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“Must you do that?” asked Sovak, glaring at Danise from across the bridge of the Talon.
“Do what?”
“You popped every joint in your right hand, then your right arm, then the other hand and other arm, then your right and left feet, then you popped your ankles, knees, hips, shoulders, back and neck. Then you yawned, popping your jaw in the process. And now you’ve started in again on your right hand. Snap, crackle, pop!”
“…Sorry.”
“And where the hell is C’Mal?”
Danise shrugged.
Sovak comm’d C’Mal: “I would like to see you on the bridge.”
“Why?”
Danise watched Sovak’s hands ball into fists as she replied: “I realize things are different now, and that we’re no longer part of an organization with a strict hierarchy of command, but there is such as thing as doing your part and putting in the time that your position demands. And if you think—”
Sovak then noticed that Danise was pointing to the bridge entryway, where C’Mal was standing in a long nightgown.
The felinid stated, “Sovak, the rest of the crew of the Talon are not Vulcan. As a Caitian, if I’m not on duty, I’m probably sleeping. Ferasains need a lot of sleep. If I don’t get twelve hours of sleep a day, I can’t function.”
“…Captain,” chided Sovak. “Address me as Captain.”
Qwaas strode into the middle of this simmering unhappiness, looked around sheepishly, then announced, “It looks like I’m here just in time. We have a job.”
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The four sat around the briefing table, drinking the execrable coffee the replicator made from conjured fermions.
“A simple conveyance,” reported Qwaas. “A quick trip. In other words, passage. We pick him up on Corellis VII, and drop him off on Varlock, earning a bundle in the process. Lord knows the nuns can use the money.”
The aforementioned nuns (formerly of the Order of Grand Nagal De-imprecation) had established a new home on Zeta-1 Aquarii Gamma, or Ziag as the world was commonly called. The new nunnery was also supposed to serve as a base of operations for the starship Talon.
“Why doesn’t this passenger just fly commercial?” questioned Sovak suspiciously.
“He’s very important,” Qwaas said, “and for a Ferengi, that means very valuable. He invented the process the Varlock use to infuse latinum into gold. As you know, gold-pressed latinum doesn’t form naturally, and is very expensive and difficult to make. You certainly can’t replicate the stuff. Well, this guy figured out how to do it with less energy and in less time. This literally freed up the Ferengi economy because, at a certain point, there simply wasn’t enough gold-pressed latinum to go around.”
“So he’s looking for a secure way to travel,” suggested C’Mal.
“Exactly,” agreed Qwaas. “Two hundred thousand credits secure.”
Danise nearly spit out her coffee.
“Well, I guess if anyone could pay that much, he could,” she said.
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Two days later, the Talon entered orbit at Corellis VII, and Qwaas set about scanning the surface for the Varlock passenger, whose name was Tophrin qar-Sedron.
“Why don’t you just call him?” asked Danise.
“Because he’s not expecting us,” replied Qwaas.
“Not expecting us?” repeated C’Mal.
“Qwaas…?” The three women closed in on Qwaas, who seemed to shrink by several inches.
“I may have exaggerated Tophrin qar-Sedron’s willingness to go with us,” explained Qwaas. “In fact, he may not be excited at all to go with us to Varlock. In fact, he may strenuously disagree with the whole idea.”
“Oh no,” said C’Mal, looking at the others. “Don’t you see? This guy has a bounty on his head. A two hundred thousand credit bounty.”
The three women turned back to Qwaas, waiting for him to explain.
“We…we needed the work,” he finally said.
“What did this guy do?” asked Sovak.
“You know how the molecular structure of gold-pressed latinum is encoded to match the serial number of an actual credit? Well, the correspondence is never one to one. Theoretically, after so many micro-fractions of a credit build up, you have another credit. But qar-Sedron’s algorithm was shunting credits during certain untraceable clock cycles into another account here on Corellis. To put it bluntly, he was stealing. Then he disappeared, and that's when word of the bounty went out. The nuns figured out where he was based on an address in the algorithm.”
“This is exactly the kind of thing I did not want us to get involved in,” reacted Sovak. “Money. Graft. Theft. Grifting. Fraud.”
“This is the real world, not Starfleet,” objected Qwaas. “It’s money that makes the galaxy spin. Anyway, look, C’Mal shows her claws, this guy will fold like a cheap suit.”
“Why didn’t you tell us the truth?” demanded Sovak.
“Because,” he sighed, “at the risk of repeating myself yet again, we need the work.”
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The three women beamed into a dark and rainy alleyway, avoiding the visitor transporter station. Qwaas, observing from orbit, had warned them not to power up their hand phasers unless necessary, as the local authorities could trace them in less than a minute.
As he explained, “They’re civilized here. No weapons.”
They proceeded onto the open avenue to apprehend Tophrin qar-Sedron. The Varlock was clearly recognizable, with his orange chitinous skin and stick-like limbs. His wide eyes were already darting about in a panic. Nearby stood an older Orion woman and a portly Cardassian man.
“Who the hell are you?” the Orion demanded, eyeing the team from the Talon suspiciously. In her hand, she held a transport blocker, which Sovak realized she had just removed from qar-Sedron’s wrist.
The Vulcan acted quickly, giving an order to Qwaas over the comm link: “Beam qar-Sedron up now.”
Qar-Sedron disappeared, still gazing about wildly.
“Hey!” the Orion shouted, producing a disrupter from under her jacket. Soon everyone had weapons drawn, aimed at everyone else.
“That Varlock is mine!” the Orion claimed.
“No, he’s not,” countered Sovak.
The unhappy Orion swung her weapon’s aim from C’Mal to Sovak.
C’Mal re-aimed at the Orion, the Cardassian aimed at C’Mal, and Danise aimed at the Cardassian.
The Orion ordered: “Return qar-Sedron now!”
“Or what?” asked Sovak.
“You’re staring down the barrel of my disrupter. I can’t make it any more plain.”
Sovak sized up the Orion. “An R-9 disrupter takes an eighth of the second to cycle up before discharge. This phaser has no such delay.”
Interrupting, Qwaas comm’d Sovak: “Beaming you up now.”
Sovak, dematerializing, saw that the Orion and Cardassian were also beaming away. The Orion, forcing a smile, tilted her head and said pointedly, “We’ll meet again.”
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“That was my first Mexican standoff!” C’Mal boasted as they entered the bridge of the Talon.
Sovak said, “I was not aware that a Mexican was involved.”
“Vulcan humor,” the felinid sighed.
Qwaas was sitting at the helm console. “Another ship was closing on our position,” he reported. “I thought it best to get the hell out of Dodge, so I set course for Varlock at maximum speed.”
“Good move,” agreed Sovak. “Qwaas, on Corellis, there was an abrasive Orion woman and a Cardassian man who drew weapons on us.”
“That would be Syron and Gheti Jat,” replied Qwaas. “Bounty hunters.”
Danise, observing the scanner, reported, “Bad news: those bounty hunters appear to be tailing us at extreme range. Sovak…orders?”
“Let me think a minute,” Sovak said.
Before she plunged too deeply into the barely-legal task of fugitive recovery, she wanted to understand her situation exactly. She told the others, “I’m going to talk to our guest. Danise, you have the bridge.”
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Sovak unlocked the door. Behind it, Tophrin qar-Sedron was sitting dejectedly, hunched over a table.
“Hello,” the Vulcan said. “You’re being taken to Varlock to answer to charges of theft regarding your latinum bonding process.”
“That’s not why they want me,” he said. “Is—is this a Federation ship?”
“No, it isn’t,” said Sovak. “And what do you mean, that’s not why they want you?”
“I know a secret,” the Varlock admitted. He clapped his claw-like appendages against the side of his head in frustration. “If it got out, horrible things would happen. Not just on Varlock, but also on Ferenginar and throughout the Alpha Quadrant. They want to keep me silent.”
“A secret…regarding the process you developed?”
“I can’t say!” He covered his eyes with his claws and shook his head.
“Qar-Sedron,” Sovak began, “I’m not married to the idea of taking you to Varlock. I’m a mostly reasonable Vulcan…most of the time. If you’ve got something to tell me, say it.”
She waited for a response, then locked the door again when none came.
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The pursuing ship fell back beyond scanner range, although Sovak doubted very much they had given up the pursuit. After all, Syron and Jat knew the Talon’s destination: the planet Varlock.
Sovak was also learning that having a small crew made being vigilant difficult. They started twelve-hour-on, six-hour-off shifts just to keep the bridge manned. C’Mal, lacking sleep, looked like hell. They needed more crew.
“Qwaas,” Sovak addressed the Ferengi, “have the nuns look into the big picture concerning…ah…”
“Yes?”
“Well, the economy. On Varlock and Ferenginar. There is something big that qar-Sedron is not telling us.” She stood and stretched. “I’m going to the mess for some coffee. You want something?”
“How about a grub-worm smoothie?”
Sovak fought the impulse to retch. “For the love of logic, Qwaas. I’m nauseated enough as it is.”
Qwaas shook his head sadly. “My ship…has a pregnant female captain. How did I fall so low?”
“Screw you,” replied Sovak.
Proceeding to the mess hall, she ruminated on her uncharacteristic hostility, wondering if perhaps rising hormone levels weren’t affecting the tenor of her actions. As a Vulcan, she needed to reign that in. She couldn’t remember the last time she had meditated.
C’Mal and Danise were both sitting in the mess hall, with three empty wine bottles between them.
“You’re supposed to be getting some sleep,” Sovak remonstrated.
“We’re off duty,” countered C’Mal.
“Yeah, and you can’t drink ‘cause you’re preggers,” added Danise.
Sovak grimaced, grabbed her belly, and moaned.
C’Mal jumped to her feet. “What’s wrong?”
“Stress,” said Sovak.
They sat her down, fussed over her and asked if there was anything they could do.
“Get some rest,” Sovak said. “I’m going to need the support.”
“Um,” Danise looked worriedly from C’Mal to Sovak, “how long do Vulcan pregnancies last?”
“Typically one year,” said Sovak.
“Holy hell, so you have ten more months to go?”
“The solar year on Vulcan,” C’Mal shivered, “is equivalent to 17 standard months.”
“Oh no,” said Danise.
The two quietly retreated to their quarters, while Sovak, who had been faking the pain the whole time, inwardly smiled as she made a cup of strong, black coffee.
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“A distress call?”
C’Mal and Danise peered at the Cardassian freighter’s outline on the scanner. Sovak had called them to the bridge because she smelled trouble.
“I realize you guys are former Starfleet,” said Qwaas. “But we are not stopping to help, not in the middle of a job, no way.”
Sovak raised a brow. “No good deed ever goes unpunished?”
Qwaas became angry and agitated. “Don’t quote the Rules of Acquisition to me; I’ve spent most of my life breaking them.” He pointed to the scanner. “You know this is a trap.”
“I don’t know that,” replied Sovak. “If a crew is in deadly peril and you ignore them, you’ve as good as killed them.” C’Mal piloted their ship closer and Sovak hailed the freighter: “This is Captain Sovak of the Talon. We received your distress call. Can we render assistance?”
Instantly the Cardassian freighter seized the Talon in a powerful tractor beam as an Orion merchant ship dropped out of warp and hailed them.
“Hello again,” the Orion named Syron announced. “We have our weapons trained on you. Return the fugitive.”
Sovak remained silent.
The bridge jolted as both the freighter and the merchant ship fired on the Talon, and C’Mal whispered to Sovak that the shields were down to 70%.
“Such a pretty ship,” Syron said in mock distress. She flipped her long black hair behind her shoulders. “I’d hate to see it messed up.”
Sovak continued to stand motionless.
Syron’s patience had exhausted itself. “I’m sending you the filter frequency to beam Tophrin qar-Sedron over to this ship. If he is not here in thirty seconds, I’m gonna blast your pretty little ship into pieces so small, they won’t be able to tell who you were. The clock’s ticking.”
Sovak turned to her crew and asked, “Are you guys familiar with the Yamato Maneuver?”
They indicated they were not.
Sovak demonstrated with her balled fists as she spoke. “You pivot at full impulse, using the tractor beam as a gravity tether to swing the one ship into the other like a wrecking ball. Danise, do the math.”
“In twenty seconds?”
“Yes!”
Danise quickly sketched the energy and vector equation, guessed at the variables involved, and loaded the result onto C’Mal’s helm console. C’Mal looked to Sovak, who just said, “Do it.”
As the gravity beam latched on and the engines engaged, the structure of the Talon began to groan under the torsional stress. The Cardassian ship began to swing around and rotate, its beam diminishing as inertial force worked to destabilize it. The massive freighter, gaining velocity, swung toward and clipped Syron’s ship before tumbling away. Syron’s shield grid appeared to overload, flaring brightly, causing a chain reaction that left her ship drifting.
“Open a channel,” ordered Sovak. Syron, looking much the worse for wear, appeared on the screen. “You…ah…okay over there?” the Vulcan asked.
Syron glared for several seconds, then closed the channel.
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As they neared the Varlock system, Qwaas cornered Sovak and reported that he had heard back from the nuns. Sovak listened to the analysis, then they both converged on qar-Sedron.
“The Varlock government has been slowly selling off its gold-pressed latinum reserves,” said Sovak.
“Meanwhile,” continued Qwaas, “it’s been buying insurance from Ferengi banks that indicates the government is speculating against its own economy.”
“Care to explain?” asked Sovak.
The color seemed to blanch from qar-Sedron’s exoskeleton.
“You’ve stumbled onto the most dangerous secret in the galaxy,” said qar-Sedron. Then the tension seemed to leave his body and he sat back in his chair. “I guess I couldn’t hide it forever. The truth will out. Yes, yes, I stole. But what I did not realize is that my process to create gold-pressed latinum doesn’t work. After a certain amount of time, the molecular encryption destabilizes, separating the metals and destroying the unique identifier that ties it to the financial unit.”
“How…how long does that take?” asked Qwaas, his voice quivering.
“It’s a quantum chain reaction that’s impossible to predict,” replied qar-Sedron. “It’s already starting to happen.”
Sovak asked, “Isn’t latinum still latinum even without the gold. I mean, it’s still valuable.”
Qwaas explained, “A large part of the cost is sunk into the process of making gold-pressed latinum that's trackable. Without that, no one pays taxes and the whole economy goes underground. Literally, half the Ferengi economy would evaporate.”
Qar-Sedron bemoaned his situation: “If I return to Varlock, I’ll be thrown into a cell and wake up the next morning dead.”
“Well,” thought Sovak, “the Varlock authorities don’t know that we have you. We can just ransom the secret instead. And you can hide out with the nuns at the convent until it all blows over.”
The Varlock frowned. “You think it will just blow over?”
Qwaas considered the question philosophically. “It will be painful for some, but eventually it will be just another financial crisis in the long list of crises that happen to Ferenginar every eight to twelve years, going back several centuries.”
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The three women looked closely at the panel displaying the bank balance. They appeared to be in shock.
“That’s more than twice what the bounty on qar-Sedron was,” noted Sovak.
“But,” replied Qwaas, “it’s a tiny fraction of what they’ll make while keeping us quiet about the self-destructing gold-pressed latinum. I’ve already exchanged the money for Federation credits, a currency that is hard to speculate on, but very, very safe.”
“So, wait, the mission was a success?” asked C’Mal disbelievingly. “We really did it?”
“It seems that way,” nodded Sovak proudly.
“And all it took was a little extortion,” added Qwaas.
Sovak deflated. “I don't think we need the commentary.”