Surefoot 28: Dead Man's Hand

Dumont nodded, throwing in one card for another. "Of course, your father's assassination by the House of Ilkrin?"

The Klingon sneered angrily at him. "My father was not assassinated! He died in honourable combat on Galkaris! Not at the hands of one of those cowardly Ilkrin targs!"

Dumont nodded. "No, no, of course not. I'm sure all the rumours floating about are entirely unfounded. Forget I said anything."

Achatch bared his jagged teeth at the Frenchman, and tried to return to his cards.

Dumont suppressed a smile.

*

C'Rash, Rrori and Weynik entered the hotel room, the Caitian Chief of Security declaring, "I need a shower. I want to clean my claws."

T'Varik rose from her seat beside Jonas. "That would defeat the purpose of your assault on the Corsaire Captain." She indicated the scanning panels set up next to the miniature replicator unit. "Place your hands flat, claws extended."

"I know what to do," the Caitian snapped, looking up at the viewscreen, where the poker game was in session. "How's Uncle Esek managing?"

"From the looks of his chips," Weynik noted, reaching for a large slice of pizza, cradling it to contain its impressive collection of extra cheese, olives and green bell peppers. "He's holding his own. He was always a superior player, even back at the Academy, but I never expected him to be able to match the Galaxy's professionals."

"What he might lack in experience," Kami pointed out. "His senses, and psychological training from me, compensate... if he can stay focused." She frowned as the cameras focused on him. "Dumont has a tactic of seeking out the psychological weaknesses of other players, and goading them into acting carelessly, or giving away tells. And unfortunately, Dumont has a lot of information on Esek, to use against him."

"The Captain will not succumb," Rrori declared, risking one of the remaining slices of Bolian Special. "He will wait until the Tournament ends to claim his vengeance."

"That would be exceedingly foolish," T'Varik pointed out, "As he would be arrested by the Son'a, and we would have no legal means of freeing him." She looked over at Jonas, who was running the DNA scans and bioreplicator unit they brought with them. "Mr Ostrow?"

Jonas nodded. "Plenty of DNA from Captain DaSilva, enough to coat the dermal hand patches and contact lenses and, hopefully, fool the Corsaire's security systems."

"Good. Captain Weynik, Ensign Hrelle, you may wish to change into more appropriate attire for the next phase."

When Jonas was done, C'Rash rose. "I'm going to wash my claws and change out of this. I feel foolish."

"You may wash your claws," T'Varik clarified. "But you will remain in your outfit for a while longer. I have something for you to deliver to Captain Hrelle, and your current seductive attire will be most appropriate."

*

"QI'yaH!" Achatch bellowed, kicking back his chair, his hands balled into fists, before turning and storming out of the room, shoving aside anyone in his way -- and many who were nowhere near him.

Hrelle stayed in his seat, turning slightly to call after him, "Nice playing with you! Qapla' in all your future endeavours!" He turned back to the remaining players. "Lovely man, I'll miss his warm, inviting nature."

Hazo chuckled, his huge wrinkled Ferengi ears twitching as he passed his hand over some newly-acquired chips. "He left the best part of himself behind. Now let's get going, I have some grub worms waiting for me back at my room-"

"Esek... darling..."

Hrelle turned in his chair, tensing as he watched C'Rash approach unexpectedly. "Uh..."

She drew in closer, crouching beside him, sparing a glance at the other players before focusing on Hrelle again, her voice sultry, pouting. "Esek, how long are you going to be playing this silly little game? I'm bored just sitting in our hotel room waiting for you to come back! You promised we'd have some fun!"

Hrelle offered an embarrassed look to the others, before reaching up and stroking C'Rash's muzzle. "Now, now, Cupcake, you get back, and when I win, maybe I'll buy you that Tholian silk dress you're always asking about, okay?" He drew into the side of her head as if to stroke her muzzle, and in Old Caitian muttered, "What's going on?"

She reached up and playfully tickled him under his chin while her other hand slipped something into his tuxedo pocket. Seconds later, his Embed activated. "Gold to Brown: we've modified a stolen Son'a communicator to piggyback your own signal. If you can hear me... scratch behind Black's ear."

Amused now, Hrelle followed his wife's instructions.

"Good," Kami replied, her smirk carrying over the signal. "Now stop flirting with your niece, you pervert, even if it's play-acting, it's just wrong."

Zad'ik approached the romantic couple. "Captain, forgive the interruption to this tender scene, but perhaps you could continue this after the Tournament?"

"Yes, yes of course." He shook off the female's attention and thumbed towards the front doors. "Go on, Cupcake. Don't wear yourself out before I get back." Then he slapped her rear as she departed, chuckling to himself -- before appearing embarrassed now. "Um, sorry about that, she's in Season."

"L'amour est exigeant, Mon Capitaine," Dumont informed him. "But I wonder what your wife would say if she knew?" He looked across the table at his opponent. "Unless you're going to lie and claim that that was her? I've seen her image."

Hrelle chuckled, signalling for another drink. "No, Monsieur. My wife is not that young and attractive any more. Her fur is greying, her boobs are sagging, and she's working up a real belly on her from sitting around eating shuris rolls all day." He grunted. "I hate it when females let themselves go as they get old."

Tala grunted. "You're quite a charmer, Captain."

"Sounds astute to me," Hazo noted, chuckling.

"But aren't you worried about what might happen if any of the Tournament broadcast leaks out and gets to her?" Dumont taunted.

"You mean, if you arranged it to leak out, Monsieur?" Hrelle smirked. "That's about your level. And no, I'm not worried. For all her faults, my wife is perceptive enough to know how I really feel about her. Don't fret about my marriage, Dumont. You have other, more personal things to concern yourself with." His smirk dropped. "Let's get going."

*

In the hotel room, everyone watched Kami as she watched the exchange, listened to what was said, her tail twitching through the hole in her chair where she sat. It was T'Varik who approached her. "He was, of course, playing a role necessary to justify C'Rash secreting the communicator to him. We do not wish you to become upset."

Kami stared at the screen a second more, before looking up at her friend and smiling. "What? You don't think I was getting angry over his words, do you?" She glanced at some of the others, saw their own concern and embarrassment, and laughed. "I know that fat bastard better than anyone else here does. I know how he really feels about me; it radiates from him like the light from a nova."

Then her expression sobered as her gaze returned to the screen, pointing to Dumont. "That man organised the assassins who nearly killed my cub, my family, myself." Her tail twitched in agitation through the back of the chair where she sat. "Now, he upsets me. And he's getting under Esek's fur; I can see it in my husband's expression, his reactions."

"He can handle it," Weynik assured her. "I've known Wide Load for decades; that stuff pours off him like water off a fat duck's back."

Kami remained unconvinced, never looking away until T'Varik approached. "If you believe it necessary, you can ask him to 'throw' the Tournament and drop out. His winning is not required for us to achieve our objectives."

She looked up at the Vulcan. "You sound confident."

T'Varik folded her hands behind her back. "I am confident. When my former associate Captain Sakuth was in our Brig following the Oubliette Incident, she challenged me to 'do her job' without making an ethical compromise, or sacrificing innocents. So when Admiral Tattok offered the Captain an opportunity to obtain vital information on the Bel-Zon, and requested that I organise the operation, I accepted the challenge.

The original plan will result in the disablement of the Bel-Zon operation, and acquisition of vital information on their contacts, their bases of operation and past as well as current objectives. My revised plan will achieve this, and more. To that end, I have a new task for you, a return to the station's Security Centre... and a new identity."

Before she could elaborate, C'Rash entered the hotel room, her tail smacking everything around her as she strode to the bathroom. "No one had better say anything to me about what I had to do."

But as the bathroom door was closing, Weynik managed to throw out, "Whatever you say, Cupcake."

The door just about muffled the curses inside.

*

Hazo had been the next to go, the old Ferengi surprisingly philosophical about losing, and the hostesses had exchanged the remaining players' chips for ones of larger amounts, in order to make space on the table, and now Dumont could see the aggression rise in the Romulan Tala as she saw the end in sight.

Then there was Hrelle, whose discipline was eroding from Dumont's continued taunts. Tells were rising. And as they launched into another hand, Dumont was determined to continue onward. "Would you like a break, Captain?"

Hrelle never looked up from his hand. "And why would I want a break, Monsieur?"

Dumont rearranged his own cards. "To call home. To make sure your family was still alive and well."

Hrelle looked up now, as did Tala, both of them looking at the Frenchman.

Dumont looked up now, affecting innocence. "Not that I'm implying that-"

"My family is alive and well. They're on Cait, surrounded by members of our clan. And anyone who tries to threaten us on our own territory will only live long enough to fully understand the supreme stupidity of such an action. Are we clear on that?"

"Of course, Captain. I didn't mean to upset you."

"You didn't," Hrelle snapped tautly.

They went silent, until Dumont added while betting, "It's just that you seem to have poor luck with your loved ones. Your first wife -- what was her name again? -- was killed, your stepdaughter left orphaned and alone..." He reached for his drink. "Sasha, isn't it?" He sipped at his cognac. "I've seen images of her, Captain. Very attractive. Buxom. I'm sure she's popular with the boys, I bet. Now, if we had taken her instead of you all those years ago, we wouldn't have sent her to the mines or the Orion fighting pits. Her work would have been much more... recreational."

The table was vibrating, making the stacks of chips shudder, as if the station's gravity generators were out of alignment.

On the other side of the table, Hrelle glared.

And then heard the voice just under his ear. "Gold to Brown: Calm down. You'll get yourself in trouble."

He bared his teeth as he leaned forward.

"You're scaring me, Esek, no matter what he says to get at you, you- wait, are you doing this deliberately? Making Dumont think he's getting to you? Twitch your ears!"

He did.

"You bastard... you had ME convinced you're ready to rip his throat out! And I know your fat ass better than anyone else!"

He smiled at his wife's response as he made a visible show of calming down and settling back. "You're not getting the better of me, Dumont."

"Captain," Tala started. "You can't possibly allow his insults to go unchallenged, can you?"

"And what would you have him do?" Dumont countered, sneering at her. "Attack me? And get us both removed leaving you the default Tournament winner?" The man grunted. "Typical Romulan behaviour. Pathetic. I haven't met one of your people with even a nanogram of fortitude. You sneak attack at places like Khitomer and Tomed, and then you scurry back behind the Neutral Zone like a pack of dockrats when the lights are switched on."

"You insult the Romulan Empire, human," Tala warned him. "Desist, or we'll-"

"You'll what, you'll withdraw and close your borders? Again? Your whole race acts like some petulant adolescent storming off to their bedroom writing pretentious poetry and imagining everyone's talking about them in their absence. This is not the case, by the way. No one cares if you stay or go." He looked up at her now. "When your ancestors fled from Vulcan, did the Vulcans even notice?" He pushed a stack of chips towards the pot. "Raise you a hundred."

She glared at him, and met his raise.

*

The young woman in the maintenance gear was busy chatting away with her walking companion as they marched down the docking bay corridor to the bored-looking guard, the woman's voice carrying. "So I ask him, 'Why is it always me that has to do the crap jobs? What is Nehrat doing while I'm crawling through all those recycling ducts?' And you know what he says? He says -- and I shit you not that this is exactly what he says -- he says, 'You can't expect a girl to do work like that!' Would you believe it?"

The guard held up his hand. "Is there a problem? Are you lost?"

Sasha looked to him, adjusting the shoulder straps of the engineering bag she was carrying, her face twisted in simmering rage. "Lost? I wish I was lost! I wish I was lost and out of comlink range to a certain stroke-off supervisor who clearly favours certain pretty young things who drop their trousers to get ahead!"

Beside her, Weynik looked up, his hands resting on his equipment belt, but now he produced his faked station ID. "Please excuse her, we've been pulling double duty for the Tournament. We're Mario and Luigi, from Station Maintenance. The station's sensors detected a radiation leak from your warp core. It will no doubt be another false alarm, but we have to check it out anyway."

The guard frowned at them. "The Captain and Engineer are off-ship, I can't let you onboard without their clearance."

Sasha turned red, as she gestured aggressively at the guard. "Oh, of course you can't! Because that would clearly mean that the Universe wasn't a total cesspit filled with targ slurry! Why don't I just stick my head in a stroking plasma column and be done with it? It'd be the perfect topper for this miserable stroking week!"

"What my colleague means," Weynik explained calmly, "Is that Docking Regulation 47.7 authorises Station Maintenance staff to board docked vessels without clearance in the event of a potential safety hazard-"

"Of course," Sasha butted in, "You could always call your Captain and Engineer back to escort us around your little ship! Go on, call them while they're on shore leave, and they'll come here and find out that you disturbed them from whatever they were doing unnecessarily! Go on, I dare you!"

"What my colleague means," Weynik explained again. "Is that you should have received confirmation of our visit on your Duty PADD, and that we'll be as quick as we can."

The guard shot another bemused look at Sasha, before following Weynik's advice and checking his PADD, nodding and opening the door. "Okay. But I'll have to escort you while you're onboard."

"Thank you, Sir, that would be marvellous." Weynik tensed, preparing for when they entered the ship and the door began closing before asking, "How many others are still onboard? We need to know for the safety report."

"No one else, they're all on leave-" He never finished the rest, as Sasha struck him in his lower back, delivering a second kick to the back of one of his knees, before grabbing him by the arm and delivering a blow to his neck with her free hand.

Weynik stared at her. "What do you think you're doing, Ensign?"

Sasha let the unconscious figure slide to the bulkhead. "What? You weren't doing anything to stop him!"

"Yes, I was! I was obtaining valuable information, and waiting for him to lead us to a place where we can secure him!"

She flushed. "Oh. Because now we have to drag him along, right?"

"What do you mean 'we', Giraffeski? Get to work, we have to find the Auxiliary Control Room, which according to the specs, is on Deck 3 Aft."

Sasha huffed as she slipped her arms under the guard's arms and dragged him along. "Sorry, Captain."

He chuckled. "That's okay. This year's Valedictorian is allowed the odd mistake."

"Please, don't remind me of that. The graduation is two weeks away! I haven't even gotten to writing my speech!"

"And?"

"And, I have no idea what to say. I've watched about thirty or so recorded ones previously given, and they... they're all so... lofty and confident."

He stopped and walked up to a door, noting the lock as it slid aside obediently, revealing a hygiene chamber. "In here. At least he can keep out of trouble."

She huffed in acknowledgement as she lay him down on the floor and stepped out. As the door closed, Weynik produced a phaser pen and burned the lock shut as she declared, "I've tried to come up with something, but I don't know what to say."

He stopped and considered it. "How about 'I deserve this wholeheartedly, and if you don't agree, you can all stroke off'."

Now she laughed. "I wish! It's just not what I'm feeling."

"So what are you feeling?"

She sighed. "Nervous as hell. Undeserving. I never set out to earn this honour. I'm sure that there's plenty of other cadets who have worked harder who would deserve this more. I just wanted to do the best I can. But, you know, if they think I earned it, then I'll do the best I can to live up to expectations."

Weynik was silent for a moment, before noting, "It sounds like you just wrote your speech."

She looked to him, smiling. "It's a bit short, isn't it?"

He smiled at her. "You have a problem with shortness? It's your speech, you can make it as short or long, as sombre or as crazy as you like. So long as it's you. Besides, you don't want to keep your Dad standing around on the Academy grounds all day while a graduation buffet table sits nearby unconquered by him. Come on."

The entered the Engineering Section of the Corsaire, a tiny enclosure compared to the Surefoot, and strode to an Auxiliary Control station, Weynik hopping up and placing his hand on the appropriate panel, hoping the dermal covering with Captain DaSilva's cloned DNA will be read as belonging to the ship's commanding officer.

The display before him came to life. He smiled. "Sweet." He lifted up his hand to begin accessing the appropriate controls. "I'll ready the duonetic pulse. You take the adjacent station, Ensign, and get familiar with the Flight Ops and Navigation protocols."

She complied, but asked, "What about Dumont's database?"

"Not a priority anymore, since we're taking the ship around it." He smiled. "I envy you, Sash."

"Me, Sir? Why?"

"You've had such adventures in your life already, and you're just starting out. Can you imagine what you might be up to in ten, twenty, thirty years' time?"

She smirked to herself, finding the protocols easier than she expected. "It all seems so far away..."

"It'll get there, sooner than you think-"

Just then the door behind them slid open, and a bandaged Captain DaSilva entered. "Greg, where the hell are- You?"

*

Even through the filtered, artificial vision provided her by the exographic sensor strapped over her eye, she didn't like what she saw below. It was bad enough being in this filthy, claustrophobic maintenance duct, without looking down into the Vault, and counting the many ways she could die a horrible death down there.