DAY 112 (fri) cont....
It was 2100 hours by the time the engines were at full health once more
The crew of the Caco had their work cut out for them, not least of which was securing the prisoners. They were split up in the cabins while James worked on fixing the ship's computer.
As well as the prisoners there was the Burung Mera and Gornand to take care of.
Once everyone that needed to be secured was secured Kirk turned in, leaving instructions to be woken up when the Gornand woke up.
DAY 113 (sat)
At 0300 hours Dell woke up Kirk and told him, 'She's awake!'
Kirk replicated some food and entered her room. At first she was silent but when he gave the food to her she said,
'How do I know it's not poisoned?'
Kirk reassured her it wasn't and added, 'You are not a prisoner her.'
'Well, I'd like to go home then.', she said.
'It's not as easy as that.', he tried to explain.
'Can't you use some of your magic and send me home?'
Kirk did his best to reassure her, but she didn't understand in any way what was going on.
Kirk took the opportunity to talk to the Burung Mera while he was up and about. His name was Mitrini Nabberjack and he had been a co-pilot on a freighter until it had been captured by the pirates. Nabberjack was friendly enough and religious, being a true believer of the Burung Mera god.
A little later Kirk took Lamnar, the Gornand, to the bridge to show her the stars and try to explain what was going on. He had a brain wave and summoned Webble who he hoped would explain in words Lamnar would understand.
'Yes master?' she said on her arrival,
'Don't call me master. Can you explain to Lamnar the situation here?'
'Certainly master. Lamnar, you are in hell and all these beings are demons.'
Kirk face palmed, but before he could speak Lamnar said,
'No, this is the Plane of Shadows. I need to find a portal. That will get me back to my own world.'
Adam was around at this time and tried to help explain, but he used so many technical terms that even Kirk barely understood him.
In the end it was Tal Celes who did the best, managing to put thing in terms that the Gornand could cope with. Bajorans are a religious and have a very rich culture, so this may have helped.
On his way back to his cabin Kirk could hear the Kazon women singing in their cabin. In the other cabin the pirate and medic were having a noisy debate.
An hour later Kirk was woken when the pirate started beating up the medic. Once the pirate had been stunned he moved the medic in with the women and put handcuffs on the pirate.
He was pretty tired by then and flopped back into his bunk. Ceres and Paterson were on watch at 0500 when they were hailed by the Norlot Fast Picket 'Deathshead' and its cohort.
Paterson and Celes didn't want to wake Kirk so they dealt with the situation themselves and arranged an escort back to the Vanguard station for the price of 10,000 credits (given as 100g of dilithium).
At 0700 they arrived at the space station.
Mitrini Nabberjack asked Adam if it was ok for him to leave the ship and Adam said that it was although perhaps he didn't fully understand. In any even Kirk didn't really notice or mind the Burung Mera leaving them.
By 0800 Adam had fixed the main computer on the Caco.
Kirk was tempted to hand over the prisoners at the station but since it was likely they would be put to death he contacted Voyager and was told by Captain Janeway to hold onto them until their return to Voyager.
Kirk accepted this and interviewed the prisoners a little more.
The first amazon was called Hylra and she had been born on a 'hell hole' of a planet and she saw her only chance of a better life being as an amazon pirate.
The second amazon was called Jurad and she was from a warrior sect that saw piracy as a noble calling and all alien vessels as fair game. In her culture piracy was not a crime, just another profession.
The medics name was Yuman and the pirates name was Nakrod. The medic was the least offensive in nature of all of them while Nakrod told a pack of lies about just being the ship's cook and never hurting anyone.
Kirk put Adam to work converting 16 tons of cargo space into four small prison cells.
Dell, full of excitement asked if Kirk would allow some shore leave. Kirk let out Dell and Murphy. They could go out for a couple of hours but they were late returning and Kirk gave them a telling off. Dell blamed it on the irregular tram service that the station operated.
Kirk, the ladies man, then took out Celes and Paterson to the 'Street of Fashion' and was bored half to death as the female crewmen shopped for shoes and handbags. After an hour he couldn't stand any more of it and they went to a bar. The trolley was late for them as well, so Kirk did the right thing and apologised to Dell and Murphy on his tardy return.
All this was killing time, Kirk had a dinner date arranged with Grottog the Blaxion, the space ship trader, and a limo came to pick him up and his 'plus one' who tonight was Tal Celes.
Vanguard was a big place and had several 'suburbs'. Grottog lived in the most salubrious area of the station in a large mansion house type accommodation module.
After they had talked business, Kirk arranging to buy faster engines, Grottog treated them to a fine meal and entertainment.
DAY 114 (sun)
At 0200 they were shown to the limo, but when Tal said to the autopilot, 'Take us to the most exciting night club in town!', they found that Grottog's name really opened doors in this town.
They were taken to a night club then ushered through to a VIP lounge that looked down on the dance floor. After they'd had a few drinks and a few dances Celes leaned in for a kiss and Kirk happily provided her with one.
Throwing caution to the wind they then took the limo to a hotel and spent the night in a honeymoon suit, all courtesy of Grottog.
What went on that night in the hotel? Well, lets just say that Starfleet Regulations were thrown out the window!
.. In the morning they woke and had breakfast in bed.
Ceres had the sense to say, 'Oh! We shouldn't have done that!'
She then said that they should keep their tryst a secret and Kirk agreed.
They got back to the Caco at 1000 hours. If anyone had any eye brows to raise about Kirk and Ceres being out all night, then Kirk didn't notice.
DAY 115 (mon)
The crew of the Caco all worked hard on getting it fixed up.
The new Bioscanner was fitted by engineers working for Grottog the Blaxion. There were also engineers in the Caco all day fitting the new engines.
DAY 116 (tue)
The Caco's computers started reporting faults again and Adam spent the day fixing them and running further diagnostics.
Kirk took Tal Celes out for another night of clubbing that ended up in the hotel again.
DAY 117 (wed)
Kirk and Celes rolled in to the ship in the mid morning after another night of revelry. Since the Caco had its new engines fitted and was all (relatively) ship shape, they set off for Huroc once more.
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