MSNPC Legend O'Connor - Not THEM Again!!

[LT Gila Sadar]

((( FLASHBACK: Approximately seven hours ago )))

(( Visitor’s Lounge - Secret Compound, Surface of Moric (Moon of Galaris VI) ))

All in all, Legend’s luck was improving by the minute. Sure, the new vessel he’d caught a gig on wasn’t exactly ‘state of the art’, but that was just old news at this point, and the job wasn’t exactly glamorous, but every few weeks, he’d be able to stay as a guest on a private compound and wine and dine on his employer’s dime. Who would complain about that? Certainly not Legend, who was currently reclining lazily on a soft armchair within one of the visitor’s lounges in the compound. The compound offered a quaint view of the Galaris system, a small backwater area on the very outskirts of the Borderlands.

The system hadn’t been on anyone’s radar until just short of a decade ago when the two primitive races warring for dominance over the fourth planet achieved warp. Achieving warp hadn’t done much to solve the issue, of course, it just widened the playing field a bit, and it had opened up a new roll of clientele for Legend’s new boss. Galaris IV was home to a number of very rare minerals that were hard to come by anywhere else, and the few places that did have them weren’t keen on trading them with less than legal buyers.

Not so for Galaris IV, which was why the Keystone was currently quietly docked on the moon’s surface. A couple of government bigwigs had been more than willing to exchange those rare and costly minerals for some galactic goods - mostly weapons, but also some pretty advanced computer thingamajigs - and so the Keystone would make quiet drops once every month or so, leaving their goods here, bringing the Kydonian goods back on board and then getting out before anyone were none-the-wiser.

O’Connor: Legend, my boy, you may have finally found the job for you. No Cap’n to breathe down your neck, no customer to brown-nose and no dock control to argue legalities with.

He stretched leisurely, swinging his legs up on the footstool with a satisfied yawn. The work of unloading the latest load of imported goods had tired him out more than he’d anticipated, and this couch was pretty comfortable, especially considering the Keystone’s cockpit was abysmally small to compensate for the oversized cargo room. Since Legend wasn’t exactly waiting on anyone - the Kydonians wouldn’t come up here for their goods until he’d sent the signal to tell them the Keystone was leaving the only docking platform up here - no one would mind him just taking a quick nap, right?

Yeah, he could just nap for a couple of minutes, then he’d finish onloading the boss’ cargo and finally send the signal just before he left the system.

With a self-satisfied grin, Legend O’Connor closed his eyes, scratched the stubble on his chin and dozed off into a quiet slumber with the starry sky passing him by outside.

((( TIMESKIP: Three hours later (approximately four hours ago) )))

It was slumber he would come to regret as he woke up three hours later, stumbled back to the Keystone while rubbing his eyes groggily and checked the computer for any incoming messages from the boss.

Initially, he thought he was still asleep and he slapped himself real hard. Once the stars stopped dancing in front of his eyes, he rechecked the monitor and then he thought this had to be a nightmare. He ran a real quick jog around the Keystone, ignoring the perceived judgmental glare he attributed to her in his rising panic, before going back inside the cockpit to check the monitor again.

But no matter how many times he tried to convince himself he was hallucinating, the readings didn’t change.

There was another Ship in the system. And it wasn’t just a random Ship either. Legend would recognize that designation anywhere, it was like the caller ID of that really obnoxious aunt whose calls that always went two hours too long, but if you dared hang up, her next call would become three hours of nagging instead of two hours of gossip, so you suffered through it.

It was the bloody Artemis, the Starfleet vessel that had transferred him to DS224 a couple of months ago - via very uncomfortable and unpleasant brig - to have him do civil service and assist in the investigation into the Tritorian’s less-than-legal medical supply shipping business. That civil service that had damn near cost him his sanity and his good name. It had taken him far too long to find a decent job after that whole mess, and it was the sole reason he was now doing anonymous work for an anonymous smuggler who refused to share anything beyond the bare necessities with him.

It wasn’t his fault he’d become a snitch! It was that classic O’Connor luck that meant the folks who rescued him were the stick-in-the-mud paragons of virtue on the Artemis, who weren’t inclined to let him just go quietly into that good night. Noooo, he had to ‘pay for his crimes’ and ‘learn his lesson’ or some such righteous nonsense that didn’t pay a single dime.

And as Legend O’Connor - two-bit smuggler, one-bit butt of the joke - sat there in the Keystone’s cockpit, animatedly swearing at his own ill fortune, he found himself wondering.

What were the chances Addison MacKenzie had upped and resigned in the past couple of months?

O’Connor: I’m cooked.

TAG/TBC

Legend O’Connor

Hapless Smuggler in Trouble (AGAIN)

MSNPC written by

LT Gila Sadar

Assistant Chief Medical Officer

USS Artemis-A

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