The door clicked shut, sealing them in, but still no one said anything of substance. Not yet. Not until they knew they were truly alone. The Vulcan withdrew a wafer-shaped object from her jacket and clicked it on, while the Ferengi swept the room with his tricorder. 

The others, the three freshly arrived from the Polaris, set down their bags and began to unpack equipment, the tools of the trade that they’d brought with them because to replicate them or procure them aboard Montana would draw unwanted attention. Even as Starfleet officers, there were some things one could not just requisition.

“All clear,” Grok reported as he folded his tricorder and slipped it back into his jacket. There was no evidence anyone had been in their suite while they were away.

“Jammer online,” T’Aer added. No over-air signals, not even a latent combadge carrier wave, could penetrate the bubble she’d enveloped the room within.

“Alright,” Chief Ayala Shafir nodded as the troupe gathered in the middle of the living room. “Break it down for us. What’ve we got?”

T’Aer entered a few keystrokes on her tricorder, and the hologram of a middle aged Cardassian materialized in the center of the room. “Our target is Gul Narek, a Cardassian commander with knowledge as to the fate of the Serenity and the Ingenuity.”

“How’d we find out about this?” Dr. Brooks asked. Such a thing wasn’t exactly pleasant conversation one would typically just stumble upon. Not that he’d put it past the friends of Lewis though. Not if they were anything like him.

“He was bragging about it in a bar to some friends of ours,” T’Aer answered as if it was nothing out of the ordinary. As it wasn’t. Not for those in their profession.

“What exactly did he say?” Chief Shafir asked warily. She could not think of many things a Cardassian would brag about that boded well for Captain Lewis and the others.

“That he’d burned a pair of Starfleet ships into the walls of the Underspace.”

A pin drop could have been heard in the silence that followed.

“Men like Gul Narek are full of bravado,” T’Aer noted. “His retelling may not be fully accurate. We believe a further conversation is warranted.”

There were nods around the room. None of them had any doubt what that meant, but it didn’t bother any of them in the slightest. None of them were willing to give up on Captain Lewis and the others so easily, and all of them had done things not talked about in pleasant company. If it came to it, this’d just be another notch in the belt.

“To ask the obvious next question,” Dr. Brooks continued, simply trying to understand more of the background behind this operation. “Why were our friends in a bar with a Gul?”

“Because they were shopping,” Grok jumped in, his eyes lighting up on every Ferengi’s favorite topic: shopping. “There’s been a boatload to shop for ever since the Lost Fleet abandoned its wares in the Deneb Sector, and ever since the lapses in Starfleet’s own security around Frontier Day.” It’d left the frontier flowing with illicit toys, and the problems that accompanied them. “Gul Narek, when he’s not bouncing Starfleet cruisers off the walls of the Underspace, is one of the biggest sellers of such wares this side of Utopia Planitia.”

“An arms smuggler?” Dr. Hall inferred. She was aware of the rumors that Central Command had been quietly and indirectly stoking fires along its border. Supplying arms was an easy way to do so without dirtying your hands.

“That would be an accurate description, yes,” T’Aer nodded. “With the means at his disposal and the equipment he is trafficking, it is safe to assume that he is backed by, if not the Cardassian government itself, at least significant elements within it. We were closing in on him long before word had reached us about his knowledge of our ships’ fate.” That had worked in their favor, because they hadn’t had to start from scratch.

“You were closing in on him already?” Chief Shafir asked curiously. There was a part of her that dearly missed rolling with them like the good old days. “What have y’all been getting up to these days?”

“Since the Lost Fleet’s flight from Deneb, we’ve been working, in an unsanctioned capacity, to stop the ongoing proliferation of weapons along the frontier,” T’Aer explained. Publicly, Sebold Logistics was a private logistics corporation, but that was mostly a cover. In reality, they were vigilantes, a private outfit commissioned by Jake Lewis and Ryssehl Th’zathol back in the nineties as a way of effecting change within the Federation without the restraints it brought with it. Captain Lewis was now missing in the Underspace, and Ryssehl had died on Nasera, but T’Aer and Grok had continued in their image. “In this endeavour, we have been working with some unlikely allies, those who share a common interest.”

“And when she says unlikely, she means unlikely,” Grok interjected gleefully. “What happens when you put a New Maquis, a Fenris Ranger and a disenchanted Starfleet Security man in a safehouse together?” 

No one had a response. 

“Quite an awkward orgy.”

It sounded like a joke, but his expression said otherwise.

“There was no orgy,” T’Aer shook her head disapprovingly. Her partner had such a way with words. “But on the rest, yes. The damage of unchecked proliferation has been felt across the frontier, and in the absence of enforcement from the powers that be, others have taken it upon themselves. And we’ve been there to assist them. As it relates to this situation though, Gul Narek is aware he’s being hunted, and he’s taken precautions to protect himself.”

“So what brings him to a Starfleet starbase?” Dr. Brooks asked. “I can think of many better places for a profiteering Gul to hang out.”

“Business, of course,” Grok smirked. “Isn’t it always the pursuit of riches that makes smart men do stupid things?” It had been the hunt for profit that had led his people astray, to follow the false scripture in the Rules of Acquisition and the false prophecies of the Liquidators. “He’s here to sell the motherload of all motherloads… energy weapons, bioweapons, cyberweapons, espionage equipment… you name it, he’s probably got it.”

“But why is here on this station?” Dr. Brooks asked. It still wasn’t making a lot of sense. Back in his day, such deals were typically conducted in places like the Triangle, far from the prying eyes of the security forces of the Federation or the other major powers. “I would think he could have come up with somewhere a bit more discreet?”

“More discreet than Montana?” Grok scoffed. “Clearly, you haven’t spent enough time here yet. This place isn’t exactly a prime posting and, if you haven’t noticed, Starfleet’s a bit short of good material ever since the Borg Queen convinced all the kids to shoot up the place.”

Ah yes, that. They’d been there, all three of them. They’d almost all died there too. Those losses certainly would have put a damper on staffing.

Dr. Brooks asked the obvious next question: “So how do we find him?”

“Didn’t you hear what I said earlier, doctor? Money makes smart men do stupid things,” Grok chuckled. The physicist didn’t look like he was following. “We make the highest bid for his wares.”

That sounded easy enough.

“Unfortunately, there’s a catch,” T’Aer added. “After narrowly evading capture on Freecloud a few months ago, Narek is not taking any chances. He’s running this as a closed, invite only, no contact auction. Only the winner will see him during the final exchange.”

“A who’s who of bad guys were invited, but sadly, we didn’t make the cut,” Grok frowned, the expression on his face suggesting he was a bit insulted that they’d been passed over for an invite. “Since only those who were invited can bid, we’ll need to track down a party that was invited and embed with them to place a bid.”

“And who might that be?” Dr. Hall asked. She had no compunction working with bad people. She was a utilitarian in her thinking. She just wanted to know which bad people it would be this time.

“We’re not sure yet,” Grok replied.

She frowned. That wasn’t a good answer.

“But we have a plan!”

Of course they did. “And that is?” Not all of Grok’s plans were sane.

“Our little hacker chick,” Grok said, looking over at Chief Shafir. “She does her magic and breaks into the station’s databanks to get the manifests of every debarkation.” Child’s play, Grok knew, after running around with Ayala Shafir in times of old, breaking into facilities far more guarded than this.

“They’ll all be forged,” Dr. Brooks pointed out. The sort of people that came to procure illicit Dominion and Starfleet goods were not the type that would sign arrival paperwork with their own name.

“Of course,” Grok chuckled. Even their own arrival paperwork had been forged. “But that’s where this cutie comes in.” He placed his hand on Dr. Hall’s shoulder, drawing a stare of daggers from the cold counselor. She didn’t have quite the same relationship with the Ferengi – or anyone, for that matter – as Ayala did. “I’m sure, given those logs, the doc here can profile who’s not who they say they are.”

Rather than looking for someone, you were looking for not someone. Dr. Hall nodded. “That is probably doable.”

“And then we just gotta go make some friends,” Grok shrugged. He knew how to do that. Maybe it was something to do with his toothy smile? “Easy as pie.” He liked pie. Beat the hell out of gree-worms and blood flees.

Chief Shafir looked over at the Vulcan for her take.

“Our attempts to acquire more actionable intelligence have been unsuccessful,” T’Aer confirmed. This was the best plan they’d come up with.

“It’s more of a plan than many of our past charades, Ayala,” Grok laughed. “Remember that one time on…”

But Dr. Hall cut him off. There were still more points to review before they got into soppy reminiscences of the good old days. “Does Starfleet have any idea what’s going on?”

“Starfleet doesn’t know its head from its ass,” Grok scoffed. “If they did, we wouldn’t have been bedding down with fucking New Maquis to clean up this proliferation mess.”

“But what about station security specifically?”

“Again, head…” laughed Grok as he pointed to his lobby forehead. “And ass.” And he pointed to his rear end.

“Starfleet is severely understaffed,” T’Aer explained in more measured terms. “Their security efforts are almost entirely contained to the upper levels, and they leave the lower decks to Hasara.”

“Who’s Hasara?”

“A former Gul.”

“Another Gul?” Dr. Brooks remarked, unable to restrain his surprise. “Is Montana like the final resting place or something for Cardassian retirees?”

“Something like that,” Grok laughed. “So who’s up for some casual B-and-E?”

It was time to have some fun and steal some manifests.