Snitches get...

Posted on Wed 16th Sep, 2020 @ 5:28pm by Yuliette Marayan Dr. & Radak
Edited on on Wed 16th Sep, 2020 @ 5:29pm

1,547 words; about a 8 minute read

Mission: Resolution
Location: Brown Sector, The Zodiac: outside of the Gemini
Timeline: MD 13 evening (following "Just that Lucky")

Stumbling out of the private lounge and into the Casino with his eyes squinted closed while attempting to recover from the tail end of his coughing fit, Bo bounced off of someone. His eyes opened and rolled upwards as he covered his coughing with a clenched fist.

“Prophets! Pick a side, Radak!” He said between hacking. “You lug, you’re blocking the whole walking aisle!”

Radak had been looking for Bo, and wasn’t surprised to find him at the casino. It was one of his more-frequented haunts, where he could try and ply his crooked trade. The coughing was pretty rough. “You don’t sound well, Bo,” Radak said. “Let me give you a hand.”

He grabbed him by the collar and pulled him away from the casino. Bo was always trouble, and always out for himself. Radak didn’t have any problem with that. Everybody was out for themselves to a degree around here. If you didn’t watch your own back in Brown Sector, you were likely to lose the skin off it. But there was a difference between that and what he’d been doing with Neone. That was something that needed dealing with here and now. “You’ve been making some new friends,” Radak said. “Or at least trying to. Let’s talk about that, Bo.”

Bo was still hacking, and none too excited about the heavy handed help. He shook out his worn silk vest and, with a voice full of rasp said, “What are you on about?”

“Neone. The new resident at the Zodiac. You keep making your presence known when it isn’t welcome. I don’t care about your little scams, but this isn’t that. You’re lucky I’m the one talking to you about it instead of Kainon.” Radak gave Bo a small shove. “Leave her alone.”

Maintaining his balance from the push, Bo snorted and rubbed the shoulder that still popped in it’s socket. “The Mothers didn’t much appreciate Kainon’s last ‘action’ against me, as I recall.” He squinted at Radak, considering. “Besides, I’ve only been concerned for her. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but she doesn’t exactly blend in very well.”

“Concerned for her?” Radak shook his head. “You’re not concerned for anybody unless they can do something for you. She doesn’t want your company and she doesn’t need it. All you’ll do is get her in trouble. You won’t listen to her, so maybe you’ll listen to me.” He poked Bo in the chest. “I would like you to listen to me, Bo.”

“Ow.” Bo grasped at his rib and was becoming visibly offended. A bitter bile of resentment was growing in his throat. *Kainon and his flunkie deputies!* “What do you know about what she wants or doesn’t want?”

“I’ve talked to her. She doesn’t want you causing trouble any longer.” Radak spread his hands, trying not to be so heavy handed. “She’s a good person. She doesn’t need to be part of your scams or your trouble, and she’s not interested in you. Just...occupy yourself elsewhere, Bo.”

“Not interested in me?” A flash of something devious played over Bo’s face. “Why? Is that because you fancy her interested in you?” Bo started clucking his tongue, bemused. “Kee-ohlen atello!” He chided in Bajoran, meaning ‘slow down lover’. “You can’t have known this latest little refugee, what, two days?”

There was a long, silent pause during which Radak went very still. The big Vulcan loomed over Bo, and his big hands stayed at his sides. “Bo. One thing you never learned was when it was smart to just. Stop. Talking.”

“Oh contraire. Let’s do explore this further. Maybe exchange notes, hmmm?” Bo leaned forward in mock conspiracy. “I mean, she must have confided her dark secret with you.”

The Vulcan cocked his head slightly. The dark lenses obscuring his eyes made it easy for his face to maintain the mask of impassivity. “I’m not interested in anybody’s secrets,” he said, but his voice was tight. “You’re not half as cute as you think you are, Bo. And some day, somebody is going to thump that into your thick skull.”

“The threats! So ungentlemanly.” Bo’s spirits were somehow growing in spite of all of the posturing. “Well, you’ll be glad to know, I was losing interest in ‘Neone’ anyway. What *had* caught my eye were the sizable rewards posted for information concerning her whereabouts. She’s very much wanted. And by more than one party, it would seem. Aside from yourself, of course.”

This wasn’t going remotely the way Radak had planned in his head. Bo had always been a slippery one, a hustler and a weasel to the bone. It was always more Kainon’s job to handle him when he had to. He had the mind for fencing with Bo when it came down to it. Even then, Bo had pushed Kainon’s temper to the breaking point once. Radak didn’t have the brain for this, the way to see the angles. And he certainly didn’t like the threats. When Radak spoke again, his voice was hard and cold, but not emotionless like most Vulcans. His feelings could be easily interpreted. “Bo. I’m telling you right now if something happens to her, I won’t threaten you. I won’t toy with you. I’ll hurt you worse than you’ve ever been hurt in your life.”

Bo couldn’t keep the delight from his face. If he’d had a hook through Radak’s septum it wouldn’t have been any easier to lead him by. “Oh, I believe you, I believe you Radak.” He put both hands up in a gesture of helpless surrender. “But it *is* over two hundred thousand GPL for just one of those queries, and she is a fugitive from the law. And I *do* have this itching need to *talk*, as you’ve so kindly noted.”

There was another long pause and then Radak moved with a surprising speed. He snatched Bo by the front of his shirt with one hand, lifted him off his feet and slammed him back into the wall behind him. Radak stepped closer to him, speaking low. “The only thing people around here like less than a creep, Bo, is a snitch. Everybody here is ducking something. It gets around that you sold somebody out, the Mothers will open the airlock for me to put you out. You better hope you can run very fast with that latinum, Bo.”

Bo looked down at his poor, abused shirtfront and his eyes traced the hand to the arm to the face, meeting Radak’s intimidating Orion eye-glasses. “That would also be a losing scenario for your dear ‘Neone’ would it not? I have another proposal. One where we can *all* win.”

Radak’s lips pressed together, and he let go of Bo’s shirt, unceremoniously dropping him back to the ground. “I knew you were a weasel. I didn’t know this much of one. What do you want?”

Bo winced, feeling his old shoulder wound made tender all over again. “I want the money, naturally. And there’s a number of people who would pay dearly to see you back in the ring— Outside of the gaming commission’s tidily approved mats, of course.”

Radak couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “You want me to *fight* for you? That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. Even if I started to play the monkey for you, what’s stopping you from turning her in, anyway, when you get the urge?”

“It’ll be an agreement— an agreement between the two if us. I’ll have the money, you’ll have your hapless little fugitive and we’ll have no more talk of it. I do know when to stop. 200 grand would do quite handsomely in that regard.”

The big Vulcan clenched his fists, and then released them. “Your word doesn’t mean anything to me, Bo. I’ll do this. But if you lie to me, there is nowhere you can hide from me. Not on this station or this quadrant or this galaxy. You understand that, don’t you?”

Bo nodded. “Oh yes.” Both the trouble and the excitement in capturing a bull was riding it without being gored to death shortly after. “Very clearly, indeed.”

There was another moment as Radak felt like there was something else he should do or say here, but he was never any good at that sort of thing. This was Bo’s game, not his. “Name the time and place. If Neone tells me she even smells you, this whole thing is off and I’ll come to find you.” He turned and stalked off, then, feeling somehow like this was a test he’d failed, but he couldn’t figure out how just yet.

Watching Radak go, Bo sighed as he put his fingers through the ripped seam in his favorite vest. It would need stitches. Ah well. He could afford all new threads very soon.

 

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