Personal log, stardate 85450, continued recording.

So the Crash 'n' Burn has a new owner. I have yet to meet them. Unfortunately, what happened to Two of Eight kinda blew our cover. Everyone in that bar knows us now, so our asking people for information would immediately be suspicious.

We wandered around town some until I could think of another plan. We passed a sex club called "Shangdu." I will never go down there. Not only would it be improper for a captain to be seen in such places, the sight of the performances would probably make me lose my lunch. Disgusting.

Eventually we settled on trawling the other starships that have landed here on Nimbus and see if we can find anything incriminating. We went past five ships before we found anything interesting.

But very interesting it was: this ship was in the process of being robbed. Apparently its master was not around, and as such a group of local criminals thought it would be a good idea to board the ship and take anything they could pick up. I could not stand for this. I was about to order a full-scale frontal attack on the robbers, until Horace stopped me.

I was expecting him to tell me that we should never do that. In reality, he had no objections to my plan; in fact, on a planet as lawless as this, building up a reputation would be a good thing, and this is a good place to start. So in we went.

There were four robbers. One human, one Ferengi, and two Vardashai (a reptilian species from Theta Proxima 6). The human was clearly the boss, the Ferengi was appraising goods as they went along, and the Vardashai were doing the heavy lifting. They initially did not spot me, so I decided on a more sneaky approach. I set my weapon to stun and bulls-eyed the Ferengi across the room. I then ducked out of there and went back down the way I came.

As I ran back out to hide under the landing ramp, I started to laugh. They could search that ship for a million years and never find me, because I'm not there!

The room the robbers were in was too far away from the landing ramp for me to be able to hear anything. Now I would have no idea what was going on in there — or would I? I have a tricorder! I quickly set it to scan for audio wavelengths and pointed it at the ship. Seconds later, we started to hear what was going on.

The goons were searching the ship. Five minutes later they told their boss that there was no one there. He then ordered the ship searched again, more thoroughly this time. They still came back empty-handed. The boss ordered the ship searched again; the two goons balked. He refused to let the matter drop; the shot that killed that Ferengi had to come from somewhere. (Apparently they are too thick to realize he was only unconscious.)

One of the goons said, "Well, what about Tereg?" This was clearly the name of the Ferengi I'd shot. The boss ordered them find the nearest waste receptacle and deposit his body there.

I checked the time. The light stun setting I used should wear off in about five minutes. A large crate with lid was right nearby, so they dropped his body in it and walked back towards the ship. The boss then said that they were running out of time, and that they need to get back to looting if they wanted to carry off the ship's entire load.

Sure enough, I soon heard shouting from inside the crate. The next time the goons came out with loot, they heard the shouting too. One of them, curious, walked over to the crate and pushed open the lid; the next moment a fist shot out and beaned the goon in the cheek. The Ferengi jumped out and started shouting.

"I knew that slimy no-good Wentwenson would betray me! I knew it! He promised me fifteen percent of our haul, but then he stuns me and leaves me to rot in this garbage container!"

The Ferengi then pulled a disruptor and shot the Vardashai with it. The other goon came running and was shot as well. He left the bodies on the ground and continued up toward the ramp.

This Wentwenson soon came out of the ship, wondering why his goons didn't come back. He walked down the ramp and found his nose on the barrel of a disruptor held by a very irate Ferengi. Wentwenson was shocked.

"Wentweson, you just earned yourself a trip to the Vaults. You left me to die in that garbage container."

"What are you talking about, left you to die?"

"I was stunned, then when I came to I was inside the crate. Clearly you wanted to abandon me here."

"What are you talking about? You're supposed to be dead!"

"What?"

"We were working on emptying the ship when a disruptor blast came from across the room and hit you in the side. I spent the last half-hour looking for the asshole who fired the shot."

"A worthy story. I know how quiet Skik'var can be when he wants to. He was not in my line of sight, so you clearly ordered him to go to the other side of the room and shoot me so you would have plausible deniability."

"No, that's not true!"

"You think I'm lying? See if I'm lying!" — and with that he shot Wentwenson in the nose with a disruptor set to kill. His nose was destroyed and along with it most of his face. The body fell on the boarding ramp, and Tereg started to walk away.

At this point, I decided to come out of hiding and approach Tereg. A Ferengi with his knowledge with nothing to lose could be an incredible useful asset. He put his weapon back in its holster and approached us, hand raised in greeting.

"You must have saw the entire thing!" he said.

"I suppose you could say that."

Tereg's eyes narrowed.

"You're a good-for-nothing robber who shot me just to start up a fight!"

Before he could say anything, there was a shout from behind him. The ship's master, a female Romulan, had returned. She approached Tereg, and he started to babble.

"Well, sir — yes, yes sir — well, we —"

"We what? You were clearly robbing my ship."

Tereg looked her in the eye. "My old boss was robbing your ship." He gestured to where Wentwenson was laying on the ground. "I had nothing to do with it."

"As if I'll believe you. What happened?"

"Well, the boss stunned me and left me in that garbage crate over there. He clearly didn't want me taking twenty percent of his haul any more."

"Twenty percent?" She was very skeptical.

"Well, I was only supposed to have fifteen…" he mumbled.

"That's Ferengi for you." The Romulan sized him up and down, then holstered her disruptor. "If you get all this stuff back aboard my ship, I will let you go."

"Really?"

"Really. Now get to work."

The Romulan then walked over to us.

"And what are you doing here?'

I stepped out from under the ramp and motioned for the rest of my team to do the same. To me this captain is not the type that would hang around Nimbus III unless she had to. I decided to tell her the truth.

"We're monitoring the starship yards here. We were passing by this ship when I learned that it was being robbed. I never liked robbers. I shot Tereg here with a stun blast, and then everything got out of control."

"You were probably more interested in the ship itself than its furnishings."

"In a sense, yes."

"What would you like to know?"

"We're looking for signs of Orion activity."

"Competitors, eh? Always liked that. Go on."

"An Orion ship took a large amount of thalaron triggers through this port. I want to know which ship was involved."

"And why would you want to stockpile thalaron triggers if you're not going to make a bomb?" It was not a question.

"My logic exactly. I have certain… interests… here that I do not want to risk having destroyed."

This Romulan was a good judge of character as well. She scrutinized me well.

"You're Starfleet, aren't you?"

"How could you tell?"

"It's obvious. You want to preserve the settlement here but don't have a reason. You look like the kind of person Starfleet would want. And your clothes are fresh-out-of-the-replicator new."

Oh. I hadn't realized that.

"Nevertheless, greetings! I've carried cargo up and down this sector for years. Seen my lot of Starfleet ships. I radioed one for assistance some time ago, but didn't get a reply. They said they were too busy."

No, they refused to help her because the Starfleet captain thought he was walking into a trap.

"But they've fought pirates away from my vessel on several occasions I always wanted to at least say thank-you to them, but they never allow me to beam onboard."

And the Starfleet captain didn't fall for that ruse, either.

"If you don't mind me asking, which ship was that? Do you remember the NCC number?"

"I sure do. 37409."

I searched my memory of the sector overview I read on the ShiNarva before we beamed down.

"That's the USS Galilee. Captain Marco Poñerez in command. Assigned to patrol these parts."

I met Captain Poñerez before. A sack of wet mice would be sharper.

"I know the commander of that ship. Let me tell you this: he should have helped you when you radioed him, and allowed you to beam on board to say thank-you when you requested it as well."

"He did?"

"Unfortunately, he is dumber than a box of rocks. He was assigned to patrol a sector he thought of as lawless, so he automatically interpreted your invitations as bait for a trap."

"I understand. Federation–Romulan relations weren't very friendly up until Shinzon took over, and then after Hobus you threw your lot in with the Romulan Republic. I'm chartered out of Sela territory, so everyone always thinks I'm a secret agent."

"I'm sorry to hear that."

"Don't worry. I'm used to it. But getting back to our key point, I actually do know of an Orion smuggler around these parts. His name is Lam. He approached me in a bar and tried to seduce me. I had already figured out that he worked for the Orions, so I knew to keep my distance. Besides, I never liked sex."

"I see. Where would we find this Lam?"

"Shangdu. A place called Shangdu. I'm pretty certain that the Orions run the place, too."

Shangdu. Yuck. Oh well…

"I know where that is. Who's the manager, if you know?"

"Hassan. Hassan the Undying, they call him."

"Understood."

"Oh, and another thing? Keep away from the girls. The quickest way to get into debt with Hassan is being seen with one of his girls."

"Understood. Thank you very much for your assistance."

We shook hands. By now Tereg had finished reloading the freighter. Tereg bolted, while the Romulan captain — and I never asked her name — boarded the ship. My team and I watched her ship start up and fly away.

To be continued…