Wait...and Eat Jerky

Posted on Sat Apr 9th, 2022 @ 2:30am by Voareth Darqaron

Mission: The Goddess
Location: Space
Timeline: Current
1278 words - 2.6 OF Standard Post Measure

Voar carted in her cargo upon a gurney. The air about the abandoned and defunct space station was stale and cold. Her employer ran the station with a crew well under the recommended crew complement as a means to keep life support at its bare minimum setting so as to keep the random ship passing by in the knowing that the station was, infact, abandoned and defunct.

Lumaite met her at the airlock alone. He carried only a small case. He preferred to keep the identity and number of his crew a secret. He eyed the container atop the gurney Voar was pushing.

“Open it,” he said.

Voar did exactly that. She rather enjoyed dispensing with small talk and getting straight to business. A few screen taps upon her personal data assistant later and the seven-foot container clicked in a few places and started opening.

Lumaite approached and waved his hand dispersing the nitrogen gas flowing out of the container. “Nitrogen?” He eyed Voar. “You mean to preserve this thing?” He did not receive an answer. Nor did he really want one. Lumaite eyed the contents, a singular deceased Klingon. Seeing little bruising and no signs of injury, “How did you manage this? Aside from being dead, this thing appears without blemish.”

“Klingons are apparently well skilled at combat,” she said. “So I did what I do best. I hunted him stealthily. There is a stab wound in his back. Deep enough to penetrate his heart.”

“A back stabber I see.”

“You wanted him dead. He is dead.”

Lumaite held the case he carried out toward Voar. “And here is your payment. I shall take this thing with me.”

With payment now in hand, “No you will not,” she said.

“I paid you to…”

“…kill this Klingon,” she finished. “And that was all. Our agreement did not include you laying claim to the body.”

“And just what are you going to do with it?”

“Despite your disdain for this Klingon, he was a worthy prey. He deserves to be treated well. I shall dissect him, make his skull a trophy, keep what is useful, prepare his meat.”

Lumaite looked on with disgust. “You intend to eat him?”

“He proved a worthy prey. The eating of worthy prey grants the spirit of the fallen warrior.”

Lumaite was shaking his head.

“It is the Hirogen way.”

“You are no Hirogen,” Lumaite said, keeping his eye on the body.

Without saying a word, and out of nothing greater than simple instinct, Voar snatched her dagger from the sheath hanging at her side. “Say that again and you will no longer be Romulan. A Romulan male at least.”

“You cannot have the body,” Lumaite stepped back to keep some distance between them.

“No,” she commanded. “I hunted him, I killed him, he is mine. If you wanted the body, you should have made that arrangement when we corresponded.”

“I need to put his body on display, to show my customers this pirate will no longer be a threat.”

“I will give you the baldric he wore, the family crest he possessed. That will be enough.”

“And when my customers want proof of death.”

“You give them my word. Tell them the word of a Hirogen is bond. Besides, you doing business without this Klingon’s hindrance should be proof enough.”

Lumaite really wanted the Klingon’s body but saw Voar with her hand firmly grasping her dagger. Sure, he could call on his crew and she could be dead within moments but he saw the advantage of keeping her alive. She had skills he could call on later should the need arise again.

He responded by only taking a few more steps back. “Should I need to contact you again, how will I?”

“Easy. Advertise your desires and I will contact you.”

“But if I need you specifically.”

Voar sighed as she inserted her dagger back into its sheath. She then tapped on her PDA for the container to close. “I will provide you with a ghost frequency.”

“Ghost frequency?”

“Yes. Send a message, text only, to that frequency. It will seemingly disappear in subspace and you will receive an error message. If I do not respond inside one of your months then I am either ignoring you or dead.”

“And if it is urgent?”

“Then provide a very large number to make it worth my while. By the way, you do not know of any good engineers do you? I have managed to keep my ship space worthy this far but…”

“There are things even you cannot fix,” Lumaite finished her thought. “From the look of your ship, you are having trouble adapting it to this quadrant.” To that, he was met with a singular nod. “Well I am ill equipped for that type of work. Everyone who knows me know I hate speaking well of them, but the Federation would be your best bet.”

Voar rolled her eyes. “Federation,” she breathed.

“Well the Gorn will most likely not help you. Your next best bets would either be the Tholians or the Breen. Considering that you are not…” he stopped himself, “…that you do not look Hirogen but more like the Federation types, their acceptance to help you may be a tall order.”

“I will take that bet.”

Voar regarded Lumaite no longer and started rolling the gurney away, concluding their business. She did provide him with the Klingon’s baldric and family crest before departing.

In the following month, after carefully dissecting and preparing the Klingon for trophies and sustenance, Voar decided repairs, upgrades, and adaptations to her ship was more important than hunting. Her heart was in hunting, but hunting was near impossible without a ship. And her ship was also her home as it had been for some decades now. It was a worthy ship and a worthy home and needed the care Voar would take on her worthy prey. And take great care she did, but Lumaite was right. There were things even she could not fix and provide permanent adaptations for.

After being ignored by the Gorn Hegemony, attacked by the Tholians, had her life threatened by the Breen, and turned away by the Cardassians, Voar found herself back in Romulan space. She had taken great care to keep from entering the space regarded as Federation territory, so much great care that she had spent more time in space, almost all of her dilithium and had eaten nearly all of the jerked meat of the Klingon.

After a bout to keep her life support running, Voar decided on one of her rarely used hunting tactics. She powered down much of her ship; phasers, the one torpedo bay, shields and her subspace capabilities. Voar minimized life support and even lowered the artificial gravity to 80% of standard. Voar added to the distressful display with a small plasma leak out of the back of her ship. Despite a very real situation, she put on a façade that any passer-by would deem critical. Lastly, and she hesitated to do this but, Voar activated the distress signal.

She made sure her disruptors were charged and her blades were sharp. Depending on the size of the answering ship and crew, they would either die by her hand or she would put on a level of niceties until such time.

Her computer did not seem to know if this area of space was in Federation space or Romulan or straddling the border. Whatever the case, Voar had no choice but to deal with that later. The distress signal was active and all she could do was wait; wait and eat Klingon jerky.