The Cash Flow

Commander Seifer foolishly purchases the Chords star system from a Ferengi dealer using the last of the latinum reserves aboard the Phoenix-X. This brings about a chain reaction of encounters: including worshipers from the Chord homeworld, and a Silillian Sector tax debt collector. Meanwhile, Matt and Kugo beam aboard elkon sand samples from the Chord homeworld. Some of the sample is fed into Doctor Lox's experimental organ replicator device, causing the replicator to manufacture real latinum. The crew then, in a sense, go on a spending spree - purchasing as many ridiculus items as they can. This leads them to encounter the Renokians who admit they are looking for a new world to settle on. Allowing the Renokians to settle in the Chords system, the Phoenix-X continues on its own business: which is a sudden discovery that the latinum they created was defective... in fact, they discover that the latinum they created has a property which causes it to disentegrate after a period of time.

Log Entries

 * "Captain's Log, Stardate 56162-point-6. The Tsunami is en-route to the 800 Sectors; a place where only one or two Federation Starships have been. So, I can't really say it is where no man has gone before. But on the up side, my crew is very excited to be going there." - Captain McCary of the USS Tsunami

Background Information

 * At the end of the episode, the Phoenix-X continues to own the Chords system. But an agreement leads it to be maintainted and "rented out" to the Ferengi dealer, Narf - thus solving the Phoenix-X's real latinum reserves problem.
 * Both the Renokians and the Chords species evacuate the system at the end of the episode, leaving the Chords system uninhabited except for the Ferengi vessel occupants.

Links
Episode 54 - "The Cash Flow"