When she left, Diz was so hopping mad I was absolutely surprised she left our host in one piece. I was flattered when she referred to me as family though, and did threaten to kill Kovalth if he does anything to me. I'll have to see if this means she expects me to swap some blood and some antique Klingon phrases, or if she's just giving me the benefits of such without expecting me to play with Klingon culture. I can worry about that when we get back to the ship. For now I have to keep Pukey from irritating me long enough we can get out of this, both of us alive, as I suspect that despite his annoyance factor, it might not go over well if I kill him myself.
Our "host" showed us into a room with a couple of beds, and a spread of food and alcohol that would make a Ferengi's eyes gleam with more greed than is natural. It took a bit of self control to avoid being distracted by the booze right away, as our "host" was still in the room and I didn't want to give him indication of my interest in case he'd try to use it against me.
"I don't intend to actually HARM you. If I did, shouldn't I do it in front of the group?" Kovalth explained with a hearty chuckle. "No. Don't think of yourselves as hostages. Think of yourselves as... insurance. I'm going to have to ask you to change clothes though. It's a little security measure, I'm sure you understand. Ha ha ha."
Before Kovalth departed, Pukey asked for some ginger ale, which was brought fairly quickly. I started to inspect the booze laid out as Pukey started to whine.
"The old C o S used to always say on away missions. Do not eat anything. Do not drink anything. Do not eat anything. Do not drink anything. Do you understand? Good. Don't EAT ANYTHING OR DRINK ANYTHING." As Pukey said this, he held his fingers up by his forehead, and pantomimed antennas thrashing about in a manner of annoyance. When he finished mocking the Andorian, he dropped his hands as if he was at a loss as to what to do with them. "But... this new C o S has said nothing of the kind..."
"Maybe Lieutenant Commander th'Shan just told you that because he knew you couldn't keep your stomach," I shot as I picked up an especially rare vintage of Blood Wine and shoved it into my pocket.
"I wonder if King Hades over there will make me stay a day here in Hell for each one I eat." As he said this, Pukey picked up a halved pomegranate and picked out the seeds.
"I hope so, eat a dozen." He happily kept eating, oblivious to the implication behind my statement.
"He was a great micromanager, actually. He'd give us very specific instructions about each and every thing to do and not do. Lt. Klasq just sort of... stuck us down here with guns. What gives?" Pukey's whiny voice jumped a bit higher.
"She hits me as someone who expects to have competent officers under her command." I slipped an extremely rare vintage of Andorian Ale into my pocket which Pukey may or may not notice really shouldn't be fitting into my pockets. While doing this, I remembered that Lieutenant Commander th'Shan had dropped something in my pocket, so I felt around for it. It was pretty small, felt like it was wrapped in tape, and I decided to check for surveillance devices before pulling it out to look at it. The most likely candidates for hiding cameras seemed to be the wall sconces and the chandelier. Kovalth seemed like a camera person, and not for security reasons either. I started checking the wall sconces as I barked at Pukey, "Pukey, quit stuffing your face and help me check if we're being watched with cameras or something."
"Oh, sure," Pukey happily says. "This'll be easy, they used to call old boss the Bugmeister. You realize that the old bugs are still in place and he's probably watching you go poop in your quarters. There was a good reason for that," Pukey says. "Can you hand me a hyperspanner?"
I reached into my pocket, found the hyperspanner has fallen deeper into my pocket than usual, and ended up elbow deep before I managed to grab it. Apparently Pukey didn't notice, that trick usually unsettles people who weren't familiar with the oddness of my pockets. I handed over the hyperspanner, which he tossed onto the bed before changing into the clothing our "host" provided for us. Once he was done changing into the red and black silk outfit, open shirt showing off his body which would qualify him for a part in some of the fancier adult holonovels, I winced as he roughly jerked apart the hyperspanner, and proceeded to use a random part to cut apart the shirt he just changed out of.
"You are going to be able to put that back together to return to me, yes?"
"I can put anything back together I pull apart," he says, "Sorta"
"Nevermind, just give me the pieces when you're done butchering it." I sighed. Pukey started nosing around the room and looked up at the chandelier about the time I'd finished inspecting the wall sconces and had drug a chair over to the chandelier.
"I wonder why I didn't get promoted to Tactical," he whines a little. "Half the team went with old boss when he got promoted. Oh well. We can worry about that later." Pukey darted onto the chair before Spiegel could, and covered the the cameras he found with the shredded bits of his shirt.
"Would you like some cheese with your whine? Our host has been so kind to offer such a selection..." I growled as Pukey jumped down from the chair. He blinked and stared blankly at me for a moment before explaining his actions as if I didn't understand.
"You see, if I used the actual bedclothes... um, a lot of these places have sensors embedded in their stuff so they know if you're tampering with their stuff. Your OWN stuff though. They don't expect that. Heh heh. I love the way I think." Pukey went back to stuffing his face, and I looked up at the cameras he'd covered. They were pointed at the beds, which probably shouldn't have surprised me given the nature of our host. I pulled the gift from the Lieutenant Commander out of my pocket and looked at it. A pair of standard surveillance transponders taped together with a note tucked between.
I started to inspect the note as Pukey started babbling again. "Huh, you know what he said to me when I left? He said all of this during the tactical briefing. He said... 'Over the next several days... you will face many problems without solutions. But there IS a solution. It is... an enigma."
I didn't say anything to Pukey as I started looking at the note. It appeared to be Andorian, so I ran it through my PADD. It said:
Eat this message when you're done. Sit tight and play along. Eyes are watching you from above. Kovalth is not a good man. But he is not the enemy. Humor him. Eyes are watching and we have a lock. Keep ears on. Stay silent. Listen for the dots and dashes.
Shan out.
And on the back, there was some more, this time in Spanish. The ink was starting to smudge by this point.
Lucas,
You are being watched from above - if you get into trouble, tap SOS. Singh will get you out. But DON'T DO IT unless things are desparate. The grab will be risky. Signal loss right now is 20% which for an engineer is an unnacceptable risk. But yes. We CAN get everyone out. It's just risky. And dissappearing the team is a quick way to give our plans away to Kovalth. So you need to just sit tight, okay?
And before you think I'm psychic, how I knew YOU would be a hostage... they always grab the engineer. Always. The heavens are watching you.
Noelle.
By the time I finished reading the note, the corners had started the crumble, and the ink was getting more smeared, though it was still somewhat readable. "Your former C o S says to eat this message," I told Pukey, and held it out to him.
"Did he mean for ME to eat it or YOU to eat it?" Pukey sat on the edge of one of the beds, blank look and silk pajamas more or less assuring me that my assessment of "adult holonovel star" was probably the best job for this lunkhead.
"You," I answered, even though I suspected the order might have been directed at me.
"Oh, okay." He took the note, and shoved it into his mouth with a small shrug. "We've done this before. It's made of rice paper. The ink is colored sugar water."
While waiting for our host to grace us with his presence again, I inspected the room and helped myself to a few more bottles of rare and exotic alcohol, checking the stopper on each before slipping it into my pocket. Too many away missions with Diziara had me checking my exit options, and finding myself annoyed when there didn't appear to be any way out other than transporter or the door we came in through. Pukey prattled on about his career as a security officer, or rather the boring lack of forward movement. He was blissfully ignorant of the lack of forward movement, as his enthusiasm showed that he felt his job is fun.
At one point, Pukey pulled out something I hadn't seen since long before I joined the fleet, a rosary. After he used it and put it away again, I asked him about it. "Still practicing?"
"No, just superstitious."
"I don't know many people who were raised in the catholic church that continue to practice once they're old enough to make the choice. I think I left my rosary in my closet back at my mother's apartment when I joined the fleet. About the only thing I hung onto from those days in my belief in saint Vidicon."
"Who's saint Vidicon?"
"Patron saint of technicians and engineers."
"Saint Apollonia is my patron saint, my mom wanted me to be a dentist. Even so, she's been watching out for me. In my high school yearbook, I was 'best smile' four years in a row." He grinned and displayed a set of teeth so straight they could be used as a ruler, and so white one almost needed eye protection to look at them.
After some more time with Pukey babbling on, grabbing onto this topic we had in common and brutally beating it like a dead horse, a manservant finally showed up to insist that Pukey and I join his master for dinner.
"I am not a BAD MAN, you know," Kovalth said as we sat down across the large table from him. The table was packed with anything and everything one could imagine. I even thought I saw German chocolate cake on a platter in the middle of the table. "You can scan it. Nothing is poisoned. Although if you are part Bolian I would not recommend the Aldebaran pheasant."
As Pukey brutishly piled his plate high, then dug in starting with the roast turkey, I tried to discretely scan the feast from under the table. Everything seemed okay, so I helped myself to a little of this and that, but worked at it slowly. Pukey was already piling his second plateful high as he washed down the first with a glass of what was probably merlot, based upon the bottle that was sitting opened near his glass.
While I politely nibbled at my food, and tried my best to be aware of what was going on around us, Kovalth asked all sorts of personal questions. I answered them neutrally and accurately, it wasn't going to hurt for him to know when I started masturbating or who I lost my virginity to. It's not like I cared who knew anyways. Pukey answered questions with his mouth full, and enthusiastically told about his sexual exploits. Food and sex seem to be the two topics this brute feels he has a mastery of, but based upon the stories he proudly told, I doubt he could satisfy a woman even if she provided him a road map.
Kovalth provided him with every sexually inept man's dream, a pair of Orion woman to use him and make him feel satisfied for it. They came in dancing and scantily clad, and paid him special attention when he forgot his food in front of him and instead chose to drool. I'd done some reading on the Orion culture, knew that their woman were dangerous, and I let him hold their attention. When they lead him off, and Kovalth made a comment about how he thought I'd enjoy the peace of his being distracted and elsewhere, I was mildly confused for a moment. I was also relieved, I was starting to get to the point where I might have killed the man myself if he didn't shut up, and I really wasn't up for trial and murder charges, even if it would have been justifiable homicide to anyone who'd heard the man prattle on.
I got a bit of a lecture on the nature of Orion society, one that would have been helpful had I not already read up on them during my teen years when the idea of owning an Orion slave girl still sounded appealing. I also found out that the girls had been a gift from Auntie Maude, the Orion woman who ran the whore house we'd met our contact in earlier. I also learned more about the Klingon foreheads than I cared to know about, as our host was a cast off from the fallout of the Klingon empire restructuring to be rid of most with the smooth foreheads. I honestly didn't care about any of it, so I quickly tried to change the subject to something I would possibly find more interesting.
I spotted the bottle of Merlot, as that was indeed what it was once I took a moment to look at the label. I picked it up and asked, "This is a pretty old vintage, where'd you find it?"
"Somehow, it was found in the wreckage of a Borg ship. I bargained with a conspicuously large-lobed trader for it. He said that despite the smallness of my lobes, I was a most impressive opponent, and perhaps I was born the wrong species. I took that as a compliment, told him I was honored. Before I put a knife in his throat." Kovalth chuckled as he answered.
"Usually the most profitable way to end a transaction with a Ferengi... What would wine be doing on a Borg ship?" I looked closer at the bottle, then pulled out my tricorder, too curious about it to bother hiding it out of politeness.
"Feel free to take it. It might fetch you a pretty penny on the auction block, or it might be cheap swill." He waved in a manner he probably intended to be generous, but came off as more dismissive. I grabbed the cork, gave it a sniff, then stopped up the bottle before shoving it into my pocket. I don't believe Kovalth saw where I'd put the bottle, as he probably was already too busy telling me stories of his sexual adventures to even notice anything unusual.
"I overheard that you were raised Catholic. As you can see I am a devotee of all seven of them, my friend," he eventually said, changing the subject again. Looking at the pile of inedible food waste piled to the side of his plate, he'd been eating the whole time but I hadn't been paying enough attention to really notice.
"I believe everyone should do and believe as they wish, as long as those actions and beliefs don't take that same right away from another," I replied when he seemed to be waiting for some sort of response from me. As I said this, a Denobulan entered the room. Somewhat underweight for the spieces, white haired and some wrinkles.
"I see you are enjoying the sin of Gluttony. Need I remind you that I should give you your shot now, Kovalth, lest your aorta decide to jump up through your throat and STRANGLE YOU as it is certainly developing a nice new shiny layer of PLAQUE," was the lecture Kovalth received as the Denobulan pulled out a medical tricorder and scanned me with it. "Hmmmm. A fine specimen you are. The master always has good taste."
I glared at the Denobulan for the implication behind his statement, and Kovalth laughed. "This is my answer to the problem of managed care, my personal physician, Sorax. Don't mind him. Doc, put that away, we're just enjoying ourselves." Sorax sneered at me as he was introduced, and I was reminded of some gossip I'd heard recently in the mess. Someone named Sorax had lost his medical license and was jailed for impregnating a patient of his, and possibly a laundry list of other things. He'd escaped, and there was currently a pretty good sized reward for his capture. I'll mention it to Pukey later, he can use his muscle to grab the man on our way out if we have the chance. The doctor gave Kovalth an injection and wandered off again.
After some more talk that I had to fight myself to pretend I was interested in, the Orion girls Kovalth lent to Pukey wandered back into the room. Pukey wasn't with them, and admitted he was still in the room recovering from their fun. I excused myself under the pretense of checking on him, but I was more concerned about getting away from the verbose Klingon. Besides, I think it would look poor if I didn't at least make an effort to bring Pukey back in one piece. Besides, I think the odds were speaking poorly of him coming back alive in the ship dead pool, I might as well help some schmuck out who made the mistake of betting that he'd come back alive.