Laborers Worthy of Their Hire

Posted on Fri 29th Mar, 2019 @ 8:19pm by Lieutenant Damion Ildaran & Ensign Elizabeth Brennen

998 words; about a 5 minute read

Mission: A Diplomatic Affair
Location: Wherever Yorick wants to meet
Timeline: The day Yorick does his inspection

In his office, Damion's earbud communicator silently vibrated, alerting him to a call for Corin Durant. No one was in his office, so he set the door to 'Busy' and touched the earpiece button to answer the call. "Durant here," he said in the accent he used for Corin, which he'd been told sounded like a combination of deep East Texas and Alpha Colony. To him it was simply Turkanan. "May I help you?"

"Durant, This is Yorick Fuller from Starfleet. I am on Starbase 109 for an inspection and will be arriving at your business shortly. We need to meet."

Damion blinked. "We do?" he said in his Corin voice. "What are you here to inspect? If you need something repaired, I can give you a quote once you get here." Bloody hell! he thought. Got to change clothes.

With a bit of anger in his voice, Fuller responded to Durant. "As per Starfleet regulation 409b Section C, I can conduct a random inspection on any business on the premises of Starfleet property, and today is your lucky day. This is what I consider to be a courtesy call."

Damion hastily looked up the leasing contract he'd signed with the Starbase 109 Chamber of Commerce and nodded to himself as he checked its terms in the applicable section. "Oh--Yeah, I remember that regulation now. Sure, come on by. I'll be there in ten minutes or so. Durant out."

Damion switched over to a different channel. "Hey, Walsh, this is Durant. Come in, please."

Brennen heard her code name and immediately began mentally preparing with that in mind as she straightened up from the project she'd been working on. "Walsh here."

"Ms. Walsh," Damion said, "we are about to have a Starfleet inspector coming into our establishment, all hot and bothered. Not sure what's got his shorts in a wad, but it's a world-class wedgie. I've got to change clothes, and then I'll meet you at the shop. Expect him there in ten minutes or less. Name's Yorick Fuller. Ever heard of him?"

"New to me, I'll be on site in a few minutes...." She tapped a few keys on her secured computer, "Looks like guy's a hard ass, though." She put in an ear piece so she could continue to hear him without his voice going into the public as she locked down her computer and hurried to the shop.

"All right. I'll see you there in a few minutes. I'm at my quarters now," Damion said. "Durant out."

He hurried into his cabin and stripped off his black and gray duty uniform. "Computer, replicate DRS coveralls-Durant," he said as he walked into his bathroom and hastily unbraided his hair from the short queue he usually wore when not undercover. A handful of minutes later he was in the Durant Repair Services uniform, his business PADD and a toolkit in hand as he walked to the tram, shifting into the swift pace that was Durant's trademark gait, and rode it down-station.

'Walsh' arrived a few minutes before their spot inspection, ready to go in her jumpsuit and hair under a company ball cap. She dropped her tool box on a table and pulled out some random piece of equipment to begin tinkering.

Damion entered through the workshop's rear entrance and poked his nose into the main work area. He gave the room a swift glance and, after seeing only Brennen there, stepped fully into the front room, speaking in his Durant accent. "The coast is still clear? I'm astounded." He set his toolkit on top of the counter. "The way that guy talked, I figured he'd be burning dilithium crystals to get here. How's your morning gone?"

Walsh looked up from her work, "Pretty well except for the white glover coming by in apparently his own sweet time." She replied, a slight quip in her voice. She understood their function, but inspectors were not her favorite people. There were good ones then there were ones who were 'armchair judges' not completely understanding what the intel department went through.


Fuller walked through the door of the shop with a malevolent look on his face. Already irritated from the previous inspection at the bar of Jade Lantz, he was determined that he was going to discover something here. What? He was not sure yet.

"Hello? Anyone here?" Fuller asked as he looked about the shop with scanning eyes.

Damion gave Brennen a baffled look and then returned his attention to their guest. "We're...looking right at you." Damion said from behind the counter. The fellow didn't look blind. "Are you Mr. Fuller?"

Elizabeth merely looked back at him with a polite blandness.

" I am." Fuller said with irritability oozing off his words. Fuller looked over to Corin and ignored everyone else. "Mr. Durant, there are some questions I need you to answer. Is there a place we can talk?"

Lizzie kept the smile purely in her head as she knew Damion could hit a hidden button to record or transmit to her anything said in his office. Or he would simply tell her later.

"Yeah, my office is back thataway." Damion pointed to a small hallway extending from the back wall of the main shop area, which led to his office, the breakroom/conference/training room, the stock room, and the bathroom. "Liz, if you'd mind the store for a bit, I'll see if I can help this gentleman. Come on back, Mr. Fuller. You want some coffee?"

"No problem Boss." She called with a wave as she watched them with a bland smile.

"What I want is to talk to you about the robots Jade Lantz lets you rent from her to do cleaning," Fuller said as he and Durant walked toward the back office.

"They're robots. They clean so I don't have to. What's the bug up your backside?" Durant asked as his office door closed behind him and the inspector.

 

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