You Have (Bloody) Mail!

[Crash Calestorm 0]

The following log takes place during our 10 Minute TBS, immediately following the 07.22.13 Sim…

 

The big – and Great Bird of the Galaxy, was he was ever big – Nausicaan had been hauled to sickbay and was in the process of treatment. Multiple puncture wounds, abrasions, blunt force trauma…he’d been through the ringer but he’d survive.

 

Crash had high-tailed it to Medical immediately following the report to the bridge. After the senior Security guard on site had handed her the information chit, she’d made a beeline for an adjacent office ‘cause if this chit had been important enough to try and take down a Nausicaan with extreme measures? Well then she damn well better look at the thing, now shouldn’t she?”

 

Trying to ignore the dried blood flecks on the chit, she inserted the security device into the USB port on the desktop viewer. The green-skinned visage of Mistress Mareena Romo immediately appeared on the computer terminal, the message on an immediate loop.

 

“To my Favorite Admiral Road Runner, my Dear Captain Skids, and of course my favorite niece Commander Skitter.”

 

Cale’s eyebrows shot towards her hairline. Mareena Romo was using pseudonym codenames? And when in the Hell did she become familiar enough with The Looney Toons to get the inside joke with the Admiral ‘Wile E.’ Coyote? Oh, this was not going to be good…

 

“I find myself in a position to offer intelligence based on our agreement. The Black Kris is on the outside looking in you might say? We are no longer considered quite as important as we once were and that suits me fine considering recent developments. There are those within the Orion Cartel that are not happy with my decision to take my Black Kris into more legitimate security and protection jobs. However, my issues are trifling when compared to the wider issues that have begun to ripple across the factions and the parent Cartel.”

 

The captain listened as Romo explained alliances shifting and Cartel and faction leaders who had finally been exterminated by younger, eager rivals. New factions were being formed and in a few rare cases, old rivals were joining forces to bolster chances of success.

 

The more she listened, the more her scowl deepened. “Son of a…Okay. Not cool. This is definitely not cool…” Crash ran a hand through her silver-white hair as she considered the implications inherent in the information.

 

It was one thing to deal regularly with the two bit smugglers, pirates and reprobates that regularly jumped the borders to engage in illegal stuff. The Orion Cartel was many things: a drug trade organization, trafficked in slaves, and was generally underhanded in an Old Earth Irish or Italian Mob sort of way. But the loose conglomerate of factions and sub-factions and sponsors and bosses tended to keep the outside smugglers and pirates in line. Offending the Cartel was just not healthy or good for business, legitimate or otherwise, because in a warped sense of organization the Orion Cartel policed the non-Orion affiliated upstarts and rogues in the more volatile frontier sectors. If the parent Cartel was having internal growing pains with infighting and struggles for territory blossoming among the loosely based factions, the possibility that non-aligned and independent smugglers and pirates would take advantage was now a valid concern for the Border Patrol.

 

And was this the reason the M-113 ‘salt sucker’ creature had ended up transplanted to Osiris Prime? Maybe the transport skipper had gotten spooked and just up and decided to jettison the cargo? Speaking of which, just wait until the Border Patrol got a hold of Mister Harcourt Fenton Mudd…but that was another matter for another time…

 

“Anyway, good luck my Dear Captain and Mister Byblos has many skills to make use of…and tell my favorite niece I said Hello!” Mareena waved into the recording feed. “Hello Skitter!”

 

Romo signed off and the message ended.

 

The older ships captain slapped a hand against the desktop in frustration. “Son of a b*tch!”

 

She then began muttering things such as “you can’t choose your relatives” and “blood lines” and “inheriting really big Nausicaan mercenaries” and “nailing Harcourt’s hide to the bulkhead” and “damn the Orion Cartel” as she entered her high-clearance personal security code to flag the content. She jabbed at the inset keyboard on the desk, her annoyance palpable as she readied the recording for transmit through secure FTR channels.

 

Once the chit’s content was uploaded into a secure file, she sent the email copies off to her second in command and her commanding officer, aka Skitter and Road Runner.

 

Out loud and to no one in particular she said, “…and yeah, sometimes I feel like I’m on the Skids. Join Starfleet, see the Universe. Have your slightly pregnant CMO off on an escort mission for a salt vampire. Somehow deal with the Orion Cartel and its change of command. Covert messages from your Black Kris silent partner. Big-ass Nausicaans that show up really, really bloody and half dead in your Hanger Bay…”

 

Crash paused in her mini-tirade and said in a more thoughtful and calm tone, “…then again, we haven’t encountered rabid tribbles infected with a highly contagious flesh eating bacteria. Yet…”

 

(TBC in Sim)