Midnight Cloak and Dagger

Posted on Tue Mar 19th, 2024 @ 8:56pm by Lieutenant Commander Lyra Cassiel & Ensign Jeffrey Simmons & Petty Officer 1st Class Leon Meier & Lieutenant Commander Andrei Petrov

Mission: S1 Episode 7: Prime Factors
Location: Sikaris
Timeline: Date 2371-09-20 at 0330
2863 words - 5.7 OF Standard Post Measure

ON


The sun had set nearly four hours ago and night was settling on the capital city of Sikaris. The bustling night life didn’t reach too far into the densely populated slums on the outskirts of the market districts, and disreputable types had started to reclaim the streets from the daytime crowds. Seven individual streams of azure light brought the team from Vengeance. They were dressed in civilian attire, and the hope was that would provide enough cover from being recognized.

“Do you have any idea what this contact is supposed to look like, Lyra?” Andrei asked, turning to the ship’s third in command. He stood in a black t-shirt, jeans, and a black leather jacket. “It would be a shame if this turned out to be an accidental drug buy instead.” He said, then paused, “more or less.”

“Forties, brown hair, brown eyes, nothing noteworthy but he is supposed to be wearing a white jacket over a red shirt.” Lyra provided. She herself was wearing a red to darker red gradient v-neck blouse with a high-lo hem and a dark wash jean. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and the simple style made her look quite youthful. She looked at her security team and gestured slightly with her head. “Fan out around the area to watch for the contact but keep sight lines on everyone. We don’t want anyone getting kidnapped for their kidneys.”

“And try not to look too formal. I don’t want these people to have any stories to tell.” Andrei said, supplementing her orders. While the four security guards they came with moved to follow their orders, Andrei turned to Lyra. “How do you think the Sikarians will react when they learn we acquired this technology behind their backs?”

“Not well.” Lyra replied and crossed her arms under her chest, accentuating her breasts through her shirt. Her dark eyes moved over to Leon who was leaning back against a nearby wall trying to not look too nervous, then she looked back at Andrei. “But we won’t be refused something like this. It is too important.”

“We’re going home.” Andrei said with a determined look in his visible eye, “and their government's short-sightedness won’t stop us.”

“No, it won’t.” Lyra agreed. She wasn’t looking at Andrei, she was looking for their contact and trying not to get too caught up in her own thoughts. Of course she wanted to go home, but home would make things… difficult.

At that consideration, she did finally glance over at Andrei but looked away just as quickly. They would both have an entire world of options when they returned, and she found it a bit challenging to admit to herself she didn’t like that prospect.

As for Andrei, the prospect of returning to Terra was a bit daunting as well. While he wasn’t concerned about their relationship, he did worry that a man his age would have a hard time retaining his current rank and status once their emergency situation was over. He pictured himself bumped back to Lieutenant and serving as a department head on some go-away assignment. He wasn’t interested. But what was the alternative, really?

Several moments later, a man fitting the description Lyra had given walked into the square alone. He was clearly not from this part of the city, and looked back and forth at the other people standing or talking to each other with nervous and intelligent eyes. Despite Imperial Starfleet’s attempt to stay subtle, they stuck out about as badly as he did. He frowned, and made his way toward the two in the center.

“Warm night, isn’t it?” he asked, stepping gingerly into their space.

“Much to warm for my taste. I might need to borrow a jacket.” Andrei said, feeding the man his pre-arranged verbal signal that he was the seller and they were the buyers. It had to be a conversation no one would really have.

“I brought it. Do you have the stuff?” the man asked, his eyes darting between their attractive faces.

Lyra motioned for Leon to step forward with the case he was holding. When he lifted it, she turned to open it and revealed a datacore and a chip sitting within the confines snug in foam so they didn’t rattle around. “Our cultural database and agreed upon monetary payment.”

The man would have smiled if he hadn’t been so trepidacious. Being caught betraying his government for money and material to be sold on the Sikarian black market would carry a sentence which was quite severe. Still, after today, he would be a very wealthy man.

Lowering the bag he was carrying, he opened it and pulled out a chunky piece of metal with tubes sticking out of both ends. In an instant, a slender but fit security officer was at his side, extending his hand to take the device. Zac Dawson wasn’t the strongest fighter, but he was swift and eager to do his job. He took the offered tech and placed it in a case he had brought along.

As Zac reached out to take the device from the Sikarian, Lyra took the case from Leon and shut it while the young man took out his tricorder to scan the supposed trajector to authenticate it and make sure it wasn’t damaged. Once he had done so, he nodded to Lyra wordlessly.

“Well then, consider it a deal.” Lyra said and motioned for Zac to close the case.

Zac responded to her cue immediately and pulled the case back from the scientist.

“I suppose we do.” the brown haired Sikarian said as he eyed the case with their agreed upon exchange inside. He leaned in and reached for it, his hands shaking in proximity to the Terrans.

Lyra noticed the man’s shaking hands and his expression as he reached to take the case in her hands. She had to fight not to outright laugh at him, but the corners of her lips twitched upward, betraying her amusement. As soon as the Sikarian’s hands touched the case, however, a loud and authoritative voice broke the scene.

“Everyone stay where you are!” A man demanded as a half dozen uniformed personnel filled the area with weapons raised. “You are all under arrest!”

Lyra cursed and pulled the case back, shifting herself in front of Zac and pushing him back with her body. She reached up and tapped her commbadge, but the strange truncated chirp that greeted her let her know their communications had been cut off.

She was going to kill Garit.

The shout from the Sikarian police had surprised Andrei, and it was a split second before his phaser was in his hand. He scowled, furious that anyone could have enough found out about their secret rendezvous. In obvious contravention of the order to stand still, he strode out in front of his away team and lifted his phaser toward the man who spoke. The security followed his lead and raised theirs too.

“You’ve heard the stories, man. Don’t be stupid. Let us go, and you get to go home to your family tonight.” he said, his voice calm as he observed the readings coming in on his eye patch. “All of you.”

Lyra carefully shifted the case she was carrying back to Leon and slowly pulled her phaser out as well, though her dark eyes were moving around to find the source of whatever had blocked their transporter signal. It had to be on one of them, it couldn’t be far. She let Andrei do the talking quite happily, it gave her the chance to assess.

“We have you outnumbered.” The Sikarian replied evenly, his own weapon drawn as he looked up at Andrei stoically. “Lower your weapons. We do not wish to harm anyone.”

“Have you heard of what happened to the Ocampa, Sikarian? The Banean and Numiri Homeworlds? Your people like stories; have you not heard the tale of the fleet that attacked us? Dozens of ships, gone.” Andrei said through his teeth, his tone both intense and controlled. “If you harm me or a single one of my men, that will happen to you. Lower your weapons and leave with this scientist. That is my only offer.”

The man who had delivered the trajector technology to them had already been frightened, but now his eyes went wide as dinner plates.

“NO!”

The lead officer of the Sikarians frowned and seemed to hesitate. He wasn’t foolish and knew Andrei wasn’t exaggerating the claims, but he didn’t want to shirk his duty. His strange green eyes moved around to his men who were all obviously hesitating at the threats made by the Terran. No person wanted to be responsible for the destruction of their planet or the death of millions simply in the name of doing their duty. He licked his lips and slowly lowered his weapon and the rest of the Sikarians did the same.

“Take him.” The officer said to one of the others and nodded at the frightened Sikarian man. “We will be informing our superiors of this incident, Terran.”

“It’s unfortunate your superiors refused our attempt at cooperation.” Andrei said, his weapon still very-much raised. “This is the result of leaving us with no other option. Tell them what you must, Sikarian.”

Andrei looked at the scientist as he was taken into custody and shuffled off quickly, wailing and pleading to whatever gods they believed in. What a shameful waste of a useful alien. He turned his eyes, the natural one and the one that was covered, back to the lead officer. His gloved hands readjusted on the phaser. He glanced at Lyra, giving her the signal it was time to go.

Lyra turned her gaze to the man carrying the dampening device, staring at him intensely until he reached down and deactivated it. Once he did, she reached down and tapped her commbadge. “Cassiel to Vengeance, seven to beam up.”

Just seconds later, they disappeared from the back alley they had been in and reappeared in the light and warmth of the Vengeance transporter room.

“Gods damnit.” Andrei said, lowering his weapon and replacing it in the holster. He turned and made sure that everyone had returned as planned. When he saw the entire away team was there, he stepped off of the transporter pad and turned around. “Good work, ladies and gents. It went south, but that wasn’t your fault. Now go and get some rest. Only the gods know how the Sikarians will act. Hopefully they’re a bit smarter than the other aliens in this quadrant.”

“At least they let us go, sir.” Zac said, still holding the case that held the trajector technology.

“Get that down to Engineering.” Andrei ordered. “We’ll start prepping for installation right away. He turned his eyes to Leon then. “Hopefully Kit is awake. If not, wake her. We might be in a hurry.”

“Aye, sir.” Zac said with a nod.

“Aye, sir.” Leon nodded.

“Take this as well.” Lyra said and handed the other case to Leon. “Seeing as our contact got himself arrested, he lost out.”

Getting the trajector and keeping their money - hopefully Ivan would be pleased.

“Yes, sir.” Leon repeated this time to Lyra and took the case from her. He looked at Zac, nodded, and the two grouped together to head to engineering.

“Dismissed.” Andrei said, his jaw flexing as he tightened and then relaxed it several times.

Lyra stepped off the pad and down next to Andrei. She watched the others file out and then reached out to place a hand on his lower back.

“Things don’t go to plan as often as I’d like.” Andrei said in a sober voice as he looked at her. He placed his hand around her as well. “But at least we got the trajector. I suppose I should wake my father with the news. He’s probably not asleep anyway.”

“Probably not.” She confirmed and leaned into him slightly, offering a soothing gesture with the action as she often did. “Don’t worry, darling.”

She kissed his shoulder gently and sighed softly.

Behind the transporter console, a tired Petty Officer Cruz seemed to be doing anything she could to distract herself from the conversation of her superior officers. And now that Lyra was leaning in to Andrei, she seemed to be working double time. She licked her full pink lips and fiddled with the controls, considering there was really nothing to do at all. They were known for their public displays of affection, and she had no interest in seeing it.

Lyra’s eyes shifted past Andrei’s muscular neck and over to the petty officer behind the controls. It was the woman who had paid her the random compliment when she had gone to see Garit. It was impossible to miss how the woman was pointedly not looking at them, and that was the most unusual thing. People looked at them for many different reasons, but they always looked. Her dark gaze narrowed just slightly for an instant, then she lowered her head to kiss Andrei’s shoulder again a second time.

“Andrei to Captain Petrov.” he said, tapping his commbadge, his hand dancing on Lyra’s back.

“Andrei.” came the groggy voice of the Captain, deep and gruff. “Are you back aboard.”

“We are, sir.” Andrei said. “And we got the technology.”

“Good, good.” Ivan said, and they could hear the smile in his voice. “Any problems with the exchange?”

Andrei pursed his lips together.

“Yes, actually, we didn’t make the exchange. We were cornered by a team of Sikarian cops. It seems our cover was blown. Someone, the gods only know who, must have tipped them off to the exchange. The good news is we still have our database and money. The bad news is our contact is arrested and the Sikarians know we broke their cannon of laws.”

Ivan groaned quietly and a pause lingered for several seconds, probably as he climbed out of his chair and started into a uniform.

“They take those laws very seriously, as I said. This means we aren’t getting any sleep tonight to start with.”

“I’ll wake up the relevant personnel and take a closer look at this technology. If we can integrate it into our systems, its for the best we do it soon.”

Lyra remained quiet while standing with Andrei, her hand remaining where it was and the occasional gentle kiss given to both relax and focus him away from his likely anger at the situation not going as planned. She would need to prepare too, but first she had something much, much more pressing to do. The slight couldn’t go unanswered after all.

“Get it done. I’ll be putting out fires with the Sikarians and buying you as much time as I can.” Ivan said over comms. “Petrov out.”

Andrei sighed and looked at Lyra. He had been looking forward to getting a few hours of rest, but knew that was long gone.

“I’m going to set up HQ in Engineering until this is done.” he said.

Nodding, she finally parted from him just enough that their bodies weren’t in direct contact, but their hands were still on each others backs. “Alright. I will head up to the bridge, but there is something I need to take care of first.”

“Alright, love.” he said with an easy, handsome smile which was tired, but not overly so. Then he released her and stepped out of the room.

Lyra watched him go, enjoying the view, and then turned her head to look over at the petty officer behind the console. She offered a smile, but the look in her eyes was intense. “Thank you, Miss Cruz. Carry on.”

Without giving her time to reply, Lyra left the room as well.

Elena looked up to give a typical thank you to the senior officer, and did so slowly considering she was more than a little nervous to be left in the room alone with her. Her big doe eyes caught the intense look in Lyra’s and she blinked quickly, her pouty lips parting uneasily. She’d told her friends she didn’t remember the experience because she’d never believed in kissing and telling, but she still recall the feeling of Andrei’s hands on her bottom as he’d held her against the wall, his lips on hers, and his manhood filling her like she’d never been filled before. Lyra’s man still lived in her mind, and she almost thought she saw some knowledge of that in the other woman’s cold, psychopathic gaze.

“Oh..thank you, sir. Have a good night.” she said politely in a soft, accented voice, and then watched with growing relief as the Second Officer walked out of the room as well. She needed to get some rest; she was becoming paranoid.

END