Chapter 26 - Teaser! (Patreon)

The first draft is done my friends!  :-)  Just need to polish it up and get it ready for publishing.  Expect the new chapter probably on Monday.

Enjoy the teaser!  It's copied directly from the beginning of the chapter.

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Main Cargo Bay. The Flighty Temptress. On route to Klingon Space.

Ignoring the ladder leading down to the main cargo bay, I stepped into open air and fell roughly 25 feet to the hard deck plates below. Because I was feeling particularly happy at the moment, I allowed the silliness of a 3-point hero landing, even though there was no one to see it.

It’s the little things in life.

My main cargo bay, which was normally only filled with a handful of shipping containers lashed to the walls, containing emergency supplies and parts, was dominated by what looked like a huge glass cube in the direct center of the large space. The ‘glass’ looked almost crystalline, though of course it wasn’t anything quite so mundane, it was transparent aluminum, a variant that had the ability to go opaque on command when an electrical current was introduced. The glass, which could look crystal clear and transparent, was a smoky opaque at the moment so the inside of the cube was entirely obscured from view. The material was thick enough to be used for window equivalents in exterior starship quarters to prevent the vacuum of space from killing people, so it was plenty strong for even this situation.

It was pretty cool looking actually! I had found the replicator pattern for the material in the replicator database and it was perfect for my needs. My industrial replicator had gotten quite a workout and the power costs had not been small, but it had been worth it considering the payday that was coming my way.

The bounty the Klingon Empire offered on the Duras sisters was the ‘dead or alive’ type, but returning them alive meant the bonus reward of a military-grade cloaking device. And I really wanted that cloaking device! That meant I needed a place to imprison the very bad sisters prior to their handoff to the Empire.

Therein laid the problem. My ship, though larger and more powerful than a Federation Runabout, didn't have a dedicated brig. I had considered retrofitting one of the ancillary storage rooms into a makeshift brig, but that seemed like a supremely bad idea all around. I could shut them down and reroute, but I couldn’t easily remove the power conduits in those rooms, or the ODN lines that connected the room to the rest of the ship. No, there were just too many potential ways to escape if they were somewhat clever about it and I just wasn’t willing to take the risk, even though they didn’t seem like the master escape artist types.

Those storage rooms had external doors for loading too, which opened up to space. Suicide was probably out of character for the two scheming sisters, but threatening it was a possibility that I just wasn’t willing to entertain considering what was at stake. While I really didn’t think the Duras sisters had it in them, there was a strong Klingon cultural aversion to imprisonment, which could make even rational people do crazy out of character shit in a desperate situation. Nope, best not to risk it.

My solution, the ‘Brig Cube!’