Business Meeting Bugged (Crash's Decision?)

[Crash Calestorm 0]

Stardate 2261.14 (January 14, 2261)

Aquarius Major

22:00 Hours

 

It was a beautiful night on Aquarius Major, the skies were clear and the star constellations of the sectors showed bright. The eateries and nightclubs of the planet’s secondary city tourist quarter hosted both locals and visitors as the world slowly recovered from the weather changes that had ripped across the surface a little over one standard year ago. The economy was picking up and the ongoing repairs proceeded at an acceptable pace. Both civilian and Starfleet teams continued to track and catalogue the rich ecosystem of the world and preserve the balance that had been corrupted.

 

The smuggling activities would dissipate in time. In the meantime, the Starfleet presence hoped to deter the criminals. Or at least, some aspects of the presence of Federation Starfleet….as of this moment, Crash wasn’t entirely sure of her feelings on the matter.

 

Calestorm, Honor-Scar and Vega had called the day and at Vega’s urging, had decided to check out one of the local eateries. The elder officer had enjoyed the time with the junior officers, indeed, but had taken her leave later in the evening when the two young ones moved onto one of the bar-night clubs.

 

She was past that stage, thank you very much, and was very much determined to stay out of any proverbial bar brawls.

 

In fact, she’d gone to meet two fellow officers and the confab had turned into the proverbial deal of a lifetime. Free and clear to resign from the Starfleet and retire. No more politics, no more crazy cloak and dagger missions. She’d no longer have to deal with the FTR Program and whatever sanctions imposed by the silver braid on the sleeves of her command tunic. All she had to do was say yes to the offer and support the endeavor.

 

The entire conversation had been recorded, unknown to her so called business partners and it was up to Cale as to what she did with said recording. If she said no, she could supposedly walk away provided she kept the knowledge to herself. Or, Crash could say yes and retire with the proverbial stash of cash.

 

She’d been walking for the last couple of hours through the open air markets in an attempt to clear her head. She fingered the beaded Kisharik tooth necklace that she’d bought on a whim, but the kitschy jewelry piece somehow seemed appropriate and in the moment.

 

Elbows leaning on a protective railing of the deck, she pensively watched the game of water polo taking place within the pool on the lower deck. She wasn’t familiar with the two teams, but knew they were mixed representatives of Starfleet and civilian contracting companies that had been assigned to Aquarius for the rebuilding of the infrastructure. Her hand wandered from the necklace to the neck lining of the olive hued flight jacket she wore, deftly extracting the listening device that had been hidden within the collar. Crash twirled it between thumb and forefinger and moved off to the side of the deck facing the ocean, a decision reached.

 

Deliberately removing the safety tab and corrupting the recorded data contained on the slotted mechanism, she threw the components water below where the salt and elements would eat away at what remained of the bug.