About Colonel Ch'Rill
"Orions!" scoffs the Colonel. "To use a Human expression I heard once on Earth, it would appear that the Orions are as pervasive in the Shackleton Expanse as water is on concrete: they find every crack they
can and sink their way in."
"The Orions’ determination to facilitate trade within the Shackleton Expanse is frustrating because they are attempting to operate a legal mercantile operation under galactic treaty within the Expanse while also doing their best to cover up their dishonorable dealings in the rest of the quadrant. The Orions have long frustrated the Empire with their dual ability to provide worthy and much-needed trade while also being honorless dogs and striking when our attention turns elsewhere. We have lost three freighters and one bird-of-prey near the Expanse so far under mysterious circumstances stemming from attacks by pirates, and the Orions claim ignorance about these attacks."
"The Orion Trade Union has successfully labored to keeptheir trade franchises open throughout the quadrant despite the misgivings of Klingon High Council. Their ships bring essential goods to Narendra Station such as quadrotriticale and antimatter to the trade outposts established here."
"Although I would enjoy nothing more than stopping every Orion vessel and having my warriors complete a thorough search of their holds, doing so is time consuming and they have managed to get the Federation, the Ferengi, the Tholians, and more to their side over their “right to engage in free and unrestricted trade.” The problem is not with the legitimate Orion trading vessels but the pirates that come along with them. I personally have overseen the seizure of an Orion ship that came to the Expanse, deposited its cargo, and then engaged in piracy before trying to return home.
[b]"The Orion Syndicate here does what the Syndicate doeselsewhere, which is to say they have a keen way of blending professional, legitimate business dealings with their criminal enterprises. The fact that they can offer cold, hard latinum to those who need it means that anyone at any time can come under their thumb. The Syndicate generously rewards those who help them, though if you ever cross the Syndicate,
they will not be afraid to eliminate you. One particularly harsh lesson was on board the Strimento, a Lurian freighter that we had suspected of working for them for some time."
"They sabotaged the life support system to slowly drain out the breathable atmosphere of the ship without giving any warning, and left only one atmospheric suit on board. All we found on board was what survived of the captain’s personal logs. They revealed a coded message from a Miss O who learned the Strimento’s crew was skimming too much of a percentage off the top and failed to heed their warnings."
"I would love for the General to drag everyone suspected of being a member of the Orion Syndicate into his office so they can be interrogated and removed from the Expanse, but the Orions have kept several lawyers very happy with their considerable payments over the years for the use of their services. Each time we think we have built a case against a suspected Syndicate member, we find the courts bogged down for months as their skilled litigators turn the case upside down. I’ve watched more than a few suspected members of the Syndicate walk out of the courtroom and onto a starship, never to be seen again. While I know a few of them are enjoying luxurious lives on planets such as Risa, know that some of those they liberated from the station saw the barrel of a disruptor before dying."
"When it comes to navigating the Expanse, we believe the Orions may have detailed maps of the electromagnetic and gravimetric disturbances that make travel through the Expanse so hazardous. When it comes to avoiding these phenomena, the pirates seem to not only know where they are located, but the best stellar coordinates to lie in wait for a passing ship before striking. It appears their preferred tactic is to use ships equipped with tractor beam-based rams to force a vessel into these eddies to damage it and then strike before the ship can bring its systems back online. It is a tactic as clever as it is gutless, as they allow for the natural forces of the universe to do the bulk of the fighting for them."
"Attempts to position beacons near these eddies to warn passing ships of their occurrence has been useless because either the eddies disable or destroy the beacons, or the pirates do so themselves. Federation ships responsible for maintaining these beacons often find themselves the target of the pirates as well."
"In addition to the Orion pirates, we also have to deal with the Orion Syndicate. The Syndicate is like a tribble infestation:once you think you’ve eliminated them at their source, they always somehow return. This past year, General Kargan arrested four suspected members of the Syndicate operating on Narendra Station and yet we still have a security problem where munitions, supplies, and even shuttlecraft go missing."
"We recently encountered a Ferengi peddling crates of station components as far away as Bajor, and it appears that as long as the Syndicate persists elsewhere in the quadrant, we will still have problems."
"There is one incident in particular that shows how resourceful the Syndicate is. One of my operatives on Narendra posing as a Klingon food peddler observed a Bolian pottery merchant on the Galleria repeatedly getting into arguments with passing Orions over the quality of the pottery. The Orions would return the pottery they purchased, claiming
they were poorly-replicated forgeries and then the Bolian would return their credits. Although it appeared the Bolian was always accepting returns from the Orions, he was wealthy enough to purchase his own private ship. After “intercepting” one of these pots we learned that the Bolian was encrypting the deployment of Federation and Klingon vessels into the pottery itself! The returned pottery contained the Bolian’s cut of the goods stolen from other vessels. The General demanded the Bolian be returned to the Empire to stand trial, but he employed his rights as a Federation citizen and was sent back to Bolarus IX for trial. It appears the Bolian died in his sleep not long after leaving the station, which leaves us once again without a key witness into the Syndicate’s dealings."
"It is not just piracy and shady dealings that are making the Syndicate rich. With supply issues a problem throughout the Expanse, many are turning to the Syndicate to acquire spare parts and resources essential to keeping colonies and ships running. The Syndicate knows that desperate people are willing to pay anything for survival in this free-ranging area of space, and they leverage the trust they build with others to assist them when they need it. It is not just the threat of being assassinated for speaking out against the Syndicate, but the fact that many are too afraid to lose their own private supply lines."
