Star Trek Hunter
Episode 17:
Terms of Surrender
Scene 6:
Prodigal Sum
The space around the A Boo star system was crowded with Star Fleet vessels in addition to the immense number of freighters and smaller commercial shipping. Then there were the swarms of Trantor Police Monitors – the city had nearly doubled its fleet over the past year and had invested in larger, heavily armed, escorts and cruisers. Two new star bases were under construction and a vast network for shipbuilding had sprung up in near solar orbit. Eleven of Star Fleet’s new Prowler class ships were using the A Boo system as a base for their patrols. Because of the system’s strategic location, Cun Ling had instantly become a critical staging platform for defense of both Earth and the Andorian Empire from further romulan aggression and for monitoring the ongoing assimilation of Vulcan by the Romulan Senate.
Because of the renewed hostilities between the federation and the Romulan Star Empire, the R.R.C. Prodigal Sum had all kinds of difficulties entering the A Boo star system… officially… But the Prodigal Sum had one distinct advantage. It was a scavenged romulan craft with a still active romulan registry number and had, among other things, a fully functional cloaking device.
Instead of docking with the U.S.S. Hunter, both the Prodigal Sum (still cloaked) and the Hunter landed on a large, mined-out asteroid, which there was no shortage of in the A Boo system. Pomm Irons, a massively obese, bearded bajoran, clad in a EVA suit, opened the port hatch of the Prodigal Sum, creating the odd effect of a doorway into a lighted interior of a ship in the middle of empty space about four meters above the surface of the asteroid. Since the asteroid had very little gravity, both ships were clamped to the surface using their landing gear.
Hunter opened the starboard hatch and waited. Although he was exposed to the vacuum of space, since he was a holographic projection, he did not require an EVA suit.
Pomm activated a control on the left arm of his EVA suit and a gun of sorts lowered from just inside the hatch he had just opened. Pomm touched another control and the gun fired a low velocity missile directly into the Hunter’s open hatch. A cable was attached to the missile at one end and the top of the Prodigal Sum’s door frame on the other.
Hunter caught the missile and unfolded it. It was a grapple. He attached it firmly to the top of the ship’s starboard hatch.
First Justice Minerva Irons, then Pivin, then Dr. Tali Shae, each clad in full EVA suits with harnesses that clipped to the cable using “O” rings, stepped out of the U.S.S. Hunter, pushed very gently against the Hunter’s hull and zip-lined down into the open hatch of the R.R.C. Prodigal Sum.
The inner doors for the airlocks on both ships closed and both ships went dark, leaving the U.S.S. Hunter nearly invisible due to its native camouflage and the R.R.C. Prodigal Sum completely invisible thanks to its cloaking device. The cable between them, too small to register on any but the most detailed scan, seemed to be suspended by nothing at either end.
“Much, much larger than the Prophet Motive,” Justice Irons observed, appreciatively, looking around at the interior of the Prodigal Sum. Pomm had completely redesigned the interior.
“Two great rooms, ten staterooms and a separate kitchen. And of course bridge and engineering,” said Pomm. “In all, it’s almost half the size of the Hunter.”
“I take it you cannot run this ship by yourself – even the two of you,” Irons remarked.
“We have taken on a couple of engineers for room, board and a share of any profits,” Oarama Irons replied.
“My talented but impecunious brother and his far more talented wife,” Pomm added.
“Are they ready for the dangers of your chosen life?” asked Tali Shae.
“We all grew up in the bajoran resistance,” said Pomm. “They’re both well experienced with living on the edge. But at least if we go down in this yacht, we will go down in the lap of luxury. It belonged once to a romulan general. Or so I was told when I sunk nearly all of my savings into it. It took weeks to renovate it to this condition.”
“I never thought I would set foot on one of these,” Pivin said. “I don’t think there were more than a dozen or so ever made.”
At that point a bajoran couple entered from the back of the great sitting room.
“Justice Irons, Dr. Shae, allow me to introduce my brother, Brema Garro and his wife Ameye,” said Pomm. “Garro, Ameye, Justice Minerva Irons, Dr. Tali Shae and our primary charge, Pivin the Betrayer.”
Brema Garro looked like a younger and much slimmer version of Pomm Irons.
“We have fresh springwine and I’m afraid not much else to offer at the moment,” said Ameye.
“That would be refreshing,” Irons said. “I haven’t had springwine in quite some time. It doesn’t keep well and we’ve not been near Bajor recently.”
“I fear I must spoil everyone’s fun,” said Pivin. “I would love to live aboard this fine yacht for the remainder of my days, but I must go to Vulcan. We need to know far too many things. The status of Saketh and Gamorlan, what this invasion has done to the relationship between the Praetorian Guard and the Romulan Star Navy. We have to know who the players are and if there are any that can be turned.”
“That is incredibly dangerous work,” said Tali.
“That has been my life’s work for nearly 20 years now,” Pivin replied.
“How are you going to get… oh, thank you Ameye,” Tali said as Pomm’s sister-in-law handed her a glass of springwine. For a moment silence settled in the sitting room as its occupants enjoyed the light, sweet flavor of the alcoholic bajoran beverage.
After a second glass, Tali started again. “How are you going to get onto Vulcan? You would be captured the moment you beamed in. They would just redirect the transporter beam.”
“I’ve been running Pivin for almost a decade now,” Pomm interjected. “With your help, we should be able to get her onto Vulcan the same way she got onto Vengeons-Roux.”
“That is far too risky,” Justice Irons objected. “Those suits have a 50% failure rate.”
“You don’t think I’d let my wife or Pivin jump in a suit I haven’t checked out and modified?” asked Pomm. “I’ve manufactured new suits that are a dramatic improvement on those old Maquis artifacts. Those things had a 50% failure rate.”
“You said you will need our help to insert Pivin onto Vulcan,” Irons said. “I am still quite dubious about this plan. It occurs to me that on a planet with two or three billion people, someone might spot a flying romulan.”
Pivin spoke up: “There is an identity in the records of an Imperial Intelligence Control operative named Pinith. I chose the name because it is close to Pivin. With the central records repository destroyed, that identity may still be valid. I accomplished quite a few misdeeds under that name.”
“You know there is no talking Pivin out of this mission - if you know her at all,” said Oarama.
Irons sighed. “I know. And she is right, we must have that information. But oddly, I have grown rather fond of Pivin and I have lost a number of people I am fond of recently. What do you need us to do?”
Pomm smiled. “You aren’t the only one who will be nervous about this. It is easily the most dangerous mission we will ever have run with her. The cloaking device on this ship is old. If we warp into Vulcan space - or anywhere near, they will see the energy signature and find us in seconds. But if we warp in on the Hunter’s bow, and drop out of warp simultaneously, it will just be a small part of the energy signature of a new ship type they have little experience with. Once we’re moving at sublight speeds, the cloak should be completely effective. So we need you to get us into vulcan space and for someone else to get us out after we retrieve Pivin. Um.. Pinith, that is…"
As easily as Irons and Tali had zip-lined down from the Hunter into the Prodigal Sum, because there was almost no discernible gravity on this asteroid, it was just as easy for them to zip-line back up into the Hunter after kicking off gently from the hull of the Prodigal Sum - in fact it gave them the illusion that they were traveling down, as if the Prodigal Sum had been parked on higher ground. Another crewmember, also clad in an EVA suit, assisted Irons and Tali into the hatch, then detached the grapple, folded it and with extreme precision, dived out of the Hunter’s hatch, making a straight line to the open hatch of the Prodigal Sum, carrying the grapple, cable in tow.
Pomm Irons, again in his EVA suit, was braced to catch this living missile from the Hunter. He retrieved the grapple, carefully recoiled the cable and reinserted the grapple into the grapple gun, setting it back up above the hatch before sealing the hatch. Once the outer airlock door was closed, the Prodigal Sum was, once again, entirely invisible.
