S02 E07: Chronicles of T'Avaya: The Pakled Problem

 

S02 E07: Chronicles of T'Avaya: The Pakled Problem

The Leader: T’Avaya

            The recreation center was busy. It was the busy season on the planet Exfaan, and people were looking for something fun to do. The Vulcan sat down at a public computer terminal. The recreation database had a slew of activities and places listed. From sports to musical shows, academic classes, romantic getaways, cooking, fitness, etc. She searched through the locations. There was another slew of listings for parks, arenas, rivers, mountains, etc. T’Avaya pulled up theater locations. Unsurprisingly, there was no longer a listing for the Shanjack Theater. It had been temporarily removed from the public view until an investigation could be completed. She tried to hack into the system so she could do a deeper search. If only the administrators hadn’t balked at the idea of turning the files over to Starfleet Intelligence. (Even though Exfaan was under Starfleet protection, the missing body still fell under local jurisdiction at this time.) She looked for the backup files. She found them hidden away in a separate partition. But she did not see the Shanjack in the backups. She kept searching, looking for any hidden files.

            She found a file called Jackshan. Could that be it? It must be. She tried to open the file. It was encrypted. She started working through several encryption codes that she knew database administrators used. After half an hour, she was able to break the encryption and open the file.

 

The Femme Fatale: Miadere Loris

            It was a quiet night. There were only a few patrons. Miadere wondered if the establishment was ever as raucous as the bars on Ofican III, one of the rowdiest bars she had ever visited. She found an empty table in a corner. She sat at the table, facing the large room. She ordered an Orion brandy. She preferred Aldeberaan whiskey, but with her green skin, she didn’t want the waitress to get suspicious. She kept her eye on the entrance. Her mark would be here any moment. Ah. There he was. The Trill man walked in and sat at a table against the far wall. He was wearing the white gloves that were common for physicians here on Exfaan. Miadere picked up her drink, walked over to his table, and sat down with him. She pulled her long black hair alluringly over her shoulder. So what if it was a wig? The Trill didn’t know that. She preferred her bald pate to the wig, but she was trying to blend in. She was half Orion and half Deltan. Being born with green skin and a bald head gave her a unique look that she couldn’t afford when working undercover.

            The Trill--Doctor Baso Torsi--greeted her politely and then shooed away the waitress trying to take his order. “What’s a pretty girl like you doing in a place like this?” he said to Miadere. “Hey, a girl has to take care of business,” was her reply.

            “We could forget all this; go to my retreat on Casperia Prime.”

            She batted her eyelashes at him. “I’ve heard that before,” she told him. “I wound up alone on Risa with no way home until I gave oomox to a Ferengi and all his business partners.” She hardly needed to use her pheromones on Torsi. She knew he was going to give her what she wanted, and time was of the essence.

            He took her hand in both of his. “I would never leave you alone like that.”

            “I’m sure you wouldn’t. But I have a boss who’s waiting for me.”

            Torsi looked disappointed, but it was about as much as he had expected. They walked outside together. There was a deserted street in front of them. The night sky was lit by a dim street lamp. He reached into his pocket and took out a small box and handed it to her. She gave him a huge kiss, just in case anyone was watching from the shadows. Then she walked away into the night. He watched her hips swaying as she left. If only . . ., he thought.

 

The Amazon: Cassandra Chand

            Cassandra inspected the phaser rifle. “Viridium power source,” she said. “Not many races use that.”

            “It’s a new design. The most advanced in the galaxy,” said the Ferengi, Brot.

            Cassandra was impressed, though she tried not to look it. She powered up the rifle and heard it hum. She put it on the lowest setting. She aimed the rifle at a painting on the far wall. She fired. The painting was hit—to the right of center.

            “It’s off centered,” Cassandra said. She was an expert marksman. It should have hit dead center. Brot showed her the target setting on the rifle. Of course, she knew about it. She wasn’t going to make it easy for him. She aimed and fired at another painting. It still landed to the right of center. Brot did not seem dismayed at all. “Here. Let me recalibrate it,” he said, taking it from her. She watched how he handled the weapon. He opened a panel on its side, pushed a few buttons, and closed it. He gave it to her to fire again. It was still to the right of center.

            “I’ll give you a hundred bars.”

            Brot looked shocked. “A hundred bars of latinum? Not even a Cardassian vole would go that low. A hundred fifty.”

            “One fifteen.”

            “One thirty-five.”

            “One twenty-five. Final offer.”

            “Deal!”

            Cassandra gave him the latinum and left. She wondered if Brot knew there was nothing wrong with the weapon. She was purposely aiming to the right. Or maybe all his buyers did that. Oh well, what did she care?

 

Mission log. Stardate 45132.8. Agent T’Avaya reporting. My current assignment from Starfleet Intelligence is to investigate the disappearance of a Pakled corpse. The Pakled, Tebvedeenr, died of an apparent heart attack while on vacation on the planet Exfaan. Tebvedenr is a known trader and smuggler of illegal weapons. Accompanying me on this mission are Miadere Loris—a Deltan/Orion hybrid intelligence agent for the Interstellar Commerce Protectorate, and Cassandra Chand—a genetically engineered human agent for Section 31. Starfleet Intelligence has put me in charge of the mission. I have worked with the other two agents before and found them to be adequate.

            “This skin sample contains a molecular destabilizing enzyme,” Miadere explained, showing the graphical analysis to T’Avaya and Cassandra. Miadere, a biochemical scientist and intel agent, had never seen this type of enzyme. Doctor Torsi, the Trill doctor who had given her the sample outside a crowded bar, had obtained it by casually swiping it from the floor after the Pakled had died at Shanjack Theater after the body had already been removed by authorities. T’Avaya knew the local police had been careless to leave the sample there. Miadere had obtained the sample from the Trill doctor three hours ago. That was about the same time that the Vulcan, T’Avaya, had hacked into the files of the Pakled’s death at Shanjack Theater, and the same hour that Cassandra Chand, a genetically engineered human, had acquired a phaser rifle from a Ferengi named Brot.

            “What is the source of the enzyme?” the Vulcan, T’Avaya, asked.

            “It had to have been engineered by a geneticist, then implanted. Most likely through a hypospray,” Miadere answered.

            “Then he was murdered. And it was made to look like a heart attack,” Cassandra added.

            Miadere agreed, “Yes.”

            “Any clue as to who took the body?” Cassandra asked. The Pakled had died at a public theater. The police had removed the body and taken it to a local morgue. Preliminary investigations were not able to turn up any family members. Then the body suddenly came up missing. “When I looked at the hidden police file,” T’Avaya said, “it did not provide much new information. The police did not have any leads. The Pakled had traveled alone and no one claimed to have known him. They identified him as Tebvedeenr, a trader who was visiting the planet Exfaan on vacation. He was at the theater to see “Steal and Fight for Love”, a Tellarite play about a pirate who falls in love.”

            Cassandra added, “The phaser rifle I acquired had traces of Tebvedeenr’s DNA. He is probably the one who sold it to the Ferengi named Brot.”

            T’Avaya added that police had found the Pakled’s hotel room. They had found Nausican currency in the room. The police didn’t investigate any further. They wouldn’t cooperate with SI. They said the Pakled died of a heart attack. They knew that Tebvedeenr was a trader, so it would not be unusual for him to have any type of foreign currency.

            Cassandra also mentioned that the phaser rifle she bought from Brot was only one of two that had been manufactured by the Orions. Tebvedeenr had probably sold the other one to a Nausican, explaining the said currency in his possession. Cassandra had checked into Tebvedeenr’s recent travels. He had been to Ferria Prime right before he was murdered. That was a planet that had many settlers from Nausica.

Miadere and T’Avaya were on their way to Ferria Prime now, by way of T’Aaya’s ship, the Shavokh. They needed to retrieve the second rifle and Tebvedeenr’s body, find out who killed him, who stole his body, and why. Cassandra stayed on Exfaan to continue the investigation from there.

 

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            On Ferria Prime, T’Avaya showed her Starfleet Intelligence ID to the docking manager and asked about Tebvedeenr. The docking manager told her only one Pakled ship had arrived in the last few days. He remembered the Pakled asking where to  find a particular female Nausican. He had told the Pakled to try the Vs’eni village because it was mostly populated by female Nausicans.

            T’Avaya followed this lead. In the Vs’eni village, she saw many female Nausicans who seemed to be taking care of their children. They all looked very intent with watching and caring for their children. She couldn’t imagine any of these people wanting to purchase a rifle. She walked up to a female who was pushing a stroller and asked her if she had seen a Pakled. The woman said a Pakled had visited her neighbor, Genzeta. The woman pointed the Vulcan toward her neighbor’s house, which was just down the street.

            The Vulcan went up to Genzeta’s house and knocked on the door. When Genzeta came to the door, she did not look happy to see a Vulcan. T’Avaya said she wanted to ask her about a Pakled named Tebvedeenr. Genzeta said she had never heard of him and slammed the door. The Vulcan SI agent was used to such reactions. Her line of work required her to talk to people who would rather put a Ceti eel in their ear than talk to her. But she had noticed something interesting in Genzeta’s house before she had slammed the door. She had seen a small child sitting at a table and eating. The child had short curly black hair and red skin. The child was clearly not a Nausican. Perhaps it was a Nessarian. The physical characteristics were consistant. But T’Avaya had never heard of a Naussican raising a Nessarian child.

She took out her communicator and asked Miadere to leave the ship and come talk to Genzeta. T’Avaya thought logically a Nausican would be more likely to talk to an Orion, as they were both races that were non-Federation and had dubious reputations. Whereas T’Avaya, a Vulcan, might have seemed threatening to the Nausican. The Vulcan knew it would take about ten minutes for Miadere to arrive on foot (beaming in would have looked too suspicious). She walked back to the path where she had entered the village. She met Miadere and told her where to find Genzeta’s house.

Miadere knocked on Genzeta’s door. When Genzeta answered and saw Miadere, she looked disinterested. The Orion/Deltan (she appeared Orion since she was still wearing her black wig over her bald pate) woman asked if she could come in and speak with her for a moment. The Nausican let her in. Miadere took a casual glance around the inside of the house. It was small and sparsely decorated. She did not see any sign of a phaser rifle, not that she expected it to be out in the open. She also did not see the little child that T’Avaya had spoken of. She did see a few objects on the floor that could have been children’s toys. She asked Genzeta about the objects. “What are these?”

“They are my daughter’s,” Genzeta answered.

“You have a daughter? Where is she? I’d like to meet her.”

“She’s sleeping. She always naps after she eats lunch. Now why are you here?”

Miadere explained that she was investigating the murder of Tebvedeenr. Genzeta admitted to having seen him, but she did not know he had been murdered. She had bought a phaser rifle from him. Miadere was surprised that Genzeta was willing to freely admit the purchase of a weapon. The Nausican said such weapons were legal here as long as they were registered. And she only had it to defend herself and her daughter. The village was raided sometimes. When strangers heard of a village of women and children, they thought it was an easy target. Not everyone knew that Nausican woman were as strong as their male counterparts—and that they were not afraid to use deadly force when necessary.

Miadere asked to see the rifle. Genzeta grabbed it from behind a cabinet that was backed against a wall. The Orion asked if Genzeta knew the rifle was an illegal model. Genzeta claimed not to know that, but she had purchased it legally. The Orion tried to make a deal to trade a legal rifle for her illegal one. Genzeta said she liked the one she had. It had a great long distance range and didn’t take much to charge. Miadere said she had one that was very comparable. She was able to charm Genzeta into trading. They would make the trade as soon as Miadere could get the rifle from where it was stored on the T’Avaya’s ship.

Now if Miadere could only get her to tell her what she knew about the Pakled. She started by asking about her daughter. Genzeta said her daughter was an orphan she rescued from a crashed ship. She had adopted her legally.

 

Meanwhile, Cassandra was still on the planet Exfaan where the Pakled had been murdered. She had been given a temporary ID badge from Starfleet Intelligence while she was working with T’Avaya. She couldn’t identify herself as a Section 31 agent, since it was a secret organization, and most had never heard of it. She went to police headquarters to ask again what they knew about the Pakled body being taken from the morgue. She spoke to the medical examiner in the morgue. He showed her that the room and the cadavers were always kept secure and locked. As she was leaving the headquarters, someone else asked to speak with her. He said it was urgent.

The person pulled her aside and spoke in hushed tones. He told her someone had bribed a police officer to take the body to another location. He had overheard them talking about it. He said they were taking the body to Ferria Prime. Cassandra immediately called T’Avaya and let her know. T’Avaya was currently on Ferria Prime and would look for the body.

Next, Cassandra went to the Shanjack Theater, where Tebvedeenr had had his “heart attack”, to look for any more clues as to who murdered him. The theater was closed. She knew the police had ordered it to be closed. The police had figured out the Pakled was murdered, just as Miadere had figured out, but the police had not made the news public until they could investigate. The whole area had been cleaned now. There were no more DNA samples or anything left.

Cassandra went back to the abandoned warehouse where she had met Brot. She saw that the entrance was locked from the outside. She walked around to the side and peaked into a window. She saw Brot and two other Ferengi. She walked around to the back of the building. She saw an open door. Right outside the door, she saw a discarded hypospray. She remembered that Miadere had said the enzyme that had killed Tebvedeenr had been administered with a hypospray. She picked it up and dropped it in her pocket. Then she stormed inside the building and announced herself. She held up her SI badge and her phaser and told them she was taking them for questioning.

All three of the Ferengi screamed with the high-pitched, girlish screams that Ferengi seem to have. The genetically engineered human easily subdued them, cuffed them, and put them in her ground car. She delivered them to the local police.

Afterwards, the police interrogated Brot, the leader of the three Ferengi, and learned he had killed the Pakled out of revenge. One month ago, Tebvedeenr had promised to sell Brot one hundred exploding mines, which Brot was going to sell to an Arkarian terrorist. Tebvedeenr reneged on Brot when he found a higher bidder for the mines. Upon learning that Brot didn’t have the mines, the Arkarian retaliated and raided Brot’s whole stock of weapons. Brot was angrier than a crooi squirrel that had lost its nuts. He had sought revenge on Tevbedeenr for causing him to lose his precious inventory and his profits. He had met with the Pakled one last time to buy a phaser rifle from him (which hardly sufficed for rebuilding his stock) and injected him with the molecular destabilizing enzyme (which he had paid a Cardassian scientist to engineer) that would kill him a few hours later and make it look like a heart attack. It wasn’t hard to inject a dumb Pakled without him knowing it, Brot had told the police.

 

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Miadere left Genzeta’s home. The Nausican woman had seemed friendly enough. Miadere had sensed that she was probably hiding something. But a mother protecting her child could have many fears on her mind. Her communicator beeped. She pulled it out to receive a message from T’Avaya. The message said the Pakled’s body had been brought here to Ferria Prime. So it was brought back to his last location before his vacation on Exfaan where he was murdered. Interesting.

Miadere checked her surroundings again. She was in an open area with many Nausican women playing with and caring for their children. She walked around Genzeta’s house. She saw a storage shed a few feet away. She walked up to it and found it locked. It had a metal lock that could have been broken with a phaser. The shed was probably Genzeta’s. She didn’t want to invade the woman’s privacy.

Just then, someone yelled at her, “What are you doing?!”

Miadere turned around and saw Genzeta looking at her, holding a little red-skinned girl.

“I’m sorry. I was just looking,” the Orion said.

“Please leave.”

“I will. But can you tell me what is in this shed?”

“It’s just my belongings. That’s all,” Genzeta said as her daughter buried her head in her mother’s bussom.

Then there was another voice from behind Genzeta. “It has more than your belongings.”

Genzeta saw that it was the Vulcan woman from earlier that day. She looked from T’Avaya to Miadere. “What do the two of you want? I have nothing of value. Please leave me be!”

T’Avaya said, “I ran a scan from my ship. Inside that shed are decomposing biological materials. It is the Pakled’s body.”

“No! It’s not. Go away!” Genzeta started yelling. They were starting to attract attention from other people. The other women starting bringing their children closer. This was a community where everyone looked out for each other. Genzeta started asking the other Nausican women to leave, telling them she could handle this herself.

Miadere said gently, “Genzeta, we know you didn’t kill the Pakled. Were you friends with him?”

Genzeta put her hand on her daughter’s head and caressed it. “When Tebvedeenr was here to sell me the rifle, he hadn’t brought it with him yet.” she explained. “And someone else walked in on us. It was my ex-husband, Prolor. He said he was coming to take me back with him. Tebvedeenr protected me. He told Prolor if he didn’t leave he would send an Orion thug after him. Teb showed him a fake Orion Syndicate card. Prolor got scared and left. When I thanked Teb, he said he understood. He knew I was trying to protect my daughter. He had lost his daughter in a Tellarite raid.”

Miadere patted Genzeta on the shoulder. T’Avaya thought Tebvedeenr was most clever for a Pakled. She said, “Tebvedeenr seemed most compassionate. Why did you have his corpse brought here?”

Genzeta said softly, “I knew he had no family after his daughter died. When I heard he had died, I wanted to give him a proper Nausican funeral. It was the least I could do for him. I sent money to a friend on Exfaan to bribe a police officer.”

Miadere was curious, “What is a proper Nausican funeral?” Genzeta explained that the body would be covered with scharra plants and then cremated. And the ashes would be taken to a mountaintop and laid there to rest.

T'Avaya told Genzeta they would leave the body here with her. The police still needed the body to complete their investigation, but she would tell them they had not been able to find it. Genzeta told them how grateful she was. T’Avaya and Miadere both knew it was important to take care of friends, as Genzeta was doing for Tebvedeenr. Even though the Pakled had had dubious business dealings, he must have had a good heart.

 

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            They heard a beep. A transmission was coming through. T’Avaya put it on audio so they all could hear it.

            “This is Lt. Gemma Albrecht to the Shavokh.”

            T’Avaya said, “Shavokh here. Greetings, lieutenant.” Albrecht was T’Avaya’s handler with Starfleet Intelligence. She was also the SI contact for Miadere and Cassandra (at least for the duration of this mission.)

            “How was your mission?”

            The Vulcan answered, “We discovered the Pakled’s murderer. He was arrested and will stand trial. However, we were not able to recover Tebvedeenr’s body. I will transmit my official report to you tonight.”

            “You did go to Ferria Prime and look for the body?”

            Miadere answered, “Yes. We found nothing there. And no other leads.”

            “I see,” said Albrecht. “Good job anyway.”

            “Aren’t you on vacation?” T’Avaya asked. Albrecht’s posting was on Station Tyrellia, where T’Avaya used to be the chief engineer. But T’Avaya knew Albrecht was vacationing on Arkaria, and had taken time out to check on the three of them and their mission.

            “Yes,” said Albrecht. “I’m going to see the Arkarian horn fowl’s nesting grounds this afternoon. I heard it’s exquisite.”

            “The grounds must be huge,” Cassandra said. “The Arkarian horn fowl flocks have been known to be in the thousands.” Cassandra had become a trivia buff in the last few years.

“Have fun,” said Miadere.

“I will. Signing off now. Albrecht out.”

T’Avaya mentioned the strange coincidence that their SI contact, Albrecht, was on Arkaria while their mission had just uncovered a story about Arkarian terrorists stealing weapons from a Ferengi. Well, Lt. Albrecht could be on her own mission. It was not part of THEIR mission.

The three intel agents sat on the floor around a flux heat streamer, a device that sat one foot high and gave off a soft blue glow. T’Avaya held up her saland at the end of a metal stick. She held the saland two centimeters above the heat streamer. Cassandra and Miadere also held their salands over the streamer. The Vulcan watched intently as all the soft white salands slowly turned brown from the heat. “So this morsel of food is common on your world?” she asked Miadere.

            “Mostly in the upper class,” Miadere answered. “They are used in some bonding rituals on Orion. Families that had been enemies come together to roast salands in a gesture of friendship.” Of the three people present, Cassandra was the most fascinated. She had lived a sheltered life, and had not experienced many cultural rituals. “Does it work?” she said. “I mean, in helping people bond.”

            Miadere looked thoughtful. “The point is that it creates a shared experience. And a chance to talk over nonvolatile issues and find common ground. The ritual doesn’t create peace in itself, but it creates a beginning.”

            Cassandra related a fact she knew. “The tuskan chrabu mammals of Ka Catin III often hunt with different tribes. They consider the cooperative effort a means of building friendship and allies.” Cassandra had studied a lot of facts over the years. She didn’t always understand the meaning behind them, but she loved studying trivial facts. “Is that a similar thing?”

            “It is,” Miadere told her. “Different cultures doing things together helps build friendly relations.”

            T’Avaya also agreed. “Historians have said that these types of rituals between cultures have probably prevented countless wars in the long run.” Then she thought of her own people, the Vulcans. They usually sought to build political ties with other cultures, but not as much on a personal or social level. That was the Vulcan way. Over the last two centuries, they had formed a tight relationship with the humans of earth. On both sides, there had been supporters of allyship, but it had taken many years to overcome their innate differences. She thought of the recent mutual cooperation between people of different backgrounds that she had just observed—herself, Miadere, and Cassandra; the Nausican woman and the Pakled.

            She tasted her roasted saland. It was sweet. The flavor was almost like plan’pl, a Vulcan fruit. It was pleasing to the tongue. She reached for another saland from the bag beside her and inserted it on her metal roasting stick. Miadere and Cassandra held their sticks over the same streamer. This was a worthwhile ritual indeed.

           

 

-by the Honorable Kavura

Thank you for reading my Star Trek Adventures: Captain’s Log mission report. Captain’s Log is a solo role-playing game by Modiphius Entertainment.