Gifted

Posted on 04/17/2023 @ 6:14am by
Edited on on 04/17/2023 @ 9:05pm

1,260 words; about a 6 minute read

Mission: Mission 23:Pages...
Location: Poseidon - Ferengi Embassy
Timeline: Day 1

Brek stretched his arms and then he yawned. Incredible as it was, he had just spent four solid hours in his office, to receive a long string of beggars. How else can you call Ferengis who think it’s a bright idea to go to their embassy to impose their deals, bribes and job applications? He wasn’t born yesterday, and he knew that the more his visitors wanted, the bigger the gift they brought and also the bigger their lies and forged figures were. They were all complicit really, and they wanted one thing only: the FCA’s latinum. As if the Alliance owed them something! Its purpose was to make money and demands, and to confiscate.

The fools. Because of them, his desk was now cluttered with weird and dubious items: pictures of the Grand Nagus, a throw blanket the color of latinum, another one that looked like a giant slice of pizza, a pillow in the shape of a snailosaurus, a set of three wine glasses that looked perfectly fine, but inside each of them there was a little beetle, also made of glass. Plus many more items, as colourful as they were useless. Who created those things? There was nothing in that lot, which he could turn into a gift for the Patton/Feshau wedding.

He was putting all that junk into a large wooden box when Razir, his cultural attaché, stepped into his office with words of doom and gloom. There was, downstairs, something like 12 younglings, not one of them older than 10 years. Their parents had deposited them at the embassy because, following the Breen attack, their teacher had returned to Ferenginar. And now there was no one to keep an eye on them while their parents worked. Vlum, his envoy, had locked herself, with the sprogs, in the conference room, with paper and crayons to occupy them.

“So now, on top of everything else, we need a teacher!” Razir complained. “We’ll never find one. Never! Their wages are too atrocious.”

“Hmm, I’ll make sure the Alliance sends a new teacher as soon as possible.” Brek said, relieved to hear that Vlum had taken a good initiative. “It’s all in the phrasing you know. Say as little as possible about the wage and emphasise the splendid working experience they are going to have, on the Great Poseidon Station! What is there not to like?”

“Er... that perhaps this station doesn't have that great a reputation? You know, for a station managed by Hewmons, it’s not very tranquil. Upgrades, attacks, more repairs...”

“I can assure you, Razir, every station is like that. Nothing is absolutely safe. Not even your wonky bed.” He put, in the box, a collection of cheap jewels that looked tacky as hell, even for a Ferengi.

“I know, I know... What is it that you’ve got there, Grand Proxy?” Razir asked with bright eyes, as he finally noticed what Brek was doing. “Have you been gifted?”

“That’s one way to put it.” Brek considered his box, and then the young Ferengi, who, it was well known, didn’t own much at all. A bit like himself at the same age. 19: the age of starvation. “Is there anything in that lot that you like, Razir?”

“I love it all Grand Proxy!” The attaché took a closer look at the items. “Those gifts are all new and unbroken. I feel sure I could sell them all by the end of the day. Would you like me to do that for you? Maybe I could take a 5 Maybe I could take a 5

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