Gamma Deuteron Ceti
Her eyes were barely open as Safidi's ears duly registered the clanking of the cell door opening, the harsh metallic sounds half-muted and delayed as the signals slogged through the mush of her besieged neural pathways. She was awake, but barely so; her mind was running on the bare minimum, shutting down and protecting every delicate section it could in a faltering battle against the onslaught.
She knew, only semi-consciously, that she was simultaneously running a fever yet shivering with cold; her lungs felt like reddened coals inside, and only the emptiness of her stomach saved Safidi from the indignity of explosively voiding herself.
Firm clamps took a hold of her shoulders, and Safidi felt herself again lifting into the air, at the rough mercies of what she presumed to be the oversized Orion processor; she closed her eyes as the world spun, the indistinct montage of shape and color swirling around in blurry waves. She felt the shudders as the massive being walked, the shock of each footfall rocketing through her abused body and triggering new bouts of dizziness.
Dimly, she heard the chatter of voices around here, a dozen alien tongues awkwardly striving to speak a similar language, some whispering in conspiracy and others shouting in urgency. In the background, artificial tones sounded, signaling some unknown importance; and as they came to a stop, Safidi could feel the welcoming heat of an old-fashioned spotlight.
The processor shifted his grip, clasping his paws around Safidi's waist and hoisting her into the air; easing her eyes open in somnolent slits, she saw the motley collection of bidders, many of them half-cloaked beneath protective mantles of dirty cloth and shrouds. A handful went bareheaded, and the human fixed her gaze on them, seeking to stabilize her balance with the set points in space; she recognized one as a Tellarite, another as a Rigelian, but her recollection found no match for the remaining beings.
Behind Safidi, the processor chuckled with bass rumble as he turned her to each side, giving the bidders a complete view of the merchandise. A howl of computer clicks ensued as bids rushed in; and after several moments, when the frantic pace failed to subside, the Orion spoke to Safidi. "You're doing well," he growled gleefully, his caustic breath burning her ear.
The bidding continued for several more seconds before a harsh buzzer signaled the close of biding. A disappointed murmur swept the crowd of buyers as a porcine Tellarite chuckled with satisfaction, and the processor broke into a huge grin as he lowered Safidi back to his eye level. "Three million six!" he laughed, as though the human should be excited. "Not even my last wife sold for that much!" The Orion continued to laugh, shaking Safidi for emphasis.
…
Across the room, a trio of anonymous aliens sidestepped their way through the crowd of bidders. Cloaked in heavy cloth, with cowls shadowing their faces, the three appeared like the others; the flotsam of the galaxy, engaging in the scorned—but profitable—business conducted here, in the recessed depths of the trading post. Slave traders abhorred recognition.
"Commander." Perri O'Connell's voice was piped into Malcolm's ear by a slender wire, attached to a small transceiver buried in his hair. "All of the captives have that device on their neck."
Malcolm had noted a few, but now he paid more attention, daring to step closer to the temporary holding cages set along the rear of the room. Keeping his head down, beneath the gaze of the omnipresent Orion hulks, he moved within a comfortable distance; no humans were in the bunch, but the alien captives all sported a round, metallic disk affixed to the side of their neck, roughly the size of an old-fashioned coin.
They were immediately familiar for anyone who had spent time around the Orions.
"They're neurolytic restraints," Malcolm whispered, barely moving his lips as he spoke; a microphone attached to his throat amplified the vibrations and transmitted them to O'Connell and Kossovskii. "If a guard triggers the restraint, it induces a debilitating seizure in the captive. We'll have to find a way to block the signal."
"I'm on it," Kossovskii grunted. Lost amid the crowd, several paces away, the large Slavic man was already fiddling with a piece of equipment inside his cloak. "It'll take a little while, although. The signal's not hard to crack—but not getting caught first is more difficult."
"Commander." O'Connell's voice hissed in Malcolm's ear with a twist of suspicion. "Do the Orions sell their own people?"
Keeping his face covered, Malcolm turned to look at the front podium as a scantily-clad, lithesome Orion woman sauntered out, unabashedly showing off her body for the pleasure of the bidders. With a seductive twist of her hips, she led herself up to the platform, thrusting herself forward for sale. "Only the women," Malcolm voiced back, barely making a sound. "Orion women are used as…sex slaves."
…
Appearances were everything as the captain and his companions made their way back to the beam-in location, slowly weaving their way amid the crowded bazaars and recreational facilities. If they left too easily, the Orions would grow suspicious; but if they tried too hard, the Orions could detain them.
Frustration and resignation, Archer repeated to himself as he casually stepped around something that looked like a moving rock. Purposeful but inept.
"You knew the Orions were operating out here," the captain said, musingly, as he walked alongside Soong. It was more of an observation than an accusation. "You knew that they might abduct members of my crew."
"You knew as well, Captain," Soong responded, somewhat stiffly. "You can't claim that I withheld it from you."
Archer couldn't. "You know, the Orions are probably hunting for the Augments," the captain replied, changing his tact. "If we find them first, we can protect them."
"They can protect themselves." Soong rolled his eyes in disgust. "They don't need someone riding in to the rescue every time they stub a toe."
"That's right," Archer replied, borrowing a moment to think as they slowed through a thicket of alien beings. "But that also makes them dangerous."
Soong's ire began to flare. "They're no more dangerous than you or I!" he shot back, keeping his voice low to avoid the inevitable surveillance. "They have the same nature as you or I! Their wants, their needs, their ambitions and inhibitions—are the same as your own, Captain."
"How can you say that?" Archer stumbled slightly, nearly tripping as he missed a step. "You and I haven't stolen Klingon vessels!"
"Captain, did it ever occur to you that they only need the Klingon ship because you're hunting them?" Soong hissed noisily, venting his indignation without raising his voice. "Don't you see that you put this in motion? And for what? Is their existence a crime?"
"They're dangerous," Archer retorted, keeping his head low as they walked. "We can't let them—"
"The only thing they threaten is your sense of superiority, Captain!" Coming to a stop, Soong turned to face Archer. "You would have these humans condemned to embryonic purgatory, not alive but not quite dead, without the right to even be born, all because of what others did? They have to live their lives on the run, hiding at every turn, harassed and hunted, all because of the contents of their blood?
Soong's derision was evident in his tone. "Do yourself a favor, Captain," he offered scornfully. "Turn your ship around. Go home. Leave them alone to live their lives in peace."
Archer didn't budge. "I'm going to find them, Doctor, whether you help me or not."
…
The floor plating nearly rippled with the force of the explosion.
"Report!" Vatis'Kish bellowed even as he staggered to his feet, lifting his bulk with surprisingly agility from low-lying cushions.
"Boss!" One of his Orion retainers barked back from across the control room. "Interior grids are reporting a breached power conduit, down in the lower levels!"
The lower levels? Vatis'Kish didn't even pause to think. "How long ago did the human ship leave?" he snapped back, checking his own recall for safe measure.
"One unut ago!" The answer came from Khali'Haas.
"And their landing party—"
"We watched them every moment, Boss. They never got close to those conduits, and every member returned to their ship."
"Boss!" The shouted alarm came from the first retainer. "Guards are reporting that the slaves are loose! The restraints don't appear to be functioning!"
One more item to verify. "And the human captives—"
"We confirmed them visually after the Enterprise left, Boss."
"Go down to the holding cells," Vatis'Kish ordered to Khali'Haas. "I don't care about the rest of the slaves—find the humans."
…
Great clouds of smoke, billowing outward from the thunderous explosion, quickly cloaked the instant fracas breaking out across the lower levels of the trading complex. Panicked traders running one way, then another, sometimes in misshapen circles as they sought self-preservation by fleeing the scene; confused merchants, caught in the wrong place, unaccustomed to such violence; and everywhere, the massive Orion guards were swinging old-fashioned clubs, seeking to restore order through old-fashioned infliction of unconsciousness.
From the rear of the temporary cell, Safidi rushed forward, shaking off the vestiges of illness as adrenaline coursed through her blood; her senses coming alert, her mind clicking into high gear, she processed her change of circumstances with the minimum of fuss. The explosion was likely set off by an Enterprise rescue team. And they wouldn't have triggered the explosion until—she reached a single finger forward tentatively, testing the metallic bars for ionization—until they deactivated the security measures.
Safidi slammed her shoulder into the barred door, oblivious to the surge of pain shooting down her arm, but it did not budge; and in the second, as she wheeled around quickly, preparing to hit it harder, two other prisoners in the cage were already bull-rushing the door, slamming it open. She paused, scarcely, to catch their eye in acknowledgement; but the two unknown beings were already gone, charging out into the smoke and fury.
Running through the door, Safidi slammed into the gut of an Orion guard and bounced backward, catching her balance against the cage. With no sense of panic, the green giant lifted his control pad and pushed a button.
But Safidi felt no assault from her neurolytic restraint.
"Slaves are loose! Slaves are loose!" the guard bellowed, his voice traveling like a foghorn in the chaos. Safidi didn't wait around any longer; she disappeared between a pair of brawling Tellarites, making her way to the lower cells.
…
"Slaves are loose! Slaves are loose!" the guard bellowed, his voice baying louder than the din; it was the chaos that Malcolm needed, and he threaded his way purposefully through the commotion, stepping lightly amid the frantic mob. Somewhere in the fracas, he knew, O'Connell and Kossovskii were doing the same; they would rendezvous at the lower cages, exchanging their bags of radiated biomatter for their missing comrades, and then blend in with the mad dash fleeing the scenes.
Unless, by some bizarre fluke, he was caught.
Malcolm felt himself flying backwards through the air, ripped from his feet by a massive paw. It pulled him overhead, his body clearing the mass of fleeing beings underneath before turning him in midair, bringing him face-to-face with the largest Orion he had ever seen.
Shit, Malcolm thought, even as he ran options through his mind; fumbling for the miniature disruptor pistol hidden beneath his robes, he realized that it was squashed beneath the Orion's finger.
Without warning, Malcolm went flying through the air again, freed from the grasp of the Orion. Falling painfully upon something that resembled a living rock, he rolled to his feet.
Another being had intervened.
Clad in a stained, ragged cloak similar to his own, Malcolm could only make out the basic outlines of a humanoid, one perhaps a little taller than himself; but Malcolm's jaw dropped in astonishment as his rescuer leapt into a vicious, spinning kick, elevating a booted foot to the Orion's breastbone and landing a blow with an audible crack. The guard, gasping in surprise and pain, keeled over backward, landing on an unfortunate Rigelian trader.
Malcolm's rescuer turned, for a moment, to meet the commander's eyes; and even in the shadow of the cloak, Malcolm could see that the face was indisputably human.
...
"Boss." The gruff voice of Khali'Haas was loud and clear, despite relying on handheld communicators. "I've found all nine humans. Their remains, at least."
Vatis'Kish absorbed with information with skepticism. "What do you mean, their remains?" he demanded, watching for a trap.
"Nine lumps of biomatter, Boss. All match for human DNA. It has to be them."
So it does, Vatis'Kish thought, but it failed to reassure him. He would have a doctor confirm it later, after the riot was subdued; but it was almost irrelevant. If it was the humans behind the riot—and how, but who else could it be? And did they really kill their own people?—then he had underestimated them. And that rarely, if ever, happened.
He hadn't expected that.
…
Smugglers and "illicit traders" have one thing in common: they flee the scene of a riot, as quickly as possible. In the half-hour following the break-out of the slave riot, seventeen different ships departed from the trading post, including three Coridian corsairs.