Paul strode with confidence into Captain Mallory's office, his hallucinegenic friend accompanying him. Captain Mallory looked up at him with a surprised look on her face, as he threw a PADD down onto her desk.
"What's this?" she asked.
"Read it." She picked it up and read over it. After a few minutes, she looked up again. "So, you finally found the Swarvan system. That's a good three days travel, I'm not letting you go alone, in case something should happen to you."
"Zhen send Tarik wiz me."
"I can't spare him right now."
Paul thought for a moment. "What about zhat Namek?"
"Picollo?"
"Oui, E elped me before with zhis problem. I'm sure e'd be appy to elp me." Paul said with a grin.
"Absolutely not!" growled Picollo. "If you think I'm spending four days, plus however many more you need with you, you can forget it." "Ah, come on, it will be fun mom amis. Besidez, you iz zhe only person I know oo can come anywhere near elping me should I get in some kind of mental problem. And some one as strong az you would be andy to ave around."
"My answer is no." replied Picollo as he closed his eyes and returned to his meditation.
Paul grumbled something under his breath as he walked off. Picollo opened an eye and shook his head at the annoying Frenchman.
A couple of hours later, Paul returned to the bowels of the station, where once more he found Picollo meditating. He dropped a PADD in front of him, disturbing Picollo from his meditation. He looked up at Paul who was standing in front of him grinning inanely. He reached out an arm and grabbed the PADD, slowly reading it over. He sighed and handed the PADD back to Paul. "How did you get the Colonel to agree to this foolish mission?" Picollo asked.
"Ah, zhe Colonel and I are old friends mon amis, which I'm sure we will be after zhis trip." Picollo rolled his eyes and stood up, towering over Paul. "When do we leave?" "Now?"
"Well, let's get this over with."
After two days of travel, which Paul was glad to get over and done with...
Picollo spent most of his time in the rear quarters in mediatation leaving Paul to fly the ship and his illusionary partner staring at him the whole way. Captain Mallory had given Paul one of the two Venture class scout ships recently assigned to the station for this mission... the USS Dauphin. The navigation console lit up and began bleeping as the ship dropped out of warp. Finally, Paul had reached the co-ordinates the Ferengi had given him. Paul wasn't worried about a trap this time as the Ferengi had quite happily parted with the information for 5 bars of latinum. Paul did a quick sensor sweep finding four planets in the system, the third of which was M class. "Picollo, get out ere, we ave arrived." called Paul.
As Paul piloted the shuttle toward the planet, he took the time to read over the sensor readings taken. "About time." grumbled the marine as he took his seat in the cockpit.
"I'm detecting many settlementz through out zhe planet" announced Paul. "Atmosphere is 28% Oxygen, 70% Nitrogen and 2% CO2, so we shouldn't ave any trouble breathing. I can't seem to open any ailing frequenciez with zhe planet, so I am going to ave to land just outside one of zheir cities."
"Well then hurry up. I could do with some different scenery." Different scenery, hah! Zhe only scenery he's seen lately iz zhe insidez of iz eyelidz!
Paul set the ship down just outside the largest city on the planet. He and Picollo stepped out and were immediately hit with a strong wind. Paul steadied himself and headed for the city, Picollo followed. As they neared a set of large gates, a large party of people came out to meet them. Paul looked them over closely as they approached each other and noticed that there was not a single man among them. The crowd of women stopped just in front of Paul. One of them emerged from the crowd and walked up to him.
"Greetings Paul Deveraux." she said. "We've been expecting you."