Angels with Dirty Faces Part I
Posted on Tue Jun 13th, 2023 @ 1:28pm by Commander Steven Greco & Lieutenant Evelyn Stewart & Lieutenant Commander Keishara Davaris
Edited on on Thu Jul 20th, 2023 @ 11:14pm
2,439 words; about a 12 minute read
Mission:
Prologue: Centre Predominate
Location: USS Moore - Cargo Bay 1
Timeline: MD 15: 1900 hrs
Stewart paced the area of the cargo bay in front of her while she and Kei waited on Zander. She looked at Kei slightly concerned. “Is this really necessary? I don’t know what you are hoping to gain by bringing them here from the brig.”
"Answers." Kei said rather coldly. "I want answers, and this is the best place. Away from prying eyes and Commanders." she added as she tapped her foot rather impatiently. "Plus it can be intimidating, and I like that in an interrog- an interview."
Stewart looked up at Keishara’s choice of words. It wasn’t lost on her how angry the El-Aurian was. She had been a slave, might well have even been in a similar circumstance at one point herself.
It didn’t mean Evelyn wasn’t just as angry and disgusted by what they had found on freighter. She glanced at Kei and it was clear neither of them were waiting around for answers. Stewart was just agreed to accompany the security chief to make sure things didn’t get out of hand. She was trained in interrogation techniques when she was studying to be an intelligence officer. She still kept a skeptical eye on Davaris as they heard the doors to the cargo bay open.
All 3 entered the room, two of those being the alleged traffickers at this point, and Zander. The Ktarian and Benzite sat down at a metal desk, one at each end looking at each other, both on rather uncomfortable metal chairs. "Thank you Zander, you are dismissed." Kei said as she looked up at her security officer. He nodded a little uncomfortably and left the room.
As a security precaution Kei had installed two statis field emitters to keep them there in case they decided to run, or get any other foolish ideas.
Kei looked at the two before her and sighed, she was angry but alright at the moment and she rarely lost her cool during these situations. "So, we searched your ship." she began. "What is your cargo?" she asked pointedly.
Both aliens looked at the officers and each other in confusion. They had already been arrested for what they were told was smuggling and thrown in the ships brig. The Benzite shook his head. “As we told you, Commander, we are transporting mining equipment to be transferred on Deep Space Nine to go to colonies in the Gamma Quadrant.”
"I find it strange you act confused. Surely when we arrested you on the charge of smuggling that you knew we would find the mass of Romulans under your ships hold?" Kei activated a holo that flashed through images taken as evidence, and she placed a PADD on the table with a list of some of the names they'd managed to get from some of the poor souls they freed.
Kei looked across to both the Benzite and Ktarian.
Stewart watched them both as well. Neither the Benzite or the Ktarian said anything. It was a long minute before Hoss looked away in what appears to be shame and disappointment. After a quick glance at Kei, Evelyn squatted to be eye level with him. “Tell us what you know. We will make sure it factors into your trial.” She said calmly, trying to win his favor.
Before the blue alien could speak the Ktarian glared at him. “Be quiet, Hokk! They have nothing on us.” He said defiantly, looking at his partner then the security chief.
Kei looked at Evelyn, was she playing the Human 'good cop'?
She turned to Hokk, "I have Benzite DNA on serving bowls, how very few there were for such a large amount of people..." she paused to let that sink in. "I have testimony from some of the more talkitive in your mass prisoner group of someone slipping them more food than the other more aggressive one..." she once again paused. "I have our team going through encrypted data files, communications... I have enough to hold you both for a long while... just a matter of time before I have plenty to convict. Just depends who..." she gripped the fingers of the Benzite to test his resolve. "is more vocal." she smirked.
With Kei’s attention on Hokk, Evelyn turned to watch the Ktarian. He watched the intimidation with no emotion. She let Kei continue on with Hokk for a bit before moving across the table. “Benzite don’t have a history of exploitation, do they, Commander?” She asked almost rhetorically.
"No... but maybe this one does." Kei spoke as she closed the gap on him. "They were closed down there, trapped like rodents. Huddled together, hard to breath in those conditions." she toyed with his breathing apparatus. "Would you like to know how that feels?" she asked.
Stewart watched Kei carefully. She didn’t like where she was going. Turning her attention on Emot, she did her best to draw Kei’s attention to the Ktarian. “What I’m more interested in knowing is why they were so frightened of Starfleet. Ktarians have a checkered history with Starfleet, do they not?”
"Yes..." Kei flicked Hokk's breathing apparatus with her finger before turning to Emot. "I do remember an incident with the USS Enterprise-D, a game went around, and your peoples behaviours with us have been up and down." she moved towards him.
Emot just looked up at both women defiantly. “You really expect to trick me with that? I wasn’t even born yet when that group was formed, and disbanded.” He practically gloated at them.
Stewart narrowed her eyes in confusion at him. “Then why do it?”
The Ktarian shrugged. “We needed a way to fund our business. If transporting more specialty cargo brings in a larger profit, then who am I to judge what the market wants.” He said, folding his arms.
Evelyn set her jaw in an attempt to hold back her disgust, but more importantly her temper. “That cargo were actual beings. Living, breathing, people. There were children amongst them.” She said with growing disdain for the man.
He looked up at her coldly. “No different than any other livestock.” He confirmed flatly. “And to be honest, the children fetch the higher price. We will be able to setup a lucrative business just from their fee alone.”
There was little thought when Stewart decided to kick the chair out from under the alien and slamming his cranial ridges into the edge of the table with her hand far more than gravity alone would have done.
As the Ktarian's face rose from the desk he had a bloody nose and a look of shock on his face. A smirk was on Kei's face but she had quickly moved in to pull Evelyn back before she did anything else. "This is not the way." Kei said to her but still communicated through her eyes that she knew why she'd done it and that she'd probably beaten her to it.
Keishara felt the immense anger as well. The very thought of them being called cargo spoke to her on so many levels and she understood how they felt completely. She wanted to smash his face off the table, throw him around the room, twist his arm up behind his back until there was a satisfying crack but Evelyn had simply beaten her (no pun intended) first to getting to him and shocked a little of that anger out of her.
"He's worthless Lieutenant." Not wanting to give her name. "A small man, with a small mind." Her knuckles were almost white with frustration and anger. She looked over at the Ktarian who had a sinister look in his eyes.
Hokk looked just as shocked to see any Starfleet officer conducting themselves in such a way. The Benzite only got more nervous.
Stewart glared at Emot, almost ready to push Kei aside to make sure he couldn’t answer anymore questions. She looked at Davaris for a long moment before she reigned in her temper just enough and sighed. Slowly, she began to relax and approached the desk. She still wasn’t calm enough to keep from kicking the discarded chair across the room though. She barely registered the Benzite’s flinch at the loud crash it made against some containers. “Who hired you? Who really gave you the job?” She insisted, her tone clear she wasn’t up for playing games as she squatted down over the Ktarian.
Emot looked at her and considered before smirking. “I’m not sure. I just know they would pay by the head. We could only afford to lose four of them in transit if we wanted to make a profit.”
His words stung deep Evelyn stepped on the Ktarian’s fingers with slow building pressure, ignoring his growing yells of pain. “I want a name.”
A profit? Was this guy serious? Kei grew redder in the face as she stood behind Evelyn. At this point she was willing to let her continue these small acts of coercion. Kei wasn't shy to acts of violence, she'd just never usually had a partner in that. "Give us a name, or I swear to all my Goddesses I will make you wish you had sooner." Kei said sharply.
There was a little vein popping out on her right temple. The continuous mention of them being nothing but cargo, livestock, a commodity to be traded and lost made her blood boil and she stood there in rage. Her right leg began to shake and she could feel she was close. Taking a deep breath she tried to calm herself.
Hearing the distinct popping and cracking of bones and ligaments, Stewart realized the man wasn’t going to give up a name. She looked at Hokk. “You are able to stop this. Give us a name.” She said, hoping that the partner who seemed to be the more compassionate of the two would give them information.
“I don’t know! Emot made all the arrangements.” He said sincerely, afraid of what would happen to him.
Frustrated, Stewart stopped and walked away, pacing the bay. The strategy failing to work on either of them. Her frustration at not finding out the truth bubbling over.
With a groan, the Ktarian grabbed his broken hand and gingerly held it to him as he sat up on the floor. “You Starfleet types. You don’t have the stomach for what you really want to do. It makes you weak but all the more trustworthy. It made it far easier to convince those Romulans to go along with the plan.” He said to both goad them but calling Keishara on her bluff.
Despite her best intentions, Stewart couldn’t ignore the goading and stormed back in the direction of Emot, fully prepared to show him how much she could stomach.
Kei moved in front of Evelyn and stopped her in her tracks as instead she moved towards Emot as he fully righted himself. "Computer, disengage safety field." she said simply as as Emot looked up he was met with a right hook across the face.
"What the f--" he yelled as he stumbled backwards and held his face.
"You little bolvari (weasel)." Kei said in a grunt as she landed a punch to his gut forcing him to lean forward. As he did so she used the table once again as an object of pain and slammed his face off of it until he fell to his back.
"You take children!" she straddled him and punched him across the face. "Call them livestock!" Left hook. "You don't mind losing a few! A FEW!" she struck him with the right fist again. "Use Starfleet to lure them in!" she took a breath and cracked her knuckles as she dug her knees into what she assumed was just below his rib cage. "Do you know what they do to slaves?! How they are nothing! Less than people!" she snapped one of his good fingers as he tried to stop her.
Evelyn saw Hokk begin to object to the beating of his partner. “Stay quiet.” She warned him as she caught her breath. So far he seemed reasonable and more like he just went along with what his partner said. She wasn’t wanting him to be foolish.
Stewart didn’t stop Kei from venting her anger physically on the scum, not at first. She more than understood what and how she was feeling in that moment. But when she saw the Ktarian not trying to defend himself and curling up to simply endure, the El-Aurian not letting up, she got concerned. The loud crack of the man’s ribs near where his spine would be and his coughing of blood being the signal to her this had gone too far. She grabbed Kei by the shoulder of her uniform and tried to pull her back. “Hey…” she found she had to use more force and pushed her back, physically putting herself between the two of them. “That’s enough, Commander!” She shouted at Kei, holding her back. “That’s not what we are here for!”
"Segal can't get away with this!" Kei almost fought Evelyn away but soon realised that she was not where she thought she was. This was not Segal's hideaway, the man struggling to breathe on the ground was not he and the pools of blood around him made Kei pause before looking at her knuckles.
Her hands shook as she saw the blood on them, the adrenaline wearing off as quickly as it peaked within her.
Hokk coughed and Kei darted her eyes at him.
"Say anything and I will rip that breathing equipment from your face quicker than you can take your last breath." she said with a slight shake in her voice.
The Benzite looked terrified and he shook his head. Stewart tried to Davaris to focus her eyes on hers. “He won’t.” She said firmly to reassure her. Her attention was on Keishara and she didn’t hear the door to the cargo bay open until it was too late.
Commander Greco had intended to carry out the interrogation of the smugglers with the intelligence officer, do to the trafficking of Romulan refugees. Starfleet Command would want a full report on the matter. To his surprise, he was informed that Commander Davaris had ordered the prisoners moved to Cargo Bay 1 for interrogation. With a sinking feeling, he headed off there with Safi and Matthews in tow.
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