Exchange?

Posted on Thu Nov 12th, 2026 @ 6:25am by Commander Rin & Avalon [ADMIN NPC] & Sava Krenn

Mission: Season 6 - Episode 8- The Price of Home
Location: Zyphera Prime
Timeline: At the Diplomatic Reception
2204 words - 4.4 OF Standard Post Measure

Previously:

Sava gave a quiet laugh. “Commander, if I were shopping around for the highest bidder, I wouldn't have approached someone wearing a Starfleet uniform. Your people have an unfortunate reputation and no one knows what happens to information after you've purchased it, yet.” She turned her glass slowly between her fingers. “And for objecting when the seller offers the same information to your enemies.”
Her expression became a little more serious. “What I'm suggesting is that your ship's arrival has made an existing market considerably more interesting. People have been purchasing fragments of old transit records for longer than your people have been discussing this gate.”
She glanced toward the reception. “Not all of them are asking the same questions. Some want coordinates. Others want construction records. A few seem considerably more interested in knowing which installations were deliberately abandoned.” Sava looked back at Rin.

“And some of those requests have come through enough intermediaries that I suspect the buyers would be deeply unhappy to discover someone was comparing their purchases.” She took another small sip. “I can tell you what I've seen. I cannot necessarily tell you who was standing at the beginning of every transaction.” A faint smile returned. “And before you ask, no, I'm not giving you my clients' identities simply because you asked politely.” She paused. “But there may be something else worth discussing.” Sava inclined her head toward the gathering. “If you want to know why people are suddenly so interested in your proposed gate, perhaps you should start by asking what they were looking for before anyone knew you could build one.” Her expression turned almost mischievous. “Now, Commander, are you asking me to sell you information, or are you proposing we exchange some?”

Rin inwardly sighed. Of course she wasn't going to just ask politely for Sava's clients' identities. She was curious as to Starfleet's "unfortunate reputation." There was, of course, the recent incident at Niea IV, and she did wonder how other people were viewing that, but that had nothing to do with information gathering nor dealmaking. She might ask later. But ,at this moment, Sava might see it as asking for free info.

"Exchange." Rin replied.

Now the Continuation:

Sava's smile widened. "Exchange." She repeated the word as though testing its weight, then gave a small, approving nod. "Now that is considerably more interesting, Commander."

She turned towards the balcony, resting her glass on the narrow ledge beside her. Beyond the transparent barrier, vessels moved through Zyphera Prime's carefully controlled approach corridors. A Lorahn merchant transport was being escorted towards one of the outer docking facilities, while a smaller vessel waited patiently for clearance. "Most people assume that because I sell information, everything I know has a price attached to it. They're not entirely wrong, of course. I do have expenses. But information isn't always best measured in currency."

She glanced back at Rin. "Sometimes the most valuable thing someone can offer is an answer to a question nobody else has thought to ask."

Sava reached into a pocket and withdrew a small, unremarkable data wafer. She held it between two fingers without offering it to Rin.

"Several weeks ago, I was approached through an intermediary to locate records concerning an abandoned Thaih'ea transit installation. Nothing particularly unusual about that. Old Thaih'ea technology attracts collectors, researchers, scavengers and the occasional fool who believes an ancient machine will make them wealthy." Her expression became more thoughtful. "What interested me was the specificity of the request. Whoever wanted those records wasn't asking whether the installation existed. They already knew it did. They wanted to know why it had been abandoned." She turned the wafer over between her fingers. "More specifically, whether it had been abandoned because it failed." A pause. "Or because it succeeded." Sava let the distinction settle before continuing. "I haven't established which explanation is correct. The surviving records are incomplete, and some have been deliberately altered. But I did discover that the installation wasn't the only one attracting attention. Other buyers were looking for related material. Different locations. Different periods. Similar questions."

She returned the wafer to her pocket. "Then your ship arrived, and suddenly everyone began discussing the possibility of constructing a new transit aperture." Sava looked directly at Rin. "Perhaps that's a coincidence. I dislike coincidences, but they do occasionally happen."

Her smile returned. "Now, before you ask, no, I'm not offering you the wafer. Not yet. It contains information belonging to a client, and I take my obligations rather seriously." She retrieved her glass. "But I can offer you something that doesn't violate those obligations. A comparison of the publicly recoverable records and the patterns in the requests I've encountered. No client identities. No confidential transactions. Just the questions being asked, the periods they concern and the installations that keep appearing in them."

She paused. "In return, I want to know something." Sava's gaze moved briefly towards the reception, where diplomats and scientists were mingling beneath the warm lights. "Your people have travelled an extraordinary distance, Commander. You've encountered technologies and phenomena that most civilisations in Circinus have never seen. I don't need your engineering specifications, your command codes or whatever secrets your Commodore would prefer remained aboard your ship." A faintly amused expression crossed her face. "Those would be expensive enough to cause me considerably more trouble than they're worth." She lowered her voice slightly. "What I want to know is whether your people have encountered evidence of artificial transit technology during your time here. Not rumours. Not theories. Something you actually observed."

She tilted her head. "And if that is information you're not authorised to discuss, tell me so. I'd rather negotiate with someone who understands the limits of her authority than someone who makes promises she cannot keep." Sava lifted her glass slightly. "Consider that my opening offer, Commander. A little of what I know, in exchange for a little of what you can legitimately tell me." Her smile became almost mischievous.

"Unless, of course, you have a better proposal."

This was the first time someone had suggested that the Thaih'ea had transit locations, rather than transit technology aboard their ships. That let a few things fall into place. But it also asked another another question. How much did the people or Circinus actually know?

"I can make that exchange." Rin replied. "You want confirmation that the Thaih'ea can travel as far as is rumored. Yes, we've encountered multiple people from our galaxy held prisoner by the Thaih'ea. Multiple races, multiple governments, and over an extended amount of time. All taken by the Thaih'ea. All deliberately transported here."

Sava's smile faded slightly. "Multiple prisoners, from different governments, taken over an extended period." She considered Rin's words. "That's considerably more interesting than I expected, Commander." She glanced towards the windows. "It doesn't tell us how the Thaih'ea transported them, but it certainly suggests they possessed a reliable method." Sava retrieved the data wafer from her pocket.

"Now, my side of the exchange. Several of the installations appearing in those requests were removed from operational registries without corresponding destruction or decommissioning records." She paused. "Which means they may not have been destroyed at all. Merely forgotten. Or deliberately concealed." Her gaze returned to Rin. "And the requests for those records began well before your ship arrived. Someone was looking for missing Thaih'ea transit infrastructure before anyone started talking about Erebus." She slipped the wafer away.

"I can provide a comparison of the records I'm permitted to share. Dates, known locations and the questions being asked. No client identities, naturally." A faint smile returned. "One final thought, Commander. If the Thaih'ea were transporting prisoners from your galaxy for years, perhaps we should be asking whether they ever stopped." She raised her glass. "Unless, of course, you'd prefer to discuss what it might cost to find out."

"I've seen no evidence that they have stopped, so pursuing such a possibility is low on my list of priorities, unless you know something more on the matter," Rin responded. "But to return to the data at hand, how do I receive the data?"

Sava regarded Rin for a moment before giving an approving nod. "Straight to the practicalities. Very well, Commander. I believe you've earned something more substantial than vague warnings and intriguing possibilities." She retrieved the data wafer once more, this time activating its small display. Several lines of information appeared, accompanied by an old navigational chart. "Let's start with something you can actually investigate." She enlarged one section of the chart. "Kharis Drift. An uninhabited system approximately three days' travel from the nearest established commercial shipping corridor."

Sava indicated a location marked by an obsolete navigational designation. "According to a Thaih'ea administrative record recovered from a commercial archive, there was once a permanent transit installation here. Not a vessel, Commander. A fixed installation. It appeared in maintenance and supply records for almost eighty years before disappearing from the operational registry approximately two centuries ago." She paused. "That alone wouldn't be particularly unusual. Governments abandon installations all the time. What makes Kharis Drift interesting is that seventeen years after the installation was supposedly decommissioned, a Lorahn merchant vessel recorded delivering specialised field-regulation components to the same coordinates." Sava looked up. "Someone was maintaining something that officially no longer existed."
She brought up a second entry. "Now, here's where it becomes considerably more interesting. The components delivered to Kharis Drift weren't ordinary power regulators. The surviving manifests describe equipment intended to maintain extremely precise spatial-field alignment. Unfortunately, the original technical specifications are missing."

She gave a small shrug. "I don't pretend to understand the engineering involved. Perhaps your people will recognise something significant in the terminology." Another document appeared. "Second, there are at least two other installations with similar administrative histories. One was listed as a navigational research facility, the other as a transportation support station. Both vanished from official records without corresponding destruction reports. All three appear in historical material associated with the same Thaih'ea infrastructure programe."

Sava allowed Rin a moment to consider that. "Which suggests they may have formed part of a larger network. Whether they were connected physically, operationally, or merely administratively, I cannot say." She tapped the display again. "And finally, something that may be of particular interest to your security people." A series of dates appeared. "Requests for records concerning Kharis Drift began increasing approximately fourteen months ago. The other two installations attracted similar attention shortly afterwards. This predates the arrival of your ship and, more importantly, predates any public discussion of constructing another transit aperture."

Her expression grew thoughtful. "Someone was investigating these locations before the possibility of recreating their technology became a diplomatic concern." Sava deactivated the display and extended the wafer towards Rin. "This contains the publicly recoverable records, the last documented coordinates for Kharis Drift, copies of the maintenance references, the Lorahn delivery manifest, and the archive identifiers for the other two installations. I've also included the dates on which the more recent searches began appearing."

Her expression turned businesslike. "I've removed anything that would identify my clients or compromise confidential transactions. Everything remaining can be independently examined, although I would recommend treating the coordinates as historical rather than current." She offered a faint smile. "There's enough there for your engineers to investigate the equipment, your navigators to examine the locations, and your security officers to decide whether the timing of those searches warrants attention." Sava lifted her glass once more. "And one final observation, Commander. The records I've found concern infrastructure, not vessels. If your people have encountered prisoners transported from another galaxy, and these installations were part of the means by which they arrived, then the Thaih'ea may have possessed something considerably more extensive than a handful of ships capable of extraordinary journeys."

Her gaze drifted towards the diplomatic reception. "Which raises the rather uncomfortable question of how much of that infrastructure might still exist." She gave Rin a polite inclination of her head. "An equitable exchange, I think. You've given me something valuable to consider, and I've given you something your people can actually investigate." A mischievous smile returned. "If you discover anything particularly interesting, Commander, I would welcome another conversation. Preferably before someone else decides the information is worth considerably more than either of us anticipated." With that, Sava raised her glass in farewell and turned back towards the reception, leaving Rin with the information and the opportunity to determine what Starfleet would do with it.

Rin looked at the data wafer. That was, indeed, far more than she had expected to receive. Granted, Sava stood to gain quite a bit by handing it off. She wasn't going to investigate the data, but Starfleet almost assuredly would, and Rin was confident Sava would have more in trade once Starfleet had figured some things out.

Still, the data had been generous, and this was a relationship she wanted to keep. "People keep talking about a 'gate,'" Rin said as Sava turned to go. "We've never used that terminology. If you hear people talking about a 'gate,' either they're talking about something other than Erebus, or they're making an assumption based on some outside data."