As the runabout Laurentia was tossed once more amidst the tempest that raged outside, violent heaving could be heard from the rear compartment. The craft had been subjected to gentle rocking and occasional shakes ever since entering the Badlands, but as they neared their target, the storm had picked up to such an extent that even modern anti-nausea medication was tried and in one particular case found wanting.

“I honestly don’t know how T’Val and her people stomached this in those fighters of theirs,” Gavin Mitchell said as he wrestled the controls of the runabout, adding his own human touch to the automatics, the combined effort mostly keeping them on an even course. “But I’m glad they found this place instead of us having to search for it.”

“Think about Atlantis if they run into this,” Rosa Mackeson responded. “You still alive back there Stirling?” she shouted over her shoulder, past Brek, who was sitting at one of the secondary stations and looking like the storm was something other people experienced. Or suffered as it may be.

“He’s giving it a fair go,” Amber Leckie’s reply came from the rear compartment, where she was nursing the yeoman Stirling Fightmaster and keeping him in a perpetual state of agony versus letting him slip the mortal coil like he no doubt would have preferred. “We can’t be that far away from this place, right?”

“Not far babe,” Rosa shouted back, then looked to Mitchell and quietly asked, “Right?”

“Shouldn’t be too far and we’ll be in the eye of the storm.”

“Technically, it is not an eye.” Brek’s interjection sounded bored as he corrected their team leader. “It is merely a pocket carved out of the plasma storm by the gas giant’s magnetic field.”

New Barataria, so they’d learned, was carved into an asteroid that technically qualified as a captured moon of a particularly large gas giant in the Badlands. The entire star system was far off the few shipping lanes through the plasma fields, wreathed in storms and generally regarded as a bad neighbourhood. Perfect for hiding a New Maquis, or an Old Maquis for that matter, base in. The asteroid weathered the plasma storms but had brief windows where it dipped inside the magnetic field of the gas giant, making approaches possible.

“It’s close enough.” Mitchell’s reply wasn’t snappy, just informative, and he wouldn’t have seen Brek’s head tilt to one side before a brief nod in acceptance and understanding. “As for Atlantis, I doubt they’d even notice all this crap.”

“What? Sailing a big fat lady like her through this and they wouldn’t notice?” Rosa asked.

It was Brek who responded. “Atlantis is a larger mass for the storm to effect. And she also has a larger inertial compensator field. The more violent shakes we are experiencing may…upset the captain’s coffee.”

“Oh, couldn’t have that,” Rosa said. “Best not get in a situation where we have to activate the emergency beacon and summon them for a rescue.”

“Let’s.” The single-word answer from Mitchell was all she was getting.

It took nearly another twenty minutes before the runabout eased out of the storms wreathing the gas giant that only had a designation on starcharts, not even the dignity of a foul-mouthed moniker. The interaction of the Badlands’ plasma wakes and the planet’s magnetic field gave rise to a wash of colours around the planet as aurora nearly fully enveloped the planet and even lit up the ion flux tubes between a handful of the inner moons.

“Oh, now that’s pretty,” Mitchell said quietly, a rare moment that he shared with a smile to Rosa. “Bit of a hike, but the views are killer.”

“Excessive cyclotron radiation, thermal emissions and a variety of other radiation threats from the Badlands themselves certainly to make the views ‘killer’,” Brek added from his station. “I have identified our destination and we are being hailed.”

Rosa chuckled. “For a bunch of terrorists, they’re pretty on the ball.”

“Remember now, we’re freedom fighters.” Mitchell ruffled his hair for a second, turned to Rosa for a quick appraisal and then tapped at a key, bringing to life one of the small monitors to his right. “New Barataria, right?”

The man on the other stammered a reply, obviously ready to say something, or demand it, and a little taken aback by Mitchell getting the first word in. “Yeah, New Barataria. Who the hell are you and how’d you find this place?”

“A week ago Starfleet Security picked up a New Maquis courier, Darius Mackey. In exchange for a more lenient prison sentence and to not be turned over to the Cardassian Union for crimes against Cardassian civilians, Mr Mackey provided up-to-date coordinates, orbital data and entry phrases for new Barataria.” Commander Gantzmann slid a padd across the conference room table to Mitchell. “Turns out Mr Mackey is also a recruiter and sends new recruits along to help bolster the ranks.”

“And we know this information is truthful?” Mitchell asked.

“I trust the debriefing that Starfleet Intelligence gave him to be through. He was also made aware that should anything happen to any agents acting on his information, he’d be reconsidered for extradition to the Union where he’s already been found guilty and sentenced to eighty years in a forced labour camp.”

“So highly motivated to provide accurate and actionable information,” Mitchell concluded as he lifted the padd to review. “Seriously? This is the entirety of the security protocols?”

What he had before him on the padd was exactly two bullet points, to accompany a collection of math that would allow them to get close enough to New Barataria to stumble around in the Badlands and eventually find it.

“We’ve already resolved point two and had it loaded aboard the Laurentia for your departure.” Gantzmann smiled as she continued. “From what I understand, if they hold a party while you are there, avoid it.”

“No kidding.”

“I’m waiting,” the increasingly irate man on the other end of the comm line said.

“Folks call me Gav,” Mitchell answered, giving a name he told people not to use when talking to him normally. “Darius sent us after a few drinks on DS9. Said we could find some like-minded folks.”

‘Drinks’ and ‘like-minded’ had been the code phrases Mackey had provided to Intelligence. The next part would likely have gotten them on the station anyway.

“Asked us to help clear his tab.” The man on the comms expression instantly changed from irate to intrigued. “We’ve got a pallet of Orion delaq as a party favour.”

“One moment,” the man said before the screen went blank.

“Wait…that’s delaq back there?” Rosa asked. “Like actual delaq? Real, not replicated delaq?”

“So I’ve been told.”

“Damn….” Despite being Orion by virtue of genetics, Rosa was as Australian as they came and her accent was on full display as she dragged the single word out.

The comms screen snapped back, the man from earlier replaced by a woman who looked half again older than Mitchell. “Where’s Darius?”

“Said he needed to head to Orion to make contact with an old friend to repay him for the delaq,” Mitchell answered.

The woman snorted in frustration. “Yeah, that tracks. Right, we’re drinking all that stuff before that ass comes asking for it back to stop some punk from beating his head in. Bay two and make it snappy. Reports of some Starfleet and Cardassian ships plying the Badlands.” And with that, the comms line went silent.

“‘Ah geez, thanks for bringing us the fancy booze.’ ‘Oh no worries.’” Rosa’s mocking even came with different voices for both sides of the conversation—a really bad imitation of the woman who had just hung up on them and an overly cheerful version of her own normally cheerful tone. “But hey, we got past the front door.”

“And onto a station full of people hoping to provoke armed conflict along the Union border,” Brek reminded her. “They have transmitted coordinates for their docking bay.”

“Right, taking us in. Game faces people,” Mitchell said.

“Arrrr,” Rosa answered. “Avast.”

“New Maquis, Rosa, not the Syndicate.”

“You, boss, should look up the history of Old Barataria. Though, really, I should have said avast with a French accent.”