Baiting the Hook

Posted on Tue 11th Dec, 2018 @ 5:18pm by

758 words; about a 4 minute read

Mission: Oblivion
Location: Security, Lt. Perry's Office
Timeline: MD 20, 11:30

th'Elex reached into his sleeve pocket. "Here," he pushed a small clear case across the desk toward her, "I've copied all the footage of him on this crystalline storage matrix for you. If you don't have the proper equipment to read it, I could sell it to you." He grinned again, and his antenna came forward, trying to sense if she had any humor in her.

Isabella chuckled at Tieran. "Well, I hope it would be for a fair price at least. Like free?" She said as she sat back in her chair smiling.

"Oh, you want to dicker then?" th'Elex said. "I don't think I can go quite that low, but I could send one up for a trial run, for say ... a week? If you don't use it, send it back, no harm. If you find it useful, we'll talk price, and I guarantee it will be a good one. Besides, you'll probably find a way to get Starfleet to pay anyway."

Part 2, Continuing ....

Returning to the story that had brought him to the Security Offices, Tieran went on. "The man left, after touching everything in the shop, just when I thought I might have to call out the cleaning bots. But ... a day later, he was back, with another character who didn't look like an upstanding citizen to me." He nodded toward the box on her desk. "He's on there, too. If I had to guess, I'd say they were both the same species, and humanoid, but it isn't one I've seen around here before. I've been looking, but I haven't seen them since they were in my shop, either. They did leave me a way to contact them, however."

Isabella found herself intrigued already by the story that was being told to her by Tieran. "When you say they touched everything, you mean they physically touched the items in your shop?"

"Yes, Ma'am, quite a few of them, in fact."

"Do you think that they were marking your items so that they could be stolen from your shop at a later time?" The Security Chief asked.

Tieran shrugged. "It's possible, but it turned out they were more interested in selling me something than in buying anything. That's recorded on the chip, too ... the conversation. I routinely record everything that goes on in my shop, but don't tell my employees, please. It's one way I can check their honesty. The crew I have with me now has proven worthy of my trust, but if you know Andorians, you know trust is a human trait." He sort of smiled at her, but not quite.

"What they had to sell would have been more tempting if I didn't mind losing my reputation for honesty. I suspect they will have no trouble selling the merchandise to someone on the station."

Isabella sat back in her chair and looked over at Tieran. "So, I have to ask. Aren't you violating some kind of unspoken rule of shop keepers or whatever else you may or may not dabble in?"

Tieran shook his head at the stubbornness of the woman in seeing him as a suspicious character. He supposed it came with her job. "I don't dabble in anything that has rules which would be broken by being an honest citizen of the Federation," he insisted. "You have to know there's a healthy black market on the base, though, right? I neither buy nor sell there, but many do. I don't think it will be long before the men in my shop show up there and someone will buy what they're selling.

"You might have some people check with engineering to see if they are missing any ..." he hesitated over the correct term. "Any Tachyon Deflector Cells or Active Inertial Frequency Transmitters. That's what they showed me, though I didn't get to examine them closely. They might not even be Starfleet. They indicated there were more things available like that, things that would be used to divert detection and transmit short electronic bursts." He leaned back in the chair and gave her a smug look. "Mighty useful things on a starbase, I've heard."

"Indeed," Isabella responded with a little bit of annoyance in her voice. "Give me some time to review your video and to see what I can find out here. I might need to use your shop for an operation if it comes down to it. Would that be OK with you?"

With a shrug, th'Elex answered, "Doesn't really matter now, does it? You're Starfleet."

 

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