Starfleet/Klingon Strike Group

Full Version: (18ASP- 2419) Running (Part 1) Pg-13
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Rainwater pelted against the roof of the grounded cutpurse fighter; a broad-shouldered Klingon lay unconscious under the cloak of his office.  His name was Ge'Kor the Third Officer in the hierarchy of this unofficial fiefdom, his companion, a presumably innocent girl, lay passively against his chest.  Cool amber blood still ran under her right cheek, a swollen brass shimmer to her left eye glowed in the dim light.  A copper flush of a bruise bloomed on her chin. Simultaneously, her split lip glimmered with gold against the smooth moss-colored flesh of her manipulative race.

                She looked up at the cascade of water and listened as it ricocheted off the armored transparent aluminum.  Along with the sound, the dim light gave a sense of seclusion and yet contentment in the noise.  A blanket of noise, craven and palpable, bathed them in the absence of intrigue and attention.
 
She was physically stronger than the Klingon, something akin to a Vulcan's strength in the frame of a young woman. She appeared to be nothing more than a twenty-year-old waif of a girl.  The reality was decades of experience in her mind and old eyes far beyond that of her partner.  The scars had faded.  The aging of a reckless life had never shown as much on her skin as it had on her psyche.  Her wild side, while complicated, still gave serious accountability to her fifty-six-year-old mind.  She knew pristinely the part she played.
 
                Her ship, her consent, her control.  Even if her lover had lost his life in the pursuit of her, she was confident she could weather that as well.
 
                The interior of the fighter was unadorned and purposefully ordinary. Still, Orion berths were expected to be practical and plain to hide the smugglers' holds, and the slave pods cleverly worked into bulkheads and otherwise luxury-driven components.  She enjoyed the clean and unfettered space, knowing that each decision she made had the potential or working out in more than one way.  The 'Third' shifted in his sleep; she gently removed herself from his side and stood naked and perfect.
   
                A gentle slim face girded with red and blue curled hair accented almost iridescently in contrast to her creamy green complexion.  The marks of her lover's affection marred her beauty, but only enough to brand her warrior spirit and her defiance towards the sexes' inequity.  Shockingly brilliant blue eyes gave her gaze just as much power as her figure to dominate the minds of men.  High cheekbones and small pointed ears showcased the detail of her eyes and brows.  Her facial animation was just as much a part of her seduction as her words and dance.  She wore pink blush over her lips, though currently marred by blood and bruise, the flecks of color offset her mouth from the rest of her face and brought more attention to her words.
 
                Her shoulders were broad, even for an Orion. It was perhaps the only aspect of her body she thought about changing. Her height gave her a slight disadvantage over her Romulan sisters.  They could hide in plain sight and easily creep into the smallest crevices to sneak up on their targets.  She had to play any number of roles to lull her targets into a false sense of security. Her shoulders gave her a masculine look, though the rest of her was far from it.

                She was buxom, firm, and inviting. Her curves descended deep and doting to the passionate minds of her victims. She knew the allure the sculpted rise and fall of her chest gave. It took the attention off of her eyes and left men to devices of imagination she entirely controlled.
 
                The smooth and robust rise of her ribs expanded and relaxed with each breath over her hard-fought muscled abdomen.  Her stomach lay beneath well-defined cuts of powerful core muscles disappearing into the pliant and gentle depression of her navel.

                Flexing her biceps and then her triceps showed the superb control she had over the physical dominion of her ambitions.  Smooth and lean flat muscle gave her arms a dense but palpable power only hard work and long days could render.  She had a strength that inferred endurance over a pure show of size.  Smooth muscles covered her forearms and hands; she had conditioned her body to support her weight, and if need be, the weight of others for extended periods.  Her lean but potent muscle allowed her patience, precision, and caution as she moved expertly from shadow to shadow.
 
                Long broad legs were poised for action. Training and experience gave a spring-like response to her acrobatic core.  She could vault two meters over the head of nearly any opponents save a Gorn.  Adaptability in combat could disable or ground any opponent that dared to misjudge her.   She often suspended her body and gear meters above the floor, maintaining her comfort with just the flex of her shapely thighs, determined calves, and pointed toes. Her real strength came from hours of control and resistance, preparing for a moment when she would need to release that strength all at once, making her utility in combat explosive and unpredictable.

                She lifted her hands and gave a conscious command to her lymphatic system; her keen senses could identify visually what her pheromones were doing.  She managed the cloud of senses, both olfactory and chemical.  

               They contained a very controlled mixture of dopamine, norepinephrine, adrenaline, sweat, and blood.  The chemical cortisol made her victims feel weary and sluggish, but it also numbed the reason centers of the brain, making her targets more easily controllable.  The chemical Dimethyl Triptyline made her advances seem out of a dream, accessing the subconscious mind with subliminal suggestion and delectable indifference to any pre-reservation her targets might have of her.  She purposefully added the scent of her arousal and the digestives in her saliva as its minor acidic effect woke the nerves of her victims and lovers alike.
 
                Through exhaustive and seemingly unending training, the best of the Orion slave girls could kill with their pheromone control, she wasn't the best, but her power could make a victim wish for death just as quickly.

                Lulling a Klingon into supplication was child's play. Their animalistic, almost feral nature gave nearly no defense against her wiles.  It made them less appealing to her as there was little chase and often little reward when she finally had them where she wanted.  The 'Third,' asleep on the supportive comfort on the cabin's carpet, hadn't known of her existence before today, but now he would die for her honor. She took him for purpose, not pleasure.

                The fat bureaucratic softness of cowardice and false leadership was clear in the bulbous but tight uniform the sleeping Klingon still wore. He may have once been a strong warrior many years ago, but his time behind a desk made him food for the ambitions of more enterprising upstarts.  More than once, he had kept his title and life due to technicality or sometimes purposeful distraction.  Money, played into his defenses as effectively as skill with the bat'leth or the concealed lethality of the D'k Tahg did.
 
                She dressed in her formfitting and intentionally distracting Klingon mercenaries coalition uniform.  She had earned it many years ago, attaining the honorary rank of colonel through her support in combat or exploits in the pursuit of it.  The uniform was designed to be worn under combat armor, so it was neutrally colored in dark grays and pale reds along the seams. It was comfortable and breathed under pressure.  The material of the outfit was fashioned out of synthetic leather, The laced webbing over her extremities, brought special attention to her shoulders, waist, hips, and the sides of her legs.  The deep V neck across her upper torso was decorative and explicitly designed to appeal to the fleet's senior members.  Add her spice and talent into the outfit, and the barbaric politics of Klingon negotiation were all but assured.

                If she had the drive, she could have easily driven herself into the same bureaucratic leadership corps her sleeping companion was in. Perhaps someone might have done the same to her if the situations had been reversed.  Shavi was a fighter; every opportunity to leave that life was another reason for her to run.  Jada knew this, she was just as headstrong as her sister, but after Maru, after Vax, after her daughter, Jada was ready to leave the adrenaline behind.   Shavi couldn't imagine that life yet, and it hurt the longer she stayed anywhere.  Jada often made that anxiety bearable, but if they weren't traveling together anymore, there wasn't a reason for her to slow down.

                It was this uniform that convinced the 'Third' to meet with her in the first place.  Two hours of temptation and drugged blood wine later, it was unlikely a wild targ would have woken him from his sleep.
 
                She lifted his heavy right hand and placed his thumb on the receptacle for a generous contract she was interested in obtaining, a cargo transit pact liable to make her allies among the richest in the sector.  Trust in her value ran deep enough to gild her with the influence to hide her involvement in the contract's finalization.  She would, of course, ensure everyone won in the end.  Auditing only ever took place in the empire if something was missing from the coffer pot.
 
                In the inner core of the Klingon Empire, she would attach herself to house leaders or the council themselves, but in the outskirts, governors ruled, often with an iron fist and no actual concern for those they were charged with.  The Dorados sector belonged to no one officially, but the Federation, the Romulan, and the Klingon empires didn’t let facts get in the way of the claim.
 
                Shavi's sister Jada had enough of fighting. Nearly eight years ago, she took a position as director of the planetary defense corps of Cerim IV, a paradise world located in what used to be the neutral zone between the Federation and the Romulans, the Dorados sector.  When Jada and Shavi first happened upon the planet, it had been a jungle world used as a haven for criminals and mercenaries. Over four years and a fleet of allies, the planet was overtaken, and a government was established.
   
                Millions of refugees and ex-pats of the Klingon Empire and the Federation fought to keep this world and a handful of others free from the broken ideologies of the galaxy.  Jada and much of her crew from the Jetyl had chosen to take positions in the government.  Shavi was given the same choice, but she could not ignore the wanderlust in her heart.  While she visited often and enjoyed the treatment of an elevated position, responsibility was something others were bound by.  Settling down as her sister had chosen to do was more civilized than her animal blood would endure.

                Ultimately Coraven Vax of Romulus, High Praetor of the free lands of Dorados and Jasen Kane Admiral and Commander of the Dorados Strike Group, more than three hundreds capital ships of Romulan and Federation allegiance ensure the sovereignty of the free lands and the way of life of everyone who calls it home.  The Klingon Empire had chosen to remain outside of the strike force, although unofficial agreements still gave military support to patrol lanes and colony response.

                "Site to site transport, on my mark." Shavi spoke into her wrist as she highlighted Ge'Kor's ship still in orbit around Cerim." Now…" she replied to her ship cloaked in the upper atmosphere.

                 The officer didn't even shift as he dematerialized back to his quarters aboard the Dauntless: the sister ship of the AFS Kitomer, the physical representation of the alliance. In turn, each of the six AFS command ships transitionally changed hands every four years to ensure the treaty was still more than merely a signature on a datapad.  His presence here legitimized her claim.

                 The Orion fighter lifted silently as the cloaking device disrupted the heavy downpour. The broad Gull wing-shaped gap in the rain startled a Grelbik, a goat-like creature calmly munching on the bark of a Firen tree. The disruption and blast of expanding air sent the unassuming creature off its feet. It responded by becoming rigid and faking its death.

                Shavi hadn't noticed, but the blade-like line in the heavy downpour was the only indication that nature had been disturbed. She was after Gen, an Orion slaver that had kidnapped some of the Romulan colonists that called Cerim IV home.  It wasn't a large bounty, but her hatred of the Orion syndicate had been rising for decades, nearly every loss in her time as a trader was a result of their piracy, and she had been convinced they all deserved to die.  Her sister held a similar hatred of the green-skinned mongrels. The only thing Shavi had ever shared with them was the predisposition for trouble, a trait she wasn’t proud of, but it did give her something to look for in others of her kind. All of them, brigands and thieves.
 
                The Cutpurse was a sleek and underestimated craft. It could close in on any manner of larger ships and had an auxiliary scanner that tracked shield variances and deflector phases. With enough time, even capital ships could be tracked, allowing the minuscule fighter through defenses to dock on the hull of a target.  The landing claw on the fighter base had a phaser clamp that dug into even duranium hulls.

                She moved the sleek, efficient warfighter towards the city of Skeme.  A Romulan colony on the border of Heia the third successful ex-pat foundation after the fall of the old Romulan empire. Today it was still manageable in size at 1400 residents and a modest trade port.  Shavi couldn’t let down her guard; she wasn't here for a vacation. Gen had been spotted at the exchange. He'd slipped through the cracks of Vax's patrol scheme, 7 bars of Latinum wouldn't support her for a month, but Shavi figured if a crime like this went unanswered, it wouldn't take much else to bring the sector back to its primal roots.

               The larger problem was that Shavi was known throughout the sector.  Her family had organized the liberation of the Delta Dorados system. While she tried to hide from the limelight, her share of honors and recognitions made its way into the tabloids and newsreels enough where she would be recognized quickly.  To hide her face, she chose a suit of armor she picked up at auction after a pirate berth had been seized and liberated.  Shavi reached over to the leather/duranium shell of a helmet. It was initially designed for Klingon soldiers of an unknown timeline, or so they said.  Hundreds of artifacts came from that incident, Shavi was fascinated by the clothing.
 
               The formfitting hood and facemask linked together by magnetic toggle, locking with and shielded her entire head from view. A holographic screen obscured each eye as it relayed tactical and environmental information towards the soldier inside.   The mouthpiece was still mostly open to the air, but an attached rebreather was simple to install, obscuring her red and bruised golden lips and deeply controlling smooth skin.   It didn't cover her shoulders or neck to a large degree, but the impression of the helmet was that she was a Klingon soldier with the ridging and spine running through the middle of the helmet back to the nape of her neck.
   
              The helmet had a secondary feature. It housed a holographic emitter that enhanced or manipulated light sources to suit the owner.  There hadn't been an owner's manual with the armor, but she could guess it was to obscure the identity of raiders.  The emitter was designed to work exterior to its housing as well within 30 meters.

               An officer's jacket covered the silk of her neck and collarbone with high lapels and collar. The leather appearance of the dark cowl was intentional but not entirely accurate. It was made out of the same material she had come to rely on during much of her time as an assassin.  Disruptor and plasma bolts would do little damage at range to the diffusive cloth she wore, a perk of being born into a race of killers and cowards. Her near immunity to handheld strength weapons was not absolute, and she often paid a heavy price for her arrogance.  Enduring days, or sometimes weeks of downtime while she was recovering from firefights, each shot leaving painful welts and burns over her otherwise unguarded skin.

               The uniform itself was thick field leather. Each section of the armor had a piece of spring lattice sewn into the thick leather lining.  It was designed to stop physical weapons, but the addition of 'assassin’s cloth’ as she had come to call made the armor unusually utilitarian for ground combat.  It resembled an armored tunic that came down to her hips. Crossing over her chest at a sixty-degree angle, affixing itself to a magnetic link at the hem on her hip, she added high carbon steel to both of the sleeves' forearms and a wrist computer along the right arm.

               The legs of the uniform were dark and purposefully vague. It broke up shadow but only just enough to make her seclusion seem natural. Leather mesh allowed her clothing to breathe but give no distinct insight as to what lay beneath.

               Knee-high boots warmly clung to the armor, they seem more fashionable than practical, but she had reinforced them and conditioned the leather and cloth to be waterproof and resistant to the cold.  Shavi stood and dressed. The dark violet base color with mottled light gray patterns over it to break up shadow looked good on her as she tabbed a holographic mirror in the middle of the cabin.  After she closed the top, affixing it to her waist and neck, she activated one brilliant silver-green toggle that glowed a soft blue passively between her breasts.  She pulled a utility belt that complimented her hips and toned legs and turned to look at herself in the mirror.  She admired herself, it was abundantly clear she was not Klingon in origin, and her green skin gave away her true species. Still, her face was anonymous, so she was comfortable returning to her assassin conditioning.

               She returned to her seat and silently brought the small fighter to rest in a clearing on the east side of town on the edge of a bluff overlooking a deep ravine where a surging river eventually filtered into a large lake nearly four kilometers across.  No one would be fishing in a busy river or a driving rainfall. The steady rhythm of rain making thimble-sized impacts across the fighter's roof gave an orchestra of ambiance that often put her to sleep on difficult nights.  She fought through the peaceful temptation to lull herself into slumber.  She was here to do a job, and peace wouldn’t inhabit much of her evening.

Edited for grammar and content.
Wow! That writing was almost lyrical! Lovely job of describing the characters - and the character of characters. Great visuals for the people and the scene!!! NIcely done - and the story is great as well!