnes himself, and finally the giant man’s finger hung squarely in the face of his put upon neighbor. The color drained from the man’s face and he offered a weak nod, then a miserable look at those around him.



His guard set in place, Barnes turned back to the Major. “All set, Major. Whenever you’re ready.”



“I was ready two minutes ago, Mr. Barnes.” With a nod of his head, Barnes moved in the direction of the cargo bay door. Thytos followed a half step behind in the wake he cleared, her proximity detector beeping at regular intervals. Finally they neared the door. “Computer, disengage cargo bay lock. Authorization: Thytos, Kassandra. Captain UFP Marine Corps. Authorization code: Alpha Tau Omega thirteen.” The door hissed open and once again Barnes stepped from chaos to silence as the soundproofed door closed behind them. As it hissed shut, Kass let out a sigh and her posture relaxed. She smiled at him.



“Jesus jumped up Christ, Barnes. Did you really have to pick a spot all the way at the very goddamn back? Damn, that was a pain in the ass.”



“I’m sorry. I wasn’t expecting company.”



“Well, you should’ve. Look, sorry about the Iron Bitch attitude in there. A lot of those folks aren’t my biggest fans. Being seen as my buddy probably won’t do you any favors.”



“No worries, I get it.”



“But, seriously, the back corner? You’re a dick. Should’ve known I’d be coming. There’s no chance I wasn’t going to come find you after what you did.””



He sighed. “Look, I just wanted to sleep with my back against the wall, and he had the best cot. I really don’t think I hurt him.”



There was a pause. “Do I want to know what you’re talking about?”



Barnes blinked. “What are you talking about?”



“I’m talking about pulling me out of there, you big idiot!” She threw a punctuating punch in the direction of his arm. It hit him in the chest. “I came to say ‘Thank You.’ I also wanted to let you know that I’ve got my men making up a berth for you. It ain’t luxurious, so if you were in silk sheets back on LIMBO, I apologize, but it’ll be a damn sight better than bunking in there.”



He didn’t know what to say. He could feel his color rising and was actually glad she couldn’t see him. “Oh. Um. I just…”



“I also heard you gave something up for me. I thought maybe we could balance those scales.” She opened the red box on a recessed hinge and he admired the bottle within. Rum. It had never been his favorite, but he hadn’t had it in ten years, and it looked…well, it looked expensive. There were two heavy highball glasses tucked into the box as well.



“Wow. I don’t… That’s-“



“Um. Um. Um. Um. Barnes, you’re not one of those big ugly lunkheads that can hold their own in a fight but can’t carry on a half decent conversation, are you?”



He swallowed and nodded. “That’s pretty much it exactly.”



Her grin was wide and sudden. She wasn’t exactly the handsomest woman, but Barnes couldn’t deny, she had a fantastic smile. “Perfect. Day’s finally looking up. Come to the lounge and have a drink with me.”



He smiled back at her, though he knew she couldn’t see it. “I can do that.”



They turned, Barnes following Kass’ lead to a turbolift. When they’d gone about ten feet, her proximity detector beeped again. “Sonofabitch! This thing’s such a pain in my ass. Would you mind giving a lady a hand?” She pulled the detector off her wrist and held out her hand. Barnes offered her his arm and they walked silently through the corridor. As they’d nearly reached the turbolift, the ship gave the tiniest shudder, and they both paused. They’d disembarked from LIMBO. Barnes gave a little shudder himself. Thytos noticed. “You alright there, big guy?”



“Getting better,” Barnes sighed, as he imagined the station and the life he’d lived there slipping away forever.



=[/\]=



SCENE: The Vulgar Tribble

TIME INDEX: Half an Hour Later



“I’m sorry,” she said as she knocked back another half-shot. “I can’t tell you that either.”



Their conversation had gone this way almost from the beginning. He’d tried to get a sense of what was happening aboard this ship, and she’d done her best to accommodate him, but without revealing sensitive information about their mission, the Neo-Essentialists, Edgerton, technical details of the ship…



There was a lot she couldn’t tell him. She didn’t deny the ship was called Phoenix, but wouldn’t tell him much else. Nothing about their mission. Nothing about why they’d come to LIMBO, what they were looking for, or what they’d found there. Nothing about how Rawyvin Seth fit into the picture. He asked about the ‘Butcher of Barbossa’ label and she refused to answer that either, though that seemed to be her own inclination more than a prudence about sensitive data. For a while, they’d told dirty jokes and discussed the finer points of combat in the Pits. She explained her sensor nets, trying to explain the complex device simply to him. To her surprise, he didn’t seem mystified at all, and the questions he asked weren’t the stupid ones most people opened with. He hadn’t even asked if she’d be able to see under his clothes.



But they kept coming back to questions she couldn’t answer, and while he didn’t force the issue on most topics, once he got onto the subject of the refugees in the cargo bays, he was being tenacious.



“So you’ve got seven thousand people, give or take, spread across four cargo bays. I’m not asking for the photon torpedo activation sequence, I’m just saying- you should let people know how you’re keeping them safe. Apart from locking them in like prisoners.



“That wasn’t my call.”



“Whose was it?”



“I don’t know.”



“Would you tell me if you did?”



“Look, Jacen. I’m not trying to be a bitch, but there’s a lot you don’t need to know. I mean, don’t get me wrong, but I’m not going to give you operational details about our ship.”



“Fair enough. That makes sense.” They drank in silence for a moment. “You have security spread in among them, undercover, right?”



"Er... no."



"Why not?"



She rolled her unseeing eyes, then sighed. "We're a little short-staffed when it comes to security."



"But I haven't seen any guards posted either.”



"Yeah, we're...pretty seriously short staffed when it comes to security."



"How short staffed?"



Another pause as she knocked back a shot. "Severely."



"Kass, you've brought *seven thousand* people aboard your ship from one of the worst cesspits in the known galaxy, and believe me, I've been to a few of the bad ones, You brought them on with only a cursory examination of *most* of them. Sporting events are harder to get into than this ship. I can't tell you how many, but I can tell you that a lot of those people are criminals and it's a safe bet that some of those criminals are really bad. So I'm gonna ask you for a straight answer here."



"Jacen, I can't give you details-"



"I've got to sleep in there.”



“No, you don’t. Remember?”



“Well, a lot of people do."



She poured another shot. She hated that she felt obligated to not answer these perfectly legitimate questions. "My position carries certain responsibilities-" She moved to take the drink.



He reached out and put his hand on hers, holding her glass in place. "Kass...I saved your life."



Her voice was a whisper. "I appreciate that, I can't say how much, but that doesn't mean I can give sensitive details to-"



Barnes felt really bad, now. He had to have these answers, though to be honest, he didn’t know why he had to have them. He just had a sense that it was somehow very, very important. So he had no choice but to play his trump card. "I poured out half a bottle of Kentucky Bourbon."



It was a low-down, dirty, snake-in-the-grass thing to say. And it worked. "Four Marines and me. There's no Starfleet security on board."



"None?"



She finally took the shot. "None."



“Five marines… Maybe you could fill ranks with crew from other departments? Volunteers from engineering and sciences?”



“Can’t spare them.”



“What? What?! Just how many of your people are on this boat?”



There was a long pause. “One hundred, thirty eight.”



“That’s it?!” They were both whispering now, and his voice was a nearly frantic hiss. “You’ve only got a hundred and thirty eight Starfleet personnel aboard?”



She looked stricken. “Oh. Starfleet.” Another pause. She reached for the bottle, but decided against it. “A hundred and four.”



Barnes mouth moved, but no words came from it for several moments. He poured a drink, then shot it whole and grimaced. He thought back to the cargo bay he’d left. He’d wager there were at least ten times as many people in that room alone. Finally he found his voice, and there was only one thing to say. "Oh my God." Thytos’ miserable expression didn’t waver. "Okay, how many hours til ship's night?"



"I don't know."



"We need to find out. We need to..."



"Why does matter it when ship's night comes?"



"Listen, we're gonna need to shift the refugees around. All of them, at least a little. We need a clear cargo bay."



"There's no chance."



“Then a shuttle bay, maybe.”



“That’s not gonna fly, either.”



"Hear me out, it doesn't have to be clear for long. We'll fill it again real soon. But we let people know, the rules are different there."



"What do you mean?"



"Starfleet regulations. Early to bed, early to rise. Quiet hours. No booze. No music. Compulsory exercise. Maybe we can even mandate that people in that bay have to assist in non-essential or non-secure work on the ship."



"Why? What would be the point?"



"Because if we make the rules pain-in-the-ass tough, and we make it voluntary to stay there, then no self-respecting criminal from LIMBO is going to volunteer. They're not gonna give up their booze or their carousing late into the night. They're not going to 'Yes, sir' and 'No, sir' your men. They won't put up with it. So they'll stay away. They’ll avoid it like the plague and the families will have a place to escape them. And we can provide at least one safe zone for people."



"What if people don't follow the rules?"



"They will."



"How can you be sure?"



Barnes sighed. "Because I'll make sure."



"You?"



"I don't want to. I’ve got zero desire to make myself some kind of…sheriff to a boomtown of refugees. But if I don't, I can't trust someone else will. You and your Marines are going to have to keep mainly focused on the other cargo bays. There'll be trouble there. So I’ll stay there, and I'll watch the Freebay."



"Free as in, ‘the one with all the restrictive rules.’”



“Free of the likelihood of getting stabbed in your sleep, more like.”



“Okay. Fair enough. But what if you can't handle the Freebay? We don't know how many people will join you."



"If it comes to that, I'll get a couple of the folks there to help out. If they're willing to come with us, it means they've got an interest in keeping their lives orderly. And if they don't and I still need their help, I can be very convincing."



"Well, it makes sense, but there's a problem. The Captain...he doesn't… Look, I’m a Marine and he’s got some real funny ideas about what that means.” Her mouth twitched as she tried to explain a situation she wasn’t sure she understood herself. “We get along, we make it work…now, but I'm not sure I can get him to go along with moving everyone so soon."



"Then talk to the Andorian, Jos. He likes you. I think. He seemed real invested in keeping you this side of dead, anyway. You've got to convince them, and you've got to get it done before ship's night."



"Why ship's night?"



Barnes closed his eyes and imagined the sea of people in cargo bay one, then imagined three more just like it. His eyes clenched and, when he opened them, he turned back to Kass. She couldn't see the desperation on his face, but she could hear it in his voice. "Because when the night comes, that’s when the rapes are gonna start, Kass."



=[/\]=



NRPG: Trying to establish the stakes of what this humanitarian effort of ours might end up looking like



ALIX & JUSTIN: Thanks for your help!

Dale I. Rasmussen
~writing for~

Jacen Barnes
Reluctant Sheriff of Shantytown