Latinum Fever

by Mickey Cecil, JGMS member

It was 2378, three years after the Dominion War, and though travel to the gamma quadrant was not safe, it was allowed. The United Federation of Planets and Starfleet were the only ones in the alpha quadrant that could grant passage through the Bajoran wormhole. Of course, I had given the conventional answers for my reasons for travel. "In my exploration, I hope to find ryetalyn, topaline and zenite." Respectively, these minerals were used for curing diseases, providing energy for colonial life support systems, and curing botanical plagues. These were all worthwhile causes and would not be refused by the Federation. I, Jack Digson or "Digger" to my friends, had been on Earth for almost a week and was growing tired of all the governmental red tape and cultural serenity. Earth, as planets go, was quite beautiful, but its only attraction to me had disappeared in the late 21^st century. It was now a sterile, peaceful, perfect world where latinum had no value, and gemstones were nothing more than colored ornaments. Even dilithium crystals had lost their value, crystals so rare that they were found on only a few known worlds. Its ability to control matter-antimatter reactions for warp drive had made it the most sought after mineral in the galaxy. Now synthetic dilithium had made natural crystals nothing more than curiosities. However, there was a world in the gamma quadrant that held my fascination. A lost science vessel had mentioned a world in its last transmission. A world called "Mineralus".

It took me three weeks to get to Deep Space 9 (DS-9) on my freighter class ship. DS-9 was a converted Federation space station that had been left from the Cardassian occupation of Bajor. Cardassia’s enslavement of the Bajoran people had lasted 100 years. Uridium, which was used for Cardassian starship sensor arrays, had been mined extensively. Even in space, minerals and mining were the reason for expansion, conquest and power. However, the Bajoran people no longer needed protection, and DS-9 was moved to the mouth of the wormhole, which was a more strategic position during the war. DS-9 was a true gold mine, to use an ancient expression. Silithium had entered the wormhole from a comet, forming a permanent subspace filament making communication possible. Silithium, with no commercial value, had now become one of the galaxy’s most well known minerals. News about the gamma quadrant arrived daily through the wormhole, and the station was filled with traders from the alpha, beta, and gamma quadrants. Quark, a Ferengi who owned a bar on DS-9, was always involved in other, more profitable business transactions. He had even done trading in the gamma quadrant for the grand nagus. Starfleet was cooperative, but officially no information concerning Mineralus had been received. Quark was my best hope.

Quark said that he knew nothing about a planet named Mineralus; however, two strips of latinum would be enough for him to ask around. I offered him 50 slips with the agreement that I would pay one bar of gold-pressed latinum for any hard information of this world. Two days later, I had enough information from Quark to start my journey. If I were lucky, it would only take a few weeks. If I were unlucky, hopefully death would be quick. The information that Quark supplied was incomplete and only narrowed the search to a few sectors, and no information was given about the planet’s class. Most mineral laden planets are H, K, L, or M class. Class J, gas giants were rarely mined with an exception of Saturn. Mining of its rings had occurred until the late 22^nd century when planetary conservationist claimed that the system was being destroyed. I prayed that it would not be a K class planet. These lifeless uninhabitable planets are the true hell of the galaxy and, most likely, my final destination. My ship would leave the next morning with my crew. T’Purl was a Vulcan female and an expert with sensors and scientific equipment. Krone was a Klingon male, an expert engineer and a true warrior. They were my only friends, ones that I knew that I could trust. I fell asleep remembering the 62^nd Rule of Acquisition, "The riskier the road, the higher the profit."

My ship, Pegmatite, was named after a huge crystal find on Janus V. The whole planetary system was beautifully mineralized, but Janus VI had been mostly mined out by the Federation with the help of the Horta, the indigenous silicon based life form. The pegmatite pockets that we had found were as large as living quarters and filled with kevas, separ, and the forbidden Tallonian crystals, which alone provided us with enough latinum to purchase our ship. The Pegmatite’s sensors were almost as good as Federation starships and maximum speed was warp 5. We could never outrun any warships, but we had our ways of avoiding encounters. With any luck, our trip would be profitable.

After two months in the gamma quadrant, we had found little to get us excited. Unluckily on this occasion however, T’Purl’s sensors had found a planet with vast quantities of mizainite ore. This ore was used for making Dominion warships which meant that the Jem’Hadar, the Dominion warriors, would be nearby. I immediately ordered our ship to withdraw with total agreement from my shipmates, but a Jem’Hadar ship had already detected us. Even though the war was over and knowing that running was fruitless, I asked T’Purl for options. She said that sensors had detected a nearby system with a field of asteroids made of fistrium and kelbonite. T’Purl said, "Hiding within this asteroid field would make long range sensors useless and the Pegmatite almost undetectable, or we could stay here and be Jem’Hadar target practice." Krone was able to achieve warp 5.6 without any damage to our matter-antimatter converters and maneuvering us into the field had given us time to make additional plans.

Running on impulse power made the Pegmatite almost invisible in the asteroid field. The Jem’Hadar ship would have to be right on top of us for her sensors to pick us up. I assumed that they would look for us for a day or two and then give up and go home. I decided to take this time and try systematically searching the asteroids for any promising mining sites. As we searched, we found small deposits of a wide range of minerals including sirillium, an energy source for shield deflectors, and bilitrium, a highly explosive substance with antimatter. Both of these substances would make our trip profitable, but still we dreamed of Mineralus. Normally, mineral deposits could be transported directly to the ship, but due to the presence of bemonite on all the asteroids, transporters were nonfunctional, and mining had to be done manually. Luckily, Krone was strong as an Earth animal called an ox, and the mining went well. When we had finally loaded as much of these minerals that could be considered safe, we decided to leave on the opposite side of the asteroid field. Just as we were leaving the field, T’Purl said that her sensors were picking up a planet. After examining the data, we concluded that two planets originally shared this same orbit. One was destroyed by some catastrophe forming the asteroid field and the other remained inside the field. The Pegmatite dropped into orbit, and our mineral sensor alarms went wild. Could this be it!?

Huge deposits of gold, diamonds, platinum, kevas, separ and latinum were everywhere. No planet ever discovered had latinum deposits this large. We were rich, beyond belief!! T’Purl said, "It’s K class with bemonite, so there’s no transporting." Krone moaned, "Manual mineral mining in hell." I just groaned. We all decided that latinum was our goal. It was used as legal tender in almost all the worlds of both the alpha and beta quadrants. The other mineral would have to wait. With our equipment and the hardships involved, it took almost two months to mine enough latinum to fill our ship. These two months seemed like an eternity while mining in space suits in a poisonous atmosphere with temperatures approaching 200 degrees Centigrade. With this haul, we would pay someone else to get the rest.

When we left the asteroid field, we were wary of any Jem’Hadar ships in the area. To our luck, it appeared to be clear sailing, and we were off to the wormhole and the alpha quadrant. At maximum warp and a direct course, it would take four weeks to get home. My mind was constantly dreaming of wealth and fortune only to be sidetracked by images of sensor alarms and Dominion warships. The Pegmatite was a jewel. Her warp engines purred at warp 5 with only two days left to the alpha quadrant. Just then the ship shuddered and careened off course. We had hit a nitrilin space mine. This mine was meant only to disable our ship and had been planted recently. The ship was intact, but warp drive was off-line. Another explosion occurred on the port side. The antimatter chamber had been damaged, and I immediately started worrying about a serious explosion with the bilitrium that we had in the cargo bays. We immediately transported the bilitrium into space just before a third mine exploded. A warp core breach was imminent and the core had to be jettisoned. We were now left floating in space. Sirillium! Our deflectors could be modified and strengthened by incorporating the energy from sirillium into the deflector arrays. With the increased energy, we were able to deflect the mine explosions from our hull and use impulse power to leave the minefield. However, on impulse power, a two-day warp trip would take months. Knowing that communication with the Federation on Deep Space 9 would bring help and that remaining in the gamma quadrant definitely meant a meeting with the makers of the nitrilin space mines, we reluctantly called for help. The U.S.S. Valiant showed up in less than 6 hours. I estimated that they had traveled at warp 8.5 to get to us that quickly. After deactivating the remaining mines and tractoring our ship, they informed us that the Federation had not approved our cargo and that it would be confiscated and returned to the Dominion. I had figured that this would happen, so the previous six hours had not gone to waste.

My report to the Federation took three days to write and the questioning lasted another six. I had convinced the Federation that we had attempted to obtain a small profit in a huge investment, mining venture. My thoughts, however, were distracted by an upcoming two-day trip into the gamma quadrant to find a self-contained and sensor-evading fistrium alloy cargo bay full of latinum.

(Mineral and general Star Trek information for this story was obtained from The Star Trek Encyclopedia, A Reference Guide to the Future, Updated and Expanded Edition by Michael Okuda and Denise Okuda.)