„Sir, Starfleet is hailing us on an emergency channel!“

Rear Admiral MacNaghton raised his eyebrow. Should this be the one chance to escape from this never-ending cataloguing of plants, alien artifacts and strange devices?

“Put it in my room!” Tala nodded and pressed a few buttons.

Ten minutes later MacNaghton appeared with a grim expression on his face.

“Lay in a course for Gamma Sirius III, Warp 9. We got clearance to exceed warp speed limitations by the admiralty!”

While the Maria Magdalena smoothly went into warp, MacNaghton called in a Senior Staff Meeting.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, we have a situation on our hands. At Gamma Sirius III some miners seem to be harassed by the Orion Syndicate. Tala, put it onscreen! As you can see clearly, there are five mining stations orbiting the planet. Each mining station is surrounded by a minefield the Orions put there. It is our job to free the miners and destroy any Orion Vessel we encounter on the way. Plus we are going in silent, so no communication with enemy ships. Questions?”

Bok, the shy Ferengi from Engineering looked around, then raised a hand.

“Yes, Bok?”

“Sir, I don’t want to … you know I… but… Sir, what if the Orions want to surrender?”

“Good question, Bok. I´m glad you bring it up. Now, we have standing orders from Starfleet to avoid contact in any way with the syndicate. Any more questions?”

“But does that mean that… what if we cripple their ship and they escape via pods?”

“Their warp core explosion will take care of that problem, Bok. So, anyone else?”

“Sir, I don’t want to sound rude, but what exactly do the Orions want there? Shouldn’t we at least try to understand what they are doing before we blow them out of the sk…”

“Bok, PLEASE. This is starting to annoy me. We REALLY need to free those miners and I tell you I haven’t bought these new Antiproton Cannons just for show. We ALL know how many Alien Artifacts we had to collect and how many plants we had to catalogue. So I hope this is all?”

Bok pondered a few seconds. Then he remembered his great grandfather, who was amongst the first Ferengi of the new way. Brave men. He raised his voice. “Sir I must protest. The prime directive directly states that… sir?”

MacNaghton was looking on his desk, mumbling something: “So, how did this…? Ah, there it is… select, right click, dismiss… that should do it”

Bok now was pale, even for a Ferengi. Then, all of the sudden, he was gone and a young busty Betazoid sat on his place, wearing some old 2265-like yellow uniform with a skirt, looking a bit puzzled.

MacNaghton nodded: “Your name is Marina? Great. Welcome to the crew. And Tala, it seems we´ll have to drop by Sol first. Marina surely needs to learn how to reverse the shield polarity...”