Star Trek: Beware Romulans Bearing Gifts

Star Trek: Beware Romulans Bearing Gifts

“You know to handle that with extreme care, do you not?” The old physician inquired, his shaggy white hair covering most of his angular features.

“Of course,” the trader smiled a warm and jovial expression on his face. “I didn’t travel all this way to damage it once I had the goods.”

“Of course,” the other replied. “You have the asking price?”

“Certainly,” the trader slipped his hand into one of the many pouches adorning is rather bulky frame and produced the items.

The flame gems glinted in the soft light of the physician’s small hovel as Cyrano Jones handed them over to their new owner.

“And?” the other inquired, greedily gathering the stones to him.

“But of course,” Jones remarked, as if suddenly remembering something. Reaching into yet another concealed pocket, he produced a crystalline bottle filled with a glowing liquid.

“All the way from Antar.” Cyrano Jones again smiled as he presented the item for his customer.

“Be careful,” the wizened physician remarked, as he gathered his other prize to him. “The patrols have increased since your last visit.”

“Sir,” Jones replied, mockingly injured, gathering the wooden crate that had been set before him, “I am always careful.”

* * *

Cyrano Jones, licensed asteroid locater, prospector, and sometimes trader in rare objects, sat behind the helm in his diminutive spacecraft the Farside Wanderer, gently gliding his vessel into open space. Jones programmed a course for the Nimbus star system, and the Wanderer slipped into deep space, at its maximum warp speed of five.

After setting the auto-control Cyrano slipped into the rear cabin, patting his newest acquisition as he passed the wooden box in his bachelor’s galley. Jones busied himself preparing a meal, brushing the remnants of past meals into the recycler along with the pile of dirty plates and eating utensils.

Jones was not sure why the Romulan physician so eagerly traded for Altarian Glow Water, or Spican Flame Gems, as if they held great value. It seemed not so long ago, though it had been eighteen years, that he couldn’t buy a drink in a bar with the stuff and yet here he had found someone who found their value incalculable, if he had only known all those years ago ---

The Wanderer shuttered, dropping into subspace to a cacophony of alert lights and sirens. Cyrano Jones’ dinner splattered on the deck plating while the pilot himself was tossed into a nearby acceleration couch. The trader leapt to his feet quicker than his bulk would have implied, and rushed back to the control cabin of his ship. No doubt entered his mind, he was certain that someone had fired upon his vessel.

* * *

Captain Stephen Garrovick circled the upper deck of his bridge. Though his bridge was not as spacious as a Constitution-Class vessel, it did the job, and the U.S.S. Crockett was his to command. Garrovick’s dark brown hair had grayed some since the time he served under Captain Kirk aboard the Enterprise. He still wore it parted on one side, preserving, according to some of his past female acquaintances, some of his boyish charm.

The class one scout, (retrofitted), patrolled the edge of the Romulan Neutral Zone between the Earth Outposts and Nimbus III. The ship was still several hours away from Outpost Seven when they received the distress call from a Federation registered survey ship. Had Garrovick not known better, he could have sworn it was the Kobayashi Maru scenario again.

“Time to intercept?” Garrovick asked.

“Five minutes at maximum, sir,” the young woman at the helm responded.

“Increase speed,” Garrovick commanded. “Go to red alert.”

* * *

“Federation vessel, prepare to be boarded.” The stern, masculine Romulan voice could be heard over the cabin’s loudspeakers, as Cyrano Jones considered his options. He knew he could either heave to and allow the Romulans to enter his vessel, in which most of his contents would be lost to confiscation, or hope that he had laid the right course, and sweat out the arrival of the cavalry, which, unless they had been delayed, as Federation starships tended to do, should be at any moment now.

Jones’ finger hovered over the comm switch; he debated what he could tell the Romulan commander that could buy him a few more minutes. Just as the trader decided to press on with his story, the unmistakable form of a Federation starship burst in from warped space in a kaleidoscope color just off the bow of the Farside Wanderer, between Cyrano’s comparatively pocket-sized ship and the Romulan vessel. The running lights on the new arrival blinked crimson and brilliant green, and her insignia lights sprayed across her hull, proudly illuminating her name and registry number, U.S.S. Crockett, NCC-600.