Out of Nowhere - Part 3

Ragnar watched him for a moment longer, weighing the speed of the answer against the words themselves. Zedd kept talking instead of turning around and walking away, which was something. The room mate thing made him exhale, because he had never liked sharing, but maybe the man in front of him was not the sort to hire psychopaths. That would be reassuring. You never wanted to sleep in the same room as someone who might decide a knife to your throat was a reasonable way to start the morning. “Three percent is a start,” he said, which was not the same thing as agreement. He moved the empty cup aside with two fingers, watching Zedd more closely. “Make it five. If you want me leading combat teams, that means first through the door, first down the corridor, first thing between your crew and whatever comes aboard. Call the extra two percent danger pay.”

He mulled over the counter offer for a moment, it was high. Very high. At the same time, he was the only other person that had real combat experience and while a few of the others were eager, they had yet to face actual combat. If he was going to pay extra, he was going to get extra as well. "If I pay you five percent, aside from the rules we just discussed, I say go, you go. No questions asked. Even if the ship we're hitting or the cargo we're taking makes you feel uneasy, you get the job done. You make sure all staff that are willing to participate in weapons training are trained as best as possible, you manage the armories and combat armor for all personnel. That'll include zero G training. You run and maintain security for all areas of the ship. I'll make sure you have have personnel to assign to critical areas even if they are rotating on and off the ship, you'll have a budget for it. Deal?" In truth it was as far as the Captain would go with the cost.

Ragnar took a deeper breath at that, not quite a sigh, and tilted his head as he studied Zedd a little more closely. Five percent clearly bought more than standing at the front with a rifle, but most of what he had listed was work Ragnar understood well enough. Training people who were too eager and did not understand the true weight of aiming a deadly weapon at someone, keeping weapons where they belonged...making sure armour fitted before someone found out it did not at the worst possible moment, teaching bodies what panic felt like in zero-G before panic got them killed. It was a lot, but it was not impossible. No worse than spending a week in a desert waiting for a Cardassian Legate to walk into the right stretch of dust. “The kid rule still stands,” he said, and this time he smiled, but there was nothing soft in it. “If we hit a ship and I find out there are children aboard, I don’t hurt them. I don’t let anyone else hurt them either. That includes your crew, your eager volunteers...” His eyes stayed on Zedd. “And it includes you, Captain.” The smile stayed for another moment before it faded and he shrugged, raising an eyebrow as he looked back at Zedd. “The rest I can do.”

"Good" he said, tossing the man a device the shape of a small stone. "When you're ready, press that and it'll beam you up to the ship. There's plenty going on up there so I'm sure you'll be able to get settled in. Just ask the ships computer where Cormus Flether bunks at and join him. When you're ready, come find my up on deck two and we'll get everything hashed out. So far only the medic and Chief Engineer aren't game for any sort of offensive operations. If you'll excuse me, I have some parts to go scrounge for, engineering is sending me orders faster than I can keep up with. Welcome to the Dutchman, I'm Zedd. And you are...?"

Ragnar caught the device, turning it once in his fingers before he looked back at Zedd with a small grin. “Ragnar Meral,” he said, giving a nod. His mind locked onto the name...Cormus Fletcher. A new room mate. He had not had one of those since Starfleet. The thought settled somewhere heavy and bitter, but he pushed it aside before it could show too clearly. “I’ll see you on the ship, Captain Zedd.”