Epis­ode Num­ber: 7×03

Writ­ten by: Jon Crew

Dir­ec­ted by: Jon Crew

Trans­mis­sion: 21^st Feb­ru­ary 2026

Guest Stars:

• Gavreh-Taan: Ori­on Syn­dic­ate Boss and self-pro­claimed Emper­or of the Ori­on Imperium.

Fol­low­ing the evid­ence trail for the Vin­Shari heist is going to involve talk­ing to the Boss of the loc­al Ori­on Syn­dic­ate fac­tion. I’ve heard he sets some unusu­al restric­tions on vis­it­ors, so I think I might need some backup.

Chief of Secur­ity’s Log: Stard­ate, 52025.6

Plot: A del­eg­a­tion led by Com­modore Kon­in vis­its the Ori­on ves­sel Con­tent­ment for a chat with the loc­al Syn­dic­ate Boss.

The ‘A’ Plot: Raynor takes his dis­cov­er­ies to the com­modore and asks for per­mis­sion to vis­it Gavreh-Taan. After con­sult­ing with Boone regard­ing Star­fleet Intel­li­gence’s know­ledge of Taan, Kon­in agrees, but sug­gests that it might help to approach him in a dip­lo­mat­ic fash­ion. Ori­on Bosses often have a very spe­cif­ic notion of sov­er­eignty, and the reports indic­ate that Taan is more high-minded than most.

Taan is based on an Ori­on pleas­ure barge named the Con­tent­ment, which usu­ally tours the nearby sec­tors, so they decide to take the Trave on the basis that this will be less threat­en­ing than arriv­ing in a full-size star­ship. Quinn pilots the run­about, and Chief Rogon and Lt jg Hu’Gar­im­min accom­pany them. The 20 light year jour­ney to the Con­tent­ment’s cur­rent loc­a­tion takes about a day at warp 5.

They find the barge orbit­ing a mis­matched bin­ary pair of stars, and open a chan­nel to request per­mis­sion to board. The ves­sel is around the size of Lex­ing­ton and painted sev­er­al shades of dark green, with an ancient Ori­on coat of arms depict­ing a bird of prey fight­ing a snake picked out in gold on the dorsal hull. Fol­low­ing instruc­tions, they fly through the cloud of small fight­er craft sur­round­ing the ship and into the vast aft hangar bay, where they dock upside down and take an enclosed stair­way “down” into the ship.

They emerge into the gran­di­ose “recep­tion” hall, an elab­or­ately-dec­or­ated cham­ber occupy­ing the entire low­est deck of the Con­tent­ment. Large dis­plays of Ori­on art and her­aldry loom above an immense hand-woven car­pet. At the centre is a large cir­cu­lar counter staffed by a form­ally-dressed Andori­an woman.

She wel­comes them as they approach and asks if they have spe­cif­ic require­ments. Kon­in explains that they are here to meet Gavreh-Taan, but she replies that he does not meet the guests. He per­sists, and she agrees to pass the request on, ask­ing them to wait in one of the wait­ing rooms on the main deck and ges­tur­ing to the elev­at­ors behind her.

The elev­at­or flips through 180° and opens into a wide cor­ridor, lined on both sides by doors to wait­ing lounges and small shops. Signs in mul­tiple scripts indic­ate spa and med­ic­al facil­it­ies. The wait­ing area is lux­uri­ous, with tapestries and a well-stocked drinks cabinet.

About fif­teen minutes after their arrival, an Ori­on assist­ant appears and informs them that Lord Gavreh-Taan will grant them an audi­ence, spe­cify­ing a time a couple of hours later. He warns them to be prompt, and that the meet­ing will be short as he is not well, so they should make the most of it. He then offers them free access to the facil­it­ies on the main deck, includ­ing the health spa.

Kon­in asks about food and is dir­ec­ted to a Bajor­an-run res­taur­ant. Quinn enquires about meet­ing pilots famil­i­ar with the Shack­leton Expanse, or pur­chas­ing maps of the region, and is informed that there are mer­chants present who may have such arte­facts. Rogon decides to take advant­age of the spa and, while enjoy­ing a Turk­ish-style mas­sage, asks about maps. The mas­seur informs him of a spe­cif­ic boutique on the main cor­ridor which spe­cial­ises in a wide range of curios, so Rogon passes this inform­a­tion on to Quinn.

Quinn goes to find the trader, accom­pan­ied by Raynor. He turns out to be a Tel­lar­ite, and his store winds back quite a way from the entrance, with antique arte­facts from a wide selec­tion of cul­tures. Talk­ing to him, they dis­cov­er that his primary interest is in the artist­ic value of his wares, but he has a few items that might fit their needs. He shows them a selec­tion of old star maps, includ­ing one from when the Klin­gons last con­sidered expand­ing into the region. Quinn trades a couple of maps from his own col­lec­tion and a bar of lat­in­um for the Klin­gon map and a couple of others.

Kon­in has din­ner with Hu’Gar­im­min, then goes to meet Gavreh-Taan. They are let into an area dec­or­ated in a fash­ion more remin­is­cent of a hos­pit­al, where they are sub­jec­ted to a decon­tam­in­a­tion pro­cess and change into anti­sep­tic over­alls. Then they are shown into a throne room, fur­nished in a very tra­di­tion­al Ori­on style, with metal­lic cur­tains over stone walls. The Ori­on Boss is propped up in a rather incon­gru­ous hos­pit­al bed, con­nec­ted up to a com­plex life sup­port sys­tem. He is evid­ently very old and accom­pan­ied by two Ori­on women in tra­di­tion­al garb, and two burly guards. Kon­in can feel the vir­tu­al pres­sure of a psion­ic block­er per­vad­ing the room.

Hav­ing famil­i­ar­ised him­self with the brief­ing provided by Boone, Kon­in approaches Taan as if he were a for­eign dig­nit­ary. He broaches his request as an appeal for intel­li­gence, since Gavreh-Taan prob­ably has more con­tacts through­out the region than the over­stretched Star­fleet Intel­li­gence. He explains about the Vin­Shari raid, and the Ori­on weapons found on the attack­ers, and explains that he wants to find out who organ­ised or fin­anced the oper­a­tion. In return for the Ori­on lord’s assist­ance, he is will­ing to offer a favour­able intro­duc­tion to the Akaru, not­ing that even the Fer­engi have yet to make inroads with them.

After some thought, Taan orders his staff out of the room, and the record­ing equip­ment turned off. Only one assist­ant remains as he sits up, look­ing some­what more healthy than he had moments before. He explains that what he is about to say is strictly for their ears alone, and that he is only doing this because of the unne­ces­sary viol­ence of the oper­a­tion. He admits that his people reg­u­larly do work for third parties, but that this is not some­thing that he exerts con­trol over. He knows that E’lor­uul had led the raid in 2372 on behalf of a group call­ing them­selves the Inde­pend­ent Archae­olo­gists Guild. The same group reques­ted his own assist­ance with the recent raid, but only to provide equip­ment and trans­port; they had arranged dir­ectly with the Vin­Shari for muscle.

Then he goes on to explain that while he knows that his con­tact was not really work­ing for the Guild, he could not say who they actu­ally were. He is able to show them a pic­ture of the con­tact: Com­mand­er Nat­alie Sigmund.

Thank­ing him for his assist­ance, Kon­in gath­ers up the oth­ers and they return to Nar­en­dra Station.

Upon arrival, he organ­ises a meet­ing with his seni­or officers, but delib­er­ately exclud­ing Zohir. He’s begin­ning to see a pat­tern to recent events, and needs to decide wheth­er he can tell the admir­al or Cap­tain Murphy. Sig­mund can obvi­ously not be trus­ted, but the admir­al has also shown red flags, espe­cially in regards to the Gor­gon. But he reas­ons that this could also have been Murphy’s influ­ence. Giv­en the evid­ence, he still leans towards talk­ing to Hebert.

The ‘B’ Plot: Azon­an and Selvek spend the inter­ven­ing time work­ing on improv­ing the sensor sys­tems for both Lex­ing­ton and Star­base 364. Azon­an also begins set­ting up an inter­face between the lat­ter sys­tem and the prom­ised Romu­lan early warn­ing systems.

On his return to the ship, Quinn begins the labor­i­ous pro­ject of match­ing the data in his new maps to those in the astro­met­rics database.

The Arc: Pieces are begin­ning to fall in to place con­nect­ing a num­ber of mysteries.

Obser­va­tions: The Con­tent­ment is an Ori­on pleas­ure barge, a bulbous ves­sel sim­il­ar in size to Lex­ing­ton, and cap­able of hous­ing a couple of thou­sand people. Two large open hangar bays run the length of the vent­ral hull, where small craft dock rather than land. Most barges are float­ing casi­nos or hotels, but the Con­tent­ment is a mobile hos­pit­al and spa. Its oper­at­ors have helped out with sev­er­al major dis­asters, but it is also a des­tin­a­tion for rich patients seek­ing dis­crete spe­cial­ist treat­ment in a lux­uri­ous set­ting. Many barges bristle with defens­ive arm­a­ment, but the Con­tent­ment’s weapons seem min­im­al. It is, how­ever, escor­ted by sev­er­al squad­rons of Stiletto fighters.

Boone’s report indic­ates that Gavreh-Taan takes the idea of being des­cen­ded from Ori­on roy­alty even more ser­i­ously than his moth­er. He claims the title of “The Most Exal­ted Gavreh-Taan, Scion of Taan, Emper­or-Elect of the Ori­on Imper­i­um”. Much of his ship and per­son­al throne room are dec­or­ated with Ori­on Imper­i­al heraldry.

The bin­ary sys­tem where the crew find the Con­tent­ment presents a col­our­ful sight, con­sist­ing of a large, bright white star and a small orange dwarf companion.

Com­mand­er Nat­alie Sig­mund is revealed as the rep­res­ent­at­ive of the “Inde­pend­ent Archae­olo­gists Guild” who arranged for the Syn­dic­ate to sup­ply weapons and trans­port to the Vin­Shari. She is the romantic interest of Com­mand­er Zohir and sole assigned crew of the U.S.S. Cass, the run­about with the clas­si­fied and highly illeg­al cloak­ing device.

Ref­er­ences: The Inde­pend­ent Archae­olo­gists’ Guild made its first onscreen appear­ance in the Star Trek: Lower Decks epis­ode “The Stars at Night”. The real organ­isa­tion appears to have bene­vol­ent goals, being ded­ic­ated to recov­er­ing pre­cious arte­facts for their right­ful own­ers, but some­body seems to be using them as a cov­er for more nefar­i­ous activities.

Ques­tions: Are Sig­mund and the “Inde­pend­ent Archae­olo­gists Guild” con­nec­ted to the same people that took Cap­tain Adred? What is their con­nec­tion to the Gor­gon incident?