Caedera

The Caedera was a merchant vessel under the command of Trenigar and the operations of the Orion Syndicate, directly reporting to Ihazs.

The Caedera was a small cramped vessel; its Bridge had barely enough room for a captain's chair, a helm station, and overlapping banks of displays covering the bulkheads and ceiling. The hallways were used to store food and drink for the crew in order to leave more room in the bays for cargo, as there were no replicators aboard. The noise in engineering exceeded tolerable safety levels; when Trenigar had discovered how much it would cost to install sound dampening equipment, he insisted that his crew could wear ear coverings. The ship did not carry a cook, but each crewmember took turns rotating as chef.

In 2379, Nelino Quafina, through Ihazs, contracted the Caedera to ferry shipments of equipment that could be used to build nadion-pulse cannons along with instructions and materials required to modify those cannons to appear Tholian in origin. The price paid to Ihazs was ten thousand bricks of gold pressed latinum, with an additional ten thousand to be paid upon completion of the transfer. The Caedera intercepted and passed the five shipments to the freighters Cyprus, Damascus, Madrid, Toronto, and Venezia, which eventually delivered the cargo to Tezwa.

Unknown to anyone aboard, Section 31 had placed an operative - Erovan M'Rill, code named the Orion Sleeper - aboard the vessel, posing as a helm officer. M'Rill held a knife to Quafina's neck when he came aboard, obtaining critical DNA traces that tied him to the illegal operations; M'Rill also scanned every cargo container, then rescanned and checked the inventory against his master list after making the drops to track which shipments went to which freighter. The operative was able to relay this intelligence back to his superiors via the use of a combined signal tap and subspace communications device hidden in a data relay repair hatch at the end of an access crawlspace in engineering - the signal tap was able to monitor and copy all the sensor readings, subspace communications, and transporter records for the ship, which Trenigar usually wiped before entering port.

After the illegal activities were discovered by the USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-E) and her crew, alerted by a message sent from Section 31 operative L'Haan to Data, a warrant was issued for the seizure of the freighter Caedera. Ihazs ordered Trenigar to abandon and destroy the freighter. Trenigar initially considered going rogue, but understood that the Syndicate would likely hunt him and his crew down and kill them anyway. M'Rill, under the pretense of discovering a mutiny, lured Trenigar to ship's engineering, where he killed the Captain after having disposed of the entire crew. M'Rill dumped the bodies into space, then abandoned the freighter until it was picked up by the USS Republic (24th century).

The crew of the Caedera included:
 * Captain Trenigar, a male Nausicaan
 * First Mate Olaz R'Lash, a female Barzan who also served as a helm operator
 * Chief Engineer Nolram, a male Zibalian
 * Engineer's mate Tzazil, a male Kaferian
 * Erovan M'Rill, a male Caitian who served as a helm operator, and undercover Section 31 operative
 * Saff, a female Zaldan who served as ship's medic and mistress
 * Gorul, a male Chalnoth who acted as a Captain's guard
 * Zhod, a male Gorn who acted as a guard