240011.11.1600

Captain’s Ready Room

Lt.Tazzeth grabbed his banana and strawberry smoothie from the replicator and took a seat on the couch as ensign Ngin followed him and ordered a Raktajino and took a seat on the couch.

“Well sir, as you can see it is a mess down there. We have counted six Ferengi and three Devore. Oddly, four out of the six Ferengi are female. Though we can say that the Blood Dilithium was not the original reason for the dome, it looks like that asteroid and maybe some of the others have pockets of Latinum in them. So there’s that.” Tazzeth reported as he took his seat.

“Do we have a cause of death yet?” Kr’antren asked from one of the two chairs in the room as he was reading over the report.

“Not yet, will probably have to wait on Doc to look at them before we can say for certain. Though Nurse Monfiete thinks that, according to her preliminary scans, the four female Ferengi are showing signs of takotsubo cardiomyopathy. Basically, they were scared to death”

Kr’antren looked up and then ran his hands through his beard. “What? How is that possible? Ferengi are not telepathic.”

“That is the mystery, sir.” 

“And the others?”

“I’m going to guess that they died as a result of the device’s burnout. From what I can tell, I believe Ensign Ngin will confirm this, that the device did not explode, more or less it burned out.”

The young Klingon put down his cup of Raktajino and straightened his tunic “Yes sir, That’s what I believe happened from the evidence at the scene and the data from the tricorder readings. The device just simply melted from the inside out. I believe it was probably quite quick. We will have to wait on more information to confirm if the other four died due to the effects of the device burning out.”

“Very well. Anything else of note from the dome.”

“No sir, it looks like there are offices and labs located by the airlocks. Most of these seemed to be used for the production of gold-pressed latinum. We did find some PADDS that we are trying to decipher now. One of those may be of interest as it was located on a table a few feet behind the presumed location of the device. It may have been used to take notes of what they were doing.”

Kr’Antren nodded at this. “Send a copy to Task Force 17, they should have people and access to systems that we don’t that could help.”

“Will do, captain.”

“I think we have all we are going to get from this location, have the teams conduct a final sweep and return to the ship.” 

Tazzeth tapped on his comm badge and relayed the message. “Done, captain. Estimated two hours to complete the searches and have everyone back on board.”

“Next question, where the hell are the Devore hiding? They have to be out there somewhere.” He spun in his chair and swept his arms across the viewing panels.

***************************

Undisclosed Location

Planetside

“You told me that the device was fully operational!”

“It is, according to my sources the federation scum have successfully tested theirs and have sent the plans to all of their ships in the region. It must have been an operational error or your engineers didn’t follow that schematic.”

“Watch what you say next, Ferengi; or The next words out of your mouth may be you’re last.” As the Officer in black pulled out a disruptor pistol and placed it on the table in front of him. “Those engineers were among the best in the imperium and because of your faulty schematics two of them are now dead. How am I supposed to explain that?”

The Ferengi at the other end of the table shrugged his shoulders. “Not my problem. I find that blaming it on them works, sometimes.”

“I will not blame it on my engineers!” The officer slammed his fist on the table.

“Fine, fine, don’t blame them then.” The Ferengi leans forward on the table. “But did it work?”

The officer sat back in his chair. “Yes, after two failed attempts we were able to dial it in. The results were quite something to watch. No matter how much that wretched telepath tried he could not breach the mind of our engineer. You said there are other species in the Alpha and Beta quadrants besides your own that telepaths can not work their evilness on?”

“Hmmmm yes, but it will be much easier to supply you with females of mine. They offer nothing to us besides bearing young.” the Ferengi flipped his hand over his shoulder, “ Worthless”

“We will require more of your females, we need to dial in the devices and conduct some more tests on other telepath species before we can call the program a success.” he looked down at his PADD. “Hmmm, my team reports that they have figured out what went wrong in the first experiment and have fixed the problem. We will require some more females, Ferengi.”

“Yes, Yes.. standard contract. I will attach an addendum to our last one for the same amount if that works for you commander.”

Picked up his PADD and looked it over. “Yes, that will work. The same price as before, however, this time we will require two groups of varying ages. This time we will handle the implant surgery, your surgeon made it very hard for us to cover up his work in the last group.”

“No problem, I will add that part right here. Price will still be the same though.” typed something on his PADD and slid it across the table.

The officer shrugs his shoulders, “Not my money.” Read through what was on the PADD and then held his thumb to it. “There you go.” slid the PADD back across the table.

The Ferengi picked it up, looked it over, and nodded. “I’ll send a copy to your account, same as last time.”

The officer picked up his PADD and looked at something. “Ok, good. Looks like the Osiris made it to the asteroid and have been there for the last few hours and made their way into the dome.”

The Ferengi looked up from his PADD. “Did it go as we had planned?”

“Looks like it, all they will find are the bodies of the five females of your race and the three engineers from my team that sacrificed themselves in the end. Granted the failure of the device was not planned but “ he held up a hand “In the end, it worked for us.”

“And the other evviiddeennccee.” 

“It was planted just as we had discussed, once they break the cipher. Which they should do in the next few hours from the information that we have on their systems. They should find information that leads them back to your brother.”

A big smile crossed over the Ferengi’s face. “Finally I will show my father who deserves to be in charge of the operations here in the Gradin belt and maybe over the entire Delta Quadrant.”

The Officer stood and picked up his PADD “I should be on my way before the Osiris makes her way back through this area. Don’t want her finding out about our partnership before we are ready for them too.”

“Your right commander, that would do us both no good. I will have the cargo delivered to you as per the instructions from last time.”

“That will work, good night.” The officer turned and left the room.

“Good night, commander” As the door closed, he hit a button on the table and a curtain unveiled a view screen on the wall behind him. “ Yes brother, keep thinking you’re the smart one in the family. One day soon father and you will learn the truth and he will hand me the business operations as it should be.” The view screen showed Rharpaz sitting at his desk, as he watched his brother the picture zoomed in to see what his brother was reading on his PADD.