Blue Stripe - The Life and Times of a Delta Quadrant Scam Artist

This article is part of the The Blue Stripe Logs series.

Blue Stripe brings you true tales of tomorrow's working class. For ever blaster-wielding rocket jockey there are a thousand intergalactic wage slaves and blue collar laborers. They're just background for the supposed heroes of the future, but to those of us at Blue Stripe they are the men, women, droids, and tentacled nightmares that will build and maintain the future.

Hail and greetings to you! I am honored to make your esteemed acquaintances. I am Xorgus P. Wullshik, Imperator at large, ferryman of fetching freight, and purveyor of pulchritudinous paraphernalia.

You will have no doubt by this point and at this occasion detected that my ship is fully unarmed and equipped only with a small quantum engine which my simple species utilizes to transport our vessels across space. I entreat you not to greet my feeble vessel unkindly. I have no doubt a race as advanced and wise as yours possesses weapons that might be employed to bring about the destruction of my craft in seconds.

Oh, it is not battle you seek, but commerce. This is a language I am fluent in, I assure you! Allow me to presume the role of interlocutor for a moment and implore upon your patience to unfurl your list of demands.

Logs? Work logs you say? Something so uncommonly requested I have not seen in many years. Yet it just so happens I have had affairs with a certain Xorgus P. Wullshik who might have just what you are looking for! Oh, well why of course, I am referring to myself and I did not even realize! I have the work logs you desire, although I fear the word "work" does not begin to describe the abject poverty I have endured since I began selling my wares in the Delta Quadrant.

Barely a druknel to rub together, I'm afraid. If only I had a few to- ah, you are too kind! Too kind indeed.

These fine files which you are about to witness before your very eyes are from my own personal stock. They detail my adventures throughout the Delta Quadrant and the many exploits and exploitations I have been purvey to! I scantily can believe them myself, so fantastic are these adventures and so far-fetched are my wondrous encounters with the denizens of this demarcation.

What price do I ask for such a delightful dossier? What possible value could I place upon such a peerless portfolio? 800 druknels? 900? Over a thousand?

No! I ask only 499 druknels for this file, which will open to you the secrets of space, time, and glorx. You have never heard of glorx!? Well, well, well, friend. What wonders await you within the pages of this magnificent missive!

Sorry, the machine is broken, I can only take cash. Nope, read the sign. Druknels or Euros.

Ah, this will do nicely! Very well, human, you shall have what it is that it is that you desire to have!

A final warning! Once you have read the story of Xorgus P. Wullshik, your very life will seem so doldrumerous and desiccated that you might just choose to hurl yourself out the space lock. These memories of mine will become memories of yours and you will be forced to endure each and every day of your lives without the benefit of having never heard of Xorgus P. Wullshik.

Mxdag

An intergalactic species of suckers is born every minute.The pinging of the dowser grows urgent. With great haste I pull upon that peculiar lever that when engaged removes my ship from the stream of glorx to sidereal space. With a sputter and a harrumph! and a great shower of sparkling light Fancy Specter emerges from glorx.

I can tell immediately by the haze of anomalous gasses that I am in the midst of the Nekrit Expanse. I have traversed this region before, but it seems an unlikely location for me to find potential customers. It is terribly boring, even if you are fortunate enough to possess travel checkers technology.

I adjust the knobs on my skrurmophone to achieve full spectrum sensualization. In moments I discover that my sidereal dowser has not led me astray. There are bargain hunters within visual range!

A tug of the skrurmophone plunger sucks the image of their spaceship up onto the majorest of my screens. It is a very attractive spaceship, that sort of spaceship that oozes money, preferably into my pockets. I remove my glorx helmet, adjust my hair, and activate bartering frequencies.

No sooner have I pressed the bartering request button than a hideous visage darkens my screen. It is pale and dry with a stern face that reminds me of a wronged Banean. It seems to have very little hair on its body other than a ridiculous nest upon the top of its head.

It begins to speak in gibberish words. I swallow my revulsion and adjust the language tuner. After all, I am a professional! What good is a commerce dowser if you are not going to bother communicating with the occasional dry husk of an alien?

"-aneway of the USS Voyager," the creature barks at me in its guttural language. "Please identify your vessel."

I lugubriously lubricate my lips with a liberal lick of my zvonk and steal a last glance at my reflection in the glass of the skrurmophone. I am a handsome devil, as always.

The hideous creature Aneway and its dark companion."Creature!" I begin in this Aneway's vile language, "It is a beneficent bonus to arrive in this location at this locality in time. I am Xorgus P. Wullshik, captain, pilot, commander, navigator, and sole occupant of the humble star vessel Fancy Specter."

"State your intentions, Xorgus," Aneway says, fully ignoring the proper mode of addressing a merchant.

What am I to expect from a beast as ugly and hairless as this one? There will be no proper mustachio or beard among them.

"Why," I say with a bow and sweep of the arm, "I am at your service. I am Imperator Xorgus P. Wullshik, as I said, retailer of the finest goods in the Delta Quadrant. Many consider me the finest purveyor of wares both practical and exotic and those that don't are probably my competitors. I have the solution to every problem you might have, medical, mathematical, or metaphysical."

The Aneway of the USS Voyager takes a moment to confer with a creature with dark skin and pointed head-vaginas. Their conversation drags on and on and I grow quite bored, but there is something to be gained from my boredom. As they speak their crude language my tetromarkometer analyzes their thought patterns. It dings with a result.

The predominant species is "human" and these particular creatures belong to an organization called Starfleet. Heh, like I haven't heard that moniker before. It's probably the single most popular name species come up with for their space armadas. Though these humans are physiologically similar to several races native to the Delta Quadrant they do not appear to be from these parts. They also lack any sort of nose ridges or forehead lumps, which is very disconcerting.

More importantly, my tetromarkometer judges the human species as highly gullible and their guiding ideology makes them vulnerable to piteous appeals to their superiority. It seems humans are one of those do-gooder species that like to feel better about themselves by "helping" wayward or feeble aliens.

Finally, I can stand their dawdling no more. Equipped with my information about their commerce capabilities I deem it necessary to insert an interruption.

"Please, ship matron Aneway," I address the smooth-nose human speaker my analyzers have determined to be female, "though I am a merchant I must confess upon your greater generosity. I am a refugee of a war that has annihilated my species. It is sad to say to you that I am the only pathetic remainders of my species. Alone, I am, in this great and terrible cosmos."

Aneway's face becomes even uglier than before. My brain interprets her sour expression as the fear contortions of a herbivore warning a predator of its ill-flavor. My tetromarkometer corrects this outlook and determines that she is expressing concern.

"How can we help you, Xorgus?"

"Ah," I smile, "It would seem your ship is so much more grandiosely constructed than my own meager craft, that perhaps I might impose into your craft's innards and greet you interpersonally."

The thought of visiting these humans in person fills me with revulsion, yet none can say Xorgus does not do what it takes to make a sale. Besides, I have sold corroded refractor bolts as rectal calmatives to a species of sentient iron worms. Humans will not perturb me unduly by comparing.

I am pleased when the Aneway creature announces she will accept my visitations upon her vessel. Their silly ship comes about and opens its portholes for me to make an entrance.