Serala: The New Road

[Serala]

James stood at the balcony overlooking the city of Delgast. The place was a hotbed of criminal activity, though from this height one would never know it. Like so many other cities he had been in over the years of his service in Starfleet Intelligence, this one hosted a very rich class of criminals. The ones who called all the shots. The streets on the ground level, where the petty crimes happened - not that all of them were really petty, and not that any of them were okay - were hidden from this height. It was easy to forget the darker side of the planet’s society with such a breathtaking view.

In the distance were the Telang mountains, majestic peaks to rival Earth’s Rocky Mountains or the Alps. The fertile valley that lay below them was rife with plentiful harvests. But it was what was being harvested there that had drawn him here. Word had reached Intelligence that the crops were a highly purified form of a plant known to produce extremely addictive substances. Those crops would then be sold to underworld types for a tidy profit - which accounted for the lavishness of the city - and then distributed in seedier cities throughout the Federation. And to top it all off, his investigation here had revealed an even darker secret. The Orion Syndicate was behind all of it.

He was getting close, he knew. Just a few more days and he would have all the information he needed and then he could return to Bogotá, where his Romulan wife and half-Romulan daughter waited for him. And his other daughter, the one he would never be able to acknowledge or talk about. Maria deserved so much better from him, but if R’Val ever learned she was his daughter, she’d kill him. Of that, he had no doubt. Instead, he’d taken her mother in as a house servant and raised little Maria alongside her older sister Serala. The two were good friends, he knew, but if she ever really knew that Maria was her sister, how would she react? He shuddered to think about it.

Pulling himself out of his reverie, he turned to walk back inside the apartment, one that had been provided to him by his contact. He’d barely taken two steps when the plaster on the wall next to him exploded, showering him with fragments and coating him in white dust. Instinctively, he tucked and rolled, knowing the first attack was only a precursor. Someone was trying to kill him. He managed to roll out of the way as a second explosion occurred only two feet from him, tearing up the floor and destroying some rather opulent furniture.

Acting solely on instinct now, James regained his feet and dashed for cover. A third explosion sounded behind him and he felt his feet swept from under him by the shockwave from the blast. The fall caused his head to hit the ground hard, and the explosion had his ears ringing. Still, he couldn’t afford to lay where he was. He quickly rolled into the hallway where he had been retreating. It would take him out of the line of sight from whoever was shooting at him. Once there, he scrambled to his feet and began making his way toward the front door. But that direction proved to be futile as he heard a loud thud and crack.

“Damn,” he muttered to himself, swiftly changing course. He was quickly running out of options. Being thirty-five stories above ground did have a few disadvantages to it.

The front door thudded again, and again another splintering sound. Only this time, the splintering was more thorough and he knew the door had been breached. Drawing the Klingon disruptor he’d procured a few days prior, he took cover behind a wall and aimed for the entrance to the hall from the main foyer. From this vantage point, he was able to see several people pouring into the suite, all of various species, none of which were friendly to the Federation. A large, burly Orion man led the way, shouting directions to the others. Several of the team started down his hall and left with little option, he opened fire, the disruptor’s wide beam setting taking down three would-be attackers instantly. But more were right behind them. And now alerted to his location, the others began to redirect themselves as well.

A metallic chink sounded, followed by a thud and the sound of metal rolling on wood, and he looked down to see himself face to face with a thermal grenade. He launched himself behind a nearby chair, hoping to use it for cover, but it proved minimal at best. The explosion from it ripped through the air, tearing apart the wall, the furniture and the chair he was behind. He felt his flesh seared and scorched, and his suit jacket was aflame. He quickly doffed the burning coat and made to rise, but by that point, the Orion and seven of his goons had arrived, all with assorted beam weapons pointed right at him.

He never knew where the person came from, or where she went afterward. He never learned her identity or why she was there, but one moment he was facing down the barrels of eight weapons. The next, they had been vaporized by a disruptor grenade. A brief thought occurred to him that he might have been vaporized as well if the grenade had rolled a foot closer to the room he was in. Instead, the blast had been channeled by the shape of the hallway and took out his attackers.

The woman appeared from around the corner and signaled him to follow her. Not taking the time to ask all the questions in his mind, he simply nodded and rose to follow. When they reached the foyer, she saw a man dressed very similarly to him laying on the ground, clearly dead.

“Martin,” he whispered. Martin had been his Syndicate contact. As far as James had known, he’d never figured out James’ real identity. But maybe he had.

“Put something personal to you on him,” the woman whispered. “He’s going to be you, now.”

He turned to look at her, a questioning look on his face. Was she suggesting that he fake his own death?

“Yes,” she replied, as if she could read his thoughts. And maybe she could. After all, she was dressed in light combat gear, all black, and had a full face mask over her face. No way for him to identify her or her species. “It is the only way now. If the Syndicate believes you dead, they will stop coming after you. If not, they will come after you and your family. Now hurry, we don’t have much time.”

So, this was it. The end of his life as he knew it. He’d been trained for this possibility when he’d been recruiting into the covert operations division. But now it was reality. And it would mean letting R’Val, Serala and little Maria all believe he was dead. Forever. The idea pained him, but he also knew this mysterious woman was correct. The Syndicate would never stop. And Earth was no barrier for them. He quickly removed his identification papers. They had been forged to give him a new identity that should have held up under scrutiny. But they would also serve to identify him, even to Starfleet who knew his alias. When that was done, the woman quickly blasted his body, destroying any identifying features so there would be no reason to doubt his identity. That done, the two quickly made their escape, meeting no further resistance.

 

Six Months Later

James stood in Keibrom, the capital city of Tibro, one of the Valcarian Empires governmental seats. No longer was he James Davis, he was now Jemmar Darven, a loyal citizen of the Valcarian Imperial Republic. He’d had to reinvent himself after his staged death on Elmacar Four. Starfleet Intelligence, it seemed, had learned the truth and contacted him covertly, ordering him to lay low here and to keep his ears and eyes open. The Federation had an interest in this region, and while they weren’t quite ready to start exploring it yet, having a set of eyes on the inside would be most helpful when the time finally came.

In the short time he’d been here, he had met a lovely young Valcarian woman and the two were growing quite close. While she would never truly replace R’Val, he decided that it would be possible to build a future with her if he wanted. After all, as one of his instructors in Intelligence had once told him, “When you come to the end of one road, you’ll find you’re only standing at the beginning of another one. Take it and see where the journey leads you.” Shrugging, he made his way from his little shop to the tavern he knew he would find her working in. Maybe he would take that new road after all.