You can't run far enough

Posted on Thu Aug 16, 2018 @ 11:16pm by Civilian 'Key Holder' Yolanthe Ibalin & Lieutenant Liam Reynolds

2,445 words; about a 12 minute read

Mission: Victory Conditions
Location: Box of Delights
Timeline: MD 09 0300

:ON:

The Box was closed for another night. As was her custom, she was the last out. Yolanthe liked to make sure her staff, especially the boys got home or to wherever they went next. The cash would go into the safe, she'd leave notes for Edward on any issues that needed urgently addressing in the morning. The cleaners wouldn't come till the morning, so she was alone in the peace and a quiet of her little kingdom.

So she was shocked to see a figure sitting at the bar when she left her office. The long haired Andorian was sipping from a glass. There was a bottle of Andorian Ale next to him. SHe looked at the shutters. They were down. "We're closed." she began.

"Its just a drink," Oded Veyr turned to face her. "Once for the road. Adanae."

her body went from violet to deep forest green in a flash. "Computer, call security!"

"I disabled it." Oded Veyr smiled at her. "Come have a drink."

"go to Hell."

"Still so civil."

Yolanthe hesitated. There was nothing between her and the door. She could make that. She could run faster than the arrogant blue bastard. And he'd have to get off that stool. She started to turn.

There was a polite cough from the Mezzanine. Yolanthe's gaze snapped up. A very professional looking Romulan was sighting her down the barrel of a long phaser.

"Come and talk." Veyr pushed out one of her own stools, and poured some Andorian ale into a second glass. "Have a drink."

Yolanthe looked up at the Romulan. The bar was under the mezzanine. She'd be out of his sight. And behind the bar there were knives. And the bar had bottles, and glasses. A corkscrew could make a nasty punching dagger. And the ice pick. Even the time gong could be used if needed. It was a weapons rich environment. "Why are you here?" she asked suspiciously. "How did you find me?"

"You still haven't learnt how to be friendly, Adanae. A man called Raddon wants your lovely head on a plate. I offered to take you off his hands."

Raddon. Of course. Gev's repo crew hadn't reported back and the grapevine said one of them was tucked up in the morgue. Of course they would trace them back to her. She was the only person on the station besides Raddon's trusted minions who knew what was in there. Or supposed to be in there. But how had Raddon found Veyr?

She decided she didn't need to know. "I'm going to give you thirty seconds to drink up and leave, and take the trash upstairs with you. Or I will kill you. I'm not naked and unarmed this time. And you don't have a hostage."

"And I'm not so stupid that I'm going to let you run amok this time." A phaser appeared in his hand, and he fired.

Yolanthe dived aside as soon as she saw his hand moved, rolling over the nearest table, tipping it up to block his shot, and give her cover.

"That's my girl," Veyr muttered, and hopped down from the stool.

The bokkai glanced about. The main exit was covered. but she could still get out through the holo spa service hatch. She made a dash for the bar. There was a rum bottle on the edge, and then she could run for the stairs. It would be a moving target, the best she could hope for. Veyr fired as she ran. She could smell the ozone as the light stun passed behind her by scant centimeters.

She caught the neck of the bottle, and flicked the two-thirds empty bottle at the Andorian. Her aim was true, and even though he tried, it caught him in the face. He swore as the bottle thudded into his eye socket, and she allowed herself a brief smile as she hurled herself up the steps to the mezzanine.

Where Veyr had stashed four of his men.

"Well ain't this frendly," another voice ran out surprising the hell out of all parties. All four men heads snapped to the left while comically trying rather hard to keep an eye on the colour changing alien and size up the new development which was four more unknown assilants also pointing weaponary their way in now what was sizing up to be one hell of a standoff.

"You are one unpopular women aren't you poppet?" the man sighed. "You even drove Draxx away and he was under strict orders to keep you safe from this shitfest you got yourself involved in. Takes a lot of upset Junior. Hell your not even that pretty compared to some of the other trophy wifes. Not sure why he's bothering with you but hey ho ... "

"GENTLEMEN," He straightened up whole body snapping almost to attention betraying some miltary training but none of his team lowered their very alien guns. "I'll give you the opportunity to do this the nice way or we end up doing it the hard way." Another shot ran out stopping short of just infront of the romulans foot from another area of the bar making it clear this was not their whole team.

"Whatever bounty you got on her, my boss can make you a far better deal. Suggest you take it as she's leaving this place on a one way transport to Torm's domain. Call it a wedding present and we will not torch this here watering hole you spent years building into a life," he informed Yolanthe.

Veyr looked up at the new speaker, blood from a cut above his eyebrow dripping blue down his face "Boy. Walk away. This is syndicate business. And personal business. I'm not after latinum. Walk away. You-" he pointed at Yolanthe, "Don't go anywhere. Kill him."

The Syndicate heavies opened fire on the new comers, sleek deadly disruptors that blew chunks out of the furniture, and as about as subtle as a subspace mine.

Yolanthe looked at the newcomer as well. She'd never seen him before and he was spouting nothing that made any sense. Veyr and Raddon on one side, and did he say Torm? Torm was dead.

Either way she wasn't sticking around whilst two children squabbled like puppies over a shoe. As the fire fight errupted, she kept running up the stairs to the third floor.

The fire tore apart plenty of the bar but to the horror of the Syndicate bods, caused hardly any damage to the other mens clothes. It seemed this party had very sophisticated personal force fields repealing the shots. The other party were going to have to work out where the power for these were coming from in their attire and disrupt it.

When the first rather long volly finished up and the dust settled the other men took a step forward and looked to the man who had spoken for orders. "The intended," he bellowed out to whoever was at the other side of the bar. Shots blasted at Yolanthes feet as she discovered she wasn't getting away quite that fast.

"I don't give a flying fuck if your the High Priestess of the Sovereign people. We ain't stepping away and she is coming with us," He informed the moronic leader of this "syndicate". "Our turn," his lip twitched upward into an evil smile. More shots fired out. "The leader's mine," he informed his team as they advanced.

Yolanthe made a dive for one of the long sofas in the holospa reception area, a dozen swearwords filling her mouth. She hated fire arms. They made anyone with an opposable thumb a serious threat, especially when you were unarmed an unarmoured. Where were these people coming from?

There was a scramble of feet moving towards one end of the couch. She wasn't waiting, she sprang out, shoulder barging the shooter in the gut and powering him into the floor. She landed on top of him, grabbed his hair and slammed his head down onto the marble floor. There was a single crunch and he lay still.

She kicked his weapon into a corner, and went to the door out to the first level of the Promenade. And it didn't open. She ripped open the manual release panel. The lever had been ripped out. She was trapped. The only way out was through the melee below.

Veyr had sensibly taken cover. The newcomers certainly seemed to be possessed of some very nifty technology. Borg possibly. Maybe dominion. Either way it needed something extra. He adjusted his disruptor, which utilised breen technology. Even if it didn't penetrate the forcefields, it would batter them down.

He signaled to his men, and they broke apart, moving toflank the new comers. An orion snapped a shot off, and the lucky shot brought down one of the light fittings right on top of the left most.

The Andorian himself fired at the leader, the modified disruptor blasting into the force field.

"Attack brute force," the leaders voice rang out as he did a situation assessment realising they were planning the long game.

Another voice rang out as the romulan sniper gasped and found himself with a blaster in his back and his head butted hard with something, "Can I take souvineurs Commander, I'd like me his pointy ears,"

The older man charged the assilant closest to him, then swung him round into a lock forcing him forward as a shield as he descended on the Andoran.

"After the intended is secured. Biggs if she trys to get away," he yelled out to his other colleague, "Shoot to incapacitate."

Veyr was a pragmatic soul. He shot the newcomer's hostage. His own man slithered down, unable to support his own weight, giving Veyr a clear shot on his enemy. Which he took, firing over and over.

His aim was interrupted by the man who had asked to cut off ears pitching over the balcony above with a short scream, to crash with the sounds of bone breaking into the ground. Veyr jumped back for cover. With all the phaser fire, security would be on its way. It was getting close to time to leave. Now he knew where Yolanthe was, he could always come back.

In the holospa Yolanthe was swearing. The door out was barred. And she could hear someone running up the stairs. She didn't want to fight whoever it was. You didn't hang around and fight if you didn't have to. So she went over the railing.

She'd grown up in rich jungles. climbing and falling was second nature, and the mezzanine extended out beyond the line of the holospa balcony, it was only a single floor fall and she hit the ground easily. The two forces were exchanging fire. The Romulan sniper was down, and an Orion male was wrestling with a human in one corner, whilst another Orion and a nausicaan were taking pot-shots from behind a couple of columns. their targets were crouched in the archways to the big holodeck and firing back. Her bar was was getting comprehensively trashed as phaser burns and disrupter shots took chunks out of her architecture.

The Leader's shield was lasting the course and he got close enough to start punching the shit out of the Andorran. He made a quick assessment as the aliens blue blood started splattering down his arm and combat gear. Neither party were getting out of this unscathed. And the rate the damage to the bar was going the intended wasn't either. The group could not face the disgrace of their lord for the failure of the mission. "Intiate process Alpha zeta Opson," he yelled to the remaining members of his team. If they were going down, everyone else was too.

Fuck the intended wherever she had got too. Maybe she would survive and their Lord attempt extraction again. He would learn enough from the transmitted data throughout the battle anyway to prepare better defences.

All members initiated their self destructs making sure to take down every member of the enemy. The boom was louder than he expected as his ears disintegrated and his last memory was the pig Andorian breaking free as multiple alien bottles of hooch ignited into multicoloured flames. Almost like fireworks.

Veyr broke away from the newcomers grapple, snapping his arms down to break the choke hold. He was thrown back by the sudden explosion that sent him careening back across the bar. He could see the body parts of his men go flying too as glass shattered. He couldn't even see Adanae. If she had even survived. Retreat was the better part of valour now. He grabbed at his pants pocket, to sore and bloodied to actually put his hand inside, and squeezed down onto his panic button. As he beamed away, all he could see was the bar, burning.

The explosion caught Yolanthe off guard, lifting her from her feet and blowing her back away from the edge of the mezzanine. She rolled, feeling the safety shatter glass grind into her skin through the fabric of her pants. Her ears were ringing, but even through the high pitched whine, she heard a creak, and a massive split appeared in front of her, running the length of the mezzanine. A terrible instinct seized her and she scrambled up just enough that she could throw herself backwards into the holodeck arch, stumbling over a fallen human, a huge disrupter burnt cavity in his chest.

And with a growl of concrete tearing, the whole of the mezzanine balcony gave way, collapsing down onto the wave form bar below.

Her bar was on fire, smoke and the scent of a hundred burning spirits filled her nose. Where were the sprinklers? The fire system?. Veyr had isolated her computer connection. It was a nasty climb down the ruins of the port side staircase, but she made it, coughing and choking on the smoke. She could hear sirens sounding on the promenade, burbling as if through water and hammering on the postern door in the shutters that sounded like muffled drums.

She stumbled foward, opening the bolt and practically falling out into the crowd that the fire had brought. Fleeters in the yellow of ops. or maybe security, or maybe both, were sprinting down, shouting orders to the computers. Environmental controls inside weren't working. One called for forcefields to isolate the box. All they could do was starve the fire of oygen.

All she could do was watch her precious bar burn.

[OFF]

Yolanthe Ibalin
Owner
The Box of Delights

Oded Veyr
Orion Syndicate
NPC Yolanth Ibalin

Torm command force
NPC Liam Reynolds

 

RSS Feed