In the Thick of It

Posted on Sat Sep 21, 2019 @ 12:43am by Commander Caleb Ryan & Civilian 'Key Holder' Dorian Gabriel

4,278 words; about a 21 minute read

Mission: Things Past
Location: Cardassia Prime
Timeline: 2376

Moia Ilmater was a beautiful woman, if one found Cardassians attractive. Tall and regal, the blue of her forehead spoon was a deep, rich color without the usual cosmetic enhancements of many Cardassian women. She was approaching middle age for a Cardassian, roughly in her forties. She filled out her black jumpsuit well. She stood in the archway of the Cardassian shuttle and surveyed her motley team of ne’er-do-wells and soldiers of fortune that had joined her organization for the promise of major profits in smuggling and selling weapons across the quadrant.

Her second, Jaest Lyshem, was currently piloting the shuttle. He was a Cardassian in his thirties, a protege from her days in the Obsidian Order. He was the stereotypical no-nonsense Cardassian and an ace pilot.

Next were the two Orion twins from the Inebray clan, an ally in the Syndicate Moia had recruited. Tinsero Inebray was a large, muscular male of few words. His terseness was more than made up for in his twin sister’s loquaciousness. His head was shaved except for a long black queue braided down his back. He fiddled with a small field computer.

Zexysi Inebray chattered almost incessantly, though she could get serious when the job got serious. The opposite of her brother’s broad frame, she was lean and lithe, and she lent a pleasant, heady aroma to the shuttle interior, though she was keeping her pheromones under control for now. She had her black jumpsuit unzipped scandalously low to her navel, revealing some generous cleavage.

And finally there were the three Humans, newer recruits. Voria Ames was a waifish young woman in her twenties with caramel skin and blue eyes. She was pretty with her black hair in a pixie cut, but didn’t fill out her jumpsuit near as well as Zexysi did. She blew a bubble in some bubble gum and played a slip of latinum through her fingers in boredom as they went.

Beside Voria was an older, grizzled Human male with a scarred face, eye patch, and a white beard and hair. He had an old, scarred Starfleet Marines tattoo on his arm. Erebus Cain was a fairly well established mercenary. He worked for whomever paid him, and currently that was Moia Ilmater.

Erebus sharpened a knife as he stared across at Dorian Gabriel, the newest recruit, sitting between Zexysi and Voria. “You still stink of Starfleet,” Cain said.

“And you just stink, Cain,” Zexysi said. “Be nice to Dorian.” Her hand slid down Dorian’s leg, sliding along his inner thigh. She leaned over to whisper in his ear, “Say, after this job, want to celebrate?” she purred, wafting her pheromones over him to give him a delicious thrill.

Voria frowned at the Orion’s flirtations but didn’t say anything, just looked down at her hands, the latinum slipping from her fingers. She caught it deftly and sighed.

“Listen up,” Moia spoke up from the front of the shuttle. “This won’t be a cakewalk. We’re hitting a secret Obsidian Order black site. It’s been abandoned since the Order was destroyed, but that doesn’t mean it’s safe. I don’t know if my old codes will still be valid. There will be automated defenses. Disruptors, force fields. There shouldn’t be anyone living, though. We’re there for the weapons cache. But Gabriel made a good point that there might be information in the data core that could be valuable to the right people, so we’ll check it out. Jaest will stay with the ship and monitor sensors in case we need to bug out quick. Two teams. Cain and I will start loading the weapons while Tin, Zexy, Voria, and Dorian get to the data core. Tin, once you have the data dump set up, I need your bulk to help move the weapons. Leave Gabriel to supervise. It might take a while. We’re in no hurry, unless someone shows up. So do it right, and we all get paid.”

Dorian closed his eyes as the pheromones from the Orion female cascaded over him. It took him several moments to realize the effect and force himself to focus on his present situation. He moved over slightly and shook his head in order to regain control over himself. He looked from Voria over to Cain and narrowed his eyes.

Dorian understood that he was to play a certain role in the mission. However, his dislike and overall disgust for Marines was something that he would not have to fake or embellish.

"That stink of Starfleet you smell is what intelligent people call a brain, jarhead," Dorian replied, not even giving him the dignity of referring to his name. Dorian was hardly in a chatting mood considering he now found that his life depending on Moia's memory of the Obsidian access codes. It was very common for the Order to have one set of access codes that granted access but activated latent security programs. The would-be intruder never knew until they were trapped inside of a deadly facility. Now Dorian sat onboard the shuttle waiting to see if the weapons dealer was worthy of her considerable reputation.

Dorian looked at his designated team. "Leave your weapons on board. Unless it came off the body of a dead Obsidian Order agent from their final battle, the security system will not recognize it and assume you are a hostile threat and respond accordingly," Dorian said as he looked over at Cain. "That means you'll have to actually use that head of yours and not shoot indiscriminately. I'm sure they went over that skill at least once in basic training," he said to the former Marine.

“Look who thinks he knows things about the Order,” Erebus Cain smirked.

“Gabriel’s right,” Moia said. “At least as far as your energy weapons go. Anything without a power signature is fair game.”

“And useless against an automated disruptor emplacement,” Cain warned.

“Just get me to an access terminal. I’ll get everything offline,” the big Orion, Tinsero, said, flexing his thick fingers. How he typed code with those was anyone’s guess.

“It shouldn’t be a problem,” Moia assured.

“Coming in now,” Jaest said, and the shuttle started its descent. Everyone started moving to gear up, reluctantly removing disruptors and phasers and stocking up on knives and other various melee weapons.

The installation was in a rather barren wasteland where few Cardassians lived. It wasn’t yet desert, but it was near enough, and it was hot, even for a Cardassian, who liked a hot and humid environment. But there was little humidity here.

“So where’s the entrance?” Zexysi asked, turning in place and looking around.

“Here.” Moia reached out and tapped a lone cliff face, her hand going through the stone.

Voria gave Dorian a look and a shy smile and then stepped up. She pushed her hands into the holographic field and ran them over the exterior of whatever was hidden behind it for several minutes, her eyes closed. “Here,” she finally said. “Control panel. Feels like a standard Cardassian alphanumeric with retinal biometrics.”

“That’s going to be a problem,” Cain muttered.

“This should help.” Voria pulled out a small electronic device and pressed it against the holo-field. The photons fritzed and died away, leaving a small hole in the holo-matrix. The young Human thief moved the “eraser” around, disrupting the field over the access panel.

“Good job,” Moia said. She stepped up and punched in a code and then leaned down to scan her eye in the lense. There was an acknowledging beep, and then silence.

“Did it wo--” Cain began, but was then interrupted by a deep rumble and the sound of tumbling maglocks and the doors parted a few centimeters with a whoosh of stale, putrid air.

“Ugh, that is foul!” Zexysi said, waving a hand in front of her face.

Dorian covered his face as he began to make his way into the facility. The putrid stench that wafted its way from the facility and into the open air led Dorian to the opinion that perhaps there were Obsidian Order personnel that had remained behind. Or,.knowing how the Order operated, were ordered to stay behind and await further instructions. With the fleet being wiped out or captured, there were no survivors to report back to the holdouts that the Order was no more. Secret facilities like these did not keep in regular contact with Central Command, so there was no way to know that the Cardassian government had been overthrown and was plunged into war with the Klingons.

Dorian activated his wrist-mounted flashlight as he entered the main corridor. "See what you can do about getting environmental systems back online," Dorian said to no person in particular. "The facility has gone dark for at least five years.Unless we want to suffer asphyxiation or toxic shock, I'd suggest getting some decent air pumping through these halls," Dorian added.

“On it,” Zexysi said.

“Cain, go with her,” Moia instructed. She pulled up a scanning device. “It’s laid out like most Obsidian Order bases. The vault is in the northwest quadrant. Operations will be just ahead, and the main computer core is in the center. You know your jobs.” Nodding to the others, Moia headed off toward the vault.

Voria looked at Tinsero and Dorian. “Let’s get this over with and get back into some fresh air,” the waifish Human girl said, indicating the alternate corridor that would lead them to the data core.

Dorian proceeded down the corridor with his flashlight illuminating a path forward. This was his first time actually being inside of an Obsidian Order facility. He found himself having to conceal his natural wonder at seeing the inside of such a fascinating structure. The Obsidian Order had spent their entire existence serving as the secret police against the Cardassian people as well as the primary intelligence gatherers for the Central Command. Dorian wished that he could have taken the time to further explore the facility and learn all of its secrets. But he couldn't; he had been given a mission from Captain Pierce. His desire to prove himself to the experienced intelligence officer out-weighed his inherent curiosity.

Voria, Tinsero, and Dorian walked through the corridors, the smell got a bit stronger. They took a corridor through a security door and found themselves in a hallway lined with security cells. The force fields still flickered weakly, but inside were the desiccated corpses of Cardassian prisoners who had been left to die here when the facility was abandoned.

“Oh, God…” Voria said, covering her mouth.

Dorian stopped and looked at the rows of dead and rotting corpses. From what he was able to ascertain some of them were Cardassians themselves. "It figures they would leave their own to sit here and rot. They didn't even give them the dignity of a phaser to the back of the skull. Fucking Spoo--" Dorian stopped himself, realizing that he was with mixed company and that his comment, while entirely justified, might make its way back to the financier of this operation.

"C'mon, there's nothing else we can do for them. Let's just keep moving and get past the smell," Dorian said without much remorse.

“Political prisoners, I would guess,” Tinsero murmured as they moved on. “Otherwise they wouldn’t be in cells.” He touched one of the force fields. It sparked and collapsed, and the big Orion pulled his hand back with a wince. “At least there is some power.”

Then the lights came up, along with the hum of power. “Looks like Zexysi was successful,” Voria said.

After a few minutes they came to another bulkhead door. The label in Cardassian indicated it was their destination, the main computer core. Voria got to work on the access panel, with Tinsero’s help hacking the authorization code, and soon they got the door open with a whoosh of cooler air from inside.

Dorian slowly stepped inside of what he could only describe as a hub of the facility. The cooler air indicated that it was operating on a separate power source than the rest of the facility. Undoubtedly to preserve whatever information had been placed on the servers. Dorian examined the extensive amount of data servers and realized that this was a repository of some sort.

"Let's get started connecting to the system and transferring the information. I'm willing to bet that this room was off-limits to everyone except the highest of officials," Dorian said. Undoubtedly, if the Order were still around there would have been several guards on patrol with explicit orders to shoot on sight any individual, Cardassian or otherwise, that dared stepp near this room.

“Right,” Tinsero said, unslinging the gear pack from his lap. It contained an extensively modified padd for just such occasions as hacking into secure databases. “Given it’s the Order, it’ll probably take a bit,” he told Dorian.

Voria shrugged and looked at Dorian. “Why don’t we take a look around? Zexysi and Erebus got the power back.

"Sure. We'll have to wait for them to get past all of the security protocols before they can actually begin downloading from the primary server," Dorian said as he grabbed his gear and began to walk further down the corridor.

"I'm surprised the Order was able to hide this base from both the Detapa Council and the Dominion," Dorian said as he walked.

Voria shrugged. She didn’t know anything about Cardassian politics. “It’s kinda the middle of nowhere. Moia was with them, right? Maybe she wiped it off the books or something,” she mused as they moved into an area that seemed like it was a living space for those on station out here. She idly started popping the locks on the lockers to look through things.

"Figures," Dorian said as he examined the living quarters. "Play both sides against the middle. Once the Order fell, Moia saw which way the wind was blowing and decided to create an insurance policy for herself," he said. It made total sense. With the amount of weapons and information within this facility, she'd be able to purchase her own moon, or at least provide enough firepower to take one over.

"What do you think Moia is going to do with all of this?" Dorian inquired, seeking more information that could be useful to Pierce. "Someone is going to realize that this facility was accessed and the information stolen.”

Voria shrugged. “Sell it? I don’t get paid to ask questions,” she told Dorian. “I learned that early on. It’s my first gig with her, and I’d like to not ruin it. But you can always sell weapons, and depending on what kind of information she gets…” The young Human shrugged her shoulders. Then she stopped and tilted her head. “Did you hear that?”

Dorian stopped and looked around the immediate area. "Hear what?" he asked. He began to wish that maybe he should not have pushed so hard to not possess weapons.

“I thought I heard something in the vents,” Voria said, looking up.

And then one of the vents broke open, dropping a ravenous, starved Cardassian onto them. His weight hit Voria hard, bringing her to the floor, and he sank his teeth into her neck. She screamed in pain and fear.

Dorian heard the shriek of pain before he ever saw any movement. He jumped over a nearby beam and raced to Voria, who continued to scream and struggle with the Cardassian. Dorian brought his foot up and slammed it forcefully into the side of the Cardassian's skull, trying to dislodge his teeth from Voria's bloody neck.

The kick forced the emaciated Cardassian into a scrabbling roll, tearing a good chunk out of Voria’s neck. She clawed at her neck to stop the bleeding. The Cardassian swallowed the chunk of flesh in his mouth, his face covered with blood, and grinned malevolently at Dorian, the look of a maddened, starving wolf in his eyes, clearly any sense of civility or sanity gone after all this time. He leapt at Dorian.

Dorian tried to regain his footing and plan his next attack, but the feral Cardassian leapt at him before he could. Dorian stumbled and fell backwards; however, he was able to use his own momentum to roll on this back and flip the Cardassian off of him and directly into a console several feet behind him. Dorian rolled from off of his back and onto his side and looked for some sort of weapon to use on the creature.

The blow of the console seemed to have stunned the Cardassian for a moment, but he was quickly recovering, looking hungrily at his prey.

Dorian saw what appeared to be a jagged cylinder rod just to his right. He scrambled over and grabbed the rod with his right hand and gripped it tightly as he saw the Cardassian getting back to his feet again. As he came charging at him, Dorian swung the object in an arc fashion towards the ridge-line of the Cardassian's neck. Although reinforced, it was also one of the most devastating parts of a Cardassian to strike, considering it was linked to its spinal column and assisted in Cardassian's ability to stand upright.

The blow caught the Cardassian in the neck ridge. He staggered, his legs turning to jelly with the blow, and he stumbled to the floor. He gave a howling snarl and tried to drag his way toward Dorian.

“Kill it!” Voria rasped. She yanked a knife out of her boot and slid it over to Dorian, her hand pressed to her neck where she’d lost a chunk of flesh.

Dorian stood up fully and looked down at the creature as it tried to slouch away. Dorian's breathing was heavy, and he could feel the blood pulsing through his veins. Whoever this Cardassian used to be, Dorian didn't care. At the moment, all he saw was an uncontrolled animal that if left alive would try to kill him.

Dorian brought the pole above his head and brought it down hard on the Cardassian's skull. The resulting sound was a mixture of fluid as well as skull giving way. Dorian raised the pole again and brought it down on the Cardassian's skull with even more force. He continued to bash the Cardassian's skull into the floor beneath him with complete abandon. It was as if Dorian had completely lost his connection with the situation around him and had just gone into a pure emotional and visceral reaction.

Voria watched Dorian bash in the skull of the starved Cardassian animal. She finally relaxed, safe, as the thing stopped moving.

“Dorian. Dorian! I think it’s dead!” Voria called out.

It took several seconds for Dorian to even recognize that someone was calling his name. It took him several more moments to realize that he still had the pole in his hand. The Cardassian, who had long since stopped moving or breathing, was hardly recognizable as he laid in a puddle of blood and cartilage. He dropped the pole, his chest still rising and falling quickly, and looked over at Voria. He realized that she was wounded and rushed over to try to help.

“He didn’t get the artery,” Voria said. “Thank fate.” Her free hand struggled to get out the field kit from her belt before the young woman leaned back to let Dorian help her. “Are you okay?” she asked, concern in her eyes as they met his.

"I-I'm fine," Dorian said, still trying to piece together what had just happened. He shook his head and re-directed his focus onto her again. "Can you still complete the hack?" he said, although he felt bad for her, he still knew that his main priority on this mission was to get the data information and deliver in back to Pierce. Keeping her alive would be a convenience, not a priority.

“Yes,” Voria said. “Tinsero is working on it.”

“The data is downloading,” Tinsero said as he came up the corridor. “What the hell happened?” The big Orion looked at the brained Cardassian on the floor and Voria’s bloody state.

“Damn, girl!” Zexysi added as she joined them as well. Obviously the fight had echoed through the complex and brought the others to investigate.

“Zex, patch her up,” Moia said as she and Erebus Cain came up the corridor with an anti-grav cart loaded with crates. “The rest of you, help load these weapons onto the shuttle. How long for the data, Tinsero?”

The big Orion looked at his padd. “Fifteen minutes.”

“Good. We’ll be out of here in twenty, then,” Moia told them.

"That damn spo--" Dorian caught himself before he allowed his anger to get the best of him. "That thing came from out of the ceiling. He must've been either a political prisoner, or maybe some peon who was left behind, or maybe another thief. Who the hell knows. All I know is that this bastard jumped on Voria and nearly killed her," he said as he angrily drove his boot into the Cardassian's body.

The anger flowing through him was not subsiding. He could still feel the electrifying rage that drove him to beat the Cardassian just moments ago. It wasn't just the "fight or flight" sensation that he felt. What he felt now was unadulterated disgust at the creature below him. Just the sight of it made him fill with more anger and hostility than he could properly articulate. This thing didn't deserve to be addressed as any specific race. It didn't deserve any form of burial or body disposal. For all Dorian cared, it could be hoisted on a pole and left outside the front door as a warning to others about the consequences of attacking a fellow Human.

“But she’s not dead,” Moia said. “Go finish with that data download. Tinsero can help with the loading. He’s bigger anyway.” She motioned to the big Orion. “You two take a moment,” she told Voria and Dorian.

Voria touched the synthskin patch Zexysi had put on her neck. The rest could be taken care of on the shuttle or back at Moia’s base. “I’m fine, Dorian,” the young thief told him as she led him off down the corridor to the central computer. “It won’t even scar, once we get to proper facilities.” She was a bit of a mess, with blood on her clothes. She drank some water from her canteen to stay hydrated and hopefully not pass out from the blood loss. “We’re almost done.”

Dorian tried to focus his mind back on the task at hand, accessing the core. He was still concerned about what other traps the scaly bastards had left behind for anybody who attempted to access the facility. It was more than reasonable to assume that if there were any guards posted they would have chosen this moment to attack rather than rely upon a malnourished and half-dead Cardassian as their last line of defense. Once they accessed the central computer they would be able to determine just what was remaining within the facility and whether it was worth worrying over.

As they reached the core, Dorian took a moment to observe the device that mattered so much to Pierce. Clearly this contained information that was still valuable to the Federation despite the Obsidian Order being obliterated so many years ago. But what data could still be relevant after such a long time.

"Alright, let's begin downloading," Dorian said.

Tinsero had already started the process. It was mostly a waiting game. Voria put a hand on Dorian’s arm. “You were very brave,” he said. “Thank you.”

From the looks of things, the only thing that had been left behind in the facility besides the weapons were some political prisoners. They had already found their corpses, and Dorian had finished off the last one. He had likely survived off of the others, and whatever voles and other creatures had gotten into the facility over the years.

And then the download was done. “Okay, grab it and let’s get out of here,” Voria said. “I need a stiff drink and a real doctor,” she said.

Dorian took ahold of the data rod and placed it in his carrying case and nodded. "I agree, emphasis on the stiff drink," he said as he gathered his equipment and began to follow her down the corridor. His anger had begun to subside, but he still felt on edge, as if he was waiting for another Cardassian to appear so he could take out his anger on him as well.

The others were waiting at the exit for them.

“Got it?” Moia asked. “I think that was a success.” She beamed.

“Yeah,” Voria said wryly, fingering the bandage over her neck.

“Let’s get back to base and inventory this stuff, and see what’s on that data rod.”

FIN

Dorian Gabriel
Undercover

Team:
Moia Ilmater - Cardassian female, 40s, Mastermind
Jaest Lyshem - Cardassian male, 30s, Operator, second
Tinsero Inebray - Orion male, big, long black queue, Hacker
Zexysi Inebray - Orion female, lean and lithe, Face
Voria Ames, Human female, 20s, waifish, caramel skin, blue eyes, pixie cut black hair, Thief
Erebus Cain, Human male, 50s, grizzled, Hitter
Dorian Gabriel, Human male, Floater

 

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