Ogarin Station
Birds sang as they flew from treetop to treetop. They didn't seem to notice that the "sky" was holographic, and only a few meters above their heads, or that their entire world consisted of a large building-sized arboretum. Taiyah envied them.
The station's arboretum was one of the few recreational facilities that still worked at full capacity; have to justify those admission fees somehow. There had been a time, when she first came to Ogarin Station, when Taiyah Janneke was mortified at the idea of paying such exhorbitant fees on such a frequent basis. Since then, all sense of financial consequence had disappeared into a malaise of crumbling gray metal and unregistered starships and her illicit bank account swelling almost arbitrarily on the monitor screens. Just a few more years. Maybe as few as three, or even just two. Just a few tens of months, and she could bring her family back to Alukk, where they could live like royalty for the rest of their lovingly prolonged lifespans.
She turned around her favorite flowering fern bed, and came face to face with a strange, tan-skinned woman.
"I'm sorry," Taiyah said, biting back the worst of her annoyance, "I'm afraid this grove is reserved for the next ten minutes."
"My apologies, but this will only be a moment." The strange human's voice was cold. Businesslike. "You are Doctor Taiyah Janneke, the cosmetic surgeon?"
Taiyah let out a long, slow breath. Another last minute emergency case. Another Syndicate hanger-on who needed to have disappeared yesterday. From the looks of things, she had already been let down by at least one lesser cosmetician; the scars on her neck were just hideous, and what was even that rashy bit on her forehead? Sometimes she felt like she was the last competent face sculptor in Orion space, or at least the part of Orion space that Oyana and her sellout successor hadn't finished bringing to heel yet.
"Yes," Taiyah silently counted the credits this would probably net her, and reminded herself that her children would go to the best and most expensive schools in the Union. "I am she. You could have waited at my office if-"
The scarred human's face changed, a thin, icy, reptilian smile spreading across her lips. It took only a fraction of a second for Taiyah to realize what was going on, but that was a fraction of a second too long. Before she could even reach for her disruptor pistol, a pair of massive, metal-studded arms engulfed her from behind, crushing her own arms against her sides and pulling her into a wall-like armored chest. "Let me-"
"Nice timing, Senmursh." The human ignored her entirely, smiling at the brute who had just seized her, before reaching for a communicator in her pocket. "It's Penelope. Three to beam over. And then get us out of here fast, we've broken some station rules."
***
Alukk
"...Energizing."
The voice in the transporter room came from seemingly nowhere, echoing off the yellow-lit concrete walls of the transporter room, the operator in a separate observation area marked only by mirrored aluminum. As green-blue swirled in the transport chamber, Aerocommandos snapped their rifles off 'safe'. Their guest was expected, and in their estimation, harmless. But procedure was procedure, and the instant the harsh lessons of the past years were forgotten was the instant the Syndicate would strike.
So rifles were at the ready when a short human male fully materialized, dressed casually. "Hey, guys. Well, gals," Aaron Wolfe said, giving the room a disarming smile despite the firepower pointed at him. It was after the Aerocommandos relaxed, barrels pointed at the floor, that he stepped off the transporter pad. His eyes widened with recognition, as he did. "Oh hey, Corporal... Lasko, right? I remember you from the Tantis Island op!"
Lasko saluted sharply. "Sir! It's Sargeant now, sir!"
"Well, good on you. You ladies fought hard," Wolfe said.
Lasko dropped the salute. "This way, sir." She led him out of the transporter room and to the stark yellow-grey hall beyond, then up a flight of stairs and through a door. The hall beyond was still in stark concrete, the floor polished, the walls rough, but it was much wider. In stark contrast to the brutalist aesthetic, here and there were plush chairs and couches, arranged in clusters outside nondescript chrome doors.
Lasko led to Wolfe down the hall to one such cluster. Wolfe's grin grew wider as an antennae'd shadow peeled itself off a wall. "Sharizz!"
In a second he was picked up by the Apiata, who squeezed him tight for a moment, before abruptly dropping him back to his feet. "Apologies," Sharizz said, looking off to the side in embarrassment. "The team has missed you."
"Well, I miss the team."
An Orion face appeared next to Sharizz. "Nice to see you too, Wolfe," Tarroi said, a smile appearing on her lips once she'd torn her eyes off Sharizz and back to Wolfe. She had been sitting in one of the chairs, face obscured by a magazine, when Wolfe walked up.
"Sorry, Ezenna," Wolfe said, turning to Tarroi, "Starfleet first, right?"
"Mhm." Tarroi crossed her arms, "Last I checked Sharizz isn't the one who kept you from bleeding out when a tiger-beetle decided to take a chomp at your leg on Celos."
"I was the one who defeated it," Sharizz stated. "You both would have been vulnerable to an attack otherwise."
"I'm happy both of you are here, thanks," Wolfe said.
Here was outside secure meeting room in basement of Alukk's Government Tower. All records of their being here had been wiped already, Wolfe and Sharizz's beamdown recorded only in heavily encrypted logs.
Lasko put a finger to her ear. "Commander Wolfe? Now that you've arrived, the directors can get started." She swiped a card on the door and it slid open. Lasko stood to one side as the trio walked into the room, then disappeared from sight as the door slid shut. Inside, rising to greet them, was a pair of faces familiar to Wolfe and Sharizz -- and one that wasn't.
"Nash zh'Rhashaan," Wolfe said, reaching out to shake the Andorian's hand. She smiled, which gave him a little confidence when he reached out to the Orion woman next to her. "And Director Falayah. A pleasure to finally meet you." The presence of the Union Intelligence Director at this meeting meant this was something of interest but not vitally important to the President of the Union. Or, perhaps more ominously, that whatever they were about to discuss was so secret the President couldn't risk to be implicated at all. Given the fact he'd been flown from Licori space, Wolfe thought it might be the latter.
"Commander Wolfe," Falayah said, her slim hands encasing Wolfe's with a strong grip. "I am glad to see you returned to Alukk. We come from opposite parties, but Ordey was always a hero of mine."
Wolfe just smiled sheepishly in response.
Sharizz followed Wolfe's lead, greeting the other two, as Wolfe reached out to the human woman. "I'm sorry," he said, as her cold hands met his, "I'm not sure we've met?"
"Penelope Miranstein," she said. He sat, and Sharizz reached over the table next. The Apiata froze as their hands met Miranstein's.
"Your hands are cold for a human."
"It's a birth condition," Miranstein said. There was a pause, Sharizz's eyes darting all over the woman's face, tracing pathways of faint scars across her neck and forehead, antennae subtly teasing the air.
After a few seconds, Sharizz gave her a grin that looked almost copy-pasted from Wolfe's. "I see," Sharizz said, before sitting down briskly, looking at Miranstein with respect -- and maybe a little deference.
"Must be pretty cold hands for Sharizz to comment," Wolfe joked. "I've been told mine can be like icicles for humans." He looked at Miranstein for any sign of offense, but mostly she just looked… relieved?
"Perhaps you have the same condition?" Sharizz said, blinking their eyes innocently, as Tarroi sat in her chair with a vague huff.
"A discussion we can save for later," zh'Rhashaan said quickly. "Well, since everyone's introduced here, I should mention we've got Commodore Vaon Blethu on the line."
Wolfe glanced at Sharizz, and their antennae twitched with nerves. Starfleet Intelligence's Field Director being on the line confirmed whatever they were about to discuss was big news. Gears started clicking in Wolfe's mind as he puzzled what it might be.
"Hello." The Tellarite's gruff voice was made by speakers in the room to sound as if she was sitting at the head of the table.
"And also Supervisor, Office 20, Commander Koneegan."
A deep voice emanated from the chair to Blethu's right. "Hi."
It was probably a saying somewhere that to catch Yrillians, you needed a Yrillian. Koneegan lived up to that saying, a first rate field operative who leveraged his innate understanding of the Yrillian system to put his team exactly where it was needed.
Blethu's voice returned. "Commander Wolfe, Lieutenant Sharizz. I am sure you are wondering why you're here."
Gears clicked in Wolfe's head as connections came together. "Um. Garita?"
There was a pause, then Blethu spoke, "Correct."
Sharizz tilted their head, "Office 20 is Yrillian Sector. Is Garita on Yrillia?" That had been considered her most likely destination to flee to. Next most likely was a shallow grave under a bridge somewhere on Celos.
"This lady must be some sort of civvy freighter captain then, if we're going there." Tarroi said.
Koneegan sighed deeply. "This meeting is a little anarchic, even for me," he rumbled.
"Sorry," zh'Rhashaan said. "Wolfe, Sharizz, Captain Tarroi, very clever guesses."
"Not too clever," Blethu said. "If it were as simple as Garita hiding on Yrillia, we would have sent Office 20 to grab her and you wouldn't be here. You have the edges of the truth, but this operation is more complex than that."
Tarroi looked down at the tabletop and Sharizz's antennae drooped visibly. She slightly shied away from Blethu's 'seat' as she continued, "Miranstein, fill in the details for us."
"As Commodore Blethu said, Captain Tarroi," Miranstein said. "You were near the truth. I am a 'civilian,' but I am not a freighter captain. I am a bounty hunter, and my crew has been tracking the movements of Garita in order to apprehend her and collect the sizable reward. Recently we busted down the door of a plastic surgeon on Ogarin Station. According to her, Garita is currently in hiding in the guise of a Bajoran on Sydrax."
The room was quiet. "Well shit," Tarroi said.
"It remains a high priority of this government to capture Garita," Falayah said, "It'd be solving unfinished business. That being said… President Motarr wishes to remain focused on his domestic development agenda and working towards Federation membership. Sparking a war with the Sydraxians over Garita would jeopardize both of those initiatives. Nor do we have the foreign intelligence assets to go after her ourselves." She nodded at Miranstein. "So, we need cover. Miranstein's bounty hunter status provides that. We can coordinate with Office 20 and Starfleet Intelligence more broadly to gain you proper credentials to access Sydraxian space."
"A few work gangs owe me a favor," Koneegan said.
"Alright," Wolfe said. "But why do you need me and Sharizz? Why not some folks from Office 20?"
"We know that you've had extensive encounters with Garita in the past," Blethu said. "We know you're hungry for her to be brought to justice. You know her behaviours and her methods. And in particular, Sharizz is the only person here who can easily match the scent of her pheromones." Sharizz flexed their antennae at that comment, and straightened in their seat. "It would be helpful as well to have an asset with a political science background on the ground to examine the political situation," Blethu finished.
"Tarroi will be there to represent Orions," Falayah said. "We're considering bringing on Captain Zaphas as well. Like the rest of you, she wants Garita behind bars, and apparently she was interested in working with Wolfe's team again."
Wolfe was suddenly very glad Holena and Antonov would never hear of this meeting.
"My ship may be Yrillian, but there is a limit on the amount of people I can bring along," Miranstein said sardonically.
"We will work out the details," Falayah said.
"The plan will be," zh'Rhashaan said, "Wolfe and Sharizz both first undergo cosmetic surgery to look like species that might be on Sydrax. Since we can't get you to Yrillian size this will be Bajorans, Orions, or Cardassians. Using Miranstein's ship and the cover provided by Commander Koneegan, you will infiltrate the capital, where we believe Garita is hiding among Red Hierarchy sympathizers. You will use Sharizz to identify her, then capture and extract her for trial."
"It goes without saying," Blethu said, her voice gravel-rough with seriousness, "This is a volunteer only mission. The situation on the ground is incredibly dangerous for foreigners. There are reports of Graduate-backed paramilitaries that will shoot aliens on sight. It is also in violation of the treaty of Celos. Wolfe, Sharizz, if you are captured we will have records to show you went rogue, in the event they trace you back to us. You will be disavowed, and likely executed. If you survive, your best case scenario is to be repatriated by your member world government, never to work in Starfleet again. At worst you will rot in a Sydraxian prison the rest of your life. Most likely, you will drift outside of Federation space, eking out a difficult existence." Blethu took a moment to let that sink in. "Do not think that by telling you this I do not think you are up to the task of bringing an abuser and criminal to justice. I simply want you to be fully informed before you agree to anything."
Wolfe and Sharizz looked at each other, and nodded simultaneously. "I'm in," Wolfe said.
"I wish to capture Garita," Sharizz added.
"Me too," Tarroi said to Falayah.
"Very good." Blethu said, "I do not risk your lives lightly. What you're doing here will heal a deep wound left in the Orion psyche. It will gain us valuable intelligence."
"And it'll fill Miranstein's pocketbooks," Koneegan said. Miranstein glanced around the table and shrugged.
Blethu gave a curt cough, "zh'Rhashaan will stay here a few more days to help with the initial planning stages. But once you leave Alukk, you are on your own."
"We're up for it." Wolfe said.
"Good luck, then."
Notes said:
Credit
@Iron Wolf and
@Leila Hann for writing this; I came up with the initial concept, but they both fleshed it out and did the actual writing.
