“I heard you had a little chat with our Andorian
friend,” Tom remarked.
“I wouldn’t call it a chat,” Martin Alcott
replied and refilled his cup from the thermos that sat on the table between
them. “I just handed him the part and told him we would talk again if he could
repair it or find me a replacement within twenty-four hours.”
“What part was it?”
“Replicator pattern buffer.” Martin took a sip of
his raktajino
and glanced at Tom over the rim of his cup. “The date stamp indicated it was
manufactured by Starfleet in 2343. I doubt there are any spare parts for
it to be found outside a few museums.”
“That’s a pretty hopeless mission you sent him on,
but it would sure be nice to get the replicator on-line again. Then again I
wouldn’t mind finding some more basic supplies instead.”
Martin sighed. He knew how right Tom was, but he
wouldn’t mind seeing the replicator back in working condition. Three days
wasn’t enough to get used to the rather unique blend of
raktajino
Laszlo had turned up – not by a long shot. He took another sip. At
least by now he could swallow the acrid brew without getting nauseous
immediately.
“So it’s getting harder to find spare parts?”
When Tom replied with only a grim nod Martin’s suspicion turned his stomach
into a tight knot. “The Hawk is slowly turning up the heat. First the obvious
surveillance and now he is giving us trouble repairing the ship. Surprisingly
restrained for a man of his reputation.”
“Whatever. Problem is we have trouble finding
independents who are willing to deal with us and they know we are not on The
Hawk’s Christmas card list. They run a risk by dealing with us and they have
us pay to cover that risk. Unless you can persuade Laszlo to sell a few of his
precious guns we’ll be out of money soon.”
‘Soon
it won’t matter any longer’
Martin Alcott leaned back in his chair and looked up at the rusty-brown ceiling.
“Do me a favor and get the rest of the crew down here, Tom. There are a few
things we need to talk about.”
“Whatever you say, boss.”
After Tom had left, Martin continued to stared at the
low ceiling of the small mess-hall. A few metal chairs and tables, a non-working
replicator, a small computer terminal set into the far wall – calling the room
functional would have been an understatement. At least the galley next door was
reasonably clean and well stocked.
The mess had swiftly become the place on the Seven
Seas where everyone met at least once or twice a day, usually for breakfast or
dinner. It was as good a place as
any for Martin Alcott to come clean and tell the crew that he wasn’t the man
he had pretended to be. It would probably be the end of his small stint as
captain of the Seven Seas, but at least he wouldn’t have to live a lie.
*****
“And now you know pretty much everything there is to
know about me,” Martin concluded his tale. He looked around the small mess
hall, but everyone looked back at him expectantly, as if they were still waiting
for the punch line of his story.
“Well, you see, I am really not anything like
Captain Lafayette. I am just a guy trying to survive and I thought you had a
right to know before I got you into any more trouble than we are already in.”
“So?” Shadira asked.
Martin’s head snapped around to face the Orion
sitting at his side. “Say again?”
“Shadira is right, boss. We knew you haven’t been
in this business for very long.” Tom looked him straight in the eye, but in
the background the twins nodded and Laszlo flashed an approving grin. “I guess
we all have our different reasons for being here, but we are not here because
you are a notorious pirate and it’s not why we follow your lead.”
“Then why?”
Tom scratched his chin as he searched for the best
words to express what every member of the crew thought. “Well, maybe you
didn’t think you knew what you were really doing, but we think you did. You
made a decision and tried your best to stand by it. That counts a lot. And you
have a lot of skills we do. Okay, that sounds not right, I know...”
“What Tom wants to say is that you are a generalist
who shares many of our skills, even if you are not a specialist like us,” Kara
and Kiran stepped in.
“Right, that’s what I wanted to say.” Tom
pointed his thumb at the twins behind him. “Kara and Kiran know more about
computers than you do, but not much. Same goes for me. You may not know as much
about systems engineering than I do, but you are close. No offense, boss.”
Martin was starting to see the picture Tom was
painting and a smile took hold of his face. “None taken.”
“That leaves Shadira and Laszlo. Now our Orion XO
here is a real smooth operator, but you can do a decent job haggling and
trading, too. And while you are not the fastest gun in the quadrant, you are
making an effort to learn.”
“Right,” Laszlo added from his place at the small
computer station where he was paying constant attention to the camera showing
the outside of the Seven Seas’ airlock. “Not that you have much talent, but
at least you are trying.”
“You see, you are the one who can relate to everyone
of us, maybe just on the work-level, but that’s more than any of us could do
to keep this motley crew together.”
Tom rose and planted his hand on Martin’s shoulder.
“Me, I don’t care what you call yourself. You have done a good job so far
and to me that counts a lot more than a big name.”
Martin looked up at the no longer cold eyes of the
engineer. “Thanks, Tom.” He took his time making eye-contact with every
member of his crew. “Thank you all. I just hope together we can make this
work.”
“I bet we can,” Tom ensured him. “Now it’s
about time someone saw to our dinner, don’t you think?”
Everyone else rose and headed for the door, but before
Tom could follow them, Martin’s baffled voice held the engineer back: “Wait
a second, where are you all going?”
“Well, we all did our share of cooking. It’s time
to see if you can hold your own in that department too, Captain Lafayette.”
*****
“Sorry, but I am really not much of a cook.”
Martin glanced down at his almost full plate and tried to avoid the disgusted
looks the others shot at him.
“Guess you can’t be good at everything.” Tom
threw his fork down and shoved his plate as far away as the small table allowed.
“I say we order some take-away. We’ll run out of money a little sooner, but
I’d rather starve on a full stomach.”
Martin looked up with a grin, but before he could say
anything he noticed Laszlo’s empty plate. “Well, at least there is someone
here who likes my cooking.”
“No, but I have to keep up my strength. It tastes
like crap, but at least it’s nutritious. And,” the high-pitched voice added,
“it has another benefit. Should we ever run into The Hawk I’ll know that
there are worse things than him in this world. That’s worth keeping in
mind.”
Before anyone had a chance to reply Shadira snapped
her fingers and pointed at the small display that still showed the outside of
the ship’s airlock.
Five heads turned to the computer and what they saw
was the image of a young Andorian uneasily shuffling his feat, undecided if he
should just go up to the closed door and knock or wait until he was noticed.
“I’ll be...” Tom shook his head sadly. “You
gave him twenty-four hours and it just took him six to get back.”
“Let’s just see what he has to say.” Martin
Alcott rose and headed for the door, glad to leave his sad attempt at cooking
behind.
The rest of his crew seemed to have the same idea and
everyone but Shadira fell in line behind him, trudging down the Seven Seas’
central corridor to the aft airlock.
It took only a moment to reach the aft of the old
Klingon ship and Martin reached for the airlock controls, but Laszlo grabbed his
wrist.
“Not so fast.” The Half-Romulan glanced at a
tricorder in his left. “Alone and unarmed. No one else within two hundred
meters from the ship.” He put the tricorder back into one of his pockets and
drew a phaser before letting go of Martin’s wrist. “All clear.”
“Then why the gun?”
“Do you remember what I told you about most scanners
only looking for weapons based on energy signatures and related characteristics?
A scan is a good place to start, but unless I have to I won’t trust a
tricorder farther than I can throw it.” Laszlo ran a his free hand over the
shadow that passed for his hair in a gesture that would have looked vain with
anyone else. “Besides, I have a reputation at stake here.”
“As I said, we’ll just see what he wants.”
Martin reached for the airlock controls and the door slid upward with a loud
noise of old hydraulics straining at what would have once been an easy task for
them.
*****
Laszlo jumped down to the side of the ramp and trained
his phaser on the Andorian as he pressed his back against one of the Seven
Seas’ landing struts.
Martin and Tom took a few steps down the ramp into the
light cast from one of the position lights. Behind them the twins drew their
guns and peered around the frame of the airlock, their eyes and weapons trained
on the young Andorian who was starting to sweat visibly.
“Didn’t take you long to realize that a
replacement for our buffer would be impossible to find,” Martin Alcott
remarked. “At least you are man enough to admit it.”
“Oh yeah? Think again, big man.” The Andorian
slowly held forth the piece of machinery he had held behind his back. Giving
everyone a long moment to look at it he tossed it with both hands. “Catch!”
Martin Alcott did just that and his eyes narrowed to
small slits. What he held in his hands was not the component he had handed the
Andorian a few hours ago, but it was a replicator pattern buffer for a
twenty years old Federation replicator – crudely patched up in a few places
maybe, but it looked to be in working condition. He handed it to Tom. “Check
this out for me, please.”
“I am on it.” Tom dashed back inside the Seven
Seas, his speed more prompted by his desire to hide his surprise than by the
order of his captain.
“Okay, why don’t you tell me where you got this
from?”
“Hey, I have my sources, why should I reveal them to
you?” The Andorian tried to keep his eyes on Martin Alcott’s face, but
couldn’t help being acutely aware of the three guns aimed at him. “Umm,
okay, my uncle runs the largest scrap yard on the continent, maybe the largest
on this world. There’s a lot there that can still be put to use if you just
look hard enough to find it.”
His dark eyes turned back to Martin’s face again.
“Now you said if I could find you that replacement I would be part of your
crew.”
“Not so fast. All I said was that we would talk
again if you found me a replacement part. That doesn’t mean you will part
of... my crew and I don’t even know yet if...”
He was interrupted by the insistent chirping of his
wristband communicator. “Yes?”
“You won’t believe it, but it checks out,”
Tom’s grinning voice sounded from the tiny speaker. “Give me half an hour
and we will never have to stand up to your cooking again.”
“Sounds good. Let me know when you are finished.”
He killed the transmission and motioned at Laszlo and the twins. “You can go
back inside now. Perhaps you can even help Tom get the replicator working a
little sooner.”
As he looked back over his shoulder he knew what he
would see. “You heard me, Laszlo. Just leave me your tricorder and I will be
fine.” The Half-Romulan was obviously unhappy about his orders, but there was
another card Martin could play to gain a little privacy.
“If someone wanted to kill us, there would be better
ways to take us out than sending a lone kid. Have you ever thought about the
possibility of someone using the sewers to get close enough to the ship to plant
a bomb that will blow us all to kingdom-come?”
Laszlo’s features turned grim. “Right! I am on
it.”
‘Let’s
hope he takes a long shower when he gets back,’
Martin thought before a frightening realization hit his mind – the showers
were still not back in working condition.
*****
Martin Alcott took two steps up the ramp before he
turned around and sat down, certain his eyes would be on the same level as the
Andorian’s.
“So you can find rare spaceship parts. I can see
that now, but what I don’t see is why you are so desperate to get off Chamra.
If it’s some grudge you have with the Hawk you shouldn’t hang out with us.
We are not going to take on the Hawk unless we absolutely have to and if that
happens I am not sure if we stand a decent chance.”
The Andorian sat down on the low end of the ramp, his
back to Martin. “If you do I think you won’t stand a chance at all. But it
doesn’t matter to me. I want off Chamra. You have a ship that can take me away
from here, but you got to get it running. I can help you do it.”
“Why is this so important to you, kid?” Martin
softly asked. There was something about the young man that reminded him of
himself when he was in his teens.
“I am not a kid! I have a name you know!”
As the Andorian’s back was still turned on him,
Martin allowed himself a frown. Thinking back to his own youth he had
unconsciously adopted the patronizing voice he himself had often been addressed
in. “Okay. Just tell me your name and your story. I need both to make
my decision about you.”
“My name’s Srel.” As I said, my uncle runs the
largest scrap yard on Chamra. Most of our family has worked for him for ages and
I am just sick of taking orders from someone who is family, but treats me like I
was just some dumb-assed waste-pusher. I do most of the refurbishment work on
the yard and I am good at it. People buy used parts from my uncle because of me
and my work and what do I get for it? Nothing!”
Martin scratched his stubbly chin and starred out into
the night. The city lights stared back at him like cold unmoving stars. If he
ever wanted to get of this planet he needed another crewmember and he needed a
lot more parts to keep the Seven Seas running. Srel could provide him with both.
Perhaps the Andorian had exaggerated his own skills, no, he certainly had, but
Martin was willing to forget that this gift horse even had a mouth.
“Okay, kid... Srel. You are in.”
*****
Srel walked onto the bridge of the Seven Seas and
handed Martin a padd. “I couldn’t get everything, but I have stashed away
most of the parts we need, all tagged for transport. It should be a few days
before anyone starts looking for that stuff.”
“Great!” Martin Alcott’s grin was wide and
honest. In just two days Srel had been able to find almost all the components
needed to put the Seven Seas back into something worthy of being called a
starship. By now every trader on Chamra had been scared away from dealing with
them, but it no longer mattered. ‘Let the Hawk think he has us cornered. I
almost wish I could be there to see his face when we lift of.’
He turned to Kiran, who was busy updating the software
of the bridge stations. “Speaking of which, when will the transporter be
online?”
The blond man closed his eyes for a few seconds,
before he returned to his own work. “Kara estimates another hour, give or take
ten minutes. I should be finished with the bridge controls by the same time,
maybe a little later.”
“Good.” Srel had not been able to smuggle some of
the larger parts out of the scrap yard, but once the transporter was online they
could just beam aboard everything they needed and do the rest of the repairs
while underway. It would be a nice surprise for the Hawk, but it wouldn’t make
a big difference. The fusion reactors were back on-line and could power most of
the ship’s systems, but without a fresh supply of anti-matter all the Seven
Seas could do was cruise around the Chamra system and wait for the Hawk’s
enforcers to catch up with her.
Martin turned to Shadira who was familiarizing herself
with the updated control configuration Kiran had just installed on the helm
console. “How long do you think we have?”
“Not long.”
Martin Alcott nodded. Now that the Hawk would think he
had stopped their repair efforts he would turn up the heat very soon. ‘He
must think us even more desperate than we are.’ This morning there had
been six of his enforcers watching the ship and they had tried nothing at all to
appear unobtrusive.
“All right.” Martin cleared his throat and
activated the ship-wide com. “Everyone listen up. I want someone to man the
sensors at all times. Kara and Kiran have been working pretty hard today, so
they are exempt. Two hour shifts on the sensors starting at 2300. Shadira first,
then Tom and Laszlo and I’ll take the last watch. That’s all. Goodnight
everyone.”
*****
Just after midnight the alarm klaxon tore Martin
Alcott from the beginning of a restless sleep.
As he fumbled around to get his trousers, shirt, and
weapons on at the same time he could hear footsteps rushing down the central
corridor. He listened to the sound for a moment and started to dress more
slowly. If Laszlo was already awake he could take a little more time.
When he finally got dressed and made his way to the
airlock Martin was greeted by the worried faces of his whole crew – only
Shadira was missing, but Tom explained that in a whispering voice.
“It’s The Hawk himself. Shadira went out to meet
him, but I don’t know how long she can keep him back without her doing
somethin’ stupid.”
Martin was still not certain what the late captain
Dyson had meant to Shadira, but he shared Tom’s worries. Dyson had most likely
been killed on the Hawk’s orders and Shadira might take the chance to dish out
some revenge. “How many?”
“Eight.”
Peering over Laszlo’s shoulder all Martin could make
out where Shadira and a tall blond man she was facing at the foot of the ramp.
“I can’t see a thing out there, but if you say so...”
He drew one of his disruptor pistols from his shoulder
holster and held it by his side as he took a step forward. “You all just wait
here. If anything happens to me, promise me not to do something as stupid as I
am about to do.”
Without waiting for a reply Martin Alcott stepped out
the airlock and started to slowly walk down the ramp.
*****
Hearing the footsteps slowly approaching, the man
known as The Hawk glanced away from the Orion opposite him.
Something about the approaching silhouette seemed
familiar, but only when the man stepped into a spot illuminated by a position
light did recognition happen.
“Martin? Martin Alcott? I’ll be... I thought I’d
never see you again, Marty.”
Chapter
1 Chapter 2
Chapter 3 Chapter
4 Chapter 5
Chapter 6
