round 19 MSNPC Seth Ralston - No Loose Ends

[Sedrin Belasi]

((Freighter Anatoli - Captain's personal bathroom suite))
(nine days ago)

::Seth Ralston raised the still-hot tip of the silenced phase shift disruptor to his thin lips and blew on it. There was no smoke - gunpowder and bullets hadn't been used in his line of work for centuries, but he had always been a fan of Terran 'old western' holovids and at times like this he fancied himself the spitting image of an old frontier bounty hunter.

Before him Captain Grek's eyes bulged out of his head as he sank below the fragrant bathwater. Little bubbles filtered up to the surface marking Grek's last breath as his killer went silently to work.

It wasn't hard to access the Ferengi's computer nor was it hard to destroy his trade records. The hardest part would be tracking down everyone that Grek had brought in to his trade network - and who might know the nasty little secret the Ferengi uncovered. His employer Drin Jerol has made it quite clear: no loose ends.

Fortunately Ferengi loved contracts. And contracts gave Ralston a perfect list of people to find, follow and eliminate.

No loose ends.::

((Geneva VI Cargobase - Security Station))
(Four days ago)

::So far, so good, Ralston had tracked own the other five contacts in Grek's network. One left - and of course the last one proved to be the slipperiest of all. It was always that way. Nothing could ever be easy.

Now he was standing in a shabby security office that served as both an evidence room and a trophy locker for Vintam Dalreth, the dimwitted mob boss that served as the owner of Geneva VI.::

Dalreth: I told you. He's dead. ::He tossed a sample case that had a small amount of charred remains in it.:: I'd love to say I fried him myself, but the plasma fire took care of it first.

Ralston: I see.

::he nodded, taking out a scanner. Yes, the DNA matched his target, but Seth Ralston was an expert at tracking people. It was clear Vintam Dalreth was not. Seth was looking for different things - not the least of which included not just a presence of the right DNA, but the correct amount of it. At base, there just wasn't enough remains here to be an entire body.

Of course a plasma fire was a nicely thorough destroyer of remains, but if this Rohan was as much of a survivalist as his history lent Seth to believe, he doubted the hybrid would get caught in a plasma fire to begin with.

No, Seth Ralston was quite sure Zel Rohan was alive. Not that Dalreth needed to know that::

Ralston: ::Whistling at the charred little pile in the box:: Yes, I guess he most certainly is.

Dalreth: ::smirking:: You should pay me for taking care of it for you.

Ralston: technically I should pay your faulty circuitry. ::he dig in his pocket and toss a small bag of latinum towards Dalreth:: maybe with that you can hire a decent engineer.

Dalreth: ::he snorted:: You got what you came for. Now get out.

Ralston: ::a smooth smile:: I'm going... ::Hands up, he retreated, never even giving his name...::

~*~

((Passenger Ship Shangri-La - In the vicinity of StarBase 118))

::After a nice thorough search of Geneva cargobase, Ralston decided that his quarry had, indeed, smuggled himself out of the area. So he had taken to some old fashioned detective techniques, and started listening in on every commline he could catch in a several lightyear radius. He figured that sooner or later the right information would come to him, and soon enough it did.

It was something minor, a stowaway report on a freighter that had left Geneva VI. It was enough of a lead that Ralston was sure to follow.

Problematically the destination was a Starfleet run starbase.

Despite being Human, Starfleet bases were Ralston's least favorite places to hunt. They tended to have excellent security and plenty of naive, do-gooding officers all ready to stick their noses into other people's business. And his entire reason for tracking down loose ends was to do damage control and stop people like Starfleet from investigating what his employers were up to.

He didn't like it. Operating on a Starfleet base meant being careful and patient, and yet he wanted - needed - to eliminate his target before the target had a chance to talk to Starfleet about what he knew. Because once Starfleet knew, there was no containing the secret. And Starfleet was a nasty animal when one started killing off its officers.

Ralston didn't like it at all. Then again, he could always hope for one quick murder of a meaningless drifter and enough misdirection to make Starfleet drop their investigation. It would have to work, and he had to get there quickly. Time was running out.

No loose ends. He repeated it to himself like a mantra. No loose ends.

~*~
tbc...
~*~

MSNPC Seth Ralston
Bounty Hunter hired by Unsavory Sorts
Simmed by: LtCmdr Sal Taybrim