As the door cracked open and a pale face stuck out to see who had been banging on the door, Trid and R’tin both offered slight waves in greeting. “Morning Pete,” Trid offered. “Got a few questions for you.”

Pete, the resident technologist on Ayer’s Rock, stared at her for a moment, then stuck his head out further to look around, checking both directions twice before settling back on Trid. “I don’t owe Sidda anything anymore.”

On a world so adverse to technology, Pete was an oddity. He enjoyed technology, but not the sophisticated mechanical pieces here and there across Ayer’s Rock, but modern technology. He was the caretaker for the world’s subspace transceiver. He did the maintenance on the shuttles the hospital maintained for emergencies. He would bribe and beg visiting starship engineers to help him with anything he couldn’t fix.

Which is how he had come to know the crew of the Vondem Thorn and subsequent Vondem Rose whenever they visited Ayer’s Rock for one reason or another. They would bring in equipment or parts that he needed and in return, he had come up with a form of trade – information. Spread across a not inconsiderable portion of Ayer’s Rock, hidden in remote places but all tied together, were smaller subspace transceivers. These were all tied together by Pete into an ad hoc subspace array capable of some not-inconsiderable feats of amateur spycraft.

Perfect for wanna-be pirates sneaking outside of Federation territory for a bit of cargo liberation.

The relationship wasn’t the best, but it had worked. Primarily due to Pete’s absolute fear of Sidda. Of any strong woman really. This was why R’tin and Trid had been sent to speak with him. Friendly faces and someone with some technical sense to offer a trade – information for a helping hand.

“True,” Trid replied. “But we’re here to trade. Just a small bit of information, a local event, and in return we’ll give you a helping hand till mid-afternoon.”

“Why would I trust you?” Pete asked, eyes squinting at her.

R’tin took the chance to enter the conversation, a hand pointing to the primary transceiver atop the town hall. “Your E-band aerial needs some tending to and don’t get me started on that B-band setup you’ve got up there.” He looked at Pete. “I mean, it’s impressive you’ve done all this by yourself and with everyone here being so averse to technology, but you really want to turn down an engineer for a day?”

Pete glared at him then stepped out of the back door to the town hall so he could look up at the transceiver tower himself, squinting in the full light of day and shielding his eyes with a hand. “Huh, never noticed that,” he muttered before a heavy sigh. “Fine, fine, just…don’t invite Sidda here. I don’t need that right now, okay?”

“Sure thing boss,” R’tin answered. “Still gonna call her and tell her what you tell us though.”

“After you help out,” Pete added.

“Well, we kinda need to know things now, but promise we’re not going to cut and run,” R’tin continued. “We want to know whatever you know about any ships that arrived here in the last few weeks, landed roughly southwest of here.”

“Manfred,” Pete said, with distaste, going so far as to spit on the dusty ground after uttering the name. “Well, might as well come inside then. Gonna take a moment to pull up what I recorded for you.”

“What you have found Tavol?” Gaeda asked as he stepped up behind the Vulcan at the Vondem Rose’s science console.

“The information from Trid and R’tin has helped in identifying Manfred’s landing location,” Tavol answered, bringing up a purely optical image of the world below them. It was well-lit, thanks to the time of day, and showed a plateau in what had to be the Maze Valley from Sidda’s update. There sat a small craft, plain as day from the air, or orbit, but anyone on the ground wouldn’t see it at all.

It was larger than a Danube-class runabout, but not by much. And from the look of it, more heavily armed as well. No match for the Rose in a straight fight, but enough to keep its operator safe for the most part and likely enough to convince those who could take it to rethink. It could easily carry a variety of ways to make the operator’s targets’ lives very interesting or to be a home for any long-term occupants.

“It is a Corrin-class luxury craft, heavily modified. Sufficient to keep a crew of six in moderately pleasant comfort for extended periods, as per the sales brochure I was able to pull up.” Tavol dutifully did so. “It matches the profile that was provided by Pete,” Tavol said, his distaste for using such a familiar form of address evident, but he had been told nothing more so far.

“And is situated right between Landing and Gavalore’s ranch. Only one person has a reason to be there and not at either end,” Gaeda concluded. “Guessing he selected the location for another reason as well, yes?”

“That would be correct. Magnesite deposits in the valley are preventing detailed scans. Sensors were able to determine a ship was in the area, but not where. I employed no less than fifteen crewmembers to look over optical images to locate this craft. We can’t resolve life signs in the area either, so I could not pinpoint Manfred, or anyone else for that matter.”

“Okay, so he’s about halfway between Sidda and Gavalore and we know we can’t beam them in on top of him since Gavalore chose those hills to stop such anyway. A shuttle is just going to get Manfred’s attention and likely shot down. They’re really going to have to go after Gavalore on horseback aren’t they?” Gaeda asked.

“It is looking that way,” Tavol answered.

“So, if the boss gets in trouble down there, what do we do? Not like we can provide fire support from orbit if we can’t get a target lock or see something under a cloud.” Gaeda looked to Tavol expectantly, waiting for a matter-of-fact answer that would resolve his conundrum, though his expression gave away he wasn’t expecting one.

“Ta’shen,” came Orelia’s voice from across the bridge.

“Ta’shen?” Gaeda asked as he stepped back to bring Orelia into his field of view. “What’s Ta’shen?”

“A risky ploy I developed to slip under an orbital defence grid,” Tavol answered. “And not something I would recommend in this situation at all.” He sighed, a truly Vulcan sigh at that, when Gaeda glared at him and Orelia crossed her arms in frustration. “Commander Ruiz, you may wish to sit down while I detail some of this ship’s core capabilities you might not have been made away of just yet, including close fire support for ground troops.”

“Pardon?” Gaeda asked as he spun an empty seat around to sit down. “As in not from orbit, but much closer?”

“Much, much closer,” Orelia confirmed with glee. “Go on Tavol, explain it to him.”

“You know he was flirting with you, right?” Trid asked of R’tin a few minutes after they had departed Pete’s cave of technological wonders. The only place on the entire planet that would have had more modern technology in it would have been the Federation Outreach office. She’d had to suffer R’tin’s glee and joy at ramshackle pieces of equipment and whatever hack Pete had used to keep it running, then followed by Pete wanting to show off his next jury-rigged piece of equipment.

The repairs hadn’t taken more than half an hour and after that, it had just been hours of two young men geeking out over equipment not suited for purpose being made to keep going. It wasn’t Trid’s field of interest, but she could respect the utter joy both R’tin and Pete got from their engineering passion and being able to indulge in it with another who got it.

A handful of very long, very boring hours for her.

“No he wasn’t,” R’tin said, brushing the statement off casually. “We were just having a good time.”

“Uh-huh,” she replied. “I’ve never seen Pete so vocal. A few months back when we swung by on a freight run, your sister was the one the boss sent to talk with Pete. We were done in an hour. Very business-like. You however got the full tour.”

“So? Sis is intimidating. Poor guy likely got spooked by her.”

“No,” Trid countered. “Sidda and Orelia intimidate him. T’Ael barely registered. I barely register. You on the other hand…” she trailed off with a shrug and tilt of her head.

“No,” R’tin responded. “No,” he repeated. “Was he?”

“You’re hopeless,” she answered him as they continued to walk south through the small town. “He’s hopeless. Perfect match.”

R’tin stopped, turning back to look towards the town hall before sprinting to catch up with her. “Really?”

“Really.”

“He is kinda cute. For a pasty human.”

“You’re a pasty Romulan,” she hit back at him. “You can ask him out when we get back.”

“I dunno Trid,” R’tin said. “You sure you aren’t going to get jealous?”

“If it stops you constantly trying to ask me out, I’m okay with you asking the local tech-wizard out,” she answered. “Just keep the details to yourself, okay?”