An Ultimatum

[Shane 0]

The hour was late and the bar had gotten quieter. Most of the Qob crew members had either already left or were passed out in different places in the room. Few noticed the heavy steps or hiss and whirring of Shane as he walked up to the the entrance of Pete's place, entering through the swinging doors. Those who did looked away, as his attitude was worse than normal. The cyborg looked like he had been through a speeder wreck with his nose and lip bleeding. He sported a nice shiner on his left eye and his green A-shirt was torn in several place. He reached out with a bruised and cut arm to grab a drink from a passed out patron and walked towards the middle of the room.

 

"You're late," Joe looked up from his glass, almost empty of the last bourbon that had been left in the bottle. He'd planned to finish the glass and head upstairs to his room for the night, perhaps to salvage some of the good feelings that a positive job outcome had left him enjoying. His current mood, as it often was when he got to heavy drinking, was no better than Shane's.

 

"You can blame..." growled Shane as he sat heavily in a chair across from Joe and propped his boots on the table,"the local Klingon thugs. Some biker gang thought it clever to take my bionic as a trophy." He took a swig of the random drink he had stolen and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, looking the bottle over with approval. "So what was this meeting all about and why is it so baktag important?"

 

"Funny how no one else had trouble getting here on time. Almost like trouble has a way of singling you out and following you around." Joe finished off the glass of bourbon and briefly considered ordering another bottle. He'd already put himself in for a rough morning. "But then, you haven't been hired just yet, so you have an even better excuse, I suppose. If you're not too big on making impressions, that is."

 

The cyborg stared at the other man with his usual stony expression for a moment before replying. "I've never cared about 'making impressions' too much. You hire me for job, I get it done. One way or another. If you aren't pleased with my time-of-arrival, then I'll kill the Klingons faster next time. Besides," he said before pausing to take another drink and look about the room, "I don't see why you'd be so irked about impressions. I still haven't been paid for the whole Minos operation."

 

"The Minos operation that Pher has good reason to think you did more to hinder than to help." Joe reached into the front pocket of his vest and retrieved a small datapad. "I been sitting here on a note that tells me my chief engineer is leaving the crew. Giving what a fine job you did getting the ship up and running nice and fast, and how Pher managed to dig up some decent engineering credentials in your background, I've been tossing around the idea of putting you in charge of my engine room. But see, the thing is, when I put people on -my- crew, I expect them to be willing to do a job -my- way, not 'one way or another.'

 

"Now I've got a prostitute who don't care for guns running security and a guy who's got head issues I don't want to try to delve into who's sure he's smarter than everyone else running my science team. They've got their own ways of doing things, and I give them plenty of leeway to do things their own way. But I know that either one of them is willing to do things my way, without any variation or interpretation, if I make it clear how I want it. I'm not entirely sure I'd get the same from you, Shane.

 

"So I guess I'm irked because I need some kind of assurance from you if I'm going to trust you with my engines. Now that the two of us are here alone, no Guardians listening in, no Pher looking over us, why don't you tell me what you did to Minos?"

 

"I repaid an old debt," Shane said with quiet satisfaction, "one owed to me for quite some time. Something you can relate to, from what I've seen. A certain Duke Redding is now under your thumb if I'm not mistaken, for betrayal ending in the death of half your crew." Shane looked back to Joe and spoke without emotion, "Revenge is satisfying, ain't it?"

 

"But I'm no fool. Immediately jeopardizing the package would have been counter-productive for me as well as you. Mr. Simon is "safe" for at least six more days and by that time the Qob will be long gone. If anything should happen to him, I'm sure his own organization will come under question. From what I've seen in my previous dealings with them, the Rainmakers have never been known for their sense of internal loyalty. In fact, I'm sure we wouldn't have had any more problems from the Guardians if the green-skin hadn't run her mouth off to Savoy without first consulting you in this matter. Even still, the Guardians don't have grounds to blame us other than the Orion's suspicions. And I'm sure you can downplay them easily enough."

 

Joe leaned across the table and pointed a finger at Shane. "'That green-skin' has been on my crew for two years. She knows a hell of a lot better than you do how my crew should operate. She was protecting an operation that I set up, an operation that your little surprise could have ruined." Joe stood up and dropped two strips of latinum into his empty glass. "You say Simon's got six days? I'm giving you one. I want full details about whatever gadget you used on him, and then I'll decide, not you, what gets shared and what gets downplayed. Consider this your chance to earn my trust and prove your loyalty. If that ain't your sort of thing, you can look for a job with the Rainmakers or maybe one of the biker gangs."

 

Joe circled around the table and headed toward the upper story stairwell. He stopped to look back at Shane. "Oh ... keep in mind, if you ain't on my ship when we take off ... I'll turn your ass in to the Guardians."

 

Shane looked at the captain, silent and contemplating. Then he slowly stood and took the tricorder from its holster with the claw of his bionic, flipping it open to tap a few buttons. An isolinear chip slid out the top, which Shane took and tossed it to Joe. "There's your loyalty." He turned and walked towards the doors, "I'll have the Qob ready by dawn."