Rondo

Posted on Tue Mar 13th, 2012 @ 5:28am by Walter Jones & Hank Tasco & Charlotte Ashcroft & Jan Valentine & Bruce Air (PNPC)

1,959 words; about a 10 minute read

Mission: Session 6: Take 5
Location: Sheila's Kitchen

All he could do was wait. Somehow the Doc had managed to find him so he could only hope that a more direct communication would do wonders. Walter had sent a coded subspace message to his crew, it would be good to see them all after such a long time. Fortunately this was a safe place to meet, even if it was just a private home.

"Well Doc, all we can do is wait to see who shows up and go from there."

A bright red transporter beam materialized a few feet from Walter, revealing the engineer.

"How ya doing guys?" Jan said, thrusting a bottle of vodka into the each of the men's hands.

"Better now that you are here!" Jones grabbed the bottle of Vodka and gave the engineer a hug. "Glad to see you are in more or less one piece, I've got some bacon sitting in the pan over there, help yourself. Hopefully this isn't just a three man party."

"Hope you have a ride back to the Warden planned for us, what's left of my runabout is likely burning up in the atmosphere a few thousand miles from here...."Jan said, happily taking a piece of bacon.

"I've got a sweet deal all lined up for us to get her back. Hows the eye?" Jones grinned and fiddled with the bottle of Vodka trying to get it open.

"Gives me a headache once in a while, but I've fully integrated with it, and even created a few 'special' functions that it's capable of now." Jan said.

As they discussed the future plots another transporter beam flickered through the space and deposited a slight woman into the protective arms of Jones' safe house.

Blinking away the bright lights that remained etched behind her eyelids Lottie Ashcroft surveyed the room and its occupants briefly before returned her drawn weapon into its holster apparently satisfied that these were indeed the men she once knew.

"Well aren't you all a sight for sore eyes," she said moving closer.

"Lotti! Still as pretty as ever!" Jones smiled as he finally got the plug out of the Vodka bottle and moved over to Charlotte "I'm glad to see that you are still among the living, welcome to my sisters humble abode." He was glad to see that everyone had managed to find their way back to him. "How are you dear?"

She shrugged her shoulders the punk style hair wobbled like jelly, "Oh you know same old, living the dream plus finding myself knocked up so no funny business."

"Wait... what..." Jones stopped fiddling with the bottle "How did that happen? Well, I mean I know the mechanics of it..." Jones stood with his mouth slightly open.

Lottie chuckled at his comment lightly slapping his shoulder she smirked: "Sure you do. Now is that bacon I can smell?"

“I guess this is the place,“ Hank said to himself as he compared the address to the one in his notebook he had quickly scribbled down back in the bar. Better looking than I thought it would be for a safe house thought Hank as he walked up to the door and pressed the door chime.

Sheila who had been in the front room watching the shenanigans moved to the front door and peeked through. She saw a character whom she didn't recognize and assumed it was another part of Walts rabble. Slowly opening the door she peered out. "Can I help you?"

"I'm here to meet Walter Jones." Hank replied glancing up and down the street suspiciously as if saying the mere name would attract trouble. "I was told to meet him here."

Sheila sighed at the man. "Get in here, he's in the kitchen with some of the other hooligans." She swung open the door and allowed the man to enter.

Entering the house, Hank made his way to the kitchen where he spotted Walter with the rest of the crew. Nodding his head in Walters direction to give him the 'hey I showed up.' Hank waited to see what Walter had to say to the crew.

Having wolfed down the very tasty and greesy bacon rash Lottie turned to the sound of another joining them with slight alarm since Walter had failed to say if anyone else was arriving.

Her gun up was arm and finger cocked on the hammer with a quick, well practiced motion, it seemed that even though she was ballooning Lottie hadn't lost any of her potency for danger.

"Who are you?" she demanded to the new arrival

"It is alright love, I invited him here, I should have mentioned we were going to have a new mate here, This is Hank, he's going to be our computer slicer." Jones smiled at Lottie and put his hand on her arm. "Wait to meet him before you blow his face off."

The weight of Jones' arm shifted Lottie's aim lower down Hank's body but did nothing to deter her from pulling the trigger. "I can see him alright from here, and I don't like him."

"It will be ok sweetie" Jones kept his arm on Lotties to make sure she didn't do something rash.

"Its probably a good thing your carrying that considering the neighborhood" Hank commented as he ignored the weapon being pointed at him. "I swear I just saw a bunch of young street urchins no older that six carry off an elderly lady, as she tried to beat them with her cane just up the street."

"Oh really?" Lottie replied with a sarcastic bite.

"I'm sure if you listen closely you can hear her crying for help. Help me... Help me.." Whispered Hank as he cupped his mouth and looked around as if to spot the elderly lady.

With her arm still outstreched and Jones' hand resting upon hers Lottie scoffed at Hanks comment.

"Now if your done giving me a warm welcome, perhaps you could holster your weapon." Hank said calmly. "Because we are on the same side and I'm pretty sure Walter over there doesn't want to scrub my insides out of the kitchen."

"Fine," she snapped, clicked the safety back on and slide the sidearm back into the holster. "But don't think I'll welcome you with open arms in the future."

"Alright, lets get down to business everyone. First of all, welcome back from the dead." Jones grinned at everyone. "I know it has been rough on everyone but we are back in business and I've already gotten us a new job. How many of you have heard rumblings of what is going on with Hobus?" Jones looked around at everyone, sure to get the smart ass comments that they were going to make. He realized just how much he had missed everyone.

"Where? I've been out in deep space for a while, no news if you can't receive it." Jan said.

"Something about an unstable star," Lottie said, still happy about the new arrival she crossed her arms and kept a watchful eye upon the new face.

"Hobus, the star of the Romulan homeworld. Rumor has it that the star is going to blow, the official word is that things are perfectly normal, but there has been a mass exodus of the wealthy off of the planet, and not enough ships to get them all out. So we can get in, haul some people and make a tidy profit without much problem." Jones poured some of the vodka into a glass and gave it a splash of orange juice.

"Any troubles with officials or customs?" Jan asked.

"I'm sure there will be, as always." He glanced over at Lottie, he didn't have too much information about what happened but he was worried if they saw combat. "The Romulans are still not too excited about outsiders crossing the border, but for the right price we can make it."

"Sounds expensive, any idea what the cargo will be worth?" Jan asked, grabbing an apple and taking a bite.

"The one family, has already promised 5000 bars for a successful move, from Romulus to a point near the edge of the Romulan neutral zone, with promise of more connections afterwards. Good solid money."

"About time we made some profit, though can she take it?" Lottie challenged Jones giving him a serious look. "Please tell me you've made some modifications to the Warden rather then allowing her to rot away for the last five months?"

"It's been sitting in some impound lot right? Hopefully it hasn't been completely trashed. I think when I left I still had to finish reprogramming the computer core, and repair some consoles." Jan said.

"I've gotten some assurances from the commander of a Starfleet Engineering base that we'll get whatever we need. From what I understand, the old girl ought to be ok though." Jones smiled at everyone. "There is just one slight catch, we might need to go and smash and grab her, and well the Orions that have been playing some of the trade lanes, though they've been more ore less routed."

"Where's she parked? I might be able to eliminate the smash part of the plan depending on where it is." Jan asked.

"Why doesn't this surprise me?" Lottie sighed.

"Would you expect anything less love? Besides, there is hazard pay in it too." Jones continues smiling at everyone.


"If we can reach her, I can have it up and running in less than 2 minutes, hopefully." Jan said.

"See that is what I want to hear, I don't think it should be too much of a problem getting to it!" Walt tossed a padd over to Jan."Here are all the new command codes that I locked in before I left her. Lottie what do you think? Still know how to fire that thing?" Jones motioned to the sidearm.

She battered her eyelids, "Does a Ferengi love latinum?"

"Really? Password as a password? Oh this is gonna take alot of programming.....Still, better to have a computer core than a bunch of networked tricorders." Jan said, reading the padd.

"I think once we dust off the mothballs all will be ok."

"What are chances of escaping Romulan space if this goes sideways." Hank asked knowing fair well that their chances were greatly against them.

"I've got some strings that I can pull, but mainly we'll be on our own, the main thing we have to worry about are the Orions, but we should be able to beat them back if needed."

"You mean you're charm finally run out Walter dear?" Lottie said lowly peeking a glance at the padd Jan held.

"My charm is endless! I figure that with the Federation clearing out most of the scum, us excluded of course we shouldn't have much problem at all.

Jones took a big drink of coffee. "Alright we can all crash here tonight, tomorrow morning I've got us a transport flight out of here to grab our ship any final questions?"

"No questions here." Hank said with a simple shake of his head.

Morgan had been watching Hank with an intense eye, "I have taken the liberty in contacting Mr Air. He will be waiting for us when we arrive. He was very enthusiastic."

Lottie's eyes shifted around the knot of people wondering if this was really where she wanted to be back among the unlawful having made a better life for herself in the previous months. "It will be delightful to catch up," she said with a heavy touch of sarcasm.

"Alright, get some sleep, we'll head out in the morning and take back the galaxy friends." Jones finished off his last piece of bacon, looked at his crew and was glad they were back.

 

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