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Star Trek Chapter 14
"I swear Talic, your prices amount to robbery. How am I to make a profit from you Cardassians if one part of your so called government refuses to allow me to find what I need and you my friend, robs me blind for the test subjects I require?"
Talic turned his faceted eyes on the Centari, he would just as soon torn the soft head from its torso as have to speak to it-especially suffer its complaining insults.
"Gathering slaves from Federation space implies certain risks. My contractors require a substantial reward for their efforts." He was not going to let on that certain elements within the government were less than supportive to trafficking in human slaves, not for any moral qualms but because such things could be destabilizing to the protectorate.
"I will take my cargo and be gone," Bondo said. "I assume your government's guarantee of safe passage still holds."
"If you remain on the approved flight plan," Talic replied.
They watched as each of the 34 canisters were loaded onto Bondo's ship. "What is this one, undetermined?" Bondo asked. "I have contracted for 34 humans and you are one short."
"One of the chambers had a slight malfunction and could not identify the contains. We have fixed that-you are looking at an old record. It is a juvenile female. I had one of my technicians examine it and the system did self-calibrate for a human and it appears to be in good health."
"Oh very well! How many of these subjects are children? You did not tell me they were children and that might upset my results."
"Only this one," Talic replied. "The consignment was for human slaves to be used for experimentation-you did not specify what verity you required."
"Damn insects," Bondo muttered as he turned and walked toward his ship. He would have to personally look to the stowage.
From the roof of an adjacent building, Cooper watched the loading. The Centari ship appeared to have minimal armament and would be no match for Revenge. However, he would only be able to rescue the one, his ship's life support could sustain three at the most. He'd have to clue Star Fleet in as to the whereabouts of the rest of the passengers.
He made his way back to the utility room with ten minutes to spare. He'd have to wait for Revenge to be overhead, then he'd signal for the transporter. Two hours after retuning, his sensors picked up a Centari transport climbing into orbit.
Justin was stuck- he really didn't have a plan. Usually Centari used jump points and, conveniently, the Cardassains had one only a couple of A.U. away. Problem was, you couldn't use a jump point without the owner letting you. Also, because he had warp, Revenge wasn't equipped to navigate in a subspace jump and he'd probably get lost. He had to act, and he had to act fast as the Centari accelerated out of orbit.
Justin followed in pursuit and powered up his disruptors. An hour later, when they were half way to the jump point, he dropped the cloak to fire.
The low-level hit had the desired effect-it disoriented the ship without (Justin hoped) disabling it. He materialized in the cargo hold with a phaser drawn but it seemed the crew was too busy to man the space. The lights were out and he fumbled for his torch.
The canisters were arranged along three bulkheads but two were strapped to pad-eyes on the deck. He moved from one to the next and hit pay dirt on the seventh. Unfortunately all their control panels were turned off and it took Justin a minute to figure out how to get the current reading displayed-the unit listed the occupant as "Human-Immature Female." The canister was too big for his transporter, he'd have to wake up the occupant.
The process took five minutes, during which he heard yelling and people running down adjoining passages. At one point the door to a catwalk opened and the lights came on. Justin hid behind the canister as two Centari went by, obviously holding a heated discussion. They didn't notice that one of the units was making a different noise and its display was lit.
Three minutes later there was a pop and the door opened a crack, vapor sank to the floor and spread. At the same time the door at the end of the space opened. Justin's phaser whined and the Centari fell to the floor. He stepped around and pulled the door open and was quick enough to catch the girl as she fell forward.
Bending down he picked her up and threw her over his shoulder. Another Centari was stepping over the downed one, screaming something as he fired again, then typed the code into his communicator to initiate transport. Two more Centari ran into the space as the cargo bay faded and his own ship appeared in front of him.
The child screamed and started pounding his back with her fists as she struggled to get free.
"Hay, Hay, Hay! It's alright now, you're safe," he said as he put her down next to the bulkhead. He was rewarded with a hard kick to his shoulder and she scrambled away.
"Carly! Carly Rand! You're safe now!" he yelled, holding his hand up to block the next kick.
The child was terrorized and bleeding.
"Who are you?!" she cried as she dissolved into tears.
"My names Justin. I was sent to rescue you, sent by your father, Spock."
"DADDY!!!????"
"Yes, your daddy-Mr. Spock. He sent me."
"Where's daddy?"
"I think he's back on Earth. I'm supposed to take you to him."
Then the proximity alarm sounded.
"Were am I?"
Justin was heading into the passageway, leaving the girl against the bulkhead of the transporter unit. "You're on my ship-and we're not alone."
Settling in at the command console, all Justin could do was look around with IR cameras-the use of any sensors would give him away at such close range. A Cardassian destroyer had dropped out of warp near the drifting Centari transport. There'd be a conversation going on between the two. Justin decided just to back slowly away on impulse while they tried to decide what to do. Ten minutes later the Cardassian vessel started an intense scan, sweeping the space around it. Justin turned and went up to half impulse.
As the two ships dwindled behind him his sensors detected the scan. It passed but then returned, then left, then came back. The destroyer started a slow turn as it concentrated its scans in the space near Revenge, passing over him twice.
"Shit," Justin muttered.
"What's happening?" Carly asked from behind him. She was cradling her injured arm with the other.
Justin glanced over his shoulder. "Somehow that Cardassian ship can see through my cloke."
The proximity alarm sounded again.
"They're firing!" Carly said.
All they could do was watch as eight photon torpedoes moved toward them in a wide spread.
"Looks like a shot in the blind, they're not locked," Justin said as the first one went past, 400 kilometers away. "Still, I'm getting us the fuck out of here."
Not having any idea what direction to go in, Justin simply kept the course Revenge had still loaded in the Nav. A second salvo of torpedoes were on there way when the Warp drive started to bend space and the stars shimmered. One of the torpedoes impacted the warp field and was deflected off to the side by negative gravity before the cloak expanded to cover the ship and the field.
"Where are we going?" Carly asked.
"I don't know," Justin responded as he started studying the readouts on the Nav. "We can't go back the way I came, they'll be looking for me and it seems my cloak isn't as good as advertised. But, for now, I don't see anyone following."
He turned his chair around to face the girl. She was dressed in a red shirt, blue pants and light shoes. The shirt was decorated with pink and blue flowers appliqued on her chest, stomach. The right sleeve was torn and the fabric was a darker red above the tear. Her red hair was disheveled and there were flakes of white in it.
"You're hair's longer than in the picture I saw," he said. Then he reached out and took her hand, lifting her arm. "Look's like you're hurt."
Carly looked down at the tear. It was beginning to hurt. "What happened to me?"
"What do you remember?"
She closed her eyes and a calm passed over her face.
"I was on a ship. We were attacked by Cardassian pirates. They put me in a stasis tube and then I was here."
"I don't know if you'll really understand honey but they were slavers. You were on a different ship when I got to you."
"What about the others?"
"I'm sorry honey, I was sent only to get you but...I'll send all the information on them back to Starfleet. Maybe they'll rescue them."
It was strange to see how the girl reacted. At first he thought she was going to start to cry but then something else came over her and she forced her face to calm.
"You were sent by my father."
"Yes," Justin said, wondering if a little girl could understand the politics.
"My father sent you."
"Yes, him an Admiral Kirk."
"Logical..." Then a tear ran down her cheek.
"I don't know your dad or Kirk well but I suspect they'll stop at nothing to rescue the rest, they just wanted you out first...and they sent me to find you."
"I hope so...but...the Cardassian's killed most of the people..." She turned around and started to weep.
Justin stood up and went behind her. He put his hands on her shoulders but she moved away. He didn't know what to say so he went back to the console and sat down, then started working with the Nav system. Carly walked away and down the short passageway. Justin turned just in time to see her go into the small galley.
His Nav system had only the most basic maps of the area of space beyond the Cardassian collective-the Federation had never gotten that far out toward the Orion Spur. He was checking his position against a few known reference stars when his sensors detected a ship at long range. A closer look reveled several distant and weak signals, all heading on a roughly opposite course.
"Fuck," he muttered.
"What's wrong?"
He hadn't noticed that Carly had come back to the control room.
"Shit load of Cardassian ships, all headed where we want to go."
"Are they following us?"
He looked up. "No, I mean back towards Federation space." He looked at her arm, the red stain had spread.
"You better let me take a look at that," He said.
"What about the ship?"
"We're fine for now."
Justin took the girl back to the galley and got out his first aid kit. He used the hand-held scanner to look at her arm, then did a quick scan of the rest of her. It alarmed as he moved it up her right side.
"Honey, it says you have a broken rib. Aren't you in pain?"
"Yeah, but I ignore it."
He continued up to her shoulder and the scanner alarmed again. "Broken clavicle," he said.
"Well, they're not displaced so I'll just have to tape them and your arm will be in a sling. You'll have to wear a special bandage that'll hold the bone menders and that cut needs a screen." He looked up at her from where he was sitting, she was standing in front of him. "You'll have to take off that shirt, I'll probably have to cut it off."
"No," she said as she pulled up on the hem then lifted it. She hissed and stopped as she raised her arms. "Oh! That does hurt."
"Yeah, that's the shoulder," he replied as he took the scissors out of the box. "With that broken collar bone you won't be raising your arm over your head for a few days."
He cut the shirt straight up the back, then slid it down off her front. She turned around. He lifted her arm and looked at the cut. It was about four centimeters long and there was a lot of swelling around it. There was going to be a nasty bruise on her side where she'd been hit. He wiped half congealed blood away, then sprayed and antiseptic on the cut. Next came an antibiotic spray and he cut a piece of suture screen. He put it over the wound, then set the scanner to close the wound. The ultra-violet light from the scanner caused the screen to adhere to the skin, then shrink and pull the cut closed. Next a transparent covering appeared over the screen.
"There, in four days that'll fall off and the cut will be healed."
Carly looked at her arm. "It doesn't hurt anymore."
"That's the numbing from the screen. Let me look at that side."
He moved the scanner along her side and the screen showed a scan of her ribs and highlighted the fracture-a nondisplaced crack on her fifth rib. Then a diagram appeared showing how to wrap her abdomen. He tapped out some instructions on the screen.
"The clothing printer is making a sort of bandage that has pockets in them that you'll have to wear for a few days while the bone mender works."
He looked up at her but couldn't keep himself from looking over her chest.
She was still a flat little girl but she was just beginning to show development. Her nipples were about the size of nickels and pushed out into small domes.
When he looked into her eyes he could see she noticed him noticing. She smiled and pushed her chest out, in a way that emphasized that very slight swelling where her future tits would be. Then she moved her shoulders back and forth and gave him a really alluring smile before it melted in an expression of pain.
A smile crossed his face too but then Carly seemed to realize what she was doing and crossed her good arm over her chest and looked away. Justin stood up and went to the printer to get the bandages while he suppressed his own smile.
Once he had the bandages glued on her he slipped the flexible tube-shaped menders into the strategically placed pockets over her broken rib and collar bone. With a tap of his tablet they started to vibrate softly while they released microscopic nanobots that painlessly burrowed into her skin and started working to build a carbon fiber scaffold over the fractures that would greatly speed the growth of new bone. In her broken clavicle the scaffold would slowly move the bones into position also while the nanobots stimulated complimentary nerves to block the pain of the break.
Justin looked around her and said, "I don't have a scanner for making you clothes so I'll have to measure you and input them manually." Then his stopped.
"Oh, wait, maybe I can cross the data from the medical scanner."
"OK," she responded.
He took the scanner and moved it up and down the girl. He'd be able to pass the files to the ship's life support system and it, in turn, would direct the clothing unit to make her perfectly fitting jump suits, even print her a space suit. What she didn't see was that he set the scanner to show him her skin on the display and he got a real good look at her beneath the torn and battered shoes, pants, socks and panties she was wearing.
What he saw made his cock swell.
Ten minutes later the printer opened and a neatly folded set of gray coveralls and white panties lay on the small tray. Justin picked them up and lay them on the seat next to where Carly was scarfing down an old earth delicacy that he was partial to-"it was called a 'corn dog,'" he had told her as she looked skeptically at it. She sniffed at the small cup of yellow sauce alongside it on the plate. "That's mustard. It was made from the ground seeds of a desert plant on Earth and the meat was from a hoofed mammal, ground and processed."
"It isn't from an animal?!" she asked in shock.
"Heavens no! The meat's from a bio-reactor."
She looked back at the yellow tube.
"Dip it in the mustard and take a taste."
She did as asked and, as she chewed, began to nod. "Mmmm, that's good," she said as she chewed.
There were smudges on her face and shoulder where her shirt had been ripped, also some staining from blood on her arm.
"Do you want to get cleaned up-take a shower-before you get dressed?" he asked.
"Yeah, OK," she responded, still chewing. She seemed to have forgotten she wasn't wearing a shirt.
"Want a drink?"
She looked up and nodded.
"Beer?"
She stopped eating. "Can I?"
"Sure."
"Please."
Justin left her as she went into the small head.
"Justin?" she called, "What about the bandages."
"It's fine dear," he responded. "They can get wet. If you need help washing, call." She didn't respond and he went to the flight deck.
Ten minutes later a drop of water hit him on the back of the neck as he sat on the command deck. Sure enough, she was wrapped in a towel and combing out her hair.
"Figured out where we're going?" she asked.
"Not really," he responded. "In a couple of days we should pass into an area that's supposed to be controlled by some sort of 'Trade Federation' but there's been reports of a war of some sort going on. It's all very sketchy but at least we're not being followed by the Cardassians."
"How long 'till we get home?"
"It's going to take a couple of weeks to circle around and get back into Federation space. We'll have to pass through Ferengi space, that'll be a pain, but they'll only want money. For now, I need to send a status report to your dad before we're out of range. I'd like to send a video of you, maybe just tell him you're OK."
"I'd like that," she said.
Fifteen minutes later a tight beam SSIP message was transmitted from Revenge to Deep Space 17. The message contained a text sitrep that included the identity of the Centari ship and his discovery that the Cardassians had some ability to track him through the cloak and a 2 minute video of Carly and his assessment of her injuries. He signed off saying he was running for unknown space on the far side of the Cardassian Collective. It would turn out to be the last communication for two weeks.
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