Customs and excise
Posted on Sat Feb 7, 2015 @ 12:06am by
1,319 words; about a 7 minute read
Mission: https://ds5.sim-station.net/index.php/sim/missions/id/6
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[ Merchant Vessel Hentar - Commercial freighter]
"All hands, we're dropping out of warp, gonna be docking at DS5 in about an hour, make sure everything's secured!" The voice belonged to a Tellarite merchant captain by the name of Abarant, who owned and operated the freighter.
The ship carried mostly heavy freight, bulk commodities of ores, minerals and metals and ran a fairly regular route between four systems and two starbases. It was not highly profitable but it was a stable though modest income, enough to live comfortably and Abarant should have been happy with it. He wasn't though and had turned his hand to smuggling.
It had started an easy way to turn a few extra credits bypassing taxes and import duties by loading a few unmarked containers of luxury goods hidden in the regular cargo. He sold them on to traders who turned a blind eye to missing documentation in return for a discounted price. But over time it had gone from a few cases of booze and semi-precious gemstones to drugs, weapons and people.
A small fortune in illegal drugs could be easily concealed in a container of high density mineral ore. Weapons could be broken down and their components dispersed amongst a consignment of cheap electronic domestic goods. There was a sub-deck under the engineering compartment, below the warp core, little more than a maintenance crawlspace, which he had converted to carry a dozen people in cramped, hot and unpleasant conditions. He had set up some shielding to block sensors scans, it would not stand up to a determined and targeted probe but it worked well enough for most purposes. It did not, however, provide much in the way of protection to the occupants and after a week hidden there they often got an unhealthy does of radiation.
Additionally Abarant was careful not to draw unwanted attention, for the most part he kept his distance from authorities. Not enough to arouse suspicion but he tended to transfer cargos in orbit or at remote rural landing pads and when he came to Federation facilities, like today, he choose moorings outside of the starbase and moved cargo via shuttles. Likewise he handled his ship's maintenance needs through independent ship yards and made sure all contraband was off the ship before ever entering Federation controlled spacedocks. This trip he was delivering four refugees from a civil war, after fleecing them for a hefty fee; a single container of counterfeit luxury chronometers and was collecting a consignment of stolen Starfleet phaser rifles.
[Deck 6 - Cargo Bays 8 thru 16]
Forty five minutes later the Hentar's First Mate, a Cardassian by the name of Credak, stepped off the turbolift on Deck 6, accompanied by six crewman. One of whom was a tall well built human male who called himself William Stone and had been with the ship for just two weeks. Credak consulted a manifest PADD and began issuing instructions to the work crew on which containers to pull, from which cargo bays. Stone and another deck hand were sent to find eight containers in Bay 15.
"Get a move on" Credak snarled. he had a reputation for a short temper and reinforcing instructions with his fists "We're only scheduled to be here two hours. Any of you lot makes us late and I'll be docking pay!"
The work crew scuttled off to their assigned tasks. Reaching the door to bay 15 "I'll find them" Stone offered "If you want to go get the lifter?"
His crewmate nodded and went to fetch a container lifter, happy not to have to clamber around the piles of stacked containers looking for the right ones.
Stone entered the bay and quickly began looking for the right containers, he found them grouped together on the back bulkhead. Looking over his shoulder to check he was alone, he pulled a small device out of a cargo pocket and began scanning the containers. He found what he was looking for in the sixth one, supposedly it held twenty four thirty-liter barrels of a dense mineral oil used in heavy duty machine lathes, Except one of the barrels also held six kilos of what his compact tri-corder called pharmaceutical product
"Bingo!" Stone said quietly, then shoved the tri-corder back into his pocket as the bay door slid open to admit his crewmate with a three wheeled container lifter "Over here" he called "These two stacks" pointing to the two groups of four containers.
They pulled the containers out of the bay and down to the big cargo air lock. Credak lounged against one wall, looking bored. "Get them in the lock" he said, gesturing with his head "Shuttle's on the way"
"You want to check them?" Stone asked "Make sure we pulled the right ones?"
"You better have!" Credak replied sarcastically, not moving from his place by the lock control panel "Now get them into the lock!"
Ten minutes later the rest of the work crew had brought all the containers down and piled them into the cargo airlock. Stone had watched Cridak from the corner of his eye and as far as he had seen, the Cardassian had shown no particular interest to any of the containers.
"Alright, move of the way!" Cridak caleld and activated the control panel. A strobe light began flashing, a warning buzzer sounded and a distorted computer voice announced Warning! Cargo air lock Six force field activated!. Atmosphere recycling. Outer door opening in five.... four...
The computer counted down, the force field crackled into place and the seal cracked as the big outer door silently open. Beyond the shimmer of the force field a large transport shuttle hung in the deadly cold vacuum of space. The craft nosed silently into the cargo lock, just visible out of the port side of the hatch was the brilliantly illuminated bulk of Deep Space Five. As soon as the shuttle had entered the door closed behind it and the force field blinked out of existence.
Under Cridak's direction the workcrew began loading the various containers aboard. Even though Stone watched them, neither the First Mate nor the shuttle's pilot paid any attention to the container holding the contraband as it was placed on the shuttle. They did however order Stone and another crewman to offload two containers already aboard the craft and take them to Bay 12.
The containers were marked as Industrial Replicator Components, once they were placed in the bay Stone hung back and got a quick opportunity to scan one of them. In addition to the listed parts the tri-corder revealed twenty Starfleet MK 17 phaser rifles. The rifles had been broken down into separate peices, they were missing their power packs which Stone suspected might be in the other container.
But before he could scan that one Credak turned up, Stone quickly stuffed the tr-corder back in his pocket and bent to check the floor grav-lock was activated to hold the container in place.
The First Mate was on his communicator =^= No problems with the first load. I'm just going to check on new stuff now, I'll let you know =^=
Stone recognized Abarant's voice replying =^= Hurry up, you know if we stay here more than an hour or two they send a patrol shuttle past =^=
Just then Credak saw him "Hey! Why are you still here!" The Cardassian growled "Get back to the cargo lock, there's another shuttle coming in!" The First Mate glowered at Stone as he ducked past and left the bay.
Chief Federation Marshal Wulfgang Steiner, currently undercover as deckhand William Stone, felt the Cardassian's eyes on his back until the cargo bay door lowered behind him. He doubted the Captain or First Mate had any idea of his real identity but they were both cautious and suspicious and while this operation would be over very shortly, Steiner had no inclination to alert the smugglers to his presence just yet.
[To be continued...
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