—- Bridge —-

It had been a full day before the four ships began to move. Hanging back the USS Seattle remained unseen as the ship’s all broke in individual directions. Before that they had seen transporters used, and things beamed to and from the surface. It was not definitive proof of terrorist activity, but it was something and it ’felt’ suspicious which was all Captain Cruz had to go on. 

“Commander Sánchez, take a team down and explore the area, see if you can find out what’s so interesting about this place,” Cruz said after scans turned up no civilization and no intelligent life. Not a camp then, at least not one that was occupied. 

Standing he nodded, “Miller, Jara, Hume, Flores, with me.”

He exited the bridge followed by the Chief of Security and Science, with Lieutenant Jara calling more security personnel to round out the team. Down in the science labs Cruz knew that Lieutenant Sone would already be mapping what she could of the planet and hopefully coming up with her own name for it, better than Cruz’s first attempt months ago.

—- Unexplored Planet X —-

The team that beamed down were met with a lush forest that Lieutenant Commander Miller immediately began to explore the edges of, fascinated by the flora. Commander Sánchez had them split up, and while he understood the biologist’s interest in nature, he was a science officer himself, he did not think pirates or terrorists would come here just to see leaves that smelled like farts.

”Over here sir,” Lieutenant Junior Grade Hume yelled, waving after about ten minutes. The team converged on his point to see a temple. Old and covered in overgrown plant life. To Sánchez it reminded him of the Mayan temples on Earth in his native land of Mexico. 

“Miller do we have an archeologist on board?” he asked his Chief Science Officer.

Miller seemed to consider it, “Lieutenant Drake. I’ll call him down.”

Ten minutes later the blue suited Lieutenant who had never been on an away mission was with them. He lead the way as they entered the temple, shining hand held torches to light up the areas shrouded in darkness. 

“We’ve had a great deal of looting I’d say,” Drake said, “This is similar to after the French or British visited temples in other countries. They’d plunder them.”

”For what purpose?” Sánchez asked.

”Money, black markets still pay top latinum for this stuff,” Drake said.

Using his communicator the Commander called back to the ship, and had them scan for temples like the one they’d found. There were 128 across the planet, which meant a veritable fortune for smugglers, pirates, and terrorists who were willing to plunder a long dead civilization. Given that respectable Earth governments had historically done that then it was not much of a stretch to imagine the True Way or something doing it today.

—- Captain’s Ready Room, Four Hours Later——

Commander Andrés Sánchez paced as his sister and Captain read the PADD with messaged from Starbase 72 about what they had found. A Gagarin-class vessel was on its way to supervise and protect the planet while a Sutherland-class vessel arrived and catalogued what was left. The Seattle was to head to a few suspected black markets and see if they could track where these sales were originating from. The trouble was that if the Seattle showed up, they would do so with a big metaphorical klaxon sounding letting people know that Starfleet was there.

“We have the Nirvana, our Waverider-class ship, I’m having engineering pull off or paint over and Starfleet insignia. You’ll be able to go using it, and pose as interested buyers,” Cruz said, “We’ll wait out of sensor range of the market and hide outselves in a nebular that we’ve spotted. It should interfere with passing ships’ sensors enough that we don’t get spotted. Take Jara, Miller, Kolem and yourself.”

He continued to pace, “You going to decorate this place? It looks a bit bare?”

Cruz shrugged, “I don’t really own anything. I have a few awards from Starfleet but honestly I didn’t own much as a kid and have never really been into physical things. Hawthorne had a bunch of coffee stuff, said it tasted better to grind his own beans than replicate a cup.”

”Sounds like father, he was obsessed with beans from down south, used to buy them by the bag, and grind them for his coffee himself,” Sánchez said.

Cruz was quiet for a moment, then she leaned forward in her chair putting the PADD down, “Would I have liked him?”

”I don’t know. I do know he would have been delighted by you,” Sánchez said, “He was, he had clippings the local paper did a thing when you became Commander. An interview with you. He kept that, we didn’t know why.”

”So he knew about me but never reached out,” she sighed, one step forward to liking him and it seemed to be followed by one step back.

Sánchez shrugged. He realized having a father, and one with the resources of theirs, could have changed the course of Cruz’s life. She’d grown up wanting for so much, and then had to fight to get where she was. While cash was no longer in use within the Federation influence was and their father had greased the wheels many times in Sánchez’s life, and he was not sure what it would be like without the help.

And then there was just having a father who loved out not from afar, but from up close. 

“Well he sounds nice, I might have liked him. Get your team ready,” Cruz said no longer seeming to want to talk about the past, or their shared family.

—- Nirvana —-

The ship departed the USS Seattle and travelled towards the nearest black market. It hit warp speed as soon as it was far enough away from the main ship. At these speeds they were at least a day out, meaning that the bunks would need to be used, and Sánchez had divided it by Lieutenant Commander Miller and Lieutenant Jara in one suite and him and Lieutenant Kolem in the other. He did not mention that he and Yuhiro Kolem had already had one intimate occasion.

It was not until Assistant Chief Engineer Vanessa Constable wandered out of the third suite that they realized they had more crew than they had planned for.

”Sorry I caught a nap, had a long painting this thing to make it look less like a Starfleet mobile,” Constable said, then noticed the starfield passing by as warp speed out the window, “Umm are we off the ship?”

Sánchez rolled his eyes, “Yes, you get to join the away team.”

The yellow clad engineering officer looked panicked, “I don’t do away teams, I’m a grease and money wrench kinda gal.”

The Commander smiled, “You are now. Take the spare room, replicate yourself some clothes and come up with a back story.“

“We’ll now we’ve got someone to fix us if we break down,” Lieutenant Jara the Chief Security Officer grinned enjoying the Ensign’s discomfort at being taken along on the mission.