Twinkle Twinkle Little Ferengi - DL - LtCmdr Tierney Rinehart, Lt Zola (NPC)

Posted on 241407.04 @ 2:59pm by Commander Tierney Rinehart

Mission: Suicidal Running Title
Location: Rinehart's quarters

In the quietude of her own quarters, Tierney paced. Back and forth she followed her feet across the deck plates of her 'home', threatening to wear a track into the flooring that covered the cold hard steel of the ship. She... was a dead woman. Any hiccup, any slight indication that she may turn sides, she was dead. Dead. Shot like a dog in the street. She paused, feeling her heart race wildly in her chest and cold pangs of panic welling along her spine and down her arms before settling, like ice, in her fingers.

Come through, or die.

The Commander's tongue nervously soothed across the full pout of her lower lip as she pulled off her communicator and disabled it - effectively killing the ability for anyone to listen in to what she was about to do. "Computer, secure channel." She cleared her throat, chasing away the gravel that leaked into her voice.

"Secure channel procured." The computer beeped and Tierney promptly pinched the bridge of her nose.

"Contact Zola. Security code Tango Two Victor India November."

Zola was in the process of unpacking when the com chirped at her for attention. She always amazed herself with how much stuff she had, every time she had to pick up and move quarters. No matter how much she tried to mimic her hew-mon crew mates and condense to a single small duffel for ease of moving, she always ended up filling the same large duffel. She shook her head as she looked at the com screen.

Seeing that it was a secure channel and the name attached was Tierney Rinehart, Zola scrunched her face in concern. Moogie had beat into her
when finding out she was going into the fleet that she should never leave her communicator on if getting a call from her on a secure channel, so Zola assumed it was a safe bet that applied when anyone called on a secure channel. Away went the com badge into a secure box, and she accepted the call.

A nervous smile painted itself across Tierney's face, beginning to bring color back to her anxiety blanched features, as she saw the familiar face of her Ferengi friend come into view. "Long time no see." She began, settling the tablet onto its base, "I wish it was a pleasure call, Zola, but it isn't. I'm in trouble and I need your help."

"Oh no, what's wrong?" Zola asked as she settled in the chair in front of the com screen. "I don't know what good I can do, but I'll certainly try and help."

The redhead sniffed back another welling of cold anxiety. "I need a ship. Something big enough to accommodate a crew, but small enough be maneuverable and ignored by the Federation." She responded, running her fingers through her hair. "I fired on a Federation ship. Saved the Enterprise from capture. The crew is concerned I'll turn sides so... Needless to say there's a high bounty on my head... on this crew's heads. We can't risk someone collecting that bounty." She quickly explained to the little Ferengi woman on the other side of the screen.

Zola was still trying to grasp the politics of what was happening. She listened carefully as Tierney explained the situation, and stopped worrying about keeping up the moment the word bounty came up. That one was a red flag, any Ferengi with even an atom of business sense tingles at the word, for behind that word lay a potential for profit.

Sadly, that potential required Zola's friend, one of the few she'd made and managed to keep in this oddly hew-mon dominated society, to be turned over to someone who probably would do bad things to her.

"I might be able to help. My brother is a trader of things that vary in legality depending upon jurisdiction," Zola explained, "But we will have to proceed carefully... with a bounty on your head, he may be tempted by other means of profit." Zola frowned. Her dealings with her brother since her jump through time had been generally good, but he had most certainly gotten the business sense that Moogie had hoped Zola would get. Also, it was still just weird that her twin brother, her younger twin brother was so much older than her.

"I'm aware, but I don't have another choice." Tierney sighed, shaking her head and dropping her hands against her thighs. "I have money... and tech." She almost choked on the words and the bitterness they left in her mouth. "I'd be willing to continue trading prototypes under the table. No one could ever know beyond us. Not my Captain, no one. The Ferengi don't want to be on the losing side of this war, Zola, no one does. We're strong. All that's left for the opposition are greenhorns."

"I just don't know if it's better to tell him up front and bribe him to not turn you in, or if we should not mention it, and hope he doesn't hear until after you've taken off with the ship," Zola mused aloud. "If he installed a tracker, do you have someone who could find it and take care of it?"

A wry chuckle bubbled it's way out of the little half-breed, "We can handle tracking devices." She breathed, pinching the bridge of her nose. Another lifetime ago, she'd have been reduced to tears -- but now? Bitterness bubbled and oozed from places where a wide-eyed girl once dwelt. "I'm sure he'll be approached sooner or later about the bounty, but if he's smart he'll side with Star Fleet... All other options are just..." Tierney paused, "well... Bankrupt."

"Ferengi place profit above all else because that's how we believe we get into our afterlife, the Devine Treasury," Zola explained. "Risking the wrath of someone to make a profit is usually a worthwhile risk, as long as you're not staring down the barrel of a disruptor. Even then, if you think you can grovel and negotiate out of it..." Zola frowned as she shrugged. "Moogie never understood how I could understand our culture and beliefs so well without actually believing in them." Zola fiddled with a strip of gold pressed latinum that was sitting on her desk, tapping out a pattern.

"I think the safest way to do this is negotiate a proper contact with Nug. Something where he sells goods on your behalf, be it prototypes or other things you acquire, and takes a cut of the profits. Probably be generous with his cut, but make him think he tricked you into it. That should keep him from turning you over. Especially if you include a clause where there's a penalty for turning you in. If it follows Ferengi law, he'll be forced to pay, and it'll keep him honest."

This time the smile that pressed itself on Tierney's lips was genuine. She seemed to light up a bit, lifting her weary head and studying the fiddling Ferengi in earnest. "Threat of the Vanguard penalty enough? He'd be hunted like a dog with no chance of escape by the Vanguard's agents and the rest of Star Fleet. That's a lot of ships and the one you're currently on is known for it's tenacity." She grinned. "I can provide him with generous profits as I don't stand reason to make a dime off this, but I'm sure it would be in my best interest not to sweeten the pot too much... Would look suspicious."

Tierney found her feet again, strolling back across the deck plate, though this time in a much less frantic fashion. There was a light at the end of the tunnel. "Do you think he'd find a seventy thirty split to be too suspect?"

"Start negotiations at fifty-fifty, and let him push you out in exchange for clauses that protect you. Then he'll just think you're a stupid hew-mon, and wonder what sort of company his sister keeps." Zola scratched her head with the gold pressed latinum. "You can always use your share of the profits to find other things to filter to him for resale that don't pose as much of a risk for yourself. Do you want me to draft a contract to open negotiations with?"

A nod, a furrowed brow -- each came to pass as the Commander listened to her friend in earnest, pausing to find amusement in the Ferengi's choice of scratching implement. Some traits couldn't be erased no matter how hard one tried. "I'm sure the profits may need to go to keeping Enterprise ahead of the war and paying for information at this point." If anything, the other woman offered Tierney comfort and the knowledge that she wasn't truly alone. She had her friend. Her only friend, since Kerenal had disappeared into the ether. "Absolutely. You're amazing, Zola. I can't thank you enough."

"Anything for a friend," Zola insisted, grinning wide. She bit her lip, considering money. It hadn't occurred to her that Starfleet would be needing money now, but that make sense with the Federation no longer backing them with its resources. "You may want to not be so generous with the final split, Nug's not bad at turning a profit but you'll probably want more operating capital. And we'll talk about service fees he'll probably attempt to include..." Zola shook her head. "Is 24 hours soon enough for me to get back to you with the first draft of the contract?"

"I'll consider it. However, I can't have myself painted black as if I'm trying to profit off their misfortune. I have to operate on my own, Zola, I'm all alone in this entire aspect and trying to stay alive." The redhead paused and crinkled her nose to punctuate her point, "We'll figure it out and I'll definitely appreciate your further input. My dealings with the Ferengi are based on resources available... At this point I'm willing to subject myself to giving him hours of oo-mox just to keep heads above water." She sighed and found a seat again, inwardly shivering at the thought. It was little better than prostitution -- little better than the very thing her mother had been saved from so many years ago.

"We can do twenty-four hours, but sooner is better with how high tensions are."

"It's a fine balancing act, with hew-mons and money," Zola admitted, even as she scrunched her face at the mental image of her friend giving oo-mox to her brother. "He would have liked you better with your natural hair color," Zola observed without even thinking about it. "I'll get right to work, and shoot you an encrypted copy of the contract as soon as it's ready." Her hand darted across the console, and she sent a file to Tierney. "Use that to decrypt it." The file was a collection of sound waves labeled noise room at Das Bunker 2378-03-15.

"Yeah... well... the 'hew-mons' don't like different and they don't like what they can't easily explain. I'm only half." Tierney scoffed disdainfully as she looped a strand of hair around her fingers only to release it in order to accept the file at hand. "You and your noise." She commented, lifting her eyebrow and shaking her head.

"Next time we're both on Earth together, you have to let me take you to experience it first hand," Zola insisted with a wide toothy grin. Hopefully that wouldn't be that long, but given how things were going between starfleet and the federation... who knew? "I'll wear the chicken shoes," Zola added with a wink. "The sooner I get to work on this, the sooner we can broker the deal. Take care and we'll talk again soon."

Tierney laughed a genuine laugh, warm and jovial, her troubles all but forgotten or that unique moment in time. A terrific, albeit fleeting, feeling that liberated her pain and left her able to breathe -- if only for a second. "I'll hold you to it. Rinehart out." And the screen went black, erasing all trace of the familiar face, all trace of the hope she'd found.

Once again, Tierney was left to her own thoughts -- alone in a world so very toxic.



Lieutenant Commander Tierney Rinehart
Chief Intelligence Officer
USS ENTERPRISE

Lieutenant Zola (APB Pond)
Engineering Officer/Ferengi contact
USS VINDICATOR