It's A Shrub

Posted on Sun Jul 19th, 2009 @ 5:58am by Hank Tasco & Walter Jones

1,284 words; about a 6 minute read

Mission: Session One - Jailhouse Rock
Location: Docking Area
Timeline: Backpost (Shortly after Trigger Finger)

The small shrub seemed to creep down the line of crates ready to be loaded on to the freighter, stopping and starting almost at will like it had a mind of its own. If the bounty hunters who were passing by shouting had noticed it, they probably would have stopped for a moment and realized that that was where their target was hiding.

Obviously the shrub no matter how good looking or smelling it was, was not the target of the bounty hunters. Instead that unfortunate honour laid with James Miller the owner of the good-looking shrub.

Peeking out from behind the crate he was hiding behind Miller put the closest bounty hunter at about five metres away and getting farther away. Seeing that now was his chance to elude his pursuers with them moving farther away in the docking area looking for him, Miller grabbed his shrub and silently attempted to make it for the door.

The crunch of the Slug-go Cola can seemed to echo in the docking area like an explosion. “Crap!” Miller cursed, as he dived for cover.

“Give up!” Shouted one of the bounty hunters. “And we won’t crush your plant when we capture you.” As the rest of the bounty hunters began to snicker and laugh, a new voice was heard to speak, and this one seemed to challenge the bounty hunters.

"What the hell are you doing in my docking area?" Jones had opened up one of the cargo containers and grabbed a cardassian disrupter rifle. He currently had it pointed at the uglier of the two bounty hunters. The rifle gave off the telltale charged noise. "You better start talking fast or old Mr. Buttermaker here is going to start barking fire."

“Hold on there pops… you don’t want to make a mistake you’re gonna regret,” The bounty hunter with the Cardassian rifle pointed at him said. “This waste of skin is wanted for murder, and we’re gonna collect the bounty on his head.” Said the other bounty hunter pointing at Miller.

“That’s a lie, I didn’t kill the man they’re talking about,” Miller said as he jumped to his feet. “I’ve only ever killed Nausicaans, and that was to save my own life.”

“Shut your mouth!” Screamed the bounty hunter being covered by Jones. “Or I’ll just kill you where you stand.”

Jones thought for a moment over the situation, he could probably drop one of the bounty hunters right off the bat but either he or the "shrub" was going to get a phaser blast in the face. "Look, I've already paid for the security deposit on this bay.. I don't want to have to forfeit it because some goons had an unfortunate run in with my disrupter here. How much is the bounty on this guy?" Jones moved his finger closer to the trigger just in case either of them got a funny idea. "After all, I'm a business man just like you guys."

“He’s worth five, I mean fifteen strips.” Said the uglier of the bounty hunters, who also appeared to the be dumber of the two as well. ‘We’ll take nothing less than fifteen,” said the other bounty hunter after shaking his head at his partners stupidness.

"Fifteen strips! HA!" Jones audibly laughed at the bounty hunters. "You can't even split that evenly... one of you is going to get short changed. Tell you what, I'll give you 8 strips to leave here with all of your apendages attached." He clicked the safety off the disrupter.

To Miller it looked like the bounty hunter weren’t about to cave, but after a moment of thought and whispering the bounty hunters agreed to Jones offer.

“Fine give us the latinum and we’ll go quietly.” Said one of the bounty hunters as they both holstered their weapons.

"Good, I'm glad that we could see eye to eye on this." Keeping his rifle trained on the smarter of the two bounty hunters, Jones reached into his pocket and felt the strips sitting in his pocket. He counted out 8 of them then threw them on the floor towards the bounty hunters. "Alright, now get on out here and if I see you guys around here, I've got an angry Andorian who doesn't like to be bothered that might want to have words with you."

For all their professionalism the bounty hunters picked up the latinum like children, racing each other to see who could get more. When finally all the latinum was picked up did they leave, however not before saying something to Miller as they passed. “Don’t think we’re done with you just yet, you’re not gonna to get off this station a freeman.”

Only when the two bounty hunters were finally gone did Miller address the man who had come to his aid. “Ugh thanks for the help,” Miller said as he stood and picked up his potted shrub; as he did so his holstered Klingon disrupter came into view. “As I said I’m not a killer, and you really helped me out by not forcing me to use this thing on them.”

Jones put the disrupter down then looked at James. "Yeah, no sweat kid. Trust me I've got people coming after me all the time too." he looked over at the plant that he was holding. "I'm not even going to ask about the plant. Anyways, seems like we are in a bit of a spot right now though, I just gave those bafoons 8 strips to avoid a messy situation, and it sounds like they are going to keep coming after you. Need a job?"

“If it will get me off this station, and doesn’t require me to kill anyone sure, besides I owe you 8 strips of latinum for helping me out of that jam.” Miller said. “If I may ask though, what is it you exactly do and what is it that this job will entail?”

"Well it will get you off the station." Walter walked over to James and gave him a once over. "I need a cargo chief, someone who can make sure that the items we are hauling are properly stowed, and that if we run into any trouble that anything that might be less then legal are properly stowed out of sight. Once we get your little debt paid off, I can offer you 10% of the take as well as a cut of any bonus, and your own bunk.."

"That sounds better than getting hunted down by bounty hunters and spending time in a cell for a murder I didn't commit. I think you just found yourself a cargo chief." Miller said with a grin as he offered Jones his hand.

"Walter Jones, nice to officially meet you. I see you've got a plant if you have any other gear go ahead and bring it aboard. We are going to be getting underway soon, so go ahead and get started, you'll find a manifest on the wall in the main cargo station. We don't have much at the moment but hopefully that will change soon." Jones smiled at him. "I've got a few things on the station I need to take care of, go ahead and make yourself at home, and word of advice, watch out for the Andorian... he tends to be a bit grumpy."

“Thanks for the heads up on the Andorian, I’ll watch out for him. Oh and by the way it’s a shrub; a Spanish Broom to be exact.” Miller said with a smile as he walked up the loading ramp to the Warden.

 

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