“I’m fine, I’m fine,” he said and then limped over to where Tigus’ unconscious body sat. He looked down at the fallen constable for a moment before angrily kicking him into his side. “Who’s in charge now, huh? Who’s in charge now?” he yelled even though it was clear the man was in no condition to hear a word he was saying.
The two Starfleeters watched on silently as Litus vented what had to be years of anger and frustration.
“Mister Litus?” Val said.
But he wasn’t listing, too busy driving his boot into the other man’s midsection. “You’re done, you hear me. Your reign of terror is over.”
The Bolian reached out for the enraged Litus and pulled him away. “I think he had enough.”
“Mister Litus?” Val said again.
He turned around to face the large human.
“The rifles?”
“What?” He was still shaken and angry, clearly not at all on the same page as the Starfleet NCO.
Horowitz took a deep breath, his patience reaching new limits. “We’ve come here because you told us that we would find our missing weapons. Where are they?”
“Oh,” he said as if he had finally understood. “Of course, of course. The warehouse,” he said and limped over to a set of large doors and pulled them open to reveal a huge warehouse space, packed with a wide assortment of weapons. “You’re rifles should be here,” he said and then quickly darted through the doors.
Val shot his partner an impatient look but Zolwat simply offered one of his shrugs again and then followed the Tiaitan man.
“There must be hundreds of weapons in here,” said the petty officer.
“Enough to outfit his private little army,” said Litus as he picked up a gunmetal gray pistol and aimed it into the distance for a try out.
“We don’t have the time to search this entire place,” Val said.
Zolwat had his tricorder out but shook his head as he studied the results of his scan. “I can’t pick them up,” he said. “But if they’re powered down it would be tricky for the scanners to detect them.”
Val in the meantime had found a black carbine which held his interest. “This is pretty advanced weaponry,” he said. “I don’t think the Tiaitan’s should have access to this.”
“Maybe they picked it up from off-world,” said Zolwat.
The human seemed unconvinced. “Maybe.”
The Bolian holstered his tricorder and pulled his phaser. He quickly dialed up the power and then, without notice, fired at one of the carbines and disintegrating it within a heartbeat.
“What the hell?” Val said, whirling on the crewman.
“You said it yourself,” he responded as he took aim at another weapon. “They shouldn’t be having these.”
Another rifle was reduced to atoms.
“In fact,” said Zolwat, “I’m sure everyone would be better off if all of these would disappear.” He took aim at an entire rack of rifles, adjusting his phaser for wide beam and disintegrated the entire shelf.
“That’s not your call to make, Crewman,” Val said angrily after he watched the weapons disappearing into nothingness.
Litus seemed similarly upset. “What are you doing?” he cried. “We could have used those.”
Zolwat fixed his partner with a telling look. “See what I mean? As long as this arsenal is here some other thug will just take over.”
Horowitz frowned but said nothing when the Bolian reduced another row of carbines, pistols and grenades to nothing more than dust.
“Hey, that stuff is real valuable,” Litus protested but not quite bold enough to try and stop the Starfleeter’s efforts.
Val shot the Tiaitan an insistent look. “You need to find us our weapons.”
He nodded gingerly. “Alright, I think I know where to look for them,” he said. “I believe Tigus keeps his most valuable items in a reinforced safe. This way,” he said and rushed off deeper into the warehouse.
Val followed closely while Zolwat continued to zap one rack of weapons after the next into non-existence.
“Here we are,” said the Tiaitan after he had led the petty officer to a heavy metal door. “I don’t know the combination though,” he said and then glanced at the human with an eager look in his eye. “If we wake Tigus I’m sure we could come up with all kinds of entertaining ways of making him talk.”
Horowitz looked appalled. “We don’t torture people,” he said. “Step aside.”
Litus practically jumped when he saw the large man pull his own phaser. Having already witnessed the awesome power of the weapon, he clearly wanted to be nowhere near it when he put it to use.
Put it to use he did. Within moments the door was gone.
The Tiaitan quickly darted into the vault.
Val found more weapons inside, mostly heavy armaments such as rocket launchers and grenade dischargers but no Starfleet-issue phaser rifles.
Litus was busy opening a number of smaller safety boxes, his eyes gleaming with unadulterated joy upon discovering the content.
“Mister Litus, I don’t see our weapons here anywhere.”
“Keep looking, they have to be here,” he said but made no effort assisting the Starfleet NCO to find what he was looking for. Instead he collected as many of the boxes he could and then hastened back out of the vault, nearly running into Zolwat as he stepped inside.
“Careful there,” said the Bolian after the near-miss.
But Litus paid little heed and rushed past him.
“What’s his hurry?”
Val turned to the crewman. “Did you find them?”
He shook his head before he noticed the exotic weaponry in the vault. He quickly had his phaser back in hand. “Look at this stuff. It’s enough to turn the entire city to rubble,” he said and quickly began to sterilize the room.
Val watched silently as one weapon after the next disappeared. Then with an angry frown he turned towards the exit and headed out with long, determined steps. “We need to have a serious conversation with Mister Litus.”
“Is it just me or does this place have a different vibe than before?” said Zolwat after he and Val had stepped out of the warehouse.
It was, quite frankly, the understatement of the year. Where just an hour earlier the settlement of Ait Gardens had looked like an abandoned ghost town, people were now literally dancing in the streets.
Residents from buildings all around who had previously barricaded themselves in their homes had come outside to find out what had happened. Apparently Litus had been quick to share the story of the two aliens overpowering their tyrannical constable and his thugs and the news had spread like wildfire.
People who had previously shunned their neighbors as if the entire community had been affected by a plague like disease, had now come out with food and drink, some had brought instruments and began playing music to which many, young and old, began dancing to.
Zolwat scratched his hairless head, turned back to the warehouse and then again to the increasing gathering of residents in the street. “Did we just step into a parallel universe or something? I hear that kind of stuff happens all the time.”
Val shook his head. “No, this is worse.”
Zolwat shot his partner a puzzled look. “How can this be worse? People are having a good time, eating and drinking and dancing. That’s a good thing,” he said. “A clear improvement to the depressing conditions before, I’d say,” he added with a large smile plastered on his face as he watched the elated crowd. “It’s a proper cube party.”
Val walked off towards the celebration. “It’s block party,” he said. “Find Litus. Now.”
That turned out to be pretty easy as the Tiaitan man was the focus of events, eagerly sharing the story of his conquest over the constable with everyone who was willing to listen. But there was another reason he had suddenly become so popular.
“Is he handing out money?” Zolwat asked.
Val frowned, a semi-permanent expression on his face these days. “He took it from the vault.”
And the people were elated by the gesture, most of them already proclaiming the man the next constable of Ait Gardens.
Before the two Starfleeters could get close to Litus, they were intercepted by Vere, still holding on to her child which had miraculously stopped crying, the young woman with a huge smile on her face. “You’ve done it,” she said to them, “you’ve really done it. You’ve taken care of Tigus for good.”
“Ma’am, we’ve done no such thing,” Val insisted.
She beamed at that. “Your modesty suits you well,” she said. “But I’ve seen it with my own eyes. And Litus says that without money or weapons he and his thugs will have no choice but to leave Ait Gardens. They won’t dare ever show their face here again. Thank you, thank you so much.”
“There is that little matter about the rifles we were looking for,” said Zolwat.
“You found his weapons, didn’t you? Destroyed them all,” she said. “Now if you excuse me, I have to make sure to get me some of that coin before it’s all gone. It’ll feed my children for at least a couple of cycles, maybe more,” she added and then quickly rushed off.
“Well, she’s happy,” said the Bolian.
But it was all too apparent that Petty Officer Horowitz was so clearly not. “Litus, now.”
It wasn’t as easy to getting to the man of the hour than it had been of spotting him. Eventually Val had enough of waiting for the still growing crowds around him to disperse and he simply used his much larger frame to make his own path. Zolwat followed closely.
“And here come the true heroes of the day,” he shouted as he saw the aliens approach. “The men who, with my humble assistance, were able to dispatch Tigus’ villainous forces for good.”
A loud cheer went up, entirely drowning out Val’s question.
“Please help yourselves to food and drink,” he said and then added in a softer tone. “There is a surprising amount of that considering how much these people were complaining about how poor they are.”
“I wouldn’t mind going for one of those pastries,” said Zolwat, feeling his mouth watering upon seeing and smelling the selection on a nearby table, realizing for the first time how hungry he was and how he hadn’t had a chance to eat since leaving Eagle hours earlier.
One look at Val changed his mind. “Or, maybe later.”
“I don’t want to seem greedy but you don’t have any use for this money, do you?” he said. “These people can really use it, you see.”
“We don’t care about money,” grunted Val. “We want our weapons back.”
“Right, right,” he said, now once again busy handing out big wads of cash to the people all around him. Val had noticed that it wasn’t quite as much as he had liberated from the warehouse. No doubt he had made sure to keep a handy sum back for himself. “Were they not in that vault?” he asked, but paying them little attention.
“No.”
“That’s odd,” he said absent-mindedly.
Horowitz’s patience ran out. He reached for the man’s shoulders, spun him around and then grabbed him by the collar of his shirt, easily raising the diminutive Tiaitan a couple of feet into the air.
The crowd gasped in surprise.
“Where are they?”
“Uh, Val, buddy,” said Zolwat as he surveyed the crowd which seemed to be on the cusp of turning from a joyous mass of revelers to an angry, vicious mob. “Don’t think that’s such a good idea.”
“I … I thought they were in the vault,” Litus stammered.
“They weren’t.”
“I think you should put him down,” said the Bolian as he watched the crowd stepping closer and growing impatient. They may have done the lion’s share of fighting Tigus and his thugs but at the end of the day, it had been Litus to hand them money. And loyalty, clearly, was easily bought in this place.
Val did not appear impressed by the idea of being stoned to death by a crowd of hundred plus angry Tiaitans.
“I swear I thought that they were there,” Litus said.
Zolwat decided something had to be done and he quickly stepped next to the petty officer, focusing on the man still squirming in his grasp and suspended in air. “Tell me, did you actually ever see Tigus remove those phaser rifles from the airport? I mean, physically take them?”
The man looked visibly uncomfortable responding to that question.
“Answer him,” Val barked.
“Well, not “? directly, no. But it had to be him, right? You’ve seen how much he loves his weapons. Who else could it have been?”
Horowitz sighed loudly and put the man back on his feet. “This was all just based on a hunch?” he said, trying to come to grips with this himself. “You never saw him take the weapons, you just wanted us to take care of your little problem here.””¨
The man shrugged and then offered a sheepish smile. “It worked, didn’t it? And chances were good Tigus actually had those weapons you were looking for.”
Val balled his hand into one huge fist but Zolwat grabbed hold of his wrist before he could bring it up. “Really bad idea considering the company we’re keeping at present.”
Horowitz took a deep breath and relaxed. Then he abruptly turned and walked away, once again barging right through the crowd.
“Now you’ve done it and upset the big man,” said Zolwat and shot the Tiaitan man a last, scowling look. “Hope you’re real proud of yourself,” he added before he turned to catch up with his partner.
Litus shrugged. “Can’t complain,” he said and then, with his beaming smile, attended to the eager men and women surrounding him again. “Who could use some more money?”
And the crowd went wild.