It had been a long walk back to the ship across rocky and sandy desert terrain and under a burning hot sun beaming its oppressive rays down upon them.
The shovels they carried strapped over thier backs and the hot specks of sand that frequently blew into both women’s eyes were not exactly helping matters.
Jointly they carried a large heavy and dirt covered crate, Seven holding the handle of one side and Raffi holding the other.
“Sunglasses next time”, Raffi huffed and her almost empty water bottle tied to her belt repeatedly bumped her thigh with each step.
“Next time we pick up one of your weapons caches we’re parking nearer, okay Honey? Much nearer, as in right on top of it”, Raffi breathed hard from the strain of the crates weight as she looked up to see La Sirena seemingly growing in size as each step brought them nearer.
The ship sat parked in the deserted hot sand and grew closer with every difficult step trudged through the deep loose sand.
Seven smirked and gave a small head shake as she lugged her portion of the awkward weight.
“No can do Raff, I left this stuff here specifically because it’s shielded by the disruption around that temple we dug it up near. The local population believe it’s sent by their sun god to protect this world… If I bring the ship any closer it’ll be lights out for all systems”.
Raffi shrugged, or atleast she tried to but her shoulders refused to comply as they hauled the weight of Seven’s ridiculously crammed full weapons stash.
“Well next time bring a camel or something...”, she huffed.
Seven looked back over her shoulder and briefly took in their visible trail of footsteps in the sand which stretched back well over three miles.
She had no doubt that Raffi possessed a more than healthy physical strength but she supposed Raffi did perhaps have a right to complain given that she maaaaay have neglected to mention the distance that would be involved in lugging her well hidden crate of phaser rifles, ‘borrowed’ disrupters, power cells and grenades.
Ten minutes and several more complaints from Raffi later and La Sirena loomed into clear view until the pair were mere meters away.
Raffi looked up, lowered her end of the crate into the sand and wiped her sweat covered brow with the back of her hand.
She was going to point to the most welcome shade the ship was causing but something caught her eye.
She pointed up, intending to direct Seven’s attention toward the nose of the ship and its bridge window but it seemed Seven had already spotted it.
“The hell is that?”
Seven too lowered her end of the crate and shielded her eyes as she looked.
Looking on in curiosity they both observed an object, small, square shaped, flat and yellow in colour seemingly stuck to the main bridge window of the front of La Sirena.
“That wasn’t there when we landed”, Seven’s voice was curious.
“A leaf of some kind?”.
“No trees for miles”, Seven shook her head. No one messed with her ship, especially when it was parked in the middle of nowhere.
This most definitely warranted further investigation…
It was bliss to finally sit, to take the weight off her sore feet and relax in the comfortable chair at the helm of La Sirena.
With her sand filled boots long since removed Raffi sat back and relaxed with her black sock covered feet up on the port side console and a well earned iced coffee in her hand.
The sun still beat down on her through the main window of La Sirena but atleast the ships climate control made for a more tolerable temperature.
She looked out into the calm of the desert and smiled a little as the tip of a ladder abruptly poked its way into her view from the outside of the ship.
A few moments later she looked on as an arm reached haphazardly up over the ladder and an augmented hand scrabbled around until it took firm hold on the hull.
Some blonde hair followed moments later and then the rest of Seven as the Ranger climbed up and hauled herself awkwardly onto the nose of the vessel to investigate the mysterious…whatever it was.
Raffi waved a hand as she observed and raised her ice cool drink with both a cheesy grin and a wink from the comfort of her seat.
She had offered to help but as usual Seven, stubborn as ever, had insisted she could sort this out and remove this object - whatever it was - by herself.
So while Raffi had discarded her boots, cursed at the blister she had been rewarded with, fetched an iced coffee and made herself comfortable to watch this show in climate controlled comfort, Seven had set about replicating an extendable ladder and a tool resembling an ice scraper to remove the offending…wotsit.
And so Raffi sat back and watched without complaint as the tank top clad Seven clambered into a reasonably safe position the opposite side of the glass and began to scrape at the transparent surface to remove it.
No… She really was not complaining about this view at all.
Raffi watched as the offending item put up a good fight against the ice scraper although she wished Seven would hurry up as the sound of the scraper on the glass was quickly giving Raffi that ‘fingernails-on-a-blackboard’ sensation through every fibre of her body.
Eventually it’s stickiness began to relent and Seven began to peel it slowly and carefully from the window with the fingernails of her right hand.
In curiosity Raffi watched on, taking a sip from the straw of her drink and then using it to stir the clinking ice around the glass.
The more she watched, the more she came to realise that it was paper.
A note. A note stuck the the main window of their ship?
All the way out here? In the middle of nowhere?
It was folded over and she watched as Seven unfolded it and frowned.
Raffi waved for attention.
She waved again.
And then she waved again, this time with both arms and her drink.
“Godamnit”, she finally cursed as Seven, concentrating on the note, again failed to notice her flailing partner.
She fumbled in her pocket and retrieved her old-school communicator, one of a set of two she had picked up in recent months at a retro market.
She flipped it open with a chirp to call Seven.
Alerted by the chirp the Ranger took her own communicator from her back pocket and flipped it open.
“That a note? What’s it say? I mean who the hell puts a note on a ship all the way out here?”.
Seven continued to look down at the note.
At first she frowned and then the optical implant raised.
Raffi knew that look. It meant someone had pissed her off or was atleast on the verge of doing so.
Lip reading had never been her thing but Raffi was certain she just caught an expletive muttered under Seven’s breath.
Then Seven’s expression became incredulous…
‘Uh oh’, Raffi thought.
The Ranger turned the paper round and held it with a **whump!!** against the window for Raffi to see.
“It’s an angry note”, Seven’s tone of voice lay somewhere between disbelief and ‘what-the-f*ck?’ as she spoke into the old communicator.
Raffi placed her iced coffee safely down and stood.
She leant over the console as far as she could and crooked her neck to look up so she could read the Federation standard the note was scrawled in.
She took a moment…
“Ooookay so apparently we’ve offended the sun god Veedo by parking in the great desert of Nabong during the holiday of… The holiday of… the holiday of what?”.
Seven turned the note round once more to check…
“The holiday of AccakioMappa-SolloDoFla”, she shrugged.
“Well that’s certainly a word”, Raffi spoke looking up at Seven through the glass.
She watched as Seven moved her position so that she was now kneeling directly on the glass directly above Raffi.
She discarded the ice scraper over her shoulder and into the sand and with some annoyance brought her face closer to the glass to inspect the resulting scratch with her finger.
“How am I gonna get that scratch out Raff?”.
Raffi was unsure of the answer and, for that matter, was Seven even looking at her or the scratch as she lay half leaning against the window.
“And they plan on doing what?”, Raffi prompted Seven to look back to the note.
“It says we are to turn ourselves in to the temple immediately upon receiving this note, undergo thirty days of silent penance and meditation with the nuns of Veedo and to wash away our sins we must make an offering of five thousand credits and a sand goat”.
Raffi’s eyebrows couldn’t go much higher, nor could the smile of her now tickled sense of humour get much larger as she listened.
“What the hell’s a sand goat?”, she laughed.
“Goat that lives in the sand”, the Ranger suggested.
“Well thank you Ms Seven of Obvious”, Raffi shook her head as she facepalmed with laughter, “and if we don’t do as they demand?”.
Seven looked down at the last few lines of the note.
“Then we will be taken to become temple servants for the rest of our lives while the ship and everything we own becomes the property of the High Priest of Veedo”.
Raffi snorted and thanked that she wasnt drinking her iced coffee at that moment.
“He really wants a trailer in Vazquez rocks that bad? Coulda just asked…”.
“PS - please refrain from digging any further holes in our temple grounds”.
Seven screwed the note up forcefully with her left hand.
“I think we can file that in the recycler”, Raffi concluded and then watched as Seven lobbed the screwed up paper over her shoulder in disdain, “…or the sand”.
Dismissing the ridiculous demand Seven returned to inspecting her rather annoying scratched window.
“I’m gonna need to fix this, Raff can you get me some…”.
“Uhh Honey…”.
Raffi stood up straight suddenly, her attention drawn to movement in the distance and sand being kicked up by numerous forms emerging over a nearby dune.
“…I just need some tools”.
“Babe!”, Raffi spoke much sterner into her communicator and pointed repeatedly in the direction of the disturbance, “We’ve got company and they don’t look happy!”.
Seven rose on her knees and looked over her shoulder.
Raffi was indeed right and what appeared to be a large crowd of people were rushing over the sandy horizon through the loose sand. As Seven listened carefully her advanced hearing could make out the sounds of many voices shouting, hurling slogans and what sounded like damning quotes from the holy book of Veedo.
Quickly Raffi called up the floating holo screen of her console and magnified the image.
“Okay I’m seeing an angry mob, pitch forks, some angry banners and some are riding ahead on camels… see I said we could’ve had camels, why didn’t we have camels?”.
Seven spun herself round and now sat on the ships nose looking cautiously toward the approaching angry mob.
“Perhaps they can be reasoned with…”, she suggested.
Raffi looked again at her magnified image and shook her head.
“Uh, the lead camel guy is burning a Fenris Rangers flag Honey…”.
“Scratch that thought then, can you throw me up a rifle instead?”.
“Seven you are not shooting the locals”, Raffi’s amusement at the situation was growing somewhat thinner as the mob closed in, “what you DO need to do is come down and get inside so we can leave - I am NOT peeling potatoes for the rest of my life on account of YOUR poor parking choices”.
“But...”, the Ranger had been challenged, her instinct was to stand and fight.
“Inside!”, Raffi gestured over her shoulder to inside the ship and realised she may have just sounded like a parent instructing a stubborn child who didn’t want to come in.
Seven looked once more to the angry mob and balled her hand into a fist but then looked reluctantly back to Raffi.
Her shoulders slumped as she realised her anticipated fight was effectively cancelled and with a reluctant nod she shuffled back down the nose of the ship and back onto the ladder before disappearing.
The extendable ladder soon retracted from Raffi’s view and moments later the sound of Seven’s boots clattering back onboard and the sound of a ladder being dumped unceremoniously onto the deck were soon followed by the sight of Seven herself striding towards her captains chair.
“Alright then let’s go”, Seven sat herself down into the chair like a woman on a mission.
Her holo controls activated and within moments she was briskly firing up engines and preparing the ship for a rapid departure.
“Uh… they’re getting closer Honey…”, Raffi prompted, “you might wanna hurry…”.
**Thud**
A loud sound, like the sound of something bashing the hull and bouncing off.
Both looked in the direction of the distinct bang, a rock?
“They just threw a rock at my ship?!”.
Several more thuds followed as many more rocks hit the metal of the hull.
If Raffi didn’t know better she would believe Seven was now taking this personally and growing ever more offended by the audacious gestures of the many rock throwers but before she could think further she felt the welcome sensation of the ship lifting into the air.
The change of view from the scratched window was a welcome sight as La Sirena lifted off the ground and the forms of the angry fist waving individuals became somewhat smaller as the ship gained height.
Raffi leant forwards in her seat and retrieved her cool iced coffee once more as the danger appeared to pass and once more sipped the drink through her straw.
“Phew… looks like our career change to temple servants is cancelled, and not a moment too…”.
Raffi’s quip was cut off by a massive phaser blast pummelling forcefully into the sand which was followed by a resultant huge plume of sand being flung hundreds of feet into the air like as if a sudden sandstorm had hit.
The crowd below the scattered in all directions with many shielding their eyes from the flying sand.
In the midst of the chaos the camel riders fell from their fleeing beasts and the pitchforks of those on foot were dropped in surprise.
Seven smiled with a slow nod of approval as the lead rider dropped his burning Fenris Rangers flag and scarpered, tripping over and falling into the sand as he looked back to the ship as he ran.
“Seven!”, Raffi spun around to look mouth agape at the satisfied Ranger.
“Just a warning shot”.
“Mmmm… and I’m a Bajoran Vedek”.
Seven smiled, not even attempting to hide her smugness as she turned the ship away from the now retreating mob and raised it’s nose space bound through the atmosphere.
“Well whatever…”, Raffi sat back and crossed one leg over the other while contemplating her sore foot, “let’s just get underway before anything else happens… I mean so far today you’ve offended the local population with your choice of weapons storage, nice job by the way…”.
“Seemed a good idea at the time”, the Ranger admitted.
“Offended the local religion...”, Raffi continued the rap sheet.
“Unintentionally”, Seven added.
“Parked in the middle of a desert and still managed to get a parking ticket…”.
“How was I supposed to know it was sacred?”.
“Oh and that’s before you almost got us both carted off as servants to the mighty Veedo until our dying days”.
Seven tilted her head slightly to one side and shrugged as a mischievous smile grew at this list of her ‘accomplishments’.
“But other than that… Not a bad day?”, she teased.
“Just another day at the office Babe”, Raffi agreed, “just another day at the office”.