No Leverage - Part 1

Ragnar Meral knew the job was bad before the rendezvous point came into view.

It was in the way the instructions had been too short. No manifest, no client name written down, no proper route details until after they were already moving. Just a set of coordinates, a time, and the kind of pay that meant either the work was dangerous or the person offering it expected everyone involved to stop asking sensible questions. Usually both, which…was not great. Good thing Ragnar knew how to keep his gob shut.

The rendezvous sat beyond the edge of the settlement, where the hard-packed landing field gave way to scrub, rust-coloured stone and the skeletal remains of old Dominion infrastructure that nobody had bothered to tear down. A relay tower leaned in the distance, half-dead, its upper signal array cracked and pointing at nothing useful. The wind came low across the ground, lifting dust in thin sheets that hissed against boots and cargo cases. It smelled of hot metal, dry earth and something chemical underneath, old fuel or old fire. The kind of place people chose when they did not want witnesses, but still wanted enough open ground to see betrayal coming.

Ragnar stood near the second crate with his rifle slung low and his hands loose at his sides. Not relaxed. He had not been relaxed since the invitation reached him. Correction: he hadn’t been relaxed since last time he had enough latinum for drinks and a door that locked and couldn’t be overridden. His eyes went to the others around him, considering the group he had been folded into. He was six feet tall, broad through the shoulders and solidly built, the kind of strength that came from keeping himself useful rather than from making a display of it. His hair looked blonder in the light, long enough on top to fall into his eyes a little, but that was easily fixable, and several days of stubble roughened a jaw that already looked like it had been set against too many arguments. Dust had caught along the seams of his jacket and the knees of his trousers, dulling the dark fabric, but his kit was cared for. Weapon clean. Boots worn but good. Everything on him looked like it had a purpose or had already been thrown away.

His weight was settled evenly, shoulders squared without making a show of it, green eyes moving from the ridgeline to the shuttle tracks, then back to the five others waiting with him.

He did not like them.

That was not unusual. Ragnar disliked a lot of people on first meeting. It saved time, it made it easier when things inevitably went to shit, or you got stabbed in the back. But this was different. These were not desperate men taking desperate work because the quadrant had swallowed better options and the latinum had run dry. They were too quiet for that and…too settled inside themselves, too cold. One of them, a broad-shouldered Orion with old burn scarring along his neck, had not checked his weapon once since they arrived, which meant he trusted it completely or trusted himself more. Another leaned against the crates with one boot crossed over the other, chewing something pale and stringy while his eyes stayed flat...Not bored, just empty. There was nothing useful behind there, no nerves, no heat, no flicker of anything Ragnar could read by watching him. And if he reached out, there would be nothing. He knew that already. No care for anyone but themselves and their own goals and needs. He knew some people got that removed, either chemically, or with surgery. You could wipe out empathy. Remove it because it got in the way.

He couldn't think of anything worse. His hit him like a Miranda-class on a bad day, hence the blockers, but that only removed the Betazoid inputs along his nervous system, not...feeling compassion, or seeing someone else's point of view.

It didn't remove what made him a person rather than a monster.

Cold killers, Ragnar thought, watching the way they waited without wasting movement. Not angry ones. Not frightened ones. Not the sort who needed drink or noise or a little theatrical cruelty to brace themselves before violence. These were the kind who waited because waiting was part of the work, who would shoot when told and sleep after, provided the pay was good enough.

The old Starfleet part of him hated it, small as it was by now, or small as he told himself it was. A stubborn ember under ash, too irritating to die cleanly. It disliked the missing details, the unmarked crates, the client’s name spoken once and then avoided as if saying it again might draw his attention from orbit. It disliked the men around him and the way none of them had asked what they were obtaining, only when they would be paid. It disliked standing with them, counted as one of them, another armed body in a bad place waiting for someone else’s life to get more complicated.

The rest of him counted what he had left.

Credits low enough that the room he had taken near the docks was paid only to the end of the week. One clean outfit, some extra underwear and things like that which...could last. One jacket that needed the left cuff repaired. A half-empty case of blockers tucked into the inside pocket of his kit, enough to keep the worst of the noise down for a few more days if he was careful. Less if he was not. He could feel that already, the pressure at the edge of his skull where other people’s tension gathered and pressed, not thoughts, never clean enough for that, just mood and intent and the greasy taste of anticipation.

Five men waiting for violence made a room loud even when no one spoke: Ragnar, the two cold killers, one pilot who seemed to know more than he let on, and a lanky addition who had the nervous habits of someone in search of stimulants. Twitchy, eyes going places. Untrustworthy, because Ragnar realised that he stayed too close to people, listening in.

Needs must, he thought. And how he hated the phrase. Hated how often it had become useful.


[To be Continued]