Thick serpents of warm rolling smoke coiled over their secluded booth, their listless floating forms unwilling or unable to disappear into the permanent miasma of the bar’s hazy upper atmosphere. The twin shapes chased each other in ever-expanding circles, their lazy pursuit reflected in the burnished table of the booth where Eyma tapped the tip of the hooka pipe nervously.

“Remind me why I’m here.” She fiddled with the pipe’s golden tip, rubbing her delicate thumb back and forth across the aperture; the minute changes in pressure causing tiny wisps of green smoke to spill from its tip.

“You said you were tired of doing loops around K-74,” Mitchell replied in a barely audible mutter, his attention focused on the borrowed Klingon tricorder hidden strategically beneath the table on his thigh. In the dim light of the bar, its jagged rust-red form looked even more cruel than it had done in the back of the well-lit transport.

“That didn’t mean I wanted to come and hang out…” she cast a wary eye across the dimly lit lounge, its numerous booths filled with traders and criminals in equal measure, “…here.”

Letting out a stream of smoke from his own tail of the hooka pipe, Bib gave her a cheeky smile from across the table. “It’s not that bad, there hasn’t been a fight for almost an hour. I’ve been in worse bars.”

“We’ve been here for 4 hours waiting for this contact.” Eyma eyed the Commander suspiciously, he was worryingly comfortable.

“We have been here a while.” Bib leant forward, his body shielding the Lieutenant who continued to interrogate the jagged device beneath the table. “Any luck David?”

“These things aren’t exactly designed for advanced scanning.” The tricorder emitted a faint beep before a large red failure notification appeared on the small screen. Mitchell hissed in frustration. “There’s so much interference here, I can’t see anything.”

“Nothing?”

“Correction, I can see lots of things but nothing useful,” he clarified tossing the small device to the side in frustration. “I would have better luck just asking someone if they happened to see a group of lost xBs wandering around.”

“Would that get us out of here quicker?” Eyma shuddered slightly as she felt something crawl over her boot.

“In a shipping container perhaps.” Bib joked, eliciting a barely stifled gasp from Eyma. Reaching out, he stilled the young Orion woman’s twitching hand beneath his large palms. “I’m joking Eyma, you’re safe with us.” She looked back at him with a barely convinced look of concern, her large brown eyes edged with perceptible worry. Sensing his reassurances were unlikely to calm her further he offered a smile before leaning back into the worn leather of the booth’s corner and lifting the pipe to his lips, the secreted mic in the cuff of his civilian jacket rising with it.

“Bahir, any luck on your end?” he whispered to the shared comm link as he took a drag on the colourful smoke, the taste of exotic berries rippling across his lips.

“Unfortunately not, we have been unable to locate any useful information. K’Sal is currently speaking with the last contact on Oshira’s list, but they are the last option on a very short list.” The voice of Helios’ Saurian security chief replied over the secure comms, his frustration audible over the kilometres that separated the two teams. “We have had no luck with the scanning equipment either, it is…” There was a noticeable pause as Bahir searched for the most suitable word, “… inefficient. A proper tricorder would be much more useful.”

“Agreed.” David commiserated as he took a sip of his drink, a frothy concoction with lashings of fragrant spices.

“Then it’s a shame we don’t have any isn’t it?”

“I still don’t see why-”

“-You know what the brief said, no Starfleet tech.” Bib interrupted, his voice barely a whisper “We’re not meant to be here.”

“The syndicate would not be happy at the idea of Starfleet poking their nose around. That’s for sure.” Eyma re-commenced her tapping against the table, eliciting a rhythmic ting as the pipe’s metal struck the worn surface as she resumed surveilling the bar’s single access door.

“They wouldn’t hit us here in the open would they?” David’s voice was tinged with panic as he turned towards Bib, who waved him off with a barely reassuring shake of the head. Reluctantly, he lifted the Klingon tricorder back to its hidden position on his leg, once again attempting to wrangle an answer from the unhelpful device.

“I wouldn’t put anything past the Syndicate, especially not the groups out on the borders. They’re all looking to make a name for themselves, disappearing some…” she paused midsentence, making a quick assessment of their surroundings before continuing. “Disappearing some nosy visitors wouldn’t be at all unusual.”

David looked up from the device, another failed scan eliciting a frustrating sigh from the man as he rubbed his brow. “Where did you get all this experience from?”

Eyma smiled coyly, her natural charisma peeking through her nervous visage. “Not everyone spent their teenage years with the nose buried in their books.”

“That is why you are here.” Bib acknowledged as he tipped his imaginary cap.

“My nose wasn’t buried-”

“-K’Sal has returned.” Bahir interrupted from across the other side of the base. On the far side of the mining outpost, the tall Bajoran woman shook her head towards the Saurian. “She has not had any success.” 

“Okay Bahir, head back to the transport, perhaps it’s time to consider a different tactic.” Bib took another suck on the golden pipe, allowing the warm smoke to fill his lungs. “It doesn’t look like our contact is going to show.”

“Assuming they haven’t disappeared.” David took another long sip from his mug, gulping the dregs down, his face contorting from the spiced sludge that came with the last sip. “Or been made to disappear.”

“There was no suggestion that they were under any suspicion.”

“There never is but the informant is always caught out.”

“Since when?” Bib scoffed, “You’ve been reading too many holo-novels.”

“Luridan? Ascar Minor?” David replied, his head tilting smugly.

“Luridan? Now, he went on the run and Ascar Minor?” Bib furrowed his brow attempting to find a suitable summary of the mission. “He… encountered some local fauna.”

“And disappeared.”

“Guys.” Eyma had stopped tapping the table, her body now still as the proverbial deer in the headlights. “I don’t think this one has disappeared.”

She nodded down the long corridor that formed the centre of the bar towards the entryway where the angular form of a woman had appeared, her body cast into silhouette by flashes of leaping orange molten metal struggling to escape the nearby foundry. In the dim front light of the bar only the golden glimmer of her tattoo was easily visible, a winding gilded serpent that coiled across her chest before climbing up her throat to a fanged mouth that framed her head. Where the snake began and the woman ended was unclear but its message was obvious. Danger.

“Remind me what her codename was again,” David whispered, unable to draw his eyes away from this woman who looked like she could stand carefree on the surface of a sun.

“Aspis. Her codename is Aspis.”