Disclaimer: I own nothing related to or part of Star Trek. This fan fiction was written purely for fun.
The Adventures of Augment Gothic
"The rush of battle is a potent and almost lethal addiction, for war is a drug." – Chris Hedges, war correspondent, partial quote from his book War Is A Force that Gives Us Meaning
Chapter 15
Low hanging fruit.
Those were the words that kept repeating in my mind. I had a good bit of time to myself while Section 31 prepared the groundwork for the Bajoran mission, the question was what could I do with it? What could I do to improve my life and future in this dimension in the time I had? I had so much knowledge of this universe, secrets from the past, present, and future that I could exploit, and what had I done with it?
Yes, I had gone to Minos and taken over that planet and made it my own. That was a significant step forward and would reap benefits for years and years to come, but what since? Caution and fear had kept me from exploiting some extremely choice opportunities. But was there some low hanging fruit left that I could tackle in the several weeks I had left before my mission, something that wouldn't see me hunted to the ends of the galaxy and in a place that my ship could take me to in a reasonable amount of time with its maximum warp cruising speed. While the shows had plot speed, my ship's engine did not.
Thinking about my ship led my thoughts to another one-off episode in season 6 or…no, it was season 7 of Star Trek: The Next Generation. A cloaking device would be an amazing addition to my ship and would increase its usefulness many times over. The ability to hide my presence, from more than just long-term scans, would mean I could go practically anywhere with far less danger to myself. You couldn't destroy what you didn't even know was there, after all.
I could acquire one, possibly, from the Klingons, directly or indirectly. I knew from an episode in DS9 where Quark acquired one that some were floating around on the black market, but I wanted something better and not one I had to pay for or risk getting on some law enforcement watchlist trying to obtain illegally.
The Federation itself was specifically prohibited from developing and using cloaking technology in the Treaty of Algeron, which had brought peace between the Federation and the Romulan Star Empire, but not everyone in the Federation agreed with that restriction. Many thought it had bound the Federation's hands and given the Romulans a huge tactical advantage for the last 60 years.
In the season 7 episode titled 'The Pegasus' it had come out that elements of Starfleet had developed a prototype Federation cloaking device, and not just a run of the mill cloaking device that the Klingons and Romulans had, something that the Federation could have already reproduced a century ago in the time of Kirk, but a new variant that was a breakthrough in weapons research, a phasing cloak, which would allow the cloaked vessel to pass through normal matter.
Right now, I'm pretty sure I was the only one who even knew the Pegasus and the prototype phasing cloak onboard that ship, still existed. That sounded like an opportunity, and hopefully, a low-risk one.
It was a one-off episode in TNG, yet another that had an interesting premise and a set of facts with serious long-term implications, but one that ultimately went nowhere once that episode was over. God, there were a lot of those. My memory of it was pretty good for the major points, but fuck me if I could remember things like what star system it was in and shit like that. The Pegasus was in some kind of huge ass asteroid field, wasn't it? Yeah…that sounded right.
Taking a seat in my 'captain's chair,' I closed my eyes and tried to use my pseudo bullshit occlumency and the Vulcan mental techniques I'd been practicing, trying to dredge up tiny bits of information from an episode I'd last seen years ago, made in a different era and dimension, in an arguably different and inferior body that didn't have the capabilities I had now. An hour later, I had a Eureka moment.
"Computer, set course for the Devolin System," I ordered aloud. "Maximum warp! Engage!" I yelled, though obviously saying that all aloud wasn't at all necessary, but I was feeling rather giddy at the idea of another profitable adventure and some flair was never amiss.
XXXXX
Devolin System. Sector 1607.
Arriving in the Devolin system, I encountered the same gigantic asteroid field that I'd seen in the episode. Seeing such a thing on a 2-dimensional television screen could never do such a sight justice, just like seeing the Grand Canyon in pictures could never convey the sheer grandeur and majesty of the real thing. These rocks were gigantic and there were literally millions of them. Luckily I had had time on the journey here to dredge up as many details from the episode as I could, including how to find the Pegasus.
I was lucky in another sense, while I didn't have the 'metallurgical and chromographic specs' that the Enterprise did when they were searching for the ship, Commander Data had been the one at the conn during that episode. That meant I could predict, with near certainty, exactly where Data would have entered the system, how he would have constructed the search grid they used, how he would have conducted the sensor sweeps, and ultimately how he would have assigned alphanumeric designations to the millions of floating rocks. He did things predictably, exactly by the book, and with a machine precision each and every time, and that would help immensely now. Had a human performed those tasks in the episode, well, it would have made this entire endeavor exponentially harder as my foreknowledge couldn't be taken advantage of.
"Computer, begin sensor sweeps of this system. Assign search grid coordinates to the system using standard Starfleet methodologies and best practices given these circumstances, but use the known sensor capabilities of the starship Enterprise, NCC-1701D," I ordered.
"Acknowledged," the computer responded.
This was the best I could do with the information I had. The sensor capabilities of the Enterprise were bound to be more powerful or different than what was publicly known, but this would give me a huge head start and at least get me in the proper vicinity, relatively speaking. I'd still find that ship in a fraction of the time it had taken them, since I had my foreknowledge to rely upon, but it wouldn't exactly be a perfect map to the treasure, as it were. A moment later the system was carved up into grid sections, containing truly huge volumes of space. The Enterprise was a galaxy-class starship after all, and their sensors were far more powerful than mine.
"Assign sequential numerical designations to each grid section based on achieving the most efficient search pattern to completely scan the system, in the least amount of time, again, from the perspective of the Enterprise."
The grid map was updated with my orders.
"Set course for what has been designated grid 158 and begin sensor scans upon arrival."
I knew the designation assigned to the exact asteroid that contained the ship I was looking for, but without knowing the exact size of an individual search grid, based on the Enterprise's sensors, auto assigned designations wouldn't work, so the asteroid designation that had the ship in the episode was worthless to me.
No, I had to do it the old-fashioned way and wait while my sensors scanned millions of rocks.
XXXXX
Either the Enterprise's sensors were a lot more advanced/powerful than advertised, or my sensors were for shit, though it was probably a bit of both, because even with my foreknowledge, it had taken nearly two full days of intense scanning to find the Pegasus. Thank God that my ship was hard to detect on long-range scans, because I would probably look suspicious as shit right now.
Checking the integrity of my environmental suit one last time, I picked up my tricorder and the equipment I'd need to get this job done. While half the ship had materialized inside the rock, an airlock near engineering was still intact and would serve as a convenient way to dock my ship with the Pegasus. When my ship docked to the powerless ship, it would supply the power necessary to open the doors. Federation ships, like many other polities, had airlocks and points of entry that were purposely designed with the capability to accept external power in case of an emergency situation where main power was lost.
Unlike Riker and Admiral Pressman from the episode, I had no desire to extend my shields and turn life support on by initiating a power transfer beam so that I could walk around without an environmental suit. Yes, it would certainly be more convenient, but it would also leave even more evidence that I had been there in the first place. I wasn't even sure I could supply the full power necessary to accomplish the same feat, but even if I could, there could be a sensor record of my power signature if I supplied the ship directly from my ship's warp core and that signature was as unique as a fingerprint. No, I wanted there to be as little evidence as possible that I had ever been there. I was realistic enough, though, to know that there would invariably be something I missed, no matter how careful I was. The trick was to prevent anyone from looking that hard in the first place.
My magnetized boots made no sound as I walked in the hard vacuum the ship was in, my palm beacon of TNG fame cutting a blazing path of bright white light through the pitch-black darkness. The perfectly preserved floating corpses of the ship's crew left in this vacuum environment were quite off putting, though, especially since they weren't enemies I'd killed in battle. Walking carefully through the corridor, I took great care to not disturb any bodies that were floating around, giving them a wide berth.
Walking into main engineering, the scene was straight out of the show, with the exception of the floating corpses. Walking up to a console, of course, it was dead and black as night. On my trip here, I tried to come up with some reasonable assumptions. The Pegasus itself was the carrier for the prototype cloaking device and they were tasked with conducting experiments on it. That implied that its computer possessed a great deal of experimental data as well as the schematics for the device and the science behind how it worked. At least, that was the assumption.
Kneeling down next to one of the primary engineering consoles, I pried open a panel to gain access to an ODN port. Lining up the portable power core/data storage device, after I had activated a magnetic coupler to keep it from floating off, a beam of light blue energy shot out and both supplied power to the dead console and initiated a handshake with the computer core of the Pegasus.
Tapping on the now live panels of the console in front of me, I found exactly what I expected, which was some very elaborate computer security to prevent exactly what I wanted to do, downloading the ship's entire computer core. It took a good while, longer than I had suspected it would, before the ship lost that battle in cyberspace. Thankfully, I was in no hurry. As advanced and groundbreaking as the phase cloak was, the Pegasus itself was still a ship that hadn't had its computer security updated in close to a decade. The intervening years had brought some incremental advances in computer technology and computer security, absolutely, but what was more devastating were some now known computer security vulnerabilities that hadn't been patched. Add into this equation an ambitious and creative Augment with the equivalent of a Ph.D. in computer science and programming and the outcome of the battle was certain the moment it had begun. For now, all I was doing was copying everything in the ship's databanks, indiscriminately. I'd sort through it all later.
Letting the data transfer continue, I moved over to where the real prize of this mission was, the interphasic cloaking core. Opening the panel, I found the glass looking two-cell tube that had looked pretty underwhelming in the shows. Studying it with my custom tricorder, instead of my eyes, however, showed how interesting and sophisticated this device really was. It was essentially a containment vessel for quantum energy that was slightly out of phase with our universe. My best guess, based on just a few moments of study, was the quantum energy served as both a catalyst and template for changing the quantum state of the ship it was installed upon. Where this energy had come from was anyone's guess. Maybe some ambitious Federation scientific geniuses had come up with something, or it was something we had reverse engineered from some long gone ancient but more technologically advanced civilization; I didn't know. Section 31 might have even played a role in this whole mission, though I was near certain they already had cloaking capabilities, at least the more traditional variety.
I continued to study my tricorder readings of the interphasic cloaking core before I received a notification on my screen that the data transfer was complete, nearly an hour after I had started. I was about to close the hatch containing the cloaking core and begin doing everything I could to hide the fact that I had been here at all when I stopped and went very still, my mind overclocking with a new possibility, trying to determine if I was being a greedy fool who was courting discovery and death.
There was being justifiably paranoid and then there was missing good opportunities because of fear. Reverse engineering this technology would be infinitely easier with a working example to study, rather than just relying on the technical data from the Pegasus' computer memory, assuming it was even there in the first place. In the show someone had detected that the ship had survived. If my guess on the timeline was right, we were years away from that point. So why couldn't I just take what I wanted and blow up the ship? They already thought it had been destroyed. Why not make it a reality? Sure, I'd be denying Riker his moment and Admiral Pressman would still be around, but that hardly seemed timeline breaking.
Could I take the entire ship? Good lord, talk about being one greedy motherfucker. Half of it was in solid rock. And how the fuck was I going to hide this ship? No, if anything, just the cloaking core.
For several long minutes I imitated a statue as I ran through all the many permutations, possibilities, and potential consequences of this decision.
Fuck it, I decided as I looked at the cloaking core. I'm taking it. Even with it in hand, it'd still take years of study before I would be comfortable using it onboard my ship and working out whatever design flaws were present that had destroyed the Pegasus in the first place.
And…even if I wasn't going to take the whole ship, it didn't mean that I had to go away empty handed, revising my plan a little even now. The dilithium crystals, the anti-matter, vital components in the phasers, torpedoes and computer core, all of it would be useful to me.
Time to get my looting game on!
XXXXX
Undetected and unknown to all, the story of the U.S.S. Pegasus was ended by the detonation of a small nuclear explosion in the engine room, courtesy of a homemade nuke built by an Augment. The lingering radiation from this explosion, rather than a photon torpedo detonation, blended in rather well with all the other radiation already present in the system and hid even those small pieces of ship debris that might have survived.
XXXXX
The Flighty Temptress. Outside Bajoran System. Unclaimed Space.
For a moment I was quite taken aback when I discovered just who my Bajoran Resistance contact turned out to be, but maybe I shouldn't have been considering I was offered this improbable mission in the first place, largely on a historical account I almost entirely learned about from the plot of a movie starring Tom Hanks.
The universe seemed to be fucking with me a lot lately, because this was quite the coincidence. It was Major Kira! Only she wasn't an officer in the Bajoran military yet and Bajor was still far from free of the Cardassian occupation of her homeworld.
Unlike so many other examples of real-life appearance versus the looks of their actor counterpart from the shows, the resemblance between the two was actually very close. It shouldn't surprise me that the Bajorans hadn't benefited much from 24th century medical technology when most of the planet's native inhabitants struggled to feed themselves. Her eyes, though, those were night and day different than the eyes I'd seen in the actress, Nana Visitor, from back home.
I'd seen eyes like those on too many occasions during my deployment, not in the mirror, thank goodness, but in those men in Iraq and Afghanistan who were on their third and fourth tour of duty, who'd seen too much shit, yet conversely couldn't give it up, even when given the chance. War could be a potent and addicting drug.
The eyes always told a story, if you were aware enough to see it. This woman had seen and experienced intense pain and suffering in her life, prolonged and with only intermittent respite, yet it had made her stronger, given her an iron hard will. You couldn't defeat a person like that, only kill them, which probably made her perfect for fighting the desperate battle to free her people from oppression, even though the task probably seemed impossible. I had a feeling that many Bajorans, regardless of age, would have a similar look in their eyes.
Thankfully, while my introspection touched on many different topics and went on several different tangents, not a great deal of time had passed in the real world. Having an enhanced intelligence, while also practicing my bastardized version of the Vulcan mental disciplines and Harry Potter-esque occlumency, meant that I often took these extended journeys of thought, oftentimes without my conscious awareness. So far, it hadn't yet bitten me in the ass, but I had a feeling that that bit of luck wouldn't last forever.
Remembering the cover story that I had helped develop, I put on the persona of a newbie arms dealer and smuggler, who the Bajoran Resistance would purchase weapons from and hire to deliver to the various rebel cells, something I would have a much easier time doing as an alien on Bajor.
During the pre-mission planning, Section 31 had wanted to come up with an entirely fabricated identity and backstory. I had put the kibosh on that quick and insisted, to their confusion, on using as many real components of my identity as possible. In fact, it was less new identity and more just tweaking the facts. My backstory was mostly true in that sense. I was a genetically engineered human who had faced prejudice in the Federation despite never having chosen to undergo illegal genetic engineering myself, a person who felt stifled by the Federation's rules and restrictions, who sought to travel the galaxy and make money doing various illegal things. The truer the story was, the better my chances of it holding up long-term, especially if I wanted to stay on or near Bajor after the Occupation was over.
I needed to keep my cool and sell the story. My objective wasn't just to sell them weapons, no matter how much they needed them. That would be the easy part. It was to be invited to join their Resistance/terrorist (depending on who you asked) cell and help them drive the Cardassians off the planet.
"So, do you have what we want?" Kira asked rather tersely, almost rudely, like she was uncertain of the situation and didn't quite know what to do so she defaulted to rude and aggressive. I got the distinct impression that Kira wasn't normally the person asked to undertake these sorts of missions. I couldn't decide if I should act offended to stay in character, or just ignore it.
We were in what currently passed for the main cargo bay onboard my ship, though it also could double as the ship's shuttle/fighter launch bay, or vice versa. This area sat directly below the cockpit in the snake's head of the ship.
Currently, the space inside this large room was dominated by cargo containers full of advanced farming equipment which would go to the Dahkur Province, a region on Bajor dominated by heavy agricultural activity and which produced much of the planet's food supply. Of course, this cargo was just cover for what I was really selling to the Bajorans, but it would serve as a good enough excuse for why I was on Bajor at all.
"Of course," I replied with a smile.
I took a moment to study the young Bajoran woman I both knew and didn't know so well. She wore simple yet sturdy clothes, that while rough in appearance and dull in color, seemed practical and durable enough. Sadly, they hid her tight body rather well, which was disappointing.
Her outfit made me seem positively wealthy in comparison as I wore freshly replicated jeans, combat boots, and a leather jacket.
"Where are the weapons you have for sale?" she asked shortly, obviously getting impatient with my delay as I studied her. She may have even thought that I was eye fucking her.
I smirked at her and then went over to a long drab looking wall along one side of the cargo bay. I pressed my palm to a hidden scanner panel that was completely indistinguishable from any other part of the wall and was designed to only open after scanning my unique biometrics and DNA. The wall quickly retracted inside the hull to show off my rather impressive armory. This hidden compartment was actually where I normally kept my personal armory, but it was much fuller now as it was also full of the weapons that Section 31 had supplied me with to 'sell' to the Bajorans. This hidden compartment was one of the upgrades I'd received from Section 31 in payment for the Collector mission. According to them it was impervious to the scanning technologies of just about any known race when closed.
"As you can see, Starfleet phasers, Klingon disruptors, Romulan disrupters, Ferengi forced plasma beam weapons, a couple of old-fashioned phase pistols, and the pride of my collection, an isomagnetic disintegrator," I gestured to each weapon type in turn like a salesman, plying my wares, which I kind of was.
At first I had been concerned about actually selling them Starfleet phasers, since it didn't exactly hide Federation involvement which was the whole damn point of my mission, but I was assured by Section 31 that they were just very good copies. Any even halfhearted examination of the weapons themselves would clearly show that the replication patterns and energy source which had initially powered them didn't correspond to Federation technology. They still worked well, to be sure, and would kill nearly as well as the real thing, but it wouldn't be a giant sign to anyone looking that the Federation was actively helping the Bajoran Resistance.
Knock off copies of successful designs were actually pretty common around the alpha quadrant. The Ferengi were notorious for it, go figure. I had to laugh a bit at the idea of a Federation intelligence agency like Section 31 buying knockoff copies of Federation phasers from the Ferengi. It was a strange galaxy sometimes.
The last weapon I'd mentioned, the isomagnetic disintegrator, besides having a rather cool name, was a shoulder-mounted directed-energy weapon used by Starfleet Special Operations, similar to a bazooka in style and payload, only far more powerful. It was designed to take out hard targets, like fortified walls/doors, armored vehicles, or personnel shuttles. They weren't very well known or many of them in circulation, even in Starfleet, since heavy weapons like this didn't exactly fit in with the whole peaceful explorer on a scientific mission messaging, but that hadn't stopped Section 31 from acquiring one for this mission. I'd have to get one for myself in the future; you never knew when a lightly armored vehicle or shuttle needed to be destroyed after all.
Luckily, a shipment of them had been 'stolen' during transport to a Special Operations training facility a few years back. The incident was supposed to be secret, but it had been deliberately leaked widely at the time, so the rareness of the weapon wasn't a dead giveaway that the Federation was involved should it be discovered on Bajor. It could have fallen into anyone's hands and then been resold to the Bajorans. Section 31's analysts had determined that the Resistance needed a bit more firepower to take on armored Cardassian vehicles and gunships. The trick was not to provide so many that the Cardassians got ridiculously suspicious.
"I also have a number of transport inhibitors available for sale," I told the Bajoran. "With one of these you'll never again have to worry about a Cardassian warship in orbit being able to just pick you up in the middle of a raid and put you in a holding cell. They work so well, I even have one permanently built into my armor. As long as they are switched on they will prevent anyone in a certain radius from the device from beaming you away. So no worries about suddenly finding yourself on the transporter pad of an orbiting warship," I explained with a smile, hoping that the heavy weapon and these inhibitors would make her very eager to buy from me and overlook any issues that might come up.
This bit of tech came from Section 31, but was based on a common Romulan design. There were so many natural ways to prevent someone using a transporter on you, such as being near certain types of metal or minerals, transport inhibitors weren't considered rare enough not to provide to the Bajorans. The technology was available here and there, if you knew where to look for it.
Despite how much she tried to hide it, I could tell that she was excited about the selection and just how many Cardassians her people could kill with these weapons. It would certainly improve the chances of the Resistance's current operations succeeding. The bloodlust in her eyes was not unfamiliar to me.
She carefully scanned several examples of each weapon with an obviously stole and repurposed Cardassian tricorder, which made me a little nervous considering the spyware I knew was present on the device. Had the Resistance already discovered that bit of malware? I'd have to hack the device and remove the malware before she returned to the planet and potentially got within range of a Cardassian computer.
"Feel free to handle any of the weapons or even field strip them," I offered, smile fixed firmly in place, while gesturing openly.
After a hard glance at me, she took me up on my offer, carefully removing each weapon type, bringing each to her shoulder testing the feel and weight, before expertly field stripping the various major components to examine their condition. Color me not surprised that she knew how to handle all of these weapons. They were the most common energy weapons available in the alpha quadrant and many had obviously made their way to Bajor before over the years.
"How many of each weapon type do you have onboard for sale?" she asked, again like she was carefully modulating her voice to hide her interest and excitement.
"A hundred units of each type, new to lightly used conditions, with the exception of the isomagnetic disintegrator for which I only have one," I answered.
Section 31 could have provided them 10x that amount easily, just on this ship, but an infusion of that many weapons from a single source, from essentially a brand-new arms dealer according to my backstory, was suspicious as hell. Even if the Bajorans overlooked it for the sake of a good deal, the Cardassian intelligence outfits like the Obsidian Order wouldn't.
"We want your entire inventory. This is how much we can pay," Kira offered, going for sounding unimpressed yet utterly failing, like she could walk away if the price wasn't right, like she had so many options for both weapons and delivery. "Payment in full upon delivery."
Taking a quick glance at the PADD, I acted equally unimpressed by the amount displayed on the device, when I was actually a bit worried. My reaction was quite a bit more genuine than her inexperienced haggling. This paltry amount represented a serious problem for me. Either the Bajoran Resistance was severely lacking in funds to make a deal of this size, beyond even what Section 31 had suspected, OR Kira was trying to lowball me to a stupid degree to impress her leader. It'd be tricky to salvage this. The possibility that the Resistance had never intended to pay for the weapons and I was about to be robbed was also there.
"That's it? Seriously?" I asked, handing back her datapad like I was offended. "This will barely cover the cost of the farming equipment I'm using for cover, never mind the weapons!" I said in mock outrage, intentionally pitching my voice and body language to suggest that this was a negotiating tactic on my part to drive up the price and might not necessarily be true. Kira was too inexperienced at this kind of thing to pick up on the deception and the Bajoran Resistance had likely no clue how much the farming equipment truly cost anyway. With the war going on information out of the Federation had been blocked very thoroughly by the Cardassians.
I wasn't lying either. The farming equipment, even if well used, wouldn't go for that cheap. Maybe if it had 'fallen off the back of a truck'? I didn't actually care about the price, of course, as Section 31 had given me these weapons for the mission and had set up accounts for me in banks on independent worlds that would ensure that I always had access to latinum when I needed it during the course of the mission. If I did periodically leave Bajor on my ship that'd be useful for buying needed supplies from whoever, rather than getting them directly from Section 31. This wasn't my mission pay, per se, these were just expense accounts that I could draw upon when I needed to. In fact, I was allowed to keep whatever the Resistance paid me for the weapons.
I was hardly rich, even now, but I'd be working to ensure that I had a lot more latinum in the future. It was only a matter of time as my services weren't free. It was only a matter of time before I had my own ridiculously large accounts filled with money that I could spend freely. Lucky for me, even though Section 31 was a very smart, capable, and ruthless organization, their members were still infected with that holier than thou attitude where they really didn't care about money. That meant that they pretty much accepted whatever price I asked for with zero haggling. The organization must be drowning in resources.
"We're fighting for our freedom," Kira pointed out passionately. "We don't have much, but I can assure you that we can get you more latinum once we reach Bajor and the promise of more sales in the future. If you'll accept alternate payment forms, we also have valuable materials we've taken from the Cardassians' mining operations," she offered, a hint of bitterness in her voice.
I could understand the bitterness in her voice, she was essentially offering me the valuable materials and minerals the Cardassians had strip mined from her planet, paid for in the blood and lives of the Bajoran slave labor who'd extracted it. These valuable materials would likely be able to cover whatever shortfall existed in the offered price and was a better rationale for why I'd accept this deal in the first place.
She handed me the PADD with another number written on it. It was a little better an offer, but still far below market rate for an illegal weapons deal. I had a feeling this was the very upper limit of her spending authority on this mission. The question was how much to push back now before eventually, reluctantly, accepting the offer.
"If the Cardassians catch me smuggling weapons to your people, they'll kill me," I said calmly, but with some level of feeling in my voice, like I sympathized with her people's cause, which I actually did. "I'm sorry, but I'm not risking my life for promises of future payment. I'm a businessman, not a charity, no matter how noble your struggle might be."
For a moment I thought I'd pushed too far and too hard. My plan had been to haggle over the price a little more, at least enough to make it believable, so that the Bajoran rebels wouldn't think I was an agent for a foreign power, which I was, or anything else other than a trader motivated by profit. Unfortunately, it now looked as if Kira was going to storm off, which would be the end of my mission.
Then, for a moment at least, it felt like killing intent filled the room, as if she was debating whether or not she'd succeed in killing me and taking my weapons and ship for free. The moment passed quicky and her attitude suddenly became a lot more friendly. Whether she had decided it was too dangerous to try to kill me on my own ship, or a dubious proposition when she knew so little about my genetic enhancements, or killing me would prevent the Resistance from getting quality weapons from me again in the future, I didn't know.
"I'm sure we can work something out," the Bajoran woman said in a husky tone. "It's a long trip to Bajor and you don't have a crew, it must get awfully lonely onboard this big ship all by yourself."
Now, this, I had not expected.
"Huh?" I asked, rather dumbly.
She quickly clarified.
"Sex," Kira answered with a sigh of annoyance. "I'll have sex with you, as much as you want till we get to Bajor. But you have to make a fair deal with me for the weapons."
I'd immediately understood what she had just offered, I was just surprised as I'd been anticipating an argument or a threat or just an end to the deal. A seduction specialist, Kira was most definitely not. I imagine that there were many distasteful tasks like that in the Resistance, but I'm pretty sure Kira had not done any of them. This was likely some last-minute bit of improvisation to entice me to sell to them. Other than checking her out in the beginning, had I been sending out lecherous pervert vibes that would make her think I'd make a deal like this if sex were on the table? Or was the sexual draw I'd received as an Augment been working on her this entire time?
"Seems fair," I said with a straight face, while thinking that that was one way to accomplish the mission. I made it a point to never deny free pussy after all.
XXXXX
When a beeping filled the air of the cockpit, I spent a moment wondering just what it meant as I'd never heard that particular sound before. Hopefully my ship was not about to suddenly explode. This universe was fucking crazy sometimes so I wouldn't put money on it not happening just like that. Then I realized what it was, my ship was receiving a long-range subspace communication, which was a relief as I'd just been contemplating my imminent death by universal shenanigans. So, I put down the PADD I'd been reading from filled with technical data on the phase cloak and answered.
To my surprise it was T'Maz, my beautiful and sexy Vulcan partner and T'Pol lookalike/descendant from my last Section 31 mission. When I saw that it was her I closed the door, sealing off the cockpit from the rest of the ship and engaging something akin to a modern-day privacy mode. Kira was in my cabin, having fallen into some kind of whacked out pleasure coma after I'd fucked her senseless, but I didn't want to risk her waking up and overhearing things that I'd have to kill her for listening to. Now that would seriously mess up the timeline and just be such a waste.
"T'Maz, wonderful to see you. I didn't think I'd hear from you so soon," I offered in greeting to the sexy alien woman, a smile on my lips.
T'Maz looked exactly as she had the last time I'd seen her, aside from having had a haircut, she was even wearing one of her signature skintight one piece bodysuits she and her ancestor favored.
"I intended to contact you sooner," she told me, "but I have been working continuously on writing a comprehensive report to disseminate all the information we gathered and the conclusions we reached on the aliens encountered during our last mission. As you might imagine, many are concerned by the threat this species poses to the Federation and the alpha quadrant itself."
That made sense as the 'Collectors' were a grave threat to the Federation, perhaps to the whole galaxy. While I'd destroyed the device that allowed for the creation of rifts between this universe and the one the 'Collectors' lived in, there could be other such machines out there, or it was possible that at some point in the future that a Federation genius with more brains than sense would punch a hole between realities just to see if they could.
Therefore, it was up to Section 31 to learn everything they could about this threat so that they could try to prepare for that day, at least as much as they could while hiding their existence from the rest of the Federation as a whole. They likely were creating emergency response plans and strategies to deal with various doomsday scenarios based on the information we managed to obtain. That was pretty common even in my time.
This also explained why I'd not been debriefed; T'Maz and I had been together virtually every step of the way. She must have told them everything they'd needed to hear, backed up by the incredible amount of sensor data we'd managed to gather. This made sense as she was the science type; I'd just shot lots of bug aliens and had acquired some of their weapons, which I, unfortunately, had to hand over to Section 31. Besides, Sloan seemed to understand me very well, or 31's psychographic profile on me was just that damn good, so he'd likely known that an extensive and grueling debriefing would have just led to me resenting the organization and the work I did for them, making it that much harder in the future for them to convince me to take on another mission. I could certainly understand the benefit of a debriefing, in the abstract, but in this case T'Maz had more than enough to provide them with everything they could want in that regard. Since we had talked after the mission, she also knew what my thoughts were. Our talks after the mission could even be considered an unofficial debriefing given how in depth we got.
"I have not yet finished my work," T'Maz continued. "However, I had decided to take a break and to visit you at your home. My intention was to seek your assistance in furthering my practical research into human sexual practices."
If she'd been human, and from my time, she would have just said that she wanted to make a booty call. I normally would fully support this!
"Unfortunately, I'm on a long-term mission to Bajor right now. Your report on my suggestion for expediting the end of the Cardassian war was met with a lot of interest," I told T'Maz. "Perhaps we can meet up in the future. I intend to stay on Bajor for a good while, but I can leave if need be, and the occupation won't last forever."
T'Maz didn't seem at all upset about missing a chance to get laid, but she was Vulcan, so her visible expressions hardly meant anything. She could look calm and collected even during hardcore anal sex, even when I was doing everything in my considerable power to break that booty. I knew this for a fact.
"That would be acceptable," T'Maz said pleasantly, before changing the subject. "I also contacted you in order to wish you good luck on your new mission and to let you know that I am well. Humans tend to worry about such things."
I hadn't been worried, but mostly because I knew that she could handle herself. Even when we were facing our almost certain deaths during the last mission she'd been as cool as a cucumber.
"There is something else I wanted to discuss with you," the Vulcan woman said. "My intention was to surprise you at your residence, but when I arrived there was a human woman named Annika outside your apartment. She claimed to know you and became upset, or perhaps saddened, when I mentioned that I knew you. Also, for some reason, she was nude except for an overcoat, stockings, and a pair of high heel footwear. It was most impractical given the normal climate conditions in San Francisco."
Says the woman wearing skintight body suits everywhere, all the time.
To hear that Annika had come to my apartment was rather…interesting, to say the least, and put a smile on my face. I guess she had been thinking about me, maybe even missing me. I know I had missed her at times, and had often wondered what she was doing during the days and days doing nothing while traveling at warp. Being nude under an overcoat was most definitely an unexpected move from her. I had told her a story once that involved such a silly scenario. It was far more playful than I would expect from her, but perhaps that was the point. Had it been part of a plan to get me to stay on Earth? To show that she was willing to do things outside her comfort zone? Or just a booty call from an ex? I would have had a lot of fun letting her try to convince me.
"She was my girlfriend," I explained to T'Maz. "We broke up when I told her I was leaving Earth for a while, though I obviously couldn't tell her that it was for a mission for a secret Federation intelligence organization, where I was going, or how long I'd be gone, etc."
The Vulcan raised an eyebrow, which for her race was a very expressive thing to do.
"I was not aware that you had a mate," she spoke calmly, but there was something more there, a threat in her tone. The emphasis on the word 'mate' implied that it had some kind of Vulcan cultural significance.
At this point I figured that I had to tread carefully, Vulcan or not, T'Maz was still a woman.
"We hadn't made any formal long-term commitments to each other," I informed and clarified for T'Maz in as formal a tone as I could. "I am presently unable and unwilling to commit to anything long-term due to the nature of our work, which caused us ultimately to break up when I had to leave Earth."
The woman on the screen nodded at that answer, seemingly satisfied.
"Indeed, our lifestyle does not leave much time for family and friends, or ultimately to share so much of what we do," she agreed.
"I have to get going," I told T'Maz. "I'll find a way to contact you when I'm next off Bajor."
With that I closed the channel and went to deal with Kira. She would likely be up and need some fluids. I'd worn her out something fierce last night.
XXXXX
Kira was lying on the bed in all her naked glory, her arms folded under her head propping it up, her firm round tits topped with two hardened nipples in the cooler temperature I preferred onboard my ship. She looked restful, and happy? Like a cat that had spent a few hours napping in a warm patch of sunshine and was feeling quite content with the state of the world. I would bet she had thought that the task of 'seducing' me, such as it was, would have been more onerous. It seemed I had acquitted myself well. Risa had given me plenty of opportunities to use all my Augment advantages and yet I still felt like I had a lot left to learn in that department, especially when compared to succubae like Arandis and Lwaxana who truly were masters of the sexual arts.
Continuing my open appraisal of her body, I admired her slender waist, wide rounded hips, and defined musculature. The life of a Bajoran and a revolutionary was not filled with a lot of extra food in childhood or the possibility of a sedentary lifestyle. She was fit and trim and lithe in a way that even the actress from the show was not.
She was lying with her legs slightly apart allowing me to see her sex, which was partially open and already wet. Situational awareness was a life and death necessity in the life of a revolutionary, so I was nearly certain she knew that she was giving me quite the show.
This understandably caused a reaction inside my white men's yoga drawstring pants, which became worse as I approached the bed slowly, like a lion hunting a gazelle. Once I was sitting on the edge of the bed I began to make a close examination of her body and not just with my eyes this time. My fingers moved down as I gently traced the contours of each breast before continuing down over her flat stomach and finally reaching her neatly trimmed pubic hair, which caused me to internally chuckle. Even a revolutionary, who probably spent a lot of time roughing it by hiding in caves and living off the land, wanted to keep it neat and trim down there. Maybe that was for my benefit in the off that chance she needed to seduce me for this mission?
After gently forcing her legs apart a little more I began to rub Kira's slick cunt with my thumb, which engendered a pretty strong reaction..
"Oh!" she moaned.
After several moments of carefully exciting her most private of places, Kira began to writhe and squirm in obvious pleasure on the bed.
"Are we going to be having sex the entire trip?" she asked me, with a faux complaining tone. "I've barely gotten out of bed since we entered warp! When we do get off the ship I'm afraid I'm going to be walking bowlegged!"
I had to laugh at that.
"You're the one who offered me as much sex as I wanted," I reminded her with a grin, my fingers not stopping for a moment as I finger fucked her to the precipice of orgasm, while enjoying edging her. "I don't think you truly understood what it meant when I said that I was an Augment."
She didn't seem all that bothered by my sexual demands, but was making a big show of it, acting as if this was some sort of burden when really she was enjoying herself a hell of a lot. I was kind of curious to see and learn how the Bajoran culture regarded sex and specifically how their religion effected it. So far, from the one example I had at least, they seemed pretty liberal about sex and didn't play games with it.
"Just be quick about it," she requested.
I quickly untied my loose pants, letting them fall to the ground, while Kira took my throbbing cock and began to skillfully stroke me to ensure that I was rock hard, which I was proud to note required two hands. It wasn't necessary given my physiology, but I appreciated the thought. I thought she was going to try to make me cum that way, but eventually she gently pulled me to the bed and guided my body between her open thighs and put my cock deep inside her cunt with a sign of pleasure. We had been fucking a half dozen times a day since I set course for Bajor, but every time I bottomed out inside her she acted shocked by my size.
Once I was inside her she lewdly moaned and winced at the same time; I could tell that she was still sore from all the repeated fucking we'd done and it must have been overly sensitive, but she was taking it like a champ. Once I was all the way in we started a rhythm of me thrusting into her, varying both my speed and strength. It was very nice, but I wanted to get deeper inside her.
"Turn over, I'm going to fuck you from behind," I commanded.
She immediately (and eagerly) got up on all fours, spreading her legs wide and lifted her ass high up into the air, her head resting on the bed and her back bent to give me easier access. I got on my knees behind her, taking a moment to admire the full access and trust she was giving me. After a few moments to build up anticipation I gripped her hips tightly before I both pulled her into me and thrust my cock unerringly inside her till I was balls deep.
"By the Prophets!" she shouted/moaned/screamed into the pillow her face was buried in. "Your cock is too big and you're stupidly strong, you brute!"
Her talking soon turned into heavy breathing and moans of intense pleasure as I fucked her deep and hard, varying the strength of my thrust, the speed, the depth, the angle, and a thousand other small variables, carefully noting and cataloging each reaction in my perfect memory to become a better lover for her. Like many times before, she started meeting my thrusts halfway, squeezing me with her pussy, reaching back to play with my balls, and fucking me back with a level of passion that I found positively intoxicating. As a Revolutionary fighting an impossible fight, your life could and would probably end at any random moment, so you didn't take life for granted. No, you lived it to the fullest, now, rather than later. The modern humans of the Federation could take some cues from someone like that.
She turned around and met my eyes with a half crazed and lustful look, then threw her head back as she screamed out an intense orgasm into the air. I kept going and heard her orgasm again and then again before I was ready to let loose. When I did she screamed again, and this time it wasn't an orgasm she was just really sore I guessed.
Once I was done she collapsed face down in utter exhaustion and…fell asleep? Yeah, from her breathing I think I had truly worn her out. Her well-formed ass was a tempting target, but I resisted the urge to slap it to wake her up for another round, so I let her sleep some more.
Kira had given me a lot of pleasure, but sigh…this was the plight or downside of being an Augment, nearly superhuman level sex that wore my partners out.
XXXXX
Hathon City. Bajor.
Not long after I arrived on Bajor and completed the arms deal which had brought me here, barring delivery, I ended up meeting with Shakaar at a local bar to celebrate a deal successfully struck. Shakaar was the leader of Kira's Resistance cell, an important rebel cell on Bajor with a lot of influence. In terms of the who's who from the Resistance, Shakaar and his cell were in the very top tier, responsible for many of the group's most notable victories over the Cardassians.
From what Kira had shared with me, the Bajoran freedom fighters were currently planning to kill someone named Gul Morad Pirak, who was the overseer for this particular Bajoran city and the surrounding farms. Pirak was not a nice man, even for a Cardassian, in fact he'd recently had fifteen Bajoran farmers summarily executed in front of their wailing family simply for not displaying a Cardassian banner, which was really petty. Cardassians were almost universally hated on Bajor, but this Gul was definitely hated a bit more than most. In fact, I vaguely remembered a mention of this assassination in canon DS9, but it was probably from some one-off episode.
In my eyes he was yet another despotic Cardassian drunk on his power over these oppressed people and looking for any opportunity to use it. I'd happily pull the trigger on men like that. There had been plenty like that in the Taliban in Afghanistan, tin pot warlords with some tenuous power that they used only to harm people, but never do anything productive or of value for the people that they supposedly ruled.
"I've heard from Nerys that you're not a normal human. That you're sympathetic to our cause. I find myself intrigued," said Shakaar cautiously, as he served drinks at the bar. "We could use someone with your skills and abilities in our struggle."
Between fucking her into a stupor, Kira and I had talked, and I'd told her about being an Augment and exactly what that meant in the Federation, how that had affected and limited my life there, which was both true and consistent with my backstory, though I played up the prejudice angle a bit more than was true. Pillow talk was a great time to believably share secrets and private thoughts, so I had laid the groundwork for why I would accept a below market price on the weapons I was selling them, sharing several historical parallels from Earth's history. I threw the Federation under the proverbial bus, condemning the oh so noble Federation for being weak willed pussies who should have helped her people long ago, especially when the Federation and the Cardassian Union went to war. What was holding them back at that point?
"The human eye is a wonderful device. With only a little effort, it can fail to see even the most glaring injustice right in front of it," I repeated solemnly from a book I'd read once, though my words were in perfect Bajoran to the shock of everyone present. "My eyes work far better than normal. But perhaps that terrible ability to ignore injustice isn't just limited to humanity? The alpha quadrant has ignored your people's suffering for nearly 50 years."
Shakaar looked thoughtful at my response.
"I agree, I wish more people felt that way," Shakaar replied sadly, taking a sip from his drink. "You honor us with your excellent use of Bajoran; I can hardly detect an accent."
"It's a beautiful language," I replied in English, taking the compliment with equanimity. Using their language was a deliberate choice in my attempt to see me as less of an alien. "What else did she tell you about me?" I asked wondering if some of the seeds I'd planted in Kira's mind had sprouted into something useful or whether I'd need to fight my way out of here. So far, I was feeling cautiously optimistic.
Shakaar, who had been a farmer before becoming a terrorist, seemed like a nice enough man, a man of principles and obvious faith. I really did want to help the Bajoran people, but if he figured out that I was working on behalf of the Federation I'd have to kill him. Appearing too eager to join here would be a huge mistake.
"You know, Nerys," the rebel leader said. "She's never shy when it comes to expressing an opinion."
That I did know.
"Oh, I know her quite well," I told Shakaar with a lascivious grin, deciding to get a little payback for her sharing some of my background without asking first. I wasn't really angry, but I did have a part to play.
Kira, who was standing right next to me, drove her elbow into my ribs as a warning, though she was visibly surprised when her blow didn't even move me an inch or affect me in the slightest. She may as well have elbowed a brick wall for all the effect it had.
"Get your mind out of the gutter," Kira warned with a threatening look.
Her change in attitude wasn't all that surprising. Now that she was among her own kind once again she didn't want them thinking she was some kind of 'human lover.' Most Bajorans weren't very fond of other races, and they couldn't exactly be blamed for that given their recent horrific history. The alpha quadrant powers had done nothing to stop the Cardassians from raping and killing their people, even when tales of horror, slave labor, and giant mass graves had trickled out to the rest of the galaxy.
"Your 'Cardie' friend," I said, gesturing to the Cardassian nearby. "Is it okay to talk around him?" I asked.
My use of a pejorative was on purpose.
Apparently not all of the Cardassians stationed here on Bajor were happy about the planet being strip mined for resources and the native population being worked to death. Who knew? That suggested there was some hope for them as a race. Canon DS9 suggested that they could become better as a people, but it would require pain and suffering to such a great extent that it may as well be a new culture. The same had happened to the Bajoran people nearly fifty years ago.
"He's one of us," Shakaar said. "In fact, he's vital to our intelligence gathering."
Which made me wonder if he was an undercover operative of the Obsidian Order, which was pretty much the Cardassians' version of Section 31, albeit a group whose existence was known by all and sundry. Even with that risk, I wasn't going to kill someone on the off chance that they were a spy, but I'd keep a close eye on him.
"Well, I still don't trust Cardassians," Kira scoffed, "and I don't care for off-worlders thinking they can help the Bajoran people."
I gave the woman a cold look at that, letting her know that I didn't approve or appreciate her opinion.
"No offense," she added quickly.
I decided to let the matter go, but if I was truly a gun runner with only a desire for profit, that little comment might have killed the deal considering how much of a discount I was giving them and that was assuming a 'real' arms dealer would have even come to Bajor after they'd seen the paltry sum the Bajorans were actually offering for the weapons. Luckily for them, my mission was to help them by giving them the weapons and joining the Resistance, not make maximum profit.
"None taken," I replied after a few moments of Kira squirming under my gaze, choosing to ignore how hypocritical her words were when she was buying weapons from an off-worlder at a discount, before turning back to the rebel leader. "So, what do you want my help with?"
I hadn't actually been asked to join their little terrorist organization, yet, but I figured that if they wanted my help with something then performing that task to the best of my ability would go a long way to earning that trust, ultimately proving my value to their cause, and thus getting a recruitment offer. Fighting together side-by-side, staring death in the face together while fighting a common foe, well, that often had a way of bringing even the worst enemies together. I'd seen it happen.
"Gul Pirak will be in his fortified compound tomorrow morning," Shakaar shared with me. "We have people ready to distract the local Cardassian regiment over at the barracks to prevent them from reinforcing the compound's normal complement when the alarm goes out. While that attack is taking place we will take on Pirak and his guards."
That sounded simple enough, although I sincerely doubted it would be.
"I still say we should just blow up his compound and be done with it," Kira said.
That also sounded simple enough. With the right intel and equipment, I might be able to sneak in an appropriate bomb for the compound's size. If not for all the weapons I was providing the Resistance, that might have been the route they chose. In fact, why did that sound so familiar?
"No," the Cardassian said, obviously against that plan. "We made a deal. You promised to limit civilian causalities in exchange for my support and information, and some of the staff at the compound are your fellow Bajorans, you can't just blow them up!"
Kira didn't seem to agree, but she only grunted her disapproval once it became clear that none of her fellow Bajorans seemed receptive to her plan.
"We appreciate the support, Hotak, this mission would have been much harder without your support. We will honor the deal we made with you. Besides, bomb or not, the end result will be the same," Shakaar assured the Cardassian traitor, before turning and looking at each one of his people in turn. "Gul Pirak needs to die; an example needs to be sent that actions have consequences."
That made sense to me and had long-term strategic value beyond one evil Cardassian's death. While this Gul would likely be replaced quickly and without major disruption to the area's Cardassian administration, his assassination might give his replacement, and other Cardassian officers stationed all over Bajor, just a bit more hesitance to engage in unnecessary acts of cruelty and basic evil villain bullshit. A successful assassination would improve the lives of the Bajoran people as a whole, showcase the Resistance's power and ability to get things done, and would likely be a great recruiting tool to encourage other Bajorans to join up with the Resistance and fight back against their oppressors. Unfortunately, the average lifespan of a revolutionary was pretty short, so constant recruiting was a necessity.
Just then one of the lookouts hurried over to the bar where we were standing.
"Shakaar, a group of soldiers are coming down the street," warned the young Bajoran who had been tasked with watching for anything we'd need to know. "They are Gul Pirak's men, I think, and they seem to be heading here."
I double checked that my phaser pistol was properly set to kill and ready to be pulled quickly from the hidden holster in my jacket.
"Now we get to kill some Cardassians," Kira said with relish, looking excited.
Shakaar calmed things down.
"Keep your weapons hidden," he ordered. "This may be nothing. As far as anyone knows this is just a bar that caters to off-worlders, there's no need for violence yet. We don't actually know if they are coming for us."
Before anyone could argue with him, Cardassian security forces entered the establishment with an arrogant swagger you'd mostly see only in a movie.
"Alright, everyone, I want to see some ID! Prepare for inspection!" shouted the lead security officer to the whole bar.
I actually had appropriate ID showing that I was a non-Federation aligned human who lived on a semi-distant colony world. It was fake, of course, but it was a Section 31 fake and therefore really damn good and would take an expert and require multiple database cross checks and subspace communications to my supposed homeworld to confirm that it wasn't genuine.
"Sir, we're just enjoying a glass of spring wine. We don't want any trouble," Shakaar said, as he cleaned some mugs, playing the submissive Bajoran. The Cardassian had come over to our group first. There were other aliens in this bar, including some humans, so that was a bad sign.
Shakaar seemed rather relaxed considering what was going on, showing a cool professionalism that I actually rather admired. Despite his roots as a farmer, he'd obviously come to thrive as a soldier of the Resistance, learning on the battlefield as he went and finding the purpose of his life in it. Then there was Kira, who looked ready to take on the entire Cardassian Union by herself. That girl was not lacking in enthusiasm or patriotic zeal, that's for damn sure.
"Then provide your ID, and you won't have any," barked the Cardassian, his hand going to his weapon as if he was about to shoot Shakaar for the temerity of not immediately and eagerly obeying him. Cardassian officers were not officially allowed to perform summary executions on Bajorans, but as I had learned, it happened all the damn time, and only rarely were there ever any repercussions and even then, at most, it amounted to a slap on the wrist.
The officer then turned to me.
"Human," he barked, though it was a touch more respectful. "What are you doing here on Bajor?"
I answered while trying to sound perfectly calm.
"I'm just a trader," I answered the alien Nazis. "My ship and I have already gone through customs, and my cargo has been checked and cleared. I have the documents stored on my PADD. I'm happy to provide them."
The small amount of high-tech farming equipment I'd brought with me had passed inspection just fine, and thanks to some judicious bribes the rest of my ship had only been cursorily inspected, rather than having all the floorplates torn up and bulkheads ripped out trying to find something. Which meant that the weapons I'd brought for the Resistance were safe for now, though I sincerely doubted that they'd have found anything with just intense sensor scans given Section 31's impeccable work, but why take the risk when the bribes were cheap?
"Then you can come with us for verification," said the Cardassian with an evil little smile. Verification probably meant interrogation.
The alien soldier then directed his men to take me into custody, one of them slapping his heavy paw down on my shoulder to direct me out of the bar in some kind of (literally) heavy-handed intimidation tactic. I couldn't allow myself to be taken and interrogated. At best, the Cardassians would force me to leave the planet, meaning I'd have failed my mission. More likely, though, they'd torture me and call it an interrogation. Then they might tear apart my ship searching for contraband. Tearing apart the bulkheads would result in the huge fucking cache of weapons being found, and that'd see me tortured some more and then killed, or experimented upon if they learned that I was an Augment, which they would, because while Cardassians were evil shits, they weren't stupid. They were annoyingly thorough when they were doing evil stuff.
"I don't think so," I said quietly, before a switch flipped in my head and it felt like I became a different person, the trappings of civilization and evolved sensibilities falling away.
Before anyone could act I grabbed the wrist of the Cardassian who had placed his hand imperiously on my shoulder in a vice grip, with a strength far beyond anything a normal human possessed, and painfully twisted it away from me, probably breaking a few bones in the process. I then pulled the offending limb to the bar faster than anyone could follow, before stabbing my combat knife directly through the middle of his hand in one fluid motion, straight through flesh and bone and deep into the wood of the wooden bar top, six inches deep. This spoon head wasn't going anywhere.
"Arrrgh-!" the Cardassian screamed in horror at the unexpected violence, the man's intense screams of pain and terror providing a nice distraction for what came next. He wasn't a threat to anyone at the moment.
My face was blank, feeling no excitement or fear, as I spun around and pulled my pistol from its holster before I methodically head shot each of the other six security officers before they even realized what was happening, like they were target dummies lined up on the range. I then turned back around and put the 'muzzle' against the man's head and fired as he stared terrified into my eyes, the acrid scent of urine filling my nose, realizing in his final moments that someone was finally fighting back. You couldn't even see the ruby red pulse of energy because it had been trapped in the man's skull. He dropped like a puppet whose strings had been cut, his dead body now slumping to the floor one hand still up and pinned to the bar by my knife.
Taking no chances that this time's medical technology could yet save these fucks, I methodically and with little feeling, put a follow up kill shot into the torso of each soldier on the ground to ensure no one would miraculously survive today.
Time seemed to stop again as my thoughts accelerated and slowed my perception of time. Maybe it was time to accept the grim, cold, hard facts; I wasn't the man I was before. I had obviously known that intellectually, but emotionally maybe I hadn't yet accepted that I was not normal anymore, not in the head.
This wasn't the first time I had killed in this new life, not even the second, and each time I had felt…nothing. Whenever I entered combat mode, it had been like a switch had been flipped and I became a monster, or a sociopath, capable of doing anything I needed to to survive or accomplish my goals. Becoming an Augment hadn't just meant a better body, and enhanced speed and strength and intelligence, it had obviously broken something in me that made me human. My ancillary studies in human psychology, evolutionary sociology, and the many historical writings on the augments of the era of the Eugenics Wars had given me an understanding of just how different the augments had been from baseline humanity and what had made them monsters.
When that switch in me flipped, every evolved violence limitation instinct in the human psyche fell away. Submission signal recognition, pecking order dynamics, pack loyalties, it all went away and I became capable of unlimited, unrestricted violence. I hadn't done anything like that yet, like killing a true innocent or non-combatant or a baby or something truly evil, but if I was honest, I felt like I could easily do that when I was in that state.
The only solace I could take was that the God-like being who had changed me had made me a perfect Augment, unlike the ones that came before me. The switch could be flipped back, and suddenly I was human again, normal again. That was the only thing I took comfort in.
I had a feeling I would struggle with this realization for a long, long time, but I couldn't let it cripple me in the present.
'Get your head back in the fucking game, fool!' I told myself.
"Alright, well I guess we have to fight our way to the transport now," Shakaar said, looking impressed, but visibly surprised at how quickly things had turned and perhaps how quickly and easily I'd killed six Cardassian soldiers. "Kira, you're with Gothic, get him to a safehouse."
The Bajoran woman protested before I could say anything.
"Why do I have to stick with him?" Kira moaned while taking out her phaser pistol, incidentally one of the weapons Section 31 had given me. The balls on this woman! It made it that much sweeter when I broke her down sexually and made her beg for my attentions.
Shakaar was too busy getting his people organized and moved out to answer so the future major decided to glare at me as if this was all somehow my fault.
"You look cute when you try to act fierce," I told her with a wide smirk, emotion coming back to me, as I continued to scan the room for new threats and retrieving my knife from the bar top once it was clear that we were moving out. The dead Cardassian soldier flopping to the ground with a loud thud.
She really was very cute when trying to be intimidating, especially when it was so ineffective on me. Mostly because I was many times stronger, faster and smarter than she was. Plus, I'd seen her orgasm face. Fun fact, it was incredibly difficult to pull off intimidating when someone had seen you like that, or mewling like a hungry kitten for milk in the bedroom.
"Humph!" was all she said in reply, a blush on her cheeks.
XXXXX
Hathon City. Bajor.
The streets of Hathon quickly became a warzone as the combatants on both sides exchanged intense weapons' fire, bright beams of deadly energy crisscrossing the street as they tried to kill each other. Kira had taken to the roof of a large building so that she could provide cover for her comrades and Bajoran civilians alike attempting to escape, using her skills as an expert sniper to pick off targets of opportunity or to pin Cardassian soldiers in place. I backed her up as a spotter, so I could watch Kira's back, or at least her ass. That was worth guarding.
"See anything?" Kira asked me. Peering through a rifle scope wasn't the greatest viewpoint for getting a broad overview of a battle.
It was a little confusing at the moment, as it always was during the chaos of battle. This urban battlefield, on a planet I wasn't all that familiar with in the first place, was even more confusing. However, being an Augment allowed me to take in and process large amounts of sensory information much faster than other people, so I already had a good idea of what the tactical situation was and where things were heading.
"I see four personnel transport vehicles rolling down the main street," I reported to the freedom fighter/terrorist before turning to her with a wry grin. "I think we pissed them off, Kira. They're attempting to deliver troops right into the heart of the city."
These transports, which were downright primitive looking compared to what even civilians drove around in on modern Earth, didn't seem to be all that armored, or armed with any kind of mounted heavy weaponry. These were likely troop transports only, meant to deploy security forces quickly, rather than true vehicles of war, offering little actual protection to the soldiers within. Against soldiers with modern weapons intent on killing them they wouldn't be much of a threat, but they were more than up to dealing with rioting unarmed Bajorans.
"Shakaar, we need to find a way out of here! We could be overrun," I heard Kira say over some sort of Cardassian style comm device, obviously spooked by the number of soldiers now being deployed against them. That comm was probably something they'd stolen in the past or taken off the dead body of a Cardassian soldier.
While she talked I took action, and pulled four plasma grenades from my bandolier, weapons of my own design, that I had hidden under a light oversized jacket and twisted the top ring dial on each and set it to an impact detonation, rather than a timed detonation (which was the default setting), which meant the grenade would explode upon impact with a hard surface. Travel at warp for weeks at a time meant that I had had a lot of time on my hands to come up with new weapon designs. I was quite proud of the design for these futuristic plasma grenades, especially given how easily I could change the way it functioned to adapt to the needs of a specific situation.
I activated/armed them by hitting the bright red idiot proof button at the top that I'd designed them to have. The ominous hum coming from the very active grenades, from what were obviously very dangerous weapons, caused Kira to stop and twist around sharply, her mouth dropping open in shock.
The grenade was shaped like a small cylinder that fit comfortably in my hand. It had molded finger grips with an anti-slip raised dot coating so that it wouldn't slip out of my hand easily or prematurely. At the very top of the cylinder was a bright red button with concentric depressed circular rings. It required a good bit of purposeful force to activate the thing, which was ideal in my mind as it would prevent accidental arming.
The ring at the top was rotatable and allowed the user to change the detonation mode to one of 6 types. You could use a preset timer detonation after activation, with 3.5, 10, 15, 20, 30, 40, 60, 90, 120, or 300 second settings. The primary detonation modes were timed detonation, based on the number of seconds you chose, detonate on impact, which meant the grenade would explode the moment it hits a hard surface, delayed impact, which meant the grenade explodes 2 seconds after it hits a hard surface, proximity mine, which turned the grenade into a semi-smart anti-personnel mine, pyro ejection, which caused the grenade to melt to burn the surrounding environment, and remote controlled. You could also change the blast yield, but I was almost always a maximum yield kind of guy. The bottom ring actually contained the proximity sensors.
Both similar and different from the grenades from my time, setting the timer then hitting the bright red activator would not actually start the countdown. No, thanks to a pressure sensor in the grip, the timer only started when the grenade was thrown, which would help prevent lethal accidents.
I took in all the information my senses were giving me on distance to target (about 450 feet I guessed), elevation, wind speed and direction, humidity, the likely path they'd take, and a thousand other bits and pieces of data I wasn't even consciously aware of that I needed to take into account, before I threw them really hard in different directions, one after another, with pinpoint precision. It reminded me of throwing an American football for some reason. An augment's arm strength and hand/eye coordination was not something to fuck with after all.
"Get down!" I yelled to the Bajoran rebel before I dropped to my belly on the rooftop.
She didn't listen to me, of course, and before I could say anything further, there was a great explosion followed by an expanding shockwave of superheated air, one so strong that it shattered nearby windows in a large circle of destruction. The four explosions had happened almost at the same time, so it felt like one big one.
Kira stood up slightly and peered carefully over the edge of the building, her jaw dropping open in shock.
"Don't you think that was a bit much?" Kira asked incredulously and maybe a touch nervously now, looking down at the burning wrecks in the street and not at me, now perhaps getting a sense for just what being an Augment meant and what they could do, something that even days in the bedroom hadn't been able to.
My plasma grenades had just taken out all four Cardassian transports and horrifically incinerated everyone inside, which meant the Cardassians had truly lost control of this situation, and now the rebels would be able to easily escape. That much loss of life was sure to bring a desperate call to Terok Nor or any warships in orbit, so it was best to get the fuck out of here as quickly as possible.
"There's no kill quite like overkill," I told her faux seriously, before ruining my serious moment by smiling in victory. Then we got the fuck out of there before they did something smart, like blow up the building we were in from orbit.
XXXXX
Hidden Resistance Base/Hideout/Safehouse/Cold Damp Cave. Bajor.
"We've got some sleeping bags, as well as some food," Kira told me as she led to me where I'd be spending the night. "It's not as good as the stuff on your ship, but it's better than nothing."
She was carefully watching my reaction to see if I'd complain and confirm her fears that I was a soft, weak human who couldn't survive without all the luxurious comforts I was no doubt used to. Well, she wasn't completely wrong, my ship was way more comfy than this place, which was just a cold damp cave, but I'd had plenty of experience roughing it in Iraq and Afghanistan on deployment.
"You know we could go back to the Temptress," I offered.
I wanted the Bajoran woman back in my bed, which had a mattress and sheets and blankets, not a rocky floor and critters moving around in dark corners. Again, sometimes the senses of an Augment really sucked. I didn't need or want to know how many rat-like creatures were scurrying around in the vicinity.
"And miss all this?" Kira asked sarcastically. "It's easy for you Federation types with all your creature comforts-"
I cut her off.
"Hey, I'm not a 'Federation type,'" I reminded her. "I know how to kick ass and take names. If I was truly the type of person you're describing, I wouldn't be here right now."
"Let's just get some sleep," Kira said next, obviously too tired from the events of the day to fight with me over something that was, admittedly, pretty silly. The narcotic-like high of life and death combat was always accompanied by a corresponding crash.
To my surprise she removed some of her clothes, noticeably only those which made her pussy accessible and got into the large sleeping bag equivalent that I had assumed was for me, spreading her legs wide and gesturing for me to get between them.
"We're all used to sharing in order to conserve warmth," she told me calmly. "Just don't make me scream too loud. I don't want anyone running in here thinking that we're under attack when we're just having sex."
The way Kira could so rapidly go from acting either cold or hot towards me really made my head spin, but that didn't stop me from dropping my pants like they were on fire, crawling between her legs and sticking my cock in her as far as it would go. The possibility that she had been encouraged to keep sleeping with me to keep me happy and under surveillance occurred to me, but I just couldn't work up the desire to give a fuck.
XXXXX
Since the local barracks had been emptied last night for the raid on the city, which had gone very, very badly for the Cardies, on account of me having killed them all, that meant we no longer needed so many troops to distract the garrison from responding to any alarms or calls for help. This also meant that the rebels could now launch a much bigger attack on Gul Pirak since they no longer needed to divide their limited forces, which increased its chances for success.
The new plan had the main force of the Bajoran Resistance making a direct assault on Pirak's compound, while the Shakaar Resistance Cell took advantage of the chaos to go through the proverbial back door.
"This is the compound," Shakaar explained, as we gathered around and looked at the rather crudely drawn map. Sigh, I really was part of a rag tag group of terrorists now, wasn't I? "We were able to get this intelligence from our people inside, who are posing as servants."
The compound didn't look that secure really. Sure, it had its own perimeter shield and there were guard posts, but there were no watch towers, no heavy weapons, no laser fence, no minefield, nothing. Either this Cardassian wasn't that important in the Occupation hierarchy, or the Cardassians had gotten really freaking complacent over the years. I suspected it was probably a little of both.
"What can we expect in terms of opposition?" I asked aloud, still looking over the compound layout and committing it to memory.
Shakaar seemed happy that someone had asked that question. Patriotism and fanaticism were all well and good, in fact they were great qualities to have in a freedom fighter fighting against impossible odds and facing near certain death, but recognizing and being honest about the cold hard realities of war (and your group's limitations) were important if you wanted to last longer than your first mission.
"Minimal, at the moment, especially given recent local losses they've sustained," he answered, sending a nod of appreciation in my direction. I nodded back in acknowledgement. "The compound typically relies on the local garrison for support, or beamed in troops. Thankfully, we have roughly twenty minutes before reinforcements are beamed in from somewhere else on the planet."
That was actually a very long time given how fast and easy beaming was.
"Why so long?" another freedom fighter asked, this one looking more experienced. His name was Furel, I'd learned. Thank God some of these fools were semi-competent. His woman, Lupaza, had been eye fucking me ever since Kira had sung my praises about my sexual prowess in the…I was about to say 'bedroom' but cave floor had been the only option. Hopefully they had an open relationship, because I didn't want to kill one of the few semi-competent guys in Shakaar's Resistance cell if she made a move and I didn't say no.
Now it was my turn to answer.
"One of the technologies I brought with me is a 'beaming scrambler.' If anyone beams in without first finding a way to counter the scrambling field then they won't survive the trip," I told the rebels with a bloodthirsty grin. Their answering smiles was a good sign I was being somewhat accepted. "I'll have the device with me when we breach the compound and I'll set it up once the attack begins."
This device was highly illegal in the Federation, but like I'd come to expect, Section 31 really didn't give a fuck. Starfleet, of course, even during wartime, preferred transport inhibitors, a device which prevented the use of transporters in a certain area, either in or out, by projecting a form of interference. A beaming scrambler, on the other hand, was far more messy, brutal even, as it didn't actually prevent the transport from taking place, rather it prevented the object or person being beamed to a location from rematerializing correctly. So, if Cardassian troops tried to emergency beam into the compound responding to Pirak's distress call, while the scrambler was active, then they would die most horribly upon rematerializing. Imagine a jigsaw puzzle being forced together incorrectly and you got a good idea for what would happen if they tried. Humanoids didn't survive that.
Unfortunately, most competent transporter operators, at least those using military grade transporters and transport sensors, were trained to detect such a field and not allow transport to take place, but who knows, we might get lucky.
"That should also scramble their sensors, right?" one of the rebels asked me.
I nodded my head in affirmation. They'd be able to detect a transport scrambling field, but not much else for a while.
"For a while at least, but they'll overcome that eventually," I told everyone.
I had a question that was pretty important.
"What is our exfil plan?" I asked.
I was soon given an answer.
"That, I was able to arrange," Shakaar answered. "We have our own transport standing by, which will get everyone out of the area before the Cardassians can send in a larger force."
Since the Cardies had a large standing force stationed on the planet permanently, and perhaps even warships in orbit/in system/in the sector, that meant the rebels couldn't win any major battles. They couldn't when they didn't have ships of their own that could challenge the Cardassians. No, they had to hit soft targets hard and fast else they'd be destroyed from orbit or beamed into an interrogation holding cell. This operation was probably one of the biggest direct assaults they'd ever tried their hand at and would send a major message to the Cardassians, and more importantly, the Bajoran people.
"And that will be your exit, Gothic," Shakaar said, sounding somewhat sorry for it. "I don't want the Bajoran people to know that we had off world help in this mission, especially this one. It wouldn't be good for morale."
What was left unsaid was that a victory by Bajorans for Bajorans, with no known outside help, would have a much greater impact on the Resistance's recruitment efforts. That was fine with me; I wasn't here to gain recognition as a war hero or undermine the Resistance's reputation. On the other hand, it would be pretty cool to be considered one of the Heroes of the Occupation, someone who was instrumental in driving the Cardassians off the planet. That kind of reputation would certainly be useful to me once the Bajorans were free again. Ah well, there would be other opportunities to gain some fame, and besides, the right people would know how I had helped.
"Seems you guys have a decent grasp of Guerrilla warfare," I said.
That got me some confused looks. I suppose the universal translator didn't have a direct translation available.
"It's a term from my homeworld. Guerrilla warfare is a form of irregular warfare in which a small group of combatants, such as paramilitary personnel or armed civilians, use military tactics such as ambushes, sabotage, raids, petty warfare, hit-and-run tactics, and mobility to fight a larger and less-mobile formal military," I explained.
That didn't clear things up, and that was unsurprising given that most of the people in this cell were local to the area, which was mostly made up of farms. The irony of it all was that I used to be on the other side of this formula in Iraq and Afghanistan, part of the less-mobile formal military, as it were.
"Guerrilla warfare is what we call how you're fighting, back home," I explained. "It's when you have a small, mobile force, like this cell, competing against a larger, more unwieldy one, the Cardassians."
Everyone seemed to be listening to me intently so I kept talking.
"A guerrilla army seeks to avoid any direct confrontation with large units of enemy troops, instead they seek out and destroy small groups of enemy soldiers or soft targets in order to minimize friendly losses while still killing and demoralizing the enemy," I continued to explain. "They also don't limit their targets to just troops. Enemy resources, like food stores, for example, and weapon caches, are destroyed or stolen to allow the guerillas to continue fighting while simultaneously weakening their enemies.
I had more to say since my audience seemed like they were finally getting it.
"It's what you guys are doing here and now with the Cardassians. You do anything you can to weaken the enemy's strength and resolve, in order to force the enemy to voluntarily withdraw from the planet," I said. "The last thing anyone wants, even the Cardassian people, is a large-scale conflict with an enemy that is too fanatic to know when to quit, with a huge corresponding cost in lives and resources. Their reputation would take a huge hit with the other powers and weaken them with the rest of the Union planets."
Bajor would have to become to Cardassia, like Vietnam had been to the United States, for them to win, I thought.
I noticed that the future major looked confused.
"Why?" Kira asked, a sneer on her face. "Are you afraid of staying here too long and getting your hands dirty?"
That wasn't the reason, in fact she had completely misunderstood what I was attempting to explain. And hadn't she just seen me gun down six Cardassian soldiers in a bar?
"No, it's because you simply can't win a full-scale war against the Cardassians," I answered, wondering if maybe this dose of hard reality was going to undermine my place here. "And your leaders know this. That's why they broke the Resistance up into cells who operate independently of each other, with distributed and independent command and control. Each cell doesn't even know the makeup of the other cells or where their hideouts are located. It's not just to protect the whole rebellion, which it does if one cell is compromised, it's because you can't beat the Cardassians. You don't have the numbers, or the resources, or the technology, and even if you did, they could just wipe you all out from orbit or release some kind of biotoxin to kill every Bajoran on the planet but leave them alone. No, the only way to get rid of the Cardies is to make it too expensive, too unprofitable, for them to stay here for the limited reward. That way, they'll leave voluntarily."
I figured Shakaar already knew this, but he seemed intrigued anyway. Maybe no one had ever put it in these simple terms for him. Rhetoric and patriotic zeal often led to overly complicated arguments that were essentially unwinnable.
"What do you mean?" he asked me leadingly. "Why would they leave voluntarily?
It was the sign of a good leader that he used discussions like these to teach his troops important lessons, even ones he already knew.
I decided to humor him as he was most likely evaluating me to determine just how valuable I'd be to his group and how much military know how I brought to the table.
"The Cardassians took over this planet solely because they need its resources, both of the natural kind and the people itself," I answered.
"How are we, as a people, a resource?" Kira asked.
"Before the Occupation your people were peaceful, pacifistic, at a level of technology that was advanced enough to make you useful, but ultimately no threat to them, in a strategic location close to their homeworld, yet with no formal ties to any other more powerful polity who could protect you or give them pause, like the Federation," I replied, trying to convey the truth but not be insulting about it. "After your people were conquered, and yes, I said that word deliberately, you were used as another resource, as cheap, disposable slave labor."
With those words a pall fell over the group. Many of them had had family and friends go into the forced labor camps and never come out. Horror stories that would chill your blood routinely came out of those hellish places.
"Going back to my original point, occupation forces aren't cheap. They have to pay the soldiers, and they pay even more to support their people here and their operations with equipment and technology and construction. The only reason they'd do that is because they're getting more out of this occupation then they are putting into it. So, if you can make it too costly for them to stay here, to have them operate at a loss as it were, then they will leave. All on their own. Voluntarily."
I paused for effect, but I hadn't finished making my point.
"The best thing the Resistance can do is to make the Occupation too expensive to maintain. So you need to destroy their mines, their farms, their ore processers, their refineries, pretty much anything that they are actively profiting from," I advised the group. "If they build a bridge, blow it up, if they build a warehouse, burn it down, and so on."
I had just a little more to say.
"But if you just start killing every Cardassian you encounter, indiscriminately, then you stop being merely an annoyance, an additional expense, and instead become a true threat to their race that they won't tolerate," I warned solemnly. "If that happens, they'll wipe out your entire population and just settle the planet with their own kind. You need to make this planet too uncomfortable and too expensive for them to stay on, yet without making your people an actual viable threat to their empire or the Cardassian race as a whole."
Shakaar nodded his head, his people looking shocked at his agreement.
"However, we also need to give the people hope, to show them that the Cardassians can be beaten and that actions have consequences," he stated. "We do that by killing Gul Pirak and showing everyone that we can resist the Cardassians, that we can beat them, and that it's possible for things to change on Bajor."
Wholesale and indiscriminate slaughter of random Cardassians wouldn't help, but the targeted assassination of select Cardassian military officers could help, especially if they were overly cruel. Do it often enough and no would want to take the job and those that did might think twice before executing Bajoran civilians for ridiculous reasons. Our actions now and going forward would be designed to make it very difficult for the Cardassians to keep their Occupation running smoothly and perhaps more importantly, profitably.
XXXXX
Gul Pirak's Compound. Bajor.
While much of the compound's normal guard complement had been drawn away by another Resistance cell's diversionary attack, that didn't mean that the place was completely defenseless. It was still heavily shielded, that alone would have ended this kind of attack in its tracks given the lack of advanced technology the Resistance normally had access to. Fortunately, the Bajorans working inside the compound would, at the right moment, lower those shields for us.
"The shield is down," a rebel reported, obviously having gotten a pre-determined signal from whoever they had inside.
I doubled checked this with my custom designed tricorder.
"Then, let's go!" I said, before taking off at a slow run so that they could keep up, a phaser pistol in my left hand and a sword in the other. I had gotten several looks of surprise when I had pulled it out, but no one had actually said anything.
And, with that, the Shakaar Resistance cell swung into action, intent on completing the mission.
Upon entering one of the rear buildings, which contained a communications station, I got my first kill of the day.
"Gack-!" said the Cardassian as he died.
Perhaps he would have made more comprehensible and respectable death throes, but that was kind of hard to do when your neck had been sliced clean open with a razor-sharp sword of all things. That brief yell was still quieter than the discharge of my phaser would have been.
"Communications is clear," I reported into the comm device I'd been given. "Setting up the scrambler now."
Which took me about 20 seconds to do, which left me with plenty of time to attach a device to the computer systems.
"And that's their communications down," I reported again, a bit smugly.
I loved being a spy; it meant I got to play with all the coolest toys.
"What did you do?" Kira asked, but smartly continued to monitor the points of entry in case a Cardassian came to check on this guy and why he was out of contact.
I answered her.
"The device I just used will play havoc with their communications," I told her. "It's a little something that I picked up on the Federation frontier."
Which wasn't a lie, it was just that the device hadn't originally come from the Federation, it was actually repurposed Romulan tech.
"A contingent of Cardassian soldiers managed to beam into the compound before the scrambler came on," I heard the leader of the other cell report over the comm, the one who was conducting the frontal assault. "We need backup over here!"
Then another voice spoke.
"If I know Gul Pirak, he will be holed up in his bunker until additional reinforcements arrive," a Cardassian said.
"Then we don't have much time," Shakaar replied. "We have to move now."
Judging by the increased sounds of phaser fire, I was needed elsewhere.
"Then we better get moving," I said to Kira.
XXXXX
Twisting the dial ring to a delayed impact detonation mode, which would cause the plasma grenade to detonate 2 second after impact with a hard surface, I activated the grenade and threw it hard towards the two Cardies who had been guarding it, expertly banking it off two walls in order to have it fall right at their feet, the 2 second countdown had started after it hit that first wall. A thunderous roar and two dead and melted/burned aliens were the results of my action.
"The hallway is clear, but I am detecting more Cardassians inside," I reported to Kira while checking my tricorder again, altering its scanning method in an attempt to get a more definitive headcount. Needing to keep one hand tied up holding the fucking thing just felt stupid. I'd have to come up with something better that kept my hands free.
Thankfully, the beaming scrambler didn't affect the sensors in my tricorder, since I already knew the interference frequencies the scrambler was putting out, which was a great advantage for me. I would, of course, have to alter the frequencies if I used a scrambler again, as the enemy would have had time to figure them out as well. That wasn't a big deal as a simple retuning of my tricorder for the new frequencies was all that was required. I had a vague plan to redesign the device in order to integrate its functionality into my armor. That was long in the future though.
"How many?" Kira asked, all business.
"A dozen inside, maybe more," I replied quickly and succinctly. "It's hard to tell. The walls are very thick and made out of some dense metal that's making it hard to scan through."
Augment or not, 12 (or more) to 1 weren't great odds, at least not in a confined space. I would have limited room to maneuver and I wouldn't be taking these Cardassians by surprise. I was just as susceptible to a lucky shot as anyone else.
"They have to be Gul Pirak's elite guard," Shaakar said over the comm. Kirea must have relayed our tactical situation while I was futzing around with the tricorder and kept the comm line open. "They are never far from him."
I was already coming up with a plan.
"Then we'll have to separate them," I said. "Permanently."
I was glad my philosophy was one of overkill because I still had several grenades left.
"You better be careful with those," Kira urged, warily looking at the grenades in my hands, having seen the sheer havoc I could cause with them.
Cardassian soldiers came skidding around the corner, having gotten behind us, only to be gunned down by me with ruthless precision fire before any of them could even properly aim their weapons, even Kira.
"By the Prophets, you're fast!" Kira exclaimed.
Indeed, I was.
"Okay, it's grenade time," I said with a grin. My grin got even wider at Kira's unconscious wince.
Using another useful device Section 31 had provided me for this mission, I opened the thick door to the secure room that contained the Gul's elite bodyguards just long enough to one-handed throw three active grenades inside on a 2 second timer, purposely ensuring one went to the left, center, and right of the room, yelling "Catch!"
The looks of shock and horror on their faces as the door closed was freaking priceless! The thick door cutting off their screams of terror abruptly-someone must have been watching a video feed to have known what kind of danger they were in-before the muted boom of blossoming plasma was heard. Reopening the door, thankfully it still worked, acrid black smoke billowed out of the room, the lights flickering inside from being damaged by the explosions.
"Disgusting," Kira said, as she looked at the burned and melted bodies. The smell wasn't much better. Death by plasma grenade was not a pretty sight, as the body's fluids superheated and exploded out of the body.
She hated Cardassians with a burning passion, but apparently seeing them like this upset her. Women were just funny like that.
"But effective," I reposted grimly.
Once we got past the now dead guards we discovered that the Gul had a sort of basement/panic room that was down a set of stairs carved deep into the bedrock of the area. At the bottom of the stairs was a very solid looking door with an elaborate lock.
"Can you unlock this door too?" Kira asked.
We were about to find out. Incidentally, the amount of help I'd provided in terms of my own skills and the tech I had brought to the table made me really wonder if this mission would have gone as well without me. I had a feeling that they'd bitten off way more than they could chew with this one and it was only my presence, equipment, and abilities that had made it possible with so few casualties. No, without my assistance they'd have had to go with Kira's suggestion and used a bomb, because there was no way they'd have been able to pull off a direct assault with the resources they had available.
"Troop reinforcements are on their way here," a grim voice reported over the comm. "We've got less than five minutes before we're overrun."
The audible phaser fire was becoming less frequent now and since Bajoran weapons sounded different from Cardassian ones I could hope that it was mostly Bajorans who were firing. 'Bajoran weapons', though, pretty much meant the hodgepodge of Klingon, Ferengi, Romulan, Orion, Federation, etc., weapons they'd managed to get ahold of…plus the weapons they'd stolen from the Cardassians themselves, so God knows what the situation was like out there. Hopefully most of the Cardies were already dead.
"Once we take care of Pirak, we leave immediately, there is no time for more," Shaakar said over the comm, meaning no more time to continue to rob the place blind I assumed, which was a necessity for a group like the Resistance, though I'm sure they grabbed a choice few things. One of the secondary objectives was to grab as many weapons and technology, and valuable intel as they could. "A stolen Cardassian shuttle will be waiting."
At least things were still going mostly according to plan. At several points the only way the Bajorans would have been able to continue this mission was because of my technology or skill.
"Let's not keep Pirak waiting," I said to Kira, whose only response was a bloodthirsty grin.
I headed down the steps, but only after I had thoroughly scanned the hallway and found no hidden surprises, which was kind of crazy in my opinion, but I suppose Pirak thought it unlikely anyone would ever get this far. Or, more accurately, he thought he'd have been able to beam away from any serious danger long before the Bajorans got this far. My transport scrambler had made that a very dangerous proposition. After several long and tense moments, I successfully unlocked the door. When I got inside I found the Gul with a Cardassian pistol pressed against the side of the head of his Bajoran sex slave/concubine, who he was standing behind and using as a living shield. I had to do a double take at how much of a cliché this all was. This was some straight out of the movies bullshit right here.
I knew he was planning to use her as a mean of escape, probably trying to play on our sympathies, thinking that the rebels wouldn't shoot him, probably, as long as he had a Bajoran hostage, though even that was up for serious debate. If the Resistance viewed her as a collaborator, rather than an unwilling victim, then they probably wouldn't bat an eye at shooting the woman, Bajoran or not. There was a reason the Bajoran Resistance had succeeded in driving the Cardassians off Bajor in canon after all. They hadn't been afraid to make the hard choices.
How that would have played out if I hadn't been here, we'd never know, because sadly for him, I was incredibly fast and had really, really, really good hand eye coordination. Faster than his eye could follow I brought my weapon up from its ready position, aimed and fired faster than he could blink, hitting his weapon, which destroyed the weapon and coincidentally took his hand right along with it. Now screaming in pain and terror, when the evil Gul Pirak instinctively raised the cauterized stump of a hand to his eyes to see how I had maimed him, the woman was unceremoniously dropped to the ground and I wasted no time shooting the Gul in the head. Even after he fell to the ground unmoving, I took several quick steps forward and pointed my phaser down at the body and put a few more shots into his chest and head for good measure. No reason to take a chance on these things after all.
"It's okay," Kira offered in comfort, while racing over to the scared, screaming, and weeping Bajoran woman. "He can't hurt you anymore."
There was no time for Kira to comfort the woman.
"We have to get out of here," I stated, knowing reinforcements were coming.
Thankfully the beaming scrambler was still working, as killing the Gul hadn't taken very long. The only thing we had to worry about were the reinforcements that we'd been warned about.
Unfortunately, I couldn't stop, deactivate, and retrieve the beaming scrambler I'd used to such great effect this mission. We'd be neck deep in Cardassians in seconds if that protection ended too soon. No, sigh, it was an acceptable loss, I thought. This mission would hopefully prove my worth to the Resistance after all.
Once we got in the air and were away from the base, I pushed a button on my tricorder and remote detonated the 2 grenades I'd hidden in the communications room right next to the scrambler. No reason to let the Cardassians have time examining it and developing countermeasures. If there were any Cardassian soldiers in the room at the time, even better.
XXXXX
Hidden Rebel Base. Bajor.
Not long after the attack I found myself back in the part of the cave network I'd slept in last night. I was keeping myself busy by cleaning my sword, since I'd already thoroughly cleaned my phaser pistols. The Cardassian blood was really turning out to be hard to get off the blade, even staining it in a few places, possibly due to some unique aspect of their physiology that I hadn't bothered to learn about. Once I was done I'd sharpen and then polish it following the 'grain' of the sword.
24th century metallurgy was advanced enough that it made most of this largely unnecessary, especially the manual way I was doing it versus just using some fancy bit of technology that could get it done perfectly in 20 seconds, but I had always enjoyed the act of taking care of my weapons, the physicality of it, the repetition that came together for a visible positive result. The combat engineer in me enjoyed the mindless, but useful act I guess.
"So, I hear Shaakar wants you to stick around for a while," Kira said as she munched away on a ration bar, having watched me work on my weapons and doing some cleaning and maintenance of her own. "He must think you would be useful to the Resistance."
Well, he wasn't wrong. I think I'd well proven both my usefulness and willingness to get my hands dirty by killing Cardassians as needed during this last mission.
"What did he offer you for your help?" Kira asked me, knowing that there was no way I'd even consider it without something in payment. Even with only the brief time she'd spent with me, she knew I wanted to be paid for my services. Thankfully, as a Bajoran, she wasn't indoctrinated with that holier than thou attitude towards money that those in the Federation had. She saw nothing wrong with getting paid and making a profit, especially since this wasn't truly my people or my cause I'd be fighting for, though she knew I was sympathetic and willing to help.
Shakaar wasn't stupid, he knew that you didn't get something valuable for nothing, not in this galaxy.
"Land and citizenship," I answered the Bajoran woman. "Shakaar thinks that anyone who fights for Bajor should be allowed to own some of the planet, or quite a bit of it in my case."
Which made sense and was actually pretty enticing to me, even beyond the fact that joining up with the Resistance was already an objective of this mission. I would have joined up with the Resistance for far less. Bajor really was a beautiful planet, with a wonderful people, and the idea of putting down roots here wasn't unappealing, especially with how important Bajor was going to be in the future as soon as the wormhole was discovered. There would be some prejudice due to me being an alien here, an outsider, but the locals would accept me if I helped end the occupation. Land and citizenship and most likely unfettered career options meant a lot of opportunities for me. If I came out of the Occupation as a much-loved war hero who helped drive the Cardassians off the planet, then I'd be in an even better position with the influence I'd have.
"He assures me he'll sort out an official Bajoran citizenship for me once you guys form your own government," I explained to Kira. "Augments are barred from joining Starfleet or going into government back in the Federation, but things could be different for me here."
If I was offered an official position with the Bajoran military after the Occupation, then there were even more opportunities. Many in the Resistance became the Bajoran military after the Occupation was over. Bajor would eventually join the Federation and their military would be somewhat absorbed into the larger structures of the Federation. It was not without precedent that certain things the Federation didn't allow would be grandfathered in when a new planet joined. If I was already an officer in Bajor's military I might be similarly grandfathered in when they received membership, which might be a nice way to end run Federation law prohibiting me from any official position.
"Will you stay?" she asked me. In other words, asking if I had accepted Shakaar's offer. I hadn't yet, but only because, again, appearing too eager would be a mistake. This was a huge decision and I had to give the appearance of seriously considering it.
I could certainly benefit from spending more time on Bajor. I was a good fighter, but I could be much better. There would be no end of opportunities for violence and combat while here to perfect my soldiering skills. Bajor could be my crucible, where I could be tested and learn what it meant to truly fight as an Augment. There was also the chance of getting my hands on some state-of-the-art Cardassian military technology to improve my ship, also a nice perk.
"I'm still thinking about it," I lied.
"Maybe I can convince you," Kira said with a devilish smirk.
I only needed to look into her eyes to see how she planned on going about doing that.
"You fuck one woman into unconsciousness," I muttered quietly to myself, slightly shaking my head.
Thankfully, Kira had started undressing so she hadn't been paying attention.
"Did you say something?" she asked.
I shook my head and decided to let the Bajoran rebels know in the morning that I'd accepted their offer. Visions of a beautiful fortress home on a sprawling and idyllic stretch of land on Bajor now going through my head. Would putting in my own holodeck be too over the top? Maybe building on an island would be a good idea, giving me a beautiful and isolated locale, especially if I owned the entire island. It didn't even need to be that big.
I could see it now, miles of sandy white, clothing forbidden beaches sounded perfect for unwinding. Isolated little lagoons with turquoise waters for sexy seclusion. Maybe even put in a in a beachside cabana, with its own beverage replicator, frozen daiquiris flowing like water. I could even take my hoverbike out over the water, a sexy, naked alien woman clutching me tightly from behind as we flew over the bright blue water.
My little daydream of the future over, staying would at least mean I'd have plenty of opportunities to ruin Kira for other men. Assuming I hadn't already.
XXXXX
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Chapter 16: 18,963 words
Chapter 17: 19,601 words
