Litasha

[Crash Calestorm 0]

Authors Note: We can haz recurring baddie? Indeed, we can haz...

 

= = = =

 

Litasha Moreau was many things: Leader of the of the Black Kris faction of the Orion Cartel network; a business woman, a lover, a fighter. She hailed from a long familial line of underworld bosses; her sire had transferred power and ownership of the family criminal legacy a few years ago, and she had comported herself rather successfully in the interim. She already had a respected reputation as a cartel boss, but Litasha always wanted more power, money and territory.

 

The green skinned Orion woman busied herself in her private quarters on board her elite stealth scout ship -- and the vessels name was appropriate, considering that she had indeed paid in the blood that had been expended -- reviewing the events of the Eisen campaign, a promising contract that had completed degraded into failure. Eight hours ago, the Mos Eisen planetary operation had been working as smoothly as it had been for months, and had been quite a lucrative endeavor for Litasha and her men. If the contract operation had not been interrupted, the monetary sale of the Vulcan colonists would have placed her in a prime position to obtain more of a hold on the cartel operations in the Eisen sectors and the Outer Rim colonial territories.

 

The Black Kris was an up and coming faction within the Orion Cartel, and Litasha maintained a small fleet of mercenary ships that would warp out to the colonial and unclaimed or contested territories of the various systems in order to patrol the cargo and travel lanes. Once the mercenary crews spotted an interesting target, they would pounce on the unsuspecting freighter crews or innocent travelers and take the poor idiots by force. These captured merchant crews and civilians would then be smuggled to Eisen, and finally shipped out to fulfill slave, domestic servants, forced labor, and prostitution contracts at various ports and orbital bases throughout the Outer Rim sectors.

 

Mos Eisen had been the perfect port of call in order to smuggle the flesh out since the planet was far enough away from Federation held space. A bonus had been the loss of most of the Starfleet at the Battle of Vulcan, and pirates and mercenaries such as Litasha and her crew had been sure to take advantage of the new found freedom of movement. The Black Kris merc ships had begun to inspire fear in the sector populations, and fear was good; Litasha intended to regain that fear quotient, and very soon.

 

She and her remaining crew had been forced to make a hasty exit from the Eisen system thanks to the unwelcome intrusion of one such Federation crew. She had lost her chief patrol ship -- the Audacious – and the whereabouts of her chief lieutenant, Mrothor where still unknown, and several of her best men had been cut down or captured in the ensuing fracas when the authorities had raided the warehouse that she had been using as a planetary base as well as the immediate airspace of Mos Eisen.

 

All she had needed to complete the transfer of the Vulcan prisoners had been one hour. One hour, and Litasha would have moved the new slaves, warped out of system, and then collected her final payment. Instead, she had underestimated the tenacity of the Starfleet Border Patrol, and her home turf had been invaded by these well meaning though completely misguided simpletons.

 

Litasha would not make such a mistake a second time nor would she allow herself to be placed in such a position ever again.

 

“Mistress Litasha, this is the bridge.”

 

It was the disembodied voice of her new chief lieutenant, Jirahl. The young man had taken over the day to day operations of her cell faction after Mrothor had gone MIA. So far, the youngster seemed quite capable. He could easily be replaced in the event of failure however, and for now he fulfilled the purpose of having someone with half a brain in the chief officer spot.

 

She threw the inset communicator relay mounted to the desk a dirty look, as if the inanimate object was responsible for disrupting her brooding thoughts, and then swiped a slender hand to activate the audio sensors. “This is Litasha. Go ahead Jirahl”

 

“We’ve received the intelligence information that you requested from our Eisen contact.”

 

Her lips split in a seductive leer at the news her lieutenant conveyed to her. “Good; send it down to my computer terminal. And give the agent that we left on Eisen the clearance to take out the informant now that we have the data. Move forward with that contract that we’ve been negotiating with the Klingon; inform the good Captain Korrel that we’ll provide the weapons that he’s requested. I don’t want to deal with the old razorbeast…but we need to build up our collateral after the Eisen losses.”

 

“As you wish Mistress; the agent will be informed, and I will contact Korrel. I am transmitting the information to your text mail now. Blood Price command bridge out.”

 

Litasha grinned to herself as she opened the digital mail folder on her computer terminal. The boy was so formal in his dealings, so eager to please, and that puppy dog quality would be exploited to its fullest extent.

 

The images had been stripped and transmitted from the security databanks of the Mos Eisen municipal department, and were of poor quality; the photo stills had originally been downloaded from various security cameras that had been placed about the warehouse district. The commander and mistress of the Blood Price wasted no time in accessing the data that would give her a further lead on her new found enemies.

 

The perpetrators of her demise had been a Starfleet crew that served on the USS Comanche Creek. This crew had gone undercover on Mos Eisen in order to infiltrate the criminal underworld that operated freely on the planet, and were the typical sort Federation scum that served on their Starfleet vessels -- mostly humans or humanoid if indeterminate background. A Vulcan. She quirked an eyebrow at what appeared to be an Orion female officer. A walking furball. She continued scrolling through the captured images; these officers had managed to infiltrate the criminal underworld on Eisen, and stop her slavery operation in its tracks.

 

They did not look to be capable of much, yet they had managed to stop her slavery contract and prevent the colonists from being shipped out of system.

 

A wronged woman was a scorned and vindictive woman. And, Litasha had been wronged.

 

A deep and resonant voice interrupted her quiet thought perusal of the digital images. “You seem a bit…interested in these Starfleeters. We’ve had issues with the law, let alone the Starfleet before, what makes this group so different?” The vocal tone was bored.

 

She turned her gaze towards the sleeping chamber of her quarters, and the overhead lighting cast the small area in semi darkness; a green skinned Orion male lounged on her bed among the colorful silk blankets, still naked from their recent bout of lovemaking. He held dual functions as her second in command and sometimes lover and boy toy…the matter was up for debate as to which posting he was better at.

 

The gleam in her eyes as she fixed them on her sometimes lover was plain even from halfway across the room, and conveyed the cunning and ruthlessness that had gotten her this cartel faction command position; she wasn’t about to let one little setback dictate terms to her.

 

“The Border Patrol, my dear, is what makes this particular ship of interest to me, as well as her crew….”

 

Litasha turned her attention back to her photo ministrations, enlarging one of the grainy images and coaxing her private computer to manipulate the photo and clear the digital pixilization a bit more; this crewmember was a blond haired woman, appearing physically older then the younger members of the Fleeter crew.

 

The master of the Black Kris faction sneered at this final image, and continued speaking to her first officer. “I’m fairly sure that we’ll be encountering this Comanche Creek as well as her commanding officer again, and I intend to convey just how annoyed I am at their interference, and on that day I will take what is my due in lost respect and reputation…by any means necessary.”