Lions, Tigers and Cardassians. Oh My!!
Posted on Sat Aug 30th, 2025 @ 10:23pm by Commander Rhupert Tyree
Edited on on Fri Sep 12th, 2025 @ 8:41pm
1,171 words; about a 6 minute read
Mission:
On the Trail
Location: Avan's Colony, Quatal Prime
Timeline: after Avan's Colony Pt.2
Rhu’s glanced back as the colonies automated beacon chirped an authentication and he double checked the one Proctor had provided. It took a few beats, but the code was accepted and reviewed their landing permissions. He’d kept himself busy, setting up the cobbled together satellite they’d launched before moving to land, feeding the colonies telemetry through the freighters slightly upgraded system.
Right now he was using a back door worm Amy had cooked up to let him watch what was going on within the colony. The colony’s computer security was based on a twenty year old system and it hadn’t been hard to code into it.
Rhu flipped through data. He didn’t have audio just yet, though the team’s comms would take care of that shortly. The colonies comm system was newer and Amy had assured him it would be much easier to just tap in once they were in the Colonies operations. He was reviewing the Colonies structure, admiring the simplicity of the design.
On the forward viewer, a hopefully? dormant volcano was picked out from among about a dozen or so scattered on the planets only real land mass at the northern pole. The volcano’s crater read as approximately one hundred meters deep and a forcefield emitters had been embedded around the cinder cone at the top. Once sealed, they introduced a light atmosphere and built the infrastructure, stacking living quarters over processing center and refining levels.
When the Maquis had come in, after the Eddington Incident, they’d simply upgraded a few things, and put the processors back in line. The Dominion had shown up shortly after and wiped out the Maquis. Those on the ground, those that were in other mining facilities had simply been destroyed from atmosphere. Others had tried to run and had their ships blown apart before breaking atmosphere.
This facility had been unmanned at the time, so had been left in tact. The Colonists had come in, claiming rite of Salvage and set up operations a year and a half ago go. Idly, Rhu wondered what the Cardassians thought about that deal. They still lay claim to the planet but it would be a few more decades before any Cardassian could expect to set foot on the surface, such as that surface might be.
Rhu was concentrating when the comm’s flashed, so he missed it for a few seconds. Then frowned. The Adelade’s comm system was first rate, encrypted and had several cut outs that would let them isolate and trace signals. It was a suite found only on Federation Intel ships.
And he’d had a hell of a time liberating it, having to get Tess to back date and use the pressure of her position to help him acquire it. Flipping the comm set to active, he felt his eyebrows go up as it registered the transmission was coming from a newer Tranack class Cardassian ship. The Tranack’s were an upgrade of the Galor class, and this one, the Kekra, was a year out of docks.
Their files didn’t have any more information, and the sensors told him this ship was a couple sectors away at least. Curious, he activated a set of filters that would change the Adelaide’s transponder code and his voice.
There wasn’t any good reason to show whoever this was his face.
“Unknown ship, this is Gil Divinis of the Fourth Order. You are in restricted space. Explain yourself and leave the area immediately.” A sharp featured (though, weren’t they all?) Cardassian woman regarded them through the view screen with lips tightly pressed together, hair in triad of buns so tight, that it might explain the sharp, drawn look.
“Hello, Gil Divinis of the Fourth Order,” Rhu said pleasantly. “I’m Wowser Lug of the famous transport, the Kid Gloves. We’re responding to an emergency hail from Quatral Prime as we were passing by. When will you be arriving to lend assistance? I assume you received their call?”
There was silence for a moment as the Gil worked her controls and said, “Captain Lug? That so called Colony is in a restricted zone and you don’t have clearance to be there, emergency or not. Leave.”
“Now, how neighborly would that be, my good Gil?,” Rhu said, warming to his roll. Easing back into the helmsman’s couch, he put his feet up on the seat across from him and said. “Besides, these people are sick and I happen to have a doctor aboard. I AM due at Empok Nor in a couple of days. When I sent a signal to my factor there that we were responding to a distress signal, he wasn’t happy but understood these things need doing.”
“I didn’t pick up on any signal,” Gil Divinis half-seethed.
“Maybe you have your own problems Gil Divinis,” Rhu/Wowser suggested. “I am a fair hand with comm systems and the like. Perhaps if you unplug and plug your central stack interface in again it will reset?”
Divinis sent a look at her empty screen that could melt paracrete and heard her teeth grind as she clenched her jaw. She set her computer system to pull up information on Wowser Lug and the Kid Gloves??? A few seconds later a file opened showing a rotund, cheerful human with wispy dark hair giving a toothy grin to the profile picture. The Kid Gloves was an old freighter of a design she was familiar with. There were hundreds of them still in service.
After a few seconds, she dismissed the query and frowned at the pickup. “Leave, Captain Lug. We’re taking care of the Colony. Rest assured. Leave within the next hour and I won’t have you boarded and inspected.” She cut the feed and glowered at the screen some more.
She hadn’t planned on this.
Rhu stared at his own screen as the feed was cut. The Gil was unexpected, but he wasn’t surprised. The Cardasians had to be keeping tabs on the place and the Proctor had said they’d started taking a cut of the production. Which also wasn’t surprising. They couldn’t work the planet themselves so letting a few independents come in and then skimming the cream was just the angle they’d play.
Flipping through more of the comms, the data didn’t reveal anymore of the Cardassian’s intentions.
That game would have to play itself out.
Standing, Rhu checked over his away teams information and decided he needed more coffee and a doughnut or three.
Such was the toil of starship captain, he mused as he made his way to the galley.
END
Commander Rhupert Tyree
Master and Commander
USS Valiant
Aboard the SS. Adelaide
as Wowser Lug /Captain of the SS.Kid Gloves
&Dereck Krevins/Captain of the SS. Adelaide
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