The Protagonist System

Getting a condensed version of the history of the Terran Empire did not make me hate it any less. Even as T'Pol glossed over battles, slaughters of peaceful people, and occasional clashes with the Klingons and Romulans as humanity ran roughshod over the Alpha Quadrant, it did not paint a pretty picture about how humanity handled the discovery of aliens.

As in, if it exists, we better shoot it before it shoots us. Their flawed philosophy that a maimed and wounded animal couldn't attack after learning its lesson, was stupid. They waited for you to trust them before attacking with everything they had, even if it kills them. That's just common sense.

But, they expanded too far too fast, caught up in the glory of the empire and each success made them reach farther and farther, only to choke on their own success and it was starting to come apart. The man named Captain Forrest barked a curse at T'Pol when she told them that the other 4 ships were part of the rebellion and they were trying to stop Enterprise from reporting their presence back to Imperial Command.

“I apologize, captain. Admiral Riker did warn us to not lie to him. If he contacted the next ship without knowing they are opposed to the glorious empire, they might have convinced him that we were the subversive element in this battle and not them.” T'Pol said with a straight face.

Forrest grumbled about her being too Vulcan to lie about it, then let out a sigh. “Tell him he will be rewarded if he finishes off the rebels and helps us capture them. Their bridge officers need to be properly interrogated to get the information to lead us back to their fellow traitors.”

I had to clamp my mouth shut to not immediately deny that stupid request.

T'Pol didn't react when she saw my own reaction and she nodded at Forrest. “I will pass that on at the appropriate time, captain.”

Forrest didn't say anything else and T'Pol looked back at the camera pick-up and at me.

“Is there anything else you wanted to know, Admiral Riker?” T'Pol asked.

“Yes, I do.” I said and glanced down at her midriff. “Since the Vulcans are considered a slave race, I can understand why you and your people have to wear an appropriate uniform.”

T'Pol's eyes flashed a brief annoying look, then schooled her face to remain calm. “Do you have a question about that?”

“I have two, actually. One, are you for sale? And two, how much would it cost to buy you?” I asked with a knowing smile.

T'Pol's eyes showed anger briefly, then she let out a low sigh. “I would need to include the captain on this call to negotiate for anything like that.”

A tall man with greying hair and a buzz cut stepped into view. “Before we start negotiating, she's a recently promoted first officer on this ship and will be quite expensive. Could I interest you in a lower ranked Vulcan instead?”

“You have other Vulcans onboard?” I asked, surprised.

Forrest smiled at successfully hooking me and a look of greed showed on his face, since he had also just given a field promotion to T'Pol and made her more expensive to acquire as well. “We have fifteen custodians, crew, and maintenance members of the Vulcan race. The prices have a wide range, set accordingly to the skills they have been trained to use.”

I nodded and rubbed my chin as my eyes darted to T'Pol. “What would a hundred pounds of solid gold buy me?”

There were several loud gasps out of sight and both Captain Forrest and T'Pol had their mouths drop open in shock.

“Not enough? How about two hundred pounds?” I asked and they didn't react, so I frowned and pretended to be upset. “I feel like I'm being conned here.” I added and glared a little at him. “I won't go an ounce over two hundred and fifty pounds of gold and that's my final offer!”

Forrest shook himself and managed to speak, his voice shaky. “S-s-sold.”

“Thank you. I'm glad you've proven that you could be reasonable.” I said and smiled smugly. “Now that I've secured Commander T'Pol for myself, how much for the other fifteen Vulcans you have?”

T'Pol let out a soft sound and collapsed backwards to sit in her chair. Her face was still visible and she looked like she had passed out or fainted. Her eyes were still open and stared at me, though.

Forrest on the other hand, gave me a look that told me I was the biggest sucker in the world. “Another two hundred and fifty pounds for the others...” *cough!* “...is more than reasonable.”

I nodded firmly. “Agreed. Five hundred pounds of pure gold for them all. I'll send a shuttle over with the payment to make the exchange when they're ready to come aboard.” Follow current novels on novel~fire~net

Forrest smiled and nodded back. “We'll be at the east side airlock in fifteen minutes.”

“They can bring their personal effects, so I don't mind waiting longer. I'm not completely heartless to take them off your hands and not let them clean up after themselves first.”

Forrest let out a chuckle. “That's a good point. Make it an hour and we'll be ready.”

“Excellent. There will be five metal briefcases with a hundred pounds of gold bars in each. They took a very long time to acquire, so make sure you have enough guards on hand to stop the slaves from trying to run off with them when my own guardsman makes the transfer.”

Forrest grinned. “You don't have to worry about that. They're well trained to respect authority.”

I nodded again. “Then I'll end the call here. Thank you for not trying to hide anything.” I said and looked at T'Pol. “Commander, I look forward to... briefing you... in person.”

T'Pol didn't speak and only nodded, which proved she hadn't actually fainted.

“Good day.” I said and cut the call, then I laughed and laughed. I had suspected that their society hadn't reached the post-scarcity phase of their development, meaning they still relied heavily on resource gathering and management, so offering them a pile of precious metals had actually worked.

I had been a little worried Captain Forrest would ask for a phaser bank or some other piece of technology in exchange and I was very glad he didn't. Handing over piles of gold that could be easily replicated? It meant less than nothing to me.

Of course, now that I was securing the Vulcans from the flagship of the Terran Empire, it would be the Vulcan ship I would contact next. Telling them about that would put us on the right track to have a normal conversation. Those were the best kinds of interrogations, after all.

*

T'Pol packed up her things quickly. She was still kind of in a daze after Admiral Riker had paid a completely outrageous price for her. It was almost unbelievable that someone had appeared in her life and then taken her right out of it with almost no effort.

She did the math in her head and 250 pounds of pure gold was about 3,646 troy ounces. Since gold had been mined out on Earth and the nearby asteroids decades ago, it was worth about 34,000 dollars an ounce. So, just her alone cost her new owner almost 124,000,000 dollars.

When Captain Forrest doubled it to buy the other 15 Vulcans on the ship, T'Pol felt like dying. There was no way anyone in their right minds would ever agree to pay so much, then Admiral Riker agreed right away. He was definitely crazy and she had to be careful around him if he was prone to making other important decisions like that.

In fact, it was a shock she was still getting over and it had been half an hour since it happened. Her hands moved automatically as she worked and soon finished packing the last of her things into the third storage case. She hadn't realized she had so many things from her homeworld in her quarters that she had gathered from various collectors over the years.

Getting her people's looted religious artifacts back into the hands of Vulcans had been her hobby for a few decades now and she had quite the collection. Mind you, both her and the collection now belonged to Admiral Riker and she wasn't sure if being traded between self-absorbed owners was a good thing or not.

At least he is good looking by human standards. T'Pol thought and nodded at the two security guards. They entered the room and each picked up a container. She followed them out of her small quarters carrying the third one and they went down several hallways to where the other Vulcans were gathering near the airlock. Most of them only had a single storage container that held mostly clothes and she added her container to the stacks and stood there without talking to wait for the rest of her people.

“I hear we have you to thank for this upheaval to our lives.” A male voice said as he approached with a single guard and one container. The other guards there ran a scanner over the container and it was added to the pile next to the wall where she stood.

T'Pol turned to look and barely stopped her smile at seeing her aged mentor, Soval. He was also her contact to the Vulcan faction of the rebellion against the Terran Empire. “I do not know why I gained his interest...”

Soval's eyes dropped to the smooth skin of her exposed belly and went back to her face.

“...or why he was surprised to hear there were other Vulcans onboard Enterprise.” T'Pol said and ignored his blatant hint as to the reason a man would notice her. “All I know is that he paid an obscene amount of precious metals for us and will be sending a shuttle over in a few minutes.”

“I hope he gives me access to a good food preparation area.” A female Vulcan said as two containers were carried behind her. “I can't prove my worth if I'm not allowed to cook.”

A few of the other Vulcans also whispered their own desires and needs, as if speaking up wasn't something they were used to.

“The Defiant is about the size of Enterprise's saucer section. It is about the same width as well, has four decks, and does not have huge nacelles sticking out the back of it.” T'Pol said. “I am sure there is at least one food preparation area, as well as enough crew quarters for us all.”

The woman nodded and thanked the two guards that put her containers down, surprising them. Unlike some of her contemporaries, she actually didn't mind being a slave. She enjoyed following orders, being taken care of, and cooking. Her life hadn't changed much after her people were conquered and she was perfectly fine with having someone else making the important decisions.

There was a loud clunk and everyone tensed up, especially the guards. Captain Forrest exited the lift with Lieutenant Malcolm Reed and they walked over to the guards, whom didn't have to move to make the Vulcans spread out along the walls and make room for them.

“Open the hatch and leave it open.” Forrest ordered and the guard next to it cycled the sequence to open it and a few sets of eyes widened at seeing the huge interior of the shuttlecraft. The five metal cases seemed small in the middle of the floor.

A tall thin man with short grey hair and a grizzled look stepped out of the shuttlecraft to look around and saw Forrest. “Oh! The captain himself came? I'm honored, sir!”

When he stepped forward to shake the captain's hand, he stopped as Malcolm raised his rifle to point it at his chest.

“I'm just glad there's someone important here to hand these over to.” He said with raised hands and glanced at the closest guard. “Not that MACO guards aren't important! I just think senior officers should be the only ones to handle this stuff, you get me?”

“Then why are you handling it?” Malcolm Reed asked with a sneer and continued to hold his rifle in a threatening manner.

The tall man glanced down at his chest and back at him. “I'm wearing a CPO rank tab, ain't I? That's plenty senior enough.”

“Step back, Reed.” Forrest orered and Malcolm did so, slightly lowering his weapon.

“Right, let's get these cases off and the others on, eh?” The tall man said and walked back into the shuttlecraft and picked two of the cases up and carried them out to set beside Captain Forrest.

Everyone stood there as he did that again with two more cases, as if they didn't weigh a hundred pounds each. The last case the tall man carried out to present to the captain.

“Don't want you thinking we'd welch on a good deal, right? Go ahead and open it. It's really full of gold bars.” He said and held it steady without struggling with it.

Forrest couldn't resist the temptation and clicked the two small latches on the case and lifted the top. Most of the guards made surprised sounds and Forrest felt very possessive at the looks of greed and envy on everyone's faces. Even the Vulcans were impressed with the rows of gleaming precious metals. None of them would ever make a move to grab them, though. They didn't want to die for such a stupid reason.

“That's one.” The man said and closed and latched the case, then picked each of them up to present it and Forrest opened each one to show the identical contents and that all five cases really did have a hundred pounds of gold bars in them. “Will you be staying to observe I actually do take the slaves onboard?”

“No, they're your problem now.” Forrest said and nodded at the guards. “Gather them up and follow me back to my quarters.”

“Yes, sir!” All of the guards said and gathered around the captain.

Malcolm tried to pick a case up by himself and he grunted and dropped to a knee as the weight almost tore his arm right out of the socket.

“Yeah, you might want at least two people per case. A hundred pounds ain't light.” The tall man said.

“Why can you move them so easily?” T'Pol asked before she could stop herself.

The man gave her a grin and flexed his thin arms to show small mouse-like bulges. “I was born on a high gravity planet. I could lift all five cases easily if I wanted.” He said and walked over to the stacks of containers. “I didn't want to show off, though.”

The Vulcans and guards watched him pick up a stack of three containers and walked back into the shuttle to set them off to the side. Forrest ordered his men to be more careful and they really did need two men for each case. So, when they left with the captain, there was no one left to guard the Vulcans.

Surprisingly, none of them tried to do anything but stand there until their things were loaded by the excessively strong man, then they boarded the shuttlecraft and he showed them the jump seats and how they folded down. Everyone found a seat and he disconnected from the ship and flew them at a fast speed towards the Defiant.

“Can you give us an orbital view of the ship before docking?” Soval asked. His curiosity about his new home was too much for him to contain.

“Of course I can.” The tall man said and gave them the same visual tour a captain usually did before they boarded their new command for the first time.

All of the Vulcans seemed pleased by that and the shuttlecraft entered the main cargo bay. It shut behind them and the back of the shuttlecraft opened up. It only took a couple of minutes to unload the containers from the shuttlecraft and the Vulcans spent a few minutes picking out their own.

Once they had them sorted, their guide told them to leave the containers there and they would be delivered to them later. He led the group of sixteen Vulcans to the turbolift and they needed a few trips to bring them all to the deck with the crew quarters.

The Vulcans were surprised to learn that the USS Defiant could have a crew of up to fifty people. After their skills were assessed later, and their own desires questioned, they would be assigned appropriate jobs that needed to be filled on the ship. That had all the Vulcans grow excited after hearing it.

“Please tell me you have a food preparation area!” The woman that was happy being a slave almost shouted.

“The kitchen is on the recreation deck, along with the mess hall, holodeck, arboretum, and observation room.” The tall man answered.

“You have an arboretum on a ship this small?” One male Vulcan asked, slightly surprised.

“I'd like to see the observation room.” Another Vulcan said and two others nodded.

“What's a holodeck?” T'Pol asked.

The tall man gave her a look full of mischief. “I'll leave that explanation until after you're briefed.”

T'Pol's face flushed slightly green at being reminded of why she had been bought.

The tall man chuckled at her reaction. “It'll be an actual briefing and you can all attend, if you want to. Or you can unpack and settle in. We won't get to the boring work stuff until after we leave the area.”

The Vulcans nodded and followed as he asked them what they preferred as living spaces and then assigned them all rooms along the same hallway. He told them that there were a few things that needed to be handled, now that they were onboard safely and the captain hadn't tried to break the deal by keeping the gold and them.

Both T'Pol and Sovar nodded in understanding, because they each had a backup plan if Forrest had tried to do something like that to them. When he had shown up himself and hadn't sent a representative instead, they had only relaxed a little, because as a petty tyrant on his ship, he was fairly reasonable to work with if he wasn't angered by something.

When they entered their new homes, all of the Vulcans were surprised that their containers were already inside. How had that happened? No one had passed them in the hallway and there was no Jefferies Tube access that they could see. It was just one more thing they really wanted to know about and they all hoped the briefing would give them the answers they needed.