Work Text:
The artisan market in Tallegos, Coridan's recently rebuilt economic center, was packed full, beings of every known size and shape crowding the wide avenued streets and taking advantage of the post-war boom and tentatively brokered new trade agreements between the Federation and various other factions including the Orion Syndicate.
It was so crowded even the main thoroughfare felt claustrophobic, and Boimler's skinny elbows jostled and bumped into other people on the street, a constant stream of apologies babbling from his mouth.
"Sorry! Excuse me! So sorry, I didn't even see you there!"
From a narrow gap in-between two Bolleans, a familiar fist reached in and grabbed him by the front of his shirt. Boimler yelped as he was squeezed through the Bolleans and deposited on his feet right back next to his proper companions, Mariner and Tendi, whom he'd once again gotten separated from in the busy crowd.
"Sheesh, I need to get you a leash or something, this is the third time in twenty minutes we've lost you," Mariner complained.
Boimler clutched his coin satchel closer to his chest with one hand, while he tried to straighten the wrinkles out of his uniform with the other.
"Well I'm not as—" Boimler had to duck under the arm of a very tall Klingon. "—small-framed as either of you."
Mariner squinted at him. "Are you calling me short? Dude, we're like the same height."
Flustered, Boimler quickly corrected. "I meant my shoulders are obviously broader and I've got longer legs, easier to trip over or get caught on stuff."
Tendi squeezed neatly through a narrow gap in the crowd, as if to illustrate his very point. "You'd think his twiggyness would count for something," she said.
"You must have a ton of fun in mosh pits," Mariner commented.
Boimler gave a full-body grimace and shudder that indicated he very much did not, in fact, have a ton of fun in mosh pits, thinking back to the one classic mid-twentieth century rock concert his friends in Modesto had dragged him to where he was hoisted above the crowd and—
Nope, not even going to follow that memory trail. Too traumatic.
Anyway.
Mariner caught sight of his satchel and stared at it flatly. "Did you seriously bring a coin purse? How do you even have money?"
"It's the first time the artisan market has been open since the war broke out, it's exciting!" he defended, grin growing on his face. "Look, they've got glass-blown Draegothian pottery and Orion pearl jewelry, and leather pouches and backpacks and wallets and everything!"
"Ugh, you're such a nerd," Mariner said, tilting her head back and looking up towards the sky in a kind of tired 'why me' look. "Okay, you can get a souvenir, whatever, just don't wander off." She glanced around the market with suspicion. "Just because the war's over doesn't mean there aren't still plenty of people around here who would shank you just for being Starfleet."
"Or for no reason at all!" Tendi input helpfully.
"Right," Boimler agreed nervously.
-STLD-
For the next half-hour the girls indulged him in some shopping, even stopping to admire the merchandise at some of the stalls themselves. Boimler wound up purchasing a very functional, if a bit ostentatiously decorated, display bowl, with the thought that it would go quite nicely in the room he shared with Rutherford.
They called up to the Cerritos to have it transported—no sense toting it around all day, especially with them being jostled and bumped by the crowd every second—and then stopped to discuss possible food options.
After some deliberation they decided on a stall that had some kind of delectable smelling meat on a spitroast. Mariner led the way, the sheer force of her personality and some loud exhortations to, "Move, people! Keep moving!" thinning the crowd out a bit in front of her.
Tendi was close behind, blurted out much more apologetic, "Excuse me! Excuse me!"s and Boimler brought up the rear, still excitedly scanning the wares in the booths they were passing.
Oh my gosh... is that actual Ludugial gold jewelry?! he wondered as he spotted a sign and a table of very shiny wares.
His gaze lingered a little too long on the items and the eager-eyed sales merchant noticed.
"Discounts! Fifty-percent off for registered Starfleet!" they called, voice shrill as they practically leaped around their own booth to accost him.
Chagrined, Boimler put up his hands, trying to back away as best he could in the moving crowd. "Uh no, no, no, no thank you! Just looking!" he squeaked.
"I give you good price!" the merchant attempted again. "I pay you to take some!"
Boimler cast eyes about for Mariner and Tendi, only to find that they had been carried away in the crowd without him. He could just glimpse the red of Mariner's command uniform between the bodies and squashed himself as small as he could trying to squeeze through narrow gaps to catch up to them.
C'mon, c'mon... he thought, straining to reach them.
All of a sudden his forward momentum was halted by a grasping fist taking a firm hold of the neck of his uniform and yanking him hard to the side.
For a half-second he thought that Mariner had somehow teleported behind him because who else would be that strong? She was probably going to scold him for getting left behind again and call him a bunch of dumb names that meant she was actually super worried about losing sight of him and wasn't it so cute how she pretended she didn't care?
But then his brain caught up because he had just seen Mariner and Tendi up ahead of him and whoever it was that had grabbed him was way rougher than Mariner had ever been and had an arm around his neck now and had pulled him clean off the main street into a darkened side alley.
It took him another couple of heartbeat flashes to realize that something was pressed hard over his mouth and nose, something that smelled noxious, like old pennies.
"Gotcha," a low, husky, female voice said.
For a moment he was frozen in shock, and that allowed the person behind him to drag him further down the alley, so that the din of the crowd dimmed.
What... what? he thought, bewildered. He inhaled and the sharp chemical scent kicked a few things into place. Am... I being kidnapped? Oh my god, I'm being kidnapped! MARINER!
The panic hit then, and as his shocked paralysis lifted and he started to flail he actually began to take things about his current situation in.
His attacker was Orion, a brighter green than Tendi, dressed in all black with feathers around her collar and outfit trimmed with luxurious-looking furs. Clearly a pirate. She had already dragged him almost to the end of the alley, where two other similarly-dressed women waited.
"Oh he's cute!" gushed one of them, eyes glinting with an eager leer. "I love how frightened his eyes are!"
"I dunno," the other said skeptically. "He's kind of skinny."
"Putting up a decent fight though," the one who had hold of him grunted, tightening her hold as Boimler beat ineffectively on her arm, muffled yells emanating from behind her hand.
The grip she had around his neck was firm and hard and contributing to his current breathing problems. Boimler's nose was full of whatever was on the cloth the pirate was pressing against his face; it was sweet and burning as it passed down his throat and it made his eyes water. Ether? No, ether was sharper, this smelled more like a medical antiseptic or acetone or... or...
Whatever it was it made his head fuzzy. He reached up and behind, trying to grab a handful of the Orion's hair to yank it or something, but his arm felt incredibly heavy all of a sudden as he lifted it.
"That's it, Starfleet," the woman soothed. "Just relax. We're not going to hurt you. Much," she chuckled.
Boimler's senses started to dull and, paradoxically, bring several things into sharp focus at the same time. His extremities felt numb. Limbs felt tired, body felt sluggish even with his sharp jerking and kicking.
He couldn't believe he was actually being kidnapped. Mariner's going to kill me, he thought with an internal groan.
It was several long minutes as he struggled, growing weaker, every short breath taking in more and more of the knockout drug. Sound went watery. The pirates' voices were both too loud and too garbled, and their words jumbled together in his head.
"What's taking so long?" the one who'd called him skinny complained.
"Did you apply the sedative correctly?" asked the one who said he was cute.
"Yes I applied it correctly!" the one holding him snapped, irritated tone sharp and harsh in Boimler's ear.
A snort from the skeptical one. "Obviously there's something you're missing," she droned.
"Well then you do it!"
"What's going on? Why isn't he unconscious yet?"
Oh no there was a fourth one. Boimler was already having trouble keeping track of the previous three and his brain wasn't working like it should be, his thoughts were growing increasingly confused and his limbs wouldn't cooperate, his hands kept sliding off his captor's arm like wet limp pasta. His lungs keened for actual air but the hand clamped on his face was solid and unyielding and all he could do was breathe in, feel the burn down his lungs, and get weaker and weaker.
But apparently not quick enough for his pirate kidnappers.
"I don't know! It doesn't take this long in the Earth shows!" floated the voice behind him.
"Oh for—You know those programs are fake, Heleda!" the newcomer griped. Boimler managed to focus briefly on the sight of her whipping out a PAAD and swiping furiously on it. "Here."
He watched her swipe for another long minute, vision blurring, moaning softly, his eyelids drooping.
The newcomer apparently found what she was looking for because she turned the PAAD around and jabbed it at the one holding him.
"See? Right there, it says chloroform takes about five to eight minutes of continuous heavy inhalation to take effect." She shook her head, long-sufferingly. "You should have just stunned him."
"Ugh, fine."
The hand and the cloth came off his face and Boimler took in a little helpless gasp, dizzy, vision swimming now with little black spots. For several seconds his confused mind struggled to reorient itself. He should be... trying to get air again right? But he was so tired and his body just felt so heavy and weak and it seemed like so much effort...
Heleda still had her arm around his neck and it was all that was keeping him up, as she tossed something aside and pulled out her sidearm instead.
"Hold still, little cute Starfleet boy, this won't hurt," she promised.
Dread prickled at the fuzzy edges of his brain and he was very much not looking forward to her shooting him. But then—
"Oh yes it will. For you three."
Oh thank god, came his semi-coherent thought.
He knew that voice.
Boimler found himself suddenly free of Heleda's grip, the pirate having been drop-kicked across the alley by what had to be a very pissed off Mariner. He heard the smack of Heleda hitting the wall and something bright red straightening up. His vision was still blurry so he couldn't quite see her that clearly, but her knew it was her.
Then the alley was suddenly spinning for him as his knees folded and spilled him backwards.
He hit the soft dirt street and thought it was very comfortable and wished it was easier to think because he knew he was about to miss out on Mariner epically destroying his would-be kidnappers. And he really wanted to see that dammit!
Indeed, the familiar low growl that terrified him in the dead of night sometimes was floating somewhere above his head.
"I'll give you an easy choice, girls," Mariner was saying. "Let my friend go and I won't beat the ever-living crap out of you."
That didn't make sense to Boimler for a second, until he blinked and realized that one of the other pirates had grabbed hold of him, was kneeling on the ground behind him with a ragged, mean-looking glint of metal at his throat.
"Piss off, Starfleet!" the woman behind him said.
Through his swimming vision he watched Mariner crack her knuckles ominously.
"Butt-whooping it is then," she declared.
He was too out of it to see her move but he knew when he was loose again because his head flopped back down onto the soft dirt. Sweet, dry, nice-smelling dirt. What did they use for fertilizer here? Smelled like the road dirt should be back at his parents's raisin vineyard instead of paving the streets.
The sounds of punching and grunts of pain could be heard all around him.
"Go get 'em, 'Mare..." he warbled deliriously, managing to slightly lift one fist and wave it in encouragement.
-STLD-
Tendi made her presence known in the fight by slamming her heavy satchel two-handed into the back and neck of one of the pirates, the one with the long mean curved blade that Mariner had kicked off Boimler just a moment ago, who had been up again and trying to slice the weapon through Mariner's stomach before crumpling senseless from Tendi's blow.
She glanced quickly around the alleyway to take stock of the situation. Mariner seemed to have the other three in hand and limp on the ground near their feet was—
"Boimler!" she gasped, dodging through the fight to make it to him, dropping to her knees in deep concern. "Oh my gosh, are you okay?" she asked, trying to lean his head up.
"Uggggggh..." he groaned, blinking groggily. He struggled to focus on her. "My stomach hurts," he complained.
Tendi set the back of his head down on her knees as she reached around herself for her satchel "Hang on, I think I might have something in the first aid kit that would help."
She had to briefly duck down as the body of one of the pirates sailed upside-down over her head, screaming the whole time.
After a bit of rummaging she found the first aid kit, unlatched the side, and pulled out a little metal cannister. She screwed a hypospray attachment to it and pressed the side to Boimler's neck.
A quick depress and a startlingly coherent yelp from Boimler later, and she smiled and began putting her kit back right.
"Feel better?"
His eyes were starting to clear. "What was that?" he asked.
"Oxythrithomene. It's a blood oxygenator and an anti-nausea compound," Tendi explained.
"You carry that with you...?" he asked, squinting forward, trying to see past Tendi to the brawl Mariner was currently wrapping up, standing victorious over her opponents.
Tendi shrugged modestly. "Well I mean... you never know where there will be a medical emergency," she said with a nervous laugh.
Boimler gave her a thumbs up, appreciative. "Love the preparedness."
"Ugh, can you guys be cub scouts some other time?" Mariner griped. She stepped over the groaning forms of Boimler's would-be kidnappers. The grumpiness melted off her face into genuine concern and worry as she walked up and knelt down. "Boims, buddy, are you okay?" she asked, putting a hand on his shoulder as Tendi helped him sit up.
His head wobbled a bit as his balance stabilized. "Woozy," he said, "and I can't get the taste of copper out of my mouth." He smiled at both of them. "But it's getting better."
Tendi relaxed a knot of tension she realized she'd been keeping between her shoulders. Next to her, Mariner nodded in satisfaction, and moved to get her arms underneath Boimler's armpits and help him him.
"So Tendi, you wanna have a word with our Orion hussies over there, Mistress Of The Winter Constellation style?" she asked, tilting her head towards the pile of crumpled pirates.
"As a matter of fact, I do," Tendi determined, eyes narrowing into a stern and angry glare.
-STLD-
The four of them were very contrite and apologetic in a satisfyingly panicky, please-don't-tell-our-parents kind of fashion when Tendi was done with them.
Mariner felt her heart warm with pride as they scurried off, proverbial tails tucked between their legs, keeping one arm under Boimler's armpits as she supported him away from the scene. Was it against Starfleeet Regulations to implant a tracking device in your friends or not? She couldn't remember but she was very highly tempted to do it just so this kind of thing wouldn't happen again.
The leash idea she'd suggested earlier would be easier and a lot less expensive though...
As she was musing on that dilemma, Boimler felt around in his uniform pockets before bursting out, indignant:
"Aww man! They took my coin purse!"
She sighed and rolled her eyes, but passed him over to Tendi with a quick, "I'll handle it." as she turned around and went looking in the bustling crowd.