Surefoot 88: Arcana

Salem Sector, Station Salem One, Civilian Quarters:

She sat in darkness with the deck, shuffling the cards with casual ease as she sang softly, lovingly to herself. "It's time to play the music... it's time to light the lights... it's time to get things started, because it's our Grand Opening Night..." She chuckled. "That rush of anticipation... the music... the crowds... the mayhem... Shall we see what to expect with the Tarot Club on Station Salem One?"

She set out the first Three Card Spread. "The Sun: success, celebration. The Six of Wands: victory, reward. And the Nine of Pentacles: fruits of labour, luxury. Oh, Brother, Dear Brother, your coffers will be full once again... at least, until your self-destructive hunger for gambling depletes them, once again.

But what about the poor people of Salem One? What can they expect from my efforts tonight?"

She set out the second Spread, making sounds of mock sorrow at the results. "The Five of Cups: loss, heartbreak. The Three of Swords: suffering, grief. And the Moon, Reversed: confusion, fear. Maybe Simon could purchase some lilies for the bereaved? Or are lilies poisonous to cats?

And, pray tell, what will our beloved Max Zorin bring when he finally joins us here?"

She set out the Third Spread. "The Wheel of Fortune, Reversed: loss of control, bad luck. The Ace of Swords, Reversed: confusion, brutality, disorder.

And... Death."

She set aside the rest of the deck and picked up the Death card, contemplating it like the photo of an old lover. "I know, I know, we are never meant to take this one literally. It's really about change, cycles, metamorphosis. It doesn't have to be about actual death.

But where's the fun in that?"

She kissed the card.

Come, Sweetheart. And while you come, I will spread Chaos out on the ground like a blanket, for the picnic.

*

Deck 1 - Commodore's Quarters:

Kami emerged from the cubs' bedroom, only having just settled Sreen down back into bed - this time ensuring the exoframe was completely switched off this time. Poor little thing, it must have been some nightmare. And to be honest, their little lives were so tumultuous, it was astounding that there weren't more nights with bad dreams.

The door chimed as she was refilling her wine glass, and she carried her glass with her as she approached, wondering who would be visiting that time of night, when they could just send a comm- "Ange?"

Cadet Ange Boladede stood in the corridor, clearly livid with rage. A part of Kami had expected such a reaction to what he had undergone today; regardless of how much of it he had brought upon himself, it was natural to feel anger at being caught out. "Cadet, it's not appropriate to come to my quarters-"

"Bitch."

She glanced down, saw a phaser in his hand.

She instinctively tried to dodge and kick the weapon out of his grip.

She was quick.

He was quicker.

The energy bolt struck her, sending her flying backwards. Her wine glass shattered against a table leg and spilled shards and red liquid onto the carpet. She lay there, crumpled up, the clothes at her chest smouldering.

*

Boladede stood there, weapon still raised, not quite believing what he had just done. Not quite believing it was real.

Maybe it wasn't real. He might have fallen asleep in his bunk earlier, and was dreaming all this. Yes. Yes, he would wake up soon, maybe socialise with the rest of Alpha Squad more than he had to date-

Kami coughed, sputtered. Brought him back to reality.

Bitch.

He had come looking for Commodore Hrelle. But this one would do.

He raised his weapon once more. He had cobbled the weapon together from spare parts, and the power cell was almost depleted, but there should have been enough charge left for one more shot, and if he delivered it point blank shot to the head, it would be enough.

He drew closer, bent down-

A roar distracted him, and he turned instinctively to fire at the object torpedoing at him.

He was quick.

Misha was quicker.

The pyjama-clad cub leapt onto Boladede, claws and fangs bared, raking the side of the cadet's head and knocking aside the weapon arm with his leg, using a combat technique he had learned from Cousin C'Rash. The force of the impact sent them both backwards against the wall, as Misha continued the attack relentlessly, driven by an overriding ferocity.

Boladede finally flung him off, sending Misha flying into the nearest wall and landing on the desk, knocking over the terminal and books.

Blood seeping from the wounds on his head, Boladede clamped his hand over the wounds and staggered back out into the corridor, needing to take care of this... and to find an escape from this place.

*

Misha ignored the pain in his arm from hitting the wall, stumbling back to his mother. "Mama! Wake up! He's gone! I protected you! MAMA!"

She lay there, spasming, her back and limbs cambering in pain.

He pressed the Alarm on the wall, but nothing happened!

He rushed out into the corridor, looked around, could smell the Bad Man in the air, but knew he was gone. He went to the nearest doors, banged on them, called for help, receiving no response. Stupid people!

He returned. He had to get help, he had to get Papa or Sasha or Mru or-

He had an idea, and raced up to Mama's Starfleet jacket, taking off the combadge and bringing it over to Mama's paw, letting her biometric signature activate it as he shouted at it, remembering all of the right commands to get attention. "Emergency! Red Alert! Intruder Alert! Medical Alert! Everything Alert!"

The voice of the Station Chief, Captain Kate Sternhagen, replied. "Who's on Counselor Hrelle's channel? Is that you, Misha?"

"Captain Kate! Mama needs help! A cadet shot her! I protected her! Please, get Papa, get Doc Cowboy!"

"Okay, Misha, you stay with her, help is coming!" Seconds later, Kate's voice came over the station intercom. "Intruder Alert! Security Team to Deck 1! Medical Team to Commodore Hrelle's Quarters!"

*

Deck 5 - Broadway:

Hrelle had stayed in Tarot long enough to meet and greet some of the newer station crew who had shown up for the opening of the new nightclub, before deciding to leave the younger patrons to it. He strolled alone with his thoughts: thoughts about the evolving situation in the Quadrant, thoughts about the recent battle the Katana fought with that Defiant-class vessel, thoughts about Sasha and Mru, who were growing closer and closer-

"Intruder Alert! Security Team to Deck 1! Medical Team to Commodore Hrelle's Quarters!"

His combadge chirped for attention alongside Sternhagen's announcement over the general intercom, but he was already running as he slapped it and reported, "I'm on my way!" He didn't wait for the lifts but entered a nearby vertical Jefferies Tube, ascending quickly - noting fresh human scent and partial handprints from blood on the wall and ladder rungs, but not stopping or even slowing down to investigate further.

He emerged on Deck 1, finding Security crewmembers with phasers and tricorders, all of them sensibly stepping aside as he raced down the corridor, seeing Sternhagen with Station Security Chief Lt Cmdr Salvo standing outside his open doorway while he heard familiar, urgent voices within, and smelled more blood.

And ashen-looking Sternhagen held up a hand. "Esek-"

She barely avoided him torpedoing into her as he entered his quarters.

Doc Masterson and an Emergency Medical Team surrounded a fallen Kami on the blood-stained carpet stabilising her as they were loading her onto an antigrav gurney. Nearby, Misha stood, his pyjamas and fur matted with human blood, while Professor Tallus, Weynik's mother and one of Salem One's resident Station Scientists, stood beside him, keeping a supportive arm around the cub.

Hrelle said nothing, waiting for Masterson to look up long enough to report, "Phaser beam, cardiac and tissue damage to her heart but we have her on Bypass until we get her into surgery. We'll keep you posted."

As the team moved to raise Kami up, Hrelle's heart sank at the sight of the life support module fitted onto his wife's breastbone, and the scent of burnt fur and flesh, and he forced himself to not interfere further as he stepped aside to let them depart with her to the Hospital, while he approached his son, kneeling down, his eyes and nose confirming that none of the blood on Misha was his own. "Are you alright, Son?"

The cub nodded, though it was obvious he was slipping into shock over whatever had happened. Hrelle looked at Tallus, the Roylan explaining, "I was putting the grandkids to bed when I heard Misha isha faced her. "Like you, and Eydiir, but no hair!" He touched the left side of his own head in several places. "I bit him here, and clawed him here, and made him drop his gun and run away! You go get him!"

"She will," Hrelle assured him, looking at Sternhagen again. "Sasha and Mru were in the new club when I left them, they won't have their combadges on them, send someone to get them here, on the double, they'll stay here and watch over the cubs - with a Security team outside the door. Then we'll get back to Ops."

Sternhagen regarded him with concern. "You can go to the Hospital, Esek. You're a husband."

"I'm also the Station Commander. We have to find this cadet, whoever he is-"

"Boladede," Salvo offered, reading from her tricorder. "Security Cadet Ange Boladede, Macbeth Squad." She looked up in recognition. "This morning I assisted in the decryption of a personal device of his, as part of some sort of disciplinary measure involving the Counselor and Commander Haluk."

"Disciplinary measure? What was on the device?"

Salvo glanced warily at Misha, who was still standing there, listening to all of this. "Not in front of your offspring, Commodore."

*

Deck 5 - Tarot:

Mru Mori sat at the table alongside Eydiir Daughter-of-Kaas, the Salem One's Chief Nurse and one of Sasha's oldest friends, and Lt Cmdr Xan Maraud, the Chief JAG Officer, an Efrosian male with snow white hair and a confident, charming mien. Mru smiled to himself; the two of them were so obviously into each other, but the taciturn Capellan Eydiir constantly denied it, while Maraud noticed this and persisted in teasing her.

Mru said nothing, but thought back to when he was first introduced to Eydiir, and the warning she had given him the first time they were alone, to not break her friend's heart. Watch yourself with this one, Mr Maraud. "Are they keeping you busy here with court cases and such, Lieutenant Commander?"

Maraud smiled. "Well, we're no Starbase One, but I'm not sleeping all day in my office, either. Legal matters do arise, questions of interpretation of Starfleet Regulations requiring JAG expertise, and Commander Haluk has drafted me into lectures and class instruction for the Squabs. Nothing as exciting as the court martial that brought me here all those months ago-"

"It's only been six weeks," Eydiir corrected gruffly. "Your sense of timing is appalling."

He leaned in closer to her, nudging her playfully. "That's not always the case, Darling, and you know it."

Mru saw the darkening of skin on the woman, though she only responded with, "Swine."

Then the Caiitan caught a welcome scent, and turned to see Sasha manoeuvre her way through the surrounding crowds of patrons, without drinks but with a dour expression as she planted herself down onto the chair they had saved - deliberately moving it away from him and closer to the side of the table by her friend.

Mru studied her closely, curiously, noting the flushed cheeks and dilated pupils. Mother's Cubs, had she broken her sobriety and drank some alcohol? He leaned closer. "Everything okay, Sash? Too busy at the bar?"

She glared at him now. "If you want a drink bad enough, maybe you should go for it yourself next time?"

Mru felt his hackles rise, and noted the reaction from the others at the table. He sniffed, imagining he could catch the scent of alcohol on her breath, though there was too much of it around them in this environment for him to properly determine. "Sash, can I have a word alone with you?"

"No."

Before he or anyone else could respond, the music abruptly stopped, and an alert sounded, followed by Captain Sternhagen's voice announcing, "Intruder Alert! Security to Deck 1! Medical Team to Commodore Hrelle's Quarters!"

Sasha bolted to her feet - immediately looking like she regretted it, as she swayed with uncharacteristic clumsiness, knocking her chair back behind her. Mru and the others rose as well, Mru reaching for Sasha, before the woman pulled away, all of them heading to the exit, dodging everyone else who was returning to their quarters or their assigned stations during such alerts, bypassing the turbolifts to take the public accessway stairs.

They ran into Sternhagen and several Security crewmen, Sasha bolting up to her. "What happened?"

The older human female's jaw tightened. "Counselor Hrelle was shot in her quarters."

"It's serious, but Doc Masterson's with her."

"Who shot her?" Sasha repeated sharply.

Sternhagen steeled herself. "Talk to your father, he's in there with the cubs, he needs you." As Sasha moved around her, Mru followed, hearing the Station Master speak to the others. "Masterson might need you in the Hospital, Chief Nurse. Mr Maraud, report to your office and stand by, you shouldn't be at the crime scene."

He smelled the blood as he entered the quarters, saw the evidence, the wrecked furniture, and Commodore Hrelle kneeling beside a blood-stained Misha. He held back, letting Sasha join her family... but listened anyway, and seeing Hrelle's reaction to the alcohol on Sasha's breath, but obviously saying nothing, all of them having more important things to focus on.

Seven Hells, who could have wanted to kill the Counselor, of all people?

*

Lt Zir Dassene sat on the couch, not touching the beer in her hand, the Orion woman trying to appear undistracted as her friends comprising most of Alpha Squad sat in Peter Boone's quarters, drinking and eating snacks and being careful not to wake Peter's daughter Abby, asleep in her adjacent bedroom.

The others didn't seem to notice, Astrid Michel, currently the Chief Flight Officer onboard the Surefoot under Captain T'Varik, leaning back in her chair and smiling like a cat at the cream as she continued her anecdote. "So there we were, running a customs inspection on a Rigellian freighter heading for Nepenthe, and a certain foul-mouthed Assistant Chief Engineer had gone over with an Away Team to check on the environmental protocols for their engine and propulsion systems-"

Sitting nearby, Tori Emoto scowled as the young Asian woman nursed her beer. "Don't, Flygirl. Just don't."

"On the contrary, do, Flygirl, just do," Stalac, their Horta friend, sat on the floor indulging in a tray of enriched pergium nuggets, digesting them with carefully-applied acidic secretions.

"You keep your cakehole shut, Rockstar, nothing happened! Petey, you talk for a change! You gotta have some spicy stories to tell us about all the dicks you've had here!"

Peter grinned, reaching for a handful of corn nuts. "I never kiss and tell. You were saying, Astrid?"

The coffee-skinned woman grinned as well. "Yes, so there we were, on the Bridge, remote monitoring the activities of the Away Teams, when suddenly we get this horrendous shriek, like someone had been turned inside out. And it came from our Gearhead here-"

"Seriously, Flygirl," Tori warned, "I'll drop the temperature in your quarters so much your nipples'll cut neutronium."

Astrid chuckled. "Then I'll just bunk up with the very delectable Giles Arrington to keep me warm. Anyway, Captain T'Varik ordered an emergency beam-out, and onto the Bridge. And so she appeared... along with about fifty or sixty Tribbles."

"Tribbles?" Peter echoed.

"Yes, tribbles. Apparently the Rigellians were smuggling a consignment of unsterilised tribbles to breed on Nepenthe for their meat, and when we intercepted them to run the inspection, they hid the tribbles in a shielded auxiliary transkinetic chamber, hoping none of us would be thorough enough look in there." She let her grin widen. "But clearly they hadn't reckoned on our intrepid little Gearhead."

"She opened one of the chamber access doors," Astrid continued relentlessly, "A lower one. And all these tribbles rained down upon her and scared her half to death. All these cute, cuddly, harmless little bundles of love."

"Bundles of mites and fleas and worms and other parasites!" Tori corrected, snarling at the continued laughter. "And they were fat! It was like being pelted with dynospanners!" She looked to Zir. "Hey, are you gonna let them push me around, Lieutenant?"

The laughter died, as the others focused on Zir now, Peter enquiring, "What's up, Zir?"

She looked up at them, mentally kicking herself for allowing her private problems to affect her time with her friends. "Sorry, guys, got a lot on my mind: Urad, the crisis in the Sector, the Commodore-"

"You take too much upon yourself," Stalac noted. "You Carbs break too easily."

"He's right," Peter agreed. "You need to relax more."

"Maybe get yourself a pet?" Astrid suggested. "Something soft and warm and furry. Any ideas on that, Tori?"

"Yeah, I got ideas, like lodging my boot in your c-"

Then the alarm sounded, and Sternhagen's voice filled the air. "Intruder Alert! Security Team to Deck 1! Medical Team to Commodore Hrelle's Quarters!"

Zir cast aside her drink and shot to her feet, snapping aside her fears and distractions. "Stay here, you're all off duty!"

"So are you," Peter pointed out, sounding genuinely concerned.

She cast that aside and departed, banging her shoulder against the door when it didn't open up. There was far more on her mind than what she had admitted to her friends, but none of that mattered now, as she slapped her combadge. "Ops, this is Lt Dassene, report!"

An unfamiliar male voice answered, "We have reports of Counselor Hrelle being attacked in her quarters, Leftenant."

She stopped in her tracks, recognising the voice as the new Intelligence Officer, Commander Somerset, but stunned by the news. Kami, attacked? The Commodore would need Zir. "I'm heading there."

"Negative, Leftenant. Report to Ops."

She frowned now. "Excuse me?"

"Captain Sternhagen and Lt Cmdr Salvo are already there, and I've been left holding the proverbial fort here on my first day. You can best serve Commodore Hrelle here by helping me keep everything running."

Zir almost proceeded to argue with him - yes, Zir, because that would look good for you - before yielding to the logic of the situation. "I'm on my way, Sir."

*

Cadet Squad Leader Rachel Nash's heart was racing as she and the rest of the cadets in Tarot fled the club at the sound of the Alert to return to Deck 5 and their quarters, her mind racing ahead to wonder what was going on. A Medical team to the Commodore's quarters? What had happened? Was it another attack from an assassin like the Dragon?

They entered, fully expecting Ange Boladede, whom they'd left in their earlier while they visited the new club, to be standing at attention, the pinnacle of discipline as always. But he wasn't there. "Ange?"

"Maybe he's asleep?" Flight Ops Cadet Janusz Spychalski, a lithe, sandy-haired Terran male with an aquiline nose, quipped.

"Or he's just busy polishing his phaser?" Engineering Cadet Gela, a short, salmon-pink Ferengi, chuckled lasciviously. "Let's give him a few more minutes to clean up the damp patch."