Post 560) Damaged Goods

Stardate: 71121.1730
Title: Damaged Goods
Author: Zanh Liis
Scene: Unknown
Time: Unknown
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"IT'S DAMAGED!"

"Mmmmmpppph." The kidnapped Acting Captain of the USS Independence struggled to open her eyelids, which felt as if they were made of lead.

People around her were arguing. Was she dreaming?

"You promised me that it would be in perfect condition!" The same voice shouted again. "If this diminishes its value, I will demand a refund!"

Zanh began to remember recent events up until the point where everything suddenly went black, and then she wished she were only having a nightmare.

She fought once more to open her eyes, with greater success than the first time she'd tried. Through barely cracked lids she observed the image of two Ferengi standing before her.

It took a good long moment before she realized that there was really only one Ferengi, and that her vision was blurry.

As the two poorly defined forms merged into one sickeningly detailed one, she groaned. "Heygetyourhandsofffame." Her words were slurred, and she ran them all together into one. She licked her lips, which were dry as a desert.

She tried to take a swing at the man who was ranting that she, AKA "it" was somehow less than perfect. Her arms were like so much dead weight; useless. Her hands felt as if they were encased in some sort of over-sized boxing gloves, and she was wildly flailing them just as if she really was punch-drunk.

"Look at that!" The elaborately dressed Ferengi with the disturbingly twisted front teeth continued. "Her legs might scar! And if they do her value on the slave market goes way down!"

"Her legs won't scar. Can't you see she has already had some dermal regeneration? If you keep the treatments up over the next day or so she'll be good as new." Zanh recognized the second male voice as belonging to her kidnapper, Vely the Ikiian.

"I still wouldn't want to have her living in my house as a slave," the Ferengi whined. "She scares me. But while we sit here her value on the slave market keeps dropping exponentially!"

"Then it's a very good thing that she's not going to be traded as a slave," Another Ferengi announced, as he came into the room and joined the discussion. He was apparently the senior business partner of the first.

"We haven't decided that yet!" the second protested. "I want top value for my investment and if she's going to raise more money as a slave, then as a slave she'll be sold!"

"Her brain is worth more than her body," the older Ferengi remarked. "Which is a shame, because her body," he looked at Liis licentiously and she felt like gagging.

"That body is half made of metal! Her spine, it's mostly Tritanium! There goes another ten percent off the asking price!" The first man shrieked anew, his pitch rising as he ran some sort of hand-held scanner over Zanh. She ripped it out of his hand as suddenly, she regained control of her arms. Her power of speech also returned as the sedative wore off.

"Why don't we find out what you're made of, little man," she snarled, as she prepared to hit him over the head with the device. "And how far down I can drive YOUR retail value!"

"That will be quite enough, Zanh Liis." Vely declared, wrenching the device from her hand and pushing her backward, and down onto a nearby piece of furniture. "You're making a spectacle of yourself."

"That's my specialty," she growled. "What was in that hypo? And what do you mean I'm damaged?"

"The hypo was purely sedative, to keep you from figuring out exactly where you are," Vely replied. "And the damage to your legs is not my fault. Preexisting."

"Oh, that," Zanh said, suddenly feeling dizzy again and resting her head back against the pillow of the rather plush divan she found herself splayed out on. "I spilled hot coffee on myself last night. I went to Sickbay this morning on business and I didn't have time for complete treatments."

As she looked down, she realized suddenly that she was no longer in her uniform and jumped up once again. She tugged at the fabric of the dress, and dissatisfied with the amount of her that it covered, grabbed a blanket off of the divan and draped it around herself.

"If I find out that any one of you took me out of my uniform, I swear, there will be lobes and other various appendages strewn all the way from here to the Divine Treasury," she grabbed a rather large, heavy candle holder and held it up like a weapon. Still wobbly from the sedative, she teetered, then she realized that the high heels they had her in weren't helping matters any.

*And I thought the Wonder Woman gig was a nightmare.*

"Now now, put that down, dear." A female Ferengi, pointed teeth glimmering brightly, approached, trying to diffuse the situation. She firmly but gently wrestled the candle stick away from Zanh as the three conspirators stood watching from a safe distance.

Zanh tried very hard to stay focused on the fact that those teeth were bright and shiny because it distracted her from the fact that the woman was not wearing anything but that pleasant smile.

"I'm the one who took your uniform. And your communicator. Which, along with your pips, should fetch quite a nice bit of profit." She replied.

"Stop talking about profit!" the older male Ferengi snapped at her. "I married you because you came from a traditional family. I won't have any wife of mine talking about making profit!"

"Very well." the woman said with a sigh. "Might I suggest, gentlemen, that you take your discussion outside now that the captain is awake?" she prodded, as the two Ferengi and the Ikiian bickered in the background over what was to be done with Liis from this point.

Liis had picked out several troubling words from their remarks; among them 'valuable Starfleet information,' and 'very desirable to the Romulans' . Apparently these men had done their homework and knew that her past in TI would make her interesting to many of the Federation's enemies.

At the end of their exchange, she heard one sentence that amused her, as the older Ferengi declared that she should be branded with a warning that declared she was "far too dangerous to be trusted to give Oo-mox.'

"Got that right, jack. Your lobes would never recover." Zanh called as they left the room. Then she frowned. She would much rather they had continued discussing her possible fate in front of her. Apparently the smartest person in the room was the so-called traditional housewife of the man who had paid for her abduction.

"You seem like an intelligent woman," Zanh began, sinking back onto the padded couch again and closing her eyes a moment. "Why don't you let me go, and save yourself a very likely prison sentence when I'm rescued?"

"I thought that you told Vely your people were not to come after you."

Zanh shrugged. "They might follow my orders. Then again, they might not."

The woman fetched a dermal regenerator and gestured for Zanh to pull the blanket back. "I need to treat your legs. They must be exposed for me to do so."

Zanh acquiesced, and she took in her surroundings. "Vely isn't very bright, by my estimation," Zanh remarked, as the woman worked. "He sedated me so I wouldn't know where I am. But it's obvious I am on Ferenginar."

"Are you so sure?"

"Your interior decorating technique gives you away." Zanh replied. "That and the fact that it's raining cats and dogs out there." She gestured toward a nearby window which revealed the telltale Ferengi landscape, complete with rivers of muck.

The woman frowned and called to someone in the next room.

"Hechka, get in here and close those curtains!"

"Right away!" The younger, and also traditionally naked Ferengi female said, rushing into the room. Zanh averted her eyes toward the ceiling as the girl closed the curtains. She couldn't be more than sixteen.

"The chamber maid?" Liis asked.

"No, silly, I live here!" The girl blurted, drawing a stare from the older woman that could only happen between a mother and daughter.

"That will be all, girl."

"But I want to stay and talk to the Starfleet Bah-Jor-Ahn."

"No."

The girl sighed, lingering in the doorway. "Later?"

"No. Go now. Our visitor will not be staying with us long."

Disappointed, the teen finally left the room, muttering. "I never get to talk to any of our most interesting visitors."

"Visiting, is that what abduction is called in polite Ferengi society these days?" Zanh raised an eyebrow. "I'm surprised that they gave me any clothing at all, seeing how it's not the way on your world for women to wear any."

"That was my doing." the woman replied.

"Well, then I thank you."

"You're welcome." The woman's expression softened a little. "I would like your time here to be as enjoyable as possible, Zah-nn Leeeee-se."

"Oh? And why is that?"

"Because where you are going from here will likely be anything but enjoyable."

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=/\= Zanh Liis
Acting CO
USS Independence NCC-90791