| abstract
| - "When a Federation starship is lost, everyone focuses on the destruction of the ship itself... the hull, the engine, the weapons..." a frustrated Petty officer complained while sipping a drink in the crew lounge at Shipyard 40 Eridani-A, "Does anyone ever stop to think about the uniforms?" "You mean the crewmen lost? Of course they do." The bartender responded. The petty officer lowered his gaze, shaking his head from side to side... "No. Not the crewmen. There are always survivors. I'm talking about their uniforms!" The bartender leaned back, confused, "What??" "A ship gets destroyed, and all of those decks, all of those crew quarters are filled up with uniforms. Those are uniforms that need to be replaced. Backs that need shirts, legs that need pants, feet that need boots! Nobody ever stops to think about the uniforms that somebody has to replace! In fact, they don't bat an eye!!" He breathed in deeply to calm his frustration, "I doubt even one officer has ever donned a Starfleet uniform, and stopped for two seconds to think about the SLCR corpsman who tailored it for them." "Well, you can rest easy knowing that they're marching into the final frontier on a pair of your boots." the Bartender quipped as he turned to another customer, chuckling. Petty Officer Elam rolled his eyes at the bartender, pushing his drink away as he stood from the bar. As he turned to leave, the disgruntled officer tapped a control panel on the wall to check the time. "1458 hours... Time to report for my double shift." Since word of the Federalist's destruction had reached the shipyards, many of the station's crew had been working overtime to get the Hestia-class replacement ready. Engineers scrambled to piece together the bulkheads of the advanced ship, while ergonomics specialists set up workstations and programmers set out to configure the ship's computer for its specific mission needs. On deck 23 of the station, the crewman of the Starfleet Laundry and Clothing Repair Corps struggled to produce high quality, tailored uniforms for all 423 crew members aboard the ship. Petty Officer Jack Elam had been working in the SLCR Corps at the Starbase for a little over a year, he'd joined Starfleet in hopes to get out away from Earth, to find exciting new adventures... but his career hadn't gone as planned. Despite maintaining a diligent standard of good work, conflicts with colleagues and commanding officers left him relegated to mending fabric and spit shining boots on the poorly lit laundry deck of a desolate space station in a remote corner of Federation space. Elam stood at a workstation with several tools in front of him. He extracted a newly manufactured boot from a cargo container to the left of his station. He dipped the end of a small brush into a dish of shoe polish. He carefully worked the brush into the synthetic material of the shoe. Once the material was uniformly applied, he reached for a laser polishing tool. The low-power, wide-beam laser reacted with the high-tech polish as it grazed the surface of the boot, bonding a glossy finish to the material. After a few minutes of meticulous work, a perfectly shined Federation-issue boot glistened before him. His own reflection stared back at him from its glossy toe. He then repeated the process with the matching boot. He placed the pair of boots on a small pedestal, and pressed a button at it's base. The boots were instantly wrapped in a thin cellophane coating, allowing them to be shipped in pair. He placed the pair in another cargo container to the right of his station, and sighed as he set out to repeat the process. A Lieutenant Commander stepped into the laundry. He gazed around for a minute at the several crewmen working in relative quiet. The Officer stepped toward Elam's station. "Crewman, can I have a word with you in private?" Elam was annoyed, but silently nodded and followed the Senior Officer out of the Laundry. They approached a nearby conference room. "Crewman Elam, is it?" The tall balding man extended his hand, "My name is Lieutenant Commander Locarno. I'm with Starfleet Security." Elam raised an eyebrow at the man, "Am I in some sort of trouble?" "Oh, no. Not at all!" Locarno took an apologetic tone, "I'm here to ask for your help." "I'm actually quite busy..." Elam expressed his annoyance. "OK, I'll cut right to it." Locarno explained, "What I'm going to tell you does not leave this room. Understood?" Elam nodded. "We know you're preparing uniforms for the crew of the U.S.S. Federalist. Without delving too far into things; we in Starfleet Security have reason to believe there is a spy aboard the Federalist. We'd like you to help us by planting one of these in every uniform that's going aboard that ship." The gold-uniformed officer reached out, placing a small grain-of-rice sized device on the clean tabletop. Elam reached out and picked up the tiny object, examining it carefully between his fingers. "It's a simple audio recording circuit, designed with a nearly undetectable energy profile. These will listen to everything going on aboard the Federalist, and when we need to analyze the data, we can quietly transport them away for processing." Elam was intrigued, "So, what? You want me to sew these into the lining of a uniform? Implant it into the soul of a boot?" "We'll leave that up to you. I'm assuming an expert like yourself would be better equipped to hide this device in a uniform than anyone." Locarno played to the Crewman's vanity. "Alright..." Crewman Elam acquiesced, "What's in it for me?" "Well," Locarno chuckled, "Once our spy is discovered, I'll make sure that Starfleet Security reports a commendation in your personnel record..." "I don't think so." Elam rebutted, "I don't believe that someone in a forged uniform has that kind of power." Locarno backed away nervously, "Forged? Excuse me?" he feigned outrage. "That seem," he pointed at an innocuous line near the lower right edge of the shirt. "Nobody in the SLCR would let that sloppy work pass. And the stitching along your shoulders, it's definitely not to spec. The whole uniform pattern is askew by... maybe a half centimeter." "Now, wait..." Locarno stumbled, "I'm sure..." "Just stop." the disgruntled crewman reassured the fraud, "I really don't care. Tell me who your with, and what you've got to offer." Locarno sighed, "I was in Starfleet once... or at least the Academy. When my career went belly up, I did whatever I could to get back behind the conn of a ship. I ran freighters between the outer colonies for several years. Eventually, I found a kind of happy place out there. My work had some meaning and I loved the people I was with... But as the Federation fought their wars and made their treaties, our colonies were basically left for dead... The Romulans and Klingons shifted their borders, scattering our people, and cutting us off from the core worlds of the Federation completely. As we pleaded for help, the Federation never gave us more than a letter of regret and an offer of resettlement. They stood by as we lost our homes and our way of life. Ultimately, we were forced to learn to survive on our own... Now, reports indicate that the Federation is interested in reestablishing a presence in the outer systems. We're not sure what they're after, but it seems to be important, and the Federalist will be at the forefront of that expedition." "So you want the upper hand?" Elam asked. "Look, we're not going to try and hurt anyone. But when Starfleet starts shoving their way back into the lives of my people, we want the upper hand. We've struggled far too hard to have them come back twenty years later, acting like nothing's changed... So. Do you think you can help us?" "Latinum." Crewman Elam demanded. "Make it worth my while. Twenty Bars." "I can do Ten up front.." Locarno sighed. "The rest after the job is done." Elam nodded. "You'll get your latinum with the recording devices very soon. Make sure one device ends up in every uniform." Locarno reached out for another handshake, "If all goes as planned, you won't see me again. Thank you." Elam returned to his shift in the Laundry and finished the day's work with the distraction of the meeting on his mind. After he completed his work, he went back to his favorite barstool in the crew lounge. The bartender approached, and he ordered; "I'll take an Acamarian Lager." "Here," the bartender placed a box on the bar in front of the crewman, lowering his voice. "Someone left a gift for you." Elam lifted the lid, peeking inside the box. He quickly appraised ten bars of Gold Pressed Latinum, stacked neatly alongside a sealed bag of tracking devices. "OK, scratch that drink order." Elam looked up at the bartender who nodded knowingly. He stood up and left the lounge quickly, immediately reporting back to the now desolate laundry- having been closed for the day. Elam opened the cargo container full of boots that he'd prepared earlier. He removed one pair, and carefully looked over the perfectly polished, packaged and prepared boots. Using a plasma awl, he precisely burrowed a hole into the heel of the boot- straight in from the back. He used a small needle to push a tracking device as far as he could into the rubbery synthetic material of the sole. Once, deeply embedded within the heel, he changed the setting of the awl and used it melt the material, perfectly sealing the tiny hole that held the device inside. "One down, about a thousand to go..."
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