Dead Men Tell No Tales Part 4

Posted on 29 Jun 2017 @ 3:41pm by Ensign Miraj Derani
Edited on 29 Jun 2017 @ 3:47pm

1,531 words; about a 8 minute read

Previously on Dead Men Tell No Tales

2382

Lianej rolled aside, hand clutched to the missing section of her belly. The blast had cauterized as it had gone through. At least she didn’t have to worry about bleeding out quickly. Move, woman! she growled at herself, hauling herself up, waiting any moment for a killing blow.

It didn’t come. The Romulan had scarpered with her prize. She reached for her communicator. “This is Derani. The Romulan captain is armed on Deck 2. A bar of latinum to the hand who brings him back to me! I’m not fussed if he’s dead, but I want the body!”

The trail of blood leading away was clear enough. But she needed a better weapon. She limped back to get her phaser, and then followed green blood deeper into the ship.


And now the conclusion.


The stateroom had another exit. Lianej brushed through a pair of curtains into an inner chamber, staggered through the doorway on the other side of it into a reception room, with a door to the outer corridor. The trail of green blood ran in light spatters along the corridor to a turbo lift.

“Shlakt! she spat. He could be on any floor by now. “Computer?” she asked, The computer chirped “Where’s the captain?”

“You do not have clearance to know that,” a slightly stilted voice came over the Universal Translator.

Lianej snarled. “Then tell me where this lift last stopped.”

“This lift is on deck 7.”

Lianej smirked. Computers, for all their intelligence could still be very very stupid. She smacked the call button and when the doors opened she stepped in and asked for Deck 7. She emerged a moment later, and nearly walked into Rudd, who was supervising the pillaging of the crew quarters whilst a group of his men watched over the capture crew.

“Captain?” he asked.

Lianej stopped, surprised. “Where did he go?”

“Who?” The Bolian asked, one eye on the orderly looting that was going on.

“The Captain. His turbolift stopped here.”

Rudd narrowed his eyes. The lift did arrive a minute ago, but it was empty.” Together the went to the lift, and threw open the roof hatch. Rudd boosted Lianej through, and she quickly saw what had happened. He’d escaped into the lift shaft access to the maintenance space.

LIanej swore again. “Slippery little vessic,” she snarled.

“Now what?” Rudd said from below.

“Only thing we can do. Follow him. We have to find him.” She slid into the small crawlway, wincing as pain from her wounds stabbed into her again. A few feet in she found more spots of cobalt green blood. She was on the right track.

A minute or two of scrambling down the crawlway and they were in engineering. Lianej groaned as she stood up. Rudd glanced at her hand, pressed over the raw burnt flesh.”You're hurt,”

“So’s he,” Lianej pointed out, moving ahead cautiously, The area was bathed in an orange light that sent uncanny shadows up every surface “This won’t kill me. Coming out of this without what we came for… That will kill me. Someone will make the challenge and then it's all over. I did not come this far to fail now.”

Rudd was about to complain for the umpteenth time that this treasure hunt of hers was a wild snark hunt, when he saw the wanted Romulan. Light from the engineering panel he was working on illuminated the hard planes of his face with a ruddy glow. And the glow blinked steadily, changing angle slightly with every flicker.

He raised his weapon. “Get away from there.”

Lianej just shot him. This time she got a killing blow, in the centre of the sternum, it blew him off his feet. The isolinear rod she had been searching for for far too long flew up in an arc and clattered off into the jumble of debris that scattered the engine room floor. She dived after it, ignoring the pain that raced through every fibre of her being, skinning her knees and grazing her hands as she searched. Rh’Cerek’s body was going through the twitching stage, and she climbed right over it, taking the shortest line to where she thought the precious rod had fallen.

Rudd ran to the console the Romulan had been standing at, and his fears and suspicions were confirmed. He opened his comm. “All hands, Abandon Ship! Abandon Ship!” Rh’Cerek had started the auto destruct sequence. Two minutes, now down to eighty five seconds, eighty four... eighty three… “Captain, we have to go!”

“Not without that rutting data stick!” she shouted back, pulling at the wires, tossing broken chunks of panel and glass left and right. It was worth dying for. Anything less would mean the last ten years of her life would have meant nothing.

“It's not worth it.” Rudd stared at the panel. He couldn’t see how to make the damn thing shut off. Fifty two... fifty one... fifty…. “We have to go. Now!”

But Lianej was still crawling, “Ten more seconds.”

“We don’t have time. We can’t get out to safe distance if we wait much longer.” They’d need thirty seconds. At least.

“No-one’s going anywhere!” Lianej snarled, “Stay where you are.”

Rudd hovered for a moment, watching the countdown. Thirty seven, thirty six, thirty five. “Five seconds, Derani!”

She saw it, reflecting the red light of the countdown, trapped under a half crushed station panel, she threw herself onto her stomach, fingers grasping. It was just out of reach. “Almost got it!”

“Thirty seconds” Rudd said. “Dammit, Derani!” he opened his comm. “Two to beam out.”

“No!” Lianej screamed, strained and reached with the sound. Closed her fingers round it just as the transporter beam took her.

She reassembled lying on the bridge of the Serpent’s Tooth. “Emergency warp! Now!” she roared from her supine position, the isolinear rod tight in her hand. The Romulan ship exploded the moment the Serpent’s tooth lurched to warp.

She got to her feet, and noted the hard looks that surrounded her. Rudd folded his arms. Tserek the Nausicaan stood up from the tactical panel, hand resting on his disruptor. Bal Doru moved from the helm and moved to stand between the two others. She ignored them, moved to her chair and sat down. “Set course for Memory Alpha. Maximum Warp.”

“No.” Tserek replied. “We’ve been months without a score, and all we’re going to get out of this is a chance to dip our wicks. We want an explanation.”

Lianej turned her chair to look at him. She raised an eyebrow. “I’m sorry, Mr Tserek, but I don’t recall you having any authority to speak for the Crew. You’re not Quartermaster.” She gave her first mate a quelling glance, “And neither are you, Rudd.” She looked at Bal Doru,

The Efrosian looked back steadily. “It's time, Lianej. Fo'c'sle Council is agreed. We need more than a promise and whistle. What have you been looking for? What are you planning?”

Lianej looked at them, knew she had pushed their forbearance as far as it could be pushed. “Clear the bridge.” There was a moment of hesitation. “I will personally disembowel anyone still here by the time I count to three! One!” The rest of the bridge scrambled for the turbolift and the exit to the corridor. “Two!” There was a brief scramble at the exit to not be the last one through. “Three!” They were all gone.

When she had the bridge to herself and her three most senior officers, she held up the isolinear rod. “This is what I’ve been looking for. Or rather, what’s on it.” She dropped it into the port on her chair, there was a buzzing as the rod was decrypted. Then the main screen was filled by a huge diagram, filled with many sets of concentric circles, linked with multiple lines, lines that criss crossed and branched and looped. After a second the image began to rotate, showing that it was a three dimensional representation.

The three pirates stared at the image, eyes narrowing as they tried to make sense of it. Eventually Bal Doru said, “What is it?”

Lianej nodded. “Treasure. The biggest score in history. Wealth beyond measure. For everyone. More than enough to retire and buy each and everyone of us our own planet.” She had their attention now, she could see the naked greed in their faces, Rudd the least, but this was less of a surprise to him. “All we have to do is follow the clues.”

Tserek kept staring, his heavy features furrowed, “It's a map?”

Lianej nodded. “It's a map.”

It was Bal Doru’s turn to frown. “But to where?”

Lianej’s smile became beatific. That was the genius of it. The beauty of it. The reason why it would be the perfect score. They’d be unfindable. “Not where,” she told him...“When. This is a map of time.”

[OFF]

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