THINK TANK
Episode 114
Part A

 

An alien named Saowin comes on board an alien starship.

Saowin, nervously: "Hello? Hello! I'm here! Hello!"

He ventures further into the room, and is fascinated by a creature floating in a tank.

As he stares at it, a hand suddenly falls on his shoulder to attract his attention. Saowin jumps, letting out a startled cry. The alien he turns to see is named Fennim, and Saowin tells him: "I'm here to see Mr Kurros. Could you-" Fennim replies with a series of unintelligible noises. Saowin: "Could you tell me where to find Mr Kurros?"

As Fennim turns and walks away, he follows him, calling: "Wait!"

As Saowin passes it, an Artificial Intelligence makes noises. He follows Fennim round a dome-shaped structure in the floor.

Fennim departs, leaving Saowin looking curiously into the window of a tank in which there is a large creature.

Kurros speaks from behind Saowin on the other side of the room: "Do not mind Bevvox. He can be grouchy in the morning." Saowin turns. "Welcome aboard." Saowin: "Thank you." Kurros: "You seem tense." Saowin protests, still feeling tense: "No."

Kurros, as Fennim comes to stand behind him: "This is a time for celebration. The geostability of your world has been restored, your people saved, and all because you had the wisdom to accept our help." Saowin: "You accomplished in days what our scientists failed to achieve in decades." Kurros: "That it not to say it was not a challenge. Finding the precise harmonic for a planetary containment field did put my colleague here to the test, but in the end she prevailed." Saowin: "We owe you our lives." Kurros, softly: "Solving problems is what we do, and seeing the look of gratitude in your eyes is almost reward enough.......almost." Saowin: "I have some bad news. Our bernicium mines were destroyed in the last series of quakes. The ore's buried under sixty gigatons of rock. We can't get to it. We hoped you'd accept this instead. A rubidium geode, "handing it to Kurros, "priceless, the only one ever found on our planet."

Kurros, looking at it: "It is rare, but hardly unique," handing it back, "and it is not what we agreed upon." Saowin: "I'm sorry. This is all we can offer you." Kurros: "You are lying. The mines collapsed, but before they did you transferred the ore to a shielded storage facility. Needless to say, we detected it." Saowin: "Please, we need the ore to repair our replicator systems. Without it, we'll be unable to feed our people." Kurros: "Get it to us now, or I will deactivate the containment field. Have you ever experienced a level 12 seismic event? Most violent, quite unnerving." Saowin: "No! I'll have the ore transported at once. This, this was all a misunderstanding." Kurros, smiling: "Of course. It is already forgotten, my friend. Perhaps we will do business again someday." Saowin, almost squeaking with heightened fear: "Yes."

Kurros to Fennim: "Show our friend back to his shuttle. I would hate for him to get lost in such an unfamiliar place."
Relieved still to be alive and well, Saowin follows Fennim to the exit. He is not looking where he is going and bumps into the floating alien's tank.
Saowin: "Oh! Pardon me."

Far away, on USS Voyager.....

......in the Captain's Ready Room, Janeway is engrossed in a puzzle.

The door signal sounds. Janeway: "Yes." Seven enters.

Seven: "Captain, long-range scans have detected-"

Janeway: "One second. I've wasted two hours on this thing and I'm no closer to solving it." Seven: "You can thank Ensign Paris for introducing the artefact to the ship." Janeway: "He was behind the last ship-wide craze too - yo-yos. Now it's Sheer Lunacy. Another hour and I'll go insane." Seven: "The solution is quite simple. If you align-" Janeway: "No, I want to figure this out myself."

She presses a few buttons and the puzzle makes an electronic squawk. Janeway gives up. "You said something about long-range scans?" Seven: "They've revealed a planetoid with high concentrations of dilithium crystals." Janeway: "Let's take a look."

They enter the Bridge. Kim is playing Sheer Lunacy at his work station, Ops. "Got it!"

But the puzzle's electronic sounds tell him otherwise. "False alarm."

Paris gives a small laugh. "Keep at it, Harry."

Seven: "We're within visual range."

Janeway: "On screen."

Tuvok: "Initial scans revealed substantial dilithium deposits beneath the planetoid's crust." Chakotay: "Full sensor sweep." Kim: "The deposits are in the upper mantle, about 60 kilometres down." Tuvok: "We'll have to use phasers to cut through the-"

Kim: "Hold on." Janeway: "What is it?" Kim: "Some kind of resonance wave emanating from the core. It's building fast, Captain."

Janeway: "Right after we ran our scans. That can't be a coincidence. Back us off, Tom." He starts to do so.

Seven: "The planetoid is destabilising."

Chakotay: "Shields!"

He is only just in time as......

.....the planetoid starts to explode!

Janeway: "Report." An audio alert sounds. Chakotay: "We're trapped in a cloud of metreon gas. It's collapsed our warp field and knocked the impulse engines offline." Tuvok: "A heavily armed vessel just dropped out of warp off the port bow." Seven: "Captain, I recognise it. It's Hazari, species four two two eight. Technologically advanced, extremely violent. They make excellent tactical drones."

Kim: "What do they want with us?"

Seven: "The Hazari are hired to capture and deliver alien vessels."

Paris: "Bounty hunters." Seven: "Yes." Kim: "So who hired them?"

Chakotay: "The Malon, the Devore....... We've made our share of enemies here."

Kim: "They're hailing." The Hazari vessel is seen on the main viewscreen.

The Hazari commander, named Y'Sek, on viewscreen: "Surrender. No one need be hurt. My client would prefer your vessel intact." Janeway: "Who hired you?" Y'Sek, on viewscreen: "That's not your concern." Janeway: "I'm only asking because I'm curious how much they're paying. Maybe we can do better." Y'Sek, on viewscreen: "Doubtful."

Janeway: "We're far from defenceless. Why don't you save yourself some trouble." Y'Sek, on viewscreen: "It's no trouble." Janeway to Tuvok: "Charge phaser banks to full power." Y'Sek, on viewscreen: "Fire and you'll ignite the gas cloud. You'll be destroyed." Janeway: "You've left me no choice. I suggest you back off if you want to save your own ship. End transmission."

Tuvok: "They are moving closer. They've locked on a tractor beam." Paris: "Looks like they're calling your bluff, Captain. It was a bluff, wasn't it?"