Following Rumors

Posted on Mon Jun 20th, 2016 @ 9:12pm by

Mission: Mission 1 - Bridges
Location: Vulcan
Timeline: MD -07 1845 Hrs
4225 words - 8.5 OF Standard Post Measure

ON;

Barton stepped into the dimly light space, waiting a moment for his eye to adjust to the dark before gazing around. Few folk paying no heed of him, most in to much of a stupor to be able too anyhow. It stunk like sour smoke and mold, the sickly sweet scent of Alyzarine Dust that perfumed most of these little dens. That bought up an old longing in Barton, but his Dust days were over - he’d not slip down that well again.

There was only a small criminal element on Vulcan, but it was nasty. Hidden out in the desert, buried underground in the cool of the earth, you’d find a few little enclaves like this, habitats for those refuges of emotions. So too were they centers for lawlessness, and it was those who preferred to behave as they wished that coalesced here. It fit with what Barton had been told about Taben, so he knew he was likely in the right place.

His eyes affixed on an Andorian slumped over a table, his blue skin shining out like beacon. It must have been him; he looked kind of like a disgruntled Starfleet officer, mostly on account of the grubby Ensign outfit he wore. It was a few generations older than current issue, and he had to admit the creature looked unconscious, but Barton was not about to step up to the crew playing billiards or the heavy-set thugs armwrestling, and ask them what the hell Taben looked like.

He sat at the table across from the Andorian, adjusting his bow-tie a moment while he confirmed the man was still actually breathing. There was a steady rise and fall in his chest.

“You Taben, I ask?” Barton said, loud enough for several of the nearest individuals to hear him. The Andorian groaned, but did little else.

Taben sat quietly in the corner smoking a cigar as he watched the events unfold in the bar. He was always on his guard, knowing that a few Orion Syndicate bosses still wanted his head. Strangers coming in and asking for his name always unnerved him a bit. Still--he was a business man, so sometimes new customers would contact him--well, not through the usual channels.

Placing the cigar to his mouth, he inhaled in that beautiful smoke allowing it to pool in his mouth as he considered his next move, watching the man carefully. He was certainly a cutie--an exceptionally dapper man to boot. Part of him decided that such a dapper man was unlikely to be an Orion assassin. Then again, he had heard stories about the syndicate using the most unlikely assassins, even a small child, to dispatch unsuspecting targets.

Shit--he was being paranoid again. The Trill sighed as he puffed out the smoke into the air, setting his cigar into the ashtray. He reached down for the knife in his left sock as he brought it up behind his back, holding it steady with his left hand. Standing up from his table, he walked slowly towards the strange, dapper man as he conversed the Andorian. As he arrived in arms-length of the man, he placed his right hand firmly on the man's shoulder.

"What business do you have with Taben?" the Trill inquired authoritatively in a deep voice as he clinched the knife behind his back tightly, ready to thrust it into the man on a moment's notice if required.

“None as yet, but I was hoping to change that. Assuming this slumberous inebriate is not him,” Barton gestured to the Andorian who was making a rather harsh moaning sound presently, “Have you an idea where I might find the man. Just a pointer in the general direction will serve.”

He looked over the Trill whose hand was grasping, a little too tightly, at his shoulder. He seemed young, early thirties at most, with blonde hair that shone even in the smoky interior of this dim haunt. His grip, and the tense manner in which he held his jaw, would have had Barton guessing that he at least new Taben, perhaps had a grudge against him. To young though, certainly, to be the crack mechanic his contact had told him about.

Taben gave the man a soul-piercing gaze as he stared deeply into his eyes, trying to make a determination on exactly how to handle this stranger. In his line of business, meeting a new contact was always an odd thing--a dance of trust, if you will. You couldn't make it in the business without taking some risks, but opening yourself up even one time to a potential enemy could land you face down in the gutter outside the bar with a knife in your back. Over the years, Taben had come to rely on his gut instincts--so far, they hadn't steered him wrong.

After a few more moments of silence, Taben's expression loosened up a bit. He still remained cautious, but decided that this man was more likely to be in search of business instead of the more unpleasant alternatives. "Well," Taben replied slowly as he broke the long silence, "It just so happens that you're looking at him--and no, sadly he's not the inebriated one yet."

Taben motioned to his table with his free hand, taking care to ensure that he kept his seat facing the door as his guest took the seat with the less adventurous vantage point. He slowly sat down in his seat, placing his knife gently beside him--in arms reach but no longer in the grasp of his left hand as he leaned forward. "So--what are you after, stranger?"

The Trill's gaze began to transition from one of distrust and caution to one of curiosity as he began to sum up this stranger sitting across from him. The man appeared cool, calm, collected--but he didn't seem to possess too much bluster--no, just the right amount. A trader of some kind--perhaps a small-time captain even? Probably moving some inventory--interesting. Yes--this could be interesting indeed. He reached down for a small glass of Scotch as he took a large sip, eagerly awaiting some answers to sate his curiosity.

After following the Trill back to his corner table, Barton slowly withdrew a silver box from the inside pocket of his blazer. With swift motions he bought out a cigarette, the real kind, before snapping shut the case and stashing it away again.

He waited a few seconds for Taben to look him up and down, allowing the Trill to make what assessments he could from a few glances, hopefully enough to see Barton meant him no threat. In a good fight, Barton relied on his long legs and light frame for the winning, which he usually did by two yards and a high fence. Physical violence had never been his thing, he was to uncoordinated and ungainly for it, not to mention hemophobic. Despite the rough life-style, Barton really was rather a wimp.

“Let’s put on end to this stranger stuff.” He lit the end of his cigarette and took a large draught from the end, closing his eyes as the harsh smoke pooled down his throat and into his lungs. There really was nothing as sweet as a good vice. “Names Barton Harkins, Captain.” He propped his elbows up on the table and clasped his hands together, his cigarette perched between his fingers like a pen. Leaning forward ever so slightly, he continued, “And it’s less about what I’m after, and more about what I’m offering. Tell me Taben, why is someone with a reputation like yours, festering in a pit in the ground like this?”

Taben blinked a few times at the man with a blank expression, as if taken off-guard by his question. He was expecting to be doing the sales pitch, not being pitched himself. Interesting...

"Skip the sales pitch and get to the point," Taben replied gruffly as he leaned back in his chair. He didn't have much tolerance for people beating around the bush--he always preferred the simple, direct approach. "What exactly are you after, and how much are you looking to pay me?"

You can always tell a good Engineer, they never minced words or waxed lyrical more than required. The Trill sitting across the table from Barton was gruff, perhaps a little hard around the edges, and was like to have his share of nasty habits. Obviously he detested authority, was imbued with a worrying sense of moral ambiguity and certainly had more than a few enemies of the particularly nasty kind. You could tell all that just from the hazy environ he was lingering in.

A smart man would have taken one look at him, backed it up with a quick squizz at this jaunt, and at left it at that. Barton was certainly bright, crafty and well educated, but a great many arguments could be made against the manner in which he applied these skills, arguments which would leave even the most dim-witted of fools wondering at just how smart a man he truly was. This, of course, he took as a compliment; smart men lived boring lives and flew boring ships and died as empty old husks in their beds. Barton lamented smart and that made Taben all the more appealing. Besides, what Barton needed was a miracle, and he was all too aware that what-ever deity bestowed such things on mere mortals, had long since forgotten about Barton and his gripes. He needed to manufacture his own thaumaturgy now, and all indicators suggested that Taben was a crucial ingredient to the recipe he found himself fool-hardedly cooking up.

“I told you, it’s what I’m offering that’s important here.” Unclasping his hands, Barton raised an open palm as he watched Taben grow irritated. Engineers might be direct, yet he rarely ever was. He took another long drag from his cigarette while he waited for the Trill to settle back into his seat. Some small part of him had to admit, he just enjoyed irritating people so. “My skills are my wits and my words, don’t deny me of them. We’ll arrive at the point in due course, while we meander and enjoy the scenery I suggest you practice the virtue of patience.” Barton's voice remained steady and calm, his heavy English accent delivered with it’s customary tone of general disregard and complete ease. “I could no more deliver to you my pitch with a handful of words than I could paint a rainbow with only two colors. What I’m offering, Taben, is the very thing you’ve spent your life yearning for, and yet been unable to find. Cause it doesn’t exists any more, from the great stem in the Taurus Dark Cloud to the very tip of the Typhoon Expanse, all known space is bereft of it. They locked it away, sealed it up in our history books, left it behind in our past, hid it between the lines of our extolled righteous glories. I know this as fact, for as far as you’ve think you’ve been in the universe, as many rocks you’ve up-turned in your hunt, I’ve been further, hunted longer, wished harder.” He gave a quick shrug of his shoulders. “I’m talking about a return to the roots of what made us great, the very thing which gave us poetry and art and culture, that drive which made our long ago ancestors reach out from the primordial ooze, stretch out there fingers and grasp at the apple of knowledge. True knowledge Taben, forbidden and sweet, not the watered down crap they control us with, the piety and veneration they drown our souls in. Free will Taben, that’s all I want, just the chance to live as I damned well please. I mean to offer you the same, an escape, not only from all this.” Barton gestured around the muggy room, and sucked in a gullet load of the dank air, contorting his face as it offended his senses. “but an escape from everything beyond it, above it, beside it. An escape from the very foundation upon which this little retrieve is built. Civilization sucks Taben, you know and I know it, so I intend to no longer be part of it. Fuck that shit, I’m pioneering my own way of life, like the men of old. Going to that place where no one can tell me how to feel or to think, what to do or why to do it. Freedom Taben, to be just as right or damned wrong as I choose.”

Barton leaned back in his chair, taking another long drag of his cigarette before he continued. “Payment is to be a life of adventure and wonder, never being bored again and the chance to discover who you really are, once all the facades and defenses fall away. And they will, fall away I mean. Aint no back-up where I intend to steer us, no leniency given to those caught partaking in the plots which actually pay. The mighty brotherhood of the UFP will offer us no aid. We’re going to be alone Taben, truly alone, that type of forsaken which soon makes you realize just how fucking cold and empty space really is. If you’re the more materialistic kind, then 30% of the take from each haul is whats to be split among the crew. As for what I am after, some one with skills to turn a bucket into a spaceship and keep it that way. Like I said, we’ll be alone in a bone chilling sense, so I need crew that can stick to their guns and keep the vessel churning long after others had gotten their insides exploded in the vacuum of nothing which is sure to be our eventual grave. Word on the street is, as far as wrench jockeys go, your the more ingenuitive kind.” Barton ran a hand across the back of his long neck, stretching his tight muscles and wiping away the sweat. “That’s the spiel, so what say you?”

Taben sat through the whole spiel giving Barton blank expressions the whole time. It wasn't the case that he lacked the intelligence to understand everything Barton was saying--quite the contrary, but he found the whole spiel...entirely unnecessary--yet oddly amusing at the same time. Why say something in 20 sentences which you could say in two? Meh--he never really understood people. This guy was a bit annoying--but at least he was the interesting type of annoying and not the sort of sanctimonious shit he was used to dealing with.

"Damn," Taben muttered under his breath in a sarcastic tone, "And they say Torvar is long-winded in his Meditations..." The Trill remarked, referencing a semi-obscure Bajoran mystic as he shook his head. Ah--best not to talk of such things with this lot. Few people shared his passions for obscure Bajoran mystics. Anyhow--there was no fucking way he'd accept a cut of a smaller cut for his services and accept the rest of the payment in "adventure". Getting paid in "adventure" was something he did when he went out clubbing, picked up some cutie, or went joy-riding in a fighter--he wasn't about to abandon his current enterprise, small though it was, just for a paltry cut and some "adventure".

"Well look," the engineer said as he leaned forward in his chair, changing to a more serious tone, "Adventure, freedom, self-discovery, and all that shit is good and all--but I'm here to make money, first and foremost--and splitting 30% of what several people are also going to be splitting just doesn't cut it for me." He paused for a moment as he did some mental calculations in his head, "If you want the best engineer you can get--it's gonna cost you. I want 5% equity in your entire operation which becomes a permanent share after I've been on the ship for a year. If I leave before a year is up, you buy back my 5% equity at half-cost, valued based on the last successful regular cargo run. Deal?"

He much preferred deals structured in this way. While it was more lucrative, perhaps, to take in portions of hauls early on in an operation, the dividends and paybacks of being a partner in the whole operation was much more lucrative after the first year or two. Besides--it provided him with a stable, regular financial investment which he could maintain potentially for several years, selling his share at just the right time and infusing him with enough cash to see his own business goals completed--provided this operation proved successful. It might--it might flop--but if he was investing his time instead of his money--well, that would be a risk worth taking.

Barton actually raised an eyebrow at that, partly because he was impressed at Taben’s business acumen and partly because he was irritated at having to go divvying up this venture before it had even began. He assumed Taben was worth it though, and realistically the rest of the crew would be anxious to join, there prospects otherwise little better than a noose or gas chamber. 5% was not a huge slice out of the pie, and if he was as skilled as Barton had been lead to believe, then he would have been worth even more. All the Latinum in known space would be worthless, if he ended up stuck on a ship, broken down in the back-reaches of the world.

With a final drag of his cigarette, Barton stubbed out it’s glowing end in the ashtray at the center of the table, before gently allowing the smoke to flow from his nostrils like a misty waterfall.

“I first broke atmo on a leaky skiff, tadpole of a ship really, ferried contraband about for a fee. Drug mule mostly, inglorious work, rough as guts crew, typical starting place for a computer jock like me. For one year six months I ensured no customs ships pinged us, and for that I was given room, bunk and 1% of the cut. Never cared about the credit, had nothing to spend it on and adventures always been enough for me. Captain of that ship though, drunk idiot he was, not only peaked on that vessel but actively overextended his abilities, Rodgers was his name. Burnt out transport sailor or some such, he was so darned thin and wiry he was practically transparent; if a stiff wind should catch him, would have blown upward for miles. Other than me, the rest of the folk he crewed with where ogres, type of men would walk right through a force-field and not even blink. Now they weren’t the smartest bunch, but they’d snap poor Rodgers in half like he were little more than a twig. So I asked him this one time, it was late and we were the only two on the shambles of a bridge, I said, just how the hell does he keep that chair, given he was none to liked by the pack of trolls shipping with him. I’ll never forget what he said that night, he looked me dead in the eye and with a seriousness that still give me chills, he told me all folk have a line. Some arbitrary point drawn up in the sand, like to be buried in their subconscious even, not known till they reach it. It’s the point at which a man can no longer reconcile his actions, justify the cruelty needed to go stepping over it. Because once he steps over it, once he becomes what it is that lies beyond that point, he aint his self no longer, but something else all together. More monster than man. Point was to make sure your line was a hell of a lot further down the road then everybody else’s.”

Barton paused a moment, he hated the heat. His skin just went clammy and pasty when ever he was subjected to it. With spider like grace, he pulled out his pocket square and dabbed the beading sweat from his forehead, affixing his pale blue eyes back on Taben as he stuffed the kerchief back into it’s pocket.

“We both know your terms are fair and I find them agreeable, I would very much like to have you as part of my crew. I take loyalty seriously Taben, you sign up, your family and I’ll treat you as such. You got skills I’m in need of, and seeing as I can’t tell the working end of a spanner from it’s handle, I will never presume to tell you how to do your job.”

Barton leaned across the table once more, inching his head a little closer to the Trills, lowering his voice to but a whisper.

“But if you ever get to thinking your 5% interest in this venture entitles you to more than fiscal benefits, you start making decision you’ve no right too, you decide maybe you’d be more fit to take over my role, you’ll find out just how much further down the path of darkness my line is drawn than yours, just like Rodgers and merry band of fuck-wits did. You see Taben, I’m not certain I was ever anything but a monster, and I don’t much care.”

Barton quickly pulled back, relaxed in his set. With a slight shiver, he appeared to shake off the seriousness, let a jovial smile cross over is face, the friendly warmth returning as if it had never left.

“Nasty business that, I’m sure we never need discuss it again. Is there anything else?”

Taben nodded. Again--the man said something in paragraphs in what he could say in sentences. This habit would undoubtedly continue to annoy Taben--but fuck, he'd get used to it. He wasn't particularly intimidated by the man, but he respected the fact that he seemed to have some backbone after all. It wasn't a problem, really--he had no wish to take over someone else's enterprise when he could just start his own.

"Nope, that about covers it," Taben replied matter-of-factly as he nodded his head. "Obviously I'll want to get that in writing before we come aboard." He leaned forward as he continued, "You've got nothing to worry about in terms of me telling you how to run your enterprise. As far as I'm concerned, as long as you don't tell me how to do my job, I won't tell you how to do yours. As long as you stick to the terms of our deal, you'll have nothing to worry about from me."

Barton nodded his head, withdrawing a PaDD from his jacket and placing it on the table. “Good, good. Ships called the Mary Rose, civilian register, sure to be a fine work horse once your done with her.” He slipped the PaDD on the table, letting it slide across the surface like a skate and into Taben’s waiting hands. “Constitution Refit, specs and all should be there. She’ll be docked in DS7 for the weeks out, I assume you’d like to arrange your own transport there?”

Taben nodded as he looked over the PADD, clearly distracted by the specs and damage reports to focus too much on anything Barton had to say. "Yeah, no problem," the Trill replied haphazardly as he continued reading the report.

“In that case, I’ve a freighter to be on in a few hours, have some final strings to pull. Been a pleasure, I looked forward to seeing you at the end of the week. Wont be hard to find, not many Connies like to be birthed there.”

Barton held out his hand to draw their talk to a close. He had what he needed, and now he was keen to get moving. Vulcan was scorching and he still had to actually secure the ship itself, a detail he thought best to not to include in the negotiations with Taben.

Taben wasn't usually the sort for handshakes--but they had just made a deal. As roguish as he could be, it was one tradition he could tolerate. He stood up from his chair, grabbing Barton's hand firmly as he gave it a vigorous shake, nodding his head slightly.

“Until then.” With a stiff nod of his head, Barton left the seat, withdrawing from the bar like a fleeing sheep from the maw of a hungry wolf. The warm winds of Vulcan wrapped about him as he stepped from the door, dust and debris instantly drying out his throat and eyes.

“What a god awful planet.” He grumbled, pulling a set of round sun-glasses from a pocket and placing them securely on his nose. Sooner he was off this hell-hole, the better.

Taben leaned back in his chair as the man left scouring over the details of the ship. This would be an interesting opportunity and adventure. He wasn't sure he was keen to be under the command of someone else again--even if he wasn't a Starfleet officer--but at the very least, it would be an interesting diversion which would net him some profit in the interim...

OFF;

Barton Harkins
Captain
SS Mary Rose

Taben Natal
Chief Technician
SS Mary Rose