by Landry Steele and TC Blane
80909.12
Concurrent with Give it Time
-=A dive bar in Lestath City; Klaestron IV=-
80909.12
Concurrent with Give it Time
-=A dive bar in Lestath City; Klaestron IV=-
"I'm looking for work, and it doesn't have to be fancy." Dane's eyes watered as the smoke from some elaborate sort of glass pipe wafted up through the air and stung his eyes. "I work hard, and I just want to get out of here."
"Running away from something?" The man behind the bar asked, giving Dane the eye. "Family troubles maybe?"
"I have no family." Dane growled, through tightly clenched teeth.
"So sad to be all alone in the universe." The barkeep sighed with mock sympathy.
[Okay, now back off like you can take or leave anything he's going to offer you,] Blane instructed Dane from across the bar, via an earpiece he was wearing.
TC and Landry had retreated into the shadows of a corner booth, observing as Cristiane worked the room.
Landry was growing tired of shifting in her seat to try to make her clothing appear more modest. She'd finally given up trying to cross her legs, that was out entirely as short as this skirt was. She was currently just wishing that this place had tablecloths.
She kept tugging down on the hem of her skirt, and Blane shook his head. "You've got a lot to learn about looking a part." He scratched uncomfortably at the fake beard the adorned his face.
"I have a lot to learn period, Sir." Landry sighed.
"Doesn't matter to me if you can't hook me up with someone who can get me out of this hellhole," Dane remarked flippantly, tossing back the rest of his drink and then flinging a few slips of latinum toward the bar. "I just thought you'd want a cut of my initial pay But if you're too busy wiping glasses out with that dirty rag to earn some latinum," he shrugged and turned away. "I couldn't care less."
"Wait," The man paused nervously. Dane didn't know it, but he wasn't the only one taking his cues from a puppet master in this situation. "I'll be right back." The man disappeared into a back room, where his employer was counting the day's take so far.
"Verify that he's Terran, and ask him about his family again. If he insists he has none, he could bring a good price from our friends down on the Farm. They can't get enough healthy young Terran DNA these days."
"Yes, Sir."
The creepy, hygienically challenged man sauntered out from behind the filthy curtain that cordoned off the back room from the bar and over to Dane. "You sure that you don't want to run back to mama, boy? You look like a stray who needs to go home."
"Never kick a pup." Dane lifted his eyes slowly as the man offered him another shot of the murky liquid he'd been drinking before. Dane declined with a wave of his hand. "When it grows up, it'll bite you in the ass every time."
He coughed as the pungent smoke continued to billow toward him. "I told you, I don't have any family and I don't have a home to go back to."
"Where was home?"
"Earth."
"You're full blooded Terran then?"
"That's a strange question. What the hell does it matter what my bloodline is if I'm going to be stacking cargo on some garbage scow?" Dane shifted uneasily.
[Stay with him, you're onto something.] Blane instructed, as he leaned closer to Landry and moved his lips to her ear. "I hate to do this to you Ensign, but if you're going to look like what you're supposed to be here, we have to be convincing."
Landry sighed, and then draped her arm around TC's neck. She sidled up to him as suggestively as she could manage, and she leaned in, pretending to whisper just as suggestively in his ear. "I don't know what to say, Sir."
"Anything. Just keep smiling."
"Starfleet Operations Protocol Manual, Chapter One..." Landry began to recite from memory. "Operations; the key department to getting things done aboard a Starship."
"Steele, you Jezebel." TC had to fight the urge to laugh as he tried to appear as if he was hanging on her every word.
He kept his eyes on Dane as well as others milling around in the bar. It was not uncommon for persons to still be Shanghaied and forced into slave labor on the very sort of garbage scow that Dane was referring to. If would explain the barkeep's interests in Dane’s family situation; no one to come looking for him.
If that was the case, then someone else would likely also be taking an interest in Dane as they sized him up. But as of right now TC’s well trained eyes could see no one taking a unhealthy interest in the ensign.
Still, there was more then one way to nab someone. It was best not to take chances.
[From here on out drink nothing he offers you.] TC ordered. He did not want the barkeep to slip Dane a ‘Mickey’.
Dane lowered his head slightly to acknowledge that he understood.
Trying valiantly in the attempt to look like a man interested in what Landry was 'selling', TC reached a hand forward and twirled a stray strand of her hair. Landry leaned even closer and whispered again in Blane's ear.
'I think that pantyhose should qualify as a weapon of mass destruction..."
In reply, TC took some latinum from his jacket pocket and held it out toward her. She shook her head. "That's it?"
"I think you're pushing it." He objected, loudly enough for those nearby to hear.
"Supply and demand." She slid away from, him across the booth. "It's your money. If you're not interested in having a good time...I can seek company elsewhere."
Dane was shifting nervously at the bar. He had the eerie feeling that someone unfriendly was watching him behind the scenes, but he didn't know who it could be. His instincts told him that it was someone obscured from view.
The first thing Keiran O'Sullivan had taught him when it came to working undercover was that the most lethal threats are the ones you never see coming.
"I might be able to find you some local work to start with." The bartender decided finally, looking Dane up and down one last time. "If you prove you're reliable, then I may have friends who will be willing to put you on their crew to get you off planet. But you have to show what you are first."
"What do you think I am? I'm ready and willing to work. End of story."
"It's more what you're not that I want to see." The man replied tersely. "We don't deal with addicts and we don't want people who are outrunning, say, gaming debts or...any disputes with local law enforcement."
Dane laughed incredulously. "Let me get this straight. You want to be sure I'm not the kind of person that your business caters to every day?"
"Exactly. You think I trust that sort enough to hire them? Junkies and gamblers make bad employees."
"Fine." Dane pulled a pack of cigarettes from his jacket and lit one up. He hadn't smoked one in almost two years, but it was amazing how easily he could revert to the habit given the slightest excuse. "I'm sober and not wanted by the law. What do I do?"
"There are some...deliveries I need to make." The man answered. "If you show you can be trusted on the small jobs, I will consider moving you on to bigger ones."
"Where and when?" He knew better than to ask what the items were needing delivery.
"Hold on." The man disappeared into the back again, and returned with a data rod concealed in his hand. "I think you forgot the tip." He announced, rather loudly.
Dane grunted, reaching into his pocket for another slip of latinum. When he handed it to the man, he found that it was quickly replaced with a data rod.
"Now get out of here and don't come back." The bartender barked loudly, grabbing Dane by the collar and ushering him toward the door. As they reached the street, he gave the younger man a good toss and Dane struggled to regain his footing.
"You didn't tell me your name." Dane objected as he began walking away.
"I know." The bartender replied, before simply going back inside.
Dane started walking. He knew better than to go back to the ship, in case he was being followed. He found a quiet spot behind the waste reclamation dumpster out back and quietly contacted Blane, still inside the bar.
[I have a location and assignment, but I have to find a reader to get the data.]
"OK." Blane replied, rising from the booth and about to make a grand exit. "Have it your way." He glared at Landry, making it appear he was speaking to her.
"If I ever see you again, you'll regret insulting me this way." She hissed. TC's eyes flared, and for an instant Landry's expression changed to one that conveyed she was only trying to act the part.
TC laughed in a deep bellow at the threat. He slapped a stranger on the back causing the man to jump in surprise
“A firecracker that one is.” He said to the startled man as Landry stared back him.
“I dunno, maybe she is worth the latinum? What do you think pal?” TC asked his newfound friend. By now most of the bar was exchanging glances between Landry and Blane.
“Well, I um, I think.” The man stammered as he looked Landry over. The ensign was not bad on the eyes and her current attire certain amplified her physical characteristics. “Sure, I would pay a good price.” He man concluded after his careful observance.
TC laughed again. “Yes, I think you are right.” He slapped the man on the back again as he headed back towards Steele. “Thanks friend. Beside I do not feel like spending another night in a cold and lonely bunk.”
Landry slowly recoiled at TC approach. “Back off.” She warned.
Before she could react TC dropped two slips of latinum down the front of her shirt. “Here ya go.” He laughed. “Your price.”
“Now let’s go.” He hoisted her over his shoulder in one swift move and headed for the exit as the other patrons laughed and cheered their exit as Landry kicked and cursed. TC thought most of the curses were fake.
He carried her a good distance from the bar, until he was sure that no one from the establishment was observing them any longer. "Now what?"
"Now..." Blane replied, completely seriously, "We get a room."
-=A short time later=-
Landry paced back and forth across the tiny room they currently occupied. Her feet were killing her from the high heels she wore but she didn't want to sit down on anything in the room- or even take them off to walk barefoot on the ratty covering on the floor that was posing as carpeting.
"Why can't we go back to the ship, again?"
"Because we can't leave Dane."
"Why can't we leave Dane, again?"
He shot her a glance. “I don’t really have to tell you that do I?”
TC was laying on the bed his head cradled in his hands as he patiently waited for Dane to report in. Thankfully Dane had reported that he had managed to locate a data reader and was hiding out not far from the dive where TC had rented the room.
“And Steele will you please stop pacing, your gonna wear a hole in the, well, what is supposed to be the carpet.”
He sat up and scratched the fake beard again. He wish he had time to grow his own; it would not itch as bad as this one did. “Relax, your doing fine.” He offered.
"Why don't I feel like I'm doing fine?"
"Why do you ask so many questions with obvious answers?"
Landry expelled a puff of air, blowing her hair back out of her face in frustration.
Just then TC heard a familiar, chirping sound coming from inside his jacket. He removed the device from his pocket.
"Here."
[Anything to report?]
"Negative. Other than they really have a large problem with working girls in this neighborhood. A guy could get accosted."
An instant later TC was nearly hit in the head by a flying couch cushion.
[And where is our boy?]
"Hold on," Blane heard another transmission signal coming in over the sound of Zanh's voice. "I hope we're about to find out." Blane flipped a switch and heard the hushed voice of Cristiane on the other end.
[Twenty two hundred.] Dane informed him. [I'm to deliver a shipment of...something, somewhere. They'll tell me where when I get to the location.]
"What would that location be?" Blane asked impatiently.
[The city morgue.]
---------------------------------
Ensign Landry Steele
Operations Intern
(and Jezebel)
USS Serendipity NCC-2012
and
Commander TC Blane
Second Officer/Chief of Operations
USS Serendipity NCC-2012
Ensign Landry Steele
Operations Intern
(and Jezebel)
USS Serendipity NCC-2012
and
Commander TC Blane
Second Officer/Chief of Operations
USS Serendipity NCC-2012