"The Choices of Master Quickhands"

[Cptn Elias Moore 0]

Every Orion ship, from the smallest personal yacht to the largest cargo freighter, has a chamber known as the 'blind spot.' Wedged in a section of the ship surrounded by thick masses of constantly active optical cables, unusually noisy power conduits, and thrumming structural field generators, this chamber is remarkably resistant to sensor scans. An uninformed engineer might speculate that the 'blind spot' is a superfluous hollow that shouldn't have made it past the blueprints--an accident of the ship's clearly inferior Orion design.

 

An Orion knows better, of course. The blind spot is as much a key element of the ship's design as the overlord's quarters. It is in this chamber that the ship's most precious cargo is frequently stored. Should the ship ever be stopped by the local authorities of a region in which the crew is operating, their scans will pick up only the modest trade goods in the ship's main cargo hold; the contraband goods in the blind spot will be missed entirely, and the crew will be allowed to go about their business. Similarly, should the ship fall into enemy hands, its captors may never discover the treasure trove sitting right under their noses; the ship is likely to be recaptured before the blind spot is located.

 

Jojo Quickhands, being both a connoisseur of all things hidden and a veteran of Orion affairs, happens to know the location of the blind spot on every variety of Orion ship that has yet been invented. Jojo, furthermore being aware that the blind spot is just as useful for hiding *people* as it is for hiding illegal goods, is currently sitting in the blind spot of an Orion medium transport taking a Starfleet crew into Klingon space. Jojo is not privy to that particular detail just yet, but the knowledge would do little to stir his excitement; Jojo possesses quite an active imagination, and the idea that his hosts are diving through enemy lines disguised as Orion slaves to procure the rescue of their organization's most beloved commanding officer from a Klingon prison camp, while impressive indeed, only scrapes the iceberg of the possibilities he's envisioned.

 

Unfortunately, Jojo is not on very good terms with his hosts just now. Despite his charitable contribution to their dire need for medical supplies, the untrusting lot would just as soon shove him out an airlock as include him in any share of thrillings and shillings to be produced by their gallant adventure. Thus the reason that Jojo must hide. Jojo has travelled through space quite extensively, but he has never done so outside the confines of a starship, and even his most exploratory instincts would prefer to keep it that way.

 

In addition to hiding, Jojo is waiting. He has surreptitiously tapped into the surrounding optical cables through the use of a handy hacker's kit that he skillfully rendered safe from a large gentlemen who was (probably, maybe, there is certainly a chance) intending to use it to disable Mingavon's life support systems and kill everyone on board the station. With this convenient access to the transport's computer network, Jojo is monitoring his hosts even as they futilely attempt to locate him. His intention is to wait for a dangerous situation to arise (almost a certainty, for why else would Human men be dressed as Orion slave girls, if not peculiar fetish?), then *show* the crew the useful array of capabilities for which they would not take him at his word. They will agree, he hopes, that his services would prove quite valuable in the face of the dangers toward which they anxiously advance. Valuable enough, he furthermore hopes, to earn some of the rewards toward which they eagerly scramble.

 

With three week's worth of space rations and water, a decanter of Andorian ale, and four volumes of choice Klingon literature stuffed into his tunic, Jojo Quickhands has everything he needs for a long blind spot stakeout. He just wishes the blind spot were also a deaf spot and hopes that the unearthly noise will not drive him insane...