ronin Captain Karrod Niac - Express Delivery

[Alieth]

 

I shouldn't post this here just 'cause @Karrod Niac won't stop criticizing and slandering my poor beloved Rhine that he has KIDNAPPED, but I have a soft spot for beautifully written SIMs and the suffering of this Trill.

 

((Maintnance Bay Three, Compartment R03014, USS Valley Forge))

Across his career Karrod had spent time trapped in shuttles, drifted through space for weeks in escape pods and once even managed to avoid the business end of a bat'leth by ducking into a cargo container for the better part of a week.  After the indignity of his 'secure' confinement aboard the Valley Forge, he thought he'd seen the worst that Maki could throw at him in his overzealous efforts to ensure his personal security.  

He'd been wrong.  So comprehensively and terribly wrong.  

Maki had, at great length, explained that the ships transporters couldn't be trusted.  He couldn't quite get into the details of why but the increasingly suspicious Vice Admiral had noticed a number of updates to the system during the ships last refit that struck him as...unusual.  He couldn't have the modifications removed without tipping his hand so instead he'd declared the system temporarily out of order and had insisted his crew use small craft like shuttles and runabouts whenever it was feasible.  So naturally Karrod had assumed he'd be aboard the Rhine and making his way over to Cait space dock to meet Fleet Admiral Washington so he could finally deliver his plea for resources.  

Again...he'd been very wrong.  

Just a day earlier the Rhine had developed an unexpected fault in its impulse reactor manifold that would've lead to a cataclysmic explosion the moment Karrod took it out of the launch bay.  The cause of the fault was unknown and Karrod suspected it was due to the Rhine's frequent pyrotechnic antics, but Maki hadn't been convinced.  He was all but certain now that some agent was aboard his ship, working against the larger interests of the Federation, and had done what they could to sabotage Karrod's upcoming meeting.  

Which was why he was now being bolted into a probe casing.  The three centimeter duratanium shell would soon be the only thing between him and the infinite abyss, a fact he tried not to fixate on as the final connections locked into place and the whole coffin like encasement lurched while being lifted towards a launch bay.  

The plan, if it could still be called one, was to fling him at Cait spacedock in passing, with the Valley Forge never dropping out of warp.  This, Maki assured him, would throw off anyone or anything that was pursing him and would ensure the meeting would go off without a hitch.  Maki even promised to make sure the Rhine was repaired and dispatched in a few days so that he could take it directly back to the Ronin, saving him from further misery as he made his way back to his ship.  

If he survived this last surge of insanity.  

There was no warning, no internal comm system, nothing to give away his presence in the casing other than a hastily retrofitted life support system and a small inertial compensator to keep him from being squished into bearded gazpacho.  Within him Niac was a chorus of ever louder complaints which, for once, Karrod found himself entirely in agreement with.  He found himself trying to pat his abdomen reassuringly as he felt a surge of inertia through the casing and knew he was now hurtling at warp speed in the smallest and less capable spacecraft he'd ever occupied in his career.  

The string of extravagant and vulgar curses he let out as he hurtled towards Caitian space vibrated the probe like a struck gong.  

[TBC!]

===============================
Captain Karrod Niac
Commanding Officer
USS Ronin - NCC-34523
V239509GT0
 

[+ TAma]

I'm beginning to suspect Maki is up to something himself...