C-026: Maldemar 732 (Hyperspace to Adal), Oliver’s Cabin

Erin makes an I’m not convinced noise and settles in to watch the vid.

The Extra Fellow

A Tricky Start

It turns out this vid is also censored, but unlike Sundown on Starmist, Argyle hasn’t broken down and rebuilt the entire file.

It takes Oliver several Moments to futz around with it to get it to play.

He has two options – he can override the censorship protection with his Vizant 4 credentials on the basis that this is Argyle’s and related to his mission, or he can hack the censorship protection himself (I won’t make him roll, I figure he just knows how to do that as an accomplished CyberTerrorist…)

The Extra Fellow

Set on the alien Felline Home World before Felline was formally incorporated into the Dominion, The Extra Fellow tells the story of a small village of Enclavers who have diaspora’d to Felline and are living within the Felline lands.  Law enforcement in this village comprises a trio of a Legionnaire, a Felline and an Enclaver Elder.  The protagonist is a Vizierate Warden, Martin Cotton, who is sent to join the village law enforcement team – an extra fellow.  The first half of the vid is Cotton dealing with the substantial cultural shock of this strange setting.

The second half of the vid deals with Cotton investigating an accidental death that he finds suspicious but that everyone else is determined to treat as an accident.  During the course of the investigation he becomes emotionally involved with Valia, an Enclaver who was the deceased’s former lover.  As he investigates further he uncovers a complex plot involving smuggling Feline artifacts off-planet in exchange for bringing restricted high tech gear in to the Felline.  At the climax, Cotton pursues the Enclaver mastermind behind the operation through a Felline village, defeats the mastermind’s Felline lieutenant and corners the mastermind in the nearby smuggler’s shuttle.  Valia appears and confronts Cotton and the Mastermind, intending to kill the Mastermind to seek revenge.  The Mastermind says the deceased was killed for selling out the Enclavers to the Vizierate, which is why Cotton is here, aiming to remove the village from Felline territory and bring it back within Dominion control.  Valia turns on Cotton demanding to know if it is true, the Mastermind seizes the chance and attacks Cotton, but is shot by Valia and then finished off by Cotton.  Valia repeats her question of Cotton and he admits the accusation is true.  She spits in his face and curses him in Enclaver before storming out of the shuttle and returning to the village.       

Oliver may find the vid slightly jarring.  The Dominion is linguistically homogeneous, but much of the dialog is spoken in Felline or Enclaver as well as the Dominion Language, and no attempt is made to translate or provide subtitles.