STAR TREK: Endeavour NCC-194Kirk Johnston

Epilogue

Frav, the Orion representative, was enjoying a relaxing soak in one of the many bathing pools that were spread throughout his penthouse accommodation. A pair of Orion slave girls draped around his large frame, their hands working on the knots in his muscles. Tia lounged on the other side of the pool, two attendants, one male and one female, pampering to her whims. It had been a long day, a long week, and they had earned their relaxation. Although a mere mouthpiece for the Syndicate, he had been very busy. New contracts had been taken out all over the place, while at the same time there was the increasing tension with the upstart Cartel to contend with. He had been present at almost a dozen different meetings, carefully repeating the words his master had given him to speak.

Tia shifted in the water, her male servant's hands caressing her bare legs, the female attending to her flat stomach muscles. She batted them away, her brow furrowing. For a few moments more, she moved her arms and legs in small circles beneath the water, testing it. Her frown deepened. "Frav. Have you changed the temperature settings?"

"No. No, they're at the defaults."

"It is too warm in here."

Now that she mentioned it, he could feel that the water was warmer than usual. In fact, it was positively hot, and seemed to be getting warmer by the moment. Uncomfortably warm.

"Out!" Called Tia, rolling out of the bath and pulling her two attendees after her. With Frav things were acted out the other way around, the servants hauling him out of the water. They weren't quite fast enough to save him from the rapidly heating water, which by now had come on to boil and badly scorched his lower legs.

"A malfunction," cried Frav.

"It's no malfunction," said Tia assuredly and she gestured around the penthouse. Every pool and artificial stream was boiling, steam rising in great clouds; the plants were withering and dying even as they watched. Soon, the yellowed husks of vegetation burst into flame, black smoke merging in with the steam in the air.

"What is going on?"

Tia's beautiful green eyes narrowed darkly. She knew full well what was happening and reached for a towel to wrap around her naked person.

The tendrils of smoke began to twist together, forming first into the vague silhouette of a human form, and then refining more and more until a furious figure came striding out of the darkness, her blood red cloak flapping around her and a rage more powerful than the sun illuminating her red, red eyes.

Frav stepped into her path. "Who are you? How did you come to be here? I demand to know!"

She touched her hand against his chest and he became a pillar of ash, dispersed by the breeze now blowing around the penthouse. She stepped dispassionately through the remains of the puppet and stopped in front of Tia with her arms folded.

"I wish you hadn't done that. Good help is hard to find."

"Spare me your pithy problems, Tia, we are here to discuss an issue of mine."

"What is it that concerns you, Kana?"

"You put a bounty on two people, a woman and a child; human." She held out her hand and the smoke collected around it into the form of two faces. "Do you remember them?"

So many faces were put before her every day, so many targets and partners and contacts that she could barely keep them all straight at the best of times, let alone when an enraged Dark Soul was glaring at her in the most threatening manner. But she could recall the two people whom Kana was showing to her. Although she was head of the Orion Syndicate, controller of the most powerful criminal organisation in known space, she had something of a conscience and she had regretted putting the bounty on those two.

"I do."

"Their bounties are cancelled."

"Consider it done."

"And I want to know who it was who put the contract out in the first place."

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Mister Black had a small, nondescript apartment that he used whenever he was in San Francisco. It was not his permanent home; he had no such thing; his occupation would not permit him to. No house, no possessions, no family, no footsteps. If he was to die tomorrow, he would leave no trace that he had ever existed, save for an anomalous corpse, and his associates would take care of that.

Secrecy was the watchword of his existence.

So it quite surprised him to find that he had a visitor waiting for him in his bedroom. In the pitch darkness of his apartment, all he could see were a glowing pair of red eyes, staring straight at him. A voice spoke immediately upon his entering the room. "The enigmatic Mister Black. Oh, don't try to run, you fool. Did you honestly think I would come all this way and devote all this time to finding you, just to let you run out the door? Oh no, you don't get off that easily."

Somehow, the shadows were holding him, wrapping around his legs and pinning him more securely than any ropes could. He was helpless, and the figure was advancing on him. He could still see nothing but those hellish eyes, and he couldn't bear to look at them.

"You have endangered the lives of two of my friends and I will not let that pass. But before I send you into oblivion, I will know everything about you and who you work for."

He grit his teeth and braced himself for the torture. He had been trained to resist, right to the bitter end. She would get nothing from him.

"Right now, you're thinking there's no way that I can break you. You have been taught how to resist physical pain, no doubt. You know of all kinds of tortures and ways of resisting them. But I'm not going to hurt your body, Mister Black. That kind of torture is for amateurs. Why harm the body when you can go directly for the soul? Now, Mister Black, it's time for us to talk. Well, time for you to talk, time for me to listen. So, who are you? Who do you work for?"

Endeavour NCC-194

To be continued in 'The Daedalus Incident'

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