Something Old, Something New - JDL LtCmdr Rinehart, Nug (APB Pond)

Posted on 241407.15 @ 1:16pm by Commander Tierney Rinehart

The shuttlecraft beeped almost incessantly now that she was in range
of the coordinates that Nug had given her – but no ship loomed on
screen. No ship could be sensed. No ship… No blasted ship. Tierney
couldn’t help but begin to feel more than just a bit slighted as she
sat behind the controls, watching, reading and waited for the ship Nug
had promised her… Hell, for Nug himself to appear as per their
agreement. “Something must have happened.” She mused to herself,
dropping to impulse and shivering at the implications that thought
brought about. God help them all if the Feds, or their pet Romulans,
had gotten ahold of the vessel. Her eyes closed tightly for a moment,
her head shaking as she tried to dismiss the thought.

Too many had died and suffered already.

Nug stood on the bridge of the Talarian freighter he'd acquired for
Tierney, the small crew he'd purchased operating it. They'd been
waiting cloaked for her arrival, and were now scanning to make sure
they were alone in anticipation of decloaking. With the sensors
showing no indication of anyone being around, Nug requested the cloak
be lowered and awaited Tierney's hail.

The contract had not stipulated that Nug provide Tierney with any
crew, but in the end he decided it was prudent to provide her with at
least a few crew members. Not only would this provide her with people
to hide the stench of Starfleet in whatever crew she outfitted the
ship with, but his choice to purchase slaves and give them their
freedom, and a signing bonus if they took work with her crew, gave
them a certain degree of loyalty to him in appreciation. So now he had
an inside source, and he hoped it would simply look to her like a good
will gesture in light of her family background.

Sensors beeped loudly when the vessel in front of her finally
decloaked. She’d never, not in a million years, thought the strange
little Ferengi would have given her something illegal, but couldn’t
stop the wry smile from playing across her features. Desperate times
called for desperate measures, and the cloaking device would give them
a powerful advantage when it came to running recon and hunting.

“Finch in.” She called in her hail, carefully using her call sign and
sat back in wait.

"Finch, the Cornish Rex is opening its mouth to swallow you," Nug
hailed her back, carefully repeating the phrase his sister had
suggested. There was talk of a creature called a cat eating a bird, a
hew-mon thing. As this hail was sent, he indicated to the man at the
controls to open the cargo bay so that Miss Rinehart could fly her
shuttlecraft inside.

The redhead snorted softly at the phrase. Cornish Rex. Only a Ferengi
would have chosen such an obscure breed of cat.

A few moments later she was stepping out of the shuttle marked
Enterprise. Her boots thudded gently as she walked across the
deckplates towards the waiting Ferengi. Part of her just wanted to
turn around, reboard the shuttle and run as far and fast as possible.
Part of her knew she was able to get away with it, able to disappear,
able to absolutely... Be miserable for the rest of her life.

Mark... She closed her eyes for a couple paces, trying to ignore the
welling feeling of regret growing deep in her heart. "Nug, I presume?"
She called from five paces away.

Orders were orders.

Nug bowed slightly, cupping his hand at his chin. "Of course, Miss
Rinehart. You are even more lovely in person," he insisted with a grin
that showed his sharp little teeth. "Let us go to the bridge and I'll
introduce you to your new crew," he added, waving his hand towards the
exit of the cargo bay.

"Flattery will get you everywhere." Tierney teased, echoing the words
he'd once used against her own attempts as she nodded her head in the
customary greeting and strode ever onward. "Crew?" She asked, her
brows furrowing as they exited the bay. She hadn't expected there to
be crew, only the empty ship that she'd pilot home and yet... There
were crew.

"This ship's a little big for one person to handle, even one with
Starfleet training," Nug explained, leading her into a lift. "I needed
to hire people to get it to you anyways, it cost me about the same to
buy slaves, and hand them their freedom in exchange for their
willingness to crew this vessel for you." He'd been speaking at a
leisurely pace, but when he mentioned the slaves, he quickened and his
voice rose, like he was afraid she'd cut him off if he didn't. "I had
saved enough I could give them a signing bonus, and still come out
ahead." He grinned at this.

She blinked and paused, her feet stilling against the floor and
holding her solid for a second, maybe two, until he fully explained
himself. "But they are free, yes? I could let them go right
now and they would be allowed to head off and make lives for
themselves?" Tierney asked, letting her eyes search the beady depths
of the Ferengi's as she finally allowed herself to unlock and move
forward again.

"They wouldn't get the signing bonus, that's contingent upon at least
a month of satisfactory service on your crew, but otherwise, yes. Free
to go if you wish," he assured her. "I would recommend keeping them in
your employ, to better avoid smelling of starfleet, I believe the
hew-mon phrase is." He chuckled at the phrase, and it wasn't entirely
clear if it was amusement with the phrase itself, or because he was
pleased with himself for remembering it. "I have contracts they've
preliminarily agreed to, with pay left open to your negotiations, that
I've left with the paperwork for the legal aspects of your ship. They
have already received compensation for the trip to deliver the ship to
you and enough to cover another week, to give you time to decide if
you'll be keeping them and to negotiate."

Without much more than solid acknowledgement of understanding, words
of agreement, words of appreciation they traveled to the bridge.
Tierney had always been a delicate soul, someone who had never been
one for many words -- least of all when she was harrowed by an obscene
lack of sleep and overload of stress and she struggled to keep her
head above water on the Enterprise with it being swept into such a
caustic tide of revolution.

The lift arrived at the bridge, which was occupied by five people of
various species. A couple looked up when the lift arrived, a green
skinned woman sitting at a station at the front of the bridge, and a
Nausicaan man near the lift with a disruptor on his hip.

Stepping out of the lift, she looked around and nodded to the crew
he'd left her with. They seemed, she thought, genuinely pleased to be
manning their stations, to be working, to be free. "Fair enough." She
reiterated to Nug as she crossed the bridge to the Captain's seat and
soothed the palms of her hands over it. "You've done an incredible
thing here, Nug. I don't know if I can adequately explain my thanks."

=/\= END LOG =/\=

Lieutenant Commander Tierney Rinehart
Chief Intelligence Officer
USS ENTERPRISE

Nug
Ferengi Businessman
(apb Pond)