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Peregrine's Descent (War of the Masters)
patrickngo
Member Posts: 9,963 Arc User
Prelude: Memorandum.
University of Alpha Centauri, New Prague, Alpha Centauri VII…
The girl’s name was Geena Pak, and she’d been in Rachel’s office two hours ago. Rachel Wahlberger had worked hard to help this kid adjust to the University, it’s culture and her fellow students. It wasn’t easy, either. Transitioning former child-soldiers to peace, helping a victim of abuse to cope, was always a special challenge, especially with extremely talented students.
The girl had failed an exam she should have passed. Her roommate, an Andorian transfer student, had been worried about her state of mind.
“Yes, officer, she was in my office no more than two hours ago.” Rachel said, “I’m so blind!”
She stood with Campus security in the dorm now. Pak’s ‘side’ of the room was almost bare of decorations, everything was neat, tidy, and organized on her side, an almost sterile order, especially compared to the roommate, who’d found the body.
Everything, except for a question scrawled on the wall.
Campus security had taken the body down, but the chair was still lying on it’s side, and the anchor point she’d fastened to the ceiling was still right there.
“You could have taken my statement in my office, detective.” she said, “Why did you bring me here, to where the girl killed herself?”
“Miss Pak has no living relatives, ma’am...you’re her faculty advisor and...there are personal effects, and the body to be dealt with.”
“...of course.” she said, accepting the forms.
The girl’s possessions fit into a suitcase, and a heavy-duty footlocker. These would be delivered to the Wahlberger home by courier after being inventoried and sealed.
Rachel made a few calls to find a funeral home to process the body. She did this numbly, and by late afternoon, she was ready to return to her home.
Among the items in the footlocker, was a flatrendering image in a cheap frame. A group of young people, mugging for the camera with rifles in some desert hellhole.
One of the girls in the picture, which she’d seen-yet-not-seen for the last eighteen months, made her stop the sorting task.
They were clearly young teens, several of the boys had obvious acne, but it wasn’t the boys.
The girl next to Pak, the one with a single chevron on her sleeve, with a rocker below and crossed rifles, a comm-rig and a vicious looking Klingon carbine.. dear lord, that’s Peregrine!...no..yes! the nametape on the older girl’s chest pocket said it. Wahlberger.
It was too much of a coincidence. Six years of frantic searching, hiring investigators, first the good ones, then the cheap ones...searching across the Federation and in every nook and cranny in the Centauri colony…
Her runaway daughter, missing for years...she tabbed her personal comm.
“Abraham, come to the freshman dorms, room 332...I found something.”
“dear Rachel, I hope it’s not contraband-”
“It’s about Peregrine!” she ran a finger over the flatrendering, “I know where she went…”
For the first time in years, she felt hope.
Miss Pak had kept a diary, and the isochits were filed neatly by date, from the date she joined the Independence movement, onward.
In terms of ‘primary sources’ for an historian, it was a gold mine. The implications the diaries discussed, were horrifying and disgusting.
The vid clips were harder. As he and Rachel took turns, they watched this child grow up among violence, from thirteen (the oldest record) through to her forced discharge from her country’s military at seventeen.
Peregrine showed up in the basic training portion first, as a recruit. The girls were friends. “Why didn’t she mention this?” he muttered, watching his runaway daughter playfully mugging for her friend’s camera in a place called “Devil’s Canyon”.
The two girls babbled on in Hebrew on the videos, a language he’d himself learned as a boy and had her taught growing up for family and traditional reasons. She spoke it so fast in the videos he could hardly keep up, since he’d stopped attending services.
The two girls would lapse into Viet at times, especially when a third person was in the frame, a boy named “Nok” who seemed to be about his daughter’s age, and who blushed a lot when the girls spoke to him.
Peregrine leaves the record after six months, and the next volume shows her and ‘Geena’ on Drozana station. They’re wearing actual uniforms by that point.. Olive drab and Khaki clothes, carrying weapons.
It was still her, though. His little girl had run away to become someone else’s soldier.
“Computer, display all records, chronologically, that include or mention Peregrine.” he says.
541 records.
He watches his absent daughter through the eye of her friend.
By the fourth year’s worth, the soldier on the screen reminds him of his father after the Dominion war. The image was shot on a Klingon ship, a Bird of Prey....
The next clip was on a beach.
Growing up, he’d heard his father’s stories about ‘leaves on Risa’, and he’d done his best to protect her from those influences. Abraham was dismayed.
The next clip jumped timestamps…
The record ends there, and there’s another time-jump.
There had been rumours, and the humanitarian crisis on Moab III had made the news, but somehow, the public images lacked the sense of grinding horror.
Her eyes...there was none of the laughter left in them.
The next record was also timeskipped.
He didn’t know what that was. Abraham realized, only that somehow, his work raising his daughter had failed horribly…
The next clip was the last one with her in the images.
That was almost two years ago. He stopped the player. “So...where is she now?” he asked. His wife sighed next to him. “Let’s find out?” she suggested..
“Computer, search FNN, RTN and other network feeds for any reference to Peregrine Wahlberger, Moab Confederacy Defense Forces” he instructed.
It took only about ten minutes.
“She’s survived.” Rachel breathed.
Arluna Base, outside Voskhod city, Arluna…
“You’ll do fine, just remember what I showed you.” Lt. Colonel Peregrine Wahlberger straightened her former executive officer’s collar. It hadn’t seemed real until she pinned his oak-leaves, and even then, it hadn’t seemed to be real.
“I don’t understand, Mum, why now?” he asked, “One short mission, and now you’re leaving.”
“It’s because you’re ready, you don’t need me.” she told him, “The crew respect you, you’ve got chops, If I’m here, you won’t grow into the kind of commander that you should, acting as the kind of commander you most naturally are. I was assigned to help square the Arluna forces up, and you’ve exceeded expectations, at this point I’m supernumerary.”
“So where are you going next?”
“Cycle’s designed for a command tour, followed by staff tour.” Peregrine told him, “With Commodore Cham and his staff mostly out of the picture, Commodore Qua’s got a slot she needs filled, I’ll see when I get to Cold Butte what that slot is. Arluna’s fleet is strong, we’ve got the infrastructure at work, there’s nothing left that needs my hand on it here, better if it’s the locals.”
She escorted him out onto the tarmac, they rode side-by-side in a staff car, to where the Lucky Louise was squatting on the newly reinforced decking.
The change of command ceremony was accompanied by the sound of dockworkers repairing the damage.
“The Fursnake”, Eirhess Colony, Hromi sector…
The wetshops were open 24 hours a day here, Purple roofs marked them as surely as the black booths of the funeral homes on the same street.
Eirhess wasn’t big as a colony, and it had been overlooked by both sides during the war, a low-value location even the Orions tended to ignore, more a waystation for pirates and criminals than a proper home to anyone, even the Colonial Administrator out here was on the local take.
Gavin sat in one of those wetshops, where anything to blur the edges away from reality could be purchased openly, the addicts could get as high as they wanted, and in the end, the funeral parlors would take on the ones that dissipated too far to be saved. It was the colony’s main industry, this blurring of pain and indulgence in cheap thrills..
There are only two reasons to come here- to die is the first, and for the locals, most lucrative, and to seek out someone who’s come to die in a blur of pleasure drugs and sickness.
“What’s your pleasure?” the waitress asked, her skin was sickly-brownish instead of healthful green, a sign of Acetaminophen addiction, the human drug was deeply and aggressively addictive to Orions, having an effect on their biology similar to the Opiates that they shrug off without hesitation.
“Bourbon.” Gavin told her, “Bourbon on Ice. I’m meeting someone here for business.”
“Two Darseks for the glass, or three for the bottle.” she said.
He passed her a pair of Klingon coins, and held up a paper packet, “Make sure the table’s private, and you can have them.” he said.
“Is that-” her eyes locked on it with visible hunger.
“Pure Tylenol.” he told her, “Original formula-AFTER my meeting, you won’t even need to clean my Petla first.”
He didn’t have long to wait. There were four of them tonight, all between the ages of seventeen and twenty, they moved like a unit, and the leader sat down across from him..
“Payment..” Gavin said, sliding a bag under the table. “Any trouble getting out?”
“No trouble, mission went without a hitch, extraction was clean.” the young man across from him said. There were no smiles among them. “You’ve got another one?”
“For now, you and your team need to lay low, the expected outcomes have altered-which is normal in this sort of work, but my principal was pleased with your team’s work and would like to extend a retainer. I should have some work available in a week or so.”
The young man hefted the sportsbag casually. “Count it-but not here.” Gavin urged verbally, while extending his focus to suppressing the young man’s doubts. “Have some fun.”
He calmly focused The Power on the others, one at a time, it was delicate work, suppressing their moral inhibitions and guilt-reflex, but he’d spent enough time studying these animals to know which areas to redirect, how to best prevent them from indulging in second thoughts.
The kids left without a further word, heading to the flop where they were staying.
He remembered to leave the headache medicine with the tip. It was purer than the medical version, and would probably give the Orion server a deadly overdose, her mind hadn’t been advanced or developed enough to test for purity.
He sauntered out of the wethouse, onto the street under a perpetually brownish sky, and activated his personal comm unit.
The brownish yellow sky almost reminded him of home, home, and his own, true form.
University of Alpha Centauri, New Prague, Alpha Centauri VII…
The girl’s name was Geena Pak, and she’d been in Rachel’s office two hours ago. Rachel Wahlberger had worked hard to help this kid adjust to the University, it’s culture and her fellow students. It wasn’t easy, either. Transitioning former child-soldiers to peace, helping a victim of abuse to cope, was always a special challenge, especially with extremely talented students.
The girl had failed an exam she should have passed. Her roommate, an Andorian transfer student, had been worried about her state of mind.
“Yes, officer, she was in my office no more than two hours ago.” Rachel said, “I’m so blind!”
She stood with Campus security in the dorm now. Pak’s ‘side’ of the room was almost bare of decorations, everything was neat, tidy, and organized on her side, an almost sterile order, especially compared to the roommate, who’d found the body.
Everything, except for a question scrawled on the wall.
How can I laugh tomorrow when i cant even smile today?
Campus security had taken the body down, but the chair was still lying on it’s side, and the anchor point she’d fastened to the ceiling was still right there.
“You could have taken my statement in my office, detective.” she said, “Why did you bring me here, to where the girl killed herself?”
“Miss Pak has no living relatives, ma’am...you’re her faculty advisor and...there are personal effects, and the body to be dealt with.”
“...of course.” she said, accepting the forms.
The girl’s possessions fit into a suitcase, and a heavy-duty footlocker. These would be delivered to the Wahlberger home by courier after being inventoried and sealed.
Rachel made a few calls to find a funeral home to process the body. She did this numbly, and by late afternoon, she was ready to return to her home.
Among the items in the footlocker, was a flatrendering image in a cheap frame. A group of young people, mugging for the camera with rifles in some desert hellhole.
One of the girls in the picture, which she’d seen-yet-not-seen for the last eighteen months, made her stop the sorting task.
They were clearly young teens, several of the boys had obvious acne, but it wasn’t the boys.
The girl next to Pak, the one with a single chevron on her sleeve, with a rocker below and crossed rifles, a comm-rig and a vicious looking Klingon carbine.. dear lord, that’s Peregrine!...no..yes! the nametape on the older girl’s chest pocket said it. Wahlberger.
It was too much of a coincidence. Six years of frantic searching, hiring investigators, first the good ones, then the cheap ones...searching across the Federation and in every nook and cranny in the Centauri colony…
Her runaway daughter, missing for years...she tabbed her personal comm.
“Abraham, come to the freshman dorms, room 332...I found something.”
“dear Rachel, I hope it’s not contraband-”
“It’s about Peregrine!” she ran a finger over the flatrendering, “I know where she went…”
For the first time in years, she felt hope.
* * *
At the Wahlberger’s home, a faculty condo in one of the nicer parts of the city, the possessions of a troubled young woman were spread out.Miss Pak had kept a diary, and the isochits were filed neatly by date, from the date she joined the Independence movement, onward.
In terms of ‘primary sources’ for an historian, it was a gold mine. The implications the diaries discussed, were horrifying and disgusting.
The vid clips were harder. As he and Rachel took turns, they watched this child grow up among violence, from thirteen (the oldest record) through to her forced discharge from her country’s military at seventeen.
Peregrine showed up in the basic training portion first, as a recruit. The girls were friends. “Why didn’t she mention this?” he muttered, watching his runaway daughter playfully mugging for her friend’s camera in a place called “Devil’s Canyon”.
The two girls babbled on in Hebrew on the videos, a language he’d himself learned as a boy and had her taught growing up for family and traditional reasons. She spoke it so fast in the videos he could hardly keep up, since he’d stopped attending services.
The two girls would lapse into Viet at times, especially when a third person was in the frame, a boy named “Nok” who seemed to be about his daughter’s age, and who blushed a lot when the girls spoke to him.
Peregrine leaves the record after six months, and the next volume shows her and ‘Geena’ on Drozana station. They’re wearing actual uniforms by that point.. Olive drab and Khaki clothes, carrying weapons.
It was still her, though. His little girl had run away to become someone else’s soldier.
“Computer, display all records, chronologically, that include or mention Peregrine.” he says.
541 records.
He watches his absent daughter through the eye of her friend.
By the fourth year’s worth, the soldier on the screen reminds him of his father after the Dominion war. The image was shot on a Klingon ship, a Bird of Prey....
“Six weeks in cloak now, we’re getting close to Risa, and Peri has something to say!”
Peregrine looks up from her console, “get that damn portacam out of my face, Geena!!”
“Come on, it’s for posterity! People are gonna want to know the people that carried out the impossible Operation!”
“F*cking hell...okay, Hi future people, I’m Peregrine..that is, Radioman third class Wahlberger.”
“Where are you from?”
“I’m from Alpha-Cee, alright? Geena, I got studying to do…you’re not going to show this to anyone for reals are you?”
“Mmmayyybee...but not for a long, long time.”
“Yeah, I don’t want my parents seeing it, alright? I didn’t leave home on the best terms and my dad would have a f*cking aneurysm if he found out I decided to make a career out of soldiering, okay?”
“What’re you studying?”
“A-levels.” Peregrine snaps, “Differential calculus, the basis of all the physics we use for commo, transportation, warp theory, and a big chunk of life support for star travel.”
“And you’re studying it why? For the people watching?”
“Because to make officer you gotta get a degree, and since this is my career choice, I don’t want to be some busted up career NCO-now can I get back to studying?”
The camera turns back to showing Geena’s face, “I’m going to make her party with us when we drop off the guys at Risa, ssshhhhh! It’s our secret girl plan..”
The next clip was on a beach.
“...you’re drunk!” Peregrine was flushed under the sunlight, fatigue pants and a black tee-shirt. “Not as drunk as you!!” Geena’s voice said.
“There’s an old saying in American…” his daughter announced, “It goes….Hey y’all hold my beer I got this!!”
“You can’t even stand up on it”
“Watch me..and hold my fruity drink…”
He watched his little girl, drunk, climb onto a hoverboard and take off in the wrong direction on what appeared to be a racecourse.
“She’s doing it! She’s doing it!!” Geena's underage drunken chant flickered showing how poor the audio pickup was.
Peregrine passes out of the frame, then the sound of the board’s thrusters get loud again, as the gathered young people start shouting and cheering.
”The Undine can EAT ME!!!!” the focus zooms, and he sees her riding the device at excessive speed onto a ramp, hands held aloft in one of the oldest obscene gestures known to man.”AOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!
She executes a mid-air roll without falling off, then lands in a spray as her friends shout encouragement and cheers…
“She TRIBBLE’ did it! YAAHHH!!!”
Growing up, he’d heard his father’s stories about ‘leaves on Risa’, and he’d done his best to protect her from those influences. Abraham was dismayed.
The next clip jumped timestamps…
“We got our orders today, Peri’s going to the Cruiser Ia Drang after her promotion to First Class, she’ll be RTO for Colonel Qua. I’m being reassigned too, but it’s a surface regiment on detachment to Berun’s World to help get their militia squared away.”
“Hey hey little sis, two stripes look good on ya..” Peregrine said with a grin, she’s holding up a bottle and three glasses, “Party before deployment day?”.
The record ends there, and there’s another time-jump.
They’re in a forest of tents, and everyone in frame looks exhausted, hurt, and there is a Klingon in the background, weeping. “Hey Journal, it’s day sixty two since Fek-Day. The Company’s on stand-down while command finds us some officers to replace Lt. B’rokdan…” Geena’s voice sounds strained. “By the time anyone sees this-if they ever do, you know what happened already.. Wahlberger’s meeting with the Battalion brass in the CP tent, not sure what the dealio is but it sounded important…”
The flap of a tent opens, Peregrine comes out. She’s got bandages under ripped clothing, and she’s carrying weapons. “Sargeant, get the platoon together at the mess tent.” Peregrine’s got different rank tabs, not really tabs. Brown painted metal bars, one on each collar flap.
“You got promoted!” behind Peregrine’s tired face, in the background, the Klingon rose to his feet, and enter a small box marked “Latrine” in seven different languages.
“Yeah, listen we’ve got orders, we’re pushing into Xiao Loc again, this time it’s spot and mark targets for Orbom, but I need you to get the guys fed, ammo’ed up and ready to go….and turn that f*ucking camera off, will you? People are dying in there.”
There’s a gunshot, and the image flails wildly as the girls rush to respond.
“Aw sh*t!! He had to f*cking do it NOW??” Peregrine’s voice comes over the recording, and the image passes over a dead Klingon, seated on the toilet, with a projectile pistol in his hand.
“Turn the TRIBBLE camera off, and go tell Lees second platoon doesn’t have a TRIBBLE officer anymore, NOW, GO!!”
There had been rumours, and the humanitarian crisis on Moab III had made the news, but somehow, the public images lacked the sense of grinding horror.
Her eyes...there was none of the laughter left in them.
The next record was also timeskipped.
“We’re here on Starbase K-7, I never thought I’d be able to enter a Starfleet base as anything but a prisoner, but here we are.” Geena says offscreen, and turns the image to show the enlisted club at the Federation base.
Peregrine walks in, she’s speaking with an older woman, and wearing a pair of silver bars on her pressed khaki uniform blouse.
“Sergeant Pak, get the men, we’ve gotta cut the shore leave short.” Peregrine states.
“What’s going on Leftenant?” Geena asks.
“Get the men to the ship, have Lt. Huyn take a roster, we’ve got ninety minutes to be out of Feddie territory and back across the truce line before Starfleet IG shows up to conduct the investigation into what happened out at Kilo.”
“Aye mum, moving!”
He didn’t know what that was. Abraham realized, only that somehow, his work raising his daughter had failed horribly…
The next clip was the last one with her in the images.
“...you’re going to have to study for real now, Geena.” Peregrine was wearing the same twinned bars, his memory dredged up trivia O-3, Captain for Marines or Lt.. Senior grade for naval, and it was inside an athletic court filled with soldiers.
“How am I going to do that?” Geena was crying.
“Buck up, okay? We’re Marines, you’re still one of us. Just..your place of duty is in the civilian world now, you’re sixteen, you can focus on chasing boys, and getting a real education instead of correspondence courses between deployments, heck, you’re smart Geenie, you might end up passing me by when you get back, or maybe becoming the next governor or something-it’s not the end of the world, it’s not even the end of YOUR world.”
“They threw us away like garbage.”
“No, you got your benefits, right? And you can ping me on fleetbook, okay? Listen, the scores you racked for your First Class can get you into a really good school-somewhere offworld, use ‘em. Be more than a grunt, alright?”
The camera jiggles as Peregrine grips the girl’s shoulders, “Your war’s over, you should take advantage of being free.”
That was almost two years ago. He stopped the player. “So...where is she now?” he asked. His wife sighed next to him. “Let’s find out?” she suggested..
“Computer, search FNN, RTN and other network feeds for any reference to Peregrine Wahlberger, Moab Confederacy Defense Forces” he instructed.
It took only about ten minutes.
FNN wrote:“I, De’dra, daughter of Kalt, of the House of B’Char, do solemnly swear to defend and uphold the Constitution of Berun’s World and of the Moab Confederacy, and to faithfully perform the duties of the Office of Governor of Berun’s World.”
She turned to the screen as the small group of representatives from her governing coalition clapped. “The past few days have been terrible ones for all of us. Were it not for a joint effort by members of the Klingon Defense Force, the Federation Starfleet, and the Moab Confederacy Defense Force, it’s likely many of us would be dead, including myself.
“But instead, thanks to the valor of the Imperial Klingon Ship wamwI’ merqu’, the Moab Confederacy ship Lucky Louise, the Federation Starships Inevitable and Bajor, and the personnel of Second Battalion, 105th Starfleet Ground Forces Regiment and First Battalion, 8th Starfleet Armor Regiment, we have restored civil government. As my first official act as your governor, it is my honor and pleasure to award the Shield of St. George to Captain Kanril Eleya, Captain Michael Waldon, Commander Komoch, son of D’rel, and Major Peregrine Wahlberger.”
She turned and pressed the medal proffered by an aide to my chest. “The Shield of St. George is the highest award that may be awarded by the Commonwealth of Berun’s World for operations in defense of this planet.” She turned to Peri. “It is the signature of our gratitude for giving us our lives back.”
Once the medals were awarded, she returned to her podium. “A special election will be held on October the 4th to seat a new Planetary Assembly. Until then, with the support of my coalition partners, I am invoking the emergency powers portion of the Berun’s World Constitution, and ask that the international peacekeeping forces remain in place to assure our security. I also hereby declare Berun’s World’s official neutrality in the civil war sweeping the Confederacy.”
“Neutrality?” This from an FNN reporter we found building shelters in one of the refugee camps. “Does that mean your government refuses to recognize either the Cold Butte or Moab assemblies?”
“As soon as we’ve got representatives elected, I’ll be happy to answer that question. I’m only provisional governor right now, I have enough to focus on right here at home.”
“She’s survived.” Rachel breathed.
Arluna Base, outside Voskhod city, Arluna…
“You’ll do fine, just remember what I showed you.” Lt. Colonel Peregrine Wahlberger straightened her former executive officer’s collar. It hadn’t seemed real until she pinned his oak-leaves, and even then, it hadn’t seemed to be real.
“I don’t understand, Mum, why now?” he asked, “One short mission, and now you’re leaving.”
“It’s because you’re ready, you don’t need me.” she told him, “The crew respect you, you’ve got chops, If I’m here, you won’t grow into the kind of commander that you should, acting as the kind of commander you most naturally are. I was assigned to help square the Arluna forces up, and you’ve exceeded expectations, at this point I’m supernumerary.”
“So where are you going next?”
“Cycle’s designed for a command tour, followed by staff tour.” Peregrine told him, “With Commodore Cham and his staff mostly out of the picture, Commodore Qua’s got a slot she needs filled, I’ll see when I get to Cold Butte what that slot is. Arluna’s fleet is strong, we’ve got the infrastructure at work, there’s nothing left that needs my hand on it here, better if it’s the locals.”
She escorted him out onto the tarmac, they rode side-by-side in a staff car, to where the Lucky Louise was squatting on the newly reinforced decking.
The change of command ceremony was accompanied by the sound of dockworkers repairing the damage.
Attention to Orders:
From: Commodore Janice Qua, MCDF command Cold Butte
To: Lt. Colonel Peregrine Wahlberger, MCDF (Det.)
RE: Investigation Authorized.
I won’t say we can’t use you on the front lines, but your initial investigation into the Cold Butte bombings uncovered some disturbing possibilities that can’t be discounted or ignored. You are authorized to pursue this matter on detached duty for the next one hundred eighty days. I wish I could give you more time, Peri, but we’re short handed.
Enclosed is the requisition chits you asked for, and authorization to draw on Fleet Personnel per regulation 2145.08/B of the forces reserve act.
Be back in 180 days, try not to get killed.
Janice Qua
“The Fursnake”, Eirhess Colony, Hromi sector…
The wetshops were open 24 hours a day here, Purple roofs marked them as surely as the black booths of the funeral homes on the same street.
Eirhess wasn’t big as a colony, and it had been overlooked by both sides during the war, a low-value location even the Orions tended to ignore, more a waystation for pirates and criminals than a proper home to anyone, even the Colonial Administrator out here was on the local take.
Gavin sat in one of those wetshops, where anything to blur the edges away from reality could be purchased openly, the addicts could get as high as they wanted, and in the end, the funeral parlors would take on the ones that dissipated too far to be saved. It was the colony’s main industry, this blurring of pain and indulgence in cheap thrills..
There are only two reasons to come here- to die is the first, and for the locals, most lucrative, and to seek out someone who’s come to die in a blur of pleasure drugs and sickness.
“What’s your pleasure?” the waitress asked, her skin was sickly-brownish instead of healthful green, a sign of Acetaminophen addiction, the human drug was deeply and aggressively addictive to Orions, having an effect on their biology similar to the Opiates that they shrug off without hesitation.
“Bourbon.” Gavin told her, “Bourbon on Ice. I’m meeting someone here for business.”
“Two Darseks for the glass, or three for the bottle.” she said.
He passed her a pair of Klingon coins, and held up a paper packet, “Make sure the table’s private, and you can have them.” he said.
“Is that-” her eyes locked on it with visible hunger.
“Pure Tylenol.” he told her, “Original formula-AFTER my meeting, you won’t even need to clean my Petla first.”
He didn’t have long to wait. There were four of them tonight, all between the ages of seventeen and twenty, they moved like a unit, and the leader sat down across from him..
“Payment..” Gavin said, sliding a bag under the table. “Any trouble getting out?”
“No trouble, mission went without a hitch, extraction was clean.” the young man across from him said. There were no smiles among them. “You’ve got another one?”
“For now, you and your team need to lay low, the expected outcomes have altered-which is normal in this sort of work, but my principal was pleased with your team’s work and would like to extend a retainer. I should have some work available in a week or so.”
The young man hefted the sportsbag casually. “Count it-but not here.” Gavin urged verbally, while extending his focus to suppressing the young man’s doubts. “Have some fun.”
He calmly focused The Power on the others, one at a time, it was delicate work, suppressing their moral inhibitions and guilt-reflex, but he’d spent enough time studying these animals to know which areas to redirect, how to best prevent them from indulging in second thoughts.
The kids left without a further word, heading to the flop where they were staying.
He remembered to leave the headache medicine with the tip. It was purer than the medical version, and would probably give the Orion server a deadly overdose, her mind hadn’t been advanced or developed enough to test for purity.
He sauntered out of the wethouse, onto the street under a perpetually brownish sky, and activated his personal comm unit.
The brownish yellow sky almost reminded him of home, home, and his own, true form.
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