Ronnie
I key the intercom from outside Nibb's quarters. "I think I've found the security hole," I say.
"We're getting a lot of occasional sensor pings," Tallasa's voice informs me. "I think they're from cloaked scout craft, like the corvette that brought those raiders."
"Someone, or more likely several someones, kitted out to take down a Ferengi warp shuttle," I muse, "but now they're wondering what to do about a Federation heavy cruiser. I'd like to be out of here before they come up with a good answer to that one. Any ideas?"
"Some." Tallasa sounds guarded. "There's been a lot of movement in the Ferengi memorials market - the price for Grent shot up astronomically, then went down again, hard. I've been tracking cargo movements - a lot of stuff seems to be transferring to secure sites."
"Up, then down...." I think. "First it seemed like Grent was a hot property. Then it seemed like Grent was too hot a property, and Ferengi self-preservation instincts took over from Ferengi greed. Those secure sites must figure they're secure enough to hold on to the bits, no matter how much fighting's going on over them. Where's the nearest one?"
"So-called Shadow Depository at Argus Beta," Tallasa says.
"OK, great, we have somewhere to get to. And alert Starfleet's lawyers along the way, will you? See if we can buy those Grent bits legally, or get a lien on them some other way. Got to be an angle, that's what we've got lawyers for."
"On it," Talassa assures me. I stroll on down the corridor, to the turbolift. It's not that I don't trust my exec, I just like to be on the bridge. I can see what's coming so much better from the centre seat.
"Shadow Depository, then," I announce as the doors hiss open. Some of them at least spare me a quick glance, but not Jhemyl, who just mutters "Already laid in, sir" while staring intently at the helm console. Must be something interesting on the screens, then. I sit down and open up my repeaters.
"Oho," I say.
"At least six distinct traces on positive track," says Talassa grimly. "I'm guessing there's as many more out there. A coordinated attack -"
Smallish Orion warships are still nasty, and twelve to one odds are not what I'd prefer. "So let's not let them get coordinated," I say. Options flash through my mind. "Hold course, impulse only. Never mind a direct course to Argus Beta, fire up the transwarp computer, find me a nearby gateway. We'll sucker these guys in, then transwarp out before they kill us."
"Hopefully," mutters Talassa. Jhemyl says nothing, but she's suddenly very busy on the helm console.
The Orion ships are slipping in and out of cloak, at the maximum range of our sensors. They show only as little fugitive glints, appearing almost at random on my repeater screen. If I didn't know better, I'd put them down as optical illusions.
"Come about," I say. "Steer three seven mark four, let's try to look stupid and oblivious." It should look like we're widening our orbit for a leisurely spiral out to deep space. I can imagine the predatory smiles spreading over green Orion faces right now.
"Curious," says Saval. "I have partial ID on some of the cloaked ships. They seem to come from a diversity of Orion ports of registry."
"Multiple Orion Houses, all hired on for the same objective," I muse. "Which would be little old us, now. Lucky us."
"Transwarp ready," says Jhemyl. She spares a quick glance at me. "We'll need it soon, sir."
"Confirm multiple targets on intercept vectors," says Talassa.
I can see them now myself. Still flickering, there's a lot of sensor spoofing going on... but at least half a dozen corvettes, and as many larger ships, some of them probably cruisers. Someone has hired a whole lot of Orion firepower, and just now it is pointed at us.
"Closest units will be in effective weapons range in one minute," says Talassa.
"Shields down, weapons offline, we're stupid and oblivious, remember? - Saval, see if you can get a positive ID on some of those ships, it'll help when we send a diplomatic protest to the KDF."
"Yes, that will help," says Talassa, almost managing to keep the sarcasm out of her voice. I'm looking at the flashes on the tac display. A minute... might be over-estimating, if one of the sneakier Orions jumps the gun a bit.
"OK," I say. "Jhemyl. Transwarp. Punch it."
And I get to see the flickers on the tac display turn into something bright and clear and nasty, as the Orions read the sudden build-up in our drive coils, drop their cloaks, and move in fast for a hard kill.
Fast, but not fast enough. I picture, in my mind's eye, the green disruptor beams and the pinpoint flashes of torpedoes... tearing through the empty space we've just left, as the transwarp flips us light-years through subspace in an instant.
"Cool," I say with satisfaction. "OK, let's get to that Shadow Depository, then."
---
Another quick leap across subspace whams us into orbit around Argus Beta, and soon I'm looking at a big rock with a fortress on it. Gun turrets, missile emplacements, solid tritanium shielding over a labyrinthine complex of secure vaults and sealed storage units. The Shadow Depository at Argus Beta.
"As secure a place as you could want to keep your valuables in," I say, studying the readout. "What about their transporter interdiction?"
Talassa positively grins at me. "This place was built before the locals developed transporters," she says. "And the dense material actually interferes with transporter jammers. We can punch an ACB through pretty much anywhere we want."
"So that's some good news, then. Let's punch through where there's some Grent to collect, and then we can be on our merry way."
"That... may pose a problem, sir," says Saval.
I turn around and give him an I-don't-want-problems look. He doesn't look fazed. "We can't find any Grent?" I ask.
"On the contrary," says Saval. "The authorities have been very cooperative, and have provided a complete listing of all their Grent relics." Starfleet's legal department has got in ahead of us and done some work. Amazing. "The issue is the number of items listed," Saval continues. "If all these listings are legitimate Grent relics, the former Grand Nagus would have had a body mass, in life, of roughly 1.25 metric tonnes."
"That's a whole lot of Ferengi," I remark. "OK. So, fake Grent in abundance, so what are we going to do?"
"We have Nibb's samples, which are presumably authentic," says Saval. "Logically, we should go to the vaults, examine the relics, and retrieve those which conform to the known samples."
"Terrific." I stand up. "OK, let's get an authentication protocol set up on our tricorders, go down the vaults, and tag the real Grent bits for transport out." Talassa has a grumpy face on. "Oh, come on," I say to her, "what's the worst that can happen to us in a storage vault?"
"I'm sure you'll find out, sir," says Talassa gloomily.
---
The Shadow Depository turns out not to be much on interior decor. Lots of bare metal walls, exposed piping, and secure vault doors everywhere. And not nearly enough light, which I guess fits with the theme at least. And boxes, boxes, everywhere. Stacks and piles of boxes, crates, canisters, chests, cases.... I give up thinking of synonyms.
"Does any of this spark joy?" I muse aloud. Talassa shoots me a dirty look. "Well, let's collect the famous sacred relics, then. Come on, Indiana Jones." Talassa's next look is positively insanitary. I stroll off down the cluttered main corridor, checking the tricorder as I go. We have the location of all the supposed Grent, we have the data telling us how to verify the real stuff... it's just a matter of checking the list and sending the transporter coordinates back to the ship, now. A walk in the park, if the park was dark and metallic and full of boxes.
I find three authentic bits pretty quickly, and am feeling quite pleased with myself when my combadge chirps at me. "Yo," I say.
"We have inbound sensor contacts, sir," says Jhemyl's voice. "A total of eight Ferengi ships, various classes. They're running with shields down and weapons cold, so we can't presume hostile intent, but Mr. Madena says there is a lot of comms traffic between them and the depository."
"So what do you think they're up to?" I ask. And then I answer, "Landing parties, at a guess. Presumably with some legitimate business to transact, so the authorities can't intervene. Oh, brother. Step up the pace, people," I yell at everyone around me. "And Jhemyl, start transporter ops now, beam the stuff out as soon as we've got a tag on it."
So we hustle, rummaging among boxes and crates and whatever, tagging bits of Grent as we go. I hear the heartening whine of transporters, beaming stuff out... then I hear a different whine, as of someone else's transporter frequencies. "We got company," I announce. "Set to max stun, stay frosty."
And with that I turn a corner, and a beam of brilliant light whistles past my nose. I duck down and spray fire in the general direction of the source. More beams fly - a mixed bag, disruptor green, phaser orange, some tetryon blue. "They've set heavy stun, too," says Talassa, sounding bemused.
"Well, of course they have, they don't need us dead, and their insurance rates will go way up if they start throwing destructive force around this place." I squint around a box and squeeze off a zap of my own, and am rewarded by the sound of a body falling. "Don't let them get in close, though, they'll have melee weapons too."
"Noted." Talassa starts zapping on her own account, and it sounds like she's pretty good at it, from the yelling at the receiving end. I take the chance to scan another crate, register another negative, and move on. Then I switch the tricorder to tactical mode, and try to make sense of the situation. It's not a very sensible one, unfortunately. There are hostiles, certainly, but they're disorganized, operating in maybe six or seven different groups, each spitting its own brand of sensor spoofing into the metal corridors - the tac map is flickering and confused, crowded with untrustworthy echoes. This situation has room to go pear-shaped in all sorts of novel ways.
Talassa scoots off down the corridor with some security goons, while I circle around to the next thing listed as a bit of Grent. Another negative. I'm starting to wonder about calling the whole thing off - we must surely have enough valid bits by now? - when Talassa scoots back. "Ferengi, Orions, some Hupyrians," she says. "Looks like independent, privately financed goon squads - except they must, surely, be coordinating now. And you were right about them carrying melee weapons too."
"Well, don't sound all surprised about that," I say. "Listen, I think we need to finish up here and get out, smartish. Transport our teams out of any sectors we've already cleared, and pester Nibb and Mophel, see if they've got enough dead Ferengi to work with. If they say yes, we skedaddle out of here, right?"
"Sounds good to me, sir," says Talassa fervently. There are distant sounds of more mixed weapons fire. I just hope our guys are holding their own. I scuttle further down the corridor, bark a shin on a sticking out box, swear a little, and find a secure container with another bit of Grent in. Scan says it's authentic. More zapping and shouts from somewhere nearby. I hang a tag on the container and admire the sparkle as it vanishes.
Then there's a scuffling noise from nearby, and suddenly there's someone in front of me. She's a bit shorter than I am - and I'm not tall - and she has huge ears and bad teeth, and the craziest eyes I have ever seen on a sentient being, and, perhaps most importantly, a razor-sharp Klingon bat'leth in her hands. "Hi," I say. "Veronika Grau, Starfleet, call me Ronnie, everyone does. Can we talk about this?"
She screeches and slashes with the bat'leth, a lightning-fast move that sends my phaser spinning out of my hand. I'm guessing that's a no, then. "Nobody messes with Great-Granddaddy's money!" she screams. Uh-oh. I back away and dodge the next cut, just managing not to get disembowelled by it. She screeches incoherently again, and spins the blade in a textbook-perfect attack kata. I don't know where she got trained in bat'leth fighting, but she clearly got her money's worth. I grab a small box off the nearest stack and throw it at her head. Give me thirty seconds, and I can pull a grenade or the shocktrooper rifle out of my transporter buffer. But I don't think she's going to give me those thirty seconds. I try a kick at her kneecap, and she slashes back at me, and it's close both ways - I don't break her knee, she doesn't quite cut my leg off. I look around for something else to throw -
Then a bolt of orange light stabs past my head and hits the Ferengi square between the eyes, and she goes down in a poleaxed heap. I turn around and see Talassa. "Thanks," I say.
"No problem, sir. Nibb says we've got enough of Grent. I recommend we go, sir, now."
I scoop my fallen phaser off the deck. "Sounds like a plan to me."
---
The Falcon's bridge is humming with activity, most of it not good. Saval is in a huddle with Mophel over at the science station, Leo Madena is punching away at the comms console like he's playing pinball, and Jhemyl and Talassa are working away at helm and tactical. The fruits of their labours are showing on the main screen, and it's enough to make me distinctly not happy.
"Twenty-six assorted Ferengi and Orion ships," says Talassa. "Ranging from corvettes, which we could probably take, to two Nandi-class warships and a Warbarge dreadnought, which - would be a problem, in combination like that."
I check the sensors. The hostiles have weapons and shields powered down, which is good, but our detectors show we're being lit up by targeting pings, so many of them that the pings all blend together into one constant squeal. "We are the cynosure of all eyes," I mutter. "OK, folks, let's start thinking our way out of this, shall we? Shooting ain't gonna work, diplomacy ain't gonna work, so let's think sneaky."
"We don't have a cloak, and even if we did, they will have tachyon grids up and running before we can warp out," says Talassa.
"Right now," I muse aloud, "nobody wants to fire the first shot. Not while we're in range of the Shadow Depository and its scanners. We don't want to shoot first either, because we're Starfleet and the good guys, and also because we'd get killed. So. Leo, are you doing anything useful over there?"
"Uh, signalling for support from Starfleet, sir."
"Good idea! But no. Unless Starfleet can get an entire task force here at once, support's gonna start trickling in, and our buddies out there will be looking at the numbers, and sooner or later someone's going to get an itchy trigger finger. No, what we're going to do is signal our departure to local traffic control in an orderly fashion."
Everyone looks mystified at that. "Perilous it is to repeat one's effects too often," I explain, "but we're going to have to fake them out again. Jhemyl, set up for transwarp transit to the nearest hub we've got."
"Some of those ships have transwarp capability too, sir," Talassa objects, while Jhemyl starts banging away at the navigation interface. "They'll follow us."
"Which is where we get sneaky," I say. "Doesn't matter how fast they can move, if they're moving in the wrong direction. Leo, file a flight plan for, umm, what's the nearest starbase?"
"Starbase 34, sir."
"Right. Haven't seen it in years. File the flight plan for Starbase 34. Jhemyl, align us on a straight-line trajectory for Earth Spacedock. Then, once we get to the transwarp hub, we switchback through it and a couple of its friends, and we should lose any possible pursuers in the confusion. Even if one or two of them stay with us, the odds are much more in our favour, then."
Talassa nods, reluctantly. "I think it'll work, sir. But one thing."
"What?"
"Where are we actually going?"
I tell them.
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