011 : Pirates

[Nia Lemond]

O'Tooles Bar & Grill
Alpha Promenade
Level One Five Five One ::

"Enjoy that..." Sean O'Toole said, handing the glass to Admiral Lemond, as she took a seat in the back room where the former Intelligence Operative maintained an impressive array of equipment, equipment Nia had long-since learned not to enquire about, "... Real tomato juice, its damn hard to find these days," Nia, dressed in civilian clothing took a sip of the chilled drink.

"Anything else on our friendly Ferengi?" she asked.

"Mont is definitely frightened, he's hardly stepped foot outside Orpk's place..." Sean said, taking a data chip from under the desk and handing it to her, "... The surveillance footage so far is on there, Mont is worried whoever trusted him with keeping the device safe is heading here to collect it, and if we've shipped it off to the Daystrom for further investigation, he's going to be out of luck, and time," the Irishman said with a resigned shrug.

"We checked everyone arriving in the last few days, there are three that could be suspect, two trade representatives..." Lemond began.

"..... So your basic conmen then," O'Toole interjected.

"... Highly likely ..... The other is a bit of a mystery, he's currently residing at the Hilton. We've had him under surveillance since he arrived, he's taking a lot of interest in Orpk's Emporium,"

"You think he might be the connection?"

"He's definitely no bar supplies salesman, that's for certain. He flagged on one of the reports from Earth, he was found wandering around one of the shipyards, said he was a freelance reporter getting information out to those in the dark,"

"I'll have to attract his attention, who knows, maybe he'll try to sell me something," Sean said with a grin.

"Be careful Sean, he's no amateur ..... We know he's been in several restricted areas, but despite all our efforts, we've not been able to make anything on him stick. We know he spent time incarcerated for fake identification," Nia said, frustratedly. Sean took the 'chip she held out before placing it in the reader:

"You don't have anything you can hold him on, even temporarily?"

"To all intents, he's your basic 'Jack-of-all-Trades' going from one scam to the next, but never anything too serious to warren being imprisoned.

"It says here that he impersonated a Starfleet CAPTAIN!"

"Yes... He served a year for that one..." Nia said, laughing before taking another sip of her juice while Sean continued to read, "... You have to admire his bare-faced gall ..... He'd managed to get onto the campus at San Francisco, he then commandeered a shuttle up to the orbital platform where the USS Perseus was in spacedock, they were about to ferry him to the ship when the 'real' Captain Vernon walked into the Command Centre, give him his due, he's nothing if not confident,"

"Why not just throw him off the Starbase?" Sean asked, shaking his head as he read.

"Well, he's served his time, there are no travel restrictions imposed, so he can pretty much go where he likes,"

"There's more to it than that," O'Toole said, eyeing Lemond.

"He's been... Helpful to us... In the past..." Nia admitted, getting up to refill her glass, "... and no, before you ask, he was never employed by Starfleet Intelligence,"

"Maybe you should extend an offer," Sean said with a wry grin, but Nia didn't dee the funny side of his comment and said so.

"I have a meeting scheduled..." Nia said, rising to her feet before finishing the tomato juice in her glass. Sean replaced the top of the bottle and handed it to her as a peace offering, Nia couldn't help smile, "... I'm going to increase surveillance on our Mister Kidson, let's see if he can't trip himself up for good this time,"

"..... And if he makes any move towards Mont or Orpk?" Sean asked.

"I'd prefer to see how it pans out, but I draw the line at allowing him to kill either of them,"

"Understood," O'Toole replied as Nia opened the door and walked along the corridor before going back into the busy bar. Sean watched her leave then walked behind the bar to help the girls serving ..........

[Nia Lemond]

Beta Promenade ...
Level 1554 ::

"..... And the information is reliable?" Mont was asking one of his associates while Orpk looked on in silence.

"They put it aboard the USS Tasmania this morning," the uniformed woman confirmed. Mont handed over a data chip giving her access to funds he's paid into a secure account and told her to leave.

"Looks like you will need to find somewhere to hide after all," the bar owner said with a grin, clearly enjoying Mont's unease.

The woman walked to the door, waiting while Orpk unlocked and opened it, allowing her onto the Promenade, she placed it in the pocket of her tunic and walked away ..... She had walked out of sight of the bar when she realised two Security Officers were behind her, before she could react Admiral Lemond stepped in front of her.

"Lieutenant..." the Intelligence Director said, addressing the woman, "... I think you know why I'm here?" she said, holding a hand out before waiting for the woman to hand over the data chip.

"I didn't hav ....." the woman began, but Lemond waved her silent.

"I suggest you retain Counsel Lieutenant... Officers, please take the Lieutenant to Holding on Level 1161... She is to be allowed to speak to legal representation and no one else," the two confirmed their instructions and walked away, the woman between them, she waited until the three were out of sight then moved to speak to one of her Officers, "... Kydson is heading for the bar now," she was informed ..........

Orpk's Emporium ...
Level 1554 ::

Mont had been furious at finding the device was now on its way to the Daystrom Institute ..... Realising his now precarious position he ignored the snide remarks of Orpk and ran to pack what meagre possessions he had in the private accommodation above the bar. As he threw items onto a satchel Orpk entered the room clearly enjoying the whole situation. In one sense, Orpk had every right to gloat, had Mont done as was asked, and hid the device himself, none of the trouble he found himself in would have happened, but he instead asked someone else to do the hiding, and the device was discovered, now, Mont would need to go into hiding while he tried to come up with a reason not to be disposed of.

"They will find you, Mont, you know that and then you'll pay for your stupidity," Orpk said matter-of-factly.

"Alas you, my friend, won't be around to enjoy that particular event," the Ferengi said, turning to face the bar owner, Orpk had just enough time to realise his associate was holding a weapon when the beam lanced from the device, entering his chest burning a three-millimetre diameter hole through the man's heart before exiting from his back and into the wall behind him. Orpks eyes registered shock as he slumped to the carpet dead ..... Satisfied, Mont returned the phaser to his jacket and finished packing, then with one last look around the room he left, walking down the stairway before entering the darkened bar. For a second he thought he heard something above, laughing as he realised he was imagining Orpk suddenly appearing to wreak vengeance for his untimely demise, shaking his head he walked through the bar towards the side door.

"Well, if it isn't the former 'DaiMon' Mont..." the Ferengi stopped in his tracks at the voice, "... You are holding something for me, Mont, I do hope you weren't planning on leaving without informing me of your whereabouts,"

"Kydson," was all Mont could say as he turned to face the man, the bag dropped from his grasp. Kydson was in the shadows, his back against a wall allowing him an excellent view of the establishment.

"Where's your friend Mont?"

"He's ..... Dead," the Ferengi replied, eyes darting to the corridor leading to the side exit.

"You wouldn't make it Mont, but I admire your considering it," the Human said as if reading Mont's mind.

"I don't have it,"

"..... Really?" Kydson said quizzically.

"Blame it on that 'ALBINO' the others too, GR'VOS, HOVAK ..... If they hadn't been here causing trouble I wouldn't have been raided!" Mont said, trying to fight the sudden fear rising within him.

"So you lost it...?" Kydson asked in almost a whisper, shaking his head in the darkness before continuing, "... Like you Mont, I have people I answer to, and like you, I utilise opportunities to ensure I have all the information I need to survive. Now, correct me if I'm in error, but I am aware that the Albino and the Klingon have been taken into custody, and are in fact aboard the El Alamein... Alas, the Romulan, Hovak, and Balokr, the other Yattho Pirate, both unfortunately perished when another of your disenchanted associates came calling... So I will ask you once again Mont, where is my property?"

"They took it, THEY TOOK IT, THEY TOOK IT!" Mont shouted in panic, fighting to remain on his feet, the prospect of ending up just like Orpk at the forefront of his mind as he tried to find a way out of his situation.

"Then I have no further use for you," the man said before falling silent. In the darkness, the Ferengi saw the shadow cast as Kydson raised his weapon, he closed his eyes and heard the whine as a phaser discharged, then the bar was flooded with light. He opened his eyes as two people grasped his arms, he reached frantically for his chest, half expecting there to be a neat hole bored through him, hardly believing he was still among the living. Kydson was being lifted to his feet having been stunned by one of the people watching the bar. Without warning he was marched forward and pushed against the bar, Admiral Lemond was giving final instructions to her Officers when one approached her from the upstairs rooms and spoke quietly. She waited, eyes on Mont, while the man searched the earlier discarded satchel, he could only stand and watch as the phaser he'd used to kill Orpk was pulled from the bag!

"You are under arrest Mont..." Lemond said, instructing her Officers to take him away, she began heading for the door, "... Do a thorough search Lieutenant, then seal the place up," ..........

[David Tan]

Searching for Clancy ::

As Rallos moved ahead of them in the dimly-lit passages, David gave the strewn cargo containers one last look before following the others .....

"Hold on..." Demik said, stepping past the Yattho before holding his tricorder out in front of him, "... I'm picking up sporadic life signs but these walls are disrupting any reliable signal," David approached the Tactical Officer:

"Can you at least get a rough direction?" he asked as Demik moved the device left and right.

"All I can say for certain is that 'someone' is off to our right, so, east of us, and some distance below us, other than that it's guesswork," the man said with a resigned shrug.

"These passages ..... Where do they lead?" Tan asked Rallos, who had to squint at the stencilled text on the wall presumably to orient himself.

"More cells as far as I remember... Communal barracks, sixteen to a room, I assume they were low priority prisoners, the cells on the other side were all single and heavily secured..." the Yattho said frowning, "... I never really took the opportunity to go much further than the cells where you saw the cargo containers. I do know that the ground further out from the Reception Area was subject to tremors and likely collapse. We could hear them on occasion whilst storing my, property," almost as if on cue, they heard a low rumbling, rocks falling into what they assumed was the level beneath theirs.

"So you never got down here?" David pressed.

"..... No," was all Rallos would answer. Tan eyed him for a long moment before once again pushing him ahead of the rest of the group, while behind them Iezelda tried her commbadge hoping to at least hear something, but there was nothing but static. David was silently beginning to worry ..... If Rallos and Clancy were only a short distance apart when the initial collapse happened, Iorte could have been injured while Rallos managed to escape relatively unhurt. Iorte could be laying mere metres away but unable to signal his presence, and in this gloom, they could walk right past the man without even realising it.

Already expecting a further obstacle barring their way, no one was surprised to see a gaping maw ahead of them. The distance across was almost five metres, so much too wide to leap. David instructed Iezelda and Jan Ward to move Rallos back along the passageway while the others discussed options ..... Tom Demik, an accomplished mountain climber and free climber offered to traverse the maw fixing a rope as he went, the others could use the rope as a means to steady themselves as they followed, with nothing better suggested, they waited while Demik took the ropes from his shoulders and checked his backpack.

Looking at the wall he picked a spot and raised a compressed air pistol, loading a long metal bolt, he picked a spot and fired it into the rock then pulled as hard as he could. Satisfied, he threw one of the ropes behind him, securing one end to the bolt before running it through the belay then the carabiner on his belt. Stepping to the edge of the collapse, he wiped a hand along the wall the grasped a large outcrop before swinging himself over the drop ..... Moving quickly but safely, while crossing, he inserted several anchors, called 'cams' into crevices, to use in conjunction with the 'quickdraw' clamps which secured the rope to the wall. Several times he had to reset his footing as the rock crumbled with his weight, but eventually, he made it to the far side. He fired a second bolt into the hard rock, quickly securing the rope at his end, then he took off his belt and threw it to David.

"Clip the rope through the carabiner then make your way across, you can't fall more than a metre or so but try not to fall at all, no point in tempting another collapse," he said with a wry grin.

"Ladies first," David said, handing the belt to Iezelda ..........

[Iorte Clancy]

Clancy made his way through dark passages strewn with rubble and partly degraded detritus, untouched by new air currents for many years, unless Rallos had descended down to this depth during his previous visits.

He'd found a flight of steps and had ascended gingerly only a couple levels, owing to broken leg. Also, further up the staircase was completely blocked by rock and other debris. He'd only just managed to fit through a gap in the rubble on to this level. Ideally he'd like to be able to find a working lift or turbolift; ascending what he reckoned to be about 50 metres (up to the level from which he and Rallos had fallen earlier) purely by stairs would be exhausting work, particularly as it was evident he'd have to travel between different stairwells.

Fortunately, his colleagues as well as the pirate leader who he'd followed shortly after the anonymous freighter's bombardment of the site, were heading in his direction, although they were still consigned to the same floor on which they'd started as Rallos led them only along the route on which he'd fled. They were now almost directly above Clancy, though 40 metres up.

Iezelda kept moving through the virtual sepulchre, meagre illumination from flickering wall lighting and Demik's tricorder providing the only means to navigate through the half-collapsed corridors.

She wondered where Rallos had obtained the cargo containers, from which Federation world or space station, and when. How long had Rallos and the different groups of mercenaries he'd belonged to - perhaps only some of which he'd led - been raiding across the border into Federation space, or disrupting shipping in the Federation's periphery, or doing the same to other powers?

Whatever the case, she thought, now they had a chance to bring him to justice, as long as they didn't let him slip through their grasp down here.

"But this ends in a precipice," she said after Rallos had led them down a corridor and signalled to his left at an open doorway. She tried peering beyond it but there was no corridor or room, instead an apparent drop into an abyss characterised only by the absence of light.

Rallos spoke, "This is where we fell. I broke my arm; unfortunately he also survived the fall." The Yattho thus admitted that unlike what he'd told Komin and Van he hadn't managed to put an end to Clancy during the pursuit.

"Was he injured?" Demik asked.

The Yattho glanced at the tactical officer and turned back to Iezelda and David, "Happily, I don't know. It's a pleasure for me to be forced to leave you in uncertainty."

They were forced to use their climbing equipment to descend over the edge. Making it most of the way to the foot of the gap in the Mekhluan crust, but unaware of this as they could see nothing at all - for all they knew the abyss continued for kilometres - they decided to head through an open doorway in the rock face. One of the security personnel moved ahead down the corridor that lay just beyond, "Sir, I believe I've located a turbolift."

It was a lift, of sorts, more akin to the open platforms that were found in different types of starships' engineerings, for instance those of the Intrepid class. "Do we head down?" Tan asked as he boarded and the platform jolted to life, "Wow, it's working." Iezeld and Rallos also boarded quickly; the platform would only take three or four at a time, they would returned it for the others.

The platform halted and Iezelda stepped off with the other two; she turned and guessed which button to press on the control panel beside the lift/platform; with a clank and a broken whirring sound, it returned to the higher level for Demik, the two security guards and medic.

Unsure at first if the form they were seeing was he who they'd sought after, Iezelda stood frozen and managed to call, "Iorte?" Tan stood braced with his phaser; was it possible another of the pirates had escaped the collapse of rubble in the central room? Hovak and Balokr's bodies hadn't been found. Rallos was laughing, though there was no joy in his voice, more gallows humour.

"Yes, it's me," Clancy croaked and sunk against the wall near to them where he was able to take the pressure off his leg. With Tan and Iezeld expressing relief, Iorte noticed Rallos standing in the shadows. For a moment he forgot the unbearable pain in his leg and was able to stand fully upright; now to finish the job... He moved quickly towards Rallos who he then realised was manacled, the Intel officers despite their better instincts told him to stop and he did so, hovering just before the Yattho. Iorte himself was lamed in the leg, the pirate was bound at the wrists and ankles. It wouldn't be much of a fight.

"Do it. Kill me now," Rallos said, courageous as he was insolent. There was no need to be paranoid anymore, he thought, when you'd already been caught.

Clancy fought the impulse to do as Rallos advised; a phaser was in reach, he had only to take one from Tan or Iezeld. Eventually he found himself falling to the floor, the hurt to his leg catching up with him as the adrenaline began to subside.

He cried out in rage as he successfully fought off the urge to kill the prisoner, and eventually he spoke as he was prepared for transport to the El Alamein via the pattern enhancers, "You'll face a Federation court! And don't expect favourable treatment." Iorte was dematerialised and beamed - via the enhancer relay in the cavern high above - to the Defiant class's sickbay.

[Nia Lemond]

Klingon Gulag
Searching for Clancy ::

After crossing the collapse, the group made their way further along the passageway until they came to a rockfall they couldn't pass ..... Again Rallos was less than forthcoming, claiming he had never checked this deep into the Prison before today. With the only other option to turn back and retrace their steps, David asked everyone to look for an alternate route. Finally, Iezelda shouted from a room off the passage:

"Sir, I believe I've located a turbolift ....." the Intelligence Officer shouted. As the others joined her she checked, realising that rather than a lift, it was more a basic platform with two simple controls atop a rod extending from the base. Tan, Iezeld, and Rallos boarded the platform and Iezelda tentatively tapped the 'Down' button, all catching their breath as the 'lift' shuddered to life and dropped several Levels before juddering to a halt. Stepping off she sent the platform back for the others while she and David checked the room and passage beyond. In the corridor, she moved her light left and right and suddenly spotted something!

"Iorte...?" she said into the shadows.

"Yes, it's me!" Clancy said, dragging himself into the light dragging his seriously injured leg ..........

Alpha Medical Centre
Level Fifty-Six
Starbase Forty-Seven ::

The group were stood around Iorte Clancy's bed ..... When he had been brought back aboard the El Alamein e was suffering from acute dehydration and blood loss from the broken leg, they had managed to stabilise him and had heavily sedated him due to his exhaustion, now back on the Starbase, he had begun treating and his leg, which despite the initial damage, and that inflicted upon himself while trying to escape, would completely heal within a few days ..... Nia had brought them all up to speed regarding the Pirates: Qal, hoping for a more lenient sentence, had supplied coordinates of two other vaults the Pirates utilised. Gr'vos had demanded he be allowed home, but the High Council had clearly washed their proverbial hands of the man long ago and refused his request. Kydson, the man trying to regain possession of the device found in Orpk's was also beginning a life sentence.

Starfleet had dispatched vessels to retrieve the goods Rallos had taken during his many years as head of the group and despite his protestations of ill-treatment, the Yattho, despite representation arriving demanding that any sentence imposed be carried out following extradition to the Yattho Homeworld, would serve a long sentence in a Federation facility for his crimes.

"Well, I think you should all get some well-earned rest before your next assignment," Lemond said, seeing everyone around the bed look at her, mouths open.

"You have something for us already, Admiral?" Iezelda asked, receiving a friendly dig in the ribs from Iorte for asking.

"Oh... Nothing you need be concerned about... I think seven days leave should help recovery, don't you? ..... Mister Clancy .... You can treat yourself to ten," she said with a wry grin before leaving them to talk ..........

~~~ Intelligence Assignment 011 : Pirates ~~~

***** CONCLUDED *****

Our latest assignment has come to an end
We will begin our next investigation in due course

Regards

Nia Lemond
Director
Starfleet Intelligence