Demons of Air and Darkness

by Keith R. A. DeCandido

  Then came the kicker. Malic explained in very plain, simple terms why this was an offer Quark couldn’t refuse. Then Malic departed, promising to return “soon.”

  Now Quark was scared. He hated being scared—so much so that it rather irritated him how often he wound up feeling that emotion.

  In the past, he’d have no one to turn to. His brother had never been the most useful person in a crisis— though even Quark had to admit that Rom occasionally had his moments, for an idiot—and Odo was as likely to toss him into a holding cell as help him out.

  But there was a new constable in town, so to speak, and Quark felt confident that he’d be able to appeal to her better nature. As opposed, he thought, to Odo who, let’s face it, doesn’t have a better nature. Besides, when the renegade Jem’Hadar attacked the station a few weeks back, Quark had saved Ro’s life. It’s time I collected on that debt.

  “A problem, huh?” Ro said with her toothy smile. “This ought to be good.” She stood at the rear wall monitors, looking over the current inhabitants of the holding cells. Quark saw the usual bunch of criminals, deadbeats, losers, ne’er-do-wells, and regular patrons of his bar in the screens. Ro turned off the surveillance and the screens went blank.

  As she did, Quark started, “There’s this Orion—”

  “Malic.” Ro sat back in her chair and touched the control that closed the door to the security office. “He came to you a few days ago to extort your cooperation in a business venture, and you’re expecting him to return at any moment so you can get started.”

  Quark sighed. He hated when security people did that. They never understood the importance of not letting the person on the other side know that you know more than they think you know.

  “Right. And that’s my problem.”

  “Don’t want to work for the Orions?”

  “Don’t want to work for this Orion.” Quark finally sat down in the guest chair. “You see, I have this friend on Cardassia named Deru. He used to be a glinn in the military, and he was assigned to the station back when the Cardassians ran it. He retired about eight or nine years ago to go into private enterprise. The two of us entered into a business deal about two months ago. We’ve been arranging to get supplies to people who need it in Cardassian territory.”

  “Very noble of you.” Ro sounded almost sincere. “Or it would be if I didn’t know you better than to think you’re doing this out of the goodness of your heart.”

  “I am doing it out of the goodness of my heart!” Quark said indignantly. “What is it about Bajorans that you think that doing a good deed and turning a profit are mutually exclusive?”

  “So what’s in it for you?”

  “Land. See, we divert shipments of relief supplies to certain individuals in return for their land.”

  Ro’s face distorted into a frown. “You kick people out of their homes?”

  Quark rolled his eyes. “Don’t be ridiculous. We’re not doing this to anyone who can’t afford it. No, we’re getting supplies to the people with excess land. Nobody’s being kicked out of their home. Besides, most of this property was damaged during the war. It’ll only be useful again with a lot of work—which, I’m sure, some entrepreneuring buyer would be willing to invest in.”

  “And a Cardassian landowner who’s starving to death wouldn’t be willing to invest in it, but he might be willing to sell it to somebody like Deru, in order to stay alive,” Ro said, showing a keen grasp of the economics.

  “Exactly!” Quark said, grateful that she understood. “I knew you had the lobes for this sort of thing.”

  “Keep my ears out of this, Quark. So let me get this straight. A bunch of Cardassians, who used to be rich, now find themselves stuck with a ton of land, but no way to make use of it. They’re also starving to death because the Cardassian economy is in a shambles, or maybe they’re sick or injured from the devastation because relief hasn’t reached them yet. Along comes Quark—”

  “Actually, it’s my associate who approaches them.”

  “Along comes Deru,” Ro said obligingly, “who goes to these people, who are used to feeling like they belong to the greatest civilization in the galaxy, and now can’t even get a working replicator. And Deru tells them he can get them black-market food and supplies, courtesy of his anonymous, big-lobed accessory—”

  “Hey!”

  “—and all they have to do is give up all this extra land that they can’t do anything with anyhow.”

  “You make it sound like I’ve committed a crime,” Quark said.

  Ro laughed. “If you didn’t know you’d committed a crime, Quark, you wouldn’t be here right now. Because you know damn well that if Malic informed Starfleet or the Cardassian authorities about this, they’d rip your ears off.”

  “It isn’t Starfleet or the Cardassians I’m worried about,” Quark snapped. He looked over his shoulder as if he expected someone else to be listening, then turned back to Ro. “It’s Garak.”

  Ro shrugged. “So?”

  Quark threw up his hands. “You ever met Garak?”

  Ro shook her head. “I know he’s very involved in the rebuilding of Cardassia Prime. I also know him by reputation, and I honestly don’t think we’d ever find your body.”

  “You see the problem.”

  “Should’ve thought of that before you got mixed up with Deru.”

  “How was I supposed to know that some old Orion would come along and blackmail me with it?”

  “Isn’t there a Rule of Acquisition about knowing your customers before they walk in the door?”

  Quark rolled his eyes. “I come to you for help, and you quote the Hundred and Ninety-Fourth Rule at me. Some friend you are.”

  Ro leaned forward and got serious. “What exactly does Malic want you to do?”

  Sighing, Quark said, “He wants me to negotiate a purchase on behalf of the syndicate. I don’t know what for.”

  “I’ve heard of worse deals,” Ro observed. “Maybe you should just take it.”

  “You don’t understand—this is the Orion Syndicate!”

  “I know who they are, Quark. I went through Starfleet tactical training, remember? We spent a week just on the syndicate.” Ro picked up a padd and started fiddling with it—constantly turning it ninety degrees with her hands without actually looking at it. “You’re worried that once the Orions get what they want, they’ll tell Garak anyway.”

  “Something like that.”

  Now she looked genuinely amused. “You’re really scared of him, aren’t you?”

  “For Gint’s sake, Laren, he used to be in the Obsidian Order! Didn’t you spend a week on them in Starfleet tactical training?”

  “No,” she said gravely, “it was two weeks.” She set down the padd. “All right, Quark, I’ll help you. But you have to help me in return.”

  Quark’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “How?”

  “By going through with Malic’s negotiations, and helping me to infiltrate the syndicate.”

  Quark felt his ears shrivel. “Infiltrate? Are you insane?”

  Ro keyed a file on her padd and held it up so Quark could see the display. “Look at this—Malic is on about a dozen wanted lists. Getting close to him—”

  Quark stood up abruptly. “I’m not going to infiltrate the Orion Syndicate, Laren!”

  Ro rose and glowered down at him across the security desk. “Oh yes you are. Because if you don’t—I’m going to tell Starfleet and Garak you’ve been exploiting Cardassian citizens.”

  Falling more than sitting back into the chair, Quark said, “I don’t believe this. I save your life, and this is how you pay me back? You help me get out of being blackmailed by Malic by blackmailing me with the same thing?”

  “Yes, I know, the injustice of it all.” Ro smiled. “Don’t look so glum, Quark. Think of the points you’ll score with Kira and Vaughn when I tell them that you helped me bring down a major player in the syndicate and turned in a Cardassian who is illegally diverting relief supplies to wea
lthy patrons.”

  Quark put his hand over his heart. “Are you telling me I have to turn in Deru? Betray my comrade and business partner in order to save my own skin?”

  Ro nodded.

  “He’ll turn me in!”

  “Let me worry about that.”

  Quark knew then that it was over. He had no bargaining position this time. Ro had him by the lobes. Not the worst position to be in, when you think about it, but still . . .

  “All right, fine. What do I have to do?”

  “Exactly what Malic wants you to do. The only difference is, you’ll have a dabo girl with you.”

  Aghast, Quark said, “You want me to expose one of my dabo girls to those Orion lunatics?”

  Ro glowered. “Don’t be an idiot, Quark. I’ll be disguised as a dabo girl.”

  Suddenly getting a very pleasant mental picture, Quark smiled. His right hand brushed across his lobe. “Really?” From the moment he’d met her, Quark had wondered how Ro would look in a dabo girl’s outfit. Maybe this won’t be so bad after all.

  When his glazed eyes refocused on Ro, she was scowling at him. “Get your mind out of the waste extractor, Quark. This is business. I’ll be by your side at all times. The Orions care—their attitude toward women is even worse than the Ferengi’s, so they won’t see me as anything more than decoration. If things go well, you’ll be out of there with no problems, I’ll have some useful dirt on Malic, and I’ll make sure Starfleet and Garak don’t give you any grief over your little land scheme.”

  “You’re not exactly giving me much of a choice,” Quark said pointedly. “All right, it’s a deal.”

  “Good.”

  “But I think this is insane.”

  FARIUS PRIME (THE PRESENT)

  “I still think this is insane.”Quark ran after Ro through the corridors of the Orion ship. Alarms blared loud enough to hurt Quark’s sensitive ears.

  Two Orions came around a corner. Ro took them out with two well-placed shots before they had the chance to fire their weapons.

  “Nice shooting,” Quark said. He noticed that they were headed farther away from both the ship’s transporter and the hangar bay. “Where are we going?”

  “We need to be near an outer bulkhead. The inner sections of the ship are shielded against transporters.”

  “Why not just go to the ship’s transporter?”

  “Because then there’ll be a record, and they’ll know where we went.”

  “Oh.”

  Ro bent over and took the Orions’ disruptors. She stuck one in the waistband of her slitted pants and handed the other to Quark.

  The Ferengi looked at it as if it were someone asking for a handout. “What am I supposed to do with this?”

  “Take a guess.”

  Reluctantly, Quark took it. Since it was of Klingon design, it didn’t have a safety, so Quark handled it as if he feared the slightest touch would trigger it.

  While Quark weighed the risk of putting the weapon in his jacket against holding it and accidentally blasting a hole in the bulkhead, Ro took a moment to admonish him. “Oh, and by the way, the reason it took me a minute to throw the flare is because I frankly didn’t expect you to cave in so easily.”

  “What’re you talking about? I was following the terms of Malic’s oral agreement. Malic said to tell the truth or die, so I told the truth.”

  Ro shot him a dubious look.

  Quark sighed. “Fifteenth Rule of Acquisition, Laren: ‘Dead men close no deals.’ It’s not my fault that Malic changed the terms of the deal at the last minute and decided to kill me anyhow.”

  They turned a corner. A turbolift door opened on an Orion male, escorting a scantily clad Orion female. The female—who was a full head taller than the male—was practically draped all over him. She wore what appeared to be rags, but Quark recognized the custom tailoring at work. Obviously the male has a thing for women in dirty rags and she’s dressing for the part.

  At the sight of Ro’s disruptor, the male screamed, which surprised Quark—he’d expected the scream from the female.

  “Back inside,” Ro snarled.

  The female quickly backed into the turbolift. The male just stood there, screaming. He was worse than the alarms.

  “Stop,” Ro said, putting the disruptor to the Orion’s head, “screaming.”

  The male fell silent and went into the turbolift. He did blubber a bit, though.

  Once the doors closed, Ro said, “Take us to deck seventy-one.”

  Quark frowned, confused—then he remembered that the ship’s computer would probably only accept commands from certain Orion males. No female, and no Ferengi—not even one working for the Orions— would have access.

  At first, the male didn’t reply, busy as he was with his blubbering. Ro again put the disruptor to his head. “D-d-d-d-d-deck seventy-one,” he finally said.

  The turbolift moved. As it did, Ro removed another of her tassels. There was a small button on it, which she pressed.

  “What’s that do?” Quark asked.

  “Scattering field. It should block any attempts the Orions make to divert the turbolift.”

  “Should?”

  Ro shrugged. “If this were an ordinary Vulcan ship, it would, but I don’t know what kind of modifications they made.”

  Soon, the question was academic. They arrived on deck seventy-one—the ship’s lowermost deck—and the doors opened.

  Half a dozen Orions were waiting for them.

  Ro immediately put the disruptor to the female’s neck. “Let us go or the slave gets it.”

  “Are you insane?” Quark whispered. “She’s just a female.”

  Snarling, one of the Orions said, “Lower your weapons.”

  Slowly, and to Quark’s abject shock, the Orions did so.

  “Try anything,” Ro said, “and I blow her pretty head off, understood?”

  “Just don’t hurt her,” the Orion said.

  Ro moved down the corridor, guiding the female in front of her with the disruptor, still at her neck, and pulling the male along behind her. Quark followed behind the male.

  As soon as they got close to the Orions—who parted to let them pass—Ro tossed the male in the direction of three of the Orions.

  One of them immediately punched Ro’s former hostage in the gut. “Alhan, you idiot!” another one said. “How could you let Treir be captured like that?”

  Alhan was unable to reply, as he was too busy coughing up blood.

  Quark quickly followed Ro and Treir. Now he understood Ro’s logic—Treir was valuable merchandise. The Orions couldn’t afford for her to be harmed. Alhan, on the other hand, was just another Orion male, and by allowing himself to be captured, his value to his fellows had plummeted to nothing. Once again, he admired Ro’s grasp of business matters. So rare to find a female who understands—especially a female Bajoran.

  From behind him, Quark heard one of the Orions’ voices. “Malic, they’ve got Treir.” A pause. “I know she’s not to be harmed, but they’re going to get away.”

  They turned a corner, out of sight of the Orions. Quark could still hear the Orion talking to Malic.

  “All right,” the Orion was saying as Ro stopped walking and—still holding the disruptor to Treir’s neck—removed the last two tassels from her waist. She threw the first one back around the corner toward the Orions. The one speaking to Malic was suddenly cut off by a noise that sounded to Quark like five phasers firing at once.

  Then silence.

  “What was that?”

  “Concussive grenade. Should keep those six out for a while.”

  “You couldn’t do that before he told Malic we were here?”

  As she pressed a control on the final tassel, which caused its base to split open, Ro said, “You really can be a whiner, can’t you? We had to get out of range.”

  Ro removed a Bajoran communicator from inside the tassel and tapped it.

  As soon as she did, the corridor shimmered, faded, and re-formed int
o the flight deck of a small spacecraft of Bajoran design. About the size of a small Starfleet shuttlecraft, the ship seated two fore and two aft.

  A Bajoran woman in a red Militia uniform and with the rank insignia of a sergeant vacated the pilot’s seat. “Who’s your friend, Lieutenant?”

  “She was a hostage,” Ro said, removing the disruptor from the woman’s neck. “Luckily, they didn’t call my bluff when I said I’d blow her head off.”

  Treir, for her part, had kept a remarkably calm expression on her face from the moment she first saw Ro with the disruptor. Once she dropped out of the role of being Alhan’s lover, her face had gone surprisingly neutral.

  Quark asked, “Where are we?”

  “A Bajoran Militia flitter,” the sergeant said.

  “I know it’s a Bajoran Militia flitter,” Quark said impatiently. “I mean where?”

  “Farius Prime’s innermost moon.” Ro touched the flame gem on her necklace. Her hair returned to its natural black color. “Ychell Mafon, this is Quark— Quark, this is Sergeant Ychell. I had her hide out here as our escape route.”

  “Nice of you to tell me ahead of time,” Quark muttered.

  “Don’t push it, Quark, or so help me—”

  Quark rolled his eyes and shut up.

  Turning to Treir, Ro said, “As for you—you’re free to come with us. You can start over in the Federation or on Bajor. You don’t have to be a slave anymore.”

  Treir smiled. “Did it even occur to you that I liked being a slave?”

  Ro blinked. “Honestly? No, it didn’t.”

  “You’re lucky, then, that I didn’t. On the other hand, no one ever gave me a choice in the matter. Besides, Malic treated me very well.”