From: Jamie LeBlanc (plainsimplegarak_at_yahoo.com)
Date: Wed Apr 16 2008 - 21:53:51 PDT
“Martial Law: Part 2” (Continued from “Martial Law:
Part 1”)
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Location: GS2
Stardate: 2.80417.0050
Scene: MCO’s Personal Quarters
Time Index: directly after “Martial Law: Part 1”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
“People get trapped into thinking about just one way
of doing things.”
~Erik Weihenmayer
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
~Thursday~
Alex Towers sat down in the one chair in his quarters
that could be qualified as comfortable, and took a
breath. Usually his days didn’t weigh on him, and he
wouldn’t normally dream of wasting the time doing
nothing but staring at the wall, but this evening he
felt that the minute of respite would be good for him.
His decisions never really bothered him, but
sometimes he found himself trying to slow down and
figure out the best way to communicate to others why
things happened as they did. That’s part of the
reason he enjoyed the corps so well. Orders were
given, orders were obeyed. It reduced things to a
very simple, efficient process.
Speaking with civilians was another matter.
In Alexander Tower’s mind they were always too
emotional, too unable to see past their own small
concerns. So many of them just couldn’t understand
why they needed to be restricted. He pushed out both
hands, stretching his shoulders before shaking his
head. In Alexander’s mind it was very simple.
Threats to the station security were a very
serious situation, and civilians usually got in the
way. The best way to keep everyone safe was to keep
them contained. Besides, these people should be
thanking him. A curfew and restricted areas was a
small price to pay in return for being safeguarded
against the Dominion.
He had to explain that fact to Corporal Kimberly
Adams, when she protested about keeping the Harris
couple that owned the coffee shop locked in the brig
for 48 hours for breaking curfew.
“But they were just doing inventory, sir…” she
had protested.
Towers had loomed over her and spoken in a voice
that was not to be trifled with. “Corporal, when your
base is under attack you cannot dismiss anyone because
they look innocent or seem nice. Nor can you bend the
rules for people. They broke curfew, they will stay
the full 48 hours under observation, and then they
will be let out.”
When she protested once again, he turned and
snapped at her. “Corporal, are these people being
beaten?” She had shook her head no. “Are they being
provided with food and water?” She had nodded an
assent. “Are they being forced into heavy manual
labor, pulled apart from their families or tortured?”
She had once again shaken her head no. Tower’s voice
became steely. “All of those things and more would
happen to them if they were captured and taken to a
Dominion camp. Every rule we make, and every measure
we take, including the enforced quarantine are all
done to protect innocent people like them from being
taken to those camps. They may not realize it now,
but they should be thankful for their incarceration.
It means we are doing our job and protecting this
station.”
It had silenced all opposition from his marines.
Unfortunately civilians were unable to process things
in that way. Or Lt. Randall Giles for that matter.
The Ops officer was becoming an ever-growing thorn in
Towers’ side.
Standing, Alex started stretching for his evening
exercise routine, trying to come up with a strategy
for dealing with Giles next time they met.
~*~*~*~*~
~Thursday Night~
Scene: Promenade
Lounging behind a stack of books in the Book Shelf,
Zel looked slightly shady. Then again he tended to
look slightly shady when standing in a field full of
rainbows while petting puppies. He always blamed this
on his hair, which never really lay flat and looked
perpetually windblown.
Whatever the cause, he was feeling slightly shady
this evening as well. He was keeping a bead on
Peldig Nelo, watching the Orion trader as he made his
rounds to a select group of shops on the Promenade,
checking on his clientele. Zel didn’t really have a
plan beyond ‘follow him and see what crops up’ so
that’s what he was doing.
Nelo was like clockwork, really. After checking
in with his clients he went to Schroedinger’s Cat, and
had a few drinks, played a few gambling games, usually
won a decent sum of money and then packed his case up
and retired. He seemed to do this most every night,
and it made for easy following. It was very close to
the curfew hour when the Orion headed out towards his
quarters, the little Cardassian shadow following
quietly in the background. He strolled lightly
through the habitat corridors, to the places where the
richer civilians quartered, unlocked what were
presumably his quarters, and went inside. It left Zel
hanging back half a hallway away. The shopkeep shook
his head and muttered to himself, “well, that was
exciting.”
Sighing he leaned up against the wall, checking
the station chronometer. It was on the bleeding edge
of curfew, and if Zel gave a hang about rules, he
would have been running to his own miserably little
quarters.
Zel didn’t give a hang about the rules. He
figured he would hang around until he could prove
something, or a marine came and dragging him away. Or
until he got bored.
He found he didn’t have to wait very long.
Just about fifteen minutes after the curfew chime
rang in the Promenade, the lights flickered in the
habitat area. Dimming, they flared once, as if
gasping for life before dying down, replaced by the
pale amber emergency lights. “Another power outage?”
Zel muttered to himself, looking back towards the
Promenade. He could hear Engineering crews scrambling
to action.
The next sound he heard made him sink down into
the doorframe he was using for cover, as if he could
meld into the shadows. The door to Nelo’s quarters
opened, with the telltale whine of the manual
override. Zel held his breath and peeked out.
His jaw dropped nearly to the floor as he watched
the thin, attractive form of Clooney St. George exit
the room and the door shut softly behind him.
“Alright, maybe this *is* exciting,” he murmured to
himself barely more than a breath on the wind,
slinking after Clooney. The shapeshifter kept walking
steadily away from the Promenade, moving through the
halls with a well-practiced ease. It because quickly
clear that his route was preplanned, using the outages
and confusion as cover for his movements. Inwardly
Zel was impressed by how smoothly it went; but he was
also very aware that whoever this was, if they were
this good at sabotage, they wouldn’t be an easy target
to confront.
Slowly it became apparent where they were headed.
There was a large computer relay branching off of the
habitat areas, which linked the computers in the
Starfleet personal quarters to the mainframe.
Ostensibly set up to allow Starfleet personnel to do
work from ‘home’ in their off hours, it was a slightly
weak point in the computer system. Clooney wasted no
time, pulling an access panel off and taking out a
pre-organized set of isolinear rods.
Zel sucked in a breath, knowing all too well what
‘Clooney’ was up to. He was accessing the station’s
computer. Suddenly all the viruses and malfunctions
started to make sense. He was chipping away at the
computer security bit by bit, night by night, trying
to crack into the mainframe. Something about that
made Zel’s heart leap up into his throat. The little
hybrid really didn’t have any attachment to Starfleet
or even the Federation, but he liked the idea of
someone splitting the station wide open for the
picking even less.
And then he came to a quandary. If he went out
and told the marines, they would likely blow him off
and cart him to the brig. If he kept it to himself,
he was trapped here, waiting for this strange saboteur
to finish his work, leaving GS2 open as a sitting
duck. His common sense was fighting against his
desire to do something useful, and both were in a
raging war with his sense of self-preservation. His
conclusion was that there were no good options.
“What the hell are you doing?” Zel yelled out
from the darkness, sounding authoritative. He
figured, in some deep, dark insane part of his brain
that if he sounded official enough, ‘Clooney’ might
run again. Just in case he didn’t Zel dug his
battered old disruptor pistol from one of his pockets.
The saboteur turned about, startled, and backed
up, shading himself in the darkness. But he didn’t
quite run. He hadn’t heard the telltale march of
marine feet on the deck yet, so he was unwilling to
flee right away. “Who the hell is asking?” he called
back, in an oily tone.
Zel stepped slightly into the Amber pool of
emergency light, letting the disruptor lead. “The man
with the gun is asking.” He snapped back.
The chameloid smiled slightly, dropping his own
hands into his pockets. “Ah, the toyseller.”
“And you’re the Orion, I assume?” The little
Cardassian straightened, unwavering.
‘Clooney’ smiled. “I might be. I am many
people.” He shifted in the darkness, pulling a phaser
of his own.
Zel’s eyes narrowed, and a thin beam of energy
streamed out of the disruptor, striking the
shapeshifter’s hand. Clooney/Nelo/Moorit yelped and
dropped his own phaser, staring back up through the
amber glow, infuriated. “I didn’t say you could out
bring a weapon.” The little shopkeep growled, with a
hint of arrogance in his tone. He indulged in a
momentary smile, pleased that his marksmanship had not
faded any.
“Well, you are an infuriating little bastard,
aren’t you?” the chameloid snarled, rubbing his
injured hand. Slowly ‘Clooney’ raised his head and
fixed Zel with a glare, bending his knees slightly,
like a cat ready for a pounce.
“So I have been told.”
“You shouldn’t be so full of yourself.” The
saboteur warned.
Zel tensed, his finger on the trigger. If he had
been smart he would have shot right then and there,
but he was gambling that he could keep this strange
man talking and perhaps glean out a bit more
information to satisfy his own curiosity. It was an
ill-fated gamble.
Clooney launched himself in the air, twisting
away from the shot fired from the pistol. Halfway in
between the ceiling and the ground he shifted. It
wasn’t the fluid melding of one form to another
everyone expected of the Founders, more of a jarring
shift, forcing a solid form to reshape itself into
another. Zel’s eyes went wide as he was tackled to
the floor by not Clooney St. George, but a Nausicaan,
literally twice his size.
Moorit slammed the hybrid’s head into the
bulkhead, paused and slammed it again for good measure
before wrenching the disruptor from his hand. “I told
you that you shouldn’t be so full of yourself.”
“I tell myself that all the time.” Zel muttered,
wiping off the stream of blood that drained from the
side of his mouth. Head aching, he turned to see his
own weapon being aimed at him.
“I am sick of your interference.” Moorit spat
back through his Nausicaan tusks.
Zel sighed, getting a familiar sinking feeling.
“So we come to the ‘beg for mercy before I kill you’
part of the conversation I guess.”
Moorit chuckled. “Yes… except I don’t plan to
kill you.”
“Great… that sounds even worse.” The little
Cardassian muttered, spitting out some more blood.
The last thing he remembered was Moorit grinning at
him as the beam of energy hit him square in the chest
and he slumped over, unconscious.
The Chameloid let himself shift back into a more
dexterous form, working swiftly. He dropped the last
of his isolinear rods into the computer, closed it up,
and then dragged Zel a few yards down the hallway,
opening up another access panel. He pulled out a
pulsing power conduit and severed it cleanly with the
disruptor, and touched the live end to Zel’s hand.
His unconscious form jumped a bit from the shock
before slumping back down alongside the wall. Moorit
grinned, patting the little shopkeep on the head.
“Awww, looks like the saboteur got careless and
shocked himself. I’m sure the marines will take good
care of you…”
And he turned, running down the hall and
disappearing as Starfleet moved in.
~*~*~*~*~
~Friday~
Scene: Promenade
A small group of shopowners lingered at the
entrance to the Illogical Eatery, watching as Herb
Hicks tried to argue that O’Shaugnassey’s Irish Pub
was not a gathering place for rabble. Everyone had
expected that Schroedinger’s Cat would be closed down,
even Get Your Groove On and Castle Tepes, but the
marines were going through the entire promenade,
shutting down any place where there were ‘disorderly
gatherings of large numbers of people.’
In fact, the viewscreen now read that gatherings
of more than four people would be broken up and were
subject to prosecution. The MCO had promised that
these measures were lifted as soon as the situation
was cleared up, and that they had arrested an
accomplice to the perpetrator (the word ‘saboteur’
wasn’t used with the civilian population, though
anyone with a lick of sense could figure out what was
going on.) But still more rules were funneling down
the pipe. As Hick’s argument fell upon deaf ears, the
group all shuffled back into the Eatery, and split up,
trying to look as natural and orderly as possible.
“This isn’t getting any better.” Blean Kor, the
chocolatier muttered, going back to his porridge.
“I think it’s going to get a whole lot worse
before it gets better.” Belinda Lemieur growled,
shaking her head. “They came and harassed my husband
yesterday. The Harrises are still in jail, and now
they arrested two of my waitresses for being in the
Lonely Traveler last night.”
Kor shook his head, looking up as someone else
entered the restaurant. He breathed an audible sigh
of relief when he saw it was the pet shop owner
instead of another marine or bureaucrat. “Giles…
can’t you do anything about this? You have the elite
connections.”
“I’m trying; believe me.” Anthony hissed back,
taking a seat far enough away from the others to look
like a separate grouping. He paused, staring mindless
at the menu for a bit before looking up again. “None
of you have seen that little Cardassian toy seller
this morning, have you?”
Kor shook his head. “No, not since yesterday.
Why?”
Giles frowned. “I’m just afraid he got himself
in trouble, that’s all.”
~*~*~*~*~
Scene: Brig
Zel groaned as consciousness knocked on his brain
like an insistent, nagging mother-in-law that no one
wants around. His head felt like it had been put
through a meatgrinder, and his body didn’t feel much
better. He could taste the irony aftertaste of blood
lining his mouth, and as light pierced his eyelids, he
winced at the glare.
It took almost five minutes for him to screw up
the courage to move, and he found himself lying on a
hard bunk in a very cold room. He blinked, forcing
one eye open.
Check that, jail.
Slowly he forced the other eye open and stared.
He was in a tiny cell at the very back of the brig.
Alone in his pen, but not alone in the brig. The
other cells were filling up with people in what the
marines like to call ‘quarantine.’ He doubted that he
was afforded a solitary cell simply because he was
special. He stretched a bit, and that’s when he
noticed the electrical burns on his hands. That’s
when it hit him.
Clooney – or whoever he was – has set him up.
~*~*~*~*~
NRPG: Thank you everyone for waiting.
Hokay, I think I got my set up pretty well set up :)
I figured I would try to explain my view of Tower’s
actions better – I don’t really see him as the bad
guy, but I figured from the bios that he and Randall
Giles could be set up as opposites – and two extreme
points of view on how to deal with a problem. I hope
y’all have fun with coming back to a station that’s in
a mess. If not, feel free to yell at me. ; )
~*~*~*~*~
Jamie LeBlanc
Civilian Zel Rohan
Jailbird
GS2
"Why do we fly? Because we have dreamt of it for so long that we must"
~Julian Beck
____________________________________________________________________________________
Be a better friend, newshound, and
know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. Try it now. http://mobile.yahoo.com/;_ylt=Ahu06i62sR8HDtDypao8Wcj9tAcJ
From HyperNews_at_youth.net
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Wed Nov 19 2008 - 03:10:49 PST