Purpose

Posted on Apr 10, 2015 @ 4:31pm by Lieutenant James Barton
Edited on on Apr 10, 2015 @ 4:31pm

Mission: Limbo

"Purpose"
(Continued from "Yelling Timber")

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"Efforts and courage are not enough without purpose and direction." - John F. Kennedy

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LOCATION: LIMBO

SCENE: Jacen Barnes’ Apartment

TIME INDEX: Before "Back Alley Brawl"



The man called Jacen Barnes woke with a gasp and a start. The Nightmare, his nemesis for the past ten years, began to recede. For a decade, he and the Nightmare had been engaged in total war. He had to admit, he was probably losing, but he didn’t blame himself much for that. His opponent was not only more powerful than he was, it was crafty; The Nightmare was a brilliant, evil general and The Nightmare was also a million-man army.



At first, it came to him only at night, and he would awaken, hoarse from screaming, his pillow soggy with tears. He learned to deal with that, so The Nightmare infiltrated the day. Strangers would stare at him with a rage in their eyes that could only exist if they knew what he'd done. He became accustomed and resigned himself to their hate, so The Nightmare replaced the Strangers with the Dead. They glared at him accusingly from shadows and from every mirror. Infiltration advanced to invasion. The Nightmare besieged him, settling on his waking and dreaming mind, showing him the same horrors, over and over, but always from a new angle, always repeating in that damn insistent Whisper, “Remember that? Remember that? Remember that?” He thought that the grief and remorse would cost him his sanity. Considering all that he’d already lost, it wouldn’t have surprised him.



But he forced it down. He drew on the breathing techniques he’d learned as a child. He remembered what he had been taught about perseverance. He remembered an Academy where a boy was forged into a man. He trained and stretched until the pain in his limbs grew large enough to crowd out The Nightmare’s whisper. He played his greatest role: someone who was okay, for the benefit of his sometime employers on LIMBO, and eventually, he was able to fake it so well he believed himself. When that happened, The Nightmare would disappear for weeks on end, but those weren’t periods of relief for him.

At first they had been. At first, he thought that he’d beaten it; He thought that he was ‘better.’ He thought the same way the second time, and the third. After that, he knew differently. Then, he knew those periods where The Nightmare didn’t come for him were worse, for while he knew full well that eventually the Nightmare would return again, he still grew soft in its absence. Those weeks of uninterrupted sleep corroded his defenses, and when The Nightmare inevitably returned, he would have to retreat inside for days, until he’d reacquired the skills needed to pass for a functional person.


Recently, tonight being a fair example, it would strike like a guerilla force: It would bolt, screaming, from the darkness at him, shattering his resolve, only to then retreat and fade like wisps of early-morning fog as the sun rises when he woke. Already, as he lurched, there was nothing left but the echo of the explosion (“Remember that?”), the screams (“Remember that?”), a tiny bloody handprint on scorched desert sand (“Remember that?”) … Then even that, mercifully, was gone. He squeezed his eyes tight against the darkness, forced the heels of his hands against them, and sucked a quivering breath through clenched teeth. After ten years of his best efforts, he knew The Nightmare much better than he knew Jacen Barnes.



He pushed himself into a sitting position and leaned heavily against the wall behind him. The wall was cold. He had always preferred warmer climates, and the station’s atmospheric controls were locked at several degrees below his comfort threshold. The terror sweat that was evaporating from his bare torso did nothing to help, but cold as he was, he knew the shiver that rocked him wasn’t just a chill. He glanced at the small chronometer, glowing green in the dark on the nightstand by his bed. As he suspected, he’d only been asleep for a couple hours. Outside his quarters, through the insufficient soundproofing on his bulkhead door, he could hear the sounds of foot traffic. Even now, deep in the station’s ‘night’, LIMBO was a hotbed of activity, and most of it ranged from suspicious to sinister. He tensed without realizing it, trying to discern if the voices sounded like passing drunks, employees or slaves heading to or from work, some of the damned Black Stars that meandered throughout the station bullying anyone slow or stupid enough to be in their path, or someone with a mind to pick locks and take things that didn’t belong to them. Or if it was...Him. He decided the conversation was too loud to signal an incursion, and relaxed as the sounds retreated up the corridor outside.

He considered sliding back down into bed, pulling the light blanket up to his neck, and going back to sleep, at least for an hour or two. If what Fenk said was true, this would be a very big "job" and he knew he should be well-rested. Ultimately however, he simply did not have the courage to try, so he slipped out of bed and moved to the middle of the floor. His quarters were tiny, even compared to the others in the Dungheaps, the ‘low rent’ section of LIMBO. Three steps out of bed, and he was standing in the middle of his bedroom, kitchen, and "entertaining area", though, until yesterday, it had been a couple of years since anyone else on the station had been inside. That had been when he still thought there might be value in trying to do things like ‘dating.’ If he recalled correctly, she'd seemed less than entertained. His visitor the day before, death threats or not, had been a more gracious guest. Stayed longer too. There was no replicator here, but instead, in the corner directly across from his bed, were a small griddle set into a synthetic wood countertop and a food preservation compartment that only worked sporadically. A half-empty crystal flask of Kentucky bourbon sat on the countertop, silently observing him. There were no dressers or wardrobe; every piece of clothing he owned but one was in a footlocker at the foot of his bed. At the back of the room, an area not much larger than two coffins housed his facilities. The only personalization he’d done was to mount two steel bars across the ceiling with easy grips. The carpeting was threadbare, the ceiling was low, and like a lot of LIMBO, it stank.



He’d lived here he'd-forgotten-exactly-how-many years, after drifting through neutral and border space for a year and a half. And a lifetime before that... Well, that didn't matter. He lived here now.

He started his routine today with Tai chi. Then, he moved on to the MoQbara. He’d had to modify some of the maneuvers to fit them into the tiny space he had to work with. The pain was beginning now. Five hundred squats and pushups later, his scarred torso was covered in a sheen of sweat. He moved to the bars and ran through his chin-ups. He liked to imagine that his breath was coming ragged by the end, but he knew that it wasn’t. His mind clicked off, and he mechanically ran through a half dozen more endurance trials.



Finally, he put a hand on each bar and hoisted his feet until he was nearly parallel with the floor. This was the one that hurt, so it was the one he looked forward to the most. Clenching his screaming abdomen to keep his feet straight, he began to pull himself to the ceiling in a series of reverse pushups. By ten, he was quaking. At twelve, moisture flowed off his torso in a steady stream. After he had completed 16, it felt like every part of him was, and always would be, on fire. He pressed on. He’d never made twenty.



He didn’t this time, either. He crashed to the floor and lay there on his back exhausted and sore, which was the closest he got to contentment. His breathing was even, but his limbs twitched with fatigue and his lightweight pants were soaked through with sweat. His eyes drifted to the countertop, and the flask that sat atop it. The flask that Rawyvin Seth had left for him, just prior to offering a guarantee that he would murder Barnes. He knew better than to think that the flask was a gesture of kindness. No, it was collateral on a debt. Soon, Seth would finish his business with the Chen woman he mentioned, then he’d be coming back for his flask with death in his hands. Barnes didn’t really mind the notion of dying, but the man who’d invaded his home last night made his skin crawl, and he hated the notion of his life being at the grace of someone like Rawyvin Seth.


His first plan had been to prepare, to wait, to fight. He’d barricade himself in his apartment, like he often did, and prepare himself. When Seth came, he would be ready, and he would do battle. He might get killed, but if he didn’t, he’d go down in the annals of black market history. He'd be the man who killed a Legend. He’d crush the smaller man with his bare hands and then he would... he would... and that’s where his first plan fell apart, because he didn’t see a point to fighting for the living death he walked through daily here on LIMBO.

So, if he wouldn’t die, and he wouldn’t fight, there was only one option left.



It was time to leave. Last night he’d briefly considered the notion and rejected it, but things can change a lot over the course of an evening. Now, it made perfect sense. After nearly ten years, he had no bittersweet feelings, no nostalgia. What he had was a crystal flask worth he didn’t know how much, half full of premium whiskey worth he didn’t know how much and four strips of latinum worth…four strips of latinum. It wouldn’t get him far, but he guessed the whiskey alone would be enough to barter a ride off-station. If not, well, he had a little to negotiate with and if what Fenk said about this Shadow Market was true.... It was a heady feeling, having resources. He sardonically resolved not to get used to it.


Rolling over, he pushed himself up on quaking arms, and stood. No point in waiting. He stripped his sweaty pants and stepped into the shower. Minutes later, he opened his footlocker, and removed the old knapsack inside. He pulled out one of his two changes of clothes and pulled them on. Breeches, a simple tunic, and a vest. Then he pulled out the other clothes and set them aside. Reaching into the empty footlocker, he pushed down at the bottom, right near the back side, on the lip of the piece of wood that was wedged inside as a false bottom. He removed the silver framed photograph and the leather bound manuscript that were stored underneath, and placed them in the knapsack. He didn't bother to replace the wood into the footlocker. Then he gripped the thin mattress of his bunk, and with a grunt, tore the mattress open. Hidden inside, amongst the sparse stuffing, was a garment Jacen Barnes had never worn, but another man had. It wouldn’t have even fit Jacen Barnes, but it had been like a second skin, a better skin, for the other man. Twice, Jacen Barnes had tried to get rid of the thing, tried to burn it or space it, only to have the other man appear from nowhere and stop him. He’d stopped trying to rid himself of it after and merely hidden it away where he never saw it. But at night, while he didn't sleep, he could feel it inside the mattress. His fingertips drank its texture ("Remember that?") as he rolled it up and jammed it into the knapsack as well. Then, he put the remaining clothes from the footlocker into the sack and made sure they concealed its other contents from a casual glance. An entire life, and it filled the bag only about halfway. He'd stow the flask into his vest pocket before he left to meet Fenk in a few hours. Nothing to do until then but wait for Seth, so he did exactly that.

Seth didn't come.

Later, he tucked the flask inside his vest, tossed the knapsack over his arm, turned out the light, and walked out of the room that had been Jacen Barnes' home for the last time. He left the ripped-apart mattress for Kazoo-Head to worry about.





SCENE: The Pits

TIME INDEX: During "Back Alley Brawl"


*Oh, I deserve this. This is exactly what I deserve...* For the past hour, Barnes had sullenly hung three steps behind Fenk, knapsack slung over his shoulder, as the runted Ferengi pinballed around the Pits. In the dive bar, with his skeletal integrity on the line, Fenk, who was incredibly drunk, had spun an entrancing tale about a hidden bazaar, constructed and taken down periodically in secret locations out of Tella Yavin’s sight. According to Fenk, it was a place where fortunes could pass through dozens of hands, with none of Yavin’s customary overreaching cut being excised from profits. Again, according to Fenk, a sentient with the right-sized pile of latinum could buy a new identity, contraband amenities, several live entities, warships, whore ships, more ships, religious idols to worship, exotic narcotics, erotic robotics… *The rhyming should have been a warning sign,* Barnes groused. *But...ships...* He thought again of the crystal flask. *Out...* He was surprised to find, as the hours passed, how much he wanted this. It was like it wasn't a new plan at all, but one that had been always been there, waiting patiently for him to discover it, and now that it had been unearthed, its patience was consumed.

Even the location of the Shadow Market was a valuable secret, and Fenk claimed to know exactly where the market would be. Of course, he’d refused to share the information with Barnes. “Just meet me outside the Pits, about an hour before the fights begin. I’ll get us right in," Fenk assured him. "You be my bodyguard, it'll make you look tough to be guarding a businessman like myself. I'll make some lucrative contacts, and I'm sure someone who hasn't heard of you will hire you as a freight guard on sight. We both win!"”


When he met with his 'benefactor', as the first of the crowd of the evening began to shuffle in, it hadn’t taken Barnes long to realize that “The Pits” was as specific as Fenk’s information had been. The underdeveloped stooge had apparently expected to find the place shut down. His mystified expression as the crowds milled around him told the entire story. Now, he was criss-crossing the arena, desperately trying to cajole the details of the Shadow Market’s location out of one of the spectators. It hadn’t been working. At all. The Ferengi had been chased off, threatened, struck, and shouted at already, but wasn’t letting his lack of success deter him. His positivity would have been inspiring, if he weren’t a disgusting idiot. Again and again, he tried to ingratiate himself and get the information he was seeking. After being rejected, he'd pick a different spectator, often nearly on the other side of the arena, and declare he'd found their source. If there was an actual set of criteria Fenk was using to determine his picks, Barnes couldn't identify it.



To a Bolian in a tailored suit: “So…the Shadow Market is pretty impressive, huh? What did you think of the slave cart? Bigger than last year's, I think. Did they move that or is it still by the…uh…”



To a Cardassian woman, intently reading a PADD: “I mean, I know I have to head down into the bloodworks, but once I’m down there, do I head left? Or right…or…” As they traversed the crowd, Barnes was confused about the number of people he saw with their noses buried in PADDs. A majority of the crowd was absorbed in the bloodsport, but the number of those who weren’t wasn’t inconsequential. What was the point, Barnes wondered, of paying to come out to the fights if they weren’t going to watch the combatants?



Now, it was an obese Vegan, again more interested in the portable screen he held than the violence in the ring: Fenk’s inadequate-out-of-the-gate subtlety was failing him prodigiously. “Shadow Market… Yep. Where…ah…Where… Is… That? Exactly?”


Barnes rolled his eyes and scanned the arena again. He didn't pick out anything more interesting than two kids looting a passed out drunk. As he scanned the crowd, trying in vain to pick out threats, his mind wandered to the past. He’d been here once, years before, to audition for a spot among the featured gladiators. Alket Daheel, the portly Cardassian in ugly clothes who ran the Pits, had taken one look at him and given him leave to spar with a massive Klingon, a head above even Barnes. The former mercenary hadn’t even hesitated, just stripped off his coat and tunic and jumped down in the pit. He was younger and cockier then, and still enamored with the results of the augmentation, so he didn’t just beat the larger gladiator, he twisted the Klingon’s ankle until he’d consented to cry, “Uncle.” He’d taken three of the alien’s best blows, and the trickle of blood from his lip only made him look dashing. Daheel jumped to his feet and given him an enthusiastic, if solo, standing ovation. Even the Klingon, after regaining his feet and fixing Barnes with a murderous glare, had laughed and clapped him hard on the shoulder before limping away. It had been a good showing, and he knew it. He knew Daheel knew it, too. That’s what made it so surprising when the Cardassian had informed him, after he’d returned to the viewing area, that there was no place for him in the Pits...

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SCENE: The Pits
TIME INDEX: Years Earlier...

“It’s simply a question of marketing, my boy," Daheel clucked. "First, you have to understand that majority of the galaxy finds humans, well, disgusting. I mean, your Betazoids and your Bajorans like you all well enough, and the Trill seem willing to put up with the lack of spots, Eosians...maybe a few other outliers and fetishists, but for most of the rest of everyone else, you’re all just too…pink.



“Too pink. That's...incredibly racist.”


“It's actually speciest. Such are the times. But, regardless, you remind civilized species of uncooked chicken. I can’t market uncooked chicken as a Hero to the masses.”



“You know chicken?”



“It seems every inhabited planet has a species that’s basically just a chicken. My theory is they were put there by the Presevers. On Cardassia, they’re called Gurjuks. And they’ve got venom sacks. Other than that...basically chickens. Pink. Like a Human.”



“I could be a Hero to other Humans. Betazoids. Bajorans. All the…pink people will love me.”



Daheel sighed. “The pink people will hate you, lad.”



“Why?”



Daheel looked pained, embarrassed to have to explain something so obvious and so personal. However, he was also plain spoken. “The scars.”



“Chicks dig scars,” Barnes repeated an old Terran cliché quickly, though with a touch less conviction in his voice than he would have liked. He knew what he saw in the mirror.



“I don’t understand what you’re telling me, but it strikes me as another unfortunate reference to chicken.”



“It means, ‘Women find scars attractive.’”



“Ah, yes. Well, that’s true enough. But, like anything else, there’s a line. Too much of a good thing, as they say. Like how every little child loves Occupation Day, with the parades and the sweets and the singing, but you wouldn’t want it to be Occupation Day every day, would you?”



“Are you asking me if I’d like to commemorate the day Cardassia began a five-decade military occupation of a non-combatant sentient species daily?”



“Point taken. But that’s hardly the issue. My point is that, yes, the crowds find a few scars attractive. A few. It would probably be ideal to just have one really ugly scar. That’s enough to make you seem like you’re just one of them, only a *liiiittle* tougher.” He held his thumb and forefinger up, only centimeters apart. “Your scars…” He spread all five fingers like an explosion and shook his head. “No. I don’t think you’ll be dug up by young chickens.”



“That’s not really-“ He abandoned the point. “Okay, so, they don’t love me. Fine. Then they’ll pay to see me beat, right?”



“Absolutely. After a fight or two, if you win, they’d be clamoring for your head.”



“I’d win.”



“I don’t doubt that at all.”



“So, what’s the…?”



“And after you won the third and the fourth?”



“They’d hate me more, wouldn’t they? Pay more, too.”



“The fifth? The sixth? I saw you out there. You’re not like most of the rabble that comes through here and you know it. How often do you think you’ll lose? So what happens then? After the seventh, or the eighth time in a row you deny them their chance to watch the monster slain?”



“They’d…hate me even more?” His uncertainty betrayed him.



Daheel nodded. “More and more. Until, all at once, they didn’t. They’d wait to see you lose. Ache for it. Within a few weeks, they’d be frothing at the mouth to see you dead. And then, one night, for no identifiable reason, they’d lose any hope of ever seeing it happen. They’d accept you without adopting you. They stop cursing and you and just...go silent. You become an unwanted institution, a dull inevitable. You know what a pit looks like when people don’t love or hate the fighters?”



“No.”



“Look around.”



Barnes looked around the empty arena, the only inhabitants there were the sluggish and weary maintenance staff. “I get your point.”



“Sorry, kid,” said the Cardassian, reaching for Barnes’ hand. “You’re big, you’re fast, and you’re mean. If things were just a little different, we could both be rich.”


Barnes shook Daheel’s hand and sighed. “If things were just a little different, I wouldn’t even be here.”

"Good luck, my boy."

Barnes grinned his playboy grin. "I'll be alright..."

=[/\]=

SCENE: The Pits
TIME INDEX: The Present

Barnes shook off his reverie and let the ghosts of the past recede. He turned back to Fenk and was surprised to see him approaching. Well, that wasn’t really surprising, but he was *smiling* as he approached Barnes, and that was a surprise.



“I told you,” Fenk was nearly singing as he walked back to Barnes. “You just don’t know how to talk to people is the problem.”



“You got directions,” Barnes asked, without much hope.



“I DID.”



Barnes glared around meaningfully, signaling Fenk to keep his voice down. The crowd had filled in substantially now. “So where are we going?”



“They moved it out of the Pits. Trouble from Security." Fenk's whisper was conspiratorial. "That's why we haven't found it. We need to leave the Pits through the South exit, head down the staircase two levels, then take the third door on our left.”



“And that’s where we’ll find the Shadow Market?”



“That’s what I said, isn’t it?” Barnes rolled his eyes and sighed. "What," Fenk demanded,



“It’s just-“



“Just what?”



Barnes repeated Fenk’s directions, visualizing the trip. “South exit…staircase down two levels…third door on the left…”



“Exactly. What’s the problem?”



“Yeah…” Barnes had walked this area several times, there were alleyways nearby that ran practically right to his doorstep, and he was fairly certain he knew the door Fenk was referencing. “That’s an airlock, Fenk.”



“It’s not an airlock. It’s where the Shadow-“



“It’s an airlock. Fenk.”



The Ferengi blinked. “Are you sure?”



“Pretty sure.”



“Oh…” Fenk turned back around to stare back at the Vegan. The fat man gave him a big thumbs up and an overexagerrated wink, then turned back to his PADD. “He must have meant the east exit.”



“I don’t think he meant the…”



“Who asked you, Hu-Mon,” Fenk snapped, whirling around. The Ferengi’s frustration was rising. “Ahh! You’re the worst bodyguard ever!”



“I think I’m pretty good”



“Based on what?”



“Well, you’re not floating outside the station right now.”


The voice of the Pit Announcer suddenly cut through the air, announcing a preliminary match with one of tonight's featured combatants. He'd heard talk of this woman, they called her the "Butcher of Barbossa." He'd never heard of Barbossa, but, from the chatter he'd heard, this woman was a real sicko. Something about singlehandedly slaughtering hundreds of innocents for nothing but cheap thrills. He hadn't heard one person tell what he'd call a "credible" story, but whatever the truth was, this woman was hated.

"Come on," Fenk chimed. "I see an Andorian woman with three children who looks promising."

"Three kids, Fenk?"

"Who would bring three children to a deathmatch? It's the PERFECT cover!"

Barnes waved him off. "Hold on. I want to see this woman."

A roar went up among the crowd as The Butcher's first opponent was called forth. A Romulan kid came jogging into the arena, all swagger and braggadocio. *Grist for the mill,* Barnes mused. If this woman was half the demon the stories painted her, then this kid was meat.

The roar didn't fade away, it merely flipped on its head and became a torrent of hatred when the announcer called for the Romulan's foe. People leapt to their feet, obscuring his view. He placed a heavy hand on the shoulder of the man in front of him and forced him rougly down into his chair. Incensed, the man whipped around and glared at Barnes. Barnes cocked an eyebrow at him, and the other man turned again and slunk into his seat. As audible contempt poured into the bowl-shaped pit of the Arena, Barnes caught his first sight of The Butcher of Barbossa.

Well. His second.

"Bull. Shit." He had no other words for what the Universe was asking him to believe. It was the redhead. The tiny redhead! The tiny redhead from Fenk's bar who wore even tinier hats and who seemed to have a thing for performance art that left bruises. Her? *That* was the hellspawn that had united LIMBO's myriad of cultures and bigotries to unite in scorn and...terror? Her?!

"We should go. That Andorian is-"

"Shut. Up. Fenk."

Fenk did.

Barnes watched as the fight began, not quite knowing what to expect. As the fight began, the small woman proved to be a formidable opponent. The Romulan had greater strength, obviously, but she seemed to possess a knack of knowing when to not be where he was swinging. The crowd roared in approval everytime the young man advanced, and hissed whenever he was forced to give ground. Suddenly, a few minutes into the fight, everything seemed to change. All at once, the shorter redhead seemed outmatched, outclassed, desperately stumbling against her opponent's onslaught.

At least, it looked that way.

He'd caught her once, or thought he had. He had been virtually certain that fight in the bar had been anything but, but now he was absolutely sure. Watching her move was difficult, due to the dust which blossomed with every step the fighters took, but he had sharp eyes and he knew what he was looking for. She leapt from blows with precision, then pantomimed sliding her heel, an instant after her landing was secured. She threw a sloppy punch at some invisible point seven inches to the left of her attacker's head that just somehow managed to intercept a skull-shattering punch of his. Harmlessly. Barnes remembered, of hearing when he was very young of an ancient Earth performer. A comedian. One who was so talented at playing the violin, that he pretended to be terrible at it, for comedic effect. It was one of his trademarks and it made him famous. His name was Jack Benny, and Barnes was getting the sense that Jack Benny was to the violin, The Butcher of Barbossa was to combat.

A lucky blow (*Yeah, sure.*) later, and the fight was over. The crowd was, judging by the cries, theoretically disappointed. But not-so-secretly, everyone wanted to watch the Butcher die at Kalenda's hands. That was the show they'd paid for, after all. Barnes scanned the crowd again, not for threats this time, but just to enjoy the dismay on the faces of LIMBO's citizenry. Pretty much all of them slime. He saw the fat Vegan, halfassedly tossing a 'thumbs down' while his other hand worked feverishly at his PADD. He saw 'Arthur' and 'Pincushion' standing nearby DaiMon Snek, and wanted to spit on the ground. He saw a young Romulan with an unlined face sitting passively in his chair, despite the hullaballoo.

A young Romulan with an unlined face and a military demeanor...

Barnes' eyes whipped back. It was him. It was the Romulan commando who had interrogated him outside of his apartment. The uniform was gone, and he was dressed like any of the other Romulans who lived on Limbo. *Other Romulans,* his mind urged him. Again he scanned the crowd, more intently this time. Now that he knew to look for them, they were everywhere. As the crowd undulated, he would see and then lose them: Romulans in civilian garb with military haircuts and determined faces. He wasn't sure how many there were, but he could tell it was at least a dozen, probably more.

Before he'd had a reputation as drunken loser, he'd had one for being a better-than-average mercenary. Staying alive had been crucial to that reputation and one of the keys of staying alive was a having a good sense of when shit was about to hit the fan. His gut was telling him someone close by was tilting a bucket. "Fenk," he muttered, doing his best to maintain a disaffected look. "It's time to go."

"Actually I want to see this. Have you heard of this woman? Apparently, she ate a colony."

"Listen, Fenk, there's gonna be trouble..." But the Ferengi wasn't listening; the Pit Announcer was introducing the evening's main event.

Barnes knew that the right play was to leave, and quickly. But something kept him in place. For a span of heartbeats, he pondered his course of action. There was no Shadow Market. That much was obvious. Or, if there was, Fenk didn't know the first thing about it and it wasn't here. But there were other places to find a ship on LIMBO, right? Dozens docked here daily, sometimes hundreds. Any of them could be the way out. He just had to go. Now. Before...

The fight began at the same time the Black Stars began to file in. The redhead shouted something in Latin - the acoustics were fantastic, had to give it to Darheel - but his attention was on the black garbed soldiers who began appearing sporadically at exits. They didn't come all at once, but they were coming. Barnes couldn't help himself, he glanced back to the fight. Right from the outset, he knew he'd been right about the redheaded woman. She was small, but she was a beast. Kalenda the Black, feared of so many in the Forum, looked like a lumbering beast compared to this purported Butcher. His eyes danced from the fight, to the entrances, to this idiot Fenk he was *waiting for* for some reason. The Black Stars were at every entrance now. People had begun to notice.

Suddenly, from above, where a new mass of Black Stars had entered, came the unmistakable THRUM of a disruptor firing. Time slowed to a crawl as a Human woman with blonde hair and a smoking hole through her torso pinwheeled down the stairs, towards the fighter’s pit. Barnes would swear her dead eyes were glaring at him in accusation. It seemed like no one moved until she finally crumpled to a stop, not far from the bottom of the stairs. Then, all hell broke loose in the stands.


There was shouting. There was screaming. There was shooting. Romulans fired on Black Stars. Black Stars fired on civilians. Civilians, those that were armed, fired on anything that moved too close. There was barely enough room to walk comfortably through the aisles in the best of circumstances, they were designed to pack as many paying bodies into the space as possible, not to guarantee any comfort once those bodies were inside. As a result, the swarms of people moved as much over the chairs and benches themselves as they did through the aisles. That meant that the crowd surged in every direction, no path was likely to be faster or safer than any other. But that also meant no path was worse. Barnes hauled Fenk by the collar to his feet and set off, half-dragging the Ferengi behind him. Maybe there was an exit they'd missed - a fire exit or a staircase to an upper level. He'd take anything he could get. The air was taking on the unmistakable scent of ionic scorching as disruptor bolts flew. Barnes surged forward, throwing haymakers and elbows with his right arm, pulling Fenk along with his left. A Romulan appeared in front of him and Barnes broke his face with his forehead. A trickle of green blood running down his forehead, he dragged Fenk onward.

Suddenly, the bodies before them broke away into a clearing, and in that clearing stood DaiMon Snek. One of his Gorn was dead in front of him (Barnes couldn't tell if it was Arthur or Pincushion) and the other was nowhere to be seen. Snek was bleeding from a deep cut on his protruding forehead, but appeared to be otherwise unharmed. He was brandishing a Ferengi firearm and shouting at the crowds. When he saw Barnes, his eyes widened. "You! Hu-mon! I know you! You used to work for me... Get me out of here, and I'll pay you obscenely!" Barnes couldn't tell if Snek recognized him or not.

Judging by the look on the DaiMon's face however, he recognized Fenk when he stepped around Barnes. "No," the smaller Ferengi shouted. "No, this is my bodyguard! I found him!" Barnes' nostrils flared as he saw the Romulan disruptor in Fenk's hand. He must have grabbed it from the Commando they'd passed. For the first time, Fenk's fast hands had impressed him. Terrible timing. "Mine! Me! Fenk! Fenk the stupid! Fenk the unworthy!" He leveled the disruptor at Snek. "You remember what you called me every time I came to you?!"

Amidst the chaos around them, Snek struggled for calm. "Now, hold on, Fenk. You're a valued member of my-"

"Shut up!" Fenk thrust the disruptor at Snek, although Barnes was pretty sure the DaiMon had already seen it. His own disruptor was creeping up, even as he made placating gestures with his other hand.

"Fenk-" Barnes couldn't say more before the smaller Ferengi turned on him.

"You shut up, too! You-" He stopped talking when Snek shot him. Then he fell over. Then he died.

Barnes watched him fall, and he couldn't understand his own emotions. He didn't like Fenk. He actively disliked Fenk, in fact. He wasn't concerned that the universe would be worse off without Fenk. Quite the opposite, as it turns out. He believed Fenk being dead could do nothing but improve lives. So he didn't understand his rage at first. He didn't know why all the sound drained out of the world, until he turned, slack jawed, to look at Snek. Snek...who had shot Fenk. Snek...who had shot...the person Barnes had agreed to protect. That was it. Certainty flared within him like an exploding star. It had been a pretense, a means to make them both look credible in the Shadow Market, but Barnes had been Fenk's bodyguard. For however long this charade lasted, Fenk's beating heart and breathing lungs meant Barnes had a purpose, a place in the Universe that he could inhabit without shame. Fenk, Fenk the stupid, Fenk the unworthy, had given him purpose and Snek, worthless Snek, had stolen it from him.

"Idiot," Snek cursed. Then he turned towards Barnes. "Now, lead me out of here and-"

Barnes took two steps and ripped Snek's weapon from his hands. He made sure to break a couple of fingers as he did it. If he heard the DaiMon's shriek, he didn't show it. Then he swung Snek's weapon into his skull three times, each making a satisfying crack. Then, when Snek dropped unconscious, he tucked the weapon in his belt and reached out with his hands. He grasped the top of Snek's fractured skull with his left hand, and Snek's gigantic left ear with his right.

And, with a roar, he did to DaiMon Snek, who had once tortured him for nearly four days and had stolen his purpose, exactly what he'd threatened to do to Elx Rodn just a day earlier. And DaiMon Snek whimpered just like Elx Rodn had.

The stands were a madhouse, and he had no impulse but OUT. Like a cornered animal, Barnes began moving indiscriminately and lashing out at anything that came near. He shot two Black Stars with Snek's disruptor. When a Romulan came charging at him, he ducked the alien's swing, and allowing his attacker's own momentum to send him off-balance, Barnes slipped behind him and wrapped his hands around the Romulan's midriff. With a heave, he popped his hips forward and through the Commando directly into the air behind him. Momentum rotated his victim's body 180 degrees, but no further, and the Romulan came down on his head with horrifying CRACK. The Pits had become a kingdom of unrestrained violence, he had become king, and contrary to Alket Daheel's predictions, the arena was anything but silent. He could hear death coming for him, he knew this arena had become only a place to die and nothing else, but death didn't sound like Rawyvin Seth and that was good enough. He still had his knapsack. He'd die with everything he still had. That would be...

A beefy shoulder collided with his own and spun him nearly around. He turned back and Jacen Barnes and Kalenda the Black stood nearly eye-to-eye. *When did the fight end?* some dull voice in his head asked, with no answer, They glared at each other, then bared their teeth and growled. Kalenda aimed a headbutt at him with her bony ridges, but he ducked to the side and delivered a headbutt of his own directly above her eye. When he pulled away, there was a trickle of blood running beside her eye to her cheekbone. It dripped to her lip and she stretched her tongue out to taste it. Amidst the clatter of the battlezone, she shouted to be heard. "Very good, Human! You have my blood on you! You have a filthy Romulan's blood on you! Who's blood is that," and she nodded to his hands.

He shouted back. "DaiMon Snek's."

She threw back her head in laughter as he waited for her next attack, but she just fixed her gaze at him. "Tomorrow, sunrise falls on a different LIMBO, Human. If I live to see it, you're welcome to come find me anytime. With all those colors, you can be my Peacock!" Then she punched him really, really hard in the stomach and strode away.

The force of the blow lifted Barnes just off of his balance, and he fell forward. He began to push himself up, then looked forward, beneath the arena seats, and a few rows in front of where he stood, he saw her. Amidst the crowded surging throng, she was laying there. The Butcher of Barbossa. The redhead in the tiny hat. He was thirteen feet away and she was unconscious and she was bleeding. As he watched, two fleeing spectators stepped on her.

With a bellow, he pushed himself up and jumped to the seats directly in front of him. His balance as he landed was precarious, but he sprung forward, over the four rows of seating and into a couple fleeing the carnage. The three of them collapsed in a pile near the woman none of them knew was Kassandra Thytos. Barnes snarled and pushed them away, then turned his attention to the redhead. She was lying on her back in the blood, bruises all over face, but that could have been from the fight or the trampling she'd taken. He didn't see a wound that would bleed like this, so... He lifted her and saw the chasm Kalenda had carved into her back. It was wide and deep enough to build a bridge over and it was pouring blood.

*Purpose*


Barnes reached to his shoulder and tore the sleeve from his left arm, exposing the scars there and disproving another of Daheel's predictions. They didn't hate him. Or, at least, any worse than anyone hated anyone in this apocalypse. Then, he reached into his vest pocket and pulled out Rawyvin Seth's flask of good Kentucky bourbon, like you can't get out here in Goddamn outer space... With an inward groan, he pulled the stopper and poured the contents over the wadded sleeve and his own fingers. After, placing the flask inside and resituating his knapsack, he wrapped half of the sleeve around the fingers of his left hand, and held the wadded other half pinched in them. Then he hoisted the smaller woman over his shoulder and shoved his hand into her back up to his second knuckle. He thought it might be enough to slow her bleeding, but he feared what an infection so deep would do to her if the bourbon hadn't done its job as a disinfectant. The Butcher of Barbossa was unconscious, but still whimpered.

"I know, sweetheart. It hurts me, too. I promise. ... Come on, Jack Benny."

He stood, a knapsack and a redhead over one arm, a Ferengi disruptor in the other, and surveyed his options. There were a number of side tunnels that ran into the fighter's pit. They were used by maintenance staff, or for surprise entrants into fights to increase betting. Most of them just led deeper into the bloodworks, he guessed, but he knew LIMBO and he knew some of them led OUT. He could surely find one. Probably.

*When in doubt, make a choice,* he thought, and began hustling toward the fighter's pit. He reached the railing and jumped, landing in a cloud of dust. Amidst the chaos of the arena, no one seemed to have taken notice of him. A rare stroke of good luck.

He turned and headed to the first tunnel he saw, and hoped...for once really hoped... his luck held.


=[/\]=

NRPG: It would be really great if friendlies found us instead of say...KajekSethMontoyaSelyaraH'RadSarTheSpanishInquisition...

Oh, and hey! "First contact." :)

Dale I. Rasmussen

~writing for~

Jacen Barnes
The Mr. Blonde of LIMBO