Chapter Text
Prologue
It was a faint noise, but it was definitely getting louder.
The dishevelled collection of cloaked nomads paused in the middle of drilling their fourteenth hole of the day and cast their eyes up to the source of the unexpected sound.
At first, all that any of them could see was a trio of faint wispy trails, slowly drifting from the dusty ground into the shimmering heat haze of the mid-afternoon sky. From this distance, they could have been anything. Thin, low-hanging clouds way off on the horizon, a trick of the light under the baking heat of the glaring sun, or even the remnants of a ferocious dust devil drifting back into the ether.
But the rhythmic sound that accompanied the vague sight helped to contextualise the situation for every one of the haggard figures paused next to their drilling rig.
It was the sound of galloping hooves.
The beasts tore across the landscape in close formation, kicking up the three trails of reddish sand in their wake. Despite the arid heat, they were clearly suited to the harsh conditions, and even though the riders on their backs were pushing them hard, they never missed a step.
The nomads knew enough about the local area to see that they had come from the general direction of Arcadia Falls. And whoever the riders were, the speed and purpose of their journey suggested that they clearly had a destination in mind.
As the figures drew nearer, their impromptu audience could take them in more fully.
The three tirelessly galloping animals were all pale blue coloured, with a small horn protruding from their foreheads. Each of the riders were dressed in dusty, sandblasted clothing, and eschewed the loose cloaks of the nomads in favour of stout wide-brimmed hats to keep the blinding sun out of their eyes. And each of them carried a rifle over their shoulders, of a type popular across the whole planet. Dirty metal tubes, each with a cylinder of compressed air attached along the top side, with a crude handle and trigger mechanism at their base.
Despite the weapons, the nomads presently returned to their work. It was clear that the figures weren’t slowing down. And if the riders weren’t at all interested in them, then the nomads certainly weren’t interested in the riders.
After all, the fourteenth hole of the day wasn’t going to drill itself.
So the parched nomads returned to their laborious task as the riders rode past. And before long, they were out of sight once again. And the noise had gone.
* * * * *
A short time later, the three riders had made their way through a narrow path between steep mountain sides into the next valley along, and their quarry was in sight.
They slowed down as they approached the ramshackle collection of wooden and sheet metal buildings, standing a little incongruously in the middle of the desert, but they still trotted right past a weathered sign warning that they were entering the private property of Goodlife Ranch without paying it any attention.
As they reached the main homestead in the middle of the ranch, they finally brought their steeds to a halt and deftly dismounted as one.
Under their tattered hats, each of them were bald, their worn and pock-marked faces flecked with scars and peppered with dirt and their dry mouths filled with dirty, rotten teeth. Not that there was any shame in any of that. It happened to everyone around these parts.
They slowly paced over to the front of the homestead in a loose formation, lining up a short distance away from the front door. For the time being, none of them felt the need to reach for the rifles on their backs.
Aside from the creaking of a loose window shutter somewhere on the property, there was a moment of silence.
When it became apparent that Goodlife Ranch’s occupant wasn’t in any hurry to join them, the leader of the trio called out.
“Zesh!”
The sudden cry caused a couple of the horses to snort in surprise. But there was still no sign of any movement from inside the homestead itself.
Silence descended again, save for the rhythmic creaking of the shutter.
The leader glanced at his colleagues on either side of him and smiled an ugly smile. For the time being, they were happy to play this game. “You know why we’re here, Zesh,” he continued, “Toxis is a patient man. But he’s getting tired of waiting. And he wants this ranch.”
A creak. Then silence.
“Now, things don’t need to get nasty if you don’t let ‘em, Zesh. Understand? So why not just come out and talk?”
Another creak.
Except, this time, the creaking sound didn’t come from the rogue shutter, but from the front door of the homestead as it slowly opened and the ranch’s occupant reluctantly stepped out into the burning afternoon sun.
The hands of the three men instinctively twitched in the direction of their weapons, but none of them drew them just yet. Instead, they watched as the short, stout figure emerged. He was dressed in a dusty brown tunic and trousers, and wore a hat that had been specially modified for the dimensions of his wider head and bulbous ears.
The figure took a nervous step forwards, trying to control the shaking in his body that betrayed the fear he felt inside as he stared back at the three armed men on his doorstep.
The leader of the trio smiled wider, showing off the full extent of his decaying dentures. He still couldn’t help but find the current owner of Goodlife Ranch amusing to look at. Mainly because, thanks to the somewhat sheltered life he had led, this was the first Ferengi he had ever met.
But he didn’t allow his amusement to sidetrack him for long. As soon as Zesh was fully out in the open, he glanced at his colleagues again and nodded. All three of them drew their rifles in unison and brought them to bear on the quaking Ferengi.
For his part, even though Zesh had mentally prepared himself for exactly this sort of reaction, he couldn’t help but tense up even more.
A Ferengi’s first instinct would usually be to avoid this sort of situation entirely. Gun fights, disruptors and open warfare were things they preferred to keep their distance from. Even the Ferengi Alliance’s impressive fleet of Marauders was primarily designed as a show of strength to make other species think twice about an armed assault, rather than as a war fleet in its own right.
It was a trait that was often misinterpreted by more intolerant observers as simple cowardice. But it was much more of a practical matter. Forever enshrined in Ferengi tradition as Rule of Acquisition number 125.
You can’t make a deal if you’re dead.
And yet, Zesh had gone against those instincts, and now found himself here. With three dirty rifles pointed at him, armed with nothing more than the power of conversation.
“I—I thought you wanted to talk!” he stammered, raising his hands high above his head in the universal sign for surrender.
The leader of the trio shrugged his bony shoulders. “Maybe we’ve got nothing much to say.”
Zesh licked his lips as he felt a trickle of sweat drip down his back. A nervous sweat, and not the result of the baking heat.
“See,” the leader continued, “Toxis has been very clear about this. All he wants is the ranch. And while me and my boys here’d prefer different, he’d rather you didn’t come to any harm.”
He casually gestured to where the Ferengi stood with the end of his rifle.
“Except…looks to me like you’re determined to get in the way.”
Zesh felt a second trickle of sweat join the first. But with every instinct inside him telling him to flee, he forced himself to say what needed to be said. “Yes, well, y—you see, as I told Toxis himself, I—I’m not planning on leaving. And I’m prepared to defend Goodlife Ranch, if that’s what it takes.”
The leader’s ugly grin widened into a chuckle. He indulged in another glance at his colleagues, with an air of mockery to it.
“Is that right? You and what army?”
Despite the gravity of the situation, the Ferengi couldn’t help but roll his eyes. He was sure that his colleagues loved being handed that sort of lead-in line.
Suddenly, all around the group in front of the homestead, five new figures revealed themselves in unison. Two emerged from either side of the homestead, one on top of the roof itself, and two more from inside smaller outbuildings to the left and right of them. Each of them wore wide-brimmed hats of their own, but were dressed in clothing that was notably less dust-blown than everyone else’s. One was even dressed in an incongruous Hawaiian shirt.
And all of them had an air-powered pistol in their hands, pointed directly at the three strangers.
They had them surrounded.
“This army,” one of the newcomers, sporting lines of spots down each side of his face and neck, grinned back at them.
The three interlopers took in this new situation with a slight edge of panic, given how instant the reversal of fortune had been. They could see a hopeless situation when they were in one.
“And just who the hell are you?” the leader managed to ask in the direction of the man with the spots.
“The name’s Jirel,” said the grinning Jirel, “And we’re protecting this place now. As you can see.”
The strangers looked around again at the rest of the Bounty’s motley crew. Slowly, the three of them lowered their own weapons.
Jirel, emboldened by this visible concession, stepped out from his cover on the right side of the homestead and gestured to where the three horses still stood and grazed, entirely oblivious to the scene unfolding next to them. The Trill capped off his entirely unnecessary show of bravado by leaning a little too heavily on his adoptive Colorado accent.
“Now, I suggest you boys saddle up, and mosey on outta here.”
This time, the rest of the Bounty’s crew joined Zesh in the eye roll.
* * * * *
Minutes later, the trio of riders were galloping back the way they had come.
As they emerged through the pass in the mountain range into the next valley, the same group of nomads were once again disturbed by their noisy galloping. They looked up from their work again as the riders sped into view. But just as before, the gang of armed bandits only held their attention for long enough to make sure that they weren’t heading for the nomads themselves.
As the figures raced past, the nomads returned their attention to drilling their fifteenth hole of the day in the desert.
After all, gangs of armed bandits were a familiar enough sight around here.
It was just the way things were on Nimbus III.