Title: The Universe is Rarely So Lazy
Summary: Sherlock Holmes has a problem. How can he track down and get rid of the interstellar criminal James Moriarty's right hand man when he's stuck in the brig, captured by space pirates? Marco, captain of the starship Phoenix and First Division Commander of the Whitebeard Pirates, has a problem. How can he retrieve encrypted information off a device his crew liberated from a Collective World's ship and what the heck should he do with the captured spy who was attempting to do the same thing? A space AU character study involving the meeting of two highly intelligent minds namely Sherlock Holmes and Marco the Phoenix.
Parings: Sherlock Holmes & John Watson mentioned (slash goggles can be applied or omitted at your preference)
Disclaimer: I own no rights, I make no profit. Created solely for the amusement of myself and any readers who might happen upon it.
Chapter 2 – The Problem With Prisoners
Marco sat in the wardroom of the Phoenix staring disconsolately at his booted feet thinking. The last few stan-weeks had been interesting to say the least. It had all started with the discovery that Teach had betrayed them. After the inevitable vetting of personnel and housecleaning which resulted from that piece of news, Pops had called an all hands meeting. Given the way bad news traveled in the quadrant it was unsurprising that he set the place at one of the lesser known nexus points out in the interstellar deep-dark far from prying eyes and electronic ears. They had all arrived some seven stan-days ago linking up to form the Moby Dick out of the division flagships and Queer Dick's Hatband. After a couple of days of interminable meetings having the CWS Endeavor drop out of jump practically on top of the Moby Dick had seemed like a gift, especially since what they really needed was current information.
It had been a simple matter to board and secure the Endeavor. Practically all the low level crew was conscripts and not at all inclined to resist a well-trained and heavily armed boarding party. In fact most of them gleefully surrendered at the mere promise of being dropped at the nearest independent orbital. The Marines and the Officers were another matter of course. Many of them fought until subdued or killed. Marco was surprised that they'd managed to snag a full quarter of the command staff alive. If he'd been asked prior to the raid he'd have estimated the ratio of killed to captured to be much higher. All in all the attack had gone quite well with one small exception.
As the division responsible for intelligence, Marco's crew had been tasked with locating and securing the ship's computer core and databases before they could be wiped. They knew that each CWS ship carried an intelligence officer who had a dedicated information stash, usually on an encrypted peeda, which was separate from the ship's own files. Sometimes, depending upon the deployment, a Marine unit would also have its own IO carrying its own set of secure files. Marco had sent in a number of small groups in directly behind the boarding parties with instructions to locate and retrieve those peedas while he had led the group that took over the Endeavor's computers.
No one had found anything with the exception of his security chief, Alexia, who's group had surprised someone in the IO's quarters. It turned out to be one of the Endeavor's messmates named Sigerson who, under the cover of the attack, had broken into the IO's berth, located the encrypted peeda, and had started hacking same. According to Lex, the guy had put up a decent fight knocking out two of her crewmen before being subdued. Sigerson was now cooling his heels in the Phoenix's brig while they analyzed the information obtained from the main computer and perused as much of the IO's peeda as they could immediately access.
The lightly secured information on the peeda when cross referenced with the ship's own data had been substantial enough to allow the other division commanders and Pop's himself to take action. Right after the post attack briefing they had taken some of the smaller ships and scattered on information gathering errands of their own. Upon Pop's instructions they left the Moby Dick configuration intact under Marco's command to give him the extra computing power he might need to crack the higher security levels on the IO's peeda. Unfortunately this also happened to leave Marco with the problem of what to do with the attempted information thief, Sigerson.
Marco's tablet beeped at him. It was a report from the Systems Unit that they'd broken through into the first layer of secured files and were starting to decrypt. They'd estimated it would take at least three stans for the first set of files but that subsequent groups would go faster as they tweaked the algorithms. Marco nodded to himself. That should give enough time for him to start on finding out just who Sigerson was and why he was on the Endeavor in the first place. Decision made he grabbed his tablet and pinged both Lexi and his second Yevette with instructions.
Yeve was, as he had expected, the first to appear. She sauntered in and commandeered a chair.
"What 'cha got for me?" Marco asked.
"Not much," Yeve replied. "My team matched the biometrics and pulled the records from Skandia. Guy looks like he was a local yokel in the wrong place at the wrong time and got press ganged by the Collective."
"Looks?"
"Yeah. The results came up too fast for someone that allegedly doesn't have a record. Either someone has pulled a scrub job or it's a plant of some sort."
"Couriouser and couriouser," Marco muttered.
"I'm going to do a little digging on my own," Yeve commented ignoring the mutter, "since we have a tick or four before Lex hauls our boy up from the brig."
"You do that, eh," Marco replied absent mindedly.
First impressions were important. Marco had to decide what he wanted to present as an initial front to this Sigerson. If the guy was an agent, as the too perfect background and the situation where they captured him implied, then a strong front would not faze him. No, Marco thought, better to put on the indolent, sleepy look and lull him into revealing his information to the captain who was looked too dumb to pick up on the information. Getting into the persona Marco stretched, yawned then leaned back in his chair kicking his feet up onto the table.
Once they were on the table he proceeded to stare at his hated boots. Marco generally preferred sandals but the boots went so much better with what Izo liked to call his impress the shit out of people outfit. Oh the things he did for espionage.
Yeve looked over at the movement and chuckled. "One of these days," she said, "someone is going to see through that act and I'm going to laugh my ass off!"
"It's worked so far. If something ain't broke don't try and fix it, eh?"
Yeve went back to her tablet and they sat in companionable silence until there was a tap at the wardroom door.
"Enter," said Yeve following through with Marco's play acting.
The cavalcade came through the door; Fred and George bracketing the prisoner with Lex bringing up the rear. Marco noted that he wasn't the only one wearing a persona. Fred and George, despite being two of the most capable and intelligent security officers Lex had, were playing big dumb muscle. It was one of their standard ploys and used often enough that the crew had nicknamed them Tweedledum and Tweedledee whenever they used it.
The prisoner himself was interesting. He was tall and thin with an aquiline nose. His hair was blond and cut ship-short. The blond color was probably not natural Marco noted. His eyebrows were not quite the same shade and there was a hint of darker roots up near his part. He was wearing the simple ship-T and scrub pants issued to all prisoners. Lex had him in grav-cuffs which pulled his arms around behind him and allowed Marco to see that thin did not necessarily mean fragile. There was a lot of lean, wiry muscle on this guys' frame. Yeah, he could see how this man could put up a decent fight.
Sigerson's attention was currently on Yeve. He could tell the man was attempting to determine just who and what she was. It didn't take long. Local yokel my ass, Marco thought. No Skandian farm boy would be able to recognize a Kneorian let alone know the significance of her tattoo. It was obvious that this man knew both. Marco kept the bored look on his face and watched through half closed eye lids.
"Sigerson as you requested," Lex said from in front of the closed door.
Marco didn't acknowledge; he just waited, watching. Judging by Sigerson's body language the lazy act wasn't really working. Marco removed his boots from the table.
"Eh Lex? Isn't that," he waived a hand to indicate Tweedledum, Tweedledee, and the grav-cuffs, "a bit of overkill?"
"No," Lex replied playing along, "You didn't see him fight when we cornered him in the IO's office hacking into the official secret service issued peeda."
Marco snorted then looked at Yeve.
She'd been watching him from the corner of her eye and took up her cue, "Henry Sigerson. Unremarkable individual from the Skandia system; press ganged onto the Endeavor three months ago; assigned to the mess; not happy but no significant disciplinary record. There's nothing specific Marco but the background is too pat."
Marco leaned forward to rest his forearms on the table without taking his eyes off the prisoner, "Eh? Biometrics Yeve?"
The prisoner looked blank for a fraction of a tick. Ah, Marco thought, the guy had picked up at least a modicum of information from the ship-gossip-net. Listening in on the guards most likely. The shortened name had thrown him momentarily. Marco would need to get Lex to give her lecture on gossiping in front of prisoners again.
"Everything matches," Yeve continued, "but it was too easy to find especially with his lackluster history."
Time to change tactics a bit, Marco thought. "So…what does a messmate named Sigerson, who in all probability is not really named Siegerson, want with the IO of the Endeavor's peeda?" he asked somewhat rhetorically to the room at large.
Lex decided to up the pressure of disbelief by adding, "and that doesn't even mention the mish-mash fighting style or the hacking."
The prisoner shifted slightly then spoke responding to Lex, "Like you have any right to criticize my style." His voice was a sonorous baritone that he was clearly used to using to good effect. "Yours is even more of a mix with the Judo, Ti-chi, Kempo and street tricks from Tashmir in the Persian system." His voice took on a scornful note, "despite all that you still haven't learned to throw a proper punch!"
Marco raised an eyebrow at that. Not only had he identified the origins of Lex's fighting style but the tone and manner in which it was delivered sounded familiar.
"He's got you pegged Lex," Marco said to cover his surprise.
He needn't have bothered because Sigerson kept going over Lex's stuttering sounds, "I'm going to assume that the enemy of the allies of my enemy would at least be somewhat amenable to mutual cooperation."
Interesting, Marco thought. So he was an agent and he wanted to deal. This could be profitable in terms of information. Marco sat back and plastered the sleepy expression back onto his face.
"So…who's the enemy and who's the ally then?" he asked in his most languid tones.
Sigerson scoffed. Nope, he wasn't buying the lazy act not one bit. Marco could see Yeve out of the corner of his eye trying not to laugh out loud.
"Your enemy?" Sigerson said disdainfully. "It's all over the quadrant that you've had someone high up turn on you. Unfortunately it's worse than that." He paused and glanced around to make sure he had at least all three of the command staff's full attention. "I only got into the first level of the secure files but what I saw indicates that you still have a leak."
"What!" Lexi's squawk was not feigned and Marco inwardly winced. This was not going to be good. "Marco, we vetted all of," shit she was going to blurt out the name they were trying to keep hidden, "the traitor's associates!"
The prisoner half turned to look at Lex, "Obviously," he drawled scornfully, "your problem isn't a known associate then. Either that or you missed someone." He grinned at her.
The grin and the profile struck a chord of memory. This man looked and sounded a lot like…not for the first time Marco cursed the memory gaps caused by his nature. It was if the fire burned away not only his old form but also the memories attached to it. Luckily Marco also knew that if there was even a faint bit of recognition the entire memory would return sooner or later. In this particular case he hoped it would be the former rather than the latter. In the meantime he needed to get Lex out of the room. It wouldn't take long for Sigerson to figure out how to push every single one of her buttons and avoid questioning by having her beat him into a pulp. Luckily Lex was focused on what he had said not how he had said it.
"I need to go look at that intel!" she blurted barely waiting for his nod of dismissal before she bolted out the door.
Sigerson kept smirking as he watched her go.
Marco had a hunch and decided to play it. This situation felt like something that would benefit from a one-on-one. Now how to get Yeve and the others out of the room seamlessly?
"How far that they progressed with the tablet when you left?" he asked purely for Sigerson's benefit.
Yeve kept her face strait. He could tell she didn't like giving up information within the prisoner's earshot but she trusted that Marco had a plan.
"Decrypting the first set of secure files," she responded. "Near as I can tell there's another level beyond. It's a polymorphic code wall that's going to be a bitch to crack without a passcode."
Nothing he hadn't already known but the polymorphic code wall was a surprise to Sigerson.
"You better go and ride herd on Lex then. There's no telling what she'll do if the intel isn't ready by the time she gets there." Given the current situation slandering Lex in front of the prisoner was the way to go. If he thought she was normally a hot head he'd be more likely to discount her competence. "You two go with her," he ordered Tweedledee and Tweedledumb.
Yevette stood and Fred shifted to indicate that he, at least, thought he should stay. Nope Fred, Marco thought, not this time.
Yeve read both the movement and his twitch and asked, "You sure you don't want to…"
Marco cut her off, "Stop attempting to cosset me Yevette. I didn't get to be First Division Commander on just my ravishing good looks after all!"
Yeve wrinkled her nose at him, "Who's good looks? Yours? If you say so sir!"
Marco had to convert the smile that was threatening to appear on his face at the joke into a glare.
He raised his hand and waived at Fred, "Go, if there is still a traitor on board you'll be needed more there than here."
Fred grunted in agreement and followed Yeve out. Marco noted that he engaged the security lock behind him. The wardroom door would now only open with either his palm print or that of one of the security staff. Of course, if the prisoner was as clever as Marco suspected, he could most likely disassemble the locking mechanism and get out that way. Not that Marco would give him the time needed to do so.
Seigerson registered the sound of the lock then turned back to look at Marco. Once again there was that sense of familiarity, especially with the profile. The memory was there just within his mental grasp and then it was gone again. Marco sighed inwardly.
In the meantime the prisoner was shifting his shoulders like he was uncomfortable. He most likely was with the grav-cuffs holding his hands behind his back. Except that Seigerson's hands were now no longer behind his back. Marco watched as the man, having slipped out of one of the cuffs, brought his hands around and proceeded to jimmy the manual override on the other one with what looked like a slim piece of plastic. He then dropped the still linked cuffs on the table and waited.
Marco cocked his head and wished he was in his other form. The spectrum differences in his vision as well as his other senses often gave him more clues about just what he was dealing with. In addition, sometimes the differences in input helped his memory. Unfortunately that was not going to happen. He wouldn't give this man that kind of potential leverage under any circumstances. Not that he'd need his other form to take this guy down if it came to a fight.
"Clever," he commented looking at the cuffs. "Not many people know that those things have a manual override. Fewer still know how to engage it." Macro cocked his head in the other direction. "So who are you really and what do you want now that you've got my undivided attention?"
Siegerson rolled his shoulders again to stretch and glanced pointedly at a chair.
"I'm not stopping you eh?"
Siegerson stalked over to the chair. He hesitated momentarily as if he was unsure whether he wanted to sit or not, then sat. He proceeded to stare at Marco as if cataloging all his features and attempting to figure out his character from his face. Marco had a flash of memory, another face with a similar expression doing the same thing; deducing him and his intentions.
"I wasn't joking when I offered you my cooperation," he finally said.
Marco nodded in acknowledgement. "But you haven't yet told me what you want or what you are willing to give up. Without knowing that I don't know if the deal you are offering is worth my while."
Sigerson looked thoughtful then apparently came to a decision and started in, "As for what I want I, like you, need information on that peeda. I've been chasing my quarry over several star-systems always being a step or two behind. I most recently learned that he's taken up with a Collective World's operative, code named Blackbeard. The events of several months ago made it obvious that Blackbeard was one Marshall Teach most recently of the Whitebeard Pirates."
So much for keeping the identity of their traitor secret; this guy was indeed an agent and a good one too to have ferreted out that tidbit of information. Now it only remained to determine who he was working for and, Marco reminded himself, chase down that errant memory. He deliberately winced to encourage Sigerson to continue.
"Given the connections and several other factors I knew I'd need to get into the Collective's intelligence databases to obtain what I needed. I sized up the potential methods to get in and figured my best chance was to get to one of the shipboard databases. The information might be slightly dated since they only do a general update when they hit the inner world beacons but anything crucial would be squirted via high beam transmission. An added benefit would be that any errors caused by my hacking would not be noticed until the next general update and I'd be long gone by then."
Not bad. Marco nodded in agreement as certain parts of Sigerson's story suddenly started to make more sense.
"You were on Nordica. The Endeavor was the first outbound CWS ship through," Marco commented offhandedly. It wouldn't hurt to show this guy that they did have decent intelligence.
"Your attack was an opportunity that I couldn't afford to miss."
Marco put his elbows on the table; time to press a little harder, "So What'cha proposing as a deal?"
"I help you get through that polymorphic code wall, you give me the information in the Collective database on my quarry along with free access to anything you might have on him from your sources then drop me off somewhere with decent space lane connectivity."
"Hmmmm." Like hell Marco was going to let this guy troll through the Whitebeard databases regardless of who he was after. Providing the information might be worth it however if, "Why do you think you can help us through the polymorphic code?"
Sigerson smiled, "I know who invented it and I'm smarter than he is."
Marco suppressed his reaction, only one eyebrow went up. This guy knew Q10? Q10 the best hacker bar none in the quadrant? The guy everyone knew that if he wanted into your data he'd get into your data one way or another even if it was only stored in hardcopy. The only thing that kept data safe from this man was the fact that he tended not to meddle with folks below the planetary system level. Allegedly the man was something of a recluse and here was Sigerson implying he knew him personally?
"and I have a couple of ideas about passwords that may make hacking it moot."
Marco's mind was spinning. This guy was clearly more important and well connected than things looked. It didn't help that every time the man spoke or moved he was getting little flashes of memory. It was frustrating though that those flashes never quite added up to anything usable.
Finally Marco said "We just might be able to do business depending of course upon just who is your quarry."
It was Sigerson's turn to think for a moment. Marco could almost see him weighing the pros and cons of cooperation. He also knew that the agent was letting him observe his deliberations. This guy was too good not to be able to hide his reactions if he wanted to. No, this was a ploy of sorts to build trust. The agent wanted Marco to think that giving up his target's name was significant.
"The Tiger Hunter, Sebastian Moran," was what Sigerson finally said.
"Interesting," Marco drawled.
He hadn't heard that name for a while. Moran was a high level brigand who had been cashiered out of the New Britannia fleet and eventually hooked up with the not quite above board consulting operations of one James Moriarty. Marco's information indicated that Moran had risen to be the second in command and chief enforcer for same as Moriarty's business moved more and more into the criminal element. Surprisingly he hadn't heard much about The Consultant, Moriarty, for over two years. Marco hadn't been tracking the organization directly since the Consultant tended to avoid working for official governments like the plague but he had just assumed that the man was working in other sectors of the quadrant.
"You don't think The Consultant is going to have anything to say about you taking out his enforcer?" Marco asked curious as to just what Sigerson knew.
"I have it on good authority that the Consultant met a rather messy end after tangling with the Ice Man and his people in New Britannia almost three stan-years ago." Sigerson replied with a smug I know something you don't know look on his face. "That's why you've not been seeing much activity from the criminal element if you track such things. Too much infighting and jockeying for position. Although, it is probably why Moran is at least nominally working with Teach."
For no particular reason he could fathom Marco suddenly remembered an ancient saying he'd heard once, All roads lead to Rome. In this case, however, all the information seemed to be pointing to New Britannia. Moran was originally from that sector, Morarity's primary contact point was there, rumor had it that Q10 was based on an orbital around Londinium, and the Ice Man was effectively the head of intelligence as well as diplomacy for the Commonwealth. The individuals he'd come across in his long life from New Britannia had to a person all been wonderfully understated and highly competent. In fact one of the most competent agents he'd ever met had been one Siger…Oh. Oh!
Everything started coalescing, memory and facts, into a glorious whole. Marco almost laughed as he put the disparate pieces together. Q10 only meddled in high level systems most of which belonged to governments and organizations which had interests not aligned with New Britannia, ergo Q10 was working at least in part for the Ice Man. Marco knew through his research that the Ice Man, Mycroft Holmes, was the son of Siger Holmes the highly competent agent that he'd met in a previous incarnation. He also knew that over three years ago Holmes had been involved in an internal matter involving the death of a family member, his brother. That brother, a private detective had committed suicide in disgrace after being accused of setting up the crimes he had allegedly solved. Morarity had been involved somehow in that downfall Marco had not a doubt since Holmes the elder had clearly taken retributive action with extreme prejudice. That left Marco with an agent sitting in his wardroom who looked enough like Siger Holmes to trigger Marco's memories, who was after Moriarty's second in command, and who claimed to know Q10 who worked for Mycroft. That didn't even take into account the now blatantly obvious alias; Siger's son indeed. There was only one conclusion Marco could draw. The man sitting across from him was the decidedly not dead Sherlock Holmes.
Marco let none of his glee show but decided to see if he could needle his prisoner a bit. "In that case, I think we have a deal Mr. Sigerson," he drew out the alias.
Sigerson, no Marco thought Sherlock, stiffened slightly. Marco realized just how on edge the man was and decided to reassure him.
"I won't even bother to register anything but your prisoner status in our records. I think you'll just be an unnamed source as far as the data stream is concerned."
Marco had a stray thought. If Mycroft wasn't in on the ruse then he might wish to know that his brother was still alive. Then he had another thought. If Mycroft was in on it he still might be appreciative since his brother had been off the radar for at least three months while on the Endeavor. Either way…
"Although I can pass a secure message to the Ice Man if you want. I imagine he is a bit frantic right now," Marco offered.
It was clear the offer confused Sherlock and Marco couldn't resist tweaking the detective a bit more. "You know your disguise is good enough to fool the large majority of people except for the fact that you really do have your father's nose," he said.
Marco savored the resulting look of shock and surprise that flashed across Sherlock's face. Priceless.
Author's Notes: I must apologize to the One Piece readers; I am not a part of your fandom so any out of character moments and canon discontinuity are completely my fault. Given that statement you might ask how the heck did I end up writing this particular cross-over. Well this story started life when a plot bunny escaped from one of my beta-readers (Kneoria/Erif_of_Taloma on and AO3 respectively) as part of a brainstorming session for the OPscifiandfantasy event (lunarshores) over on Tumblr. To make a long story short, the silly thing hopped into the Sherlock fandom and made itself at home. The next thing I knew it had convinced a couple of other plot bunnies to take a shuttle up to the orbital, steal a starship and run off into the deep-dark!
You will notice quite a few other fandom references sprinkled throughout. The Endeavor's name is lifted from the Star Trek fandom. The name of Whitebeard's ship is a play on the phrase "as queer as Dick's hatband" which allegedly refers to Oliver Cromwell's son Richard (1626-1712), who succeeded his father as ruler of England and ended up as the butt of many jokes for his admittedly short reign." Yes, there is indeed an allusion to the James Bond film Skyfall and a gratuitous Harry Potter reference. In addition some minor stuff from Alice in Wonderland wandered in from God only knows where in my subconscious and took up residence.
Some of the spaceship terms and their use were inspired by Nathan Lowell's excellent series Trader's Tales From the Golden Age of the Solar Clipper (available in print from the usual suspects and an author-read podcast from ). I really recommend the audiobooks. If you haven't run across this author he could read a phonebook and make it interesting and that doesn't even talk about the quality and humor of his writing. If you like space opera the entire series is really worth a read and/or listen although the climax of the final book will most likely make you cry.
As for the OC's, well, you know who you are! Enjoy your cameos ladies.
I'll sign off as usual with apologies to the Bard
If this writer has offended,
Think but this and all is mended,
That you have but tarried here,
Whilst each chapter did appear,
And these word upon this theme,
Are of no import, only my dream.
It has been an honor to share my dream with you.