Suprise Cargo part 2

Posted on Mon Apr 13th, 2020 @ 9:40pm by Fordyce Kirschler PhD & Captain Rueben Gregnol & Chief Engineer Michael Burnstein & Executive Officer Jake Ford & Alika Mahone

Mission: Mission 11 - Prospecting
Location: SS Mary Rose - Cargo Bay
Timeline: MD 01 13:30
2243 words - 4.5 OF Standard Post Measure

Cassie had been packed off to Medical to fix up her dislocated shoulder but the damage left behind along with the discovery that had been made. The terraformer lay undisturbed on its side staring at the Captain. The man crouched looking at it unsure what to say. He had not seen one outside of a terraformers lab in years. What was one doing firstly on his ship and secondly this far out in the galaxy without someone to control it.

“Terraformers require progressively more and more energy to operate so this one will not activate I am sure. Jinx or Burnie might be able to tell you more but it does not look like an official one at all which means we are carrying illegal cargo” Gregnol said using an old fashioned screwdriver to look it over after Alika’s call whilst he waited for everyone else to arrive. “Well isn’t this just fantastic.” He muttered glancing back at the pair stood there.

"This type draws power by converting raw natural resources into energy, so it shouldn't activate here. But no need taking chances," Burnie said, bending down to look it over and then opened a panel and pulled a couple chips. "This should keep it disabled. Why it would be here though..." he shrugged. "From the data I've seen, it's not even a very good model for the conditions on New Larium."

"Who the hell ever heard of illegal terraformin' anyway?" asked Ford, looking around at the group. "Listen, ain't no sense in lyin' about it - I been mixed up with some unsavory sorts. But I ain't never heard of nobody runnin' no illegal terraformin' business. You figure they could use it for somethin' else? Convertin' raw materials into... I don't know. Somethin'."

"Oh I've heard a couple of horror stories," Jake replied. "Imagine dropping one of these bad boys in the middle of a rural farming community. Few hours later, no more soil, no more crops, no more community. Horrible way to go about your business...probably why they're illegal." He crossed his arms. "These containers are supposed to be checked and logged. Do we know where they came from?"

"Me too. Hostile take over of a planet easily achievable with one of these. Making it so the planet is now inhabitable by you and not by the natives. Convert the atmosphere, reshape the land and sea, overrun the native ecosystem with one more suitable for the take over species." Gregnol rolled his eyes and stood up properly rubbing the soil off from his hands on his trousers. "Where is the manifest for this section?" He wondered looking to Alika and Gorsch. He would discuss why Cassie of all people was climbing. She was the sensible one out of the trio.

Alika returned the look Reuben gave, as if knowing there were more questions behind his gaze. Instead of straight out answering, she tilted her head to Gorsch as she stood with her arms crossed. "He wouldn't let us look at it. Said it wasn't procedure."

"That's because it wasn't!" the Tellarite exclaimed indignantly. "None of you should even have been in here. How do I know you weren't the ones who put this thing in here and broke the carefully-constructed regulations of this cargo storage system so that you could claim ignorance?" Scowling, the cargo chief held aloft a PADD. "If you had asked in the first place..."

"That's a lot of yammerin' for, 'I got the manifest right here,'" said Ford with a smirk.

"I would agree with you, but then we'd both be wrong," growled the diminutive Gorsh, unimpressed by the volume of crew now clogging up his space.

Gregnol said nothing as he took the proffered PADD and started going through it with a swipe of his finger trying to find where the cargo pod came from. "Looks like it came on with the rest of this cargo for New Laurium." It was labelled soil and it certainly was soil apart from what was around it."

Burnie looked around the bay at the other containers. "I think we should check the rest of the cargo then. For all we know, there could be plasma rifles buried in the grain bins."

In a fit of passive aggression, Alika turned to Gorsch. "Is that procedure or should we get some paperwork signed?"

The Tellarite grinned sardonically. "You're learning quickly for a human."

Alika gave a shrug, before rolling her sleeves up at the Captain. "Mr. Engineer's right though, who knows what we're going to find."

"Yeah, who knows what we're gonna find," mimicked Ford as he turned his attention to the Tellarite. With the sabotage business in engineering still fresh in his mind, he was feeling more suspicious than usual. "You don't inspect cargo that comes on this ship? Somethin' says 'soil' and you just take its word for it?"

Gorsch snorted. "These here?" he pointed at a large label affixed to the side of the fallen container. "Federation customs grading. Those little markers? Means that it went through four other relay points and haulers before it reached this one. The entire thing was sealed from departure right up to when the smelly human-looking one over there decided to climb up my carefully-structured system." He crossed his arms, glaring up at Fordyce. "Perhaps I should tell you how to do your job now? Not that it would take long."

"I reckon it wouldn't if we followed your work ethic: let ever'body else do the real work while you just stack boxes and pitch a fit if somebody expects a little more out of ya," said Ford with a smirk. Tellarites responded best to arguing, and he was happy to oblige. "Too much trouble to just wave a tricorder at your pretty boxes here ever'once in awhile? Or, would you rather not? What you got in these boxes here, ol' Gorsch?"

Gorsch stared at the human for a moment, then grinned a little. At least there was someone on board who could match wits with him. "It sounds to me like you're interested in looking." He glanced over at Gregnol, as though looking for permission. "If we're to check every single container in every cargo bay, then it stands to reason that someone might 'wave a tricorder at some pretty boxes'. And since you're so worried about me, maybe that could be your job." Gorsch smirked right back at Ford. "Unless you'd like everybody else to 'do the real work'?"

Gregnol looked at the Tellarite and nodded despite not sure why the man was looking for his permission when it was pretty much suggestive already. "We are all going to do the real work." He said simply moving to grab a tricorder as going through all the containers by hand and pulling its lids off will take time they did not have.

"Yes!" Burnie said, perhaps a little too enthusiastically as he grabbed a tricorder and started scanning, secretly hoping to find some plasma rifles or some equally useful contraband to confiscate.

Jake let out a big sigh and followed suit, in a far less enthusiastic manner. "So much for my afternoon..."

"Oh buck up, this'll be fun." Alika stated with a chuckle, elbowing Jake. "This is nothing compared to what nonsense we've had to go through years ago. Don't worry 'bout it."

Gregnol took off his jacket and chucked it over the console and picked his own container to start with. He would have started to list off the weirdness but he did not want to scare off the man, it had taken him a long time to get a stable chief of security.

"Hey, over here," Burnie called, waving them toward a crate. He frowned at the tricorder - the readings were off, but not off in a way that indicated plasma rifles or even grenades. "I'm not sure exactly what this is, but circuitry and power sources in there are definitely not standard for a crate of self-sealing stem bolts."

"Well, today might be your lucky day Burnie," Gregnol commented as he looked at the readings. It would be something interesting for sure.

"Not so close, boss," Jake warned, putting a hand on the Captain's shoulder. "If we don't know what is, it could be dangerous. Let's be a little cautious before we get super-excited over something that might blow a hole in Rosie's belly." After everything that had happened on Temperance he was starting to feel like discretion was the best approaching any given situation.

"Nothing in there reads like an explosive," Burnie replied, trying not to sound disappointed. "So I think it's safe to open." He popped the latches and opened the top, and gazed inside at first with confusion, then concern. "I'm not 100% sure, but this looks like harvested Borg tech."

Ford peered over the lip of the container and had to hold back some very inappropriate language. He sucked his teeth loudly and took a step back. He'd been here less than a month, and they'd already gotten mixed up with some kind of space hooligans and now smugglers. Gregnol seemed like he was on the up-and-up, but how many coincidences made a non-coincidence?

"Well that's about as welcome as a porcupine at a nudist colony," he said, cutting his eyes in Gregnol's direction. "Y'all better get rid of that shit in the industrial replicator and hope to high heaven Starfleet don't come swoopin' down and blow us to smithereens."

"... That doesn't go away easy," Alika pointed out. "We may not have much choice than get someone else to get rid of it for us instead. Burn our paper trail, but we burn the tech and it makes us look bad."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Burnie objected. "We shouldn't be burning anything - not the tech and certainly not the paper trail. This needs to be reported so Starfleet can hunt down whoever is responsible and put a stop to it." He looked pointedly at Ford. "Last I checked, Starfleet doesn't kill people for reporting that they'd discovered evidence of a crime."

Ford gave the chief engineer an incredulous look but chose not to argue. They might not kill people for reporting something, but there was plenty else they could do. They didn't always descend like guardian angels. Catching wind of illicit Borg technology would likely have them turning the ship upside down, and he wasn't sure everyone would care very much for that, himself included.

"Starfleet is not the issue right here right now." Gregnol was not concerned at all about Starfleet, he had ways and means of making sure they helped it was the Colony and management that he was more concerned about. "We need to know what exactly Borg tech we are dealing with first before we do anything." He ordered looking over the cargo pod again but he could not make heads or tails of what he was seeing.

Burnie was running his tricorder over the contents as he replied. "It looks like several bionetic implants, neuroelectric power cells, chronometric nodes, proximity transceivers ...hmm, an interplexing beacon. I hope that's offline. Too easy to set those as remote listening devices."

"From the same person or several people." Gregnol found himself asking honestly. It was brutal but needed to asked as all of those things taken from someone would mean some had died out there somewhere. They did not want to be accused of anything.

"I'm no expert," Burnie put in, "But based on the number of similar items, I'd say these came from more than one person. We should get the Doctor to scan for traces of DNA to be sure though."

"So..." Ford took a moment to collect his thoughts. "Someone on New Laurium is dealin' in illicit Borg technology and usin' civilian cargo haulers as unwitting mules. Or knowing mules. I ain't sayin' it just to stir the pot but there's still the possibility our saboteur was internal. Who knows what else they was up to besides rearrangin' isolinear chips. Maybe they like to chop up cyborgs on the side."

"Maybe." Gregnol sighed. "I will own up to that." He pointed to the terraformer. It was just too big to not own up to hopefully they just got a slap on the wrist and can pass it on to a Starfleet Vessel without many issues. "These things but the rest let's hide and get it out of here. It stays between us and the other senior's crew members." The man rubbed his beard getting annoyed more by it.

Jake groaned quietly, glancing at Burnie for help. "Where the hell are we gonna hide this stuff...?"

"I have no idea." Burnie frowned. It was the Captain's call, but he wasn't happy with hiding evidence of a crime, or likely several crimes. They'd only look all the more guilty if the terraformer led to an investigation that uncovered anything else. "But first we should go through all of these and make sure we know just how much stuff there is."


OFF:

Jake Ford
Chief Armoury Officer
SS Mary Rose

Alika Mahone
Still Yelling, Still Sneaky
SS Mary Rose
(PNPC Uhin)

Michael Burnstein
Chief Engineer
SS Mary Rose

Rueben Gregnol
Captain
SS Mary Rose

Dr. Fordyce "Ford" Kirschler
Chief of Operations
SS Mary Rose