Bitter Vengeance
Posted on Wed Oct 8th, 2014 @ 10:07am by Oleran Telan
Mission:
Sins of Lives Past
Location: En Route to Starbase 332
The familiar streaking starscape shot past the cabin’s tiny porthole, reminding its sole occupant that they were underway. En route to a starbase he had never visited, in a system he had never heard of to take revenge on a man he thought he knew.
Oleran Telan was a broken man. He sat on the edge of the bunk in the cramped cabin watching the stars shoot by. Alone with his thoughts, he fondly remembered the good times he had back on Hesperia. He had built his empire from scratch, inch by inch clawing out share of the market. In ten years he had grown his enterprise to the point where almost no business occurred in the port city of Hopevale, or indeed the entire Denarra Highlands, without his seal of approval.
A melancholy smile slowly tugged at Telan’s lips as he remembered those days. His home on Hovatz Street, the Shaker Club. Businessmen, bureaucrats, police they all flocked to Telan when he held court at his spacious offices in the High Quarter. He bestowed his blessing on their undertaking, agreed to finance their dream venture and, yes, dispensed his own brand of justice here and there. Telan was the big man about town and life was good.
It was into this social paradise that one Augustus Deakin stumbled as part of a smuggler crew operating out of Hesperia. Or, at least, that’s what Telan was led to believe. They quickly became friends and Telan saw great potential in this imposing human with nothing to lose. After testing him with some low-level jobs, Telan offered him a role within his organisation. If he had known then that he was bringing a noxious rat into the company, he’d have sent him for a short walk out an open airlock.
But I was a fool! Telan cursed himself now, shaking his head and rubbing his brow. He was usually such a good judge of character and had sniffed out moles plenty of times before. Not this time. Deakin burrowed his way into the organisation and gained Telan’s trust. He was a reliable enforcer, competent middle man and shrewd advisor for two years before it all crumbled to dust.
Telan remembered that fateful day like it was yesterday. The peace meeting with the Red Dogs, Deakin and that stranger appearing just before the shooting started. He talked about an ambush and then BANG it happened. If it wasn’t for poor Karog, who sacrificed himself so Telan could escape, he would be dead right now.
That day he lost everything. His organisation, his friends, his status. All gone. He fled Hesperia and took refuge with some old acquaintances on New Sydney. Caught in the rubble of his own life, Telan entered a depression that dragged for months. He could barely bring himself to get out of bed in the morning and refused visitors. He grew ill and would often go days without eating. His keepers – a cousin and his kind-hearted wife – did everything they could for him, but his condition deteriorated. He considered suicide and might have gone through with it if he could just be bothered to get out of bed.
Then one day he had a visitor from the past. A visitor who knew him back on Hesperia, who knew Oleran Telan the big man of the Denarra Highlands. It was Valia, a former Romulan spy who was one of his chief information traders in the old days. Valia had happened upon some information and was quick to purchase it for her old boss, whom she knew would be very interested in it.
Although he refused to see Valia at first, she persisted and eventually he met her. No pleasantries were exchanged – they didn’t have that kind of relationship – before she simply said three words: “Deakin is alive.”
As he read the information provided by unnamed Ferengi traders, he could feel his rage growing inside, boiling away in the pit of his stomach. That filthy duct rat was indeed alive and wearing a Starfleet uniform. Telan knew Deakin had a history with Starfleet, his time as a marine was one reason he hired him, but he was assured that he had quit. Something to do with his ex-wife. But apparently now he was back and records of his time on Hesperia were sealed by Starfleet Intelligence.
Starfleet Intelligence! He had thrown the PADD against a wall, shattering it and screamed like a beast. He wanted vengeance, plain and simple. The gutless cockroach was a spy for Starfleet! It was all so clear to Telan then; Starfleet sent Deakin to join his organisation and bring about his downfall so that the Red Dogs could take charge. They must be connected to Starfleet somehow, but he would deal with that later. For now, his focus was entirely on getting some payback.
Valia gathered a couple of other trusted people and they left New Sydney for Starbase 332 in a ship that Telan rechristened the Bitter Vengeance. Deakin's very name left a bitter taste in his mouth now.
He looked down at the PADD resting on his lap and cocked his head to the side. It showed an image of Deakin in his Starfleet uniform. Telan traced a finger over the face – that disgusting, human face – and down to the neck, imagining how good it would feel to squeeze his throat closed and watch the life drain from those treacherous eyes.
“Soon, old friend,” he said, spitting the word as though its very presence on his lips might poison him. “You will pay.”
Oleran Telan
Entrepreneur
