Chapter Text
“Approaching Sigma Iota II, keptin,” Chekova reported.
“Standard orbit, Miss Chekova,” Jaime ordered, pacing around the bridge. Uhura flagged her down.
“Captain,” she said, “I have received vocal contact from an official station. They relayed us to a man named Oxmyx. His title is ‘boss’.”
“Boss?” Jaime said, leaning her hip against Uhura’s station. “Alright, lieutenant, put him on. …Oxmyx? This is Captain Jaime T. Kirk, of the starship Enterprise… representing the United Federation of Planets.”
“Hello, captain,” a male voice replied, in a broad Great Lakes accent that caught Jaime slightly off-guard. “You from the same outfit as the Horizon?“
“Yes. Unfortunately, the Horizon… was lost, with all hands, shortly after leaving your planet,” Jaime said, getting up and relocating to the center chair. She crossed one leg over the other. “We only received her radio report, last month,” she added apologetically.
“Last month? What’re you talking about? The Horizon left here a hundred years ago.”
“Difficult to explain,” Jaime said. She knew that Sigma Iota II had a relatively low level of technology. “We received a report… a hundred years late, because it was sent, by conventional radio. Your system… is on the outer reaches of the galaxy. They didn’t… have subspace communication, in those days.” To be more specific, civilian freighters like the ECS Horizon hadn’t had subspace transceivers, and even Starfleet vessels back then had had to rely entirely on what few amplifiers and relay beacons they were able to stick in some orbit somewhere; however, going into the technical details seemed unnecessary at best and counter-productive at worst, given that Oxmyx almost certainly had little to no knowledge of subspace mechanics to begin with.
“Toward the edge of what?“ said Oxmyx, which was even worse than not knowing how subspace worked. Chekova looked back at Jaime, visibly worried.
“I'll… explain it in more detail, when I see him,” Jaime said, then, addressing Oxmyx again: “The ship won't land, but, we'll transport several people down… well, that's a little difficult… for you to understand, too. I'll explain it in more detail when I see you. Where… will be convenient?”
“Well, there's an intersection just at the end of the block, near a yellow fire plug. Think you can find it?”
She got up again. “Scotty, do you have the coordinates?”
“Located, ma’am,” Scotty said from the engineering station.
“Good. Mr. Oxmyx, we have your intersection… located. Will five minutes, be alright?”
“Fine. Fine,” Oxmyx said. “I’ll have a reception committee there to meet you.”
“Good. I'll be looking forward to it. Kirk out.” Uhura cut the comm and Jaime stepped up past the railing to head for the turbolift. “Scotty, you have the conn.” Just as she reached the turbolift, the doors opened and Bones and T’Spock started to walk out - and Jaime, without missing a beat, grabbed each of them by one arm and walked them backwards back into the turbolift. “T’Spock, McCoy,” she grinned, “we're beaming down. Standard equipment.”
T’Spock seemed exasperated. Bones crossed her arms, cocked her hip, and looked at Jaime very expectantly.
“The Horizon’s contact, came before the non-interference directive went into effect,” Jaime explained.
“They must have interfered with the normal evolution of the planet,” Bones said.
“It will be interesting to see the results of the contamination,” T’Spock added.
“We don't know… there is contamination,” said Jaime. “The evidence is only… circumstantial.”
“What was the state of the Iotian culture before the Horizon came?” Bones asked.
“The beginnings of industrialization.”
“Horizon reports indicate the Iotians are extremely intelligent and somewhat imitative,” T’Spock said, in a slightly skeptical tone of voice, as they entered the transporter room.
“So,” Bones said dryly, “we're going down to recontaminate them.”
“The damage has been done, Doctor. We are here to repair it.”
“Let's not… argue about it,” Jaime said, holding up her hands. Granted, that was always a pretty pointless ask when it came to Bones and T’Spock, but as captain Jaime was somewhat obliged to at least try. “Let's go study it.”
The beam-down point was indeed an intersection of two roads, presumably a block or less away from the location Oxmyx had communicated with them from. There was even a very old-fashioned water main access interface nearby, painted bright yellow. Everything around them was a fairly standard example of a city in the middle of industrialization - brick, cement, some glass, and the majority of metal prone to rust but not quite deteriorated yet. There were a few pieces of paper trash blowing around in the breeze, but aside from that the street seemed acceptably clean and swept, with dry dirt only piling up against edges and corners. Iotians - remarkably human-looking, in colorful ‘vintage’ clothing - walked nearby, at the margins of the road, and after about ten seconds Jaime, Bones, and T’Spock had to scramble out of the way of an approaching ground vehicle which blared a high-pitched tone at them.
“Fascinating,” T’Spock opined, once they were safely(?) on the sidewalk.
“This is like coming home,” Bones said with a bit of awe in her voice.
“Home was… never like this,” Jaime said, and shook her head. “I’ve seen pictures, of the old days, that look like this.” It really was incredible. Even the air smelled of combusted fossil fuels - though it was a slightly different scent from the ones that used to be used on Earth (or still occasionally used for historical research and reenactment). That part was subtly but distinctly alien. Still, aside from that detail, Jaime might have thought they’d literally travelled back in time.
“Interesting, Captain,” T’Spock said. “Passers-by are carrying, I believe, firearms.”
It wasn’t immediately obvious who she was referring to, because that observation appeared to apply to everyone nearby, both men and women. But then Jaime noticed that two of the natives were actually approaching them; both were wearing pinstriped suits and felt fedoras, one with a blue suit and a white hat and the other with a brown suit and a beige hat. Both were carrying what even Jaime recognized as ‘Tommy guns’.
Unfortunately, they were not carrying them merely as incidental objects of personal protection, the way Jaime, T’Spock, and Bones were carrying their phasers. They were pointing them directly at the landing party.
“Okay,” said the man in the brown suit. “You three, let's see you petrify.”
None of them knew how to react. They exchanged glances. “Sir,” T’Spock said politely, “would you mind explaining that statement, please?”
“I want to see you turn to stone,” the man said. “Put your hands over your head, or you ain't going to have no head to put your hands over.”
Well, that was certainly clear enough. Jaime raised her hands in surrender, and T’Spock and Bones followed suit, though both with some clear reluctance. The man in the blue suit kept his gun trained on them while the man in the brown suit took their phasers and communicators, though he did look mildly uncomfortable doing it. It was possible that this was going to be another planet where them being women was something the natives actually modified their behavior over.
Or maybe not. If this was a “ladies first” planet, then they probably wouldn’t have guns pointed at their heads right now.
“What's this?” brown suit guy said, inspecting T’Spock’s phaser a little alarmingly closely.
“That’s— a weapon,” Jaime said, “be careful with that.”
“A heater, huh? Hey, the boss will love that.” He shoved it in his pocket.
“Look,” Jaime said, “we were asked, to come down here, by Mr. Oxmyx. He said—“
“I know what he said, doll,” the man cut her off. “He said some of the boys would meet you. Okay, we're meeting you.”
“Well, those firearms are not necessary,” Bones said archly.
Brown suit guy twitched his gun towards her. “You trying to make trouble?”
“Who, me?”
“Don't give me those baby blue eyes.”
“What?”
“I don't go for that innocent routine.”
“Sir,” said T’Spock before Bones could keep arguing and potentially get herself shot, “does everyone here carry firearms?”
The man scoffed. “I never heard such stupid questions in my life!”
“Well,” Bones said, clearly annoyed, “since this Oxmyx asked us down here, don't you think we should see him?”
“Alright,” the man said, “get moving. Down the street.” He gestured with his gun.
They’d taken about two steps in the direction he’d indicated when an automobile hurtled around the corner, rubber tires screeching against the concrete ground. Jaime instinctively dove for cover, closely followed by Bones and T’Spock. The two men in pinstriped suits didn’t duck, but swung their guns around to face the automobile, which in turn had multiple other men hanging out the windows with firearms of their own. They exchanged fire and the less talkative of the two men, the one in the blue suit, collapsed. Then, just as suddenly as the car had driven up, it sped away again.
The brown suit guy grunted angrily. “Krako's getting more gall all the time,” he said, gesturing them further down the street in the direction they’d already been going.
“Is this— how you greet all your guests?” Jaime said, rather shocked.
“It happens, lady.”
“That man's dead back there!” Bones protested.
Suit guy poked her hard in the back with his Tommy gun. “Yeah? We ain't playing for peanuts,” he said. “What's the matter, you dames never saw a hit before?”
“Sir,” T’Spock said, “there are several questions I would like to ask—”
“Ask the boss. I don't know nothing. Get moving.”
They were herded down the street. Bones fell into step besides Jaime. “This is the contamination you're looking for, Jaime,” she said.
“Yes,” Jaime grimaced, “but… the Horizon crew wasn’t… composed of cold-blooded killers. They didn't report this culture, in this state, either. What happened?”
Two women in short dresses (also armed) came trotting up to their escort with visible urgency. At first Jaime thought they were seeking help from the ‘hit’, but neither of them appeared to be injured in any way. “Hey, Kalo,” one of the women said to suit guy in a high, nasally voice, “hey, when's the boss going to do something about the crummy street lights around here, eh? A girl ain't safe!”
“And how about the laundry pickup?” said the second woman, equally as nasal. “We ain't had a truck by in three weeks!”
“Write him a letter,” Kalo tried to dismiss them, but they just stepped into his path again. They were quite clearly unafraid of him - or perhaps just extremely confident in their own skills with the firearms they themselves had strapped to their waists.
“I did,” said the second woman. “He sent it back with postage due.”
“Listen,” said the first woman, “we pay our percentages. We're entitled to a little service for our money!”
“Get lost, will ya!” Kalo snapped, and the women left again, grumbling and carping to each other. He scoffed over his shoulder at them. “Some people got nothing to do but complain…”
“Is this the way, your citizens do business,” Jaime said, “their right of petition?”
“They pay their percentages and the boss takes care of them.”
“In which case, it would likely be wise for the boss to replace the ‘crummy’ street lights,” T’Spock said, raising an eyebrow.
“Can it, toots.”
…
Oxmyx’s office continued the theme very well, with no visible (or at least immediately obvious) indication that it had been designed and decorated anywhere other than 20th century Earth; it was hard to believe that a single visit from a cargo freighter could have provided the Iotians with the information they needed to imitate the setting so perfectly, but perhaps that had been what the Horizon crew had meant when they’d described this people as “bright” — with whatever limited data they had, they were able to extrapolate it out down to the smallest detail with an almost unsettling degree of accuracy.
“Which one of yous is the captain?” said Oxmyx as they were buzzered in. He was an older man, heavyset with silver hair around his temples, wearing a gray pinstripe suite - Jaime was starting to suspect that every man on this planet wore one. He was playing pool, or at least knocking the balls around — the only other person in his office was a dark-haired woman in a red dress who was sitting on his desk, but she didn’t seem to be playing with him.
“Depends,” Jaime said, with an abundance of caution.
“Make yourself a drink, captain,” Oxmyx said anyway, gesturing with his pool cue towards - presumably - a liquor cabinet. “It's good stuff. I distill it myself.”
“No, thank you. You’re… Mr. Oxmyx?”
“That’s me, lady.” Despite the old-Earth trappings, Oxmyx didn’t seem to register any surprise at the idea of a woman captain. That was good, but of course, it was also hard to tell whether Iotian society was more egalitarian than the society they’d somehow patterned themselves off of, or if Jaime got a pass simply for being an “outsider” who “did things differently”. She tried to remember whether the Horizon had had any high-ranking female crew (or any female crew at all). She wasn’t sure she’d ever known that kind of detail in the first place.
“This is my first officer, Commander T’Spock,” Jaime said instead of pursuing this line of questioning, “and Dr. McCoy.”
“Doctor, huh?” Oxmyx said with interest, though it was hard tell what kind of interest - again, no visible surprise at the concept of a woman doctor, though as far as Jaime was aware, even on Earth that kind of thing had become somewhat less of a novelty by the equivalent time period as Sigma Iota II. “Put that chopper down, Kalo,” Oxmyx went on. “These girls are our guests, treat ‘em with respect. Pick up a cue, captain,” he suddenly addressed Jaime again. “Go ahead. You can't be too careful around here these days,” he added, in apparent reference to Kalo’s reluctance to step back and lower his gun to his side, no longer an active threat but still at the ready.
“Yes,” Bones said dryly as Jaime took up a cue, but only stood at the table instead of trying to line up a shot. “Judging from what we've seen so far, I agree.”
“They call you the ‘boss’, Mr. Oxmyx,” said Jaime. “The boss of… what?”
Oxmyx chuckled, like that was a mildly stupid question. “The boss of my territory,” he said expansively. He took out a pair of thick-rimmed vision-aides and put them on in a very self-important gesture. “I got the biggest in the world. Y’know, there's one thing wrong with having the biggest. There's always some punk trying to cut you out. That's why you can't be too careful!”
“You’re the government here?”
“What government? Look, I told you. I got the territory and I run it. That's all.”
“But there are other bosses, other territories?”
“Yeah, sure,” Oxmyx said dismissively, chalking the tip of his cue. “Maybe a dozen or so. Even got some broads running a few neighborhoods. ‘Course, that’s part of the small fry. They get burned anyway soon as I get around to it.”
“Does that include, if I may ask,” T’Spock said, “a gentleman called Krako?”
Oxmyx looked up with shock. “How do you know about Krako?”
“He hit us, boss,” Kalo reported.
“Okay. You hit him back, you hear? Hard.”
“I’ll take care of it.”
“Captain?” T’Spock said. Jaime turned around, abandoning the pool cue entirely. T’Spock was standing by a lectern with a large book sitting on it, elaborately bound in a white faux(?) leather cover, not unlike a religious text. T’Spock indicated the cover, which was emblazoned ℭ𝔥𝔦𝔠𝔞𝔤𝔬 𝔐𝔬𝔟𝔰 𝔬𝔣 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔗𝔴𝔢𝔫𝔱𝔦𝔢𝔰, and in smaller text indicated the authors were called Billings and Torgelson. “Chicago. Mobs. Published in 1992,” T’Spock said, and flipped open a page to reveal dense encyclopedic text. “Where did you get this?” she asked Oxmyx.
Oxmyx was stumbling over in great, offended haste to shoo T’Spock away from the lectern. “Hey, wait a minute,” he said indignantly, “that’s the Book!”
“I know, it’s a book,” Jaime said, bemused.
“The Book!” Oxmyx repeated, “they left it, the other ship. The Horizon!”
“This is the contamination, Captain,” T’Spock said. “Astonishing. An entire culture based on this.”
“You said they were imitative,” Bones said, “and the book—“
“I don't want any more cracks about the Book,” Oxmyx cut her off angrily.
Jaime raised her hands to show no harm was meant. “Did they leave… any other books?” she asked.
“Sure,” Oxmyx said, shrugging casually now but watching them closely, suspiciously. “Some textbooks on how to make radio sets and stuff like that, but, look, I brought you here so you could help me, not for you to ask me questions. After that, I'll answer anything you want to know.”
“What is it you want?”
“Well, I was thinking. You Feds must have made a lot of improvements since that other ship came here. You probably got all kinds of fancy heaters up there.” He approached her, and slung an arm around her shoulder, just a little too friendly. Especially for a situation where pushing him way didn’t feel like it would include a guarantee of safety. “So’s here's the deal. You give me all the heaters I need. Enough tools so I can knock off those punks all at once. Then I'll take over, and all you'll have to do is deal with me.” He grinned at her, obviously expecting her to see the logic in his plan.
Which Jaime did, but just because it was logical didn’t mean it was good or right. “Now, let me get this straight,” she said. “You want us… to supply you with arms, and assistance, so you can… carry out an aggression, against your neighbors?”
“What aggression?” Oxmyx exclaimed. “I got to make hits. I want you to help me hit them. That's all.”
“Fascinating,” T’Spock remarked. “But quite impossible.”
“Mr. Oxmyx,” Jaime started, “my orders are quite explicit. Under no circum-“
“I ain't interested in your orders,” Oxymx said, abruptly letting go of her. “From now on, you're gonna take orders from me. I'm gonna give you just eight hours to give me the things I want. If I don't have those tools by then, I'm gonna call up your ship and have them pick you up in a box. Is that understood, missy?” As he spoke, several of his henchmen sprang forward and pointed their guns at Jaime, from multiple angles. Frankly, if they opened fire now, they were all liable to shoot each other — after turning Jaime’s head into a fine red mist.
“Hey, boss,” Kalo said, pulling the phaser he had confiscated earlier out of his suit jacket pocket. “This here's a heater, and I don't know what this is.” He tossed the phaser to Oxmyx along with a communicator.
Oxmyx gave them a cursory inspection and seemed to immediately intuit that the communicator was not also a weapon, because he quickly shifted his focus to the phaser alone. “Let’s see how this thing works,” he said, jiggling the controls.
“Don’t do that,” Jaime said, alarmed. “You could- knock out the side of the building!”
“That good, huh?” Oxmyx said, and tucked the phaser away into his own suit jacket. “All you have to do is give me about a hundred of these fancy heaters and we'll have no more trouble.”
“Out of the question.”
“Captain Kirk, I usually get what I want. What's this thing?” He held up the communicator. Jaime didn’t answer. “Alright. Burn her.”
“Hold it,” Jaime said. As much as she didn’t want to contaminate this already-contaminated culture even further, this would have been far too stupid of a way to die. “It’s a… communications device.”
“How does it work?” Oxmyx said immediately.
“It's locked onto my ship’s… systems.”
“Kalo,” he said, gesturing brusquely with one hand while turning the communicator over with fascination in the other, “take them to the warehouse and put them in a bag. Keep a sharp eye on them, you hear?”
“In the bag, boss,” Kalo said, and poked Jaime in the back with his Tommy gun. “Come on.”
As they left, Jaime could hear Oxmyx talking into the communicator: “Hey, you. In the ship up there. Hey…”
Bones had - of course - been arrested, taken prisoner, kidnapped, or held hostage multiple times over the course of her Starfleet career. It just seemed to be something of an inevitability the more away missions she went on; part of it was that medical personnel were by default considered valuable yet unlikely-to-resist targets, and part of it was that she was typically the physically smallest person on a given away team. And ever since Jaime had been given the Enterprise and all but forced Bones to accept a transfer, she had - of course - only been arrested, taken prisoner, kidnapped, or held hostage even more often. Part of it was that she was now going on a lot more away missions. Part of it was that Jaime specifically was somehow really, really good at getting her crew into situations like this.
Well, on the plus side, Bones wasn’t by herself this time. Jaime and T’Spock had also been taken prisoner. Also, this was arguably one of the most casual hostage situations Bones had ever been forced to participate in: their ‘prison’ was quite literally nothing more than a warehouse with a couple guards. None of them were restrained in any way, not even by being placed in a secure area. There were no ropes or bars or even a dotted line on the floor. The three of them were quite literally just sitting on random boxes and barrels while a trio of guards played cards nearby, guns propped carelessly against their table, hardly paying any attention to them at all.
Bones genuinely wondered if the guards would even notice if they simply… walked out, as long as they were quiet about it.
“If this society broke down… as the result, of the Horizon’s influence,” Jaime was saying, perched on a crate labelled ‘XXX’ with her ankles crossed and her cheek resting on her hand, “then… the Federation's responsible, and we've got to… do something, to straighten this mess out. T’Spock, if you could get to… the sociological computer, do you think, you could find a solution?”
“Unfortunately, I do not have access to my computers,” T’Spock said dryly, “nor are these gentlemen likely to permit it.” She had her arms crossed and overall seemed pretty irritated by this point. Bones sympathized, though she wasn’t entirely sure who to be irritated with. Everyone who had served on the Horizon at the time had probably been, at this point, dead for at least fifty years already.
“Well,” Jaime said, hopping up off her crate, “I've got an idea… about that.” And here was the rub: Jaime was, somehow, specifically, really good at getting her crew into situations like this — but she was also really good at managing to get them back out.
Bones and T’Spock exchanged a rather chagrinned look as Jaime sauntered over to the card table, then - knowing how likely it was that there was about to be some degree of physical violence - followed at her heels.
“Gentlemen,” Jaime cooed, her chief target already obvious - the guard in the dark blue pinstripe suit, who appeared to be a little older than the other two. “Gentlemen… don’t you think, you’re all being a bit rude? There are ladies present, after all…”
All three looked at her with a measure of skepticism. “This ain’t a ladies’ game,” said Kalo, who was obviously the least impressed with Jaime.
Jaime just flashed a winning smile at him. “Ladies’ game?” she said, “I was just thinking… this one is too simple. The ladies where I come from… we wouldn’t waste our time, with this. This is more of a… children’s game.”
“You think so, huh?” Kalo said, annoyed.
“What’s a ladies’ game where you come from?” said the third guard, the one who was just in his shirtsleeves. Bones estimated he was the youngest.
“On Beta Antares IV,” Jaime said, directing the full blinding force of that grin at him instead - he visibly flushed, and scowled self-consciously, “they play… a real game. I imagine that here… you’d call it, a man’s game. Ah, but…” and here she backed up slightly, simpering insufferably, “of course… it's probably a little beyond you. It requires… intelligence.”
“Listen, Kirk,” Kalo bristled, “I can play anything you can figure out. Take the cards.” He threw the deck into the middle of the table. “Show us how it's played.”
“I'm familiar with the culture on Beta Antares,” T’Spock said while the dark blue suit man scrambled to offer Jaime his chair, “there aren’t games—“
“T’Spock, T’Spock,” Jaime cut her off with exasperation. She lowered herself into the offered seat with exaggerated delicacy, as if she were taking a throne instead of a flimsy wooden chair. She crossed her legs at the knee and leaned forward over the table slightly, acting convincingly oblivious to the way this caused her already short skirt to hike up all the way to her hip, which two of the guards now had their eyes glued to while Kalo was glowering at her tits.
Bones rolled her eyes.
“Of course,” Jaime practically purred, taking the deck, “the cards on Beta Antares IV… are different, but, not too different. The name of the game, is called… fizzbin.”
“Fizzbin?” Kalo said.
“Fizzbin. It's not… too difficult.” She smiled again, sultry and frankly aggravating. She started to deal the cards at, so far as Bones could tell, complete random. “Each player gets six cards, except for… the player on the dealer's right, who gets… seven.” She tossed an extra card at Kalo, which the shirtsleeves-wearing guard stared after dumbly.
“On the right,” Kalo repeated, clearly wanting very badly to prove he could follow the ‘man’s game’.
“Yes. The second card is… turned up… except on Tuesdays.”
“On Tuesday.” Kalo and the other guard both hurried to turn over their cards. Apparently it wasn’t Tuesday on Sigma Iota II.
“Oh,” Jaime said, getting up and now leaning practically all the way across the table, back subtly (yet unnecessarily) arched, to look at Kalos’ cards way too closely. Bones didn’t miss the fact that T’Spock now also had her gaze helplessly pinned to their embarrassing captain, and had to consciously stop herself from doing anything besides standing there and watching this go down silently. “Look what you got… two jacks! You got a half fizzbin already!”
“I need another jack,” Kalo said, perplexed.
“No, no. If you got another jack, why… you’d… have a sralk.”
“A sralk?”
“Yes. You'd be… disqualified. You need a king, and a deuce, except at night, of course, when you'd need a queen, and a four.”
“Except at night.”
“Right.” She dealt him another card, playing her fingers over it with an undeniable sensuality that most certainly was not lost on the guards, who all leaned in slightly. “Oh, look at that,” she said brightly, “you've got another jack. How lucky you are! How… wonderful for you. If you didn't get another jack - if you'd gotten a king — why then, you'd get… another card… except when it's dark, you'd give it back.”
“If it were dark on Tuesday,” Kalo said, obviously lost.
“Yes, but what you're after, is a royal fizzbin, but… the odds in getting a royal fizzbin, are astron-— T’Spock, what are the odds, in getting a royal fizzbin?”
T’Spock jolted slightly at being addressed. “I have never computed them, Captain,” she said after a second. Bones covered up a laugh with a cough.
Jaime briefly directed her lethal smile at them before turning back to the guards. “Well, they're astronomical, believe me,” she said. “Now, for the last card. We'll call it a kronk. You got that?”
“What?” Kalo said.
“I think you boys… have got it all figured out, now. Why don’t you… try a round?” Jaime offered her chair back to the dark blue suit guy.
“I don’t think I understood,” shirtsleeves was quick to say.
“Me neither,” said blue suit, though he retook his seat and made a grab for the card deck.
“Oh, in that case… well, I could… supervise, the first round,” Jaime said, batting her eyelashes and parking herself next to blue suit, leaning her hip against his arm. Shirtsleeves stared in open envy. Kalo got a disgusted look on his face.
“First round, right,” said blue suit, visibly sweating. “Uh… every player gets… six cards, except on the dealer’s right… on Tuesday.”
“Steady, Bartos,” Kalo said.
“Second card up,” Jaime reminded him, draping herself casually over his shoulder and brushing his hair with her fingers, as if absent-mindedly. “Oh, look, you got a queen… so, draw three cards.”
“What?” said shirtsleeves, “wait a minute, that’s not fair!”
“That’s the rules of the game, Lezno,” said Bartos, looking rather smug and taking three more cards. He held his hand up to show Jaime without letting the other two guards see it. “Is this any good, miss?”
“Almost, but not quite,” Jaime said, “that’s an… aristocratic fizzbin. Not quite a royal fizzbin, but, it puts you in a… favorable position.” She ran one finger slowly over the top edges of his cards.
“Hey! Just keep the game moving!” Lezno protested, incensed. “Deal the rest of us in, too!”
“Lezno, take it easy,” Kalo snapped.
“We’re all new to the game,” Bartos said. “There’s no shame in gettin’ a little advice.”
“You look like you’re trying to get more than advice here, pally,” Lezno snapped.
“Yeah? What, you think a young punk like you can handle a game like this?”
“Gentlemen, gentlemen,” Jaime said in a soothing voice, ostentatiously brushing a strand of hair back behind her ear. “There’s no need to fight. It’s… just cards.”
“Yeah,” Kalo said flatly, unamused, “just cards.”
“I’m just here to help… to make sure we all have fun. Ah, but I could use a seat… my legs are getting… a bit tired…”
“I’ll get you one,” Lezno said, jumping up.
“It’s alright. I think—“ Jaime plonked herself right in Bartos’ lap, and he went completely stiff and totally scarlet, “—right here is fine.”
“Alright, get this floozy outta here,” Kalo shouted at the same time as Lezno let out an indignant yell of “You damned old decrepit old greedy old pig!“ and leapt at Bartos, yanking Jaime out of his lap with one hand while using the other to knock his comrade out cold with a clean right hook to the jaw.
The fact that Kalo obviously saw this coming did him no good, because by the time Bartos hit the floor, T’Spock had already casually nerve-pinched Kalo. Jaime proceeded to put an extremely bewildered Lezno in a headlock. He too was unconscious a few seconds later, nose bleeding, and Jaime dropped him unceremoniously.
She looked horrifically pleased with herself.
“You know it gives me the creeps when you do that whole routine, right?” Bones said.
“Really?” Jaime said, “I thought… the fizzbin ‘game’, was a nice touch.”
“Can’t we just spring an ambush next time?”
“Nevermind,” Jaime laughed. “Alright, down to business… T’Spock, find the radio station. Uhura's monitoring the broadcasts…”