Star Trek: ALL - Seven Deadly Sins Page 8

  “What have you done?” Toqel asked, still reeling from the sight before her.

  Ditrius moved to stand over the fallen guard. “He was a traitor, working for an undercover Klingon agent. He had received orders to kill you, thereby preventing any chance of your revealing to Starfleet our alliance to the Klingons, should the Praetor opt to surrender you to the Federation.”

  Shaking her head, Toqel could not believe what she was hearing. “How could you know this?”

  “Actually, I don’t,” Ditrius replied. “I simply require a cover story so that I can carry out my orders.”

  Fury and betrayal boiled within Toqel as she realized just how much her own arrogance and single-minded drive had prevented her from seeing Ditrius for the traitor he was. No, not a traitor; a Klingon spy, now serving at the Praetor’s side.

  She had no time to reflect on the severity of her failure, for the last thing Toqel saw was the muzzle of the disruptor pistol Ditrius pointed at her face.

  Greed

  Reservoir Ferengi

  David A. McIntee

  Historian’s Note

  This story takes place in 2377 (ACE) during the admistration of the Grand Nagus Rom (“Dogs of War” DS9).

  For the late Mursya,

  one of the Cat Collective

  who inspired my previous story, “On the Spot”

  Today

  War between the planets of the Urwyzden system didn’t show in the vast field of empty black between them. The vacuum wasn’t deformed by warfare; there were no craters and no trenches. There was only the occasional quick flare of hard radiation, or the brief flash of oxygen-rich atmosphere igniting and being snuffed out as a starship split open and died.

  Missiles were too small to be visible to the naked eye as they clawed their way up from the surfaces of Urwyzden Alpha and Beta, looping in long arcs from one planet to the other. Lunar and asteroid facilities crumbled and erupted into dust that dispersed gently across the heavens.

  The turquoise-and-white face of Urwyzden Alpha was blotched and streaked, as mushrooming clouds wept fallout across half the southern hemisphere. Small shuttles and winged craft tore through those filthy tears, stabbing out phaser and disruptor beams and depleted-uranium slugs at each other. They dodged and darted, jinking in and out of sullen storms, and cutting contrail scars into the blue where the clouds hadn’t reached yet.

  The losing aerial duelists tumbled haphazardly from the skies. Some plummeted like meteorites into the forests and the fields, gouging craters into the earth. Other pilots tried to avoid the remaining inhabited residential areas of burnt-out towns. Occasionally one would burst through the layers of smoke and rip into buildings, spraying startling eruptions of dust and concrete.

  People on the ground, be they soldiers, or civilians huddling in their shelters, flinched at any sound from the sky. Some flinched because they expected death to fall, and others because they feared that no more refugee launches would follow, and they and their families would be trapped in this hell for the duration of the war.

  In the quiet hours, when the fighting had moved on, the refugees emerged, choking on the dust and smoke as they clambered through the rubble-strewn avenues. The capital, at least, still had a functional spaceport, and every approach to it was thronged with people trying to get out on one of the vessels that were leaving soon.

  There weren’t enough mass-scale transporters to beam people to the few neutral or private ships in orbit, so there was a ragged schedule of shuttles and smaller vessels ferrying large groups back and forth. Most of the Urwyzden who were backed up all around the entrances were poor, since the rich and powerful had been able to arrange to be beamed up in ones or twos. Other species, who were still waiting for transport, towered over the wrinkled and gnarly natives, wishing they had never come to this planet. The ships picking people up belonged either to worlds with citizens living in or visiting the system, or to the United Federation of Planets, which was doing its best to provide evacuation for those with no other recourse, as well as for its own citizens.

  Even at the fringes of the capital’s spaceport, the sounds of phaser and disruptor fire were audible, carrying across the flat expanses in between the cracks and rumbles of photon grenades going off.

  Fighting still raged throughout the squat pyramid at the heart of the spaceport. Soldiers scrambled across the ruined VIP departure lounge’s floor, trying to dodge streams of agitated particles fired by the enemy while also shooting at shadows and smudges that could easily be camouflaged enemy soldiers. It was nightmarish, and any soldier involved in the room-by-room clearance on either side would have been glad that their adaptive camouflage armor included faceplates that hid their fear and confusion.

  At first it was just like training in a holosuite: acquire targets, get the job done, and watch your mates’ backs. But once people got hit, it became a different matter. Modern warfare was usually conducted at a distance, and since Urwyzden had been left alone during the war with the Dominion, most of the soldiers had never seen a dead body before. The last Alphan soldier to enter had been watching for any attempts to outflank them, and belatedly dashed across the rubble-strewn floor as his confederates gave covering fire. A phaser blast cut him down, and he fell forward into cover behind a shattered wall. His body slammed into one of the troopers who had been covering him and knocked him down.

  That soldier had the wind knocked out of him by the impact. He put a hand up to wipe the seared blood from his face before he realized that the blood was on the faceplate of his armor, and not on his skin. The soldier could tell that the straggler was dead, no tricorder needed. All the troops were shaking with every breath they took, but there was nothing from the fallen body. The soldier shuffled as far away from the corpse as he could without breaking cover. He didn’t want a dead body touching him.

  Glass walls and plaster partitions exploded into dust. Monitors burst with big enough pops to make them dance on their desks. Soldiers ducked and leapt, slid and ran, all the while releasing hell from their hands.

  Suddenly, a stout figure, larger than any Urwyzden native, appeared, running the gauntlet of flying plasma and phased energy. He ran in a crouch, heading for a breach in the wall through which the gentle slope of the pyramid was accessible. His clothes were once fine and multicolored, his frame round and unfit. His large ears, almost as big as an entire Urwyzden head, were torn and bloodied.

  He turned and aimed a hand phaser at a doorway just in time for a second figure to charge out. The second was a little taller and fitter, but was clearly a member of the same race, and just as battered. He froze, eyes wide, as he realized his nose was about three inches from the phaser muzzle, and he let out a little yelp. For a moment, both of them stood there, and then the stouter gunman paled and looked at the phaser. He shook it. “Oh . . .” The leaner one roared in anger and lunged forward, propelling them both across the floor.

  Troops on both sides paused, watching this strange fight, as the pair wrestled each other for control of the phaser. The phaser wasn’t working, but each man tried to smack the other in the head with it.

  Whispers were transmitted across the comm frequencies of both groups of soldiers. “Isn’t that—”

  “Yes, I think it is.”

  “They’re not with you?”

  “We thought they were with you!”

  The pair reached the lip of a hole that had been blown in the terminal wall by a photon grenade, and tumbled through it with startled cries.

  Outside, the aliens—two Ferengi—rolled down the slope of the pyramidal terminal while hanging desperately on to each other’s throats and lapels. Jagged chunks of rubble thumped repeatedly and randomly into bone and flesh, always in the least expected and most painful places.

  Black fingernails tore at skin, and bruised knuckles bruised themselves some more against jaws and cheeks. The two combatants butted up against a handful of Urwyzden corpses; soldiers lay sprawled around, with blood-slicked weapons lying on the tar
mac.

  The stouter Ferengi leapt on top of his enemy and started to throttle him, while trying to keep his face out of range of the fists that were coming up in an attempt to dislodge him. He jerked his head back away from one punch, and that was when he saw the most beautiful sight on this miserable slime-hole of a planet: a warp-capable shuttle, impulse drive idling, with its hatch open and a fully powered but mercifully uninhabited cockpit inside.

  Pieces of rubble clattered down from farther up the sloping wall of the terminal, and both Ferengi looked up to see armored Urwyzden soldiers scrambling down in pursuit. Both then looked back to the shuttle.

  The distraction was just enough to allow the leaner Ferengi to roll, throwing the other off. They broke apart on all fours, scrambling for the weapons lying near the hands of the fallen soldiers. Then they were on their feet again, both trying to get the business end of a hand phaser into the other’s face first.

  Neither won.

  Beaten and bloody, their eyes blackened, their clothes torn and bloodstained, each found himself pressing a phaser to the other’s lobes at arm’s length. The pursuing soldiers were gathering around them, weapons raised, cutting them off from the shuttle. “Gaila,” the leaner Ferengi said smugly. “Oh, if only you were Quark … that’s the only way this moment could possibly be any more delicious. Or profitable.”

  Gaila tried to look less bowel-looseningly terrified than he felt, consoled only by the thought that he couldn’t look more terrified. “You’re finished too, Brunt! It’s a mutual loss scenario!”

  Brunt, formerly of the FCA, just sighed as the troops closed in. “How did my life come to this?” he asked.

  One Year Ago

  This looks like the beginning of a beautiful friendship.” Brunt nursed a bottle in his own home.

  He wasn’t actually sure what it was a bottle of, beyond that it was strongly alcoholic. The label had long since smeared away, but he had preferred to drink here rather than go to a properly licensed establishment. Bars reminded him too much of Quark’s continued … Not success, he thought, but mere existence. His visitor also reminded him of Quark’s infuriating existence, by dint of being a member of Quark’s infuriating family.

  “That’s what I said,” Gaila agreed.

  “It’s not a Rule of Acquisition I’m familiar with,” Brunt said pointedly. “In fact, as I’m given to understand the term, it’s a hew-mon expression. What do hew-mons know about profit? Hew-mons are the kind of people who would secure a speculation against a debt instead of an asset!”

  “Can any Ferengi really have a friendship with an FCA Liquidator?”

  “No,” Gaila admitted, “but you’re not ’Brunt, FCA’ anymore.”

  Brunt glowered, his beady eyes focusing on some future vengeance. “Liquidator for the FCA is who I am, Gaila, not just a job I did.”

  “The Economic Congress thought differently when they expelled you.”

  “They took away my job,” Brunt corrected him, “but not who I am.”

  “And that’s why there’s such an opportunity for profit in a business alliance between us,” Gaila said. “Your ruthlessness and drive, coupled with my lobes for tracking down good opportunities … Failure is impossible. Liquidator Brunt, the most driven man on Ferenginar, and not a man for whom any chance to earn a slip of latinum will be an improvement on where you are now.” Brunt didn’t respond; he didn’t want Gaila to think he was a charity case or, indeed, that Brunt might owe him a favor. Favors were always more expensive things to owe than mere currency, and repaying them always ate more into one’s profits than paying money did. “You know I work in the steadiest market in the galaxy.”

  “Arms dealing,” Brunt agreed, trying out the words for size. They rolled off the tongue nicely.

  “I prefer the term planetary security retail specialist, actually. But you’ve already heard the most important element: my business is in the steadiest market that has ever … ” He paused. “Second steadiest. I don’t sell females, after all. Not usually, anyway.”

  “I feel reassured already,” Brunt said dryly. “But don’t worry, I fully appreciate the point you’re trying to make.” He was beginning to sound hungry. “War is a universal constant—”

  “And people at war always need the latest and best weapons. Which means a retailer specializing in such a market always makes profit. Always,” Gaila reiterated.

  “All right,” Brunt agreed, “I’m in.”

  “You know it makes sense,” Gaila replied. “I’ll be leaving Ferenginar first thing in the morning. I’ll have space cleared in in my shuttlebay for your shuttle. As a matter of fact, perhaps we can travel together—”

  “Five slips.”

  “Done. I’ll meet you in the morning.”

  When Gaila had gone, after that first meeting, Brunt opened a panel in the wall and withdrew a data chip. He clipped it into a padd and activated it, first making sure to switch in a dampener to prevent anyone from accessing the padd remotely. He doubted anyone would dare, but it was definitely better to be safe than sorry.

  Certain that he had the electronic privacy he needed, Brunt scrolled through the files on the chip. They were all tagged with the FCA’s data seal. They had been highly classified files accessible only to Liquidators, but Brunt had never seen the necessity to delete his copies when he was expelled from the Economic Congress. The Congress would have seen it differently had they known that he had hung on to the files, which is why he had never seen the necessity to mention that he had them. Most of the data was material he himself had collated and reported anyway. It was, as far as Brunt was concerned, his to do with as he pleased.

  He stopped scrolling at the entry on Gaila, and began to read and to think. Gaila was a relative of Quark’s, of course, which was a massive strike against him, but he was also a frequently successful and profitable businessman. He had become rich enough to buy his own moon; most impressive, even in Brunt’s opinion.

  Gaila’s known contacts included the likes of a hew-mon called Hagath, and the Regent of Palamar: callous murderers with no regard for the number of exploitable lives they wasted for fun rather than profit. Brunt was repulsed by the idea. All those wage-earning people no longer putting their currency into the system … It was appalling. And yet Gaila had made enormous profits over the years, dealing with such people. Enough profits, in fact, to buy that moon he was so famous for. Brunt felt an involuntary thrill run down his spine at the thought of enough personal profit to buy a moon.

  Why stop at a moon? he asked himself. He was Brunt, FCA—in his heart and soul if not in actual profession at the moment. Why not a planet? After all, he had once been acting Nagus, presiding over the whole of the Ferengi Alliance.

  That sort of investment would require a lot of profit, but, as Gaila had said, no one had ever gone broke selling weapons. War wasn’t just a universal constant, it was an infinite source of profit. Brunt grinned to himself; this was his chance, to get it all back. He would make his profit and buy his way back into favor. It had always worked before.

  The next morning dawned with a lightweight western drizzle, and Brunt and Gaila took shelter in Brunt’s tiny shuttle as quickly as they could. After paying take-off fees, they were soon flying high and away from their drab homeworld.

  Hunched over the controls, and still pretty much brushing shoulders with Gaila in the cramped cabin, Brunt said, “So, where are we going?”

  “Right there.” Gaila pointed out the viewport toward a large cruiser ahead. “Now, we’ll need venture capital to begin a new trading company. If we are going to invest in selling major arms—”

  “I’ve been thinking about that,” Brunt agreed. “What we need is a suitably small but vicious conflict to begin with.”

  “My thoughts exactly. One in which we can raise the maximum amount of capital quickly by selling to both sides.”

  Brunt thought carefully. “It would take a lot of preparation to set up such a deal. So much, in fact, that it would require a n
umber of people to run smoothly.”

  “You’re not wrong.”

  “A number greater than two,” Brunt added.

  Gaila smiled troublingly. “Right again. And, as luck would have it, the crew of my ship is just the right small group of people.”

  The ship was an aging light marauder, of similar shape to the D’Kora-class ships of the Ferengi Alliance’s military, but much smaller. It was no larger than that Federation ship that the hated Quark used to hitch rides on. What was it called, again? Brunt asked himself. The U.S.S. Deviant? Something like that; the name certainly sounded appropriate for something connected with Quark.

  “Welcome aboard the Golden Handshake,” Gaila said proudly, once the shuttle had settled into place in the hangar. It didn’t take up as much room as the cargo sled next to it. He and Brunt got out and stretched their legs. “The ship is all mine.”

  “As are its contents,” Brunt agreed. The ship was, after all, Gaila’s home away from home. Gaila led the way to a wide corridor. Almost immediately, six Breen soldiers stomped out of a side passage, in full sand-colored armor and helmets over their environmental suits. Brunt froze, the contents of his gut turning to lead.

  “Oh, don’t mind them,” Gaila said breezily. “They’re just bodyguards.”

  “Bodyguards?” Brunt recovered his superior demeanor. “And whyever would you need bodyguards?”

  “For one thing, people who need an arms dealer usually have that need because they’re embroiled in some sort of violence.” Gaila looked uncomfortable. “Which means sometimes, to make a profit, one has to visit violent places.”

  “And the list of enemies I should watch out for … ?”

  “When a beetle-snuff salesman, for whatever reason, ends up with a dissatisfied customer, he can just ignore the lobeless little pest. But when a supplier of top-grade military technology and armaments ends up with a dissatisfied customer . . .”