Atomsk Quentin Letter

Praeta,

I have to make this brief, and it will probably never reach you through the screening process (regarding that, hello to Sgt. Idaho, Commander Drakes, and anyone new in the Starfleet Intelligence mail room).

Our latest stop on the way to the Core was on planet Quentin to settle a dispute between a mining company and some local barbarians. Qal of course fell head over heels for the savages, regressed to the point of harnessing steam. I respect Qal and he's saved my life almost half as many times as I've saved his (honestly, it's probably the other way around, but I'm getting better), but his predilection towards backwards civilizations will forever confound me. He balks at backwards ideals like slavery and human cloning/prostitution, but put a throw up a couple of tents in the desert and he's all for it. We sorted things out, and I finally found a way to avoid bar fights, but the real excitment came from a completely unnecessary confrontation with a scorpion the size of a shuttle.

I was interviewing mine workers when it sniffed me out, probably mistook me for one of the locals. I called Qal to beam me up and instead he shows up with a couple of phasor rifles. I took a nasty hit from it's pincers (Qal got the worst of it) as we literally shot the everloving shit out of it (excuse to human colloquialism). When Big mama jama finally dropped, it was just so her babies (all the size of horses) could try and eat us. I vaporized one before it could take 5 steps, but Qal chose two spread out his fire and mildly wound 3 of them, I guess so that they would digest us in a slightly agitated state. I decided to give one a fighting chance and dropped my rifle in favor of my vibro knife (I'm getting better at using it than Qal). I rode the bitch and scrambled it's guts from the inside out, then I had to dismount to save Qal who was cornered behind a rock, or something like that. Ok, so actually I rolled off well Qal ran up to me. He killed one, maybe two. I made a helmet out of one of their skulls (would have used the adult but the skull is about the size of a car).

If you get this, please destroy it before you read it and think incorrectly that I am trying to impress you.

`A

p.s. Qal wants me to ask out the Commodore's daughter. Like that's gonna happen.

p.p.s. try not to kill anyone.