"U"

[Joe Manning 0]

"You have to be the craziest son of a bitch I've ever met, Decker."

 

Decker smiled the smile of a cat with a canary. He shook off the two thugs who were holding his arms and walked toward Cain's desk. He heard them charge up their weapons, but he knew Cain would have given the order not to harm him unless given a good reason to. The old bastard was too curious. "I see the office is still as nice as the day I designed it, old buddy. The minibar over there; hope you keep it stocked with the good stuff. The Andorian quicksilver fountain; remember what a pain it was installing that thing. Ah, that big ol' viewport behind ya, beautiful view of the asteroid field ... and the star cluster. You know how I love seeing the stars up close like that, twinkling all colorful-like."

 

When Decker reached the front of the desk and leaned against it, the Nausicaan behind Cain's left shoulder charged -his- weapon. Cain, as always, was a mess, his grey hair falling haphazardly to his shoulders, his face unshaven, his tunic shabby and stained. He'd always been an ogre. But, Decker had to admit, he was the one sitting behind the desk; he was a cunning old rat. "You got a lot o' nerve bringing that puny little bucket o' yours to this station, Decker. Didn't I leave you on some barren rock in the middle of the cluster?"

 

"That you did," Decker laughed and slapped the top of the desk. "And let me tell you, the view out there (or, I should say, in there) was -really- spectacular. Almost like having a hundred suns in the sky. Which means, of course, that there's little chance of a ship passing by and picking up anyone stranded on one of the worlds. The stellar gravity makes navigation a real pain."

 

"You got the idea, then," Cain leered. He reached his left hand over to the top drawer of his desk and pulled a cigar case out. He kept his right hand under the desk. He presented the case to Decker.

 

"You know I don't smoke, chief."

 

"You don't do magic either," Cain replied. He withdrew a cigar with his mouth, and the Nausicaan quickly produced a small welding torch to light it. Decker found this sight terribly amusing. "But you managed to get off that rock I stuck you on, so certain things about you have no doubt changed. Like ... your line of work."

 

Decker crossed his arms. "You knew I'd escaped, then?"

 

"Oh, yeah, I heard you got off my little makeshift prison world. I wondered how, sure," Cain blew out a stream of smoke in Decker's direction. "And I thought you might be fixin' for a little revenge against yours truly. But when I heard about what you were doing, I decided to let it go. Junk collecting, Decker? Pickin' at derelict ships and abandoned colonies?"

 

"Honest work," Decker's face was beginning to redden, partly out of rage.

 

"Really?" Cain grinned maliciously, biting down on the end of his cigar. His right hand hadn't moved from under the desk; his right shoulder appeared extremely stiff. "You was always the upright one, wasn't you, Decker? The moral crusader? The good man's bandit? Now there you are out there digging through the garbage bins of people who got killed by the Beholders. Maybe even digging through the pockets of the bodies that was left behind?"

 

"And what kinds of good deeds have -you- been doing for your community, Cain?" Decker retorted. "Funding pirates? Preying on shipping lanes? I've even heard of ties between the gang and some Orion slavers running their racket in this territory. Oh yeah, I've been keeping tabs too, old friend. And it seems you've been quite the busy bee now that Starfleet doesn't have enough ships to protect the frontiers."

 

"Is this why you wasted your time and mine coming back here, Decker?" Cain asked derisively. "To give me one o' your lectures? Or did you finally decide to cash in what few chips you got left, and hoped we'd kill you on sight and put you out of your misery? Because if you didn't come here to die, I suggest you turn around and get back onto that garbage scow o' yours ... the Princess Victor, is it?"

 

The thugs behind Decker laughed. The Nausicaan didn't. Decker merely smiled down at his old right hand man. "I came here, Cain, because I want it all back. I want everything you took from me. This station. The crew. The ships. The whole operation. All of it. Except for Meredith. Her you can keep. Considering where she's been the past two years, I want no part of her."

 

Cain just laughed in response, coughing out several puffs of smoke in the process. The thugs, whom Decker could not recognize from the old days, joined in. The Nausicaan remained still and silent. Then there was a blur of motion. Decker reached out, snatched the cigar from Cain's mouth, and smashed it into the desk top. The thugs lifted their weapons and pressed them into Decker's back. Cain's right hand whipped up from under the desk with a disruptor pistol tightly gripped, and his left hand darted underneath the desk.

 

The Nausicaan pressed his rifle to Cain's head. All movement stopped.

 

"Good work, Zelik," Decker said to the Nausicaan. The Nausicaan merely nodded and grunted.

 

Cain glanced to his side and the Nausicaan, and fury fell over his face. "You stupid, stupid son of a bitch. You think I didn't know this oversized pile of targ dung was workin' me? Big mistake for you both, though. My ship's got a constant transporter lock on me. One push of a button and she beams me out of here."

 

"What ship, Cain?" Decker grinned, preparing to relish in the canary's flailing.

 

It was then that Cain noticed the bewildered looks on his two thugs' faces. He spun his chair around to look out the viewport. The asteroids were still tumbling away from the former locations of the two ships that had been guarding his station, the force of their explosions having propelled them outward. The ship debris was tumbling right behind them. Where once there were two small pirate ships, there was now a decloaked Klingon Bird of Prey.

 

"What in the right red hell ... "

 

"Have a look at the syndicate's new flagship, ol' buddy." Decker leaned across the desk and slapped Cain on the back. "And say hello to the 'man,' and I use that term loosely, currently manning her Bridge."

 

A comm device in Decker's pocket came to life. "This is Captain Ugott of the starship Qob. I bid you greetings Mr. Cain!" Cain spun around and gave Decker a look of disbelief.

 

"'Captain?' Don't stretch it, lobes. You're the only person on the ship right now."

 

"Which is a problem we'll need to soon rectify," the Ferengi answered. "This ship is coming apart at the seams without a crew. Uh ... n-n-not that it isn't still quite capable of firing a disruptor salvo on your asteroid."

 

"Ah, did you catch that, Cain?" Decker asked. He pointed out the viewport. "My Ferengi companion would be referring to those long things on the tips of the wings there. They're called 'disruptor cannons' and they can take this whole asteroid out with two or three hits. Oh ... and that 'transporter lock' you were bragging about before? Yeah ... Zelik and I got that now."

 

"You crazy bastard," Cain slammed his pistol against the desk top. "You think my men will stand for this?"

 

"Well, I don't know." Decker looked over his shoulder. "What do you say, guys? You all want to die right now, blasted into a million particles? Or you want to follow a new boss, one who used to run this gang ten times better than it's being run now ... and that was when I -didn't- have a Klingon Bird of Prey at my call."

 

The thugs glanced at each other, shrugged, and lowered their rifles.

 

"Alright, fine." Cain dropped the pistol on top of the deck and raised his hands. "Fine. To the man with the biggest ship goes the spoils. I can respect that. There's no reason we can't coexist. Just like the good ol' days, eh Decker?"

 

Decker chuckled and shook his head. "'Coexist?' Are you really thinkin' I'd share the top of the hill with you, Cain?"

 

Cain glanced up at the Nausicaan and the end of his rifle, then at the two thugs who were only watching now. "Y ... you can't just kill an old friend, can you, Decker? That ol' moral code of yours, right? Never kill somethin' that ain't fightin' back?"

 

"Yeah, that's right," Decker nodded. "And I'm sticking by that code. I'm taking the syndicate back to the old days. No more preying on unarmed merchant ships. No more taking captives and selling them off to slavers. These operations runs the way it did when I was in charge last time. Lawless, but harmless, like I always used to say" He glanced back at the two thugs. "Might mean rooting out some of the more unsavory elements you've picked up over the past two years, but we'll be prepared for that struggle when we come to it. And as for you, ol' buddy ... well, I can recognize a debt to be paid. When you were sitting where I'm sitting, you could have killed me ... but you had mercy on an old friend. You left me on a deserted world. No reason I can't do the same."

 

"W-wha ... " Cain shook his sweating head.

 

Decker smirked and leaned over the desk. "Ever heard of the maximum security Fed prison on Nayal IV?"