Personal log, stardate 85450.
Following the end of the war, we returned to Starbase One, docked, and I waited for a mission like before. Because of how instrumental my crew was in ending the war, Starfleet Command assigned our vessel on a sort of victory tour, having us fly from system to system and make brief appearances on each.
Our first stop was Andor. Let me tell you something: it is really, really cold there. Twenty-fifth-century technology makes a parka suitable for the surface of Andor little thicker than a jersey, but I have to wear it even indoors, which is stupid. The Andorians, who evolved in this extreme cold, prefer it in their underground habitats, even in areas where other sentient species might congregate, despite being perfectly able to operate at such temperatures.
When I beamed into their transporter room, it was right outside a large cavern that I suppose is a street. I was on the third level. Right in front of me was a large statue of an Andorian. A local functionary came to greet me at this point, and I asked him who the statue was of. He gave me a short speech.
This was a memorial to the last Aenar. The Aenar were a subspecies of Andorians that were blind but possessed great telepathic power. Over the past hundred years, the Aenar were dying of an incurable genetic disease caused by inbreeding. For most of the Andorians' history, the Aenar were outcasts; their society did not reintegrate until the last few centuries. Captain Archer began the process during an incident involving the Romulans three hundred years ago. There was nothing anyone could do to stop the extinction of the Aenar as a species; the last one received a state burial in 2388. Her grave (elsewhere on the planet) is the center of a large park now.
Fascinating. I did not know this. The story involving Captain Archer is certainly interesting; I will have to look it up later.
I dined with Arthas, the governor of this underground colony. (Because the harsh conditions impede communication, every city-colony has its own independent parliament and governor.) He told me that the Andorians were ignored by the Federation during the war. I apologized for this, but he then told me how that was actually a good thing. Andorians were once a very imperialistic, expansionist species. However, this tendency almost sparked war back in 2154, and the Andorian body politic was ashamed for decades afterward. On Andor you fight the environment — never another Andorian. Other species should be no different. I fully understood.
This was actually my first dinner with a local politician. Arthas was great company. Over dinner he told me about everything about everything that was happening here politically. My diplomatic training says do not interrupt a politician while he is praising his people, but that didn't matter, as I didn't want to. I learned a lot.
Our next stop was Balosnee VI. When I beamed down to Balosnee, the first thing I learned was that the transporter I beamed down to operated commercially. I knew this because there was a poster on the wall listing prices. All of the prices were quoted in latinum. There was no way I would ever spend a minute studying Ferengi economics. It is too predatory for me to stomach. But I knew enough about latinum to know he was charging a substantial amount of money for what is a public service on any other planet.
Even though the poster said that Starfleet always beams free, I asked the transporter operator about this. He said that this planet is a big tourist destination for Ferengi. He decided to build a privately owned transporter; his was the only transporter in the city. This meant that he could then charge whatever he wanted to Ferengi who come here, and the Ferengi would be willing to pay. He was actually a very wealthy man, the kind of person who was once called a "millionaire," but he said that he doesn't do it for the money; he does it because it lets him use his knowledge of transporter physics. He once studied at Starfleet Academy. I asked him why he resigned his commission, but he said he never had one. Not everyone who studies at Starfleet Academy intends to become an officer full-time; plenty of people every year sit in on courses simply for the education. He was one of them. I never paid much attention to these people, to be quite honest.
Wishing the man all the best, I exited the transporter room. Oddly, there were no Ferengi on the streets. Seeing that no one was there to greet me, I went off looking for the offices of the city's administration. I followed signs that led me to the beach; there I saw countless Ferengi sprawled out on the sand, clearly drugged out of their minds. I became even more confused. I asked the first person I saw on the street for directions to the administrative office.
The building was unmarked. I entered and walked up to the receptionist. When I asked her why the building was so hidden, she looked at me as if I was asking something obvious, but then she saw my Starfleet uniform and concluded I was from off-world. Ferengi are very rude, she said. Were the administrative offices easily found, they would be overrun with angry Ferengi with a bone to pick. Just about everyone has some complaint, and all of them demand that they speak to the colony administrator personally. Keeping the location of the city administration offices a secret from off-worlders is what keeps him and his employees sane.
The secretary then asked if I would like to speak with him, because I was Starfleet. My mission was to make an appearance with the leaders and public of this planet, so I said yes. I was then ushered into his office.
He asked me why I came today. Rather blunt, but I would expect one would be when dealing with Ferengi every day. I said I wanted to make a public appearance, fly the flag, so to speak. He said that I was welcome to do it, but no one would listen. The Ferengi don't care, and the people who live here full-time are basically just the staff needed to keep the planet running and no one else. The workers would never have any time.
The thing was, Balosnee was a beautiful planet, with large untapped mineral deposits in the mountains. By rights, there should be a much larger colony here.
The administrator, whose name was Brian, said that for some reason that no one can understand, the sound of the waves on the shores of Balosnee causes sexually explicit hallucinations in Ferengi. No one can say why this happens; he has contacted the best scientific minds in the Federation and even they couldn't figure it out.
But Ferengi come here in very great numbers for the purpose of having those hallucinations. Ferengi are the meanest and least caring species Brian had ever met. He hates them with a fervor. But they come, and he had the bad fortune of being born on Balosnee, so he is required by law to stay. He says this is the most frustrating and least enjoyable job in the entire Federation.
Brian checked the chronometer. It was getting time for the next rousing. Ferengi under the influence of Balosnee's waves will not leave of their own accord. In order to clear the beaches, the inhabitants of Balosnee have to place soundproof earmuffs on each and every person there and wait for them to come to their senses. And the Ferengi with bookings for the next hour keep breathing down his neck waiting for the process to finish. He said he had to go. I asked if there was anywhere else on the planet that I might be more appreciated. Families, maybe. Brian said that the whole planet is like this. There are thousands of other people just like him managing the rest of the settlements on the planet, which follow the shoreline, and many of them are probably just as frustrated as he is.
With that, I beamed back to the ship. Balosnee was listed in the Federation database as being a popular Ferengi tourist destination, but I never knew there would be anything like this. I looked Brian up. He has to stay there for the rest of his life because he is the only native-born Balosnee in existence, and without him the Federation would have no claim to the planet. Poor guy.
As we left orbit I contacted someone I knew on Trill, a "have tech will travel" engineer. I explained the situation to him and asked if he could come and build a holodeck for Brian to use. He agreed immediately. McPherson was the family engineer during my childhood on Trill. He was the best at his work and he never balked at taking an off-planet job. I knew he would do right by Brian.
Before we could start out to another planet, I received new orders from Starfleet. A sensitive diplomatic matter had arisen, and Starfleet Command thinks that a captain publicly hailed as a hero would have the best chance of smoothing this over. Our destination: Nimbus III.
I have never known a more sorry place than Nimbus. Originally colonized as the "Planet of Galactic Peace" by a joint Federation–Klingon–Romulan populace, the plan fell apart when the Romulan government changed its mind and backed out. The Klingons quickly followed. While the Federation intended to support the colonists, that year was an election year, and the new president decided that Nimbus was not an area of priority. Furthermore, while Nimbus was originally a beautiful planet, the colonization efforts caused climate change that turned the planet from a savannah into a desert within weeks of the governments pulling out. The Federation should be ashamed of how it abandoned these people.
The empty cities on the planet have long since been taken over by smugglers, terrorists, and other people who want a planet with no government. The descendants of the original colonists who still live there are disenfranchised and homeless. Nimbus III has come up a few times in the Federation Council's records. Starfleet once sent a detachment to the planet to search for Federation citizens who wanted to leave, but they were not welcome and could not make it two steps into the city. A few years later, Starfleet sent an undercover expedition, but they found that the homeless of Nimbus III fled and hid from the Federation agents. (Given how they've been treated their entire life, I don't blame them for not trusting people claiming to be from Starfleet.) Nimbus III was basically forgotten after that.
The Romulan embassy has shared with Federation officials their knowledge that a large number of thalaron triggers (everything you need to build a thalaron bomb except the thalaron) were found on Nimbus III. Furthermore, the triggers were known to be in possession of the Orion Syndicate. Thalaron is a weapon of mass destruction even by twenty-fifth-century standards. And who knows what the Orions have planned for it. They were either conveying them to a buyer or planning to build a bomb themselves. It was my job to stop them.
To make things even worse, there was evidence of Tal Shiar involvement on the planet. The Tal Shiar are notorious for performing missions not disclosed to the Romulan government beforehand, and after the destruction of Romulus, they threw their lot in with Romulan Empress Sela Yar. If they didn't already know of the triggers, there is no doubt that they would try to seize it for their own use.
I was to contact Starfleet's undercover operative on Nimbus, a man named Horace Jones. He would explain the rest. I was also authorized to evacuate any Federation citizens we might meet who desire it.
When we arrived at Nimbus, I instructed the ShiNarva to hide as best it could while staying within communicator range. I have no idea what kind of sensors we could be dealing with down there, and I didn't want to alarm anyone.
I led the mission myself, of course. Elise came with me. Her tactical-officer training included extensive unarmed-combat techniques, which would be useful if we couldn't get to our phasers. I pulled Security Officers McMerritt and Truman as backup. I programmed our communicators to send a ping to the ship with location data every eight hours. (I didn't want to do it any more frequently because anyone monitoring communications down there would easily detect it.)
McMerritt and Truman both wanted to bring phaser rifles, but I had to tell them no. We don't want to announce that we are Starfleet to anyone who walks by (who doesn't think the guns were simply stolen). Instead I had the computer replicate a Cardassian disruptor and a Klingon disruptor. Just as dangerous as a phaser, and more plausibly carried by someone active on this planet. McMerritt balked at the lack of firepower, while Truman said he never studied ranged combat with any weapons other than Federation equipment. I told them both to suck it (to get into the correct attitude of someone operating down there). We replicated civilian clothing, changed out of our uniforms, and down we went.
We arrived on Nimbus standing in front of the main gate of Paradise City, the traditional beam-down point for anyone arriving in town. The huge arch over the entrance carried graffiti that put the word "Lost" after the name of the city. I understand that graffiti dates back to the very first days after the Federation abandoned this colony.
Passing under the arch, we found ourselves standing at the junction of some very narrow roads. As we continued forward I discovered that this city, carefully planned when first built, was expanded haphazardly by third parties as time went on, and it now it was a maze of roads and alleys, all paved in sand.
We soon arrived in a small open area. I looked around, trying to decide which direction to take. But before I could choose, a man walked up to me. "You're Starfleet, right?" were the words right out of his mouth. How did this person know? I told him yes, and then he introduced himself as Horace Browne. He had been informed that we would be coming, and wanted to meet us so we didn't get lost. We retired to his shelter.
To be continued…