((USS Culver City, Captain’s Quarters))

The shipboard evening found Lieutenant Commander Varyn K’lev off-duty in his quarters, relaxing on the small sofa with a book on his PADD.  The book, a highly-fictionalized – and relatively romanticized – pirate story, was one he’d read many times before, but it did not lose any of its appeal to him on the re-reading.  He’d just begun a new chapter, pausing to drink from a mug of Vulcan spice tea – something his old friend and classmate T’rin had recommended as an evening drink, as it approximated the notion of finishing the night with some coffee but without the caffeine – when the intercom came to life.  “Bridge to the captain,” came the voice of a young human ensign named Charles Lawrence who was serving as the officer of the watch for the night shift.

K’lev sighed, putting the PADD down.  “K’lev here.  What’s up?”

“Apologies for interrupting you, sir, but we’ve picked up a distress call,” Ensign Lawrence said, anxiety evident in his voice.

“Where’d it come from?” K’lev asked, sitting upright.

“A close solar orbit,” came the reply.  “We’ve scanned the area, and found a Dergan ship in the area; it looks like her engines may be down.”

The Orion stood, reaching for his tunic.  “Get us on an intercept course, and let them know we’re coming.  I’m on my way up; captain out.”  With that, he left his quarters, running for the turbolift as he pulled the tunic on; as he ran, he felt the deckplates shudder as Culver City altered course and accelerated.

When he emerged on the bridge, Ensign Lawrence stood from the command chair.  “I’ve got her,” K’lev said, then crossed to stand in front of the chair as Lawrence moved to the Ops console.  “How soon will we arrive, and have they said anything further?”

Lawrence shook his head.  “Nothing beyond asking us to hurry.  We’ll be there in a couple of minutes.”  He shuffled his feet awkwardly.  “If I may, sir, from what we’ve been told, the Dergan are a pre-warp culture; wouldn’t the Prime Directive apply here?”

K’lev shook his head.  “I had that conversation with Captain Tyler of the Blythe earlier; Ferengi interference in the system has already influenced them, so it’s a bit of a grey area in the Directive.  Short answer is, as long as we don’t intervene too much ourselves, we should be fine.  We also have an obligation to assist when we receive distress calls, so we’d actually be not doing our jobs if we didn’t help them.”  When Lawrence still looked a little confused, he shrugged.  “It’s messy, I’ll give you that.  But we’re not going to leave them without help; if command gets mad at us, it’s on me.”

Lawrence was about to speak further when an alert sounded from tactical.  “Umm…  There’s another ship – well, more of a shuttlecraft, I think – out there, also heading for the Dergan ship,” the petty officer on-shift at tactical, a Caitian named Tisaf said.  “She looks Ferengi.  And sir?”  She looked up.  “That shuttle’s armed.  Looks like a light disruptor to me.”

K’lev nodded.  “Steady as we go.”

Around a minute later, Culver City dropped out of warp, slowing to impulse power as she approached the Dergan ship; at the same time, the Ferengi shuttlecraft slowed to impulse as well.  The Dergan ship – really a large sphere with thrusters – was slowly falling towards the star, its engines disabled by what seemed to be some sort of internal malfunction.  “Hail the Dergans,” K’lev said, though any further comment was interrupted by the ops console chiming.  “We’ve got an incoming message from the Ferengi ship, sir,” Lawrence said.  “They’re telling us to keep out, saying this is a ‘Consortium matter’, whatever that means.”

K’lev looked at the ensign.  “Think that shuttle can evacuate the Dergan ship, then tow it home?”

Lawrence shook his head.  “No, sir; or at least not easily.”

“Precisely,” K’lev said.  “Tell the Ferengi shuttle to keep back for now, in case we need them to help us, then hail the Dergans and ask them to stand by to receive an engineering and medical team.”  He tapped the intercom control on his chair’s armrest console.  “Bridge to engineering and sickbay.  I need a combined repair and medical team to report to transporter room 1.  You’ll be beaming to a Dergan ship, to render aid and assess repair viability.  Things might be a bit tight there; the ceilings appear to be only 6 feet tall.”

The nurse on duty in sickbay and the officer of the watch in engineering confirmed their orders, and within minutes an away team was gathering in transporter room 1.  Meanwhile, the Ferengi shuttle had continued to close the distance.  Another chime sounded from the Ops console.  “Sir?  The Ferengi are hailing us.”

“Onscreen,” K’lev said.

A Ferengi officer – wearing a bit of an older uniform, K’lev noted – appeared on the viewscreen.  “This is Sub-Daimon Raxx of the Duwalla Mining Corporation.  You are currently impeding the business of an officer of the Consortium of Ferengi Traditionalists; if you don’t stop immediately, there will be penalties.”

K’lev’s brow furrowed.  “This is Commander Varyn K’lev, captain of the USS Culver City.  We’re rendering aid to a vessel in distress; how does that impede on the business of your consortium?”

The sub-daimon rolled his eyes, as though the answer should be obvious.  “The Dergans are a client of the Consortium; their service contract stipulates that all requests for assistance must go through Consortium channels, to be appropriately logged and billed.  Now, move aside, or face the consequences.”

Despite his interest in pirate stories – especially the more romanticized ones, even if they weren’t exactly accurate – nobody who knew K’lev could credibly accuse him of being violent by nature.  And yet, as the sub-daimon spoke, he felt his blood begin to boil.  “So you’re telling me that you plan to save them, then make them pay you for the rescue?  What happens if they can’t, would you cut them loose or just leave them to die?” he asked incredulously, and with a bit of an edge creeping into his voice.

Raxx smiled in satisfaction.  “98th and 111th Rules of Acquisition,” he said simply, as though that explained everything.

K’lev actually had to turn away for a moment, putting his back to the screen, to hide the anger that had flashed onto his face.  “Not worth a torpedo… not worth a torpedo… not worth a torpedo…” he muttered to himself, too low for the sub-daimon to hear, then glanced towards Lawrence at ops out of the corner of his eye.  “Send the rescue team.  Tell them to crouch before beaming over.” he whispered.

Once he had regained at least a veneer of composure, and after Lawrence had confirmed the successful transport of the rescue team, K’lev turned back around to address Raxx.  “Respectfully, sub-daimon,” he said in a tone that was decidedly not respectful, “I am not going to step back and let you blackmail a crew in distress.  I’ve already sent a rescue team over, so your presence here is no longer needed; if you attempt to impede our rescue operations, there will be consequences.”  With a sharp hand gesture, he motioned for the channel to be closed, then rubbed his face with both hands.  He then glanced to Tisaf at tactical.  “Yellow alert.  Raise shields, and stand by to charge weapons.  Oh, and go ahead and lock on with the targeting scanners anyway; let’s see if they take the hint.”

The assertive posture taken by Culver City seemed to prove persuasive, as the Ferengi shuttle did stop its approach.  The ops console chimed once more.  “They’re hailing us again,” Lawrence said, somewhat incredulously.  “They’re offering to keep this from their Consortium… for a price.”

K’lev sighed heavily.  “Just ignore them, and let’s do what we came here to do.  Although…” he turned to the helmsman, a Saurian midshipman named Parnalaxa, who was on their pre-posting cruise.  “Put us between the Dergans and that shuttle, and keep us there.  And let’s snag the Dergans with a tractor beam, to keep their orbit from decaying further.”

The midshipman nodded.  Culver City shifted in her course, the California-class ship laying between the Ferengi shuttle and the Dergan sphere-ship, and a tractor beam connecting the Starfleet vessel to the Dergan.  The Ferengi tried a couple of times to edge around her and get to the Dergans, but a minor shift in Culver City’s attitude and orientation dissuaded them quickly, and they eventually gave up and withdrew.

((Dergan ship Sarata))

The small rescue team – one medtech, plus two engineers – materialized aboard the disabled Dergan ship; its internal lights were low and guttering, running on emergency power.   The ceilings were lower than expected, indeed barely six feet, leading the tallest of the trio – a Vulcan engineer named Sivat – to have to duck his head slightly.  The medtech, a human named Sophia Lopez, pulled out her tricorder, following its readings forward to the control compartment of the small vessel, while the engineers made their way to its engine room.

Inside the control compartment, Lopez found a curious sight: two Dergans, one trying in vain to restart the ship’s engines, while the other seemed to be in what she could only describe as an altered state of mind and utterly obsessed with a console that she quickly realized was the ship’s small replicator.  Just inside the compartment door, she spoke, so as to avoid alarming them.  “Umm…  Hello?  I’m here with a couple friends; we’re here to help.”

The more-aware Dergan made an odd noise, likely from surprise.  “How did you get here…?” they asked, then shook their head.  “Nevermind, I don’t care; please, just help us!  My buddy’s munched out and our main power started failing a few hours ago.  We were supposed to only be on a 7 hour trip sunward, but we don’t have enough power reserves left to return.”

Lopez nodded, entering the compartment fully.  “My friends are going to see about your ship, but I’m here to make sure you both’re okay; may I scan you?” she asked, remembering from the briefing packet sent out after Commander K’lev’s conversation with Captain Tyler of the Blythe that Dergan society held freedom as paramount.

The alert Dergan nodded, while the more-addled one pressed a control on the replicator and then made a disappointed sound when nothing happened.  Lopez scanned the two, then consulted the results on her tricorder.  The more-alert Dergan was decidedly stressed, their adrenaline levels highly elevated, but was otherwise unharmed.  The other, though, was suffering psychotropic symptoms, but her scans could not determine a cause; she searched for a number of known psychoactive agents, including some non-consumables – cleaning supplies and the like – that could have psychotropic effects if consumed, but the scan came up clean, at least as far as the tricorder could tell.   In fact, it appeared that the only thing the addled Dergan had eaten recently was, of all things, cabbage.  The butts of the stems from the vegetable could be seen around the feet of the pig-man at the replicator.

“If I may,” she asked, “your companion seems to be under the influence of some substance, but all I’m seeing in their system is cabbage; have they taken anything that you know of since you left your port?”

“Whatdya think he’s high on?” the Dergan said.  “I asked them and asked him to stop replicating more, but he just wouldn’t agree to stop!”

Lopez nodded slowly; she had totally forgotten the note in the packet about cabbage and its effects on the Dergan.   She pulled out her medkit.  “I see…  If you’d allow me, I can administer something to try and counteract the effects, and get him to… expel the cabbage in his system.”  In the back of her head, she couldn’t believe that that was a sentence she had to utter, but here the young medtech was, and she had a job to do.

“Could you ask him?” the Dergan replied.

“Unfortunately, I’m not sure he’s in a state to be able to answer,” Lopez replied, “so I’m afraid that this is an answer I have to get from you, on his behalf.”

The Dergan sighed.  “Then yes, may he forgive me.  Sober the cabbage head up.”

Lopez quickly selected a pair of vials from her medkit.  One at a time, the inserted the vials into her hypospray, then injected them into the addled Dergan; in short order, his eyes cleared, then he vomited up quite a large amount of what appeared to be partially-digested cabbage.  As his companion began trying to explain what had happened, Lopez reported back to K’lev on the Culver City; the two Dergans aboard the ship were healthy, but something had to be done to keep them from putting themselves back under the influence.

Meanwhile, Sivat and his companion Meris Kivana – a Bajoran petty officer, the team leader, and an engineer like Sivat – entered the engine compartment of the small ship.  The vessel’s power core was dark, its energy depleted, and the emergency batteries no longer held enough of a charge to attempt to run the ship’s engines.  Sivat began to examine the power core itself, while Meris moved on to the engines.

Upon examination, Sivat quickly confirmed that the power core could not be recharged with supplies that Culver City had aboard; its conduits simply were not designed to manage the amount of current that Culver City‘s embarked portable generators could carry.  It also appeared to be rather poorly made, in Sivat was honest with himself, and was likely prone to failure anyway.  As an idea began to form in the Vulcan’s mind, he tapped his combadge.  “Sivat to Culver City.”

On Culver City‘s bridge, K’lev took the call personally.  “This is Commander K’lev, Sivat.  What’s up?”

The Vulcan stiffened slightly, not expecting to be on with the commanding officer directly, but that faint stiffening was all the emotional reaction he gave.  “Sir, the power core on this vessel is depleted, and appears to be of rather poor construction; I cannot be certain that it would survive attempting to recharge and reactivate it.  However, we could attempt to replace it.  I cannot be certain – Petty Officer Meris is currently examining the engines themselves – but if the engines are able to either accept a higher-power source or be configured to do so, we could attempt to replace their power core with one of our portable generators; the generator is smaller than their core, but more powerful.”

K’lev thought for a moment, then turned to Lawrence.  “Get Meris in on this call; she’s looking at the engines, so I need to know what she’s seeing.”

A few moments later, Meris’s voice could also be heard over the bridge speakers.  “Meris,” K’lev said, “Sivat has an idea for fixing their power issues, but I need to know if it’ll blow out their engines altogether.  Sivat?”

“Thank you, sir,” the Vulcan said, then briefly rehashed his idea to Meris.

When Sivat had finished, Meris’s channel sat quiet for a second before she spoke.  “The engines should, in theory, be able to handle that; they look like they’re based on a Ferengi design, just made out of more local components.  But I’m worried about these coolant manifolds; they look cheap, and really not well-built as they should be.  If we’re going to do that, I’d like to replace the manifolds too.”

K’lev nodded.  “How many additional hands will you need to do all this?”

“This ship’s too cramped for any additional hands, captain.  I’ll send over the specs for the manifolds; if the ship could beam us the supplies and tools we’ll need, we can do it here.”

“Go ahead, then, and get started.  Keep me advised on how it goes.”

Over the next half-hour or so, a fabrication team used the ship’s industrial replicators – and some good, old-fashioned elbow grease – to build replacement coolant manifolds, then beamed the manifolds and one of the ship’s portable generators to the Dergan vessel.  Aboard, Sivat and Meris made short work of the manifold installation; the process was very straightforward to begin with, and while the manifolds were being made they had already removed the old ones.

The replacement of the power core was trickier, since the connectors to the old power conduits were non-compatible with the generator and the mounting brackets that held the old power core in place were for a larger core of a different shape.  However, these did not so much add difficulty to the installation as add complexity to it; it was a simple task to create adapters and fit them to the pre-existing hardware, and once they were fitted the rest of the installation went smoothly.

By the time it was ready to be tested, Lopez had come back to join her companions.  “The crew are both doing well, but one’s apparently addicted to some sort of cabbage, of all things, and had been hitting the replicator pretty hard; before we power everything up, could you reprogram the replicator to not make cabbage?”

Sivat and Meris exchanged glances; Meris, at least, looked like something now made sense.  “I was wondering why the logs were showing excessive power draw to the replicator…  I can certainly reprogram it, but I can’t guarantee that they won’t just reprogram it back, or get mad at us for doing so.  Might be better to talk to them, at least before we do anything.”

Lopez nodded, heading back forwards to the two Dergans.  “My colleagues have successfully repaired your power systems and engines,” she said to the pair, mainly addressing the one who had been more alert when she’d first entered the control compartment.  “We were also able to figure out what happened; it seems that an unusually high power draw in the replicators caused by a system fault depleted your power core, and was well on the way to depleting your emergency batteries too.  My team leader would like to reprogram the replicator, to keep this drain from happening again; is that okay with you both?”

The two Dergans exchanged looks, one much more open to the suggestion than the other.  “No, thank you,” the one she had been mainly addressing said.  “We do appreciate your help, though; what’ll the cost for this be?”

“Oh, there isn’t one!”  Lopez said brightly.  “We’re just glad we were able to help.”

“Holy shit, that’s real swell of you all, we appreciate it…you folks are way nicer then the Big Ears, they bill us for everything. But if there’s a fault in the replicator system, I’ll just shut it down then.”  He trotted over to the device and turned it off and then gave a long scowl at his drug adled co-pilot.

With that, she turned and left the control compartment, returning to the engine bay.  “They’d rather we didn’t reprogram the replicators, but the sober one took the hint and turned it off,” she told Meris and Sivat.

Within only a minute or so, the two engineers had the replacement generator started up, then the trio – and the old parts, for study – beamed back to the Culver City.  Back on the bridge, K’lev watched on the viewscreen as the Dergan ship moved off; thankfully, it was headed back to Derganix, and there was virtually no way for the new generator to be fully depleted by the time they arrived.  He rubbed his face with both hands.  “Secure us from yellow alert, and let’s get back to Derganix ourselves.  Lawrence, ship’s yours.”  With that, K’lev left the bridge, returning to his quarters to replicate himself a fresh tea and pick back up with his book.