Duty Log - Civ Pilot - Fabla - "The Piper's Calling You To Join Him"

Posted on 241409.07 @ 12:58am by Civilian Fabla

Before disappearing for something on the Enterprise, Tierney had mentioned to Fabla that it might be a good idea to find some fruit to harvest. The green woman had simply nodded, and later when the rest of the crew had found things to do, she found herself pouring over the star charts, trade routes, and shipping line information Tierney had acquired before the Enterprise and the Figaro had left the Bimi station. She was quite pleased with the results of handing Nadik some broken holo-emitters, and letting him have his way with the neglected tactical table that had been sitting in the nose of the Figaro in front of the control center of the bridge.

Fable stood with a hand on her hip, considering the twinkling explosion of dots that represented star systems that floated above the table — ribbons of many colors weaved between the dots, looking not unlike confetti and streamers frozen mid-explosion from a party popper. Then the petite Orion reached for a mug on the table, her other hand flicking at the frozen image, setting it to spin. There was one ribbon in particular in a bold blue that pulsed slightly. It represented the course that Enterprise was currently on, the one that the Figaro was programmed to follow like a duckling behind its mother. As she brought the mug to her lips, she reached out again, this time to grasp the caricatures of both ships where they sat along the pulsing blue ribbon. The holographic map stopped spinning.

She set the mug down again, reaching into the projection with her now empty hand and spreading her two hands apart. The image zoomed in focusing on the ships, and the nearby systems expanded to show the planets. The trade routes and supply lines nearby exploded with names as they came into focus. She touched one name with her finger, and the display in the table top exploded with information. There were pictures of the crew, lists of items they're known to carry, tech specs and layouts for the ship — The Ziggy Stardust — and its known affiliations.

"Are we shopping?" Fabla looked up at the voice, recognizing Nadik's grunt. The tellarite stalked forward, coming up behind her to consider the projection floating above the table.

"Looking for someone who can sell us a better table than this piece of junk," Fabla returned, knowing the insult would get him riled up, and she could use the distraction. She collected her mug to hide her smile behind.

"Well, if you'd given me better parts, I might have been able to do better," he returned with a growl. Fabla could see the proud puff of his chest as he stood taller. He could see right through her. "It's amazing that it works at all, given the systems in this ship. If I wasn't so good, they wouldn't work at all."

"You mean, if we had a different engineer, this ship would work better," she insisted, leaning forward to tap on the list of items the ship was known to carry. It expanded into a projected manifest, color coded based upon probability of the ship having it in a given supply run, and with options to sort by monetary value to different groups — such as the Ferengi, Orions, the Bimi trading post; by utility for their ship, by ease of transport, or even legality. It amused her that even though this ship was Federation, it still skirted the rules and was known to regularly carry a few things that were outright illegal. Given a couple other things on the manifest, she could only guess that they got a long leash because of some of the other things they carried. Which means they may be better watched that some. She dismissed their manifest.

"They looked like they carry some good stuff," Nadik protested as Fabla ran her hand sideways across the table, clearing the display of the ship's information.

"Too dangerous, we should start smaller for our first attempt," she dismissed with a head shake. She waved her finger across the other shipping routes that snaked near the Enterprise's projected course, and finally settled on one named Cassowary. The information spread across the table, and both she and Nadik moved closer to look it over.

"I liked the other one better," the man grumbled, flicking up and down the projected manifest. Fabla chewed her lip, eyes drifting over the contents of the list as Nadik scrolled through it. She noted a lack of illegal items, and nothing to indicate it was particularly prized by the Federation. A simply supply vessel. A good starting point.

"We shall flag the other one for later consideration. This one is a good start though," she insisted, pulling up the ship specs. "You can easily give Tygelgor the information on where to shoot in order to safely disable this ship, yes?"

"They carry nothing worth taking," Nadik protested, turning his back to the table. Fabla sighed.

"They carry fleet technology, which we can turn a profit on when Nug sell, since it is mostly unfinished. And they have raw materials that get turned into the sorts of things that power ships like the Enterprise," she explained with an annoyed sigh. "I know you want the Romulan Ale, but we can just request part of our payment from Nug in it when he shares profits with Tierney."

Nadik sighed, and stalked off, muttering something about lodging a complaint with Tierney, and the crazy green witch. Fabla gathered the information about both ships onto her PADD, then shut down the table.

=/\= END LOG =/\=

Fabla
Civilian Pilot
The Freighter Figaro

Nadik
Civilian Engineer
The Freighter Figaro