Welcome to the Jungle - Part 2

Ten minutes later, after the Klingons had departed and her First Officer had been briefed, Mistry had hobbled to Sickbay to have her wounds tended to. Her CMO Aden Morgan, a broad-framed, handsome human male with truculent ginger hair, short trimmed beard and a strong Irish accent, noted the nature of the injuries immediately and ordered Sickbay cleared of all personnel; as he put it with his typical wryness, “I want to spare all your admirers the truth and let them keep the Legend alive.”

She sighed, easing out of her jacket. “What’s the latest rumour?”

“That your Klingon Nemesis was going to cook and eat you.”

Nearby, the elderly Caitian Exolinguistics Professor Rmolo S’Li sat, resting his hands on the silver head of his black cane as he observed the treatment. “How absurd. Everyone knows Starfleet Captains are best eaten raw.”

Mistry glanced at him suspiciously, before grunting in pain despite the ambizine Morgan had administered; she had summoned S’Li down to brief him on behalf of the rest of the Shack Pack, because of his own people’s familiarity with the Kzinti, and because being Caitian gave him an insouciance about seeing her undressed while she was treated. “Professor, I’ve received word that a rogue Klingon officer is making an illegal sale of nearly a thousand subspace isolytic warheads to the Kzinti.”

He frowned, peering at her over his spectacles, his tail twitching behind him in agitation. “That’s… alarming on a number of levels. The best case scenario involves an accidental detonation following confiscation of the warheads, triggering a subspace rift several light years wide that will permanently disrupt local warp travel.”

Morgan looked up from stitching together Mistry’s cracked ribs. “That’s your best case scenario? What’s the worst?”

Mistry wrapped an arm across her chest, missing the support of a bra now. “How about a hostile race escapes with weapons of mass destruction, and destroys inhabited planets in their quest to expand their territory?” She saw Morgan frowning at the bite marks Khassev left here and there, and frowned back, before turning to S’Li again. “What’s the current relationship between your people and the Patriarchy? Have you met any of them before?”

S’Li seemed to consider the question, stroking the grey furs on his muzzle, before responding wistfully, “Thirty-two years ago, I was part of a Caitian welcoming committee, acting as interpreter and linguistics advisor, when six of their angriest-looking ships arrived in our system and offered to accept us as a satellite state.

The relationship they proposed was straightforward: we would surrender peacefully and hand over our advanced starship, medical and weapons technology, and in return they would allow us to be grateful for their masculine authority, after centuries of obvious chaos from our inferior matriarchal governance.”

“‘Inferior’?” Morgan exclaimed in disbelief. “What makes them so chauvinist?”

“Their females are non-sentient, Dear Doctor. Culturally they are as dismissive of women as they are of vegetarians and scientists.”

Mistry raised an eyebrow. “What was your own impression of them?”

The elderly Professor swallowed, seeing things in front of him that no one else could. “Like caricatures of my people… but not amusing ones. When I stood in their presence, despite the armed Caitian Militia guarding us, I… feared. They would have killed and eaten us as easily as you draw breath; not even our hereditary enemies the Ferasans would stoop to that level. It is for the best that their toxic arrogance, their predatory instincts, tribal partisanship and dismissive attitude towards creativity and cooperation has prevented them from truly uniting and becoming a formidable power.”

“And how did your people respond to their... offer of masculine authority?”

“We sent them to Kuburan.”

“Kuburan?”

S’Li nodded. “In Caitian Mythology, one of the Seven Hells, a cold, dark oubliette reserved for Invaders and Marauders. It is also the name of a small, lifeless planetoid at the outer edge of our system, which we use as a graveyard, for the remains of all the vessels – and their crews – that had tried and failed to attack or invade us over the previous millennium.”

“You’ve been invaded before?” Morgan asked, mystified.

“Oh, many times: Ferasans, Orions, Romulans, Hur’q, Triacans, Xindi, Malurians, Nausicaans… and now the Kzinti. Our Planetary Navy destroyed the Kzinti ships, sending them crashing down onto Kuburan, and killed all their people but one. This one, we sent back to their Patriarchy in one of their own shuttles, with the advice to not return or contact us again. Advice they seemed to have followed.”

“No love lost between the Cats then?”

The Caitian looked to him soberly. “There is strong evidence that the early Kzinti assisted our genetically-augmented relations the Ferasans, who were responsible for massacring my people and driving the survivors from our birthworld to settle on the planet we would call Cait.

So… No, Doctor. No love lost.”

“Professor,” Mistry continued, pausing when the doctor tilted her head to one side to repair the bites and bruises on her neck and shoulder. “Commander Gallop has a datarod supplied to me from Captain Khassev. I want you and the Pack to examine it, and confirm the authenticity of the intelligence, before I send my report to Starfleet Command.”

S’Li nodded and rose, his tail swishing as he replied, “Of course, Dear Captain. I… trust we will not be facing them alone?”

“We might not face them at all; Starfleet Command will most likely assign someone else. Someone bigger, better armed, far more able to deal with the crisis than we would.”

The Caitian nodded, looking a little relieved. “Great Mother Willing.” He smirked as he glanced at her, catching her scent. “Still, at least you got some. I can’t remember when I last did-”

“You know where the door is, Professor.” She shook her head as he departed. “Am I done here now?”

“Not yet, Captain.” He moved to a medical synthesizer and produced a vial, attaching it to a hypospray. “I want to administer some broad-spectrum antibiotics.” He pressed the tip against her bicep. “No telling where your Klingon friend has been before today.”

She listened to the hiss of the hypospray, before beginning to dress. “Do I detect a note of rebuke, Doctor?”

Morgan returned his tools to an adjacent tray. “I’m not one to be giving my opinion of another officer’s lifestyle choices… but it seems to me that picking a Klingon as a sexual partner isn’t the most prudent of choices one can make, not if you have to keep visiting Sickbay after every encounter.”

She pulled up her trousers and fastened them. “You realise you just contradicted your initial declaration about not giving your opinion?”

He lifted one corner of his thin lips in a smirk. “I know, it’s part of my charm.”

“It’s not that charming, Doctor. As for my sexual partners, you’re quite right: it’s my choice. And I could do worse than Klingons. Yes, they get rough, but that’s part of the passion. And I give as good as I get.”

His smirk dropped. “And the fact that he’s a member of a power that not that long ago was out to destroy the Federation means nothing to you?”

Mistry stared at him while she slipped her undershirt over her head and reached for her jacket. “Your family’s been in Starfleet for a long time, haven’t they?”

He nodded. “Six generations.”

“You lost a few of them in battle with the Klingons?”

His broad face tightened. “A few. You can learn a lot from the past, Captain.”

She tightened her belt, nodding. “You can. Including not to live in it. Maybe twelve or fifteen generations before our last war with the Klingons, your Irish ancestors and my English ancestors were killing each other over a patch of land, each side mired in even older hatreds, vengeance feeding vengeance, seemingly never ending. Should we continue to fly their banners of bitterness, too?”

He frowned at the comparison, his pale skin pinkening. “Aye, but that’s different, Captain! That was long ago! Ancient history! There’s members of my family still alive from those more recent times. They remember the Klingon atrocities, the losses of family and friends! You expect them to forgive and forget?”

“No.” She twisted her neck around, working the aches from it that his ministrations couldn’t. “Because they’re not under my command; you are.”

*

Crewman Nola Brice breathed in deeply to calm herself as she piled more food from the synthesiser onto the tray. Behind her in the Mess Hall, her fellow crewman, the Tellarite Granch, harrumphed, his porcine snout wrinkling. “You’ve eaten already tonight. You’re going to exceed the maximum weight for your race and height. And you look like you’re already on the edge.”

Nola smirked. “This isn’t for me, it’s for the Captain. And I’m surprised you can see anything, the fumes from your pelt must have blinded you years ago.”

Granch clacked his hooves in amusement. “Well said! You must come back and tell us how damaged she was fighting the three Klingons!”

Behind him, his bunkmate Charles Sebastiere chuckled. “Three? Really?”

“Indeed! And I heard she had to have her right arm reattached!”

In the rear, the Vulcan crewman T’Shak slipped into a formal posture. “She did not.”

Granch pointed a polished hoof in her direction. “How can you be so certain? You weren’t there!”

“And neither were you. But I can infer from the fact that the Captain was released from Sickbay so quickly, that any wounds she might have suffered were not as severe as the rumours might suggest.”

“Oh.” Granch sounded slightly disappointed.

“If you’ll excuse me,” Nola cut in, lifting up the tray and walking away. “The Captain needs her comfort food.”

But Sebastiere caught her in mid-exit, offering his patented flirtatious smile. “Now, Cherie, will you be sitting with me for Movie Night? It’s Casablanca, a classic! Rick and Ilsa are the ultimate Romantic Couple. We can learn a lot from them.”

“She will be sitting with all of us, Horndog,” Granch reminded him. “We will be chaperoning.”

“And the characters you mention are not the Romantic Couple of Casablanca,” T’Shak informed them.

The others stared back, Sebastiere smirking. “Excuse me, Mes Ami, but I’ve seen the movie five times. It’s Rick and Ilsa.”

T’Shak folded her hands behind her back. “I have seen it once, in my Terran Historical Media Studies. While on its original release Rick and Ilsa was perceived to be the film’s romantic couple, it has since been re-evaluated that the actual romantic couple was Rick and the Prefect of Police, Captain Louis Renault.”

“Nonsense! They would never have even hinted at something at that! It was the middle of the Twentieth Century!” Sebastiere chuckled in disbelief. “Would you believe there were still places where same-gender love was actually illegal at the time?”

“It was subtextual,” T’Shak explained, raising an eyebrow. “Not that you appear cognizant of subtlety, to judge from your attempts at flirtation with my bunkmate.”

Granch laughed at that, poking Sebastiere with his hoof. “She has you pegged to rights, Human!”

Nola shook her head, having tried with some difficulty to understand the era that Captain Mistry seemed to favour for her music. “As long as there’s popcorn, I’ll be happy. But like I said, the Captain is waiting.” She spared a smile for Sebastiere before departing with the tray, making her way along the corridor and to the turbolift to the next deck up, where the Bridge, and the Captain’s Office, awaited her. Sebastiere just wouldn’t let up, would he?

And she never did all that much to dissuade him, either.

She entered with much more confidence than her first time, months ago, as a fresh-faced Baby Blue, nodding and smiling at Captain Mistry and Commander Gallop, indicating the tray. “Ma’am?”

Mistry was perched over her desk, eyes fixed on the PADD in her hand, but smiled and patted an empty space beside her. “So, Commander, do you think Crewman Brice is ready for that field promotion to, say, Admiral?”

On the two-seater in the small room, Gallop had his own PADD, barely glancing up as well. “We might have to invent a whole new rank just for her skills in keeping you fed and happy, Captain.”

Nola flushed and set the tray down. “Can I get you anything else, Captain? More painkillers, perhaps?”

Now Mistry looked up. “Wow, give her a promotion and she rewards it with threatening to drug me.” Then her intercom chirped. “Mistry here.”

From the adjacent Bridge, Wixtar reported, “Captain, we’re receiving a transmission from the D’Ghora.”

Mistry frowned as she glanced at Gallop. “Mmm? I wonder what Khassev wants?”

“A rematch?”

The Captain blew a raspberry at that and leaned back, responding to the intercom, “Put it through, Lieutenant.”

Nola glanced between the two officers, knowing she hadn’t been dismissed… and not wanting to make herself noticed, so she could listen in, expecting some Klingon vitriol, or some other clue as to Mistry and the Klingon’s feud.

A gruff masculine voice filled the air. “Captain Mistry: What is coming, is coming sooner than I promised you. Much sooner. Beware, you have but a handful of hours left. Look for the signs.”

Silence hung in the room, with Mistry and Gallop looking to each other, Gallop noting, “I guess he had to get the last word in.”

Nola frowned at Mistry’s puzzled, concerned reaction. “That’s not like him. He wouldn’t contact me like that after the fact unless...” She picked up her PADD, scanning data. “Khassev indicated that Colonel Gentaq was bringing the warheads to the Maelstrom in a Klingon freighter, the… Nipoc.”

Gallop was quickly following her lead. “The most likely route for any vessel leaving Klingon space for the Maelstrom would be along Ajilon Prime, Varex III, Farius, Regula-”

Mistry bolted to her feet and barely made it past Nola and through the doors onto the Bridge, Gallop following… and Nola bringing up the rear, caught up in the sudden urgency. Mistry moved to the Operations station. “Call up the Security reports for the Archanis and Antares Sectors, look for references to a Klingon freighter, the Nipoc.”

Gallop moved to the adjacent station. “Accessing updated telemetry from Starbase Yorktown, they’ve been coordinating transport data on border crossings in the past month...”

Nola stayed near the office door, her curiosity eclipsed by anxiety. What was going on?

Seconds later, Gallop leaned into his station, reading. “The Nipoc reported past Ajilon Prime six days ago… Varex four days- wait, that’s not in the direction of the Maelstrom-”

“Look up any reports on Kzinti vessels,” Mistry ordered, her brow creasing with concentration, calling up star charts on the overhead displays. “They’ll be meeting somewhere else.”

Gallop called up new data. “A Kzinti freighter registered as the, ah, Slim Belly, was identified passing New Yonada by the Pioneer five days ago. It refused to answer hails, and the Pioneer filed a report with Starbase 25.”

She nodded absently. “What other Starfleet vessels are in the vicinity besides us?”

Gallop checked. “The Ticonderoga is closest; the Pioneer is still surveying New Yonada, but it’s an Oberth; the Reykjavik was reported near Kazis IX at the Border; there’s the Antioch, a civilian transport to Norpin V-”

Mistry straightened up, pointing to a place on the map. “There! The Xibalba System! it’s on the route for the Nipoc and the Slim Belly, it’s uninhabited, has no outposts or facilities nearby-”

Gallop nodded. “-Because Xibalba is a binary pulsar system, emitting enough EM and gravimetric radiation to interfere with long-range scanners. Perfect cover.”

Mistry looked to Ensign Duarte at the Helm. “Lay in a course for Xibalba, get us there, Warp Nine!” She turned to Wixtar. “Send a Priority One Alert to Starbase 25, send them our data, inform them we’re on our way to intercept, and request all available assistance!” As the ship jumped to warp speed, and the tension on the Bridge heightened, Mistry straightened up and looked to Nola. “Sorry, Crewman, I’m going to need you for a few hours more.”

Nola straightened up. “Of course, Ma’am. What can I do?”

“Get ready to burn off some kilos delivering coffee...”

*

Kzinti freighter Slim Belly, Yonada Sector:

Captain Shadoweye of the Coiled Southern River Pride continued to rip into the remaining flesh on the targ thighbone, having already filled himself but still enraptured by how delicious the fresh meat was. Not as delicious as human, of course, but then one had to do with what one had on paw.

In the corner of his cabin, his Female crouched, mewling with hunger despite the clawing he had given her earlier for making noise. He growled in her direction, silencing her… but only for a moment.

Shadoweye glanced up now, his teeth bared and his pointed ears twitching… but then he relented. Normally he would have left her on the homeworld, but she was in Season, and he wanted a son, soon, and so brought her along. And for a dumb animal, his Female had stayed relatively clean and obedient in here whenever he was elsewhere on his ship.

He threw the remains of his dinner in her direction. His Female dove for it, her smaller frame crouching over it, her tail raised and swaying as if from an errant breeze. He leaned back and cleaned his claws, catching her scent, and feeling his attentions divert hungrily to her. It was that tedious portion of space travel, when there was nothing to do and no one to fight, and distances were distances despite the ability to travel faster than light.

But soon, with the help of his ill-gotten gains from a robbery of a Bolian treasury ship, he would return home with weapons that would help plant the Patriarchy’s banner throughout the Quadrant, and the Highest of Kzin would elevate him…

And to have a son then would be fortuitous indeed. The Highest might even allow Shadoweye to name his son upon birth. Imagine the honour, of having offspring growing up with an actual name-

A beep from the intercom drew him from his thoughts and made him cross, and he opened the channel. “What is it, Second?”

The voice on the intercom was hesitant. “Forgive me, Captain, but we have received a transmission directed to you!”

Shadoweye sat up, his thin tail twitching behind him. “A transmission? From the Klingons?”

“No, Captain! They won’t say, and we can’t identify them or trace the source!”

The Kzinti Captain rose to his feet now, baring his teeth at nothing. An unknown signal? They were running on the Prowl, silent, with only the Klingons delivering the weapons knowing their ultimate destination! If this was some trick of the plant-eating Federation-

His Female reacted to his alarm, growling.

He hissed at her for silence, but worked to control his alarm, not just for her, but for his crew. “Put the signal through.”

“Yes, Captain!”

He sat down again, turning to the desk display, as the blank screen was replaced with a familiar image of a rectangle adorned with an elaborate crescent shape.

Shadoweye growled. Them…

A mechanically-disguised voice spoke up. “Greetings, Captain Shadoweye of the Coiled Southern River Pride. The Moonfleet congratulates you in advance on a successful rise in your status among the Kzin.”

Shadoweye narrowed his bronze eyes at the screen. The Moonfleet: a group of smugglers and mercenaries, of which very little was known, offering services on their own terms rather than being sought out. He remembered his former Captain dealing with them, providing his ship with Romulan plasma cannons that were antiques but were still light years ahead of anything else available to the Kzin.

More recently, Shadoweye himself had tried, and failed, to secure their help in obtaining the very isolytic weapons he was now on the verge of acquiring himself. “It is too late, Brigands. I neither need nor want your help now.”

“You may think differently after we’re done talking, Captain. Starfleet has just been made aware of your imminent transaction with Colonel Gentaq in the Xibalba system.”

He bared his teeth at the screen, his pulse racing. “You have informed them! I will hunt you down and make a feast of you! I swear it!”

The voice on the other end of the transmission remained unintimidated. “Calm down, Captain. We have no intention of preventing you from obtaining the subspace isolytic weapons; if we did, why would we take the effort to warn you? On the contrary, we wish to help.”

Suspicion kept Shadoweye on edge. “Out of the goodness of your hearts, no doubt.”

“Out of a mutual desire for success. Your freighter is unarmed, a requirement from Starfleet to enter Federation space. And the Klingon freighter with whom you are rendezvousing has minimal weapons, insufficient to deter the Starfleet vessels inevitably on their way to intercept you.

The Moonfleet, however, is prepared to despatch nine Kzinti raiders to your location, with ample weaponry to deal with them, and ensure your safe passage back to your territory.”

“Kzinti? From which Pride?”

“The Thousand Scars.” The Voice paused. “I assume you’ve heard of them?”

The breath caught in Shadoweye’s throat at the mention of that name. “The Thousand Scars Pride? They are all dead! Wiped out by the Romulans two years ago, on a raid on Devron!”

“No, they merely chose to join our organisation, rather than face that particular fate.”

Shadoweye’s heart triphammered. The Thousand Scars, alive? He had been raised on horror stories of the ferocity of that particular Pride, utter savages even by Kzinti standards… had the Moonfleet really arranged to have them in their employ? He growled. “Even if it were true, you could not possibly send ships to arrive in time!”

“Yes. We can. And I promise you Starfleet will not see them coming. And in return for their services, they will take back with them half of the Klingon warheads.”

The Kzin roared. “Filthy thieves! You would strip us of half?”

“Yes. Or… you can refuse the offer, continue onward, and lose everything: at best, your freedom, when the estimable Captain Mistry arrests you, at worst, your lives, if a stray phaser or disruptor beam strikes the consignment, tears a hole in space and sends you all to whatever passes for the Afterlife for your people.

The transmission will end in a matter of seconds, Captain. I suggest you make a decision now.”

Shadoweye stared at the screen, at the symbol, a crescent moon that seemed to fix upon him, mocking. Because of the restrictions of the thrice-damned Federation, they had nothing in the way of weapons onboard but paw-held arms, and the Klingons could not be expected to support them in the face against Starfleet.
Assuming the warning was true. It might not be-

No. It was true, it had to be. He had been luckier than most in having some first-paw knowledge of the Moonfleet, and knew they were opportunists, had access to secret intelligence, and technology… and kept their end of any bargain they proposed.

Returning to the Patriarchy alive with 450 warheads was better than dying with 900.

“I…” he finally responded. “I agree to your terms...”



PART 3