All about the bars...

Posted on Thu Apr 8th, 2010 @ 5:45pm by Walter Jones & Charlotte Ashcroft & Jan Valentine & Kyle Bowman & Tyl'varas Shrive & Martok & T'ali Alaya'an

1,903 words; about a 10 minute read

Mission: Interlude SB-611
Location: SS Warden/SB-611

Jones smiled as the credit transfer came over from Starfleet, the ships account never looked so good. Even if it was a dirty job and they managed to get out by the skin of their teeth. Jones tapped the ship comm and sent a message for everyone to come to the kitchen for payment as well to talk about their next job.

Jones moved down and took a seat at the table and took a large bite out of one the apples on the table. It felt good to potentially have a job where no one would be shooting at them.

Jan dragged himself into the kitchen, exhausted. Grabbing a nutri-pack, he tore open the top and took a bite of the mysterious contents.

"Well, what's the word on the job?" Jan said.

"Hopefully just a milk run." Jones smiled as he bit into the apple. "But ya never know for sure really."

"Yeah..." Jan said, eating more of the decidedly bland nutri-pack.

For her part Lottie had slept soundly once they were clear of danger. She was padding around her quarters groggily when Jones' request came through. Rubbing the slumber from her eyes she pulled on some threadbare clothing and shuffled into the kitchen where Jones and Jan were already seated.

She mirrored the Captain reaching for an apple and took an unenthusiastic bite.

There was a loud curse as Kyle entered the kitchen, tripping over another raised door entrance "Damn frigging Cardassians and their damn door frames." He caught himself on the Kitchen counter and regained his balance before turning to the captain, "You called?" He said, imitating a butler’s voice as he grabbed a cup from behind a cupboard and pored some dark amber liquid into it.
Sipping it with a satisfied smile he turned to the Captain "What’s the word boss?" he asked.

"If you'd like Kyle, I could cut a notch into the door frames, just for you." Jan said, taking a jab at Kyle.

Kyle just pulled a face at the mechanic and continued his drink.

Walking in slowly, Shrive lifted up a bottle of blue liquid to his lips, apparently from his private stock. He nodded at the rest of the crew, and took a seat silently.

"Whatever this next job is, it'd better not involve going into battle, it's gonna be weeks before I can finish all the repairs, if I can even repair some of it. That starboard airlock is completely destroyed, and the number 2 impulse engine is a burnt out hulk." Jan said, shaking some dust from his hair.

Martok walked into the kitchen with a rahktijino in his right hand and an apple attached to a dagger in his left. "Whats new?" he said.

"Well since the majority of you are here, I'll go into the important thing first, and that is the payout from the last job, after ships cut everyone gets 291 bars of latinum, that includes bonus as well as a little extra that I kicked in for you guys because I appreciate your work." Jones tossed the data padd over to Lottie. "Not a bad haul all considering that it actually was kind of fun, and we got to get rid of that sniving rat Park, hell that is almost payment in itself. Any questions about that?"

"Fun. I got to blow shit up. That was awesome." Martok said in an almost childish manor.

Kyle nodded "Ditto to that, blowing the shit out of Cardassian ships is always fun."

"See that is the spirit." Jones smiled.

Lottie thumbed through the data padd. "What about the Freds? Are they keeping up their end of the deal?"

"Yeah, surprisingly, they are going to toss in some repairs, and they transfered the money over, and they haven't asked many questions about what happened back there." Jones took another big bite and looked at the slightly rotting core of the apple.

Lottie arched her brow at the news. "My God, you've got them eating out of your hand. Be interesting to see if that will help when we have our backs pressed against the wall in a tight spot."

"Yeah, I'm sure they are more then willing to throw us under the bus given the opportunity." Jones tossed the apple core over towards the trash can and it landed with a thud against the wall.

Kyle nodded "They do have a tendency to throw people like us to the dogs, especially when the shit hits the fan."



"Alright, burning question, what the hell are we doing next. Well... fortunately... I've arranged for us a little milk run for us, a little rest and relaxation if you will." Jones pressed a button on the kitchen table and watched as a hologram displayed on the wall. "We are headed into Klingon space hauling some passengers and cargo, mostly blood wine, some Targs, alive and otherwise and some dig site artifacts. Drop them off, pick up a shipment of holo emitters and then come back easy as cake."

"Nothing is better after a battle than the heart of a targ." Martok said.

"You are kidding; I'd rather lick the underside of a plasma conduit." Kyle rolled his eyes and swigged the last of his drink with a little grin.

T'ali walked into the room gracefully wearing long black pants with a long sleeve grey shirt and a long black open coat which brushed the floor behind her feet.

"Captain," she said bowing to him then leaning up against a wall to see everyones reaction. Her glowing blue eeyes flashing at the blue skinned man before looking back at the captain.

"Nice of you to join us Tali, I'll get to you in a bit." Jones turned and looked at Martok, "Part of the payment is some fresh Targ meet, you know how to cook any of it because I don't have the froggiest."

Across the desk Lottie stuck out her tounge at the idea. "Rather you then me." she said lowly.

"Targ is a Klingon delicacy of course I know how to cook it. We will have a feast." Martok said ignoring Lottie.

After taking another swig, Tyl looked up. "About this cargo. This sounds awfully familiar. Possibly even along the lines of a similar haul that a certain Klingon living on borrowed time might have mentioned in the past." After taking another swig, he gazed curiously towards Tali. "You're obviously not a normal pinkskin, but regardless. The next time you come at me, you'd better be ready to finish the job. If I weren't a bit curious, you'd be a stain on the wall already."

T'ali let out a small smirk then just looked at him with a emotionless face, her Iris's constantly glowing a deep blue, "If I wanted you dead blue guy you would be," she said standing up straight.

"I may not be able to remember much but one thing I do remember is that I know how to kill a person. More ways than I can count," she said as coldly as she could but inside she was terrified. It made her nervous that she couldnt remember how to the simplist things like write yet killing came easier to her than speaking. Her gaze moved to the captain and she leaned against the wall, "You say out of my way and I'll stay out of yours but if you have a problem I will meet you in the cargo bay for a hand to hand spar and gladly kick the shit out of you".

"That is enough you two... I'll throw you both out of an airlock... well ok I'll have Lottie do it... Be good until I get through this meeting." Jones smiled and then a kind of I'm crazy look. "The targs and wine and emitters are just cover, the real coin is from the artifacts, they are rare and are "Less then legal" to transport across federation borders. She is just giving us a reason for going across and an "official" cover as well as the passengers. We are getting 1200 for the artifacts and 500 for the Targs."

Shooting glances at Shrive and T'ali Lottie reclinded in her seat. "Less then legal, why doesn't that surprise me?"

"It pays well though, that is the most important thing I guess. It could be worse, and if you can come up with a job I'd be more then happy to take it under consideration." Jones looked around at the table.

"Seems like alot for some artifacts, exactly what are we dealing with?" Jan said.

"From what I understand they are some old Barjoran artifacts from a moon or something like that, some collector is paying top dollar and they want to make sure that they get their unmolested. I guess it is like those nuts who by the authentic reproduction coins on the galactic shopping network. Who knows, from what my contact says they aren't even real. But regardless, they can't go across federation lines without high tariffs and the Bajorans crying about stealing their heritage." Jones took a sip of water from the glass on the table. "The main thing we have to worry about is pirates in the Empire and along the way, the Orions have been acting up lately and I can't get a pass from the guild so we are on our own."

"Oh great...more junk from Jerrado." Jan said.

"Oh, come on Jan perk up," Lottoe rolled her eyes. "You only want the chance to show off skills at keeping this bird flying, though judging from the gifts from the Feds this should be a lot easier."

"Hardly, this junk the Feds gave us is barely worth its scrap value, and their "upgrades" to the warp core failed already." Jan said, pulling an unlabeled bottle out of a coat pocket.

"Since when did we need protection of a guild?" Lottie continued looking toward Jones taking another bit of her apple she held.

"Well I don't think we do but it never hurts to have a plan D or plan E." Jones took a sip of the water. "Any other questions?"

Yeh, Where's the rest of the Booze?" Kyle asked from the kitchen counter.

"Perhaps you'l like to volunteer yourself to buy some from the Station, otherwise we'll see you in the bar," Lottie rose feeling this meeting was closed and dumped the sticky apple core in the bin.

"Alcohol Consumption impairs your judgment," T'ali said standing up straight, "if there is nothing else captain I have .......things I would like to attend to".

Martok flicked his wrist and the apple core flew off his knife and into the trashcan and he sheathed his knife. "I don't know about ya'll, but I'm gonna catch some shut eye."

Jan took a long drink from his unlabeled bottle, drinking more than half of the strong alcohol in it. *gasp* "ahh, damn good stuff. I just hope tali hasn't completely destroyed my cabin, the detention cells have more holes in them than a colander." Jan said.

"Sounds good, we leave in a few days so go and get some R&R and such. Jan lets talk real quick about getting the old girl back in shape." Jones watched as the rest of the crew headed out to take care of their personal affairs."

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