Thoughts from the Brig

[Guest Laarell]

That had gone so well.

 

Amaara Teykier glared at the overly bulky Starfleet security officers that were currently marching her and the rest of the perpetrators of the shuttle escape team from the bay to the brig. The one on her left, whom she had nicknamed Stooge One, was at least as large as the males of her species. The one on the right, nicknamed Stooge Two, wasn't quite as large, but seemed much more belligerent and had a bad habit of literally pushing her and her comrades along when they slowed for any reason.

 

Oh well. She supposed she couldn't really blame them, though it wasn't like they had even remembered that they were prisoners when they "escaped". Nor had the Starfleeters in the brig known that they were supposed to be guarding them. They'd all gotten affected by the mnemonic-minefield, and, well, even if they'd continued to try to take over the ship once their memories were better, wouldn't the humans have tried the same thing if their situations were reversed?

 

Paraded down a hall, she looked in at the crew of the Teykier's Pride, crowded into each cell like sardines. She frowned, sighing deeply while she inspected them. She'd accounted for most of them, with the exceptions of a few that apparently managed to go and get themselves killed, or were in whatever passed for the Federation ship's sickbay. Except for the vessel's captain. She hadn't seen him yet. Amaara frowned. Her husband was a shrewd man, far above most of the brutes that manned their vessel -- late vessel, she corrected herself -- but he could still be prone towards errors in judgement that would easily have gotten him killed by these trigger-happy humans.

 

She went willingly into her cell, claiming the single cot for herself while the rest of the group settled in around the floor. This wasn't good. If something had happened to Paarash, she was going to have a hard time of things reigning in an unruly crew that was undoubtedly going to undergo a Starfleet inquiry once they got wherever they were going. Even as the ship's first officer, Amaara suspected that it wouldn't be easy getting them to respect her as a full-out captain of the ship. Even though their ship was divorced from the Syndicate, the old beliefs were still well-embedded; accepting a female as a commander would be a hard request of them. Hell, she would be surprised if they didn't try to sell her, much less obey her.

 

Her husband had always kept them in line. He'd been the one to break them away from the Syndicate, had been the one to buy her as a young slave and educate her, eventually freeing her and making her a partner in the business -- and marriage -- once they separated their vessel from the rest of the pirate fleet. They'd always done well enough with their own operation. But now... the future was uncertain, and Amaara couldn't help but worry.

 

* * *

 

Paarash looked at the other two men hurrying down the corridor, dodging the phaser blasts. "You had to shoot at him, didn't you? You just had to." He glared at the phaser rifle that D'Roran was carrying, looking for all the world like a child with a new Marivashkan present. "Well good job. Now they're shooting. At us." Another blast singed past them, hitting the bulkhead and burning a scorchmark into it. "And those aren't on stun anymore."

 

He cursed. "This is wonderful. We're lost on a ship with half-crazed, confused Starfleet officers who've decided that killing us sounds like a great way to regain their memories." They pulled into a side corridor, firing a few phaser blasts to cover their half-of-an-exit. "We're going to die."

 

"No we aren't." His companion turned out and blasted at another of the red-uniformed security-ers, missing his target miserably. "We're going to take them out, and then--"

 

"And then another group will come, and another, and another. And you're out of grenades," he pointed out. "Here. Give me that." He wrested the rifle away from the security specialist, tossing it into the corridor.

 

"What'd you do that for?" he demanded, giving Paarash a vicious glare. Teykier ignored it, throwing out his also-stolen phaser after it.

 

"Saving your hide," he answered, and ignored the resulting pout, which looked like it belonged on one of their slaves more than on a supposedly intelligent male. "And mine." The firing had stopped; he thrust both hands out of their hiding spot, showing them to be empty. "We're surrendering."

 

* * *

 

"This was all your fault."

 

If Paarash had expected a happy reunion with Amaara, he was going to be extremely underwhelmed. "How is it..."

 

"You decided that we weren't making enough doing smaller freelance work and cargo-runs. You were the one who had to work with that despicable man--"

 

"--you thought it was a good idea at the time--"

 

"--and to start causing trouble with the Klingons and everyone on the border. That was all your idea."

 

Sometimes he wondered exactly why he'd ever freed the female, if this was his reward, but then he recalled that her temper and tendency to yell at him was what had kept her from being a proper slave to begin with, and that it had only gotten slightly worse once she'd been given actual authority. "All right. Working for him was a mistake. But causing dissension among the border traders is hardly difficult. We just got unlucky."

 

"Unlucky," Amaara spat back at him. "Unlucky was finding out that the asteroid field had those horrid particle mines. Unlucky wasn't setting up this whole mess. That was just stupid." He glowered at her, and she knew that he knew it was true. "So what are we going to do now?" she asked.

 

"Well," he gestured towards the forcefield holding them in their cell once more, "we're probably being taken to Starfleet authorities. And then, from there, we'll see what happens."

 

"We lost our damned ship!" she yelped, ignoring the glares from their crew who clearly wanted to be sleeping. "And the cargo-load! And now what are we going to do?"

 

"Darling," he pointed out, "I think we should get through the Starfleet inquiry first," Paarash suggested. "Then we can fight about finding a new boat."