Accidental Recruiting

Posted on Wed Nov 11th, 2020 @ 7:55pm by Captain Rueben Gregnol & Satun t'Rralleen & Liha t'Ehhelih

Mission: Mission 12 - Railway
Location: Freecloud
Timeline: April 2396
1735 words - 3.5 OF Standard Post Measure

Playing shopkeep on a station was no easy task. The job got even more difficult when you were a Tal Shiar fugitive running shop that served as a front to a refugee smuggling post. It also did not help when the commanding officer of the station brought galactic attention with his continuous flirting with court martials and extra-universe kids running around. Now that she had left her spot there behind, Satun had arrived on Freecloud to think about her next move.

However, for now she needed a drink. The best place on Freecloud for a real Romulan Ale was the Stumbling Mule. The bar had the seedy look of a place where no one of importance would visit, where a person like her would really fit in. Where she could sip on a cup of the blue and really forget about everything for a moment.

Urellh watched from the shadows of an alcove, savoring the last of his own ale. His prey was in sight, but there was no need rush and every reason to wait, observe, the better to snare any associates aiding her. Besides, there was a certain ...pleasure... in the hunt. Pursuit should not be rushed, but enjoyed.

One of the main guidelines was to never be in a new place for longer than necessary. Satun pounded back her last shot of Romulan Ale, tossed a few pieces of latinum toward the bartender and headed toward the door. She kept her head straight but used her peripheral vision to scan the room for signs of someone getting up to follow. She wondered what it was like for Humans to live like they do. To be able to conduct daily business and talk about person beliefs without the feeling of someone else watching. She envied it.

Indigo did not miss the shadows or the figure watching someone and sighed. Why was every dive like this on Freecloud when they came back that there? She downed her drink and moved through the crowds. She was just meant to be there for a good night and maybe drag someone home with her but that seemed to be all off now.

Separating from the shadows, Urellh moved casually toward the door; not in a direct line, but never losing sight of his quarry. Once she was outside and far enough from a crowd to avoid too obvious a scene, he would have her.

Briefly scanning the branching paths with her eyes, Satun settled on the one that was most public. She could fit in, maybe even get lost in a crowd. In all likelihood, she was safe and no one was coming. But, years of training told her that any day could be the day. All she had to do was walk down one lonely path, and she would be in a crowd the rest of the way to her lodging.

A figure stepped out of a doorway just ahead of her. Guessing her path had not been difficult - it was the one Urellh might have taken in similar circumstances - so he had employed a short cut. "Satun, imagine running into you here," Urellh remarked drolly.

"Urehllh," Satun replied, recognizing the man before her. "I suppose our paths were always going to cross," she added, looking around for anything that could be used for an advantage.

"I would call it a surety," he chuckled. "One does not simply resign from our organization after all." His voice hardened as he took a step closer. "One especially does not leave and begin smuggling persons of interest out of our reach."

“So I take it you didn’t get my resignation letter?” Satun asked smuggly. She had been referring to the incident that had put her in the run, the killing of her handler. She had acted to defend some innocents. “How does this end?” Satun asked, knowing that there was only one real answer. She had been on his side of this very conversation more than once.

Indigo staggered into the scene like a drunk leaning on Urehllh for a moment before twirling in front of him. "Are we going to an after party baby?" She wondered slurring her words.

"No." Urellh punched her in the gut, caught her neck in his other hand and threw her to the side, before snapping his attention back to Satun.

That was the opening Satun needed. Having learned kormerek, a particularly vicious form of Romulan martial arts, through her time in the Tal Shiar, Satun launched herself in a string of attacks designed to knock a person off balance and quickly incapacitate them.

Satun had moved quickly, but Urellh had expected something - it was what he would have done after all - and he managed to avoid the crippling kick to his knee, but took it as a hard blow on the thigh, knocking him back. But he recovered quickly, using his knowledge of kormeerek with own expertise in Llaekh-ae'rl to counter the following spear hand thrust to his throat, turning her strike aside with one hand even as the other crossed under, up and across, sweeping a mogai wing strike at her neck.

Not one to ever be underestimated Indigo stood from the ground and picked up a discarded piece of wire from what could only be from a discarded float from the founding day celebrations the week before. She moved over to the pair exchanging blows and looped it around the man's neck yanking hard. "Looks like I get an after-party after all." She commented wrapping it harder. She might be small but she knew ways to bring people to their knees.

The normal response to being choked was to panic and claw at the constrictor on your neck. Which was exactly why nearly every martial arts school in the known galaxy taught its students NOT to do that. Tal'Shiar training was definitely no exception; indeed such scenarios had been practiced so regularly that Urellh reacted on pure muscle memory reflex, reaching back to grab Indigo by the throat and drive his thumbs hard into her throat. Even if the surprise and pain didn't make her lose her grip, he knew he could go longer without oxygen than she could. However, with a more deadly opponent in front of him, he couldn't wait and so launched himself backwards, throwing his whole weight against her with his shoulders even as he kicked up to strike at Satun with both feet.

Fortunately, the choke hold being placed on her assailant allowed Satun more room to move than she would normally have been allowed. The former Tal'Shiar agent, and pragmatist, took the opportunity to use her own feet as she kicked hard at Urellh's exposed torso. Her focus was especially in the soft tissue area immediately under his ribs. Satun knew that it would not be enough to kill or remove her adversary from the fight, but it would definitely give the pair a deeper advantage or time to flee if need be.

The blow didn't quite its target since striking a spot on a torso extending with a double thrust kick would be difficult under the best of circumstances, but it did catch his side, adding angular force to the one already hitting Indigo from a large male Romulan throwing half his weight back against her shoulders. It spun both of them back and sideways, landing them in a heap. Urellh had worked a hand between the wire and his throat the moment his first backwards move had loosened it, and pulled it away as they went down in a tangle.

Indigo attempted to scramble to her feet as soon as the momentum stopped but his weight on her made it a little more difficult but a jabbed to his side made him shift enough for her to pull herself up. She was hurting but that had never stopped her before. "Two against one. Good odds." She murmured.

“Except for when they train you for worse,” Satun warned. Knowing better than to add one more body to a chaotic pile, she stood just out of range of a stray arm or leg. The Romulan woman looked for any opening to land a strong kick to something sensitive like a face or other. Seeing her chance, Satun let loose with a kick to the bridge of Urellh’s nose.

Indigo shrugged at the suggestion that the odds were still not in their favour. That was fine, Indigo never went down without a fight even if she was aching already. Indigo had been trained to fight and she thought like a girl in a man’s world. As the kick connected with the attacker's nose, she winced seeing the mess in created.

Pain exploded in Urellh's face. He was trained to fight through it, and could possibly still take Satun alone, but knew he'd be significantly hampered against two attackers, especially when the other woman's fighting skills were unknown. Deciding that the best option was to fight anther day, he pulled a knife from his boot and threw it half-blind at Satun as he turned to run into night.

The knife did not head towards Satun but towards Indigo scraping her arm making her yelp in pain but nothing more. "What a bastard." She muttered looking at her coat where the knife had ripped and cut her. It was only then that she pulled her hood down revealing the bright blue hair and looked at the older woman properly.

Giving a look to the fleeing assailant, Satun turned to her would be savior. Giving a look to the injured arm, the Romulan ripped a strip off the bottom of her overcoat. She tightly wrapped it around the other woman's arm. Satun gazed at the blue hair momentarily before saying, "Keep pressure on it until we can get you back to... where are you from?"

Indigo had a lot of expletive words that wanted to slip out of her mouth but held them in to point to the bottom of the alley. "I live here." She said simply. Here could be anywhere but she did have a place on free cloud for when the Fenris Rangers did come this way. It was not much but it was somewhere off the ship that was safe. It would keep them safe until she could figure out what to do.