Surefoot 86: Illegal Moves

Vash breathed out, pausing and looking over at him. "Patience, Mr Novarro. If the classified information found in the archeological site here is correct, then anything we find here will be worth the wait. And we get to bypass the Pandora Protocols."

Nova pushed the brim of his hat up away from his forehead with his thumb. "Who in the Sam Hill's Pandora?"

She returned to her scans. "In Greek myth, she was the first human created by the Gods, who opened a forbidden container and released evils onto the world. The name was adopted by the Federation Archaeology Council for a set of protocols to protect ancient sites that might contain technology or knowledge that could be potentially dangerous. I've crossed proverbial swords with the Council more than once over that-" Her eyes lit up. "I found it! It's got some sort of inhibiting field around it, which is probably why the archaeological team here never spotted it before-"

Nova rose to his feet and approached, cracking his knuckles. "How far down, Professor, and in what direction?"

Vash rechecked the readings on her scanner, pointing to one part of the rock in front of her. "Straight there, almost a metre inside."

He nodded, dropped to one knee beside her, and leaned forward, adjusting his photonic density to allow him to pass his arms through the rock as easily as air, blindly fishing around within, as if he had lost his keys down the back of the couch.

Then he chuckled and drew back, his arms and hands emerging - with what looked like nothing more than a featureless yellow cube, thirty centimeres on every dimension. Nova set it down, released it and looked at it, frowning. "This is it?"

Vash stared at it with undisguised awe, looking like she wanted to reach out and touch, but afraid to do it. "I don't believe it... it's real..."

"Hmph, looks like something my Great Aunt Tillie would keep her buttons in. What is it?"

She finally worked up the courage to grasp it by each end, albeit gingerly. "A Stasis Box, a storage unit that generates a field that keeps whatever is inside it in perfect suspension. Stasis Boxes are relics from the Slaver Empire, which they said existed over a billion years ago. They're exceedingly rare."

"And what do these old bozos keep in them?"

"Anything; previous stasis boxes have had weapons, pictures, cuts of meat, nothing at all. We never know until we open them." She held it up to the light of the small white sun above them. "If I brought this to the Federation Archaeology Council, I could write my own ticket-"

Nova snatched the box back and returned to his feet. "Yeah, and if I had a skimpy black dress, I could be Mae West. You got hired to find the Great Whatsit, Professor, not take it."

Vash continued to stare longingly at the object. "Of course, of course... but no one would know if I took just a quick peek inside-"

He slipped the box under his arm like it contained his shoes. "Yeah, Frenchie said you might say something like that. He also said if you keep your nose clean, the Bel-Zon will put you in charge of opening it later, under controlled conditions... and find anything else of value here, once we take over. Come on, let's go get my boys and beat it before the Starfleeters get here..."

*

Elba II Transit Station:

It was called The Bar With No Name, which Lady Penelope Creighton-Ward, trying to be generous, was somewhat amusing. She hoped that with a few more drinks in her, it would get better.

It was certainly busy; this was in a public section of the facility, a planetbound point of embarkation for commercial passengers going to and from Eminiar VII, Deep Space Twelve, Salem One, Ariannus and other places. No one here knew of the current, secret owners of the transport hub, or of the criminal activities ongoing in adjacent neighbouring domes.

She sat at the bar. It was cosy here, and busy, and distracting... just not enough to shake away her inner turmoil. Just a few weeks ago, she was settled into her retirement on Risa, safe and secure with her AI Parker her only companion. Then all of that, and Parker, was lost, thanks to the Bel-Zon.

And people died on Salem One. Yes, they certainly would have died anyway without her involvement, and she was coerced into the operation. That didn't make the victims any less dead. She wasn't just Lady Penelope, she was Lady Fantomax: the Galaxy's greatest thief and cat burglar. She wasn't a killer.

No, now she was a killer. And without Parker, she was alone, without friends... except perhaps the Rat Pack, as strange as it may have seemed to others-

"Buy you a drink?"

Lady Penelope kept looking forward, focusing on the reflections in the mirror behind the bar; she had initially expected it to be a stranger, one of the many civilians here who might have been staying here waiting for their next passenger transport.

It wasn't. "Thank you, no."

Bo Darvil drew an unoccupied barstool closer to her. "It's for the best; I don't have any credit on the public banks here. Buy me a drink, then." He was a humanoid male his age, with a full set of grey hair and a matching beard framing his lined, broad-nosed face, and a worn leather jacket, trousers and boots making him fit in here like one of the roguish pilots or navigators that frequented transit stations.

It also suited him as the Highwayman, a smuggler and private transporter that offered considerable support to the Bel-Zon with both his legitimate and illegitimate business resources. She had had little direct interaction with him before now, though he was probably closer to her age than anyone else in this motley criminal crew, and showed little of the homicidal tendencies that the likes of that Nazi monster Ilsa Wölfin and the Vulcan terrorist Orlok seemed to revel in.

"If I'm disturbing you," he ventured gently. "Just say the word."

She raised her wineglass, using it to summon one of the bartenders. "What's your poison?"

Once the young Andorian behind the bar drew up, Darvil glanced past him to the lines of multi-coloured, multi-shaped bottles, pointing to one. "Is that Betazoid sherry? That'll more than do, thank you."

Lady Penelope smirked. "Sherry? Really?"

He waved off her teasing tone. "Don't drink shame me."

"Oh, I'm not, I just pictured someone as rugged-looking as you preferring some home-brewed hooch, something to put hair on your chest."

The Zeon male grimaced. "I have more than enough of that, thanks. And at my age, I'm more than happy to not rush into alcoholic incapacity and gastric insurrection at warp speed. Hell, I'm more than happy to wake up in the morning without my back aching."

She nodded in empathy, raising her glass in his direction. "I'm on the same page. Here's to Mornings Without Backaches."

"Mornings Without Backaches." He raised his sherry glass and clinked it to hers.

From a nearby wall vent overlooking the Bar With No Name, a grey and white rat stared at the couple.

*

Crescent City, Farius Prime:

Commander James Somerset gripped the handle of his umbrella as he quickened his pace down the boulevard, regretting calling a taxi. In a moment of nostalgia, moments which seemed to arise more and more for him of late, he had likened a walk in the rain here to those of his youth in Edinburgh, going to the pubs and theatres with his friends... with Theresa...

This was not Edinburgh. The rain here was thick and polluted. The streets were dirty, unwelcoming and empty but for the homeless hidden in the shadows. The societal support infrastructure was non-existent; there was wealth here, but little filtered down to the general population. Those fringe lunatics in the Federation who harkened back sentimentally for the days of unregulated capitalism needed to come here and see how good the Good Old Days really were.

He reached the warehouse, a reinforced structure with a flat roof for shuttles to enter and leave. And the entrance had guards, of a sort: twin human women, tall, statuesque, with matching brunette hair and hairstyles and dressed identically in utilitarian jumpsuits, and they spoke in unison as he approached. "May we help you, Sir?"

Somerset eyed them appreciatively... and then suspiciously, their body language somehow off-putting. "I have an appointment with Kivas Fajo."

They blinked, again in unison, both parting like curtains and replying as one, "Mr Fajo is expecting you, Commander Somerset. Please step inside and you will be escorted to him."

He complied, an eyebrow raised as he entered the foyer, stopping and shaking off what little moisture he had picked up along the way. He set aside his umbrella and took a moment to examine his reflection in the mirrored walls of the around him, noting the lines on his broad, chiselled face, the greys appearing in his dark auburn hair, the frame beneath his plain black business suit beginning to feel the long-term effects of his... active lifestyle.

He was at an age when he should have been pushing for fewer field assignments, but the Dominion War, and the losses his department incurred, had made his experience in Starfleet Security vital. Now, however, the situation had changed.

Another woman - again, facially identical to the door attendants, except with a different hairstyle and a more flattering skirt suit - appeared, smiling just as blankly. "Welcome, Commander Somerset. Please follow me."

He did, saying nothing as they navigated a labyrinth of corridors, some leading into larger storage areas where workers - more women, also identical - laboured, moving heavy objects with ease, or sat at workstations, managing communications. Fascinating.

His escort led him into a turbolift and finally into a plush, luxuriant office, of ornately-carved wooden chairs and tables, rich burgundy carpets and curtains framing a window that looked out onto an interior warehouse where a shuttle sat, while more identical women swarmed around it.

There was smoke in the air, a mingling of many scents that made Somerset's nose twitch, as he focused on the other male in the room: an older Zibalian in a purple business suit, smiling as he surrounded himself with more identical women, except for their clothes and hair colours and styles.

He sat behind the desk, flanked by more identical women, and retrieved a thick cigar, occasionally stopping to imbibe from an adjacent whiskey tumbler. He displayed bright teeth as he smiled... eyeing Somerset's case. "Welcome to Farius Prime, Commander. We are honoured to have one of your stature in Starfleet. Karen 14, if you would?" As Somerset's escort moved another chair closer to the desk, the trader offered, "Please, sit."

Somerset did, setting his case on his lap and resting his hands on the surface - fully aware of Fajo's women standing behind him. Surrounding him.

The trader tapped slate-grey ash into an adjacent ashtray, before regarding the remains of his smoke. "I picked up this particular habit following my escape from prison, sampled stogies from many different worlds, enjoyed some more than others. All, however, have one thing in common: they produce more than just smoke. They produce wealth. They produce class, sophistication, and success."

"And lung disease," Somerset pointed out. "For you, and those around you."

The trader shrugged. "I get my own lungs cleaned out regularly. And I take no responsibility for the health of others."

"Not even your staff?"

"What, these?" Fajo smiled. "Androids have no lungs."

Somerset glanced around him again. Yes, of course, it was obvious; even beyond the identical features, they lacked the subtle body language one normally picked up from organic life. "Androids? Indeed?" He reached out to the nearest one, hesitating.

Fajo beckoned him, still grinning. "Go on, Commander, touch her! Make love to her! Beat her! Do what you like! You'll find that physically she's almost indistinguishable from a real humanoid woman!" He giggled like a child.

Somerset withdrew his hand again, still looking up at her. "Is he right?"

She blinked and replied blankly, "I am not programmed to respond in that area."

The agent focused on Fajo again. "I'm aware of only one android, the one in Starfleet, Commander-"

"Don't say his name!" Fajo snapped suddenly, his humour instantly replaced with venom, before he physically regained his composure. "Yes, you're right, there's only one sentient android out there that we know about, and it's... that one in Starfleet. But Karen there, all the Karens here, are more basic models, units controlled by a central computer. I found them a year ago hidden on a dead world, part of a small consignment left by an extinct race, and located and salvaged by my good self. I had some of them change their hair and clothes to distinguish them, but otherwise they are all

They're not capable of independent thought, creativity and initiative, just simple obedience, responding only to verbal commands from me." He smiled and settled down again. "If only all androids shared such traits."

Somerset looked around him again. He had recalled an apocryphal incident from a century or more ago, of Captain Kirk encountering a planet of such androids, said to have originated millennia before from the Andromeda Galaxy, their location kept classified. That Fajo had somehow located these-

He turned back to see Fajo wagging his cigar at Somerset, smiling again as if he had read the Terran's mind. "No, no, no, Commander! Farius Prime is outside of Starfleet jurisdiction; you can no more confiscate them than you can arrest me as a fugitive!"

Then he seemed to remember the cigar in his hand, and puffed again, holding the smoke in for a long time before releasing it - deliberately towards Somerset - before indicating the stogie. "Would you care for one? These are hand-rolled on the inner thighs of naked Orion girls just entering puberty." He ran the length of it under his nose and made an appreciative sound. "When you take a really deep drag you can almost taste their young musk..."

Somerset's jaw tightened. "Thank you, no."

Fajo raised his drinking hand. "Or how about a shot? I have the finest libations here, nothing replicated-"

"Perhaps we can proceed? The information?"

The trader regarded him. "The items you mentioned?"

Somerset offered the valise to one of the androids, who accepted it and set it on Fajo's desk. Fajo set his cigar down in an adjacent ashtray and drew the case closer, unlatching it and lifting up the lid, his eyes gleaming and a soft, sibilant sound escaping from his mouth. "It's that ancient festival season of Christmas on Earth right now, isn't it, Commander? When your people give each other gifts in honour of some fat bearded god flying through the sky, or a tree, or something like that?"

"Something like that."

Fajo removed from the valise a box, setting it down and deactivating it, before opening the inner lid and removing from the interior a thin silver tubes, one of many. "These appear genuine."

"They are."

The trader made sounds that would have been obscene taken out of context. "Yes... the final surviving collection from Governor Kodos... Kodos the Executioner, of Tarsus IV. These beauties are over a century old... I only half-believed that some still existed." His eyes lit up as he opened the tube, withdrawing a long, narrow brown cigar, running the length of it along his nose, before giggling again.

He produced a cigar cutter that looked made of gold-pressed latinum, snipped one end of the cigar, and lit up, dragging the smoke in deeply and appreciatively in Somerset's direction. "They said Kodos would indulge in one of these whenever he stood on the balcony overlooking his courtyard and supervised the execution of those colonists he considered unworthy to survive the famine they were experiencing, would listen to their screams as his guards cut them down like wheat-"

Somerset cleared his throat. "They're not a Christmas gift, Mr Fajo. They're payment, for information."

Fajo continued to enjoy his new smoke, before nodding absently. "Yes, yes, Commander, the Obsidian Order activities on Kelshay-"

"No," Somerset corrected.

Fajo paused. "No? But your earlier transmissions-"

"That was admittedly my previous assignment. But since arranging this trade, the Kelshay matter settled itself, and I've been reassigned. I'm the new Intelligence Office for Station Salem One, under Commodore Esek Hrelle."

He watched Fajo react to the name, and try - very poorly - to hide it. "Hrelle? Never heard of him."

"Indeed? His sector is currently being menaced by a new incarnation of the criminal organisation called the Bel-Zon... which I believe you have some association with now, at least peripherally. So forgive me if I find your denials as hard to accept as the stench of your habi."

Fajo froze, the only movement coming from the cigar smoke rising. Then he declared, with a rising anxiety, "I deny any involvement with any group, Commander! You should leave now, the way you came..." He chuckled again, feebly trying to be intimidating. "Or I'll have my androids show you a quicker way out, through the window."

Somerset mentally prepared himself now, having expected some potential physical opposition, but not androids. He looked around him again at them, all of them smiling placidly, oblivious to the tension in the room. "You should consider giving up smoking, Mr Fajo... and associating with the likes of Bastien Dumont... and Max Zorin."

Fajo chuckled, coughing now, before warning, "Better- better to associate with them than be their targets-" His coughing increased. "As you- you will be- when I tell them-"

His coughing increased, and he stared at the cigar in his hand, before throwing it away.

"Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar," Somerset informed him coolly. "And sometimes it's laced with paralysing agents."

Fajo rose to his feet, pointing at him and sputtering to the androids, "Get- Get him-"

And with a spasm he stiffened and fell behind his desk like a tree cut down.... close, but no cigar. The androids watched him fall without trying to catch him, but as Fajo hit the floor with a thump, one of the Karens looked to Somerset now with a slight frown. "We do not understand. What were we to get you?"

He rose to his feet, producing from inside his jacket a zero-compression datarod and proffering it to her. "You were to get me a copy of all the data from his computer: activities, contacts, locations." He smiled at another android. "And you were to get me that drink you offered earlier. Some of Mr Fajo's most expensive libation, if you don't mind."

As they obeyed, Somerset drew his chair around closer to Fajo, who trembled as if shivering, looking up at him, aware but unable to move. The agent sat down and regarded him coolly. "You'll recover in an hour. And when you do, you might wish to consider that threat to warn the Bel-Zon of my involvement."

He paused to accept a drink from one of the Karens, nodding to her in thanks. "Based on my previous experience with Zorin, he has zero patience with those under him who fail, regardless of reason. You'll have a greater chance of survival by just letting me do my job, and dealing with him before he deals with you." He raised his glass in a toast.

*

Planet Stormbrow, Irisdor System, Kzin Patriarchy:

The black-furred felinoid known as Jet Jaguar crouched on a high perch, relishing the scents carried to her on the breeze from the jungle behind her... and relishing even more the distance she had quickly put herself from the inhabitants of this planet, one of their settlements in her view in the valley below.

The striped felinoid Kzinti milled about their rugged stone community, living simply, the males having shot her looks of suspicion and hostility while in their presence, before she ascended to this point. That was expected; their race's females were non-sentient, no better than animals meant for breeding and nothing else, and encountering a thinking, speaking... weapons-carrying... female among them must have been unnerving, to say the least.