MISSION TO DALETH IV

by Soledad

For disclaimer, rating, etc., see the Foreword.

Author's notes:

Sdan has nothing to do with the similarly named character in Barbara Hambly's TNG-novels. He has been inspired by actor Cary Hiroyuki-Tagawa and his various roles. I like him and thought he would make a great appearance on a place like Daleth Station.

Trivia about Tellarites is taken from "The Worlds of the Federation" by Shane Johnson.


CHAPTER 03: THE MERCENARY

The man known as Diego Sanchez sauntered leisurely along the trade and entertainment ring of Daleth Station. He could smell at least eight different commercial drugs in he stale air waving at him from the open doors of various establishments. He was familiar with them all, of course; he had been in this entertainment business or years. Besides, he had received a thorough training in field medics, way back in his past that he had shielded from everyone very carefully.

Still, his training alone wouldn't have made him capable of identifying such subtle differences in smell with such accuracy. Sometimes he asked himself just what had his true… employers done to enhance his natural abilities to this grade – then he always decided that it was better not to know. Messing with someone's genetic profile was not only highly illegal, it was also risky. Such profound changes always came with a price – and he would be the one to pay it.

But he had been aware of the risks when he had signed up for this job. He had been told that the changes would be irrevocable – assuming that he would live long enough to have second thoughts. There was a reason why he had placed a frozen sample of his genetic material in the secure depots of that clinic. Should he ever want to found a family, this would be the only way to have normal offspring.

He tried not to think about these things. It was counterproductive, as there was nothing he could change anymore. But sometimes, when he entered a place like the Arcade, he couldn't help but wonder if everything he had achieved in this job was truly worth the price.

He walked through under the arched entrance with its harsh, multi-coloured light signs and stepped into the biggest, noisiest gambling establishment of Daleth Station. From pool tables to simulators, from roulette to card tables, every possible sort of game was duly represented, legal or illegal, from a couple of dozen different worlds.

The huge room was dimly lit, save from a small, round table in the middle, on which a female Tullinite dancer performed her artistic number – something between juggling with burning torches and belly dancing. She was completely naked, but with a species looking like Terran foxes and covered with soft, russet fur from the points of their ears to their toes, that was not a big deal. Not for human customers anyway. People watched her more for her skill than for her body.

Sanchez found a free table in a half-hidden niche, as far from the noise as possible, ordered a tequila cocktail and waited.

He hated the Arcade, almost as much as he hated S'Bysh's. On both places, the noise, the heavy scents in the sticky air, the pulsing, unnatural lights assaulted his artificially enhanced senses and made him vulnerable. Not to mention the killer headaches he got every time he visited them.

But he had no choice. Places as noisy and crowded as these were the best for private discussions, as such meetings seemed to have happened by accident, and the level of background noise made listening devices virtually useless.

"Is this place occupied?" a deceivingly soft voice, that Sanchez immediately recognized, asked politely, and he shook his head.

"No. It's yours, if you want it."

"I think I do," the man with sharp vulcanoid features said conversationally and sat. He had a tall glass in his hand; the vibrant blue of his drink revealed it as Romulan ale – if the true article or some fake thing, by mere sight it couldn't be decided.

The man had long and thick jet black hair, bound to a tight ponytail on the nape of his neck, slightly slanted, feline eyes and pointed ears. The deep lines of his pale face gave him a predatory, almost cruel look, which matched the thin smile that never left his lips. He wore black trousers with high boots that covered his sensitive kneecaps – a common weakness among Romulans – an open-necked, blood-red shirt of some silk-like material and a heavy black leather waistcoat that had at least six pockets of various sizes. A leather belt worn low on his narrow hips with a heavy, old-fashioned phaser of considerable firepower attached to it completed his appearance, giving him a definite air of danger.

Which was understandable, as Sdan, the best-known mercenary of the whole sector – hell, the best-known mercenary of several sectors – was a very dangerous man indeed.

The strange thing about Sdan was that everybody had heard about him – the man was practically a legend – but very few people had actually seen him in action. At least very few that lived to tell the tale, that is. Sanchez was one of these few people and could have verified some of the legends about him – were he not under orders to never speak about that particular incident.

"I heard you were looking for me," Sdan said casually, not even looking at Sanchez; he watched the fox-dancer with a critical eye.

"I was," Sanchez admitted. "I've got a job for you."

That caught Sdan's attention. He turned his head partially to the human, his feline eyes narrowing.

"Do you really believe that you – any of you – could pay my usual price?"

"I don't intend to pay," Sanchez replied, watching the green eyes of the other man warily; of all humanoid species, only Orions had diagonal pupils like Sdan's, and he asked himself, not for the first time, just what the mercenary's family tree might look like. "I am calling in a favour… a debt, if you prefer the approach."

"I see," Sdan's eyes turned back to the fox-dancer. "It must be important, if you collect a life debt for it."

"It is about a life," Sanchez replied. "I want you to get someone to Rigel II. Without witnesses, without a trace."

"That's all?"

"That's all. I can't leave here any time soon, nor can my usual… associates. And this… person has to leave, as soon as possible. She is in danger."

"She," Sdan was still looking away from the human. "Whom are we talking about exactly?"

"A young woman named Arrhae. She is…"

"… the accountant in Madame Vithra's… establishment, I know. I saw her last time I visited."

"I didn't know you were a regular customer at Madame Vithra's," Sanchez said with a frown. Sdan shrugged.

"It's none of your business what I am doing in my spare time. Or during work, for that matter. I happen to be very fond of Llanel. She is a sweet young lady… and extremely well trained."

"And she is practically a child," Sanchez couldn't quite hide his disgust. Sdan gave him a quick, hard look.

"Pull yourself together," he said in a low voice. "You are slipping. In your job – or mine, for that matter – one can't be sentimental. The planetary government has been fighting child prostitution on Rigel V for centuries – it is their job to solve that problem, not ours."

"I might be slipping at times," Sanchez riposted sharply, "but at least I don't sleep with under-age children at Madame Vithra's.

Sdan closed his eyes for a moment to regain his own slipping control. They were both tense, and that could prove fatal in their trade.

"Neither the girls nor the boys at Madame Vithra's are children," he then said slowly. "I don't doubt that they have been taken from their families and sold into prostitution at a very tender age – these things still happen on Rigel V. But Madame Vithra is sly enough not to present them publicly before they have officially come to the age of consent."

"Which, on Rigel V, is the equivalent of fourteen years in human terms," Sanchez said in dismay. Sdan shrugged.

"They are not humans. You should stop implying your own morals to other races. Besides, they are all older than that. And at least when I visit Llanel or Edron, they are not harmed. You can't say that about some of their other customers."

"Edron?" Sanchez frowned. "Isn't that the young male who has just been transferred from a different… establishment a couple of months ago?"

"The same one," Sdan shot the human a slightly irritated look. "So what? I'm not the only one who walks both sides of the street. And I don't lead a life that would be the ideal setting for a family – assuming anyone wanted to live with a freak of nature like me. Considering what you are doing for a living, you are still pretty much of a prude. You humans disgust me sometimes."

"Trust me, the feeling is mutual," Sanchez growled. "Fortunately, we don't have to socialize, and we don't have to work together, either. Not beyond this job. Now, are you taking it or not?"

Sdan nodded. "Of course. I am indebted by your people, and if this is what you want in exchange, it's your call. Although I'm a little curious why you of all people want to smuggle an illegal Rom out of the station," seeing Sanchez's baffled look, he laughed; it was a deep, surprisingly pleasant sound. "Oh, c'mon, you didn't really think that I wouldn't be able to keep a Rom apart from the usual Rigelians! What do you want from her anyway?"

"Nothing. We just don't want her to end up on a penal colony. She doesn't deserve that. She's clean."

"Are you absolutely sure?" Sdan's cat-like eyes were cold and wary. Sanchez nodded.

"We checked her. And re-checked. We set up traps for her; more elaborate ones than for a Syndicate operative. We watched her. We even had her telepathically scanned. She is clean. And she deserves a choice, after her own people have betrayed her."

"They have not betrayed her," Sdan corrected. "It's standard procedure in Romulan law to kill the whole household or sell them into slavery, when a great House falls from grace."

"Whatever," Sanchez replied impatiently. "Can we not fight about semantics? Bottom line is, she managed to escape, she fled here, and if she weren't taken away shortly, she'd end up in prison. We don't want that, but we can't make any move right now. End of the story."

Sdan rolled his eyes. "You people definitely have some incurable responsibility syndrome. What the heck are you doing, falling all over yourselves, just to save her hide? She won't tell you anything of importance; Rom servants are extremely loyal."

"We don't want anything from her," Sanchez replied tiredly. "We just don't want any undeserved harm happening to her. It's called responsibility, indeed. And if you can't understand what that means, that's not my problem."

"You know nothing about me," Sdan said calmly, " and yet you are trying to judge my by your own pathetic human measures. You are trying to save one innocent person, before all hell breaks lose on this station. What about the other innocents? Do they not deserve to be saved? Because when it comes to the big showdown, a lot of innocents might get hurt – or killed. You are aware of that, aren't you?"

"So, is it better to let those we could actually save get hurt as well?" asked Sanchez accusingly. Sdan shrugged.

"I don't know. I never suffered from the delusion that I would have the right to decide who deserves a second chance and who doesn't. Who should be saved and who should die." He rose from his seat. "I'll leave the station in four days' time. If the girl contacts me in that time, I'll take her with me. If she does not, I'll leave without her."

Without waiting for an answer from the human, he strolled over to the middle of the Arcade, his half-finished drink still in his hand. Sanchez watched in vague disgust as the mercenary began flirting with the fox-dancer. She seemed rather willing to accept his advances, and they left together, just a few minutes later.

The human vacated his seat as well and left the gambling palace as quickly as he could without drawing attention. Dealing with Sdan always gave him headaches, additionally to those caused by the place itself. Next time, he thought, Drreg can have the pleasure.

He returned to his quarters and shot himself with a hypo. Frequent headaches were among the side effects of his enhanced senses, and right now, he had no time for the best cure – to lie down in a darkened room for a few hours like some Victorian lady. He tried to cut back the painkillers, to find alternate methods of dealing with his problems, but this was not the time for that.

He waited, half-lying in a big, overstuffed armchair, with closed eyes, until the painkillers clicked in and the throbbing in his head gradually faded away. Enjoying the painless bliss for a moment, he replicated himself some coffee – the taste wasn't quite right, these food synthesizers seemed to have their bad days, but at least it was hot – and went to find Vierchi.

It was time for the old pirate to seek out the Romulan girl and warn her.


One of the problems for space stations that supported great numbers of permanent population was to create a stabile environment that the different races would find more or less acceptable. Daleth Station was no exception from this rule. Since the majority of its inhabitants were human, vulcanoid Rigelian and Orion, the air in the common areas was a little dry and slightly warmer than the Earth norm, and the artificial gravity was just slightly above the standard 1G.

It was a compromise nobody really felt happy about, but they had to learn to live with it. Vulcanoids, Orions and Andorians, used to live on hot and dry worlds, found the station too cold and the air too humid. Humans found it too hot and too dry, and the slightly heightened gravitation tired them quickly.

Tellarites, another group of considerable size among the standard population, were not bothered by the gravitation or the heat, but their sensitive skin suffered from the dryness of the air greatly. Much more than human skin would do.

Therefore, the common mud bath – the only one of the station – was very well visited and considered a blessing. Tellarites would have gone mad from the itching of their skin within days without it, and even some other species valued it greatly.

It was open to anyone, around the clock, as long as they paid the entrance fee and behaved themselves – although the latter part had a greatly different meaning in Tellarite culture than it would have had among most humanoids. A culture where artfully phrased, inventive insults were called the Polite Speech could confuse outsiders sometimes.

The communal mud baths – also called therms, with a borrowed Terran expression – were much more than simple healthcare facilities. They were the very heart of Tellarite society – the places where the actual socialization took place. Nowhere else were Tellarites so relaxed and approachable as while soaking in the wonderfully smooth, wet and clean mud that could have put the similar facilities of a Terran beauty farm to shame.

This particular therm had three large basins, lined up under the same low, arched ceiling, and filled with the finest mud of various temperature and density. It also had an adjoining damp chamber, vaguely similar to a Terran sauna, a massage room – the short, heavily built Tellarites tended to get painfully knotted muscles all the time – and showers that directly led to the changing rooms.

All these facilities were dimly lit, as if not to irritate the weak Tellarite eyesight, giving the therm the overall image of a warm, rainy day. There was no background music, but the sound of softly falling rain was simulated, enriched with the additional rolling rumbles of a far-away thunderstorm, giving Tellarites a distinct feeling of home, as their planet, called Miracht in their own guttural language, was a rather wet place, with practically no seasonal changes. The latter peculiarity was the result of the fact that the planet's axis stood at one-point-seven degrees from orbital perpendicular.

On this particular evening, the therm was sparsely populated. Only in the farthest basin with the thickest mud of all sat a larger group of Tellarites, leading a surprisingly subdued conversation in their own language. The two Mo'ari, walking over from the changing room to the basin where the mud was the most diluted, breathed in the warm, moist, peculiarly sweet-scented air deeply.

It was at least twenty-eight degrees Celsius in there, as humans measured temperatures, which more or less matched the average temperature on Miracht's surface on any given day. The warmth and the humidity was very similar to the conditions on their home of choice – a wet jungle planet called Risa, where the elaborate weather grid that was supposed to turn it into a tropical paradise, still had years of installation work to go – so they visited the therm frequently. The only unfamiliar detail was the scent. The air on Risa had a spicy fragrance, which they missed very much.

"Damn slippery steps," the young dancer cursed, descending into the basin of their choice carefully; he couldn't afford any injury by the job he did for a living. "I wonder how Tellarites manage to get in without breaking their necks."

"The fact that they don't seem to have a neck in the first place might have to do something with it," his brother replied lazily, but followed him with the same caution.

The dancer shot him an irritated look. "You know what I mean. If we could slip easily, they with those hooves must be even more endangered. Smaller sole surface and all that."

"Yeah, but they have a heightened sense of balance," the other man replied with a yawn and submerged in the mud up to his ears. "Mmmm, this feels good. I wish we had more often the time for a good, relaxing soak."

"Look who is speaking," the dancer replied with a grin. "Which one of us has to do acrobatics for hours every evening?"

The older man shook his head with a tolerant smile. "As if you didn't enjoy it…"

"I do," the dancer admitted, "otherwise I'd have quit these sorts of jobs years ago. But a break is nice sometimes."

"You did quit," his brother reminded him. "This here certainly isn't what you have trained for, years upon years."

The dancer shrugged. "Sure, it isn't. But after that knee injury I could never do the real thing again. You know how it is – no matter how many times they operate on you, sometimes the ligaments just can't be what they used to be anymore."

"Do you ever regret…" the other man trailed off, not sure how to continue; or if he should continue at all.

The dancer didn't answer at once. Even after all those years, this was still a sensitive topic between them.

"Sometimes," he finally said. "But for us it's too late by now. We are in too deeply already. Well; at least what we do is necessary."

"That's cold comfort," the older man commented dryly; it was hard to tell of which for the two of them he was speaking. Then something caught his attention. "Look, there he comes! That went quickly!"

He was nobody else but the barkeeper from Horsa's Pub – a small, rotund figure, even for a Tellarite. The same one who had just bought several dozens of completely worthless spician flame games from Cyrano Jones, complete with the matching portions of Antarian glow water to polish them.

He waltzed down the flat, wet steps to the farthest basin where his fellow Tellarites were having some sort of social gathering with hair-raising speed and skill and joined them with happy grunts. The others gathered around him in no time, and the volume of the conversation raised a notch; but still not enough for anyone who might have been listening. Besides, a universal translator had to be calibrated very finely to make sense of the more peculiar Tellarite dialects.

"Clever," the dancer commented softly. "The light is just low enough so that the 'gems' won't glitter too obviously. And as the contents are enclosed in glass, they can exchange and distribute them in the mud itself. Whoever came up with the insane idea of 'spician flame gems' anyway?"

"Oh, they actually do exist," his brother laughed. "The trick is to smuggle the fake ones into the genuine crap and so get them to the buyer. This is about the most ingenious way to get phaser power packs through customs illegally."

"But the absolute peak is the 'Antarian glow water'," the dancer grinned broadly. "'Polishing the gems', indeed…"

"That is a delicate thing," the other man agreed. "Should they err in the concentration, the special acids would eat the power packs as well as the glass encasing, and probably even cause an explosion of amazing magnitude. But these guys don't do this for the first time."

"What about the other half of the cargo?" the dancer asked quietly. "Has Vierchi already managed to offload it?"

"Nina was working on his cargo transporter last time I heard," his brother replied. "I must admit that the whole idea is unbelievable."

"Sooner or later someone will realize what we have been doing and try to copy it," the dancer shrugged. "But we'll have thought of something else by then and passed the word about this solution to regular security. Although I must admit that it can be a little demanding, to be always one step before the… the concurrence. But that is our job."

"Mhm," the older man agreed absent-mindedly and relaxed a little in the mud, now that this part of the mission had been accomplished. "I believe I'll afford a massage tonight. My back is a mess. Keeping an eye on you is a stressing business."

"You volunteered," the dancer reminded him. The other shot back a dirty look.

"Of course I volunteered. I had no other chance, had I? To tell the truth, though, you are not making my job any easier, Jon. You take too many risks."

"And you are slipping," the dancer's eyes grew cold and angry. "Something I'm not doing. Not yet, anyway," he added realistically.

His brother realized the mistake he had made and closed his eyes for a moment in regret. He was slipping indeed. And they couldn't afford that.

'I'm sorry," he murmured. "Look, it won't happen again. I… I'm just worried about you. You keep going to places where I can't protect you. Like Madame Vithra's."

"Drreg," the dancer laughed quietly, "I'd make myself suspicious if I didn't go to places like that. By my trade, it's expected that I go to brothels. At least Madame Vithra's is a clean place, and the girls don't try to steal from the customers."

"That's true, but it is also an open place. She doesn't even offer much protection to her employees; the customer can't count on any."

"Do you really think that the protection Madame Vithra might offer would do me any good?" the dancer raised a shaved-off eyebrow. "She is practically an associate of S'Bysh. Granted, she doesn't deal in weapons, dilithium or illegal drugs – not that we know of it, that is – but your don't believe that the money for the whole chain of her brothels had come from the savings made in her more… active days in the sex business, do you?"

And that is exactly what makes me nervous, whenever you choose to visit her brothel," the older man replied. "According to Sdan, she pays S'Bysh thirty per cent of all her incomes in every local cycle."

"If she is indebted by S'Bysh, she'd hardly have any other option," the dancer said soberly. "No amount of cosmetic surgery would restore her face, should she fail to fulfil her obligations. And in her trade, beauty means business insurance. She has to keep up appearances, even if she is no longer on active duty, you know."

"I know," his brother frowned. "But that doesn't make her place less dangerous for you – on the contrary. Why can't you visit other places, where the owner isn't on S'Bysh' paylist?"

The dancer laughed mirthlessly. "Drreg, I don't think you could find a single brothel on this station where the owner is not on S'Bysh's paylist. Which was the reason we have been sent here in the first place, remember?"

"True enough," the other man sighed. "But I have a bad feeling about this whole mission, Jon. A really bad feeling."

"So do I," the dancer replied, his eyes turning cold again. "Especially as this is the second time in five minutes that you have slipped. Should it happen again, just once before we are done here, I'll send you home with the first ship that heads in the right direction. We are only weeks away from achieving what we have worked for for years. I can't use here anyone who is not one hundred per cent reliable."

The older man tried to answer something, but the dancer silenced him with an icy look.

"Save your breath," he said. "Either you pull yourself together, or you'll board the first ship to Risa, first thing in the morning. There is too much at stake. We can't afford any mistakes, not now."

"Wait!" the other said, seeing that he was about to leave the basin. "Where, do you think, are you going? I won't let you stroll around the station unprotected."

"I am taking a shower now, and then I'll meet Nina. You, on the other hand, will get that massage. Then go to our quarters and rest. Do something about your nerves and your concentration; you sorely need it."

"And you need someone with you all the time. We agreed on that!"

"I'm not a child or a clueless weakling, Drreg, I can take care of myself for a short time. You do as I've told you, or you leave tomorrow. End of discussion."

With that, the dancers walked out of the basin and left in the direction of the communal showers. The older Mo'ari glared after him for a moment, cursing softly in a lesser Romulan dialect – a wonderful language for really flavoured speech – then he, too, sprinted out of the mud bath, directly to the next comm unit. Wiping his hand clean with a towel, he tipped in a rarely used personal comm code and waited impatiently, praying that their friend would have her comm unit on her.

"Velez," a cold female voice said, almost immediately.

"Nina, he is about to leave the therm in five minutes or so," the Mo'ari told her in hurry. He didn't need to go into any detail. "I won't be with him – he is having one of those moments, plus I was being careless, so he sent me back to our quarters. Can you meet him before the therm?"

"Sure, I'm on my way already. Will you at home afterwards?"

"Yeah. I have to wait for Ben's message. Out."

TBC