Setting the Trap

Posted on Sat May 30th, 2020 @ 2:43pm by Sublieutenant Gedak K.I.A. 238702.10 & Major Ashley Rogers & Lieutenant Hatham tr'Krotash

1,401 words; about a 7 minute read

Mission: Chapter I: Resurgam
Location: Gedak's Quarters, Raven's Claw
Timeline: 238612.18

A few hours had passed since the meeting between Raven and the senior officers and the crew, and Gedak had immediately sent a message to the smugglers to set up a meeting. As soon as he received a response, he had called Ashley and Hatham to his quarters, which doubled as his business office. As part of his arrangements with Raven, he had been given the Commander's suite - the only quarters on the ship that entailed two rooms, plus an en suite bathroom - relegating Raven herself to using a converted storeroom by the bridge as her ready room.

Gedak had furnished and decorated his rooms in the old Earth "Art Nouveau" style, and was sat behind a massive wooden desk, wearing his usual black three-piece suit, as the two security officers arrived. "Ladies, good afternoon," he said, giving them a toothy Ferengi smile. "Please, sit," he added, indicating the two chairs on the other side of his desk.

Ash inwardly chuckled at being Hatham being called a "lady," bold move by the Ferengi. Instead she glares at Gedak, silently threatening him.

"I have successfully made contact with our smugglers, and arranged a meeting." He pressed a button on the console on his desk, and a holographic map of the neutral zone appeared. "We are to meet them here, near an unnamed planetoid in an unclaimed system, about three days from here at cruising speed. So we have some time to prepare our plan, no?" He clicked the button again, and a model of the old freighter used by the smugglers appeared in place of the map. "I have not been able to find out much about our, ahem, business partners, except that they are led by a Cardassian named Trellec. Crews of this sort usually have two or three dozen people at most, with a ragtag assortment of weapons. So, now that we have arranged the meeting, over to you two - how do we get our hands on the goods?"

Hatham, all 2 meters and muscle bound 130 kg of him, had lifted an eyebrow at 'ladies', but said nothing. Ferengi were weird, but the CO seemed to value this one, so... Either way, there was still enough Galae training not to speak out of turn, so he looked at the Security Chief.

"I'd like to monitor that ship's communications over the next three days. Does it check in with anyone? Any regular communications? And how they do so. If we're going to rip them off, we need to know who else we may be dealing with. If anything, if we have a handle on their regular communications, we can use that to our advantage and buy ourselves more time to get away by timing our interactions with them appropriately." Ash studied the freighter's image, "It's important we leave no traces afterwards. We can do this the fun way, but three dozen might be a little difficult for a personal touch. But we can do this a couple of different ways... Obviously, we can just destroy the freighter after we get what we need, but that's so... unimaginative. I've seen freighters like this before, if I can get on board their ship, I can get access to their weapons control. We make them attack us, and we destroy them in self defense. Make it look like they tried to rip us off."

"It shouldn't be difficult to get on board," Hatham commented. "We'll want to inspect the merchandise before taking delivery, and no merchant of Mr. Gedak's status would go without a security escort. The trick will be accessing their systems without clueing them in, and then getting off in time." He tipped his head, considering. "There are a few small 'insect' drones that might work for that, if we have any in stock."

Gedak nodded. "Yes, yes, I like the idea. We should have a few drones you could use, or we could see if our friends from the Romulan navy have any ideas. So, we are on board, we have hacked their systems - how do we get our merchandise without handing over any latinum? Any ideas, ladies?"

Ash smirked at the Ferengi, "Definitely not latinum, but some counterfeit credits should do the trick. I'm sure between a former Section 31 agent and a ship full of Romulans, we can create some good stuff."

'Ladies' again? Hatham wondered if maybe he'd been over doing his pec workout. But the reference to Section 31 made him glance sidelong at the human. Sec31 wasn't the Tal'Shiar, but they weren't slouches either. "If that's your background, maybe we can do one better: hack their weapons and their account logs." He gave a thin smile, with just a hint of teeth. "If we clean them out, it'll also wipe any false credits someone might notice and try to trace."

"I like the way you think, my fellow lady friend..." Ash smiled and put a hand on Hatham's shoulder. "We just have to make sure we have everything we need before we start the clean up process. And with good enough intel on their comms schedules, no one would be the wiser for a some time that the freighter met an untimely end after trying to swindle a poor Romulan vessel in need of parts."

The big Romulan puffed a laugh. "No worries, 'sister', I'll distracted them," he flexed his arms and chest, "with my natural pulchritude while you drop the drones and Mr. Gedak receives our goods."

Gedak chuckled. "Excellent, excellent. I believe the senior officer of the Romulan crew, Kaya or whatever her name is, she is a communications expert, no? Maybe she would be of use when it comes to determining their communication patterns. As for the fake money, way ahead of you." With another chuckle, he opened a drawer in his desk and took out a lockbox. "This box here contains just about twice the asking price of the parts. Nearly undetectable counterfeits." He pulled out a little key and opened the box, revealing stacks of shiny, golden strips of metal. "Only the most advanced scanners will detect that these actually do not contain any latinum whatsoever."

Of course she would need to coordinate with Kaiae... Ash then looked at the lockbox, "I'm not sure if I should be concerned that the man that pays us has a box full of fake money...." She picked up a few of the strips to examine them. They were good. Very good. "I suppose Gedak, you get to live another day," Ash chuckled in return.

Gedak looked at Ash with a clearly feigned expression of hurt. "Please, Miss Rogers, who do you think I am? I don't rip off the people I work with, especially not if they are in a position to terminate my very existence. That's just bad business sense."

"A wise course of action... a credit to your business acumen. Which Rule of Acquisition is it... 'Dead men close no deals?'" Ash tossed a strip of fake latinum at Hatham, "Think it'll work?"

Hatham eyed the fake latinum, and the Ferengi. He was less concerned about getting false pay for his work since the pay he was really working for was a chance to save his family, but that didn't mean he wasn't going to check his cut *very* carefully, especially since he had to assume the Ferengi had a great deal of confidence in his forgeries. "Nor do they make new ones, so assume Mr. Gedak must have a lot of confidence in these to be there when handing them over." He tilted a half-smile as Ash. "And if that confidence is unwarranted, then I guess the two of us can probably take out the nearest smugglers before they raise too much of an alarm."

Ash felt a surge of adrenaline at the thought of taking out smugglers personally, "Agreed. We just have to make sure these fool them long enough for us to get our goods. After that... the smugglers won't have much else to worry about..."

Gedak gave another toothy smile. "Well then, I will leave you two to sort out the details. You have three days, as I said, until we get there." He took out a PADD and began to review some files, before looking up again. "Oh, you are still here? Don't you have some work to do?"

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