Post 20: Rastacine
Posted on Sun Feb 21st, 2021 @ 4:29am by Lieutenant Timmoz
Edited on on Sun Feb 21st, 2021 @ 5:39pm
Mission:
The Waiting Game
Location: Nico's Quarters; Bridge of NI-7119
Timeline: Shoreleave Day 77; 0300 Hours
Timmoz grunted. The warm embrace of Nico Oliveria was the body of compact solace, of steady breathing, the sensation of skin on skin, the scent of Human. Timmoz kissed his neck, "Be right back," he murmured, "Bathroom..." he said to the sleeping body whilst he extricated himself. The tall, lanky Orion stepped into the other room, the prickle of his minor lie to his mate a ruffled annoyance soon smoothed. He twisted his arm, albeit awkwardly, to the copper armlet he wore. Against his lime skin, a dull light flashed against the interior- and buzzed haptic pulses into his muscle.
Timmoz fished for his long-dropped and happily forgotten commbadge in a heap of his reds and blacks. He tapped it, and he sniffed. Then he double-tapped. "Secure on my end..." He blinked and leaned forward, dropping butt to ottoman yet leaning expectantly toward his badge. he held it near his chin and sniffed again, rubbing sleep crust out of his eye. His back felt tight along his spine... these damned Risian beds were too soft. He longed for his hammock.
"Secure on our end," a voice spoke in Orion over his end. Timmoz raised a brow.
"Saxa... what is it? It's...." he scowled when he realized he'd no idea of the time, "Early."
"I apologize. It can't be helped. Standby for transport."
"Saxa..." Timmoz murmured, rubbing his crusty eyes again, "Alright. Fine. At least let me put on some Bunjea pants first..." He nabbed up his uniform pants and thrust long legs into them, "Go ahead. Beam me up." he sighed, blinked hard, and raked through his curls. He stood at the last minute and went for his slate blue undershirt. His body washed in the blue sprites of the matter stream just before he reached them. "Tu xoquaan booska," he muttered, voice distorted by the stream.
"A peace offering..." The voice said. Timmoz huddled, cold, in the cool grays, blacks, and ambient blues of the intelligence ship, fingers filtering up and down bare arms. "And, here... no sense in being cold, Lieutenant. I'm from Mars, I like cold but your kind... not so much" The officer before him was painfully nondescript to the point of mediocrity. He donned an entirely black uniform and jacket with no visible rank insignia- yet Timmoz showed no lick of surprise. But the scent that roused near Timmoz nose was... it couldn't be. Timmoz eyed it. A mug. Brown liquid. The officer set it in front of him, along with a spare slate gray shirt with longer sleeves.
Lhoatat?
Timmoz eyed the drink and closed hands around it. It was properly warm. "We need to t-" Timmoz raised his hand to halt the man.
"Just.... give me a minute, alright," the Orion's eyes closed and he sipped. "Oh Urqinzhe Rho, you haven't forsaken me after all...." he muttered. Timmoz sipped again. The man took the opportunity to sit across from him.
"Kolar and Botchok were on the way here for this vessel. I was told you might appreciate it." The man said. Timmoz's eyes half-lidded in acknowledgment with a lick of lips and a nod. "How long has it been?"
"Years..." Timmoz murmured with a harsh accent. "You know the worst part is," he turned the cup in his hands and smiled ruefully, his brow arching, "It's as good as I remember. I guess that means I'll never be free of it." He cuddled the drink in his hands and sipped it again. "Oh fuck me, that's good..."
"Too rich for my blood," the Human acknowledged. "Too... rotty."
Timmoz smiled like a cat, "More for me then." he took another nourishing gulp and held it in his mouth, then swallowed, "Now, why am I here? You dragged me out of a very warm bed with a very curious Human who is going to notice I'm gone." The officer nodded and adjusted forward, leaning some toward the table that separated them. He punched several keys that seemed to simply appear in the featureless satin metal of the table's surface. The button, aside from a dull blue-white glow, said nothing about their purpose. Timmoz studied him. "A personal holographic interface?"
The man glanced briefly up, "Neatly does away with prying eyes, doesn't it? It's an implant. They're new." Timmoz's response was a grunt and a nod. He reached for the shirt and pulled it on. Before them, several rods in a Kal-Toh-like tilt pattern lowered and lit up with a holographic. A planet. Timmoz recognized it immediately.
"Rastacine?" Timmoz studied its black and red-veined surface, its small lakes of magma, and the red sheen of its atmosphere catching the crimson of its close star.
"What do you know about it? Have you been there?" The officer asked, folding his hands. Timmoz shook his head.
"The Klingons don't like visitors. They took it over, they enslaved the Rastacini. Now they dig dilithium for the Empire," Timmoz shrugged an ennui-filled shoulder, "But that was just after the Federation and Klingon War in..." he sat back and gestured vaguely, "Oh Bunje, I don't remember your date system."
"2257."
Timmoz shrugged a sloping shoulder, "OK. 2257." He breathed in and smiled his Cluros smile, "I've never been there. I like the warm... but it's too warm, and the Rastacini have a cold culture toward us Botchoki. Kolari, but add cool rage for their supposed," he turned sardonic, "Plight."
"But you've heard the myths around it?" The officer said. he swept a thoughtful finger over the hairless bridge of mouth, resting chin on extended thumb. His gray eyes glanced and held the Orion in them.
Timmoz half-lidded his eyes and nodded like he felt a boring topic surfacing. Humans were obsessed over the past, "I know the story about what the Kolari did if that's what you mean. We Botchoki weren't involved."
"But you didn't do anything to stop them either," the man countered.
Timmoz chuckled mirthlessly. he stopped and raised his brows like he wanted to mock the man, "It was 7,000 years before I was even born. We were just part of the Bountiful Beyond Riches Thakolarivaj then." He grinned, "Happily pastoral in our little cloud forests... what they did with their insurrectionists wasn't our concern."
The Mars-born Human reframed the question, "But the natives they destroyed weren't Orions at the time?"
"No," Timmoz scratched errantly at the bony orbit of his eye socket just below his brow. "They were skinchangers. The Kolari allowed them to colonize Rastacine as refugees. When they were gone, they seeded the colony with Kolari. Poor ones from disgraced Caju if I remember right."
"With golden eyes," the officer said keeping on the skinchangers, "Or so the legend says."
"Timmoz nodded, "Yes. Much like my Captain, I'm sure you know." His eyes brows, his eyes widened, "I mean that's why you're here. I guess. I'm not an expert on every species the Kolari annihilated over every Thakolarivaj they created. But I recognize a Chameloid when I see one."
"The one known of us to you as Director stated that several Chameloids have been found dead lately, all by accident."
Timmoz nodded tentatively, "Yes..."
"Our cell was just around Rastacine," the officer said bluntly, "We were doing some reconnaissance work for Bre'tor."
"Klingon Intelligence is an oxymoron," Timmoz said with an impish smile once he recovered from the audacity of their intelligence name making it into this conversation. "Or so it's said..." he tapped the metal table, "Right before you have an accident of your own, with a Mo'kai blade in your back."
"Anyway," the officer stressed tersely. "Imperial Intelligence suspected there was some kind of uprising in the works on Rastacine. Now... Martok is not a young man. He's in ill health and his Council hasn't had a decent war since the Dominion. There are a lot of young hotheads who haven't had a chance at getting their bat'leths bloody. But Martok is a pragmatist. A war against the Orion Colony Sector would create a lot of instability and bring in the Federation to protect those they deem innocent."
Timmoz narrowed his eyes with a dark amusement, "You're helping them quash a rebellion of Rastacini dilithium slaves?"
"The Federation does not need instability on the Klingon border, Timmoz. Frankly, we are not ready. We pulled back from several quadrants along the Klingon Empire because we knew they were stable. Both we and Klingons were a decade away from recovering from the Dominion War. Those resources had to go somewhere else after Mars. The Empire wasn't the priority or the threat."
Timmoz toppled his hands and long arms atop his head, "The Klingons are always a threat. Mmm, and I'm sure the Syndicate thanks you for the power vacuum." He smiled thinly, "That wasn't meant as a jab at your operations, just a fact."
"To continue," the Intelligence officer said, "At 0814 hours two weeks ago, an unknown pair of craft decloaked above Rastacine and opened fire. They disabled the overlook overpost with what appeared to be Breen-derived technology. Then they turned on the planet. They fired on some ruin complexes in the southern hemisphere. Then they recloaked and disappeared."
"The... Breen?" Timmoz's eyes slit, brows genuinely troubled inward toward his nose. "Rastacine is hundred of light-years from the Breen's operational influence. It's not like we let them cross V'draysh space since they joined the Dominion." With a swipe, the image of Rasatcine disappeared and showed two fast-moving, frigate, or even scout-sized vessels. Their hulls were sleekly scaled in black, like chitin. The officer gestured for Timmoz to watch, "That's no Breen design..."
"No, but they have adapted Breen technology. At least a reasonable facsimile that can disable a Klingon watch station long enough to open fire. The design is unknown to us but it might be based loosely on Reman technology."
Timmoz's raised his eyes, "And why would the Remans-" his eyes dropped and brows raised, voice dripping sarcastic, "What's left of them anyway- Attack a Klingon outpost? Even if it has dilithium?"
"They didn't target any dilithium. At all."
Timmoz blinked, "I'm not following..." His lips pursed and he paused, rubbing his chin, "You said ruins. Why? Saxa, I am not an intelligence officer... I don't recognize the ships and I know almost nothing about Rastacine."
The officer shook his head, "We aren't here for your analysis, Lieutenant. We have better minds for it no offense. We are here because when we beamed down a search and rescue party... there were Chameloid DNA traces. Possibly dozens of them."
Timmoz's eyes narrowed at first, then widened, "They killed more Chameloids?"
The officer bobbed his head, "Yes. Bre'tor and the House of Kobrath have no knowledge and did not permit Chameloids to be down there. So they probably disguised themselves and snuck down there. We are trying to put together what was destroyed and why the Chameloids would even be there. But the Klingons," And the Human smiled with a darkly amused slyness, "Of course, have no interest in studying alien cultures, so they never bothered to do an excavation. But. Someone risked destruction by the Klingon Empire, and potential exposure, to destroy some ruins and kill a group of Chameloids."
"How many?" Timmoz asked out of curiosity, voice uncertain. "Did you say?" He said in his shock.
"We think as many as three dozen."
Timmoz sat back and scratched under his armpit, "And I thought eight was a lot for a supposedly mythical race..."
The officer nodded, "Almost certainly, Timmoz, someone aboard your vessel will eventually target your Captain. And they don't seem to particularly care who else they kill, or what consequences it will have. But we do know, now, that these aren't accidents and whoever is doing it has impressively wide resources."
Timmoz folded his arms, his look troubled. "So why tell me... beyond a friendly warning."
"Because we are afraid it is an element within the Syndicate. If the Orions tried to eliminate the Chameloids again..."
"Kolari, not all Orions," Timmoz corrected with a wave of fingers. "Don't blame us Botchoki for what they did..."
"Be that as it may, an element within the Orion Syndicate may be carrying out some kind of an extermination. What we don't understand is why."
Timmoz shrugged, "The Syndicate eliminates its enemies. But..." he scowled with a headshake, his frizzy hair shuddering with earnest, "This doesn't make any sense. Demonize the Syndicate all you want, yes, they're killers and extortionists but... they don't commit genocide against innocent people. That's too resource-intensive. And it's bad for business. It draws attention."
"We don't know. What we do know is that we were ordered to stop here on the back to HQ and inform you. You know. That the stakes are higher. We know there's a concerted effort now."
Timmoz wet his lips with a dash, "Uh thanks. I. Guess?" He tightened his arms across his chest. "I guess it's not something you could've said by subspace."
"No," the man said. He stood and Timmoz took the same cue. He ambled up, having found his legs were cold enough to be stiff. "But if you see or hear more, we need you to reach out. You're guarding a rare commodity that may, in time, be helpful to understand why this is happening. So stay vigilant."
Timmoz cautiously, with his eyes on the man, assented with a nod, "It's... not like I have much choice."
"No," the officer said, "That's true. You don't. You should return to your quarters. We need to move on. We have to report in."
"Beam me outside my door," Timmoz said, "I don' think I can write this off as a quick piss break..." The man walked to a console and tapped several invisible keys which again only he seemed to have visible access to. Timmoz panged with having to tell Nico not one lie, but two now. And well before he'd worked out how, the wash of blue energy and the glow of energized matter dropped him at his door. The first thing he did was breathe in. The second thing he did was curse not finishing that mug of Lhaotat.
He punched the key to his room, the doors opening in a warm huff of tropical, salt-smelling air. But at that early hour, it felt like every shadow had eyes now.
A Post By:
Lieutenant Timmoz
Chief Helmsman
