“What about the Ferengi?” Tiza asked.

“I’d say let’s keep an eye out for now, but they could be surveying the system as well,” he answered.

Lotharys shook her head.  “I’m not so sure, sir,” she said.  “Their power signature looks odd; it’s definitely a D’Kora-class marauder, but it’s like she’s partially immobilized now.  I’m not detecting a warp field.”

K’Lev rubbed his face, fingers brushing over the metal that now ran along the right side of his head.  “Yeah, he definitely undersold it…”

In a few minutes, Culver City came up alongside her sister.

Just then the Blythe hailed, and K’lev had Tiza put it onscreen.

“Greetings Captain. We have no time to lose, my Tactical officer will send you a set of coordinates. Could you beam down the fusion generators you brought to that location. Also could you have one of the industrial replicators rigged for shipments to the planet ” Tyler spoke briskly implying something serious was occurring. Beaming down fusion generators and having a shuttle tow and industrial replicator down to the surface of pre-warp civilization was odd to say the least.

K’lev nodded, turning to Tiza.  “Have your team move the generators to the cargo transporter and begin beaming them down.  Then have a shuttle rigged for towing that crated replicator, and let’s get it moving, too.”  He then turned back to Tyler on the viewscreen.  “What’s the situation?”

“Well, long story short, the Dergans have come clean about a bit of a societal flaw that they have. When the Ferengi introduced unregulated personal replicators to their society it began a slow but steady societal collapse…essentially half of them have become hapless euphoria drug addicts that are very accident prone. Accidental suicides have increased by 2300% in the 5 years since the replicators were sold to them. Furthermore the Dergan society apparently value freedom and personal autonomy to an extreme I’ve never encountered before. Please inform your crew that whenever they encounter the Dergans they cannot ever tell a Dergan what to do or be percieved as doing so, they get uh, pretty ornery if you do. Their governments do not pass laws that restrict anyones freedom to do uh anything. Their laws promote positive behavior and set forward looking policy, and deal with things like diplomacy and defense only.” Tyler said, still a bit shaken from his first meeting with them.

K’lev’s eyebrows rose.  “Well, that certainly complicates things…  What’re they addicted to?  And…”  He tapped his lips thoughtfully with his index finger.  “I wonder, how do they handle programming for their replicators?  It occurs to me, if that’s done centrally, we could just create a software update to prevent the replicators from making whatever they’re addicted to…  We’d just have to get permission to upload it.”

“The Dergans have apparently tried that, and a massive withdrawal epidemic is currently underway so they will be reluctant to further restrict the use of the replicators. We have recently beamed up one of the Cabbages…thats what they’re hooked on, apparently a dependance inducing and very psychotropic cabbage.

K’lev nodded.  “That’s good to know.  I’ll make sure my crew’s briefed on the situation, so we can jump right into things.”  He looked around at his bridge crew.  “We’re all looking forward to jumping into things here, so how do you want to proceed?”

“Lets get thouse fusion generators tied in to their power grid first and foremost. Then I think we can have you and the CC complete our region survey. WE may have some other duties to perform when I get the report back from my XO who is currently meeting with the Formicans.” Tyler replied.

K’lev glanced over towards Lieutenant Lotharys at Sciences, who grinned at the prospect of a survey.  “Sounds good to me.  We’ll have the generators beamed down and tied in here shortly, then set out on our survey.  Keep us advised on things, okay?  Culver City out.”

With that, the channel closed.  K’lev took his seat.  “Well, everyone, we’re here; now let’s get to work.”