Fair Trade

[Tachyon 0]

This log takes place before last sim, when Tandaris was aboard the station.

 

“Fair Trade”

Tandaris Admiran

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The heavy doors swooshed open and light from the corridor spilt into the darkened cargo bay. Repairs in this section had taken power offline, so Tandaris entered with a personal flashlight strapped to his wrist. The doors closed behind him closed with a definitive sound, plunging the cargo bay—and the chief engineer—into utter darkness pierced by the narrow sliver of light from his wrist. Tandaris shivered. The cargo bay looked eerie in the darkness; the tall racks stacked with cargo containers cast long shadows. No matter where they were, the ship always seemed to have cargo containers in its cargo bay. It was like a law of the universe.

 

Tandaris picked his way carefully around the racks. His foot hit something hard and round. He stopped, looked down, and saw a small container that had fallen from the rack above. Stepping over it, he continued until he reached the back of the cargo bay. Then his light fell upon it. A cylindrical container, about as high as his waist, marked with large yellow “biohazard” warnings. He smiled, reached over, and opened it...

 

...and promptly closed the container when he noticed it was full of sealed packets of something called “contagion E47.” Tandaris stumbled backward, lost his balance and fell into a stack of crates behind him. “Right. Wrong container.” As he regained his footing and attempted to reorient himself, he added, “I'll have to talk to Corizon about that little discovery later.”

 

After a couple of minutes, Tandaris finally found the biohazard container actually full of bottles of Altarian whiskey—a rare commodity in the Alpha Quadrant, to be sure, considering that the Altarian economy had now collapsed and the distilleries had closed. Here in the Gamma Quadrant, 20,000 light-years away from any potential source of Altarian whiskey, this container was both rare and exotic.

 

Tandaris grinned. Corizon had not let him down this time. “Perfect. Corizon's right. We deserve a treat after all our effort.”

 

*****

 

Yeah, this part of the station was definitely not on the official tour. Or the maps. In fact, Tandaris was completely lost. He had wandered away from the unofficial marketplace area in the middle of the station, instead taking several side corridors and a couple of questionable ladder-like structures until arriving on this level. It was dimly-lit, vermin-infested, and smoky—much like the rest of the station. Unlike the rest of the station, this level had the distinct smell of pickles.

 

Tandaris ducked to avoid low-hanging beams. It appeared that the architects of this station were of considerably shorter stature. He coughed, turned right, and continued exploring. It appeared he had stumbled upon a warren of activity. The bustling marketplace above, which trafficked in more legitimate materials, such as the verterium cortenide he had acquired for the warp coils, was all a front to conceal this, the place where real transactions happened.

 

After completing his business in the marketplace, speaking with the port authority about the repair work to Excalibur, and sampling some of the beverages at one of the station's bars, Tandaris had wandered down here. He had no particular objective; he just felt the need to get away from the ship for a while. Besides, there was something comfortable about this—a lack of control, an absence of authority without an absence of order. The organized anarchy of it all was a comfortable liberty.

 

Another turn brought Tandaris to a small shop-like room. Mechanical parts of every description covered the walls, tables, counters—some even dangled from the ceiling. He stopped and took in the sight: an engineer's dream. It took him several moments to ascertain that his heart was, indeed, still beating. Then he went into the shop and looked around.

 

Most of the devices were too alien to recognize. He saw something that looked like a phase inducer, but it could also have been a martini shaker. There was a triangular object that claimed to be a “Higgs boson stabilizer,” but Tandaris doubted the validity of that claim—it was yet to be tested. Next to it was a larger device, almost the size of a small tent. It was clearly a complex mechanism, and just as clearly, it was in need of repair.

 

“Can I help you with something?” a voice said. Tandaris flinched and looked to his left, then down. A short, yellow-furred individual looked back up at him. The creature's brown eyes displayed intelligence and guile; its absurdly styled red hair swept down the length of its back.

 

“I'm just browsing,” Tandaris replied.

 

“I see you're admiring the concealment modulator.” The owner nodded thoughtfully. “Very fine workmanship—acquired it from a salvage operation around the Helcanzia giant. The trader who sold it to me claimed it was from a Boganary prototype vessel. Of course, you can't put stock in what every vulture says to sell you their junk. Then again. . . .” He looked around furtively, then stepped forward and lifted up a flap on the exterior of the device. A Boganary emblem lay underneath.

 

The owner turned back to Tandaris and flashed a dazzling smile of predatory teeth. “I am Kanta Ros. I specialize in the odd and obscure, but whatever your technological need, I usually can supply a part to fit. What sort of ship?”

 

Tandaris had been lost in thought. Startled, he asked, “Sorry?”

 

“What sort of ship are you on? Frigate? Cruiser? Freighter?”

 

“Oh, uh, heavy cruiser ... sort of a mixed roles type starship. I'm the chief engineer.”

 

Ros eyed up Tandaris, now evaluating him as a potentially profitable customer. “Oh really? And does your ship already have a concealment modulator?”

 

“Now, by concealment modulator, you mean a cloaking device? Something that bends the EM spectrum around a ship?”

 

“Mmm, yes, I suppose you could call it a 'cloaking device.' Although concealment modulation is slightly different from what you describe. This device intercepts any EM emissions and disperses them into the background radiation rather than bending them outright. The risk of detection is significantly lower.”

 

Tandaris was intrigued. He stepped forward, touched the device, ran his fingers along the surface and started imagining integrating it into Excalibur's systems. “And what about shields?”

 

“What about them? They're useless while the modulator's active. Even if you could power both, the modulator would either disperse the shield energy, making them ineffectual, or worse, the shields would block the modulator and light your ship up on every enemy sensor grid for half a parsec.” Ros broke down into a disturbing wheeze that Tandaris realized was laughter.

 

Tandaris waited until the laughter subsided, then he asked, “Does it work?”

 

“Apparently everywhere except around red giants!” More wheezing. “It needs some maintenance. And no doubt you'll have to adjust it to integrate it into your ship. But the critical parts of the device are intact and functional—I guarantee it.” Ros stood slightly taller, prouder, and added, “Unlike some of my competition, I do have a little honour—not much, but enough. I don't like travel. I've operated from this room for fifteen years now, and I don't plan to move any time soon. That means I have to sell working technology.”

 

“How much?” This was exactly what Tandaris wanted. This Ros fellow may be a criminal, but he was a criminal with a reputation to maintain. He'd only try to cheat Tandaris for some absurd amount of money; giving Tandaris defective technology was not to his advantage. And Tandaris had no ethical qualms about dealing with lowlifes like Ros. He would take his technology any way he could get it, and out here in the backwaters of the Dominion-less part of the Gamma Quadrant, there was no convenient Starfleet supply depot just a couple of sectors away.

 

Ros said, “I do not deal in currency. Too . . . unstable. Offer me a trade.”

 

Tandaris thought about what they had on board the Excalibur. Plenty of spare EPS conduits. Maybe a power inverter? What about . . . oh yes. Yes, that could work. He smiled. “I have just the thing. I'll be back in an hour.”

 

Tandaris wasn't much of a whiskey drinker anyway.