The Rabble

Posted on May 18, 2015 @ 1:10pm by Captain Kassandra Thytos
Edited on on May 18, 2015 @ 1:10pm

Mission: The Lights of Hyperion

"The Rabble"

(cont. Second hand faith)

* * *=/\=* * *


Location: USS PHOENIX

Stardate: 2.150516.2356

Scene: Shanty Town


“Hey, you there. If you’re going to sleep here you’re gonna have to pay the protection fee.”

Winnifred Nguyen slowly raised her eyes from the floor where she’d rolled out the sleeping bag from the box of supplies all the refugees had been given. Her eyes travelled up a worn pair of boots, up a pair of filthy leather leggings, past a heavily muscled torso, and settled on the damn ugliest face she’d seen in a long time.

“What,” she said, staring him in the eyes and speaking very slowly.

“Protection fee. Either food, supplies, or in your case, flesh. Come on sweetheart, give us a kiss, and come and play with me and the boys,” the ugly man said through rotten teeth.

Winnifred stared at him contemplatively. She would dearly love to let her fist help him with his dental problems, but the cargobay was a powder keg. Starting a fight could set everyone off, and the last thing she really wanted was chaos.

“No,” she thought for a moment more. “Go away.”

“I don’t think you’re understanding me, everyone pays,” the man sneered and grabbed a hold of a hank of her hair and pulled her to her feet. Winnifred was dangerously close to losing her temper. She could hear the blood pounding in her ears and the blackness creeping in around her vision.

She willed herself to remain calm. Her temper was ballistic and legendary among those who had experienced it. Once unleashed it couldn’t be put back until she’d vented it all. When she was in the Marines, one of her team mates had likened her to an ancient Terran Berserker, impervious to pain, logic, and orders when she was in one of her rages.

Which was probably why they’d kicked her out. She’d gotten better, she’d taken up meditation and learned breathing control techniques, but there were limits to her zen, and this man was pushing them.

He leered and groped her chest. That was the final straw. Everything turned bright, and the blackness crept in, focusing her attention on the man in front of her. Time seemed to slow. She brought her knee up into the man’s crotch and slammed her elbow into his jaw. He spat teeth in slow motion, blood spraying her shirt. He hit the ground and she jumped on top of him, pummelling his face with her fists.

“How about I stop and we call it even,” She glowered at him. His eyes rolled wildly to look behind her. She glanced back to see some of his buddies, one of them clearly the leader, judging by his position at the center of the pack. She was on her feet and darting towards the group when she found herself caught in a full nelson by a pair of big burly arms that lifted her off the ground as easily as if she were a rag doll. She kicked and swore violently, but it was no use. Even in her rage she didn’t have the strength to free herself. As she tired she became aware that the man was saying something to the men in front of her.

“I saw what your buddy here was doing to this young lady, and I can’t say I blame her. Furthermore, there is no ‘protection’ and no turf here- you know this, and you were warned,” the person holding her said gruffly. “Either you drop this matter, take your buddy to one of the med stations, and stop trying to get more than your fair share of the supplies, or I let her go and maybe help her finish what she started.” The group of men grumbled, but clearly weren’t keen to fight the man holding her. Which she couldn’t exactly blame them for. The man had to be very strong to keep a hold of her during one of her rages. “I’m going to let you go now, but you’d better behave yourself.”

Winnifred took a few deep breaths. “Breathing in I calm my body, breathing out I smile. I am a leaf on a tranquil pond,” she muttered to herself between clenched teeth, a rather terrifying grimace on her face. “Okay,” she said once she felt calm. The man let her down, and she turned around to face him. She cocked her head and looked him up and down. She could see why the thugs had turned tail and ran. “Thanks.”

“Are you alright?” The man started to put her stuff back into the box they’d come in.

“Fine,” Winnifred looked at him curiously.

“I think it’d be better if you moved camp, those five have been trouble since we got here. I’m afraid they might retaliate as soon as they think I’m not looking anymore, Miss…?” the man stood up.

“Winnifred. Winnifred Nguyen. People call me Winnifred, or Win-Win. Never Winnie. I can handle myself,” Winnifred frowned.

“Never said you couldn’t, Winnifred. But there are five of them, and they’re trouble makers. I don’t like trouble. It makes people… Uneasy, and that makes my job a little harder. My name is Jacen Barnes,” He held out his hand.

“Didn’t know anyone was in charge. Charmed. Good thing. Riot waiting to happen. Needs order. I can help. I’m an ex-Marine,” Winnifred brightened up.

She’d been stuck on the craphole that was Limbo for over a year since the trader she’d been working for as an armed guard had managed to lose the entire damn ship along with the money he owed her at the Dabo tables in the Sanctum. Truth be told, the Phoenix had been a godsend. She’d been working odd jobs for months. Between paying Tella Yavin’s taxes, tariffs to the local gangs so they could pay Tella Yavin’s taxes, and the extortionate costs for lodging and food, she’d calculated it would have been at least another year before she could afford passage off Limbo and out of the Triangle. If she could repay her good fortune by making sure the riff raff didn’t destroy the ship before they got where we were going, so much the better.

“I guess I should introduce you to Mister Embry then. Follow me,” Jacen Barnes wandered away, and she trotted after him.

* * *=/\=* * *

Marvin Potter’s problems had followed him onto the Phoenix in the form of a Ferengi moneylender named Pubio and his hired muscle. Marvin Potter owed Pubio a lot of money.

Correction, Marvin Potter’s FATHER owed Pubio a lot of money, but the dirty, stinking, good-for-nothing deadbeat had gotten him involved. He’d called Marvin with a sob story about a terminal illness, and Marvin like an idiot had immediately asked for temporary leave from the Marine Corps.

When he’d arrived on Limbo, he’d found himself surrounded by a bunch of Pubio’s men and frogmarched to Pubio’s offices. There he was informed by the beady eyed little Ferengi bastard that his father had volunteered him as an indentured servant to pay off his quite substantial debts, and that he would be paying them off for quite a long time.

Cleaning dishes, hauling cargo, playing bodyguard, there was almost nothing Marvin hadn’t done for Pubio in the two years since he’d been pressed into service. On one occasion he’d even had to serve as a poison taster for the little weasel at at a trade conference. Unfortunately for Marvin, there had been poison. Doubly unfortunately, the poison hadn’t killed him, and Pubio had added the cost of medical care to the amount owed.

Still, a good half of his job seemed to consist of smacking around any Human who dared to giggle over Pubio’s name. Which was most of them.

Marvin thought he’d broken free of Pubio when he’d snuck off after the fight in the Pits and used the ensuing chaos to make his way onto the USS Phoenix. But his luck was short lived. Pubio had found him very quickly and set about making Marvin bully people into giving Pubio the best spot in the bay, and treating him with ‘respect’.

Things were not looking up. He hadn’t managed to catch the eye of any of the Marines that occasionally milled around, and he was starting to get the distinct impression that most of the Marines weren’t Marines. In fact, he’d begun to notice that while the Marine technicians seemed to change shift after shift the heavily armed guards seemed to stay the same. Reliably it was two of four possible Marines, a busty redhead, who didn’t seem to have as many shifts as the others, possibly because of the attention she attracted, a slight mixed race man with a rakish goatee, a statuesque, grey-eyed woman who didn’t talk much, or an enormous man whom Marvin had yet to get a proper look at.

“Marvin! Marvin!” Pubio whined “I’m hungry, go wait in line for me.”

Marvin made a sound of disgust in the back of his throat. He was getting real sick and tired of Pubio. Whiny, selfish, just the worst. At least waiting in the line would get him away from the incessant demands. He stalked over to the replicator line, and took his place at the back.

“Marvin? Marvin Potter? Is that you?” A loud booming voice echoed behind Marvin, and a large hand clapped him on the shoulder. Marvin turned around and his face split into a giant grin.

“Sarge! Boy am I glad to see you,” Marvin’s chest flooded with relief, it was his old drill sergeant Horatio Bellecotte. This was his way out of Pubio’s service.

“Glad? Last I heard you were AWOL, I should drag you in for a court martial,” Horatio raised an inquiring eyebrow.

“Not my choice, seems slavery isn’t exactly dead on Limbo,” Marvin said, jabbing his thumb backwards towards where Pubio had set up camp. “That Ferengi back there, his name is Pubio- most of the people in his entourage are indentured servants.”

“Are they now,” Horatio craned his neck around Marvin to look at the Ferengi. “Is there a lot of that going on here?”

“Don’t know, honestly,” Marvin stuck his hands in his pockets, and shrugged. “I’d imagine there’s a fair amount of it going on, Limbo’s not kind, especially on those that are down on their luck. There’s a hell of a lot of bottom feeders waiting to take advantage of them.”

“Tell you what, you’ve probably noticed we’re a bit short on Marines right now, how would you like to come back to the Corps? We can’t let you out of Shanty Town just yet, but we could use a few people on the inside. Let me introduce you to Mister Embry and the deputy Mister Barnes, I have a feeling they’d be interested in finding out who here needs liberating from scumsuckers like Pubio- That his real name, by the way? That’s a terrible name,” Horatio laughed as he and Marvin began to walk to find the Mayor of Shanty Town.

* * *=/\=* * *

“I can’t find my momma. We were waiting in line and it was getting really close to the time we had to go, so she told me to go on ahead so we could get a good spot, and that she’d come and find me when she got in, I’ve been looking for a long time, and I can’t find her,” A small girl with a giant mass of brown curly hair was saying to a tattooed Vulcan woman that had arrived with the Starfleet personnel.

Lars felt the little mass of guilt that had been sitting in his stomach ever since the massacre in the Pit grow. That girl’s mother was as good as dead, if not dead already. He was relieved to not have that on his conscience, at least. The people in the Pits on the other hand… He’d hardly believed it when Tella Yavin had given the Black Stars the order to open fire in the crowded stadium. She’d always been ruthless, but her orders had always seemed reasonable. Strictly going after the competition and taking down rule breakers, no civilians involved. But the Pit… He could still hear the screams and smell the blood, see women and children falling to the ground. He suspected he’d remember those moments until the day he died.

He’d been one of the guards sent to the Phoenix’s berth- he’d seen the masses of people fighting to get on, and realized that they’d never make it before Tella Yavin’s deadline. He’d had a horrible premonition about what was going to happen to those that didn’t make it onboard in in time.

He’d taken part in one massacre, he sure as hell was not going to take part in another. At the first available opportunity, he’d shed his Black Star’s uniform and slipped aboard with the rest of the string of refugees. He’d thought that would be the end of things, but all the misery aboard the ship, and all the people frantically searching for lost loved ones was like a constant reminder of what he’d done.

The tattooed Vulcan turned to go with the child in tow, and jostled into him as she passed. She turned to look at him briefly, and her irisless green eyes met his. He had an eerie feeling like she knew his secret. He had a sudden compulsion to atone or make amends for his part in the death upon Limbo.

Lars wasn’t sure how he was to go about doing that, but he figured he’d start by assisting the Starfleet officers handing out supplies to the Refugees.

* * *=/\=* * *

Rico Suarez was beginning to get tired of his pretty blonde charge, Eleanor Von Disseldorf.

A bored core world dilettante who had decided to go slumming around the unsavory parts of the galaxy, Eleanor was the epitome of a spoiled brat. Even in the scummiest of scummy places she demanded luxury, which meant that his job was twice as hard as it needed to be.

What sort of idiot walked around in the Dungheap in Antarean silks and wearing the most expensive of jewels? Eleanor. What sort of ungrateful wretch would narrowly escape death at the hands of armed mercenary forces not once, but twice, and then complain about the accommodations on the ship which so generously offered up space to as many of the unwashed masses that could cram aboard? Eleanor.

She was currently complaining loudly to Arthur Embry, the man who had become the de-facto refugee spokesperson. Arthur Embry was remarkably patient, explaining that everyone was going to be treated equally, and that no ‘extras’ were for sale for any amount of latinum.

She was starting to get shrill. God, Rico hated when he got shrill. She had a voice that could cut glass when she got that way.

It had been fun for the first couple months, Eleanor lived a life that Rico could only dream about. She was like a glamorous, sparkly butterfly. Rico had got to stay in luxury he’d never imagined, try fancy delicacies he’d never even heard of, and go to fancy over the top parties. But the thrill had faded once she decided to try slumming it. Once she was out of her world of riches and money, her worst qualities were brought into sharp relief.

Suddenly there was a commotion, and a slim dark haired female Marine came through the crowd and had a short conversation with Embry. Embry turned to Eleanor and smiled.

“Guess what, they’re opening some of the crew quarters to families, and anyone willing to live by some rules. That means a shower, a proper bed, and your own replicator. They’ll be screening groups immediately. I’ll make sure you and your husband are in the first group,” Embry’s smile was diplomatic but fixed, as though he was nearing the edge of his patience with Eleanor.

“He’s not my husband,” Eleanor sniffed. “And I’m not going to share quarters with anyone. Rico will be fine down here. Won’t you Rico?”

She turned away and flounced off after the female Marine, leaving Rico standing open mouthed. Embry chuckled and clapped Rico on the shoulder.

“Cheer up, at least you won’t have to deal with her for a while. You her bodyguard?” Embry asked, sizing him up.

“Yeah, or I would be if she would stop going places without me,” Rico scratched his head. Embry had a point. It would be a relief not to have to deal with her.

“Well, how would you like a job here? The pay is non-existent, you won’t get any respect, but at least you’ll be busy. We could use a few more people to help make sure everything runs smoothly here,” Embry smiled.

“Guess I got nothing better to do,” Rico said with a shrug.

* * *=/\=* * *


NRPG: Introducing some local color ;)


Alix Fowler as:

Multiple personalities/ The Rabble