The Net Tightens

Posted on Thu May 31st, 2012 @ 9:06am by Berin Voight

Mission: The Mystery Men of Mira
Location: utskirts [Archa IV]Transporter Room 78 [Starbase 332] & Tohil O
Timeline: MD09 1950hrs.

[ON]

300, 301, 302...

The pounding of Voight's footsteps became amplified as the blood and adrenaline began to thump in his head. He was in serious trouble. He'd clocked members of the FNP moving towards his ship's berth. Them and that insufferable Lieutenant O'Connell. He had run into him a couple of times on the promenade and realised they'd never see eye-to-eye. He was dogged and determined in his pursuit of justice. Voight was dogged and determined in pursuit of money.

By now they would have his crew in custody and they'd be spilling everything. None of them were trustworthy enough to do anything other than save their own hides in this situation. He was beginning to tire and he couldn't let up the relentless pace of his movement; at least not before he reached the turbolift.

He burst through the doors of Transporter Room 78 and plugged the officer on duty with a blast from the projectile weapon he was carrying. Much better to put a bullet through someone's neck than to have a phaser set off a security alert. He bent over the console, desperately trying to punch in accurate coordinates through the scrambler he kept stowed on his person. He knew it would be all he had if he needed to make a quick getaway. It fizzed and buzzed as it attempted to reroute the transporter signal through itself and feed back into the console, effectively masking the coordinates of any beam out.

467, 468, 469...

Four hundred and sixty nine seconds since he had made a break for it. By now they'd be on board the Drake, finding records of his movements, his transactions and probably locating the smugglers' rests inside the hold of the Drake. Hopefully Douzien had managed to clear the signs of any forced imprisonment but he didn't have a lot of faith. It didn't matter. Douzien was in the hands of the FNP and he would be next if he wasn't quick.

The scrambler gave a satisfied chirrup as it completed its cycle. That was it. He could beam out and they wouldn't be able to trace him. That wasn't good enough though. They could unscramble a scrambled signal- that was the really infuriating thing about Starfleet. He would have to convince the transporter that it was sending him to a completely different set of coordinates.

He readjusted the scanner as his inner monologue continued to thunder through numbers.

498, 499, 500...

Five hundred seconds and they would be onto him. They'd be here in a matter of seconds, he was quite sure about that. He'd cast off his civilian combadge but it wouldn't take a genius to track him here. He didn't have time to cover his tracks; the Drake had always been his escape route. He had always needed a ship and he had never assumed that she wouldn't be there for him.

The transporter whirred and sighed as he completed the adjustments he needed. Just five more seconds and he would be outside the purview of Starfleet. Five more seconds and he could hide amongst the holidaymakers of the Tohil Resort until the heat died down; then he could stowaway on a delivery shuttle and get away.

He needed a meeting though. He had to meet his contact and he had to get the latinum he was owed. Without that, he'd be going nowhere and he'd starve to death before he got as far as the resort. He composed a coded message to his contact and transmitted it without a second thought.

Crap.

Douzien had the code. If Douzien gave it up to Starfleet then they'd know where he was going. It didn't matter: Douzien probably didn't even remember the damned algorithm.

544, 545, 546...

The transporter's blue hue enveloped him as the vast transporter chamber of the Starbase was replaced with the dense woodland of the hills above Tohil. He and his contact usually met in a small clearing about two clicks from the resort. He just had to wait it out for an hour or so until he got there.

[OFF]

Captain Berin Voight
MV Drake