T'Lyn strode to the Bridge, easily outpacing the rest of her friends. It was good to be able to put all of her nervous energy into some sort of action at last. As Mariner would put it, problems that couldn't be kicked could be extremely frustrating. She had hoped she had kept it hidden well enough, but the recent situation had been nigh-on intolerable to her.
When she had been sat with Ensign Sky on the ship, simply left to twiddle her thumbs, T'Lyn had almost been reduced to tapping her leg just to give her body something to do. She had been displeased to find that Mariner and Boimler would be leaving them behind while they went on alone, although she did understand why this was the choice that was made. She might have been stronger and faster, but she was by far outclassed in diplomacy. She didn't think it would have been as easy for Ransom to quickly come up with a convincing cover story for their presence at the museum had she been one of the pair on trial either.
This had left her sat with Ensign Sky. She had tried to subtly study this person as a distraction for her worry over Tendi. They had sat in total silence. This suited T'Lyn just fine, but seemed unusual for a human. T'Lyn had found that that species often liked to chat while nervous, although that may have been thanks to the Lower Decks friends she had made while on board the Cerritos. Mariner and Boimler were especially bad at resting in silence; Tendi and Rutherford could at least be quiet when fixated on their work.
Ensign Sky had no discernable features apart from their height and voice. These things told T'Lyn very little, apart from that they were likely human. T'Lyn cared less for who they were than why they were here. Although this was her first encounter with the odd behavior of the Q she of course had read about them. It didn't seem logical for him to place someone here without reason…but the Q were not a logical race. This irked her. So it was then possible that Sky was here as some kind of practical joke. The worst of the options. The fact that Ensign Sky had managed to correctly procure drinks for the team, as well as have an unerring knowledge of the layout of the Cerritos did seem to imply Q could have done this to amuse himself.
Nevertheless, it had been a surprise when Ensign Sky had spoken up while they were sat in silence on the shuttle.
"Do you want to meditate together?" Ensign Sky had said.
T'Lyn had been caught off guard. She found it rare that humans would want to engage with meditation in the same way that vulcans would. This activity did however make the time until the Lieutenants got back seem to pass much more quickly. It also meant T'Lyn retained the self control not to rip the door off the shuttle and toss it as far as possible when they had returned with bad news.
The thought of potentially losing Lieutenant Tendi worried T'Lyn a lot. As dissimilar as their personalities might appear at first glance, Tendi was her science bestie. The one who had made sure she integrated onto the ship. The one who would always ask how she was doing, even if this wasn't a typical thing to ask vulcans. Her loss would be devastating. And so it could not be permitted to happen.
Hence the intense power walk to the bridge of the Cerritos. The doors opened to reveal Ransom opposite a paused video message, Lieutenant Kayshon at his shoulder.
"Good, you're here." Ransom replied, and then frowned. "Where are the others?"
Oh dear. T'Lyn had apparently sped away from the rest of the group altogether. She was sure they would catch up in a second. This gave her more time to study what was on the screen covering most of the bridge.
The one on the left was a ferengi, which - coupled with Ransom's tone when he had called them over - did not fill T'Lyn with much hope. On the right stood a humanoid being - it could have passed for human barring the two additional arms protruding from the shoulders. The frame had been paused with the latter's mouth open. Another species might have found it amusing.
The others had caught up now and settled in next to her. She heard Mariner snigger at the screen in front of them.
"As we're all here, I'll just play this delightful message we just received to you all." The side of his lip twitching slightly, Ransom tapped the edge of his chair.
The message on the screen started to play.
"Okay, go. Go! Hello, Cerritos! You will have no doubt noticed by this point that we have something you desire. Luckily for you, we are reasonable. We are happy to trade with you for something of an equal of higher value. Due to the time pressure, we would expect higher…but you are of course free to disappoint us. Send us a message with your offer when you are ready. Don't bother trying to trick you - you'll notice how easily we overheard your message. Out."
T'Lyn was unimpressed. Judging from their faces, neither were Mariner, Boimler, or Ransom. Sky gave no indication, but T'Lyn would like to think they also thought this was amateur hour.
"Wow, that could have been straight out of a holonovel." Boimler commented.
"And not a good one." Mariner finished up.
"I concur." T'Lyn had not read such holonovels, but she could imagine.
Ransom stroked his stubble. "Well, seems to be that they're a bit inexperienced as pirates at any rate if they're borrowing from holonovels - better at hacking into subspace comms than trade negotiations I would guess. Hopefully it will be easy enough to sort this out through a face to face chat. Hail them!"
The Ensign on bridge duty got them right away. The fergeni answered. "Uh, hello?"
"This is Commander Ransom of the USS Cerritos. You know, the ship you're trying to blackmail."
"Yes, of course. I thought we told you to leave us a message."
He hurriedly muted the call and summoned his accomplice over. It was quite interesting to watch what was clearly an animated conversation with no sound. Why they didn't turn off the camera escaped even T'Lyn.
Eventually they worked out whatever they were doing and turned back to the morbidly curious confused faces on the Cerritos. Humanoid spoke haughtily. "We told you to leave a message, not to bother us without warning."
Boimler stepped forward. "We know, but this is a matter of great ur-"
"We're not here to talk to lower decks." Humanoid cut in. How rude.
Boimler gritted his teeth. "But you ne-"
"We already heard the story over your communication, remember? Now, Commander, what do you have to offer us?"
"I'm ready to offer you a foot up your ass!" Mariner walked right up the screen with some pace. Both Ferengi and Humanoid jumped like she might walk though it and do exactly as she threatened before recovering their composure.
Ferengi finally piped back up. "You will do no such thing! Starfleet regulations wouldn't allow it."
Mariner closed the remaining distance with the screen. "Oh, I will take great joy in going to the brig after knocking the two of your heads together and locking you in your own supply closet."
T'Lyn assumed she had widened her eyes to show the whites and give a slightly unhinged expression. At least, that's what she would do. It seemed to be working if the slightly terrified expressions of their opponents were to be believed.
"Mariner!" Ransom finally thought it was enough and pulled her back by the shoulder, passing her to Boimler for safekeeping. Mariner simply continued glowering at the screen throughout the exchange.
"My apologies gentlemen. You do realise that the Bynars are part of the Federation, and thus Starfleet will be aiding the recovery of what you stole?"
Humanoid opened his arms. "And by the time you've filled in all your little forms about that, we'll have sold it on. There's no record of us on Bynaus, I can assure you. But there is of you. I'm sure we can do something with that. If you do come after us, well, good luck. Trust me, it won't end up well for you."
Mariner's face was positively feral. Boimler squeezed her arm in an obvious plea for her to remain quiet. For their part, Sky had stood silently beside T'Lyn for the duration so far, who was also trying not to draw particular attention. It was easier to surprise an enemy who wasn't paying attention to you.
Ransom stared at the screen for a second. "We will find something of suitable value for your tastes on board. Valuable as well as famous, I assume?"
"Yes! Only send us a message when it's ready. And send us a damn message this time! You'd think Starfleet would know how to take instructions - it's like, the one thing you guys do."
The communication cut off.
"Those are some rude-ass aliens." This was Sky's first comment on the matter, but also an accurate one.
"I'll say." Mariner agreed.
This was one of the reasons T'Lyn thought Ransom's plan would work. At least, the plan she assumed he had. If not, she would have to express her disdain and then they would do the same thing, but it would be called T'Lyn's plan. "Commander, I assume we're going immediately to take it off of them?"
"Correct, Lieutenant. Fingers crossed it will be simple, given their apparent arrogance and inexperience. Once we have retrieved the artefact, we can inform the Bynars we have their thief too - then Starfleet never needs to hear about us being there. We just happened to have an onboard problem that could be solved with the thing we had just recovered, and so used it. Plus…I would just enjoy a tiny bit of rubbing it in their faces."
Mariner blew out a breath. "Thank Starfleet, Commander, I thought I was going to have to mutiny there."
Sky nodded in agreement. "Yeah, and I'd have helped. Uh, no offense sir!"
Ransom raised an eyebrow. "Nice to see the faith you guys have in my intelligence. Might as well keep the same away team - get ready, I doubt it should take us long to catch up. Boimler, T'Lyn, please make sure the other two don't make any rash decisions."
T'Lyn feared she would be forced to do the heavy lifting on that instruction. Boimler was very generally very poor at holding back Mariner's more…colourful ideas. She was currently giving him a manic smile while he gave her a flat look in return.
Ransom was tapping away nervously with one finger on his chair as the team turned to get ready. T'Lyn understood his fear - they were running out of time. She silently hoped their new opposition were as incompetent as they seemed.
As Ransom had predicted it wasn't long at all until the Cerritos had crept up on a smaller ship. It was sleek and shiny, not a mark on it. That corroborated the "new at this, but rich" theory at least.
They were easily within sensor range now, so she assumed Ransom would be dealing with an indignant call as soon as they were noticed. Good. A perfect distraction of their time. The four were now assembled on the transporter pads and ready for action. Energise.
The transporter dropped them into the corresponding room on the other ship. As expected, the shields hadn't been up. It looked much the same. The transporter room had been chosen as it was least likely to arouse immediate suspicion of red alarms - sure, something would show up, but hopefully they would be too distracted to pay any attention.
"We should split up. We don't know what else is on this ship. The Cerritos will be pulling us in 20 minutes, so keep your combadges on you. Mariner and Boimler, you head through the main set of corridors. Sky and I will travel via the Jeffries tubes." T'Lyn didn't like splitting up, but in a heist it was a necessary move. She caught Boimler's eye and gave him what she hoped was a meaningful look. He just seemed a little disturbed instead as Mariner pulled him out the main doors.
Sky's head was turned in T'Lyn's direction. "Hey, it's really nice that you want to be my partner. I won't let you down!"
"These were the logical pairings. We need to succeed." T'Lyn pried a vent cover off the wall with ease.
"Don't worry, I'm great with stuff like this. My scores for the first and second undercover and espionage modules at the Academy were stellar."
T'Lyn was tempted to ask what had gone wrong in their third year, but now was not the time. She jumped up into the tunnel and crawled on. Suddenly, she was jerked to a stop by a hand on her ankle.
"Don't you smell that?" Sky whispered from behind her.
T'Lyn didn't. Like many vulcans she didn't care for the general smells associated with a Starfleet ship, and so had had her sense of smell dulled medically.
"Let me through." It was a good thing Sky was fairly wiry or they would have never been able to switch places without a lot more fussing and possibly some butter. T'Lyn was a bit disgruntled by the changeabout, but it made sense if Sky had noticed something she had not. Then why did she still feel rankled?
"I knew it! This was booby trapped, T'Lyn. If you'd crawled on a bit further, this whole tunnel would have been electrified. It's pretty cool the way they've set this up actually! They've even made sure to dampen the sound so we couldn't hear it. It was done pretty quickly though which is probably why I could still smell hot metal. One second, I should be able to disable this…" Sky's fingers were deft as they worked. It was about then T'Lyn realised she could in fact, see their fingers.
They had peeled off their gloves to work with their bare hands (an odd choice for safety, but T'Lyn could understand from the dexterity point of view). They were slender and powerful, even though they ended with somewhat chewed nails. The skin was a warm brown tone.
Sky caught her staring. "Oh! Ah, it was just easier…sorry…I didn't think."
"I will try not to think about this additional information." Which was true. T'Lyn would try not to. Whether she succeeded was a different question.
They hurried on. Along the way, they encountered a number of other trap attempts, including a large boulder they were forced into a storage cupboard based detour to avoid being flattered by, and one room which could only be described as "stickier on all surfaces than should have been possible". T'Lyn hoped Mariner and Boimler were faring just as well.
Finally T'Lyn could see a potentially useful area in a window panel to a side room. It appeared to be a storage room - or what would be a storage room, if there had been anything in it. From her vantage point, all she could see was shiny silver shelves, except for one object. Brown, with two large, flat surfaces opposite each other, a raised line in the centre. A small panel was built into the side. Just what she was looking for.
She turned to Sky. "We do not have long left. I will go, attempt to grab the object, then come back out and we can wait out the rest of the time. If something goes wrong, find the others or wait the time out somewhere. Do not get injured, we can try again."
Sky nodded assent.
T'Lyn opened the door, poking her head through for a 360 view. All clear. She carefully slipped in, not making a sound. Small, balanced steps took her around the edge of the room until she was as close as she could get without leaving it's cover. Now would be the tricky part. She kept her head moving around as she walked, scanning about her. She didn't trust these men, who for all their faults had clearly anticipated people coming after them to some degree.
As usual, she was right. Unfortunately, she had forgotten to account for the presence of "up" in her head pivoting calculations. All of her muscles contracted as she was hit by what felt like a bolt of lightning. The more rational part of her noticed the wires that leant gently on her now she was on the floor and deduced it must have been a taser.
Now, in itself this would not be too much of a problem. It was exactly for this reason that they had set a time for the transporter to automatically pull them back - capture or injuries would be negated. It probably would have helped if T'Lyn had actually made an effort to hide her combadge like the others. Instead it had been just tucked inside her sleeve. She was frankly astonished she'd been incapacitated. The thought "Pride comes before the Fall" was at the fore of her mind as Ferengi leapt down from their hiding place and swiftly grabbed her badge.
This left her contemplating the ever dwindling time till they were due to be pulled. Not having her combadge was less than ideal. Ferengi apparently also thought this situation was less than ideal as he seemed unsure what to do with her now. They didn't have more than a brief second to stare at each other in mutual horror before a massive bang sounded out to their left.
If T'Lyn didn't know better she'd have said they were at the start of a Klingon musical. The door T'Lyn had come from had slammed against the metal wall, but that wasn't even the worst part. A number of flashing lights pointed directly at them, dazzlingly brightly. Smoke also rolled out of the doors, accompanied by the sound of someone yelling. T'Lyn half expected someone to walk out with an electric guitar.
Instead it was…Mariner? The figure that stepped into the doorway was pretty hard to see with sensory nightmare that was taking place, but it was at least vaguely Mariner-shaped.
"What did I tell you before?!" The figure roared.
Ferengi leapt in the air; apparently the desired effect of this stunt. He staggered back. "It's you!"
"Yeah! Now I hope you prepared your face to meet my foot!" The figure took a threatening step forward, slamming their foot down with some force.
Ferengi jumped again and started to stammer. "I-uh..that..you-"
T'Lyn collected her dropped combadge swiftly now that her muscles were correctly responding again. She even managed to drag herself upright enough to get one hand onto the artefact they wanted. This did leave her with another, new, problem.
Mariner's eyes weren't blue.
She really did have some things to try very hard not to think about now. Meanwhile, she hoped Sky had a plan for then they were transported out in a couple of seconds from now. She hadn't been able to discern all that much through the lights and smoke, but in a clear transport room things would be very different. T'Lyn wasn't sure she had the self control not to stare just a little.
Well, she thought, at least that will be answered soon. She could hear the distinctive sound of a transporter starting operations.